Parsec 8#

By Ian Whates, Paul Di Filippo, Preston Grassmann and 14 more

Don't tell anyone, but there have been strange goings-on in this neck of the wood of late. Furtive messages have been buzzing between the publishing behemoth that is PS Towers and my base of operations here at NewCon Central. To what purpose? you may ask (and let's face it, I'm going to tell you even if you don't ask).

Well, very soon, PS Publishing will be releasing the first ever (and who knows, perhaps the only ever) anthology in print of stories that have featured in the digital pages of ParSec. Twenty-five stories drawn from the first seven issues of the magazine will appear within the covers of ParSec in Print (how on Earth did we come up with the title?). Choosing those stories has been a challenge in itself. I could easily have selected twice that number and the composition of the book has chopped and changed until I applied the fixing agent (ie until I delivered the MS to the publisher).

• Language: English
• Publisher: PS Publishing
• Release date: Oct 11, 2023
• ISBN: 9781786369857

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

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Ian Whates

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Don’t tell anyone, but there have been strange goings-on in this neck of the wood of late. Furtive messages have been buzzing between the publishing behemoth that is PS Towers and my base of operations here at NewCon Central. To what purpose? you may ask (and let’s face it, I’m going to tell you even if you don’t ask).

Well, very soon, PS Publishing will be releasing the first ever (and who knows, perhaps the only ever) anthology in print of stories that have featured in the digital pages of ParSec. Twenty-five stories drawn from the first seven issues of the magazine will appear within the covers of ParSec in Print (how on Earth did we come up with the title?). Choosing those stories has been a challenge in itself. I could easily have selected twice that number and the composition of the book has chopped and changed until I applied the fixing agent (ie until I delivered the MS to the publisher).

As for which stories have been chosen...You’ll just have to wait and see.

In a sense, therefore, this issue marks the Second Age of ParSec, as it’s the first issue whose fiction will not be represented in the book. Regarding those stories, we have a strong showing of both SF and horror this time around, kicking off with the concluding section of Paul di Filippo and Preston Grassmann’s outstanding Linear City novella which is immediately followed by a graphic ‘future history’ from academic Rolf Hughes, which marks his speculative fiction debut.

Then we have a piece of clever fairground darkness reminiscent of Ray Bradbury in Maxwell Marais’ In the Hall of Memory before Michael Cobley kicks the tempo up a notch with a high-octane cyberpunk ride in Stealing From Titans, only for Emma K. Leadley to sooth our fevered brow with a poignant piece of SF in Nature and Nurture.

Next up, David Cleden transports us to a very near future where our protagonist both rediscovers and loses themselves within the illicit world of addictive meme-strips, after which Greek author Antony Paschos introduces us to a grieving son determined to discover why his mother’s image has started to fade from every photo following her death.

Our penultimate piece from Brock Poulsen details the travails of the two-person crew on a space ship who must solve the mystery of why they are losing power when everything seems to be functioning normally, knowing that their lives depend on their success. Finally, Morgan Delaney delivers a highly disturbing love/lust story which opens in time-honoured fashion with a man picking up a hitchhiker but then veers off in a totally unexpected direction...

We have an additional non-fiction piece this time around, as well as Jared and Anne’s always thought provoking In the Weeds, which takes a look at reading recommendations and why they can be a waste of time unless handled properly, and Life in the Fast Lane in which Martin Sketchley discusses his new venture with YouTube and promo production. Teika Marija Smit’s piece on short stories originally appeared as a blog post. I liked it, as Teika makes some pertinent points regarding the shorter format which we champion here at ParSec, so I asked her if we could include the piece in the magazine...This issue’s interview, once more deftly handled by Andy Hedgecock, puts author Alice Thompson under the spotlight.  Her latest novel, Chimera, is also one of the titles covered by our ever-perceptive reviews brigade.

Right, that’s it...Here’s to issue 9!

WAR IN THE LINEAR HEAVENS (Part 2)

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Paul Di Filippo & Preston Grassmann

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As war rages in the skies above Linear City, Jaff, apprentice to the man who instigated the conflict, finds himself at the heart of events and knows that he is all that stands between the city and imminent disaster...

