Strange Days: Fabulous Journeys With Gardner Dozois (56 page)

Passage

Sven left the midnight forest, and turned down the slope toward the sea. Where the tall sea grass ended and the path slanted down the shingle toward the beach, he stopped to put his dark-lantern down on the hard-packed scree; he dared not take it near Them. He plunged his dagger to the hilt into the ground, next to the lantern. Nor cold iron. He shifted the weight of the bag on his shoulder and continued down the path.

As he came over the lip of the slope, where it steepened to the sea, the world seemed to open up before him, more felt than seen. The sea was restless, a dark breathing immensity that opened to the horizon, with here and there a white phosphorescent gleam edging a wave tip, like a knife blade briefly shown and then hidden away again. The water was oily and black and rolled in slow oily surges into the shore, making no sound. You could smell the salt. Far behind, on the distant point of the cove, you could still see one or two flickering yellow lights in the darkened town, and when the wind shifted for a moment to gust from that quarter, ruffling his square-cut rufous beard, you could smell woodsmoke and dung, and hear the yapping of a scrannel dog.

Sven paused for a moment on the steep slope, and the heavy bag thumped against his back. The moon had been half shrouded in tattered black clouds, but now they parted, and there was the moon, smoky-bronze, as full and round as a shield, bigger than he’d ever seen it before, bigger than seemed possible. Hunter’s Moon. Thin lines of black cloud streamed across it, flying with the wind, and he heard a clamoring overhead in the sky, iron-tongued voices barking and baying and snarling and quarrelling, drawing nearer, then fading slowly away out over the dark expanse of the sea, and he knew that the Wild Hunt was abroad this night, coursing through the sky. Big as he was, he shivered. He made the Sign of the White Christ; then, for safety’s sake, Thor’s Hammer. After a moment, he went on down the slope, his tangled blond hair snapping behind him in the wind, digging his heels in, little rivulets of sand and pebbles whispering down before him to the beach.

Then he was on the strand. Sand crunched underfoot, and rats and other nameless scurrying things fled away from him as he walked, rattling the tough beach grass. Nearer the waterline, his feet sank into the dark sand, making a slight sucking noise as he pulled them free again, and he could imagine his footprints filling slowly with cold water behind him, in the dark.

More black clouds boiled up around the moon, as though it were being cooked in a black cauldron, shrouding it again.

The Ship loomed ahead, at the edge of the oily black sea. The masts and rigging were dark—you could just make them out, black against the lighter blackness of the sky, like clouds almost-seen at night. The masts seemed to stretch far taller than the masts of the ships of mortal men. He couldn’t see their tops. The hull was like a wall of black cloud. A milky silver light shown low, from a gangway set near the waterline.

Nimbly for all his bulk, he scrambled up the jetty and onto the pier, the wood groaning under his boots. The pier was old and sagging, the wood slimed with moss and barnacles, slowly collapsing into the bay. You could smell the green rot in the wood. Then he was on the pale shining gangplank—never a sound to be heard now, underfoot—and then he was in the Ship.

The room was lit with an even, sourceless silver light, like autumn moonlight on ice. He could just make out the Elf, sitting at a table, his hands flat before him, motionless. He was very much taller and more slender than ordinary men, with fingers as long as flutes. If his face knew how to make expressions, they were not expressions that Sven knew how to read.

Sven put the bag down on the table. “Here’s your bagful of heads,” Sven said.

The Elf looked at him. His eyes were tunnels through his head to someplace black and cold and far away—at the very bottom of them, a faint grey glimmer came and went, like a swordblade thrown into a lake and gleaming coldly beneath the moving surface of the water.

He closed his long fingers around the bag and took it possessively into his lap. The heads shifted wetly in the bag, rolling like melons inside the rough flax cloth.

Sven bit back guilt. The Ship for Elfland wouldn’t sail again in his lifetime—this was a cheap enough price to pay for immortality. He dared not think—and could not—what they wanted them for.

