Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories Read online

  BORGO PRESS BOOKS BY JACQUELINE LICHTENBERG

  The Sime~Gen Series from The Borgo Press

  House of Zeor, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#1)

  Unto Zeor, Forever, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#2)

  First Channel, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#3)

  Mahogany Trinrose, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#4)

  Channel’s Destiny, by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#5)

  RenSime, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#6)

  Ambrov Keon, by Jean Lorrah (#7)

  Zelerod’s Doom, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg and Jean Lorrah (#8)

  Personal Recognizance, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#9)

  The Story Untold and Other Stories, by Jean Lorrah (#10)

  To Kiss or to Kill, by Jean Lorrah (#11)

  The Farris Channel, by Jacqueline Lichtenberg (#12)

  Other Jacqueline Lichtenberg Borgo Press Books:

  City of a Million Legends

  Molt Brother

  Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards and Other Stories (Jacqueline Lichtenberg Collected, Book One) (ed. by Jean Lorrah)

  Through the Moon Gate and Other Tales of Vampirism (Jacqueline Lichtenberg Collected, Book Two) (ed. by Jean Lorrah)

  COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

  Copyright © 1976, 1978, 1982, 1989, 1992, 2006, 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Published by Wildside Press LLC

  www.wildsidebooks.com

  DEDICATION

  For John Betancourt at Wildside Press

  and

  Robert Reginald at Borgo Press,

  Who had the idea to collect my short stories

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  These stories were previously published as follows, and are reprinted (with minor editing, updating, and textual modifications) by permission of the author:

  “Recompense” was first published in Galileo, #2, l977. Copyright © 1976 by Avenue Victor Hugo; Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “The Vanillamint Tapestry” was first published in Cassandra Rising, edited by Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurance, Doubleday & Co., 1978. Copyright © 1978 by Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurance; Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards” was first published in Hecate’s Cauldron, edited by Susan M. Shwartz, DAW Books, 1982. Copyright © 1982 by Susan M. Shwartz; Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “Event at Holiday Rock” was first published in Speculations, edited by Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurance, Houghton-Mifflin, 1982. Copyright © 1982 by Isaac Asimov and Alice Laurance; Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “Aventura” was first published in Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine #6, 1989. Copyright © 1989 by Marion Zimmer Bradley Ltd.; Copyright © 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “Mother’s Curse” was first published in Midnight Zoo, January 1992. Copyright © 1992, 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  “Ruella and the Stone” is published here for the first time. Copyright © 2006, 2011 by Jacqueline Lichtenberg.

  Personal Acknowledgments 2011

  First I must thank Ronnie Bob Whitaker. Without his computer wizardry retrieving old files, scanning and OCR’ing typescript and copies, most of this work would not be available.

  But he has an even more astonishing talent to the chronically disorganized—he keeps marvelous files!

  Karen MacLeod is also much better than I at filing, and can’t be left out of these acknowledgements. She has done more than can ever be listed to keep me organized.

  Sharon Jarvis has put time, effort and skill into crafting the presentation of these volumes of collected stories.

  And I have to thank the editors who originally solicited these stories from me. Most of them would never have been written had I not been asked for a certain number of words about a certain topic!

  Robert Reginald, formerly (and presently) of Borgo Press, remembered me and gave both me and Jean Lorrah the opportunity to get these stories back into print. His advice will be treasured.

  EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

  by Jean Lorrah

  One well-known definition of science fiction is “the literature of ideas.” If there is any science fiction writer whose work fits that definition, it is Jacqueline Lichtenberg. She creates whole universes at the drop of a hat, drawing not only from her background in chemistry, but from all the sciences, history, geography, religion, myth, the Kaballah, the Tarot, and Astrology.

  Out of this heady mix, Jacqueline has created a kind of unified field theory that underlies her body of work. The only problem is, it would take a lifetime to sort it all out of the hints she drops in her stories. I haven’t known Jacqueline for an entire lifetime yet, but we have been friends and collaborators for thirty years.

  Jacqueline and I met through Star Trek fandom. We both wrote items for Spockanalia, the first Trek fanzine, but truth be told, I did not pick her name out of the rest of the contributors at that point. It was when I published my own Trek fanzine, The Night of the Twin Moons, that one of my readers sent me a copy of Jacqueline’s first published novel, House of Zeor. Now that made me sit up and take notice!

  House of Zeor introduced me to the Sime~Gen universe, a complex world in which very little is what it first appears. What made me read the book twice in one weekend, though, was the intimate adventure between the two main characters. Here was the kind of relationship story that I usually had to go hunting for in mainstream literature, united with my favorite genre, science fiction. It was a combination I wanted to write myself—and here was someone who had already done it.

  I was at that time early in my teaching career, and thus far all my professional publications were nonfiction. So I wrote a review of House of Zeor, and sent it off to a Trek fanzine, knowing that this was exactly the kind of story Trek fans would love. The review was not a total rave, though—I pointed out the flaws, which were typical of a first novel, but in no way reduced the emotional impact of the story.

