Nightingale

by Fred Warren - 

John Milton’s sandals crunched on fine gravel as he walked with Jiro Sukahara along the meandering path through the chaplain’s expansive private garden. His balance was improving with each step, enough to let him savor the subtle splendor of the flowers and greenery. Feathery blossoms from a giant cherry tree at the garden’s heart filled the air and tumbled across the footpath.

In one corner, a sandy basin was dotted with angular stones arranged in a pattern that, to John, seemed orderly and random at the same time, and the white sand was raked into curving grooves that flowed into a complex spiral. A tiny brook roughly bisected the garden, its murmur punctuated by the slow metronome of a shishi-odoshi, a pivoting bamboo tube that filled and emptied itself at the base of a trickling fountain, making a pleasant wooden thunk with each cycle. Jiro explained the device’s original purpose was to startle wandering deer and discourage them from munching on the foliage.

“But mostly, I enjoy the sound it makes.”

A little bird with dull brown feathers clung to the topmost branch of the cherry tree, warbling and trilling a cascade of brilliant, liquid melody. John thought back to the riotous colors of the birds he’d seen on the tropical island where he’d met the Dreamers for the first time. “Such a beautiful song…I’d never have suspected it from such a plain bird.”

As if insulted, the tiny musician ended its concert with a sharp flourish, then vanished into the tree’s pastel depths.

“It’s called a nightingale.” Jiro sighed. “There’s an old story about a powerful emperor who befriended a nightingale he found in his garden. She perched on his windowsill and lulled him to sleep each night. All was well until the ruler of a neighboring land sent the emperor a mechanical songbird with gilded feathers and jeweled eyes as a birthday present. The emperor was so taken with the beauty of the mechanical bird that he drove the homely nightingale from his garden, only to discover the robot’s song possessed none of the nightingale’s magical charm. He never enjoyed another peaceful night’s sleep, and though he sent messengers to the nightingale with gifts and apologies, she refused to return, and their friendship was forever broken.”

“What a sad story.”

“I keep a nightingale in my garden to remind me that love is fragile, and illusion is no substitute for reality.”

“A strange sentiment from someone who lives in a virtual paradise.”

“I am a man of many contradictions.”

Flight

By Edward M. Erdelac - 

Considine stepped out of the lift, amazed he had gotten so far as Morgenstar’s personal hangar.

This was no freighter dock cluttered with utilitarian equipment and personnel in greasy coveralls.

It was much smaller than the main Avenir hangar, and contained only five craft, four sleek metallic blue one-man security fighters bearing the MM corporate logo, and a high end luxury omniyacht with a zero gravity viewing deck made from actual wood and gilded with brass rails. He had hear much about that omniyacht. It could travel in space, atmosphere, even below the ocean.

He opted for one of the fighters, though he knew the damn thing would be too fast and responsive for him to pilot safely.

He found all but one of the fighters locked, the last apparently left unsecured by a crewman who had also left his toolbox on the gantry.

As he slipped into the flight suit, Considine hoped the careless technician hadn’t left anything else undone.

He crammed himself into the pilot’s chair and lowered the canopy, buckled on the artificial air pump harness and firing up the engines just as the lift door opened and a squad of Morgenstar security spilled out.

He pulled on the exposure helmet, smelled the sour artificial air as the unit on the chest of the suit began to pump, and grabbed hold of the thrumming controls as the ship shook and lifted off the deck.

He watched the security men tumble back into the lift as the hangar door blossomed open, and with a jolt that sent the back of his head smacking against the seat, the fighter leapt out into space.

He fought the controls to turn the thing into a wide bank and angle it for the planet. Why did the damn thing have to be so fast?

He slowed his descent and fiddled with the navigational board, trying to find Zirconia, when suddenly he felt and heard a gush of liquid in his helmet.

His suit was filling with seawater.

In a panic, he felt the hose on the pump harness and realized it was leading under the pilot’s chair. He had no room to look under, but the sea water was rapidly rising to his chin in the helmet.

Of course everything had been too easy. The entire escape – the nurse laying the inoculater on the table for him to grab, the guards separating for his benefit, the unchallenged escape to the hangar, and of course the conveniently unlocked fighter craft, replete with a sabotaged air unit.

