In 1981, when I was fourteen, I started reading a magazine filled with wondrous stories. From my youth, I remember stories about time-viewing, werewinds, murder mysteries in space, a gunslinger's adventures across a ravaged landscape, and funny stories about a wizard whose princess wife could only make frog noises.

In 1997, I started editing the magazine that published these stories. Now the magazine's turning sixty and I realize I've been calling the shots for one fifth of F&SF's amazing history.

I've always welcomed feedback on the issues I've edited, and back in the nineties, a kid named Scott Thomas used to tell me which stories he liked. Ron Goulart's work went over well with him, I recall. These days, when he's between acting gigs, Scott's working on our staff ... and he still loves to tell me which stories he likes best. The difference is that he's doing it with submissions and not our final product.

In 2024, when F&SF turns seventy-five, I hope we'll have staffers who look back on these late-oughts issues with great fondness as they too find it amazing to realize what a wonderful enterprise they're part of.

But who knows what the future holds? The one thing of which I feel certain is that in ten, fifteen, fifty, five hundred years, people will be telling each other fantastic tales and marvelous speculations. My fondest hope is that F&SF will be running stories to rival the best that we have published in our first sixty years ... but after having recently assembled an anthology of our best stories, I know what a tall order that is.

Speaking of our bestest stories, the results of our poll from the March issue were not surprising: our number one most popular story remains “Flowers for Algernon.” Take a bow, Mr. Keyes. Other vote-getters in the sparse balloting included Cordwainer Smith's “Alpha Ralpha Boulevard,” Zenna Henderson's “Ararat,” Manly Wade Wellman's “On the Hills and Everywhere,” and Archibald MacLeish's poem “Epistle to Be Left in the Earth.” I attribute the lack of votes to the fact that the only mention of this poll came at the end of an editorial.

Bob Silverberg has contributed some of our best stories over the years, and when he submitted his story for this issue, he sent a note marveling at the passage of time since he encountered our first issue. I realized that readers might find his comments interesting ... then I invited the other contributors to comment on their first memories of F&SF. The story header notes in this issue share lots of memories about this sixty-year-young magazine.

I'd personally like to thank everyone who has participated in F&SF over the last six decades—Tony and Mick, Bob Mills, Avram, Kris, the Fermans, JJA, Robin, Nina, Kathy, Jerry, thousands of contributors and staffers, and most of all, our many readers. Whether you've been with us since issue #1 or if you just discovered us, you make the magazine what it is and your input will help lift us to new heights in the years ahead.

The copyright credit for Harlan Ellison's introduction to “Snowfall” was omitted from our Aug./Sept. 2009 issue. The copyright line should read: Copyright © 2009 by The Kilimanjaro Corp. All rights reserved.

I can't remember the first issue of F&SF that I read—as a kid, I'd find copies at the library or at other people's houses, and when I was older and living in D.C., I'd pick it up at the late, lamented Moonstone Bookcellars. In my late teens/early 20s, I got my first real job, at the National Air & Space Museum. The first couple of paychecks went towards apartment, rent, utilities, etc., but after a few weeks I realized I had some discretionary income. So I got a subscription to F&SF—the first magazine I ever subscribed to on my own. I wanted to be a writer, and F&SF was the place where I most wanted to be published. Over the years I got several rejection letters from Ed Ferman (for some reason I kept these in the freezer), and I can still recall the thrill when he first sent me a personal rejection letter. The magazine was always my gold standard for short fiction. It still is.—Elizabeth Hand

In dreams he fell: from planes, trees, roofs, cliffs, bridges. Whatever awaited him below, the impact was the same. His right leg buckled and a bolt of pain flared from ankle to knee, so that even after decades he woke with his old injury throbbing, bathed in sweat and hands outstretched to restore his balance. The pain subsided as the hours passed. Still, he no longer stood in the studio while his students practiced their moves, épaulement croisé, balloté, rise, ciseaux, but sat in a plain, straight-backed wooden chair, marking time with an elegant silver-topped cane.

When he received notice that he was to be replaced by someone younger, he reacted with the same calm he always displayed, the classical dancer's legacy of stoicism serving him now as it had for the last three decades.

"I hope you understand.” The ballet master's face creased. “You know I don't want to do this. If something opens up, we'll find a place for you."

Philip inclined his head. “Of course."

That night he called Emma, his oldest friend.

"Oh, Philip, that's terrible!"

He shrugged, gazing out the window of his tiny studio apartment at the glass edifice that had been erected across the street. “Well, I was lucky they kept me as long as they did."

"What will you do?"

"I have no fucking idea."

She laughed, and he felt better. They spoke for a good hour, gossip mostly about dancers he knew and Emma had never heard of. Then, “Why don't you come stay here at the camp while we're gone?” she suggested. “Not for the winter—a few weeks, or a month, however long you want. We'll have Joe Moody close up when you leave."

"Just like The Shining,” said Philip. “What a great idea."

"It won't be like that in early November. Well, okay, it might snow. But then you just call Joe and he'll come plow you out. I think it would be good for you, Philip,” she added. “I mean, being alone here might be better than feeling alone there. I think you just need to get away from the city for a few weeks. See if you can clear your head of all this. You know?"

He knew.

"Sure, what the hell.” He heard Emma's sigh of relief.

He called a few friends to say good-bye, arranged for someone to watch his place, and several days later left in his rent-a-wreck. It was after midnight when he reached the camp. He missed the turnoff twice, its sign so overgrown with lichen and old-man's-beard that he'd mistaken it for a dead tree limb in the dark.

An hour earlier, the highway had dwindled to a track guarded by ghostly armies of oak and tamaracks. All the landmarks he'd loved as a boy had disappeared. Where was the ancient ice cream stand shaped like an Abenaki longhouse? And Lambert's Gun Emporium? Where was the general store where he and Emma had made forbidden trips to buy fresh doughnuts, inevitably betrayed by the smells of lard and burnt sugar that clung to them when they returned to their cabin?

"Christ, Philip, those are long gone,” said Emma when she greeted him in front of the lodge. “The general store burned down in the eighties. Chimney fire. Bob Lambert sold his place, he died a while back. I don't remember what happened to the teepee."

They'd met at Tuonela decades ago, bonding over a shared love of The Red Shoes and cheesy Mexican horror movies. They passed most of their childhood summers there, first as campers, then counselors-in-training, before Philip defected to a dance camp in New York State, and finally to the School of American Ballet. Emma eventually parlayed her love for the place into an actual romance, marrying Sam, a fellow counselor, at a lakeside ceremony twenty-odd years before. Philip had been her best man. He stood beside the pastor of the old Finnish Church who performed the ceremony, surprised to learn that the name Tuonela was Finnish, not Abenaki in origin, though no one seemed to know what the word meant. Shortly afterward, Emma and Sam bought the camp, and raised their two daughters there.

But the last few years had been tough.

"Parents want high-tech camps now,” she told Philip as they carried his bags inside. “Wi-fi, all that. We don't even have a cell tower around here. This year our enrollment dropped to about half what it was last year. We could barely make payroll. So we figured this was a good time to do what all real Mainers do in the winter."

"Which is...?"

She laughed. “Go to Florida."

Their girls were in college now, so Emma and Sam would be housesitting for friends in Key West, a midlife second honeymoon. Philip hadn't visited Tuonela, or anyplace else, in ages. He'd spent his entire adult life in the New York City Ballet, first as an apprentice, then a member of the corps de ballet, and finally as an instructor. He'd been like the other boys, at once necessary and interchangeable: a rat in “The Nutcracker"; one of the debauched revelers in “The Prodigal Son"; a huntsman in Balanchine's one-act “Swan Lake.” He'd passed hours watching Edward Villela and Jacques D'Amboise with mingled admiration and wonder, but—almost unheard of for a dancer—with very little envy. He knew how fortunate he was to pace the same darkened hallways as they had, sleepwalking into class before nine a.m., then burning through rehearsal and performance, often not departing the cavernous theater until almost midnight.

But he also knew he would never be a soloist, or even a fine second-rank dancer. He dreamed of the lead in “Square Dance.” He'd have happily settled for a side part in “Concerto Baroco.” Instead, there'd been a dozen years as a dancing rat.

"You're a foot soldier,” a former lover told him once. “A foot soldier of the arts. Canon fodder!” he added with a laugh. “Get it?"

Philip wryly admitted that he did.

Not that it mattered to him; not much, anyway. He adored being part of the corps, its discipline and competitive fellowship, the perverse haven of a routine that often felt like a calculus of pain. He loved the fleeting nature of dance itself—of all the arts the one that left almost no permanent mark upon the world, even as it casually disfigured its adherents with deformed feet, eating disorders, careers like mayflies. Most of all, he loved those moments during a performance when he could feel himself suspended within an ephemeral web of music and movement, gravity momentarily defeated by the ingrained memory of muscle and bone.

It all ended suddenly. When he was twenty-eight ("that's ninety in dance years,” he told Emma) Philip shattered his metatarsal during a rehearsal. His foot turned in as he landed from a jump; he hit the floor, crying out in anguish as his leg twisted beneath him. The other dancers rushed over with icepacks and pillows, and arranged transport to NYU Hospital. He spent weeks in a haze of painkillers, his leg in a cast. Months of physical rehab followed, but ever after he walked with a slight limp.

Still, he'd always been popular within the corps, and the ballet masters and rehearsal teachers liked him. At twenty-nine he found himself teaching the company. His former colleagues were now living eidolons of youth, beauty, health, joy, desire flitting past him in the studio, lovely and remote as figures from a medieval allegory. What he felt then was less envy than a terrible, physical ache, as for a lover who'd died. He could still be transported by watching a good performance, the smells of adrenaline and sweat that seeped backstage.

But his ecstatic dreams of flight became recurring nightmares of falling.

Sam had already driven down to the Keys. Emma's flight left on Sunday, which gave her most of the weekend to show Philip how to work the composting toilet, emergency generator, kerosene lamps, hand pump, outboard motor, woodstove. Philip knew the camp's layout as though it were the musculature of a familiar body: the old Adirondack-style lodge overlooking the lake; the campers’ log cabins tucked into the surrounding forest, moss-covered roofs and bark exteriors nearly invisible among birch groves and bracken. In the middle of summer, filled with damp children and smelling of sunblock and balsam, it was heartstoppingly lovely.

Now, with only him and Emma kicking through drifts of brown leaves, it all seemed cheerless and slightly sinister. Two miles of gravel road separated the camp from the blue highway that led to an intersection with a convenience store that sold gas, lottery tickets, beer, and not much else. The nearest town was twenty miles away.

"What happens if I cut my hand off with a chainsaw?” Philip asked.

"Well, you'll be better off treating yourself than calling 911. It could take them an hour to get here. That's if the roads are clear."

They spent one morning on a nostalgic circuit of the old camp road, Philip replacing his silver-topped cane with the sturdy walking sick Emma gave him. They were back at the lodge by lunchtime. A stone's-throw from its front steps stretched Lake Tuonela, a cerulean crescent that could, in seconds, turn into frigid, steel-colored chop powerful enough to swamp a Boston Whaler. This time of year there were few boaters on the water: an occasional canoe or kayak, hunters making a foray from a hunting camp. The opposite shore was a nature preserve, or maybe it belonged to a private landowner—Philip had never gotten the details straight. He dimly recalled some ghost story told around the campfire, about early Finnish settlers who claimed the far shore was haunted or cursed.

More likely it was just wildly unsuitable for farming. Philip only knew it formed some kind of no-man's-land. In all his years visiting Lake Tuonela, he'd never set foot there.

Not that he was tempted to. A mile of icy water lay between the camp and the far shore, and his bad foot kept him from anything resembling a strenuous hike.

"Whenever you go outside, make sure you wear an orange jacket. Even if you're just walking out to the car,” Emma warned him as they headed back inside. “Waterfowl season now, then deer season. The camp is posted, but we still hear gunshots way too close. Here—"

She pointed to a half-dozen blaze orange vests hanging beside the door. “Take your pick. You can have your pick of bedrooms, too.” she added. “If you get bored, move to a different room. Like the Mad Tea Party. Just strip the bed and fold the sheets on top, we'll deal with laundry when we come back in March."

He chose his usual room on the main floor, with French doors that opened onto the porch overlooking the lake, though he wondered vaguely why he didn't simply camp in the living room. The lodge had been built over a century ago with hand-hewn logs and slate floor, a flagstone fireplace so massive Philip could have slept inside it. The place had most of the original furnishings, along with the original windows and concomitant lack of insulation, which meant one was warm only within a six-foot radius of the woodstove or fireplace.

Sunday morning Emma gave him final instructions regarding frozen pipes, power outages, wildlife safety. “If you meet a moose, run. If you meet a bear, don't."

"What about a mountain lion?"

"Hit him with a rock."

And that was it. In the afternoon he drove Emma to Bangor to catch her flight. It was very late when he returned, the night sky overcast. He had to use a flashlight to find his way along the leaf-covered path. Branches scraped against each other, the wind rustled in dead burdock. He could hear but not see the water a few yards off, waves slapping softly against the shore, and the distant murmur of wild geese disturbed by the sound of the car.

He slept that night with the outside light on, an extravagance Emma would have deplored.

The camp was less remote than he'd feared. Or, rather, he could choose how isolated he wanted to be. He had to drive thirty minutes to a grocery store, but its shelves held mostly familiar products. If he wanted company, there was a bean supper every Saturday at the Finnish Church, though Emma had advised him to get there early, before they sold out of plates. There was no wireless or DSL at Tuonela; dialup took so long that Philip soon gave up using it more than once or twice a week. Instead he devoted himself to reading, hauling in firewood, and wandering the trails around the lake.

As a boy, he'd been able to find his way in the dark from his cabin to the main road. Now he was pleased to discover that he could, at least, follow the same woodland paths in daylight, even those trails that had been neglected for the last ten or fifteen years. Stripling oaks and beeches now towered above him; grassy clearings had become dense, unrecognizable thickets of alder and black willow.

Still, some combination of luck and instinct and sense memory guided him: he rarely got lost, and never for long.

He liked to walk in the very early morning, shortly before sunrise when mist hid the world from him, the only sound a faint dripping from branches and dead leaves. After a few days, he began to experience the same strange dislocation he'd experienced when dancing: that eerie sense of being absent from his body even as he occupied it more fully than at other times. The smell of woodstove followed him from the lodge; field mice rustled in the underbrush. As the fog burned off, trees and boulders slowly materialized. Scarlet-crowned oaks atop gray ledges; white slashes of birch; winterberry peppered with bright red fruit. Gold and crimson leaves formed intricate scrollwork upon the lake's surface, and ducks and geese fed in the shallows.

That was why he went out early, before the sound of shotguns startled them into a frenzy of beating wings. The lake was a flyway for migrating waterfowl. The loons were long gone, but others had taken their place. Goldeneye and teal, pintails and ringnecks; easily spooked wood ducks that whistled plaintively as they fled; hooded mergansers with gaudy crests and wings so vividly striped they looked airbrushed. There were always noisy flotillas of Canada geese, and sometimes a solitary swan that he only glimpsed if he went out while it was still almost dark.

Even as a boy, Philip loved swans. Part of it was their association with ballet; mostly it was just how otherworldly they looked. Some mornings he set his alarm for four a.m., hoping to see the one that now and then emerged from the mist near the far shore like an apparition: silent, moving with uncanny slowness across the dark water. Alone among the other birds, it never took flight at the sound of guns, only continued its languid passage, until it was lost among thick stands of alder and cattails.

He'd been at the camp for two weeks before dawn broke cold and clear, the first cloudless day since he arrived. Vapor streamed across glassy blue water to disappear as the sun rose above the firs. Philip finished his coffee, then walked along the edge of the lake, skirting gulleys where rain had cut deep channels into the bank. A small flock of green-winged teal swam close to shore, the mask above their eyes shining emerald in the sun. It was now early November, and until today the weather had been unseasonably warm. Hundreds, even thousands, of migrating waterfowl had lingered much longer than he'd expected.

Though what did he know about birds? He only recognized those species he'd identified as a boy, or that Emma had pointed out to him over the years. Most stayed on the far side of the lake, though they must have fed elsewhere—at twilight the air rang with their piping cries and the thunderous echo of wings as they flew overhead, heading for the distant line of black firs that shadowed the desolate waters where they slept each night. The sound of their passage, the sight of all those madly beating wings against the evening sky filled him with the same wild joy he'd felt waiting backstage when the first bars of “A Midsummer Night's Dream” or “Le Baiser de Fée” insinuated themselves in the dim theater. He seldom saw birds in flight during his early morning walks—a group of six or eight, perhaps, but never the endless ranks that rippled across the evening sky like waves buffeting an unseen shore.

Now, he saw only the teal bobbing across the bright water. Above him ravens flew from tree to tree, croaking loudly at his approach. He tipped his head back to watch them, slowing his pace so he wouldn't trip. Something soft yielded beneath his foot, as though he'd stepped on thick moss. He glanced down, and with a shout stumbled backward.

On the ground a body lay curled upon its side. Naked, thin arms drawn protectively about its head. A man.

No, not a man—a boy. Seventeen or eighteen and emaciated, his skin dead-white save for bruised shadows at his groin, the deep hollow of his throat. One shoulder was spattered with blood and dirt. Lank black hair was plastered across his face. A tiny black beetle crawled into a fringe of black hair.

Philip stared at him, lightheaded. He took a deep breath, leaned on his walking stick, and reached to touch the corpse, gingerly, on the chest.

The boy moaned. Philip recoiled, watched as a pink tinge spread across the boy's broad cheekbones and hairless chest. The bluish skin in the cleft of his throat tightened then relaxed. He was alive.

Philip tore off his orange vest and covered him. He ran his hands across the boy's neck and wrists and breast, searching for a pulse, broken bones, bleeding. Except for that wounded shoulder, he could see or feel nothing wrong.

He sank back onto his heels, fighting panic. He couldn't leave him here while he ran back to the lodge—the boy looked near dead already.

And what if he'd been attacked? What if his attackers returned?

Philip ran a hand across his forehead. “Okay. Okay, listen. I'm going to help you. I'm just going to try and lift you up—"

Gently as he could, he grasped the boy's uninjured shoulder. The boy moaned again, louder this time. His eyes opened, pupils so dilated the irises showed no color. He gazed at Philip, then hissed, struggling to escape.

"Hey.” Philip's panic grew. What if the boy died, now, at his side? He stared into those huge black eyes, willing him to be calm. “Hold on, let me help you. Here, put your weight on me...."

He took the boy's hand, felt sticklike fingers vibrating beneath his own. An odd, spasmodic quivering, as though bones, not muscles or skin, responded to his touch. Abruptly the hand grew slack. Philip looked down, terrified that the boy had died.

But the boy only nodded, his strange black eyes unblinking, and let Philip help him to his feet.

They walked to the lodge. The boy moved awkwardly, the vest draped across his shoulders, and flinched at Philip's touch.

"Does it hurt?” asked Philip anxiously.

The boy said nothing. He was taller than Philip, so thin and frail his bones might have been wrapped in paper, not skin. He stepped tentatively among stones and fallen branches, muddy water puddling up around his bare feet. As they approached the lodge his eyes widened and he hissed again, from pain or alarm.

"Lie here,” Philip commanded once they were inside. He eased the boy onto the couch facing the woodstove, then hurried to get blankets. “You'll warm up in a minute."

He returned with the blankets. The boy sat, staring fixedly at the window. He was trembling.

"You must be frozen,” Philip exclaimed. The boy remained silent.

Before, Philip been struck by the leaden pallor of his skin. Now he saw that the hair on his arms and legs was also white—not sun-bleached but silvery, a bizarre contrast to the oil-black hair that fell to his shoulders, the dark hair at his groin. His eyebrows were black as well, arched above those staring eyes.

"What's your name?” asked Philip.

The boy continued to gaze at the window. After a moment he looked away. “What has happened?"

"You tell me.” Philip crossed the room to pick up the phone. “I'm going to call 911. It might take them a while to get here, so—"

"No!"

"Listen to me. You're in shock. You need help—"

"I'm not hurt."

"It doesn't look that way to me. Did you—has someone been hurting you?"

The boy gave a sharp laugh, displaying small, very white teeth. “I'm not hurt.” He had an oddly inflected voice, a faint childlike sibilance. “I'm cold."

"Oh.” Philip winced. “Right, I'm sorry. I'll get you some clothes."

He put down the phone, went to his room, and rummaged through the bureau, returning a few minutes later with a pair of faded corduroy trousers, a new flannel shirt. “Here."

The boy took them, and Philip retreated to the kitchen. He picked up the phone again, replaced it, and swore under his breath.

He was stalling, he knew that—he should call 911. He didn't know anything about this kid. Was he drunk? On drugs? The dilated pupils suggested he was, also the muted hostility in his voice. Not to mention Philip had found him stark naked by the lake in thirty-degree weather.

But who to call? 911? Police? His parents? What if he'd run away for a good reason? Would Philip truly be saving him if he rang for help? Or would this be one of those awful things you read about, where a well-meaning outsider wreaks havoc by getting involved in small-town life?

Maybe he'd just been out all night with his girlfriend, or boyfriend. Or maybe he'd been kidnapped and left for dead....

Philip angled himself so he could peer into the living room, and watched as the boy shoved aside the blankets. The bright hairs on his arms caught the sunlight and shone as though washed with rain. He pulled on the corduroy trousers, fumbled with the zipper until he got it halfway up, leaving the fly unbuttoned, then stood and clumsily put on the flannel shirt. It was too big; the pants too short, exposing knobby ankles and those long white feet.

He's beautiful, thought Philip, and his face grew hot. Clothed, the boy seemed less exotic; also younger. Philip felt a stab of desire and guilt. He stepped away from the door, counted to sixty, then loudly cleared his throat before walking into the living room.

"They fit?"

The boy stood beside the woodstove, turning his hands back and forth. After a moment he looked at Philip. The swollen black pupils made his angular face seem ominous, skull-like.

"I'm thirsty,” he said.

"I'm sorry—of course. I'll be right back—"

Philip went into the kitchen, waited as the pipes rumbled and shook, and finally produced a thin stream of water. He filled a glass and returned.

"Here...."

Cold air rushed through the open front door, sending a flurry of dead leaves across the slate.

"God damn it.” Philip set the glass down. “Hey—hey, come back!"

But the boy was gone.

Philip walked along the driveway, then retraced his steps to the water's edge. He considered taking the car to search on the main road, but decided that would be a waste of time. He trudged back to the lodge, his annoyance shading into relief and a vague, shameful disappointment.

The boy had been a diversion: from solitude, boredom, the unending threnody of Philip's own thoughts. He was already imagining himself a hero, calling 911, saving the kid from—well, whatever.

Now he felt stupid, and uneasy.

What had he been thinking, bringing a stranger inside? It was clear Philip lived alone. The boy might return to rob the place, enlist his friends to break into the cabins, lay waste to the entire camp....

He slammed the front door behind him. Angrily he grabbed the old Hudson Bay blankets and folded them, then picked up the discarded vest from beside the woodstove.

The boy had made off with his clothes, too. The pants were old, but Philip had just bought the shirt for this trip. He glared at the vest and crossed the room to hang it with the other coats. As he reached for the hook, something pricked his hand. He glanced down to see a droplet of blood welling from the fleshy part of his palm. He wiped it on his sleeve, then inspected the vest.

A twig or thorn must have gotten caught in it, or maybe a stray fish hook. He found nothing, until he turned the collar and saw a pale spur protruding from the fabric. He pinched it between his fingers and tugged it free.

It was a white feather, maybe an inch long. The tiny quill had poked through the cloth, sharp as a pin. He examined it curiously, placed it in the center of his palm, and blew.

For an instant it hung suspended in a shaft of light, like a feather trapped in amber; then drifted to the floor. It should have been easy to see, white against dark stone in the early morning sun. Philip searched for several minutes, but never found it.

The rest of that day he felt restless and guilt-wracked. He should have done something about the boy, but what? His remorse was complicated by a growing anxiety. The boy was sick, or injured, or crazy. He'd freeze out there alone in the woods.

And, too, there was the unwanted twinge of longing Philip experienced whenever he thought of him. He'd spent years keeping his own desires in check—he had no choice, with those endless ranks of beautiful creatures that surrounded him in the studio, constant reminders of his own fallibility, the inevitable decay of his limited gifts. The boy seemed a weird rebuke to all that, appearing out of nowhere to remind Philip of what it was like, not to be young, but to be in thrall to youth.

He distracted himself by splitting wood for kindling. As the afternoon wore on, skeins of geese passed overhead, not Canada geese but a species he didn't recognize, black with white wings and slate-colored necks and heads. They circled above the lodge, making a wild, high-pitched keening; then arrowed downward, so close that he could see the indigo gleam of their bills and their startlingly bright, almost baleful, golden eyes. Philip watched as they flew past, not once but three times, as though searching for a place to land.

They never did. His presence spooked them, even when he stood motionless for their final transit. They swept into the sky and across the lake, their fretful cries echoing long after they were out of sight.

Late that afternoon the wind picked up. Dead leaves rattled in oaks and beech as a cold gale blasted from the north, accompanied by an ominous ridge of cloud the color of basalt. Ice skimmed the gray water closest to shore. Another phalanx of the strange birds wheeled above the lodge, veering toward the woodpile, then soaring back into the darkening sky. Philip was relieved when a flock of quite ordinary Canada geese honked noisily overhead, followed by a ragged group of pintails. Four ravens landed in the oak beside the woodpile and hopped from branch to branch. They cocked their heads toward him, but remained silent.

That unnerved Philip more than anything else. He leaned on the ax handle and stared back, then yelled at them. The ravens stared down with yellow eyes. One clacked its bill, but they made no sign of leaving. He picked up a piece of wood and lobbed it at the tree. The birds flapped their wings and retreated to a higher branch, where they sat in a row and continued to stare at him. Philip picked up the walking stick, brandished it in a feeble show of force, then gave up. He dragged a tarp from the storage shed, covered the woodpile, and painstakingly carried in several armfuls of logs. The ravens remained on the oak tree, heads lowered so they resembled a line of somber, black-clad jurors observing him. When he had brought the last load of wood inside he closed the door, then crossed to the window to gaze out. The birds hopped sideways to huddle together, and in unison turned their heads to stare at the house.

Philip stepped back from the window, his neck and arms prickling. The ravens did not move. When it grew full dark he took a flashlight and shone it through the window.

They were there still, watching him.

He forced himself to move about the room, hoping that routine would eventually drive them from his thoughts. He turned on the radio and listened to the local news. A meteorologist predicted steady high winds all night and a chance of snow. Philip stoked the woodstove and made sure that matches and candles were near to hand. He ate early, lentil soup he'd made several days ago, then settled on the couch beside the stove and tried to read. Once he went to check if the ravens were still outside, and saw to his relief that they were finally gone.

The lodge had always seemed inviolable, with its log walls and beams, stone floor and fireplace. But tonight the windows shuddered as though someone pounded at them. The candles Philip lit for atmosphere guttered, and even in the center of the room, beside the woodstove, he could feel a draft where wind nosed through chinks in the walls and windowpanes. Occasionally the old stove huffed loudly, gray smoke billowing from its seams. Philip would cough and curse and readjust the damper, poking the coals in a vain attempt to create an illusion of heat. Between the cold and smoke and ceaseless clamor of the wind, he found it difficult and finally impossible to concentrate on his book.

"I give up,” he announced to the empty room. He blew out the candles, stuffed another log into the woodstove, and stalked off to bed.

It was barely eight o'clock. Back in the city he might be starting to think about dinner. Here, he felt exhausted. No lights shone beyond the windows of his room. The reflection from the bedside lamp seemed insubstantial as a candle flame; the darkness outside a solid mass, huge and inescapable, that pressed against the panes. His room sat beneath the eaves, where the wind didn't roar but crooned, a sound like mourning doves. The electric space heater Emma had left for him buzzed alarmingly, so he switched it off and heaped the cast-iron bedstead with Hudson Bay blankets. These smelled comfortingly of cedar, and were so warm he almost forgot the room was chill enough that he could see his breath.

Within minutes he was asleep, and dreaming.

Or perhaps not. Because as he slept, he heard the sound of wings overhead, yet knew these were not wings but wind buffeting glass. The frigid air that bit his face wasn't a dream, either. He shivered and burrowed deeper beneath the blankets, so that only his nose and cheek were exposed.

When a hand like ice was laid against his cheek, he knew that, too, was no dream.

With a shout he rolled away from the edge of the bed, thrashing against the heavy blankets as he sat up. The darkness was impenetrable: even the faint outlines of window and furniture had vanished. Everything had vanished, save a shape beside the bed. It loomed above him, darker than the surrounding room, so dark that Philip's eyes were drawn to it as if it had been a flame.

The hand touched him a second time, lingering upon his cheek. “I'm cold,” someone whispered.

Philip lunged for the lamp on his nightstand. Light flooded the room, and for a moment he thought he must be dreaming—nothing extraordinary could withstand a 100-watt bulb.

Then he saw the boy. He still wore Philip's clothes, the flannel shirt unbuttoned, corduroy pants clumped with burdock and specks of leaf mold. He hugged his arms to his chest and stared with huge black eyes at Philip.

"What the hell are you doing?” shouted Philip.

"I'm cold,” the boy repeated.

Philip stumbled to his feet. He wore only an old T-shirt and flannel boxers, and yes, the room was cold—the door onto the porch was open. He yanked a blanket around him, tossed another at the boy.

"Put that on,” he snapped.

The boy stared at the blanket, then pulled it over his shoulders. Philip edged warily around the bed to close the door, and turned.

The boy didn't look dangerous, but he was obviously in distress. Mentally ill, probably. And bigger than Philip, too. He cursed himself again for not calling the police earlier.

"What's your name?” he asked.

The boy grimaced, baring those small white teeth.

"Suru,” he said.

"Suru?"

The boy hesitated, then nodded.

"Well, Suru, we need to call your parents.” Philip fought to keep his voice calm. “I'm Philip. What's your phone number?"

Suru said nothing. He stared at his own hand, lifted then lowered one arm, the blanket suspended beneath like a crimson bat's wing.

"Come on,” pleaded Philip. “Either you give me your parents’ number or I'll have to call the police."

Without warning the boy drew up beside him. His fingers closed around Philip's hand, a sheath of ice. Again he whispered, “I'm cold."

The blanket dropped to the floor as he pressed himself against Philip's chest. Philip tried to pull away, but the boy moved with him, his expression calm even as he thrust Philip back into the room. Philip shoved him, angry, then frightened, as he struck desperately at the boy's arms and chest.

It was like grasping handfuls of something soft and gelid, fine dry snow or down that shifted beneath his fingers. Emaciated as he was, the boy was frighteningly strong. Philip cried out as the boy forced him onto the bed. He gazed up into Suru's eyes, no longer black but glaucous, a bright spark within each like a tiny shimmering seed.

Then the boy's skeletal arms were around him, holding him gently, hesitantly. He cocked his head, as though he listened for a sound other than Philip's ragged breathing, then slowly lowered his cheek until it rested against Philip's.

"You're warm,” said Suru, marveling.

Philip tensed for an assault or whispered threat; a kiss; flight.

But the boy only nestled against him. A minute passed, and Philip extended his hand cautiously, touching Suru's shoulder where the flannel shirt gaped open.

"Oh my god,” he exclaimed.

It wasn't dirt flecked across the boy's shoulder, as he'd first thought, but a number of small black holes. Philip brushed one with a finger, dislodging something that fell to the floor with a loud ping.

Buckshot.

"Someone shot you?” he said, incredulous. “Good lord, you need to see a doctor—"

"No!"

"Don't be crazy—it'll get infected. Doesn't it hurt?"

Suru shook his head. Philip started to scramble from the bed, stopped when the boy cried out.

"No. Please. It does not hurt. Only see—"

Suru gazed out at the snow eddying around the windows and French door, then turned to Philip.

"I lost the way,” he said. “When I fell. I returned but it was gone."

Philip frowned. “The way?"

"From Tuonela. I fell, and you found me. I tried to go back. The way is gone."

He clutched his head and began to sob, anguished.

"No—stop, please, really, it's okay!” said Philip. “I'll get you back. Just wait a minute and—"

Suru looked at him. His eyes were huge, still that pale gray-green; but they held no tears. “Will you come with me?"

"Go with you?"

"Yes."

Philip glanced outside. He must be out of his mind, to even think of getting into the car with a stranger in the middle of the night. Though god only knew what kind of people were lurking out there in the woods, if Philip let the boy go off alone.

"All right,” he said at last. “I'll go with you. But—well, you know where you're going, right?"

Suru pointed at the window. “There,” he said. “Tuonela."

"Right.” Philip made a face. “But not from this side, right? You came from over there, by the nature preserve, or whatever it is? I don't know those roads at all. You'll have to tell me where to go. I really think we should just call someone."

But the boy was already walking toward the door.

"Wait!” Philip grabbed him. “Let's get you some proper clothes, okay? Stay here. And don't go outside again. Don't go anywhere, or I swear to god I'll call the cops."

He waited until Suru settled back onto the bed, then went to dig around in a closet for shoes and a coat. The snow seemed to demand something more substantial than a blaze-orange vest. He retrieved his own heavy barn coat, after a few minutes located a worn parka for Suru.

Shoes were more difficult. Philip had an old, well-broken-in pair of gumshoes, but when he presented Suru with a similar pair he'd found in Sam's office, the boy flatly refused to wear them. He dismissed a second pair as well. Only when Philip threatened to remain at the lodge did Suru consent to a pair of high yellow fishing boots, unlined and smelling of mildew.

But no amount of coercion would get him to wear socks. He still hadn't buttoned his flannel shirt, either, or his fly.

"You better finish getting dressed,” said Philip. Suru stared at him blankly. “Oh, for god's sake...."

He stooped to button the boy's shirt. The silvery hairs on Suru's arms stiffened, though when Philip's hand brushed against them they felt soft as fur or down. The boy sat compliantly, watching him, and Philip felt a stir of arousal. He finished with the shirt and glanced at the boy's trousers.

The zipper had come undone. Philip hesitated, then zipped it, fumbling with the fly button. He felt the boy's cock stir beneath the fabric, looked up to see Suru staring at him. Philip flushed and stood.

"Come on.” He walked from the room. “I'll start the car."

Outside, snow fine as sand stung his face. He started the car and sat inside without turning on the headlights, staring at tossing trees, the black chasm where the lake stretched. When he finally headed back, Suru met him on the steps. Philip was relieved to see he still wore the boots and parka.

"You all set?"

Suru gave a small nod. Philip went inside to check the woodstove, grabbing two orange watchcaps and his walking stick as he returned. He shoved one hat onto his head, tossed the other to Suru, and gestured at the car. “Your chariot awaits."

Suru crouched to peer into one headlight, then pointed at the lake, past the spit of land where Philip had found him. “There."

"We still have to drive. I've got a map in the car, we can figure it out."

Suru shook his head. “That is not the way."

"You said you didn't know the way!"

"I said the way is gone."

"And?” Philip's voice rose dangerously. “Has it come back?"

Suru gazed at the sky. Above the lake the clouds parted, a rent just big enough to reveal a moon near full. Beneath it a broken lane of silver stretched across the water, fading then reappearing to ignite a stand of white birch along the shore.

"There!” exclaimed Suru, and headed for the trees.

Philip swore and hurried to turn off the car. When he stumbled back into the snow, Suru was nowhere to be seen. Neither was his walking stick. He kicked at the snow, trying to see where it had fallen, and at last gave up.

"Suru!” he yelled.

A faint voice echoed back from the trees. Philip walked as quickly as he could, praying he wouldn't fall. At the edge of the woods he halted.

All around him, the ground seemed to erupt into silvery waves. The air glittered and spun with falling snow, incandescent in the moonlight; the black lake appeared endless. A desert of obsidian, or some awful, bottomless canyon, as though the world had suddenly sheared away at Philip's feet.

He turned, shielding his eyes against the snow, but he could no longer see the lodge. The wind carried a voice to him.

"Here!"

A bright shape bobbed in the distance: Suru, waving excitedly. Philip headed toward him, his feet sliding across the slick ground.

In a few minutes he reached the alder thicket crowding the bank. Here it became less treacherous to move, if no easier—he had to grab handfuls of whiplike alder branches and pull himself between them. Too late he realized he hadn't worn gloves, but soon his fingers grew so numb he no longer felt where the branches slashed them. Suru's voice came again, inches from where Philip struggled to free himself from a tangle of snow-covered vines. Fingers stronger than his own closed around his hand, and the boy pulled him through.

"See?” cried Suru with a note of triumph.

Philip blinked. The snow fell more heavily here, though a spinney of young birches served as a small windbreak. Beside him, Suru stared out across the black lake, to where moonlight touched the far shore. Spruce and fir glittered as with hoarfrost. Between that shore and where they stood, moonlight traced a thin, shining crescent along the water's edge, marking a narrow path.

"The way to Tuonela,” said Suru.

Philip shoved his hands into his pockets, shivering. “I thought this was all Tuonela. It's a big lake."

Suru shook his head. “This is not Tuonela. I could not find the way, until you found me."

"Good thing I did. You would have stayed there till spring. You might have died."

"No. I would not have died."

Another sound cut through the steady rush of wind, staccato and higher pitched. Philip cupped his hands around his eyes and stared up through the whirling snow.

A vast, cloudlike shape flowed across the sky, heading toward the opposite shore. As it drew nearer, Philip saw it was not a cloud, but an immense flock of birds—geese with black necks and long white wings. They moved as a school of fish does in deep water, as though they formed a single huge creature that soared high above the trees, blotting out the moon so that only faint shafts of light showed through. He felt again the horror that had gripped him earlier, when a black chasm seemed to yawn at his feet.

For days he had watched them in flight—flock upon flock of mergansers and pintails and teal, endless battalions of geese—yet, until now, he had never registered which horizon they'd been striving toward.

All this time, they should have been flying south.

But they were flying north.

Suru gave a low cry and darted forward, stumbling on a snow-covered rock. There were stones everywhere, frozen black waves that slashed Philip's hand like razors when he bent to help Suru to his feet. The boy trembled, and pointed at the lake.

The moonlit path had been extinguished, save for a glimmering thread that wound between trees and underbrush, more the memory of moonlight than the real thing. Philip rubbed his eyes—the lashes felt glued together by snow—then looked over his shoulder.

"We have to go back.” His chest ached with cold; it hurt to speak. “We'll freeze, we're not dressed for this."

"No. I cannot return there. You must come with me."

He gazed down at Philip, unblinking. His sunken eyes seemed part of the surrounding darkness, a skull disinterred by the storm.

Yet the boy's words held no command, but a plea. The wind whipped his black hair around his face, as in one smooth motion he shrugged the parka from his shoulders. The flannel shirt billowed about his exposed chest, then was torn from him. He lowered his head until his lips grazed Philip's forehead, a kiss that burned like molten iron.

"Come with me."

He embraced Philip, and the silvery hairs lengthened into tendrils that coiled around his shoulders. The boy's mouth pressed against his, as icy thorns pricked Philip's chest, blossomed into something soft yet fluid that enveloped him from throat to knees. As in his nightmares he fell.

Yet instead of striking granite and frozen earth, he hung suspended between ground and sky, neither falling nor flying but somehow held aloft. As when he had been airborne above the stage, muscles straining as he traced a grand jeté en avant, a leap into the darkness he had never completed in waking life without tumbling to the floor. The dream of flight consumed him: he was part of it, as each individual bird formed part of the vast shadow that wheeled above them in the snow-filled sky. He cried out, overcome with a joy close to pain; felt the boy's embrace tighten and knew it was not arms that bore him but great wings and feathers like flashing blades. Philip clung to him, his terror flaring into desire as the wings beat furiously against the snow, Suru's legs tightening around his until with a cry Philip came, and fell back onto the frozen ground.

He rolled onto his side, struggled to pull himself upright and raised his arm, afraid to see what stood before him. White wings and arched neck and those glittering onyx eyes; a bill parted to reveal a tongue like an ebony serpent.

White wings blurred into a vortex of snow. The long neck coiled back upon itself. Only the eyes glowed as before, black and fathomless within that skull-like face.

Philip stumbled to his feet. Freezing wind tore at his clothes, yet it no longer overwhelmed him as it had just minutes before.

"Who are you?” he whispered.

"The Guardian of Tuonela,” replied Suru.

Philip shuddered. He was delirious, that was why the cold didn't bother him—that, or he'd already succumbed to hypothermia, the waking dream that claimed people before they froze to death.

"The guardian of Tuonela?” he repeated stupidly. “But not this Tuonela."

"No. That is just a name. Tuonela is there.” Suru pointed to the far shore, invisible behind snow and the storm of birds. “I have never left it unguarded. Until now."

"But—why?"

"I wished to see the other shore. But I had never fallen, or imagined that I could.” He lifted his head to stare at the wheeling birds. “They cannot return until I do. And it will be a terrible thing if they do not return."

"They're migrating, that's all.” Philip's voice cracked. “Birds fly south in autumn, the storm confused them—"

"They are not birds. I must go back.” Suru extended his hand. “Come with me."

"I—I can't. I'll freeze—I'll die."

"You will not die with me. But—"

The boy gestured in the direction of the lodge. A gust of wind stirred the trees, and for the first time Philip could see the glow of yellow windows in the frigid night.

"If you wish to return there,” said Suru, “you must travel alone."

The boy fell silent. After a moment he went on in a low voice. “I do not want to leave you here, alone. You saved me from exile. In exchange I have given you a gift."

One finger reached to touch Philip's forehead, and again icy flame blazed beneath Philip's skin.

"You're insane,” said Philip. “Or I am."

He pulled away, then drove his fingernails into his palm, trying to wake himself; stamped his bad foot upon the frozen ground, a motion that should have sent him reeling.

But just as he no longer felt cold, he could no longer feel pain. The boy's touch had drawn that from him, as well.

You saved me. In exchange I have given you a gift....

The wind died. Night once more claimed the glowing windows. Philip stared at the darkness that hid the lodge, that hid everything and everyone he had ever known.

Life did not work like this, love did not work like this. Philip knew that. Only stories did, where wonder trumped despair and desire overcame death. The fairy's kiss, the sacrificial faun; enchanted swans and shoes that sliced like blades, like ice. That was why he had become a dancer, not just to dream of fellowship and flight, but to partake, however fleetingly, in something close to ecstasy—and how long since he had experienced that?

Even if he hadn't lost his mind—even if this was somehow real, some crazed dream-bargain he'd made with his unconscious—he couldn't imagine leaving it all behind. How could he leave Emma and their shared childhood? Or the young dancers he'd taught and promised to see when he returned to the city; the city itself, and the little world that nested inside it, with its hierarchy of striving men and women, ballet masters and earnest intructors who might never take the stage again but still couldn't bring themselves to abandon it completely.

If something opens up, you know we'll find a place for you.

"This gift.” Philip glanced at Suru. “If I go back, will it—will I still have it?"

The boy nodded, and Philip flexed his leg tentatively.

He could go back. Even if he couldn't return to his old position, he could look for other work, a smaller company, some private school in the suburbs.

Or he could stay here until he found something. Emma would love it, and Sam. He could see spring for the first time at Tuonela. Wild geese and swallows returning from their winter migration; a solitary swan plying blue water, dark ripples in its wake.

He took a deep breath and turned to where Suru stood, waiting.

"I'll go with you."

Suru took his hand and drew him to his side, then led him, slowly, along the water's edge. Before them the thread of moonlight wove between stones and ice-skimmed pools, frozen cattails and snow-covered spruce and birch. Birds filled the sky, not just waterfowl but owls and ravens, gulls and hawks, great crested herons and tiny kinglets and scissor-winged swallows that soared and skimmed above the lake but never touched its surface.

Pinwheels of snow spun in their wake, extinguished by the black waters of Tuonela. With every step that Suru took, more birds appeared. The air became a living whirlwind, wings and shrill chatter, whistles and croaks; over it all a solitary, heartrending song like a mockingbird's, that ended in a convulsive throb of grief or joy.

Philip didn't know how long they walked. Hours, perhaps. The moon never seemed to move from where it shone above the far shore. Snow blew across the moonlit path, but no more fell from the sky. The birds no longer sang, though Philip still felt the rush of untold wings. He was neither tired nor chilled; whenever his hand brushed Suru's, cold fire flashed through his veins.

The snow grew very deep, so powdery it was like swimming through drifts of cloud. Overhead, evergreen branches made a pattern like frost crystals against the stars. The trees grew taller, and Philip now saw that each had been slashed as with an ax, two deep grooves that formed a V. Suru touched one, withdrew a white finger glistening with sap and fragrant as balsam.

"These mark the border,” he said. “We are within Tuonela now."

They walked on. Gradually, the distant shore came into view. A long rock-strewn beach and towering pines, stands of birch larger than any Philip had ever seen. Behind the beach rose a sheer black cliff hundreds of feet tall, dappled silver where moonlight touched fissures and ragged outcroppings.

Suru halted. He stared at the desolate trees and that impassable wall of stone, the onyx waves lapping at the beach. Above the cliff countless birds circled restlessly. The great pines bowed beneath the wind of their flight.

"We are nearly there,” said Suru.

He turned to Philip and smiled. The flesh melted from his face. Sparks flickered within empty eye sockets; his mouth opened onto a darkness deeper than the sky. He was neither boy nor swan but bone and flame.

Yet he was not terrible, and he bowed as he took Philip's hand, indicating where a deep ravine split the ground a short distance from where they stood. A stream rushed through the channel, tumbling over rocks and bubbles of ice, before plunging in a shining waterfall that spilled into the lake. A fallen birch tree spanned the cleft. Ribbons of mottled bark peeled from its trunk, and there were jagged spurs where branches had broken or rotted away.

"I will cross before you,” he said. “Wait until I have reached the other side. Do not look down."

Philip shook his head. “I can't."

His tongue seemed to freeze against the roof of his mouth as he stared into the ravine, those knife-edged rocks and roaring cataract. At its center a whirlpool spun, a dreadful mouth gaping at the moon overheard.

Suru lifted a fleshless hand. “You must. All things make this crossing.” He pointed to where the birds wheeled against the sky. “That is their road. This is mine. No living thing has ever taken it with me. That is my second gift to you."

Before Philip could reply, Suru turned. His arms stretched upward, all bones and light as he crouched, then leapt above the chasm. For an instant his skull merged with the moon, and a face gazed pityingly down upon the man who remained on the shore.

Then moonlight splintered the cage of bone. Feathers unfurled in a glory of wings that rose and fell, slowly at first, then more and more swiftly, until the night sky fell back before them and light touched the clifftops. The great pines kindled red and gold as thousands upon thousands of birds dove toward the surface of the lake and landed, the cliffs ringing with their cries.

"Come!"

Philip looked up to see the great swan hovering above the far shore, its eyes no longer black but blazing argent. The terrifying joy he'd felt earlier returned. For a second he closed his eyes, trying to summon every memory of the world behind him.

Then he walked to the tree, lifted one foot, and carefully stepped onto it.

Icy spume lashed his face as dread jolted him along with bitter cold. He looked up, terrified, but was blinded by needles of ice; shaded his eyes and took a second, lurching step.

Beneath him the great birch trembled like a live thing. Philip gasped, then edged forward. He could no longer see the other shore; could see nothing but a glittering arc of frozen spray as he inched across the fallen tree. When he was halfway across, he glanced down.

At the edge of the waterfall a figure knelt, her skin white as birch, her head bowed so he could only see a cascade of long black hair tangled in the whirlpool. As Philip watched she grasped her hair with both hands and began to drag it back through the frigid water, as though it were a net, then hoisted it upon the frozen shore, so that he saw what she had captured: countless men and women, infants and children, their eyes wide and staring and hands plucking uselessly at the net that had ensnared them.

With a cry Philip stumbled and nearly fell. The woman looked up, her eyes empty sockets in a barren skull, mouth bared in a rictus of hunger and rage. Philip righted himself, then lurched toward the other bank.

Something coiled around his ankle, taut as a wire. He gave a muffled shout, looked up to see the great swan still hovering above the shore. The bank was yet a few yards off. Another strand of black hair snaked toward him, writhing as it sought to loop around his wrist.

"Jump!” cried Suru.

Philip raised his arms, felt his balance shift from shoulders to calves to the balls of his feet. Faint chiming sounded in his ears: cracking ice, the ballet mistress's bell when he was a boy; the tree beneath him splintering. Pain sheared his foot as he arched forward; and jumped.

His face burned, his eyes. The chiming became a roar. Around him all was flame but it was not the air that was ablaze but Philip himself. His skin peeled away in petals of black and gold, embers blown like snow.

But it was not snow but wings: Suru's and his own, beating against the air. Far below, the black waters erupted as wave after wave of birds rose to greet them, geese and hawks and swallows, cranes and swifts and tanagers, gulls with the eyes of women and child-faced doves: all swallowed by the sunrise as they mounted the sky above the cliffs, and two swans like falling stars disappeared into the horizon.

It was several days before Joe Moody checked on the camp. The storm had brought down power lines, but he assumed that Emma's friend would be fine, what with the generator and four cords of firewood.

He found the lodge deserted, and Philip's rental car buried under the snow. There were no footprints leading to or from the lodge; no sign of forced entry or violence. Emma and her husband were notified in Key West and returned, heartsick, to aid the warden service and police in the search. Divers searched the frigid waters of Lake Tuonela, but no body was ever found.

Only Emma ever noticed afterward, year after year, that a pair of swans appeared each spring—silent, inseparable—to make their slow passage across dark water before vanishing in the mist.

Strange Angels, by Lili St. Crow, Razorbill, 2009, $9.99.

I don't know much about the TV show Ghost Whisperer beyond the fact that it stars Jennifer Love Hewitt as a woman who can talk to ghosts. I keep meaning to watch an episode but I never seem to get around to it, so when this book arrived for review, I thought I'd meet the character in a prose format instead. I especially liked the idea that—from the back cover description of the character being a teenager—this appeared to be a prequel to the series.

The more I read, the more I felt I should be watching the show, because the book's terrific. It has exactly the kind of characters and story I like to read, which made me think that the show is probably good, too. But somewhere along the line—as I came to realize the character's abilities didn't really match up with what I thought they were supposed to be on the TV show—I took a closer look at the outside of the book.

Maybe you've already guessed it: there's no connection whatsoever between the two. And if I'd looked more carefully at the book before I started it I would have realized that “Ghost Whisperer” should have been plastered all over the cover. In my defense, the cover model has a bit of a similar look to Hewitt's.

But while Strange Angels isn't based on a TV series, it sure would make a good one.

We know right from the start that Dru Anderson doesn't live an ordinary life. She's heading off to school where she suffers the usual discomforts of being the new kid in school, but she doesn't care. She's more concerned about the safety of her dad, because he's out hunting monsters.

The pair of them travels from town to town getting rid of various vampires, ghosts, werewolves and the occasional reanimated corpse. This time they're in the Midwest, in the middle of winter, settled in town long enough to rent a house and for Dru to go to school.

On the day when the book opens, her father's not there when Dru gets home from school. He doesn't come home at all that night. And then, when he finally does come home, he's not himself anymore.

We've seen variations on traveling monster hunters before, going back as far as the Van Helsings in Stoker's Dracula. But Strange Angels feels fresh because this time it's the kid with whom we're concerned, the one left standing after her monster-hunting father is gone and the monsters are still coming, but now they're coming for her.

St. Crow does a terrific job with the material. Dru's a likable, believable teenager: capable but not perfect; a bit sulky, but so would any kid be if they were thrust into her life. The plot's fast-paced and inventive. And there are all sorts of nice touches, like the boy Graves who squats in a shopping mall, or the way Dru finally deals with a bullying teacher.

Recommended.

Spiral Hunt, by Margaret Ronald, Eos, 2009, $7.99.

I like the little blurb on the back of this book: “Some people have the Sight. Genevieve Scelan has the Scent."

Because, unlike the many characters we've run across in prose and film who can see into the otherworld, Scelan has a heightened sense of smell. You could say she smells into the otherworld. She can find anything, sifting through the overwhelming barrage of scents in Boston to hone in on the one thing she's looking for.

It's a handy talent for the business she's set up, finding lost things for hire. She can track almost anything, from an object gone astray to a missing person. It's not a terrifically successful business, however, and she has to pay the rent as a bike messenger. But she's happy enough and gets by until a phone call from an ex-lover makes a mess of everything.

Ronald plays with the supernatural as though it's a variation of the Irish hard men who ran mobs at the turn of the last century in places like Boston and New York City. The Irish mob had nothing like the Mafia's code of honor (which truth to tell, many believe to be a fiction, the blame for which we can lay at the feet of Mario Puzo). They had connections in many levels of city and state government and were rarely convicted for murder because they'd chop up the bodies into tiny pieces and scatter them (usually in the ocean) so that those pieces would never be found. No body meant no crime had been committed for which they could be convicted.

The Bright Brotherhood in Spiral Hunt are like the Irish mob, only secret, their dangerousness cranked up about ten-fold. You don't want to get on their radar.

Genevieve Scelan, known as the Hound (for obvious reasons: that magical sense of smell), has kept a low profile for years, staying hidden from the Bright Brotherhood since childhood. But all that changes when she sets out to help her friend. Soon, not only is she in danger, but so are her closest friends.

Ronald has done a terrific job with the Celtic mystical matter here, blending folklore with things she's made up so that it all feels whole and complete. Strong characterization combines with a plot that's fast-paced and keeps the reader guessing, and what else do you need for an entertaining summer's read?

This is one of the better books I've read based on Celtic matter and a lot of that has to do with how Ronald has tapped into the dark streak that runs as an undercurrent through much Irish folklore.

Curse of the Were-Woman, by Jason M. Burns & Christopher Provencher, Devil's Due Publishing, 2009, $12.99.

This satiric take on the whole business of werewolves has a lot going for it, even if the protagonist is unlikable. But then, he's supposed to be.

Patrick Dalton is a successful businessman, at his physical peak, with a promotion expected soon. He's also an obsessive womanizer, dating, and usually bedding, a different woman every night.

So all's going well—at least so far as he's concerned—until the night he dumps the wrong woman and she puts a curse on him: every night when the sun goes down he changes into a woman. As the witch he's made the misfortune of upsetting puts it: “The curse will only reverse itself when you truly respect and understand women. Until then, when the sky grows dark, you grow breasts."

The story switches back and forth between Dalton as a man during the day and a woman at night, living separate lives that are both complicated by the existence of the other. Some of the situations are a bit stereotypical, but this is a satire, meant to be painted in broad strokes, and it works well in that context. I do have to admit, however, that I'm not entirely sure about the Hollywood-styled ending.

Artist Christopher Provencher has a cartoony style that's well suited to the type of story Burns is telling here.

I usually don't read books with unlikable protagonists. I don't care to spend time with that kind of person in real life, so why would I want to spend my reading time with them? But this illustrated format is a shorter read than a novel, and it was just long enough to have some meat to the story but not have me spend too much time in Dalton's company.

The Dresden Files: Storm Front Vol. 1, The Gathering Storm, by Mark Powers & Ardian Syaf, Del Rey, 2009, $22.95.

One of the best things about Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series (beyond the fun conceit of there being a wizard with his own P.I.-type business working in a version of contemporary Chicago) is that Butcher gets the whole idea of how to use magic: it takes effort to use, and there's a price for every use. I'm surprised at how many writers don't seem to understand that.

The other thing is that Butcher doesn't forget about the sense of wonder that magic should bring. Magical beings and the use of spells are not common, everyday occurrences, so their appearance in a story should have some impact beyond simply moving the plot ahead.

I also like how the character of Harry Dresden is a take-off on the traditional, down-and-out hard-boiled detective, except he's dealing with magical problems—sometimes brought to him by clients, and sometimes they arise through his being an advisor on things supernatural for the Chicago Police Department. The mundane aspects of his life give the magical elements an added zing.

It's been a while since I read the prose version of Storm Front, so I can't tell you exactly how closely Mark Powers's adaptation to comic book format sticks to the original story. But it certainly seems to strike all the right chords of my memory.

It opens with the Chicago police calling Dresden in to help with a particularly gruesome double murder. At the same time he's working a missing person case. Naturally, in the best P.I. tradition, the two cases end up colliding, and of course there are nasty people trying to keep him from investigating, but other than that, the book's a far cry from the usual mystery novel.

For one thing, his “snitch” is a faery. For another, one of the people he has to interview in the course of his investigation is a vampire. And then there's the talking skull he keeps in an alchemist's lab in his basement.

The comic adaptation doesn't cover the whole novel—it will continue in further volumes—but this particular book ends at a good spot for us to catch our breath. There's also a prose introduction by Jim Butcher, plus a prequel chapter featuring a younger Dresden adapted from Butcher's short story “Restoration."

Adrian Syaf's art is very much in the tradition of contemporary comic art: a little slick, dramatic where it needs to be, with a good narrative flow.

If you've already read all the books, and watched the TV series (available on DVD in case you missed it when it aired), here's a new format to enjoy until the next book is published. And if you don't have any familiarity with the character, this is as good a place as any to see what he's all about.

The Enchantment Emporium, by Tanya Huff, DAW Books, 2009, $24.95.

Urban fantasy as a genre might seem like a fresh new thing, but it's actually been around for some time now. By “urban fantasy” I mean the sort of book that has a contemporary, usually urban, setting, and owes as much of a tip of the hat to the mystery and romance genres as it does fantasy. The protagonist (or their love interest) has some supernatural origin (they're a vampire, werewolf, witch, gargoyle, etc.). Sometimes their existence is hidden from society; sometimes they've “come out” and are quite established when the story starts. The books are invariably sexy and fast-paced, and the protagonist usually has a distinctive narrative voice, a messed-up love life, and is tougher than her opponents assume she is. (Oh yes, the protagonist is usually a woman.)

An author who's been doing this long before urban fantasy was ever considered a viable sub-genre is Tanya Huff. Her Blood books, pairing a female private eye with a vampire who's a romance novelist, first saw print in the early 1990s and went on to become a TV series under the name Blood Ties. Her Keeper's Chronicles features a witch who runs a bed & breakfast, with a side job of keeping the fabric of the universe intact. The Smoke and Shadows series is a spin-off from the Blood series, set in the world of syndicated television.

What always makes Huff's work so engaging is her characters. At the start of every book, the reader feels as though they're getting together with a group of old friends, and The Enchantment Emporium is no exception. Actually, there are a lot of characters at the beginning of this new book, but stick with it. It doesn't take too long to get them all sorted out.

Most of our new friends this time out are part of the extended Gale family. The easiest way to describe them is that they're witches. They can change the world with charms and spells, and they prefer to keep this ability secret and to themselves. But within the family, there are no secrets, something that our protagonist Alysha Gale can find a bit wearying.

Having just lost her job in Toronto, she jumps at the chance of going to Calgary to look into the mysterious disappearance of her grandmother because it will take her far from the scrutiny and endless commentary of the family. But things are complicated in Calgary.

It turns out the junk shop she inherited there—the emporium of the book's title—services Calgary's fey community and comes with a leprechaun assistant who is anything but diminutive. Clues as to Gran's disappearance are nonexistent, but the more pressing concern is the otherworldly trouble that appears to be coming to the city, starting with a flight of dragons who find it amusing to set various buildings on fire. Then there's the matter of a sorcerer, as well as a persistent—and attractive—reporter with a great interest in the Gale family.

By the time Alysha realizes she's in over her head and should probably call in the big guns—the Gale Aunties—it might well be too late.

The Enchanted Emporium is a delight from start to finish—by turns humorous, romantic (when it's not downright lusty), and dramatic. Huff finds a way to blend all the disparate threads into an engaging whole, which is no easy task.

So far, this is easily one of my favorite books of the year.

Weird Science and Bizarre Beliefs, by Gregory L. Reece, I. B. Tauris, 2009, $18.95.

Behind the wonderfully garish cover of this non-fiction book is a fascinating exploration of not only Bigfoot, cave people, and brainwaves from outer space (to name a few of the subjects), but also the people who are obsessed with the same.

Reece has done a considerable amount of research, often in the field, and writes with an affectionate and very readable prose style that will offer his book a larger audience than it might otherwise have. You don't have to be a believer to appreciate the characters Reece meets and describes on his quest to find out more about hollow earth theories, sasquatches, Tesla technology, and the like.

If you enjoy some of the eccentrics you're likely to meet in novels by Tim Powers or James Blaylock, then this examination of real-life characters will undoubtedly appeal to you.

Johnny Hiro, by Fred Chao, AdHouse Books, 2009, $14.95.

My favorite kind of illustrated story is the one in which both the art and writing is done by the same person.

Now I don't mean to belittle collaborations. Most artistic expression is collaborative, especially in the comic book field. You have writers, artists, inkers, colorists, and letterers all working on the same story, and they can produce wonderful results. But the final product doesn't have the same singular vision as something created by one person.

If you need some examples, consider the work of Terry Moore (Strangers in Paradise and Echo) and Jeff Smith (Bone and Rasl). I doubt either's work would be nearly as compelling with the input of anyone else (beyond, of course, inspiration and editing).

And now I can add Fred Chao to that list.

Johnny Hiro opens with the titular hero rescuing his girlfriend from the Japanese monster Gozadilla (I guess there were copyright issues with using the more familiar Godzilla), and in the process, saving New York City. He soon learns that rampaging monsters aren't a new thing, but large cities have included the cleanup and cover-up of such attacks in their fiscal budgets so that no one ever has to know.

I liked that. I also like how Hiro and his girlfriend are sworn to silence by Mayor Bloomberg, so they end up getting sued by their landlord for the huge hole that Gozadilla tore in their apartment wall because they can't tell the truth.

The story goes like that—large preposterous big plot wham-bang elements playing against truly wonderful low-key real-life characterizations of Hiro, his girlfriend, and the other regulars we get to meet as we read the book.

(I should add here that Bloomberg isn't the only real person who appears in these pages. Cameos include everyone from Coolio and Gwen Stefani to Judge Judy, all in character and used to great effect).

Chao works in black & white, producing clean lines with a wonderful narrative flow between panels and from page to page. He's equally as adept at exaggerated cartoon facial expressions and outlandish chase scenes as he is with realistically detailed cityscapes, apartment interiors, and the glimpses we get of the restaurant where Hiro works as a busboy.

I'd never heard of Chao before picking up this book in a local shop, but I'll certainly be keeping an eye out for his work in the future.

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.

The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet, by Reif Larsen, Penguin Press, 2009, $27.95.

Silver Phoenix, by Cindy Pon, Greenwillow, 2009, $17.99.

Bones of Faerie, by Janni Lee Simner, Random House, 2009, $16.99.

Palimpsest, by Catherynne M. Valente, Bantam, 2009, $14.

T. S. Spivet is a twelve-year-old boy living in Divide, Montana, on the Coppertop Ranch. He is possessed of: a rancher father, a largely silent man who, in the eyes of his son, embodies the almost mythical Cowboy; a very focused entomologist mother, whom he refers to at all times as Dr. Clair; a very normal teenage sister, Gracie, who dreams of being an actress, or at least living somewhere with a normal family; and the strange and almost uncharted space left by Layton, his dead brother.

Very little in the life of Tecumseh Sparrow Spivet is left uncharted. In fact, the reason I picked up the book is because it is full of deliberate marginalia: maps, diagrams, and small side bars of rumination. Even the copyright page, that bastion of standard form, is annotated in brown. Every single annotation, there and elsewhere throughout the entire book, is done, with deliberation and intensity, by the curious hand of T. S. Spivet, because it's how he sees the world.

Or how he tries to wrestle with what he does see. He considers every diagram a map, and every action of any type worth mapping, and his rooms are covered with small, color-coded notebooks which denote the type of thing he's mapping; every map in the margins bears a number, indicating which of those three books it came from.

He is a peculiar viewpoint character with whom to enter a story, to say the least; he is a twelve-year-old boy with a profound understanding of the meaning of maps, and that understanding—of exploration, of entropy, and of the way maps constantly evolve is some of the most quietly moving writing I've read in a long time.

But that's T. S. Spivet, and not his story. His story, in short, in this: he has been entered, entirely without his knowledge, as a possible recipient for the Smithsonian's Baird Award, and at twelve years old, he has actually won it. The call does not come at an entirely convenient time, but in the end, he makes up his mind: He will travel from Montana to the halls of the Smithsonian itself to accept the award, give a speech, and devote his skills to Science.

Yes, he is alarmingly earnest. He's twelve; it's expected. He doesn't have the money for a plane flight, and he's not willing to ask for help, because doing so would sort of mean he'd have to tell his family. He almost wants to, but he can't quite; he even enters his mother's empty study—and takes one of her notebooks from the desk there. But he keeps his silence, packs his suitcase, dumps it on a toy wagon, and heads down to the UP train tracks, where he intends to travel like a hobo all the way to Washington D.C.

He even reaches Washington, more or less in one piece (well, slightly less), where he finds the idealism with which he has previously viewed the Smithsonian, and the people to whom he is now introduced, don't mesh.

While this synopsis is accurate, it fails to describe the book in any meaningful way. It takes T.S. almost twenty-five pages to answer the phone call that's the opening line of the book. It takes him over seventy-five pages to actually leave the house. If this is the type of thing that makes you impatient, you will throw this book across the room before you hit page fifty. Because while the book is, in its own odd way, a collection of maps about the things T. S sees on a daily basis, it is also a much less easily quantifiable map for the things that he can't see: emotions, love, and loss. To get through one, he wanders through the digressive internal thoughts of all the known things: things he's mapped, and things he understands. He can't cross a room without thinking about them, and he shares.

If you read Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, and you found Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse compelling, you will adore this book, because the youngest Spivet is very much like Waterhouse, except there's a whole novel's worth. If you spend half your time struck by oddities in conversation, and you find yourself following the internal line of questioning, rather than the external conversation that sparked it—to the point where you almost lose the conversation entirely—you will find Spivet compelling and oddly familiar.

And if you like a book that is both pointed in observation, but almost without judgment, that is quite understated, and in the end fundamentally about the way we interact with the people we love and the people who love us, this book is a small and perfect gift.

If The Selected Works of T. S. Spivet is not Reif Larsen's first novel, I couldn't find, in brief online searches, any others. The reason the online search occurred is, of course, because I wanted there to be more. So now, like all readers who have discovered an unexpected and unexpectedly moving delight, I wait for a future with more Larsen to unfold.

Cindy Pon's Silver Phoenix is also a first novel, and it has pretty much nothing in common with Larsen's debut. In structure, it's a much more traditional fantasy novel, but its setting is not a generic Europe; instead, it's Asian. Pon's writing is graceful, clean, and assured; she opens with the slightly premature birth of a young boy. His mother is one of the Emperor's concubines; the boy, however, is clearly not the Emperor's son. In order to save the life of a child she will never see again, she sends him away.

Almost twenty years later, the book starts with the very different life of young Ai Ling, who has been dressed and made up as a suitable bride to meet a possible groom's family. It does not go well. Ai Ling is of marriageable age, but she is tall, and her father is not a wealthy man; he is a man who once served in the Imperial Court, and is now living well away from it. In Ai Ling's society, not surprisingly, it is the duty of a daughter to marry well, and while she doesn't actually want to be married, she feels that the rejection is a failure on her part.

Her father is called unexpectedly to Court, and in his long absence, he is accused of owing a monstrously self-indulgent man a great deal of money; the man is willing to forgo the debt in return for Ai Ling's hand. Ai Ling, who can read, and her mother, who can't, know that the merchant is lying—but they also know that in this patriarchal world, it's his word against theirs. So Ai Ling runs away from home in order to retrieve her missing father.

This is a lovely first novel, and the ending is left (I hope) open for more stories about Ai Ling and Chen Yong. I'm looking forward to them.

Bones of Faerie is post-apocalyptic fiction. Liza was born after the apocalypse in question, and the stunted, small-town world, with its fear of the unknown and its strict, deadly rules, are all she's ever known. Her father is the pillar of her community, a strict, dour man who believes in corporal punishment and no mercy whatsoever—because that's what was needed to keep the town of Franklin Falls alive just after the conflagration that consumed so much of the known world.

One of the tenets: Cast out the magic born among you.

Because in Liza's world, magic was the apocalypse. Magic destroyed the cities, destroyed the technology, and destroyed most of the human population. The practical application of this tenet, however, will have disastrous effects on Liza, because Liza's newborn baby sister has the mark of magic: the near-translucent hair of the faeries. Her father takes the child and exposes it on a hillside. Liza goes to find what's left.

Simner's writing is exceptionally spare. All of the horrors of her world, all of things that are taken for granted by Liza, are subtle. There's very little that's graphically described—but it's there. The crops resist the farmers. The plants can kill. The children who are born with unchecked or undetected magic? They can kill, too.

Magic, to Liza, is death. Sadly, magic, to Liza, is slowly becoming part of her life, and she is terrified. After the death of her baby sister, Liza's mother leaves the homestead and the town, and disappears. But Liza can see glimpses of her mother in still water and other reflective surfaces: a sure sign of magic. She is desperate to hide this magic, but in the end, partly to save her own life but largely to save the life of her people, she ends up fleeing to search for her mother.

