Four thousand, two hundred and 17 steps from his house to the river. Zarah knew - he had counted them many times. He knew exactly how to make those steps come out even while chanting the hymn, up the long, gradual slope, ignoring the calls of his camels who, rising early, would soon be looking for food and water. His deep-blue turban wound with exactly fourteen twists of the cloth, his robe folded in the manner prescribed by the seers.
He would reach the river exactly at dawn.
When he entered the water, the rising sun would strike his purified body. He hoped, he prayed, that this would be the day he had spent his thirty years of life preparing for.
He hoped, he prayed, that on this day Enlightenment would come.
'Ouch!' Jake Vohman jerked irritably at the helmet, readjusting the headset. 'Do I have to wear all this gear? The poor guy will run screaming down the hill. I am a walking cliché.' He rolled his eyes as he lurched around the ship's control room, arms stretched out in parody of some forgotten scifi horror. 'Take. Me. To. Your. Leader,' he intoned.
Technical Chief Uri Ma'az slapped Vohman on the rear with a cleaning rag, and spun the tall, blond man around. 'Hold still,' he sighed, tugging at the helmet until it came off. He took the device to the bench to adjust the padding, calling over his shoulder, 'We have been through all that. This,' He held up the helmet, 'is the only way you can talk to him. We have to use mind-to-mind transmission. And he has to be in the water for it to work.'
Shaking shaggy locks, Vohman collapsed into a swivel chair, which he proceeded to destructively test. 'I know the drill. I show up, do my We-Come-in-Peace routine, and give him the message, using the Universal Translator over there.' He grinned toothily, knowing what was coming.
Ma'az rounded on him in exasperation. 'How many times do I gotta tell you? There is no such meshugenah thing as a universal translator, goyische kop. You can't translate ideas from one language to another when the other guy don't have words for what you've got to say...' He rubbed his chin as he studied the state-of-the-art device, and then nodded as he found the precise words. 'It's a DIT machine, is what it is. Direct Information Transfer, mind to mind.'
He turned to Vohman, who was already getting into the rest of his gear - antigravity belt over a white Fleet-issue jumpsuit, packet of mints in the pocket in case the early-morning air hit his sinuses the wrong way. (It wouldn't do to have a coughing fit in the middle of a Pronouncement.) The short, stocky Ma'az pointed a finger at Vohman, at six-foot-four an imposing specimen, one they hoped would meet the expectations of a worshipper of the Divine and Perfect.
'Remember. Keep your mind clear and on-task. Any and every little stray thought - say, what's for dinner in the mess tonight, what that girl on Reda thinks of you, whatever - will get magnified.' He ran his hands through wiry hair. 'Etymologies are treacherous. Sound associations leak through. If you don't want 'em starting a frog cult, don't think about Rana, get it?'
Vohman patted his tech chief on the shoulder, then gave it a squeeze. 'Don't worry. I'll keep it simple. Just let them know, we're on their side, what we want them to do.' His blue eyes twinkled. 'My thoughts will be pyoo-ah, free from concupiscence...' He reached for the helmet.
Ma'az strapped him into his harness for the journey planetside, wondering privately where this amoretz got his vocabulary from. 'And don't forget - they need to know that the guy from SOSHIA will contact them. To trust him.'
Vohman rolled his eyes one more time as he pulled on his helmet, talking into it to test the mike. 'Okay, yeah. In a few thousand years, somebody from the Special Office for Spatial Harmonics and Intertemporal Affairs will be along. Tell him Uri sent you.' He held up a confirmatory thumb to match Uri's as he stepped into the landing craft.
Vohman floated above the water, his hands held out wide, both in what he hoped was a sign of harmlessness and to keep his equipment out of the water. It was necessary for his contactee to be partially immersed - the liquid aided the transmission of thought waves - but it would not be a good idea to get Uri's components wet.
The dark little man below him didn't seem fazed by all the gear. He stretched out his hands in imitation of the gesture, grinning from ear to ear as he stood in the flowing river, the rising sun glinting off the water droplets in his curly beard. Vohman cleared his throat, cursed himself for a fool, then cleared his mind before turning on the transmitter.
'Er, hello, Friend. I come in peace.' Wider grin from local, obviously having the time of his life. Encouraged, Jake went on. 'I bring a message from...' Oh, smeg, who should he say he was from? What would Uri say? He gulped, fearing a cerebral faux pas, but the little man just nodded eagerly.
'Oh, yes, Blessed One, I love you, too, and like you I worship the Creator. May I ask your name, please?'
Blink. Oh, well, no harm in that. Now for the message. Jake went on to reassure the contactee that they were not in the religion business. Nobody wanted sacrifice, especially not of people or animals. Desperately not thinking of a frog at this point.
'We're just like you, really, only we have this trick with time. Don't worry about it, but we want you folks to get the full experience when you finally join us. Which means learning good citizenship. You'd help us a lot if you'd pass that message on, because we can only come back in a hop, skip, and a jump, you see. Hyperspace is kind of imprecise...er, don't worry about it...but there's something we need you to do for a sign to the rest of the team, that we've talked to you...'
He was losing the signal, he could tell in spite of the man's continued smiling and nodding, as the sun rose higher, attenuating the frequency. He had better be fast.
'Towards the target date, somebody from SOSHIA will contact you. Trust him, pass it along, please...' Lamely, 'Tell him, er, Uri Ma'az said hi.' Leaning over - a tricky manoeuvre, Vohman touched his contactee briefly on the neck with the device he held in his palm, hoping this gesture would be interpreted as a benediction, as apparently it was.
Vohman waved goodbye, and wished the other fellow luck as he turned off the transmitter and activated his cloaking device so that he could get to his shuttle without being seen.
'I hope we get better at this, ' he thought as he pulled off his helmet and strapped himself into the pilot's seat. 'I hope that guy doesn't get in too much trouble. Oh, well - we'll find out next hyperjump, now, won't we?'
Lt Vohman of the Confederation Space/Time Corps punched in the coordinates that would take him home aboard the CSS Merkavah. As he sat back, letting the autopilot do its job, he wiped nervous sweat from his face and studied the vial in his hand.
Ha, got you in the resurrection databank, my friend, you're a keeper...now, won't you be surprised?
Thus spoke Zarathusht, Zarah-of-the-Camels, to his followers:
'Ahura Mazda has spoken: We are starseed, we are his children.
'Abandon the old religion. Offer no sacrifice to stock and stone. Worship in the heart. Worship by right thought and action alone.
'This have I heard from Ahura Mazda's servant, Vohu Mana, which means Good Thought:
'At the end of days, we will join him in the wonderful new world. Only right action will prepare us to live fully in that world.
'Do justice, love mercy, heed the words of Vohu Mana.
'At the end of time, one will come, the Soshiant. He is from Ahura Mazda. He will reorder things so that we may leave this world behind and go to the next.
'Here is our sign...'
Zarathustra met with quite a lot of opposition to his teachings. He won only 22 converts in his lifetime. Approximately three and a half millennia later his followers still numbered only 200,000 on a planet of billions.
These followers kept faith, however, tried to live good lives, and did what their founder had asked in the name of his friend Vohu Mana:
To light a fire in a dark place.
28 February 2011
27 February 2011
Finnegan's Lunch Break - With Apologies to James Joyce
...riverdance, past Mistress Murphy's chowder emporium, down to where a diller a dollar the five-o'clock shadow dancer skips small sound stones across the kidney pool, trinken a trunken. Sic transit Gloria of a solemn Grundy, and why the divil would you want to, anyway, seein' as how you've never the ready for the rough of the keltie klippie's tongue-bashing when you've albut lost your last John Groat for the fair? Rumpty dumped the sump pump down i' the cellar wi' the praties, oh, but didnae she tell ye that cawbennabbage wouldna bile?
Thaur is no whaur in the hausfrauschloss of mirth, nor occident in the primological soap of the spaniard, gracious. Me. Whyever not begone betimes, when awl the augur has to ask your painful pinhead is, how many is forty-twa? The pipes, the papes, the pope is the awning, sir: whyever not, wan a' the werelt gnaws its ane tepid simony? I ask you, nu: showed you growl with your haid in the grund, ower take up the sau's souse sauce cry, babby? Six mower weaks is six lawn beg. Whyinnit?
The pikes, the pikes will go there in the lowering of the mound, albeit mony's the moth here's son would rawther view the veil the keep of kept animalcules in the zoosystical systemic guard, eins. Zwei. Drei. Fore and all. Wha' spirits be ye a-playin' at when ye beekeep, or naught? Bea thunk it prevision of the preversion, but it was aversity in the midst o forty-two dudes. At last, so eye thocht.
The reign it rheineth awe the day we burnt the bread the cleave the clef the kleptobismuth of the illegoallergicogorical. Wash it dun and whisht your key. Two privates? Oui. Combing in dutcher quarter, leasing the kopjes hang in, the geyser, the gazer has lost his nappy hat, and didn't ken but he shone up in the 'puter...alackraday, walt is it you? Political faith is the hardest to sustinocontinence. As I believe.
Lil did we inspect (in our knead-to-gnaw bases) that the worst of the curse was git to come: the unannounceried proactive arruvial of the tree vice men (mostly xy, some zs) with the Logohejiminy faun on hey. Ann didn't that set the pidgin amaung the cattle? Lang did they waive, and lang was the scree the scrim the screed o' it, but curt and kurzery and breve the breadth of the brose (the hurrar, the hollow). We need a gnu yonker. Or me be a bronks. Cheer.
Nawtheless and uber awe less moiety Fawkes gimped awer the lay she dirge, and keys board in the springes, the moist a rainyday singer calm do wear to darn a don apparel breeks and hardspun brogues to jine the...
Thaur is no whaur in the hausfrauschloss of mirth, nor occident in the primological soap of the spaniard, gracious. Me. Whyever not begone betimes, when awl the augur has to ask your painful pinhead is, how many is forty-twa? The pipes, the papes, the pope is the awning, sir: whyever not, wan a' the werelt gnaws its ane tepid simony? I ask you, nu: showed you growl with your haid in the grund, ower take up the sau's souse sauce cry, babby? Six mower weaks is six lawn beg. Whyinnit?