He gasped as the salty water reached his lower lip, and spat, instantly regretting it as the faceplate of his helmet spotted, making it almost impossible to see.

Warning klaxons whose purpose he couldn’t get began to flash and sound in the cockpit.

Then something slimy and tubular brushed past his ear.

Good God! Morgenstar had put one of those things under the seat and he had pumped it right into his own suit!

He felt it slithering about his throat and clenched his teeth against the maddening shriek building up in his beating chest.

Then there was a flash of light in his mind.

The thing had made contact.

Struggle

By Travis Perry - 

Zana’s mechanical left arm grabbed at the right arm of the man, who must have been Mons, who had wrestled her to the ground and had her pinned to her back, his hands pressing down on her shoulders. “You’re a woman!” he exclaimed in a surprise barely audible as the dust storm whooshed around him.

Her only answer was to vice down her hand grip on his arm. He grunted in pain as she squeezed but without hesitation rolled off her to her right, using the torque of his body twist to pull his arm free from her steely grip. She rolled onto her own right side, reaching after him with her left arm. But Mons no sooner tumbled away than he rolled back. With both hands he shoved her left hand into the ground, then her left shoulder, pushing her face down as he rolled himself back over top her body, pinning her under his greater weight.

That made Zana angry. She thrust her left arm behind her back and grabbed the first piece of his body she could reach and squeezed as hard as she could. Her mechanical side had some tactile sense, not as good as her right, but she perceived a bone breaking—which she realized was Mon’s left humerus, the bone of his upper arm. He screamed in her ear, but his credit, made no move away from his dominant position, his weight still pressing her face-down into the ground.

“Leggo!” he managed to shout. And now she could feel a cold steel blade along the right side of her throat. “Leggo, sweetheart! Or I’ll gut you like a fish!”

Zana paused for a moment, something in her wanting to tell him to go screw himself, something in her willing to die for the privilege of defying him. But something else wanted to live, if nothing else because she couldn’t stand the thought that she would die while her father still lived. She let go of the arm, the whirling dust storm surrounding them, the man’s weight crushing her face against the ground. She turned her head left to be able to breathe. The ground pressed back at her fiercely, several fist-sized rocks strewn underneath her—Ernsto was clearly a lot bigger than she was, his weight easily dominating hers.

“Jax, you idiot!” shouted Mons in pain. “Come here!  I need your help.”

The wind suddenly shifted again and seconds later died as it sometimes did, utterly unpredictable. The sky still hid itself behind high clouds but the dust storm was coming to an end nearly as fast as it had begun.

At that moment, she heard Cotton’s feet scrambling over rock. He’d somehow made it up the rock ledge and now his furious barking fast approached.

“Back him off,” growled Mons, pressing his knife a bit harder to her throat.

Zana turned her head right, the direction of the barking—Mons accommodated by backing off the knife a bit. “Sit!” she snapped, “Stay!” Cotton whined, but she could see in the dimness that he obeyed. “Good boy.” Cotton barked in frustration.

“Good move,” said Mons pained voice in her ear. “It’d be hard for me to kill a dog with only one good arm. Don’ get me wrong, I’m sure I’d still kill it. But it’d be messy. Painful—mostly for it.”

“Him!” Zana snapped back.

“Him then,” answered Mons.

“What the hell!” exclaimed Jax’s slightly slurred voice. “There’s a dog and that woman and…what the hell happened?”

“You celebrated your kill too much, that’s what happened!” Mons snapped. “Come over here and help me tie her up. And my arm is broken, I’ll need you to splint it!”

In this short time, a gap had cleared in the sky, greatly increasing the ambient light. Her head turned right, human right side of her face up, she heard Mons gasp as Jax stumbled close to help him. “By the angels,” Ernsto exclaimed, “You’re beautiful!”

“You bastard!” she shouted. She would have spat on him if she could have.

But then the two of them lashed her as she lay on the ground, using a lot of extra rope on her left arm, and then took her rifle and survival gear. Some time passed before Jax finished with Mon’s arm, before the two of them stumbled out of the area. Cotton obediently but frustratedly sat for her the entire time, barking regularly.

