THE ISLAND IN THE LAKE

LONG AGO, IN THE MORNING of time, the people lived in a warm and green place, where the sun had cared for them since first they opened their eyes. And life was sweet in that place, in the care of that good and generous sun. But the people were wanderers in their hearts, and at last they turned their backs on that green place, and on that good sun, and set out into the Great Night to find another home.

Their journey was long, for the darkness was vast, and homelands were as tiny and lost in it as flowers on the grassy plain. But the Pole Star had looked upon them in that darkness, and finding them worthy, he claimed them for his own, and guided them safe to this sun and this place. Yet when they came to their new home, it was not a land such as they had known before. No, it was a land strange and beautiful, a land where magic grew in every meadow, and flowed in every river, and breathed in the very wind. And foolishly, they destroyed that magic, and made the land over in the image of their old home, which they had left so far behind in the Great Night. And they were happy in their new home, not understanding what they had done.

But the Pole Star, who loved them in spite of their folly, preserved that magic in a few hidden places, and laid a net of his own power over land and sea, that the magic might be protected and perpetuated, forever living. And the Pole Star gave the knowledge of that magic to those who chose to dwell in his own favored domain, to hold and to use to ease their hardships. For they are wanderers, as the people were once wanderers every one, and the Pole Star has claimed them before all others. And the sign of that gift is the promise of the sun--that no matter how great the night grows, there will always be a dawn.

Alaric the minstrel paused at the crest of the hill. To his left and right, a line of hills stretched as far as the eye could see, but before him, to the west, the land sloped downward gently to a broad, flat plain. Upon that plain lay an irregular grid of ocher fields, their grain all reaped, only the yellow stubble of barley, wheat, and oats left to dry in the last warm days of the year. The two dozen dwellings of the peasants who worked those fields were clustered together into a village near the center of that grid, Alaric could just make out their stone walls and thatched roofs, and the stone fences of the animal pens that flanked them. Farther on, much too far from the village to be a comfortable walk for fetching water, was the lake, shining like burnished silver under the autumn sun. The Lake of Death.

The day had been hot, even so late in the year, and Alaric was stripped to the waist, his face shaded by the wide-brimmed hat he had plaited from the sparse wayside grass. Slung over one shoulder was his knapsack, with only a cloak and a shirt and some scraps of bread inside; over the other was his lute, the minstrel's boon companion. The strange and magical north lay far behind him--the great glacial waste, the lodestone mountains, the witchcraft of a woman who read men's souls and of her elixir that healed the dying and could even raise the dead. Lately, he had moved through less exotic lands, through arid hills cloaked in scrub, their infrequent streams shallow and meandering over pebbly beds, their scattered inhabitants scrabbling to draw a living from the parched soil. Yet in those lands he had heard again and again of a bountiful plain beside a mirror-bright lake, a place where a strong lord ruled and enemies had never conquered. A place where the people used water from that lake as their weapon--water that killed what it touched.

The first time he heard the tale, Alaric knew that a minstrel whose stock in trade was legend and wonders would be a fool to pass it by.

He could have reached it earlier in the year. He could have used his witch's power to leap from horizon to horizon, from village to village, tracking the place down in a matter of days. But he had walked instead, as an ordinary man would walk, because this was the south, where the cry of witch made folk strike out at what they feared. And he had walked, too, because he was in no great hurry to see what lay beyond the next hill as long as there were listeners for his songs before it. Barely nineteen summers old, he had lost everything in his life, or abandoned it, and now nothing called him to one place over another. Nothing but curiosity.

The track he followed to the hilltop had been broad and rutted, but overgrown, as if little used in recent times. As it descended among the fields, though, it became a real road, cleared of weeds and graded smooth. It led directly to the village and on past, to the lake shore, where it became a stone causeway linking that shore with an island in the very center of the water. The island was a small one, and occupied entirely by a single building, a high-walled fortress with pennons flying from its many turrets--the fortress of the lord of the Lake of Death.

Alaric had not even reached the village when he saw two stocky, middle-aged men and a boy of nine or ten walking toward him. They were dark-haired and sun-browned, dressed in sleeveless gray tunics and breeches, and they strode fearlessly toward the stranger. Before they were near enough to ask his business, he halted, doffed his plaited hat, and bowed low. The lute slid from his shoulder, and he caught it with one curled arm and strummed a chord as he held it against his bare chest.

"Greetings, good sirs!" he called. "Alaric the minstrel, at your service with songs for every mood and every season!"

They halted a few steps away, and the men smiled, but the boy just stared at the lute, wide-eyed, as if it were some unknown animal.

"A long time since a minstrel came this way," said the shorter of the men; he had the guttural accent Alaric had become accustomed to in these western lands. He laid an arm across the boy's shoulders. "Not since before my son was born."

Alaric answered the man's smile with his own. "So much the better for me. Thirsty folk drink deep and are usually kind to the water-bearer."

The man laughed then. "Well, I suppose there will be quite a few thirsty folk, when they discover that water has arrived. I hope your water is sweet, my friend."

"Always," said Alaric.

"We have both kinds of water here," said the boy. "Sweet from the springs and bitter in the lake."

His father laughed again, and the other man joined him. "The child is a little young to understand figures of speech. But he tells the truth. And you should be warned-- don't try to drink the bitter water of our lake. It would ruin your voice, and the rest of you, forever."

"I've heard something like that," said Alaric.

"Good," said the man. "I wouldn't want to think that the tale has died in recent years. For it's as true as it ever was. Anyone who touches that water, who so much as dips a hand in it, hardly has time to regret the act."

"And yet they say you toss it at your enemies. Can you avoid touching it yourselves when you do that?"

"We have pumps," said the boy, "and special clothing."

His father shook his shoulder gently, as if to silence him. "We have been here a long time, minstrel," he said. "We know how to live with the water in the Lake of Death."

Alaric glanced at the lake, at the island in its center. "I see that."

The man nodded. "My Lord Gazian lives there. Come now, minstrel. I am the headman of this village, and Taskol is my name. And these are my son Yosat and my brother Adeen. Come to our home and sing for us, and we'll reward you according to your merits."

Alaric grinned. "Then I look forward to a fine reward. But should I not pay my respects to Lord Gazian first of all?" He gestured toward the fortress.

"Oh, he's a busy man. He wouldn't have time to hear a minstrel until much later in the day. You can sing for the village this afternoon and for him this evening." And when Alaric still hesitated, he added, "I think you should prove yourself to lesser folk before being allowed to entertain such a great man, don't you?"

Alaric strummed a chord on his lute, and then another. "Are you perhaps afraid he'll keep me to himself and not let you listen if I go to his castle first?"

Taskol shrugged. "He is a man who likes the best of things. And he deserves them, of course, for he keeps us safe. But as headman, I must look out for my villagers, in my own small way. Surely you understand."

"I don't wish to offend such a great man," said Alaric.

"I will escort you to him myself this evening," said the headman.

Alaric looked at him for a long moment. There had been trouble once or twice in his life over such matters of courtesy. Not so long ago, menat-arms had been sent to terrorize a peasant family that had kept Alaric from their lord for a single night. But looking at the village headman, at his son and his brother, Alaric saw no uneasiness, no sign of fear of the man who lived in the middle of the Lake of Death. "I would like to rest my legs a little before crossing that causeway," he said at last.

"Indeed you shall," said Taskol. "I wager you've walked a fair distance today."

Alaric nodded.

"And some ale would not go amiss, would it?"

"Indeed it would not."

The headman's hut was the largest of the village, and the only one with a door of wood rather than hard-tanned leather, though the wood was old and weathered. Inside, there was hardly any wood at all. Where settee and chairs might have stood in another household, this one offered stone stools and a stone bench, roughly shaped and thickly cushioned with straw mats. Even the bed in the corner had not the Simplest wooden frame to raise it above the hard-packed earthen floor; it was a mere straw pallet, though a thick one, draped with a woolen blanket. Of all the furniture, only the tabletop was made of wood, as weathered as the door, and resting on stone pillars instead of legs. And in the fireplace, dried dung smoldered beneath the big cookpot. There was plenty of straw and stone and dung around the Lake of Death, Alaric realized, but not a single tree.

Taskol's wife brought ale, and when the minstrel had quenched his thirst, he sat outdoors on another straw-cushioned stone bench and entertained the village with songs of the ice-choked Northern Sea and the deer-riding nomads who hunted on its shores. Nearly a hundred listeners crowded the space beside the headman's home, standing, sitting on the stone wall that penned his sheep and cows, squatting on the dusty ground--the whole of the village, Alaric guessed, from the eldest graybeard to the smallest babe in arms. He made them laugh first, with the tale of the herder boy who discovered that his deer could speak and was disbelieved until he revealed some of the embarrassing human secrets that the deer knew; and then he made them gasp at the tale of the nomad who tried to save his people from starvation by hunting the huge and terrible Grandfather of All Bears. Afterward, when the crowd had dispersed with many an appreciative word, Taskol served him fresh bread and new butter and admitted that his skill was great enough for the lord of the Lake of Death.

"But remind him, please, that we of the village like music, too," he said. "So that he does not keep you entirely to himself."

Alaric savored the crusty, still-warm bread. "I will do what I can," he said between bites.

"I suppose I must deliver you to him, then. If you are ready..."

"Is there bread like this on the island?" asked the minstrel.

"There is the best of everything on the island," the headman replied.

Alaric downed a last draft of ale to clear the butter from his throat, then drew the dark shirt from his knapsack and slipped it on. "I am ready."

The lake shore was a broad, barren margin, marked at the water's very edge with a thick pale crust, like hardened foam. The causeway, made of fine, squared blocks of stone so white it dazzled the eye, began well before this crust and rose smoothly till, where it entered the water, it stood a man-height high above the surface. Broad enough to accommodate two wagons abreast, it ran arrow-straight to the island, broken by two gaps, each spanned by a heavy, iron-banded drawbridge. At the very gate of the fortress was a third bridge, guarded by a spearman in bossed leather armor. Taskol identified Alaric to the man, and the two were admitted.

Inside the gate was a courtyard large enough to hold half the houses in the village.

"This is a strong citadel," Alaric said, looking up at the high, crenelated walls. Only a handful of armed men stood at the crenelations, scanning the world beyond the lake. At any other castle, there would be dozens. "It's given you safety for quite a long time, I would think."

"For my lifetime, and my grandfather's, and more," said Taskol. "No one living remembers the last time we had to lock ourselves inside these walls for a siege. Of course, the lake is our true defender."

"I would hate to fall off that causeway."

Taskol nodded. "So would I."

"Has anyone?"

"Not lately."

Alaric glanced over his shoulder. Beyond the gate, the lake lapped gently at the pure white sides of the raised stone road. "What would happen if someone did?"

"No one could save him. Within a few heartbeats, the flesh would begin to shred from his bones, and then the bones themselves would begin to dissolve. It's an ugly sight."

Alaric shuddered. "You've seen it?"

"When I was a child, we chased a fox off the causeway. It floated, for a short time, while the water worked on it." He shook his head. "Poor hapless fox. Normally, animals stay away from the lake. They know what it holds."

Looking up at the walls again, the minstrel said, "How strange to live surrounded by...that." Then he smiled a slow smile. "I'll make a song of it, if I can."

Taskol smiled back. "I think that would not displease my lord." He pointed to the doorway of the keep, at the far end of the courtyard. "I imagine he awaits his dinner just now. If I introduce you, he might invite me to stay for the meal."

"By all means, then, introduce me."

The great hall of the keep was not so large as some Alaric had visited, but it was one of the most luxurious, at least at first glance. High, narrow windows admitted the afternoon sunlight, showing the walls hung with tapestries, the stone floor scattered with carpets and furniture of velvet and fine-carved wood. Only on closer inspection, as he walked the length of the chamber, did he see that the carpets were worn almost to their backings in many places, the tapestries were moth-eaten, the velvets thinnapped and shiny, and the fine woods dry and cracked. The riches of the citadel were of an earlier generation, and had not been renewed. He realized that more than a few seasons must have passed since that overgrown road had known much traffic.

Yet there was newer wealth here, even so. The trestle table at the far end of the room, ancient as it appeared, was heavy laden with fresh bread, meats, and vegetables, with butter, cheese, and ale. And the two men who sat behind it were dressed well enough, in supple leather, light wool, and golden chains. They looked like brothers, both dark and strong-jawed, though one was much older than the other.

Taskol bent the knee before them, and Alaric imitated him.

"My lord," said Taskol, "I beg to present Alaric the minstrel, lately come into our land to offer his songs for our pleasure."

The older of the two men pushed his chair back and rose to his feet. "It has been long and long since a minstrel came to this land. You are welcome, sir." But he said the words gravely, without any smile. He was a tall man, and broad with muscle, though his hair was touched with gray and there were deep lines carved about his mouth and across his forehead, and dark pouches beneath his eyes. "As you see, we are dining. Join us, minstrel, and afterward show us your wares. We would welcome something new." He sat clown again. Then he added, "Stay, too, Taskol. You threshed the grain that made this bread."

Taskol bowed. "I thank you, my lord."

He and the minstrel took places on a bench at one end of the table, and they ate well of the viands spread before them. From time to time, other leather-clad men entered the hall, made their obeisances, and sat to the meal, but none of them stayed long, and none of them wore gold. Alaric recognized one as the guard of the gate.

Two young serving women cleared the table and set out more ale to signal the end of dinner. They eyed Alaric curiously but said nothing, only hurried off when they were done, to a door that stood at a corner of the hall, between two tapestries. They did not close themselves away behind it, though, but stayed in the open doorway, looking at him, and other men and women crowded there with them, half a dozen or more. The castle servants, Alaric thought, waiting for whatever novelty the stranger was about to provide.

Lord Gazian waved at him to proceed. Pushing his bench away from the table, Alaric settled the lute on his lap. There was a song he had been working on for quite some time, and he thought it was ready for singing now--a tale of darkness for half the year and light for the rest, of blossoms growing from the very ice at the pole of the world and spawned by seeds fallen from above the sky, from whose leaves a curing elixir could be made. In the song, a young man fought storms and monsters and the Northern Sea itself to reach those blossoms, for his beloved lay ill, and not even the wisest healer knew another way to keep her from death. When he had won through and saved her, and they had celebrated their wedding in the final verse, the listeners at the doorway clapped their hands and chattered among themselves until their lord cast a single dark glance in their direction.

"A well-sung song," he said, "but I like not the subject matter. Sing of something real, minstrel."

Alaric almost said that the elixir was real enough, though the monsters were inventions, but he caught himself and bowed his head. He had no proof, just his word, and he had learned over the years that it was rarely healthy to contradict a nobleman, even with proof. He sang another song, a comic one of squabbling neighbors and stolen sheep, and of a man who was fooled into counting his sheep three times and reckoning a different number at each. Before he was done, the folk at the doorway were laughing, and even Lord Gazian himself had smiled a little.

"You have much skill," he said. "And your songs are...interesting. You could make your fortune in some large and powerful household, but instead you've come here to these remote and sparsely peopled lands." He sat forward, leaning his elbows on the table, the cup of ale between his hands. "What brings you to us, minstrel?"

Alaric bowed again. "Nothing, my lord, but a boundless desire to see the world and add to my stock of songs. Those songs are my fortune, and an easier one to carry than any gold."

The younger man spoke for the first time. "You are brave to come here, sir minstrel. Unless Taskol has not told you of the lake..." He looked narrowly at the headman.

"I had already heard, in far-distant places, and he told me as well," said the minstrel. "But I think I am less brave than the folk who live here. I would not wish to try this lake during a storm, when the deadly waves splash high."

"These stout walls protect us," said Lord Gazian. "And we take care. It has been many a year since one of our own was claimed by the lake."

"Still, I see high courage in living here. You and your people have all my admiration."

"Enough admiration," said the younger man. "Sing another song."

Gazian looked at his companion for a moment, and Alaric saw a flicker of anger pass between them before the lord of the castle turned back and said, "Go ahead, another song."

Another song led to another, and at last the sunlight in the high windows reddened and faded, and tripod oil lamps were lit to take its place. Finally, Alaric pleaded weariness after a long day of walking and said that he would sing again the next day, if desired.

Lord Gazian nodded and rose abruptly from his place at the table. "You have our thanks, minstrel, for this afternoon's entertainment. My brother will see that you are made comfortable for the night." He nodded to the younger man and, without waiting for any acknowledgement, crossed the room to a tapestry-fringed archway in the farther wall. Stairs were visible beyond the arch, and in a moment, he had climbed out of sight.

The younger man rose, when his brother had gone, and he came around the table to stand above the minstrel. "You sing well, young minstrel. What was your name?"

"Alaric, my lord."

The man's mouth tightened for a moment. "I am not known as lord," he said. Then he made a peremptory gesture toward the doorway that was still crowded with servants, and the two young women came scurrying. "Make him a pallet in the kitchen," he said, and turned away. With a swift stride, he went out to the courtyard.

Alaric glanced at Taskol. "Have I insulted him?" he asked.

Taskol shrugged. "Master Demirchi is the heir. But while his brother lives, there is only one lord here--we haven't room for more in our little land. I'm sorry, minstrel; I should have thought to warn you. We call him sir."

"I will do that, then, and hope he forgives a stranger. Though I've never before met a man who didn't like being addressed above his station. What would he have done if I had called him majesty?"

Taskol laughed and shook his head and led the way to the kitchen, while the serving women trailed behind.

The kitchen was a small room, dominated by a great fireplace and crowded with worn trestle tables and deeply grooved butchers' blocks, with cauldrons and platters and roasting spits. It was also a warm room, but now that darkness had fallen and cool night air had begun to slide through the high windows of the keep, that warmth was pleasant enough. The kitchen servants made Alaric a pallet near the embers of the hearthfire, and they left a few choice tidbits from dinner on a table nearby, in case he woke hungry in the middle of the night. Taskol packed a few of those tidbits into a sack, to take home to his family, before he bade Alaric good night. Then he and the servants put out the lamps and left the minstrel to sleep his first sleep surrounded by the Lake of Death.

Alaric lay on his back for a time, staring up at the kitchen's single window, far above his reach. He could see a few stars there, for the red glow of the embers was not enough to drown them out. The window was much too high, he told himself, to be touched by the waves, even in the wildest storm. And there was no storm tonight, just a gentle autumn breeze. Still, he thought that if this were his castle, he would shutter the windows, just to be sure. Finally, he got up and took his pallet out to the empty hall and set it where there was a wall between himself and that kitchen window, and all the other windows were far away. One lamp still lit the room, leaving heavy shadows in all the corners, but Alaric had no fear of shadows. He fell asleep, an arm crooked protectively about his lute, both of them wrapped against the gentle autumn breeze in his well-worn cloak.

When he woke to a touch on his shoulder, the lamp no longer burned, and dawn twilight showed through the windows. He knuckled sleep from his eyes and blinked up at the man who leaned over him. It was Lord Gazian, wearing a dressing gown of fine, pale wool that gave his body a ghostly cast in the dimness.

"My lord?" said Alaric.

"Will you come upstairs, minstrel? There is someone who would hear you sing."

Odd though the time was, Alaric rose, knowing that no good could come of reluctance. Carrying his lute close against his body, he followed the master of the lake through the arch and up the narrow, winding stairway beyond. At the third landing, they turned off the stair and walked along a curving corridor that was marked every ten paces by a narrow window. Through each window, Alaric could see the lake below; the water reflecting the soft, gray-pink color of the eastern sky. They had passed four windows, making nearly a half-circle, before Lord Gazian halted at a door on the inner wall. He eased it open.

The room was small, though richly hung with tapestries, and crowded by a bed, a chair, and some low chests. A bedside table held a small oil lamp, a tray of tiny pastries, and a cup. And the bed itself, wide enough for three men, held a boy of no more than seven summers, propped up on bolsters and covered with a light blanket. Even in the candlelight, Alaric could see that the boy was ill-- his face was pale, with a sheen of moisture, and his dark eyes were sunk deep above his hollow cheeks. He said nothing when the lord of the castle and Alaric entered, though his gaze followed them to the side of his bed.

Lord Gazian sat down on the edge of the mattress and gently stroked the damp dark hair away from the child's forehead. "I've brought the minstrel for you." He nodded at Alaric.

"Thank you, Father," said the boy in a small, soft voice. He looked at Alaric. "I'm sorry to get you up so early. It is early, isn't it?"

"A little," said Alaric. "But I don't mind."

"Sometimes he doesn't sleep well," said his father, resting one large hand on the boy's shoulder. "And last night the servants told him about you, and he hardly slept at all for asking when you would come upstairs."

"My nurse sings to me," said the boy. "But they told me you sing much better."

"I am flattered," said the minstrel. "Do you like songs about magic?"

"Oh, yes."

"About knights and dragons and fair maidens?"

The boy's eyes widened. "Is that what you sing about?"

"Sometimes. For special listeners."

"Please," breathed the boy.

"Very well." Alaric sat down on the foot of the bed and balanced his lute on his knee. "This is the tale of a boy who grew up to fight dragons." And he launched into an old favorite in more familiar lands--the song of the youth who found an enchanted sword in a hollow tree, a sword that itself became his teacher. By the time he finished, with the young man slaying his monster and winning the hand of a king's daughter, and the kingdom as well, the boy's mouth hung open in wonder, and there was a bit of color in his cheeks.

"Oh, another, please, minstrel," he begged.

Alaric looked at Lord Gazian, who nodded.

In the end, he sang of magical adventures until the boy's nurse came with his morning meal.

"You mustn't stop in the middle!" the boy cried. The color in his cheeks was hectic now, and his eyes were very bright.

"The child must eat," said the nurse, as she set the tray on the bed. She was a stout woman, old enough to be Alaric's grandmother, and the expression on her face was stem. She pointed to the tray of pastries, all untouched. "He's eaten nothing since yesterday noon, not even one dainty, and you have excited him on an empty stomach, as well as keeping him from sleep."

"I didn't want to sleep," said the boy.

She propped him up farther on his bolsters. "You must sleep. And you must eat. How can you ever get well if you don't sleep and eat, I ask?" She lifted a cover from a bowl of porridge and dipped up a spoonful for him.

He turned his head away from it.

"Eat a little, my son," said his father. He glanced at Alaric. "I'm sure the minstrel would say the same."

"Indeed," said Alaric. "I'll be eating this very porridge downstairs shortly, and it smells excellent."

The boy frowned, but then he nibbled at the edge of the spoon and finally swallowed the whole amount.

"A little more," said the nurse, with another spoonful.

The boy looked up at Alaric. "What is your name, minstrel?"

"Alaric."

"Mine is Ospir."

Alaric bowed. "Greetings, Ospir."

"Will you come back later?

"If your father wishes it. The decision lies with him."

"Father?"

Lord Gazian caught the boy's small hand for a moment. "If you will promise to eat your porridge, and to try to sleep, I'll bring the minstrel back later."

The boy sighed. "Very well, Father."

"Good child," said the lord of the castle, and he stood up. "Till later." And he gestured Alaric toward the door.

They were halfway down the stairs before Alaric asked, "My lord, what ails the boy?"

Lord Gazian kept walking. "No one knows, minstrel. He has beensickly for most of his life. He is a good boy, though, and a patient one." When they reached the foot of the steps, with the archway to the great hall before them, he stopped and turned back to Alaric. "Thank you, minstrel, for being kind to him."

"My lord, I am here to serve you. It would be poor service indeed to be unkind to your son."

The lord of the castle nodded and stepped through the arch.

They broke their fast with more than porridge--with eggs and bread spread thick with butter, with slices of fat mutton and grilled fowl, and with a drink made of soured milk that Alaric found not as attractive as plain, clear water. But water there was in plenty--from a spring, servants explained, that rose from deep within the island and never failed.

"How strange," Alaric said, "that pure water should flow in the midst of the Lake of Death."

"This land is full of such springs," said Master Demirchi. "There would be no fields without them." Unlike his liege and brother, he was fully dressed for the day, in leather and soft, thin wool. "And without the fields, we would all be elsewhere." He picked at his plate of mutton and eggs. "But I think a few people would come here anyway, just to carry off some of our deadly waters for a weapon. We are especially rich in that weapon, are we not, my brother?"

Lord Gazian cast him a sour glance. "Don't ask again," he said.

Demirchi nodded toward Alaric. "The minstrel has traveled the world. Speak to him about it."

"I don't wish to speak about it. I've made my decision."

Demirchi peered with slitted eyes at Alaric. "How much gold do you think an outsider would pay for a few sealed containers of water from the Lake of Death?"

Alaric looked from one man to the other. "I don't know, sir. Perhaps it is too dangerous to transport elsewhere."

"Nonsense," said Demirchi. "We know how to deal with it."

"We have no need of outsiders' gold," said Lord Gazian.

With two fingers, Demirchi lifted the gold chain that hung at his throat. "This may be enough for you, but it won't buy new carpets for this room, or furniture, or weapons. I want a new sword; must I trade my only chain for it when a cask of water would suffice?"

Gazian set the flats of both hands on the table. "I will not sell death, and that's an end to it. When you rule here, if you rule, you may decide otherwise. Till then, we will leave off speaking of it."

"My brother, you are not thinking to our advantage."

Gazian looked at him for a long moment, and then he said, "I knowyou have many responsibilities to attend to today. I would not keep you from them."

Demirchi made a disgusted noise and then stood up and strode from the room.

The lord of the castle and the visiting minstrel were both quiet for a time, eating. Shortly after Demirchi left, a couple of other men came in and sat down to partake of the meal, and seeing the frown that lingered on their lord's face, they said little and excused themselves quickly. Alone with Gazian again, Alaric was unsure of what to do. At last, he said, "Shall I sing for you, my lord?"

Gazian looked up from the remnants of his meal. There was tiredness in his eyes, in the slope of his shoulders. "You must be weary, minstrel, from waking so early. There is an empty chamber upstairs, just beyond my son's room. Perhaps you would like to take your pallet up there and sleep a bit more. Tell one of the servants I said to help you with it. You can sing again later."

"You are kind, my lord."

He shook his head. "I think not, but I thank you for being so willing this morning. Go on. Rest."

"As you will," said Alaric.

Rather than disturb the servants, who all seemed busy enough, Alaric took the pallet upstairs himself. Half a dozen steps past young Ospir's door was another; he pushed it open.

At first he thought he must be in the wrong chamber, for this one was not at all empty. Illuminated by a single narrow window, it was fully three times the size of the boy's bedchamber, and richly furnished. The floor was almost entirely covered by a single large carpet, and the wails were hung partly with tapestries and partly with thick velvet curtains. A velvet settee stood in the center of the carpet, with a pair of finely carved tables flanking it and a needlework footstool before it. On one wall was a fireplace of white stone, and against the other was a wide bed made up with fine pillows and quilts.

Alaric backed out the door, to see if he had missed the room he was supposed to find. But this one was indeed beside the boy's, and the corridor ended in a blank wall after it.

Inside again, he laid his pallet on the floor beside the settee and made a circuit of the room. The fireplace contained no trace of wood or dung or ash, just a naked grate. The carpet, the tapestries, the settee and tables were worn much as the furnishings of the great hall were worn, but all were covered with a thin layer of dust. The bed was dusty, too, and stale-smelling, as if the bedclothes had not been aired in a long time.

There was a chest at the foot of the bed, half covered by the quilt, with no lock to keep a curious minstrel out. Alaric turned the quilt back and lifted the wooden lid. Immediately, the sweet scents of cedar and lavender wafted up at him, the one lining the chest, the other sprinkled over the contents as dried blossoms. A woman's clothing was packed inside--linen and lace and embroidery, all heavily creased from lying long undisturbed. Alaric closed the lid again, and draped the quilt back over it. Whoever's clothes they were, he thought, she had not worn them in quite some time.

He moved his pallet nearer the window and looked out for a moment. It was a beautiful view, if one ignored its deadliness--the lake shining like polished metal, the fields spread out in a golden array, the sky clear and cloudless above the line of hills on the horizon. He imagined her, whoever she was, sitting on the windowsill and gazing out, perhaps with embroidery in her hands. And then he realized he was thinking of other castles, other hands, other embroidery left far behind, and he turned his mind away from them. No one had sat on this windowsill lately, for it was as dusty as everything else in the room. He lay down on the pallet and closed his eyes. He was tired, as Lord Gazian had known, and he fell asleep quickly.

A rough hand on his arm brought him out of jumbled dreams of the past. For a moment he thought Lord Gazian must be shaking him, and then he looked up and recognized Ospir's nurse.

"What are you doing here, minstrel?" she demanded.

Yawning, he stretched his arms out above his head. "Lord Gazian told me to sleep here."

"Did he?" She loomed over him, hands on her hips, suspicion on her face and in her voice. Then, less sharply, she said, "Well, I suppose if you had come here without permission, you would have closed the door. But to send you to her room." She clucked her tongue.

"Whose room is it?" asked Alaric.

"His lady's, of course. What other room would be so near the boy's ?"

"Yours."

"Not a room like this," she said indignantly. "Mine is on the other side, and befitting my station. This is a finer chamber than even Lord Gazian's own."

"But Lord Gazian's lady doesn't live in this chamber," said Alaric.

The corners of the nurse's mouth turned down. "She died giving my lord an heir." And she nodded toward the wall behind which Ospir lay.

"And Lord Gazian never took another wife?"

She shook her head. "None could compare to her. He loved her, minstrel." She laid a hand on the back of the settee and stroked the worn velvet. "Many was the time they sat here together, and I brought them dinner, just the two of them here in this room. It seems so long ago. I air the room sometimes, just for the memory of her. Poor lady."

Alaric sighed, thinking how often love led to unhappiness in the real world. Far more often than in song. "A sad tale," he said.

She looked at him sharply. "One you could put to music, I suppose, just one tale among many. I heard about your tales from the other servants. Fancies and lies, most of them, it seems."

"Some. Others have a bit of truth to them."

"A small bit, I'd think. But the boy likes them--I'll say that for you."

"That pleases me," said the minstrel. He glanced out the window, saw that the sun was high; he had slept most of the morning away. "Is he awake now?"

She had already turned toward the door, but she paused at his question. "Yes. Why do you ask?"

"I thought I would visit him before going downstairs, if he were awake."

"His uncle is with him."

"Master Demirchi?"

"He has only the one uncle."

Alaric pushed his covering cloak aside and got to his feet. "I was told yesterday that Demirchi was the heir. But you just said it was the boy. Surely this land isn't large enough for two."

The nurse lowered her voice. "No one expects the boy to live out the winter. He has never been well, not since his babyhood, and two years ago my lord decided that another heir must be named."

"Poor child," murmured Alaric.

"He is a good boy," said the nurse.

"Will Master Demirchi stay long with him now?"

"He never stays very long."

"Then I will wait."

His lute under one arm, he followed the nurse to the door of Ospir's room and stood outside as the woman slipped in. He caught a glimpse of Demirchi sitting on the bed, holding the boy's hand, and then the nurse closed the door again. Shortly, Demirchi came out.

"He is eager for your songs, minstrel," he said, "but I beg you not to tire him. He has little strength these days."

Alaric bowed. "It must be hard to lie in bed for so much time, sir. I only desire to make it a bit easier for him."

Demirchi nodded. "We will see you later in the great hall?"

"Of course, sir. I am here to sing for all who will listen."

"At dinner, then." He walked off down the corridor.

Inside the room, Ospir greeted Alaric in his small, soft voice. "Thank you for coming back so soon."

"I had some porridge and took a nap, which I hope you did as well, and now I am ready for a little more music."

"He ate and slept," said the nurse. "He has been a good child this morning."

"And my uncle came to visit," said Ospir. "I wish he had stayed longer. He always makes me laugh. But you are here, and that makes up for his going."

Alaric sat down on the edge of the bed. "Well, I will try to make you laugh, too, if your nurse does not mind."

The woman waved a hand, as if in permission, and Alaric began a long, complicated song about a wolf who tried to trick eight sheep into leaving their fold to run away with him. By the time he was done, the boy was laughing, and the nurse was as well. But in the midst of his laughter, Ospir began to cough, a deep, hollow cough; and when he could not stop, his nurse had to help him sit up, and she rubbed his thin chest until at last the spasms passed. By that time he was half-fainting, and as he fell back on the pillow, a trickle of blood started from a corner of his mouth. The nurse swabbed his sweaty forehead and wiped the blood away with a damp cloth.

"I think you should go now, minstrel."

"No," gasped the boy, his voice smaller than ever. "Please." He closed his eyes, and he was so pale, and his breathing became so shallow, that Alaric thought he must be dying that very moment.

"Shouldn't we call his father.?" he asked the nurse.

Then Ospir's eyes opened, and the look in them was beseeching. "I'll be all right," he whispered. "Please sing."

The nurse nodded to Alaric. "Something more serious."

And so Alaric returned to songs of knights and fair maidens, of sorcerers and monsters, and of lands beyond the horizon. He sang softly, though, and after a time he left a song unfinished, because he knew the boy slept.

The nurse walked with him into the corridor and closed the door gently between them and the child.

"I'm sorry," said Alaric. "I didn't know."

The nurse shook her head. "He has had congestion of the lungs before, but never so bad. They die sometimes, after the blood comes. And he is very weak, poor child." She looked down at her hands, which were clenched in the voluminous fabric of her skirt. "I shall call his father now."

Alaric trailed after her to the great hall, where Lord Gazian sat talking with two men in bossed armor. When informed of his son's condition, he directed the two to find his brother, and then he went upstairs. Master Demirchi came in from the courtyard a short time later and went up, too. Neither man asked Alaric to come along.

He went to the kitchen for a time, and listened to the talk among the servants. None was surprised that the child was so gravely ill; they had been expecting his death for two years already. They speculated on how long the mourning period would be, and then they asked Alaric to sing, because there might not be much singing allowed when the household was in mourning. Finally, Alaric went upstairs, though unbidden, to see what he could see.

The door to the boy's chamber stood ajar, and inside both Gazian and Demirchi sat on the bed, on opposite sides, and the nurse hovered near. That left little space for another visitor, so he did not attempt to enter. He could see, though, that the boy was awake, with one hand held by his father and the other by his uncle. None of them seemed to notice Alaric standing in the corridor.

Silently, he slipped on down the passageway to Ospir's mother's chamber. Entering, he shut the door quietly but firmly, and then he bolted it. He laid his lute on the settee.

The strange and magical north lay far behind him, and in it the elixir so powerful that it brought the dead back to life. He had never intended to return there, never intended to revisit Kata the witch, who brewed that elixir, but now he knew that he must.

A heartbeat later, he stood on a mountainside above the northern valley that was now her home. The air about him was suddenly crisp with the northern autumn, and he shivered a little as he scanned the valley floor. He looked past the harvested fields and the peasant dwellings, past the great fortress that guarded all and the people who walked its battlements and strolled in and out through its gate. He looked, finally, to the shore of the river that had created the valley, and there he saw the tent, figured all over with the symbol of the sacred Pole Star, that belonged to Kata. A moment later, he was thrusting aside its entrance flap and stepping into her firelit domain.

She sat cross-legged by the fire, a grinding stone upon her lap, a pestle in her hand, the bags and bundles that held her possessions piled all around her. Her thick, dark braids brushed her knees as she bent over her work, the smooth muscles of her slender arms flexed beneath their load of leather bracelets. When she looked up, and her eyes met his, there was not the slightest trace of surprise in her face.

"Greetings, my Alaric," she said in the soft, lilting accent of the north. "You return to us."

He shook his head. "No. I only come to ask a favor."

She smiled a little. "If you wish a favor, you must give one in return."

He sat down beside her. "This is not for myself. It is for a child."

One of her eyebrows rose. "Whose child?"

"Not mine. The child of my host, far to the south. He is sick, perhaps near death, and I would help him."

"Ah, soft-hearted Alaric. Has your softness not found you enough trouble in your life? Had you stayed in the north, you would have become hard, as we are hard."

"I am what I am, lady. Will you give me the elixir?"

She brushed fine dark powder from her stone into a square of muslin, twisted the cloth into a sack, and tied its mouth with a strip of sinew. "These are the leaves you helped us bring back from the Great Waste. Shall I withhold from you your share of what I make of them? It would be ungrateful of me."

"You are fair, lady. You have always been fair to me."

"How old is the child?"

"Seven, I believe, and small for his age."

She dipped into a bag and pulled out a ceramic flask the size of her fist and sealed with wax. She also found a spoon made of horn. "Give him two spoonfuls diluted in a cup of wine each day till the elixir is gone. If it can help him at all, that will be enough."

Alaric took the flask and the spoon. "Thank you, lady. Now, what favor can I offer you in return?"

She caught his wrist. "Only one, my Alaric."

He shook his head. "I can't stay."

"You will never find what you seek."

"I have given up seeking, lady."

She looked long into his eyes. "No," she said at last. "Don't fool yourself, minstrel. You will never give up. Songs and travel will never be enough for you. One day, I think, you will go back to your past, you will not be able to resist it any longer. I hope it does not disappoint you too badly."

"I have nothing to go back to," said Alaric, and the words were thick in his throat.

"Those are only words, my minstrel." She let go of his wrist. "Is there a woman in this place you've come from.? The mother of the child, perhaps.?"

"No. No woman."

She smiled again and stroked his cheek with one finger. "I find that hard to believe, pretty boy."

He smiled back. "I've only been there two days."

"Then there is still plenty of time. Tell me about this place," she said. "Tell me about all your wanderings since you left us."

He looked down at the flask and the spoon. "Lady, I cannot. The child might die while I entertained you. You must understand.,."

She nodded slowly. "I do understand. And you must also understand that you will always be welcome among us. Always."

"Farewell," he whispered.

An instant later he was back in the chamber next to Ospir's.

Lord Gazian, Demirchi, and the nurse were still in the tiny bedroom, and Ospir was still breathing, though laboriously, when Alaric slipped in. Demirchi was the first to look up at him. "Not now, minstrel," he murmured.

"I have an elixir which I picked up in my travels," Alaric said, showing the flask. "It has proven itself in the past in any number of grave illnesses, and I believe that it might help the boy."

Demirchi glanced at the flask. "Are you a healer as well as a minstrel, Master Alaric.?"

"I've used it myself more than once. I know its power."

Demirchi shook his head sharply. "We want no unknown elixirs for the boy."

Lord Gazian looked up then. "You've taken it?" he said.

"Yes, my lord," said Alaric.

"Had you a fever?"

"A high one, my lord."

"And so has my son. Bring your elixir here."

Alaric squeezed by Demirchi and the nurse to stand beside the lord of the castle.

"Give it to me," said Gazian.

Alaric handed over the flask. "Two spoonfuls should be given each day in a cup of wine," he said. He held the horn spoon up. "This is the measure."

Gazian perforated the wax seal with his sheath knife and sniffed of the elixir. "It has a pungent smell," he said. "Harsh. Like cloves. Is it bitter?"

"Not in wine, my lord," said Alaric.

"Fetch some wine," Gazian said to Demirchi.

"Brother, what do we know of this stuff?" said Demirchi. "It might be poisonous."

"I will taste it if you wish," said Alaric.

"The wine, brother," said Gazian.

"Let me get it, my lord," the nurse said suddenly, and before anyone could object, she hurried from the room.

In a voice barely audible, Ospir murmured, "I will take it, Father."

"Good boy," said Gazian, caressing his son's cheek.

The nurse returned shortly with a carafe and a cup. Alaric measured the elixir and mixed it with the wine, and then he spooned out a mouthful and swallowed it in full sight of the others.

"What proof is this?" said Demirchi. "One spoonful of dilute poison might be harmless to a grown man, and a cup of it deadly to a weakened child."

Lord Gazian looked at his son. "We have nothing better to try," he said. "Come, my child, drink." And he held the cup to Ospir's lips.

It took some time to finish the cup, for the wine was strong for such a young child, and the elixir, Alaric knew, made it taste odd, but at last he drank it all. Then he closed his eyes and whispered, "May the minstrel sing for me?"

Gazian nodded to Alaric.

The minstrel chose a lullaby of many soft, sweet verses, and by the time he was finished, Ospir was sleeping.

Lord Gazian gestured for all but the nurse to leave, and out in the corridor, he said, "If your elixir helps him, you will be well-rewarded, minstrel."

"If it helps him, that will be reward enough, my lord," said Alaric.

Gazian took his arm. "Come down to the hall and sing for us now. I have need of diversion."

The remainder of the afternoon was a restless one. For a time, Alaric sang, and the lord of the castle and his brother listened. And for a time, other men joined them and the group played at a game with colored stones on an octagonal board. Master Demirchi got up often and went to the foot of the stairway, but Gazian always called him back, saying that word would be sent if there were anything to know. The household dined, though Lord Gazian ate little, and then Alaric sang again. Night fell, and at last the master of the Lake of Death dispatched a servant to his son's room, but the servant could only report that the boy was sleeping still.

Lord Gazian looked at his brother. "Perhaps you should see to the mourning ceremonies, in case they become necessary." He rose heavily from his chair. "I will be on the postern balcony, not to be disturbed...unless there is some word from above."

Demirchi inclined his head. "As you wish."

"Come, minstrel. I would listen to more music, if you can."

"I can, my lord."

Alaric followed him up the stairs, to the second landing this time, through a doorway, and down a broad, shallow flight of steps. At the bottom was a door heavier than any he had seen elsewhere in the castle, oak almost solid with iron banding, and fastened shut by two great horizontal beams. Gazian unbarred it with one hand, the beams swinging easily on well-oiled pivots, and pulled it open. Beyond lay a balcony open to the night sky.

There were no lamps on the balcony, but the moon rode low on the horizon, casting its silver gleam upon a space three paces deep and a dozen wide, with a hip-high wall guarding its rim. Lord Gazian went to that wall and leaned upon it with both forearms, and when Alaric joined him there, he saw that the surface of the water lay only a couple of man-heights below. The waves were calm beneath the moon, but a pale mist was rising from them, swirling in the gentle breeze. Alaric stepped back from the wall.

"No need to be afraid, minstrel," said Lord Gazian. "The waves never come this high."

"The mist," said Alaric.

Gazian shook his head. "Harmless." He looked out over the water. "Though they say the ghosts of everyone who ever died in this land are in that mist. They say the lake holds them prisoner, and they wander over its surface every night, trying to escape. I've seen them myself, whatever they are--vague figures in the distance, writhing. Sometimes I've even heard them moan. Or perhaps it was just the wind."

Alaric looked where he was looking and saw only mist, thicker here and thinner there.

"I wonder, sometimes," Gazian said, "if my lady wife is among them. And I wonder if she will be happy if our son joins her."

Alaric said nothing.

Gazian glanced at him over one shoulder. "He sleeps long. Is it the sleep that comes before death?"

"The elixir always brings sleep," said Alaric.

"It may be too late for your elixir, minstrel."

"I hope not."

He sighed. "I have not much hope left in me. Once, I had hoped to see him grow up strong to care for my people after me. I can no longer remember when anyone still thought that was possible." His head sank down between his arms. "Sing, Master Alaric. Sing of hope."

And Alaric sang, as the moon glimmered on the deadly waters and the mist writhed and twisted above them. He sang of quests successful and of love affirmed. And as the moon rose ever higher, he thought, once or twice, that he too could see vague figures in the mist, as if his music had raised them. Later, Lord Gazian dismissed him, with permission to use his lady's old bedchamber once more.

In the morning, before breaking fast, Alaric tapped at Ospir's door to make sure the nurse administered another dose of elixir. She woke the boy to do so, but he went to sleep almost immediately afterward. For the brief moments his eyes were open, he did not seem to recognize either her or the minstrel.

In the great hall, all the day was as restless as the previous afternoon had been. Halfway through, Lord Gazian sent his brother out on some errand to keep him from going to the stairway so often. He himself saw to all the myriad details of life in the castle, but offhandedly. He spurned the game of colored stones and dismissed the men who would play it with him. And he hardly listened when Alaric sang, pacing instead, back and forth across the hall, even going out to the courtyard and up onto the battlements. He stayed on the battlements for quite some time, looking out toward the village of his peasants. He was there when a servant came running through the great hall with word that Ospir was awake, hungry and thirsty, and asking for the minstrel.

Gazian raced up the stairway. Alaric and a servant with a tray of broth and bread followed at a more demure pace.

They found the boy sitting up, supported by his bolsters, his nurse's arm, and his father's strong hands. The nurse gestured peremptorily for the tray and, choosing the cup of broth, held it to the boy's lips. He drank greedily.

"Not so fast, my darling," she said. "Small sips at first." She moved the cup away from his mouth.

"But I am so thirsty," he said.

"Drink again in a moment."

He saw Alaric standing in the doorway. "Sing for me, please minstrel. I dreamed you sang for me."

"As you wish, young master," Alaric replied. And as the boy drank more broth and even ate a little bread, Alaric sang of knights and fair maidens and fire-breathing monsters.

Over the next few days, as he continued to drink the elixir, the boy improved dramatically. His fever vanished, his paleness was replaced by healthy color, his eyes brightened, his cheeks lost their sunken look. By the time the flask was empty, he could even stand up, though his legs were weak and shaky after so much time in bed. But his small, soft voice was stronger, and his laugh was clear and unmarred by any coughing. Three days later, he insisted upon going downstairs to the great hall, so that he could dine with his father and uncle; he even walked part of the way.

Seeing him sitting so straight upon his cushioned bench, the servants and the men in bossed leather made much of him, and he answered them like a little lord, graciously, his face glowing with the attention. But his nurse would not let him stay long, for fear of overtiring him, and as soon as the meal was done, his father carried him back upstairs, laughing with him, laughing loud and long. That night, Alaric sang him to sleep, as had become his habit.

"How can I reward you, minstrel?" Lord Gazian asked for the dozenth time as he and his brother and Alaric sat by lamplight in the great hall.

Alaric just shook his head and strummed his lute. He had already politely refused Gazian's own gold chain as being a gift that would only be stolen from him somewhere along the road. He understood how rare such wealth was near the Lake of Death and he, who could steal all the gold he wished, did not want to carry off any of their poor treasures. "I have everything I want--good food, a soft place to sleep, music, and listeners who like what I offer."

"But you wander the world, never knowing where your next meal will come from, never knowing even whether you will sleep with a roof over your head."

"Minstrels are born wanderers, my lord. We don't mind sleeping in the open or hunting game for our suppers."

"A homeless life. Not one most men would choose."

Alaric shrugged. "In truth, I have a thousand homes, for wherever folk are good hosts, there I feel welcome. As here."

"Do you indeed feel welcome here, Master Alaric?"

"I do."

Lord Gazian leaned forward. "Then stay with us. Make your life here. The boy would like that, I know, and I would as well."

"This is a kind offer, my lord."

"And there would be no need to sing every night, only when you wished it. You would be as a member of my own family, like a second younger brother."

Alaric glanced at Demirchi, who was lounging back in his chair, playing with his gold chain. "That is too high for me," said the minstrel. "You have a brother already."

"Call it what you will," said Gazian. "This is my desire."

Alaric drew another chord from the lute. "You overwhelm me, my lord."

"Will you do it?"

"I must think. This is a great decision. I have a certain sort of life, and giving it up would be hard."

"This is a wealthy land,' said Gazian, "and a safe one, as you know."

"Wealthy?" muttered Demirchi. He looked at Alaric from beneath lowered eyelids. "Surely our young minstrel has seen wealthier. He's traveled the world and seen castles full of gold, haven't you, lad?"

"Occasionally," said Alaric.

"Our wealth is our grain and livestock," said Gazian. "That is the only wealth that matters. The rest is mere display."

"And will you still be saying that when we are all sitting on the floor because our chairs are broken?" asked Demirchi.

"You exaggerate, my brother."

Demirchi snorted. "The peasants already sit on stone. And you won't even sell a little of our surplus grain to buy us wood."

Gazian looked at him. "The lord who sells his grain is a fool. I've told you I will not flirt with famine."

"There hasn't been a famine since our great-grandfather's day."

"And you can promise me there never will be, is that it?"

"Brother--"

"Enough. I won't hear you try to win the minstrel to your side with these tired old arguments. If you want wood, go trade your own gold chain for a fine chair at some great town. I won't stop you."

Demirchi made no reply to that, only frowned at his brother and fingered the chain.

Alaric looked from one of them to the other. "I am sorry to be the cause of such a quarrel, my masters,' he said softly.

Demirchi straightened in his chair. "It is an old quarrel, minstrel," he said, and then his frown twisted into a sardonic smile. "One I never win. But that does not make me give up. Perhaps when we, too, are sitting on stone benches, my brother will finally think again about our wealth." He rose to his feet. "Now I shall bid you good night, brother, and you, Master Alaric. I hope you will stay with us, minstrel, for every time he sees you, my brother will remember that there is a world beyond this lake." He bowed slightly and left by way of the stairway to the upper floors.

Lord Gazian looked at his own gold chain for a moment after his brother had gone. Then he raised his eyes to Alaric's. "Are we too poor for you, minstrel?"

Alaric smiled. "I have sung at great houses and small, to listeners clothed in velvet and listeners clothed in rags. There was not much difference in their enjoyment. Just in the food they offered. And your food is excellent, my lord."

Gazian nodded. "And our enjoyment is high. It always would be. Think hard on your decision, Alaric."

"I will, my lord. I promise."

"Now...perhaps one last song before we sleep?"

"Of course, my lord."

And he sang of a long dark journey to a distant land where a sip of the water could make one immortal, as long as one never left. The youth who made the journey stayed many centuries and was happy, but he went out at last, homesick for the place of his birth, and crumbled to dust as soon as he passed the land's enchanted border.

When the song was done, Gazian said, "Is that what you think of my offer? That someday you would regret staying?"

Alaric shook his head. "It is only a song, my lord."

"The boy wants you to stay. And he needs you. He is not completely well yet. What if he falls ill again? Only you know where to find the elixir. He has been ill so much of his life!"

Alaric slid his hand along the strings of his lute, eliciting only the faintest murmur of sound. Then he said, "I could draw you a map. But it is a long, hard journey. And no promise that at the end the maker of the elixir would give any to a stranger."

"So much the more do we need you."

"I need time to think, my lord."

Gazian leaned toward him and gripped his arm. "You will be a brother to me. I swear it."

Alaric smiled. "It is not a repellent offer, my lord. But I need a little time."

"Of course," said Gazian, letting go of him. "I look forward to your answer, whenever you are ready with it."

Alaric bowed to him, bade him good-night, and went upstairs.

He lay awake for a while, considering the offer. It was not the best he had ever had, nor the worst. It had certain attractions, not the least the quality of the food. But he had eaten good food elsewhere. And he had met kind people elsewhere. And he had never stayed. He had not decided what to tell Lord Gazian by the time he fell asleep.

He awoke to the sound of someone entering the room and to light, though not the light of morning. It was a small oil lamp, and Master Demirchi held it high. Outside the chamber window, the sky was still black as midnight.

"Minstrel?" said Demirchi.

Alaric sat up on his pallet. "Yes?"

"My lord and brother wishes to see you on the postern balcony."

"Is it Ospir?"

"No. Will you come?"

Alaric pushed his cloak aside and reached for his lute. "Of course."

Demirchi led the way down the stair and out the great iron-banded door. A low half-moon illuminated the lake and the stone balcony. The lake was misty, the balcony was empty.

"He'll be here shortly," said Demirchi. "You were quicker to wake and gather yourself together than we presumed."

"Very well," said Alaric, and he played a chord on the lute.

Demirchi went to the stone railing and looked out over the lake. "You wouldn't think that something so beautiful could be so deadly," he said.

"No," said Alaric. The mist swirled, so heavy in some places that the surface of the water was hidden. Peering at it, Alaric now had no trouble imagining shapes in the wind-stirred whiteness--buildings, trees, even human figures moving upon the water. "My lord Gazian says there are ghosts on the lake. In the mist."

"Oh, yes. I see them often. But they never come near the castle."

Alaric stepped closer to the railing. "Do the people of the village also see them?"

"I don't know," said Demirchi. "I've never asked. Ah, look at that one there. A woman with her arms stretched out to us."

Alaric followed the line of his pointing finger. "Where?"

"Farther to the right."

Alaric squinted into the mist. "I don't quite --"

At that moment, he felt a tremendous blow on the back of his head, an impact so sudden and sharp that it pushed him beyond pain and into a moonless, starless, insensate dark. But he was there, it seemed, for only an instant, wrapped in the thick black velvet of nothing; and then, abruptly, he was enveloped in water, and his mouth and nose were filled with the thick bitterness of brine. He swallowed the vile stuff, breathed it in, choked, and flailed his arms and legs in panic. His struggles brought him to the surface, coughing and gasping. Through burning eyes he saw Lord Gazian's castle looming above him, the postern balcony jutting out over the deadly water. He fought the terror that told him his skin was stripping away from his bones, running like wax melting from a candle. With horrible clarity, he knew where he was and where he wanted to be. In his own special way, he leaped.

And tumbled into the cold, fresh water of the river beside Kata's tent.

In a moment, he was pulling himself up its grassy bank, stopping half in and half out of the water, vomiting and coughing and drawing great ragged breaths of air. Then he rolled back into the river to rinse himself again. By the time he finally crawled out of the water, Kata was waiting for him, a burning brand held high in one hand.

"What is all this commotion?" she said.

He tried to strip off his clothes, thinking that they might still bear some trace of the deadly water, and when she moved to help him, he thrust her away, fearful of harming her with its touch. "It will kill you," he told her. "Maybe it has killed me already." The wet shirt came off at last.

"What are you talking about? Are you wounded?" She held the torch close and peered at him.

"I fell into the Lake of Death. The water will eat the flesh from your bones in a few heartbeats. They spray it at their enemies." He had his trews off now and was shivering in the northern breeze. He clutched himself with crossed arms.

Kata gripped his shoulder hard, and when he tried to pull away, she slapped his face and gripped him again. "This flesh looks well enough to me."

He looked at his shaking hands, his arms, his chest.

"Not a mark on you," she said. "Now come sit by the fire."

Inside her warm tent, Alaric's shivering subsided. Kata thrust the brand into the fire, stirring it to a bright blaze, and inspected him again, more closely. Again she found no signs of damage.

"There are substances which can dissolve flesh," she said, running her hands firmly over his arms and torso, "but they make it slippery first, and your flesh is not. Tell me, does this Lake of Death have a scent? Pungent? Sharp? Making the eyes stream?"

Alaric shook his head.

"And what is the taste of it?"

"Salty and bitter."

"Open your mouth." She lit a splint and held it near his face. "Your tongue is normal, and the inside of your mouth. Is your throat painful?"

"No. But it made my eyes bum."

"Any brine would do that. Is your vision harmed?"

"I don't think so. And the burning is less now."

Kata dropped the splint into the fire. "This deadly lake water would seem not so deadly then."

"But it is. It must be. They all said so."

Kata looked at him sharply. "Is this my Alaric speaking?"

He hesitated, remembering Taskol's cautions, Demirchi's desire to sell the water as a weapon. "It has kept their enemies away for generations."

Kata nodded, then she dipped into one of her bags and pulled out a long-handled bronze ladle. "Bring me a sample of this water, Alaric. I would examine it closely."

Alaric took the ladle, but he said, "This will not reach the water, lady, not from any safe place."

"Then we will give it a longer handle." Under the bundles on one side of her tent she found a spare support pole, as long as Alaric was tall. "Will this suffice?"

Outside, they bound the pole to the ladle with strong sinew.

"You must promise me to be very careful, lady," Alaric said, the pole set on his shoulder like a pike, the bowl of the ladle resting in his hand.

"Of course."

Naked, he traveled to the lake shore near the place where the causeway began. The mist was thick there, and the shore deserted, as he expected. He flitted to a spot a dozen paces along the stone road, and lying flat on his stomach, stretching his arm downward to its limit, he was able to scoop up a small amount of water. He climbed to his feet carefully, waited a few moments for the ladle to stop dripping, and returned to the north.

Kata held a ceramic bowl while he poured the contents of the ladle into it. Then they went inside her tent.

"No, there is no odd scent," she said, after sniffing at the liquid. "Nor the oiliness that would mark some of the more powerful flesh-dissolvers." She found a thin strip of leather and dangled one end into the bowl. She moved it around, stirring the water. "A few heartbeats, you say."

"That's what they told me."

She pulled the strip out and peered at it closely. Then she dunked it again, for a longer time, and pulled it out. "I see nothing."

"I don't know that this is a fair test," said Alaric.

"Leather is skin, is it not?"

"Cured skin. Perhaps that makes it proof against the deadliness, I was told the people have ways of carrying it, even of pumping it."

"No doubt," said Kata, and she thrust her finger into the bowl.

"No!" said Alaric.

"My Alaric, this is a brine, nothing more." She stirred it with her finger. "Look." She raised her unharmed finger from the bowl. And then she licked it and nodded. "A strong brine and a bitter one. Saltier by far than the Northern Sea, and with more salts than just the one we put on our food. But a pleasant enough bath, I think, if you hadn't feared it would kill you. That was a clumsy thing, my Alaric, filling into a lake you so feared."

"I didn't fall," he said. "I was pushed. By someone who believed the water would kill me. I know he believed it."

"Ah." She set the bowl down by the fire. "Well, I suppose they must, and their enemies, too. What strange beliefs there are in the south, with no proof behind them!"

He sighed. "Well, the water will prove deadly enough to something. I had my lute when I went in. And I didn't think to bring it north with me. So it floats...somewhere in the lake."

"And it won't survive the wetting."

"No. I shall have to find another."

"You've done that before."

"Yes. Yes." He stared into the fire, but his inner eye saw the Lake of Death instead. He thought back over the time he had been in Lord Gazian's castle. He thought about Gazian himself, and Ospir and Demirchi. Especially Demirchi. And he wondered if Demirchi had paused on the stairs to listen to his last song, and to the conversation that followed it. Or perhaps he had not needed to hear them. Perhaps his decision had been made while he played with his gold chain. "I must go back," he said at last.

"To a place where they tried to kill you?"

"I must."

"For revenge, my Alaric? That is not like you."

"No. To protect someone."

They dried his clothes over Kata's fire, and a moment after he put them on, he was back in his temporary bedchamber in Lord Gazian's castle. Dawn had not yet come.

He slipped into Ospir's room. The boy was sleeping soundly, and the nurse was dozing in the chair at the foot of the bed. Gently, Alaric touched her shoulder, and when she opened her eyes, he made a sign for her to follow him.

In the corridor, the door closed between themselves and Ospir, he said, "Why were you so eager to fetch the wine the first night we gave the boy the elixir?"

She frowned. "I, Master Alaric? I only wanted to bring it so that the boy could drink."

"Lord Gazian had ordered his brother to fetch it."

"But he was delaying, Master Alaric."

"He would have gone in another moment, you know that. Or my lord would have given you the order. But you didn't wait."

"Master Alaric--"

"With all that talk of poison, were you afraid of what Master Demirchi might fetch?"

Her eyes became wary. "I would never say anything like that!"

"But I think you must know that Master Demirchi did not want the boy to live. Does not want the boy to live."

The woman hesitated. "He was happy to be the heir, everyone knows that."

"But the boy is no longer ill. Demirchi will not be the heir."

"Master Alaric--"

He gripped her shoulder hard. "Tell me the truth, woman. Don't you think Demirchi knows that you suspect him? Or do you try to ingratiate yourself with him by your silence?"

She shook her head. "I don't know what you mean."

"And you left the two of them together many a time, didn't you, so that Demirchi could put his evil powders in the boy's cup, his bowl, his pastries?"

"The boy loves him, and he loves the boy. What is this talk of evil powders?"

"Or perhaps you put them there yourself."

"I? No!"

"Shall I tell Lord Gazian why his son has been so sick for so many years ?"

"You would not accuse me!"

"I would tell the truth. And because I saved the boy's life, he would believe me."

Tears started in the woman's eyes. "Oh, Master Alaric, don't accuse me. What could I do? I am only a servant, and he is my lord's brother. He could throw me into the lake! I never wished the boy ill. I love him dearly."

"But not as much as your own life."

The tears overflowed down her cheeks. "No, not as much." She covered one side of her face with her hand. "You are an outsider. You don't know. It is a terrible death."

"I do know," he said softly. "He killed me that way."

Her mouth dropped open.

"Yes," said Alaric. "I am dead. And I am part of the mist on the lake now. But I know how to enter the castle. Go tell Master Demirchi that I wish to see him on the postern balcony. Now."

She shook her head. "He sleeps. I cannot disturb him."

"Yes, you can," said Alaric and, letting go of her abruptly, he vanished.

The balcony was deserted when, in the next heartbeat, he appeared there. The iron-banded door was closed and barred from the inside--he checked it to be sure, flitting in and out in an instant. He sat down, then, on the hip-high wall, one knee drawn up, his crossed arms resting on it. He waited. Shortly, he heard the sound of the bars being drawn. The door swung inward, revealing Demirchi.

"Come out, Master Demirchi," he said, smiling.

Demirchi stood where he was.

"Now I know without any doubt that there are ghosts in the mist," said Alaric. "They thank you for sending me to them, for they liked my singing and wanted the singer among them forever."

"No," said Demirchi.

"Yes," said Alaric. "The flesh stripped off my bones quite cleanly, and then even my bones dissolved. And my lute, too, poor thing. But I shall seek its ghost shortly, and we will make ghostly music on the lake. You will hear it at night, Demirchi, and remember what you did."

Demirchi gripped the edge of the door. "Go away," he said hoarsely.

"Oh, I will never go away now. You have made certain of that. I will visit you often, mostly at night, but perhaps in the daytime, too. And perhaps I will bring my ghost friends with me. And together, tomorrow or the next day or the next, we will tell Lord Gazian how you killed me, and how you tried to kill his son. I imagine such ghost testimony would be believed, don't you?"

"You can't come inside," said Demirchi. "The ghosts must stay on the lake!"

"But you know I've already been inside. You can't keep me out. Unless..."

"Unless what?"

"Unless you and I can make a bargain."

"What sort of bargain?"

Alaric drew his other leg up and sat tailor-fashion on the wall. "You must swear that you will never try to harm the boy again. That's simple, isn't it? Your promise in return for mine not to bother you and not to tell Lord Gazian."

Demirchi took one small step forward, still clinging to the door. "How do I know you will keep your promise?"

"You have only my word. And I will have only yours. Is that not enough? I won't be far, of course. I'll know if you forswear yourself. And don't think you can evade me by persuading someone else to do the deed. I'll know where the responsibility lies. Ghosts always know things like that. You would be amazed at what the ghosts of this lake know."

Demirchi took another step forward. "You don't look like a ghost."

Alaric shrugged. "I suppose that's because I'm new. Perhaps later I'll fade into the mist. Or perhaps the other ghosts will learn from me how to become...more substantial."

Abruptly, Demirchi leaped, arms outstretched. But Alaric was too quick this time, and vanished, reappearing at the far end of the balcony.

Demirchi's thighs struck the stone railing, and his momentum, unchecked by his intended target, carried him over the edge. He screamed once before he splashed into the water. But after the splash not a sound came from him, not a cough or a gasp or the slightest audible hint of limbs flailing in water.

Alaric leaned over the railing and saw him by moonlight, floating half submerged, face upward, motionless. Even if he had been struggling, there was no way he could climb back to the overhanging balcony, and the shore was a long swim away, especially for someone who had feared the water so much that he surely had never learned to swim. Resigning himself to being wet again, Alaric used his witch's power to reach Demirchi. Treading water, he gripped the man's arms, and in another moment, they were both back on the balcony.

Demirchi sagged limply in Alaric's grasp, and Alaric eased him to the stone floor. "Wake up, Master Demirchi!" he said sharply, kneeling over him and slapping his face. But Demirchi did not wake, and at last Alaric put a hand on the great vein of his neck and then bent to press an ear against his chest. He found no heartbeat.

"Is he dead?" came a small, soft voice from nearby.

Alaric looked up and saw Ospir in the doorway, clutching the curved handle of the great iron and oaken door with both hands. "How long have you been standing there?"

Ospir edged forward slightly. "I heard what you said to my nurse. I listened at the bottom of the door, where it doesn't quite meet the floor. And then I followed him and stood at the next landing." He peered down at Demirchi. "He is dead, isn't he? He was in the water. But he looks all right. I've heard the water makes you look horrible."

"Yes, he's dead. But the water didn't kill him, Ospir. His fear of it did. Would you like to know a secret?"

The boy nodded.

"The water is harmless. It tastes bad, but touching it won't hurt you."

"That isn't what Father says."

"No. It isn't." Alaric climbed slowly to his feet. Water dripped down his arms, his back, his legs, joining the puddle in which Demirchi lay. The boy clung to the door, two paces from that puddle, and did not try to move closer. Alaric wanted to reach out to him, to caress that small dark head, to give him comfort at the sight of death. But he did not. "Well, you must believe your father," he said finally. "He is a good man. Not like your uncle."

The boy looked up at him. "You said he tried to kill me."

"Yes. He made you very sick. But he won't be able to do that anymore, and you'll be well from now on."

"He did bring me things. Sweets. Were they bad for me?'

"His were. But you'll have others now, and they won't hurt you."

The boy heaved a great sigh. 'I did like him. I did. Why did he want to kill me?"

"Because he wanted to be lord of this land after your father. And that is your right, as long as you are alive."

"I liked him very much:" For a moment, Ospir's voice was as tiny as at the depth of his illness. "Was that wrong, Master Alaric?"

"No, Ospir, it's not wrong to like people."

"I like you."

"And I, you."

Ospir stretched one hand out toward Alaric, then pulled it back without touching him. "You're really a ghost, aren't you?"

"What do you think?"

"You appeared and disappeared. Only a ghost can do that. Or one of the magic people from your songs."

Alaric looked down at Demirchi's body for a moment, and then he nodded. "Yes, I am a ghost. And now I must leave the castle, because dawn will come soon."

"Oh, don't go!"

"I must. But if you look out on the lake at night, and you see the mist swirling above the water, you'll be seeing me. Never doubt that, Ospir. You'll always be seeing me. And I will never let any of the other ghosts harm you. Not even his." He smiled at the boy one last time. "Farewell, future lord of the Lake of Death."

"Oh, won't you sing just one more song?"

Alaric shook his head. "Ask your nurse to sing."

"She's crying."

"Then tell her for me that she should sing instead." And he vanished.

But he did not go far, just to the shore of the lake, just beyond the wavering mist. From there, the castle was ghostly, wreathed in wispy whiteness, the postern balcony invisible. Walking at the verge, beside the crust of salts, he began to circle the lake. He had not gotten more than a quarter of the way around when he saw ghosts in the mist. Not vague, distant figures that might as easily have been imaginary as real, but solid bodies of flesh and bone, dressed in thin white wool, moving across the surface of the water not a score of paces from the shore. There were four of them, and all were shorter than he.

"I see you," he said. "You might as well come here."

After some hesitation, one of the bodies began to move toward him, and one by one the others followed. Their feet seemed to slide over the water's surface, and when they were closer, he realized that they walked on that surface on wide wooden boards that were strapped to their feet like huge sandals, like the webbed frameworks that the people of the north used for walking on top of snow. When they grounded at the verge, he recognized Yosat, Taskol's son, and three of the other village boys who had listened to him sing beside the headman's home.

"So you are the ghosts of the lake," he said, watching them unfasten the boards from their feet. "Do your parents know what games you play at night?"

"Our fathers gave us these foot-rafts," said Yosat.

"Aren't you afraid of the water? The deadly water."

The boys looked at one another and shuffled uneasily.

"So you all know," said Alaric. "It's only the people of the island who don't know. And outsiders."

"You won't tell anyone, will you?" said Yosat, his voice anxious.

"I? Oh, I won't be able to tell anyone. I'm a ghost, too, killed this very night by the terrible water. You'll hear about me tomorrow, I'd guess. And if, someday, some minstrel happens to sing of this place, why, folk will marvel at water that strips the flesh from a man's bones and then dissolves those bones to nothing. It's a very good tale. I wouldn't change it for anything." He reached out to grip the boy's shoulder. "I would ask you to tell your father farewell for me, but I think perhaps you would do better not to let him know we saw each other."

Yosat nodded. "Thank you, minstrel."

"But there is one thing I will ask-- a favor from you in return for that favor from me."

"Anything." And the others murmured their agreement.

"There's a boy on that island. He was sick for a long time, but he's well now. Visit him. Play with him. He needs friends." He smiled. "Perhaps someday you might even show him how to play ghost." Then he turned and, with a wave of his hand, walked into the night.

When he could no longer see them, looking back over his shoulder when their pale, moonlit shapes had been swallowed up by darkness and distance--he vanished in search of daylight, a fire to dry his clothes by, and a new lute.

~~~~~~~~

By Phyllis Eisenstein

The minstrel Alaric first graced these pages some twenty-seven years ago, in the August 1971 issue to be precise. Since then his exploits have been recounted in a story or nine and assembled into the books Born to Exile and In the Red Lord's Reach. For the past decade we haven't seen much of him--Ms. Eisenstein began to teach fiction writing at Columbia College Chicago in 1989 and has been applying lots other creative talents to her students. (You can see the results in the Spec-Lit anthologies she has been editing recently--No. 2 has just been published.) We're happy to welcome back the bard with this tale of ghosts and magic and a poisonous lake

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

Silk, by Caitlin R. Kiernan, Roc Books, 1998, $6.50

ONE OF THE great joys of reviewing is the delight one experiences when finding a new author, or a special book, that you might not otherwise have come across if it hadn't happened to land in your P.O. box as part of the regular deluge of new releases.

I think I've mentioned this before: I don't read everything that arrives, and I don't review everything I read, but I do give almost everything the same test. I open the book to the first page and read until I get bored. Sometimes that only takes a paragraph or two, sometimes a few pages or even chapters. And more rarely still (because, truthfully, it is a deluge of books, all wing for attention, and since taste is so subjective, and the choices so varied), you find the treasure, the book that rekindles your faith in the whole process, the author's voice that has its own flavor, and its own story to tell.

Now according to the brief author's bio accompanying Silk, Caitlin Kiernan isn't exactly a neophyte. She's contributed to a number of high-profile anthologies and also scripts comic books for Vertigo/DC, but this is her first novel, and she's new to me. But from the first page of Silk, I knew she has what it takes to excite me as a reader.

Now, first a caveat. This book isn't necessarily going to appeal to everyone. Kiernan has an idiosyncratic way with prose, using run-on and incomplete sentences, and sometimes both at once. It makes for an immediate voice, if not a traditional one. Her characters also won't appeal to all readers. They live in the harsh world of the streets, where there's little hope, abundant drug use and profanity, and not a whole lot of respect for the status quo as regulated by society at large. On the plus side, however, they come across as real individuals, they care for each other, and they're profoundly loyal.

The novel is set in Birmingham, Alabama, where Kiernan explores the lives of a group of misfit twenty-year-olds living on the edge of normal society. Some are musicians, one's a junkie, they're all battered survivors of their pasts--sometimes barely so. The thread that connects them is a woman named Spyder, an enigma who suffers from severe mental disorders, but who also has a pipeline to things that lie beyond our everyday perception. You don't want to cross her because she has supernatural protectors. Unfortunately, these protectors can't always differentiate between those who really mean her harm, and those who only seem to do so.

If your inclination runs to contemporary fantasy, especially that with a darker, somewhat nasty edge, you might want to try this book. For a touchstone, think of Poppy Z. Brite with slightly more accessible prose and characters who aren't quite so outre as those who come from the pen of the real queen of New Orleans dark fantasy (forget Rice's claim to the crown).

Personally, I just loved this book and can't wait to see what she writes next.

The Double: An Investigation, by Don Webb, St. Martin's Press, 1998, $22.95

How can the opening premise not intrigue you? John Reynman, an Austin-based designer of computer games, wakes up to find his own corpse on the living room floor. It's a killer of an opening, no pun intended, and the mystery only deepens in subsequent chapters. Unfortunately, to discuss the plot any more closely will steal away too many pleasures and surprises for those of you who mean to give the book a try. But we can talk about some generalities.

The book's being marketed as a mystery-- and rightfully so since it plays by the rules of this world we all know-- but it's written with the sensibility of a fantasy, particularly one along the lines of Tim Powers, though we could also use a few Texan writers as touchstones. (What is it with these guys? Too many nights out under those big Texas skies? So many of them have such wonderfully skewed visions of the world.) But let's stick with Powers for the moment.

Like Powers, Webb doesn't take the easy way to further his plot. The reasons for why things are the way they are keep getting more and more convoluted the deeper we get into the book, folding back on themselves and generally infusing the reader with a paranoia that everything really is connected, there really are huge, complicated conspiracies out there, and what happened (and happens) to Reynman could happen to any of us. The difference is, Webb does it in shorthand, conveying a similar intensity, with much less wordage, but no less effectively.

Also, unlike Powers, Webb's characters have active libidos and a kind of nineteen-sixties approach to the whole idea of relationships.

A fascinating book and, like Kiernan's, not for everyone, though for different reasons.

Dangerous Angels, by Francesca Lia Block, HarperCollins, 1998, $12.

I love this woman's books, as longtime readers of this column have probably gathered already. And though nothing she's written to date can beat "Blue" from her collection Girl Goddess #9 (a story which adds a fascinating twist to the idea of an imaginary friend and is one of my three favorite stories of all time), the Weetzie Bat books come awfully close. Set in her own wonderfully idiosyncratic Los Angeles which she calls Shangri-L.A., these short novels deal with the issues of coming of age, coming out, divorce, and other serious concerns in a manner that is engaging and whimsical, without ever detracting from the seriousness of the issues.

I've discussed some of the books reprinted in this collection at greater length in earlier columns, so here I'll be brief and simply say that singly or together, they come highly recommended.

Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P.O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.

~~~~~~~~

By CHARLES DE LINT

MUSING ON BOOKS

Halfway Human, by Carolyn Ives Gilman, Avon Eos, February 1998, $5.99

Commitment Hour, by James Alan Gardner, Avon Eos, March 1998, $5.99

IF WE DEFINE our genre as Science Fiction and Fantasy, then I began reading in genre quite early in my life. If we define the genre as sf alone, I actually wasn't exposed to much of it until I was about fifteen years old (give or take a year or two), and the first three books I can remember having any impact on me at all were: The Left Hand of Darkness, The Female Man, and Dune. The first of these three made me really think about my own reaction to the concept of gender; I can still remember clearly when one of the hermaphroditic aliens goes into their version of heat. Everything about that particular character was so oily, so overpoweringly manipulative and domineering, that I was shocked when it cycled into the female sex. The shock itself shocked me, and I went away and chewed on what it meant about my own preconceptions. The second of the three books was important because it gave voice to anger, and it also forced me to question a lot of things I had otherwise just accepted m gender roles, things that I had always lived with. So the first two books that strongly affected me, in this entire literature of ideas, were books about gender issues. Dune, by contrast, was straight narrative to me at the time, something that didn't demand thought in quite the same reflective way, which is probably good because I couldn't put it down.

Why is this relevant?

In Halfway Human, Gilman has combined that sense of narrative drive with the quality of the earlier Le Guin, to come up with a novel that deserves attention and time, but that can still be read without either -- no mean feat, that.

To examine gender issues clearly in sf is probably easier than in most other genres: first, you create a world. Gilman's is Gammadis, a planet closed to human contact and exploration because of a disastrous first contact expedition over half a century past. The natural order of the world has split in an unusual fashion: children are born with putative sexual organs. They are raised in creches, they never know their parents, and when they reach the Gammadian equivalent of puberty, they will either develop a functioning set of female sexual organs, a functioning set of male sexual organs -- or the putative sexual organs will die, leaving them entirely sexless in a society where the physical possession of functioning sexual organs of either gender define your status as, quite literally, a human being.

Here, Gilman has been exceptionally clever -- but in a bone-deep way. Without a world in which the nuclear family -- with all its associated ties -- had completely broken down, the class of neuters, or "pubers" as they're sometimes called, would have a much harder time just existing. Given the relative scientific knowledge possessed by the Gammadians, it would only be a matter of time before concerned parents assaulted the system -- to change it, to protect their children and their children's future in it, regardless of their eventual sexual identity. There are no parents; the neuters exist as a breed and a species apart, a guilty secret, a remnant of a past that people would like to forget.

Gilman contrasts this society with Capella Two, a future, Earthlike planet where sexual identity is very much contemporary North American, as is the basic family unit (replete with mothers-in-law and the concerns of working parents who are struggling to make ends meet).

The connections between Capella Two and Gammadis are Tedla Galele, a Gammadian neuter, and Valerie Endrada, a would-be xenologist whose choice of career has limited her family's financial mobility to the point where they can't actually afford to send their bright young daughter, Deedee, to school. Husband Max and mother-in-law Joan round out the picture; it is Joan who calls Valerie Endrada into a meeting with Tedla Galele a meeting that will, in the end, change both of their lives. Because Tedla, alien and completely isolated, has tried to take its own life.

This alien is the find of Val's life, her ticket to prestige, to authority, to money in a world where information is the only real currency. But Tedla isn't just walking information, it is also a human being embroiled in the politics of the two biggest info-giants on Capella Two, and we see quickly that Tedla's story is of great interest especially its suppression. Valerie's struggle between giving in to the authorities, which will finally justify years of financial penury, and protecting Tedla is a very realistic one, and it rounds out Val's character, giving her a dimension that's often missing in genre fiction.

Tedla itself begins to speak to Val; its story, haunting and dark, is almost Victorian in structure and gloom; it is a tale of multiple wrongs, of victimization piled upon victimization -- first in the training grounds that will eventually see Tedla "fit" for human company, and later in that human company. Abused several times over, sexually exploited, loved, deserted, and given to an alien for safe-keeping, the young protagonist eventually ends up in the streets of a Capellan city, a gun in hand. (Terrible aim, though.)

What's interesting, again, is Gilman's choice. The narrator is not a reliable narrator, and it's only at the end that we see this clearly, although the truth is absolutely shoved under our noses a number of times before then. Tedla is a product, psychologically, of its culture --that of victim with no rights and no real protection. Survival has become the chief rule by which it lives and schemes, and even in speaking to Val, this tenet is part of its personality.

Rescued by an alien, Tedla goes to school at one of the most prestigious learning institutes in the galaxy... and then its world turns over with a discovery about its protector and savior that it cannot face until it's too late.

I thought, reading the book through, that Gilman's Tedla-as-neuter was a terrific choice, because it underlines the age-old and often-ignored truth about the entire gender struggle: It's not a question of the physical sex of the people involved, but rather a question of their relative power and social standing. By removing genitalia from Tedla, by making Tedla, essentially, the eternal child, Gilman underlines the fact that gross sexual, physical, and social abuses systematically occur when there is an imbalance of power. The women of Gammadis are no less abusive-sexually or physically -- than the men of Tedla's acquaintance. It's not about sex. Power. Think power.

Which is exactly what I thought, until a friend of mine, having read and really enjoyed the book, asked me a simple question: "Did you ever think of Tedla as anything other than female?"

I answered honestly, "No," because I assumed that my reaction to Tedla was personal, a reaction of identification with a victim, with the Victorian structure of the novel, with my own sense of helplessness as a child (which, given that I'm a woman, would have to be female, etc., etc.). I made excuses for it. Then I went home to think about it, just as I'd done with the Le Guin all those years ago.

I came away more impressed with the book than I had been, because of course, having made the point that power, not actual gender, is at issue, Gilman has also, very subtly, made the point that in this culture and this world, analogous systematic abuses do occur. And, of course, the victims are the powerless: Women. Children. There's a speech, angry, defiant, and terrified, that Tedla makes at the novel's end that is so true and so contemporary it makes one stop to wonder, to pause, to reflect.

By contrast, there's Commitment Hour by James Alan Gardner. It is also a book that confronts gender issues. But where Gilman muddies the waters by the complexity of a psychology that feels profoundly real, Gardner goes to the philosophical heart of the matter when he creates the universe in which he sets his story.

In Tober Cove, a small town on an Earth that has been visited by aliens who took most of humanity to the stars, and left behind those who were somewhat more xenophobic or superstitious, a very unusual culture resides. Children are born normally, and they're normal (usually) boys and girls. But when they turn one, they-- and the children who are older than they are--are taken in an airborne craft to see Master Crow, who turns them into a child of the opposite sex, memories intact, and sends them back to their parents for a year. Every year until they reach twenty, the children make this trek, switching back and forth between the male and female bodies. At their twentieth year, they are taken in airborne crafts -- but instead of visiting Master Crow, they visit Mistress Gull, and are offered a final choice: they can choose to be "male, female or both." Thus the title of the book, and the dilemma of the protagonist, Fullin.

Gardner makes a good case for a unified personality; he strongly implies that in earlier days in Tober Cove, there were hermaphrodites (called neuts throughout the book, and seen as abominations and perverts). Unfortunately, he damages his case because his narrator's entire personality seems to switch between "male" and "female" modes that are quite, quite rigid, even stereotypical. This is explained as the effects of the Patriarch, a man who was locked into the male sex, and was never able to change over. He disliked women, loathed neuts, and took over the cove, layering its culture with a "masculine" personality and attitude toward women that made the stereotypes an accepted version of life, which every adult is expected to choose between. The third option, "both," is looked on as such a terrible perversion that exile is the only option --that or death.

The book starts with the Commitment Eve vigil, in which a young man is on the verge of choosing his permanent sex, and worrying about the overly attached young woman with whom he's been living. His vigil is interrupted by the visit of two things that are despised throughout Tober Cove: A neut and a scientist.

His Commitment Eve goes downhill from there, especially as he's a young man who doesn't like to muddy the waters.

Preoccupation with sex (there's a lot of it, but the young protagonist feels like a very convincing adolescent male, so it doesn't seem forced) never quite leaves, but into the mix comes the horrible news that the neut, Steck, was his mother before she made her commitment. She and Fullin's adoptive father were close, and Zephram felt obligated to raise Fullin after his mother was driven out of the village.

It gets worse; there's another hidden neut in the village, also associated with Fullin's adopted father. A murder, a bunch of unwanted questions, and much agonizing later, Commitment Hour approaches--but even that goes awry when Steck and the scientist choose to accompany the natives to Bird's Nest to meet Mother Gull.

Fullin, as you've probably guessed, is not a happy camper.

The final confrontation, and the final truths, of the novel are revealed at Bird's Nest.

What's slightly frustrating is this: having made the argument--by positing the irrationality of separating out personalities into "male" and "female" as the Tober Cove natives have done -- Gardner's authorial choices seem to support the split subtly: the only two neuts in the book were originally women when they made their Commitment, both were seriously lonely or disturbed in their own ways, and they both chose to become neuter for reasons that had nothing to do with the elusive balance of gender that the book seems to be saying we should seek.

As if the choice itself is threatening, the protagonist, in the end, never chooses; the choice is made by the author.

Having said all of this, I think that had I read this novel when I read the earlier books named, it would have forced me to think about gender issues in ways I hadn't thought about them before -- and it would have also forced me to question my own attachment to physical form.

The Gilman is an older person's novel, the Gardner, a younger person's novel.

ILLUSTRATION (BLACK & WHITE)

~~~~~~~~

By MICHELLE WEST

EDITOR'S RECOMMENDATIONS

AFTER MY editorial last month, I feel as though I should recommend lots of science fiction, but most of the books I want to point out this month are best classified as Gothic fiction. The Boss in the Wall by Avram Davidson and Grania Davis (Tachyon Publications) certainly falls under that heading, admirably. This "Treatise on the House Devil" is a short novel about a house haunted by a wonderfully vivid and creepy bogeyman, the sort of monster that bypasses the rational brain and goes straight to the primal terror center.

"Gothic" also applies to Jack Cady's short fiction, six major instances of which are assembled in The Night We Buried Road Dog (DreamHaven). F&SF readers will recognize the title story and "Kilroy Was Here;" the other, shorter stories here are all well worth reading.

Most Gothic of all is a real oddity: Malpertuis by Jean Ray (@las Press, London). Ray (1887-1964) was a Belgian writer considered by some to be Europe's answer to H. P. Lovecraft. His only previous book published in the U.S. was a 1965 paperback story collection entitled Ghouls in My Grave. Iain White's introduction to this volume suggests that Malpertuis was Ray's finest achievement. I don't know that I'd rank it with Lovecraft's finest works, but it's certainly interesting: an elliptical tale of bizarrities centered on an old stone house and a legacy wrapped within an ancient enigma. This book still hasn't quite released its hold on me.

Lastly, I'd like to recommend two books for writers. Nancy Kress's Dynamic Characters (Writer's Digest Books) is a helpful and wide-ranging guide to the craft of characterization from someone who practices what she preaches. Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin (Eighth Mountain Press) is a set of exercises and discussions that grew out of a 1996 workshop. This book's purely about writing craft -- tenses, syntax, narrative strategies -- and it's immensely useful, from my point of view.

PSYCHE

THE SCAR APPEALED TO HER. That and the clear, almost glasslike eyes. He seemed to be looking at her through a broken window. Berthe blinked and looked away. He would be a fascinating subject for a painting.

"Not myself," he said, his Dutch accent slowing his words.

"I understand that, Monsieur Van Helsing," Berthe said. "I don't do -- I have never done -- a death mask. It's not something my technique is well suited to -- "

"Yes, yes, I realize that. This new style...I confess I do not care for it myself, but it has certain advantages which I believe will work to my purposes."

Berthe smiled tolerantly and looked out her window. Paris seemed drugged under the searing August sun and the late hour's light layered the city with an amber stickiness that blurred detail and nagged at her to go to her easel and palette.

"Wouldn't a sculptor be better...?"

"No. The subject would not, I think, be served by a too precise rendering." He drew a deep breath and seemed to look inward. His forehead creased thoughtfully. "There was a fluidity to him in... before."

Berthe flexed her fingers and winced at the slight pain. She rubbed her right hand gently.

"Rheumatism?"

She looked up, startled.

"I am a doctor," he explained, the ghost of a smile twisting the scar. "Is it bad?"

Berthe shrugged. "Painting is sometimes difficult, but usually only in the morning or during winter. It is nothing."

"I could prescribe -- "

"No. No, thank you." She sighed again. "Your offer intrigues me, I admit, but not for the reasons you may think."

"I am prepared to offer a good commission -- "

"Of course, I had no doubt, but -- in truth, monsieur, I would do this for the promise that I am allowed to paint you."

He laughed, a dry exhalation that, for a moment, she thought would degenerate into a ragged cough. For the first time during the interview she saw an unguarded emotion -- surprise, perhaps even disbelief--animate his face.

"You are not serious."

"I am, I assure you." She switched hands and rubbed her left. "One finds that one has painted everything after a time. Even if one has not, it seems so. Ennui is a disease of the inspired."

"Is it?"

"You have never been inspired, monsieur?"

"No. Only obsessed. One does not suffer ennui when one is obsessed." He waved his left hand vaguely around his face. "What is it you see?"

"I don't know. But I am inspired."

"Mmm. I am flattered."

"I haven't painted much in this year. My husband passed away in April --"

"I am sorry."

"-- and many of my Mends, as well, have died in the last few years. I feel...short of time."

"I understand that fully. I am myself not young."

She nodded. "We both are of an age when it is best to be occupied so that we do not dwell on such things overly much."

"There is, unfortunately, nothing left for me to dwell on. Only details. Small things that I feel are necessary to complete what is past."

"Like this death mask?"

"Like the death mask, yes. The subject occupied my attentions for many years."

"Well. You have my terms. I wish to paint you."

"Please, I will pay you as well -- "

"I do not ask -- "

He pulled his wallet from within his heavy black coat and thumbed out a sheaf of notes. British pounds, she observed. Sound currency. Everything about this man seemed solid in the extreme. He counted briefly, then laid the notes on the table beside him and looked up.

"I shall be honored to have you paint me, Mme. Morisot. However, if you decide not to afterward, I shall fully understand."

PREPARING THE CANVAS, mixing the temperas, cleaning the brushes -- all these details comprised for Berthe the closest thing she had ever found to religious ritual. Even her wedding had been a thing to tolerate, a nuisance. She smiled, remembering what she told her brother afterward. "I went through this ceremony without the least pomp, in a plain dress and hat, like the old woman that I am and with no guests." Old woman. She was amused by that now. She had been thirty-three at the time she had married Eugene and thought she knew what age meant. Since Eugene's death she did know. It meant loneliness.

At least, she thought, I am not a burden to anyone. Money had never been difficult, her family had seen to that. Attention -- specifically its absence -- had always been a problem. People did not take the new art very seriously, even less so when done by a woman, but after Manet's death a sudden interest had caused a rise in everyone's fortunes. Her paintings sold at auction now and Degas, at least, had made sure she received her due. Her reputation, her position, always problematic in polite society, now carried weight.

A heavy pounding at her door broke the reverie. She wiped her hands and went to answer it. A wagon stood in the narrow lane and two workmen waited at its gate while a third stood at her door.

"Yes?"

"Uh, we have a delivery for Mme. Morisot," he said, doffing his soiled cap.

"That is I."

He thrust a notebook and pencil toward her. "The manifest, please."

She took the pencil and signed. He bowed awkwardly and gestured to the other two. They lowered the gate and pulled a crate from the wagon bed.

The crate was roughly three feet on a side. Berthe led them to her studio and indicated a place on the floor. The workmen glanced nervously at the canvases standing about, mostly half-finished works, muttered good-days to her, and hurried out. When she reached the door the wagon was already pulling away. Berthe watched it until it rounded a corner.

She shrugged and returned to the studio.

Berthe picked up her prybar and walked around the crate, studying it. She had not expected this. She chose a board and jammed the iron bar in. The nails came out easily, for which she was thankful. She lifted off the top. A vague, stale odor escaped and she wrinkled her nose. An envelope lay atop the straw stuffing.

"Mme. Morisot, Please forgive the impersonal nature of this procedure. I do not wish to distract you from any reactions which may prove important. Forgive me the macabre circumstance. Within is the subject. V.H."

She pulled out straw until she came to a canvas wrap. She found the loose ends and pulled. The object weighed less than five pounds. The fabric felt quite cold and she carried it quickly to a table near her easel. She went back to the crate and pulled the rest of the straw out. Finding nothing more hidden within, she looked at the canvas-wrapped object suspiciously.

She ignored the ill-ease which increased as she unwrapped the canvas. The last fold revealed a head.

Berthe stepped back. No eyes -- the sockets were empty -- and no hair. The cheeks were sunken on either side of a straight, lipless mouth. Its ivory whiteness lent it an abstract quality, like a cameo or a dream; it was marbled with fine bluish traceries. The straight nose ended in a slight hook, giving the whole an aristocratic aspect contrary to every other detail, which seemed ascetic, almost monkish. It stood on a short stump of neck.

When she looked up the shadows had changed. Day had moved on. Berthe turned, mildly puzzled, her legs sore. She went to the kitchen and poured water. She drank thirstily, filled her cup again, then looked for something to eat. There was a plate of beef and cheese in her ice box. Seeing it, she realized that she was famished.

She had not eaten so much at one time since Eugene had died. Her daughter, Julie, would be pleased. Too bad she was away, in England. Berthe sat back from the kitchen table and stared at the ruin of the meal, amazed at herself.

Berthe returned to her studio. The light slanted in through the wide windows, shadowing the head so that it appeared aglow, a thin nimbus encircling the bald skull. Her temperas were partially dried. Irritated, she began to mix new. It was sunset before she finished and the light had taken on a filmy, indistinct quality, selectively illuminating partial details throughout the studio. She sighed and covered the head for the night.

She poured a glass of wine and went to her bedroom. She sat in the wingbacked chair beside her bed and sipped while staring out at the night sky. Berthe slept little anymore, less so with each passing year. Night had become more a companion than a release. She glanced at the unfinished letter to her daughter on her nightstand. Her fingers ached. It could wait for tomorrow.

When she slept she dreamed of painting. It had been a bold move to ask the doctor to pose -- she had done few men outside her family -- but she did not feel she had to worry about scandal at her age. She did wonder, though, why now, after all this time, she found herself drawn to do a portrait of a stranger.

Her body complained after sleeping the night in the chair. Berthe made tea, ate a little bread, and went to the studio. She uncovered the head and went to her easel. She threw away the dried paints and started over. Her wrists pulled and her fingers moved stiffly, but she willed her way through the preparations. She did not look at the head until she was ready to work.

The morning light was soft and gave her all the details unaccented by harsh shadows. She selected a piece of chalk and began sketching the outlines with quick semicircular strokes. She found herself referring to the head itself less and less as the shape developed. It became easier simply to concentrate on memory than to try to copy the features directly. Each time she looked at it, something was different, a line had been misplaced, a proportion had shifted. Once, in her youth, she had suffered a severe eye problem which, for a time, terrified her that it might be permanent. She rubbed her eyes now, the old fear tingling in her chest, along the back of her scalp.

Berthe tossed the chalk aside and stood. Her back twinged. She limped around the studio. It was well after noon and she found herself ravenously hungry again. After she ate, she looked at her sketch.

The lines were a muddle, like a bad map, chalk marks hacked and scrawled across each other around the vague outline of a head. Only the shape of the eye sockets was clear.

The light now slanting through the windows came directly in, harsh and sharp. The front of the head was in shadow. The eyes -- empty sockets, she reminded herself -- did not look so blind now.

Berthe mounted another blank canvas and selected another piece of chalk.

Berthe dropped the pen and rubbed her fingers. The letter, half done, looked illegible.

"-- I cannot complete the commission. For some reason beyond my comprehension I am unable to see the subject through my medium. I regret that I must --"

I regret that I must...what?

"I regret, Eugene, that I must tell you I do not love you." She looked around, startled. But it was her own voice, within her own head, nothing more. Ancient memories. She had not thought of those days since before Eugene had died.

The hill was cold that day and they huddled close to keep warm. Neither had thought to bring a wrap, only canvases and paints and a basket with wine and bread. Eugene brought that, he always did, a sharp reminder of his romanticism. And again he brought up the subject of marriage, a sharp reminder of his hopelessness.

"How could I have said no?" Berthe asked. "He was so earnest..."

But there had always been his brother, Edouard, taller, more urbane, by far the talented one. Berthe wanted to believe that she had not married Eugene because she could not have Edouard. She saw Eugene as a victim. Everyone around him, those he most wanted to be like, trapped him into an unachievable ambition. Berthe always wished to emancipate him, but found no way to free someone from a self that disappointed. In time she saw that such freedom would only dissolve him.

"I am not young," she had said.

"Nor am I. But we are friends. And..."

And, of course. Always and. The hillside had been cold, but Eugene, reliable, mediocre Eugene, had brought wine and an offer of solace.

"Then perhaps yes."

Berthe wiped at her cheeks as if expecting to find tears. Her skin was dry. She looked at the letter and slowly crumpled it.

SHE PROPPED THE MIRROR where she could see it from her easel. "If art is a reflection of life," she mused while she worked, "then perhaps life is but a reflection of death. So I will paint a reflection of death." It made as little sense out loud as it did quietly conceived, but Berthe did not pause. She moved the table bearing the head against the edge of the table with the mirror, then turned the head to face into the mirror.

"Now I just wait for the light," she sighed, satisfied.

She sat down before her canvas. No sketch this time, she had decided. Her paints were ready, brushes stacked. Berthe adjusted herself for comfort and looked into the mirror.

She saw only her studio.

"Damn," she whispered, and got up. She adjusted the mirror and went back to her seat. The mirror reflected the edge of her easel. She leaned to the right and saw herself appear.

She stared at the head, then looked back into the mirror.

The light caught her forehead, the crests of her cheeks, the tip of her nose. Her hair, shadowed, seemed its original rich chestnut brown and for a moment Berthe felt as if she were gazing at a portrait of herself much younger. She rubbed her eyes and went around to shift the mirror again.

As she turned and looked down at the head, a cloud passed through the light, softening the harsh angles of the dead face. She could not imagine that this had ever been a handsome man. Compelling, certainly.

She sat down before her easel and looked into the mirror.

Empty.

She blew a harsh breath and glared at the head. "Damn you," she hissed, reached out, and, fingers pressed down on the top of its skull, turned it to face her. She jerked her fingers away and rubbed them. The head felt cold. Berthe chided herself. "The imagination is a dangerous pet," she said, flexed her fingers, and lifted a brush.

She painted methodically, stroke by stroke, shaping the head with absences. The shadows first, then the dark suggestions embedded in the shadows. Berthe hardly looked at the head, again finding it easier to work from snatches and memory than to try to peer closely at the object.

She completed the canvas as the last light of dusk faded. Her eyes burned and her back felt encased in stone. When she stood a hundred small pains crackled from her ankles up to her neck. She dropped the brush into the clay cup with the others.

The image was too dark now to appraise. She pressed her fingers into her kidneys, flexed gently. Her ears filled with a rush of blood. Let it wait till morning. She walked carefully to the kitchen.

Halfway through her dinner she realized that she had had no breakfast and no lunch. She ached from sitting rigidly before her easel all day.

She poured herself wine and went back to the studio. She stood in the doorway. On the opposite side, now shrouded in darkness, was a closet. Within she had stored all of Eugene's canvases, his sketchbooks, his easels. There were a few paintings they had even done together. Berthe had never allowed anyone to see them. She had always yearned for uniqueness, the recognition that she was her own self and not the shadow of another. The collaborations had been made in the same spirit as lovemaking -- privately, intimate revelations -- and, Berthe felt, their meaning would diminish from exhibition.

"Or are you just ashamed of him?"

Berthe frowned at the voice. Her own, tree, but when had she started speaking out loud to herself? She looked out over the rest of the night-hidden studio.

The mirror glowed. Beyond, the wide windows let in a pale blue light that delicately dusted corners and edges and flat surfaces, jumbling the shapes into an alien landscape. The light from the mirror, though, seemed bluer, a bit brighter, as if giving back more than it received. An illusion, Berthe thought, and smiled at the twinge of inspiration. She stepped into the studio and picked her way to the easel.

She set down the wine and removed the finished canvas, setting it off to the left. The blue light lifted the pattern of paint from its surface in meaningless swirls. Berthe began humming quietly to herself as she mounted a blank board to the easel. She took a drink, settled herself, and lifted a brush. She felt giddy, as a child embarking on some forbidden adventure.

When she gazed at the mirror it did not surprise her to see a face gaze back at her, clear and still, waiting with an expression of amused tolerance.

"I am ready," she said to the image. "Be patient. These things take time."

The paints had begun to dry, but Berthe managed. The dim rectangle seemed unreal, as if it were no surface at all but a window, and the colors, whatever they were, did not flow onto it so much as into it to hang suspended against the depths.

It surprised her how quickly the work proceeded. She sang to herself happily as she painted. Her glass was empty when she set the brush down. She grunted and slid from the stool, plucked the glass from the table, and went to the kitchen.

She moved from room to room of the house, her steps unerring, studying the walls and the furnishings in the monochrome illumination. The moon, she thought, must be enormous tonight. She saw everything with the kind of clarity still spring water lends to objects underneath it, slightly magnified and wetly still.

"I have lived here," she said and paused, frowning to herself. There ought to be more to that sentence, she thought, but it seemed complete enough. She had lived here, for thirty years. She and Eugene. She and her work. She and her children, her friends, her dreams. Clients, plans, creditors, colleagues, arguments, laughter, love...regret.

"I regret, Eugene, that I must tell you I do not love you."

"I know. But I love you and that is enough."

"Is it?"

He shrugged, looking perfectly foolish in his nightshirt, pale ankles much too thin to support all his immanent hope. "You may borrow some of mine from time to time."

And there was the bed in which, together, they had lent each other what they could of affection, companionship, intent, and, from time to time, passion. Berthe came to believe that she was for Eugene little more than a mirror in which he saw his own feelings reflected back. She had tried to give him what she could but perhaps, in the end, even that had not been necessary. What do mirrors actually have of their own? Perhaps she might have found out with Edouard.

But Edouard had been a prism through which light bent onto his canvases. Whose soul would she have been reflecting with him?

The mirror still glowed in the studio. She shrugged and returned to her easel. There was still time to do another before the light faded.

DAWN DROVE HER TO BED. She slept fitfully for a few hours, then awoke to the blazing light of midmorning, her eyes slitted in pain. She went to her parlor and took down the heavy velvet curtains and put them up over the windows in her studio. She used old canvases to fill in the cracks where sunlight found a way in and, satisfied with the thick quality of the darkness, she went back to the easel.

Berthe wondered briefly at the certainty of her technique as she mixed new colors in the dark. She had learned over time not to question too much. Use the moment when it comes, Cassatt had told her, liberate the image before it escapes you. Her early work, Degas had said, had always relied too much on the intellect. Observation must not be inextricably joined to analysis. Then, when her eyes had threatened to fail, she had taken the advice to heart and had learned how to respond first, then understand later. Still, it was all mirrors, and mirrors never satisfied.

The reflections in this mirror, though, never stayed still. She dipped her brushes, carried the pigments to the canvas, filled the vacant planes. A flicker, a shift, a change in the quality of illumination, all demanded a new canvas.

Her belly knotted finally and she went to the kitchen. It was night again. She found half a loaf of bread, the open end hardening. She broke it off and dipped it in wine and ate. As her hunger eased she stared out the window. She had bought this house, it had always remained hers even after she married Eugene. He had never asked that it be any different. It would not be anyway, she realized, since with his death it would have reverted to her after all.

"What was it you felt in me?" she asked.

She drew a deep breath, luxuriating in the sensation. She had not worked this hard, this intently for years. With Eugene's death the desire had all but vanished.

"I did not love you, but I miss you..."

"It is enough."

Berthe turned, peering into the darkness of the studio. The only light came from the mirror. More....? I am tired.

More.

Berthe opened her eyes slowly to the pounding on the door. She gazed up at the warmly lit ceiling of her bedroom, sleepily fascinated by the richness of color and the restful shifting of shadow from the trees outside her window. The pounding stopped and started again.

She rolled over. The myriad aches had melded into one general agony. Her head throbbed. She squinted at the window. A light breeze made the curtains dance gracefully.

Voices drifted up from below the window. Berthe sighed heavily and rubbed her eyes. The window was closer than the door, she decided, and pushed herself to her feet.

"Madame Morisot!"

Berthe leaned from the window and stared down at two men. One was broad-shouldered and dressed in workman's clothes with a worn, shapeless cap on his head, the other was a bit taller, distinguished, with a beard, dressed in a brown suit. Both men looked familiar, but for different reasons.

"Yes?" she said.

"Are you all right?" the distinguished man asked.

"Yes, yes, quite..." Then she recognized them. Francois delivered her foods from the market. She smiled at him "I'll be right down. Forgive me, I've overslept."

Berthe pulled on her robe, embarrassed then. They must, she thought, think I'm mad, leaning out the window like that. What time was it, anyway? Wincing at each step, she descended the stairs to the kitchen. Her legs threatened to cramp, as if on the previous day she had walked twenty miles. She pulled open the door and Francois looked immediately relieved. He came in with a box and went straight to her pantry.

"Monsieur," she said to the other gentleman.

"We grew concerned," he said. "Are you well?"

"I don't know...I have just...I am not quite awake yet, Monsieur. Forgive me..."

"Not at all, forgive me. I hope I have not interrupted...?"

Francois went out and returned with another box. As he passed her Berthe saw a bunch of grapes and snatched them out. Francois did not seem to notice and continued to the ice box.

"I am afraid, Monsieur, I was unable to fulfill your request," she said around a mouthful.

He blinked, but otherwise his expression did not change.

"I expected word sooner, I admit," he said finally, "that you could not. But as the days passed I began to hope. May I see what you have?"

For a moment Berthe felt an intense urgency to refuse. Puzzled, she stood there eating her grapes, worrying at her feelings, until Francois cleared his throat.

"Should I bring more, Madame Morisot?" he asked when she looked at him. "You've eaten everything here."

"Is there enough wine?" she asked.

"Well, as much as you usually need for a week..." Francois seemed uneasy, embarrassed.

"If I need more I'll send for it, Francois. Thank you." She went to the cabinet where she kept her market money and counted out his payment, then added a couple livres.

Francois thanked her and backed out of the door. Berthe headed matter-of-factly toward the studio.

"Come, Monsieur."

Berthe stopped three steps into the studio. It was still dark, only the light from the hallway showing her a vague path through the stacked canvases.

"Goodness," he said.

She picked her way to the window and threw open the curtains. Light flooded the space, momentarily blinding her. She turned away, fingers to her eyes until they adjusted.

Across the room he stood near the door, his own eyes wide with a powerfully checked astonishment. They were very clear, very pale, and she remembered then that she had wished to paint him.

Between them the studio was cluttered with canvases. One remained on her easel, but dozens filled the countertops, the desks, propped on the floor against table legs, walls, in the chairs and against stools. Berthe started counting them, stopped at thirty-three, and searched for the head.

"Ah," she said, realizing that the mirror blocked her view of it. She went around the opposite side of the easel, stepping over finished work stacked carelessly on the floor. How many had she done? Her fingers ached dully.

She stopped before the easel. On the board mounted there dark blues and greens whorled around a bold head, high brow below thick black hair that fell in a braid that draped over the right shoulder. Proud eyes stared out at the world from above high cheekbones. Bearded, strong, and somehow very old. A silver ring depended from his right ear. The entire effect was of imminent dynamism, as if he were about to leave the studio to tend to the conquest of a city or a country.

"I don't remember..." she began, then looked around at the other canvases. Men and women, different ages, different colors, different eras. Large panels and small cameo size works littered the studio. Many were plain people, unexceptional except for the antiquity of their clothes or the evident foreignness of their race or culture. A small clutch of them were more modern.

Her workplace was a wreck of used material. The remnants of paint and brushes, broken charcoals, rags piled on rags, attested to the quantity of work produced.

The mirror stood where it had since -- when?

"What day is this, Monsieur?"

"Wednesday"

"The date?"

"The fifth, Madame."

"Ah."

"When I did not hear from you after six days I became concerned."

"Yes, of course."

"Eh...where is the head?"

"Right there--"

She pointed to an empty space before the mirror.

The gentleman touched the countertop and dusted his fingers through a thick layer of chalky residue. He looked at the mirror, then inquiringly at Berthe.

She shook her head, dismayed, and looked about at the stacks of canvases. "I could not see it clearly, so..."

"You painted its reflection," he said, nodding. "Of course. Sensible." He waved at the paintings. "And these?" When Berthe did not reply, he nodded again. "Vlad Tsepes was an individual of many parts. Not a simple subject."

"I apologize, Monsieur."

"May I ask for what?"

"I...did not produce what you requested."

"On the contrary. These are quite satisfactory."

Berthe saw him study the paintings, recognized the intent expression of someone who understands the work, feels the innate quality and power. She wanted to argue, wanted, above all, an explanation, but she did not wish to disturb his pleasure.

Suddenly he went directly to one small portrait and lifted it with his fingertips. "This one...we were friends, long ago. He was the first I knew of that had been taken. I had forgotten..." He looked up, eyes moist, and nodded. "All of them must be his victims." He set the painting down and turned away from her for a moment. "It is more than I expected," he said finally. He looked up. "Now, the matter of payment."

"For what, Monsieur?"

"For all of them." He waved at the portraits cluttering the studio.

"Are you serious?"

He nodded.

Berthe shook her head. She named a price and wondered immediately what she had said.

"Oh, no, that is much too low. I will write a draft for what I believe is appropriate."

"As you wish..."

She began gathering the paintings, stacking them according to size. After a time she thought she recognized the look they all shared in common. Relief. She had seen it only a few times in her life, and in each instance it had been Eugene who had shown it to her. Once when she had agreed to marry him, again when she actually gave her vows. And again the hour of his death, though then it had been overshadowed by weariness. In each portrait she saw that same expression, over and over, the look of someone who has been laboring in an impossible task that is now complete.

When she turned she saw it again in her client's face. He seemed now so relieved that for a moment she did not know him. He gave her a bank draft, drawn on a Dutch bank, and smiled.

At the end of the day he had hired a wagon and workmen to load the collection. He paid them and gave them instructions where to take the cargo.

"Thank you, Madame. You have exceeded my expectations." He hesitated, then asked. "Do you wish still to paint me?"

Berthe looked up and saw him reflected in the mirror. His eyes were in shadow, but there were highlights within, faint and disappointing.

"Yes, I would. But it does not have to be at once."

"Then I will take my leave. I shall come when you request me."

She nodded absently and he withdrew. Gazing into the now blank mirror she knew that she would not paint him. He did not need liberating anymore.

Her fingers twinged. She went to the door and saw his carriage moving off down the street. Dusk was coming. She went to the kitchen and ate some beef, drank some wine, slowly, watching the light grow dim.

Berthe stood in the midst of her studio. The canvases gone, it seemed much too large. She walked around the desks and counters, circling her easel. She stopped and looked down.

Below the easel stood one more canvas. She frowned. He had forgotten one. She sighed impatiently and stooped to pick it up. Her back ached dully as she lifted it to the table.

"Oh."

It was her original charcoal sketch of the head, made the first day. The lines smeared and darted, a confusing mass of conflicting intentions around two blank areas where the eyes ought to be. Just as well it was left behind.

She brushed off the thick dust from the counter and propped it up. A senseless map. The mirror caught her eye and, smiling, she turned the canvas to face it. By the time she had it positioned properly, evening stole the last of the light.

She could start in the morning. She made her way to the door.

Glancing back, she saw her windows, deep blue, and, in the center of the studio, the mirror glowed.

"Oh," she said, "just one more, then."

Berthe returned to her easel and lifted a brush. "Of course, you were once a victim, too."

~~~~~~~~

By Mark W. Tiedemann

This fantasy was inspired by a painting (bearing this same title) of a young woman gazing at her self--off, center--in a mirror. The painter, Berthe Morisot, was one of the Impressionists, and she was indeed married to the brother of the painter Manet. From these starting points, Mark Tiedemann has leapt into the fantastic and the results are an interesting meditation on the nature of seeing, and on the nature of the soul.

THE MIRACLE

WHEN THE SHORT, WIRY bush burst into flame less than ten feet in front of him, Greg Murry shouted "Holy Moses!" and leaped back in surprise. His involuntary reaction didn't take him very far; he'd just panted and puffed his way up Pilan Hill's two-mile jogging trail and he was exhausted. He took another couple of steps backward, stumbling on a jagged rock in the trail, and looked around sheepishly to see who had set him up for the practical joke.

He was alone on the hilltop. Long stalks of green grass waved in the faint breeze wafting up the west slope, and a couple of turkey vultures circled overhead, but that was the only sign of life or motion anywhere nearby. The grass wasn't tall enough to hide anybody, and the nearest trees were a hundred yards downslope.

The bush, growing from a cleft in the rock outcrop at the very top of the hill, crackled and spat sparks. It was about thigh-high, and scraggly looking. Windswept. Greg had no idea what kind it was. In the evening light the flames in its branches looked blue-hot, like a gas burner. There was no smoke, but a peculiar smell bit Greg's nose when he sniffed. A chemical smell. He took a cautious step toward the fire, wondering if somebody had left a camp stove whose fuel tank had burst in the sunlight, but he couldn't see any evidence of it. No sign of charcoal or ashes from a picnicker who hadn't put out his fire, either. Just the rock and the burning bush.

Yeah, right. A burning bush. Any minute now he'd hear a thunderous voice telling him to fall on his knees, and then a couple of stone tablets with the Federal Penal Code engraved on them would fall out of the sky. Greg didn't buy it. This was far more likely a fraternity prank, or even his roommates having fun at his expense. He looked around again to see if he could spot the idiots who were playing with matches and gasoline, but they must have had a remote igniter or something because the hilltop truly was empty.

The bush was burning, though, and Greg didn't have anything to put it out with. He'd taken a long drink from his water bottle before he'd started his hike, but he'd left the bottle in the car as he always did, counting on the drink to hold him until he got back. He'd left his T-shirt in the car, too, so he couldn't beat the flames out with that. He supposed he could try doing it with his cutoffs, but he'd just as likely catch them on fire and then have to run back down for help in his undies.

No, he would have to stamp it out, but to do that he'd have to wait until it burned down some. If he tried it now he'd singe off all his leg hair for sure, and probably melt his running shoes as well.

The leaves seemed to be lasting an awfully long time for such a bright blaze. Greg squinted, looking into the glare, and thought he could still see a green tinge to them. They weren't even curling. He held out a hand, but felt no heat. When a spark jumped out and hit his knuckle he felt that, though. It burned like crazy until he stuck it in his mouth.

Warily watching for more sparks, he backed off and waited for the fire to burn itself out. He was glad the grass was still green from spring rains; if it had been dry, the whole hill would have been ablaze by now.

It took a couple of minutes, but at last the flickering flames died down. Greg approached the bush cautiously, a little bit spooked by the whole business. The hair on his arms was standing up, and it felt like the hair on his head was, too.

The leaves hadn't burned, nor had any of the twigs. The bush looked as healthy as ever. Greg spent a long moment trying to decide if he was still agnostic. He'd always said it would take an unambiguous sign from God to make him a believer, but he wasn't sure if this was it. There could be a perfectly natural explanation for what he'd witnessed, though he had no idea what that explanation could be.

"Well?" he asked, figuring he'd give the Deity a chance to clarify His meaning, figuring also that one word couldn't be used against him very wall if this was a practical joke and someone was recording him. But nobody responded either way. At last he said, "You'll have to do better than that," and raised his foot to crush out whatever flames might remain.

He stopped with his shoe still upraised. He didn't want to stomp on a perfectly good bush, especially the one growing at the very top of the hill, but the damned thing had been burning just a minute ago; he couldn't very well just leave it. He pondered his dilemma for another minute or so while his pulse returned to normal, but as his muscles relaxed again he realized he did have another option. That big drink of water he'd taken at the bottom of the trail hadn't all sweated away...

Grinning mischievously at the thought of peeing within sight of anybody who might be looking at the hill, he unzipped his shorts, took aim, and let go.

The flash of light when the stream of urine hit the ground at the base of the bush was like a strobe going off. Greg heard a pow! like a firecracker exploding, and felt every muscle in his body twitch in a single convulsion that sent him a couple feet into the air and six feet back, to land sprawling on his butt in the dirt path.

His entire groin felt as if he'd been kicked there, but his left thigh hurt even worse. When he sat up and ran a hand over it, his fingers came away red with blood. He'd landed on a sharp rock. Standing up, he zipped his shorts again and bent around to look at the wound. It wasn't pulsing, but it bled freely from a shallow cut about an inch long.

The bush stood mutely ignoring him, normal as could be. "To hell with you," Greg muttered, and limped back down the trail toward his car.

When he got home just before dinner, his blood-soaked T-shirt tied around his leg, his three roommates crowded around the bathroom to hear his story while he cleaned himself up. He stuck to the facts; weird as they were, there seemed no point in embellishing anything. Even so, he didn't expect anyone to believe him, so he wasn't disappointed when his account of the burning bush that hadn't burned and how it had somehow thrown him backward drew derisive laughter from Dan and Tom.

Brian didn't laugh. Normally Brian was an overbearing pain in the ass and Greg had expected him to lead the assault, but this time he stood in the doorway quietly shaking his head until the laughter died down and then said in a level voice, "You got a direct sign from God and then you pissed on it? You're lucky you got away with your life."

When the laughter quieted a second time, Greg turned toward him with a blood-stained washcloth in his hand and said, "I thought of that. I thought about a lot of things while I was walking back down to my car and bleeding all over myself, but I don't think God had a whole lot to do with it. I mean, it was just this bush flickering blue and yellow and throwing off sparks. No voice or anything. Wouldn't there have been a voice if it was God ?"

Dan and Tom laughed again, but whether at Brian's discomfiture or Greg's earnest reply Greg couldn't tell. He said, "Hey, you guys weren't there. It was strange as hell. Anybody would have considered the possibility, but there just wasn't any proof."

"No proof?" Brian's voice echoed in the bathroom. "A burning bush that isn't consumed isn't proof?"

Dan said, "We've got no proof anything happened, when it comes to that. Greg goes jogging and comes back with an owie and a silly story. Maybe he's putting us on, eh?"

"I saw the damned thing," Greg growled at him. "And it zapped me when I tried to make sure it was out. I don't know what the hell it was, but neither do you. Or you," he said to Brian.

There was an uncomfortable silence, then Dan said, "Okay, so tomorrow we go have a look."

When the four roommates jogged onto the rounded top of the hill the following afternoon, they found the bush already afire, crackling and glowing even more powerfully than the day before. Sheets of blue flame danced in its branches, and glowing fireballs swooped away in the breeze.

"Holy shit," Dan said.

"Wow," said Brian in an awe-stricken whisper.

"Told you so," said Greg.

They stopped a dozen feet or so away and watched the bush crackle and spit sparks.

"It's not fire," Tom pointed out. "It looks more like some kind of electrical discharge."

"Smells like it, too," Dan said. "Isn't that ozone?"

Tom nodded. "Static electricity used to build up on sailing ships and sparks would shoot from the masts and stuff. They used to call it Saint Elmo's Fire."

"This isn't a sailing ship," Brian said. "It's a sign from God."

Doug and Tom -- and even Greg now that he had some support--chuckled at Brian's earnestness, but their laughter died pretty quickly. Everyone just stood there in a tight pack before the bush, waiting to see what would happen next. For a group of college guys around a fire, they were awfully quiet.

The flame -- or static discharge, or whatever it was -- began dying down. At last Tom, a botany student, stepped closer and peered into the crackling blue aurora. "I think it's a wild huckleberry," he said.

"Often noted for spontaneous combustion," Dan said in a mock-instructor voice.

"Not a hawthorn?" Brian asked wistfully.

