Challenging Destiny #23 Read online

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  Copyright ©2006 by Crystalline Sphere Publishing

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  Challenging Destiny

  New Fantasy & Science Fiction

  Number 23, November 2006

  Publisher Crystalline Sphere Publishing

  Editor David M. Switzer

  Contributing Editors Luke Felczak, Michael Felczak & Andrew Hudson

  Cover Artist Cédric Trojani

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  Challenging Destiny (ISSN 1719-9727), Number 23, November 2006. Copyright (c) 2006 by Crystalline Sphere Publishing. All rights reserved by the individual authors and illustrators. All correspondence: Challenging Destiny, R. R. #6 St. Marys, Ontario Canada N4X 1C8. Email: [email protected]. Web site: challengingdestiny.com.

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  CONTENTS

  There's Nothing More Important Than the Environment by David M. Switzer

  Her Watcher by J. R. Campbell

  The Vampire Who Doted on His Chicken by Ken Rand

  Interview with Edward Willett by James Schellenberg & David M. Switzer

  Bread by Jennifer Bosworth

  The Message by Richard R. Harris

  Service With a Smile by Craig Q. Rose

  James Tiptree Jr. and the Tiptree Awards by James Schellenberg

  Sunset Manor by Monte Davis

  Suck of Clay, Whir of Wheel by Pat Esden

  Upcoming Issue—Number 24

  Print Back Issues

  Visit Our Web Site

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  There's Nothing More Important Than the Environment by David M. Switzer

  "I hope my grandchildren will never look at me and tell me, ‘Grandpa, you could have done more for us.’ If we adults fail to put the environment on the front burner, our children and their children will not have any hope of experiencing the abundance and diversity of life's creatures that existed when we were still young."

  —David Suzuki & Holly Dressel, From Naked Ape to Superspecies

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  If we don't take care of the environment, we're not going to be around to do anything else. Although the state of the environment is not so great, it's not hopeless—we need to consider this moment in time as an opportunity. As David Brin says in an interview with Living Planet (posted on his web site): “Pessimists and optimists offer little to this transforming process, because both views encourage complacency. Cautious hopefulness seems best, recognizing that good things are happening."

  Environmentalists have been warning us for many years—for example, John Brunner's novel of ecocatastrophe The Sheep Look Up was published in 1972. But on the whole we haven't listened. Lots of decisions are made by governments, companies, and individuals as if we humans are separate from the environment, as if we can do whatever we want—but that's not true.

  Al Gore demonstrates in his movie An Inconvenient Truth the link between temperature and the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. He shows that ice in Greenland and Antarctica is disappearing at a shocking rate. He reminds us that solving this problem wouldn't be completely unprecedented. We've already solved one global environmental problem—we no longer produce CFCs and the ozone layer is on its way to recovery. As Gore says, “Political will is a renewable resource."

  We're going to run out of oil within my lifetime—maybe not every last drop, but at least in terms of supplying all the demand. This is going to require a huge change, sooner or later, voluntarily or involuntarily. We can wait until we run out of oil, and risk the self-destruction of our culture. Or we can do something now.

  We like to believe that we're smarter than our ancestors, but younger cultures (younger in comparison to tribal cultures) have regularly self-destructed when their main fuel source runs out—it happened to the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Romans, the Inca, and the Aztecs.

  Jared Diamond in Collapse describes in detail what happened to several cultures that self-destructed. For example, he takes us to Easter Island—the location of those mysterious stone statues with big hats. The island was completely deforested by the time Europeans came exploring. Consequences of the loss of forest for the islanders would have been “losses of raw materials, losses of wild-caught foods, and decreased crop yields.” Secondary consequences were “starvation, a population crash, and a descent into cannibalism."

  With respect to societies that have chosen to fail or succeed, Diamond says: “Two types of choices seem to me to have been crucial in tipping their outcomes towards success or failure: long-term thinking, and willingness to reconsider core values.” The inhabitants of Easter Island kept cutting down trees until they were all gone. In contrast, Japan in the late 17th century began to regulate use of its forests—and today, even with its large population, Japan still has a huge percentage of forested area.

  Whereas in the past cultures have collapsed without affecting other cultures far away, now the world is interconnected to a great extent. We're all in the same proverbial boat. Although we may colonize other worlds at some point in the future, right now Earth is the only planet we have.

  In The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight Thom Hartmann explains some of the major environmental problems we face, why it is that we have these problems, and what we can do to turn things around.

  Hartmann shows how deforestation, extinctions, and climate change are causing problems in various places in the world and will cause even more problems in the future. He points out that alternative energy sources require oil to produce—for example, solar cells are made of minerals that need to be mined.

  There are some places in the world where we can see what our future will be like if we don't change things. In Haiti trees cover less than one per cent of the land. About 80 per cent of the people live in abject poverty. Hartmann writes: “As much as 16 hours a day are spend by the average country-dweller in search of food or firewood, and an equal amount of time is spent by city-dwellers in search of money or edible garbage."

