"Where Two or Three" by Sheila Finch (Part 3 of 3)

Where Two or Three

by Sheila Finch

[Continued from Part 2]

The sun was setting as they entered the outskirts of Palm Springs, a fuzzy red beach ball sinking into hazy waves of low-lying smog. Maddie was tired from driving in heavy traffic. Sam had slept most of the way. Now he woke and struggled upright.

"You want to eat something?" she asked as they passed a coffee shop.

"No. Go on through the city."

"How much farther are we going?" The Tesla was new enough to have an efficient fuel cell system, but there was still a limit on how far it could go without a recharge. Since she'd never had the chance to drive it this far, she had no idea what that limit was. The battery's indicator bars remained in the safe zone, but for how much longer?

"Just outside the city, you're going to make a left."

And then what? She kept the thought to herself because he obviously wouldn't answer anyway. She gazed at the people strolling from boutiques where golden light spilled out onto the sidewalk to restaurants whose banners pronounced them award-winning. Maddie retracted her window and the car filled with the aroma of barbecue and garlic and the faint sounds of music. Her stomach rumbled.

"Oblivious," Sam said. "All of them. It's going right through them and they're oblivious!"

"What?"

"You too. And me. And worst of all, NASA and SETI. Turn left at the next light."

The lights and sounds of Palm Springs fell away as they took the narrow dirt road across the desert floor rising slowly toward the nearby hills. The sky was filled with misty rose and lavender light, and the tops of the Little San Bernardinos looked as if they'd been draped in glowing chiffon.

"Pull off here."

Tiredness flooded through her. This was without question the stupidest thing she'd done in her life. Sam scrambled out of the car without help, yanking the duffel bag behind him. In the twilight, he looked spidery and strange, like an alien himself. She yawned and reached to turn off the engine.

"Leave it running," he said. "I need a power supply."

He rummaged through the bag, pulling objects out and setting them down on the sand. She got out of the car.

"Here." He handed her a pair of field glasses. "You might as well look at the stars while I'm getting set up."

She took the glasses out of their case. She could see Venus in the west already, and other pinpricks of light were beginning to show against the rapidly darkening sky. Her father had taught her to recognize the major constellations and nebula clusters and most of the minor ones too.

"Easier at night," Sam said.

"What is?"

"Listening."

Did he mean the kind of signals SETI was listening for? That would be dumb, she thought; the stars were there even when we didn't see them. "What difference does darkness make to messages coming from way across the universe?"

"I meant for us!" he said testily. "Less distractions."

"Where Two or Three" by Sheila Finch (Part 2 of 3)

Where Two or Three

by Sheila Finch

[Continued from Part 1]

She couldn't stop thinking about Sam. Of course Daddy would find out if she took him for a ride in the car! And even if she did get the keys, she certainly shouldn't be driving all the way to Palm Springs, the only part of the desert she knew how to get to. By Monday morning she was roaming around the silent house as antsy as if it were the first day of school in a new place.

Who did that old guy think he was, anyway?

That was a question she could find the answer to.

Daddy had gone to the airport on his way to a two-day SETI conference on the east coast; Mom had driven up to Santa Barbara to see Grandma, who'd suddenly taken ill, and she planned to stay the night. Maddie was on her own.

She went into the study to use the computer. It didn't take long to learn that Samuel Coulter Ferenzi had once been famous. And that there was something really odd about the dates.

He'd been the first astronaut to rendezvous with an asteroid, she read, a feat no one else had repeated in the twenty years since. She skipped over the voyage and its mission. When the crew came back to Earth, there'd been a huge welcome parade. Ferenzi had given speeches at universities. He'd cut the ribbons opening Air & Space Museums. The tabloids had buzzed over his romance with a movie star. Then things had apparently gone wrong.

The phone beeped. She touched the pad for the study extension. "Parker residence."

"What're your plans for today, Madison?" her father's voice asked.

Just like that, she thought. No: How are you, sweetie? No: I hope you're not bored all by yourself? that anybody else's dad might've asked. Sounded like he'd given up on her already; she really resented that. "I'm putting in my hours at the hospice like I'm supposed to!"

He'd taken her cell too, as if he thought she'd be putting in a call to her supplier.

"Don't get snarky with me, young lady!" Daddy said. "Be home before dark."

"Sure."

"My plane's boarding. See you in a couple of days."

Maddie turned the phone off before he put any more conditions on her. It wasn't fair. Maybe she should've done something that would really deserve it, not just a couple of puffs off a joint someone handed her. And it hadn't even given her much of a buzz!

She turned her attention back to the monitor. Ferenzi had started acting strangely. Several hospital stays had followed; one article mentioned psychiatric care. On the tenth page of citations, she found a tabloid headline: Spaceman sees aliens. Bride calls off wedding. The date was puzzling, only a little more than twenty years ago. Too recent to fit the old man in the hospice bed.

Maddie exited the program and thought about what she had just read. Chances were, Sam was crazy. Why did he want to go to the desert? And more important, why should she risk being grounded for the entire school year to take him there? She'd be as crazy as he was to do it.

A flicker of movement on the computer's monitor attracted her attention; the screen saver had activated. She stared at the ballet of spinning galaxies and soaring cloudlike nebulae her father had installed. He was involved with the SETI program at JPL, but it wasn't something he talked about much. Not because it was secret, Maddie knew, but because the results were so disappointing. She wondered if he knew about Sam Ferenzi. Her father thought people who claimed to have seen aliens cheapened the real search for extraterrestrial intelligence.

The old man seemed so lonely. At least she could take him for a short drive around Pasadena. Maybe the change of scenery would do him good.

She knew where her father had put her car keys. He never locked his desk drawer, trusting the members of his household. She felt a twinge of guilt as she retrieved her keys.

# # #

"Where Two or Three" by Sheila Finch (Part 1 of 3)

And another story follows from Is Anybody Out There? (Daw Books, June 1), my co-edited anthology with Nick Gevers. If reading these stories has motivated you to purchase a copy of the anthology, please feel free to post a comment and let me know; or, if you've chosen not to purchase a copy of the anthology after reading the four (so far) posted stories, then please comment on that too. By the way, an ebook edition of Is Anybody Out There? is also available in the Kindle format.

I began freelancing for Jacob Weisman's Tachyon Publications in 2002. In the first part of 2003, Jacob contacted me about a new project: Sheila Finch's novel Reading the Bones. The book was an expansion of Sheila's Nebula Award-winning novella of the same name, originally published in the January 1998 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The novella is part of the author's Xenolinguist (aka "lingster") series of stories. The expanded novel -- to snag a few words from the book's PR -- follows xenolinguist Ries Danyo, and sisters Lita and Jilan Patel, to their pivotal role in shaping the future of the alien Frehti.

Reading the Bones was published in September 2003, just in time for Tachyon's eighth anniversary party held at Borderlands Books in San Francisco on September 14. Sheila Finch was on hand to celebrate the publication of her book, as were Tachyon authors Peter S. Beagle, Grania Davis, Richard Lupoff, Pat Murphy, and Michael Swanwick. Other authors included Kage Baker (a future Tachyon author), Mark Budz, and Marina Fitch.

