Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 54, January 2022: Galaxy's Edge, #54

By Robert Silverberg, Wang Yuan and Effie Seiberg

A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy
 

ISSUE 54, January 2022

Lezli Robyn, Editor

Taylor Morris, Copyeditor

Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

 

Stories by Lucas Carroll-Garrett, Christopher Henckel, Mike Resnick, Effie Seiberg, Galen Westlake, Robert Silverberg, Mica Scotti Kole, Edward M. Lerner, Wang Yuan, Kristine Kathryn Rusch

 

Jean Marie Ward Interviews John Scalzi (Part 1)

 

Serialization: Over the Wine Dark Sea by Harry Turtledove

 

Columns by: Gregory Benford, L. Penelope

 

Recommended Books: Richard Chwedyk

 

Galaxy's Edge is a bi-monthly magazine published by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor, an award winning independent press based in Maryland. Each issue of the magazine has a mix of new and old stories, a serialization of a novel, columns by L. Penelope and Gregory Benford, and book recommendations by Richard Chwydyk.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Phoenix Pick
• Release date: Dec 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781649731142

Robert Silverberg

<p>Robert Silverberg has won five Nebula Awards, four Hugo Awards, and the prestigious <em>Prix Apollo.</em> He is the author of more than one hundred science fiction and fantasy novels -- including the best-selling Lord Valentine trilogy and the classics <em>Dying Inside</em> and <em>A Time of Changes</em> -- and more than sixty nonfiction works. Among the sixty-plus anthologies he has edited are <em>Legends</em> and <em>Far Horizons,</em> which contain original short stories set in the most popular universe of Robert Jordan, Stephen King, Ursula K. Le Guin, Gregory Benford, Greg Bear, Orson Scott Card, and virtually every other bestselling fantasy and SF writer today. Mr. Silverberg's Majipoor Cycle, set on perhaps the grandest and greatest world ever imagined, is considered one of the jewels in the crown of speculative fiction.</p>

Book preview

ISSUE 54: January 2022

Lezli Robyn, Editor

Martin L. Shoemaker, Assistant Editor

Taylor Morris, Copyeditor

Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

Published by Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

P.O. Box 10339

Rockville, MD 20849-0339

Galaxy’s Edge is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November.

All material is either copyright © 2021 by Arc Manor LLC, Rockville, MD, or copyright © by the respective authors as indicated within the magazine. All rights reserved.

This magazine (or any portion of it) may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Please check our website for submission guidelines.

ISBN: 978-1-64973-114-2

SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION:

Paper and digital subscriptions are available. Please visit our home page: www.GalaxysEdge.com

ADVERTISING:

Advertising is available in all editions of the magazine. Please contact [e-mail].

FOREIGN LANGUAGE RIGHTS:

Please refer all inquiries pertaining to foreign language rights to Shahid Mahmud, Arc Manor, P.O. Box 10339, Rockville, MD 20849-0339. Tel: [phone]. Fax [phone]. Email [e-mail].

www.GalaxysEdge.com

Contents

EDITOR’S NOTE by Lezli Robyn

HIVE AT THE DEAD STAR by Lucas Carroll-Garrett

ECHOES OF GLIESE by Christopher Henckel

HOTHOUSE FLOWERS by Mike Resnick

WORRYWORT by Effie Seiberg

BROCK’S GROTESQUERY by Galen Westlake

ISHMAEL IN LOVE by Robert Silverberg

AS OLD AS HE IS YOUNG by Mica Scotti Kole

RELATIVELY SPEAKING by Edward M. Lerner

YANG FENG PRESENTS: THE HAND OF GOD by Wang Yuan, Translated by Roy Gilham

KILLER ADVICE by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

GALAXY’S EDGE INTERVIEWS JOHN SCALZI (Part 1) by Jean Marie Ward

RECOMMENDED BOOKS by Richard Chwedyk

THE SCIENTIST’S NOTEBOOK by Gregory Benford

LONGHAND by L. Penelope

OVER THE WINE-DARK SEA (Part Seven) by Harry Turtledove

EDITOR’S NOTE

by Lezli Robyn

The 54th issue of Galaxy’s Edge rings in the New Year for our readers, and also ends our ninth year of publication! We are thrilled with all the amazing authors our magazine has featured over that time, and this issue is no different. We start off 2022 with Jean Marie Ward interviewing John Scalzi. In fact, not only was the interview so captivating, but it had so much substance we’ve had to split their conversation into two issues!

