Asimov's Science Fiction: October/November 2013 (15 page)

Mother sat in the large cushioned easy chair in the corner, unbuttoned the stand collar of her blue striped dress, and then pulled off her one-strap pumps. Her feet looked sore. Mother leaned against the winged back of the chair with a sigh. "Oh, Eustace," she said, "Why is nothing simple?" He didn't know how to answer, but she didn't seem to expect one. She held her hand out to him, and he came to her, knelt and put his head in her lap. The music ended.

There was a rap at the door. Eustace got up and opened it. Mr. Righter stood there, wearing a cloth cap. He beamed at Eustace. "Well, there, son," he began, "ready for a little adventure?" His eyes shifted to Mother.

"Darling," she said, "Mr. Righter wants to take you to the Columbian Exhibition for the evening."

"What? No,
we're
supposed to go, you and me."

"Yes, and we will, Eustace, before summer's over, I promise. You can show me everything there is to see, because you'll know what's wonderful then. Tonight's the spectacle of lights, and we wanted you to see it, and I can't go, my feet ache so."

"Absolutely right," Mr. Righter agreed. "Tesla's spectacle. Aw, it's the future, just like I said to you, yours, my boy, and full of miracles, yessir." While he spoke he came into the room and patted Eustace on the shoulder. "If that ain't enough for you, why, Buffalo Bill's set up his Wild West Show right next door." He gave the shoulder a friendly squeeze.

Mother's eyes were wet. It wasn't tears, not yet, but he recognized that she needed him to do this.

He bent over and tugged at his knickerbockers to disguise his unhappiness. "All right," he said.

"Let's go then. Trolley's not going to wait."

Eustace looked again at Mother.

"I'll be fine," she said.

He followed Mr. Righter into the hall. The door across the hall remained closed.

Mr. Vanderhoff was just coming in as they left. He looked tired, his eyes red like he'd been staring into the sun all day. "Eustace, old buddy," he said, and patted him on the shoulder the way Mr. Righter had, but Mr. Righter guided him out and down the porch steps. Reaching the street, Eustace glanced back. Vanderhoff was still watching in perplexity. Miss Owens stood behind him in the shadows.

They took a trolley a few blocks, then switched to one of the new Calumet Electric Street Railway cars, which rolled south along Indiana. Eustace stood and Mr. Righter sat. Admiring the new car, he began to wax enthusiastically about electricity and the glories of the "White City" as folks were calling it. "Why," he said, "you know you can't lay
hands
on these tickets. Everyone wants these. If it weren't for poor old Schulde and his kindness toward you—why, sick as he is, he got hold of a couple tickets just for you. That's a generous and thoughtful man. Shame what's happened to him."

"But he was laid up all day."
We,
he thought, Mother had said
We wanted you to see it.

"Oh, well, probably intended to bring you along hisself. I bet that's right. He's real sweet on your ma."

The truth was obvious and awful.

The car stopped, and a dozen people climbed aboard. Eustace moved aside for them, out of Mr. Righter's sight, and quickly jumped off before the electric car started up again.

He heard no cry of alarm as he raced away. He ran for a few blocks, until he was walking across Washington Park. On one hillock there, he looked toward the lake and spied the shape of the enormous ferris wheel in the late sunlight. The buildings near it flew pennants. They waved in the dying breeze.

Eustace had no money for another trolley, and he'd been taken miles out of his way; but he knew where he was now, and hurried on, moving north and west. That took him near the stockyards. He veered from the stink and continued north, crossing the Chicago River again.

On Ohio Street the music store remained open on this balmy evening. The Edison machine stood playing a jaunty tune just inside the doorway, but nobody was listening. It was as if the machine was running on its own.

By the time he reached his own street again, it was twilight. A horse-drawn wagon stood out front of the boarding house. The driver looked to be catching a nap.

On the walk in the front, Mrs. Claymore stood conversing with Mr. Righter, who'd obviously ridden home on another trolley. They were watching for him. They didn't understand. Nobody did.

He circled behind the houses opposite, cut across the empty lot where he'd played stickball last summer, and approached the boarding house from the side. He scurried to the narrow back porch and entered through the kitchen, hurried up the back stairs.

