Metal Snow

By J. Timothy Bagwell

Metal Snow collects three science-fiction novelettes: Tangible Light (first published in print form in Analog: Science Fiction and Fact), The Oneiric Telefactor (first published in print form in Leading Edge), and Gently Down the Stream (new and never before published). In a different way each story considers what makes us human by showing someone crossing the traditional boundaries of humanity. In Tangible Light, a young man must find out who he is from biographical information about the thousands of people with his exact genetic make-up who have lived before him. The Oneiric Telefactor concerns a man who operates a synthetic body on Venus while sleeping in a lucid dream-state on Earth—except that his body is not on Earth. In Gently Down the Stream, a drug that allows people to control the content and subjective length of their dreams creates the worst addiction-related crime wave in U.S. history. More than five million "zoners" now live their lives almost entirely in a utopian dream, emerging only long enough to get more drug—and doing whatever it takes to get it. To combat this trend, a creative penal system comes up with the idea of curing addicts by replacing their dream worlds with nightmares from which they will be only too glad to awaken.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Harp Seal Press
• Release date: Jun 14, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310396977

J. Timothy Bagwell

J. Timothy Bagwell is the author of two science-fiction novelettes previously published in print: "Tangible Light" (Analog: Science Fiction and Fact: Jan/Feb 2008) and "The Oneiric Telefactor" (Leading Edge 56). He is also the publisher of Thwendlulla Tlatnet-Tholfth, Consul General of the Consortium of Human Worlds Earth Consulate (Virtual). Bagwell holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and a PhD in aesthetic philosophy. He has taught at Grinnell College, the University of California, and Vanderbilt and worked as an editor and editorial manager for Houghton-Mifflin and McGraw-Hill. In April of 2014 he won second place in the Jo-Anne Hirschfield Memorial Poetry Award competition. Bagwell grew up on the island of Aruba and currently lives in Evanston, Illinois.

Book preview

METAL SNOW

Three Novelettes

Tangible Light (first published in Analog: Science Fiction and Fact)

The Oneiric Telefactor (first published in Leading Edge)

Gently Down the Stream (published for the first time)

Metal Snow

By J. Timothy Bagwell

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 J. Timothy Bagwell

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

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Table of Contents

1. Tangible Light

2. The Oneiric Telefactor

3. Gently Down the Stream

Note: Each of the titles in this book is available for purchase individually.

New from Earth Consulate Press

Earth is Upside Down (and 12 Other Things You Would Know

About This Planet If You Didn’t Live On It)

Link to Consortium of Human Worlds Earth Consulate (Virtual)

Tangible Light

Prashan was running out of time.

He had put off carrying out his father’s dying wish for him to submit to a phenome analysis at the Hall of Records in the Great Library at Polity. He had put it off until only one day remained of the research carrel reservation procured at such enormous expense. Prashan’s intention had been to put it off indefinitely.

Then earlier that morning he had paid a visit to the library, partly out of nostalgia for the attachments of his old life and partly to celebrate the personal independence that the expiration signified. In the stair tower of the Library’s east portico he had seen the Taffonetta mosaics. And he had realized with a shock what it was his father had sent him there to learn. Now he had only about six hours to find it out. It was like looking for a needle’s shadow in an entire field of haystacks. And apparently the only way to proceed was to get a degree in agriculture.

You have to bear in mind, Master Chakrapranesh, the scale of the task before you. Try to imagine a population so large that the number of individuals exceeds the number of possible genetic variations; a civilization so old that patterns and records of patterns have accumulated for age upon age, until the records themselves—and the algorithms for accessing them—have become a topography almost too vast to be navigated. I question whether one day will suffice for the purpose you intend.

In his distraction, Prashan felt more than heard the words of the old man, who had leaned very close to repeat his last sentence. His voice’s deep cello tones seemed to resonate in Prashan’s own vocal chords and its vapory warmth washed over Prashan’s face with the vinegary-sweet savor of cashew-fruit chutney.

Master Chakrapranesh?

Prashan regarded the ancient Thurkmhen critically. The old man was so tall and thin, like all of his race, that in order to join Prashan in the research station, he had to sit on the floor and fold himself up like a ruler. His pale amethyst eyes were wells of steady patience. Prashan closed his own eyes, which were more the color of wet mahogany, and tried to concentrate on the things of which his companion spoke.

One day is all I have.

Prashan’s father had died of the gutworm six months earlier. What had started three weeks before that as an invisible leech-like niblet attached to the wall of his upper esophagus resembled, near the end, a boa constrictor with its head deep in the man’s throat and the blunt end of its tail protruding into his colon. It had started by siphoning off minute quantities of nourishment whenever Prashan’s father ate or drank. As the proportion it co-opted grew, Prashan’s father began to lose weight, even though he consumed more and more. Eventually, the gutworm expanded until it filled and took over the function of the gastrointestinal tract. At that point it took all of the food and let Prashan’s father’s body survive by consuming itself. When Prashan was summoned for the last time to his father’s bedside, the worm was releasing just enough refined nutriment through its glassy skin to keep the man alive until it matured.