At the anniversary party, I had the opportunity to meet Sheila Finch¹, and to introduce myself as the person responsible for the editorial work done on Reading the Bones. Fortunately, Sheila was quite pleased with my work on the book, and thus I was able to breathe a sigh of relief, since this was my first major project for Tachyon Publications, and I was hopeful there would be more projects in the future.

And the anthology Is Anybody Out There? again provided me with an opportunity to work with Sheila Finch. With a series of stories dealing with linguistics and alien communication, Sheila, I knew, would add a unique perspective to the Fermi Paradox theme -- and she did not disappoint.

About her story "Where Two or Three," Sheila writes: "I've long thought we're putting the cart before the horse in our search for messages from ET. We haven't solved the difficulty of translating reliably between the languages on Earth, let alone knowing how to communicate with other sentient creatures on our own planet -- cetaceans, for instance. Musicians and music lovers learn to listen to more than one instrument's voice at a time, appreciating that the effect of harmony is more than just the sum of its parts. I initially explored these ideas years ago in 'Sequoia Dreams,'² and have touched on them frequently in the Guild of Xenolinguists series; this story was a chance to come at them from a different angle. And volunteering in a hospice, I hear some pretty amazing stories!"

Where Two or Three

by Sheila Finch

The charge nurse barely paused in her fast trot down the hospice hallway. "Seventeen needs his water jug refilled. Can you get it?"

"I'll get it." Maddie turned back the way she had come. It was her second day as a volunteer -- What a joke! She hadn't volunteered for anything -- but already she was getting the routine. Here, the charge nurse was boss.

She picked up a full plastic jug of ice water from the kitchen and walked back to room seventeen. Like most of the other rooms, it contained a hospital bed with a white coverlet, a straight-back visitor's chair, a battered chest of drawers that had hosted too many patients' belongings. Unlike the others, the occupant or his family hadn't made an effort to personalize the room with family photos, art work, or flowering plants. They hadn't replaced the old 2-D, which probably didn't work any more, with a newer Tri-D either. The hospice cat, a large orange tabby, jumped off the bed when she came in as if his shift was over once a volunteer showed up.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Maddie. I brought your water."

The skinny old man on the bed didn't open his eyes. "Haven't seen you before."

"Only my second day."

He had the most wrinkled skin she'd ever seen, and his face was blotchy as if he'd had a bad sunburn and skinned recently. He had to be at least a hundred, she thought. There was a smell in the room too, not really bad but odd, sort of baby-powdery and musty at the same time. She picked up the empty jug. She definitely did not want to spend time in here.

"Why're you here if you don't like it?"

Maddie jumped. "Would I be here if I didn't?" Lying again, she thought. One of these days she was going to have to break the habit.

He turned his head away from her. The back of his neck was scrawny as a chicken's, and the skin was patchy here too. "Sit and visit."

She sat gracelessly on the edge of the chair by the wall and stared at the old man's neck. "So, what did you used to do?" she asked brightly. Most of the older ones liked to talk about the old days, the younger ones not so much.

"Astronaut," he said.

"Astronaut? You mean, like space and stuff?"

"Space," he said to the wall. "And stuff."

"Have I heard of you?" she asked cautiously.

"Probably not. Name's Sam." He rolled back to face her, surprisingly agile for someone who looked so old. His eyes were a pale, washed-out blue, same color as the jeans she was wearing. "And how did you get sentenced to this place?"

Maddie felt her cheeks grow warm. "I'm a volunteer."

"Crap. Person your age has better things to do than visit old coots like me."

"All right. Here's the truth. I got busted for doing drugs at a party. One rotten joint -- and if I'd been eighteen already like everybody else it would've been legal anyway. So the judge gave me community service."

"Good," Sam said. "I don't have time for lies. What would you rather be doing -- besides being stupid?"

"You really are unpleasant, know that?" she snapped.

He chuckled -- at least she thought that was what he was doing. Maybe he was choking or something. "Didn't they tell you you're supposed to humor me?"

"I'm in high school. I'll be a senior starting next month. I don't get much time to do what I'd rather be doing. But when I do, I play the flute."

"A musician," he said. "Will you play for me?"

"I didn't bring it with me."

"How about next time you come?" He gazed at her with the washed-out eyes. The edges of his lipless old mouth creased up. "Please?"

Why not? The staff encouraged volunteers to entertain the residents any way possible. "Well, maybe when I come back on Friday."

"And maybe I'll tell you about space. And stuff."

Maddie got out of the room before he could say anything else. In the hallway, she passed the charge nurse again.

"Glad to see you spent some time with Mr. Ferenzi. He never gets any visitors." The charge nurse smoothed the pink tunic over her white slacks. "He used to be famous. But something happened to him, and he was never quite right afterwards."

Even if it wasn't true, she thought, it beat spending time with the old biddies here who only wanted her to play cards with them.

# # #

"The Dark Man" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Part 3 of 3)

The Dark Man

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

[Continued from Part 2] 

The alarm brought her out of it a moment later -- or so it seemed. Five a.m. looked the same as midnight had, same darkness, same feel. She got up, turned on the lights, and took a quick shower.

Then she grabbed her equipment bag and headed back to the Spanish Steps.

The morning was cool, comparatively speaking. It had to be about 80 instead of the 100 that had stifled Rome for the past few days. She wondered whether fall would ever show up -- and if it did, whether or not she would recognize it as a brand new season.

She trudged up to the Spanish Steps, noting as she went how many merchants were already up, cleaning the small sidewalks in front of their shops, and rearranging the wares in the window. She bought a pastry from a cart vendor she'd never seen before and ate as she walked, decided that the pastry was so good the vendor probably sold out long before she normally got up.

The carts at the top of the Spanish Steps were still shuttered. The professional beggars hadn't arrived yet. The restaurant tables, full and covered with food when she had left them, were stacked one on top of the other near the restaurant's doors.

A small group of people hovered near the top of the steps, staring at the city unfolding before them. The thin light of dawn seemed brighter than an average day in Colorado, and made Condi feel like she was very, very far from home.

She walked past the group, not seeing anyone she recognized, and headed down the Steps until she was only a few yards from the spot where the figure would turn up.

She set up the video camera she brought, turning it on so that she would get the moment of appearance. She would also make a recording on her phone as a backup.

The rest of the equipment remained in the bag. She would only remove it if she needed it.

She sat on her perch, the travertine steps surprisingly cool through her khaki pants, and waited. She wanted the figure to appear. She needed it to appear. She didn't want to wait several more days for some kind of phenomenon that, until this point (at least for her), had only existed in artists' renderings.

Then Giuseppe sat down beside her, too close as usual. He wore a cologne as peppery as the wine had been the night before, and just as strong. Clearly he had just gotten up as well.

"So," she said, irritated that he was sitting so close, irritated that he had frightened her the night before, irritated that he continued to bother her, "you guys think this is aliens, huh?"

He looked at her in surprise. She had a hunch that was the first unguarded expression she had ever seen on his face.

"You think I can't do research?" she asked. "I had simply thought you guys were a rumor until last night."

She didn't want to tell him she hadn't heard of his group until he had talked to her a few hours ago.

He didn't say anything. She pulled out her phone, cupping it in her right hand.

"What do you think this is," she asked, "some kind of portal and the aliens send one guy to it every ten years or so? Is this an invading army that hasn't quite got the concept down?"