"Sorry." Tom had longer hair than the others; wisps of it drifted upward as he stood by the bush. The mysterious fire was going out, though, and his hair began to lie flat again. The bush flickered for another minute or so, growing gradually dimmer until the flames could no longer be seen. Tom crouched down and reached out gingerly to touch it, but Brian said, "Don't!"

"Why not?"

"It's...not right."

"Oh, come on." Tom steadied himself with one hand against the rock, and yelped when his fingers touched the ground. "I definitely got a shock there," he said. His hair stuck out again.

"God doesn't want you to --"

"God doesn't give a shit," Tom said, and he grasped the bush with his other hand.

Nothing happened.

Greg let out a sigh. He'd been glad to have his story proven true, but he didn't want anybody to get hurt over it. "So what do you suppose is going on here.7" he asked.

Tom looked up at the sky. It was mostly blue, with just a few puffy clouds off near the horizon. "Well, if we were in lightning territory I'd say there was a big static buildup here, but since we get maybe two thunderstorms a year in this part of the country, I don't think that's very likely."

"This isn't very likely," Dan pointed out.

"True. And it's got to be something like that. I think those sparks we were seeing were ball lightning."

Dan was a geology student. He said, "You get ball lightning from earthquakes sometimes."

Tom nodded. "Yeah, but we haven't had an earthquake around here in years."

"Not true," Dan said. "We get little ones all the time. We had one three days ago, in fact; one-point-six on the Richter scale. That's barely big enough to feel, but it might still be enough to generate ball lightning."

"But we got some just now," Tom pointed out. "And Greg got some yesterday, too. So unless we're getting a whole string of little quakes timed perfectly for our amusement -- I don't think that's it." He let go of the bush and stood up. "I think it's regular static electricity. When I got zapped, it was because my tennis shoes were insulating me from the ground. I didn't have a charge until I touched the rock with my hand, but then I did and that's why I didn't get shocked when I touched the bush. I was already charged up. Probably still am. Anybody want to test the theory?" He reached out toward Dan.

Carefully, like the alien and the kid in the movie ET, Tom and Dan stretched out their index fingers toward one another. When they were a quarter of an inch or so apart, a spark leaped between them and Dan jerked his hand back.

"Hah," Tom said. "Static electricity."

"That doesn't mean God isn't behind it," Brian said defiantly.

"God is a generator" Greg asked.

"Maybe a big battery," Dan said.

"Or a crashed UFO buried in the hill," Tom said, "with its nuclear reactor still going."

"Get real," Brian demanded, but he Was drowned out in the laughter as his relieved roommates speculated on the nature of God.

All the way back down the hill, they tried to top each other. "The mother of all Van de Graaf generators," one would say, and someone else would say, "Cats. Hundreds of cats rubbing up against glass rods."

BUT GOD, it turned out, was a burning bush. Or so claimed the horde of pilgrims who crowded the top of Pilan Hill the next day. Brian, of course, was at the head of the throng, and his picture made the front page of the newspaper that evening. Greg's name wasn't even mentioned, though Brian swore he'd told the reporters who had really made the discovery.

On the TV news that night, dozens of people claimed to have heard God speaking from the bush, commanding them to preach his gospel or warning that homosexuality was going to make everyone burn in Hell, even giving one woman what she claimed were sure to be winning lottery numbers. A priest and a rabbi were more cautious about declaring it a miracle, but they only got a few seconds of air time. The zealots made better press.

During the news broadcast, Dan and Tom started calling Greg "Moses," and kidding him about tablets. He went to bed early.

Greg's physics instructor, Dr. Richards, mentioned the phenomenon in class the next day, saying he was sure there was a perfectly rational reason for whatever was going on up there-- if indeed anything was going on at all -- which prompted Greg to give his account of what had happened to him. He told about going up the next day and how Tom had decided that it was static electricity.

"Theorized," Dr. Richards said. "Your friend was unable to decide anything, based on the evidence you've presented, but his theory is certainly sound. A little testing should either confirm or disprove it."

He arranged to hike up to see the mysterious bush that afternoon with Greg, but as they drove toward Pilan Park with their bag full of instruments in the trunk of Greg's car, they discovered a throng of people completely surrounding the hill, crawling over it like ants on an antpile that had just been kicked. At the top of it, clearly visible even without binoculars, pulsed a flickering blue aurora at least ten feet high.

"It seems to have grown in intensity as well as popularity," Dr. Richards remarked as Greg drove slowly through the packed parking lot.

"I wonder if all the extra people have anything to do with it?" Greg asked. "It was bigger the second time, when there were four of us, than it was the first time with just me."

"Possibly," Dr. Richards said. "That's something to consider, but it could simply be growing in intensity for some other reason."

Greg had to stop while a line of white-robed Krishnas or some such people crossed the road in front of the car. All but the first one had their eyes closed and were holding onto the waist of the person in front of them. "It went out, though," Greg said. "Both times, the...whatever it was went out after a couple of minutes."

"It doesn't appear to be doing so now," Dr. Richards said, peering through the throng toward the top of the hill.

"We'll never make it up there," Greg said. "Not through this kind of a crowd."

A TV reporter had been standing beside the right front fender of the car, trying to get one of the white robed people to say something for the camera, but they ignored her. Frustrated, she turned around, looking for a better interview prospect. With a what-the-hell sort of shrug, Dr. Richards said, "I think I can get us a free ride. Hang on." He opened the door and stepped out beside the reporter. "Excuse me," he said. "I'm Dr. Richards from the university physics department. You wouldn't happen to have a helicopter, would you?"

She didn't, it turned out, but when word circulated among the other reporters that a physics professor wanted a ride to the top, one of the stations that did have one volunteered to ferry him up there. Within an hour Dr. Richards, Greg, two cameramen, and two reporters -- one of them the woman they'd met first -- were hanging on for dear life as the helicopter pilot hovered over a level spot on one of the hill's upper flanks, trying to clear a spot to land. Flying dirt from the rotor-wash finally accomplished the job, and he set down long enough for everyone to climb out. Greg grabbed the backpack full of equipment they had brought from the university. The two cameramen walked backward in front of the reporters and Dr. Richards, clearing a path by refusing to acknowledge that anyone might be in their way, and in that fashion they made it to the top of the hill..

Two men and a woman, all three dressed impeccably in powder blue tailored suits and wearing enough gold jewelry to set off an airport security alarm, waited for them a few yards from the bush, which crackled and spit sparks fifteen feet into the sky. They each carried a bible open to the early pages; they'd evidently been reading aloud or giving a fire-and-brimstone sermon on Old Testament law until the helicopter disturbed them. Whichever, they had obviously set themselves up as figures of authority, either trying to cash in for themselves or else holding down the fort until Falwell or Robertson or one of the big players showed up. Brian was there, too, but he was three or four rows back among the common rabble. Evidently his stock had dropped when the preachers showed up.

Greg snickered when he saw them. "The father, the son, and the holy ghost?" he whispered to Dr. Richards.

The physics professor laughed. That seemed to be the signal the triumvirate was waiting for; the woman stepped forward and said, "Who are you?" They could hear her clearly even though there must have been thousands of people on the hilltop. Everyone was listening to hear the inevitable confrontation.

Dr. Richards said, "We came to see if we could figure out what was causing this."

"The Lord is causing it," one of the men replied, putting as much thunder in his voice as he could manage.

Dr. Richards grinned. "In that case, we'll find out how He's doing it. Greg, the electroscope, please."

Greg reached into the pack and brought out the glass ball with the metal rod piercing its side. Inside the sphere, a thin gold leaf stood out at right angles from the rigid plate at the end of the rod. Dr. Richards took it from Greg, turned to the cameras, and said, "An electroscope detects the presence of a static electrical charge. The farther out the gold leaf extends, the greater the charge. As you can see, we're in the presence of quite a charge indeed."

The woman pushed into camera range. "You have no power here!" she shouted. "This is holy ground."

"It's a public park," Dr. Richards said. "And it looks to me like there's plenty of power here for all of us." To Greg he said, "How about the grounding wire?"

Greg took the coil of 10-gauge house wiring out of the pack. They'd only brought fifteen feet of it, not expecting nearly as big a display as now flickered and spat before them, but Dr. Richards took it from him and uncoiled it anyway. It was stiff material; it had three thick conductors shrouded in heavy insulation and it would stick out about three feet before it bent under its own weight. He held one end as high as he could over his head, and extended the other end toward the bush.

"Don't!" all three of the bible-thumpers shouted, and about half the crowd echoed them.

Dr. Richards ignored them all. "Stand back," he warned. "This shouldn't be dangerous, but you never know." And with those words, he stuck the lower end of the wire into the ground at the base of the flickering, spark-spitting bush.

The display immediately went out, to reappear at the top of the conductor, a glowing spherical corona discharge three feet over the professor's upraised hand. Coming from a wire, the blue glow and flying sparks seemed almost normal.

Looking just a little like Thor, the god of thunder, Dr. Richards turned to face the cameras again and said, "There you have it. Definitely an electrical discharge."

The bible-thumpers, sensing that they were about to lose their hold on things, shouted, "These people are blasphemers! Stop them from desecrating the Lord's holy work!"

Not everyone in the crowd was a religious fanatic, but enough of them were. Roaring like a football audience when the home team scores a touchdown, they surged forward, the people in the rear pushing over the ones in front who didn't get out of the way. The woman preacher lunged for Dr. Richards, but he lowered the upraised end of the wire and forced her back with a shower of sparks. Greg and the reporters moved in closer to him while the two camera operators stood back to back like two besieged cavalrymen in Indian country and aimed their cameras at the crowd.

The preachers tried a simultaneous assault, and this time Dr. Richards let them have a direct zap from the tip of the wire. He didn't even have to touch them; as soon as they drew close, an enormous arc leaped from wire to preachers, connecting all three in a momentary circuit that blew them backwards, their hair sticking straight outward and sparks dancing on their gold jewelry.

The flying preachers crashed into the people behind them, slowing their advance, but the crowd on the other side was still coming. "Behind you!" Greg yelled, and Dr. Richards swung around with the wire, spraying sparks and lightning bolts like water from a fire hose. The fortunate leaped back before the electricity hit them; the less so flew backward involuntarily when the current jolted their leg muscles.

Shouts of anger turned to shouts of dismay. Dr. Richards circled around and around, but even so, the pressure from behind as more people rushed the top of the hill kept forcing people into the path of the discharge. Greg expected to be overrun and crushed any minute now, like the soccer fans in Liverpool who'd been caught against a fence during a riot, but as the crowd thickened, their electrical contact with one another allowed the jolts to spread through the entire throng, and the ones in back began to turn away.

Also, the discharge seemed to be growing stronger. Now lightning sprayed out six or seven feet from the end of the wire, and grapefruit-sized balls of plasma broke free and drifted like balloons over the heads of the crowd. Occasionally one would descend and burst with a clap of thunder, sending another wave of static electricity coursing through the tangle of bodies.

Eventually the tide turned, and the angry mob of religious pilgrims became a fleeing horde of terrified refugees. The ground rumbled with their retreat as they fled down the flanks of the hill, careening into one another and screaming for God to save them.

"Looks like God's on the side of science for a change," Greg said, but then he looked up at Dr. Richards and realized he'd spoken too soon. The entire length of wire was glowing blue, and the discharge at its tip continued to grow.

"It's getting kind of warm," the professor said nervously.

"Can't you let go?" Greg asked.

"Not without getting zapped myself when the circuit breaks. And you guys will get it too if you don't move clear."

The reporters and camera crew backed away a few dozen feet, but Greg stayed put. He took off his T-shirt and wadded it up for Dr. Richards to use as a hot-pad, and helped support his tiring upstretched arm.

Greg hoped the camera guys were getting this. He and the professor looked impressive as hell, a little like the famous statue of the marines raising the flag atop Mount Suribachi on Iwo Jima.

"It's starting to fade," one of the reporters said after a minute or so, and sure enough, in another minute the discharge had dwindled to a faint glow and an occasional spark at the tip of the wire. Dr. Richards nodded to Greg, who backed away, and then he tossed the wire aside and stepped backward himself.

Deprived of its lightning rod, the bush flickered a couple of times, like a guttering candle, then quieted again.

The hilltop still buzzed with the shouts of the angry, confused mob, which had come to a halt a quarter mile or so below. The shouts grew louder when people realized that the discharge had stopped, and the leading edge began moving back uphill.

"Uh-oh," Greg said.

"Quick, jump up and down!" Dr. Richards said. Without waiting for anyone else to start, he began hopping up and down like a kid on a pogo stick. His feet slapped the ground with each jump. Greg and the reporters stared at him as if he'd just lost his mind, but when the bush burst forth with another shower of sparks a few seconds later, they all began leaping and hopping like maniacs.

They were still hopping, and the bush was still crackling wildly, when the news helicopter came to rescue them a few minutes later.

"It's the piezoelectric effect," Dr. Richards said. He was standing before one of the student workbenches in his teaching lab, reporters and camera crews from dozens of papers and TV stations surrounding him. On the table stood a screw vise with a finger-size crystal in its jaws, and a wire running from the top of the crystal up to a heavy iron ring stand. An insulated clamp held the wire so its tip was a half inch or so from the metal.

"When you squeeze a quartz crystal," Dr. Richards said, turning the handle of the vise, "it generates electricity." Sure enough, a spark leaped from the wire to the iron stand. "And if you vibrate it, you get a pulse of current each time the crystal flexes." Dr. Richards wiggled the handle back and forth, and the spark popped each time.

"How does that account for what we saw on the hilltop today?" the woman reporter who had been there asked.

Dr. Richards said, "Quartz is one of the most common elements in rock. It occurs naturally in large crystals, sometimes huge crystals inside cooling volcanos, which is what all these hills around here once were. It's very likely there's a big quartz deposit inside Pilan Hill, one which resonates to the vibrations of people jogging or even just milling around on the surface."

Another reporter asked, "But why now? That hill's been there for millions of years, and nobody has ever seen it do this before."

"Thousands," Dr. Richards said with a grin. "Volcanos are relatively young, geologically speaking. But even so, that's a fair question, and the only answer I can give would have to be pure speculation, at least until we investigate further. What I expect happened, though, was that the minor earthquake we had a few days ago rearranged things inside the hill. Greg's footsteps as he jogged up the trail set up a resonant vibration that started the display, as did the footsteps of all the people coming and going later on. That would explain why it became so much stronger when the crowd became more, ah, agitated."

A different reporter, a man wearing a powder-blue suit, Greg noticed, asked, "Don't you think that explaining it in such cold, hard terms destroys the beauty of it? If what you say is true and it is just a pizza-whatever effect, that ruins the mystery of it for all those thousands of people who gained spiritual enlightenment from it, don't you think?"

"Wait a minute," Dr. Richards said. "You're saying people can gain enlightenment from ignorance. Are you sure you want to go on record saying that? You'd rather have people worshipping a static spark than understanding what caused it?"

"That's not what I--" the reporter said, but the laughter from everyone else drowned him out.

"The beauty lies in understandings" Dr. Richards said when the room quieted down. He wiggled the crank on the vise a few more times, and tiny sparks shot out of the wire.

That became the sound bite on the evening news all over the country. It made Dr. Richards a celebrity for a few days, but then an airplane crashed into Dodgers' Stadium and that put an end to his time in the spotlight. Locally the hill stayed in the news a bit longer while the park service and various citizens' groups argued over what to do with it, but then election season came along and the press turned back to muckraking. Eventually the park service installed a wooden barricade around the hilltop and warning signs along the trail, then reopened it to the public. Fraternities took to holding parties on the hill at night, drumming and dancing until the aurora lit the entire hilltop. A few religious people and Flat-Earthers stubbornly came to worship the burning bush, but they seldom stayed long.

Greg avoided the hill completely for months, but he never found another jogging trail he liked as well, so one afternoon he finally decided to try Pilan Hill again. It wasn't as bad as he'd expected. He had to dodge a few people on the trail, but not so many that he had to break stride. And when he neared the top, he caught himself straining to see if his footsteps had charged up the bush yet. Experimentation had proven that only the top few hundred feet had any effect, but the exact boundaries changed constantly with humidity and air pressure and a dozen other variables.

A man stood before the barricade, holding a small child in his arms. The man had evidently tired of stamping his feet. He smiled when he saw Greg coming, then he turned with the child and pointed at the bush. "Watch," he said. "Watch the sparks fly."

~~~~~~~~

By Jerry Oltion

'Tis the season for miracles. This month, instead of decking the halls with a Christmas story, we thought instead we'd bring you one mildly irreverant, thoroughly science-fictional look at a miracle, courtesy of Mr. Oltion. Jerry notes that the Oregon hill which inspired this story actually does have a very rare crystal deposit on it--evidently it's one of only two places on Earth where such can be found. The other place is...of course...in the Middle East.

FAERIE STORM

FOR MOST OF HIS LIFE AERYK Severance had been looking for the doorway into Faerie. He knew it was there. He had known ever since the day of his mother's funeral, when he was five years old. First Mary Pratt had told him--Mary Pratt, his fellow searcher and his guide, who at six was pretty even then, and who in later years would be his lover. And then his murdered mother had come to tell him it was true. Ever since that day he'd searched, and in his searching's he'd learned one thing for sure: somehow the doorway was linked to music, and to madness, and to love. Mary Pratt became his guide because of all the people he had known, she was perhaps most closely linked to all three.

Mary Pratt had told him to expect a visit from his mother. She told him at the funeral. He was standing by the grave when he saw her first. It was raining, a cold drizzle that misted the surface of the coffin and seeped under the collar of his shirt. The minister was speaking of eternal rest and dust and peace; he spoke of a bloody sacrifice on a wooden cross, and of God's love. Aeryk tried to understand it, but it was so hard. He was only five, after all.

His father's hand gripped his shoulder so tightly that it hurt, but Aeryk didn't complain. His father had always been that way, as long as he could remember: a presence at his back, unseen, made real by pain. He was often gone until after dark, working at that blocky brown building Aeryk had been in only once, working with papers and pens, providing for the family. Aeryk could almost pretend his father didn't exist, except it was his father who did the spanking, whenever he or Bobby had been bad (like the time that Aeryk had poured his grape juice in the bedroom wastebasket, or the time that Bobby had broken the crystal dove in the living room, but they'd blamed it on Aeryk)--three quick sharp blows, never more, and then stiff hands lifting him to his feet, and his father telling him not to cry, that men didn't cry.

But the pain now was almost comforting: it gave him something to focus on, something steady and solid and real. He concentrated on that pain while they lowered the damp black coffin into the pit. He concentrated on the pain when his imagination told him that Mommy wasn't in the pit at all; she was at home, waiting for them; she was making spaghetti, because she knew that Aeryk liked to eat spaghetti on cold, rainy days.

And then he saw Mary, who was spreading out a picnic, by a gravestone, in the rain. He saw her pour two glasses of milk, and put one on the picnic blanket, and drink the other in one long gulp. Then she laughed and said something to the gravestone, and she stroked it with her fingers in the way his mother used to stroke his face.

At last, when the thunk, thunk, thunk of piling dirt became less echoey, Aeryk slipped out of his father's grip and left the grim wet gathering to ask this girl what she was doing. She looked up when he approached, and she offered him, silently, a scone. He saw that it was wet, and shook his head.

She told him her name and suggested that he sit, but Aeryk shook his head again.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

She smiled. "I'm having lunch with my Daddy."

Aeryk looked at the gravestone. "Your Daddy's dead," he said.

She took a bite from the scone that she had offered him. "There were these two men," she said around the mouthful. "One was Chinese, the other American. They went to a cemetery together, to visit their mothers' graves. The American had a bunch of flowers, and the Chinese guy had a picnic basket. The American put the flowers on his mother's grave, then went to see what the Chinese guy was doing. The Chinese guy was spreading out a big picnic on his mother's grave. `Do you really think your mother is going to come up and eat that?" said the American. The Chinese guy smiled and looked at the American. You know what he said? 'She will eat this meal at the same time that your mother rises from the dead to sniff your flowers.'" Mary took another bite from the scone. She chewed for a moment, staring at the gravestone. "My Daddy never did like flowers."

Aeryk shook his head. "You're weird."

Mary looked at him. "That your mother they're burying?" she asked.

Aeryk nodded.

"Don't worry," she said. "She'll come back and talk to you. My Daddy did."

"Don't be stupid."

"I'm not stupid. Mommies and Daddies who still have little kids don't go to heaven when they die. Heaven's too far away. They go to Faerie, which is closer, so that they can keep an eye on you. There are doorways between here and Faerie, so sometimes they can even come and visit. Then, when you're grown up, they go to heaven."

"Who told you that?"

"My Daddy did, before he died, so I know it's true."

But Aeryk felt a lump in his throat, and a hot pulse behind his eyes, and he remembered his Mommy lying in the hospital bed with the broken mouth and the gauze and the big dark bruises around her eyes, and he remembered her pale hand--how he had squeezed it and squeezed it, willing her to squeeze him back. She hadn't been able to speak to him. She hadn't been able to say a word. "You are stupid," he said, and he turned and ran away.

He drove home in a rented limousine, sitting in the back with his father and his little brother Bobby, who was four. Bobby kept on opening and closing the ashtray in the door. His father stared straight ahead, his face expressionless except for a twitching in the eyes. The car smelled of leather. Outside, the cold gray world slipped by.

Aeryk listened to the click, click, click, of the ashtray being opened and closed, and suddenly he wanted to scream, to scream and scream. He wanted to smash his little brother's fingers in the ashtray and punch his father's face to make his eyes stop twitching. He wanted to rage and kick. He wanted thunder and wind and hail, not the anemic drizzle of the rain.

He clenched his fingers into fists and clamped his jaw, and held his breath against the burning sting of tears.

And then came the voice, as Mary Pratt had said it would. "Be still, little Aeryk, Be still." Aeryk turned and looked into his mother's face. She was sitting where his father had been. She wore the red silk dress that they had buried her in. Her cheeks were rosy from the mortician's make-up, but her throat was a near-translucent blue. Aeryk blinked and stared into his mother's pale eyes.

"Mommy," he said.

"Oh, Aeryk. I miss you so." And a pale hand reached out and closed around his fingers, and it was icy cold and far too tight. "There is something I must tell you," she said. "It is important that you listen very closely. Okay?"

Aeryk nodded mutely.

"Good boy. You are a good boy, Aeryk." She closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them and looked into his face. "The world is a crazy place, Aeryk. It isn't safe. As much as I want it to be safe for you, as hard as I tried to make it safe, there are bad things here." As she spoke, the chill of her grip around his fingers started seeping up his arm. It ached in his elbow, his bicep. Creeping tendrils of cold stretched to his shoulder and then moved inward, reaching for his heart. "The man who made me die," she said, "the one who beat me and left me naked in my kitchen in a pool of my blood ...." She stopped and her eyes slipped shut. When they opened again there was a fierceness in them, a terrible fire. "He is closer than you think, Aeryk. He is closer than you think."

Aeryk felt the ice grip his chest, and he wondered if his heart would stop. He fought to keep on breathing. "Are you in Faerie?" he whispered.

A tiny smile touched his mother's mouth, but the fierceness did not leave her eyes. "Faerie? You can call it Faerie if you like."

"Then I can go to you," he said. "I can go to you and I'll be safe."

"Oh, Aeryk," she said.

But then the pink and purple skin was peeling from his mother's face like pale rust, and her eyes shriveled in her sockets, blackening. Aeryk threw up his arms and he screamed. He screamed and screamed until he felt his father shaking him, and then he wanted to throw himself into his father's arms and press himself against his solid chest, but his father let go and turned away, and stared ahead with no expression on his face but twitching eyes.

AERYK DID NOT SEE Mary Pratt again for eleven years. He spent those years in search of Faerie. At first Aeryk thought the entrance would be a place, and in the evenings while Bobby and his father stared at the TV (Bobby drinking root beer, his father drinking Michelob), Aeryk searched the large old house in which they lived, and the woods around. He searched in every cabinet and closet, and especially the wardrobes, remembering the Chronicles of Narnia. He stalked through the basement, certain he was overlooking some hidden room, or a secret hollow which concealed an eldritch key. And then he'd wander through the woods behind the house, or climb a tree and sit in silent waiting listening for the sounds of forest folk--the wood sprites and the dryads.

As he grew older, although he did not stop believing in a world of Faerie, his understanding of it became less literal, and he began to look for Faerie in the smell of spring flowers and the raging summer storms that sometimes crashed along the coast. He knew that there was something more than just this world of flesh and grief, something that was hinted at in the visions of the lunatic and in the thrill of music. He began to play the violin; and when he played, when the smell of rosin hit him like a drug and the resonations buzzed through his fingers and his jaw, when he played La Folia by Corelli and his fingers danced through the cadenza--the shimmers of the Faerie world were there, palpable, just out of reach. He could almost see its wild hillsides and its dreamy yellow skies.

And so he played, he played and he composed his own ragged melodies which--while often awkward and unrefined--swelled with his passion for the Faerie world, and sometimes came so close to bringing it alive that for a moment he believed that he would really cross the gap. While he played he often thought about his mother, and sometimes his harsh dissonances in the lower registers were tonal paintings of her half-dead body on the kitchen floor. And often when he played there was another face he saw: the face of Mary Pratt, six years old and eating scones while sitting on her father's grave.

In all those years his father beat him only once, but it was enough. It happened when he was ten years old, when he still half-believed a doorway into Faerie lay hidden somewhere in the house. He was pretending that the entrance lay behind the display case in the kitchen, and if only he could move it out from the wall far enough, he could slip behind it and into another world.

But his efforts ended in disaster. The case came crashing down, and all the ornaments t the porcelain figurines his mother used to collect, and those blue Christmas plates from Sweden displayed along the upper shelf--were scattered and shattered in a moment of wild sound. Aeryk stood in silence, staring at the ruin, until his father came.

His father had been drinking. He always drank now, mostly beer. After Mommy's death his father had started coming home from work sooner, but he'd been no more present: he'd sit and drink and watch TV, and when the news came on he'd go to bed. Aeryk and Bobby moved quietly when their father was home, as if somehow they knew what lurked behind his eyes, waiting for a sound to set it free.

The first thing to hit him was his father's scream; then came the blows, one after the other, in the face, in the gut. Aeryk curled into a ball on the floor while his father kicked him, and for a moment he was sure that he would die. He looked up at his raging father, and as he looked into his father's face there was a change: a widening of the eyes, an opening of the mouth, a look of fear creeping in and driving out the rage. And his father looked around the room, the very room where his mother had been killed--and Aeryk saw the way his father began to shake, the way the self-loathing settled in. Aeryk closed his eyes and felt his own cold fear.

His father stumbled from the kitchen. After a time Aeryk rose to his feet and limped into the living room. His father was curled up on the sofa, clutching a pillow to his chest. Bobby stood at the edge of the stairs. Aeryk crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the sofa. He put a hand on his father's shoulder. He Wanted very much to cry.

After that he played the violin for hours every day, while his father closed inward on himself and shut out his children even more. The music became Aeryk's comforter.

He met Mary Pratt again along the Newport cliff walk, in the summer when he was sixteen. She was standing on the rocks with her back to the sea, looking at the great stone house which rose above the stretching grass like some European palace, whispering the mysteries of wealth. She was balanced on her toes, her body arched, her dark hair streaming in the wind. Her face was a mask of rapture.

He did not recognize her, but when he saw her he knew that in all his years of searching, the thing he had been looking for was her.

She did not seem to notice his approach, but when he stood before her, she turned her eyes to him and smiled lazily, as if coming awake. "Hello," she said. "I dreamed about you last night. We're going to be lovers."

"Lovers?" The word sounded strange to Aeryk. His friends in school had girlfriends, or boyfriends. They did not have lovers.

She jumped down off the rock and faced him. "Do you remember me?" she asked.

He shook his head.

"I remember you," she said. "Maybe it's your baby face. You haven't changed so much since you were little."

And then suddenly he knew. "Mary," he said. "Mary something. The one at the funeral."

Her smile was radiant, and she took his hand and led him along the cliff. "Where are we going?" he asked.

"To look for Faerie."

He followed where she led. He followed as she showed him all the secret places, the quiet corners of the world where magic lurked so near that he could taste it on his tongue. She took him to the cliff in Jamestown where the high school boys would go to prove themselves in foolish manhood rituals, leaping from the edge with their sneakers on to plunge into the still dark waters far below. And Aeryk, who had never had the urge to join the other boys in such displays of bravado, learned what it was like to jump and fall and hit the water: the sudden thrill as rushing air was turned to icy froth; the adrenal pulsing in his face and throat; the drag of his shoes as they soaked up water like heavy sponges; the momentary confusion, not knowing which way led to air and life. And in the instant before breaking the surface: the silence, the fragmented light, the sense of utter peace and stillness. Aeryk knew he was on the brink of Faerie.

She took him to the coast at midnight and showed him how to hunt for crabs. And as the moon reflected in the rock-trapped pools she ran her fingers through his hair. In the shadow of the old lighthouse, as dawn splashed orange highlights on the sky, she let him touch the pink cream softness of her breasts.

They were together every day throughout that summer. Two weeks after he met her she shaved her hair over one ear, leaving behind a velvet fuzz, and she showed up at his door with lips painted black and a spider pendant hanging in the hollow of her throat. "I thought that I'd become a witch," she said.

"You look more like an angel to me."

Mary laughed. "Aeryk, Aeryk, Aeryk. You're always so corny."

He played his violin for her, while she lay at his feet with her eyes closed. He played his own compositions, and somehow in the midst of it, she began to sing, wordlessly--and her voice was pure and high and haunting, and it wove through the resonating violin like a thread of light: a perfect contrapuntal harmony that refined and purified his own roughedged compositions. The sound of her voice made him ache, and almost cry. Soon he found himself improvising with her, voice and violin intertwined; and in the heart of it, steady at the heart of sound, they both could feel the gateway's presence.

Afterward they would have made love, had it not seemed so redundant. Instead they lay together on the floor, holding hands; and she told him they would be together forever, linked by music and madness and love.

A week later they found a stack of wooden planks in the garage. The wood had been there for years, but Aeryk had never paid attention to it. It was Mary who suggested that they build a tree house out behind the house. They built it in a week, working several hours every day. Mary found some old roofing tiles and some carpet remnants. They scattered old pillows in the comers and put movie posters on the walls. When they were finished it was clean and intimate. "Our love nest," Mary said, and Aeryk laughed. Then they did make love, amidst the pillows, while robins watched with tiny, gleaming eyes.

He hardly saw his father at all that summer, but Aeryk was used to that. His father had stopped drinking after the incident in the kitchen, and he'd thrown himself into his work again: getting up before dawn, working at the office until nine at night, or sometimes ten. Bobby was out with his gang of friends all day, smoking or skateboarding or cruising the mall. The large old house was mostly left to Aeryk and to Mary. When others were at home, they had their love nest (their gateway) in the woods.

He never met her family. She said her mother was a drunk, and that they lived in a trailer park: an ugly, dirty place where men wore Wrangler jeans and the women still used light blue eyeshadow, somehow thinking that was beautiful. One month after they met, Mary stopped going home at night, and stayed with Aeryk in his room. He never introduced her to his family. There was no point. His father, slipping in and out in the dark, never said a word.

FAERIE CAME TO THEM at last, wild and real, with the storm. The hurricane took shape in the Atlantic ocean and swept toward land in the familiar way, threatening the Carolina coast. But then it started moving north, and it became clear that a piece of it might brush New England. Some of the locals made plans to drive inland for a few days, others shuttered up their houses and prepared to brave the storm. Aeryk's father left a note that he was leaving town, and that his sons should do the same. Bobby laughed when he saw the note, then told Aeryk not to expect to see him for a while, and he left the house.

Aeryk and Mary were left alone, and as they sat in the house watching the news reports and looking out the window at the deceptive sunny calm, they knew what was coming. At last it was coming, raging and seething: the doorway into Faerie. And they would wait for it, greeting its music and its madness with their love.

It was a magic fantasy of youth, a reckless dream: amidst the thunder and the wind they would make love, their bodies slicked and pounded by the rain.

The anticipation was almost more than they could bear.

They spent the evening before the storm reading to each other in Aeryk's room: fairy tales and passages from The Lord of the Rings. Later, when the storm arrived, they would go outside. Mary was downstairs in the kitchen, fixing herself some food, when the first plump raindrops splatted against the window. It was then that Aeryk's father came home. Aeryk was reading in his bed when he heard his father's car, and a strange flutter went through him. He sat up in bed, and he wondered if he should go downstairs. He heard the door open, and the rumble of his father's voice. Aeryk closed his book and set it aside, wondering why his heart was beating in his throat. And then he heard a grumble and a hiss, and then a crash as something shattered on the floor.

Aeryk ran out of his room and down the stairs, seeing his father's form vanish toward the back of the house, where the master bedroom lay. Mary was standing in the kitchen doorway. A plate of sandwiches lay broken at her feet. Her eyes glistened.

"What happened?" Aeryk gasped.

Mary's mouth worked silently. Her hand went to her throat.

Aeryk crossed the gap between them and tried to put his arms around her but she jerked back. "What happened?" he asked again.

Mary swallowed and looked down. She shook her head as if to clear it. "He called me your slut," she said. "There she is," he said. `Aeryk's little slut.' And then he..." She looked down at the broken plate. "Oh, God. I made a mess."

"And then he what?" Aeryk took her by the shoulders, looking into her eyes.

Mary poked at a sandwich with her foot.

"And then what?" Aeryk resisted the urge to shake her.

Mary shrugged. "He said that maybe he should kill me, too."

The wind was picking up outside. The rain was drumming against the windows. The hurricane's full fury was still some time away.

Aeryk wanted to scream. He wanted to scream as badly as he had wanted to scream so many years ago, in the limousine, driving from his mother's funeral. He wanted to rage and kick and thrash. And he recalled the vision of his dead mother, sitting next to him and warning him: He is closer than you think. He remembered his father's twitching eyes.

He was bursting into his father's room before he knew that he'd left Mary's side. His father was sitting on the bed. Aeryk struck him where he sat, struck him across the face with his fist, hard enough to knock him back. And then he leapt onto the bed, straddling his father's prone body, and grabbed him by the hair. Aeryk wanted to choke him, to strangle him, to make him pay for all the years of emptiness and coldness, to make him pay for the time that he was beaten, to make him pay for his mother's death. His father stared up at him in silence. Aeryk smelled the beer, as if his father had been bathing in it. He clenched his free hand into a fist and tightened his grip on his father's hair. "Why did you come back here?" he demanded.

His father opened his mouth, closed it. His eyes seemed glazed. "You better watch out for that slut of yours," he said. "One day you might walk into a room and find her naked underneath some other man. You never know when it will happen."

Aeryk let go of his father's hair. "Fuck you," he whispered.

He heard Mary walk in behind him. "Aeryk," she said. "Come on, Aeryk."

But there was a wetness in his father's eyes. "I don't know who he was," his father said. His head lolled off to one side. "They didn't expect me home. They were on the kitchen floor, like they couldn't wait to get into the bedroom. She was never that eager with me." Now that he spoke the words at last they came on top of each other in an urgent stream. "I killed him first. He wasn't very big, so he was easy to kill. Your mother fought harder."

"Oh, my God," breathed Mary.

Aeryk stared at his father's face, at the slackness of his father's mouth.

"It was his semen they found inside her." He closed his eyes. "That's why they never suspected me. The DNA didn't match. I broke a window from the outside, and buried our silverware with the man's body. Then I called the police."

"Oh, my God. Oh my God."

Aeryk stared in silence at his father. He heard the crack of his own jaw. He had known. In a way he had known all his life.

The wind was starting to whistle through the windows. "Why did you come back here?" he said at last.

His father let out a laugh. "For a minute there," he said, "I was hoping you would do it for me."

Aeryk rose. He stood over the bed, looking down on his father. He saw what he hadn't seen before, stuffed under his father's belt, like a tumor. "You should have done it long ago." It was not what he had meant to say.

"Aeryk," Mary whispered. She came up behind him and put a hand between his shoulder blades. He took a step back, into her, and her arms slipped around him. Her breasts pressed up against his back. The wind was starting to howl.

"Don't do it, Daddy," he said.

His father sat up slowly in bed. He took the gun out of his belt, looked at it, then tossed it away from him. It clattered on the floor. "I've always been too much a coward."

Aeryk turned away and left the room. Mary trailed after. He sat down on the edge of the sofa and stared at the floor, hearing the rising storm.

Mary sat down next to him. She put her arm around him and leaned her head on his shoulder. "Oh, Aeryk," she said.

"The storm," he whispered. "Faerie." He turned to look at her. "Is my mother still in Faerie?" he asked. "Or am I too old now? Time for her to move on into heaven."

"I think she's there," Mary whispered. "Your Mommy and my Daddy, both of them. Looking out for us."

Aeryk looked toward the window. The rain was beating on the glass and the wind was howling and swirling searching for a way inside. "Do you hear it?" he said. "It's a symphony. You hear the tremolo in the cellos? The pounding of the timpani?" He lifted up a finger. "There. Triplets in the brass."

"And the violin," Mary said. "Weaving through it all, like that solo from Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade. You can't forget the violin."

The gun fired. They heard the dull thump of the body on the floor. The storm raged on, indifferent.

Mary rose slowly to her feet. The tears overflowed her eyes. She held out her hands to him.

Aeryk felt her fingers around his own, warm and soft and precious. He let her lift him up. He tried to speak, but choked. She led him toward the door. As always, he followed her.

The wind was wild. The rain came down as if the fundament of some heavenly ocean had cracked, and the seas were pouring down. They ran hand-in-hand through the storm, ducking falling branches, squinting and blinking as the water washed their eyes. They stopped at the base of the tree house and stripped off their clothes. They kissed each other in the raging wind, and even with the rain they could taste the salt of tears. Even with the rain, their naked skins were hot against each other. When their urgency became a pulsing fire in their faces--when grief and loss were mingled with the wild thrill-- they climbed into the tree house, and there made love. The rain poured through the open windows and splashed against their joining flesh, and their moans were lost amidst the howling of the wind.

The storm still raged when they were through. They lay side by side on the tree house floor, fingers locked together. They listened to the storm's wild power, and let it beat down over them, cleansing them, washing everything away, everything but the swell of their desire.

Mary mouthed the words: "I love you." Her skin was flushed and beautiful. Aeryk took her face in his hands, and felt his love for her like a madness. He moved to kiss her on the mouth, and saw her sparkling eyes, and was just about to meet her parted lips when it all went white, blazing white, and-- with a wild crashing noise-- they crossed at last the threshold.

The sky beyond was pale blue with hints of yellow at the edges. It was quiet--the loudest thing seemed to be the sun. In the distance, perhaps, children played.

The picnic blanket was laid out carefully on the grass. The trees had leaves of greenish silver that gave a rustle like foil and then were still again. Milk and scones were set out, along with salad and raspberries and a dozen quartered kiwis. The gravestone had grown into a marble monument of dancing lovers (their ears pointed, their eyes slanted, the little nubs of horns upon their foreheads). Aeryk felt Mary's warmth beside him, and he turned to look at her. She was radiant and soft, and the redness of her cheeks was the redness of life. She looked at him, smiling. "They come," she said.

Aeryk turned. His mother approached, wearing gauzy white and feathers in her hair. There was a man with her he did not recognize, but he knew it must be Mary's father. He had Mary's eyes.

They sat down on the blanket. He met his mother's eyes. She did not speak, but she reached out and he took her hand and held it for a moment. There was sadness in her eyes.

They ate in silence. They ate until all the food was gone. Then his mother took his hand again, and at last she spoke. "You must love each other," she said. "For us." He glanced at Mary, but her eyes were on her father, who was smiling and reaching for her, cupping her cheek in his hand. She said something but he could not hear the words, as if a veil of privacy enveloped them.

Aeryk turned back to his mother. She was so beautiful, he'd forgotten how beautiful she was. "What about Daddy?" he asked.

She patted his hand and looked away. "He was always such a lonely man."

Aeryk heard distant laughter, the laughter of children. He heard the squawking efforts of a novice violinist. He looked around at the still blue sky. The sounds were coming from all around, drifting in and out. He heard the sobs of a child's temper tantrum, the wail of a hungry infant. A high voice sang The Itsy Bitsy Spider. The sounds came and went, distant, ephemeral: the children of the world.

"You are a beautiful violinist, Aeryk," his mother said. "We have all listened to you here." She smiled and patted his hand again. "Music," she said, "and madness, and love. Take these things with you, hold them close to you. In the hardest times, they will carry you."

The rescue workers found the lovers curled together, unconscious, amidst the shattered remnants of the tree house. An EMT commented that it was a miracle they lived. "Someone must have been looking out for those two," he said. They found the father in the house, dead by his own hand, the mouth beneath his ruined head shaped in an oh of surprise. There was also another body found in the woods outside the house, many years old and mostly decayed. It had been exposed by the beating rains.

The lovers were taken to the hospital, and cared for there. The nurses commented on how peaceful they seemed, as if they'd both seen angels. Or, perhaps, seen faeries.

~~~~~~~~

By Eric Reitan

Eric Reitan lives in Washington state and says that he devotes his life to three things: teaching philosophy, facilitating nonviolence workshops in prisons, and writing fiction. Item two mixes a bit with item three here in this dark fantasy about the land of the Fey and the land of ours and the places where they mix.

HEROES OF THE THIRD MILLENNIUM

THE REELING FLICKER OF days slowed, steadied, froze. A quick look around. The time machine was sitting on grass. Beyond the grass: buildings. It was, recognizably, Central Park. Manhattan. With a huge sigh of relief -- so far, no nuclear war -- Jack Fabrax dismounted, clambering down onto the grass, lugging the heavy suitcase after him. God, what a weight! The time machine flickered and dissolved. It would return in precisely seventy-two hours.

There was a slight risk involved in sending the time machine back to 1962. Conceivably, Kevin Culdaneath would work out what had happened. Conceivably, Kevin would climb aboard the time machine and chase Jack into the year 2003. But Jack wanted to have the option of going back to 1962. In case things didn't work out as expected in this brave new world, the world of the Third Millennium.

Jack was sweating profusely by the time he had manhandled the suitcase to the street. He stood there, watching for a taxi. But did they still have taxis in the Third Millennium? And would his greenbacks be valid currency? He had more than half expected shiny flying machines, the U.S. dollar replaced by the credit or some such thing, and the people to be walking round in fancy aerodynamic robes, or nothing at all.

But, outwardly at least, everything looked amazingly normal. The automobiles were styled differently, but were conceptually similar. And people still wore pants, shirts, shoes. Jack himself was dressed in a charcoal gray suit, a white shirt, a conservative tie, and nobody looked at him twice. A guy in a suit just like his walked by, talking to someone using a two-way radio, a dandy little gadget small enough to fit easily into the palm of your hand.

"Taxi!"

Jack had it all figured out. He would get the taxi to drive him round town. He would chat with the cabby and find out the latest.

The cab driver was a Negro. A really black Negro. Totally black -- an amazing blackness which seemed to shimmer into blue. A woman. She had weird scars on her face, patterned scars like a sergeant's chevrons. Someone cut her? Then why didn't she have plastic surgery?

"Empire State Building," said Jack.

"What?"

"Empire State! The building!"

No dice. The Negress asked a couple of questions, but her English was barely intelligible. She had to be drunk. Angrily, Jack got out of the cab, hauled his suitcase out onto the sidewalk, slammed the door. How could anyone possibly not know the Empire State Building? Could it have been demolished? Torn down? Lost to memory? No, impossible.

Three taxis later, Jack finally found a driver who spoke English. Sort of. The cabby was from Afghanistan, wherever the hell that was, and took him along approximately familiar streets -- the city's basic layout was still the same-- to the Empire State Building. Outside the building, there were soldiers in strange blotched uniforms who carried weapons which looked strangely light, like children's toys.

Despite having figured out that inflation would brutalize his meager cash reserves, Jack was shocked by the cab fare. He bought a paper, a copy of the New York Times, meaning to check first the date, second the news, and third the stock market prices. He really wanted to know -- and know fast -- just what his stock certificates were worth.

The date? Thursday 6 November 2003. The right date, then. The stock market? Well, it still existed. Against all the odds, the world had survived the threat of nuclear war -- so far -- and the stock market was still in operation. However, Jack could find no listings for his stocks. Okay then, maybe the companies had changed their names. No problem. Work on that later.

How about the news? Well, that was problematical. Sport was sport, that much was the same. Sport was still sport, food was still food, fashion was still fashion and crime was still crime.

But. Apart from that, the news was unintelligibly weird, full of people and places and words and countries he had never heard of. Al Gore, Newt Gingrich, Nelson Mandela, Jason Race, Argan Vlastavich, Michael Jackson, Madonna and the Artist Formerly Known As Prince -- who were these people? And if there was some guy "formerly known" as Prince, why the hell not say who he was now?

And what was HIV? And the Internet? And cyberspace? Ah, this makes sense. Ebola fever-- a disease, evidently. Some kind of plague. But --Bangladesh? A place, evidently. A city? A country? And how about this? African American. What's that? Okay. The woman in the taxi. Straight out of Africa -- that would explain that total skin. An American straight out of Africa, an African American.

Then he found an article he did understand. About Germany. Nazis in Germany had demonstrated in Berlin, had fought with the police, had desecrated Jewish graves. Reading this, he went cold. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck. Germany! Not East Germany or West Germany but just straight Germany.

In that moment of shock, a glimmering of understanding came to him. He had not arrived in the future at all. Instead, he had been precipitated into an alternate universe. In this alternate universe, there had been no Hitler, no Holocaust, and Germany had not been divided into two separate countries. In this alternate universe, the terrors of Fascism belonged not to the past but to the present.

Not the future, but an alternate universe. That was his thesis, and a second article confirmed it. A dry, boring article about an economic agreement between Russia, Ukraine, and Belorussia which was being negotiated in St. Petersburg. Evidently, in this alternate universe the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics did not exist. There had never been a Lenin, so St. Petersburg had not become Leningrad. Presumably, there had never been a Second World War, either.

And, in this alternate universe, his stock certificates were probably useless. The companies -- no listings for them on the stock exchange! probably did not even exist. That meant he had no resources but the metal in the suitcase. The realization came as an appalling shock. He had figured it out so nicely. A little jump into the future, just forty-one years, enough time for his enemies to die and for his stocks to fatten up but not enough time for civilization to change out of recognition. But he had got it wrong.

"I need a cigarette," said Jack.

He pulled out a cigarette and lit up. Then, feeling hungry, he walked into an eatery, lugging his suitcase with him.

As he walked into the eatery, all conversation stopped. People looked at him, and stared. Immediately, Jack realized something was wrong. Hideously wrong. He had made some dreadful mistake. He glanced down at his fly, half-convinced everything down there was hanging out in public. But, no, it was all in order. He was a respectable guy in a suit.

His first impulse was to run. But -- no! This was America, damn it. He was an American citizen, a citizen of the Free World, and there was no way he was going to be run off by a bunch of people staring at him. Besides, if something was wrong, he had to find out what.

So Jack walked up to the counter. Cleared his throat.

"Hamburger," he said. "Gimme a hamburger. Yeah, and a coffee. Black."

The guy behind the counter turned to his colleague. The two spoke together briefly in a language which was, unmistakably, Russian. Russian! What the hell were a couple of Russians doing serving food here in New York?

"You want ketchup on the burger?'

"Yeah."

Jack paid for his food, took it to a table, went back for the suitcase, then sat down to eat. As he did so, a woman got to her feet. She walked toward him. A very beautiful blonde, immaculately coifed. As she approached, he smelled her perfume. Her eyes were an icy blue. She was an angelic vision of Nordic perfection. Only one thing was wrong. She was not smiling.

"Hi," said Jack, speaking without bothering to remove the cigarette from his lips.

Without a word, the woman reached out. She plucked the cigarette from his lips. Then stubbed it out on his hamburger.

"Hey!" said Jack, half-rising.

Angrily, he grabbed her by the wrist. In response, with her free hand she sprayed him with something from a little aerosol can. He breathed red flame, and his world dissolved into a reeling whirl of agony. It was like when he had dived into that pool, back when he was a kid, and there had been too much chlorine in the water. The same watering pain in his eyes, only worse.

Slowly -- choking, gasping, lungs heaving -- Jack began to recover. Then one of the countermen approached him.

"Mister," said the counterman, in heavy Russian-accented English. "You better get out. If you come back, I'll call the cops."

"Sure," said Jack, grabbing his suitcase. "Sure. Sure. I'm going."

Out on the street, he put down the suitcase and mopped his sweating brow. This was crazy! Something had gone dreadfully wrong back there but what? He reviewed his own behavior. All utterly, totally normal. And now, out in the street, nobody was taking any notice of him, hut for a couple of panhandlers -- a hell of a lot of beggars on the street, now he thought about it. His clothing, though it came from 1962, was not significantly different from what conservative business types were wearing here in 2003.

Jack took a good look at those people. A hell of a lot of Asians on the street -- tourists? Or what? And a lot of Mexican types, too, some speaking Spanish as they went by. Also: a muttering lunatic, a patently deranged man in rags who was talking to himself pretty loudly, gesticulating as he did so. Nobody called the cops to have the guy taken back to the nuthouse. Instead, everyone ignored the mad muttering lunatic, as if a dementing lunatic standing on the sidewalk in broad daylight in the middle of New York was the most natural thing in the world.

Some weird sights, then. But. There were still guys who looked just like Jack Fabrax. White guys in suits. Yet, somehow, the locals had picked him as abnormal, aberrant in a truly intolerable way. Why.* The only thing he could think of...maybe they thought he was queer. Yeah. That was possible. Maybe, in this brave new world, only sexually abnormal people wore business suits. That thought made Jack truly uncomfortable. He wished there was someone he could ask, someone who could explain it all to him.

But--time enough to figure it out later. Right now: business. Money was a priority. The suitcase was full of gold, and now it was time to start changing that gold to cash. Then he could start looking for information. And, if necessary, for a new set of clothes.

Inside of half an hour--phone, phone book, taxi--Jack found his way to a pawn shop. Showed just one gold wedding ring.

"You got some ID?"

A routine question. Low key, bored. But it riveted him.

Shocked him rigid.

"Yeah, yeah...hang on...must've left it in the car .... "

And he backed out. Still reeling. Identity -- he'd never even thought of the problem. Why not? Because it was totally insoluble.

Outside, a guy was hanging around, muttering stuff to passersby. Strange stuff.

"You want jash, amies, soft? You want jubes, man?"

Desperate enough to chance anything, Jack moved closer. He wanted to kind of inconspicuously drift closer, but that was impossible because of the weight of the suitcase. It was killing him. He was one red mass of flushed sweat.

"What you want, man?"

"What've you got?" said Jack, cautiously.

"Anything, man."

"How about a gun?" said Jack, too nervous to ask for what he really wanted.

"Sure, man. Get you a Glock, get you anything."

A Glock? Might be anything. A Third Millennium ray gun. A death ray super-blaster. Annihilate a tank at half a mile with its zap-ray. The alien name carried with it the authentic thrill of the new. But, no, he didn't really want a gun, not right now.

"Come on, man. What you want?"

"ID," said Jack, unable to conceal his nervousness.

"Five hundred bucks. Get you a green card, driver's license, social security number."

"Five hundred!" he said. His shock was genuine, unconcealable. Five hundred would clean him out. Hard on the heels of shock came anger. "Five hundred! You gotta be kidding!"

"Okay, okay! Chill, man, chill!"

They settled on $250. Maybe too high -- Jack got the impression he was getting the wrong end of the bargain. And he did not like, no, not one little bit, the visit to the grimy back room where they took his photo and produced the documents. But. He got out alive. Complete with ID. And the ID he had purchased was good enough, at least for the pawnbroker.

Five pawn shops later--slow and cautious does it--Jack was feeling better. All going to plan. He had done it. He had worked his big swindle back in 1962 and he had got away clean, escaping in the mad professor's time machine. Okay, so maybe his stock certificates were useless--if the newspaper stock market listings could be trusted, the tobacco companies in which he had so astutely invested simply did not exist in this alternate universe. But gold was still gold, money was still money, money could evidently buy anything, and he was going to be rich enough to start over.

Only problem now -- he was right out of cigarettes. But, okay, there was a barber shop just across the road. Jack crossed the street, went inside. Looked for the cigarettes. And saw them, okay. Gray pasteboard packets with no brand names. Just the bare unadorned label CIGARETTES in black and a message in red saying THESE THINGS KILL YOU.

"Two packets," said Jack, gesturing.

"See your paper?"

"What?"

"You know. Your paper."

"No," said Jack. "I don't understand. I just want some cigarettes, okay?"

"Okay, you want the cigarettes, I need to see your paper."

"My what?"

"Your paper, man! Your prescription!"

"Prescription?" said Jack, bewildered.

"You are a registered addict, right? Right? Hey, you -- I'm talking to you! You an addict, or what? You a cop?"

"No," said Jack. "I'm not a cop."

"Then get outta here. You don't get out, I'm calling the cops, right now."

Back on the sidewalk, Jack started to figure it out. In this alternate universe, smoking was quasi-illegal. Or was it? He wavered between belief and disbelief. Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't. Maybe there was just something weird about that particular barber shop, that particular guy.

"Face facts," said Jack. "You just don't know."

Okay, then. It was time to do some serious research. Go to the library -- that was it. In this alternate universe, the Empire State Building was in the same place, so the library should be in the same place too.

Only -- it wasn't.

Well. The steps were there. And the lions. But the rest of it was a bomb crater, roped off with yellow plastic tape. Jack stood there staring, stunned.

"What you looking at?"

Realizing his mouth was open, Jack closed it. Blinked. Focused on the stranger who had addressed him. A girl. Well, sort of. Pretty weird-looking girl. A blonde with a bunch of rings in her nose and a ring through her eyebrow and a semi-pornographic tattoo of a big-breasted mermaid writhing up the side of her neck.

"Hi," said Jack, weakly.

"Yeah," she said. "Hi."

Then she laughed, as if he had said something outrageously funny, and stuck out her tongue at him. With shock, Jack saw there was cold white metal riveted right through her tongue. Sick, sick, sick! Really psycho stuff! A pretty girl, and she had stuck something right through her tongue.

Then something clicked. Suddenly, Jack understood. The dementing lunatic he had seen talking -- almost shouting -- on the street. The incomprehensible, disoriented cab drivers, who scarcely seemed to know Broadway from Fifth Avenue. The insane Nordic woman with the staring blue eyes who had stubbed out his cigarette on his hamburger. The guy at the barber shop who -- bizarrely -- had demanded a prescription when he asked to buy cigarettes.

It all made sense. All the data hung together. Given one simple insight -- given one simple thesis -- Jack was suddenly able to organize a thousand different pieces of data into one simple, internally consistent picture. Now he had a simple Explanation of Everything. New York had been converted into one big lunatic asylum. Obviously.

"Ah," said Jack.

Ah. Eureka. I have it. Now I understand! That was why nobody had called the cops to take away the dementing lunatic. The guy did not have to be taken to the asylum because he was already in the asylum, together with the madwoman with the staring eyes who had tried to gas Jack with her Third Millennium aerosol weapon -- his eyes were still sore and smarting -- and this psycho kid with the mutilated tongue. That, doubtlessly, explained why armed soldiers were guarding the Empire State Building. The building was, presumably, the administrative headquarters of the lunatic asylum -- a place to which the inmates were forbidden access.

"Want some cancer?" said the girl.

"Some what?" said Jack.

"You smoke."

"I do?"

"Your hands. Your teeth."

Jack's fingers were, in a way which was not uncommon in 1962, stained with nicotine. His teeth likewise.

"You selling cigarettes?" said Jack.

"Twenty bucks. One packet."

Even allowing for inflation, that was an incredible price.

But Jack was down to his last cigarette.

"Deal," he said, producing a twenty.

In response, the girl dipped her hand into her crotch --

Her crotch!

Jack reeled. She was wearing a man's jeans. Yes. He was not hallucinating it. A man's jeans, with the zip going right up the front, following the line of her, her--

The twenty was gone, snatched away, and the cigarettes were in Jack's hand. He dropped them. He felt sick. A pretty girl, and she was dressed in this sick, totally obscene lesbian fashion. And Jack had a clear contrasting vision of his lost sweetheart, the adorable Amy Zebrolooda, whose pants had little zips on the side, little zips which, consonant with feminine modesty, made no obvious reference to her, her --

"You don't want them?"

The girl stooped, reached down for the cigarettes. Jack stepped on them, keeping them safe. Despite their provenance, he was going to keep them. He needed his nicotine.

"Okay then," said the girl,

And she was gone, retreating down the street. After fifty yards, she turned, and made a rude sign. Yes. More evidence. He was trapped in a lunatic asylum, that was for sure.

"Spare me one?"

A man's voice. Who?

Turning, Jack saw a bearded man who looked as if he was dressed for a hunting trip.

"Sure," said Jack, relieved by the normality of the encounter, the normality of someone trying to bum a cigarette off him.

Jack opened the packet and the stranger took a cigarette. Jack lit it for him with his gold lighter.

"You're a brave man," said the bearded guy.

"It's a free country," said Jack.

"Is it?"

"Well," said Jack, considering. "It should be."

"Yeah," said the bearded guy.

"You hunt?" said Jack.

"Sure thing," said the bearded guy.

"Me too," said Jack, establishing common social ground, disowning his charcoal gray suit. "Sarnac Lakes, ever heard of them?"

"Sure," said the bearded guy. "Up near Mt. Marcy."

Jack got the impression that he had bridged the sartorial gap which separated them. They had established common ground. They were both hunters, woodsmen, smokers of tobacco.

"So," said Jack, gesturing at the bombed-out ruins of the library, "when did this happen?"

"Where you from?" said the bearded man.

"Me?" said Jack. He wavered, poised on the edge of fiction. Then decided to risk the truth. He needed to find out what was going on in this alternate universe. And fast. "I'm...I'm from the past. Kind of. An alternate universe. I'm from 1962."

"That so?"

"Yeah. I, uh...came in a time machine."

"Aliens help you?"

"Aliens?" said Jack, startled. "No. There was this guy, Angus Void. Mad professor type. He built this, this...time machine."

"You sure you not with the aliens?"

"I'm sure."

The bearded man looked around, as if checking for hidden observers.

"Name's Vance," he said. "I'm with the militia."

"The militia?" said Jack.

"Not here," said Vance. "You come with me."

They ended up in a place in Brooklyn, where the streets were full of people speaking Russian. Vance explained the site had been carefully chosen -- "Last place anyone would look for us." Once they were safe in the hideout, up above a karaoke bar (whatever karaoke was), Jack told his story.

Jack expected resistance. Skepticism. But, to his surprise, Vance accepted the entire story without a single objection, as if time travelers from the past were no big surprise. Vance seemed to have B how to put it? -- a special capacity for belief. A special capacity to filter information and, automatically, to know what was true and what was not.

With relief -- just to confess was a relief, and to confess and be believed was a double relief -- Jack told everything. How he fell in love with Amy Zebrolooda, the mad professor's beautiful female assistant. How he lost Amy to Kevin Culdaneath, his slick and very rich rival. How he took revenge by conning Kevin, swindling him out of millions. The bulk of the money went into tobacco stocks, and some he converted to gold. Then he stole the professor's time machine and fled into the future.

"Or so I thought," said Jack. "But something's out of whack. This place is strange beyond comprehension, I need someone to explain, I need to know what's going on."

"Okay then," said Vance. "You've come to the right guy."

Then Vance explained.

In this universe, America was ruled by a totalitarian federal government which had a lock grip on newspapers and television. The government had been infiltrated by space aliens, and was using a much-dreaded fleet of black helicopters to organize mass abductions of unsuspecting citizens. Once the aliens got hold of the citizens, they were subjected to unspeakable medical practices, including torture and brainwashing.

The aliens' long-term strategy was to use the resources of the federal government to break the will of the people to resist, and to take away their weapons--assault rifles, machine guns, flame throwers, shoulder-launched rockets, all confiscated, in outright defiance of the Constitution. Once America's strength had been broken by a combination of brainwashing and disarmament, the alien invasion fleet currently waiting out in the Oort Cloud would land openly, and the conquest would proceed.

At first, Jack found this stuff hard to believe. It was B well, from the perspective of a nice, normal guy from 1962, it was wacky. No other word for it. Like old-fashioned science fiction from back in the 1950s, the 1940s, whenever.

"You don't believe me, huh?" said Vance.

"I didn't say that," said Jack.

"Jack," said Vance, dropping his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "You know what a computer is?"

"Sure," said Jack. "A, a, you know. Adding machine. Well--thinking machine, that's more like it. IBM. In my world, we got this company, IBM."

"Yeah, IBM, okay, we got IBM too. Jack, let me show you something."

Then Vance took Jack into the secret back room and showed him the computer, which was like a TV screen hooked up to a special kind of typewriter.

"You can use this," said Vance. "Over the telephone. Talk to other people. The Internet, that's what we call it. Federal government, they got the newspapers, the TV. But we've got the Internet."

It was a simple concept, and Jack got the hang of it inside of five minutes. The computers talked to each other, and there was no way the federal government could stop it, there were just too many machines, too many telephone lines.

"They got a bunch of new laws," said Vance. "Arrest us, switch us off, shut us down, throw us in jail. But, bottom line is, they can't stop us."

It took another five minutes for Jack to learn how to actually use the Internet. Then Vance gave him a list of Internet addresses and left him to it.

For two days solid, Jack hid out in Brooklyn, chain-smoking black market cigarettes and burrowing deeper and deeper into the revelations of the Internet. Alien landings. Alien spaceships hiding behind comets. Supposed American senators who were actually aliens in disguise. The miracle of recovered memory, which had allowed a defiant human spirit to fight back against the invaders. Recipes for helping you determine if you yourself had actually been an alien at some stage of your personal evolution.

In the closed, claustrophobic confines of the hideout, the constant reiteration of the hideous truth was overwhelming. It was all there. Anatomical drawings of aliens. Diagrams of alien space ships. Recordings, covertly made, of interrogations in which aliens grilled captured citizens. The secret plans used to brief the crews of the black helicopters. The federal government's protocols for the planned establishment of the concentration camps. The secret Russian bases, complete with Russian tanks, which had already been built on American soil with the connivance of the American government.

The vision of New York as one big lunatic asylum had already been forgotten. Instead, Jack was in the grip of a much more persuasive, much better documented Explanation of Everything. An essentially simple, internally consistent picture which gave him a hard grip on the confused, fragmented and at times totally bizarre reality he had encountered on the streets.

Overwhelmed by the impact of the Internet, Jack forgot all about checking out the history of tobacco stocks or inquiring into the rise of the Nazis in Germany. His attention was entirely given over to the authoritative, immaculately presented, intensely detailed accounts of horror brought to him by the Internet.

In the face of this horror, the militias were fighting back. The militias were secret armies consisting of people like Vance. Having begun their campaign of armed resistance by blowing up federal buildings and assassinating federal officials, they were now moving into a new phase of freedom fighting, escalating their campaign by targeting foreign embassies, nuclear power stations, airports, subway trains and prominent public buildings of any description.

"So," said Vance, at last. "What do you think?"

"I'll level with you," said Jack.

"Yeah?"

"It's like this," said Jack, taking a big breath. "I can't handle it. I've got to go back. I'll be in big trouble, but it's better than this."

"Hey," said Vance. "It's your life. I won't stand in your way."

And so, seventy-two hours after his arrival, Jack was standing there on the grass of Central Park, waiting for the time machine to return. Vance was there too, together with a couple of his militia buddies, all three of them equipped with absurdly small cameras with which to film the scene.

On schedule, the time machine shimmered into existence. Only there was something wrong. The machine arrived in a cloud of dust and smoke, and from it there breathed a dreadful stench of burnt hair and roasted flesh. The thing in the driving seat grimaced at Jack, its seared face one mass of burns.

"Jack," said the thing.

It was Kevin. Kevin Culdaneath. Kevin -- his rival, the man who had stolen Amy's heart.

"Kevin," said Jack. "What happened?"

"They nuked us," said Kevin. "Nuclear war, Jack. Nuclear war."

And then he said no more, because he was dead. In the ensuing silence, Jack heard crackling flames, and realized the time machine was well alight. It was burning. No way to put out the flames. No way to build another one. The designer of the time machine, Angus Void, was undoubtedly dead.

Back in the world which Jack had come from, the world of 1969., the conflict between the monolithic tyranny of the Soviet bloc and the Free World had proceeded to its inevitable conclusion: a nuclear exchange which must, surely, have reduced the world to ruin. And Jack was stuck here, forever, stuck in an alternate universe in which New York had been taken over by people from Russia, Mexico, and the heart of Africa, in which space aliens had subverted the Constitution of the United States of America and a tyrannous federal government had set out to crush the rights of the people, making cigarette smokers into abhorred criminals and forcing free speech to retreat to the Internet.

"Hey!" said a cop, arriving at the run. "What happened?"

"No idea," said Vance. "We just got here."

"Get anything on video?" said the cop, glancing at the little cameras.

"No," said Vance. "We were too late."

Then, as a growing crowd began to gather, Vance and his buddies discreetly retreated, taking Jack with them.

"Well?" said Vance. "What you want to do?"

It was an easy question to answer. Back in the world Jack had come from, the lost world of 1962, the Free World had been prepared to risk nuclear war to defy the Soviet Union. In this alternate universe--freedom, free speech, Constitutional rights were surely still worth fighting for. To Jack, his destiny was plain. It was to join the militia: the heroes of the Third Millennium.

"Me?" said Jack. "I'm with you."

And they took it from there.

ILLUSTRATION (BLACK & WHITE)

~~~~~~~~

By Hugh Cook

British-born Hugh Cook has published twelve novels, mostly fantasy, including The Shift, The Questing Hero, and Lords of the Sword. He took time out from writing to complete a B.A. degree at the University of Auckland with a double-major in English and Japanese, and now he puts those degrees to use teaching English in Tokyo. At the moment, he's working on a new novel, entitled Business as Usual, but he set aside the book to provide us with this/aunt through time to a very strange place.

Section: SCIENCE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE GRAVITATIONAL KIND

SOME OF THE best fantasy tales begin somewhere perfectly ordinary, take a left turn, and end up somewhere fantastic. You begin in Kansas and end up over the rainbow in Oz. You step into an old wardrobe and find yourself in Narnia.

Science sometimes works the same way. In this column, we're going to start with an ordinary baseball and an ordinary basketball, and we're going to end up on a grand tour of the solar system.

Trust us. It all connects up in the end.

BOUNCING BALLS

You know about bouncing balls, right? You drop a tennis ball and it bounces. Give a moment's thought to how high it bounces. It bounces fairly high if it's just out of the pressurized can. It doesn't bounce much if it's been lying around and the dog's been chewing on it. But even if it's fresh out of the can -- hey, even if you're using a super bouncy super ball -- it never bounces higher than you were holding it when you dropped it, right?

When you drop the ball, gravity pulls it down and it picks up speed. It hits the ground and squashes at the moment of impact. As the squashed ball springs back to its original shape, it pushes on the floor and the floor pushes back. The force of the floor pushing against the ball throws the ball back up into the air.

To follow the bounce of the ball, scientists keep track of its energy. Energy, as you probably know, can't be created or destroyed. It can change from one form to another, but there's always the same amount of it around. When you lift the ball above the floor, you give it a certain amount of potential energy. When you drop the ball, that potential energy becomes kinetic energy, the energy of motion. That kinetic energy becomes the energy that deforms the ball. During the squashing some of the ball's energy dissipates as heat (bringing us that much closer to the Heat Death of the Universe, a subject with which Pat is obsessed and which will probably be the topic of a future column). The rest of the energy goes back into motion, carrying the ball back into the air. But because some of the ball's energy was lost as heat, the ball doesn't bounce as high as its starting point.

Knowing all this, you might figure that a ball could never bounce back higher than the height from which you dropped it. Right? Ah, don't agree too fast. If you've been reading this column for a while, you know that the world is sometimes tricky and things aren't always what they seem.

THE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE

At the Exploratorium, we believe in experimenting. About a year ago, we were working with authors Susan Davis and Sally Stephens on The Sporting Life, a book about the science of sports. In the name of research, one day we took a variety of balls into the cavernous interior of the Exploratorium.

Standing amid an array of basketballs, tennis balls, golf balls, table tennis balls and baseballs, Paul held a tennis ball a meter above the ground and dropped it, watching how high it bounced. He repeated the experiment with other balls, one by one. All of the balls bounced back up to a height of less than three-quarters of a meter, always lower than their starting point. A quiet crowd gathered to watch the experiments.

Then Paul held a tennis ball on top of a basketball and dropped the two balls together. The tennis ball took off like a rocket, shooting over Paul's head. The crowd gasped. Paul grinned and took a bow. The crowd came to life and made us repeat the experiment again and again, suggesting other ball combinations.

Try the experiment for yourself! (Don't trust us. Surely you know better than that by now.) Get a larger, more massive bouncy ball and a smaller lighter ball. Some combinations that work well are a tennis ball and a basketball or a table tennis ball and a golf ball. Hold the more massive ball under the light ball and drop them at the same time.

Really. Try it. You'll be amazed. That feeling of amazement you get when you see an unexpected result is one of the great joys of science and should not be missed.

So what's going on here? We'll get to that in a minute. First, let's take a visit to outer space.

THE GALILEO SPACECRAFT

Back in the early 1980s NASA had a problem. They had been planning to launch the Galileo spacecraft to Jupiter. In NASA's original plan, the spacecraft was to be propelled directly toward Jupiter by a powerful Centaur rocket. That rocket was to have been carried into orbit by the space shuttle.

It was a fine plan -- until the Challenger disaster in January of 1986. After that explosion, NASA reexamined the safety of carrying a liquid-fueled rocket inside the shuttle and decided that the risk was not acceptable. They began to investigate other alternatives.

They could launch the Galileo using the weaker, safer solid-fueled IUS (Inertial Upper Stage). But the IUS could not provide enough thrust to overcome the pull of the sun's gravity and propel the spacecraft to Jupiter.

What a dilemma! To solve it, NASA drew on the ideas of a mathematics graduate student at the University of California at Los Angeles: Michael Minovitch. We don't know if Minovitch ever dropped basketballs and tennis balls together, but his ideas relied on some of the same principles.

To get a feel for Minovitch's idea, think of the Galileo spacecraft as a table tennis ball and the planet of Venus as a basketball. What NASA did, in essence, was bounce the Galileo spacecraft off of Venus to give it a velocity boost. Then NASA bounced the spacecraft off of the Earth twice to send it shooting toward Jupiter, a maneuver known as a "gravity assist."

How do you bounce a spacecraft off a planet? Let's take a closer look at how a gravity assist works. If you only look at half of the picture, it all seems pretty straightforward. If you drop a spacecraft into a planet, the gravitational attraction of the planet speeds it up, just like a dropped ball speeds up on its way to the floor.

Let's assume that you've very carefully aimed your spacecraft so that it doesn't actually hit the planet. Instead, it executes a near-miss. (An interesting aside here: that's basically what an orbit is. A near miss that goes on and on and on. A spacecraft in orbit is always failing toward the planet, but always missing.)

The spacecraft misses the planet, but doesn't get to keep that speed it gained. After the spacecraft races past the planet, gravity slows it down on the way out, just as the ball slowed down on its way up. In the end the spacecraft leaves the planet with the same speed with which it arrived.

How can we set this up so that passing the planet gives the spacecraft a boost? To figure out what's going on, let's take another look at the bouncing balls and why they act as they do.

FOLLOW THE BOUNCING BALLS

Consider a tennis ball riding piggyback on a basketball, starting from rest in Paul's hands at one meter off the floor. The balls accelerate toward the floor and are going about 4 meters/second when they hit. The basketball hits the floor first and reverses direction, heading up at 4 meters/second. The tennis ball is still going down at 4 meters/second.

At least, that's how fast the tennis ball is going if you're watching it from the point of view of someone standing on the ground. But suppose you were a tiny person standing on the surface of the basketball? (Or, as Paul would prefer to put it, suppose you were watching from the frame of reference of the basketball.) From the point of view of someone standing on the floor, the basket ball is traveling up at 4 meters/second and the tennis ball is traveling down at 4 meters/second. But from the surface of the basketball, you'd see the tennis ball traveling toward you at 8 meters/ second. Its speed relative to you would be 8 meters/second.

You can compare this shift in viewpoint to driving down the road at 60 mph. On the other side of the double yellow line, a car is coming toward you at 60 mph. Relative to the road, you're traveling 60 mph and the other car is traveling 60 mph. But that car's speed relative to you is 120 mph.

So the tennis ball smacks into the basketball and heads in the other direction. Since little energy is lost in the collision, the tennis ball leaves the basketball at nearly the same speed at which it arrived. Since the basketball is more massive than the tennis ball, the collision doesn't slow down the basketball much. The basketball slows down only a little, but the tennis ball reverses direction. From your viewpoint on the basketball, the relative speed of the balls remains constant. After the balls hit, they separate at 8 meters/second.

Ah, but here's the tricky bit. For a person standing on the ground and watching the balls bounce, the picture is different. That basketball is still moving up at 4 meters/second. The tennis ball is going up 8 meters/second faster than the basketball. So the tennis ball is moving up at 12 meters/second, rather than just 4 meters/second. That's triple its original speed with respect to the Earth! With triple the speed, the ball bounces 9 times higher than the height from which it was dropped, shooting over Paul's head and amazing the spectators.

Where did it get the energy to do this? From the basketball. It takes a lot of energy to move that massive basketball. When the tennis ball bounced off the basketball, it gained just a little bit of the basketball's kinetic energy. If you watched really closely, you'd notice that the basketball dropped in tandem with the tennis ball doesn't bounce quite as high as the basketball dropped alone. That's because the tennis ball stole a bit of the basketball's energy,

The general rule is easy: when a ball bounces off a much heavier moving object and doesn't lose any energy to heat, it reverses its direction and gains twice the speed of the object it bounced off of. This means that a baseball leaves the batter at the speed the pitcher threw the ball plus twice the speed of the bat (minus some speed lost as a result of heat). It also means that a golf ball that is initially at rest leaves the tee at twice the speed of the striking club head (again minus a bit for heat).

FOLLOW THE BOUNCING SPACESHIP

To understand how a gravity assist works all you need to do is be able to add and subtract and imagine yourself in different places (that is, different frames of reference). The Galileo spacecraft made a gravity assist flyby of Venus and then returned to Earth for two more gravity assists. We'll consider one of the Earth flybys.

Let's say you've got a spacecraft that's orbiting the sun at the same distance as the Earth. The spacecraft is traveling in the opposite direction as the Earth -- the Earth orbits counterclockwise, and the spacecraft orbits clockwise. Both are going 30 kilometers/second. The spacecraft comes in toward the planet, swings around it in a cosmic do-se-do, and leaves moving out along the line of its approach.

That's your planetary collision. You may wonder why we call this a collision, since the spacecraft didn't touch the planet. Pat expresses her sympathy with this sensible viewpoint, but defers to the physicists. Paul and his fellow physicists consider this a collision even though the spacecraft doesn't touch the Earth. When pressed, Paul says he draws a large sphere around the Earth and watches the spacecraft enter and leave the sphere. If the spacecraft changes its direction or speed while inside the sphere he knows it has suffered a collision. He says that the spacecraft interacts with the planet via the long range force of gravity, not the short range electric forces that come into play when two objects actually touch.

And Pat concedes that Paul has a point. The spacecraft does act just like it has collided with something. The relative speeds of the two objects don't change. The spacecraft and planet come together at 60 kilometers/second and leave each other at 60 kilometers/second. That's what you see if you are standing on the Earth, which is the equivalent of the basketball in this situation.

But suppose you back up and look at the collision in the frame of the distant stars. Then you see a spacecraft initially orbiting the sun at 30 kilometers/second. After the collision, you see a spacecraft going 90 kilometers/second! The spacecraft is leaving the Earth at 60 kilometers/second and the Earth is going 30 kilometers/second so 60 + 30 = 90! That's fast enough to give the spacecraft escape velocity from the sun, heading out toward interstellar space along a hyperbolic trajectory.

The spacecraft gains kinetic energy in this encounter. Where does that energy come from? Well, just as the encounter with the tennis ball slowed the basketball down, the encounter with Galileo slowed the Earth down. Not by much, of course. When the Galileo spacecraft swung by Earth, it sped up by over 16,000 kilometers per hour with respect to the sun, and the Earth slowed down by 10 billionths of a centimeter per year. A reasonable trade, we figure.

MAKING A GRAND TOUR OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM

Michael Minovitch's calculations showed NASA that the outer planets were lined up so that they could be used to give a spacecraft multiple gravity assists to allow that spacecraft to make a grand tour of the solar system. Voyager 2 used a gravity assist from Jupiter to propel it to Saturn, then used Saturn to get to Uranus and finally used Uranus to get to Neptune and beyond. Voyager is now continuing on its way out of the solar system. In all of its gravity assists, it gained escape velocity and will never return to the sun.

We haven't figured out how to do that with a tennis ball just yet. Paul has calculated that it is theoretically possible for a ping pong ball to achieve escape velocity if you balance it on a stack of nine other balls, each much more massive than the one above it, each bouncier than a superball. Drop the balls 5 meters, or one story, under these ideal circumstances, and the ping pong ball would end up traveling at 11 kilometers/second, fast enough to escape the Earth's gravitational field. We haven't managed that yet, but we're still experimenting.

For additional information, visit Pat Murphy's Web site at http:/ /www.exo.net/jaxxx/.

~~~~~~~~

By PAUL DOHERTY and PAT MURPHY

COCKROACH

AFTER THE EXAMINATION, they gathered in the office of the physician, an obstetrician named Exavious that a friend of Sara's had recommended. Dr. Exavious specialized in what Sara termed "high-risk pregnancies," which Gerald Hartshorn took to mean that his wife, at thirty-seven, was too old to be having babies. Secretly, Gerald thought of his wife's...condition...not as a natural biological process, but as a disease: as fearsome and intractable, and perhaps -- though he didn't wish to think of it -- as fatal.

During the last weeks, a seed of fear Gerald had buried almost ten years ago -- buried and forgotten, he had believed -- had at last begun to germinate, to spread hungry tendrils in the rich loam of his heart, to feed.

And now, such thoughts so preoccupied him that Gerald only half-listened as Dr. Exavious reassured Sara. "We have made great strides in bringing to term women of your age," he was saying, "especially women in such superb condition as I have found you to be..."

These words, spoken in the obscurely accented English which communicated an aura of medical expertise to men of Gerald's class (white, affluent, conservative, and, above all, coddled by a network of expensive specialists) -- these words should have comforted him.

They did not. Specialist or not, the fact remained that Gerald didn't like Exavious, slim and Arabic, with febrile eyes and a mustache like a narrow charcoal slash in his hazel flesh. In fact, Gerald didn't like much of anything about this...situation. Most of all, he didn't like being left alone with the doctor when Sara excused herself at the end of the meeting. He laced his fingers in his lap and gazed off into a corner, uncertain how to proceed.

"These times can be difficult for a woman," Exavious said. "There are many pressures, you understand, not least on the kidneys."

Gerald allowed himself a polite smile: recognition of the intended humor, nothing more. He studied the office-- immaculate carpet, desk of dark expensive wood, diplomas mounted neatly on one wall -- but saw no clock. Beyond tinted windows, the parking lot shimmered with midsummer heat. Julian would be nuts at the office. But he didn't see how he could steal a glance at his watch without being rude.

Exavious leaned forward and said, "So you are to be a father. You must be very happy, Mr. Hartshorn."

Gerald folded and unfolded his arms. "Oh... I guess. Sure."

"If you have further questions, questions I haven't answered, I'd be happy to..." He let the rest of the sentence hang, unspoken, in the air. "I know this can be a trying experience for some men."

"I'm just a bit nervous, that's all."

"Ah. And why is that?"

"Well, her history, you know."

Exavious smiled. He waved a hand dismissively. "Such incidents are not uncommon, Mr. Hartshorn, as I'm sure you know. Your wife is quite healthy. Physiologically, she is twenty-five. You have nothing to fear."

Exavious sighed; he toyed with a lucite pyramid in which a vaguely alien-looking model of a fetus had been embedded. The name of a drug company had been imprinted in black around its base. "There is one thing, however."

Gerald swallowed. A slight pressure constricted his lungs. "What's that?"

"Your wife has her own fears and anxieties because of the history you mentioned. She indicated these during the examination -- that's why she came to me in the first place. Emotional states can have unforeseen physiological effects. They can heighten the difficulty of a pregnancy. Most doctors don't like to admit it, but the fact is we understand very little about the mind-body relationship. However, one thing is clear: your wife's emotional condition is every bit as important as her physical state." Exavious paused. Some vagary of the air-conditioning swirled to Gerald's nostrils a hint of his after-shave lotion.

"I guess I don't really understand," Gerald said.

"I'm just trying to emphasize that your wife will need your support, Mr. Hartshorn. That's all."

"Are you suggesting that I wouldn't be supportive?"

"Of course not. I merely noticed that --"

"I don't know what you noticed, but it sounds to me --"

"Mr. Hartshorn, please."

"-- like you think I'm going to make things difficult for her. You bet I'm nervous. Anyone in my circumstances would be. But that doesn't mean I won't be supportive." In the midst of this speech, Gerald found himself on his feet, a hot blush rising under his collar. "I don't know what you're suggest-ing--" he continued, and then, when Exavious winced and lifted his hands palms outward, he consciously lowered his voice. "I don't know what you're suggesting --"

"Mr. Hartshorn, please. My intent was not to offend. I understand that you are fearful for your wife. I am simply trying to tell you that she must not be allowed to perceive that you too are afraid."

Gerald drew in a long breath. He sat, feeling sheepish. "I'm sorry, it's...I've been under a lot of pressure at work lately. I don't know what came over me."

Exavious inclined his head. "Mr. Hartshorn, I know you are busy. But might I ask you a small favor -- for your sake and for your wife's?"

"Sure, please."

"Just this: take some time, Mr. Hartshorn, take some time and think. Are you fearful for your wife's welfare, or are you fearful for your own?"

Just then, before Gerald could reply, the door from the corridor opened and Sara came in, her long body as yet unblemished by the child within. She brushed back a wisp of blonde hair as Gerald turned to face her. "Gerald, are you okay? I thought I heard your --"

"Please, Mrs. Hartshorn, there was nothing," the doctor said warmly. "Is that not correct, Mr. Hartshorn! Nothing, nothing at all."

And somehow Gerald recovered himself enough to accede to this simple deception as the doctor ushered them into the corridor. Outside, while Sara spoke with the receptionist, he turned at a feathery touch on his shoulder. Dr. Exavious enveloped his hand and gazed into his eyes for a long and obscurely terrible moment; and then Gerald wrenched himself away, feeling naked and exposed, as if those febrile eyes had illuminated the hollows of his soul, as if he too had been subjected to an examination and had been found wanting.

"I don't know," Gerald said as he guided the Lexus out of the clinic lot. "I don't like him much. I liked Schwartz better."

He glanced over at Sara, her long hand curved beneath her chin, but she wouldn't meet his eyes.

Rush hour traffic thickened around them. He should call Julian; there wasn't much point in trying to make it back to the office now. He had started to reach for the phone when Sara said, "He's a specialist."

"You heard him: you're in great shape. You don't need a specialist."

"I'd feel more comfortable with him."

Gerald shrugged. "I just didn't think he was very personable, that's all."

"Since when do we choose our doctors because they're personable, Gerald? She drummed her fingers against the dash. "Besides, Schwartz wasn't especially charming." She paused; then, with a chill hint of emotion, she added, "Not to mention competent."

Like stepping suddenly into icy water, this -- was it grief, after all these years? Or was it anger?

He extended a hand to her, saying, "Now come on, Sara --"

"Drop it, Gerald."

"Fine."

An oppressive silence filled the car. No noise from without penetrated the interior, and the concentrated purr of the engine was so muted that it seemed rather a negation of sound. A disquieting notion possessed him: perhaps there never had been sound in the world.

A fractured series of images pierced him: rain-slicked barren trees, black trunks whipped to frenzy by a voiceless wind; lane upon lane of stalled, silent cars, pouring fumes into the leaden sky; and Sara--Sara, her lips moving like the lips of a silent movie heroine, shaping words that could not reach him through the changeless air.

Gerald shook his head.

"Are you ready to go home or do you need to stop by the library?" he asked.

"Home. We need to talk about the library."

"Oh?"

"I'm thinking of quitting," she said.

"Quitting?"

"I need some time, Gerald. We have to be careful. I don't want to lose this baby."

"Well, sure," he said. "But quitting."

Sara swallowed. "Besides, I think the baby should be raised at home, don't you?"

Gerald slowed for a two-way stop, glanced into the intersection, and plunged recklessly into traffic, slotting the Lexus into a narrow space before a looming brown UPS truck. Sara uttered a brief, piercing shriek.

"I hadn't really thought about it," Gerald said.

And in fact he hadn't -- hadn't thought about that, or dirty diapers, or pediatricians, or car seats, or teething, or a thousand other things, all of which now pressed in upon him in an insensate rush. For the first time he thought of the baby not as a spectral possibility, but as an imminent presence, palpable, new, central to their lives. He was too old for this.

But all he said was: "Quitting seems a little drastic. After all, it's only part-time."

Sara didn't answer.

"Why don't we think about it?"

"Too late," Sara said quietly.

"You quit?"

Gerald glanced over at her, saw a wry smile touch her lips, saw in her eyes that she didn't really think it funny.

"You quit?"

"Oh, Gerald," she said. "I'm sorry, I really am."

But he didn't know why she was apologizing, and he had a feeling that she didn't know why either. He reached out and touched her hand, and then they were at a stoplight. Gerald reached for the phone. "I've got to call Julian," he said.

THE INSTRUMENT of Gerald Hartshorn's ascension at the advertising firm of MacGregor, MacGregor, & Turn had been a six-foot-tall cockroach named Fenton, whom Gerald had caused to be variously flayed, decapitated, delimbed, and otherwise dispatched in a series of TV spots for a local exterminator who thereafter had surpassed even his nationally advertised competitors in a tight market. Now, a decade later, Gerald could recall with absolute clarity the moment of this singular inspiration: an early morning trip to the kitchen to get Sara a glass of grapefruit juice.

That had been shortly after Sara's first pregnancy, the abrupt, unforgettable miscarriage that for months afterward had haunted her dreams. Waking in moans or screams or a cold accusatory silence that for Gerald had been unutterably more terrible, she would weep inconsolably as he tried to comfort her, and afterward through the broken weary house they had leased in those impoverished days, she would send him for a bowl of ice cream or a cup of warm milk or, in this case, a glass of grapefruit juice. Without complaint, he had gone, flipping on lights and rubbing at his bleary eyes and lugging the heavy burden of his heart like a stone in the center of his breast.

He remembered very little of those days besides the black funnel of conflicting emotion which had swept him up: a storm of anger more deleterious than any he had ever known; a fierce blast of grief for a child he had not and could not ever know; and, sweeping all before it, a tempest of relief still more fierce, relief that he had not lost Sara. There had been a close moment, but she at least remained for him.

And, of course, he remembered the genesis of Fenton the cockroach.

Remembered how, that night, as his finger brushed the switch that flooded the cramped kitchen with a pitiless glare, he had chanced to glimpse a dark anomaly flee pell-mell to safety across the stained counter. Remembered the inspiration that rained down on him like a gift as he watched the loathsome creature wedge its narrow body into a crevice and disappear.

The Porter account, he had thought. Imagine:

Fade in with thunder on a screaming housewife, her hands clasped to her face, her expression stricken. Pan recklessly about the darkened kitchen, fulgurant with lightning beyond a rain-streaked window. Jumpcut through a series of angles on a form menacing and enormous, insectoid features more hidden than revealed by the storm's fury. Music as the tension builds. At last the armored figure of the exterminator to the rescue. Fade to red letters on a black background:

Porter Exterminators. Depend On Us.

But the piece had to be done straight. It could not be played for laughs. It had to be terrifying.

And though the ads had gradually softened during the decade since though the cockroach had acquired a name and had been reduced to a cartoon spokesman who died comically at the end of every spot (Please, please don't call Porter!) -- that first commercial had turned out very much as Gerald had imagined it: terrifying. And effective.

And that was the way Gerald thought of Fenton the giant cockroach even now. Not in his present animated incarnation, but in his original form, blackly horrifying, looming enraged from some shadowy comer, and always, always obscurely linked in his mind to the dark episode of his lost child and the wife he also had nearly lost.

But despite these connections, the Porter account had remained Gerald's single greatest success. Other accounts had been granted him; and though Fenton was now years in the past, promotions followed. So he drove a Lexus, lived in one of the better neighborhoods, and his wife worked part-time as an aide in the children's library not because she had to, but because she wanted to.

All things considered, he should have been content. So why, when he picked up the phone to call Julian MacGregor, should the conversation which followed so dishearten him?

"I can't make it back in today," he said. "Can the Dainty Wipe thing wait until Monday?"

And Julian, his boss for twelve years, replied with just a touch of...what? Exasperation?

Julian said: "Don't worry about that, I'm going to put Lake Conley on it instead."

Lake Conley, who was a friend.

Why should that bother him?

Gerald came to think of the pregnancy as a long, arduous ordeal: a military campaign, perhaps, conducted in bleak territory, beneath a bitter sky. He thought of Napoleon, bogged down in the snow outside of Moscow, and he despaired.

Not that the pregnancy was without beneficial effects. In the weeks after that first visit to Dr. Exavious -- at two months w Gerald saw Sara's few wrinkles begin to soften, her breasts to grow fuller. But mostly the changes were less pleasant. Nausea continued to plague her, in defiance of Exavious's predictions. They argued over names and made love with distressing infrequency.

Just when Gerald grudgingly acquiesced in repainting a bedroom (a neutral blue, Sara had decided, neither masculine nor feminine), he was granted a momentary reprieve when Sara decided to visit her mother, two hours away.

"I'll see you tomorrow," she told him in the flat heat promised by the August dawn.

Gerald stepped close to her with sudden violent longing; he inhaled her warm powdered odor. "Love you."

"Me too." She flung an arm around him in a perfunctory embrace, and then the small mound of her abdomen interposed itself between them.

And then she was gone.

Work that day dragged through a series of ponderous crises that defied resolution, and it was with relief that Gerald looked up to see Lake Conley standing in the door.

"So Sara's out of town," Lake said.

"That's right."

"Let's have a drink. We should talk."

They found a quiet bar on Magnolia. There, in the cool dim, with the windows on the street like bright hot panes of molten light, Gerald studied Lake Conley, eleven years his junior and handsome seemingly by force of will. Lake combed his long hair with calculated informality, and his suit, half as expensive as Gerald's, fit him with unnatural elegance.

"Then Julian said, 'Frankly, Sue, I don't see the humor in this.' I swear, she nearly died." Lake laughed. "You should have seen it, Gerald."

Gerald chuckled politely and watched as Lake took a pull at his Dos Equis. He watched him place the beer on the bar and dig with slender fingers in a basket of peanuts. Weekly sessions in the gym had shown Gerald that the other man's slight frame was deceptive. Lake was savagely competitive in racquetball, and while it did not bother Gerald that he usually lost, it did bother him that when he won, he felt that Lake had permitted him to do so. It bothered him still more that he preferred these soulless victories to an endless series of humiliations.

Often he felt bearish and graceless beside the younger man. Today he just felt tired.

"Just as well I wasn't there," he said. "I'm sure Julian would have lit into me, too."

"Julian giving you a rough time?"

Gerald shrugged.

Lake gazed thoughtfully at him for a moment, then turned to the flickering television that played soundlessly over the bar. "Well," he said with forced cheer. "Sara doing okay? She big as a house yet?"

"Not yet." Gerald finished his drink and signaled for another. "Thank God for gin," he said.

"There's a good sign."

Gerald sipped at the new drink. "Been a while. We're not drinking much at home lately."

"What's the problem, Gerald?"

"She could have told me she stopped taking the pill."

"Sure."

"Or that she was quitting her job."

"Absolutely."

Gerald didn't say anything. A waitress backed through a swinging door by the bar, and tinny rock music blasted out of the kitchen. The sour odor of grease came to him, and then the door swung shut, and into the silence, Lake Conley said:

"You're not too happy about this."

"It's not just that she hasn't been telling me things. She's always been a little self-contained. And she's sorry, I know that."

"Then what is it?"

Gerald sighed. He dipped a finger in his drink and began to trace desultory patterns on the bar. "Our first baby," he said at last. "The miscarriage. It was a close call for Sara. It was scary then and it's even scarier now. She's all I have." Bitter laughter escaped him. "Her and Julian MacGregor."

"Don't forget Fenton."

"Ah yes, the cockroach." Gerald finished his drink, and this time the bartender had another waiting.

"Is that it?"

"No." He paused. "Let me ask you this: you ever feel...I don't know...weird about anything when Kaye was pregnant?"

Lake laughed. "Let me guess. You're afraid the baby's not yours." And then, when Gerald shook his head, he continued, "How about this? You're afraid the baby is going to be retarded or horrifically deformed, some kind of freak."

"I take it you did."

Lake scooped a handful of peanuts onto the bar and began to arrange them in a neat circle. Gerald looked on in bleary fascination.

Another drink had been placed before him. He tilted the glass to his lips.

"It's entirely normal," Lake was saying. "Listen, I was so freaked out that I talked to Kaye's obstetrician about it. You know what she said? It's a normal by-product of your anxiety, that's all. That's the first baby. Second baby? It's a breeze."

"That so?"

"Sure. Trust me, this is the best thing that's ever happened to you. This is going to be the best experience of your life."

Gerald slouched in his stool, vastly

-- and illogically, some fragment of his mind insisted

-- relieved.

"Another drink?" Lake asked.

Gerald nodded. The conversation strayed listlessly for a while, and then he looked up to see that daylight had faded beyond the large windows facing the street. A steady buzz of conversation filled the room. He had a sense of pressure created by many people, hovering just beyond the limits of his peripheral vision. He felt ill, and thrust half an ice-melted drink away from him.

Lake's face drifted in front of him, his voice came from far away: "Listen, Gerald, I'm driving you home, okay?"

Opening his eyes in Lake's car, he saw the shimmering constellation of the city beyond a breath-frosted window, cool against his cheek. Lake was saying something. What?

"You okay? You're not going to be sick, are you?"

Gerald lifted a hand weakly. Fine, fine.

They were parked in the street outside Gerald's darkened house. Black dread seized him. The house, empty, Sara away. A thin, ugly voice spoke in his mind -- the voice of the cockroach, he thought with sudden lucidity. And it said:

This is how it will look when she's gone. This is how it will look when she's dead.

She won't die. She won't die.

Lake was saying, "Gerald, you have to listen to me."

Clarity gripped him. "Okay. What is it?"

A passing car chased shadow across Lake's handsome features. "I asked you out tonight for a reason, Gerald."

"What's that?"

Lake wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel, took in a slow breath. "Julian talked to me today. He's giving me the Heather Drug campaign. I wanted to tell you. I told him you were depending on it, but..." Lake shrugged.

Gerald thought: You son of a bitch. I ought to puke in your car.

But he said: "Not your fault." He opened the door and stood up. Night air, leavened with the day's heat, embraced him. "Later."

And then somehow up the drive to the porch, where he spent long moments fitting the key into the door. Success at last, the door swinging open. Interior darkness leaked into the night.

He stumbled to the stairs, paused there to knot his tie around the newel post, which for some reason struck him as enormously funny. And then the long haul up the flight, abandoning one shoe halfway up and another on the landing, where the risers twisted to meet the gallery which opened over shining banisters into the foyer below.

Cathedral ceilings, he thought. The legacy of Fenton the cockroach. And with a twist like steel in his guts, the memory of that nasty internal voice came back to him. Not his voice. The voice of the cockroach:

This is how it will be when she's dead.

And then the bedroom. The sheets, and Sara's smell upon them. The long fall into oblivion.

HE WOKE abruptly, clawing away a web of nightmare. He had been trapped in suffocating dark, while something--

-- the cockroach --

-- gnawed hungrily at his guts.

He sat up, breathing hard.

Sara stood at the foot of the bed, his shoes dangling in her upraised hand. She said, "You son of a bitch."

Gerald squinted at the clock-radio. Dull red numbers transformed themselves as he watched. 11:03. Sunlight lashed through the blinds. The room swam with the stink of sleep and alcohol.

"Sara..." He dug at his eyes.

"You son of a bitch," she said.

She flung the shoes hard into his stomach as, gasping, he stumbled from the bed. "Sara --"

But she had turned away. He glimpsed her in profile at the door, her stomach slightly domed beneath her drop-waist dress, and then she was gone.

Gerald, swallowing-- how dry his throat was! -- followed. He caught her at the steps, and took her elbow.

"Sara, it was only a few drinks. Lake and I --"

She turned on him, a fierce light in her eyes. Her fury propelled him back a step. She reminded him of a feral dog, driving an intruder from her pups.

"It's not that, Gerald," she said.

And then--

-- goddamn it, I won't be treated like that!

-- he stepped toward her, clasping her elbows. Wrenching her arm loose, she drew back her hand. The slap took them both by surprise; he could see the shock of it in her eyes, softening the anger.

His anger, too, dissipated, subsumed in a rising tide of grief and memory.

An uneasy stillness descended. She exhaled and turned away, stared over the railing into the void below, where the sun fell in bright patches against the parquet. Gerald lifted a hand to his cheek, and Sara turned now to face him, her eyes lifted to him, her hand following his to his face. He felt her touch him through the burning.

"I'm sorry," they said simultaneously.

Bright sheepish laughter at this synchronicity convulsed them, and Gerald, embracing her, saw with horror how close she stood to the stairs. Unbidden, an image possessed him: Sara, teetering on the edge of balance. In a series of strobic flashes, he saw it as it might have been. Saw her fall away from him, her arms outstretched for his grasping fingers. Saw her crash backwards to the landing, tumble down the long flight to the foyer. Saw the blood--

--so little blood. My God, who would have thought? So little blood!

"I'm sorry," he said again.

She dug her fingers into his back. "It's not that."

"Then what?"

She pulled away and fixed him with her stare. "Your shoes, Gerald. You left them on the stairs." Her hand stole over the tiny mound of her stomach. "I could have fallen."

"I'm sorry," he said, and drew her to him.

Her voice tight with controlled emotion, she spoke again, barely perceptible, punctuating her words with small blows against his shoulder. "Not again," she whispered.

Clasping her even tighter, Gerald drew in a faint breath of her floral-scented shampoo and gazed over her head at the stairs which fell infinitely away behind her.

"Not again," he said.

Gerald watched apprehensively as Dr. Exavious dragged the ultrasound transducer over Sara's belly, round as a small pumpkin and glistening with clear, odorless gel. The small screen flickered with a shifting pattern of gray and black, grainy and irresolute as the swirling path of a thunderstorm on a television meteorologist's radar.

Sara looked on with a clear light in her face. It was an expression Gerald saw with increasing frequency these days. A sort of tranquil beauty had come into her features, a still internal repose not unlike that he sometimes glimpsed when she moved over him in private rhythm, outward token of a concentration even then wholly private and remote.

But never, never so lost to him as now.

"There now," Exavious said softly. He pointed at the screen. "There is the heart, do you see it?"

Gerald leaned forward, staring. The room, cool, faintly redolent of antiseptic, was silent but for Sara's small coos of delight, and the muted whir of the VCR racked below the ultrasound scanner. Gerald drew a slow breath as the grayish knot Exavious had indicated drew in upon itself and expanded in a pulse of ceaseless, mindless syncopation.

"Good strong heart," Exavious said.

Slowly then, he began to move the transducer again. A feeling of unreality possessed Gerald as he watched the structure of his child unfold across the screen in changeable swaths of light. Here the kidneys "Good, very good," Exavious commented w and there the spine, knotted, serpentine. The budding arms and legs -- Exavious pausing here to trace lambent measurements on the screen with a wand, nodding to himself. And something else, which Exavious didn't comment on, but which Gerald thought to be the hint of a vestigial tail curling between the crooked lines of the legs. He had heard of children born with tails, anomalous throwbacks from the long evolutionary rise out of the jungle.

Sara said, "Can you get an image of the whole baby?"

Exavious adjusted the transducer once more. The screen flickered, settled, grew still at the touch of a button. "Not the whole baby. The beam is too narrow, but this is close."

Gerald studied the image, the thing hunched upon itself in a swirl of viscous fluid, spine twisted, misshapen head fractured by atavistic features: blind pits he took for eyes, black slits for nostrils, the thin slash of the mouth, like a snake's mouth, as lipless and implacable. He saw at the end of an out-flung limb the curled talon of a hand. Gerald could not quell the feeling of revulsion which welled up inside him. It looked not like a child, he thought, but like some primitive reptile, a throwback to the numb, idiot fecundity of the primordial slime.

He and Sara spoke at the same time:

"It's beautiful."

"My God, it doesn't even look human."

He said this without thought, and only in the shocked silence that followed did he see how it must have sounded.

"I mean -- he said, but it was pointless. Sara would not meet his eyes.

Dr. Exavious said, "In fact, you are both correct. It is beautiful indeed, but it hardly looks human. Not yet. It will, though." He patted Sara's hand. "Mr. Hartshorn's reaction is not atypical."

"But not typical either, I'm guessing."

Exavious shrugged. "Perhaps." He touched a button and the image on the screen disappeared. He cleaned and racked the transducer, halted the VCR.

"I was just thinking it looks...like something very ancient," Gerald said. "Evolution, you know."

"Haeckel's law. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny."

"I'm sorry?"

"A very old idea, Mr. Hartshorn. The development of the individual recapitulates the development of the species."

"Is that true?" Sara asked.

"Not literally. In some metaphorical sense, I suppose." Bending, the doctor ejected the tape from the VCR and handed it to Gerald. "But let me assure you, your baby is fine. It is going to be a beautiful child."

At this, Gerald caught Sara's eye: I'm sorry, this look was meant to say, but she would not yield. Later though, in the car, she forgave him, saying: "Did you hear what he said, Gerald? A beautiful child." She laughed and squeezed his hand and said it again: "Our beautiful, beautiful baby."

Gerald forced a smile. "That's right," he told her.

But in his heart another voice was speaking, a thin ugly voice he knew. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, it said, and Gerald gripped the steering wheel until the flesh at his knuckles went bloodless; he smiled at Sara, and tried to wall that voice away, and perhaps he thought he succeeded. But in the secret chambers of his heart it resonated still. And he could not help but listen.

Three weeks later, Indian summer began to die away into fall, and Sara reported that the baby had begun moving within her. Time and again over the next few weeks, Gerald cupped his hand over the growing mound of her belly, alert to even the tiniest shift, but he could feel nothing, nothing at all.

"There," Sara said. Breathlessly: "Can you feel it?"

Gerald shook his head, feeling, for no reason he could quite articulate, vaguely relieved.

Sara continued to put on weight, complaining gamely as her abdomen expanded and her breasts grew sensitive. Gerald sometimes came upon her unawares in the bedroom, standing in her robe and gazing ruefully at the mirror, or sitting on the bed, staring thoughtfully into a closet crowded with unworn clothes and shoes that cramped her swollen feet. A thin dark line extended to her navel (the rectus muscle, Exavious told them, never fear); she claimed she could do nothing with her hair. At night, waking beside her in the darkness, Gerald found his hands stealing over her in numb bewilderment. What had happened to Sara, long known, much loved? The clean, angular lines he had known for years vanished, her long bones hidden in this figure gently rounded and soft. Who was this strange woman sleeping in his bed?

And yet, despite all, her beauty seemed to Gerald only more pronounced. She moved easy in this new body, at home and graceful. That clear light he had glimpsed sporadically in her face gradually grew brighter, omnipresent, radiating out of her with a chill calm. For the first time in his life, Gerald believed that old description he had so often read: Sara's eyes indeed did sparkle. They danced, they shone with a brilliance that reflected his stare-- hermetic, enigmatic, defying interpretation. Her gaze pierced through him, into a world or future he could not see or share. Her hands seemed unconsciously to be drawn to her swollen belly; they crept over it constantly, they caressed it.

Her gums swelled. She complained of heartburn, but she would not use the antacid tablets Exavious prescribed, would not touch aspirin or ibuprofen. In October, she could no longer sleep eight hours undisturbed. Once, twice, three times a night, Gerald woke to feel the mattress relinquish her weight with a long sigh. He listened as she moved through the heavy dark to the bathroom, no lights, ever considerate. He listened to the secret flow of urine, the flushing toilet's throaty rush. He woke up, sore-eyed, yawning, and Dr. Exavious's words -- there are many pressures, you understand, not least on the kidneys -- began to seem less like a joke, more like a curse.

In November, they began attending the childbirth classes the doctor had recommended. Twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, Gerald crept out of the office early, uncomfortably aware of Julian MacGregor's baleful gaze; at such moments, he could not help but think of Lake Conley and the Heather Drug campaign. As he retrieved the Lexus from the garage under the building and drove to the rambling old Baptist church where the classes met, his thoughts turned to his exhaustion-stitched eyes and his increasingly tardy appearances at the office every morning. Uneasy snakes of anxiety coiled through his guts.

One afternoon, he sneaked away half an hour early and stopped by the bar on Magnolia for two quick drinks. Calmer then, he drove to the church and parked, letting himself in through the side door of the classroom a few minutes early. Pregnant women thronged the room, luminous and beautiful and infinitely remote; those few men like himself already present stood removed, on the fringes, banished from this mysterious communion.

For a long terrible moment, he stood in the doorway and searched for Sara, nowhere visible. Just the room crowded with these women, their bellies stirring with a biological imperative neither he nor any man could know or comprehend, that same strange light shining in their inscrutable eyes. They are in league against us, whispered a voice unbidden in his mind. They are in league against us.

Was that the cockroach's voice? Or was it his own?

Then the crowd shifted, Sara slipped into sight. She came toward him, smiling, and he stepped forward to meet her, this question unresolved.

But the incident -- and the question it inspired -- lingered in his mind. When he woke from restless dreams, it attended him, nagging, resonant: that intimate communion of women he had seen, linked by fleshly sympathies he could not hope to understand. Their eyes shining with a passion that surpassed any passion he had known. The way they had -- that Sara had -- of cradling their swollen bellies, as if to caress the -g

-- Christ, was it monstrous what came to mind?

-- growths within.

He sat up sweating, sheets pooled in his lap. Far down in the depths of the house the furnace kicked on; overheated air, smelling musty and dry, wafted by his face. Winter folded the house in chill intimacy, but in here...hot, hot. His heart pounded. He wiped a hand over his forehead, dragged in a long breath.

Some watchful quality to the silence, the uneven note of her respiration, told him that Sara, too, was awake. In the darkness. Thinking.

She said, "You okay?"

"I don't know," he said. "I don't know."

And this was sufficient for her. She asked nothing more of him than this simple admission of weakness, she never had. She touched him now, her long hand cool against his back. She drew him to the softness at her breast, where he rested his head now, breath ragged, a panic he could not contain rising like wind in the desert places inside him. Heavy dry sobs wracked him.

"Shhh, now," she said, not asking, just rocking him gently. Her hands moved through his hair.

"Shhh," she whispered.

And slowly, by degrees imperceptible, the agony that had possessed him, she soothed away. Nothing, he thought. Of course, it had been nothing --anxieties, Lake Conley had said.

"You okay?" she asked again.

"I'm fine."

She pulled him closer. His hand came to her thigh, and without conscious intention, he found himself opening her gown, kissing her, her breasts, fuller now than he had ever known them. Her back arched. Her fingers were in his hair.

She whispered, "Gerald, that feels nice."

He continued to kiss her, his interest rising. The room was dark, but he could see her very clearly in his mind: the Sara he had known, lithe and supple; this new Sara, this strange woman who shared his bed, her beauty rising out of some deep reservoir of calm and peace. He traced the slope of her breasts and belly. Here. And here. He guided her, rolling her to her side, her back to him, rump out-thrust as Exavious had recommended during a particularly awkward and unforgettable consultation --

"No, Gerald," she said. She said, "No."

Gerald paused, breathing heavily. Below, in the depths of the darkened house, the furnace shut off, and into the immense silence that followed, he said, "Sara --"

"No," she said. "No, no."

Gerald rolled over on his back. He tried to throttle back the frustration rising once more within him, not gone after all, not dissipated, merely...pushed away.

Sara turned to him, she came against him. He could feel the bulk of her belly interposed between them.

"I'm afraid, Gerald. I'm afraid it'll hurt the baby."

Her fingers were on his thigh.

"It won't hurt the baby. Exavious said it won't hurt the baby. The books said it won't hurt the baby. Everyone says it won't hurt the baby."

Her voice in the darkness: "But what if it does? I'm afraid, Gerald."

Gerald took a deep breath. He forced himself to speak calmly. "Sara, it won't hurt the baby. Please."

She kissed him, her breath hot in his ear. Her fingers worked at him. She whispered, "See? We can do something else." Pleading now. "We can be dose, I want that."

But Gerald, the anger and frustration boiling out of him in a way he didn't like, a way he couldn't control -- it scared him -- threw back the covers. Stood, and reached for his robe, thinking: Hot. It's too hot. I've got to get out of here. But he could not contain himself. He paused, fingers shaking as he belted the robe, to fling back these words: "I'm not so sure I want to be close, Sara. I'm not at all sure what I want anymore."

And then, in three quick strides, he was out the door and into the hall, hearing the words she cried after him -- "Gerald, please" -- but not pausing to listen.

The flagstone floor in the den, chill against his bare feet, cooled him. Standing behind the bar in the airy many-windowed room, he mixed himself a gin and tonic with more gin than tonic and savored the almost physical sense of heat, real and emotional, draining along his tension-knotted spine, through the tight muscles of his legs and feet, into the placid stones beneath.

He took a calming swallow of gin and touched the remote on the bar. The television blared to life in a far corner and he cycled through the channels as he finished his drink. Disjointed, half-glimpsed images flooded the darkened room: thuggish young men entranced by the sinister beat of the city, tanks jolting over desert landscape, the gang at Cheers laughing it up at Cliff's expense. Poor Cliff. You weren't supposed to identify with him, but Gerald couldn't help it. Poor Cliff was just muddling through like anyone --

-- Like you, whispered that nasty voice, the voice he could not help but think of as the cockroach.

Gerald shuddered.

On principle, he hated the remote -- the worst thing ever to happen to advertising -- but now he fingered it again, moved past Letterman's arrogant smirk. He fished more ice from the freezer, splashed clean-smelling gin in his glass, chased it with tonic. Then, half-empty bottle of liquor and a jug of tonic clutched in one hand, drink and television remote in the other, Gerald crossed the room and lowered himself into the recliner.

His anger had evaporated B quick to come, quick to go, it always had been -- but an uneasy tension lingered in its wake. He should go upstairs, apologize -- he owed it to Sara -- but he could not bring himself to move. A terrific inertia shackled him. He had no desire except to drink gin and thumb through the channels, pausing now and again when something caught his eye, half-clad dancers on MTV, a news story about the unknown cannibal killer in LA, once the tail-end of a commercial featuring none other than Fenton the giant cockroach himself.

Christ.

Three or four drinks thereafter he must have dozed, for he came to himself suddenly and unpleasantly when a nightmare jolted him awake. He sat up abruptly, his empty glass crashing to the floor. He had a blurred impression of it as it shattered, sending sharp scintillas of brilliance skating across the flagstones as he doubled over, sharp ghosts of pain shooting through him, as something, Christ --.

-- the cockroach --

-- gnawed ravenously at his swollen guts.

He gasped, head reeling with gin. The house brooded over him. Then he felt nothing, the dream pain gone, and when, with reluctant horror, he lifted his clutching hands from his belly, he saw only pale skin between the loosely belted flaps of robe, not the gory mess he had irrationally expected, not the blood--

-- so little blood, who would have thought? So little blood and such a little --

No. He wouldn't think of that now, he wouldn't think of that at all.

He touched the lever on the recliner, lifting his feet, and reached for the bottle of gin beside the chair. He gazed at the shattered glass and then studied the finger or two of liquor remaining in the bottle; after a moment, he spun loose the cap and tilted the bottle to his lips. Gasoline-harsh gin flooded his mouth. Drunk now, dead drunk, he could feel it and he didn't care, Gerald stared at the television.

A nature program flickered by, the camera closing on a brown grasshopper making its way through lush undergrowth. He sipped at the gin, searched densely for the remote. Must have slipped into the cushions. He felt around for it, but it became too much of an effort. Hell with it.

The grasshopper continued to progress in disjointed leaps, the camera tracking expertly, and this alone exerted over him a bizarre fascination. How the hell did they film these things anyway? He had a quick amusing image: a near-sighted entomologist and his cameraman tramping through some benighted wilderness, slapping away insects and suffering the indignities of crotch-rot. Ha-ha. He touched the lever again, dropping the footrest, and placed his bare feet on the cool flagstones, mindful in a meticulously drunken way of the broken glass.

Through a background of exotic bird-calls, and the swish of antediluvian vegetation, a cultured masculine voice began to speak: "Less common than in the insect world, biological mimicry, developed by predators and prey through millennia of natural selection is still..."

Gerald leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees. A faraway voice whispered in his mind. Natural selection. Sophomore biology had been long ago, but he recognized the term as an element of evolutionary theory. What had Exavious said?

That nasty voice whispering away...

He had a brief flash of the ultrasound video, which Sara had watched again only that evening: the fetus, reptilian, primitive, an eerie wakeful quality to its amniotic slumber.

On the screen, the grasshopper took another leap. Music came up on the soundtrack, slow, minatory, almost subliminal. "...less commonly used by predators," the voiceover said, "biological mimicry can be dramatically effective when it is..." The grasshopper took another leap and plummeted toward a clump of yellow and white flowers. Too fast for Gerald really to see, the flowers exploded into motion. He sat abruptly upright, his heart racing, as prehensile claws flashed out, grasped the stunned insect, and dragged it down. "Take the orchid mantis of the Malaysian rainforest," the voiceover continued. "Evolution has disguised few predators so completely. Watch again as..." And now the image began to replay, this time in slow motion, so that Gerald could see in agonizing detail the grasshopper's slow descent, the flower-colored mantis unfolding with deadly and inevitable grace from the heart of the blossom, grasping claws extended. Again. And again. Each time the camera moved in tighter, tighter, until the mantis seemed to fill the screen with an urgency dreadful and inexorable and wholly merciless.

Gerald grasped the bottle of gin and sat back as the narrator continued, speaking now of aphid-farming ants and the lacewing larva. But he had ceased to listen. He tilted the bottle to his lips, thinking again of that reptilian fetus, awash in the womb of the woman he loved and did not want to lose. And now that faraway voice in his mind sounded closer, more distinct. It was the voice of the cockroach, but the words it spoke were those of Dr. Exavious.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny.

Gerald took a last pull of the bottle of gin. Now what exactly did that mean?

The ball whizzed past in a blur as Gerald stepped up to meet it, his racquet sweeping around too late. He spun and lunged past Lake Conley to catch the ricochet off the back wall, but the ball slipped past, bouncing twice, and slowed to a momentum draining roll.

"Goddamn it!" Gerald flung his racquet hard after the ball and collapsed against the back wall. He drew up his legs and draped his forearms over his knees.

"Game," Lake said.

"Go to hell." Gerald closed his eyes, tilted his head against the wall and tried to catch his breath. He could smell his own sweat, tinged with the sour odor of gin. He didn't open his eyes when Lake slid down beside him.

"Kind of an excessive reaction even for you," Lake said.

"Stress."

"Work?"

"That, too." Gerald gazed at Lake through slitted eyes. "Ahh."

They sat quietly, listening to a distant radio blare from the weight-room. From adjoining courts, the squeak of rubber-soled shoes and the intermittent smack of balls came to them, barely audible. Gerald watched, exhaustion settling over him like a gray blanket, while Lake traced invisible patterns on the floor with the edge of his racquet.

"Least I don't have to worry about the Heather Drug campaign," Gerald said. Almost immediately, he wished he could pull the words back. Unsay them.

For a long time, Lake didn't answer. When he did, he said only, "You have a right to be pissed off about that."

"Not really. Long time since I put a decent campaign together. Julian knows what he's doing."

Lake shrugged.

Again, Gerald tilted his head against the wall, closing his eyes. There it was, there it always was anymore, that image swimming in his internal darkness: the baby, blind and primitive and preternaturally aware. He saw it in his dreams; sometimes when he woke he had vague memories of a red fury clawing free of his guts. And sometimes it wasn't this dream he remembered, but another: looking on, helpless, horrified, while something terrible exploded out of Sara's smoothly rounded belly.

That one was worse.

That one spoke with the voice of the cockroach. That one said: You're going to lose her.

Lake was saying, "Not to put too fine a point on it, Gerald, but you look like hell. You come to work smelling like booze half the time, I don't know what you expect."

Expect? What did he expect exactly? And what would Lake say if he told him?

Instead, he said, "I'm not sleeping much. Sara doesn't sleep well. She gets up two, three times a night."

"So you're just sucking down a few drinks so you can sleep at night, that right?"

Gerald didn't answer.

"What's up with you anyway, Gerald?"

Gerald stared into the darkness behind his closed eyes, the world around him wheeling and vertiginous. He flattened his palms against the cool wooden floor, seeking a tangible link to the world he had known before, the world he had known and lost, he did not know where or how. Seeking to anchor himself to an earth that seemed to be sliding away beneath him. Seeking solace.