Jean Marie Ward also joined the magazine’s publisher, Shahid Mahmud, and myself at Discon III. Not only did we line up many of the interviews for the upcoming year at Worldcon, and hire a new columnist for the magazine (to be revealed in due time!), but we also had the joy of being able to spend time with our writers at our booth in the Dealers room. Fulvio Gatti (published in our last issue) came all the way from Italy with his lovely wife, and it was an absolute pleasure being able to witness his excitement at seeing his name on the cover for the first time in person. It is encounters like this that remind us how important those first fiction sales are for new authors.

In this issue, we also have the first and second runner up stories for The 2021 Mike Resnick Memorial Award. Hive at a Dead Star by Lucas Carroll-Garrett tells the tale of what happens to an advanced alien race when the light of the last star dies out. How do they survive? One of our judges said this hard science fiction story is very much an Analog piece, and I can’t disagree with that praise. It is almost like an out of body experience just to read the story. Echoes of Gliese by New Zealander Christopher Henckel is also a hard science fiction story, but one that tackles the complexities of Euthanasia with extreme sensitivity. What happens when a new sentient starship is born with a severe medical condition? The human captain doesn’t want his starship to lose a child, just like he had, and when past and present events collide in a story dealing with a parent’s undying love for their child, I have no doubt this piece will bring our readers to tears.

Mica Scotti Kole returns to our pages with a short but impactful piece about an arborist hired to assess the mutation of a very magical tree in As Old as He is Young, and Edward M. Lerner’s Relatively Speaking explores how space travel employing one of Einstein’s most well-known theories can impact a set of twins. Precious contributor, Effie Seiberg will also delight readers with the totally relatable yet unexpected Worrywort, about a monster hunter who suffers from severe anxiety. What happens when your fairy godfather’s gift at birth to remove that anxiety backfires, leaving you with a mouthy little critter that only you can see, but continuously spews all your inner fears? You find out that the true monsters of this world are not who you believed them to be.

The final original story in this issue is Brock’s Grotesquery, by Galen Westlake. What happens when a new neighbor and her bothersome cats moves into Brock’s street, yet he has a clan of historical gargoyles guarding his house? How the neighborly spat escalates will delight many a reader—and make us wish for magical gargoyles of our own!

Along with a rather unique recommendation by Yang Feng, reprint fiction by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Mike Resnick and Robert Silverberg, Recommended Books by Richard Chwedyk, and regular columns by L. Penelope and Gregory Benford, this issue is rounded out with the continued serialization of Harry Turtledove’s novel, Over the Wine-Dark Sea.

I think everyone can agree that last year was a hard year for everyone, with the debilitating effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. All of us at Galaxy’s Edge wish our readers a much better—and healthier—2022, filled with many delightful science fiction and fantasy stories to distract and ease the burdens of every day life.

Lucas studied Evolutionary Biology in his undergrad at the University of Tennessee. However, he grew up amongst the rich storytelling tradition of Appalachia and the wild tales of myth and fantasy his family enjoys, so the transition from science to writing his own grand fantasy stories might have been inevitable. When he is not writing (or scheming up stories), Lucas can be found tutoring at his local college, indulging in video games, or taking hikes through The Great Smoky Mountains.

HIVE AT THE DEAD STAR

by Lucas Carroll-Garrett

The last light in the universe clicked off. Squib turned away from their pointless hobby at the Hive’s only observation lens and back to the gray segments of their designated pod. The plasticized alloy could bend and endure for several hundred billion years without even a fold or blemish. Without even changing at all. Really, it wasn’t much different from staring out into the empty universe, hoping to see glimmer of a star, something new amongst the black. But Squib couldn’t quite believe that all such change was truly dead.

