F&SF July/August 2011 Read online

  FSF July/August 2011

  FSF [1]

  Fantasy Science Fiction

  (2011)

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  Kindle Edition, 2011 © Spilogale Inc.

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  Fantasy & Science Fiction, Extended Edition

  Table of Contents | 227 words

  July/August 2011 • 62nd Year of Publication

  NOVELLAS

  THE ANTS OF FLANDERS Robert Reed

  NOVELETS

  BRONSKY'S DATES WITH DEATH Peter David

  THE WITCH OF CORINTH Steven Saylor

  THE RAMSHEAD ALGORITHM KJ Kabza

  SHORT STORIES

  THE WAY IT WORKS OUT AND ALL Peter S. Beagle

  LESS STATELY MANSIONS Rob Chilson

  HAIR Joan Aiken

  SIR MORGRAVAIN SPEAKS OF NIGHT DRAGONS AND OTHER THINGS Richard Bowes

  SOMEONE LIKE YOU Michael Alexander

  DEPARTMENTS

  BOOKS TO LOOK FOR Charles de Lint

  BOOKS Elizabeth Hand

  PLUMAGE FROM PEGASUS: A SHORT HISTORY OF THE ETEWAF REVOLUTION Paul Di Filippo

  FILMS: FREE WILL HUNTING|:Steven Saylork or b Lucius Shepard

  SCIENCE: PATTERN RECOGNITION RANDOMNESS, AND ROSHAMBO Paul Doherty and Pat Murphy

  COMING ATTRACTIONS

  CURIOSITIES Paul Di Filippo

  CARTOONS: Arthur Masear , Bill Long ,

  CARTOONS: Arthur Masear , Bill Long ,

  CARTOONS: Arthur Masear .

  COVER BY MAURIZIO MANZIERI FOR "THE ANTS OF FLANDERS"

  GORDON VAN GELDER, Publisher/Editor

  BARBARA J. NORTON, Assistant Publisher

  KEITH KAHLA, Assistant Publisher

  ROBIN O'CONNOR, Assistant Editor

  STEPHEN L. MAZUR, Assistant Editor

  LISA ROGERS, Assistant Editor

  HARLAN ELLISON, Film Editor

  CAROL PINCHEFSKY, Contests Editor

  REBECCA FRENCH, Subscriptions & Marketing Manager

  The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction (ISSN 1095-8258), Volume 121, No. 1 & 2, Whole No. 696, July/August 2011. Published bimonthly by Spilogale, Inc. at $6.50 per copy. Annual subscription $39.00; $49.00 outside of the U.S. Postmaster: send form 3579 to Fantasy & Science Fiction, PO Box 3447, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Publication office, 105 Leonard St., Jersey City, NJ 07307. Periodical postage paid at Hoboken, NJ 07030, and at additional mailing offices. Printed in U.S.A. Copyright © 2011 by Spilogale, Inc. All rights reserved.

  Distributed by Curtis Circulation Co., 730 River Rd. New Milford, NJ 07646.

  GENERAL AND EDITORIAL OFFICE: PO BOX 3447, HOBOKEN, NJ 07030

  www.fandsf.com

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  The Ants of Flanders

  By Robert Reed | 18453 words

  The author of such novels as The Well of Stars, Down the Bright Way, and An Exaltation of Larks, Robert Reed is one of the most prolific short-fiction writers at work today. (The sixty-nine stories he has published in our magazine since 1988 almost certainly make him our most prolific story contributor of the past twenty years.)

  A native of Nebraska, Mr. Reed manages to find time to check in at www.robertreedwriter.com occasionally between finishing stories. His latest is a rousing series of adventures featuring a young man with an unusual trait.

  A Tale of Five Adventures

  INTRUDERS

  THE MASS OF A COMET was pressed into a long, dense needle. Dressed with carbon weaves and metametals, the needle showed nothing extraneous to the universe. The frigid black hull looked like space itself, and it carried nothing that could leak or glimmer or produce the tiniest electronic fart—a trillion tons of totipotent matter stripped of engines but charging ahead at nine percent light speed. No sun or known world would claim ownership. No analysis of its workings or past trajectory would mark any culpable builder. Great wealth and ferocious genius had been invested in a device that was nearly invisible, inert as a bullet, and flying by time, aimed at a forbidden, heavily protected region.

