Asimov's SF, February 2010 Read online

  The tale is slowly and clumsily told. Mostly we see the events through Alvin's eyes, but gradually a few other characters, dimly individualized, enter the tale, and Clarke shifts the viewpoint to them whenever he needs to introduce some plot point not readily accessible to Alvin. The style is simple, even artless. ("Not for three years did Rorden make more than casual reference to the purpose of their work. The time had passed quickly enough, for there was so much to learn and the knowledge that his goal was not unattainable gave Alvin patience....") The pace of biological evolution seems to have come to a halt: though Clarke blithely tells us of events and characters twenty and fifty and a hundred million years prior to his story, Alvin and his companions seem not very different physically or mentally from humans of our sort, nor is their technology significantly advanced beyond ours. It is a pleasant, charming book, but it shows an amateur's grasp of storytelling technique: Clarke describes one event, and another, and another, and finally the door is open to his climactic revelations and we are shown them, in a hasty, almost perfunctory way, and that is that. Clarke seems to have been aware of the book's naiveté, because he recast it totally for the 1956 novel The City and the Stars, embodying its plot in a much larger and far more complex work.

  Even so, I found Against the Fall of Night enthralling when I was a boy, and readable enough even now. I think that word amateur that I used a few lines back explains its power, and, in fact, the success of all of Clarke's fiction over the following decades.

  Amateur may be a startling word to apply to so famous and widely read a novelist as Arthur C. Clarke. But it has two meanings, one of which has largely been eclipsed in modern-day English. When applied to writers we generally take it to describe a not-quite-competent practitioner: someone who has not mastered the tricks of the storytelling trade, the array of technical devices that professional writers use to draw readers into a story and hold them there. I think that's true of Clarke: from beginning to end of his career, he told his stories quietly, simply, relying entirely on the strength of his ideas and the steady, gentle tone of his voice to keep readers interested. For the most part, it worked.

  But the earlier sense of amateur derives from the Latin word amator, a lover—specifically, a lover of literature, of fine wine, of rare postage stamps, of anything that can excite strong commitment, be it intellectual or emotional or both. We no longer use the word that way in English because, since it has come to take on negative connotations in its other sense, it has been replaced by its Spanish synonym, aficionado. But those of us who love science fiction are amateurs of science fiction, and I think there was no greater amateur of SF than Arthur C. Clarke, who when he was eighteen or so set out to show his love for the work of Olaf Stapledon and other SF visionaries by writing his own tale of the far future. And it is that love that shines through in Against the Fall of Night and most of Clarke's later work and makes it compelling to us despite all its literary shortcomings.

  Copyright © 2010 Robert Silverberg

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  Novelette: STONE WALL TRUTH by Caroline M. Yoachim

  Caroline M. Yoachim lives in Austin, Texas, with her husband and her newborn baby. Caroline began writing fiction in 2005, and in 2006 she attended the Clarion West Writer's Workshop. Since that time, her stories have appeared in Fantasy Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Shimmer, Talebones, and Electric Velo-cipede. In addition to writing fiction, the author also enjoys photography, graphic design, cooking, and yoga. For more details, check out her website at: carolineyoachim.com. In her first story for Asimov's, Caroline takes us to a cruel and disturbing future and exposes us to the brutal beauty of the...

  Njeri sewed the woman together with hairs from a zebra tail. Her deer-bone needle dipped under the woman's skin and bobbed back out. The contrast of the white seams against her dark skin was striking.

  "The center seam makes a straight line,” Njeri told her apprentice, “but the others flow with the natural curves of the body, just as the Enshai River follows the curve of the landscape."

  Odion leaned in to examine her work, his breath warm on the back of her neck. Foolish boy, wasting his attention on her. Njeri set her needle on the table and stood up to stretch. The job was nearly done—she'd repositioned the woman's organs, reconstructed her muscles, sewn her body back together. Only the face was still open, facial muscles splayed out in all directions from the woman's skull like an exotic flower in full bloom.