Along the second floor hall all the doors were closed and the place stood silent. As quietly as he could, Eustace crept to Mr. Vanderhoff 's door and knocked. A murmured reply answered, the word indistinct. Then the door opened and in trousers and braces over an undershirt, Mr. Vanderhoff blinked down at him. He or his room smelled of spirits.

"Why, Eustace, I thought—what's the matter?"

"Mr. Schulde got rid of me so he could get Mother in his room and have her all to himself. There was another woman, but the policeman stopped him before he could use her. And none of you would tell me what happened to Miss Comuzzi, but I know he killed her, and her soul—" He stopped before he had to try explaining the cylinders and the rest that nobody would believe.

"I knew that bird was bad news first time I clapped eyes on him. Holding Miriam 'gainst her will, is he?" He stepped away from the door, but reappeared almost immediately with his revolver. "We'll show him," he said, and marched past Eustace.

He pounded on the door with the butt of his gun. Eustace scurried around him to see. The door was flung back, and a shot fired, but it wasn't Vanderhoff 's gun. Eyes disbelieving, Vanderhoff pressed against the jamb and clutched at his belly. Blood flowed out between his fingers.

Eustace edged toward the stairs as Mr. Schulde entered the doorway. He stepped impassively over Vanderhoff 's legs and into the hall. He held a valise in one hand, a pistol in the other. His gaze swiveled to Eustace. He wasn't sick anymore. Though not as immaculate as before, his hair was black, his face smooth. "You," he snarled. "You meddling little brat." He strode for the stairs. The top of a black cylindrical case poked up out of his coat pocket.

Eustace backed down the stairs on all fours. The smoking barrel of the gun tracked him. Then from behind Mr. Schulde came a loud "bang!" and the man stumbled against the wall, then blindly fired back at Vanderhoff. Seemingly more furious than injured, he plunged headlong down the stairs to the landing, forcing Eustace to flee to the front door where he ran up against Mr. Righter and Mrs. Claymore. They stood together, horrified.

"Get out of my way!" Schulde commanded them. His gun swung to show them where to move, revealing a bloody stain on the side of his jacket. "Now!" They scrambled for the dining room, dragging Eustace with them. Mr. Schulde stared daggers at him. Clearly he wanted to shoot, but instead he bounded out across the porch and down the front steps. "You! Teamster!" he called. "Wake the hell up, go up to my room and get the box under the canvas! Go on, hurry up!"

Eustace tore out of Mr. Righter's grasp and ran onto the porch.

The driver had jumped from his seat and across the walk, but drew up at the sight of Mr. Schulde's gun.

And then came another shot, from the side yard that Eustace had crossed only minutes before, and Mr. Schulde abruptly pitched sideways. He nearly went to one knee, but came up again and swung about to face his enemy. He brought his gun to bear. A second shot went off and Mr. Schulde tripped and went down on his knees, then collapsed back into a sitting position, like a rag-doll in the grass. He gazed down at himself in confusion. His whole shirt was dark with blood now.

Raising his head again, he saw Eustace. His face was gray and creased. It seemed to be pulling tight over his bones. Beneath the scorpion mustache his lip curled, and he tried to lift the revolver once more. A third shot smacked his forehead and he flopped back.

Officer Gallagher strode out of the side yard, followed by Miss Owens. He held a small caliber gun that still bore down on Mr. Schulde. They would reach him in a moment.

Eustace sprang down the steps and ran. He heard Miss Owens call him to stop.

To his amazement, Mr. Schulde was still alive. Breath wheezed out of him. His cloudy eyes were sinking into his skull, his dry skin cracking like old leather even as Eustace snatched the cylinder from his pocket and ran back to the house.

Gallagher called out, "Lad!" but he ignored him and dodged past Mr. Righter, who'd finally emerged from inside. He heard Miss Owens say, "We're the police, Mr. Righter." Then Eustace was on the stairs.

Mr. Vanderhoff had somehow reached the landing, and Mrs. Claymore knelt, ministering to his wound. "I got him, didn't I?" he asked as Eustace leaped past them.

The boy charged up and through the bloody doorway into Miss Comuzzi's room. A stained canvas tarp covered the phonograph, tied around with rope.

For a moment it looked like she wasn't there after all; his heart seized upon the idea that she was in their room, safe, and he nearly called to her before he saw in the heaped bedclothes the bit of striped blue fabric—the color, the braided hem of her dress.