The pikes, the pikes will go there in the lowering of the mound, albeit mony's the moth here's son would rawther view the veil the keep of kept animalcules in the zoosystical systemic guard, eins. Zwei. Drei. Fore and all. Wha' spirits be ye a-playin' at when ye beekeep, or naught? Bea thunk it prevision of the preversion, but it was aversity in the midst o forty-two dudes. At last, so eye thocht.
The reign it rheineth awe the day we burnt the bread the cleave the clef the kleptobismuth of the illegoallergicogorical. Wash it dun and whisht your key. Two privates? Oui. Combing in dutcher quarter, leasing the kopjes hang in, the geyser, the gazer has lost his nappy hat, and didn't ken but he shone up in the 'puter...alackraday, walt is it you? Political faith is the hardest to sustinocontinence. As I believe.
Lil did we inspect (in our knead-to-gnaw bases) that the worst of the curse was git to come: the unannounceried proactive arruvial of the tree vice men (mostly xy, some zs) with the Logohejiminy faun on hey. Ann didn't that set the pidgin amaung the cattle? Lang did they waive, and lang was the scree the scrim the screed o' it, but curt and kurzery and breve the breadth of the brose (the hurrar, the hollow). We need a gnu yonker. Or me be a bronks. Cheer.
Nawtheless and uber awe less moiety Fawkes gimped awer the lay she dirge, and keys board in the springes, the moist a rainyday singer calm do wear to darn a don apparel breeks and hardspun brogues to jine the...
26 February 2011
Sunday in Acme
Some say that a crisis brings out the best in us. Others are not so sure.
Ask someone who's been there, is the usual wisdom.
Sunday morning, and Robert Thigpen didn't feel like going to church. Not that he was usually dilatory in his attendance – quite the contrary, he was usually Johnny-on-the-spot for deacon duties, ready to take up the offering ever since he'd found that he wasn't choir material. (The choir director had been diplomatic about it, but Robert had gathered that singing wasn't "his gift", and Robert was the opposite of thick-skinned when it came to criticism, so he was happy to bury his baritone light under the camouflaging bushel of an equally tone-deaf congregation.) Normally, Robert enjoyed the services, meeting the neighbours, admiring the kids' new duds, keeping private score of how often the pastor used the phrase "prayer warriors" in his allotted half-hour before the congregation grew restless to beat First Presbyterian to the Sunday buffet at the Wallaby steakhouse.
But today was the day before Memorial Day, and Robert was planning to play hookey. He had thoughtfully warned the chairman of the deacons that he thought he'd be coming down with a mild case of the 'flu today. Patriotic 'flu, he chuckled to himself as he set a plate on the floor for Obadiah the Cairn terrier – containing half his scrambled eggs, a bit of sausage, and some flour gravy. Obadiah loved flour gravy, at least when Robert made it. The little dog was a connoisseur of flour gravy, and wagged his tail happily as he and Robert shared breakfast.
The problem with civil religion, Robert mused as he stirred his coffee, was that it spilled over into religion-religion. Robert was as patriotic as the next fellow lucky enough to have grown up in an age with no draft, but he didn't like to see flags in church. Not even when the Vacation Bible School pledged allegiance to the Christian flag....and to the Saviour, for whose kingdom it stands....
Robert was a student of history, and the Christian flag made him think of things he didn't like to think about, such as the Crusades. Robert was a staunch Baptist, and therefore one of the last believers in the separation of church and state. A line in the sand, he thought. Y'all stay over yonder, and we'll stay over here, and we won't embarrass heaven and the government so much.
Besides, he liked and respected their pastor, Bro. Massey, in spite of "prayer warriors" overkill, and he didn't want to be present for the obligatory and uncomfortable platitudes about sacrifices he was sure none of them had made, or had a right to comment on in a religious context. So he was happily playing hookey, and sharing sausage, eggs, and flour gravy with Obadiah on a Sunday morning in Acme, North Carolina.
Washing up, Robert bethought himself of the meaning of the Memorial Day holiday. Ironic, really, when you come to think of it. Memorial Day was made up when half the people down here weren't even citizens any more, having lost a major war, made up to honour the war dead on the Other Side, so we made up our own Memorial Days, only, wouldn't you know it, typical Confederates had to have a different day in each state...Now, what do we do? Turn into the flag-wavin'est, most patriotic bunch in the 50 states, send the most kids to the military...What's up with that, as the young'uns say?
Robert addressed this last question aloud to Obadiah, who simply wagged his tail in reply and pawed Robert's leg, so Robert took the hint and his philosophy outdoors for a walk with his best friend.
A walk – and a whiff of his irreligious neighbours' barbecue – convinced Robert that what was needed on a beautiful day like today was a cookout, just him and Obadiah. Promising the disappointed terrier that he would only be gone for "two shakes", Robert grabbed his car keys and headed down Highway 55 for the Superbullseye, the big all-in-one department store whose full-service grocery boasted the best meats in town. On the way, Robert was mixing ingredients in his mind, planning which in-season vegetables to roast, and thinking of the best marinade. As he parked, he noticed that many of his neighbours must have had the same idea – a lot of cars and vans in the lot. Robert noted which big red ball (the Bullseye trademark) he was parked nearest to, and went through the whooshing double doors, letting the overwrought air conditioning hit him midsection as he got his bearings.
The Superbullseye was an attractive store, its goods pleasantly displayed against an overwhelming backdrop of fire-engine red. If it weren't that he reacted badly to the fluorescent lighting, Robert would have enjoyed lingering among the bargains. The place was much nicer than Lowmart, and the prices were just as good.
Although the store was attractive, Robert's fellow-shoppers were less so. It was the beginning of summer in the Piedmont, which brought out the local resident in his native plumage: baggy, knee-length, low-riding shorts for the male, tight tank tops and short-shorts for the female of the species, regardless of weight, age, or state of physical tone. Both genders sported an alarming number of tattoos on all exposed flesh. Robert had long ago decided that he would be grateful to go home to Jesus before the nursing homes were filled with octogenarians whose rheumy eyes peered out from behind a tapestry of withered manga gargoyles. Using a wet-wipe to clean the pudding – butterscotch, from the look of it – from the shopping-cart handle, Robert steered toward the meat counter.
The first shot sounded like a shelf falling near the front of the store. Robert turned toward the sound, concerned, just as the second report came. The female cashier, a middle-aged woman, crumpled to the floor. The white-haired man holding the gun turned it on the terrified customer and barked something Robert couldn't hear. The man ran for the front doors, leaving behind his wallet and keys, his cartful of groceries, and one flip-flop, lying forlornly near the exit.
What followed was a stampede. Hundreds of panicked shoppers crowded the front exits, stumbling over one another in their haste to get away from the shooter. In the split-second before he made his own decision, Robert thought he heard the sickening crunch of a broken bone, and a howl of pain and outrage.
Robert glanced around. He didn't see anyone else armed. He decided that the shooter must be alone, that the police would arrive soon, that shouting at the man with the gun would be a bad idea, and that the front of the store was not a good place to be, as that was where the nervous man was standing, shaking –probably trying to get used to the idea that he's just killed someone, he thought. Abandoning his cart, he headed in a brisk walk toward the back of the store. If nothing else, he could go out the loading area, or hide in the back until the police had sorted the mess out. He assumed the store workers would do as he advised his own staff –don't be a hero, give him whatever he wants, let him take all the cash, just don't provoke him – and he knew for a fact that they had walkie-talkies. He walked rather than ran past aisles in which customers were crouching with frightened eyes.
On his way past rows of wine bottles, Robert heard a child sobbing in the aisle next to the frozen food, and a man speaking in a low voice. "Shh, Billy, be quiet now," the man said in a British accent. Robert went around the end of the aisle to where the man crouched, comforting his grandson. He was about to speak when a red-shirted young woman appeared from the other end of the aisle, beckoning to them. They followed the Bullseye employee – her name tag said "Glenda" – to a door near the frozen food, and went into the food cooler. Glenda found some frozen blueberries, and they sat on the floor, feeding Billy blueberries to keep him quiet while they waited for the police. Robert tried one – a bit tart, but not bad. He winked at Billy, who winked back.
"I thought this was a safe place," remarked Billy's grandfather. "I'm just here visiting my son, you see, and I thought, well, it isn't New York..." Robert nodded in understanding.
There was one more shot. The gunman, ordered by the police to disarm, turned the gun on himself. The sound was muffled in the cooler, and Billy only blinked. Then his grandfather took him home, and Robert went out, answered a few police questions, and made his way to his car. On the way back to the house, he stopped at the Wallaby steakhouse for some take-out before going home to a joyful Obadiah.
Eating steak from someone else's "barbie", Robert surfed the web for explanations. Nobody knew why the man had driven all the way from California to shoot the cashier, whom he knew. Later, the man's daughter informed the police that her father had learned he had a terminal illness. This explained very little. Robert was not surprised that it was a personal matter. He hadn't expected Al-Qaeda to strike in Acme.
Robert was sorry for the people involved, but more interested in learning what had happened to the several hundred panicked customers who had hot-footed it out the front exits, jamming the doors in the process. Several broken bones had been reported. Apparently, there had been some vandalism, as 60 of his fellow-townspeople, convinced that they were under terrorist attack, ripped out some fencing behind the Bullseye and escaped across a neighbouring property.
The best bit was the blog put up by one of the television stations. There, an outraged customer expressed herself:
"Well, Obadiah, what do you think? Are we all the stuff that heroes are made of?" As usual, Obadiah replied with a tail-wag that was suggestive of another suggestion, so Robert gave up his musing on local ladies who name their children after muses and picked up the leash.
It took a good, long walk before Robert and Obadiah were satisfied with their take on the day.
Ask someone who's been there, is the usual wisdom.