"Gerald?"

In his mind, he saw the mantis orchid; on the screen of his eyelids, he watched it unfold with deadly grace and drag down the hapless grasshopper.

He said: "I watch the sonogram tape, you know? I watch it at night when Sara's sleeping. It doesn't look like a baby, Lake. It doesn't look like anything human at all. And I think I'm going to lose her. I think I'm going to lose her, it's killing her, it's some kind of... something...I don't know...it's going to take her away."

"Gerald--"

"No. Listen. When I first met Sara, I remember the thing I liked about her -- one of the things I liked about her anyway, I liked so much about her, everything-- but the thing I remember most was this day when I first met her family. I went home with her from school for a week-end and her whole family w her little sister, her mom, her dad-- they were all waiting. They had prepared this elaborate meal and we ate in the dining room, and you knew that they were a family. It was just this quality they had, and it didn't mean they even liked each other all the time, but they were there for each other. You could feel it, you could breathe it in, like oxygen. That's what I wanted. That's what we have together, that's what I'm afraid of losing. I'm afraid of losing her."

He was afraid to open his eyes. He could feel tears there. He was afraid to look at Lake, to share his weakness, which he had never shared with anyone but Sara.

Lake said, "But don't you see, the baby will just draw you closer. Make you even more of a family than you ever were. You're afraid, Gerald, but it's just normal anxiety."

"I don't think so."

"The sonogram?" Lake said. "Your crazy thoughts about the sonogram? Everybody thinks that. But everything changes when the baby comes, Gerald. Everything."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Gerald said.

AFTER THE GYM, Gerald drove for hours without conscious purpose, trusting mindless reflexes to take him where they would. Around him sprawled the city, senseless, stunned like a patient on a table, etherized by winter.

By the time he pulled the Lexus to the broken curb in a residential neighborhood that had been poor two decades past, a few flakes of snow had begun to swirl through the expanding cones of his headlights. Dusk fell out of the December sky. Gerald cracked his window, inhaled cold smoke-stained air, and gazed diagonally across the abandoned street.

Still there. My God, still there after these ten years. A thought recurred to him, an image he had not thought of in all the long months ages, they felt like -- since that first visit to Dr. Exavious: like stepping into icy water, this stepping into the past.

No one lived there anymore. He could see that from the dilapidated state of the house, yard gone to seed, windows broken, paint that had been robin's egg blue a decade ago weathered now to the dingy shade of mop water. Out front, the wind creaked a realtor's sign long since scabbed over with rust. The skeletal swing-set remained in the barren yard, and it occurred to him now that his child -- his and Sara's child -- might have played there if only...

If only.

Always and forever if only.

The sidewalk, broken and weedy, still wound lazily from the street. The concrete stoop still extruded from the front door like a grotesquely foreshortened tongue. Three stairs still mounted to the door, the railing -- Dear God -- shattered and dragged away years since.

So short. Three short stairs. So little blood. Who could have known?

He thought of the gym, Lake Conley, the story he had wanted to tell but had not. He had not told anyone. And why should he? No great trauma, there; no abuse or hatred, no fodder for the morning talk shows; just the subtle cruelties, the little twists of steel that made up life.

But always there somehow. Never forgotten. Memories not of this house, though this house had its share God knows, but of a house very much like this one, in a neighborhood pretty much the same, in another city, in another state, a hundred years in the past or so it seemed. Another lifetime.

But unforgettable all the same.

Gerald had never known his father, had never seen him except in a single photograph: a merchant mariner, broad-shouldered and handsome, his wind-burned face creased by a broad incongruous smile. Gerald had been born in a different age, before such children became common, in a different world where little boys without fathers were never allowed to forget their absences and loss. His mother, he supposed, had been a good woman in her way-- had tried, he knew, and now, looking back with the discerning eye of an adult, he could see how it must have been for her: the thousand slights she had endured, the cruelties visited upon a small-town girl and the bastard son she had gotten in what her innocence mistook for love. Yes. He understood her flight to the city and its anonymity; he understood the countless lovers; now, at last, he understood the drinking when it began in earnest, when her looks had begun to go. Now he saw what she had been seeking. Solace. Only solace.

But forgive?

Now, sitting in his car across the street from the house where his first child had been miscarried, where he had almost lost forever the one woman who had thought him worthy of her love, Gerald remembered.

The little twists of steel, spoken without thought or heat, that made up life.

How old had he been then? Twelve? Thirteen?

Old enough to know, anyway. Old enough to creep into the living room and crouch over his mother as she lay there sobbing, drunken, bruised, a cold wind blowing through the open house where the man, whoever he had been, had left the door to swing open on its hinges after he had beaten her. Old enough to scream into his mother's whiskey-shattered face: I hate you/I hate you/I hate you!

Old enough to remember her reply: If it wasn't for you, you little bastard, he never would have left. If it wasn't for you, he never would have left me.

Old enough to remember, sure.

But old enough to forgive? Not then, Gerald knew. Not now. And maybe never.

THEY DID NOT GO to bed together. Sara came to him in the den, where he sat in the recliner, drinking gin and numbly watching television. He saw her in the doorway that framed the formal living room they never used, and beyond that, in diminishing perspective, the broad open foyer: but Sara foremost, foregrounded and unavoidable.

She said, "I'm going to bed. Are you coming?"

"I thought I'd stay up for a bit."

She crossed the flagstone floor to him in stocking feet, soundlessly, like a grotesquely misshapen apparition w her belly preceding her. He wondered if the long lines of the body he used to know were in there somewhere. She was still beautiful, still graceful, to be sure. But she possessed now a grace and beauty unlike any he had known, ponderous and alien, wholly different from that she had possessed the first time he had seen her all those years ago -- ghost-like then as well, an apparition from a world stable and dependable, a world of family, glimpsed in heart-wrenching profile through the clamorous throng of the University Center cafeteria.

She knelt by him. "Please come to bed."

He swished his drink. Ice bobbed and clinked. "I need to unwind."

"Gerald..."

"No really, I'm not sleepy, okay?" He smiled, and he could feel the falseness of the smile, but it satisfied her.

She leaned toward him, her lips brushed his cheek with a pressure barely present -- the merest papery rush of moth wings in a darkened room. And then she was gone.

Gerald drank: stared into the television's poison glow and drank gin and tonic, nectar and ambrosia. Tastes like a Christmas tree, Sara had told him the first night they were together, really together. He had loved her, he thought. He touched the remote, cycled past a fragmentary highlight of an NFL football game; past the dependable hysteria over the LA cannibal killer, identity unknown; past the long face of Mr. Ed. Drank gin and cycled through and through the channels, fragmentary windows on a broken world. Oh, he had loved her.

Later, how much later he didn't know and didn't care, Gerald found his way to the bedroom. Without undressing, he lay supine on the bed and stared sightlessly at the ceiling, Sara beside him, sleeping the hard sleep of exhaustion for now, though Gerald knew it would not last. Before the night was out, the relentless demands of the child within her would prod her into wakefulness. Lying there, his eyes gradually adjusting to the dark until the features of the room appeared to stand out, blacker still against the blackness, something, some whim, some impulse he could not contain, compelled him to steal his hand beneath the covers: stealthy now, through the folds of the sheet; past the hem of her gown, tucked up below her breasts; at last flattening his palm along the arc of her distended belly. Sara took in a heavy breath, kicked at the covers restlessly, subsided.

Silence all through the house, even the furnace silent in its basement lair: just Sara's steady respiration, and Gerald with her in the weighty dark, daring hardly to breathe, aware now of a cold sobriety in the pressure of the air.

The child moved.

For the first time, he felt it. He felt it move. An icy needle of emotion pierced him. It moved, moved again, the faintest shift in its embryonic slumber, bare adjustment of some internal gravity.

Just a month, he thought. Only a month.

The child moved, really moved now, palpable against his outstretched palm. Gerald threw back the covers, sitting upright, the room wheeling about him so swiftly that he had to swallow hard against an obstruction rising in his throat. Sara kicked in her sleep, and then was still.

Gerald looked down at her, supine, one long hand curled at her chin, eyes closed, mouth parted, great mound of belly half-visible below the hem of her up-turned gown. Now again, slowly, he laid a hand against her warm stomach, and yes, just as he had feared, it happened again: the baby moved, a long slow pressure against his palm.

Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, hissed the thin nasty voice of the cockroach. But what exactly did that mean.2

He moved his palm along her taut belly, pausing as Sara sighed in her sleep, and here too, like the slow pressure of some creature of the unknown deep, boiling through the placid waters, came that patient and insistent pressure. And then something more, not mere pressure, not gentle: a sudden, powerful blow. Sara moaned and arched her back, but the blow came again, as though the creature within her had hurled itself against the wall of the imprisoning womb. Why didn't she wake up? Gerald drew his hand away. Blow wasn't really the right word, was it?

What was?

His heart hammered at his ribcage; transfixed, Gerald moved his hand back toward Sara's belly. No longer daring to touch her, he skated his hand over the long curve on an inch-thin cushion of air. My God, he thought. My God. For he could see it now, he could see it: an outward bulge of the taut flesh with each repeated blow, as though a fist had punched her from within. He moved his hand, paused, and it happened again, sudden and sure, an outward protrusion that swelled and sank and swelled again. In kind of panic--

-- what the hell was going on here

-- Gerald moved his hand, paused, moved it again, tracing the curve of Sara's belly in a series of jerks and starts. And it followed him. Even though he was no longer touching her, it followed him, that sudden outward protrusion, the thing within somehow aware of his presence and trying to get at him. The blows quickened even as he watched, until they began to appear and disappear with savage, violent speed.

And still she did not wake up.

Not a blow, he thought. A strike.

Like the swift, certain strike of a cobra. An image unfolded with deadly urgency in Gerald's mind: the image of the orchid-colored mantis exploding outward from its flowery hole to drag down the helpless grasshopper and devour it.

Gerald jerked his hand away as if stung.

Sara's abdomen was still and pale as a tract of mountain snow. Nothing moved there. He reached the covers across her and lay back. A terrific weight settled over him; his chest constricted with panic; he could barely draw breath.

The terrible logic of the thing revealed itself to him at last. Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, Exavious had told him. And what if it was truer What if each child reflected in its own development the evolutionary history of the entire species?

Imagine:

Somewhere, far far back in the evolutionary past -- who could say how far? -- but somewhere, it began. A mutation that should have died, but didn't, a creature born of man and woman that survived to feed...and reproduce. Imagine a recessive gene so rare that it appeared in only one of every ten thousand individuals -- one of every hundred thousand even. For that would be sufficient, wouldn't it? Gerald couldn't calculate the odds, but he knew that it would be sufficient, that occasionally, three or four times in a generation, two carriers of such a gene would come together and produce... What? A child that was not what it appeared to be. A child that was not human. A monster clothed in human flesh.

Beside him, Sara moaned in her sleep. Gerald did not move.

He shut his eyes and saw against the dark screens of his eyelids, the flower-colored mantis, hidden in its perfumed lair; saw its deadly graceful assault, its pincers as they closed around the helpless grasshopper and dragged it down. The words of the narrator came back to him as well: natural selection favors the most efficient predator. And the most efficient predator is the monster that walks unseen among its chosen prey.

Terror gripped him as at last he understood how it must have been through all the long span of human history: Jack the Ripper, the Zodiac, the cannibal killer loose even now in the diseased bowels of Los Angeles.

We are hunted, he thought. We are hunted.

He stumbled clumsily from the bed and made his way into the adjoining bathroom, where for a long time he knelt over the toilet and was violently, violently sick.

Sanity returned to him in perceptual shards: watery light through the slatted blinds, the mattress rolling under him like a ship in rough waters, a jagged sob of fear and pain that pierced him through. Sara.

Gerald sat upright, swallowing bile. He took in the room with a wild glance.

Sara: in the doorway to the bathroom, long legs twisted beneath her, hands clutched in agony at her bloated abdomen. And blood ---

-- my God how could you have ---

-- so much blood, a crimson gout against the pale carpet, a pool spreading over the tiled floor of the bathroom.

Gerald reached for the phone, dialed 911. And then he went to her, took her in his arms, comforted her.

SWARMING MASSES of interns and nurses in white smocks swept her away from him at the hospital. Later, during the long gray hours in the waiting room hours spent staring at the mindless flicker of television or gazing through dirty windows that commanded a view of the parking lot, cup after cup of sour vending machine coffee clutched in hands that would not warm -- Gerald could not recall how they had spirited her away. In his last clear memory he saw himself step out of the ambulance into an icy blood-washed dawn, walking fast beside the gurney, Sara's cold hand clutched in his as the automatic doors slipped open on the chill impersonal reaches of the emergency room.

Somehow he had been shunted aside, diverted without the solace of a last endearment, without even a backward glance. Instead he found himself wrestling with a severe gray-headed woman about insurance policies and admission requirements, a kind of low-wattage bureaucratic hell he hated every minute of, but missed immediately when it ended and left him to his thoughts.

Occasionally he gazed at the pay phones along the far wall, knowing he should call Sara's mother but somehow unable to gather sufficient strength to do so. Later, he glimpsed Exavious in an adjacent corridor, but the doctor barely broke stride. He merely cast at Gerald a speculative glance

-- he knows, he knows ---

-- and passed on, uttering over his shoulder these words in his obscurely accented English: "We are doing everything in our power, Mr. Hartshorn. I will let you know as soon as I have news."

Alone again. Alone with bitter coffee, recriminations, the voice of the cockroach.

An hour passed. At eleven o'clock, Exavious returned. "It is not good, I'm afraid," he said. "We need to perform a caesarean section, risky under the circumstances, but we have little choice if the baby is to survive."

"And Sara?"

"We cannot know, Mr. Hartshorn." Exavious licked his lips, met Gerald's gaze. "Guarded optimism, shall we say. The fall..." He lifted his hand. "Your wife is feverish, irrational. We need you to sign some forms."

And afterward, after the forms were signed, he fixed Gerald for a long moment with that same speculative stare and then he turned away. "I'll be in touch."

Gerald glared at the clock as if he could by force of will speed time's passage. At last he stood, crossed once more to the vending machines, and for the first time in seven years purchased a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. After a word with the receptionist, he stepped into the bitterly cold December morning to smoke.

A few flakes of snow had begun to drift aimlessly about in the wind. Gerald stood under the E.R. awning, beneath the bruised and sullen sky, the familiar stink of cigarette smoke somehow comforting in his nostrils. He gazed out over the crowded parking lot, his eyes watering. Like stepping into icy water, he thought, this stepping into the past: for what he saw was not the endless rows of cars, but the house he had visited for the first time in a decade only a day ago. And the voice he heard in his head was neither the voice of the hospital p.a. system nor the voice of the wind. It was the voice of the cockroach, saying words he did not want to hear.

You, the cockroach told him. You are responsible.

Gerald flipped his cigarette, still burning, into the gutter and wrapped his arms close about his shoulders. But the cold he felt was colder than mere weather.

Responsible.

He supposed he had been. Even now, he could not forget the isolation they had endured during the first years of their marriage. The fear. It hadn't been easy for either of them -- not for Gerald, sharing for the first time the bitter legacy of a life he had still to come to terms with; not for Sara, smiling patrician Sara, banished from a family who would not accept the impoverished marriage she had made. To this day Gerald had not forgiven his in-laws for the wedding: the thin-lipped grimace that passed for his mother-in-law's smile; the encounter with his father-in-law in the spotless rest room of the Marriott, when the stout old dentist turned from a urinal to wag a finger in Gerald's face. "Don't ever ask me for a dime, Gerald," he had said. "Sara's made her choice and she'll have to abide by it."

No wonder we were proud, he thought. Sara had taken an evening job as a cashier at a supermarket. Gerald continued at the ad agency, a poorly paid associate, returning nightly to the abandoned rental house where he sat blankly in front of the television and awaited the sound of Sara's key in the lock. God knows they hadn't needed a baby.

But there it was. There it was.

And so the pressure began to tell, the endless pressure to stretch each check just a little further. Gerald could not remember when or why money he supposed -- but gradually the arguments had begun. And he had started drinking. And one night...

One night. Well.

Gerald slipped another cigarette free of the pack and brought it to his lips. Cupping his hands against the wind, he set the cigarette alight, and drew deeply.

One night, she was late from work and, worried, Gerald met her at the door. He stepped out onto the concrete stoop to greet her, his hand curled about the graying wooden rail. When Sara looked up at him, her features taut with worry in the jaundiced corona of the porch light, he had just for a moment glimpsed a vision of himself as she must have seen him: bearish, slovenly, stinking of drink. And poor. Just another poor fucking bastard, only she had married this one.

He opened his arms to her, needing her to deny the truth he had seen reflected in her eyes. But she fended him off, a tight-lipped little moue of distaste crossing her features -- he knew that expression, he had seen it on her mother's face.

Her voice was weary when she spoke. Her words stung him like a lash. "Drinking again, Gerald?" And then, as she started to push her way past him: "Christ, sometimes I think Mom was right about you."

And he had struck her.

For the first and only time in all the years they had been married, he had struck her -- without thought or even heat, the impulse arising out of some deep poisoned well-spring of his being, regretted even as he lifted his hand.

Sara stumbled. Gerald moved forward to steady her, his heart racing. She fell away from him forever, and in that timeless interval Gerald had a grotesquely heightened sense of his surroundings: the walk, broken and weedy; the dim shadow of a moth battering himself tirelessly against the porch light; in the sky a thousand thousand stars. Abruptly, the world shifted into motion again; in confusion, Gerald watched an almost comically broad expression of relief spread over Sara's face. The railing. The railing had caught her.

"Jesus, Sara, I'm sort --" he began to say, but a wild gale of hilarity had risen up inside her.

She hadn't begun to realize the consequences of this simple action, Gerald saw. She did not yet see that with a single blow he had altered forever the tenor of their relationship. But the laughter was catching, and he stepped down now, laughing himself, laughing hysterically in a way that was not funny, to soothe away her fears before she saw the damage he had done. Maybe she would never see it.

But just at that moment, the railing snapped with a sound like a gunshot. Sara fell hard, three steps to the ground, breath exploding from her lungs.

But again, she was okay. Just shaken up.

Only later, in the night, would Gerald realize what he had done. Only when the contractions took her would he begin to fear. Only when he tore back the blankets of the bed and saw the blood

-- so little blood

--would he understand.

Gerald snapped away his cigarette in disgust. They had lost the child. Sara, too, had almost died. And yet she had forgiven him. She had forgiven him.

He shivered and looked back through the cold-fogged windows at the waiting room, but he couldn't tolerate the idea of another moment in there. He turned back to the parking lot, exhaled into his cupped hands. He thought of Dr. Exavious, those febrile eyes, the way he had of seeming to gaze into the secret regions of your heart. Probing you. Judging you. Finding you wanting.

There was something else.

Last night.

With this thought, Gerald experienced bleak depths of self-knowledge he had never plumbed before. He saw again the smooth expanse of his wife's belly as he had seen it last night, hideously aswarm with the vicious assaults of the creature within. Now he recognized this vision as a fevered hallucination, nothing more. But last night, last night he had believed. And after his feverish dream, after he had been sick, he had done something else, hadn't he? Something so monstrous and so simple that until this moment he had successfully avoided thinking of it.

He had stood up from the toilet, and there, in the doorway between the bedroom and the bathroom, he had kicked off his shoes, deliberately arranging them heel up on the floor. Knowing she would wake to go to the john two, maybe three times in the night. Knowing she would not turn on the light. Knowing she might fall.

Hoping.

You are responsible.

Oh yes, he thought, you are responsible, my friend. You are guilty.

Just at that moment, Gerald felt a hand on his shoulder. Startled, he turned too fast, feeling the horror rise into his face and announce his guilt to anyone who cared to see. Exavious stood behind him. "Mr. Hartshorn," he said.

Gerald followed the doctor through the waiting room and down a crowded corridor that smelled of ammonia. Exavious did not speak; his lips pressed into a narrow line beneath his mustache. He led Gerald through a set of swinging doors into a cavernous chamber lined with pallets of supplies and soiled linen heaped in laundry baskets. Dusty light-bulbs in metal cages cast a fitful glow over the concrete floor.

"What's going on?" Gerald asked. "How's Sara?"

Exavious did not reply. He stopped by a broad door of corrugated metal that opened on a loading dock, and thumbed the button of the freight elevator.

"One moment, please, Mr. Hartshorn," he said.

They waited silently as the doors slid aside. Exavious gestured Gerald in, and pressed the button for six. With a metallic clunk of gears, they lurched into motion. Gerald stared impassively at the numbers over the door, trying to conceal the panic that had begun to hammer against his ribs. The noisy progress of the elevator seemed almost to speak to him; if he listened closely, he could hear the voice of the cockroach, half-hidden in the rattle of machinery:

She's dead, Gerald. She's dead and you're responsible.

Exavious knew. Gerald could see that clearly now. He wasn't even surprised when Exavious reached out and stopped the lift between the fifth and sixth floors--just sickened, physically sickened by a sour twist of nausea that doubled him over as the elevator ground to a halt with a screech of overtaxed metal. Gerald sagged against the wall as a wave of vertigo passed through him. Sara. Lost. Irrevocably lost. He swallowed hard against the metallic taste in his mouth and closed his eyes.

They hung suspended in the shaft, in the center of an enormous void that seemed to pour in at Gerald's eyes and ears, at every aperture of his body. He drew it in with his breath, he was drowning in it.

Exavious said: "This conversation never occurred, Mr. Hartshorn. I will deny it if you say it did."

Gerald said nothing. He opened his eyes, but he could see only the dull sheen of the elevator car's walls, scarred here and there by careless employees. Only the walls, like the walls of a prison. He saw now that he would not ever really leave this prison he had made for himself. Everything that had ever been important to him he had destroyed-- his dignity, his self-respect, his honor and his love. And Sara. Sara most of all.

Exavious said: "I have spoken with Dr. Schwartz. I should have done so sooner." He licked his lips. "When I examined your wife I found no evidence to suggest that she could not carry a child to term. Even late-term miscarriages are not uncommon in first pregnancies. I saw no reason to delve into her history."

He said all this without looking at Gerald. He did not raise his voice or otherwise modify his tone. He stared forward with utter concentration, his eyes like hard pebbles.

"I should have seen the signs. They were present even in your first office visit. I was looking at your wife, Mr. Hartshorn. I should have been looking at you."

Gerald's voice cracked when he spoke. "Schwartz--what did Schwartz say?"

"Dr. Schwartz was hesitant to say anything at all. He is quite generous: he wished to give you the benefit of the doubt. When pressed, however, he admitted that there had been evidence -- a bruise on your wife's face, certain statements she made under anesthesia -- that the miscarriage had resulted from an altercation, a physical blow. But you both seemed very sorrowful, so he did not pursue the matter."

Exavious turned to look at Gerald, turned on him the terrific illumination of his gaze, his darkly refulgent eyes exposing everything that Gerald had sought so long to hide. "A woman in your wife's superb physical condition does not often have two late-term miscarriages, Mr. Hartshorn. Yet Mrs. Hartshorn claims that her fall was accidental, that she tripped over a pair of shoes. Needless to say, I do not believe her, though I am powerless to act on my belief. But I had to speak, Mr. Hartshorn -- not for you, but for myself."

He punched a button. The elevator jerked into motion once more.

"You are a very lucky man, Mr. Hartshorn. Your wife is awake and doing well. She is recovering from the epidural." He turned once more and fixed Gerald in his gaze. "The baby survived. A boy. You are the father of a healthy baby boy."

The elevator stopped and the doors opened onto a busy floor. "It is more than you deserve."

SARA, THEN.

Sara at last, flat on her back in a private room on the sixth floor. At the sight of her through the wire-reinforced window in the door, Gerald felt a bottomless relief well up within him.

He brushed past Dr. Exavious without speaking. The door opened so silently on its oiled hinges that she did not hear him enter. For a long moment, he stood there in the doorway, just looking at her-- allowing the simple vision of her beauty and her joy to flow through him, to fill up the void that had opened in his heart.

He moved forward, his step a whisper against the tile. Sara turned to look at him. She smiled, lifted a silencing finger to her lips, and then nodded, her eyes returning to her breast and the child that nursed there, wizened and red and patiently sucking.

Just a baby. A child like any other. But different, Gerald knew, different and special in no way he could ever explain, for this child was his own. A feeling like none he had ever experienced -- an outpouring of warmth and affection so strong that it was almost frightening -- swept over him as he came to the bedside.

Everything Lake Conley had told him was true.

What happened next happened so quickly that Gerald for a moment believed it to be an hallucination. The baby, not yet twelve hours old, pulled away from Sara's breast, pulled away and turned, turned to look at him. For a single terrifying moment Gerald glimpsed not the wrinkled child he had beheld when first he entered the room, but...something else.

Something quicksilver and deadly, rippling with the sleek, purposeful musculature of a predator. A fleeting impression of oily hide possessed him -- of a bullet-shaped skull from which glared narrow-pupiled eyes ashine with chill intelligence. Eyes like a snake's eyes, as implacable and smugly knowing.

Mocking me, Gerald thought. Showing itself not because it has to, but because it wants to. Because it can.

And then his old friend the cockroach: Your child. Yours.

Gerald extended his hands to Sara. "Can I?" he asked.

And then he drew it to his breast, blood of his blood, flesh of his flesh, this creature that was undeniably and irrevocably his own child.

~~~~~~~~

By Dale Bailey

Oh my, this issue seems to be heralding winter with more darkness than light--including the compelling entomological fantasy that follows. Fortunately, Dale Bailey has a bit of good news to shine into the gloom: he reports that he and his wife Jean expect to become patents soon. Says Dale, "I'm hoping to handle imminent fatherhood with a little more aplomb than Gerald Hartshorn, but needless to say, the ongoing experience casts the story in a new light for me...

In other words: parents-to-be, don't try this at home.

Section: CURIOSITIES

THE DIAMOND IN THE WINDOW

I READ this haunting tale of curious children perpetually on the edge of grasping an ineffable mystery early on, and it lodged deeply in my imagination. What I remember most vividly is neither the plot nor the characters but the mood it evoked: Weird, frightening, beautiful.

The novel is cast in a favorite form for children's fantasy: Edward and Eleanor Hall, two children in Concord, Mass. (circa 1962J, discover a secret attic room in Uncle Freddy's big old house on Walden Street. The room contains a cryptic poem tantamount to a treasure map, and a variety of antique toys that draw them into an eerie and fantastic otherworld that continually impinges on this one through visions, through dreams, and through encounters bizarre and grotesque. There is a haunted harp, a spectral nautilus shell, an evil jack-in-the-box, a magic mirror, a missing Prince Krishna of Mandracore...and permeating everything, references and reverberations of the Transcendentalists: Emerson, Thoreau, and the Over-Soul. I managed to forget most of the literary references in the decades since I first read this book, but I have never forgotten the nautilus.

What is marvelous in this book and unforgettable and most stimulating to the imagination, is the persistence of the mystery, an appreciation for strangenesses that can never be explained away. The continuation of Edward and Eleanor's story, entitled The Swing in the Summerhouse, was even more ominous and surreal.

Langton has been writing mystery novels for adults in recent years, but it's in the children's section of the library that I always seek her titles. I consider these two books cornerstones in a meaningful children's collection. An online search for Diamond at www. amazon.com showed me (along with the welcome news that the book has been reprinted) a dozen readers had come seeking Langton's novel and felt compelled to recommend it. Like me, they placed it high among the unforgettable reading experiences of their youth.

~~~~~~~~

By JANE LANGTON, (1962) and Marc Laidlaw,

EDITORIAL

UNLIKE A LOT of fans I know, I'm neither a first nor an only child. My older brother had been around for three and a half-years when I came along, and he never let me forget that fact. As per the rules of The Official Older Sibling Handbook,[1] nothing I did ever impressed my brother. Whatever I said or did, my brother had already seen or done better.

As I grew up, I recognized that I couldn't win this game, so I stopped trying so hard to impress him. And that, of course, was when I discovered he'd been impressed all along.

Various critics credit the birth of science fiction to Mary Shelley, Edgar Allan Poe, Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, or Hugo Gemsback, but nobody yet has suggested that sf is older than realistic, "mainstream" fiction. As Robert Killheifer points out in his column this month, sf is like many other contemporary genres in that it matured in the pulps during the early part of this century.

When is it ever going to realize it can't win the game of trying to impress the mainstream?

My lament this month is brought on by an article in the June Voice Literary Supplement by Jonathan Lethem. In "Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction," Jonathan argues that science fiction missed its opportunity in the 1970s to bring down the genre walls and merge with the mainstream. He uses the fact that Arthur C. Clarke's Rendezvous with Rama beat out Thomas Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow for the 1973 Nebula Award as a tombstone to mark the point where science fiction blew its chance.

I consider Jonathan one of the most widely- and well-read people I know -- it's scarcely a coincidence that he contributes this month's "Curiosities" column, since he has been steering me toward good books for years. But I think he's off target here.

Jonathan's main argument is that sf's 1960s New Wave produced masterpieces in the early 1970s like Dhalgren, A Scanner Darkly, The Dispossessed, and 334, and as a result of these books it stood poised on the brink of literary acceptability. Then:

just as SF's best writers began to beg the question of whether SF might be literature, American literary fiction began to open to the modes it had excluded. Writers like Donald Barthelme, Richard Brautigan, and Robert Coovet restored the place of the imaginative and surreal, while others like Don DeLillo and Joseph McElroy began to contend with the emergent technoculture. William Burroughs and Thomas Pynchon did a little of both. The result was that the need to recognize SF's accomplishments dwindled away.

The result, says Jonathan, is that sf's literary writers exist now in a twilight world, neither respectable nor commercially viable. Their work drowns in a sea of garbage in bookstores, while much of sf's promise is realized elsewhere by writers too savvy or oblivious to bother with its stigmatized identity.

Jonathan goes on to wish that:

the notion of science-fiction ought to have been gently and lovingly dismantled, and the writers dispersed: children's fantasists here, hardware-fetish thriller writers here, novelizers of films both real and imaginary here. Most important, a ragged handful of heroically enduring and ambitious speculative fabulators should have embarked for the rocky realms of midlist, out-of-category fiction.

Okay, let me say now that aesthetically I'm very sympathetic with Jonathan -- in fact, I proposed something similar on a convention panel in 1999., only to have Barry Malzberg lecture me for twenty minutes. "I turned my back on science fiction in 1976," declared Barry, "and I was wrong. The genre is bigger than us; we are here because of it."

Having spent four years in ivy-covered academic halls and ten years at a mainstream publisher editing books in this so-called twilight world, I agree mostly with Barry nowadays.

Today the term "science fiction" encompasses so much that I'm leery of generalizing about it, but indulge me. Of all the genres in American fiction, sf is fundamentally the most radical -- unlike mysteries or romances or westerns, it can rewrite all the rules, or make up the rules as it goes along. {Indeed, Jonathan Lethem's Amnesia Moon is a good example of a book that plays fair with the reader but changes the rules in midstream. I As John W. Campbell always argued, it has the widest scope and the most freedom of any literary forms, and consequently it intimidates many readers. A science fiction novel can challenge a reader in ways no other novel can.

In a New Yorker review circa 1990, John Lipdike argued that sf relies on spectacle for its entertainment value, and as Aristotle taught us, spectacle is the most base of all artistic goals. Personally, I think it's foolish to deny the spectacular nature of sr. This genre is a form of popular literature its inherent goal is to entertain (unlike much mainstream fiction). Some people will forever adopt the attitude espoused by John Updike and look down on sf because it remains a story-driven and primarily popular art form.

Those people seem to be the ones whose respect Jonathan seeks, if I understand him correctly when he refers to "literary respectability." When I hear those words, I think of green pastures on the other side of the fence. They mark the exact spot where I disagree with Jonathan.

For one thing, as I've stated many times in many places, things are no better in the mainstream than they are in the genre. Indeed, they're generally worse: the" rocky realms of midlist, out-of-category fiction" are the one place where books get ignored most. I once sat on a panel with William Trotter, whose first novel Winter Fire was published handsomely in those rocky realms. "How many reviews did you get?" I asked. "Well, we got the trade reviews, and the Times review was okay." When I asked if he got any other reviews, he said, "Yes, there was one other, in Deathrealm."

The commercial prospects are even worse. It would be improper for me to cite sales figures and such, but I believe that the careers of such novelists as Jack Womack, Jonathan Carroll, and Jack Cady would have foundered on those rocky shores after two or three novels each were it not 'for the genre and genre editors. I could go on, I could cite the careers of mainstream novelists that have petered out because nobody would publish their third or fourth books, but to keep this short I'll limit myself to pointing out the ironic fact that some of the writers Jonathan names as "ascendant powers" in our "literary culture" don't sell nearly as well as do Jonathan's own books. Trust me. I've seen the figures.

Enough about the grass-is-greener syndrome every writer is prone to some envy. It's an occupational hazard. What I really want to address is this notion of "literary respectability." I have grave problems with it. In 1973 it meant something different, but here in 1998, it's more than forty years after such American masterpieces as A Canticle for Leibowitz and Fahrenheit 451 were born in the sf genre, thirty-plus years since Daniel M. Keyes illuminated the human condition with help from a mouse named Algernon, more than a quarter of a century after J. G. Ballard Crashed into the literary field and Harlequin let loose those jelly beans. The science fiction field has fostered and grown numerous such works whose literary merits are, to my mind, incontrovertible. In light of the evidence they provide, I think that any critic who summarily dismisses sf is guilty of literary bigotry, prejudging the fiction by the color of its cover.[3]

And who really needs Archie Bunker's respect? At least my older brother recognized the content of my character. People like some editors at The New York Times Book Review obviously judge books by their covers, and I see no virtue in seeking their approval.

I do think Jonathan Lethem's right in pointing out that the sf genre no longer means what it used to mean. The sf publishing category hasn't entirely kept pace with the tastes of American readers. A lot of writers and readers are stuck in the twilight because publishing doesn't know the right way to put the two together {and the few efforts at doing so, such as Dell's "Cutting Edge" trade paperback line about four years ago, never really got a chance}. But I think the answer lies in shifting the boundaries of the genre, not in knocking them down.

Let me end with one brief anecdote. In college, I studied with novelist Stephen Wright (M31, Going Native) and I still run into him occasionally. Last time I saw him, we got on the subject of how nice it was that Steven Millhauser won the Pulitzer Prize, and Stephen -who is wonderfully opinionated -started sounding off about the Pulitzers. "Did you know that those bastards at Columbia wouldn't give the prize to Gravity's Rainbow? The judges all wanted it to win, but the award administrators were afraid of it, so they gave it to something safe...some Civil War novel, I think."

In point of fact, Michael Shaara's lovely novel The Killer Angels won the Pulitzer in 1975 {Eudora Welty's The Optimist's Daughterwon in 1973, and no award was given in 1974}. But if there's any truth to Stepben's claim, and I believe there is, are we to conclude that the mainstream missed its opportunity to merge with sf? Or should we just decide that we're different from our big brother and get on with life?

[1] I'm sure that such a book exists -- I just know it -- but rule number one is that younger siblings can never ever see it.

[2] Actually, I suppose I'm lumping fantasy in with sf, but let's leave aside that can of worms.

[3] please note that I'm not questioning anyone's right to read whatever suits their tastes. But I think that a critic who dismisses an entire category of fiction -- any category --shouldn't keep a closed mind.

CARTOON:

~~~~~~~~

By GORDON VAN GELDER

ALL THE BIRDS OF HELL

Tanith Lee's most recent books include Faces Under Water and a young adult novel that's due out in England very shortly, Law of the Wolf Tower. Her last appearance in these pages was exactly two years ago, with her retake on the Cinderella fairy tale, The Reason for Not Going to the Ball." She returns now with a very different sort of story, a dark and dazzling vision of a world locked in winter for fifteen years...

ONCE THEY LEFT THE CITY, the driver started to talk. He went on talking during the two-hour journey, almost without pause. His name was Argenty, but the dialogue was all about his wife. She suffered from what had become known as Twilight Sickness. She spent all day in their flat staring at the electric bulbs. At night she walked out into the streets and he would have to go and fetch her. She had had frostbite several times. He said she had been lovely twenty years ago, though she had always hated the cold.

Henrique Tchaikov listened. He made a few sympathetic sounds. It was as hopeless to try to communicate with the driver, Argenty, as to shut him up. Normally Argenty drove important men from the Bureau, to whom he would not be allowed to speak a word, probably not even Goodday. But Tchaikov was a minor bureaucrat. If Argenty had had a better education and more luck, he might have been where Tchaikov was.

Argenty's voice became like the landscape beyond the cindery cement blocks of the city, monotonous, inevitably irritating, depressing, useless, sad.

It was the fifteenth year of winter.

Now almost forty, Tchaikov could remember the other seasons of his childhood, even one long hot summer full of liquid colors and now-forgotten smells. By the time he was twelve years old, things were changing forever. In his twenties he saw them go, the palaces of summer, as Eynin called them in his poetry. Tchaikov had been twenty-four when he watched the last natural flower, sprung pale green out of the public lawn, die before him -- as Argenty's wife was dying, in another way.

The Industrial Winter, so it was termed. The belching chimneys and the leaking stations with their cylinders of poison. The rotting hulks along the shore like deadly whales.

"The doctor says she'll ruin her eyes, staring at the lights all day," Argenty droned on.

"There's a new drug, isn't there --" Tchaikov tried.

But Argenty took no notice. Probably, when alone, he talked to himself.

Beyond the car, the snowscape spread like heaps of bedclothes, some soiled and some clean. The gray ceiling of the sky bulged low.

Argenty broke off. He said, "There's the wolf factory." Tchaikov turned his head.

Against the grayness-whiteness, the jagged black of the deserted factory which had been taken over by wolves, was the only landmark.

"They howl often, sound like the old machinery. You'll hear them from the Dacha."

Yes, they told me I would."

"Look, some of them running about there."

Tchaikov noted the black forms of the wolves, less black than the factory walls and gates, darting up and over the snow heaps, and away around the building. Although things did live out here, it was strange to see something alive.

Then they came down the slope, the chained snow tires grating and punching, and Tchaikov saw the mansion across the plain.

"The river came in here," said Argenty. "Under the ice now."

A plantation of pine trees remained about the house. Possibly they were dead, carved out only in frozen snow. The Dacha had two domed towers, a balustraded verandah above a flight of stairs that gleamed like white glass. When the car drove up, he could see two statues at the foot of the steps that had also been kept clear of snow. They were of a stained brownish marble, a god and goddess, both naked and smiling through the brown stains that spread from their mouths.

There were electric lights on in the Dacha, from top to bottom, three or four floors of them, in long, arched windows.

But as the car growled to a halt, Argenty gave a grunt. "Look," he said again, "look. Up there."

They got out and stood on the snow. The cold broke round them like sheer disbelief, but they knew it by now. They stared up. As happened only very occasionally, a lacuna had opened in the low cloud. A dim pink island of sky appeared, and over it floated a dulled lemon slice, dissolving, half transparent, the sun.

Argenty and Tchaikov waited, transfixed, watching in silence. Presently the cloud folded together again and the sky, the sun, vanished.

"I can't tell her," said Argenty. "My wife. I can't tell her I saw the sun. Once it happened in the street. She began to scream. I had to take her to the hospital. She wasn't the only case."

"I'm sorry," said Tchaikov.

He had said this before, but now for the first time Argenty seemed to hear him. "Thank you."

Argenty insisted on carrying Tchaikov's bag to the top of the slippery, gleaming stair, then he pressed the buzzer. The door was of steel and wood, with a glass panel of octople glazing, almost opaque. Through it, in the bluish yellow light, a vast hall could just be made out, with a floor of black and white marble.

A voice spoke through the door apparatus.

"Give your name."

"Henrique Tchaikov. Number sixteen stroke Y."

"You're late."

Tchaikov stood on the top step, explaining to a door. He was enigmatic. There was always a great deal of this.

"The road from Kroy was blocked by an avalanche. It had to be cleared."

"All right. Come in. Mind the dog, she may be down there." "Dog," said Argenty. He put his hand into his coat for his gun.

"It's all right," said Tchaikov. "They always keep a dog here."

"Why.?" Said Argenty blankly.

Tchaikov said, "A guard dog. And for company, I suppose."

Argenty glanced up, toward the domed towers. The walls were reinforced by black cement. The domes were tiled black, mortared by snow. After the glimpse of sun, there was again little color in their world.

"Are they -- is it up there?" "I don't know. Perhaps."

"Take care," said Argenty surprisingly as the door made its unlocking noise.

Argenty was not allowed to loiter. Tchaikov watched him get back into the car, undo the dash panel and take a swig of vodka. The car turned and drove slowly away, back across the plain.

The previous curator did not give Tchaikov his name. He was a tall thin man with slicked, black hair. Tchaikov knew he was known as Ouperin.

Ouperin showed Tchaikov the map of the mansion, and the pamphlet of house rules. He only mentioned one, that the solarium must not be used for more than one hour per day; it was expensive. He asked if Tchaikov had any questions, wanted to see anything. Tchaikov said it would be fine.

They met the dog in the corridor outside the ballroom, near where Ouperin located what he called his office.

She was a big dog, perhaps part Cuvahl and part Husky, muscular and well-covered, with a thick silken coat like the thick pile carpets, ebony and fawn, with white round her muzzle and on her belly and paws, and two gold eyes that merely slanted at them for a second as she galloped by.

"Dog! Here, dog!" Ouperin called, but she ignored him, prancing on, with balletic shakes of her fringed fur, into the ballroom, where the crystal chandeliers hung down twenty feet on ropes of bronze. "She only comes when she's hungry. There are plenty of steaks for her in the cold room. She goes out a lot," said Ouperin. "Her door's down in the kitchen. Electronic. Nothing else can get in."

They visited the cold room, which was very long, and massively shelved, behind a sort of airlock. The room was frigid, the natural weather was permitted to sustain it. The ice on high windows looked like armor.

Ouperin took two bottles of vodka, and a bunch of red grapes, frozen peerless in a wedge of ice.

They sat in his office, along from the ballroom. A fire blazed on the hearth.

"I won't say I've enjoyed it here," said Ouperin. "But there are advantages. There are some -- videos and magazines in the suite. You know what I mean. Apart from the library. If you get...hot."

Tchaikov nodded politely.

Ouperin said, "The first thing you'll do, when I go. You'll go up and look at them, won't you?"

"Probably," said Tchaikov.

"You know," said Ouperin, "you get bored with them. At first, they remind you of the fairy story, what is it? The princess who sleeps. Then you just get bored."

Tchaikov said nothing. They drank the vodka, and at seventeen hours, five o'clock, as the white world outside began to turn glowing blue.. a helicopter came and landed on the plain. Ouperin took his bags and went out to the front door of the Dacha, and the stair. "Have some fun," he said.

He ran sliding down the steps and up to the helicopter. He scrambled in like a boy on holiday. It rose as it had descended in a storm of displaced snow. When its noise finally faded through the sky, Tchaikov heard the wolves from the wolf factory howling over the slopes. The sky was dark blue now, navy, without a star. If ever the moon appeared, the moon was blue. The pines settled. A few black boughs showed where the helicopter's winds had scoured off the snow. They were alive. But soon the snow began to come down again, to cover them.

Tchaikov returned to the cold room. He selected a chicken and two steaks and vegetables, and took them to the old stone-floored kitchen down the narrow steps. The new kitchen was very small, a little bright cubicle inside the larger one. He put the food into the thawing cabinet, and then set the program on the cooker. The dog came in as he was doing this, and stood outside the lighted box. Once they had thawed, he put the bloody steaks down for her on a dish, and touched her ruffed head as she bent to eat. She was a beautiful dog, but wholly uninterested in him. She might be there in case of trouble, but there never would be trouble. No one stayed longer than six or eight months. The curatorship at the Dacha was a privilege, and an endurance test.

When his meal was ready, Tchaikov carried it to the card room or office, and ate, with the television showing him in color the black and white scenes of the snow and the cities. The card room fire burned on its synthetic logs, the gas cylinder faintly whistling. He drank vodka and red wine. Sometimes, in spaces of sound, he heard the wolves. And once, looking from the ballroom, he saw the dog, lit by all the windows, trotting along the ice below the pines.

AT MIDNIGHT, when the television stations were shut down to conserve power, and most of the lights in the cities, although not here, would be dimmed, Tchaikov got into the manually operated elevator, and went up into the second dome, to the top floor.

He had put on again his greatcoat, his hat and gloves.

The elevator stopped at another little airlock. Beyond, only the cold-pressure lights could burn, glacial blue. Sometimes they blinked, flickered. An angled stair led to a corridor, which was wide, and shone as if highly polished. At the end of the corridor was an annex and the two broad high doors of glass. It was possible to look through the glass, and for a while he stood there, in the winter of the dome, staring in like a child.

It had been and still was a bedroom, about ten meters by eleven. His flat in the city would fit easily inside it.

The bedroom had always been white, the carpets and the silken drapes, even the tassels had been a mottled white, like milk, edged with gilt. And the bed was white. So that now, just as the snow-world outside resembled a white tumbled bed, the bed was like the tumbled snow.

The long windows were black with night, but a black silvered by ice. Ice had formed too, in the room, in long spears that hung from the ceiling, where once a sky had been painted, a sky-blue sky with rosy clouds, but they had darkened and died, so now the sky was like old gray paint with flecks of rimy plaster showing through.

The mirrors in the room had cracked from the cold and formed strange abstract patterns that seemed to mean something. Even the glass doors had cracked, and were reinforced.

From here you could not properly see the little details of the room, the meal held perfect under ice, the ruined ornaments and paintings. Nor, properly, the couple on the bed.

Tchaikov drew the electronic key from his pocket and placed it in the mechanism of the doors. It took a long time to work, the cold-current not entirely reliable. The lighting blinked again, a whole second of black. Then the doors opened and the lights steadied, and Tchaikov went through.

The carpet, full of ice crystals, crunched under his feet, which left faint marks that would dissipate. His breath was smoke.

On a chest with painted panels, where the paint had scattered out, stood a white statue, about a meter high, that had broken from the cold, and an apple of rouged glass that had also broken, and somehow bled.

The pictures on the walls were done for. Here and there, a half of a face peeped out from the mossy corrosion, like the sun he had seen earlier in the cloud. Hothouse roses in a vase had turned to black coals, petrified, petals not fallen.

Their meal stood on the little mosaic table. It had been a beautiful meal, and neatly served. An amber fish, set with dark jade fruits, a salad that had blackened like the roses but kept its shape of dainty leaves and fronds. A flawless cream round, with two slivers cut from it, reminding him of the quartering of an elegant clock. The champagne was all gone, but for the beads of palest gold left at the bottom of the two goblets rimmed with silver. The bottle of tablets was mostly full. They had taken enough only to sleep, then turned off the heating, leaving the cold to do the rest.

The Last Supper of Love, Eynin had called it, in his poem, "This Place."

Tchaikov went over to the bed and looked down at them.

The man, Xander, wore evening dress, a tuxedo, a silk shirt with a tunic collar. On the jacket were pinned two military ribbons and a Knight's Cross. His tawny hair was sleeked back. His face was grave and very strong, a very masculine face, a very clean, calm face. His eyes, apparently, were green, but invisible behind the marble lids.

She, the woman, Tamura, was exquisite, not beautiful but immaculate, and so delicate and slender. She could have danced on air, just as Eynin said, in her sequined pumps. Her long white dress clung to a slight and nearly adolescent body, with the firm full breasts of a young woman. Her brunette hair spread on the pillows with the long stream of pearls from her neck. On the middle finger of her left hand, she wore a burnished ruby the color and size of a cherry.

Like Xander, Tamura was calm, quite serene.

It seemed they had had no second thoughts, eating their last meal, drinking their wine, perhaps making love. Then swallowing the pills and lying back for the sleep of winter, the long cold that encased and preserved them like perfect candy in a globe of ice.

They had been here nine years. It was not so very long.

Tchaikov looked at them. After a few minutes he turned and went back across the room, and again his footmarks temporarily disturbed the carpet. He locked the doors behind him.

In the curator's suite below, he put on the ordinary dimmed yellow lamp, and read Eynin's poem again, sipping black tea, while the synthetic fire crackled at the foot of his hard bed.

We watched the summer palaces
Sail from this place,
Like liners to
the sea Of yesterday.

Tchaikov put the book aside and switched off the light and fire. The fire died quite slowly, as if real.

Outside he heard the wolves howling like the old factory machinery.

Behind his closed eyelids, he saw Tamura's ruby, red as the cherries and roses in the elite florist's shops of the city. Her eyes, apparently, were dark.

Above him, as he lay on his back, the lovers slept on in their bubble of loving snow.

The first month was not eventful. Each day, Henrique Tchaikov made a tour of the Dacha, noting any discrepancies, a fissure in the plaster, a chipped tile, noises in the pipes of the heating system--conscious, rather, of the fissured plaster and tiles, the thumps of the radiators, in his own apartment building. He replaced fuses and valves. In the library he noted the books which would need renovation. And took a general inventory of the stores the house had accumulated. Every curator did this. Evidently, some items were overlooked. The books, for example, the cornice in the ballroom, while lavatory tissue and oil for the generator were regularly renewed.

He used the hot tub, but only every three or four days. In the city, bathing was rationed. For the same reason he did not go into the solarium, except once a week to check the thermostat and to water the extraordinary black-green plants which rose in storeys of foliage to the roof.

Most of the afternoon he sat reading in the library, or listening to the music machine. He heard, for the first time, recordings of Prokofiev and Rachmaninov playing inside their own piano concertos, and Shostakovich conducting his own symphony, and Lirabez singing, in a slightly flat but swarthy baritone, a cycle of his own songs.

For those who liked these things, the Dacha provided wonderful experiences.

Tchaikov also watched films, and the recordings of historical events

Sometimes in the mornings he slept an hour late, letting the coffee plate prepare a sticky brew, with thick cream from the cold room.

Usually he kept in mind these treats were his only for eight months at the most, less than a year. Then he would have to go back.

The dog became more sociable, though not exactly friendly. He stroked her fur, even brushed her twice a week. He called her Bella, because she was beautiful. Probably this was not the right thing, as again, when he left, some other person would be the curator, who might not even like dogs.

Bella, the dog, each evening lay before the fire in the card room, sometimes even in the suite. But normally she would only stay an hour or two. Then she wanted to go down through the house and out by the electronic dog-door.

He began to realize that the wolf howling was often very close to the mansion. At last he saw the indigo form of a wolf on the night snow. The wolf howled on and on, until the dog went out. Then the wolf and the dog played together in the snow.

The first time he saw this, Tchaikov was assailed by a heart wringing pang of hope.

The house manual told him that the wolves had invaded the factory, and remained there, because they lived off the rats which still infested it. The rats in turn lived off the dung of the wolves. It was a disgusting but divinely inspired cycle. Bella and the wolf must have met out upon the frozen ice of the ancient river buried below the Dacha and the pines. Although there would be females of the wolf kind for the wolf to choose from, instead he took to Bella. An individualist. Tchaikov did not see them join in the sexual act, but he accepted that they too were lovers. This seemed to symbolize the vigor still clinging in the threatened world, its basic tenacity, its magic. But he put such thoughts aside. Magic was illusion. Sex was only that, just like the "hot" magazines Ouperin, or someone, had secreted in the suite, and which Tchaikov did not bother with. For him, sensuality was connected to personality. He preferred memory to invention.

Of course, occasionally he pondered Tamura and Xander, their intrinsic meaning. But never for long. And he did not go up again to look at them.

IN THE FIRST DAY of the second month, a fax came through from the city computer, informing him a party would be arriving at midday. He shut the dog Bella in the kitchen, and put on his suit and tie. At sixteen hours, or four o'clock w they were late, another avalanche -- the party drew up in two big buses with leviathan snow tires.

Tchaikov understood he was unreasonably resentful at the stupid intrusion, for which the place was intended. He wanted the Dacha to himself. But he courteously welcomed the party, twenty-three people, who stared about the hall with wide, red-rimmed eyes, their noses running, because the heating in the buses was not very good.

They had their own guide, who led them, following Tchaikov, up the stairs to the manually operated lift. Tchaikov and the guide took them in two groups of eleven and twelve up into the dome.

They seemed frightened on the narrow stair, and in the corridor, as though extreme cold still unsettled -- startled -- them. They peered through the glass doors, exactly as Tchaikov had. When he and the bossy guide ushered them through, they wandered about the bedroom. Told not to touch anything, they made tactile motions in the air over ornaments and furnishings, with their gloved hands.

One woman, seeing the lovers, Tamura, Xander, on the bed, began to cry. No one took any notice. She pulled quantities of paper handkerchiefs from her pocket; possibly she had come prepared for emotion.

Downstairs in the ballroom, the guide lectured everybody on the Dacha. They stood glassy-eyed and blank. The significance of Tamura and Xander was elusive but overpowering. Tchaikov too did not listen. Instead he organized the coffee-plate in the card room, and brought the party coffee in relays, laced with vodka, before its return to the city in the two drafty buses.

When they had gone, about six, Bella was whining from the kitchen. He fed her quickly, knowing she wanted to be off to her lover. He gave her that night two extra steaks, in case she should want to take them out as a gift, but she left them on the plate. Oddly, from this, he deduced she would eventually desert the Dacha for her wolf panner. Instinctively she knew not to accustom him to extra food, and to prepare herself for future hardship. But doubtless this was fanciful. Besides, she might by now be pregnant with the wolf's children.

Bella lay before the synthetic log fire, her gold eyes burning golden-red. Her belly looked more full than it had. It was about twenty-two hours, ten o'clock.

Tchaikov read aloud to her from the poem "This Place."

I dreamed
once, of this place.
When I was young.
But then I woke
When I was young.

It was five nights since the bus party had visited. Once the dog had got up, shaken herself, and padded from the room, Tchaikov went upstairs and stepped into the elevator.

The night was extra cold, minus several more degrees on the gauge, and the great bedroom had a silvery fog in it.

He could look at the couple now quite passively, as if they were only waxworks. A man and a woman who had not wanted to remain inside the sinking winter world. But was it merely that? Was their mystical suicide cowardice -- or bravura? Did they think, in dying, that they had somewhere warm to go?

The Bureau had not advanced any records on them, and probably their names were not even those they had gone by in life:

Again, he asked himself what they meant. But it did not really matter. They were. that was all.

In the night, about four A.M., an unearthly noise woke him from a deep sleep, where he had been dreaming of swimming in a warm sea jeweled by fish.

The sound had occurred outside, he thought, outside both the dream and the room. He got up and went to the window, and looked out through the triple glazing which was all the suite provided.

The snowscape spread from the pines, along the plain, and in the distance billowed up to the higher land, and the black sky massed with the broken edges of stars. Far away to the right, where the plain was its most level and long, a black mark had appeared in the snow. It must stretch for nearly twenty meters, he thought, a jagged, ink-black crack in the terrain.

Tchaikov stared, and saw a vapor rising out of the crack, caused by the disparity between the bitter set of the air and some different temperature below.

The sound had been a crack. Like a gigantic piece of wood snapped suddenly in half- a bark of breakage.

But new snow was already drifting faintly down from the stars, smoothing and obscuring the black tear in the whiteness. As Tchaikov watched, it began to vanish.

Probably it was nothing. In the city apertures sometimes appeared in the top-snow of streets, where thermolated pipes still ran beneath. Somebody had told Tchaikov there had been a river here, passing below the house. The driver had mentioned it too. Perhaps the disturbance had to do with that.

Tchaikov went back to bed, and lay for a while listening, expectant and tensed. Then he recalled that once, in his early childhood, he had heard such a crack roar out across a frozen lake in the country. Instinctively, hearing it now, he had unconsciously remembered the springs of long-ago, the waxing of the sun, the rains, the melting of the ice. But spring was forever over.

He drifted back down into sleep, numb and calm.

The next morning, as he was coming from the solarium, having switched off the sprinklers, he heard the sound of a vehicle on the plain. He went into the ballroom and looked down at the snow, half noticing as he did so that the curious mark of the previous night had completely disappeared. A large black car was now parked by the Dacha's steps, near the statues. After a moment, Tchaikov recognized the car which had brought him here. Puzzled, he waited, and saw the driver, Argenty, get out, and then a smaller figure in a long coat of gray synthetic fur.

They came up the steps, Argenty pausing for the smaller figure, which was that of a woman.

After a minute the house door made a noise.

There had been no communication from the city computer, but sometimes messages were delayed. In any case, you could not leave them standing in the cold.

Tchaikov opened the door without interrogation. Argenty shot him a quick look under his hat.

"It's all right, isn't it?"

"I expect so," said Tchaikov.

He let them come in, and the door shut.

Argenty took off his hat, and stood almost to attention. He said, "There aren't visitors due, are there?"

"Not that I know of."

"I thought not. There's been another power failure. I shouldn't think anyone would be going anywhere today."

"Apart from you."

"Yes," said Argenty. He turned, and looked at the woman.

She too had taken off her hat, a fake fur shako to match the coat. She had a small pale slender face, without, he thought, any makeup beyond a dusting of powder. Her eyes were dark and smoky, with long lashes of a lighter darkness. Her dark hair seemed recently washed and brushed and fell in soft waves to her shoulders. Just under her right cheekbone had been applied a little diamante flower. She met his eyes and touched the flower with a gloved fingertip. She said quietly, "A frostbite scar."

"This is my wife," said Argenty. "Tanya."

Then she smiled at Tchaikov, a placating smile, like a child's when it wants to show it is undeserving of punishment. She was like a child, a girl, despite the two thin lines cut under her large eyes and at either side of her soft mouth.

He remembered how Argenty had talked on and on about her, her light-deprived Twilight Sickness, her wanderings in the night and cries. She had been lovely, he said, twenty years ago. In a way she still was.

Unauthorized, they should not be here. It could cost Argenty a serious demotion. What had happened? The power failure? The electricity off in their flat, gloom, and the refrigerator failing, and Argenty saying, Leave all that, I'll take you somewhere nice. As you might, to stop a miserable and frightened child crying.

Tchaikov said, "Come into the card room. There's a fire."

They went through with him, Argenty still stiff and formal, absolutely knowing what he had risked, but she was all smiles now, reassured

In the warm room, Argenty removed his greatcoat, and helped her off with her fur. Tchaikov looked at them, slightly surprised. Argenty wore the uniform of his city service, with an honor ribbon pinned by the collar. While she -- she wore a long, old evening gown of faded pastel crimson, which left her shoulders and arms and some of her white back and breast bare. On her left hand, under the woolen glove, was another little glove of lace. She indicated it again at once, laughed and said, "Frostbite. I've been careless, you see."

Tchaikov switched on the coffee-plate. He said, "I usually have lunch in about an hour. I hope you'll join me."

Axgenty nodded politely. She began to walk about the room, inspecting the antique oil paintings and the restored damask wall covering. Argenty took out a brand of expensive cigarettes and came to Tchaikov, offering them.

Argenty murmured, very low, "Thank you, for being so good. I can't tell you what it means to her."

"That's all right. You may even get away with it, if the computer's out."

Argenty shrugged. "Perhaps. What does it matter anyway?"

After the coffee, Tchaikov showed them the ballroom, then went to organize a lunch. He selected caviar and pork, the type of vegetables and little side dishes he did not, himself, bother with, fruit and biscuits, and a chocolate dessert he thought she would like. He took vodka and two bottles of champagne from the liquor compartment. For God's sake, they might as well enjoy the visit.

He opened up the parlor off the ballroom. It too had a chandelier dripping prisms. He turned on the fire and lit the tall white candles in the priceless candelabra. He was not supposed to do this. But against Argenty's tremendous gamble it was a small gesture.

Everything sparkled in the room. It was now only like an overcast snowy winter day in the country. Perhaps before some festival. And the lunch was like a celebration.

Argenty ate doggedly, drank quite sparingly. She ate only a little, but with interest, excitement. She sparkled up like the room, her personal lights switched on.

In the middle of the meal, the dog, Bella, came padding in, her coat thick with rime and water drops. Tchaikov got up, thinking Tanya would be afraid of the dog. But Tanya only laughed with delight, and went straight to Bella, ruffling her fur, and drying her inadequately with linen napkins from the table.

As Bella stood before the fire, and the slight woman made a fuss of her, Tchaikov could see the swelling shape of the dog's belly, her extended nipples. She was definitely pregnant from the wolf. And the girl-woman bent shining over her, caressing and stroking- kissing the big animal on the savage velvet of her brow.

Argenty said, "Tanya used to live on a farm. They had dogs, cats, horses, everything."

Tanya said, lightly, "I came to the city to sell stockings. Isn't that ridiculous."

When the meal was finished, they drew the large chairs to the fireside. They sat drinking coffee and brandy, and the dog lay between them, glistening gold along her back from the fire.

Outside, the dusk of the afternoon seemed only seasonal through the openings of the heavy drapes.

They were sleepy, muttering little anecdotes of their pasts, quite divorced from their present. In the end, Tanya fell asleep, her head gracefully drooping, a lock of her hair like dark tinsel on her cheek.

"When she wakes up," said Argenty, "we'll be going."

"Why don't you stay tonight?" said Tchaikov. "Leave early in the morning. There's another bedroom in the suite. Quite a good one-- I think it's for visiting VIPS. By tomorrow the power failure will be over, probably."

"That's kind...you've been kind...but we'd better get back."

They looked at the sleeping woman, at the sleeping dog, and the fire.

"Why did this happen?" asked Argenty. His voice was gentle and unemphatic. "Couldn't they have seen-- why did they give up all the best things, let them go -- they could have -- something -- surely"

Tchaikov said nothing, and Argenty fell silent.

And in the silence there came a dense low rumble.

For a moment Tchaikov took it for some fluctuation of the gas jet in the fire, and then, as it grew louder, for the noise of snow dislodged and tumbling from a roof of the mansion.

But then the rumbling became very loud, running in toward them over the plain.

"What is it?" said Argenty. He had gone pale.

"I don't know. An earth tremor, perhaps."

The rumbling was now so vehement he had to raise his voice. On the table the silver and the glasses tinkled and rattled, something fell and broke, and on the walls the pictures trembled and swayed. The floor beneath their chairs was chuming.

The dog had woken, sat up, her coat bristling and ears laid flat, a white ring showing round each eye.

Argenty and Tchaikov rose, and in her sleep the woman stretched out one hand, in its lace glove, as if to snatch hold of something.

Then came a thunderclap, a sort of ejection of sound that ripped splintering from earth and sky, hit the barrier of the house, exploded, dropped back in enormous echoing shards.

The windows grated and shook. No doubt some of the external glass had ruptured.

"Is it a bomb?" cried Argenty.

Tanya had started from sleep and the chair, and he caught her in his arms. She was speechless with shock and terror. The dog was growling.

"I don't know. It's stopped now. Not a bomb, I think. There was no light flash." Tchaikov moved to the door. "Stay here."

Outside, he ran across the ballroom, and to the nearer window which looked out to the plain.

What he saw made him hesitate mentally, stumble in his mind, at a loss. He could not decipher what he was looking at. It was a sight theoretically familiar enough. Yet knowing what it was, he stood immobile for several minutes, staring without comprehension at the enormous coal-black dragon which had crashed upward through the dead ice of the frozen river, showering off panes of the marble land, like the black and white concrete blocks of a collapsed building. In the puddle of bubbling iron water, the submarine settled now, tall, motionless, less than thirty-five meters beyond the Dacha, while clouds of stony steam rose in a tumult on the steel sky.

THEY MARCHED STEADILY to the mansion, over the snow. Henrique Tchaikov watched them come, black shapes on the whiteness.

Reaching the steps, they climbed them, and arrived at the door. He could see their uniforms by then, the decorations of rank and authority. They did not seem to feel the cold. They did not bother with the buzzer.

He spoke through the door apparatus.

"You must identify yourselves."

"You'll let us in." The one who spoke then gave a key word and number. And Tchaikov opened the door.

The cold gushed in with them, in a special way.

"You're the current Bureau man," said the commander to Tchaikov. He was about thirty-six, athletic, tanned by a solarium, his hair cut too short, not a pore in his face. His teeth were winter white. "We won't give you much trouble. We've come for the couple."

Tchaikov did not answer. His heart kicked, but it was a reflex. He stood very still. He had taken Tanya and Argenty down to the kitchen, with the dog, and shut them all in.

The commander vocalized again. "We don't need any red tape, do we? My men will go straight up. It'll only take the briefest while. The dome, right?"

Tchaikov said slowly, "You mean Tamura and Xander."

"Are those the names? Yes. The pair in the state bedroom. Here's the confirmation disc."

Tchaikov accepted the disc and put it in the analyzer by the door. After ten seconds an affirmative lit up, the key number, and the little message: Comply with all conditions. The commander took back his disc. "Where would we be," he said, "without our machines." Then he gave an order, and the four other men ran off and up the stair, like hounds let from a leash, toward the upper floors and the elevator. Obviously they had been primed with the layout of the mansion. Tchaikov saw that two of them carried each a rolled rain-colored thermolated bag. They would have some means of opening the upper doors.

He said, "Why are you taking them away? Where are they going?"

The commander showed all his pristine, repulsive teeth. "Quite a comfortable stint here, I'd say, yes? Don't worry, they won't recall you until your time's up. Messes up the files. Seven months to go. You can just relax."

Tchaikov grasped it would be useless to question the commander further. He had had his orders, which were to remove the frozen lovers in cold-bags, take them into the submarine, go away with them, somewhere.

Tchaikov said, "It was impressive, the way you surfaced."

"That river," said the commander, "it runs deep. So far down, you know, the water still moves. We came in from the sea, thirteen kilometers. Must have given you a surprise."

"Yes."

"There's nothing like her," said the commander, as though he boasted about a selected woman, or his mother. "The X 2 M's. Ice-breakers, powerhives. Worlds in themselves. You'd be amazed. We could stay under for a hundred years. We have everything. Clean reusable air, foolproof heating, cuisine prepared by master chefs, games rooms, weaponry. See how brown I am," he added, dancing his narrow eyes, flirting now. "Have you ever tasted eggs?"

"No."

"I have one every day. And fresh meat. Salads. My little boat has everything I'll ever need."

There was a wooden, flat sound, repeated on and on.

The commander frowned.

"It's only the dog" Tchaikov said. "I shut her in, below. In case she annoyed you."

"Dog? Oh, yes. Animals don't interest me, except of course to eat."

Tchaikov thought he heard the lift cranking up the tower, going to the dome.

The commander looked about now, and laughed at the old regal house, the old country Dacha with its sleeping white-candy dead.

Then stood in silence in the hall, until the other four men ran down again, carrying, not particularly cautiously, the two thermolated bags, upright and unpliable. Filled and out of the dome, the material had misted over. Tchaikov could not see Tamura or Xander in these cocoons, although he found himself staring, thinking for a second he caught the scorch of her ruby ring.

"Well done," the commander said to him. "All over." It was like the dentists in childhood. "You can go back to all those cozy duties." He grinned at Tchaikov. But his use of jargon was somehow unwieldy and out of date. Did they speak another tongue on the submarine? "A nice number. Happy days."

The dog had suddenly stopped barking.

The door let the men out. Tchaikov watched them returning over the snow, toward their black dragon-whale. Already the ice was forming round the submarine's casing, but that would not be much of an inconvenience. He wondered where they had been, how far out in jet black seas, where maybe fish still swam. When the vessel was gone, the ice would swiftly close, and tonight's fresh snowfall heal the wound it had made as snow had healed the preface to the wound, last night.

Tamura and Xander, preserved from the submarine's warmth in some refrigerated cubicle. He did not know, could not imagine for what purpose. Although the nagging line from some book -- was it a Bible? --began to twitter in his head...And He said: Make thee an ark

Above, the dome was void. The great polar room with its stalactites of ice, the footsteps already smoothing from the carpet.

He descended quickly to the kitchen. He had told Argenty where the medicine cabinet was, and suggested that he dial some sedative tablets for his wife. Tchaikov was unsure what he would find.

Yet when he reached the lower floor, there was only quietness. Opening the kitchen door, he found the two of them seated urbanely at the long table.

The dog Bella had gone. But Tanya sat in her red dress, and looking up, she met Tehaikov only with her lambent eyes.

She said to him, reciting from memory from Eynin's poem that he too knew so well:

In Hell the birds are made of fire;
If all the birds of Hell flew to this place,
And settled on the
snow,
Still darkness would prevail,
And utter cold.

"She knows it by heart," said Argenty.

"So do I, most of it," Tchaikov answered.

"The dog went out," said Argenty. "We thought we heard a wolf."

"Yes. They've mated."

The kitchen was bathed in vague ochre heat, only the light of the new cooking area was raw and too bright.

Tanya's eyes shone.

"You were very good, to hide us away."

"It's all right," he said. "The military are shortsighted. They came for something else."

In a while they heard the strange, sluggish hollow suction of the submarine, its motors, diving down again below the ice. The house gave now only a little shudder, and on its shelf one ancient plate turned askew.

Tanya laughed. She lifted her dark springy hair in her hands.

Tchaikov saw that Argenty's hair, under the polishing light, was a rich dull gold.

He slept a deep leaden sleep, and dreamed of the submarine. It was taller than the tallest architecture of the city, the Bureau building. It clove forward, black, ice and steam and boiling water spraying away from it, rending the land with a vicious hull like the blade of some enormous ice-skate. In the dark sky above, red and yellow burning birds wheeled to and fro, cawing and calling, striking sparks from the clouds. The birds of Hell.

When the submarine reached the Dacha, it stopped just outside the wall of the suite, which in the dream was made of glass. The wall shattered and fell down, and looking up the mile of iron, steel and night that was the tower of the submarine, Tchaikov noticed a tiny bluish porthole set abnormally in the side, and there they sat, the lovers, gazing down with cold, closed eyes.

Waking, he got up and made black tea on the plate. From the other bedroom of the suite, across the inner room, came no sound. When he looked out, there was no longer a light beneath their door. If they had switched off the optional lamp, perhaps they slept.

When the afternoon darkened, they had sat on with him in the kitchen, drinking a little, talking idly. There was the subtle ease of remaining; he realized before Argenty asked, that they did after all mean to stay a night at the house.

Later the dog came in again. Tchaikov fed her. She lay by the hot pipes for half an hour before going out once more.

During the interval, Tanya suddenly sang a strange old song in her light girl's voice, "Oh my dog is such a clever dog --"

Bella listened. Her tail wagged slowly. She came to Tanya to be caressed before padding off into the star-spiked night.

They ate cold pork and bread for supper and finished the champagne. Argenty thanked Tchaikov, shaking his hand, throwing his arm around him. The girl-woman did not kiss Tchaikov as he had half expected -hoped? --she would. She only said shyly, "It's been a wonderful day. Better than a birthday."

By the time he concluded his nocturnal check of the Dacha, they had gone up, and just the lamp showed softly under the door.

But they were in full darkness now, so Tchaikov walked almost on tiptoe from the suite. He did not want to wake them if they slept. He wished her not to dream as he had, of the triumphant submarine.

Outside, the ice had superficially closed over again. Snow fell in gentle pitiless flakes.

The elevator seemed particularly sluggish. He had to work at the lever with great firmness.

Above, in the icy corridor, Tchaikov shivered, only his trousers and greatcoat on over his nightshirt. As he walked toward the glass doors, he had a sense of imminence. What was it? Was it loss?

As formerly, he hesitated, and stood at the doors, staring in through the glacial light, the glacial glass, the cracks, the fog of ice.

He experienced a moment of dislocation, pure bewilderment, just as he had with the submarine. He had previously seen the bed clothed by two forms. Now they were removed and the bed was vacant. But there were two forms on the bed.

The bed was clothed.

Tchaikov opened the doors with the electronic key they had so noiselessly replaced on the chest in his room, before going up again. Of course, the key, lying there, had been obvious for what it was. Like the house map in the card room. There would have been no difficulty in deciding.

The bedroom, when he entered it now, did not strike him as so frozen. The breath of the living seemed finally to have stirred it, like the fluid of the deepest coldest pool, stirred by a golden wand.

Tchaikov went across to the bed. Two bottles had fallen on the thick carpet. He looked down, at the couple.

They lay hand in hand, side by side. Their faces were peaceful, almost smiling, the eyes fast shut. Like the faces, the eyes, of Xander and Tamura. Yet these two lovers had needed to be brave. Despite the vodka they had swallowed and the tablets from the medicine cabinet, they had had to face the cold, had had to lie down in the cold. He in his well-brushed uniform with its single honor, and she in her pale red sleeveless gown.

But there had been no struggle. They seemed to have found it very simple, very consoling, if not easy. Perhaps it had been easy, too.

Her somber hair, his gilded hair, both smoked now by the rime. And on the diamante flower that gemmed her cheek, a single mote of crystal like a tear.

Tchaikov backed slowly and carefully away. It was possible they were not quite dead yet, still in the process of dying. He tiptoed out, not to disturb their death.

By the end of the ninth month, when the Bureau at last recalled him, the dog was long gone. He had seen her at first sometimes, out on the snow, playing with the wolf and their three pups. But the wolf was a king wolf, made her queen over the wolf pack, and in the end, she went away to the factory with them.

When he heard the howling in the still night, he thought of her. Once, the moon appeared incredibly for a quarter of an hour, sapphire blue, and the wolves' chanting rose to a crescendo. Her children would be very strong, cross-bred from an alpha male and such a well-nourished mother.

His faxed report had been acknowledged, but that was all. Tchaikov never commented upon or thought about the aspects of what had occurred, he detailed and visualized the events only in memorized images.

The night of the blue moon, which was two nights before his return to the city, and to his cramped flat with its thudding radiators, the tepid bath once a week, the rationing, the dark, he wrote in the back of the book of Eynin's poetry, on the blank page which followed the poem called "The Place."

Here too he set out the facts sparely, as he had done for the Bureau. Under the facts he wrote a few further lines.

"I have puzzled all this time over what is their meaning, the lovers in the ice, whoever they are, whether right or wrong in their action, and even if they change, their bodies constantly taken and replaced by others. And I think their meaning is this: Love, courage, defiance-- the mystery of the human spirit, still blooming, always blooming, like the last flower in the winter world."

~~~~~~~~

By Tanith Lee

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

I FIND IT hard to believe, but this is already the fiftieth installment of this column since I took it over from Scott Card a few years ago. When I look back at the manuscript pages of all those columns, I see it's thick enough to make up a novel, albeit a shorter one than I normally write.

Still, I mention this only in passing. Since I'm not much of a one for celebrating milestones and the like, it's going to be business as usual for this half-centennial column -- but business as usual includes some fine recent publications. First up:

Irrational Fears, by William Browning Spencer, White Wolf, 1998, $19.99

Long-time readers of this column will remember my waxing enthusiastic over Spencer's last novel, Zod Wallop, a few years ago January 1996}. What delighted me so much about that book is repeated in this new one: Spencer offers us something entirely original, a novel both serious and funny, beautifully written, a delight and a wonder, a true gift.

Heady praise? Well, yes. But I'll stand by it for these two books. Like the best of Jonathan Carroll's work, Spencer's fiction gives us a fresh worldview, taking the elements that make a good fantasy novel to places no one else has thought to go. In Zod Wallop it was a children's book author discovering that the invented story in his book was spilling over into his real life and coming true -- not the most original conceit, I'll admit, but oh, what Spencer does with it. In Irrational Fears, we learn that alcoholism might well be an ancient alien curse, the hallucinations drunks see being actual glimpses of other dimensional demons.

Our viewpoint character for the new novel is Jack Lowry, an ex-college professor whose acquaintance we make in a detox unit. Lowry has been there before, and probably will be there again. But this time he volunteers for an experimental course of addiction therapy, in part because of his infatuation with another inmate, Kerry Bracket. But things quickly go from bad to worse as Lowry and his fellow inmates come under attack by a cult known as The Clear.

It would take far too much space to explain all the ins and outs of the diverse plot lines and how they affect the various characters. But, as he did in Zod Wallop, Spencer manages to be both serious and hilarious, keeping readers on the edge of their seats, then making them fall off for laughing.

Now addiction is a serious matter, but if you've become a little tired of the ever-growing library of earnest -- and often far too chipper --fictional accounts of how all it takes is a plucky will and strength of character to overcome one's chemical or alcoholic dependencies, this might be the book for you. Spencer doesn't mock the disease, nor the suffering it can bring into our lives. He even presents a somewhat coherent history of Alcoholics Anonymous. But he's also willing to pursue the more ludicrous elements of some recovery and self-help programs, and he's not afraid to add a few real Lovecraftian monsters to the stew.

Avoid only if black humor upsets you.

Harvest Tales &Midnight Revels, edited by Michael Mayhew, Bald Mountain Books, 1998, $23.95/$14.95

It's Halloween, and you feel you should do something to commemorate the day, but you're too old to go trick-or-treating, and getting all decked out in a costume just doesn't give you the buzz it once did. So what do you do? Well, you could try getting together with a group of friends and have everyone bring along an original story or poem to read over the course of the evening. The only rule would be that the story would have to relate, in some way, to Halloween.

Sounds too complicated? That it wouldn't work?

I suppose it depends on your friends.

When Michael Mayhew decided to throw his first Halloween story party in 1985, he had no idea the tradition would go for as long as it has. The first party was popular, but what was really surprising was how good the stories got over the years. And they are good, as readers will discover from this compilation culled from some eighty stories written over a period of ten years. Some are serious, some humorous. Some are poignant, or sexy, or -these are Halloween stories, after all -- downright creepy.

The authors aren't--or weren't at the time -- professional fiction writers. But they were a creative group: graphic artists, screenwriters, filmmakers, editors, actors, musicians, and the like. I don't know what the overall quality of the stories was, but the ones collected here are all readable, and some are truly outstanding, which is more than you can say for most anthologies these days.

Want to give it a try yourself? Editor Mayhew includes a very useful, and sensible, guide to throwing your own party in the collection's afterward. By the time you read this, it will probably be too late to put that advice into use this year. So for now, enjoy the material Mayhew has collected for us, and start planning your own party for next year.

If your local bookshop can't get it for you, write to: Bald Mountain Books, P.O. Box 8420, Van Nuys, CA 91409.

In the Rift: Glenraven H, by Marion Zimmer Bradley & Holly Lisle, Baen, 1998, $21.

Bradley and Lisle's latest collaboration is a guilty pleasure, such as those Michelle West used to write about in a column for this same magazine a few years ago. In the Rift is a fairly straightforward story of a woman from our world who gets mixed up with otherworldly nastiness, resulting in the usual banding together of a rag-tag group of adventurers who have to go off and save the day. What's fun about this particular version of the story is that, for the most part, the action takes place in our world.

It starts when Kate Beacham finds a Fodors-styled guide book to some place named Glenraven. She's never heard of the place, never seen the book before. But when she opens it up, the words, "Get out of the house, quick," appear on the page. The next thing she knows, she's out on her front porch with a shotgun, defending her house from a flying creature that looks like a cross between a dragon and a shark.

Beacham's already had a hard day. She lives in a small town where she's being persecuted for being Wiccan. Earlier that same evening, she was assaulted by masked bigots, then when she did get home, it was to find her beloved horse dead on her driveway with a note next to it, reading "You're next." Now she's got this otherworldly thing flying at her.

She manages to kill the monstrous beast, but then finds herself playing host to a quartet of humanlike beings from a parallel world who were dragged into our world in the wake of the beast. The only way for them to get back is to capture this wizard, who also happens to have extremely unpleasant plans in mind for our world.

What makes the book work is not simply the fast pace and inventive magical elements, but the characterization, especially of Beacham. We're rooting for her all the way as she takes charge of her squabbling, otherworldly visitors and deals with her own ongoing problems with bigotry. There's real growth in her character, an awareness that all these traumatic events take their toll. But it's not heavy-handed, and it never bogs down the story.

My only real question is, what does the buxom woman on the cover have to do with the book? And, considering how most of the action takes place in the southern states, what's with all the snow? It's too bad Baen couldn't have commissioned a new' piece of art to go on the book, one that actually has something to do with the story, instead of using what's obviously a piece of stock art.

The Lost Coast, by Steven Nightingale, St. Martin's Griffin, 1997, $11.95

The Thirteenth Daughter of the Moon, by Steven Nightingale, St. Martin's Press, 1997, $23.95

I wanted to like these books much more than I was able to. They sounded like great fun from the cover blurbs -- which gave me a sense of, say, Tom Robbins meets Moll Flanders, or perhaps Giles Goat-Boy, by way of the Wild West -- but they didn't quite deliver.

The cast we first meet in The Lost Coast is certainly entertaining: a cowgirl named Cookie, and Juha, a shy building contractor who's built along the lines of Paul Bunyon; the artist Renato and his first true love, Ananda, who's now a lawyer; the professor Chiara and her daughter Izzy, who are being pursued by private detectives from out East; and Muscovado, a journalist from Jamaica. They all pair off rather quickly in a bar in Eureka, Nevada, except for Renato who remains thoroughly absorbed with his art until he meets the Twelfth Daughter of the Moon, later in the book.

There's a grand sense of the tall tale pervading the trusty band's adventures as they leave Eureka, heading west for the mythical Lost Coast. Along the way they meet junkyard angels, a woman whose step-son is a lightning bolt, a talking coyote, an endless]y talking peacock, and the like. They also partake of vast quantities of great food and sex, in between philosophical conversations and just plain tomfoolery.

All of which is good fun, and even thought-provoking at times. And Nightingale writes well. The trouble is, he can't plot for the life of him. That's not necessarily the end of the world, because he certainly makes up for the lack of a straightforward storyline with any number of other entertainments. But it does cause a couple of problems.

The first is that, interspersed with what I've discussed above are sections from the points of view of a couple of murderous, body-building, amoral teenagers who appear -- at least to this reader -- to be present simply to lend some sort of plot/tension to the proceedings with less than happy results. Except for the satiric fun Nightingale pokes at society in general, and gun lovers and the media in particular, it's wasted space and doesn't really match the feel of the rest of the novel.

The second problem is that the subsequent book, The Thirteenth Daughter of the Moon, suffers because it's really no different from the first book -- by which I mean it's simply a continuation of the same. Where it's fresh and funny and engaging in the earlier book, it becomes a little tired the second time around.

Which is a pity, because for all its meandering and wandering about, not to mention enormous digressions, The Lost Coast is a good read. Much of it carries the flavor and tradition of folk tale and the exaggerated yarns that gather around mythic characters such as John Henry, Paul Bunyon, or Johnny Appleseed -- ribald trysts and preposterous excursions that are impossible to ignore. But one can't help but wish there was a little more meat to the proceedings, especially by the time we get to the second book.

Try these from the library first before shelling out your hardearned cash for your own copies.

Dispossession, by Chaz Brenchley, New English Library, 1997, £5.99

Chaz Brenchley's name has come up a few times in the past few years --arising during discussions of favorite books with other readers -- but I've never had the chance to try him until I finally stumbled across a couple of his books in a local bookshop. Dead o[ Light and Light Errant are the usual touchstones I've been given, but I decided to try the stand-alone Dispossession. The setup is wonderful:

A lawyer wakes up in a hospital from a three-day coma after a major accident in a vehicle he doesn't remember ever driving, never mind owning, to discover that he's lost three months of his life. During those missing months, he's left the law firm where he was employed to go to work for a major-league criminal he has always disliked, he's left a seven-year-old relationship and married a {to him) complete stranger, and people are trying to kill him. He doesn't know why any of the above have taken/is taking place.

And, oh yes, he also happens to know a fallen angel named Luke.

I love this sort of a book, where the protagonist has no idea who he is or in this case, why he has undertaken these inexplicable changes in his life, but he has to find out quickly, or he's dead. Shades of Robert Ludlum, or the opening gambit in Roger Zelazny's classic Amber series.

Often in such books, when the mystery finally begins to unravel and sense is brought to the dangerously unexplained, it's a bit of a letdown. But not so here. Brenchley plays fair, ladling out the surprises and explanations with a sure, deft hand. The characters have resonance and depth, and his prose is both literate and eminently suited to a page-turning thriller. And his handling of a fallen angel is dealt with beautifully Luke is a powerful, alien being, never fully explained, but fully realized.

When I got to the end of Dispossession, I immediately wanted to start another of his books, but alas, they do take some tracking down-especially in the States, I should imagine. But if the above intrigues you, you might try a dealer who handles UK books, or one of the on-line book services, as I will be doing to acquire some of his seven other books. On the basis of this novel -- Dispossession is one of those increasingly rare books that remind you just how satisfying fiction can be -- I doubt you'll be disappointed.

Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P.O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.

Books Now

To order these books, (24hrs, 365 days) please call (800)266-5766 (Ext. 9500) or visit us at http://www.booksnow.com

~~~~~~~~

By CHARLES DE LINT

BOOKS

Pulp Art: Original Cover Paintings for the Great American Pulp Magazines, by Robert Lesser, Gramercy Books, 1997, $19.99

Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines, by Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson, Collectors Press, 1998, $39.95

Infinite Worlds: The Fantastic Visions of Science Fiction Art, by Vincent di Fate, Penguin Gallery, 1997, $45.00

YOU'RE reading this on the pages of one of the last remaining descendants of the "pulp" magazines (so named for the cheap paper on which they were printed}. The pulps in their day were bestsellers: one of the principal forms of popular fictional entertainment. In their time, roughly the first half of the century, there were hundreds of these pulps available on the newsstands --Amazing Stories, The Black Mask, Argosy, Western Romances, Spicy Mystery Stories - and millions of people across the country bought them for 10, 15, sometimes 25 cents, to lose themselves in the stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Max Brand, Talbot Mundy, Otis Adelbert Kline, and thousands of other writers (some remembered, most long forgotten). Many of sf's greatest names got their starts in the pulps: Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, C. L. Moore, A. E. van Vogt, L. Sprague de Camp, Theodore Sturgeon. Some spent their whole careers there -H. P. Lovecraft, Robert E. Howard, Henry Kuttner. The pulps were the cauldron in which most of the genres we know today --mystery, sf, horror, crime, western, romance -- took form.

While names such as Edgar Rice Burroughs could have a magazine hopping off the stands, what really sold the pulps month in and month out were the covers. Colorful, striking, and imaginative, often lurid and sometimes even offensive, pulp covers competed for the prospective reader's eye in bright reds and yellows, with blazing guns, dashing heroes, and scantily clad heroines. As one pulp editor put it, "gaudy covers do sell the magazines, and...this is the most important thing any publisher considers." It's this world -- the world of the pulp artists--that Robert Lesser and his various contributors examine in Pulp Art. Science fiction, fantasy, and horror were just a small part of the pulp field, and consequently Lesser devotes only one chapter albeit the first} to the sf pulps such as Amazing Stories, Astounding Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Wonder Stories, and their ilk. Subsequent chapters cover the detective pulps (The Shadow, Doc Savage, The Spider, Detective Story Magazine, etc.), aviation, war, and western pulps (Fighting Aces, Battle Birds, Wild West Weekly, etc.}, and genres which appeared in a variety of more and less specialized magazines, such as adventure stories (Tarzan appeared in such pulps as Argosy and Blue Book, which printed other sorts of fiction as well} and "ladies in peril," a motif found on the covers of almost every pulp magazine, from Ace Detective and Weird Tales to the more single-minded "spicy" mags, such as Spicy Western Stories, Spicy Mystery, and others.

To a large extent, Lesser focuses on each artwork distinct from the magazine on which it was used; indeed, Lesser is so interested in highlighting the art in its own right that, wherever possible, he reproduces the original paintings themselves, free of the type and other elements that were added to form the final cover. Each chapter ends with several full-page reproductions that reveal the true grandeur of the work: Margaret Brundage's sleek female figures, Rudolph Belarski's kinetic war scenes, Frederick Blakeslee's swooping biplanes, Frank R. Paul's wacky alien cities, and J. Allen St. John's incomparable images of high adventure. Free of distracting type, and in their full colors (which were sometimes muted by the reproduction process on the magazine covers), the art of the pulps emerges as art, not simply as the marketing tool it was born to be.

After flipping through these pages, the reader's heart breaks to learn how few original paintings from the period have survived -- of perhaps 50,000 individual covers produced during the pulp years, only about one percent of the originals have been recovered. The main reason for this, Lesser tells us, lies in the nature of the business: these artists didn't think of themselves as such, and often they were ashamed of the work they did for the pulps. Some, such as John Newton Howitt [known in his time as the "Dean of Weird Menace Art" for his covers of Horror Stories, Terror Tales, and other scary pulps, may even have destroyed their originals themselves. Others simply never asked for them back from the publishers; and, often enough, the publishers couldn't even give them away. Even decades later, most pulp artists weren't interested in their original paintings. When Street & Smith, one of the biggest pulp publishers, was sold to Conde Nast in 1961 and needed to clear out their warehouse space, they called the artists to see if they wanted their work back. Most said no. Street & Smith tried to auction the paintings off, but there was no interest. They told their employees they could have any they liked-- free -but still very few were taken. In the end, hundreds or even thousands of paintings ended up on the street to be hauled away with the garbage.

Lesser's concentration on the original art does have the drawback of limiting his pool of examples --since so few original paintings survived, he can't necessarily select the very best or most representative pieces, and some of the pulp fringe -- such as Zeppelin Stories, of which I'll say more soon-- aren't noted at all. Pulp Art is by no means an exhaustive survey of the subject -- nor does it mean to be. Lesser's text, likewise, makes no attempt at an extensive history of the pulps or the artists who worked for them. Nevertheless, his astute analysis w and the short essays contributed by such experts as Roger T. Reed [director of the Illustration House gallery), the late sf historian Sam Moskowitz, John de Sotolson of pulp artist Rafael de Soto}, and Bruce Cassidy {editor of western pulps in the late 1940s) --make for a good introduction. Sometimes Lessers suggestions are off -- as in his identification of the Biblical Adam as a literary precursor of Tarzan --but for the most part his discussion of pulp art and iconography rings true. He points out pulp art's conceptual roots in the "storytelling" art of earlier eras, especially in depictions of the Crucifixion and saintly martyrdoms, as well as similarities to near-contemporary works by such artists as Winslow Homer. Wisely, Lesser stops short of pressing his point too far he's not arguing that pulp art and "fine" art are indistinguishable. What he does argue for are pulp art's virtues on its own terms, and the acknowledgment of the craftsmanship and {yes} artistry of its creators. No one can emerge from Pulp Art doubting any of that.

Pulp Culture by collectors Frank M. Robinson and Lawrence Davidson certainly overlaps the territory of Pulp Art it even includes some of the same images -- but the similarities remain superficial. Robinson and Davidson approach their subject from the persective of collectors leach illustration has a bullet ranking to indicate the relative value of the issue it depicts), and they take a much broader view, as their title implies. Here we have not only pulp art, but ::.he whole pulp experience on display. Robinson and Davidson produce a more thorough {though still hardly exhaustive) history of the pulps, their publishers, writers, artists, and readers, and they offer a much larger gathering of illustrations -- more than 400 cover shots alone. Read -- or surveyed; these books invite browsing more than a straight read-through-- after Lesser's, Pulp Culture expands and enriches an appreciation of the pulp era.

Like Lesser, Robinson and Davidson divide their text into chapters, here along the lines of literary genres more than artistic imagery. Sf pulps hold an even smaller place here than they did in Pulp Art - 16 pages out of more than 200, though that's about the average for each chapter. Along with the detective, western, and war pulps that Lesser showed us, we glimpse the sex and romance pulps [Range Romances, Breezy Stories, AH-Story Love Tales, Pep Stories, etc.) and the sports magazines (Fight Stories, Thrilling Sports, Football Stories, etc. I that are not heavily collected today and usually receive less mention in discussions of the pulps. As the pulp era rolled on, the publishers competed with gaudier covers and more specialized concepts and titles; Robinson and Davidson give us the pulps in all of their outlandish -sometimes downright silly - diversity. Among the familiar Amazing, The Shadow, and G-8 and His Battle Aces, we find Speakeasy Stories, Fifth Column Stories, The Railroad Man's Magazine, Gun Molls, The Danger Trail, and (my personal favorite) Zeppelin Stories, which ran for only four issues and featured, on the third, a most outrageous illustration for its lead story, "The Gorilla of the Gas Bags." The authors fill us in on some of the sillier items found behind the covers as well, including Ejler Jacobson's hemophiliac detective, known as "the world's most vulnerable dick." They're not afraid to admit to the absurdity with which the pulps often flirted -- Robinson and Davidson even get a little snide in their captions ("how many stories would you want to read about speakeasies?" they ask}.

Pulp Culture has its faults, though they're relatively minor. The sheer number of illustrations almost hypnotizes after a while -that's why it's better to browse than read straight through-- and they're not arranged chronologically, even within each chapter, so it's hard to get a clear sense for the developments and changes that Robinson and Davidson describe in their text. To compare, you need to pay very close attention to the dates given in the captions. And the text, while more detailed on topics such as the origins of the pulps, doesn't always strike me as reliable. I'm no pulp scholar, so I hesitate to criticize, but for instance Robinson and Davidson take veteran pulp writer L. Ron Hubbard's claims of world travel and adventure as writ, while recent historians of the genre have determined that Hubbard's autobiography was by and large as fictional as his stories. Such a lapse has to make the reader cautious about the information in the rest of the book.

Like Lesser, though, Robinson and Davidson seem wholly reliable when they're sticking to the material they know best -- the magazines themselves. And while they may get some of the ancillary details wrong, they and their book offer the fullest evocation I've ever encountered of the thrills of the pulps. "The pulps had their faults," they admit, "bad writing was as prevalent as good and they mirrored their times in their insensitivity to race and frequently adolescent attitude toward women--but when they were good, they were very good." As a devoted fan of Lovecraft, Howard, and dozens of other pulp writers, I couldn't agree more.

Vincent di Fate's compendium of sf art, Infinite Worlds, expands our scope of inquiry even further. He covers the pulp era, certainly, but he extends an eye to sf art both before and after that time, and we see what became of the pulp style as the decades passed. Things were lost and things were gained, but the eye disposed to be moved by the work of Hannes Bok, Frank R. Paul, Hubert Rogers, and J. Allen St. John can hardly be disappointed by the haunting grandeur of Paul Lehr's futurescapes or the meticulous renderings of Michael Whelan.

Di Fate begins with a look, not unlike Lesser's, at the origins of sf art. Because he focuses on sf rather than the pulp mode in general, he identifies somewhat different roots -- the sketches of Leonardo da Vinci and the visions of Hiemnymus Bosch, for instance, in which he identifies two opposite but complementary artistic responses to technological change. Da Vinci's futuristic weaponry, vehicles, and devices generally convey a positive feeling about the effects of new technologies, while Bosch's nightmarish images reveal his deep uneasiness with the changes that technology and invention had caused in society. Di Fate suggests, quite rightly, that sf art has continued this conversation up to the present day.

The latter two-thirds of Infinite Worlds consist of an alphabetical gallery of sf artists -- not every one, but a generous and representative selection, with biographical and critical notes by di Fate. {The section dedicated to di Fate's own artwork has notes by fellow artist Murray Tinkelman.} Here again it's easier and more rewarding to browse than to attempt a linear reading. A couple of hours flipping .through the gallery pages, from the surreal imagery of Don Ivan Punchatz to the atmospheric work of Stanley Meltzoff, from the familiar {Frank Frazetta} to the obscure {R. G. Iones}, from the innocent imaginings of Frank R. Paul and H. W. Wesso to the gritty and disturbing imagery of Marshall Arisman and Rick Berry, and you'll have an armchair tour of an sf art museum that doesn't exist outside of books. If for no other reason than that di Fate's book surveys the field up to the very present, Infinite Worlds offers an experience unlike that of any other book on the shelves today.

What emerges most forcefully from di Fate's survey is a sense that, while sf art has gained in technical mastery and elegance in the years since the pulps filled the Stands, it has inevitably lost something of the spirit of those early years. Pulp art, as revealed in Pulp Art and Pulp Culture, possesses an infectious sense of freedom and energy, and while it frequently appeals to "based' instincts with images of violence and titillation, it also has a kind of innocence that makes that vulgarity not merely acceptable but, paradoxically, virtuous, in that its appeal is so direct and honest that the viewer can hardly feel sullied. Pulp art lets us revel in the uncomplicated emotions that first brought us to reading, sf or otherwise.

In that sense, pulp sf art is not unlike pulp sf fiction, and the changes that have occurred in the one are not unlike those that have taken place in the other. On the whole, sf writing today sports a greater command of literary technique and encompasses a much broader range of possible approaches than it did in the days of the pulps, and, as Infinite Worlds makes clear, the same holds true for sf art. As di Fate puts it: "At no time in history have there been more artists in the sf specialty who can draw and paint with so high a degree of excellence. What many of these artists lack, however, is an extrapolative keenness...that carries sf to a higher level." Something similar, I think, might be said of the literature itself.

Which is not to suggest that today's sf -- art or literature -- is somehow worse than what the pulps had to offer. It is to admit that with greater technical and conceptual sophistication comes a loss of simpler things -- and that those simpler things have their merits, too. As Lesser argues in Pulp Art, it's not that pulp art should be considered in the same ways as fine art, but we can acknowledge and enjoy the pleasures that it brings as well, without abandoning our appreciation for Rembrandt or Caravaggio. It need not be a question of either or: we can, and we do, have both.

~~~~~~~~

By ROBERT K.J. KILLHEFFER

EMISSARY FROM A GREEN AND YELLOW WORLD

Of late, Bob Sheckley has been writing mostly mystery novels, including Soma Blues and Draconian New York. He's currently finishing up a new fantasy entitled Godshome. Of course, Bob has also been entertaining us with skewed short stories for four decades now, and it's nice to see he's not letting up. Witness this story of a visit to a blue and white world.

ONE THING ABOUT PRESIDENT Rice. He was able to make up his mind. When Ong came to Earth with his contention, Rice believed him. Not that it made any difference in the end.

It began when the Marine guard came into the Oval Office, his face ashen.

"What is it:." said President Rice, looking up from his papers.

"Someone wants to see you," the guard said.

"So? A lot of people want to see the President of the United States. Is his name on the morning list?"

"You don't understand, sir. This guy -- he just -- materialized! One moment he wasn't there and the next moment, there he was, standing in front of me in the corridor. And he isn't a man, sir. He stands on two legs but he isn't a man. He's --he's -- I don't know what he is!"

And the guard burst into tears.

Rice had seen other men cave in from the pressures of government. But what did a Marine guard have to do with pressures?

"Listen, son," Rice said.

The guard hastily rubbed tears out of his eyes. "Yes, sir." His voice was shaky, but it wasn't hysterical.

"What I want you to do," Rice said, "is take the rest of the day off. Go home. Get some rest. Come back here tomorrow refreshed. If your supervisor asks about it, tell him I ordered it. Will you do that for me?"

"Yes, sir."

"And on your way, send in that fellow you met in the corridor. The one you say doesn't look human. Don't talk to him. Just tell him I'm waiting to see him."

The fellow was not long in coming. He was about six feet tall. He wore a silver one-piece jump suit that shimmered when you looked at it. His features were difficult to describe. All you could say for sure was, he didn't look human.

"I know what you're thinking," the fellow said. "You are thinking that I don't look human."

"That's right," Rice said.

"You're correct. I'm not human. Intelligent, yes. Human, no. You can call me Ong. I'm from Omair, a planet in the constellation you call Sagittarius. Omair is a yellow and green world. Do you believe me?"

"Yes, I believe you," Rice said.

"May I ask why?"

"It's just a hunch," Rice said. "I think that if you stayed around here and submitted to an examination by a team of our scientists, they'd conclude that you were an alien. So let's get right to it. You're an alien. I accept that you're from a green and yellow world named Oreair. Now what?"

"You're asking, I suppose, why I've come here, at this time?"

"That's right."

"Well, sir, I've come to warn you that your sun is going to go nova in about one hundred and fifty of your years."

"You're sure?"

"Quite sure."

"Why'd you wait so long to get around to telling us?"

"We just found out ourselves. As soon as it was confirmed, my people sent me as emissary to give your planet the information and offer what assistance we could."

"Why did they pick you?"

"I was chosen at random for off-planet service. It could have been any of US."

"If you say so."

"Now I have delivered the message. How can we help?"

Rice was feeling very peculiar. He didn't understand it, but he really did believe the emissary. But he also knew his belief was futile in terms of saving Earth's people. Ong's contention would have to be submitted to scientific proof. Before any conclusions could be reached, the Earth would vaporize in the expanding sun. Rice knew that if he wanted to do anything about it, it would have to begin now.

Rice said, "Some of our scientists have made similar conjectures as to our eventual doom."

"They're right. Within approximately one hundred and fifty years this planet will no longer be habitable. May I be blunt? You're going to have to get off. All of you. And you must begin immediately."

"Great," President Rice said. "Oh, that's just great."

"Is something wrong?"

"I'm just having a little trouble assimilating this." Rice put a hand to his forehead. "This is a nightmare situation. But I have to deal with it as if it's real. Because it probably is." He wiped his forehead again. "Let's say I believe you. How could we do anything about it?"

"We of Omair are ready to help. We will give you detailed plans explaining what you must do to make starships for all Earth's people. There will be further instructions for getting all the people together and into the ships in an orderly manner. Please understand, we're just trying to help, not impose ourselves on you." "I believe you," Rice said, and he did.

"There's a lot to be done," the emissary said. "It's a big task, but you humans are just as smart as we Omairians -- we checked on that, no use wasting our time on dummies. With your present level of technology, and with our assistance, you can do this and be away within the next hundred years."

"It's a tremendously exciting prospect," Rice said.

"We thought you'd feel that way. You aren't the only planetary civilization we've been able to rescue."

"That is very much to your credit."

"Nothing to praise. This is how we Omairians are."

"I'm going to have to ask something that may sound a little strange," Rice said. "But this is Earth so I have to ask it. Who's going to pay for all this?"

"If it's necessary," Ong said, "we of Omair are willing to defray the costs."

"Thank you. That's very good of you."

"We know."

"So what will be necessary?"

"To begin with, you'll need to clear out the center of one of your continents for the launchingpads. But that's not too difficult, because you can distribute the people in the other continents. That will disrupt commerce and farming, of course. But we will supply whatever food is needed."

Rice could imagine it now -- the slow convening of experts from all over the globe, the quarreling, the demands for more and more proofs. And even if a consensus of scientists came to agreement after many years, what about the population at large? Before any sizeable portion of the Earth's people could be convinced, the Earth would long since have vaporized in the expanding sun.

"Simultaneous to the building of the starships," the emissary went on, "you'll have to get your populations indoctrinated, innoculated -we'll supply the medicines -- and in general prepared for a long journey by starship. During the transition period you'll require temporary housing for millions. We can help there."

"Is the indoctrination really necessary? Earth people hate that sort of thing."

"Absolutely essential. Your people will not be prepared for a lifetime of shipboard life. Hypnotherapy may be needed in many cases. We can supply the machines. I know your people won't like it, being uprooted this way. But it's either that or perish in about a hundred years."

"I'm convinced," Rice said. "The question is, can I sell it?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, it's not just a case of convincing me, you know. There are tens of millions of people out there who won't believe you."

"But surely if you order them to take the necessary measures for their own good..."

"I'm just the ruler of one country, not the whole planet. And I can't even order my own countrymen to do what you're suggesting."

"You don't have to order it. Just suggest it and show the proofs. Humans are intelligent. They'll acccept your view."

Rice shook his head. "Believe me, they won't believe me. Most of them will think this is a diabolical plot on the part of government, or some church, or the Islamic Conspiracy, or some other. Some will think little gray aliens are trying to trick us into captivity. Others will believe it's the work of a long-vanished Elder Race, here to do us in. Whatever the reason, everyone will be sure it's a plot of some kind."

"A plot to do what?" Ong asked.

"To enslave us."

"We of Omair don't do that sort of thing. We have a perfect record in that regard. I can offer proofs."

"You keep on talking about proofs," Rice said. "But most humans are proof-proof."

"Is that really true?."

"Sad to say, it's true."

"It goes against accepted theory. We have always believed that intelligence invariably produces rationality."

"Not in these parts. Not with us."

"I'm sorry to hear that. We Omairians thought this was just a matter of one colleague calling on another and warning him of a danger, then advising him on what steps to take. I had no idea humans might resist believing. It's not rational, you know. Are you quite sure of this?"

"That's how humans are. And above all, they're conditioned from earliest age against taking orders from aliens."

"I wouldn't be giving any orders."

"You'd be advising the government. In people's minds, that would be the equivalent of giving orders."

"I don't know what to tell you," the emissary said. "Is there really no way you could convince people otherwise?"

"I can tell you here and now, it'll never work."

Ong gave a slight inclination of his head. "Well, it has been nice meeting you. Have a nice day."

The emissary turned to go.

"Just one moment," Rice said.

The alien paused, turned. "Yes?"

"What about just taking those of us who do believe, who want to go?"

"It's unprecedented," the emissary said. "In all our experience, races either can change their thinking and get away from their doomed worlds by their own efforts, or they cannot."

"We're different," Rice said.

"All right," the emissary said. "I'll do it. Gather your people. I'll be back in ten years to take those who want to go. We can't wait any longer than that."

"We'll be ready."

TEN YEARS LATER, the emissary came to a small, hand-built house in a corner of the Oregon Cascade Mountains. A trout stream ran behind the house, and Rice was standing beside the stream, fishing. Rice said, "How did you find me here?"

"Once we Omairians have met you, we can always find you again. But t think you are not president any longer."

"No," Rice said. "My term ended and I didn't get reelected. I tried to convince people of the destruction that lay ahead. Nearly everyone thought I was a crackpot. Those who did believe me were worse than those who didn't. A crazy man tried to shoot me and killed my wife instead. My children hold me responsible. They changed their names and moved away."

"I am sorry to hear that," the emissary said. "But I think you'll have to admit that those other people, the ones who despise and disbelieve you, do not have your grasp, your intelligence, your intuition. You're probably the most unusual man of your century, Mr. Rice. You believed in us from the start. You didn't think we were sent by God or the devil. You accepted what we said. Evidently you were the only one."

"Evidently."

"Perhaps it's for the best," the emissary said. "Your people, in their present state, could never have made it out there. But you could."

"Me?"

"Your true place is with us, Mr. Rice, out in the galaxy. There is still time. You are not an old man. We have rejuvenation treatments. We can add many years to your life. We have women of our species who would be honored to mate with you. We have a civilization that would welcome you. I beg of you, leave this doomed Earth behind and come away with

"No, I think not," Rice said. "I can still look forward to living another thirty or so years on Earth before things get too bad, can't I?"

"Yes, but no longer."

"It's enough. I'll stay."

"You choose to die here with your people? But they will perish because of their own ignorance."

"Yes. But they are Earth's children, as I am. My place is here with Them."

"I find it difficult to believe you're saying this."

"I did a lot of thinking about it. It occurred to me that I was really no different from the other humans. Not fundamentally. And certainly no better."

"I can't accept that. Anyhow, what is your inference?"

"It seemed to me that if my species was incapable of believing in its own doom, it was not for me to believe in it, either. So I've decided that all that stuff you talked about is not going to happen. In fact, I'm pretty sure I've dreamed all this up."

"It is not intelligence," said the emissary, "to take refuge in solipsism."

"My mind's made up. I'll stay here with my trout stream. You've never done any fly fishing, have you, emissary?"

"Where I come from," the emissary said, "we don't fish. We respect all life."

"Does that mean you don't eat flesh of any kind?"

"That is correct."

"What about vegetables? They're living things."

"We don't eat vegetables, either. We convert our energy from inert chemicals, or, if necessary, we transform it directly from solar radiation. We can re-engineer you so you can do that, too."

"I'll just bet you can," Rice said. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me. Or rather, you heard my implication. The sort of life you offer wouldn't be human. It would be hellish. It wouldn't be worth living for a fellow like me, to say nothing of my friends. I refer to the rest of the human race."

"You mentioned hell. There is no hell."

"Yes there is. Hell is me talking to you. Now do me a favor and get out of my face."

The emissary left, and, outside, paused for a moment, looking back at the house. Would Rice change his mind? No indication of it. Ong shrugged and returned to his vehicle. With a gesture he brought it up to full visibility and got aboard.

Soon he was high in the air, with the green and blue planet receding below him. Soon he would put in the faster than light drive.

But just before he did, he turned back and took a last look. A Good-looking planet, and intelligent people. A pity to see it all lost.

He brooded for a moment, but only a moment. Then he consoled himself with the knowledge that this represented no real loss to the Cosmos. After all, intelligent life had evolved again and again on planets all over the universe.

But what had evolved was intelligent life much like that of Ong and his people. That was the standard, the norm. But intelligent life like Earth's? Intelligent irrational life? It had to be a fluke, a one-of-a-kind thing, this mating of intelligence and irrationality. The emissary didn't think the universe had seen Earth's like before. It probably would not again.

He looked down once more at the Earth. It looked like a nice place. But of course, there were more where that came from. Sort of. In any event, it was time to get back to his own green and yellow world.