She didn't try to cover the sarcasm in her voice.

"Not aliens," he said. "Alien."

"The Dark Man" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Part 2 of 3)

 The Dark Man

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

[Continued from Part 1]

She started down the Steps. They were slightly worn from nearly three centuries of constant use. She stopped just above the landing. The air felt chillier here. It always did, at least to her, and she knew that had nothing to do with the actual air itself, but her own frame of mind.

Just like the little shiver that ran through her the three times she had actually walked across the steps where the figure would eventually appear had nothing to do with the figure, and everything to do with her own irrational fear of what she might find.

"You know when it will appear."

He stopped behind her, too close like Italian men always were. She didn't move away. She didn't worry about him picking her pocket -- she only had a few Euros on her. Her credit card and identification were tucked into a money belt hidden beneath the waistband of her pants, practically invisible, or so her hotel mirror told her every morning.

She had to tilt her head to see his face. He stood one step above her. The light from below reflected off his skin. He was older than she had thought, with fine lines beneath his eyes and around his mouth. Laugh lines, her mother would have called them.

But he wasn't smiling now.

He was looking down on her like an avenging angel, the Church of Trinità dei Monti shadowing him from behind.

"Are you speaking to me?" she asked in her haughtiest Italian.

"You know that I am," he said. "Just like you know I have been watching you since you first came to the Steps."

She could have denied it, she supposed, although she saw no point. Just like she saw no point in backing away from him. That would only let him know he had power over her, power to startle her, power to unnerve her, power to make her worry for her own safety.

"You are waiting for it," he said, "just like I am."

She realized that anyone else listening to the conversation would hear that last comment as vaguely threatening, maybe even as something with sexual overtones.

But she knew there weren't any sexual overtones -- at least, not intentional ones. She wondered briefly if he was one of those men who knew how handsome he was and used that knowledge subconsciously to control the people around him.

She had a hunch he did.

"Who do you work for?" she asked.

His eyes half closed, shielding their expression from her. She felt a surge of adrenaline. He didn't want her to know that piece of information.

"Are you one of those -- what do you call it in English? Psychic investigators?" He used the English words for that last part, and he didn't try to hide his contempt.

"I'm not psychic," she said, "but I am hungry. Join me?"

She went around him, climbing back up the steps to the little restaurant on the Piazza. She didn't wait to see if he followed; she knew he would eventually.

She flagged down a waiter, let him seat her at a table near the flowers, and watched as the man crossed the Piazza.

He handed the waiter a credit card, then gestured toward the table. The waiter smiled as if they had shared some kind of secret, then he disappeared into the restaurant itself.

The man sat down across from her. "I have ordered wine and bread. The waiter shall bring menus in a moment."

"The Dark Man" by Kristine Kathryn Rusch (Part 1 of 3)

Continuing my celebration -- and promotion -- of the publication of Is Anybody Out There? (Daw Books), my co-edited anthology with Nick Gevers, another story from the book follows -- after this non-commercial interruption:

As an avid reader of science fiction and fantasy short stories (I'm referring to the 1980s at this point), I subscribed to/purchased regularly a number of periodicals: Aboriginal SF, Amazing Stories, Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine, Fantasy & Science Fiction, OMNI, Weird Tales, and probably one or two others. So when I learned that a new publisher, Pulphouse Publishing, would begin publishing a "hardback magazine" entitled Pulphouse, well, I was ready to sign up. Each issue was genre themed, and the first issue, published in 1988, was all Horror.

The two people behind Pulphouse Publishing -- Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith -- won the 1989 World Fantasy Award / Non-Professional for their work on the magazine, and it was at that World Fantasy Convention in Seattle that I first met Kris and Dean.  I recall that convention vividly because it was held shortly after the Loma Prieta earthquake (October 17, 5:04 PM), which rocked my San Jose home more than I ever care to remember. And 10 days later, in a plane over San Francisco on my way to Seattle, I saw a site that I hope to never see again -- nothing! All the lights on the two major San Francisco bridges -- the Golden Gate Bridge and the Bay Bridge -- were out. Very eerie...to say the least.

Then, later that year, during Christmas break, my wife and daughter and I made a trip to Eugene, Oregon. Diane and I had met in Eugene, and we decided that at age 7, Lindsi was old enough to appreciate the sites and sounds as we visited some of our old haunts, and where Diane and I had lived and worked.¹ During our few days in Eugene, we visited with Kris and Dean at the Pulphouse Publishing office, and the following day we all met for lunch at an eatery across the street from the Eugene post office. (K&D had to check their mail!) Also joining us for lunch were Kevin J. Anderson and Nina Kiriki Hoffman. A good -- and noisy -- time was had by all.

I would see Kris and Dean at many a convention in the intervening years, and I kept track of their writings and recognitions. So it was only natural that, shortly after joining Golden Gryphon Press, I contacted Kris in early 2000 about publishing her first short story collection. Entitled Stories for an Enchanted Afternoon², the book contained all of Kris's award-winning and award-nominated fiction (at that time), including two of my favorite stories: "Skin Deep" and "The Gallery of His Dreams." The book's dust jacket featured stunning wraparound art by Thomas Canty, in which scenes from some of the stories were depicted in the quilt squares that lay across the woman's lap.

I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that whenever I'm involved in an anthology project, Kristine Kathryn Rusch is always on my list of invitees.

About her story "The Dark Man," in Is Anybody Out There? Kris writes: "In 2007, I went to Rome with the writer Adrian Nikolas Phoenix. She was researching a book on Keats. I was along for the ride. We spent a lot of time near the Spanish Steps (Keats died near there), and I was struck by how old Rome really is. The Spanish Steps are 'new' -- only a few hundred years old. For years, I've been thinking about that -- what's old to some cultures is new to others -- and also about our perception of the world around us. After all, creatures in our world have a different way of perceiving life -- dogs, for example, with their amazing sense of smell. What if they perceive time differently too?"

The Dark Man

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

Condi stepped out of the internet café, an ice-cold bottle of Coke in her hand. The street was dark except for the light spewing out of the café's door. Motorcycles were parked to her left, squeezed between Smart Cars that had slid bumper-first into slots too small for a regular car.

In America, this would be called an alley, if someone deigned to dignify it with a designation at all. Crooked, covered with uneven cobblestone, winding uphill between darkened and graffiti-covered buildings, the street felt more like a path between main roads.

The internet café didn't help. It was the only business still open at 11 o'clock at night, still open and still doing business. The hotel across the way locked its doors promptly at nine, something she thought unfair in Rome, which like most Mediterranean cities, remained awake and active long past midnight.

Fortunately, Condi was staying in a slightly more upscale place on the Via Purificazione, another alley-like side street in a slightly more desirable neighborhood near the Via Veneto. She wasn't there for the shopping; she wanted to be as close to the American Embassy as possible without paying Westin Excelsior prices.

Not that money was an object. The Organization of Strange Phenomenon Ancient and Modern was paying for everything, including the tiny, expensive bottle of Coke resting damply in her right hand. She had an unlimited expense account, and a salary fifty times higher than her going rate as one of the Rocky Mountain News's best reporters -- back when there had been a Rocky Mountain News.