Sunday morning, and Robert Thigpen didn't feel like going to church. Not that he was usually dilatory in his attendance – quite the contrary, he was usually Johnny-on-the-spot for deacon duties, ready to take up the offering ever since he'd found that he wasn't choir material. (The choir director had been diplomatic about it, but Robert had gathered that singing wasn't "his gift", and Robert was the opposite of thick-skinned when it came to criticism, so he was happy to bury his baritone light under the camouflaging bushel of an equally tone-deaf congregation.) Normally, Robert enjoyed the services, meeting the neighbours, admiring the kids' new duds, keeping private score of how often the pastor used the phrase "prayer warriors" in his allotted half-hour before the congregation grew restless to beat First Presbyterian to the Sunday buffet at the Wallaby steakhouse.
But today was the day before Memorial Day, and Robert was planning to play hookey. He had thoughtfully warned the chairman of the deacons that he thought he'd be coming down with a mild case of the 'flu today. Patriotic 'flu, he chuckled to himself as he set a plate on the floor for Obadiah the Cairn terrier – containing half his scrambled eggs, a bit of sausage, and some flour gravy. Obadiah loved flour gravy, at least when Robert made it. The little dog was a connoisseur of flour gravy, and wagged his tail happily as he and Robert shared breakfast.
The problem with civil religion, Robert mused as he stirred his coffee, was that it spilled over into religion-religion. Robert was as patriotic as the next fellow lucky enough to have grown up in an age with no draft, but he didn't like to see flags in church. Not even when the Vacation Bible School pledged allegiance to the Christian flag....and to the Saviour, for whose kingdom it stands....
Robert was a student of history, and the Christian flag made him think of things he didn't like to think about, such as the Crusades. Robert was a staunch Baptist, and therefore one of the last believers in the separation of church and state. A line in the sand, he thought. Y'all stay over yonder, and we'll stay over here, and we won't embarrass heaven and the government so much.
Besides, he liked and respected their pastor, Bro. Massey, in spite of "prayer warriors" overkill, and he didn't want to be present for the obligatory and uncomfortable platitudes about sacrifices he was sure none of them had made, or had a right to comment on in a religious context. So he was happily playing hookey, and sharing sausage, eggs, and flour gravy with Obadiah on a Sunday morning in Acme, North Carolina.
Washing up, Robert bethought himself of the meaning of the Memorial Day holiday. Ironic, really, when you come to think of it. Memorial Day was made up when half the people down here weren't even citizens any more, having lost a major war, made up to honour the war dead on the Other Side, so we made up our own Memorial Days, only, wouldn't you know it, typical Confederates had to have a different day in each state...Now, what do we do? Turn into the flag-wavin'est, most patriotic bunch in the 50 states, send the most kids to the military...What's up with that, as the young'uns say?
Robert addressed this last question aloud to Obadiah, who simply wagged his tail in reply and pawed Robert's leg, so Robert took the hint and his philosophy outdoors for a walk with his best friend.
A walk – and a whiff of his irreligious neighbours' barbecue – convinced Robert that what was needed on a beautiful day like today was a cookout, just him and Obadiah. Promising the disappointed terrier that he would only be gone for "two shakes", Robert grabbed his car keys and headed down Highway 55 for the Superbullseye, the big all-in-one department store whose full-service grocery boasted the best meats in town. On the way, Robert was mixing ingredients in his mind, planning which in-season vegetables to roast, and thinking of the best marinade. As he parked, he noticed that many of his neighbours must have had the same idea – a lot of cars and vans in the lot. Robert noted which big red ball (the Bullseye trademark) he was parked nearest to, and went through the whooshing double doors, letting the overwrought air conditioning hit him midsection as he got his bearings.
The Superbullseye was an attractive store, its goods pleasantly displayed against an overwhelming backdrop of fire-engine red. If it weren't that he reacted badly to the fluorescent lighting, Robert would have enjoyed lingering among the bargains. The place was much nicer than Lowmart, and the prices were just as good.
Although the store was attractive, Robert's fellow-shoppers were less so. It was the beginning of summer in the Piedmont, which brought out the local resident in his native plumage: baggy, knee-length, low-riding shorts for the male, tight tank tops and short-shorts for the female of the species, regardless of weight, age, or state of physical tone. Both genders sported an alarming number of tattoos on all exposed flesh. Robert had long ago decided that he would be grateful to go home to Jesus before the nursing homes were filled with octogenarians whose rheumy eyes peered out from behind a tapestry of withered manga gargoyles. Using a wet-wipe to clean the pudding – butterscotch, from the look of it – from the shopping-cart handle, Robert steered toward the meat counter.
The first shot sounded like a shelf falling near the front of the store. Robert turned toward the sound, concerned, just as the second report came. The female cashier, a middle-aged woman, crumpled to the floor. The white-haired man holding the gun turned it on the terrified customer and barked something Robert couldn't hear. The man ran for the front doors, leaving behind his wallet and keys, his cartful of groceries, and one flip-flop, lying forlornly near the exit.
What followed was a stampede. Hundreds of panicked shoppers crowded the front exits, stumbling over one another in their haste to get away from the shooter. In the split-second before he made his own decision, Robert thought he heard the sickening crunch of a broken bone, and a howl of pain and outrage.
Robert glanced around. He didn't see anyone else armed. He decided that the shooter must be alone, that the police would arrive soon, that shouting at the man with the gun would be a bad idea, and that the front of the store was not a good place to be, as that was where the nervous man was standing, shaking –probably trying to get used to the idea that he's just killed someone, he thought. Abandoning his cart, he headed in a brisk walk toward the back of the store. If nothing else, he could go out the loading area, or hide in the back until the police had sorted the mess out. He assumed the store workers would do as he advised his own staff –don't be a hero, give him whatever he wants, let him take all the cash, just don't provoke him – and he knew for a fact that they had walkie-talkies. He walked rather than ran past aisles in which customers were crouching with frightened eyes.
On his way past rows of wine bottles, Robert heard a child sobbing in the aisle next to the frozen food, and a man speaking in a low voice. "Shh, Billy, be quiet now," the man said in a British accent. Robert went around the end of the aisle to where the man crouched, comforting his grandson. He was about to speak when a red-shirted young woman appeared from the other end of the aisle, beckoning to them. They followed the Bullseye employee – her name tag said "Glenda" – to a door near the frozen food, and went into the food cooler. Glenda found some frozen blueberries, and they sat on the floor, feeding Billy blueberries to keep him quiet while they waited for the police. Robert tried one – a bit tart, but not bad. He winked at Billy, who winked back.
"I thought this was a safe place," remarked Billy's grandfather. "I'm just here visiting my son, you see, and I thought, well, it isn't New York..." Robert nodded in understanding.
There was one more shot. The gunman, ordered by the police to disarm, turned the gun on himself. The sound was muffled in the cooler, and Billy only blinked. Then his grandfather took him home, and Robert went out, answered a few police questions, and made his way to his car. On the way back to the house, he stopped at the Wallaby steakhouse for some take-out before going home to a joyful Obadiah.
Eating steak from someone else's "barbie", Robert surfed the web for explanations. Nobody knew why the man had driven all the way from California to shoot the cashier, whom he knew. Later, the man's daughter informed the police that her father had learned he had a terminal illness. This explained very little. Robert was not surprised that it was a personal matter. He hadn't expected Al-Qaeda to strike in Acme.
Robert was sorry for the people involved, but more interested in learning what had happened to the several hundred panicked customers who had hot-footed it out the front exits, jamming the doors in the process. Several broken bones had been reported. Apparently, there had been some vandalism, as 60 of his fellow-townspeople, convinced that they were under terrorist attack, ripped out some fencing behind the Bullseye and escaped across a neighbouring property.
The best bit was the blog put up by one of the television stations. There, an outraged customer expressed herself:
"I am scarred for life by this horrible experience. Me and my three-year-old quadruplets, Clio, Calliope, Erato, and Terpsichore, were all stuck in that store. They have PTSD and won't eat. I will never forget this."Robert was sure he would never forget this letter.
"Well, Obadiah, what do you think? Are we all the stuff that heroes are made of?" As usual, Obadiah replied with a tail-wag that was suggestive of another suggestion, so Robert gave up his musing on local ladies who name their children after muses and picked up the leash.
It took a good, long walk before Robert and Obadiah were satisfied with their take on the day.
25 February 2011
The Goth War with the Romulans - An Ongoing Conflict
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| Not everyone is thrilled by the Galactovision Song Contest. |
Our militaristic friends had done it again, entered the latest hit from the Homeworld, Tomorrow the Galaxy.
Neighbouring planets were not amused, and this revived rumours concerning the state of war between Gotha and Romulus, now in its fifth decade, with no sign of weakening on either side.
Well, it depends on who you talk to. According to a Goth spokesperson, the enemy 'is all but annihilated on all fronts, especially in the area of psy-ops'. According to a Romulan spokesdrone, 'those bl****d Goths are trying to pull the wool over your eyes again. They haven't even got an army! There is no war!', followed by incoherent spluttering.
Like I said...
The first problem is basically one of definition. According to the Goths, who have, with typical verve and considerable elan, taken it upon themselves to relieve the rest of us of the chore of dealing with the quadrant's biggest blowhards ("WE invented the wheel! AND we decided what colour it should be!), the Goth-Romulan War is a relentless and all-consuming conflict fraught with perils, deep strategy, and deeds of incredible daring (on the part of the Goths).
According to the Romulans, it is pure bunkum.
The second problem is one of stellar cartography. You see, it is hard, some would say impossible, for the Romulans to launch an attack against an enemy whose home territory lies at right angles to reality. If you can't find it, you can't bomb it. Or invade it.
Which, wiser heads opine, is why the Goths started the whole thing.
Of course, the Goths could easily find Romulus - the Empire is hard to miss, even if you discount their disputed territorial claims, the settlement of which takes up so much of the Galactic Council's time. It's just that the Goths don't actually bother invading the Romulans.
It's much more fun to pretend to invade them. Drives 'em nuts.
And that brings us to the third problem, from the Romulan point of view, that of credibility. And press control.
What the Goths save in ordnance, they spend on propaganda. And they are winning the propaganda war, with a combination of pertinacity, inventiveness, and sheer bloodymindedness that would boggle the mind of a litigious Venusian.
