The Echo By Seas; & Other Stories by Soda Tom

By Soda Tom

This annotated edition comprises the complete works of Soda Tom, including "The Shadows" (2017), "The Echo By Seas" (2018), and "^; or, Caret," (2019).

• Language: English
• Publisher: Soda Tom
• Release date: Jun 1, 2020
• ISBN: 9781070760506

Soda Tom

Soda Tom, 58, lives in Florida. He has heart disease.

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the echo by seas; & Other Stories

by Soda Tom

The Complete Works of Soda Tom; Final Edition, Volumes I-III, No. 01, (see below). Copyright © June, 2020; and 2017-2020, ff., by Soda Tom. All Rights Reserved. The Library of Congress, N.W. Washington, D.C., June, 2020. ISBN: 9781070760506.

[Photo Credit, cover: Pexels CCO, Google Images, retouched with irfanview.]

Dedication

To Mr. Harry Dog,

faithful yet

Contents

Volume I of III............................................................14

The Shadows.............................................................14

Act I: Aji.....................................................................14

aji...............................................................................15

celestial hopscotch....................................................27

waking in, the sere dawn, /.......................................41

the dire wolf..............................................................55

presage......................................................................66

coda...........................................................................78

part two.....................................................................78

Act II: Orison.............................................................86

...treble soft...............................................................87

the stanley coup........................................................96

buoys.......................................................................107

the last clown..........................................................114

adagio......................................................................124

Act III: Timing.........................................................133

Rx............................................................................134

a bump named peggy..............................................145

the shadows.............................................................160

timing......................................................................170

laniakea...................................................................183

Volume II of III........................................................198

The Echo By Seas....................................................198

ACT I: Gales.............................................................198

part two...................................................................215

in the midlight.........................................................234

kapitolina.................................................................254

christmas eve..........................................................268

the shadow dance....................................................287

ACT II: Fly...............................................................304

fly.............................................................................305

silhouette.................................................................322

silk roads.................................................................338

part one...................................................................338

the guardian of miskey.........................................338

part two...................................................................358

all the buried empires..........................................358

jogo bonito...............................................................378

ale............................................................................398

ACT III: The Echo By Seas.......................................414

segue.......................................................................416

gravitas....................................................................438

the echo by seas......................................................458

part one...................................................................458

part two...................................................................470

affinity.....................................................................489

many worlds............................................................504

Volume III of III.......................................................526

^; or, Caret..............................................................526

ACT I: Caret.............................................................526

in the ash, a skiff.....................................................527

a woman of hats......................................................540

two hearts................................................................555

one-twenty, eighty...................................................566

disarray...................................................................582

ACT II: T2................................................................596

the howlers..............................................................597

puzzlegrass..............................................................614

the trace effect........................................................631

the divine wind........................................................641

X..............................................................................656

ACT III: Fate............................................................672

Claire (I)..................................................................674

steeplechase pier.....................................................690

a shallow grave (II)..................................................707

gabriel.....................................................................722

azulejo.....................................................................738

Flea Markets........................................................766

The Fizz................................................................768

Special Notices........................................................774

Author......................................................................787

Heart Failure...........................................................789

––––––––

About The Edition

The following is a presentation of 

The Echo By Seas; & Other Stories by Soda Tom,

as it appeared in the popular series at Soda-Tom.org,

from 2017-2020, and comprises the complete works of Soda Tom,

including The Shadows, (2017); The Echo By Seas  (2018),

and ^: or, Caret (2019).

Volume I of III

The Shadows

Act I: Aji

aji

THE HARVEST COLORS of a butterfly, a cardui, with black, and oval eyes, deftly faded into the rustling souse of leaves; in a glimmer of sun, and a coral sweep of clay, the fingers of a hand unfolded; unmistakably, it was a hand, and the hand of a macaque; it wobbled in time, in the air, with playful, and awkward delight, trying to comfort the chrysalis. A shade tree was grieving for a missing hollow. A part of its timber, the two trees had grown together for well more than a century, and formed a sprawling Y craning towards the sky; scarce, if any, notice was given to them, withal a single tree, until both parts were nearly felled by Hurricane Matthew. It was not the more compelling matter how part of the tree was severed from the massive trunk, and it landed in a newly-vacated space.

It was more endearing how the hurricane shaped the remnant hollow of bark; it became the modest, empty facade of a basin, with middling splinters attached to the ground, and the other tree. This gained the skeptical notice of a primary tenant of the once-twin trees, a squirrel, who, lacking guidance, stared at any body, with a perched neck, and more than a little disbelief; the critter stayed undaunted, but this was resolved. A day during the ensuing month, an elderly man plunged his hand into a satchel, garnered wild bird seed, and strew it into the remain, and it became the squirrel’s bowl.