  "Why sew them back together, after the wall?” Odion asked. “Why not let them die?"

  Njeri sighed. The boy had steady hands and a sharp mind, but his heart was unforgiving. He had been eager to learn about the cutting, about the delicate art of preparing a patient to hang from the wall. What he questioned was the sewing, the part of the work that had drawn Njeri to this calling. She studied the woman on the table—the last surviving grandchild of Radmalende, who had been king when the country was ruled by kings instead of warlords. The two of them had come of age the same spring, and had taken their adulthood rites together. That had been many years ago, but it was hard for Njeri not to think of her childhood friend by name. “You think I should leave her to die?"

  "Her bones were black as obsidian.” He traced the center seam with his finger.

  Njeri said nothing. She admired the woman for her strength; she hadn't cried or protested or made excuses. Few women were put on the wall, but this one had faced it as bravely as any man, braver than some. And her shadowself had been like nothing Njeri had ever seen. Dark, of course, but a tightly controlled blackness, an army of ants marching out from her heart and along her bones. A constantly shifting shadow that never rested too long in any one place.

  "She made a play for the throne. Killed six Maiwatu guardsmen in the process. Her attack has opened the way for the Upyatu. I heard a rumor today the capital is still under siege.” Odion masked the worry in his voice, but Njeri knew he was concerned. He had many friends in the upper echelons of the ruling class—it was how he came to be apprenticed to the highest ranking surgeon at the longest stretch of wall.

  "There is always unrest in the capital.” Njeri didn't add that this woman had a stronger claim to the citrine throne than most. “Besides, it's not our place to say what people deserve. General Bahtir pays us to take people apart and put them back together, not to judge them."

  Njeri nudged Odion aside. She settled back onto her stool, and he went outside to set some water boiling for tea. He didn't appreciate being pushed away, didn't understand why she didn't want him the way he wanted her. She wanted to tell the boy to find someone his own age, someone who liked boys, but Odion wouldn't listen. Njeri returned to her work. The woman's jawbone hung slack below her skull, but her mouth still closed around the clear stone that held her mind while Njeri patched her body together. The woman's eyes stared up at the thatched straw roof, empty, with nothing but bone surrounding them. Flayed open, everyone looked wide-eyed and afraid. Njeri visualized how her muscles should fit together to recreate her strong chin and high cheekbones.

  "Ever wonder what you'd look like on the wall?"

  Njeri tensed at the interruption, then relaxed. Odion knew better than to startle her while she sewed, but she hadn't taken up the needle yet. The boy was certainly persistent in seeking her attention. She considered his question. The work she did was good, healing those who came off the wall, but she had her share of secrets, her share of shame. Life demanded dark things sometimes, she didn't need the wall to tell her that. What would her balance be? She hoped the good in her would be enough to cancel out the darkness, but she could not say for sure.

  "I do,” Odion said, finally. “Wonder, I mean. I've never seen anyone clean—not on the smaller wall in Zwibe, and not here."

  "True, that.” Njeri picked up her needle, ending the conversation, and began to reconnect the muscles of the woman's mouth. She stitched the entire face together without taking a break, though, by the end, her fingers ached.

  When the sewing was f
inished, Njeri made Odion examine her work. It served two purposes. First, it was good for the boy to learn the ritual of checking and rechecking before the patient was restored to consciousness. Ripping out seams already sewn was a tedious process, but a mistake caught now could be corrected. After the mindstone was removed, however, mistakes meant pain and often death. She had to train the boy to be observant, to notice the slightest error. Second, of course, was that Odion's eyes and hands were fresh—he was more likely to catch a mistake if she'd made one.

  Odion ran his fingertips up the seam of the woman's left arm, then down the seam of her right. His touch was firm enough to feel both the surface seam and the muscles underneath, allowing him to test the depth of the stitches. He tested the woman's legs, her chest, and finally her face. He didn't speak as he worked.

  "Flawless,” he said. “You never make mistakes."

  "I'm well-practiced now,” Njeri answered. “I made my mistakes before your time."

