10J u n e 2 0 0 4

BREAKDOWNSteven G. Johnson

THE CURSE OF ETERNITYC.J. Henderson

THEMACHINATIONSOF ALL MYFUTURES PASTMichael Penncavage

Plus…

ALL GROWN UP

BELCHBURGER

BOB THE ANGRYFLOWER

THE LAST STRAW

PARTIALLYCLIPS

REALITY GLITCH!

And…

CONVENTIONS

PRO FILES

REVIEWS

POETRY

FILK

w w w . n t h z i n e . c o m

June 2004 1

FEATURES

The Editor’s Rant by Michael D. Pederson........................................................................2

Conventions .........................................................................................................................4

Spine Bender by Michael D. Pederson..............................................................................8

Pro Files by Michael D. Pederson.....................................................................................12

Comics ................................................................................................................................30

FICTION

Breakdown by Steven G. Johnson ...................................................................................14

The Curse of Eternity by C.J. Henderson ......................................................................20

The Machinations of All My Futures Past by Michael Penncavage ........................26

POETRY/FILKS

Oracle by Danielle Ackley-McPhail ....................................................................................7

Dervish by Danielle Ackley-McPhail ................................................................................29

Sympathy for George Lucas by Talisman...................................................................32

Cover Illustration for “Breakdown” by Frank Wu

CONTENTSJune 2004, Issue #10

Nth Degree is a free, quarterly semi-pro fanzine. We encourage you to submit yourmanuscripts, illustrations, or photographs, but cannot guarantee the return of anyunsolicited materials. All contributors retain individual rights to their contributions.Six-issue subscriptions are available by sending $15 to: Nth Degree; 77 Algrace Blvd.;Stafford, VA 22556; 540-720-6061; Fax 540-720-7050; email editor@nthzine.com.Nth Degree #10 is ™ and © by Big Blind Productions, June 2004. Printed by Color Quest Litho; Fredericksburg, VA, www.colorquestlitho.com.

The Annals of Volusius will conclude online at www.nthzine.com

PUBLISHER/EDITOR

Michael D. Pederson

MANAGING EDITOR

Catherine T. Pederson

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

Robert Balder

WEB DEVELOPMENT

Brandon Blackmoor

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Michael D. Pederson

WITH THANKS TO

Phill AshJohnny CarruthersR. Craig EnslinChris GarciaC.J. Henderson

Lloyd MontgomeryTee MorrisKrisi PedersonAndy World

BIG BLIND PRODUCTIONS, INC.77 Algrace Blvd.

Stafford, VA 22556540-720-6061

Send $15.00 to the above address to receive a 6-issue subscription.

Nth Degreeis a quarterly

semi-pro fanzine.

www.nthzine.com

STAFFRantM i c h a e l D . P e d e r s o n , P u b l i s h e r / E d i t o r

t h e e d i t o r ’s

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It’s good to be small. It seems that every issue brings a new landmark. The milepostthat we’re crossing this month reads “Respectability.” You should see the gleam in my eyes everytime I tell people what I’ve lined up for this issue.

Our first double-digit issue. A cover by Frank Wu. A story from Steven Johnson. A lot of people don’t recognize these names yet, but to me they practically scream cachet. Frank Wu recently received his third Hugo nomination for best fan artist. I met him at last

year’s Philcon and he made an indelible impression. I’m absolutely thrilled to be working withFrank and I truly believe that this year will be his lucky year at WorldCon.

Steven Johnson is a great writer of classic-style science fiction who has had two stories print-ed in Analog. I think this is our first cross-over from someone that’s appeared in one of the “big”magazines. I’m hoping for many more.

To further cement the theme of new-found respectability… Mere days before sending thisissue to the printers I received a phone call from Del Rey Books asking if I would like to inter-view Bruce Sterling. Sure, I understand that they’re merely using me to promote their own inter-ests but, darn it, this is the first time that any of the major publishers have paid us any attention.To me that’s a landmark.

And that’s not all that’s been going on around here. Exactly one year ago I printed a story byC.J. Henderson (“Wezleski to the Rescue”) that I thought had the potential to to be an ongoingseries. When I requested another story in the series C.J. informed me that “Wezleski” had beenintended as a stand-alone story but he’d think about doing another one. I’m pleased to say thatnot only will we be running the sequel, “Wezleski in Love,” in our next issue but C.J. has discov-ered that he has enough new ideas for the character to turn it into a full collection of stories thatwill be printed by Marietta Publishing. I’m proud to say that Nth Degree had a tiny part in that.

What’s in the near-future for the ’zine? We have now officially overflowed our banks. I havemore fiction coming in than I could possibly hope to fit into a 32-page quarterly magazine. Thesolution? One: We will be featuring new weekly fiction on our website (www.nthzine.com). Inaddition to new fiction we are lining up some previews from upcoming novels as well. Two: Wewill finally be expanding to 48 pages. I know I’ve been threatening to do this for a while but it’sfinally upon us. So, please send us your Letters of Comment to be included in our newFeedback page. We’d love to hear what you think.

As a final note, for everyone that’s wondering what happened to “The Annals of Volusius,”I’m afraid that I have to write that off as a failed experiment; the failure being mine and not theauthors. Claudio Salvucci and Paolo Belzoni have created a brilliantly witty piece of science fic-tion humor that I’ve enjoyed since they sent me the first chapter but a small quarterly magazinejust isn’t the place for a long serialization. After two years it’s hard to keep track of what’s goingon. Don’t be alarmed though, we’ll conclude the story on our website.

In the meantime, keep an eye out for us at your local conventions!

June 2004 3

SheVaCon 12February 27-29Roanoke, VAAKA Big Lick. Seriously. Nicknamed for the salt licks thatattracted wildlife (and those who hunted them), the Capital ofthe Blue Ridge is a city that still thinks it’s a little town. In myopinion, it’s the perfect location for SheVaCon. The HolidayInn Tanglewood is nestled on a hillside with quick access todining, shopping, and a cinema. The hotel has a decent restau-rant as well as a bar that serves more than just beige water ontap. However, it’s clear that SheVaCon is about to burst the seams on the joint. The registrationarea was abundantly buzzing with people, the gaming area hadn’t an empty seat to be found andevery session I attended was practically SRO. SheVaCon organizers were proud to say that theysaw a 30% increase in attendance over last year but stopped short of saying “now where do wego?”. How did they master such an increase—when every other regional Con saw a drop in theirnumbers? Solid guests (Charles Keegan was Artist GOH; Rikk Jacobs, Master of Ceremonies;Jim Butcher, the Writer GOH; and a massive turnout of Baen authors) and good programming;there were over forty unique events in less than sixteen hours of event schedule. The programguide, while slight on program descriptions, became an item to cherish for its thoughtful, touch-ing series of tributes to Hal Clement, a writer, artist and gracious friend of fandom who passedaway in late 2003. So, Robert Roberts and crew will have their work cut out for them in 2005as they’re keeping the same location and, as always, looking to bring even more Fen together.We’re certain they’ll remain creative with their content. But, as in real estate, it’s all about loca-tion. SheVaCon 13 will be held the weekend of February 25-27, 2005. For more info, check outtheir website: www.shevacon.org. CP

Stellarcon 28March 19-21High Point, NCAh, Stellarcon. It will always be dear to me as, two years ago,Stellarcon 26 was my very first con. And what a way to beindoctrinated! Surrounded by a Garrison of mysterious men instormtrooper gear. Hubba, hubba. Well, the 501st was back ineven greater force this year. Along with others dressed in StarWars attire, they collectively honored guest Timothy Zahn forhis work in keeping the Star Wars stories going. Stellarcon’sGuests of Honor included Fred Saberhagen (Writer), Rowena (Artist), and Steven S. Long(Gaming). Rowena’s work gracing the cover of the program guide was really impressive.Organized by the SF3 (Science Fiction Fantasy Federation from UNC-Greensboro) and heldonce again at the downtown High Point Radisson, Stellarcon’s overall program was just top-notch. Lots of well-crafted concurrent sessions, writer’s workshops, movies, a solid gaming trackorganized by the ubiquitous Ron McClung, and even an entire kids’ track all day Saturday. TheMasquerade, while well-attended, was fairly average with most contestants literally running onand off the stage. And if one was looking for a quick break from the Con’s content, one could

CONVENT IONS

CONVENTIONS C H E D U L EJUNE-AUGJune 4-6 Duckon Chicago, IL

June 4-6 Con Carolinas Charlotte, NC

June 5-6 Mythic Journeys Atlanta, GA

June 11-13 Counterpoint Rockville, MD

June 11-13 Sci-Fi Summer Con Atlanta, GA

June 24-27 Midwestcon Sharonville, OH

June 25-27 Escapade Boston, MA

July 2-4 InConJunction Indianapolis, IN

July 2-5 ConKopelli Litchfield Park, AZ

July 9-11 Shore Leave Hunt Valley, MD

July 16-18 Conestoga Tulsa, OK

July 16-18 ConnectiCon West Hartford, CT

July 23-25 Trinoc*CoN Durham, NC

July 23-25 Confluence Pittsburgh, PA

July 23-25 LibertyCon East Ridge, TN

August 6-8 ConGlomeration Louisville, KY

August 19-22 GenCon Indianapolis, IN

August 27-29 Bubonicon Albuquerque, NM

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drop in to the hotel restaurant or bar and find writer John Ringotelling stories and holding court. Bill Mann, Jr., Stellarcon’s Chair,shared that plans for Stellarcon 29 are still a bit up in the air. As ofthis printing, their website (www.stellarcon.org) tentatively reports itwill be held March 11-13 in Greensboro, NC. As a University-affil-iated group, there are a number of rules they must follow to secure(hotel) contracts. They can only hope that the local businesses(hotels) support them in that process. We wish Bill and his greatteam the best of luck in getting next year confirmed and well-attend-ed. The after-hours social events at Stellarcon are always just as muchfun as the daytime hours. As the date was fairly close to St. Patrick’sDay, the Nth Degree team couldn’t resist hosting a very green—andglowing!—shindig. Be sure to check out our next Con party to getyour glow on. And I can’t end this review without givin’ the props toBobba Fett. If swooning over a cold, somewhat sinister costume—and the stranger within—is wrong, I don’t ever wanna be right. Andto think, two years ago, I was a Con virgin. CP

Clovercon 2004March 19-21St. Louis, MOWhere to begin?

When you throw a con, thisshould be the first question you,the Con Chair, and your staff ofdedicated volunteers should askbefore the first con attendee arrives.Exactly where do you need to beginto throw a good con? Do you book your guests and then concentrateon the programming? Or is the focus of your weekend concentratedin gaming tournaments, side-stepping the need for the obligatoryguests of honor or panel discussions? Or is your plan to kick backwith fellow fans and revel a few days away in a three-day party?

Where to begin?

A simple question that needs a simple answer, and withCloverCon 2004, a con in St. Louis held on the week of St. Patrick’sDay, this is a question that should be answered before their 2005 con.

Where to begin?CloverCon is only in its second year, but they are in desperate

need of deciding what kind of convention they want to be. At pres-ent, their biggest obstacle is deciding whether or not to be a conven-tion that features guests, panels, and activities, or if they are a“Relaxicon” where Programming is as casual as the con’s attendees. Ifit doesn’t come to a conclusion as to what it wants to be, CloverConmay fall to a Leprechaun’s curse of bad luck and misfortune inattracting special guests.

I was traveling with Tony Ruggiero from Virginia, hardly“around the corner” from the Show Me State, but we found out thatCloverCon’s Media GoH Bob Bergen (the voice of Porky Pig fromCartoon Network’s Duck Dogers) was flown in from Los Angeles, sothere was an assumption that this event was ambitious and ready tocome out of the box strong. Both of us were assured before flying outthere that a schedule for programming would be in place, eventhough the website (http://www.clovercon.com) provided vagueinformation for those interested in the weekend. We arrived at reg-istration. No schedule was ready. We got word from the con chairthat there would be a schedule in place by Saturday morning, soTony and I assured ourselves this long trip was not in vain.

When Saturday morning came, so did the schedule. It was badenough they had me on panels from 10 am to 4 pm with no breaks,but at 12 pm I was scheduled for three different panels in three dif-ferent locations. “I was up until four this morning putting theschedule together,” said the con chair. It was clear that this schedulewas, in fact, thrown together with no thought, care, or concern.Tony and I, grabbed breakfast and coffee, sat down, and resched-uled our events, giving ourselves uptime and downtime throughoutthe day. (A personal note: I doubt if many guests, literary, media, orotherwise, would do something like this. As Clovercon was a newconvention, this luxury was offered. Tony and I were also deter-mined to make the trip worthwhile.) Unfortunately, reprogram-ming our individual Programming did not solve all the issuesClovercon’s lackadaisical attitude spawned. Unlike past new con-ventions like JerseyDevilCon and ShowMeCon (another local St.Louis SF/F con) that would hold panels in convention rooms,meeting rooms, and (in some cases) hotel rooms, panel areas forCloverCon included the hotel lobby, bar alcoves, and a large ban-quet room. Perhaps the hotel had nothing else to offer, but whatClovercon offered were not great places for panel discussions. Panelsetup was also given an overly casual approach. Media GoH BobBergen was told for his voice workshop that “people would just helpthemselves to chairs when they walk in.” For the price of

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The cast of Disney’s next summer blockbuster or the entrants in StellarCon’s Masquerade? You decide.

