Asimov's Science Fiction: April/May 2013 (13 page)

"That was part of my job when I first took it."

"For Christ's sake! It's a lot worse than when you took it. Since Hunt-Trachtman there are a million people out there who don't give a shit about their own lives, much less yours. Why don't you think a bit more about saving your own life? For my sake."

"Marilee," he said quietly, but with his own edge, "I've got my limits."

"There are always limits on what we can do for each other," Bente said. "But sometimes we have to be willing to stretch them. Particularly now that we have this expanded view of 'self ' as something beyond this body, this set of life circumstances."

"I know," Tim said. "This palimpsest construct, metaphor, whatever it is. The basic self endures. In each life we can only scribe our overlay on the basic essence. That doesn't answer what we can do for others."

"We can't write on that other's palimpsest, only our own," Bente said. "But we can write on—what do you call it?—the edges?"

"The margins."

"Yes. We can write in the margins. You are doing that every day with Marilee, and she with you. I will be doing so with my seven-year-old client when I play back my record of her attacker's arraignment and, when it's therapeutically helpful, his capture." She turned to Marilee. "To save that young girl I took some chances with my life. Sometimes we do that. Don't be too hard on Tim."

Tim eased into the Adirondack chair and leaned back, the bulk of the house behind him and a clear expanse above the walnut trees of nothing but stars.

He breathed easily, let his eyes acclimate until the stellar sprawl resolved into pinpricks of fire.

An owl pierced the night with its call as sharp as Orion's sword. As sharp as talons, rending the illusion of peace which the voles and mice in the meadow grass never had held.

Behind him Marilee and Bente slept in their beds. Tim thought on that.

He knew that his thinking was much different than that of a week ago. Bente had perhaps saved his life. She had certainly given him a new perspective on his relationship with Marilee. On his marriage. Somehow a new friendship had spilled over into therapy, all unwitting to him till this moment.

Marilee was once more the empowered woman in his mind that she should have always been.

Vistas were unfolding as the stars wheeled and the night hours turned over.

Colin P. Davies
lives near Liverpool, England, and his stories have appeared in
Asimov's, Abyss & Apex, The Immersion Book of SF,
and
The Year's Best Science Fiction.
His first story collection,
Tall Tales on the Iron Horse,
is available from Bewildering Press. Currently he is working on a young adult trilogy and developing his Pestworld radio/podcast series. Colin's latest story shows us the perils of eking out a living on the periphery of the infamous legend of...

When Tarn Erstbauer saw the incoming ship score its white trail across the intensely indigo sky he jammed the hammer into his belt and slid down the roof tiles to the ladder. In the kitchen, Mother Lilly sat at the table stoning brightberries. She barely glanced up as Tarn rushed in, rinsed his hands at the sink and freshened his face.

"A ship, Mutti," he said. "Could be customers... with any luck. We could sure use some." He dried his hands on a threadbare towel and watched for a response. When she did not reply he tossed the cloth over a chair and hurried upstairs for his uniform.

In his room he changed into matching viridian shirt and trousers, knotted a red kerchief, and donned the peaked black cap with the gold
Julian
logo—a bayonet crossed with a bayonet bush leaf.
Your expert tour guide.
The mirror screwed to the back of the door told him he looked the part. He ran a hand over his chin. Did he need a shave? No... he did not want to appear too fresh-faced.

As he sat and laced up his comfortable tan boots he gazed out of the small window. The jungle was a green and copper chaos that started at the lane that marked the edge of their field and ended over the horizon and halfway around the planet. Niselle, the star they called
Sun,
hung high over the house and Neet, the ovoid moon, was a pale smudge low in the humid haze that hovered forever over the jungle. Possibly twelve kilometers distant, a disk of white cloud marked the location of Black Lake, a home of the indigenous primes and also, legend had it, of Julian of Earth.

Tarn released a slow breath. That jungle could be dangerous, but it was also his livelihood.

Returning downstairs, he found his mother out in the garden, peering at the sky. His words must have made some impact, though at times it was hard to tell. He took her elbow and she leaned ever so slightly in his direction. "Mutti, I have to go." He brushed strands of white hair away from her squinting eyes. "It's time you let Jenny sort your hair again." She continued to gaze up at the blue. "I have to go to town. I'll be back later."

He jumped into his yellow ten-seater tour-bus, cursing himself for not getting around to hosing down the mud spatters after last week's rainstorms, and started it up. The engine coughed and ejected gray smoke. He reversed up the gravel lane, turned sharply by the water tower, and set off toward town.

