Aurealis #135 Read online

  AUREALIS #135

  Edited by Stephen Higgins

  Published by Chimaera Publications at Smashwords

  Copyright of this compilation Chimaera Publications 2020

  Copyright on each story remains with the contributor

  EPUB version ISBN 978-1-922471-00-0

  ISSN 2200-307X (electronic)

  CHIMAERA PUBLICATIONS

  Smashwords Edition License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the authors, editors and artists.

  Hard copy back issues of Aurealis can be obtained from the Aurealis website: www.aurealis.com.au

  Contents

  From the Cloud—Stephen Higgins

  Smile—Keith Oakden-Rayner

  Mary, Mary—Fiona Bell

  The Sin Eater—Michael Kellichner

  CONQUIST Part 9: In the Halls of Demons—Dirk Strasser

  Barbara Baynton and the Horror of Women’s Lives—Gillian Polack

  Cthulhu in California—the Writing of Michael Shea—Emmet O’Cuana

  The Opposite of a Broken Mirror: My Time at Gollancz—Part 1—Darren Nash

  Reviews

  Next Issue

  Submissions to Aurealis

  Credits

  From the Cloud

  Stephen Higgins

  This may seem odd for an editor of a science-fiction magazine to admit but I’m going through one of those phases where I’m finding it hard to find something to read. I don’t mean short fiction. I get more than my fair share of short fiction here at Aurealis, but it’s hard to find new longer works to get stuck into. I love short SF. Always have. Like many others it was my entry point into science fiction in general. But I love getting lost in the world of a book. I’ve found myself starting many novels but just not getting into them sufficiently to keep going.

  Another admission: I read almost exclusively on my iPad now. I know, I know. Heresy. And hey, if you’d told me years ago that I would prefer an e-reader to a ‘proper’ book I would have laughed in your face (with a mask on, of course) and sent you on your way. I love books. I previously had a study with three of the four walls filled with books. I was never going to read them all.

  I’m hopeless at maths, but when you get to my age the equation gets easier to understand—X amount of years divided by X amount of books. It wasn’t looking good. So I got rid of them. I gave many to my school library, gave many to friends and family and sold a few boxes to a shop.

  Now I get samples of books to try, which is a great idea. You get a sense of whether you’re going to like the novel or not. I’ve probably gone on to purchase about half of the books I first sample. But lately, not much is appealing. I read a while ago that your Sense of Wonder can get tired out. I mean, let’s face it, in all my years of reading SF and fantasy, I’ve come across an incredible number of amazing plots, scenarios, worlds, individuals, societies and aliens. So it gets harder and harder to actually be amazed. I think the last time I was genuinely blown away by a book was when I read The Scar by China Miéville. I heartily recommend it.

  Anyway, I’m finding it tricky to find the next Scar. People recommend books. I trust the people at Aurealis and their taste in many things and I do follow up some of their recommendations. But lately, no luck. I don’t actually believe that it’s the fault of writers. ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’

  I’m hoping that it’s a passing phase. I’m in big trouble if it isn’t. The same thing is happening to me in music. And film. And work isn’t exactly setting me on fire enthusiasm-wise at present. God, I hope it isn’t a case of ‘Being tired of London’ because I can assure you I’m not tired of life. Anyway, recommendations for good reading are eagerly awaited. And I can’t guide your choices by offering the favourite authors since I have too many to list. Oh, alright then—Philip K Dick, Terry Dowling, my old china, China Miéville—and anything quirky is fine by me, so these are a few to help you.

  All the best from the cloud!

  Stephen Higgins

  Editor: Stephen Higgins

  Stephen has been interested in science fiction for ages and has written a few stories for Aurealis in the past. Lately, he’s been creating a lot of music. You can hear his music on Spotify, iTunes, Bandcamp and Soundcloud and all of the other usual places you get your music. You can find out more at www.stephenhigginsmusic.com.

  Associate Editor: Scott Vandervalk

  Scott Vandervalk has been a freelance editor for over eight years, with projects ranging across the globe, from educational textbooks to novels, short stories, roleplaying games and boardgames, amongst other types of text. Scott has previously worked in science and education support, both of which have led to editing projects related to those fields. When not editing, Scott can also be found dabbling in gardening, cooking, writing or designing and playing games. Scott currently serves as president of the Bendigo Writers’ Council. Website: scottvandervalk.com.

  Back to Contents

  Smile

  Keith Oakden-Rayner

  The only thing that mattered about a face was not wearing it first. The top crews worked in threes, swapped the face between them for days, switching in public restrooms where there were no cameras. One went in, swapped with two, and then they were out. A few hours later, two swapped with three, then three with one, and a week later the web was so complex that even the federal servers had lost you.

  Teams slept in cheap hotels, never at the same place for more than one night. I was making enough money on faces that I threw in the rooms for free.

  I wasn’t getting rich, but business was steady. I only worked with crews I trusted, and there was never a shortage of people willing to sell their face for a week or two. A few scans, and I had a new chip. Unemployment was over thirty percent; what did it matter if a seller stayed indoors for a few weeks? Identity theft was as common as bad weather. The seller stayed at home for a week or two, finally reported their identity stolen, and everyone’s pockets were a bit fatter.