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CloverCon’s (or any con’s) admission, its staff needs to tend todetails, provide for their paying customers, and assist their GoHs inpresenting their panels or workshops. If this issue remains unad-dressed, this con might find it difficult booking GoHs and assortedguests of any kind.

With this being said, why am I planning to go to CloverConin 2005?

Again I ask, where to begin?I have visited many cons in my first two years as a writer, but

CloverCon featured some of the nicest, sweetest people I have metin fandom. The con staff were thrilled to be there and went out oftheir way made all the guests feel welcome. The St. Louis hospitalitystarted with a pickup from the airport. A very nice touch. Then wewere told that the CloverCon staff had bought several kegs for theweekend in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, so beer at the bar wasfree until Clovercon’s kegs ran out. (They were empty beforeSaturday night!) Opening Ceremonies was a mandatory event for allguests. It was mandatory because all the guests, not just the GoHs,were featured and introduced to con attendees present on Friday.That was a very nice, formal introduction. Another impressive traitof Clovercon was its Dealers’ Room. Along with two weapon mak-ers that brought enough inventory to arm a small country, therewere collectables (one in particular featured an impressive Farscapecollection), anime, and fabrics that would make Hollywood seam-stresses swoon! Finally, matching the enthusiasm of the CloverConstaff, the St. Louis fans were extremely amicable. While I still con-sider myself a “new kid” in the SF/F/H arena (and will for sometime, I think), it means a great deal to me when fans welcome meinto the fold, making a genuine effort to get to know me and mywork, and welcoming me to “the SF/F fandom family.” AtCloverCon, they went out of their way to do so. These fans (includ-ing the “Pudge Weasels” who inducted me and Tony into theirclub!) made the trip worthwhile and provided enough motivationfor me to plan for Clovercon 2005.

It is this core of people, both Clovercon’s organizers and atten-dees, that will help this con achieve its potential. I can see it. Onlyin its second year, CloverCon could very well be a weekend of“Aeryn (Sun) Go Braugh!” and green beer served alongside blueRomulan Ale. I can see that spark. I think this con could grow to bea classic con if its staff buckles down and commits itself to holding awonderful weekend of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror, StPatrick’s Day style. The desire is there. The heart is there. The poten-tial is there. But for CloverCon to reach that pot of gold at the endof the convention, they’ve got to get their act together inProgramming, preparation, and a dedication to being what kind ofconvention it wants to be. Otherwise, CloverCon could fade away,much like a rainbow. TM

I-Con 23March 26-28Stony Brook, NYEvery time I hear fans complainthat kids don’t come to cons any-more, I want to pack them up andship them off to Stony Brook toshow them that some young adultsreally do attend conventions. Thisyear was my third year attending I-Con and I’m still impressed with the huge numbers of college-agedfans that are in attendance. A lot of this is because, in addition to theart and literary programming, I-Con runs quite a bit of media andanime programming as well. Holding the con on a college campusdoesn’t hurt either. This year’s guest list was pretty amazing, withAuthor GoHs Daniel Keyes and Connie Willis, Artist GoH Rowena,and Special Guests that included Scott Edelman, David Kyle,Stanley Schmidt, and Esther Friesner. Oddly though, with such anamazing array of literary talent gathered in Stony Brook, the pro-gramming schedule had the weakest literary track that I’ve seen inmy three years at I-Con. It was a bit of a disappointment. Well, thatand the fact that for the second year in a row our fanzine was placedon the “Cool Stuff ” track rather than the Literary track. I don’t mindbeing considered cool but I’d much rather be placed on a track withmy fellow writers and editors than on a track where the only otherparticipants are Furries. These complaints aside, there was plenty todo and not enough time to do it all. I-Con seems to continue togrow every year and is billing itself as the Northeast’s largest SF con-vention. It looks to me like it’s becoming Dragon*Con North; I leaveit to you to decide if that’s a good thing or not. MP

Penguicon 2.0April 16-18Novi, MINot since JerseyDevilCon (amoment of silence, please) has asmall con done such a successfulimpression of a major con.Penguicon 2.0, the second annualLinux/SF crossover convention inMichigan, not only booked anambitious range of “A” list guests, created an intriguing program andactivities schedule, but also scored major points for carrying it allout. What do I mean by “A” list? Well, if you had to have “a” guestfor games, Steve Jackson is a good pick. If you had to have “a” guestfor Linux, Eric Raymond (The Cathedral and the Bazaar) is a goodpick, too. If you had to have “a” film/TV guest with a Linux connec-

June 2004 7

If you would like to have your convention listed in our ConCalendar please send your information to editor@nthzine.com at least two months prior to your convention.

If you would like to represent Nth Degree at a convention and review your experience, please contact us and we will behappy to send you extra copies of the magazine to make youlook important.

tion and an internet celebrity status, you’d certainly choose WilWheaton. Pete Abrams is an a-lister for webcomics, Tom Smith ana-lister for filk, Hemos and CmdrTaco from Slashdot were a-listersfor net culture, and Neil Gaiman is, of course, an a-lister for writerguest. But call it celebrity-redundancy, because the master engineersof Penguicon worked in a slew of other serious names in these fields:John Ringo and Sandra L. Brewer for authors, Howard Tayler(Schlock Mercenary), Fred Gallagher (Megatokyo) and me(PartiallyClips) for webcomics, Tony Goldmark, Worm Quartet andThe Great Luke Ski for filk, Jon “maddog” Hall for Linux, and VinceLocke for art. All of this for a con with an attendance of less than700. It boggles the mind how they pulled it off, but they did (exceptfor Wil Wheaton’s unfortunate last-minute cancellation due to amovie audition). The con itself was held at the Sheraton in Novi, anice, airy venue and very accommodating to the con. Among themany highlights: A great LAN room with net access and gaming,including “celebrity frag fest.” The Chaos machine, a constantlychanging, fan-built and re-built kinetic sculpture with rolling mar-bles. An in-hotel theater which played host to a live-action RHPSperformance (with John Ringo as Riff Raff ), as well as a four-mantag team filk show and many other concerts and events. A marriageproposal by the con chair to his girlfriend at the end of the openingceremonies (she accepted). And the snapping of the now-famous“Tronguy” pics of Jay Maynard, internet celebrity. RB

New Jersey Zine FestApril 18New Brunswick, NJThis was a fun little one-day gathering for many of the Jersey area zinepublishers and distributors. We packed a room in the Women’s StudiesDepartment of Rutgers for most of the day. It was a very young andenergetic crowd and I felt quite pleased to represent the science fictioncommunity in a crowd that still (surprisingly) remembered that theyare the great grandchildren of the our original ’zine movement. Plansare underway for a Philly Zine Fest on June 11. MP

Oracleby Danielle Ackley-McPhail

Man’s jarring foothold

A slowly whirling dervish

Drifts infinitesimally by

Breaking up the symmetry

Of heaven’s stunning starscape

Polycarbonate coffins

Jettisoned in a final

Reverent journey

Across the sky

Silhouetted against

A shattered, ash-grey globe

Once marbled blue

As a comet’s tail

Like falling tears

Mourns the dead

Of eternity

The Mother has not outlived

Her children

Cloak of Obscurity, Angela P. Wade, Self-Published,193 pp. I’ll be honest, I expected to read the first chapter of thisbook and then toss it in my “give-away” box. With a simple blackand white cover and no publisher’s imprint (not even a vanity label!)I had all but written it off as a cheap hack job. (Yes, I seem to recallhearing something in the past about not judging a book by its cover.)Imagine my surprise to discover a thrilling, yet whimsical,fantasy/mystery. Wade doesn’t fall into the trap of attempting towrite a grand epic fantasy and instead settles for a shorter effort thatgoes a long way to bringing some fantasy back to the genre. Thebook proclaims itself to be “an excerpt from the memoirs of MasterEdward Red Mage.” Edward is a young, carefree magician who—although being naturally talented with important court connec-tions—prefers to live the simple life, surrounding himself with goodfriends and good food. When one of those friends is accused of mur-der it’s up to Eddie to straighten things out. Light-hearted humor,sharp plot twists, and engaging characters make this delightful littlenovel a worthy read. The book can be ordered online atwww.apwade.com.

Dragon’s Fire Wizard’s Flame, Michael R. Mennenga,Dragon Moon Press, 248 pp., ISBN 1-8969-4413-2. Workingin a genre where “children’s book” can mean anything from thespace-age thrills of the Heinlein juveniles to the dark excitement ofthe Harry Potter books it becomes easy to forget that kid’s books aremeant for kids. Bearing that in mind, I will now turn you over to myten-year-old niece, Krisi…

Have you ever heard of a dragon with no fire?Well in this bookthere is a seventy-five-year-old fireless dragon named Zac. The storyis about Zac going out to find his fire and finding adventures andfriends along the way. What Zac didn’t know was that he was goingto start an adventure in which he meets three new friends—

Abraham (a moose), Jo (a squirrel), and Neft (a wizard)—finds adragon from his childhood called Tyralus, and makes a new enemynamed Erret. Zac’s parents (mom Athena and dad Ellayo) have stoodup for him for his whole life and also play a role in the story. Thebook also talks about Zac’s crush on a beautiful dragon namedTimelda. Since Zac was a fireless dragon, other dragons did not allowhim to even look at her because they thought that if they got marriedand had kids there would be a whole chain of fireless freaks runningaround.

The story begins when Zac walks out of his home and sees a largecreature standing there looking at him. So Zac walked closer to thecreature to ask if “he knew where his fire was.” That was when hemet his friend Abraham. When they met Jo they were travelingthrough a meadow (Jo’s meadow). On the second day they all runinto a monkey named Erret. Erret carried his own little staff becausehe used to be a very evil wizard but another wizard named Neft madehim very weak and turned him into a monkey. Erret started takingpower from Zac. Fortunately, Zac and his friends met Neft and hehelped them with Erret. One day they ran into Tyralus and togetherTyralus and Neft gave Zac a staff and trained him to use magic.

Neft, Zac, and Tyralus had to battle Erret and trap him in a pow-erless world. When they did that Zac went home and proved that hewas not a freak. He and Timelda talked and Zac told her that “hecould not stay but he would come to visit her a lot.”

Overall, I liked this book a lot. On a scale of one to ten I wouldgive it a nine. I would recommend this book to anyone who likesadventures, dragons, and magic.

For Us, The Living, Robert A. Heinlein, Scribner, 263 pp.,ISBN 0-7432-5998-X. There’s little that I can say about Heinlein’slost first novel that hasn’t already been said—it’s very reminiscent ofH.G. Wells’s When the Sleeper Wakes, many of Heinlein’s best known

SP INE BENDERMichael D. Pederson

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themes are present here in embryonic form, and it’s not much of astory—but it is worth looking at. After all, this is Robert Heinleinwe’re talking about, one of the most influential writers of the twen-tieth century. Frankly, I’m surprised that Heinlein went to suchlengths to bury this story. It’s a historical document that’s just asimportant as his correspondences and wouldn’t it have been better ifhe could have controlled the manner in which it was released? True,it’s not a very good novel but it is absolutely fascinating to see this soobvious bridge between his failed political career and his ground-breaking literary efforts. It also provides a captivating pre-World WarII vision of the future. If you’re not a fan of Heinlein or interested inthe history of science fiction you will more than likely find this to bea tedious waste of your time. But if you are a fan how can you resist?

Get Out of My Mind and Mind Trap, Tony Ruggiero,Amber Quill Press, 213 pp. and 203 pp., ISBN 1-59279-938-8 and ISBN 1-59279-928-0. My fondness for complex, sophisti-cated science fiction has been well documented here over the pastcouple of years. On occasion though I find myself missing theunabashed whiz-bang glee of old-time space opera, and Ruggiero’sMind series satisfies my craving for the never-ending clash betweengood and evil. Mixing equal parts Lensman and Star Trek, thesebooks are brimming with the sense of wonder that made SF so pop-ular in the first place. Get Out of My Mind introduces us to ourheroes, Greg Carlson and Sarah Ferguson, who both discover thattheir human mothers wed alien agents of the United Council forDeveloping Worlds and bore children. Most of the first book is givenover to the bureaucratic dealings of the UCDW and whether or notthey should initiate First Contact with Earth, but hits its stride whenCarlson and Ferguson discover their alien heritage and begin todevelop mental powers. Opposing our heroes is Copolla, the leaderof the UCDW. In the first book he comes off as a power-crazed pen-cil-pusher but when he is kicked off the Council and “killed” at theend of the book the door is opened to show off his oh so very evilside in book two. Taken on its own Get Out is fairly dull and over-burdened with exposition, however at just over 200 pages it works

quite nicely as the first half of Mind Trap, just under a separate cover.Ruggiero pulls no punches in the sequel… Copolla rises (or sinks) tohorrific new levels of evil and as Greg’s powers grow he receivesinstructions in their use from a mysterious benefactor. You just knowthat a monumental battle has to take place at the end of the book.There is no disappointment there and Ruggiero has recentlyannounced plans for a third book in the series. Stay tuned!