A man can notice, and even oblige two, or three of nature's moils in the span of a life’s time, whether or not even orisons allow one to explore. Be it that, if not enchantment, these are ordinarily governed by chance; their context is mercurial, exacting; as fleeting to surround with one’s hands as a child, or perhaps youth. Time is dispensed in careful, and measured lots; if, it is at all. The new patrons of the tree’s hew – a lodging family of squirrels, a spry salamander, the daily tarry of vagabond crows, and habitually cardinals, seemed to commend it as, possibly, remarkable.

THE PALMS OF HIS HANDS, flat and outstretched, Gabriel spun and glowered, his features vexed at the open, seventh-floor window of a Coney Island flat. He proclaimed, rather inexplicably: Imagine a world in peace, with all men gazing at the wonderful-overcast-city, and his father nodded slowly. Gabe advised him, You know Pop, that's a gunshot, and he insisted, again,—this had been observed four times: "A lady derringer. It’s life-threatening."

His father’s name was Red. Krakow, who was sleepy, whose beak slightly failed, uttered an Aw, and blinked rather blankly at the son. Krakow was a macaw.

Abruptly, Red's eyes widened into a roust, "A lady derringer is a compliment to anyone who lives in New York, imputing neither he, nor the slug were presently en route anywhere to anywhere else. He issued a native family bromide: We won't miss the Mets."

Stewed, Gabriel asked, Maw?

Red plunged into his glider, more assured Gabe was properly redacted, and corrected him, "Mother."

Maw, Gabe reiterated.

"Maugham, then, like Somerset Maugham," said the father, sternly distracted, but without either interest, or resolve.

Red was an Arab-Jewish American. He inspected the oak construction of his glider, and shifted from right to left; the easy chair was as soothing as a handmade casket, except for the parallel lines sewn in colors of bright red, bright yellow, and bright orange; visitors observed the chair was ghastly, as said one.

Red was prone to blush from most exertion. Red derived from his legal name, Reddick. He searched for his calves in the Coney Island apartment, and stretched one, then the other into his plain sight. He was not blushed. Gabriel sat on a stuffed ottoman near the window, and he drummed his knees with his thumbs. He asked, his eyes rolling, thoughtfully, but with a discipline of patience, He home?

No, Red grumbled. He's still in Florida. Your mother, either. She's not home.

"She left New York sixteen years ago, Pop, Gabe said, rising, and began to spin. He spun a lot, suspecting a ballroom dancer lay within his makeup. He flexed his arms outward, commenting to the macaw, Krakow: I’m fly," peering intently at the overcast sky.

"I'm fly, Krakow repeated. The macaw was not compelled to speak on a given occasion, and usually did not. He was listless. Krakow continued bleakly surveying Shell Road in Gravesend, abiding in a secret propriety. His window, Krakow's domain, had been installed in the Ice Age, a time ice men used the fire escape to deliver a block of ice; it had no screen. He invested the street traffic, the tourists, vendors, and strangers seven floors below, finally declaring, Make him bring it! Make him bring it!"

"Better batter, better batter!" Red cheered to the macaw, a dite hoarsely. A macaw is one of the world's largest flying parrots.

Krakow groaned, and turned, using his beak to point from the window sill; pausing at Red, like a stern Pope, the bird commanded, Bacon.

Red leaned to one side of his glider, feebly clasping a hand to his heart.

His neighbor viewed Surf Avenue, the Coney junipers, and Luna Park in the spring light, repairing from months of millennial gusto in Florida, and was listening to the thumps of waves from the beach. He loved New York. He asked Aji, Is this a true story?

Aji gauged his expression, and said, "True, yes."

It's unique, he said. "You’re unique. You’re maybe too unique. Is it the only Obelisk, that is, besides Arthur Clarke's? Who built it? What about the inscription? Why was it built? Is it a marker of some kind? A marker of what?"

I can answer the questions, she said. Yes.

What did the expedition say, that posse?

Aji said, Well. Nothing.

Nothing, he repeated. "There’s one individual, a Will Adorjan, the great nephew of a yet unborn American pioneer, Bud Adorjan. It’s all too far-fetched. You’re searching for this guy. He’s been missing twenty years."

She opted for the ring toss. Aji said, "Will was flawless. And I prefer cairn, or caryatid, to Obelisk. He shrugged. I saw it all, Aji said, reflecting. Happen. I know the image of those clouds. Hours at the rewind button of a black-and-white monitor. Will it fail? Then the clouds disappear. (Pause.) We have 10-magenta skies; dark, brushed peaks of cocoa peaks, copper sand. Will's ship was cranky. The crew was cranky. (Pause.) It’s the...legend of Coda."

He said, It’s centuries away. Light years away. Away. From now.

If you were Adorjan, you would want to know something like, is space flat? Aji responded. There are questions, answers belying the legend, yes. Is it a last stop? Is this the edge of space?

He rolled his hands, and mused. "You’re invading my space. Just...unplug your rover from my Satellite radio, and we’re good here. This Adorjan thing? I can't begin to guess."

