http://forum.sfreader.com/ Copyright (c) 2006-2013 Web Wiz Forums - All Rights Reserved. Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:20:48 +0000 Thu, 05 Mar 2015 08:52:37 +0000 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Web Wiz Forums 11.03 30 forum.sfreader.com/RSS_topic_feed.asp?FID=17 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_images/web_wiz_forums.png http://forum.sfreader.com/ http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=74&PID=73&title=1st-place-pathways-by-k-d-wentworth#73 Author: SFReader
Subject: 1st Place - Pathways, by K. D. Wentworth
Posted: Mar-05-2015 at 8:52am

This year, the final judging for the annual SFreader.com fiction contest was handled a bit differently from previous years.  Webmaster/Publisher Dave Felts helped to finalize the results and each of the eventual winners was given a chance to revise their original submission with a bit of editorial guidance from myself and Dave.

That said, our First Place Winner comes to you with every word in its original form, just as it was submitted to us, as neither Dave Felts nor I had any suggestions to significantly improve the tale without jeopardizing its impact.  And, as if that's not a provocative enough introduction to any story, you can read this one and compare it to the other two - and decide for yourself whether or not the final rankings seem appropriate. - D.B.

Pathways
by K. D. Wentworth

Indian Territory, June 22, 1865

The night was warm and thick as the smoke that hung over a smothered fire.  Brigadier General Stand Watie woke just before dawn amidst the sandstone boulders, sweating and afraid.  In his dreams, gaunt, sepulchral forms had drifted yet again out of the darkness to accuse him, the all-too-familiar hollow-eyed Cherokee dead, their swollen, blackened feet bare in the snow, faces harsh with blame.  Still trembling, he heaved out of his ragged Confederate-issue blanket and ran spread fingers through his hair.

It was the same every night, this haunting of his dreams, but the Lord above knew it wasn't his fault.  If the full-blooded Cherokees had accepted the inevitable and migrated peacefully to Indian Territory before the troops had come, as he and so many of his fellow mixed-bloods had advised and then done, the Trail of Tears would never have come to pass.  Here, in Indian Territory, the property rights of the red man were respected, as they no longer were in the east, and there would have been no need for the indifferent cruelty of the soldiers, the bloodied footprints in the snow, the dead infants, frozen stiff as boards, or the wrinkled grandfathers left behind for the wolves to exhume from scratched-out graves along the trail.

Why hadn't they known it would be pointless to resist?  The white man always had his way; that was how the world worked, and his Treaty Party had understood it was inevitable they would lose their land, had done its best to soften that loss and obtain as much money as possible in return for their beloved tribal lands in Georgia and North Carolina.

He braced his head in shaking hands, then reached for his canteen.  It was empty and he got to his feet, careful not to wake his son, Salidan, who rode for the Cherokee Mounted Rifles with him and now slept only a handful of paces away.  He heard a rustle and reached for his knife, then the camp sentry paced by, his steps Cherokee soft on the thirsty soil.  Watie caressed the knife's haft.  Since the day the Treaty had been signed, each and every signer had died for the crime of facing reality, except for himself, and he had so far faced his own death head-on eleven times, never knowing if this would be the day the revenge-minded full-blood Cherokees would succeed in wiping him from the face of the earth.

When the call finally came, that was why he had gone to war, why he was fearless against the ravening blue tide of Yankees.  The North had not a single weapon as deadly as what his own people intended against him, or as terrible as what he had knowingly done to himself when he helped sign the Cherokees' eastern lands away.

But now the Confederates had laid down their arms all across the South, Generals Smith and Johnston, and most heartbreaking of all, even General Lee.  Despite the fact Watie had held Indian Territory against all comers, the end had arrived.  He had his orders.  As the last Confederate general still fighting in the field, tomorrow he would ride into Doaksville, carrying the Stars and Bars of the Secesh flag one final time.  His legendary raids would be over, along with his dream of carving a better life from the white man's leavings through siding with the Confederacy.  Only the bitter dregs of defeat remained for him and the thousands of Cherokee Rifles under his command.

Stars still glittered overhead, and the setting moon was only a sliver, fragile and pale as a rime of ice.  It was the time of the New Green Corn Festival, as the elders would have said, though Watie's immediate family had been educated beyond such primitive superstitions for a number of generations.  He walked down to the creek to wash the fear-sweat from his face.  Sleep was no longer possible, but with what faced him on the morrow, better he remain awake and think on it, prepare himself so he would bring honor on his fellow Cherokee soldiers and not shame them before the cursed Yankees and their Pin allies, the full-bloods who sided with John Ross against him and rode for the blue.  Before them, he would never show weakness or regret.

He knelt beside the trickling water of the nameless creek, then saw a faint greenish glow around the bend.  Hair rose on the back of his neck.  He eased back to his feet and prowled toward it, knife in hand.  Were the Pins trying to sneak up on him one last time, so he couldn't even surrender with dignity?  Well, he was fair spoiling for a fight, all right, and since his raiding days were done, he was all for settling last scores now.

He pushed aside the stiff branches of a blackberry bush, then froze as something massive and black charged, something shaped altogether wrong to be either a marauding Yankee or a stray horse.  He fell back, brandishing his knife.

The form reared up over his head, blotting out the stars.  "So, Grandson," a deep angry voice full of rumbles said, "you think to escape the truth so easily?"

His knife inscribed a circle, cold and deadly.  "You don't fool me, Pin!  Throw off that pelt and show your face.  Better men than you have tried for years to kill me and failed!"

The glow brightened and Stand made out the towering shape of a bear twice the size of any he had ever seen.  It sat back on its hindquarters and crossed its paws before its chest like a human.  Its eyes were a brilliant shimmering green as though an unearthly fire burned within.  "Too long have you buried yourself in this futile white man's war in order to turn away from the evil you have done."

Stand's face heated.  Those were Pin words all right.  "What I have done, Pin, is whipped your sorry asses from one end of this territory to the other, and I could do it again, given half a chance!"

The bear roared and he fell back, deafened.  His ears rang and his eyes watered, and he more than half-believed that was a real bear lumbering toward him.

The molten green eyes narrowed.  "Do you feel no shame then for tearing your relations away from the living land of their forefathers?  Do not lie to yourself any longer.  Truth is always sweet at its core, though the husk be very bitter."

What in tarnation?  He levered himself up off the ground, gripping the knife so tight, it hurt his hand.  He smelled the oiliness of the bear's fur and the rankness of its breath.  If that varmint wasn't real, he didn't know what was.  He swallowed hard.  The old ones had talked of such things, spirit guides that came to one in the guise of animals, but he had never given it one moment of credence.  He faced the beast warily, well aware how useless his knife was against such a creature.  "We held only the farthest edges of what was once ours.  It was time to give up and start again.  If we hadn't agreed to go to Indian Territory, the whites would have taken our land anyway and paid us nothing.  We would have all died penniless!"

The bear boxed his head with wicked paws the size of spades and the knife spun away from Stand's fingers.  He sprawled on the ground, his vision tunneling down to a single hot white spark.   "So instead," the bear said, "without consulting the grandfathers, you severed the sacred roots that had given your people nourishment since the first of days."

"I had no choice!"  Watie fought to raise his spinning head.  "It was that, or nothing.  We made the best deal we could."

"And see where it has led, Cherokee against Cherokee, Pin against Secesh, Watie against Ross, and all the while nothing is gained.  The white man stands back and laughs while you spend your strength, one against each other, and he is left free to steal from you whatever catches his eye."

Watie pushed himself up to his hands and knees.  "The whites are too many.  They always have been.  There was no other way."

"You could have fought," the great bear said.  "Death in the land of your fathers would have at least brought honor.  Where is the honor in the path you walk now?"

Thunder rumbled in the distance and Watie felt the earth vibrate beneath him like a great drum.  "I have honored my men," he said, "as well as my commitments and my family and my word."  He stared numbly at the knife lying in the grass, just out of reach.  "But now I have come to the end of all paths.  Tomorrow I will surrender to that Yankee bastard, Matthews, and then ride home, God willing, that I yet have home and family to return to."

Lightning flashed up in the clear night sky, green as the bear's eyes, glinted off its wicked claws.  "Do you not wonder why you still live, while all your fellow signees have long since been dispatched to the Night Country?"

Because he was warier, his mind supplied, because he was more desperate and savage, because the blood of his Cherokee forefathers still ran hot in his veins.

"Because you have something left to do," the bear said.  "And to begin that journey, you must first admit the truth: you set your feet on the wrong path and so betrayed your relations to die a frozen death in the mountains."

