Starwater Strains Read online

  The title of this book is taken from “Lady Rosemary,” a poem by C. S. Cooney; and this book is dedicated to them.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  Viewpoint

  Rattler with BRIAN HOPKINS

  In Glory like Their Star

  Calamity Warps

  Graylord Man’s Last Words

  Shields of Mars

  From the Cradle

  THE TALE OF THE DWARF AND THE CHILDREN OF THE SPHINX

  THE TALE OF PRINCE KNOW-NOTHING

  THE TALE OF THE BOY AND THE BOOKSHOP

  Black Shoes

  Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?

  Pulp Cover

  Of Soil and Climate

  The Dog of the Drops

  Mute

  Petting Zoo

  Castaway

  The Fat Magician

  Hunter Lake

  The Boy Who Hooked the Sun

  Try and Kill It

  Game in the Pope’s Head

  Empires of Foliage and Flower

  The Arimaspian Legacy

  The Seraph from Its Sepulcher

  Lord of the Land

  Golden City Far

  STARWATER STRAINS

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  BY GENE WOLFE FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

  Praise for Gene Wolfe

  Copyright Page

  Introduction

  Pieces like this ought to be about the stories, or so it has always seemed to me. Unless you’ve read one of my earlier books, there’s no reason for you to be interested in me. And if you have, there’s still not much: you can’t buy me or take me home from the library. These stories are what you’re getting, the things you must now give your time to possess. If I could write this the way I want to, I would spend its words telling you how others have reacted to the stories behind it. I can’t, because in most cases I don’t know. Someone warned me once that writing stories was like sailing rose petals into the Grand Canyon.

  “Viewpoint” was written for Al Sarrantonio, who had paid lots of money for a story called “The Tree Is My Hat.” Have you watched reality shows on TV? Every time I do, I’m struck by the unreality of them. The contestants have to pretend that they can’t see the cameras or the director and his crew when we know perfectly well they can. But they’re in it for the money, and that’s what they have to do if they are to have any hope of getting it. Al wanted sf for his new book, and I tried to think of a way to do a reality show for real, with real guns and a real government clawing at the money.

  “Rattler” is a collaboration with Brian Hopkins. Brian wrote El Dio de los Muertos and edited 13 Horrors, and has written and edited a lot of other things. He is from Oklahoma, though. I like him, and I don’t mind that Oklahoma people are smarter than Texas people like me; but they don’t have to keep talking and talking about it the way they do. That was why I started listening hard when he said he was going to get himself a new truck with a manual transmission, because he couldn’t abide a pickup that was smarter than he was. We got to talking about trainability, guide trucks for the visually impaired, and so forth. It went on from there.

  Damon Knight used to say he got most of his stories by fixing other people’s. Things in those stories would bug him—Damon was easily bugged—so he’d change everything that bugged him; and by the time he did, he had a different story. I don’t do it much, but a while ago I read a story in which visiting aliens were taken for gods by Earthlings like you and me. It bugged me enough that I wrote “In Glory like Their Star.”

  When I sent “Calamity Warps” to Kathe Koja, she said it seemed very autobiographical. Which in a way it was. Calamity Jane was really Rosemary’s dog, and I never liked her as much as I should have. She was a better dog than I deserved; let’s leave it like that. And fast! Why, when she was young—well, you wouldn’t believe me. For the first three or four years she was determined to learn Human and used to practice her language lessons when she and I were alone in the house and I wasn’t looking. Calamity could give you the creeps.

  “Graylord Man’s Last Words” is a simple little twenty-ninth-century story about a poor kid sent to live with a servant in the house of a rich man. Dickens would have made a novel of him, and it would have been wonderful.

  “Shields of Mars” was written for Peter Crowther, and when I started I called it “Swords of Mars.” Then it hit me that the atmosphere factory those two guys worked in was in fact shielding Mars.