The Elf was still staring at him. His face was cold and radiant and pale, and almost too beautiful to look upon.

In his voice like a bell ringing under ice, the Elf said, “Now go get us a bagful of hearts.”

On his way out, Sven passed a sallow, rat-faced man with pockmarked skin and a scruffy beard, a bag thrown over his shoulder.

They eyed each other warily, uneasily, as they passed on the pier. They didn’t speak.

I wonder what
he
brings them? Sven thought.

Community

Introduction to Community

I’ve always thought of Gardner Dozois as sort of the Alexander Woollcott of science fiction. (In case the name doesn’t mean anything to you, Alexander Woollcott was the roundest of the Algonquin Round Table set, that literary lunch, liquor, and smart-remarks group which included Dorothy Parker, Harpo Marx, and Robert Benchley.) Woollcott contributed his share of the smart remarks—he’s the one who said, “All the things I really like to do are either immoral, illegal, or fattening”—and loved parties, laughed loudly, and generally lived large.

All of which could describe Gardner, whose own round table at Nebula banquets and science fiction conventions is always the one in stitches. (I once laughed so hard while having dinner with Gardner that I snorted a piece of lettuce up my nose and nearly did myself permanent damage) and he is known for causing befuddled waiters to quit mid-meal. Gardner’s famous for regaling fans and fellow writers with hilarious (and unrepeatable) stories and slush-pile samples, and he’s the Grand Master of the smart remark. When I was asked onstage what my story, “Even the Queen” was about (it’s about menstruation), Gardner shouted from the audience, “Tell them it’s a period piece!”

But that’s not all he has in common with Woollcott. Like the rest of the Algonquin Round Table, Alexander Woollcott was a talented writer. He was a respected drama critic, known for his incisive wit and his serious biographies and essays, but, like Gardner, his Falstaffian merry-funster image often overshadowed and sometimes obliterated his work, and I’d guess that more people see Gardner as someone who tells ribald stories and sticks cheese doodles up his nose than as the fine writer and editor he also is.

Gardner’s Hugo-winning editing of
Asimov’s
and
The Year’s Best Science Fiction
collections are the finest in the field, and his book about James Tiptree, Jr. is a classic in the field. His knowledge of science fiction and his love of the field both run very deep, and I’m not exaggerating when I say he cares more about science fiction than anyone I know.

He is also a gifted writer, the author of
Geodesic Dreams
and the Nebula Award-winning “The Peacemaker,” and one of my favorite science-fiction writers. He’s especially gifted at writing spare, simply written short stories which turn out not to have been so simple after all. Like his Nebula Award-winning story, “Morning Child.” And the story that follows.

Like all of Gardner’s work, “Community” is a deceptively straightforward tale of familiar things like pickup trucks and golf clubs and doughnuts. And community standards. It’s subtle and serious and much more than it appears to be at first glance, like Gardner himself.

This story is particularly pertinent in these days of noise-control ordinances and neighborhood covenants and zero tolerance for playground dodgeball,
Harry Potter
books, nine-year-olds who bring Swiss army knives to school, and anything remotely resembling individuality.

Gardner is not the first science fiction author to have tackled the issue of society versus personal freedom—Orwell’s
1984
springs to mind, and Kurt Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”—but none of them have captured so perfectly the combination of convinced virtue and common thuggery which characterizes all of society’s interventionists, no matter what their title. Or the disquieting fact that we sometimes find ourselves acting just like them.

Connie Willis

Community

About ten P.M., I go out front and borrow my husband’s pick-up truck. Henry stays behind watching TV, of course. He has a bad leg, and besides, he has no stomach for this sort of work. Which is okay. The Lord made different kinds of people for different kinds of work, I guess, and I’m content to do what it’s been put in front of my hand to do, and not worry about whether other people have been called to do the same thing or not.

