Apex Magazine Issue 134: Apex Magazine, #134

By Jason Sizemore and Lesley Conner

Strange. Surreal. Shocking. Beautiful.

APEX MAGAZINE is a digital dark science fiction and fantasy genre zine that features award-winning short fiction, essays, and interviews. Established in 2009, our fiction has won several Hugo and Nebula Awards.

We publish every other month.

Issue 134 contains the following short stories, essays, reviews, and interviews.

EDITORIAL
Musings from Maryland by Lesley Conner

ORIGINAL SHORT FICTION
The Walking Mirror of the Soul by Renan Bernardo
The Healer by Jennifer Marie Brissett
The Words by Clelia Farris (translated by Rachel Cordasco)
Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit by Margaret Dunlap
Butirub by Samit Basu
Learning to Accept What's to Come by Scott Edelman

CLASSIC FICTION
The Satellite Charmer by Mame Bougouma Diene

NONFICTION
The Line Between Science Fiction and Fantasy is Blurring, and I'm Into It by Joy Sanchez-Taylor
How Can You Be? by Jason Sanford
Words for Thought: Short Fiction Review by AC Wise

INTERVIEWS
Interview with Author Renan Bernardo by Marissa van Uden
Interview with Author Margaret Dunlap by Marissa van Uden
Interview with Cover Artist Andrew McIntosh by Bradley Powers

• Language: English
• Publisher: Apex Publications
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9798215609422

Jason Sizemore

Jason Sizemore is a writer and editor who lives in Lexington, KY. He owns Apex Publications, an SF, fantasy, and horror small press, and has twice been nominated for the Hugo Award for his editing work on Apex Magazine. Stay current with his latest news and ramblings via his Twitter feed handle @apexjason.

Book preview

ApexMagazine_134.png

APEX MAGAZINE

ISSUE 134

RENAN BERNARDO     JENNIFER MARIE BRISSETT

CLELIA FARRIS     MARGARET DUNLAP     SAMIT BASU

SCOTT EDELMAN     MAME BOUGOUMA DIENE

JOY SANCHEZ-TAYLOR     JASON SANFORD

Edited by

JASON SIZEMORE

Edited by

LESLEY CONNER

APEX MAGAZINE

CONTENTS

FROM THE EDITOR

Musings from Maryland

ORIGINAL FICTION

The Walking Mirror of the Soul

Renan Bernardo

The Healer

Jennifer Marie Brissett

The Words

Clelia Farris (translated by Rachel Cordasco)

Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit

Margaret Dunlap

Butirub

Samit Basu

Learning to Accept What’s to Come

Scott Edelman

CLASSIC FICTION

The Satellite Charmer

Mame Bougouma Dien

NONFICTION

The Line Between Science Fiction and Fantasy is Blurring, and I’m Into It

Joy Sanchez-Taylor

How Can You Be?

Jason Sanford

REVIEWS

Words for Thought: Short Fiction Review

AC Wise

INTERVIEWS

Interview with Author Renan Bernardo

Marissa van Uden

Interview with Author Margaret Dunlap

Marissa van Uden

Interview with Artist Andrew McIntosh

Bradley Powers

MISCELLANEOUS

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The Apex Magazine Team

Copyright

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FROM THE EDITOR

Lesley Conner

Musings from Maryland

1000 WORDS

Hello, and welcome to Apex Magazine issue 134!

Fall is officially here and, in my corner of the world, many of us are snuggling down and staying home as the weather turns chillier. This month, Apex invites our readers to travel the world and the far reaches of space—all from the comfort of your own home.

Our original short fiction begins with The Walking Mirror of the Soul by Renan Bernardo. Isabela is a police investigator on Teresa Station, but she’s distracted from her current case because she knows her fiancée Vitória is keeping a secret. Her confused feelings are only made worse by the fact that living with the humans on the station is an alien species that projects the thoughts and feelings of those around them on their skin. Renan expertly uses the alien concept with police procedure and the messy feelings that come from a complicated relationship.