If it were as simple, yes, Aji uttered, frustrated. "None of us want to guess. And I'm not...asking you."

Her words were muffled by the siren of the New York Fire Department, which was responding to a burst of flames under the hood of a black Audi, parked in a space at the New York Aquarium on West Eighth across from Surf toward the beach. "You’re really a space...person? he rejoined, turning from the Audi incident, and wanting to say, This is New York. We’re all from somewhere else," but Aji brushed past him sideways, and sprinted toward a Boardwalk arcade.

"What, Pop?" Gabriel asked. Red winced, and eased helplessly from the glider.

The son grabbed his father’s shoulder by the seam of his red, green, and yellow flannel shirt. Red seldom wore the shirt without a careful schedule of outward bounds, and not since a deer hunt in January in south New Hampshire; meanwhile, an oval stain, a deep cruor, oozed in thick goo under the arm. Gabe saw it, and yelled, You're bleeding out!

No, nah, Red said, twenty minutes out from Jeopardy, annoyed, "I caught one, that's all. We’ll see about it. Day, or so. What a loon! He’s waving this pistol out of the car, a big Lincoln! Probably know it. V-8; yellow, big...boat of a car, flopping off one sidewalk to the other. He fires rounds into the air. Sure, sure. Why not? Ping off the concrete. Ping off the dumpster. Ping! Ping. Lunatic."

It is lodged in your back, Pop, Gabriel said, pulling at a receiver from the winding cord of a black telephone with his hand. I'm dialing. He pressed the keys: nine-one-one.

It’s like a bee sting, Red evinced, nervously checking the clock on the wall over the television. "A pebble in the shoe, the casing, they call it. It’ll fall out! I had eleven bits in Korea. They fall out on their own. Hey. Jeopardy."

Shrapnel, yeah, it’s bad, Gabe stated, relaying information to the ambulance, with one eye watching his father; a 67-year-old, Caucasian male with...yes, Medicare.

Listen, Gabe, Red wheezed, rallying, as if an emergency might arise, slurring his words. Like the Alamo, Gabriel. Your mother's in Vegas. We got a bird. We’ve got you. We got me. And a bird. That’s it. Nobody else.

Gabe lightly capped the receiver and said, The ambulance’s coming. Red relaxed; seemed happy a crisis had subsided. He praised Gabe with another family saying, adding a touch of finality, "Son, you'll leave us penniless."

He was spooked by an anteater, scurrying in a dash along the wood baseboard of the island arcade, and decided to embrace the adolescent safety of skee-ball. The callow eyes of the beige, lonely anteater were wont to commune with the middle-aged man, marauder to marauder. Goo ‘way, he suggested, as the anteater slunked beneath a row of mini-hoops. You look like a – VW bus.

He tried sinking small basketballs through small rims into small nets, not liking it much. Why me? he asked. What do I know about space, and time?

More than you realize, Aji remarked, searching for common knowledge. Maybe it’s not the physical edge. Maybe it’s porous. Coda. Or permeable; a thin path to another reality, and finally, Does it sound worth playing for?

Is this Star Trek, or Survivor?

The anteater accidentally landed in the netting of one of the hoops, and wrestled in the twine for freedom; it had already knocked over a set of tiny bowling pins. A Nebraska couple frantically dialed numbers into a cell. Moments later, he heard, There it is! A New York firefighter shouted, and rushed towards the game.

Aji neglected the commotion. Adorjan’s ancestors were from Earth, from New York, she said, subdued. He has not been found, one way, or—the other.

His mind wandered sullenly to a frozen Salisbury steak defrosting on the bar in his flat. It could create a puddle of water puddle, was it a body of water? He decided the notion was entirely stupid, squeezed a skee-ball with his right hand, and, eventually, protested, Bah!

Red was lost in a daydream. A dual tube in his nostrils assisted the absorption of oxygen. He was forcefully hefted into a portable bed with aluminum rails on either side. Red remembered the surreal day of his capture in Pyongyang in fifty-two, but abandoned the memory; too frightening for a flesh wound. Red called to Krakow: "What do you say, boy? Hah!"

Easy, Gabriel counseled. He used an index finger to transport the bird.

Plaintively, Red asked, Can Krakow go?

Nope.

Red squinted at Krakow. Time, it’s time to get the –

"Shoe on the rude! Krakow reported. Shoe on the rude! Shoe on the rude!"

"Life-threatening," said Gabe.

Red braced with the rails, and soldiered, We won't miss the Mets.

No longer grist of the shadows, Aji was afloat in La Grande Lumineres, and she beamed in a throe of blissful shock. It was not the ponds, but it was not the ponds. "My-y! she said. I can’t tell him. Look at Laniakea! The strings of Hydra!"