Still, some help
is
necessary—some loads are too heavy for a body to carry all by herself. Fortunately, there are others in town who feel the same way I do. I pick up Sam first, as usual, and although he seems to take up every square inch of the front seat with his bulk, jamming me against the driver’s-side door, we somehow manage to squeeze Fred in next to him a few blocks later, again as always. They nod politely and say “Evening, Martha,” and I nod back; good manners never hurt. I’d prefer that Fred sat in back, actually, as his breath is so bad that you can smell it even when his face is turned away from you, but an unspoken tradition has sprung up that the older men ride in the front, the young men in the back, and putting up with Fred’s halitosis is a small enough price to pay for his help in these matters. We stop again in front of the Ciniplex on the edge of town, which is closed down now, of course, along with most of the rest of the mall, and pick up Josh and Alan and Arnie. They climb into the back of the pick-up truck, and we’re off.

The town never was very big, and it stopped growing awhile back. Within a few minutes, we’re out among the farms, with the cows blinking at us in the darkness as we rush past, and then the road turns from blacktop to weathered macadam to gravel as we begin to climb up into the hills. There’s a fat yellow moon overhead, and you can hear water rushing over rock somewhere, hidden by the trees. The night is cold and still; by morning, there’ll be a frost.

We have two Interventions lined up, and I’ve decided to do both of them tonight while I have the boys out anyway, two with one blow, as it were. I figure we’ll get the minor one out of the way first, as a warm-up, because the major one is going to be difficult.

Actually, the minor one is unpleasant enough itself in its own way, but we handle it with a minimum of fuss. The old woman refuses to open her door, of course, but it’s made of cheap wood, and although the expensive lock holds, the door panels themselves shred like paper. Once inside, the old woman rushes at us brandishing what I at first think is the stereotypical broom old ladies always used to use to shoo unwelcome intruders away in the movies, but which turns out instead to be a somewhat more practical 9-iron from her dead husband’s old golf bag. Sam takes it away from her easily, and then holds her swaddled firmly in his arms like a shriveled old child while we begin.

She has twenty-five cats packed into this tiny house! No wonder the neighbors have been complaining! The smell of cat is overwhelming, and the furry little creatures are everywhere, twining around our ankles and mewling as we get ourselves ready. Josh has brought some heavy gloves, and Alan has his old Louisville Slugger with Reggie Jackson’s autograph on it, and so it doesn’t really take long to pop them, although we have to chase the last few down, and even pull one down off a curtain, where it’s clinging with all its claws and howling in dismay. Josh wrings its neck. Perhaps a few of them escape through the broken front door and run off into the night, but the idea is not to kill cats for the sake of killing cats, or because it’s fun, but to abolish a nuisance that has become intolerable for everyone, even for the old lady herself if she’d admit it, and
that
we certainly accomplish, whether a few individual cats escape or not. Of course, some of them may come back later—but then, so will we.

The old woman shrieks at us constantly as we work, like a saw going through sheet tin, but surely somewhere deep inside even
she
must be secretly glad to have the burden of caring for all these animals lifted off her. It’s a decision she would have made for herself if she had the strength of will to do so—now we’ve done it for her. On the way out, we find several cartons of cigarettes, which we confiscate. I admonish her—we’ve had trouble with her on these grounds before—and tell her that everything we’re doing, all the trouble we’re going to, is for her own good, nothing in it for
us,
it’s all for
her
benefit, but she’s grown sulky and refuses to respond. You rarely get gratitude during an Intervention, I’ve learned, however well-deserved it is, and no matter how much good it ultimately does for the people you’re Intervening for; unfair, but that’s the way it is.

Back into the truck. The boys are loosened-up and whooping and feeling fine—now for the night’s more difficult work.