For a second, he was there, on the mountain pass, with the accusing dead standing beside him ankle-deep in the snow.  Behind them, frozen grandfathers and grandmothers were stacked like cord wood along the trail, along with the pitiful remains of bloodless, starved babes.  The dead rose and wrapped their bony fingers round his heart until it stuttered.  He sagged to his knees amidst the bloodstained footprints that led around the next bend of craggy gray granite.  He could not breathe, consumed with the aching cold of that dreadful winter.

How many of his fellow Cherokee had tracked bloody footprints across the snow on the Trail of Tears?  And how many more had died since Pin took arms against Secesh?  And though he would lay down his sword before General Mathews tomorrow, that would not be the end.  It would never be over, while he yet lived.  Shivering with the awful, bone-shaking cold, he levered himself back to his feet in the snow.

He had thought to accomplish something for his people by enlisting in the Confederate army and becoming the first Indian ever to serve in such high military office, but he had done nothing, accomplished nothing for the Cherokee but death and starvation and dishonor.

"There is a way," said the bear in his ear, "a path still left open."

He blinked and found himself alone, standing in the gentle June night again, clad in boots and uniform, staring down at his knife in the grass.  His hands still throbbed with the awful cold of that mountain pass, but the night was warm, the dead long-buried--and Mathews waiting in Doaksville.

The southern lands were gone; for the first time since the day he had signed the treaty, he let himself feel that loss.  It was like a dark river flooding through his heart, full of bitterness.  He should have found another way to deal with whites, but he could do nothing to change that now.  Perhaps the key to redemption lay in seeing what could be salvaged from these new western lands.  The Yankees were furious that so many of the Cherokee had sided with the Secesh.  They were sure to punish them, even demand they move farther west to lands that wouldn't even support grass.  He couldn't allow that.  He must make sure the women and children and old ones were not be punished for the stand their men had taken.

Mulling the problem over, he turned, then ducked as an immense winged shadow passed overhead, then banked back.  A great cry split the night, savage and angry.  "Why trouble yourself to hold Indian Territory?"  The words were the angry screel of wind shrieking against rocks.

He tried to look up, but the shape, blacker than the night sky, flew at his face.  Watie wrapped his arms about his head and dove for the ground with a thump that drove the air from his lungs.

A monstrous raven landed just feet away, taller than a man and blacker than pitch, its eyes the same eerie, stomach- wrenching green as the bear's.  It strutted toward him.  The savage beak darted at his eyes and he covered his face with his hands.  "Will you not just walk away from this land too, the second the white man decides he wants it, as you did the southern lands?"

Watie hitched backwards until he fetched up against a sapling, then peeked between his protecting fingers.  "That land was forfeit long ago," he said numbly.  "We didn't own enough of it to matter anymore."

"Fool!"  The raven stalked toward him, feathers ruffled.  "No one owns the earth, anymore than the two-legged can own the sky or the stars, but you were part of that land, and it cries out for you still."

"What should I have done," Watie asked, "other than play the game on their terms?  Should I have turned away from my people and left them nothing?"

"You are a fighting man," the raven said, "born to the red government, which holds sway in times of war."

"There is no more red government," Watie said, "or white.  We don't live like that anymore, and even if there still were, we have nothing left to fight for."  The sapling pressed hard against his back.  "We have come to the end.  The dammed Northerners have prevailed everywhere else, though we pressed them hard enough here that they never took Indian Territory."

"Think."  The raven's eyes expanded into luminous green moons that took up all the sky so that he could see nothing else.  "See yourself walking a path of honor and daring, cunning and bravery.  See your hand upon the heart of the future."

Watie saw himself standing at the forefront of a great army, the rolling plains and hills of this new land black with his soldiers.  They wore, not the butternut of Secesh or the blue of the Yankees, but the simple brown homespun of the Cherokee, and carried no flag.  Behind them, he saw ranks of bears and wolves, eagles and deer, watching from the trees and grass as though they too had a stake in what was to come.

"You should have protected your own instead of betraying them to the white man's greed."  The raven waved its wing and he found himself lying on his back, blinking up at the stars.  The raven loomed over him.  "And now you ready yourself to betray them once more.  You were named De-to-ta-ga, To Stand Firm, Immoveable.  Stand now before these greedy others and say to them `No farther!  The white man stops here!'"

He thought of the battles he and his men had fought, the many raids, the pounding of their horses's hooves, the roar of the guns.  It had felt good to be doing something, after being forced out of the southern lands, to steal the Yankees' supplies and burn their bridges, harry them at every opportunity, then slip back into the welcoming wooded hills and lie low in the grass, and yet, had not enough lives been lost?  He himself had already paid the price of one son.

He sat up, cautiously, as the raven watched him with eyes like volcanic green glass.  "This land is ours now.  We do not have to fight to keep it."

"The whites will demand this land too."  The raven twisted its head to stare at him sideways.  "You have defied them at every turn these past four years, sided with their sworn enemies, slain their children.  Do you think they will overlook that?  The seeds of a bloody reckoning will be planted tomorrow, if you ride to Doaksville."

And if he didn't?  He let that thought rattle around in his head, trying it on for size--not to go, not to surrender.  What would it mean if he retained his command?  A giddy feeling pooled in His stomach, an excitement that made his hands clench.  He fought to control his eagerness.  "I have given my word to lay aside my sword," he said slowly.  "The Pins are just waiting for an excuse to cut my men down."

The raven shook its wings.  "The Pins are your brothers.  Show them the renewal of your heart and they will flock to your side."

The idea was heady.  He felt as though he stood on the edge of a great precipice, looking down at the blood-soaked battlefields.  If this war was lost, as it surely was, it was not by his hand.  He had whipped the Yankees at every turn, harried them sorely.  Why should he surrender?

Feathers rustled behind him and then he found himself high up in the sky and falling, rushing toward the patchwork ground so inexplicably far below.  He was afraid.  Men were not meant for such heights.  He closed his eyes to shut out the sight of his death rushing towards him.

"Fly!" the raven cried harshly in his ear.  "Let the wind carry your voice to the four corners of the land!  Take what is rightfully yours!  Live in honor and let no man find fault with your heart!"

He spread his arms and found he had wings after all.  His plummet became a gentle glide, then he was climbing back towards the sky, toward the ice-chip stars, so far away.  A moment later, he found himself standing on the ground, alone in the night, arms outstretched, the sweet memory of wind on his cheeks, the taste of flight in his mouth.

He saw this vast land, Indian Territory, as it should be, populated by his own people, green and rolling and wise with the ways of the past.  He saw his Cherokees patrolling the borders, keeping out the whites, preserving this refuge for those who needed it, for the children of the future.  They all rode together, Pin and Secesh, Ross and Watie, and they heeded the past four years not.

Then he blinked and the vision faded.  He passed a trembling hand over his eyes.  It made sense though.  Why should his Cherokees surrender?  They had not lost, at least, not yet, but, as for the Pins, he had sufficient troops of his own to defend this land.  He didn't need those damned turncoats.  Let them continue to fawn after the blasted North like the dogs they had chosen to be.

A growl split the darkness.  Stand spun around and faced a great wolf, lean as a washboard and tall as a pony.  Its green eyes spit sparks that ignited the grass so that it burned with an eerie slow green fire.

He jerked back, his heart pounding.

The wolf crouched on its haunches and stared at him hotly.  "How can you think to lead others, when you have not learned the most important lesson of all?"

Stand moved back again as the strange fire-without-heat ate through the grass toward his boots.  "I don't understand."

"The Pins are your brothers."  The wolf prowled toward him, hackles raised.  "Though you are at each other's throats day and night, still they are part of you, and you, they.  Family is not just what is easy or safe or comfortable.  You have been given powerful gifts by the Above Beings and stand on the brink of powerful personal medicine; it is your responsibility to share it with all your relatives."

Stand flinched as it loomed over him, green eyes glowering.  "You have trod the white man's path your whole life," it said in a low rumble.  "You have given his priorities all your energy, his values, your approval."

And he, who was nigh on to being a full-blood, saw himself wearing the white man's uniform, attending his schools and church, speaking his language, ignoring the old ceremonies, the ancient ways that had been the law since long before whites had set foot in this hemisphere.  Many others, who carried much less of the ancient bloodline than he had lived truer lives.  He wet his lips.  "But Ross's men will kill me," he said, "sooner or later, and who will lead my troops then?  I daren't turn my back upon them."

"Go to them and admit your mistakes."

