Asimov's SF, September 2010 (8 page)

It was a clean shot, one of the ones you feel hitting the target before the gun even kicks in your hand. Sharken went down without a sound.

Thugs tackled me from all directions. I had no strength to resist them. Dimly, I heard Clarise screaming. Even more dimly, I felt the pressure of a gun barrel beneath my jaw. None of it mattered. It was like a dream.

Reality surged back with an Asian teenager kicking open the conference room door. Chen-Chi stood silhouetted against the brightly lit bookshelves, her feet planted with the conviction of a war goddess. Against her stomach, an assault rifle gleamed. She raised it to position and fired.

Her posture was dreadful. The kick from the first bullet nearly knocked her to the floor. Her aim was bad, too, but it didn't matter because she was spreading her shots along the ceiling, shattering tiles and fluorescent lights, sending a rain of rubble on the throng. The final glass fragments tinkled to the ground a half-second after the last shot rang in my ears. I began to understand why my future self might have fallen in love with that woman.

"Everybody back off,” Chen-chi said in a voice of superb authority. “Or the next round goes below the belt."

Like pack animals, Sharken's thugs cowered in the absence of their leader. Any man in the room could have taken Chen-chi down, but none of them tried. The hands that had been restraining me pulled away so abruptly that I stumbled.

"In about five minutes,” Chen-Chi continued, “this building is going to explode. If you run, you might make it out alive. So move!"

The resulting evacuation was so chaotic it was entertaining. I wanted to grin, but the blackout I'd been holding at bay closed in too quickly.

After vision had faded, but before I completely lost consciousness, I heard high-heeled shoes skitter across the floor. Slender hands grabbed me as I fell. “Typical,” Clarise grunted as she struggled to lift my weight. “You'd think after all these years, he'd know better than to black out over hardwood."

I woke on the couch in Clarise's apartment. The sky behind the window blinds was dark, but I suspected dawn was not far off. Chen-chi lay curled in the chair opposite me, her feet pulled up on the cushions. She was asleep.

Down the hallway, Clarise's voice rose and fell in sharp tones. I walked toward it. Through the kitchen doorway I saw her stirring a cup of herbal tea. The back of Sean's head—somewhat bulging and bandaged—was visible where he leaned back in a kitchen chair, balancing it on two legs.

". . . told me to get you out,” he was saying. “Lying seemed like the best alternative."

"And you really thought I was that stupid? That I'd buy that line and leave my own father behind?"

Sean spread his hands in mock surrender.

"Stupid or not,” I said, folding my arms and leaning against the doorway, “It's what you should have done."

"Father, Sharken would have killed you."

"Better me than all of us. Besides, I had a handle on things."

"Yes, I saw how you were handling things."

"Don't take that tone of voice with me. I can take care of myself. You know that."

Clarise set her cup on the counter with an audible thunk. “No, I don't ‘know’ that.
Mom
didn't even know that."

Mention of Emmeline threatened to reopen the black chasm. I shoved the gaping memories aside, vaguely aware that I was scowling. “Your mother had every confidence in—"

"You never saw the look in her eyes when we waited up nights.” Clarise bit her lip, but not fast enough to cover the tremble in her voice. She bent her head over her tea as though reading her future there, or perhaps her past. “I'm glad she died in that car accident,” she said, so quietly that I almost couldn't make out the words. “At least she never had to sit around again, wondering if you'd come home in one piece."

I felt as though my lungs had shriveled away, leaving an empty cavity beneath my ribs. “Well. You've chosen a fine way to honor her memory."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Terrorists, Clarise! You've spent the last six years running with the kind of subversive, murderous scum who—” I choked back my own words. Clarise didn't know who'd killed her mother. I'd never told her.

Clarise squared her shoulders. “No progress comes without conflict.
You
taught me that."

"I never meant you should try to overthrow your own government."

"Why not? Look what your precious government has done to you! They ran you ragged, and when they were done with you, they chewed you up and spat you out without so much as a thank you."

"Now just a—"

Chen-chi cut me off with a hand on my shoulder. The yelling must have woken her up. “Let it be, Eugene,” she said. “It's in the past now."