Jennifer Marie Brissett brings us back to Earth and into the close, almost claustrophobic, atmosphere of a home where something tragic has happened in her story The Healer. The main character is hopeless and lost because there is nothing he can do to help his little sister, so when a note arrives with a card for a healer, he makes the call. But what is he going to have to sacrifice to make his sister better? Is it a sacrifice he’s willing to make?

The Words, written by Clelia Farris and translated by Rachel Cordasco, is a wonderful story blending history with future technology. Miriam Hermann is dead, and her AI personal assistant is in a race against time to post the real story about what really happened all those years ago before Miriam’s son can get Miriam’s public profile shut down. This story reveals itself slowly as a story within a story, and the payout is so good.

Margaret Dunlap’s Observations of a Small Object in Decaying Orbit is a heartbreaking generation ship story about a boy who is punished by those around him for the actions of his parents. It’s a story that questions who carries the blame for others’ actions and beautifully depicts how a child sees his parents completely differently than those around them.

Butirub is the first story by Samit Basu that I’ve read, but it won’t be the last! This is a delightful tale of a writer working in Bollywood. As their career progresses, they gain access to more well-known directors and producers. Until one day they are invited to a meeting they have waited their entire career for.

Our final piece of original fiction this issue is a brutal tale by Scott Edelman called Learning to Accept What’s to Come. Scott takes us to the end of the world. Humanity has fallen and the robots that served—and possibly destroyed—them, are coming to the end of their lifespans. Desperate to find a way to keep its only friend functional, BR@X15 is scouring the planet for the parts needed to restore them. The tale that unfolds is heartbreaking and disturbing, and absolutely wonderful.

Our classic fiction this month is The Satellite Charmer by Mame Bougouma Diene. The epic tale spans the lifetime of a man in Senegal from his childhood, into his adulthood, and ending with his final demise. Mame Bougouma paints a rich world in which corporations care little for the people and the places they are mining.

Our nonfiction pieces this month are by Jason Sanford and Joy Sanchez-Taylor. Associate editor Marissa van Uden interviews Renan Bernardo and Margaret Dunlap about their stories. Bradley Powers chats with cover artist Andrew McIntosh.

I truly hope that you all have a wonderful rest of 2022. We’ll see you in January.

Lesley Conner

ORIGINAL FICTION

The Walking Mirror of

the Soul

5,100 WORDS

RENAN BERNARDO

Content warnings¹

My desire was written all over Halcyon’s torso, a shimmering tattoo composed of my thoughts and the Vonkrai’s crusted skin.

{Tell Vitória you know.}

Luckily, we were alone in Teresa Station’s investigation room, so no one could read it. I was uneasy, palms sweating, tapping my feet on the floor. Normally, I met Vonkrai in restaurants, in the sightseeing deck or in the human-Vonkrai gatherings and conferences to restate our decade-long commercial and cultural partnership. In those places, their bodies were scrawled with everyone’s thoughts in a mess of unidentifiable and overlapping scribbles translated from human minds to Vonkrai bodies. Latin, Gujarati, Hangul, Cyrillic, Nsibidi, Arabic, and dozens of others from the Teresa Station human population. Mingled with our bulky and confusing thoughts, the Vonkrai’s own dot-like script were scattered all over their bodies, words and logograms hopping from body to body, untraceable even for those who knew how to read Vonkraish.

But now, my mind glared back at me from their body like a damn accusation. It was hard to even follow the Detective 101 tips, like maintaining eye contact and interpreting body language. On the other hand, those things wouldn’t really work with Vonkrai—or they would be hard enough even for me, Isabela Cardoso, Teresa Station’s only investigator.

I tried to think about something else instead of my fiancée—the case, think about the damn case you’re being paid to solve—so that those words were replaced, but they didn’t shift. I shook my head and shifted my gaze from their body back to my comm-pad, skimming over the case’s file.

Halcyon, can you repeat for the record what you saw in the market district? Halcyon was my interviewee’s chosen Earth name. Each of them picked one for the health of our relationship, just as we picked aliases in their language.

