Clearinghouse

By Randall Schanze

Randall Schanze's first book in five years is a fine example of why he hasn't written a book in five years. This collection of short stories is about one third new fiction, about one third stories he co-authored with others, and about one third old, previously-unpublished stories from the wee years of his career. They chart his trajectory as a writer from its start, through his glory days, and up to the present, as he desperately tries to figure out where he should go from here. It's the usual grab bag of hard SF, cheap jokes, horror, unique plots, and recreational sadness, so, please, do check out the return (and possible final exit) of Randall Schanze.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Randall Schanze
• Release date: Feb 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463363843

Randall Schanze

Randall Schanze is a Science Fiction author and blogger from Florida. He's the child of a NASA engineer and an immigrant, and has had a life-long fascination with space and exotic cultures. He's wild-eyed, engaging, chatty, smart, interested in nearly everything, and hence almost instantly annoying in person. Just the same, his writing has been praised by several well-respected professional SF authors. His first love is Science Fiction, and he's been writing for 30 years, though much of that time was spent writing under various pseudonyms. The most noteworthy of these was "Kevin Long," a name he used to publish four books. For half a decade he was the head writer and editor on the Republibot website but he has since retired. During that period, he went by the nom de web "Republibot 3.0" in a paranoid bid to protect his identity from his stalkers, though obvious since he's using his real name now, he's gotten more laid back about the whole thing. He's middle aged, happily married, and has a family. He also sings.

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Clearinghouse

by Randall Schanze

Copyright © 2020 by Randall Schanze

ISBN: 9780463363843

E-book License Statement

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 reader. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

A Perfectly Normal Trip to the Moon

Frame One

Faster than the Speed of Death

Pigs in Space

Frame Two

Jonah's Second Wind

Frame Three

Down at the Crossroads, Round 'bout Midnight...

Art Appreciation

Sunset

Coast Guard

Frame Four

The Dead Man's Dream

The Mark of Cain

Gravity Pollution

Gold Watch

Frame Five

Rumspringa

Books by Randall Schanze

A Perfectly Normal Trip to the Moon

It was the first lunar landing.

He was overcome with emotion, which surprised him. Ordinarily he was level-headed to an unnerving extreme, he was regularly accused of stoicism, even by the other test pilots, and they were hardly a passionate lot. Even by the adjusted standards of his peers, then, he was a cold man, and so he was a bit taken aback by the intensity of his feelings.

He tried to think through it rationally: the flight had been tedious and boring, but not much different than the numerous long-term simulations he and the other pilots had been forced to run, day in and day out for the previous year. The only significant difference was the absence of gravity en route to the moon, which, of course, it would have been impossible to fake on the ground. But he'd been in space before, he was no rookie, so weightlessness hadn't really shaken him up much. Even in the simulator, he'd been able to remember what weightlessness had felt like on his orbital missions, and then sort of imagine what it would be like to do whatever simulated activity had been assigned to him in weightlessness. All the other pilots were scrambling to jump through hoops, but he had been more relaxed, even when the supervisors back at the testing facility were screaming at him to hurry up.

Relax, he'd chided them, even as they cursed at him to do the exercises faster, "It takes longer to do a correction burn in orbit. I know this. Or, Relax, cabin pressure isn't high enough to worry about explosive decompression, and it will take at least six minutes for the pressure in here to leak down to the level where my decision making abilities are impaired, I have plenty of time to get my suit on. I know this. In the end, he felt that it was this flat affect, coupled with his almost intuitive ability to imagine space flight conditions on the ground that got him put on the mission. The Agency itself always denied this, but he knew it was true because he'd heard some of the administrators using the phrase Relax, I know this," in casual conversation among themselves.

There were plenty of better pilots, plenty of people with better reflexes or reaction times, plenty of people who were more intelligent than he, but in the end, his detached calm intuition pulled him through. Where most of the Pavlovian Dogs, as he'd called them, had washed out. In the end, he and three others had been selected to be the first to go to the moon, and of those three, two were overtly in awe of him: he was clearly in charge, and at the top of any future selections for the mission.

All of this he accepted at face value, with no real impact on his ego. He was simply the best suited for the mission, and so naturally he had been selected. What pride could he, and the others take in that? It was not through any particular effort of his own that he was going to the moon, the machinery was already in motion, and it's needs dictated a gear of a specific size, shape, weight, and level of resiliency. He was that gear, a mere piece of the machine, no more and no less.