And she breathed, "La Grande Lumineres – a majesty of stars, a glowing cascade, a billion years before the universe." ◊

celestial hopscotch

IMPATIENTLY, WILL ADORJAN waited for the Cluster Train at the Sombrero Galaxy depot in Pandora. He tapped his watch to display the temperature: 703 degrees. Warm, he said.A leather boot, black, and knee-high, spiked from the doorway of a compartment of the approaching maglev Cluster Train, and into the cramped hallway. The next step was abundantly clear to the boot's owner; in fact, it was clear to everyone. Ernie saw the boot, and abruptly meandered to safe keeping, stumbling into the wall at his right side; his back as now against it. He breezed, "Brother! Worn incredulity would not change the conductor’s demeanor; – no part of his jaw was curled, and his nose didn’t twist. He hissed: Know what, fella's a stowaway!"

A second man was ensconced in brilliant white. He ventilated the cab by opening an exit door of the Cluster Train, trundling the air; clouds of steam were diverted in obtuse puffs from the hatchway slung open by his arm. This second man's hat, a Stetson, was white; his gloves, vest, shirt, and tie were white, additionally, and his trousers were white. Ernie was frustrated, but prayed to God not to entwine in the likely ruckus. Generally, the last glimpse of the scrum was always a red handkerchief, waved by the man in the black boots; it was folded neatly in the breast pocket of his black shirt; first, the hollow barrel of his pistol would bend around the doorway, and quickly the man in black would square in the hallway’s middle, and issue a gunshot with a puzzling trajectory of fate. Ernie never waited for the gun's report to push the gunslingers aside en route to his exit: once the Cluster Train arrived, Ernie would hop to the platform, whistle, and holler, "Fall out! and express his distaste for railway stowaways: Better yet, fall off!"

The conductor eased precariously onto a bench, built with perfect spacing in even rows aside the two sets of tracks. He put a charcoal-tinted lunch box on his lap, and stared at the Pandora rail. He knew shortly this would cause the pique of an exasperated Little Owl, who was protective of the oak now hanging over Ernie's bench. The Little Owl grasped a branch with his claws, in protest, strained his neck, and wound his head entirely in a circle. "Ew! and Oof!; Crash! and Bang! were sounds emanating from the stopped train. The man in black was smashing his chin into the rival, the man in white, who, driven to the floor by the other man’s fist, waited for a redux to job both of his white boots into the rival’s chest; this sent the blackish bloke into a head-over-foot tumble, usually, a somersault, precisely – and precisely seemed oddly the point of it all somehow—to the exit door. Stunned, smiling, lying on his back, the man in black adorn shouted, Ha-Hah!, clenched his fists, and chased the white bedeck through the cabs, essentially vanishing to any rapt audience. Alas, was Ernie's word; another trip."

Ernie whisked ashes from his trousers. He thumbed the nickel cover of his cigar lighter, and caught the rolled paper aflame in a single, proud clap. He craned his eyes at the taupe sky to estimate the weather, and recalled past departures. He scanned the obscure landscape, and guilelessly blew smoke from the platform. His Conductor’s Report was a verbal file, transmitted through a wire lanyard, into a chip at his ear: "Arrived at Sombrero-Pandora at sixteen and thirty hours the ninth day of the week, without event. It was a pleasant ride from Hydra. The temp is a daunting seven-hundred, and three degrees. The sky, sloe, and orange. Five years to daylight."

A couple spoke a few yards from Ernie’s bench, and noticed him giving the conductor’s report. Her shoulder was leaning against a granite piling nearby, and she overheard him say, seven-hundred, and three.

Aji said, to Will Adorjan, We used to wear thermal, and reflectors, until we realized there would never be any Sun. I think it took a century.

"There is a sun, it's just not here, Adorjan said. Aji frowned. The sun's a star. People rely upon verity, my father used to say; – his word, verity – truth, faith, and experience. They’ll still be warm, and they’ll accept there is no sun. We believe it’s seven-hundred three only because Ernie was thinking aloud. We saw him read the body-control watch."

Aji said, That’s a little exhausting.

No, Will disagreed. The truth is concise; everything else is tiring.

Dogmatic, yes?

Will stated, Take the narrows of space for re-entry, and cocked his head: "He used to say, 'Remember, the slightest pin, or deceit, a gnat or wasp is the Abyss of life and death, son; heaven, and hell.' We should shudder, really. Usually, I do. I say Hell is actually benign; perpetual ineluctability. No verity. Forever gray. Everything just beyond your reach."

Aji pointed to a vendor. Soup?

Ernie's uniform was navy blue; broad red stripes lined the middle of the legging; a regulation shine reflected some light from his visor to his cap. Still spiffy, the conductor admired, gazing at his portrait in the stainless steel of his lighter; a spate of clouds formed between his arms; silently, uneasily, Ernie faded into the air.

"Morning!" Aji quipped.