"Whose past? Yours? Because it feels an awful lot like my present.” I whirled on Clarise, but found I had nothing more to say. Sean had risen from his chair and was holding her, whispering to her, making the anger melt out of her face. I stalked out of the room.

Chen-chi followed me. “Emmeline's dead,” she said to my back as I stared out a window. “Venting your anger on Clarise won't bring her back."

"This has nothing to do with you."

"Doesn't it?"

I swallowed down an angry retort. I couldn't bring myself to snap at her; her own pain was too evident. She mystified me, this teenager with a much older mind. I was simultaneously intrigued and infuriated by the way she always seemed to know how to quell my anger.

"You'll have to tell her, you know,” Chen-chi said. “About Emmeline. How she really died."

"I don't know how,” I whispered.

"Once you start, the rest will be easy. Trust me. I helped you work through this once before."

When I didn't answer, she took my hand and gently pulled me into the living room, where we sat on opposite ends of the couch. I stared at her; the woman who had been my wife forty years in the future.

"It must be strange for you,” I said. “Talking to me, being with me, when..."

"It's . . . difficult,” she admitted. “Like looking at a ghost of the man you'd become."

I hesitated, unsure how to say what I needed to without further opening her wounds. “I . . . don't think I'll become the same man again."

"No.” She sighed, and looked indescribably weary. “Clarise will live now, and, God willing, the world will unfold differently. It's all right,” she added when I opened my mouth to apologize. “I'm not ready for another relationship. Not for a long time."

I nodded. We sat and listened to the murmur of voices in the kitchen; the tramp of Jo-jo's boots as he returned from wherever he'd been; the sound of a witty comment, and reluctant laughter. I struggled to speak past the dryness in my throat.

"So what happens now?"

"We wait,” Chen-chi said softly. “We heal. And after that . . . we begin to live again."

Copyright © 2010 Nancy Fulda

GEORGE H. SCITHERS

1929-2010

In the inaugural issue of
Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine,
the Good Doctor introduced the magazine's first editor, George H. Scithers, as “an electrical engineer specializing in radio propagation and rail rapid transit, who is a Lieutenant Colonel (retired) in the United States Army and who does a bit of writing on the side. He has been involved with the world of science fiction for over thirty years. He was the chairman of Discon1, the World Science Fiction Convention held in Washington in 1963 . . . and has been parliamentarian for several other conventions. He has a small publishing firm, Owlswick Press, publishing books of science fiction interest. . . .” Since Isaac had been despatched by his publisher to “Find someone you can trust, with the ability, the experience, the desire, and the time” to run the magazine, the Good Doctor added, “I know [George] personally, know his tastes in science fiction are like mine and that he is industrious and reliable."

John Varley's story, “Air Raid” (written under the “Herb Boehm” pseudonym), from Spring 1977—the very first issue of the magazine—was a finalist for the Hugo and the Nebula Awards and George won the 1978 Best Editor Hugo Award for his first year as editor. In 1980, he picked up another Best Editor Hugo Award for his work at
Asimov's
. Many more stories published under George's reign would go on to win or be finalists for the Hugo and Nebula awards. These stories include Barry Longyear's classic September 1979 novella, “Enemy Mine"; Roger Zelazny's April 1981 novelette, “Unicorn Variation"; and Connie Willis's February 1982 novelette, “Fire Watch,” which appeared in George's last issue as editor of
Asimov's
. During his time at the magazine, George also edited eleven anthologies of stories from
Asimov's
and four issues of
Asimov's SF Adventure Magazine
.

George went on to edit
Amazing Stories
for four years and worked on
Weird Tales
for close to twenty years. George received a Special World Fantasy Award in 1992 and World Fantasy's Life Achievement Award ten years later.

George left
Asimov's
several months before I joined the staff of the magazine. I got to know him at Philcons and other SF conventions. He was always full of advice and deeply interested in the affairs of the magazine. I last saw him in October 2009 at Capclave, a convention near Washington, DC. We chatted about his new
Cat Tales
anthologies and about publishing. George was happy to hear of our increase in electronic subscription sales and other news about the magazine. Although I didn't realize it would be our final meeting, I'm glad I had the chance to speak with him one last time.