Condi glanced over her shoulder. Inside the café, which wasn't really a café at all -- just three narrow rooms of computers and two vending machines -- the waif who ran the place was surreptitiously checking the information Condi had left on her computer screen.

The waif, with her big brown eyes, round cheeks, black-black hair, looked like a cute Italian kid straight out of La Dolce Vita, or at least she did until you factored in the piercings, the tattoos, and the leather bustier, which seemed just too hot to wear in this strange 100-degree Roman autumn. Condi had already clocked out, leaving the screen on a UFO social networking site filled with wackos.

The waif always captured that last screen, missing the important stuff -- or so Condi hoped. She tried to check her e-mail several times per day on her iPhone, but the AT&T connection in Rome was spotty at best -- hell, all wireless connections were spotty here -- and she was afraid she lost a lot of information.

She waited until the waif stopped checking the screen capture. Then Condi sighed and stepped onto the cobblestone street, heading up hill to the Via Sistina. Ahead, she could hear music and laughter. Behind her, she heard the whisper of shoes against cobblestone.

She didn't have to turn around to know he was following her again.

# # #

Is Anybody Out There? -- Second Locus Review

Locus subtitles itself: The Magazine of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Field. According to its entry in Wikipedia, "As of 2008, Locus has won the [Hugo] award for Best Fanzine 8 times, and the award for Best Semiprozine 21 times (in the 25 years the award has been given). " [I feel like I should place the preceding close quotation mark inside the ending period in memory of the late Charles N. Brown....]

So I couldn't have been more pleased to learn that Is Anybody Out There?  (Daw Books, June 1), my co-edited anthology with Nick Gevers, would be reviewed in Locus not just once -- by Gardner Dozois in the May issue -- but a second time by Rich Horton in the June issue. Gardner's review was relatively short and was included in his monthly short fiction review column. Rich Horton's review (which follows), however, was printed under the "Reviews by Divers Hands" heading and is quite lengthy, with comments covering 9 of the 15 stories included in the anthology. I suspect that the majority of mass market paperback anthologies from Daw Books do not garner two reviews, regardless of length, within the pages of Locus. So, as I said, I'm thankful for the two reviews, and for the positive, encouraging words both reviewers had to say about the anthology.

In an email I received just yesterday from Rich, he brought me up-to-date on his own edited Best of the Year anthologies: "I have Best of the Year books from 2006 through 2008 in the original form -- one for SF, one for Fantasy -- and from 2009 and 2010 combined [all from Prime Books]. Also Unplugged [Wyrm Publishing], the best SF/Fantasy from the Web, in 2009, and some hope that a new Best of the Web volume will appear this year..." Rich is a bit behind on updates to his website, but even so, he lists links to more than 100 of his online book reviews. Now, he has another to link to:

"Graffiti in the Library of Babel" by David Langford (Part 2 of 2)

Graffiti in the Library of Babel

by David Langford

[Continued from Part 1]

Ceri liked the idea of TotLib staff handling the boring rote-work, but didn't want to get too far away from that tagged text. Layers of abstraction are great in software but tend to blur the focus of real-world problems. They compromised on a multi-view workstation: defaced ebooks here, grouped and sequenced tags there, and the clear light of understanding in the window that for a long time stayed dismally blank.

Clearing away the relentless tag repetition through multiple editions, critical cites and anthologies of quotations, there were just 125 tagged phrases in all. "Five to the third power," Ceri muttered. "The science fiction writers would say straight away that our friends must count to base five, meaning they have five limbs or five tentacles or…" She stared moodily at the significant number of jointed manipulators on her left hand. "Or not."

Joseph spread out a hand that proved to be missing one finger. "Just an old accident, but I would seem to be ruled out. Perhaps, though, that is merely my cunning."

The first of the eleven sequences, or maybe the last ("Has it never occurred to you that the ancient Romans counted backwards?" Ceri quoted), ran a gamut of fuzzily resonating phrases from "It is a truth universally acknowledged" through Hazlitt's "How often have I put off writing a letter" to E. M. Forster's "Only connect…"

"Translation: It would be sort of dimly nice to maybe talk in some kind of indistinct fashion, probably." Ceri glared at the screen. "Right, I'm going to lecture now. To be that vague and at the same time stick to a theme, the taggers must understand English. Not just literal meaning but metaphors and nuances and stuff. Otherwise 'No man is an island' wouldn't be in there."

"So they could choose to communicate in clear?" suggested Joseph.

"That's it. They could spell out an absolutely unambiguous message, one word or one letter at a time. I can't imagine a good reason for doing it this way, but I have a suspicious enough mind to think of a bad one. The taggers know all about us but they don't want to let slip a single data point concerning themselves. So they feed our own phrases back to us. We aren't to be allowed the tiniest clue to their thinking from style or diction or word order. Does that seem sinister to you?"

Joseph sighed. "It was so much easier when aliens said 'Take me to your leader.'"

"Or 'Klaatu barada nikto.' Don't let me distract myself. Here's the 'instruments of darkness' cluster, with the Tao Te Ching quotes, Zen koans and that mystic cobblers from Four Quartets that would cost them a packet in permission fees if the Eliot estate got wind of it. The general flavour of all this seems to be that they're using an acausal comms route that bypasses the Usual Channels. 'The way that can be spoken of / Is not the constant way.' Which would be most interesting to know if it hadn't been the assumption we started with."

An intern came in with plastic cups of coffee, which made for a few seconds' natural break. Ceri burnt a finger and swore under her breath in Welsh.

"Gesundheit. What about those quarantine regulations?"

"I think that's the most interesting one," Ceri said cautiously. "C. S. Lewis and 'God's quarantine regulations' -- the old boy was talking about interplanetary or interstellar distances saving pure races from contamination by horrible fallen us. Then there's a handful of guarded borders and dangerous frontiers from early Auden. 'The empyrean is a void abyss': that's The City of Dreadful Night, I actually read it once. Lucretius on breaking through 'the fiery walls of the world' to explore the boundless universe. There's a pun in there, I'm sure. Firewalls. Something blocks or prevents communication across deep space. Who? 'Masters of the universe.' Maybe for our own good, but who knows? In a nutshell: SETI was a waste of time. Don't let the coffee get cold."

Joseph sipped. "That seems something of a stretch."

"Well, right now I'm just talking, not publishing. And while I'm still just talking, I wonder whether we can try to talk back."

The Periodic Table of Women in SF

Diana Comet Presents: 75 Years of Fabulous Writers -- a periodic table of women in science fiction, 1933-2008.

I've embedded the YouTube video below, but this is the direct link to YouTube. Also, Sandra McDonald (the person behind Diana Comet) has more information, including a link to a black-and-white PDF version of the periodic table seen in the video; plus a Donation link, if you so choose.

This is awesome stuff -- a well-paced and classy book vid; and I'm pleased to count many of these individuals as professional acquaintances and/or friends. Definitely deserving of multiple viewings!

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"Graffiti in the Library of Babel" by David Langford (Part 1 of 2)

To continue my celebration -- and promotion -- of Is Anybody Out There? (Daw Books, June 1), my co-edited anthology with Nick Gevers, another story from the book follows.

But first...