Unless I’m asleep, and, maybe I am asleep, he answered, fairly asleep, but flapping the bindings of a magazine, Popular Science, as he addressed her image upon the glass casing, the front door, of his microwave oven."I still don’t like your Skype."

That was funny, yes, she said, and nodded brightly in the glass of the microwave oven, much like a holograph, or live video. "It won't be morning in Sombrero for several years."

Really, he said, rewinding a bed sheet around body, and his flannel pajamas. "A man named Nap is supposed to visit me. He's US Navy. What to do?"

It’s okay, Aji said. We've met. He’s okay.

You want to see the island pier, he said, still drowsy. "How about a mimosa. I could have one."

I’m not in the rover, I’m at Sombrero, Aji replied. But the wide screen television would allow us to show you Sombrero in her amber glory. Can we use it?

How about Mars, Saturn, something closer. Maybe a dying star.

Prohibition returned a century ago in the clusters. That’s a good story.

Maybe I can beam a mimosa through the microwave.

I can visit? she asked. Coney Island.

Sure, he replied. God, yes. Everyone visits New York City. Seriously?

Aji was pensive. "It is complicated, but not because of technology, she said. My only true interest is this maglev. The Cluster train. (Do you have those chocolate chipsters on Earth? Yes. No?) The camera set is very good, and quick. You’ll see how authentic, Sombrero; you'll see that. It is our colony. The railway raised this colony from destitution. Hydra is so much larger now, the depot. Yes, we’ve passed a point of no return."

All about the trains, he said, sheepish, crackling a plastic foil with cookies. These?

Oh no! Aji said, facetiously. We’ve sent explorers seeking out chocolate chips throughout the universe. She paused to smile. "It's our Big Ben, the mag. It sails through the morning; the evening is whistle-time. They show outdoor movies at some platforms; dinner, noon; the rumble keeps us ‘sane, and lonely,’ is the saying, yes: Lonely under the sherbet sky; it’s a small population. Wait: 'Orange, and yellow – the train grumbles to the witching hour through our fruitcake landscape. We breathe crazily in our beds, and worry of omen rings.' Bud Adorjan said that."

Omen rings?

Aji heard the Cluster Express rousing to begin another supply route to Hydra. A labyrinth of circles, yes, paring away at the bounds of life. They erode until you die.

He shook his head. He asked, How does the train move?

"It's a maglev, she said, unlocking the monitor into a tablet. The principle of the train's motion is magnetic levitation. 'Maglev' combines the words. It was invented in 2004 on Earth, no less; the ancient Trans-Rapid of Shanghai. The magnets prevent it from touching the ground, or tracks, and provides the thrust to propel it from place to place. No oil, gas, propane, coal."

No mining, no gas?

And no dumb luck, Aji replied. "Of course, Hydra is huge. Mining, all that, is huge in some locations. We like the clean magnets; the ease of it. It has to be natural. Manufacturing is like a feudal monarchy;—it was king, then deposed by technology. The first Alpha Space consortium was honestly brilliant, and farsighted. They took tons of equipment – tons, they were awed by its size, and weight – to assemble manufacturing outposts like Sombrero, early on. The colony had a 1,000-ton extruder included in the Landing Pack. There was a gag, that the extruder could be easily extruded into space if extra room was needed. But it would be impossible to build, or even to patch a shelter, or anything else, without the extruder. It created everything, from smoky globs of gunk, using a computer model; what a treasure. And it built the train!"

Really, he said, ambivalently.

The Cluster express rolls from 15,000 stable miles per hour to 55,000 mph in less than sixty seconds, Aji said, setting the table to span three-hundred sixty degrees of Sombrero, and the maglev’s launch. Watch!

The texture of the video reminded him of a blurry form of night vision. Aji was strolling the ash street, with the tablet attached to the visor of her headgear; the monitor was cheap surplus, she said, and she neglected to buy coffee from a kiosk at the train landing. She said, spanning the relay in her hands: I promised you a tour. Let’s do that. I warn you, Sombrero is not so different from say, colonial Pittsburgh, or Alaska.

Alaska? he asked. He sipped a mimosa.

She synced a lapel clip to augment her video, and Aji elaborated, "Science relies upon theories, and math, and research in the field, and it comprises mankind's best educated guess. This settlement, Sombrero, is almost two-hundred years old; one-hundred ninety-nine, this year. It was, – rr-reading from, yes, the history marker, that's it! – 'originally designed as a Bernal Sphere, a habitat ten miles in diameter, for a population of 25,000 people. Population, 21,116.' Hah. The surface of Sombrero is three times greater than Earth."

Spacious.

Aji asked, an aside, Have you ever met Nap?

There was a pause. No.