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The winds of a warmer season came, bringing with it the advent of a strange new world. For the oldest, most central certitude of Linear City had fallen by the wayside (at least locally, in Overlack; travellers’ reports from elsewhere remained ambiguous about the extent of the new unsettling phenomenon), and so no one could say what other truisms might prove false.

The remote yet intimate, majestic yet domestic, all-powerful yet severely restricted creatures known as the Pompatics, those two disparate yet yoked species dubbed Fisherwives and Yardbulls, had begun to battle among themselves, conducting aerial melees that often made them late to attend their valkyric duties. Whereas in all recorded time, a dead human had been retrieved within microseconds of expiring, now the inanimate form of a loved one or stranger, friend or foe, could linger for minutes, hours, and even once, due to a titanic sky scrimmage, for a whole day.

It was common knowledge that the cause of all this internecine spiritual warfare was a new entity, often seen aloft. This flying creature, in the form of a woman, seemed to be the fuel that fertilised all blossoming of Pompatic strife. The woman thing seemed at times to be a machine made of light, a herald, bearing with it the long trailing notes of an ageless song—a tune that seemed to foretell the end of Linear City itself.

During the worst of the battles, Fisherwives and Yardbulls actually fell from the sky, their spectral passage like the shimmering tails of comets. Impacting, each Pompatic would continue to sink through pavement, buildings, human obstacles and vanish into the undersoul of the city; perhaps, some speculated, to merge with the City Beast. Astonished crowds stood in mute or noisy witness to these tumbles, hands pointing skyward as the Pompatics clashed, wondering how the long-held beliefs of the humans could ever parse such an unexplained occurrence. The ageless beings of Linear Heaven were at war, leaving the timeworn citizens of Overlack in a state of bewilderment and stunned apprehension.

Jaff, of course, knew exactly what was going on, for Thonet had calmly explained it to him.

My Beryl avatar is like an antenna. She positions herself in the midst of those evil ones and broadcasts a deracinating signal specially constructed by me. Because the scintilla within her are attuned to the Pompatics and resonate with their fibres, she can flood their senses and reasonings with my canned madness. I am not sure if aerial reinforcements arrive from other Blocks to take the place of the victims, but, if they do, they will succumb just as easily. And at a certain point the skies will be clear at last of these evil entities.

Jaff could only remain mute at this bitterness and audacity. To purge the entire Linear City of one of its core components, like removing a wheel from a car and expecting it to function, just to salve one’s hurting heart— it was hubris and insanity mixed. Not only that, but the plan was entirely unfeasible, given the immense size of the Linear City. Reinforcements could flow into the vacuum of Overlack for years, decades, centuries. And surely the Pompatics were not eternals, but had to be born or created somewhere, somehow. Would not new entities continue to flow off the celestial assembly line?

At first, Jaff had wanted to rebel against his master and end this deadly farce, to perhaps render Osny Thonet helpless then to wreck all the subterranean machinery. But he had not found within himself the ability to do his master physical harm, after their long relationship of trust and aid. Also, the repercussions of randomly wrecking the apparatus were unclear. He might do more harm than good.

His second impulse was to run right away to the Mayor’s office and confess all, enlisting her civic help in stopping this war. But Jaff had hesitated for a week, fearing the penalties and punishments that would surely descend on Thonet’s head—and perhaps on Jaff’s own, as accomplice.

But one particularly large sky melee, an all-night affair of fulgent fireworks, with the Beryl figure curvetting and urging on the slaughter like a monomaniacal coach for the Overlack Undines, had finally convinced Jaff that he owed no more loyalty to Thonet—or, rather, had a larger loyalty to all humanity—and so had to reveal what he knew to the proper authorities.

Now Jaff sat in the waiting room outside the office of the Mayor, preparing to do whatever it took to end the aberrant contretemps of the skies. He had a complete confession and impassioned plea ready upon his lips. And when he was finally summoned into the Mayor’s chambers, he got ready to blurt everything out.

But he was brought up short by the totally unexpected presence of a stranger. The statuesque Mayor Dasha Kosholkina, accoutred as usual in a high-fashion outfit of knee-topping boots, black tights, emerald-coloured pencil skirt, flaring brocaded jacket and a set of hair combs, stood shoulder to shoulder with a very impressive chap.

This man, in the prime of his maturity, was clad all in mellow buttery leathers, and wore a gay scarf around his neck. His countenance showed a rugged handsomeness not diminished by some random scarring. A set of goggles was pushed atop his thick dark hair.