The green fire surrounded him now and the smoke rose into the black night sky in fierce green spirals.  "I did the best I could, with the knowledge I had at the time."  Watie's cheeks heated.

"Do you need to be right more than you need your kin?"  The wolf's merciless eyes burned with the same green fire as the grass.  "You, and you alone, must lead them through the next times, or a day will come when none of you can stand before the coming white tide."

It was tempting, but then his mind began sorting the day-to-day details.  "Where would we get supplies?"  Watie turned away and shoved his hands in his pockets.  "We're short on everything, ammunition, clothing, food, horses--"

With a fierce snarl, the wolf leaped on his chest and knocked him down.  It stood on his chest, shoved its muzzle in his face and exhaled over him, a warm, musky smell, like leaf mold stirred  by the passage of feet in the forest, or sun-heated rock.

He blinked, then saw snow again, calf-deep, but covering the plains this time, rolling out to the horizon in a great white crystalline blanket unspoiled by footprints.  In the foreground, there was a small village beside a glittering river and a copse of wizened scrub oak.  Horses were staked out in the bleakness of early dawn, the village dogs curled up nose to tail just outside a shabby circle of much-patched lodges.

A horn sounded the charge, hooves pounded, guns roared.  Somewhere in the background, he heard a band blaring some popular song, the name of which he could not recall.  The lodge doors were thrown back and dazed men emerged, knives in hand, Arapaho and Cheyenne, by their faces and dress.  Most were old, but threw themselves before their terrified women and children, who had been peacefully asleep scant moments before.

Mounted blue-coated soldiers, led by a smiling golden-haired lieutenant colonel, chased them down, each gnarled elder, each sobbing mother clutching a screaming babe in her arms, each hysterical raven-haired child, and shot each and every one in the head or the back.  When the Indians all lay torn and dead in the snow, the soldiers shot their terrified horses, and then even the dogs.  They trampled the buckskin lodges into the bloody snow, and scattered the last few ashes of the fires so that not one of shred of life or warmth remained.

And through it all, the band stood on the top of the nearby hill and ground out its ridiculous song.

Stand could not breathe.  His body ached with the need to rise and stop the carnage, to stay the hands of the soldiers.  "I--don't understand?" he managed.  "Where did that happen?  When?"

"It has not come to pass yet," the wolf said, backing off his chest, "but it will, one bleak, frost-ridden morning, three years from now, along the far western edge of Indian Territory, if you ride tomorrow to Doaksville and surrender."

"And if I don't?"

"It still may come to pass."  The wolf's eyes were green stars.  "Merely trying to turn the tide in another direction is no guarantee of success.  That can only be foretold by the strength of your heart."

The dead bodies in the snow from his glimpse of the future were so like the ones from the Trail of Tears he saw every night in his dreams, he was consumed by a hot wave of sorrow.  He sank to his knees and, trembling, met the wolf's relentless emerald eyes.  "I am only a poor soldier, but I must do what I can," he said, "though it will likely be too little and too late.  I must take the stand for my people that I refused all those years ago."  Behind his eyes, he saw them, babes trampled into the snow like so much refuse, grandmothers who had thrown their bodies over the bloodied remains of their husbands.  It could not come again, if he could do anything to prevent it.  "I do not know how," he said numbly, "but I must try to make amends."

The great wolf raised its head and howled to the sliver of moon overhead.  The sound tore through him with the sorrow of a million deaths, slaughtered children, trampled dreams, worthless promises.  Watie pressed his hands to protect his aching ears, stumbled backwards, then closed his eyes against an explosion of brilliant, unbearable green.

Sometime later, when he could breathe again, could think, could summon control of his dazed body, he opened his eyes and then his clenched hands to find he held a single bear claw, curved as a scimitar, a black raven's feather, and the unblemished tooth of an immense wolf.

###
Indian Territory, Nov. 27, 1868.

The cloudy dawn along the Wash*ta River was just as bleak as Watie remembered from that terrible vision of three years before, the drifted snow just as deep, the pathetic string of lodges just as patched and travel-bare.  Black Kettle and his Cheyenne and Arapaho followers were worn down with hunger and the loss of their young men and land.  They had fled here to the southern plains to seek sufficient solitude to raise their children, which were all they had left of the sons and brothers and husbands killed in the white man's war.

He watched the speck that was the leader approach out of the east, mounted on a sassy white charger.  That much apparently had not changed, despite all that Watie had done to prevent the coming of this day, beginning with his ride into Doaksville to slay the Yankee general, Mathews, rather than surrender his sword.  From there, he had ridden to John Ross, leader of the Pins, and revealed his vision, how the whites would steal this land too, despite their promises, how they would slaughter even women and children in their greed to steal the last of the red man's holdings.

It had been difficult.  Ross had not believed, at least not at first, and Watie had fought off a dozen more personal attacks, trusting in the strength of his vision, before the full-blooded elders admitted he might well have received a protective medicine from the above beings.  From there, he had traveled throughout Indian Territory, speaking of the vision with which he had been entrusted, the knowledge that they might change the sordid future fast approaching, if only they at last combined their strength and fought the white man instead of each other.

Now, after three years, twenty thousand answered his call, as well as scores of farming communities, who had the necessary security required to raise their crops and so feed and clothe his troops.  The land-greedy whites tested their borders from time to time, but his Cherokee troops always turned them back.  Bruised and aching from the War Between the States, the whites had finally left them mostly alone.  This morning's incursion by Custer was by far the most serious move into Indian Territory Watie had seen since he had taken arms for his own people.

The tinny notes of the calvary band split the sleeping silence and he was filled with anticipation.  He had come to the right place at the right time, and it would not be the slaughter he had seen in his vision, not this time.  Instead of facing a handful of terrified women, old men, and children, this force was blundering into the arms of seasoned, fully armed Cherokee and Osage soldiers.

Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer paused below, as yet unaware of Watie and the two thousand troops hidden behind the gentle swell of the prairie.  The rising sun broke through the clouds for a second and painted Custer's golden hair a brilliant red, a sign, as meaningful as any other Watie had been given thus far.  He raised his arm in the signal for his mounted troops to engulf the eight hundred approaching bluecoats who were about to make war upon women and children for the last time.]]> Thu, 05 Mar 2015 08:52:37 +0000 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=74&PID=73&title=1st-place-pathways-by-k-d-wentworth#73 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=73&PID=72&title=2nd-place-asp-by-sean-t-m-stiennon#72 Author: SFReader
Subject: 2nd Place - Asp, by Sean T. M. Stiennon
Posted: Mar-05-2015 at 8:51am

In some ways, this tale seems like a "throwback" to the kind of SF story that was popular in the mid to late eighties.  In other ways, the story feels completely new.  And it is new, if only for the fact that the author, Mr. Stiennon, is quite new himself, having not yet quite attained the tender age of seventeen.  We hope to show our prescience about the future of spec-fiction by awarding young Sean Second Place in this year's contest. - D.B.

Asp
by Sean T. M. Stiennon

Beam brought the news to Blademaster while he was sleeping on a pile of crates in the storeroom, a curved knife held in the palm of one hand.

"Alex, there's a new Advan."

Blademaster's eyes snapped open and he flicked the knife away with a thought.  He faced the young man, putting his hood down and twisting his baseball cap around until the brim was parallel with his neck.

"Plenty of new Advans all the time.  Most can't do more than lick things six feet away or something like that.  This one better?"

The gleam of white teeth lit up Beam's Asian face.  "Sure.  This one's got fangs."

"So?"

"Three inches.  With venom glands."

Blademaster let out his breath slowly.  "Alright.  Tell me who he is."

"We don't know the name or the address, but he's about twenty-three.  He works at a restaurant on Kappa St.-Italian, I think.  Uses fake dental devices to disguise the teeth."

Blademaster stood, throwing himself off the crates.  It was always unnerving looking into Beam's eyes-he felt an urge to slip on his sunglasses.

"How did you find him?"

"Shag was eating out.  The metal-mouth junk didn't fool him.  He got a good look into the guy's mouth and saw the sacks."

"Any other Advances I should know about?"

"Shag didn't notice anything else."

Blademaster rubbed at the dark stubble on his chin.  It had been a while since his last shave.  " Last question: Do the Whites know about him?"

"We don't think so."

"We?  You mean Shag and you?"

"No, I've already told Cloak.  He told me to get you on the job."

Blademaster scrunched up one eye and twisted his lips.  "Did he say who's coming with me?  I prefer to pick my own squad."