CARTOON:

~~~~~~~~

By Robert Sheckley

EVERY ANGEL IS TERRIFYING

John Kessel's most recent novel is Corrupting Dr. Nice, and his most recent story collection is The Pure Product. other current projects o[ his include an audio play produced by the Seeing Ear Theater (http://www. scifi, com/set/originals), and in serving as literary executor for the late Lawrence S. Rudner he edited the latter's last novel, Memory's Tailor.

A good man, Flannery O'Connor taught us, is hard to find. But where does one begin to look? Within...or beyond?

RAILROAD WATCHED BOBBY Lee grab the grandmother's body under the armpits and drag her up the other side of the ditch. "Whyn't you help him, Hiram," he said.

Hiram took off his coat, skidded down into the ditch after Bobby Lee, and got hold of the old lady's legs. Together he and Bobby Lee lugged her across the field toward the woods. Her broken blue hat was still pinned to her head, which lolled against Bobby Lee's shoulder. The woman's face grinned lopsidedly all the way into the shadow of the trees.

Railroad carried the cat over to the Studebaker. It occurred to him that he didn't know the cat's name, and now that the entire family was dead he never would. It was a calico, gray striped with a broad white face and an orange nose. "What's your name, puss-pussy." he whispered, scratching it behind the ears. The cat purred. One by one Raftroad went round and rolled up the windows of the car. A fracture zigzagged across the windshield, and the front passenger's vent window was shattered. He stuffed Hiram's coat into the vent window hole. Then he put the cat inside the car and shut the door. The cat put its front paws up on the dashboard and, watching him, gave a pantomime meow.

Railroad pushed up his glasses and stared off toward the woodline where Bobby Lee and Hiram had taken the bodies. The place was hot and still, silence broken only by birdsong from somewhere up the embankment behind him. He squinted up into the cloudless sky. Only a couple of hours of sun left. He rubbed the spot on his shoulder where the grandmother had touched him. Somehow he had wrenched it when he jerked away from her.

The last thing the grandmother had said picked at him: "You're one of my own children." The old lady had looked familiar, but she didn't look anything like his mother. But maybe his father had sown some wild oats in the old days -- Railroad knew he had -- could the old lady have been his mother, for real? It would explain why the woman who had raised him, the sweetest of women, could have been saddled with a son as bad as he was.

The idea caught in his head. He wished he'd had the sense to ask the grandmother a few questions. The old woman might have been sent to tell him the truth.

When Hiram and Bobby Lee came back, they found Railroad leaning under the hood of the car.

"What we do now, boss?" Bobby Lee asked.

"Police could be here any minute," Hiram said. Blood was smeared on the leg of his khaki pants. ,'Somebody might of heard the shots."

Railroad pulled himself out from under the hood. "Onliest thing we got to worry about now, Hiram, is how we get this radiator to stop leaking. You find a tire iron and straighten out this here fan. Bobby Lee, you get the belt own the other car."

It took longer than the half hour Hiram had estimated to get the people's Studebaker back on the road. By the time they did it was twilight, and the red-dirt road was cast in the shadows of the pinewoods. They pushed the stolen Hudson they'd been driving off into the trees and got into the studebaker.

Railroad gripped the wheel of the car and they bounced down the dirt road toward the main highway. Hat pushed back on his head, Hiram went through the dead man's wallet, while in the back seat Bobby Lee had the cat on his lap and was scratching it under the chin. "Kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty-kitty," he murmured.

"Sixty-eight dollars," Hiram said. "With the twenty-two from the wife's purse, that makes ninety bucks." He turned around and handed a wad of bills to Bobby Lee. "Get rid of that damn eat," he said. "Want me to hold yours for you?" he asked Railroad.

Railroad reached over, took the bills, and stuffed them into the pocket of the yellow shirt with bright blue parrots that had belonged to the husband who'd been driving the car. Bailey Boy, the grandmother had called him. Railroad's shoulder twinged.

The car shuddereds the wheels had been knocked out of kilter when it rolled. If he tried pushing past fifty, it would shake itself right off the road. Railroad felt the warm weight of his pistol inside his belt, against his belly. Bobby Lee hummed tunelessly in the back seat. Hiram was quiet, fidgeting, looking out at the dark trees. He tugged his battered coat out of the vent window, tried to shake some of the wrinkles out of it. "You oughtn't to use a man's coat without saying to him," he grumbled.

Bobby Lee spoke up. "He didn't want the cat to get away."

Hiram sneezed. "Will you throw that damn animal out the damn window?"

"She never hurt you none," Bobby Lee said.

Railroad said nothing. He had always imagined that the world was slightly unreal, that he was meant to be the citizen of some other place. His mind was a box. Outside the box was that world of distraction, amusement, annoyance. Inside the box his real life went on, the struggle between what he knew and what he didn't know. He had a way of acting-- polite, detached-- because that way he wouldn't be bothered. When he was bothered, he got mad. When he got mad, bad things happened.

He had always been prey to remorse, but now he felt it more fully than he had since he was a boy. He hadn't paid enough attention. He'd pegged the old lady as a hypocrite and had gone back into his box, thinking her just another fool from that puppet world. But that moment of her touching him -- she'd wanted to comfort him. And he shot her.

What was it the old woman had said? "You could be honest if you'd only try .... Think how wonderful it would be to settle down and live a comfortable life and not have to think about somebody chasing you all the time."

He knew she was only saying that to save her life. But that didn't mean it couldn't also be a message.

Outside the box, Hiram asked, "What was all that yammet yammet with the grandmother about Jesus? We doing all the killing while you yammer yammer."

"He did shoot the old lady," Bobby Lee said.

"And made us carry her off to the woods, when if he'd of waited she could of walked there like the others. We're the ones get blood on our clothes."

Railroad said quietly, "You don't like the way things are going, Son?"

Hiram twitched against the seat like he was itchy between the shoulder blades. "I ain't sayin' that. I just want out of this state."

"We going to Atlanta. In Atlanta we can get lost."

"Gonna get me a girl!" Bobby Lee said.

"They got more cops in Atlanta than the rest of the state put together," Hiram said. "In Florida .... "

Without taking his eyes off the road, Railroad snapped his right hand across the bridge of Hiram's nose. Hiram jerked, more startled than hurt, and his hat tumbled off into the back seat.

Bobby Lee laughed, and handed Hiram his hat.

IT WAS after 11:00 when they hit the outskirts of Atlanta. Railroad pulled into a diner, the Sweet Spot, red brick and an asbestos-shingled roof, the air smelling of cigarettes and pork barbecue. Hiram rubbed some dirt from the lot into the stain on his pants leg. Railroad unlocked the trunk and found the dead man's suitcase, full of clothes. He carried it in with them.

On the radio sitting on the shelf behind the counter, Kitty Wells sang "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky-Tonk Angels." Railroad studied the menu, front and back, and ordered biscuits and gravy. While they ate Bobby Lee ran on about girls, and Hiram sat sullenly smoking. Railroad could tell Hiram was getting ready to do something stupid. He didn't need either of them anymore. So after they finished eating, Railroad left the car keys on the table and took the suitcase into the men's room. He locked the door. He pulled his .38 out of his waistband, put it on the sink, and changed out of the too-tight dungarees into some of the dead husband's baggy trousers. He washed his face and hands. He cleaned his glasses on the tail of the parrot shirt, then tucked in the shirt. He stuck the .38 into the suitcase and came out again. Bobby Lee and Hiram were gone, and the car was no longer in the parking lot. The bill on the table, next to Hiram's still smoldering cigarette, was for six dollars and eighty cents.

Railroad sat in the booth drinking his coffee. In the window of the diner, near the door, a piece of cardboard had been taped up, saying, "WANTED: FRY COOK." When he was done with the coffee, he untaped the sign and headed to the register. After he paid the bill he handed the cashier the sign. "I'm your man," he said.

The cashier called the manager. "Mr. Cauthron, this man says he's a cook."

Mr. Cauthron was maybe thirty-five years old. His carrot red hair stood up in a pompadour like a rooster's comb, and a little belly swelled out over his belt. "What's your name?"

"Lloyd Bailey."

"Lloyd, what experience do you have?"

"I can cook anything on this here menu," Railroad said.

The manager took him back to the kitchen. "Stand aside, Shorty," the manager said to the tall black man at the griddle. "Fix me a Denver omelet," he said to Railroad.

Railroad washed his hands, put on an apron, broke two eggs into a bowl. He threw handfuls of chopped onion, green pepper, and diced ham into a skillet. When the onions were soft, he poured the beaten eggs over the ham and vegetables, added salt and cayenne pepper. When he slid the finished omelet onto a plate, the manager bent down over it as if he were inspecting the paint job on a used car. He straightened up. "Pay's thirty dollars a week. Be here at six in the morning."

Out in the lot Railroad set down his bag and looked around. Cicadas buzzed in the hot city night. Around the comer from the diner he'd noticed a big Victorian house with a sign on the porch, "Rooms for Rent." He was about to start walking when, out of the comer of his eye, he caught a movement by the trash barrel next to the chain link fence. He peered into the gloom and saw the cat trying to leap up to the top to get at the garbage. He went over, held out his hand. The cat didn't run; it sniffed him, butted its head against his hand.

He picked it up, cradled it under his arm, and carried it and the bag to the rooming house. Under dense oaks, it was a big tan clapboard mansion with green shutters and hanging baskets of begonias on the porch, and a green porch swing. The thick oval leaded glass of the oak door was beveled around the edge, the brass of the handle dark with age.

The door was unlocked. His heart jumped a bit at the opportunity it presented; at the same time he wanted to warn the proprietor against such foolishness. Off to one side of the entrance was a little table with a doily, vase and dried flowers; on the other a sign beside a door said, "manager."

Railroad knocked. After a moment the door opened and a woman with the face of an angel opened it. She was not young, perhaps forty, with very white skin and blonde hair. She looked at him, smiled, saw the cat under his arm. "What a sweet animal," she said.

"I'd like a room," he said.

"I'm sorry. We don't cater to pets," the woman said, not unkindly.

"This here's no pet, Ma'm," Railroad said. "This here's my only friend in the world."

The landlady's name was Mrs. Graves. The room she rented him was twelve feet by twelve feet, with a single bed, a cherry veneer dresser, a wooden table and chair, a narrow closet, lace curtains on the window, and an old pineapple quilt on the bed. The air smelled sweet. On the wall opposite the bed was a picture in a dime store frame, of an empty rowboat floating in an angry gray ocean, the sky overcast, only a single shaft of sunlight in the distance from a sunset that was not in the picture.

The room cost ten dollars a week. Despite Mrs. Graves's role against pets, like magic she took a shine to Railroad's cat. It was almost as if she'd rented the room to the cat, with Railroad along for the ride. After some consideration, he named the cat Pleasure. She was the most affectionate animal he had ever seen. She wanted to be with him, even when he ignored her. She made him feel wanted; she made him nervous. Railroad fashioned a cat door in the window of his room so that Pleasure could go out and in whenever she wanted, and not be confined to the room when Railroad was at work.

The only other residents of the boarding house were Louise Parker, a school teacher, and Charles Foster, a lingerie salesman. Mrs. Graves cleaned Railroad's room once a week, swept the floors, alternated the quilt every other week with a second one done in a rose pattern that he remembered from his childhood. He worked at the diner from six in the morning, when Maisie, the cashier, unlocked, until Shorty took over at three in the afternoon. The counter gift was Betsy, and Service, a Negro boy, bussed tables and washed dishes. Railroad told them to call him Bailey, and didn't talk much.

When he wasn't working, Railroad spent most of his time at the boarding house, or evenings in a small nearby park. Railroad would take the Bible from the drawer in the boarding house table, buy an afternoon newspaper, and carry them with him. Pleasure often followed him to the park. She would lunge after squirrels and shy away from dogs, hissing sideways. Cats liked to kill squirrels, and dogs liked to kill cats. But there was no sin in it. Pleasure would not go to hell, or heaven. Cats had no souls.

The world was full of stupid people like Bobby Lee and Hiram, who lied to themselves and killed without knowing why. Life was a prison. Turn to the right, it was a wall. Turn to the left, it was a wall. Look up it was a ceiling, look down it was a floor. And Railroad had taken out his imprisonment on others; he was not deceived in his own behavior.

Railroad did not believe in sin, but somehow he felt it. Still, he was not a dog or a cat, he was a man. You're one of my own children. There was no reason why he had to kill people. He only wished he'd never have to deal with any Hirams and Bobby Lees anymore. He gazed across the park at the Ipana toothpaste sign painted on the wall of the Piggly Wiggly. Whiter than white. Pleasure crouched at the end of the bench, her haunches twitching as she watched a finch hop across the sidewalk.

Railroad picked her up, rubbed his cheek against her whiskers. "Pleasure, I'll tell you what," he whispered. "Let's make us a deal. You save me from Bobby Lee and Hiram, and I'll never kill anybody again."

The cat looked at him with its clear yellow eyes.

Railroad sighed. He put the cat down. He leaned back on the bench and opened the newspaper. Beneath the fold on the front page he read,

ESCAPED CONVICTS KILLED IN WRECK

VALDOSTA -- Two escaped convicts and an unidentified female passenger were killed Tuesday when the late model stolen automobile they were driving struck a bridge abutment while being pursued by State Police.

The deceased convicts, Hiram Leroy Burgert, 31, and Bobby Lee Ross, 21, escaped June 23 while being transported to the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane for psychological evaluation. A third escapee, Ronald Reuel Pickens, 47, is still at large.

THE LUNCH RUSH was petering out. There were two people at the counter and four booths were occupied, and Railroad had set a BLT and an order of fried chicken with collards up on the shelf when Maisie came back into the kitchen and called the manager. "Police wants to talk to you, Mr. C."

Railroad peeked out from behind the row of hanging order slips. A man in a suit sat at the counter, sipping sweet tea. Cauthron went out to talk to him.

"Two castaways on a raft," Betsy called to Railroad.

The man spoke with Cauthron for a few minutes, showed him a photograph. Cauthron shook his head, nodded, shook his head again. They laughed. Railroad eyed the back door of the diner, but turned back to the grill. By the time he had the toast up and the eggs fried, the man was gone. Cauthron stepped back to his office without saying anything.

At the end of the shift he pulled Railroad aside. "Lloyd," he said. "I need to speak with you."

Railroad followed him into the cubbyhole he called his office. Cauthron sat behind the cluttered metal desk and picked up a letter from the top layer of trash. "I just got this here note from Social Security saying that number you gave is not valid." He looked up at Railroad, his china blue eyes unreadable.

Railroad took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. He didn't say anything.

"I suppose it's just some mixup," Cauthron said. "Same as that business with the detective this afternoon. Don't you worry about it."

"Thank you, Mr. Cauthron."

"One other thing, before you go, Lloyd. Did I say your salary was thirty a week? I meant twenty-five. That okay with you?"

"Whatever you say, Mr. Cauthron."

"And I think, in order to encourage trade, we'll start opening at five. I'd like you to pick up the extra hour. Starting Monday.

"Railroad nodded. "Is that all?"

"That's it, Lloyd." Cauthron seemed suddenly to enjoy calling Railroad "Lloyd," rolling the name over his tongue and watching for his reaction. "Thanks for being such a Christian employee."

Railroad went back to his room in the rooming house. Pleasure mewed for him, and when he sat on the bed, hopped into his lap. But Railroad just stared at the picture of the rowboat on the opposite wall. After a while the cat hopped onto the window sill and out through her door onto the roof.

Only a crazy person would use the knowledge that a man was a murderer in order to cheat that man out of his pay. How could he know that Railroad wouldn't kill him, or run away, or do both?

Lucky for Cauthron that Railroad had made his deal with Pleasure. But now he didn't know what to do. If the old lady's message was from God, then maybe this was his first test. Nobody said being good was supposed to be easy. Nobody said, just because Railroad was turning to good, everybody he met forever after would be good. Railroad had asked Pleasure to save him from Bobby Lee and Hiram, not Mr. Cauthron.

He needed guidance. He slid open the drawer of the table. Beside the Bible was his .38. He flipped open the cylinder, checked to see that all the chambers were loaded, then put it back into the drawer. He took out the Bible and opened it at random.

The first verse his eyes fell on was from Deuteronomy: "These you may eat of all that are in the waters: you may eat all that have fins and scales. And whatever does not have fins and scales you shall not eat."

There was a knock at the door. Railroad looked up. "Yes?"

"Mr. Bailey?" It was Mrs. Graves. "I thought you might like some tea."

Keeping his finger in the Bible to mark his page, Railroad got up and opened the door. Mrs. Graves stood there with a couple of tall glasses, beaded with sweat, on a tray.

"That's mighty kind of you, Miz Graves. Would you like to come in?"

"Thank you, Mr. Bailey." She set the tray down on the table, gave him a glass. It was like nectar. "Is it sweet enough?"

"It's perfect, ma'm."

She wore a yellow print dress with little flowers on it. Her every movement showed a calm he had not seen in a woman before, and her gray eyes exuded compassion, as if to say, I know who you are but that doesn't matter.

They sat down, he on the bed, she on the chair. She saw the Bible in his hand. "I find many words of comfort in the Bible."

"I can't say as I find much comfort in it, ma'm. Too many bloody deeds."

"But many acts of goodness."

"You said a true word."

"Sometimes I wish I could live in the world of goodness." She smiled. "But this world is good enough."

Did she really think that? "Since Eve ate the apple, ma'm, it's a world of good and evil. How can goodness make up for the bad? That's a mystery to me."

She sipped her tea. "Of course it's a mystery. That's the point."

"The point is, something's always after you, deserve it or not."

"What a sad thought, Mr. Bailey."

"Yes'm. From minute to minute, we fade away. Only way to get to heaven is to die."

AFTER MRS. GRAVES left he sat thinking about her beautiful face. Like an angel. Nice titties, too.

He would marry her. He would settle down, like the grandmother said. But he would have to get an engagement ring. If he'd been thinking, he could have taken the grandmother's ring-- but how was he supposed to know when he'd killed her that he was going to fall in love so soon?

He opened the dresser, felt among the dead man's clothes until he found the sock, pulled out his savings. It was only forty-three dollars.

The only help for it was to ask Pleasure. Railroad paced the room. It was a long time, and Railroad began to worry, before the cat came back. The cat slipped silently through her door, lay down on the table, simple as you please, in the wedge of sunlight coming in the window. Railroad got down on his knees, his face level with the table top. The cat went "Mrrph?" and raised its head. Railroad gazed into her steady eyes.

"Pleasure," he said. "I need to get an engagement ring, and I don't have enough money. Get one for me."

The cat watched him.

He waited for some sign. Nothing happened.

Then, like a dam bursting, a flood of confidence flowed into him. He knew what he would do.

The next morning he walked down to the Sweet Spot whistling. He spent much of his shift imagining when and how he would ask Mrs. Graves for her hand. Maybe on the porch swing, on Saturday night? Or at breakfast some morning? He could leave the ring next to his plate and she would find it, with his note, when clearing the table. Or he could come down to her room in the middle of the night, and he'd ram himself into her in the darkness, make her whimper, then lay the perfect diamond on her breast.

At the end of the shift he took a beefsteak from the diner's refrigerator as an offering to Pleasure. But when he entered his room the cat was not there. He left the meat wrapped in butcher paper in the kitchen downstairs, then went back up and changed into Bailey Boy's baggy suit. At the corner he took the bus downtown and walked into the first jewelry store he saw. He made the woman show him several diamond engagement rings. Then the phone rang, and when the woman went to answer it he pocketed a ring and walked out. No clerk in her right mind should be so careless, but it went exactly as he had imagined it. As easy as breathing.

That night he had a dream. He was alone with Mrs. Graves, and she was making love to him. But as he moved against her, he felt the skin of her full breast deflate and wrinkle beneath his hand, and he found he was making love to the dead grandmother, her face grinning the same vacant grin it had when Hiram and Bobby Lee hauled her into the woods.

Railroad woke in terror. Pleasure was sitting on his chest, her face an inch from his, purring loud as a diesel. He snatched the cat up in both hands and hurled her across the room. She hit the wall with a thump, then fell to the floor, claws skittering on the hardwood. She scuttled for the window, through the door onto the porch roof.

It took him ten minutes for his heart to slow down, and then he could not sleep.

Someone is always after you. That day in the diner, when Railroad was taking a break, sitting on a stool in front of the window fan sipping some ice water, Cauthron came out of the office and put his hand on his shoulder, the one that still hurt occasionally. "Hot work, ain't it boy?"

"Yessir." Railroad was ten or twelve years older than Cauthron.

"What is this world coming to?" Maisie said to nobody in particular. She had the newspaper open on the counter and was scanning the headlines. "You read what it says here about some man robbing a diamond ring right out from under the nose of the clerk at Merriam's Jewelry."

"I saw that already," Mr. Cauthron said. And after a moment, "White fellow, wasn't it?"

"It was," sighed Maisie. "Must be some trash from the backwoods. Some of those poor people have not had the benefit of a Christian upbringing."

"They'll catch him. Men like that always get caught." Cauthron leaned in the doorway of his office, arms crossed above his belly. "Maisie," Cauthron said. "Did I tell you Lloyd here is the best short order cook we've had in here since 1947 The best white short order cook."

"I heard you say that."

"I mean, makes you wonder where he was before he came here. Was he short order cooking all round Atlanta? Seems like we would of heard, don't it? Come to think, Lloyd never told me much about where he was before he showed up that day. He ever say much to you, Maisie?"

"Can't say as I recall."

"You can't recall because he hasn't. What you say, Lloyd? Why is that ?"

"No time for conversation, Mr. Cauthron."

"No time for conversation? You carrying some resentment, Lloyd? We ain't paying you enough?"

"I didn't say that."

"Because, if you don't like it here, I'd be unhappy to lose the best white short order cook I had since 1947."

Railroad put down his empty glass and slipped on his paper hat. "I can't afford to lose this job. And, you don't mind my saying, Mr. Cauthron, you'd come to regret it if I was forced to leave."

"Weren't you listening, Lloyd? Isn't that what I just said?"

"Yes, you did. Now maybe we ought to quit bothering Maisie with our talk and get back to work."

"I like a man that enjoys his job," Cauthron said, slapping Railroad on the shoulder again. "I'd have to be suicidal to make a good worker like you leave. Do I look suicidal, Lloyd?"

"No, you don't look suicidal, Mr. Cauthron."

"I see Pleasure all the time going down the block to pick at the trash by the Sweet Spot," Mrs. Graves told him as they sat on the front porch swing that evening. "That cat could get hurt if you let it out so much. That is a busy street."

Foster had gone to a ball game, and Louise Parker was visiting her sister in Chattanooga, so they were alone. It was the opportunity Railroad had been waiting for.

"I don't want to keep her a prisoner," he said. The chain of the swing creaked as they rocked slowly back and forth. He could smell her lilac perfume. The curve of her thigh beneath her print dress caught the light from the front room coming through the window.

"You're a man who has spent much time alone, aren't you," she said. "So mysterious."

He had his hand in his pocket, the ring in his fingers. He hesitated. A couple walking down the sidewalk nodded at them. He couldn't do it out here, where the world might see. "Mrs. Graves, would you come up to my room? I have something I need to show you."

She did not hesitate. "I hope there's nothing wrong."

"No, ma'm. Just something I'd like to rearrange."

He opened the door for her and followed her up the stairs. The clock in the hall ticked loudly. He opened the door to his room and ushered her in, closed the door behind them. When she turned to face him he fell to his knees.

He held up the ring in both hands, his offering. "Miz Graves, I want you to marry me."

She looked at him kindly, her expression calm. The silence stretched. She reached out; he thought she was going to take the ring, but instead she touched his wrist. "I can't marry you, Mr. Bailey."

"Why not?"

"Why, I hardly know you."

Railroad felt dizzy. "You could some time."

"I'll never marry again, Mr. Bailey. It's not you."

Not him. It was never him, had never been him. His knees hurt from the hardwood floor. He looked at the ring, lowered his hands, clasped it in his fist. She moved her hand from his wrist to his shoulder, squeezed it. A knife of pain ran down his arm. Without standing, he punched Mrs. Graves in the stomach.

She gasped and fell back onto the bed. He was on her in a second, one hand over her mouth while he ripped her dress open from the neck. She struggled, and he pulled the pistol out from behind his back and held it to her head. She lay still.

"Don't you stop me, now," he muttered. He tugged his pants down and did what he wanted.

How ladylike it was of her to keep so silent.

Much later, lying on the bed, eyes dreamily focused on the light fixture in the center of the ceiling, it came to him what had bothered him about the grandmother. She had ignored the fact that she was going to die. "She would of been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life," he'd told Bobby Lee. And that was true. But then, for that last moment, she became a good woman. The reason was that, once Railroad convinced her she was going to die, she could forget about it. In the end, when she reached out to him, there was no thought in her mind about death, about the fact that he had killed her son and daughter-in-law and grandchildren and was soon going to kill her. All she wanted was to comfort him. She didn't even care if he couldn't be comforted. She was living in that exact instant, with no memory of the past or regard for the future, out of the instinct of her soul and nothing else.

Like the cat. Pleasure lived that way all the time. The cat didn't know about Jesus' sacrifice, about angels and devils. That cat looked at him and saw what was there.

He raised himself on his elbows. Mrs. Graves lay very still beside him, her blond hair spread across the pineapple quilt. He felt her neck for a pulse.

It was dark night now: the whine of insects in the oaks outside the window, the rush of traffic on the cross street, drifted in on the hot air. Quietly, Railroad slipped out into the hall and down to Foster's room. He put his ear to the door and heard no sound. He came back to his own room, wrapped Mrs. Graves in the quilt and, as silently as he could, dragged her into his closet. He closed the door.

Railroad heard purring, and saw Pleasure sitting on the table, watching. "God damn you. God damn you to hell," he said to the cat, but before he could grab her, the calico had darted out the window.

HE FIGURED IT OUT. The idea of marrying Mrs. Graves had been only a stage in the subtle revenge being taken on him by the dead grandmother, through the cat. The wishes Pleasure had granted were the bait, the nightmare had been a warning. But he hadn't listened.

He rubbed his sore shoulder. The old lady's gesture, like a mustardseed, had grown to be a great crow-filled tree in Railroad's heart.

A good trick the devil had played on him. Now, no matter how he reformed himself, he could not get rid of what he had done.

It was hot and still, not a breath of air, as if the world were being smothered in a fever blanket. A milk-white sky. The kitchen of the Sweet Spot was hot as the furnace of Hell; beneath his shirt Railroad's sweat ran down to slick the warm pistol slid into his belt. Railroad was fixing a stack of buttermilk pancakes when the detective walked in.

The detective walked over to the counter and sat down on one of the stools. Maisie was not at the counter; she was probably in the ladies' room. The detective took a look around, then plucked a menu from behind the napkin holder in front of him and started reading. On the radio Hank Williams was singing "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry."

Quietly, Railroad untied his apron and slipped out of the back door. In the alley near the trash barrels he looked out over the lot. He was about to hop the chain link fence when he saw Cauthron's car stopped at the light on the corner.

Railroad pulled out his pistol, crouched behind a barrel and aimed at the space in the lot where Cauthron usually parked. He felt something bump against his leg.

It was Pleasure. "Don't you cross me now," Railroad whispered, pushing the animal away.

The cat came back, put her front paws up on his thigh, purring.

"Damn you! You owe me, you little demon!" he hissed. He let the gun drop, looked down at the cat.

Pleasure looked up at him. "Miaow?"

"What do you want! You want me to stop, do you? Then make it go away. Make it so I never killed nobody."

Nothing happened. It was just a fucking animal. In a rage, he dropped the gun and seized the cat in both hands. She twisted in his grasp, hissing.

"You know what it's like to hurt in your heart?." Railroad tore open his shirt and pressed Pleasure against his chest. "Feel it! Feel it beating there!" Pleasure squirmed and clawed, hatching his chest with a web of scratches. "You owe me! You owe me!" Railroad was shouting now. "Make it go away!"

Pleasure finally twisted out of his grasp. The cat fell, rolled, and scurried away, running right under Cauthron's car as it pulled into the lot. With a little bump, the cat's left front tire ran over her.

Cauthron jerked the car to a halt. Pleasure howled, still alive, writhing, trying to drag herself away on her front paws. Her back was broken. Railroad looked at the fence, looked back.

He ran over to Pleasure and knelt down. Cauthron got out of the car. Railroad tried to pick up the cat, but she hissed and bit him. Her sides fluttered with rapid breathing. Her eyes clouded. She rested her head on the gravel.

Railroad had trouble breathing. He looked up from his crouch to see that Maisie and some customers had come out of the diner. Among them was the detective.

"I didn't mean to do that, Lloyd," Cauthron said. "It just ran out in front of me." He paused a moment. "Jesus Christ, Lloyd, what happened to your chest ?"

Railroad picked up the cat in his bloody hands. "Nobody ever gets away with nothing," he said. "I'm ready to go now."

"Go where?"

"Back to prison."

"What are you talking about ?"

"Me and Hiram and Bobby Lee killed all those folks in the woods and took their car. This was their cat."

"What people?"

"Bailey Boy and his mother and his wife and his kids and his baby."

The detective pushed back his hat and scratched his head. "You all best come in here and we'll talk this thing over."

They went into the diner. Railroad would not let them take Pleasure from him until they gave him a corrugated cardboard box to put the body in. Maisie brought him a towel to wipe his hands, and Railroad told the detective, whose name was Vernon Scott Shaw, all about the State Hospital for the Criminally Insane, and the hearse-like Hudson, and the family they'd murdered in the backwoods. Mostly he talked about the grandmother and the cat. Shaw sat there and listened soberly. At the end he folded up his notebook and said, "That's quite a story, Mr. Bailey. But we caught the people who did that killing, and it ain't you."

"What do you mean? I know what I done."

"Another thing, you don't think I'd know if there was some murderer loose from the penitentiary? There isn't anyone escaped."

"What were you doing in here last week, asking questions?"

"I was having myself some pancakes and coffee."

"I didn't make this up."

"So you say. But seems to me, Mr. Bailey, you been standing over a hot stove too long."

Railroad didn't say anything. He felt as if his heart was about to break.

Mr. Cauthron told him he might just as well take the morning off and get some rest. He would man the griddle himself. Railroad got unsteadily to his feet, took the box containing Pleasure's body, and tucked it under his arm. He walked out of the diner.

He went back to the boarding house. He climbed the steps. Mr. Foster was in the front room reading the newspaper. "Morning, Bailey," he said. "What you got there?"

"My cat got killed."

"No! Sorry to hear that."

"You seen Miz Graves this morning?" he asked.

"Not yet."

Railroad climbed the stairs, walked slowly down the hall to his room. He entered. Dust motes danced in the sunlight coming through the window. The ocean rowboat was no darker than it had been the day before. He set the dead cat down next to the Bible on the table. The pineapple quilt was no longer on the bed; now it was the rose. He reached into his pocket and felt the engagement ring.

The closet door was closed. He went to it, put his hand on the doorknob. He turned it and opened the door.

CARTOON:

~~~~~~~~

By John Kessel

THE FOOL, THE STICK, AND THE PRINCESS

Rachel Pollack is an international expert on the Tarot, with more than a dozen books to her credit. She has also written for numerous comic books, including Doom Patrol and Tomahawk. More to the point (perhaps), she is also the author of five novels, including Unquenchable Fire, Temporary Agency, and Godmother Night, which won the World Fantasy Award last year. She writes short fiction much too infrequently, so it's always a real treat when we see a new story from her, as in the case of this delightful fairy tale.

THERE WERE ONCE THREE brothers who lived in a poor country far away. The two older brothers were very clever and everyone said they would do well in the world, even in a land with so few opportunities. But the youngest was nothing but a fool. He had never learned to read, and even the simplest tasks eluded him. Told to fetch wood, he would set out determined to get it right, but before he got to the back of the house and the woodpile he might see a rabbit and try to imitate its hop until he fell over laughing, the woodpile long forgotten. Or worse, he might see a rainbow and fling the wood in the air as he lifted his arms in happiness. The Fool, as everyone called him, simply loved rainbows. Whenever he saw one he would throw his arms high above his head, no matter what else was happening. People would shake their heads and worry what would become of him.

As time went on, the family became poorer and poorer, despite all the efforts of the mother and father and the elder brothers. Finally, the oldest brother announced that there were just no opportunities for an ambitious young man in a country where people told legendary stories about eating more than one meal a day. He must leave home and seek his fortune. He kissed his parents, told his second brother to take care of the Fool, and set out on a sunny morning across the cracked clay of their poor farm.

He had gone no more than a day's journey when he spotted something along the side of the road, half hidden under a burnt-out bush. At first glance it looked like a plain stick, about waist high, but the sharp-eyed brother noticed a glow of light all around it. "A magic staff!" he cried excitedly and seized it. Power surged through him and he shook the stick at the sky. "Now nothing can stop me!" he cried. "I will make my fortune and return home to rescue my family."

Just as he was striding off, he heard a terrible roar. He turned and saw an ogre about to rush at him. The ogre stood ten feet tall, with shoulders like rocks, and thick scales for skin, and teeth like sharpened iron stakes. Though he shook with fear, the eldest brother told himself he had no reason to worry. He pointed the magic stick at the ogre and shouted "Stop this monster from devouring me!" A blast of light streaked from the stick -- but instead of striking the ogre it ran all through the eldest brother. In an instant his entire body had turned to stone. Furious, the hungry ogre lumbered away.

A year went by. When Spring came once more, the second brother looked one day at the scraps of bread on the table and shook his head. "It's no use," he told his parents. "Something terrible must have happened to my brother or he would have returned by now. We have become more wretched than ever. I must go seek my fortune." His parents begged him not to go. If he didn't come back, they said, and they died, who would take care of the Fool? But he only kissed them and shook his head sadly at his younger brother. Then he left.

Three days from home he came upon his petrified brother. The magic stick still lay at his stone feet. "Oh my poor poor brother," he cried. "He must have found this magic stick and tried to use it and it turned against him." He picked up the stick. The power in it made him tremble all over. "Well," he said. "Luckily I am much cleverer than my brother. Besides, he always wanted glory. I just want to feed my family. As long as I don't make any mistakes I can use this stick to make my fortune."

He had gone no more than a day's journey when he heard a roar. An ogre was rushing at him. Its mouth drooled with thick black slime. The brother raised his stick. He could see fire run along its length in its eagerness to unleash itself. "Prevent this creature from devouring me!" he ordered the stick. Just as the ogre reached him he turned all to stone.

Another year passed. One day the Fool said "Didn't my brothers leave some time ago? I remember something about that." His parents nodded. "They haven't come back, have they?" His parents shook their heads. "Oh," said the Fool, "I guess that means I'll have to go seek my fortune."

"No!" his parents cried. They knew he could hardly find his way out the door. But nothing they said could dissuade him. Maybe he'd forget. They tried to distract him, with stories, and games, and a bunch of flowers that his mother begged from a neighbor who had managed to grow a small garden. The next morning, however, the Fool tied a change of clothes in a large cloth and set out.

No sooner had he left the house than he saw a rainbow. "Oh look!" he cried, and raised his arms, flinging his bundle away from him. His poor father had to run after it or the Fool would have forgotten it entirely. As the Fool wandered up the road, his parents held each other and wept loudly.

The Fool had traveled several days, with detours to follow various small animals, when he came upon his petrified eldest brother. "How wonderful," he said. "Here we all thought something terrible must have happened, but instead someone's made a statue of him. He must be famous. How nice. He always wanted to be famous."

Several more days later, he discovered his second brother. "Now our family has really done well," he said. "Statues of both my brothers. Won't my parents be happy. Maybe someone will make a statue of me someday." As soon as he said it, the idea struck him as so ludicrous he bent over laughing. With his face close to the ground like that, he discovered the stick at his brother's feet. "Oh look," he said. "Just what I need to carry my bundle." He tied his cloth to the end of the stick and lifted it to his shoulder. A tickle ran all through his body. "What a nice breeze," he said to himself.

That night he used his stick to dig up some roots for his dinner. To his surprise they tasted like a marvelous feast, with flavors from roast quail to wild strawberries creme de menthe. "What amazing roots," he thought. "I'll have to tell my brothers about this." With the stick he drew an outline of a bed on the dirt. When he lay down on it he found it as soft as baby goose feathers. He smiled and fell asleep.

He had hardly set out the next morning when the ground shook with a great roar. "Thunder," he said to himself. "I hope the rain falls on something else and not me." Behind him, a sudden burst of rain like knives fell on the ogre who had just opened his mouth wide to bite off the Fool's head. As the rain hit him the ogre screamed, for ogres cannot stand water. He thrashed about but it was no use. The scales cracked, the skin underneath sizzled and burned. Finally the creature fell down dead.

"I wonder what all that noise was," the Fool said. He walked away without turning around.

For several weeks he wandered. Each day his stick dug up banquets in the form of roots, and every night he slept peacefully in his outline of a bed, untouched by animals or storms or even damp.

One day he came to a river. Beyond it he could see houses and fields, even a city, and somewhere near the city what looked like a tower of light. He wondered how he could get across. It was too far to swim and he could not see a bridge. "If only I was clever like my brothers and not such a fool," he thought, "I would know what to do." In a rare burst of annoyance he struck his stick against a tree. "I wish I had a boat!" he said. He heard a crackle, and when he turned around the tree had gone and in its place lay a fine rowboat. "How nice," the Fool said, as he got in and began rowing. "Someone just left this for strangers. What a generous land. Maybe here I can find my fortune."

When he reached the other side he found signs posted up and down the riverbank. Since he could not read he paid them no attention, and began walking toward the tower of light which shimmered and flickered in the bright sun. In fact, the signs were all about the tower.

The king and queen of this land had a daughter who was so beautiful that princes from lands as exotic as Cathay, Persia, and England all sent delegations asking for her hand in marriage. Some even came in person and bowed down with great flourishes land expensive presents) to press their case. Her parents considered the princess a gift from heaven itself, for they could pick a husband who would bring even more wealth and power to their kingdom. Empire, they told each other. Through their daughter's marriage they would change from mere king and queen to emperor and empress.

Unfortunately, when they had calculated the best possible match for the princess, they discovered that the gods had played an awful trick on them. Their daughter refused to marry! At first, they thought they might have gone a little too far in their choice. The prospective husband was not exactly young, and the warts on his bent nose and saggy chin ruled out any suggestion of handsome. So they found a prince whose good looks caused young women to faint any time he walked down an open street {newspaper editorials suggested he wear a veil, or simply stay home, but the prince only laughed}. Again the princess refused.

"What do you want?" her parents shouted at her. "Just tell us."

"I want to study," she said.

They stared at her. Study? They knew she spent a great deal of time with her books, rather odd books, in fact, but study? They'd always assumed she'd read all those books because she was bored and waiting to get married. Study rather than a husband?

They arranged one match after another. The princess refused to see them. Now they became truly angry. They told her they would choose a husband for her and she would marry the man, even if the palace slaves had to drag her from her precious library.

For the first time the princess became frightened. Until now she'd thwarted them by her will and by the good sense of prospective husbands who knew how miserable an unwilling wife could make them. But suppose her parents chose some brute who would relish forcing his wife to obey him? Suppose he took away her books?

Usually the princess did not study anything very practical. She preferred instead to ponder the mysteries of creation and the secret discoveries of ancient philosophers. Nevertheless, some of her books did contain a few magic formulas, if only to show the writer's disdain for such ordinary concerns. For days she searched through her books {she'd never gotten around to putting them in any order) until at last she came upon something truly useful.

While the palace slept the princess secretly borrowed a wheelbarrow from the gardener and carted all her books out to an open field. Standing in the middle of them, she cast a spell. A glass tower rose up beneath her, so steep and smooth that no one could possibly climb it. On top of it sat the delighted princess and all her books. Safe! She clapped her hands in joy. A moment later, she had opened one of her favorite works, a treatise on creation told from the viewpoint of trees instead of people.

Several hours later a noise disturbed her. She peered down the edge of the tower to see her parents there, waving their arms and stamping their feet. They screamed, they cursed, they threatened to tear down the glass mountain chip by chip. She paid no attention. Finally, her mother pointed out that she had taken no food with her. If she didn't come down and obey them she would starve.

Not so, the princess knew. As part of her years of study, she had learned the language of the birds. In a pure voice she sang out to them and they brought her whatever she needed. When her parents heard her song and saw the birds deliver her fruits and fish eggs and delicacies stolen from wealthy tables they finally knew she had beaten them.

Still they would not give up entirely. They sent out messages to all the princes and kings they could reach that whoever could climb the glass tower and bring down the princess could marry her on the spot. They even put up signs all about the land to announce this challenge. Secretly they hoped some lout would be the one to get her. It would serve her right, they told themselves.

The Fool knew none of this, for signs meant nothing to him. Music, however -- Just as the Fool started toward the glass tower the princess began her song. The Fool stopped and closed his eyes. Tears spilled out from beneath the lids to slide down into his wide smile. Never, never, had he heard such a wondrous sound. When it ended, and he opened his eyes, he saw birds of all colors and sizes, condors, parrots, humming birds, all of them in a great swirl around the top of the tower. Quickly he walked toward the light and the birds.

As he approached it he saw men, more and more of them as he got closer, most of them injured in some way, and all of them miserable. They hobbled about on crutches, they held bandaged heads in their hands, a few lay on the ground in the middle of broken contraptions. One man had strapped giant wood and cloth wings to his back, then jumped off a tree, hoping to flap his way up the tower. He'd only fallen on his head. Another had made shoes with wire springs so that he might bounce high enough to reach the princess. He'd only crashed into the side of the glass..

The Fool looked around at all these sad figures. "What happened to all of you?" he asked.

One of the men stopped groaning long enough to look up at the Fool's cheerful face. "What are you?" he said, "Some kind of fool?"

The Fool nodded happily. "That's right," he said. He thought he might have found a friend but the man only groaned more loudly and turned away.

"Well," the Fool said to himself, "if I want to climb to the top I better get started." He set the stick down on the base of the tower in order to brace himself. A step formed in the glass. He placed the stick a little ways up and then another step formed. "This is easy," he said. "I don't know why all those men made such a fuss. I'm just a Fool, but even I can find my way up a bunch of steps."

When he reached the top the princess stood there. She was furious! She pulled at her hair, she twisted her face in anger, she hopped up and down. Even so, the Fool thought her the most wonderful being he had ever seen.

"What are you doing here?" she shouted. "Why can't anyone ever leave me alone? How did you get up the tower?"

Her fury so startled the Fool he could hardly speak. "I...I just climbed up the steps. It wasn't very hard. Really it wasn't."

Now the princess stared at the glass steps. Then she looked at the Fool, and then at his stick, which shone with a soft pink glow. She nodded to herself. Again she looked at the Fool. She could see a light in him purer than the magic of his stick.

Still she refused to let go of her anger. "So," she said. "Now you expect me to marry you?"

"Marry you?" the Fool said. "Marry you? I could never think to marry someone as wise and wonderful as you. I'm just a Fool. I only came here because of the singing. I just wanted to hear you sing with the birds." He began to cry.

The princess felt her heart dissolve and flow out of her body. No, she told herself, she would not allow any tricks. "Right," she said sarcastically. "And I suppose you didn't see all the signs my father has planted everywhere."

The Fool said "I saw them, but I don't know what they said. I can't read."

The princess's mouth fell open. She stared and stared at him. How sweet he looked, how kind, how honest. "Will you marry me?" she blurted.

"What?" the Fool said. He looked around at the piles and piles of books, some as high as a house, some arranged like a table or a bed. "Marry you? I .... How could I marry you? I just told you, I can't read."

"That's so wonderful," the princess cried. "I read more than enough for any two people. We will be perfect together." She began to sing the song a partridge hen sings when she has found the perfect mate. The Fool closed his eyes and became so swept up in joy he would have fallen right off the tower if the princess had not held on tightly to him. She stopped singing finally and kissed him. "We will be so. happy," she said.

"Oh yes," he told her. "Yes!"

Before they went down from the tower, the princess looked at her beloved Fool and his ragged clothes. "Hmm," she said. To her he was perfect in every way, but she knew what her father would think of such a husband, and even though the king had said he would marry her to whoever climbed the tower she feared he would try to stop them. "Do you have any other clothes?" she asked him.

He looked at the bundle on the end of the stick. "Well," he said. "I did bring an extra shirt and trousers, just in case I had to give these to somebody who needed them more than me. But I'm afraid my other clothes have just as many holes as the ones I am wearing." He reached down and untied the bundle for the first time since he'd placed it on his stick. Then he gasped in surprise. His ragged clothes had vanished and in their place lay the softest and most elegant tunic and leggings anyone had ever seen, softer than silk, stronger than wool, with a river of colors woven into the fabric. The Fool scratched his head. "Now where did this come from?" he said.

Once the Fool had dressed, the princess called the larger birds, the condors and rocs and vultures, and asked them if they would carry her books down to the ground. Then she took her sweet Fool's hand and together they walked down the steps of the tower.

The king and queen were delighted to see their daughter married at last, and to such a fine prince -- or so they thought, for when they asked him his kingdom he just waved his stick and said "Oh, over there," and each of them saw a vision of fields of diamonds growing like berries, and castles as large as mountains. They offered to have the Fool and their daughter live with them, but their new son-in-law said "No, thank you. I promised my mother and father I'd come right home as soon as I made my fortune." He wondered why the king and queen laughed, but he thought it rode to ask too many questions {he so rarely understood the things other people said anyway), so he said nothing. They set out with seven horses, one for the Fool, one for the princess, one for the treasures the king and queen were sending to the Fool's parents, and four for the princess's books.

Just as they approached the river, the ground shook and they heard a roar like the earth itself breaking in two. The princess turned around and saw a whole army of ogres racing toward them! Word had gotten to the creatures of their brothers destruction and now they wanted revenge. They'll tear us to shreds, the princess thought. We have to do something. But what could they do? There stood the river, too wide for them to swim across, and besides, what would happen to her books in the water? She looked up at the sky but there were no birds near enough to come to their rescue. Knowing that the ogres would reach them in just a few minutes, she began frantically to search through her books for the ones on magic. If only, she thought, as she raced from horse to horse, she had paid more attention to practical issues.

The Fool meanwhile paid no attention at all to any of these events. He did hear the noise and felt the ground shake but thought it might be a herd of animals running back and forth to enjoy the day. And he did wonder why his bride kept dashing from one horse to another, but trusted her totally, for after all, she was so much wiser than he. He might have wondered how they would cross the river, for someone had taken away the rowboat, except that right then, on the other side of the river, he saw his favorite sight in all the world (after his wife, of course}. A rainbow!

The Fool did what he always did when he saw a rainbow, he raised his arms above his head to greet it. This time, however, he held the stick in his hand. The moment he lifted his arms, the entire river separated before him. The water rose up on either side, huge walls of water high enough to block the sky. You see, the Fool's stick was a very old magic stick, and it knew some very special tricks.

"Hurry," the princess urged as she spurred her horse, and the pack horses, across the passageway between the walls of water. The Fool laughed, thinking his wife wanted to exercise the horses, and so he galloped alongside her.

The princess looked over her shoulder. There came the ogres, filling the path, coming closer and closer. By the time she and the Fool and their horses reached the other side the entire army of ogres raced between the watery walls. What can we do? she thought. They'll swallow us.

The Fool glanced back, curious to see what his wife was looking at with such distress. All he could make out was a cloud of dust. "Now that's not right," he said to himself. "People depend on this river. What will happen if the water just stays piled up like that/ I sure wish the river would come back down again." The moment he said it, the walls of water crashed down in a furious whirl of Waves. The entire army of ogres washed away and was never heard from again.

Now they set out happily for home. Anytime the Fool got lost (at least four or five times a day} the princess called a hawk or a raven to look ahead and return them to the path. They were two days from home when they came upon the Fool's second brother, still fixed in stone in the act of trying to cast a spell. "Look," the Fool said to his wife. "Not everyone in my family is a fool. My second brother has become so famous someone has made a statue of him." With his stick he tapped twice on the shoulder.

Instantly his brother came to life, falling to the ground where he looked up confused. "What..." he said. "Where am I?"

"Brother!" cried the Fool and gave him a big hug. "What a nice surprise. Look, this is my wife, she's a princess, imagine that. Your foolish brother married to a genuine princess. And look, here's our treasure, a whole lot of it, or so my wife tells me, and here are all her books." He helped his confused brother onto his own horse and walked alongside, caught up in a happy chatter. Just as the path turned around the side of a hill, the Fool glanced back. To himself he said, "I wonder what happened to that statue?"

A day later they came to the first brother. Once again the Fool tapped the shoulder with the stick, and once again his brother came to life. Now they all traveled together, and when the Fool's parents saw them they wept with joy. With one of the jewels from the treasure chest they bought food and laid out a feast. Just as they all sat down to eat, the oldest brother suddenly remembered what had started them all on their adventures. "The staff," he said, "what happened to the magic staff?"

"Do you mean my walking stick?" the Fool said. "When we came close to home I realized I didn't need it anymore, so I threw it away."

"You threw it away?" both brothers repeated. "Where?"

The Fool shrugged. He saw his wife look at him with laughter and love and smiled back at her. "I don't remember," he said. "I just tossed it in some bushes."

And there it remains to this very day.

CARTOON:

~~~~~~~~

By Rachel Pollack

THE BRADSHAW

Around the beginning of this decade, Judith Moffett won lots of acclaim with her stories of the Hefn--gnomelike aliens who turned out to be anything but cute when they began enforcing their directive for humans to live on Earth without destroying it. The Hefn played a role in the novels The Ragged World and Time, Like an Ever-Rolling Stream, and then Judy took some time off to put her principles to practice: she spent a year tending gardens and raising ducks in a Philadelphia suburb, and eventually wrote up the experience in Homestead Year. She then moved to Salt Lake City, where she wrote this novella, and now she is dividing her time between homes in Cincinnati and Philadelphia.

"The Bradshaw" marks her return to short fiction powerfully. While the aliens do put in an appearance here, this story is primarily about one human coming to terms with the abuse in her past, returning to that other country through means only science fiction can afford. The results are sometimes harrowing and disturbing (much like life can be), and ultimately they're truly rewarding.

Backward, turn backward, oh! time in your flight
Make me a child again, just for tonight.

1

MY MOTHER LEFT ME A bradshaw when she died, along with her house on the Scofield College campus, together with all its contents, and my father's guaranteed pension with six years left to run.

The bradshaw was a surprise, to put it mildly. Anything to do with alien technology was so horrendously expensive for an average citizen, I figured she had to have scrimped for nearly a decade to buy it, starting not too long after I'd told her the truth about Dad, which was several years after he died in 2023. Had he still been alive at the time, I knew she wouldn't have let a word of my story slip past her defenses. As it was, she remained deeply vested in her own version of their marriage, and after that one occasion she refused to talk about it any more. The bradshaw was my first clue that, over time, she must have begun to acknowledge there could have been something to what I'd said.

It wasn't like she didn't already know what Dad had done, or a lot of what he'd done. But her own father had died when she was little. She'd always thought that just having a daddy must be the most wonderful thing in the world, and took it on faith that whatever Dad did to me was normal. He was my father, wasn't he? For all she knew, any father might take an obsessive interest in his daughter's extremely large breasts and talk about them constantly. Or assume a spraddle-legged stance before his daughter and her girlfriend, both young teenagers, to ask if they could tell whether he was wearing briefs or boxers under his trousers. Or describe to this daughter, with terrific zest, the circumstances {creek valley after school, big flat rock, older boys} under which he'd been taught to masturbate.

After Dad's death I learned that his obsession with my breasts had been aired even outside the family circle. "I think it's terrible the way Shelby talks about Pam's boobs all the time, and I don't understand why Frances just laughs," a friend of my parents' told her daughter, who eventually told me. "And remember those tight sweaters your more used to stuff you into?" Betsy added, recalling a certain deep-pink lambswool number with short sleeves and a little round collar, and a row of pearl buttons down the swollen front.

I remembered, all right. Why hadn't I refused to wear those sweaters, chosen for and pressed upon me by More, Dad's former sweater girl? Considering how violently I loathed my huge breasts, why oh why had the sweaters I went out and bought for myself fit the same way? After years of therapy I sort of understood the storm of conflicting feelings present in every member of a family like mine, but thinking about it still made me queasy.

2

There hadn't been a graduating class at Scofield College, or a full-time standing faculty, since 2098. But Scofield was popular with conference organizers. Our group from the Bureau of Temporal Physics had chosen the campus for good reason, but throughout the week we'd spent steaming up and down the river between Scofield Landing and Hurt Hollow in the rain, the managers of Landfill Plastics Inc. had been using the other half of our dorm, and three other dorms were booked up and bustling too.

My house -- the one my mother left me -- was regularly used by the college as conference lodging. During our conference, naturally, I stayed there myself, and I'd invited my old friend and ex-lover Liam O'Hara to join me there for auld lang sync. Liam and I had trained as BTP Apprentices together; he'd visited me in this house when we were kids. After I lost the mathematical intuition that had qualified me for an Apprenticeship, relations between us had become somewhat erratic and conflicted. Inevitably, they'd worsened after the breakup; but he'd accepted my invitation all the same, probably for the same reason I'd extended it: nostalgia for a distant time we both preferred, in certain in ways, to the present.

When the conference was over I went up to Liam's room, my parents' former bedroom, on the morning we'd both planned to leave. I found him packing and marveling at the framed pictures crammed on the top of my mother's big mahogany dresser. "My God, look at us," he said. "When did she take that one?" The picture was a holo of Liam and me in the spring of 2014, when for several weeks we'd lived at Hurt Hollow with the alien Humphrey, our teacher at the Bureau. The Hollow had been a working homestead then, not the museum it had since become, and the goats, bees, and big organic garden had still been the basis of somebody's livelihood. The entire set-up was a powerful, attractive model of the sort of lifestyle the Hefn had been trying to encourage.

During our visit to Scofield the homesteader, a friend of mine since my earliest childhood, had been bitten by a copperhead. Liam and I had been helping out while he recovered, and Humphrey'd dropped in at Liam's suggestion to check the place out. I had a treasured memory of Humphrey on the terrace at Hurt Hollow one morning, in a chair that tried to make his legs bend the wrong way, pausing in the rapid spooning of blackberries and yogurt into his mouth to ask, "Do you clever children know, either of you, how to cook a 'cobbler'?" I could see his spoon clutched in a hand like a tongs, two short hairy fingers opposing two others, and the gray hair around his mouth, sticky with honey and stained with berry juice. At that moment Humphrey had been one happy Hefn.

But not for long.

In the holo, Liam was standing on the same terrace with a brimming pail of goat's milk in each hand, grinning at the camera-he was wearing shorts and a fatty T- shirt and sneakers without socks, and looked as if he hadn't a care in the world (not true). I had started ahead of him down the steep path to the spring house. All you could see of me was a blur of light-colored clothing and another of straight, broom, shoulder-length hair, but even so I had contrived to look both furtive and embarrassed, an impression emphasized by Liam's own sunny, open good looks.

The picture made me feel somewhere between weird and desolate. "That was that time Morn and Dorothy What's-her-name stopped by the Hollow, right after Humphrey came, I think. Listen, how long does it take to set up a bradshaw?"

Liam looked up sharply from this ambiguous image of our shared past. "A bradshaw? I never handled one, I dunno -- couple of days? Why? Oh," he said before I could answer. "The one your mother left you! Thinking of shooting it while you're here in the neighborhood, are you?" He folded his arms and smirked at me across the bed.

"Just tell me, how do I arrange to get one set up on short notice? I need to get back, I probably shouldn't take more than a couple of extra days out here."

Before he could reply, his pocket phone dinged. I leaned against the wall while he talked to Bureau Headquarters, glancing back and forth between the live Liam and the holo of the Goatherd, considering how that handsome, cheerful-looking kid had been transformed into the balding, restless, dissatisfied, thirty-eight-year-old person in the BTP uniform, hunkered among tumbled sheets on my parents' old four-poster, taking notes on a Landfill Plastics pad.

As the conversation wound down he glanced up and caught me at the back-and-forthing. "Hold it a second, Johnny m do you know how to set up a bradshaw on short notice?"

The little squeak of John Wong's voice came through while Liam looked at me. "Pam Pruitt," he said, eyes on mine, "in southern Indiana. Or maybe northern Kentucky?" I nodded. "She inherited one from her room, and she wants to get it shot while she's out here-- she's here for the conference too."

Johnny's voice squeaked again. To my ear it had a surprised sound, and I imagined him saying, "Pam's there? Why?" and felt my face get hot.

But actually he was asking something else. "As a matter of fact, I do," said Liam, "Haven't used it, though, the weather's been terrible till today." He listened. "Come on, somebody else must be in the neighborhood. Artie and Ray were here till yesterday, aren't they still around? I've never done a bradshaw in my life."

"Let me talk to him," I said.

"Pam wants to talk to you." Liam clicked on the room mike and aimed the phone at me.

"Hi, Johnny."

"Hi." His tiny face on the screen grinned a tiny grin. "I never knew you owned a bradshaw."

"Listen, I don't want Liam put in charge of this, if that's what you've been leading up to."

"You haven't got a lot of choice if you want to shoot it now," he said. "Artie and Ray are already in Canada on special assignment. And bradshaws are tricky, we usually get a couple months' advance notice. What was this, some kind of spur-of-the-moment decision?"

"Yeah. Scofield is where I'm from. I don't get back here very often, and I've been busy as hell."

"The thing is, Liam's got a transceiver with him," Johnny said, a fact that was certainly news to me. I darted a surprised, offended look at Liam, who shrugged. "He's your only hope. We can spare him for a few more days, that's all, and I wouldn't go that far for anybody but you. Humphrey wouldn't, I should say. If you don't want him to shoot it, you'll have to wait and go through the usual procedural web work."

While I hesitated, trying to assess pros and cons, Liam clicked off the mike and clapped the phone to his ear. "Hey, before you start disposing of my weekend, I need to get back, I've got plans and I'm beat. Pam can do this bradshaw some other time...okay. Okay. I'll let you know. See ya tomorrow. Bye."

He folded the phone and slipped it back into the inside pocket of his uniform jacket. "Don't look at me like that. There wasn't any reason to tell you."

He'd been hiding the transceiver in my own house. "Listen, for the last time, I don't like you sneaking around sparing my feelings. The more you do that, the more you rub it in that the rest of you consider me a tragic victim, and that's not how I want to think of myself, so do me a favor, okay.: Cut it out."

"You're the boss." Liam reached under the bed and pulled out a transceiver in its case, along with a family of dust bunnies; the housekeeping staff was getting sloppy. He didn't look at me.

I'd lost my mathematical intuition when my father died. In Liam's view this was a tragedy; it embarrassed him to remind me that his gift was still vital when mine was not -- that he was a starter and I now only a bench warmer in the world-saving game Humphrey had trained us both to play. My therapist, who'd once been Liam's, hypothesized that my intuitive ability had developed so I'd have a means of escaping an intolerable situation, and that when I hadn't needed it anymore it had simply shut down. This "instrumentalist" view of things horrified Liam, to whom the thought of losing intuition, and therefore attunement with the time transceivers, felt like losing some essential power, eyesight, or sexual potency.

Since I put a lot of energy into denying that it horrified me as well, and since I was deathly serious about not wanting to think of myself as a Poor Thing, this conference-- which I'd attended under protest, at Humphrey's insistence -- had given me a wretched week.

We'd convened to brainstorm about ways of using the transceivers to address the developing worldwide Baby-Ban crisis: where in civilized time had a human population stabilized its numbers and sustained them? What were the means, the incentives, the geophysical circumstances? Where could we look that we hadn't looked already? Because the Hefn insisted that if the model wasn't somewhere in our past, it wasn't going to be anywhere in our future.

All through the discussions, urgent and fascinating though they were, I'd been acutely conscious every instant of my sidelined situation, and of the overpolite attentiveness of my colleagues whenever I tossed out an idea that somebody else would have to follow up on. The conferees, mostly Bureau techs, would have given a lot to have me up and running again -- I'd been very good at my job while I was doing it but under the circumstances they couldn't see, any better than I could, why Humphrey had insisted that I attend. Even the Hefn Alfrey, who was running the show in place of the hibernating Humphrey, obviously had no idea what I was doing there. So Liam's pity was the last thing I wanted right now.

Were it not for my lost gift, of course, I also wouldn't now be in the position of pleading with Johnny Wong to order some other tech to drop everything, requisition a transceiver, and make his way overland to the Ohio River Valley to do a job I could once have done for myself with one hand tied behind me. I needn't have even considered allowing Liam to make the bradshaw for me, let alone trying to persuade him to, let alone -- the ultimate humiliation -- exploiting his pity to get him to agree.

It was all too much. I still wasn't really sure I even wanted a bradshaw.

I opened my mouth to say so, but Liam beat me to the punch. "Okay, I'll do the shoot, but that's all. I'm on that plane tonight whatever, I'm not crossing the blinking continent by rail. You can keep the recording and have the virtual program written after you get back to Salt Lake. Take it or leave it. That's my best offer."

3

I WAS ELEVEN when the Hefn took control of the world, and fourteen when they delivered me, temporarily, from my family difficulties.

Because the Earth was in such terrible ecological shape when the Hefn arrived, their first priority was to reverse the process of destruction, get humans to stop overbreeding and squandering their nonrenewable resources. It was to accomplish this that they gave us the Directive, and punished those who wouldn't abide the rules by removing their memories. They didn't want to annihilate us, but they could have, and they used the veiled threat of total destruction, and the applied threat of mindwipe, to get us to cooperate. Except, of course, .too many of us wouldn't.

When the Hefn realized we weren't going to mend our ruinous ways and stop destroying our planet just because they said so, then they did seriously consider eliminating us. But some among them persuaded the rest to try a different approach. A handful of mathematically gifted kids -- me included -- were recruited to be Apprentices, to go and live in Washington DC at the newly created Bureau of Temporal Physics. There the Hefn Humphrey trained us to operate the time transceivers that, by opening a window upon our past, might reveal a moment or moments in human history when our relationship to our world had been balanced and sustainable. Then humanity would have a useful model for the right way to live upon the Earth, or so they reasoned.

Meanwhile -- and this was critical -- they imposed a worldwide moratorium on fertility. Even some of the people who approved of their goals in general hated the aliens because of the Baby Ban. I heard the Hefn called fascists and dictators, and benevolent dictators, of course, is precisely what they were. Humanity would eventually judge the Ban a means that could not justify its end, and act accordingly.

But I liked it at the BTP. I liked my teacher, Humphrey, and what I was learning to do, and I liked being fussed over by the media. I settled in and worked hard. Absent my mother's pressuring and my father's intrusive scrutiny, I spent the rest of my adolescence as an egghead in tent-like tee shirts and sweatshirts, which, while they did not conceal the difficulty, had the virtue of failing to emphasize it.

4

Beginning about the year 2025, in the fifteenth year of their presence on Earth, the Hefn had gone into the bradshaw business in a small way by making their time transceivers available to individuals for personal use. Somebody might give a bradshaw as a gift for a really special occasion, or make one for herself to use therapeutically. Those who'd tried therapy a la bradshaw mostly raved about the results -- I'd seen a viddy documentary to that effect -- but not many people had; apart from movie stars and business tyros, hardly anybody could afford the things. Hefn time transceivers are very expensive to run. We Apprentices used them so commonly that we seldom thought about the fortunes being spent on our training. But the media always emphasized the staggering price tag, whenever yet another glittering personality arrived at the decision to buy a bradshaw.

The Hefn didn't offer employee discounts; Morn couldn't have gone behind my back to buy one from Humphrey for cheap.

A time transceiver is the rarest object on Earth. The process -- and the expense-- began when one of these priceless artifacts was liberated from its usual function and removed to the site where the event to be revisited had occurred. Then somebody had to set coordinates, a Hefn or a BTP tech, because nobody else knew how. Then they needed someone to record the event {if at all possible, without being noticed), somebody to write the virtual program, and a therapist to guide the client through the experience of running the bradshaw after it was made. A Hefn might also be required, to wipe memories, if anybody back in the past happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Committed to preventing abuses -- the potential for abuse, by child pornographers and sadists and the like, was obvious -- the Hefn kept scrupulous track of every completed program. Each had to be filed at a public VR parlor and played only there. You could therefore never be sure, while running your bradshaw, that a Hefn Observer wasn't looking in.

Transceivers had to open the time window upon the actual site of the event. A person couldn't sit comfortably in Boston and look in on one of her father's alcoholic rages in Topeka; she had to go to Topeka, to the actual house she'd lived in at the time, if it was still there, or to whatever building or abandoned freeway or rubble field presently occupied the space, and set up the equipment there.

The traveling itself could be cumbersome enough. When King William V made a bradshaw to replay a certain painful scene with his father, he'd had to sail the royal yacht Britannia to New Zealand, with a time transceiver and assorted technicians on board. The Hefn decided who got to fly in a plane, and a king's desire to experience a virtual intervention in his own past was no reason, in their view, to authorize a flight.

Until the moment my mother's will was read, the idea of my making a bradshaw had literally never crossed my mind; and after I owned one -or a voucher that could be exchanged for one -- I was conflicted about what to do with it. On the one hand, conventional therapy had already helped me confront and deal with my feelings about my father; on the other, despite the relief I'd derived from that, I was still pretty much of a mess. Obviously there was more work to do; but my several attempts to dig deeper had produced killer anxiety and no further information, and left me sick of the whole struggle. Frankly, had I not felt that the bradshaw represented a final communication from my mother -- a sign that she'd taken my allegations seriously after all -- I might very well have sold the thing.

Even if I'd been downright eager to make this bradshaw, I still needed to get back to Scofield, Indiana, to record it, and ordinarily that wasn't easy. Scofield College -- where my father had been Director of Libraries, where I'd lived the first fourteen years of my life before the Hefn whisked me away to De and safety -- was a long way from Salt Lake City, and my early life equally far from my present posting as Hefn Emissary to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or so it usually seemed. I seldom went home even while my mother was still alive. We were uneasy with each other, and overland long-distance travel was exhausting and expensive enough without the stress of a filial visit at the end.

Probably I would never have gotten around to making my bradshaw if Humphrey hadn't decided the brainstorming session about the Baby Ban should be held at Hurt Hollow, and that I had to be there. As it was, not once during that long week -- not until the day of my own scheduled departure, when it was almost too late -- did my unconscious relent, and let the idea occur to me that, since I was here anyway, what about the bradshaw?

The thought threw me instantly into a state of urgency verging on panic. The bradshaw! Why hadn't I recognized this trip as the golden opportunity it was, and arranged to make the bradshaw while I was here? I couldn't imagine what was wrong with me, to overlook something so obvious.

On second thought, yes I could. I'd overlooked the obvious so I wouldn't have to decide whether to make the thing.

It was in this muddled state that I'd gone looking for Liam.

5

The house at Hurt Hollow had been my home for several years of young adulthood, between the death of its previous owner, Jesse Kellum, and its transformation into a museum. Liam stood just off the terrace, around the corner of the house -- in almost the exact spot where his Goat Boy picture had been taken -- and fussed with his instruments; I sat on the stone step, munching a sandwich, looking around. Being committed to a definite course of action made me feel calm and clear-minded, ready for whatever might be coming.

Liam and I had visited here together as teens at exactly this time of year, mid-April. The trees were a lot bigger now but their leaves were the same bright varieties of green as before, and were as full of noisy birds -birds whose songs were intelligible to me, unlike those of the western species I'd not yet gotten to know very well. Beyond the fence, the paleblue river spread out forever, as it had through all the springs of my life, though the beach where Liam and I -- and Humphrey -- had gone swimming in 2014 had been scoured away completely. "Thanks for coming back over here," I told him humbly. "The weather was so lousy all week, I didn't really get a chance to take all this in, and we were too busy anyway."

Liam looked up distractedly. "I'm too busy now. Don't talk to me for ten more minutes."

"Sorry."

He was rushing, bound and determined to make that plane. He'd pressured me to pick an event that had occurred back at the house in Scofield, or someplace on the campus, or our canoe launching from Scofield Beach twenty-three Aprils ago -- he'd actually witnessed that ghastliness himself -- but I'd held out for the Hollow at the cost in time of a five-mile taxi ride and a ferry crossing, and he'd grumpily given in.

I finished my sandwich and got up. "I guess I'll walk down to the dock. Yell when you're ready."

All sixty-one acres of wooded river bluff had been fenced in long ago, while Jesse was still alive, and today, thanks to our conference, the place was still closed to visitors; we had it to ourselves. Descending the steep path from the terrace to the gate, I thought again how different this country was from the mountains and deserts of Utah, and how the Hollow was still and always the one place on Earth that I belonged to, heart and soul, mind and strength-- the one place that was absolutely mine, though the deed was registered now in the name of the Hurt Hollow Trust, and I never came back anymore. I wouldn't have used such language to a living soul, Liam least of all, but this -- cluster of buildings, wooded hillside, stretch of river -- was my heart's home.

Unfortunately, Liam knew this anyway, without being told. In my opinion we knew far too much about each other for the good of either.

I unlocked the gate and cut down toward the dock. The past winter's currents and storm waves had undermined the bank to the point where the trustees were considering moving the fence to higher ground, and I kept back from the edge. The dinged-up metal buckled and boomed as I walked out to the end of the dock, shrugging off the thought of sunblock, and sat down to watch the river roll massively by while I got myself as centered as I could.

It wasn't recommended that a bradshaw be undertaken in a rush. The candidate was supposed to ready herself with counseling and meditation before embarking upon her personal time-travel adventure. Of course, I wouldn't be running the virtual program for a while yet. But I was going to watch through the window while Liam made the recording, and knew that whatever I saw was bound to jolt me and that I should prepare myself as best I could.

Liam hadn't even tried to talk me out of watching. He knew it would be a waste of time, and he didn't have time to waste. It was my lookout anyway.

"Ready!" he called finally; and when I'd mounted again to the terrace and joined him, "Okay, what are we looking for?"

The transceiver had been erected on its tripod, a confection of molded black metal and meshwork spread like a cobra's hood. For all my brave talk it hurt me to see it there, see Liam's casual confidence as he moved around it adjusting things, unthinkingly at home in a country where I'd once lived and been happy and could never return to.

I looked away. "April 2013 --I don't know the exact date, you'll have to scroll. Start in the middle of the month and work forward, scanning for Dad and me coming out the front door. We were looking up into those trees over there, up the hill. The time window'11 open behind us, I don't think we'll notice a thing."

"Roger." Liam slipped his hands into indentations on the sides of the cobra's hood, and almost at once the area directly in front of it began to shimmer and then swirl, forming a pattern in the air.

I moved off the terrace and around the comer of the house, ready to flatten myself against the wall to be out of the way when the window opened. I hadn't seen a temporal field in formation for years, but I could still read patterns, and followed as the field shaped itself around the early twenty-first century, then 2013, then spring, then April.

Liam was concentrating, leaning into the transceiver's field with his eyes closed, deepening his trance. When the pattern entered his mind and became visual, he would free his hands to finger the little abacus-like device the Hefn used to calculate coordinates. Then he would set the coordinates mentally, by hurling each number into the pattern precisely where it needed to go.

There had never been a feeling quite like that absolute mastery, being so in tune with the shimmer pattern that the numbers snapped into their places without conscious effort, the way a lacrosse player snatches the ball from the air and hurls it into the net. I would never feel that mastery again. Desolation seized me, and again I looked away.

When I looked back, Liam had opened his eyes and stepped away from the transceiver. The window had opened; the silent recorder was running.

Anyone on the other side, where it was 2013, would have needed a sharp eye to spot the open window. It was April afternoon on both sides, and fine weather on both, and Liam and I were watching from positions where we could look through without being seen from the other side, if my father or my younger self did happen to glance our way.

Voices murmured inside the house, a pot banged on a stove top. Presently I heard what I'd been waiting for: a loud and piercingly sweet ripple of birdsong from a tree on the hillside behind the house. I got a grip on myself in time not to move or react when the screen door swung open with a squeak, and a girl came down the steps followed by a man: Young Pam at almost-thirteen, and Dad at thirty-six.

The bird's song had stopped my breath; the sight of these two figures, though I'd been expecting them, stopped my heart. I could feel Liam's head turn to look at me. I'd been just a little older than the girl in the window when he and I had met in Washington to begin our studies with Humphrey.

Her father passed the field glasses to Young Pam, .who raised them to her eyes and scanned the treetops. Almost at once she smiled; she'd spotted the singer, a rose-breasted grosbeak, high in a tossing beech tree full of flowers. "Is the female this pretty?" she asked, and at the word pretty a stab of pity and loathing pierced me. That poor, homely kid with her potent binoculars! Her nose was much too big for her face, and her hair hung limp and mousy to her shoulders, but the thing that struck you was the huge mass of her breasts, like a single enormous tumor thrusting forward beneath her red-and-blue flannel shirt with the rolled-up sleeves.

How I'd loved that shirt -- the boyish plaid, and the belief that it blurred my proportions! It hadn't of course; I could see now with terrible clarity how the breast mass strained at the buttons and the fabric between them. Really, the most that could be said for the shirt was, it wasn't a tight pink lambswool sweater.

"No," said Pam's father, answering her question. In the round frame of the window he stood there younger by a year or so --astonishing thought -- than I was now myself. "The female's duller, like most of the other female finches. Looks kind of like a great big song sparrow, but a duller brown."

Young Pam held the glasses tight on the vivid bird. From my hiding place he was out of my line of sight, but I remembered perfectly how actively the grosbeak had moved through the foliage, eating flowers and pausing ever so often to proclaim his territory. He was so pretty! Black above and white below, with a triangular bib the color of raspberry sorbet beneath his chin, and a powerful finch's bill.

The rippling song poured forth again. Pam's father suddenly chuckled. "You know something" he said, "you and that bird up there are a whole lot alike -- he's got a big strong beak, and he's got a pretty pink breast!" He laughed again, an innocent-sounding laugh, not cruel at all. "Never thought of that, did you! I expect he likes both of his better'n you like either of yours, too."

Again I felt Liam swivel his head toward me, and this time I glanced back. His face had filled with indignation; he understood, now, why I'd insisted on choosing this incident.

Young Pam seemed to falter --

-- and precisely in that instant, the split second between the faltering and the hesitant lowering of the binoculars, a strange thing happened. Before my eyes, suspended in midair, flashed the image of a small book bound in red, with gilded page-edges, gold lettering on the cover, and a strap and gold lock; and with it came a whiff of feeling gone almost too quickly to register.

The image had vanished also. Pam lowered the glasses halfway and stood stock-still. Then, without a word, without glancing at her father, she handed him the binoculars and went quickly up the stairs into the house.

Shelby Pruitt stood looking after her, holding the field glasses awkwardly. Unbalanced as I'd been by what I'd just seen and felt, it still astonished me -- I hadn't, of course, witnessed this part of the scene -- to see that my young father's boyish, handsome face now wore a baffled, even a desolate look, a look that plainly said I did it again, but I don't know what it was I did.

Presently he stirred, lifted the field glasses again to scan the treetops; and I signaled Liam to close the window.

This he accomplished quickly and neatly. The lens that formed the window spiraled out from the edge, went opaque, and disappeared. Liam shut down the recorder, pulled the cartridge out, and flipped it to me; I fumbled it, squatted to retrieve it B and couldn't stand up again. "Bastard," he spat, truly furious. "That stupid bastard. That son of a bitch. I'm sorry I never blacked his eye for him when I had the chance." He scrubbed his hands through his hair, watching me. In a minute, when I hadn't responded or risen, he said, "So -- did you get what all you needed?" And then, sharply, "Are you okay?."

As Liam said this, I sat down abruptly on the paving stones of the terrace, clutching my temples; a headache had come on like a crack of lightning, making my stomach heave.

He came and hunkered down beside me, saying again, '"Are you okay?" I shook my head, truthfully; I felt ghastly. "No wonder. I'm pretty thrashed myself. God, this bradshaw stuff is playing with fire, I had no idea! I think what we just saw actually hit me harder than that realtime thing in the canoe, when he was going on about your swimsuit being too small --"

He stood and reached for my hand as he spoke, to help me up. He should have known better; he did know better. I batted him away and got up on my own, putting our eyes on the same level. "Right after he said that about me being like the grosbeak, did you see a little red book in the air?" "See what?"

"A red book. In the air," I repeated, already sure of the answer.

"In the air? No. What are you talking about? You mean -- you did?"

Somebody jabbed an ice pick in my right temple and wiggled it around.

"Liam --" I grabbed his arm so desperately that I dragged him off balance, forcing him to take a step toward me "-- I'm really sorry, I really am, but this wasn't it."

He looked at me like I'd lost my mind. "What wasn't what?" "I made a mistake. This wasn't the right time."

"Right time for what? The bradshaw?" And when I nodded, "What are you talking about, it was a classic!" Then, realizing where I had to be leading he started to get mad. "Hey, you don't get a second shot at a bradshaw, just because you rush into it without thinking about it carefully enough beforehand." He'd yanked his arm free.

"I would have made exactly the same mistake no matter how long I'd thought about it beforehand. I didn't know this wasn't the right time till I saw this time."

"That's not the Bureau's fault, Pam! You had one bradshaw coming, you were hell-bent on making it today, and you worked on me till I caved in and played along. But that's it. That's all you get. You're gonna have to settle for this one." He turned away and started to collapse the transceiver.

"I know all that," I said, trying to sound reasonable though I felt like hurling myself on the ground and screaming, "but this one won't get me where I need to go."

"Which is where?"

"I don't know. But now I know how to find out."

Exasperated, he turned to glower at me. "Something to do with the little red book in the air, I suppose?"

"It was a diary," I said, and heard my voice wobble. "A kid's diary, that old-fashioned type you were meant to keep in longhand. My diary. From when I was in the sixth grade. I threw it away." Liam glanced at me again without replying; I moved to stand beside him. "I've regretted it a million times, but I always thought I knew why I did it, till now."

"And the reason was?" he prompted obligingly, without breaking the rhythm of his work.

"I was reading this book, about a Navajo girl. She and her family lived in a hogan, where space was tight, I guess, and her mother was talking about her one day, and she said something like 'That one! She has more possessions!' and I thought, 'I have too many possessions,' and started poking around my room to see what I could throw away."

"You were one weird kid."

"I don't remember whether I got rid of anything else, but I grabbed this diary that I'd gotten for Christmas and been writing in all year, and decided to pitch it. And then I wasn't sure. I remember saying to Mom that I was going to throw my diary away, and she said, 'Don't you think you might want to have it later on?' and I said, 'No, it won't be interesting till I start having dates.'"

Liam emitted a guffaw, but kept working.

"She could have stopped me," I said sadly, remembering that day. "If she'd said, 'Oh, don't do that, you'll be really glad to have that diary someday,' I would have kept it; At least, I'd've kept it that time...probably I'd're tossed it later on anyhow, though, because I think -- I just realized this-- I think throwing it away because of that Navajo-girl book is a cover story."

There was a brief silence while Liam finished compacting the transceiver into its case. He looked at his watch. Then he walked across the terrace and decorously sat down on one of the low chairs Orrin Hubbell, the original Hurt Hollow homesteader, had built so long ago. "Okay. Enlighten me. Why do you think you threw it away?"

This was the question it had only just occurred to me to ask myself, and I more or less made up my answer as I went along. "Maybe there was something in it that I needed to get rid of...something somebody didn't want me to tell anyone about. Maybe the person threatened me -- I'd get sick and die if I told, or whatever. And I don't think it was Dad," I said, feeling sure of this at least. "He did what he did, and it was horrible, but I think -- I'm just now starting to think -- that somebody else might've gotten to me first."

"In that same way, you mean?"

"I don't know. It could have been some other way, I guess. Maybe I saw something I wasn't meant to see." As I spoke the words I knew they were untrue; I knew it wasn't the residue of any "other way," different from Dad's, that lay festering inside of me. Whatever the secret was, it was sexual and concerned me directly.

Liam pondered this, then said carefully, "But even if that's true, I still can't see why you'd hallucinate the diary in the air right then. And I also don't see what's wrong with the Navajo-girl explanation. Why couldn't you have just taken a notion to throw your diary in the trash? People do throw stuff away, you know. Why does it have to be some heavy repressed-memory thing?"

But, in my mind, a conviction was strengthening moment by moment. "No, think about it. I'd pasted some stuff in the diary--a straw from an ice-cream soda bought for me by a boy I liked, named Rick, a locket a different kid named Rick gave me, that had his name engraved on it. You know, souvenirs. Well, before I threw it away I carefully peeled the straw and the locket off the pages, to keep. Why would I do that -- keep the trinkets and toss the diary? It doesn't make sense! I was a kid who kept things -- I kept my fifth-grade diary, such as it was, I kept a piece of paper with the signatures of all the kids in my fourth-grade class on it, I've got diaries and journals from the age of fourteen up to and including right now! Julie says mine is the most thoroughly documented life she's ever dealt with in her entire career as a therapist!"

"Okay, okay, calm down." Liam made pushing-down motions with his hands. "What became of all that souvenir stuff -- where is it now?"

"I've still got it! All of it!" He repeated the gesture, more broadly this time. I sighed heavily and said "Okay. I'm calm."

"Good. Now. When you claim you've still got these mementos, do you mean you could go straight to where they are and put your hand on them?"

"Absolutely. That stuff is all in Salt Lake. The straw and locket are pasted in a scrapbook labeled 'Memorabilia,' which is on a shelf in my study."

"Hmm. What about the fifth-grade diary?"

"In a bookcase with all my other diaries and journals, above my desk. At the far left of the row. They're all in chronological order."

"I'm sure they are." He made a sour face, then fired one last test question: "What color is it?"

"The fifth-grade diary? Brown, dark brown. Smaller and skinnier than the others. Flexible cover."

"Pam," said Liam, "Humphrey might okay shooting a second bradshaw, since the virtual program for this one hasn't been written yet -- for you he might -- but I'm getting on that plane."

"Humphrey's hibernating, we'd have to ask Alfrey," I said, but things had stopped. We stared at each other. I was now supposed to back down, though both of us knew that, in Liam's place, I would already have groaningly accepted that the plane would be leaving without me. And suddenly this time I wasn't having it; the stakes were just too high. "I can't stop you," I said, now very calm indeed, "and I wouldn't exactly blame you, I know you've already disrupted your plans as a favor to me. But. If you'll do this for me too...well. Let's just say I'll never forget it."

Liam's expression gradually altered. Moving slowly, he got up from the chair, so our eyes were again on the same level across the terrace. "Meaning that if I don't do it, you'll never forget that, either." In my hyper-vigilant state, his pupils seemed to shrink into sharp, hard pinholes. "And the next time I call you up at midnight or the crack of dawn, to vent about my problems, you might not answer the phone."

"I'd say that's probably a pretty shrewd guess." "So it's a crisis."

He wasn't asking, and I didn't reply. Both of us understood that nothing less than the fundamental balance-- or working imbalance-- of our relationship was on the line. If Liam went home to Eddie and his heavy weekend, and left me in this particular lurch, I realized that not only would I never forget it, I wouldn't be able to forgive him. And he had to decide now whether he wanted to deal with that, because we both knew that at this point in our long, difficult friendship, I had less to lose than he did.

6

A PERSON MAKES A BRADSHAW in order to revisit a traumatic event in her past as her adult self, equipped with the knowledge and experience she'd lacked as a child. The transceivers are windows, not doorways; you can't go through, and the Hefn wouldn't allow it if you could. When something goes wrong, and people in the past become aware of the time window, the Hefn wipe their memories; they don't particularly like to do that, but they do do it without exception {almost} if the need arises. They don't worry at all about changing the future, certain as they are that "Time is One, and fixed" -- a maxim of our training as BTP techs. That is: if it's going to happen, it already has happened, from the foundation of the universe. Because Time is One, there are no alternate realities.

Anyway, with or without the participants being aware of the window, with or without mindwipe as a regrettable coda to the use of the transceiver, the recording is made. Besides the visual dimension of the event, shadow memories are also captured and recorded. The transceivers can't manipulate memory as well as specialized Hefn memory-control equipment does, but they can get something; how much varies with the individual and the context, and probably some other factors that aren't yet' understood.

After that, the VR people use the recording to create a program in which the adult can stride in virtually upon the scene he or she lived through as a child, and intervene. He can beat his drunken, raving father to a pulp. He can slap his mother six ways from Sunday. He can pick up the little boy he was, age six and a half, sobbing and bleeding from the rectum, hold him in his arms and tell him, "I know, I know all about how awful you feel, how scared you are, how much it hurts, and I'm never going to let that bastard touch you again. It's all over now. You don't ever, ever have to be scared o[ him anymore. I'll keep you safe. From now on I'll be taking care of you."

The point is that while you can't make the promise good to the actual six-and-a-half-year-old sufferer back in the past, you can make it good to the six-and-a-half-year-old who still lives inside of the adult you, who's still traumatized by the awful things done to him and still feels powerless to protect himself.

A person needn't have been damaged nearly so brutally and globally, however, to find a bradshaw beneficial. People tell themselves that, compared to some of what they've heard about, the stuff their grandfather/ neighbor/brother did to them is no big deal; but lesser abuse can also damage its victims much more profoundly than seems reasonable, as I have cause to know.

The fellow who gave his name to these virtual interventions was a late-twentieth-century self-help guru called John Bradshaw. All too often this character, a Texan, came through to casual viewers of his very popular media series as a cross between a sleazebag televangelist and a snake-oil salesman. A lot of educated people dismissed him in his day, without troubling to figure out what he was using this off-putting style to explain.

This was too bad. No original thinker himself, Bradshaw had an uncommon gift: he could synthesize the ideas of major psychological theorists, without distorting them, and communicate the practical side of these ideas to the sort of people who might never, otherwise, have access to psychotherapy.

On TV, and in his workshops, he used to have his audiences do an exercise. They were to choose a painful scene from their childhoods, one in which they had felt particularly helpless, miserable, betrayed, and -Bradshaw's special buzzword-' shamed. They were to close their eyes and picture this scene vividly. Then they were to imagine walking in upon the scene as their adult selves, and doing whatever was necessary to protect the helpless child they used to be.

It wasn't unusual for workshop participants to burst into violent weeping as they followed their leader's instructions; and these interventions were "merely" imaginary. The effect of using the Hefn transceivers to capture actual events, making virtual interventions possible, was phenomenal. Without professional guidance {and even with it) the experience could be overwhelming. A more affordable bradshaw could certainly have become addictive to people who got off on that kind of emotional kick.

The actual event captured when the bradshaw was made sometimes proved to be very different from the way the event had been remembered. But nailing the exact cause of misery usually mattered much less than assuring a miserable child that she would never again be alone, defenseless and terrified, in the face of torment.

7

On the morning following the scene with Liam, I woke when a voice spoke inside my head. "Pinny's Hefn," said the voice.

I was used to waking up with the impression that someone had just spoken aloud, typically a name or an innocuous word or phrase -- "Carrots," "That's the target!" So in itself this was nothing remarkable.

This voice sounded no different; the difference was in what it said. In retrospect it struck me as a kind of aural equivalent of the diary-in-the-air hallucination.

Pinny's Hefn was the title of a "novel" I'd written the summer I turned fourteen. The novel dealt with the doings of a peculiar girl -Pinny, short for large-nosed Pinocchio -- who much resembled me, and a Hefn named Comfrey; I'd been extremely taken with the only Hefn I'd met in the flesh -- my mentor-to-be, Humphrey, at my Bureau interview -and modeled Comfrey upon him as best I could. My novel was set, and mostly written, at Hurt Hollow. I hadn't paged through the manuscript in years, though {naturally) I knew exactly where it was: in a blue folder, in a cardboard box in a Salt Lake City storage closet, among the Memorabilia (or possibly the Juvenilia}: 164 pages scribbled in longhand on blue-lined paper with three holes punched down the side.

What I thought about after the voice startled me awake, while my mind was clearing, was the looseleaf binder I'd kept those pages in while I was writing and accumulating them. I could visualize it perfectly, that binder: a fatty old thing even then, made of fake brown alligator skin, with a zipper around three sides. I'd liked that zipper; it made the story feel secure. The binder had been Dad's; he'd passed it on to me when I started working on Pinny's Hefn, at the beginning of my last whole summer at home ....

No. He'd given it to me earlier, maybe a year before that, because I'd already possessed it when I needed a folder to put certain secret papers into for safekeeping. What secret papers? I could barely remember; and yet -like the image of the red diary -- the thought of them carried a powerful emotional charge.

Concentrate now, I told myself: what papers? Some news clippings about horses and horse races -- I'd gone through a racehorse stage, during which I'd cut things out of the paper. There was one particular Kentucky Derby when I knew who all the horses and jockeys were and who was favored to win by how much. That had been the fifth grade. I was ten. What in the world could have seemed so secret about race horses and horse races? I'd always supposed, when I remembered this at all, that I must have made a secret of it just to have a secret; but it struck me now as peculiar.

What else? I lay perfectly still and cudgeled my wits, but all that came to mind were some sheets of computer paper on which a code had been worked out by me and a couple of guys named Charlie and Steve, my best friends since earliest childhood, no offense to the two Ricks. We'd made up this code, with a symbol for each letter of the alphabet, so we could write encrypted notes to each other in school and leave them under the pedal of the drinking fountain out in the hallway. We did that in Mr. Hopper's class...so that had been the sixth grade, when we were eleven.

Lying there in bed, it drifted back to me. I'd kept those clippings and the code key in the alligator-skin notebook, tucked into the pockets inside the flaps. When I'd needed the notebook for Pinny's Hefn I'd transferred the other papers to a big manila envelope, and kept the envelope in my bottom bureau drawer, under the T-shirts. Then at the end of that summer, before leaving for Washington to start my apprenticeship at the Bureau of Temporal Physics, I'd put the completed novel in the blue folder and the clippings and code keys back in the notebook, and put both into a larger box that I stashed up in the attic in my parents' house in Scofield -- this house. My room was to be the guest room while I was away; I didn't want people poking through my stuff.

I recall debating whether to keep the notebook at all; the prospect of the new life before me had made me feel like making a clean break with the past, or certain parts of it. But I did keep it, at some level perhaps remembering the red diary and beginning to understand the mothhole its loss had gnawed in the fabric of my life.

Later, when Liam and I had graduated from the BTP and were preparing to move out to Bureau Headquarters, relocating that year in Santa Barbara, I made a farewell trip home. On that visit I boxed up all my books and belongings, acting on a vague wish to get them out of my parents' house and safely into my own keeping. In the course of this packing I crawled up a ladder through the trap door that was our access to the attic. Sitting up there cross-legged under a naked light bulb, I went through all my stored cartons and divided everything into two piles: take and chuck. I remembered lifting out the alligator binder and holding it in my hands. I remembered dragging the zipper pull around the edge, with a sound like heavy cloth ripping, and leafing through the yellowed paper scraps within.

Several times over the years I'd winnowed down my stash of "possessions" in the attic. Each time I'd considered throwing out the papers in that notebook, but had always held back. This time I did it. The odd thing was that I knew, as I sat there in the dust making the decision, that someday I'd be sorry.

This precedent suggested that even if my mother had persuaded me to save the red diary when I appealed to her, another day it would probably have gone the way of the brown binder.

What the Sam Hill was it about that year, my sixth-grade year, that I couldn't afford to remember or keep any evidence of; The Hefn had returned that October} but that wasn't it} I'd felt only intense interest, untinged with fear, when I heard they'd come back to stay. I'd loved my teacher, my school, playing Tarzan on the wooded bluff above the river with Steve and Charlie} had anyone asked, I would readily have said that that year, my last of real childhood, was the happiest of all.

Eleven years old. No period, not quite yet. No boobs yet to speak of, though I'd received my first training bras already, two of them in soft cotton, a gift from Grandma for my birthday just before the start of the new school year. Obviously, Morn had been discussing my "development" with her mother-in-law. Not with me, though; the first I knew that there were going to be bras in my immediate future was when I opened the package, with both my parents looking on, and there they were.

Could it be that I'd resented Grandma for forcing those bras upon me, and with them the issue of the terrible changes about to possess my body? so much so that afterward I never wanted to go over to her house when we went down to Louisville; No, because I could remember sitting in a rocking chair in Granny's front room one evening, engrossed in a Tarzan book, and Mom touching my shoulder and saying, "Time to go to Grandma's now. You're sleeping over there tonight, better get your pajamas and some clean underwear." I remembered clearly how, at these words, my heart sank like a stone; and I couldn't have been more than eight or nine at the time -- much younger than eleven.

Old enough, however, to understand that I wasn't to object or whine or say I didn't want to sleep over, didn't want to go over there at all. I wasn't supposed to say how I felt about things, unless the feelings were the sort More wanted to know about, and I didn't have to be told she didn't want to know about these. Or hear about them, rather, because she did know. She just didn't care. She cared about what I did, not how I felt about it.

Feeling agitated, I rolled out of bed, pulled on my robe, and padded down the hall. Liam's door was open, his bed stripped, his neatly repacked suitcase open on the mattress pad. The time transceiver, in its case, stood on the floor by the door. I trotted down the stairs and found my reluctant guest drinking hot cider at the kitchen table. He was dressed for overland travel, not in uniform but in a loose light tunic and trousers, and his scalp gleamed through his neatly combed hair. "Hi," I said. "Are you speaking to me today?"

"No," he said. "There's a Louisville packet at two-sixteen from Scofield Beach, and a train tonight that will get me to California Wednesday afternoon. I put my sheets in the washer, which isn't working very well, by the way, you'd better have it serviced. I've ordered a taxi for one-thirty. Eat something' and let's get it over with."

His last hope for getting off the hook I'd hung him on had been dashed yesterday when his request for permission to re-record my bradshaw had been instantly approved by the Hefn Alfrey, already back in California and still acting for the sleeping Humphrey. After that he'd had to choose for himself. I glanced up at the clock: 8:35. "I can eat later. I'm ready now if you are."

"Fine." He scraped back his chair and pushed past me, taking the stairs two at a time. I trailed him, thinking. Diary or alligator binder; If I couldn't have both, which was more important;

Liam grabbed the transceiver as he passed the door and said over his shoulder, without looking back, "Where do I set up;"

Both were important, but the diary mattered more. "In the doorway of my room, I guess."

He snapped around. "Don't guess, all right; Decide and-tell me where."

"Oh, knock it off," I said mildly. "The doorway of my room, then, definitely." He was very angry, but I didn't mind so much about that; what mattered was, he was here, and that meant the two of us were fundamentally okay, or would be again in time.

So, walking stiffly to be sure I understood how mad he was, Liam carried the 'transceiver down the hall and set it up in my doorway. From that position the lens could take in the whole small room. Though furnished sparsely enough now, it seemed crammed by contrast with the time we were about to revisit. My parents hadn't figured that a child's room needed furniture; my room, painted pale blue, had held a bed and a bureau, and nothing else: no desk, no chair, and -- astonishing in a librarian's household -- no bookshelves. Mom could never see the point of kids owning books. Once you'd read a book, why keep it around, when you could check books out of the library for free, then exchange those for others? If I'd appealed to Dad, he would probably -- no, certainly -- have intervened, but I don't think it ever occurred to me to ask for his help.

My few books had been arranged neatly on the floor, along the baseboard of one wall, an arrangement I'd accepted without question; the first bookcase I ever had the use of was the one in my room at the BTP, in Washington. There was a ceiling light and a bedlight, but no lamp. I used to do my homework on the dining-room table.

I couldn't remember where I'd kept the diary -- in the row of books on the floor, in a bureau drawer, maybe under my bed? -- but I did remember sitting on the bed to write in it. When the window opened, we would at the very least see that.

To hide the transceiver was going to be impossible; unless she happened to be very engrossed in her writing, the eleven-year-old kid I used to be would have to be mindwiped, as Liam pointed out while setting up. The possibility didn't worry me at all. Time is One. (Lost gift or no, I probably believed this Hefn doctrine more deeply than Liam did.) If I'd been wiped in 2010 or 2011, that experience had been part of my life ever since. If I hadn't, then it hadn't been. Either way, nothing would change.

"Ready," he said finally. "Dates."

"Summer 2011." The sixth grade would be over and the diary account of it completed. He was to scroll for prepubescent Pain sitting on her bed, reading or writing in a book. Liam nodded once, slipped his hands into the dimples, and began.

Our first problem was an embarrassment of riches. Prepubescent Pain read in bed every night of her life; that was the point of the bedlight hooked over the headboard. A bewildering jumble of girl, bed, and book, not images but ghostly implications, replaced one another in the shimmer pattern. I couldn't look; the visual mayhem hurt not just the eyes but the brain of an observer not attuned to the transceiver. Even Liam, in perfect attunement, moaned a little with the mental effort of searching a haystack for one particular type of golden stalk.

So I sensed rather than saw him arch back out of the field. I looked, and the lens had dilated. A skinny, scabby, sun-tanned girl perched on the edge of the bed, on the side near the window so her back was mostly toward the door, writing in a red book with a pencil. She was dressed in yellow shorts and a plaid halter. Her right foot in a blue canvas shoe was tucked beneath her, and her long bare leg, bent double, stuck out over the foot of the bed like the hind leg of a grasshopper. Limp brown hair fell forward, screening her face. It was afternoon of a bright, breezy, hot-looking day; sunlight streamed in through the open window and the curtains were blowing. The bed was made up with my favorite of several old quilts made by Granny and her spinster sisters, a pattern of silhouetted Dutch girls in bonnets and wooden shoes.

I looked upon this scene and felt -- heartache. Intense longing. Nostalgia that without much pressure could approach hysteria: joy impossible ever to know again, shimmering just beyond the lens in the sunny room. And something else, a sinister potential, inescapable and dire but for the moment far away.

At the sight of myself -- of everything I'd been just then, just there, extreme two ways at once -- my ears rang and the edges of my field of vision went black. But Liam, watching me react, had started the recorder.

I leaned against the door jamb and lowered my head till the ringing stopped and my vision cleared. When I looked again, the girl had closed the red book and turned sideways on the bed. Her face and body in profile -fleshy nose that nobody'd yet realized had once been broken and hadn't healed correctly, little tethered breasts pointing beneath the halter -made my throat ache. She clicked the diary's strap into its lock and held the book in both her hands, a moment of utter privacy, before reaching under the bed to pull out a scuffed navy-and-white saddle oxford, a school shoe. She shook something out-- a key chain, that fell into her hand with a little clink. And I knew, abruptly, what was on that key chain: a four-leaf clover embedded in plastic, and a tiny gold key.

The girl pushed the key into the keyhole with two long fingers and turned it, locking the diary. She dropped the key chain into the toe of the shoe and stuck the shoe back under the bed. Then she started to stand up -- and I signaled Liam to pull us out. I didn't need to see her hiding place, not at the cost of having to wipe her. I had what I needed.

8

A MONTH LATER found me sitting, hunched forward, in a private cubicle of a VR parlor in Salt Lake City, my bradshaw's virtual program disc in my lap. My therapy session by videophone was almost over. My therapist, Julie Hightower, was seated in a big upholstered chair in her Washington DC office-- actually a room in her own house in Georgetown -- looking as calm and composed as I felt anything but. We'd had four weeks now to prep for this, but my shock at seeing the child I used to be, in that room full of extreme and contradictory feelings, hadn't entirely faded, and we'd spent this session talking about the pros and cons of proceeding vs. further preparation.

"I do think, if you want to run the program now, you'll handle it all right," Julie summed up thoughtfully, "but I think you should be careful, and be ready to jump out and regroup if you start to feel the waters closing over your head. Remember, you can always have another go tomorrow, or next month, or whenever."

One of the things I liked most about Julie was the judicious, respectful way she talked to her patients. To me, anyway. She was Liam's therapist too -- he'd referred me to her-- but we'd stopped exchanging notes about Julie years ago; I had no idea how, or even whether, she talked to him these days. I grinned weakly and said, "I'll remember."

I'd asked if she wanted to monitor, but Julie felt the value of the experience -- especially this first time -- might be compromised if my concentration on it were less than total. On the other hand, given the circumstances, extra contact time was okay by Julie. "Call me if you need to," she urged.

"You don't have to twist my arm," I told her.

We confirmed the next week's appointment, said our goodbyes, and hung up. For fear of charging away without it later, I took the time to disassemble and stow the phone in my backpack. Then, before I could lose my nerve, I slipped the disc out of its sleeve and fed it into the slot.

I didn't frequent VR parlors; unfamiliarity and terror made me clumsy, but the boots, gloves, and helmet were designed to be user-friendly. Finally the light on the console glowed green, and a speaker said, "When you are ready, initiate the program by saying the word 'Begin.'"

Feeling as if I were about to be hurled from a plane at my own request, I did as instructed--

9

--and was standing in the doorway of my room, the no-frills 2011 version, ten feet from Prepubescent Pam in what appeared to be the living flesh.

Awkward with the gear, I took a couple of jerky steps into the room and sat down heavily on the near side of the bed, opposite the girl absorbed in her diary. I sat right on the Dutch girl quilt and felt its nubbly texture under my hand.

She looked up, startled, snapping the book shut and clicking the lock; and at this first full-face view of her -- synthesized from her profile with the aid of a couple of old holos -- I almost stopped the program.

But I didn't, I let it run. I let her scramble up, back away against the wall, say her first alarmed words to me, which were, not surprisingly, "What're you doing here? Who are you, anyway?"

They'd worked with Liam's earlier recording made at Hurt Hollow, tuning the voice to be slightly younger. This kid sounded exactly like an eleven-year-old who was a little bit scared. I was impressed. I was also utterly nonplused.

But, again, I stayed with it. I answered her question the way I'd planned to, when and if she asked it: "I'm you. I'm the person You're going to be when you grow up."

I'd been apprehensive about how she would react, but all she did was look surprised and say "Oh." No real child would have settled for such an answer; by accepting it, Little Pain identified herself as virtual, and let me recover some sense of control.

But then she started giving me the once-over, and I saw her take in The size of my chest, and her eyes widen in dismay. "Nunh-unh, I'm not gonna be that big, no way! If I ever get as big as you I'm getting reduced!"

"I am getting reduced," I said-- and was astonished to realize I meant it, that I couldn't in fact imagine why I'd tolerated the despised breasts for so long. With plastic surgery booming worldwide, and an enormous aging clientele to bring prices down, I might have done something long ago about myself. Why hadn't I? (Why hadn't I refused to wear the goddam pink lambswool sweater?

And that was all it took, a blunt remark from the kid, to shatter a twenty-five-year mindset? If running a bradshaw could do that to you in the first five minutes...thoroughly unnerved, I stared at Little Pam as I might have stared at a wizard.

She glared back, suspicious of me now. "I'm not waiting till I get as old as you are. What are you doing here, anyway?" She sounded more accusing now than scared.

I had the answer to that one ready too. "I came to see the diary."

Pam glanced down at the little book, still in her hand. "This?" I nodded. "What for?"

"Because I can't remember what's in it, and I'm pretty sure I wrote something important in there."

"But why do you need miner Can't you just look' up whatever it is yourself?" "No," I said. "I haven't got it anymore."

Coloring, Pam clutched the little book against her flat stomach. "I'm keeping this diary forever!" She shook her head so hard her straight brown hair whipped about her face. "I don't believe you. You're lying. You're not me."

Getting into the question of why I didn't have the diary anymore was the last thing I wanted. It was all going wrong. "Pause," I croaked desperately, and the figure of Pam froze in place, indignant expression and all, between the bed and the wall. I closed my eyes, realized I was sweating, thirsty, and exhausted, that the back of my head was pounding, and that I was going to have to stop pretty soon.

Arguing with the kid was no good, and I knew instinctively that to wrestle the diary from her by force wouldn't work. She would have to show it to me of her own free will, and for that to happen I had to convince her that I was who I said I was. I took some deep breaths, telling myself to calm down. After a minute I opened my eyes and said "Resume," and Pam came back to life, glowering at me.

"Look." I leaned across the bed and placed my right hand flat, fingers splayed, on the Dutch girl quilt. "Put your hand there, next to mine."

She did look, then looked at me, then back at my hand. Then, reluctantly, she gave a kind of capitulating snort. "I don't have to. They're the same."

"Do it anyway, okay?"

Pam hesitated, but sat back down on her side of the bed, laid the diary on the quilt, and spread out her left hand, long palm and spidery fingers, nails tapering instead of wide and blunt the way she wished, beside my right one. The turquoise thunderbird ring a house cleaner had stolen out of my closet, years ago, was around her left little finger. Our two hands were nearly of a size, though my skin was wrinkled and veiny and her nails were dirty.

"Convinced?"

"They're like a pair of gloves, only one's been worn a lot and one's practically new." Little Pam withdrew the hand and hid her bony fingers in a fist. "Becky said in church last week that having big hands is good, because you can climb trees better. And I said, 'But yours aren't big for a woman. Mine are big for a woman.'"

I'd forgotten that exchange till she reminded me. "Can't get hands reduced, hon, not even in my time." I might have added that I had had a nose job; but Pam would be thirteen before she realized there was anything wrong with her nose, and besides, I could hardly claim credit. The rhinoplasty had been done over my violent objections. Dad was the one who really hadn't liked my nose.

Now Pam flashed her eyes at me. "I'm giving you one more test, okay? If you can recite 'Lone Dog' all the way through without making, any mistakes, I'll believe you're me."

Smart move. I rattled off "Lone Dog," a poem from our sixth-grade reader, without hesitation or error, and added, "Want me to quote 'Now Chil the Kite brings home the night'?" It was a chapter heading from The Jungle Books -- the very first Kipling poem I'd ever learned by heart.

"Never mind," she said, relaxed and grinning now, "you win. You said it exactly like I do: 'Oh, mine is still the lone trail, the hard trail, the best?"

"I hung onto that, anyway." She nodded. "So how about it: can I see the diary?"

She looked down at it, shiny red, and up at me, and then she picked it up and reached it over to me across the bed.

I could barely breathe. I held the little book, feeling her eyes on me, then clumsily pushed up the button that released the lock and opened it to the middle, June, 2011.

The diary had a lumpy feel because of the objects -- straw, locket, some folded notes -- pasted into it. I flipped slowly backward, then forward. May, April. July, August. All the pages were blank.

10

Julie was sympathetic, but not at all discouraged. "I guess we should have known it wouldn't be that simple," she said, after we talked about how I'd felt when I discovered the diary had no writing at all in it (crushed), and how I felt now (wildly agitated). "Look at what you accomplished, though. You figured out a way to establish your authenticity, and you won her trust. Not bad at all for a first session. Also, I think it's significant that the diary wasn't locked."

It hadn't been locked yet when Liam started shooting, but I didn't go into that. "Not literally it wasn't, but so what? I was locked out anyway." Despite Julie's efforts, this still felt fairly shattering. "That kid, God, she really threw me. I didn't expect her to be such a tough customer. I can't imagine myself, at her age, standing up to a total stranger like that, scolding her for not having gotten a breast reduction!"

Julie grinned. "That's not my impression." Professional ethics forbade her to tell me that Liam had given her a different picture of me as a child, the jerk, but I was pretty sure that's what she meant.

"so where do I go from here? Any ideas?" I felt fresh out of them myself. The whole experience of the bradshaw, so far, had been one rude, exhausting shock after another.

"It would probably be more useful if the ideas came from you," Julie predictably said. "You destroyed the evidence t all of it, the diary and the papers in the alligator binder. Undoubtedly you had an excellent reason at the time, but it would seem that your unconscious will let you see what' you wrote in the diary only after being reassured that it's safe to reveal the secret now. How to reassure it is the challenge."

"I see that," I told her, "but isn't there more than one way to skin this cat? What about trying hypnotherapy again? It's been, what, four years? Lots of water under the bridge since then."

Julie frowned. "Hypnotherapy is certainly still an option, and, as you say, a lot has happened since we tried it before, but I don't think I'd recommend it right now. Your history of resistance isn't the only reason I say this; I've also found that it's usually better to stick to one approach until you've given that approach a fair chance to work. If you should decide at a later time to abandon the bradshaw, temporarily or permanently, we can talk about this again, but for now .... "

"I was considering abandoning it, actually."

"Well," said Julie, and I knew at once which side of that line she was about to come down on, "of course that's your decision, but you've been given a rare means of delving into your unconscious mind -- something many of my patients would love to be able to make use of-- and I hope you won't throw that opportunity away without giving it very careful consideration."

I said wryly, "I suppose you had no ulterior motive when you said you hoped I wouldn't 'throw it away.'"

Julie grinned broadly. "Of course not."

She waited, looking expectant, while I cudgeled my wits, but my mind was as blank as the pages of the diary had seemed. Finally I said, "Look, I know I was no great shakes as a hypnotic subject, but I'm not sure I'm cut out to be that much better as a bradshaw operator. Couldn't you at least suggest a strategy for coming'up with some ideas?"

She chuckled. "Come on, Pain, you don't need me to tell you how to do that. I wonder if, by trying to get me to tell you something you already know, you aren't actually saying you feel a need for help and support."

Actually, of course, she didn't "wonder" this at all. And she was right, I did know perfectly well what to do, really: keep track of my dreams, focus my meditations, write down every single detail I could recall about that year.

It all added up to a lot of work, and I had plenty to do without any extras. Baby Ban riots had recently torn through the capital cities of Malawi and Burundi, and were now popping up all over South America. The Pope and the Head of the U.N. had requested a joint audience with a Hefn delegation. While the alien-human coalition, dedicated to saving both Earth and her people, continued to work at a frantic pace on the population problem, a majority of the Hefn now favored abandoning humanity entirely.

Alfrey and Godfrey, both overdue for the long sleep, were taking antihibernation drugs, which made their hair fall out in patches. They desperately needed Humphrey, but Humphrey would be sleeping for seven or eight more weeks at least, and they didn't dare wake him prematurely --too dangerous. Under such circumstances, even a bench warmer like myself was as busy as a one-armed paperhanger, processing computer data generated by the techs running time transceivers. It was almost impossible to have a personal life at all, let alone a personal crisis or epiphany.

Julie was also right that I was asking for support; but till she said so I hadn't realized it, and was embarrassed. Little Pain never asked anybody for help. I glanced at the clock to see if the session weren't just about over.

"Of course," Julie went on when I didn't reply, "I have, and do, and will continue to support you in every way I can. I do believe that you can use this bradshaw to find out some things you need to know about your past, in order to get on more constructively with your life. But whether or not you proceed with this, or proceed with it now, is entirely up to you. It was pure coincidence that the convention you attended was on your home turf. If you don't want to work on the bradshaw just at present, that probably means you're not ready, and that I was mistaken to think you were."

I shook my head. "No, no, you weren't mistaken. I am ready. And I'll do it, the dream log and free-associative writing, the whole nine yards, but I still don't want to, I wish I didn't have to -- you might have been mistaken about that much anyway."

Julie smiled. "One day we must have a discussion about the meaning of the word want. We're out of time for today, though, so I'll limit myself to reminding you of one more thing you already know: that every word you put down in that little book is still in your memory somewhere."

"I do know that. Thanks."

Julie stood up and smiled. "Good luck on your next trip through the time portal."

11

THE NEXT WEEK was a blur of conference calls and computer modeling but I used whatever odd scraps of time I could find to prepare myself for my next encounter with the girl in the bare bedroom. To that end I got out the brown 2010 diary and browsed through the entries for the summer before the beginning of sixth grade:

July 31. Today l got my cast off my arm. The muscle is little, dr. Ogden said it wont hurt too long. We star gazed tonite. Pam [I'd broken my arm falling out of a tree]

August 1. Nothing happened today. Hank [Hank? Trying out boys' names...]

August 2. My arm is better I went swimming. We star gazed tonight. Sam

August 3. Last nite I slept downstairs I saw a viddy, It scared me. we went to Madison to get a watermelon. Sam

August 4. Nothing happened today. Pam

August 5. today was boring nothing happened [not even token punctuation, apparently]

August 6. Tonight I saw Dungeon of mutations. Hope I don't have nightmares, but bet I will. I did calculus with Doug [Doug Emmi, my math tutor].

August 7. Dear Diary, today was boreing we had hamburgers for supper Harry

Apart from scaring myself with horror viddies, most of August did sound fairly "boreing." I stargazed; Dad was teaching me to recognize the easy constellations and locate bright stars like Arcturus and Vega. I went swimming at the quarry, played Tarzan with Charlie and Steve {before the broken arm}, played "Mumbley Peg" with Becky. Nothing the least bit remarkable there. I skipped ahead:

August 24. Today I packed for Louisville [I was going down to Granny's -- Granny was my "good" grandmother, Mom's mother -- for a week's visit, to end with my eleventh birthday on September 1]

August 26 Dear D today I had fun sewing and playing dolls with Granny. [A dexterous child, I could stitch a neat seam from the age of five or six; and while I didn't "play dolls" in the usual way-- a girly-girl thing to be despised and scorned-- I loved making little pants and jackets for my two diminutive plastic boy dolls with patient Granny, the only adult who ever played with me. And now the diary reported again and again throughout the week: Today I had fun.]

August 29. today I went to town with Granny & saw Churchill downs. I got books, the son of Tarzan of Woof howe hob. Pamfrey [Woof Howe Hob was a book about the stranded Hefn mummified in a Yorkshire peat bog. Obviously, two months before their return, I was already interested in the Hefn, to the point of appropriating their -frey suffix into my own name games. Nobody yet knew that one of the Hefn actually was called Pomfrey.]

August 31. Dear D today More came. I missed her a lot. [Dad definitely came too. Nothing about missing him.]

September 1. Today Is my birthday. I am eleven years old. I got a boomclox, a tunic, a blue bedlamp [!], swimming goggles, and I blew out all the candies e) wished for an elec. canoe. Pain [And in very faint pencil, along the margin of the bound edge: MOM & DAD WOULDN'T SING HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME THEY MADE ME CRY BUT THEY DIDN'T KNOW IT.]

Oh God. Now I remembered that birthday.

My parents' strange refusal to sing wasn't the worst of it. Granny had bought me a boomclox we'd seen in a shop window on our ritual trip to town, unaware that Morn had also planned to give me one. When we got home to Scofield More showed me her boomclox -- which I instantly recognized as superior to Granny's in every way, smaller, cuter, pricier-but told me she was taking it back to the store, I couldn't have it; Granny's clunky boomclox was the one I had to keep. It occurred to neither of us -certainly not to me-- that the redundant gift might have been exchanged for something else.

I could visualize Mom's "present" in perfect detail. The "clock" part of it was Swiss. Every hour on the hour a bugle blew and a little door flew open, releasing three adorable clockwork thoroughbreds, each with a tiny, crop-wielding jockey on its back. Horses and jockeys raced each other around a semicircle to another door that closed behind them. The programing was randomized; you never knew which horse would win. I was less besotted with the Japanese "boombox" part, but no doubt its sound quality was excellent.

I pleaded and begged to keep that boomclox, but to no avail: back to the store it went. Needless to say, my pleasure in Granny's gift was a casualty of all this fuss.

The blank space in the list? My best guess: it was a place-holder for the unmentionable bras from Grandma.

September 2. Mom sang to me late last nigh t, and dad sang to me this morning. Now all I want is the boomclox more got for me. Pain I was starting to feel sick. I shut the little book and put it away.

12

Homely, skinny Little Pam sat on the double bed covered with the Dutch girl quilt, one long leg bent double, a foot tucked beneath her, scribbling in the red diary with a yellow pencil. To the left of the door, on top of her bureau, squatted the boomclox, displaying the time and date in violet numbers. A little rack of CD's squatted beside it, but no music was playing. The room was full of sunshine.

"Hi," I said, and sat down on the bed.

Pam looked up, then dropped her pencil and snapped the diary shut. "You came back."

"Mm-hm. How are you? How do you feel?"

"Fine. Why'd you come back? What were you so upset about?"

"I couldn't read your diary. Sorry I rushed off like that. I want to try again, but first I want to talk to you about your boomclox."

Pam's eyes turned toward it, then back to me. "What about it?"

"Granny gave you that last summer for your birthday." She nodded. "But Mom got you one too, and she wouldn't let you keep it."

"No. She took it back."

"Why'd she do that?"

Pam shrugged. "Granny bought me that one 'cause I asked her to ...well, not exactly asked her to. We were walking along and I saw it in the window and told her I liked it, and she said did I want her to get it for my birthday and I said yes. But Mom, see, she'd already gotten me one, and I couldn't have two boomcloxes, so I had to keep this one."

"So you're saying it's kind of your fault that you couldn't have the one Mom got for you."

"Well .... yeah. Because if I hadn't asked for that one, I could have kept the cool one with the racehorses."

"Honey," I said, leaning toward her, "it wasn't your fault at all. Not at all. It wasn't anybody's fault, but Mom was mad at Granny for messing up her plan and she needed to blame somebody. And she couldn't punish Granny, so she punished you."

"You mean -- by taking the nice boomclox back to the store?"

"I really mean, by showing .it to you at all. You were happy with Granny's till you saw Mom's, right? There was no reason at all to show it to you if she meant to take it back. She just did it to make you feel bad, to get even. It was mean, and you hadn't done anything to deserve it. I want you to understand that. I didn't understand it till I was a lot older than you are now, and I wish I had."

The girl stared at me, eyes filling with comprehension, then suddenly with shiny tears. "It wasn't fair," she said wonderingly.

"No, it sure as heck wasn't fair. And I'll tell you something else: she won't ever pull anything like that on you again, because I'm here now, and I won't let her."

"You won't?"

"I won't. I promise."

Pam rubbed the back of her bare wrist under her nose, snuffling a little. Then, without being asked, she handed the diary across the Dutch girls to me.

I held it prayerfully for a moment. Then I let it fall open and looked down.

13

"It was all in code," I reported to Julie, "that code Charlie and Steve and I made up, so we could write secret notes to each other in school. I looked down at the page -- dreading that it would be blank again -- and there were these lines of spirals and stars and triangles and pitchforks, in pencil."

"Did you keep the diary in code?"

"No, no, in ordinary cursive English! I might've tried the code for a page or two, but it would have been too slow for everyday, even if I'd memorized it, which as far as I can recall I never did."

"Well, that's fascinating. That's really fascinating," said Julie. Plainly, she meant it. The ways and means of bradshaws still hadn't been studied much -- too few cases -- so this was all psychological terra semicognita. I could practically see the preliminary outline for the article she was planning to write coming together behind her eyes.

"So after I checked to make sure the whole diary was in code, I asked the kid if she would let me borrow the code key."

"In the alligator notebook!"

"Right."

"And?"

"She said, 'I can't. It's out in the hall closet, and I have to stay in my room.' And I realized that by setting up the transceiver in the doorway, we'd trapped her in there. Nothing outside that one room was available to either of us. Well, then I had a kind of desperate brainwave; I asked her if she could call Charlie or Steve on her phone and ask them to bring a copy of the key over and pitch it up to her through the window.

"Julie sat back in her chair. "I take it that didn't work."

"How'd you guess? She did call them up, but both their phones just rang and rang. They weren't available. I don't know why not, actually; it seems to me that she ought to have been able to reach outside the room in that way."

Julie nodded. "Maybe there are factors embedded in the whole bradshaw phenomenon that keep you from proceeding in a way your own unconscious doesn't endorse. But it's like the shadow-memory phenomenon; we don't yet know why a virtual person can remember the things she remembers, but only those things, or why someone running the virtual program -- like you -- can accomplish some things and not others." She leaned forward, toward the camera. "So: how did you feel when Charlie and Steve didn't answer their phones?"

"Defeated for this round, but not as discouraged as before. But I realized the phone idea was a bust, so I shut the program down till I could hash things over with you."

Julie smiled cheerfully. "Well! It's encouraging, isn't it? First you get blank pages, then you get a code you once made up yourself. That feels like progress to me."

"To me too. It feels like things are moving forward, and that when I work out the right approach I'll get where I need to go."

Julie nodded. "I agree. Shall we start on the hashing-over, then? What was different about this run? What did you do this time, that you didn't do the first time?"

I could tell her that, all right. I'd done what Bradshaw himself had recommended: in his own gooey phrase, I had "championed my inner child." I'd told the kid that our mother had punished her for something that wasn't her fault, and that showing her the pretty clock was mean.

I'd also promised her that I would never allow this to happen again. In life it had happened many times over, and none of those meannesses could be undone. Still, to this eleven-year-old version of myself, I had made a commitment of protection. According to Bradshaw, this should do both of us good.

The funny thing was, I'd said what I'd said spontaneously. I hadn't been thinking about "championing" exercises. Fresh from reading the earlier diary, I'd glared at that charmless boomclox on the bureau and told the kid what I'd needed to hear myself -- when I was Pam/Sam/Hank-but never had.

14

Dream Log, 5/17/3 7. I live in a duplex. There are bears next door. The Fire Dept. comes to take them away, but the next day two cubs appear in the hallway of the half where I live, and rush into my room. I shove them out, but now the mother bear is in the hall. She sticks her paw in the doorway, tries to get in. The hasp on the door is frail and she bends the plate with her paw; I have to hold it shut and bend it back with my thumb so the bolt wi11 engage.

Several times I discover that the door's slightly open. When I close it she attacks, but not when it's ajar. Once the mother bear actually comes into my room, standing upright, and I escort her out. We both maintain our dignity during this scene -- no unseemly panic or ferocity. I'm able to control her in her presence, but when the door's between us she becomes savage.

There's an antique table phone in the hallway, white, on a tall stalk. I rush out and grab it, run the cord under the door, slam the door. The bear attacks. I call the Fire Dept. and they come right away. The bears are hiding. One of the firemen wants me to sit beside him on a bed and read a book of stories for a purpose now unclear, except that it had something to do 'with catching the bears.

Dream Log, 5/17/37. I'm weeding the flower beds of some house I live in with Mom, and accidentally break several tulip stalks. More yells angrily, but I reply that it doesn't matter because we'll never sell this house or move out of it. Will we? She acts furtive and moves away. I run after her, shouting, screaming even, furious that she walked away like that without answering me. She walks faster, then turns and brandishes a shiny black handgun. I wrestle it away from her immediately -- no question that I can dominate her in this literal, physical sense -- but I understand that she's sold the house, my home, right out from under me.

I have to go to an orphanage nearby. I'm crying and carrying on, terribly upset. We go past a gatehouse where Mom collects the money, big handfuls of bills. Then suddenly she's lying face down in the long grass nearby, reduced to an impression of her body and outstretched hands, fingers extended, nails long and blood-red.

The orphanage is horrible beyond description. The next day l put my hand into roy pocket and realize I still have roy keys. I decide to go spend one more night in my house, but when I get there I see a light in the basement, and opened, empty boxes in back: the newpeople have already moved in.

Every night for years before my father died -- but never since -- my dreaming unconscious used to display a magnificent kaleidoscope of fractal patterns undulating like manta wings, reds, blues, rich and various, impersonal and pure. I took them completely for granted; they'd always happened and they always would.

Those were the days.

15

"Hi," Liam said when I'd ordered the screen to come on. "Just dashing in the door, were you?"

"Your powers of observation render me speechless," I told him dryly. I'd run in from the back yard and was puffing and flushed; we were having another heat wave in Salt Lake. I almost hadn't bothered to catch the phone, but now I was glad I'd made the effort. Liam and I hadn't talked in six weeks -- not since Kentucky and the bradshaw.

"What were you doing?"

"Feeding the robins, out back. At this moment, six fledgling robins call me mother." For the past couple of summers I'd been hand-raising orphaned and/or injured birds for the local aviary. It was interesting and fun, but this year I was really much too busy to be doing it. Although the four healthy babies were flying well, all six still expected to be fed several times a day. I'd push open the screen door to the back yard and the quartet of good fliers would dive out of the apricot tree, straight; for my head. Adolescent robins aren't little, tiny birds; I couldn't wait for this stage to be over.

"Feeding them what?" Liam wondered. "Worms and bugs? No wonder you're out of breath."

I shook my head. "Dry dog food softened in water. High protein content. Comes in a bag."

"Oh. Well, I won't keep you, I know you're as swamped as we are here. I just thought I'd check in to see how the bradshaw's going."

We exchanged looks. "Slowly," I said, "since you ask. It does seem to be going someplace, but I don't know where yet."

"The second shot hit the bull's-eye?"

"I think so. Hit the target, anyway. I really appreciate your staying to shoot it, by the way."

"Yeah." Liam regarded me thoughtfully. "You're welcome, I guess. Although to describe Eddie as pissed about it would be a feeble representation of the truth."

"Apologize to him for me. What about you -- does this call mean you've decided to forgive me?"

"For making me admit that I can't afford to lose you out of my life? I'll probably never forgive you for that. But Eddie being furious, the interminable train trip I suffered through, etc., etc., that's all water under the bridge. I called because I was interested."

And because you miss waking me up when something's on your mind, I thought but didn't say. We both knew why he'd called. Things being what they were with Liam and me, one of us had been bound to call the other eventually. "I haven't got time right now to fill you in completely," I told him, "but in a nutshell, I can't read the diary. The first time I tried, the pages were completely blank except for the printed dates and lines. The second time the writing was all in code."

"Code?"

"A code my friends and I made up to pass notes in school. Stars, triangles, pitchforks. I don't have a clue which symbols stood for what letters anymore."

"Codes can be cracked. Bring in an expert."

I shook my head. "I thought about that, but I've got this hunch that if the answer's going to be worth knowing, I have to discover it via the right process. Anyway, Julie wouldn't approve."

Liam laughed. "Let me guess. She'd say,' You're the real expert, aren't you? You'll figure it out yourself when you're ready.'"

I laughed with him -- Liam, a clever mimic, had nailed Julie exactly --before adding, "She's probably right, that's the hell of it. Listen, sorry to cut you off so fast but I was supposed to be back in my office five minutes ago."

As usually happened when I tried to hang up first, this triggered a perverse refusal in him to end the conversation. "Okay, but just tell me, what about the straw and the locket, were they in the diary?"

"They were there. Just no writing."

"I get it," he said eagerly. "Because you already knew they were in there and what they looked like. What you can't see is what you can't remember."

"I guess so." I looked at my watch.

"She remembers. You two kids need to learn to work together."

"Liam--"

"Okay! So long! Call me if you get a breakthrough."

Dream Log, 6/10/37. I'm watching a preview of a viddy flick. A man with sharp features is driving a car like the one we had before the Hefn came. There's a passenger in the back seat, a woman. In his rearview mirror the driver sees the woman pull up her dress, which is like a long T-shirt, and whammo: out falls a perfectly beautiful set of male genitals. The driver sees this in the mirror; "we" (viewers) see it directly.

I rent the flick to watch in bed and fast-forward through it, trying to find that scene. Suddenly More climbs into the bed with me and lights a cigarette! I scream at her to "Get out of my personal space!!! and force her out of the bed physically; there's a violent tussle and she's upset and cries. She goes off. I feel very bad and have an impulse to go after her, but fall asleep instead.

Dream Log 6/13/37. I'm awakened within the dream by the sound of a little girl crying in her crib, in the laundry room next to my bedroom in this house. The sink (actually full of orphaned Mallard ducklings in a cage at present) has vanished, and the crib stands in its place. Both rooms are black as pitch, but I get up, grope my way to the little girl, and put my arms around her. At the same instant I become aware that Dad is sitting in a rocking chair where the washer ought to be. He's facing the crib, and he's stone blind. He rocks in a gentle, regular rhythm, a little smile on his face. (This doesn't sound terrifying, but I woke up terrified.)

Later: another dream. I'm running the bradshaw. Little Pam and I are sitting across from each other on the bed. Again I ask her to try to get the code key for me. She activates her phone, which has turned into a modern wall-mounted videophone, and places the call. At once a smiling Liam appears on the screen, looking as he did at fifteen. When Pam explains that we need his help, he reaches right through the screen and hands her a big iron key like a dungeon key from some old horror show. "You kids need to work together," he says.

17

Julie frowned and rubbed the sides of her nose with her extended fingers. "Let's go back to basics for a bit. We know your father was inappropriate with you, and that your mother turned a blind eye. We know that his behavior made you so anxious in early adolescence that you developed a dissociative disorder, though you didn't realize his sexualizing of your relationship was the cause. You've spent a lot of time connecting feelings to events and doing the necessary grief work. What I'm wondering now is, where's all this anger at your mother 'coming from?"

"The business about the boomclox?"

"That's a factor, of course, but I'm not convinced that that accounts for all of it. There's a lot of fear in these dreams too. Could you be angry at her for leaving you the bradshaw, and afraid of what you might learn?"

"If I could read the damn diary," I told her wearily, "maybe I'd know."

18

"Oh good! I was hoping you'd come back," said Little Pam. "I wanted to ask you about something."

I sat down on the Dutch girl quilt. "Shoot."

"You know that time last spring when Steve and Charlie and I had a fight before church, and I didn't want to sit with them so I sat with Ninnie?"

Ninnie was a family friend, older than my parents, who occupied the same front pew every Sunday. Surprised that the program would let her bring up a subject I hadn't introduced first, I said "Sure I do."

"And before the sermon started, Dad made me leave and come home with him?"

I nodded. "He was furious, and you had no idea why. You were walking along next to him, trying not to cry. And finally he said, in this terribly angry voice, 'Why weren't you sitting with the boys? And you said -- "at this point Little Pam chimed in, and we chanted together, "I don't want to talk about it."

"And then," Pam finished, "he said, 'I don't suppose you'll ever want to talk things over with me.'"

She brought it all so near. "He sounded disgusted. You were totally bewildered. The whole thing just seemed like some big craziness."

"Yeah. Then we got home and I ran inside and threw myself on Morn, bawling my head oft. She said, 'What in the world is the matter?' But I couldn't talk, I couldn't tell her. And anyway, I didn't know."

We sat silent for a bit. Finally I said, "So what's your question?"

Little Pam looked up at me soberly. "Well, you knew why Mom showed me the good boomclox before she took it back. I thought you might know what Dad was so mad about that time."

I got up, went around the foot of the bed, and sat down next to Pam. I put my arms around her tense little body and pulled her against me. She didn't resist, but neither did she respond. I didn't expect her to; Little Pam thought hugs were mushy, or thought she ought to think so. "I did finally figure it out," I told her. "He was mad because if you weren't going to sit with Steve and Charlie, he wanted you to sit with him."

She pulled away open-mouthed, totally flummoxed. "With dim ?"

I knew, of course, that the idea of sitting with Dad had never crossed her mind. Morn hadn't been in church that day for some reason; if she had been, maybe we might have sat with her instead of with Ninnie. But Dad, by himself? It simply never occurred to us. It would never have occurred to us in a million years.

"Now I've got one for you," I told her, releasing her from the circle of the embrace. "What happened next? After Dad came in. I can't remember."

"Mom just told me to go on up and change my clothes. They were talking downstairs. Then we had Sunday dinner."

So the episode had just been dropped. Morn had probably remonstrated with Dad for dragging us out of church, but neither of them had talked with us about it later, explained anything. We hadn't expected them to. They backed each other up through silence, believing instinctively that if nothing were said, it would be the same as if nothing had happened. I tended to think of Dad as the "problem," but it wasn't only Dad.

And suddenly I had a flash of insight about my recent dreams. I realized that both our parents, in their very different ways, had been stupid and cruel about plenty of things -- and that neither had protected us against the stupidities and cruelties of the other.

Now I hugged Little Pam again, hard. "Dad wants to be closer to you, but he doesn't know how to make it happen. Then he gets frustrated when he can tell you don't enjoy being with him. But it's not your job to fix that, honey. He's the dad, it's his job, only he doesn't know how to do his job -- and that's not his fault, either, but it sure as shootin' isn't yours, and it was really, really wrong of him to blame you and scare you like that."

Her arms clutched back at me, then let go. She wiped her nose on the back of her hand, as before, and sniffed a couple of times. Our tears always mostly ran down our nose, where they were less observable. I got up. "I have to go now, but I'll be back."

19

"We're kind of getting to know each other," I reported to Julie. "Reminiscing almost. It's nice. She's a pretty unattractive kid, actually, but we sure do have a lot in common."

"And she needs you so badly, too,"

I nodded. "I'd like to shake John Bradshaw's hand. All that hokey, cloying inner-child stuff? The hell of it is, he was right."

And a couple of sessions later.. "We're sitting on opposite aides of the bed, chatting about her birthday-- in 2013 she's got a birthday coming up -- and she hands me the diary, I let it fall open in the middle --not really paying that much attention, for once -- and then I see there's writing on the page, a pencil scribble, and my heart jumps into my throat. But then a second later I see what it is and start howling with laughter, and the poor kid gets upset -- she thinks I'm laughing at her, at something she wrote. I had to convince her that wasn't it. Here, I keyed it out for you." I held the pad close to the screen so Julie could see, and read aloud: "Kotar Tublat yud gom-lul kambo yang ta nala zor den. Kotar b'wang Tublat om zan dano histah, ho yummas Kotar rand gree-ah ho gree-ah histah unk lul." Julie's baffled expression made me laugh again. "You don't recognize it? It's Ape English -- Tarzan talk? '

Julie leaned forward, squinting at the screen. "Tarzan talk? You mean, it's a language?"

"But of course! My pal Steve and I learned a whole list of words of that was supposed to be the language of the Great Apes, from the Tarzan books, and we'd talk to each other in Ape while we'd be playing in the woods. It's a grammarless language, you just string words together. My name was Kotar, ko plus tar-- Mighty White. Pretty braggy name for such a scrawny kid! Steve was Tublat-- it means Broken Nose, but he just liked the sound of the word. Actually, I should have been Tublat, I was the one whose nose had been broken. Not that I knew that at the time."

"Pam, the suspense is killing me. What does this passage say?"

I laughed again, the Tarzan talk made me feel so happy. "Sorry to disappoint you, after all the build-up, but not much. It basically just says we went to the river bluff and swang on the rope swing and played sex games -- Steve used to let me play with his penis and watch him pee, and I'd let him kiss me."

"You're dismissing sexual play as 'not much,' given your particular history?"

"What I mean is, nothing flew. I've always remembered going to the woods with Steve after school, and the stuff we did."

Julie looked quizzical. "Which is the part that says `sex games?"

I held the pad up again. "I'm paraphrasing. Yumma was our word for `kiss' -- we made it up, Burroughs doesn't supply one. The Great Apes probably didn't go in for a lot of kissing. It says 'I held Steve's long skinbone snake, many kisses, I didn't like that too much but I love it when his snake pees.' More or less. 'Pee' is `go water,' literally --unk lul."

"Did you write in the diary in Ape, or is this another involuntary translations"

"Hmm." I considered this. "Actually, something as purple as this passage I might have written in Ape. In high school, when I wanted to record something embarrassing or private, I'd switch into German."

"But was the rest of the diary in Ape?"

I shook my head: "The other pages were blank, it was just one entry on that one page."

"Well! This is all extremely interesting," said Julie with great relish. "Your unconscious is still protecting the diary's contents using a code from childhood, but now it's a code you're able to read. More progress!"

"Yeah," I said. "I believe it is."

20

"How are the robins doing? Liam inquired. He'd called me twice more, very late at night, waking me on both occasions; it was like old times. P-mail would have been far less intrusive, but he didn't like p-mail; he liked exchanging live comments with a face on-screen, even a grouchy, sleepy face.

That being so, it was clever of him to ask about the birds. "Wingy, Pesky, or Gimpy?"

"These names you give them stun me with their originality. Gimpy would be..."

"The sick one -- the one the dog roughed up, that's got everything wrong with her, leg, wing, eye, beak, and a bad cold. Ever hear a bird cough?"

"I didn't know they could."

"Me neither. Well, she'd been hobbling around for a week on one normal foot and one fisted-up foot. Then yesterday, all of a sudden the bad foot opened up and bingo: two sets of toes! And I know she has at least partial vision back in the bad eye. So the news on Gimpy is cautiously good."

"I had no idea birds caught cold."

"Well, it's a flulike virus of some sort. I stick the dogfood in and sometimes she spits it back out -- her beak hurts, she can't swallow big pieces -- and it comes out slimy. Yesterday I saw her blow a bubble. And she's always scraping her beak on things to clean it off. Then there's the cough, this little pathetic hack hack"

"You're breaking my heart," said Liam. "Actually, you sort of are. She sounds like a wreck."

"She looks like a feather duster that got caught in a fan. Nobody thought she could possibly recover enough to be released, but after her foot unclubbed I started to hope."

I hadn't mentioned the bradshaw. Finally Liam could stand it no longer and asked how things were going.

"Still making slow progress," I told him. "If we get a breakthrough, you'll be among the first to know."

"Mind if I stick my, ah, beak in a little?" And when I grinned and didn't say no, "I don't mean to mess with whatever Julie's strategy is here, but I keep wondering if she's suggested that you ask the kid to help you."

I frowned. "No, I don't think so. Not even implicitly. Julie's been bending over backward not to make suggestions, even when I request them. She does interpretive stuff, but she's maintained the position from the start that I'll hit on the right approach myself when I'm ready."

"Oh."

I waited for him to go on, but he screwed his face into a skeptical mask and just sat there. Finally I said, "Come on, say what you're thinking. How can she help me out? The kid."

"See, Pam," said Liam, "it never occurs to you to ask for help. You didn't ask me to help you, when you realized you'd picked the wrong event and needed me to re-record your bradshaw. Instead you put our whole relationship on the line. You forced me to help you." I blinked. "I shouldn't have had to ask. You should have offered."

Liam shook his head impatiently. "Maybe so, but that's not my point. My point is, you help people without thinking twice, but you don't expect people to help you, you always think you have to do it by yourself. If help's offered, you accept it, but you never ask."

I'd recognized this very trait in Little Pam, of course, and been uncovering its roots in her family life. "Hunh. Okay, I accept that. But you kept repeating that you weren't going to miss that plane nomatter what. Are you saying now that all you wanted was for me to ask you nicely?"

"To tell you the truth," he admitted, "I'm not absolutely sure. Eddie was piling on the pressure, I might've felt you were asking too much. I don't mean you were," he added quickly, "but that's beside the point. What I would've decided back then is about me; and the point I'm trying to make now, and want to stick to, is about you not asking people for help."

"I did ask Julie," I reminded him.

"So you did. And she said you'd solve the puzzle by yourself when you were ready. But aren't you forgetting something? This kid isn't some other person, she is yourself! Julie's probably going nuts, wondering when you're finally gonna figure that out."

21

Little Pam looked up from the diary and gave me a big smile. "Hi!"

"Hi yourself," I said. "How're you feeling?"

"Better. Lots better. I love it when you come here."

I sat down on "my" side of the bed. She held the diary out to me; but this time I smiled and shook my head. "I guess we both know by now that I can't read it by myself. So I've had an idea: how would you feel about reading it to me?"

She looked surprised, then uncertain. "Out loud?"

"Just the parts you don't mind reading out loud. You could skip anything you didn't want me to hear."

"It's not...I mean, I don't mind you knowing things. I mean, you already do know them. There's just some of it I don't like to say out loud."

Little Pam was almost morbidly hypersensitive to the power of words. "I know. You could leave those parts out, though, that would be fine."

"We-e-e-e-l-l..."

She wrinkled her fleshy nose, still not sure. Pressuring this child was the very last thing I wanted to do; I reflected that Liam was wrong and Julie right about not pushing things in this direction quite so soon. "You don't have to read any of it to me if you don't want to, honey," I reassured her.

But she surprised me. "No, I do want to. Really. It's just, you know, embarrassing." She bent the covers back, ruffling the pages. "Where should I start?"

In answer, I sang the mother's part from the end of Amahl and the Night Visitors: "'Are you sure, sure, sure?'"

"'I'm sure!'" she sang back, tickled to be in on the joke.

"Well then, how about just starting at the beginning?"

Whereupon, to my inexpressible relief, Little Pam flipped to the front of the red book and began: "January 1, 2011. We went to the candlelight service last night and I stayed up till midnight. Today I worked on linear algebra. January 9.. Today I went to Doug's and we did linear algebra. I got all the problems right. It looked like snow all day but it never 'snowed. January 3. Today it snowed. I went sledding with Charlie on the scenic drive. There was a hefn on the viddy tonight, his name is Pomfrey!! January 4..."

I listened to her flat voice speaking these flat facts. After a while I shifted around and lay down on my back on the bed; and when Pam broke off inquiringly, "I'm just getting comfortable," I explained. "Don't stop, you're doing great."

"February 9," she read. "Today I went to Hurt Hollow with Dad. We walked down the hill. I got to feed the goats."

I laced my fingers together across my stomach, closed my eyes, and let this voice possess me. Time passed, or was borne along on the all-but expressionless murmur I floated within. Once I opened my eyes and glanced over to ask, "Are you getting tired? We could do some more next time."

"Nunh-unh, I'm fine," Pain said, and went right on: "May 12. Today we came to Louisville. May 13. I went to the store for Granny and we played Chinese checkers. Aunt Maude isn't feeling too well. I came to Grandma's for supper. May 14. Today we came home. I slept with Granny the first night and I went to Grandma's the second night. I fell off the couch in the middle of the night. I found three four-leaf clovers and one six-leaf clover. May 15. Today I worked .on fractals..."

-- but Pam had gone on without me. I lay in the dark by myself, breathing in the hateful smell of Grandma's living room, knowing that if I opened my eyes a tall shape would be stooping over the couch, but if I kept my eyes closed I wouldn't have to acknowledge its presence.

22

"Who do you think it might be?" Julie asked quietly. I'd called her from the VR parlor's public phone, whose cheap lens added ten years to her age (though the late hour may have added one or two).

"I feel like all that's keeping me from dying of terror is that I still don't know." Just thinking about it, I shook like an aspen leaf. "But it must have been Edgar, Dad's stepfather, Edgar Cranfill. You remember I talked about him. A really bad alcoholic. Arrested for exhibitionism one time. On our visits he'd either be sleeping it off in the basement or sitting at Grandma's kitchen table, all stubbly and reeking of whiskey, and I was supposed to act like I was glad to see him."

My teeth chattered as I said this. Julie looked concerned. "Time for a break.* You could take a couple of weeks off, get used to the idea of what you'll be confronting-"

I shook my head. "No, I have to go right back in. The kid has no idea why I ran away like that. One second I'm lying on the bed with my eyes closed and the next I'm halfway out the door. She had this jolted look on her face-- I don't even remember getting off the bed, I must have levitated! I have to get right back, as soon as I calm down a little bit."

Julie nodded. "Sounds like you're getting the hang of the gear, anyhow. Listen now: call me after you end the program tonight. Don't try to prove how tough you are. I'm here, and I truly want to help, and I'm very concerned that you pace yourself appropriately with this, okay?"

"Okay," I said shakily. "Thanks."

23

"Let's go back to the beginning of May, all right.?" I'd apologized for bolting, and resettled myself on the bed. "I'd just like to go over that part again. We can do the rest another time."

"Okay, but I'm really not tired, so if you want me to keep going..." She found the place and began to read. "May 1. Charlie built a soap box racer and he gave me a ride but he pushed me too fast and it turned over. Morn made me come in. May 2..."

I waited tensely for the trip to Louisville, but knowing it was coming left me too well defended. The replay was unrevealing.

Despite the kid's protestations that she wasn't tired, I stopped the bradshaw when she'd read to the end of May; I was shuddering with fatigue myself. I put a quick call through to Julie and was stowing the gear in the hall locker when the pay phone beeped and blinked on, and Humphrey's dear hairy face peered benevolently down upon me. "Hello, Pam Pruitt," he chirruped.

His was the very last face I expected to see there. "Humphrey! I thought you were still hibernating! However did you find me?" I glanced up and down the hallway, but at this late hour we had the place to ourselves.

"I was asleep," he said, "but someone woke me."

The Hefn stayed awake round the clock for half the year, then slept for several months together, bedded down in their mother ship on the moon. Since only aliens ever went there, this rude arousal might mean that Humphrey was in trouble again for supporting us humans. "Why'd they do that? Will you be okay.?"

"I will be fine; I was to awaken in a few weeks' time in any event. And I had left standing orders that if you should initiate your bradshaw during my long sleep, and it should approach a climax, someone was to wake me. My dear, you must not waver in your resolve. You must complete the bradshaw, as quickly as you can."

It struck me then that Humphrey had eavesdropped on this evening's session. The Hefn were within the terms of their sales agreement to do that at any time, but I didn't like it that Humphrey hadn't given me advance notice, and found it irritating to be urged not to quit, when I'd had no thought of quitting. I said, rather resentfully, "Why `must' I complete it?"

"Because there is so much important work to be done, and you are so badly needed."

"Humphrey," I said wearily, "You know I can't do the real work anymore, and what the Sam Hill has the bradshaw got to do with it anyhow?"

"We shall see. Perhaps nothing." He twinkled at me. "Go home and sleep now, my dear. I will stay in touch."

24

HE WASN'T GOING to tell me anything more, and I was too tired to think, so I did as he instructed: I biked home and went to bed and to sleep.

In my dream I'm lying again on the Dutch girl quilt, afloat within the uninflected sphere created by Little Pam's reading voice. I can't make out the words, but behind my closed eyelids I see myself get up from Grandma's living-room couch and wander into the kitchen. Dad is standing near the sink in the dark. He's aware of me but takes no notice and doesn't stop what he's doing. At first I don't understand what this is, but suddenly I realize his pants are unfastened and he's masturbating with his right hand, intending to ejaculate into the kitchen sink. In his left hand he's holding a metal bowl full of water and crushed ice, swirling the contents of the bowl rhythmically in time to the rhythm of his beating-off.

My reactions are two, and contradictory. I'm very turned on. And I'm frantic to get out of there.

In my panic flight from my monstrous father I try desperately to wake up. I labor and groan, try to pry my eyes open, struggle against sleep with all my strength; but I'm weak as water. Despite everything I can do I'm still supine on the bed, and Little Pam's voice is still droning on, when out of the fog of words her voice says clearly: Take Two.

-- and I'm back on the couch in Grandma's house. It's the middle of the night, and I'm lying on my back in the dark, on top of someone or something whose meaty hands I'm holding. Terror has suffused me utterly. I get up and walk into the bathroom, holding on with horror and loathing to the meaty hands. I'm just about to look in the mirror over the basin to find out who they belong to -- shrinking away in anticipation -when Take Three, says Little Pain, and then Take Four, and each time the ghastly bradshaw of my dreaming starts the program at the same place: me on the couch in Grandma's dark living room, in the middle of the night.

Every "take" is different, but many of the same elements are incorporated into each: a male masturbator, a basin or sink usually full of water, myself as a very young child -- much younger than eleven -- in the role of participant/observer, and the emotional conflict of arousal and extreme fear.

25

"We're getting close," Julie said the next morning, stating the obvious. "How do you feel?"

"Terrible. Like horses have been kicking me all night."

"You don't look too chipper, I have to admit. Maybe you can catch a nap later. Have you had dreams like these before?"

I massaged my aching temples with my fingers. "Yeah, a few. Never a batch on the same night. There was the one about my cousin Will standing naked in front of a bathroom basin full of water, while two `pornographic hands' -- that's how they were styled in the dream-- came up out of the water to help him masturbate. And the one about...well, about me sloshing Liam's penis around in the basin of a hotel bathroom, while a strange man in a navy blue suit stood by with his shriveled genitals exposed, saying `You can do anything you like with these.' That's all I can remember, there might be others."

"Affect of that last one?"

"Mixed. I wanted nothing to do with the icky man and his icky organs, and told him so, but still I touched his dick when he invited me to."

"Terror? Arousal?"

"Not that I recall. More like disagreeableness. Look, Julie..." She waited, holding perfectly still. "Would you consider monitoring the next one? I'm scared. Liam says I never ask for help. Well, I'm asking. I'm not sure I can do this by myself."

She smiled and nodded, looking and sounding as positive as possible, to reassure me. "You probably can, but why should you.? I'd say right now is an excellent time to bring in flank support. Did Humphrey agree to monitor as well?"

"I didn't ask him to. He said he'd keep in touch, that's all. I tried to reach him this morning in Santa Barbara but he didn't answer, and I'm not even sure that's where he was calling from. Liam hadn't seen him --didn't even know he was awake. Something seriously weird is going on."

"Well," said Julie briskly, "Humphrey and I may have different perspectives and agendas, but we both agree that finishing your bradshaw is all-important. And whether he's there or not, I will be, whenever you want me."

So the following evening Julie was standing by when I entered the room of my childhood. That is, she was in VR hookup in Washington. She could monitor my vital signs -- pulse rate, brain wave patterns, skin moisture -- through transmitters built into the VR equipment; I'd connected myself up to them for the first time for this session. She could see everything in two dimensions on a lifesize screen: me and Little Pam, the bed with its handmade quilt, the bureau and its hideous boomclox, the row of books along the baseboard, the window streaming with sun. She could hear what both of us said, and if I were to address her directly she could answer me through the transmitters in my helmet; but, unless I did that, Little Pain would be unaware of the third party present at our meeting.

Pam couldn't see me, either, till I passed through the doorway. I stood outside for a minute first, readying myself, watching her write in the red book, trying to discern outward signs that she'd repeatedly gone through some hideous experience.

Even to me, her surface seemed perfectly blank. If there was trauma there -- and surely there was -- it was very deeply buried. I tapped on the door frame and stepped through smiling. "Hi, kidd.."

"Hi! Want me to finish the diary now?" She was all eagerness, relishing the attention.

"That would be way cool." I flopped down on the bed and, deepening my voice, sang Balthasar's question to Amahl, "'Are you ready?'"

"'Yes, I'm ready! '"

"'Let's go, then.'"

"June 1," she read promptly. "It was pretty today. I saw a yellow warbler and an indigo bunting at the Point. June 2. More wants me to take dancing lessons and I don't want to. I watched the Hefn program on the viddy. It was good. Dad got me a book at the library about the Herin for my school report. June 3. I don't have to. take dancing lessons, they cost money. Today Grandma came with Uncle Tommy. June 4..."

-- and, without even an instant in which to signal Julie, I'm afloat upon the surface of the light fiat voice --

-- and watch myself get up from Grandma's couch and wander through the dark house to the bathroom. The door is partly closed. There's a light on inside, and a radio playing lively music. I reach up for the doorknob and push the door open wider.

Uncle Tommy is standing at the basin, running it full of water. He's back late from the race track, he's been playing the horses. He jumps when he sees me peering around the door -- I've startled him -- but then he smiles. "Hi, hon. Wanna see somethin' nice.? C'mon in here, I'm gon' show you somethin' real nice." Tommy is wearing his dark blue sailor uniform; he joined the Navy when he was sixteen, not very long ago. I come closer, and now I see that the front of his pants is unfastened and hanging down, and behind the square flap is a round opening like a cave, and coming out of the cave is a thing like a big white snake.

My eyes fill with the white snake, and two feelings seize me simultaneously. One is intense sexual excitement and fascination. The other is guilt: I know I'll be punished if anybody catches me in here. I know this from the sneaky way Tommy's talking. He smells terrible when he talks.

"See it?" Uncle Tommy says, and I can't help myself, I come closer. I put up my hands and hold onto the edge of the basin. There's a towel folded against the basin's front edge, and the snake is lying on the towel. "See, now, this is my peter. Ever see a peter like this before?" I shake my head. "Well, it's kinda dirty so I'm washing it. Here, you can help. Let's just wet your hands and soap 'em up real good" -- he holds my hands under the faucet and rubs soap on the palms-- "and then you can help wash my peter for me."

I put my slippery hands around the snake and Tommy says, "Oh, Jesus." Then he says, "Just wash it off real good, just rub it up and down." I know I'm in terrible danger, but the snake feels hard and smooth. I love the feel of it. I love the silky skin of its pink head shaped like a blind frog's head, and the long shaft like a smooth enormous finger gloved in kid.

I lean my elbows on the sink and dunk the snake in the warm water and trace the lovely curve of its head with my soapy fingers; and then suddenly something happens. Tommy grabs my hands in his big ones and squeezes them hard around his peter, and stuff spurts out of the end, dirtying the water in the basin. He squeezes my hands on the peter and moans. Is he crying? I don't like this part, but Uncle Tommy's gasping like he's been running, he won't listen and he won't let go of my hands. The sleeves of my pajamas are wet, I'm trying to pull away and he won't let me go, and I start to get scared, and I start to cry. And then the door swings wide open and it's barefoot Grandma in her nightgown with her hair all mashed flat on one side, saying "Tommy Cranfill, what in tarnation are you doin' to that child? Pammy, you git yourself back into bed right this minute."

I can't, though. In the shock of being discovered, to my intense horror and shame I've wet my pajamas.

26

Little Pam's voice came abruptly into focus. "July 4. Today is the Fourth of July. We had a church picnic in Happy Valley. I climbed up the falls. Tonight they had fireworks at Scofield Beach and we watched them from the Point. July 5 -- you're crying," she blurted, sounding scared out of her wits. She couldn't stand to see people cry, even other kids. She'd never seen Mom cry in her whole life.

I lifted my head from the pillow and smiled shakily to reassure her. "Yeah, I am, a little. It's okay to cry if you're sad, you don't have to be afraid of it. Nothing bad will happen."

"Are you sad? What about?"

"I can't explain right now, but don't worry, everything's okay. You're not making me sad. Go ahead, keep on reading."

So she did, nervously at first, then relaxing as the diary reabsorbed her attention. I lay there feeling the heavy rise and fall of my chest, listening accepting what I heard; and finally "August 9.5," she read, "Today I packed for Louisville. I'm going to Granny's tomorrow by myself on the packet. That's all! That's what I was writing when you came in!" She slapped the book shut and beamed at me.

I sat up groggily; I was exhausted. "You're going, to Louisville tomorrow?" She nodded. "Will you stay at Grandma's part of the time?"

Pam's face slipped a fraction. "I don't know. If Morn wants me to."

I circled the bed, sat beside her and pulled her against me fiercely. "If you stay at Grandma's, here's what I want you to remember. You don't have to do anything if it makes you feel bad. Not even if a grownup tells you to, and not even if you've done it before, and not even if Mom gets mad at you: if it makes you feel bad, don't do it. Refuse. Say no." I leaned back and looked into her face, brushing her stringy hair back from her face. "Listen to me. This is important. You can say no."

She frowned, puzzled; she'd been conditioned all her life to believe that children weren't to bother, inconvenience, or disobey adults. She'd never been taught to protect herself, and-- because Tommy's abuse, visit after visit, got consistently repressed -- she had no idea why I was telling her these things in such a serious way. She said as much. "I don't get it."

"Never mind. Just remember what I. said. Promise."

"Okay, I promise." And then, seemingly taking herself by surprise, she lunged against me in an awkward hug.

I hugged her back, stood up carefully; I felt heavy as lead. "Time to go now. Thanks very, very much for reading me your diary, honey, it's been a huge help. Did you leave much out?"

"Only a little part, about a book I read."

"Was it Shane?" She ducked her head, cringing, but nodded. "I remember. I don't blame you a bit. 'Bye now. Have a great time at Granny's." I tottered to the doorway, smiled back at beaming Pam, and closed the program down. "Julie? Did you get all that?

"I did indeed. My phone's set up; we can talk right now, as soon as you're out of your gear."

27

Julie asked dutifully, "Are you okay?" but clearly she was dying to debrief me, and when I nodded she cut straight to the chase. "When Pain Junior read the entry for June 3, you slipped into deep trance. Pure alpha waves for eight minutes, then back to normal. What happened?"

I told her. "I don't think it was a dream. I think it was a memory, triggered by the reference to Grandma and Uncle Tommy."

"Do you know, in all this time you've never mentioned an uncle named Tommy."

Hadn't I? I reflected. "There didn't seem to be any reason to. He was Dad's half-brother, 'the son of Grandma and Edgar the Souse. Much younger. A very minor figure in my life, or so I thought. I had totally forgotten that Tommy lived in Grandma's house during the years More used to make me sleep over there on Saturday nights. He was between marriages and probably out of a job. But that was later; in the memory -dream? --whatever, he was wearing Navy dress blues. And I couldn't have been more than three, I had to reach up for the doorknob. By the time I've been talking about, four-plus years later, he wasn't in the Navy anymore."

Julie had her hot-on-the-trace look; her eyes were glittering. "As a child, how did you feel about Uncle Tommy?"

I was almost too tired to think, but I tried. "Actually, I kind of liked him when I was little-- he played with me some, and I always thought he was good-looking. Though funnily enough, when I cleaned out the house after More died I came across some old holos of him and was surprised at how...dissolute and seedy he looked in them. Not handsome at all. Even in a portrait made when he was about twelve there was something wrong, and I know when I was a kid I thought he looked so cute in that picture. It fits, doesn't it? Julie--" I leaned toward the screen. "What do you think? Memory or dream? It didn't seem like a dream. No symbols, perfect narrative coherence --"

"Well, it wasn't REM sleep. As I said, according to the readings you weren't asleep at all; it was a trance state, a very deep involuntary hypnotic trance. Now, I know you're done in, and we'll stop soon, but I'd really like to hear anything at all that you can remember about Uncle Tommy."

At once, to my surprise, a scene popped into mind. "Okay, here's something. One time -- I was ten or eleven-- I wrote, 'Souls I want to save: Uncle Tommy' on the fly leaf of my Bible. And I've always remembered I did that, because Mom told him I'd written it. According to her, Tommy said he appreciated that and he'd think about it real hard. She was pleased, she thought Tommy was pretty much of a bum. She was pleased with me for wanting to save his soul." Thinking about it, I got agitated. "I know exactly where I was sitting -- in the living room, at the hallway end of the couch -- when Mom told me she'd done this, beaming with approval. I pretended not to mind, but I was embarrassed and stricken to realize she'd been snooping into my private stuff."

Julie shook her head, imagining our family. ,'Why do you suppose you wanted to save his soul? That seems kind of unexpected."

A wave of exhaustion broke and sloshed around me; the volume of energy required in heavy-duty therapy was a constantly renewed astonishment. In the midst of this wave I sat and remembered how Little Pam had read out the facts of her encoded life, in terse declarative sentences, skipping over the one place where her feelings were so intense they'd forced her to try to put them into words. But out of this assembling heap of dry little facts a static charge had built up and built up until the bolt had struck and stunned me. Only me: Little Pam felt nothing, as I'd felt nothing when I was Little Pam. Her feelings had been shoved down into a place where they would fester in the dark for nearly thirty years, because for thirty years there was nobody in her life who wanted to help her not suffer so much, or so she believed without question.

I answered Julie as best I could. "I don't know why. Maybe I thought, if he was saved, he'd leave me alone. There's something perverse about it, though, some kind of `Love your enemy' thing. Tommy had an awful life, both Dad's brothers did." I looked up, startled by a thought. "I just remembered, one of my aunts told me Tommy's first wife was an abused child, she'd been raped by her uncle...her uncle, by God!"

"Did Tommy rape your" Julie asked quietly.

"Nobody ever raped me. Actually, Tommy was a diabetic; he may have been impotent as an older man. He had two wives but no children, that I know. But he must have gone for me, every time I spent the night at Grandma's while he was living there. Every time." I flashed on the menacing presence I had sensed leaning above me on the couch, that first day Little Pam had read to me from her diary, and gagged with claustrophobia, though what he might have done to me then I couldn't begin to guess. "Except," I added, "maybe not during the fifth grade, the year before this one. He might not have been living there that year."

Julie nodded alertly. "You kept the fifth-grade diary." "Right." "Is Uncle Tommy still alive?"

"No, not for years. He died of something to do with the diabetes. He didn't take care of himself at all."

My exhaustion was by now so extreme that Julie quelled her curiosity with a visible act of will and pushed back her chair. "We can go over it some more tomorrow. You need to get to bed. Just one last thing I'm not clear about," she couldn't help adding. "Your uncle abused you sexually, that now seems clear. You hated going to the place where he had access to you. Yet you speak of him without anger, almost with compassion. The anger and fear are all directed at your mother. Any thoughts about that?"

"What she did was worse," I replied at once; and for the first time in all my years of off-again on-again therapy with Julie I broke down in her presence, or at least her videopresence; I started to cry.

Julie had witnessed my exchange with Little Pam on the subject of crying, of course; but that was the bradshaw. This was the two of us, therapist and patient, and she tried not to appear to gloat as the tough nut cracked at long last before her eyes.

As for me, I was past caring. "Tommy was an ignorant simp. He used me but he didn't mean me any harm, he didn't know I'd be damaged, I'd lay odds he was Granddaddy Edgar's sex toy as a kid-- maybe all those kids were, nobody in Dad's family knew a boundary from a turnip. But Morn loved me, and I loved her. She really loved me, and she betrayed me over and over and over. With Tommy the stakes weren't that high, there was no true betrayal, but with Mom --"

I broke off, sobbing like a baby. "Take your time," said Julie, kindly if avidly.

"Mom knew I didn't want to sleep over at Grandma's," I said when I could talk, "but she made me go. She didn't care why I didn't want to, she only cared about not offending Grandma by letting me stay both nights at Granny's house. We'd all three get in the taxi and drive over there, and we'd have dinner, and then Morn and Dad would get back in another taxi and go back to Granny's in the dark, and leave me behind. And pick me up for church the next morning." By now I was bawling again.

"And you don't blame your father for allowing this to happen."

I mopped my face with a handful of tissues and blew my nose. "Whew. No. Well, yes -- but not in the same way. He didn't care whether I went over there or not. Mom was the one who cared about preserving appearances--and, to be fair, about not hurting Grandma's feelings."

"But your feelings didn't matter."

"No," I said, and in spite of everything I still felt surprise at this sign that somebody-- Julie -- thought they did. "Dad didn't stop her, true, but if I'd appealed to him...I just hit on this: if I'd pleaded with him. to stick up for me, if I'd told him how much I didn't want to go, he might very well have intervened with More."

"But you didn't."

"It never, ever occurred to me. Like it never occurred to me to sit with him in church that time. On some level of my childhood, he just didn't exist."

28

The next morning I called in sick. Then I called Julie and put her off till after the weekend. Felled like a tree by the bradshaw's revelations, I lay all day on the living-room couch in my pajamas and bathrobe, the tattered Dutch girl quilt tucked round me. I turned off the phone, kept the blinds closed, ignored the mail, and generally treated the reaction I was having like a bad case of flu, rousing myself only to feed the robins their disgusting lumps of dogfood.

I'd been napping, I guess, when the doorbell woke me. I glanced at the clock: nearly midnight. Whoever was out there must be on urgent business, but I simply didn't care. Another long brrrring! sounded, and another, while I lay in my apathy, wishing the importunate caller away. Instead, brief silence was followed by the scrabbling of a key in the lock; and, before I could bestir myself enough to rise from my bed of misery and confront the intruder, a stumpy figure in a hooded cloak had slipped inside and closed the door. "Hello, my dear, hello. No, no, don't get up."

Hefn can see perfectly in the dark, but I can't; I sat up and reached above my head to switch on a lamp. And there, of course, was Humphrey, his gray visage bristling and peering out of the draped maroon folds of his cavernous hood. He made a hilarious sight, but I wasn't in a laughing mood. "You look exactly like one of Tolkien's dwarves in that getup. What brings you here at this hour? Or at all, I might have asked, since as far as I knew he should have been in Santa Barbara.

"I am traveling incognito." (This did make me grin in spite of everything.) Throwing back the hood, he shrugged off his cloak and stepped over it to straddle the Hefn chair I kept around the house for him. "Did I not say I would stay in touch? And has your phone not been turned off all day? I was not speaking idly, Pam Pruitt. There are things I must now tell you. Now. Immediately."

I wouldn't have thought it possible, but the main thing Humphrey had to tell me made me feel worse than I did already. It turns out that my mother hadn't sacrificed and saved to buy me my bradshaw. The bradshaw represented no vote of confidence from beyond the grave, because Mom hadn't given it to me at all. He had.

"I always found it do you say hard to swallow that a mathematical gift like yours, so powerful, so elegant, could be only a mere means of escaping a painful situation. I did not believe that such a gift could simply be discarded, when escape was no longer required," he explained, all unawares, while I clutched the quilt tight around me, blindsided by this new grief. "When we began to market the bradshaws, it came to my attention that a bradshaw, used effectively, could restore power to people who had for various reasons of trauma lost their power. And the more attention I paid, the more it seemed to me that some of these people were not unlike you, and some of this lost power was not unlike your own.

"But I saw also difficulties. The frontal attack was not a way to success. Nor could the customer be coerced. In every instance, the lost power returned incidentally, a byproduct of a freely chosen confrontation with the source of trauma. Unhappily I was forced to conclude that to press a bradshaw upon you and urge you to use it, in a deliberate attempt to regain what you had lost, must result in failure."

As far as I knew, this was more by a good deal than human psychologists had figured out about bradshaws. While most of my mind remained stunned, some small piece registered Humphrey's summary, aware of how much it would mean to Julie.

"I schemed therefore, I plotted. The Bureau needed you back. The work needed you back. I needed you, most urgently." His wide flat eyes gleamed and his oddly jointed arms made stabbing gestures in the air; I'd rarely seen him so excited and never so thoroughly pleased with himself. "There were other reasons why I could not openly, directly, as myself, make a bradshaw available to an employee of the Bureau of Temporal Physics -- you understand? -- but when Frances Pruitt became ill I saw an opportunity. I obtained a copy of her will, and I altered it."

I felt a stab of hope. "Did Mom provide you with the copy of her will? 'Did she know what you were up to?

"No no no, indeed not, my dear, she knew nothing. I never spoke with her of this. But when she died, I acted. I substituted the altered will for the genuine one, and supplied a voucher for the bradshaw. There was then nothing more to be done, but to hope that you would use the bradshaw soon, 'and that using it would restore your gift.,,

Humphrey crowed on about the excellent chance that remembering what Tommy did had indeed unblocked my intuition, and how he would set about testing me to find out. I sat hunched in the semidarkness, so angry I didn't trust myself to speak. Telling him how I felt would have been pointless; the delicate crime he'd perpetrated, by raising false hopes about my mother's faith in me, isn't the sort of thing a Hefn understands. By his own lights he had done well; and I think I realized even then that false hopes were part of what. had empowered me to work past the obstacles and tolerate the terrors of running the bradshaw.

But if I refrained from remonstrating, still it was impossible to forgive Humphrey, that evening, for his stupendous presumption. I refused to let him test me then and there; and after he'd swirled the wizard's cloak around himself and stumped upstairs, to work at my computer complex till morning, I had no heart to put myself properly to bed. I fell on my side, pulled the quilt up under my chin, and went back to sleep where I lay.

29

Two DAYS AFTER Humphrey's visit, Pope Miguel I and Klas-Goran Ormelius, Head of the United Nations, met with Alfrey and Pomfrey at Thingvellir, the Hefn base in Washington DC. Miguel declared that he could no longer in good conscience counsel the Catholic countries to patience and restraint. Ormelius wasted no time making threats he couldn't carry out; he simply told the aliens that U.N. forces were inadequate to deal with widespread social chaos of the type we were beginning to see, and pleaded with them to lift the Baby Ban, as the sole means of avoiding a complete breakdown of international order.

The Hefn acknowledged the realities of the world situation by agreeing that on New Year's. Day 2038, a little more than six months from that day, they would either present humanity with a final plan for keeping its numbers within bounds -- or return to the moon and the ship and depart, leaving Earth to her fate.

30

The next evening I called Liam to discuss the BTP's redefined situation. The Hefn and their human collaborators now had just about half a year in which to throw everything we had at discovering the workable population-control strategy that had so far eluded us. The months ahead would be filled with very hard work. We all understood that everything was at stake; we had to find some model in the past with power to instruct and inspire the future, if human beings were to have a future on Earth at all. No one at the Bureau of Temporal Physics was despairing; the urgency of the situation only made them all the more determined. That was how I felt myself. Probably it was how the scientists on the Manhattan Project felt, and the ones at NASA before the first moon shot.

Deadline pressure had already had a terrifically energizing effect on Liam. My call found him in top form, bursting with resolve and fresh ideas. He'd made plans to leave in a few days for the Four Corners region, on the powerful hunch that if we could discover exactly why the Anasazi people had abandoned the Mesa Verde area and migrated south, that information might shed some useful light on our own problem.

I'd vaguely assumed that all the really popular mysteries must have been cleared up years ago. "You mean we still don't know what happened to the Anasazi? What have the anthropologists been doing with themselves all these years?"

"Nobody ever went down there with a transceiver to find out. They've got about fifteen different competing theories about what happened, and turns out they all feel like it would be cheating not to figure it out from potsherds and tree-rings."

I shook my head at this interesting example of human behavior. "I thought we were supposed to call them Hivasu or something now. The Anasazi."

Liam grinned. "Hisatsinom. Not at present. What have you been doing with yourself, all that time in Utah? Anasazi is the Navajo word for 'ancient enemies,' but the Anasazi are ancestral to the modern Pueblos. It's political, it goes back and forth. This week it's correct to say Anasazi. Did you just call up to chat, or have you got something to report?"

So I told him about my "breakthrough." Even in the midst of his planning Liam had enough surplus energy to find the story fascinating, and was quick to claim credit for the part he'd played: "Didn't I tell you you and the kid should work together?"

"You did. You were right, O Genius. Thank God you stayed and shot that second bradshaw."

A look passed between us, establishing that Liam was by this time actually glad he'd given in, but wasn't going to come right out and say so. Instead he said, "You're better off knowing, then?"

"Yes, technically I'm sure I'm better off, and Julie thinks so too. I can't honestly say I feel better yet, but I think I will eventually."

"Yeah, well, that's an article of faith with Julie. Ironic, isn't it? Your room leaves you the bradshaw, and here it turns out that in a way the primary villain of the story is your mom!"

"Ironic indeed." I thought how this result would have infuriated her, how angrily she would have defended against it, and felt a wrench of grief like a muscle cramp.

Liam, alert and sensitive today, said at once, "Funny how the personal life always perks right along regardless, whether or not the world's going to hell."

"You've noticed that too, eh?"

"Have I ever." He paused. "So things are pretty good? Speaking personally."

"I'd say," I said carefully, "speaking personally, that things are better than might be expected, but that all this will take some getting used to. How are things in Santa Barbara? How's Eddie?"

"Eddie's okay. Listen, I should have told you first thing-- Humphrey showed up here this morning."

"I know, I talked to him."

"He's calling a general meeting out here, did he tell you that?"

I nodded. "He wants me to come out. Are the dates on the calendar yet ?"

"Not the exact dates. Whenever Jeffrey and Godfrey come out of hibernation-- couple of weeks, something like that. We're supposed to be prepared to drop everything when the word comes down. I'll be back from New Mexico by then, processing my data like mad to get it ready in time to present."

"And I'll be up to traveling by then. Let me know if you want some help with the data."

"Thanks, I might at that. What did you mean, 'up to traveling by then?'"

I felt a wicked smile spread across my face, the first in a long, long time. "I've scheduled some elective surgery. Nothing to be concerned about, just something I should have taken care of a long time ago. And don't ask," I said as he opened his mouth to do so, "I want to surprise you." I didn't add that I would also have a far more amazing, more wonderful surprise to spring -- purchased at a brutally high price, but none the less wonderful in the end for that.

Liam, however, looked smug. "You're getting a cosmetic remake as a Hefn. I knew it would come to this eventually." And when I only grinned, refusing to take the bait -- and when he sensed I was about to break the connection -- he forestailed me by saying quickly, "So, uh, how's avian life perking along in a world gripped in crisis? How's Gimpy?"

I was being manipulated, but this time I didn't mind. "Gimpy, my lad, is the greatest success in my entire career as a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Rehabilitation Permit sub-permittee. I told you her foot opened up and her eye was better? Well, just in the past two days she started eating by herself -- and whole pieces of dogfood, so her beak must have healed up."

"Ever figure out what was wrong with it?"

"Broken, I guess. Sprained? The upper and lower halves didn't meet right. Anyway, that's not all. Her broken wing had healed too, she'd started flying a little, but just low to the ground. Well, because of all the cats I'd been making the other robins sleep in the apricot tree --"

"How do you make a bird sleep in a tree?"

"You grab it and throw it up in the air as hard as you can, right at dusk. It'll come down in a tree and stay there. Anyway. Gimpy couldn't fly or perch, so she'd been spending the night on the back of a folded lawn chair. Then yesterday afternoon she went missing."

"And you went looking for a corpus delecti."

"I did. But I finally found her next door, way up in a big lilac bush. She looked like she'd climbed up there using both wings and both feet, but she was up higher than my head in the thing, and I figured if she could do that, maybe she could perch on a tree limb. So last night I stuck her up in the apricot tree, to see what would happen. And she held on! She spent the whole night up there, and flew down out of it this morning when I went out to serve breakfast, looking for all the world like a normal bird. Well, a normal bird who'd been through a truly terrible experience." I laughed; I was extremely happy about Gimpy's recovery. "And she gobble, d up her dog food, and I haven't seen her since. I think maybe she's taken off. Two of the others have. She finally got over her cold."

When I concluded my tale with an enormous yawn, Liam relented and said goodnight and see you soon. I repeated my offer to help analyze Anasazi data if time were tight, and hung up.

What I'd refrained from saying-- though he would know soon enough -- was that I wouldn't be frittering away the next frenetic months in exile in Salt Lake City. After flying out to Santa Barbara for Humphrey's meeting, I'd be staying for the duration.

Still wiped out from the upheavals of the past few days, I told the phone not to bother me till further notice and went straight to bed. No sooner had I burrowed under the covers and doused the light than I was out cold; and almost that soon the kaleidoscope of fractal dreams began to revolve, transmigrating one pattern into the next, just as it had each night since the night of Humphrey's midnight visit.

Pure fractals were all it showed me. I didn't dream about my relatives at all.