The 2nd Coming: The Best of Pirate Writings, vol.2, edited by Edward J. McFadden III, Padwolf Publishing, 191pp., ISBN 1-890096-13-X. Pirate Writings stands as a shiningexample of what can be accomplished with a small-press fiction’zine. It’s gone now, morphed into the latest incarnation of FantasticStories, but we get one last hurrah with 2nd Coming.Many of PirateWriting’s best stories were already used up in volume one but theremainder—though not as strong as the first batch—can hardly bedescribed as leftovers. The highlights: Allen Steele’s “Warning,Warning,” a clever tribute to Lost in Space; “Milking Belle,” a storyof interplanetary colonization and emotional survival by BrianPlante; a Murphy’s Lore story from Patrick Thomas; and two morePaul diFilippo stories (yay!). Plus Mike Resnick’s “A LimerickHistory of Science Fiction.” A great collection.

The Starscape Project, Brad Aiken, Padwolf Publishing,167 pp., ISBN 1-890096-20-2. What if the Skylark of Space wasturned loose in the Star Trek universe? It would be very much likeThe Starscape Project. If you can forgive Aiken for his lack of origi-nality—just call it homage—then you’ll have a great time with thisbook. Me? I’m just happy to have two such obvious “Doc” Smithtributes to review this month.

The story in brief: A hotshot pilot, his equally hotshot co-pilot,and his brilliant girlfriend team up with an AI with the personality ofa dead space explorer to prevent a lost space probe from starting a warbetween the human Federation and the neanderthal’s TeconeanEmpire—yeah, there’s a lot of backstory but it’s nicely summed up inthe opening chapter. The heroes are straight out of Skylark (or Flash

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10 Nth Degree

Gordon if you prefer) and the probe is a (very) thinly disguised V-Ger,but it’s a fun, fast-paced story that takes you back to a simpler time.If you like larger-than-life do-no-wrong heroes in a universe wheregood and evil are as clear as black and white than look no further.

Stranger on the Loose, D. Harlan Wilson, EraserheadPress, 220 pp., ISBN 0-9729598-3-1. Not quite science fictionor fantasy, this collection of short stories is so mind-bogglingly weirdthat I couldn’t put it down. Wilson specializes in surreal absurdist fic-tion that is meant to spotlight the flaws and foibles of society. Insmall doses Wilson’s work is inventive and adroitly crafted; a collec-tion of twenty-eight of these wacked-out gonzo stories gets a bit tir-ing. However, where the worst stories are merely tiresome the bestones are downright ingenious. I was particularly enthralled by onestory where a man was attacked by a glacier. Which gives you a goodidea as to the level of weird that we’re talking about. It’s a good book,but not for the weak of mind.

The Zenith Angle, Bruce Sterling, Ballantine Books, 306pp., ISBN 0-345-46061-8. Sterling takes on the world of com-puter security in his latest book. It’s an insightful, humorous look atthe government and security concerns in a post-9/11 world. Thestory: Derek “Van” Vandeveer, one of the foremost programmingexperts at a major telecommunications firm quits his job to go workwith a government agency that’s been established to help secureAmerica’s computer interests. Most of the book is devoted toSterling showing us just how bad our government’s computer secu-rity really is. He also takes some sly jabs at the private sector as well.By the climax, Van has transformed himself from a quiet computergeek into a macho cyber-warrior. And what a climax it is. Sterlinghas created a super-weapon that any Bond villain (or at least Dr.Evil) would gladly trade his bad accent and fluffy cat for. This mightnot be one of Sterling’s most innovative novels but it’s definitely oneof his most thrilling.

The Big Giant Stack of ‘Zines…It’s been a good couple of months and the stack is no longer dwindling.Keep those ’zines coming!

Amber the Arsonist, Issues 10 & 9; Rebecca, P.O. Box15820; Piscataway, NJ 08855-1582; rsducky@hotmail.com;irregular; Trade or Postage. A college (or just post-college)perzine. Issue #10 (which oddly predates Issue #9) is a 12-pagedigest where #9 is a two-sided flyer. Mostly catching the world upon what Rebecca has been up to lately with some General Hospitalupdates. Not much there for a SF fan. Seems pretty well connectedto the east coast ’zine scene though.

Bob, Issue #1; distro info at www.njghost.com; $1.50. A12-pager with high production values. This one is top-of-the-line fora b/w ’zine. There is no info on who produces this so it’s hard to saywhether or not it’s a one-man show or a group effort, or even how toget on their mailing list. Lots of great societal editorial though,including a good article on “The Cult of eBay” and a great article on“College Education and Other Fairy Tales.”

cinezine, Issues #4 & 5; Fat Cat Press; 12 Skylark Lane;Stony Brook, NY 11790; $1.00. A two-page flyer-sized decon-struction of anime and Hollywood films. Intelligent analysis thatseems aimed at inspiring thoughtful discussion rather than just try-ing to piss the readers off. Imagine that.

Knarley Knews, Issue 105; Parody Publishers; Henryand Letha Welch; 1525 16th Ave.; Grafton, WI 53024-2017;welch@msoe.edu; bi-monthly; $1.50. Most true ’zine fans arealready fully aware of this one. Updates from the Welch familyalong with a Rodney Leighton column and many pages of LOCsand ’zine reviews.

The Passion of the Breast: A Satire; Bent aka BenT. Steckler; www.geocities.com/bent4toons; $1.50. Part JanetJackson, part Passion of the Christ, all parody. It’s frighteningly clever.

Sleight of Hand, Issue 2; John Teehan; 499 DouglasAve.; Providence, RI 02908; jdteehan@sff.net; $2.00.Traditional fanzine with an emphasis on the history of fandom.Includes articles by Terry Carr, Ted White, and Dave Locke.

The WSFA Journal, March 2004; Samuel Lubell;lubell@bigfoot.com; monthly; free to members, also availableonline. The club ’zine for the Washington Science FictionAssociation. Contains club business and an assortment of movie andbook reviews, short fiction, editorial, and club business.

Space and Time, Issue #93; Gordon Linzner; 138 West70th St., 4B; New York, NY 10023; www.cith.org/space&time.html;semi-annual; $5.00. 48 pages of fiction and poetry. Particularlyliked one by William Gagnon, “The Zeus Affliction,” as well asBrian Plante’s “Irrational Space.”

Rev. Rich Mackin’s Book of Letters, Issue #18;Rich Mackin; P.O. Box 14642; Portland, OR 97293-0642;www.richmakin.org; $3.00. 40 pages of witty letters to majormulti-nationals (often with responses). Apparently he’s been at thisfor ten years now. It’s still funny though.

June 2004 11

Announcing the all-new

Bob the Angry Flower book!!!152 pages, Foreword by Keith Knight With great book-only stuff such as: Lotsa color pages!U.N. Field Guide to the Devices and Weapons ofBtAF! Special book-only strips! Tons o’ Annotations! and much much in addition! All this for only $11.00!Shipping & Handling: $3.00

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In Defense of Fascism, 144 pages Foreword by Fish Griwkowsky Bob Gallery and more $10.00; Shipping & Handling: $3.00

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12 Nth Degree

I recently had the wonderful experience of listening to Bruce Sterlingread from his latest novel, The Zenith Angle. He is an amazingly ener-getic reader and—don’t let the gentle Texas accent fool you—quite apowerful speaker. Bruce was gracious enough to sit down with me for afew minutes after the reading…

ND: During the reading I noticed that you alternately describedyourself as a novelist and a journalist. Do you consider yourself moreone than the other?

BS: Well, I’m a novelist and a journalist. I think the two feed onone another pretty well. I was trained as a journalist in school, I havea degree in journalism but I never actually went to work as a full-time journalist until twenty years after because I made the tacticalerror of selling a novel in school. As a journalist I have something tocontribute so I’m happy to work in that field.

ND: You have a reputation of being a very technology-orientedauthor, computer tech particularly. Did your cyber-interests comeout of your research or were you already well-versed in the field?

BS: I do write a lot about computers because they have basicallyaffected every area that I’m interested in, but I also write travel jour-nalism and industrial design journalism. I’ve been known to writeessays about architecture. I’ve never done any biography. Yet. Butyou know, one does get tempted. One of the reasons that computerstend to pop up in my work a lot is that I use them for research. Soif you’re going to use the internet quite frequently, you know, youresearch Prague on the internet it’ll be anxious to tell you about everyinternet site in Prague. For people of my generation computers havetheir role the way that hot air balloons did for Jules Verne. I don’tidolize them, I just consider them an interesting technical phenom-enon in this epoch. I’m not a computer guy, I’m a technology guy.

ND: So, what kind of system do you use?

BS: I’m mostly working on Mr. Laptop here. I’ve got a Mac G4now. I’m a Mac guy—artists are Mac guys—I’ve always been a Macguy. I bought a PC once, it was so badly broken, just as a designedobject that I had to give it to my daughter so she could play games.I’m very taken with my digital camera now ’cause I’m spending somuch time web logging. I’m no photographer but I like web logs andtheir multi-media aspects. I like putting my own graphics on myweb logs instead of just cutting and pasting other peoples’.

ND: Did science fiction have a big influence on you as a kid?

BS: Oh, yes. Very much so. I was a devoted science fiction personfrom the age of thirteen.

ND: Favorite authors?

BS:Well, when you’re thirteen you like Edgar Rice Burroughs. But

who doesn’t? I really think the weirdest thing… the most influential

part there was not Burroughs or Andre Norton or Heinlein juveniles

but the fact that I was sort of stumbling over J.G. Ballard and Italo

Calvino at age thirteen. I can remember reading Ballard and being

utterly confused and hugely excited because there was something

going on there that I didn’t understand, could not get my head

around. It was mind boggling. And it’s not really fit reading for a

thirteen year-old but that was the very thing that most intrigued me

about it.

ND: Ballard would be great for really opening up your mind at

that age.

BS:Well, somebody said recently that one of the signatures of my

kind of writing is “unholy glee.” It didn’t occur to me until recently

but Ballard is absolutely chock-full of unholy glee. So he’s a fellow

spirit in some important ways I think.

ND: Let’s talk a little about your current book.

BS: I had a guy comment today that he hated the villain and the

villain was really no good. He was hissing the villain which was kind

of nice. My books generally lack hissable villains but this one has got

a villain.

ND: Have the science fiction reviewers turned on you for writing a

techno-thriller rather than a straight out SF novel?

BS: I don’t thinks so. I’ve got three short story collections, I’ve got

eight other novels. They’re all unimpeachably science fiction things.

I never make any bones about being a science fiction writer. I quite

commonly identify myself as a science fiction writer. The field gets

upset when people say, “Oh, well, that stuff I was writing isn’t really

science fiction.” If you’re pulling a Vonnegut people get upset. If

you’re Robert Silverberg and you decide “I’ve got to write a book

about the Mound Builder Indians” nobody gets all that upset. It’s

when they feel disowned and used that they get upset. I’m not dis-

owning or using anybody. I just wrote the Encyclopedia Brittanica

article on science fiction for heaven’s sake. I’m a science fiction critic.

I’m blurbing science fiction people right and left. I’ve written essays

on science fiction. I’m a science fiction ideologue. I’m the cyber-punkscience fiction, you know.

ND:What are you reading now?

BS: I’m reading Doctorow, Straw, MacLeod. I’m reading M. John

Harrison, little China Miéville.

ND: I’m constantly pushing Miéville on everyone I know.

PRO F I L E SMichael D. Pederson

June 2004 13

BS:Well, man, these are the top guys in our field right now. NealStephenson, very important guy. There’s not a huge lack of talent.There’s kind of a lack of fame. I’m a little worried about these cross-generic trends. Miéville, Stephenson… they’re writing books whichcontain all genres all at once. Like Neal Stephenson’s book is a tech-no-thriller and a historical book and a science fiction book and it’sfantasy. And Miéville’s is a horror book and a dark terror book exceptits got women with insect heads. What it reminds me of more thananything else is Bollywood masala movies. You watch Bollywoodflicks and they’re presented for a polyglot audience. So they’ve got aninternal clock, it’s like: dance scene, dance scene, villain scene, vampscene, dance scene, dance scene, fist fight, dance scene. I think it’ssomething about globalized society or just the way that younger peo-ple are thinking about the world now. Maybe it’s a sign that I’m get-ting old but I find something vaguely distressing about it.

ND:We’re hearing so much more about Bollywood these days andit even figures into your novel, do you see them ever breakingthrough into the mainstream culture?

BS: They’re going to be for the Aughts what Kung Fu movies werefor the Seventies. They’re not going to dominate but they’re the hipexotic thing to be into now.

ND: You open The Zenith Angle with the line, “The MostImportant Man in the World put his pants on one leg at a time.”

Who would you consider to really be The Most Important Man inthe World?