The second review of IAOT? has appeared -- from John Ottinger (@johnottinger) on his Grasping for the Wind blog. Typically a review of an anthology will specifically mention maybe 5 or 6 stories and/or authors at most, along with a critique of the anthology as a whole. But John's review contains details on all 15 stories, as well as the introduction, providing readers with a comprehensive look at the entire anthology. John writes: "In Gevers and Halpern’s collection of fifteen original stories, [the Fermi] paradox gets the fictional treatment, explored and examined as only speculators can do....the anthology is an enjoyable read, one that is fairly entertaining with flashes of storytelling flair. Recommended if you have ever asked yourself the very question which provides the title."

And if you decide to click on over to John's review, please do make your way back here for David Langford's story, "Graffiti in the Library of Babel," the third story to be posted in its entirety from Is Anybody Out There?

I've never met David Langford, but I've been a long-time fan of his sardonic fiction, and I've been reading his zine Ansible¹ for what seems like decades. (Wait! It has been decades!) In 2002, Claude Lalumière and I selected David's story "Encounter of Another Kind" (Interzone, December 1991) for inclusion in our co-edited anthology Witpunk (Four Walls Eight Windows, 2003) -- a collection of sardonic fiction, with about half the stories original to the collection and the other half reprints. So, it was only natural for me to invite David to contribute to this anthology as well, and I'm so glad that I did.²

To quote from David's Wikipedia entry: "As of 2008 he has received, in total, 28 Hugo Awards, his 19-year winning streak coming to an end in 2008. A 31-year streak of nominations (1979-2009) for Best Fan Writer came to an end in 2010." Now that's a lot of Hugo Awards -- and nominations!

About his story "Graffiti in the Library of Babel" David writes: "Too many nonfiction commitments, not enough stories written. 'Graffiti in the Library of Babel' is my only fiction of 2009, inspired by our editors' kindly invitation, my inability to resist a Borges allusion, and some random thoughts about unperceived signals. Suppose the aliens out there made the traditional study of our Earthly communications, analysed the most popular forms of email, and offered us the boundless wealth of Contact in terms which we automatically filter out owing to the strong Nigerian accent? No, no, Charlie Stross must already have written that one.³ Some further supposing eventually led to 'Graffiti.'"

Graffiti in the Library of Babel

by David Langford

"There seems to be no difference at all between the message of maximum content (or maximum ambiguity) and the message of zero content (noise)."

-- John Sladek, "The Communicants"

As it turned out, they had no sense of drama. They failed to descend in shiny flying discs, or even to fill some little-used frequency with a tantalizing stutter of sequenced primes. No: they came with spray cans and spirit pens, scrawling their grubby little tags across our heritage.

Or as an apologetic TotLib intern first broke the news: "Sir, someone's done something nasty all over Jane Austen."

# # #

The Total Library project is named in homage to Kurd Lasswitz's thought experiment "Die Universal Bibliothek," which inspired a famous story by Jorge Luis Borges. Another influence is the "World Brain" concept proposed by H. G. Wells. Assembling the totality of world literature and knowledge should allow a rich degree of cross-referencing and interdisciplinary…

Ceri Evans looked up from the brochure. Even in this white office that smelt of top management, she could never resist a straight line: "Why, congratulations, Professor. I think you may have invented the Internet!"

"Doctor, not Professor, and I do not use the title," said Ngombi with well-simulated patience. "Call me Joseph. The essential point of TotLib is that we are isolated from the net. No trolls, no hackers, none of what that Manson book called sleazo inputs. Controlled rather than chaotic cross-referencing."

"But still you seem to have these taggers?"

"Congratulations, Doctor Evans! I think you may have just deduced the contents of my original email to you."

"All right. All square." Ceri held up one thin hand in mock surrender. "We'll leave the posh titles for the medics. Now tell me: Why is this a problem in what I do, which is a far-out region of information theory, rather than plain data security?"

"Believe me, data security we know about. Hackers and student pranksters have been rather exhaustively ruled out. As it has been said, 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.'"

"'Holmes, this is marvellous,'" said Ceri dutifully.

"'Meretricious,' said he." Joseph grinned. "We are a literary team here."

Ceri felt a sudden contrarian urge not to be literary. "Maybe we should cut to the chase. There's only one logical reason to call me in. You suspect the Library is under attack through the kind of acausal channel I've discussed in my more speculative papers? A concept, I should remind you, that got me an IgNobel Prize and a long denunciation in The Skeptic because everyone knows it's utter lunacy. Every Einstein-worshipping physicist, at least."

A shrug. "'Once you eliminate the impossible…' And I'm not a physicist. Come and see." He was so very large and very black. Ceri found herself wondering whether his white-on-white decor was deliberate contrast.

# # #

May Links & Things

My May links and such are not as numerous as in months past as this has been a busy month for me, which left little time for twitter- and blog-gazing. And yet, I had more blog posts in May than in any other previous month, with the release in their entirety of two stories (so far) from my anthology Is Anybody Out There? co-edited with Nick Gevers, and released today -- June 1 -- by Daw Books. I also attended BayCon this past Memorial Day weekend, and as anyone knows who has attended a panel on which I participated, I always try to prepare ahead of time for my convention panels, with reference material, visual aids, etc. This weekend I participated in three excellent panels -- one being the Iron Editors panel, in which I (along with 3 others) edited/copyedited and commented upon manuscript pages from the audience for two straight hours. On another panel, on books and cover art, I had the opportunity to meet artist guest of honor Lee Moyer -- a knowledgeable and personable individual; and here's hoping I have an opportunity in the very near future to meet up with Lee once again.

Here are my links and such for the month of May. I've listed them here, with additional detail and comment. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern.

• Booklist Online: Book Reviews from the American Library Association has named The Good Humor Man (Tachyon Publications, 2009) by Andrew Fox one of the Top 10 SF/Fantasy books of 2010. Congrats to Andy Fox, and to Tachyon for their willingness to publish an over-the-top book such as this. I've written about my involvement in the publication of The Good Humor Man; and I'm extremely pleased to see the book recognized by the ALA. But let me tell you, the two-sentence blurb that you'll find on the Booklist Online page truly does not do this book justice. Read my previous blog post, and then read the io9 review of The Good Humor Man by Chris Braak; it's always a thrill ride to read a solid review such as this!



• Don Sakers reviews Judith Moffett's novel Pennterra in his column "The Reference Library" in the July/August issue of Analog magazine (you'll need to scroll down the page to find the review). Sakers concludes his review with: "Pennterra packs a thousand pages of first-rate science fiction into its scant 288. The hrossa are finely drawn aliens with their own language, culture, philosophy, and even sexuality (all of which figure into the story). The clash between the Sixers and the Quakers, with the still-largely-unknown hrossa taking their own side, is compelling. If you think you hear distant echoes of Le Guin, you're right: Moffett is a stylist as well as a good storyteller." [Note: I acquired the reprint rights for Pennterra for Fantastic Books in 2009; and in a previous blog post, I wrote about Judith Moffett, Pennterra, and her Holy Ground Trilogy.]



• With great sadness I note the passing on May 10 of artist Frank Frazetta, whose iconic work graced book covers, movie posters, magazines, comics, record albums, and more. In an homage to the artist, Unreality Magazine (@un_reality) showcases 20 of Frazetta's best known works.