The Mayor greeted Jaff enthusiastically. Mister Starling, I am so glad you’re here. I was going to contact you to see if your Mister Thonet might be inclined to help us out either financially or with his ingeniator’s expertise in our current attempt to intercede among the Pompatics and end their crazed slaughter. We have now been presented with the only plan that I deem to have an ounce of succeeding. And it’s all thanks to this fellow, who has altruistically journeyed here from a dozen Boroughs away to help us. His name is Mountford Bedwell.

Bedwell stepped forward and extended a hand. Jaff accepted it, and received a bone-crushing shake—not meanly or spitefully or boastingly delivered, he sensed, but just the natural exuberant manifestation of Bedwell’s animal vitalism.

Mighty pleased to meet you, son. You can call me Mount. What’s your natural moniker? Can’t go on slinging stodgy ‘Misters’ around now, can we?

Uh, Jaff...

Well, Jaff, take a gander at these plans, and see what you think.

On the Mayor’s desk was a large piece of paper rolled into a cylinder. Bedwell unfurled it and anchored its four corners with various items from the Mayor’s desk, including a trophy for BEST-DRESSED OVERLACK POLITICIAN AULC 1301.

Jaff looked down and saw the designs for a fleet of strange, unlikely vehicles. He would have called it a fleet of children’s balloons, had not the drawing shown human figures in baskets suspended beneath what were obviously gigantic hot-air envelopes. They were depicted soaring above the city’s rooftops.

I’ve perfected these here gadgets, what I call ‘atmo-risers.’ With them, you can soar above the city. Quite a view you get, too. Miles and miles of endless Blocks, uptown and Downtown both. Makes one mighty humble, it does. Back home, in Stammerskloot, I run a sightseeing business. Send up folks, give ’em a gander, then haul ’em back down. But when I heard about your troubles here, it jumped right into my mind how I could help.

The excited Mayor intervened with the precise details. We are going to launch a score of these atmo-risers, each one with a propelling fan attached to allow it to manoeuvre swiftly and deftly. The riders will be equipped with some sort of weapons—we’re not quite sure yet what type. Flame-throwers, electric prods, guns. And then we are going to close in on the female herald that seems to be causing all this ruckus and take her down. With luck, that will suffice to end the war.

Blow that little bitch right outen the sky, Bedwall chimed in heartily. End all your troubles faster’n you can say ‘whore’s britches on fire.’

Jaff looked from drawing to Mayor to Bedwell, and then back around again. This scheme seemed almost as arrogantly demented as Thonet’s. Would that guarantee its success? In any case, endorsing the plan was a more attractive option than confessing one’s guilt and throwing oneself on the mercy of the populace of an angry and frightened Borough. And with access to Thonet’s cheque-book—what good was a secretary and assistant who could not write cheques in his master’s name?—Jaff could route money to Bedwell without Thonet ever knowing.

"Mayor Kosholkina, Mountford—I can positively assure you that Mister Thonet has a most sincere and vital interest in the doings of this rogue herald, and will want to be involved to the nth degree in her fate. Now, how much do you need?"

After Jaff had cut the cheque, Mountford slapped the lad’s back with a mighty blow, and the Mayor bestowed a succulent kiss. Like two sides of his conscience, their actions cancelled out. And yet, between them, he felt the world closing in, stifling him with the knowledge of what he had done.

On the way back to the mansion, Jaff felt as if he was skirting the edge of an interminable chasm, laid bare against a cloudless black sky. The streets of Overlack were silent beneath the apparition of his unease, the ever-turning wheel of ritual and faith broken by events which the war in the heavens could no longer accommodate.

He took detours on his way home, passing down and back up either some Trackside or Riverside cross-streets that bore the names of an obscure and atavistic theology—Chatelaine’s Way or Autarch Lane or Thecla’s Street—thinking about how his own form of faith had failed him. When Osny had pulled him out of the underbelly of the city and rescued him from the hands of his abuser, he had been so certain of his purpose. Now, like the citizens of Overlack, he had to re-evaluate his life and find out what mattered most to him, in light of unforeseen circumstances.

One thing was certain: he had cut more than a cheque that day. He had severed his connection to Osny and the adventurous life that entailed, even if the severance was time-delayed.