However, she doesn't manage to get out of Franklin Falls on her own; she has both her cat and one of the boys who lives in town with her. Neither of them are willing to stay behind, and in the end, that's for the best—because Liza knows that no one survives in the dark of the wilds on their own.

When they're attacked by wild dogs—and wild trees—they're rescued by Karin, a woman who can talk to plants, calm them, and send them away, and she leads them to a different town, one protected by a hedge that she basically grew. Everything that Liza knows about magic, and everything that she knows about survival, is challenged by what she finds in that town, and it forces her to examine her own beliefs and certainties, even as she leaves to search, once again, for her mother, chased by a shadow that has followed her all the way from Franklin Falls.

This is a lovely, quiet, sombre book about fear, war, and the possibility of healing, and some of the magic in the book is not actually magic; it's in the glimpses of abandoned cars and distant, crumbling architecture, the ghosts of a past that are our present. Simner makes it strange, and real, with her economical, graceful prose and her understated world-building.

The last of the four books is Palimpsest by Catherynne M. Valente. Her previous two novels, which formed the whole of The Orphan's Tales, were frequently compared to the Arabian Nights, largely because of the structure of the tale-within-tale-within-tale. There is no similar work that leaps to mind when one considers Palimpsest. You can compare it to other Valente work, because there is a turn of phrase and a poetic vision that is at once both lucid and visceral; it cuts you, and the mental cuts take a while to heal.

Palimpsest is the name of a city that can only be reached with the initial help of someone who has already been there. If you have never been, you're the blank slate; you're the stretched and uninked parchment upon which a destination can be written, and the destination can only be inscribed by the act of sexual intercourse.

Valente's sense of structure, her ability to create small stories-within-stories that are in no way digressions, but have some of that feel, is powerful; it links observations and metaphors that seem almost random, pulling them into the weave of her tale. She starts with four characters, two women and two men: Sei, who works as a ticket-seller for the shinkansen, November, who keeps bees and lists of nouns, Oleg, who is haunted by the ghost of a sister who died before he was born, and Ludovico, obsessed with St. Isidore and the binding of books of the fantastic, and whose only emotional ties beyond that are to his wife.

But all of these four live in their own worlds. They exist in states of isolation. They have no true connection to other people; even Ludo's love for his wife is seen, before the end, as an interpretational error. He is devoted to her without seeing the whole of her; she is some part of his internal obsession. They are lonely without ever stating that they are lonely; they are so alienated, it's their base state. So they stumble, in these odd states of isolation, into brief contact with Palimpsest. It is their first contact, and over the course of the book, they will become obsessed with a return to this otherworld, a dreaming world which becomes, in the end, far more real than a first glimpse might have implied.

Much of the sex in the book—which is billed as erotic—is not really very erotic; it's full of poetic moment, and frankly, when you're dealing with this much isolation, that sex feels almost sterile and cold—except for Oleg's first encounter, because in some ways, when he approaches the stranger to whom he's drawn, he wants to see her as she is; he has no other expectations or needs that she might fulfill. (He's accustomed to seeing a world that literally no one else can see—the ghost of New York City. The metropolis has been written about and celebrated in so many ways nothing of the original remains, just the images other people have left. There is no way to change that, not in New York ... but Palimpsest implies that no one vision can publicize it, no one vision can capture it, and no one vision, spread however far or wide, can destroy what makes it vital and unique.)

Ludo goes to Palimpsest in search, initially, of his missing wife. Sei goes because she has always been obsessed with trains, and she can hear and speak to the hearts of the trains in the city—because they're alive, like wild creatures, and they bear passengers not by some tidy exchange of tickets, but rather by the cunning and determination of those who desire to be passengers. November is found by bees. Oleg? By the living form of his dead sister.

But the only way to return to the city, once they've seen it once, is to find other lovers who also bear the mark. The mark is a destination; the people who bear it—in many cases—are totally incidental. They seek each other out of need, out of addiction, and they barely see each other at all. There's only one way to reach Palimpsest, not as a tourist, but as a citizen.

And to gain that one small possible entrance, a war was fought in Palimpsest itself, and half the city has died. The war is not over, although people speak often as if it is; the war won't be over, until that final door is open. The door, of course, is the Quarto; the four pages (or eight pages) that are the building block of books. Sei, November, Oleg, and Ludo.

The only joy in the book is theirs, and it occurs late, and it occurs at cost and with pain, blood, sacrifice, a giving over of parts of self in service to making the dream their only reality.

I could not put this book down. When I start a Valente novel, I never can put down the book unfinished, because I find her voice and her words so strong, her metaphors so striking, they draw me in.

I'm left wondering—still, after days and days—how I feel about the book. Because in some ways, the four exist for each other until the moment they achieve their dreams—the dreams of a fickle city, a place in which the loneliness of a teenager justifies the war that killed and mutilated so very many of its citizens. If there is a tie between Ludo and November, it is the ambivalent tie of worshipper to god—and, you know, we crucify ours, more or less.

I can read about them, though; I can read about the alienation and the isolation and the loneliness of these characters—and it speaks to me while I read. But after? The novel seems to elevate all of these things; Palimpsest seems to imply that only by celebrating, by devoting oneself to alienation, isolation, and madness can one achieve that joyful entry into a very ambivalent paradise. And it must be ambivalent because desire and need drive the city, speaking to it, and those whose needs are loudest, like the squeaky wheel, get the grease. In the end, though, the city is a Palimpsest, and the desires of others will eventually overwrite yours if your needs are now met, obliterating your tale.

But ... it makes me think, and it lingers in the mind where more pleasant tales drift away, unanchored.

I didn't see the first issue, which was unfortunate, because I was just about the right age to get interested. As far as I can remember, my introduction to F&SF—anyway, my in-depth introduction—came about this way. In the summer of ‘64 I joined a house party in upstate NY to escape the intolerable New Orleans heat. I had friends in the Village, stopped off to carouse a bit, arrived late to the party and found that every bed in the farmhouse had been taken. I received temporary quarters in the barn, which was already inhabited by several thousand chipmunks. If they'd only slept there I wouldn't have minded, but the little devils had built a freeway under my bed and did a lot of commuting. So sleep was out, but there was a light in the barn, and in an old cupboard, voilà! I discovered a linear yard or so of dusty F&Ss. I got in some good reading that night, also the one following. When I was upgraded to a bed in the farmhouse, I took them with me (the magazines, not the chippies) and finished almost every story in such time as eating, swimming, badminton, boozing, and fooling around permitted. I bet very few of your other contributors have been introduced to F&SF by members of the Order Rodentia!—Albert Cowdrey

She'd guarded it long and guarded it well. She'd lived in darkness until she turned white, all of her. She'd watched the bleaching happen, slowly, back before her eyes went opaque and before new layers of soil closed off the last dim trickle of light.

Never mind. She had other ways of being aware.

She depended on burrowing creatures like rats and moles, first to let a little air in—enough for her, because she breathed so slowly—then to supply her food—not much, but enough. After rains, water seeped through the crumbling brickwork, so she could drink. What more did she need?

Professor Kendall Keyes sat at his desk staring at a page from the first (and so far only) chapter of his forever forthcoming history of frontier life in the South.

God, how frustrating. The treasure was lying right in front of him, but he couldn't crack the code, not even with the aid of a Gideon Bible he'd snitched from a bedside table in the Beau Rivage casino, on his last gambling jaunt to Biloxi. Yet the code had to be simple—an invention of two farm girls living in the backwoods....

And how about his other clue to the mystery? He glowered at a pile of five lead plates, discolored by time, each one an inch thick and a foot square, each with a single word gouged into it, probably by a steel chisel. Ten bucks apiece at Tom's Trash & Treasures, and for what? Unless he could find out where they came from, the plates were useless too.

"She-it,” he said.

He spun his squealing swivel chair to face the window and glared at the campus of Central Mississippi State College—the red-brick classroom buildings and labs, the galleried residence halls, the cushioned lawns and twining paths. Students sat on the long, low branches of the live oaks, munching sandwiches or poring over books or fiddling with iPods and Blackberries and Christ-knew-whats. The tall pines of Reservoir Park provided a green backing; a sign on a distant water tower hailed Bonaparte, Mississippi: A Great Place to Live!

A great place to rot, thought Keyes sourly. How could he have drifted into a life that was so unworthy of him? He spun the chair back and pulled a half-worked Times crossword from the middle drawer of his desk. If the choice was between writing his book and working a puzzle, he'd work the puzzle. Though he wasn't making much progress there, either. Uncompleted words left the crossword looking like Swiss cheese, only with square holes. He was glaring at it when somebody began tapping on his door—probably a damn student.

"Entrez-vous,” he said, hoping the knocker would think he'd got the professor of French by mistake, and move on. Instead, the door opened about a foot and Houdini's bearded face inserted itself into the aperture.

"Well, Mr. Marx,” Keyes said. “What a surprise."

Bernard Marx had won his nickname as the Famous Disappearing Student, signing up for dozens of courses, sitting in on one or two lectures, then dropping out. Watching him sidle in—skinny, randomly attired, tripping over the untied laces of his Reeboks—Keyes thought he knew what he'd come for.

"I suppose you want an Incomplete,” he said hopefully. One less blue book to read, come exam time.

"Nuh-uh. Actually, I'm enjoying your class."

"You are?"

"Yeah. I like all that frontier stuff. Men were men in those days. What I'd like is some extra reading. I've read all the stuff on the bibliography and it's okay, but.... Hey. Is that the Times Sunday crossword?"

For a moment Keyes just sat there, struck dumb by the notion of a student who'd not only completed the readings two weeks into the term, but wanted more. Meantime Houdini approached his desk, peering through expensive-looking rimless glasses that enlarged his eyes to the semblance of baroque goldfish.

"Maybe you're not gonna finish that?” he queried hopefully. “My Times didn't come this week, and I really, really need my puzzle fix."

"As a matter of fact,” said Keyes, regaining his voice, “I am.” Then added, with reluctance, "If I can just get the damn theme. Something to do with Wayne Somebody or Somebody Wayne. I don't think it's that old movie, Wayne's World, it's something else. For instance, this clue says Wayne's town? Six letters, starts with G. I've been thinking of John Wayne and western towns, but—"

"Bruce,” said Houdini.

"What?"

"Bruce Wayne. Batman. Batman's hot right now. Try Gotham."

Keyes entered Gotham, and it fit. “How about Wayne's marching foe?” he asked.

"Penguin. March of the Penguins, get it?"

Keyes did. What was this guy doing at Central, anyway? He asked if Houdini were local.

"Oh, yeah. Dad moved here the year before I was born. He was a tobacco lawyer. For a while he was the king of torts. You know, tort lawyers love Mississippi, because all they have to do is show a local jury a big corporation and they whack it with a billion-dollar judgment. Dad used to say, ‘What a great state. If only they had a decent deli.’”

"Your Dad's, uh, deceased?"

"No. In prison. Got five years for trying to bribe a judge. It's not all bad. With him in the slammer I've been able to avoid the Ivy League and all that succeed-or-die crap. I study what I please, play games, work puzzles. Mom's too busy shopping to care. But Dad gets out next month, so I'm afraid the good times may be over."

Keyes gazed thoughtfully at Houdini. “About the extra reading."

"Oh, yeah. Right."

"I'll make a list of books you can get through interlibrary loan. Oh, and I've been working on a book of my own."

Keyes took the dog-eared printout of his manuscript from under the Gideon Bible and handed it over. “Just one chapter so far, but you might enjoy reading it. It's kind of a hundred-and-seventy-year-old slasher movie, and it ends with a really neat puzzle. Maybe,” he suggested, in an offhand sort of way, “you can solve it."

"My kind of stuff,” beamed Houdini, taking the pages. “And I like the title. Okay, okay, okay."

As Keyes was seeing him to the door (an uncommon courtesy for him) Houdini tripped over his shoelaces again twice. Big eyes glued to the first page, he'd already begun reading the chapter that Keyes had titled—

Among the iconic figures of the early frontier—men like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, and Jim Bowie—Robert Tole stood out, less famous than they, but a lot meaner.

Tole was a bandit who worked the Natchez Trace, a 440-mile woodland track running south from Nashville, up hill and down dale, into fathomless marshes on one side and out on the other, abominable in wet weather and dangerous at all seasons. After selling their goods in New Orleans, flatboatmen used it to return to their homes in the Ohio country. Settlers used it to move south and west into the newly opened lands of the Mississippi Valley. The men wending northward had their profits tucked away in their saddlebags, while the people wending southward were burdened with everything they owned, money and animals and seed corn and furniture and featherbeds—all the whatnot they hoped to use in their new land.

For bandits, opportunity beckoned. No single haul was enormously rich, but the Trace yielded good, steady, dependable profits for enterprising scoundrels willing to shoot their victims down, gut them like fish, fill their carcasses with gravel, and dispose of them in God's own wet graveyard, the eternally flowing fourth-largest river on Earth, so conveniently close at hand.

None did a better business than Robert Tole. His success depended on his rangy, powerful body—his deadly shooting eye—and, more than anything else, on his clever and ruthless lover, Justice Urquhart. Exactly why this small, intense female villain bore such an improbable name was a story in itself. Her father, Jacob Urquhart—known as Wrath-of-God to his neighbors—spent six days a week farming a spread on the bluffs overlooking the Mississippi. On Sunday he morphed into a particularly ferocious clergyman of the Sure and Everlasting Hellfire sect, and every one of his endless sermons was attended by his long-suffering wife and by his daughters, Justice and Chastity, the only survivors of a brood of seven whose other members perished in infancy.

"What's in a name?” the farmer-clergyman had wondered, decided a lot, and named his girls (he had no sons) for virtues he particularly admired, to give them something to live up to. The results were not encouraging. The others, if they'd lived, might have exhibited Faith, Prudence, Charity, Mercy, and Wisdom, but the only ones who actually grew up were influenced by their names in reverse, if at all: Justice turned out a bandit, while Chastity became a whore. Detecting their appetite for sin, Wrath-of-God cast out of his house these “double damn'd Dotters of Satan,” leaving them freer than most women of the time to find their own way in the world.

Years later, Justice told her slave Jimson grim tales of her childhood—of endless graces delivered while the dinner chilled; of labor in the fields “from can't-see to can't-see;” of beatings administered with leather harness or a willow branch; of hiding from her father's fury in a cistern, trying to support her younger sister while keeping her own head above water. Shortly after the girls left home, the farmhouse caught fire one winter night and consumed both parents. Justice hinted broadly that the fire had been no accident—though whether she was telling the truth or merely boasting, nobody ever knew.

How she met Robert Tole is equally uncertain. Perhaps at a barn-raising, or a church service, or a quilting-bee. But it seems more likely that she met him thirty miles downriver in the hell-raising precincts of Natchez-under-the-Hill, a perfect place for birds of their feather to flock together. There Jim Bowie (the Alamo still far in his future) made his hunting knife famous by driving it into the heart of an enemy during a brawl on a sandbar. There carousing river-rats like Mike Fink butted and gouged each other for cheating at faro, then relaxed in the arms of ladies as repugnant as themselves. Chastity worked in the brothels for a time, and perhaps Justice did too, but the records are few and obscure, and all we know for certain is that she told her slave boy, “I larnt Sin as I larnt the Bible, in a hard School."

In any case, she and Robert Tole found each other. Perhaps the Devil was the real matchmaker. He certainly had few if any more enthusiastic disciples, and—until Bonnie and Clyde rolled across the South in their flivver a hundred years later—he had none more loyal to their unhallowed union.

Exactly how the diminutive Justice (she stood hardly more than four feet high at a time when the average woman was closer to five) ruled the hulking and brutal Robert was one of the mysteries of the time. For rule him she did.

Consider sex. A confirmed womanizer before he met Justice, he became as monogamous as a churchwarden afterward. Some people suggested that her secret was a Byzantine panoply of sexual skills she'd acquired Under-the-Hill and deployed to keep him drained of lust. But many believed that Tole stayed faithful to Justice simply because he was afraid of her—she was a dead shot, and absolutely fearless. Whatever the inner secrets of their relationship, they made a formidable pair.

Picture a party of settlers moving down the Trace (nobody sane rode it alone). A guide on horseback leads the way, followed by yoked oxen pulling wagons, perhaps with a slave or two prodding them on. The women are riding in the wagons, nursing babies or chewing snuff or gossiping; the men, armed to the teeth, ride or walk alongside. Moving at two or three miles an hour, the immigrants lurch and canter into one of the marshy spots, where the trail narrows and quaking bogs clothed in fever green stretch away to either side. The undergrowth is dense, the insect chorus loud as a church organ.

Suddenly a shot rings out. The guide topples from his horse. Crows take flight, screeching like rusty hinges. Children are crying, a woman screams. Gunmen hidden in the brush begin firing into the demoralized settlers. A startled horse plunges into the bog and promptly sinks to its saddle girth. A rider at the back of the column turns to flee, but Justice steps from the undergrowth holding a horse-pistol in a two-handed grip and shoots him down. Robert Tole, having stashed the long rifle he used to open the attack, arrives with a pepper-pot pistol in each hand and begins shooting anything that moves. Three or four hireling villains emerge from the brush to finish the slaughter. Men, women, and children are butchered and some are scalped, for frontiersmen as much as Indians like to carry away a trophy from a good day's hunting.

The settler party has been erased. The bodies are loaded into one of the wagons, hauled to the river, gutted, and thrown in. Giant catfish swarm to the feast. Meanwhile Justice divides the loot, and the hirelings take their shares and slip away, to reappear next day as peaceful farmers or even as substantial citizens of the brand-new hamlet of Bonaparte. The lion's share of the valuables are taken to Tole's Cavern—of which, more in a moment. The wreckage is set afire. By sundown that part of the forest is empty of human life. Even the crows are quiet.

That night the chief villains relax in the Cavern. Armed now with a goose-quill pen instead of a pistol, Justice sits writing on a mahogany lap-desk while Robert dictates. “Hereafter fine Gentlemen had better call me Robert Toll, for each and every one that passes along the Trace must pay Toll to him who rules the wild Countrey, the which is not some Quarter-Wit in Washington, nor some strutting Ass in a Militia Uniform, but is in fact Mine Own Self."

When the letter is finished, folded, and closed with sealing-wax, a local boy will earn himself a handful of the cheap paper money called shinplasters by delivering it to the Natchez post office. In time the editor of the Advertiser or the Southern Galaxy will tickle his readers by printing it under a headline like The Road-Agent Tole Again Boasts of His Infamous Crimes.

Wrath-of-God Urquhart had flogged literacy into his daughters to make them able to read Holy Writ and copy out its precepts. Well, this was how Justice used her skill—one that must have seemed almost magical to an ignoramus like Robert Tole. And it gave her another hold over her dangerous lover. Besides being his bedmate and accomplice, she was also his scribe who, he thought, would make him famous in his own time and a byword to later generations.

In one of his raids Tole captured half a dozen slaves. One day he took them to a high bluff overlooking the river and ordered them to cut timber and split it into rough boards, then excavate a tunnel in the loess and use the wood to shore up the sides and roof. The floor was simply hard earth, pounded down by many bare feet coming and going, and the tunnel at first nothing but a crude warehouse for goods he'd stolen but hadn't yet disposed of. In the woods nearby he penned captive animals, until he could sell them to passing boatmen or unscrupulous locals.

Then, at Justice's bidding, he began turning the Cavern into a home. A slave who was a skilled carpenter built and framed and installed a door to make it livable in winter, then laid a wooden floor and fashioned a few pieces of rough furniture. Justice brought in carpets and comfortable bedding. What happened to the slaves when the Cavern was finished, nobody knew—one by one, Tole led them away, and they were not seen again. The single exception was a boy called Jimson, whom the outlaws kept to serve as what they called their “House Nigger.” He swept and scrubbed and polished and every day took his forty licks, for Justice like her Papa was an enthusiastic flogger.

From Jimson's testimony we know that by 1830 or thereabouts the Cavern had become an underground residence, rudely comfortable, the wooden floors scattered with rugs, smooth clapboards covering the rough walls, storerooms off the main tunnel where the robbers kept foodstuffs and items for sale, a curtained alcove with a four-poster bed where the master and mistress slept, and a fireplace and clay chimney at the rear that gave warmth and light and also helped to suck in fresh air and keep the Cavern from becoming stuffy. Brass whale-oil lamps hung from the ceiling, their light screened from boats on the river by thickets of yaupon and wild holly.

Lounging outside were six or seven big, ill-natured dogs that earned their keep by acting as guards and an early-warning system. Jimson made friends with the dogs by stealing them extra food, and didn't fear them. But he desperately feared his owners, and he had no doubt which was worse: “Master Robert, he would just as soon kill you as look at you. But Mistress Justice, she would rather kill you than look at you."

He feared not only her cruelty but her intelligence. She could stare fixedly at him and see what he was thinking; she could read and write; and she had a way with numbers the slave boy thought unnatural in a woman. Wrath-of-God had forced her to learn ciphering as an incentive to thrift, and she'd taken to it like the proverbial duck to water. But for Jimson (in this respect a typical male of his time) to see her keeping a big ledger—entering items they'd stolen and the value and adding up columns of figures in her head—made him wonder if the Devil were not her instructor. Or even her true begetter. Maybe, he thought, Wrath-of-God had only been Old Nick's cuckold, as the preacher himself seemed to think when he called her a “dotter of Satan."

With thoughts like this buzzing in his head, nobody was more surprised than Jimson when she began to confide in him. The reason was a new resident of the Cavern, one that scared both of them. Rats and mice had gotten into the storerooms, and one day a corn snake invited itself in from the woods to pursue the rodents. Justice wanted to kill it, but Tole said no, it wasn't poisonous and would do a better job than any cat. He named it Shadow (pronounced Shadder) because it moved so silently, and let it do what came naturally.

Shadder was first-rate at pest control, pursuing the rodents down the holes they'd gnawed through and behind the walls, wrapping them in its coils and suffocating them, then swallowing them head-first until the last half-inch of naked tail disappeared from view. The mice went early on, and the snake grew and cast its skin. The rats followed, and Shadder left more and more dry papery skins about the Cavern, like ghostly memorials of itself. Quickly it reached the normal limit of its kind—about five feet—but then a puppy disappeared, and another, and Shadder began to expand in length and girth in a manner that seemed to defy nature.

Was it really a corn snake, or had a python somehow gotten loose on the Mississippi frontier? Jimson said that Shadder looked “like a quilted Bolster,” a phrase suggesting the elegant attire in which pythons go about their business. Well, New Orleans traded with the world, and ships sometimes brought back surprising stowaways. Small animal shows and circuses wandered up and down the river, stopping off in towns along the way to fleece the locals, and strange snakes had always been a draw for the gaping public. So the possibility that Shadder was an exotic import that had escaped its captors can't be rejected out of hand.

Whatever the truth, it grew and grew, and the bigger it got the more it fascinated Robert Tole. The man liked dangerous pets, and besides, he'd finally found something Justice feared and he didn't. On off-nights, when he wasn't murdering anybody, he took to draping Shadder around his neck and shuffling clumsily through the Cavern like a dancing bear, swilling corn whiskey from a jug and roaring out a coarse brothel song—

Shagged and shagged until I stove her!

Rig-a-jig-jig, rig-a-jig-jig, rig-a-jig-jig, très bon!

(Pronounced tray bone.) The carpenter slave had made Tole an outsized chair, a throne for this king of the wild country, and when he was tired of solo dancing he'd collapse on it, hefting his demijohn with one hand and with the other caressing Shadder, another cold-blooded predator with which he felt a kinship.

Speaking of cold blood, Shadder liked to sleep next to a human for warmth, and since Justice absolutely excluded it from her bed, that left the slave boy to serve as its warming-pan on winter nights. The rustling of his corn-shuck mattress would wake him and he'd find a cool and scaly bedmate beside him—one he was too frightened to disturb, especially after it grew to a length above nine feet, and a girth thicker than a stove pipe. Justice sympathized, quoting him Genesis 3:14-15 from memory and adding darkly that this time “'tis Adam and not Eve who heeds the Sarpent."

From that small beginning—a shared fear—a surprising intimacy grew up between mistress and slave. Tole was no conversationalist, tending to alternate grim silence with drunken raving, and perhaps Justice merely needed someone to chat with. In any case, she got in the habit of talking to Jimson, not only about their mutual loathing of Shadder, but about other things as well. She told him tales of her childhood, and once mentioned that she and Tole had accumulated “a Treasure.” Getting it hadn't been easy, she said, for few of their victims could be called rich. “They are but poor Buckra,” she sneered, meaning buckwheat, the least edible of grains.

Yet even people of modest means owned rings and other trinkets, and all carried some gold and silver coins, the only money that was accepted everywhere. The bandits kept the coins and the few good gems that came their way, and sold the trinkets to honest householders of Bonaparte “who would not spit on us in Daylight, but welcome us warmly after Dark, knowing we cannot come into the open Market, and so must sell cheap the Baubles we risque our Lives for."

From time to time either Tole or Justice would take a bag of gold and silver, ride away on a captured mule, and return empty-handed. Jimson deduced that they had a hiding place, a sort of private bank, and in fact Justice occasionally spoke of “making a Deposite.” She told Jimson that in time she and her lover would retrieve the treasure and vanish, south to Cuba or west to Texas, there to live out their lives in luxury “as a Lady and Gentleman ought to, with a fine House and Horses and many Servants to do our Bidding."

This was dangerous knowledge, as Jimson recognized. No one except Tole and Justice knew how much the treasure amounted to, or where it was kept, and Jimson, being illiterate, could not read her ledger even when he was alone in the Cavern. Yet he believed that merely knowing of the treasure's existence would ultimately get him killed. Between fear of his owners and fear of the snake, his life was almost unbearable, and yet he could not run away because Tole would come after him with the dogs, which knew his scent.

His chance to escape came suddenly in 1834. One spring morning, a tremendous bang from the direction of the river brought Tole running to the edge of the bluff. Jimson joined him, and together they watched the steamboat Cincinnati, disabled by an exploding boiler, drift grandly into a slough and stick fast on a sandbar. While the passengers sunned themselves and the crew worked to repair the damage, Justice mounted a mule and set off at a gallop to summon their gang. At sundown the brigands attacked, and general slaughter and looting followed. When Tole forced the captain to open his safe, he found that the boat was carrying Treasury gold in the sum of six thousand, four hundred and thirty-two dollars—in value closer to three hundred thousand today—to pay the soldiers in the New Orleans garrison.

This was a coup beyond the bandits’ wildest dreams. Tole and Justice resolved to keep every penny for themselves. Treacherously they shot down their hirelings, then set the Cincinnati afire. Back in the Cavern, Tole roared out his usual song and swilled whiskey and strutted up and down with Shadder draped around his shoulders like a living garment. But the practical Justice ordered Jimson to begin packing clothes in some small trunks they'd stolen from travelers. Then, taking the strongbox with the government gold, she set out on her mule to make a final “Deposite."

Jimson concluded that his masters—after a last “fire sale” of goods taken from the Cincinnati —now intended to gather up their treasure and flee. And he felt sure that their final act before going would be to cut his throat, for, as Tole liked to say, “The Dead do'n't bite.” When the drunken bandit passed out, the slave boy threw some food to the dogs to keep them occupied and fled into the woods, with only the vaguest idea of what direction he should take to reach Bonaparte, or what would happen to him if and when he got there.

Next day, news of the Cincinnati's destruction spread apace and local people turned violently against the bandits. None doubted that President Jackson would send troops to avenge the theft of the Army's gold. But news of the affair would take weeks to reach Washington, and the troops would take more weeks to reach Bonaparte. So the locals resolved to take matters into their own hands—some because they were honestly outraged by the massacre, others because they'd been receivers of stolen goods and feared Old Hickory's wrath if he found out. Whatever their motives, everybody agreed that Tole and Justice needed to hang, and hang quick.

Men armed themselves, and Sheriff Micah Jones of Burr County formed a posse. By the time his force was ready to move, he knew exactly where to look for the bandits, for Jimson, after struggling through dense tangles of woodland and swamp, had staggered into town, hungry, exhausted, and covered with mosquito bites. He began telling his story, and it's from his testimony, taken down by the local schoolmaster and later bound and sent to the archives in Washington, that we know so many details about the bandits and about life in the Cavern.

Jimson doubted they would ever be caught. “Right now,” he said, “they most likely be taking their Treasure away to a far Countrey, where they can live like Kings and Queens."

"They are going nowhere,” the sheriff assured him, “save to a Ball where they will dance on Air, to the Tune of the Dead March."

Despite his fear of his former masters, Jimson bravely agreed to lead the posse back to the Cavern—a service for which the state legislature would later liberate him through an Act of Manumission sponsored by Sheriff Jones, and endorsed by the free citizens of Bonaparte, white and black.

With the sheriff and Jimson in the lead, the posse struggled through thorns and thickets to the Cavern, and found it devoid of life. But not of death. Robert Tole sat slumped in his big chair, his face blue, his eyes protruding like hard-boiled eggs. The outlaw king had draped Shadder around his neck once too often, and the coil of rope brought by the sheriff had been rendered superfluous. The corpse's head was covered by a peculiar glaze, like the track of a huge snail plastering down the hair, and a few broken recurved teeth were embedded in the scalp. Jones concluded that Shadder had tried to ingest its former master, only to be defeated by the width of his shoulders.

The fate of Justice was worse. The huge snake had left a trail leading down the bluff to the river, and there the posse discovered a thick and ill-smelling pile of dung. Embedded in it was one of Justice's tiny shoes, much charred by the fearsome acids of Shadder's stomach. After being suffocated in its coils, the petite villainess had gone head-first down the throat of the only thing in the world she feared.

Sheriff Jones took possession of her lap-desk and the papers inside. The ledger was all very businesslike, listing the items taken on each raid and the prices they'd been sold for. A grand total entered just before the looting of the Cincinnati showed the value of the thieves’ treasure to be “in Sum, about 81 Thousands of $.” She'd never lived to enter the value of the loot from the Cincinnati, for Shadder had been waiting when she returned to the Cavern.

Adding in the federal gold and whatever the bandits got by robbing the steamboat's passengers, it appears quite possible that our businesslike villains through years of robbery and murder had amassed almost ninety thousand dollars in gold and silver and gems. A huge sum at that time, when many a laborer fed and clothed and sheltered himself and his family—yes, and managed to get drunk every night on bad whiskey, too—on wages of a dollar a day. Today, of course, it would be worth much more, since the numismatic rather than the face value of the coins would have to be considered. Millions, probably—it's hard to guess how many.

Besides the ledger, the desk contained writing paper and a letter already sealed and addressed to Justice's sister, Chastity, in New Orleans “at the House of Mme Lacaze, near the Ramparts.” It read:

Dearest Sister, Presarve well these verses from Holy Scripture, for our Lives are perilous, and if aught sh'd befall Rob't and me, they will guide you by one, by two, and by three to those Gleanings, which we have gather'd with such Toil, thro’ a thousand Perils.

—

Proverbs, 20:15; Matthew, 7:7.

—

NUMBERS, 6:8

DEUTERONOMY, 5:7

II CHRONICLES, 7:15

JOSHUA, 3:12

MATTHEW, 4:9

CORINTHIANS, 1:21

TITUS, 2:9

The Bible was favorite reading in those days, and we can be sure that when the posse returned to Bonaparte the testaments were pawed in a kind of frenzy, everyone looking for a clue to the bandits’ Gleanings.

The first citations were encouraging, for the verse in Proverbs begins, “There is gold and abundance of costly stones,” while the verse in Matthew promises, “Seek and ye shall find.” From that point on, however, the way of the treasure hunters became as tangled as the path to the Cavern. The subsequent books were listed in correct order, but were scattered across the Old and New Testaments in a seemingly pointless way. II Chronicles was specified, but I or II Numbers was not, leaving in doubt which was meant. The texts seemed to have nothing to do with the treasure, or with each other. And yet if some sort of code was involved, it ought to be a simple one, devised by two farm girls and based on the only book they'd ever read.

Then Sheriff Jones had an idea. The steamboat Girl of the Golden West was docked at Natchez, bound for New Orleans, and Jones persuaded the captain to carry a warrant to the authorities there, charging Chastity as an accessory to murder and river piracy. Once she was in his hands, Jones felt sure he could persuade her, one way or another, to explain the mysterious document left by Justice. But here he encountered the only absolutely immovable obstacle in the world. New Orleans's Criminal Sheriff reported that Chastity, while pursuing her vocation, had been throttled by a customer whose gold watch she'd attempted to steal when she thought he was asleep.

At Bonaparte, hit-or-miss became the rule for the treasure hunters. For a while, giant moles seemed to have attacked the town, as busy fools dug here, there, and everywhere, guided by dowsing rods or dreams or the babblings of the local witches, all of whom turned out to be wrong. The old Urquhart farm was the only place where the sisters had definitely been known to live together, but even finding it turned out to be a baffling problem. It had never been formally surveyed, so there was no plat to work from. The burned-down ruins of the house had long since vanished, and the fields had either been swallowed up by dense second-growth woodland, or occupied by squatters, or had sloughed into the Mississippi, which then as ever was hard at work undermining its banks. Not a single identifiable trace remained of the farm where Justice and Chastity had spent their unhappy childhoods, having virtue beaten into them and consequently learning to hate it.

In time Treasury agents arrived, took depositions, and departed, carrying the documents from the lap-desk and the transcript of Jimson's testimony with them. Meanwhile troops sent by Old Hickory scoured the Trace, capturing and hanging a score of the scoundrels who infested it, and sending the others in panicked flight across the river into the Western Territories.

As a result, it became a far safer road, and the whole region profited. Within a few decades Bonaparte grew from a hamlet into a thriving town with a courthouse, a jail, a barber shop, a billiard hall, four saloons, two brothels, and a Presbyterian church. By the time of the Civil War (which hardly touched it, for all the action was either downriver at New Orleans or upriver at Vicksburg), comfortable houses covered land that might once have belonged to Wrath-of-God's hardscrabble farm. The treasure left by Tole and Justice was never found, and its legend remains today one of the choice mysteries of the Mid-Mississippi Valley, and especially of Bonaparte, where it may—or may not—still lie hidden.

Two days passed without a word from Houdini, and Keyes thought: another bust.

Each day he dropped by Tom's Trash & Treasures, a musty shop on Bonaparte's Main Street, to inquire about the guy who'd found the lead plates, Jamie Something-or-Other. But Tom said Jamie was a roofer currently working in New Orleans, putting roofs back on houses that had lost them in you-know-what.

How had he found the plates? Well, Jamie's hobby was going around with a metal detector looking for Civil War memorabilia like bullets and buttons, and one day he dug up the plates.

"He didn't say where he found them?” Keyes asked, and Tom growled, “For the fifth time, no."

"You've got his cell phone number?"

"Yeah, and I've called him, but he don't answer."

"Suppose you give me the number and I'll try it."

"I don't give out people's numbers without their permission. I've told you that five times, too."

Cretin, thought Keyes. Nothing was working right for him.

The third morning after his talk with Houdini, Keyes was drinking bad coffee in his office and gazing balefully at the still unfinished Batman crossword, when his own phone began to bleat.

"Yeah?” he growled, and the voice of Bernard Marx said, “Well, I got it."

Keyes's mind was still locked onto a clue that said Wayne's feathered friend? Oh, hell, how obvious, he thought, and wrote down Robin, while muttering, “Got what?"

"The code. Wanna take me to lunch?"

Keyes did. They met in the rundown campus cafeteria named Bilbo Commons (and invariably called Dildo Commons). Accustomed to the pukey way the food smelled, neither complained as they filled their plastic trays and carried them to a corner table. There, through mouthfuls of ghastly country-fried steak, macerated Brussels sprouts, and other academic viands, Bernard explained how he'd unraveled in a few days a mystery that had been bothering people for the past hundred and seventy years.

"It's kind of a dumb code,” he mumbled, “but in a way it's kind of smart, too. I mean, everything's there. You start with those first two Bible quotes, ‘There is gold,’ and ‘Seek and ye shall find.’ That tells Chastity what it's all about. Then you go to block letters, so there's been a change. And the list starts with Numbers. Well, I read in Bandits of the Trace where Justice was a natural with numbers, so I thought, hey, that's a hint. The code is somewhere in the numbers."

"Go on!” said Keyes, who was getting interested. “Go on!"

"I must've messed with those damn numbers all night. And then about four a.m., when I was too tired to keep making the same mistakes, suddenly I thought: Whoa! Justice says by one, by two, and by three. Well, if you put the Bible chapters in numerical order they go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. I could use some coffee."

With the alacrity of a well-trained waiter, Keyes fetched a Dixie cup of brownish fluid from the coffee-and-soup machine. Houdini dumped three pink packets of Sweeter ‘n’ Sweet into it, stirred it with one of the plastic straws that served the diners at Bilbo Commons in place of teaspoons, and went on:

"So I tried rearranging the books, lining them up numerically instead of by how they appear in the Bible. And I got—lemme show you—"

He commandeered a paper napkin, borrowed Keyes's ballpoint pen, and wrote:

1st chapter of C O R I N T H I A N S Verse 21

2nd “ “ T I T U S “ 9

3rd “ “ J O S H U A “ 12

4th “ “ M A T T H E W “ 9

5th “ “ N U M B E R S “ 8

6th “ “ D E U T E R O N O M Y “ 7

7th “ “ I I C H R O N I C L E S “ 15

"As soon as I got it arranged like that, I saw it. It's just like Justice said. You take the first letter of the first word and the second letter of the second word, and so on, and you get ‘cistern.’ And I thought, cistern? So I went back to Bandits again, and I saw—"

"You saw,” said Keyes, heart palpitating, “that Justice and Chastity used to hide in a cistern to escape from their Papa's wrath. The wrath of God, you might say. A lot of the old houses had underground cisterns to catch rainwater from the roof for drinking and cooking. And the water table's low up on the bluff, so after the house burned the water slowly oozed away. The empty cistern must have looked like the perfect hiding place."

"Now you got it,” said Houdini, like a kindly teacher encouraging a backward student. “And those Bible verses—well, obviously, once again it's the numbers that count. The numbers that count,” he repeated. “I might think that's funny, if only I had a sense of humor. Anyway, when you add ‘em up, they come to eighty-one. I went back to Bandits again, and that's the last total Justice lived to write down. And the word thousand appears in the letter, underlined at that. So translated, the whole message says, Hey, Chastity, look, girl. There's a treasure in the cistern, and it's worth 81 thou.

"And,” Houdini finished, swallowing his lethally oversweetened coffee at a gulp, “that's also why the solution's not worth a crap. The one thing she doesn't say is where the cistern's located, because Chastity already knew that. And since nobody today even knows where the farm used to be, much less the house, much less the cistern, and since there's a town built on top of it all, well—"

"But it was a brilliant job of decryption,” said Keyes, and shook Houdini's hand with rare warmth as they parted.

He was so close to it now. So close to wealth and freedom. Back in his office, he belched—the least unpleasant consequence of a meal at Bilbo Commons—lined up the heavy lead plates side by side on his desk, and read aloud the mysterious words cut into the soft metal: Faith. Prudence. Charity. Mercy. Wisdom.

In all the world, only he knew that the plates were grave markers for dead infants. And the graves didn't lie in some municipal cemetery (none existed when the tiny bodies were interred) but in a private burial ground. After a hundred and seventy years the Urquhart farm had been rediscovered, courtesy of a Civil War buff with a metal detector. And somewhere on that farm was the cistern.

Maybe there was a God, after all.

Further proof of this thesis was quickly forthcoming. First of all, Keyes finished the puzzle. Tragic jester in Wayne's pack? queried the clue (6 letters, ends with R). Keyes, who'd been reading up on recent Batmania, thought suddenly of the dead guy that all the reviews said had given the best and final performance of his life as the Joker. Ledger, he wrote, and it not only fit—it gave him the crossing words, too.

He was still admiring the completed puzzle when his phone bleated again. A gruff, unfamiliar male voice asked, “You the guy Tom says wants to talk with me?"

Keyes said yes, surprised at the calmness of his voice. Jamie the roofer was apologetic.

"I keep forgetting to check my mailbox, you know? About them lead plates I found—Tom said you bought ‘em, so I guess you got a right to know where they come from. I found ‘em in Reservoir Park, behind the college, up near the water tower. That's what you wanted to know, right?"

"Right,” said Keyes. “And thanks for calling."

He didn't sleep that night. Didn't especially want to. He bought a bottle of brandy at Bonaparte Package Liquors and sat in the kitchen of his run-down house on a back street, sipping fluid fire from a Wal-Mart snifter and planning the final phase of the treasure hunt. He'd have to rent a metal detector and learn how to use it, then divide the park into squares and go over it systematically, foot by foot. Sooner or later all that metal in the cistern—all that precious metal—would set the gadget squealing—

Unless. Unless the treasure had been found already. Unless some bastardly robber had stolen it before he could. Unless, once he found it, the IRS claimed it for taxes and the Treasury claimed it because of the Army payroll. Unless the town fathers of Bonaparte claimed it because it was found on municipal property. Unless legal fees ate up whatever he gained. At the end of the process, would anything be left? Who did he know that was slick enough to secure the treasure for its rightful owner?

He could think of only one name. Next day he bought Houdini lunch again in the Commons, told him that he now knew where to find the cistern with the treasure, and made his pitch.

"When your Dad gets out of jail, I'm going to need his help as legal adviser. On a contingency basis, of course. I'm prepared to offer him one percent of my net gains."

Houdini didn't even stop chewing before saying, “Fifty."

"Ten."

"Thirty. He won't take any less. If he accepted less than thirty, he'd spend the rest of his life brooding about it. I let him screw me, he'd think. It's a question of manhood with him. He's my father, but he's also a fruitcake. You wanna pay less, find yourself another crook."

After a brief struggle with himself, Keyes asked, “You think he'll go for it on that basis?"

"Oh, yeah. He's still fighting disbarment, but he knows it's coming, so he'll want to make a final killing before he retires to Palm Beach. When do we start going over the place where Justice hid the loot?"

"After I have the contract in hand—signed, sealed, and delivered."

"Right. One thing you never wanna do with my old man is trust him. I learned that when I was still watching Romper Room."

Bandits of the Trace, thought Keyes. Every century produces its own kind.

She'd guarded it long and guarded it well. She'd died for it, and then—discovering in herself a power that could only have come from her true father—she'd captured the body of the beast that killed her. She'd have shared the treasure with Chastity, who was in every sense her sister. But Chastity never came.

She stirred, her immense pale coils rustling with the motion. Her garnet eyes stared blindly. They were all gone—the mother she could hardly remember, the stepfather she'd hated, the sister she'd loved, Robert whose life she'd ruled and guided with an inner strength she'd felt but hadn't yet understood.

All gone. All but the treasure. That she would keep.

She was deaf, of course, yet suddenly her delicate, flickering tongue picked up the vibrations of men walking, three of them. A shovel struck the earth above. Steel grated on ancient brick. Someone coming to rob her? After all this time? They'd get a surprise!

She tensed, ready to defend what was hers.

I find it eerie to think of my writing a story for the 60th anniversary issue. I can clearly remember seeing issue number one on sale on a day in September or very early October, 1949, when I was just starting my sophomore year of high school and had already made my first hapless story submissions (to John Campbell, of course, who was very gentle with me). The thirty-five-cent price-tag for The Magazine of Fantas , as it was then called, was a little steep for my barely adolescent self, and instead of buying it at once I decided to wait a little while and save up for it, since the magazine was a quarterly and I had lots of time to put the money together before the issue disappeared from the newsstands. But then a couple of weeks later I stumbled upon a second-hand copy, probably at half price, and pounced on it. I still own that copy. And now, to my utter astonishment, I find myself magically transformed into a white-bearded old gentleman who is still writing stories for that very magazine, sixty years later!—Robert Silverberg

I had always yearned to visit Sippulgar, that golden city of the southern coast. Every schoolchild hears tales of its extraordinary beauty. But there are many places on Majipoor I yearn to visit—the Fifty Cities of Castle Mount, or at least a few of them, and marvelous Dulorn, the shining city of crystalline stone that the Ghayrog folk built in far-off Zimroel, and mighty Ni-moya on that same distant continent, and many another. Our world is a huge one, though, and life is short. I am a man of business, an expediter of merchandise, and business has kept me close to my native city of Sisivondal for most of my days.

It was the strange disappearance and presumed death of Melifont Ambithorn, my wife Thuwayne's elder brother, that finally brought me to Sippulgar. I had hardly known Melifont at all, you understand: I had met him just twice, once at my wedding and once perhaps ten years later, when one of his many unsuccessful business ventures brought him to Sisivondal for a few days. He was fifteen years older than my wife and she seemed to regard him more as an uncle than as a brother; but when word came to her that he was thought to have perished in some mysterious and unpleasant way, she was deeply affected, far more than I would have thought, asking me to go at once to Sippulgar to see if I could discover what had happened to him, and to lay a memorial wreath on his grave, if he was indeed dead. Thuwayne herself is no traveler; she dislikes the upheavals and discomforts of even the shortest trip most intensely. But she could not bear to leave her brother's death a mystery, and I think she entertained some hope that I would actually find him still alive. She begged me to go, and I knew that I had no choice but to do it.

For all my fascination with the fabled marvels of Sippulgar, it was not an especially good time for me to be setting out on such a long excursion. Sisivondal is the chief mercantile center of western Alhanroel, where all roads that cross the heart of the continent meet, and we were coming now into the busiest season of the year, when caravans travel from all directions to unload their goods into our warehouses and to buy merchandise for their return journeys. But I will refuse Thuwayne nothing. I cherish her beyond all measure. And so, after just a few mild expressions of uneasiness about undertaking such a venture at this time of year, I put my business affairs into the hands of my most trusted assistant and made my arrangements for my visit to Sippulgar. This was in the time of Lord Confalume, who was then about thirty years into his long and glorious reign as Coronal. Prankipin was our Pontifex. In those days, you know, we enjoyed a time of great prosperity; and also it was the period when all sorts of esoteric new philosophies—sorcery, necromancy, prognostication, the worship of supernatural spirits of every kind, the opening of doors into hidden universes populated by gods and demons—were taking hold on Majipoor.

Thuwayne had been informed that her brother had begun dabbling in certain of those philosophies, and possibly had met his death as a result. I am a man of business, a practical man, concerned with shipping costs and bills of lading, not with the propitiation of demons, and I regard all these new philosophies essentially as lunacy. A few little protective amulets and talismans suffice for me, purely on the off chance that they might do some good; I go no further into any of this occult stuff. Sippulgar was known to be a spawning ground for the new cults, and that made me apprehensive. But, as I say, I will refuse Thuwayne nothing. She asked me to go to Sippulgar to investigate her brother's disappearance and probable death; and so to Sippulgar I went.

Cities are far apart on Majipoor and the road from anywhere to anywhere is usually a long one; but Sippulgar is a port city on the southern sea, and Sisivondal is a heartland city set in the midst of a bare featureless plain some thousands of miles across, far to the north, and so I found myself embarking on what I knew would be the great journey of my lifetime.

Plotting my route was easy. A dozen great highways meet in Sisivondal, intersecting like the spokes of a giant wheel: one coming in from the great port of Alaisor in the west, five going eastward toward Castle Mount, three descending from the north, and three connecting us with the south. Sisivondal's boulevards and avenues are laid out in concentric circles that allow easy connection from one highway to another. All along the streets that run between the circular avenues are rows of warehouses where goods destined for transshipment to other zones of the continent are stored. The group of warehouses I control is close by the Great Southern Highway, the one that would carry me toward my goal, and so, after issuing a last set of instructions to my staff, I set out from there early one morning on my journey toward the sea.

Sisivondal has been called “a thousand miles of outskirts.” That is unkind, but I suppose it is true. The central sector is devoted entirely to commerce, many miles of warehouses and not much else; then one passes through the suburban residential district, and beyond that lies a zone of customs sheds and repair shops, gradually trickling off into the parched treeless plain beyond. Our climate is an extremely dry one and our only vegetation is of necessity sturdy: huge lumma-lummas that look like big gray rocks, and prickly garavedas that take a whole century to bring forth their black flower-spikes, and purple-leaved camaganda palms that can go years without a drop of water. Beyond town there is no vegetation at all, only a barren, dusty plain. Not a pretty place, I suppose, but essential to the economy of our continent; and in any case I am used to it.

Gradually, as I left central Alhanroel behind, the world grew more gracious. I spent a day or two in lovely Bailemoona, which I had visited years before, a city famous for its subtle cuisine and its swarms of shining bees, large as small birds and nearly as intelligent. There I hired a carriage to take me southward through the Sulfur Desert, that region of surpassing yellowness, where amidst fantastic eroded spires of soft cream-colored stone the bizarre city of Ketheron was set, a place of twisted yellow towers that could have been the pointed caps of witches. I had been there once before too. Beyond, though, everything was new to me. The air very shortly took on a tropic moistness, becoming soft as velvet, and rain-showers fell frequently. Our caravan rode past the Cliff of Eyes, a white mountain pockmarked with hundreds of dark shining boulders that stared down at us like disapproving orbs, and then we were at the Pillars of Dvorn, two sharp-tipped blue-gray rocks set athwart the highway to mark the boundary between central and southern Alhanroel. On the far side lay Arvyanda of the golden hills: here the slopes were covered by stubby trees whose stiff oval leaves had a metallic texture and yielded a brilliant glint in the strong tropical sunlight. Already I felt very far from Sisivondal, almost on another world entirely.

Gradually the sky grew dark with a thick cover of clouds. We were coming into the jungles of Kajith Kajulon, a green empire where rain falls constantly, more rain in a week than I had seen in the past ten years, and the trunks of the trees were bright with the red and yellow splashes of enormous fungi. There was no end to the rain, nor to the clouds of insects that swarmed around us, and we were besieged by armies of scarlet lizards and loud flat-headed toads. Long chains of blue spiders hung down from every branch, eyeing us in a sinister way. We rode through Kajith Kajulon for many days. I thought my bones would melt in the humid air.

But at last we left that dense forest and emerged into the coastal province of Aruachosia, of which Sippulgar is the capital. Now we were just a few hundred miles from the sea, and the air, though warm and moist and heavy, was tempered by salty breezes out of the south. Just ahead lay the breathtaking wonder that is Sippulgar.

Everyone always calls it golden Sippulgar. Now I saw why. Its buildings, which are no more than two and three stories high, are made from a golden sandstone, flecked with bits of mica, that gleams with a dazzling brightness when the sun comes up out of the southern sea. I was amazed by the intensity of that brightness, and by the lushness of the decorative plantings that lined the streets: a hundred different kinds of tropical shrubs, all of them unknown to me, whose blossoms blazed forth in orange and green and scarlet and blue and gold, with darker ones in maroon and even jet-black interspersed among them for contrast. They exuded such a wealth of fragrance that the air itself seemed perfumed. Small wonder this district is known as the Incense Coast. I could not tell one plant from another, but I knew from a lifetime spent among bills of lading and customs forms that the region around Sippulgar was rich in cinnamon and khazil, the balsam called hinnam, thanibong trees and scarlet fhiiis, and many another scented plant, from which were produced a host of aromatic oils and gums. I had booked a room in a hotel close to the city center, so that it would be easy for me to consult the official documents and records I needed in my quest. It was situated just a couple of blocks from the waterfront; and on my way there it was my bad luck to become entangled in a religious procession, of a sort that I soon learned was ubiquitous here. And so I stood for an hour and a half waiting amidst my baggage before I was able to cross the street and continue on to my lodgings.

Even in this era of multitudinous cults and sorceries, Sippulgar stands out for its abundance of strange creeds. Perhaps it is the heavy tropical air that spawns such credulity. At home in Sisivondal only one of these superstitions holds sway, the cult of the Beholders. All too frequently I have seen its worshippers dancing ecstatically down Grand Alaisor Avenue, strewing costly imported flower petals everywhere and blowing on pipes and flutes as the grotesque statuettes that are their seven sacred artifacts are carried on high, preceding the great box that they call the Ark of the Mysteries and the ebony cart that carries their high priest, who wears a mask with the visage of a terrifying yellow-eyed hound. What it is that the Beholders seek, and what they find, I will never know; but at least we have only that one cult to interrupt the smooth flow of commerce with its antics. In Sippulgar, I soon would learn, there were dozens.

From a distance I heard the shrill shriek of bellhorns, the crashing of cymbals, the tremendous uproar of a platoon of kettle drums. When I drew nearer I saw my route blocked by a horde of marchers wearing nothing but loincloths and sandals, striding along with their heads upraised to the sky. There seemed to be millions of them. The people of Sippulgar are dark-skinned, mostly, no doubt some adaptation to the intense sunlight, but the sweat-shiny bodies of the marchers were streaked with bright splotches of red and green and purple that echoed the gaudiness of the shrubs in bloom all about them. There was no hope of crossing the street. I stood and waited. Eventually a group of weeping, chanting worshippers came down the boulevard pulling a massive platform on which stood the wooden image of a winged serpent that had the frightening toothy-snouted blazing-eyed face of a jakkabole, that ravenous, angry beast of the eastern highlands. I turned to the man who stood beside me. “I am a stranger here,” I said. “What god is that they worship?"

"It is Time,” he told me. “The devourer of all."

Yes. The winged serpent that flies ever onward, jaws agape, engulfing everything in its path, as even the maddened jakkaboles do when they descend on the farms of the Vrambikat Valley in their ravening hunger. I watched the good folk of Sippulgar, lost in their madness, march on and on and on until at last the boulevard was clear, and I went across to my hotel and sank down gratefully on the softest of beds.

What I knew about my brother-in-law Melifont's life, and of his supposed fate, was this: He was one of those unhappy men fated to fail at every enterprise he turned his hand to, despite the advantages of intelligence, zeal, and energy. At an early age he had left Sisivondal for the southlands to seek his fortune. He involved himself first in a mining project in the lava country back of the port of Glystrintal, where since time immemorial bold fools had sought for rumored mines of silver and gold. Melifont found neither silver nor gold, and when he moved on to search for the equally fabulous iron mines of Skakkenoir of the red soil, he returned so damaged from his adventures that his recovery took over a year. Hoping then for a quieter life, he settled next on the Stoienzar Peninsula, where he worked for a time as a tavernkeeper but appears also to have helped to found a bank that prospered greatly for a time, though ultimately it came to grief in a spectacular way. It was during his period of prosperity that I married his younger sister, and he returned to Sisivondal for the first time in many years to attend the ceremony. He was then about forty, a tall, handsome man with a florid face and sleek black hair, who limped a little, a souvenir of his mining project in Skakkenoir. I found him charming—magnetic, even—and Thuwayne, who had not seen her swaggering brother since she was a little girl, looked at him constantly in wonder and fascination. He presented us with a wedding gift of surprising generosity, which I put to good use in the expansion of my warehousing business.

Next we heard of him, his bank had failed—the malfeasance of a conniving partner, we were told—and he was off to Zimroel to sell rope to the Shapeshifters, or some such thing. Very little news travels from remotest Zimroel to our part of the world, and I have no idea how Melifont occupied himself for the decade that followed; but then he turned up in Sisivondal once again, looking very much older, his hair now gray and sparse, his limp more pronounced, but he was still charismatic, still full of ambition and optimism. His new endeavor was a shipping company that proposed to run ferry service across the Inner Sea between Piliplok in Zimroel and the port of Tolaghai in our sun-blasted southern continent of Suvrael. I thought it was a crazy idea myself—Suvrael is a terrible place, and produces almost nothing useful—but in my relief at not being asked to finance his company out of my own pocket I gladly introduced him to several bankers of my acquaintance, whom he charmed into putting up a huge sum to underwrite his shipping operation. That was the last I saw of my brother-in-law Melifont. Now and again I asked my friends in shipping circles what they had heard of his ferry company, and in time I learned that it, too, had gone bankrupt. We heard from him only once more: a letter, three years back, that let us know that he had settled now in Sippulgar and had some interesting ideas for capitalizing on business conditions there. After that, only silence, until the puzzling next-of-kin letter from the Prefecture of Sippulgar inviting my wife to collect her brother's effects.

The letter did not actually say he was dead. He was simply “no longer in Sippulgar,” she was told, and there was unclaimed property that would revert to the province if not collected by a member of his family. Certainly the implication of death was there, but not the certainty. I made inquiries in official circles and learned, after much patient probing, that Melifont Ambithorn had vanished under mysterious circumstances, was not expected to return, and his property in Sippulgar, such as it might be—undescribed—was formally considered to have been abandoned by him. Further inquiry yielded me nothing. “Mysterious circumstances,” was all anyone would say, and though I used my best political and commercial connections to get some more detailed explanation, the mystery remained a mystery. He had disappeared, and so far as the Prefecture of Sippulgar was concerned there was no likelihood of his turning up again, but no one would say explicitly that he was dead. Thuwayne could not accept such vagueness. Thus my journey to Sippulgar.

My first call was at the Prefecture. I bore documents establishing my family connection with Melifont and informing me of the procedure I was supposed to follow when in Sippulgar, but even so it took me two hours to reach any official with authority to assist me in the case. He was, of course, a Hjort, puffy-faced and rough-skinned, with an enormous toadlike head. I do not like those officious creatures—who does?—but Hjorts populate our bureaucracy to such a degree that it is impossible for me to avoid frequent contact with them, and I have learned to be patient with their superciliousness and coarseness. The Hjort spent a long time pondering my papers, muttering to himself and jotting down copious notes, and said, finally, “Why are you here in place of his sister?"

I said with some restraint, “His sister—my wife—is not in a state of health that permits such a long journey. But I believe these documents make it clear that I am her officially designated representative."

The documents I had shown him said so in the very first sentence. I refrained from pointing that out. The Hjort muttered to himself some more and at length, scowling—and when a Hjort scowls, it is with a mouth that stretches from Alhanroel to Zimroel—he scribbled something and applied his stamp of office to it and shoved it across the desk to me. It was a permit to receive the personal effects of Melifont Ambithorn, citizen of Sippulgar, legally presumed to be deceased.

His effects weren't to be had at the Prefecture, of course. I had to cross half the city, a journey that entangled me in two more religious processions, noisy and fervid, before I reached the government storehouse where Melifont's things were being kept. After the predictable official delays I was given three good-sized boxes, which I took back to my hotel to inspect.

One of them contained some clothing, a little cheap jewelry, and a small collection of books. There was nothing useful there. The second box, I was displeased to see, was crammed with what even I could recognize as the apparatus used in the practice of sorcery: ambivials, crucibles, alembics, ammatepilas, an astrolabe, a pair of phalangaria, stoppered flasks containing oils and powders of many colors, and various other instruments whose names I did not know. I sorted through this stuff with mounting distaste. Why had my brother-in-law, that restless, energetic man whose ambitions had driven him into all those ill-fated ventures in mining, banking, and shipping, gathered about himself such a hodgepodge of useless claptrap, such a huge collection of instruments and materials suitable only for exploiting the delusions of a credulous populace?

The answer to my question was right there in the question itself. But—perhaps it was the fatigue of my long day's quest, or some effect of the close, humid air—it was some long while before I saw what should have been instantly obvious.

I opened the third box. In it were papers, arranged in no perceptible order: documents relating to Melifont's many defunct business enterprises of years gone by, travel brochures, extracts from technical books, and so on, everything jumbled hopelessly together. I picked through it and was rewarded, after a time, with a small handwritten journal, practically illegible, the first entry of which was dated just eighteen months before. I leafed through it, but found my brother-in-law's scribbled writing difficult to make out and the entries themselves cryptic to the point of incoherence, and set it aside for further study. Then came another great wad of obsolete commercial records, and, below these, the one useful find in the whole messy mass: a leather binder in which were kept a group of contracts and municipal licenses and other material, all of it just a couple of years old, pertaining to the partnership between Melifont Ambithorn and a certain Nikkon Flurivole, citizen of Sippulgar, with whom Melifont proposed to organize a firm devoted to “the enhancement and furthering of the spiritual welfare of the people of Sippulgar and the entire Aruachosian coast."

And instantly I saw it all. My brother-in-law, having spent thirty years of his life failing at this promising project and that one, had in a desperate moment begun to dabble in sorcery, and very likely had gone on from that to set himself up in the business of starting a new religion.

Locating his partner, this Nikkon Flurivole, was my obvious next step. But there were no Flurivoles listed in the municipal directory, and a visit to the Prefecture got me nowhere, since the civic government was plainly not going to provide information about its citizens merely to gratify the curiosity of strangers from Sisivondal. In vain did I display the writ that allowed me to investigate the fate of Melifont Ambithorn, and the legal papers that showed that this Flurivole had been his partner in the last known commercial undertaking of his life. My writ, I was told, extended to information about Melifont Ambithorn and no one else.

I know how to handle such bureaucratic obfuscation. Bribing Hjorts is a fool's game—they will take your money and report you for attempted bribery—but the city administration was not made up entirely of Hjorts, and after a couple of attempts I found a chatty little undersecretary in the Registry of Names who, for the price of a couple of bowls of good Muldemar wine, looked Flurivole up for me and reported that he was, like Melifont, “no longer in Sippulgar,” that he was carried in the registry as “disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” and that his personal effects were available for claiming by the next of kin, but to date no one had filed a request for them. My jolly new friend even supplied me with Flurivole's last known address; but when I went there—it was a residential hotel in a not very golden corner of the city—I learned that his rooms had been rented to someone else quite some while back, that the rental agent could not or would not tell me anything about Flurivole at all, and that the new tenant knew nothing about his predecessor in the building. Nor did the name of Melifont Ambithorn mean anything to him.

I was stymied. But I am a persistent man.

Often, when desired knowledge is difficult or impossible to find, it is best to stop looking for a time, and give the information a chance to come looking for you instead. I settled down to follow that tactic. I longed to be home, to dine at my own table, to sleep in my own bed, above all to hold my wife in my arms once again. Never had we spent so many days apart, and the separation was a torment to me. But I could not abandon my quest now. I had already missed the heart of the shipping season at home anyway; I did not want to return to Thuwayne with the mystery of her brother's disappearance unsolved; and I was confident that I would sooner or later stumble upon the next clue in the puzzle.

For a week I wandered Sippulgar as a tourist might do. It is, after all, one of our most beautiful cities, well worth seeing. We of Sisivondal have learned to get along without municipal beauty in our lives, but that does not mean we are indifferent to it. So I visited the botanical gardens that Lord Tharamond had founded somewhere in the mists of antiquity, and saw more horticultural wonders in half an hour than I had in all the years of my life. I clambered to the observation deck of the immense Hendighail Tower and peered out over the Inner Sea, imagining I could see all the way to Suvrael. I looked at the masterpieces of art in the prefectorial museum. And one day I drifted down to the waterfront and discovered a street that held, cheek by jowl, half a dozen temples to the gods of alien worlds.

Sippulgar, for some reason, is home to a great many expatriate beings from other worlds. I don't mean Hjorts or Ghayrogs or Skandars or the three or four other non-human species that have dwelled alongside us on Majipoor for thousands of years, and whose populations are thoroughly integrated into our own; I mean later comers whose numbers can be counted in the hundreds at best, scatterings from one world and another who, having come here for some commercial reason, have chosen never to return to their home planets. It may be that the mild humid climate of Sippulgar is appealing to these folk; at any rate, there are plenty of them there, of ten or a dozen different kinds, and that one particular street along the waterfront has been designated as their religious district. They have built a row of temples to their gods there, most of them small buildings, but, I discovered, dramatic and startling in their appearance, since their architecture owes nothing to Majipoori custom but is derived instead from the styles of the worshippers’ native worlds. So one building that looks like a collection of interlocking pink bubbles stands precariously close to another that is a cluster of threatening black spikes, an inverted green triangle is neighbor to a set of yellow insectoid legs reaching in suppliant fashion to the sky, and so forth.

I suppose I am more tolerant of alien religions than I am of the home-grown creeds that have sprung up all over Majipoor in the past generation. Aliens are, as hardly needs to be said, alien, and it is quite reasonable to think that the strange workings of their minds have given rise to strange beliefs deeply rooted in their ancient civilizations. But belief in the supernatural is something new to us, and, it seems to me, quite extrinsic to our established nature. We acknowledge the existence of what we call the Divine, yes, but we have never backed that acknowledgment with scriptures or rituals; yet suddenly a new credulity has swept the world, a passionate and almost pathetic willingness to believe in the unbelievable, and I for one, dull prosaic businessman that I am, am not comfortable with it. So I feel disdain and even scorn for the frantic processions of the Beholders and the sea-dragon worshippers and the flagellantes and the blood-drinkers, for the installation in the plazas of our cities of huge idols with ten heads and twenty arms, for the believers in omens and prodigies, demons and goblins, for those who fill their homes with amulets and holy images, and all the rest of it; but, standing in front of this row of alien temples, I experienced only a sort of aesthetic pleasure, what one feels whenever one travels through the world and sees something attractive, something altogether different from what one sees at home.

I fall easily into conversations with strangers; and so it was, as I stood across the street watching strange-looking beings coming and going at the outworlders’ temples, I found myself discussing—warily, at first, then more openly—my attitude toward our current spate of religiosity with a fellow curiosity-seeker, an onlooker who, by the hue of his skin, was probably a native of this region. He was a small, finely built man with brightly gleaming eyes that shined like beacons out of his purple-black face, and he seemed to know which planet each of the different outworld types we were watching had come from. I complimented him on his knowledge, to which he replied, after telling me that his name was Vundafor Thorb and that his home was in the nearby town of Bekadu, that it was his business to know such things: he was an importer whose specialty was supplying these aliens with the foodstuffs and beverages of their native worlds. He said it in a casual way that told me that he actually disliked the presence of all these outworlders in Sippulgar, but that he saw it as a prime business opportunity.

"My late brother-in-law, I think, took the same attitude toward our new religions,” I said. “I have reason to think he saw all this feverish piety as nothing more than a good thing suitable for exploitation."

"Oh?” And he gave me a sharp look, as though I had offended him by implying that I thought his own attitude revealed a cynical love of profit, which in fact I did. Not that I saw anything wrong with that. But then he smiled and said, “So he went into the religion business, your brother-in-law?"

"Apparently so.” And, bit by bit, I told him what little I could: the nature of Melifont's character, his repeated failure in a series of grandiose enterprises, and the final letter telling my wife and me that he had embarked on some new project in Sippulgar, followed in time by the official notice of his disappearance. “I've been given three boxes full of his effects,” I said. “I found a diary in them that I've barely been able to decipher, but which talks about a partner of his named Nikkon Flurivole, and some legal papers indicating that he and this Flurivole were starting a company that was intended to bring ‘spiritual benefits’ to the people of Sippulgar. I translate that as meaning that they were going to trump up some lucrative new religion, don't you?"

"Surely that must be it,” said my new friend.

"And in another box was a whole sorcerers’ shop full of the claptrap devices that wizards use—crucibles and alembics and ambivials and whatnot. You know what I mean."

"Melifont Ambithorn was his name, you said?"

"Yes. And his partner was Nikkon Flurivole."

"Indeed. I knew them, actually. Had some business dealings with them, as a matter of fact. A tall, dramatic-looking man, who walked with a limp? And the other one short, round-faced, sleepy-looking?"

"I don't know anything about the other one. But the tall man with a limp—yes, that was Melifont!” I could have wept with delight. If I had been a believer in any of the new gods, I would have given thanks to him. “What can you tell me about them?” I asked eagerly.

Thorb shrugged. “Not very much. I sold them velvet hangings for their chapel, two, two-and-a-half years ago. And some very fine carpets. They spared no expense, you know."

"That would be like Melifont,” I said. “So they had a chapel. What sort of religion were they running?"

"I don't know much about it. I even forget the name of their creed. There are so many nowadays, you know. I think it was one of the wonder-working ones: predict the future, cure the ailing, maybe even raise the dead. They had quite a following for a while. It all ended badly for them, of course."

"Tell me!"

"Well, now, I don't really know. They both disappeared, is all I can say. Loud noises were heard. Outcries in the night. Some say they were carried off by their own demons, creatures they had summoned themselves.” He grinned, flashing teeth white as ivory. “Not that I give much credence to that, of course. Nor, I suspect, would you. But they vanished. Leaving me, I might add, with unpaid invoices to the amount of close to four hundred royals. I recovered what I could from their cult, but I assure you that I'm still out of pocket to the tune of no small sum."

"You can have that whole box of wizards’ equipment if you like,” I heard myself saying. My offer, the generosity of which took me by surprise, was an indication of the rush of joy I felt just then at actually having through great good luck come across a clue to this mystery. “Some magus might want to purchase it, and that will help you recover the rest of your loss.—Carried off by their own demons, is that the story? Well, hardly likely. Skipping out on their own creditors, I suspect! But at least you've provided me with something to start on. I wonder where I could find some members of their cult to talk to."

"I can't help you with that,” he said. “But you might try hunting up their high priest. He's still around, you know. Macola Endrago is the name. He'll tell you a thing or two!"

Macola Endrago.