  How is it that so many of us don't know important things about the world, and even if we do know we don't do anything about it? Hartmann argues that we have become docile, easy to control. “Far more seductive than opium, infinitely more effective at shaping behavior and expectations than alcohol, and used for more minutes every day than tobacco, our culture's most pervasive and most insidious ‘drugging agent’ is television.” Spending so much time watching a flickering box, we have become disconnected—from other people, from nature, and from life itself.

  Our culture tells us that we humans are the pinnacle of creation, that the world was created for us. Where can we find an example of a culture that thinks differently? Tribal cultures, which have lasted much longer than ours, believe that we are part of nature and should cooperate with the other parts. Hartmann doesn't advocate returning to a hunting and gathering lifestyle, but he does think we can learn some things from the older cultures.

  "The evidence from analysis of tribal peoples alive today is that tribal life is relatively stress-free, satisfying, produces more leisure time than city/state life, and—perhaps most important—is sustainable indefinitely.” What does he mean by a tribe? A tribe is a politically independent unit with an egalitarian structure, obtaining resources from renewable local sources. Ea
ch tribe is unique, and has its own identity; at the same time, people in one tribe have respect for those in other tribes.

  The goal of the tribe is the security of all its members—that is, getting everyone to the point where they have what they need to live. After that, each member is free to pursue their own interests. As more and more people in our culture realize that money is not making them happy, they are looking for some other way to live—some way to transform their lives.

  The subtitle of Hartmann's book is “Waking Up to Personal & Global Transformation.” If we transform ourselves—that is, start telling different stories about how we view ourselves and our place in the world—eventually a critical mass will be reached and our culture will be transformed. (For a fascinating description of how small changes can make a big difference, read The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.)

  Does this seem unlikely to you? It's happened before. Hartmann gives the example of segregation. Two generations ago it was considered normal by most people in the US but then over a relatively short period of time it became unthinkable by most people. Our culture was transformed when enough people started telling a different story.

  How could we do things differently? Robert J. Sawyer has some ideas, which he includes as aspects of a Neanderthal culture on a parallel Earth in his Neanderthal Parrallax trilogy. Neanderthals keep their population constant, use clean sources of energy, and call for a vehicle when they need one rather than everyone having their own. Neanderthal houses are “grown through aboriculture, tree trunks shaped around building forms that had subsequently been removed” (Humans).

  This last feature reminded me of Hundertwasser, a painter, architect, and environmentalist whose work I encountered when I was in Vienna. His work is full of bright colours, spirals, and the integration of humans with nature. He designed buildings that have grass on their roofs, trees in their midst, and floors that aren't flat. Why don't we have more buildings like this?

  In David Suzuki and Holly Dressel's Good News For a Change, they describe how people are making positive contributions to the environment. We don't hear about these people in the news very often—as I argued in a previous editorial (issue #16) the major news sources aren't always good at telling us what we need to know. People often think that they can't do anything significant by themselves—but you could certainly join one of the many groups that are making a difference.

  What makes people happy? Ultimately it's not buying things, which is what our culture tells us will make us happy. Studies have shown that once you get beyond a certain basic level, having more things doesn't bring you more happiness. Suzuki and Dressel believe that it has “more to do with connecting with others, with feeling useful and, amazingly enough, with sharing everything—from food and feelings to ideas and beliefs.” So if you think some things need to change in the world, get out there and share your thoughts with someone.

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  I have some links to web sites that deal with the environment here: www.davidmswitzer.com/fascinating.html. Also see my editorial “What Could Be Better Than Civilization?” from issue #10 for a discussion of Daniel Quinn's books—another perspective on essentially the same topic.

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  Dave Switzer recently cancelled his cable TV. He plans to spend more time communing with nature, thinking, and talking with friends.

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  Cover artist Cédric Trojani is a French illustrator. He's studied painting and sculpture in a fine art school and he's always been a science fiction and fantasy reader. Cédric does his images using 2D and 3D graphic programs and a graphic tablet. When doing a 3D picture, he spends most of his time on texturing and lighting. He would love to be hired to draw science fiction covers and illustrate books. Cédric is 36, married, with one child.

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  Her Watcher by J. R. Campbell

  Collin curled up in front of the monitor, keyboard strapped to his wrists and held before him. He'd be the first to admit the posture was ridiculous but, somehow, comforting as well. As if he were sitting, as if sitting were possible in the absence of gravity. Aboard the ship such habits were called planet-memory: the way your hands shot out before you when you tripped over a ledge, the way people instinctively lunged to catch loose objects seen out the corner of their eye, how everyone automatically oriented themselves when entering a crowded room. Memories of your birth-planet, instincts embedded deep in muscle and bone, pernicious, inescapable and worthless aboard an interstellar craft. One of a million different ways the universe reminded people they could pilot ships in space but home was meant to be a place of dirt, wind and gravity.