~~~~~~~~

By Judith Moffett

PLUMAGE FROM PEGASUS

Scissors Cut Paper, Paper Covers Schlock

"If Stephen King, John Grisham, and Michael Crichton got together, they'd become one of the top three publishers overnight."

SWEATINGdespite the cool re-circulated air, his nervous stomach spasming, his lanky shock-cushioned body nearly folded in half around various struts and controls, Michael Crichton IV rolled into the luxurious boardroom of KGC Publishing, secure in the cramped interior of his armored trundlebug. This model, equipped with a wide range of sensors, weapons, and defenses, was the same one used by the troops of such protectorates as Microsoft-Snapple and Harvard-Sam Adams. Nothing short of an illegal quantum-disruptor could penetrate this heavy carapace.

With the announcement Crichton IV intended to make today, he knew he'd need every ounce of shielding.

No one could be counted on to react more fiercely than partners betrayed.

Not that Crichton IV's confederates were especially pleasant even when coddled. Their three-way partnership was riven with strife. Dayto-day management of KGC involved too many violent emotions, too many bruised artistic sensibilities. Literary trespassing and poaching, even if unintentional, on what the partners deemed their personal territories raised hackles and frequently brought down massive internecine firepower. This was the forty-second headquarters they had gone through in the nearly one hundred years of their existence -- and it certainly wouldn't be the last.

Assuming KGC even continued to exist after today.

Crichton IV tracked his vehicle around the teak conference table and into a power position from which he could monitor the entrance to the boardroom. Calling this meeting for ten A.M., he had deliberately arrived before the others so as to secure the most advantageous spot. One of the building's load-bearing beams ran directly above him, and he hoped it might serve to protect him from the eventual falling debris.

Now on his monitors Crichton IV saw his partners arrive, concealed in their own armored carriers. Deliberately built only wide enough for one vehicle at a time, the boardroom door was the first test of status. Crichton IV watched as Stephen King VI and John Grisham III jostled for precedence, with King VI eventually winning. Crichton IV wasn't surprised: King VI was as daring and impulsive as all of his identical ancestors, taking risks the other partners shied away from. That was why there had been six of him, though, compared to four Crichtons and three Grishams.

Now on two of Crichton IVs screens popped up the images of his partners. Neither of them looked very happy.

"You'd better have a damn good reason for making me haul my ass away from my studio this early in the morning," said King VI. "I barely got fifty pages written since breakfast."

"I concur," said Grisham III. "We might have the basis of a suit or at least an actionable tort here. Scribendi interruptus. "

Beating around the bush wouldn't make the fateful words any easier to say. Crichton IV cleared his throat with a rasping sound and uttered the deadly sentence.

"Gentlemen, I want to resign--"

Ravening gouts of belligerent hell-energy erupted from the one-man tanks of his partners, setting off coruscating force-shield reactions amongst all three. Instantly, the walls of the boardroom were reduced to atoms, opening the suite to the cool air two hundred meters above ground level. The ceiling was partially evaporated, along with a good-sized chunk of the seven remaining floors above, and a radiant flare shot out from the top of the KGC building, as if signaling construction crews to begin pouring the foundations for HQ number forty-three.

Thank god l gave the publicity department the day off, Crichton IV thought.

Luckily, the floor of the boardroom was reinforced with the same material used in the Quito Beanstalk, so the partners did not plunge to the basement. Instead, they remained in place for the downfall of debris that quickly followed the spectacular attack. And, as Crichton IV had foreseen, King VI and Grisham III were buried, while he was protected by a truncated portion of the building's structural components.

Quickly, before his opponents could extricate themselves, Crichton IV whipped his trundlebug over to the junkpiles and extruded two metal tentacles which burrowed down intelligently to the immobilized vehicles, clamped on, and administered a paralyzing surge that fried their electronics. Into the defenseless tanks, the tentacles next insinuated audiovideo feeds under the control of an exultant Crichton IV. The shaken but unharmed faces of King VI and Grisham III reappeared on his screens.

"Okay, you two -- now you're going to listen to me."

His partners scowled, but acquiesced, having no choice in the matter.

"I said I wanted to resign, and you two immediately assumed I was joining another firm, a rival."

"Well, what else would we think!" King VI shouted. "That has to be what you're up to!"

"Who is it?" queried Grisham III in his coolest prosecutorial tones. "Clancy, Koontz, and Steel? No? Don't tell me you're still entertaining those laughable literary pretensions you once had. You'd never get an offer from Updike, Mailer, and Bellow, not in a million years. Or are you finally affirming your genre roots? Did you cut a deal with Bear, Benford, Brin, Baxter, and Agan?"

"None of those. I'm striking out on my own."

King VI laughed harshly. "You fool! You'll lose all the synergy of our partnership, all the economies of scale. Your rackspace in the protectorate retail outlet's won't be guaranteed anymore. Your brandname will sink like a stone."

"I'm retiring not just from publishing as we currently practice it, but from writing as well," Crichton IV announced. This 'unbelievable statement shocked his soon-to-be-ex-partners into silence. "I think the Crichton lineage has said all it can say over the past century. I also think the same is true for all the rest of us amalgamated, incorporated writers. But of course that's a recognition I leave each individual to reach on his own. No, I plan to embark on a new venture entirely. Gentlemen -- I'm going to become an early-twentieth-century-style publisher."

An even deeper stunned silence greeted this announcement, until finally Grisham III found his tongue. "You mean, soliciting manuscripts from non-commodified, even previously unpublished writers and printing small and medium-sized quantities of an extensive number of titles twice a year, risking your own money while trusting the marketplace to discriminate between good books and bad?"

"Precisely."

"You're bughouse!" exclaimed King VI.

"Not at all. It's the only way out of the stagnant, uncreative pool we're drowning in. The only books that see print nowadays are predigested, by-the-numbers, focus-group-approved rehashes of past bestsellers. We've killed the vital kind of fiction that once existed. Face it, gentlemen -- we're dinosaurs squashing the life out of the very field we profess to love."

King VI snorted. "Shoulda known the dinosaurs would come into this somehow."

Grisham III spoke. "How do we know this, ahem, disclosure is not some roundabout way of stabbing us in the back? What guarantees do we have that this is not an underhanded plot?"

"I'm not joining Pynchon, DeLillo, and Erickson, believe me."

"It's a sob story," said King VI. "He's just angling for a bigger share of the profits."

"And I'm not joining Krantz, Collins, and Pilcher either. No, I'm telling you the simple truth. I'm going to start an old-fashioned publishing firm, one that doesn't even bear my name. I'm thinking of calling it Andromeda Publishing. Our motto will be: 'A new strain of books.'"

"Well, in that case, if you don't need your name, we'll just clone you again. I'm sure Crichton V will see things our way."

Crichton IV smiled. "You forget, gentlemen, the medical training associated with my lineage. I've secured all my cell-samples from the corporate vaults, and incinerated my living quarters. There'll be no more Crichtons after me. That's part of the problem, not the solution."

Finally admitting defeat, the two abandoned partners addressed each other.

"I suppose we'll just have to merge with some other hacks in order to compete."

"The mystery field has been having a good year. Let me initiate negotiations With Leonard, Hiassen, Burke, Vachss, and Westlake."

Satisfied that he could now take his leave safely and embark on realizing his new dreams, Crichton IV began to reel in his audiovideo taps, but was brought up short by a shout from King VI.

"Hey, Mikey!"

"Yes ?"

"Uh, would you read something by a friend of mine named Richard Bachman?"

CARTOON:

~~~~~~~~

By PAUL DI FILIPPO

BLUNT

For this story, we have the good graces of Henry Wessells to thank (not to slight ' Mr. Davidsoh's own contributions to it, of course). Henry maintains an Avram Davidson newsletter, The Nutmeg Point District Mail (check out http://www. kosmic, org/members/dongle/henry/ for more info), and he has been assembling a bibliography of the late Mr. Davidsoh's work. During the course of his investigations in the Texas A &M University library, he discovered a manuscript entitled The Corpsmen, an unfinished novel from the mid-1950s that was Avram's first sustained attempt at a novel The book consists of a series of loose1y connected character sketches about members of the WWII Naval Medical Corps stationed in Mullet Bay, Florida, and one such sketch stands up well as a complete story. We're happy to bring it to you.

Recent books of Mr. Davidsoh's include The Boss in the Wall and the upcoming collections The Avram Davidson Treasury and The Investigations of Avram Davidson.

HE HAD THE USUAL MOUNTAIN boyhood in one of those mountainous counties below the Mason-Dixon line -differing from most other such counties only in being one of the few that regularly voted Republican -- where there was not much schooling; but somewhere in the course of what schooling there was, Huey P. Blunt read a piece about yellow fever and the Panama Canal and how one was conquered so the other could be built, and he decided to be an Army doctor. Someone {in after years he tried to remember who first told him, but so many people had agreed and repeated it and everyone took it for granted it was correct} told him that the way to do it was to enlist soon's he was old enough and work his way up. Blunt wasn't talkative and he was six months in the Army before anyone there knew of his plans, and before he learned what they were worth. What they were worth officially, that is. He made them worth something, after all, by an illegal conversion of knowledge. He listened, he watched, he read, he worked; and he learned much. The Army Medical Corps taught him more than it planned to. Blunt had deft hands and a good memory.

After his enlistment expired he went back to the hills, to his home country. There was a very old man practicing medicine there, his name was Elnathan Wisonant, and he had never been to college either, having picked up all his knowledge of medicine as apprentice to his father, a "doctor" of similar status. At one time there were many practitioners of that kind around-- it would not be accurate or fair to call them quacks -they represented an older tradition in native medicine than the A.M.A. -they supplied the only"care available at a time when medical schools were few, and not too well thought of, either. Gradually they became extinct. For the last forty years o[ his career old Wisonant had been protected by a state law that exempted all those in the trade at the time the law was passed from having to meet the qualifications required thereafter. Blunt became his assistant, which meant that he very shortly took over most of the hard work while old Wisonant sat by watching and advising, and speaking ill of "college doctors."

"Horse-leeches," he called them; "bumshavers, quacksalvers, peddlers of snake oil and pink aspirin.

"A trust, a vile and contemptible monopoly, a guild of grave robbers aping their betters among the natural philosophers," he would snarl.

One morning the old phlebotomist was found on the floor of his office, white beard pointing to the ceiling. Although urged by the hill people to carry on and the hell with them city doctors and their laws, Blunt declined. Roads were coming into the hills, and automobiles. The day the old man was buried from the little church of the Foot-Washing Baptists, Blunt was approached by the only representative of Big Business in' the county, the manager of a lumbering outfit that was winding up operations, there being no forests left worth ravaging.

"We can use you out in . ," he said, naming a western state.

"You know I haven't got a license," Blunt said. The lumberman's reply was brief and obscene.

"Can you set a broken leg? That's what counts," he continued.

On the advice of the lumberman Blunt went out to the western state and told the company's hiring agent that he was a former medical student whom lack of finances had forced out of school. His story, enriched with details from the gossip of the Army doctors, sounded reasonable; but the company was not too particular. Few doctors were available [or the rough life of the logging camp, and the supply of those whom liquor, malpractice, or conviction for criminal abortion made available was rather short at the time. He spent several years in the woods before he moved on.

Once, he bought an interest in a small town drug store, chiefly to improve his knowledge of pharmacy. He was not a businessman, and when his partner took to tapping both the till and the spiritus frumenti, Blunt did not wait for the end, but just walked out. There are agencies that never advertise, as their business, though needful, is illegal. Through one of them Blunt became le docteur on a sisal plantation in Haiti; he added, to the professional journals to which he subscribed, one on tropical medicine.

All that he did, he did with seriousness and sincerity, and as much capability as was possible under the circumstances -- which was a great deal more than the medical monopolists could have afforded to admit, if they had ever known about him. They never did, of course, because he went to places that never saw them.

Unlike the woman of Valor, who {we are assured on the best authority], Laugheth at the Time to Come, Blunt never even thought about it. He was in British Honduras when the European war broke out, but paid it little attention until the invasion of Denmark and Norway by a people who might have eventually become civilized, had the British in the early part of the previous century not prevented the French from continuing to civilize them. Something stirred in the heart of Huey P. Blunt as he read the accounts of the armed parachutists dropping from the troubled sky. He went back to the United States and enlisted in the Navy.

So there was Blunt at thirty-odd: big, balding, not very talkative, not much booklearning, no licenses, but a lot of practical experience for a Pharmacist's Mate, First Class. His advancement in rating was indefinitely postponed because he lacked the requisite six months duty at sea or overseas required of chief petty officers in "non-specialized" ratings. By the Byzantine logic of the Navy, a Pharmacist's Mate, 1/c --who had to know First Aid, Minor Surgery, Anaesthesia, Materia Medica, Anatomy, Physiology, Nursing, Hospital Administration, Embalming, and so on -was not considered a specialist; while Physical Culture instructors, whose only duty and only qualification was the ability to direct mass push-ups, were so considered, and were rated CPOs en bloc. In the ordinary course of an ordinary tour of duty in the Hospital Corps a Ph.M. 1/c would have been certain to get sea duty, and thus, a rating as Chief. But Blunt's very competence undid him. He knew too much.

"I can't spare you, sorry," Dr. West told him each time he put in for sea duty.

"Long's they know he kin do ever detail here and do it better than enna bodda else, Ol' Huey goin stay here" -- Tester to Pawson.

"Ol' Huey's a mighty good man," Pawson said, but neither the "Ol' Huey" or "the mighty good man" indicated affection. No one liked Blunt, no one disliked Blunt, no one told any stories about Blun;, there were none to tell. Blunt had no personality. He was not a character. He had no existence apart from his rank-- which he did not abuse -- and his skill -which, by its greatness, baffled and discouraged speculation. If orders came in for a Ph.M. 1/c to be shipped out, the SMO saw to it that another one was shipped. Once Blunt, on leave, went to Washington, and pulled strings, but Dr. West, when he saw Blunt's name on the orders, pulled more strings; and was authorized to make a substitution. The other First Class Mate was older than Blunt, he was married and had two children, but he knew incomparably less and he was lazy and inefficient; and for these failings was destined to die while splashing his trembling and middle-aged legs through the lukewarm waters of a tropical beachhead.

But before that happened, Blunt had fallen in love.

Wilma Swansoh's family belonged to one of the several colonies of Yankees settled in Cataline. Besides the usual superannuated railroad men and retired wholesale plumbing dealers, besides the seekers after more sunshine and health, there was a group drawn to Cataline by the presence of a small denominational college that Had a Good Name. At one time it had been Southern terminus for the Chatauqua Circuit. Retired clergymen, retired schoolteachers and principals, even retired deans and presidents of other denominational colleges ismalii, had settled in Cataline so as to take advantage of its advantages.

Mrs. Swanson said that Cataline had everything.

"There's this lovely old town and those beautiful oak trees and Spanish moss. And the lovely flowers, all the year round. There's Mullet Bay, and the St. George River, and the ocean -- lovely swimming and fishing and boating and water games. There's Vallance Beach just a short ride away, and Seminole Springs. There's this lovely little college and the intellectual atmosphere it creates here. There are some lovely people who winter here-- call them Snowbirds, if you will, but I say that some of them are just lovely. As for the year-round people, well, you just won't find a lovelier community; that's all. And the Colored People are simply lovable. That's why I say that Cataline has everything."

Mr. Swanson backed her up in all this, but since he had Investments locally, naturally, he saw things from another point of view as well.

"There's your naval stores," Mr. Swanson said; "your turpentine and rosin. There's your citrus fruit. There's your lumber. There's your real estate. And I must add," he added, "last but not by any means least, there's your Sunshine and your Clean, Fresh Air."

Wilma had gone to Cataline College and graduated. She had majored in Domestic Science, that being what the aptitude test had suggested for her.

Somehow, no young man from a lovely family had ever offered to provide Wilma with the domesticity. Mr. Snyder, to be sure. Mr. Snyder, a fine Christian gentleman, had once hinted to Mr. & Mrs. Swanson that...but then, Mr. Snyder was getting on in years, he had low blood pressure and a married daughter .... No. Wilma could do better than Mr. Snyder, lovely man though he was. There was no hurry. Mrs. Swanson had been much older than Wilma when she married Mr. Swanson. Wilma was a lovely cook and had such a warm personality, and, really, when she took off her glasses, you could see that she had lovely gray eyes. Only she seldom took them off because she couldn't see very well without them. So Wilma stayed at home. Then, when the war started, she had so much wanted to Do Something, and it was really very fortunate in its way that Miss Olauson, who was Dr. Wondermaker's nurse, had joined the Army. Of course, Wilma wasn't really a nurse, but she had her Red Cross card in first aid, she made even the most nervous patients feel at ease; and besides, there just weren't any nurses available for Dr. Wondermaker. But Wilma learned very quickly and Mrs. Wondermaker said she real1y didn't know what Doctor would do without her, because she (Mrs. Wondermaker) simply had her hands full with the children.

And there was no end to the shock of the Swanson family when Dr. Wondermaker tried to kiss Wilma one day, in his office. Of course, she couldn't stay after that. Dr. Wondermaker insisted it was all a misunderstanding, he regarded Wilma almost as one of his own daughters; but of course, she couldn't stay after that. Fortunately, in addition to the Domestic Science courses at Cataline College, Wilma had studied typing. She couldn't take dictation, but she could type; she had typed all of Dr. Wondermaker's records for him. Wilma got a job in the office of the Dispensary at the Naval Air Station. Mrs. Swanson said that some of the sailor boys were really just lovely, if you got to know them, came from very fine families, really. Besides, Chief Shillitoe worked in that office, and he was a very fine man, really lovely...

At first only Ribacheck showed any interest in the new office girl. The nurses responded to her very openly expressed admiration for nurses, 'but only Ribacheck {at first) showed any interest in her as a woman. Ribacheck belonged notoriously to the Lowest Common Denominator school of venery, and was therefore interested in all women as women. The other Corpsmen claimed to find a lack of niceness in this. Ribacheck's taste, they said, was All in His Mouth. Of course, Wilma was very polite to all the men, and when Ribacheck smiled at her, she smiled back. In fact, as his smiles grew warmer, she allowed herself to look into his record book in the files. She had never heard of Poynkers Mills, New Jersey, 'listed as his home town. And, heavens! she couldn't even pronounce his mother's first name. Lutherans were all right, although not perhaps quite so much as Methodists or Presbyterians, but what on earth could a Slovak Lutheran be? Growing more and more dubious, she noted that Ribacheck had once been operated on for a varicocele. Later on she looked up the word in the little Gould's medical dictionary in the office. She blushed, even though the definition was far from explicit enough. Would a varicocele....? Or wouldn't it....? There was, of course, no one she could ask. After that Ribacheck smiled in vain.

And then, one day, Blunt came into the office. Wilma didn't realize it, because she had taken off her glasses to clean them; but she was looking up when he came in, and smiling in his direction. She really had lovely gray eyes. After that Blunt came in the office rather often. He was exceedingly shy with women, and found it difficult to talk small talk with them until he knew them well, but Wilma was a bit shy herself.

Blunt, in short, began to court her. Before long, they had an understanding. Mrs. Swanson said that he was really a very lovely person. So quiet, she said. And really, an astonishing knowledge of medicine. After all, a First Class Pharmacist's Mate was almost the same as a civilian doctor, wouldn't you say? Mr. Swanson said that he was one of your steady young fellows. Seemed to know quite a bit about your lumber, too, Mr. Swanson said. Everything was going so smoothly that Blunt overcame his uncertainty as to the propriety of the invitation, and asked Wilma, while they were walking one afternoon near the bungalow he rented in Cataline, if she would care to just look the place over. She said she would.

"I hired the place already furnished," Huey said, leading the way. "Some of the things are real pretty," he said, waving his arm at large. Wilma looked at the pink cloth lampshades with beaded fringes, the heavy red portieres hanging from wooden rings.

"Mmm-hmm," she murmured.

"But this house, like every house, it needs a Woman's Touch," he said. Wilma's heavy cheeks turned a deeper pink.

"Oh, a house does, it does!" she said fervently.

Huey stopped in from of a closed door. He stood with the key in his hand and half turned to face her.

"Now I'm going to show you something that I haven't ever showed another person here before. You're the very first, Wilma." Her face burned. She looked at the faded and threadbare .carpet. She heard the key in the lock and the click of the light switch, and followed his feet inside. She had to take off her glasses and wipe her eyes.

"...and a woman who has, besides, a Scientific Background..."

Putting back her glasses, she saw opposite her a shelf with a row of little bottles, each one containing something like a dried mushroom, only not quite .... With a slight frown of puzzlement she read the neatly typed labels.

Redund. Prep., Cumberback, Alonso T., Steward's Mate 1/c

Redund.Prep., Williamson, Jno., Officer's Cook, 3/c

Lost in pride, Blunt fell silent and looked at his collection. Row after row, shelf after shelf, of bottles and jars, lined the large closet. In cold glass wombs that would forever preserve but never nurture them, floated homunculi, in every stage of development up to the sixth month -- after that they were always claimed, though burial (Blunt thought} was a foolish waste. Nobody ever asked for an appendix; there must have been over a hundred of them. There were tonsils, tumors, fingers, a few ears, a whole foot, several eyes. Swaying gently in response to distant vibration was something like a bunch of grapes, labeled Youlihan, Bette Lou. A shy smile on his lips, Huey reached out and touched with a gentle finger a bottle containing a twelve-foot tapeworm (Le Maistre, Cleophile). He rested his hand affectionately on a mason jar that held a scalp of chestnut colored hair. He cleared his throat.

"I don't suppose that there's another collection such as this in the whole country, in private hands," he said, in his high, flat voice. "I was hoping..." He took out a handkerchief, spat onto a comer of it, and rubbed at a speck on a bottle with a rather faded-looking testicle in it.

"I was hoping that after we were married, after that, then I was hoping that you and me could sort of catalogue it all, together, Wilma...

"Wilma?"

He walked rapidly through the bungalow with long strides.

"Wilma ? "

But Wilma was already on the bus, bound, not for her home, but for the Station. She rode in tight-mouthed containment until the Nurses Quarters, where she allowed herself to be helped off in a state of convulsive hysteria. After being drenched with aromatic spirits of ammonia, and after weeping her dress and those of the nurses tending her into quasi-transparency, she retreated with cold compresses to a darkened room. The nurses, who were fond of her, had watched, like everyone else at Sick Bay, the slow progress of the courtship. It was certainly not to be thought that Blunt, of all people, had made improper advances; they thought that he must have jilted the poor girl; they pressed sympathetically for Details. They got them, and the account of Wilma's Terrible Experiences strained through sobs and hiccups, spread almost at once to Sick Bay; and thence, to the Navy at large, gathering details at every step...

(Pawson, for example, reported to Tester that "Ol' Huey got a closet full o' pickled coilions, an' a two-headed baby in a jar o' formaldehyde!")

"But what I want to know," said Doctor Wallop, "is she marrying him, or--?

Miss Stuart said, "According to her, Not If He's the Very Last Man on Earth."

"'She does not regard herself, nor yet wish to be regarded, in that bony light,'" Dr. Wallop murmured, sneaking his hand onto Miss Stuart's kneecap. Miss Stuart giggled.

Dr. Slide confided to Sam Mcintyre that he'd been on the point of suggesting to That Crazy Fool to join the Brethren, but not anymore.

A Bo's'n's Mate named Blascovitch got roaring drunk and hammered at the door of the bungalow one night, demanding his appendix back.

Church and State, appealed to by Mr. Swanson To Do Something, declined to do anything. Chaplain Meyers, with a far-off look in his eye, said something about Samson in the Old Dispensation having made a similar collection. Chief of Police Elsworth Smith didn't know of any law against it.

Blunt himself, vexed at the whole affair, put in for sea duty once more, and Dr. West once more refused to approve. Blunt, he patiently repeated, was Much Too Valuable a Man. Wilma, of course, couldn't stay on after that. It seemed that Huey was doomed once more to wander lonely as a cloud: but instead, he came into his own, at last, as a fully rounded "character"; a fabulous personality who was known to and talked about by everyone on the Station. In a matter of days he became famous in Naval aviation installations all along the coast and in bases in Cuba, the Bahamas, and the West Indies. Eventually his fame became a legend, as it spread in widening circles, until he lost his name and entered mythology. The closet became part of it, too.

"This old Pay Clerk," any sailor you care to name might be saying in a bull session, "was supposed to pay off the whole Ship's Company of this battle wagon in dry dock. Only whiles he was coming aboard he kind of stumbled and the whole suitcase full of money fell open. Well, they pumped that dry dock what I mean dry, but they never could find only a part of the money. Course, he drew a Court and they retired him, but, funny thing, long about six months later he opened up the biggest damn bar and grill in Honolulu. And everybody was real surprised because he never had the reputation of being a saver. It just goes to show, you never know."

"Reminds me," someone else was sure to say, sooner or later, "of this old Chief Pharmacist's Mate, he --"

"Oh, yeah! Y' mean the one who --"

"Hey, you wanna tell this story?...Well, like I was saying..,

"And his wife," the story wound up, "she took off an' never come back; and they say that she never would open another closet door again unless someone else was in the room! .... It just goes to show."

But by that time Blunt had been obliged to hire Harold, the Sick Bay porter, as part-time houseman, because no Colored woman in Cataline would enter his bungalow -- and indeed, they fled the streets for blocks around when he walked or drove through town.

No one knew when he had started the collection. It may have begun in some mountain cabin filled with screams, or it may not. It could have been prompted by a curiosity that thought to answer mystery by amassing matter; or by a personal idiosyncrasy of no greater depth than one that brings some men to collect stamps, old silver buttons, or used trolley car transfers. Certainly, to Blunt, each item was in its way an objet d'art. And certainly he must have been doing it for years without being -- oh, not "caught" or "detected" or "discovered": these words imply wrongdoing, and Blunt came as near to anger as anyone ever saw him, when he defended himself.

"People like you," he said to Miss Sweeting, who was trying, in her tortuous way, to express Shock; "People like you Impede the March of Science."

~~~~~~~~

By Avram Davidson

A SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

A PORTRAIT OF HUMANITY

THE VOYAGER spacecraft launched in 1997 recently slipped into interplanetary space beyond Pluto bearing a large phonograph record with images and sounds of Earth: a portrait of humanity.

This is the third column dealing with how a team of artist Ion Lornberg and astronomer Carolyn Porco and I designed a message to fly on NASA's Cassini spacecraft, launched in November 1997, bound for Saturn. We wanted to leave a message which would convey something of the people who sent the Cassini probe, and why.

Deep space is the best place to leave a long-term message. Probably any message we make will not be read by distant generations, but solely by the generation that launched it. To many, its true purpose is to appeal to and expand the human spirit, now.

Unlike listening for radio signals from extraterrestrials, sending messages inscribed on hard objects to distant worlds implies a vast time scale before any reward. Further, such acts demand that we explore what we should say, not how to fathom what others say.

We wished to send something similar to the Voyager spacecraft plaques, yet on a tiny surface, inscribing a photograph into the diamond wafer the size of a coin. Discussions ranged over many choices; I shall try to convey the flavor, often quoting or paraphrasing.

Based on the Pioneer and Voyager experience, Lornberg drew up a list of requirements that would both deflect the sort of criticism Pioneer's sketch of humans aroused, and minimize confusions among the eventual readers: "The photo must work in black and white and at low-resolution, showing a representative sample of humans with regard to age, sex, coloring, ethnic type, body type, dress and hairstyle." This last was to show that hair was natural and variable, yet was not clothing, which would also be deliberately diverse.

Further, the photograph "should show the entire human body, from head to toe, in several different positions" to give an idea of the range of movement. With "a minimum of overlap of detail in the poses, i.e., people not partially obscured by others," all objects would clearly stand out from background, and all individuals have equal visual importance. There would be social implications read into the photo by us and by any future readers, but at least we tried to not send signals we did not intend.

All felt that the picture must represent the planet without being too specific, certainly not a unique site or climate. The background should be information-dense, rich with details about the planet, species, and culture, though without compromising any of the above goals. Among this minutiae should stand out an object identical to something on the spacecraft to provide an unambiguous check of scale.

To stand for all humanity, we felt the photo should be open to humanity's inspection. Early on we agreed that the image should be broadly available. Still, to keep the picture from inappropriate uses, it was copyrighted.

Most of all, the photograph should convey beauty and wonder to our human eyes. We wanted no clinical examination of the human body, but an evocation of ourselves immersed in our world -- and Cassini, an expression coming out of that passion.

Since we had discussed these ideas while walking in my home town, Laguna Beach, we immediately thought of an ocean setting. Lornberg lives on the big island of Hawaii, where isolated sandy beaches boast steady conditions for photography. With submerged lava rocks and waves rolling in, clouds in the sky, flapping birds and possibly a waning gibbous moon, we could convey much to a single glance from alien eyes. The beach should not be well known or easily identified; we wanted a generic beach that could be found on most continents or islands of Earth. Beaches have strong mythic and biological associations that enhance their relevance.

The photographer Lornberg knew best and wanted to work with was Simon Bell of Toronto. Bell is one of the world's best stereo protographers and kept the team from error many times. For his convenience, Lomberr and Porco considered a lake beach shot on the sandy shores of Lake Ontario. In the end this idea lost out. A lake does not impart the same feel as the ocean; waves are smaller and typically the coast is less varied.

Some facets we sought to convey more subtly: "the use and role of boats; the importance of water; the nurturing of children} information about the water-cycle and thus the approximate temperature." Cast shadows might imply the latitude or time of day, but for distant eyes that would be difficult.

We see the world in stereo, and a direct way to convey this would be to etch two stereo views of the same scene. This would also strongly hint that the curious bipeds in the photo saw with the odd symmetric spots on their upper heads. The disk's size serves to fix uniquely the distance between the "eyes" of the stereo views, so that images at all distances align properly. The camera separation for the shots was close to our own eye separation, again suggesting that's what our eyes are for.

The one object from the spacecraft we knew future viewers would have was, of course, the disk. One of the photographed adults should then hold the diamond disk, very clearly outlined against a background. To help alien perceptions, all or most of the people should be looking at it.

Porco reminded us of the Pioneer drawing, which to some implied a man was larger and thus more important than a woman. Never mind that the Pioneer team carefully used figures with the average height of men and women worldwide, they drew objections. Porco insisted that we should make a woman the focal point of the photograph, and Lomberg agreed. When finished, the photo provoked one woman to comment, "It'll tell them in the far future that Earth is a matriarchy. I love it!"

In the photo the central, seated woman holds the disk (actually, we didn't risk using the diamond, so substituted a plexi-glass stand-in with the same optical reflecting characteristics). Others look at it. Its diameter sets the scale of the people and plants within view.

We agreed that while the adult! and older child should be clothed,: to avoid the Pioneer criticism, the younger children might be nude, hint at how we reproduce. Casual, loose, and solid-colored, clothing should be shot to make it possible to see that it is a covering, and not a growth of the body. Women should be wearing little makeup, if any. Some small jewelry like rings or bracelets might be all right, if it were obviously artificial. No cross or other religious symbols, though; no favoritism should be implied.

Some people we spoke with thought it dubious to not show all people nude, for clarity. But many would object to or be embarrassed by pictures of naked adults. Lomberg carried the day by saying firmly, "If we want this photo to truly be representative of all the Earth, it is no small matter to alienate a large portion of the Earthly audience."

Also, Lomberg noted, people hardly ever walk around naked. In most cultures there is some sort of dress, a fundamental social fact about us. Shadows on the ground trod a sun hat could give the very important information that we cover ourselves for protection from environment. Astute observers draw some conclusions avoiding too much solar ultraviolet the beach.

As well, sexual differentiation purely by obvious shape differences and the of the women. {But would non-mammals guess their use?) If these hints proved insufficient, the genitals would not provide strong clues as to their function. Necessarily there would be unseen parts of the body -- soles of the feet, inside of the mouth -- so we could not be utterly clinically representative.

After all, the picture was not aiming to explain human biology or reproduction fully, but to satisfy the simple question: What did the creators of this message look like?

The background could explain larger aspects. A shot angled along the beach would show incoming wave trains clearly. Ironwood conifers along the shore would include another great kingdom of life; the bacteria we would have to do without.

A collection of several different boats t wooden canoe, modem sailboat, fishing boat with motor-might suggest our range of technology and our interest in traveling and vehicles, of which Cassini is one of the ultimate expressions. But more than one would clutter the composition, too. Sail size and mast height the viewers could use to roughly estimate our wind speeds and atmospheric density.

Birds in the sky would bring in another animal life form, but how could we count on them? A trained parrot balanced on a limb? This proved difficult to bring about during the long, grueling photo sessions. And a sitting bird would not imply flight. Luck would have to give us that, then, from the myriad shots necessary to get just the right one.

The time of day was another variable, but we could not see how to use it to carry much information. The sun's angle should be low enough to cast clear shadows but not so low as to cause problems with exposure times. The fidelity of the process which would inscribe the photo also set limits. In low-resolution black and white with little dynamic range, our main goal was clarity and clear outlines of objects, though stereo images and fore-grounding important objects would help in sorting it all out, we hoped.

Naturally, we thought of the most dramatic possible shot, a sunset over the ocean. But Simon Bell shook his head. "Using flash may not work. Because I use two cameras, I have to slow the shutter speed to ensure that the flash is caught by both cameras. This would then affect the look off the waves, which we'd ideally want to freeze with a fast shutter speed."

Sunset also drastically reduces potential shooting times and locations and might compromise esthetics, since a good sunset looks best when the sky and foreground are underexposed, while skin tones look best when normally exposed. Using too much fill light to compensate could look artificial, too.

Myriad such considerations entered in the final, four-day-long photo session, at two different beaches. The logistics proved almost military in scope, down to camping gear, food supplies, and a portable toilet. Lomberg organized all this, selected the sites and found the multi-racial models, all residents of Kona. Simon Bell flew in from Toronto, after trying model poses in his studio, and 'shot over 1200 slides.

Some had full frontal nudity, others were unclothed but more discreet. Some were fully clothed, as a hedge against NASA's suddenly balking at the last minute. Porco took the final candidate slides to Washington and showed them to NASA Administrator Dan Goldin, who approved the final selection. As luck would have it, the best shots had no birds flapping in the deep blue sky.

Now came time to assemble all this into a final design.

We planned to inscribe the reverse of the diamond with a straight line across the diameter, broken in the middle to show a "lu" symbol. The "u" stood for "unit" and was repeated elsewhere to show we were thinking of lengths.

Given sufficient dynamic range, the refractive characteristics of the diamond might be measurable in the photo. This might be used by readers to reconstruct some of the color. Bell doubted that our 64 gray levels would be up to this, though.

Above the "lu" line we depicted the first ten digits in binary code, then used binary everywhere else. In a sense the reverse side sets the terms of discussion: the photo says "Here is who we are," while the units tell them how we shall describe our world on the front side. Only the names of supporting laboratories and organizations at the very bottom carries any Kilroy aspect.

From top to bottom the scale goes from large to smaller. This echoes the view across a plane, with the bigger scale of the horizon higher in the field of view. So also on the front side, with the Big Dipper, M71 and the Hercules cluster at the bottom and the Earth at the top.

Above the stellar pictures is an accurate, scaled map of the solar system, showing planets, symbols for them, and the Cassini-Huygens trajectory through them, establishing our home. Above this is a gallery of previous spacecraft such as Viking, Pioneer, and Voyager. (This actually violated the larger-to-smaller scheme, alas, but seemed necessary to tie the idea of such vessels to the planets they explored, shown in a matching gallery of planet photos directly above each spacecraft. Only Earth has no craft, suggesting that we live there.)

Above this gallery is a highly detailed Saturn with its planetary symbol. An accurate trajectory marks the Cassini orbiter separation from the Huygens probe. To the left is a six-axis view of the Orbiter, to the right of Huygens. Above this row are Earth photographs, four of ninety-degree rotations and two of the poles. Tom Van Sandt of the Geosphere Corporation generously gave us cloud-free, consistent lighting maps. From these we hoped continental drift dating could be done.

Many compromises lie behind these views. Could eyes in the far future translate the slanted perspective of the solar system diagram into a three-dimensional reality/ We could but hope.

These were the plans as of January, 1997. Throughout 1994-7 the of how to write on diamond was a continuing technical puzzle. The final method adopted was etching by an oxygen and sand plasma. Oxygen etches all carbon-based materials, but optimizing this process demands much experience.

My doctorate was in solid state physics, so I was the natural person to deal with such issues. Quickly I learned how little I knew of technological advances in the last two decades; I was woefully out of date. We swiftly fell back on real experts, and got excellent technical support from many.

Public exposure had already begun well before this work. One day in early February, 1995, my telephone rang, announcing a leak. The British popular magazine New Scientist wanted to run a piece on the plans. Apparently they had sniffed out rumors from the European Space Agency. I guardedly confirmed what they already knew and corrected some errors. Immediately after hanging up I e-mailed Porco, Lomberg, and JPL. Porco seemed panicked, but I saw little harm. After all, the local newspaper (the Orange County Register) had also carried an extensive piece later in February 1995, based upon a reporter sitting in on our discussions at UCI. It provoked no follow-up journalism, and neither did the New Scientist piece. Porco asked me to write New Scientist to correct their omission of her name, a request which seemed at odds with her anxieties about keeping a low profile. Still, I thought little of it. New Scientist published my letter, and a further note from Porto as well, establishing credit.

Coincidentally, a paper I had co-authored on wormholes was getting enormous press coverage, appearing in over a hundred newspapers; it was a wild idea and counted among its authors sf writers Robert Forward, Geoff Landis, and John Cramer. The diamond marker drew surprisingly little interest. Wild ideas play well in the press, but we expected as launch date approached the disk would get some mention.

Porto was much exercised about the New Scientist story. I reasoned that perhaps she was echoing NASA's extreme concern that nothing about a marker be made public before it was a done deal. The Pioneer plaque had provoked criticism, ranging from those perturbed by depicting nude humans to feminists who disliked its showing a woman shorter than a man, and in a different posture (less upright). In retrospect, the photograph eventually shot to go on the marker inevitably would have piqued some, since it showed a rather politically correct grouping of all races, with a woman as the centerpiece.

Porco and Lomberg worked through the principal remaining tasks: sharpening the concepts, detailed drawing of the disk etch pattern, and walking the diamond disks through the etching process. These first two fell to Lomberg, consuming many months of tedious labor. Porto handled most of the etching.

Meanwhile, NASA was pondering our efforts. As with Voyager, our design team operated on its own, with minimal engagement of the busy engineers. However, Charles Kohlhase, Manager for Science and Mission Design of the Cassini Program at JPL, decided that any marker or disk should carry no commercial insignia and issued a general directive stating so.

At about this time we heard that the JPL Cassini group had begun to create their own marker. Previous missions all the way back to the Mars Viking lander, and perhaps even earlier, had carried the names of principal engineers, etched onto metal strips. Why not expand this idea and include the public?

With little time to spare, this Kilroy Was Here gesture could attract attention, public involvement, more hits at the Cassini web site. The Planetary Society joined in. Anyone who wanted their name to fly to Saturn had only to mail in a signed postcard. Signatures were cut out and scanned by the Planetary Society, then digitized and loaded onto a compact disk. After a national campaign roping in congressmen and canvassers, the grand result was 616,403 signatures on the carrier -named, in high bureaucratic style-deaf fashion, the Digitized Versatile Disk.

My congressman, Christopher Cox, sent all his constituents a letter promising to funnel their names through his office and onto the Cassini spacecraft: "Your name will live on in space long after your grandchildren, and theirs, and theirs." They obtained some celebrity signatures from Star Trek actors and congressmen, baby footprints, and pet paw prints.

The European collaborators got wind of all this and started their own signature collection. They took the signature disk a step further and planned to sell a duplicate disk after the launch, reasoning that people who were to be immortalized on the interplanetary scale would, of course, want a copy. Like JPL, they set up a world wide web site to send names and messages. They got such memorable phrases as "Hello green worms," "HELP" and "Don't cry because you cannot see the sun, because the tears will stop you seeing the stars."

The Europeans never managed to get their hundred thousand signatures transmitted to JPL in time, so those are not on the Orbiter. Therefore the European Space Agency attached their own disk to the Huygens lander, while JPL's names fly on the Orbiter. The JPL team was uneasy about lack of screening of the ESA names and the Europeans' plans to sell their disk commercially.

All this activity to collect a meaningless string of names and salutations emulates the portion of the Voyager record of least value, the list of Congressional committee members that NASA forced the Voyager team to include.

Cassini's compact disk surely will not survive for more than a century or so, nor could it be easily read in any distant future. Even very clever humans or aliens could not figure out the encoding software from first principles, and should they, they would get only a list of indecipherable, disorganized names, and a few cryptic, disconnected messages in this sea of words.

One could imagine a far future discoverer wondering what to think of a species that created a message without attempting to make it "comprehensible, self-extracting, anti-coded, triply redundant, and graduated in content," as Lomberg summed up the Voyager and diamond disk approach. As a projection of pure vanity it resembles the International Star Registry, which sells people certificates stating that stars have been named for them. Such meaningless exercises in ego tell more about our species than we might like revealed.

This Kilroy disk emerged only after the diamond marker idea became known. It had every sign of a hastily designed public relations stunt. Including long lists of names is a cliche of time capsules. Apparently the largest collection was the 22 million assembled and buried at the order of President Ford for the bicentennial celebration in 1976.

As Kohlhase put it to me, knowing that I looked askance at the signature disk, he and others devoted eighteen months of hard work to produce a "heart-based signature disk," in contrast to the "mindbased diamond."

Of course, both gestures spring from a common impulse: to give people a sense' of connection with something larger than themselves. To value this is to rank the expressive quality of deep time messages over their communicating ability.

My trouble with all such name-gathering was that the end result more nearly resembled the graffiti which disfigure many ancient monuments. After all, the scribblers upon the Parthenon no doubt felt some burst of elation, too, but the end result besmirched the work which is the point of' it all.

Lomberg regretted that the signature disk would get commingled in the public mind with the actual message marker, vastly increasing the ratio of noise to signal, as engineers put it. Indeed,. the Planetary Society has now made this a feature of their membership drives; in 1997 they attached a microchip to the Stardust mission to rendezvous with a comet. "And you'll be a part of it all," an advertisement promised.

We can expect that such masses of names will become a standard fixture of a publicity-conscious space program. Indeed, shouting at the stars will become commonplace. In 1998 the Sci-Fi Channel tried to arrange transmission of signature messages by radio beamed skyward. An entrepreneur tried to sell space on metal plates to be launched to the stars. None seems to have even thought about how utterly distinct life forms could say something understandable to each other.

So matters rushed on, as the launch deadline neared: October, 1997. Cassini did lift off in November after several delays. In those last months much more happened, as I shall treat in a forthcoming book, Deep Time. The saga of sending messages into the high vault of vacuum is a continuing tale of human frailty and ego.

But it means something that we modern humans try. Our signals across the stretching spans of centuries may convey little, but they do mean this: something deeply human wishes to connect with those who come after us. We yearn, across both space and time, for the eternal.

Comments and objections to this column are welcome. Please send them to Gregory Benford, Physics Department, Univ. Calif., Irvine, CA 92717. e-mail: gbenford@uci.edu

DIAGRAM: left stereo beach photo: right stereo beach photo : names of labs and organizations supporting project (10 microns high) 28 mm

DIAGRAM: Symbols for earth

~~~~~~~~

By GREGORY BENFORD

CRISIS ON WARD H!

Can it really be that Adam-Troy Castro's last appearance here was his novella "The Funeral March of the Marionettes" in July of 1997? So it is. Well, Mr. Castro has been busy with some longer proiects, including a forthcoming Spiderman novel, The Gathering of the Sinister Six, and collaboraing with Tom Defalco on a Spiderman/X-Men novel entitled Time's Arrows Book 2: The Present. Fortunately, his immersion in the world of comic-book heroes hasn't affected his way of viewing the world, as this new story demonstrates. Remember: when General MacArthur said that "01d soldiers never die, they just fade away," he was speaking of mere mortals...

WE WERE HAVING A PRETTY quiet day until the Olympian marched in to ruin things. Jetstream and Plasmo were over at the card table to swap the same old boring war stories they told each other every morning; AnvilMan was copping some z's, his dog-cared issue of Superwoman lying centerfold-side down on his thick plaster body cast; Enchanter was staring at the wall, mumbling to himself, making the wallpaper do tricks for him; Jukebox, formerly Mento, was starting in on the first few lines of "Under The Boardwalk," and The Crime-Stomper, pinioned upside down in his traction bed, was watching Rush Limbaugh on a black-and-white TV set staring up at him from the tile floor.

As for me, I was in bed reading. I've never been much of a reader {thanks to the mugger that killed my parents when I was five, I've never been much of anything except an Obsessed Creature of the Night) but the last four years on Ward H had been so stultifying that I'd given some thought to writing down my life story, just for the sake of having something to do. Not being overly familiar with the genre, I was plowing through every other cape memoir I could get my hands on just to see how the damned things were written. So far I'd read Your Worst Nightmare, Punk, by the Noose, American Way by Flagman, and Obnoxious for justice, by Major Buthead. They were no help at all, because apparently all you had to do to write a cape memoir was lie through your teeth about all the battles you lost in real life. And I couldn't do that because I'd sworn to always fight for truth. At least the one I was reading now, Secret Identity, had curiosity value to recommend it: I'd known Muscleman for years, back when we were in the Liberty Squad together, and after his big change I'd always secretly wanted to know the story behind his decision to get the operation that changed him to Warrior Woman.

Anyway, I was well into chapter seven -- the one describing how saving Manhattan from the death ray of Dr. Fiendish had persuaded him he needed to get in touch with his soft, nurturing side-- when I heard the moans ripple through the room. The Crime-Stomper muttered a bad word, Jukebox started singing Tom Perry's "Learning to Fly," and Jetstream, who had a talent for belaboring the obvious, said, `'Cripes, it's him."

It was. The Olympian. The super-fast, super-strong, invulnerable, three-tons-of-solid-muscle, square-jawed, internationally overexposed last survivor of the planet Mekton himself. The great big boy scout who was more powerful than the next hundred heroes all put together, and lived only for chances to show it. I have a contact on the Amazon Aces who says it's all overcompensation for being hung like a thimble. He was standing in the doorway, looking huge and heroic and mythic and huge, his titanium-blue hair glistening in the light of the open window, his little cud carefully pasted to his forehead, his great square jaw set in the determined grimace that his admirers think of as heroic and those of us who're teamed up with him prefer to consider constipated. As he surveyed the ward, hands on hips, as if waiting for somebody to sculpt him, I said, 'Hey, Limpy! Save any stray cats from trees lately?"

His monolithic head swiveled on its sequoia neck. He focused on me. "Night Rat," he said. As I winced with the knowledge that I'd have to talk to him now, he lumbered over and thrust out his great meaty hand. "I did not know you were in here."

"Yeah. Right. Sure you didn't." I shook his hand anyway. Who the hell needs the Strongest Man on Earth for an enemy?

He gave me the once-over with his famous Diagnostic Vision. "I see no physical damage. What happened to you?"

"I ran into this costumed bad guy called Nervous Rex. Tried to poison the city reservoir with a drag that causes permanent neural damage in its victims. I managed to take him out before he dosed the water, but not before he hit me with a dart dipped in the stuff. I'm fine most days. Other days..." I shrugged. "Let's just say it's hard to fight a never-ending battle when you're quivering on the sidewalk. What about you? Why are you here? Is this a photo-op? You got some TV crew waiting outside to take pictures of you visiting the disabled veterans of super wars?"

He blinked. Twice. Absorbed the question. "I brought in a new patient. They'll be wheeling him in any minute."

That broiled my bottom. The Heroic Veteran's Administration was supposed to have regulations about the number of patients allotted to a ward. We were already past that limit, if you counted Enchanter, which we really couldn't, since he uncontrollably faded in and out of existence anyway. But a new patient would definitely put us over. I was about to complain when Plasmo stumbled on over, his semiliquid legs bunching up around his ankles like baggy pajamas. Somewhere in his half-melted features sat the eager expression of a lonely man happy for somebody new to talk to. "Olympian!" He said. "Remember me? We took out Dr. Fiendith together?"

"I remember," the Olympian said, in a voice that showed no trace of nostalgia.

Plasmo's neck elongated twenty feet, whipped his head back over his shoulders, and extended the entire length of the room, just so he could face Jetstream from a distance of six inches and shout, "HA! TOLD YOU!" Then his neck pulled taut, yanking his head back to its previous position atop his misshapen shoulders, so he could use it to beam self-satisfaction at the Olympian. "I keep telling him you and I are partnerth, but he doethn't believe me. But you can tell him. Rememberd. Fiendith had you helpleth under a paralythith beam? I burtht in and heroically pulled the plug? You gave me that thpethial patch to thew on my cothtume, that timid I wath your offithial partner from that moment on? Remember? Huh?"

"Yes," said the Olympian. "It was a special moment. I think about it often."

The exchange so thoroughly nauseated me I had to turn away to avoid throwing up. That was nothing new with Plasmo, of course; I don't know about you, but there's something about stretching powers that's always made me physically ill. Sue me. It's worse in Plasmo's case, since he's worn out all his connective tissues and can't quite snap back all the way anymore.

Still, that wasn't what made me sick so much as the constant brown-nosing the Olympian seems to get from so many people in our profession. Like the way they call him Earth's Greatest Hero even though he's not from Earth. The way they call him a hero at all when a man who can survive ground-zero nukes isn't really putting his butt on the line in any way. And the way they simper like starstruck teenage girls whenever he offers them even the slightest sign of recognition. Take that stupid patch Plasmo was so excited about. I have one too. So does everybody. The Olympian has them made in bulk. "Anyway," I said, just to change the subject back to something relevant. "Who's this new roomie you're bringing us? Somebody who's paid his dues, I hope?"

"Who didn't vote for Clinton!" The Crime-Stomper shouted, from his inverted position on the traction bed, thus prompting Jetstream, a lifelong Democrat, to hobble over in the buckets of bum-gel he uses for shoes and change the channel from Limbaugh to Oprah.

The Olympian had always been opaque to irony. "I don't think he's a great believer in democracy."

Two orderlies chose that moment to wheel in the new patient on his life-support 'bed. Plasmo gasped -- nothing new, since he goes through spells where he has to hyperventilate to keep his lungs from deflating. The Crime-Stomper cursed, and appealed to the spirit of America itself to heal him so he could leap across the room and throttle the new arrival with his bare hands. Jetstream said, "Jumping Jehosophat!," his pet exclamation, which to me always sounded stupid. Anvil-Man woke blinking, a disquieted frown forming on his bland complacent features. Enchanter shouted a series of nonsense words, summoning forth d flock of winged pigs that instantly flew out the open window. And Jukebox, formerly Mento, started singing "Behind Blue Eyes," starting with the famous first line about how nobody knows what it's like to be the Bad Man. Of all of us, only I remained capable of putting our horror into rational words, as I leaped to my feet: "H-hey! This a hero's ward! You can't bring him in here! He's a villain!"

"And not jutht any villain," Plasmo slurred. "THE villain. Baron Death himthelf!"

Temporarily forgetting where he was and what shape he was in, Anvil-Man tried to leap out of bed. Bad move -- his bones were still knitting. Even constrained as he was, it had to hurt. He aaarrrrghed.

I approached the new arrival gingerly, hoping the others would blame my quivering gait on my long-standing nerve condition. Maybe that was affecting me, a little. But there was also fear: Baron Death had spent the last thirty years waging constant war on the combined forces of everything that was good and decent, lust about every hero I knew had run afoul of his evil schemes one time or another, and we all considered ourselves fortunate to have escaped with our lives. The combined forces of all Earth's champions had just barely managed to keep his threat at bay; up until now, even the Olympian himself-- the guy who'd once worked out a kink in his back by spending the afternoon moving the entire Himalayan mountain chain one yard to the left -- had never succeeded in capturing him. The Baron looked pretty irrevocably defeated now; his trademark shiny black armor had been crumpled like aluminum foil around the human form inside, leaving him not only helpless, but trapped in there, alone with the memories of his great evil, forever. Life-support tubes pierced his skin through the chinks; the fluids passing both ways bubbled unpleasantly as the orderlies wheeled the bed into the empty spot by the front door.

I whirled and approached the Olympian. "All right, so I'm fairly impressed you caught him. How could I not be? But this is still a hero's ward! There's no place for his kind in here!"

"That's right!" shouted The Crime-Stomper. "You want a place to put him, try the bottom of the ocean!"

"Or the far side of the moon!" added Jetstream, perhaps the only time in living memory that the two of them had ever agreed with each other.

"Or the thurfathe of the thun!" Plasmo said, probably just happy to contribute in some way.

The Olympian was indomitable. "The jail ward isn't equipped to give him the kind of care he needs. The usual facilities for super-villains are filled with people who'd give their right arms to break him out. He's never actually been convicted of a crime. I have no choice but to leave him here. The Disabled Heroes Administration has already given its approval. With any luck, you'll all be a good influence on him."

"'...good...' -- hey, listen, you! Come back here!"

But he was already gone, having leaped out the window in a single bound.

"Bastard!" The Crime-Stomper shouted.

"He'th gone," Plasmo informed him.

"Hell, I know that! But he's the Olympian! He's got super-hearing! He can still hear us cussing him out! AIN'T THAT RIGHT, LIMPY? YOU ALIEN ... TURD! WE ALL KNOW YOU'RE THAT NERDY REPORTER! WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT THAT, HANNNH?"

That brought Nurse Kent running, in from the hall. She was a tough old bird, built like a fortress of solitude, and about as kindly as an evil henchman whose paycheck's been shorted for the week. She planted her malletshaped fists on her great broad hips and demanded: "What's all this noise?"

"Nothing, ma'am," Jetstream said. "Night Rat's just blowing off some steam."

She tsked. And it was a powerful tsk, too; if tsking can be a superpower, bestowed by a bite from a radioactive grandmother or something, Nurse Kent was the most formidable tsker of them all. When she tsked, the disapproval just radiated off of her in waves, capable of dousing all life from a room. She waggled a long bony finger at the tip of my nose and said: "Now, you know better than that, young man. You boys need your rest. I don't want any Titans Clashing in here."

"Sorry," I said, my eyes downcast. "It was just my soul, crying out for justice."

"And you know that's not good for you. You don't want to bring on one of your episodes, do you?""No, Ma'am."

"That's better," she said. She looked at the others. "Does anybody need a bedpan?

"I'll take one," said Anvil-Man.

She obliged, waited while he did what he had to do, gave us all stern looks, and waddled back out.

It was Jetstream who broke the silence she always left behind her. "That'll do it, Night Rat." He made a disparaging gesture of his flamedampening gloves. "Thanks."

"You think this is some kind of joke.?" I said, sotto voce. "That's Baron forgodsake Death in that bed, mister!"

"That's right!" Crime-Stomper cried. "I say we finish him off fight now! Do the world a favor!"

That was par for the course. The Crime-Stomper's idea of fighting crime had been leaping through a plate glass window firing Uzis with both hands. His body count was supposed to be in the low thousands. Some of them even guilty. He became the Quad he is today the first time he met somebody who could shoot back. I said, "You know I won't be a party to that. I never approved of killing."

"I know. And that's why the same bad guys you fought on Wednesday always escaped from prison on Thursday and had to be put away again on Friday. Pointless, wasn't it?"

Jetstream, whose rogue's gallery had consisted of the same six costumed villains, all of whom went on crime sprees with the same depressing regularity as mine, said, "And ethics? Morality? Doesn't that mean anything to you, you reactionary butthead?"

"Come closer and say that, you sorry excuse for a fizzed-out Roman candle. I'll bite your nose off."

Jukebox started singing, "Turn, Turn, Turn."

Enchanter tried to levitate, but bumped his head on the ceiling with a painful thwock that only Anvil-Man appreciated.

Jetstream said, "It doesn't matter anyway. None of us are really up to trim these days. And he is wearing that armor of his. I don't think there's any way we could kill him even if we wanted to.

"Anvil-Man said, "Well, I have a suggestion."

Nobody asked to hear it. We knew what his suggestion was. The only trick in his reportoire was crushing bad guys with anvils from six stories up -- thus earning him his famous nickname, "The Man With the Drop on Crime." He'd accidentally leaned out too far over the edge of a roof one day, compounded the error by not letting go of his anvil when he had a chance, and as a result had ridden his trademark weapon all the way to the pavement. Unlike most of us, he'd be out of here eventually; he'd just broken every bone in his body. The anvil in question was now a counterweight providing tension for his elevated leg. Since he couldn't turn his head, he had to stare at that anvil every single waking hour of the day. Yeah, we knew what his suggestion was, all right. I said, "We'll keep that in mind," and, more to escape the debate than anything else, joined Plasmo at Baron Death's bedside.

Plasmo glanced at me sheepishly, the oddest expression on the runny muck that passed for his face. "Peatheful," he said, "ithn't he?"

I looked down at the fiend who'd once locked me in a room with five hunter-seeker robots. "Yeah," I said. "Peaceful."

Which bothered me, a little. The Baron Death I remembered had always been a pompous ass-- he'd capture you, chain you to a wall in some dungeon somewhere, and rather than just let you rot there the way you'd expect a villain of his intelligence to handle it, he'd put all his operations on hold so he could pace back and forth in front of you speechifying about all his nefarious plans. Muscleman used to say that the only reason the Baron never actually went ahead and conquered the damn planet was that he knew he wouldn't have any nefarious plans left to brag about once he did. Evil as he was, basically the only thing he really cared about was talking.

I waved my hand in front of his eyeslits. He didn't blink.

"Really," Anvil-Man said. "I bet you, dollars to donuts, a good sock in the head with an anvil would get past that helmet of his in a New York minute."

"How would you know?" Crime-Stomper said sourly. "The same way everybody knows. I fought him once."

Plasmo and I whirled, to face a room suddenly drowning in stunned silence. Even Jukebox was agape. We met each other's eyes, saw the shock and disbelief there, and without saying a word came to the mutual conclusion that this was the single most unbelievable thing anybody had said all day. Ergo, we knew it was true. Crime-Stomper gave our incredulity a voice: "You? YOU ... of all people ... YOU fought Baron Death?"

"Yes," Anvil-Man mimicked, "Me, of all people, I fought Baron Death. What's so hard to believe about that.* You don't think I could have been a match for him?"

Enchanter turned inside-out and peered at us from in between his own teeth. The rest of us knew exactly how he felt.

"I think we all need to hear this story," Jetstream said.

But Anvil-Man's feelings were hurt, now. "No. To hell with you guys. I'm going back to sleep."

"Anvil-Man..." I began.

He started humming loudly, so we'd know his withdrawal was official. That set off Jukebox, this time on "Sympathy for the Devil." Enchanter became a toy truck, then a steam engine, then a unicorn. Plasmo and I looked at each other, rolled our eyes, and turned back to the armored figure on the life-support bed.

I don't know. If it were the old Baron Death lying battered and broken, but shouting his usual brand of megalomaniacal defiance, I think I would have sided with Crime-Stomper. But this Baron Death didn't speak, didn't utter a sound, didn't give any indication that there was anything inside his crumpled armor but an equally empty shell of flesh. It was impossible to keep thinking of him as an enemy. But it was also impossible to forget what it had been like to endure his taunts while trying to escape his boobytrapped Maze of Death. I turned to Plasmo, and saw the same troubled look in his eyes. "Do you think he's...all there?"

"He'th Baron Death," Plasmo said simply. "He'th ethcaped from thertain doom a thouthand timeth. It doethn't make any thenthe for him to end hith dayth here."

"So you think this is just some plot of his?"

"I hope tho," Plasmo said.

"Why?"

"Becauthe I think he dethervthe better."

And damned if I didn't agree with that. Because now that I thought of it, Baron Death had been one of the most honorable bad guys I've ever encountered. He'd attack you soon as look at you, of course -- that much was a given; in his profession, he could hardly be expected to do any less B but for all his supposed brilliance, for all the hard times he'd given people like me and Crime-Stomper and Plasmo and the Olympian over the years, he played the game by the rules.

Whatever could he have done, to make a big blue boy scout like the Olympian want to reduce him to...this?

Deeply troubled now, I leaned in close. "Baron Death? You there?"

Somewhere deep within his armor, the arch-villain murmured incoherently.

I leaned in closer. "Come on, Baron. Say something."

He mumbled some more. But it wasn't just meaningless gibberish -though it could have translated to anything, it was also definitely spoken from some deep well of anguished desperation.

Only one word emerged clearly, and that one hit .the room with the force of a thunderbolt: "...danger...,,

It sounded nothing like Baron Death's usual voice.

Crime-Stomper called from his bed: "I don't like the sound of that."

"Me either," I said. I turned back to Baron Death. "What kind of danger? Tell me!"

The Baron's eyes rolled. "D-dangerous .... danger..."

Dangerous danger. The worst kind.

I gritted my teeth. "Something's terribly wrong here."

Plasmo nodded, his head bobbing from side to side atop an obscenely suggestive five-foot neck. "I wath thtarting to get that imprethion mythelf."

"I agree," said the Enchanter, and that really cinched it, since as far as we knew he hadn't spoken a coherent word since his epic battle with N'loghthl, Lord of Phlarrrrg, five years earlier.

We looked at Baron Death again, then looked at each other, then at the others, and finally, together, turned toward Jukebox.

Once, he'd been Mento, The Smartest Man on Earth, and I guess the name fit, even if it made him sound like a breath mint. For the five years he ran around in that ugly pink jumpsuit of his {the one with the picture of a brain framed in an oval on his chest} nobody had ever succeeded in defeating him in a battle of wits. And any number of criminals tried, not only devising ridiculously elaborate crimes but actually {and I still can't believe how STUPID this is) sending him CLUES about where they were going to strike next. You would think that when Mento was finally defeated, it would be at the hands of somebody who was even more brilliant than he was. But it hadn't happened that way -- he'd met a bad guy who was DUMBER. A trucker named Earl, who was busting up a bar because his girlfriend had just left him. Who, being too drunk and stupid to think up any highly intricate deathtrap for Mento to cleverly escape from, just whopped him over the head with a bar stool, thus instantly turning The Smartest Man on Earth into the human oldies marathon he's been ever since.

Jukebox noticed us watching him and immediately segued into "Every Breath You Take."

Plasmo and I glanced at each other, and between us decided that it couldn't hurt. We left Baron Death behind and sat down by Jukebox's bed, one of us on either side.

He started singing "Go Away, Little Girl."

Plasmo's arm slithered up and around the back of Jukebox's head and wrapped itself around his mouth, effectively gagging him.

"Thank you," I told Plasmo.

"My pleathure."

I faced Jukebox again. "Listen. You've seen what's going on here. You know it's important. You know that something about it stinks on ice. You know that if there's something bad going down here, then we're probably the only people in position to do anything about it. Finally, you know that this might be the last chance most of us have to make a difference in this world again. But alone, we might not be able to figure it out in time. Everything depends on you being able to fight your way out of wherever it is you've been the last few years and give us some kind of advice that makes sense. You understand?"

Was it just wishful thinking, or were his eyes regaining some of their previous focus? I gestured for Plasmo to release him. Plasmo did -- and for just a second Jukebox actually looked like he was trying to say something. He opened his mouth, closed it, swallowed, made a choking noise, then opened his mouth.

And once again started singing.

This time in a deep, throaty hard-rock voice. Something about holding a girl in his arms while the band played.

"Damn," I said.

"Brooth," said Plasmo.

"What?"

"Brooth," he repeated. When I failed to understand that, he amplified, "The Bawth." When I failed to understand that too, he gave an exasperated look and spelled it out for me: "Brooth Thpringthteen."

"Great. You can name that tune. Big hairy deal."

"No! I'm thaying I know thith thong! I have the thee-dee. It'th called 'Brilliant Dithguithe!'"

Jukebox cut off the song in mid-lyric. Blinked at us.

And with a visibly tremendous effort, somehow managed to avoid singing again.

Brilliant Disguise. Interesting. I clapped him on the shoulder. "You done good, Ju--I mean, Mento. We'll get back to you.

"He nodded, his eyes glistening.

Jetstream had wandered over in the interim, his flame-retardant buckets scraping metallically against the cold tile floor. "What's it mean?

"I'm not sure," I said. "But think on this: it doesn't make sense for the man in that armor to be the real Baron Death. He's the Elyis of bad guys; if it was really the Baron, they wouldn't just dump him in some hole-in-the-wall ward to rot, for his people to eventually swoop down and rescue. No matter what the Olympian said. They'd bury him in the deepest hole they could find, build an army base around it, and have the entire membership of the Niceness League, the Terrific Ten, and the Good Eggs guarding him twenty-four hours a day. He can't be Baron Death. And that means -- terrifying as it might be to admit this -- that the man who brought him in couldn't have been the real Olympian."

"Jumping Jehosophat!" Jetstream exclaimed, making me wince. "If somebody's come up with a way to disguise himself as the Olympian, then the world's in serious danger!"

"Prethithely," said Plasmo, sounding proud of himself.

Jetstream began shuffling toward the outside corridor. I grabbed him by the arm. "Where the hell do you think you're going?"

"The phone," he said, in the tone of somebody speaking to an idiot. "We have to call The Danger Squad."

"To hell with them," I said fervently.

"What?"

"You know the rules of engagement. Whoever catches the crisis fights the bad guy. No matter what the odds. No matter how high' the stakes. This one...belongs to us."

Silence reigned in the ward around us.

Enchanter's eyes were saucers. Literally. He even had coffee cups on them.

Crime-Stomper spoke first. "No doubt about it, Night Rat. You've lost it."

"I can't believe I'm agreeing with him for the second time in one day," Jetstream said. "But he's right. Look at us. Two of us can't move, two of us can barely think, the three of us who can both move and think can't be trusted to make it down a flight of stairs. We're not in any shape to go into battle. We couldn't take out an arthritic pickpocket, even if he wanted to surrender to us. And you want us to take on the Olympian.? Or Baron Death.? Or whoever's behind this scheme, even assuming you're right about this being a scheme? Get real."

There was a moment of uneasy silence, during which I came very close to admitting that they were right.

And then Anvil-Man laughed.

It was a pained laugh, mostly because every chuckle strained the ribs still healing beneath his full-length body cast; every robust "ha!" was followed by an equally robust moan. But the laughs seemed more powerful than the moans, somehow. And they filled the room with that mythic sense of destiny that I'd long since come to associate with the turning point of any battle.

We all felt it. Deep in our bones.

I had just enough time to reflect that if Anvil-Man was capable of inspiring us, then we were even more pathetic than I'd thought, before Crime-Storeper whispered the set-up line: "Uh? Anvil-Man.? What's so funny.?"

"Don't you see it.?" Anvil-Man shouted. "If we really wanted to GET REAL, would we even BE in this business.? Winning against impossible odds is what we're all about!

"That did it, for us.

The Enchanter summoned his mystic cloak from the closet. CrimeStoreper let out a battle cry. Plasmo fanned out to all four corners of the room and gathered us together for a group hug. letstream removed his flame-dampening glove and shot off a celebratory burst of fireworks. Jukebox led us all in a rousing rendition of "We Are the Champions," which predicably brought in Nurse Kent a second time. I felt a seizure coming on, and for the first time since being shut away in this starched white prison actually managed to fight it off.

And just as the celebration started to pall, with everybody facing the stark realization that they didn't even have the beginnings of an idea what we were expected to do next, Jukebox sang out a ten-second medley of the Jags' "Back of My Hand {I've Got Your Number}," Steve Miller's "I'm Gonna Grab Ya," Ritchie Valens's "Come On Let's Go," the Supremes' "Nowhere to Run," and, oddly enough, Richard Harris's "MacArthur Park."

He'd thought of a plan...

IF YOU READ any newspapers at all, you know what the explanation was. How the man in the armor wasn't Baron Death, but a small-time villain called The Leech, who had the ability to absorb and store the powers from any unwary superheroes who happened to be in the vicinity. We all knew the Leech, having encountered him once or twice, but he'd never been a real threat, since it took him days to absorb enough power to make a difference, and us only thirty seconds, to put him away with a good right hook. But Baron Death had seen in him a good way to gather up all the world's superpowers for himself -- he'd just welded the poor guy into a junked-up version of his own armor, fitted him with a neural paralyzer so he wouldn't be able to tap into all the power he was getting, and ordered a robotic Olympian impersonator to usher him from one superhero hangout to another, as his "prisoner," arranging for him to "escape" every time he'd drained the well dry.

A brilliant plan. One so obvious in retrospect that it's hard to see how come we didn't see it right away. I guess that's why Baron Death's number one in the villain business. But this time he made the mistake of choosing us as his first helpless victims.

You know the rest of it, too -- how we escaped the hospital in a makeshift flying machine hastily constructed from our beds, and how we fought the robotic Olympian impersonator in an epic battle that flattened six square blocks of Manhattan, how we faced Baron Death in his secret laboratory beneath Disney World, and how, at the end, when the bomb that would blow up North America was ticking down its last thirty seconds and the rest of us were trapped by the Baron's evil paralysis ray, the immobile plaster-encased form of Anvil-Man saved the day by plummeting from the rafters where we'd left him at the precise moment the Baron removed his protective helmet to mock us with the sight of his hideously scarred face.

This may not strike you as a great way to regain one's lost dignity, but it sure as hell worked for us.

And then, when it was over, we piloted our makeshift flying machine high over the city. Jetstream had welded the beds together, Jukebox and I lay side-by-side in two forming a U, cushioned by blankets, peering down at the city through the wire mesh of the bedframes, and singing "Born to Be Wild." We'd mounted Crime-Stomper's traction bed at the head of this construct, making him resemble one of the wooden figureheads that fronted nineteenth-century sailing ships. He liked that. Anvil-Man's bed rode on top of the U, forming the upper deck -- we'd given him some weighted bedpans to drop in case we ran into any trouble out there. letstream straddled his body cast, flaming hands held aloft to inflate the hot air balloon we'd made of Plasmo. As for the Enchanter, he floated along beside us, once again insubstantial, neither helping nor hindering our progress...but though I couldn't see him from where I was I somehow knew he was smiling. Eventually, letstream asked, "Where to? Back to the hospital ?"

"No," I said. "We can't go back to the hospital. Not while evil still flourishes. Not while there are still wrongs to be righted. Not while they still expect us to eat that trap they serve. No -- it's time for bad guys to beware. Because a new breed of crime-fighter is in town."

That started a whole new round of cheering, which continued unabated until Crime-Stomper used his nose to ring the buzzer that he'd used for so many years to ring the nurse: "All right. Listen up, people, I just spotted something. A rehearsal for the big time. A dark alley between a peepshow parlor and a homeless hotel. Mugger holding two tourists at gunpoint."

"Take us down!" I shouted. "This is a job for --"

We all shouted it together.

"... THE DIFFERENTLY ABLED!"

And Jetstream and Plasmo took us into a power dive, with lukebox performing a soundtrack straight out of Wagner.