  To my surprise, Jacqueline wrote to me (it was still the age of snailmail) to ask if she could reprint my review in Ambrov Zeor, the first Sime~Gen fanzine. Through our subsequent correspondence, she found out that I was an English Professor. The next thing I knew, a huge, heavy box arrived on my doorstep: her latest draft of Unto Zeor, Forever! This was raw Jacqueline, even more emotionally powerful than her first novel, but untamed and, in that condition, unpublishable. I wrote all over it, and added pages of explanations—I probably wrote as many words as were contained in the manuscript—and sent it back to her, not knowing what to expect.

  What I got was a sincere thank you—Jacqueline is one of those rare people who genuinely appreciates constructive criticism. She then proceeded to address all the problems I had pointed out in her rewrite—but resolving each in a completely different way from what I had suggested.

  And that incident pretty well sums up Jacqueline: she always does the unexpected, in both her writing and her life. For instance, the next correspondence we had was over the question of how the channels, featured in the Sime~Gen universe as a given, could ever have figured out how to channel. I kept making suggestions, which she shot down, until finally I came up with a scenario that would work—which she promptly sold to her publisher as First Channel by Jean Lorrah and Jacqueline Lichtenberg!

  As you read the stories in this collection, be prepared for both unique characters and different turns of plot. Jacqueline rarely does what you expect—and that is one of her most endearing traits.

  Jean Lorrah

  Murray, Kentucky

  2010

&n
bsp; FOREWORD

  These stories do not represent my style or skill as of 2010.

  This volume presents the stories in chronological order as they were written—not the usual way an anthology is arranged.

  Many of the lessons I teach at writing seminars and in the online writing school, WorldCrafters Guild at simegen.com, and on blogs are not exemplified here because this is where I learned those lessons.

  Nevertheless, the underlying concepts, themes and subject matter are very much a part of my development as a writer.

  “Recompense” is about a human/alien friendship that involves the human compensating for the alien’s biological imperatives. That could easily describe the two novels, Molt Brother and City of a Million Legends now available in reprint at Wildside Press and in e-book.

  “The Vanillamint Tapestry” is still one of my own favorites, for it deals with aliens who have a totally different view of reality—so different that though they exist in our world, they do their living in another. This story plays with visions of God, and I’m continuing to do that in all my work.

  “Recompense” and “Vanillamint Tapestry” applied what I’d learned creating the Kraith Universe stories (Star Trek Fan Fiction done in the 1970’s and now posted for free reading at simegen.com). There were about fifty creative contributors to the Kraith Universe. I used the responses to those stories as research for the Bantam Paperback, Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg, Sondra Marshak, and Joan Winston.

  In Kraith, I invented my first trisexual aliens and created a relationship between one of them and Kirk and Spock.

  From the beginning, my writing has always been about how relationships (not always romance, but all sorts of bonded relationships) influences actions, changes people, pressures them to soul-growth, reveals hidden possibilities, and generally rules existence.

  But beyond that, I’ve focused on just one of the many possibilities that Relationship brings to a story or a life. Trust.

  If the Relationship is adversarial, trust is based on an understanding of the other person such that predicted responses in any situation materialize.

  “Science Is Magic Spelled Backwards,” which I updated with a few terms without changing a single scene also challenges the ordinary view of the universe.

  One point of fascination to me has always been how someone raised in a household with one view can grow up to see the world very differently, to understand the nature of what is real—and what is not!—in a way their parents just can’t.

  Child/Parent and Parent/Child are another pair of Relationships that drive the conflicts at the core of our lives.

  “Event at Holiday Rock” is an ultra-short written specifically to break into a wholly different style than I’d ever employed. That was the requirement for the anthology it was solicited for. Make up your own mind if it succeeded, and if that newer style affected what was written after.

  “Aventura” was written at request of Marion Zimmer Bradley for her Fantasy Magazine, and won a reader’s poll award. As a result it was reprinted in the mass market paperback Best of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Fantasy Magazine which also got translated into German.

  “A Mother’s Curse” is the first chapter of what I’d hoped would become a novel—and didn’t. Again, I find I become absorbed in looking at reality from a different view.

  “Ruella and the Stone” is new, but a rather introverted experimental story. One woman goes alone into a cave and learns something about herself that changes everything. It’s a close focus on a mystical initiation.

  So even a person’s Relationship with herself can drive a life’s story.

  For me, the key to all Relationship is Intimacy.

  Over the years, I found that I seriously dislike “Action” genre stories—though as a writer, I truly appreciate well written ones. Personally, I don’t think that “Action” can ever solve a problem at the level that satisfies me.

  And stories are always about people who have problems—when the problem of a lifetime falls on your head, you are in the portion of your life when your story is happening.