  "Try again?"

  Exasperation in the voice, a frustration politely muted but naked to those familiar with the speaker. Collin smiled, raising his keyboard to hide his expression.

  "Launching on my mark,” Collin said. “Two, one: Launch.” He tapped his keyboard, watching his friend's brow knot as his computer spooled out information. Amir was a software genius, his skill envied ship-wide, but like all geniuses he had his eccentricities. Dramatic sighs, of course; anyone struggling with computer systems knew the value of a shoulder-rolling sigh, inhaling enough air to straighten your posture before the noisy exhalation let you collapse into a thoroughly defeated slump. What separated Amir from the other technicians was his humming, a loud, almost happy sound which, while lacking in musical ability, signalled his focus on a problem.

  On Collin's screen a probe mission, culled from the ship's archives, scrolled merrily on. One of the most challenging assignments, a terrestrial planet drop with sample return. Collin had offered to seed the mission archive with a few easy hits but Amir refused, vowing to make the new software work regardless of conditions. The new software cycled easily through the complex launch sequence and piloting cycle, deftly handling an unexpected course correction caused by dark object gravitation, but as the virtual probe warmed against the planet's atmosphere the software glitched. Again.

  As the inevitable sigh occurred, so deeply felt that Amir had to reach out and steady himself, Collin again raised his keyboard to block his amused grin. “Sorry,” he offered.

  "Not your fault,” Amir replied. “Thought the atmo-data stream was the bugger but that's not it. Maybe, hey yeah, maybe the shield integrity subroutine? Yeah. Da, da, da-duh, da, da, da-do—” His thoughts trailed off into vigorous humming counterpointed by the relentless clatter of Amir's keyboard.

  Calling up the next recorded mission, Collin looked to his own monitor and saw a blinking red icon. A text message. Without thought, he opened it.

  Collin's body tensed, straightening into a standing position. Sweat burst from every pore, guilt-sweat. His brow furrowed as he reread the message but the words refused to change. A simple message, friendly in tone, but Collin had been aboard ship long enough to know how unusual the message was. He read it a third time.

  COLLIN—WHEN YOU HAVE A MOMENT, SEE ME IN MY OFFICE.—LYNETTE.

  Lynette. In her office. Collin's mouth was dry, all his moisture seeking escape through his armpits. His body's betrayal was pungent but Collin ignored it. With a guilty glance at Amir, Collin deleted the message. Amir hadn't seen his reaction; he was humming away, totally focussed on the software glitch. Somehow Amir's not knowing calmed Collin, soothed the sour panic knotting his stomach. Lynette's office. Collin shook his head, trying to think of some reason for such an extreme message.

  When Lynette wanted to speak with you, she found you and spoke to you. Lynette knew the ship better than anyone; her sense of the crew's movements bordered on the supernatural. She could find anyone, at any given time, anywhere on the ship. If Lynette wanted to speak to you alone she'd find you when you were alone; when she wanted everyone to know she'd spoken with you she'd find you with a group of people. She could be discreet or loud or whatever she felt was necessary but she was never shy and she always knew where you were. When Lynette needed to see you, she found you.

  When the Captain wante
d Lynette to speak to you, she called you to her office.

  Collin mumbled some excuse to Amir but Amir only nodded, too focussed on the software to look up from the screen or interrupt his wordless song. Kicking off the wall, Collin headed toward the ship's centre.

  It wasn't a long journey; the ship was in orbit around a Commonwealth world and was folding up at a leisurely pace before breaking orbit. Passing others in the corridor, Collin tried to appear calm with only moderate success. At the top of the spin Collin gripped the ladder and began his descent.

  Gravity pulled at him, a sensation Collin normally enjoyed; but now, sweaty as he was, it only made him feel dirty. And short, he realised as he waved to a couple of crewmates in the hall. Without gravity, height didn't matter, but things were different down in the spin and Collin was the crew's shortest member. The blue door of Lynette's office beckoned; the dark blue rectangle where Lynette's name plate should be glared like an accusation. An angry newbie had knocked Lynette's name plate off the wall five years ago but, as everyone on the ship knew whose office it was, no one had gotten around to replacing it. Collin waited for the computer to announce him, desperately hoping no one would see him go in.

  The door opened before anyone saw him. Lynette waited inside, her sharp blue eyes appraising him as he entered. Frowning, she walked back behind her desk.

  "I thought my message said ‘when you have a moment,'” Lynette reminded him, waving to a worn seat. “Not within two minutes of receiving the message. I didn't mean to frighten you."

  "I'm not frightened,” Collin fibbed as he sat down. Lynette looked unconvinced. Her features were severe but not unattractive; she was only a couple of inches taller than Collin but something in the awkward way she handled gravity made her seem shorter. Her blond hair was longer than most of the crew's, an indulgence which softened her appearance.

  "You're not in trouble, Collin,” Lynette assured him. “The Captain has a question for you."