I hurried back to my hotel and pounced on Melifont's journal, which had been becoming gradually less impenetrable to me as I grew more familiar with the idiosyncrasies of his handwriting. Endrago? Endrago? Yes! “M.E. suggests increase in payments.” Could that be anyone else? Their employee, their hired high priest, wanting his salary raised. Then I found the entire name, Endrago, followed by an irritated-looking squiggle. Six pages later, “Macola very difficult today.” My heart was pounding. Again, again, again: M.E., M.E. “A troublesome man. These damned fanatics!” I think the word was fanatics. Another entry: “He is impossible. I cannot cope with his...” The last word of the sentence was unreadable. Scarcely anything in the journal that had to do with Endrago was legible, and what there was was maddeningly incomplete—perhaps the journal was mostly in code, or perhaps Melifont was simply one of those untidy men who could not be bothered to write with care. But I knew that my fortuitous encounter with Vundafor Thorb of Bekadu had set me on the right trail. Already I was beginning to form a hypothesis: this Endrago, this priest, obviously had been an annoyingly contentious man, ever hungry for a greater share in the profits from the fraudulent cult that my wife's brother and his equally shifty friend had put together for the sake of exploiting the naive and easily gulled people of this overly trusting city. Knowing that he was essential to the operation, Endrago must have been forever demanding higher wages for his services, and the two harried partners, perhaps already behind on their bills, had stalled him with one prevarication after another until he had boiled over with rage and murdered them. It would not have seemed implausible, in Sippulgar's present climate of superstition and gullibility, for the priest to claim that he had seen or heard them being torn to pieces by demons who had carried their bodies off to some other sphere. And now the income from the chapel would be all his to keep.

Vundafor Thorb had taken my offer of Melifont's magical equipment seriously. I suppose I would have done the same if I had been in his position. The next day he came to call for it. I would rather have kept those things to sell on my own behalf, since the costs of my journey to Sippulgar were beginning to mount. But there was no help for it: I had offered, I must make good. And he had brought me the address of the priest Macola Endrago, so I was able, in my mind, to write off the loss of the equipment as the price of this valuable information.

I knew better than to approach this Endrago immediately and directly. One does not leap hastily upon a murder suspect and shower him with unsupported accusations. Instead I went to the address Thorb had given me—it was in a district in the dreary northeastern part of the city, where the sea breezes did not often reach and the air seemed stale and thick—and carried out some preliminary reconnaissance.

At a tavern on a back street I invested a couple of crowns in a pot of beer and a plate of sausages, and quickly began to draw the innkeeper, a cheerful, easy sort of man, into conversation. I was, I told him, a traveler from Sisivondal—I saw no use in trying to disguise my northern accent—who had suffered some unspecified family tragedy and had come to Sippulgar to recover from his loss under the warm tropical sunlight. But I was lonely, terribly lonely, I said, and I felt in need of spiritual counselling. “In Sisivondal,” I said, “we have the creed of the Beholders, and I derive much consolation from their rites. But there is no outpost of that faith here.” I beckoned for a second pot of beer and asked him if he could recommend any place of worship, especially one in this quarter of town, where I might find the solace I needed.

He offered me five such places. There was the conventicle of this and the sanctuary of that, and the tabernacle of something else, the shrine of yet one more, and, of course, the drum-banging cult of Time the Devourer that was the special favorite of the citizens of golden Sippulgar. I carefully wrote all these down, but I allowed that I was seeking something quieter and more personal, something other than a cult that was built around loud public processions.

"Well, then, my friend, you should have said so straightaway! What you need is the Temple of Eternal Comfort, where even the sorest heart will find some ease. It's a quiet place, and not as popular as it used to be, but I can vouch for it. Macola Endrago is high priest there, and a kinder, more understanding man you will never hope to find from one end of the world to another."

Macola Endrago! All roads seemed to lead to Macola Endrago!

I felt as though I had reached into my purse and come forth with the winning ticket for the Sisivondal municipal lottery.

I found the Temple of Eternal Comfort without much difficulty: it was a ten-minute walk from the tavern. Despite its resonant name, it was drab and unprepossessing: a long, bare, narrow room, probably a converted shop, with a simple painted sign above its door. I saw none of the carpets and velvet hangings of which Vundafor Thorb had spoken, only some rows of wooden benches. He must have repossessed his merchandise. No one was there but a haggard, weary-looking man in shabby clothes, who was slowly sweeping the chapel floor.

I said that I wanted to speak with the priest Macola Endrago.

"He comes toward evening,” the man said. “What sort of business do you have with him?"

Once again I explained that I was a stranger in Sippulgar, lonely and in need of healing, and told him that a sympathetic innkeeper had suggested I come here.

The man, who identified himself as the sexton of the chapel, Graimon Sten by name, looked surprised at that. “We get very few new communicants these days,” he said. “We have had certain difficulties, you know. Because of what happened here. But that ought not to discourage you. Macola Endrago will give you the help you need."

I maintained my guise of ignorance. “Because of what happened here? And what was that?"

The sexton Graimon Sten hesitated a moment. Then he said, with a slight twitch of his lips, “Our founders have left us, and no one knows where they are. That shouldn't be of any real concern: we still have our Macola Endrago, who is the heart and soul of our faith. But of course, when there's the least hint of scandal about a chapel, or even what is suspected to be scandal—"

"Yes, the innkeeper I mentioned did speak highly of this Endrago.—But what's this about a scandal? The founders—what about them? They've left you, you say?” Trying to sound merely casually curious, I said, “Left you to go where? And why did they go?"

Plainly the entire topic was distressing to him. He looked downward, concentrating pointedly on his sweeping. But I persevered.

"They disappeared. Not a trace.” He paused, still avoiding my glance. Then he said, almost under his breath, “One story has it that they were murdered by a member of the congregation who held a grudge against them. His wife had died, and he was sick with grief and asked them to bring her back from the dead. He was willing to pay a huge sum of money if they would. They promised to do it, so it's said. But they couldn't."

"So he went insane and killed them? You think that's what happened to them?"

"I don't think anything,” the sexton said. He looked up and let his eyes meet mine, but only for a moment. “Nobody pays me to think. I told you because you asked. Listen, it's just something that I heard someone say."

"Someone reliable?"

"How would I know. It sounds pretty wild to me. The man is still a communicant here. He doesn't have the look of a murderer about him."

I risked pressing him a little harder. “Even so: is it possible that the story's true?"

"It's possible that anything's true. Life is full of disappointments; anger may rise up in the most surprising people. And restoring the dead was never any part of our creed here. If that was what he expected, he didn't have any chance of getting it, did he? And that could have upset him. But what does it matter? The men are gone. We struggle on without them. Macola Endrago will be here in two hours, and I know he will give your soul the ease it needs."

Now I had three theories: that Macola Endrago had murdered Ambithorn and Flurivole in a dispute over money, that one of their own communicants had killed them in rage because they had failed to perform a miracle for him, or that they had indulged in some rash conjuring-up of demons and had been destroyed by the very spirits they had summoned. The Endrago theory was supported to some extent by my brother-in-law's own journal. The sexton had not put forth the angry-communicant theory with much conviction, in fact did not seem really to believe it at all. And the third, the carried-off-by-demons notion, I rejected out of hand, of course. Which left the Endrago theory as the only likely one.

But five minutes in the presence of Macola Endrago and I knew that all my conjectures about him were wrong. The man was a saint.

He was very tall, very thin, almost frail, a spidery, fleshless figure of a man, older than I had expected. His dark Sippulgaru skin seemed to have faded with the years to a light pale violet. He had a long rectangular face from which emanated the kindest of smiles and a gaze of the utmost gentleness and benevolence, and he was surrounded by such an aura of love and warmth and purity that at the mere sight of him I felt a crazy yearning to drop to my knees before him and kiss the hem of his threadbare robe. There was no mistaking his goodness: that sort of thing can't be counterfeited. He held out both his hands to me and clasped them about mine, and murmured some sort of blessing in the softest, most whispery of voices. The Temple of Eternal Comfort might have been the shameless concoction of two callous entrepreneurs in quest of easy money, but this man Endrago, I knew at once, was the embodiment of true holiness, sincere in his beliefs, genuinely good. How my brother-in-law must have hated him! In every aspect of his character, by word and deed, this Endrago had displayed the greatest possible contrast to his employers’ crass materialistic ways.

I trust such flashes of insight when they come to me. Confronted with such incontrovertible sanctity, I was unable to spin any false stories about my visit to Sippulgar. I simply told him that my wife had asked me to come here to learn the details of her brother Melifont's fate. “Ah,” said Macola Endrago softly, softly: a mere faint gust of breath. “How sad it was! They summoned the irgalisteroi, your Melifont and his friend; and the irgalisteroi destroyed them. I had warned them, again and again: these spirits are real, they are dangerous. They would not listen. They thought they could use the irgalisteroi for their private profit. But they wove the spells better than they knew, and they were punished terribly for their greed and their impetuousness. As a man of your sort is surely aware, it is hard to protect fools from their own folly."

"The irgalisteroi?"

"Yes. Proiarchis, it may have been whom they invoked. Or Remmer, more likely. I came in just as it was ending. I heard the screams: the most terrible cries of agony, they were, and there was the sound of the atmosphere collapsing around them—it is like thunder, you know, thunder right there in the room. The air grows dark. The whole world seems to shake. The sky itself is split apart. I opened the door and found that the two men had already been carried off. If I had arrived any sooner, I would have died with them."

"You will pardon me, father,” I said, “but I am only a merchant of Sisivondal, a plain worldly man, and I know nothing of supernatural matters. Proiarchis, Remmer, irgalisteroi—these names are only names to me."

"Ah,” he said again. “Of course."

And he told me. There are, he explained, three classes of demons. That was the word he used, demons, and what he meant by it was the inhabitants of the invisible world, a concept that seemed not to have any fantastical connotations for him: he accepted without the least hint of skepticism the presence of unknown and unknowable worlds immediately adjacent to our own. These demons were the original prehistoric inhabitants of our planet, before even the Shapeshifters had come here. In ancient times the Shapeshifters had mastered them, though, confining them under powerful spells. The valisteroi, he said, were a group that had somehow escaped those spells and live now beyond the sphere of the sun, invulnerable to all conjuring. The kallisteroi, who dwell between the sky and the Great Moon and have a certain degree of freedom of action, are sympathetic to us and will sometimes agree to do services for us when properly asked by the adept; in any case they never do harm. And then there are the irgalisteroi, the demons of the subterranean world, who can be compelled to perform many duties, but who are angry, dangerous beings entirely capable of turning on an unskillful summoner and destroying him.

It says much for the spiritual force that lay behind this saintly man's mild demeanor and the incantatory power of his gentle voice that I was able to accept as factual data, for the moment, all that he was telling me about these various categories of nonexistent phantoms. As he spoke I went leaping ahead of him to the conclusion that Ambithorn and Flurivole, perhaps as a drunken irresponsible prank or possibly with the wild hope of discovering that the irgalisteroi actually were real and could be commanded to heap them with riches, had incautiously brought some potent demon out of the land of the invisible, using a borrowed spell, but had not been able to control it. Not only didn't I doubt his belief in such entities, I think I felt, just for the moment, under the irresistible strength of his incandescent sincerity, some belief in them myself. “I can give you a glimpse of them,” he said. “I would prefer not to meddle with Remmer or Proiarchis myself, though if I brought them here they might confirm what I have told you of your brother-in-law's end. But I can call up for you some of the less dangerous spirits, if you are curious about such things: Minim, say, who restores lost knowledge, or Ruhid, who brings relief from fever. Theddim, if you wish, who can control the coursing of the blood through our hearts—"

He mentioned several more, each with some highly specialized function. All those imaginary creatures! Such madness to believe in their existence! And yet I could not really scoff. Despite myself I was impressed by how much ingenuity had gone into devising and naming them. And part of me, just a part, began to wonder just how imaginary they actually were. That shook me more than I know how to tell: that I could even begin, for the moment, to believe.

"Thank you, no, father,” I said hoarsely. “I'm not ready, I think, for such sights.” And I could not tell, just then, whether I was refusing the demonstration to avoid embarrassing the good man when his nonsense failed to produce results, or out of fear that his spells and gestures just might present me with a vision of Minim or Ruhid or Theddim right there in the room before my scornful unbelieving eyes.

That Macola Endrago might be responsible for the deaths of Melifont and Flurivole in some disagreement over wages now seemed inconceivable to me. Whatever disputes between the three men Melifont's journal alluded to could much better be accounted for by the fact that Endrago actually believed in the tenets of the Temple of Eternal Comfort, whatever those might be, while his two employers had regarded the chapel merely as a money-making enterprise. Endrago's mere presence there each day would have been a constant silent reproach to them, and they might well at last have let him know in some blunt and mocking way that they had nothing but contempt for his unworldly faith in the creed that they had pasted together out of bits and scraps of other religions. But could that have led him to murder them? No, never. If a murderous impulse lurked anywhere in Macola Endrago's soul, then I am no judge of men.

Which left me nothing to fall back on, then, but the conjecture offered to me by the sexton Graimon Sten that a disgruntled worshipper had killed them, and not even the sexton seemed to take that idea very seriously. Of course there was also the death-at-the-hands-of-angry-demons hypothesis, but of course that was not an idea I was capable of embracing. Endrago apparently was the only witness to that event, and even he had come upon the scene after the demons had done their work. I doubted that he had fashioned the tale out of whole cloth. But a man who can believe in invisible demons in the first place is likely to believe in other theories as well that men of my sort are unable to accept.

My longing to quit this place and return to Thuwayne was all but overwhelming by now. But I knew I could not give up at this point, for I felt a strange certainty that I would have the answer I sought before much longer. So each day I continued to go, toward the middle of the afternoon, to the Temple of Eternal Comfort. There was always a handful of worshippers there, kneeling on the bare floor, eyes closed, deep in meditation. I imitated them. From time to time a deacon in a white robe trimmed with scarlet would appear and ring a little bell, and the congregation would rise and sing a hymn, and participate in a sort of contrapuntal ritual chant, and incense would be burned and mysterious lights would glow in the corners of the long room, and sometimes misty, shimmering apparitions would briefly make themselves visible. At the climax of the ceremony Macola Endrago would emerge from a back room and deliver a brief, sweet sermon, counseling us to let the troubles of the world slide from our shoulders like water, and calling upon this spirit or that one to aid us in that task, and one by one we would approach the altar beside him and drink from a common vessel containing a thick, almost viscous wine.

It all was a bit of a strain on my patience; but I did come every day, I knelt and rose and pretended to chant the chants, and listened to Endrago's sermon and I drank from the cup of communion, and I must say that I would leave the chapel feeling released from the ordinary tensions of the moment. And each day I waited for Jaakon Gameel—that was the name of the man who, so rumor had it, had been responsible for the disappearance of the two founders—to make an appearance at the chapel. Graimon Sten had promised to point him out to me. But four days passed, and five, and six, and I told myself that a murderer never does return to the scene of the crime, whatever the popular belief may be.

Then in the second week of my vigil someone I had not seen before was present in the chapel when I arrived, and Graimon Sten, passing close beside me, murmured, “That's the one."

A great sadness came over me at that. For I am, I do maintain, a capable judge of men; and, I thought, if the plump, placid dumpling of a man who was Jaakon Gameel could have been responsible for the deaths of Melifont Ambithorn and Nikkon Flurivole, then I will be the next Coronal of Majipoor.

I studied him carefully. The people of Sippulgar are generally lean and bony, but this one was round-faced, fat-cheeked, a stubby cabbagy blob of a man with a mild, innocent face. Plainly he was a true believer in the teachings of his faith. When he knelt in prayer he passionately pressed his forehead hard against the floor. Sometimes I heard him sobbing. When the time came to chant, he chanted with a sort of desperate fervor. When Endrago delivered his sermon he responded to each familiar point with a short, sharp nod, like one who has been struck by unarguable revelation. When we went up to the altar for the cup of communion, he held it with both hands and drank deeply. After the ceremony he sat for a long while, as though stunned, and eventually left without a word to anybody.

Day after day I waited and left the chapel when he left; and on the fifth day I hailed him in the street, and told him I was a stranger in town, a lonely visitor who felt the need for company, and in one way and another I was able to persuade him to come with me to that nearby tavern. There I brought forth for him the sad though altogether fictional tale of the tragic events that had befallen my family in Sisivondal and propelled me into this journey southward to Sippulgar. He listened with care and such obvious sympathy for a fellow sufferer that I felt a bit ashamed of my own crafty mendacity.

But he did not respond at once with the story of his own bereavement, as I had expected. He fell silent, as though some dam within him was holding him back. I waited, urging him with my eyes to confide in me, and before long I could see the dam beginning to break.

Quickly, then, his tale came pouring out of him. A young and beautiful wife, apple of his eye, his treasure, his only joy, a paragon among women, a wife far beyond his true deserts, the envy of all his friends—struck down in the second year of their marriage, carried off in a trice by the sting of some venomous tropical insect. Inconsolable, half dead with sorrow, he had gone from one creed's chapel to another, he said, seeking the one that might have the power to restore her to him; but of course there was none that did. Someone had told him of the Temple of Eternal Comfort, and he had made his last attempt there. He had spoken most earnestly with the two founders, and with the high priest Endrago, begging them to work the miracle for him. Each of them had said it could not be done: in our world death is final and there is no coming back from it. Yet he had persisted. He was a man of some means; one day he came to Melifont and Flurivole and offered them half his wealth if they would intercede with the spirit world on his behalf for the return of his wife from the dead.

"And they attempted it, did they?"

He was silent a long moment, looking downward. Then he raised his face to mine and a look of terrible regret bordering on agony came into his eyes. He seemed to be staring past me into the darkest of abysses.

"Yes,” he said, barely audibly. “Finally they agreed. They asked the spirits, yes. And—and—"

He faltered. He fell silent. I prodded him. “Nothing happened, of course."

"Oh, yes, something happened,” he said, in that same soft, quavering voice. “But not the return of my wife.” And he looked away again, shivering as though in the grip of irremediable guilt and shame, and began to weep.

Macola Endrago said to me, when I told him that I was about to take my leave of Sippulgar, “It is for the best, I think. Seek your solace at home. We can give you no help here, for you are a man without belief."

"You see that, do you?"

"I saw it from the first. When I told you how your wife's brother met his death, you looked at me as though I were telling you children's fables. When you pray in the chapel, you hold yourself like a man who wishes he were almost anywhere else. When you come up to take the cup you have no presence of the god about you. None of this is hard to see.” His voice came to me as though from far away, gentle, kindly, infinitely sad. “Return to your wife, my friend. You came here to solve a mystery, and I provided you with the information you needed, and you are unable to accept it. So you may as well go."

"I'd be pleased to believe that the men were torn apart by those demons—Remmer, Proiarchis, are those the names?—if only I could. But I can't. I can't. There are no such beings."

"No?"

"No,” I said. “Everything in my soul tells me that."

He smiled his gentle, loving smile. “I offered to summon Theddim or Minim for you. You refused. Shall I give you another chance? I could bring up Remmer or Proiarchis, even. There would be risks, but I could do it, and then you would know the truth. Shall I? I would do that for you, my friend. I would embrace the risk, so that your eyes might be opened."

For a moment I wavered in the face of the inexorable force of his belief.

Again he smiled—that mild, sweet, saintly smile of his. And in his eyes, which were not mild or sweet or saintly at all, I saw the implacable will, the utter conviction, the invincible strength, that sustained his faith.

"Let me show you what you are so unwilling to see."

I gasped and struggled for breath. Melifont may have been a fraud, but not this Endrago. I was burning in the awful fire of his sincerity. In that moment I felt sure that this man really had walked with demons. And now he will take me by the hand and lead me to them. I shuddered under the inexorable force of his belief. It fell upon me like a hammer. I wanted to run from him, but I was frozen where I stood.

"No,” I said once more, even as I stared bewilderedly into the darkness of the chapel.

That shape—that shadowy form with blazing eyes—

At that instant it seemed to me that the dread figure of Proiarchis was rearing up before me to tell me why Melifont Ambithorn and his partner had had to be slain.

I began to tremble. A door was opening. Fiercely I slammed it shut. I slammed it and held it with all my strength, As Macola Endrago reached out toward me I backed away. “Please. No.” And I said, though it was a lie and he surely was aware of that, “I know nothing about demons, and I want to know nothing about them. If such things as demons do exist."

The saintly smile yet again. My heart shriveled under the heat of that smile. “If, indeed."

"But let me say that if they do—if they do—I would never presume to ask you to take so great a risk on my behalf. If anything went wrong, I could never forgive myself."

He showed no anger, no disappointment, no surprise.

"Very well,” he said, and our meeting was over.

The next day I left Sippulgar, hiring an express courier to get me back to Sisivondal as quickly as possible. And when at last I was with my wife Thuwayne again I told her that no one in Sippulgar had any real idea of what had happened to her brother, but that he had vanished and after the appropriate legal period had elapsed he had been declared officially dead, and the most probable explanation was that he had failed in business one last time, failed so completely that he had taken his own life to escape his creditors. More than that, I said, we will never know. And I think that that last part, at least, is the truth.

I feel as if F&SF was a big part of my life with Ed Emsh. We lived with and by that magazine. Ed sold his first cover there, and for a while F&SF was our only income ... until Ed started selling all over sf.
One nice thing was the Fermans. Sometimes we'd deliver a painting to their house in Rockville Centre. We were in Levittown and they were not far from us then. They always invited the whole family, and my kids would cavort around in their house. They seemed to like having us all. And they always had cookies.
With me, I started selling stories to the pulpiest sf magazines first, but my ambition was to make it into F&S . I knew that was one of the places where the best sf writers were. I felt I couldn't say I was a real writer until I made it there. It took a while.—Carol Emshwiller

I took the children out to see the battle. I thought they should see history as it was happening. My class of eight-to-ten-year-olds watched from a hill on the sidelines. We normally played our ball games right where they were fighting.

Except for the blood and the noise, it looked like a game. At first the children thought it was. I told them the blood was real, but they didn't think so. Then, when they finally believed me, I didn't let them shut their eyes or cover their ears. I told them, “Ten points off if you do either.” I said, “Reality is not a game.” My theory is: You're never too young to understand the real world.

I was hoping our side would win and the children would feel proud, but I knew it would be just as good a lesson if we lost.

Except I had underestimated the enemy. I don't know how many children are left and, if any are, I don't know where they ran to. Now I'm wondering if there can be too much reality, especially if it comes straight at you.

The enemy had a new trick our side didn't expect. At a trumpet call they all turned and fought the man on their left instead of the man they had been fighting. They brought their swords up under the other's shields and killed everybody on our side. Just after I said, “It behooves us to remain calm,” the enemy started coming after us. We called out that we were just watching, that we had no weapons, but they didn't care. Perhaps they were yelling so loud they didn't hear us. We ran, helter skelter. I fell into a drainage ditch first thing and several of the enemy, heavy with armor, ran right over me. One actually stepped on my head so that my beard and face were pushed into the mud.

Then they scattered every which way and went and killed the dogs and cats and cows and goats and pigs.... Everything alive they could find.

Those children that are left ... if any are ... have learned four valuable lessons—as have I: A: When watching a battle, stay hidden. B: Trying to explain that you're just watching is a waste of time. C: At the first sign of defeat, run. D: One should also run even if one's own side is winning, since, when the killing starts, it can't be stopped.

E: Remember that a soldier has only one reason for being ... only one duty. What else is a soldier for?

After all the yelling, there was, finally, silence, no barking, no baas, no heehawing. The birds stopped singing. Even the bugs stopped buzzing.

I spat out the mouthful of mud and looked around for any children who had survived, but if they had, they'd run off. It was too painful to keep looking. I saw one child ... a good and gifted boy I had only had to flog once.... All my careful teaching gone for naught. It was too much for me. I have a bad knee, but even so I ran as I'd never run before. On and on.

Finally I heard bugs again, a donkey brayed, and then I heard barking. There were birds. But I kept on. I was wondering how far I'd have to go before there wouldn't be any more reality. I ran until I fell exhausted and couldn't get up.

When I had the energy to lift my head, I saw I lay beside a pond and in the pond there were ducks ... a mother and a dozen ducklings. I thought: Yes, ducks. Yes, yes, ducks. Ducks!

I had stumbled into a land where ducklings and children might actually survive.

So A: Should I stay? What would be the moral thing to do? When I became a teacher I swore an oath to behave as I was teaching others to behave. The little ones pick things up so fast.

Or B: should I run back to see if I can help? Even help a dog or cat? Some creature in pain? Perhaps there's something back there as thirsty as I am.

But C: Can I find my way back? And when will I have the energy to do so?

I hear somebody actually singing. This can't be real, what with the ducks and cicadas and now songs.

It's a woman's voice.

I raise my head again and see a green dress and somebody hanging out laundry. The song is in the enemy's language. I know a few of the words. There are flowers and rivers in it. To think that the enemy would sing of flowers.

Have I strayed into enemy territory? At least I'm dressed as a school teacher. I have a school teacher's beard and a school teacher's uniform. Though now that I'm so covered with mud, would anyone recognize what I am?

The voice is pure and sweet. She ornaments the notes with little trills and rills.

A: The enemy can sing.

There is no B.

I lie back, and fall in love.

And then I see the actual woman. Face ruddy with hard work and sun. Looks to be in her forties. I would guess older than I and certainly of a different class. I wonder how much education she can have had.

Even so I'm still in love.

She doesn't see me. Perhaps I'm still back in my own reality while she is on the other side, in this world of laundry and songs.

I try to sit up. That's when I feel pain in my side. When several of the enemy ran over me, it feels as if they may have broken my ribs.

I can't help crying out in pain. She sees me. Gives a little, “Oh,” in the middle of her song, drops a child-sized tunic, and turns as if to run away, but then turns back and stares.

I say I'm sorry I've scared her. She answers something in her language.

I ask for water. All I know is their word for river, but she understands.

There's a pump not far from her laundry lines. She gets the tin cup hanging there and brings me some and then another cupful after I finish that one.

It's the best water I ever tasted. Proof yet again that this can't be reality.

I want to tell her that I'm a teacher and that I must get back to my class. I try to ask all this with simple words and gestures, but I can't make her understand.

I want to ask, A: Is there a doorway back into my world? B: Is there no war here? C: And if not, why not? And if no war, I surely don't belong in such a place. Why should I stay in a kind of heaven when what remains of my class is back in a dangerous world? And D: Besides, what could children ... or anyone ... learn here? One never learns when things go well.

E: Though perhaps only I am left. In that case I could stay here and still be a moral person. But one must not be seduced by this place.

I imagine everything here is as icy and sparkly as that water. I imagine the food as tasting of the earth. There, above her laundry, is the half-moon. The green of her dress is the color of pine trees.

I say again, “I must get to war. Which way? The war?"

Even with gestures she doesn't understand.

Instead she helps me up and to her house. A solid stone house, looks to be more fortress than house. Or prison. I won't go in. I collapse on one of the chairs she has near her front door.

I see why the chairs are here. One can get a good view of the hills and the forest beyond. At first I think it's a good place to watch and analyze a battle. And then I think, no, a good place to watch sunsets.

There are two chairs. I presumed she had a husband to sit and watch with her, but out comes an even older woman. This woman is obviously scared of me. Easy to tell by her gestures and her voice.

I used to depend on my bearing, my finely molded features, my well-trimmed beard, the neatness of my uniform ... but now, stooping in pain and covered with mud, I know I can't count on those.

I get up and start hobbling away as best I can. I hold my side with both hands.

"Fall, fall, defall,” the first woman says, and pulls me back into the chair.

The older woman is still gesturing and talking. She obviously wants to get rid of me but the younger one seems to be arguing for me to stay. The older woman drags the other chair to the opposite side of the door so as to be farther away from me, plumps herself down in it, and frowns out at the view.

In the distance, behind the fields and the forest, there are cliffs. Did I run through all that to get here? Did I cross those cliffs? Could I have climbed down ... through even A, B, and also C and not remembered?

The younger woman goes inside and brings out tea. She sits on the ground in front of us as if it were the most natural thing for a grown woman to do.

(I wish she'd sing again but I don't know how to ask.)

One forgets how life might be led. How there can be moments of silence and serenity.

The tea is strong—as if it's been sitting at the back of the stove all day—but it's exactly what I need. I feel my mind clearing and my strength coming back.

I become more aware of how filthy I am and I'm suddenly embarrassed. Perhaps one can't even see that I'm a teacher.

Then the older woman says a shocking swear word in my own language. Then, again in my language, “I will kill you first chance I get."

I stand up again. I try to bow but it hurts too much. “Madam, I know I don't belong here. Show me which way, and I'll go back to the war."

She points to those cliffs in the distance. Says, “Go."

It makes sense that the cliffs are the demarcation between the world full of wars and this world of gentleness.

I start staggering toward them. Again the other woman grabs me and pulls me back, but in a way that hurts my ribs. I yell. She jabbers away at the old woman, scolding.

The pain takes my breath away. I have to sit and recover.

The old woman says, “I was once taken by the enemy,” meaning my people. “I know your kind."

"I'm a teacher. I always try to teach what's moral and real."

But there's always the antithesis. What is moral for one may not be moral for the other. I have also taught that.

But there are lessons to be learned here. One should listen. For many reasons, not least of which is that, as is often said, if the teacher isn't also a student then no one learns.

I say, “I will listen. I'm never loath to learn."

She says, “I learned your language as a slave. That's all there is to say."

I can tell she won't say anything more, but it's a completely understandable syllogism: All slaves.... She, a slave, therefore....

I don't want to see her naked back, though it might be a good lesson.

This, I'm afraid is also a land of reality. Or, on the other hand, is this where you finally get to go to avoid it?

But here comes a child just the age of those in my class. He wears armor and holds a sword. Do even the children take part in the battles? Perhaps this isn't as ideal a spot as I think. He must know a great deal more than my class did.

The old woman says, “You killed his father."

"Not I."

He's heard the older woman talking in my language. He tries out his few words. “How are you? I am fine. Where is the book? Good morning."

(The child has been well taught. He says his Rs as we do.)

I think to answer in kind with, How do you do? but before I can he attacks me with his sword, which I now see is wooden and his armor is paper painted silver. My class has often dressed the same.

I don't defend myself. He stabs and slashes at me. Even though the sword is blunt, it does do some damage. This is my lesson: To sit and absorb it.

I let him go on until he's tired.

The tea has spilled all over me, though what with the mud, it hardly matters.

I see I've impressed the old woman with my forbearance. She looks as if she's even ready to pull the chair back to my side of the doorway. She says, “Thank you."

The other woman says something to the child that sends him off inside. Then she insists that I take off my tunic.

Easier said than done since I have to pull it up over my head. When she sees how it hurts me, she gets scissors and cuts it down the front before I realize what she's doing.

Not only is my uniform as a teacher important to me (it is, in its own way, soldierly with its gold-fringed teaching epaulettes—and I do think of myself as soldiering on in the realms of learning. Fearlessly, I may say), but also I'm not used to being even only half-naked in front of anybody and especially not a woman. I'm thin and not well muscled. I sit all day. When not preparing for my teaching I'm studying. I always try to enrich myself so as to become a more enriching teacher. I have won several firsts, the ribbons for which have been sewn onto my tunic over my heart. I can't be without that tunic. I hesitated too long worrying about my nakedness. She's snatched it away and taken it inside.

I get up and follow ... into that strange fortress of a house. First there's an empty hall of yellowish stucco. With one tiny, useless window. I find it ugly but I know tastes differ.

I hurry though one of the doors in the far wall, hoping to find a warmer spot ... or my tunic.

I find the child.

He sits at a low table just his size and works on some writing or drawing.

He says, carefully, slowly (and as if he's completely forgotten he had attacked me), “Hello. My name is Eppi. What is your name?"

I begin to realize how sick I am. I sit down on the floor. I can't help it even though I know I especially shouldn't do it in front of a student.

Or a woman, and I know she'll find me here. But I can't get up. I give up. I've sullied my uniform and my occupation. I'll give back my firsts.

The child has a cup of something. He brings it to me and holds it to my lips. I have no idea what it is but I drink it and thank him. I say, “You're a worthy young man."

"What is worthy?"

"You are good and kind."

He gives me such a smile. I see my words have made him, yet another notch, good and kind.

He brings me his drawing to admire. A battle drawing. I'm not in the mood even to look at it, but I admire.

Then I begin to shake. I moan and lie back. All dignity, all decorum lost.

The child calls, “Maaaaa."

I'm thinking: Is this the one universal word?

Then: Must find out if true.

Then I'm thinking: firstly, secondly, and: A, B, and C, also D, and many others....

Next I know I hear singing. I'm warm and clean. And yet again—or still—in love. I would stay forever where this singing goes on and on.

Would I? Even if one's duty lies elsewhere?

There she is. Moving about the kitchen with poise and grace as if a lady, and I'm in a corner on a sleeping shelf. She doesn't even need to stop and think as she does the rills and trills.

I have never thought to marry and certainly never with a woman who cooks and does laundry, and not only that, is one of the enemy. Also with whom I can't converse. I've always though it unlikely that I would find someone suitable. There are few women who are my equal so I had decided never to marry. I would have wanted someone almost as knowledgeable as I am.

But I've changed my mind since being here. I hadn't realized how important music is. And a voice so sweet and so clever at ornamentation. There's knowledge of a kind in that.

Isn't there?

But then, of my own love, I think, barbaric! And, How can I stoop so low? Perhaps I'm no longer fit to teach.

And yet I've crossed a line into a pleasant unreal land. Perhaps there's not even any need for my kind of teacher here.

Then broth and teas and a gentle hand, the boy and his drawings (all of battles and none of flowers.) And even the grandmother. She's now on my side. And best of all, singing every day. I take up Eppi's miniature oud—actually no more than a toy, but I learn to strum a few chords. I can make the younger woman, Lala (can it be that she's named for her singing?) ... I can make her sing whenever I want her to, just by strumming.

Lala has washed and repaired my tunic. It doesn't look quite as nice as before, but at least I'll look like a teacher.

But I'm going against everything I teach. I lie. I pretend. I say I'm sicker than I am. I groan when I have no pain. I have her arms around me helping me whenever I want them. I have tidbits to tempt my appetite.

I'm coming close to doing what I've never done before. There never seemed to be time for it or a good opportunity. We've kissed. I've touched her breasts. I'm thinking, A: one more suitable word, or B: One more suitable gesture.... Conclusion: She'll be in bed with me within a few days.

I'm up and around well before they realize it. I snoop. I want to find out about their way of life. I'm not thinking about finding secrets, I just want to know them ... her, Lala, that is.

Does the enemy have marriage as we know it? Does she have keepsakes of her former man? I need to know. I think I'll ask her soon to marry me.

But, in Grandma's room, I find a dagger and a map.

I can't read the writing on it, but I know it's important. There are arrows and dates. I can see where their secret redoubts are.

I change into my teacher's tunic. I take the dagger.... (Grandma has had plenty of chances to kill me should she have so desired.) I take the map. This time we won't be fooled by a trumpet call. I alone am left to warn my side of that treachery.

All those songs have made me forget my duties.

I climb the cliff and cross back over into the real world, with map, Grandma's dagger, and Eppi's wrapped-up lunch.

At the top here's the line. I can feel it in the very air: war on one side, serenity on the other. A hot breeze. A smell of iron. The trees here, half-dead. The streams, few. Below, the streams are many. From up here, they're shining in the sun as if rivers of silver.

But there are children up here. Even if only a few, isn't my duty to them? Not to Eppi?

I take big breaths of the metallic air. My kind of air. It's just as well. I've managed to avoid a love both A: uncivilized, and B: unrefined. I've adhered to my principles and overcome my errors in judgment.

I have taught my students discipline and most particularly self-discipline. I'll be a better teacher now than I've ever been before. I will teach them what I have learned about reality. A: That we will live with wars, and B: That there will always be wars.

INTRODUCTION

I'd missed some schooling through illness and needed a maths tutor. From somewhere my mom found Mr. Van Phelan, a lovely older retired gentleman who loved maths, young people, and sf. He subscribed to F&SF, and it was with wonder and delight that I discovered an adult with whom it was okay to talk about sf. We'd sit and talk about the stories in each issue; sometimes he'd loan me a copy.

Not that F&SF was hard to find. In those days, just across Wilshire Boulevard from the end of my street was a huge Market Basket supermarket. This was a perfectly ordinary purveyor of cabbages, old-fashioned, almost jelly-like yogurt, Coke, jars of Cheese Whiz, and cake mixes, but its magazine rack contained Time, Life, Newsweek, The Saturday Evening Post, Look ... it was about twelve years after the advent of TV, but my folks still bought all of those titles every week. It seemed most people did. And in those groaning racks of magazines of all kinds you could probably find at the very least Amazing, Fantastic, If, Galaxy, Analog, and F&SF. Sf books were harder to come by, but the magazines were everywhere and with their wonderfully short, readable, varied tales. Even then the word I used for F&SF was “literary” and in a good way. Even at thirteen I knew I'd grow out of Fantastic and still stay with F&SF.

At Uni High, the bright kids had a war. The science guys wrote on the blackboard, “It's not only necessary to interpret life, but to change it.” That's why, they said, they bought Analog. It totally foxed me why they thought showing us life or being political didn't change things as much as science. In the end I felt smug. I read Analog and enjoyed it but also read F&SF. The science guys didn't read F&SF. I nursed my feelings of broader taste and range.

I remember, later in the UK, my tight little nest of fan friends waiting breathlessly for the issues of F&SF that were releasing, section by section, Thomas Disch's “On Wings of Song.” It gave a hint of what it must have been like in the days of Dickens, to be reading a great novel serially. I remember talking to Roz Kaveney over the mystery of the ending, its “delicious ambiguity.” Roz, if you're wondering where those issues went, well, I somehow managed to keep them.

I remember the boost it gave all of sf fandom in the UK when we saw Chris Priest's tale “Palely Loitering” as the cover story of F&SF. Yes, Virginia, it is possible for British short fiction to even be published. (This was in the days before the arrival of Interzone.)

For that reason, for many years, Interzone had my loyalty as a venue for my stories. But when I finally saw “Hero Kai” on the cover of the December 2005 issue, I remembered being young, some age like thirteen, and looking at the cover of F&SF and saying aloud, “I want to be one of those names."—Geoff Ryman

I dreamed this in Sihanoukville, a town of new casinos, narrow beaches, hot bushes with flowers that look like daffodils, and even now after nine years of peace, stark ruined walls with gates that go nowhere.

In the dream, I get myself a wife. She's beautiful, blonde, careworn. She is not used to having a serious man with good intentions present himself to her on a beach. Her name is Agnete and she speaks with a Danish accent. She has four Asian children.

Their father had been studying permanently in Europe, married Agnete, and then “left,” which in this world can mean several things. Agnete was an orphan herself and the only family she had was that of her Cambodian husband. So she came to Phnom Penh only to find that her in-laws did not want some strange woman they did not know and all those extra mouths to feed.

I meet the children. The youngest is Gerda, who cannot speak a word of Khmer. She's tiny, as small as an infant though three years old, in a splotched pink dress and too much toy jewelery. She just stares, while her brothers play. She's been picked up from everything she knows and thrown down into this hot, strange world in which people speak nonsense and the food burns your mouth.

I kneel down and try to say hello to her, first in German, and then in English. Hello, Gertie, hello, little girl. Hello. She blanks all language and sits like she's sedated.

I feel so sad, I pick her up and hold her, and suddenly she buries her head in my shoulder. She falls asleep on me as I swing in a hammock and quietly explain myself to her mother. I am not married, I tell Agnete. I run the local casino.

Real men are not hard, just unafraid. If you are a man you say what is true, and if someone acts like a monkey, then maybe you punish them. To be a crook, you have to be straight. I sold guns for my boss and bought policemen, so he trusted me, so I ran security for him for years. He was one of the first to Go, and he sold his shares in the casino to me. Now it's me who sits around the black lacquered table with the generals and Thai partners. I have a Lexus and a good income. I have ascended and become a man in every way but one. Now I need a family.

Across from Sihanoukville, all about the bay are tiny islands. On those islands, safe from thieves, glow the roofs where the Big Men live in Soriya-chic amid minarets, windmills, and solar panels. Between the islands hang white suspension footbridges. Distant people on bicycles move across them.

Somehow it's now after the wedding. The children are now mine. We loll shaded in palm-leaf panel huts. Two of the boys play on a heap of old rubber inner tubes. Tharum with his goofy smile and sticky-out ears is long legged enough to run among them, plonking his feet down into the donut holes. Not to be outdone, his brother Sampul clambers over the things. Rith, the oldest, looks cool in a hammock, away with his earphones, pretending not to know us.

Gerda tugs at my hand until I let her go. Freed from the world of language and adults, she climbs up and over the swollen black tubes, sliding down sideways. She looks intent and does not laugh.

Her mother in a straw hat and sunglasses makes a thin, watery sunset smile.

Gerda and I go wading. All those islands shelter the bay, so the waves roll onto the shore child-sized, as warm and gentle as caresses. Gerda holds onto my hand and looks down at them, scowling in silence.

Alongside the beach is a grounded airliner, its wings cut away and neatly laid beside it. I take the kids there, and the boys run around inside it, screaming. Outside, Gerda and I look at the aircraft's spirit house. Someone witty has given the shrine tiny white wings.

The surrounding hills still have their forests; cumulonimbus clouds towering over them like clenched fists.

In the evening, thunder comes.

I look out from our high window and see flashes of light in the darkness. We live in one whole floor of my casino hotel. Each of the boys has his own suite. The end rooms have balconies, three of them, that run all across the front of the building with room enough for sofas and dining tables. We hang tubes full of pink sugar water for hummingbirds. In the mornings, the potted plants buzz with bees, and balls of seed lure the sarika bird that comes to sing its sweetest song.

In these last days, the gambling action is frenetic: Chinese, Thai, Korean, and Malays, they play baccarat mostly, but some prefer the one-armed bandits.

At the tables of my casino, elegant young women, handsome young men, and a couple of other genders besides, sit upright ready to deal, looking as alert and frightened as rabbits, especially if their table is empty. They are paid a percentage of the take. Some of them sleep with customers too, but they're good kids; they always send the money home. Do good, get good, we in Cambodia used to say. Now we say, twee akrow meen lay: Do bad, have money.

My casino is straight. My wheels turn true. No guns, says my sign. No animals, no children. Innocence must be protected. No cigarettes or powders. Those last two are marked by a skull-and-crossbones.

We have security but the powders don't show up on any scan, so some of my customers come here to die. Most weekends, we find one, a body slumped over the table.

I guess some of them think it's good to go out on a high. The Chinese are particularly susceptible. They love the theater of gambling, the tough-guy stance, the dance of the cigarette, the nudge of the eyebrow. You get dealt a good hand, you smile, you take one last sip of Courvoisier, then one sniff. You Go Down for good.

It's another way for the winner to take all. For me, they are just a mess to clear up, another reason to keep the kids away.

Upstairs, we've finished eating and we can hear the shushing of the sea.

"Daddy,” Sampul asks me and the word thrums across my heart. “Why are we all leaving?"

"We're being invaded."

So far, this has been a strange and beautiful dream, full of Buddhist monks in orange robes lined up at the one-armed bandits. But now it goes like a stupid kids’ TV show, except that in my dream, I'm living it, it's real. As I speak, I can feel my own sad, damp breath.

"Aliens are coming,” I say and kiss him. “They are bringing many, many ships. We can see them now, at the edge of the solar system. They'll be here in less than two years."

He sighs and looks perturbed.

In this disrupted country two-thirds of everything is a delight, two-thirds of everything iron nastiness. The numbers don't add up, but it's true.

"How do we know they're bad?” he asks, his face puffy.

"Because the government says so and the government wouldn't lie."

His breath goes icy. “This government would."

"Not all governments, not all of them all together."

"So. Are we going to leave?"

He means leave again. They left Denmark to come here, and they are all of them sick of leaving.

"Yes, but we'll all Go together, okay?"

Rith glowers at me from the sofa. “It's all the fault of people like you."

"I made the aliens?” I think smiling at him will make him see he is being silly.

He rolls his eyes. “There's the comet?” he asks like I've forgotten something and shakes his head.

"Oh, the comet, yes, I forgot about the comet, there's a comet coming too. And global warming and big new diseases."

He tuts. “The aliens sent the comet. If we'd had a space program we could meet them halfway and fight there. We could of had people living in Mars, to survive."

"Why wouldn't the aliens invade Mars too?"

His voice goes smaller, he hunches even tighter over his game. “If we'd gone into space, we would of been immortal."

My father was a drunk who left us; my mother died; I took care of my sisters. The regime made us move out of our shacks by the river to the countryside where there was no water, so that the generals could build their big hotels. We survived. I never saw a movie about aliens, I never had this dream of getting away to outer space. My dream was to become a man.

I look out over the Cambodian night, and fire and light dance about the sky like dragons at play. There's a hissing sound. Wealth tumbles down in the form of rain.

Sampul is the youngest son and is a tough little guy. He thumps Rith, who's fifteen years old, and both of them gang up on gangly Tharum. But tough-guy Sampul suddenly curls up next to me on the sofa as if he's returning to the egg.

The thunder's grief looks like rage. I sit and listen to the rain. Rith plays on, his headphones churning with the sound of stereophonic war.

Everything dies, even suns; even the universe dies and comes back. We already are immortal.

Without us, the country people will finally have Cambodia back. The walled gardens will turn to vines. The water buffalo will wallow; the rustics will still keep the fields green with rice, as steam engines chortle past, puffing out gasps of cloud. Sampul once asked me if the trains made rain.

And if there are aliens, maybe they will treasure it, the Earth.

I may want to stay, but Agnete is determined to Go. She has already lost one husband to this nonsense. She will not lose anything else, certainly not her children. Anyway, it was all part of the deal.

I slip into bed next to her. “You're very good with them,” she says and kisses my shoulder. “I knew you would be. Your people are so kind to children."

"You don't tell me that you love me,” I say.

"Give it time,” she says, finally.

That night lightning strikes the spirit house that shelters our neak ta. The house's tiny golden spire is charred.

Gerda and I come down in the morning to give the spirit his bananas, and when she sees the ruin, her eyes boggle and she starts to scream and howl.

Agnete comes downstairs, and hugs and pets her, and says in English, “Oh, the pretty little house is broken."

Agnete cannot possibly understand how catastrophic this is, or how baffling. The neak ta is the spirit of the hotel who protects us or rejects us. What does it mean when the sky itself strikes it? Does it mean the neak ta is angry and has deserted us? Does it mean the gods want us gone and have destroyed our protector?

Gerda stares in terror, and I am sure then that though she is wordless, Gerda has a Khmer soul.

Agnete looks at me over Gerda's shoulder, and I'm wondering why she is being so disconnected when she says, “The papers have come through."

That means we will sail to Singapore within the week.

I've already sold the casino. There is no one I trust. I go downstairs and hand over the keys to all my guns to Sreang, who I know will stay on as security at least for a while.

That night after the children are asleep, Agnete and I have the most terrifying argument. She throws things; she hits me; she thinks I'm saying that I want to desert them; I cannot make her listen or understand.

"Neak ta? Neak ta, what are you saying?"

"I'm saying I think we should go by road."

"We don't have time! There's the date, there's the booking! What are you trying to do?” She is panicked, desperate; her mouth ringed with thin strings of muscle, her neck straining.

I have to go and find a monk. I give him a huge sum of money to earn merit, and I ask him to chant for us. I ask him to bless our luggage and at a distance bless the boat that we will sail in. I swallow fear like thin, sour spit. I order ahead, food for Pchum Ben, so that he can eat it, and act as mediary so that I can feed my dead. I look at him. He smiles. He is a man without guns without modernity without family to help him. For just a moment I envy him.

I await disaster, sure that the loss of our neak ta bodes great ill; I fear that the boat will be swamped at sea.

But I'm wrong.

Dolphins swim ahead of our prow, leaping out of the water. We trawl behind us for fish and haul up tuna, turbot, sea snakes and turtles. I can assure you that flying fish really do fly—they soar over our heads at night, right across the boat like giant mosquitoes.

No one gets seasick; there are no storms; we navigate directly. It is as though the sea has made peace with us. Let them be, we have lost them, they are going.

We are Cambodians. We are good at sleeping in hammocks and just talking. We trade jokes and insults and innuendo, sometimes in verse, and we play music, cards, and bah angkunh, a game of nuts. Gerda joins in the game and I can see the other kids let her win. She squeals with delight, and reaches down between the slats to find a nut that has fallen through.

All the passengers hug and help take care of the children. We cook on little stoves, frying in woks. Albatrosses rest on our rigging. Gerda still won't speak, so I cuddle her all night long, murmuring. Kynom ch'mooah Channarith. Oun ch'mooah ay?

I am your new father.

Once in the night, something huge in the water vents, just beside us. The stars themselves seem to have come back like the fish, so distant and high, cold and pure. No wonder we are greedy for them, just as we are greedy for diamonds. If we could, we would strip-mine the universe, but instead we strip-mine ourselves.

We land at Sentosa. Its resort beaches are now swallowed by the sea, but its slopes sprout temporary, cantilevered accommodation. The sides of the buildings spread downward like sheltering batwings behind the plastic quays that walk us directly to the hillside.

Singapore's latest growth industry.

The living dead about to be entombed, we march from the boats along the top of pontoons. Bobbing and smooth-surfaced, the quays are treacherous. We slip and catch each other before we fall. There are no old people among us, but we all walk as if aged, stiff-kneed and unbalanced.

But I am relieved; the island still burgeons with trees. We take a jungle path, through humid stillness, to the north shore, where we face the Lion City.

Singapore towers over the harbor. Its giant versions of Angkor Wat blaze with sunlight like daggers; its zigzag shoreline is ringed round with four hundred clippers amid a white forest of wind turbines. Up the sides of Mt. Fraser cluster the houses of rustics, made of wood and propped against the slope on stilts.

It had been raining during the day. I'd feared a storm, but now the sky is clear, gold and purple with even a touch of green. All along the line where trees give way to salt grasses, like stars going for a swim, fireflies shine.

Gerda's eyes widen. She smiles and holds out a hand. I whisper the Khmer words for firefly: ampil ampayk.

We're booked into one of the batwings. Only wild riches can buy a hotel room in Sentosa. A bottle of water is expensive enough.

Once inside, Agnete's spirits improve, even sitting on folding metal beds with a hanging blanket for a partition. Her eyes glisten. She sits Gerda and Sampul on the knees of her crossed legs. “They have beautiful shopping malls Down There,” she says. “And Rith, technik, all the latest. Big screens. Billion billion pixels."

"They don't call them pixels anymore, Mom."

That night, Gerda starts to cry. Nothing can stop her. She wails and wails. Our friends from the boat turn over on their beds and groan. Two of the women sit with Agnete and offer sympathy. “Oh poor thing, she is ill."

No, I think, she is broken-hearted. She writhes and twists in Agnete's lap. Without words for it, I know why she is crying.

Agnete looks like she's been punched in the face; she didn't sleep well on the boat.

I say, “Darling, let me take her outside. You sleep."

I coax Gerda up into my arms, but she fights me like a cat. Sssh sssh, Angel, sssh. But she's not to be fooled. Somehow she senses what this is. I walk out of the refugee shelter and onto the dock that sighs underfoot. I'm standing there, holding her, looking up at the ghost of Singapore, listening to the whoop of the turbines overhead, hearing the slopping sound of water against the quay. I know that Gerda cannot be consoled.

Agnete thinks our people are kind because we smile. But we can also be cruel. It was cruel of Gerda's father to leave her, knowing what might happen after he was gone. It was cruel to want to be missed that badly.

On the north shore, I can still see the towers defined only by their bioluminescence, in leopard-spot growths of blue, or gold-green, otherwise lost in a mist of human manufacture, smoke, and steam.

The skyscrapers are deserted now, unusable, for who can climb seventy stories? How strange they look; what drove us to make them? Why all across the world did we reach up so high? As if to escape the Earth, distance ourselves from the ground, and make a shiny new artifice of the world.

And there are the stars. They have always shone; they shine now just like they would shine on the deck of a starship, no nearer. There is the warm sea that gave us birth. There are the trees that turn sunlight into sugar for all of us to feed on.

Then overhead, giant starfish in the sky. I am at a loss, choy mae! What on Earth is that? They glow in layers, orange red green. Trailing after them in order come giant butterflies glowing blue and purple.Gerda coughs into silence and stares upward.

Cable cars. Cable cars strung from Mt. Fraser, to the shore and on to Sentosa, glowing with decorative bioluminescence.

Ampil ampayk, I say again and for just a moment, Gerda is still.

I don't want to go. I want to stay here.

Then Gerda roars again, sounding like my heart.

The sound threatens to shred her throat. The sound is inconsolable. I rock her, shush her, kiss her, but nothing brings her peace.

You too, Gerda, I think. You want to stay too, don't you? We are two of a kind.

For a moment, I want to run away together, Gerda and me, get across the straits to Johor Bahu, hide in the untended wilds of old palm-oil plantations.

But now we have no money to buy food or water.

I go still as the night whispers its suggestion.

I will not be cruel like her father. I can go into that warm sea and spread myself among the fishes to swim forever. And I can take you with me, Gerda.

We can be still, and disappear into the Earth.

I hold her out as if offering her to the warm birthsea. And finally, Gerda sleeps, and I ask myself, will I do it? Can I take us back? Both of us?

Agnete touches my arm. “Oh, you got her to sleep! Thank you so much.” Her hand first on my shoulder, then around Gerda, taking her from me, and I can't stop myself tugging back, and there is something alarmed, confused around her eyes. Then she gives her head a quick little shake, dismissing it.

I would rather be loved for my manliness than for my goodness. But I suppose it's better than nothing and I know I will not escape. I know we will all Go Down.

The next day we march, numb and driven by something we do not understand.

For breakfast, we have Chinese porridge with roasted soya, nuts, spices, and egg. Our last day is brilliantly sunny. There are too many of us to all take the cable car. Economy class, we are given an intelligent trolley to guide us, carrying our luggage or our children. It whines along the bridge from Sentosa, giving us relentless tourist information about Raffles, independence in 1965, the Singapore miracle, the coolies who came as slaves but stayed to contribute so much to Singapore's success.

The bridge takes us past an artificial island full of cargo, cranes, and wagons, and on the main shore by the quays is a squash of a market with noodle stalls, fish stalls, and stalls full of knives or dried lizards. Our route takes us up Mt. Fraser, through the trees. The monkeys pursue us, plucking bags of bananas from our hands, clambering up on our carts, trying to open our parcels. Rith throws rocks at them.

The dawn light falls in rays through the trees as if the Buddha himself was overhead, shedding radiance. Gerda toddles next to me, her hand in mine. Suddenly she stoops over and holds something up. It is a scarab beetle, its shell a shimmering turquoise green, but ants are crawling out of it. I blow them away. “Oh, that is a treasure, Gerda. You hold onto it, okay?"

There will be nothing like it where we are going.

Then, looking something like a railway station, there is the Singapore terminal dug into the rock of the outcropping. It yawns wide open, to funnel us inside. The concrete is softened by a screen of branches sweeping along its face—very tasteful and traditional, I think, until I touch them and find that they are made of moldform.

This is Singapore, so everything is perfectly done. Pamper yourself, a sign says in ten different languages. Breathe in an Air of Luxury.

Beautiful concierges in blue-gray uniforms greet us. One of them asks, “Is this the Sonn family?” Her face is so pretty, like Gerda's will be one day, a face of all nations, smiling and full of hope that something good can be done.

"I'm here to help you with check-in, and make sure you are comfortable and happy.” She bends down and looks into Gerda's eyes but something in them makes her falter; the concierge's smile seems to trip and stumble.

Nightmarishly, her lip gloss suddenly smears up and across her face, like a wound. It feels as though Gerda has somehow cut her.

The concierge's eyes are sad now. She gives Gerda a package printed with a clown's face and colored balloons. Gerda holds the gift out from her upside-down and scowls at it.

The concierge has packages for all the children, to keep them quiet in line. The giftpacks match age and gender. Rith always says his gender is Geek, as a joke, but he does somehow get a Geek pack. They can analyze his clothes and brand names. I muse on how strange it is that Rith's dad gave him the same name as mine, so that he is Rith and I am Channarith. He never calls me father. Agnete calls me Channa, infrequently.

The beautiful concierge takes our papers, and says that she will do all the needful. Our trolley says good-bye and whizzes after her, to check in our bags. I'm glad it's gone. I hate its hushed and cheerful voice. I hate its Bugs Bunny baby face.

We wait.

Other concierges move up and down the velvet-roped queues with little trolleys offering water, green tea, dragon fruit, or chardonnay. However much we paid, when all is said and done, we are fodder to be processed. I know in my sinking heart that getting here is why Agnete married me. She needed the fare.

No one lied to us, not even ourselves. This is bigger than a lie; this is like an animal migration, this is all of us caught up in something about ourselves we do not understand, never knew.

Suddenly my heart says, firmly, There are no aliens.

Aliens are just the excuse. This is something we want to do, like building those skyscrapers. This is all a new kind of dream, a new kind of grief turned inward, but it's not my dream, nor do I think that it's Gerda's. She is squeezing my hand too hard and I know she knows this thing that is beyond words.

"Agnete,” I say. “You and the boys go. I cannot. I don't want this."

Her face is sudden fury. “I knew you'd do this. Men always do this."

"I didn't use to be a man."

"That makes no difference!” She snatches Gerda away from me, who starts to cry again. Gerda has been taken too many places, too suddenly, too firmly. “I knew there was something weird going on.” She glares at me as if she doesn't know me, or is only seeing me for the first time. Gently she coaxes Gerda toward her, away from me. “The children are coming with me. All of the children. If you want to be blown up by aliens—"

"There are no aliens."

Maybe she doesn't hear me. “I have all the papers.” She means the papers that identify us, let us in our own front door, give us access to our bank accounts. All she holds is the hologrammed, eye-printed ticket. She makes a jagged, flinty correction: “They have all the papers. Gerda is my daughter, and they will favor me.” She's already thinking custody battle, and she's right, of course.

"There are no aliens.” I say it a third time. “There is no reason to do this."

This time I get heard. There is a sound of breathing-out from all the people around me. A fat Tamil, sated maybe with blowing up other people, says, “What, you think all those governments lie? You're just getting cold feet."

Agnete focuses on me. “Go on. Get going if that's what you want.” Her face has no love or tolerance in it.

"People need there to be aliens and so they all believe there are. But I don't."

Gerda is weeping in complete silence, though her face looks calm. I have never seen so much water come out of someone's eyes; it pours out as thick as bird's nest soup. Agnete keeps her hands folded across Gerda's chest and kisses the top of her head. What, does she think I'm going to steal Gerda?

Suddenly our concierge is kneeling down, cooing. She has a pink metal teddy bear in one hand, and it hisses as she uses it to inject Gerda.

"There! All happy now!” The concierge looks up at me with hatred. She gives Agnete our check-in notification, now perfumed and glowing. But not our ID papers. Those they keep, to keep us there, safe.

"Thank you,” says Agnete. Her jaw thrusts out at me.

The Tamil is smiling with rage. “You see that idiot? He got the little girl all afraid."

"Fool can't face the truth,” says a Cluster of networked Malay, all in unison.

I want to go back to the trees, like Tarzan, but that is a different drive, a different dream.

"Why are you stopping the rest of us trying to go, just because you don't want to?” says a multigen, with a wide glassy grin. How on Earth does s/he think I could stop them doing anything? I can see s/he is making up for a lifetime of being disrespected. This intervention, though late and cowardly and stupid, gets the murmur of approval for which s/he yearns.

It is like cutting my heart at the root, but I know I cannot leave Gerda. I cannot leave her alone Down There. She must not be deserted a second time. They have doped her, drugged her, the world swims around her, her eyes are dim and crossed, but I fancy she is looking for me. And at the level of the singing blood in our veins, we understand each other.

I hang my head.

"So you're staying,” says Agnete, her face pulled in several opposing directions, satisfaction, disappointment, anger, triumph, scorn.

"For Gerda, yes."

Agnete's face resolves itself into stone. She wanted maybe a declaration of love, after that scene? Gerda is limp and heavy and dangling down onto the floor.

"Maybe she's lucky,” I say. “Maybe that injection killed her."

The crowd has been listening for something to outrage them. “Did you hear what that man said?"

"What an idiot!"

"Jerk."

"Hey, lady, you want a nicer guy for a husband, try me."

"Did he say the little girl should be dead? Did you hear him say that?"

"Yeah, he said that the little baby should be dead!"

"Hey you, Pol Pot. Get out of line. We're doing this to escape genocide, not take it with us."

I feel distanced, calm. “I don't think we have any idea what we are doing."

Agnete grips the tickets and certificates of passage. She holds onto Gerda, and tries to hug the two younger boys. There is a bubble of spit coming out of Gerda's mouth. The lift doors swivel open, all along the wall. Agnete starts forward. She has to drag Gerda with her.

"Let me carry her at least,” I say. Agnete ignores me. I trail after her. Someone pushes me sideways as I shuffle. I ignore him.

And so I Go Down.

They take your ID and keep it. It is a safety measure to hold as many of humankind safely below as possible. I realize I will never see the sun again. No sunset cumulonimbus, no shushing of the sea, no schools of sardines swimming like veils of silver in clear water, no unreliable songbirds that may fail to appear, no more brown grass, no more dusty wild flowers unregarded by the roadside. No thunder to strike the neak ta, no chants at midnight, no smells of fish frying, no rice on the floor of the temple.

I am a son of Kambu. Kampuchea.

I slope into the elevator.

"Hey, Boss,” says a voice. The sound of it makes me unhappy before I recognize who it is. Ah yes, with his lucky mustache. It is someone who used to work in my hotel. My Embezzler. He looks delighted, pleased to see me. “Isn't this great? Wait till you see it!"

"Yeah, great,” I murmur.

"Listen,” says an intervener to my little thief. “Nothing you can say will make this guy happy."

"He's a nice guy,” says the Embezzler. “I used to work for him. Didn't I, Boss?"

This is my legacy thug, inherited from my boss. He embezzled his fare from me and disappeared, oh, two years ago. These people may think he's a friend, but I bet he still has his stolen guns, in case there is trouble.

"Good to see you,” I lie. I know when I am outnumbered.

For some reason that makes him chuckle, and I can see his silver-outlined teeth. I am ashamed that this unpunished thief is now my only friend.

Agnete knows the story, sniffs and looks away. “I should have married a genetic man,” she murmurs.

Never, ever tread on someone else's dream.

The lift is mirrored, and there are holograms of light as if we stood inside an infinite diamond, glistering all the way up to a blinding heaven. And dancing in the fire, brand names.

Gucci.

Armani.

Sony.

Yamomoto.

Hugo Boss.

And above us, clear to the end and the beginning, the stars. The lift goes down.

Those stars have cost us dearly. All around me, the faces look up in unison.

Whole nations were bankrupted trying to get there, to dwarf stars and planets of methane ice. Arizona disappeared in an annihilation as matter and antimatter finally met, trying to build an engine. Massive junk still orbits half-assembled, and will one day fall. The saps who are left behind on Ground Zero will probably think it's the comet.

But trying to build those self-contained starships taught us how to do this instead.

Earthside, you walk out of your door, you see birds fly. Just after the sun sets and the bushes bloom with bugs, you will see bats flitter, silhouetted as they neep. In hot afternoons the bees waver, heavy with pollen, and I swear even fishes fly. But nothing flies between the stars except energy. You wanna be converted into energy, like Arizona?

So we Go Down.

Instead of up.

"The first thing you will see is the main hall. That should cheer up you claustrophobics,” says my Embezzler. “It is the biggest open space we have in the Singapore facility. And as you will see, that's damn big!” The travelers chuckle in appreciation. I wonder if they don't pipe in some of that cheerful sound.

And poor Gerda, she will wake up for a second time in another new world. I fear it will be too much for her.

The lift walls turn like stiles, reflecting yet more light in shards, and we step out.

Ten stories of brand names go down in circles—polished marble floors, air-conditioning, little murmuring carts, robot pets that don't poop, kids in the latest balloon shoes.

"What do you think of that!” the Malay Network demands of me. All its heads turn, including the women wearing modest headscarves.

"I think it looks like Kuala Lumpur on a rainy afternoon."

The corridors of the emporia go off into infinity as well, as if you could shop all the way to Alpha Centauri. An illusion of course, like standing in a hall of mirrors.

It's darn good, this technology, it fools the eye for all of thirty seconds. To be fooled longer than that, you have to want to be fooled. At the end of the corridor, reaching out for somewhere beyond, distant and pure, there is only light.

We have remade the world.

Agnete looks worn. “I need a drink, where's a bar?"

I need to be away too, away from these people who know that I have a wife for whom my only value has now been spent.

Our little trolley finds us, calls our name enthusiastically, and advises us. In Ramlee Mall, level ten, Central Tower we have the choice of Bar Infinity, the Malacca Club (share the Maugham experience), British India, the Kuala Lumpur Tower View....

Agnete chooses the Seaside Pier; I cannot tell if out of kindness or irony.

I step inside the bar with its high ceiling and for just a moment my heart leaps with hope. There is the sea, the islands, the bridges, the sails, the gulls, and the sunlight dancing. Wafts of sugar vapor inside the bar imitate sea mist, and the breathable sugar makes you high. At the other end of the bar is what looks like a giant orange orb (half of one, the other half is just reflected). People lounge on the brand-name sand (guaranteed to brush away and evaporate.) Fifty meters overhead, there is a virtual mirror that doubles distance so you can look up and see yourself from what appears to be a hundred meters up, as if you are flying. A Network on its collective back is busy spelling the word HOME with their bodies.

We sip martinis. Gerda still sleeps and I now fear she always will.

"So,” says Agnete, her voice suddenly catching up with her butt, and plonking down to Earth and relative calm. “Sorry about that back there. It was a tense moment for both of us. I have doubts too. About coming here, I mean."

She puts her hand on mine.

"I will always be so grateful to you,” she says and really means it. I play with one of her fingers. I seem to have purchased loyalty.

"Thank you,” I say, and I realize that she has lost mine.

She tries to bring love back by squeezing my hand. “I know you didn't want to come. I know you came because of us."

Even the boys know there is something radically wrong. Sampul and Tharum stare in silence, wide brown eyes. Did something similar happen with Dad number one?

Rith the eldest chortles with scorn. He needs to hate us so that he can fly the nest.

My heart is so sore I cannot speak.

"What will you do?” she asks. That sounds forlorn, so she then tries to sound perky. “Any ideas?"

"Open a casino,” I say, feeling deadly.

"Oh! Channa! What a wonderful idea, it's just perfect!"

"Isn't it? All those people with nothing to do.” Someplace they can bring their powder. I look out at the sea.

Rith rolls his eyes. Where is there for Rith to go from here? I wonder. I see that he too will have to destroy his inheritance. What will he do, drill the rock? Dive down into the lava? Or maybe out of pure rebellion ascend to Earth again?

The drug wears off and Gerda awakes, but her eyes are calm and she takes an interest in the table and the food. She walks outside onto the mall floor, and suddenly squeals with laughter and runs to the railing to look out. She points at the glowing yellow sign with black ears and says “Disney.” She says all the brand names aloud, as if they are all old friends.

I was wrong. Gerda is at home here.

I can see myself wandering the whispering marble halls like a ghost, listening for something that is dead.

We go to our suite. It's just like the damn casino, but there are no boats outside to push slivers of wood into your hands, no sand too hot for your feet. Cambodia has ceased to exist, for us.

Agnete is beside herself with delight. “What window do you want?"

I ask for downtown Phnom Penh. A forest of gray, streaked skyscrapers to the horizon. “In the rain,” I ask.

"Can't we have something a bit more cheerful?"

"Sure. How about Tuol Sleng prison?"

I know she doesn't want me. I know how to hurt her. I go for a walk.

Overhead in the dome is the Horsehead Nebula. Radiant, wonderful, deadly, thirty years to cross at the speed of light.

I go to the pharmacy. The pharmacist looks like a phony doctor in an ad. I ask, “Is ... is there some way out?"

"You can go Earthside with no ID. People do. They end up living in huts on Sentosa. But that's not what you mean, is it?"

I just shake my head. It's like we've been edited to ensure that nothing disturbing actually gets said. He gives me a tiny white bag with blue lettering on it.

Instant, painless, like all my flopping guests at the casino.

"Not here,” he warns me. “You take it and go somewhere else, like the public toilets."

Terrifyingly, the pack isn't sealed properly. I've picked it up, I could have the dust of it on my hands; I don't want to wipe them anywhere. What if one of the children licks it?

I know then I don't want to die. I just want to go home, and always will. I am a son of Kambu, Kampuchea.

"Ah,” he says and looks pleased. “You know, the Buddha says that we must accept."

"So why didn't we accept the Earth?” I ask him.

The pharmacist in his white lab coat shrugs. “We always want something different."

We always must move on and if we can't leave home, it drives us mad. Blocked and driven mad, we do something new.

There was one final phase to becoming a man. I remember my uncle. The moment his children and his brother's children were all somewhat grown, he left us to become a monk. That was how a man was completed, in the old days.

I stand with a merit bowl in front of the wat. I wear orange robes with a few others. Curiously enough, Rith has joined me. He thinks he has rebelled. People from Sri Lanka, Laos, Burma, and my own land give us food for their dead. We bless it and chant in Pali.