The Pan-Galactic Herald Centurion, a wholly Goth-owned and operated homeopape, regularly announces, in thrilling detail, complete with photos and sidebar interviews, accounts of truly amazing, daredevil raids into Romulan territory that did not take place.
Of course, they will deny this. They have an entire department whose only job it is to deny this. They say that Romulan denials are mere war propaganda from the other side, that lack of evidence simply proves how determined the enemy is to cover up his losses, and that, besides, everybody knows the Romulans are a bunch of joyless spoilsports, so there.
The Romulans, of course, are furious. They are beside themselves. They are frequently rendered speechless by this effrontery.
Speechlessness in a Romulan is a good thing.
In response to the recent Galactovision dustup, the Goths have launched a new assault. This time, they have published an entire book of anti-Romulan war songs, with titles such as We'll Hang Out Our Washing on the Horsehead Line, Praise Odin, and Pass the Ammunition, and, particularly galling, I'm a Frothy Old Goth, in a Sloppy Old Moth, on the Streets of Old Ra'tleifi, with My Auntie and My Nephie, Doing Those Blear-o Blear-o Can't See Too Clear-oh, Zero Gravity Blues.
Which immediately went into the Pan-Galactic Gargle Blaster Book of Useless Records as the most ridiculous song title in sidereal history.
Of course, the Goths do attack from time to time, at a spacetime locus of their own choosing. But even this affords their bellicose opponents no comfort, no release. Their latest foray was into the capital itself, where they used strategically placed, and well-cloaked, transporters to simultaneously beam 499,999 teddy bears, all in Goth native costumes, and all terminally cute, to every public building in the city.
The diabolically cunning part was the number of bears. The obsessive-compulsive (and ursophobic) Romulans went crazy trying to find that last bear.
The Romulans continue to gnash their teeth, faced with the horror of an enemy who refuses to take war seriously. In the meantime, a grateful galaxy has now voted the entire Goth nation the Supernobel Prize, in a special category: Peace Through Perpetual Warfare.
May all your conflicts be humorous ones.
23 February 2011
Jakobsson's Ark
The journey by icebreaker was pretty hair-raising, but the last 100 miles over the icy tundra took the last nerve I had. By the time we pulled up in front of Frøhvelv I, all I could think of was hot chocolate.
I suppose that was why I wasn't in the mood to register the barbaric beauty of the gigantic metal wedge protruding from the mountain, its forbidding grey contrasting starkly with the snow-covered granite – if I had, I would have made that note in my blog earlier, the one about how it looked like an ancient hard drive out of the Archaeological Museum. As I climbed slowly out of the heated jeppi, expecting my reluctant breath to turn to icicles the moment it left the safety of my nostrils, I just had time to notice the orange klieg lights that provided the only colour in this black-and-white twilight snowscape, when Jósef Jakobsson himself came bounding out the entrance, mittened hand outstretched in greeting, perfect white teeth recklessly exposed to the elements in that world-famous grin.
"Bródir Caoinan," he greeted me – getting my name right first try, a surprise. Most people don't realise how much that means to a minority. "You made good time from the ship. I am so glad to be able to show you around our little facility."
To my relief, he hustled me inside, remarking that the evening was "a bit crisp", and while we stripped off our thermal onesies in the first airlock, and I presented my credentials to the more suspicious-looking security guard (I supposed it was his job, after all), the globally-respected Chairman of NarthGen proceeded to hold forth on his pet project, just as if I were a Really Important Person, and not merely the stringer who drew that short straw when the boss of Twittweet – the planet Narthex's cheapest newstream agency – wanted filler. I didn't care. I might have been too ethnic for the podcasts (and, yes, I admit I've got the stereotypic speech defect), but hey, I had admired Jakobsson for years, ever since he'd turned down the vice presidency of world power Synthion to accept a post with the Federated Nations. That was before he won the Humanity Prize, of course. The fact that most of the planet thought he was a nutty genius with a bee in his bonnet didn't alter the fact that I – biologist manqué– was in awe of him. Meeting him was a dream come true.
"You see, Bródir Caoinan," the genial giant was saying while the security guard gave me a subdermal hand stamp, "We take our security precautions very seriously. What is down in our mountain is precious cargo, indeed." I murmured agreement, covertly studying the man. Even out of his onesie, Jakobsson was huge – six-foot-four at least, with nothing of the reclusive scientist about him. Heavily muscled and tanned (tanned? Oh, well, these alpha Synthians probably had a tanning bed tucked in behind the sauna), wild strawberry hair, the picture of rude health. I felt even more insignificant than usual as I trotted beside him to the next airlock, trying to keep up with the conversation, physically and metaphorically.
I cleared my throat and tried to make journalist noises. "The collection is how far inside the mountain, exactly?"
"Half a mile inside the mountain itself," he replied, glancing around professionally at the titanium walls as we headed for the next airlock. Noticing that I was out of breath, he shortened his stride. "Here in the permafrost, we are free from contamination. And we can withstand a 100 megaton nuclear blast." The guards at the next set of doors stepped aside, and Jakobsson grinned as he pushed the doors open with a flourish.
I should not have been surprised at the subway car, but I was. As we rode the rest of the way to the central Frøhvelv, I tried to get the preliminary yadda-yadda of the interview out of the way.
"This impressive facility is the FN's response to the climate-change problem?" I ventured. Jakobsson waved a broad hand dismissively.
"Climate change, yes, but we can deal with that. I am more interested in the problem of GenCorp." My ears pricked up at that – there might be a scoop here, after all.
I cleared my throat. "You don't agree with Chairman Olafsson's assessment that the new maize strains are pure and pose no threat to world crops?" At this, Jakobsson looked as if he were about to expostulate about "blue food" – I remembered his speech on the subject – but the subway ride came to an abrupt end, and he took me by the arm, merely remarking that we would "get to that" soon enough. In the meantime, he had something to show me.
It was something, all right. You've all seen it now – at least on your podscreens – but it was the first time for me, and I was impressed.
We stood on a catwalk, high in a cavernous space. Below us, walkways stretched like spokes in a wheel, lined with glass-covered cells whose side panels glowed with digital information. I caught my breath. "It's a panopticon," I blurted, then blushed.
Jakobsson chuckled. "A panopticon, yes. One in which our "prisoners" are quite safe." He gestured below. "Even if the refrigeration were to go out, it would take three days before the temperature in the units rose to -3°. That would be enough time, I think. Here inside the mountain, we are safe from water – even should the polar ice caps melt – from war, and from idiots who make genetic mistakes." A worker in a crisp white jumpsuit wheeled a trolley past us on the way to the lift. Jakobsson stopped her and took something from the trolley. "Would you like to see?" he asked. I nodded.
He held out the packet almost reverently. I hesitated, but took it. There, in clear plastic, vacuum-sealed, was a piece of the future of Narthex: perhaps a quarter pound of seeds. I read the label. "Malus domesticus, Sample #RD4201." I smiled. "So the apples are safe."
Jakobsson grinned as he replaced the seed packet. "Not only the apples, Bródir Caoinan. There are 1.5 million varieties down there. All safe." He took me by the elbow. "Come, let us go to my office. I can answer your questions about the blue corn there. And I will tell you why I wanted you to come."
I don't know what troubled me more at that moment – the fact that Jakobsson was hinting that he, and not my editor, had originated this interview (me? I'm nobody, a shanty kid from Equatorial Arran), or that the lift we were heading for went up for a very long way into the mountain. I thanked my miner ancestors that I was not prone to claustrophobia, and kept my questions to myself until we had landed safely in Jakobsson's suitably plush office.
While Jakobsson, the attentive host, made us drinks, I looked around at the array of vidscreens on the wall – the usual newsfeeds from around the globe, what looked to be closed-circuit images from inside Frøhvelv I itself, a variety of other facilities including safari parks, and the auditorium of the FN Assembly (surprise). Even more surprising, I noticed a screen devoted to Twittweet. Alongside the current podcast – an interview with Bjørk Tinnjedóttir, the latest rad singer – there was a sidebar containing, of all things, my blog.
My blog. The one I had written feverishly for the last year, all through the Synthian winter and spring, collating newsbit after newsbit from the tech-poor northern hemisphere, desperately trying to get twitters and tweeters to listen, trying from my poky little office in Rasmussen City to reach out to the pod audience and tell them what I suspected was behind the alarming agricultural news trickling down across the equator. The stupid blog that got relegated to the bottom corner of the front page as "not sexy, a downer", while the editors concentrated on fashionistas who sent a few creds northward for famine relief, or adopted stray Arrani babies. I shrugged. Maybe the great man had too much free time.
Jakobsson handed me a tall glass with some expensive nectar in it (I had forgotten about hot chocolate by now), and folded his tall frame into a leather swivel chair, motioning me to do the same. "I asked for you," he said simply.
I must have gawked – I distinctly remember gawking – as he went on: "I could tell you were trying to get the word out about the disaster last spring." He scowled. "The harvest figures were even worse than the ones the local governments released. The famine is widespread. But I could not act. Not yet."
The drink was better than anything I'd ever tasted, but I almost choked on it. I tried for an even tone. "You were waiting for what, sir?"
As if he had not heard the reproach in my voice, Jakobsson pointed his remote at a screen and went into brisk lecture mode. The screen showed a green plant, rather common. "A. Syriaca," he intoned. "When in contact with Bacillus thuringiensis, causes significant death among Danaus plexippus L., or the monarch butterfly. Ever hear of the butterfly effect, Bródir Caoinan?" He did not wait for an answer. "That is not all the pollen can do. It kills insects, yes, that is bad enough. But..." he turned in his chair to glare at me, "It has mutated on this planet."
I flinched, almost expecting a personal attack, but his anger was not directed at me. "GenCorp," he hissed between those perfect teeth, "GenCorp has been covering up the catastrophe, shipping all the food it can buy to the northern hemisphere for six months, buying out the media chains, waiting for the southern harvest. They swore they had contained the evil. They swore they had fixed the problem. But I can read weather patterns, Bródir Caoinan, and so can they." He clicked the remote again, and the image changed.