There was no cure. By the time Prashan’s father had begun to lose weight rapidly, and a diagnosis had been made, it had already become impossible to remove the worm without killing him. He would continue to waste away as the gutworm dissolved and absorbed his bones, and when it no longer needed him, it would slough off his body like an old skin, head for the nearest large body of water, and found the first Earthen gutworm dynasty. Before that could happen—as Gayatri, his father’s young consort calmly explained to Prashan one fine day in the west garden—the authorities would intervene. His father would be declared legally dead, despite the fact that he would remain alert—the parasite would carefully protect the nervous system until the end because it played an important role in the process of restructuring the host’s body—and the worm, as Prashan’s father would then be in the eyes of the law, would be destroyed.

Prashan had not known of the existence of either the parasite or the laws governing its control. Prashan had not known of the existence of very many things, as it turned out.

May I? the old archivist asked softly. A long jelaba-sleeved arm snaked out slowly past Prashan’s face and touched a small bead of rose-colored light that floated in the dark space before him. A virtual terminus took shape out of thin air, ghostly at first, then solid and substantial looking.

In the faintly glowing cube of Prashan’s terminus hovered the beginning of a poem. Prashan had written it more than a year ago, well before any of the craziness had begun, and then typed it earlier that morning on the ghostly keyboard just as a way to try out the virtual hardware. He had found the tactile sensation in the tips of his fingers as they danced on tangible light unsettling.

If it is true that every night you dream

A thousand lives and that whichever one

You wake up in is the one you live that day . . .

The old Thurkhmen jetted some air out of his nostrils and closed his finely-veined nictitating membranes like stained glass over his eyes a couple of times. Prashan had gathered by now that this was a way of expressing being pleased.

Did you write this?

Yes. It’s not very good. It’s only a beginning. I was just trying out the keyboard.

In point of fact, Prashan had never gotten beyond these first three lines, this dependent clause, this half a syllogism. But they held out a promise that he could not let go of.

May I? The arm slithered past Prashan’s face again. This might be a good way to illustrate my point. Long, graceful fingers did a tarantella over the ghost of a keyboard. The monitor faded and in its place hovered what looked like a series of vertical playing cards suspended in the air and extending forward impossibly far (given the wall Prashan knew to be there) toward a distant vanishing point. The old man pulled gently on a corner of the first card and it grew into a sheet of vellum. On the sheet was Prashan’s poem. Underneath the poem was some more writing in a different language, one Prashan did not recognize.

What’s this?

It’s your poem beginning.

I realize that. So?

But you did not write it.

I just told you that I did. Don’t you believe me?

Yes. But you did not write this one.

It’s the same one.

It is; it isn’t. Prashan recognized a Thurkmhen version of his least favorite Tamil proverb. This one was written by Hamu Hamubhan Bhamjallah of the edgeworld Savannah approximately . . . It took Prashan a moment to arrive at the correct figure from the degrees of galactic rotation given.

8500 years ago?

That got his attention.

But it’s identical, word for word.

Yes. In that sense, it’s the same poem. There are many others, obviously, with only minor variations.

These others lined up behind Hamu’s, I take it.

No. The long fingers flicked the top sheet away and the next one came forward and grew larger. It seemed identical in every way to the one before, except that the writing underneath was in a different language from the first. All of these are identical in every way to the one we just looked at—the one you wrote. That is, they are identical textually. Historically, of course, each has its own context.

How can they all be in the same language?

Shmentanha has been around for a long, long time. It’s not limited to a few thousand years in the history of one small planet. Try to get over the notion that there is something unique about you and your culture, Master Chakrapranesh. The galaxy is very old.

Shmentanha, Prashan knew, was Proto-Indo-European. His father had taught it to him from birth, calling it Old Sanskrit.

Prashan looked at the row of cards each with his poem written on it.

How many are there?

This search revealed a few over seven hundred. That is really quite remarkable, by the way. It must be a very original beginning for a poem.

I had thought so.

Of course, these beginnings lead to quite a number of different poems.

The long fingers danced again and another eleven lines appeared under Hamu’s beginning. Prashan sucked in his breath quickly and held it. He had always intended the poem to be a sonnet. To see it completed was gratifying but filled him with a strange sense of loss. The direction Hamu had taken it both surprised Prashan and seemed to him exactly right, an echo of his own thoughts. The old man showed the rest of the next poem. And the one after that. And the one after that. Three played out ideas that Prashan had considered but not settled on. One went in a completely unforeseen direction.

Of course, this search focused on poetry. The same text may exist under different classifications. And, of course, many people may have written an identical text that never got published. Ah, how many thoughts have been lost to the fire of forgetting!

What difference does it make, as long as at least one copy got saved?

The old man rotated his head on the axis of his nose, first clockwise, then counterclockwise, as he squinted at the boy next to him.

None, if all you care about is the existence of the poem. But what is that? If you care about the existence of the person, then it’s everything. The old man hesitated, seemingly aware that he had perhaps overstepped his role. Would I be intruding if I asked you whether you have a specific research purpose in mind? It might help me to point you in the right direction, if you would like that help. Is there a particular thing you want to know?

Prashan considered that. Yes—why my father thought this would be helpful.

On the morning of his last day on Earth, Gaya had come up behind him silently in the west garden, where he was luring carp to the surface of