Beside the bed he stared, paralyzed, unable to act, until finally, hesitantly, he clutched a corner of the bedding and drew it aside.

He'd expected—dreaded—to find her dead, but this was so impossible that his brain denied it was she. Within the dress there was only a husk. In the gray dimming light it looked like something made out of spun cotton candy. Her feet that had been red and tired were brown, mummified, the toes curled. It couldn't be Mother. Yet over the unfastened collar there lay the necklace with the moonstone cabochon he'd bought, that Miss Comuzzi had helped him pick out. It rested upon her crossed hands, the fingers sharp and brittle as wishbones.

Downstairs Miss Owens called his name. He came to himself. The leather case was in his other hand.

He ran to the door, closed it, and turned the key to lock them out. Then he went to the machine. Putting the black leather case on the bed, he undid the ropes and hauled the canvas off. He got up on the chair, unlatched the lid, and stepped down to place it on the floor. Then he retrieved the case and got back up.

As carefully as if it was crystal, he slid the blood red cylinder out onto his two straightened fingers. It shone in the twilight as he held it up. He slipped the cylinder onto the mandrel, and started the motor spinning. Mr. Righter rattled the doorknob, called his name.

Eustace eased the reproducer against the start of the cylinder. He stepped across to the bed, and then lay down beside Mother. He put his arms around her, and with eyes closed tight, he waited for the sound of her breath.

DEEP DIVING

Joel Richards
| 10362 words

Joel Richard's recent
Asimov's,
story "Patagonia" (March 2012), reflected his adventures in Argentina and Chile. His newest story draws upon past experience as a U.S. Navy officer for the background and command structure of the ship that is the setting for...

On every jumpship there's a select table, and it's not the captain's. The captain's table is where the glitter and the money sit. I don't scorn the money, but the money finds a diver soon enough. Glitter—weightless ephemera—I do scorn. So I always decline a permanent setting at the captain's table and seek out substance.

Others do, too. There is an artificial gravity of a metaphorical sort at work here. People of real weight seek their level. Actually, people of any weight do, and there are several strata, though with considerable fluidity between.

Marc Talley was the first to see me as I approached the dinner table. He rose and greeted me with the
kyr
honorific, a gesture of respect to the Brotherhood of Divers that most of the ship's officers had seldom tendered. That was one side of him. He also had the single-edged mind of a man of action who had found his cause. That irritated some people. I found him and his company interesting. Talley was going to die very shortly. He didn't know that.

"Miro is dealing with an artist's conception of time," Talley told me. "Or time as an artistic concept. I'm not an artist or a physicist, so I'm expert on no grounds. Perhaps you have a perspective on the subject."

"I'm no artist or physicist either," I said, sitting down and signaling for a drink. "Nor a metaphysician."

"Marc's just being provocative, as usual," Miro said. She shook her head, her loose black hair a wave of counterpoint to the white sea of linen and damask around us. "All I'm talking about is statics and dynamics. Nothing as grandiose as a theory of time. An artist's conceit, nothing more."

"I've seen your work," Jacques Breville rumbled. He was a bear of a man, and his voice reverberated in his cavern of a chest. "It breathes the next moment. It foreshadows."

Talley turned to me. "How do you view time? From a diver's perspective, I mean?" A bold question, perhaps ill advised. Talley lived on the edge of danger of his own shaping. Perhaps it was that which would do him in.

I don't usually answer that question or its more subtle variants. This time I did.

"Backshadow."

No one asked me to elaborate. That would have gone too far. Besides, they were all quick and could form their own conclusions. Some of them might be right.

The conversation soon veered off in other directions. It was a varied and interesting company: Miro Banks, who had had her say on her work. I, who had my say on mine. Jacques Breville, esthete and soldier of fortune—a compelling combination. Talking with him was like walking around a rough-cut gemstone. One never knew what unexpected angularity or facet would assail the eye. Peter McNally, mining engineer and boss of the transiting Coalsack mining colony in cold sleep below decks. McNally was a veteran of more dangerous backwater worlds than even I. He provided the wit and no nonsense perspective of a man who considered long-term survival an oxymoron, but who survived just the same.