  I didn’t watch the news or read it online, but every now and then I caught a headline about a robbery, a fraud, kidnappers demanding a ransom. Occasionally, I recognised a face. Usually I didn’t.

  Still, when the knock came, I wasn’t surprised. I had seen enough human nature to know that someone would rat on me eventually. It could have been anyone—hauled in, scared, buckled.

  No-one knocks at six in the morning except police, so when the knock came, I pressed the button behind my bedhead, still half-asleep, and heard the buzz of the magnets in the safe under the bed, wiping the chips. I lay back while the front door of my apartment smashed inwards, hitting the wall with a crash. I closed my eyes and waited for the taser, the cuffs, knowing they wouldn’t be able to get me for the chips.

  They didn’t.

  Still, my work meant that I needed to keep a low profile, so I hardly went out, hadn’t for years. I ordered food to the door. I only sold to customers wearing faces of delivery people; it was one of my safeguards. They came in, away from the cameras in the hall and the street, and five minutes later they left with their empty delivery bag and a new chip in their pocket. I had refined my business to the point that I didn’t need to leave my apartment at all. As a result, I didn’t.

  So, when the cops showed me footage from a jewellery store robbery, and the gunman ripping off his ski mask as he slid into a waiting car, revealing my face as he ducked into the
back seat, I had no alibi.

  They even timed the robbery so another customer was at my apartment buying a chip while the store was hit. They’d thought of everything. I had to keep my mouth shut and wear it. It was a good double-cross; all it took was a bug in my apartment, a tiny camera stuck near the front door, for them to get enough footage of my face to make a 3D model, print a chip, and it was me in the shop.

  I got six years.

  I’d heard a week was a long time in jail. Six years felt like a lifetime. A lot of people would have grown bitter as the months crawled by, become angry. I didn’t. My business had always been a challenge, a game. I had been outplayed. I respected them, whoever they were.

  But I was fickle. If I didn’t win, I didn’t want to play again. When I got out, I had no interest in restarting my business. I had money stashed in boxes across the country, so I caught trains from state to state, scooped it up, and bought a ticket off Earth, using the last face I’d stashed away, my little silver chip to freedom.

  After six years inside, and four years in business before that, being myself again took some getting used to.

  I hadn’t made friends since school. I was a ghost coming back to life. Slowly, working in the kitchen of a diner on a no-name satellite, a dingy little stop-off for miners returning to Earth, I gradually let my guard down and got to know my colleagues and some of the regulars.

  I didn’t invent a personality. I was me, just with a gap of ten years that I didn’t talk about. But everyone leaves Earth for a reason, the saying goes, so no-one asked.

  I was free, but I had to learn to relax and sink back into myself. It took time to bring down the walls, the layers that I’d put up in my work, the character I had created: censored, quiet but authoritative, professional. There’d been no space for me. Letting the barriers down took time.

  I was still working at it, sweating over the grill in the kitchen, when trouble found me. I’d learned a long time ago that not talking had its benefits. One was that people created an idea of me for themselves, who they wanted me to be. I guess that’s what happened, that day, while I was trying to keep my head down. Looking back, I could tell; she thought I was mysterious. Dangerous, maybe. I suppose she wanted me to be.

  Her name was Amira, she worked front of house. We had sex out the back. The first time, we hadn’t said more than twenty words to each other. I was cooking on the grill. She brushed past me, took my hand, that was that.

  After, I could tell that she was studying my face, my eyes, trying to work out who I was, what I was. A crim. A mark, maybe.

  She stroked my face and smiled, as if we had a secret, and went back to serving customers. I wiped my forehead with my apron, went into the kitchen, scraped the burned burgers into the bin and dropped six pink patties onto the grill, hitting the plate with a hiss and thick smoke.

  Amira was waiting for me after work, leaning against the wall by the airlock doors. When I walked out of the diner, she looked straight at me, not lowering her gaze as I came closer. There was a mixture of amusement and audacity in her eyes. I knew that people without fear were dangerous. They didn’t plan. They could be reckless. They got caught, or worse.

  She smiled, standing tall. ‘Catching the shuttle?’

  I nodded, pulling my hood over my head.

  ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘Let’s get a drink when we land.’

  I glanced at her, knew that things were never that simple. But I’d never been drawn to simple. ‘Sounds good,’ I said, while the shuttle docked with a bump outside the opaque doors.

  2

  Amira did most of the talking. I liked that. She was smart and darkly funny. She talked about workplace politics at the diner, her thoughts about the space station, Earth’s problems, how she’d made the top she was wearing, why she didn’t eat lab meat. Sure, she was on stims, I could recognise the pinprick eyes and pale skin a mile off, but at least they were mild; she was still in control, just talkative. As she spoke, her hands rose and moved constantly, like an angel and a devil whispering in her ears.

  Who was I to judge? I was on stims, too. Twelve hours flipping burgers, sober? Never.