The narrow dirt road took him along the edge of the jungle: to his left lay the cultivated fields, the farms that mined wealth from the rich soil; at his right was the jungle—thick, mysterious and largely unexplored. To the rest of the colonists on Niselle V, the jungle was the enemy, advancing, encroaching, and unwelcome; for Tarn, the jungle was a vital source of income. Not that he liked it, or his role in the events that had made his hometown, Dorf, the hub of curiosity seekers and indolent adventurers.

He had told the story so many times that he no longer felt a thrill at the rapt gaze of the listeners. He was unmoved by their empathy as he relayed the tale of how, at the age of eight, he had been snatched from the edge of the jungle by Julian of Earth—the legendary imperial soldier who would not accept that the war had been over for a decade. Honor and suspicion drove Julian to continue the fight against the revolutionaries. From his home in the depths of the jungle he would strike out to disrupt and destroy. Those twenty-seven hours with Julian had changed Tarn—changed his entire life. He told the tourists of his fear, his tears. He described how he witnessed Julian, as cold and calm as an assassin, strangle a leader of the primes and enlist the brood to his service.

Some would tell Tarn that he should feel privileged; few had seen Julian and those who claimed sightings had often proved to be unreliable witnesses. He answered that he did not feel privileged.

Over the years, the sightings had dwindled. Now, fifteen years on, most assumed that Julian was as dead as Earth's claims on the Niselle system. Legends, though, do not die as easily, and a steady stream of the curious and wealthy kept Tarn in business.

He drove the bus faster. Grayshanks scattered from the track, squealing, pounding their ponderous wings as he bounced the bus from dip to dome. The suspension squealed, but Tarn kept up the pace. These days, new springs were easier to find than tourists.

A movement inside a dense stand of red hookwood trees wrenched Tarn from his thoughts. He braked to a stop and pressed his face to the glass. From the shadows stepped a creature the height of a small man; a biped, russet-haired and dappled black. The young prime walked with the gait of a chimp. But this was no ape; the khaki cloth belt at its waist was evidence of that, together with the spiked pole it now waved in his direction. He recognized the creature by the black arrowhead patch on its large forehead. This same prime had observed him many times before. Tarn was unsure whether these appearances were greetings or threats, but they only happened when he was on his own. His tour groups were very lucky to ever spy a prime.

He drove off again. In his mirror, the creature watched until the bus turned away from the jungle to sweep down into the town.

The small silver ship had landed on Prefect Petersen's field, as by-laws demanded. Petersen prided himself on his strict adherence to law and honor; a code that led him to check on Tarn's mother every month—a promise made long ago to his friend, Tarn's father. Tarn and the Prefect had shared an, at times, troubled relationship.

By the time Tarn parked the bus under the broken neon of the squat circular diner, the new arrivals had been processed and a young woman and two men now stood beside their bags on the sidewalk in the early afternoon sun. Tarn leaned on the steering wheel and waited. Would they come his way, or were they just more agricultural officials and trade inspectors?

He took a mint-nut from his pocket and placed it between his teeth, hesitated, then dropped it back into his palm as the short, slim woman left her companions and skipped his way. He pushed open the creaking door and climbed out of the bus. As she ran up, he nodded a greeting.

She smiled up at him; he was not a particularly tall young man, but she only reached his shoulders. She pointed a finger at the crossed bayonet logo on his cap. "Tarn Erstbauer, I'd guess."

Tarn took off his cap and ran a hand over his short black hair. "Yes."

"Perfect." She waved to her companions, who picked up the bags and came over.

"You want the tour?" said Tarn.

She beamed. "More than that." Her hair was a startling red and swept back behind her ears in an exotic, city style. By contrast, she was dressed in a sober brown suit and white shirt. "We'll need a hotel."

"You're staying?"

"A few days at least... it depends on you."

One of her companions, a stocky, mop-headed man with snake tattoos on his cheeks, was holding a camera and proceeded to record the conversation.

"I'll explain," she said.

Tarn donned his cap and pulled the peak down low. He didn't like being filmed. "Go ahead."

"I'm putting together a feature on the Julian of Earth legend. A documentary. It fascinates me."

"It fascinates a lot of people. Not everyone believes it's true."

"But you know it is," she said with confidence. "And so do I."

He examined her eyes. They were gold and intense, beautiful, with lashes also in gold and longer than any he'd ever seen, even on TV. "You're not from our system."

"No, we're from Earth. I'm Anna Walcot-Winter." She took his hand and shook it. "Winter by name, but summer by nature."

Her hand was small and warm and Tarn took a moment too long releasing it. "I've never met anyone from Earth."

"Apart from Julian...."

"Of course." He leaned back against the bus. "You've come a long way, Anna. You must be well financed. Or very keen... or both."

"All of that and more. I'm rich... embarrassingly so. And I'm Julian's great granddaughter."

Tarn could not find a response.