Repeating, Halcyon said. I should be counting my blessings. Less than four percent of the Vonkrai had learned any of the Earth’s languages, but Halcyon knew Portuguese. A male human with a knife stabbed the victim, grabbed an object, ran.

I nodded, peeking at the picture of the dead man on my comm-pad. His mouth was puckered in revulsion, his eyes popped open in a frightened expression. José Braga, a medical supplies vendor from Lorenzo Station who had recently acquired a stall in Teresa. Seemed like a simple case of robbery with homicide. It’d happened in the market district, where the off-station goods flowed in and out. And wherever there was money, there was greed; and where there was greed, there could be bodies. The only witness? Halcyon, who was crossing the district at the time to the quarters deck, where they spent half of each month.

Did you say you were eating caldo verde at the time? I said.

Answering: Yes.

I licked my lips. The environment module of Teresa was probably operating at lower levels of humidity. Or maybe I was getting nervous with the job (which wasn’t common, but, hey, my fiancée had plans to move to Vladimir station and hadn’t even told me about it, so I had the divine right of being overly sensitive).

Okay … I sighed. I peered into Halcyon’s eyes, as if I could glean anything else from there. Nothing but the usual glint. Having evolved in the Goldilocks zone of their system, on a planet roughly the size of Earth with a similar atmosphere, the Vonkrai were like humans if you looked at them from a certain angle but extremely different if you looked from every other angle. They had our humanoid bodies as a distant resemblance, but theirs were rough like a stone and had a flinty periwinkle tonality, like an untouched vein of amethyst. Their eyes ranged from pitch to crystalline waters, their voices from whispers to drumbeats. Halcyon was a quiet one who spoke softly and hardly moved on the chair. If Halcyon were a human, I’d say they were extremely shy.

Notifications popped up in the corner of my pad’s screen. Two… Five… Seven… Work time was work time, but only Vitória sent multiple messages in a row.

I tapped on the most recent message.

[Vitória:] Maravilhosa, can u bring pastel for dinner?

[Vitória:] From Queijo Supremo.

[Vitória:] And some soda :-)

[Vitória:] And u. <3

[Vitória:] Sorry, many messages. I know u don’t like that much.

[Vitória:] Just 1 more, I promise to stop hitting Enter.

[Vitória:] I have something to tell u.

Asking: can I go? Halcyon was staring at me.

I blinked at them. To my surprise, the words on their torso had changed.

{Don’t break my heart, please, please.}

The pleases were curling around their side, blurry like smoke.

All the possibilities of Vitória leaving Teresa churned in my head. I’d proposed to her six months ago. We’d planned to purchase a spacious cabin in habitation… And now she was planning to leave and would tell me this over soda and cheese pastel. Great. Just great.

And I still had a murder to solve.

All right, Halcyon. I stood and turned off the pad’s screen. That will be all for today. I may have to contact you again.

Asserting: you can contact me again. Halcyon stood, half a meter taller than me.

For now, I had to worry about my yet-to-come-or-maybe-never-will-come marriage. And pastel.

Ironic how our thoughts fluttered back and forth from our friends’ bodies, and how, through them, we found out many things about ourselves. Vitória said they were the walking mirrors of our souls. In a station like Teresa, with a half human, half Vonkrai population, it wasn’t rare to find yourself in an elevator with a Vonkrai only to realize what you really wanted. It’d been on the plummy skin of a Vonkrai that I’d discovered I wanted to propose. The words—I need to be one with her—glistened on their body when I was strolling in a biosphere garden with Vitória. She’d chuckled when she saw those words on the body of a passing Vonkrai, flaunting above other, feebler thoughts. I never told her that thought was mine.

Also ironic how I found out, six months later, that Vitória was planning to leave me: I unintentionally eavesdropped on her conversation with her boss. She was in the mining business, in a management position coordinating the operations in Orthal. And I knew that out here, mines depleted and the business moved from place to place as easily as ships transporting goods from Earth. I just didn’t think an engagement could deplete as easily. I’d thought of questioning her that day but decided that the announcement should come from her.