All component things are indeed transient.

They are of the nature of arising and decaying.

Having come into being, they cease to be.

The cessation of this process is bliss.

Uninvited he has come hither

He has departed hence without approval

Even as he came, just so he went

What lamentation then could there be?

We got what we wanted. We always do, don't we, as a species? One way or another.

"After scoring as hits on the page and on screen, Neil Gaiman's creepy children's story Coraline is now heading for the stage. New York's MCC Theater will present a musical adaptation of the tale—about a little girl named Coraline who stumbles onto a parallel world—this spring, according to press reports from New York.”
—CBC News, “Gaiman's Coraline Slated for Stage Musical Adaptation"

The very elderly writer rested contentedly in his deathbed, medicated against pain and unease. All around him, machines softly chuntered and chuffed as they vainly struggled to keep him alive beyond his natural span. (But his body was wiser than the machines, and was shutting inevitably down, his soul preparing its final flight.) Many people came and went in the large, luxurious room, some stern and serious, others weeping, yet others officious.

But as the object of all this sundry attention, the very elderly writer took no notice of either the machines or the people.

Behind his shuttered rheumy eyes, his mind was too busy, all his attention directed inward, as he reviewed his long, exciting, privileged life, and all he had accomplished: such a vast deal, in fact.

And so much of it was owed to a little girl named Celadine. A little girl who had never really existed, in any empirical sense, and yet who had become more real than many pallid creatures of flesh and blood.

How vividly, all these decades later, he recalled his initial artistic inspiration for Celadine and her adventures. The heady excitement of solitary composition, the sheer rightness of the tale. Once finished, he had collapsed in a postpartum exhaustion. But soon thereafter came the excitement of publication, the surge of glowing reviews, the wearisome ecstasy of the publicity tour, the accolades of fans. Then arrived the multiple awards, and the knowledge that the fable of his devising had earned a secure place in the literary canon of the fantastical.

If his success had ended here, the very elderly writer—then merely middle-aged, of course—would have accounted himself lucky indeed. But there was so much more to come.

The film version of Celadine was a middling hit, as was the video game. But it was the Broadway stage production of the little girl's fabulous story that really took off. Never since The Producers or Hairspray had such a film-to-stage transition been accompanied by so much money and acclaim. By the time of the thousandth performance, the very elderly writer was a millionaire many times over.

Naturally, the author had to consider how next to market the icon for which so many people clamored. And with his large profits, flowing to him amidst generally depressed economic conditions, he found many investment opportunities presented cheaply.

But the first move was to incorporate.

And so Celadine, Ltd. was formed, in the author's native land.

The first enterprise was a joint venture with Sanrio, the owners of Hello Kitty. Linking Celadine's image—the well-known animated interpretation of the little girl from the film, rather than the visage of the live actress who had defined the role on Broadway, but who would certainly have demanded a large percentage of the take—with the long-established feline icon assured instant global penetration of all markets.

Celadine juice boxes, Celadine underwear, Celadine acne-cream, Celadine Saturday-morning cartoons, Celadine energy drinks, Celadine greeting cards, Celadine peanut butter, Celadine iPods, Celadine pizza, Celadine mouthwash—

Before too long, the little girl who had sprung from the now-elderly writer's imagination was more widely recognized than the Wendy of hamburger fame, or the Little Debbie of snack-cake renown.

Five years on from the partnership with Hello Kitty, Celadine, Ltd. owned Sanrio outright.

And there was still so much more of the commercial world to conquer!

To this point, Celadine had lent her cachet only to consumer products. But there were large corporations that were clamoring to brand their services with Celadine's face.

The mass licensing land rush began.

British Petroleum adopted Celadine as their spokesperson for alternative energy production. “Come into a different world of power,” she intoned sweetly.

Seeking to relaunch Merrill Lynch as a viable brand, parent firm Bank of America linked the subsidiary firm to Celadine's winsome domesticity. “When I invested with Merrill Lynch, it was like I found a perfect family."

A consortium of Ivy League universities pooled their resources to form Celadine Online Education. General Motors created a line of Celadine cars. The hapless New York Knicks renamed themselves the Celadines. The Celadine Channel, specializing in tween programming, became mandatory in even the most basic cable package.

Long before all this activity, of course, direct control of the imaginary little girl had passed from the hands of the author to the generally capable hands of the large staff of Celadine, Ltd. There was simply no way he could personally supervise all the licensing.

Which went a long way to explain the gaffe that almost brought down the whole enterprise.

Celadine had been licensed to the Corrections Corporation of America, a firm that ran an extensive private-prison network in the U.S.A. The guards of CCA wore Celadine's image on their very chests. Their Tasers bore her smiling face on their grips.

And so when the media was flooded with the smuggled cellphone-captured video of the infamous riot at the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas, during which scores of illegal immigrants were savagely beaten by CCA guards and their truncheons bearing Celadine's face, an immense crisis faced Celadine, Ltd.

But the very elderly writer (not that he actually wrote much anymore) met the controversy head-on. It was his shining moment. He brilliantly chose to cast the whole matter as a betrayal and insult to his own beloved child. In numerous public appearances, his wounded dignity, his sorrowful shame, utterly won over the public. Dismissals and reorganization saw Celadine, Ltd. emerge stronger and more popular than ever.

The decades after the CCA kerfuffle—how fast they had passed in retrospect, how full they had been of even wider triumphs!

And now it was all coming to an end.

Yet he had no regrets.

Suddenly, to the consternation of all the watchers in the room, the very elderly writer's eyes shot open. He raised a feeble hand toward the blank ceiling, called out, “Celadine! The door! I'm coming—"

And then he expired.

The Minister of Homeland Security pulled the Celadine-patterned sheets up over the peaceful face of the very elderly writer. The Minister adjusted his official armband bearing Celadine's image, and everyone else in the room instinctively did likewise. Then the Minister turned to the Praetorian Guard, each stalwart, rigid, burly, laser-armed man wearing the latex mask replicating Celadine's features, and addressed them.

"Our Supreme Author, the light of the globe, is dead. In Celadine's name, may his soul find peace. He left us and the Celadine Empire during troubled times.

"Now, let us prepare for war with the Moomins!"

My first story sale was to F&SF, though I almost didn't find out about it. I had sent in a story, “Solitario's Eyes,” and never received any response. Being busy with a new band, I just figured they had rejected it. Thus I was greatly surprised when I was called out of practice to answer the phone and heard, “This is Ed Ferman,” coming from the receiver. Turns out that Mr. Ferman had sent a check and a contract and the post office had not delivered it. “I hope you haven't sold it,” he said. “It's coming out next month and we have a very nice cover for it.” Needless to say, that made my day. Hell, it made my month ... now that I think about it, it was probably the best damn thing that happened to me that year.—Lucius Shepard

This is the story of Clyde Ormoloo and the willow wan, but it's also the story of Halloween, the spindly, skinny town that lies along the bottom of the Shilkonic Gorge, a meandering crack in the earth so narrow that on a clear day the sky appears to those hundreds of feet below as a crooked seam of blue mineral running through dark stone. Spanning the gorge is a forest with a canopy so dense that a grown man, if he steps carefully, can walk across it; thus many who live in Halloween must travel for more than a mile along the river (the Mossbach) that divides their town should they wish to see daylight. The precipitous granite walls are concave, forming a great vaulted roof overhead, and this concavity becomes exaggerated near the apex of the gorge, where the serpentine roots of oak and hawthorn and elm burst through thin shelves of rock, braiding their undersides like enormous varicose veins.

Though a young boy can toss a stone from one bank to the other, the Mossbach is held to be quite a broad river by the citizenry, and this is scarcely surprising, considering their narrow perspective. Space is at a premium and the houses of the town, lacking all foundation, must be bolted to the walls of the gorge. Their rooms, rarely more than ten feet deep, are stacked one atop another, like the uneven, teetering columns of blocks erected by a toddler, and are ascended to by means of external ladders or rickety stairs or platforms raised by pulleys (a situation that has proved a boon to fitness). A small house may reach a height of forty feet, and larger ones, double stacks topped off by ornamental peaked roofs, often tower more than eighty feet above the Mossbach. When families grow close, rooms may be added that connect two or more houses, thereby creating a pattern of square shapes across the granite redolent of an enormous crossword puzzle; when feuds occur, these connecting rooms may be demolished. Public venues like O'Malloy's Inn and the Downlow have expanded by carving out rooms from the rock, but for much of its length, with its purplish days and quirky architecture and night mists, Halloween seems a habitation suited for a society of intelligent pigeons ... though on occasion a purely human note is sounded. Sandy shingles notch the granite shore and piers of age-blackened wood extend out over the water, illumined by gas lamps or a single dangling bulb, assisting the passage of the flat-bottomed skiffs that constitute the river's sole traffic. Frequently you will see a moon-pale girl (or a dark-skinned girl with a peculiar pallor) sitting at the end of such a pier beneath a fan of radiance, watching elusive, luminous silver fish appearing and disappearing beneath the surface with the intermittency of fireflies, waiting for her lover to come poling his skiff out of the sempiternal gloom.

At forty-one, Clyde Ormoloo had the lean, muscular body of a construction worker (which, in fact, he had been) and the bleak disposition of a French philosopher plagued by doubts concerning the substantive worth of existence (which, in essence, he had become). His seamed face, surmounted by a scalp upon which was raised a crop of black stubble, was surpassingly ugly, yet ugly in such a way that appealed to women who prize men for their brutishness and use them as a setting to show off the diamond of their beauty. These women did not stay for long, put off by Clyde's unrelenting and perhaps unnatural scrutiny. Three years previously, while working a construction site in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania (his home and the birthplace of Joe Namath, the former NFL quarterback), he had been struck a glancing blow to the head by a rivet dropped from the floor above and, as a result, he had begun to see too deeply into people. The injury was not a broken spine (he was in the hospital one night for observation), yet it paralyzed Clyde. Whereas before the accident he had been a beer guzzler, an ass-grabber, a blue-collar bon vivant, now when he looked into a woman's eyes (or a man's, for that matter), he saw a terrible incoherence, flashes of greed, lust, and fear exploding into a shrapnel of thought that somehow succeeded in contriving a human likeness. His friends seemed unfamiliar—he understood that he had not known them, merely recognized the shapes of their madness. He asked questions that made them uncomfortable and made comments that they failed to grasp and took for insults. Increasingly, women told their friends they didn't know him anymore and turned away when he drew near. Men rejected him less subtly and formed new friendships with those whose madnesses complemented their own.

"Sooner or later,” said one of his doctors, “almost everyone arrives at the conclusion that people are chaotic skinbags driven by the basest of motives. You'll adjust."

None of the doctors could explain Clyde's sudden increase in intelligence and they were bemused by his contention that this increase was a byproduct of improved vision. In Clyde's view, his new capacity to analyze and break down the images conveyed by light lay at the root of his problem—the rivet had struck his skull above the site of the visual cortex, had it not? At the movies, in rock clubs, in any poorly lit circumstance, he felt almost normal, though most movies—themselves creations of light—seemed designed to inspire Pavlovian responses in idiots, and thus Clyde began attending the local arthouse, hiding his face beneath a golf cap so as not to be recognized.

"Try sunglasses,” suggested a specialist.

Sunglasses helped, but Clyde felt like a pretentious ass wearing them day in, day out during the gray inclemency of a Beaver Falls winter. He considered moving to Florida, but knew this would be no more than a stopgap. The sole passion he clung to from his old, happy life (never mind that it had been an illusion) was his love of football, and for a while he thought football might save him. He spent hours each night watching ESPN Classic and the NFL Network. Football was the perfect metaphor, he thought, for contemporary man's frustration with the limitations of the social order, and therein rested its appeal. Whenever the officials (who in the main were professional men, lawyers, accountants, insurance executives, and the like, apt instruments of repression) threw their yellow flags and blew their silver whistles, preventing a three-hundred-pound mesomorph from ripping out a young quarterback's throat, they were in effect reminding the millions tuning in that they could expect no more than a partial fulfillment of their desires ... and yet they did this with the rabid participation of the masses, who dressed in appropriate colors, rooting for the home team or the visitors, but acknowledging by the sameness of their dress that there was only one side, the side that sold them jerseys and caps. Thus football had evolved into a training tool of the corporate oligarchy, posing a dreary object lesson that conditioned proles to accept their cancer-ridden, consumerist fates enthusiastically. Having thought these things, the game lost much of its appeal for Clyde. And so, plagued by light, alone in a world where solitude is frowned upon, if not perceived as the symptom of a deviant pathology, he petitioned the town of Halloween to grant him citizenship.

The population of Halloween fluctuates between three thousand and thirty-eight hundred, and is sustained at those levels by the Town Council. At the time Clyde put in his application, the population hovered around thirty-two hundred, so breaching the upper limit would not be a problem. To his surprise, the decision to reject or approve him would not be rendered by the council in full session, but by a committee of three men named Brad, Carmine, and Spooz, and the meeting was held at the Sub-Cafe, an establishment that had been excavated out of the granite; a neon sign was bracketed to the rock above the entrance, indigo letters flashing on and off, producing eerie reflections in the water, and the interior looked a little like Brownie's back in Beaver Falls, with digital beer signs and some meager Christmas decorations and piped-in music (the Pogues were playing when he entered), TVs mounted here and there, maple paneling and subdued lighting, photographs of former patrons on the walls, tables, a horseshoe-shaped bar and waitresses wearing indigo Sub-Café T-shirts. A comforting mutter arose from the crowd at the bar, and two of the committee were seated at a back table.

Carmine and Spooz, it turned out, were cousins who did not share a family resemblance. Spooz was a genial, round-cheeked man in his mid-thirties, already going bald, and Carmine was five or six years younger, lean and sallow, with a vulpine face, given to toothpick-chewing and lip-curling. Brad, who had to be called away from a group gathered around a punchboard, was a black guy with baby dreads, a real beanpole, maybe six-six or six-seven. He brought a beer over for Clyde and gave him a grin as he pulled a chair up to the table. They drank and talked small and Clyde, gesturing at the TVs, asked if they had cable.

"Shit, no,” said Carmine, and Spooz said, “The cable and the satellite company are having a turf war, so nobody can get either one."

"Cable wouldn't work down here, anyway,” said Carmine. “Satellite, neither."

"How come?” Clyde asked.

"We got a service that burns stuff for us,” Spooz said. “They send DVDs down the next day."

"Ormoloo,” said Brad. “That's French, isn't it? Doesn't it have something to do with gilding?"

"Beats me.” Clyde drained his glass and signaled the waitress to bring another round. “My dad was this big old guy who founded a hippie commune out in Oregon. He changed his name legally to Elephant Ormoloo. When my mom married him, she changed hers to Tijuana Ormoloo. When she divorced him, she changed it back to Marian Bleier. She told me I could choose between Bleier and Ormoloo. I was ten years old and pissed at her for leaving my dad, even though he'd been screwing around on her, so I chose Ormoloo. Anyway....” Clyde resettled in his chair. “I don't think my dad even realized it sounded French. He used to buy these Hindu posters from a head shop. You know, the ones with blue goddesses and guys with elephant heads and all that. He loved those damn posters. I think he was trying for a Hindu effect with the name."

After a silence during which the PA system began piping in the Pretenders, Carmine shifted his toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other with his tongue and said, “Too much information, guy."

Irritated, Clyde said, “I thought you wanted to know shit about me."

"Take it easy, man,” said Brad, and Spooz, with an apologetic look, said, “We want to get to know you, okay? But we got a lot of ground to cover here."

Clyde hadn't noticed any particular rush on the part of the committee, but kept his mouth shut.

Spooz unfolded a wrinked sheet of paper and spread it on the table. To make it stay flat, he put empties on it top and bottom. The paper was Clyde's application.

"So, Cliff,” Spooz said. “Seems like you've got a very excellent reason for wanting to move here."

"That's Clyde, not Cliff,” said Clyde.

Spooz peered at the paper. “Oh ... right."

The waitress delivered their beers and plunked herself down in the chair next to Clyde. She was a big sexy girl, a strawberry blonde with a big butt, big thighs, big everything, kind of an R. Crumb woman, albeit with a less ferocious smile.

"You going to sit in, Joanie?” Brad asked.

"Might as well.” She winked at Clyde. “I ain't making no money."

"I thought you guys were going to decide,” said Clyde, feeling that things were becoming a bit arbitrary. “Can just anybody get in on this?"

"That's how democracy works,” said Carmine. “They do it different where you come from?"

"Maybe he doesn't like girls.” Joanie did a movie star-quality pout.

"I like girls fine. I ... It's...” Clyde drew a breath and let it run out. “This is important to me, and I don't think you're taking it seriously. You don't know my name, you're not asking questions. My application looks like it's been in the wastebasket. I'm getting the idea this is all a big joke to you people."

"You want me to fuck off, I will,” Joanie said.

"I don't want anybody to fuck off. Okay? All I want is for this to be a real interview."

Carmine gave him the fisheye. “You don't think this is a real interview?"

"We're in a freaking bar, for Christ's sakes. Not the town hall."

"So what're you saying? The interview's not real unless it's in a building with a dome?” Carmine spat on the floor, and Joanie punched him in the arm and said, “You going to clean that up?"

"This is the town hall,” Carmine said.

"Uh-huh. Sure it is,” said Clyde.

Brad tapped him on the arm in order to break up the stare-down he was having with Carmine. “It's the truth, dude. Anywhere the committee meets, it's the town hall."

Carmine popped a knuckle. “I suppose where you come from, they do that different, too."

"Yeah, matter of fact.” Clyde fixed him with a death stare. “One thing, they don't let sour little fucks decide anything important."

"All right, all right,” Spooz said. “Let's everybody calm down. The man wants some questions. Anyone have a question?"

Carmine said meanly, “I got nothing,” and Brad appeared to be mulling it over.

"What sort of work you do?” Joanie asked.

Clyde started to point out that the question had been answered on his application; but he was grateful for this much semblance of order and said, “Construction. I'm qualified to operate most types of heavy machinery. I do carpentry, masonry, roofing. I've done some wiring, but just basic stuff. Pretty much you name it.” He glanced at Carmine and added, “Too much information?"

Carmine held out a hand palm down and waggled it, as if to say that Clyde was right on the edge of overcommunicating.

Brad said, “I don't believe we've got any construction going, but he could start out down at the Dots."

Spooz agreed and Clyde was about to ask what were the Dots, when Joanie cut in and asked if he had a girlfriend.

"How about we keep it serious?” said Spooz.

"I am serious!” she said.

"Naw,” said Clyde. “No girlfriend. But I'm accepting applications."

Joanie took a pretend-swat at him with a menu.

Brad followed with a question about his expertise in furniture building, and then Spooz and Joanie had questions about his long-term goals (indefinite), his police record (nothing heavy-duty since he was kid), and his health concerns (none as far as he knew). They had other questions, too, which Clyde answered honestly. He began to relax, to think that he was making an overall good impression—Brad and Joanie were in his corner for sure, and though Spooz was Carmine's cousin, Clyde had the idea that they weren't close, so he figured as long as he didn't blow it, he was in.

The atmosphere grew convivial, they had a few more beers, and at last Spooz said to his colleagues, “Well, I guess we know enough, huh?"

Joanie and Brad concurred, and Clyde asked if they wanted him to go away so they could talk things over. Not necessary, they told him, and then Carmine said, “Here's a question for you. How do you feel about the Cowboys?"

At a loss, Clyde said, “You talking about the Dallas Cowboys?"

Carmine nodded, and Clyde, assuming that this didn't require a legitimate answer, said, “Screw ‘em. I'm a Steelers fan."

Brad, who had been resting his elbows on the table, sat back in his chair. Joanie was frozen for a second and then busied herself in bussing the table. Spooz lowered his eyes as if deeply saddened. Carmine smiled thinly and inspected his fingernails.

"Are you fucking kidding me?” Clyde said. “That was a serious question?"

Brad asked what time it was, and Spooz checked his watch and said it was six-thirty.

"Hey,” said Clyde. “You need me to be a Cowboys fan, I'll be a Cowboys fan. I don't give a good goddamn about football, really."

That seemed to horrify them.

"What do you want from me? You want I should paint myself silver and blue every Sunday? Come on!"

"Monday,” said Brad. “We don't get the games until Monday."

Spooz's stern expression dissolved into a grin. “I can't keep this up. Congratulations, man."

Baffled for the moment, Clyde said, “What are you talking?"

"You've been jumped in. This was like your initiation. The council accepted you last week."

"You'll be on probationary status for six months,” Joanie said. “But it's more-or-less a done deal."

Brad and Spooz both shook his hand, and Joanie gave him a hug and a kiss with a little extra on it, and people came over from the bar to congratulate him. Clyde kept saying happily, “I can't believe you guys were just busting my chops. You fuckers had me going there!"

Carmine, who apparently had taken a real dislike to him, waited until the crowd around Clyde had dissipated to offer a limp handshake. “Don't get giddy,” he said, putting his mouth close beside Clyde's cheek. “Things might not work out for you here."

Walnuts are Halloween's chief export, its only source of income (apart from the occasional tourist and the post office, which does a bang-up business once a year, stamping cards and letters) and are prized by connoisseurs in the upper world for their rich, fruity flavor, a flavor derived from steeping in the ponds south of town known as the Dots—three of them, round as periods, they create an elision interrupting the erratic black sentence of the Mossbach. Recently there have been complaints that the walnuts are no longer up to standard. The mulberries and plants that, dissolved into a residue, suffuse the walnuts, imbuing them with their distinct taste, no longer fall from the sky crack in profusion; and neither do the walnuts fall so thickly as they once they did, plop-plop-plopping into the water like a sort of wooden hail. Nowadays the townspeople are not above importing mulberries and certain weeds and even walnuts, and dumping them into the ponds, a practice decried by connoisseurs; yet they continue to pay the exorbitant prices.

Each morning Clyde would pole his skiff (something more difficult to do than it would appear) from the north end of town, where he had found temporary living quarters, to the Dots. He recalled how it had been going to work in Beaver Falls, steering his pickup past strip malls with gray snow banked out front, his seat littered with half-crushed cans and fast food garbage, pieces of bun, greasy paper, a fragment of tomato, a dead French fry, the heater cooking it all into a rotten smell, while the idiot voices of drive-time America yammered and puffy-faced, sullen, half-asleep drivers drank bitter coffee, listening to Howard Stern and Mancow Muller, trying to remember the gross bits with which to amuse their friends ... and he contrasted that with the uncanny peace of going to work now, gliding downstream beneath the still-darkened seam of sky, the only sound that of his pole lifting and planting, inhaling the cool, damp smell of the river mixed with fleeting odors of fish death and breakfasts cooking and limeflowers (a species with velvety greenish-white blooms peculiar to Halloween, sprouting from the dirt and birdlime that accumulated on the ledges), and occasionally another skiff coming toward him, the boatman saluting, and his thoughts glided, too, never stressed or scattered, just taking in the sights, past the simple, linear houses spread out across the rock walls like anagrams and scrambles, the blurred letters of the neon signs flickering softly in the mist, the lights at the end of spidery docks glowing witchily, haloed by glittering white particles, and once he reached the Dots, shallow circles of crystalline water illuminated in such a way as to reveal their walnut-covered bottoms (yet not enough light to trouble him), he would put on waders and grab a long rake and turn the walnuts so as to ensure they received the benefits of immersion on all sides equally.

Between fifty and sixty men and women joined him on the morning shift and he became friendly with several, and friends with one: Dell Weimer, a blond, overweight transplant from Lake Parsippany, New Jersey, where he had managed a convenience store. Dell had recently finished a short stretch in the Tubes, the geological formation that served as Halloween's main punitive device, and would say nothing about it other than that it was “...some evil shit.” He was forthcoming, however, about the rest of the town in which he had lived for six years.

One morning Dell straightened from his labors and, as he was wont to do, clutched his back and began grousing about the job. “Fuck a bunch of walnuts,” he said on this occasion. “Here we are breaking our butts for nothing!"

Clyde asked him to explain, because he had been led to believe the town depended on the walnuts, and Dell said, “Ever hear of Pet Nylund?"

"Sounds familiar."

"You know. The rock star guy."

"Yeah ... yeah! My ex used to like his stuff. Real morbid crap."

"He's born and raised in Halloween."

"You're kidding?"

"Yeah, he lives here when he's not in L.A. I'll show you his place. He bought up all the land around the gorge—he must own a fucking million acres. He invested heavy in energy and bioengineering stocks about thirty years ago and the stock went through the roof."

"Bioengineering. Tinkering with genes and all that?"

"Right. He had his own company come down in here ... Mutagenics, I think their name was. They were doing experiments south of the Dots, flushing shit into the river. Don't eat nothing come out of that river, son, ‘less you want to grow gills.” Dell paused to work out a kink. “Like I was saying, they flushed their chemicals so they washed away underground. The Mossbach goes subta—you know."

"Subterranean."

"Yeah, right. God only knows what's growing down there. The Mutagenics people couldn't leave fast enough, so you know some bad shit happened. But even though the water here's okay, the fishies got that poison in ‘em and there is some weird-looking stuff in that river. Anyhow, Pet's worth billions, so he endows the town. Now the town's a billionaire, too. Nobody's got to work, except for Nylund struck a deal with the council. In return for the endowment, people have to live like always until after he dies. He doesn't want to watch the place change and he knows the money's bound to change it. After he's gone, he don't give a damn about what happens, but for now we got to bust our behinds.” Dell winced and rubbed his back again. “If he shows his face around here, I might do us all a favor and off the son-of-a-bitch."

That night in the Sub-Café, Clyde asked Joanie, with whom he was having a thing, if the Pet Nylund story was true.

"Who told you? Dell, I bet,” she said. “That lazy bastard's going to wind up back in the Tubes."

She told the bartender that she was going on break and hustled Clyde out onto the pier that fronted the bar. The mist was thick and, although he heard people laughing out on the water, he couldn't see past the end of the pier. Eight or nine skiffs were tied up to the pilings; the current made them appear to nudge against each other with ungainly eagerness, like pigs at a trough.

"You're not supposed to know any of that stuff until you're off probation,” Joanie said.

"Why not?"

"Because knowing about it might make you unmotivated."

"There's no reason to think it'll make me less unmotivated five months from now."

Joanie cast about to see if anyone was within earshot. “It's all about the benefits, see. They kick in once you're a citizen. Retirement, full medical ... and I mean full. They'll even pay for a tummy tuck, anything you want. Nylund thinks if the probationers knew, they wouldn't get into the spirit of the town. They'd just be faking it."

The water slurped against the pilings, as if a big something had given them a lick.

"Dell mentioned this company, Mutagenics."

"You don't want to be talking about that,” said Joanie, affecting a sober expression. “And don't you even think about going south of the Dots. We got this one idiot who goes south a lot, but one day she's going to turn up missing. Happens eventually to everybody who pokes their nose down there."

"So what's up with that?"

"If I could tell you, I'd probably be missing. I don't go there. Ever. But don't talk about it, okay? With Dell or anyone ... except with me. I don't want you getting in trouble. With me...” She threw a stiff punch to the point of his shoulder. “You're already in trouble."

"Ow! Jesus!” He grabbed her and pulled her against him. He squeezed and her breath came out in a trebly oof. Her eyes half-closed and she ground her hips against him. The mists swirled and thickened, sealing them off from the Sub-Café, until only a vague purplish flickering remained of the sign.

"Ouch,” Joanie said.

Ms. Helene Kmiec, the widow of Stan Kmiec, former head of the town council, was at thirty-six a relatively young woman to have endured such a tragedy, and this perhaps explained her emotional resilience. Since her husband's death eight months ago in a boating accident south of the Dots, she had taken a succession of lovers and started a new business involving the use of a webcam and bondage gear (this according to Dell, who further stated that Ms. Kmiec, a petite blonde with, in his words, “trophy-sized balloons,” could give him a spanking any old time she wanted). She also took in boarders. The remainder of her time was devoted to the care and feeding of the town's sole surviving cat, a Turkish angora named Prince Shalimar who had survived for five and a half years, considerably longer, it was believed, than any other cat in Halloween's shadowy history.

"Something around here likes cats a leetle too much,” she said to Clyde on the occasion of their first meeting. “People claim to have seen it, but this is all they've come up with."

She handed Clyde a photocopied poster with an artist's rendering of a raggedy Rorschach inkblot looming over a cat and underneath it the words:

Beneath that was Ms. Kmiec's contact information.

"It's not much to go on,” Clyde said, and tried to hand back the poster. Ms. Kmiec told him to hang onto it—she had plenty more.

"The damn thing's fast,” she said. “Fast and sneaky. Hard to get a handle on its particulars. At least that gives you a general idea of its size.” She studied the picture. “It's nailed damn near every cat in town for the past forty years, but it's not getting Princey."

"You think it's the same one's been doing it all that time?"

"Doesn't matter,” she said. “It comes around here, I got something for it. One or many, old or young, that sucker's going down."

"Why don't you get a dog?"

"Dogs get taken by things in the river. Cats have the good sense to stay clear of the water."

They were sitting together on a sofa in her cramped, fourth-floor living room, a ten-by-eight-foot space with a door that connected to a corridor leading to the house next door. Its cadmium yellow walls were dense with framed photographs, many of them shots of Ms. Kmiec in various states of undress, and the largest depicting her arm-in-arm with the late Mr. Kmiec, a pudgy, white-haired gent whose frown lines and frozen smile implied that such an expression did not come easily to his face. In this photograph she wore an ankle-length skirt, a cardigan, and a prim, gone-to-Jesus expression, leaving the impression that she had stepped away from the sexual arena before her time, an error since corrected. The skirt and the cardigan had been replaced that day with a gold dressing gown loosely belted over a skimpy black latex costume.

"There's one thing we should get straight before you move in,” she said. “For the record, I did not kill my husband. You may hear talk that I did..."

"I'm not big on gossip,” Clyde said, avoiding looking at her for fear he might see the truth of her statement—the light in the room was brighter than he would have liked.

"...but I didn't. Stan was a chore and we didn't always get along. There's times now I still resent him, but he was a good guy at heart. He was always helping me with my projects. Matter of fact, he was helping me out the day he died. We were down south looking for the cat killer and something snaked over the side of the skiff and took him under. Wasn't a thing I could have done. People say if I'd loved Stan, I would have gone in after him. Maybe there's some truth to that. I did love him, but Stan was twenty-six years older than me. Maybe I didn't love him enough."

She inched forward on the sofa, reached out her hand and touched Mr. Kmiec's image on the wall opposite. She seemed to be having a moment and Clyde waited until she had leaned back to ask what she had meant by “something snaked over the side."

"South of the Dots there's a lot of strange flora and fauna,” she said. “We don't know half what's there. Don't you be going down that way until you get acclimated.” She patted his knee. “We wouldn't want to lose you."

A masculine wail of distress floated up from below and Ms. Kmiec jumped to her feet. “Oh, damn! I forgot about him! Here I am chattering away and ... I don't know what I'm thinking!” She fingered out a key from the pocket of her robe and passed it to Clyde. “I have to take care of something. Can you show yourself up? It's the eighth floor."

Clyde said, “Sure,” and scrunched in his knees so she could get past.

"Now I put you right above the Prince's room,” she said as she stood in the open door, a section of the gorge's granite wall visible behind her. “I know you're bound to have company, and I don't care about that. But I made certain the bed in that room is extra stable, because the Prince hates sharp noises. So if the headboard comes loose and starts banging, or whatever, do your best to fix it temporarily and I'll get someone in to do repairs ASAP. All right?"

She shrugged out of her robe and tossed it onto the arm of the sofa and started down the ladder, seeding Clyde's brain with an afterimage of pale, shapely legs and swelling breasts restrained by narrow, shiny strips of rubber. A second later her head popped back into view.

"If you want, look in on the Prince. He loves new people.” Her brow furrowed, as if trying to recall some further instruction; then she brightened and said, “Welcome to Kasa Kmiec!"

The eighth floor was a room with a half-bath added on. Within a ten-by-twelve space, it contained a captain's bed with shelves in the bottom, a wicker chair, bookshelves and a TV niche built into the walls, a stove and sink, and small refrigerator. It was as cunningly crafted as a ship's cabin, with every inch of space utilized. Initially Clyde felt he might break something whenever he moved, but he adapted to his new quarters and soon, when lying on the bed, he began to have a sense of spaciousness.

He enjoyed sitting in the wicker chair after work with the lamp dialed low, vegetating until his energy returned, and then he would turn the light on full. He had discovered that he liked being smart when alone, liked the solitary richness of his mind, and he would sketch plans for the house he intended to build after he got off probation; he would read and speculate on subjects of which he had been unaware prior to the accident (Indian influences on Byzantine architecture, the effects of globalization upon Lhasa and environs, et al.); but always his thoughts returned to the town where he had sought refuge, whose origins no one appeared to know or question, whose very existence seemed as mysterious as the nation of Myanmar or the migratory impulses of sea turtles. He had supposed—unrealistically, perhaps—that the people of Halloween would have a clearer perspective on life than did the people in Beaver Falls; but they had similar gaps in their worldview and ignored these gaps as if they were insignificant, as if by not including them in the picture, everything made sense, everything was fine. He had hoped the town would be a solution, but now he suspected it was simply another sort of problem, more exotic and perhaps more complex, one that he would have to leave the light on a great deal in order to resolve if he hoped to get to the bottom of it.

When he heard the winch complain, the chain slithering through the pulley, signs that Joanie was on her way up in the elevator that operated above the fifth floor, he would dim the lamp so he would be unable to perceive the telltales that betrayed the base workings of her mind and the fabrication of her personality. She understood why he did this—at least he had explained his troubles—but it played into her appreciation of herself as an entry-level girlfriend, and she often asked if she wasn't pretty enough for him, if that was why he lowered the lights. He told her that she was more than pretty enough, but she grew increasingly morose and would say she knew they were a short-term thing and that he would someday soon find someone who made him happy, as would she, and it was better this way—this way, when the inevitable happened they would stay friends because they had been honest with each other and hadn't gotten all deluded, and until then, well, they'd have some fun, wouldn't they? Even in the half-dark, he realized it was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that her low self-esteem foredoomed the relationship. Understanding this about her, having so much apperception of the human ritual, dismayed him and he would try to boost her spirits by telling her stories about his life topside (the citizens of Halloween referred to other parts of America as “topside” or “the republic") or by mocking Mrs. Kmiec's cat.

Beside the bed was a trapdoor that had once permitted egress to the floor below, but now was blocked by a sheet of two-inch plexiglass—a plastic cube had been constructed within the old wooden room for the protection of its sole inhabitant, a fluffy white blob with a face and feet. When Clyde first opened the trapdoor, Prince Shalimar had freaked out, climbing the walls, throwing himself at the inner door; now, grown accustomed to Clyde and Joanie peering at him, he never glanced in their direction. The place was a cat paradise filled with mazes upon which to climb, scratching posts, dangling toys, and catnip mice. Infrequently the Prince would swat at one or another of the toys; now and then he would chew on a catnip mouse; but a vast majority of his time was spent sleeping in a pillowed basket close to his litter box.

"It's not even a cat anymore,” Joanie said one evening as they looked down on the Prince, snoozing on his pillow. “It's like some kind of mutant."

"Ms. Kmiec gives him enemas,” said Clyde.

"You're kidding!"

"Swear to God. I looked down there one time and she had a plastic tube up his butt."

"Did she see you?"

"Yeah. She waved and went on with her business."

"Wasn't the cat pissed?"

"She was wearing work gloves and holding him down, but by the time I looked, he seemed to have quit struggling and was just lying there."

Joanie shook her head in wonderment. “Helene is very, very weird."

"Do you know her?"

"Not so much. She used to come in the bar with Stan. She's always been weird. My big sister was the same year in school as with her—she says Helene was already into the dominatrix stuff when she was a kid. She quit doing it for Stan."

"Maybe she didn't quit. Maybe Stan was her only client for a while."

"Maybe."

Joanie leaned against him and Clyde draped an arm over her shoulder; the edge of his hand nudged her breast. They watched as the Prince gave a mighty fishlike heave and managed to flop onto his back.

"He doesn't even have the energy to miaow anymore,” Clyde said. “He makes this sound instead. ‘Mrap, mrap.’ It's like half a miaow. A shorthand miaow."

Joanie caught his hand and placed it full on her breast. “Something happens to Helene, the poor bastard won't stand a fighting chance. Nobody else is going to do for him the way she does. He'll be like a bonbon for that fucking thing."

They made loud, sweaty love with no regard for Prince's sensibilities, banging the headboard against the wall, and afterward, with Joanie snoring gently beside him, Clyde was unable to rid himself of the image and lay thinking that they were all bonbons, soft white things in their flimsy protective shells, helplessly awaiting the emergence of some black maw or circumstance.

Seven weeks after his arrival in Halloween, Clyde was working with a group of twenty or twenty-five in the central Dot, when he heard from Mary Alonso, a sinewy, brown-skinned gay woman in her early thirties, that Dell had been banished.

"'Banished'?” he said, and laughed. “You can't banish people, not since the Middle Ages."

"Tell that to Dell.” Mary leaned against the rocky wall, a pose that stretched her T-shirt across her diminutive breasts, making them look like lumps of muscle. “They sent him up to the republic and he can't come back. He'd been to the Tubes nine times. The tenth time and you're gone."

"Is that some kind of rule? Nobody told me."

"When you're through probation you get a book with the town laws. There aren't many of them. Don't kill anybody, don't rape anybody, don't screw up constantly. I guess they got Dell on the don't screw up constantly."

"What the hell? Don't you have people believe in the Constitution down here?"

"The Constitution's not what it used to be,” Mary said. “Guess you didn't notice."

"Well, how's about Helene Kmeic?"

"Huh?"

"Helene Kmeic. Chances are she killed her husband. The way Joanie tells it, they didn't hardly investigate."

"I wouldn't know about that.” Mary started raking again.

"Is Dell still around? Are they holding him somewhere?"

"Once they decide you're gone, you're gone. Only reason I know about it, I was at home and Tom Mihalic come around saying I had to work Dell's shift."

Distraught, Clyde threw aside his rake and went splashing away from the ranks of toiling men and women, stomping down hard, trying to crush as many walnuts as he could. He didn't slow his pace until he had gone halfway along the narrow channel between the second and third Dot, and then only because he noticed the light had paled.

Unlike the other two Dots, the third and largest (some ninety feet in diameter) lay at the bottom of a hole that appeared to have been punched through from the surface—probably an old sinkhole—and was open to the weather. At present it was raining straight down, raining hard (a fact that wasn't apparent back in the second Dot, where the walls of the Shilkonic all but sealed them off from the sky), and the pond was empty of laborers. The effect was of a pillar of rain resembling one of those transporter beams used in science fiction movies, except this was much bigger, a ninety-foot-wide column of excited gray particles preparing to zap a giant up from the bowels of an ashen planet, making a seething sound as it did, and amplifying the omnipresent damp smell of the gorge. Staring at it, Clyde's anger planed away into despondency. He and Dell hadn't been that close. They had gone out drinking three or four times, and he'd visited Dell's place to watch DVDs, and they hung out during their lunch breaks, and that was it. But their relationship had the imprimatur of friendship. Dell's breezy, profane irreverence reminded him of his friends back in Beaver Falls. People gossiped about each other a lot in Halloween, yet he recognized that they shied away from certain people and subjects: Pet Nylund and why there was no cable TV and what had happened to Helene Kmiec's husband, to name three. Dell had talked freely about these and other taboos, though most of his talk was BS (perhaps that explained why he'd been banished), and while Clyde had been reluctant to respond in kind, due to his probationary status, neither had he discouraged Dell. A fly's worth of guilt traipsed across his brain and he brushed it aside, telling himself that Dell was his own man and he, Clyde, wasn't about to make this into a soap opera of recriminations and what-ifs.

By the time he reached the pond, the rain had stopped. Under ordinary circumstances, he kept clear of the third Dot (Spooz, as a representative of the council, had written a note excusing him from work there because of his sensitivity to light), yet Clyde felt he needed every jot of intellect in order to deal with his emotions and he moved out into the pond, glancing anxiously at the turbulent sky and the gaping crack of the gorge across the way—less than two months in town and he had already become an agoraphobe. To his left, a section of the granite wall evolved into a ledge. He boosted himself onto it and sat with his legs dangling. Twenty feet farther to the left lay a beach of sand and dirt and rubble, where grew several low bushes surrounding a stunted willow, the sole tree in all of Halloween. Clyde considered the complicated patterns of the bare twigs, thinking this was something the supporters of intelligent design, mistaking (as they frequently did) mere intricacy for skillful engineering, might point to in order to demonstrate the infinite forethought that had gone into God's universal blueprint. Hell, he could do a better job himself, given the right tools. For starters, he'd outfit everyone with male and female genitalia so they wouldn't be constantly trying to fuck one another over, and once they had experienced the joys of childbirth, they would likely stop trying to fuck themselves over, recognizing that survival was overrated, and would abandon procreation to the lesser orders and become a species of bonbon who placidly waited for extinction, recognizing this to be the summit of human aspiration. That question settled, he turned his attention to the matter at hand. He had been wrong in trying to banish Dell from mind, basically duplicating the action of the town. Not that he cared to hold onto guilt or any other emotion where Dell was concerned, but he needed to think about why he had been banished and how this might apply to him. He began to whistle—Clyde was an accomplished whistler and had gotten in the habit of accompanying himself while thinking. Whistling orchestrated his thoughts into a calm and orderly pattern, preferable to their usual agitated run. The sinkhole responded with a hint of reverb, adding a mellifluous quality to his tone, distracting him, and it was then he spotted a woman with pale skin and shoulder-length auburn hair peering at him through the willow twigs.

"Jesus!” said Clyde, for she had given him a start.

The twigs sectioned her face like the separations of a jigsaw puzzle, causing her to appear, as she turned her head, like a stained glass image come to life. She stepped out of cover, hopped up onto the far end of the ledge, scowled and said, “Get out of my way."

She was slender and tall, and had on a white sundress that, being a little damp, clung to her body. She wore kneepads and elbow pads, and on her feet were a pair of brown sports shoes.

"Aren't you cold?” Clyde asked.

She pulled a pair of thin gloves from the pocket of her skirt and put them on. In a town where pale women predominated, her pallor was abnormal, like chalk. Her mouth was so wide, its corners seemed to carry out the lines of her slanted cheekbones, and was perfectly molded, the lips neither too full nor too thin, lending her an air of confidence and serenity; her eyes, too, were wide, teardrop-shaped, almost azure in color. She let the scowl lapse into a mask of hostile diffidence, but her face was an open book to Clyde. Her confidence was not based on her beauty (in truth, he didn't perceive her as beautiful, merely attractive—she was too skinny for his tastes), but spoke to the fact that she had little regard for beauty ... and not much regard for anything or anyone, if he read her right. She told him once again to move it so she could pass, and Clyde, irritated by her peremptory manner, pointed at the water and said, “Go around."

"I don't want to get wet,” she said.

"Yeah, I just bet you don't. That would be icky."

She affected a delighted expression and laughed: two notes, sharply struck, from the treble end of a keyboard. “You're being clever, aren't you? Now let me by."

Clyde was tempted to make her squeeze past, and perhaps he would have done so once upon a time, but he was fascinated by the way her face changed with the movement of eyes and mouth, with every shift in attitude, one moment having an Asian cast, the next seeming entirely Caucasian, and the next expressing an alien quality ... and this grounded the charge of his anger. Wondering how old she was (he would not have been surprised to learn she was forty or twenty-five), he eased off the ledge and into the water.

As she walked past him on long, muscular legs, he tried to make nice, saying, “My name's Clyde."

"How appropriate,” she said.

When she reached the end of the ledge, she grabbed a miniscule projection of stone, placed the toe of one shoe in an equally imperceptible notch, and then went spidering across the granite face, making the traverse with such speed and precision, it was as if she were wearing sucker pads on her fingers and toes. Within seconds she had disappeared into the channel that led back to the second Dot.

"Whoa!” said Clyde.

He told no one about having seen the woman. He did not tell Joanie because he knew she would leap to the conclusion that his interest was more than casual (which it wasn't, or so he believed) and be upset; he did not tell Mary Alonso, who had taken Dell's place as a source of gossip and information, and with whom he went out for drinks on occasion, usually along with Mary's partner, Roberta, a fey, freckly, dark-haired girl, because he didn't want to learn that the pale woman was a shrew or unstable—he preferred to let her remain a mystery (since we rarely feel compelled to mythologize the humdrum or the ordinary, his interest was likely more than casual). He began coming in early to work and staying late, using the time to practice his whistling in the reverb chamber of the third Dot, hoping to catch sight of her again. He worked on octave jumps, trills and ornamental phrasings, and developed a fresh repertoire of standards and novelty tunes. After a month he became sufficiently confident to essay a few numbers of his own composition ("fantasies,” he called them), foremost among them a ballad that he entitled “Melissa"—he thought the woman looked like a Melissa.

Whistling, for Clyde, was its own satisfaction, but when Mary Alonso told him about the talent contest held at the Downlow every year and urged him to enter, he thought, What the hell? He devoted himself to perfecting “Melissa,” adding a frill or two, reworking the somber middle passage, trimming the coda so the song fit within the contest's four-minute limit, and one afternoon in March, with the contest less than a month away, while he sat practicing on the ledge, with a circle of wintry blue sky overhead and shadow filling the sinkhole, all except for a slice of golden light at the brim, the woman, dressed in jeans and a burgundy sweater, came poling a skiff from the south, emerging from the darkness of the gorge with lanterns hung all over the prow and sides and stern. Something about her posture announced her even before he made out her face. She beached the skiff near the willow and climbed onto the ledge and took a seat about three feet away. Her flat azurine stare seemed as hostile as before, but Clyde saw curiosity in her face. Neither of them spoke for a couple of ticks and then she said, “That's a cool tune, man."

"It's something I'm working on,” he said.

"You made it up?"

"Yeah."

"Very cool. What's it called?"

"'Melissa.’”

"Is she your girl ... your wife?"

"I don't know why I called it that. The only Melissa I ever knew was back in grade school."

"It sounds classical. You ever hear the opera, Pelléas et Mélisande, by Debussy?"

"I don't think so."

She appeared to have run out of questions.

"What's it about, the opera?” asked Clyde.

"I don't remember much. This sad chick's married to this prince, but she's in love with his brother. She cries a lot. It's kind of a bummer. Your thing reminded me of it."

She kicked her heels against the rock and gazed out across the pond. Clyde realized that at this distance he should be reading her more clearly—he should have seen past the level of body language into her chaotic core, where need and desire steamed upward and began to solidify into shards of thought; yet he could find no trace of her fundamental incoherence ... or else, unlike the rest of mankind, she was fundamentally coherent, her personality rising in a smooth, uninterrupted flow from its springs, a true and accurate extension of her soul.

"Not the notes,” she said. “The feeling."

"Huh?” said Clyde.

"Your song. It reminded me of the opera. Not the melody or anything, but the feeling.” She said this with a trace of exasperation and then asked, “Why're you staring at me?"

He was inclined to tell her that she had a smudge on her cheek (which she, in fact, did) or that she looked familiar; but she gazed at him with such intensity, he half-suspected that his inability to see into her basements signaled a commensurate ability on her part to see into his—afraid of being caught in a lie, then, he told her about his accident and its aftermath and explained how she appeared to be something of an anomaly, at least as regarded his hypothesis concerning light, intellect, and the chaotic underpinnings of human personality.

"Must be I'm in your blind spot,” she said. “Because I feel pretty chaotic ... at least most of the time."

That he might have a blind spot disturbed him more than the thought that she might be a freak of nature.

"Light-based intelligence,” she said musingly. “What about Milton? He wrote great shit after he went blind."

"I haven't found a theory yet that explains everything or everyone. I suppose he's an exception, like you."

He thought she might be losing interest in the conversation and asked if she commonly hung out in the third Dot.

"Only during the season,” she said in a fake upper-crust accent. Letting up on the sarcasm, she added, “I pass through when I go exploring down south. And when I need to be by myself, I'll stake out a spot next to the willow."

"So if I see you beside the willow, I should beat it?"

"Not necessarily,” she said, and grinned. “You could whistle and see what develops. I've always had a thing for musicians.” With an easy motion, she pushed up to her feet. “I've got to get back. See you around, maybe."

Clyde restrained himself from asking her to stay. “Hey, what's your name?"

"Annalisa."

She moved off and Clyde, watching the roll of her hips, knowing it was the wrong thing to do yet unable to suppress the urge, let out an appreciative whistle, an ornate variation on the wolf whistle that he had devised for just such occasions and often used to excellent effect, the intricacy of his embellishment compensating for the cornball tactic. Annalisa rolled her eyes, but he noticed a little extra sway in her walk as she went toward the skiff. He thought “Annalisa” was a much better title than “Melissa,” and he decided then and there to break up with Joanie.

Usually Joanie was eager to go to his place, but that night, perhaps sensing trouble, she resisted being alone with him and they went for a drink at the Downlow, a labyrinthine nightclub excavated from the rock. Bass-heavy ambient music rumbled from hidden speakers. The rooms were lit by plastic boulders that shifted from dull orange to violet to blue-green, and served as tables; these were enclosed by groupings of sofas and easy chairs. There were decorative touches throughout—potted ferns; a diminutive statue that might have been Mayan or Olmec; a poster of Pet Nylund with his hair flying, face obscured, twisting the strings of his guitar—but not enough of them to create a specific statement. The overall effect was of a tiki bar in Bedrock whose interior decorator had been fired halfway through the job.

They chose an empty side room with an aquarium built into the walls, populated by fish with strange whiskery antennae and others without eyes. Clyde recognized none of them and asked Joanie what kind they were. She replied, “Who do you think I am? A fish scientist?” She looked sullen in the orange light, angry in the violet, depressed in the blue-green.

A waitress brought their drinks and, since Joanie's mood showed no sign of improving, Clyde got straight to the point. He had worked out what he felt was a tactful approach, but he had barely begun when Joanie broke in and asked, “Who is she?"

Defensively, Clyde said, “You think I've been unfaithful?"

She scooted an inch or two farther away. “Don't bullshit me. Men don't jump unless they got some place to land."

"I met this woman, all right?” said Clyde. “But we haven't done anything yet."

"Who is she?"

"If you weren't so goddamn negative about our relationship. If you didn't always...."

"Oh, it's my fault?” She made a noise like the Prince did when he sneezed. “I guess I should have known from experience. I been dumped on more times than your toilet seat, so it must be me...."

"See, that's what I'm talking about! You're always putting yourself down."

"It must be me and not the dickwads I go out with."

"Maybe all I need is a break,” said Clyde. “A little space."

Joanie injected an artificial brightness into her voice. “What a good idea! I'll give you space while you cozy up to what's-her-buttass and I'll just hang loose in case things don't work out."

"Goddamn it, Joanie! You know that's not what I mean."

"Tell me who she is."

Reluctantly, Clyde said, “I only met her a couple of times. Her name's Annalisa."

For a second Joanie was expressionless; then she spewed laughter. “Oh, man! You hooked up with the willow wan?"

"I haven't hooked up with anybody!"

She put her head down and shook her head back and forth; her hair glowed orange as it swept the top of the boulder.

"What'd you call her ... the willow what?"

Joanie's voice was nearly inaudible above a lugubrious bass line. “Wan. The willow wan. It's what everybody calls her."

"I don't get it."

"Because she's pale as birdshit and always acts crazy and hangs out by the willow tree and she does all kinds of crazy things."

"What's she do that's crazy?"

"I don't know! Lots of things."

"There must be something specific if everyone thinks she's crazy."

"She's all the time going down south of the Dots. You have to be crazy to go there.” A look of entreaty crowded other emotions from her face, yet Clyde still saw anger and hurt. “She's gaming you, man. You don't want to mess with her. She games all the guys. She's Pet Nylund's ex-wife, for God's sake! She still lives with him."

"What do you mean?"

"Am I speaking Spanish? She fucking lives with him. In his house."

Some evidence of the disappointment he felt must have surfaced in his expression, for upon registering it she snatched her purse and jumped up from the sofa. He caught her wrist and said, “Joanie...."

She broke free and stood with her chin trembling. “Stay out of the Sub for a while, okay?"

A tear spilled from the corner of her eye and she rubbed it frantically, as if trying to kill a stinging insect; then she said something he didn't catch and ran from the room.

Clyde had the impulse to offer consolation, but the weight of what she had said about Annalisa kept him seated. Though they had established the frailest of connections, nothing really, he felt betrayed, hurt, angry, everything Joanie had appeared to feel—the idea floated into his mind that she might want him to suffer and had lied about Annalisa. But if it were a lie, it would be easy to disprove and thus it was probably true. He downed his drink in two swallows and went into the main room, a semi-circular space with twenty or thirty of the boulder tables and a bar with a marble countertop and a stage, currently unoccupied, against the rear wall. Joanie was doing shots at the bar, bracketed by two men who had their hands all over her; when she saw him she gave her hair an assertive flip and pretended to be deeply interested in what one man (a big sloppy dude with long hair and a beard, Barry Something) was saying. He scanned the tables, hoping to spot a friendly face among the people sitting there. Finding none, he walked out onto the pier, sat on a piling under the entrance lights and listened to the gurgling of the Mossbach. Off along the bend, on the elbow of the curve, Pet Nylund's house staggered up the cliff face, three side-by-side, crookedy towers, their uppermost rooms cloaked in darkness. Lights were on in several of the lower rooms. Clyde toyed with the notion of going over and busting through the door and venting his frustrations in a brawl. It was a bonehead play he would once have made without thinking, and that he now stopped to consider the consequences and hadn't simply acted out his passions with animal immediacy, never mind it was the rational thing to do ... it dismayed him. Carmine, he told himself, might have been right in his estimation: maybe Halloween wasn't going to work out for him.

Laughter from the doorway and Joanie emerged from the Downlow arm-in-arm with the two men she'd been flirting with at the bar. The bearded man caught Clyde staring and asked what he was looking at. Clyde ignored him and said, “Don't do this to yourself, Joanie."

She hardened her smile and Barry Something put a hand on Clyde's chest and suggested he back the fuck off. The touch kindled a cold fury in Clyde that spread throughout his body, as if he'd been dunked in liquid nitrogen. He saw everything with abnormal clarity: the positions of the men, Joanie's embittered face, the empty doorway, the green neon letters bolted to the rock. He spread his hands as though to say, no harm, no foul, and planted his right foot and drove his fist into Barry's eye. Barry reeled away, went to his knees, grabbing his face. Joanie started yelling; the other man sidled nervously toward the entrance. Barry moaned. “Aw, fuck! Fuck!” he said. An egg-shaped lump was already already rising from his from his orbital ridge. Clyde grabbed Joanie's arm and steered her toward his skiff. She fought him at first, but then started to cry. Some onlookers stepped out of the bar, drinks in hand, to learn what the fuss was about. Not a one of them moved to help Barry, who was rolling around, holding his eye. Talking and laughing, they watched Clyde pole the skiff into the center of the river. “Chickenshit bastard!” someone shouted. From a distance, the tableau in front of the bar appeared to freeze, as if its batteries had died. Joanie sat in the stern, her knees drawn up, gazing at the water. Her tears dried. Once or twice she seemed on the verge of speaking. He thought he should say something, but he had nothing to offer, still too adrenalized, too full of anger at Barry, at himself, too caught up in the dismal glory of the fight, confused as to whether it had validated his hopes for Halloween or had been an attempt to validate them. When they reached her pier, Joanie scrambled up onto it without a word and raced into her tiny, two-room house and slammed the door.

Working alongside him the following morning, Mary Alonso, who had gotten a buzzcut and a dye job, leaving a half-inch of blond stubble that he thought singularly unattractive, filled Clyde in on Annalisa.

"She shares the house with Pet, but she's not with him, you know,” she said. “She keeps to her half, he keeps to his. Joanie was being a bitch, telling you that without telling you the rest. Not that I blame her."

"For real? She's not sleeping with him?"

"She did once after the divorce, but it was sort of a reflex."

Clyde flipped a rotten walnut up with his rake, caught it in midair and shied it at the wall, provoking a stare from another worker, whom the walnut had whizzed past. “How'd you hear that?"

"Before me and Roberta got together, Annalisa had a girl crush on Roberta. She thought she might be gay, but....” Mary strained to break up a clump of walnuts that had become trapped in underwater grass. “Turned out she wasn't. Not even a little.” She scowled at Clyde. “Don't look so damn relieved!"

Clyde held up a hand as though in apology. “So Roberta told you about her?"

"Yeah. They stayed friends and she talks to Roberta sometimes. But don't get too happy. Her head's fucked up from being with Pet all those years. She tells Roberta she's going to leave, but she never does. There's some kind of bizarre dependency still happening between her and Pet."

Clyde went back to work with a renewed vigor, thinking that he might be the man to dissolve that bond. The weather was crisp and clear, and the sky crack showed a cold blue zigzag like a strip of frozen lightning that the ragged line of laborers beneath appeared to emulate. A seam of reflected light from the water jittered on the rock walls.

"I'm worried about you, man,” said Mary. “I love you, and I don't want to see you get all bent out of shape behind this thing."

"You love me?” Clyde gave a doltish laugh.

Mary's face cinched with anger. “Right. Mister Macho. You think all love is is the shit that makes you feel dizzy. Everything else is garbage. Well, fuck you!” She threw down her rake and went chest to chest with him. “Yeah, I love you! Roberta loves you! It's amazing we do, you're such an ass-clown!"

Startled by this reaction, Clyde put a hand on her shoulder. “I didn't mean to piss you off."

She knocked his hand away, looking like she was itching to throw a punch.

"I wasn't thinking,” Clyde said. “I was...."

"For someone claims to have a problem with smarts, you do a lot of not-thinking.” She picked up her rake and took a swipe at the walnuts.

The other workers, who had paused to watch, turned away and engaged in hushed conversations.

"You're so caught up in your own crap, you can't see anything else,” said Mary, who had toned down from fighting mad to grumpy.

"We've established I'm a dick, all right?” Clyde said. “Now what're you trying to tell me?"

"Annalisa's not Pet's wife, and she's not his girlfriend, but she's his business because she lets herself be his business. Until that changes she's poison for other guys. That's the number one rule around here, even though they didn't write it down: Don't fuck with Pet Nylund's business."

"Or what? You go to the Tubes?"

"Keep being a dick. You'll find out."

Mary raked walnuts with a vengeance, as if she wanted to rip out the bottom of the Dot. Clyde rested both hands on the end of his rake and, as he gazed at the other workers, some intent on their jobs, some goofing off, some pretending to be busy, and then glanced up at the gorge enclosing them like the two halves of a gigantic bivalve, its lips almost closed, admitting a ragged seam of sky, at the gray walls stained with lichen and feathered with struggling ferns, he had an overpowering sense of both the unfamiliar and the commonplace, and realized with a degree of sadness what he should have understood long before: Halloween wasn't, as he had hoped, an oasis with magical qualities isolated from the rest of the country; it was the flabby heart of dead-end America, a drear, crummy back alley between faceless cliff tenements where the big ones ate the little ones and not every dog had his day.

For almost a week he took to sitting each night beneath the dangling seventy-five watt bulb at the end of Ms. Kmiec's pier, hoping to catch Annalisa returning in her skiff from down south. He was a fool, he knew that—he had no reason to believe she felt anything for him, and the wonder was that he felt so much for her; yet he was unable to resist the notion (though he wouldn't have admitted it, because saying the words would have forced him to confront their foolishness) that they had connected on an important level. To provide himself with an excuse for sitting there hour after hour, he borrowed one of Stan Kmiec's old fishing rods and made a desultory cast whenever he sighted an approaching skiff. Briefly, he became interested in trying to land one of the silvery bioluminescent fish that flocked the dark water, but they proved too canny and the only thing he snagged was what he thought to be some sort of water snake, a skinny writhing shadow that snapped and did a twisting dance in mid-air, and succeeded in flinging out the hook ... and yet he heard no splash, as if it had flown off into the night.

The sixth night, unseasonably warm and misty (it had been like that all week and the bugs and bats were out in force), he spotted a skiff coming from the south with no light hung from its bow and knew it had to be Annalisa. She paused when she noticed him, letting the skiff glide. He whistled the opening bars of “Annalisa.” She turned the skiff, brought it alongside the pier, and said brightly, “What's up?"

"Fishing.” He indicated the rod. “Thinking."

She smiled. “Ooh. That must be hard work. Maybe I shouldn't interfere."

She had on jeans and a turtleneck and an old saggy gray cardigan; her hands were chapped and smudged with dirt , and her reddish brown hair (redder, he thought, than the last time he had seen her) was tied back with a black ribbon.

"The damage is done,” he said. “Come sit a while."

She looped a line over a piling and he gave her a hand up. She settled beside him, her hip nudging his. She let out a sigh and looked across the water to the houses on the far side, a game board of bright and dark squares, their walls barely discernable and their piers lent definition by diffuse pyramids of wan light and whirling moths at their extremities. She smelled of shampoo and freshly turned earth, as if she had been gardening.

"I see Milly's working late,” she said.

"Milly?"

"Milly Sussman. Don't you even know your neighbors?"

"Guess not."

"You need to get out more. How long have you been here? Three, four months? I should think you would have noticed Milly. Statuesque. Black hair. An extremely impressive woman."

"Maybe ... yeah."

With her hair back, her face seemed more Asian than before; her prominent cheekbones and narrow jaw formed a nearly trapezoidal frame for her exotic features, making them appear stylized like those of a beautiful anime cyborg. From all her tics and eye movements and the working of her mouth, he read a mixture of desire and fear. Something left a trail of bubbles out on the river. Three glowing silver fish hovered in the water beneath her Doc Martens. She peered at them and asked, “You catch anything?"

"Yep. I hooked me a nice-looking one."

"You're being clever again. I can tell.” She kicked her heels idly against the side of the pier. “We missed out, not living in the age of courtly speech. I could say, like, uh, ‘Hooked, sir? Thy hook is not set deep enough!’ And you could...."

He placed a hand on the back of her neck and drew her gently to him and kissed her. She pulled away and, with a nervous laugh, said, “Better watch it. You'll get girl cooties.” The second time he kissed her, she displayed no reluctance, no resistance whatsoever. Her tongue darted out so quickly, it might have been an animal trapped in the cave of her mouth, desperate to escape, if only to another cave. He caught her waist, pulling her closer, and slipped his hand under the turtleneck, up along her ribcage to her breast, rolling the nipple with his thumb. Their teeth clicked together, they clawed at one another and sought fresh angles of attack, striving to penetrate and to admit the other more deeply. The kiss was brutish, clumsy, an expression of red-brained lust, and Annalisa surfaced from it like a diver with bursting lungs, exclaiming, “Oh god!"

After a few beats they kissed again, and were more measured in their explorations, yet no less lustful. Clyde was about to suggest they move things to his bedroom, but Annalisa spoke first.

"I can't do this now.” She tugged the turtleneck down over her breasts. “I'm sorry. Really, really sorry. But I have to go."

"Go where?"

"Home. I don't want to, but...."

Despite himself, resentment crept into his voice. “Home to Pet."

Annalisa cut her eyes toward him and finished straightening her clothes. “It's complicated."

"You going to explain it to me?"

"Yes, but I can't now.” She rebuttoned the top button of her jeans.

"When am I going to see you?"

"I'm not sure."

"I don't understand,” he said. “You wanted me to kiss you."

"I did. Very much.” She reached behind her head and retied her hair ribbon. “Since we're being candid, I want to make your eyes roll back. But it's dangerous. This was dangerous. I shouldn't have let it happen."

"How's it dangerous?"

"You could die."

She said this so flatly, he had to laugh. He wasn't sure whether she was telling the truth or attempting to scare him off. He stared at her, perhaps sadly, because she reacted to his expression by saying, “For God's sake! It was only a kiss.” He continued to stare and she said, “Okay, the losing-consciousness part, that was new.” She climbed into the skiff, undid the line, and held onto the piling. “I'm incredibly motivated to be with you. You probably sensed that."

He nodded happily.

"There's a safe way we can be together,” she went on. “But you have to give me time to work it out. Weeks, if necessary. Maybe a month. Can you do that? If not, tell me now, because Pet is insane. It's not that he's suspicious or jealous. He is batshit crazy and he hurts people."

"I can do it."

A flapping of wings overhead, followed by a long quavering cry that sounded like a man running out of breath while blowing trebly notes on a harmonica.

"If it takes a little longer even,” Annalisa said, “promise you'll trust me."

"Promise."

"You won't do anything stupid?"

"I'll be cool."

"Shake on it."

She gave his hand a vigorous shake and trailed her fingers across his as she disengaged.

"All right. See you soon,” she said, and made a rueful face. “I'm sorry."

It was slightly unreal watching her glide away into the dark and, after she had vanished, he felt morose and insubstantial, like a ghost who had suddenly been made aware of all the sensory richness of which he was deprived. The enclosure of the gorge, though invisible, oppressed him. Dampness cored his bones. It was impossible to hold onto promises in all that emptiness. Whatever it was that made bubbles out in the river was still making them, trawling back and forth in front of the pier, closing the distance with each pass, lifting the water with each turn, causing swells. Clyde walked away from the pier, chased by the whisper of the water, the gleeps and tweetlings of frogs and other night creatures, and wearily climbed the ladder to his apartment.

They saw one another more frequently than he'd expected over the days that followed, running into each other in the bars, on the river, sometimes contriving to touch, and one afternoon, when Mrs. Kmiec sent him to Dowling's (Halloween's eccentric version of a supermarket and its most extensive building, four interconnected tiers of eight stories each) to pick up kitty litter, Annalisa accosted him in Pet Supplies, eighth floor, fourth tier, and drew him out through a door behind the shelves into a narrow space between the rear wall and the cliff face, and there she hiked up her skirt and they made violent, bone-rattling love balanced on girders above eighty feet of nothing, braced against rock that had been ornately tagged by generations of teenagers who had used the spot before them, swirls of orange, silver, blue, red, and fat letters outlined in black, most of them cursing the authority of man or god, whatever agency had ruled their particular moment, all their hormonal rebellion confined to this not-so-secret hideaway. Annalisa was sweet and shifty, cunning with her hips, yet she nipped his neck, marking his throat, and left a long scratch on his ribcage, and spoke in tongues, in gasps and throaty noises. It seemed less an act of abandon for her than one of desperation. Afterward he asked if this is what she'd had in mind when she mentioned a safe way of being together. “I couldn't wait,” she said, staring at him with tremulous anxiety, as if the wrong word would break her, shatter the almost Asian simplicity of her face. He felt this to be the case, that she had put herself in physical and mental jeopardy by taking this step, and he realized that her strength and apparent independence was a carefully constructed shield that had prevented him from seeing what lay behind it—he still could not make out the roots of her trouble, but he sensed something restive, dammed up, a powerful force straining for release.

The week before the talent contest they held auditions at the Downlow. The stage was lit with a spot that pointed up the tawdryness of the glittery silver Saturns and comets on the dark blue painted backdrop; but there were amps and a good PA and professional quality mikes, everything a performer might need. Waiting to go on, through what seemed an interminable sequence of stand-up comics with no sense of timing, accordion players, twirlers, off-key vocalists, tap dancers, rappers, and a man who could put a foot behind his ear while standing and repeat everything you said backward (Clyde's favorite), he had several drinks to ease his nerves and oil his instrument ... perhaps one too many, for when his turn came, following a sax player who noodled a decent rendition of “My Favorite Things,” he announced that he would be performing an original composition entitled, “'Annali ... uh, Melissa.'” A guy in the back asked him to repeat the title and he said, “Sorry. I'm a little nervous. That's ‘Melissa Anne.’”

Pet Nylund was supposed to be in the audience and, as he adjusted the mike, adding a bit touch of reverb, Clyde searched for him (though he couldn't recall his face and wasn't certain what he would be like after so many years away from the limelight), but the spot blinded him. He warmed up with a scale, which drew catcalls, but after he had performed, he received scattered applause, which was better than most had done. Afterward he was given a packet containing an entry number and forms, and told he was in. His main competition was the sax player, a black chick named Yolanda who sang a wicked version of “Chain of Fools,” and a young guy who did a one-man-band comedy act that was borderline obscene and a real crowd-pleaser. The singer and the young guy were one-two, he figured, but he stood a good chance for third place money, three hundred bucks and a Pet Nylund box set, enough to buy Annalisa something nice. He'd give the box set to Mary for Roberta, who was a fan.

He had another drink at the bar, looked around again for Annalisa and Pet, and talked to Spooz for a bit. Spooz complimented him on his whistling and said he should hang out—Brad would be along soon. Brad had a job topside that kept him running and was hardly ever around, and Clyde would have liked to stay and talk sports with him; but lately he preferred being alone with his thoughts of Annalisa to the company of others, so he begged off.

The lights were on in Ms. Kmiec's living room and, as he ascended the ladder, taking pains not to slip, because drunken ladder mishaps were a common occurrence in Halloween (only the week before Tim Sleight, whom Clyde knew from the Dots, had gotten a load on and plunged two floors, narrowly missing a granite outcropping and splashing in the river), Ms. Kmiec's door flew open and, framed in a spill of yellow glare, she leaned out and said merrily, “Clyde Ormoloo! Come have a drink!"