  The yellow-white sun brightened while space grew increasingly dirty. Stray ions and every twist of dust were I pick up the corner of the net... I pick up the corner of the netor every thth of the hazards. The damage of the inevitable impacts could be ignored, but there would always be a flash of radiant light. A million hidden eyes lay before it, each linked to paranoid minds doing nothing but marking every unexpected event. Security networks were hunting for patterns, for random noise and vast conspiracies. This was why secrecy had to be maintained as long as possible. This was why the needle fell to thirty AU before the long stasis ended. A temporary mind was grown on the hull. Absorbed starlight powered thought and allowed a platoon of eyes to sprout. Thousands of worlds offered themselves. Most were barren, but the largest few wore atmospheres and rich climates. This was wilderness, and the wilderness was gorgeous. Several planets tempted the newborn pilot, but the primary target still had its charms—a radio-bright knob of water and oxygen, silicates and slow green life.

  Final course corrections demanded to be made, and the terrific momentum had to be surrendered. To achieve both, the needle's tail was quickly reconfigured, micron wires reaching out for thousands of miles before weaving an obedient smoke that took its first long bite of a solar wind.

  That wind tasted very much like sugar.

  The penguins were coming. With their looks and comical ways, Humboldt penguins meant lots of money for the Children's Zoo, and that's why a fancy exhibit had been built for them. People loved to stand in flocks, watching the comical, nervous birds that looked like little people. But of course penguins were nothing like people, and while Simon Bloch figured he would like the birds well enough, he certainly wasn't part of anybody's flock.

  Bloch was a stubborn, self-contained sixteen-year-old. Six foot five, thick-limbed and stronger than most grown men, he was a big slab of a boy with a slow unconcerned walk and a perpetually half-asleep face that despite appearances noticed quite a lot. Maybe he wasn't genius-smart, but he was bright and studious enough to gain admission to the honors science program at the Zoo School. Teachers found him capable. His stubborn indifference made him seem mature. But there was a distinct, even unique quality: Because of a quirk deep in the boy's nature, he had never known fear.

  Even as a baby, Bloch proved immune to loud noises and bad dreams. His older and decidedly normal brother later hammered him with stories about nocturnal demons and giant snakes that ate nothing but kindergarteners, yet those torments only fed a burning curiosity. As a seven-year-old, Bloch slipped out of the house at night, wandering alleys and wooded lots, hoping to come across the world's last T. rex . At nine, he got on a bus and rode halfway to Seattle, wanting to chase down Bigfoot. He wasn't testing his bravery. Bravery was what other people summoned when their mouths went dry and hearts pounded. What he wanted was to stare into the eyes of a monster, admiring its malicious, intoxicating power, and if possible, steal a little of that magic for himself.

  Bloch wasn't thinking about monsters. The first penguins would arrive tomorrow morning, and he was thinking how they were going to be greeted with a press conference and party for the zoo's sugar daddies. Mr. Rightly had asked Bloch to stay late and help move furniture, and that's why the boy was walking home later than usual. It was a warm November afternoon, bright despite the sun hanging low. Three hundred pounds of casual, unhurried muscle was headed east. Bloch was imagining penguins swimming in their new pool, and then a car horn intruded, screaming in the distance. And in the next second a father down the street began yelling at his kid, telling him to get the hell inside now. Neither noise seemed remarkable, but they shook Bloch out of his daydream.

  Then a pair of cars shot past on Pender
. Pender Boulevard was a block north, and the cars started fast and accelerated all the way down the long hill. They had to be doing seventy if not a flat-out eighty, and under the roar of wasted gas subsequentb aTorhe heard the distinct double-tone announcing a text from Matt.

  It was perfectly normal for Bloch's soldier-brother to drop a few words on "the kid" before going to bed.

  SO WHAT THE HELL IS IT, Bloch read.

  WHATS WHAT, he wrote back. But before he could send, a second cryptic message arrived from the world's night side.

  THAT BIG AND MOVING THAT FAST SHIT GLAD IT'S PROBABLY MISSING US AREN'T YOU

  Bloch snorted and sent his two words.