I saw the Narthex map, with prevailing wind patterns. I saw the animation that indicated how climate change had shifted them. I saw how the winds had shifted south, carrying the pollen, carrying it toward the breadbaskets of Synthion and Arkady. I gulped alcohol and fruit juice.
Jakobsson pointed to another screen. "Today is the first day of autumn. It is traditionally the day when the harvest figures are announced by the major food-producing nations. It is time," he glanced at his watch, "to see what GenCorp has wrought." We turned to ZBF, the most reliable news source in Rasmussen City.
The figures were grim. I wasn't surprised, after what Jakobsson had told me. What most of the audience would not have appreciated was what I already knew – the planet was two months from starvation, even without the added burden of the humanitarian relief that had already been sent northward. Winter coming on, and soon we would be eating – what? Emergency rations from the FN? Each other? I looked at Jakobsson in dumb horror.
To my surprise, Jakobsson seemed almost cheerful. "That is why I sent for you, Bródir Caoinan. We have work to do, and I will need someone to help me tell the story. You see those screens? Those are the nature preserves of the FN. We have stockpiled food, enough for the animals, enough – within reason – to get us through the next harvest. We have a plan for combating the mutated, and inedible, vegetation. We have the seed bank for the future." He rubbed his hands together, as if eager to get to work. "But there will need to be...changes. I think you understand."
I nodded, slowly. In the last few minutes, my mental world had been turned upside down. But I understood. My mouth was dry. I sipped my drink, and then said, "Nothing will be the same." Privately, I hoped that GenCorp's executive would be tried for crimes against humanity, that maybe Equatorial Arran would get independence, that maybe my fourteen cousins would get jobs for the first time in their lives... But there were more pressing issues. "I will draft the statement immediately," I said.
Jakobsson's eyes twinkled. "What will you tell them?" he asked.
I thought about that old book on my dresser at home – the one my granny had pressed into my hand the day I got on the plane for Rasmussen City, saying, "Never forget where you come from". I thought about everything she'd read to me from that book.
"I think Genesis 47:20 will do for a start," I said.
And Jósef Jakobsson smiled. To someone like me, it was a reassuring smile.
I suppose that was why I wasn't in the mood to register the barbaric beauty of the gigantic metal wedge protruding from the mountain, its forbidding grey contrasting starkly with the snow-covered granite – if I had, I would have made that note in my blog earlier, the one about how it looked like an ancient hard drive out of the Archaeological Museum. As I climbed slowly out of the heated jeppi, expecting my reluctant breath to turn to icicles the moment it left the safety of my nostrils, I just had time to notice the orange klieg lights that provided the only colour in this black-and-white twilight snowscape, when Jósef Jakobsson himself came bounding out the entrance, mittened hand outstretched in greeting, perfect white teeth recklessly exposed to the elements in that world-famous grin.
"Bródir Caoinan," he greeted me – getting my name right first try, a surprise. Most people don't realise how much that means to a minority. "You made good time from the ship. I am so glad to be able to show you around our little facility."
To my relief, he hustled me inside, remarking that the evening was "a bit crisp", and while we stripped off our thermal onesies in the first airlock, and I presented my credentials to the more suspicious-looking security guard (I supposed it was his job, after all), the globally-respected Chairman of NarthGen proceeded to hold forth on his pet project, just as if I were a Really Important Person, and not merely the stringer who drew that short straw when the boss of Twittweet – the planet Narthex's cheapest newstream agency – wanted filler. I didn't care. I might have been too ethnic for the podcasts (and, yes, I admit I've got the stereotypic speech defect), but hey, I had admired Jakobsson for years, ever since he'd turned down the vice presidency of world power Synthion to accept a post with the Federated Nations. That was before he won the Humanity Prize, of course. The fact that most of the planet thought he was a nutty genius with a bee in his bonnet didn't alter the fact that I – biologist manqué– was in awe of him. Meeting him was a dream come true.
"You see, Bródir Caoinan," the genial giant was saying while the security guard gave me a subdermal hand stamp, "We take our security precautions very seriously. What is down in our mountain is precious cargo, indeed." I murmured agreement, covertly studying the man. Even out of his onesie, Jakobsson was huge – six-foot-four at least, with nothing of the reclusive scientist about him. Heavily muscled and tanned (tanned? Oh, well, these alpha Synthians probably had a tanning bed tucked in behind the sauna), wild strawberry hair, the picture of rude health. I felt even more insignificant than usual as I trotted beside him to the next airlock, trying to keep up with the conversation, physically and metaphorically.
I cleared my throat and tried to make journalist noises. "The collection is how far inside the mountain, exactly?"
"Half a mile inside the mountain itself," he replied, glancing around professionally at the titanium walls as we headed for the next airlock. Noticing that I was out of breath, he shortened his stride. "Here in the permafrost, we are free from contamination. And we can withstand a 100 megaton nuclear blast." The guards at the next set of doors stepped aside, and Jakobsson grinned as he pushed the doors open with a flourish.
I should not have been surprised at the subway car, but I was. As we rode the rest of the way to the central Frøhvelv, I tried to get the preliminary yadda-yadda of the interview out of the way.
"This impressive facility is the FN's response to the climate-change problem?" I ventured. Jakobsson waved a broad hand dismissively.
"Climate change, yes, but we can deal with that. I am more interested in the problem of GenCorp." My ears pricked up at that – there might be a scoop here, after all.
I cleared my throat. "You don't agree with Chairman Olafsson's assessment that the new maize strains are pure and pose no threat to world crops?" At this, Jakobsson looked as if he were about to expostulate about "blue food" – I remembered his speech on the subject – but the subway ride came to an abrupt end, and he took me by the arm, merely remarking that we would "get to that" soon enough. In the meantime, he had something to show me.
It was something, all right. You've all seen it now – at least on your podscreens – but it was the first time for me, and I was impressed.
We stood on a catwalk, high in a cavernous space. Below us, walkways stretched like spokes in a wheel, lined with glass-covered cells whose side panels glowed with digital information. I caught my breath. "It's a panopticon," I blurted, then blushed.
Jakobsson chuckled. "A panopticon, yes. One in which our "prisoners" are quite safe." He gestured below. "Even if the refrigeration were to go out, it would take three days before the temperature in the units rose to -3°. That would be enough time, I think. Here inside the mountain, we are safe from water – even should the polar ice caps melt – from war, and from idiots who make genetic mistakes." A worker in a crisp white jumpsuit wheeled a trolley past us on the way to the lift. Jakobsson stopped her and took something from the trolley. "Would you like to see?" he asked. I nodded.
He held out the packet almost reverently. I hesitated, but took it. There, in clear plastic, vacuum-sealed, was a piece of the future of Narthex: perhaps a quarter pound of seeds. I read the label. "Malus domesticus, Sample #RD4201." I smiled. "So the apples are safe."
Jakobsson grinned as he replaced the seed packet. "Not only the apples, Bródir Caoinan. There are 1.5 million varieties down there. All safe." He took me by the elbow. "Come, let us go to my office. I can answer your questions about the blue corn there. And I will tell you why I wanted you to come."
I don't know what troubled me more at that moment – the fact that Jakobsson was hinting that he, and not my editor, had originated this interview (me? I'm nobody, a shanty kid from Equatorial Arran), or that the lift we were heading for went up for a very long way into the mountain. I thanked my miner ancestors that I was not prone to claustrophobia, and kept my questions to myself until we had landed safely in Jakobsson's suitably plush office.
While Jakobsson, the attentive host, made us drinks, I looked around at the array of vidscreens on the wall – the usual newsfeeds from around the globe, what looked to be closed-circuit images from inside Frøhvelv I itself, a variety of other facilities including safari parks, and the auditorium of the FN Assembly (surprise). Even more surprising, I noticed a screen devoted to Twittweet. Alongside the current podcast – an interview with Bjørk Tinnjedóttir, the latest rad singer – there was a sidebar containing, of all things, my blog.
My blog. The one I had written feverishly for the last year, all through the Synthian winter and spring, collating newsbit after newsbit from the tech-poor northern hemisphere, desperately trying to get twitters and tweeters to listen, trying from my poky little office in Rasmussen City to reach out to the pod audience and tell them what I suspected was behind the alarming agricultural news trickling down across the equator. The stupid blog that got relegated to the bottom corner of the front page as "not sexy, a downer", while the editors concentrated on fashionistas who sent a few creds northward for famine relief, or adopted stray Arrani babies. I shrugged. Maybe the great man had too much free time.
Jakobsson handed me a tall glass with some expensive nectar in it (I had forgotten about hot chocolate by now), and folded his tall frame into a leather swivel chair, motioning me to do the same. "I asked for you," he said simply.
I must have gawked – I distinctly remember gawking – as he went on: "I could tell you were trying to get the word out about the disaster last spring." He scowled. "The harvest figures were even worse than the ones the local governments released. The famine is widespread. But I could not act. Not yet."
The drink was better than anything I'd ever tasted, but I almost choked on it. I tried for an even tone. "You were waiting for what, sir?"
As if he had not heard the reproach in my voice, Jakobsson pointed his remote at a screen and went into brisk lecture mode. The screen showed a green plant, rather common. "A. Syriaca," he intoned. "When in contact with Bacillus thuringiensis, causes significant death among Danaus plexippus L., or the monarch butterfly. Ever hear of the butterfly effect, Bródir Caoinan?" He did not wait for an answer. "That is not all the pollen can do. It kills insects, yes, that is bad enough. But..." he turned in his chair to glare at me, "It has mutated on this planet."
I flinched, almost expecting a personal attack, but his anger was not directed at me. "GenCorp," he hissed between those perfect teeth, "GenCorp has been covering up the catastrophe, shipping all the food it can buy to the northern hemisphere for six months, buying out the media chains, waiting for the southern harvest. They swore they had contained the evil. They swore they had fixed the problem. But I can read weather patterns, Bródir Caoinan, and so can they." He clicked the remote again, and the image changed.
I saw the Narthex map, with prevailing wind patterns. I saw the animation that indicated how climate change had shifted them. I saw how the winds had shifted south, carrying the pollen, carrying it toward the breadbaskets of Synthion and Arkady. I gulped alcohol and fruit juice.