Her hair was pinned up loosely, riding atop her head like the remains of some blond confection, a soufflé that had fallen, a wedding cake that had been dropped. She had on a black lace peignor and a pair of matching panties; her unconfined breasts bobbled as she swayed in the doorway. She or someone had made bullseyes of her nipples with concentric circles of green ink. He assumed she was trashed and warned her to be careful.

"Clyde Ormoloo-loo!” She pouted. “You get in here right now! There's someone wants to see you!” She sang this last sentence and leaned farther out and beckoned to Clyde.

He scaled the remaining rungs, pushed past her and closed the door to prevent her from doing a half-gainer into the Mossbach.

The yellow room was as always, but for three notable exceptions: Prince was curled up on the sofa, his head tucked into his stomach, and the large framed photograph of Stan and Helene had been defaced by the realistic cartoon (also in green ink) of a stubby erect penis sticking out from the center of Mr. Kmiec's forehead. An aromatherapy candle that had gone out sprouted from a blue glass dish on the coffee table—the packaging, which lay on the floor, said it was Tyrrhenian Musk, a product of Italy, but it smelled like charred Old Spice to Clyde. He had the idea that he was interrupting one of Helene's private sessions.

"See!” Helene. She leaned into Clyde. “Princey's here!"

With some effort she lifted Prince, cradling him like a baby, and pressed him into Clyde's chest, as if expecting him to hold the animal. Prince yielded an annoyed, “Mrap,” and struggled weakly. Clyde saw that the door leading to the adjoining house stood partway open.

"Is someone here?” he asked.

Helene buried her face in Prince's tummy and made growly noises, offending the cat still more.

A big tanned woman with strong features, muscular arms and legs, several inches taller than Clyde, black hair tumbled about her broad shoulders, entered from the corridor, bottle in hand. Her face reminded him of the image of an empress embossed on a Persian coin that his dad once showed him, too formidable to be beautiful, yet beautifully serene and leonine beneath her ringleted mane. She wore a red Lycra sports bra and shorts that did their best to control an exuberant bust and mighty rear end. His first thought was that she must be a transsexual, but there was no sign of an Adam's apple and her hands were slender and finely boned—three rings, none a wedding band, adorned them, including a significant diamond nested among opals.

"Hello,” she said in a humid contralto. “I'm Milly. And you must be Clyde. Would you care for some apple brandy? It's sooo good!"

"Yeah ... okay.” Clyde perched on the couch beside Helene, who was still making much over the cat. Recalling Annalisa's description, he said, “You're Milly Sussman?"

"The same."

Moving with a stately grace, Milly took a seat in an easy chair and poured a dollop of brandy each into three diminutive glasses shape like goblets.

"I thought you owned the house across the way,” Clyde said.

"I own two houses.” She held up two fingers for emphasis. “One's basically an office. Helene?"

"Yes, please!” She scooted to the edge of the couch. Prince writhed free, fell with a thud to the floor, and waddled off to find a quieter spot.

"New friends,” Milly said, lifting her glass.

Helene chugged the brandy; Clyde had a sip.

"It is good,” he said, setting down his glass. “I notice you have a tan. That's unusual around here."

Milly examined her arms. “I'm just back from three glorious weeks in Thailand. Well, not just back, but I was there recently. A little island not far from Kosumui. You should have seen me then. I was nearly absolutely black. But now....” She heaved a dramatic sigh. “I'm entombed in Halloween once again."

Helene went over to the portrait of her late husband and studied it with her head cocked.

"You must like it here,” Clyde said. “I mean, two houses."

"It has its charms.” Milly crossed her legs. “Lately, however, I find it limiting. And you?"

Helene hunted for something on the end table beside the easy chair, was impeded in her search by the folds of her peignor and shrugged out of it. She located what she had been looking for—a Magic Marker—and stood sucking on the tip, apparently contemplating an addition to her work. Though for seven, eight seconds out of ten on the average, Clyde's thoughts turned to Annalisa, the sight of Helene almost naked was difficult to ignore.

Milly repeated her question: “And you?” Her smile seemed to acknowledge Clyde's distraction.

"I liked it better when I first arrived,” he said. “I guess maybe I'm finding it limiting, too."

With a knee resting on the arm of Milly's chair, Helene drew on the portrait.

Milly ran a hand along her thigh, as if to smooth out an imaginary wrinkle in the skin-tight Lycra. “Perhaps there's a way we can help one another exceed those limits."

Choosing his words with care, Clyde said, “We're probably talking about different sorts of limits."

"Ah.” Her face impassive, she sipped her brandy.

They endured a prickly silence; then Clyde asked, “So what do you do ... for a living?"

"I have a foundation that funds cottage industries in the Third World. I was a lawyer; I suppose I still am. But the law....” She made a disaffected noise.

"We could use some cottage industries here. This raking walnuts thing gets pretty old."

"Actually I was speaking to Pet about that very thing before I left for Thailand. Of course we don't need them, but diversity might infuse the people with a better attitude. Raking walnuts, packaging walnuts, shipping walnuts, all this ridiculous drudgery.... It reinforces the notion that he owns them. But he insists on running the town his way. Pet's an unpleasant little man. He's one of the reasons I'm thinking about leaving."

"Never met the guy."

"I did some legal work for him during the nineties. I liked him then, but he's changed a great deal since he stopped performing."

"There!” Helene backed off a few paces to assess her work. Atop Stan Kmiec's head she had created the line drawing of a parrot that, its head turned sideways, was threatening to bite the stubby appendage protruding from his brow.

"Very nice,” said Milly. “Clyde and I were talking about Pet, dear. Anything you'd care to contribute?"

"Pet's an even bigger prick than Stan,” she said absently, and cast about the room. “I think Prince went over to your place."

She headed off along the connecting corridor, weaving from wall to wall.

"Well,” said Clyde, sliding to the edge of the sofa. “I've got work in the morning. Walnuts to rake."

"A question before you go,” Milly said. “I realize that men—many of them—find me too Amazonian for their tastes. Is that why you turned me down?"

Clyde was startled by her frankness.

She smiled. “Be truthful, now!"

"It's more a case of my head not being in the right place,” he said.

She put her glass on the coffee table, leaning close to him as she did. He became aware of the smallness of the room, and the heated scent of her body, and had a paranoid flash, recalling movies featuring women of her dimension and fitness level who served villains, generally of Eastern European origin, as paid assassins; yet he picked up nothing from her other than a gloomy passivity.

"I've got stuff on my mind,” he said. “Life stuff, you know."

Milly sank back into the cushions, again crossing her legs. “Helene told me you were unattached."

A scream ripped along the corridor between the houses, followed by an explosive crash of glass breaking. Clyde and Milly sprang to their feet at nearly the same moment and, due to the cramped quarters, her head struck him on the point of the chin, knocking him back onto the sofa and sending white lights shooting into his eyes, while she went down heavily between the easy chair and the end table. She managed to unwedge herself and struggled up into a crouch, when Helene rushed in and bowled her over again. Helene yanked at a drawer in the end table, pulling it completely out and spilling a large pistol, a .357, onto the floor.

"Son-of-a-bitch got Prince!” she said tearfully.

She cocked the gun and scampered across the coffee table between Milly and Clyde; she flipped a row of wall switches and threw open the door. Exterior lights bathed the granite cliff and the neighboring houses in an infernal white radiance, illuminating every crevice and projection. From the sofa, Clyde had a glimpse of something unusual. Traversing the cliff ten yards above them was a greenish black creature—at that distance it resembled an enormous cabbage that had been left out in the rain and rotted, losing all but an approximation of its spherical form, its leaves shredded and hanging off the central structure like the decaying rags of a homeless person. It moved rapidly, albeit in a series of fits and starts, growing taller, skinnier, pausing, then shrinking and becoming cabbage-like again, its body flowing between those poles, as if its means of perambulation involved muscular contractions and expulsions of air similar to those utilized by an octopus. Still groggy, Clyde sat up, hoping for a clearer look, but Helene blocked the doorway. She braced against the doorframe, adopting a shooter's stance, and squeezed off three rounds that boomed across the gorge and shattered the air inside the yellow room. Clyde stumbled up off the sofa just as she said, “Damn it!” and began fumbling with the gun. She tugged on the trigger, holding the weapon at such an angle that, if it hadn't been jammed, it would have blown off her foot.

"Wait!” he said, going toward her.

A petulant expression replaced one of stupefied determination. She transferred the gun to her left hand and, playing keep away, thrust it out over the gorge, a clumsy movement that caused her to overbalance. She flailed her arms, clutched at the air, shrieked in terror and toppled out the doorway. Clyde made a dive for her and snagged an ankle, stopping her fall, but momentum swung her against the side of the house—she smacked into the wall headfirst and went limp. The edge of the doorway cut into the back of Clyde's arms. He eased forward, so his arms were clear, his torso and head extended over the gorge, and firmed up his grip, paying no mind to Milly's hysterical advice. The dark river and the diminished pier and the strip of yellow-white sand beside it looked like really keen accessories to a toy model of the town. He closed his eyes to forestall dizziness. Other voices were heard. A man poked his head out the window of the house next door and told him not to let go. Someone else called from below, telling him to swing Helene out over the river and let her drop into the water, as if a forty-foot plunge were nothing to fear. Women's voices shrilled; thick, sleep-dulled male voices rumbled and children squeaked. It seemed the gunshots had waked half the population of Halloween and they each and every one were offering stupid suggestions.

"Milly! Get behind me,” he said. “Grab my ankles."

She did as told and immediately began yanking him into the room.

"No, stop ... stop!” he said. “Don't pull until I tell you. Okay?"

Inch by inch, Clyde worked his grip higher on Helene's leg. Sweat broke on his forehead. Helene was not a heavy woman, but he couldn't get his back into the lift and a hundred-ten, hundred-twenty pounds of dead weight took a toll on his arms. Her head kept banging against the house and he decided this was a good thing—if she woke and went to thrashing about, he might lose her. The lights gave him a headache and the small crowd that had gathered on the shingle below distracted him. Once he had secured a hold on Helene's knee, he told Milly to pull him about six inches back. She tugged on his ankles and Clyde twisted onto his side, a movement that swung Helene's free leg toward him. Holding her by the knee with one arm, he trapped the other leg and locked both hands behind her thighs. He told Milly to pull him six inches farther, and when she did, he heaved on Helene, shifting her up along his body to a point where he had a grip on her hips and buttocks, and a faceful of lace panties.

"Okay,” he said to Milly. “Bring us in."

Once they were inside the room, Milly dragged Helene off him. The cheer that arose from the gorge was fainter than he might have expected, as if a sizable portion of those watching had been rooting against them. Blood smeared Helene's mouth and chin, most coming from her nose—Clyde thought it might be broken. While Milly ministered to her, he had a seat on the sofa and pounded the rest of his brandy. He poured another glass and knocked down the lion's share of that. The muscles in his shoulders burned. Helene came back to the world crying and carrying on about Stan, how ashamed she was for defacing his picture. She didn't remember a thing about the accident or Prince, but planted a bloody kiss on Clyde's mouth in gratitude after Milly brought her up to speed. Milly decided to take Helene over to her place, where she could better care for her, and said she'd be back to check on him as soon she made Helene comfortable.

Clyde closed his eyes and thought about the cat-killer (it wasn't the first inexplicable thing he'd seen here, but it certainly staked claim to being the headline on Weird News), and about Prince mrapping around Cat Heaven, and about Annalisa, what lay ahead for them and how it would be ... and then he was being shaken awake by Steve Germany, a squat, shaven-headed man, all his features crowded together toward the center of his face, a walnut raker who worked nights as a bouncer at the Downlow, and another bouncer, Dan or Dave, he couldn't recall, sat next to him, and Spooz studied him from the easy chair, his double-chinned mug pale as an onion, and said, “Man, did you screw up,” and there was a fourth guy, a scrawny, shriveled-up, narrow-shouldered geezer with a prunish face (except for a young man's sneering mouth) and his gray hair in a pony tail, wearing a midnight blue velvet jacket over a T-shirt bearing the design of a Chinese character on the chest and black jeans belted with a buckle in the shape of a P flocked round by silver birds (it looked as if he'd borrowed his grandson's clothes) and this enfeebled gangster of love, this Lilliputian Monster of Rock (Clyde knew he was Pet Nylund), produced a pocket tape recorder, clicked the play button, and Clyde heard his own voice say, “'Annali ... Melissa,'” pause, crackle, and then, “Sorry. I'm a little nervous. That's ‘Melissa Anne.’”

"Do you know who I am?” Pet asked in a sandpapery wheeze, and Clyde, realizing that he was in deep shit, understanding that it didn't much matter how he responded, answered, “George Michaels's dad?"

Pet bared his teeth in a yellow smile. “Tube his ass!"

The Tubes were situated at the opposite end of town from the Dots, occupying the summit of a sixty-foot-high granite mound and hidden by a high concrete block wall overgrown by lichen—it looked like an old WWII gun emplacement guarding the entrance to Halloween. That evening, however, it radiated evil energies visible to Clyde as pulsating streams of gray vapor and had the gargantuan aspect of an ancient citadel, a habitat fit for wizards and eldritch beasts. After the one-sided struggle to subdue him, someone had given Clyde an injection. Nothing calmative. His heart raced, his nerves twitched, and his thoughts flared like fireworks, illuminating one or another heretofore hidden corner of his brain before being dissipated by a new pyrotechnic display of insights and colors. Tattered glowing white wings without bodies, the relics of revenant birds and angels, swerved near and then vanished into the purple gloom; troll faces materialized from the coarse rock and spoke booming words, like the magic words in a children's book, and the black water acquired a skin of serpent scales. If he had not been trussed like a mummy, thin ropes pinning his arms to his sides and lashing his legs together, he could have gotten behind the hallucinations, and he would have offered a vociferous complaint if he hadn't also been gagged. As it was, he rolled about, rocking the skiff, until Spooz kicked him in the liver.

Making jokes at his expense, they lugged him up from the river and through a door and laid him down on a concrete slab lit by arc lamps, a penitentiary setting that had the industrial look and soul-shriveling feel and dry negative smell of an execution ground. A single star shone in the sky crack, its name unknown, so he called it Azrael, then Disney, then Fremont Phil or Capricorn Sue, depending on its sex. He lifted his head and saw six, no, seven perfectly round openings in the concrete, one of them covered with a piece of sheet iron, a winch mounted above each, and he flashed on the idea that perfectly round holes were a motif in Halloween, there were the Dots and the Tubes and ... well, there were a couple of examples, anyway, and he imagined that some gigantic, perfectly round, acid-exuding worm or humongous beetle with diamond-hard mandibles had bored the holes, and pictured gaping mouths waiting at the bottom to be fed. A voice among other voices, Brad's voice, distracted him, and he tried to find him, craning his neck, rolling his eyes, a friend come to intercede, and Brad kneeled beside him, his stubby dreadlocks looking like a tarantula hat, and hooked a chain to one of the ropes strapping his chest and said, “Sorry, man. Nothing personal.” He measured the width of Clyde's shoulders with a tape and said, “Number Five'll do,” and Clyde made eye contact with him and saw only a core impersonality—the man derived pleasure from being impersonal, from just doing his job and following orders, the glad-handing, Dallas Cowboy-loving torturer of Halloween town, and he couldn't fathom why he had failed to see this before and supposed that the blackness of Brad's skin absorbed the light and thus prevented him from ... no, no, no, don't go there, he chuckled inwardly at the nuttiness of worrying about being politically correct, like a prisoner of the Inquisition fretting over his eczema, and then he was picked up and suspended over Number Five, and felt the chain grow taut, Brad steadying him as he was lowered, saying with relish, the last voice Clyde heard, “If you twist around too much, man, you'll rub off the chain and we'll have to fish you out with hooks,” and Clyde, at eye-level with Brad's feet, envisioned hooks tearing off chunks of flesh grown too soft and rotten to impale, an image he carried down into the dark, the dank, claustrophobia-inducing dark of a pit that fit around him more tightly than a coffin, down, down, down, scraping the walls (the tube was canted at a slight angle), scarcely enough room to tip back his head and see the coin of lesser darkness above being devalued, dwindling and dwindling until it was the size of a half dollar, a quarter, a dime ... and that was when he fell, bumping and battering his way to the bottom. A shred of instinct came into play and he bent his knees as much as possible to absorb the blow, landing with most of his weight on the left foot, the resultant pain so bad it seemed to fill his entire body until he forced it back, compressed it into a throbbing ache beneath his knee, shifting onto his right foot to alleviate it further, and yet the pain was still very bad, burning like a cancer in the bone, and something slithered, rattled, clinked down the tube and lashed him across the face, chipping a tooth, and he tasted blood (they had dropped the chain, or else it had torn loose from the winch) and he panicked and tried to spit out the gag and scream for what must have been a couple of minutes before he recognized the chain attached to his chest remained taut and they had flung down a second chain. Playing a trick. Having their little joke. Anger helped him deal with the pain, but he was incapable of sustaining it. Time grew sluggish, the seconds oozed past, each one a complex droplet of fear, agony, hope, fatalism, despair. He began to see and hear things that he hoped were unreal. Fish with fangs and cicatrice grins swam at him through the walls. The stone was a living depth of stone, breathing in and out, each contraction bruising his ribs, compressing his lungs. He couldn't think, poisoned by shock and trauma, and he wished they would finish him, drench him with scalding water or drown him in oil ... it didn't matter. Ragged, grating voices doubled by echoes told him things about himself that he thought only he knew, things he hadn't known, and things he wanted to deny. He said her name as though it were a charm against them, Annalisa, and kept on saying it until it became as meaningless as rosary devotions. The voices persisted and told him lies about her. That whey-faced bitch gamed you, man. Every night she goes home to that yellow smile and those gnarly bones. You know what they do? Think about it. What was she? His groupie? And she still lives with him? Come on! You think that's going to change? Look where you are. She gave up a little tongue, a little tit, and threw you a quickie ... now she's laughing at you while Pet's hitting that big white butt of hers over and over and....

The voices became garbled, too many to hear, an inchoate stew of vowels and consonants that eventually faded, leaving only a single voice, that of a young man saying, “Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us now and at the hour of our death, amen,” speaking so rapidly, the words ran together, and then, “...blessed be the fruit of thy womb, Jesus, Holy Mary...” repeating this fragment, this same broken prayer, again and again. It annoyed him that the guy didn't know the words and he tried to beam them at him (it sounded like he was right next door), and the guy must have received the transmission, because he began to say it correctly, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with theeblessedartthouamong ... etcetera. Clyde got caught up in the rhythm of the prayer, in the sheer velocity of it. He seemed to be skittering across the prayer's surface as if it were a globe and he was a spider seeking to maintain his place by scuttling along the equator, but the globe spun too quickly and, dizzy from the spin, he lost traction and was blown off into the abyss, pinwheeling down into a noiseless, bottomless dark where there was a complete absence of pain and even spiders feared to tread.

A transformative thought visited Clyde, dropping down from the aether where it customarily dallied, occasionally occupying the minds of cosmic beings, the type of thought with which, if he could have mastered it, he might have comprehended the process of the world as though it were a problem in simple arithmetic, or effect the path of astronomical objects, or divine the future by the mere contemplation of a grape. Of course he was incapable of mastering it—it was too vast, too important, surrounding him the way a balloon might surround an ant. He inhaled its heady atmosphere, trying to absorb all the intelligence he could, but retained only fragments that translated into useless homily, some garbage about fitting a purpose to his life and finding (or was it founding?) a kingdom, and one item more specific, no less fragmentary, the phrase, “...below the fifty-seventh parallel.” Yet he took these things to heart. He passed through the skin of the thought, clung to its outer surface until it wafted away, leaving him woozily awake and marginally aware of his surroundings, his leg aching (but the pain greatly diminished), watching a boatman—an indistinct black figure—thrust with his pole, making a faint splash and sending the skiff skimming beneath a dim sprinkle of white stars, dull and unwinking as bread crumbs on a dark blue cloth. He lay in the prow, with someone breathing regularly beside him (he was too exhausted to turn his head and determine who), and flirted with the notion that the ancient Greeks had been accurate concerning their speculations on the afterlife, and old What's-his-face, Charon, had come to ferry them across the River Styx into the mouths of Hell. Though this was patently untrue (he smelled rotten walnuts and suspected they were crossing the third Dot), he had no doubt that the imagery was apt, that one of Pet's boys had been ordered to take them south and dump the bodies. He struggled to kindle a spark of rebellion, to resist this fate, but fatigue and whatever narcotic had been given him for the pain muffled his fire. He just wanted to sleep. Before passing out, the last question he asked (of whomever it is we ask these questions) was, he wondered if this was what had happened to Dell....

They were crossing an underground lake, a stretch of water whose dimensions were impossible to judge—the walls and ceiling were lost in darkness, though lamps had been hung off the sides and both ends of the skiff, making them look, Clyde supposed, like one of those strange electric creatures that inhabited ocean trenches. Light from a lantern in the stern sprayed around the mysterious figure of the boatman, somewhat less mysterious now that he could see baggy jeans and a green down jacket patched with duct tape, a hood hiding the face. His leg throbbed and there was a considerable swelling beneath the knee (his trousers had been cut away). He eased onto his side and came face-to-face with a young brown-skinned man wearing a sleeveless T-shirt and clutching a blanket about his shoulders, gathered at the throat, a pose that made him appear boyish; yet his arms were thick and well muscled, those of a man. A gash on his cheekbone leaked a pink mixture of blood and serum. As if registering the weight of Clyde's scrutiny, his eyes fluttered open, murmured something, and closed them again.

"That's David Batista,” said Annalisa. “Pet's editor. He was in the tube next to you."

She pushed back the cowl and shook out her hair; she had puffy half-circles under her eyes. Clyde wanted to ask a basic question, but his tongue stuck to his palette.

"Are you okay?” she asked.

He wetted his lips and swallowed. “Leg hurts."

"Yeah, Roberta says it's fractured."

"Roberta?"

"Mary Alonso's Roberta. I'll give you another pill."

At her feet, he noticed a tarpaulin covering someone wearing jeans and a pair of gray boots.

"And that,” she said in a deliberate manner. “That is Pet."

Energy appeared to run out from her, rendering her a stony figure whose pallid animating principle stemmed from some un-alive source, as if the name pronounced had the power to transform warmth into cold, joy into hatred, every vital thing into its deathly opposite, and she stood motionless, frozen to her pole, with sunken cheek and haunted eye, a steerswoman dread and implacable, more so than Charon. Then, stepping back from the place where memory or emotion had borne her, she thrust with the pole, propelling the skiff into a channel with pitted walls like those of an old castle. Clyde felt a cold brush of anxiety that, although triggered by her reaction, seemed a general anxiety springing from every element of their situation.

Annalisa fed him a white tablet not much larger than a pinhead, warned him to keep his hands clear of the water, saying, “There's things in there will take it off,” and returned to her position in the stern. Batista woke and slid over to allow Clyde more room; then he sat up and Clyde asked him what was going on.

"All I know is these four women pulled us out and tubed Brad,” Batista said. “Milly Sussman ... you know her? Big, good-looking woman? She seemed to be the one running the show. She had the gun, anyway. She said she wanted us put somewhere safe until things got settled, so Annalisa's taking us south. I don't know what they've got in mind for Pet."

Annalisa was off in her own world, not listening to the conversation.

"If half the stuff in his memoirs is true,” Batista went on, “they can drop him in the Tubes and leave him for all I care."

Clyde recognized Batista's voice as that of the guy who had said his Hail Marys wrong, if that were possible; he thought about inquiring whether or not he, Batista, had heard his advice, but decided it would be too much of a complication. “That's what you were doing?” he asked. “Helping him write his memoirs?"

Batista nodded. “Routing out a sewer would have been cleaner work. I told him I was quitting, so he tubed me.” He shot Clyde an appraising look. “Did they give you drugs? This guy I know said they had drugs that made it worse."

"They gave me something nasty,” Clyde said.

The white tablet kicked in. He felt warm, muddled, distant from pain. He luxuriated in the sense of bodily perfection that attended even the movement of a finger and admired the swelling on his shinbone for the subtlety of its coloration. A cloying vegetable scent infused the air and this, too, pleased him, though he was not able to identify it. The most apt comparative he could find (only this odor was far more acidic) was the incense his mom had ordered from a catalogue during her charismatic Catholic phase, Genuine Biblical Times Incense from Jerusalem, smell what our Lord and Savior smelled, and she had hated the stuff, said she couldn't get the stink out of her new sofa, so Clyde had appropriated the incense and used it to mask the smell of pot.

They emerged from the channel into another section of the gorge, skimming along beneath a gray-blue sky, a broad expanse in relation to Halloween's sky crack. The cliffs here were perpendicular to the river and higher than the cliffs in town. Some ninety or a hundred feet wide, the Mossbach had here acquired a murky greenish tint, meandering between steep, sloping banks from which sprouted dense tangles of strange vegetation: blackish green grass sprinkled with starfish-shaped white blossoms and stubby, many-branched trees that resembled a hybrid of bonsai and gorgonians; the majority of these were also blackish green, yet some of the fans were tinged with indigo. Dark globular bushes, each with thousands of tiny leaves, quivered as they drifted past, and vines, some thick as hawsers, others fine as wires, looped in and out like exposed veins feeding the micro-environment. The place had the dire atmospherics of a wicked fairy tale, a secret grotto poisoned by the presence of an evil spirit, and the early morning light held a pall that seemed a byproduct of the pungent odor (Clyde thought he recognized the base smell as cat shit, but doubted that could be right). Fat insects with wings like fractured blades of zircon wobbled drunkenly from shrub to shrub, giving the impression that the work they did was making them ill.

They rounded a bend and Clyde, glancing over his shoulder, was presented with a vista that to his eyes, grown accustomed to confined spaces, was a virtual Grand Canyon of confinements. Here the shore widened and the cliffs made him think of illustrations in children's dinosaur books, having a Paleolithic jaggedness, their summits tattered with mist. Bracketed to the rock was a Halloween house of black metal (two columns of six stories). The walls had a dull chitin-like finish that lent the rooms (quite a bit larger than usual) the aspect of twelve rectangular beetles crawling up the cliff in tight formation. Fifteen feet below the first floor of the house, directly beneath it, tucked flush against the rock and fronted by a pebbly shingle that continued on to fringe the shoreline farther south, stood a flat-roofed, one-story building painted bluish green, a shade too bright to be called viridian. Clyde soon realized that paint was not responsible for the color—the structure was furred with lichen, the odd patch of raw concrete showing through. In one such spot the stenciled black letters MU AGE beneath a portion of a skull-and-crossbones added an indefinite yet ominous caption to the scene. Mutagenics, Clyde said to himself, remembering his conversation with Dell. The window screens were rusted but intact; the door was cracked open. To the left of the building lay a plot of fenced-in, furrowed dirt. Ordinary ferns sprouted from the rock above it, fluttering in the breeze as if signaling for help, hoping to be rescued from the encroachment of more alien growth. One thing distinguished the place above all else, verifying Clyde's suspicions concerning the odor: cats of every breed and description sunned themselves on the building's roof, peeped from thickets, crept along the margin of the water, perched primly in rocky niches and gazed scornfully down on those below. The shingle, their sandbox, was littered with turds. He took them to be feral descendants of the survivors of the cat-killer, yet they reacted with neither aggression nor fear and merely turned an incurious eye toward the intruders. There were hundreds of them, yet they made precious little noise, a scattering of miaows where one might have expected an incessant caterwauling. Some rubbed against Batista's ankles as he half-carried Clyde to the lee of the building and helped him sit with his back to the wall.

The derelict building; the house of black metal; the strangely silent cats; the unusual vegetation; the sluggish jade river winding between towering cliffs—these things caused Clyde to envision that they were characters in a great unwritten fantasy novel by Joseph Conrad, the ruins of civilization subsumed by elements of an emergent one ruled by the sentient offspring of our former housepets and, in this semi-subterranean backwater, the narrator and a handful of his friends were attempting to stave off the inevitable eternal night of their species by swapping anecdotes about mankind's downfall, individual tales of apocalyptic folly that, taken in sum, constituted a mosaic of defeat and sounded the death knell of the human spirit. He pictured a venerable storyteller, his gray-bearded jaw clenched round a pipe stem, rotted teeth tilted like old gravestones in the tobacco-stained earth of his gums, puffing vigorously to keep his coal alive and exhaling a cloud of pale smoke that engulfed his listeners as he spoke and seemed by this noxious inclusion to draw their circle closer.... Clyde laughed soddenly, amused by his ornate bullshit.

From the skiff, an outcry.

At the water's edge Annalisa stood over Pet, who was on his knees, his hands bound. He still had on his dark blue velvet jacket. She whacked him across the shoulders with her pole and he laboriously got his feet. Clyde felt divorced from the situation and tracked the progress of a gray tabby as it sneaked near one of the globular bushes, made a sinuous, twisting leap, snatched a bug from midair and fell to tearing it apart. Another cat jumped down from the roof, eyed them with middling hostility, and sauntered off. Batista pressed his shoulder against the door of the Mutagenics building and forced it open—the swollen wood made a skreeking noise. After a minute he hunkered down beside Clyde, who asked what he had found inside.

"A bunch of nothing,” said Batista. “Couple of lab tables and a file cabinet. A door ... probably leads up into the house."

Urged on by Annalisa, Pet came stumbling up from the shingle. Clyde thought of an old Italian vampire movie in which the main vampire had been exhumed from his crypt, a skeleton, but after a starlet's blood had been drizzled on his fangs, he gradually reacquired sinew and flesh and skin—Pet appeared to be stuck partway through that process. Annalisa inserted the pole between his ankles, tripped him, and he went sprawling.

"Crazy bitch!” He wiped sand from his mouth with his coat sleeve. “Think this'll get you anything?"

"Don't worry about me,” Annalisa said. “You're the one with the problem."

"I got no problem,” said Pet with a smirk. “Brad and the guys'll be coming around the bend any minute, and you'll be on your haunches, begging for a bone."

"Watch your mouth!” Clyde had been aiming for belligerence, but the words were so slurred, they came out, “Wushamou."

"You don't know her, pal. She'd go down on a sick monkey if she thought she'd gain an edge.” Pet chuckled. “Remember the tour with Oasis, honey? Man, you guys should have seen her. I told her...."

Batista had been juggling some pebbles in his palm—he shied one at Pet, striking him in the chest.

"It won't be Brad coming,” Annalisa said. “It'll be Milly."

"Milly?” Pet snorted. “That's crap! She wouldn't be involved in something this stupid."

No one said anything.

Pet looked at them each in turn. “What are you people fucking trying to pull?"

Annalisa sat next to Clyde and asked how he was doing.

"What's in those pills you gave me?"

"Morphine sulfate."

Clyde grunted. “I must be doing okay, then."

Pet shifted, trying to get comfortable. “This is all about him? This mutt?"

"Why not?” said Annalisa. “It doesn't have to be, but sure, let's make it about him."

She rested her head on Clyde's shoulder. The contact warmed him—he hadn't noticed that he was cold—and left him feeling dozy. For a minute or ten, the only sounds were the rush of the river and the cats.

"I'm hungry,” said Batista.

"Me, too.” Pet propped himself on an elbow. “What say we scrag a few cats and roast ‘em? We can have a picnic. Got any mint jelly? I hear roast cat's great with mint jelly."

Annalisa leaned forward, trembling and tense. “You hungry?"

Uneasiness surfaced in Pet's face.

"I said, are you hungry?"

That drained-of-life quality she had displayed earlier was back. Clyde had a hunch that she intended to kill Pet and caught at her arm; but she was already moving toward Pet. She strode past him, however, and fumbled with the garden gate; she flung it open, causing consternation among the cats trailing after her, and dug with her hands in the dirt, uprooting two big onions dangling from their stalks.

She brought them to Pet, pushed them at him. “Eat these."

"Fuck you!” He turned away.

"Don't be afraid,” she said in a wound-tight voice. “They won't poison you any more than you've already been poisoned."

An inch of apprehension crept into his defiant expression.

"That's right,” she said. “For over a year I've been bringing you treats from my garden. If you weren't afraid of doctors, a checkup might have revealed cancer. You must be riddled with it by now."

Pet tried to shrug it off, but he was plainly rattled.

"Of course you're such a toxic little freak,” she went on, “could be you just absorb the shit. Maybe it's actually making you healthier."

She paused, as if giving this possibility its due consideration, and then swung the onions, striking Pet in the face, knocking him onto his back. She straddled him and hit him again and again, her hair flying into her eyes. Each blow thudded on bone. He tried to buck her off, but in a matter of seconds his body went limp. She kept on hitting him, taking two-handed swings, gasping with every one, like the gasps she uttered when she made love. The cats nearest her shrank from the violence, wheeling about and scampering off. Clyde yelled for her to stop and, in no particular hurry, Batista went over, threw his arms around her and pulled her away. She resisted, but he was too strong—he lifted her and whirled her about. The onions flew from her hand, bouncing and rolling to Clyde's feet. They were mushed and lopsided, dirt and speckles of blood clinging to their pale surfaces.

"Let me go,” she said dully.

He released her and she gave him a little shove as she stepped away. She walked down to the river and pushed back her hair and stood gazing upstream. Flecks of onionskin were stuck to the blood on Pet's face. His eyes were shut and the breath shuddered out of him. Clyde couldn't tell if he was conscious. Batista hovered betwixt and between as if unable to decide with whom to align himself. One of the cats started lapping at the blood on the onions, ignoring Clyde's halfhearted attempts to shoo it away.

He called out to Annalisa—she backhanded a wave, a gesture of rejection he chose to interpret as her needing a moment. He felt the morphine taking him as his adrenaline rush faded and he did his best to keep his mind focused. He wanted to comfort her, yet he doubted that she could be comforted or that comfort was the appropriate medicine. He could relate to her outburst of rage against a man who had misused her. Everyone was mad that way; but mad enough to be a poisoner? To delight in secret over another's slow demise? That required a refined madness, a spiritual abscess that might prove to be untreatable. He drew in a shaky breath and was cold again. The landscape no longer seemed so epic and exotic, humanized and made paltry by her violent excess. Just a bunch of filthy cats, an abandoned building and some cliffs.

Batista came over and sat down. After a minute or two, so did Annalisa. Clyde draped an arm about her. She relaxed beneath the weight and cozied into him and he let go of his questions, persuaded by the animal consolation of her body. The cats, filling in the open spaces they had vacated, seemed emblems of normalcy, sniffing and shitting, batting at bugs, much in the way the world goes on following the hush created by an explosion, with people scurrying about, engines starting, all the noise and talk and bustle paving over a cratered silence, all the clocks once again ticking in unison.

The sun was not yet in view, but a golden tide had scrubbed the shadows from the top of the western cliff wall and, as the light brightened, some of the place's eerie luster was restored. About a half-hour after the beating, Pet sat up. He shot a bitter glance toward Annalisa and lowered his head. His left eye was swollen shut, his forehead bruised. Blood from his nose reddened his lips and chin, and he breathed through his mouth. No one spoke to him. He cast about, as though searching for something to occupy himself; then he lay back down and turned onto his side, facing away from them. Soon afterward the cats retreated, withdrawing swiftly into the underbrush to the south, a cat stampede that left nary a one in sight.

"Where are they going?” Batista asked.

Annalisa disengaged from Clyde, wearily lifting his arm away. She said something that sounded like “lurruloo,” and peered south along the shore. Clyde heard a yowling, a cacophony of small, abrasive voices, and saw a greenish black something slide out of the brush and onto the shingle: the cat killer surrounded by a tide of cats. Whenever it shrank, spreading out into its rotted-cabbage mode, cats leapt onto its “skirts,” clinging to them as it grew tall and spindly.

"Help me get him up!” Annalisa said to Batista.

Together they hustled Clyde into the building, a wide single room of unpainted concrete, dappled with lichen and reeking of mildew, empty but for lab tables and a filing cabinet, the floors littered with glass and other debris. A recessed black metal door set in the rear wall. They started to lower him to the floor, but he insisted upon remaining upright, propped against one of the tables. Pet scrambled inside as Batista shut the door. Out the window, Clyde saw the creature, utilizing its peculiar means of locomotion, slip along the shingle and come to a halt beside the skiff. Stretched to its full height, seven feet or thereabouts, it reminded him of a bedraggled Christmas tree that had been left out for the garbage and lost its pyramidal form, become lopsided and limp; instead of a plastic star, it was topped off by a glabrous, football-shaped, seemingly featureless head, dark olive in color. A few cats still clung to it, nibbling the fringes of its skin. The ground in its wake was strewn with half-conscious cats—some rolled onto their backs in a show of delight—and others could be seen wobbling off into the brush. The creature's body rippled, its loose flaps of skin creating a shimmying effect, and it produced a loud ululation, “Lurruloo,” that had the throatiness and wooden tonality of a bassoon, deflating as the last note died—close at hand, now it looked less like a melted cabbage than an ugly green-and-black throw rug with a funny lump at the center. A bloated white cat that bore a striking resemblance to Prince waddled out from behind it and collapsed on its side.

"All this thing's doing is getting cats fucked up,” Clyde said, peering around Batista, who was hogging the window. “It's not killing them."

"They love cats,” Pet said. “The cats keep ‘em groomed and the lurruloo turn ‘em into cat junkies. It's people they kill."

"Because you and those idiot friends of yours were hunting them.” Annalisa spat out the words.

"Uh-huh, sure. They were carrying peace signs and singing ‘Kumbaya’ before we came along. What do you think happened to the Mutagenics people?"

"Yeah, what did happen to them?” Batista asked. “Your memoirs are a little blurry on the subject."

"There's more than one of these things?” asked Clyde.

"Pet stranded them here,” Annalisa told Batista. “They tried escaping through the caves. No one's sure what happened."

"The caves?” said Clyde.

"What was I supposed to do? Let ‘em tell the world about their exciting new species?” Angry, Pet took a step toward her. “It would have been the end of Halloween, man. Soldiers and scientists all over the place."

Annalisa banged her fist against the filing cabinet. “If you hadn't poisoned their environment, you would never have known they were there. They would have never been motivated to visit the surface."

"Fuck a bunch of Greenpeace bullshit!” Pet affected a feminine voice: “You realize they're not animals, don't you? They steal cats and destroy TV cables. Surely you can see they're intelligent? They deserve our protection."

Pet was reacting, Clyde observed, as if the beating had never occurred, either because he felt equal to Annalisa now that she was onion-less, or because argument was simply a pattern they had developed. For that matter, she was reacting more-or-less the same. It made him wonder if beatings might also be one of their patterns.

"They don't like it here!” she said. “Why do you think they only send one up at a time?"

"If they only send one,” said Clyde, “how can you tell there's more than one?"

Pet sniffed. “I don't fucking care why. But if they keep coming, I'll give ‘em more than chemicals to worry about."

"I doubt that,” Annalisa said. “When Milly gets here we're going to have a discussion about them ... and you."

"I'm still betting on Brad."

"We tubed Brad. By now some of the others are probably down there with him, and Milly has the rest of your thugs doing doggie tricks. You shouldn't have gotten so tight with your lawyer. She knows all the right buttons to push."

"Hey!” Clyde yelled. “Does somebody want to answer my questions?"

Annalisa looked at him dumfounded, as if she had only just noticed his presence.

"What you said those about things sending one up at a time?” Batista turned from the window. “There's three outside now."

Pet and Annalisa crowded him out the way.

"I see one out front.” Annalisa.

"There's one ... behind the fence.” Pet.

"Where's the third?"

The light from the window was suddenly blotted out. Pet and Annalisa backed away, and Clyde found himself looking into a maw of glistening, grayish meat that overspread the window screen. The lurruloo made a squelching noise—its flesh convulsed and it sprayed a thick, clear liquid onto the mesh, which began to yield a thin white smoke.

"Jesus Christ! That's acid!” Batista said. “Can it squeeze through there?"

"It's not real strong,” said Annalisa. “It'll take at least ten, fifteen minutes to eat through the mesh."

With a sprightly air, Pet produced a prodigious key ring bearing a couple of dozen keys and shook them so they jangled. “Don't sweat it, man. I got this covered."

He crossed the room to the black door, fiddled with the keys, and unlocked it. Clyde continued to be fascinated by the lurruloo. Its insides were as ugly as a raw mussel, pulsing and thickly coated with juice. An outer fringe of its skin was visible at the bottom of the window—it was lined with yellowish hooks of bone not much bigger than human teeth that bit into the concrete.

Beyond the door a cramped spiral stair had been carved out of the rock. Though Batista helped him, ascending the stair started Clyde's leg throbbing again. Annalisa offered another pill, but he turned her down, wanting to keep his head clear. Opening off the stairs was a space twice the size of a normal room in Halloween, furnished with a pool table, a red-and-inky blue Arabian carpet, and a teak sofa and chairs upholstered in a lustrous red fabric splotched with mildew. The black metal walls were figured by a rack half-full of cues, an erotic bas relief and two louvered windows that striped the room with light, items that completed a modernistic take on American Bordello. Clyde lowered himself carefully onto the sofa, Pet sprawled in a chair, and Batista hung by the door. Annalisa climbed the interior stair, which corkscrewed up through the ceiling at one end of the room, returning after a brief absence carrying a pair of lace panties. She dropped them in Pet's lap and sat beside Clyde.

"I thought you quit using this place,” she said.

Pet smiled—there were still traces of blood on his teeth. He tossed the panties onto the floor.

"You're such a shithead,” she said.

"What do you care?"

"I don't care ... but it pisses me off, you lying to me."

"It wasn't me, okay. It must have been one of the guys."

"You promised me nobody...."

"What is it with you two?” Clyde pushed himself up against the sofa cushion and looked at Annalisa. “You just tried to kill him. Hell, you've been trying to kill him for a year! And now you're upset because he's lying?"

"I told you, it's complicated,” she said weakly.

"Naw, this isn't complicated. This is deeply twisted!” Clyde inched away from her in order to get some separation. “We're in trouble here, and you two are carrying on like it's Days of Our Lives."

Annalisa's eyes filled. “We're not in trouble. The lurruloo can't climb metal."

"Great! Good to know. But that doesn't answer my question. I...."

"How's this for an answer, tough guy?” Pet kicked the bottom of Clyde's left foot.

His eyes shut against the pain, Clyde heard a noise as of metal under stress and seemed to feel the room shift. Annalisa screamed and fell against him. Pet squawked and there was a thudding noise, followed by Batista cursing. When he opened his eyes, he saw the room was at a severe tilt. Batista lay on the floor, rubbing his head. Pet still sat in his chair, gripping both arms, a confused, wizened monkey in a blue velvet jacket. Boosting herself up, Annalisa walked downslope to the nearest window and peered through the vents.

"God,” she said. “There must be fifty of them outside."

Batista joined her at the window. “I thought you said the acid wasn't strong. It must be eating through the brackets."

"They had to have done most of the damage beforehand.” She glanced at Pet. “Not intelligent, huh?"

The room sagged downward again.

"We've got to get higher.” Pet headed for the stairs.

"Not a smart idea,” said Batista. “If they weakened these brackets, they might have done the ones higher up, too. You want to fall from forty feet? Sixty feet?"

"Annalisa!” Wincing, Clyde stood, balancing on one foot and the sofa arm, in too much discomfort to worry about clearheadedness. “I need a pill."

"Let's go back down.” Pet's voice held a note of panic.

"You're not opening that door,” said Batista, blocking his way. “They're bound to be in the lab by now ... and on the stairs. Give me the keys."

Clyde let the pill Annalisa handed him begin to dissolve under his tongue.

Batista motioned to Annalisa. “Help me turn the sofa over. Pet ... get under a chair or something."

Ignoring Pet's dissent, Batista and Annalisa got the sofa turned and they crowded beneath it, Clyde first, Annalisa in the middle, facing him, and then Batista, the cushions muffling their bodies. Clyde put a fist through the cloth back of the sofa and grabbed onto a wooden support strut. He could hear Pet muttering and then it was quiet, except for the three of them breathing. He'd had no time to be afraid and now it was so unreal.... He thought people on an airplane in trouble might feel this way, that somehow it was going to blow over, that nothing was really wrong, that the hand of God would intervene or the pilot would discover a miraculous solution, all in the moment before the plane began its final plunge and hope was transformed into terror. Annalisa buried her face in his shoulder and whispered, “I love you.” If she had spoken earlier he would have questioned the words, he would have asked how could she love him and be involved with a sickness like Pet Nylund? How could she be distracted from love by a petty hatred, even the greatest hatred being a petty indulgence when compared to love? Things being what they were, however, he repeated the words inaudibly into her hair and, as if saying made it so, he felt love expand in him like an explosion taking the place of his heart, an overwhelming burst of tenderness and desire and regret that dissolved his doubts and recriminations, a sentimental rush that united with the rush of the morphine and eroded his sensibilities until he was only aware of her warmth and the pressure of her breasts and the fragrance of her hair.... A shriek of metal, the room jolted downward once more and then came free of its brackets entirely and fell, slamming edge-on into the roof of the Mutagenics lab. It rolled off the roof, smashed into the ground sideways, rolled again. They managed to maintain the integrity of their shelter somewhat through the first crash, but when the room began to roll, the sofa levitated, leaving them clutching the cushions, and Clyde went airborne during the second crash and lost consciousness. The next he knew, Batista was shouting, pulling him from beneath a chair and some heavy brown fabric that he thought might be the carpet backing. He was disoriented, his vision not right. Sunlight spilled into the room, which was tilted, the furniture jumbled against what once had been a wall, half-submerged in water. Annalisa kneeled in the water, fluttering her hands above Pet, who lay partly beneath some bulky object. Her hands were red and her down jacket was smeared with redness as well. Clyde blacked out again and was shaken awake by Batista, who jammed a pool cue into his hand and yelled once again. He glanced up at the sun, the cliffs, and recognized that he was outside. Befuddled, he gazed at the pool cue. Batista, bleeding from a cut on his scalp, asked if he could deal with it. Clyde wasn't clear on the precise nature of “it,” but thought it best to go along with the program. His vision still wasn't right, but he gripped the cue purposefully and nodded.

"I'll go get her,” Batista said, and moved off down the slope, disappearing through a gash in the black metal surface the size and approximate shape of a child's wading pool.

Clyde realized he was sitting about a third of the way up the side wall of the room, and realized further that the room was in the river, sticking out of the sun-dazzled green water like a giant domino with no dots. What did they call blank dominoes? He couldn't remember. His head ached, the glare hurt his eyes, and his leg was badly swollen—he could feel a fevered pulse in it, separate from the beat of his heart. He started to drift, but a scream from below, from within the room, brought him back. Annalisa. He reacted toward the gash, but movement was not a viable option. Even morphine couldn't mask the pain that a slight change of position caused. He tightened his grip on the cue and, when Annalisa screamed again, he tuned it out.

Cats seethed along the shore in front of the Mutagenics lab; their faint cries came to him. They appeared interested in something on the opposite side of the Mossbach, but Clyde could see nothing that would attract such concentrated interest, just granite and ferns, swarming gnats and.... His chest went cold with shock. Twenty, twenty-five feet above was an overhanging ledge and a dozen or so lurruloo were inching along it, some of their hooks latching onto the cliff wall, some onto the ledge, unable to secure a firm hold on either. The extreme end of the ledge was positioned over the uppermost portion of the half-sunken room and, should this be their intent, would allow them to drop onto the metal surface one or two at a time. Gritting his teeth, Clyde turned in order to face those that dropped. More lurruloo were plastered to the cliff above the ledge, looking at that angle like an audience of greenish black sombreros with misshapen crowns and exceptionally wide, not-quite-symmetrical brims. Thirty or forty of them. Goofy-looking buggers, but deadly, said an inner voice with a British Colonial accent. Saw one take old MacTavish back in ‘98. ‘Orrible, it was! He made a concerted effort to straighten out, focusing on the end of the ledge, and became entranced by the patterns of the moss growing beneath it.

A tinkly piano melody began playing in his mind, something his grandmother had entertained him with when he was a kid, and it was playing still when the first lurruloo slipped off the ledge, spreading its fleshy skirts (for balance?) and landed thirty feet upslope with a wet, sloppy thump. Its hooks scrabbled for purchase on the metal as it slid, doing a three-quarter turn in the process, trying to push itself upright, yet incapable of controlling its approach. Holding the cue like a baseball bat, he timed his swing perfectly, cracking the back of its bulbous head, served up to him like a whiffle ball on a post three feet high. He heard a crunch and caught a whiff of foulness before it spilled into the water. His feeling of satisfaction was short-lived—two more dropped from the ledge, but collided in midair, knocking one into the river. The other landed on its side, injuring itself. As it slid past, its skirts flared at the edges, exposing dozens of yellowish hooks, perhaps a muscular reflex in response to trauma, and one tore a chunk from Clyde's right thigh. Not serious, but it pissed him off.

"Batista!” he shouted, and a warbling, hooting response came from overhead, as if the lurruloo were cheering ... or they might be debating alternative strategies, discussing the finer points of inter-species relations.

Two more skidded toward him, one in advance of the other. Clyde balanced on a knee, his bad leg stuck out to the side like a rudder, and bashed the lead lurruloo in the head, then punched at the other with the tip of the cue—to his surprise, it penetrated the lurruloo's skull to a depth of five or six inches. Before its body slipped from the cue, its bulk dragged him off balance, causing him to put all his weight on his bad leg. Dizzy, with opaque blotches dancing in his vision, he slumped onto the sun-heated metal. His leg was on fire, but he felt disconnected from it, as if it were a phantom pain. Human voices sounded nearby. He braced up on his elbows. Batista was boosting himself up through the gash and Annalisa sat beside it—she shook her head in vehement denial and talked to her outspread, reddened hands. Clyde couldn't unscramble the words. Batista rushed up the slope, pool cue at the ready, and, reminded of duty, Clyde fumbled for his cue, grabbed the tip, sticky with a dark fluid, and made ready to join the fray. But Batista was doing fine on his own, laying waste to the lurruloo as they landed, before they could marshal a semblance of poise, knocking the pulpy bodies, dead and alive, into the river. In his sleeveless T-shirt and shorts, Batista the Barbarian. Clyde chortled at the image—a string of drool eeled between his lips.

The lurruloo on the ledge broke off their attack and began a withdrawal, flowing up the cliff face, while those above offered commiseration (this according to Clyde's characterization of their lugubrious tones). Wise move, he said to himself. Better to retreat, to live and multiply and create the legend of the demon Batista, his Blue-Tipped Stick of Doom. Annalisa stared at him emptily and then, making an indefinite noise, she crawled up beside him. He caressed her cheek and she leaned into the touch. Her mouth opened, but she didn't speak. He cradled her head, puzzled by her silence. They weren't out of the woods yet, but they had survived this much and he thought she should be happier. He should be happier, excited by the victory, however trivial. But her silence, her vacant manner, impelled him to confront questions he couldn't cope with at present. Their future, for one. She seemed nearly lifeless, not like previously, her energies channeled into some dread purpose, but more as though a light had guttered out inside her, reducing her to this inert figure.

"Oh, wow,” said Batista.

Hundreds of lurruloo had joined those on the cliff wall and they were wheeling as one, united in a great circular movement as though in flight from a predator, like a herd of wildebeest or a school of fish; but instead of fleeing, they continued to circle, creating a pattern that grew increasingly intricate—a great spiral that divided into two interlocking spirals, and this, too, divided, becoming a dozen patterns that fed into one another, each having a variant rhythm, yet they were rhythms in harmony with one another, the whole thing evolving and changing, a greenish black inconstancy that drew the eye to follow its shifting currents. It was a beautiful, mesmerizing thing and Clyde derived from it a sense of peace, of intellect sublimated to the principles of dance. He understood that the lurruloo were talking, attempting to communicate their desires, and the longer he watched them flow across the cliff face, the more convinced he became of their good intentions, their intrinsic gentleness. He imagined the pattern to be an apology, an invitation to negotiate, a statement of their relative innocence.... Shots rang out, sporadic at first, a spatter of pops, then a virtual fusillade. The pattern broke apart, the lurruloo scattering high and low into the south, twenty or thirty of their dead sinking into the Mossbach, the leakage from their riddled corpses darkening the green water. Clyde had been so immersed in contemplation, he felt wrenched out of his element and not a little distressed—he believed he had been on the cusp of a more refined comprehension, and he looked to see who had committed this act of mayhem. Two skiffs had rounded the bend in the river and were making for the wreckage of the metal room. Three men with rifles stood in the first and Clyde's heart sank on recognizing Spooz among them; but his spirits lifted when he spotted a tanned figure clad in sweat pants and a bulky sweater in the second skiff: Milly. They pulled alongside and made their lines fast to what remained of a bracket. Batista, appearing hesitant, as if he, too, had been shocked by the slaughter, helped Milly out of the skiff and gave her the digest version of what had happened, concluding with Pet's death, the battle, and its unusual resolution.

"The last bunch who were exposed to that hypnotic thing—I think it was about seven years ago—only one survived. You're lucky we came along when we did.” Milly cocked an eye toward Annalisa. “How's she doing?"

Batista made a negative noise. “She's not communicating too well."

Milly nodded sadly. “I always thought she'd be what killed Pet."

Batista's eyes dropped to her breasts. “She gave it the old college try."

The river bumped the skiffs against the side of the room, causing a faint gonging; clouds passed across the sun, partially obscuring it; with the dimming of the light, as if to disprove his theories, Clyde felt suddenly sharper of mind.

Milly rubbed Batista's shoulder, letting her fingers dawdle. “Why don't you ride back with me? It'll give us a chance to talk about your situation."

She summoned Spooz and the other men. They hopped onto the half-submerged room and two of them peeled Annalisa away from Clyde. She went without a word, without a backward look, and that made another kind of pain in his chest, the kind morphine couldn't touch. Milly squatted beside him, Spooz at her shoulder, and asked how he was.

"Real good,” he said. “For someone who doesn't know what the hell's going on. When were you people going to tell me about the lurruloo?"

"I'm sure Annalisa wanted to tell you. It's supposed to be on a need-to-know basis."

"It's obvious Helene didn't need to know."

Milly shrugged, but said nothing.

"Seems irresponsible to me,” Clyde said. “Maybe even criminal."

"Things in Halloween are going to run differently, now."

"And you're going to be running them?"

"For a while."

He jerked his head at Spooz. “Is he part of the new order?"

"If he toes the line."

"What about Brad?"

"Brad's not part of anything anymore."

In her serene face he read a long history of cunning and ruthlessness—it was like looking off the end of a pier in Halloween and seeing all the grotesque life swarming beneath the surface.

"The king is dead, long live the queen,” said Clyde. “Is that it? I'm getting the idea this whole thing fit right in with your plans. I mean, it couldn't have worked out any better, huh?"

"I'm not going to have trouble with you, am I?” she asked mildly.

"Me? No way. Soon as I'm able, me and Annalisa are putting this place in the rear view."

Milly mulled this over. “That might be a good idea."

With a sincere expression, Spooz extended a hand, as if to help him up. “Square business, guy. I was just doing my job. No hard feelings?"

"Get your damn hand out of my face,” Clyde said. “I can manage my own self."

"Just below the fifty-seventh parallel...” included a lot of frozen territory: parts of Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bellarus, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, and Alaska. Ridiculous, to hang onto a fragment, a hallucinated phrase, a misfiring of neurons, out of all that had occurred, but he couldn't shake the idea that it was important. Clyde had yet not founded, or found, a kingdom, but he had fitted a new purpose to his life, and it was for that reason he had parked his pickup in front of the neighborhood Buy-Rite on a cold December Saturday morning in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, waiting for the pharmacy to open so he could refill Annalisa's migraine prescription. The migraines turned her into a zombie. She would lie in bed for a day, sometimes two days at a time, unable to eat, too weak to sit up, capable of speaking no more than a couple of words. Between the migraines and the anti-psychotics, they'd had maybe three good weeks out of the six months since they left Halloween. Those weeks had been pretty splendid, though, providing him hope that a new Annalisa was being born. Her psychologist was optimistic, but Clyde doubted she would ever again be the woman he originally met, and perhaps that woman had never truly existed. The knots that Pet Nylund tied in her had come unraveled with his death and they seemed to have been what was holding her together. Life in their apartment was so oppressive, so deadly quiet and gloomy, he had taken a job driving heavy equipment just to have a place to go. The guys on site thought him aloof and strange, but chalked that up to the fact that his wife was sick, and they defended him to their friends by saying, “The man is going through some shit, okay?"

His breath fogged the windshield and, tired of wiping it clear, he climbed down from the truck and leaned against the cold fender. The sun was muted to a tinny white glare by a mackerel sky, delicate altocumulus clouds laid out against a sapphire backdrop. A stiff wind blew along the trafficless street, chasing paper trash in the gutters, flattening a red, white, and blue relic of the recent presidential election against the Buy-Rite's door for a fraction of a second, too quickly for him to determine which candidate it trumpeted. Not that it much mattered, The glass storefronts gave back perfect reflections of the glass storefronts on the opposite, sunnier side of the street. Quiznos. Ace Hardware. Toys ‘R’ Us was having a pre-Christmas sale. The post-apocalyptic vacancy of the place was spoiled by a black panel van that turned the corner and cruised slowly along and then pulled into the space next to Clyde's pickup. An orange jack-o-lantern with a particularly jolly grin was spray-painted on the side of the van—it formed the O in dripping-blood horror movie lettering that spelled out HALLOWEEN. The window slid down to reveal Carmine's sallow, vulpine face. He didn't speak, so Clyde said, “What a shocker. Milly sent you to check up on us, did she?"

Carmine climbed out and came around the front of the van. “I had some business in town. She wanted me to look you up. See if you need more money and like that."

"As long as the checks from the estate keep coming, we're cool,” said Clyde. “How'd you find me?"

"I went over to your place. This woman told me you'd be here."

"Annalisa's nurse."

"Whatever.” Carmine examined the bottom of his shoe. “How's she making it ... Annalisa?"

"It's slow, but she'll be fine.” Clyde waved at the van. “This is new, huh?"

Carmine looked askance at the jack-o-lantern. “Milly's trying to encourage tourism. She's putting on a Halloween festival and all kinds of shit."

"You think that's wise? All you need is for a couple of tourists to get picked off by the lurruloo."

"They aren't a problem anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"They're not a problem. Milly handled it."

"What are you talking? She wiped them out?"

"That's not your business."

Despite having less than fond memories of the lurruloo, Clyde found the notion that they had been exterminated more than horrifying, but was unable to think of an alternative way by which Milly could have handled it.

"Jesus, it's fucking cold!” Carmine jammed his hands into his pockets and shuffled his feet. “So what's life like in the republic?"

"Less benefits, little bit more freedom. It's a trade-off."

"Doesn't sound like so good a deal to me."

"That's your opinion, is it?"

Carmine gave a dry laugh. “I got to book. Any messages you want sent back?"

"How's Roberta and Mary Alonso?"

"They're in dyke heaven, I guess. They were married a few weeks back."

"No shit?"

"Milly made a law saying gay marriage is legal. Now she expects all the fruits to flock to Halloween.” Carmine spat off to the side. “Got to hand it to her. She knows how to get stuff done."

"She makes the trains run on time."

Puzzled by the reference, Carmine squinted at him, then walked around to the driver's side of the van.

"Did Helene Kmiec kill her husband?” Clyde asked.

"How the fuck should I know?” Carmine started the engine.

"I'm serious, man. It's bugging me. It's the only question I have about Halloween I don't know the answer to."

"That's the only one you got?” Carmine backed out of the parking space and yelled, “Man, did you even know where you were living?"

Clyde watched until the black speck of the van merged with the blackness of the street, wishing he'd asked after Joanie. He reached for a cigarette, the reflex of an old smoker, and said, “Fuck it.” He walked along the block to a newsstand that was opening up and bought a pack of Camel Wides. Out on the sidewalk, he lit one and exhaled a plume of smoke and frozen breath. Maybe Milly had blown up the entrance to the lurruloo's caves, sealing them in—maybe that was all she had done. What, he asked himself, would the penalty be for the genocide of a new intelligent species? Most likely nobody would give a damn, just like him. They had their own problems and couldn't be bothered. He thought about the 57th parallel and what might lie below it, and he thought about Annalisa's sharp tongue and wily good humor, subsumed beneath a haze of drugs. He thought about a local bar, once a funeral home, that now was painted white inside, every inch and object, with plants in the enormous urns and round marble tables, usually filled with seniors—it troubled him that she liked to drink there.

"Hey, buddy!” The newsstand owner, an elderly man with a potbelly and unruly wisps of gray hair lying across his mottled scalp like scraps of cloud over a wasteland—he beckoned to Clyde from the doorway and said, “You can smoke inside if you want.” When Clyde hesitated, he said, “You're going to freeze your ass. What're you doing out there?"

Clyde told him, and the old man said, “She's always late opening on Saturday. Come on in."

With Clyde at his heels, the owner walked stiff-legged back inside, took a seat on a stool behind the counter, picked up a lit stogie from an ashtray and puffed on it until the coal glowed redly.

"Screw those bastards in the legislature telling us we can't smoke in our own place,” said the owner. “Right?"

"Right."

There must have been a thousand magazines on the shelves: drab economic journals; bright pornos sealed in plastic; hockey, boxing, football, wrestling, MMA, the entire spectrum of violent sport; women's magazines with big, flashy graphics; People, Time, Rolling Stone; magazines for cat fanciers and antique collectors and pot smokers, for deer hunters and gun freaks and freaks of every persuasion; magazines about stamps and model trains, Japanese films and architecture, country cooking and travel in exotic lands; magazines in German, Italian, French. Clyde had patronized dozens of newsstands in his day, but never before had he been struck by the richness of such places, by the sheer profligacy of the written word.

"They tell you a man's home is his castle, but you know how that goes,” said the owner, winking broadly at Clyde. “The little woman takes control and pretty soon you can't sit in your favorite chair unless it's covered in a goddamn plastic sheet. But a man's place of business now, that's his kingdom. That's how come I named this place like I did."

"What's that?” Clyde asked.

The owner seemed offended that he didn't know. “Kingdom News. People come in sometimes thinking I'm a Christian store, and I tell ‘em to check out the name. Herschel Rothstein, Proprietor. I ain't no Christian. The point I'm making, shouldn't nobody tell a man he can't smoke in his damn kingdom."

Clyde wondered if the owner and his newsstand might not have been summoned from the Uncreate, perhaps by the same entity that had visited him after his ordeal in the Tubes, so as to pose an object lesson. He had been considering kingdoms in grandiose terms, a place requiring a castle, at least a symbolic one, and great holdings; yet now he recognized that a kingdom could be a small, rich thing, an enterprise of substance somewhere below the 57th parallel. A newsstand, a bar, a fishing camp—someplace quiet and pristine where Annalisa would heal and thrive.

A young woman dressed in cold weather yuppie gear came in to buy a paper and wrinkled her nose at the smell of the old man's cigar. He flirted outrageously with her and sent her away smiling, and they sat there, the owner on his stool, Clyde on a stack of Times-Leaders, laughing and smoking and talking about the bastards in the state legislature and the bigger bastards down in Washington, recalling days of grace and purity that never were, forgetting the wide world that lay beyond the door, happily cursing the twenty-first century and the republic in its decline, secure for the moment in the heart of their kingdom.

There was a time when I felt cursed by a demanding and very accurate memory. But I've recovered nicely from that affliction, and now the past is a gray realm full of gaping holes and possibilities. I think that my first copy of F&S , bought on a newsstand, published a story by Gregory Benford, and this would have been the end of high school or early college, and I have a rather clear and very pleasant memory of reading Benford's Jupiter adventure while camping in the bluffs above the Missouri River. Funny, but Jupiter seems more real to me now than that boy sitting in the wilderness woods.—Robert Reed

I was netting the dead out of my swimming pool. Last night's storm had swept every bug and lost leaf into the chlorinated water. But at least our air turned cool and dry. That's why most every window in the house was open. That's why I heard the doorbell ringing while I was outdoors. Right away, I dropped the net and started inside, almost but not quite running. I was passing the bedroom when the bell rang a second time, and a third time right after that. Somebody was impatient, which made me impatient, and that's why I didn't look through the peephole before opening up.

I wished I had. I didn't know the man from a can of paint, yet with a glance, I could tell he was a meth addict. The gaunt features, the tooth-impoverished grin. Who knew when he had slept last? Or eaten? Or enjoyed a normal, coherent thought? But he could still smile, and my front door was open, nothing between us but perishable manners. “My car broke down,” he began. Which explained the red wreck parked in the vicinity of my front curb, and that's all I noticed for the time being. I looked back at him, and he shook his head hard enough to make the long, greasy black hair jump. “Can I use your phone, call for help?"

I waited a few moments, pretending to think it through. Then with a firm voice, I told him, “No."

He pretended not to hear me. “Dad will help,” he promised. Maybe he was talking to me, maybe himself.

From what I understand, meth makes a soul feel supercharged, but the body takes a wicked beating. The stranger was ten or fifteen years younger than me, which put him in his theoretical prime, but he was stringy and spent like you rarely saw outside of hospitals. Somehow I couldn't imagine this little twig pulling a gun or knife on me. He was pathetically, profoundly helpless. If he had ever owned any weapon, it was pawned for cash. Or stolen. Or lost. That was the kind of ragged, exhausted poverty that was standing on my front porch.

"Your phone?” he asked again.

"No way,” I snapped.

My rebuff took both of us by surprise. Slowly, as my criminal lack of charity became evident, the young fellow transformed himself into an appalled and righteously defiant creature.

"Why not?” he asked.

"Because you're scary,” I said.

His astonishment was total. Was he scary? Really? Lifting his empty hands, he gawked at the bony relics, wiggling fingers while taking his own measure. Then he dropped them, or rather, he let the hands fall, his fatigue that deep, that taxing. Even his voice sounded beaten when he asked, “Even if you hand me your phone? I don't need to bother you."

"Go away,” I told him, starting to close the door.

He was lost, unable to piece together any response. But as the big oak door shut in his face, he decided this was wrong—an injustice of the worst magnitude—and his reaction was to step toward me too late, the door latched and then locked before he could throw any of his feeble weight against it.

Looking through the little peephole, I wondered how long I should wait before calling 911.

The druggie on my porch muttered a few curses.

"Go away,” I called out. But trying not to shout. Trying to keep the house both safe and quiet.

For another moment, the young man was trapped. Pride and anger kept him standing his ground while that soggy head tried to find a new direction for his miserable life.

I grimaced, holding my breath.

Then a new voice entered the contest. Muted by the door and by distance, I heard a young woman calling out, “What's happening? Won't he help us?"

In the peephole, a second shape was moving. I went to the kitchen window and looked at the derelict car again, and that's when I finally noticed the girl. She was walking across my yard. It took me a breath or two to realize that she belonged to both the vehicle and the half-dead druggie. She was that different, that unexpected. I saw long red hair and assumed that the attached face would be prematurely old and wrinkled. But it wasn't. She wasn't. I'm not claiming that she would have stood her own among the finalists of a major beauty pageant, but then again, she might have. Her youth was obvious. Her beauty snuck up on me. Even after a long stare through the kitchen curtains—long enough for her to come most of the way across my grass—I was only beginning to appreciate the tiny nose and blue eyes and that innocent, lovely mouth, each feature combining into something just a little short of gorgeous.

Startled is an inadequate word for my emotions just then.

Tenderly, she asked her companion, “What's wrong, darling?"

Adrenaline and embarrassment gave the fellow new strength. “The idiot won't help us,” he complained with an injured tone. “He told me—can you believe this—that I was scary?"

The girl seemed as injured as he was. Her pretty face dipped, and she chewed on her bottom lip before asking, “Should I speak to him?"

"No!” he snapped.

"Then we should leave,” she said, her tone nothing but reasonable.

By then she was standing at the bottom of the porch steps—a small-framed woman wearing an oversized shirt, her breasts big enough to be noticed and the wide hips covered with jeans sawed off down by the ankles. Simple flipflops rode on her colorless feet. Somebody had punched a hole through the old belt that held up her jeans, long enough that its pointed end reached all the way around to the small of her back.

She looked seventeen. Or maybe that was my brain playing games with me. Nobody goes to prison for a seventeen-year-old. But fifteen isn't a safe age, and that was my better guess. Fifteen years of life rode on those elegant, still-growing bones, and I was a beast for what I was thinking, watching her little white hands reach up to her companion, halfway catching him as he stumbled down the first step—catching him with the deftness born out of practice and the instincts of a natural nurse.

He said a few words; I couldn't make them out.

"That's all right,” she told him. If she was five feet tall, it was because of her sandals. Tucked beneath one scarecrow arm, she said, “We'll find help somewhere. Come on now, come with me."

Her boyfriend was nearly a foot taller, and I doubt that he weighed 130. Wrapped together, they crossed the grass, and after another quick conversation beside the car, they turned right, working their way up the street. But most of my neighbors were old people scared sick by the local news channels, and the odds of any of them opening their homes to that character were minimal at best.