He had been rather annoyed at the arrogance of the two others who had been selected, of course. He had to force them back on track.

His thoughts wandered as he re-checked the seals on his suit. In the gentle gravity of the moon, and the queer light filtering through the viewport of the lander, there was a strange, dream-like quality to everything. In a distant, far-off way, he heard the other human voice in the lander. It belonged to one of the other two pilots who'd been selected for the mission. Presently, he realized the voice was talking to him.

...hell was that all about? Hello? Pay attention! Hey! Hey!

What, what? I'm sorry. What did you say? he asked. He was distantly aware of the fact that he should be embarrassed, but he was too far gone in his own ruminations and in the rote activity of checking the suit seals to be able to remember why he should be embarrassed. The analytical part of his brain was driving him now, thinking there will be time for blushing later. Do your job now. The non-analytical, poetic part of him, which he hadn't really been aware existed until now, was swamping all his conscious thoughts. It wasn't capable of thinking in words like his analytical half was, but if it were, it would simply have been chanting I am overcome, I am overcome, over and over again.

The other pilot spoke again, I said, 'what in the hell were all those acrobatics about?'

Our prime landing site was unacceptable. It was full of large, jagged-looking holes in the ground, and very uneven terrain. I don't think landing would have been possible there, without seriously damaging the lander, or cracking it up altogether. I needed to find a flat space to put down on. Well, you saw it, after all. As he spoke, he was vaguely aware that these were not the first words he'd said since landing on the moon. He wondered what his first words had been, and was surprised to find that he couldn't remember. He wanted to ask the other pilot, but decided that would be an admission that he wasn't... functioning... quite as he'd been trained to do, which would be more trouble than it was worth at the moment. Better to meet with the Agency psychiatrists once he was back on earth, and go over things with them then. Now, he had other things to do. He glanced at the clock... five minutes? Have I been poking at my suit for five minutes while he was yammering at me? That's bad. That's just completely unacceptable.

He was about to stammer out a reply, when the other pilot spoke first, Actually, I didn't notice that, but I can review the tapes. Good job. Good call on your part. I think I would have lost the lander in that situation. This was said with a kind of audible smile, a sigh of relief that let him know all was well. It was good to have the other pilot along, functioning as a liaison between himself and the cipher-like button pushers back on earth. A pilot understood the need to sit still and regroup for a moment after an adrenaline-inducing situation like he'd just been through.

Adrenaline, he thought, of course that's it. That's why I'm so thickheaded. My brain is swamped with hormones, and for some reason, in this wonky low gravity, it's not filtering out as quickly as I'm used to.

He grabbed the flag—talk of science and exploration were fine, but the flag was the real reason for this trip—undogged the small hatch, and backed out on to the small ladder outside that led downward. The other pilot would perhaps get his chance quite a bit later. His eyes were fixed first on the hatch, then on the floor, then on the outer hull as he crawled past it. He was beginning to feel like his old self again, which is to say he was beginning to feel nothing at all.

The other pilot's voice spoke in his ears, via the tinny little speaker mounted in the helmet. It was low quality, unlike the one back in the lander, and kind of hard to make out.

Mission control wants you to describe what you see.

Fine. I'll describe it as soon as I'm on the ground. There was an audible, static-filled pause of a second or two. He went down another rung on the ladder, still staring at the lander's side, just a couple feet from the surface.

"No, they want you to describe it before you touch the surface."

What? You can't be serious? He stopped descending the ladder, and his mind fretted over his timetable. His every moment on the surface had been firmly plotted out and rehearsed for months in advance: one minute to descend the ladder, one minute, fifteen seconds to give his prepared impromptu first words on the surface, (which had been worked out months in advance), two minutes to plant the flag, forty-five seconds to scrape up surface dust samples, five minutes to circumambulate around the lander itself and check for damage, and so on. He had only enough air for ninety minutes on the surface, and not a moment of it could be wasted; yet he wasn't even off the ladder yet, and already they were wasting his time. This was unscripted, and irritated him greatly. All this was being telecast live from a camera mounted on the lander. Presumably millions of people on earth could see what he was seeing now as well as he could, excepting, of course, that the camera was a lightweight black-and-white model. The only thing he could add to the picture would be to describe the colors he saw, but there weren't any. There are no colors on the moon, just grays and blacks. Idiots, he thought, gruffly.