—Sheila Williams

[Back to Table of Contents]

Eugene Mirabelli writes novels, short stories, journalistic pieces and book reviews. He tells us he's an old writer, but new to science fiction. Eugene has been a Nebula Award nominee, and his fiction has been published in Czech, French, Hebrew, Russian, Sicilian, and Turkish. The author's most recent work is the novel,
The Goddess in Love with a Horse
. Eugene's lyrical first story for
Asimov's
flies us to the enigmatic site of . . .

1

The story of how the city of Venice was built upon the waters of the Adriatic sounds like a fantasy, a pure romance. Nonetheless, it's true. As the Roman Empire collapsed, as Roman armies withdrew and abandoned their outposts, barbarians swarmed in from the North to loot and set fire to the cities of the Italian coast, raping and butchering anyone they caught. Those who escaped the smoking ruins were pursued to the sea, driven into the marshes, the swamps, and lagoons.

After the invaders left, the survivors waded back to the mainland to rebuild their homes, but soon fresh hordes swept down on them. Looting and slaughter happened again and again. Historians believe that Attila the Hun's merciless invasion in 452 was what finally caused refugees to abandon any hope of returning to the mainland. Instead, they chose to build their lives afresh in the lagoons.

The first lagoon dwellers lived like sea birds on mats of woven reeds. Men with swords who pursued them sank knee deep and deeper in the ooze and drowned when the tide crept in. Meanwhile, the residents learned to navigate the devious maze of safe, shallow canals that flowed through the marsh; they learned to fish and to catch birds. They designed slender boats that could be pushed with a pole while floating in water no deeper than your ankle. They prospered and made settlements on nearby islands, some of them barely more than sandbars. In 466 a dozen of these island and sandbar villages banded together, and that's as good a date as any for the founding of Venice.

The great seaborn city of Venice—the Venice where opulent palaces, bordellos, and jeweled churches rise from a placid sea, the Venice of murals and painted ceilings that glow in sunlight reflected from the water—that vibrant Venice of famous merchants, courtesans, poets, and painters, grew from those lagoon settlements. The Venetians sailed ever farther down the Adriatic and into the Mediterranean; they became great merchants, sea-going traders, and explorers. Indeed, one of their sons, Marco Polo, traveled the Silk Road to the Eastern end of the earth, Cathay. Another son of Venice, Casanova, bragged of his travels from boudoir to boudoir across Western Europe. Of all the states and principalities that composed Italy, none was so rich or so proud and independent as Venice.

2

When I was just a kid my uncle Vincenzo took me for a ride in his open-cockpit two-seater biplane, a beautiful old-fashioned aircraft made of wood and wire and brightly painted yellow canvas. The Second World War had ended only months before and I would have preferred to be in a fighter plane—a P-40 with shark's teeth painted on the air scoop, like the Flying Tigers—but flying risky, old-fashioned aircraft delighted my uncle. As for me, just to be aloft in a plane was wonderful.

We took off from a grassy field in Massachusetts and circled upward into a placid blue sky. Everything enchanted me that day—the miniature houses far beneath us, the clouds that turned to cool mist as we flew through them, the blue mountains on the horizon. We were headed for a sparkling white cloud, a gorgeous heap of puffy white terraces. Uncle Vincenzo steered us to an opening between two great cloud walls and then—while still in the cloud, but with no obscuring mist—we slowed and bumped gently to a landing. The engine coughed a few times, then there was silence. “Hey! We landed on a mountain!” I said.

My uncle had been a racing car driver (badly smashed nose, mangled left hand) and he did everything fast. Now he had hopped from his cockpit and come forward to me. “Let's go,” he said, unbuckling the strap across my knees. “Presto!” he said, swinging me up from the cockpit to set me on my feet. “You can take off those goggles now,” he added.

"But I like the goggles,” I said. Wearing the leather helmet and goggles helped me pretend I was an aviator.

"Okay, keep them on. Let's go.” He tucked a notebook inside his flight jacket, grabbed my hand with his good hand and began a quick walk.