Aji rolled the camera steadily to display wide-angled views of the township, which resembled a fishing village in the Arctic, and the early American West, with decent appliances and other fixtures, upgraded to a proprietary norm for a post-nuclear age. He saw horses tied next to off-road vehicles; brick houses replete with oil furnace tanks, and some modest rust; there was no concrete to pave the snow-lined roads, dirt and mud replaced with dry, gray ash; a black sky, – "the amber color was usually clear in the ‘daylight. The atmosphere sustained life at Sombrero, and was caused by the solstice of two stars, warming and cooling, light-miles from the planet; it could be night for years; the parting of the stars would eventually herald two years of 'sun light,' and a gold, amber camber. The average temperature at Sombrero varied 1000 degrees with light from the stars, or without it, presenting the famous hue – technically, a cloudy firmament of yellow-green #1, in daytime, evenings, turquoise #9. You could say beige, yes."

Aji continued, and snapped photos for him. One thing only terrifies us: Condensation.

Hate it, he said, and sat firmly at the kitchen table.

Aji said, Condensation means a gas, or vapor, like oxygen, has been reduced to liquid or solid form. The oxygen layer is very light. It is a gem of the planets, and galaxies in the Pandora Cluster, but oxygen is scarce. She filled a Styrofoam cup, and commented, "We have to say grudgingly the aeronautical government was heroic. We are thirty-one million light years from Earth. There's six trillion miles to every light year. Those numbers can roll in one’s head like clouds."

She pointed toward space. "It is that far."

How? he asked, finally. How did it happen?

Aji smiled, and sat on the bench, and peered down at the tablet on her knees. She said, "The dull tales of history survive. Man, in space. Pioneers. The human struggle, the mother of necessity. Yes. (Pause.) My favorite phrase is more sinister: it is 'celestial hopscotch.' The Proxima Centauri was Earth's nearest star, but it was not an exoplanet; it was not hospitable for human life. The science of the time – a century ago? – adapted to a system of propulsion from the early Bussard Ramjets. A trip to Centauri could suddenly be made in four, four and a half years. Earth was consumed; the space consortium of nations, ASC, 'Alpha-Space,' designed their own brand; they called Ramjet shuttles the new Model-T's. This was generations before 2345, the year the Proxima launch took place; it was hailed as the dawn of the universe. There were cynics: some of the pioneers joked, 'Where is John Galt?' So many great people disappeared from society! It was the greatest of great generations. Four, and a half years! Three million people tried the voyage; four thousand landed at Proxima Centauri in 2353. It took nine years. Paratroopers were commissioned by the ASC to build the mega-shelters."

He wondered, "What do you mean, hopscotch?"

Four thousand people landed at Centauri, Aji said. "A communique arrived from New York, from the United Nations: Proxima Centauri is not a habitable place. Imagine! These pioneers were twenty to forty years of age. It is the bane of it. Survival meant living in the mega-shelter, procreation; then raising children to train them for the next journey. The journey to a mythical exoplanet. It was hopscotch."

And the others?

"They dispersed, many returned to Earth, yes, Aji said, and paused. Today, we continuously find strange shadows. Some are named for Saturn’s rings, like the Shadow of Mines. They may be ashes, carbon; signs of life, or, perhaps, reflections, yes. She added, Sombrero is 31 million light years from your kitchen. It’s not calculable for you, in any meaningful way. I dare say, dare I? Yes. Sombrero was the first habitable planet. And you know what? It took twenty generations. It took fourteen mega-shelters, many beautiful clusters, expeditions to 23 ‘exoplanets.’ Sombrero, 2544 A.D.; population, 21,116." ◊

waking in, the sere dawn, /

JUST AN EAR GAPED THE open leeway of a door, honed to the noise patterns of a neighbor laudably arguing his opinions. Red, the ear’s proprietor, mulled aloud, He's using the telephone?

Nah, said his son, whose name was Gabriel.

When d'he get back? Red asked, easing away. "Probably a girl in there or something; in with him."

Forty-five minutes now.

Red peeked, and noticed the neighbor’s door was ajar. He focused his eyes on the apartment, until he heard the neighbor’s voice insist, "Nah, you're not a ghost."

Red told Gabe, He’s got a ghost in there.

Pop, the son said.

The neighbor knocked Red’s door in a half-hour’s time. Gabe appeared dauntless at the threshold, his eyes wide, and friendly. The apartment was situated across the hall. Gabe said, "What’s he supposed to say. ‘There's a woman in here. I met her yesterday. She’s young, attractive, like French. But she's an alien, though. She’s buzzing my Satellite Radio.’"

Red in his oak chair, offered a hard squint; slowly canvassing the man, Gabriel relayed, And then I say, oh, we’re real busy. Red was shot walking on the sidewalk.’

Gabriel paused, distracted. Soo...you want to meet her?

"Nah," Red replied.

I am a ghost, technically, yes, Aji decided, but wondered privately if the definitions of ghost had changed in the five-century offing. She continued, "The logic is perfect: either I am not a ghost; or there never were ghosts. There are only two possibilities. I say there has never been any ghosts."