BS: Bin Laden, if he’s still alive. He’s certainly the most effective ter-rorist the world has ever seen. This guy is the Ghandi of terror. He’scertainly the most effective politician, assuming he’s not dead. Andeven if he is dead he may very well be more effective dead than alive.Christ certainly was. You know, he’s a martyr cultist. But really, objec-tively, if you just look at the direction that the world is changing andhow much effect this guy has had on major organizations there arevery few who can match him. He’s truly a mover and shaker.

ND: Do you have any tips for the next generation of writers?

BS: Yeah, you’ve got to hang out with people in your own genera-tion. You’re going to learn more from them than you do from so-called mentors or instructors. Job one is to find your own voice.What are you saying that other people aren’t saying? Generally it’ssomething that many people who share your interests are trying tosay. It’s an inchoate thing, it’s the thing that is next and mentor fig-ures or guru figures are not going to be able to tell you that. You’regoing to have to learn about the trend-setters who are your own age.You’ve got to take them seriously and you’ve got to give and takewith them. Hanging out with writer’s groups works for me. If itdoesn’t there are other ways to do it but that’s kind of the royal roadto success.

14 Nth Degree

Strike the earth and it will jump. Dust will spray,form a cloud, then settle as a fine grit in every crease of skin andevery fold of clothes. Strike the earth fast enough, hard enough, andthe dust will come alive like a Mexican jumping bean, skittering ona skillet too hot to stand on, not hot enough to kill.

The cloud of knee-high dust that ruled the dugout was neverstill. Shells whirled down above like murderous crows, cawing theirtwo-second mockery before they plowed the earth. The dugout’swalls bulged and lunged like the sea in a storm, a storm borne tothem through dirt and stone and frail timbers that framed a space formen to breathe.

Brian Furlough felt the dust explore his nostrils, riming his hairswith pale summer frost. His eyes were already wet, gummy with themud that dust and optical humours combined to form, regardless ofhow little, or how much, the man who owned the eyes needed to cry.

For a moment, Furlough remembered a whitewashed porch onHastings Street, a glass of cold, tart lemonade, a girl’s smile. But thesmile was for someone else now; a fact which had more to do withwhy he was here in France than democracy and America and the per-fidy of the Hun put together.

The platoon sat huddled, five lonely men, the last of fifty whohad staggered up the pier in New York City under loads of blanketsand ammunition. The blankets lay caked around them, weighingmore of French mud than of good English wool. The bullets weregone, one by one into the darkness or belt by belt into the chatteringjaws of the machine guns.

And the men had gone, too, one by one on night patrol or row

by row, mown down by German guns in ceaseless attacks which hadpushed the Hun back almost two miles since the Americans arrived,eight months ago. Replacements had come and gone, sometimesbefore he learned their names. Six commanding officers had comeand gone, bearing less and less of the glitter of rank on their shoul-derboards and in their bearing.

And now Furlough was in charge.Furlough squeezed the sodden blanket closer to himself as anoth-

er surge rocked the floor. His men were all awake, but they bore thedazed, unfocused stare of amputees. Three were volunteers like him-self, fresh enough from civilian life to cling to the delusion (sharedbut never spoken) that their surroundings might just be a terribledream, from which they might presently awaken with a feeling ofshaken relief.

The fourth did not share that fantasy. His name was Pitts. Hewas a sergeant, and he was a Marine.

“Gettin’ further away,” Pitts said, working his jaw around a plugof tobacco. His words were a flat statement, but the tone required acomment, an affirmation.

“Yes,” said Furlough. That seemed inadequate, so he added, “They’re hitting the second trenchline now. Working west to

east, most likely.”“Aah.” Pitts spat a stream of tobacco juice into the jumping

cloud, parting it like a curtain. The juice hit with a flat slap and thedust swallowed its wake.

Furlough heard the whistle-whooosh-BOOM an instant beforethe ground slapped his thighs. Pitts was right—that one was further

Breakdownby Steven G. Johnson

Illustration by Frank Wu

June 2004 15

away. Or it was a smaller shell, but that wasn’t as likely. The Germansliked to use the same cannon to work the same section of the line,every time; in artillery as in all things, they were methodical, ration-al, predictable as clockwork, except when they got within arm’sreach.

Another shock rattled the dugout’s frame. They were definitelymoving away now, Furlough was sure of it. He clung to the suddenconviction like a cat to a rope. Their reports were so much fainter,they must be miles down the lines—too far to shake the earth theway they were doing.

“Masks!” barked Pitts, clawing at the ever-present bag at his hip.The volunteers sat dumfounded, as helpless as Furlough himself toassimilate the new in the face of the old. Surely, the sergeant was los-ing his mind. Those sounds couldn’t be a danger to them, as far asthey were—

And then he understood. Pitts was squeezing his face into a rub-ber mitt, with dirty glass lenses in front and a breathing tube for amouth. Of course, the shells sounded quieter, thought Furlough ashe ripped his own bag open. But they weren’t further away. Theydidn’t make as much of a bang—

The light turned a nauseous yellow-green as the sun grew dim.—because they were gas shells.Thick white smoke invaded the bunker, crawling low like the

tentacles of a pale sea beast. The edges of their rifles, the metal oftheir buttons, gleamed an oceanic green where the light glintedthrough the gas. Chlorine, then, and not mustard. Chlorine did notattack the skin. As long as they avoided breathing it, they would beall right.

One of the three volunteers grabbed his chest and lurched erect,banging his helmet on the roof of the dugout. His mask strangled hisvoice, letting just the high-pitched wails through, drowning themeaning.

Not that his meaning was in any doubt, at that moment.Pitts gave a shake of his head like a fractious horse. He reached

into the settling dust, drawing back a cylindrical filter elementclenched in his hand. He seized the young volunteer by the front ofthe mask, where the filter was supposed to fit. The man jerked back,out of Pitts’ grasp.

A fresh crump from outside blew more gas into the tiny enclo-sure. Pitts struggled with the volunteer, grappling for his face amiddust and chlorine clouds. The young man clawed at Pitts’ face, wildwith terror, but his nails raked rubber as invulnerable to them asiron.

Furlough felt suddenly sick. He couldn’t breathe. He had to seethe sun, if only for an instant. The sun was outside. Therefore, hehad to get out.

He was moving without consciously willing it. He ran to the

entrance, up the zigzag of the slanting tunnel, and out into the maintrench. Men in greatcoats and gas masks hurried to their positions,stepping on duckboards to avoid sinking knee-deep in the rich blackmuck in the bottom of the trench. No one paid Furlough the slight-est attention.

The sunlight there in the trench was green. Billows of chlorinerose over the lines like smoke from piles of autumn leaves. Backamong the second and third lines, fresh jets of earth exploded sky-ward around burgeoning clouds of poison gas. In the other direc-tion, the wrenched-up, battered waste of no-man’s-land slept quiet,for once, beneath a blanket of chemical fog.

Someone slapped him on the shoulder. Sergeant’s stripes on hisgreatcoat, globe and anchor on his tin hat. Pitts.

With him were the two other soldiers of the platoon. Furloughrealized with a familiar shock that he had already written off the manin the dugout.

Pitts shouted something in his parade-ground rasp. Eventhrough the mask, his meaning reached Furlough’s ears, as distinct asthe dying man’s screams had been otherwise:

“It fell out. His filter just fell out.”Furlough had to shout back.“Keep your hand on your own, then. Don’t let yours fall out,”

he said.“Mine ain’t screwed in only half-a-way, like his’n.” He paused, as

if seeking his memory for the missing word. It came to him.“Sir,” he said at length.Not for the first time, Furlough questioned the wisdom of

brigading Army and Marine Corps troops together to form theSecond Division. The Marines were veterans, seasoned in the endless“banana wars” in Latin America, some of them with ten years ormore of combat experience. By contrast, the Army soldiers hadenlisted less than a year before, and very few had ever heard a shotfired in earnest. All the experienced Army troops had gone to formthe First Division.

But that was before, in another land and another time. The sol-diers that were left were plenty experienced, Furlough remarked tohimself. His hand found the filter element of his mask and twisted ittighter without any conscious decision. New reflexes had formed, orelse their owners had taken their old reflexes to another place wherethey might, or might not, apply.

Pitts handed Furlough a Springfield rifle, a gas mask, and a bay-onet in its scabbard.

“Meyer’s,” he said. Furlough hadn’t known the name of thechoking man until then.

The shapes in the fog moved on, leaving Furlough and his menin a little green-tinged, mud-floored island of their own. He extend-ed his periscope, a brass and walnut specialty of Abercrombie and

16 Nth Degree

Fitch, a gift from his mother on the first Christmas he had spentaway from home, four months before. All he saw was fog.

“You think they’ll hit us?” he demanded, more stridently thanhe’d intended. It was unbelievably difficult to be both loud and calm.

“Never have yet,” Pitts opined. He turned his snouted head as iflooking for a place to spit. “More skeered o’ gas than we are.”

One of the volunteers wanted to say something, but it came outmuffled. Furlough was reminded of the man who choked—Meyer—of Meyer’s last words, whatever they were. He didn’t like the memory.

“Be quiet,” he said sternly. “They might try and rush us beforethe gas clears.”

“I tell yuh, the Hun’s skeert o’ gas, whether it’s our’n or his’n,”Pitts insisted. “He won’t—”

“Quiet!” Furlough screeched.Pitts studied him with unblinking eyes.“Aye-aye,” he said after a time. “Sir.”They waited for the Germans to come,

or the gas to lift. Presently his lensesbecame fogged by his breath. He didn’treally believe the Germans would come,but he wiped at them anyway. Foolish,because the fog was on the inside, but theoutside of his lenses were foggy, too.However, those outer droplets were noth-ing like water.

The sky overhead turned white in ablazing instant. Furlough flattened his faceinto the mud, expecting a shock that woulddrive him under like a whale going deep. Ahorrid warbling screech, like fingernailsbeing raked over a blackboard in relays,flayed his senses as it crescendoed first in one ear, then the other. Sopainful were the light and noise that Furlough wouldn’t have mindedthe explosion, if only that would make an end of it.

There was no explosion. A series of soft pops crossed the fieldfrom where the scream had died.

Furlough looked up. The blinding light was still present, as ifthe sun had landed just forward of the lines. Thick waves of whiteand green hid the source of the light, but it was still powerfulenough to cast shadows like cones of gray cutting through the fog.Furlough heard a rasping sound like a file on metal, steady andprolonged, punctuated by a rattling bang like nails being driven,very fast. Once or twice there was a flare of bluish light thateclipsed the main glow with its burning intensity, banishing theshadows for an instant.

Furlough’s eyes hurt from the glare. He turned to look at hismen. Pitts was sighting along his Springfield, one eye closed while

the other lined up the sights on the center of the glow. The two vol-unteers lay motionless, staring. With their heavy coats hiding theirbodies, he could not even be sure they were alive.

Furlough could not have said, later, why he took the liberty hethen did. Considering the reputation of the Marines in general, andhis experience with Pitts in particular, he had excellent reason to fearfor his safety, even his life, by crossing his sergeant. But like his flightfrom the dugout, like his tightening of the mask, his action did notrequire deliberation or decision. His intent simply came to him, fullyformed, in the moment that he acted.

Furlough put his hand on the Springfield’s barrel and pushed itsmuzzle to the ground.

Pitts jerked his head around, genuinely startled. There were noGermans within reach when he settled into aiming, and no one else who would havethe temerity to push his rifle down. Sowhen he saw the young lieutenant’s maskstaring at his own, lit a deep forest green bythe distant glare, his mind at first could notfathom the occurrence.

Before he could, Furlough suppliedsomething concrete, even familiar, to grasp.He said:

“It’s an aeroplane, Pitts.”Pitts gaped, then nodded.“It may be one of ours,” Furlough

added. “Don’t shoot till we know.”Pitts nodded again. He drew back his

rifle, checked the muzzle for mud. Furloughsnapped a bayonet onto Meyer’s rifle.

“We’d better get up closer in case we’reneeded,” Furlough said. He tried to draw a deep breath through thestifling mask.

Then he spoke an incantation, a ritual assumption of death forthe entire group, spoken by the one who would likely die first. It wasthe first thing they taught young officers to say.

“Follow me.”They moved off down the trench line. A metallic buzzing like noth-

ing on this earth swallowed the sound of their footsteps in the mud.

* * *

By the time Furlough’s platoon was directly abreast of the whiteglare, the gas clouds were all but dispersed by an imperceptible butcontinuous breeze. Thick greenish-white ribbons still clung to theedges of the duckboards, heavier than air, carrying poison into themud and soil beneath the trench.

…the periscopeshowed him a sil-ver object about

the size of a one-horse barn. It waspear-shaped, thebroad end facing

him, and surround-ed by a glow like

June 2004 17

Rifle shots crackled fitfully up and down the line, Springfieldsand German Mausers. Furlough extended his Christmas periscopeabove the parapet. He steadied his focus on the center of the glow,directly northeast and perhaps seventy yards distant.

He took a step back, off the duckboard. His shoe sank intocaustic mud, but Pitts and one of the volunteers caught his shoul-ders by the straps of his greatcoat. They steadied him before hewent in any further.