"I've spend the last five years researching my great grandfather," she said. "Earth years... though that's hardly different from yours. I learned about his days in the cadets, his decorated service against the Grim Guardians, and the stories reaching us from Niselle V. I've wanted to meet
you
for a long time."

"Welcome to the tour."

"I want more than the tour, as I said. I want to retrace the route from when Julian kidnapped you all the way back to his hide at Black Lake. If possible, I want to find him and bring him home. But, whatever happens, it's an adventure and will make a great documentary."

"You do realize just where that lake is? In the thick of the jungle. I was eight. As I've told everyone, I can't remember the route. It was too long ago, and everything looks the same in there."

If she was disheartened, she did not show it. She took a case from her second companion, flicked it open, and removed a yellow canvas cap, a bulky object penetrated by wires and coils. "Everything does not
really
look the same. It's all there in your memories. This cap will tease them out and help you find the path."

Alarm was a tightness in his chest. "Oh.... Do I get a say in this?"

"Whether we're successful in finding Julian or not, you'll still get more money than you can imagine. Or maybe you
can
imagine a hundred thousand dollars. And I'll make ten times that. We all win."

Tarn considered his options. He could say
no.
He was not obliged to help. But could he say
no
to so much money? The farm was barely self-sufficient for food, the furnace was on its last legs, and the roof leaked so frequently that he'd tied the ladder permanently to the gutter. It might even be possible to find medical help for his mother. There must be someone in the city. He'd never had the chance before. And at the very least, they would be able to live better, more comfortably. Maybe he
should
let Anna rummage through his memories to search for that route. But there was one problem—one huge problem.

Tarn's kidnapping at gunpoint; Julian's killing of the prime leader and adoption of the brood; Tarn's entire traumatic adventure with the loyal soldier from Earth... the whole thing was a lie.

At the age of eight trouble comes easily, but escape strategies are limited, especially when you have to think fast.

Not for the first time, Tarn had been where he should not have been—exploring the fringe of the jungle, searching between the fronds and brushferns for mint-nuts and the chance to catch a glimpse of the elusive primes. He knew the rules, and he knew the reason for the rules. Yet even the fear of his father's anger failed to keep him away. The nuts were currency in school and his possession of so many raised his status higher than the cut of his clothes. Nuts could only be gathered inside the jungle, as grayshanks and hawks would snatch up all the buds at the accessible edge. So possession was a badge of courage. How could he
not
gather nuts?

The day had been nothing unusual; home from school in the early afternoon, a few brief chores, and now out under a lazy, hazy sun. His shoes sank into soil still damp from the overnight storm. The breeze blew sour with waxwort from the neighbor's field. Against all instruction, he had leapt the wire fence and crossed the lane to the edge of the jungle. After half an hour he already had a small cloth bag near-filled with nuts from two brief forays into the undergrowth and was preparing for a third when he spotted something gleaming in a gap between two hooktrees. The ground dipped just here; a prime path worn down by the centuries. Cautiously he moved into the dimness, following the path, skirting the hanging hooks that would have snagged his shirt. The ground was uneven, soft with gullies and holes. The smell was of old moist leaves. He kept his focus on the bright reflection at the base of an intruding beam of sunlight.

Leaving the path, Tarn scrambled up a slippery incline and leaned over the object. It was silver metal and resembled a belt or bag buckle. He turned it over in his hand, rubbed it with his thumb. It was fine quality and had just one simple pattern at the center—two circles, one large and one small, close together, but not touching. The meaning eluded him. He slipped it into his pants pocket and stood to peer back toward the road. His feet went from under him. He bounced, tumbled through cascading mint-nuts, plunged into the knife-edged leaves of a bayonet bush and his head met something hard....

When he awoke, he was lying at the side of the road with the headlamps of a car in his eyes. Someone touched his arm and he realized that his head hurt like hell.

He had lost twenty-seven hours.

"I can see the scar, but what about the buckle?" said Anna.

Tarn ran a finger down the bayonet bush scar that still marked his right cheek. That injury was a powerful proof to his tourists of the ruthlessness of Julian. He told them it had been a warning delivered with a blade...
next time it will be your throat!

"You do still have it?" she asked. She sat on the edge of the bed, transferring her few belongings into a small chest of drawers.

"Yes, but it's back home." Anna's hotel room was sparse, but clean. "Will you be okay here? I'm sure you're used to better."

She halted her unpacking, smiled. "Maybe I could see it tomorrow?"

"Sure. I'll bring the bus here at nine."

She stood and slipped her brown jacket down her arms, dropped it on the bed. Her tight white shirt made her eyes somehow more golden—so much so that Tarn found he was staring.

"What was it like?" she asked.

"Huh?"