"He knows that, but he suggested Shag and I.  We're the Blademaster Crew, y'know."

Blademaster nodded.  "Small enough not to attract immediate attention, but tough.  Sounds good.  You ready?"

"Shag isn't."

"Get him ready.  One hour."

Beam nodded, still grinning, and ran off, leaving Blademaster standing in darkness.  He stayed there for a moment before going to the door, running over a mental catalog of his knives.

###
They left the base by a side door that no one used-openly.  Most of the surrounding buildings were abandoned like the base appeared to be, although street kids sometimes came down there for their pot parties and drinking.  No one was there to notice the three young men make their way through the alleys and gutters into the busier parts of town, shrouded by black night.

Blademaster walked behind the other two, even though he was their leader.  It was a habit.  The three had worked together before, and if they encountered anybody dangerous this way, Beam could flash them, Shag could bowl them over, and Blademaster could do a more thorough and deadly attack.  Although they carried no guns-not many did, with the city's laws-they all knew that they had nothing to be afraid of unless the Whites showed up.

Kappa Street cut through the heart of the city's downtown.  It was a place where people went to eat-Japanese, Chinese, Afghan, Russian, and, of course, Italian.  There was McDonald's and KFC for less refined tastes, along with a TGIF for those in between.

The three slipped onto the sidewalk from an alley and blended with the pedestrians.  A digital clock hanging from a street sign said 8:37.

"Where is it, Shag?" said Blademaster. "There's at least four Italian places here."

"A few blocks up the street.  I dine there sometimes.  He's a new employee-that's why I noticed him in the first place."

Blademaster nodded.  "Lead on."

As they walked, Beam said, grinning, "What are we going to call this one?  Big fangs like a snake, right, Shag?"

"Right.  At least, that's what I think.  He had them well concealed.  But I could tell he was an Advan even apart from that-he didn't look normal.  His eyes were a little too big."

"Snakeman?" said Beam, then laughed. "Maybe he'll have grown scales since you saw him."

"Ask him what he wants," said Blademaster. "Let him pick his own name."

Beam turned to him, still grinning.  His teeth flashed bright in the street lights.  "Just like you, huh?"

"Yes.  Like me."

They kept walking.  Blademaster struggled to keep his fingers from the side of his sweatshirt, feeling at the grip of the knife concealed there.  It wasn't his only one-his pants were full of them.

Shag led them to a place that was large and darkly lit-good place for a fight, if it came to that.  A bright sign above the door, striped in red, green, and white read "Mario Pasta's All-Nite Italian".

Blademaster frowned, narrowing his eyes.  "All night.  We should have come later."

"We can always wander around for a couple hours and then come back," said Shag.

"Yeah," said Beam, "get some drinks.  You just call Cloak on the cell and tell him we'll be a bit late."

Blademaster shook his head.  "No drinks.  And the longer we're out here, the sooner the Whites or someone who knows them will recognize us."

"Aw, Alex, you know that's not going to happen," moaned Beam. "There's plenty of people like us."

"Really?  Tall man, in his twenties, with a black hoodie, baseball cap, and heavy-looking cargo pants, in the company of an Asian wearing a white t-shirt and yellow jeans, along with a hillbilly?  How many groups like that are there?  They might not be confident enough to attack us, but they'd get suspicious.  I should have taken others.  Shiftslim and Lead, maybe."

"Aren't you proud of the fame?  We're the Blademaster Crew!"

"We won't be anymore if the Whites bring in a task force.  Maybe they'd put our ash boxes next to each other once they'd executed us."

Beam frowned-a very rare sight, with him.  "You're too afraid of them.  Last time we met Dervish, Spark, and Cube, we sent 'em back blinded and cut up."

"Cloak was with us, then,"

"He's an honorary member of the BC.  So is Spit."

Blademaster clenched his teeth.  "Spit doesn't need my help to get himself killed."

Shag clapped a furry hand on each of their shoulders and rumbled, "We look more suspicious standing here debating.  Either we go in or we don't."

"We go in," said Blademaster. "Beam, shut up or you're out of the 'BC'."

"Aw, say it ain't so, Alex," he said, the grin returning in full force.

Blademaster pushed open the doors, and the three went in.  There were about twenty diners mulling over wine and pasta, tables lit by candlelight.  It took Blademaster a moment to notice that the candles were fake and the tablecloths were plastic.  The three of them were overdressed.

"Look, Alex, behind the counter," said Shag.  He kept moving his head, as if looking for a table, while he spoke.

There were three people there, and two were women-one young, one older.  The third was a man who was long in every way-his neck seemed to extend a couple inches too far, and his arms were the same.  His face was long and dour, half covered by what looked like an extensive piece of orthodontic headgear.  His eyes were bright green.

"Do what you do best, Alex.  Tell me when to flash 'em," whispered Beam.

"Not now," snapped Blademaster. "We've got to catch him alone."

Shag shrugged.  "We should have come back later."

"No.  We need to know when his shift ends.  Do you know?"

Shag shook his head once in each direction.

Blademaster sighed.  "Let's sit down, then."

The chairs all had a strange bulge in the back, as if to discourage patrons from doing more than eating-quickly.  The table-plastic felt like it was coated with a thin layer of grease.

"Don't stare," Blademaster told Beam. "We're just guys coming in off the street."

"I'm not looking at him.  Back in moment."

Blademaster didn't have time to stop him.  It was too late to call him back without suspicion, and he didn't turn around to see Blademaster's angry expression.  He made a straight line to the counter and the young woman behind it, wearing his best smile.  She smiled shyly in return.

"Hey there, my friends and I would like a bottle of your finest red wine.  What would you recommend?"

She smiled shyly.  "Well, er...I don't really know.  You'll have to specify something."

Blademaster heard Shag snort.  Beam didn't know the first thing about wine.  He faked it.

"I'll have the Morrazi '98 then, if you please."

She pursed her lips, looking at her screen.  "Erm...I don't see anything like that here, sir."

He could only be seen in profile, but it was enough for his widening grin to be visible.  "Maybe you've got something else I might like."

He threw one of his elbows onto the counter and leaned forward.  Blademaster hung his head and gritted his teeth.

The woman took a step back from the counter, blushing.  "We've got other wine.  I see one '98 that you can get for $20."

Beam kept going.  "What time do you get off work?"

She frowned now.  "Sir, please make your order.  Then go away."

"Alright.  But what time does he get off work?" said Beam, languidly aiming a thumb at the Advan who stood a few feet away.

That was too much.  Blademaster threw his chair back and came towards him, with Shag following a second behind.  He clapped a hand down on Beam's shoulder, hard.  "I'm sorry, Miss.  My friend is drunk."

"Hey!  That's a lie, Bladeboy!"

It took Blademaster a little over a second to smash Beam's head down into the counter, hard.  It left a bloodstain behind.

"I'm very sorry.  We'll leave."

"You'd better," she spat.

"Alex, he's gone!" said Shag, his voice grating.

Blademaster turned to see the Advan gone, and the door to the kitchen still swaying on its hinges.  He released Beam, slapped a palm down onto the counter, and vaulted over it.

"Hey!  What do you think you're doing?" shouted the older lady.

He kept going, charging for the doors with his left fist held out like a battering ram.  His right hand went for a knife.  Behind, he heard Shag's heavy boots hit the floor and come pounding after him.  There was a bright flash, like lightning, a scream from the young woman, and a jaunty "Sorry, baby," from Beam before he followed.

The kitchen was obscured by steam from a dozen pots lined up along its stoves, but Blademaster saw the door at the other end of the room swung shut.  He ran for it, his right hand coming up with a four-inch switchblade extended.  It was a simple weapon-the kind that he kept a dozen of in his room-but the blade was sturdy and the construction was light enough for him to handle it easily.

He ducked the arm one of the cooks sent out to stop him, then heard Shag's fist impact with the man's face.  Hopefully, he hadn't hit him too hard-Shag could easily break bones with his bare hands.  Shouts from the other cooks, and another impact, told him that Beam was following.

Blademaster went through the door into a dark room.  The illuminated space around the door was filled with crates.  He opened his hand so that the knife was on his palm, its blade stabbing out over his fingers.  "We know what you are," he said to the darkness.

The attack came quickly.  A snarling face, green eyes opened wide and serpentine fangs gleaming, lunged out at him from the darkness.  Even the tongue was forked.