• Writer, blogger, and book reviewer Maud Newton (@maudnewton) shares with her readers "Notes on eight years of book blogging" -- "If you'd told me in 2002 that I would keep at it for so long or that so many people would know about this site or care what I had to say, I probably would've reacted the way I did to two boys in elementary school who said I was pretty: decided you were mocking me and head-butted you to the ground, shouting, "Why do you have to be such a jerk?" Eight years... Whew!...



• And speaking of Ms. Newton, she was named one of "40 bloggers who really count" by the UK's TimesOnline. Whether it be Celebrities, Fashion, Feminism, Food, Health, Law, Politics, Pop Culture, Sex, Technology, War, and more, you'll find the top bloggers on this list.

"Permanent Fatal Errors" by Jay Lake (Part 4 of 4)

Permanent Fatal Errors
by Jay Lake

[Continued from Part 3]

The chase wasn't really intended for crew transit, but it had to be large enough to admit a human being for inspection and repairs, when the automated systems couldn't handle something. It was a shitty, difficult crawl, but Inclined Plane was only about two hundred meters stem to stern anyway. He passed over several intermediate access hatches -- no point in getting out -- then simply climbed down and out in the passageway when he reached the bridge. Taking control of the exterior weapons systems from within the walls of the ship wasn't going to do him any good. The interior systems concentrated on disaster suppression and anti-hijacking, and were not under his control anyway.

No one was visible when Maduabuchi slipped out from the walls. He wished he had a pistol, or even a good, long-handled wrench, but he couldn't take down any of the rest of these Howards even if he tried. He settled for hitting the bridge touchpad and walking in when the hatch irised open.

Patrice sat in the captain's chair. Chillicothe manned the navigation boards. They both glanced up at him, surprised.

"What are you doing here?" Chillicothe demanded.

"Not being locked in the lounge," he answered, acutely conscious of his utter lack of any plan of action. "Where's Captain Smith?"

"In her cabin," said Patrice without looking up. His voice was a growl, coming from a heavyworld body like a sack of bricks. "Where she'll be staying."

"Wh-why?"

"What did I tell you about questions?" Chillicothe asked softly.

Something cold rested against the hollow spot of skin just behind Maduabuchi's right ear. Paimei's voice whispered close. "Should have listened to the woman. Curiosity killed the cat, you know."

They will never expect it, he thought, and threw an elbow back, spinning to land a punch on Paimei. He never made the hit. Instead he found himself on the deck, her boot against the side of his head.

At least the pistol wasn't in his ear any more.

Maduabuchi laughed at that thought. Such a pathetic rationalization. He opened his eyes to see Chillicothe leaning over.

"What do you think is happening here?" she asked.

He had to spit the words out. "You've taken over the sh-ship. L-locked Captain Smith in her cabin. L-locked me up to k-keep me out of the way."

Chillicothe laughed, her voice harsh and bitter. Patrice growled some warning that Maduabuchi couldn't hear, not with Paimei's boot pressing down on his ear.

"She tried to open a comms channel to something very dangerous. She's been relieved of her command. That's not mutiny, that's self-defense."

"And compliance to regulation," said Paimei, shifting her foot a little so Maduabuchi would be sure to hear her.

"Something's inside that star."

Chillicothe's eyes stirred. "You still haven't learned about questions, have you?"

"I w-want to talk to the captain."

She glanced back toward Patrice, now out of Maduabuchi's very limited line of sight. Whatever look was exchanged resulted in Chillicothe shaking her head. "No. That's not wise. You'd have been fine inside the lounge. A day or two, we could have let you out. We're less than eighty hours-subjective from making threadneedle transit back to Saorsen Station, then this won't matter anymore."

He just couldn't keep his mouth shut. "Why won't it matter?"

"Permanent Fatal Errors" by Jay Lake (Part 3 of 4)

Permanent Fatal Errors
by Jay Lake

[Continued from Part 2]

The corridor was filled with smoke, though no alarms wailed. He almost ducked back into the Survey Suite, but instead dashed for one of the emergency stations found every ten meters or so and grabbed an oxygen mask. Then he hit the panic button.

That produced a satisfying wail, along with lights strobing at four distinct frequencies. Something was wrong with the gravimetrics, too -- the floor had felt syrupy, then too light, with each step. Where the hell was fire suppression?

The bridge was next. He couldn't imagine that they were under attack -- Inclined Plane was the only ship in the Tiede 1 system so far as any of them knew. And short of some kind of pogrom against Howard immortals, no one had any reason to attack their vessel.

Mutiny, he thought, and wished he had an actual weapon. Though what he'd do with it was not clear. The irony that the lowest-scoring shooter in the history of the Howard training programs was now working as a weapons officer was not lost on him.

He stumbled into the bridge to find Chillicothe Xiang there, laughing her ass off with Paimei Joyner, one of their two scouts -- hard-assed Howards so heavily modded that they could at need tolerate hard vacuum on their bare skin, and routinely worked outside for hours with minimal life support and radiation shielding. The strobes were running in here, but the audible alarm was mercifully muted. Also, whatever was causing the smoke didn't seem to have reached into here yet.

Captain Smith stood at the far end of the bridge, her back to the diamond viewing wall that was normally occluded by a virtual display, though at the moment the actual, empty majesty of Tiede 1 localspace was visible.

Smith was snarling. "…don't care what you thought you were doing, clean up my ship's air! Now, damn it."

The two turned toward the hatch, nearly ran into Maduabuchi in his breathing mask, and renewed their laughter.

"You look like a spaceman," said Chillicothe.

"Moral here," added Paimei. One deep black hand reached out to grasp Maduabuchi's shoulder so hard he winced. "Don't try making a barbecue in the galley."

"We'll be eating con-rats for a week," snapped Captain Smith. "And everyone on this ship will know damned well it's your fault we're chewing our teeth loose."

The two walked out, Paimei shoving Maduabuchi into a bulkhead while Chillicothe leaned close. "Take off the mask," she whispered. "You look stupid in it."

Moments later, Maduabuchi was alone with the captain, the mask dangling in his grasp.

"What was it?" she asked in a quiet, gentle voice that carried more respect than he probably deserved.

"I have…had something," Maduabuchi said. "A sort of, well, hunch. But it's slipped away in all that chaos."

Smith nodded, her face closed and hard. "Idiots built a fire in the galley, just to see if they could."

"Is that possible?"

"If you have sufficient engineering talent, yes," the captain admitted grudgingly. "And are very bored."

"Or want to create a distraction," Maduabuchi said, unthinking.

"Damn it," Smith shouted. She stepped to her command console. "What did we miss out there?"

"No," he said, his hunches suddenly back in play. This was like a flow hangover. "Whatever's out there was out there all along. The green flash. Whatever it is." And didn't that niggle at his thoughts like a cockroach in an airscrubber. "What we missed was in here."

"And when," the captain asked, her voice very slow now, viscous with thought, "did you and I become we as separate from the rest of this crew?"

When you first picked me, ma'am, Maduabuchi thought but did not say. "I don't know. But I was in the Survey Suite, and you were on the bridge. The rest of this crew was somewhere else."

"You can't look at everything, damn it," she muttered. "Some things should just be trusted to match their skin."