  As you can see from the stories in this volume, I look for solutions not in “Action” (i.e. hitting people, blowing things up, using force, power or duplicity to neutralize an opponent, though such things are done and happen to characters) but rather in “Intimacy”—the kind of relationship between the character and other characters, between the character and the universe, or between the character and him/herself, that brings trust into life.

  As I sold more stories and novels in the Science Fiction and Fantasy genre, I was taught that SF/F is Action Adventure, and if your plot is not Action/Adventure, it won’t sell.

  Well, a few writers managed to violate that maxim and win awards, but by and large most SF/F published in the mid-twentieth century was Action/Adventure.

  Even Star Trek, the first and for many years only SF on TV, was formulated as Action/Adventure.

  But as I studied what the fans did with Star Trek in the early fanzines, I realized they were wrenching the Star Trek Universe around into the shape that I most prefer—but they had no name for what they were doing.

  Meanwhile, my study of the genre led me to the conclusion that Science Fiction is not a genre at all. As I learned all the formulae for other genres, I realized you can write any other genre in Science Fiction—because Science Fiction isn’t a genre—it is Literature.

  So I set out to write a novel in each of the genres that exist, setting them all in my Sime~Gen Universe. After only two novels were published in Sime~Gen, Jean Lorrah jumped in and began adding Relationship driven stories, love stories and romances. And we’ve been working at it ever since.

  At the same time, I was also writing novels in other series. In the mid-1980’s I won the Romantic Times Award for best SF writer with my novel Dushau, the first novel in a trilogy (Dushau, Farfetch, Outreach, now available on Kindle). It is an SF/Romance, driven by a human/alien Relationship.

  I have several vampire universes, too, containing both SF and Fantasy vampires who have a tendency to form tight, intimate bonds with humans.

  Studying what I write—and what I enjoy most in films and books—and what Star Trek fans and fans of other television shows write in their fan fiction, I found that there is a common thread binding all this work together.

  I decided that what we’re doing is inventing a new genre. We replace the “Action” in Action/Adventure with Intimacy.

  I named this hidden genre Intimate Adventure.

  In Intimate/Adventure combat and the heroism is on the field of emotional bonding, not physical bashing.

  Such emotional bonds can only form when both parties have the courage to drop their emotional defenses and stand stripped weaponless on the emotional battlefield.

  Problems are solved by combining disparate entities via bonds of trust—the necessary precursor of love. The biggest barrier to that combination is disparate views of reality, the meat of my writing from the beginning.

  After years of arguing about the parameters of what constitutes Intimate/Adventure and what to call it, Jean Lorrah and I were approached by a publishing company to write a book on this Hidden Genre.

  We got together on AIM to discuss the outline. At one point, we stopped, stumped. We couldn’t prove that Intimate/Adventure is a genre.

  Then Jean said that Intimate/Adventure is in fact not a genre at all—it is an Archetype.

  We rewrote the outline and submitted the book proposal, which was quickly rejected. It wasn’t a book on genre, so they had no place for it.

  We are now presenting Intimate Adventure as a plot-archetype with a distinctive signature of its own. It isn’t something the fanfic writers invented, or that I promulgated. It has existed since the dawn of time, and in fact has long since become one of Hollywood’s favorite archetypes.

  But it’s never been sorted out and given a distinctive name of its own, a label you can use to find more of it, until now. Intimate Adventure is th
e name of what I write, and even my earliest stories bear that imprint, long before I knew what I was doing.

  You’ll find updates and more about what I’m doing now, the Sime~Gen universe novels with Jean Lorrah, other new and reprint novels in e-book, and new non-fiction, plus links to writing craft blogs all at simegen.com. For a summary of currently available titles and free chapters see http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com—or just Google my name.

  Jacqueline Lichtenberg

  Arizona

  2010

  RECOMPENSE

  Maxwell Dameus Fenton, III, drew himself to his full six feet and allowed his ample paunch to add to the dominance that was more than dignity. He took a deep breath as he eyed the Reservations Clerk and the Liner Captain and then pitched his voice low and spoke with a dangerously intense calm, “I will not, repeat not, under any circumstances share a cabin with a non-human. My stockholders would never stand for it. As humans, you should understand that.”

  “But, Mr. Fenton,” the lean, grizzled Captain said, “I assure you our professional discretion is irreproachable.”

  “I’m certain it is. But you do carry other passengers.”

  Bolstering his confidence by brushing his fingers over the computer input controls on his gleaming counter, the clerk said, “Mr. Fenton, the Line deeply regrets your inconvenience and will go to any lengths to compensate you for losses due to the delay if you choose not to share with our previous passenger, but the law doesn’t allow us to bump this passenger.”

  “The Law! You know damned well you make the law on these forsaken transfer stations! And the entire worth of your Line couldn’t cover the losses IDC will sustain if I don’t get to Samonhauk on time! The economies of whole solar systems will rock to the blow.”

  “Sir.” The Captain stepped around the counter with one professional hand outstretched. “Won’t you just come aboard and meet the other passenger? Right this way. It won’t take but a moment.”