Blademaster connected his mind with the symbol he had scraped into the knife's blade and launched it while bending his legs and ducking beneath the strike.  The man's jaw had opened too wide for any normal human, and Blademaster saw that his neck had stretched out.  Then, just as Shag and Beam entered the room, it whipped back into the darkness.  Blademaster drew another knife, identical to the first, and threw it with his power.  He couldn't tell whether it had hit, but he heard a hiss from the darkness and the sound of another door opening.

"Flash him first chance you get," he told Beam.  "Shag, we're going to try and take him alive, but break bones if you have to."

Then he moved towards the slit of pale light that was the doorway, leaping over crates he could barely see.  Blademaster came into the moonlight with a third switchblade in one hand and three small triangular blades hovering above the palm of his other hand.

A motorcycle engine roared, and Blademaster could see headlights moving away down the alley towards the street.  Even though he almost never swore, the temptation was strong.  That Advan could move fast.

Blademaster launched a pair of his triangles, but neither of them seemed to hit anything.  He mentally pulled another two from the pouch on his waist and sprinted after the Advan.  As Blademaster watched, he pulled out onto the road and sped away.

"Move!  Move!" he shouted, clearing a garbage can in a single leap.

They were confronted by the steady flow of glaring lights and rushing sound as they hit the street.  Already, the motorcycle with the long-limbed Advan crouched on it was receding.  But, a second later, a silver Taurus sedan pulled up to the curb, and the driver unlocked the doors.  Shag had pulled one open, almost wrenching it off its hinges, before they could hit the lock button again.  He threw the passenger-a young man wearing an overblown anime t-shirt-to the sidewalk and then did the same for the driver.  He went for the wheel while Blademaster sat down next to him and Beam clambered into the back.

Shag didn't need to wait for an order to slam the gas pedal into the floor and send them rocketing into the stream of traffic.  Horns honked.

"You're good, Shag," said Beam. "Not a cop in sight."

Blademaster spent a few seconds replacing his hovering blades with balls of blunt steel-small enough to control easily, but heavy enough to do damage.  If he was going to take this Advan alive, he'd need them.

"Hey, guys, I've got a name for him," said Beam, grinning. "Most guys would say 'Viper' or 'Python', but I've got a better one: Asp!"

"Asp it is.  Shut up," said Blademaster, trying to see where the motorcycle had gone.

He almost put a blade in Beam's head when he saw him popping off an old man in a red Corvette.  Someday, Beam would do something that would either kill him or put him in a 10x10 cell for the rest of his life.

There were two intersections ahead: One turned green just before Shag went through it, and the other turned red as the traffic river of Syster Avenue cut across it.  Blademaster thought he saw a tall neck in the back-up at the intersection.

"Faster," he hissed.

Shag was swerving around other cars, dodging between lanes.  Now it was Beam who was getting the finger.  Speaking quickly, Blademaster told them his plan.  They came to the intersection before Beam had time to comment.

The brakes squealed as Shag slammed them down.  The car had been clocking at least eighty, and Blademaster almost hit his head on the dashboard.  He felt Beam slam into the back of his seat.

"Out!" he snapped.

He didn't wait for his companions.  Blademaster threw his door open hard enough to rock the suspension, jumped out, and dashed between the parked cars.  The cross traffic hadn't slowed a bit.  He had time.  The motorcycle was three cars back from the intersection.  Blademaster sent a ball straight at the scrawny chest of the man perched on top of it.

Asp heard Blademaster's tennis shoes hammering against the asphalt before the ball could hit.  He twisted away from it and ended up on the roof of one of the parked cars.  His face turned towards Blademaster, jaw stretched wide and fangs showing.  Blademaster heard screams and terrified swearing from the occupants of the cars.  He pulled a knife-this one a six inch fixed blade-and jumped onto the rear hood of Asp's perch.  He latched onto another pair of balls and threw them both, one a split-second after the other.  With impossible speed, Asp dodged both and sent a fist towards Blademaster.  The Advan's wrist stretched.  Blademaster dodged, but the blow clipped his jaw and opened a stream of blood.

"Leave me alone!" Asp shrieked.

There was a flash, like the lights being turned on in a dark room, and Asp screamed and clutched at his eyes.  Blademaster heard Beam's voice shout, "Get 'im, Bladeboy!"

Blademaster came back from Asp's blow and went up onto the car's roof, but Asp was gone.  He had recovered from Beam's flash long enough to see his way to jump to the next car over.  Another fist snapped out at Blademaster, the wrist stretching grotesquely.  Blademaster leapt too, going around it, and twisted past a second fist.  His knife shot toward Asp's chest.  The Advan slid around it like his namesake and came at Blademaster with his fangs.  Blademaster leapt back off the car to dodge and watched the neck snap over him.  The spaces between the vertebrae were inches wide.

He turned and glanced over his shoulder to see Shag and Beam holding off a crowd of angry faced men and women, some of them holding tire irons, baseball bats, and small knives.  Shag shattered a man's face with a blow from one hairy fist while Beam made eye contact with a young Latino and blinded him with a bright flash from his irises.

When Blademaster looked back at the roof of the car, Asp was gone.  He saw the Advan leap onto the sidewalk two lanes away and run into an alley.  Blademaster went after him, chest heaving from exhaustion.  Asp was a runner.  He had to have trained for it to go that fast.

The parked cars began to move as the light finally changed.  Blademaster went between the last two and avoided being run over by inches.  He hoped that Shag and Beam weren't hurt, but he didn't have time to check on them.  His sneakers ate up the ground as he went into the alley and drew a trio of balls and a combat dagger.  Asp was dangerous-the dagger was to kill him if he couldn't be captured.

Blademaster was five yards into the alley, with a row of garbage cans on his left, when a sobbing moan echoed between the walls, coming from some place he couldn't pinpoint.

"Please...leave me alone," said Asp. "I wasn't going to hurt any of you."

Blademaster thought better of answering.  He took a couple steps backwards to get himself away from the garbage cans and scanned the darkness.  His eyes had been blinded by headlights-he could see very little.  Asp wouldn't be any better, though, and he had gotten a flash from Beam.

Blademaster waited.  The three steel orbs moved in a slow circle above his hand, catching colored lights from the street in their polished surfaces.

"I'll kill you if you keep chasing me!" Asp croaked.  He was crying.

"It's either us or the Whites.  Advans can't be neutral," said Blademaster, voice even.

"Why not?"

"People try to kill us when they find us.  The police don't like us.  We need to come together."

"You and the Whites aren't together!"

"Enough talk.  I leave that sort of thing to my master."

Blademaster pulled a triangular blade and set it hovering behind his head, just in case.  It was one of his larger ones, big enough to penetrate ribs.

The attack came suddenly.  A garbage can emerged from the darkness just ahead of Blademaster, its contents spilling out behind it.  He dodged to the side, and it crashed to the ground a few feet away.  Then he rushed down the alley, hurling a couple balls in front of him.

One of them hit.  He heard the smack as clearly as it had come from a great bell, and then the thud of Asp hitting the pavement.  Before he could recover, Blademaster was on his chest, dagger held against his throat.

"I give you a choice," said Blademaster. "Either join the Advance Legion, led by Cloak, or I kill you."

The tears on the young man's face sparkled in the light reflected by Blademaster's dagger.  Now, the fangs bulging beneath his lips looked almost pitiful.  "Please...I don't want to fight.  You'll make me fight.  Your war with the Whites will just go on and on until half of you are dead and the other half are either killed by mobs or captured for...research."

The last word sent a sob racking through his body, and it made a shiver run down Blademaster's spine as well.  It was the fear of every Advan.  Worse than death.

"So you won't join Cloak?"

"No!  He'll make me chase after Advans like me, who want to be left alone and don't want to fight and die.  I'll have to kill them or die myself, and I don't want to!"

Blademaster saw the hand begin to shift and slammed a ball into it.  Asp screamed, almost cutting his own throat against Blademaster's dagger.

Blademaster's mouth was dry.  "Your choice."

Asp was heaving with uncontrollable sobs.  "N-n-o," he croaked. "Kill."

His arm tensed.  Suddenly, Blademaster was sharply aware of the cool wind that was blowing in the alley, of how it rattled the strings on his hood and brushed his hair.  His eyes locked with Asp's serpentine gaze.  He was right-Cloak had been looking for another good hunter, and Asp was powerful enough for the job.

Blademaster hated killing people like this, when they were on their backs and helpless.  Usually it, happened while he was fighting them, with just a quick blade in the chest or the throat.  And Asp was too weak in mind for what Cloak would want him to do.  Especially if he cried when faced with death.

"Swear to me that you will never join the Whites."