He watched the candle-light burn behind the timid glass squares of window frames, flickering and shivering over the empty streets and time-worn walls of the Borough, its frightened citizens waiting for their apocalypse to end.

Osny was gazing out of a Riverside window of Brilliant Corners when Jaff arrived at the mansion, holding a drink like a celebrant preparing an official toast. The sight brought the assistant back to the beginning or their relationship, as if Osny had been waiting to enact this scene of poetic ballast and equipoise for him alone.

In a sombre tone, the author of the current apocalypse declaimed, Awake, arise, or be forever fall’n...

"Riverside Lost, Jaff said, by the marvelous Otto Steinbreuck," wondering if Osny already knew of his duplicity.

As always, you have benefited from the instruction of a great man, Thonet replied, in the common parlance of his affection. And yet, was there something different in his tone? 

Jaff felt a sudden surge of guilt as he watched his master now. It hadn’t been that long ago that Osny had stood at the same window, enraged by a passing Pompatic; now, he was a figure in repose, as full of certainty as the timorous citizens of Overlack were bereft. The scars of his face had somehow settled, as if some puzzle had finally been solved and the pieces now fit for the first time. Behind Thonet, the basement doorway, ajar as if secrecy were no longer an issue, flashed with the soul-sparks of his automaton, reminding Jaff of his new purpose; to stymie this insane vendetta. Out of nowhere, images of his childhood partner-in-crime, Drumlin, came to the surface of Jaff’s mind. He tried to focus on his lost childhood friend, and how peaceful he had seemed during his celestial passage.

Osny seemed inclined to muse and memorialise. This should be a moment of celebration, a relief to see the skies so untrammelled, free of our celestial oppressors. And yet, so many of our fellow citizens cower behind their walls, refusing to admit their own freedom. They would rather be slaves to the Pompatics than determine their own fates.

Have you ever wondered, Jaff asked, what will happen to the bodies of the dead without the Pompatics? To say nothing of their eternal portions?

The dead belong to the living, my boy, not our celestial oppressors. We will pay them the respect and veneration they deserve. And now, it won’t be long before the shores of our city are unhindered by the usurpers of humankind.

Where will it end?

Ah, that is the question, my boy, but one I’ve thought about a lot lately, he said, turning a sidelong smile toward Jaff. It’s one that you’ve been thinking about too, isn’t it? Except that your goal line is at the opposite end of the field from mine, apparently. His smile flickered like a candle in a cold breeze.

How could his master have known of his duplicity, committed just hours ago? Perhaps Osny had planted some kind of radio-transmitter in the Mayor’s office? Nothing was beyond the man’s technical prowess.

Osny... Jaff said, his words stifled by shame.

You don’t have to say anything, Osny said. He lifted his drink calmly to his lips, before he turned to face his servant head on. It wasn’t hard to notice the changes, and how much you’ve taken to the citizens of Overlack with such fervour—one sensual resident in particular, I might add, he said with a wink.

How...?

Oh, come now—those late-night perambulations, that look in your eyes was like a flame that couldn’t be snuffed out. But rest assured, there’s nothing to be sorry about, my boy. We are all aggregates of our energies. They turn through us and guide our actions, much like my beloved automaton leads us to freedom—it’s all in the programming. We are all driven by soulstuff, our own unique animus and spirit, are we not? But you didn’t think I would allow my plans to be ruined by the contingencies of other souls, did you?

Once again the showman, the obsessed inventor suddenly threw an arm toward the basement door. Where will it end, you inquire? In there is the answer to your question and the panacea to your doubts.

Beryl...?

And something else, my boy, he said. Now that the Pompatics are demoralised, debilitated and decimated, my little side-project can finally be unveiled. Come, follow me.

Osny conducted Jaff to the open basement door, and they were brought up short of descending by the upward arrival of the automaton herself! Evidently, her sky-duties harassing the Pompatics were in abeyance for the nonce. She emerged from the cellar depths and into the light of day like an unwinding clockwork toy.

This was the first time Jaff had been so close to mechanical Beryl since her debut. Now, he detected something forlorn and melancholic in the way the artificial woman moved, her limbs turning slowly over the faint sparks of the captive exudations within her.

But before Jaff could draw any conclusions about