He provided not as much as a "Oui, then opted, There were ghosts who played baseball."

"Alien, that’s better, Aji suggested, slightly miffed. You're the first witness, the first one, yes. First contact."

"A ghost with an attitude."

My.

The woman shifted weight in the hall, a black-and-white form with high DPI. The outline cast light from dark, and her mass expanded, and contracted, emerging from the cloud. Aji added, adroitly, "I'm a French attache, to be honest, but I am the American Legion. I attach to them from our side. This your home, yes?"

He unlocked the door, and opened it. "Merci."

Aji delved into the apartment with an aside, but the sight of her crossing the threshold – her body was created in a slow motion of four, or five steps, each one creating less of a blur, and a reality of flesh, bone, and color – was startling. She said, matter-of-factually, You are obliged not to complain, as I’m a civil servant; but if you do, I have gobs of time. Forget my FTP. No one would understand.

FTP, file-transfer-protocol, right - loading must be a, well, never mind, he commented, then protested, "You know, you jammed my Satellite radio, for starters! It won't budge from country-western channels. I can't move it!"

I like country, said Aji, ignoring his laments, and winding through the living room for a comfortable spot. "I've resolved the entire commitment issue. This is usually a huge obstacle. Your duty time is just six, seven hours. Maximum. Cumulative. I’m giving my life for Laniakea."

Huh –?

"I should say this results in substantial duty for me, Aji said, sliding into a chair at the antique oak kitchen table. I've had to accept a process-reversal, with which I doubt you're not terribly familiar."

He composed, "Duty time?"

Duty time, like jury duty, Aji allayed, raising a brow. We're required by law in the universe to serve duty time. Most people don’t realize it whatsoever. They just do for their fellow people. It can, of course, be like a requisition, like the government stealing a horse, or a car to follow a criminal, say. Official.

"You'll unglue my radio? he asked, bailing. It was a gift from my grandmother, and thus far in life, it remains uninjured."

"It is fixed, she responded. I reset it."

He pointed to his microwave oven, which, earlier in the morning, was felled by a crinkling sound, like a wire on fire, and displayed merely a steady image of black-and-white snow.

"Oh no, that is fixed, too, more or less, Aji replied. I need to fit it out for use as a monitor. You'll want to keep the specs, no matter what. It may act funny; but you do want to talk to me in Sombrero, yes?"

"I don’t want to talk to you here. I want to use my microwave."

"It allows us to converse from the Sombrero Galaxy to this kitchen, and it’ll still make MacCheese. I think. Do you make that in the microwave yet?"

He said, I don’t make Mac Cheese.

Aji said, One day you won’t even recognize me. Don't be so trite.

It's been weeks! These are not the only strange affects.

Aji explained, "It was, originally, a microwave transmission, see. You sent it to us, if you recall. It was not the other way around: Here we are."

Credulity strained with his rising heart rate. He skipped a dozen issues to one of the most obvious, and asked, You are here. From some Galaxy.

Denial to Acceptance, Aji complimented. "Is that not, how did they used to say it... kewl?"

How?

Aji related, "I could say a pileas holograph, but I might just as well say a bus. My native time is five centuries in the future; what's more. We can enter, and we can exit; interesting at least, until it became rather dull. The fact of the matter is people always have entered, and exited. That’s what I mean. Like ghosts. I was just making conversation. She concluded, a finger upon a calendar, The awareness of it doesn't yet exist."

Noble goals may create their own lifespan, but like children, can eventually seem unfamiliar. It was fifteen months earlier when Bud Adorjan's son, Will, entered a New York City computer lab. Will was familiar with Earth, after studying for a year-in-residence at New York University. His mission object – to reduce the danger of a recent failed excursion to the outer span of Pandora – had unhappily merged with bad luck; his only resolve, whittled in algebraic formulas during his trip to Earth, was became a victimless prank. The Hydra adage was if all else fails, try victimless. He repeated a saw from the old west – let’s get out of Dodge – until it began to incense a student coder working nearby. The true phrase was burn code.

Will's first problem was static electricity; within a mile of the New York subway, the electromagnetic pulse could cause a virtual hip-hop mess of sudden cyber jolts, leaks, jerks, and quakes. He swiftly clicked into the system's governing manifest, kept in a bank of servers at Washington Park. It will be totally unfair, Will murmured, guiltily. That’s frontier justice.

Some of the students admired Adorjan's swift ability; the codes were fairly monumental in size, and a wearying task, but the system offered scant, often humorous resistance. He typed a definitive rend at the outset of a particular line of html, skipped a number of lines, and added a new paragraph close to the end. He did choose to be fair, to be fair; it was a dignity of his class, perhaps, or maybe a challenge. He whispered, Alright, added two other words, pegging into the keyboard, deleted the history, and logged out: The first word was burn; the second, his technological antidote, if the victim ever did guess the word, was tour-billion.