  “From the Cradle” is one of my favorites. Greg Ketter owns Dreamhaven, a wonderful bookstore in Minneapolis. He wanted to do a book of stories laid in bookstores, one of the best anthology ideas ever. I was eager to get into his book, and did.

  As you’ve seen, a lot of my stories come into being because somebody wants a story touching a particular topic. If I like the topic, I try to write the story. “Black Shoes” was a little different. I met Brian Hopkins at a World Horror Convention at which we were guests, and when it had been over for a while he told me he’d been asked to edit an anthology of stories by past WHC guests. I said sure—then couldn’t think up an idea. Dean Swift wrote his meditation on a broomstick to prove that a writer could write about any subject, and I reminded myself of that one evening as I was getting dressed to go out to dinner. When I looked down at the objects I was holding, I knew what I was going to write about, but I still didn’t know whether I could make my idea work. A wonderful audience at Windycon loved it, and I’ve liked it ever since.

  “Has Anybody Seen Junie Moon?” is and isn’t a Lafferty story. It isn’t a story Ray Lafferty might have written—or at least I don’t think it is. (With Lafferty, you could never be sure.) But he’s behind it, laughing at my story and me. Which is better than okay. Like “Shields of Mars,” “Junie Moon” was written for Peter Crowther, who put it in Moon Shots, which is better than okay, too.

  “Pulp Cover” is about the covers I love on Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Planet Stories. Not to mention Amazing Stories, that truly amazing magazine. If you’re at all familiar with those old pulps, you’ll be way ahead of me when you read “Pulp Cover.”

  “Of Soil and Climate” first appeared in Realms of Fantasy, as did “Calamity Warps” and “Rattler.” If you enjoy these three stories, you may join me in thanking the editor, Shawna McCarthy.

  Sometimes you open the back door and find a story there, wagging its tail and hoping to be fed. I think it’s a good idea to take these stories in, feed them, and buy them flea collars. “The Dog of the Drops” came like that.

  “Mute” is a story I wrote for the program book of the World Horror Convention at which Judi Rohrig introduced me to Brain Hopkins. If you don’t like it, blame Rich Lukes and Tina Jens; they co-chaired the con. Save some blame for John Everson, who took it. It was nominated for the Stoker Award but didn’t win.

  “Petting Zoo” is a favorite story of David Hartwell’s, the master editor who edited this book and most of my others. Do you like dinosaurs? I loved them when I was a kid, and I’ve noticed that Hobbes’s buddy Calvin loves them at least as much. Perhaps David feels the same way.

  “Castaway” is about birds and spaceships. It’s a story not many people like, although those who like it seem to like it a lot.

  When Lee Martindale asked me for a story for Such a Pretty Face, she asked me not to submit “a fat-gene story.” I warned her that “The Fat Magician” was a fat Gene story, but she took it anyhow. I’ve written four or five stories about Sam Cooper, Ph.D.; perhaps there’ll be enough for a collection someday.

  Gordon Van Gelder, an editor to whom we short-story writers owe much, bought “Hunter Lake” from me, and many other stories. C. S. Lewis subscribed to Fantasy & Scienc
e Fiction, as do I. Why don’t you join us?

  “The Boy Who Hooked the Sun” was written for the late Jan O’Nale, who used it in a greeting card. It’s a brown book story, like those in “From the Cradle.” May the earth lie lightly on you, Jan.

  “Try and Kill It” is a rarity among my stories—one Gardner Dozois liked well enough to run in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine. Gardner no longer edits it, but he remains one of the friendliest guys I know.

  “Game in the Pope’s Head” impressed Ellen Datlow; I’ve loved it ever since. The Pope’s Head was a London pub back when Sherlock Holmes walked among men, and this is a Jack the Ripper story. I hope you like it.

  “Empires of Foliage and Flower” was a chapbook from Cheap Street, Jan and George O’Nale’s little publishing company. Jan once said that when Saint Peter asked her what she had done that might get her into heaven, she’d tell him she’d published this. I hope it worked.