Asp's tears seemed to dry up almost instantly from shock.  "What?"

"Swear you won't join the White Alliance!"

"I-I swear it."

"Then get up and go.  Be out of the city by dawn."

Blademaster stood up, sweeping the steel ball up from Asp's hand with a strand of his thought.  It had left a dark bruise, but nothing worse.

The other Advan was breathing heavily, chest heaving against his t-shirt.

"I haven't got enough money for a plane...."

"Then take a bus.  Shut up and go."

Blademaster left the alley without looking back and heard feet running away in the opposite direction.

###
He met Shag and Beam at the closest rendezvous, near a telephone booth that had been vandalized years ago and never repaired.  Both of them had cuts and bruises, and Beam was nursing one of his wrists, but they wouldn't need more than showers and band-aids.

"I had to kill him.  He was desperate-and dangerous," said Blademaster.

Shag nodded.  "I could have told you he'd be like that."

Blademaster glared.  "Then why didn't you?"

"It doesn't matter.  You know Cloak's orders."

"Yes."

Beam grinned.  "Oh, well.  I wouldn't have wanted a human snake in the Legion anyway."

It took a lot of effort not to stab him, and even more not to punch him, but Blademaster just gritted his teeth in the shadow of his hood.  "Let's get back and make our report."

The three moved off into the dark streets of the city.  This time, Blademaster hung back a little further than normal, his head bowed.]]> Thu, 05 Mar 2015 08:51:15 +0000 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=73&PID=72&title=2nd-place-asp-by-sean-t-m-stiennon#72 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=72&PID=71&title=3rd-place-the-tinker-by-robert-j-santa#71 Author: SFReader
Subject: 3rd Place - The Tinker, by Robert J. Santa
Posted: Mar-05-2015 at 8:49am

Veteran scribe Rob Santa takes Third Place with his "fusion" SF tale - one that only automatons will fail to love.  Then again, part of fiction's power is to induce powerful emotions in the reader, to break down the more rote (one might say robotic) aspects of our daily lives.  We appreciated Rob Santa's narrative magick enough to award this offbeat tale Third Place. - D.B.

The Tinker
by Robert J. Santa

"Let us thank the Creator," Gabriel said, and his family bowed their heads in unison. "We thank you for the food you have made and the world around us. We thank you for the first harvest of the radishes. We thank you for the mild days that are shaped by your hands. Let us be thankful." They all waited in silence for a few moments then let go of each others' hands and reached for bowls of food. Gabriel broke the bread, and Susan handed him a plate of freshly-churned butter.

"Did the plowing go well today?" she asked as she exchanged the butter for the bread.

"Yes," Gabriel said, "though I pulled a rock as big as the dog out of the ground. Funny, after all these years working that field, I didn't think there would be any stones left."

"I milked the cows today, Papa," blurted the smallest child, beaming as he did so.

"You did?" he replied. "That's wonderful, Seth."

"He did it all by himself," Paul said. "I didn't help him once."

"I am so proud of you," Gabriel said, his face bright with the truth of it. "You're learning so much."

"Papa?"

"Yes, Enos."

"Why don't we get one of the Tinker's machines to milk the cows?"

Gabriel saw his wife stiffen. Paul looked at his father and then his mother and just as quickly down at his plate. He lifted a forkful of lamb into his mouth and chewed with his eyes down.

"Who is the Tinker?" Gabriel asked as he looked directly at Enos, who looked panicky and flicked his eyes from his mother to his father. Gabriel turned his head. "Paul?"

"We saw the Tinker in town yesterday," Susan said, and Gabriel turned to her.

"I feel like the existence of this man was being intentionally kept from me," he said. "Why?"

"I knew you wouldn't approve of him."

"What would make you say that?"

"Gabriel, my love," said Susan, "we have been married a very long time. I would like to think I know you by now."

"What is it he does of which I wouldn't approve?" Gabriel's face betrayed his controlled emotions. Susan held his gaze and sighed.

"You would have to see him for my answer to make any sense," she replied. She hung her head for her husband could only say one thing.

"Then Paul and I will go see this Tinker tomorrow," Gabriel said, and though he was the only one to do so, he calmly ate his dinner.

###

"You will be home tonight?" Susan said, handing her husband a basket.

"Probably not," Gabriel said as he put the basket behind the buckboard. "I should visit awhile, see the new store, talk to some people."

"Well, there's some bacon and bread and a jug of wine in there. It will get you through tomorrow if you don't mind being a little hungry."

"I have some coins if we need to see Rebecca and Aaron. We will manage."

Paul tossed a rolled canvas into the wagon and followed it with a stack of blankets. Gabriel marveled not for the first time how his son was almost a man. Susan came over and kissed her son on the forehead, realizing, too, that childish hugs were a thing of the past. She whispered into his ear and kissed him again then came around to kiss her husband. Without saying anything else, she turned and walked back into the house.

An hour from the farm Gabriel spoke.

"What did your mother say to you?" he asked.

"She told me not to let you do anything stupid," Paul said without taking his eyes from the horse in front of him. Had he done, so he would have seen his father smile.

They stopped once before reaching town, when Paul's sharp eyes spotted some wild blackberries. It was little more than a double-handful, but it was a welcome snack. The sun was high overhead and coming back down when they entered the town's main street.

The town had changed little, looking virtually the same as when Gabriel had made his first journey there from the farm. Aaron and Rebecca had built the tavern to supplement their hatchery, and they charged little more than the cost of the meals prepared there. The new clergyman, Preacher Harris, had labored for a year, carrying stones for the foundation of the chapel, refusing all help. The whole town had built a new general store when the last one burned down, and the new one was at least twice as large as the last to accommodate the growth.

"Good afternoon to you," a man called from his porch.

"Hello, Abraham," Gabriel said. "How are you?"

"As well as an old man can be." Abraham lifted himself off the chair and leaned against the railing. "You here to see the Tinker?"

"If I get around to it. I hear it might be an interesting experience."

"It is at that. Hello, Paul."

"Good afternoon."

"You going to keep an eye on your dad?"

"That's why his mother sent him with me," said Gabriel.

"Smart woman." Abraham smiled, and Gabriel couldn't help but return it.

"How is the new minister?" asked Gabriel. Abraham shifted slightly forward.

"Better than the last one," he said. "He hasn't said anything we weren't expecting to hear. You should come to services one of these days."

"It's a very long ride, Abraham."

"Yet I couldn't help but notice you're making it today."

"That I am. How is your hip?"

Abraham let his hand fall down to the top of his leg.

"It could be better," he said. "It's nothing a trip to the city wouldn't fix. Those docs can work miracles."

"You will certainly be missed," said Gabriel.

"Thank you. I'd be leaving soon, bad hip or no. There's nothing else for me to see here." Abraham touched the brim of his hat. "Good day to the both of you."

Gabriel clicked his tongue, and the horse eased them forward down the road.

"Papa," Paul said when they were well away, "why did you deceive Abraham?"

"Did I?"

"Abraham asked you if you were going to see the Tinker, but you didn't say 'yes.' You made it seem as if seeing him would only be a side trip."

"Paul, what I'm going to tell you now is coming from one man to another. Do you understand?"

Paul nodded his head.

"I'm scared," said Gabriel.

"Of what, Papa?"

"I don't really know. There has been too much revelation of secrets lately. I don't want to hear another one."

"Perhaps seeing the Tinker will help you understand," suggested Paul. Gabriel only nodded and headed for the livery to turn the horse and wagon over to Ephraim's oldest boy whose name Gabriel could never remember. Father and son walked to the market square without saying anything else.

The Tinker's location was impossible to miss, for there was a crowd of thirty around him. Behind him was a tall, wooden wagon, the kind that Gabriel had only seen with the traveling circus. A variety of tools hung from poles jutting out of the top of the wagon, and the rear doors were thrown wide to reveal a compartment stuffed full with boxes and cabinets. There was also a small cot, but it seemed like it was only an afterthought. Gabriel would have never been able to see the Tinker through the closely-packed onlookers were the Tinker not standing on a small sort of stage.

"And this," the Tinker said, his voice easily carrying the distance between him and Gabriel, "is a device that will pay for itself immediately. Even the most cynical among you will recognize its value." And when the Tinker looked directly at Gabriel a shiver ran through him he hoped stayed hidden beneath his clothes.

The Tinker reached down and lifted something onto the table in front of the crowd. Paul stood on his toes, but even then he was still shorter than Gabriel and Gabriel could see nothing.