“What is it, sir? What d’yuh see?” Pitts wanted to know.Furlough wiped the lenses of the periscope carefully on his lapels,

the least muddy portion of his clothing. Then he looked again.As before, the periscope showed him a silver object about the size

of a one-horse barn. It was pear-shaped, the broad end facing him,and surrounded by a glow like an incandescent lamp. The thing’s sil-very surface did not glow, itself; rather, it was as if an invisible con-tainer, the same shape as the thing but a bit larger, surrounded it andgave off the glow.

A portal opened in one side of the thing. As he watched, headsappeared silhouetted by greenish light from within, retreated, van-ished. The portal closed.

“What is it? Is it one of ours?” Pitts demanded from beside him.“See for yourself,” Furlough said, and passed him the scope.

Privately, inside the sweaty confinement of his mask, he added,“Damned if I know.”Pitts looked, and swore. He passed the scope back.“No aeroplane I ever seen. Yuh reckon it lost its wings?” “It’s metal, Sergeant. That isn’t a plane,” Furlough said.“What, then?”What indeed. “Maybe some kind of tank.”“Ours? Or theirs?”“Can’t be ours.” Of that much, Furlough was mortally sure.“Mebbe it’s French, then?” Pitts suggested.“Could be.”Furlough didn’t remember seeing any markings. But he wanted

to make sure. He looked again. The portal was closed now, butsomething was moving on the ground near the thing. He adjustedthe periscope lens to focus in closer and stuck it up again. The mov-ing something was an arm, reaching out of a shellhole still filled withheavy gas.

“Someone’s alive out there!” he exploded.“Not for long,” Pitts said. “Listen.”A machine-gun cut the gloom to their left. It sounded like an

American Lewis gun, but he couldn’t be sure.“Them First Division boys ain’t shootin’ at spooks, that’s certain

sure,” said Pitts. “An’ when them Huns starts a’comin’, they don’tstop for nothin’. Less’n yuh kills ’em all. An’ sir—there ain’t nearenough o’ the Big Red One left tuh stop a first-class attack. Not after

thet dammit-all winter.”The machine-gun sputtered again. The arm waved wildly, clearly

trying to attract attention. When the machine-gun stopped, the armstopped waving and hung, half in, half out of the hole.

“Leave ’im be, sir. Poor shote’s gonna die, ’nother minute or two,with all thet gas in ’im. Better we’d be lookin’ to rustle up aBrowning, or even a machine-gun, before…”

Furlough handed him the periscope.“He’s got a mask, you fool,” he said crisply. He was outside him-

self again, running on intuition. “Cover me.”“Sir,” said Pitts, “them Huns’ll be here any minute—”“Then we’ve got to get him now, don’t we?”Furlough stepped over the parapet in one giant step, pumping

his legs straight down to avoid slipping in the mud. Peeking overthe top was no good, his last commander had said. Be up andover before the other fellow knows what’s happened, and keepmoving.

Sound advice, and borne out in practice. His last commanderhadn’t been killed going over the top. He’d been found by an artilleryshell, which didn’t care how well concealed he was or how swiftly hedarted from cover.

Furlough was fifty yards from the trench when the first bulletpocked the mud to his front. Then there were two, almost simulta-neous, to his right and left. His last two steps were into a rain of spat-tering mud, kicked up by a dozen or more shots tearing the groundat his feet. But the Germans had had precious little time to aim, andnone of them found their mark.

One hand on his rifle, one hand on his gas mask cylinder, he top-pled headfirst into the crater.

As he had guessed, the bottom was full of water, six inches ormore. He jerked his head up as quick as he could to avoid getting hisfilter element wet. Activated charcoal worked well enough whenmoistened, but if it became waterlogged, it would cut off his air aseffectively as poison gas.

He saw, through the heavy layer of gas, that the other fellow stillhad his hand outside the hole. He seized the arm to haul it in.

The arm was short and bent the wrong way. He turned the manover, hoping he was still alive.

He was not a man.The head was too small, and too round. The mouth was huge,

round and toothless, fringed with small fingerlike projectionsaround the bottom and sides. There was no nose, just a cluster ofwhiskers above the mouth. The eyes were two, set further apart thana man’s, large and deep blue with no hint of iris or pupil. The entireface was deeply furred, the color of asphalt.

The fellow’s neck was almost two feet long, but the rest of himwas short and compact. A pearl-white garment covered most of his

18 Nth Degree

upper body, leaving the stumpy legs bare. He couldn’t have beenmore than five feet tall, even counting the elongated neck.

“Lurgggh,” came a sound from the great, wet mouth. The crea-ture touched Furlough’s shoulder with great, blunt nails on the endof leathery fingerpads. Its eyes were directly aligned with the lensesof his mask. “Lurgggh.”

It tried to sit up, and Furlough tugged it down again. Renewedgunfire cracked overhead.

“Stay down,” he urged the creature. “Stick your head up andthey’ll shoot it off.”

“Lurgggh,” it insisted. It pointed toward the silver tank or plane.The pear-shaped plane still glared like the sun at high noon, but

something in its chroma had changed. Furlough reached for hisperiscope, remembered giving it to Pitts, and grimaced.

“Sorry, friend—”“Lurrgggh, lurrgggh,” said the creature. It tried to sit up again.

This time, when Furlough pulled it down, he saw the rip in thepearlescent fabric and the wound in the white flesh beneath mid-night fur.

“All right, fellow—Lurg, is it? Just lie still,” he insisted.He pressed Lurg’s shoulders into the dirt hard enough to make

his point. Then he stuck his head up above the lip of the crater.He saw the portal was open again. There was a figure in the door-

way, of the same general proportions as Lurg and dressed similarly.A cascade of greenish-white gas belled out of the opening.

That was enough. He ducked down fast enough to lose his helmet,but fast enough to beat the bullet that cracked overhead just after.

Lurg groaned, a surprisingly human sound. He pointed at theship just a few yards away. He stared into Furlough’s eyes, his expres-sion unreadable.

“Why can’t you make it, fellow?” Furlough asked. “You’re not hitthat bad.”

Lurg closed his eyes. He held his side with one hand. Now thatthe chlorine was thinning, Furlough could see a greenish jet, likesteam, puff from the wound in time with the rise and fall of the crea-ture’s chest.

“But then, you’re no kind of soldier, are you? No—and you can’thold your breath, either.”

Furlough opened Meyer’s gas mask bag. He fanned the maskaround the bottom of the crater, filling it with chlorine. The mask fiteasily over Lurg’s face; in fact, it made a tight seal at the base of hisneck, swallowing his whole head.

The filter tube jiggled in its fitting. Furlough screwed it in tightwith his free hand.

Slinging the creature over both shoulders in a fireman’s carry, hebraced his feet as best he could on the wall of the crater opposite theship. He waited, and when he felt Lurg take a breath, he pushed off

and ran up the side of the hole, over the top and onto the unevenground beyond in one continuous rush.

This time there were only a few shots; evidently, no one hadexpected him to run straight toward the machine. All went wide.

The portal had been closing, but now it dilated, to twice its ear-lier dimensions. Several beings of Lurg’s race stood with arms out-stretched to receive him as Furlough tipped his burden forward intothe portal.

They caught him. Chlorine issued in a cloud around him, blur-ring their outlines. They turned to him, and as the portal closed,Furlough saw one of them pry the mask off Lurg’s head. Lurg’s eyessought and found Furlough; the long-nailed hands took the gasmask and held it up, holding it out to him.

Then the portal closed. Using the silver shape as a shield,Furlough ran hunched over back to the American lines. A machine-gun started up just as he reached the parapet, clipping his heel andtoppling him head-over-teakettle into the trench in a cloud of chem-ical dust.

Sergeant Pitts caught him before he dashed his brains out againstthe duckboards.

“Sir? Sir?” he shouted, but even his stentorian roar was washedout by the catastrophe of sound that boiled out of the silver shapebetween the trenches. The vessel—for such it clearly was—flickeredat a dazzling frequency as its surrounding glow collapsed to touchthe metal hull. It left the ground, swaying not straight up, but some-what northeast, toward the German lines.

A line of machine-gun tracers reached up, stitching the side ofthe craft and spattering away in clouds of sizzling yellow bits thatdimmed to red and went out before they struck the ground. Thecraft seemed undamaged; it floated low over the ground until it wasdirectly over the machine gun crew. Then the glow seemed to gatheritself, to deepen in hue toward a dazzling violet, and all at once thesilver craft became a streak of light that flashed into the sky like a lineruled by a draftsman, and was gone.

Nothing remained on the ground beneath save a smoking, flat-tened plain of mud baked hard as brick. A dark track through thecentre of the plain marked the location—the former location—ofthe German trench.

“Whew!” said Pitts. “What monsters!”“You saw them, then?” Furlough said.“Left me this gadget, dincha?” Pitts said, indicating the

periscope. “Neck like a giraffe, legs like an elephant—and that face!Pee-yew! Whatever possessed yuh?”

Furlough scratched the back of his head. The rubber straps hold-ing his mask in place itched terribly against his muddy hair.

“They weren’t Germans, Pitts. They were just—travelers, I guess.Motorists, aviators. Maybe they had a breakdown and went to repair

June 2004 19

it, somewhere they could find enough chlorine to breathe. Only thechlorine went away, and the Germans came, and one of them wasstranded away from the boat.”

“Or maybe they set down for some other reason. It doesn’t mat-ter. He needed help to stay alive. I helped him.”

Pitts scratched his head.“What d’yuh mean, it don’t matter? Ain’t it hard enough to stay

alive already, without yuh gotta risk yer neck for some Martian?”Far away, artillery boomed, making the dust jump.“You’re right, it is hard to stay alive. They certainly got that

impression, from the first time they landed here,” Furlough said. Hepointed out at the baked circle in the ground, at vents of steam andshining puddles that were once men and guns.

“The Germans are bad enough, Pitts. Now look over there andtell me—would you really want to be fighting them, too?”

Pitts followed the finger with his eyes. Neither man used theperiscope, yet nothing moved as far as they could see.

At this moment, in this place, nothing and nobody was trying tokill them. And as they realized that, Furlough and Pitts felt for whatseemed like the first time a mysterious, mutual, glorious absence offear. It was the purest happiness they could imagine.

Far above, a violet streak cut the sky from right to left, dwindlingas it dimmed until it merged with the setting sun.

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20 Nth Degree

“Here’s the Easter Rabbit, hurray…”The woman’s attention drifted fractionally toward the television,

caught by the same animation that had played endlessly everywherefor the past eleven days. Instantly she refocused on the two men infront of her.

“I hope,” one said to the other, “you know what you’re gettin’into here.”

The policeman said the words with an earnest growl, his eyes andentire face filled with the fact that with his sentence he was payingall debts and cutting all ties. The woman could tell he was neitherangry nor resentful. Two things did radiate from him, however. Thefact he was afraid of something, and the just dawning notion in theback of his mind that he did not understand what it was exactly thathe feared.

“Bringing Easter cheer, today…”Which, of course, scared him more than anything else.“I think I do, Carter,” answered the other man. His name was

Michael Malone. It was the byline that ran on his column, the onename in all of New York City everyone trusted. “I won’t stay morethan five minutes. He doesn’t have to answer a single thing. We justwant to ask.”

The sergeant said nothing. He didn’t understand, couldn’t see thegain in Malone’s request, and didn’t care to. He knew why he wasthere. Malone didn’t matter.

Carefully and quickly, the policeman moved through the gray,back corridors of the city hospital, leading the reporter and the

woman in black to their destination. The woman, controlling herbreathing as they moved forward, held a dark shawl around herhead, over her shoulders, across her cheeks—all of her self shadowedoff from the world except for a few fractions of skin showing aroundthe frames of her darkened glasses.

Control, she thought. Control.Her name was Lai Wan. She was not one to leave her home, to

travel any distances whatever, unless it was absolutely necessary. Shewas not one to look strangers directly in the eye, either. Ultimately,most people preferred she keep it that way. They had their reasons.

The woman was a psychometrist. Years earlier a fatal accidenthad left her dead for a handful of time. Revived on the operatingtable, she came back to the tangible world to find herself afflictedwith strange new abilities. She could read people’s thoughts by mak-ing the briefest contact, know their feelings and emotions simply bystanding in the same room. As for inanimate objects, she could readtheir history after but the slightest touch.

She learned of that particular ability first, waking from her sur-gery with the pain of each and every one of her bed’s former occu-pants raging through her system. The cancerous and the insane,amputees, burn victims—those crushed by automobiles, dying ofgunshot wounds, bowels afire with gangrene—vivid memories ofshattered bones, polluted and ruptured organs, broken and tornskin, gushing blood and failing breath and the terrible, numbingrealization that the end was near—the fear, the screaming, spine-melting fear…

THE CURSE OF ETERNITYby C.J. Henderson

June 2004 21

Soon she could feel all the patients within the building—theirwounds, their terror… all of it suddenly hers, flooding in—unstop-pable, real and tangible and overpoweringly terrible. The doctorsnever did understand how she could keep screaming even after theyapplied their anesthetics.