Jakobsson pointed to another screen. "Today is the first day of autumn. It is traditionally the day when the harvest figures are announced by the major food-producing nations. It is time," he glanced at his watch, "to see what GenCorp has wrought." We turned to ZBF, the most reliable news source in Rasmussen City.
The figures were grim. I wasn't surprised, after what Jakobsson had told me. What most of the audience would not have appreciated was what I already knew – the planet was two months from starvation, even without the added burden of the humanitarian relief that had already been sent northward. Winter coming on, and soon we would be eating – what? Emergency rations from the FN? Each other? I looked at Jakobsson in dumb horror.
To my surprise, Jakobsson seemed almost cheerful. "That is why I sent for you, Bródir Caoinan. We have work to do, and I will need someone to help me tell the story. You see those screens? Those are the nature preserves of the FN. We have stockpiled food, enough for the animals, enough – within reason – to get us through the next harvest. We have a plan for combating the mutated, and inedible, vegetation. We have the seed bank for the future." He rubbed his hands together, as if eager to get to work. "But there will need to be...changes. I think you understand."
I nodded, slowly. In the last few minutes, my mental world had been turned upside down. But I understood. My mouth was dry. I sipped my drink, and then said, "Nothing will be the same." Privately, I hoped that GenCorp's executive would be tried for crimes against humanity, that maybe Equatorial Arran would get independence, that maybe my fourteen cousins would get jobs for the first time in their lives... But there were more pressing issues. "I will draft the statement immediately," I said.
Jakobsson's eyes twinkled. "What will you tell them?" he asked.
I thought about that old book on my dresser at home – the one my granny had pressed into my hand the day I got on the plane for Rasmussen City, saying, "Never forget where you come from". I thought about everything she'd read to me from that book.
"I think Genesis 47:20 will do for a start," I said.
And Jósef Jakobsson smiled. To someone like me, it was a reassuring smile.
18 February 2011
Gheorghenis Chez Eux
It might be amusing to try to answer the question 'What strange event is this story explaining with a stranger event?'
The last rays of the setting sun fell upon the mountain, lighting up the white sandstone at its summit, setting it in stark relief against the already twilight-darkened conifers below. In the high valley, a peasant, dressed in his usual garb of white loose trousers and tunic with broad black leather belt, set down the scythe with which he had been cutting hay, and, looking to the mountain, crossed himself hastily, right to left, before picking up his scythe again and striding on bare feet towards his home, the steep, thatched roof of which could be seen over the next ridge. He did not glance up again, whistling to himself an old doina, a sad, lonely song.
The year could have been 1455, but it wasn't. Or 1815, but it wasn't that, either.
In the town in the valley below, electric lights, not many, were coming on, and a single black automobile was making its way slowly through cobbled streets crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists with string bags hanging from their often rusty handlebars. A variety of clothing styles could be seen, from the traditional costume of the mountain peasant to bright gypsy clothing that stood out in the artificial light among the more usual dress of grey or brown gabardine suits, shabby and patched. The car turned a corner, and moved on past the construction site where an ungainly concrete building was coming into existence, the sign in front promising a new era of prosperity under the profiled photo of King Michael. The driver of the car snorted to himself, and moved on to park near the tiny railway station, humming a bit of jazz.
The year could have been 1945, but it wasn't. It couldn't have been 1948, because then the king's picture would have been gone forever. Let's say it was 1947.
Up on the mountainside, lights appeared in the windows of a curious-looking castle. Unlike King Ludwig's dream house, it could not have been designed by Mr Disney, nor was it one of those towering hulks that loomed over the landscape with menacing reminders of past horrors, like the one in Brasov. This 'castle' looked more like a Mediterranean villa gone mad, with a long, white, rectangular wall surrounding buildings with pagoda-like red-tiled roofs. The effect, though slightly comical in the brooding surroundings, was of reasonable comfort under conditions meant to ensure privacy.
In the window of a downstairs sitting room, a light appeared. Let us follow that light inside, and see what it illuminates...\
If anything.
Dmitri Gheorgheni flexed long, thin fingers and stretched out his hand for the balloon glass. He inhaled the brandy appreciatively.
'Why won't you drink wine like the rest of us?' demanded Elektra, shaking her tawny locks, which gleamed in the lamplight like coiled copper snakes. Her green eyes flashed with amusement.
Dmitri turned his mild gaze on his cousin, his round, brown eyes opened a bit wider than usual, the pupils still darting back and forth in the alien habit he could never lose – he always had the look of an innocent predator. 'Because...I don't...drink...blood, my dear.' He laughed. 'You're perfectly capable of putting an eyedropperful in that Tokay, just to see what effect it would have on me.' He leaned back in the overstuffed chair, and stretched his booted feet toward the fire.
Dmitri looked at home in his own century – the early 19th – in loose white shirt, tight trousers, and riding boots. Elektra, her tastes more eclectic, was having a Chinese evening, and had chosen a silk cheongsam, gold and silver embroidery over Gheorgheni blue. Dmitri hadn't the heart to tell her that cheongsams were designed for less voluptuous figures than her own.
Elektra laughed, and stretched, catlike, before the fire – thus completely spoiling the effect of the cheongsam. 'You are a fool. Moralising about a teaspoonful of blood. Demitasse spoon, more like it. They don't miss what we take. And we pay them richly for it, ' she grinned, 'in shared experience.'
Dmitri shook his head. 'You spoil them for life. You give them a perfect evening – romance, excitement, a soupçon of danger, perfect sensual pleasure – and, at the height of ecstasy, you take the distilled etheric essence of that experience into yourselves.' He frowned into his glass. 'They spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the knowledge of that moment. That is cruel.'
Elektra sighed, and crossed to the table to pour herself a glass of wine from the carafe in which it had been breathing. 'You may be right, but what else are we to do, Dmitri? We have...a task. And it's been a long time. This helps get it done.' She turned on him, demanding, 'What would you have us do?'
Dmitri had opened his mouth to answer when another member of the family strode into the room. Alexei, tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair, dressed in the current fashion, though more elegantly than most, took Elektra in his arms and kissed her briefly on the neck, before looking down at Dmitri, a humorous quirk to his mouth. 'What is that in the bedroom upstairs? Your latest conquest? Really, Dmitri, you have no more morals than an alley cat. Must you bring your doxies home with you? Why can't you leave them in their brothels, like I do?'
Before Dmitri could answer this, Elektra broke out in peals of laughter. 'Oh, Dmitri, up to your old tricks again? Who is she this time? And why bring her here?' Pouring a glass of wine for Alexei, she joined him on the couch, where she leaned against her brother, resting her head on his shoulder, running her painted nails through his thick, ashen hair.
Dmitri took a deep breath, and finally managed to get a word in edgewise – something that was hard to do with his relatives. 'I will introduce the lady later. And Alexei, the word 'doxy' is out of place in this time setting. I believe the word you were looking for was 'chippy'.' More laughter from Elektra.
Alexei frowned as he sipped his wine. 'Another child, I suppose? The stars in conjunction for yet another avatar, or some such?' For answer, Dmitri abruptly rose from his chair and, crossing to the large bay windows, pulled away the heavy drapes that protected some of the inhabitants of the castle from too much direct sunlight.
The vista was breathtaking, and almost as bright as day, as the gibbous moon, nearly full, cast a golden light over the mountainside and valley below. Dmitri stood, feet planted apart, studying it thoughtfully. 'Rose moon tomorrow. And by then, we'll be ready.'
Elektra sniggered inelegantly, and kicked off her high heels to snuggle better against Alexei. 'Aha. Another decade, another attempt at 'him, of whom the writings have writ...'
Dmitri turned to face her, leaning against the broad windowsill, and made a gesture as if to ward off flies. 'Mock. I don't care. At least I'm not a mosquito.'
Elektra, unsurprisingly, stuck her tongue out at him. Surprisingly, the tongue was green – she'd been sucking on a mint.
Alexei shrugged. 'To each his own in this game.' He sat up straight suddenly, and one might have sworn that his ears pricked. 'Has anyone seen Ilya?'
Dmitri, still by the window, shook his head. 'The last time I saw your son was in Berlin, about '43, it was...come to think of it, the moon was full then, too...' Elektra frowned. 'Why are you thinking of Ilya?'
As if in answer, there was a loud banging on the heavy outside door. No one moved, knowing there were servants, but a short while later, there were slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs, the door to the sitting room opened, and Ilya Gheorgheni stumbled in. Elektra looked him over without moving. 'Oh, that was why. Speak of the devil, and he will appear.'
Dmitri sprang from the window to embrace Ilya, who looked over his taller uncle's encircling arm with haunted eyes. He was always thin, but now looked positively gaunt, his hair, white-blond like his father's, falling lankly over his forehead. He was dirty and dishevelled, in a Russian officer's uniform, filthy, its epaulettes torn.
Alexei barked, 'What are you doing in that uniform? I told you to join the Germans.'
Dmitri mumured, 'Welcome home.'
Ilya shrugged, as Dmitri helped him to an armchair and brought him bread, cheese, and wine, which he accepted gratefully. 'Thanks, I haven't eaten in two or three days.' To Alexei: 'I wanted to get back here, Tata. This uniform seemed easier.'
Elektra sniffed. 'At least you could've gotten a clean one. You smell of death.'
Ilya stopped eating for a moment to give Elektra a vulpine grin. 'All uniforms smell of death.' He shrugged. 'But I got this one off a dead Russian...been walking a long time.' Dmitri was about to ask more, but the door opened again, and a plump, matronly woman in a black dress rushed in and threw herself on Ilya, ignoring the dirt and the smell, covering his face with kisses and making him spill his wine.
'Oh, Ilya, Iubitile meu, where have you been? I have missed you so much, you naughty boy, you have not come home for so long, what kept you?' Ilya returned the affection shown, with interest. 'Mama Marya, I'm sorry, but I'm back now.' The lady thus addressed glared at Alexei. 'It is your fault, Excelenta, see what you have done. He is all bones.' Alexei stared at his housekeeper haughtily, but, out-stared, turned to look out the window, feigning indifference.