  The racing cars had disappeared down the road. The distant horn had stopped blaring and nobody was shouting at his kids. Yet nothing seemed normal now. Bloch felt it. Pender was hidden behind the houses, but as if on a signal, the traffic suddenly turned heavy. Drivers were doing fifty or sixty where forty was the limit, and the street sounded jammed. Bloch tried phoning a couple friends, except there was no getting through. So he tried his mother at work, but just when it seemed as if he had a connection, the line went dead.

  Then the Matt-tones returned.

  A BIG-ASS SPACESHIP DROPPING TOWARD US CATCHING SUN LIKE A SAIL ARE YOU THE HELL WATCHING?????

  Bloch tried pulling up the BBC science page. Nothing came fast and his phone's battery was pretty much drained. He stood on a sidewalk only four blocks from home, but he still had to cross Pender. And it sounded like NASCAR out there. Cars were braking, tires squealing. Suddenly a Mini came charging around the corner. Bloch saw spiked orange hair and a cigarette in one hand. The woman drove past him and turned into the next driveway, hitting the pavement hard enough to make sparks. Then she was parked and running up her porch steps, fighting with her keys to find the one that fit her lock.

  "What's happening?" Bloch called out.

  She turned toward the voice and dropped the key ring, and stuffing the cigarette into her mouth, she kneeled and got lucky. Finding the key that she needed, she stood up and puffed, saying, "Aliens are coming. Big as the Earth, their ship is, and it's going to fucking hit us."

  "Hit us?"

  "Hit the Earth, yeah. In five minutes."

  On that note, the woman dove into her house, vanishing.

  Perched on a nearby locust tree, a squirrel held its head cocked, one brown eye watching the very big boy.

  "A starship," Bloch said, laughing. "That's news."

  Chirping in agreement, the squirrel climbed to its home of leaves.

  An image had loaded on the phone's little screen—black space surrounding a meaningless blur painted an arbitrary pink by the software. The tiny scroll at the bottom was running an update of events that only started half an hour ago. The starship was huge but quick, and astronomers had only just noticed it. The ship seemed to weigh nothing. Sunlight and the solar wind had slowed it down to a thousand miles every second, which was a thousand times faster than a rifle slug, and a clock in the right corner was counting down to the impact. A little more than four minutes remained. Bloch held the phone steady. Nothing about the boy was genuinely scared. Racing toward the sun, the starship was shifting its trajectory. Odds were that it would hit the Earth's night side. But it was only a solar sail, thin and weak, and there was no way to measure the hazard. Mostly what the boy felt was a rare joyous thrill. If he got lucky with the stoplights, he could run across the intersection at the bottom of the hill, reaching home just in time to watch the impact on television.

  But he didn't take a step. Thunder or a low-flying jet suddenly struck from behind. The world shook, and then the roar ended with a wrenching explosion that bled into a screeching tangle of lesser noises. Brakes screamed and tires slid across asphalt, and Bloch felt something big hammering furiously at the ground. A giant truck must have lost control, tumbling down the middle of Pender. What else could it be? Fast-moving traffic struggled to brake and steer sideways. Bloch heard cars colliding, and the runaway truck or city for hundreds of years. coy hbus kept rolling downhill. Turning toward the racket, toward the west, he couldn't see Pender or the traffic behind the little houses, but the mayhem, the catastrophe, rolled past him, and then a final crash made one tall oak shake, the massive trunk wobbling and the weakest brown leaves falling, followed by a few more collisions of little vehicles ending with an abrupt wealth of silence.

  The side street bent into Pender. Bloch sprinted to the corner. Westbound traffic was barely rolling up the long, gentle hill, and nobody was moving east. The sidewalk and one lane were blocked by a house-sized ball of what looked like black metal. Some piece of Bloch's brain expected a truck and he was thinking this was a damn peculiar truck. He had to laugh. An old man stood on the adjacent lawn, eyes big and busy. Bloch approached, and the man heard the laughter and saw the big boy. The man was trembling. He needed a good breath before he could say, "I saw it." Then he lifted a shaking arm, adding, "I saw it fall," as he slapped the air with a flattened hand, mimicking the intruder's bounce as it rolled down the long hill, smacking into the oak tree with the last of its momentum.

  Bloch said, "Wow."