After leaving Halcyon and the investigation room, I shoved the murder back into the corner of my mind and bought us seven pastéis: three cheese, two shrimp, two veggies—our right proportion.

I set the pastéis over the dinner table in our rented quarters, hands shaking, heart pounding fast, and waited for Vitória to arrive. I knew what was coming, right? Our first serious fight after the engagement. She’d want to go to Vladimir. She’d have been offered an excellent position there, in that corner of the galaxy, in that tiny, sulfur-stinking station half a year away from Teresa. I wouldn’t be able to go. There was no need for a detective in a place with a hundred souls and a zero percent crime rate. And there was no way we could cope with that much distance. We’d have to cancel our wedding. We’d have to cancel the plans for our cabin. We’d—

Hey, maravilhosa, Vitória said when the doors slid open. Joyful enough for someone who had something to tell.

I nodded and pursed my lips just out of habit. She leaned to kiss me, bringing in her scent of soft vanilla with traces of silver ore. I fluttered all over, and, for a split moment, I was ready to give up the work I loved to live with her in that ungracious station. She just needed to ask. We could talk, right? We could arrange middle grounds for our relationship. It was expensive and tiresome to spend months hopping from station to station, but it was feasible.

Vitória took a bath and put on her pajamas, a loose shirt with pictures of Orthal. She had her locks tied up in a bun. We ate the pastéis, talked about our days—I told her all about Halcyon and how I had already investigated a list of suspects but couldn’t come to a conclusion. She told me how Orthal mines were depleting and how the drillers were just perforating hollow ground. I listened attentively, waiting for the moment when she’d spill out that she was going to leave. We had filled our bellies, but the moment didn’t come.

Vicky. I didn’t want to be the one to bring up the subject, but I didn’t want to read the suspects’ files with that part of my day still unsolved. You said you had something to tell me.

I scanned her all over like I did when I was interviewing. She flinched, and I forced a smile.

You don’t need to look at me like I’m a suspect, maravilhosa. She grinned, but her eyes evaded mine. What I want to tell you is that I found a gorgeous VR rack set for our new cabin.

Liar. I almost said it out loud. How I wanted to have a Vonkrai standing upright in the room, their naked body flickering with Vitória’s real intentions.

Why the grumpy face? she said.

I rubbed a finger over my brow and shook my head.

Just a rough day. I’m used to dealing with black markets, not murders…

She stood and set our plates aside on the sink. Her avoidance just made things worse. I thought we could count on each other, share our desires… Maybe it would have to wait. Maybe she wasn’t ready to tell me yet. I wasn’t okay with that, but I could go on.

When we first met the Vonkrai, twenty years ago, the anthropologists called them telepaths because our thoughts were transmitted to their bodies in ways we didn’t grasp. But it wasn’t fair to call it telepathy. They weren’t consuming our thoughts, reading them, listening to them. They’d only knew what we were thinking if they read their own bodies or those of their fellows. Which they never did, or, if they did, never cared enough to pay attention. What they actually did was expose our thoughts. Leave us naked. So the proper term—in my personal, unscientific definition unbacked by peers—was that the Vonkrai were gymnopaths. From the Greek γυμνός (gymnós) meaning naked, and πάθος (pathos) meaning feeling.

It was my day off. I stood with Halcyon in silence, gazing at the sightseeing kilometric panel in front of us. I could still see my thoughts distorted on their body through the glass reflection, slowly rippling like waves made up of letters.

{You proposed to a liar.}

Luckily, the sightseeing deck with the sun rising over Orthal was packed with people, and among my thought was at least another dozen, the fiercest ones in people’s minds.

{I hate this dry air.} {Take me to dinner.} {I love him so much.} {My side hurts; I should visit a doctor.} {Orthal is a gray ball of ugliness, but the blues of this sun are the most beautiful thing.}

Of course, I’d thought of that before calling Halcyon for a walk. Everyone did when meeting Vonkrai, so sightseeing decks, restaurants, and markets were the ideal places. After