Dmitri decided to give his nephew over to the care of his doting Mama Marya. 'Here, take him and clean him up. We can talk more over dinner.' Marya eagerly complied, saying as she led him away, 'What do you want for dinner, eh? I know, your favourite, blini. We make blini...' When they were gone, Elektra, embarrassed, unfolded herself from the couch and poured more wine, tossing her head and staring at the moon outside as if it had offended her in some obscure way. When Dmitri took a breath to speak, Elektra held up her splayed hand, imperiously.
'Not now, Dmitri. We aren't in the mood to listen to you now.'
So Dmitri remained silent.
Brief excitement was provided when Ilya shouted that there was a cockroach in his salad. This alarming fact could not be proven, as Ilya had suddenly swallowed the evidence, citing a proverb, 'In Russia, even a bug is meat.' Lady Douglass appeared unhappy (not as unhappy as she would have been had she known Russian), but Dmitri took her hand and whispered something in her ear, and the charm or spell he had cast upon her restored itself, so she finished her meal in quiet decorum.
After supper, Alexei announced pointedly that he thought it was time for the ladies to withdraw, so Elektra, with a moue of annoyance, escorted the bedazzled Isobel off to the drawing room, where she gave her coffee and cake and tried to find out what on earth she thought she was doing in Romania.
At the table, Dmitri proposed a toast. 'To Ilya's return!' Ilya, smiling wanly, nodded thanks. Alexei drank the toast, but then said briskly, 'To business. Dmitri, why is there an antigravity saucer on my back lawn?'
Dmitri looked at Ilya and winked. 'I, er, thought I'd go for a ride, Alexei. The moon will be full tomorrow.'
Alexei snorted and spoke with mock patience. 'What difference does it make what phase the moon is in, you idiot child, if you're on the moon?"
Ilya chuckled. 'I know the answer to that one, Tata. And so does Dmitri. The phase of the moon depends on the relative positions of the bodies. As, I suspect, does what Dmitri's planning.' It was his turn to wink.
Alexei leaned back in his chair, turning his wineglass in his hand and thinking. 'Do you really believe that these children of yours will do the trick?'
Dmitri nodded soberly. 'I do. The engineering requires sentience. We know that. And the method you and Elektra are employing...takes too long. By the time you've collected enough for a pattern, the pattern has changed again. This could go on forever.' He stood suddenly, running his hands through his straight black hair.
Ilya poured himself more wine. 'It's not as if we don't have forever, but...'
Dmitri replied softly, in an absent voice. 'But they do not.'
There was nothing to say to that, so they asked the ladies to join them on the rear terrace. The moon had climbed higher in the sky. No longer huge and yellow, it now cast a silver light across the grass...
And on the ridiculous object there. Largish, about the size of a barn, the silver disc sat there, an affront to common sense, with not even a door, window, or glittering array of lights to justify its ludicrous existence. Elektra sighed melodramatically. 'Take your girlfriend, and that stupid spaceship, and go. Couldn't it at least be purple?'
Ilya turned to his uncle. 'May I go along? Feed the dolphins?' He smiled wrily. 'I'm rather tired of this planet.'
Dmitri put his hands on Ilya's shoulders, and looked down into his eyes. 'Not just yet. Stay here.' He smiled. 'Let Marya baby you. You owe her that much.' Ilya's eyes widened, and he nodded agreement.
With a courtly gesture, Dmitri offered Isobel his arm, which she took, looking around her at the night as if she were in a fairy tale. She seemed to think the bizarre ship was only a reasonable substitute for a pumpkin coach and white mice horsemen. Dmitri reached into his pocket, and, taking out a small black object, pointed it at the giant disc and pressed its sides. A light beeping noise was heard, and then a door opened on the upper level of the disc, and a ramp descended in one smooth motion. Dmitri and Isobel mounted the ramp, turned, waved goodbye, then entered the craft, whose doors closed behind them.
Shortly after, the edge of the disc did begin to glow, with coloured lights running around it. The outer edge began to rotate, moving up to a speed in which the colours blended together again to white. Then, slowly, the disc began to rise, hovering a moment, and then shot sharply upwards, stopped, then flew with amazing speed at a tangent.
Alexei, Elektra, and Ilya stood watching until the flying saucer was out of sight, even to a Gheorgheni. Then, sighing, Alexei and Elektra headed back inside, Elektra hanging on Alexei's arm, whispering something that made him laugh.
Ilya stayed behind, gazing up at the moon and what stars could be seen on so bright a night. His thoughts would be hard to describe, for Gheorghenis do not think in words. Images, some bright, some dim, flitted across the inside of his eyes, while the outside saw the moon.
Awhile later, he went into the kitchen to ask for hot cocoa, even though it was midsummer. He had missed hot cocoa in Siberia.
Outside, the moon shone down on the castle, the mountain, the farm, and the town.
It could have been any year, but it was 1947.
The last rays of the setting sun fell upon the mountain, lighting up the white sandstone at its summit, setting it in stark relief against the already twilight-darkened conifers below. In the high valley, a peasant, dressed in his usual garb of white loose trousers and tunic with broad black leather belt, set down the scythe with which he had been cutting hay, and, looking to the mountain, crossed himself hastily, right to left, before picking up his scythe again and striding on bare feet towards his home, the steep, thatched roof of which could be seen over the next ridge. He did not glance up again, whistling to himself an old doina, a sad, lonely song.
The year could have been 1455, but it wasn't. Or 1815, but it wasn't that, either.
In the town in the valley below, electric lights, not many, were coming on, and a single black automobile was making its way slowly through cobbled streets crowded with pedestrians and bicyclists with string bags hanging from their often rusty handlebars. A variety of clothing styles could be seen, from the traditional costume of the mountain peasant to bright gypsy clothing that stood out in the artificial light among the more usual dress of grey or brown gabardine suits, shabby and patched. The car turned a corner, and moved on past the construction site where an ungainly concrete building was coming into existence, the sign in front promising a new era of prosperity under the profiled photo of King Michael. The driver of the car snorted to himself, and moved on to park near the tiny railway station, humming a bit of jazz.
The year could have been 1945, but it wasn't. It couldn't have been 1948, because then the king's picture would have been gone forever. Let's say it was 1947.
Up on the mountainside, lights appeared in the windows of a curious-looking castle. Unlike King Ludwig's dream house, it could not have been designed by Mr Disney, nor was it one of those towering hulks that loomed over the landscape with menacing reminders of past horrors, like the one in Brasov. This 'castle' looked more like a Mediterranean villa gone mad, with a long, white, rectangular wall surrounding buildings with pagoda-like red-tiled roofs. The effect, though slightly comical in the brooding surroundings, was of reasonable comfort under conditions meant to ensure privacy.
In the window of a downstairs sitting room, a light appeared. Let us follow that light inside, and see what it illuminates...\
If anything.
****************
'Why won't you drink wine like the rest of us?' demanded Elektra, shaking her tawny locks, which gleamed in the lamplight like coiled copper snakes. Her green eyes flashed with amusement.
Dmitri turned his mild gaze on his cousin, his round, brown eyes opened a bit wider than usual, the pupils still darting back and forth in the alien habit he could never lose – he always had the look of an innocent predator. 'Because...I don't...drink...blood, my dear.' He laughed. 'You're perfectly capable of putting an eyedropperful in that Tokay, just to see what effect it would have on me.' He leaned back in the overstuffed chair, and stretched his booted feet toward the fire.
Dmitri looked at home in his own century – the early 19th – in loose white shirt, tight trousers, and riding boots. Elektra, her tastes more eclectic, was having a Chinese evening, and had chosen a silk cheongsam, gold and silver embroidery over Gheorgheni blue. Dmitri hadn't the heart to tell her that cheongsams were designed for less voluptuous figures than her own.
Elektra laughed, and stretched, catlike, before the fire – thus completely spoiling the effect of the cheongsam. 'You are a fool. Moralising about a teaspoonful of blood. Demitasse spoon, more like it. They don't miss what we take. And we pay them richly for it, ' she grinned, 'in shared experience.'
Dmitri shook his head. 'You spoil them for life. You give them a perfect evening – romance, excitement, a soupçon of danger, perfect sensual pleasure – and, at the height of ecstasy, you take the distilled etheric essence of that experience into yourselves.' He frowned into his glass. 'They spend the rest of their lives trying to recapture the knowledge of that moment. That is cruel.'
Elektra sighed, and crossed to the table to pour herself a glass of wine from the carafe in which it had been breathing. 'You may be right, but what else are we to do, Dmitri? We have...a task. And it's been a long time. This helps get it done.' She turned on him, demanding, 'What would you have us do?'
Dmitri had opened his mouth to answer when another member of the family strode into the room. Alexei, tall, broad-shouldered, with white-blond hair, dressed in the current fashion, though more elegantly than most, took Elektra in his arms and kissed her briefly on the neck, before looking down at Dmitri, a humorous quirk to his mouth. 'What is that in the bedroom upstairs? Your latest conquest? Really, Dmitri, you have no more morals than an alley cat. Must you bring your doxies home with you? Why can't you leave them in their brothels, like I do?'
Before Dmitri could answer this, Elektra broke out in peals of laughter. 'Oh, Dmitri, up to your old tricks again? Who is she this time? And why bring her here?' Pouring a glass of wine for Alexei, she joined him on the couch, where she leaned against her brother, resting her head on his shoulder, running her painted nails through his thick, ashen hair.
Dmitri took a deep breath, and finally managed to get a word in edgewise – something that was hard to do with his relatives. 'I will introduce the lady later. And Alexei, the word 'doxy' is out of place in this time setting. I believe the word you were looking for was 'chippy'.' More laughter from Elektra.
Alexei frowned as he sipped his wine. 'Another child, I suppose? The stars in conjunction for yet another avatar, or some such?' For answer, Dmitri abruptly rose from his chair and, crossing to the large bay windows, pulled away the heavy drapes that protected some of the inhabitants of the castle from too much direct sunlight.