Will remarked, with a wry grin, Plausible. Someone may think of it.

Mischievously, Gabriel grabbed his elbow. What are you good for this Saturday?

He yanked his arm away. Pastrami.

Although a lecturer at NYU, which was sufficient to flag a security guard in any hallway, the man was not otherwise well known, both asset, and a liability for their present cause.

Two students were using the computer lab. Gabe hustled an extra chair, and tapped the button of a monitor. Everybody's got a hangover on Saturday, Gabriel said, "College. New York? Listen we can do this!"

A penchant for the Lottery hardly seemed like a fatal vice to him. It was not yet even a Syndrome. The novelty of Gabriel's ploy made it interesting, plus the looming prospect of an unpaid summer vacation, and part-time employment. I can’t help with this, Gabe, I'm already seeing stars, he said, noting white spots which had begun to flutter on the lids of his eyes, probably just stress-related.

Gabe was peerless, mumbling lost lyrics of the generation, and gained on the blinking tower. Give me the list, he said.

He frowned, and snapped a piece of composition paper, revealing four sets of numbers in green ink. Gabriel took it carefully from his hand; after twenty-one minutes, Gabe's face sported a sudden smile. "We got it, he said. He typed a numerical set of numbers, culled from a thirty-year old algorithm; the system whirred with new command lines, flashed a screen twice, and the third time opened a labyrinth of entries, a multiverse of numbers, non-sequitars, and cyber dashes, and-dots; it comprised a back street in computer logic, and then it comported, providing, almost apologetically, a single black screen, and in neat order: 78-89-54-65-32-12."

Gabriel's body curled in a guffaw, and in a whispery shriek, gasped, "It's printing the ticket for you at Coney Corner. It’s paid!"

Reticent, in his apartment, Aji observed, "You remind me of a Seymour."

A Seymour? he repeated, reading a newspaper.

"A Seymour Glass," she answered.

No, he answered. I’m not a Seymour, or a Sidney Carton. I'm not fictional character, neat and round. You know. I have sides, and edges like you.

She chafed her fingers beneath the binding of a chapbook, which was resting with loose-leaf pages tucked under a new phone book on the oak kitchen table. "He wrote Chinese poems, yes?"

Salinger?

Yes.

He said, morose, "Seymour died in the nineteen-forties. That’s over a half-century ago. Forty-five? Of suicide. I am forty-something, but it's the twenty-twenties. Beats are over; Sartre faded in the Caribbean tropics, or Cuba. I’m a snowbird, New York – Coney, not Manhattan—to Florida, at the first sign of ice. Snowbirds, and detectives, are always free."

What are these, then? Aji said, skimming through the loose-leaf verse.

He continued, warily, "I write American poems, not Chinese, which is to say, Japanese. None of us wrote Chinese poems. I have a hopeless hitch; it flops hopeless into the couch with sounds like—more Yeats, or Keats. Yeats. (Pause.) Seymour wrote Japanese poems. He wrote Haiku."

Really. I didn’t mean to say.

He breathed, more comfortably on native soil, and folded the newspaper away. He mixed martinis, after the awkward pause. My earliest memory is from the nineteen-seventies – rounding a corner of a Mom-and-Pop motel like a stray on the coast of Florida. I can still see this innocuous image of gravelly pavement, and a blotch of white paint buried in the cement, an oversight, or drip from a painting crew, a mistake; but it’s a migrant's signature, yes; his power of attorney; the sun sears my arms; it's too hot, and the heat is too dangerous. They should rush people indoors in Florida, I decided. Of course, I was a boy.

She viewed the stock of poems, hand-written in black ink, and centered on single sheets of white delicate vellum. He warned her, "If you read them, Pandora will emerge with seductive gifts."

"Pandora. My. It is okay, yes, to read them?"

Take them.

"Tell me about these,—you're an ecologist?"

Not formally.

Aji poured a martini thoughtfully from a pitcher on the table, and settled into an ersatz font, like a student of English. "Aging."

He said, "This is about a wisdom tooth. A poker pal in Florida. His dentist put one knee on the chair, and his elbow on the arm rest, and wrenched the tusk from this guy's jaw. He said it was the best day of his life. But then he chips another tooth. He says it’s because he never paid the dentist."

Bad karma, she said. "An omen?"

"It’s my glimpse of it, of old age, he said, sliding across the corner of the book. He read, Am am I just, Oh but/waking in, the sere Dawn,/now I must pay, Oh sin."

He pointed to another verse. "That one is about a young man, I'll call Gabe, Gabriel. He lives with his father, Red. It's a good story. He was really fitful, weary this particular day, more melancholy than usual. He was raised to be a very cheerful kid. His father’s an entertainer. Sort of. Gabe’s twenty-ish. The guy lifts tons of energy drinks in palates every day. He wants, he just wants to fast-forward, vault ahead."

There’s yin, and yang, she offered. "Youth can be