  Nick Gevers pointed out that “The Arimaspian Legacy” should have been in Innocents Aboard. He’s right. It, too, was a Cheap Street greeting card.

  “The Seraph from Its Sepulcher” is about a lonely missionary on an alien planet. They will be there, just as we will.

  “Lord of the Land” is a Lovecraft story as well as a Sam Cooper story. If you’ve sat in a rocker on the front porch of a farmhouse, cooling your face with a fan from a funeral parlor, you’ll be kind to this story. If you have not, well, it wasn’t written for you.

  “Golden City Far” closes this book you’re holding, as it does Al Sarrantonio’s Flights. It’s about dreams, high school, and finding love, which is as good a recipe for a story as I’ve ever found. This is my seventh collection from Tor, and it’s high time I thanked you for reading. I owe you far more than I can ever repay.

  —GENE WOLFE

  Viewpoint

  I have one question and one only,” Jay declared. “How do I know that I will be paid? Answer it to my satisfaction and give your orders.”

  The youngish man behind the desk opened a drawer and pulled out a packet of crisp bills. It was followed by another and another, and they by seven more. The youngish man had brown-blond hair and clear blue eyes that said he could be trusted absolutely with anything. Looking at them, Jay decided that each had cost more than he had ever had in his entire life to date.

  “Here’s the money,” the youngish man told Jay softly. “These are hundreds, all of them. Each band holds one hundred, so each bundle is ten thousand. Ten bundles make a hundred thousand. It’s really not all that much.”

  “Less than you make in a year.”

  “Less than I make in three months. I know it’s a lot to you.” The youngish man hesitated as though groping for a new topic. “You’ve got a dramatic face, you know. Those scars. That was your edge. Did you really fight a bobcat?”

  Jay shrugged. “The bullet broke its back, and I thought it was dead. I got too close.”

  “I see.” The youngish man pushed the packets of bills toward him. “Well, you don’t have to worry about getting paid. That’s the full sum, and you’re getting it up front and in cash.” He paused. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this.”

  Jay was looking at the money. “If it’s confidential, say so and I’ll keep it that way.”

  “Will you?”

  Jay nodded. “For a hundred thousand? Yes. For quite a bit less than that.”

  The youngish man sighed. “You probably know anyway, so why not? You can’t just go out and stick it in a bank. You understand that?”

  “They’ll say it’s drug money.”

  For a moment the youngish man looked as if he were about to sigh again, although he did not. “They’ll say it’s drug money, of course. They always do. But they really don’t care. You have a lot of money, and if it gets into a bank Big Daddy will have it in a nanosecond. It’ll take you years to get it back, and cost a lot more than a hundred thousand.”

  Though skeptical, Jay nodded. “Sure.”

  “Okay, I didn’t want to give you this and have them grab it before five. They’ll take a big cut of anything you spend it on anyway, but we’ve all got to live with that.”

  Jay did not, but he said nothing.

  “Count it. Count it twice and look carefully. I don’t want you thinking we cheated you for a lousy hundred thou.”

  Jay did, finding it impossible to think of what so much money could buy. He had needed money so badly that he could no longer calculate its value in terms of a new rifle or a canoe. It was money itself he hungered for now, and this was more than he had dared dream of.

  “You want a bag? I can give you one, but that jacket’s got plenty of pockets. It’s for camping, right?”

  “Hunting.”

  The youngish man smiled the smile of one who knows a secret. “Why don’t you put it in there? Should be safer than a bag.”

  Jay had begun to fill them already—thirty thousand in the upper right inside pocket, twenty more in the upper left, behind his wallet. Twenty in the left pocket outside.

  “You’re BC, right?”

  “Sure.” Jay tapped the empty screen above his eyes.

  “Okay.” The youngish man opened another drawer. “As a bonus you get a double upgrade. Couple of dots. Sit still.”

  Jay did.

  When the youngish man was back behind his desk, he said, “I bet you’d like to look at yourself. I ought to have a mirror, but I didn’t think of it. You want to go to the men’s? There’s a lot of mirrors in there. Just come back whenever you’ve seen enough. I’ve got calls to make.”