“We’re almost there,” announced the cop tersely. “Have yourquestions ready. You will definitely be on the clock, Malone.”

It took the woman years to learn to deal with her unasked-forabilities. Hiding from the world, staying within her own domain,handling only her own things, slowly she built shields between her-self and the rest of the universe. Now, she could walk down a streetfreely, capable of stopping the onslaught of memories jammed intoevery ancient footprint.

Like a person hiking through a garbage dump, holding their noseagainst the smell, the psychometrist kept tight her mind’s armoragainst the hospital’s history. Before her, Malone nodded to thepoliceman. Glancing over his shoulder, he winked at Lai Wan.

“You ready?” he asked, knowing the answer.Ready to cash your check, she thought sharply. Ready to leave

this pit of suffering, ready to…Breaking off thoughts that could lead to a drop in her control, in

her maintenance of the flood gates holding back the swirling eddiesof suffering just beyond her too-sensitive nerves, she held her tongueand merely nodded.

Malone smiled, misinterpreting her response. Too young, really,for the position of monumental trust he held, the reporter had beendrifting for some time on his previous record. Barely past thirty, hewas an actualization of the dream image the modern media held ofitself. Tall, handsome, with a full head of raven black hair, squaredshoulders and a welter-weight’s form, he was an honest man in a dis-honest world, the truthful mirror into which no one wanted to peer.

In the beginning he had stormed the city’s press establishmentwith a series of whistle-blowing stories that had shocked the nationand catapulted him to international fame. There was no doubt inanyone’s mind that Mike Malone was a square shooter. For a while,his unique approach had invigorated and refreshed. For a while.

It did not take long, however, before those in power, those whospent their days keeping their spines pressed up against dark secrets,severed all connections that might possibly join them to the reporter.His sources of information evaporated as those whose sleep was dis-turbed nightly by the scratching of bony fingers added more andmore locks to their closets. Cranks and whistle-blowers kept him intips, of course, handing him wedges with which he could pry opennew scandals, but his world had grown far more difficult to navigate.No one wanted to answer his calls. His expense account could notinduce anyone to lunch—even those with nothing to hide could notafford to be seen with him.

What if someone saw me with him, they would think. Whatwould people say?

Guilt by association was a crime few were willing to risk in thecase of Mr. Michael Malone.

“Hell,” his boss had said with sympathy, predicting what wouldhappen early on. “Don’t sweat it. It’s the new millennium. Even theinnocent are guilty of something.”

No one blamed Malone. But still, the reporter’s stories had slow-ly become less sensational. His skill with words had not diminished,but with his reach so considerably shortened, his incorruptible,unreasonable honesty had killed his career. Less than three years inthe business, and he had been elevated to grand old man status—honored for his past work, curbed and fettered to keep him fromexposing any more of the darkness. Neutered at the top of his game;finished off for daring to actually do his job.

“This is the hallway,” said Carter. “I’m going to scout ahead.Everything should be arranged, but I’m not taking chances. You twowait here.”

Malone nodded again. He kept his smile in check, sucked backthe flowing saliva, eagerness churning his nerves. Being a has-beenwas over for the reporter.

“Here we go,” he whispered, day-dreaming of his eminent returnto stardom. “Time to meet Easter Boy.”

Easter Boy, the trite designation the press had united behind tolabel a miracle. The appellation applied to one Kenneth Rabe, ormore specifically, to his condition. On the surface, his was not thatamazing a situation for, what had everyone speculating and whisper-ing and making demands was merely the fact that he was alive. Ofcourse, what did justify their reactions was that not that long beforehis being reported alive, he had been most assuredly dead.

The known facts: on Friday the 12th, the eminent scientist Mr.Kenneth Rabe had been struck by a truck that jumped the curb out-side his apartment building. It was a terrible accident, but clearly anaccident. The driver had suffered a heart attack and was dead himselfbefore his forty odd tons of steel had crushed Rabe between metaland brick.

And crushed he had been. Ribs destroyed, internal organspulped. Neck broken, a minimum of four quarts of blood lost at thescene alone, the world conceded that there simply was no hope forthe venerable Mr. Rabe. And that was a pity, for he had been veryclose to cracking one of the principal defenses of the essential heartof all viruses. The cure for the common cold, if you will, but also,because of how it might have worked fundamentally, it would havealso been the cure for everything.

That was the speculation, anyway, of the best minds in the worldbehind Rabe’s, those who all moved up a notch because his geniushad been stolen. That Friday night and all day Saturday, the media

22 Nth Degree

whipped itself into its usual, predictably choreographed frenzy—justanother of the ink and video public bemoanments to be followed byone of those great emotional outpourings that shattered the world’saura from time to time.

Mass communication was a terrible burden to people like LaiWan. Her soul felt the effects in the ether of the world the way any-one else’s skin would feel the rays of the sun. Moments that rivetedthe attention of the masses around the world, or merely in largeareas, sent shock waves outward that humanity could not even rec-ognize. But they often felt their effects.

How many tornadoes, she wondered casually—abstractly—havethe world’s fools caused by focusing their ghoulish attention on howoften tornadoes hit trailer parks? The murderous comedy of theintelligentsia…

“Hey,” asked Malone, catching a hint of the actual span betweenhimself and the psychometrist in her eyes, “you still with us?”

“I am here, Michael,” she assured him, gesturing about her. “Justkeeping my distance.”

“Yelp-yep, okay, you just looked pretty far away.”“I was,” she told him honestly. “I was remembering the death of

an English whore. She was able to pretend to be what the unthinkingmasses wanted her to be up to and including her tragic death. Theweeks of deadening grief, as the world’s fools slobbered over herpathetic demise…”

The psychometrist flashed through the memory of the princess’sdeath, and of the moronic outpour that filled the world afterward.The dark things that fed on irony feasted like pigs at an ever-deepen-ing troth. She had not so much as opened a window for two months.But, she wondered, how to explain such things to the reporter.

“What I mean,” she whispered, “is that when some great mass ofthe world audience latches onto the same fascination,” wondering ifhe could comprehend, “their collective joy or dread or anger or sor-row, or whatever, sends out waves of subconscious energy whichshatter time and space,” if she should bother. “Perceptions change,doorways close, dimensions shift.”

“Yeaaaaah?” Malone moved his jaw to one side, trying to fathomwhat the psychometrist meant. “And it’s what—painful for you?”

“Not in a sense you could understand,” she answered. “It is morerepugnance, it is the rot of the human spirit putrefying the air…”

When the psychometrist stopped herself, Malone’s mood altered.With hesitation nagging his words, he asked, “So is this going tothrow you off? Is it something that could effect tonight?”

Lai Wan could feel Malone’s fright and growing confusion, andyet there was excitement in the reporter as well. His eagerness merelyto be in the presence of such a mystery as Kenneth Rabe practicallyglowed in a shimmer across his skin. With a sigh, the psychometristtried to explain once more.

“What you ask is difficult to answer. Understand, if everyone in aroom thinks about one person in the room at the same time, that per-son will feel it. If an entertainer appears before an enthusiastic crowdthe cheering energizes them to the point where they can perform end-lessly. When everyone in the world starts focusing their attention onsomething, it releases force into the physical fibers of reality. Therecan be no predicting of the effects, because we do not know what isto be learned tonight. If we learn something that will make the worldhappy—that is what will result. If we learn something else…”

The psychometrist gave up trying to explain. She was no expertherself. There were no experts on such things. Taking a deep breath,she told the reporter;

“There is nothing else I can tell you. Suffice it to say that yourMr. Rabe could be a very dangerous man.”

It took Malone a moment to make the connection. If what LaiWan were saying was true, then the media’s hyping of Rabe’s secretcould be setting these waves off already. And as the reporter, and every-one else in the known world, knew, Rabe certainly did have a secret.

For, dead on Friday, crushed to death in the afternoon, he was onSunday morning, risen from the grave. Spotted alive, he tried to fleethose who, by the merest of chance, happened to blunder into himin the middle of nowhere. Recognizing him from the endless televi-sion noise about the terrible loss of his death, the small party decidedhe had to be restrained for his own good. Seeming tired and weary,Rabe had not resisted.

Easter Boy. It was one of the most vulgar press nomen yet. Andsoon, Malone would be given access to him. And Lai Wan wouldenter the room with him. And whether Rabe talked to him or not,lied or not, it would not matter. Lai Wan would know the truth. Justbe being there. And thus he would know. And then the world.

“Let’s go.”An in-motion Carter had returned. Raising his eyebrows to the

reporter he turned again, walking away at a fast clip. Malone and LaiWan followed. They reached Rabe’s room in a matter of seconds.The patrolman stopped at the entrance, pursed his lips, took abreath, then opened the door and entered. Malone’s head turnedslightly from side to side, his eyes darting to make certain they werenot being observed. Lai Wan entered behind him, quite aware thatno eyes were on them, but that many were aware of their arrival.

“Mr. Rabe,” said Malone quickly, not wanting to waste a secondof his time. “Just a few brief questions. You don’t have to answer any-thing, defend yourself, nothing. I just wanted to ask…”

Lai Wan focused her attention on the scientist. He was tiredlooking, drawn and worn out. Her connection to him separated byseveral feet, still, he was standing on the same floor she was, breath-ing the same confined block of air. Already her nerves were tingling.He was Kenneth Rabe. He had been dead, smashed to a pulp. And

June 2004 23

yet, here he was again. But, this was not like her return from beyond.This was something… different. Frightfully different.

Carter stepped toward the small wheeled table near the foot ofthe bed, fumbling at his belt. Malone moved further into theroom, still explaining herself. Lai Wan shut her eyes, maximizingher concentration.

“All I really want to ask, sir, is… how can you be alive? You didn’tsurvive that crash, you were dead on the street. You were hurried toa hospital, but…”

Carter stepped away from the table, blocking the others’ view ofit. No one paid him any real attention. As, of course, he had knownthey would not. That nagging realization entered Lai Wan’s mind.

He is thinking about the fact we are not aware of his actions, sherealized. What actions? Why?

“You were as dead as they come…”Rabe turned away from Malone, his weariness apparent. His

back to the newsman, he spoke in a dull and languid voice.“I’m sorry to have brought you here, Malone, but I needed a

witness.”“Excuse me…”“In the first century BC, Publilius Syrus, a Roman writer, said,

‘better to be ignorant of a matter than half know it.’”“I’m not certain I understand, sir.”Ignoring the newsman, Rabe reached toward the table. Malone

went back to his questions, talking quickly, priming the scientist’smind to think about those things he wanted the psychometrist to hear.

“Sir, how can you be alive now? Can you tell us what happened?”Brushing his arm, Lai Wan felt Rabe’s thoughts on those ques-

tions as they involuntarily flooded his brain. What she learned sur-prised her, sent her attention away from her mind and back to hereyes, darting from Rabe to Carter, to Rabe’s hand, lifting the gun,pulling the trigger…

� � � � �

It was more than three days before Malone and LaiWan were finally able to contact one another once more. Angry, con-fused and somewhat frightened, Malone was more than willing tostart the conversation rolling.

“All right, what the hell happened that night? Where did you go?How’d you do it, disappear on me, I mean, and why? You left methere, to take, I mean, by myself, with all… what the hell happened?”

“Calm yourself, Mr. Malone,” cautioned the psychometrist.“You are in my home. I do not need you spilling random emotionsinto my belongings. If I did not intend to tell you what happened,you would never have heard from me again.”

“But…”

“Please sit. Pour yourself some tea. Be calm.”Lai Wan waited for the newsman to do as she instructed. Her ser-

vant, seeing his mistress was in no danger, obeyed her subtle handsignal and removed himself to the kitchen. As Malone sipped at histea, the psychometrist gave him his answer.

“I did not disappear,” she told him. “I absenced myself. Pullinginward, I focused my attention only on my internal being. I was inplain sight the entire time, I simply removed myself from notice.Everyone that arrived focused on the main scene—you and the bod-ies—it was enough to allow me to remove myself.”

“But Rabe, shooting himself, and Carter, grabbing the gun fromhis hand, shooting himself—why? What was it all about?”

“Officer Carter had been instructed to supply Mr. Rabe with hispistol. Mr. Rabe knew what to do with it. Carter then turned thegun on himself because he had already agreed to do so, vast moniessupplied to his family, indiscretions forgotten, something alongthose lines.” Lai Wan took a breath, giving Malone a last moment ofbliss, then went on.

“Truth be told,” she said, “I agreed with their motives.”The newsman held the small tea cup steadily before his face, but

his mouth sealed into a thin, drawn line. His eyes narrowed as well,his concentration fixed on Lai Wan. The attention prickled her flesh,like the snapping jaws of a cloud of beetles. Ignoring it, understand-ing it, she continued.

“Mr. Rabe, as we all know, was on the verge of delivering untothe world a medical discovery that would have changed the humanrace forever. What we all did not know, however, was who his finan-cial backers were. Tell me, Mr. Malone, have you ever heard of ‘theNameless,’ ‘the Fifty Kings,’ or perhaps, ‘the Bilderbergs?’”