Her words pushed Maduabuchi back into his flow state, where the hunch reared up and slammed him in the forebrain with a broad, hairy paw.

BayCon 2010 Programming Schedule

Baycon touts itself as "the largest science fiction and fantasy convention in the San Francisco Bay Area"; sadly, it is currently the only annual convention in the Bay Area.

In the last 15 or so years, I've only missed a few BayCons. I recall two of those misses in recent years... The convention used to be held at the DoubleTree Hotel (formerly the Red Lion) in San Jose. The first year that the hotel had begun charging for parking, I wasn't scheduled for any panels (my fault: I had changed email addresses in the fall of the previous year, and neglected to contact BayCon with my change of e-address, so they were unable to reach me) -- which turned out to be a very good thing. I arrived at the hotel Saturday morning, and the hotel, in their infinite wisdom, had limited the available parking in their lot; I simply couldn't find a place to park, so, in frustration, I backed the car up (there wasn't even enough open space to drive through/around to the exit), and left; I didn't return to the convention that weekend. Fortunately, the convention site has since changed to the Hyatt Regency in Santa Clara (next to the Santa Clara Convention Center) so parking is no longer an issue. I also missed last year's convention due to a serious illness in my extended family that necessitated a trip to Southern California, so even though I was scheduled to participate at BayCon, I unfortunately had to bail a day or two before the con.¹

But this year, assuming all goes well through the remainder of today, as well as tomorrow, I will yet again be participating in BayCon. Here is my schedule for Saturday and Sunday:

4:00 PM Saturday, San Tomas 811:
Publishing Credits: What Matters, What Doesn't, and Why

Not all publishing credits are created equal -- some will boost a career while others will injure it. Which are which and why are they in each category? And how can a career downer become a career booster?

Panelists: Marty Halpern (M), A. Kovacs, Nick Mamatas, Jay Ridler, Scott Sigler, Doug Berry

10:00 AM Sunday, Camino Real 826: Iron Editors

Normally, any "writers’ workshop" is a private, behind-closed-doors affair, inviting rumors on ancient and tribal rites involving Styrofoam, marshmallows, and duct tape. This panel is designed to bring to the public what the process looks and sounds like. Using submissions from the audience members, our panelists will quickly mark up and present a critique. All of our Iron Editors have been published themselves, and have a very good idea of what a story needs to get published. To participate bring up to 2 double-spaced pages of creative writing either to the panel or drop it off in the box at the Info Desk. You must be present to have your submission critiqued! The more -- the merrier!! Also, non-submitting Audience Members are more than welcome.

The Iron Editors: Kent Brewster (M), Marty Halpern, Tom Saidak, Lori White, Doug Berry

2:00 PM Sunday, Alameda 105: Judging a Cover by Its Book

Many book covers are created with little to no information about the story it will be attached to. Can you tell a good book by the cover? And how much of that is the artist's fault? When did an artist’s rendering convince you to buy a book? And how many times did you regret it?

Clare Bell, Marty Halpern, Wanda Kurtcu (M), Lee Moyer, Doug Berry

So, that's my schedule for this weekend; fortunately not a too-busy one. I do plan on pulling together some information, books, and cover art tomorrow, to use as reference material for the three panels. I will also be at the con hotel for at least the first half of Monday, which allows me to relax a bit and meet up with anyone, should the need arise.

I hope to see you at the convention this weekend. Check out any (or all) of my panels if the subject matter interests you, and be sure to stop by, say hello, and introduce yourself.

By the way, though my co-edited anthology Is Anybody Out There? isn't officially released until June 1, I will have copies available for sale at the con. I'm trying to work out a deal to have them available in the dealers room, but if not -- or regardless -- I will personally have copies available.

---------------
Footnotes:

¹ When I missed last year's BayCon, I also missed my meet up for lunch/dinner with author Kage Baker (and her sister Kathleen Bartholomew), which I wrote about previously in my blog post "In the Company of Kage Baker."

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"Permanent Fatal Errors" by Jay Lake (Part 2 of 4)

Permanent Fatal Errors
by Jay Lake

[Continued from Part 1]

He worked an entire half-shift without being disturbed, sifting petabytes of data, until the truth hit him. The color-coding of one spectral analysis matrix was nearly identical to the green flash he thought he'd seen on the surface of Tiede 1.

All the data was a distraction. Her real work had been hidden in the metadata, passing for nothing more than a sorting signifier.

Once Maduabuchi realized that, he unpacked the labeling on the spectral analysis matrix, and opened up an entirely new data environment. Green, it was all about the green.

"I was wondering how long that would take you," said Captain Smith from the opening hatch.

Maduabuchi jumped in his chair, opened his mouth to make some denial, then closed it again. Her eyes didn't look razored this time, and her voice held a tense amusement.

He fell back on that neglected standby, the truth. "Interesting color you have here, ma'am."

"I thought so." Smith stepped inside, cycled the lock shut, then code-locked it with a series of beeps that meant her command override was engaged. "Ship," she said absently, "sensory blackout on this area."

"Acknowledged, Captain," said the ship's puppy-friendly voice.

"What do you think it means, Mr. St. Macaria?"

"Stars don't shine green. Not to the human eye. The blackbody radiation curve just doesn't work that way." He added, "Ma'am."

"Thank you for defining the problem." Her voice was dust-dry again.

Maduabuchi winced. He'd given himself away, as simply as that. But clearly she already knew about the green flashes. "I don't think that's the problem, ma'am."

"Mmm?"

"If it was, we'd all be lining up like good kids to have a look at the optically impossible brown dwarf."

"Fair enough. Then what is the problem, Mr. St. Macaria?"

He drew a deep breath and chose his next words with care. Peridot Smith was old, old in a way he'd never be, even with her years behind him someday. "I don't know what the problem is, ma'am, but if it's a problem to you, it's a command issue. Politics. And light doesn't have politics."

Much to his surprise, she laughed. "You'd be amazed. But yes. Again, well done."

She hadn't said that before, but he took the compliment. "What kind of command problem, ma'am?"

Captain Smith sucked in a long, noisy breath and eyed him speculatively. A sharp gaze, to be certain. "Someone on this ship is on their own mission. We were jiggered into coming to Tiede 1 to provide cover, and I don't know what for."

"Not me!" Maduabuchi blurted.

"I know that."

The dismissal in her words stung for a moment, but on the whole, he realized he'd rather not be a suspect in this particular witch hunt.

His feelings must have shown in his face, because she smiled and added, "You haven't been around long enough to get sucked into the Howard factions. And you have a rep for being indifferent to the seductive charms of power."

"Uh, yes." Maduabuchi wasn't certain what to say to that.

"Why do you think you're here?" She leaned close, her breath hot on his face. "I needed someone who would reliably not be conspiring against me."

"A useful idiot," he said. "But there's only seven of us. How many could be conspiring? And over a green light?"

"It's Tiede 1," Captain Smith answered. "Someone is here gathering signals. I don't know what for. Or who. Because it could be any of the rest of the crew. Or all of them."

"But this is politics, not mutiny. Right…?"

"Right." She brushed off the concern. "We're not getting hijacked out here. And if someone tries, I am the meanest fighter on this ship by a wide margin. I can take any three of this crew apart."