~~~~~~~~

By Adam -Troy Castro

THE RAINMAKER

Mary Rosenblum is currently working on a mystery series set in Hood River, Oregon. The first novel Devil's Trumpet is due out in about six months.

Mary calls this new story an example of "American Magic Realism," but it seems to me we need a better term, something akin to "Southern Gothic" that could apply to stories of the Pacific Northwest (like the recent novels of Nina Hoffman and Jack Cady). Hmm, that's a bit of a stumper. Fortunately for us all we don't need labels to enjoy poignant stories like this one that explore classic American myths.

SO HE'S A FRAUD?" DAD SAID.

"Well, have you ever heard of a genuine rain-maker?" Uncle Kenny cut a neat triangle out of his stack of pancakes. "Sandy, I swear these could be Mom's hotcakes. I never could get 'em right."

"You'd say anything for a free breakfast, little brother." Mom ruffled his hair the way she does mine, and she flipped three more of the browned cakes onto a plate. "Better eat these, Donny, before your uncle talks me out of 'cm. So how come you don't arrest this man, if he's a fraud? You're 'the Sheriff." She planted her hands on her hips. "It's a crime, cheating folks around here. Who has any money to waste, with the cattle market so bad?"

"We sure as hell don't." Dad pushed his chair back. "Got to check those heifers." He reached for his hat. "We're gonna run out of pasture in about two weeks," he said in a tired voice. "Guess I'll have to ship a bunch out, in spite of the beef prices. Once they start losing weight, I won't get squat for 'em anyhow."

"Hey, you could hire this rainmaker." Uncle Kenny speared the last sticky forkful of pancake and wiped the syrup from his plate with it.

"I kind of wish I could." Dad wasn't smiling. For a moment he held Uncle Kenny's narrow stare, then he turned away. My uncle shook his head.

"John sounds like he wants to get religion." He laughed.

Don't, Kenny." Morn was collecting dishes. "It's tough right now."

"It's always tough for him, isn't it? This rainmaker dude is slick." He changed the subject abruptly. ',He doesn't promise anything. Not in writing, anyway. If folks want to be stupid and give him money, it's not a crime."

"He's trading on faith." Mom's face had gotten tight. "That's a sin, even if it's not a crime."

"I sure agree with you." Uncle Kenny sighed, and kissed her as he got to his feet. "Wish you made the laws, Sis. So, Donny-boy." He grinned down at me. "You ready to ride?."

Mom was looking at me, and I had to say yes. I'd been just about willing to kill to ride with Uncle Kenny, sitting shotgun beside him as he tooled the green and white Sheriff's Department Jeep through the sage that was mostly what makes up Hamey County. Everybody liked Uncle Kenny. It used to make me feel real important, seeing how respectful everyone treated him. I licked my lips, trying to think of an excuse not to go. "Sure," I finally said, and pretended not to notice Mom's eyes get 'narrow.

"You'll make a good deputy, kid." He slapped me on the shoulder -hard enough to hurt. "Let's go."

Uncle Kenny put his sunglasses on when he got into the car. I didn't say much as we drove back into town. It was hot, and I had the window down all the way, but the July heat washed over me, making me hotter. There isn't much to Bums. The high school. A few streets on either side of highway 20. A lot of sage beyond that, in gray-green clumps. You got rocks, too, and dust the color of a buckskin mustang's hide. I saw a ghost in the distance, just walking through the sage. He was carrying a bucket.

I see them a lot -- the ghosts. Sometimes I think the desert preserves them, like it does the old homesteaders' cabins that are scattered all through the sage. Or maybe the ghosts are everywhere, but it's just easier to see them out here. I told my morn about them when I was six. She went in the bedroom and cried, after. I heard her through the door. I never talked about 'em after that. They don't pay us any attention anyway. I wonder if they even know we're here?

"You're sure talkative," Uncle Kenny spoke up. "Can't shut you up for a second. Something eating at you, Donny-boy?"

"No sir." I could feel his eyes on me, but I couldn't stop looking at the ghost.

"Maybe we need to talk," he said in a real quiet voice.

I sneaked a quick look at him then, and yeah he was looking at me. I stared at my twin faces in the mirrored surface of his glasses, and my stomach kind of folded in on itself, so I could feel the lump of the pancakes I'd eaten. Then his head jerked a little and he turned sharp without warning, so that I had to grab the door. We were pulling into the parking lot of the motel across the street from the high school, tires squealing. No siren.

This was Wednesday in late July. The lot should have been empty -too early in the day for the truckers to be stopping, or the folks passing through on their way to somewhere else. But it was full -- so full that Uncle Kenny pulled up behind two big Ford rigs slantwise, not even bothering to look for a parking space. A green and orange patio umbrella stuck up over the crowd at the back of the lot, out where the asphalt left off and the sage began. Everybody was back there, crowding around like it was a booth at the county fair.

"Let's go, Donny." Uncle Kenny threw off his seatbelt like he was mad. "Time to further your education."

Relieved, I scrambled out after, wondering if I could find someone I knew and get myself invited over for the afternoon. Uncle Kenny would buy that.

The crowd around the umbrella parted to let my uncle through, and I followed, looking hard for a face...any face. I saw a bunch of people I knew --Mr. Franke, who managed the Thriftway, and the lady who always worked the cash register at the Payless. No kids, though. Then I saw Mrs. Kramer, my English teacher. I stopped short, like I was skippin, g school, even though it was summer. It made me feel funny, seeing her there in blue jeans like anybody, with my uncle pushing past her.

"We see the world clearly, when we're children." A man's rich voice rose over the murmur of the crowd. It sounded like velvet feels and it sent shivers down my back. "When we're very young, we believe what we see. It's only as we grow up that we learn to doubt B to disbelieve the things that we once knew were real. When we were children, we knew we could summon the rain -- or wish it away."

"I don't remember making it rain." Mrs. Kramer spoke up in her late-homework tone and I craned my neck trying to see, because I bet that guy was cringing.

"Our yesterdays change to suit today's belief." The man sounded like he was smiling. "Haven't you ever listened to the arguments at a family reunion.* You don't really need me, but if you can't remember how to bring the rain yourselves, you can pay me to do it."

I forgot about Uncle Kenny and pushed forward, not even noticing who I was shouldering past. The man's words made me shiver again -inside this time, like taking too deep a breath of frosty winter air. I was waiting for Mrs. Kramer to cut him off at the knees, like she does when you tell her how the goat ate your homework, but she didn't say anything.

"You got a vendor permit, mister?" Uncle Kenny spoke quietly, but everybody stopped talking right away. He was like that. He could walk into a noisy bar and talk in a normal voice and everybody would shut up to hear him. "You got to have a permit to peddle stuff in this town." He stepped forward, and I could see the man now, squinting from the umbrella's shade. He didn't look like he sounded. He was small, kind of soft and pudgy, with a round sweating face and black hair that More would have wanted to neaten up. I was disappointed, I guess.

"I'm sorry, Sheriff." He spread his hands. "I didn't know I needed a permit to talk."

"Folks work hard for their money around here." My uncle hooked his thumbs in his gun belt. "The government takes a big bite and maybe, if beef prices are high enough, we can pay the mortgage and feed our kids on what's left." He paused, looking around at the faces that surrounded him. Everybody had moved back a little, making a ring, like you do when there's a fight out behind the gym. "What you do should be against the law." He turned his attention back to the little man. "It isn't, but we don't have to put up with your slimy kind." He let his fingers curl loosely over the top of his holstered .44. The little man nodded at the gun, his lips pursed.

"Are you threatening to beat me up or shoot me?" he asked mildly.

The silence around us got real tight and I looked away, thinking of the winter night when I had watched through the steamed-up windshield as Uncle Kenny beat up this ranch hand who'd been starting a lot of ugly bar fights in town. "Sometimes you got to know the right language," he had said when he returned to the car. He had wiped the blood from his hands carefully on a towel he pulled from under his seat. "Jail doesn't scare his kind much. But now-- he'll mind his manners. I'm just tryin' to save him from knifing somebody one night, and getting himself a prison sentence for it."

I'd believed him. I watched my uncle's lips tighten.

"Tell you what," he said in a hard voice. "You're so sure you're God's messenger, Mister Rainmaker, let's make a little wager. You make it rain on my place, I'll pay triple your fee." He tilted his head slowly back to stare at the hot, hard sky. Not a cloud anywhere-- not even a wisp of cirrus. "It don't rain, then you move on and don't ever set foot in Hamey County again." He lowered his head, his eyes as hard as the sky. "You willing to put it on the line, Rainmaker?'

Whatever you want." The man shrugged. "But I don't make rain. I just call it."

"How 'bout you call it right now?"

"I can start right now." The Rainmaker pursed his lips into a little frown. "It takes time for weather to happen. I don't do Hollywood special effects. We're talking a shift in the jet stream, cold fronts and warm fronts. Big masses of air and moisture. Takes time to move that much around."

"Yeah, got you." Uncle Kenny turned around slow, talking to the crowd now. "So if it rains sometime next Christmas, you did it?" He winked. "That's how it works?" People laughed, but the clear space got bigger around the umbrella and the little man. Only Ms. Kramer didn't move .

"I don't think my cows can wait till Christmas," someone said.

"It won't take that long." The man answered solemnly, as if Uncle Kenny had asked a real question. "Couple of days -- maybe four." He shrugged. "When it gets close, I'll let you know."

"And it'll rain right on my land, huh.? Just there?"

"Why not our south pasture?" I spoke up. "Grass'd sprout in a couple of days back there if it rained. Dad could put the heifers in instead of sellin' 'era." I looked at my uncle. "You don't have any cattle. You don't need the rain."

"Good idea." Hiram Belker, our neighbor to the east, spoke up from the crowd. "Maybe some of that there water'll land on my back forty." He guffawed -- was answered by more laughter.

"Why not?" Uncle Kenny slid his sunglasses into place and turned his shiny mirrored gaze on me. "Hell, do my poor brother-in-law a favor. We'll make it a public event. I'll put up a notice on the bulletin board in the Courthouse lobby when our wizard here decides the rain's comin'. We can party." He grinned around at the crowd. "Don't forget your umbrellas, folks."

He turned away and people turned with him, like he'd given an order. I looked to see if the Rainmaker was mad about that, but he just looked tired. He noticed me looking and gave me a small smile. I smiled back, wondering how he meant to do it, then flinched as my uncle's hand landed hard on my shoulder.

"How 'bout we go get a burger, Donny-boy? We can watch for the clouds to show up."

"It's kind of early for lunch." My voice sounded squeaky.

He opened his mouth to reply, but just then one of my uncle's' deputies tapped him on the shoulder. "Kenny? Ronny Carter just called in." He shook a Marlboro out of the squashed pack in his uniform pocket. "You'll never guess what he found out in the sage on his summer range-over by White Horse Creek? The Roias kid's old beater Chevy."

"Is he sure it's Rojas's?" Uncle Kenny pushed his hat back on his head. "I thought he took off to Mexico to visit his mother, way back in November. Did he find a body.?"

"Nope." The deputy dragged on his cigarette and blew out a blue lungful of smoke. "Found the registration. Coyotes had all winter."

Uncle Kenny turned to me. "Let's go, Donny-boy."

"Excuse me." The Rainmaker had finished folding his umbrella. "I don't know my way around here." He brushed dust carefully from gray slacks that looked prissy alongside the jeans everybody else pretty much wore. "Perhaps your nephew could show me where you expect this to fall? Or are you free to escort me?"

"Sure," I said, before Uncle Kenny could say anything. 'I'll show you."

Uncle Kenny just looked at me, long and hard, and then shrugged and spat. "Whatever you want, kid." He turned his back on us, and walked off with his deputy.

The motel lot was almost empty now. The crowd had left a scatter of crumpled burger wrappers, pop cups, and cigarette butts to mark where it had been. I remembered our one trip to the beach, when I was eight --how the tide had left the same litter of dead seaweed, trash, and broken shells on the clean white sand. I'd found a dead seal, all bloated, with empty eye sockets and grinning yellow teeth. There were ghosts there, too-- harder to see, like shadows, but they were there.

"What's your name?" The Rainmaker was looking at me with this thoughtful sort of expression.

"Donald," I said.

"Dimitri." He offered me a pudgy hand and I shook it solemnly. Dimitri sounded foreign. Russian or something. "Saturday hours are precious ones," he went on. "Thank you for giving up a few of them for me. Here." He handed me the folded umbrella, nodded at a dusty blue Dodge Caravan parked on the far side of the lot.

It wasn't a good car for the desert. But when he opened the back, I saw camping gear, some canned stuff in a box, and a couple of five-gallon water jugs. Full. Okay, he wasn't stupid anyway. I got into the front seat beside him, wondering how he'd explain it when the rain didn't come. "What?" I said, when he just sat there staring at me.

"Your seatbelt."

I buckled it. Only Morn ever nagged me about the seatbelt. "Left on Highway Twenty," I said. "Take the first right after the gas station."

He turned the key, frowned as the engine sputtered. When it finally caught, he gunned it and pulled out of the motel lot. Clogged fuel injectors, I wanted to tell him. Pour some cleaner in the gas tank before you have to pay to get 'era fixed. "Turn here," I said, when we got to the track that led back to our spring pasture. 111 get the gate. A ghost was walking along the fence line as if he was checking the wire. He had a weathered face and wore tattered work pants held up by suspenders. I waited until he passed by before I unhooked the wire gate and pulled it aside.

When I climbed back into the front seat, the Rainmaker was staring at the place where the ghost had vanished. He looked at me, nodded, but didn't say anything more as we bounced slowly along the track. Something metal was rattling in the back. Pots and pans, sounded like.

"Do you really call the weather?" I licked my dry lips, wishing he'd go faster so we'd get a breeze. "Or are you a phony?"

"That's a refreshingly direct question." He chuckled. "Your uncle thinks I'm a phony." We topped a rise and the Rainmaker halted the car. Turned off the engine and opened the door. "This feels like a good place," he said.

He walked away from me and stopped right on the edge of the slope. A pronghorn lifted her head from the sage, eyed us for a second, then trotted slowly away, her white sides flashing in the scorching sun. I wiped my face on my sleeve. I swear the Rainmaker wasn't even sweating. He stood there, looking like he was standing on a city street, just staring out at the sage and rock and dust that stretched to the horizon. This time of year, dry as it was, there wasn't any grass left to speak of. Just sage, and greasewood, and rabbit brush.

I got out, too, thinking that this was stupid, that this guy was a scare, and he'd wave his hands around, and then sneak off when nobody was looking. And I realized I was thinking all this in my uncle's voice. So I quit. And just listened to the desert. It talks, you know. Real quiet-- the sound of dust sifting against rock, and wind whispering through sage stems, sand shifting under a mule deer's hoof or a jackrabbit's paws. It doesn't notice us much. I told More about that, too. Once. She didn't cry, but it bothered her. I could tell.

The Rainmaker stood there in the blazing sun, arms at his sides, just staring into space with this kind of distant look on his face. And for a moment...just a few seconds, I guess...I felt something. It was like the air got solid. I don't mean I couldn't breathe or anything. But it was like I could feel it -- the air, could feel the clouds in it, hung up and leaking on the Cascade Mountains, could feel the cool dampness beyond them where all that water evaporating from the summer ocean was pushing inward. And I could feel...a weak spot. Where that nice damp air could push our way.

A ground squirrel scuttled over my toes. I jumped back, startled, and lost the feeling. Figured I'd just imagined it. I kicked a shower of dust after the vanished critter. Looked up to see the Rainmaker smiling at me.

"Tomorrow evening" he said, like he was agreeing with me. "We were lucky -- finding that weakening in the high pressure ridge."

I nodded and swallowed. Because his eyes were older even than old Mr. Long's, and he was a hundred and two, The Rainmaker looked out over Dad's pasture again, and now he just looked sad. "It's tough to believe in what you see," he said softly. "When everyone knows it can't be true. Come on. I'll take you home."

I shivered, and didn't answer him as I got back into the car. He drove me back down the track, and then up the main driveway to our house. And it wasn't until I had gotten out at the front door and he was driving away that I realized I'd never told him where I lived.

THE SKY WAS CLEAR that night, with just a sliver of a moon, and the Milky Way swept a white path across the sky, so clear that you could believe that it was a road, like in the old Indian tales, where you could ride a horse up it, right up into that sky.

"Hey, it's gonna rain tomorrow." Uncle Kenny had dropped by for dinner, like he did just about every night. "Can't you tell?"

"I'd sure take it, if it came." Dad popped another beer. "Hell, I'd pay the man." He helped himself to a slice of meat loaf with a grunt. "Pass me the potatoes, will you, Sandy?"

"Did I tell you we found the Rojas kid's car?" Uncle Kenny said. "Back along White Horse Creek." He reached for the meat loaf. "I guess the coyotes cleaned things up."

"Julio ?" Mom paused, the steaming bowl of potatoes in her hand. "He went back to Oaxaca. To visit his mother."

"Guess not?" Uncle Kenny forked meatloaf onto his plate. "Drug deal gone bad, is my guess."

"No!"

"Don't kid yourself, Sandy." My uncle chewed, reached for his beer. "He was selling. Everybody knew it."

Hard to believe." Dad tilted his beer can to his lips. "He was a hard worker, that kid. Worth his pay-- and that's rare enough these days. Kids don't know how to work anymore. They grow up and figure that an hour with a shovel'll kill 'em." He looked at Mom. "You gonna hold onto those all night?"

Mom looked down at the bowl in her hands. With a jerky movement, she set it in front of Dad. Then she carried her untouched plate into the kitchen. Uncle Kenny finished his dinner and went over to click through the TV channels. Dad opened another beer. I slipped out of the house and walked up the rise behind the barn. You could see over toward the spring range from up here. Julio used to sit on a rock that stuck out over the dry wash behind the barn and play his guitar. He taught me chords. He told me how it was, growing up in Mexico. I told him about the ghosts once. He told me that his family had a party for the dead every year --that they're around. Same as us. I was about to go back to the house when I spotted a ghost walking along the lip of the wash. It disappeared near the rock where Julio used to sit. Early in the spring, I found some withered flowers on that rock. I went back to the house where Mom shoved a too-big piece of apple pie at me and didn't ask me where I'd been.

"Sky cloudin' up yet? Smellin' rain in the air.?" Uncle Kenny laughed and forked pie into his mouth, but the look he gave me stung like the flick of a quirt.

I told Mom I was tired, and went on up to bed.

"He's in love," I heard Uncle Kenny say as I climbed the stairs.. "He's got all the signs."

I got onto the bed, but it was still hot up here, even with the fan on. I turned the light off and just lay on top of my sheets in my T-shirt and shorts. When I heard Mom's footsteps on the stairs,. I realized I'd been waiting for her to come up. I pulled the sheet over me and sat up in the dark.

She didn't turn on the light, and she didn't say anything, but I felt the edge of the bed sink. For a while we both just sat there. The air was thick with heat up here, and for a moment, I felt it again --clouds, rain, wind -- like a giant quilt that was constantly changing, shifting, moving above us. "Uncle Kenny's a good Sheriff, right?" The words sort of came out on their own. I didn't mean to say anything, hoped she'd let it pass.

"Yes, he is." She brushed the hair off my forehead, like she did when I was sick. "Julio didn't do it, you know.* Sell drugs. He was so lonely." Her voice faltered. "He was in love with a girl in Oaxaca. He made up songs for her on his guitar. What's wrong, Donny?" She had her hand under my chin now, so that I couldn't look away from her. "What happened between you and Kenny?"

I swallowed, but the .words had balled up in my throat. I could only shake my head, glad it was dark.

"This is a hard place to live." She stood up. "He's a good man, Donny, even if he has to be hard, at times. Justice means everything to him. That's why he's good for the county."

I didn't have anything to say to that. She took her hand away after a while, and stood up without ,saying anything .more. I lay on 'my back, staring up at the ceiling for along time after she went downstairs. I heard my uncle drive away in his county Jeep, I heard my parents come upstairs to bed. Dad stumbled on' the stairs and it sounded like he fell. Mom said something in the tone she uses when a cow is having trouble calving. I waited until their door closed, then I got up and went to the window. It was cool outside now, and the stars still glittered. But as I leaned over the sill into the night, I could feel the distant rain pressing against the air,. pushing at it. It was on its way.

I waked before the sun was up and left the house just as it got light. The eastern sky had gone pink and soft gray as I followed the wash down across the east pasture. When it rained, the steep-sided little canyon filled up with water. Fast. My dad and I had had to ride out in a freak storm one spring, to move cattle out from where they'd holed up in the bottom, before it flooded. I remember that afternoon real well --lightning breaking across the sky in blue forks, rain falling in stinging sheets, the homes snorting and trying to bolt. The cattle milled in the shelter of the willow brush in the bottom, not wanting to move. Uncle Kenny had showed up on his rangy black mustang to help, still in uniform because he was on duty. The three of us had finally gotten the twenty or so cows and calves started up the bank -- just as a wave of brown water had come foaming down the bed. It had caught my pony, and he had reared, bellydeep in an instant. I knew we were goners. But then Uncle Kenny had grabbed the reins and hauled us both out of the flood. "Too cold for swimrain'," he'd said, and laughed.

I left the wash and climbed the slope, squinting at the first blaze of sun above the distant horizon. I stopped to get my breath on the ridge. Down below, near the highway fence, a dusty blue Dodge Caravan was parked by a crooked juniper. The Rainmaker was sitting on a little folding stool beside the car, a steaming mug in his hand. He smiled and nodded as I reached him, and stood up as if he'd been waiting for me to show. "You can tell me the good place for breakfast," he said.

The good place, he'd said. I thought about that. "The Spur," I said.

The parking lot was crowded. The Rainmaker didn't say anything as he parked at the edge of the lot. He turned off the engine and started to open the door.

"Can I do it?" I said. My voice sounded too loud, or too soft, I wasn't sure which.

"Do what?" He didn't turn around to look at me.

"Call the rain." I swallowed. "I can feel it coming. It's gonna get here soon."

"Tonight." He still didn't look at me. I thought he'd be glad, but his shoulders drooped, the way Mom's did when Dad had to take out the loan to pay the feed bills. "Yes." He went quiet again for a minute. "You can do it. But once you do -- you don't live in the same world with everybody else anymore. Think about that." He opened the door suddenly, letting in a gust of hot dusty wind. Got out.

I wanted to ask him more -- lots more -- but he wasn't going to answer me, so I didn't say anything as we went inside. It was crowded. The booths and formica-topped tables were mostly full and cigarette smoke drifted beneath the wagon-wheel lights with their yellow globes. It felt .like evening instead of bright morning. And it got quiet while the waitress hustled us over to a table. I recognized a couple of faces from the motel parking lot yesterday. And Uncle Kenny was there-- drinking coffee in his regular booth by the door where he could see the whole room. He was sitting with one of his deputies, and I could feel him looking at me as I walked past like I hadn't seen him.

I sat down with my back to him and stared at the typed menu in its plastic sleeve. The words didn't make any sense, but I wasn't hungry anyway. "Can I have coffee, please.?" I asked the impatient waitress. "And a cinnamon roll."

The Rainmaker ordered the breakfast special -- steak and eggs with hashbrowns and toast. He looked up as the waitress bustled away and Uncle Kenny took her place. "Good morning, Sheriff." He smiled a bland, ' kind of tired smile.

"It ain't raining." Uncle Kenny pulled a chair out with a scrape that sounded way too loud in the utter silence that now filled the room. "So you chose up sides, huh, kid?"

From the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of movement. A Gray-haired old man was making his way down the aisle with a check in his hand. As he reached the cash register, he vanished.

"I'm talkin' to you, kid." My uncle's tone pulled my head back around like he'd tied a string to my jaw. "Your mom know you're here?"

I nodded, wondering who the old man had been, why he walked here, and made myself meet my uncle's eyes. She loves you. The words started swelling inside me like bread dough. Do you know that? That she loves you? More than me. More than Dad, even. Little brother.

"Easy," the Rainmaker murmured. Like I'd spoken out loud.

Uncle Kenny looked away-- at the wall, with its pictures of bronc and bull riders, Warm Springs Indians on rough-coated Paints riding beside cowgirls with satin shirts, spangles, and silver-mounted tack in rodeo parades. "So when's the show.*" He pushed his chair back, talking to the Rainmaker like he'd forgotten I was there. "When do we get our rain.?" He was talking loud and everybody in the place was listening to him. "Hey, we're spending the money. We want to be there when the curtain goes up."

"It'll probably rain tonight." The Rainmaker leaned back a little as the waitress plunked the big oval platter with his steak and eggs down in front of him, set down the smaller plate piled with toast, and whipped the coffee pot over his cup. She didn't fill mine, gave me a dirty look like I was drinking whiskey and not coffee as she paraded away.

"You don't sound too sure." Uncle winked around the restaurant, got chuckles and skeptical grunts on cue.

"No." The Rainmaker cut a precise rectangle of steak. "Nothing is certain in real life." He placed the meat neatly in his mouth.

Uncle Kenny snorted and turned his back. "I'll come wait with you tonight." He didn't look back as he strode across the restaurant. "You all are invited, too." He gave the room one last grin that seemed to focus on every person there. Got a couple of hoots in reply. "It's my party. Take the gate just west of the Highway Motel...north side of the highway. Look for my rig on the road. And bring your umbrellas." Chuckling, he pushed through the door. I heard his car start up outside.

The Rainmaker didn't seem to notice the stares as he ate his breakfast. They made me want to crawl under the table, but I sat up straight and turned my empty cup around and around, wishing the waitress would give me more coffee. Finally he was done and we got up to go. When the cashier told us he was $1.50 short, he looked up at her so sharp she flinched. "He never got his cinnamon roll," he said, with a nod in my direction.

He had noticed, and not said anything.

I wasn't sure if I was pissed or not.

WE DROVE BACK out to the dry wash where we sat in the shade of a twisted juniper, watching its shadow creep across the ground. Waiting for the rain, I guess. The flowers on the rock had blown away a long time ago. "You wore going to tell me," I said. "How to do it."

"I never said that." The Rainmaker gave me a severe look. "It's not something you can teach. So you have decided to stop being a part of the human race?"

"You're human." I tossed a pebble at a fence lizard basking under a clump of bittergrass, watched it scuttle indignantly away. I tossed another when he didn't say anything. I kept remembering the way people had looked at him in the restaurant. "It's just because you're a stranger in town." The words didn't sound very convincing.

"You better tell your mother where you are." He crossed his arms on his knees. "She's worrying."

I got up, dusting off my jeans. Because she was. Movement flickered across the draw. The ghost again. You can't see them very well in the bright sun. I don't think it really shines on them, or even through them. The light sort of covers them up instead. This one sat on the shelf of rock where the flowers had been. The Rainmaker noticed him, too. He looked at me and raised one eyebrow, but I turned my back on him and ran up the side of the wash, and all the way home, so that I came into the kitchen soaked with sweat.

Mom met me with her fists on her hips, face stiff with anger, as if I'd skipped my chores. "Kenny told me where you were." Her voice trembled. "You go straight to your room, young man."

"Why?" I blurted out the word, angry myself, now. "What's wrong with having breakfast with..." I couldn't remember his name. "With the Rainmaker," I finished lamely.

"He's a fraud." She got angrier. "Where are your brains?"

"He's not a fraud."

"He's a crook. Cheating people."

"Who has he cheated, huh? You tell me who."

"Kenny said..."

"You always believe Uncle Kenny." I was yelling now. "Uncle Kenny is so damn perfect. You won't believe me, but anything he says..."

She slapped me.

For a moment I stared at her, face burning where her palm had struck, the sudden silence ringing in my ears. Then I turned and ran out of the kitchen, pounding up the stairs to my room. I slammed the door, and threw myself down on the bed. Mad at her. Mad at myself. Because a part of me had wanted her to tell me for sure that he was a fraud.

I lay on the bed, waiting for her to come upstairs, watching the sun move across the cloudless sky and sweating in the still heat of the upstairs. What if it didn't rain? I wasn't sure how I'd feel about that -- or maybe I just didn't want to know. But she didn't come upstairs, and that hurt, too. And I guess I fell asleep after a while, because it was dark when I woke up, and Mom was setting a tray on my desk.

"I brought your dinner up." She turned on the light and straightened, pushing wisps of hair back from her forehead. "It must be ninety up here. Why didn't you turn on the fan?" She snapped on the old box fan, her fingers brisk and impatient on the switch. The sudden gust of air felt cool on my face, and I imagined for a second that I could smell rain, the way the animals can.

"Your uncle went down to where that...man is camped." More sounded uneasy. "He's worried that a lot of people might show up. That they might get...rowdy."

"They'll come because he told 'era to." I didn't look at her. "They'll beat up the Rainmaker. Because he wants them to."

"No."

"Don't you get it, Mom?." I leaned forward, but she wouldn't look at me. "People always do what he wants 'em to do."

"Don't talk about your uncle like that." But she said it mechanically, in a dull tone without anger. "We couldn't make it without him. I couldn't make it." She got to her feet and walked out of the room.

I went over to the window, a fist squeezing my stomach until I thought I'd be sick. To the west -- in the direction of the distant ocean -the stars ended in a band of pure darkness above the horizon. I felt the fist in my stomach loosen a hair, fixed my eyes on a small pair of dim stars. They vanished. A twinkling yellow star above them vanished a moment later. "Mom," I called out. "Clouds."

She came back to stand silently beside me at the window. I heard her swallow. '

"Let's go down there," she said softly. "Your dad was going to haul the heifers to auction tomorrow."

We went downstairs together, tiptoeing through the living room, where my dad snored on the sofa, one hand loosely curled around a can of beer. I had never heard him snore before. His face looked soft and flushed. "Dad?" I stopped.

"He's all right." Mom's face was as still as a winter pond before a flight of geese lands. "He's just drunk." Her voice was without inflection.

I had never seen my father drunk. But I remembered his uncertain tread on the stairs every night, and her tone as she coaxed him to bed.

I thought Mom would take the truck, but she walked into the sage, as sure in the faint moonlight as if she came this way every day. I stumbled after her, tripping over sage stems and clumps of grass. I didn't catch up with her until she had reached the lip of the wash. The Rainmaker's camp was visible in the light from a single propane lantern. At least a dozen men milled in a loose circle around him. I recognized Uncle Kenny. He wasn't in his uniform. Suddenly he stepped forward, one hand closing on the front of the Rainmaker's shirt, lifting him onto his toes.

"You think we're a bunch of dumb cowboys, don't you?" His voice came to me on the wind, edged with violence. "We'll just grin and shuffle our feet and hand over our money to you, 'cause you're so smart, and we're just dumb hicks."

The men around them growled and shuffled forward, as if they were puppets, and he'd yanked all their strings at once. I took a step forward, caught my toe in a sage stem, and fell flat on my face. Eyes full of grit, I struggled to my knees, spitting dust. I knew what was going to happen -could see it, like on a movie screen. My face was wet and I wiped it on my sleeve. Crying, I thought, as I staggered to my feet. I'm not crying.

"Kenny!" Mom's voice was shrill and strange, and down below, my uncle paused, his fist drawn back, his other hand clutching the Rainmaker's shirt front. He looked up at her.

More water hit my face. Cold water. I looked up and laughed.

It was raining.

The stars had vanished, and the rain came down all at once, like someone had upended a cosmic bucket. It pounded on the dry ground and made the sage shiver. Below, the bunched, angry men were milling like nervous cattle. Uncle Kenny still held the Rainmaker by the shirt, but he had lowered his hand. My mom was running down to him, her wet hair plastered to her head. She looked like a kid and I realized suddenly how old my dad was. One of the men whooped, and somebody pounded on the Rainmaker's back.

By the time I got down to the Rainmaker's camp, I was soaked to the skin and muddy. People were still hanging around. I knew who they were. All of them. They were watching the first streams of brown water run down the bottom of the wash. I looked up at the rock shelf where I found the flowers, and yeah, the ghost was there, standing on the very edge. And it was really dark, but I could see him better than I ever had before --like there was a spotlight shining on him.

Julio Rojas.

He looked sad. I looked at my mom, and she was staring at that rock, too, but she didn't see him. She had her hands pressed tight against her chest, like she hurt inside. And Uncle Kenny was looking at her, too. Water was starting to fill the wash, brown and foamy as chocolate,, pouring down into the low land across the highway. When I looked again, Julio had gone from his rock, and I thought about the flowers, and my more running down through the sage like she knew the way.

And I could feel the water, like I'd felt the rain. I guess it was rain -only on the ground now, and not in the sky. And if it ran down the east side of the draw, it would cut away a lot of the dirt beneath the rock shelf. I took a step away from everyone, staring at that chocolate flood, feeling it like it was a wet rope sliding through my hands, and I didn't really think about it, I just started to pull.

A thin stream welled over a low berm of silt and stones from last winter's floods, pushed a small rock out of the way. I was sweating. The rock tumbled down the slope and more water welled after it, pushing more stones out of the way, dissolving the dirt. Then, suddenly, the berm gave way and was gone as if it had never been. The flood divided, sweeping now along the steep east wall of the wash, eating away the dirt below the shelf.

Uncle Kenny stepped up beside me, not noticing me, his eyes on that dissolving bank. His shoulders were hunched and his hands clenched into fists. The rock shelf tilted and wavered, and I heard him take a fast, short breath.

It tilted some more, slid very slowly into the churning water, smashing flat the sparse willow stems that lined the sides. Something showed in the hole left in the bank. Something not dirt colored. "Look!" I pointed. "Over there, along the bank."

I guess a couple of people looked, because someone broke away from the crowd and walked along the lip of the wash, hat pulled down against the still-steady rain, water soaking his shirt and jeans. Mr. Walker. Owner of the Bar Double D. He stopped above the light-colored object and stepped quickly back. "It's a body," he yelled to us. "My God. Someone was buried here."

Everybody went running over, boots splashing through the water, a half dozen tall shapes in wet clothes and pulled down hats. My uncle didn't go. Neither did my morn. They were both looking at me. "It's Julio," I said. My mom's face didn't change, but she made a small sound, like a hurt animal.

"I was sleeping over the night he disappeared." My uncle spoke up in that slow, lazy drawl he uses when he breaks up a fight. "Remember, Sandy?" He turned to her, smiling a little, his hand on her shoulder. "Dave and I got to drinking and I slept on the sofa. After we put Dave to bed."

I could feel his words turning solid in the air, reaching back over the weeks to change yesterday. I could feel my mom's relief as she started to nod. "No," I said. "You left. Dad watched to after you were gone." And I had sneaked out, because the moon was full, and I couldn't sleep.

"Donny...,, More whispered. "Don't."

Uncle Kenny had saved me when the flood caught my pony. He helped us a lot. When Dad was drunk. We couldn't make it without him. I couldn't make it. I heard my Mother's voice. Words took shape in my throat, stuck there like fish bones: Oh yeah, I remember now. You slept over. Sorry, Uncle Kenny.

The Rainmaker was looking at me, and he looked sad. Julio had taught me how to chord on his old, battered guitar. He had laughed, and missed the girl he had loved. Up on the bank, two of the ranchers were bending over Julio Rojas's body. I couldn't look at Mom "I saw you," I said to my uncle. "I was up in the sage."

For a moment, my uncle stared at me, his face all edges, as if the flesh had eroded away, leaving nothing but bone. "You're dreaming, kid. I was in the house, asleep, when he took off. Ask your mom." His laugh sounded like something breaking. "You're the crazy kid who sees ghosts and talks to the damn desert. Who's gonna believe you?"

She had told him. I couldn't look at her, wondering who else he had told, chuckling about it over a beer maybe, in the Spur at night. The rain was running into my eyes, but I didn't try to wipe my face, just stood there waiting for her to agree with him. Because I was only a crazy kid who saw ghosts, and back home, Dad had passed out, and there were the cattle to deal with. The ranch.

"He's not crazy, Ken." More spoke softly. "And he's right." Her voice sounded empty and cold. "You left. I remember because...I had a hard time getting Dave up the stairs by myself that night."

For a long moment, my uncle and my more stared at each other. Then my uncle turned away and slogged back toward the road. Only the Rainmaker saw him go. He was looking at me, standing hatless in the rain, his face as round and calm as the moon.

"Donny?" My mother's voice trembled. "Julio used to play his guitar for me." She closed her eyes briefly as we heard Uncle Kenny's car start. "He was so young and full of hope. He was a poet -- he made those songs up himself. That's all that happened between us. I swear it."

I nodded, but I couldn't speak. There wasn't anything inside of me. Just night and rain. After a moment Morn turned away. I watched her trudge toward the road after Uncle Kenny. You couldn't cross the wash anymore. She would have to take the long way home-- back to the empty house where my dad snored on the sofa. I flinched as the Rainmaker put a hand on my shoulder.

"I have to," I said. "Don't I?"

He squeezed my shoulder. "I'll make you some tea," he said, and his voice sounded as old as the desert. Sad. Two of the ranchers went running back to their parked cars. To find the Sheriff? I wondered. "No, thank you," I said politely. "Mom's waiting for me."

And she was -- up on the road -- hugging herself in the pouring rain. She straightened as I got close. "Are you going to go with him?" she asked softly.

I shook my head. "I used to. listen to Julio play, too," I said. "He was really good. We'll have to tell someone."

She nodded once, eyes closed, then opened them and smiled at me. "We will." Then she reached for my hand, and as we walked along the road to our driveway together, the rain began to diminish to a slow, steady shower.

~~~~~~~~

By Mary Rosenblum

MENAGE AND MENAGERIE

When Jane Austen wrote Pride and Prejudice, she wasn't writing about a pride of lions, was she?

THE FAMILY OF RADFORD had been long settled in Devonshire. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Selwyn Park, in the center of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.

Sir Radford, the present owner of the estate, did, in his habits, somewhat strain the reputation established by his father and his grandfather and his great grandfather before him. Sir Radford had a passion for exotic animals and the wealth to indulge that passion. A widower, he lacked the guiding hand of a wife to temper his eccentricities.

On his estate, he kept a menagerie of exotic creatures, brought to him by adventurers and explorers from all parts of the globe. A visitor, riding up the lane toward Sir Radford's large and handsome house, might hear the roar of an African lion or the shrieking laugh of a wild hyena. Sir Radford's collection included an Indian tiger, three ostriches from Africa, and an assortment of gaudily colored birds from the jungles of South America, all obtained at great expense.

Though Sir Radford's wife had borne him no children, he shared his home with a young woman whom he had adopted as a daughter. There were those in the county who said that Miss Selina was his natural daughter, born in one of those exotic places where he had so often traveled, and brought home to be raised an Englishwoman. But the story, as Sir Radford told it, was that she was the only daughter of a gentleman in Russia who had been much like a brother to Sir Radford. When that gentleman had met with an unfortunate hunting accident, Sir Radford had taken the man's daughter as his own.

Whatever her ancestry, Miss Selina Radford was a handsome young woman, with black hair and sparkling hazel eyes. Sir Radford had engaged governesses to teach her, and she wrote a fine hand, played the pianoforte with considerable skill, and had a lovely singing voice. She was a hearty girl, given to long walks on the downs and vigorous rides.

Sir Radford was an exceedingly sociable gentleman. Every year, when spring mists and rain gave way to warmer weather, he invited his elderly cousin, Lady Dustan to visit his estate. And so, in the spring of 1828, Lady Dustan came to the estate with a party of young friends..

Lady Dustan herself was never happier than when she had a noisy party of young people gathered about her, so that she could watch over them and speculate on how they might best be paired off, as matchmaking was one of her favorite occupations. The first evening at Selwyn Park, while Selina played the pianoforte and the assembled company listened politely, Lady Dustan and Sir Radford sat at the back of the room, where they might converse in lowered voices about the members of Lady Dustan's party. She had brought her two nieces, Mary and Lydia, and a young man, George Paxton. A second young man, William Gordon, had joined the party at Sir Radford's request.

"I think you will enjoy the company of Mr. George Paxton, the son of my dear friend," said Lady Dustan. "He has spent the past few years in the service of the British Museum doing something frightfully scholarly with plants and animals that are found in rocks."

"Fossils," Sir Radford ventured.

Lady Dustan fluttered her hand as if brushing away an annoying insect. "I suppose. He tried to explain it to me once, but I could make no sense of it. Something about chalk and seashells and dead creatures. He's left the museum in any case and taken up with the newly established Zoological Society. They're endeavoring to make a zoological garden in Hyde Park. He's a sweet-tempered, amiable, young man, though a bit diffident and retiring for his family's tastes. His mother wished him to go into the law or the army, but neither suited him. He prefers to putter about with rocks and animals, it seems. Still, I think he has an open and affectionate heart."

"I can understand wanting to putter about with rocks and animals," Sir Radford commented, with the slightest edge in his voice.

"Of course you understand, Sir Radford. But Lady Paxton is quite bewildered by his behavior." Lady Dustan smiled at the back of George Paxton's head. "I do believe that he and my niece, Lydia, would make a fine match. Their temperaments would complement one another admirably--she is an excitable girl and I think Mr. Paxton might help make her less prone to extravagance and passion. And she might help him approach life in a livelier manner. She's an amiable girl, though not terribly handsome. She has 10,000 pounds settled on her, and that would make his family much more willing to indulge his eagerness to study animals, rather than the law."

"I imagine that would make the young man very happy," Sir Radford observed.

"But I have no match for Lydia's younger sister, Mary. She's a lovely girl, though quiet by nature." Lady Dustan shifted her gaze to William Gordon. He was handsome enough, with a fine dark mustache and a military air. "And what can you tell me of Mr. Gordon,"

"He's a Navy man. He brought me two fine macaws when he returned from South America. And he says he may bring me a zebra when next he voyages to Africa."

"What of his character.?"

"A steady man on a hunt, I can say that. He's a capital fellow, I think."

Lady Dustan shook her head, dismayed by Sir Radford's lack of useful information on the young man. Before she could inquire further or ask discreetly about Selina's prospects, Selina's song came to an end and Lady Dustan and Sir Radford joined in the polite applause. As the party moved off to the dining room, Lady Dustan continued to watch the young men that she had discussed with Sir Radford.

"Your skill in playing is matched only by your beautiful voice," William was saying. "I've never heard better -- not even in the finest salons in London."

Lady Dustan smiled. He flattered Selina unduly -- her playing was adequate and her voice was quite pretty, but no more than that. She noticed that William took care to seat himself between Selina and Lydia.

At dinner, Sir Radford told them about his latest acquisition -- a female elephant, purchased from a circus menagerie that had fallen on hard times. William had a few things to say about the unpredictable nature of elephants, information gleaned on his last expedition to Africa. "I saw a stampede of the great beasts," he said. "They trampled a village with no more trouble than you would take in trampling an anthill."

George tried to break in with some discussion of the plans of the Zoological Society with regard .to African animals. They had already obtained an African elephant and they hoped to bring one of the beasts from Asia as well. And perhaps a giraffe, one of those ungainly creatures with the tremendously long necks.

Lady Dustan listened to the young men talk. She thought it unfortunate that George's considered and soft-spoken plans could not match William's tales of hunting for ferocious lions and visiting savage African villages. Lydia's eyes were on William. Young women were not inclined to understand the virtues of a quiet and thoughtful husband.

After dinner, Sir Radford prevailed upon the others to join him in a game of whist. Mary sweetly begged to be excused so that she might play the pianoforte, Sir Radford's instrument being so decidedly superior to the one she played at home. And $elina asked if she might listen to the music rather than playing whist, being an indifferent card player at best. William spoke up quickly, offering to keep Selina company.

While Sir Radford, Lady Dustan, George, and Lydia played cards, Selina and William chatted quietly in the corner. The music made it impossible for Lady Dustan to hear their conversation, but she noticed that they seemed content with one another's company. She also observed that George Paxton was oblivious to Lydia's smiles. The girl was animated in her enthusiasm for the game, her eyes bright with excitement, but George remained stubbornly distracted by the couple in the corner. Later, when Selina and William strolled onto the terrace to take' the air, Lady Dustan kept her eye on George, who seemed rather downcast. He suggested a break in the game at that point, but Sir Radford insisted on another hand.

Mary had completed a song and the others had just finished their game when $elina and William returned. The young lady was laughing at something William had said, but her laughter lacked the ease of companionable amusement. Lady Dustan detected an edge of strain, a hint of something amiss.

"Miss Selina!" Lady Dustan called. "Where have you and Nit. Gordon been wandering?"

"Only as far as the aviary," William said. "It is a beautiful night for a stroll."

"Whatever have you been telling Miss Selina to amuse her so?" Lady Dustan asked. She regarded the young woman with interest. Selina's face was flushed; her eyes unnaturally bright.

"Foolish stories," Selina said. "That is all."

"I was describing a legend I heard among the African savages," William said. "When the moon is full, they say that some men .turn into hyenas and run wild on the savannah." He smiled, showing his teeth entirely too freely, Lady Dustan thought. "The moon is almost full and the story came to mind when I heard the hyenas laughing in the distance."

"My dear child," said Lady Dustan. She took Selina's hand and pressed it in her own. "I'm sure no civilized people could ever believe in such a thing."

"On the contrary, Lady Dustan, many people have believed in stories that are equally fabulous," George Paxton said. Though he spoke to the assembled company, his eyes were on William and Selina. "Tales of men who become beasts go back to antiquity. In ancient Rome, learned men wrote of the tumskin, versipellis, a man who turned into a wolf. The French tell of the same creature, calling him loup garou."

William laughed. "Do you suppose the Zoological Society will have a loup garou in your collection, George? Would they welcome such a creature?"

George nodded, but his smile was strained. "If you would only bring us one, I would ensure that the creature found a home there."

Lady Dustan felt Selina's hand tighten on hers and patted the young woman's shoulder companionably. "Enough ot these foolish tales. Play another song, Mary, and let us leave these men to talk of their unlikely adventures together."

Dutifully, Mary began to play.

The next morning, George Paxton woke just after dawn when a peacock screamed under his window. He lay in bed for a moment, trying to recapture his dream. Selina had been in distress and he had been running to save her, confident that he would win her gratitude.

George was, as Lady Dustan had observed to Sir Radford, an amiable, open-hearted young man, though too quiet and diffident to do justice to himself. He was enthusiastic when he was engaged in pursuits that interested him, such as the study of natural philosophy. In those pursuits, his understanding was excellent and his scholarly endeavors had been greatly praised by his colleagues at the museum. But he was fitted neither by abilities nor by disposition to answer to the wishes of his family, who longed to see him in a distinguished profession.

In company, his tendency was to retire to a quiet comer and observe, rather than speak out and draw the attention of the crowd to his own accomplishments. He was aware of this tendency and regretted his natural shyness, but he could not bring himself to hold forth as William Gordon did.

Sunlight shone through his bedroom window, slipping through a small opening between the drapes. As the day was clear and bright, he dressed and went out for a walk in the garden before the rest of the company woke.

A peacock-- perhaps the same one that had disturbed his slumber-strutted down the path ahead of him, colorful tail trailing in the dust. The path wound past a cage of parrots that greeted him with rode squawks and flapping wings. "Blast you to pieces!" one bird shrieked. "Blast you to pieces!" A scarlet macaw watched him with bright and beady eyes and croaked softly, "You're a bounder, you are."

No doubt Sir Radford had purchased the birds from sailors who had taught them these questionable refrains. Still, it was difficult to ignore the second bird's quiet insistence and steady gaze. "You're a bounder," the bird muttered again. George turned away, fighting the urge to protest that he was not a bounder, but he knew of a bounder in the vicinity.

The night before, he had shared a nightcap with William Gordon after the other members of the party had gone to bed. Jovial and relaxed, William had told George of his walk with Selina in the garden. William seemed smugly confident that Selina was partial to him, saying that he had stolen a kiss from the young lady when they were strolling out by the aviary.

George had contained his feelings, listening to William's cheerful confession without comment but with a sick feeling at heart. He knew the man's reputation through his connections at the Zoological Society: an officer in the Navy, Gordon often returned from his travels with exotic animals for sale. He spent the money from these sales in a life of idleness and dissipation, riding and hunting and drinking and gambling. George knew that some thought Gordon handsome, but he thought the man had rather a brutish countenance.

"Yes, Miss Selina is a beautiful girl," William said. "And I am certain that Sir Radford will settle a tidy fortune on her at the time of her marriage." He smiled, showing his teeth, and George thought of the versipellis. In the company, he had not mentioned that the French attributed the nature of the loup garou to excess passion. Men who lacked control of their baser instincts were most susceptible to this transformation.

George shook his head, attempting to banish thoughts of the night before. The morning was beautiful; the air was fresh and clear-- until he turned a comer and caught the scent of rotting meat. He found himself looking down a long straight path that ended at a tall wrought iron fence enclosing a section of pasture land. On the far side of the fence, a hyena was prowling.

The size of a large mastiff, the hyena was a strange, ungainly animal, with forelegs longer than its hindlegs and a back that sloped downward as a consequence. As George watched, the beast yawned, exposing an impressive assortment of yellowing teeth. Its eyes were bright and alert, but something -- perhaps the way that the animal hunched its shoulders and looked up rather than looking honestly forward -- gave it a servile and deceptive air.

As it paced, the hyena was giving its entire attention to Selina, who sat outside the fence on a bench in the sunshine. She had a sketchpad in her lap and her eyes were on her work.

George hesitated, restrained by his natural shyness, then thought to approach quietly, so as not to disturb her. She did not look up as he approached, but when he was still several feet away she spoke. "Good morning, Mr. Paxton. You are abroad very early. Pray move softly, so you do not alarm my subject."

Stopping where he was, George noticed another hyena lounging in a bit of shade near the fence. Ignoring Selina and its companion in the enclosure, the animal was staring in his direction, its ears cocked forward.

"My apologies for disturbing you, Miss Selina," he said. "I did not think anyone else was awake yet."

"I often come walking early," Selina said. "Dawn is the best time to observe the animals."

She fell silent then, attending to her work. From where he stood, George could not see the sketch on her pad, so he contented himself with studying her hands, so delicate and pale, handling the pencil with skill and grace. Wishing to see the sketch, he took a step forward, but Selina, as if anticipating his interest, was already closing her sketchbook and looking up at him.

"May I look..." he began, but she waved him off With an air of diffidence.

"I am no artist, Mr. Paxton. My renderings are for my own pleasure only."

Though he wished to press the matter, George could think of no way to do so gracefully. As happened so often, he found himself at a loss, not knowing the proper formula of polite flattery that might persuade her.

Selina gathered her skirts and stood, holding her sketchpad and pencil. "I doubt the others are awake yet," she said easily. "Would you care to stroll through the garden? I am certain we will be back in time for breakfast."

"Yes, of course. I would be delighted."

George did not know what to say, as they walked through the garden together. Surely she must think him dull, walking in silence at her side. He knew that William would have been charming her with witticisms, but George could think of nothing clever to say.

"Tell me of your experiences with the creatures you have gathered for the Zoological Society," Selina said. "I was interested in your thoughts on how one should interact with wild animals. I saw you scowling yesterday when Mr. Gordon explained the techniques used by animal trainers."

George frowned again, remember that conversation of the day before. While Sir Radford was showing the company around the gardens, Lydia had stepped rather close to the tiger's cage. William had guided her away, saying that she must not approach the cage so closely. "I wanted to rub her ears," Lydia had said petulantly. "She looks so like a giant tabby."

"She may look like a giant house cat, but that is not the case," William had advised her. "She is a wild creature and will not tolerate such familiarity."

"I saw a circus trainer rubbing a tiger's head," Lydia had said.

"A trainer establishes his dominance over the animal and imposes his superior will. If you wish to interact with a wild beast, that is what you must do," William had explained in a tone that brooked no disagreement. "You must dominate and triumph over the animal's spirit. You must demonstrate who is master. Though you approach the beast with friendship, do not expect friendship in return. You can expect no such rational response."

"You look so disapproving," Selina said, recalling him from the memory. "Didn't you agree with Mr. Gordon's analysis? He has so much experience with wild creatures in Africa."

"Mr. Gordon and I have different feelings on the matter of wild animals. He wishes them to be under his control. I am interested in studying their lives, as they live under their own control."

"You only wish to watch them?"

"To meet with them on their own terms, not on mine. Sometimes, that means simply watching them. Sometimes, they allow a closer contact."

George thought of the bull elephant that the Zoological Society had acquired from a circus. When the beast first came to the Society, it was a foul-tempered creature. But after some months of observing the elephant's behavior, he came to understand the beast better. The elephant disliked harsh, loud voices and was moved to anger by certain aromas -- the scent of a particular type of hair oil, the smoke of cigars. When the animal's former keeper from the circus had come to speak with members of the Zoological Society about the animal's temperament, he noticed that the man smoked cigars, used hair on, and spoke in harsh, urgent, tones. When asked the best way to control the animal, the keeper had suggested that they make use of the whip -- the animal best understood pain and punishment. George took note and decided that the beast's prejudices were not irrational, but rather based on experience. Treated cruelly by a keeper, the creature naturally became wary of sounds and scents associated with that man.

Hesitantly, George told Selina of his findings. She nodded thoughtfully. "And you disagreed with his suggested treatment of the elephant{"

"To understand a wild creature, you must take the time to watch and wait," he said. "There is no use in rushing a wild thing. But Mr. Gordon does not wish to understand wild creatures. Rather, he wishes to bring them under his control."

"And you do not wish to control this elephant," she said. "By what you say, I think you want to be the beast's friend."

George thought for a moment, knowing that William would be most amused at the thought of being a .wild creature's friend. Then he nodded. "I think that is a fair assessment, Miss Selina. I want to understand the beast and its way of thinking, and that is the basis for friendship."

"Why did you frown before you spoke{"

"If Mr. Gordon heard me speak of friendship with an animal, he would be most amused at my expense. Mr. Gordon mistakes kindness as a display of weakness,"

She smiled archly. "You understand Mr. Gordon's responses just as you understand the elephant's." George began to protest, but she waved a hand, dismissing his words. They were nearing the house, and George thought it best to let the matter drop.

BACK AT THE HOUSE, Lady Dustan was planning the day's amusements. She greeted Selina and George with a detailed account of what would take place. Under Sir Radford's guidance, the party would tour the gardens. In the afternoon, they would have an alfresco tea beneath the shade trees near the elephant enclosure, with pigeon pies and cold lamb and wholesome bread and strawberries from Selwyn Park's own strawberry beds. Following tea, they would return to the house for a game of cards.

Lady Dustan was decisive in such matters, and her plan was carried out with the precision of a military maneuver -- until midway through tea.

The party was relaxing in the shade, conversing about the fine weather. The shade was most refreshing, and Lady Dustan was finding this time the most pleasant part of the day. She observed that William Gordon had found a seat in the midst of the ladies, where he was making every effort to amuse and be agreeable. He appeared to be paying every distinguishing attention to Selina. That young lady met his gallantries with polite smiles, but, Lady Dustan thought, showed him no particular favor.

Lady Dustan was disappointed to see that George Paxton stood apart from the other young people, making no effort to attract the ladies' attention away from Mr.' Gordon.. How could he remain so shy and standoffish when Lydia was so lively and amiable? She did not understand the man.

As she watched him, her gaze was drawn to the object of his attention: the bull elephant. The great beast was following the female closely as she trotted around the enclosure, keeping his enormous head close by her rump. When the female paused in a comer of the enclosure, he proceeded to sniff her in a most disconcerting manner, running his trunk between the smaller elephant's hind legs repeatedly, then pausing to trumpet loudly. At the same moment that Mary looked up, Lady Dustan noticed that the bull elephant seemed to have sprouted an additional leg.

"The strawberries are lovely," Mary was saying. Then she stopped, her mouth slightly ajar, as she stared at the bull elephant.

Lady Dustan could not avert her eyes from the elephant's prodigious member, an enormous shaft of flesh that twisted and curled like a snake. "I'm feeling a bit faint from the heat," Lady Dustan said. Her throat felt tight and her voice had a choked quality, but she managed to force out the words. "I believe the sun has been too much for me."

Sir Radford, who had been directing his attention to a thick slice of pigeon pie, glanced up with a frown. "The heat{ In this cool shade?" Then following her gaze, he exclaimed in surprise.

For a time, all was in confusion, the strawberries forgotten. Lady Dustan called to the young women to accompany her to the house, as Sir Radford exclaimed about what a rare opportunity this was to observe the mating habits of the elephant, a sight never witnessed in the wild. William Gordon was unperturbed, gazing placidly at the elephant in pursuit of his lady love, but Lady Dustan observed a hot blush color George Paxton's face. As men crowded toward the fence of the elephant enclosure, the lady elephant retreated, hurrying away from the bull.

Like the lady elephant, Lady Dustan believed that retreat was the best option. "Come along all of you," she said. "Lydia, Mary, Selina -- let us return to the house."

Giggling like a schoolgirl, Lydia gathered her things. Mary continued to gaze at the elephants, more fascinated than perturbed, until Lady Dustan shooed her and her sister in the direction of the house. Lady Dustan walked with Selina, casting a glance over her shoulder at the men and the bull elephant. As they started away, the bull elephant reared up, placing his forelegs on the lady elephant's back. She shuddered beneath his weight, but stood her ground.

"Oh, Lord!" Lady Dustan breathed, an involuntary exclamation. She could feel the heat of blood rising in her cheeks as she turned away, taking Selina's arm and leading her toward the house. The blaring trumpeting of the bull elephant echoed through the garden, a noisy reminder of what went on behind them.

On the path to the house, Lady Dustan patted her face with a kerchief, feeling warm and agitated. "I would never have thought an elephant could look small," she murmured softly to Selina, her voice trembling with agitation. "But she looked small beside him."

"That is so," said Selina, "but she had her own way. He could not mount her until she stood still for it, and she did that only when she was ready. I have observed that whatever the species, the female has a choice. Sometimes, she accepts a suitor. Sometimes, she does not." Selina's voice was dreamy, as if she were talking more to herself than to Lady Dustan.

Lady Dustan stared at the young woman, startled by the matter-of fact way in which she talked of the bull elephant mounting the female.

Selina smiled sweetly. "Pray, Lady Dustan, you will forgive me. I have been learning at Sir Radford's side for too long. I am a student of animal nature."

Lady Dustan was glad to see the manor house in the distance. "It will be lovely to get away from the dust and the heat," she observed, not caring to talk further of elephants and their choices.

At dinner that evening, George sat just across from Lydia and Mary. Throughout the meal, he was aware that Lady Dustan was trying to draw him into conversation. He answered her queries politely, but his attention was focused on the other end of the table, where William Gordon was chatting with Sir Radford about future additions to the menagerie and how he might assist Sir Radford in obtaining some rare specimens. Though William directed his comments to Sir Radford, it was clear to George that he intended them for Selina's ears. Every promise he made to Sir Radford spoke well of his own courage, his resourcefulness, his adventurous ways -- all designed to win the heart of a young lady.

After dinner, Lady Dustan insisted that Mary entertain them with a song at the pianoforte while George and Lydia played whist with her and Sir Radford, allowing George no way to gracefully excuse himself. The game lasted until just before sunset, when George made his escape. With uncharacteristic forcefulness, he insisted that Mary take his place at the table, a request to which she obligingly acquiesced.

While the game continued, George left the house to stroll in the garden. The only purpose he admitted to himself was the need for fresh air, after the closeness of the parlor. He had had several glasses of wine with dinner and was feeling a trifle light-headed. He was not searching for Selina, though she had left the manor house just after dinner, saying that she wanted to do some sketching. He was certainly not searching for William, whose absence from the parlor he had noted not long before he set out.

The sun was setting and the full moon was rising, casting silver light over the menagerie. In the moonlight, the peacocks that strutted across the lawn were no brighter than English sparrows, their brilliant colors fading to shades of gray in the dim light. The macaws stirred as he strolled past, and one bird called after him -- "You're a bounder, you are!"

By the hyena enclosure, he found Selina's sketch pad abandoned on the wooden bench. The three hyenas were awake and alert. The largest of the three, the one that Selina had been drawing that morning, was pacing the length of the iron fence that confined them, whining in her throat and staring past him, down the path that led to the downs. The other two answered her whines with strange yaps and growls.

George Paxton took up the sketchpad, gazing about him. "Miss Selina?" he called. "Where are you?." The garden was quiet. In the moonlight, he opened the sketchpad and studied the pencil drawings within. A sketch of the tiger, her eyes glaring through the bars of the cage. A sketch of the hyena lounging in the sun, perhaps the one that Selina had been drawing when he encountered her that morning. Another sketch of the hyena enclosure -- the same iron grillwork, the same drooping tree, the same boulder. But the hyena was gone. In place of the beast, in the center of the enclosure, an elderly woman with an air of dissipation and sloth, reclined on a high-backed sofa.

Something about the lady-- perhaps her toothy smile or the intensity of her gaze -- reminded George Paxton of the beast. The woman wore a shabby fur collar that had markings similar to those on the hyena's coat. In the carefully penciled shadows behind her, Mr. Paxton could make out another face-- a coarse, ill-tempered young man, the old woman's son, he would guess. He did not like the look of the man, lurking in the shadows and waiting for an opportunity to do ill. A drunkard and a coward, he thought, ready to pick a man's pocket or slit his throat.

George frowned, wondering at Selina's fancy. Why had she drawn two people in the hyena enclosure and why such unattractive subjects?

Uneasy, George closed the sketchbook and looked around him for other signs of Selina. The hyenas were staring toward the downs. Following their gaze, he saw something white, fluttering on the fence. He stepped closer and found a woman's dress -- Selina's dress -- hanging from the wrought iron. Beside the dress, a delicate chemise, carefully worked with delicate white embroidery, blew in the evening breeze. On the ground, a pair of stockings, neatly tucked into the toes of a pair of lady's shoes. To convince himself he was not imagining things, George touched the chemise, feeling its silky fabric against his hand.

What could be happening? Selina was naked, somewhere in the garden. The thought of it warmed his blood -- and chilled him in that same moment. He imagined her graceful limbs, bare and pale in the moonlight.

And William Gordon was somewhere nearby. Could William dare take advantage of a young woman of Selina's station? Could Selina be so lost to her family, to all propriety, that she would throw herself into the power of a scoundrel? Surely she could see that William Gordon was not a man to be trusted.

George stood frozen by the fence, not knowing what to do, when he heard a low wail in the distance. The wail rose to an eerie shriek -- the howling of a hound. Then the hyenas began a hideous cacophony, of barks and yelps and yapping wails that sounded for all the world like lunatic laughter. Over the hyenas' noise, he heard a man's voice calling desperately for help.

The path toward the downs was shaded from the moonlight by trees, a dark and lonely way that led to open pasture land. A group of Gypsies had encamped not far off t George remembered Sir Radford had mentioned them. Perhaps the hound was theirs.

Again, the distant howling, barely audible above the eerie wailing of the hyenas. No Gypsy cur could make a sound like that. The howling was that of a wild beast on the hunt.

George ran down the dark path, heedless of his own welfare, seeking only to find the danger -- whether it took the form of man or beast -- and protect Selina from it. In the darkness, he could not see his way. A patch of mud, slippery from the late afternoon showers, caught him unaware. His feet went out from under him. He slipped, he tumbled, he fell headlong into the ditch beside the lane. His head came down on a rock, a stout piece of English stone. And then he lay very still, unconscious and rescuing no one.

The morning found him in the ditch still, eyes blinking as he slowly came to consciousness. His clothes were muddy and torn and wet with dew. His mind was not quite his own, still muddled from the blow to his head. When he lifted a hand to his forehead, it came away sticky with blood.

He lifted his head and gazed about him. A shady country lane. The song of birds in the hedge. An ordinary scene, with nothing to frighten a man. His alarm of the night before -- surely it had been a dream. Selina's clothes on the fence. The sounds of a savage beast. Surely he had imagined these things.

With an effort, he climbed from the ditch and stood for a moment in the lane, staring at the treacherous patch of mud that had caused his precipitous plunge into the ditch. Beside the marks left by his own skidding feet were three other sets of prints. Two sets of prints headed out toward the open pasture -- the marks left by a man's boots and the paw prints of a large dog. By the length of the stride, George guessed that the man was running -- running for his life. In more than one place, the paw prints overlay the boot prints, an indication that the beast followed the man -- close at his heels, perhaps.

Heading back in the opposite direction, toward the manor house, was a set of human footprints, left by someone walking without shoes. A delicate foot -- that of a child or a woman, George thought. He shook his head, attempting to clear away the fog that prevented him from thinking.

"Mr. Paxton! Whatever happened to you?" George turned toward the house and saw Selina hurrying down the lane, her arms stretched toward him.

"I do not know .... "he began. "I cannot say .... "As she reached him, her arms held out to support him, his legs trembled beneath him. "You are well," he murmured. "That is all I ask. I thought...I heard a beast howling in the darkness. I feared you were out on the downs with Mr. Gordon. I was afraid for you." He glanced at Selina, then felt himself color as he realized that he was suggesting an impropriety on her part. But she continued to regard him steadily. "I wanted to help. But instead I fell in the ditch." Again, he felt himself color, feeling that she could not help but think him clumsy and undignified in his rescue attempt.

"That was very gallant of you," Selina said softly. "Though your efforts were unnecessary, I thank you for them. Now you must allow me to help you back to the house."

And so the lady he had thought to rescue was the very one who helped him back to the manor house, draping his arm over her shoulders in a most familiar manner and insisting that he lean on her in his weakness. George was too muddled to appreciate the warmth of her body alongside his at that moment, though later he recalled it with great pleasure.

As they approached the manor house, Selina's calls for assistance were heard by Lydia and Mary, who fetched a manservant to help George inside. As the man helped George, the young women kept pace. They were flushed with excitement, and Lydia was talking so quickly that her words tripped over each other.

"Whatever has happened to Mr. Paxton! Oh, what a morning this is We never have any excitement like this at home."

Between Lydia's exclamations, Mary told George what had happened. "They found poor Mr. Gordon out on the downs, collapsed in exhaustion, his clothes torn and muddy. He had been running all through the night, chased by a wild beast. The men brought him home not minutes ago."

"A beast was chasing Gordon?" George asked dully.

"It must have been a terrible beast, don't you think?" Lydia exclaimed. "He is such a brave man and a great hunter. He's accustomed to lions and tigers and such -- I thought that nothing could frighten him."

"He said it was a terrible, fierce wolf," Lydia said. "With glowing eyes and fangs. Though I've never heard of such a creature in Devonshire."

George's bloody arrival added to the confusion at the manor house. William had been carried upstairs only moments before. The physician who had been called to attend to William's wounds ministered to George as well, cleaning his head wound and advising rest for both men.

George slept the morning through. In the middle of the afternoon, he joined the rest of the company for tea. Lady Dustan insisted he sit in a chair by the fire, though the afternoon was warm. By the time he had finished his first cup of tea, he felt he had told his story of the past evening far too many times, and had heard William recount his at least twice that number.

His own story did not change with retelling. He had heard a beast howling and a man shouting. (He did not, out of respect for William, say that the man was screaming in terror. ) He ran to help; he tripped and fell. He did not mention discovering Selina's clothing -- only her sketchpad.

William's story, George observed, improved each time he told it, which Lydia pressed him to do, again and again. The first time William told it, he was as subdued as ever George had seen him, his face pale with the memory of the beast snapping and snarling at his heels as he ran. He had been out for a walk in the light of the full moon when the beast dashed from the bushes, attacking without warning. He had nothing with which to defend himself and no matter how he had tried to circle and return to the house, the creature had cut him off, almost as if it knew of his desire. He had called out for help, but no one had come.

The second time he told the tale, he recalled more details. He had kicked at the creature, while it snapped at his boots, its eyes glowing in the moonlight, the foam of madness on its lips. "With a stout walking stick, I would have triumphed." He smiled grimly, inviting his listeners to consider how the beast would have suffered if he had been armed. "But without any weapon, there was little I could do."

By the fifth accounting, William was no longer pale and his story had been embellished with many details. He had taken a tumble down one grassy knoll, but had succeeded (having learned something of acrobatics from a sailor aboard his ship} in rolling back to his feet and running on. He had snatched up a handful of dust and cast it into the creature's eyes, slowing its advance. He had been brave and resourceful -- though of course he did not say that directly. He left that to Lydia, who exclaimed frequently at his heroism.

George sat quietly by the fire, listening and watching. He noticed Selina, on the other side of the room, was doing the same.

THE PHYSICIAN had advised George to rest, sit in the sun, and take moderate exercise. The next day, George used that as an excuse to stroll in the menagerie, avoiding company. He was passing by the elephant enclosure when he met William, walking along the path in the opposite direction. George invited William to sit for a time in the shade, hoping to find out more about Selina and how her clothes had come to be hung on the hyena enclosure.

With a little encouragement, William provided a complete account of his evening before the beast had appeared. He had gone out for a walk after dinner, in search of Selina. He had come upon her by the hyena enclosure. "She said that she preferred to sit in solitude," he told George, "but in my experience young women rarely admit their true feelings. I detected an eagerness and an energy in her manner that convinced me that her protests were not heartfelt. Finally, I acquiesced, saying that I would return to the house alone, and I left her, proceeding down the path toward the house. But I did not go far. As I walked, the full moon rose above the trees and I thought of how the sight of it might awaken romantic thoughts in a young woman's heart. At that thought, I decided to speak with her again. I was almost to the spot I had left her when the beast emerged from the bushes and set upon me, chasing me down the path, away from the house, snarling and snapping at my heels."

"I must have been moments behind you," George said. "When I came to the hyena enclosure, Miss Selina was gone, though I found her sketchpad." He did not mention that he had also found her clothing, a puzzling and indelicate detail that he saw no reason to share with William.

"Miss Selina told me that she returned to the house by another path," William said. "She must have left the hyena enclosure shortly before you arrived."

George nodded, thinking of Selina and the clothing she had abandoned and wondering where she had been.

"It was a terrible night," William said. "The worst of my life."

The next day, the afternoon was bright and clear. George was taking the sun by the tiger cage when Sir Radford came upon him and inquired after his health. When George indicated that he was feeling much recovered, Sir Radford sat on the bench beside him. From her cage, the great tiger lay in a patch of sun, watching the men through narrowed eyes.

"And how are you doing, old beast?" Sir Radford said to the big cat in a conversational tone. The tiger stood and stretched, then strolled over to rub her chin against the bars. Sir Radford reached out and scratched behind the animal's ear, eliciting a giant rumbling purr. "I brought her back from India myself," he told George. "Got her as a cub."

George watched the big cat's eyes close in contented response to Sir Radford's attentions. "You are doing precisely what Miss Lydia wished to do," George commented.

Sir Radford nodded. "That is so. But I felt it would not have been good to encourage Miss Lydia."

"Of course. Being strong-willed, she would have insisted on trying to do the same. And though the tiger enioys your attentions, she might not tolerate Miss Lydia's. It does not pay to force your attentions on a wild beast who does not want them."

From the comer of his eye, George saw Sir Radford cast a considering glance in his direction. For a moment, Sir Radford was silent, then he spoke in a low tone. "I think you understand a good deal more than you let on, Mr. Paxton. That's an admirable trait in such a young man."

George hesitated, wondering what had encouraged such flattery from Sir Radford. He was pleased to be complimented on his understanding, but baffled as to what Sir Radford thought it was that he understood.

Sir Radford leaned back on the bench and returned to studying the tiger. "Selina told me of your concern for her well-being. Under the circumstances as you saw them at the time, it was bold of you to try to run to her rescue."

George felt his cheeks grow hot, as he remembered his failure. He did not know what to say and he was puzzled by Sir Radford's phrasing: "under the circumstances as he saw them at the time." How was he to understand them differently now? There was a wild beast on the prowl, William Gordon was in fear of his life, and Selina had left her clothes by the hyena enclosure. How was one to understand such circumstances?

"Of course, being a man of discernment, you have realized now that my daughter did not need rescuing. I'm glad of that." Sir Radford clapped him on the shoulder. "Let me just say that Selina and I are very well pleased that Lady Dustan included you in her party."

"Thank you, Sir Radford," George said, resolving to ask for an explanation, even though that request would betray his lack of discernment. "I..."

"No, no. Do not say too much," Sir Radford interrupted, smiling broadly. "Some things are better left unspoken." Before George could say another word, the old gentleman stood and strode away down the path with great vigor.

George shook his head, wondering what it was that Sir Radford had supposed he was about to say and wishing that he possessed the perceptive nature with which that good man credited him. For a time, he sat alone in the sun, where he could think without interruption of all that he had seen and heard. Somehow, $elina had not needed rescuing, though she was naked on the downs. And the reason was one that Sir Radford would rather not speak aloud.

Over the last few days, Selina had, more than once, made a point of seeking him out. At dinner, she had made quiet conversation with him, while William held forth to Mary and Lydia about his travels on the Dark Continent -- beginning over the soup with a description of an elephant hunt and ending during dessert with a tale of his narrow escape from angry savages. Selina had ignored William's tales, obviously preferring to talk with George. He had been struck once again with admiration for both her beauty and her disposition, for she spoke her mind with serenity and confidence on many topics-- from the animals in the menagerie to books she had recently read. Talking with her, he could not imagine her being taken in by William's bluster. But what else could explain her clothes on the fence?

He was puzzling over the matter, making no progress, when he saw Selina coming down the path toward him. "Would you take a turn through the garden?" she asked him sweetly.

He offered the lady his arm.

She commented on the weather and he agreed that it was the perfect temperature, the perfect day. They were silent for a time and he cast about for another topic of conversation. "Have you been sketching lately?" he asked her.

She shook her head. "Not so much. With all the alarms and confusions, there has not been time."

"I confess, the other night .... "He hesitated, for he could not remember the other night without blushing for his failure and thinking of her nakedness. "...I took the liberty of glancing in your sketchbook. I should not have done so, but I could not resist the temptation. I was struck by your skill, by the delicacy of line. I was particularly struck by the woman who bore such a strange and uncanny resemblance to the hyena."

She was smiling. "I was inspired by Mr. Gordon's tales of Africa. And it struck me -- if a woman can become a wolf when the moon is full, perhaps the transformation can proceed in the opposite direction. But of course, these are ordinary hyenas."

He glanced at her and found her smiling, a sly and playful look in her hazel eyes. He considered her words, remembered Sir Radford's words, and realized how she might have been naked on the downs but never in danger.

"Of course," he said slowly, then took a deep breath. "Ordinary hyenas." He found his eyes drawn to her hand-- fair and delicate, the hand of a lady, meant for playing the pianoforte and sketching in the garden. He imagined that hand transforming to become the paw of the beast who had left her tracks in the mud. Such a marvel, such a mystery, such a fascinating secret. He lifted his eyes to meet hers. She was smiling.

"The hunt in which your father was killed," he said at last. "I would suppose that was a wolf hunt."

She nodded. "A tragic misunderstanding. Sir Radford went hunting on the night of the full moon, having failed to understand my father's warnings. He shot a wolf B and found himself with the body of his friend."

They walked in silence for a few minutes. George was very aware of the warmth of her hand on his arm. As they strolled along the path toward the hyena enclosure, George heard William's voice, though he could not make out the words. "Let us turn here," Selina suggested. "Mr. Gordon is telling Lydia about the animals and I would rather not disturb them."

George followed her lead, quite willing to avoid conversation with William and Lydia. "Mr. Gordon seems to have taken no permanent harm from his night of terror on the downs," he remarked. "In fact, I think the experience might well improve his character."

"You are an optimistic man," she said.

George hesitated, uncertain of the propriety of what he was about to say, then plunged ahead. "Mr. Gordon seems to feel he knows a great deal about what women want. I suspect that..." Again, he hesitated. "I suspect that Mr. Gordon did not behave toward you as a gentleman should behave toward a lady."

She continued to smile. "He thought that I favored him -- but he was not a terribly observant man. A better observer would have noticed the one I truly favored."

George found himself unable to speak. Could she mean that she favored him? There was nothing else she could mean."

"You have nothing to say, Mr. Paxton."

"I have too much to say," he began. "My heart overflows with more admiration and affection than I can begin to express." But for all that he said he could not, George continued, telling her of his feelings and avowing his love and admiration in tender words.

For days after, the neighborhood could talk of nothing other than the alarms and confusions of that night. A great hunter, pursued by a vicious beast. A young man, injured in his attempts to offer assistance. Both were made out to be heroes, after a fashion.

The identity of the beast that had pursued William through the moonlit night remained a mystery to the community. The first conjecture -- that the animal was an escapee from Sir Radford's menagerie -- proved false, for all of that noble gentleman's charges were accounted for. The Gypsy band was located and the dogs owned by the band were examined. They were, by all reports, a mangy lot, but none of them seemed large or energetic enough to menace a strong man like William Gordon. Sir Radford led many hunts, as did William Gordon when he had recovered. But no animal answering to William's description of the beast could be found.

Before Lady Dustan left Selwyn Park to return to London, she arranged for a small party at the manor house, wishing to mark the occasion of her departure. For that event, the manor house was splendidly lit up and quite full of company.

Lady Dustan and Mary were listening to Gordon talk about his upcoming expedition to Africa, when Lydia interrupted to invite Gordon to join a game of whist. Initially Gordon was reluctant, but Lydia insisted. "You know you are my favorite partner, my darling. I can't play without you."

"It seems my services are required at the whist table," he told Lady Dustan and Mary, and allowed himself to be led away.

Lady Dustan smiled after the couple approvingly. "It is wonderful to see Lydia so much in love. And I believe I shall come to be quite fond of Gordon. Lydia seems quite willing to take him in hand and calm his warm, unguarded temper. That is, of course, a wife's role. And that role will, I think, soothe Lydia's own excitable nature. It's a fine match. I'm quite confident that Mr. Gordon will be calling on your father when we return to London."

"Miss Selina and Mr. Paxton seem to have an amiable attachment to one another as well," Mary said. "I do believe they have become close friends."

"Friends ?" Lady Dustan smiled at Mary as a mother smiles at a foolish child. "If you think that will lead to romance, I will tell you that you are mistaken. A man and wife have no business being friends. That's like a friendship between...between a man and a tiger."

"Ah," Mary said. "Like a man and a tiger." Just that morning, she had, while wandering in the garden, caught a glimpse of Sir Radford scratching the ears of the tiger. He had made her swear she would not tell the others, lest they be tempted to attempt to try the same -- to their peril.

"Certainly," Lady Dustan said. "There could be no question of friendship there."

Mary nodded, keeping her own council and acquiescing to Lady Dustan's firmly held belief.

After her return to London, Lady Dustan was astounded to receive a letter from Sir Radford indicating that George had asked for Selina's hand in marriage. She returned to Selwyn Park for the wedding.

At Selina's request, with Sir Radford's enthusiastic assent, and despite Lady Dustan's earnest protestations, the wedding itself did not take place in the manor house chapel, as would have been customary and proper. Instead, the couple was joined in matrimony alfresco, on the lawn beneath the shade trees near the elephant enclosure. Throughout the ceremony, Lady Dustan kept a nervous eye on the elephants. Fortunately the bull elephant spent his time placidly watching the goings on and flapping his ears idly. He behaved himself and gave Lady Dustan no cause for alarm or retreat, for which she was very grateful.

George continued his work with the Zoological Society, dividing his time between London and Selwyn Park. Selina accompanied him to the city. Her grace and charm land the fortune that she would have from Sir Radford) made her welcome in the Paxton home.

Lydia and Gordon were married as well, in a splendid [though conventional} wedding in London.

Mary, benefiting from the observation of these two very different marriages, formed her own opinion of the connections possible between men and women, between humans and beasts. Though her understanding of the matter differed substantially from Lady Dustan's, she never endeavored to share her views on the vagaries of the human heart with that formidable individual.

Though Selina and George enjoyed London, they retained their affection for Selwyn Park. Every month, she and George returned to the country for the night of the full moon.

~~~~~~~~

By Pat Murphy, (under the influence of Jane Austen)

CURIOSITIES

THE UNHOLY CITY BY CHARLES FINNEY, 1937

HEILAR-WEY is a futuristic city, where mile-wide boulevards are traversed by ninety-mile-an-hour taxicabs, where thousands are killed every hour in cataclysmic traffic pile-ups, where a newspaper is produced every fifteen minutes to report on the armed struggles between the elderly and the unemployed. Yet like an Escher drawing, the city folds in on itself, the vast metropolis at the mercy of a single escaped tiger, which is invariably causing havoc (and rubbernecking tie-ups) the next neighborhood over.

When Finney is remembered it's for The Circus of Dr. Lao, a Bradburyesque collision of small town Americana and a mythological sideshow. The Unholy City was linney's follow-up, and it abandons the familiarity of small-town life for a plunge into surrealism: in Heilar-Wey, the contemporary and the mythological aren't separated by the bars of sideshow cages. We explore the city in a single evening, from the perspective of two travellers: the FalstaffJan Vicq Ruiz, who, experiencing a premonition of his -own death, is intent on one last revel in Heilar-Wey's nightlife, and the oddly passive narrator, who lends Ruiz money and tries to keep him out of trouble. The two hurtle through the city in taxicabs, drinking, chasing women, and skirting enlistment in the unemployment wars. They also constantly buy newspapers to track the depredations of the tiger -- and for the crossword puzzles.