“Come here, boy, help me,” she said as soon as she estimated that Mons was out of rifle range from her dog. How dare he call her “beautiful”—she would escape these ropes and hunt down Ernsto Mons if was the last thing she ever did. She hated no one more than him at that moment—not even her own father.

A Change Of Mind

By Edward M. Erdelac - 

Considine said nothing as the guards led him from the gyrolift to Morgenstar’s clinic, but inwardly, he cursed Kes and himself for putting all his trust in the man.

The clinic was as impressive as the rest of Morgenstar. This was no dispensary with a bored nurse standing by with bottles of aspirin and medical tape. It was a full service facility, and he felt the pit of his stomach shudder at the sight of the cold metal examination table.

“I’ve got to take a leak,” one of the faceless guards announced to the other suddenly.

“What? Now?” exclaimed the other.

“Got to. I’ve been holding it since we nabbed this one. Stay here and wait for the nurse.”

“Hurry up.”

The first guard left, but Considine’s thoughts of overpowering the other man vanished when the guard put himself in the corner and angled his three barreled hyperuzi so it would deliver a cone of fire that would redecorate the entire room. This was no moonlighting Enforcer working toward PC pension. Morgenstar could afford to hire professionals.

Considine glanced around, trying to think of some way out, when the door hissed open and a nebbish looking bald man all in white entered.

“How come there’s only one of you?” the nurse asked warily, stopping in the middle of the room.

“My partner’s taking a leak. Wanna wait for him?”

“I don’t have time for this,” the nurse snapped, annoyed. “I’m supposed to be on deck one-eighty-three in twenty minutes for a bounceball date.”

He crossed the room and went to one of the metal cabinets, sliding his hand across the identification padlock and swinging it open.

“You’re gonna have to hold him,” the nurse said over his shoulder, snapping on a pair of tight gloves.

“Just scramble his brain,” the guard grumbled, “and get it over with.”

“I’ve got to sedate him first,” the nurse said, turning around with a gun-like inoculator and screwing in a small bottle of clear fluid.

The guard sighed behind Considine, and he heard the clatter of his hyperuzi being slung over his shoulder by the strap.

The nurse stepped forward with the inoculator, and the guard’s boots squeaked on the floor.

“Damn it,” hissed the nurse. “Just a minute.”

He set the inoculator on the table and turned back to the cabinet.

Considine snatched it up and spun as the guard’s fingers brushed his elbows. He jammed the inoculator under the man’s unprotected chin and squeezed.

There was a metallic punching sound and the guard stumbled back, gurgling.

Considine reached out and caught the hyperuzi as it slipped off the man’s shoulder.

He trained it on the guard, but the man just crumpled in the corner.

He turned to the nurse, who was standing with his back to the cabinet now, hands up, fingers splayed, eyes wide.

He tossed the inoculator to him. The man fumbled, barely catching it.

“Ready another dose of the same, if you please. Quickly.”

The nurse rummaged in the cabinet. Several bottles tumbled from the shelf and tinkled across the floor.

Considine stood sideways, ready to pepper the doorway should the second guard appear, or fire on the nurse should he try something stupid.

The nurse held the loaded inoculator.

“Butt first,” said Considine, holding out his hand. He heard boots squeaking in the hall.

The nurse handed him the inoculator and backed away.

Considine made a shushing gesture and put his back to the wall beside the doorway.

It hissed open a moment later and the second guard stepped inside.

Considine pressed the barrel of the inoculator to the side of his neck and soon he was face first on the floor.

“Now,” said Considine to the nurse. “Which way to the corporate hangar?”

“Three floors up,” stammered the nurse. “But you can’t get to it. The lift won’t work for you without an executive or pilot ID.”

Considine stooped and plucked an ID card off the fallen guard’s belt, frowning at it.

“What about security?”

“They can go anywhere,” the nurse admitted.

Considine nodded and tossed the inoculator to the nurse again.

“One more dose,” he commanded. “’Fraid you’re going to miss your bounceball date.”

The nurse sighed heavily and went into the cabinet again.