  She laid her fingers on the cool flesh at the base of the woman's neck. Odion might be more likely to catch a mistake, but that did not relieve Njeri of her obligation to check her own work. She pressed her fingers along the center seam, sliding her hand between the woman's breasts and over the gentle rounding of her belly. Her body was softer than Njeri's, an alluring contrast to the fierceness she had shown in facing the wall. Where Njeri was lean and angular, this woman was feminine and curved. Njeri lost her place and had to backtrack her pattern along the seams.

  "Did I miss something?” Odion asked, frowning. He placed his hand over Njeri's.

  "No,” Njeri said. She moved her hand away and finished tracing the seams.

  Confident that she had made no errors, Njeri slipped her thumb and index finger into the woman's mouth, which was dry and cool, preserved in a state of half-life. She grasped the mindstone and pulled it free. The woman's muscles tensed, then relaxed.

  Odion held out a cup of hibiscus mint tea, but Njeri waved it away. Too soon. The woman's eyes were closed; she wasn't ready to face the world. She remained motionless, as though the stone was still in her mouth. Even her breath was shallow, as though she begrudged the rising and falling of her chest.

  Odion shifted his weight from foot to foot, refusing to be still. Patience was not a virtue he possessed. Perhaps the young were never patient. Njeri had not been, when she was Odion's age. Noticing her attention, Odion thrust the cup forward again. Njeri took it.

  The woman's eyes opened, clear and dark.

  "The light of the wall shines upon us and reveals our shadows,” Njeri said. “Its light is the gift of a race long gone from this earth. You have faced the wall and returned. Speak your name and you may go."

  These were the ritual words that Talib had taught her, when she was in training. There was a falseness to them, for no patient was ever ready to leave so soon after being awakened, and none saw their ordeal as a gift. But the speaking of names was good, for it confirmed that the mind had returned from the stone. A name provided continuity between time before the wall and time afterwards.

  "Kanika.” Her voice was breathy and weak. Odion pulled her shoulders up and pushed a wedge of bundled straw behind her back so she could sit. Njeri tipped the cup against Kanika's lips, slowly pouring tea into her mouth. For every sip she swallowed, two spilled down her neck and over her chest. Njeri gave the empty cup to Odion to refill it.

  "My son?” Kanika asked. “Bahtir's men came for my son."

  General Bahtir put only his most powerful enemies on the wall, for fear that if he killed them they would curse him from the Valley of the Dead. A child, even one with royal ancestry, did not pose enough of a threat to be spared.

  Odion returned with more tea. “Drink,” he said, pressing the cup into Kanika's hands. Njeri reached to take it from her, but she clutched the carved wood in her fingers and drained the cup.

  "I remember,” she said, “I feel myself open on the wall. Like looking in from the outside."

  Her hands shook. Had there been any tea left, it would have sloshed over the sides. “So much darkness I never knew was there, and my son is dead by now, because I couldn't protect him. I failed him. You should have killed me. There's nothing left of me worth saving."

  Njeri took the cup. She wanted to cradle Kanika in her arms and comfort her, but she had to act as a surgeon, not as a friend. She searched for something she could do to ease Kanika's pain. The stone that had held Kanika's mind still sat beside her on the table. Rainbows swirled beneath the clear surface of the smooth stone. It was a relic of the Ancients, made from the same glassy material as the wall.

  "Here.” Njeri picked up the mindstone and pressed it into Kanika's hand. “To remind you that there is light inside you, too. The colors in this stone are the echoes of your mind."

  "There are not so many stones that we can give them freely,” Odion said. He scowled at Njeri. “You're treating her differently because she's a woman, because you knew her before the wall."

  There was truth to that, but Njeri did not retract her offer. Kanika stared into the stone. “So pretty. Light without shadows. I could swallow it, and drift away from my pain."

  "You would have no way to return, if you changed your mind,” Njeri said.

  Kanika smiled, but her eyes were sad. “I speak of escape, but that has never been my way, you know that. Holding life at such a distance would be like not living at all, too big a price to pay."