Finney's book has the texture of an allegorical dream. The present, it suggests, is a collision between a crushingly indifferent future and a primal mythological past. His two misfit travelers would be troublemakers in a gentler place, but in Heilar-Wey they can only cling to their notions of fate and romance, try to avoid traffic accidents, and keep out of the path of that tiger.

~~~~~~~~

By Jonathan Lethem

A PRINCESS OF HELIUM

Rod Garcia's first story collection, The Moon Maid and Other Fantastic Adventures, came out in hardcover earlier this year to good reviews. The same can be said of his fourth novel, his fantastic Western, American Woman. Meanwhile, Rod's short stories are getting reprinted more widely in anthologies like David Hartwell's Year's Best SF...all of which underscores our delight in bringing you this new SF adventure. While the title of this one fondly recalls Edgar Rice Burroughs's books, the milieu is definitely hipper than the Mars of Dejah Thoris. Let's hope we see more of it in days to come.

Mating Flight

LLENOR FLEW WITH WINGS spread wide, sculling with her wrists to maintain airspeed. Ahead lay South Pass, a serpent-toothed notch in a chain of volcanic peaks poking through the white cloud plain. Mt. Lemnos smoked in the near distance. Programmed memory made details instantly familiar, though Llenor had never been so far sunward before.

She wore a green bolero jacket over a harlequin flight suit with gold-black lozenges and flaring cuffs. Scarlet hair streamed behind her, whipped by the wind like a captain's pennant. Seeing a pair of wild rocs circling the pass, she wondered what they were doing so near settlement airspace. Hunting the unwary hippogriff? Or innocently mating on the wing?

Two klicks from the mouth of the pass, she caught the great wave of air where the prevailing westerlies roll over Dayside Archipelago, soaring on the standing wave like a fiery-haired angel. Her wings were eight-meter Falcoform Condors, power-assisted, with foot-pedals, fingertip trim tabs, auto flaps and a flaring tail. Black photostrips on the upper surfaces allowed for glide refueling of the energy cells. They had borne her mother and grandmother before her.

Llenor was not aloft for the sheer thrill of flight. Below her the Prinzess Lisa-Marie approached the cloud-wracked gap. Powered by turbofans and a cold fusion reactor, the titanic an deco airship had glassedin galleries, chrome falcon figureheads, and a lifting body hull -- looking like the old Chrysler building, inflated and flying on its side.

The Helm was sending fragmentary pictures of weather in the pass; Llenor had to complete them. This was the Prinzess Lisa-Marie's maiden flight through South Pass, with its infamous crosswinds and fabled wrecks. Her captain felt driven to see to each detail herself, trusting no one's flying but her own.

Weather radar spotted a convection cell above the neck of the pass. Closing her eyes, Llenor took a swift look. The Helm beamed her a picture, which her naymatrix projected onto a file image of the pass.

Nanoseconds tumbled as she studied the image. Hot updrafts' off the windward face of the Archipelago, hitting the clammy air in the pass, created downdrafts and condensation. 3V imaging made her feel like she was flying smack into the storm cell. An unsettling illusion.

Llenor opened her eyes. "Got it, Gramma Lisa."

("Still going in?")

"Tell you when I get there." Climbing over the peaks meant dumping ballast, then venting helium on the far side. Hazarding the pass saved precious helium, but risked wracking up the Prinzess Lisa-Marie on a cliff face or a low saddle.

("Your funeral, grandling.") A favorite expression. Great Grandmother Lisa's funeral was long gone by. As a girl Llenor helped scatter Gramma Lisa's ashes from the upper deck of the old Beaulieu out over the Great Reach beyond Mount Aphrodite.

("Take care darling." That was Mom, half a world away.)

(Lilith and Lucifer called out characteristic encouragement, "Break a wing!")

Funeral or not, Llenor aimed to go in ahead of the ship, feeling out the gap, before trusting it with a quarter-kilometer dirigible. Telling her extended family to "mute it" -- Llenor leaned forward, spilling air, lifting her tail and folding her wings back into a stoop.

Ariel's pull was half that of Old Earth. Falls started leisurely in .5 g -- but were just as fatal. Many klicks below lay the hot dark surface, a pressure oven smothered in greenhouse gases. Pitiless terraforming had created a high altitude biosphere based on mountain tops and tall plateaus. But Ariel's lower levels remained lethal. If the crash did not kill you, the surface would.

South Pass rose to greet her. Airspeed climbed. Buffeted by turbulent air pouring into the pass, Llenor lowered her tail, turning her stoop into a fast glide, shooting into whirling cloudtops. She let cybersenses take over. Hearing with sonar. Seeing with radar. Ship's altitude and true height were beamed straight to the tiny navmatrix grafted onto her skull. Altitude slowly increased, while true height plummeted. Ground rose up under the airship, climbing toward the summit of the pass. Prinzess LisaMarie's margin of safety sank steadily -- 1300 meters. 19.00 meters. 1100 meters...

(Helm called out, "One klick.")

"900 meters. 700 meters. 500 meters..."

("Only half a klick below the keel.")

"Drop ballast," Llenor commanded. She needed 500 meters of true height in hand to cross the summit.

("How much?")

"Keep us above a half klick." Gramrea Lisa needed no instruction, having flown airships ages before Llenor got her wings. (When she learned she was dying, Great Grandmother Lisa had herself brainscanned. Llenor had downloaded her files into the Lisa-Marie, where she functioned as First Officer, always on watch, always at the Helm.) Water gushed from the forward tanks. Altitude shot up. True height held steady.

("Okay grandling, half a klick. Mind your flying.")

"Mind your own," she shot back. "Dog leg ahead." Past the summit, the pass opened sharply to starboard, skirting smoking Mount Lemnos. The Prinzess Lisa-Marie would have to start her turn while still in the gut of the pass. A fully loaded airship took her sweet time turning, like a beamy dowager at a dance.

Llenor banked high, raising her angle of attack to keep from caroming off the canyon wall. Air spilled from her wings. Turning the stall into a sharp dive, she regained control, sliding into a shallow glide. The summit swept beneath her. Ground fell away. She called out, "I'm through."

Almost. Mt. Lemnos reared out of white blankness. Range closed rapidly. Llenor banked again, pedaling briskly to power her wings. She heard Gramma Lisa order the Helm put hard-a-starboard.

But the Prinzess Lisa-Marie swung perversely to port, caught in a crosswind. Alarms oscillated wildly. ("Damnation!")

Llenor tensed, forgetting for a moment to fly. Little sister Evie and a brace of cousins were aboard ship. And Llenor had put them all in harm's way -- just to save helium. Her first solo command threatened to be a family catastrophe, as bad as the crash of the Beaulieu. She shouted into the thin wind, "Turn, Gramma, turn."

("I've got the Helm hard over, dear.") Turbofans whining in reverse, the quarter-kilometer ship, her help.less crew and extremely valuable cargo slid downwind, aiming to slam sideways onto the slopes of Mr. Lemnos. She would not be the first ship to fetch up against the volcano. In Gramma Lisa's day, Lemnos wreckers made rich livings off South Pass.

With only meters to spare, the rudders dug in. The ship swung to starboard, fins all but brushing a tremendous cinder cone to port.

("We're through.") Dead hands at the Helm had not lost their cunning. A chorus of amens came over the comlink -- mixed with pant hoots from the SuperChimps -- half the crew had been holding their breath.

Shaking with relief, Llenor righted her own leeward drift, shooting out of the clouds -- with the airship's great lifting body hull gleaming behind her. Prinzess Lisa-Marie had cleared South Pass, and was ready to enter harbor.

Congratulations rang in Llenor's head:

("Great job, grandling.")

("Yeah, Llenor," yelled Evie.)

("Lucky break," chorused Lilith and Lucifer.)

("Good going, daughter. See you in Graceland.") That last was Mother at home in the Twilight Belt.

A cloud-filled mountain cauldron opened up ahead, with Port Myrine and the Lemnki settlement clinging to the far slopes. Stacks of hangars and a tall line of downwind mooring towers marked Myrine harbor. Skimming the cliffs, Llenor let the Prinzess pass beneath her, doing a flat dive at the upper deck. Spilling air, she stalled out, dropping her feet from the tail boom to touch down.

Her bosun stood ready to catch her. He was a Thai, with the impossible name of Wah-tsoph-ki, hugely thick and broad-shouldered, wearing only his rigger's harness and safety line. Llenor's landing made his assistance a mere civility -- their hands barely touching. But all Thais were wedded to simple ritual. Show Neanderthals token respect, and Homosapiens got away with murder. Otherwise there was no ceremony marking Llenor's return. No bells rung. No "captain coming aboard." Lisa-Marie was a family ship, run like a business, not like a battle cruiser.

Llenor surveyed the long sweep of duraluminurn deck, broken by streamlined hatch cowlings. She had brought in the ship. Her ship. But only by a pinfeather. She had been scared senseless when the airship swung to port. But the Prinzess.was a lucky ship. Maybe that luck was working for her.

Two hideous eight-limbed Bug Warriors guarded the cowling leading to the main cargo hold, clutching heavy assault rifles in their clawed forelimbs. Soft Prospero light glittered off armored carapaces. Llenor hated carrying Bug Warriors, but this trip the Prinzess Lisa-Marie crawled with them.

Llenor spotted the Port Master's gig coming out to greet them.

("Careful, grandling, we're coming about.")

Snapping her safety line to a recessed stanchion, Llenor grimaced as the airship pivoted beneath her, turning to port to avoid settlement airspace. She hated unnecessary maneuvers in lively weather. Before the Settlers came, the idea of "owning" airspace was ludicrous. Air was air. You breathed it. If you had wings you flew in it. There were common sense rules, like giving way to starboard, or not emptying sanitary tanks in port. When Settlers announced that the air above the settlements "belonged" to them, pilots laughed. Then the Settlers set up flak towers and shot down intruders, putting an end to laughter. Now everyone humored them.

The Port Master's gig turned with them, cutting through forbidden airspace to catch up, showing that someone aboard had settlement permission. The small semi-rigid flew a captain's pennant above the Port Master's flag. Llienor nodded to her bosun. "Get ready to receive the gig."

Wah-tsoph-ki sounded his pipes and SuperChimps tumbled out of hatch cowlings to port and starboard. The gig matched vectors, dropping her mooring grapples. Chimps seized the dangling lines and marched the gig forward, fixing her nose to the foremast, then snapping the lines onto stanchions. The gig was moored. The Prinzess might lack the pomp and polish of a naval vessel, but she had a crack crew. Docking two moving ships with several klicks of air beneath their keels is not easy. Wah-tsophki made it seem routine.

A smartladder wheeled itself up to the gig's main hatch, and a handsome Homosapien stepped out -- tall and muscular, with high cheekbones, deep luminous eyes, and black windblown hair. He wore a jaunty electric blue skin-suit, with BELL'S BANSHEES stenciled above the left breast. An amused grin made it seem that he sensed the absurdity of meeting so casually in midair. Llenor liked that.

Two women stepped out behind .him, one dark, one blonde -- but he was clearly in charge. And likely to do the talking.

Bug Warriors appeared behind the women, slimmer and more scantly armored than the ones on the Prinzess Lisa-Marie. The Bugs aboard ship by the cargo hatch bristled, venom spines rising on their backs. Llenor heard the warning snicker of assault rifle safeties sliding off.

Instantly the man spun about, snapping an order. His xenos disappeared into the gig. The hatch guards lowered their venom spines. Safeties slid back on. Everyone breathed again.

Turning to Llenor, he bowed slightly, apologizing in polite Universal, "Sorry to upset your xenos. Captain Bell, of Bell's Banshees, enthusiastically at your service."

He did not bother to ask if she was Ship's Mistress, just assuming it --easy, effective flattery. Bell was smart as well as pretty. Not dithering about, asking permission or standing on his "rights." He saw, and acted. An immediate, intelligent response, rendered in take-charge fashion.

Llenor didn't imagine she came off half so smashing, with wings limp, and her long red hair plastered with cloud dew. She had a flier's body -light, sturdy, strong at the shoulders-- but nothing to turn a head, except perhaps her hair. She shot a mental question to onboard memory, "Who is he?

(BELL, Captain Lysander Adam; Knight-Commander in the Noble order of Condottien born offplanet, in interstellar transit aboard the colony ship Sierra Leone; served with the White Company in the Far Eridani; in action on Delta Eridani II and Piscium Ill, awarded Imperial Star, second magnitude. Came to the Kaitos with a single starship, the AMS Spartan; raised his own company insystem -- "Bell's Banshees" -serving on Mount Zion and the Dayside Archipelago; presently employed by the Helium Works; no known wives or offspring. Gramma Lisa highlighted that last parc. "But bound to be fine breeding stock," she added.)

Llenor could see that. Breezy confidence and negligent good looks made Bell the most mateable male she had ever met. A man to make you give up all thought of cloning.

Bell touched her wings. "You flew the canyon in these?"

Clouds still boiled out of South Pass -- Bell seemed amazed anyone could navigate them with an airship in tow.

Llenor admitted she had, no longer so ashamed of her hand-me-down wings.

"You must show me how sometime." He nodded toward the Bugs by the cargo hatch. "Helium Works wants the Banshees to back up the cargo transfer. Just in case..." He did not need to list the hazards of her cargo. His visit amounted to an unannounced face-to-face by hired security for the Helium Works -- but Llenor welcomed the snap inspection, having nothing to hide, and finding the hired gun handsome. She was not even smuggling this trip. Not with what she had aboard.

Bell nonchalantly introduced the women. ,,Commander Kia, my Exec, and an aide, Ensign Amanda." Kia's short dark hair (rained a keen tight-lipped face, with no trace of Bell's hidden amusement -- just the business-like smirk of an experienced merc. One who had "seen too much, and killed too often." Ensign Amanda was a sunny contrast. Small and blonde, with a look of utter blue-eyed innocence -- despite a big recoilless automatic hanging on her slim waist. Saint Priscilla of the machine pistol. An odd pair, even for female mercs.

Llenor shed her wings-- handing them off to a Chimp-- offering Bell a quick look at onboard security. "If you like.

"Bell happily fell in with the suggestion.

Slipping her safety line, she led her guests to the upper main cargo lift. Bug Warriors -- who bristled at seeing their own species -- let armed humans troop by without a second look. Lights went on for Llenor, winking out behind her. Doors dilated. She loved the way the ship obeyed, tracking her movements, anticipating her needs.

She told the cargo lift to take them down to the keel. The main hold swarmed with Bug Warriors, jammed muzzle to mandible to make room for a mobile pressure vault with a blast-proof lock. The usual eight-legged horrors were backed by a brace of double-ended sixteen-leggers mounting mini-cannon, aimed smack at the lift. If they ever fired, the barrage would rip right through the hull, exploding well beyond the ship. But there was no arguing with Bug Warriors. They had to be humored or killed.

Bell whistled appreciatively. "Seems damn secure."

To Llenor it was a bomb about to blow, but she did not say so. Her family had been seduced by sky high-cargo rates and bedrock helium prices. Llenor had tried to veto the cargo, but was out-voted. Making it all the more vital to succeed-- she would not fail just for the sour satisfaction of being right.

Looking askance at the hold from hell, she told Bell she had to be on the forebridge for docking. Her disembodied First Officer could easily moor the ship, but Llenor did not mean to miss first-time landfall in a strange port. "Stay here and keep things covered if you want."

Bell looked politely aghast. "A few guns won't make an angstrom's difference. We're plainly at their mercy."

Llenor shrugged, telling the lock to cycle, letting the lift take them up. "Bugs got no big reason to kill us."

Bell cocked an eyebrow. "They wiped out a colony ship in Sculptoris sector."

Llenor corrected him. "They killed all the adult males, and women over breeding age." Survivors on the Cape Colony had been mostly young women, like Llenor. "They just wanted to improve our population mix. Bugs don't understand why we need old folks and two sexes."

The Sculptorian Symbiots, aka "Bugs," had spread themselves throughout the nearer spiral arm using a unique variation on hive reproduction. They aimed crude low-g ships full of egg cysts at clutches of G-type stars.

Once they made contact with a space-faring culture the symbiots became indispensable, each hive producing an endless supply of bio-engineered servants, eager to perform the most obnoxious tasks-- from fighting wars to scrubbing toxic tanks -- all for the cost of feeding them.

"Beware of geeks bearing gifts," Bell warned. "Out beyond Sculptoris they've found whole planets full of Bugs, older hives that contain non-Bug types -- previously unrecorded sentient xenos -- living off what the hives give them. Which could be a lot, or hideously little."

Llenor laughed, "That's the Bugs, all right." Such previously unknown xenos had to be remnants of alien races. Xenos who had taken in the Symbiots -- and now survived as genetic samples, preserved on the chance the Bugs might find them useful.

Llenor did not really believe the Bugs would take over Ariel. The eager adaptability that spread them around the spiral arm acted as a fatal flaw. Bugs did not invent or discover. They just plodded along, building their jury-rigged starships, serving anyone who stumbled on them. Straight out conquest seemed as alien to the Bugs as hosting a polka contest. Any natural animosity was reserved for their own kind. Some grotesque mechanism designed to spread the species made them maniacally belligerent in the presence of other hives. Spooky but comforting,

Of course the sad remnants of forgotten races, living on hive handouts, must have thought they were pretty clever and in control when they first found the Bugs and put them to work.

"You use them in the Helium Works," Llenor reminded Bell. Her family had struck a profitable deal with the Bugs -- but that did not make them so different.

"That we do," Bell admitted with a grin. "That we do." Free limitless labor was tough to turn down.

The lift carried them in silence to the midline slidewalk. Llenor and Bell had the utterly thankless task of bringing two Bug hives together. The armored box below contained a Hive Queen -- the egg-cyst laying matriarch. They had to take this Hive Queen to the Helium Works to exchange genetic material with the local Queen. A weird, asexual femaleto-female mating between hypertense xenos -- with Llenor and Bell as matchmakers -- somehow vital to Bug survival. Both hives paid lavishly for the stud service, but if things went amiss it was pointless blaming it on the Bugs.

The forebridge was in its customary chaos. Sister Evie hung half out an open widow, watching Port Myrine swing closer. Stepping off the slidewalk, Llenor snapped a safety line onto her little sister's harness. "If you are going outside, wear a line."

Evie laughed. A smaller edition of Llenor, eight years younger, Erie was otherwise identical, right down to the bright gold-black lozenges on her flight suit. Too young to stand watches, she acted as an unpaid cabin girl, supposedly learning from Llenor.

The Twins, Lilith and Lucifer, sat at their station, heads together snickering. Llenor shot them a look. They switched to Old Speak, which the visitors were unlikely to understand. Crack comm-techs, the Twins often took it as their religious duty to offend strangers. Llenor's second cousins, they were nearly identical, with curly blonde hair and sharp demonic faces. As much alike as male and female can be.

Pleased to have an audience, Gramma Lisa landed with a flourish, sliding the Lisa-Marie in between two smaller semi-rigids. Human ground handlers, in white coverails with swirling red stripes, secured the mooring grapples -- something Chimps or Bug Workers would have done back home.

Glad to be safely grounded, Llenor saw her guests back to the gig. Bell complimented the ship. Even Kia, his grim exec, cracked a wary smile. Ensign Amanda said nothing, just continuing to look sweet -- a lovely, gun-toting work of art that most likely belonged to Bell. Llenor hadn't the heart to be jealous. Ensign Amanda was one of those lucky few who radiated beauty and grace, making her mere presence a pleasure.

A middling strange threesome. But Bell was the one that mattered. His tough, ready good humor had her feeling better about pimping for a belligerent bunch of overarmed xenos.

Donning a visored green cap to go with her bolero jacket and harlequin flight suit, Llenor told Gramma Lisa, "Clear the off-watch for port leave -- I'm going to Graceland."

(Gramma Lisa chuckled. "Say 'Hi' to Elvis for me.") Death had left her with a frivolous slant on religion.

Telling Evie to stay aboard -- and out of trouble --Llenor separated a pair of electronic scarabs, clipping one to her sister's flight suit, tucking the other into a cuff.

Evie protested, "Please take me."

Llenor refused. "Too dangerous."

"I'll be lonesome."

"I'll play you a game while I'm gone," Llenor offered. "You can be white." Slipping a loaded stinger into an inside pocket, she left the ship by way of the folding ladder on the aft hangar deck -- the closest hatch to the harbor slidewalk.

(Evie opened flier to flagship four. Llenor replied, "Flier to princessgriffin four," plotting a Sicilian Defense.) The steady exchange of moves would be better than a stick-tight for keeping track of Evie.

Port Myrine's human ground crew lounged in the shade of the ship, looking almighty bored in their red and white candy-striped coveralls. Men among them applauded as Llenor stepped off the ladder. She flashed an appreciative smile, and got a swift shock. Between the ground handlers and the slidewalk stood a guard in green and black, sporting a riot pistol and a bandoleer of gas grenades..

No wonder the men seemed bored and overfriendly. They were convicts, penal labor. Port Myrine could afford to be lavish with human labor --like Bugs, they worked for meals. A woman sat among them, gaunt and gray-haired, dressed in candy-striped coverails and electronic shackles. Their eyes met. Llenor sensed a surge of envy-- as if the prisoner resented the easy freedom with which Llenor boarded the slidewalk. The woman looked away, staring listlessly into space. A nine-digit ID number was tattooed on her left cheek.

Love Me Tender

HUMANS, HALF-HUMANS, SuperChimps, xenos, and whatnot jammed the single-speed slidewalk. Finding her way blocked, Llenor stood watching port market stalls file past. Small Thai children sat leashed like dogs alongside heaps of nanoelectronics brought down the Archipelago from the Twilight Belt beanstalks. Hawkers in red flapping robes ran along with the slidewalk, waving bright offworld toys -- pocket holocams, microprojectors, and the like.

("Flier to princess four," Evie threatened. Llenor replied with an exchange.

Port Myrine was hotter than home. Shadows were shorter. Colors brighter. Ariel's axial rotation exactly matched her orbital revolution. At this longitude there was no night or noon. Prospero looped about a point midway between zenith and horizon, making it always mid-afternoon, or maybe mid-morning. At home in the Twilight Belt, Llenor knew a slow mode version of day and night, produced by orbital libration. Humans had lived offplanet for so long that she never connected daylight and darkness with the 24-hour clock brought from Old Earth. Landfall had been seven seconds shy of three A.M. -- but all that meant to her was 09.:59:53, threequarters through the Midwatch.

("Roc to princess-griffin three.") Erie was bringing out her rocs.

Closing her eyes, Llenor summoned up the game. Never having so much as seen a board --Llenor pictured Evie's array as a line of winged fliers, backed by armored hippogriffs and gunships. Llenor's own pieces formed two lines abreast, like a flotilla of Black Pirates from Barsoom. Advancing one of her fliers, Llenor prepared to send her princess out aboard a sleek black destroyer.

The slidewalk did an abrupt turn toward Lemnki Settlement. Llenor got off. What she wanted lay upslope, at the end of a simple footpath. As she mounted the path, the sounds of the slidewalk faded. Birds stilled. A sacred hush settled over everything. Myrine could be seen but not heard.

At the center of this cone of silence stood the local Graceland Shrine, a relic brought intact from Tau Ceti by one of the first slowboats --before the beanstalks and high-g colony ships. Rusted columns supported a weathered dome and ivy-covered dish antenna. The sole attendant was a bum-scarred old woman. Sightless eyes stared over her offering bowl.

Llenor dropped a tiny zero-g purge valve into the bowl. Wizened fingers felt the offering, then signed a benediction, waving her into the Shrine. Llenor thumbed the lock and entered.

The door dissolved behind her. So did the Shrine, along with Port Myrine and the rest of Ariel. Llenor stood on a dusty bank, beside a huge sparkling sheet of muddy water a couple of klicks across, bordered by levees and canebrake. A sternwheeled riverboat churned past, belching black smoke from tall crowned stacks, making for a chute between the mainland and a wooded island.

She opened the zips on her flight suit. It was the sort of simmering shadowless noontime found only on Ariel's Subsolar Plateau. But Llenor was no longer on Ariel -- which had no great wide rivers. No steamboats. And no yellow sun. She was on Earth. Old Earth. Just outside Memphis on the Mississippi.

A boy sat fishing on a log, staring at the steamboat. He wore adult's cast-off pants, cut short and rolled up, and a ragged straw hat stuck full of fishing lures. Loose suspenders crossed his sunburned back. No shirt. No shoes. No stress. As the steamboat passed into the chute, he looked up at Llenor with a gap-toothed Huck Finn grin. "So you licked South Pass."

Llenor smiled back. "Guess I did, Dad." In Graceland the dead can pick their age and condition. Her step-dad spent eternity as a nine-yearold, matching his yen for youth.

Dad's grin widened. "Come on. Folks want ta celebrate."

He slid his fishing pole onto a bare shoulder and led Llenor away from the river. They crossed an old broken-down pasture, stirring up grasshoppers and tiny yellow skippers. A woodpecker hammered in the woods ahead.

At the far edge of the field stood a water-stained shotgun shack. A woman who could have been Llenor's twin sat on the porch swing, tuning a banjo. She had the same face, the same long red hair --- but instead of a harlequin flight suit, she wore a loose white blouse and Daisy Mae cutoffs. She sang out, "Hi child."

Llenor said hi to Grandma Marge. Then the three of them set off through the woods, Llenor flapping along in her unzipped flight suit, Dad with his fishing pole, Gramma Marge carrying her banjo.

("Princess to princess two." Evie offered up a "poisoned pawn." Llenor swept down on the bait, knowing only cool play would keep Evie from trapping her princess.)

Under the shade of the trees stood a plantation house with tall fluted columns of white pine. Bluegrass poked through gaps in the brick walk. Family members poured out to greet Llenor. Mother was with them. She was the spit image of Llenor, Evie, and Grandma Marge--only a deal older and heavier. Not being dead, Mom would have considered it vain to appear in Graceland younger than she was.

Not all of Llenor's family looked like her. Some were barely human. She had half-Thai cousins. And there were SuperChimps in the family too, adopted from the crew of the old Beaulieu. Not everyone could make it to the reunion. Some did not care to. Gramma Lisa was happy at the Helm of the Lisa-Marie, swearing she would not be caught dead in Graceland.

Those who came treated Llenor to an old-fashioned picnic of fried chicken, sweet melon, cornpone and crawfish pie. People passed mason jars and wine jugs. Guitars and rhythm sticks came out, and folks began to sing, leading off with "Will the Circle Be Unbroken," followed by a medley of Elyis tunes.

When they got to "Love Me Tender," Llenor cried at the outpouring of affection. Sometimes too much was expected of her. Educating and entertaining Evie, taking custody of the Twins, captaining an airship full of gun-toting xenos. But with such love behind her, how could she go wrong?

Llenor left the Shrine happy and hungry -- virtual feasts never filled you up. It was eerie to step from Old Earth back into the endless afternoon of Port Myrine. No time seemed to have passed. Soft Prospero light fell at the same angle, casting the same shadows. As she left the cone of silence a skycycle swept by overhead, pedaling toward a floating villa, scattering a flock of silverwings feeding on windblown spores.

"It's all done with sensurround."

Startled, she looked downslope. It was Bell, resting on his heels beside the dusty footpath, looking a bit ashamed of his joke. Everyone knew shrines did not bring back the dead -- but an unbeliever never knew the peace they gave the living.

Bell stood up. "Bet you're starving." Showing he knew more about the shrines than most unbelievers. After flying South Pass, followed by a virtual picnic, Llenor could have wolfed down a meal fit for the King. Mashed potatoes and pizza, or fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches.

She dashed off a mental message. "Gramrea Lisa, I'm eating ashore." It was her business to know Bell better.

("Aye, aye, Capt'n. Ship's quiet as the grave, lust watch yourself.")

("Enjoy child, but be careful.") That was Mom, listening in. This was going to be one of those outings where everyone watched her steps.

Evie came on, begging another game. ("You can be white.")

("Okay. Flier to princess-griffin four.")

["Roc to princess-griffin three.") Evie declined Llenor's opening gambit. Llenor shifted to the Tartakower variation, something she could play in her sleep.

Bell escorted her to the slidewalk. Port Myrine eateries were smoke darkened chop-shops, or plain canopies shading a gas ring set on the ground. The better sort doubled as brothels.

"Noodles 'n Nudes -- Food and Bodies from out of this World
Four Different Cuisines! Five Different Sexes!"

Bell shook his head. "Wouldn't touch that with a forty-meter mooring mast." Llenor believed him. His skin-tight uniform showed no hint of overindulgence. She wished she could reach out and feel him, to make sure he was not a holo. He seemed that perfect.

The slidewalk swung right up to Lemnki Gate. Flak towers poked over the settlement's energy fence. Bell started to step off. Taken aback, Llenor seized his arm. It felt rock solid, not at all like a holo. "They won't let me in."

"Nonsense." Bell's smile turned mischievous, like a boy relishing a chance to do wrong. "Here the condemned can get a decent meal." His thumb print cleared hers.

("Have courage, child," Morn advised.)

Behind the slate gray fence a shoulder of Mt. Lemnos had been blasted flat, creating a grassy expanse, as green as Graceland. Geodomes rose among the hedgerows. After the menagerie in Port Myrine, it was weird to see nothing but humans. Lots of them. And all so different. A dozen races. Each face unique.

Bell steered her toward a glass and chrome pavilion with soaring cantilevered wings anchored in ferroconcrete. Letters in tasteful Universal script floated before the entrance ramp:

                        THE INTERNATIONAL
                 FINE DINING FROM AROUND THE GALAXY
    THE BEST DISHES OF OLD EARTH, TAU CETI, SIRIUS, AND THE ERIDANI

      (HUMAN SERVICE ONLY. THE MANAGEMENT WILL NOT SEAT XENOS,
       HOMONEANDERTHALS, OR BIOENGINEERED BEINGS OF ANY SORT.)

The redundancy of the last part was chilling. Since entering the settlement Llenor had not seen anyone looking the least bit "bioengineered." Much less a Thal or xeno.

Bell took her firmly by the elbow. "Only a restaurant. It won't eat you."

Striding straight through the message, he found them seats on a hanging veranda. A young man in a silver cape and skin-suit met them at the table. Expecting an introduction, Llenor assumed one of Bell's officers had joined them for lunch. All Bell said was, "We'll start with sliver-leaf salad, carrot and cashew soup, and a pitcher of apricot lassi."

Mr. Silversuit was a waiter, something Llenor had heard of, but never seen. Scary, but at least he did not have a number tattooed on his cheek.

Rattled at the thought of human service, Llenor found the menu overwhelming. The place offered everything from "Baked Lyrian Bluefish" to "Hush Puppies and Hoe Cakes." Plus a whole list of "Sweet Inspirations." Bell suggested the Champignons farcis with black bean bulgar. Llenor swiftly agreed, hoping that would make the waiter go away.

(Evie castled. Llenor came back with hippogriffin to gunship four.)

Bell waved Mr. Silversuit off, saying, "They make the best souffle rothschild this side of the Sad Cafe."

Llenor muttered, "Maybe we should go there." She would have felt safer at that noodle-cum-knocking-shop by the slidewalk.

"It's in Glory System in the Far Eridani." Bell cocked an eyebrow. "You're not nervous, are you?"

Llenor nodded, staring off at a herd of real hippogriffs grazing at the edge of the trees --semi-intelligent bird-winged beaked quadrupeds, bloconstructs from Beta Hydri IV, used as gardeners, beasts of burden, and pieces in aerial chess. They broke the monotony of seeing only humans.

("Flier to flag-gunship three," Evie threatened again.)

"Is it because you are a clone?" Bell asked.

Llenor gave a startled nod, looking to see if the waiter was hovering about. "How did you know.?"

"Your little sister looks exactly like you. And those twins are a dead giveaway."

The waiter popped back up with their pitcher of apricot lassi.

["Flier to flag-griffin three," Evie repeated impatiently.)

Llenor started a furious series of exchanges to keep Erie occupied. Flier takes flier. Roc takes flier. Griffin takes griffin. Princess takes griffin...

The waiter poured the lassi and left. Under her breath, Llenor confessed that she and Evie were clones of her mother. All of them being genetic copies of Gramma Marge.

And Lilith and Lucifer were not just twins. "They are clones of Aunt Freya-- only Lucifer was gene-spliced to produce testosterone at puberty. Until then everyone thought he was a girl. Then during one Wedding Day skinny-dip -- Wham!"

"You discovered Lilith had a brother?"

"One May First we girls aren't like to forget."

Even coming from three generations of women who had reproduced without men, Llenor found the Twins eerie. "They do everything together. Standing the same watches. Sharing the same cabin. They're never out of each other's sight."

"What's that language they speak among themselves?"

"English mostly," Llenor admitted.

"I suppose you speak it too."

"Only at home." Llenor tried not to look ashamed. Elvis sang in English, but she did not say it -- no sense spoiling things by arguing religion.

Bell rolled his eyes. "Don't use it around here."

Llenor knew better than that. It was bad enough being in a settlement. She kept fearing some overpolite waiter would pop up and denounce her as a "bioengineered being" pretending to be human. "Does that bother you ?"

"That you speak a dead language?"

"No, that I'm a clone." She desperately hoped it didn't matter.

Bell laughed. "Hell no. It's who you are that matters, not how you got here. So far what I see is great."

Llenor blushed. Embarrassed but happy.

"And being your mother's twin is not technically a crime. You must be genetically altered to run afoul of Settler Law."

Like Lucifer. Llenor had a horrid image of the Twins run amok in Lemnki Settlement. It would get them all burned at the stake. She took a swig of the lassi, finding it cool and tingly, feeling instantly better. Almost light-headed.

The waiter returned, and Bell deftly switched subjects, saying the Helium Works gig was just to keep the Banshees breathing. "I don't aim to start a xeno stud service."

"Then you'll be up for hire?"

"To the highest bidder."

Llenor racked her brain for some reason why the family might need a company of mercenaries. Like to found a trading station beyond Aphrodite. Anything to keep Bell around.

(Evie threatened Llenor's remaining hippogriff. Llenor replied by grabbing a flier, setting up a wicked roc cross.)

Bell kept up an encouraging stream of conversation. By the time they got to the souffle rothschild, Llenor felt absurdly relaxed. Ready to take on all the Bugs in Myrine. So confident she suspected there was something in the lassi. But Bell was matching her glass for glass.

He downed the last of the lassi. "Want to teach me to fly? I know where we can rent wings."

"Why not?" Llenor thought. She seemed to be several meters above the ground already. Having survived lunch at Lemnki Settlement, anything was possible.

They took the slidewalk back to the harbor. The hangar-top rental stall stocked everything from hang gliders to nine-meter Albatrosses. Bell became immediately enamored with a sleek pair of Sparrow Speedsters. Llenor steered him away from the Speedsters -- "You can't start on racing wings." Instead she selected Peregrine Hawks, the closest to her own Condors, but better for beginners.

She started Bell off on short glides at the end of a flying tether. The sweeping updraft off the windward side of the hangars made it hard to fall. He beat back and forth, easily copying Llenor's movements. Either Bell was an apt pupil, or she was a natural teacher -- but everything they did together turned out perfect. Immensely pleased, Llenor asked if he wanted to fly to the sky hook.

"Sure." Bell was clearly having a ball.

"You'll have to lose the ground line."

"Isn't that the object?"

Right. Llenor nodded to port, "Do you see the roost and skyhook?"

"Bearing two-nine-zero and a bit down to you." He had spotted the skyhook, transposing the bearing in his head.

"Cast off when you are ready." Llenor saw the tether line fall away. Except for a stiffness in his glide, Bell might have been doing this for decades. She took station above and behind, soaring out over the globegirdling cloud plain. A pair of peregrines flew with them.

Ahead hung the hook, a series of trapeze seats suspended from an aerodynamic spar, looking like the fishing jigs Dad wore in his straw hat. As they approached, Bell's inexperience showed. He came in too fast, missed his stall, then missed the hook. Llenor had to dive down, catch him from behind, then let her momentum carry them onto the hook.

They ended up sitting on the same seat, laughing at her catch. Neither moved to break contact. "Magnificent," Bell exclaimed. "No wonder you are an airship captain."

"You'd be astonished." There was a story behind her first command.

"Why? Did you steal that ship?"

"Some folks think so."

Bell grinned. He was the type to appreciate a little ably engineered larceny.

"Mom was my step-dad's fourth wife, a lot younger than the others. We were never popular -- an unwed mother with cloned daughters and weird Outback relations. But Dad took me on as a cabin girl, saying I should learn the trade." Until now Dad had been the only man in her life --unless you counted Lucifer. Her hero, mentor, and protector. "He took me to the Eastern Isles, even Nightside. By the time I turned sixteen he had me piloting solarplanes and semi-rigids."

"I'd like to meet him."

"He went down with the Beaulieu." The only place Bell would see Dad was in Graceland -- and Bell was not a Believer.

He gave a sober glance. "I'm glad you weren't with him."

"He insisted I stay. Everyone knew the trip was Jify. The whole crew was brainscanned beforehand -- right down to the SuperChimps."

Bell said he had heard of the wreck.

"His wives and grown children swooped down -- kicking me out. Barring More from the funeral."

"That must have hurt." Bell's arm came out of his wings, taking her sympathetically about the waist. She leaned into him, letting Bell steady her on the seat.

"Then they decoded his will, and found a dying codicil -- added as the Beaulieu went down."

"Making a provision for your mother?"

"Nope," Llenor laughed. "By then he and Mom were split."

It was plain Dad had transferred affection to Mom's look-alike daughter. "His codicil left the whole shipping line to me. The Prinzess Lisa.Marie, plus six semi-rigids and a solarplane taxi service."

Bell's blue eyes sparkled, "I'll bet that's a will they worked hard to break."

"They called me a little whore, and dragged us to an offworld court but could not break the codicil. His wives all had lands and income, and could not claim to be destitute. To satisfy the court, I deeded the line over to my moro's family until I'm twenty-one. But I made damn sure I was Head Pilot." In half a year the line would revert to her.

"Do you mind that my family runs to extremes?" Llenor worried Bell would find this all too much.

"Like those twins?" Bell shook his head. "Being always together and sharing the same cabin, do they? Well..."

"I hope not." Llenor hated to speculate on the Twins' sex lives.

"Elviz would not like that." Bell bore down on the "z" to emphasize the Universal pronunciation. "Kissing cousins are okay, but the King knew where to draw the line."

"I don't think the Twins care what Elvis thinks. They're Satanists." Lucifer had been oddly unaffected by his sex change, going from being a weird little girl to a weirder little boy. But Aunt Freya was Reformed Church of Beelzebub, and acted pleased with her genetic joke. Giving up human sacrifice had not taken away their sense of humor.

"Elviz loved all religions." Bell's tone made it clear the King loved Satanism least.

"Sorry my family is so strange." She felt like a freak.

"No stranger than mine," Bell looked rueful. "You saw Kia and Amanda. My exec and her blonde young ensign. Their off-watches must make Lilith and Lucifer seem normal."

"You mean they are lovers?"

"If you call it that," Bell smirked. "Beauty and the Beast." It was an arresting image. Kia with her armorplate aura, having complete command over sweet young Amanda -- an on-duty aide and off-watch concubine.

Before Llenor could recover, Bell leaned over and kissed her. A surprisingly gentle kiss, patient yet commanding.

Mother started to come on the comlink, but Llenor blanked the call, putting her whole extended family on hold. When their lips parted, Llenor asked, "Then you don't have a lover?"

"No--but I hope I am about to." He said it with soft reassurance, like someone not afraid of the finer emotions.

Llenor whispered a short prayer to Elvis. The King never thought sex was sinning. Even in his mortal life -- before his returns from death millions of women desired him. Elvis did his best not to deny them, but most went away disappointed. For of all the women in the world, Elvis loved his mother most -- Gladys Mother of God. Until he met Priscilla. She was only fourteen, but Elvis knew she was the one. Priscilla's father --a great pilot and the original Colonel Beaulieu -- trusted Elvis, letting Priscilla live in Graceland. Elvis could have succumbed to temptation any time, but he waited until Priscilla was twenty-one, and they were married. Waiting was hard on Elvis. And harder on Priscilla. But anything special is worth waiting for.

That was how Llenor felt about Bell. He was the one for her. And in a matter of months she would be twenty-one, owning the shipping line outright. Then if she wanted to sail off with Bell at her side, who would stop her?

But Bell wanted her now, and Llenor could feel herself yielding. "We could climb to the roost," he suggested. There was not much you could do, sitting on a narrow trapeze seat with nothing beneath you but cloud plain.

(Evie came on, demanding Llenor make a move.)

"Sure," Llenor nodded toward the roost. Closing her eyes, she took a quick look at the game. She had her gunships in line, and her hippogriff backing her princess. Evie's flagship was cornered, guarded by her roc and princess. ("Game's over girl.")

("What? No way!")

("Gunship to griffin eight, check. Roc takes gunship. Gunship takes roc, check. Princess takes gunship. Princess takes princess, mate.")

("Stinker!")

("Find something to do. Sis is about to be busy.")

Sis was about to be mated. Leaving their wings behind, they climbed the light ladder to the roost. Llenor left her bug clipped to her wings -there were lessons Evie did not need to learn just yet. The roost was a ringed platform circling the spar, held aloft by a gasbag farther up, tethered to the cliffs. From the roost Llenor could see the whole circle of the world. Port Myrine, Lemnki Settlement, and the cloud-wracked Archipelago stretching back toward the Twilight Belt and Nightside. And in the opposite direction, Mount Aphrodite.

Beyond Aphrodite stretched the Great Reach, an empty sea of air. On the far side lay the untamed Subsolar Plateau -- a huge tidal bulge thrust through the cloud layers. A land of eternal noon, nine-tenths burning waste, with human and non-human enclaves clinging to its flanks, cut off from the rest of Ariel by danger and distance. They could explore it together. All it took was courage and imagination. And the willingness to wait a few months -- until Llenor came into her inheritance.

But Bell wanted her now, deftly undoing the zips on her harlequin flight suit. His hands slid inside, caressing her bare hip, fingers brushing the rosy hair between her thighs. Llenor shivered. She just did not have Elvis' self-deniM. Who did.? The world beyond Mount Love would have to wait.

By the time they got back to the Prinzess Lisa-Marie, a warm rain was falling. In the shelter of the airship, Bell kissed her goodbye. They both needed sleep -- or at least rest.

He looked up at the tall block letters on the ship's hull. "You'll have to change that name."

Llenor mumbled an apology, eyes downcast. "Lisa-Marie is a family name with us."

Settlers had declared Universal the official language, banning all foreign or alien spellings. Llenor's family tried to compromise, putting "Prinzess" in Universal -- the ship's registered name. "Lisa-Marie" was an unofficial addition stenciled semi-legally onto the hull.

"It's sacrilege," Bell reminded her. "As bad as spelling Elviz with an 's.' Liza-Marie is a saint, whose marriage to a despised black man brought the races of Old Earth together."

Llenor nodded, ashamed that her folks were such hicks. She had not meant to slight Lisa-Marie, or the historic racial harmony her marriage to Saint Michael produced. Happily, Bell did not know that her Satanist cousins denied even the divinity of Elvis -- hoping he would send them to Hell.

Llenor rode a clanking conveyor down to the local Bugville. She felt incredibly overdressed in her heat suit, rebreather, crash helmet and half armor, her hands encased in laser-gloves. Bumping along behind her was the armored box containing the Hive Queen, with a dozen mean-looking Bug Warriors riding shotgun. Meter-long insects buzzed about.

All she could think about was seeing Bell again. Dizzy with anticipation, she kept her visor up, taking in the warm soupy air. A hypertense Hive Queen mating, with heavily armed xenos for chaperones, is not an ideal second date -- but Bell's confidence was contagious. This deadly rigmarole was just a last hurdle, no worse than navigating South Pass.

The conveyor descended. Terraced gardens gave way to kilometer-tall cloud forests. Giant trees planted to break up the mountain flanks pulled in air and light, shedding tons of organic matter. Winged bioengineers flitted through the steamy canopy, inspecting and pollinating. Each tree was unable to reproduce on its own, part of a transition ecology, intended to give way to self-reproducing species.

Heat and pressure mounted. Llenor sealed her visor, relying on the rebreather. Her suit refrigerator hummed louder, laboring to keep things bearable. None of this bothered the Bugs. Bug Warriors were tough, and the Bug Workers who drilled for Helium were bred to work in this stifling stew.

The Helium Works sat below the treeline on a barren rock bench. Pressure domes loomed ghost-like in the murk. The usual guards had been replaced by a squad of Bell's Banshees in pressure armor. Bug Warriors would not have been able to let rival hive members enter. The squad commander ordered the lock to cycle in soft no-nonsense tones. Bell liked female subalterns -- "They work hard. Guys listen to them. And they are not prone to testosterone attacks."

Bell was inside, flanked by Kia, standing guard over the armored box containing the Helium Works Hive Queen. Llenor made eye contact through their polarized visors. Bell's mouth was covered by his rebreather mask, but already she knew his face well enough to see he was smiling.

Bug Warriors lined up on both sides of them, just like mental chess, with Bell opposing her instead of Evie. Only this time the warriors and weapons were real. Spines bristled, and safeties snickered off. Tension felt as thick as the air.

It was plain the Bugs themselves could not have pulled it off. Not in such cramped quarters. Not with so many weapons. Xenobiologists speculated that such matings used to be frantic physical contests, where milling warriors were killed and maimed-- each hive trying to get genetic material without giving any up. Assault guns and mini-cannon made such melees unthinkable. Humans had to substitute for brute force.

"Ready?" Bell's voice sounded flat over the comlink.

Llenor acknowledged, charging her laser gloves, breathing softly. Bell cycled his lock. She did the same. Vault doors swung slowly open, synchronized to give neither side an advantage.

The Hive Queens emerged, great segmented monsters with sixteen legs to a side. Normally humans never saw a Queen. Hives had no good reasons to relax their guard. They looked like two of the double-bugs run together -- but while the sixteen-leggers had heads at both ends, Hive Queens had a single head, and rears clearly adapted for cyst-laying.

They reared up, legs beating the thick air, like huge centipedes doing some drunk ballet. A ripple ran through the lines of Bug Warriors. Llenor's fingers twitched inside her laser gloves. She had orders to shoot any Bug showing hostile intent -- it was hoped the xenos would accept suppressing fire so long as it came from humans.

As if on psychic command the Hive Queens extended pseudo-legs from the underside of their main segments. Weaving back and forth, the spindly legs closed the gap between the Queens, each one tipped with a shiny wet sack.

Llenor watched, weirdly fascinated. She should have been scanning the ranks of Bug Warriors, but she could not. How often do you get to see a Bug mating? The act underlying seemingly infinite adaptability. The two sacks contained germ plasm brought across light years, stored for centuries. After hearing that the Bugs kept their former hosts as house pets, Llenor bet her shipping line that not all the plasm came from Bugs. Other xenos, even humans, probably contributed, voluntarily or otherwise. Bell told grisly stories about the fate of the males aboard the Cape Colony.

The glistening sacks touched. And chaos erupted.

First came a stabbing flash of light. Polarizers on Llenor's visor cut in, but not before things went black. Diving blindly, she hit the deck, dazed and panic-stricken.

Then came the blast. A tremendous surge of pressure lifted Llenor up, slamming her into something hard. Only the rebreather clamped to her chest and the suit plugs in her ears kept her from being crushed and deafened. Bouncing off whatever she hit, Llenor saw spots, and heard weapons firing. Shrapnel rattled down around her.

She lay gripping the deck in darkness. The mad wall of sound sank down to a confused clatter, rising and falling as explosive shells searched for targets. Polarizers had saved Llenor's sight, but the Bugs were blinded, making them a dozen times as dangerous. Normally a Bug could be relied on not to shoot at a human -- unless another human ordered it to. But these Bugs were wildly returning fire, shooting at sounds.

Shutting off her polarizers, Llenor strained to see. Dancing lights gave way to muzzle flashes. Most of the Bug Warriors were down. Hive Queen parts lay scattered about.

A single Bug, minus half its limbs, spun about on the floor a few meters in front of her, firing its assault gun, drawing fire from all directions. Just the sort of thoughtless hostility Llenor was supposed to suppress.

Carefully as she could, Llenor extended her right laser glove, raising the thumb sight. Four or five thumbs floated in front of her. She brought her left hand around to steady the glove, cutting the number of floating thumbs to two.

Splitting the difference, she fired silently, her laser splashing over the downed Bug. The xeno stopped shooting.

Crossfire slackened. Llenor looked about. Kia lay crumpled against the blackened door of a blast-proof box, missing an arm and leg, her body armor fiddled. Bell must have been right at the epicenter. His bloody helmet lay a few meters off. She could not tell if his head was inside.

Hearing a plop, she turned to see a grenade land to her left. It rolled toward her, stopping just out of reach. So close she could read the CAREFUL FLAMMABLE[EXPLOSIVE warning label. The safety was off. The trigger pulled. Horrified, Llenor raised her left laser glove to shield her face.

The blast caught her in mid-motion.

Jailhouse Rock

THE ROOM she awoke in was so white and sterile Llenor immediately tagged it as a sick bay. Being strapped to an autodoc with tubes snaking out of her lent substance to the assumption. It had to be a critical care unit since the walls were shielded, cutting off contact with the outside. Everything else was mercifully vague. She had been in the Helium Works, the Hive Queens were making it. Then wham! -- all hell broke loose. What followed was a ghastly blur. She was fairly sure she had killed a Bug...

And Bell was dead. No doubt there. He had been standing atop the blast. Waves of grief and nausea gripped her. A wild sense of loss made her want to tear the tubes and patches off her body, but she hadn't the strength to get out of the autodoc.

Instead she lay there utterly alone -- a novel experience that soon got annoying. Four walls were not so amusing. She got no comfort from More. No salty advice from Gramma Lisa. Even Evie wanting to play would have been something. Solitude was great for wallowing in grief-- but it cut her off from life.

Her first visitor was a big disappointment. Without warning, a wall dilated and an offensively perky young woman appeared. She had short sandy hair, an upturned nose and an aggravating grin. "Are you conscious?" she asked.

"Not really. But come in anyway."

The woman took a couple of seconds to figure that out, then stepped inside, asking, "How do you feel?"

"Rotten" was the first adjective that came to mind. Llenor could honestly say she had never felt worse. "When do I get out of this autodoc?"

She thought about it, then decided, "I sure could not say."

Llenor glared at her tormentor. "Aren't you a medic?"

After another delay, she exclaimed, "Goodness no."

"Then who the hell are you?" Llenor saw she was dealing with someone really slow. The young woman had the look of a settler, wearing a pearl-gray suit trimmed with taffeta. An audio-optical bug clung to her lace lapel, trying hard to look like a broach.

She took her usual irritating time answering. "I am Miriam Holiday. Your lawyer."

"My lawyer?"

Another blank moment, then she nodded enthusiastically. "Court appointed."

Llenor stared at the smiling sandy-haired moron. "I'm talking to a bugheaded holo. You aren't even onplanet, are you?" The pauses were speed-of-light lag. Counselor Holiday was on one of the beanstalk geosync stations.

"That's right. I am Pair-a-Dice representative for Li Sing & Wainwright. Main offices in Mount Zion."

"I don't want a lawyer. All I want is to call home." Or better still be discharged. Sickbay felt claustrophobic.

In a moment Miriam replied. "I'm afraid you very much need a lawyer. Hasn't anyone told you the charges?."

"This is all a huge shock," Llenor assured her.

Miriam reeled off offenses, sounding like a summary of the penal code. "Terrorism, murder, malicious mayhem, willful sabotage, misuse of explosives, wanton defacement..."

"What? For killing a Bug?"

Another annoying pause. "That comes under defacement of property. Xenos contracted to the Helium Works are legally listed as equipment, to avoid the animal cruelty statutes. You are accused of killing Adam Lysander Bell, and his exec..."

Llenor remembered Kia, sprawled against the burnt blast door with an arm and leg gone.

"Prosecutors have established a prima facie case based on the microdetonator and superconducting primer, plus traces of nitrates on your clothes and body..."

"Detonator? Primer?"

Another maddening delay. "The primer and microdetonator found in your suit cuff."

Absolutely impossible. But the brainless holo kept spouting absurdities. Llenor was accused of preposterous crimes. And under Settler Law from the sound of it. She realized she was "baby strapped" to the autodoc, unable to reach the clasps.

"What about the Xenophobes?"

"The who?" Miriam acted like she never heard the word.

"You know. Alien haters. This bombing has Xenophobe all over it." Whoever killed Bell had wiped out two hives as well -- without their Queens, Bugs could not long survive.

"You must be more explicit."

Llenor was literally talking to someone from another world. "Xenophobes. People who won't serve Thais in restaurants. And keep Chimps out of the Settlements. At every election the Humanists harp on how Ariel is reserved for humans. How they're saving us from the xenos. A lot of folks really believe that." As far as Llenor cared, Ariel could be reserved for caterpillars just so they got along.

Miriam replied primly. "Having or expressing an opinion about aliens is not a crime."

"Unless you express it by blowing folks away. Step-cousin Wilbur put a .20mm third eye in a SuperChimp -- an' got off with a fine. Claimed the Chimp acted frisky."

"Frisky?" Another word new to Miriam.

"Cousin Wilber's a man of few syllables. And the Chimp could not tell his side. SuperChimps work hard an' cheap -- and their babies are cute -- but some folks still hate 'era. Bugs give everyone the heebie jeebies."

"So?" Her lawyer refused to see any connections.

"A lot of folks would like to blow the Bugs up."

"We can't accuse 'a lot of folks.'"

So much for Settler Law. Llenor saw the real bombers were not likely to figure in the case. "Look, I need to talk to my family."

Miriam considered. "An open channel is impossible. All visitors must come in person..."

Dad and Gramma Lisa could not come "in person." Mom was a world away in the Twilight Belt. "How about my sister aboard ship?" Evie could relay a message home.

Miriam looked embarrassed. "The Prinzess is no longer in harbor. The Port Master attempted to board and impound material evidence. Someone cut the magnetic grapple and dumped liquid ballast, flying off with the Port Master and drenching his bodyguards with waste water."

Hurrah for Gramma Lisa.

"The Port Master survived, but is pressing assault and kidnaping charges against your cousin Lucifer Freyason..."

Survived? Lucifer must be getting softhearted. Or just slothful.

"...and an unknown Thal."

That would be Wah-tsoph-ki.

Miriam eventually faded out. Llenor realized she was on Jailhouse Rock. Not the original one, which was a prison asteroid in the Mt. Zion system. Or maybe orbiting Old Earth. This was the Port Myrine brig, on a pinnacle above the harbor. Every prison was called Jailhouse Rock.

And it slowly sank in that they never meant to let her out. Once she was out of the autodoc, and dressed in candy-cane coverails, there were enforced exercise periods, virtual interrogations, and 3V "social hours." All within her cell.

The trial was also in her cell. So was the appeal. Both before Settler courts. The main difference was the time lag. The first court was on Paira-Dice, and the light speed lag just made the judges seem slow-witted. The appeals court was in Mt. Zion system -- several light hours away making the second round seem like an episodic 3V play acted out in her cell. Llenor was allowed to proclaim her innocence at the cost of having to hear all the impossible, damning physical evidence. The nitrates on her clothes and body, the primer and detonator in her cuff. Half the judges had to be Humanist appointments, happy to have a culprit not tied to their party.

In each case the verdict was the same, "Guilty on all counts." The first time Llenor felt shocked, as if she had not heard right. The second time she expected it.

Miriam shook her empty holographic head, wishing she could have done better. She could hardly have done worse.

"What does it mean?"

Miriam thought a moment. "Standard sentences?"

"Unless they have some special on."

"Destruction and defacing, that's a simple caning -- five strokes for each count. I think I can keep the total under twenty." Good for Miriam. Up till now having a lawyer had been fairly useless.

"The malicious mayhem, assault, willful sabotage, and misuse of hazardous materials; that's two to three decades of hard labor. Which I could try to get reduced. But you might prefer the full sentence..."

Why? For the fresh air and exercise? "What about murder and terrorism?" The charges that really scared her.

Signals seemed to take forever, leaping back and forth at light speed. "Oh, that's hopeless. There you're looking at death."

And hardly finding it appealing. "Then who the fuck cares about the other charges?"

Miriam took her usual time answering. "You might. I can try to get the caning waived. Or reduced. And the penal servitude put first. You could live for twenty, thirty years..."

Then be executed. She thought of the aging woman in the ground crew with a tattoo on her cheek. What was she looking forward to when her time was up? Llenor now wore nine similar numbers, listing her crimes and identity.

The labor sentence was at least life, and she might see the family. "What about brainscan?"

"It would defeat the purpose of execution." Miriam left.

Even Graceland would be denied her. But for the moment she still had her memories. Rummaging through naymatrix files, Llenor replayed her first solos at home, seeing the peaks of Atoll coming closer in low Prospero light. The huge Twilight Belt caldera had a dozen peaks, and two habitable sections of ringwall, surrounding a great eroded volcanic cone. Aerostadts swung between the peaks. Forests climbed the ringwalls. Mount Aloha was marked by the gleaming thread of Aloha beanstalk, rising out of sight to connect Atoll to Eden Station. An aerodynamic capsule was descending the stalk, like a silver egg on a steel guitar string.

She swung her ship up to the family mooring mast. Dad congratulated her. Mom and Evie came out to greet the ship.

Miriam cut the memory short.

Llenor left home thinking, "This better be worth it."

It wasn't, Miriam confessed that she could not get the caning cut to under thirty strokes. "They are determined to set an example,"

Llenor was no longer surprised. Her luck practically demanded it.

"And they have commuted your labor sentence."

"Can they do that?"

"Work gangs are full. They are cutting back on prisoners."

In her case clemency meant beating and execution. They were keeping her in this box until it was convenient to kill her. Shaking with anger, she told her lawyer, "Just go away."

Miriam did not move.

"Go away," Llenor shouted. "You're worse than the Bugs."

Miriam left. This time for good.

By now Llenor hated the Settlers, hated them with all her heart. Until this happened, Llenor had been above politics, seeing no point to it. Some Settler party always won. If not the Humanists, then the Greens. Since the biosphere took hold, incoming colonists from Epsilon E and the Home Systems had outnumbered humans born onplanet. Thais, Chimps, and xenos had it easy -- they weren't allowed to vote. Under Settler Law you had to be human, with no kinky chromosomes.

She had not minded Settlers running things. They were pushy but effective -- putting down pirates and wreckers. Big on free trade. Only thing that had galled her was how they looked down on everyone. Thals and Chimps were automatically animals. Xenos were vermin. And now they meant to put her down without a speck of regret. Someone killed Bell and Kia. So the Settlers would kill her, strapped to the same autodoc she came in on. "Lethal injection," to teach the lesser beings not to play with bombs. Llenor shuddered.

Her innocence was a side issue. Settler Law was beyond the truth. Only "rights" and "legality" mattered. They were actually proud of that. Said it was a sign of civilization.

She hoped Elvis reamed them good. You can't fool the King.

From then on she lived for her virtual trips home, lying in her box, seeing Atoll and her family, reliving moments she had meant to keep forever. Giving up on "reality." Food and sleep were for the living. Llenor was as good as dead.

The next time she was pulled out was like a waking dream. Suddenly she was back in her cell -- but not able to move. Paralyzed. Unable to twitch a toe. She wondered if her naymatrix had gone haywire from overuse. Her cell door dilated. Llenor expected to see Miriam, returning with one more inanity. Instead she saw a mobile bug. A six-legged electronic scorpion, with tiny lens antennas, and a huge hypo in its tail.

The bug entered, scurrying up the side of her bed, scrambling atop her immobilized body, headed for her neck. Its hypo tail raised. Llenor screamed, but nothing came out.

All she could think of was "lethal injection." This was not how it was supposed to happen. What about the caning?

The hypo took aim at her carotid artery. "This is for your own good," whispered the scorpion.

It struck. Llenor felt instantly better. Paralysis vanished. The hypo had held an antidote to whatever was holding her down. Plus some powerful stimulant. The scorpion leaped off her, headed for the open door, saying, "Follow me."

Llenor was up and out the door, ahead of the bug, into the lighted corridor beyond. But which way to go?

The electronic bug scurried between her legs. Doors dilated before it. Llenor bounded after it. If this was a dream, she begged Elvis not to let her wake up. She passed a pair of guards, sitting frozen at their terminals watching her escape. Victims of a paralysis field. Or some anesthetic gas.

Llenor saw daylight ahead. She burst out onto a bare, flat loading dock, with tall slick walls. Prison trustees in candy-striped coveralls lay strewn about the penned-in tarmac. The nearest had an anesthetic dart in her neck. A pair of adhesive boots stood waiting on the dock.

"I'm free," she shouted. Not strictly true -- she was surrounded by high smooth prison walls -- but she gushed thanks for getting this far.

Voices filled her head in reply: ("Thank Elvis, dear." That was Mom.) ("We sure did not do it," Gramma Lisa assured her.) ("Thank Satan," suggested Lucifer and Lilith.) "Put on the boots," said the scorpion.

Llenor pulled on the adhesive boots, hurriedly telling everyone what had happened. The scorpion called to her, "Follow me." It scurried up the far wall. Llenor dashed after the bug, planting a foot on the wall. Telling the boots to grip, she ran right up the wall, expecting a laser beam in the back.

She gained the top alive. And saw nothing on the far side but empty air. The leeward edge of the Archipelago fell straight away in a series of sheer cliffs. Wind plucked at her, trying to hurl her into the rocky abyss. Far below lay the broiling surface. Only the boots kept her atop the wall.

Llenor looked wildly about. The tiny scorpion climbed up her coveralls, perched on her back, and whispered, "Jump."

("What's happening?")

Llenor told them.

("Don't trust it," Evie squealed.)

("Take care," Mother advised.)

("Jump, jump," chorused the Twins.)

No time to hold a vote. With a Hail Gladys on her lips, Llenor told the boots to release, launching herself into space.

All Shook Up

"Hail Gladys, full of grace..." Llenor hung for an instant. Then she fell. With familiar slowness at first, as though she were in a stoop. Only with no wings to catch her.

"The King is with thee;

Blessed art thou among women..."

Speed built up. The wall slid past. All she could see was cliff face, and the clouds below. Falling ever faster, she spread her arms and legs as wide as she could, trying to get maximum drag from her prison coveralls.

"And blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Elvis."

Wind whipped at her, tearing tears from her eyes. Clouds rushed up at her. Whoever was behind this had better act now. Unless this was some unnecessarily elaborate plot to kill her. Blindly obeying some bug --just because it let her out of her cell -- no longer seemed the obvious thing to do. But what choice did she have? Lethal injection or a long fall? Hardly fair.

Llenor hit the first cloud layer. Cliffs disappeared.

Engulfed in silent gray mist, she might have thought she was no longer falling, except for the nagging reminders from her navmatrix.

She shot out the bottom of the cloud bank, and there they were. A pair of rocs plunged toward her in a stoop, wings back, matching her speed. Rocs were bred from condors ages ago on Old Earth -- but their broad twenty-meter wings, big braincases, and tall aquiline beaks gave them the look of eagles. Clutched in their claws was a life line, with a rigger's harness clipped to it. The giant birds swung the line her way.

Llenor caught it.

The rocs pulled out of their stoop, wings beating, taking the tension as evenly as they could. It still felt like Llenor's arms were jerked from their sockets. Shoulders aching, hands ripped raw from catching the cable, she struggled into the rigger's harness, 'letting her full body take the strain.

She was off. Free and away. Her naymatrix was getting no signals that sounded like pursuit. Did anyone even know she was gone? All she saw was a pair of wasphawks, and some winged shepherds herding geese.

The rocs turned downwind, leaving the tip of the Archipelago behind. Ahead a sea of clouds spread out for thousands of klicks -- the Great Reach. Llenor felt an instinctive surge of panic, setting out on a voyage airships and solarplanes seldom attempted-- relying on nothing but a pair of strange rocs. ("On my way, grandling," Gramma Lisa announced. "TWO-TWO-ZERO to you, about 200 klicks out.") She had taken the Prinzess Lisa-Marie downwind to escape Port Myrine, then worked her way back up the lee side of the Archipelago. But it would take a while to run down a pair of rocs with the wind at their backs.

("Llenor should turn the birds around," Lucifer suggested. "Bring 'em back our way.")

("No! Don't startle them," Evie shouted.)

Llenor ignored the conflicting advice. Someone had taken huge pains to get her off Jailhouse Rock. The bug. The boots. The birds. Everything appeared as needed. The rocs had to be headed somewhere. She bet they would arrive long before anyone caught up.

Straining her eyes, she looked for some sign of a ship out over the clouds, spotting a black dot directly downsun. Prospero's glare kept her from making a positive ID.

The rocs beat nearer. It was not an airship. The dot grew into a floating platform. Not a big aerostadt, but a little sky island -- taut helium tanks supporting a bamboo pavilion braced by gaily colored lines. Tall cumulus clouds in the background made it look like a tiny piece of heaven, somehow come adrift, floating out over the Great Reach.

The rocs set her down on the woven path leading to the pavilion. Llenor looked about. A baby hippogriff clung to a nearby roost, terrified by the two big carnivorous birds.

"Don't let them eat the grill," ordered a soft authoritative voice.

Llenor turned toward the pavilion, to find herself staring down the barrel of a recoilless pistol. Ensign Amanda's angelic face smiled at her from above the hand cannon. "Shoo off the rocs," she ordered. "I promised the people who lent me this place they would not eat the grill."

Llenor waved the rocs away. They flapped off, circling overhead, then setting down on the far side of the pavilion. Rocs readily obey, but tender young hippogriff is always a temptation.

The 20mm pistol stayed aimed straight at Llenor. "Did you kill her?" Amanda demanded.

"Kill who?" Llenor was honestly unsure of who she was supposed to have killed this time.

"Kia."

"No. But I saw her die." Sort of Llenor had been busy being blinded and thrown by the blast.

Amanda nodded. "Wanted to hear you say it. If I thought you had, you'd be taking ten steps back." Wind whistled off the edge of the floating island, two meters behind Llenor-- with the superheated surface far below.

"Can I put this up?" Amanda meant the pistol.

Llenor nodded enthusiastically.

"Great. I hate talking over a gun. Unless I absolutely have to." Holstering the pistol, she held out her hand. The electronic scorpion hopped off Llenor and onto her.

Tucking the bug away, she invited Llenor into the pavilion. A porcelain tea set sat on fresh tatami mats. Amanda poured green tea for both of them, saying, "Tell me what you did do."

Llenor told her, starting from when Amanda disappeared into the Port Master's gig -- describing her tour of Port Myrine, and her visits to Graceland, and Lemnki Settlement. Amanda was amazingly easy to talk to, with her warm smile and stunning looks. It was like telling your troubles to a 3V star. Even with a pistol to her head, and a sheer drop at her back, Llenor had not been overly frightened. Amanda was that beautiful.

When Llenor got to her date with Bell, Amanda laughed. "So that's where he disappeared to. That sly fucker."

She shook her head. "I can just see him panting with charm. Bet he treated you to apricot lassi."

"How do you know?"

"Tried it on me. It hides an aphrodisiac. Don't you just love having a CO who thinks with his pecker?"

Llenor tried to say it was not like that, describing the flying lessons, and the flight to the skyhook...

"Right. Why do you think we're called Banshees? We're an airborne unit. He had his wings before you were hatched."

Llenor stared at Amanda over her tea cup, stunned and hurt. Feeling the emptiness under the pavilion. She loved Bell. Still mourned for him. He could have had her honestly.

Amanda reached out, stroking her cheek. "Don't blame the bastard. You're a real peach." Her hand came to rest on Llenor's shoulder, giving a squeeze, and staying there.

Llenor felt confused but comforted. "Thanks for getting me off that rock."

"All part of the service. Breaking in and out of the local lock-up is a standard Banshee exercise. Bell firmly believed that he -- or someone important to him -- was bound to wind up behind bars. It just happened to be you."

"I still owe you," Llenor insisted. "And wish I could pay you back."

"You will." Amanda said it without the slightest doubt.

Really? How? Amanda's hand was still on her shoulder, and Llenor was unsure what to say next. She was not used to sharing small windblown platforms with the likes of Ensign Amanda. It must have showed.

Amanda laughed, lifting her hand away. "Don't get your clit in an uproar. I don't do virgins."

Llenor had just explained how she was not a virgin -- but with Amanda men clearly did not count.

"All I care about is finding who killed Kia. I don't much care why but I want to know who." Amanda's tone made it clear she had loved Bell's hard bitten exec.

"How can I help?" She very much wanted to do something for Ensign Amanda-- this gun-wielding lesbian angel who had handed Llenor her life back.

"I need a ship," Amanda admitted cheerfully. "And right now one is burning heavy hydrogen to get to you." Gramma Lisa was gunning the reactor to get there, sending Llenor a steady stream of position fixes.

"Ever since the blast, Port Myrine has been zipped tight, with the Banshees locked down, confined to barracks and brothels but still drawing pay from the Helium Works. A sign someone thinks guns are going to be useful, despite having the 'mad bomber' safely behind bars." Amanda was plainly amused by the notion Llenor could have caused all this havoc.

"And last midwatch the Archipelago Packet came down from Freeport. Now she's leaving with a sealed cargo. No passengers. No regular freight. Something special is aboard, headed for the Freeport beanstalk and Paira-Dice geosync station. The first shipment out of Myrine since the blast."

Llenor admitted this sounded intriguing. "But what can I do?" She could not so much as show her face anywhere on the Archipelago.

Amanda gave a winsome grin. "I have to know what is being secretly hustled offplanet. That's why I'm AWOL, and you're uncaged. We're going to hijack the Archipelago Packet, to see what's aboard."

Of course. Having added unlawful escape and armed flight to her list of crimes, hijacking had to be next.

Amanda had a pair of saddles stashed in the pavilion. Mounting the rocs, they flew out to meet the Lisa-Marie. Gramma Lisa aimed the airship into the wind, with her hangar doors open. Llenor's roc flew straight in, and she dismounted on the hangar deck. Wishing she had never left.

Amanda landed behind her. Evie was there to greet them. So was Wahtsoph-ki. And Lucifer and Lilith. They had a mini-reunion in front of the huge rocs, who sat preening themselves, waiting to have their saddles taken off.

All debate had been taken care of on the ride in. Some disgruntled family members demanded a vote, but Llenor vetoed it. "The Prinzess is already forfeit under Settler Law. Lost to the family. And I need her." There was nothing left to vote on. Amanda got Llenor off Jailhouse Rock. If she wanted them to fly her to Alpha C, or seize the Archipelago Packet the only question was how?

("Long Gap," Gramma Lisa decided. "That's the place to stop the Packet.") Long Gap was a 100 klick break in the mountain chain about a third of the way up the Archipelago.

"Why there?" Llenor was still new to crime.

("The Packet has to beat her way high up to windward to shoot the gap. We'll be waiting." Spoken like a true pirate.)

"Sounds good." Actually it sounded difficult and dangerous, but Llenor saw no percentage in saying so.

"We'll need a boarding party." Amanda surveyed the crew on the hangar deck, looking like she did not believe what she saw. Some Chimps, a Thai, two unheavenly twins, and a little edition of Llenor. Not exactly a picked squad of Banshees.

"We've still got the Bugs," Llenor suggested.

"We had the Bugs," Lilith corrected her.

"They're dying," Lucifer explained.

"Mostly dead," Lilith declared. Listening to the Twins could be like taking a one-two punch. "None of them have eaten since the Hive Queen blew up."

"Or moved much," Lucifer added.

"Gramma Lisa is livelier," Lilith assured them.

"But we still have their weapons." A hold full of small arms clearly excited Lucifer.

Llenor looked to Amanda. "How many boarders do we need?"

"Six or seven. Five if they are good."

Evie was out. And Llenor did not want Lilith and Lucifer in any uncontrolled situations. That left only her and Amanda among the humans. "I'll talk to the Chimps."

First she had a word with Wah-tsoph-ki. Thais usually avoided Cro-Magnon conflicts -- knowing from grim experience that whichever side won, they were likely to lose. Under Settler Law, any non-humans involved in violence against Homosapiens were destroyed with less fuss than Llenor got. But Wah-tsoph-ki had been with the family all his life. And trusted Llenor. He signed he would do what she wanted.

Pan troglodytes supreme had even less reason to side with humans. The two dozen SuperChimps aboard the Prinzess Lisa-Marie were a family group -- five males, seven females, the rest adolescents, juveniles, and infants. Only the adult males would be adventurous enough for what Amanda had in mind. Llenor ignored the oldest, who was past his prime and did not stand watches. She made her pitch to the beta-male; always more aggressive, more game to prove himself. The Chimp consented, bringing along a buddy. Llenor had her boarding party.

Amanda grimaced. "They'll have to do."

It took a dozen hours to get to Long Gap, giving them time to rest and get ready. Gramma Lisa worked her way along the leeward side of the Archipelago, staying in the radar shadow of the peaks. The Packet's slow schedule let her fix her moment.

When that moment arrived, Llenor got into her wings and went to the upper deck. Amanda borrowed Evie's wings, and mounted the two daring Chimps on her rocs. Wah-tsoph-ki readied a paraglider on the hangar deck.

("Here she comes." Gramma Lisa spotted their prey emerging from the ground scatter as she approached the gap.)

The Archipelago Packet was a twin-boomed glider, with hugely long solar-paneled wings. She plied up and down the Dayside Archipelago riding the standing wave. The big solar-assisted sailplane would have to work her way high upwind to cross Long Gap. Fixed thermals partway across allowed her to regain altitude and recharge her solar collectors.

Gramma Lisa waited until the Packet was into the gap and mounting the first thermal, then dumped ballast. The airship shot upward. Altitude readings soared. Standing on the upper deck, Llenor opened her mouth and yelled to equalize pressure in her ears. No solarplane could match the Lisa-Marie in a roaring climb. They swiftly had the Packet half a klick beneath them, her big solar-driven propellers flailing at the thinning air. Rocs took off with their Chimps aboard. Then Llenor followed Amanda over the side, folding her wings into a stoop, ignoring frantic calls from their target -- letting Gramma Lisa reel out a line of bullshit.

("The Captain has left the bridge. Please give your name and message. The next available human will answer all calls in the order...")

Llenor's navmatrix locked on for landing, reading off the dwindling distance. 400 meters. 300 meters. 200 meters..

The Packet's primary control position was on an airfoil section between the two fuselage booms. Flaring out her wings and lowering her tail, Llenor stalled at the last instant. Adhesive boots hit the wing section and she told them to hold. She had boarded the Packet.

Amanda landed beside her, an anaerobic torch in her hand. Together they attacked the tear-drop canopy protecting the main control position.

Thrown into defensive mode, the Packet did a wingover, spinning on her central axis. Crouched over the canopy, held in place by her boots, Llenor saw clouds and sky whirling out the corner of her eye. Ignoring the spin, Amanda cut through the canopy. Llenor reached in, disabling the autopilot and security system, plugging a transceiver into the control circuit.

Instantly her navmatrix was flying the Packet. Putting the controls in neutral, she leveled off. The Packet ceased spinning, climbing back into the thermal.

Amanda hefted her torch. "Let's see what we got."

"Passenger side first." Llenor nodded at the port boom.

Amanda clumped over and started cutting. Llenor compensated, keeping the glider on an even keel. The rocs with their armed Chimps aboard took up stations on either wing, ready to give covering fire. Wahtsoph-ki positioned his paraglider behind the Packet. As soon as she had cut a human-sized hole, Amanda called out, "Cover me," triggering a gas grenade.

"Take over, bosun," Llenor ordered, letting Wah-tsoph-ki fly both gliders from his tail position. She shrugged off her wings. Kneeling to steady herself, she aimed a laser glove at the hole in the port boom.

Slipping a gas mask over her face, Amanda tossed in the grenade. And a second. White irritating vapor boiled out of the port boom, forming a billowing plume behind the big glider. Wah-tsoph-ki had to fall off to starboard to keep flying both ships. Whenever the plume slackened, Amanda stoked it with another grenade.

"They're coming out," Amanda shouted through the mask.

Climbing atop the boom to give Llenor a clear shot, Amanda reached down into the smoke, grabbing an emerging figure by the jacket. The man was wearing a mask, but the burning vapor must have gotten under his clothes. No one could hold out in a confined space full of really nasty gas.

"How many are there?" Amanda demanded. "Don't lie, or you are dead."

"Only me," he gasped.

Amanda tore off his mask, making sure he got a whiff of the gas -- to make him more tractable. Then she pulled him out. He clung sputtering to the smooth airfoil, held there by Amanda. If she so much as relaxed her grip, he would go sailing off between the booms.

It was Bell.

Seeing him through the sights of her laser glove, Llenor hardly believed it at first. She let the glove fall -- overcome with relief. He was alive.

"Keep him covered," Amanda screamed. "The bastard may have backup in there."

Llenor hesitated, her happiness at seeing Bell crowded out by serious questions. How had he survived? What was he doing here ? Reluctantly she raised her glove, but doubted she could fire. Bell was not some deranged Bug. He was the man she loved. There was bound to be an explanation.

Keeping Bell pulled back and off balance, Amanda let the gas thin, then took a quick peek into the passenger boom. She jerked her head back out. "No one."

Ripping off her mask, Amanda drew her machine pistol, jamming it against the back of Bell's head. Amanda's small body shook with rage. White knuckles gripped the recoilless pistol. "No witnesses. Right? You killed Kia, didn't you -- and meant to get clean away? You sorry son-ofa-bitch."

Clearly Bell had escaped the bomb, but how? Llenor remembered the blinding flash before the blast. And Kia crumpled at the lock door. There had been a moment when Bell could have dived inside the armored box, leaving the bloody helmet as a dramatic bit of misdirection.

All Llenor could think to say was, "Why?"

Her question was addressed to Amanda, but Bell's lips curved into a familiar smile. "Someone's got to stop you." He said it slowly and simply. Just as if it made sense.

Llenor stared at him, "Stop who?"

"Stop you. You're sick. Dealing with Bugs. Living with Chimps. Fucking Thals. Making half-breed monsters."

Unable to speak, Llenor felt almighty sick. Just like Bell said. Thinking about "traces of nitrates on your clothes and body." Not to mention the primer and detonator in her cuff.

Bell drew his legs under him, getting back his balance. "Surprised that I fucked some test-tube bitch? Don't take it personal. I did what I had to."

Llenor's finger twitched inside her laser glove.

He looked over his shoulder at Amanda. "Someone has to save us. This planet was made for humans -- like you and me."

"And Kia. You hypocritical asshole." Amanda looked over at Llenor. "I vote we get it over with. Grease him now."

"No, wait!" Llenor lowered her glove.

"Why?" Amanda looked genuinely puzzled.

"We've got to take him back."

"What for? A fair trial? You saw how the courts work. Do you think he did this alone? We need to waste him now!"

"No!" Llenor insisted. She wanted to shove Bell into their smug Settler faces. The man they claimed she killed. The Xenophobe that did not exist. "We need to take him back."

"That's one thing you'll never do." Bell twisted about, slipping out of his jacket, spoiling Amanda's aim. Before she could recover, he dived backward between the booms.

Llenor lunged to grab him. Too late. The slipstream whipped him out of reach. Bell lay on his back, sprawled in midair, then he curled himself into a ball to speed his fall.

Headed straight for the fiery surface.

"Damn!" Amanda sat crouched atop the passenger boom, holding Bell's empty jacket -- watching him dwindle, becoming a dot on the cloud plain. "Say hello to Elvis, you fucker."

The rocs dived after him. But with heavy Chimps on their backs, they would be hard put to seize someone who did not want to be grabbed.

Bell disappeared into the clouds below. Slowly the rocs came circling back.

Prospero stands high over Mount Aphrodite -- higher even than over Myrine-- basking the great emerald peak in eternal summer. Flocks of fat doves circled the summit. Migrating silverwings streamed past, headed sunward.

Llenor was not on Aphrodite proper, but on Cythera, a separate pinnacle that served as a port for Aphrodite. She and the Prinzess LisaMarie were barred from the peak. Not because the ship was forfeit, and she was wanted for terrorism, murder, assault, sabotage, mayhem, escaping detention -- and now hijacking the Archipelago Packet. But because all armed vessels were barred from the Mountain of Love.

It was just as well. Aphrodite was absorbed in a ten-day ritual. Revelers scampered over the green slopes, searching out sacred mushrooms and screwing under the sun. Llenor was hardly in the mood.

And there was work to do. The Prinzess was refitting, taking on water ballast, preparing to challenge the Storm Belt, and cross the Great Reach. There was nowhere for her crew to go now except sunward, to the Subsolar Plateau. Putting themselves beyond the reach of Settler Law.

Amanda was going with them -- having added aiding and abetting to going AWOL. She stood watching as Llenor personally put the final touch on the Prinzess's refit. Using her adhesive boots, Llenor climbed up and painted over the "z" in Prinzess, replacing it with a "c." So it read Princess Lisa-Marie.

Amanda smiled at the forbidden spelling. "It is bad enough having to turn outlaw, without telling the whole world."

Llenor climbed down to stand beside Amanda, getting a better look at her handiwork. Pleased by the illegal English spelling, she told Amanda, "That's what I want to do. I want to tell the world."

~~~~~~~~

By R. Garcia y Robertson

BOOKS TO LOOK FOR

Dry Water, by Eric S. Nylund, Avon/Eos, 1998, $3.99.

WHEN LARRY Ngitis arrives in Dry Water, New Mexico, chased by an obviously malevolent thunderstorm, his troubles are only beginning. All he wants to do is get away from a relationship that went sour back home in San Francisco and find a quiet place to finish his latest novel. Instead, an encounter with the ghost of a Navaio shaman during the aforementioned thunder.. storm puts him in the middle of a centuries-old struggle between Raia, a Tibetan earthwitch now located in New Mexico on a quest for a mysterious, heal-all "dry water," and Judzyas, her erstwhile lover who can borrow the bodies of the living and has this thing about killing prophets.

Unbeknownst to Larry, he is fated to find the dry water, which means Raja is determined to use him to find it, or remove him if he proves unhelpful in her quest. He's also, apparently, a prophet, about to change the world, which means Judzyas feels obliged to kill him. And then there are the ghosts: the shaman, with his own mysterious use for Larry, and the shade of a murdered outlaw who needs our hero to free him from the place of his death so that he's free to "live" a more interesting afterlife.

All of which provides a wild ride for those of us tagging along as readers. Nylund has a fresh, breezy style, reminiscent of Tim Powers at his most outrageous, and proves a deft hand at balancing a complicated, fast-paced plot with fascinating explorations into world spirituality and just plain zaniness. It's true that his characters are a little less fully realized than one might wish for, but he makes up for this with endlessly inventive plot twists and the ability to root his story firmly into its setting.

Whether describing Seco County, New Mexico, where most of the action takes place, or historical France and Spain, which we visit on brief excursions, the locations are wonderfully realized.

At the special price of $3.99, Dry Water proves to be a very affordable introduction to a relatively new voice in the field.

The Antelope Wife, by Louise Erdrich, Harper Flamingo, 1998, $24.00.

Where to begin?

Erdrich's latest novel is such a rich tapestry of a book, cutting across family generations and various times in history, that any attempt to explain its plot in simple terms runs the risk of making it all seem far too complex and bewildering for easy reader access. This is truly one of those cases where, if the author could have made her point in a few pithy sentences, there'd have been no reason to write a whole book. But there is no one single point. Like the best novels, The Antelope Wife sweeps us up into many stories, each with its own issues to explore.

There is, however, a thread that leads from beginning to end, beaded with all these stories and the characters inhabiting them. Part of that thread is the background setting of Minneapolis and the nearby reservations from which native people have been continually drawn to what was once an important trading center and hunting ground, and is now a concrete metropolis. And many of the beads are various members of the extended Roy and Shawano families, whose destinies seem forever entangled with each other, as well as with beings not quite human.

Perhaps the story starts when the trader Klaus Shawano kidnaps the antelope woman at a powwow, bringing her back to Minneapolis as his wife. However, like the selchies of Scottish folklore, such a mystical woman cannot thrive without her freedom, without the wild plains from which she was stolen. Bad luck will fall upon the community where she is being held, Shawano is told. And bad luck will also fall on the community from which she has been taken. But Shawant) doesn't care; the antelope woman has become more important to him than communities or family.

Or perhaps it starts earlier, when the cavalry soldier Scranton Roy follows a dog out of an Ojibway village, a dog bearing a small child on its back, a child Roy nourishes at his breast with the impossibility of father's milk, a child who will go on to live in the wilds and run with antelope.

But wherever it starts, most of it takes place in the city, with this community of Roys and Shawanos, delineating their sorrows and joys, and how their relationships bang up against each other in both humorous and tragic circumstances. And shot through the narrative are wonderful bits of tall tale -- native style -- as well as myth and folklore, such as the ribald stories and bad jokes told by the dog Almost Soup, the myths of the Windigo people, and a baker's obsession to recreate a perfect cake, tasted once, decades ago. There are the series of twins that run in the Roy family, said to be descended from Blue Prairie Woman, to whom more bad luck comes the further they stray from their true names. There's the tragic wedding, and the hilarious first year anniversary party.

You can see the trouble I'm having here. The Antelope Wife provides a rich panorama of character, culture, and ideas in its relatively few pages. It moves effortlessly between urban Indians and old ways, lending a mythic quality to dialogues between, say, a pair of drunk, broken braves, living on the street, or to Cally Roy's-- she's the youngest of the Roy twins -- confusing quest to find out which of the elusive grandmothers, Zosie or Mary, gave birth to her own mother.

But it all comes together in the end, a stew of humor, despair, and magical moments that takes the false romance and over-wrought sentiment out of the Native condition, but leaves in their place the far richer wealth of a cast of characters that the reader will not soon forget, never mind their cultural background. Which isn't to say that the Native material doesn't lend weight to this magical story, but rather, 'that Erdrich has given the characters to us as people first, and then gone back to show us how they've become who they are.

Highly recommended.

Going Home Again, by Howard Waldrop, St. Martin's Press, 1998, $22.95

Howard Waldrop's writing is also difficult to define. He's the master of historical nuance and detail, a writer gifted with the ability to take any number of seemingly disparate elements and, not only have them make sense in context with one another, but make us feel that they always belonged together. Who else could put the Keystone Cops, Oswald Spengler, famous movie monsters, and Wandering Angus together in one story? ("Flatfeet.") Or how about Fats Waller, Thomas Wolfe, giant dirigibles, and the Tokyo Olympics? ("You Could Go Home Again.") Or Bertolt Brecht, the Three Stooges, Peter Lorre, and an alternate-Nazi plot? ("The Effects of Alienation.")

He's audacious, too. Imagine rewriting "A Christmas Carol" as an sf story, interspersing it with a fascinating alternative biography of its original author. ("Household Words; Or, The Powers-That-Be.") Or retelling the old fairy tale "The Brementown Musicians" where the animal musicians are a group of hillbilly musical saw players and the gang of outlaws is made up of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, etc., suitably gussied up as Chicago gangsters. ("The Sawing Boys.")

Waldrop gets away with this sort of thing because, no matter how outrageous the collisions of his subject matter might be, you also know he's researched the heck out of the material. And it works. He's also got a pure gift of storytelling so that characters are absorbing from the moment they step onto the page. Waldrop's stories aren't simply odd curiosities (though there's plenty of that to be found in them). They're about something, each and every one of them. Their more eclectic elements aren't tacked on as clever diversions, but deepen each story's theme.

I won't say he's always an easy writer to read. But he's always a worthwhile one.

Material to be considered for review in this column should be sent to Charles de Lint, P.O. Box 9480, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada K1G 3V2.

ILLUSTRATION

~~~~~~~~

By CHARLES DE LINT

BOOKS

"Ah humanity!"

THERE IS always delicious irony in discovering fiction that, although resolutely the stuff of horror, has been published, by design or inadvertence or indifference, with the imprimatur of another genre. It's a reminder that the boundaries of horror are not easily circumscribed --even by the genre that wears its name -- and that horror fiction is a progressive form of storytelling, one that evolves and transforms to meet the fears and follies of its times.

Consider an exquisite short novel by Peter Straub, "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff," which concludes the ostensible mystery anthology Murder for Revenge (Delacorte Press, he, $21.95). Edited by Otto Penzler, Murder for Revenge touts a veteran lineup of crime writers and a time-honored motive, but its finale descends, with Straub's wicked prose, to a realm of delirium and darkness that is undeniably horror.

Lawrence Block's splendid opener, "Like a Bone in the Throat," subverts most of the stories that follow, tweaking their vigilante mentality with the essential truth: Revenge is rarely simple or sweet. David Morrell's "Front Man" is a wry twist on "Metzengerst ein" gone Hollywood, and Joyce Carol Oates delivers the stunningly subdued "Murder-Two"; but their compatriots leave the reader wondering about the point of it all. Mary Higgins Clark's "Power Play" is loopy soap opera, while the remaining female contributors indulge payback fantasies that would be considered noxious if men had penned them with genders reversed.

When we finally reach Straub's novella, there is a sense of masterful transcendence: The supposed realism, too often glib, of its predecessors gives way to a narrative that crafts its own, quite singular, world --a scarred and skewedplace whose "contradictory dimensions" are those of the human condition.

Our unnamed stuffshirt of a narrator is the child of a pious hamlet known as New Covenant. Although he has risen, with the years, to command a Wall Street financial planning firm, he has not escaped the puritanical Protestantism of home: "tattooed within me was the ugly, enigmatic beauty of my birthplace." Complacent in his somewhat suspect success -- "All is in order, all is in train," he natters on, mostly to himself-- he learns that his young wife has indulged the romantic attentions of a business rival. The solution, of course, is retribution: "Life had not yet taught me that revenge inexorably exacts its own revenge."

Enter the mysterious and unconventional Mr. Cluhb and Mr. Cuff, Private Detectives Extraordinaire, whose boorish and destructive nature is everything that is murder, whether performed for revenge or any other reason. Their ministrations, indelicate and extreme, set our narrator back on the path to New Covenant and a kind of righteousness: "I believe that when I strayed, and stray I did, make no mistake, it was but to come home, for I claim that the two strange gentlemen who beckoned me into error were the night of its night, the dust of its dust. In the period of my life's greatest turmoil -- the month of my exposure to Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff...I felt that I saw the contradictory dimensions of...what a wiser man might call...try to imagine the sheer difficulty of actually writing these words...the Meaning of Tragedy."

Attentive readers will soon re, alize that "Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" is an homage to Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" [by way of "The Two Temples") -- miming its style while inverting the pallid hopelessness of its title character to hyperactive willfulness. Straub's prose is luxurious, alive with cruel beauty, and cunningly leavens a dire scenario with unabashed humor that tips queasily and without warning into unabashed horror.

"Mr. Clubb and Mr. Cuff" is the best fiction I've read in quite some time. Although out of place in Murder for Revenge, it is difficult to imagine an anthology that could contain this endearing work -- save, perhaps, one which collects the best of a year, or decade.

Evenings with Demons: Stories from 30 Years (Borderlands, he, $21.95 trade edition, $35.00 limited edition) showcases the fiction of Whitley Strieber. Its twenty-five stories include well-known entries like "The Nixon Mask," "The Pool," and the World Fantasy Award.winning "Pain," but half of its contents is previously unpublished. A major collection from one of the more gifted, yet often misunderstood, writers of contemporary horror fiction, Evenings with Demons is an instant collector's item, since its first land, as of this writing, only) printing sold out in a matter of days.

Strieber's stories, like his best book-length works, challenge (and occasionally reinvent) reality through a deeply personal, deeply internalized worldview that his characters adopt, more often than not, as a mechanism of defense and then cannot escape. Our planet, Strieber urges, is a wounded Eden whose inhabitants are victimized with cruel inevitability by forces beyond their control -- sometimes chaotic, sometimes conspiratorial, and always condescending, striving to put us in our tiny place in the grand scheme of things. "The Resurrection of the Inquisition in P. Salter," written in 1968, offers the reverie of a madman or murderer or saint-- or their trinity -- who seeks, through the brutalities of the autod-fe, to find communion; in the end he is denied the escape of his ( imagined?) victims, and must sleep, alone, under a black sky. Even the least of hopes and pleasures is crushed: In "Under the Old Oak Tree" ( 1971 ), a tree that evokes "another time...[a] quieter, better season" hides a fatal secret: "Perhaps it once was an oak. Or perhaps it is something altogether different not a tree at all." A "tiny, intricate being" emerges from its roots and infects the narrator's thumb, conjuring a corrosive lesion that weeps out his life as liquified fat. In "Falling Apart" (1973), a man awakens with his eyeball in his hand, a preview of the literal breakdown of the human race; but death, suggests the fevered elegy of "The White Moths" (1987), may offer no solace.

Strieber's characters cope, if at all, with their victimization through mania or, more often, a knowing submission to their fate. In "Pain," the frail but suspicious narrator, intent (as is Strieber) on using the novel as a form of political art, suffers damnation by fire at the hands of an angelic dominatrix. His acceptance and endurance bring transcendence -- and a rare, somewhat happy, ending: "Once [death] frightened me, but no more. I thought that I was alone, among a select few victims of the sacrifice. But that is not true. Every human being is sacrificed; all death has value." The narrator survives in a life of renewed happiness, even love, but he cannot escape "a grim ecstasy of suspense":

"I do not hate Janet. Because she has given me a glimpse of what beyond the walls of life is true, I can only love her. I wait as she comes scything down the rows of autumn. Although her call will mark the last stroke of my life, it will also say that my suffering is not particular, and in that there is a kindness. She comes not only for me, but also for those yet unborn, for the old upon their final beds, and the millions from the harvest of war. She comes for me, but also for you, as in the end for us all."

The shadow of Kafka lingers in Evenings with Demons, but lies heavy on Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass (Mariner/ Houghton Mifflin, tpb, $12.00], which offers most Americans their first encounter with the fiction of Bruno Schulz, a Polish savant who was murdered by a Gestapo officer in 1949.. An artist and art instructor in Drobobycz, Schulz produced only two books, both story collections. Sanatorium, the second of those works, evokes, from its opening sentence, the complex emotion of horror. "I am simply calling it The Book without any epithets or qualifications, and in this sobriety there is a shade of helplessness, a silent capitulation before the vastness of the transcendental, for no word, no allusion, can adequately suggest the shiver of fear, the presentiment of a thing without name that exceeds all our capacity for wonder."

Although Schulz's better stories seem beholden to Kafka (he translated The Trial into Polish), they are also Freudian, chronicling the antics of a quasimythic "Father" who dominates both story and storyteller. Sanatorium is an invented autobiography whose narrator can never quite overcome Father or the cloying adulthood he represents. In its eponymous story, Father's death leads the narrator to a limbo where time is revealed as a trap. In the renowned finale, "Father's Last Escape," the irrepressible Father returns to life, and home:

"By dividing his life into installments, Father had familiarized us with his demise. We became gradually indifferent to his returns -- each one shorter, each one more pitiful. His features were already dispersed throughout the room in which he had lived, and were sprouting in it, creating at some points strange knots of likeness that were most expressive. The wallpaper began in certain places to imitate his habitual nervous tic; the flower designs arranged themselves into the doleful elements of his smile, symmetrical as the fossilized imprint of a trilobite."

When Father makes his conclusive appearance in the form of a crab, the family is suitably perturbed until Mother embraces the inevitable solution: "When Father was brought in on a dish, we came to our senses and understood fully what had happened. He lay large and swollen from the boiling, pale gray and jellified. We sat in silence, dumbfounded. Only Uncle Charles lifted his fork toward the dish, but at once he put it down uncertainly, looking at us askance."

David J. Schow champions a literary predecessor in Crypt Orchids (Subterranean Press, P.O. 190106, Burton MI 48519, hc, $35.00 limited edition, $100.00 deluxe edition), a collection of short fiction introduced by the late Robert Bloch, who proves, in Schow's words, its "unifying constant." The scenarios are insistently psychological, with little to distinguish their subject matter from the "mystery" and "suspense" of Murder for Revenge save for Schow's inventive satire and reflexive self-critique. Like Straub and Strieber, he serves a curiously necessary notice that the emotion of horror (and, thus, the fiction of horror) is not restrictively defined, particularly by a marketing category that gained and then lost favor in the 1980s.

Originally titled Look Out He's Got A Knife!, the collection opens with three riffs on the theme of the double. "Action" takes Court TV to its logical conclusion, proposing a televised system of justice that hires actors to play defendants in order to assure the wide-eyed masses that crime does not go unpunished. "Pick Me Up" tracks the collision course of two insatiable killers, while the bleak yet moving "Dusting the Flowers" interrogates the roles of murderer and artist as they blur, merge, and (for one of them) reverse.

A "Hollywood Triptych" follows, and it is here, where art and artifice collide, that Schow indulges the prospect of the supernatural. In "Gills," the creature from a famous lagoon finds himself negotiating for a vapid nineties remake, which segues nicely into "Seeing Things," which exposes the pathos known as the test screening as a weapon against intelligent viewers. "(Melodrama)" is a loving tribute to late night television ghost hosts, the monster movies they unreeled, and the duplicity of genre: "Monsters were sub-par entertainment, derided as spook rests, always cited with that knowing elbow-to-theribs. TV Guide listings told the tale whenever it subheaded Gravely's weekly offerings not as drama, horror, thriller or suspense, but as melodrama- meaning extravagant theatricality, plot and physical action over characterization, sensational trifles aiming for the gut rather than the head. Such flip categorizations caused a special alchemy to start bubbling away, independently, in its own secret comer, where responsible grown-ups could not watchdog. It happened when that word, melodrama, suddenly shape-shifted to mean monster movies. If you were a kid reading any program listing and your eyes skidded past that magic word, you knew without looking further that you had hit paydirt."

The bitter nostalgia of "(Melodrama)" also haunts "Final Performance," a stageplay based on a Bloch story, which underscores, in turn, the focus of Crypt Orchids on the perils of relationships. In a quintessential "trap" story, "Scoop Bites the Dust," and an apt bookend to Strieber's "Pain," "Refrigerator Heaven," the social compact is decried as puerile fantasy: business and government are Darwinian affairs that serve predators, not people. Another loose trilogy -- "Jess and Linda," "A Punch in the Doughnut," and "Penetration" --plumbs the moral landscapes of a world in which intimacy can be expressed only through violence. "Penetration," which considers an obsessive love affair consummated through gunshot, is particularly unsettling and enlightening.

The chaotic reality that Schow charts in these pages reaches a grand finale in "The Incredible True Facts in the Case," a breathtaking assault on the mythology of Jack the Ripper. Schow does not posit a solution so much as dissolution: a concatenation of anarchic mayhem that fate and human frailty have revised and packaged into a history that is safe for mass consumption.

Irresistibly and yet effortlessly postmodern, David Schow's prose brings us full circle, offering horror fiction that is loosed from the bounds of expectation and yet undeniably -- indeed, explicitly -intended to honor a giant whose fiction is central to the notion of a horror genre.

The moral is a simple one, really. What is at work in the fiction of Peter Straub and Whitley Strieber and David Schow is a love of great stories (and, in turn, their writers), and not a blind allegiance to the crippling and ineffectual notions of genre.

ILLUSTRATION

~~~~~~~~

By DOUGLAS E. WINTER

THE GREAT ANCESTOR

Albert Cowdrey's last story for us was 'White Magic" the March issue, and since it ran, folks have been clamoring for more from Mr. C. We're delighted to oblige. This dark fantasy takes us again to Mr. Cowdrey' s home town and lets us peek into the history of one of the Big Easy's most prominent families. I'd always thought that the dead in New Orleans were entombed above-ground, but Bert assures me that's not so.

NOT GUILTY!" CRIED THE foreman of the jury that day in 1989, and the courtroom in the New Orleans federal court "erupted in pandemonium," as next morning's Times-Picayune expressed it. My lawyer, who had been nervously fingering some documents, tossed his papers into the air and embraced me. Then my family came swarming out of the spectators' seats and piled on. Little Pierrette, my beautiful little girl, rushed into my arms, crying, "Daddy, Daddy!" My wife Amy gazed up at me with limpid blue eyes. My brother Ned pounded me on the back. My mother, who was weeping, plucked at my sleeve until I bent and kissed her. Aunts and uncles and in-laws crowded around me, weeping, laughing, congratulating.

"The luck of the Carcassonnes!" thundered a hoarse, hollow voice from somewhere at the back of the throng.

Yes, it was a party. Pity my Great-Aunt Kate was dead. She would have appreciated the verdict more than any of them. Truly, mine had been an ordeal by law. All those accusations in civil court regarding my stewardship at Goldenacres Savings and Loan, and then that final, dreadful criminal charge-- that I had procured the murder of the government's star witness!

The media were waiting like a school of circling sharks just outside Courtroom No. 3 that I had gotten to know so well during the long, bitter days of the trial. By this time I knew how to handle them. I let the lawyer talk while I stood holding Pierrette on one arm and clutching Amy to me with the other. When it was my turn to speak I just said:

"This has been a terrible experience for my family, but thank God, the system works. I just wish the government had some better things to do than hound honest businessmen, that's all."

Nothing more than that. You can always give thanks and damn the government safely. Anything else wouldn't have been safe. Above all, you never tell the media what you actually think. They'll use the truth to kill you.

Then it was time for all of us to go to Mother's house for the victory banquet, laid on in advance of the verdict because she, too, believed in the luck of the Carcassonnes.

We were all there, over a hundred people of all ages, filling the house and overflowing on the lawn and surrounding the pool. The caterers were working themselves to death unloading their vans, for Mother's kitchen couldn't possibly have cooked all the food. Our new puppy, Grits VI, got under everyone's feet and barked himself hoarse. The waiters, many of them college kids hired for the day, ran around with their trays like ants carrying pieces of dismembered bugs.

The place of honor was the dining room table where I sat with Amy, Mother, Ned and his wife, and a few others. All the inner circle except Great -Aunt Kate, who was in her grave, and Daddy, who was in New York arranging to sell some assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran. A long, noisy table of us -- inlaws and outlaws, as they say-- and all of us, I was aware, somehow sounding and gesturing alike even though we were so different. The family.

Even our Founder was there, hanging in his portrait over the table. While waiting for the main course to arrive I glanced up at him-- a fiercelooking old man with a cataract of white whiskers. Under the varnish his suit was shiny black, his eyes were glittering black, and his linen gleamed like a mountain of white ore. The polished brass plate under the portrait said Pierre Carcassonne. Le Fondateur, 1868.

He had been there every mealtime while I was growing up. Pierre the Great, Daddy like to call him. The Founder. Founder of what? Ned asked once when he was still little and dumb. Of our family, said Daddy, reverently, and we were all solemnly silent for as much as a minute. Because we all believed in our family. Not in God, the devil or the flag, but in our family.

We lived in the same big house with its nineteen rooms and five baths overlooking Audubon Park in uptown New Orleans. We had formal gardens, tennis courts, and an Olympic-sized swimming pool in marble and tile and a bronze lion-head that gushed cold green brine from our own artesian well. Money that Daddy had made by helping the Shah of Iran to invest a tiny part of his billions in Louisiana had paid for the well and the pool, so we called it the Shah's Pool. The deal with Teheran was part of the family legend. Other aspects of the legend-- the important people we had met, the money we had made, the secrets we knew-- sparkled in the backs of our minds like the paste jewels in the glass case in Aunt Kate's living room on Prytania Street that marked the time she had been Queen of Astarte, the best women's carnival krewe. No Carcassonne had yet been Rex, King of Carnival, but surely that would come in time.

Ultimately everything we had derived from Pierre the Great, who had emigrated from Toulouse or Marseilles or someplace in the early nineteenth century and become a cotton factor and speculator. Though we knew little about him, some of his oddities were remembered -- for example, the fact, remarkable for those times, that he had refused to own slaves. For whatever reason, he had been no friend of the Confederacy or the southern war effort. During the Civil War when others were going bankrupt most of his wealth had reposed comfortably in the Bank of England, earning more money that in the postwar depression had enabled him to buy up valuable sugar land for a song. His sons and grandsons made more money by investing in the brand-new oilfields of the Gulf and Texas.

In Daddy's generation the Carcassonnes were doctors, lawyers, investment bankers, and stockbrokers. They divided the inheritance but also multiplied it. They called themselves "the hundred cousins" and together with their spouses they possessed about nine billion dollars. My generation generally followed their parents into business but also did some offbeat things, producing among other oddballs an artist who sold bad paintings for exorbitant prices and a drug-runner who never wound up in the penitentiary, although he probably should have. They too shared the luck of the Careassonnes.

I was a bookworm as a child and for a long time I was drawn to the study of history. Daddy was not too happy over that, pointing out to me that there was no money in it. He probably thought I lacked the courage to do more adventurous things, and in that he may have been right. But when I persevered, he told me to go ahead, warning me however that my trust fund would not be a nickel larger than Ned's, whose goal was to become an investment banker.

I think it was the general air of polite disapproval at home that caused me, in 1970 when I was in my first year as a graduate student at Tulane, to become interested in writing a biography of Pierre the Great. I secretly hoped to demonstrate to Daddy that my profession could add, however slightly, to the luster of the family name.

The first thing I found out was that tracking down Pierre Careassonne was surprisingly difficult. For a family as narcissistic as ours, we turned out to own little in the way of papers. Interesting papers, anyway. Account books, yes, we had those, by the dozen. From ledgers of the 1850's I could see how Pierre had shifted his money around, crisscrossing the Atlantic with his interests, moving cotton between the New Orleans warehouses and those in Liverpool and banking the profits on Threadneedle Street in the City of London and using them to speculate on the Exchange and the Bourse.

He obviously had believed that the United States of his day was a great place to make money but a very poor place to store it, and a series of panics and depressions and bank failures culminating in the disasters of the Civil War proved him right. At any rate, he never ended a year without posting a profit, including even the calamitous year 1862, when New Orleans fell to the federal fleet.

But where were the letters and diaries that alone can make a dead person come to life? I could find none, except copies of business letters which were only a bit less boring than the account books. I had real hopes of Aunt Kate, but she put me off, saying that her house was such a mess she could find nothing in it. Other relatives came up only with bits and pieces. A letter consisting in its entirely of the words "Yours of the 7th inst. rec'd and I thank you for it" tells you little about the writer except that he was terse. I finished the meager materials stored in family safes and desks knowing little or nothing of the real Pierre Careassonne except that he had been shrewd, and I had known that before I started.

I could not even discover where he was buried. In Metairie Cemetery the Carcassonnes had a pompous family vault with walls and roof of granite and a green bronze lady in a robe mourning beside the door. But the first people to be buried there were Daddy's grandparents. Some earlier members of our family reposed in an uptown cemetery across from Commander's Palace restaurant -- very convenient, Daddy liked to say, if their appetites were anything like those of my brother and myself! But Pierre the Great was not there, nor did he seem to be anyplace else.

On my hours off, when I was neither lecturing at Tulane nor being lectured to, I poked around in the older cemeteries, hoping to get lucky. Soon I made a number of new acquaintances among sextons and caretakers, and among a curious collection of people who were victims of genealogical obsessions. These students of the past moved in hunched postures from gravestone to gravestone, copying names and dates; they made rubbings of interesting epitaphs and the quaint carvings -- winged hourglasses, weeping willows, sorrowing angels -- that Victorian stonemasons used to memorialize grief. I liked the genealogists because they, too, believed in the importance of family, even if they had to support their dreams by fantastic efforts to connect their ancestors to the Romanoffs or the Borgias.

The genealogists and I would bring po'boy sandwiches in brown bags and eat lunch among the tombs, sitting on marble benches under the big old trees and breathing deeply in the murmurous summer silence that reduced the noise of the city to a distant beelike hum of traffic. One day I was munching my sandwich in St. Louis Cemetery No. 3 and talking to a tatty old lady who claimed to be descended (by the wrong side of the blanket) from the Archduke Francis Ferdinand. The archduke, she said, had been on the verge of legitimizing her grandfather when Ferdinand's assassination and the First World War put an end to the project.

"It preyed on Grandpa's mind," she said. "Not that being illegitimate bothers anybody anymore, but he was of the old school. He studied French in order to write his own diplomatic dispatches in case the Hapsburg throne should ever be re-established and his claim to it recognized. His last words on earth were, Helas! je suis toujours un batard "

That seemed sad to me, being forever a bastard. Since she had confided in me, I told her about my search for the grave of my great-great grandfather, Pierre Carcassonne, and my fear that he must have died outside the city, since I could find no trace of him in New Orleans.

"That's an unusual name," she said thoughtfully. "Now, where have I seen it before?

I was about to suggest that our family was locally prominent and often mentioned in the newspaper. But then she brightened and exclaimed, "Oh, I've seen that grave!"

"You have!"

"Oh, yes. I often forget faces, but I never forget a grave. Now let me see...it was in...it was in .... Oh, I know. It's in the St. Dismas cemetery, on the Basin Street side somewhere. Yes, I'm sure it is. It's not in very good condition, I'm afraid."

Candidly, I did not believe her. But I wanted to believe, and a little light had switched on in my head when she said St. Dismas. This was indeed a very old cemetery, once located just outside the ramparts when New Orleans was still a fortified town. But it had soon become a burial ground for people of dubious antecedents, including some of Jean Lafitte's pirates. It also held many of the city's free blacks. Many had been people of wealth and education, highly respectable and much respected. But they, too, had had their bad apples, including a couple of voodoo queens buried in marble tombs that people still marked with red crosses, hoping to keep the witches inside.

It seemed to me as I thanked my friend for her help that one of the obscurities surrounding Pierre the Great -- his refusal to own slaves -might be clarified if he turned out to have been a mulatto or quadroon who had married a white woman. Of course, such a union would have been illegal at that time, but wealth finds a way, and the number of local white families with black ancestors is almost as large as the number of blacks with white forebears.

As I reflected on the features of the old patriarch in the portrait, I could find neither support nor refutation for my idea. Were the lips hidden in that cascade of moustache and beard as thin as Europe or as full as Africa? No telling -- and the painter had probably adjusted both features and coloring to accord with the wishes of his model.

Nevertheless, as I drove to Basin Street I was almost humming with excitement. I was without conscious racism myself, and since Daddy had predicted that the next Mayor of New Orleans would be a black Creole I could see no reason for anyone to be ashamed of such a connection any longer. I particularly relished the thought of how my more pompous relatives, who scorned history as a useless pursuit, would be floored if I turned up clear evidence that the Founder had been partly black! I was still young enough to relish the sheer shock value of such a revelation.

I will not waste time telling of my slow and somewhat dangerous search for Pierre's tomb. Dangerous because the neighborhood had gone bad and I would not have dared to go there alone at any time but the afternoon of a sunny day when well-guarded tourist parties could be expected to arrive also. Suffice it to say that after several anxious and muddy hours spent mostly on my hands and knees, I discovered at last what appeared to be the grave of the Founder.

It was much smaller and in much worse condition than I had expected --merely a chamber of very old, weathered and broken brick, cracked by the roots of trees that had themselves died and become part of the cemetery earth generations ago. There were no remains inside, only a bundle of old newspapers reduced by damp to papier mache, which showed that a derelict had been sleeping there at some time in the not too remote past, with a wad of newsprint for a pillow. A broken and dislodged square of marble lying beside it was much eroded by the rain and the words cut into it were only partly legible:

                PI.. R. CARCASSONNE
                 NE LE 2ME AO..,...8
            DE . EDE L. 31RE OC ..... , 18.8
               ODER.. T DUM MET . ANT

The French part of the inscription was easy: Pierre Carcassonne/Ne le 2me Aont .... 8/Decede le 31re Octobre, 18.8. In English, he was born the second of August in a year ending in 8 and died the thirty-first o1 October, probably in 1868, the year of the portrait. This suggested to me that he knew the end was close and had had the picture painted in order to fix his image in the minds of his descendants.

The Latin epitaph, apparently Oderint rum metuant, was a poser. My Latin was poor, but after digging out a grammar I had used in high school I decided the words were Caligula's famous remark about the Romans: "Let them hate me, so long as they fear me." That struck me as a strange sentiment to inscribe on a tombstone.

In any case, I had a good deal more information than I had possessed before arriving at St. Dismas. I had brought a polaroid camera with me and I took the whole roll of film of the vault and its surroundings. My last happy discovery of this eventful day was that my car had not been stripped while I was in the cemetery, though I did have to pay five dollars tribute to a teenager carrying a baseball.bat who claimed to have been guarding it for me. Cheap at the price, I thought, as I drove off, for I had at last touched something tangible belonging to Pierre Carcassonne, even if it was only an empty grave.

AT HOME I played with Grits IV, recently installed as the family dog following the tragic death of Grits III under the wheels of a concrete mixer. He was a young Schnauzer, with a short beard and a merry bark. He accompanied me to my bathroom where I took a much-needed shower and when I had dressed we went down to the dining room where I stared possessively at Pierre. Yes, I decided, his skin was definitely rather dark. I had to admit that the hue might indicate old paint or a bad liver rather than what in 1970 we still called a touch of the tarbrash; nevertheless, I felt that I had come closer to him than any of my many relatives.

Daddy deflated me, however. He was simply not interested in what I had discovered.

"That's not where Pierre was buried," he said flatly, after glancing at my photos. "He wouldn't be buried in a hole like that. Anyway, why would he be in Dismas? Nobody we ever knew is buried there with all those voodoo queens and pirates and whatnot."

He even dismissed the evidence of the marble slab, and I had to admit that in the Polaroid picture the lettering looked all but meaningless.

The question was how to get more evidence. I considered going back and stealing the marble slab, but rejected the idea on ethical grounds, for in those days I still had ethics. Instead, I resolved to seek documentary information, and on my next free day I went to the French Quarter to work in the General Ferd Blister Collection. This choleric retired officer, made rich by oil discoveries on vast tracts of inherited swampland, was whiling away his golden years by buying a huge volume of memorabilia -pictures, manuscripts, indeed almost anything --that dealt with New Orleans in what he called "the good years" before the suppression of legalized prostitution. I introduced myself and was respectfully received by General Blister's archivist, a translucent young man named Dave who seemed only half alive, and hence all the better fitted to preserve and interpret the records of the dead.

"General Blister," Dave muttered, eyeing a point in distant space, "would really like to get hold of some Carcassonne family papers."

"So would I."

"Surely they must be somewhere."

"All I can find is old account books." I then explained that I hoped to track down references to Pierre Carcassonne through mentions in the papers of his contemporaries.

"I think," Dave whispered, "I think...yes...I ran across some mentions when I was accessing the Dubroville Papers. And the DeSaye Papers. And the Worthe Papers. Hm. Hm." He wandered off muttering to himself and eventually returned with half a dozen gray document boxes.

He relieved me of my pen, issued me foolscap and a short hard pencil to take notes with, and sat me in a comer of the dark, somewhat dungeonlike room that General Blister allotted to researchers in his collection. In fact, it had once been a dungeon, for iron rings were still set in the old brick walls and a spiked metal slave-collar dangled menacingly from a short length of chain.

Here I spent the whole of a long day on my self-imposed quest, laboriously panning out a few glistening grains of gold from the verbal torrent of 19th- century letter writing. The Dubroville Papers were the most revealing, because a member of their family had fought a duel with Pierre Carcassonne. Here are some of my notes:

Honore Dubroville to his wife Claudette, November 2, 1857:

"Ah, my dear, if only you were here in New Orleans, to give counsel in this crisis! My nephew Louis wishes to challenge that accursed wretch Carcassonne to a duel. I have earnestly advised him not to do so, for a duel can be held only between gentlemen, no others being able to dispute a point of honor. As to the danger of fighting such a man, I said nothing: danger would only spur the young firebrand on."

Same to same, December 13, 1857.

"That ill-considered duel! An honorable young man is no more, while Carcassonne continues to flourish like the green bay tree and is more insufferable than ever. In addition to being a pig and a camel, he is now an assassin, too."

Various other comments followed, all uncomplimentary. During the federal occupation of the city, the Founder had proclaimed himself a Unionist and worked hand in glove with the corrupt General "Beast" Butler, to the great profit of both, according to the Dubrovilles. The last reference to Pierre was an almost fiendish burst of glee when, after the war, my ancestor died of unspecified causes.

Claudette Dubroville to "Mon tres chef mari," AH Saints' Day [November 1], 1868.

"How unfortunate that you are away from home at so happy a time! We are rid of Carcassonne at last!!! Surely the family will have a closed coffin at the wake. They will be lucky if the consecrated earth does not vomit him up!! For his children I am not sorry either, they are all limbs of Satan. True, we are commanded by the good God to forgive, but surely not the Carcassonnes."

Such malice was rather daunting. As Dave brought me more boxes from other collections of letters, my dismay increased. I had grown up in the firm conviction that my family was in every sense honorable and respectable, yet it seemed increasingly that the Founder's contemporaries did not agree. Reluctantly, I admitted to myself that fathomless unpopularity had enveloped old Pierre. He was called everything vile -- a cheat, a blackguard, a swine, a murderer, a thief, a rascal, a rout, and a Republican. To add to my discomfort, in all this catalogue of denunication no reference was ever made to his race -- and, if he was black, that seemed strange, given the attitudes of the time. Perhaps my whole theory of a black man on the rise who virtuously refused to own slaves because they were members of his own race was wrong.

I returned home from my day in the Quarter in a thoughtful mood and settled down with Grits IV and a drink to await the return of my father from his day's occupation. He had successfully managed some intensely complicated transaction or other between two banks and was in a relaxed and pleasant mood. He patted the dog, praised the martini I mixed for him (he was very exacting about martinis) and asked me how my researches on the Founder were coming.

For reply I handed him the foolscap sheets on which I had jotted my notes and he read them with the close attention that a lawyer always gives to a written document.

"Not widely loved, was he?" he murmured, handing them back.

"No. Somehow it's not what I expected. I thought he'd be respected, at least."

"Too successful, I suppose," said Daddy somewhat heavily. "A little success has many friends, but a big one has many enemies."

I couldn't buy that, even dressed up in one of Daddy's instant wise sayings. Pierre Carcassonne had been hated. I pointed this out.

"And yet in these documents nobody ever says exactly why. They just heave insults at him."

"That's because back then everybody knew why. My adviser at Tulane tells me it's something historians run into time and again. What everybody knows, nobody ever bothers to say. It can be terribly frustrating."

The next bit of evidence came from a completely unexpected source.

Jake Touro kept one of the last great junk-shops in New Orleans. A pleasant, dumpy man of no special age, he was literally unable to let any object that could be physically inserted into his tiny shop escape him. For reasons of space his collection contained no antique locomotives or stuffed whales; but he had everything else, especially if it concerned New Orleans.

Jake had already marked me down as a potential customer, and I got a call from him one morning as I was preparing to leave to take an exam at Tulane.

"Jake, I don't have much time."

"Sure, sure, sure. Just wanted to let you know I've got a pitcher you might want to see. Carcassonne stuff, middle of the last century. Interested? Ha. Thought you might be."

As a matter of fact, at three that afternoon I was edging into Jake's Treasure Chest on a side street off Esplanade. Edging because the junk was piled so high and deep and close that I had to go sideways or not at all.

"Let me put on the lights," muttered Jake, emerging from a back room. He had ten or twelve gooseneck lamps scattered around and with a good deal of ballet-like twisting and toe-standing he managed to turn most of them on. Then he sidled behind a counter and started rummaging in a collection of shoeboxes.

"Ah," he said, "system never fails."

He pulled out a gutta.percha box with an arcadian scene stamped into the lid, and flipped it open. Inside was a tintype of Pierre, so faded that I had to turn it from side to side under one of the gooseneck lamps before the image emerged. But then -- .what an image!

Only his face and one hand rose from the gleaming blackness of the plate. The hand was huge and gnarled and rested on a cane whose head was a massive knob of ivory carved in the shape of a snarling dog. Whenever the image was taken, Pierre had been clean-shaven; his nose was a raptor's beak and his face was set in a ferocious expression, the eyes fairly starting out of the head as he glared into the camera. I found myself wondering if the lens had not cracked under the intensity of that look.

The painting at home was formal, modified by all the skills of the artist to turn this corsair into a gentleman. The image I was looking at now was, I believed at once, the real man himself as he had been in life.

Voodoo queens and pirates! In death, Pierre had gone to earth among his own kind in St. Dismas. But his kind had nothing to do with race. For it was clear to me from the photograph that Pierre the Great, the Founder of our family, was white -- the whitest man I ever saw -- dead white, in fact.Then (coming back again to the old question) why had he refused to own slaves at a time when being a master was the sign of wealth and success, the one thing that enabled anyone to exclaim je suis arrive! I have arrived! with no danger of being contradicted?

Jake wanted two hundred dollars for the tintype in its case. I was able to extract the money from Daddy without trouble, once he saw the picture.

"A tough bird," he said. "I'd hate to go up against a man who looked like that in court. Brr!" And he actually shivered.

He must have talked about my discovery to older members of the family, and they to still others. In any case, a week or so later I got a very old, spotty card in the mail with my Great Aunt Kate's maiden name embossed on it and a few spiky, spidery handwritten lines. She had heard about my success in finding information about the Founder, she wrote, and she had now located something in her house that might interest me.

I showed the card to Daddy, and he was downright enthusiastic.

"She's so old," he said, "that she's a lot closer to the Founder than we are. This is 1970 and she was born in 1890. Her father was Pierre's son; she spent her childhood among people who had known the old man intimately."

The warmth with which he said this made me smile; it was obvious that Daddy was finding history a more interesting study than he had expected it to be, since I had begun to uncover our family's place in it.

As I've said, Kate lived in a big old house on Prytania Street. The house was not on the Uptown Mansion tour; it might have suited a haunted house tour, if our local hucksters ever decided to establish one. From the street the house was simply an enormous thicket sprouting chimneys. English yew had grown up roof-high, and down below aspidistra had taken over all the garden beds. Then on top of this basic jungle had grown thick living carpets of vines -- honeysuckle, ivy, cat's-claw, Virginia creeper, yellow jasmine. I remember that the place was startlingly alive in the bright hot sunlight, clamorous with insects and brilliant with flashing jays and redbirds.

Aunt Kate was served and cared for by an extraordinarily small woman named Nelly, who seemed to have invented her own race, being neither black, white, Oriental, nor Latin. She had dry henna-colored tresses, a wrinkled little face like a marmoset, and a great deal of superfluous hair on her face and arms. She opened the front door, peered up at me from not much above the level of my belt-buckle, and then turned away.

On my last visit to Aunt Kate -- five or six years earlier -- Nelly had announced me with exactly two words, "He's here." On this occasion she said, "Well, he's here," which was a gain of one word. She didn't say them to anybody, just enunciated in a loud, cracked voice, standing in the dark entry hall with its elk-horn hatrack, clouded mirror, and yellow-brown wallpaper. Then she rustled away like a departing leaf in autumn and left me to find my own way.

I tried the living room, which was very dark and smelled like mildew, and the only light seemed to dwell in the rhinestone regalia Kate had worn as Queen of Astarte in 1948. I tried a few other rooms, and eventually found my great aunt in a large, jungle-shaded back gallery, lying on a spotty chaise longue and reading a battered old book. I knew that she bought second-hand books by weight, and in fact brown cardboard boxes stood all around with piles of books in them, most with brownish pages and broken spines. The one she was reading was called L'Abattoir and she put it aside to lay her hand in mine like a long bony fish.

"So, darling, you're interested in Pierre Carcassonne," she said, fixing me with two tiny, glittering dark eyes lying in a nest of bags and wrinkles like gems in drawstring purses.

I said yes, and told her what I'd found so far. She made me sit on the end of the chaise longue while we talked. She was wearing a long-faded robe trimmed with rabbit fur that had probably looked better on the rabbit. Her bony feet were bare but the nails of her feet and hands were both done meticulously with silver varnish. She wore green eyeshadow on her lids and her thin arms were noisy with many jingling bracelets made of what looked like steel. With the hard intelligence in her eyes and her somewhat predatory air, she fitted my image of a successful retired madam.

When I had finished telling my story, she brushed one hand back over her head of thin, clean white hair, setting her bracelets jangling, and said thoughtfully, "Grandpapa must have been the most fascinating man. Of course he'd been dead twenty-two years when I was born, so I never knew him in the flesh."

"He wasn't very popular, I'm afraid."

"I doubt if he cared. He was rich and he had a big family and provided for them very well. As you and I both know. But perhaps you don't know. Come along, darling, I've got something wonderful to show you."

She got rather creakily to her feet and led me into the brown shadows of the house. "There are such strange things in this house, darling! Oh, of course there's rubbish, too. Damn all these cookbooks, I never cook anymore, why do I keep them? But also there are wonderful, wonderful things, hidden away, just waiting to be found again."

She unlocked a door and we entered a little room that seemed to have no particular purpose at all. I helped her clear a path to a big pine cupboard that stood in a far comer.

"Now, you remember this place," said Aunt Kate, "and come back here when I'm dead. I've decided to make you the executor of my will, because you're a historian and because this house --"

She paused to swing her long, jingling, bony arms in encompassing arcs. "This house is history!" she cried in a harsh voice that filled the little room like the scream of a macaw.

We finally got the cupboard door open and a cascade of rubbish fell out broken dolls, pots and pans, bundled-up papers.

"Shit," she said.

While she rooted I looked around, wondering how long it would take me to catalogue the stuff in this house and how much you earned for being an executor.

At last she gave a kind of happy squawk and brought out an old leather dispatch box with a snap lid. Giving me a secret, crafty smile, she led the way back in silence to the shaded gallery. She cleared a space on a oncegorgeous marquetry table and snapped the lid of the box open.

"Now, darling, you'll find this truly interesting," she said, pulling out with some difficulty -- for her wrists were weak -- a thick oblong plate of greenishly corroded copper.

"Daddy gave it to me before he died," she said proudly. "He had five sons, you know, but he said to me, 'Kate, you'll appreciate this more than any of them.'"

I picked the metal plate up and stared at it, first in confusion, then in growing wonder. Kate had produced something the like of which I had never seen before and have never seen since, though I think there must be many others, scattered around the world. Some sort of writing had been gouged into the metal. The work had been done either with a steel stylus or -- as a forensic scientist suggested, many years later, after viewing it under a strong lens -- with the point of a hard, rough, sharp claw.

Before I locked that curious object away for good I also showed it to three alleged experts on the Tulane faculty, who assured me that the language was either Ill Amharic, the ancient language of Ethiopia 121 Medieval Georgian, or (3) Old Church Slavonic. None of them offered to translate it. Indeed, I can only compare the handwriting to the very worst sort of doctor's prescription. That day in Aunt Kate's I wasn't even sure which way I was supposed to hold the plate, until I noticed the signature at the bottom.

The name appeared to have been burned into the metal with some strong acid and it was perfectly legible. It said, of course, Pierre Carcassonne, and gave the date, le 3Ire Octobre 1848, just twenty years before his death.

I wanted to take the plate with me, but Aunt Kate was having none of that. I would get it when she was dead, she said firmly. And no, I couldn't have it photographed. This was something that should exist only in the original.

"Remember, darling," she said as Nelly waited to lead me out. "Grandpapa didn't just sign that agreement for himself, for his own benefit. He signed it for all of us, for his descendants to the God-knowswhat generation. I just don't think it's possible for a family to go on for a century and more always making the right investments just by accident, do you? And what's more, avoiding the wrong investments, like slavery, which mined so many people after emancipation. We're getting good advice, even if we don't know it, even if it comes to us only in our dreams.

"Grandpapa paid the usual price, and I'm sure he paid it gladly. He didn't care much about souls, including his own. He wanted the glory of the body, even if it only lasted twenty years. Goodbye, darling. I'll be dead soon and I'm leaving you the most interesting thing I own for the same reason Papa left it to me -- because it'll mean more to you than it would to anyone else."

At home it was dinner time. Mama was talking about debutantes and my brother Ned was feeding his face and occasionally, when his mouth cleared, asking Daddy a question about debentures. That covered the deb front, so I could spend my time eating-- our cook, Rawanda, had whipped up one of her greatest specialties, shrimp Creole -- and slipping an occasional shrimp to Grits IV, who crouched under the table, whining softly.

I also studied Pierre Carcassonne's face. Had he really done that for all of us, signed that contract so that we could enjoy the good things of the world for centuries or forever, while he paid the price? Even that poor tomb-- had it been a mere formality? Had there been anything left to bury after the contract fell due and the Creditor came to collect what was owed him? How could anybody do more/or a family than that?

That afternoon I went swimming in the Shah's Pool with Grits. It was the first really hot day. Through a screen of azalea bushes I could see the golfers in their superbright clothes moving languidly around the green hummocks of the course. Horsemen cantered by on the bridle path, and a wind like a furnace stirred the huge old branches of the oak trees. Could it really be that we Carcassonnes would succeed at whatever we tried, because we were protected by the contract that Pierre had signed with the God of This World? If so, why was I wasting my time with scholarship?

That night I dreamed about the tintype. The dark metal turned into a dark pool and Pierre's big gnarled hand reached out of it and gripped mine.

"Join me!" he roared in a voice incredibly hoarse and hollow.

And so I did.

PHOTO (BLACK & WHITE): "I can't make it. I'm dead."

~~~~~~~~

By Albert E. Cowdrey

PAINBIRD, PAINBIRD, FLY AWAY HOME

a Harlan Ellison parody

We surveyed a number of experts to see whether they could tell the difference between this parody and the real thing. Four out of five of them said, "What are you, crazy?" The fifth one said, "Do you really think this story' s funny? It doesn't sound at all like me." With such overwhelming survey results, we simply couldn't resist.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: THE FOLLOWING was written either while I was taking a shower in a Holiday Inn in Milford, Pennsylvania, or in an attempt to top a memorably original fortune cookie after dinner at the Shanghai Winter Garden on Wilshire; I can't remember which -- my mind was a little muddled from a hectic week that had included writing a Hollywood horror story for Buzz Magazine (I Have No Residuals and I Must Scream); finishing the novellength introduction to my 55th collection of short stories (The Saltimbanque Who Shouted, "Love Ain't Nothing but a Term from Tennis Meaning a Score of Zero," at the Heart of the Universe); making an appearance as a heckler at a Star Trek convention; and revising my epitaph (namely cutting three thousand admittedly extraneous words and changing it from the third to the first person for a greater sense of immediacy). In any case, someone had either bet me that I couldn't write a story in the shower before the hot water ran out or in a Chinese restaurant before the tea got cold, and my memory is that I won the bet by several degrees. An interesting footnote is that the story has been optioned by L.Q. Jones, who plans on turning it into a commercial for Hartz Mountain.

Grossiter, though he was in the purest and most precise sense the cause of it all, should perhaps not be blamed. At least there was no malice in Grossiter, that much must be conceded. Call him a scuttlefish, wouldbe macher, blind scrabbler after the world's softest velvets and thickest gravies, neo-Barmecide, dollar-digging money mole. Grossiter was a flack, with a flack's nose for the fragrance of gelt. A shuffling hustler with one eye always on the ground on the lookout for the purse of Fortunatus, the other canted toward the horizon in search of Eldorado. Nobody blames a fish for being wet or a wolf for bolting carrion or a shadow for tagging along. Grossiter was a flack, and as such would have been right at home in the middle of a squadron of B- 17s over Regensburg in 1944. Like Charley said at Willy Loman's funeral, "Nobody dast blame this man." Grossiter had to hustle, it came with the psychic territory.

Three miles from Palm Springs, in the desert, on a night as clear as the cellophane candy cigarettes used to come in, stars as bright as cheap costume jewelry lighting the inky skydepths, Grossiter, high on a mix of sensimilla and Johnnie Walker Red, parked his Drambuie-colored Audi Cabriolet, wandered off into the chilly roadside wastes to pay his respect to Undine, and found it.

IT.

That was prologue.

It was madder scarlet in color, as pleasantly resilient as the inner thigh of the most mesmeric odalisque in a suhan's seraglio, and made a sound like a sick horse's whinny played backwards on a lopsided antique Akai.

And there were thousands and thousands and thousands of them all around him in the desert.

It was...weird. It wasn't a rock. Wasn't animal, vegetable, or mineral, as nearly as Grossiter could perceive. But he knew he had something. Some...thing.

He took it back to his bachelor pad bungalow off the Strip, put it on a copy of The Hollywood Reporter on a table between an empty tequila bottle and a detritus of grease-sheened Jack-in-the-Box fries bags. And struck a pose like Rodin' s Thinker.

The thing looked good, made him smile. He had a deep dish hunch it would sell.

Grossiter asked himself why it would sell, and came up with the answer. Pet Rocks. Or, to put it another way, as the Blonde Beast of Baltimore, Henry Louis Mencken, once aptly observed, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public." Grossiter sensed that it would sell. And would line the pockets of his Ralph Lauren sport coat with portraits of Benjamin Franklin.

What he didn't know was: that's the way They had planned it.

Grossiter returned to the desert with six vans and a work crew, gathered up thousands of the things, and took them back to L.A. He made several more trips. He kept the things in a warehouse in the Valley while he developed his plan: hired an artist who used to work for Big Daddy Roth to design an eyesnaring logo for the product (one with the words Astral Egg in fat pink letters, a design as enticing as that of a vintage Quaker Puffed Wheat Sparkies box); swung a deal to have them distributed in 1,345 novelty shops and toy stores, 839 head shops, and 649 pomo stores between Malibu and Jones Beach. The wheels were turning.

Grossiter didn't know, of course, that he was being watched.

By eyes on stalks from a bialy-shaped spacecraft just beyond the ionosphere.

One of the creatures, who looked like a cross between Michigan J. Frog and a Shih-Tzu, said, "Zug Z'ag zoomar bryn mawr, snafu xx[2]?" Meaning, "Is it all going according to the plan?

Another assured it that everything was ducky, they were just a hop, shtup, and slither from total success.

And: an America that had grown up loving the trivial and the faddish and the whimsical, gimcrackery and fol de rol, trinkets and trumpery, an America with an aberrant sense of wonder, that had been primed for decades by vegetable-dye tattoos, ever-dipping birds, magnetic Scotties, 3D films and Slinkies, that had been conditioned by generations of Crackerjack prizes, magic eight bails and Rubik's Cubes, breakfast cereal gewgaws, Pet Rocks and happy faces, Big MACs and Whoppers, a junk-conscious America bought Astral Eggs as if they were the hottest thing since sliced challah.

The country was titillated, captivated, mystified, and enthralled by the Astral Egg. Touch it, it rocked, oscillated, chittered, whumpffed, chortled, changed shape, seemed to emanate a subliminal sound of music --A Brahms lullaby, The Spice Girls, or Johnny Pulleo and the Harmonicats depending on who was listening. It was more fun than the silliest Putty. No scientist or phenomenologist or mystic could figure out what it was, or why, where it had originated, or how -- but nobody seemed to mind, since it was more fun than a barrel of monkeys wearing baseball caps backward.

The President had one on his desk in the Oval Office. Larry Flynt bought one for every judge in Ohio. Paloma Picasso had one and said it reminded her of Man With a Lollipop. Both the Mayo Clinic and Andrew Weil prescribed them therapeutically.. Stephen Hawking had two. The Reverend Horton Heat gave them out free at concerts. Letterman gave them to audience members instead of canned hams. Barney touted them. Paul Prudhomme tried to eat his.

They sold out. Making Grossiter rich beyond his wildest dreams. And he had once dreamed that he was so wealthy he had a money bin whose depth gauge topped Scrooge McDuck's.

Grossiter made the covers of Time, Newsweek, and Roiling Stone, and was invited to dinner by Donald Trump, whose hesitation when the check arrived made it clear that he expected Grossiter to pick it up. Women followed him at a lope. He went around feeling like the Babe after that time he'd pointed to the outfield and slammed one out of the park.

And, finally, the eggs started to hatch. And the painbirds emerged.

Swarms and flocks of painbirds everywhere. From the Golden Gate to Ellis Island the painbirds soared en masse over the country, disseminating pain. And death. They looked a little like blood-red Fokker triplanes, with bright bituminous eyes like Iron Crosses, talons as sharp as a Rodney Dangerfield one-liner. Soaring. In squadrons. Oil-bright birds with lucent vermilion feathers and fierce little beaks harboring rows of teeth like amber glass. And they had a temper like a pit bull with a thom in its paw.

The last to die were two winos coming up from the sewer tunnels of L.A. after a weekend with a case of cinnamon schnapps. More birds than Audubon or Hitchcock could have imagined descended, dark clouds of them, teeth like razors, flashing eyes aglint. Blackness. Finality.

The ship landed the next day in front of the Frederick's of Hollywood on Hollywood Boulevard and the aliens called off the birds, which were taken to thousands of golden cages inside the craft where they trilled with carnivorous contentment with blood dripping from their beaks while teams went forth and pillaged the city, taking all of the cigarettes and ash trays, cans of shaving cream, packages of condoms and chewing gum, jigsaw puzzles and cubes of pool cue chalk they could find. They were just beginning and would work their way eastward.

It promised to be the best haul they'd ever made.

Thanks to Grossiter. Flack. Klutz. Schlemiel.

ILLUSTRATIONS

~~~~~~~~

By Larry Tritten

FILMS

HOLLYWOOD'S LEFTOVER RECIPE: JUST ADD ANGST, AND A TOUCH OF FX

I'VE NEVER much understood that whole nostalgia thing. ["The good old days" are usually the product of a highly selective memory.) If someone wants to think back upon the past fondly, that's fine by me. I just wish they wouldn't dig up all its physical manifestations, and make me look at them again.

The VW Beetle is one thing, but bell-bottoms, platform shoes, and giant posie-print nylon shirts? They don't deserve a second coming. And certainly not one within the living memory of those of us who had to wear that crap the first time! But, I swear, we're becoming an Instant Retro World, with sixties and seventies pop. cult. exerting an unholy influence on the nineties.

Why? In part, I suspect it's the arrested development of the baby boom generation. (We just can't let go of our youth.) And as for our kids and grandkids, we've force-fed them the same programming, through television reruns that dominate youth-oriented networks like Nickelodeon and its spin-off, TV Land (among others). It's possible for any number of abominable shows to be even cooler today than when they first aired. It's scary, really. Popular culture fads are recycling at such an alarming pace that films, shows, fashions, and music are becoming hot again, almost before they achieve the old-hat status they so richly deserve.

Did we really need to see Grease or Dirty Dancing on the big screen again? And what's with all the new disco daze comedy-dramas that are being released? (Hey, John Travolta moved on, and so should the rest of us.) But, at least on some level, those particular projects are -- or were-- "original." Not so the ripoff remakes that seem to be everywhere, of late.

I bemoaned this trend three years ago, when I took a swipe at The Flintstones in a column. But, since then, the situation has gotten much worse. Disney has taken to re-making its own movies (10/ Dalmatians and Flubber). Live-action versions of cartoons (from the passable George of the Jungle to the just-bearable Casper to the excruciatingly miserable Mr. Magoo) have become a staple of the studios. And so have two-hour re-treads of the sitcoms (Car 54, Brady Bunch, Den nis the Menace, Sgt. Bilko, McHale's Navy) and adventure seties (The Fugitive, The Saint) of the fifties, sixties, and seventies.

Permit me to share a shocking revelation with you, my friends: Most of those shows were secondrate (or worse) to start with. And with Hollywood's law of diminished returns, they usually deteriorate badly when re-cast, re-written, and drawn out to feature length.

Hollywood continues to make them because they're too lazy to develop new material. And, since movies with a familiar name and established associations have a built-in audience, they usually even make money. It's that nostalgia thing. It rots the brain.

Given how I feel about remake mania, you can imagine' my excitement when I learned that New Line was going to do a feature version of that cult TV "classic, " Lostin Space.

I realize that there are people who are fanatically devoted to that 1965-68 show, but I've never understood why. It was a rehash-- of The Swiss Family Robinson -- from the get-go. Except, in that particular space-age version, the cheery standard-issue nuclear family was stranded on a sandbox planet with papier-mache rocks and a painted sky that never changed.

Again, cable TV must share the blame for the fact that Lost in Space lives on, and on, and on. You can watch it not once, but twice a day on the Sci-Fi Channel. In preparation for writing this column, I actually taped and watched quite a few episodes. And, boy, it was just as bad as I remembered it.

Poor writing, clumsy directing, acting that looks like it was phoned in t it's all there. Not to mention the cheesy costumes (the women look like go-go dancers from Shindig, and the men look like they're about to drop by Sinatra's house for a Rat Pack cocktail party) complemented by the grade-school pageant makeup and the pathetic production design.

People sometimes describe the show as "camp," but I don't see it. The banality of it should be more self-aware and subversive. Oh, there is one "camp" element to the show, and that is Jonathan Harris's saboteur/stowaway, Dr. Smith. Harris created one of the most memorable crypto-homosexual villains of television. (He is a part of a great show biz tradition that includes Clifton Webb's treacherous mentor in Laura, and Disney's lazy, bitter Scar in The Lion King.) But Irwin Allen and his team were all too aware of Dr. Smith's appeal, and overplayed it. Completely.

The more he dominated the storylines, the more annoying Smith became. And no matter how many oddball aliens [played by some of this country's great -- and, in this show, sorely wasted -- character actors stopped by to liven things up, I found the show tedious to watch as a youngster of the good old days. And watching it now, I find it almost unbearable.

So, I was muttering "Oh, the pain, the pain," as I approached my local movie house to watch the bigbudget, modem movie of Lost in Space. I expected to see a film that was even worse than that TV show of yore. (That's the way these Hollywood retreads go.) But, the great thing about low -- and I mean, rock bottom -- expectations is that they leave room for a sense of pleasant surprise. And that's what I experienced while watching the feature film, directed by Stephen Hopkins (The Ghost and the Darkness), and written by Akiva Goldsman (Batman and Robin).

Make no mistake, Lost in Space is far from a great movie. It's not even a particularly good movie. But it's not appallingly bad, when you compare it to its source material. So, I ended up moderately entertained by it.

The production values are certainly strong. New Line sunk its biggest budget (some $90 million) into the movie. And it shows, not only in the 750 CGI effects, but in the film's overall look. They hired some real actors to play the Robinson entourage, too. And then gave them all something to do.

William Hurt plays the intense, slightly supercilious paterfamilias, John Robinson. And Mimi Rogers plays the clan's no-nonsense blophysicist mater, Maureen. (There is something of the dominatrix in this particular mommy, which may explain why she's the only cast member who looks natural in the form-fitting, black latex "cryosuits" the family blasts off in.) In the movie version, daughter Judy is something more than a docile, dishy blonde. Although Heather Graham (recently seen, in all her considerable glory, in Boogie Nights) is certainly both fair-haired and comely. But she also plays a physician with a cool head, and just about has you believing it. Lacey Chabert plays her slightly punked-out younger sister, Penny. And Jack Johnson rounds out the family as the technologically precocious Will Robinson.

Friends star Matt LeBlanc, an actor of, I fear, rather limited range, finally found a screen role he can handle, as mission pilot Don West. (Matt appears to be channeling Stallone throughout the movie, but at least there seems to be a touch of parody in the impersonation.) Presumably on purpose, LeBlanc's machismo is as stiff as an automaton's. Speaking of which, the Robot -- so popular in the sixties series --still verbalizes through the pleasant voice of Dick Tufeld. But, initially, "he" looks much different from the cuddly mound of metal and plastic designed by Robert Kinoshita for TV. This Robot is a Robocopian behemoth, all the better to "Destroy, Destroy!" (Only later, when reconstructed out of spare parts by the inventive Will, does he come closer to the original.)

As with the TV series, the casting of the saboteur "villain" is a key element to the project's success. And the filmmakers chose me very ine British actor, Gary Oldman, to take over the role of Dr. Smith. Oldman's approach to the role is much different from that of Harris. Although he is, at times, sardonically humorous, Oldman doesn't go for arch or effeminate. He plays his evil straight (in more ways than one). He's excellent, but not, thank heavens, a showboater. Oldman is simply a solid member of a good ensemble cast.

It's a nice change. As is the filmmakers' modest attempt at suggesting (if not completely developing) all of the members of this Family Robinson. The women certainly have more to do in this version. But it is still the men who take up most of the screen time.

The theme of the film, such as it is, seems to be that the dysfunctional family must heal itself if it is to survive the challenges of life lost in space, or otherwise. And, in case you miss the message amidst the giant spider attacks and the blast through the sun (yeah, it can happen), Mr. Goldsman makes it quite explicit through lines like "Maybe it doesn't do any good to save the world for families, if we can't save our own."

His primary illustration of familial angst is the relationship of young Will with his emotionally distant and distracted papa. It would be too easy, of course, just to allow the two to have a heart-to-heart while they're stuck in a closed-up spaceship together for days at time. Oh, no. Mr. Goldsman wants the son to actually denounce the father for his benign neglect. Since a ten-year-old might not be up to such a confrontation, Will also appears in the film as a grown man of the future, who grew up, without his family, on a hostile planet, trying to build a time machine with which to get back home.

The adult Will is played by an extraordinary actor named Jared Harris. (If you didn't see his uncanny portrayal of the title artist in I Shot Andy Warhol, I suggest you rent the film.) And Harris is able to deliver Goldsman's psychobabble with such injured sincerity that you may well find yourself caught up in the melodrama. I did. Yet, I was nonetheless distracted by the time paradoxes built into that particular scene. And I was also more than a little skeptical of young Will's nonchalant reaction to seeing his future self as a haunted, damaged, bedraggled man.

It is interesting that a "family movie," about an American family, has come to this. The fealty and devotion of the original 19th century novel was transformed into the cheery, superficial nice-nice of the 1960s TV show. And now, the tale of the Robinsons has become soap opera complete with parental guilt and filial self-pity. It's official: we cannot see the word "family" anymore without putting the word "dysfunctional" in front of it even in a space-aged adventure story.

I guess I would have liked all the Psychology Today touches better if I believed that they were something more than a gimmick. But, as the last two Batman movies have shown, Mr. Goldsman pulls out the sturm und drang only to give viewers a breather between the action sequences and the one-liner banter.

Although much different than the old series, there is still nothing original about the movie called Lost in Space. It is a leftover hash of the has-been television and sf/horror films of the last thirty years. (In fact, identifying all the borrowed bits is one of the more diverting aspects of watching it.) I didn't cringe while I sat through it. But I found it to be an utterly forgettable cinematic experience.

Not so another film about a lost son. If you want to see a film that really gets under your skin and stays with you, consider Neil Jordan's thoroughly original and completely unforgettable The Butcher Boy. It tells the harrowing tale of a poor lad in early sixties Ireland.' Young Francie Brady (the phenomenal newcomer, Eamonn Owens) leads a hellish home life with his suicidally insane ma (Aiding O'Sullivan) and his abusively drunken da (Stephen Rea).

Still, Francie meets life's many challenges with great bravado, and the black humor that has always been the primary survival mechanism of the Irish. He focuses his pent-up rage toward a snooty neighbor (Fiona Shaw). And he takes comfort in playtime with his best hi end, Joe (Alan Boyle), and heady doses of creature features, stolen comic books, and television.

But when his life spirals further and further into disaster, Francie's popular culture diversions mutate into nightmares and apocalyptic visions. Only visits from the Blessed Virgin (Sinead O'Connor) provide any comfort to him.

The Butcher Boy is certainly not science fiction -- which is the only reason this entire column isn't devoted to singing its praises. But the fantastical images that fill Francie's troubled mind lend this tragicomedy a savage grace. Call it magic realism, or psychosis, or both. Or don't call it anything at all. The Butcher Boy -- both the film and the Patrick McCabe novel on which it's based -- defies labels.

It's like nothing you've ever experienced. Isn't that reason enough to see it?