  "This is my yard," the old man whispered, as if nothing were more important. Then the arm dropped and his hands grabbed one another. "What is it, you think? A spaceship?"

  "An ugly spaceship," Bloch said. He walked quickly around the object, looking for wires or portholes. But nothing showed in the lumpy black hull. Back uphill were strings of cars crushed by the impacts and from colliding with each other. A Buick pointed east, its roof missing. Now the old man was staring at the wreckage, shaking even worse than before. When he saw Bloch returning, he said, "I wouldn't look. Get away."

  Bloch didn't stop. An old woman had been driving the Buick when the spaceship came bouncing up behind her. One elegant hand rested neatly in her lap, a big diamond shining on the ring finger, and her head was missing. Bloch studied the ripped-apart neck, surprised by the blood and sorry for her but always curious, watchful and impressed.

  People were emerging from houses and the wrecked cars and from cars pulling over to help. There was a lot of yelling and quick talking. One woman screamed, "Oh God, someone's alive here." Between a flipped pickup and the Buick was an old Odyssey, squashed and shredded. The van's driver was clothes mixed with meat. Every seat had its kid strapped in, but only one of them was conscious. The little girl in back looked out at Bloch, smiled and said something, and he smiled back. The late-day air stank of gasoline. Bloch swung his left arm, shattering the rear window with his elbow, and then he reached in and undid the girl's belt and brought her out. What looked like a brother was taking what looked like a big nap beside her. The side of his face was bloody. Bloch undid that belt and pulled him out too and carried both to the curb while other adults stood around the van, talking about the three older kids still trapped.

  Then the screaming woman noticed gasoline running in the street, flowing toward the hot spaceship. Louder than ever, she told the world, "Oh God, it's going to blow up."

  People started to run away, holding their heads down, and still other people came forward, fighting with the wreckage, fighting with jammed doors and their own panic, trying to reach the unconscious and dead children.

  One man looked at Bloch, eyes shining when he said, "Come on and help us."

  But there was a lot of gasoline. The pickup must have had a reserve tank, the fuel sliding past the van and the Buick. Bloch was thinking about the spaceship, how it was probably full of electricity and alien fires. That was the immediate danger, he realized. Trotting up ahead, he peeled off his coat and both shirts, and after wadding them up into one tight knot, he threw them into the stinking little river, temporarily stopping the flow.

  The screaming woman stood in the for hundreds of years. coy hold man's yard. She was kind of pretty and kind of old. Staring at his bare chest, she asked, "What are you doing?"

  "Helping," he said.

  She had never heard anything so od
d. That's what she said with her wrinkled, doubtful face.

  Once more, Bloch's phone made the Matt noise. His brother's final message had arrived. EVERYTHINGS QUIET HERE EVERYBODYS OUTSIDE AND I BET YOU WISH YOU COULD SEE THIS BIG BASTARD FILLING THE SKY, B, ITS WEIRD NO STARS BUT THIS GLOW, AND PRETTY YOU KNOW???YOU WOULD LOVE THIS

  And then some final words:

  GOOD LUCK AND LOVE MATT.

  TAR AND NANOFIBERS had been worn as camouflage, and an impoverished stream of comet detritus served as cover. A machine grown for one great purpose had spent forty million years doing nothing. But the inevitable will find ways to happen, and the vagaries of orbital dynamics gave this machine extraordinary importance. Every gram of fuel was expended, nothing left to make course corrections. The goal was a small lake that would make quite a lot possible, but the trajectory was sloppy and it missed the target by miles, rolling to a halt on a tilted strip of solid hydrocarbons littered with mindless machinery and liquid hydrocarbons and cellulose and sacks of living water.

  Eyes were spawned, gazing in every direction.

  Several strategies were fashioned and one was selected, and only then did the machine begin growing a body and the perfect face.

  Brandishing a garden hose, the old man warned Bloch to get away from the damn gas. But an even older man mentioned that the spaceship was probably hot and maybe it wasn't a good idea throwing cold water near it. The hose was grudgingly put away. But the gasoline pond was spilling past the cotton and polyester dam. Bloch considered asking people for their shirts. He imagined sitting in the street, using his butt to slow things down. Then a third fellow arrived, armed with a big yellow bucket of cat litter, and that hero used litter to build a second defensive barrier.