After another second, the other pilot's voice echoed badly around in his helmet. As he'd flown out from earth, the increasing time lag in communications had seemed exotic, but now it was just becoming a pain in the ass.

Repeat: Ground Control wants your impressions of what you see hanging from the ladder, right now.

Fine, he tried to look around, and failed due to the bulkiness of the suit, and his odd posture on the ladder. He tried again, and failed again for the same reasons. Sighing loudly, he contemplated dropping the flag and using the free hand to maneuver himself into a better vantage point, but quickly thought the better of it. Instead, he cautiously lowered it down, pole first, and poked the ground with it.

In his ears, the other pilot's tinny voice again said, Repeat: Ground control wants your...

Relax, I'm just getting into a better position to see from, and it will take a moment. I know this. Because of the time-delay, the other pilot was halfway through his spiel before he heard him, and abruptly shut up. While talking on the ladder, he leaned the furled portion of the flag against the lander, propping it so it didn't slide. Then he firmly positioned his feet as far apart as they would go, and clipped his safety line to the top rung with a metal carabiner that he couldn't hear or feel at all through his thick gloves. He tugged on it to make sure it was secure, then looped the line like a lanyard around his right wrist and leaned back from the ladder, with both hands off of it. This was very easy in the low gravity. He took one foot off the ladder and swung wide, held in place only by the line on top, and his remaining foot below.

He saw infinity.

He was never able to describe it adequately afterwards to himself or anyone else, but he was overcome by the sense of place itself. For an instant, just an instant, he was not himself, not anyone, not anything. For an instant, his rational mind shut down, unable to cope with the bizarre alienness of the moon, and his irrational, poetic side re-asserted itself. For the rest of his life, tapes of his words on the ladder would show up on TV shows, historical reenactments, and whatnot. He had no doubt that he actually said the words, but at the same time, he had no conscious memory of having done it.

It's... it's... beautiful. Beautiful is not the right word. Beautiful is too small a word. It's beautiful in the sense that an old sailor's face is beautiful. It's craggy and lopsided and sun-bleached and hard and wrinkled, but each line compliments... no, it's like when you look into the face of your grandparents, all scarred and wrinkled and old and damaged by time, but each bit of damage somehow makes them more distinguished, more special, more a part of your own life. The moon is... elderly. It has character. It is a beautiful corpse, inspiring, it... ah... I'm rocking back and forth a little bit to try and get a sense of distance by changing my viewpoint. It's very hard to sense distance. The horizon is much closer than on earth, only perhaps four kilometers, which is... disturbing... from up here. It almost feels as if I could run off the edge of the world... I'm on another world. A pause, and then more quietly, I'm on another world.

He realized with a start that he was crying, but did not mention it, There's the edge of the Schroter valley to the... uhm... I guess that's north. I didn't expect that. I must be a dozen or so kilometers from my intended landing site. The odd perspective here makes it—the valley wall—look like a diorama. It could be made out of plaster by a child for science class. It's pretty big, but I can't tell how far away it is. It could be four kilometers or a hundred meters, I honestly can't say, even wobbling back and forth like this to get parallax. That's really disquieting. There's a big rock a bit to the east. It could be as big as a house, or the size of a truck, I honestly can't tell. Why can't I tell? he wondered aloud, "I guess the lack of an atmosphere. All the lines and edges are too crisp. There's nothing here to 'fuzz' things that are farther off in the distance, and there's very little variation in color. The lighting is intense. There's a lot of glare—the surface is very highly reflective, much more so than even the desert on earth. It's kind of like dirty snow, you know, like the snow that falls near a factory, and is mixed with smog? It's strangely compelling, though, very pretty.

There are no stars. The glare from the ground is washing them all out, but of course, we expected it. The sky is just blank; the only detail I can make out is earth, which is huge. It looks... Imagine you're on a boat at night and see the moon. Now imagine the moon is four times larger than you've ever seen it before. That's what the earth looks like in my sky here, it's huge. The sky is black, but it's an odd black, it's not like a black wall. It's three-dimensional black. It's got depth. It's... like the very body of chaos... I just sailed through it and came out the other side, and it's showing us it's true nature, it's depth, it's weight, it's hunger, it's... Words failed him, as they often did. He didn't believe in God, but if there had been one, and He'd died like Nietzsche liked to say, the lunar sky looked like the kind of hole God would leave behind in His absence.