I nearly followed them. Or I like to think that I wanted to help. But then the girl vanished, and with that, my frail charity was lost.

When I finally stepped outside, the mysterious couple had vanished around the corner, presumably ringing doorbells along Baker Boulevard. The left-behind car was a red Ford Focus—from the first year or two of the model's history, which made it unreliable at its inception. A lot of miles and hard abuse had been endured over the last decade-plus, including a mashed-in rear bumper. I looked through a grimy window. Not one door was locked. Keys were dangling in the ignition. Except for the traffic out on Baker, nobody was in sight. So I opened the passenger door and then the glove compartment, finding nothing but the original owner's manual still in its plastic sleeve, unread. Then I shut the door and walked around back, studying the license plate. If somebody happened past, I'd explain that I was concerned for the fate of an underaged girl. An older, drug-infected adult male was putting her in peril; any good citizen could agree with that assessment. And if the couple returned suddenly, I would play that good-citizen role, openly asking who she was and which adult should I call first.

And that's when long red hair reappeared at the corner.

Kneeling down, I hid behind the car. An SUV was coming up Baker, its engine solid and steady. Waving her arms, the girl got the driver to stop, and she looked inside, speaking to a passenger before pointing at someone that I couldn't see anymore. Her nodding told the rest. She climbed into the back seat and the car rolled forward and stopped again. It took another minute to load up the addict. Then the Good Samaritans hit the gas, carrying them wherever they needed to be.

Trying to be quick as well as efficient, I studied the derelict. I wrote the license number and VIN on my left palm. Then with the keys, I opened the trunk. But it was as empty as possible, the spare and jack both lost, or maybe sold for a dollar or two. Finally I took an inventory of the various half-eaten meals deposited on the back seat. What clues did the trash offer? Nothing that I could see for myself. But as I sat in the front seat, smelling old food and the louder odor of unwashed flesh, I tried to find a prosaic explanation for why that young girl hadn't carried a purse with her. And why she was wearing the oversized clothes. And what array of unlikely factors would bring together two such dissimilar souls.

None of this was my business.

A reasonable voice kept telling me that I should do nothing, that I should forget this right now.

But I couldn't.

I stepped back inside. The bedroom door was still closed, and I stood in the hallway for several minutes, touching the knob but otherwise doing nothing. I was listening, waiting. Usually this kind of silence was good news. Usually. Then I went back outside to finish cleaning the pool, and when that chore was done, I walked out on the dock. No other body of water in the county was as big as this lake—a dark round reservoir that was deeper than the casual eye would guess. Living on the shoreline added eighty thousand to the value of my house. One of these days, I'd run out of money and have to sell this place. That's what I was thinking about, and then twenty other topics came to mind. Then I slipped through the back door and found the bedroom door opened a little ways. Which was a signal. I pushed it open far enough to look inside, and from the darkness, she said, “Just a little longer."

"I'm out here,” I said.

She told me, “I know."

I went around the house, quietly cleaning up every little mess. Then it was evening and nothing had changed in the house, and I thought to look out the kitchen window again.

The broken car was gone.

I stepped outside and studied the oil stain on the pavement, and I went back in, and while making dinner for two, I called an old friend, asking for a very large favor.

"I'll help,” Ferg promised. “You know I will, Jake. But first, would you listen to some good advice?"

"Good advice,” I repeated.

He watched me.

And I watched back.

"You know how ninety percent of communication is tone?” He was laughing, and he wasn't. “Well, friend, I don't believe I like your tone."

"What's your advice?” I pushed.

"Get out and about,” he said. “Circulate, at least a little bit. Renew some of your old friendships. Make new ones. Be social, be polite, and if you can, act pleasant."

"Smart words,” I told him.

"You hear any of them?"

I nodded.

Ferg shook his head, believing none of it. He was a tall, scrawny fellow with thinning hair and delicate features. Years removed from the business of law enforcement, yet he retained that air of officious determination. He could be social, and according to circumstances, polite enough. But with Ferguson, there was always the sense that he was watching you, waiting for a mistake on your part, a piece of him always eager for the chance to fling another bad guy to the ground.

He had come to my house by way of water. His place was on the far side of the lake, lost among the cottages and A-frames. I went out to watch his boat coming, stopping him between my pool and the dock. The windows to my house were still open, and I wanted to keep our conversation private. Ferg stared at my house. But he didn't ask what he wanted to ask. He resisted that temptation. Instead he sighed and narrowed his eyes, almost whispering when he finally asked, “So what's this favor?"

I told him about the meth addict and his broken car.

That earned an instant response. “Either one outside your door now?"

"Not anymore."

"Problem solved,” he said.

"They vanished,” I admitted. The VIN and license number were recopied on good paper. Handing them over, I mentioned the girl. No details, but then again, I didn't need any.

Ferg wasn't entirely surprised.

"She reminds me of somebody,” I said.

"Anybody I know?"

I nodded.

"You should realize,” Ferg continued. “That car might not even belong to your guy. And those plates could be stolen. So none of these numbers are going to be much help."

"I also have fingerprints."

Now he was surprised. “Yeah? How's that?"

I handed him a small trash sack filled with burger boxes and the like.

"How did you come across these items, Jake?"

"They threw them in my yard."

His next warning was delivered entirely with a steady, fierce gaze.

Then I went to my next play, reminding him, “The girl looked underage."

"Which means what?"

"There are laws."

"We both know those laws. Don't we?"

Sighing, I said nothing.

"What do you really know?” Then he added, “Have you seen any crime committed by either person?"

"I could tell you that I did."

He opened and closed the trash sack, and then he carefully folded the paper with the useless numbers. “If I do this one enormous favor for you...."

"Yeah?"

"You'll agree to meet me, and I mean someplace other than here. I want you somewhere public, with the old gang invited. How long since you sat with all of us, enjoying yourself?"

"A year,” I ventured.

"It's more like four years.” The sack traded hands and the folded paper went into his hip pocket. Then Ferg gave my house a long careful study. The sun was nearly down, but except for a reading lamp in the living room, not one light showed. “It's Saturday,” he said, as if I might not realize that. “Give me till Monday to get the car checked out."

I said, “Thank you, Ferg."

Then he couldn't stop himself. “So how is she doing?"

"Well enough,” I lied.

"Any chance you'll bring her to our get-together?"

"Maybe."

"But probably not,” he added. He sighed, looking into my face, and just for that moment I could see the same old jealousy.

"Maybe the redhead isn't,” he said finally.

"Maybe not."

"Just a teenage girl with lousy taste in men,” he said.

"There's plenty of those,” I said hopefully.

These days, my finest thinking occurs at three in the morning.

Sunday morning, I felt like the guy who just sleepwalked his way off a cliff, jarred alert by the sudden plunge. Some very important idea was lurking inside my head, but I was more exhausted than inspired. My first instinct was to slip into her room to check on her, and only after I was satisfied that the sheets and comforters had a living, breathing creature beneath them could I even consider any other possibilities.

Ferg was right, of course. The old car wouldn't lead to my addict. But what I'd realized was that very few people drove down my street, and most were either locals or looking for somebody nearby. It also seemed apparent that a machine in such miserable condition couldn't have gone far without being towed, which was much too expensive a chore for my boy to have managed.

By three-thirty, I was dressed and shaving in the bathroom, happily planning my hunt. Even if I was right, odds of success were miserable. But at least my day had fresh purpose. I felt sober, sane, and ready for almost anything. That's what I told myself, opening the medicine cabinet, preparing to brush my teeth. Up on the highest shelf stood a neat row of prescription bottles, collected over the past years and used sparingly—a mishmash of psychoactive wonders, powerful and well-proven in clinical trials, yet none proving even remotely helpful to the most singular of patients.

I looked at the bottles.

A wicked possibility offered itself to me—a gift from the mind's boundless, relentless ocean.

Four o'clock, and there wasn't a hint of sunshine. Driving slowly as a paperboy, I combed the nearby streets. Several rental houses stood apart from the lake, each with a sordid history but none with the correct car parked in front. Then I rolled down Cottage Lane and out Sailor's Point to the cul-de-sac before coming back and around, searching three apartment complexes—each one a little city full of anonymous people living in sheetrock and pine shelters built ten years ago and already well on their way to collapse.

The Focus proved ridiculously popular. And at least three neighbors had the red version. But none sported the bashed-in rear bumper, and by sunrise all of the likely apartments and back alleys had been searched.

I'd been gone too long already, but just to be thorough, I drove a different route home. That's when I remembered half a dozen duplexes not five blocks from my front door, and I knew—in my heart, I had no doubts—that's where I would find the car and him. And find her too. I was so certain that I stopped at the end of the street and backed up again, taking a second look. There was no other way to convince myself that intuition had cheated me, and in frustration, I drove too fast around the next bend, finding a residential road that I had never seen before.

If it were on fire, the red Focus wouldn't have been more obvious. Parked backwards on a steeply tilted driveway, it was still bleeding oil but ready to roll forward and out of the way if the big sedan above it should want to leave. Surprisingly nice, tall and roomy and well maintained, the house had a for sale by owner sign on the front lawn. It wouldn't be the first time a meth lab squatted inside a vacant property. I pulled in against the curb and stared at the wide porch and the homey swing hanging on chains. Every curtain was drawn. This was a sleepy household, I decided. But then, as if to prove me wrong, one light came on in front, in what I assumed to be the living room.

My home was calling. I sensed that she was awake and missing me. What I should have done was drive straight to her, giving myself time to coolly consider what to do next. But doing nothing didn't feel like a valid option. Wasting one minute would be a crime. So I took a huge breath and climbed out into the morning air, marching up the driveway, looking into the Focus's windows and then at the house's window shades, suddenly appreciating just how brave or how foolish a person had to be to ring a stranger's doorbell.

But I didn't ring the bell. I was barely up the stairs, contemplating some of the potential hazards in dealing with a house full of meth users, and that's when the front door opened, a familiar face greeting me with a puzzled, frustrated stare.

"Who are you?” he asked.

He wasn't wearing shoes or a shirt. His black hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. That sense of being perpetually lost came to him naturally. He stared at my face, and he swallowed, recognition striking slowly. Grudgingly. Then, stomping his bare feet, he asked, “Do I know you?"

The lousy light and early hour hadn't improved his appearance. The addict was a skeleton covered with dead skin, wasted eyes scornfully glaring at me, emotions making him shiver.

"Oh,” he announced suddenly. “I remember you."

"Good,” I said.

The young man considered his next words, or least it took time for him to summon the breath to say, “You're the jerk."

"I am. I agree."

My response puzzled him. His mouth opened and then closed, no clever comeback to offer.

"I want to talk about your girlfriend,” I said.

"Huh?"

"I know what she is."

If I'd had any doubts, that's when they vanished. The man's eyes grew even larger, and he shivered, leaning weakly against the doorjamb, muttering some useless lie about not knowing what I was talking about.

"Let her go,” I warned.

"Go?"

I stepped closer and pointed my finger at his shriveled chest. “You cannot, cannot keep her."

"Who—?"

I cut him off, punching him in the ribs with my fingertip. He felt cool and insubstantial, bending over in response to my minimal blow. If I wanted, I could have broken him. Ribs and limbs would have cracked with one determined punch. But I don't like violence, even under important circumstances. What I did was to make a confession, at least to a point. I told him, “I know what she is, and I know what she isn't. And believe me, I have a pretty good guess about how you found each other."

The addict was close to tears. “No,” he managed. “You don't know—"

"I do,” I announced, and again, I drove my finger into his miserable body. “She doesn't belong here. She's not yours to keep. You're in no position to take care of her, and she will need care. Believe me. Not today, but soon. Soon that creature is going to require endless devotion and all of a sober man's conviction and resources, and I don't think you can manage that trick for five minutes."

Like yesterday, the man lifted his skeletal hands, staring hard at them.

Again, I started to explain that I knew everything, including that he couldn't give her what she deserved. But my speech had barely begun when there was motion, someone quietly descending the stairs behind him, and looking up, I saw the oversized bathrobe and the red hair and that sweet pretty endearing face that was twisting with pain, discovering her love bent over in pain, a mean old man inflicting this useless punishment.

I stepped back, and an instant later, I felt miserable too.

"What's going on?” she asked.

"Nothing,” the addict muttered.

The creature looked ready to cry.

Then I said, “Nothing, nothing,” and turned, retreating toward my car. My intervention was accomplishing nothing. But why did I think I had any chance? I heard the front door close behind me, and a lock was turned. Then I looked inside the Focus, the keys forgotten on the driver's seat and every door unsecured, and I slowed some more and took a moment, gathering up enough courage and enough stupidity to implement my backup plan.

I first met Ferg when he came to my door and introduced himself. He was a cop who got into the job early and would retire long before he was an old man—a dream-life made possible by an inheritance and small aspirations. He was standing on my porch, smiling pleasantly even as he asked in that way cops ask, “Would you mind if I speak to you for a moment or two, sir?"

"Not at all,” I lied.

"We've had a call about you, sir."

"About me?"

"And the girl."

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was. Playing calm, I asked, “Is there a problem, officer?"

Ferg said, “I don't know,” and watched me.

I didn't want to squirm, and I mostly managed not to.

"She looks young, I hear."

"I guess."

"What is the girl's age?"

"Old enough,” I claimed.

"And what's the relationship between you and her, sir?"

I hesitated.

"She isn't your daughter, is she?"

"No."

"No,” he repeated. “And she does live here, doesn't she?"

"Yes."

"How old is she?"

That was a question well worth asking. I laughed quietly, the situation lousy. But I managed to assure him, “I'm not breaking any laws."

"That's very good to hear, sir."

Then with a firmer, more insistent voice, he asked, “May I speak with the young lady?"

"She's napping."

Knowing Ferg as I do now, he almost said, “Little girls need their naps,” or some other smart-ass comment. But being a professional, he said simply, “This is important. I want to meet the girl, and if you don't allow this to happen now, I'll return with more authority and more officers, too."

Stepping back from the door, I said, “She's on the sofa. Wake her gently, please."

"I will,” he promised. And that's what he did. She looked at me. I nodded and told her to tell the truth. Ferg was staring at her face, but he spoke to me, firmly insisting that I stay out of earshot. Which I did. Time crept along, and after maybe twenty minutes, the police officer invited me back into the living room and asked her to repeat her story again, in full.

Ferg was nothing but patient. He nodded and smiled at her, pretending to accept every word. Then he took me outside, quietly but furiously telling me, “You have a mentally ill girl in there. And you know it."

I looked at him. I looked at my house. Then because I didn't have any other choice, I said, “She isn't crazy."

"That story."

"Check it out,” I told him.

That made him laugh. For the first time, I heard that big, wise, appalled laugh, and when he was finished, he said, “All right. How am I supposed to see if any of this is true?"

"I guess you can't,” I agreed. “But you could go back in there and take her hair. Take blood and skin, if you want. Then test everything."

Ferg assumed that the police lab would confirm what a rational mind would expect to find, and he would return before dark to arrest my sorry soul. But he didn't return. And the next morning, he called before arriving, standing at my front door again, explaining that more tests were being done and there was some trouble with yesterday's samples and he would like more, if he could, please.

"She's awake,” I said. “Tell her what you want."

"I want to know what's happening,” he said.

So I said, “You do. But you just don't know it yet."

Two weeks later, my new friend returned once again, holding reports from an out-of-state lab. He made a show of telling me that every result was confidential and part of an ongoing investigation, but he wasn't sure what he was investigating. He reread several pages and showed me samples of the work, and then he asked what I thought, and I told him that I wasn't surprised. And I wasn't. But I admitted that I was scared of what would happen if this story got loose. “I'm awfully protective of that girl,” I explained. “And her nature being what it is, she doesn't like too many breaks in her routine."

"She seems strong enough,” Ferg told me.

"She pretends,” I maintained.

He nodded, placing the papers into a folder, and with a sigh, he said, “I don't know what I'd chase, if I was chasing. So I guess we're done."

"Good,” I said.

"So,” he said. “How exactly did you find her?"

"She found me,” I explained.

"You two are what? A couple?"

"Yes."

"You and her ever go out? You know, socially?"

"If we want to."

"I'm having a party next week,” he allowed. “Good friends, and I'd like to have the two of you stop by."

I motioned at the folder. “This stays confidential?"

"Between you and me."

"Then maybe."

"Does she play cards?"

"She can learn,” I said. “Really, she's very smart."

"That too, huh?” Then he shook his head, asking, “Why can't this kind of luck find me?"

These days, pay phones are almost extinct. But there was still one working phone down by the public marina, and nobody saw me make the call, just like nobody noticed me shoving a sack of pills into the glove compartment of the Focus. Then I drove straight home. I wanted to linger, but I'd already been gone too long. In my head, she was scared and alone, and maybe, hopefully, hungry enough to eat her fill. Experience made me ready for different contingencies, my plans ready before I stepped inside. But I was wrong. I found her in bed, sitting upright with the pillows carefully stacked behind her, and instead of anguish or despair or simple unending tears, I found one enormous smile that filled the room and filled me with her unmistakable delight.

"Hungry?” I asked.

"Famished,” she said.

"For what?"

"Would waffles be too much trouble?"

"Never,” I promised. Then I went into the kitchen and made the batter from scratch. When it was working, her appetite was enormous—linebackers could be put to shame by her caloric needs—and so I made a double batch and started bringing them into the bedroom while they were hot, one plate after another, and she finished a bottle of syrup and a stick of butter before I could slip away for a few minutes, telling her that I had one quick chore to run.

Two cruisers were parked in front of the for sale by owner house. Watching from the end of the block, I heard someone crying out, and one officer led a man out onto the porch, slight as a willow, his wrists joined together by bright steel cuffs.

Maybe I got a bad feeling then. But I don't remember it.

What I'm sure about is that I felt good coming home, and then I saw Ferg climbing out of his car. He had been somewhere that a retired man can't go by boat, and now he was dropping by to pay another visit.

I parked and climbed out and said, “Hey."

"I'll tell you what I was thinking,” he began. Then he halfway smiled, though with a curious lack of pleasure to the expression. “'Maybe he's right,’ I told myself. ‘What happens once should probably happen twice, and maybe it's a lot more common than anybody would guess.’”

"Maybe so,” I agreed.

"So I pulled in some favors. Got some work done this morning, in fact.” Like before, he had the important reports inside a folder. But this time we didn't need the cheap theatrics. “That Ford happens to be registered to a neighbor of yours,” he mentioned, adding an address that I'd already learned by heart.

"Good,” I said.

"That trash you gave me?"

"The burger boxes?"

"There were some hairs stuck to them."

I waited.

"And you were right,” he allowed. “Not human, and the hair doesn't belong to anything else in our database either."

But I couldn't relax, much less feel happy. My heart pounded, and for a moment or two, I had no voice.

"You okay, Jake?"

"What color was the hair?” I managed.

"Black,” he said. “Just like your girlfriend's."

I took that well. Which meant that I didn't crumble into a blubbering heap.

"What do you want to do next?” Ferg inquired.

"Do?"

"I got the strong impression that you don't want things to stay the same. That the girl needs to go back where she came from."

"Let me think about it."

"Sure."

"Time. I need time."

"So I'll come by in a day or two. All right?"

"Right."

With my right hand, I started hunting for the keys to my house, not realizing they were waiting for me in my other hand.

She wasn't in the bedroom anymore, or the living room. I kept looking, moving faster every step of the way, and then I saw something moving outside and ran out the back door to find her in the shallow end of the pool, naked and gorgeous, but looking painfully uncomfortable as the cool water rose up around her waist.

"Jake, honey. Hi."

"Hi."

"Come on in. The water's great!"

Both of us laughed at the old joke. The fences were tall and very private, but I looked out across the water, making sure no boaters were spying on us. Then I stood beside the pool, watching her, and she walked her way over to me and asked, “Remember?"

"Everything,” I answered.

She giggled and threw her head back, whipping her hair in that very fetching way that she learned, practicing in front of a mirror. “You called me your mermaid. In the beginning, remember?"

"Sure."

"Even though I didn't come from the ocean."

"You didn't,” I agreed.

"'Into the prince's kingdom, you have come, and I am your prince, and we'll live in perfect joy from this day out.’ That's what you told me."

I said, “It hasn't been all that joyful. I'm sorry."

"But it's been awfully good, hasn't it?” She moved toward me, the water reaching higher than she could usually tolerate. “I know I can be difficult to take some days—"

"No,” I interrupted. “Never."

With cupped hands, she pulled the chilled water over her breasts and straightened her back and kept smiling, reminding me, “But I've been thinking, darling. And it occurred to me, just this morning, that taking care of me is what you like best."

And I smiled back at her, helpless to say anything but, “I guess so. I guess so."

No doubt you've heard the old philosophical riddle: “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” But what about this one: “If a ripe Macintosh apple is hanging on a tree in the sun and no one is around to see it, is it still red?"

If you're like most people, you think the apple is red no matter who is around. You probably think of color as a property of an object. An apple is red; an orange is orange; a banana is yellow.

We disagree. In fact, Paul begins his classes on color by telling his students, “Without a human eye and brain there is no color.” Color, Paul says, is a human perception of what physicists call the “spectrum” of a light source. If there's no one there to see that apple, it isn't red. In this column, we're going to examine the reasons behind Paul's assertion.

A few science fiction writers have considered the topic of color in a fictional way, creating aliens who perceive color differently from humans. In Vernor Vinge's novel A Deepness in the Sky, for example, the aliens that humans call “Spiders” can see more many more colors than humans, having nine times as many different kinds of color sensors. Their perception includes light outside the range of human vision.

In C. J. Cherryh's Chanur Saga, the aliens known as the Stsho create art using infinite different shades of the color white, which mostly look the same to other species.

But we don't have to consider extraterrestrials to challenge our understanding of color. We can do that right here on Earth.

Most school kids can name the colors of the rainbow using the memory aid mnemonic “ROY G BIV.” Each letter in that peculiar name stands for a color: Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet.

Isaac Newton coined this description of the colors of the rainbow or the spectrum of visible light. Back in 1672, he darkened a room, allowing only a thin beam of sunlight to enter through a slit. He placed a prism of glass in the beam of light. The prism bent the light and spread the spectrum across a wall of the room.

When Newton first looked at the spectrum, he proclaimed that there were five colors: red, yellow, green, blue and violet. Later on, influenced by numerology and a belief in the power of the number seven, Newton added orange and indigo to make the number of colors in the spectrum equal to seven, the number of notes in the musical scale.

In 1801, nearly one hundred years after Newton, Thomas Young looked at the spectrum and noted there were three broad bands of color—red, green, and blue—with narrow color regions of orange/yellow and blue/green between them. He then hypothesized that the human eye had three different types of color absorbers. One had peak sensitivities in the red region of the spectrum, another in the green region, and the third in the blue region.

Young also discovered something very strange about light. When he passed light through two slits, light passing through one slit interacted with light passing through the other slit and created a pattern of light and darkness. This “interference pattern” could be explained by saying that light is a wave. Where the crests of light waves overlap, you get brightness; where one wave's crest overlaps with another wave's trough, you get darkness.

Every wave has certain measurable characteristics. It has a wavelength that's measured from crest to crest. It has a frequency—number of times a wave crest passes a given point in a given period of time. It has a speed. And it has an amplitude—the height of the wave.

These characteristics, applied to light waves, are very important to understanding light and our ability to see color. The wavelength of light waves is usually measured in nanometers. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter.) What our eyes perceive as color relates to the wavelength of light. The light that makes up the visible spectrum of the rainbow ranges in wavelength from 620-750 nanometers (red light) to 380-450 nm (violet light), with the other colors of the spectrum in between.

Light waves also have a frequency—a measurement of how rapidly the wave oscillates—which correlates with its wavelength. The light our eyes perceive as red is oscillating at 4 x 1014 times per second (4 x 1014 hertz or 400 terahertz).

And as every sf reader (and fan of faster-than-light travel) knows, light has a speed. In a vacuum, light of any color travels at the speed of light, about 3 x 108 m/s. (Paul, as a physicist, categorizes FTL travel as fantasy. He knows nothing that carries information travels faster than light. The speed of light (186,000 miles per hour) is not just a good idea, It Is The Law!) In the wave model of light, amplitude controls the brightness.

What does all this have to do with what you see? You see because light gets into your eye and makes an image on the retina, the layer of light-sensitive cells at the back of your eye. If you think of your eye as a camera, the retina is the light-detecting film.

In 1959, scientists looked at the wavelengths of light absorbed by chemicals on the retina. There they found the three color absorbers that Young had suggested. They found pigments that absorbed three different colors or wavelengths of light. The pigments were contained in cone-shaped cells, which the researchers named cones.

If you have average color vision, each of your retinas has about 3 million cone cells of three different types. (You also have 100 million rod cells that detect dim light. Since these cells don't help us discriminate colors, we'll ignore them here.) When you see color, what you see is dictated largely by the types of cone cells in your retina and by the wavelengths of light to which these cells are most sensitive.

Each type of cone cell contains a different light-sensitive pigment molecule. Each of the three pigment molecules responds to a different set of frequencies of incoming light. One pigment is most sensitive to the long wavelengths of red light, one to the midrange wavelengths of green light, and one to the short wavelengths of blue/violet light.

Each of these different pigments changes form when exposed to light of its particular frequency. The light of that frequency makes certain electrons in the pigment start moving, and that changes the shape of the molecule.

The molecule crosses the cone cell membrane seven times. (Maybe Newton was on to something with his obsession with the number seven.) When the molecule changes form, it allows ions to flow across a cell membrane. The flow of ions triggers a nerve impulse that moves through layers of cells in the retina to the optic nerve and through the optic nerve to the visual cortex of the brain, where the perception of color is created.

Many people identify the cone cells by colors: the red cones, green cones, and blue cones. But you can get yourself in trouble that way since the so-called “red cones” are actually most sensitive to light in the wavelength associated with yellow. To avoid confusion in naming, most researchers now refer to these cones as short-wavelength, medium-wavelength, and long-wavelength cones.

So when light with wavelength of around 700 nanometers shines into an average human eye, the long wavelength cones fire, sending a signal through other cells to the brain. The brain registers this signal as the color red. Since humans are fundamentally lazy, we get around this long explanation by calling the light that entered the eye “red light.” But the light itself isn't red. Your perception of the light is red.

Have you ever wondered if other people look at the same colors you look at and see the same thing? The Exploratorium has an exhibit named “Comparing Yellows” that answers this very question.

In the center of a circular disk is a color that Paul sees as yellow. Around the edge of the circle (where the numbers would normally be if this were a clock) are other colors. At seven o'clock there's a color Paul sees as green, at noon is a color Paul sees as yellowish, and at five o'clock is a color Paul sees as red. At one o'clock Paul sees a color that looks to him like a pretty close match to the yellow in the center.

But if you ask a group of people which color matches the central spot, not everyone agrees. Most will choose the color at one o'clock, but some choose three o'clock, others choose noon, and a few choose seven o'clock, which looks very green to Paul. Yet the person who points to seven o'clock color is sure it is the same as the central yellow. Two people look at the same colors and see them differently.

Remember a few paragraphs back, when we said, “The light itself isn't red. Your perception of the light is red.” Maybe you thought we were being semantically picky.

Not so. This exhibit is an example of why we distinguished between the color of the light and the color you see.

How does it work? The light in the center comes from a light-emitting diode or LED that emits a very narrow band of wavelengths—between 570-580 nm. Most people perceive this as yellow. Each of the twelve spots around the face of the clock is lit by two LEDs: one green and one red. Now here's something you may find startling. (We did, when we first learned it.) The right mixture of green light and red light looks yellow to most people.

That's where this exhibit comes in. What constitutes the “right mixture” depends on the idiosyncrasies of an individual's eyes.

The spots around the clock face are made with light from red and green LEDs. The comparative brightness of the two LEDs varies as you move around the clock face, making it likely that you will see some combination of these two lights as identical to the central color. People don't agree on which combination matches the central yellow because small differences in numbers of cone cells and the chemicals that detect light in these cells lead to different color perception. As a result, one person can see two colors as identical while another sees them as different.

As a visit to the Exploratorium exhibit Comparing Yellows demonstrates, variations in color vision are fairly common. Differences in human perception explain why physicists characterize light by measuring it with a spectrometer, an instrument that objectively measures the energy at different wavelengths. They can't rely on their eyes, since different human eyes give different answers.

People who see color a little differently from most of the population are said to have anomalous color vision. People who see color very differently—possibly because they lack one type of cone—may be said to be color blind.

Men are ten times more likely to be color blind than women. That's because many of the genes that control color perception are on the X chromosome. Men only have one X chromosome; women have two.

If one of a woman's X chromosomes is missing the gene for the creation of a certain type of cone cell, the other X chromosome can supply the missing gene. On the other hand, if a man's X chromosome is missing the needed gene, he's just out of luck.

Having two chromosomes that code for cone cells make another sort of anomalous color vision much more likely among women. Recent research suggests that a substantial percentage of women may have more than three types of photopigments in their retinas. These women, known as tetramats (tetra for four), could have four different types of cone cells, expanding the range of colors that they see.

These individuals divide the spectrum into ten color bands, rather than the seven identified by Newton. Researchers estimate that people with three types of cones can see about a million different colors. What this means is that the people with normal vision can detect the differences between two color squares placed side by side for one million different colors.) But human tetramats could see one hundred times as many colors, distinguishing 100 million different colors.

Perhaps this is the place for Pat to mention that her favorite color is ultraviolet, a color that's just beyond the visible spectrum. The rainbow that Newton cast on his wall ranged from red to violet. Most human eyes can't detect infrared light, which has a wavelength a little bit longer than red light, or ultraviolet light, which has a wavelength just a little bit shorter than violet light.

Bees, on the other hand, can see ultraviolet, as can many birds, reptiles, and amphibians. To those of us with three types of color sensors, having four types may seem like an amazing extravagance of colors. But that's just the beginning. Swallowtail butterflies have five different types of color receptors, as do some species of fish.

But our absolute favorite critter in terms of over-the-top color vision is the mantis shrimp, a marine crustacean that isn't really a shrimp. Researchers who deal with mantis shrimp all seem to agree that these invertebrates are extremely aggressive and violent (they've been known to break aquarium glass) and have an amazing visual system.

The mantis shrimp has sixteen different types of light receptors. Eight of them are for portions of the spectrum we under-endowed humans regard as visible. Four of them are for ultraviolet light, and four are for analyzing polarized light.

As a biologist, Pat has to wonder why animals have the color sensors that they have—and why we humans don't have those color sensors. For some species, the reasons are easy to find. Bees and flowers have evolved together. Many flowers have ultraviolet markings that help bees find the nectar.

Ultraviolet vision may explain mate selection in some bird species. In some species of birds, the males and females appear (to a human observer) to be very similarly colored. But seen through ultraviolet filter, the males have very different plumage than the females. A bird with eyes that are sensitive to ultraviolet light sees differences that are invisible to humans.

Researchers are still discussing what advantages seeing polarized light gives the mantis shrimp. Professor Andrew White of the University of Queensland in Australia notes that animals use polarization vision for navigation, for finding food, for evading hunters, and for sex. In other words, for the four Fs: feeding, fighting, fleeing, and ... flirting. Some animals on which the mantis shrimp preys are almost invisible in ordinary light—but easily seen in polarized light. Markings on the mantis shrimp that are visible in polarized light may be used in sexual signaling.

It's hard to imagine what the world looks like to a mantis shrimp or a bee or a butterfly. They see colors for which we have no names. But it's even stranger to imagine what the world looks like to an extraterrestrial species that evolved on a planet circling a star with a different spectral output from our sun.

Science fiction often deals with the outsider, the alien. In good science fiction, aliens aren't just humans in funny costumes. They have a different view of the world—seeing it through alien eyes. Considering the mantis shrimp has made us more aware of how very different that point of view could be.

So back to the question at the beginning. “If a ripe Macintosh apple is hanging on a tree in the sun and no one is around to see it, is it still red?"

In the end, we think the answer is simple: “You call that red?"

The Exploratorium is San Francisco's museum of science, art, and human perception—where science and science fiction meet. Paul Doherty works there. Pat Murphy used to work there, but now she works at Klutz (www.klutz.com), a publisher of how-to books for kids. Pat's latest book is Invasion of the Bristlebots, which comes with two small robots that run on toothbrush bristles. To learn more about Pat Murphy's writing, visit her web site at www.brazenhussies.net/murphy. For more on Paul Doherty's work and his latest adventures, visit www.exo.net/~pauld.

On very few occasions—only two that I can pinpoint right now—I've written stories that came directly from dream images. One of them (in this case a nightmare) wound up at F&SF, but it took a circuitous route. That was “Graves,” which appeared in the October 1992 issue.
It's far from my usual bailiwick, horror rather than science fiction. On an impulse I sent it off to Playboy, at the time the highest paying fiction market. To my delight, fiction editor Alice Turner accepted it. Paid well for it.
But before the story could come out, the managing editor objected. The story was “too gross” for Playboy, which I accepted as an unintended compliment. Alice said she'd hold on to it for a while, and see if she could sneak it by.
More than a year later, she tried again. The managing editor sent it back, saying “It's still too gross.” Alice magnanimously said I could keep the money, but I ought to try another market.
I sent it off to Kristine Kathryn Rusch at F&SF, and she didn't think it was offensive. She offered to print it in the anniversary issue, always a good venue.
That year it won both the Hugo Award and the World Fantasy Award for best short story of the year. Proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that when it comes to body parts, F&SF has more cojones than Playboy.—Joe Haldeman

She looked like the work of some demented artist. Nude, lying on the bed in a relaxed posture—but she looked as if she'd been carved out of wax. The sheets underneath her were drenched in blood.

"What you think, Doc? I don't see no wound."

"I'm not that kind of a doctor.” A Ph.D. in xenobiology didn't prepare you for this. But I'd been a medic in a war, and could help with simple things. “Did you know her?"

Staring, shaking his head. “Only like everybody knows everybody here.” This was the largest outpost on the planet Runaway, but its shifting population had never reached two thousand.

That population contained only one medical doctor, and he'd been missing for two weeks, presumed dead. There was a lot of that going around. Always.

"Could it be ... you know, natural? Female thing?"

"I don't think so, not this much blood, not sudden.” I had an aunt with dysmenorrhea, who sometimes lost so much she needed transfusions. But this was catastrophic. This much blood in a war wound and you'd be looking for pieces. “Check her back. Help me out here."

Dead people seem to weigh twice as much as live ones. He tugged on her shoulder while I pushed her hip. She was still in rigor mortis. Her skin felt colder than it was.

"God. Was she shot?"

"Don't think so.” I'd seen plenty of laser and bullet wounds. Never anything like this.

She had three identical holes in her back, puckered craters about an inch and a half in diameter. One under each shoulder blade and one over the right kidney. Her back was stained dark red from the blood, but there was no “livor mortis,” discoloration of tissues from blood settling after death. She must have bled out very fast.

I pulled on a plastic glove and felt around inside the lowest wound. No projectile. I found the kidney, hard and shrunken. Maybe that was normal.

"Does look like a weapon,” I said. “Maybe something new. You know what she does for a living? Did."

"Receptionist. Down to that new hunting lodge. They found me when she didn't answer the phone.” He owned the little shack and was renting it to her.

I looked at her face in profile. I had seen her; we worked for the same people, in a sense. Everybody worked for Hartford, finally.

I looked around. The windows were closed and locked. There was no blood spatter, just the mattress. “The door was locked?"

"Yo. Not chained, though."

"Pretty girl."

"Yo. I guess.” She did look pretty horrible now.

I couldn't explain the amount of blood. Even if the renal artery had been severed. And healthy people don't lie there and bleed to death. Maybe she had been drugged or something.

Last week I'd checked the doctor's office, when he went missing, and it was sophisticated enough to have a blood chemistry machine, though whether I was sophisticated enough to get anything out of it, I didn't know.

The blood hadn't completely dried in the small of her back. I scooped some up with my gloved finger and scraped it into a plastic bag.

"What you gonna do with the body?” he asked, nervous.

It was a problem. The two people we'd buried outside the stockade fence had been dug up and eaten, we think by vulture moles.

"I'll get a couple of people up from the labor pool with a body bag. Keep her in the meat locker for the time being."

"Jesus, man."

"Or we could bury her in your backyard here. See what she attracts."

Runaway was one of those panspermia worlds, whose creatures had DNA and may have had a common microbial ancestor with Earth. But their evolution had diverged from ours considerably around the time of the amoeba.

This part of the planet was a zoo gone wild. The island continent Vitabrevis spread three-quarters of the way around the equator, and it teemed with forms of life that were found nowhere else on the planet. Some of them were unlike anything on any other planet, and even among the large creatures, probably not ten percent had been identified and slotted into a provisional taxonomy.

Large predators are rare in most ecologies, because there is only so much food per acre, in the form of prey. Runaway, though, was blessed with a plethora of creatures my father would have called “varmints": animals ranging in size from mouse to cat, and if none were especially cute or cuddly, they were still prey. Seven legs were more common than four or two; scales more common than fur or feathers. The things that ate them were similarly exotic, and indiscriminate enough in diet to make you careful outside the settlement wall.

It made the planet a Nirvana for big-game hunters, and hunting grew into its main industry when the market price for rare earths took a nosedive about fifteen years ago. The mines shut down and the population adapted.

That involved another kind of predation. A high-priced advertising firm stepped in, and Runaway became the most sought-after rustic vacation spot this side of Arcturus. The accommodations weren't four-star, but to people wealthy enough to travel this far, the crudeness was a refreshing change. They told their friends, and their friends told their friends, and before long the support population for all these rich people reached a thousand. So the Confederación had to send an administrator.

That would be me. Travis Dobb, xenobiologist without portfolio. A small problem got out of control at the University of Chicago Mars, and I sort of lost tenure and citizenship and a wife all at once, and there was a misunderstanding with the local police, and perhaps too hastily I sought an off-planet job, and so here I came, and this I became: with a world full of exotic alien life out there, the most experienced xenobiologist on the planet has to push papers around being a budget manager, arbitrator, dock master—and sometimes physician's assistant, coroner, and cop. Not because I'm especially qualified. Just because there's no one else.

When the population does pass two thousand, the Confederación will send a cadre out to take care of that stuff. Until then, I'm it. What xenobiology I do has to be on my own time.

I let the landlord go and called the labor pool and told them where I thought they could find a body bag. While waiting for them to come, I searched the room for clues.

It felt voyeuristic, going through her things, the more so because I was no more qualified for it than your average xenobiologist. But there wasn't an actual criminal investigator within light-years.

If she'd been someone important, I guess the Confederación would send someone from Selva or Earth. They hadn't bothered for the other two murders I'd reported, a miner and a whore.

She had a sketchbook lying on top of the dresser, full of carefully rendered pencil drawings, mostly of herself. Mirror images, of course. I checked her face and the mole was on the wrong side. I slipped her eyelids closed and she looked less scary.

Some of the pictures were landscapes and meticulous drawings of trees and bushes, done outside the wall. I knew the spot, a picnic area that's open to the woods but protected by automatic lasers. You don't go beyond it without pre-arrangement. She probably spent some time there waiting for hunting parties to come back. Hey, cut up a mambo bird and barbecue it. Seven drumsticks, no waiting.

She was no better a housekeeper than I am. The top drawer of her dresser had a few folded outfits and a jumble of underwear; the second drawer was dirty clothes. Feeling creepy, I pulled out the blouses and checked the backs for blood, nothing.

The bottom drawer was mostly random personal stuff. Two cubes of holos that seemed to be from Earth; one showed a New York vacation. A box of seashells from someplace, not here. A sex toy and a hand laser with seventy-eight percent charge. It was a standard army-issue DKW, same as I had in my desk drawer in the office. If my job had me waiting on the other side of the wall, I'd carry one, too. No holster, but it would fit in a large purse.

Where was her bag? I found it in the bathroom, next to the toilet. Nothing odd. Wallet and passport, a little bit of money. Who would I send that to? A notebook with some scribbled notes but no audio or video. “Find Sibelius for Henri,” not an obvious murder clue.

The only window was locked, as the door had been, and the glass was not too clean. There was a film of dust on the sill. I ran my finger along the floor, and picked up some there, too. If she'd known that strangers would be pawing through her stuff, she might've cleaned up. Maybe hidden the vibrator.

I hadn't seen a dead woman since Georgia; too many of them there. A helpless old feeling washed over me and my eyes got wet and stung. I rubbed them and blew my nose. I couldn't sit on the bed so I leaned against the wall.

What had she done, the poor damned innocent thing? Who did she piss off? Some wealthy client who could tag her from light-years away, on a whim?

I checked the door and there was no sign of it having been forced. Only her thumbprint and the landlord's, and now mine, would open it. Of course any lock could be subverted.

Feeling foolish, I went back to the body and checked; both thumbs were still attached. I probably would have noticed earlier if one had been removed.

Then I checked the body inch by inch, looking for who knows what. The soles of her feet were dirty, from walking around barefoot. Naked? Why not; the window just looked out on the wall. There were no bruises on her body, though I wasn't sure what effect total exsanguination might have on that. Small abrasions on both knees. Nothing obvious under her fingernails, though I suppose a forensic scientist would be thorough there.

A forensic scientist would check for rape. I couldn't do that to her.

Well, be honest. To her it wouldn't make any difference. It was my own illogical sense of propriety. Sticking a finger into a wound was okay; a dead body's bloody wound was public property. The vagina was still private.

She hadn't been dead too long; there was no smell of that. The air-conditioning was pretty high, though. My notebook said that rigor mortis could last two days at this temperature.

I got through to her supervisor at the lodge, Simeon Touville, who invited me to come talk with her at 1700. She was upset by the news, of course, and didn't have any idea of who might have wanted to harm the woman.

Two guys came with a body bag, and I helped them wrestle her body inside. They carried her pendulous weight to the utility floater and skimmed away. I sat in the open door for a while. Feeling useless, feeling like shit.

Five hours before I had to talk to Touville. My place was on the other side of the sprawling settlement. I could've whistled up a cab and charged it to Hartford, company business, but it was a nice day and the woman was going to stay dead, so I walked.

It hadn't rained in a couple of days, and the road was firm crunchy gravel. Fast wisps of cloud sped through the golden sky, though, and that might mean rain soon. Weather comes in hammer blows here. You want to be inside.

Doc Borski's office fronted on the warehouse road. I let myself in and went back to the blood chemistry machine.

No instructions anywhere obvious. But I got the model number, Nordstrum D-67, and my notebook downloaded a manual. I skimmed it and managed to set up a sample, using a tongue depressor to scrape the drying blood out of the plastic bag.

The machine thought for one second and said SAMPLE ERROR, followed by a screen full of gibberish. I saved it under her name and again under mine, and also wrote her name on the plastic bag and put it in Doc Borski's fridge. Found a prescription pad in his desk and scribbled an explanation, and left it centered on the blotter. Walked out feeling less than useful.

Past the warehouses that ringed the landing strip there was the gaudy Main Street district, what would have been less than one long block back in Syrtis City, the Martian town I used to think was small.

Runaway did have its charms. I went by the two comfort centers—I have my own sexual solutions, thank you—but did drop in on my favorite bar, Snaggletooth Gertie's. The only casino in town, and therefore the cheapest drinks.

"Hey, Doctor Dobb.” The bartender and part-owner Roos, who was also the de facto peacekeeper and bouncer. He was from Selva, and a bit on the small side for that planet—seven and a half feet of quiet muscle. “The usual?"

"Yeah.” He tapped me a ceramic cup of dry red wine. It was a perfect hemisphere; if you didn't set it down carefully it would spill, and cost you. “Roos, you know Sara Templeton?"

"Pretty girl from the lodge? She's been in a few times; saw her at that wedding couple of weeks ago.” He shook his head. “Don't think she likes big guys. When I pinged her, she sort of cringed."

"Know anything about her, anything odd?"

He set my drink down meticulously and had a sip of his own, something amber, studying me. “What do you mean, odd?"

"I don't know what I mean.” I tasted the wine, cool and not sweet. “She died."

"Died? She was just a kid.” Selvans live long; Roos was probably eighty in Earth years, and not past his prime. “Doc Borski still gone?"

I nodded. “Unless he snuck out on the last shuttle, he's just gone."

"What she die of?"

"Murder maybe, not sure. Looks like she might have been shot in the back, but I don't know with what.” I described the wounds.

"Couldn't a’ been a laser. No burn marks?"

"And no cauterization. The wounds are open, bled out."

"You saw a lot of that, on Earth?"

"Enough, in Georgia. Nothing exactly like this, though."

"Well, God knows what kind of weapons people sneak in here."

"Or just carry in. Weapons don't always look like weapons."

He set his drink down and leaned back. “Georgia down by Tennessee and all?"

"No; on the other side of the planet, Eurasia."

"But you were American, right? Before you went to Mars."

"Yeah, politics. Long boring story. ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’ kind of thing. Or the enema of my enemy. You've never been to Earth?"

"Just Selva and here. Georgia's a big place?"

"Millions of people. More than all the Confederación, I guess. Squeezed in between Russia and Turkey, if that means anything to you."

He shook his head. “You had a bad time there."

"Not as bad as some. Glad it's over.” As if it ever would be. I took a big swallow. “No blood spatter."

"No what?"

"That woman had three really big wounds. There should be blood all over the floor, all over the walls."

"Yeah?"

"Nobody cleaned up afterwards. The floor was dusty. The furniture, the window."

"It was all on the bed?"

"That's right. But how could that be?"

His face creased in thought. He'd been a soldier, too. “Like a boobytrap or something? Like she flopped down on the bed and it went off?"

"Maybe. But you'd think something that powerful would blow on through. No exit wounds.” I took out my notebook and showed him the first picture.

He flinched. “Oh. She was ... she was pretty."

"And young and innocent. Of course you never know. But she hadn't been here three months, according to her super. Everybody liked her."

"One person didn't. Maybe he followed her here."

"That's a thought.” I drained the cup.

"Another?"

"No.... I want to go back and take another look. Can't send a report out till the morning shuttle anyhow. Can't help feeling I missed something obvious."

"Want another pair of eyes? Fish can cover the bar."

"Sure, Roos. I'd appreciate it."

He punched a cab and it was settling to the ground as we left the bar. A one-minute hop to the woman's place.

I thumb the door open and immediately appreciate what a new pair of eyes can see. I thought I'd looked everywhere. Everywhere but up, turns out.

He points at the ceiling. “What the hell is that?"

There are three creatures clinging to the rafter beams, like bats. If bats had seven furry clawed appendages. They match the color of the dark wood. That thing that looks like an octopus body is a translucent sac of dark fluid the size of a football.

"You ever see them before?"

He shakes his head. “Christ and Buddha. Is that her blood?"

"I guess.” Three of them, three wounds.

"This planet is so ausgefuckt,” he says. “A vampire chameleon octopus?"

"Furry, too.” The xenobiologist in me has to marvel. “How could they have gotten in? Under the door?” Giant cockroaches on Earth can do that.

"And why would she get into bed with them? On top of them."

"Safe to say she didn't. They killed her first, or knocked her unconscious.” Would she bleed out so completely if her heart had stopped?

He pats his hip. “Didn't bring a gun."

"Let's don't kill them,” I say. “We need one alive, anyhow, to study."

"Okay, Doc. You climb up there and pick one out."

"Sure.” I call the lodge and explain the situation. The safari manager says he'll send someone out with a cage right away.

I move around to where the light's better. “I have seen them. That sac was hidden away, small, under the thorax. Saw a few down by the picnic area. Tried to catch one but it got away."

"Good thing."

"They were kind of cute, like hamsters. Maybe she brought them home."

Roos and I have both lived on Runaway for more than a year. We could learn caution. But I don't say anything when he takes a broom out of a closet and uses it to prod one of the things.

I don't know when I've ever seen an animal move so fast. It streaks down that broomstick in a flash and clamps onto his hand. He screams bloody murder, and the other two creatures launch themselves, one at him and one at me.

I bat it away and leap halfway across the room, toward the drawer with the woman's gun. My collarbone cracks when I land.

By the time I get the drawer open and the laser unlocked, the thing is clamped on my ankle, and a cold dead numbness radiates up my leg. I fire a wild shot that brushes it, and it takes off across the room like a dervish. I make scorch marks on three walls, missing it. Then it gets back up to the rafters and holds still. I take one aimed shot and it blows clotted blood all over everything.

Try to stand up and fall over, one leg a dead log. Crawl across the room toward Roos.

One of the things is on his wrist. I steady the pistol with both hands and squeeze off a beam; the thing pops in a spray of blood.

The other one is on his throat. No choice. I crawl up and put the muzzle sideways against the thing and squeeze. It blows up in a spray of dark blood and then bright blood gushes from Roos's neck. I put my hand over the wound and then pull up his shirt to staunch it. He makes a clearing-throat noise and drools out some blood and mucus, looking dead.

Fading out, I look down and see that my ankle is also pulsing blood. Anticoagulant. That much? I am totally calm. Dying, but okay. Everything dies. I blink really hard, staying awake. This is how she felt.

Phone in my shirt pocket. It takes forever to reach it, like a dim dull dream. I slowly punch 9-1-1. Shit, wrong planet. 9-9-9. “Blood,” I say. “We need lots of blood.” Though we do have blood everywhere. I fall asleep.

Introduction

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction is pretty much responsible for my career, such as it is, as a writer. I was about sixteen when I bought the premier issue from the newsstand at my local drug store in Berkeley, California. The title of that very first issue was just plain Magazine of Fantasy. Encouraging to me, since the science fiction I was trying to write back then was not very strong on science but did all right when it came to fantasy. They changed the title with the second issue, but I kept buying it anyway. I'd already been buying pulp sf magazines, but F&SF seemed a step above the pulpwoods. More like Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, after which it was modeled.

And it now and then had a story by my then-idol, Ray Bradbury. F&SF also introduced me to such writers as Alfred Bester, Damon Knight, C. M. Kornbluth, and Alan Nelson. And more serious chaps like Richard Matheson. Another thing I found fascinating about the magazine was the fact that it was edited in my home town by Anthony Boucher and J. Francis McComas. McComas I'd never heard of. Boucher's work, however, I knew pretty well, having read most of his mystery novels and his detective novel reviews in the San Francisco Chronicle (the title of the column was “The Gory Road") and listened to the weekly Sherlock Holmes radio shows that he cowrote (they starred Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce). Now if you're a teenage boy who aspires to writing science fiction and you know there's the editor of an sf magazine living right smack in the same town as you do, you try to figure out how to meet him. Just sending in a story by mail, and including return postage, didn't seem enough.

I was still mulling this over some months later, when I saw a small notice in the book section of the Chronicle announcing that Boucher was going to be teaching a once-a-week class in writing at his home every Thursday night. The address was on Dana Street, up fairly near the campus of the University of California. It was the same address as the editorial offices of the magazine. I signed up. It cost $1.00 per night. My mother advanced me the money each week and my dad, since I'd flunked my first driving test, drove me there and picked me up. Boucher usually had about eight or ten pupils in attendance and, sitting at a card table in the center of his living room, he'd read one of the submitted stories and then discuss it and listen to the students’ comments. He'd usually make it through three or four stories each week. The room was ringed by cases that contained books, many of them by him, his collection of seventy-eight r.p.m. opera records, and, as I recall, at least two Edgars that he'd won from the MWA. Those statues of Poe fascinated me and I vowed to win at least one myself. I'm still working on that, although I have had two nominations.

The first time Boucher read a science fiction story that I'd submitted, he asked me afterward if he could hold it to consider for F&SF. That was exactly what I was hoping for. Turned out they never bought that planet yarn, and it wasn't until I was nineteen that I made it into the magazine. Time passes much faster for me now, but then three years seemed like a hell of a long time to wait. My first sale was a reprint of a parody of letter columns in sf magazines that had appeared in the UC humor magazine. I was paid $25 and from that moment I considered myself a professional writer. A few months later Boucher and McComas bought a brand new story that I tried on them.

Since then I've branched out into mysteries and nonfiction and added books to my list. But I figure if I hadn't discovered F&SF when I did and hadn't had the nerve to sign up for Boucher's course, I might be a retired English teacher living in El Cerrito or Walnut Creek. On the other hand, I might be relaxing in a villa on Lake Como, living on the residuals from a long string of top-rated sitcoms.

One never knows.—Ron Goulart

It was the only movie ever made starring a dead man. This was back in the late spring of 1942 and Hix, the short, feisty, and unconquerably second-rate writer of low budget B-movies, was one of the few people who knew about it. He'd hoped to turn the knowledge to his advantage. But that didn't quite work out.

His involvement commenced on an overcast May afternoon. He was pacing, as best he could, his diminutive office in the Writers Building on the Pentagram Pictures lot in Gower Gulch.

Carrying his long-corded telephone in one hand and the receiver in the other, he was inquiring of his newest agent, “In what context did Arthur Freed use the word ‘tripe,’ Bernie?"

"He applied it to your movie treatment, the one I was foolish enough to let you cajole me into schlepping over to MGM,” replied Bernie Kupperman from the Kupperman-Sussman Talent Agency offices over in the vicinity of Sunset Boulevard. “The full sentence was, ‘How dare you inflict such a load of tripe on me, Bernie?’”

"That's not so bad. He could have called it crap instead of tripe.” Hix, his frizzy hair flickering, halted just short of an unstrung mandolin that lay in his path.

"Actually, Hix, he did, but I never use that kind of language over the phone."

Sighing, the short screenwriter set his telephone down on his wobbly desk atop a scatter of glossy photos of starlets, drafts of scripts, three old issues of Whiz Comics, and a paper plate that once had held a nutburger. “Alas, that's the curse of being ahead of my time with my ideas."

"Two weeks ahead isn't that far,” suggested his agent. “Oh, and Freed, hardly using any profanity at all, did mention that he'd heard that Val Lewton is planning to do a picture with the same title over at RKO."

"What I hear is that Lewton and his heavy-handed director Tourneur are probably both about to get the bum's rush out of the studio before they have time to make another clinker like Cat People.” Hix gazed at a spot on the far wall where a window would've been if his office actually had a window. “More importantly, Bernie, Lewton's flicker is entitled I Walked with a Zombie, while my proposed blockbuster enjoys the far superior title of I Waltzed with a Zombie."

"Even so, Hix, we—"

"Furthermore, pal, Lewton's movie is going to be just another trite lowbrow effort aimed chiefly at the Saturday matinee crowd, mostly pubescent boys who flock into movie palaces to eat popcorn, whistle at Rita Hayworth, and pass gas,” he pointed out. “My effort is a big budget musical, the very first horror musical comedy ever conceived by man."

"So far nobody—"

"Face it, buddy, the concept of a Technicolor musical in the horror genre is, well, both brilliant and unique.” When Hix's head bobbed enthusiastically, his frazzled hair fluttered. “Were I given to hyperbole, I'd dub it super-colossal."

After a few silent seconds, his agent told him, “Estling over at Star Spangled Studios wants you for another Mr. Woo quickie."

Hix sank down into his slightly unstable swivel chair, sighing again. “As a potential Oscar winner,” he complained, “I ought to be working for somebody who's not as big a moron as Estling."

"He's offering five hundred bucks more than you got for Mr. Woo at the Wax Museum."

"Okay, tell him I'll write it,” said Hix. “But keep pitching I Waltzed with a Zombie."

"Only if it doesn't look like it's going to result in my suffering bodily harm."

Hix hung up and slid the phone toward the edge of his desk. “Twenty-nine smash B-movies since I came here six years ago and they still treat me like a hack."

The telephone rang.

"Mr. Hix's private office,” he answered in, he was quite certain, a very convincing imitation of a very polite British servant.

"Listen, Hix, I've got to talk to you."

"That can be arranged, Marlys,” he assured her. “Still unhappy about how things are going for you at Paramount? You've only been under contract for a little over three months after all."

"I still haven't been cast in one darn movie, Hix,” Marlys Regal told him. “But this is something else, something maybe worse. Can you meet me in the Carioca Room at the Hotel San Andreas on Wilshire at five?"

"I can, sure. But what exactly—"

"Listen, besides writing a whole stewpot of movies that are always on the lower half of double bills, I know you've done some amateur detective work now and then."

"I wouldn't apply the word amateur to my work in the ‘tec field, kid. In fact—"

"You also know a lot about spooky stuff, occult matters?"

"We've been keeping company for well over a month. In that time you must've deduced that I'm an expert in the field."

"Particularly zombies?"

"Well, sure. My as-yet unsold epic musical is about.... Whoa now. Are you hinting that you know something about real life zombies?"

"I am, yes, and I'm afraid I could be in trouble."

"So, tell me exactly what—"

"Nope, it's too darn risky to say any more from where I am right now. Meet me at the Carioca Room. Bye, darling.” She ended the call.

Cradling the receiver, he stood up and lifted his umber-colored sport coat off the eagle-topped coat rack to the left of his desk. As he shrugged his way into it, frazzled hair vibrating, he made his way to the door. “If I crack a zombie case,” he said, grabbing the dented doorknob, “I can get some terrific publicity for I Waltzed with a Zombie."

The green and scarlet parrot behind the long teakwood bar was alive. He swung on his gilded perch in his gilded cage, now and then squawking out what were probably Brazilian curses. The other parrots, the ones perched high in the fake banana palms that decorated the dimlit Carioca Room, were stuffed.

Arriving about ten minutes after five, Hix stopped near the bar and scanned the surrounding South American gloom.

"Still busily turning out crap, Hix?” asked an overweight writer who was occupying a nearby stool.

"I've recently been promoted to writing tripe, Arnie.” Eyes narrowed, he looked again at the surrounding tables. There was no sign of Marlys.

After swallowing the rest of his Manhattan and plucking the cherry from the bottom of the glass, Arnie said, “Buy you a drink, old buddy?"

"I'm meeting somebody."

"Anybody I know?” he inquired, biting the cherry.

"I'm hoping for Carmen Miranda,” Hix answered. “My doctor advised me to get more fruit in my diet. I figure if I eat her hat, I'll—"

"Marafona,” cried the parrot, agitating his golden cage. “Marafona."

Marlys Regal, smiling very faintly, had just entered the cocktail lounge. She spotted Hix, gave him a minimalist wave before crossing to an empty table next to an almost believable palm tree. Before sitting down, she looked back toward the doorway. She was a very pretty young woman in her early twenties, slender and, at the moment, a redhead.

Arnie nodded. “Cute, but a little too skinny for my tastes,” he observed. “And obviously too good for you."

"She's lowered her standards because of wartime shortages.” Hix, his crinkly hair fluttering, went trotting over to the actress. En route he passed out greetings to some of the other customers. “Hi, Chester, you were great in the new Boston Blackie flicker."

"That crap,” said the actor.

"Tripe,” corrected Hix. “Howdy, Eleanor, loved you in Ship Ahoy."

"Do I know you?"

As he seated himself opposite Marlys, the young actress asked, “Did you notice anybody watching me as I came in, Hix?"

"Sure, each and every guy, with the exception of Grady Sutton. As I've oft told you, kiddo, you're very presentable."

"No, seriously. I'm pretty sure I'm being watched."

He reached across, put his hand over hers. “Okay, so what's going on wrong?"

"Well, I know something and I figured maybe Paramount wouldn't want it known. All I really was after was a chance at a good part, you know."

"Are we talking blackmail?"

"I call it goosing my darn career. Thing is, I'm not sure how they took my proposition and, past couple days, Hix, I have this really spooky feeling they've got a watch on me."

"The time has come, Marlys, for a few more details."

She inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly. “Now this all started before I met you at the Rathbones’ party in April, Hix, so don't get jealous or hit the ceiling. You see—"

"What'll you folks have?” asked the buxom blonde waitress who materialized out of the shadows.

The red-haired actress said quietly, “I'd like bourbon and water."

"Plain ginger ale,” said Hix.

Nodding, the waitress departed.

Resting both elbows on the tropical-patterned tablecloth, Hix suggested, “Get back to your story."

"Well, before I met you I dated other people."

"Sure. I've been known to do the same."

"Well, some four months ago I was seeing Alex Stoner and—"

"Stoner? The grand old man of the silver screen? Ain't he a bit old for you?"

"He was only fifty-six."

Hix straightened. “Was? According to Louella, Hedda, and Johnny Whistler, the old boy is still above the ground. Fact is, he's over at your very own Paramount about two-thirds of the way through starring in their big budget historical fillum of the year, The Holy Grail. He's cast as King Arthur."

She took another slow breath in and out. “Alex died early in March,” she said in a low voice. “Three weeks into The Holy Grail."

"So how come he's still acting in the darn film?"

"They brought him back to life,” she replied.

It was a little over an hour later that Hix got knocked cold by a conk on the head.

He and Marlys had retreated to the small living room of the small cottage that Hix was renting on the ocean side of Santa Monica. The starlet had become convinced that it wasn't safe to keep talking at a public place like the Carioca.

Pacing the venerable flowered carpet he'd acquired at a rummage sale over in Altadena last fall, Hix was going over what details the young actress has thus far provided. “So you were sleeping with this old coot when he shuffled off?"

Marlys was sitting on the lime-green sofa. “Yes, I woke up at seven in the morning and the poor guy was stone cold dead next to me,” she said. “That was really unpleasant."

"Tell me some more about what you did next, kid."

"I was alone at his place in Bel Air. Alex had given his two servants a few days off,” she said. “I was darn certain he had kicked off, so there sure wasn't any reason to call an ambulance."

Hix sat on the wobbly arm of his only armchair. “And what about the cops?"

"Spending a night in bed with a dead major movie star doesn't give you the kind of publicity I need,” she answered. “Besides which, Alex was already partway through shooting the King Arthur flick and I figured Paramount might not care to have his dying made public right away."

"How come you phoned this guy Wally Needham?"

She looked toward the draped window, frowning. “Did you hear something outside?"

"Relax, kiddo. Nobody followed us here from the Carioca,” he assured her. “Having penned a bunch of Mr. Woo pictures, not to mention three Dr. Crimebuster epics, I know a little bit about how to avoid being tailed."

Sighing, Marlys continued. “Well, I first met Wally at Schwab's when I stopped in for a cup of coffee one afternoon a few months ago."

"Another of your beaus?"

"We were friends, sure. It doesn't hurt to have a friend who works in publicity at Paramount Pictures."

"No, that could sure be darn helpful to anybody's career.” He stood, crossed to the lemon-yellow drapes, and pulled them a few inches open to look out into the approaching twilight. “Nobody around. By the way, I'm not crystal clear on how I can help you rise in show biz."

"C'mon, Hix,” she told him. “I'm simply fond of you."

"Wellsir, that's a relief.” He turned his back to the window. “Explain to me a bit more about what this publicity lad did."

"Well, he got to Alex's mansion less than an hour after I telephoned him,” she said. “After making certain Alex was dead, Wally asked me if I'd like to sign a movie contract with Paramount."

"Provided you kept your mouth shut about Alex Stoner being dead."

She nodded. “Yes, I couldn't very well pass up an opportunity like that to graduate out of Poverty Row quickies,” she replied. “Then Wally went into Alex's office and phoned various people, higher-ups at the studio. I heard him tell somebody, ‘Dr. Marzloff can do it. We'll use him.’”

"They hired Dr. Sandor Marzloff? Quack physician and phony self-proclaimed sorcerer to the stars?"

"Not so phony, it seems, Hix. He brought Alex back to life, after all,” the actress pointed out. “He told me once that he'd lived for several years in Haiti and learned—"

"You dated him, too?

"We had a few drinks a couple of times. Long before I met you, Hix."

"Um,” commented Hix.

"I have the impression that Alex Stoner wasn't the first defunct actor he reanimated,” she said. “In fact ... Holy Christ!” She had risen partly off the sofa and was staring past the writer.

Slowly he turned. “Oops."

Two large men, wearing pinstripe suits and with cloth sugar sacks over their heads had silently entered his living room and were pointing large revolvers at him and the young actress.

"You couldn't possibly have tailed us here,” Hix told them. “I dodged any—"

"You forget that you're one of the most famous hacks in Hollywood, Hix,” explained the larger of the intruders. “One of our people spotted you with this dame at the Carioca. We didn't follow you, we just looked up your address in a phone book."

"Ah, the price of fame. Now, I suggest you—"

That was as far as he got. The other hooded intruder had returned his gun to its shoulder holster, withdrawn a substantial-looking blackjack from a side pocket and lunged to bop Hix on the skull.

He heard Marlys scream as he was dropping down into oblivion.

Birds were twittering and chirping, in a cheerful Disney-like manner, to announce the advent of a new day. Morning sunshine was beaming in through the opening between Hix's tacky yellow drapes. With an awakening groan, he sat up on his living room floor.

"Oy,” he observed, feeling suddenly dizzy. “One doesn't usually experience a hangover after two glasses of ginger ale."

Then he recalled that a hooded intruder had conked him on the coco last night. Slowly and carefully, he glanced around the small room. It didn't appear to be in any worse shape than it had been prior to the intrusion.

"Marlys?” he said in a voice that vaguely resembled his own. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “Marlys?"

Tottering some, Hix arose to a standing, albeit wobbly, position. He stumbled through the entire rest of his cottage. Outside of a scraggly stray orange cat who'd snuck in through the open kitchen window to explore the substantial collection of dirty dishes in the lopsided sink, there was nobody else in the entire place.

"Shoo,” he suggested half-heartedly as he returned to his living room. “I reckon I better call the police to report—"

His phone rang. It was residing on a sprawling stack of old copies of Daily Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

After swallowing and blinking a few times, he made his way to the telephone and snatched up the receiver. “Forest Lawn Annex."

Marlys, somewhat breathlessly, inquired, “Hix, dear, are you okay?"

"I might ask the same of you."

"I'm fine, perfectly fine,” said the starlet, inhaling and exhaling. “That whole business last night was simply a misunderstanding."

"Those hoodlums really meant to coldcock somebody down the street from here?"

"No, silly. See, they weren't hoodlums at all. But a couple of Paramount Pictures executives."

"Oh, so? Is that the current style for Paramount execs? Flour sacks over their heads?"

"Actually those were sugar sacks."

"Even so,” he said. “What in the hell is going on, kiddo?"

Taking another deep breath, the young actress told him, “See, dear, they got the foolish idea that you had kidnapped me. What happened was a sort of rescue operation."

"Your value to Paramount has apparently increased a lot since yesterday."

"They reconsidered my proposition and decided it was in the best interests of the studio to comply,” she said. “It's very exciting."

"Sounds like."

"Oh, and I wanted to let you know, dear, that I won't be able to go with you to that Korngold concert at the Hollywood Bowl on Saturday."

"Are they shipping you off to Guatemala?"

"No, just to Arizona for a few weeks. They're picking me up at noon,” she said. “I'm going on location. Paramount wants me to play the dance hall singer in the new Randolph Scott Western. It's a real step up for my career. I get shot in the final reel."

"A painful place to be shot,” he said. “Now explain what the devil is going on?"

"It turns out that quite a few people at Paramount were unhappy that I was unhappy. So they—"

"I bet you're going to have to forget all about Alex Stoner and Dr. Marsloff."

"Not exactly forget, just simply keep mum about what I may or may not know,” Marlys explained. “Oh, and you don't have to worry, Hix. I convinced everybody at the studio last night that—"

"That's where they dragged you?"

"I went voluntarily once I realized what was up. This is the first time I was at a meeting with so many important movie people,” she said, still sounding a bit breathless. “As I was explaining, dear, I convinced them that you and I were simply shacking up for a one-night stand. I never mentioned anything about Dr. Marzloff or poor Alex to you."

"There goes my reputation for celibacy."

"At least you won't get conked on the noggin anymore.... Gosh, I just looked at the clock, Hix. I really have to finish packing."

"Well, it's been swell having this little chat,” he assured the actress. “It's sure taken a load off my mind."

"One other thing,” she cautioned. “I don't think it'd be a wise idea for you to talk to anybody about zombies for a while."

"The word zombies will never cross my lips again,” he promised. “Bon voyage."

"Same to you, darling.” She hung up.

Hix cradled the phone, picked up the receiver again, and made a series of calls.

A few minutes past two that afternoon, Hix was seated at one of the huge oaken tables in the vast dining hall of Camelot. He was finishing up the second half of the baloney on rye sandwich he'd found in his box lunch and conversing with the two former chorus girls who were working as extras in The Holy Grail. Like the writer, they were dressed as Hollywood's idea of Middle Ages peasant folk.

"I hear,” Hix said, setting aside the remnants of his sandwich, “that Alex Stoner has been feeling poorly of late, Exine."

"You can say that again, sweetie,” she replied as she scratched at her bosom through the coarse gray material of her tunic. “Yesterday they had to do thirty-seven takes of the scene where he's supposed to be knighting Ray Milland. He kept dropping his goddamn sword."

"Only thirty-three takes,” corrected the redheaded peasant girl on Hix's left. “By the way, Hix honey, how come you're working as an extra on this flicker?"

"I'm really not an extra, Mindy,” he explained, lying. “I'm doing research for an A-budget Hollywood murder mystery George Marshall wants me to script for Alan Ladd."

Exine observed, yet again scratching her bosom, “That's good news. It's about time you quit writing those crappy Mr. Woo programmers."

"Actually, the Mr. Woo films are considered by many an astute and discriminating critic to be stellar examples of the mystery cinema at its absolute best."