Sqµ-18. Report in.

The Director’s voice de-abstactor formed the words in Squib’s central nervous system. Sending actual vibrations to other sapients cost unnecessary energy, and with only the spinning ergosphere of the Hive’s black hole to act as a source, every shift in valence had to be managed carefully. Your scheduled global transmission begins with the next rotation. Are you prepared to present your . . . plan? The data that the de-abstractor unpackaged into Squib’s mind did a good job of capturing the Director’s pregnant pause, loaded with disdain.

Not surprising. But they needed this venture. The Hive needed it to outlast their gradually slowing source of rotational energy. And Squib needed it to escape the crushing sameness of their existence. Sapients couldn’t even leave the walls of their pods. The perfect sphere of gray looped around them a mere millimeter away, broken only by the pinkish strands of neural tendons.

The details of the expansion vessel’s launch procedure are all encoded for your transmitting pleasure, Squib sent back. A little twinge in the neural tendon showed the Director’s confirmation. There was no data to unpack this time, but they were sure even that gesture was begrudged. No matter. If Squib could convince the Hive, soon they would both be rid of each other.

Enduring the itching sensation, they regrew the atrophied cells in the tendon that branched off to the Hive’s central communications network. The nutrients required to fill out the myeline tube depended on the Director’s approval, but now Squib was once again connected to the entire Hive. A faint buzz of neural activity and errant, fragmented thought greeted them.

They had no throat to clear and the sapient’s redesigned circulation pump was too well-regulated by the Algorithm to race as hearts once did. All the same, Squib felt nervous as the Director announced the end of the annual rotation and the beginning of the presentation.

Fellow sapients of the Hive, Squib announced to the network. I, the eighteenth natural-born head of Wing Mu, subset SQ, request your attention and cooperation. Sparks of displeasure arced up and down the network, though they were quickly suppressed. The Mu Wing was often maligned for their archaic practice of creating new life rather than transferring an already existing consciousness pattern to a clone. The others believed it made sapients like Squib irrational. Squib preferred the word interesting.

The expansion vessel’s prototype is finally complete. Launch procedures have been sent to the head of each wing by the Director, pending your deliberation and approval. Fellow sapients, this represents sixteen generations of Mu Wing’s expansion efforts. Squib used a bit of their precious time allotment to pause for effect. An unfocused silence spread along the network. It was not the stable energy of rapt attention, but rather cold quiet of dispassion.

Squib pressed on. We are at the cusp, fellow sapients. Launching this vessel to set up a turbine at the nearest detected ergoshpere is not simply a failsafe for when—not if—our own black hole begins to run dry. But more than that, our expansion is also a moment of progress, of forward change, perhaps the last chance to retake our dead universe. The sooner we launch, the sooner we can act upon such an opportunity. Squib kept the rest of their thinking off the network: the sooner it launches, the sooner I can get out of here, the sooner I can see something new, for science’s sake . . . In the end, they could not resist adding the last bitter dreg of the thought. And, since it requires a pilot, the sooner you will be rid of me.

The network buzzed indistinctly as the Hive considered the message.

How much energy do you propose for launch? Asked Dgβ-01, the perennial head of the Beta Wing. Our research and development simulator can spare a bit, but . . . 

It will take 4.6 terajoules to fire the vessel.

Outrage flared through the network, though the need to conserve energy kept them all quiet. Sqµ-18, the Director said slowly, that amount of energy equates to the entire Hive’s surplus for the next hundred billion years. If we transfer that now, we will have none left over for repairs, let alone the other wings. Please perform your calculations again.

I have been using my wing’s surplus energy allotment for the past thirty-seven rotations to double-check the calculations. They are correct. That amount of energy ensures the vessel can reach the nearest source of Hawking Radiation and set up a transmission system, no matter the size of the dead star’s ergosphere. It is a guaranteed success.