Evidently he'd said too much, yet he didn't feel he'd said anything at all. In truth, he didn't remember talking, but the other pilot's voice cut him off.

They just wanted you to talk about what the dirt looked like beneath the ladder.

He felt his cheeks go hot. What? Oh, yes.

The other pilot said, Please resume the scheduled activities.

Rationale re-asserted itself slowly. His only thought was I am a fool. He hauled himself back upright on the ladder, unclipped the safety line, and started climbing down again. Well, he thought, lots of men have been in space, and lots have said ignorant things. Fortunately, very few are published, and fewer still are remembered. Still, he was embarrassed.

The bottom rung. Hundreds of millions of people were watching. His insensate ramblings on the ladder would probably be forgotten and do no harm, that is, if the Agency hadn't already cut off the audio-feed while he was blathering. But this, this was the moment everyone would remember. He'd bristled at the idea of being coached in what to say when he stepped on to the surface, but since he'd blanked out and apparently run off at the mouth a few moments earlier, he was thankful that he'd been forced to recite his lines so often. He glanced over at the flag, still furled and propped against the lander, in the crook of one of the landing struts. The red in it was bright enough to be seen through its protective cover.

He took a deep breath, and hopped of the ladder, and into history, saying, I take this step as a triumph of the Glorious Soviet Union, and on behalf of all the workers who have labored to place our nation here. May our actions become a beacon to the rest of the world, calling them to cast off oppression, and join us in the peace and prosperity of global socialism.

He said these words, casually, and in the off-the cuff manner, as he'd been taught to do by the other pilot, who was at this moment a quarter million miles away, on earth, operating as a liaison between himself and mission control at the Baikonour cosmodrome.

He was Boris Volynov, and he was the first man on the moon. The first for his country, anyway. It was June third, nineteen hundred and seventy two.

Frame One

I finish reading A Perfectly Normal Trip to the Moon, and look at the manuscript, confused. I turn the papers over in my hands a couple times, not sure why.

Where did you get this? I ask.

He shrugs. I'm a fan, he says, as though that answers the question.

I wasn't aware I have any fans, I say.

You probably don't. Well, wait, there's that LD Bronstein guy on Amazon who's reviewed all your books, so there's at least two of us.

That's me, I say. He looks perplexed. I'm LD Bronstein.

You post reviews of your own books under a fake name?

Yeah. To prime the pump. No one buys books that have no reviews.

I feel like that's cheating, he says.

It is, I agree.

"Ok, in that case, I guess I am your only fan."

I stare at him with what I assume is a comically confused expression. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Ten or twelve minutes ago, this guy showed up at my door unannounced, and handed me one of my old stories. Read this, he said. So I did. Ten or twelve minutes later, here we are.

What's your name? I ask.

It doesn't matter, he says.

Tell me anyway, I say, so he does. He was right, it doesn't matter.

How long has it been since you've read that? The man asks.

Gosh, I don't know, I say. Maybe seventeen or eighteen years?

It can't be that long. I printed this up from an email last year, but the email itself was dated two thousand and nine.

I don't know you. Why would I have sent you an email?

You didn't. Your friend Miguel Cielo? He's my friend, too. I was babysitting his kids, they went to bed, I got bored, figured out his email password, and found this. Can I come in? It's surprisingly cold out for Florida.

I ponder it for a moment. I'm recovering from my flummoxing, and I am full of questions, but...No, I say. You should go.

Why? He asks.

Hacking my friend's email account isn't really making me trust you.

But I'm your only fan, he whines.

Yeah, that's not making me trust you either. I've got enough stalkers already. I don't need you.

You've got stalkers, but you don't have any fans?

They're not big on reading, I guess.

He laughs. Here, let's try this. He pulls out his cell, fiddles with it, and suddenly it's on speakerphone. I can hear the bleeps as it auto-dials.

Hello? a voice says. I recognize it as Miguel. I ask him who the hell this guy is who showed up on my doorstep, and if he's a psychopath, that sort of thing. Miguel vouches for him. After a bit of cordial chatter between him and my fan, he hangs up.

Can I come in now?

No.

My fan sighs. "The last time he was back from Portland, Miguel visited you, right? When he left you gave him a couple of your books. 'Ice Cream and Venom,' and 'The Undead at War.' A few years after that, I found them in his bookcase."