“I know some stories, all variations on a theme—they’re groupsof powerful businessmen and political and religious rulers and thelike who pull all of humanity’s strings from behind the scenes. Butthey’re just a myth…”

“So are many things. A group that fits the description were Mr.Rabe’s employers. What I got from his mind is this—Rabe’s workwas not almost complete. It was finished. He had simply decided notto let anyone know.”

“But, but…” incomprehension swept out of Malone in waves.His disbelief struck against the woman’s body with such force sheinvoluntarily raised her arms to shield herself.

“Please, just listen,” she gasped. “Mr. Rabe had reached a moraldilemma. This group he worked for is split along two lines, those whopull strings for their own amusement and profit and those who feel theyare the protectors of mankind. Mr. Rabe worked chiefly for the latter.The former group was all for his work, though, so there were no prob-lems. If he found his cure, everyone would live longer, work longer,generate more capital, keep the ball rolling… fun for everyone.”

24 Nth Degree

Malone listened, not knowing where to begin asking questions.The psychometrist spoke in rapid, short breathes, trying her best tonot give him the chance to speak.

“His chief employers were less enthusiastic. Think on it for amoment. Yes, wonderful, a cure for everything is discovered. Rabe,he was quite certain, had stumbled across the essential buildingblocks of life and death. If he was correct, aging itself would havebeen stopped. Ironically, outside of accidents such as the one whichkilled the scientist himself, no one would have died ever again.”

Malone knew Lai Wan was no sideshow charlatan. Knew herpowers were genuine. Trusting anything she might say, his mindreeled at the possibilities she was unleashing.

“Can you imagine such a world, Mr. Malone? Immortality, foreveryone. No senility, no death to speak of. Six billion immortals,capable of creating six billion more in a few years. And more afterthat. Countless billions, roaming the streets through a thousand lifetimes, looking for purpose, struggling to find amusement. Think ofthose on the bottom of society, still needing to work for a living,waiting tables, forever. Delivering the mail or selling movie tickets orpicking up garbage—forever? Performing the same rote, mindlesstasks for eternity. Can you picture the hopelessness, the madness, themass suicides… how long do you think it would be before humanitywould burn itself out in frustration and anger as it finally realized asa group what only the philosophers have been able to perceive…”

“But why kill himself,” Malone snapped, leaning forward acrossthe small table before him.

“Because his first attempt did not succeed.”The newsman leaned back in his chair. He set his tea cup down

on the low table before his shin absently, struggling to understand.Taking pity on him, as she had since those seconds before Rabe hadre-ended his life, Lai Wan spoke again.

“To put it simply, Mr. Rabe’s employers agreed with him. Hispotential discovery could not be revealed. It was not the right time.What would have seemed the salvation of mankind would haveturned into its downfall. So, since he was a public figure, they engi-neered a very public end to his life. Their partners, however, the otherhalf of the equation, did not agree. Getting hold of his remains quick-ly, before all function had fled his brain, they were able to transfer histhoughts and memories into another vessel, a clone, as it were.”

“What? They just happened to have… a clone… of Rabe,”Malone sneered. “A clone?”

“I cannot prove this to you, of course,” answered Lai Wan. “Icannot prove anything I tell you, nor will I attempt to try. I canmerely advise you as to what it is I read from our subject’s mind. Thisis what he believed. This is all I can tell you.”

“What do you take me for,” growled Malone. Contempt boilingbelow the surface of his consciousness, it cast about for a willing ally.

Latching onto his frustration, the pair shut down the reporter’s abil-ity to think, thrusting his greed forth to do his talking. “Am I sup-posed to be a fool? Clones? All-powerful illuminati running a shad-ow kingdom, immortality—who are you trying to fuck with here?!”

“Mr. Malone…”The reporter swept her words aside. His freshly rebuilt world

crumbling, he lashed out, rising from his seat, slivers of anger blast-ing outward from his body, he snarled;

“You bitch, are you trying to ruin me!?”“At the age of ten,” the psychometrist snapped, hurling an image

from Malone’s into his face, “you were in your bedroom, masturbat-ing. Your mother walked in. You cried, she screamed, there was asmall dog, dancing about under everyone’s feet, when you ejaculatedit splattered against your mother’s leg. The dog began licking—”“Shut up!”Malone fell back to the couch, curling his body, his fists slam-

ming against his ears, his knees almost touching his chin.“Mr. Rabe’s story is not anything I wished to know, either,” Lai

Wan said to the reporter in a whisper warm with forgiveness. “But Iallowed your payment and my own curiosity to overwhelm my judg-ment. Now I know the entire story, as I know all stories. Do youwant to hear more?”

“Let me guess,” answered Malone weakly. Dragging himself intoa sitting position, he said, “The capitalists of the group, they haveclones for all their important people. They, they put Rabe back in abody because, because it was just good business. They wanted theirprofits, didn’t care what effect living forever might have on thosewho didn’t have anything to do right now. Let them all kill them-selves, let God sort them out. Something like that?”

Lai Wan nodded. Malone did not notice. Reaching back for histea, he drained the cup. Then, unaccountably dry, he poured himselfanother and continued.

“Probably thought they had Rabe under wraps, but he got away.When he was found and dragged to the hospital, his people—hisbackers in, in, all this… they arranged everything. They knew howhe felt, knew what he’d do if given the chance. They could have donehim in some easier way, of course. Only reason for the public showwas to ease everyone’s hopes he’d finish his research. They arrangedeverything, didn’t they?”

His eyes shifted, focusing on Lai Wan’s, locking there. When shesaid nothing, he went on.

“They found Carter, just like they always find someone, paidhim off somehow, set the whole stage. Let him kill himself, theinstrument of death delivered by a messenger who dies himself, witha willing stooge of a witness on hand to tell the story.”

“Essentially,” agreed the psychometrist. “The knowledge of hisdiscovery, his closeness to it, removed, the public was then left with

June 2004 25

only a mystery. A puzzlement which dissipated their building psy-chic energies. Two birds downed with a single missile, as they say.”

There was more Malone wanted to ask, but he did not bother.What he already knew was too much for him, too unbelievable, toomonstrously tragic to comprehend. No matter which way he turnedwhat he had learned, he could find no angle from which to observeit which would allow him understanding.

“Try not to think about it overly, Mr. Malone,” Lai Wan said withkindness. “Trust me when I say this, resurrection is not for everyone.”

“That’s true,” agreed the reporter. “Even Christ could only standan extra forty days here.”

As one small voice within his brain wondered how he could pos-sibly write about what he now knew, a thousand others howled athim, damning him for even considering such a notion.

Okay, maybe later, he thought. Maybe I’ll be able to hash it allout someday. Someday, if I live to be a thousand.

The thought made the reporter chuckle sadly. He made a bit ofsmall talk after that, but soon removed himself from the premises.Once Malone was gone, the servant returned. Clearing the tea set-ting, he asked at what hour he should have dinner ready, thenextinguished the lights. Lai Wan sat in the dark, easing her tensionoff into the cool surrounding blackness. There was so much shehad left unsaid.

“I hope you are at peace now, anyway, Mr. Rabe,” she whispered,not unkindly.

Her mind remembered back to when she had entered the hospi-tal room. Never had she come across someone like the scientist.When the surviving electrical impulses of his personality had beenrestored to life, they were only the memory of facts and personalityquirks, the jots of knowledge and individual ticks which label theoutside of a person. Long gone, however, was that essential energymost commonly referred to as the soul. Rabe had been an empty ves-sel, desperate for the release Carter brought to him. The psychome-trist had not felt it necessary to tell Malone that ghoulish detail.

As she had not felt the need to tell him one other. Standing fromher chair in her greeting room, the only part of her home into whichoutsiders were permitted to enter, she stretched her arms and pulledoff her shawl, folding it neatly, hanging it over an arm of the com-fortable, overstuffed old friend.

With a thought, she brought her cat to her side, a stolid old cal-ico she had named Joseph for no reason in particular. As the agedfeline walked about her legs, pushing himself against her, she reacheddown and scooped him up, holding her out before her face.

“And would you want to live forever, my Joe,” the psychometristasked. “Chasing mice to the end of time, never reaching a final rest?”

The old cat, a beast which had never really taken to being held,to having control of a situation wrested away from it, began to fidg-

et. Twisting its body, it threw itself to the floor, looking up when itlanded, staring crossly.

“That is what I thought.”Following Joseph, Lai Wan entered her music room. She agreed

with Rabe. The final piece of his formula, a thing the scientist haduncovered, tested, and verified six months before the debate overeternal life drove him to take his own, was not something humanitywas ready to handle. Pushing the bit of formula to the back of hermind, she clicked on her stereo, releasing the gentleness ofPachelbel’s “Canon in D Major,” then, settling into the room’s warmrecliner, she tried to relax, working at forgetting the fragment ofequation which could still bring the curse of eternity into the world.

After a moment Joe joined her, snuggling against her side.Nuzzling his head gently with her fingers, she whispered;

“You know, my Joseph, if Mr. Rabe had not been so set onpulling that trigger, I do believe I would have had to do it for him.”

The cat turned its head, staring into its mistress’s eyes. It caughta glimmer of the horror in her mind, the bloodied fate of an eternalhuman race in her eyes, and yawned at her in response, showing itsgreat rows of pointed teeth.

“Why, that is just what I thought you would say,” she whispered,nuzzling the old cat closer, loving it dearly for its feline inability tofeel anything unconnected to itself.

26 Nth Degree

The hot water from the bath felt good against Agamemnon’saching muscles. Steam drifted up, collecting into a thick,comforting mist in the small chamber. He pressed his back

against the stone wall of the tub and settled further down into thewater until his beard was bobbing gently on the surface. So comfort-ing. He forced himself to stay awake, at least until he had removedhimself. To survive the Trojan War, only to drown in my own bath. Histhoughts drifted back to the war from which he had returned justdays prior, and to those who would never be returning. The death ofPatroclus by Priam and subsequent killing of Achilles by thescoundrel Paris felt as if his own brothers had been slain.

So much death. He had seen enough to last a lifetime.A sandal scraped against the marble floor behind, rousing him

from slumber. He was supposed to be alone. Before he could reach forhis sword that lay on the bench alongside the bath, a coarse net ofbulls-hide, dropped into the water around him. He flailed his armsin an attempt to free himself and reach his weapon, but his strugglesonly entangled him further as the intercrossed ropes wrapped aroundhis body like a snake, pinning his arms and legs.

Realizing if he continued to resist, the ropes would constrict fur-ther and drag him under, Agamemnon relaxed and steadied himself.

At the far end of the bath a tall, slender woman stepped intoview. Her golden hair tumbled carelessly atop her shoulders as shestepped through the doorway. “Very wise, dear Agamemnon. I wasexpecting the snare to have finished you.”

“What is the meaning of this, Clytemnestra?” he said, glaring ather. “Release me from these bindings immediately!”

Clytemnestra looked at her husband with amusement. “Oh,such a sour look, Agamemnon. I suppose you wish you were back onthe battlefield, vanquishing the Trojans and taking their women!”

“How dare you!” he roared. “It was because of your letters that Irushed back so soon after the war’s end!”

Clytemnestra chuckled briefly as she walked up to the edge ofthe bath. “Yes. The letters. Quite convincing, weren’t they? You can-not fathom how many nights I stayed up writing and rewriting myslates until I was assured that the words were so precise, so perfect,my tales of sorrow so compelling, that your only reaction would be tocome racing back as quickly as possible!”

“But why? For what purpose?”The smile blew away from Clytemnestra’s face as quickly as it

had appeared. “So your return would be on my own terms! You have

been gone quite a while, dear husband. Did you think I have beenspending my time simply pining for your return? No, I have grownquite accustomed to my freedom—to be able to do what I please,when I please, and, most importantly, with whom I please.” Shepaused for a moment to regain her composure. “So, to ensure yourreturn would serve my needs, I released the letters.”

Never taking his eyes off his wife, Agamemnon managed to freeone of his hands beneath the water. Moving slowly, he began tounbind his other hand. Suddenly an ivory-hilted knife came intoview. He managed to grab his attacker’s wrist with his free hand, buthis opponent had leverage and Agamemnon watched as the knifeslowly slipped between his ribs.

Looking up at his assailant, he recognized the man. It wasAegisthus, one of the local businessmen in town. A malicious grinwas on Aegisthus’ face and before Agamemnon could prevent it, hewas shoved into the middle of the bath.

Agamemnon watched as the clear water quickly turned red. Hisbreathing became painful and laborious. The water was only asdeep as his chest, but between the bindings and loss of blood, itwas deep enough.

Clytemnestra walked over to Aegisthus. “Do not fight it, dearhusband.”

“Treacherous bitch,” he growled. “You will pay for this!”“Not in this lifetime.”The bath’s floor was smooth and slippery. Agamemnon tried

to shuffle forward to reach the bath’s stairs, but lost his footing,careened forward, and passed below the surface.

He looked up to see the image of his traitorous wife and her lovergrow faint and distant through the crimson water, as if they were inanother world, another time, away.