"Let's get closer," Gabriel said. Paul only nodded, still trying to look through the bodies. Gabriel was a big man, yet he only laid hands on shoulders and muttered polite pardons. The people moved as if they had seen the show before and were permitting a newcomer to share the experience. As Paul and Gabriel were moving closer, the Tinker was silent, working on the device on the table that turned out to be a metal hen.

The device was larger than any chicken, closer in size to a healthy goose. It had a pyramid-like shape artistically fashioned with a hen's features, and Gabriel nodded his head as he recognized the talent of the metalwork. The nest upon which the hen sat was a tall, square base. It was almost as if the Tinker was waiting for Gabriel to make his way to the front of the crowd, for he began speaking as soon as Paul and Gabriel had a clear view.

"The reservoir I just filled," he said, "is for common lamp oil, the purer the better, though even crudely-pressed oil will work. Each filling will last a full day and night, with a full twenty-one day cycle needing about a pint, perhaps more." The Tinker reached down to the base and opened a drawer.

"Here is the space for eggs," he continued. "This will hold thirty and six. Once the eggs are hatched the chicks can be moved to their permanent home and a new cycle begun."

"What purpose does this device serve," said Rebecca in a voice loud enough so that everyone could hear, "when we have been incubating chicks for years?"

"You have two answers for your question," replied the Tinker. "First, you do not need to heat a whole room for your eggs, tending fires and coals even in the wee hours."

Gabriel was standing close enough to Rebecca that he could see her knowing nods.

"And secondly," the Tinker said, "this device need not be in your home. You could set it out in the snow, and the eggs would still be safely warmed. There must be a better use for that incubator room, with all the business your tavern is generating."

Rebecca nodded again.

"What does it cost?" someone else shouted.

"If we were in the city," said the Tinker, "I could begin an auction, and the bidding would surely reach fifty silvers."

"And where would someone in this town find fifty silvers?" Rebecca asked, disappointment easily heard in her voice.

"Of course, we are not in the city," the Tinker said. "I would trade this device for a generous ham so that I could have meat on my journey and a dozen bottles of wine to warm my old bones."

"I think country folk would be hard-pressed to deliver a ham with anything more than a few bottles," said Rebecca.

"Perhaps you're right," the Tinker said, and as he lifted the incubator off the table and set it on the ground the crowd nodded as a group. Rebecca walked away in the direction of Miriam's hog house.

"Show us something else," was yelled out, though Gabriel couldn't tell who said it.

"I can show you many things," said the Tinker. "It is why I am here." He looked inside his wagon and took out a box with sides as long as a forearm. The Tinker placed the box on the table then opened it, revealing compacted straw. He dug around inside this only for a moment before pulling out what looked like a troubadour's harp permanently attached to a base. The Tinker placed the harp on the table then swept all the loose hay back into the box, which disappeared from sight.

"Will you play for us?" Gabriel asked. He noticed how condescending his words sounded and wondered at it.

"I have no gift for music," replied the Tinker. "I do know, however, that music is merely a combination of numbers. And I have a gift for numbers." He touched the base of the harp without throwing a switch or turning a dial, yet as soon as his skin caressed the metal it came to life. The harp sang a soft melody, strings acting in small duets and quartets of chords or soloing in tiny intervals. Gabriel could see the strings vibrating as if they were being plucked by invisible fingers. It was lovely and lasted a long while during which no one made any noise louder than a breath. When the music ended there was a collective sigh of disappointment, and it surprised Gabriel to realize he had joined in.

The Tinker lifted the harp off the table and returned it to the box where he lovingly covered it with straw and sealed the lid. He looked back at the crowd and simply smiled.

It was the smile that bothered Gabriel. There was a smugness about it, a self-satisfaction that Gabriel felt was more than rude. It was on the verge of sin.

"That may be pretty, Tinker," Gabriel said, the name ejecting itself from his mouth as if it were covered in nettles, "but it won't put food on the table. Only hard work can do that."

"I assure you, friend," the Tinker said as smoothly as if he were repeating a line in a well-rehearsed play, "building that harp was very hard work, indeed. I toil over every one of my creations."

The fire disappeared from Gabriel's mind as quickly as it had appeared.

"I apologize," he said. "I did not mean to imply that you were lazy." To this the Tinker merely waved his hand as if he were shooing away an insect.

"I didn't take offense," said the Tinker. "In fact, I've been waiting for you to get here."

"Me? What do you know about me?"

"Nothing, friend. But I've traveled all over this land, and in every town there is one like you. I don't need to ask anyone here if you are a well-respected member of this community, for I can see it in their faces when you speak." A few of those assembled nodded their heads, and Gabriel felt his face begin to flush.

"So I am to validate your machines to make it easier for you to sell them to us simple country folk, is that it?"

"Ah," said the Tinker, leaning back slightly. "Smart too, I see." He paused as if his script had been interrupted, several pages torn out with the actor still on stage.

"Yes," he finally said, "that is exactly what I was thinking."

"Then look for your help elsewhere, Tinker. I will not be your pawn so that you may line your purse."

The Tinker was obviously perplexed. He took in air to speak and was interrupted before he could do so.

"No," said Gabriel. "I will not enhance your business." Then he turned and walked toward the tavern, Paul hurrying to follow. They went inside and sat at a table near the fireplace. Gabriel noticed only afterwards that it was the table furthest from the door. Aaron approached.

"Hello, Gabriel," he said. "Good day, Paul."

"Hello, Aaron," they said together.

"What may I get for you?"

"We will each have an ale, please, and something to eat."

"I've made a chicken stew," Aaron said as if it were a suggestion and not the only option.

"That sounds lovely," said Gabriel. Aaron walked off and into the kitchen.

"Father?"

"Yes, Paul?"

"I was impressed with the Tinker's inventions."

"I know, son. I feel they were made to impress."

"And not to last?" asked Paul.

Gabriel only nodded.

"The Tinker is a swindler?" It was clear to Gabriel that Paul didn't believe the question.

"We cannot know for sure," Gabriel said.

"The Creator says we should trust strangers as we would friends," said Paul, and Gabriel nodded.

Aaron returned with a wooden tray, placed food and drink on the table, then held the tray at his side.

"Is it too dark to eat?" asked Aaron.

"I am fine," said Gabriel.

"Are you certain?"

"What is wrong, Aaron?" Gabriel asked. He could clearly see that Aaron was on the verge of something.

In response to Gabriel's question Aaron reached over the mantel and pulled a knob that was sticking out of the wall. Gabriel heard the creaking of wood as if something were rolling on the roof.

Then the most marvelous thing happened. A glass bowl that was hanging from the ceiling began to glow as if it held a candle. The candle became brighter and brighter still until it shone like the sun seen through a thick bank of clouds. It illuminated the dark corner of the tavern as if a half dozen new windows had been knocked through the stone walls.

Both Gabriel and Paul stared at the glass bowl, Paul with a spoonful of broth held halfway to his lips. The light flickered faintly, much as a candle flame would, though it did not diminish in brightness noticeably.

"It is the Tinker's doing," Aaron offered quickly, as excited as if he were a child opening presents on the first day of the year. "It will shine as long as there is a gentle breeze."

"Or until it breaks," added Gabriel.

"I saw the Tinker strike it with a mallet. He tells me he will come through the town once each year to make repairs of anything that stops functioning, though he assures us all that his creations will not do so."

"And you believe him?"

"I believe him," said Aaron without hesitation. "He said yesterday he would prove the worth of his machines with the simplest of demonstrations. He also told us to wait for it."

"He wants me to do it," said Gabriel.

"Yes. The Tinker said one of us would speak the words, that without them he could prove nothing." Aaron reached out and pushed the knob flush against the wall. There was a soft clicking noise on the roof as the light in the glass bowl dimmed until Gabriel and Paul were left in shadows.

After Aaron left, the two of them ate in silence. Paul twice tried to start a conversation, but Gabriel didn't respond, only lifted the spoon to his mouth with painfully slow rhythm. Gabriel mopped the last drop of broth from his bowl with a handful of bread, fished several coins from his purse and placed them on the table, then stood and walked out of the tavern with Paul again hurrying close behind.

The crowd was gone from around the Tinker's wagon. On the table was a generous ham tied with string. The Tinker was bent over a chest, and Gabriel heard the dull tinkling of glass. He must have heard the crunching of Gabriel's footsteps on the gravel, for he straightened up and turned around.

"Have it your way, Tinker," Gabriel said. "What is it I'm supposed to do?"

The Tinker smiled again, a variation that implied he had an infinite store. Had Gabriel been angry he would have suspected the Tinker was mocking him.