We drive further up the hill, the spruce and the firs bulking like ghosts in the sweeping headlights, here and there a silver birch gleaming like bone in the forest. At a bullet-riddled highway sign, we turn off onto a narrow farm lane that winds up and over a hill, and then down into a shallow valley that contains a small farmhouse and a couple of dilapidated, disused outbuildings; we get a quick glimpse of them, and then the trees close in tight around us again.

We go fast down the lane, bouncing on the ruts, the rear end of the truck fishtailing slightly on the gravel, the bushes and trees on either side scratching against the windows. Just before we break into the clearing, I shut the headlights off. The house looms up ahead. There’s a light on in the front room of the house, and another upstairs.

I kill the engine, and we glide to a stop in front of the house. I send Josh and Arnie around the back, because I’m sure the boy will light out for the high timber as soon as he sees us coming; Fred and Alan and Sam and I take the front.

As soon as the truck doors slam, the lights go out in the front room, but it’s too late for that. The front door isn’t even locked, not that it would have done any good if it was. Fred and Sam and Alan go in fast, and there’s the usual confusion, shouting, a woman’s scream, furniture breaking and being knocked over, something ceramic shattering, a dish or a vase. It only takes a minute. When a light comes back on inside, I go in.

The table lamp has fallen on the floor, and somebody has switched it on where it lies, giving me mostly a view of shuffling feet and a broken wooden chair. I pick the lamp up, making shadows swing and scurry across the room, and put it back on the table. Everything’s quiet, for the moment. You can hear harsh breathing, and smell the sharp odor of sweat, and Fred’s breath, heavy with garlic, that reaches out all the way across the room like a thin rotten lance.

Alan and Fred have their guns on Mary’s husband; his hair is disheveled, there’s a cut on his lip and a bruise over his eye, but he’s standing quietly. Sam is standing behind Mary, with his big hands clamped over her arms; she’s struggling against his grip in a way that’s going to leave big purple bruises tomorrow, but when she sees me, she stops.

“Good evening, Mary,” I say. She says nothing, just stares at me, but people do tend to forget their manners in times of stress, you have to expect that.

The man is staring at me too, and even in the uncertain light cast by the one table lamp, I can see the blood draining out of his face, leaving it white and haggard. The guilty always
know
their guilt right away, of course, and feel it in their hearts. We can
see
it, in his face.

Mary’s face is pale too, but there are two bright spots of red on her checks, and her lips are set tight. I can see that she’s going to make this hard, even though we’re doing it for her. That’s often the way it is; you just have to learn to accept it.

“This is an official Intervention,” I say to Mary, “sanctioned by the local Chapter and by the town council, under the local-standards ordinances of 2006. As an ordained Preacher of the Reformed Church, I have the right to—”

“Preacher!” Mary says, and then laughs harshly. “I went to
fifth grade
with you, Martha Gibbs!” As though this signifies somehow.

There’s a commotion out back, more yelling and smashing, and then Josh and Arnie come in from the kitchen with the boy, frog-marching him along. Josh’s got one of the kid’s arms twisted way up behind his back. “He made a break for it, Martha, just like you said he would. But we got him!” Josh is grinning widely, showing what seems like too many teeth to fit into an ordinary mouth, and his face is sweaty and happy. He gives the kid’s arm an extra yank for emphasis, and the boy makes a half-smothered yelp. I frown at Josh, and he eases up on the kid’s arm a little. Sometimes I think that Josh
enjoys
all this a bit too much. I suppose it’s natural for a healthy young man to enjoy the chasing and catching part, the struggle and the fighting; that’s in the blood. But the
point
of all this isn’t punishment or retribution, or even just getting rid of undesirable elements who could pollute the rest of the town, although that’s a part of it—the point is
redemption.
To wipe the slate clean and let someone start again. To do for them what they can’t do for themselves, even though many of them secretly
want
to. The redemption part is what Josh sometimes loses sight of, I think.