  “Thanks,” Jay said.

  In the windowless office beyond the youngish man’s, his secretary was chatting with a big security bot. Jay asked where the restrooms were, and the bot offered to show him, gliding noiselessly down the faux-marble corridor.

  “Tell me something,” Jay said when the bot had come to a stop before the door. “Suppose that when I got through in there I went down to the lobby. Would there be anything to stop me from going out to the street?”

  “No, sir.”

  “You’re going to be standing out here waiting for me when I come out, right? I’d never make it to the elevators.”

  “Will you need a guide at that point, sir?”

  The blank metal face had told Jay nothing, and the pleasant baritone had suggested polite inquiry, and nothing else. Jay said, “I can find my way back all right.”

  “In that case, I have other duties, sir.”

  “Like talking to that girl?”

  “Say woman, sir. To that young woman. They prefer it, and Valerie is an excellent source of intelligence. One cultivates one’s sources, sir, in police work.”

  Jay nodded, conceding the point. “Can you answer a couple more questions for me? If it’s not too much trouble?”

  “If I can, sir. Certainly.”

  “How many dots have I got?”

  “Are you referring to IA stars, sir?”

  Jay nodded.

  “Two, sir. Are you testing my vision, sir?”

  “Sure. One more, and I’ll let you alone. What’s the name of the man I’ve been talking to? There’s no nameplate on his desk, and I never did catch it.”

  “Mr. Smith, sir.”

  “You’re kidding me.”

  “No, sir.”

  “John Smith? I’ll bet that’s it.”

  “No, sir. Mr. James R. Smith, sir.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.”

  Scratching his chin, Jay went into the men’s room. There were at least a dozen mirrors there, as the youngish man had said. The little augmentation screen set into his forehead, blank and black since he had received it between the fourth and the fifth grades, showed two glimmering stars now: five- or six-pointed, and scarlet or blue depending on the angle from which he viewed them.

  For ten minutes or more he marveled at them. Then he relieved himself, washed his hands, and counted the money again. One hundred thousand in crisp, almost-new hundreds. Logically, it could
be counterfeit. Logically, he should have shown one to the security bot and asked its opinion.

  Had the bot noticed his bulging pockets? Security bots would undoubtedly be programmed to take note of such things, and might well be more observant than a human officer.

  He took out a fresh bill and examined it, riffling it between his fingers and holding it up to the light, reading its serial number under his breath. Good.

  If the bot had called it bad, it would have been because the bot had been instructed to do so, and that was all.

  Furthermore, someone had been afraid he would assault the youngish man the bot called James R. Smith, presumably because metal detectors had picked up his hunting knife; but Smith had not asked him to remove it, or so much as mentioned it. Why?

  Jay spent another fifteen or twenty seconds studying the stars in his IA screen and three full minutes concentrating before he left the restroom. There was no bot in the hall. A middle-aged man who looked important passed him without a glance and went in.

  Jay walked to the elevators, waved a hand for the motion detector, and rode a somewhat crowded car to the lobby. So far as he could see, no one was paying the least attention to him. There was another security bot in the lobby (as there had been when he had come in), but it appeared to pay no particular attention to him either.

  Revolving doors admitted him to Sixth Avenue. He elbowed his way for half a block along a sidewalk much too crowded, and returned to the Globnet Building.

  The security bot was chatting with the young woman in her windowless room again. When she saw Jay she nodded and smiled, and the doors to Smith’s office swung open.

  Smith, who had said that he would be making calls, was standing at one of his floor-to-ceiling windows staring out at the gloomy December sky.

  “I’m back,” Jay said. “Sorry I took so long. I was trying to access the new chips you gave me.”

  “You can’t.” Smith turned around.

  “That’s what I found out.”

  Smith’s chair rolled backward, and he seated himself at his desk. “Aren’t you going to ask me what they’re for?”