"C'mon, where the hell would an astute and discriminating critic find a job in this pesthole of a town?” asked Mindy, who was now scratching her bosom, too. “Geez, everybody in the Middle Ages must've spent most of their time scratching their boobs."

Before Hix could provide an answer, a uniformed guard came striding into the immense hall, causing some of the colored banners on the imitation stone walls to flutter. “Okay, kids, nobody's supposed to eat their lunch in here,” he informed them. “Please, scram."

"As soon as we finish our after-dinner mints,” Hix assured him.

The plump guard did a take. “Hix? What the hell are you doing in that getup?"

"I'm going through an unexpected slow period in my usually spectacular writing career, Nick."

"Sorry to hear that, pal. You and the dames better toddle along, though,” advised the guard. “Stoner's going to do the scene where he addresses the village peasants in about fifteen."

Hix stood up, gathering the scraps from his meal and dumping them in the white cardboard box. Among the phone calls he'd made earlier was one to a photographer friend at the L.A. Times. He'd asked him to use his connections at Paramount to get him a job as an extra in The Holy Grail in some scenes featuring Alex Stoner. He wanted to see for himself if Stoner acted any differently now that he was dead.

He soon found out.

The fog machines were sending a gray mist swirling across the wide stone courtyard of Camelot Castle. A young extra put her fist up to her mouth and coughed loudly.

"Don't do that when the damn cameras are rolling, sis,” warned a nearby assistant director loudly.

Hix, standing between a redheaded girl in a Gypsy costume and a bearded fat man who was clutching a shepherd's staff, was watching a sort of reviewing stand a few yards away. The stand had a wooden throne in the center of a row of carved chairs and was bedecked with brightly colored pennants. He lifted his weathered peasant cap to scratch his frizzy hair.

One of the director's assistants was assigning some of the bit players to chairs. There were lesser knights wearing chain mail, some ladies-in-waiting, and not one but two jesters.

The door of one of the dressing room trailers that sat just beyond the enormous set now swung open and Queen Guinevere, wearing a low-cut gown trimmed in ermine, regally descended the stairs. The crowd of more than a hundred extras murmured as she was escorted to the stand.

"So that's Sylvia Thompson,” observed a pretty blonde milkmaid, shifting her grip on her pail. “Not all that pretty in real life, is she?"

"What makes you think this is real life?” inquired Hix.

The milkmaid glanced back at him. “Hix? Have you sunk even lower?"

"Doing a favor for DeMille."

The door of another one of the other trailers came flapping open. Alex Stoner, a thin white-bearded man, came stumbling out into the misty afternoon. He teetered on the top step, then went tumbling down to land on a tangle of cables and wires at the set edge.

His ornate gilded crown popped free of his gray head and landed on the booted foot of a wide, broad man dressed as a yeoman.

"Drunk again,” said a chubby friar.

The milkmaid shook her head. “I think the poor guy's sick. He's looked like crap since Monday."

"Booze can do that. I ought to know,” said a husky blacksmith.

Two large men in business suits came hurrying down out of the trailer in the fallen actor's wake.

"Eureka!” said Hix to himself. “I'll wager that these two gents are the same pair that broke in on me and the ambitious Marlys last evening."

They tugged Stoner to his feet, restored his crown.

"Fell ... down ... getting worse,” muttered the actor.

"Chin up,” advised one of the men. He sounded like the one who'd done the talking last night.

Slowly the two alleged studio executives guided Alex Stoner to the stand. “I've got bunions,” the actor was saying in a fuzzy voice. “I never had bunions until Dr. Marzloff worked his—"

"Button your lip, sir,” advised the one who'd bopped Hix.

When Stoner reached the next to the last step of the wooden stairway, his legs suddenly went limp.

The two executives yanked him upright, hustled him over to the gilded throne he was supposed to sit on.

A lean prop man materialized to hand the swaying actor an Excalibur sword made of balsa wood.

Grabbing the sword, Stoner held it high, tip of the blade pointing skyward. “People of Camelot,” he started reciting, “I wish you to join ... um ... to join me ... um ... Now, what in the hell do I want these halfwits to join me for?"

Excalibur fell from his now shaking hand. He dropped to his knees. He fell forward and hit the planks with his face, producing a resounding smack. The jeweled crown left his head again, rolled off the stage and landed hard on the cobblestones of the courtyard, losing at least three sparkling fake jewels in the process.

The two executives picked up the now unconscious actor. They deposited him, with a thump, on the gilded throne.

The one who did the talking picked up a megaphone. “Mr. Stoner seems to have had a mild fainting spell."

From where Hix was standing it looked as though Stoner had ceased to breathe. “They're going to have to get him back to Dr. Marzloff,” he concluded.

The executive said, “We'll be escorting Mr. Stoner to his personal physician. I'm sure it's nothing serious. Today's shooting is canceled. Call casting about what time to show up tomorrow. Thank you one and all."

When night started closing in on the town of Santa Rita Beach, Hix, wearing dark gray slacks and a black pullover, was stretched out on a patch of hillside forest just above Dr. Marzloff's small private sanitarium. The address of the two-story slant-roofed place he found simply by checking a couple of Greater Los Angeles phone books. The floor plans of the joint he borrowed from a former singing cowboy who'd gone into real estate after first Republic and then Monogram had tossed him out on his ear. The infrared camera and the night binoculars he got from the same L.A. Times photographer who'd fixed up the extra stint at Paramount. The bagel with cream cheese he'd just finished eating he'd picked up at Moonbaum's delicatessen while passing through Hollywood en route to this beach town.

By the time the screenwriter had gathered up this assortment of stuff it was nearing seven in the evening. As the evening darkened it also grew increasingly overcast. Parked down in the white-graveled parking lot at the back of the sanitarium was a panel truck with the Paramount Pictures logo on the passenger-side door. There was also a big color poster for The Road to Morocco on the side of the vehicle, with portraits of Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour.

Hix, while wiping bagel crumbs off his chin, said to himself, “Dottie Lamour would be perfect for I Waltzed with a Zombie. Sure, we could put her in front of a whole chorus line of sexy girl zombies in tight sarongs. Though maybe Paramount wouldn't loan her out to MGM or Twentieth after I expose them as employers of dead actors."

The presence of this Paramount truck indicated to Hix that the defunct actor had indeed been brought back to Dr. Marzloff for a tune-up. The problem was, how many times can you revive the same corpse? Even with voodoo.

There was a large skylight on the slanting left side of the roof. Lights were already on in the room below when Hix had come skulking along to watch the place. According to the floor plans, Marzloff's laboratory and surgery were below that bright-lit skylight.

A dog all at once began barking, barking in a loud chesty way that indicated a large and mean-minded hound.

Hix swung his glasses in the direction of the new sound. “Ah, only a neighbor's animal."

The big Doberman was attached to a log chain on the other side of the high stone wall that surrounded the Marzloff setup.

The night kept getting colder and darker. In another few minutes Hix would make his careful approach. There was a sturdy drainpipe running up the side of the gray building. Having considerable confidence in his stuntman abilities, Hix was certain he could, under the cover of night, scale the seven-foot-high stone wall, then shinny up the pipe to reach the roof. He'd then, unobserved, snap some news-photo-quality shots of Dr. Marzloff reviving the corpse of Alex Stoner.

He'd turn the pictures over to his buddy at the L.A. Times. He might also give Johnny Whistler, who was easier to reach than Hedda or Louella, a call. True, Whistler had told him never to phone again with his pathetic attempts to get publicity for his mediocre fleapit movies. But this time he had an earthshaking scoop. The subsequent front page stories would result in a hell of a lot of publicity for him. And for I Waltzed with a Zombie.

"I bet,” he said as he rose to start his slow, careful approach to the re-animator's lab, “we can hire Cole Porter or Irving Berlin to write a Zombie Waltz."

From up on the hillside the darn Doberman had seemed to be securely attached to a sturdy walnut tree at the backside of the stark white Art Deco house of Dr. Marzloff's neighbor.

But just as Hix was scrambling over the stone wall around the sanitarium and realizing that his wall-climbing skills had somewhat diminished since he'd turned thirty, he heard a chain snapping and then became aware of an angry, growly sort of barking. It grew ever louder and closer in the overcast darkness of the night.

"Heel!” he ordered quietly over his shoulder. “Sit! Roll over! Play dead!” These were the only dog commands he could recall from the script he'd written for Socko the Wonder Dog Goes to War last autumn.

None of them made an impression on the angry Doberman. Snarling, he leaped for the climbing writer.

He managed to nip the heel of one of the strange shoes that Hix was pretty certain he'd bought down in Tijuana while hung over a few months ago. The dog took a hunk out of the orange-brown Mexican shoe, but Hix was not hurt.

Hix was able to pull himself to the top of the wall. He stretched out there for a moment, facedown, and caught his breath.

The dog continued to growl and jump down there in the darkness. Apparently everyone at the Marzloff establishment was too busy bringing the late Alex Stoner back to life to notice Hix's less than silent arrival.

The thick drainpipe commenced producing metallic groans when Hix, panting as quietly as he was able, had managed to convey himself up roughly three quarters of its two-story length.

Over on the other side of the stone wall the surly Doberman was continuing to convey his annoyance with a lengthy series of angry barks.

Pausing to again catch his breath, the writer continued his ascent to the slanting roof and the illuminated skylight.

"You're going to have to expand your exercise plan,” he advised himself as he labored upward. “Playing volleyball once a week with a gaggle of starlets in the Pentagram Pictures parking lot obviously isn't sufficient."

At long last—it took him nearly ten minutes according to the radium dial on his wristwatch—Hix reached his goal. Clutching the metal edge of the sturdy gutter, he pulled himself up on to the roof.

Sprawling flat, he inched his way over to the edge of the big skylight. Careful not to go sliding back down the incline of the roof, he prepared to take a look down into the lab/surgery.

"Hot dog!” he exclaimed internally upon noticing that one of the large glass panels in the skylight was propped open, thus allowing him to hear what was being said down below.

A voice that must belong to Dr. Marzloff was saying, in a thick accent that sounded like Akim Tamiroff or Gregory Ratoff on a bad day, “I am no longer optimistic, gentlemen."

"He's alive again,” pointed out the Paramount exec who'd conked Hix.

"True, but he's passed away twice again since you delivered him here to me."

"I'm not ... really ... feeling so ... hot,” admitted Alex Stoner.

Risking a peek downward into the brightly lit room Hix saw the two large Paramount men standing close beside a white operating table, considerable concern showing on their faces.

Stretched out on the table, looking extremely pale and clad in a white hospital gown, was the late actor. He was groaning in his deep, actor's voice.

The squat, thickset Marzloff had on a pale blue medical jacket and a stethoscope dangling around his neck. On his bald head he was wearing a voodoo headdress consisting chiefly of chicken feathers, cat fur, and rat tails. In his right hand he held a large hypodermic and in his left a maraca that had tiny skulls painted on it in bright red lacquer.

Stoner said, “Dying once ... was bad enough ... but dying three more...."

"Four,” corrected the doctor.

The other executive said, “Look, Doc, we only need this guy for one more week and then it's a wrap."

"Don't forget he has to dub a few pieces of dialogue,” reminded his colleague.

"We can always get Paul Frees to do that. He can imitate anybody's voice."

"Gentlemen, I very much fear he can't be kept alive for longer than a few more minutes."

"We could settle for three days."

"Not even three hours. I've been able, as you know, to have some luck with an initial reanimation. But—"

"I have ... a few...” said Stoner, half sitting up on the table, shivering and shaking violently, “...last words ... I'd like to thank the Academy for ... Aargh!” Falling back with a thud, he died for the fifth time.

"Holy Moley,” said Hix, reaching the borrowed camera out from under his sweater. Surreptitiously, he aimed it at what was going on down in the laboratory.

"C'mon,” ordered one of the executives. “Revive this guy again."

"I do not believe it would be of any use."

"Try it!"

Sighing, the doctor adjusted his chicken feather headpiece. “My exclusive blending of up-to-date medical expertise and ancient Haitian voodoo can only do so much."

"Get going, Doc!"

After administering the shot in the hypodermic to a thin, pale arm of the dead actor, Marzloff began to dance around the body, shaking the maraca and chanting, “Damballah. Ioa. Damballah-Wedo. Gato Preto. Damballah."

Hix, chuckling silently, clicked off shots. “What an expose this is going to be. I'll be the darling of the press and ... Oh, crap."

He'd discovered he was swiftly sliding toward the edge of the sharply slanting roof.

Flipping over onto his back as he slid, Hix managed to stuff the big camera under his dark sweater and, at the same time, use his heels to try to brake his descent.

He succeeded with the camera, but he kept sliding ever closer to the drop.

Hix made a grab for the gutter edge as he went over. As he caught it, the jerking halt of his drop sent pain all across his shoulders and back. He hung two stories up for what seemed like more than a minute.

Then he caught hold of the drainpipe and went down to the ground, quite a bit faster than he'd gone up.

Limping, he scurried to the wall. After inhaling enthusiastically a few times, he got himself to the top. He lay stretched out on the stones. Nobody had noticed his departure.

Wheezing, as well as panting, Hix let himself down on the other side.

Waiting for him, silently, was the big mean-minded black and tan dog.

The next morning, the new secretary at his agent's office pretended she didn't know who Hix was. “Who?” she inquired in a voice that was both nasal and snide.

"Hix. Bernie's most successful client."

"Surely, you're not John O'Hara."

"Tell him that terrific idea we talked about has come to fruition. We're all in the money."

"I'll try to contact Mr. Kupperman. Hix, was it?"

After three and a half long minutes Bernie came on the line. “Hix, how many times have I warned you about using profanity with my secretaries?"

"I merely stated my name."

"She apparently though Hix was a dirty word."

"A common mistake, yeah. But the purpose of my call is to alert you to dust off my brilliant I Waltzed with a Zombie treatment, Bernie."

"Why in the heck would I do something like that?"

"Because I am on the brink of turning into an international celebrity due to my exposure of insidious zombie trafficking in Tinsel Town,” he announced. “I'll be exposing a major Hollywood studio that's featured a dead actor in a starring role in their latest Technicolor historical epic."

"Baloney. How can you do that?"

"Soon as I sell my exclusive story to the L.A. Times. And possibly give it to my old pal Johnny Whistler, too."

"What sort of proof do you have? Photographs would be nice."

Hix hesitated. “I had a whole stewpot of great shots, Bernie,” he said. “Unfortunately my camera fell out of my sweater while I was running through a section of Santa Rita Beach."

"Exercising, were you?"

"Well, actually, I was running for my life."

"So why didn't you pick up the camera?"

"The ferocious dog that was chasing me over hill and dale stopped to eat the camera. Or at least take a couple of hefty bites out of it,” he explained. “But I can still provide the press with a first-hand account of my witnessing a noted actor being resurrected. An attempted resurrection maybe, because I fell off the roof before—"

"Who was, according to you, being revived? And who was doing this?"

"The actor in question was none other than Alex Stoner, Paramount's star of The Holy Grail. The first time this old ham died was back three months ago and they—"

His agent made an exasperated sound. “Don't you read the newspapers, Hix? Don't you listen to Johnny Whistler's seven-thirty a.m. broadcast on Mutual?"

"I overslept because ... why?"

"Alex Stoner didn't die three months ago. He died last night of a massive heart attack,” Bernie told him. “Paramount Pictures announced that early this morning."

"I fell off the roof too soon. Looks like they couldn't revive him this time."

"Actually, Hix, they're burying him at Forest Lawn on Friday,” the agent informed him. “Paramount says they've got enough footage in the can to put The Holy Grail together."

"I Waltzed with a Zombie is still a terrific idea."

"Tell you what, I'll try it on Monogram,” said Bernie. “I hear they're thinking of doing some cheapie musicals. Maybe we can get six thousand dollars out of them. What say?"

Hix was silent for a moment. “Sure, give it a try, Bernie,” he said, and hung up.

ANTI-TREK

The idea that the poorly written, hastily conceived, sketchily realized, terminally old-fashioned characters of James Tiberius Kirk and company may live on and on while generations of our descendants wither and die seems fairly appalling. Still more appalling is the possibility that some of the less celebrated genre films I've seen recently will have a similar longevity. For instances: Terminator Salvation (Transformers with a heaping helping of grim), which has already been around for twenty-five years; Wolverine (one hundred and seven minutes of dull, dull, dull, and inane, exclamation-pointed dialog such as “Nobody kills you but me!"), which has been around for a decade, but promises countless sequels, and then there's the new kid on the blockbuster circuit, Angels and Demons (the Illuminati's out to kick Vatican butt and only Forrest Gump can stop them!), a film to which I would urge you to escort a drunk and encourage him to make rude noises throughout. Star Trek, though basically an action picture that stops every so often for a spot of sketch comedy, is a variation on a minstrel show with white guy actors in Kirk- and Spock-face impersonating white guy actors (not to mention the occasional Uhura and Sulu), speaking lines whose musty familiarity provokes cheap laughs, lacking only a Mister Interlocuter (unless the original Mr. Spock—called Spock Prime in the cast list—is evolving into that role). Nevertheless, it towers above these other films like a dragon among hippopotami or, more aptly, like a streamlined super-monster truck with badass rims and Satanic flames on its side panels among a bunch of battered, nondescript family sedans—you see, Star Trek is a legitimate thrill ride, something the others only aspire to be. Of course being a thrill ride doesn't necessarily make it a good movie, merely a forgettable one. It's like Space Mountain or the Tower of Terror, fun while you're on board, but afterward the kids start whining that they want to go again, the littlest one ralphs all over your shoe, there's a snarling australopithecene in line in front of you who keeps bumping into your wheelchair-bound mom and accusing her of bumping into him, and you just know punches will be thrown at some point and nothing you've taken from the ride can sustain you against or divert you from the hell ride you're on.

Given the all-pervasive feelgood neon splendor of the splat pop culture made when it was hurled against a bathroom wall in Studio City and someone decided, Hey, that crap's good enough for the proles, I find it refreshing now and again to watch a science fiction film that actually has more to say than Pow, Varoom, Zap, and derives its wit from a vein of humor a tad more sophisticated than pantsing the newest Scotty. So I'm downright pleased to call your attention to Moon, a neat little science fiction thriller co-written (with Nathan Parker) and directed by the artist formerly known as Zowie Bowie, the son of the Thin White Duke, who now calls himself Duncan Jones (I bet the dude has some serious daddy issues), and starring Sam Rockwell, an actor skilled at impersonation and farce, as his role in Galaxy Quest will attest, but also capable of great things, something Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, who incarnate the Kirk and the Spock respectively, will likely never have the chance to prove. Rockwell plays the role of Sam Bell, a mining engineer, the caretaker and sole human occupant of Sarang Station owned by Lunar Industries. As an opening commercial informs us, Earth's energy crisis has been solved by the harvesting of Helium-3 from rocks on the dark side of the moon. The job of overseeing the automated operation (four mobile refineries) falls upon the shoulders of one man who signs on for a three-year tour of virtual isolation—his only companion is GERTY 3000, a robot who communicates via emoticons that render ersatz expressions and a soothing voice (Kevin Spacey's) that can't help but remind you of HAL in Kubrick's 2001 (elements of the film remind of other science fiction movies, such as Outland and Silent Running, although the picture feels in the main original). Sam is two weeks away from the end of his tour, desperate to return to his wife and three-year-old daughter, but his time at the station has affected him deleteriously and he's not doing well, sleeping poorly and hallucinating. It's the latter problem that lands him in real trouble. While chugging along in his lunar buggy, making a routine maintenance inspection of one of the giant factories, he's distracted by the vision of a girl standing on the surface beneath a shower of rubble and the resultant accident leaves him unconscious. When he wakes in the station's infirmary, GERTY tells him he may have suffered brain damage. Not long thereafter, a healthier version of himself, another Sam Bell, puts in an appearance.

Is this second Sam an hallucination, a doppleganger, a product of brain damage, or perhaps all three? And why is GERTY having those clandestine conversations with Earth? These and a number of other questions beg to be answered.

At first the interloper is hostile and keeps Sam One at arm's length, but gradually they become friends or something like, and together they set out to unravel the station's mysteries. The solutions to those mysteries may seem predictable to some, but this is not a typical thriller, and neither are its satisfactions predictable. Your patience will be rewarded, though not, perhaps, as you expect. There's plenty to think about here, and while it's not entirely new territory, it's handled in such a surprising way, examined through the lens of a more-or-less utopian society (at least it's a utopia by contrast to the prevailing dystopian view of the future), that it feels fresh.

The exteriors of the lunar base and the harvesters are done with models treated with a single layer of CGI, and this achieves a very sophisticated and expensive look for such a low-budget film. The wide shots of the models combine with the antiseptic white interiors to create an appropriately menacing atmosphere (this is not a horror movie per se, but it deals with existential and metaphysical horror), and Jones's direction is remarkably deft, considering it's his debut. Moon could have become just another corporate nightmare, with Big Brother bogeymen, but Jones is too smart to go that route and focuses instead on Sam and Sam Again, their traumas, trials, and tribulations.

Above all, this is Sam Rockwell's movie. Rockwell made his bones in indie comedies such as Lawn Dogs and Safe Men (both very funny movies, in case you haven't seen them), displaying exceptional comic timing, and has gone on to act in studio farces as well as more serious fare, notably his turns as Charlie Ford in The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, a black comedy wherein he plays a man on the verge of a breakdown, anticipating the brilliant work he does in Moon. Since he's essentially the sole character in the film, the weight of the entire script is on Rockwell's shoulders and he does far more than carry it. He manages to illuminate every cranny of the two Sams’ psyches as they struggle with their mutual and variant dilemmas. Alternately funny, desperate, and sad, his performance is a tour de force. In a different world he'd receive serious considerations for awards, but we all know how that goes.

If Moon is the anti-Star Trek, a movie that earns its credentials as a science fiction thriller not by explosions and tag lines, but by exploiting intricacies of plot and character, then The House of the Devil might be seen as the anti-Halloween; but really it's not. Truth is, House has a lot in common with the original Halloween. The plot of the film is an ‘80s cliché—an elderly couple (Tom Noonan, Red Dragon in Manhunter, and Mary Woronov from Night of the Comet) hire a couple of college girls to babysit a big, sinister-looking house in the country while they watch a lunar eclipse; the girls arrive and, after a slow build-up, bad things begin to happen. It sounds clichéd, and it is, but director Ti West, an aficionado of ‘70s and ‘80s horror cinema, is playing with his audience's expectations. His new picture effects a character study of the house and, incidentally, of one of the girls, Samantha (Jocelin Donahue), as she pokes about the place, exploring, thinking about this and that. The film proceeds at a crawl and, though I enjoyed its deliberate pacing and the slow creep of the tension, those accustomed to filmmaking that depends on jump scares and gore may lose interest early on. House has its fair share of gore mind you, along with an ending that's not up to the rest of the picture, but if you relish films that generate suspense the old-fashioned way, and if you want to catch horror cinema's next big director before he becomes a household word, this makes an excellent starting point.

Last year's Let The Right One In brought fresh blood to the vampire genre—this year, that trend continues, though in a different vein (okay, I'll stop), with the release of Chan-wook Park's (Oldboy) vampire picture, Thirst, a kind of vampire-family drama-sometimes comedy-noir. Featuring Kang-ho Song, Korea's leading actor (the mentally challenged father in The Host), it tells the story of a Roman Catholic priest who contracts vampirism while engaging in a medical experiment intended to fight the outbreak of a deadly plague in Africa. All those who take part in the experiment die, but Song returns to life and, to his amazement and disgust, soon realizes that he has become a vampire. We've had our fair share of reluctant vampires, notably in Kathryn Bigelow's classic, Near Dark, but never one so complexly reluctant as Song's priest, who is conflicted by matters of ethics, conscience, and his questioning of God, and goes the extra mile to avoid surrendering to his nature, as for instance, drinking out of hospital IVs.

Chan-wook Park's films have always been prone to abrupt shifts in tone—in Thirst this tendency peaks. Following the completion of a somber and somewhat lyrical first act, Act Two morphs into a noir-ish soap opera as Song gets involved with the abused wife, Tae Ju, of a childhood friend, who has grown into a childish man under the thumb of a manipulative mother. Eventually Song abandons the priesthood and is drawn into an affair with Tae Ju and they rid themselves of the husband, dumping his body into a reservoir. But guilt drives a wedge between the couple and threatens to destroy them. In Act Three, Park returns to the stylish violence of Oldboy. Song turns Tae Ju into a vampire and, after a lifetime of weakness, of being abused, she delights in her new strength and powers—she becomes impulsive and incredibly violent. Song is still committed to maintaining as non-violent a path as his condition allows and eventually the lovers find themselves in direct opposition to one another.

This movie has already generated a wide range of opinions following its showing at Cannes. Criticisms include too long, too much gore, and too unfocused. Me, I didn't think it too long—Song's performance, which centers the movie, carried me through the slow bits. As to the gore, it's a vampire movie. Deal with it. Too unfocused? Well, I will admit there were moments when I thought the narrative rather murky (this is no masterpiece of clarity, though it may be a rough, unfocused masterpiece), but those moments were brief and I was borne along by the movie's tremendous energy and style. This is a picture that will likely tick off many vampire lovers, and it is especially not a film for the Twilight set (Is there a term for them yet? How about T-heads ... or even better, T-wits?), but even those folks can take heart from the news that, while Thirst is neither Twilight nor Titanic (a movie similar in appeal to the Stephenie Meyers creation), best of all, it's no Van Helsing.

I grew up in a town so small that I can still remember the number on the census sign: Seven-hundred-and-ten. Downtown was composed of two churches, a gas station, hardware store, post office, and several bars. There was no library, of course, and I didn't see the inside of a bookstore until I was in high school. I left when I was eighteen, but it wasn't until I was thirty-one years old that I lived in a city large enough for a bookstore and a library. How I loved that library! I spent many hours there, “wandering the stacks,” grabbing whatever looked interesting to me until the day I discovered the collection of “The Year's Best Fantasy and Horror” then edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling, which I took home and read as though they held the meaning of my life. Which they sort of did. Though I had been working on writing for years, I had chosen the bohemian writer path, rather than the academic one, which had made for some interesting adventures but had left me unmentored and rather clueless about publishing. All I knew was that I wrote strange little stories that no one wanted, and I was beginning to feel some despair over this. But these Datlow/Windling anthologies were filled with odd stories that reminded me of my own, and, quite consistently, the ones that seemed most like mine were published in something called The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fictio . The first issue I ever saw was in that same library. I sent a story that had been reaping rejections, “The Girl Who Ate Butterflies,” and when I received the check for that story, I bought a big old desk and a subscription to the magazine. I've been subscribing ever since.—M. Rickert

Our children roll across picnic blankets, their limbs stuck in strange postures, an arm permanently raised, legs at broken angles, lips split, eyes unfocused. When the sky shatters, our children gurgle with pleasure while we remember other explosions.

Before the war, our village was green, and we remember the variety of green, the green of apples, the green of long grass, short grass, sweet grass (each, you may remember, a different tone of blade), the green of root tree, and green of berry bush, the green of birds, the various greens of leaves. We remember how, in the summer, the whole world was green, and we walked about feeling (innocently) that we were green's flower. We did not think of it as a weapon.

"Oh Green, How We Love Your Branches!” That was written before the war, by one of our poets. Most of us don't know what it means, and yet, we do, somehow. This state of opposites is a part of us now, we are a people who love our children, and we are a people who wish our children had died, or better still, us. We should have died and saved everyone.

("Oh Green, How We Love Your Small Hands Like Leaves!")

The President makes several TV appearances to promote his new book. “We made a strategic choice to destroy the vegetation,” he says. “This was a compassionate decision, and history will reflect that."

It is rumored that the President's wives have had abortions rather than risk reproducing little monsters like ours. You may wonder why they would do such a thing. We point to our children, crawling on twisted limbs, breathing through deviated septums, drooling. Sometimes we see childless women on TV, jogging in the park, or sitting in the coffee shop, laughing bright red lips as they stare through glass, their blank eyes like those in a mask, but we do not judge these women, if we'd had any sense, we'd be drinking coffee like them, and not changing teenagers’ diapers.

Our children have no idea of lives lived without malformed bones, painful flesh. Most people cannot separate any idea of self from skin, and this is true of our children who stare at the exploding sky on this hot summer night, tongues coated with cotton candy, gnarled fingers sticky with dripped ice cream, mouths twisted with every exclamation for the thundered explosion of color. Our children know nothing other than what they are, no lives beyond the ones they live, no idea of what it means to be human that has not been created by war.

The President is coming to our village. Hoping to sell books, we think. A man can be quite clever and still be quite stupid as well. All opposites are joined in the state of being human. We are happy, here on the tiny shoots of sharp grass that have only recently begun to appear after all these years, and we are weeping. You cannot see it in our eyes, but you can see it in our children, who we think of as our tears. Can the President really come here and ignore them? Can he really think we will buy his stupid book?

Apparently, yes.

The fifth of July dawns a beautiful day, a blue sky meringued with puffs of white clouds, a lovely sun warmly shining down on us. The streets are littered with spent fireworks, crushed red and white popcorn cartons, deflated balloons. The sweepers move down the streets and sidewalks like computer cursors. We put on our best clothes, dress our children over diapers we've learned to fashion from old sheets, holes cut out for extra limbs, widened for odd shapes. We look out the kitchen windows as we prepare breakfast. With all the trees gone, we easily see the black dot in the distance when he approaches, the President, and his caravan of cars. “Here, drink,” we say to our children and hand them their sippy cups.

We assemble in the park, where just last night, we celebrated. We look at the crowd of tired faces, the beasty children groveling in the grass, ruining their best clothes, but what can be done? We do not know how to discipline them, or raise them with any sense of wrong or right, even how to begin the discourse. They are too damaged to learn moral implications; we are pleased if they can learn to use a fork. Which is not to say that they have no inner spark, no fire trapped by the dark embers of their flesh, no longing, no desire, no dreams where they are like us, standing upright, bearing vaguely symmetrical faces. What must it be like, we wonder, to desire all that the body desires but not have the body to pursue it?

The President's limousine, followed by several black cars, glides like a slow dark torpedo from the back of the park, flags flapping in the breeze. The vehicles stop near the stage, the doors open. Men and women in suits step out, begin moving through the crowd, looking for weapons. When they walk near the children, the gnarled hands try to grab the weapon-seeking wands; one succeeds, bringing it toward what might be a mouth, but the woman pulls it away, striking the child in the process. The audience murmurs its disapproval. The woman is immediately joined by two other suits who walk beside her, scanning the crowd as though we are to be feared, though they hold the largest weapon of all, what was already done to us, what we have already lost, and what remains.

There is an invocation, a song, and introductions. The Admiral is introduced by a General who is introduced by a decorated Soldier who was introduced by a Pilot who was introduced by a Navy Seal. It's all rather much for our children, and, frankly, for us. By the time the President speaks, the sun floods the entire field; only the dignitaries standing on the stage are in the shade. It is hot and we are weary with the small speeches our children droned and moaned through, but when, at last, the President speaks, we wonder how he does it. How does he look over the entire crowd and yet make each of us feel spoken to? How does he smile and make us feel happy? How does he make us forget how he failed?

"I know these are hard times,” he says, his voice booming into our hearts (like little bombs), “but I see in your faces the strength of heroes. I know these are hard times, but I see in your children's faces the promise of the future."

We look at our future's face, the strange monstered contortions we have given birth to, and we look at our President in confusion. There is some murmuring, the suits adjust earphones and stand at attention, but even they can't help but whisper out the sides of their mouths. The President has made a mistake. He has forgotten where he is. He is speaking as though our children are normal.

The President, his eyes twinkling, raises his hand, palm toward the crowd. “I know there are some who believe your children cannot be the face of the future,” he says, and suddenly it seems even the children are listening, the roars and groans, the babbles and slaps, the rolling and slithering have all stopped. What is the old expression, you could hear a drop of blood fall? The President smiles. “When I look at these faces, I don't see a future that is ugly and misshapen, I see a future that remembers war and is committed to peace. I see a beautiful future, not our dream, but our destiny!"

The crowd roars. Even the children slap the ground with limbs and flippers. We forgive the President everything. Afterward, we wait in line for hours to buy his book. We are disappointed to discover that he does not sign them himself but has hired a writer to do so in his place. “The President must keep his hand strong, for signing important papers,” we are told.

We do not expect him to stay in our town that night, but he does. He spends the night at an undisclosed location (the old Maulkey Mansion on the hill) and in the morning the newspaper blares the headline, PRESIDENT MAKES NEW HOME HERE, and that is how we come to learn that the President is staying.

The next few days are very exciting. Truckloads of trees are driven through town to the Maulkey Mansion. These are not the twiggy sticks that have begun popping up between our scraggly grass, but full-grown giants, uprooted (from who knows where) and replanted in craters dug on the hill. We had almost forgotten what trees look like, or so we told ourselves, but now that we see them again, we realize the memory of trees has always resided within us. We remember shade, and leaves, branches wide enough to sit on, we remember our parents scolding us not to go so high, we remember the colors of Autumn, the snows of Winter, we remember the seasons, and the scent of green. We try to tell our children about this, our children whose ugly visages have brought us this new peace, but they don't respond as we had hoped, they scream and writhe furiously as if tossed by an angry sea or burned by napalm. We begin to suspect that they know a lot more about what has occurred than we realized. “Hush, hush, don't worry,” we say. “The President lives here now. No one will harm us. He brings peace.” (And trees, we think, but don't mention, fearing it will confuse the point.)

Trucks rumble down Main Street bearing roses. Roses! The scent so sweet we think we might faint, or do something crazy. Our children try to follow the glorious cargo; we have to pull them back, promising them that we will someday take them to see the President's garden, not knowing that we are telling the truth. Trucks, rumbling over the bumps and cracks of our dusty streets, spill silky petals and stemless flowers. We can relate to the children's desire to stuff them into their mouths, to try to keep them forever.

What was done to those petals! Crushed, loved, and destroyed. Roses, truckloads of them, night-blooming jasmine, forsythia, flowering parsley, and mint, the scent floating down the hill, causing us to remember everything we'd forgotten. Lovers found each other in the rich scented dark and did not think about the dangerous results of malformed children, and our “children,” not so young anymore, wandered from their rooms into night streets sweet with perfume, colored vaguely blue by the moon, and even with all the confusion of extra limbs and orifices, found pleasure, wantonly, selfishly, giving no border to the consequences we had never thought it necessary to mention. In the morning we found them, tiny blades of new grass stuck to their skin, streaks of dirt down their backs, hair tangled, faces pink with pleasure, drooling, cooing in their secret language.

We steer them home. They are large and lumbering, groaning, laughing strangely at things we don't understand. We find them naked and in embrace, tangled limbs like Gordian knots. When we scold them, they only spit, or sigh, or pay no attention at all to us. We grow tired of this night dance, their sexuality like open flowers giving off a strange odor. We, the parents, suffering exhaustion, too many nights awake and on guard, fail, and wake to find them in fields and alleys, beds, and storefronts, the faces of peace smoothed by expressions of ecstasy.

These couplings, with one exception, were without any sense of loyalty or affection. It was the rutting of animals, any sum of various parts would do. We found sisters and brothers, cousins, girls and girls, boys and boys, groups of four, six, and, on one occasion, when the moon hung like an ice cream scoop in the sky, we found an orgy of dozens. They fought us like a small army, fiercely biting and kicking as we tore them apart, though later they gave no indication that they recognized each other in any significant way. There was only one couple, Syoon and Chila, torn apart, and returned to each other night after night.

Syoon is one of the children whose deformities, before the war, would have been considered terrifying, but now is thought fortunate. She is able to walk, for instance, her limbs easily accounted for and fitting into a pre-war ratio, though it is true her spine is bent at odd angles, and her “walk,” really more of a lope. Yet, compared to most of the others, she is almost graceful. Her face (and this would account for her seeing the butterfly before anyone else) tilts upward, destined since birth to look at the sky and not the humans who made such a mess of everything. Her mouth falls into a philosophical frown, giving the impression that this damaged child ponders her fate. Syoon's eyes, though far apart from the plane of bridgeless nose, nonetheless reside in what, before the war, was the expected position, giving her an unwieldy fishy look, a creature always rising to the surface, but they are large and bright blue, laced with lashes so long they flutter against her cheeks beneath amazingly, perfectly aligned eyebrows, all of which only seems to further the impression that this one, this daughter of war, has somehow come into the destroyed world bearing a new version of beauty.

Chila's face is not so fortunate, his eyes all varied in shape, large, small, protruding; and in composition, lashless, heavy lidded, brown, blue, one with a pale cloudy yellow pupil, like curdled butter. His mouth is wide and loose-lipped, his tongue often hangs out, dripping with saliva. No, what Syoon found so compelling in Chila did not reside in his face but in his body, a throwback by some genetic fluke to a time before the war when young men had sun-colored skin, when their flesh exuded a beguiling scent, the combination of meadow green and sex. The girls found their way to him, discovering pleasure in what, they could not know, was the perfect body of our past.

Yet, Chila only roved for one, and, with his great muscles and massive size, kept all away from her as well. Syoon, always Syoon until we could not ignore it any longer, they had become lovers, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, drawn to each other to the exclusion of all others, exhibiting symptoms of that most dangerous of emotions until at last, desperate, we tied them up at night.

It became necessary for an abortionist to come to our village and set up shop at the old meat market, designing an odd storefront window of small statues carved out of coal set in a sea of white pebbles. It wasn't long before a steady parade of girl children (do we still call them children? Well, they aren't adults) are escorted there by “parents.” Some days there is even a line of customers waiting outside on the sidewalk, not as unpleasant as it might have been, before the President's arrival. We wait, breathing in the scent of green. We are standing there when a butterfly flits down Main Street followed by Syoon, who appears to be chasing it, laughing out of the frown of her mouth.

We were enchanted to see Syoon, the prettiest of all our ugly children, loping down Main Street, her moon-fish face, perpetually turned upward, now turned upward at the violet butterfly, which flitted just out of reach of the small fingers she lifted overhead, not understanding that the allure of the butterfly is lost once captured. How could she understand? Syoon, like all the children, had never seen a butterfly.

We watched this glorious thing, transfixed by the memory of a time when this was almost a rite of passage, admittedly for three-year-olds, rather than children Syoon's age, who, we later determined, was about fifteen. By the time she was on the hill, it was too late. Even from a distance we could see the small black dots that were the guards descend on her, and though we shouted, she was taken into the mansion by a swarm of them, swallowed by an open door which then was shut.

For a long time we heard nothing from, or about, our Syoon, which decidedly set a pall over the optimism we'd been feeling since the President's arrival. Then, one day, every residence, be it hovel or better, received a hand-delivered invitation to the Maulkey Mansion. The President was getting married. To Syoon!

Years ago we built trenches beside our houses because we had learned, through the saddest of educations, that when bombs fell it was best to divide our families. Neighbor children and our own crouched in each other's ditches. In this way no entire family was destroyed. This is the terrible mathematics of war. So, when we opened the pretty cream-colored invitations (tied with gold ribbon) and read the beautiful script of Syoon's name, all of us rejoiced for our daughter whose lineage, through a childhood of explosions and ditch-hopping, was uncertain. All through town there was cheering and celebration, only occasionally pierced by Chila's mournful braying, the cry as dark as night and as sad as life, though we found that if we closed the windows, and cheered very loudly, we could drown him out. This worked for much of that day of celebration, until we took to our beds. In the steely air of our closed rooms we listened to Chila's screams, his despair reminding us of something we had once known and could not name, something buried inside, tucked beneath ribs, or smothered by the heart. On that, the happiest day of our lives, we cried ourselves to sleep and dreamt of the time before the war, when we, too, mourned for what was taken from us, as if the taking was a shock from which we could never recover.

Morning came and with it we were returned to our vigor. We opened windows and took great gulps of the blue sky, we smiled at the silence; at last Chila had fallen asleep or lost his voice or taken the pills we all carried for when things got too bad (though we surprised ourselves and discovered we could live, with few expectations or dreams, settling for the worst of everything, finally rewarded by this day when the green was returned to us, leaves unfurled, grass or something like it no longer suppressed, and one of our own daughters marrying the most powerful person in the world).

We sewed new outfits for our children, stitched around the growing limbs and disturbing sexualities which we had not, until then, bothered to bind in any way. We took those who needed, who we even suspected needed, to the abortionist and, when we discovered she could perform an operation for sterility we chose that. Why hadn't we thought of it sooner? It had been years since we even considered the possibilities of reproduction. Since the war, anyone who gave birth to a deformed child was automatically sterilized. We had not been thinking of our children as sexual creatures. We put the abortionist on the list of things to do between haircuts and manicures, there was no possibility any of them could be parents and there was no way we would do the job for them. We were so tired by that point.

Chila continued his mournful braying. We came to think of him as Foghorn, though the horrible sound told us nothing about the weather, and dreadfully much about his sorrow, which reigned at all hours, dark and lonely, a sound we slept and woke to, a sound that accompanied our shopping, our chores, the dreary business of our lives, always reminding us of the other side of joy, a fact we did not appreciate.

We begged Chila to stop. We bribed him with homemade cabbage soup, which he took (the cheater) and destroyed in the area of his mouth. We bribed him with our daughters who came eagerly in giggles and bows, the preservation of their sterility assured; he took them as well, in angry embrace, and we heard the rutting noise of his pleasure, the heavy snore afterward, and understood that an agreement had been made until he awoke and once again returned to his wailing. Eventually we gave up on Chila. We grew used to the sound. Sometimes, when he slept, we even missed the foghorn.

At last, the wedding day arrived. The town swarmed with reporters and photographers. We were all interviewed, even Chila, though no one understood what he was trying to say, his voice hoarse, his words punctuated with sobs. At twelve o’ clock we left the sobbing Chila, and the media, in the street, staring at us as if we were something special, and walked up the hill, guiding our wayward children with their extra limbs trying to take them in various directions. We carried diaper bags decorated with bows and painted with flowers, occasionally stopping to smooth a wrinkle in our best clothes, to adjust the uncomfortable straps of our best shoes, to wipe our children's drool, readjust their hair. The photographers aimed their long lenses at us. There were so many of them that they sounded like gunfire, which was unfortunate. We carried our cream and gold invitations in our hot hands. We breathed in the increasingly heady perfume of flowers and grass and dirt, we pointed to the birds, gasped at the dragonflies.

Long strips of white ribbon fluttered in the afternoon breeze as if the gates, the house, the trees were gift-wrapped, and in a way they were. The suits waved their weapon detectors over us, their expressions disgusted; we tried to hold our children still, we fed them cereal to distract them from the trees, the grass, the birds, all those flowers, and a fountain of water flowing there, as ordinary as sky, all of it decorated with white ribbons which fluttered in the wind like tattered ghosts.

In spite of all the accouterments of festivity, many of us recall a vague feeling of unease, though it is difficult to know if this is recollection, or memory tainted by what followed. I, personally, recall staring at those white ribbons fluttering in the wind and being filled with dread. This was not unusual in itself. Many of us adults, survivors of the war, had suffered the experience of emotions not tied to surroundings. The Doctors called these occurrences flashbacks. We called them ghosts. A popped bubble becomes the shot that killed a mother, a whiff of cinnamon becomes the morning the first bombs fell, a white ribbon flapping in the wind becomes a wounded spouse in an old dress shirt, whose wife dares not come out of hiding to save him, for risk of being shot herself. The coward.

The guards move through the crowd searching bodies, invading orifices with one hand while offering trays of appetizers with the other. Our children, dressed in the best we could manage, register nothing of this abuse on their happy faces. They gurgle and drool and even squirm with inappropriate delight at the invasive touch while shoving cheese rolls and herring crackers into their many mouths. The guards, dressed in tuxedos, look like cockroaches scuttling amongst us. The birds sing, the windchimes tinkle, the water fountain gurgles, the ribbons flap in the wind, and the President's mother (is it her? Is it possible, after all these years?) stands in the doorway of the mansion, her white hair haloed around her little head so that she looks like a human Q-tip. We are silenced when she raises her tiny shrunken hand and speaks in her ancient voice. “We are so happy to have you here. Please come inside for the ceremony. God bless our President, and God bless our country."

For a moment we are silent, then we cheer, though anyone listening closely could discern the nature of our response, a cheer of longing, rather than support, the difference between funeral bells and wedding ones, though the same bells ring for both.

Our children tumble and roll toward the doorway. We follow them into the mansion where the President's mother leads us into a room decorated with white flowers, garlands on the ceiling, and great bouquets in front of the altar. Each chair, in the many rows of red chairs, festooned with the ghostly blooms. When things got really bad and all the green had been destroyed, we lived in a place of these colors. Those red chairs and white flowers remind us, for a moment, of that time of blood and bone. Yet, there is beautiful music and one of our own is about to marry the President. Even our children were subdued by the enormity of it all. The room grew quiet. Well, it had been a long time since we'd heard music, some of the children never had. We think it was a flute.

We sat in silence, listening to the flute, breathing in the scent of unknown flowers, surrounded by tuxedoed security. A religious leader of some kind came to the front, standing before the altar in a gold robe. The President's mother sat in a great chair facing all of us, bowing under the apparent weight of her Q-tip head. After all the build-up it seemed that it began suddenly. Suddenly there were young women coming down the aisle, tossing white flowers at us (they fell softly, like feathers, and without a sound, but still, we flinched). Later we realized that all these females were wives of the President, each more beautiful than the other. Then the President came, walking down the aisle in his suit of war medals, waving at us as though in a parade, stopping to kiss his mother's cheek (she raised her heavy head to squint at him before she fell asleep again), and as he turned to face us, his demeanor boyish, his eyes twinkling, his mouth in dimpled grin, the music stopped. The silence would have been startling had there not been, just then, the faintest noise of Chila's foghorn rising up the hill. The President's eyes widened though he held his head still. We watched as his face changed from shadow to a beam, and we followed his gaze to Syoon, dressed in white lace, wreathed in foxglove, coming down the aisle, accompanied by the flute. In that moment when we gasped, and we all gasped, there was again that sound, perhaps just a little longer this time, and definitely a little closer. Chila. We fell to weeping, sobs of pretend joyous tears. We made the noise to protect Chila, though it did confuse our children who became quite distressed. They squirmed and blathered. Several of us noted the eye-rolling of security. Even the President's mother lifted her head to squint out at us. Did the flute grow louder? We think it did. Everything got louder. The further Syoon walked down the aisle, the more volume Chila's foghorn made, the louder we wept our false tears, the more noise our children made, while the President's mother glared, the security guards rolled their eyes, and the President, his war medals glimmering in the light of wedding candles, smiled at his bride, who turned toward Chila's sound, which now seemed suspiciously close. Not all our noise, the noise of the children, or the raised volume of flute could drown out his mournful cry. Slowly, with great reluctance, we looked at the President, who no longer beamed like a lighthouse in the storm.

(Oh Green, How We Taste Your Bitter Shoots, Rooted in the Dark.)

The security guards moved to guide Syoon toward the glowering President. She looked at him, we hope for the first time in this cowering position, and began walking forward.

Chila's foghorn sang its terrible note, this time quite near.

Of course there had been other wars and we followed them on the TV and Internet, but then war seemed like a distant planet. We maintained our belief in love, until war came to our town, and love grew a shape we had never imagined. Here we were, in the President's chapel, watching his guards walk Syoon down the aisle, tears streaming down her face, as the President grimly stood waiting. Chila's foghorn, quite near now, brayed again but was ominously cut off. Our distressed children were braying, and moaning; we tried to shush them, and hold them back, as they pushed their way past, and at that point, just when it seemed they were in general revolt, shots rang out.

Of course we knew the President's people were capable of shooting our children, shooting us. What had we been thinking, anyway, to come here as guests? The shots rang out, and for a moment, everything stopped. No one moved. No one made a sound. This moment was followed by terror. We looked at our children, we looked at each other, looking, looking even as we checked the doors, guarded by security, while suits scurried amongst us, swiftly. They knew before we did that the President was shot. They tackled Syoon to the ground, like the football players of our youth (Oh Green, How We Love Your Stain), wrenching from her small, misshapen hand the gun.

Syoon? Our Syoon, an assassin? How was it possible, she, who was the promise of the new generation, the beauty, the charm, the one amongst all the rest who had a chance at a normal life? Or so we thought. It is incredible what people believe, in order to fool themselves about the world they live in. As they tackled Syoon, and wrestled the gun from her small hand, she called Chila's name, over and over again.

We thought we were guests at the wedding, but must accept that we were complicit with her captors. Had we not come to the captor's house? Had we not eaten his food? Had we not smiled at Syoon as she came so unwillingly down the aisle? What had we been thinking? Even now, in the spirit of understanding, we do not really understand, we only know that we are misshapen in ways we had never imagined. When did we become our own ghosts, shadows of what we once believed in, heartless, barren?

The President survived, of course. The wound was not serious, but his capacity to show the world his resolve for peace by marrying Syoon was shattered by her bullet. In fact, he never returned after his short convalescence, but continued on his book tour, and though we were sorry to see the trees, flowers, and fountains carted off, the mansion demolished, we were not sorry to see him go.

We protested the hanging by staying home. We shut our doors, and tried to distract our children, who seemed to sense what was happening, or perhaps we just imagined that their keening had anything to do with us. Still, we could hear the fanfare, the band (they brought in from who-knows-where) playing, the speeches delivered to a bussed-in crowd. We filled the sippy cups, and looked out the windows, to the east, the west, the north, the south, searching, searching first the faces in the windows of the other houses, and then the horizon. We did not know, until we heard the unmistakable sound of the trapdoor drop, what we had been looking for. Chila. We had been looking for Chila to come riding in on a horse, or running down the road on his magnificent legs. We expected Chila, somehow, Chila who was probably dead since the wedding day, we thought Chila would come and save Syoon. We did.

It didn't come true, of course, but that isn't the point, after all.

We have worked hard at making strangers comfortable in our community, made infamous first, all that time ago, by the small militia that had assembled amongst us, followed by the war, and then the assassination attempt here, and also, the strangeness of our population, the way we let our “children” (indisputably grown now) make families in whatever fashion, by whatever whim they desire. Strangers who do dare to come here, often comment on the surprising kindness of our town.

We ask our children's forgiveness, but they are so busy (coupling everywhere, at any time of day or night, in places both public and private) that they never seem to have the time to answer us. Besides, where should forgiveness reside? Often, at night, just before sleep comes and we are taken to memories too horrible for light, we think of Syoon's bloated silhouette, hanging forever, and while there is much to focus on in the nasty dregs of the lives we made from war, when we think of Syoon, we remember that moment before, when we looked at the vast horizon, searching for something we thought we no longer believed in (Oh Green, How Impossible Your Heart), and we smile, even as the rope twists tighter, we smile.

By the year 3535, there appeared to be no space hazard with which Ferdinand Feghoot was unprepared to cope. He had been asked to establish Federation contact with the planet Adamantine III, which meant traversing the infamous Diamond Belt. This spherical so-called “Belt” lay outside the planet's orbit, with every declination filled with orbiting low-quality diamond debris of varying sizes. Their vast number overwhelmed the capacity of even the most advanced super-computers of the day to navigate, and their extraordinary hardness, jagged edges, and varying masses played havoc with hull integrity. The Belt was the graveyard of many foolhardy expeditions that had gone before.

"How can you think of attempting such an absurdly hazardous crossing!” his crew complained, on the point of mutiny. “It would take paranormal powers to find a way through this mess!"

With steely determination and cool aplomb, Feghoot replied, “I took the precaution of including in the crew an inhabitant of the planet Capernium. As you know, these goat-like beings are renowned for their truly amazing powers of second sight."

"But how did you get him to agree to come?"

"Simple,” said Feghoot, “Like humans, the Capernians no longer have fur, and, due to the anti-hunting laws of that world, are denied the best defense against the piercingly cold winters there. I have promised to provide, at Federation expense, a vast quantity of artificial furs for him and his people."

"Do you really think he's up to the task?” they protested.

"Of course,” said Feghoot irritably, “You can always get through diamond space with fur-denied fey goat!"

(Compliments of Ron Partridge)

During my summer years, I worked eight weeks as a camp counselor, then joined my parents for a brief vacation in a small village in Michigan. Nearby Northport had two grocery stores and a pharmacy. Each time a parent headed to Northport, I'd hop in, hoping that the anniversary edition of F&SF had shown up. This was my closing ritual of the summer: the rocky beach, the bone-deep cold water, and several hundred expansive pages.—Charles Oberndorf

She says, Tell me about your first death.

After all these years she should be familiar with its details, but age seems to have erased the particulars that never interested her, so I remind her of the outline of events.

No, she says. I meant what it was like when you woke up?

She's lying in her bed, and I've pulled up a chair to sit by her side. I say something like:

I opened my eyes, and there on the ceiling were shades of blues and yellows. You know how I usually don't have a good memory for colors, but I took a psych test when I enlisted, and they told me those were the colors that would calm me when I woke up. I do remember lake water lapping the shore, the sounds of the birds I'd grown up with, because it was odd to hear them in this enclosed room. I expected the sound of the water to actually be the reverberation of a ventilation fan.

I sat up, but discovered I couldn't. There was a nurse beside me, and she was explaining something. I don't remember what she said. I just knew she wasn't the same nurse who'd sat me down in the chair and placed gear around my head. I think I liked this one more. Her voice was calm, but it drifted around me along with the sounds of lake water. I was lying down, but I'd just been in a chair. The other nurse, the one I didn't like, the one who had placed the gear around my head, had told me to relax. I'd closed my eyes. While I was unconscious, they had mapped my neural network. Now, awake, I should get up out of that chair and head over to the next bulkhead to the tavern we liked, to the Wake, where I'd arranged to meet Noriko.

Ah, Noriko, she says. There's an edge to her voice, though you'd have to know her well to hear it. After all these years, the name Noriko still inspires an edge to her voice.

I say, I can tell another story.

No, she says. You only told me about Noriko when we were first together. And that was a long time ago.

This is also about when I met Amanda Sam.

Don't be evasive. I'm too old for these games.

So I lay there in this unexpected reality. Of course, someone must have told me if you wake up sitting up, then you're waking up right after they've completed the recording. If you wake up lying down, you died, and they've grown a new body and shaped your mind using the patterns of your last recorded neuromap. But I didn't remember anyone telling me this, and maybe this was what the nurse was whispering to me, but it was my first death, and all I felt was panic and confusion.

I wasn't in the body that had been sitting in the chair, the body that would wake up, walk down the corridor, cross a bulkhead, and head two levels up to the Wake, where I'd meet Noriko. I wasn't in the body that was scheduled to spend two more days’ R&R on Haven before it boarded a troop carrier for the war zone.

Worse, if I had died in battle, I should be in a ward with other newborns, the other soldiers who'd died with me. But I was in a private ward with what appeared to be civilian nurses. Had I died so heroically that I had received some special discharge? Or had I made such a fatal mistake that I couldn't even be reborn among my peers? I asked the nurses all sorts of questions. A nurse on one shift, let's say the morning shift, said, I can't talk about the war. It will just upset you. The afternoon-shift nurse said, No one tells us who pays for the treatment or the room. The night-shift nurse said, Maybe the money is coming out of your own account.

Of course, that was impossible. When I enlisted, I had been as poor as a miner without oxygen. The sign-up bonus had gone to pay off family debt.

The nurses taught me to sit up and helped me make my first steps. I learned how to gesture with my hands without knocking over cups of coffee. I imagined what it must be like in the ward among the soldiers, the taunts and the insults at each misstep, all of that making it less frustrating. And at some point, some captain or lieutenant, or maybe even some lowly sergeant, would come by and update us on the status of the war and announce who would go back and who had died the requisite third time and would be offered the honorable discharge plus bonus.

But one nurse, one day, while helping me sit in a machine that worked my leg muscles, said, mostly in exasperation, “There is no ward of newborns. You're the only one right now. That's why you got so many nurses. We're bored."

Depression weighed my every thought. I'd imagined that Noriko had died with me, that she would have been among the newborn. I imagined finding her and making sure she understood that whatever I'd done wrong, whatever had caused our deaths, I hadn't meant it.

What exactly did you two have? she asks. How long had you been together?

I hesitate. I have been with this woman for several lifetimes. In our last lifetime together, I waited until I turned fifty before I decided it was time to start over in the body of a twenty-five-year-old. She said, I've lived a few more lives than you. I feel I've seen enough. This time I want to see things through to the end. She said she would like to spend those remaining years with me, growing old together, but I did not believe her. Our lives were so fraught with our time together: nouns weighted with multiple meanings, verbs sharpened by the years; we were best off, when the mood was right, with incomplete sentences that the other would finish with an automatic goodwill that was also born of all our time together.

After she left me, I died in an orbital collision, and insurance paid for the rebirth into a twenty-year-old body. My current body is thirty-five; she's eighty-five. My answer to her question—How long had you been together?—now embarrasses me.

At this distance, it's so hard to imagine how I felt. It was my first life. It was so new to me. I'd only known Noriko for three, maybe it was four days. Five at the most.

Five days? That's all? How did you meet?

Two different units had been shipped to Haven. One unit was full of youths fresh out of training; the other unit had seen battle, probably several times. I hadn't made any close friends during training. Everyone else had been so enthusiastic, and I had just barely made it through. I didn't know what to do with myself, so I wandered. It's funny how little of Haven I remember after all the time I spent wandering it. Way Stations are so different and so homogenous—they have the cultural trappings of the locals, but there's always entertainment after entertainment, gymnasium after gymnasium, tavern after tavern.

I went into the Wake by accident. Most people in my unit didn't even know what the name meant. Where I grew up, the expense of a funeral was the same as a month or two of pay, but whatever a funeral cost, a new life cost a hundred times more. My parents were now past fifty and had both decided that it was too late for another new life. They were paying off my brother's second new life. He was now mining in the asteroids to pay off his first. He had been a woman the second time around, gave birth to two kids, and was in debt from the advance trusts; he was paying for them in case his children died while raising their own children. My sister was on her third life, and she had established some new financial network in some distant solar system and we never heard from her. I was the baby of the family, the one my parents welcomed to their world after their circumstances forced them to take low-paying work that bought bread but no meat, that paid rent, but no heating. With children and grandchildren, they didn't want to do risky things that paid off debt and built up savings for your next life—no wars, no world building, no mining. So I'd been to some wakes, and I'd liked the name of the tavern, and there inside was the bar itself, shaped like a long casket, shiny dark wood, but with a flat surface. I thought it was amusing.

I don't remember what they called fresh recruits. Whatever it was, Newbie, or Sprout, or something vulgar, there was this table of boisterous men and women, and they called me over. There was something about them that communicated experience, a certainty to the way they held themselves, even though they were clearly a bit tipsy. I was sure they were talking to someone else. “No, you!” one of them called. He pointed to the young woman next to him. “She thinks you're worthy.” She glared at him. I'd grown up with that game: the older kid calling you over just to make sure he could put you in your place before an audience of his peers. I think I made it to the bar. I think I bought a drink for the woman sitting next to me. I remember her saying to me, “So who do you think is cuter, the soldier girl or me?"

The soldier girl was at my side and took me by the elbow and muttered, “You need combat pay first before you can afford her."

"Or him!” the guy at the table said.

Of course, who knows if that happened? Maybe I invented that part to explain what came later. Maybe I just went over to the table, happy that someone was interested in me. I remember staring at soldier girl when she was busy talking to the others. Like all the others, her hair was cut short, and her tunic was tight enough to suggest that like many reborn female soldiers, she'd opted to do without breasts in this life. She sat quietly when she listened, but when she spoke, she leaned forward, waved her hands, made a point of directing conversation away from her or me.

I remember a lot of laughing. Whenever they asked me questions, I felt like an adolescent answering adults. Where I was from, why I enlisted. I told them I wanted to see more of the universe, and I wouldn't be able to do that where I'd grown up. I felt like the soldier girl, whose name was Noriko, was looking right through me, that she'd guessed the accumulated debt that weighed my family down as if they lived deep in the atmosphere of some gas giant.

At some point she wrapped her arm through mine. Later she pressed her thigh against mine. I had grown up in a conservative place; no girl had ever treated me like this, and I felt both excited and unworthy. We left the Wake as a group—I have a memory of the girl at the bar lifting her hand, her fingers dancing, a gesture of farewell—and I was certain my military companions would soon be rid of me. But we continued walking to where they were quartered, and the group had started to joke with Noriko, swearing they wouldn't look, that they'd cover up their ears.

Noriko just shook her head as if everyone else was just too adolescent for her. At the Wake, she'd made me place my left pinky in some device that she'd held under the table. Now she handed something to one of her buddies. “Use this to check him in,” she said. She asked me where I was quartered. Then she handed something to another one. “And this will check me in. We're going elsewhere."

Later I found out that as long as you pretended to check in they didn't care much what you did on Haven. The people on Haven needed to make money so that there would be a Haven to return to. I didn't know this. I felt the thrill of the forbidden as she made her way to a different level, a different bulkhead. She signed us into a room, closed the door, and turned to me. I remember her looking at me for a moment before saying, “You have to take some of the initiative.” So I kissed her, and I clumsily undressed her. At some point, probably after it was over—I picture her lying next to me naked—she looked at me and said, “This is your first time, isn't it?” She said it sweetly, and years later I wondered if that is exactly what she had wanted. But back then I was frozen. I knew I'd been a horrible lover and I didn't know if it was worse to answer yes or no.

She kissed me. “We only got a few days, so I hope you aren't the type who hates getting advice."

Right now, you can look at me and tell me there was a kind of expediency. She was back from the front and wanted to absorb as much life into her body as she could before going back out. While I kept waiting for her to change her mind about me, we avoided her friends, we sampled her favorite dishes at restaurants she'd visited before, we strolled through the park she liked, and sat holding hands staring at the distant sun which Haven orbited, and the closer gas giants whose moons were the source of contention. “I can't wait to go back,” she said, and her hand squeezed mine. I remember it as if it were a gesture of great intimacy and trust. “And I truly dread going back."

I was eager to get back to the guesthouse room with her, whether it was in the morning or afternoon or night. Everything was new, whether it was giving a naked woman a back rub or the intimacy of listening to her pee while I waited in bed. I had so much wanted to hold a woman's breasts, and there were no breasts to hold. Noriko had kept female-sized nipples, and she directed my attention there. “I'll streamline my body,” she'd said, “but I won't streamline my pleasure."

At night, in the dark, she told me the kind of things she wouldn't say during the day. She liked combat. She liked the thrill and fear of dying. She liked the constant test of herself: “Should I save a comrade in trouble or press on with the mission or run for my life? I actually like coming back to life. I hate that I can't remember the last battle or two. I like that I don't have to remember dying. I like the way my body yearns for sex.” She touched my chest or took hold of my penis when she said things like that, as if to remind me of my role in things. “You'd think, you know, being around for as long as I have, I wouldn't be interested anymore. And you'd think that it being the same genes, and the same memories, my desires would be the same. But sometimes I wake up and just want main-course sex, and sometimes I want gourmet sex, and sometimes I want to be really rough. My last life I was with this guy and I was really into anal sex. Now I'm getting a kick out of oral sex.” I remember the way she kissed me right then. “You have a perfect mouth,” she said.

You're gloating, she says.

Maybe I am, I reply. I'm sorry.

I remember how often we talked about her. Our first trip together. It was the rings of Saturn tour, right? And ever since I've felt like I had to live up to her. I don't think I realized until now that you guys were only together for a few days.

Shall we talk about something else? I ask. I don't correct her about the rings of Saturn tour.

I sit here and feel an enormous guilt. We haven't seen each other for a long time. I had some extra money because of a business venture that, for once, went right, and I decided to travel out to this world, to fly to the regional capital, to take train after train to the extended forest where she now lives much like a hermit with books, all of them written before the start of the human diaspora.

I have been there for almost a week. The first days I was sick with sensory deprivation: abruptly living alone in just my head, with only the sounds of the world around me. Now that I've recovered, she takes me for walks, slow walks, where once she'd been the one to keep a terrible headlong pace. She points out birds, the scurry of animals; she bids me to listen for sounds I haven't listened for since I grew up by the lakes of my homeworld. At night I cook her favorite suppers, and we talk about people we've known and trips we've taken, living off the accumulated interest of her last name. She's started to forget events of our last lifetime together, and we talked more of our early adventures. Early on, I recommended medicines that would make her neurons supple just as the injections kept her joints pain-free and flexible. She said, “I don't like pain. I don't mind fading away.” Exhausted after our walks, she lies in bed once we finish supper, and we talk until she falls asleep. I sit there and listen to her breathe, her occasional murmur of a snore, and I wonder why I have come here. Was it to ask her to reconsider, to chose another life and rejoin me? We traveled so well together; we sat together so poorly when in chairs that moved only with the velocity of the planets where we had settled.

Now, we're both awake, I sit in the chair next to her bed, and I've asked her if I should change the subject. She extends her hand and places it on my knee. No, she says. I think I should have listened more carefully the first time. I listen more these days. I hear so few voices. And I think you tell things better these days. I've always liked you best when you were over thirty-five. So, it sounds to me like you were just a tool for Noriko's pleasure.

That was my biggest fear, that I might not truly exist for her beyond her pleasure. But one night, or I think it was at night, it could have been in the morning, she had a powerful orgasm where she seemed to shake to pieces right under me. I remember what she said afterwards. “I hope I survive the next two battles. Then I'll be back at Haven, and this moment will become one of my permanent memories. But if I die this time out, I'll come back to life, and it'll be as if you never existed."

In the gym, I felt like I was her mirror image, with all that's insubstantial about an image in the mirror. I knew exactly how to hit back a ball so she'd return it, exactly what moves to make when we wrestled, exactly how to move with her when we practiced duck and glide. “We work so well together,” she said. “I mean here in the gym. Maybe we should register as comrades-in-arms.” And I thought, if we die, we'll die together, and we'll be reborn together. We will have forgotten how we met, but we'll know we belong together.

That's why I hated those missing two days, the two days after the neuromap, the two days before I was shipped off to battle. I would have found out if she'd truly meant those words. It sounds sickly-sweet now, but I wanted to know if we'd faced things side by side.

My recovery progressed quickly. The morning-shift nurse said I should start walking through Haven. She gave me a set of clothes, leg-braces, and a cane. Once outside in the corridors I found the first public dataport and placed the tip of my left pinky against the circle. There was a delay. The pinky of my newborn body didn't have the same fingerprint as belonged to my previous body, but it had the same DNA, and one set of records had to align with the other. For a moment, I thought the old bank records wouldn't be found, that my entire past would disappear, but soon numbers layered like bricks appeared. I had some leftover money from my last visit in Haven, enough to buy a few meals and a few drinks at the Wake. If the military had paid me for my services, there was no record of it here.

Okay. And how long ago had I spent the shore-leave money they had given us when we first docked with Haven? It took me a while since Haven went by local calendar rather than the federal calendar. I checked for the day of my last transaction, which had been four beers at the Wake the night before I was set to leave. I would never know with certainty with whom I had those beers, but it was six months ago. In those days it took a month to grow a body, so I must have died five months after I left Haven. How much had happened in those five months?

I walked for a bit, well, walking, then resting, all over Haven. One of the few things I remember now, benches in little niches with plants and the sound of a nearby forest or sea. I ended up at the Wake.

It was a slow night. I sat coffin-like, drinking something; maybe it was sake (even though I never really liked sake) because that's what Noriko and I drank together. The bartender seemed to avoid my gaze, and my glass sat out for a long time before he poured another.

"Not friendly tonight,” I said to the guy next to me who ran a lunchroom one bulkhead over.

"There's hardly any business,” the guy said. “We're all getting antsy.” I told him the date I had shipped out, and he said there had been a rash of rebirths about a month after that. But it had been quiet since then. There had been a unit of newbies, and several units for shore leave, but no new casualties for a while. “Usually they wait until they have two units’ worth, enough to fill a ship. You don't want to pay for quartering people longer than you have to."

A woman spoke my name and slipped her arm through mine. She was pale with red hair, and her green eyes gave her an alien look. I don't think I'd seen green eyes before. She looked at me so intently. The way I remember it, this is the woman I bought the drink for the night I met Noriko, but, as I said, I've begun to wonder if I made that up later, that maybe this was the first time I actually met her. “Let me buy you a drink,” she said.

I was protesting while the barman poured me another sake. Her hand very tenderly wrapped my hand, and just by touch she guided me to a booth. She sat down and slid over. She patted the space next to her. “Sit next to me, handsome."

Only my mother had ever complimented my looks, so I became wary. I sat down opposite her.

She tilted her head, and I felt the disappointment registering in her green eyes. At first I felt like I'd let her down; then I felt like things hadn't gone as she'd planned. I didn't know which reaction to trust.

"You don't remember,” she said.

I tried. She looked at me like I should remember more than buying her a drink.

"Your friend and you."

"Noriko?"

"Yes. You and Noriko. We spent a whole night together."

Once while in bed Noriko had asked me my fantasies. After I had told her, she took firm hold of my penis. “This is what I like, and I don't share,” she said. Right then I knew this pale-skinned woman with red hair was conning me.