"Any five of us, though?" he asked softly.

"That's another use for you."

"I don't fight."

"No, but you're a Howard. You're hard enough to kill that you can take it at my back long enough to keep me alive."

"Uh, thanks," Maduabuchi said, very uncertain now.

"You're welcome." Her eyes strayed to the data arrays floating across the screens and in the virtual presentations. "The question is who, what and why."

"Have you compared the observational data to known stellar norms?" he asked.

"Green flashes aren't a known stellar norm."

"No, but we don't know what the green flashes are normal for, either. If we compare Tiede 1 to other brown dwarfs, we might spot further anomalies. Then we triangulate."

"And that is why I brought you." Captain Smith's tone was very satisfied indeed. "I'll leave you to your work."

"Thank you, ma'am." To his surprise, Maduabuchi realized he meant it.

* * *

"Permanent Fatal Errors" by Jay Lake (Part 1 of 4)

Continuing my celebration -- and promotion -- of Is Anybody Out There? (Daw Books) my co-edited anthology with Nick Gevers, to be published on June 1, here is another story from the book.

Though I was already quite familiar with his work, the first time I personally met Jay Lake was at BayCon 2005, May 27-30, in San Jose, California. Jay was the Writer Guest of Honor; I was a lowly panelist. We actually met on Saturday the 28th, at 11:30 a.m., in the Carmel Room of the DoubleTree Hotel, for a panel entitled "Editing an Anthology." Later that day I showed up at another of Jay's panels, this time as a member of the audience, so that I could heckle him from the back of the room (just kidding). That second panel was on "First Novels"; I was still acquiring and editing for Golden Gryphon Press at the time, and thus in the market for first novels.

Just short of a year later, on June 22, 2006, I sent Jay an email to let him know that I would be editing his novel Trial of Flowers (Book 1 in The City Imperishable series) for Night Shade Books. If the "New Weird" subgenre is your cup of tea, so to speak, then you'll find few other books that are more "new weird" than The City Imperishable series. Anyhow, I just did a rough count, and at least 90 emails passed between us from the time I first started working on Jay's manuscript until I turned in the final copyedits for the page proofs and the book cover on September 18. When I first began editing, email was already the standard operating procedure; I don't know how folks did this job in the days before email. Unfortunately, I don't see Jay as often as I would like (I believe the last time, albeit briefly, was the 2009 World Fantasy Convention, again in San Jose), but I look forward to sharing another panel with him in the near future.

Jay's contribution to Is Anybody Out There? is a bit of mystery and a lot of science fiction entitled "Permanent Fatal Errors." About this story, Jay writes: "'Permanent Fatal Errors' is part of the Sunspin cycle, an as-yet-unwritten space opera trilogy I've planned as my next major project after I conclude the Green trilogy. This story explores a critical piece of worldbuilding that is a central plot question in the novels. The story takes place about 1,400 years before the narrative present of the novels, when the lessons learned by Maduabuchi during and after the action of 'Permanent Fatal Errors' have been lost. I remember them, and rediscovering them will be an important aspect of the larger story. It was a pleasure to explore the question of where the aliens have gone as part of Is Anybody Out There?"

Permanent Fatal Errors
by Jay Lake

Maduabuchi St. Macaria had never before traveled with an all-Howard crew. Mostly his kind kept to themselves, even under the empty skies of a planet. Those who did take ship almost always did so in a mixed or all-baseline human crew.

Not here, not aboard the threadneedle starship Inclined Plane. Seven crew including him, captained by a very strange woman who called herself Peridot Smith. All Howard Institute immortals. A new concept in long-range exploration, multi-decade interstellar missions with ageless crew, testbedded in orbit around the brown dwarf Tiede 1. That's what the newsfeeds said, anyway.

His experience was far more akin to a violent soap opera. Howards really weren't meant to be bottled up together. It wasn't in the design templates. Socially well-adjusted people didn't generally self-select to outlive everyone they'd ever known.

Even so, Maduabuchi was impressed by the welcome distraction of Tiede 1. Everyone else was too busy cleaning their weapons and hacking the internal comms and cams to pay attention to their mission objective. Not him.

Inclined Plane boasted an observation lounge. The hatch was coded "Observatory," but everything of scientific significance actually happened within the instrumentation woven into the ship's hull and the diaphanous energy fields stretching for kilometers beyond. The lounge was a folly of naval architecture, a translucent bubble fitted to the hull, consisting of roughly a third of a sphere of optically corrected artificial diamond grown to nanometer symmetry and smoothness in microgravity. Chances were good that in a catastrophe the rest of the ship would be shredded before the bubble would so much as be scratched.

There had been long, heated arguments in the galley, with math and footnotes and thumb breaking, over that exact question.

Maduabuchi liked to sit in the smartgel bodpods and let the ship perform a three-sixty massage while he watched the universe. The rest of the crew were like cats in a sack, too busy stalking the passageways and each other to care what might be outside the window. Here in the lounge one could see creation, witness the birth of stars, observe the death of planets, or listen to the quiet, empty cold of hard vacuum. The silence held a glorious music that echoed inside his head.

Maduabuchi wasn't a complete idiot -- he'd rigged his own cabin with self-powered screamer circuits and an ultrahigh voltage capacitor. That ought to slow down anyone with delusions of traps.

Tiede 1 loomed outside. It seemed to shimmer as he watched, as if a starquake were propagating. The little star belied the ancient label of "brown dwarf." Stepped down by filtering nano that coated the diamond bubble, the surface glowed a dull reddish orange; a coal left too long in a campfire, or a jewel in the velvet setting of night. Only 300,000 kilometers in diameter, and about five percent of a solar mass, it fell in that class of objects ambiguously distributed between planets and stars.

It could be anything, he thought. Anything.

A speck of green tugged at Maduabuchi's eye, straight from the heart of the star.

Green? There were no green emitters in nature.

"Amplification," he whispered. The nano filters living on the outside of the diamond shell obligingly began to self-assemble a lens. He controlled the aiming and focus with eye movements, trying to find whatever it was he had seen. Another ship? Reflection from a piece of rock or debris?

Excitement chilled Maduabuchi despite his best intentions to remain calm. What if this were evidence of the long-rumored but never-located alien civilizations that should have abounded in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way?

He scanned for twenty minutes, quartering Tiede 1's face as minutely as he could without direct access to the instrumentation and sensors carried by Inclined Plane. The ship's AI was friendly and helpful, but outside its narrow and critical competencies in managing the threadneedle drive and localspace navigation, no more intelligent than your average dog, and so essentially useless for such work. He'd need to go to the Survey Suite to do more.

Maduabuchi finally stopped staring at the star and called up a deck schematic. "Ship, plot all weapons discharges or unscheduled energy expenditures within the pressurized cubage."

The schematic winked twice, but nothing was highlighted. Maybe Captain Smith had finally gotten them all to stand down. None of Maduabuchi's screamers had gone off, either, though everyone else had long since realized he didn't play their games.

Trusting that no one had hacked the entire tracking system, he cycled the lock and stepped into the passageway beyond. Glancing back at Tiede 1 as the lock irised shut, Maduabuchi saw another green flash.

He fought back a surge of irritation. The star was not mocking him.

* * *