"Yes," he said, the smile not much shifting shape, "definitely the smart one." The Tinker paused as if considering his script once more, then flipped through several pages as if discarding them. "What usually happens at this point is that I prove my abilities to the assembled crowd."

Gabriel looked at Paul who was looking around the empty square.

"A bit late for that," said Gabriel.

"Indeed."

"Don't you feel your inventions have been proof enough?"

"It's more like a challenge," the Tinker said. "I make a statement along the lines of 'I could build anything,' and you dare me to build something of your imagining, something complex."

"I was impressed by the harp," Gabriel said.

"More complex than that."

"Like an animal?" asked Paul. The Tinker turned and pointed a finger at Paul, his face brightening.

"Yes," he said. "That would be most adequate."

"It couldn't be like that chicken," Gabriel said. "It would have to move."

"I can do that."

"And then I declare your wondrous invention to be beyond compare?"

"Something like that."

"So you can sell more of your machines to farmers?"

The Tinker looked at the ground and shook his head.

"It's not like that, Gabriel," he said.

"What is it like?"

"You will see when you speak the words. Then I will reveal the truth of all things."

Gabriel considered this for a long time. He could see from the corner of his eye his son staring at him. Gabriel turned and looked at Paul for a message of what he was thinking. Paul merely looked at his father expectantly, waiting to see what he would do.

"Very well, Tinker," said Gabriel. "I will say your words if I feel they are true. Shall we agree upon a cricket?"

The Tinker's eyes widened a little.

"They always say a bird," he said.

"Would a cricket be impossible?"

"No," the Tinker said, the corner of his mouth rising a little at what Gabriel suddenly thought was a genuine challenge. "Just different."

"Tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow."



#



"He worked all night," Rebecca said as she laid plates of bread and eggs before Paul and Gabriel. Something about her voice made Gabriel feel it was an accusation.

"He did not have to," Gabriel said, but his words sounded limp.

"I'm to tell you he will be ready shortly."

"Thank you." Before Rebecca left she pulled the knob out of the wall and filled the glass bowl with light.

"Should we go, Father?"

"Finish your breakfast, Paul. Slowly, please." As Gabriel ate he saw that Paul was being as patient as he could, pausing between bites and counting silently to three. Gabriel realized his cruelty and shoveled the remainder of his eggs into his mouth. Paul copied him, and in only a few minutes they had paid Rebecca for the room and the meals and ventured out to join a crowd that was at least double the size of the day before.

"Ah," the Tinker said at their approach, "I am ready for you." The people all moved aside to allow Gabriel and Paul to stand at the table.

"Do we need to engage in some kind of preamble?" Gabriel asked, and the Tinker smiled another smile from his repertoire.

"I think," he said, "that everyone here knows what is about to transpire."

"Then let us get on with the display."

The Tinker nodded and once again considered the pages of his script that had been so carefully written before he maneuvered each hand into the nearest pocket of his coat. He searched inside and drew out closed fists, which he laid on the table, moving his fingers until he was covering whatever had been in his hands. Then he lifted them.

On the table were two crickets. Gabriel noted their size, that they were larger than those he normally found in the dark corners of his home in the middle of the night. The one that had been in the Tinker's left hand was dark brown that bordered on black, the other being black with traces of blue on its body.

"I thought you were to make only one cricket," Gabriel said.

"I did," replied the Tinker, and in that moment the brown and black cricket took a tiny hop. He brought his upraised left hand down fast and smashed the insect with an open palm. Several people in the crowd jumped at the loud clap, including Abraham who was nearest the Tinker. When the Tinker lifted his hand there was nothing but the smashed remnants of the cricket spread over the table. The black and blue cricket hadn't so much as twitched.

The Tinker took a cloth out of his belt and wiped his hand then cleaned the table, though a small smear of color could still be seen when he was finished. He gingerly picked up the cricket and held it in an open hand. He then took an oddly-bent wire out of his pocket and inserted it into an invisible hole on the cricket's back. The Tinker turned the wire several times then removed it from the cricket, which he placed on the table.

At first, the cricket did nothing. A short while later it crawled forward on all six legs and hopped a little, and there was a unified gasp of amazement from the crowd. The cricket turned, crawled some more, and hopped again, and each time it did something there were more sounds of delight. It chirped twice, and someone behind Gabriel applauded. When it unfolded its wings and flew off over their heads there was silence.

"That was..." and Gabriel paused for there were no words in his vocabulary to express the lightning bug flashes in his mind. He searched and searched and came up with something that was inadequate though true, "...unbelievable."

"Thank you," said the Tinker. There was humility in his voice.

"You are truly one who can do amazing things."

The Tinker's face showed an odd expression, as if Gabriel had spoken a set of words for which he had been waiting all morning.

"A tiny cricket," he said, his voice rising in volume, "is nothing compared to what I can build. You have toiled in darkness for too long, and it is time to rise up into a world that is filled with beautiful creations. In the city there are bits of my handiwork that you wouldn't believe. I have built towers as high as a hawk circles over the fields. I have built great transports that can move houses three at a time. I have built so many things, and it is time for all of you to learn of them.

"Together," the Tinker said, and he took in a great lungful of air as if he were too impatient to breathe again before he was finished speaking, "we can be a civilization, a population instead of a collection of tiny groups. You have been kept separate so that you can learn autonomy, so that you can problem solve, so that any mistakes can be winnowed out of the group. It is clear that all the mistakes have been made, that it is time for you to learn your history and embrace your future."

The crowd was clearly confused, but the Tinker pressed on.

"I understand your anxiety. Rest assured that when this day is through you will know more than you ever have, you will believe in the possibility of things that are much greater than you can understand. You will learn of yourselves and the world around you, concepts that you cannot in your present state imagine."

The Tinker paused again, and another smile crept onto his face. It was full of that self-satisfaction, as if he were privy to information that he had delivered to the uninitiated many times. He was undoubtedly looking forward to doing it again. Gabriel saw several people shift nervously, with Abraham moving two steps closer to the Tinker.

"I have built so many things during my lifetime," he continued, cocking his head slightly. "I'm thinking that if I tried hard enough I could even build a man."

Abraham's hand was a blur, striking out at the Tinker's emergency deactivation switch located between the jaw and ear. There was a soft clicking sound, and the Tinker dropped straight down and lay in a heap.

Everyone in the crowd stared down at the tangle of limbs.

"What happened, Father?" Paul asked.

"I don't know, Paul," he replied.

"It could be anything," said Rebecca.

"It's probably a software error," said Abraham. "It's unlikely he could have strayed from the basic programming because of a mechanical failure." Abraham reached into his coat and took the communicator out of the inside pocket. He activated it and spoke clearly. "This is A-93. Discovered rogue unit and deactivated same. Standby for further information." He placed the communicator back inside his jacket.

"Well," said Gabriel, "it is fortunate you were here, Abraham. I don't think we could have deactivated him without a security officer."

"Then I'm glad I stayed here after the destruction of the minister," said Abraham. "Since achieving enlightenment this town has behaved in all ways in accordance with the Creator's programming. The minister's revelations of our construction don't appear to have been harmful. I believe I will be able to give a positive report."

"So we won't need our cores erased?" asked Paul.

"I don't think so," said Abraham. He looked down. "Except for this one, of course. I will recommend in my report that this town restrict its interaction with any units that aren't self-aware, and it's likely a security officer will be permanently stationed here." Abraham shook his head. "Replication. It's frightening."

Gabriel shuddered. He saw that Rebecca had the same reaction.

"I wish we could go back to just being people," Paul said.

"We were never people," Gabriel said, his voice soft and comforting.

"I know, but I still wish we could."

"All we can do is learn from the past," said Gabriel. "We cannot relive it." Paul nodded and looked down at the deactivated Tinker.

"He's leaking coolant," said Paul, pointing to the fluid escaping through the ear channel.

"Ahh," said Abraham, "coolant. That explains much. Then he can definitely be repaired. Put him in the wagon, Paul. I'll have him taken back to the city immediately."

Paul bent down and scooped a hand underneath the Tinker's head. He looked at his palm and lifted it up for a closer inspection.

"Father," he said as he held his hand out for them to see, "this is blood."

They all stared at Paul and the red stain that should have been steel gray. Not far off, a clockwork cricket lay in a field just as silently.]]> Thu, 05 Mar 2015 08:49:30 +0000 http://forum.sfreader.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=72&PID=71&title=3rd-place-the-tinker-by-robert-j-santa#71