  Finally, it came. It had to: ‘So,’ she said, spooning sweetener from the bowl and tipping the spoon, watching white crystals fall into the bowl’s wide mouth. ‘What about you? What’s your story?’

  I shrugged, sipping my drink. ‘I don’t have one.’

  She smiled. Her eyes flickered, narrowing into crescent moons. ‘That means you’ve got a big one.’ She licked her lips as she stood up. ‘I’ll get it out of you. I have to use the bathroom.’ She picked up her purse and left, weaving between tables in the dim bar. I watched her go, staring like a farmer hypnotised by a cobra’s dance.

  We started dating, if you could call it that. We had sex at work. We had sex at my place. We drank in bars. She did most of the talking. I did most of the listening. It was a strange new world. I felt like I had come out of ten years in solitary confinement.

  One afternoon I was sitting in bed, smoking, thinking about nothing, when I felt Amira shift under the covers behind me.

  ‘You know,’ she said, ‘you’re like a teenage boy.’

  I stretched my back. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She propped herself up on one elbow. ‘You’re always so quiet you’re almost sullen. It’s weird. And I’ve never seen you eat or drink anything with vitamins in it, everything is processed or fried. And your smoking—’ She traced her nails down my back. ‘—when you smoke, you do it as quickly as you can, and you glance at the door as if your parents are going to come in and catch you.’

  I straightened, moving my back away from her fingertips. ‘Well done, Freud.’ I tossed the metal cigarette onto the floor. ‘Not about my parents, though. I lived in London until I was ten. My parents died in the second wave.’

  ‘Shit,’ Amira said softly. ‘I’m sorry.’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’ I turned around, half-smiling. ‘Anyway, you remind me of a twenty-eight-year-old who cheats on her boyfriend.’

  ‘I do not!’ A look of surprise appeared on her face. ‘I’ve never cheated on anyone. That’s stupid.’ She hit me with a pillow.

  ‘You do.’ I grabbed the pillow. ‘I’ve never stayed at your place, or even seen it. You stay out late with friends I’ve never met. You make us keep this a secret at work.’ I lay next to her. ‘You’re dodgy.’

  ‘No, I’m not,’ she said. ‘I’ve never cheated on anyone.’

  ‘Why can’t people know about us?’

  She shook her head. ‘Workplace politics. It’s complicated.’

  ‘Okay,’ I said, leaning over her, resting my lips over her mouth. ‘Why can’t I stay at your place?’

  ‘You can,’ she said quietly.

  I smiled. ‘I can, can I?’

  She nodded. ‘Just give me a few days to get it ready.’

  I shook my head, brushing my lips over her cheek. ‘Let’s go there now.’

  ‘You’re ridiculous.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, standing up and pulling on a shirt. ‘I’ll be on my best behaviour. I’ll even eat some vitamins. Come on.’

  ‘Wait,’ Amira said. She opened her mouth, then paused. ‘Sit down.’ She sighed. ‘There are some things I haven’t told you about me.’

  3

  Her set-up was as bad as I expected. Not terrible, just amateur. The beakers were cheap and thin; heat would transfer too quickly. And the carbon filter over the exhaust fan was a fake, a bad knock-off. It wouldn’t stop any fumes leaking out of the apartment.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘A patrol will sniff this out from the highway. The cadets they send up here are almost useless, but they’re desperate to score points with their bosses back home. You won’t last another month with this set-up. We’re getting rid of it.’

  ‘Ha!’ she laughed. ‘No way. Your pay cheque at the diner looks like mine. We’re not getting anywhere with them, not away from here, not somewhere nicer. The lab stays.’ She crossed her arms. ‘Unles
s you have a better idea.’

  I rubbed my chin, feeling the stubble grit against my fingers. I looked at her set-up as I thought about it, weighing it all up. ‘Yeah,’ I said finally. ‘I do.’

  Over the next few weeks, I learned how much had changed while I was inside, away from it all. I needed new tools. New software. It took months to get it all together.

  Finally, one Monday afternoon, I clipped a chip into the tiny slot on my temple and turned to Amira, flicking the program on.

  ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘What do you think?’

  She looked up from the TV and stared. ‘Shit,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe it.’

  I turned my head, showing it to her from different angles. ‘Is it good?’

  ‘Here.’ She went to the wall of my apartment, took the mirror from its hook, carried it over.

  I looked into it, turning my face. The face. On every angle, with every movement, no matter how slight, the face moved perfectly. There was no lag, no pixellation, no flat planes or conflicting shadows. I was a sixty-year-old man with small blue eyes and wide-set ears. I clicked the button in my wrist, the face faded and my own mug appeared in the mirror.

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘Good?’ Amira asked. ‘It’s amazing. Let’s find some buyers.’

  ‘Soon,’ I said. ‘Not long now. We need to be patient.’

  Our plan was solid. Miners and truckers who came to the diner travelled a lot for work—up to the mines, back to Earth, on holidays to blow the money they couldn’t spend in the mines. Their movements on Earth wouldn’t raise any flags. They had passports. They travelled. We fitted a booth in the diner with four hidden cameras, and Amira made sure that marks sat in our booth when she greeted them at the door.