Vengeance was in his heart and on his lips.But it would not be so.A moment later a black tide washed in, and he was enveloped by

its darkness…

� � �

Boooooop.The electronic buzz of the doorbell made Gruxal glance up from

his computer. Though the faulty monitor made her skin appear avoca-do and her lips far too red, he immediately recognized the face in theview-screen. “Enter,” he said, and his pod door slid open with a whoosh.

THE MACHINAT IONS OF

ALL MY FUTURES PAST by Michael Penncavage

June 2004 27

In stepped a slender, shapely brunette with azure eyes and paleskin. She folded her arms and shook her head in dismay. “Why amI not surprised to find you here?”

Gruxal bookmarked the site he was reading and ordered themachine off. “Have you forgotten that this is my domicile, Liandra?”

“But… it’s your birthday!” she said, sitting herself down onto his lap.“Oh which you have been reminding me endlessly over the past

several days.”“Well, it doesn’t appear to have done much good!”“Liandra—if my species does not recognize the birthing process

as a significant event, how do you expect me to react any differentlyto my birthday?”

She began playing with his hair. “We were supposed to meet atThe Fuselage after your shift ended.”

“Robson dismissed me early,” answered Gruxal. “For exactly thesame reason.”

“Which doesn’t give you an excuse to sit around wasting theday away!”

“I was reading something that you should find interesting.”“I find that doubtful.” Liandra glanced at the dark computer

screen. “Let me guess—would it be the Genealogy of the Medids orthe Horticulture of Dramene?”

“Actually it was on Mythology. Earth Greek Mythology to beexact.” Gruxal said. “What fanciful imaginations your ancestors had.”

“I’ll have to remind you to tell me all about it,” said Liandra.“The first night I am suffering from insomnia.”

“I take it you still want to go to The Fuselage?”Turning slightly, she straddled his lap and pressed herself up

against him. “In a moment. Considering that you stood me up at thebar and made me walk all the way back to your pod, I think you needto make it up to me,” she said as she began to slowly unzip her top.

� � �

“Now, the proper way to continue this birthday celebration iswith a toast,” commented Liandra as she fastened her belt.

Gruxal motioned to a corner in his pod. “I still have half a bottleof Terruvian Brandy.”

“I was thinking of something that didn’t taste like bath water.”“You would rather spend two hours wages on a single drink?”“Gruxal, we have already saved enough to get us off the ship.

Surely we can spend some credits on some frivolity. Think of it as afarewell to the Elsivar. In five days time we will be on a shuttle head-ed for Volpos.”

Gruxal uttered a command and the cabin door slid open. Theywalked out into a dingy, poorly lit corridor.

Looking down at the filth that covered the floor, Gruxal said,

“We can not be leaving soon enough.”Taking the lift, they descended three decks to the bar.The Fuselage was constructed far after The Varipos had been con-

structed. The vessel’s architect had designed the ship with the inten-tion that whatever war it served in would last no longer than a fewweeks—brief enough for its crew to go without needing recreationalfacilities. No one ever thought the Cilurian War would last over sixtyyears.

On The Varipos one of the ship’s stores had been converted intoa bar. Like the rest of The Varipos, it was makeshift and cramped, butThe Fuselage had a charm of its own and was a welcome escape fromthe twelve-hour workday.

Its tender was Allister Reynolds, a short, plump man with badskin and frosty, untended white hair. He was wiping the bar downwith a towel that was far too dirty when Gruxal and Liandra passedthrough the doorway.

“Slow day still, Allister?” asked Liandra, noting the barren room.“Nah,” he answered, glancing over to the wall clock. “Another

thirty minutes and the next shift will be getting off. Better grab a seatnow while you still can.”

“Two glasses of Molotox,” said Liandra.Allister’s eyebrows rose up. “Celebrating the end of the war

in fashion?”Gruxal nodded. “As well as an arcane human tradition.”“It’s his birthday,” said Liandra as she sat onto one of the

barstools.Allister pulled out a skinny azure bottle from underneath the bar. “In

that case we’ll have to make it a double, with the double being on me.”“That’s very kind of you.”The old bartender nodded. “My pleasure.” Allister looked

around the bar lovingly. “Might as well drink it up. Not much longeruntil all of this is decommissioned. Who knows if these bottles willmake it to Xibxis 3 without shattering?”

“It’s almost impossible to comprehend that with the Oxcof treatysigned, the war is over. After so much fighting and so much death, Ithought neither the Alliance nor the Unified Front would ever laydown their arms,” remarked Gruxal.

“And unemployed,” added Liandra. “Destined for placement onXibxis 3, working the mines.”

Allister recorked the bottle. “We’re all like old goats. The govern-ment doesn’t know what to do with us. Too expensive to settle usonto any suitable planet. Might as well be plopped off onto a barrenrock like Xibxis 3 to finish out our days. I figure the only way anyoneis going to get off the rock is if they strike a sizable enough claim.”He laid his callused hands on to the bar-top. “And the chances ofthat happening are the same as someone having saved enough creditsto buy his way off this rust bucket.”

28 Nth Degree

Liandra and Gruxal cast each other a sideways glance. “But that’s the government for you,” continued Allister, who

seemed to be on the verge of a very familiar tangent. “We’re draftedinto service aboard these ships, barely paid a pittance, and once thewar is done, we’re cast aside.”

Gruxal took a sip from his drink. “At least you’ll have an estab-lished clientele when you reopen the bar,” he said matter-of-factly.

“The eternal optimist,” Allister replied. “It must be from allthose books you’ve read.”

“Tell Allister about the current one.” Liandra said, sitting up. “Ibet the next round that he never heard of it.”

“What’s it about, son?”“Allister, why do you insist on calling me, son. I’m twice as old

as you.”“Ah—but you still appear half my age, and that’s what matters,”

the bartender answered.“The Trojan War,” said Liandra impatiently.Allister rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Trojan War… Trojan War.

Sure. I’ve heard of it.”“You have not!” protested Liandra. “You just want to see me pay!

What was it about?”“The Trojan War… that was the war… involving the Trojans.”Liandra balled up a napkin and threw it at Allister. “A war that purportedly took place between the Greeks and the

Trojans around 1250 BC…” said Gruxal.“Greek?” interrupted Allister. “This is some sort of Earth war?”“Have you ever heard the story of the Trojan Horse?”He shook his head.“The wealth of knowledge humans possess concerning their her-

itage never fails to amaze me. The Trojan Horse was a large woodenvessel used by the Greeks to win the war. The Trojans, mistaking thehorse as an offering from the gods, wheeled the gift into theirfortress. Little did they know that the Greeks were lurking within thebeast. That night the Greeks poured forth from the belly of the ani-mal, massacred the Trojans, enslaved their women, and burned thecity to the ground.”

“Wow. Real happy ending you got there,” said Allister.“Many of the stories from that time period follow that particular

theme. Rape. Murder. Betrayal. Revenge. More rape. More murder.Not too many happy endings.”

Liandra finished her drink. “We should get going.”“What about the second round?” asked Allister.She glanced at her wristwatch. “Not today. We are on a tight

schedule.”The bartender nodded. “I trust you will both stop by for a

farewell drink before the bar closes?”“A farewell drink?” repeated Liandra. “How can I say no?”

� � �

“This is an unauthorized part of the station, Liandra. If securityfinds us here, we can get a fine.” Gruxal looked around hesitantly atthe surroundings. From the busy Fridsok Deck, Liandra had led himdown into the belly of the ship, where he had never been before.

“Relax, Gruxal. There’s no one on the sanitation level at this hour.No, wait—I take that back. No one except the rats and the Razirians.And the Razirians are more interested in the rats than anything else.”

Gruxal dodged a plume of steam that shot out from a worn pis-ton. “I don’t see what is so important that we had to come here.”

A rat scurried across the grate in front of them.Walking to the end of the corridor, Liandra turned to him. The

grin was still on her face. “Well, here we are.”Gruxal looked around. “Liandra, the only thing here is the

expulsion chamber.”“Yes. Where all unwanted garbage is sent into space.”A large hulk of a man with a shaved head, beard, and tattoos that lit-

tered his body suddenly emerged from the darkness. One of the over-head maintenance lanterns caught the glint of the knife in his hand.

Before Gruxal could raise his arms to defend himself, the knifewas embedded into his chest. Blue blood poured from the wound,running in torrents down his chest and onto the floor. Gruxalyanked the dagger out and stared at the blood-soaked weapon inhorror. He looked to Liandra. The grin was still on her face.

Falling to his knees, Gruxal tried to speak, but found himselfunable to breathe a word. All he could do was watch as Liandrawalked up and knelt down before him.

“How do you like your birthday surprise, my darling?” She whis-pered, looking down at his wound. “Does it hurt? Not to worry—the pain won’t last long. Lynceus ran his dagger deep. Deep enoughto ensure something vital was severed. Judging from the blood Iwould say he succeeded. Take consolation that your savings will bespent wisely,” she said as Gruxal heard one of the hatches leadinginto the expulsion chamber open with a soft hiss. “Lynceus and I arebooked on the first shuttle to Volpos.”

A pair of strong arms heaved Gruxal from the floor as if he werea sack of grain. Lynceus heaved Gruxal inside the nearby airlock.

Gruxal would have struck the floor hard if not for the collectedheaps of refuse that buffered his fall. He was in the waste expulsionchamber that the station’s various garbage chutes fed into.

Turning over in the filth, Gruxal saw Liandra standing in the door-way. “By my estimates, you have an hour before the purge occurs. Plentyof time for you to wallow in the muck.” Lynceus grabbed the door’s han-dle and closed it, plunging Gruxal into darkness. “If I were the bettingtype, my money would be on you bleeding to death before then.”

Liandra chuckled as she grabbed Lynceus by the arm and began

walking away. “Our days here are numbered, my dear.”Back in the chamber, Gruxal lay amidst the refuse, taking in gen-

erous amounts of polluted air. Lynceus had been true with his blow,severing a major artery. However, both he and Liandra were unawarethat a pair of veins fed his alien heart. It took several minutes for hisbody to shut down the destroyed vessel and reroute the blood. Ittook another half-hour for a scab to form over the wound.

Besides underestimating his resiliency, Liandra also underesti-mated his strength. Though Gruxal’s arms were thin and wiry, theywere incredibly strong. The lock that held the door gave way afterseveral minutes of Gruxal banging against its frame.

The garbage hatch opened slowly. From within the darkness ahand caked in dried blood appeared. Covered in sweat and grime, hereached over and gripped the dagger from the floor.

Sitting alone in the darkness, deep within the ship, Gruxalfought to control his breathing and regain his energy.

He had been a fool to fall for Liandra’s trickery. He had been afool to confide in her about his savings and where he had it hidden.

But that was the past.Right now all he could do was wait.Until he had regained his strength.Until they would not be suspecting. Then, and only then, would he show himself…And he would burn the city to the ground.

June 2004 29

DERVISHby Danielle Ackley-McPhail

spinning

spiraling

whirling

dervish

divinely twirled

from point to point

slow a moment

and you whisper

in my ear

the secret of

immortal wisdom

of standing still

unmoving

tranquil

and savoring

a mercurial world

as it passes

in frenetic activity

Do you like comics?

Well, so do we!

The Comic Book Novicepresented by WGBB 1240 and M.F.C. Studios

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The Last Straw by Bob Kauffmann

COMICSBob the Angry Flower by Stephen Notley

30 Nth Degree

June 2004 31

BelchBurger by Dan Fahs & Robert Balder

32 Nth Degree

Sympathy for George Lucasby Talisman

to the tune of “Sympathy for the Devil” by The Rolling Stones

Please allow me to introduce myself,I'm the man behind the scenes.

I brought the greatest science fiction film of all timeTo the silver screen.

I was around when farmboy LukeMet the Death Star, and got away.

Made damn sure that pilotUsed the Force, and saved the day.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.But what's puzzlin' you is why the prequels were so lame.

I thought up Jedis and light sabres,I gave you Wookiees. I brought you droids.You spent your teens on my Tattooine,

So you can't be too annoyed.If I'm the guy who made Artoo fly,So much CGI that you want to cry.I'm just a man doin' the best I can

To make some movies, and sell some toys.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.But what's puzzlin' you is why the prequels were so lame.

You know this tale is your Holy Grail.You know every line, every small detail.It wasn't I who set the bar too high

That when it came out, it couldn't fail to fail.But I watched with glee while you nerds and geeksStood in line for weeks for your preview sneaks.You shouted out, "Who killed the Trilogy?"

When after all, it was Jar-Jar Binks.

Pleased to meet you. Hope you guess my name.Is it still puzzlin' you is why the prequels were so lame?

Let me explain.

Just as every dope is a prodigy,As every Bard's a hack,

As genius fails, just call me "Lucasfilm,"Cause I'm in need of one good smack.So if ya meet me, have some courtesy,Shut yer pie hole, and get in line.

Buy all my well-planned merchandise,Or I'll make VII, VIII and IX.

I'll do it, too. Woo hoo! Woo hoo! Woo hoo!

Now tell me Jar-Jar, what's my name?Tell me Windu, what's my name?

Amidala, what's my name?I'll tell ya one time: you're to blame.

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