Fantasy & Science Fiction Mar-Apr 2013

Fantasy & Science Fiction, Extended Edition

NOVELETS
Among Friends		Deborah J. Ross
Solidarity		Naomi Kritzer
The Assassin		Albert E. Cowdrey
The Lost Faces		Sean McMullen
SHORT STORIES
The Cave		Sean F. Lynch
Code 666		Michael Reaves
What The Red Oaks Knew		Elizabeth Bourne and Mark Bourne
The Boy Who Drank From Lovely Women		Steven Utley
The Long View		Van Aaron Hughes
The Trouble With Heaven		Chet Arthur
POEMS
Dislocated Heart/ A Starpilot's Post-Operation Note		Robert Frazier
DEPARTMENTS
Books To Look For		Charles de Lint
Books		James Sallis
Plumage From Pegasus: Kozmic Kickstarter		Paul Di Filippo
Films: All Man-Eaters Great And Small		Kathi Maio
Coming Attractions
Curiosities		Richard A. Lupoff

 

 

Among Friends

Deborah Ross says
The Children of Kings,
a new Darkover novel she wrote in posthumous collaboration with Marion Zimmer Bradley, will be out in March, while a solo novel called
Collaborators
will be published in May under the byline of Deborah Wheeler.

Concerning this new story, she says her husband is a member of the Religious Society of Friends and they have Friends who are members of the Doylestown Monthly Meeting. But despite Doylestown's appearance in it, this story is a work of fiction, a product of Ms. Ross's imagination. In fact, readers should note that the novelist who appears at the end of this story never attended the 1848 trial of Thomas Garrett and John Hunn
.

 

 

 

 

To consider mankind otherwise than brethren, to think favours are peculiar to one nation, and to exclude others, plainly supposes a darkness in the understanding: for as God's love is universal, so where the mind is sufficiently influenced by it, it begets a likeness of itself, and the heart is enlarged towards all men.
—John Woolman, "Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes," 1754.

 

THE BUSINESS IN WILMINGTON had taken longer than Thomas Covington had expected, and it would be near full dark by the time he reached the farm. Hannah would fret, but not for long, as she was a woman of steady character. He would have need of her wisdom this night, for the discussion at his cousin's hardware store sat uneasily on him. Enoch had brandished a pamphlet by Pennsylvanian William Jackson, stating, "No one is under any moral obligation to lend himself as a tool to others for the commission of a crime, even when commanded by his government to do the wrong." Yet had not Sunderland Gardner from New York asserted, "Wrong may be wrongfully opposed, and war opposed in a warlike spirit"? What was a man to do when faced with the evils of slavery? Thomas had never doubted the rightness of his own actions, yet the dissension within the Quaker community weighed heavily on him. Delaware was a border state whose citizens felt strongly both for and against slavery, but surely Friends, who had universally condemned the practice nearly a century ago, ought to have greater unity.

The gray mare trudged on, her head swinging. Thomas eased back on the bench of his wagon and let her set her own pace. After so many years of companionable service, she needed little guidance back to her own barn. She wasn't a big horse, not as massive as her draft-horse dam, but so cheerful in her ways that she often did the work of a pair.

The mare's head shot up, ears swiveled forward, and she nickered. She was the friendliest horse Thomas had ever owned and would call out in greeting to just about any person she met. Although it was nearly dusk, Thomas could not see anyone, neither mounted nor on foot.

A ditch paralleled the road to the east, half-filled with water from recent rain, and beyond it brush had grown up like a stunted hedgerow. The mare turned her head in that direction. Thomas lifted the reins and she ambled amiably to a halt. Without the sound of her hooves on the road, he heard a rustling in the brush.

"Who is there?" Thomas called. "Whatever thy situation, friend, I will not harm thee."

For a time, nothing happened. The light faded, shadows lengthening. Thomas sat quietly, feeling the familiar stillness settle over him. Although his hearing was not as keen as it used to be, he caught the sound of harsh, quick breathing. A moment later, a man, as dusky of skin as the gathering night, emerged from the brush. He moved with a limp, half-crouching, and even in the poor light, Thomas could see how ragged were his clothes and how torn and battered his feet.

Thomas clambered down from the wagon and began talking in a friendly manner, speaking slowly and choosing his words with care. The man must be an escaped slave, one who had been hotly pursued and was even now at the very limit of his strength. The fugitive stumbled through a tale of having outwitted the men and dogs sent after him, but those slave-catchers had been replaced by one who was relentless. Having run as fast and as far as he was able, the poor man had had no choice but to seek aid. He'd hoped to find another of his race, someone he might trust, but none had come by. Seeing Thomas, in his wide-brimmed hat and coat of drab, and hoping he might be one of the Quakers who were said to befriend escaped slaves, he had decided to chance revealing himself.

The poor runaway was barely able to hobble, but with a good deal of assistance from Thomas, he pulled himself into the bed of the wagon. There he curled up on the sacks of flour, and Thomas covered him with his own long coat. Shivering a little in the cooling breeze, Thomas clucked to the mare. She broke into a brisk trot.

Before long, the Covington farm came into view. The dog, an aged, half-blind spaniel bitch, ran out to meet them. Hannah waited on the porch, lantern in hand. William, their youngest son and the only one still at home, stood behind her. Light streamed from the open door.

"Will, quickly!" Thomas called.

Hannah rushed to the wagon. She said nothing as she lifted the lantern. The light gleamed on a strand of her silver hair, escaped from its cap. The crease between her brows deepened as she studied the fugitive.

"Hannah, it is likely the slave-catchers are not far behind," Thomas said. "This time, they will demand to search both house and barn." In the past, Quakers had hidden runaways in a barn or haystack and then asserted in perfect honesty that they were not in the house. The slave-catchers were becoming more thorough.

She met his gaze unflinchingly. "Thee knows my mind on this matter, Thomas. This poor man needs care and rest. And a meal, I reckon.
And
proper clothing for this weather.
And
shoes!" A smile lit her face like a beam of morning sun. "Thee will find a way to put them off."

There was no arguing with Hannah in such a mood. William helped the fugitive to sit up and, together with Thomas, supported him to the house. They unhitched the mare, checked her feet, put her in her stall and fed her, and then secured the wagon and unloaded it. They found the fugitive sitting in the kitchen, drinking soup under Hannah's stern gaze while his feet soaked in a bucket of warm water. The heat of the oven filled the room, along with the smell of beans simmering with bacon. The fugitive's hands were shaking, but Thomas suspected this was from the embarrassment of being tended by a white woman. Hannah insisted that the runaway wear one of Jonathan's outgrown nightshirts and be put to bed. She would not hear of housing him in the barn, "For it is like to rain tonight."

As the evening progressed, the arrival of the slave-catchers became less and less likely. The fugitive, who gave his name as Nat, might have outrun them in his desperation, or darkness might have put a halt to the search.