Collision

By Travis Perry - 

Zana mounted the height around the hill in a steady stride, spiraling counterclockwise upward, moving briskly but not so fast she couldn’t hear. Cotton, who’d been well trained, didn’t bark much as a rule and wasn’t barking now. But he whined with an eagerness that told her he smelled or heard someone and it wasn’t easy for him to hold back rushing forward faster than she ever could.

“Good boy,” she said in a sub-vocal tone a dog would hear but a human never would. “Stay with me.”

With a suddenness that Zana had experienced all of her life, the calm night was suddenly and sharply broken by a harsh wind rushing in from the hinterlands. She faced into the wind and saw in the distance a darkness moving forward at a rapid pace, blocking out the stars more each passing second. A dust storm coming in. Soon.

She reached a wall of rock that formed a knob around the very top of this little mountain, a base to a climb that led steeply upward. From above, her ears received a wind-dimmed noise that by its tone had originally been shouts, “Ernsto! Ernsto! Where are you?” The voice she realized was Jax’s.

She glanced down at Cotton, who had his paws on the rock wall, scratching at it with his claws, looking as if he wanted to scramble up the little cliff, growling in a low tone. “He’s up there, is he?” Zana vocalized. Cotton replied with a single sharp bark.

She was taking a risk, but chances were fairly good that Mons would move toward Jax’s voice, giving her the opportunity to come up behind him, if she moved quietly enough. And now was the time to move, while she could still see the handholds in the rock.

Her mechanical left arm pulled her up from handhold to handhold, while she managed to keep the rifle from banging into her too badly as she tried to both help move upward and control it with her right hand. Soon, she’d mounted the little rock wall and found a ledge about a meter wide there. Above her the hill continued up steeply to the top, maybe seventy meters higher. She saw the dark shape of a torso some fifty meters above her, the lower body covered by the curvature of the hill.

She pointed the rifle that way, looking and listening as the wind rushed around her in a whistle. “Ernsto!” shouted the shape above her. “Ernsto! Hey, I brought medicine! Hey, where are you?”

At that moment, Cotton started barking furiously from down below. And the wind changed, now hurling dirt around her, the hillside offering some protection, but not enough to keep her eyes from watering and blinking. But nonetheless she was able to see well enough to notice a flash of movement registering a dark shape—a human shape—hurling itself from behind a boulder less than five meters away on the hill above her, straight down towards her. She raised the rifle to fire, but too late.

A man’s body collided into hers and she fell, losing control of the rife. The man, who had strong arms and who smelled of sweat and bug gall and blood, grappled with her as the winds whipped dust around them and Cotton’s barking transformed into a frenzy…

Word Carrier 9: Thou Hast Prepared a Table

by Heidi Kortman -

Douay Bede took two deep breaths, as Pangur Ban stretched. When the quarr turned its head and flicked its ears, Bede swallowed hard then followed the bishop and Brother Charles. He trailed three strides behind, which did nothing to avert his being the center of attention when he reached the refectory doorway. “Pangur Ban,” he whispered, as the bishop spoke the first syllables of the blessing, “do not hunt here.”

The table and its benches never seemed so long. Pangur Ban paced beside him, tail twitching. The scaled length struck Bede’s calf through his robe, as he walked behind the brothers, the manuscripts, and the other Bibles all seated beside their newly-assigned priests. Murmuring and indrawn breaths, audible beneath the bishop’s prayer, followed his steps.

Bede passed his parents, seated on the opposite side of the great table. After another eight paces, he reached the only open place. Bede hiked up his robe before stepping over the bench. When he settled on the seat, he felt the pressure of Pangur Ban’s weight on the backs of his ankles.

“Stay there,” Bede whispered. That earned him a bump from the elbow of the priest on his right.

The man to his left, his partner for this life’s mission, was shorter than Bede. The man kept his head bowed until the blessing concluded. When he reached out with his chopsticks for a curried seraph nymph, he handled them deftly despite the missing first joint of his right index finger.

“Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has visited and wrought salvation for his people.” Douay Bede said, as he reached for some wolner-grain bread.

The priest swallowed his mouthful. “To shine on those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace,” he said.

“Douay Bede.”

“Father Oaku. The cook here is good.”

Bede ladled himself a serving of the chowder, and poured aniila oil into the communal plate between them. Wolner-grain bread was tasteless without it. He dipped his bread in the oil.