ILLUSTRATION

~~~~~~~~

By KATHI MAIO

PROXIES

Robin A urelian's last story for us was the in yen tire caper story "Jelly Bones " (June 1997). This new tale asks where you draw the line to define the boundaries of the self.

I BLINKED SIX TIMES AND checked the big liquid-crystal chrono that faced the hopchairs in the recovery room. I had been gone for three days, which pissed me off right from the start. Headhopper had only contracted for two.

When I looked down at the body I got mad all over again. Bruises around the wrists, ankles; infected bite marks on the shoulders and breasts. Sick soreness between the legs. Pisswa! I lunged to my feet and then fell back again into the squish-gel cushions of my hopchair. The dark fuzzy cushions molded to cradle the body. I gripped the chair armsupports until cushion stuff oozed up between the fingers. Dumb hopper hadn't fed the body properly.

Those are the worst renters of all, the ones who have no manners and no sense of future. I spend half my waking time working to buff up the bod so someone else can enjoy it, and this is what I come home to? I had Things to Say to that permo-twitch in screening. But first I needed to suck down a gallon of totalnute, and disinfect and treat the wounds. Who knew what other nasty surprises the hophead had left?

The room still smelled of hopjuice and ozone and transfer jitters, and of the body, unpleasantly. Not even a shower before the hop? Damned hopper!

I looked around. Soft illumination came from a light ring near the conical apex of the room. Consoles and check-screens in the curved dark walls flickered and blinked and uttered small beeps, alive but unattended. Both the flush-mounted doors, one to the corridor and one to a closet, were closed. Footprints hashed the short dark fuzzcarpet on the floor.

The brain imprinter stood like a hunched black metal person behind the hopchairs, its tentacles dangling and its screens blank. The other hopchair was empty. It looked like a dark shiny egg cut in half with an scurve, the surface of the cut all squish-gel cushioning. Most of the monitoring and invasive equipment was hidden under the cushions.

How come the hophead was gone and I was still here? Not that I wanted to see him or her. But we should be processing simultaneously.

"Hey! Permo-tweak! Where's my rations?" I yelled.

Getting mad is a bad idea when you're a sharebody. I knew that. There were a few minutes either side of a hop when nobody was home in the body, and when nobody was home, burglars and vandals could get in and mess things up. Treat your service people like the tweaks they were, and they could get nasty. And you could never pin it on them. There were always two or more administering hopjuice and catering to the imprinter and the monitors; nothing ever stuck to them.

But when you're an omnimatch and you keep in shape and ask for top megadollar, you don't expect low-class hopheads. I was a top of the line Type O, at least before this hopper messed me up. I could tell illegal mones or stroids had been involved, the way my anger kept cycling and building.

Nobody answered me. Damned tweaks.

I monitored my breathing and did some mind exercises to control spoilspurts and spillers, hophead legacies one often came home to. The anger died down a little. I stretched while sitting, testing all the muscles. Weak and abused. Breathe. Deal with it. Move on.

My attorney was going to squeeze this last hopper, oh yes.

"Hello?" I said, toning the voice down. "Hello? Sorry about that last yell. Leftover mones. I'm not myself yet."

No one came. Violation of procedure. When one is in recovery there are supposed to be service people present until a complete recovery is achieved, proved by matching a brain-wave profile with the original pattern, either the sharebody's or the hopper's.

I'd never come home to such a bad place, not even when I first started out sharing the body and had no idea of what kind of contracts to sign. The recovery room looked like the one I usually woke up in at Class Acts, but a room was nothing. The body was everything. It took caregivers to get you back to yourself. Damned tweaks.

I looked at the equipment embedded in the dark walls. There was a dispenser over there that would give me totalnute and whatever else I needed, if I could get that far, and if I could figure out the programming. I'd never tried to run a Class Acts dispenser before. I wasn't sure using a home dispenser qualified me.

I tried standing again, then sat down. Not yet.

I felt the input on the back of the neck to reassure myself that whoever had hopped me had pulled the plug, unhooked me from the imprinter. Someone had been here to return me to the body. Where had they gone?

The door opened. Someone edged in, his back to me.

"Where've you been?" I demanded, then took a couple breaths to moderate my anger. "I need totalnute. Please. What's going on?"

He turned around and I saw he was wearing a headcam, the zoom lens sticking out in front of his right eye. It focused on me.

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

"Press," he said. "You the sharebody hosted Livida?"

"What?" Livida, the biggest sensie-star on the continent? Why would she need a sharebody? She looked better on a bad day than I had ever looked.

He came closer. His lens scoped me up and down, focusing on the bruises, the bite marks. Finally he zoomed in on the face.

"Cut it out!" I said, lifting the hands to shield the face, peeking at him between the fingers. Anonymity was in my contract. I appreciated it when I was home, and my hoppers liked it when they were visiting.

"What's the story?" he said, reaching for the hands.

"The story is I can kick you in the nuts and break your headcam if you don't start being polite."

He took two steps back. He flipped the lens up and looked at me with his own eyes. "Come on," he said. "You must have a story to tell. Do you remember any of what happened?"

"Bud, I just got back. All I know is I'm injured, my service people aren't here, and I need rations and healing. You tell me what's the Story."

He elevated his eyebrows. "Don't want to pollute a possible source," he said. "C'mon. How'd you get those marks?"

"How should I know? I wasn't here."

"How could you be anywhere else?"

"That's what a sharebody does. Gets out of the body while someone else uses it. You sure are ignorant. What newsource do you work for, anyway ?"

"The Tell-All," he said, and I flinched. Dumb-ass news channel, first on the spot with fake facts and harmful speculations. They'd done a piece on sharebodies not too long ago that made us sound like instruments of the Devil, implied that anyone who wanted to keep their souls safe should stay away from us. The story did cause an upsurge in customers, but it scared my sister too. I hated anything that tweaked April's stability. It was all she could do in that broken-up body of hers to maintain her sanity while she waited for her clone to ripen.

"So tell me again, for the record, your side of this whole thing," he said.

"Forget it! And give me that tape you got when you first came in or I'll see you in court!"

"Tape? Shows what you know. My link feeds directly back to the station."

"Tell them they better not use any of that or they'll be in lawsuit hell."

He shrugged and flipped his lens back over his eye. "They're always in lawsuit hell. They live for lawsuit hell. What's your name?"

"None of your damned business! Get out of here! Help, someone!" I looked around for a call button. Seemed to me there should be one around here, even though I'd never had to use one; service people had always been present when I needed them. I spotted a red button on the outside of the hopchair's arm-support and pressed it hard three times.

Finally a big dark man in Class Act blues came in. "Help, please!" I yelped, pointing at the reporter, and the service guy grabbed him and kicked him out.

"Thank you. Thank you," I said.

"You the one all the shouting's about?" asked the orderly.

"I don't know. I haven't heard any shouting, except from that Tell-All guy. What's going on?"

He looked me over, frowned, and went to the wall dispenser. "You haven't had follow-up, have you?"

"Worst wakeup so far. Dumb hophead left me all messed up, moning and nobody around to give me nute," I agreed.

He brought me a big frosty glass of tickleberry totalnute with a straw in it. I didn't like that flavor. I sucked it up anyway and felt better right away. "Thanks," I said, when I'd finished. I could feel all those nutrients seeping into the system, strengthening me. "Thanks." I flexed the wrists and ankles. Already the hurt was less.

"Better start you on antibiotics," he said, and gave me a shot.

"My savior," I said to this guy. Then: "Is it true, about Livida?"

"Seems likely."

"Livida was in my body? Why? What happened?"

"Nearest I can tell, she just wanted to walk around and not be recognized. She's hopped before, I guess. But somebody squatched. She had a stalker. He found her while she was in your body, kidnapped her, tortured her. Another nute?"

"Yes, please. Vanilla?"

"Sure." He fetched me another. "Weird kind of crime. Now she's back in her own body, feeling no pain, and giving a press conference. And here you are without even a follow-up. Sucks."

"So right." I closed the eyes and drank totalnute, feeling at last a certain peace as systems stabilized. "Hope she doesn't skreek me for the extra day." I could use the money. I was already buying April the best clone you could get, but it didn't hurt to have some bucks put away in case they came up with more and better mods, which they often did. Sometimes I let April headhop into me, but it was expensive-- I could skip my own fee, but I had to pay prep, transfer, and follow-up fees, and every time I did it I was losing income I might otherwise have made. April understood. Every once in a while, she needed a hop, though.

"An interesting problem," said the service guy. "Livida didn't stay away on purpose, unless this was a publicity stunt. Who's dabie?"

"Insurance, maybe. Don't know whose, though. They caught the stalker?"

"Nope. He kept her and played with her for a day, then wrapped her up in orange parachute silk, taped her mouth and eyes -- sorry, your mouth and eyes, there's still some adhesive; let me clean that up -- and dropped her off in the Dumpmaster out back, where one of the cooks found you about half an hour ago." He dampened a rag with some sort of cleanser and wiped it gently over the eyes and mouth. With all the other disturbances in the body, I hadn't even noticed how sticky the face felt.

I licked my lip. "They collect any evidence?"

"Yeah," he said. "He washed you off pretty good, but not completely. Genemap should be ready sometime soon. They'll catch him. How you feeling?"

"Much better. Thanks again."

"Good. You're welcome."

"I was hyped on mones, or maybe stroids, when I woke up. Could you check my balance, please?"

"Sure," he said, and pressed a scanner against my arm. "Mones, huh? True what they say about you shades, you can taste your own blood without biting yourself?"

"Not exactly," I said. "I just have a real good sense of what I should feel like, and this isn't it." I did some stretching exercises. Strength was flowing back into the muscles. I did some stretching exercises in my mind too. I'd never had a conversation like this with a service person. "This stalker guy, he hurt the body, and he didn't feed it. Wasn't a nice place to wake up in."

He studied the read-out on the scanner. "Hmm. Not mones. Some new kind of crystal. Better get you an evener." He went back to the wall dispenser and keyed in a request, came back with a hypo, sent its contents into the bloodstream.

"Thanks," I said for about the thirtieth time. I could feel the anger dying down. Yes! Body was more and more mine again. "What's your name?" I couldn't remember the number of hops I'd made. I couldn't remember a service person who'd been so nice to me before.

"Patrick. what's yours?"

"Marlena when I'm home. Sharebody 209 when I'm not."

"Nice to meet you," he said.

We shook hands. I felt extremely peculiar. I had two friends; both of them had started sharebodying about the same time I did. I had my sister. The rest of the world was full of people who might or might not use my services, might or might not do something for me -- training medical care, hopjuicing, whatever, mostly depending on whether I had credit or not.

Two friends, a sister, now Patrick.

I flexed things, testing, and found that my coordination and strength were at about two thirds normal. "I feel much better," I said. I got to my feet.

"Must be weird, stuff happens to you, you don't even remember it," he said.

I shrugged. What I really wanted was a shower, but that would have to wait. I got my yellow coverall from the closet. I was glad it had long sleeves and ankle-length legs. I pulled it on, took a tie-back from the pocket, and tied my hair into a tail. "It's just...what happens," I told him. "Sometimes I'm walking down the street and someone recognizes me. Talks to me. Reminds me about that night we spent together, or something." I glanced clown at the chip implanted on the inside of my right wrist. SB2090 it said, in tiny letters. "Then I show them this. Instant deep freeze." I smiled at him. I didn't know why. I made more money in two days than he could make in two months, and I didn't even have to be awake while I did it. Sure, I put in the work: I kept the body up. Exercise, nutrition, medcare, dental work, skin care, spa care, hair styling. Left me a lot of time to do whatever else I wanted, though.

Mostly sitting with April, plugging in to media, seeing what I had missed while someone else was walking around in the body.

Watching Livida in the sensics, as she romanced, danced, and found pleasures, as she went on adventures and stirred up intrigues. She was always so cool. She was always thinking. She was always beautiful. Never at a loss in a social situation.

When I met people on the street who had known not-me, I wondered how the headhoppers had gotten them to talk to the body. Some of these strangers were beautiful, even. When I was home in the body I would never have approached people who looked like that. I mean, I knew I'd done a lot for my physique, but my face, well, it was just plain. I never had paid for any facesculpting; sometimes people like plain -- if it's a visit, not a lifetime.

Once a man came up to me and kissed me. "Gabrielle!" he said, touching my face and smiling down at me.

I wanted to smile back and pretend. But I knew if I did, things would be worse as soon as he figured it out. So I gave him my half-smile, and showed him my wrist. His eyes went wide. He stepped back from me, red staining his face. He turned and stumbled away.

Such little broken dreams, half started, never finding their close because I was not the sum body they had met.

Hopheads shrugged into my body like it was a suit of clothes. They looked like me. They didn't act like me. What was it they did that I didn't?

Livida never had problems like this.

Or maybe she did.

Was her stalker stalking her, or the people she played in the sensics? Did he even know there was a difference?

Did he realize he had split the hurt he caused in half? Livida would remember it; I would feel it.

"Doesn't that seem strange to you?" Patrick asked me.

I couldn't remember what we had been talking about.

He picked up on it right away. "People thinking they know you when you don't know them back. Doesn't that feel weird?"

"This is a big city. It doesn't happen that often." I didn't tell him about walking into a bar and seeing a 3D postcard hanging on the back wall with other bright-colored snippets of travels: me and this fat balding guy, standing next to a strong-up marlin on some fishing boat in the Caribbean. We were both laughing. Well, whoever had hopped into me was laughing along with the Big Sportsman, anyway. His wife? His male lover trying a new wrinkle?

I didn't look at the back of the postcard. "Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here," probably. I found another neighborhood bar instead.

"My face okay?" I asked.

"Clean and no bruises, anyway," said Patrick.

"Thanks," I said to him for the hundredth time. I'd never thanked anybody so much in my entire life. I wanted to tip him really well, but that seemed rude. Maybe I could tip him at a credit terminal downstairs. I checked his ID badge. HURON, it said.

"I better get home," I said. "I hope someone explained things to my sister. But I bet they didn't." Maybe I should call her. I looked around for a link. Not a feature of recovery rooms, apparently.

"She watch the news?" asked Patrick.

"Damn!" That stupid reporter and his headcam!

"You didn't sign a release, did you?"

"Nope. Guy didn't care. Works for Tell-Al1. Said they live for lawsuits."

"Damn," said Patrick. "I'11 walk you out."

"Thanks," I said again.

He went through the door first. Then he turned and pushed me back into the room. Lights shone around his edges: cams aimed our direction. Voices called questions. He keyed a code into the doorpad, and the door slid shut and locked. "Press out there like flies on syrup," he said. He lifted his wrist: he had a comlink on it. He touched a button and spoke. "Security?"

"Chief?"

"What are all these press people doing in the secure area on floor 23?"

"Agel gave them the go-ahead."

"Has she lost her mind? This is not exactly positive publicity. Get them out of here."

"Will do."

He flipped the cover down on the comlink and glanced at me.

I went and sat down in the hopchair again. "You're not a caregiver."

"Not generally."

"Huh. Can I call my sister on your wristcom?"

He shook his head. "Internal frequency only. Sorry. We'll be out of here in a few minutes."

We sat quiet for a little while. Presently he said, "Do you know who was supposed to be on your recovery team?"

I shook my head. "By the time I settled in there was no one here."

"It'll be on record somewhere," he muttered. He shook his head too. "They're all fired. Just so you know. Tweaks."

"Fired?"

"Not doing their jobs. Omnimatches are rare! What got into them, leaving you like that?"

"Livida?" I guessed.

"No excuse," he said.

I thought about that. My contract with Class Acts specified certain minimal care, and they hadn't given it to me, it was true. I could jump to some other Headhop Emporium. I could even sue if I wanted to, but it would probably poison the well for me as to future employment. On the other hand, omnimatches were rare. Most sharebodies could only be used by one or two of the twelve mind-types. A template like mine didn't happen very often.

April and I were trying to train her clone to be another such, though. April headhopped into the developing body daily as it lay dormant in a wash of nute and thought for its brain so that it would be ready to receive her when it ripened. And I hopped in occasionally and did mind-stretching exercises.

The clonemakers were monitoring everything we did. If we were successful...well, my attorney had patents pending.

The door beeped. Patrick spoke on his wristcom, then went over and keyed in a number. The door opened.

Livida came in, and the door shut behind her.

She looked exhausted. Not how you were supposed to look after returning from a hop. While you were gone your body was resting and being refreshed with the best nute and electrical stimulation available. If you had medical problems they could be corrected while you were out enjoying yourself. Cosmetic surgery. Eye surgery. Mods implanted. Fact, you could wear out your sharebody, if you got that kind of contract and paid enough, and come home to a really comfortable place.

She looked tired, and her eyes were puffy, her nose red. Real crying. She came and stood in front of me, held out hands I had seen in twenty sensics. "I'm so sorry," said that voice. It had a million layers of extra meaning in it. I couldn't think of a single way to answer.

She reached for the hands, and I lifted them. She took them and stared at their backs, stroked a thumb across the knuckle. "These were mine for a little while," she said.

I stared at her thumbnail. There was a nick in the edge of it. I'd seen her hands more times than I could count, felt as close to inside them as I could get without headhopping, and I'd never seen a nick in one of her nails before.

"Ms. Redmond, how much did you tell the press?" Patrick asked before I could figure out why it felt so strange to hold hands with someone I'd never met but thought I knew very well.

"I don't know," Livida said, her voice troubled. "I've never ended a hop the way this one ended. I don't know what happened. I can't remember what I was telling them, only they seemed so much more loud than usual. Usually I feel much calmer, much more ready to face things. Usually my publicist makes sure no one knows I've hopped at all, and there's no press. I can't remember -- I can't -- I --"

I stood up and steered her into the other hopchair. "It's the crystal," I said.

"But the crystal was in your body," Patrick said. "How would that translate?"

"Disrupted her thinking patterns. Must not have gotten a good brainwave profile match when they hopped her home. How did they know it was her?"

"I'll have to see the records. There are six toplines that match no matter what your mental state, though. The other fourteen are usually a little waggy." He got out a scanner and pressed it to Livida's arm. His eyebrows rose. "Mimics crystal, all right," he said. He went to the dispenser, got a hypo, injected it into Livida's arm. "This should make you feel better, Ms. Redmond."

She sniffed, wiped the tears from her cheeks with her fingertips. "It's been so awful," she said. "All I want to do is go to sleep .... Oh, that is better. Thank you." She blinked and looked up at me. Her eyes were violet and intense. "Body," she said. "I'm so sorry this happened. Before he caught me it was the best hop I ever made. You are so comfortable, and so able. I was thinking I'd like to use you at least once a month. I'm sorry. I'm sorry he hurt you. I don't know what to do --"

"I'll be fine," I said. "I'll get better. I don't think there's any permanent damage. It's not your fault."

"But it is -- if it hadn't been me -- "

"Just because you do something well in public, that's no reason for you to be punished," I said.

She licked her upper lip. I'd seen that a hundred times too. It could mean any of six things: an invitation to sex; deep thought; uncertainty; I'm hungry; I don't know what to say next; my lip is dry. I was so used to watching her, sensing her, being her, that I forgot we were in the middle of a conversation. One didn't talk during a sensie; one just sat back and felt, and waited for whatever would happen next.

Her eyes clouded. "I can't even --" she said. She touched my hand. She reached out and rolled my coverall sleeve up, stared at the bruises around my wrist. "That was real," she whispered. She touched it and I winced. She glanced back at her .own wrist, the same color as the rest of her perfect skin. "But now it's not." She let go of my arm and covered her eyes with her hands.

Patrick talked to his wristcom some more. Finally he opened the door and there was no one outside but some security people, and someone Livida called Zachary. She ran to him, and he embraced her; it looked like what happened at the end of most of her sensies.

"They've caught him," someone said. "The stalker. They've caught him, Livida."

She wasn't listening, though. She was gripping Zachary's arm. She was walking away. She never looked back.

I never wanted to go for facesculpting, but after that newsbyte from Tell-All played on the hour and on the half for a week, people noticed the body on the street. "Livida! Livida!" they yelled, and I didn't know how to answer. They asked for autographs.

So I took some of my savings and had the nose thinned and the eyecolor changed, and I augmented the cheekbones just enough to look like someone else. I kept the plain, though.

April still watches Livida's sensies, but I take myself out of the net when they come on.

I know her. I know her better than I know myself. She was inside the body. So many times I was inside her image, living her manufactured life because it was better than my real one. I wasn't in the body while she was, but I lived with the aftereffects of what had happened to her, and that made me feel even more as though I know her.

I watched a replay of her press conference after the hop, and I knew her mind. We'd shared the pain and the crystal and the confusion.

Somehow I no longer know who I am. I don't think she knows who she is either.

Oh, I don't want to be her. It's okay if one person at a time wants to be me, whoever they are when they're being me. But I don't ever want the whole world wanting me. Not like that.

~~~~~~~~

By Robin Aurelian

FERAL

1.

Joyce Carol Oates is one of the most celebrated women of letters in the U.S. Among her dozens of novels and story collections are them, BlackWater, and most recently My Heart Laid Bare. Man Crazy, and We Were the Mulvaneys. Much of her fiction has explored the darker regions of the soul, and in the past decade she has contributed to many horror anthologies as well as having edited the anthology American Gothic Tales. Many of her horror stories are collected in Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque. She lives in Princetown, New Jersey, where she has taught for many yeats.

This new story explores that dark realm known as suburbia. What it finds there is harrowing.

The eyes. His eyes.  What was human is gone from them.
What was ours is gone from them.
Where?

2.

THE CHILD WAS SIX YEARS, three months old when what happened to him, happened. Derek was healthy, big-boned and inclined to fleshiness, with a soft-rubbery feel to his fair skin that had given him the look, when younger, of a large, animated doll. His hair was silky brown and his moist warm brown eyes blinked frequently. His smile was sweet, tentative. He'd been named Derek (for his mother's nowdeceased father) which didn't at all suit him, so his parents began calling him "Derrie" from the start-- "Derrie-darling," "Derrie-berry," "Derrie-sweet." He had the petted, slightly febrile look of an only child whose development, weekly, if not daily, is being lovingly recorded in a series of albums. Yet, surprisingly, he wasn't at all spoiled. His mother had had several miscarriages preceding his birth and by the age of thirty-nine when he was finally born, she joked of being physically exhausted, emptied out, "eviscerated." It was a startling, extreme figure of speech but she spoke with a wan smile, not in complaint so much as in simple admission; and her husband kissed and comforted her as they lay together in their bed by lamplight, reluctant to switch off the light because then they wouldn't be able to see their baby sleeping peacefully in his crib close by. "God, yes, I feel the same way," her husband said. "Our one big beautiful baby is more than enough, isn't he?"

And so, for more than six years, he was.

3.

If he would see me again. If his eyes would see me.

If he would recognize me: I am your child, born of your body, of the love of you and Daddy.

If he would tell me: Mommy, I love you!

They were devoted parents, not-young but certainly youthful, vigorous. They were Kate and Stephen Knight and they lived in the Village of Hudson Ridge, an hour's drive north from New York City on the Palisades Parkway. Hudson Ridge, like other suburban communities along the river, was an oasis of tranquil tree-lined residential streets, customdesigned houses set in luxuriously deep, spacious wooded lots. At the core of the village was a "downtown" of several blocks and a small train depot built to resemble a gazebo. The Hudson River was visible from the Ridge, reflecting a steely blue on even overcast days. But there were few overcast days in Hudson Ridge. This was an idyllic community, resolutely nonurban: its most prestigious roads, lanes, "circles" were unpaved. Black swans with red bills paddled languidly on its mirror-smooth lake amid a larger, looser flotilla of white geese and mallard ducks. Kate and Stephen had lived in New York City, where they'd worked for eight years, before Derek was born; determined that this pregnancy wouldn't end in heartbreak like the others, Kate had quit her job with an arts foundation, and she and Stephen had moved to Hudson Ridge -- "Not just to escape the stress of the city, but for the baby's sake. It seems so unfair to subject a child to New York." They laughed at themselves mouthing such pieties in the cadences of those older, status-conscious suburban couples they'd once mocked, and felt so superior to -- yet what they said, what they believed, was true. In the past decade, the city had become impossible. The city had become prohibitively expensive, and the city had become prohibitively dangerous. Their child would be spared apartment living in a virtual fortress, being shuttled by van to private schools, being deprived of the freedom to roam a back yard, a grassy park, neighborhood playgrounds.

So ironic, so bitter! -- that it should happen to him here.
In Hudson Ridge, where children are safe.
In the members-only Hudson Ridge Community Center.

4.

Had there been any premonition, any forewarning? The Knights were certain there had been none.

Derek, "Derrie," was very well liked by his first-grade classmates, particularly the little girls. He was the most mild-mannered and cheerful of children. At an age when some boys begin to be rowdy, prone to shouting and rough-housing, Derek was inclined to shyness with strangers and most adults, even with certain of his classmates, and older children. As a student he wasn't outstanding, but "so eager, optimistic" as his teacher described him, "he's a joy to have in the classroom." Derek was never high-strung or moody like his more precocious classmates, nor restless and rebellious like the less gifted. He was never jealous. Despite his size, he wasn't pushy or aggressive. If at recess on the playground other, older boys were cruel to weaker children, Derek sometimes tried to intervene. At such times he was stammering, tremulous, clumsy, his skin rosily mottled and his eyelashes bright with tears. Yet he was usually effective-- if pushed, shoved, punched, jeered at, he wouldn't back down. His flushed face might shine with tears but he rarely cried and would insist afterward that he hadn't done anything special, really. Nor would he tattle on the troublemakers. Almost inaudibly he'd murmur, ducking his head, "I don't know who it was, I didn't see." His first-grade teacher told Kate that Derek possessed, rare among children his age, and among boys of any age, a "natural instinct" for justice and empathy. "His face shines so, sometimes -- he's like a Baby Buddha."

Kate reported this to Stephen and they laughed together, though somewhat uneasily. Baby Buddha? Their little Derrie, only six years old? Kate shivered, there was something about this she didn't like. But Stephen said, "It's remarkable praise. No teacher of mine would have said such a thing about me, ever. Our sweet little Derrie who had so much trouble learning to tie his Shoelaces -- an incarnation of the Buddha!" They joked about whose genetic lineage must have been responsible, his or hers.

Yet it worried Kate sometimes that Derek was in fact so placid, amenable, good-natured. Just as he'd begun to sleep through an entire night of six, seven, eight hours while in his first months, so he seemed, at times, dreamy, precociously indifferent to other children taking advantage of him. "It doesn't matter, Mommy, I don't care," Derek insisted, and clearly this was so, but was it normal? At games, Derek didn't care much about winning, and so he rarely won. If he ran and shouted, it seemed to be in mimicry of other boys. Watching him trot after them, eager as a puppy, Kate felt her heart swoon with love of her sweet, vulnerable child. My own heart, exposed. My baby-love. She perceived that Derek would require protection through his life and it was her innocent maternal vanity to believe that so good, so radiant, so special, so blessed a being would naturally draw love to him; and this love, like a mantle of the gods, shimmering-gold, would be his protection.

5.

Yet what happened to Derek happened so swiftly and mysteriously that no one, it seemed, could have protected him. Not even Kate who was less than thirty feet away.

"The accident" -- it would be called.

"The accident in the pool" -- as if amplication were needed.

How many times Kate would repeat in her numbed, disbelieving voice, "I'd been watching Derek, of course. Without staring at him every moment --of course. And then, when I looked -- he was floating face down in the water."

Kate had brought Derek to swim in the children's pool at the Hudson Ridge Community Center as she did frequently during the summer. The warm, sunny July morning had been like any other, she'd had no premonition that anything out of the ordinary would be happening, and the "accident" itself would never have happened if there hadn't been, purely by chance, another commotion in the pool at the same time: a nervous, tearful ten-year-old girl, the daughter of friends of the Knights, had jumped off the end of the diving board and gotten water up her nose and was crying and thrashing about and the lifeguard had hurried into the water to comfort her, though she wasn't in any danger of drowning; Kate, too, had hurried to the edge of the pool, to watch, her attention was focussed on this minor incident, and the attention of other mothers at poolside; whatever happened to Derek, at the opposite end of the po01, had passed unnoticed. Derek had been swimming, or rather paddling, in his not-verycoordinated way, in water to his waist, and (this might have happened: it was a theory Kate would not wish to explore, lacking proof) an older boy, or boys (who'd bullied Derek in the past, in the pool) might have pushed him under, not meaning to seriously injure him (of course, Kate had to believe this: how could she face the boys' mothers otherwise?) and he'd panicked and swallowed water, flailed about desperately and swallowed more water, and (in theory, it hurt too much to wish to believe this) the boy, or boys, had continued to hold his head under water until (how many hellish seconds might have passed? ten? fifteen? ) he'd lost consciousness. His lungs filled with chlorine-treated water, he began to sink, taking in more water, breathing in water, beginning to drown, beginning to die.

The boy, or boys, who'd done this to Derek, if they'd done it (Kate had no proof, no one would offer proof, Derek would never make any accusation), were at least ten feet away from him when Kate saw him floating face down in the glittering aqua water, his pale brown hair lifting like seaweed, shoulders and back several inches below the surface. "Derek! Derek!" -- she ran blindly to leap into the pool and pull at his limp body, desperately lifting his head so that he could breathe: but he wasn't breathing. His eyes were partly open but unfocussed, his little body was strangely heavy. She was hearing a woman's screams--hysterical, crazed. At once the lifeguard blew his whistle, came to haul the unconscious child up onto the tile and began immediately to apply mouth-to-mouth resuscitation; but Derek didn't begin to breathe, and didn't begin to breathe; Kate stood, dripping wet, staring down at the pale, unresisting body that was her son, her Derek, uncomprehending as if she'd been struck a violent blow on the head yet hadn't yet fallen, her eyes open, stricken with disbelief. This can't be happening. This is not happening. This is not real. Then she was being helped stumbling and sobbing into the rear of an ambulance. One of the paramedics, a red-haired girl who looked hardly older than sixteen, was comforting her, calling her Mrs. Knight. They were speeding to a hospital in the next suburb, and Derek died, in the ambulance he died, heart ceased to beat yet in the emergency room Derek was resuscitated, heart galvanized into beating again, and he began again to breathe, it would be said He was saved! Brought back to life.

Kate had had no time to assimilate either of these facts. The first, that Derek had died, she would see (she would be made to see, by Stephen) was absurd and illogical; he'd ceased breathing temporarily, and his heart had ceased beating temporarily, but he hadn't died. It was the second, that he'd been saved by medical technology, "brought back to life" she would focus upon; everyone would focus upon. Her husband, their families, relatives, friends; for this was the truer of the two facts, the more logical, reasonable.

6.

"Your son will assimilate the accident into his life, as healthy children do. He's made a complete physical recovery and he'll begin to forget the trauma if you don't give him cause to remember" -- so Kate and Stephen were advised by the emergency room physician who'd saved Derek's life, and whose special practice was, in fact, crisis medicine. Of course they saw the wisdom in what the man said.

Stephen believed they shouldn't speak of the accident to Derek at all unless he brought up the subject. Kate wondered if that might be too extreme -- "What if he dreams about it? Has nightmares? We can't pretend it didn't happen." Stephen said, "We won't pretend anything. We'll let Derek lead the way."

Since the accident, Kate noticed that Stephen called the boy "Derek," in a faltering voice, as if the very name hurt him to utter. Kate, by contrast, had to suppress emotion when she spoke of "Derrie," and when she spoke to him; she was always being surprised when she saw him, for she'd somehow imagined him much younger, frailer. It was an effort for her to realize that he wasn't four years old any longer, or three-- he was six, and husky for his age. She didn't dare hug him as desperately as she wished, a dozen times a day, for the doctor had counseled against this, and Derek himself gave no sign of welcoming it; since coming home from the hospital, he was quiet, subdued, withdrawn. "I'm okay, Mommy," he told her, not meeting her anxious gaze. And, "Mommy, I hated that water anyway."

When Stephen was home, Kate managed quite well with Derek, she believed. But when they were alone together, as they frequently were, she had to resist the almost physical craving to grasp him in her arms and burst into tears. My baby. My darling. I love you. I would die in your place. Oh forgive me! For she couldn't shake off the conviction that the boy knew very well how his mother was responsible, however indirectly, for what had happened in the pool.

What had almost happened in the pool.

It was a jarring surprise to Kate to learn, belatedly, that Derek hadn't liked the pool -- he'd "hated" it. Naively she'd believed he'd loved it, as the other children did; though, looking back, she recalled how shy he'd been at first of wading out into water that came to his knees, how slow to play in it, splashing like other, younger children, as if in imitation of "having fun." He'd tried to like the pool, the Community Center, for my sake. That's it. A wave of shame swept over Kate. She would never tell Stephen this. How she'd been blind to her own son's dislike for the water, for the rowdy companionship of other boys in the water; how selfish she'd been, basking in the privileged atmosphere of the Hudson Ridge Community Center which was easily the equivalent of an affluent suburban country club where she could swim herself if she wished, play tennis, visit with her women friends. Not seeing how her six-year-old son was vulnerable to hurt as an exposed heart.

She told Derek he didn't have to go back -- "Not ever, honey."

Stooping to kiss his forehead. (He didn't seem to want to be kissed on, or near, his mouth.)

Recalling with horror that crazed scream. A woman's scream-- hers. Echoing continuously in her ears, when she paused to listen. She wondered if Derek, though unconscious, lying on his back on wet tiles, had heard it. Yes of course. He heard. He knows. For that was what death must be: raw, shrieking, confused, violent. Not peaceful at all.

7.

DAYS PASSED. A week. Two weeks. Since what had almost happened hadn't happened.

Derek was pale, quiet, subdued -- not "himself" yet. The slightest noise from outdoors or in the house made him jump like a startled animal, his eyelids fluttering, his small body going rigid. His eyes were continually moving, shifting in their sockets. His breathing was quick and shallow, his skin appeared hot. He couldn't settle down to read, to play with one of his games, to watch a video -- if Kate entered a room, he soon slipped from it noiselessly. He didn't seem to be hiding in the house yet -- where was he? Kate was forever trailing about calling, "Derrie? Sweetie?" in a calm, cheery voice that betrayed none of the anxiety she felt. Fortunately, Stephen knew little of this. Stephen was away most of the day, didn't return home until early evening weekdays, when Derek made an effort, or so it seemed to Kate, to be more normal. Yet even at these times, he didn't like to be touched. As if being touched hurt his sensitive skin. As if being kissed was repugnant. Kate had an idea, a wild and unsubstantiated idea, that Derek feared his parents' mouths -- he stared at them, at their mouths, or so it seemed to her, with a look of apprehension. "Honey? What's wrong?" she asked, in her most matter-of-fact voice. Invariably, Derek would shrug and shake his head. He might mumble, "Nothing." Or, irritably, "Mommy, I'm okay."

Kate's heart ached, regarding her son. Whatever had happened to him. Wherever, in those few minutes his heart had stopped, he'd gone. That place he'd gone to, no one else could follow him. She heard again that terrified and terrifying scream-- her own. Sometimes, alone in the house, when Derek was in the back yard, Kate jammed a towel against her mouth and screamed, screamed. No! no! Don't let my son die. She believed that this initial response, raw, anguished, primitive, was the natural response; behaving "normally" -- as if nothing had happened, or almost happened was unnatural. Of course, she told Stephen nothing of this. He wasn't one to dwell upon the past in any negative way.

He'd never reproached Kate for not having seen Derek slipping, or being pushed, underwater. He'd never reproached Kate for almost allowing their son to drown in three feet of water.

We'll let Derek lead the way.

Kate understood that this was wisdom. A vigorous, healthy-minded male wisdom. Yet sometimes, as Derek's mother, she couldn't resist feeling such emotion, she was left shaken, bereft. For she'd lost her little boy, after all. Where Derek had been so warm, spontaneous, quivering with energy before the accident, pushing himself into her arms to be hugged and kissed, affectionate as a puppy, now he was stiff, watchful, unsmiling. Had he forgotten how to smile.: Was it too much effort to smile? The very posture of his little body communicated Don't! Don't touch. He'd lost weight, those extra ounces that had filled out his face, now his face was angular, his jaw more pronounced. And those restless, shifting eyes. "Won't you look at me, Derrie? Is something wrong?" Kate spoke with innocent maternal concern, smiling. If she was frightened she gave no sign. Gently, she grasped Derek's shoulders and squatted before him as she'd done hundreds of times in the past and she saw that he was staring at her now, as if without recognition; his eyes were so dilated, the pupils so starkly black, bleeding out into the iris, she shuddered, thinking These are an animal's eyes.

As if reading her thoughts, Derek shrugged out of her grasp. He was breathing quickly, shallowly. He muttered, his lips curling back from his teeth, "I'm okay, I said."

He ran out of the kitchen, and out of the house. One of his hiding places was somewhere beyond the garage, in a tangle of briars and wild shrubs that bled out, unfenced, into a wooded area owned by the township, where there was no path. Kate was left behind in her awkward squat, legs aching, eyes stinging with tears. But I'm your mother. I'm Mommy. I love you. You love me. You've always loved me. You have to love me!

8.

After the initial flurry of concerned calls from family, friends, neighbors, the Knights' telephone was silent. Nor did Kate, who'd always been sociable, have the energy to call women friends. For she would have had to rehearse her words to get them just right. "Yes, what a shock it was! But it's over now, Derek is fine. He'll be back swimming before long, you know how boys are, he'd only just swallowed some water, thank God we live where we do and the ambulance arrived within minutes and there was never any real danger." No, she hadn't the energy.

When Kate asked Derek which of his friends he'd like to play with so that she could make arrangements with their mothers, as she usually had, Derek shrugged and said he didn't want to play with anyone. Kate said, "Not even with Molly? Sam? Susan?" -- naming his closest little friends, but Derek impatiently shook his head, no. He turned to walk away from Kate without a backward glance and she would have called after him except she feared rejection.

Except she feared his eyes: so dilated, a glassy impersonal black.

He doesn't recognize me, really. Unless I speak to him, touch him. Force myself upon him as his keeper.

Unbelievable that, only a few weeks ago, that child had so often run laughing into her arms, saying, "I love you, Mommy! I love you, Mommy!" It was as if in fact he'd died, the child-Derrie had died, and this other being had taken his place, a stranger.

But this was nonsense of course. Wasn't it?

Kate dared not speak of such a notion to Stephen, who continued stubbornly to behave as if what had almost happened hadn't happened. That was Stephen's way: he wouldn't have succeeded so definitively, and at so relatively young an age, in his Wall Street brokerage house, if he'd been less decisive, ambivalent. When he returned home from New York in the early evening he wanted peace, he wanted domestic family happiness of the kind to which he, like Kate, had become unknowingly addicted; in his expensive wool-silk suit he'd drop to one knee, arms outstretched, and cry to Derek, "How's my boy? How's my big boy?" Stephen's face crinkled in fatherly ebullience and his voice was loud, like a TV turned up high. From an adjoining room, Kate flinched to see how Derek stiffened at his greeting, where once he'd rushed to throw himself into his Daddy's arms and be lifted into the air like a Ferris wheel. Now Derek looked not at Stephen exactly but in Stephen's direction, head turned away, eyes shifting in their sockets, with the wariness of a cornered wild animal. Yet Stephen persisted, "How's my Derrie-boy?" The quieter and more reluctant Derek was to be wooed, the more determined was Stephen to behave as if nothing was wrong, seeking out the boy to hug, forcibly if need be, and kiss, and fuss over, like any loving daddy returning home eager to see his little boy. Until one evening, Kate in the kitchen heard what sounded like a scuffle, a child's cry and Stephen's louder, sharper cry, and when she ran to investigate, Derek had fled outside and Stephen, white-faced, incredulous, still squatting, was staring at his right forefinger, which was oozing blood-- "He bit me. He bit me to the bone."

9.

"He isn't the same child. He isn't Derrie."

"Don't be absurd. You're becoming morbid-minded. He's still in a state of shock."

"He isn't. You've seen his eyes. He bit you."

"He reacted without thinking. It was a reflex."

"An animal reflex."

Stephen was silent. Of course, he'd seen those eyes. It was all they saw now, in the child's presence, or in his absence: those eyes.

Staring, implacable, unreadable, unhuman eyes. Grotesquely dilated, even in daylight. A horror in such eyes.

I don't know you. I don't love you. You are nothing to me.

10.

That Saturday they took Derek to the Hudson Ridge pediatrician who'd been treating him for years, since babyhood, and the man examined Derek and could find nothing wrong with him, and it did seem, in the examining room, that Derek was more cooperative than usual. Though he shrank from being touched, and resisted looking into the doctor's eyes, and responded only laconically to the man's friendly queries. But his eyes appeared less dilated and his pulse and blood pressure, the doctor said, were normal. The Knights didn't tell him about Stephan's bitten finger, about which Stephen in particular felt shame, nor did they tell him what a difficult time they'd had that morning getting Derek into the car.

Like bringing an anxious dog or cat to the vet, Kate thought.

Stephen's bitten finger, which had given him a good deal of stabbing, worrisome pain, had been treated by another doctor, a stranger, to whom he'd explained the circumstances of the biting with some embarrassment. After a week of antibiotics, Stephen's finger was healing and Stephen refused to discuss it with Kate but, as Derek's daddy, he'd learned not to forcibly embrace his son and smother him with kisses as in the old days.

In private, Derek's pediatrician asked his parents if Derek ever spoke of almost drowning, and they said no, never; and if he dreamt of it, or had nightmares, they weren't aware. Kate said, with a brave smile, "He's changed, as you can see. He seems older. More self-contained. Not a little boy anymore." Stephen said quickly, edging out Kate, as if fearing she might say too much, and too emotionally, "My impression is, he's forgotten. Children don't dwell upon the past. He seems to have outgrown lots of things this summer -- games we used to play together, habits of speaking, behaving. Of course, he's growing. He'll soon be seven. He isn't a baby any longer." Stephen spoke with the air of one confirming a principle: Derek's strange coolness toward his parents was to be interpreted as something positive, a sign of health, growth. Kate listened, and made no comment. She suspected that the pediatrician knew more, or suspected more, than he was willing to say; but he wasn't willing to say it; nor were Derek's parents willing to hear it; the visit would end with friendly handshakes, as always. Two days later a nurse called from the pediatrician's office to report cheerfully that Derek's lab tests were all negative, and Kate said brightly, "What good news. Thanks!"

Perhaps that was all it required, then, to be a happy, normal mother: to behave as if one were a happy, normal mother. As if there were no reason to behave otherwise.

11.

Stephen conceded: "When Derek returns to school, he'll be more himself, I'm sure. The summer has just been too long for him."

For the first time in years, the Knights hadn't traveled in August to either Colorado or Maine, to stay with relatives. They'd reasoned that the commotion of travel, the busy, bustling atmosphere of households including other children, would have been upsetting for Derek just then. Neither wished to think that Derek's presence, in the midst of other, normal children, would have been deeply distressing to everyone. Neither wished to think that Derek would have resisted their efforts to travel together, as he resisted their efforts to interest him in brief outings and excursions close to home. He preferred to be alone, in his room with the door shut (but not locked: Derek's door had no lock) or, more often, outside. Where he might wander back into the woods, increasingly out of the range of Kate's strained voice. "Derrie? Derrie? Derek?"

In time, Derek drifted home of his own accord, when he wished. Wherever Kate might search for him, he wasn't; where Kate didn't think to look, he'd suddenly appear. Often he came up behind her in the house, noiselessly, and she gave a cry of alarm, turning to see him. He almost smiled, at Mommy's alarm. Those eyes. Fetal eyes. He doesn't know me. It seemed to Kate that Derek's teeth were more pronounced, his lower jaw longer and more angular, like a dog's snout; he sniffed the air, conspicuously; his very eyeballs had grown tawny, as if with jaundice, and the dilation was often so severe as to comprise the entire iris. The surface of his eyes was slick and glassy, reflecting light. Once, Kate came upon the child in his darkened room on the second floor of the house, crouched by a window, in a kind of trance. Was he staring at the moon? At the night sky churning with shreds of cloud, vaporous tendrils of light? She could hear his quick, panting breath; she saw that his mouth was moving, his jaws spasming as if he were very cold, or very excited. She would have gone to him to touch him, to comfort him, except something warned her Don't! Don't touch and she backed away, in silence.

Stephen stayed later and later in the city. Often didn't return home until 9 P.M. when, in theory at least, Derek was in bed, asleep.

Rarely did the three of them eat meals together now. Derek preferred to eat by himself, hungrily, lowering his head to his plate, eating with his fingers. Hamburgers, near-raw at their centers, oozing blood. He drank milk greedily, from the container, hunched inside the opened refrigerator door. Kate thought It's good, he has his appetite back. It must be good. How difficult for her, offering this strange child food at arm's length, to recall how once she'd fed him lovingly by hand, spooning baby food into his bird-like, yearning little mouth; how ecstatic she'd felt, nursing him. Her milk-swollen breasts, her tender nipples, and the infant blindly locating the nipple, sucking with unfocussed eyes -- how happy she'd been. How addicted she'd become, without knowing it. Love, baby-love. What hunger. Now, remembering, she felt a stab of revulsion. Her breasts that were no longer warmly taut and swollen with milk, ached; the nipples burned as if Derek had bitten and chewed them. Almost, Kate could remember blood trickling from her cracked nipples, tinged with milk ....

I can't. Can't let myself. Must stay sane. I am the child's mother.

Like Stephen, Kate had been hoping that when Derek returned to school in September he'd change for the better, but that wasn't the case. Where Derek had loved school, now he seemed to hate it. Where he'd run about excitedly in the morning, eager for Kate to drive him, now he hung back in his room, or disappeared (where? -- into the basement, behind the furnace) so that Kate had to hunt him down, calling his name, pleading with him. Where once he'd come home from school chattering with enthusiasm about his teacher, his classmates, his studies, now he was sullen, and refused to talk at all. Suddenly, in second grade, he seemed to have no friends.

Kate was called in to speak with Derek's teacher and with an assistant principal to discuss Derek's poor grades, his poor deportment in class, his boredom, his listlessness, his defiance, his "antisocial" behavior. All this was new, stunningly new to Kate who'd taken for granted, since Montessori school where her Derrie had been one of the sweetest, most well-liked children, that she was a mother blessed by good fortune; a woman late to motherhood, conspicuously older than virtually all of the other mothers, but blessed. Even envied. Now, all that was changed. Did I want to think it might be my imagination. Mine, and Stephen's. Our haunted-eyed fetal son. In early October there was a "threatening" incident at school, Derek baring his teeth as if to bite another child, and in mid-October there was a "biting" incident, Derek actually biting another boy, sinking his small but surprisingly sharp teeth into the other's hand and drawing blood. For this, Derek was suspended from school for two weeks. (At the school, Kate professed shock, utter shock; her son had never done anything like that before; the other boy had been bullying him, he'd said; the other boy had in fact threatened him; that must be the explanation. Derek sullenly refused to discuss the incident. He didn't at all mind being suspended from school. When Kate and Stephen asked him how he could do such a "terrible, animal" thing, Derek merely shrugged and muttered what sounded like "Hate 'em.") It was advised that the Knights arrange for Derek to see a child therapist immediately, as well as hire a tutor for him; and of course they agreed, of course they would do all they could. They were American parents of a moneyed, educated class, they would do everything humanly possible to help their child, to return him to the normalcy of the species. He's our only son. We love him so. We don't understand. We are innocent. It's just a phase. A phase of growth. He isn't a baby any longer. What can we do. He drowned, what was human in him drowned. What is human is gone. What was ours is gone. Where?

Yet: years later when Derek was lost from them, long disappeared from their lives, when they were in fact no longer married, polite strangers to each other, and this politeness tinged with the melancholy of an old, unspeakable grief -- Kate would recall with a physical stab of pain how, only a few days after Derek had returned sullenly to school, she'd thrown herself into a flurry of enthusiasm trying to arrange a party for his seventh birthday. That dark, windy November afternoon, between sips of red wine, bravely telephoning the mothers of a dozen of Derek's second-grade classmates to invite them to the party; as in a nightmare of rejection and humiliation, no one wished to come; even those mothers Kate considered her friends had no interest in accepting the invitation. Their responses ranged from sympathetic and embarrassed, '"I'm truly sorry, Kate, but Molly is terribly busy now, I'm reluctant to schedule one more thing for her on that Saturday, but thank you," to curt, nearly rude, "Thank you, but I don't think a birthday party for your son is a great idea right now, at least not for Andrew to attend." Yet, grim, smiling, the tart red wine coursing through her tight veins like liquid flame, clamps of panicked pain at her temples, Kate continued to dial numbers. It was hard for her to believe. It's real, then. But how can it be real, he's only a little boy.

At that moment tramping through the woods behind the house in a chill windy drizzle he preferred to the warmth of the house. And to her.

12.

The first tutor hadn't worked out, nor the second. Derek had spat at the first, a nineteen-year-old math major from SUNY-Purchase; the second, a friendly middle-aged woman who taught at the community college, he'd bitten on the back of the hand -- not hard enough to break the skin, but almost. Your son is sick. Disturbed. Needs help. You must know.

Nor had the therapist worked out. Derek had gone berserk when they'd tried to urge him into the car for a second session, he'd guessed where they were taking him though they'd told him with vague smiles that it was nowhere he'd be hurt, only helped, still he'd known instinctively, could sniff the panic lifting from their skins, his darting dilated eyes quick to detect fear in their eyes so he'd pummeled, kicked, raked his sharp broken fingernails across Kate's forearm shouting he hated them, hated them both, as Stephen tried to calm him, "Derek! No! God damn you, Derek! --" but the child wrenched free of his father's awkward hands to escape running in a crouch, like a terrified wild animal, through the back lawn and into the woods where Kate followed him, for Stephen turned away in disgust, Stephen had had enough for that day, it was the child's mother tramping through the unfamiliar woods cupping her hands to her mouth calling, "Derrie? Derrie?" trying not to betray the desperation she felt, telling herself this was a game, this might be interpreted as a game, she had to win back the child's trust, that was it.

But wasn't his mother watching him, a six-year-old. In a swimming pool.

How could it have happened. In a few feet of water. And the child's mother only a few feet away.

Her attention distracted? Imagine!

How can she live with herself, a woman like that. Letting her own child drown.

These cruel gloating voices murmured about her as she stumbled through the wet underbrush, sobbing, her heart beating painfully, in reproach. She was panicked she might become lost in this no-man's-land: the township kept a ten-foot swath for telephone and electrical poles but otherwise the area was overgrown, a virtual jungle. Somewhere beyond a graveled access road there was the Hudson Ridge reservoir, Kate believed; but in which direction? For forty minutes she searched for the fleeing child calling, "Derrie? Honey--" and then, suddenly, there he was: only about fifteen feet away, watching her. His head was oddly lowered and his eyes fixed upon her, his mouth stretched in a strange twisted smile. Or was it simply a grimace of his lips, the muscles in a spasm. Kate cried, "There you are, honey! Please come home with me, we're so sorry. Your Daddy and --" Kate heard her bright ebullient voice, she forced herself to smile for perhaps this was a game after all, hide-and-seek in the woods, and nothing unusual had happened back at the house. She and Stephen were guilty of poor judgment perhaps, they were well-intentioned but blundering` the thing was to win back the child's trust. Smiling Kate reached out happily for Derek's hand but he stood unmoving staring at her with those dark-dilated eyes and the warning passed through her mind as if in the impersonal voice of another Don't.t Don't touch! He will attack and so she knew not to force his hand, but simply to guide him back home, he was surprisingly tractable, though sullen, unresponsive. She was exhausted by this time though as they made their way back to the house Kate chattered nervously, an American-mom voice she'd acquired from TV, unnatural to her, yet a revelation, offered to Derek so that he might believe, if he wished to believe, that, from Mommy's side, nothing had changed -- "Sweetie, you know I love you. You know." It was a secret what he knew, of course. The inanity and futility of her words swept over her. Yet she refused to surrender to silence, for she was the child's mother, and she did love him, or what remained of him, or what she could recall of him, and in the kitchen that surprised, so cheerily lit, clean shining surfaces as in a TV advertisement, she gave the boy his supper, setting a plate before him at the formica-topped table, standing at a little distance to watch in appalled fascination. As he ate. She realized that he'd come home with her, he'd allowed her to find him, because he was hungry; because, in the wild, he hadn't yet found the food he required.

13.

That night, or another. Lying awake. Separate from each other. Not touching.

Their bodies now shrank from touch. The accidental brush of the other's heated skin -- almost, this was repugnant. Indecent.

For of their touch years before, their kisses, their embraces -- what had come into the world? What creature born of their heedless yearning? They could not bear to think.

It was a night in mid-winter, no it was a night in early March -- the house quaking with wind and a smell of rain and winter-rotted leaves. It was not a night Kate could identify for she'd endured similar nights so many times, nights of fitful sleep, heart-pounding sleep and hours of wakefulness protruding like bleached, misshapen boulders out of eddying dark water, and now Stephen was nudging her asking if she heard? -- the stealthy sound of footsteps in the hall outside their room, Derek was prowling by night, slipping away as he'd been forbidden yet to barricade him in his room, lock the door with a padlock, nail the windows shut, would be to admit he had to be penned in, a captive animal, so Stephen was nudging her shoulder as if to wake her in the pretense he didn't know she was already awake, as he'd been, "Do you hear, Kate? It's him." As if it could be anyone else.

And Kate whose solace was now in sleep, groggy hours of day-sleep when she was alone in the house, fitful patches of night-sleep, where the fetal eyes were strangely absent and it was the lost baby -- Derrie, the plump-cheeked little boy gazing at her with eyes of love, rose immediately with her husband, yes she would go with him, to follow Derek and bring him back, as she'd done herself, not once but a number of times, they fumbled with their clothes and on the stairs vertigo lifted from the darkness below but Kate refused to give in, Kate was going to be brave, strong, stubborn, she was the child's mother, she must take responsibility and would take responsibility, and at the back door as they hurried they saw a small lithe fleeing figure dart from the shadow of the house toward the woods -- "There he is!" It was a night of high, wind-blown shreds of cloud passing the moon's bulbous face, a pocked lewd face it seemed, a winking face, and no stars surrounding it, oddly, and there Derek ran in a crouch like a wild animal familiar with the terrain and they ran in his wake already breathless, panting, for they were in their forties, middleaged and too old for parenthood, this was their punishment for daring to bring life into the world, raw unheeded life not theirs to protect. They cried, "Derek! Derek --" but the March wind blew away their cries in mockery. The fat-faced moon leered down at them in mockery. In the marshy woods smelling of rot, in the sink-holes that wetted their feet within seconds, through underbrush tearing at their clothes, pricking their skins, through briars, thorns, branches whipping against their faces, they stumbled a half-mile, or was it a mile, to the muddy graveled access road, across this road sighting Derek, or a figure they believed to be Derek, scuttling crouched close to the ground, sharp eyes penetrating the darkness as theirs could not, except as the sky opened to marmoreal brightness as the moon glared through webs of broken cloud and they were panting, shivering, desperate to follow the fleeing child, now losing him, now sighting him, and at last they emerged in a grassy space seeing him a distance ahead, Kate recognized with difficulty the eastern edge of the reservoir, a body of water commonly seen only from the road, and only from her car as she drove to and from the village -- but now she and Stephen found themselves there, at what hour of the night they couldn't know, long past midnight, yet hours from dawn, they saw the water's surface ripple with wind like the skin of a nervous animal and in it filmy, rushing puzzle-pieces of sky and the winking moon, and on the farther side amid tall whipping cattails -- Derek wasn't alone.

There were others with him. Small lithe figures like his, and several taller figures. Who these were, male, female, what their faces, what their eyes, they could not see, were fearful of seeing, they heard low murmurous voices unless it was the wind, they heard-- was it laughter? They dared not venture forward. They shrank into the shadows, clutching hands, in terror of being seen.

~~~~~~~~

By Joyce Carol Oates

A SCIENTIST'S NOTEBOOK

IMAGINING OTHER MINDS

FOR THE most talky creature on the planet, we're not that versatile. Our attempts to communicate with other species on Earth have not been strikingly successful.

We have developed a dictionary of several hundred words for communicating with bright chimpanzees and apes. Very limited discourse flows between us and the Cetaceans, principally dolphins, though whale songs are intriguingly complex; more research in these directions would be illuminating.

But these are minds evolved in our own biosphere. Surely contemplating a message that utterly different minds could fathom sets the outer limit of any strategy for communicating across great stretches of time.

Yet that is what a team of Jon Lomberg, astronomer Carolyn Porco, and I tried to design for NASA's Cassini spacecraft, to be sent in November 1997 to Saturn. This is the second of three columns concerning how we fashioned the message.

Even if we look for mathematical universals, how truly general are they? Here conversations Lomberg, Porco, and I had with noted theoretical psychologist Louis Narens proved unsettling. Narens is a professor at my own university, the University of California at Irvine, and his ideas are mindstretching even for science fictional people.

Semiotics is the study of nonverbal communication, and mathematics is fundamentally nonverbal, though ours (and presumably others') does have a notation. Scientists usually think of mathematics as a set of immutable truths, emerging from the world with the heft and solidity of Platonic ideals.

Narens dispelled these comfortable notions. Alien arithmetic could be non-numerical, he said -- that is, purely comparative rather than quantitative. Such beings would think solely in terms of whether A was bigger than B, without bothering to break A and B into countable fragments.

How could this arise? Suppose their surroundings had few solid objects or stable structures -- say, they are jelly creatures awash in a thick Titanian ethane sea of the far future. Indeed, if they were large creatures requiring a lot of ocean to support their grazing on lesser beasts, they might seldom even meet each other. Seeing smaller fish as mere uncountable swarms-- but knowing intuitively which knot of delicious stuff is bigger than the others -- they might never evolve the notion of large numbers at all.

This idea isn't crazy even for humans. The artificial intelligence researcher Marvin Minsky told me of a patient he had once seen who could count only up to three. She could not envision six as anything other than two threes.

For these beings, geometry would be largely topological, reflecting their concern with overall sensed structure rather than with size, shape, or measurement, a la Euclid. Such sea beasts would lack combustion and crystallography, but would begin their science with a deep intuition of fluid mechanics, as obvious as gravity is to us.

Of course, these creatures might never build any technology, and so not find our diamond markers we proposed to send into the sludge of Titan, much less find it orbiting Saturn. Even land-based creatures might not share our assumptions about what's obvious. Our concepts are unsuited to scales of size far removed from those of our everyday experience.

What would Aristotle have thought of issues in quantum electrodynamics.* He would have held no views, because the subject lies beyond his conceptual grasp. His natural world didn't have quanta or atoms or light waves in it. In that very limited conceptual sense, Aristotle was alien.

Our hope for the message was that at least (and perhaps only) in the cool corridors of mathematics could there be genuinely translatable ideas. Marvin Minsky takes this view, believing that any evolved creature -- maybe even intelligent whorls of magnetic field, or plasma beings doing their crimson mad dances in the hearts of stars-- would have to dream up certain ideas, or else make no progress in surviving, in mathematics, or in anything else. He labels these ideas Objects, Causes, and Goals.

Are these fundamental notions that any alien must confront and use? We cast a pale shadow of doubt over Objects, since these depend upon one's perceiving apparatus; a snake would respond to images in the infrared while we would not, for example. Even causality isn't a crystal-clear notion in our own science, particularly in quantum mechanics.

Why then should Objects, Causes, and Goals emerge in some other-worldly biosphere? Minsky holds that the ideas of arithmetic and of causal reasoning will emerge eventually because every biosphere is limited. Some inevitable scarcity will occur. Limited means force adoption of realizable Goals, and reward those who Caused them to come to pass, acting upon Objects.

Organisms that can conceptually organize the external world to perceive Minsky's root ideas will get more from their efforts. Such Darwinian selection will affect all their later biases. Minsky has framed technical arguments showing that these notions must turn up in any efficient (and, presumably, intelligent) computer, and the ideas may generalize to aliens. Of course, there is a big conceptual leap here. Computational ideas may not prove adequate for biological organisms; they certainly weren't obvious even to us a mere century ago.

Most scientists who have thought about communication with aliens work within the assumptions of SETI-- with mathematics as the fulcrum of communication. Hans Freudenthal's LINCOS is a computer language designed to isolate the deepest ideas in logic itself and to build a language around it. It uses binary symbols typed out in lines (a choice we also made for our message). LINCOS stands ready the moment we run into something green, slimy, and repulsive, and yet with that restless urge to write-- or read.

Math is central to the whole issue of communication because it allows us to describe "things" accurately and even beautifully without even knowing what they are.

Richard Feynman once said, to the horror of some, that "the glory of mathematics is that we do not have to say what we are talking about" (emphasis his).

Feynman meant that the "stuff" that communicates fields, for example, will work whether we call it wave or particle or thingamabob. We need not have such cozy pictures at all, as long as we write down the right equations. As David Politzer of Caltech once remarked, "English is just what we use to fill in between the equations."

We felt this might help as we sought what Louis Narens termed "cognitive universals." While it is impossible to avoid biases because we are humans, and immersed in our cultures, we also had to avoid regarding some ideas as obvious simply because we could not imagine how they could not be. As Minsky sardonically remarked, "Artificial realms like mathematics and theology are built from the start to be devoid of interesting inconsistency." The real world could summon forth fantastic choices.

Narens had made a vital point: while aliens should have concepts like arithmetic, they need not have more than rules for how to add, subtract, and multiply particular numbers. We reason inductively, as in the title of a George Gamow book, One, Two, Three...Infinity. We humans generalize simple, small numbers to arbitrarily large ones, and invent relations between them as well.

This gives us a fascination with primes, for example, and how to calculate large ones, as part of an infinite ensemble. To us, numbers are Platonic objects, existing as ideals, literally innumerable in extent. Aliens may not need such a habit of mind.

The abilities necessary for generalizing based on induction seem to come from the linguistic abilities of creatures on Earth, particularly us. Hunters in the animal kingdom have counting ability, as would come naturally from a sharp sense of how to cut an ailing member from a herd -- that is, abstracting an integer from an unbroken flow. But evolutionary pressure for more efficient processing need not necessarily lead to inductive generalizations like the totality of natural numbers. Few people, after all, need to use numbers larger than a hundred or so except in financial matters.

Instead of concentrating upon general facets of integers, for example, one could imagine minds which "see" the flux of a physical quantity. Indeed, for some important features of our world, we, too, perceive intuitively the flow of things, not the quantity itself. We speak of a room being chilly, but we do not measure its temperature; instead, we sense the rate that heat flows out of us, a derivative of temperature. When we think of metal being colder than wood, for example, we are actually discerning our different heat losses through them. Evolution has geared us warm-bloods to be leery of losing energy.

Similarly, our vision registers the logarithm of light intensity, not the intensity itself; this is why we can see over such a wide range of brightness, from noonday glare to starlight.

Viewing our problem so broadly was invigorating but daunting. Imagining weirdly different readers of our diamond disk was entertaining, but it gave us too much latitude. How could we ever decide on specifics?

In the end we fell back upon the aesthetics argued for earlier by Lomberg. Still, we had to remember our Earthly audience, since the message would receive some NASA publicity; a bizarre message might play poorly in Peoria. Narens agreed, remarking that "bad presentation of the rationale for such messages, their design, or their content, could easily generate ridicule -- not only for the particular message but also for creation of such messages in general. A good job could add another dimension of adventure to the mission."

To impart numbers we decided to use binary notation, f911owing LINCOS. This was an almost inevitable choice, since digital portrayal emerges naturally, mandated by the fact that any number enjoys a unique representation only in base 2. The number of days in Earth's year is

365 = 2[8] + 2[6] + 2[5] + 2[3] + 2[2] + 2[0]

Only in base 9. is this designation, 101101101, unique. Thus communication between any entities who fathomed mathematics, and understood integers, could well be forced to the common tongue of binary notation.

Why is binary so basic? Because plus/minus, greater or lesser, up/ down are simple distinctions useful in any environment. Life just about anywhere would have to make such contrasts.

We could cement this by expressing the Golden Section, 1/2(1+5 1/2), in binary. But how to decide where to cut off the infinite fraction, which does not repeat? This issue we never settled.

We decided to employ a mass and length standard related to the spacecraft, just like the Voyager "dictionary" prepared by Frank Drake and Lomberg. Depiction and encoding would follow Voyager methods. Since the diamond might well survive alone long after the rest of the spacecraft disintegrated, its diameter of 28 mm was the obvious unit length, which we termed "1 u." Saturn's mass we gave in units of the disk mass, 4.39. grams, so the number in binary stands for 1.3 x 1029. To make the connection we placed it beside a picture of Saturn itself.

What else was truly basic? As a physicist I thought of unit systems, but other sciences have other fundamentals. Mark Martin, an Occidental College biologist, suggested including a compact representation of our biosphere in a two-dimensional sketch. Accompanying the planned picture of humans, it could show the major kingdoms of life, with size markers beside the simple line drawings to give their true scale. This would presume aliens could decode such a 2D picture; many animals, after all, cannot.

I then thought of including a truly dense carrier of information, a strand of DNA. This basic "unit" of biology would adroitly send much biological knowledge, independent of language, by giving our readers the thing itself, not a representation.

Of course, such a DNA record is not useful without the record "player": specifications of intricate conditions in the womb, etc. But Lomberg quickly pointed out that to send any biological sample into space, however tiny, would violate the Planetary Protection Protocol, a set of rules to stop worlds being contaminated. Never mind that the DNA could be sealed inside the diamond disk; jumping through bureaucratic hoops would take time and effort we did not have.

He even raised a moral issue: what if someone in the far future "resurrected" the being from its DNA? Should we "condemn" a genetic descendant to whatever world it would face? This struck me as a bizarre argument, but it had the smell of Voyager's reception, too: someone would undoubtedly raise this, getting plenty of splashy coverage. (NASA Sends Elvis Sperm to Saturn, Lomberg suggested all too plausibly.)

Given these troubles, we rejected any biological sample.

But what of less obvious standards? Time has no obvious units appropriate to billion-year scales; atomic frequencies are in the billionth of a second. Here we decided to rely on a crucial assumption: that whoever found the message would know a bit of astronomy, even if they lived in Titan's soupy atmosphere.

Marking Time

We assumed that if in some fardistant future other beings find the Cassini/Huygens Diamond Medallion, they will wonder who made it, and when, and what it has to tell them. Surely beings who reach orbit about Saturn should have some trait resembling what we call curiosity.

To answer such questions we designed several two-dimensional pictures. Could we trust that our future audience could comprehend flat, two-dimensional images? Again, invoking evolution, we gambled that intelligence would arise in beings who had followed strategies based on clever gathering, if not hunting. Such minds would need vision that could distinguish distance.

Of course, we are prejudiced in favor of the visible spectrum. Bats, whales, and dolphins see with acoustic waves. We quickly decided to give up any hope of communicating with such creatures, unless they could sense the patterns we would etch into the diamond by reflected sound waves. This seemed quite unlikely, given the tiny writing we were forced to use. Acoustic waves of that size are very high frequency.

Further, quite plausibly they would know that objects that in a flat projection are above others would most likely be further away, just as in a landscape painting the horizon is higher than nearby rocks. Vision would have to deal with troubles such as, say, trees that begin at the ground and cross the horizon. This need not require binocular vision, but we did demand some such ordering principle of our audience. Without it, our choices were simply too broad, and might elude our Earthly audience as well.

Photographs of the Earth should show where the message came from, and a stereo photograph of humans will show them who made the diamond. As well, the stereo photo could help show how we turn twodimensional representations into three-dimensional ones.

But how to show when the diamond was created? A calendar based on our present reckoning would mean nothing.

Previous deep time messages used astronomical objects as time markers. In the Voyager Interstellar Record, Frank Drake suggested including a photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy, our own Milky Way Galaxy's nearest large neighbor. Andromeda is visible to our naked eyes, and should be obvious from anywhere in the Milky Way. Galaxies rotate in about half a billion years, and several dwarf galaxies orbiting Andromeda move perceptibly in a million years. Those who find the Voyager Record in interstellar space millions of years from now can compare how Andromeda looks then with our photograph. If they are good astronomers, they can then estimate Voyager's age to within perhaps a million years.

In a similar sense, photographs of the Earth also provide a kind of calendar, since continental drift is perceptible on time scales of a few million years. Continent profiles and positions on the future Earth, compared with an Earth map that was part of the message, could lead an astute alien to a rough age, assuming they understand continental drift and could see Earth at all. Present Titan residents could not make out the inner planets in visible light through their thick atmosphere. But over many hundreds of millions of years the continents will alter unrecognizably, and the diamond's readers may also not have good close-up images of our planet.

This strategy was used already, on a small plaque attached to the LEGEOS satellite. Carl Sagan designed a picture of our continents as they looked several hundred million years ago, their present map, and a projection of how we think they will appear in eight million years, the rough lifetime of the satellite.

With this in mind, Lomberg proposed using four different types of astronomical objects which evolve at different rates, "clocks" covering different time scales. Whenever the diamond is found and studied, one of the photographs will display changes allowing a rough dating.

Saturn

Anyone who finds the diamond in orbit around Saturn or on Titan will know the looming presence of the nearest planet. Saturn's beautiful ring system can be our clock. Saturn's tidal pull prevents these disks of ice particles from collapsing into a moon. The rings are extremely complex, like giant phonograph records, with thousands of ringlets separated by small gaps. There are large gaps as well, the most visible from Earth being the Cassini Division. The French/Italian astronomer Giovanni Domenico Cassini discovered the gap in 1675, correctly believing the rings to be made of particles, though this view took a century and a half to find acceptance.

At the Cassini Division, particles orbit Saturn in half the period of the innermost moon, Mimas. Mimas exerts a cumulative tidal pull on these, tugging them out of the gap region. The division's exact position then depends on Mimas's orbit, which itself slowly changes over hundreds of millennia, due to the tidal forces of Saturn's other moons. As Mimas moves, so moves the Cassini Division.

If those who find the diamond know this, careful comparison of the division's precise position as they see it with the diamond's picture will serve to date the diamond. This calendar should be useful over periods of millions of years. The limitations of the calendar lie in our own knowledge, for we have no sure idea of how long Saturn's rings will last; they may be a passing phenomenon, on astronomical scales.

The Big Dipper

Constellations are chance cliques of stars, unassociated except for being grouped in our night sky. Each star moves through the galaxy in its idiosyncratic orbit, so the accidental association into, say, the Big Dipper will disperse as the stars move on in different directions at different speeds. Our sun moves, too, and the sum of all these motions ultimately will take millennia to alter a constellation in our sky. Constellations look the same from Saturn as from Earth, because the stars are so far away. Our famous and easily recognized Big Dipper will slowly alter over tens of millennia. Its bowl will become shallower as the four stars forming it disperse on their own orbits. Within 60,000 years distortion will make it unrecognizable. The Waste Interment Pilot Project panel had proposed this same time marker, developed by Drake and Lomberg.

From the Big Dipper's photo on the medallion, its discoverers should recognize it but also notice its altered shape. If they understand astronomy, they could compare the Dipper as they see it with our image. Within roughly a 20,000 to 50,000 year span this will give them time since it was sent from Earth.

Galaxy M74

Galaxies are bee-swarms of stars. Many of them resemble our spiral-shaped disk. Such spiral arms draw the eye, for they trace bright star-births that flare in the wake of compression waves. When we see the gaudy, beautiful arms that seem to wrap around the central hub, we are witnessing where dark clouds once collapsed, driven by the characteristic sound-like waves that act upon the galaxy's "gas" of stars and dust. In a few million more years, the wave will have advanced a bit, illuminating a different sector.

Galaxy M74 is a spiral that will change similarly to our own. discoverers of the diamond disk can use its M74 photograph as a calendar by comparing the spiral's appearance then and now, discernible over periods of ten million years.

The diamond marker's disk may suggest studying the depicted spiral disk, but we intended a more basic, elegant subtlety: the Golden Section. To further call this relation forth, we planned to include in the foreground of the photograph of humans, the Portrait of Humanity, a chambered nautilus sea shell, exhibiting the same spiral. We felt that patterns repeated elsewhere on the disk would call attention to themselves.

Spirals appear in sea shells and galaxies alike, calling forth our appreciation of beauty. Among the many spiral galaxies we chose M74 as one of the most beautiful to human eyes. We cannot know if extraterrestrials will share our same sense of the sublime, but we can suggest our own.

As a time marker other galaxies could work better, such as M51, which has a small satellite galaxy orbiting it. The satellite might be easier to track than the spiral arms, its position serving as a clock. On the other hand, M51's spiral arms do not give as close a fix on the Golden Section as M74. This is because galactic arms have thicknesses, so fitting them to an exact line introduces ambiguity. In the end, M74's closeness to the ratio won out over the satellite, a judgment call.

The Hercules Cluster of Galaxies

Galaxies cluster; our own Milky Way Galaxy and neighbor Andromeda are the largest members of a small throng of about twenty galaxies, mostly dwarfs, known as the Local Group. Many clusters of galaxies are much larger, with hundreds or thousands of members. The diamond medallion's photograph shows a section of a large, obvious, nearby swarm, the Hercules Cluster, where many galaxies orbit in a grand gavotte precisely played by gravity. Two such galaxies are colliding. As they separate, they will draw streams of stars out in long tails, easily seen by astronomers with telescopes no more advanced than ours of fifty years ago.

Their slow dance takes the galaxies tens, hundreds, or even thousands of millions of years to alter their positions relative to each other. The Hercules Cluster therefore serves as the longest of our time markers, giving recipients of the Cassini/Huygens medallion a clock ticking off billions of years.

On such time scales, mere mortal beings seem like nothing. Yet such beings sent Cassini, and presumably other mortals would want to know a lot about their own kind. As with Voyager, we wished to send a talisman for all of us. How could we make it striking, visual that is, how could we send a snapshot of ourselves?

The next column concludes our work on devising a message that could speak for us to whomever finds the Cassini spacecraft near Saturn, many centuries from now.

Comments and objections to this column are welcome. Please send them to Gregory Benford, Physics Department, Univ. Calif., Irvine, CA 92717. e-mail: gbenford@uci.edu

~~~~~~~~

By GREGORY BENFORD

THE KALEIDOSCOPE

J. Patrick Jensen recently moved with his wife and young children from rainsoaked northern California to dryer land in San Diego. He is twenty-seven years old and this is his first sale. It shows the influence of another young writer from California, Ray Bradbury. We think you'll find this subtle fantasy memorable.

IT WAS A DELICATE THING in Daniel's grasp, as though a single rash gesture might crush it to bits of black crepe. As he rolled the kaleidoscope between his frigid hands, admiring its smooth texture, it flashed brilliant celestial light from its obsidian shell. He stood, mesmerized, galoshesdeep in the snow.

When he had seen it in the toy shop, tucked inconspicuously among stuffed animals, he'd grabbed it without looking inside and brought it to the stout woman behind the counter. Days earlier his father had said with a sad, frail smile, "Here's ten dollars. Get anything you want. We're doing things a little different this Christmas."

Daniel searched his coat pockets for three dollars. Out came a crumpled dollar and some nickels, though more change jingled in his right pocket. He remembered the hole in this particular pocket where change always fell into another dimension between the lining and outer material: a magician's secret compartment.

He stood shaking out coins while the saleswoman marshaled toy soldiers on a wooden shelf trimmed with holly. One last coin remained, and when Daniel freed it and laid it out with the rest of his money, he stared astonished at his balance.

Precisely three dollars.

As though he was destined to have the kaleidoscope.

Now outside the toy shop, he raised the cylinder and looked inside.

He gasped, then stood for a long, long time, motionless in the white winter snow. His head tilted back, two tears slid down his face and pooled in each ear. After a while he placed it carefully in his trousers pocket and walked home.

Lying in bed that night, he used a flashlight to illuminate the kaleidoscope's interior. Across the room his older brother Aaron tossed violently in bed to stress a point. Before their mother died such a thing as a flashlight would not keep Aaron awake, but now it irritated him the way everything did these days.

"For crying out loud, put that thing out!" his brother barked into the wall.

He made to position the light beneath his pillow.

Aaron shot up in bed and hissed: "What did I say- !?"

Daniel clicked off the light.

One clear, cold afternoon Daniel arrived home to find the house unnaturally still.

"Dad?" he called, setting his schoolbooks upon the kitchen table. He walked through the living room, hearing only dying embers in the fireplace and the melancholy tick-tock of the grandfather clock. He half expected to see Dad in his chair, smiling at the newspaper funnies. When More was alive his father laughed out loud. Daniel turned the comer where their Christmas tree had stood in years past and headed upstairs.

Dad was sitting on Daniel's bed and, while making it up after his son forgot to that morning, had apparently discovered the kaleidoscope. He wondered how long his father had sat there staring frozen into the iridescent tube. Dad reluctantly pulled the kaleidoscope away and Daniel noticed a reddened imprint around his eye, something he normally would have found comical. Dad gazed trancelike at him, his eyes bloodshot, as though tears had flowed but long ago dried.

Finally Dad handed him the toy and said, "Keep it in a safe place, son."

Brittle sunlight played gently through the frost-speckled window, imbuing the bedroom in kaleidoscopic patterns. Daniel opened his eyes a fraction, watching water swim in his vision: the tearful remnants of sorrowful dreams. He fully opened his eyes and the phantoms dissipated to sparkling snowflakes like the ones finished falling outside.

He sat up and looked upon Aaron's vacant bed. His brother rose early, rain or shine, sometimes a full hour before he himself awoke. Seeing a clear coast, he slid his hand beneath the pillow...

...and found empty space.

Daniel sprang to his knees-- instantly awake-- and ripped his pillow from the mattress. Bare. The world spun. He jumped to the floor and frantically wrestled his blankets off the bed, shaking out the sheets, spreading each blanket flat on the floor. He turned his pillowcase out. He shone his flashlight under the boxspring. Breathless, he yanked his bed to the center of the room. Where was it? Where was it?

Aaron strolled into the room, redfaced from exposure, his clothes spattered with snow. Daniel turned on him, panicked, verging on tears and black rage. "What did you do with it?" he screamed.

"Huh?" replied Aaron.

"The kaleidoscope! What have you done with the kaleidoscope?"

"Oh, that." Aaron poked around in his pockets, shook his head. "Sorry, sport. I musta lost it."

"You what?" Daniel trembled furiously.

"It looked kinda neat, I dunno. I put it in my jacket when I went out sledding. I was gonna stop and look in it. Guess I forgot."

Daniel felt the world crumbling around him.

"Hey," said Aaron, becoming quarrelsome again, "why are you so hung up on a stupid toy anyhow?"

Daniel yelled and leaped on him, thrashing wildly. He crushed him to the floor, snarling like a rabid animal, raking his nails into exposed flesh. Aaron shrieked in pained surprise.

Dad burst into the room, and after separating the boys, heard the story through their labored breath. Dad looked as though a giant skyscraper had collapsed in him. Silently he sat down, right in the midst of all the clutter, right down on the floor he plopped, and put his face in his hands. Aaron, bewildered and outright frightened by this display, ran out of the room.

Daniel looked out the window as his brother, whom he truly did not hate now, bounded away from the house, leaving ragged holes in the pristine snow.

Dinner was mournfully quiet that evening. Dad had not punished Aaron--hadn't talked about the kaleidoscope at all -- and, in fact, hugged him along with Daniel as both boys went up to bed. Dad then opened the trash container and emptied three half-full plates slowly.

No sleep claimed Daniel as he lay on his side. He closed his wet eyes halfway in the gloom, but what he saw could not touch the fragile beauty and magic of his lost kaleidoscope.

During the night Aaron cried out in his sleep. Daniel rolled over to see him sitting and sobbing in darkness. When Dad came in and sat down, Aaron threw his arms around him. Daniel pretended to sleep as he watched them.

"Ssshhh," whispered Dad. "It's okay now."

Aaron's voice, muffled against his father's chest, drifted across the room.

"Dad, I had a dream about Mom."

Daniel's heart caught in his chest, for Aaron had barely mentioned their mother since cancer had taken her from them all.

"In the dream, I saw her pretty face. Oh, I wish I could see her again!"

Daniel swallowed hard, trying not to make a sound as Dad embraced Aaron, who never got the chance to look inside the kaleidoscope.

~~~~~~~~

By J. Patrick Jensen

FIGHTING GRAVITY

Laurel Winter's last appearance here was with "Tomorrow Tea" in our December issue. She recently won the Asimov's Reader's Poll with her poem "why goldfish shouldn't use power tools." She lives in Rochester, Minnesota, and volunteers at the elementary school her twins attend.., which probably explains where she got the impetus for this story about a big kid.

STUCK IN THE PRINCIPAL'S office for not listening again. He had to be the only kid who regularly got sent there for not doing anything. No fist fights -- although his fists were big as some kids' faces. He'd tried it once, in kindergarten, and his parents said never again fit in fit in you must fit in and then they gave him the medicine that fogged him up and made it easy to forget fists the size of faces.

Made it easy to travel off on a teacher's voice and end up somewhere above cloud level.

Secretary sighed when she saw Flynn. Didn't bother to ask what he was doing there. "Another one of those days, huh?"

Flynn gave the secretary a minuscule nod that tightened the big muscles at the back of his neck. He settled himself down on a bench in the corner and opened his math book. The principal didn't usually bother to talk to him anymore; there was an unspoken agreement that he could use the outer office as an unofficial study hall whenever one of the seventhgrade teachers got sick of his daydreaming.

So he was in the office when the girl came in.

She had been fighting. One fist had a smudge of blood -- not hers on it. The teacher who escorted her in, one hand on the girl's shoulder, looked wary, uneasy, glad to shed duty once they were physically inside the office.

"This is Jillie Myers," the teacher said, dropping back a step. "She hit another student in the nose. I have to get back to my class."

The principal was on the phone or something in the back office, so Flynn and the secretary and the girl were alone in the room for a while.

She was looking at the secretary sullenly, so she didn't see Flynn right away. Her wide neck rooted her head firmly on huge shoulders. She was proportioned differently from the other students he saw continually, the tall, slender girls and boys that made him despise his own form. Flynn's stomach clutched up and he had a hard time breathing. He fumbled the inhaler out of his pocket and jammed it in his mouth.

The girl turned toward him. Her eyes widened above heavy cheeks. Before she could talk, though, the principal opened the office door and beckoned her in.

The secretary looked from Flynn to the office. "She looks like-- she's going to be in trouble," she finished lamely. Then she began typing, fast and ragged, on her word processor.

Flynn put his inhaler back and clenched his fists. They were about the same size as the girl's fists, maybe a little larger, but they were pale and pudgy and lacked the bloody smudge. He could feel the muscles in his neck and shoulders going taut. She looked like him. That ugly beast of a person could have been his sister. Aside from his parents, he had never seen anyone, in person or in pictures, who resembled him. Her physical reality suddenly made his own body undeniable. He was never going to "grow out of it."

"I have to go home," he said, dropping his book on the bench.

The secretary ceased her typing frenzy. "Are you feeling sick, Flynn! Would you like to go to the nurse's office?"

Flynn knew that the other student, the one whose bloody nose had stained the girl's hand, would be there, snuffling into a cloth. He clenched his fists again. "No! I'm going home." The adrenaline in his system cut through the fog.

"I'll call your--" the secretary was saying as Flynn pushed out of the office and ran toward the main doors.

He never ran anymore, he realized. Years ago, kids had made fun of him, the way his body swung from side to side as he transferred his bulk from one muscular leg to another. He'd forgotten how easy it was, how fast he could run for a person of his size, how much he enjoyed it. Now he tried to forget the teasing, the image they'd shoved into his mind of a bear's lumbering gait.

When he was off the school grounds, he slowed to a walk, puffing slightly, patting his pocket to make sure his inhaler was still there, just in case. Even though it was easy, he was still out of practice, and his muscles and lungs wouldn't let him forget that.

Who was she? The question hit him again and again. Why hadn't he seen her before?

It didn't take him long to reach home. Just long enough for the questions to drive him crazy and the answers he made up to get very strange. She was there to haunt him. She was an ogre girl from a fairy tale. She was the twin sister, stolen from the hospital at birth, that his parents had never told him about.

That answer at least explained the sense of loss that was with him continually.

His parents were home, as he knew they would be, since they both worked there. He went in the house, questions bubbling inside him. His mother came up the stairs. Her eyes were narrow above her cheeks, like Flynn's own, like the girl's had been before surprise had widened them. "What are you doing home from school? The secretary called. You're not supposed to just leave."

"I just --I wanted .... "Flynn's questions died. He had been stupid. "I guess I don't feel well," he finished quietly.

"You can go to bed," his mother said, already turning to go back to work. "That might help."

It wouldn't, Flynn knew. He climbed the stairs to his bedroom and lay down, fully dressed, staring at the ceiling. With one hand, he touched his broad face, his neck, the thick planes of his chest and stomach, his thighs, still quivering from the run. That had been the one good thing about this confusion-- rediscovering running. He pinched the layer of fat on his leg and imagined it melting away, leaving only muscle.

He pinched himself harder. Some daydream. Even if he did lose the fat, one of his legs would still be twice the size of a normal boy's.

And if he couldn't even ask his parents questions, he surely wouldn't be able to just go up and talk to some strange beast of a girl.

HE DIDN'T HAVE TO. She found him the next day, fogging through the hallway. His parents had given him extra medicine that morning, just a precaution they said it will help you feel better maybe we do need to increase your dosage now that you're getting older and bigger.

His second period teacher sent him to the principal. He took his book and started for the office, following a wall. Everything moved slower on the medicine, that was why mornings were worse, why his first and second period teachers were most apt to send him away. By seventh period, which was art this year, he felt mostly normal. The art teacher even liked him, encouraged the strange, wild paintings he came up with.

But it was still just second period when she found him. She was coming out of the library with a stack of books held easily in one arm. "Hey," she said. "Stop."

Flynn stopped. The medicine made him likely to do what he was told if he heard it in the first place. "Who are you?" he asked.

She looked at him, then scanned the hallway with a smooth, slow twist of her neck, not like the quick, furtive gestures of his classmates. "I've gotta talk to you." She set the books down in the hall. "Come on."

Flynn followed, still carrying his Minnesota history book. When they got near the office, he started drifting toward it, remembering his original destination. "No," she hissed. "What are you --an idiot?"

The question made Flynn mad, woke him up a little.

They were just around the corner from the office, as close as they could get and still be out of sight. The girl stuck her big face close to Flynn's. "I know you don't know me, but I have to talk to you. I promise it's important."

He nodded slightly. Even fogged up, he remembered his questions from the day before.

"I don't know this school very well yet," she said. "Is there someplace nobody goes?"

Flynn fought the fog. "Uh, well, I -- "his voice trailed off.

"Did they drug you up?"

The way she said they pierced Flynn's confusion. Angry. Bitter. A word with fists behind it. "Medicine," he said. "My parents --"

He could almost see her bite back her next words. After a silence, she said, "We do have to talk. Let's get out of here." That slow scan of the hallway. Middle of the period, no one around. She took his book and leaned it against the wall. Then she peered around the comer.

Flynn's heart thrummed fast.

"Let's crawl past the office," she said. "Then we can make a run for it."

Running. That sounded good. Maybe he could run out of the fog. Would she run like he did, like a bear? "Okay," he said, dropping to his knees.

They crawled into the open space, the office -- windows starting at waist-height -- to the left, the main entrance directly ahead. Flynn just kept moving, right arm and left leg, left arm and right. You never forget how to crawl, he thought, even though you quit when you're so little. Like you never forget how to run, even if they tease you out of it.

His muscles got tighter and tighter as they crossed toward the doors to outside. As soon as they stood up to go through the door, the secretary might see them. Or when they were outside, running.

Jillie reached her arm up and pulled the door handle. She pushed the door easily with one hand. "Go," she said.

Flynn rose slowly and took off. She was right behind him, and then beside him, and then in front. She hadn't quit running. Maybe no one had teased her or-- more likely-- she hadn't cared when they did. Or she had cared but pretended not to. The last seemed right to Flynn.

And her running seemed right, suddenly. The side-to-side gentle swing as muscles bunched and fired in powerful legs. She slowed down a little so he could catch up. "Go this way," he said, breath catching a little. "There's a park."

They didn't stop running until they were in Flynn's place, a grove of spruces that were planted a little close together, branches overlapping, with a bare, brown-needled space in the center.

There was plenty of room for a person of Flynn's size, barely enough for two. An intruding branch pricked him in the back.

The running had dissipated most of the fog. He felt about the way he did in fifth period. Now it seemed crazy to be out here with this girl, who came to the principal's office with bloody knuckles, that he didn't even know. His breath started coming quick and shallow.

She must have seen the unease, because her expression bittered up. "Look," she said, as if she'd said it before, "I won't hurt you. I just needed to talk to you."

Flynn scrunched back a little farther, spruce needles spiking through his shirt. "Okay," he said.

She looked at him soberly. He could see her deciding what to say-or maybe what not to.

"Okay," she said carefully. "Uh, like do you feel different from most people? Really different?"

Flynn felt his lips twist into a scornful expression. "Oh, not at all. I'm just like everybody else. What do you think?"

Her gaze dropped to her own hands, clenching and unclenching into fists. "I think you never fit in, not once. And there was nothing you could do about it."

For a moment, they both just sat there. Flynn wanted to cry, but he wasn't going to let himself.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly.

"Who are you?" he whispered. "Why are you like me?"

"This is going to sound stupid," she said. She took a gulp of air. "We don't come from Earth. We come from another planet."

"That is stupid," he said. "I was born here. I've always lived here."

"I don't mean 'us,'" she said. "I mean people like us. Our parents. We're not from Earth."

Flynn put his hands up over his face and bent forward. The words made so much sense it was scary. No wonder he didn't look like the other kids in his school, the spindly, scrawny kids whose heads bobbed up and down on their little necks when they nodded, the kids who didn't run like bears. "Ohmigod," he said, straightening up. He wasn't even the same species as those people. He started to rise. "I have to tell my parents."

She gave him a look. "Do you think they don't know?

Flynn stopped. The words slashed through his mind. Of course they knew that's why they were so anxious for him to fit in why they gave him the medicine they knew they knew and they didn't tell him let him think there was something wrong with him that he wasn't like everyone else.

This time he did cry, tears running down over the wide, thick cheeks that maybe were attractive on a different planet but not here. Here he was ugly, didn't fit in, and they didn't tell him why.

By the time he'd finished crying, the medicine had worn off completely, or near enough to it. Flynn made a fist and pounded at the ground, gouging a hole. "Dammit, dammit, dammit."

Jillie just watched until he stopped. They were both flecked with dirt and pine needles. "How did you know all this?" he asked."

I found some stuff," she said. "Pictures and things."

They came from a planet with heavier gravity than Earth, she told him. Lots of other similarities, though, which maybe explained why even though they seemed different-- they were remarkably like humans. Human enough to pass but not enough to fit in.

"Why did they -- I mean we -- come here?" Flynn asked.

"Why did the Pilgrims come to America?" she asked in turn. "Why did the Romans go to England? Why did Cortez go to Mexico."

History had never been Flynn's strong point; for some reason it was usually in the morning. "The Romans went to England? Oh, yeah." He thought for a minute. "They didn't all have the same reasons," he said.

"That's the way it was with us," she said. "I mean the ones who came to this planet. Some of them were trying to get away from our planet and some of them wanted to see if the Earth was worth taking over and stuff."

She kept talking, but Flynn tuned out. The medicine wasn't quite gone maybe, and his thoughts took him out of the conversation. Why had his parents come here why didn't they tell him why he was so different what the hell was going on?

Jillie's hand closed gently over his arm. Flynn realized he was crying again, just a little. "What am I going to do?" he said.

She shrugged, her shoulders bunching up. Flynn flinched, as people did when he shrugged. He hadn't realized until this moment how menacing the movement looked. Stop it, he told himself. I'm not one of these puny Earth people. "Dirt people," he said out loud, liking the taste of the words.

Jillie laughed. "Funny isn't it."

"What are we called?" he asked.

"The Calessa," she said.

"The Calessa." Maybe his parents had spoken that word when he was younger, before they knew they had to be careful. It sounded at once strange and familiar. "The Calessa."

Anger mixed with relief and fear and sheer happiness. There was nothing wrong with him. He wasn't different. They should have told him. What was he going to do now?

He asked the question again out loud.

"You can come to my house," Jillie volunteered. "I'll show you the pictures."

Flynn ached inside. To see images of people he might grow up to be like, not the stick figure humans. His parents didn't count right now; Flynn was too angry. "Yes," he said. "I want to come."

They didn't run to Jillie's house. It was too far and the new knowledge had made Flynn tired and numb. When they got there, Jillie had to tug his arm to get him up to the porch. "It's okay," she said.

After Jillie unlocked the door, she said, "Wait here a minute, okay?" Then she disappeared through a doorway. Flynn heard stairs booming under her weight, a short silence, more booming as she returned.

They sat at the kitchen table with pop and honey bread. Flynn couldn't even swallow. The pictures were thin rectangles, flimsy and strong at the same time. Thick, stunted bushes. A sky with too much lavender mixed in. And people like them.

It must be a hot place, Flynn thought. The brawny people in the pictures wore skimpy shifts with slits up the sides, or loose, bunchy shorts. Some of the children-- boys and girls both -- wore nothing at all. Jillie started to take the pictures away at Flynn's gasp, but Flynn stopped her. "No," he said. "I want to see them."

It was possible to be embarrassed and repulsed and exultant at the same time-- to look at the pictures with human standards of beauty and dress, and a new standard, built into his bones.

"This is my mom," she said shyly. The picture showed a group of people sitting in gritty sand, laughing. A woman lounged on the left side of the picture, one thigh showing through the slit in her garment. Her head tilted slightly back. Her hair was the same color as Jillie's, reddish-brown, and her eyes were mere slits with the strength of her open-mouthed laughter.

"She looks nice," Flynn said. He took a huge breath, let it out. "Why doesn't she tell you?" he asked.

Jillie looked at her hands, spread flat against the table, as big as plates. "I think people -- our people -- are after my more. We keep moving around. We'll be somewhere for a while and bang, we'll just move. No warning."

"Why?" he whispered.

"I'm not all the way sure," she said, "but I think she doesn't agree with some of the people, about taking over the planet and stuff."

Flynn's head swam, not with the effects of medication, but with too many strange new ideas. He spread the pictures out on the table and just let himself look, not thinking.

Tried to, at least. The thoughts came anyway. His people. Maybe they should take over this dirt planet and these dirt people. Then see how well the dirt kids fit in. See them trying to run like bears.

The picture he held crinkled at the edges, he was gripping it so hard. "I'm sorry," he gasped, dropping it. As soon as he let go, the picture flattened out. "What are these made of?"

Jillie shrugged. "Beats me," she said. "Nothing from Earth."

"Can I have one?"

She looked hesitant for a moment, then shook her head. "I don't think that's a good idea. What if your parents found it?"

Flynn spread the pictures out on the table and studied them harder than he'd ever studied for school. They made him feel a little queasy, but he wanted to memorize them, soak up the lavender sky, and the way the people sat and stood and smiled. He could tell that they liked the way they looked.

Jillie's fingers entered his field of vision, scooting the pictures into a pile. "I'd better put them away now."

Flynn followed her downstairs, into her mother's bedroom, dark and cool. "On our planet," she said, "the houses are sunk underground, to protect us from the heat."

She said our planet so easily that Flynn felt a hot surge of jealousy. He looked around, his eyes adjusting immediately to the gloom. The room looked much like his own parents' bedroom, with thick drapes hanging over the windows. Jillie put the pictures in one of the dresser drawers, way to the back and underneath the clothes.

Then she closed the drawer and turned back to face him, in a powerful, fluid motion. Flynn realized he was alone with a girl of his own species, for the first time. There wasn't enough air in the room.

Jillie backed up a step. And stopped. One of her hands raised just a fraction, reaching toward him, and dropped again. "We'd better go upstairs," she said. "My mom wouldn't like it if --"

Then she turned and ran up the stairs before Flynn could do more than taste the idea of if.

Flynn paused for one second, then pulled the drawer open and fished through silky underwear for an alien picture. He couldn't tell which one he got, didn't dare turn the light on to see. He shut the drawer as quickly as he could without making a noise and went upstairs, with the photograph tucked into his shirt.

Jillie squinted at him as he came into the kitchen. "What took you so long?"

Flynn knew from frequent and painful experience that he was not a good liar, so he said nothing, just looked at the floor, fighting an urge to scratch at the crinkly place where the picture touched his skin.

"Listen," said Jillie. "You'd better go pretty soon. My mom gets off work pretty early."

He nodded, although the idea of meeting the big, smiling woman wasn't at all frightening-- until he thought of pawing through her drawer, messing it up, and stealing one of her secret pictures. Then his throat dried up. He went to the table and gulped down the pop that he hadn't been able to drink earlier.

"I've got to go," he said. Surely Jillie could see the outline of the picture through his shirt. "See you at school." It seemed like a lame thing to say to someone who had just revealed that you were an alien, but he couldn't think of anything better, so he left.

When his mother gave him his medicine the next morning, Flynn tucked it into his cheek, next to his gums, and drank the glass of water. Later, he spit the slimy, partially dissolved pills into the toilet, gagging at the taste. The familiar, unwelcome wooziness began, but it wasn't as bad, maybe, as usual.

He was right. By the time he spotted Jillie in the lunchroom, highly visible amongst the slim Earth kids -- dirt kids, he reminded himself he felt normal. Or as normal as anyone who wasn't on his own planet ever did. The idea that he was an alien-- no, that the people who lived on Earth were aliens -- was intoxicating. He returned the arc of Jillie's wave with a wilder, more exuberant arc of his own. Kids ducked on either side of him.

"Hello," he said, as he approached her table. Did she know about the picture? His face flared up, he could tell, but that was probably normal. Everyone in a wide circle around them was giggling, staring or whispering. "Flynn's got a girlfriend," he heard someone say. "And she's one big mama," said someone else.

Jillie casually clenched one big fist and the whispers and giggles -- if not the looks -- subsided.

"Hi," she said. "How are you?"

"Okay."

"You didn't have to take --" her voice trailed off.

Flynn lowered his. "I spit it out," he murmured.

She gave him a nod. "Good."

After that, there was a considerable silence while they both pretended to eat the cooks' idea of beef nachos. Then the lunch period was over, and Flynn had to go to his fifth period class. It was like being on a double dose of medicine: his thoughts were so jumbled up, orbiting the ideas Jillie had given him the day before -- and Jillie herself.

They had lunch together every day that week, gradually falling into a rhythm of conversation, sometimes teasing, sometimes cryptically serious, discussing themselves and their world in such a way that no one but them could have known. The few kids who hung around long enough to catch part of it just shook their heads and rolled their eyes and walked away, apparently even more convinced that they were both weird.

And maybe, from an Earth perspective, they were. Flynn caught himself breaking out into wide grins at odd times during the days: whenever he did something different from one of the other students, like holding his pencil between two fingers instead of three. He could just imagine telling Miss Rogers, who had worn herself out trying to instill a proper pencil grip when he was in first grade, "But this is the way we do things on my planet." He felt wickedly, secretly good.

Except when he thought about the stolen picture.

It was tucked into the toe of one of his dress shoes, which he never wore, in the back of his closet. And it was the worst of all possible pictures to have taken. Somehow, in the darkness, his fingers had snatched the picture of Jillie's more, the one that she would be certain to miss the next time she flipped through the pictures.

And then what would she do?

In all his thinking, he couldn't think up an answer to that question. She wouldn't accuse Jillie of taking it, because she thought Jillie didn't know. What would she do? He couldn't ask Jillie himself, because she would know immediately that he was the culprit. What would she do?

She would pull Jillie out of school and leave town with no forwarding address, running again. She would pull Jillie out of school and out of his life and maybe Jillie was a figment of medicine dreams and he wasn't an alien --

But no, because the very afternoon Jillie didn't show up for lunch and he got sent to the principal's office for pounding his fist on his desktop in fifth period, he asked the secretary if Jillie was in school. She looked at him uncomfortably, lowering her voice, as if this were something she wasn't supposed to tell him but she couldn't help doing so, "Jillie's mother withdrew her from school this morning."

"Where did they go?" he asked, leaning close in to her, his voice an echo of her low whisper. "Where did they say they were going to go?"

"They didn't say." The secretary was leaning back in her chair, her face pale, and Flynn realized he was clenching and unclenching his giant, alien fist almost in her face.

"I'm sorry," he said, "I didn't mean to -- I just wanted to know where they went."

She patted his arm gingerly. "That's okay," she said. "It's hard when a friend moves away."

Hard wasn't the word. Hard meant nothing. Hard was like marshmallow compared to Jillie leaving. Hard was jelly, whipped cream, slimy rotten cucumbers next to losing her and the secret conversations of a shared evolution.

The only thing that made it possible to stay alive...and let the skinny, scrawny dirt-kids live...and not scream his knowledge at his traitorous parents, was running. Flynn ran everywhere, his muscular legs swinging. "Beat that, Jillie," he would shout, smearing sweat from his face, not caring who heard, hoping she would.

And then the letter came. Addressed to Flynn, but his mother opened it. "Who is this from?" she asked, holding it out to him when he ran home from school one day.

Flynn just read, his running muscles cramping with sudden stillness. The sweat from exercise was mixed with fresh, cold sweat. It was a dumb letter, a very smart letter. Dear Flynn, how's it hanging? Having a terrible time -- wish you were here. No, wish we both weren't. Ha ha. Next time, don't take so many Pictures. Your friend, Jay

He just stood there, reading it over and over. "Who is it from?" demanded his mother.

He was still not a good liar, but he made himself be. "Probably just a joke," he said. "The kids at school pick on me all the time."

His mother nodded. "I thought it might be something like that." She turned to go downstairs. No I'm sorry they pick on you, kiddo. Things will get better. Maybe mothers from his planet were different from Earth mothers. Maybe they didn't care about their kids, whether or not they were hurt or miserable or-- no, that couldn't be. He thought of the picture of the smiling woman, hidden in his closet. It wasn't all mothers. Just his.

Later, after allowing himself one peek at the picture, he tucked the letter into the toe of the other shoe. He'd studied it for clues, all the while knowing they wouldn't be there. If there was something Flynn could figure out, then so could his parents, and maybe they were the ones that Jillie's more was running away from.

That night, as he lay in bed, he tossed thoughts around in his head. Most of them dropped to the floor of his mind and cracked like rotten eggs. Maybe he could call the FBI or NASA or someone and tell them there were aliens on Earth and he was one of them. Wrong. If anyone found out about him, he'd be stuck in the hospital and tested and maybe even dissected. Maybe he could run away and find Jillie and her more. Fool. In which direction? Sure they were big, but not that big. Maybe he could confront his parents and -- His head wouldn't even let him finish that one.

He fell asleep with no solutions, his mind cluttered up with the shells of broken ideas. But in his closet, in his shoes, there was the picture of a smiling woman on another planet and there was the letter from her alien daughter. He had the image of Jillie's wicked grin in his head, an image that would never crinkle or tear, and he had himself, living proof of a species that could handle more Gs than Earth could ever put out. He knew who he was and where he was from and that there was at least one other person like him.

Which was a whole lot better than before.

~~~~~~~~

By Laurel Winter

MR. GOOBER'S SHOW

Howard Waldrop is one of the best short-story writers we've got. Stories like "Night of the Cooters," 'The Ugly Chickens," and "Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?" have shown that Mr. Waldrop's imagination and talents are singular and astonishing. Unfortunately, his stories seem to have side effects. Consider: he had a story in the last issue of Galaxy magazine. He had one in Shayol's last issue. He had one in the never-published last New Dimensions anthology and we've yet to see another Amazing or New Worlds since Mr. Waldrop's work appeared therein. So when Omni Online ceased publication shortly after they posted this story, we hastened to reprint it...in part hoping to lift the curse, but mostly because we feared you'd miss this moving tale.

YOU KNOW HOW IT IS:

There's a bar on the comer, where hardly anybody knows your name, and you like it that way. Live bands play there two or three nights a week. Before they start up it's nice, and on the nights they don't play --there's a good jukebox, the big TV's on low on ESPN all the time. At his prices, the owner should be a millionaire, but he's given his friends so many free drinks they've forgotten they should pay for more than every third or fourth one. Not that you know the owner, but you've watched.

You go there when your life's good, you go there when your life's bads mostly you go there instead of having a good or bad life.

And one night, fairly crowded, you're on the stools so the couples and the happy people can have the booths and tables. Someone's put $12 in the jukebox land they have some taste), the TV's on the Australian ThumbWrestling Finals, the neon beer signs are on, and the place looks like the inside of the Ferris Wheel on opening night at the state fair.

You start talking to the guy next to you, early fifties, your age, and you get off on TV (you can talk to any American, except a Pentecostal, about television) and you're talking the classic stuff: the last Newhart episode; Northern Exposure; the episode where Lucy stomps the grapes; the coast-to-coast bigmouth Dick Van Dyke; Howdy-Doody (every eightyear-old boy in America had a Jones for Princess Summer-Fall WinterSpring).

And the guy, whose name you know is Eldon (maybe he told you, maybe you were born knowing it) starts asking you about some sci-fi show from the early '50s, maybe you didn't get it, maybe it was only on local upstate New York, sort of, it sounds like, a travelog, like the old Seven League Boots, only about space, stars and such, planets...

"Well, no," you say, "there was Tom Corbett, Space Cadet; Space Patrol; Captain Video" -- which you never got but knew about -- "Rod Brown of the Rocket Rangers; Captain Midnight (or Jet Jackson, Flying Commando, depending on whether you saw it before or after Ovaltine quit sponsoring it, and in reruns people's lips flapped after saying 'Captain Midnight' but what came out was 'Jet Jackson'...); or maybe one of the anthology shows, Twilight Zone or Tales of ....

"No." he says, "not them. See, there was this TV..."

"Oh," you say, "a TV. Well, the only one I know of was this one where a guy at a grocery store (one season) invents this TV that contacts..."

"No," he says, looking at you (Gee, this guy can be intense!). "I don't mean Johnny Jupiter, which is what you were going to say. Jimmy Duckweather invents TV. Contacts Jupiter, which is inhabited by puppets when they're inside the TV, and by guys in robot suits when they come down to Earth, and almost cause Duckweather to lose his job and not get a date with the boss's daughter, episode after episode, two seasons."

"Maybe you mean Red Planet Mars, a movie. Peter Graves --"

"...Andrea King, guy invents hydrogen tube; Nazis; Commies; Eisenhower president. Jesus speaks from Mars."

"Well, The Twonky. Horrible movie, about a TV from the future?"

"Hans Conreid. Nah, that's not it."

And so it goes. The conversation turns to other stuff (you're not the one with The Answer) and mostly it's conversation you forget because, if all the crap we carry around in our heads were real, and it was flushed, the continents would drown, and you forget it, and mostly get drunk and a little maudlin, slightly depressed and mildly horny, and eventually you go home.

But it doesn't matter, because this isn't your story, it's Eldon's.

When he was eight years old, city.kid Eldon and his seven-year-old sister Irene were sent off for two weeks in the summer of 1953, to Aunt Joanie's house in upstate New York while, not known to them, their mother had a hysterectomy.

Aunt Joanie was not their favorite aunt; that was Aunt Nonie, who would as soon whip out a Monopoly board, or Game of Life, or checkers as look at you, and always took them off on picnics or fishing or whatever it was she thought they'd like to do. But Aunt Nonie (their Moro's youngest sister) was off in Egypt on a cruise she'd won in a slogan contest for pitted dates, so it fell to Aunt Joanie, (their Father's oldest sister) to keep them the two weeks.

Their father' s side of the family wasn't the fun one. If an adult unbent toward a child a little, some other family member would be around to remind them they were just children. Their cousins on that side of the family (not that Aunt Joanie or Uncle Arthridge had any kids) were like mice; they had to take off their shoes and put on house slippers when they got home from school; they could never go in to the family room; they had to be in bed by 8:30 P.M., even when the sun was still up in the summer.

Uncle Arthridge was off in California, so it was just them and Aunt Joanie, who, through no fault of her own, looked just like the Queen in Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, which they had seen with Aunt Nonie the summer before.

They arrived by train, white tags stuck to them like turkeys in a raffle, and a porter had made sure they were comfortable. When Irene had been upset, realizing she would be away from home, and was going to be at Aunt Joanie' s for two weeks, and had begun to sniffle, Eldon held her hand. He was still at the age where he could hold his sister' s hand against the world and think nothing of it.

Aunt Joanie was waiting for them in the depot on the platform, and handed the porter a $1 tip, which made him smile.

And then Aunt Joanie drove them, allowing them to sit in the front seat of her Plymouth, to her house, and there they were.

At first, he thought it might be a radio.

It was up on legs, the bottom of them looking like eagle claws holding a wooden ball. It wasn't a sewing machine cabinet, or a table. It might be a liquor cabinet, but there wasn't a keyhole.

It was the second day at Aunt Joanie's and he was already cranky. Irene had had a crying jag the night before and their aunt had given them some ice cream.

He was exploring. He already knew every room; there was a basement and an attic. The real radio was in the front room; this was in the sitting room at the back.

One of the reasons they hadn't wanted to come to Aunt Joanie's was that she had no television, like their downstairs neighbors, the Stevenses, did back in the city. They'd spent the first part of summer vacation downstairs in front of it, every chance they got. Two weeks at Aunt Nonie's without television would have been great, because she wouldn't have given them time to think, and would have them exhausted by bedtime anyway.

But two weeks at Aunt Joanie's and Uncle Arthridge's without television was going to be murder. She had let them listen to radio, but not the scary shows, or anything good. And Johnny Dollar and Suspense weren't on out here, she was sure.

So he was looking at the cabinet in the sitting room. It had the eagleclaw legs. It was about three feet wide, and the part that was solid started a foot and a half off the floor. There was two feet of cabinet above that. At the back was a rounded part, with air holes in it, like a Lincoln Continental spare tire holder. He ran his hand over it -- it was made out of that same stuff as the backs of radios and televisions.

There were two little knobs on the front of the cabinet though he couldn't see a door. He pulled on them. Then he turned and pulled on them.

They opened, revealing three or four other knobs, and a metal toggle switch down at the right front corner. They didn't look like radio controls. It didn't look like a television either. There was no screen.

There was no big lightning-bolt moving dial like on their radio at home in the city.

Then he noticed a double-line of wood across the top front of it, like on the old ice-box at his grandfather's. He pushed on it from the floor. Something gave, but he couldn't make it go farther.

Eldon pulled a stool up to the front of it.

"What are you doing?" asked Irene.

"This must be another radio," he said. "This part lifts up."

He climbed atop the stool. He had a hard time getting his fingers under the ridge. He pushed.

The whole top of the thing lifted up a few inches. He could see glass. Then it was too heavy. He lifted at it again after it dropped down, and this time it came up halfway open.

There was glass on the under-lid. It was a mirror. He saw the reflection of part of the room. Something else moved below the mirror, inside the cabinet.

"Aunt Joanie's coming!" said Irene,

He dropped the lid and pushed the stool away and closed the doors.

"What are you two little cautions doing?" asked Aunt Joanie from the other room.

THE NEXT MORNING, when Aunt Joanie went to the store on the comer, he opened the top while Irene watched.

The inner lid was a mirror that stopped halfway up, at an angle. Once he got it to a certain point, it clicked into place. There was a noise from inside and another click.

He looked down into it. There was a big dark glass screen.

"It's a television!" he said.

"Can we get Howdy-Doody?"

"I don't know," he said.

"You better ask Aunt Joanie, or you'll get in trouble."

He clicked the toggle switch. Nothing happened.

"It doesn't work," he said.

"Maybe it's not plugged in," said Irene.

Eldon lay down on the bare floor at the edge of the area rug, saw the prongs of a big electric plug sticking out underneath. He pulled on it. The cord uncoiled from behind. He looked around for the outlet. The nearest one was on the far wall.

"What are you two doing?" asked Aunt Joanie, stepping into the room with a small grocery bag in her arms.

"Is...is this a television set?" asked Eldon.

"Can we get Howdy-Doody?" asked Irene.

Aunt Joanie put down the sack. "It is a television. But it won't work anymore. There's no need to plug it in. It's an old-style one, from before the war. They don't work like that anymore. Your uncle Arthridge and I bought it in 1938. There were no broadcasts out here then, but we thought there would be soon."

As she was saying this, she stepped forward, took the cord from Eldon's hands, rewound it and placed it behind the cabinet again.

"Then came the War, and everything changed. These kind won't work anymore. So we shan't be playing with it, shall we? It's probably dangerous by now."

"Can't we try it, just once?" said Eldon.

"I do not think so," said Aunt Joanie. "Please put it out of your mind. Go wash up now, we'll have lunch soon."

Three days before they left, they found themselves alone in the house again, in the early evening. It had mined that afternoon, and was cool for summer.

Irene heard scraping in the sitting room. She went there and found Eldon pushing the television cabinet down the bare part of the floor toward the electrical outlet on the far wall.

He plugged it in. Irene sat down in front of it, made herself comfortable. "You're going to get in trouble," she said. "What if it explodes?"

He opened the lid. They saw the reflection of the television screen in it from the end of the couch.

He flipped the toggle. Something hummed, there was a glow in the back, and they heard something spinning. Eldon put his hand near the round part and felt pulses of air, like from a weak fan. He could see lights through the holes in the cabinet, and something was moving.

He twisted a small knob, and light sprang up in the picture-tube part, enlarged and reflected in the mirror on the lid. Lines of bright static moved up the screen and disappeared in a repeating pattern.

He turned another knob, the larger one, and the bright went dark and then bright again.

Then a picture came in.

They watched those last three days, every time Aunt Joanie left; afraid at first, watching only a few minutes, then turning it off, unplugging it, and closing it up and pushing it back into its place, careful not to scratch the floor.

Then they watched more, and more, and there was an excitement each time they went through the ritual, a tense expectation.

Since no sound came in, what they saw they referred to as "Mr. Goober's Show," from his shape, and his motions, and what went on around him. He was on anytime they turned the TV on.

They left Aunt Joanie's reluctantly. She had never caught them watching it. They took the train home.

Eldon was in a kind of anxiety. He talked to all his friends, who knew nothing about anything like that, and some of them had been as far away as San Francisco during the summer. The only person he could talk to about it was his little sister, Irene.

He did not know what the jumpiness in him was.

They rushed into Aunt Joanie's house the first time they visited at Christmas, and ran to the sitting room.

The wall was blank.

They looked at at each other, then ran back into the living room.

"Aunt Joanie!" said Eldon, interrupting her, Uncle Artbridge and his father. "Aunt Joanie, where's the television?"

"Television...? Oh, that thing. I sold it to a used furniture man end of the summer. He bought it for the cabinetry, he said, to make an aquarium out of it. I suppose he sold the insides for

They grew up, talking to each other, late at nights, seen. When their family got TV, they spent their time trying

Then high school, then college, the '60s. Eldon went m Nam, back about the same.

Irene got a job in television, and sent him letters, while he taught bookkeeping at a junior college.

Dear Bro' --

I ran down what kind of set Aunt Joanie had.

It was a mechanical television, with a Nipkov disk scanner. It was a model made between 1927 and 1929.

Mechanical: yes. You light a person, place, thing, very very brightly. On one side of the studio are photoelectric cells that turn light to current. Between the subject and the cells, you drop in a disk that spins 300 times a minute. Starting at the edge of the disk, and spiraling inward all the way around to the center are holes. You have a slitscan shutter. As the light leaves the subject it's broken into a series of lines by the holes passing across the slit. The photoelectric cells pick up the pulses of light. (An orthicon tube does exactly the same thing, except electronically, in a camera, and your modern TV is just a big orthicon tube on the other end.) Since it was a mechanical signal, your disk in the cabinet at home had to spin at exactly the same rate. So they had to send out a regulating signal at the same time.

Not swell, not good definition, but workable.

But Aunt Joanie (rest her soul) was right - nothing in 1953 was broadcasting that it could receive, because all early pre-war televisions were made with the picture-portion going out on FM and the sound going out on short-wave (so her set had receivers for both) and neither of them are where TVis now on the wavelengths (where they've been since 1946).

Mr. Goober could not have come from an FCC licensed broadcaster in 1953. I'll check Canada and Mexico, but I'm pretty sure everything was moved off those bands by then, even experimental stations. Since we never got sound, either there was none, or maybe it was coming in with the picture (like now) and her set couldn't separate four pieces of information (one-half each of two signals, which is why we use FM for TV).

It shouldn't have happened, I don't think. There are weird stories (the ghost signals of a Midwest station people saw the test patterns of more than a year after they quit broadcasting; the famous 2.8 second delay in radio transmissions all over the world on shortwave in 1927 and early 1928).

Am going to the NAB meeting in three weeks. Will talk to everybody there, especially the old guys, and find out if any of them knows about Mr. Goober's Show. Stay sweet.

Your sis,
Irene

Eldon began the search on his own; at parties, at bars, at ball games. During the next few years, he wrote his sister with bits of fugitive matter he'd picked up. And he got quite a specialized knowledge of local TV shows, kid's show clowns, Shock Theater hosts, and eclectic local programming of the early 1950% throughout these United States.

Dear Eldon --

Sorry it took so long to get this letter off to you, but I've been busy at work, and helping with the Fund Drive, and I also think I'm onto something. I've just run across stuff that indicates there was some kind of medical outfit that used radio in the late '40s and early '50s.

Hope you can come home for Christmas this time. Mom's getting along in years, you know. I know you had your troubles with her (I'm the one to talk) but she really misses you. As Bill Cosby says, she's an old person trying to get into Heaven now. She's trying to be good the second thirty years of her life...

Will write you again as soon as I find out more about these quacks.

Dear Big Brother:

Well, it's depressing here. The lead I had turned out to be a bust, and I could just about cry, since I thought this might be it, since they broadcast on both shortwave and FM (like Aunt Joanie's set received) but this probably wasn't it, either.

It was called Drown Radio Therapy (there's something poetic about the name, but not the operation). It was named for Dr. Ruth Drown, she was a real osteopath. Sometime before the War, she and a technocrat started working with a lowpower broadcast device. By War's end, she was claiming she could treat disease at a distance, and set up a small broadcast station behind her Chicago suburb office. Patients came in, were diagnosed, and given a schedule of broadcast times they were supposed to tune in. (The broadcasts were directly to each patient, supposedly, two or three times a day.) By the late '40s, she'd also gone into TV, which is of course FM(the radio stuff being shortwave). That's where I'd hoped I'd found someone broadcasting at the same time on both bands.

But probably no go. She franchised the machines out to other doctors, mostly naturopaths and cancer quacks. It's possible that one was operating near Aunt Joanie's somewhere, but probably not, and anyway, a committee of docs investigated her stuff. What they found was that the equipment was so low-powered it could only broadcast a dozen miles (not counting random skipping, bouncing off the Heaviside layer, which it wouldn't have been able to reach). Essentially they ruled the equipment worthless.

And, the thing that got to me, there was no picture transmission on the FM (TV) portion; just the same type of random signals that went out on short-wave, on the same schedule, every day. Even if you had a rogue cancer specialist, the FCC said the stuff couldn't broadcast a visual signal, not with the technology of the time. (The engineer at the station here looked at the specs and said 'even if they had access to video orthicon tubes, the signal wouldn't have gotten across the room,' unless it was on cable, which it wasn't.)

I've gone on too long. It's not it.

Sorry to disappoint you (again). But I'm still going through back files of Variety and BNJ and everything put out by the networks in those years. And, maybe a motherlode, a friend's got a friend who knows where all the Dumont records (except Gleason's) are stored.

We'll find out yet, brother. I've heard stories of people waiting twenty, thirty, forty years to clear things like this up. There was a guy who kept insisting he'd read a serialized novel in a newspaper, about the fall of civilization, in the early 1920s. Pre-bomb, pre-almost everything. He was only a kid when he read it. Ten years ago he mentioned it to someone who had a friend who recognized it, not from a newspaper, but as a book called Darkness and the Dawn. It was in three parts, and serial rights were sold, on the first part only, to, like newspapers in the whole U.S. And the man, now in his sixties, had read it in one of them.

Things like that do happen, kiddo.

Write me when you can.

El --

I'm ready to give up on this. It's running me crazy - not

crazy, but to distraction, if I had anything else to be

distracted from.

I can't see any way out of this except to join the Welcome

Space Brothers Club, which I refuse to do.

That would be the easy way out, give up, go over to the Cheesy Side of the Force. You and me saw a travelog, a SeeIt-Now of the Planets, hosted by an interstellar Walter Cronkite on a Nipkov disk TV in 1953. We're the only people in the world who did. No one else.

But that's why CE3K and the others have made so many millions of dollars. People want to believe, but they want to believe for other people, not themselves. They don't want to be the ones. They want someone else to be the one. And then they want everybody to believe. But it's not their ass out there saying: the Space Brothers are here; I can't prove it, take my word for it, it's real. Believe me as a person.

I'm not that person, and neither are you; OR there has to be some other answer. One, or the other, but not both; and not neither.

I don't know what to do anymore; whatever it is, it's not this. It's quit being fun. It's quit being something I do aside from life as we know it. It is my life, and yours, and it's all I've got.

I know what Mr. Goober was trying to tell us, and there was more, but the sound was off.

I'm tired. I'll write you next week when I can call my life my own again.

Cops called from Irene's town the next week.

After the funeral, and the stay at his mother's, and the inevitable fights, with his stepfather trying to stay out of it, he came home and found one more letter, postmarked the same day as the police had called him.

Dear Eldon --

Remember this, and don't think less of me: What we saw was real.

Evidently, too real for me.

Find out what we saw.

So you'll be sitting in the bar, there'll be the low hum and thump of noise as the band sets up, and over in the comer, two people will be talking. You'll hear the word "Lucy" which could be many things -- a girlfriend, a TV show, a late President's daughter, a 4-million-year-old ape-child. Then you'll hear "M-Squad" or "Untouchables" and there'll be more talk, and you'll hear distinctly, during a noise-level drop, "...and I don't mean Johnny-fucking-Jupiter either..."

And in a few minutes he'll leave, because the band will have started, and conversation, except at the 100-decibel level, is over for the night.

But he'll be back tomorrow night. And the night after.

And all the star-filled nights that follow that one.

~~~~~~~~

By Howard Waldrop