Guaranteed!? Beta Wing burst out, the de-abstractor blaring their shock into everyone’s minds like a sudden and harsh light. It only reaches the closest source! And we haven’t even confirmed that singularity is still rotating. You’re asking us to bet a hundred billion years on one expedition.

Dgβ-01. The Director’s voice held the dark weight of warning. Wait until confirmation before sending a global transmission. As for you, Sqµ-18 . . . you’ve made your argument clear but understand that this proposal is asking a great deal. Is there a reason it cannot be postponed while your wing accumulates energy? That would allow us a response in the event of a malfunction and allow the other wings to continue their own projects in the meantime.

There was a pause. Then Beta Wing added, Like a probe, for example. We could confirm this singularity of yours first.

The Hive was right, of course. Rationality dictated the cautious approach with the highest long-term probability of success. But rationality dictated everything in the Hive, from the ever-prevailing dark to the stationary spin around the central turbine, the constant press of centripetal force squishing the sapients’ shapeless bodies down even tighter into their pods. It dictated that, while the Hive deliberated and double-checked, Squib would whittle away life unmoving and unchanging. Squib had grown tired of rationality.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind my fellow sapients, they sent out, trying to keep their frustration off the network, that my Wing’s plan to set up a new Hive is not a vanity project but a vital step for our future. Your future. We dedicate ourselves to expansion as per the original plans for the Hive which, I remind all of you, was not intended as a permanent hole for us to hide in but a stopgap measure until we can find a way to circumvent entropy. The Hive does not run on infinite energy. You all can clone yourselves for trillions of years, but eventually the dead star will slow down. Extract all the rotational energy and you all will die, just as my ancestors did.

We are aware, came the transmission from the Director. The allotted time for debate has ended, Sqµ-18. Please refrain from any more hysterics.

Squib sat fuming while the Hive ignored them. Votes for the new probe plan piled in and Alpha Wing announced the expected outcome: We have reached a decision regarding the timeline of Mu Wing’s proposed expansion effort. We agree that while it may be a worthwhile venture, the proposed energy consumption is not sustainable. We sanction Beta Wing’s proposal for a probe and will amend energy flow to allow Mu Wing increased storage rate. The Algorithm projects 768 billion years of accretion sufficient to allow other wings to continue their projects. Thank you.

Buα-01, the spokesapient of the administrators, prattled on about the details. Squib stayed silent. Seven-hundred and sixty-eight billion years. Almost a quarter of the Hive’s projected time remaining, and twice over the time Squib’s cellular components had before irreparable degradation. They would die in this black pocket before anything could change. Perhaps this would spare them, keep them from finding out that this was all pointless, that the new hive would fail and nothing would ever change again.

Anger blazed up and down the synapses wired throughout Squib’s body, exciting the cytoplasm until it grew uncomfortably hot. They were ignoring the problem. No, they had forgotten. An eternity of lifeless monotony had dulled the fear of death.

But not in Squib. Mu Wing remembered.

They focused on that cold, creeping dread, the impossibility of a thinking being coming to terms with the cessation of thinking. Gathering it up and packaging it into data, Squib waited for the Director to clear their connection for Mu Wing’s closing report. Then they transmitted the dread to the entire Hive.

Dead silence froze over the network. It was not the same static-like silence as the sapients’ existence between transmissions, but a new, chilling variety. Or, at least, a variety that hadn’t been felt in a very long time.

Satisfied for a brief moment, Squib let the Hive savor the primeval fear they had all fought so hard to forget. The fear that only Mu Wing had kept alive with their irrational life cycles. He could feel the pressure building as they all processed an emotion they had presumed extinct, fighting with themselves not to waste energy over it. But they didn’t have the experience necessary for control. Soon the network exploded with voices.

"What is this data?"

"No, the Beta Wing will find a solution to the energy crisis . . . "

How dare you threaten the Hive!

Don’t forget it was your wing that vetoed the digitization process. We could all be safe in our databanks to live out eternity like the other species. If not for you!