“When the banquet is finished, I’ll begin work on my first homily for the mission. Be ready with Acts 13, verses four through twelve.”

About to take his first bite of the meal, Bede was forced to pause. “Yes, Father Oaku. But—” A large chunk of the oil-soaked bread fell from the slice and plopped into the thick chowder. The splash spattered the sleeve of the priest at Bede’s right, earning him another poke with the man’s sharp elbow.

“What? You are Published, are you not?” Father Oaku glared at Bede.

“Yes, Father. This morning. I know the passage you need, but Bishop Guash has ordered me to speak with him after the banquet.”

The priest with sharp elbows snorted. “They’ve saddled you with a trouble maker, Oaku.”

Father Oaku Mary, his lips contracted like the top of a closed drawstring pouch, leaned away from the table. His back made a crackling sound. He sighed. “I’ll keep him too busy for much.”

Under the bench, Pangur Ban shifted his weight. Bede ducked his head. He didn’t dare whisper to the quarr again. Instead, he poked his spoon at the oil slick in his chowder. Across the table, the other priests and Bibles were enjoying their food. Bede dredged the sodden bread from the soup, and ate it.

Maybe, if he focused on the food, the others would ignore him. The clack of serving spoons and utensils echoed in the ceiling vault. Bede took another spoonful. Lukewarm now, the chowder lacked appeal. “Father Oaku,” he whispered.

The priest crunched another mouthful of curried seraph nymphs. “What is it?”

“After the bishop has finished, may I please take a few minutes to speak with my parents?” Bede glanced down the table, and caught sight of his father doubling over. The explosive coughing fit made other diners lean away. Brother Reita, the assistant infirmarian, rose from his place to help Silas leave the table.

Father Oaku laid his chopsticks across the dish. “Douay Bede, speak St. Matthew 8:22, the Word of the Lord.”

Bede closed his eyes and took a shaky breath. “‘But Jesus said to him,’” he quoted, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’” When he opened his eyes again, his lashes were wet, and he needed to blink. His mother was still at the table, and she was dabbing her eyes with the coarsely woven napkin.

Had she heard his voice through all the other sounds in the room? Did she think him cold-hearted? Bede prepared to stand, but Pangur Ban leaned more heavily against his calves, then wrapped his tail around Bede’s ankles.

Bede subsided on the bench. The quarr’s tail weighed heavier across his insteps than such a thing should do. Brother Reita returned, pausing for a moment beside Bede’s mother before continuing around the table to his former place. “Please, Father Oaku—how else will I get word about my father?”

The priest shook his head. “The man has ash lung. You know there’s no cure.” He laid aside his chopsticks again. “You have word from the Lord, Douay Bede. Speak St. John 10:28. That’s the only thing you need to know about your father.”

Bede stared down into the bowl of chowder. It had reached the stage where it coated the spoon. “And I give them everlasting life; and they shall never perish, neither shall anyone snatch them out of my hand.”  It was true, but to spend the rest of his days with a man who could cast a chill on such a promise? Bede shuddered.

Morgenstar

by Edward M. Erdelac - 

Considine had to smile when he thought about how impressive Gorsh’s office had seemed to him only this morning.

It was a bug hunter’s bait shop compared to Aloysius Morgenstar’s plush, cathedral-like office, which was dominated by a smooth-lined desk in front of a dazzling viewport that looked down on Eclectia below.

He sat in a comfortable chair with two security officers standing over him for a half hour before a side door hissed open and Morgenstar himself entered in no great hurry.

He was younger and fitter looking than Considine had expected. His hair was the color of sandstone, not a strand out of place, and his sea-blue suit fit him better than Considine’s skin fit his skeleton. He was refined and assured in the extreme, but there was a hint of something in his eyes that was familiar, that twinge of madness Considine would know anywhere.

“Inspector Considine,” said Morgenstar, unbuttoning his jacket and easing into his chair. “I hope you weren’t waiting too long. I had an important meeting concerning what to do with you.”

“A meeting with Gorsh and the Peacekeepers’ Council?”