The boy starts shouting. “You f—ing”—I won’t reproduce what he actually says—“freaks! Why don’t you mind your own business? Why don’t you leave us
alone?”
I could tell him that the health of every individual in town
is
our business, that that’s what a community is all about, that we care not only about his moral corruption spreading to others but most sincerely about the state of his
own
soul—but I can see that there’s no point. Not even thirteen yet, and the kid’s already quite a piece of work, wearing a black leather jacket and a grungy T-shirt with an obscene slogan on it, hair unkempt and much too long, two or three rings in his nose, more in his ear. I know without even bothering to look that his room is full of Heavy Metal posters and satanic books and CDs—not that possessing these things is strictly illegal yet, but they are a good indication of the extent of the corruption that’s set in, the rot that’s spread through the boy’s system. Maybe such things don’t actually
cause
the disease itself, as some would argue, but they’re certainly a symptom that shows that disease
has
set in.

“Mary,” I say, “I’ve known you for many years now. You’re a friend, or you
were,
before you let your life get set on a wrong track. You’re a good woman at heart, I know, but the weeds have grown up around your life, and there’s nothing you can do about it. There’s nothing you can do to fix the mistakes you’ve made. You may not even admit to yourself that they
are
mistakes. But friends don’t let friends live like that. We’re here to help you fix your life, to clear away the weeds, to help you get yourself back on the right track—”

Mary starts screaming and fighting then, but although she’s a tall, strong woman, she’s as nothing compared to Sam, and she can’t break free of him, although she does put up enough of a struggle that—reluctantly, because Sam’s a gentle soul—he has to twist her arm up behind her back in order to get her to stop. I won’t repeat what she calls me. It hurts me to hear her say those things about me, but I know that it’s not really Mary talking, but rather the corruption that has taken over her life. People say the same kind of awful things when they’re being forced to quit hard drugs cold-turkey, I hear, cursing the very people who are going out of their way to help them. Until the poison has been totally removed from their systems, people cling to it. They don’t know any better, and you have to forgive them for what they say and do while they’re in the state they’re in. And you have to have the strength to
make
them change, whether they want to or not, whether they fight you or not. No one likes the taste of strong bitter medicine, but that doesn’t mean that it isn’t good for them to take it.

When Mary’s quiet again, panting with pain, her face having gone sick and sallow, I read the charges. Her husband is cheating on her, the whole town knows that, and not for the first time, either. He’s a drinker, too, and spends most of his paycheck and far too much of his time down at Murphy’s Tavern. Probably he beats her when he gets home; it wouldn’t surprise me. The boy’s on drugs, of course, and, blood running true, is also a drinker, having two DUIs against him already. He’s also been brought up once on vandalism charges. They’ve tried to talk to him at church, but it’s been more than a year since he’s attended Sunday classes, or even regular services. The husband, of course, has never gone at all.

I give them the blessing then, the forgiveness and absolution of the Lord, which is more than they deserve, really, but the Lord is generous, and will take everyone who is sent to Him, whether they go willingly or not. The boy is spewing a steady stream of obscenities at us now, vile things, but his voice is wobbly and squeaky-high with fright. The man has gone glazed and slack, the way some of them do. Mary, her face ashen, is pleading with me in a low, urgent voice, don’t do this, Martha, please, don’t
do
this,
please
don’t please
don’t,
but I harden my heart against her words. This is for her own good, something that needs to be done that she doesn’t have the strength of will to do herself.

There’s an odd moment of silence then. You can hear the wind sighing down through the spruce trees on the hill, hear the whine of a truck passing on the distant highway. The husband straightens himself with a curious kind of dignity, tugging his clothes into place. He looks at Mary and quietly says, “I love you, Mary,” and a pang goes through my heart, because I know he really
does
mean it, in his own way, not that that makes any difference now. I have a moment of weakness then, my resolve almost wavering, but I steel myself against misguided sympathy. True kindness is to do what
must
be done, quickly and efficiently, however difficult it might be, however much pain it may cost you personally to do it. A short-term kindness is often a misservice in the long run.