I assume he never read them?

"Of course not. Anyway, I was in the mood for something awful to read, you know? Something I could make fun of. The titles jumped out at me, and when Miguel told me they were written by a friend of his, I asked if I could borrow them, because, you know, most self-published books are astoundingly shitty, and I needed a laugh. As it turned out, though, your books weren't shitty at all. They were really good. I mean, the first one, 'Venom,' was a little rough in places, but even taking that into consideration, they were really good."

Aw shucks, I say sarcastically as I theatrically kick at the ground.

By then, he continues, "You'd written a couple other books, and so I got those. They were really good, too. Then you did that last one, 'Care and Feeding of Nightmares?' That was freakin' brilliant."

I didn't feel the John Cusack story worked, I say.

It didn't. But the first two thirds, the setup and the mood? Those were awesome, even if there really wasn't any payoff. Also, I like that all the stories had the titles of songs by The Church.

I am genuinely impressed that he picked up on that. No one else has. Of course nobody ever reads my books, and The Church is a pretty obscure band, but still... Fine, you're a fan, I say, shivering. It actually is really cold. Why are you here?

Because you haven't published anything in five years. Then I found this, and I got to wondering what other uncollected stories might be laying around. I didn't find any. I was in Orlando on vacation, and decided to come by and see for myself.

I stare at him for a minute, thinking.

Yeah, ok, you can come in, I say.

Faster than the Speed of Death

Time to throw another log on the fire, Anna said. She'd heard something banging around outside the room and knew the engineering staff was coming. Sure enough, before she'd even finished speaking, the wheel-latches of the door began to squeak and spin.

A trillion dollars, and they can't afford a can of WD-40, she said.

Two of the engineering staff floated in, Arctor and Frink. Both were beefy guys, but Frink was the larger of the two.

Come on, Miranda. We need you in engineering, Arctor said.

Oh, I couldn't possibly, Anna said. I'm way too busy here. How far did the last jump take us?

Get your ass moving, Frink said.

I'll go, Yancy said, from the side of the room.

"Nuh-uh, we need her in engineering." Frink said. He nodded his head towards Anna, who was floating lazily towards the rear of the compartment. She gave Frink a pleasant smile.

No, Yancy said, You just need someone, not her. I'm edgy just waiting around here for my shift to start anyway, he said. Frink looked at Arctor questioningly.

Arctor shrugged. "He can do it as well as she can. I don't really care so long as we have someone in the engine." Frink didn't say anything. Using a small electric fan, he flew himself over to Yancy and held out his free hand.

Come on, Frink said. Wordlessly, Yancy took it. Frink clicked the fan up a notch—it was pulling two people now—and headed for the door.

Thanks, David, Anna said, I'll make it up to you, joking. Yancy didn't say anything.

Arctor lingered. How do you do it, he asked.

Why whatever do you mean, James, Anna said theatrically.

It unnerved him when she called him by his first name. How do you get all these people to take your shift in the engine for you?

I'm doing important work, I can't be disturbed while I'm doing my calculations. Everyone else understands that, don't you, guys? The six other people in the cabin mostly ignored her. One grunted. Another may possibly have grunted, or belched. It was hard to tell. Now, please, how far was our last jump?

One light year.

I need you to be more specific.

Why do you want to know anyway? It's not going to make any difference.

She waggled a felt-tip marker at him. I told you when I asked for this: I'm trying to make some calculations that will make the engines more efficient. If we can get more distance per log, then trips will be faster, and it'll be much easier on the crew. Now how far was the last jump?

Trips are plenty fast already, Arctor said.

If we could use less fuel, it would be better for everyone, Anna said.

Point Nine-nine-seven light years, he said.

I need better than that, Anna said.

I don't remember.

"You've got an eidetic memory, James, you can probably remember the distance to thirteen decimal places, and the more specific I can be in my calculations, the bigger a feather it'll be in your cap once I'm done."

Feather in Tavener's cap, you mean, Arctor said.

Well, yeah, she'll undoubtedly take credit for my work, but a rising tide lifts all boats. You'll benefit. Humor me.

Fine. Point nine-nine-seven-oh-eight-five-one-two-three-three-three-three-six-one-eight-five-one-two-three-three-three. That really is all I can remember.

"Well, now that's interesting!" She said. she said, and turned to face the padded rear wall. She held herself in place with