"You don't remember. We met too late. We met after your neuromap. And you're walking a little funny. Poor you, a new life.” She took my hand and again called me by name. I wanted to pull my hand away, but I liked the comfort of it after how-ever-many nights it had been sleeping alone in my private bed, my only company being therapy machines and the nurses who brought my food, the physical contact of the professional hand that never lingered, the touch that was never too light, that never grazed a nerve that mattered. “My name's Amanda Sam. And I want you to know that the two of you spent a very lovely night with me."

She was holding my hand, and I couldn't work up the courage to tell her I didn't trust her.

"We met in this tavern. You and soldier girl were seated in that booth over there.” She pointed at the other side of the bar, and it was the booth where Noriko and I usually sat. Noriko and I had gravitated toward it, the booth where we'd first sat together. But Amanda Sam could have learned that just by watching us. “You two looked like it had been a bad day. It was a slow night and I decided to join you guys. I asked what was wrong."

"Noriko wouldn't say,” I said.

"And she didn't. I told the two of you that I like working with couples who are going through a quiet phase. I offer the extra spark."

"I'm not sure Noriko is the type who would want the extra spark."

"Don't be sure,” she said. She was caressing my hand rather than just holding it, her fingertips every now and then sailing up along my forearm. Noriko had been a straightforward lover; every action and physical sensation had a utilitarian purpose in her pleasure. Only once, when Noriko had thought I was asleep, had her fingers traced the contours of my face. “I've been here for a while. I've seen her before. She does have a life or two extra under her belt, where you've got that innocence that some women find very attractive. I find it very attractive. I just want to take you into my arms and tell you everything will be okay. But, you know, hon, it is still innocence. A woman like Noriko, she might also want a spark."

I was sure she was manipulating me, but she was right, also. Maybe Noriko wanted more. I had given Noriko precisely what she asked for, and I measured the results by the way she clung to me. But there were those silences. Maybe she wanted more than she knew to ask for. The one time she'd caressed my face when she thought I was sleeping, I'd wanted to ask her to do that more often, but I never did.

And now Amanda Sam was talking about Noriko herself, how she sat at the table, taut, like a soldier, or a weapon waiting to be used, and how she was in bed, like coiled energy released. And maybe there was a gleam in Amanda Sam's eye, the gleam of the gambler who's just seen her opening gambit work, but maybe I'm adding that now, because she was describing the Noriko I knew.

"But,” I said, and I remember how hard it was to say outright, partly because of the way I'd been raised, partly I wanted it clear that I still didn't trust her. It took me a while to explain how Noriko wasn't interested in women or in sharing me with another woman.

"Oh, honey,” she said. She leaned forward and kissed me on the lips. Then looked at me with her green eyes. “I'm Amanda Sam. I was Amanda with you and Sam with her."

I pictured the events of that night, events that might or might not have happened. It was all too much. I made excuses: I had to return to the hospital; I had yet to be discharged. Amanda Sam accompanied me, her arm gently wrapped around mine. “I know it must be hard for you,” she said. “I would offer to stay with you, but it's illegal in a hospital."

When the night-shift nurse saw Amanda Sam at my side, she glared at me and said nothing. Only at that point did I realize that Amanda Sam was a prostitute. I'm not sure when I understood she was a hermaphrodite.

She says, I don't remember that you ever told me this.

I told you about Amanda Sam, but you never wanted to hear the details.

You know, for some reason, I thought you'd met Amanda Sam first. I think I'd come to believe that Noriko had helped you get over what happened with Amanda Sam. Maybe that's why I thought you'd loved Noriko so much. Or maybe that's what I needed to think so I could fall in love with you. Tell me what happened next.

I think I was discharged from the hospital the next day, but that may have not been the case. Whenever they discharged me, they updated the chip in my pinky. Three nights paid for at a guesthouse, a set per diem for four days, and passage on a ship home, well, three ships with two connections. All I could picture was three months while I went out of my mind, not knowing how I would tell my family that I had no idea what had happened to me nor why I'd lost out on the opportunity to die three times and bring home desperately needed funds.

I found a niche with library capacity, but Haven lies in a sector where they consider wartime censorship to be patriotic. There was no news on any battles, so I couldn't find out how I might have died. I had begun to wonder if something stupid had killed me: a fall from a ladder, a strange electrocution while installing equipment, or the terrible aim of my comrades. But if I'd died from any of those embarrassments, they would have revived me, wouldn't they? Would any of that have disqualified me from future battles?

I decided to get something quiet, a book, I decided, and I read like I hadn't read since I was in my early teens, and I sat in the hospital foodstop, and I moved around, trying to sit as close to nurses as I could, and I listened, hoping someone would say something about a group of newborns. After dinner I returned to my room, cleaned up, and went to the Wake.

There were a few people in booths. The bartender poured me a beer, then ignored me. Amanda Sam wasn't there, and two beers later, she was. I bought her a drink. She asked me a lot of questions. She sympathized. “I know what it's like,” she said, “when you start with so little.” Her first life she'd been a woman and had been taken advantage of so many times that she decided to charge men for that particular pleasure. “I'm not the soldier type. I don't want to get killed to start fresh. But there's a demand for people like me who make anything possible, and so the people who paid for your new life paid for mine."

I remember sitting stunned. With Noriko I'd experienced sex as glorious exercise and passionate language and had dreamed that it might one day be religious communion.

She talked as if sex were an economic transaction, just like any other human interaction.

I told her she was wrong.

She smiled, bemused. Noriko had looked that way when I'd told her my plans for the future. “Look,” Amanda Sam said. “I gotta go. If you want to talk some more, I'll be back in an hour and a half, two hours at the most."

She slipped off the stool, and she walked out of the tavern. I watched the fabric waver around her butt, and I thought that she couldn't be a man at all. The bartender poured me another beer and looked at me like I was a fool, but he didn't say anything. I thought of Noriko and decided to leave.

The next morning I felt like I didn't have much time left. I walked all the way to the spaceport since I didn't want to spend money on transport. After conversing with several machines and one human who looked like his life was answering simple questions a machine wouldn't answer—it's funny how he's one of the few people from then that I can actually picture in my mind, but maybe I'm making him up—I found out that the ticket was military issue. Around here, the military did the bulk of the business, so the value of the ticket was a third of what it would have cost if I'd booked the passage as a civilian.

I tried to find an employment office, but there wasn't one. Turned out everyone on Haven pretty much got work here from one military connection or another; the tavern and guesthouse owners all had their three deaths and bonuses, and all the staff and medical people had at least one military death behind them, and the prostitutes seemed to have come here from other military outposts. There was no enlistment office, but I found some offices representing the military, but one office turned out to be in charge of requisitions, another turned out to handle quartering, another salary disbursements. I finally found someone in some office, troop transportation, maybe, and he said he'd look up my records. He tried several different places, squeezed the bridge of his nose, and faced me with a smile. “I don't know how you got here,” he said, “because according to this you never joined the military."

"Is there any reason my name would disappear?"

"I don't know. Maybe if you were a spy. I think we'd get rid of your name if you were a traitor, too."

So maybe I had signed up to do some special work. Was my existence here an accident while the real me was off somewhere with Noriko discovering something important? Or had I been captured in battle, tortured, and the military thought I'd given up vital information? Why would they pay for a new body, for my rebirth, if I'd given up vital information? Maybe this forced exile was their way of punishing me for my coerced betrayal.

At the hospital foodstop, I was joined by a doctor who so much didn't want to sit alone that he'd join other loners. He'd died only once. He didn't know how, but he didn't want to die again. He had his combat pay, but no big bonus, but they needed medics at Haven and employed him. “Such is the story of a lot of people here. We couldn't do the three times. What's your story?"

He would sympathize with my situation. Maybe he'd have a connection or two. He'd find out what had happened. I told him the story. He shrugged, got up, and left.

I was so disconsolate that I was relieved when I got to the Wake and Amanda Sam asked me to buy her a drink. She drank brandy. A slow sip at a time. “It makes me happy. I just have to make sure I don't get too happy.” She asked me why I looked so bereft. She used that word, bereft, and I decided her first life had to have been more literate than I had first presumed.

I told her I must have done something terrible, but I didn't know what it was. I liked the comfort of the way she looked at me, the comfort of my hand in her two hands. I was going to tell her how badly I wanted to see Noriko, but some guy snuck up and gave her a big hug from behind. “You free, Amanda?” he asked.

I looked at him, a thin guy with a beard. He'd been down the bar, glancing this way. He'd pointed once at me, and the bartender had shook his head to one question, then shrugged to another.

"I'm sorry,” she said to me. “I gotta go.” She leaned forward and kissed me before rising. To the guy with the beard she said, “For you, honey, I'm always free. Am I seeing just you tonight?"

"No, Cynthia just called me. She had a change of heart. She said I should ask you home if I found you."

"Well, you have found me."

"Would your friend like to come with us?"

Amanda looked at me and gave the kind of smile I've always associated with rejection. “He's a friend, but not that kind of friend.” She leaned over to kiss me again. “Wait two hours, okay. Don't run out on me like you did last night."

I nursed a beer and worked up the nerve. I asked the bartender what the skinny guy had asked about me.

"He asked if you were a soldier on leave."

"And the second question?"

"If you worked for Amanda Sam."

I don't remember if I stewed for a while or if I left immediately. I imagined sitting at a booth in the Wake and talking to Amanda Sam when Noriko walked in. But why would Noriko care? After what I must have done. I spent hours thinking of everything wrong I'd done in my life and couldn't think of a thing that would have led me to this place in my life.

I returned to my room to avoid just those thoughts. I hid in a book; I lived in the book so I could hide. I don't even remember the knock. Maybe it was a chime or the sound of the sea. I just remember Amanda Sam standing at my door with a bottle of wine. She talked about the couple she'd been with. I don't remember what she said. I remember her saying that she felt like a prop that helped them act out their own pathologies. She told me how alone she was. Everyone here was ex-military or soon-to-be military. “I don't have a military bone in my body. I just get boned by the military."

At some point we had finished the wine, and I thought she'd leave, but instead we were kissing. I was thinking that any minute she was going to pull out of the embrace and ask for money. I think I was hoping she would because it would be such an easy way to put an end to what was happening. But she kept kissing me, and I drank kiss after kiss. And then one thing was leading to another.

And you're going to skip over what happened? she asks. She has rolled onto her side, and is looking at me beneath the glow of the lamplight. Her hand still rests on my thigh.

I say, You never liked talking about these kinds of details.

I am at the point in my life where this is more like hearing about the mating behavior of some strange animal. She says this and gives me this familiar smile. She's going to do something that I won't like but that will amuse her. Her hand moves up my thigh. She laughs, a cackle of a laugh; it would be an old-lady laugh but she laughed like this when we met (she was thirty) and she laughed like that in her next life which she started at twenty-five, and she laughed like that when she was reborn as a sixteen-year-old, after one of the neocancers had ravaged her body with leaking sores and she'd said she'd make it up to me though there was nothing to make up, nor was it a making up: the woman in the sixteen-year-old body felt like such a striking sex object that she withdrew from my every touch. Now, in her final old woman's body, she cackles and says, her voice full of sympathy, You're aroused.

I say, You're not making it easy to tell this story.

It's such a lonely story, she says. Why don't you cuddle with me?

I hesitate.

And she misinterprets my silence and turns off the light. She says, There, now you don't have to see my wrinkles. You can hear my voice and know it's me. Get undressed and cuddle with me.

I knock my knee against a bedpost, but finally I'm there. Her body feels bonier, more frail, and she pushes her back toward my chest. She has not removed her nightgown, but she places my hand over her breast. She says, I want you to feel my breast but not how it truly feels. I like this, just being close. Does this feel good? she asks and she gently rocks her hips.

I remember a night like this—I'm not sure when in our lives together it took place—but I think we were on some ship taking us somewhere. She told me how alone she felt. How she just wanted to be close. And we worked out this arrangement, this spooning together, my penis nested inside her, a sweet, low-electric connection while we talked. Now, with a quick touch of artificial moisture, we lie together in the dark as if the years apart had not existed at all.

Now, she says, stop telling me what you don't remember and tell me the details.

Well, I don't remember how her blouse came off, if I unbuttoned it or if she unbuttoned it while smiling impishly as she gauged my response. All I remember was staring at her naked breasts.

And that also causes me to remember something I forgot. Amanda Sam had always worn clothes that revealed or highlighted her breasts. Sometimes, when talking, she'd smile and look down and you'd have no choice but to follow her gaze. I was eager to hold and touch and kiss Amanda Sam's breasts, and I thought of Noriko's streamlined chest, her aroused nipples, and just the yearning for Amanda Sams's breasts made me feel a terrible guilt.

She says, I'm sure you got over the guilt.

I'm not sure I got over the guilt.

But Amanda Sam had to urge me on. “They're waiting for your attention.” She kissed me again. “I'm waiting for your attention. Soldier girl is gone, hon, I'm here."

I should tell her I loved her breasts but I had no right to them. But I also thought about how she'd come to my room, how she'd chosen me, and how I knew she was right, that I probably would never see Noriko again. I kissed her breasts. I worshiped her nipples. I only had worshipped Noriko's nipples and I thought there was only one way to pray before this altar. Amanda Sam directed my mouth and tongue in different ways, and I was surprised, even though it was obvious, that there were so many ways to go about this. Soon we were both naked, but she wore this little skirt thing. I knew what she was hiding, but I pretended that she was just wearing a skirt. I realized that when we kissed she never pressed herself against me.

She went down on me, and I thought after all my time with Noriko that I would last forever. But it was a new body and a new sensation to that body. Suddenly, after orgasm, Amanda Sam was a stranger. At that point, I was afraid. It was my turn to reciprocate. Or worse, sometimes, Noriko would just want to lie back and talk, and I had nothing to say to Amanda Sam. But she kissed me and did something I didn't know you could do because Noriko had never done it. She used her mouth, and I was hard, and she had me lie down, then she turned her back to me before lowering herself down.

The sensation was wonderful, but I lay there and felt like a part of me was distant. I wanted to be with Noriko and the way her hands pulled me into the rhythm she wanted or the way she wrapped her arms around me as if she was going to pull my body into hers. I admired Amanda Sam's back. I admired the way she leaned forward so I could admire her backside. I thought, So this is what sex is like when you don't care. But I didn't want it to stop for a second. I wanted to feel more. I sat up, and I leaned my cheek against her shoulder blade and I held her breasts, and she breathed about how good that felt, and maybe I was wrong about the nature of caring because now I felt like I was with her and how alone we both were and as she breathed nice exclamations, I felt my hand make its way down from her breast, down her belly, I'd truly somehow forgotten, because I somehow expected to touch those moist creases.

Not the most poetic naming you've done, she says.

The words are a distraction. I've lowered my own hand, feeling I should reciprocate the pleasure I now feel, but her hand returns my hand to her breast.

She says, So you don't find a vulva. Were you shocked?

I pulled my hand away so fast. There were two shocks. The shock of memory, the realization that in spite of what I knew, I'd pictured Amanda Sam as a woman and now I couldn't. But sweet breathing aside, her encouragements aside, I'd discovered that Amanda Sam was not aroused at all, and now I felt like we were just two mechanisms completing some insistent task.

Amanda Sam didn't understand my mistake. She took my hand. Part of me wanted to pull back. Another part insisted that it was only fair to reciprocate. But she became more passionate, and it ended up with me on top, she kissing me, she holding her body against mine. After it was over, I didn't know what to think. I wanted to get up and leave, but the bed was in my guesthouse room. She lay down in front of me, and we spooned, my hand on her breast, her back against my chest. I could lie there and go back to pretending she was a woman.

"I really like you,” she said.

"I like you, too.” I was relieved someone had booked me passage on a ship; I would soon be gone.

"If I sleep in your room again, I'll have to charge you."

"I understand.” I said. I didn't have the money to sleep with her.

"But if you come with me to my room, at my invitation, that's different."

"How is it different?” I asked, because I knew I was supposed to ask.

"Because when I make love to someone I like, I prefer to be Sam rather than Amanda."

I said nothing, and she asked what I was thinking. I told her that it was the Amanda part of her I liked.

"If you really liked me, the me inside, you wouldn't notice the difference."

I think it was the next day when I was back at the hospital dining hall. I maybe had two days left, and I overheard some nurses talk about how busy it would be the next day, my last full day on Haven. There would be a whole set of newborns. Noriko could be among them, but even if she wasn't, there had to be people who knew something about what had happened to my unit. I pictured myself returning home without that knowledge. I imagined all the empty silences in that ruined house in that neighborhood where people went when they had no place left to go.

It would just take a few days, a few days before they were out and showing up in various eateries and taverns. If Noriko just happened to be among them, she would show up at the Wake, she'd see me with Amanda Sam. My whole adventure the night before now seemed sordid. I spent some of my per diem so the guest-house staff would change the bedclothes. I showered for a long time. I resolved I wouldn't return to the Wake. But all alone in my bed that night, I couldn't help but think that I was leaving Haven too soon.

The next morning I left for the spaceport to cash in my ticket. The woman there shook her head. “I can't do it. You have to show a place of residence, not a guest house. This is not a tourist spot."

I hung around at the hospital foodstop until I saw the same nurse. I went to get some food and sat down near her. She grumbled to a friend how tired she was. They had to rebirth more than a unit. The military wanted them turned around quickly.

"They'll get some downtime, won't they?” her friend asked.

"Of course. This place would close down otherwise. We gotta get them out of therapy two days sooner than usual. Can you imagine how they'll look when they go ambulatory?"

I walked and walked. I kept counting out my options.

I showed up at the Wake and Amanda Sam was not there. The bartender offered me a drink on the house. “Amanda Sam says you're a good one. Here's one for the road."

I decided that this drink was my farewell. I would never know what happened. I would never see Noriko again. Temptation is the sun drawing in a comet. Good sense is just some distant steady orbit.

I had a second beer and sat off in a corner. Amanda Sam walked in, and she scanned the tavern as if looking for someone. When she saw me, she smiled, and sat down next to me. “Hi, gorgeous,” she said. “Buy me a brandy."

I told her my ship left tomorrow afternoon. She said she'd miss me. I told her about the unit being rebirthed tomorrow. I told her that I wanted to stay, to see if Noriko was among them.

"Your soldier girl won't be there,” she said.

"But they'll be able to tell me what's happened. I'll know my story."

"That story was part of your other life,” she said.

I told her that, in the end, it didn't matter. I didn't have a place to stay. Staying was just wishful thinking.

"You can stay with me,” she said.

Someone tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, and standing there was a couple. “Oh,” she said, “I was looking for you two. It's been a while.” She turned and waved to me.

The next morning she was at my door and walked me down to the port. “If you want to stay, you're going to have to establish residency and profession. There are no tourists here. I created documentation that says you're living with me and that you're my partner."

"Your partner, like we're married?"

"No, hon. Profession, I said profession. I'm more than happy to lie about your profession.” And she stopped me here. She looked me in the eye. “Your money is going to run out. You're not going to find the soldier girl. All you lost was a few months of another life. How badly do you need them, hon?” Her two hands wrapped themselves warmly around one of mine. Her green eyes were warm. “You have a free ticket home. Take it."

When we found the right office, she produced the document, and after some back and forth she got the full price of what the military had paid for the ticket. She laid down her pinky to get half; I got the other half. “We'll say that's rent for a month,” she said. What was left of my per diem had evaporated the moment the transaction was complete; all I had was one-sixth of the cost of passage.

Her apartment was tiny, half the size of the guesthouse room, a double bed, drawers built into the wall, and a cubicle for what's necessary. There was no sofa to sleep on, no place to stretch out on the floor with a blanket.

She kissed me. “You don't have to thank me tonight. We can wait until you're ready. Go see if you can find your girl."

At midday I haunted the hospital foodstop. I listened for whispers. The nurse turned up again, this time alone, and I stepped up to the food vendor so that I'd be next to her. She punched out her meal request. I found something to say, and we ended up at the same table. I remember that she looked familiar, that suddenly I worried she was the nurse who'd birthed me. But if she was, she didn't seem to recognize me. I was worried that she'd ask me all sorts of questions about where I lived, what I did, but she was more than happy to complain about her husband, her job, the difficulty of having so many troops coming back to life.

I thought of the ship, how it was heading for the edge of this stellar system. I felt like there might be an alternate me on board, heading off, finding people to talk with, books to read, maybe even a lover, to ease the burden of three months of travel. But here I was, back in the hospital, listening to the nurse telling me how the war must be going badly because they'd received orders to start growing more bodies, to prepare another unit's worth for rebirth.

I tried to get a sense of how many of these men and women she saw. Would she recognize a picture of Noriko if I showed it to her? Every now and then, she groused about something, then swore me to silence. “I'm really not supposed to talk about that.” Could I give her Noriko's name and combat number to input into a computer? I didn't dare.

In the evenings I stayed at the Wake as long as I could, only going home when I had drunk too much to stand. In bed, I pretended to be asleep while Amanda Sam cuddled up to me, one hand draped gently over my penis, her own penis erect against my backside. She whispered how much she liked me and desired me until one of us actually drifted off. More and more, she spent her evenings with me. If she disappeared, she told me which taverns she would visit. I realized how little work she'd been getting, what a relief it must have been to get one-sixth of the cost of passage. “The whole economy is drying up,” she said to me. “If they don't give these reborns any shore leave, this place will go crazy. It happened once before, just watch."

Suddenly I saw it, the way locals glared at me if I looked at them too long, the clipped sentences, the constant complaint in almost every conversation. The nurse joined me with a therapist friend. It was one of my therapists. He was sure to ask what I was doing here, but no, he talked about how he preferred working with civilians and officers. When you do therapy in groups.... He shook his head bitterly. “I hope they don't send them back to battle before shore leave. There's a major here who thinks shore leave is just for fun. My soldiers— “ His voice became high-pitched so the major might have been a woman or castrato “—don't need to get drunk and get laid to fight well. Their morale is just fine. Well, fuck their morale. How about their fine motor skills? How about their gross motor skills? That's what shore leave is about. They're brand-new bodies and they need the real world to operate in before you throw on some body armor and throw them out into free fall."

He kept going on, and I barely listened. He was angry enough, I thought, that maybe he would tell me anything, but the nurse was advising him to watch what he was saying, and he was nodding, his face red, his look recalcitrant, then chagrined.

One night, Amanda Sam insisted that we go back home—I always thought of it as the apartment—before I'd drunk too much. “You'll spend up all your money,” she said, “and then what?” Back at her place, she said she wanted me so badly that she would be Amanda for me. I soaked up her skin's warmth like a sponge.

It probably wasn't the next day, but it's the next thing I remember, how suddenly sections of Haven were flooded with stumbling reborns. Their hair was wild and shaggy. Most of them looked like they'd chosen to be in their twenties, but a few, probably officers, were in their thirties. A guy, his face dour, concentrated on every step he took. Another stumbled, fell, got up, laughing, looking to his more cautious friends. I kept walking where they walked. Every time I saw tanned skin, black hair, compact body, I'd walk to catch up, but before I even caught a glimpse of the face, I'd see that the shoulders were too wide, the hips too flat.

And what would I say to her, if she was there? I watched for her at various lunchrooms, where I saw the newborns shake their forks at each other as if angry, but their faces showed a range of reactions to their bodies’ refusal to learn their way through the world instantly.

The presence of all these newborns made Amanda Sam happy. “Tonight, the best brandy for me, the best beer for you,” she said, even though I think Haven only stocked one variety of each, the drinkable and the barely drinkable. I remember one night, probably the first night the newborns were around, I just sat at the Wake, drinking beer, imagining that Noriko would walk in, that she would take me off to a guesthouse room, and we'd make love. Several other nights I wandered from tavern to tavern, maybe checking in some dinner spots beforehand, looking for Noriko, knowing I wouldn't see her, from time to time running into Amanda Sam gaily chatting with some man or woman, once a couple. Each time she waved to me, offered me that big smile that said, I'm delighted to see you, keep walking.

I spoke with some of the newborns. I heard the stories. One guy told me that their goal had been to take an orbital without destroying it, which meant they had to board it without using projectile weapons. At one point they were on the skin of the world, breaking into a compartment, and the enemy had fighters flying above. It was strange how silent everything was except for the way everyone was yelling orders and those voices reverberated in your helmet, voices darting about you as if your head was stuck in a fishbowl. The enemy couldn't risk projectiles, either. They used harpoons, a joke when you first heard it in training, but when one pierced your suit, when you watched your air drain away as you were dragged off into space, it wasn't so funny anymore. “Actually, if it happened to you, you'd never remember it,” he said. “But when you watched it happen to your buddy, you'd go to sleep night after night imagining what it would be like happening to you. Worse, you'd relive it happening to your friend, wondering what he felt and thought as it happened. Well, then you became hardened to the whole process."

I tried to picture myself on the skin of a metal world, magnetic soles holding me in place, just enough of a pull to keep my balance, not enough to prevent a step, or a harpoon from pulling me away, and making a rush for an opened compartment, knowing that some of us would make it, and that some of us were there to die so others could make it, that our majors and colonels and generals felt free to overwhelm the other side with numbers because we'd all be back, the cost of our resurrection something for governors and senators and premiers at home to tally up. I felt a terrible beating in my heart just at the thought, and I was glad to have Amanda Sam wrap her arms around me, and most nights she was content and sated so there was no pressure to express my thanks for this half a bed in a tiny room.

I worked up the courage to ask questions. I gave Noriko's full name. No one had heard of her. I named the unit I was with. Most didn't know it. One or two knew that my unit was dealing with orbitals circling the neighboring gas giant, which at the time was too far away in its orbit for anyone to care. One woman had gotten word that the first foray had been successful, the second was disastrous, the third could happen at any moment.

When the newborns shipped out, I concluded I would never see Noriko, and I would never know what had happened to me. It was only then that I realized what a terrible situation I was in. Amanda Sam took me out to dinner to celebrate the great few days she'd had, and I drank brandy with her, and I told her that tonight would be the night. She kissed me passionately, and back in her apartment she was tender. She aroused me first, and the things she did to relax me actually felt good. She looked down at me and told me to hold her breasts, and entered me so slowly and carefully that it did not hurt at all. I suppose if I'd been in love with her or desiring this kind of moment, I might have felt something more than just the physical sensation, but instead I rubbed my hands up and down Amanda Sam's back and remembered the one or two times Noriko had caressed my own back and said, “Let's finish up, I'm ready to sleep,” and I now understood the distance Noriko must have felt (even though during the act I had been certain that because it was sex it must have felt good).

During the days I worked on making the tiny apartment look better. I thought of the people Amanda Sam brought there. I prepared meals. When she pressed herself against me at night, I turned and kissed her and wrapped my legs around her thighs. She got me drunk the night she wanted me to reciprocate her oral ministrations. The next day I searched for some kind of work, but as I already knew, there was nothing official available. “Pinky-up,” the guy in charge of sewage said. The fingerprint produced the documentation, and he shook his head. “You don't even have one death to your credit. I can't hire you. If you're going to stay on Haven, you're gonna have to keep doing the job you registered for. My apologies. I wouldn't want to do it."

When Amanda Sam took me out to dinner and then was Amanda for me in bed, I knew she was going to tell me it was time to work. “I warned you. I warned you. I warned you. And I'll take good care of you and make sure you meet only the best of people. Some of my peers have taken new people under their wing and taken half. I'll only take twenty percent, plus your share of rent and food.” The next morning she bought me a big breakfast, and she said how she'd loved every second in bed with me but it was time to learn how to do a few things a little differently. I asked feebly about women, and she laughed. “Young men, they can get for free.” Things were flush now, and she had found several people on Haven who would enjoy paying to break me in. And that's how it all started.

I've heard other stories, and I know now how lucky I was. No one beat me or mistreated me. Amanda Sam always met me at the Wake at the end of an evening to find out how things went, to coach me on how to handle the rude and stingy ones and how to handle the ones who wanted to fall in love with me. And maybe if I were tuned that way, I might have enjoyed myself. Instead I felt like I was living someone else's life. When I wasn't working and when I wasn't with Amanda Sam, I was walking. Long walks with long elaborate dreams. Noriko would appear in the Wake. She'd say she's seen enough battles, and she now wants to take me with her, some place far away. I knew now I would never go home. What would I say? How many lies would I tell just to be comfortable?

She says, You always avoided the truth when it made other people uncomfortable.

I listen for something severe in her voice, but I don't hear it. I say, I'm telling everything the best my memory will allow.

I know. That's what I love about this visit. You know, she says, the subject changing with her tone of voice, I always wondered why you wouldn't change. I did want to try out a life as a man, and I always thought you didn't love me enough to be a woman.

You understand now? I ask. After all those men, after their insistence on their needs ... the only time they cared about my arousal was when they wanted to boost their own self-confidence ... after all that, I could never sleep with a man again. You probably would have been a great man, but I couldn't bear to sleep with another one, no matter how nice.

I said I understood. But now I wonder this. Did you stay with me because you loved me or because you wanted a secure life?

There's a giant difference between why I first sought your attentions and why I'm with you now.

It's an awkward moment, given the way our bodies are touching, given the years of abstinence in our last life together, so I return to the story.

When the newborns came, it was a rush. I now dreaded the sight I had once longed for. Many of the newborns had not seen enough battle to afford a guesthouse, so Amanda Sam and I traded off with the apartment. There would be an occasional woman soldier who hired my services, but mostly I listened to men lament their lives after they'd relieved themselves of their burdens. I kept an eye out for Noriko, but now my plan was to spot her first so I could avoid her.

I started to hang out more with the nurse and the therapist, just to know people who had nothing to do with the Wake and Amanda Sam, though Haven is a small enough place that I'm sure they knew what I did. I'm sure when I got up from lunch, they probably said, He's not so bad. Everyone's got to make a living somehow.

Some nights, I decided just to do nothing, and I stayed in the Wake and drank. Sometimes Amanda Sam would rest her hand on my shoulder and I'd turn to her and she'd tell me it was time to go home. She'd make love to me, comfort me, and I'd pretend to be comforted. “I'll always take care of you,” she said. “I'm so glad we found each other.” And the next morning she'd take her twenty-percent cut. So I sat in the Wake and foresaw years and years of this, and sometimes in the Wake, but never on my walks, which were just for dreams, I would tally up how long it'd take to build up savings, how long it would take to get off Haven, and how much I'd need to start a new life when her hand fell on my shoulder. I turned and Noriko was looking at me.

"I've been told you've been asking about me,” she said.

Oh, no, she says. She doesn't recognize you. She died before she had another neuromap, and she doesn't know you.

I hear the sadness in her voice. For decades and decades I couldn't mention Noriko to her; now, after all these years apart, she sympathizes. How different life would have been if so much separation wasn't necessary to erase whatever had made us bitter.

I stood up to face her. I thought for a second she looked older, as if the job had worn away her friendliness, but then I recalled this look, the way she'd gotten when she'd given out instructions to her companions. There was no recognition on her face, no joy at seeing me, just this military face accustomed to giving orders.

She said, “I thought you'd be gone by now. I made sure the cost of everything was covered."

"I couldn't go."

She stood and waited for me to say more.

"I didn't know what happened to you. I didn't know what happened to me."

She looked around, took my hand, and led me to a table. She sat across from me and ordered herself a beer. She held the glass in both her hands, and I wanted her to hold my hand again. She said nothing for the longest time. I surveyed the entire place, the bar, the booths, to make sure Amanda Sam was nowhere to be seen.

Noriko said, “Here's what happened. We posted as comrades-in-arms. We were set to attack an orbital. They told us that ninety percent of our unit would die. You began to shake in your sleep. You talked about how when you died, once they'd grown you a new body, once you'd been re-assigned, that we'd be apart. But the truth was you were scared to die. When it came time to suit up, you were trembling so much that the captain ordered you to your quarters. He didn't want you to put us at risk. I told you to pack up your gear and move out while I was away.

"The enemy was unprepared. We took the orbital with few casualties. When we got back, you'd hanged yourself."

I felt myself shaking my head. I wasn't the me that would do that.

"I blamed myself for what happened,” she said. “ Back on Haven, I was so involved in taking care of my own needs that I didn't recognize the warning signs. The one thing I forgot about youth, real youth, the first youth, is how passionate you are about life itself. How it sometimes has to be all or nothing."

I didn't know what to say. I said something about there being no discharge papers.

"You forgot or ignored what you were told. In the military, your life is only to be lost for the cause. The military won't pay for a new life if you kill yourself. They promoted me after that skirmish. I got a pay raise. I had enough money to cover your rebirth. I arranged for some loans to cover the cost of a berth back to your homeworld. I thought I'd made up for everything. I though I'd taken care of you."

We sat there for a while and what more could we say? I wanted to know what warning signs she'd seen. I didn't want to know. And what other subject was there? We'd only been together for three or four days.

Noriko didn't ask about where I was living or what my plans were. She told me she'd recently been assigned to Haven in a supervisory capacity. There would be four units of newborns to organize, plus two units of newbies coming in. The big push was beginning.

She was talking about everything they had to do and how she had to get back to her duties when Amanda Sam walked in and said hello. Noriko looked up at her. There wasn't a trace of recognition's on Noriko's face. “I'm sure I'll see you,” Noriko said to me and left without saying a word to Amanda Sam.

"I see that soldier girl is back,” Amanda Sam said.

"She didn't recognize you."

Amanda Sam looked at me for a moment. I think she was tempted to explain why I was wrong, but she'd taught me the con. I'd already used it a few times, but because I was living such separate lives in my head, I hadn't figured the whole thing out, how everything had stretched back to day one of my new life. The con: you sit down with a newborn, and you talk about the last time you'd been together, the one that must have taken place after the neuromap was recorded.

I walked and walked that night. I told myself I wasn't a coward, I wasn't the kind of person who'd kill himself. Look at what I was living through now. I hadn't been tempted to kill myself in the past months with everything that had happened. And I reminded myself that Noriko had said we'd left Haven as comrades-in-arms. I thought of ways I could see her again, of things I could say to win her back.

But, of course, Haven was a military way station, even though it was run by civilians. Of course, people knew I'd been asking about her, and the local military intelligence guy, whoever he was, must have told her. They'd know how I was making a living, and so Noriko would know.

I didn't see Noriko again. I avoided the hospital, and I avoided other taverns. I only conducted business out of the Wake, and she never returned. I stopped taking my walks. I'm sure she was on Haven until everyone involved with the big push had left. And by the time the newborns and the fresh recruits were gone, I had enough money to start a new life, to be reborn and not remember one bit of this. Instead, I worked for another year and had enough to fly to planets that people liked to talk about, to have some money to live for a little bit and try one unsuccessful business venture or another.

Amanda Sam cried when I told her I was leaving. “I made this possible for you,” she said. “I want you to remember that.” And my last night there, I let her make love to me the way she liked, and I was so moved by the way she felt that I had my first orgasm while I held her in my arms. This caused her to kiss me passionately. “Please don't leave. Please stay. You think I took advantage of you, but I really do love you.” Right then I thought she was begging her twenty-percent cut to stay. Now I think she either loved me or, at least, my company. I think of all the booths I sat in, waiting alone to attract some eager company. I think of those same booths at the end of a long evening when she sat beside me and took my hand in hers.

And the ship I boarded later stopped at some planet or other, and you boarded, and that's how I spent the rest of my lives.

She turns over in the bed and kisses me. I caress her face, and the way time has lined her skin feels wrong against my fingertips. My body betrays me. I say, Talk to me, and I hear her voice and she pulls me into her embrace and it's her I make love to.

The next morning she makes me my favorite breakfast and she packs my bag. I tell her I was more than willing to stay indefinitely. I have no special plans and I like being with her.

She says, These last few days, well last night, especially, were perfect. When I first met you, you told me about Noriko, and I wanted to be with someone who could love so passionately. And I was jealous of her ever since because I couldn't inspire the same kind of love. Last night, you told me about Noriko, and I remembered everything about you I loved when our lives together weren't so difficult. Last night is the memory I want to have of you when I die.

I argue, but if I argue too fiercely, I'll destroy everything these few days have come to mean. I leave her house in the woods, take train after train, come to a port and board a ship for elsewhere. In the decades we were apart—me in a fresh new body, she finding out what happens when the body finally ages—I always thought about her. During those years, I knew that one day, when I had the money for the voyage, I would track her down and see her at least one last time.

I leave her now, but I can't imagine another life.

I remember it well: I was a new writer and the goal was to be published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. An impossible goal, I might add. I wanted to be there, in that company! Recently I was talking to two other writers, one already published in F&SF, and one not yet there, who expressed exactly what I had felt fifty years ago. She yearned for an “impossible” goal in such an impossible distance it was like a mirage. The more things change, the more they stay the same.—Kate Wilhelm

Ashley was dreaming when her phone rang. In the dream she was in absolute dark, running wildly, crying out soundlessly, screaming, hearing nothing. A pinpoint of light, a single star in a void, blinked out when she ran toward it, only to appear somewhere else, again and again.

She came awake, wet with sweat, shivering, and groped for the phone. It was her father.

"Your grandmother died during the night,” he said. “I'll catch an eight o'clock flight. Do you want to fly down with me?"

She shook her head. “I'll drive.” Her voice sounded hollow, strange. She cleared her throat. “I'll get there tonight."

"Give us a call when you get in,” he said. “Drive carefully."

After hanging up, Ashley pulled the thin summer blanket over her, then pulled the bedspread up also, cold, shivering. She seldom knew what brought on that nightmare, but three times this week she had known. Before her mother had flown to Frankfort to be with Gramma, she had said they would go to the farm after the funeral, and she wanted Ashley to go with them. “There are things she would have wanted you to have,” she had said.

Ashley had refused. The last time she had been to the farm, seventeen years ago, she had promised herself that she would never go back.

Huddled in bed, covered, even her head covered, in spite of herself, that day surged into memory again.

For years, every summer, Ashley's mother Maribeth packed up the car and drove from Pittsburgh to her parents’ farm in Kentucky. Ashley's Aunt Ella left Atlanta at the same time with her two sons to spend the same weeks on the farm where the sisters had grown up, where Grampa had grown up as well.

It was a time of joyous freedom for the children when they could run in and out at will and play without the restrictions of a big city. Their companion in play was Grampa's dog Skipper, a short-haired brown and white mutt, who, Grampa said, would kill any snake he came across and wouldn't let a stranger on the farm without setting up a ruckus.

Below the house, past the kitchen garden, through a small area of woods, was Rabbit Creek, no more than ten inches deep, where they could splash and play, hunt for crawdads, find miniature monsters lurking under rocks. Sometimes they populated the creek with crocodiles, or piranha, watched lions and tigers come to drink, or they spied submarines on secret missions. The woods on one side after a few hundred yards gave way to corn fields, and on the other the land rose in a low rocky hill, their Mount Everest, or the magic mountain. Bigfoot lived high on the mountain, or a dragon guarded its treasure, or bears prowled.

But best of all was the cave. The entrance was narrow, one-person wide, with a massive boulder on one side, and a limestone outcropping on the other. The passage curved around the boulder, widened and descended in a shallow slope to a small chamber where the cave ended. No more than twenty feet in all, dry, dimly lighted from the outside, it was a hideout, a castle dungeon, a spaceship, submarine, whatever Nathan declared it to be.

Nathan was eleven, their leader in all games, Ashley was nine that summer, both with hair turning darker, mud-colored, Ashley said. Joey was seven, still a towhead, a daredevil who was determined to do whatever his big brother did. Neither Ashley nor Joey disputed Nathan's leadership.

That day they were explorers in the dark African jungle, alert for headhunters who were roaming the area. “There's a gold mine somewhere out here,” Nathan said. “We'll find it. I'll buy an airplane with my share."

Joey nodded. “Me, too. A jet fighter."

"I'll buy a castle,” Ashley said. “With a moat."

Nathan consulted a scrap of paper. “Ten paces from the river, turn right, and find the big boulder. This way.” He led them to the boulder and cried out in astonishment, “Look! A mine entrance!"

"The headhunters!” Joey yelled. “I saw one over there!"

He pushed past Nathan and fled into the cave, with Ashley and Nathan close behind.

"Skipper, stay. Guard,” Nathan ordered.

There was no point in trying to get the dog to go inside. No amount of coaxing or cajoling, or bribery with a bone or dog biscuits had ever enticed him inside. He flopped down at the entrance, tongue lolling, and became a guard dog.

The chamber was a foot or so higher than Nathan's head, irregular in shape, and big enough for three to be comfortable without touching one another or the walls, although a step or two in any direction would put a wall within reach. Joey sat down cross-legged as Nathan unslung a small day pack, prepared to hand out provisions, cookies and a thermos of Kool Aid.

"We'll wait them—” Nathan started, and the light went out.

Ashley reached for Nathan, but her hand felt nothing. “What happened?” she said. “What's the matter?” Her voice rose as she called, “Nathan, where are you? What happened to the light? Nathan?” The black was intense, without a glimmer of light, and there was no sound except for her own voice, and then a strangled sound of her whisper. “Nathan! Answer me! Joey!"

The silence was as intense as the darkness. Ashley took a step, another, to where Nathan had been. She was sweeping her hands before her, trying to find one or the other of them, crying now, pleading, calling Nathan, then Joey. Panicked, crying, yelling, she ran with her hands outstretched to reach the wall, to reach anything. Running this way, that, screaming, encountering nothing, hearing nothing. No walls, no cousins, no light from outside. She began screaming, “Mommy! Daddy! Mommy!” There wasn't even an echo, as if the darkness swallowed her cries.

She ran and cried and her screams had become whimpers only when she saw a tracery of light and ran toward it. As she ran, the light increased until it defined the narrow cave entrance. Stumbling, she ran to it, scraped her arm on the wall in her dash to get outside, to safety.

Skipper rose to greet her with a wagging tail, and she tripped over him, fell, then pulled herself up and ran as fast as she could to the path that led to the house.

"Mommy!” she screamed when she ran into the kitchen. Her mother was at the sink. She dropped a pan and caught Ashley, who flung her arms around her and pressed her head hard against her, wracked with great heaving sobs that left her unable to scream or speak.

"What happened? Did you fall down? Honey, it's all right now. Calm down. Tell me what happened?"

When her mother tried to push her away a little, Ashley clung ever harder.

She heard Nathan's voice and lifted her head enough to see him stagger into the kitchen. “Jesus! Oh, Jesus!” He said again and again, his face the color of dry putty.

"Nathan! What's wrong?” Aunt Ella cried. “Where's Joey?"

With the question the nightmare became family business.

Years passed before Ashley could sort the snapshot memories of that day, late into the evening, and the chaotic days that followed. Relatives came, her father and Nathan's father were there. Strangers, some with dogs, were everywhere, policemen, reporters and television people. Skipper was tied to the porch rail and he lay groaning, moaning, growling. Different people asked Ashley a lot of questions. A woman doctor asked her if Nathan had done something to her. Others asked if he had done something to Joey and scared her so much she promised not to tell. Did Joey have an accident and she and Nathan had become afraid and hid him?

That first day and night Ashley had clung to her mother as a baby might and her mother had to stay with her until she fell asleep. When she woke up during the night, alone in the dark, she began to scream and couldn't stop. After that, she kept a light on in her room day and night for fear of the return of the blackness.

One of the most vivid snapshot memories was when Grampa grabbed Nathan by the shoulders and shook him. “Tell me the truth, boy! What happened to Joey? What did you do to Joey?"

Joey was Grampa's favorite. They all knew that. Grampa said Joey was Bill made over. Ashley's Uncle Bill had died in Vietnam when he was nineteen. He was just a name to her, as unreal as any other historical figure.

There were theories: a pool of gas had formed in the cave, sickened and disoriented the children and Joey had run out first, had hidden somewhere, maybe in a smaller cave. He had found a second passage, wandered into it and had become lost. A kidnapper had grabbed him. The tabloids suggested flying saucers, alien abduction. Grampa rejected all of them. He had played in that cave, his kids had played there. Experts had gone over it inch by inch, no other passage, and no gas. And Skipper had not barked at a stranger, a kidnapper. The heavy question remained in the air: had Nathan killed his little brother, buried him somewhere?

When Christmas grew near that winter, her mother said maybe they should go just for a day or two. They had always spent Christmas at the farm along with Ella and her family. Ashley became ill and vomited repeatedly for the next two days. No more mention was made of going to the farm for Christmas. It wasn't even brought up as a possibility for the regular summer visit. Ella had collapsed that spring in a nervous breakdown.

Ashley finally forced herself out of bed, into the shower, to get dressed, pack some things for her trip. Her grandmother's death had been expected for months. Grief had long ago morphed to a dull acceptance, possibly even relief. It had not been a kind death. She had become ill with cancer, had surgery, and spent her last two years in a nursing home in Frankfort. Grampa had stayed with her, leaving the house empty, and a tenant farmer managing the farm.

During a visit to the nursing home, Ashley had seen Nathan again, the first time since that summer. They had kept in touch since then. He would go to the funeral, he had told her, and they planned to attend the church service and the funeral itself, and then duck out of the family gathering afterward. Gramma and Grampa had many living relatives in the Frankfort area, nephews, nieces, their offspring, cousins. Ashley knew very few of them.

The problem was what to do about Grampa. Decisions had to be made. He wanted to go back to his own house, his farm, back to the daily chores he had done all his life, but he was also developing dementia. An indelible image in Ashley's head was of Grampa shaking Nathan, demanding to know what he had done to Joey.

When Ashley thought of Joey, he was always running, screaming in the black void until he went mad and died.

It was a long drive, but done in one day, and she had a motel reservation for when she arrived. She had left her departure date open. There was little need for her to return home at any given time, working as she did for a Web design company whose employees worked at home for the most part.

The service was as awful as she had feared, and her mother insisted that she ride in the limousine with the family to the cemetery. That part, at least, would be brief, Ashley thought, and went with them. At the graveside the preacher had just begun a prayer when suddenly Grampa jerked away from Uncle Walt and pointed at Nathan, who had been standing as far from him as space permitted.

"He's the one!” Grampa yelled. “He's the one who killed my Billy! He's the one!” He began to cry.

Everyone turned to stare as Nathan walked away swiftly. Ashley jerked loose from her mother's grasp of her arm and hurried after him.

She caught up at the parking lot and fell into step at his side, nearly running to keep up. “He's demented, Nathan. Really demented."

"Yeah, I know. Did you come in a limo?"

"Yes."

"I drove myself. Let's get the hell out of here."

They were both silent as he drove aimlessly, out into the countryside, back to the city, out again. Finally he pulled up at a tavern. “Let's get a beer,” he said.

In a corner booth in the nearly empty tavern with steins of beer before them, he said, “It's been hell, hasn't it?"

She nodded. “More for you than for me. I just had counseling and shrinks for a couple of years.” She took a long drink of beer. “They tried hypnosis, to make me remember what really happened."

"That's the question, isn't it? What happened? After Mother's breakdown, as soon as I turned twelve, it was off to a boarding school for me. I never really lived at home again. Boarding schools, summer camps, prep school."

She hadn't known that. “You said you were studying physics. In college, I mean."

"And philosophy, and psychology. A lifetime studying, and the question still is what happened? I'm something of an expert on disappearances, and even alien abductions. Ask me anything.” His smile was without mirth. He drained his stein and held it aloft to signal for another one. “You know Gramma left us some money?"

She shook her head. “I didn't even know she had money of her own."

"Dad told me. A hundred thousand for each of us. Maybe more than that. Apparently she stashed something away for each grandchild when we were born, and it's grown and grown. Like Topsy, I guess. Anyway, it's there."

She almost laughed at the thought of money of her own. Her father had become a rather famous economist, had written books that were considered important to other economists, and he would be more than ready to advise her about wise investments of a new-found fortune.

"All those years going to school, didn't you come up with anything?” she asked after a moment.

"A physics instructor, a pal, said Joey fell through a hole in the universe, into a parallel universe maybe. Of course, the family still thinks I conked him and buried him somewhere."

"They used search dogs. They're trained to find bodies. The family knows that."

Others were beginning to come into the tavern, the noise level rose as someone put on twangy country music.

"It's a question of what to believe,” Nathan said. “The impossible, or the unthinkable. They prefer the unthinkable. Facing an impossibility is more than they can deal with. Would you believe if you hadn't been there?"

"I'm not even sure I believe in spite of being there,” she said, but the words did not carry the light tone she had intended. “It was impossible. And I have trouble with holes in universes. But people see and accept the impossible a lot. A weeping Virgin Mary, or a Christ figure oozing blood. Others. Reports from around the world say the same kinds of things."

"Images that bolster one's core belief system, by their definition, are not impossible. It's when you threaten those deep beliefs, shake people's reality, that they're forced to deny what they've seen and opt for rational explanations no matter how ugly or incredible."

"The family was hit by an earthquake off the charts as far as their realty is concerned,” she said after a moment.

Nathan nodded. “Still keep the lights on day and night?"

"I can't shake it. I found that I couldn't work in a cubicle. My first job. I was getting a stiff neck from turning every few seconds to make sure it was still open. I had to quit. Small enclosed spaces, dark. Still there."

"Elevators must be another kind of hell for you."

"Walking up and down stairs is good for the heart,” she said as lightly as she could.

"Right,” he said. “Let's order something to eat. Hamburgers, fries, undo all the good that stair climbing brought about."

Later, driving her to her motel, he said, “Ashley, I have to go back. Come with me."

She tensed so much she was almost paralytic, catatonic. “I can't,” she whispered.

"You don't have to go inside. We'll take a rope, tie it to my wrist, and you hold the other end, yank me out if.... It can be a guide rope, a way out if the lights go off. That's all. I want to see it again, measure it. I can't get a picture of it in my head, just a black space, that's all that comes. I have to see it again."

"Nathan, we agreed. We said we wouldn't go there."

"I have to. Kids played in that cave for more than a hundred years. What was different that one time? They went over it inch by inch and nothing happened. Why that one time? I have to see it again."

He was staring straight ahead, his hands tight on the steering wheel as he spoke. “Maybe it happens periodically, even predictably, but no one had ever been there at the right time before. Was it something about us, the three of us, the configuration of our bodies or something? Joey sat down, remember? Was he in the middle, dead center? Is that what was different? I have to go. I'll get a rope and a steel tape measure, measure the goddamn cave, make a map."

"Nathan, please, don't. Stay away. Even Skipper knew something was wrong with the cave. Remember? He wouldn't go in."

"I remember,” he said softly. “And we were going to find a fortune in gold. I remember."

They reached her motel where light shone from around the drape she had not closed completely.

"I'll pick you up around nine,” he said, exactly the same way he had named the games they would play, their roles in the games. Numbly she nodded.

The farm house appeared to be intact but neglected, with leaves and scraps of paper in drifts on the front and back porches; the yard was unkempt and weedy, with overgrown hedges, seedling sumac and maple trees, a lot of Queen Anne's lace in bloom. It made Ashley sadder than the funeral had done.

She and Nathan skirted the house and found that the path to Rabbit Creek had vanished amongst brambles and more weeds. Nathan went first, stamping down what he could, holding back a few low-hanging branches for Ashley.

The creek was unchanged, as was the cave entrance. Ashley felt a wave of nausea as they drew near the boulder. “No closer,” she said in a low voice, six feet or more from the entrance.

Nathan nodded. He had a length of nylon rope, a thin pale life line to lead him to safety if necessary. He tied a loop in one end, slipped it over his hand, and handed her the coiled rope. Without speaking, he waved to her and walked the rest of the way to the entrance while she played out the line. He passed out of sight around the boulder.

She turned her back on the cave, and gazed at the corn field across Rabbit Creek. Grampa once said that sometimes the creek flooded the other side where the ground was lower. She tried to see wind-whipped waves instead of corn. It was hard to imagine the friendly little creek flexing enough muscle to cover whole fields.

Suddenly the rope in her hand twitched, and she spun around, ready to start pulling. The tension on the line relaxed, then jerked again. She yanked it hard. Then she dropped it and felt her world spinning, her vision blurring. She flung out her hand to clutch a nearby tree trunk to keep from falling.

Joey had emerged from the cave. Close behind him Nathan was straightening up from a doubled-over position.

Joey looked exactly the same he had looked that day, wearing the same stained, smudged T-shirt, blue shorts, sneakers. The same tow head, sunburned face, dried mud on his leg. The same wiry body, knobby knees, deceptively thin arms....

He stopped moving when he saw Ashley, and when Nathan touched his shoulder, he flinched away. He was so little, Ashley thought. He was so little.

"Joey,” she whispered. “It's me, Ashley."

She took a step toward him, another, and he shrank away before she could touch him. She drew back her hand and looked from him to Nathan. He was pale and strangely pinched, much older suddenly.

"I was starting to measure, and saw something from the corner of my eye. It was Joey, sitting on the floor, just like he was before.” Nathan's voice was unfamiliar, hoarse, and he was staring at Joey as if hypnotized by the slight boy.

Joey turned from him to Ashley, back to Nathan. His lips were trembling, he looked ready to cry. “Where's Nathan?” he asked. “Where's Ashley? Who are you?"

Nathan leaned against the boulder. “Joey, where were you? Did you see anything? Do you remember anything?"

Joey shook his head, edging away from Nathan, keeping his distance from Ashley. “I didn't go anywhere. I just sat down. Nathan said he had something to eat. Then you were there."

Suddenly he turned and bolted for the path to the house. Nathan ran after him and caught him, but not before he had gone a step or two into the brambles. Nathan lifted him and held him above the vines, crashing through brambles up the path, and set him down in the yard. He kept hold of Joey's arm as Ashley made her way after them, trying to avoid what she could of the punishing thorns. They were all scratched by then, and Joey was bleeding on his legs and arms. He began to cry.

"We'll go somewhere to clean those scratches, get some Band-Aids,” Nathan said.

"Nathan, look, the back door is open,” Ashley said, pointing to the house. “We can go inside and clean him up.” That meant that her parents and Nathan's were already there, in the house. And they were due for a shock, she thought grimly. She reached for Joey's hand and, with her holding one hand and Nathan the other, they walked the rest of the way to Grampa's house.

When they entered, Maribeth called from the living room, “Ashley, is that you? I'm glad you changed your mind.” She walked from the hall into the kitchen, stopped, staring, and then screamed.

The others ran to the kitchen. Aunt Ella swayed, the color drained from her face, and Uncle Walt caught her and eased her into a chair. His face was livid, a tic jerked in his jaw, as he yelled at Nathan, “What abomination is this? Where did you get that child? What are you trying to do to us?"

Ashley, still holding Joey's hand, walked toward the bathroom, and both sets of parents moved aside hurriedly to let them pass. The voices rose behind them as she went into the bathroom with Joey and closed the door.

She lifted him to the counter and looked inside a drawer for a washcloth and towel, then another drawer where there was soap. “We'll clean up those scratches and see how many Band-Aids you'll need. You could end up looking like a mummy, you know."

His smile was fleeting, but at least he wasn't crying anymore, she thought gratefully, conscious of his wariness, the intensity of his gaze as he watched her soap the washcloth.

"Ashheap?” he said.

She swung around to glare at him, baring her teeth, making a monster face. “You're in for it,” she said. “Hanging out to dry time. You know what I said I'd do if you called me that again."

His grin was longer lasting this time. “You won't catch me. You're bleeding, too,” he said, pointing to her arm. He winced and drew back when she began to wash his face.

"It was just like Sleeping Beauty's wall of thorns to keep everyone out,” she said. “I guess a boy can be like a Sleeping Beauty, get magicked away for a long time."

"Why didn't you come get me?"

"Couldn't find you,” she said. “I guess you were magicked into Magic Mountain, out of sight or something.” Gently she washed his arms and patted them dry. So far the scratches were minor, superficial. The voices from the other room rose and fell, rose even more. She ignored them and began to wash his legs.

"So while you slept, Nathan and I grew up all the way, and then we found you again. How about that?"

"I didn't go to sleep,” he said, then yanked away from the washcloth. “That burns."

"Looks like mummy time coming up real soon now. Promise you won't go around scaring anyone."

He grinned.

She finished with his legs and began to search the cabinets for Band-Aids. There didn't seem to be any. “Of course, if you're all bandaged up, you probably can't swim in the motel pool,” she said.

"What motel pool?"

"Where I'm staying. A great big pool out back, but I guess there are rules about bandages and mummies and stuff."

He was obviously torn between being a mummy and going swimming. He looked at his legs, then his arms, and shook his head. “Nothing's bleeding."

A couple of the scratches were bleeding a little, but nothing a Band-Aid or two wouldn't take care of, and she had Band-Aids in her cosmetic bag in the motel.

Joey jumped down from the counter as if to demonstrate his fitness for swimming. He watched her wash and dry her own scratches, and afterward they walked together toward the clamorous voices in the living room, where an abrupt hush greeted them. Joey slipped his hand into Ashley's and she gave him a reassuring squeeze. Maribeth and Aunt Ella were both pale, Ella shaking hard, and Uncle Walt's face was fiery red. Ashley's father, who looked more like a dock worker than an academic economist, was slightly removed from the others, watchful and wary. Every eye was fixed on Joey, but no one made a motion toward him or spoke to him.

"Let's go,” Nathan said. “Joey, how does McDonald's sound? One or two burgers?"

Several hours later Ashley and Nathan were sitting on a terrace overlooking the swimming pool where Joey was playing with a few other kids.

"What was all the yelling about?” Ashley asked. It was the first chance they'd had to talk. They had gone to McDonald's, then to a big box store to buy some clothes, including a swimsuit, for Joey. Nathan and Joey were registered in the same motel Ashley was in. Now each of them had a tall cold vodka with bitter lemon.

"First,” Nathan said, grinning slightly, “they accused me of hiring a child actor. Then trying to pass my own son off as Joey. Dad said they could have me arrested for something or other, or was I trying to kill my mother with one foul trick after another. Then it got ugly.” He laughed and took a sip of his drink.

Joey was on the high dive. He didn't dive off, he cannonballed, landed with a tremendous splash, and bobbed up like a cork.

"Anyway,” Nathan went on, “I reminded them that a simple DNA test would settle the question of parents. Then it was a matter of publicity, a new media circus even worse than the first one. Careers destroyed, and so on."

His father was a high executive in a firm that supplied electronic equipment to the government, and of course Ashley's father was a distinguished university professor. Nathan was enjoying himself, Ashley realized, as he said, “They would both be ruined by a new round of tabloid-type publicity. The farm would be overrun by the curious, photographers, television crews, flying saucer nuts.... They'd dog our footsteps day and night and Joey would be at risk. Except,” he added dryly, “he didn't call him by name, just ‘the boy.’ My mother could go into another breakdown with the stress. You get the drift."

She nodded. They wanted Joey to go back to wherever he had been for seventeen years. “So what's the solution?"

"We'll have a conference tomorrow, after we've all had a little time to think about it. My conference, Ashley, my terms. Or I go public. And Mother, at age sixty, will have to explain to her garden club friends how it happens that suddenly she's a new mother to a seven-year-old feisty boy."

He laughed. “I want the farm house and three or four acres around it. They'll probably get Grampa declared incompetent and sell the rest of the farm. Dad will have to arrange for the right papers for Joey, school, medical records, birth certificate, whatever is needed. He has connections, he can manage that. And I'll become Joey's father. No publicity. They'll come around to accepting a grandson. That's not going to be a problem as long as they can avoid the publicity."

Joey was on the high dive again. They watched him jump off.

"You want to live on the farm?” she asked then.

"Not exactly. I intend to set up a research facility. I'll get in touch with my old physics instructor and, believe me, he'll jump at the chance to join me.” His grin was very much like Joey's then, with the same kind of shining eyes. “Will you help?"

"How?"

"Be a second parent, or aunt or something. But aside from that, we're going to need a good computer person, a research assistant, something of that sort. Someone who really knows the truth. You."

She remembered how Joey had slipped his hand into hers as they approached the stunned and disbelieving family. She suspected that Nathan was going to be very busy for years to come, and Joey would need a hand again and again. Not the hand of a paid caretaker, her hand. Besides, she really was a good computer geek. She nodded. “I'll help. Joey's going to need an aunt. And a lot of tutoring to catch up with seventeen lost years before school starts again. What about the research?"

"I'll put a heavy duty gate on the cave entrance, and we'll come up with the right tools, the right methods to investigate, really investigate, a hole in the universe, the doorway to a different universe, a place where a second or less is equal to seventeen of our years.” He laughed again, and nodded toward Joey, who was poised to jump off the high dive again. He looked too small to be up there alone. “The living proof of multiple universes,” Nathan said.

Ashley's gaze drifted from Joey to the improbable blue water in the pool, the green trees nearby, borders of vivid flowers.... She felt as if reality had undergone a shift of a magnitude she could not yet grasp. A sharp memory rose in her mind of her grandfather releasing a little fish and putting it back in a lake. “Too small,” he had said. “Not a keeper."

For the 60th anniversary competition, writers had to reveal the secret origin of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The stakes were sky-high, and because of this we had a record number of submissions ... many of them involving Roswell, government conspiracies, or the phrase, “There was a knock on the door."

Congratulations to Daniel Geilman, who wins 60 years of bragging rights to go with his 60-year subscription.

FIRST PRIZE:

"The tea on the right enhances your appeal to women. The tea on the left will help you create a tome of the science fiction and fantasy,” the old gypsy cackled before disappearing into the night.

Francis turned to Anthony. “Was that her right or our right?"

—Daniel Geilman

Lenexa, KS

SECOND PRIZE:

"We've finally created a pocket universe,” McComas said to Boucher. “Now what are we going to do with this infinite number of monkeys and typewriters?"

—Jacob P. Silvia

Houston, TX

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

"People,” Lucifer bellowed, “I've recently been made aware that the Earth-side antics have gotten somewhat excessive, and while I applaud your innovation, I'm taking heat from the Wet Blanket On High. So tonight, instead of creative smiting, we're going to stay in and try some creative writing."

—Andrea Yost

Westerville, OH

—

1949: A crack team of futurists and clairvoyants achieves the first successful cybersquat, blocking Florida Sports and Fishing magazine from its preferred URL for the next 59 years.

—Ziv Wities

Tarom, Israel

—

Young Harry's 1949 birth creates a rift into an alternate universe. Since then, digest-sized booklets called “F&SF” fall through it, periodically. Unaware that he is a wizard, at age ten, he receives a letter from Hogwarts, and a box holding his “familiar.” It is not an owl, but a Turtledove.

—Patrick J. O'Connor

Chicago IL

COMPETITION #79: HOOKED ON MNEMONICS

How do you remember the order of the planets in the Solar System? “My Very Earnest Mother Just Showed Us Nine Planets"—as those who opposed the demotion of Pluto from planet status by Neil Degrasse might plaintively protest.

The Solar System now consists of planets and dwarf planets along with all the usual asteroids, comets and other orbital miscellanea like plutoids. If we're going to remember which is what (and in what order) we clearly need a new mnemomic.

Your task is to revitalize the mnemonic based on the currently recognized list of the planets and dwarf planets:

Mercury V enus E arth M ars C eres J upiter S aturn U ranus N eptune P luto H aumea M akemake E ris

You can create up to six different mnemonics. You can make them complete sentences or not, as long as you make them funny. If they're science-fictional or fantastical, all the better.

Please remember to include your address and telephone number with your submission.

(For more information on dwarf planets, see solarsystem.nasa.gov.)

RULES: Send entries to Competition Editor, F&SF, 240 West 73rd St. #1201, New York, NY 10023-2794, or e-mail entries to carol@cybrid.net. Be sure to include your contact information. Entries must be received by November 16, 2009. Judges are the editors of F&SF, and their decision is final. All entries become the property of F&SF.

Prizes: First prize will receive a six-volume set of The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, compliments of NESFA Press. Second prize will receive advance reading copies of three forthcoming novels. Honorable Mentions will receive one-year subscriptions to F&SF. Results of Competition 79 will appear in the April/May 2010 issue.

BOOKS-MAGAZINES

S-F FANTASY MAGAZINES, pulps, books, fanzines. 96 page catalog. $5.00. Robert Madle, 4406 Bestor Dr., Rockville, MD 20853

20-time Hugo nominee. The New York Review of Science Fiction. www.nyrsf.com Reviews and essays. $4.00 or $40 for 12 issues, checks only. Dragon Press, PO Box 78, Pleasantville, NY 10570.

Spiffy, jammy, deluxy, bouncy—subscribe to Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet. $20/4 issues. Small Beer Press, 176 Prospect Ave., Northampton, MA 01060.

Latest from RAMBLE HOUSE: The Triune Man by Richard A. Lupoff and Automaton, a 1928 essay on robotics. www.ramblehouse.com 318-455-6847

The Ring of Knowledge delivers! Visit: www.eloquentbooks.com/TheRingOfKnowledge.html

SPANKING STORIES: For a 38 page catalog, send $3 to CF Publications, POB 706F, Setauket, NY 11733

For a taste of Harvey Jacobs’ new novel, Side Effects, check out www.celadonpress.com.

The Visitors. $14.95 Check/MO

OhlmBooks Publications

Box 125

Walsenburg CO 81089

Nyssa goes to the dogs. Read all about life in the kennel, circa 2075. “Rundog” by J.O.Quantaman. www.bbotw.com/product.aspx@ISBN=0—7414-4306-11

For sale

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Make best offer to: karelw1@verizon.net

Do you have Fourth Planet from the Sun yet? Signed hardcover copies are still available. Only $17.95 ppd from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5, CATTLE 0. The first 58 F&SF contests are collected in Oi, Robot, edited by Edward L. Ferman and illustrated with cartoons. $11.95 postpaid from F&SF, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

MISCELLANEOUS

If stress can change the brain, all experience can change the brain. www.undoingstress.com

Support the Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund. Visit www.carlbrandon.org for more information on how to contribute.

The Jamie Bishop Scholarship in Graphic Arts was established to honor the memory of this artist. Help support it. Send donations to: Advancement Services, LaGrange College, 601 Broad Street, LaGrange, GA 30240

The Bonaparte Deli—Mississippi's finest food. What's a bagel?

Space Studies Masters degree. Accredited University program. Campus and distance classes. For details visit www.space.edu.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Award for Imaginative Fiction. Sponsored by Rosebud Magazine. $1000 for first prize and $100 award for 4 runners-up. Guidelines at www.rsbd.net

Dragon, Fairy & Medieval decor and collectibles. Huge selection of statues, swords, wall plaques and more. www.paperstreetgiftco.com

FREE RPG INFO! JIM BALL, PO BOX 297702, COLUMBUS, OH 43229

Need a Publisher?

Go from Manuscript to Market Quickly and Affordably. www.AuthorHouse.com

F&SF classifieds work because the cost is low: only $2.00 per word (minimum of 10 words). 10% discount for 6 consecutive insertions, 15% for 12. You'll reach 100,000 high-income, highly educated readers each of whom spends hundreds of dollars a year on books, magazines, games, collectibles, audio and video tapes. Send copy and remittance to: F&SF Market Place, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030.

Was his real name Macfarlane? His sole sf venture introduces midget aliens lurking under Antarctica, who cause global mayhem before they accidentally self-destruct. Routine hackwork, mainly—but as the story grinds on, its increasing density of malapropisms betrays an obsessive stalker of the wild Thesaurus.

Puissance, dichotomy, etiolation, percussory, avulsion, fatidical, detrusion, nigritude, pendulate, terrigenous, abditory, insolation, fulgurating ... words sometimes used almost correctly. People “transcend” down into holes, are rendered “effete” by explosive shock, and get stupefied by will-power “more omnipotent than their own.” Dense rock is “hard as carbon.” The sensitively named character Kurt Semen is jailed for “inciting unnecessary pathos.” Another perishes: “Death had supined."

Here's the first, devastating troglodyte attack: “Everything was cinerated. Every living person was killed the moment the deadly emissions from the tribe's machinery pierced through the camp's superficial structure. So instantaneous and final were these lethal rays that the destructive act was over in but a few minutes."

Their skyscraper-toppling weapon is more humane. “The atomic structural reaction of this shower of concentrated rays was harmful only to materials. Hence, persons working in and about the buildings were unaffected."

Further golden phrases: “Many answers he gave were tautologous as he and his colleagues had had to guess at them.” Those alien “minnows” must “wear camouflage against the strong daylight.” Even with the menace over, “The period of strife and universal privation was malingering."

The Troglodytes is regrettably popular at British convention turkey-readings. It seems unlikely that the original Digit Books paperback—"Dwarf-like Killers from a By-gone Era!"—will ever be reprinted.

—David Langford

Those critics who say that F&SF has gone to hell since its heyday will have another chance to make their case as we publish our second tale of 2009 that descends into Hell. Unlike the first (Bruce Sterling's “Esoteric City"), this one does not concern a sinner. Rather, it's about a guy who stumbles into trouble through an innocent chain of errors ... and sets off an extraordinary chain of events. Look for Matthew Hughes's “Hell of a Fix” in our next issue.

Speaking of sinners, who among us can say that they won't have any regrets when they're in a hospital bed, facing mortality? Certainly not the narrator of Richard Bowes's “I Needs Must Part, the Policeman Said"; he has a lot of personal demons to confront, and they're not all figurative....

Also in the works are new stories by John Langan, Paul Park, Steven Popkes, and several newcomers. Subscribe now so you won't miss an issue.