  Odion reached for the mindstone, to take it from her, but she closed her fingers over it.

  "I may not be able to use the stone,” she told him, “but I cannot give it up. It is my light, and I carry much darkness."

  Heat rose from the cracked-mud earth. The stars winked in and out of existence at the edge of Njeri's senses, their light distorted by miles of wavering sky. Beyond the thatched rooftops of the village, rolling hills of dry grass stretched into the darkness. Kanika leaned against Njeri as they walked across the village to the healer's hut.

  "I wish I could go home,” Kanika said. “I want to pull into myself and sleep. I feel like I could sleep forever."

  "Your punishment is ended. You could leave for home tomorrow, if you wished,” Njeri said, but she hoped that Kanika would stay.

  "Ended? The wall was the worst, Njeri, but my punishment will last until I die. Anyone who sees my skin will know that I hung on the wall. Do you think people will forgive me? Embrace me into their lives?"

  "Any man worth having would want you still,” Njeri said. “Or any woman."

  Njeri couldn't read Kanika's expression. Was there interest there?

  "You don't know what it's like to be up on the wall. The things I saw...” Kanika brought her hand to her heart, digging her fingers into the fabric of her shirt to press against the seams in her skin.

  "Dreams from the mindstone. Many of my patients have spoken of such visions."

  "No. There is only truth on the wall,” Kanika said. “I thought, before I went on the wall, that I wouldn't have shadows. But I was only adding self-deception and arrogance to the list of my flaws.” Her words came in a steady stream, with only the barest pauses for breath. “No one can understand me, not with these scars. Not because of how I look, but because I know my shadowself."

  Kanika fell silent as they approached a cluster of Bahtir's guardsmen. Normally they patrolled the periphery of the village in pairs, so it was unusual to see them gathered in the road. Several men shook their shields, zebraskins stretched taut over oval frames. Strands of human teeth hung below and rattled as the shields moved. One man ran his fingers over the tigers-eye clasp that held his threadbare orange cloak closed, and another tapped the butt of his spear against the dirt. The guardsmen were on edge tonight.

  One of the men stepped forward to stop the women, then recognized Njeri and saw Kanika's scars. He signaled to the others, and the entire group turned and headed back toward the guardhouse, a large clay-brick building at the outskirts of the village. When they had gone, Kanika pulled out her minds
tone. In the moonlight there were no rainbows, only swirls of a silvery blue. “This is what I thought I was. I was so foolish."

  "That is as much a part of you as the shadows are,” Njeri said.

  "We all have darkness,” Kanika said.

  Njeri had heard this from many of her patients. It was a source of great comfort for them to think that they were not alone in having shadows. Sometimes Njeri wondered if there was truth in their assertion. There was no way to know; the innocent weren't sentenced to hang on the wall. “You've lived your life well, despite your darkness. Doesn't that give you some comfort?"

  "No, don't you see? We all have darkness. All of us,” Kanika pulled away. “The wall is pointless. You torture people for no purpose."

  Kanika took a few steps, then stumbled. Njeri caught her. Her skin was moist with sweat—heat and exertion were taking their toll. “The wall is about revealing a person's darkest truth. If they see their darkness, they can fight it. The knowledge can heal them."

  "It destroys them. It destroys me. And you condemn people to this torture."

  "I am the hands that do the work,” Njeri said. “I don't decide who faces the wall."

  Kanika tried to pull away a second time, but she was too weak. “You pass judgment every time you open someone onto the wall. Don't pass the responsibility to someone else. We all judge, and we all mete out our punishments. You saw how all the guardsmen fled at the sight of me."

  "Superstitious fools,” Njeri said.

  They walked in silence to Durratse's door. Njeri knew the old healer well, for he had cared for her for several months after her mother died. She watched carefully for his reaction when he opened his door. He hid his revulsion well, but she could see the slight flare of his nostrils, the falseness in his smile. She wondered how she'd failed to notice it with the other patients she'd brought him. Or perhaps he'd been more forgiving of the men.