“Oh no no no,” Morgenstar chuckled. “I wouldn’t trust such an important decision to them. They were supposed to chaperone you and look how that turned out. No, it’s been decided that you’ll suffer a mental breakdown – shock, from having witnessed the death of one of your enforcers. You were apprehended by my staff after having wandered into a cafeteria and attacked and murdered one of my employees. You’ll be remanded to the care of the staff at St. Christina’s Clinic for the Neuro-Atypical. Not a top of the line facility, but the PKC insurance won’t cover anything better I’m afraid.”

Considine smiled.

“What’s so amusing?”

“I was wondering if any of your employees will be able to get the taste of Orin Bantry out of their lunches. You can scour that autochef with a fleet of de-con bots for a year and they’ll still probably never eat there again. Office gossip travels so fast. They’ll be saying Bantry’s nose turned up in a bowl of soup a week after the kitchens reopen.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re able to amuse yourself. You’ll have a very long time to do so,” Morgenstar said.

“You won’t be able to keep me there, Morgenstar. You must know that.”

“I know you’re resourceful, yes. I’ve read up on your career. That’s why I’d like to make you another offer.”

“Money?”

“No, you’ve lived so long without it you’re accustomed,” said Morgenstar. “I was thinking more along the lines of salvation.”

“Here it comes at last,” said Considine.

“Why don’t you tell me what you think you know, Inspector? To amuse me.”

“I know you allowed Orin Bantry to provide Almer Croix with a substantial amount of detonite from your company’s stores, and that he intended to use it to destroy the angel colony on the lip of the Boatic Trench. I know there’s something down there. Something even the jelly rollers don’t know about. Something that wants out. It’s an organism, kept in check by the angels. Probably their opposite number. It got to Croix via some sort of parasite, and convinced him it was god.”

He leaned forward in his chair, studying Morgenstar.

“What I couldn’t figure out was what your angle is. But now that I’ve seen you, I think I know.”

“What do you know?”

“You’re not infected by one of these parasites. These pilot organisms, they extend the psychic influence of whatever’s in the trench, influence human minds, but they’re detrimental to the physiology of the host. And you don’t look sick, so you must be insane.”

Morgenstar stiffened, but quickly regained his look of arrogant indulgence.

“How did they convince you to help them, Morgenstar?” Considine asked.

“Let me tell you what you don’t know, Inspector,” said Morgenstar. “You believe you have evidence of the existence of an unknown submarinal species held under a false quarantine in the ZMB facility planetside. Perhaps it was your intent to deliver it to the council once you had amassed more evidence of a conspiracy.”

Considine’s face fell and his eyes narrowed.

“Your Dr. Kes has relinquished your evidence in exchange for more gainful employment.”

“With you?” Considine sighed.

“Now, a similar choice lies before you.”

“Is salvation more gainful employment?”

“Oh yes, much more. God has need of a vehicle, to complete the work you and your enforcers interfered with.”

He raised his hand, and the side door opened once more.

A woman in a sharp suit emerged, bearing an opaque, water-filled container, in which an eel-like shape, about the size of a kitten, undulated.

Considine started to rise from his chair and the guards shoved him back down.

“But you must accept the will of God yourself,” Morgenstar frowned. “Resistance can damage the pilot organism and the host both. Irrevocably.”

“What’s the alternative to salvation?” Considine hissed, gripping the arms of the chair.

“Lobotomy,” Morgenstar smiled. “St. Catherine’s may not be the most reputable institution, but they still have their admission standards. It wouldn’t be right to commit a mentally healthy man.”

“Maybe you should get a room, Morgenstar. You’re the one praying to a tapeworm.”

“This is not God, but a servant of God. A finger….”

“I’ve a finger for you,” Considine quipped.

Morgenstar waved the woman with the jar off. She backed out of the room, the door hissing shut behind her.

“I can see you’ve made your choice, Inspector. You disappoint me.” He rose from his chair and buttoned his jacket, shaking his head as though he truly were saddened. “Inspector Considine isn’t feeling well, gentlemen,” he said to his security guards. “Take him to see a doctor.”

The security guards hoisted him to his feet.

“Gorsh will be looking for me.”

“No, he won’t,” said Morgenstar over his shoulder, as he went to the side door.

They dragged him from the office.