The vista was breathtaking, and almost as bright as day, as the gibbous moon, nearly full, cast a golden light over the mountainside and valley below. Dmitri stood, feet planted apart, studying it thoughtfully. 'Rose moon tomorrow. And by then, we'll be ready.'
Elektra sniggered inelegantly, and kicked off her high heels to snuggle better against Alexei. 'Aha. Another decade, another attempt at 'him, of whom the writings have writ...'
Dmitri turned to face her, leaning against the broad windowsill, and made a gesture as if to ward off flies. 'Mock. I don't care. At least I'm not a mosquito.'
Elektra, unsurprisingly, stuck her tongue out at him. Surprisingly, the tongue was green – she'd been sucking on a mint.
Alexei shrugged. 'To each his own in this game.' He sat up straight suddenly, and one might have sworn that his ears pricked. 'Has anyone seen Ilya?'
Dmitri, still by the window, shook his head. 'The last time I saw your son was in Berlin, about '43, it was...come to think of it, the moon was full then, too...' Elektra frowned. 'Why are you thinking of Ilya?'
As if in answer, there was a loud banging on the heavy outside door. No one moved, knowing there were servants, but a short while later, there were slow, heavy footsteps on the stairs, the door to the sitting room opened, and Ilya Gheorgheni stumbled in. Elektra looked him over without moving. 'Oh, that was why. Speak of the devil, and he will appear.'
Dmitri sprang from the window to embrace Ilya, who looked over his taller uncle's encircling arm with haunted eyes. He was always thin, but now looked positively gaunt, his hair, white-blond like his father's, falling lankly over his forehead. He was dirty and dishevelled, in a Russian officer's uniform, filthy, its epaulettes torn.
Alexei barked, 'What are you doing in that uniform? I told you to join the Germans.'
Dmitri mumured, 'Welcome home.'
Ilya shrugged, as Dmitri helped him to an armchair and brought him bread, cheese, and wine, which he accepted gratefully. 'Thanks, I haven't eaten in two or three days.' To Alexei: 'I wanted to get back here, Tata. This uniform seemed easier.'
Elektra sniffed. 'At least you could've gotten a clean one. You smell of death.'
Ilya stopped eating for a moment to give Elektra a vulpine grin. 'All uniforms smell of death.' He shrugged. 'But I got this one off a dead Russian...been walking a long time.' Dmitri was about to ask more, but the door opened again, and a plump, matronly woman in a black dress rushed in and threw herself on Ilya, ignoring the dirt and the smell, covering his face with kisses and making him spill his wine.
'Oh, Ilya, Iubitile meu, where have you been? I have missed you so much, you naughty boy, you have not come home for so long, what kept you?' Ilya returned the affection shown, with interest. 'Mama Marya, I'm sorry, but I'm back now.' The lady thus addressed glared at Alexei. 'It is your fault, Excelenta, see what you have done. He is all bones.' Alexei stared at his housekeeper haughtily, but, out-stared, turned to look out the window, feigning indifference.
Dmitri decided to give his nephew over to the care of his doting Mama Marya. 'Here, take him and clean him up. We can talk more over dinner.' Marya eagerly complied, saying as she led him away, 'What do you want for dinner, eh? I know, your favourite, blini. We make blini...' When they were gone, Elektra, embarrassed, unfolded herself from the couch and poured more wine, tossing her head and staring at the moon outside as if it had offended her in some obscure way. When Dmitri took a breath to speak, Elektra held up her splayed hand, imperiously.
'Not now, Dmitri. We aren't in the mood to listen to you now.'
So Dmitri remained silent.
****************
Dinner in the castle was mostly a quiet affair. The shy, freckle-faced young woman with the red hair – less fiery and somehow more natural-looking than Elektra's – was introduced as Lady Isobel Douglass, and promptly ignored by everyone except Dmitri. Elektra might have paid more attention, but as the young woman said little, and was dressed in an unexceptional black evening dress rather than a Regency peignoir, Elektra became bored with what she regarded as utterly mundane beauty, and kept up a conversation with Alexei on the subject of postwar politics, of which she knew quite a lot.Brief excitement was provided when Ilya shouted that there was a cockroach in his salad. This alarming fact could not be proven, as Ilya had suddenly swallowed the evidence, citing a proverb, 'In Russia, even a bug is meat.' Lady Douglass appeared unhappy (not as unhappy as she would have been had she known Russian), but Dmitri took her hand and whispered something in her ear, and the charm or spell he had cast upon her restored itself, so she finished her meal in quiet decorum.
After supper, Alexei announced pointedly that he thought it was time for the ladies to withdraw, so Elektra, with a moue of annoyance, escorted the bedazzled Isobel off to the drawing room, where she gave her coffee and cake and tried to find out what on earth she thought she was doing in Romania.
At the table, Dmitri proposed a toast. 'To Ilya's return!' Ilya, smiling wanly, nodded thanks. Alexei drank the toast, but then said briskly, 'To business. Dmitri, why is there an antigravity saucer on my back lawn?'
Dmitri looked at Ilya and winked. 'I, er, thought I'd go for a ride, Alexei. The moon will be full tomorrow.'
Alexei snorted and spoke with mock patience. 'What difference does it make what phase the moon is in, you idiot child, if you're on the moon?"
Ilya chuckled. 'I know the answer to that one, Tata. And so does Dmitri. The phase of the moon depends on the relative positions of the bodies. As, I suspect, does what Dmitri's planning.' It was his turn to wink.
Alexei leaned back in his chair, turning his wineglass in his hand and thinking. 'Do you really believe that these children of yours will do the trick?'
Dmitri nodded soberly. 'I do. The engineering requires sentience. We know that. And the method you and Elektra are employing...takes too long. By the time you've collected enough for a pattern, the pattern has changed again. This could go on forever.' He stood suddenly, running his hands through his straight black hair.
Ilya poured himself more wine. 'It's not as if we don't have forever, but...'
Dmitri replied softly, in an absent voice. 'But they do not.'
There was nothing to say to that, so they asked the ladies to join them on the rear terrace. The moon had climbed higher in the sky. No longer huge and yellow, it now cast a silver light across the grass...
And on the ridiculous object there. Largish, about the size of a barn, the silver disc sat there, an affront to common sense, with not even a door, window, or glittering array of lights to justify its ludicrous existence. Elektra sighed melodramatically. 'Take your girlfriend, and that stupid spaceship, and go. Couldn't it at least be purple?'
Ilya turned to his uncle. 'May I go along? Feed the dolphins?' He smiled wrily. 'I'm rather tired of this planet.'
Dmitri put his hands on Ilya's shoulders, and looked down into his eyes. 'Not just yet. Stay here.' He smiled. 'Let Marya baby you. You owe her that much.' Ilya's eyes widened, and he nodded agreement.
With a courtly gesture, Dmitri offered Isobel his arm, which she took, looking around her at the night as if she were in a fairy tale. She seemed to think the bizarre ship was only a reasonable substitute for a pumpkin coach and white mice horsemen. Dmitri reached into his pocket, and, taking out a small black object, pointed it at the giant disc and pressed its sides. A light beeping noise was heard, and then a door opened on the upper level of the disc, and a ramp descended in one smooth motion. Dmitri and Isobel mounted the ramp, turned, waved goodbye, then entered the craft, whose doors closed behind them.
Shortly after, the edge of the disc did begin to glow, with coloured lights running around it. The outer edge began to rotate, moving up to a speed in which the colours blended together again to white. Then, slowly, the disc began to rise, hovering a moment, and then shot sharply upwards, stopped, then flew with amazing speed at a tangent.
Alexei, Elektra, and Ilya stood watching until the flying saucer was out of sight, even to a Gheorgheni. Then, sighing, Alexei and Elektra headed back inside, Elektra hanging on Alexei's arm, whispering something that made him laugh.
Ilya stayed behind, gazing up at the moon and what stars could be seen on so bright a night. His thoughts would be hard to describe, for Gheorghenis do not think in words. Images, some bright, some dim, flitted across the inside of his eyes, while the outside saw the moon.
Awhile later, he went into the kitchen to ask for hot cocoa, even though it was midsummer. He had missed hot cocoa in Siberia.
Outside, the moon shone down on the castle, the mountain, the farm, and the town.
It could have been any year, but it was 1947.
17 February 2011
Diary of an American Robin
I know you Brits keep bird diaries. I also know you watch for the first robin of spring. Did you know that our enterprising American robins keep diaries on us?
Annoyed at still finding snow in North Carolina. What is going on here? Note to self: Visit resident groundhog in Raleigh, leave messages indicating disgust on his vinyl siding. Decide to make the best of it by spending night in warm conifer with several dozen of my closest friends.
Crows as obnoxious as ever. They do not seem to be speaking Spanish. I suspect Serbo-Croat. Note to self: Get Rosetta Stone.
Spotted several human children of species Noisus aggravans. Hopped around on ground until they got used to me. Gave them disapproving stare to let them know who is boss around here. Not for nothing am I called an "authoritarian" bird.
Note to self: Although quite attractive, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup wrappers are too slick to be good nesting material. The contents, while apparently tasty to squirrels, are disgusting. Squirrels will eat anything.
Tell friends at evening confab about strange human with binoculars. Overheard him (I am sure it is a male, due to his distinctively drab colouration) calling self a "thrush". THRUSH? I am a robin, thank you very much. I do not appreciate that name Turdus migratorius much, either. It sounds vaguely rude.
Note to self: continue scouting for cowbirds. They shall not pull that dodge on me again – I shall evict any and all eggs that do not resemble my beautiful blue darlings.
Note of outrage: Overheard writer claim that – according to some alleged "authority" of the writer species – birdsong is merely saying, "Go away! This is my bush." Only in more profane terms. Hah! What does he know about it? Our communications are much more nuanced than that, and involve breaking news on the worm front, as well as etiological speculation as to the reason for man's existence. Our conclusions on the latter subject are not flattering, I assure you.
Nonetheless, the humans around here seem harmless enough. No slingshots or bows have been sighted, and children and canines appear to be suitably restrained. Tomorrow I begin nest-building in earnest.
Good night, Dear Diary.
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