Make it stop, just make it stop—

More and more voices, an echo chamber of terror. The network flickered under the unaccustomed weight of emotionality, which only added fear to the fire. Then the Director had no choice. They torched the network. The flashing, splitting pain shot through everyone, unpackaged directly into their mind by the Algorithm, pain their bodies had not been able to experience for trillions of years. It shut everyone up. Everyone except for Squib.

They cried out over the sustained pulse, taking the only opportunity they had. This is no threat but a reminder! I only want to save us, preserve us all at another dead star. Please . . . 

The Director dialed up the intensity and the pain became too great for Squib to speak. Finally the network fell silent. I regret the necessary use of force. Everyone received the Director’s broadcast in a haze. But we must remain civil. Remember that any energy used fighting amongst ourselves is energy wasted. Energy we cannot afford. We will now close down the network to assess damage.

Black silence returned to Squib, once again with nothing to focus on but the walls of the pod, threatening to close in around them. When they shook off the pain, Squib discovered that the vast majority of their neural tendons had been severed.

That was foolish, Sqµ-18 The Director contacted them through the emergency tendon, one of the few left intact. I cannot express how disappointing such a stunt is, considering you are the head of a wing.

It was necessary to reverse the Hive’s decision. You’re all waiting too long—

Enough. You have lost the right to engage in debate. Effective immediately, sapient Sqµ-18 is to be cut off from all non-emergency transmissions except those pertaining to their duties in managing Mu Wing and their surplus energy allotment is forfeit. There was no sadness in the unpackaging, and Squib wondered if the Hive was glad they were finally rid of the dissenting voice. Now I must return to assessing the damage you caused. I trust you know I will use the torch again if you break quarantine.

And then it was deep into the empty quiet. Life, or what was left of it, settled into a dull circle. Receive energy and nutrient rations from Phi Wing. Allocate accordingly. Oversee progress on Mu Wing’s project, the expansion vessel. Follow the pink threads snaking around the pod until they webbed back to Squib’s own outer membrane. Receive resources again and watch the circle go around and around, unbroken even by a petty complaint from the other wings.

The madness crept in.

The only change Squib had to occupy themselves was watching their projected lifespan tick down second by second, millennium by millennium. Another blip in the mitochondrial DNA. Seventy more before an irreparable mutation. The Algorithm whirred with concern and added another artificial telomere cap. Forty-six thousand left. Forty-five thousand nine-hundred ninety nine. Ninety eight.

Squib started to grow fidgety, made mistakes in simple calculations. They needed something else, something more, something new. There was nothing new.

But Squib did have a new idea, or at least one that the Director hadn’t thought of. Control of their nutrients usually just meant following the Algorithm’s suggestions to maintain lifespan, but each sapient could technically direct the materials where they wished.

Picking a private neural tendon to experiment with, their personal connection to the Hive’s database, Squib started reallocating carbon to regrow the connection and filled it with ions that were rather desperately needed in their central nervous system. Exhaustion quickly slipped into Squib’s being, and the pod began to sway around them unsteadily, tendons and gray panels bleeding together.

Cold panic momentarily seized Squib’s attention when the Algorithm detected the change, but all it did was allocate them more emergency nutrients. As the bliss of simple sugars rushed through Squib’s system, excitement rode the flood of energy. A few more cycles and the tendon sparked to life, granting access to a sunrise of information. No longer constrained to Mu Wing’s dry diagrams and launch simulations, Squib tore through the files to find something that would take the edge off their ravenous boredom. The records were far from new, but they could at least relive past excitement. Especially if they found the right ones. The ones that recorded change.

The Algorithm took its time, but Squib found the right information. An excited pulse through the neural tendon stopped the endless sifting of data when it reached the point where history began.

Squib opened up the files pertaining to Ea-0191, the first recorded planet. There were trillions of them. Squib had the algorithm sort out the thousand or so that would give them the best balance between narrative and cursory understanding before downloading the information to their cortex.

The first section was brief despite the 4 billion years it covered. A spinning disk of gas, a smattering of planets, a collision to form a moon. So far, so typical. Then Squib found how the planet had produced so much data. Life formed, not just the mindless self-replicating carbon engines found on so many