Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 (15 page)

"So who killed Hoffman?" Orphan said at last.

Verne chuckled. Fogg wore a thin smile like a cut from a blade.

"I did," he said. "Of course."

Orphan felt his hands tighten. "You bastard."

"Shut up, boy," Fogg said, the smile disappearing like a fencing blade unbending. "You work for the Bookman now. And what the Bookman does, and how he uses his pieces on the board, is up to only one man."

"The Bookman," Orphan said, and thought, he is no man.

"Correct," Fogg said.

Paris—In the early hours of the evening the mayor, the esteemed Jean Eugène Robert-Houdin, was assassinated by person or persons unknown. The one-time magician and maker of automata (whose phenomenal success earned him the sobriquet
The Heir of Vaucanson
) was found in a locked room inside the Hôtel de Ville. The room was secured from the inside, and there was no sign of tampering with the lock. The mayor's body was obliterated by a small explosive device. The mayor's personal secretary has confirmed to this newspaper that shortly before the event she delivered to the mayor a parcel that had just arrived in the last post. She said, "It felt like a heavy book." No one at the
Sûreté
was available for comment, and the whereabouts at that time of Inspector Dupin, who was in charge of the mayor's security, remain unknown.

Orphan stared at the newspaper. They had just pulled into Nantes station.

It all made sense now, he thought. The killing of Hoffman in the cathedral. Fogg framing him for the act. All to withdraw attention from the Bookman's real plans, all to lure Dupin to the wrong place at the wrong time, so that an innocent-looking book could be delivered to the mayor. And yet—it was, he had to admit, brilliantly done. At one stroke the Bookman's faction had disposed of the mayor, of the Hoffman automaton, and put away the real detective, that poor man Fix, behind bars.

"Oh, cheer up, Orphan," Verne said. He beamed at him. "The story's been a tragic one, with death and ugly murder... and your own story, not told here, full of love and loss and a quest for redemption.... I hope I could write it one day."

"It isn't over yet," Fogg said. "So save your energies until Orphan reaches the end. If he does."

"Ah, The End!" Verne said, and he sighed a little, as if overcome by emotion. "These are always my favorite words in a book."

"To write or to read?" Orphan said, unable to restrain himself.

"Why, both," Verne said, smiled, and twirled his cane.

THE END.

Kara Dalkey has been publishing SF and fantasy short stories for nearly thirty years, and has had fifteen fantasy novels published as well, many of them set in Asia. She currently resides in the beautiful and mysterious Puget Sound region with a sweetie and a pixie bobcat. Her first story for
Asimov's
coalesced out of a nebula of inspiration, including the Seven Minutes of Terror that placed Curiosity safely on Mars, and the future plight of Bangladesh due to Global Warming. She tells us, "it was written months before the super-typhoon struck the Philippines. I based my story background on what climate scientists have been predicting for some time—that tropical cyclones might become fewer but much stronger. And, sadly, this may have been borne out, all too soon."

Thunder rumbled to the south. Ravi turned his head and stared. A gargantuan, curved gray wall of cloud filled the sky over the Bay of Bengal, glowing baleful orange on its west side where the last light of the setting sun struck it. The cyclone that the weathermen on the radio claimed had been headed to Myanmar had turned northwest and was now headed straight for Bangladesh. Ravi could smell the oncoming torrent as the wind grew ever stronger. "Chandni!" he called to his wife, "You must finish up the packing. It's coming faster than we thought!" Fear flowed from his stomach to his knees and neck, making him tremble. "Anu! Hurry!" Ravi shouted to his six-year-old son, who was paddling his little boat around the pylons beneath their platform.

"I'm watching the ducks, Bappi!" Anu loved birds.

"No time for that! The storm is coming. Get out of the boat and come up!"

"Yes, Bappi."

All who lived on the Great Pier knew such a day would come. Families who had lost their land from the rising of the sea were encouraged to move onto the platforms built up and out, so that they would not crowd the remaining land. Farmers had become fishermen and salvage divers. Villages grew on the piers built by an international consortium of nations and wealthy men. But there was ever the danger of the cyclones. With the warming of the air, they were greater when they came.

Ravi's grandfather had warned him as the sea rose, saying the future would bring only misery, disaster, and death. But Ravi had a wife and son to look after and could not let despair overwhelm him.

Ravi went inside their reed and twig hut, which shook and leaned with each gust of wind. Chandni had already opened and spread out the rescue sphere, which had been provided to each family living on the Pier. She had already tucked a plastic container of water, cooking utensils, and some clothes into the webbing. She had not been the most attractive of her sisters, but Chandni had proved so smart and practical and tireless that Ravi felt he got the much better bargain over his shallower brothers-in-law.

"Are we ready to inflate it?" he asked her.

"As ready as we can be. Where is Anu?"

"I am here, Mammi," said Anu, coming up behind Ravi. "Bappi, where will we put the boat?"

"We must leave it, Anu. There will be no room. We will get another later."

Ravi paused, his heel above the automatic pump. "Do you want to say goodbye to the house?" he said to Chandni. "It will be destroyed when this goes up."

"I never say goodbye to houses, or hello. It is bad luck," said Chandni.

"Very well." Ravi stomped on the pedal that started the inflation and the great orange sphere began to rise, pushing the flimsy walls of their hut aside.

Anu stared, wide-eyed, his fingers in his mouth.

Ravi paused to marvel, too. These rescue spheres were adapted from those that placed vehicles on Mars—a place that to him was only a cinnabar light in the night sky. And now such a sphere was being used to save people in a storm. At least Ravi hoped it would.

Ravi glanced down the Great Pier. Many of his neighbors had fled toward the mainland, hoping the storm shelters would take them in, especially those who had sold their spheres long ago. A few families, like Ravi's, had remained, and orange and tan balls of rubber were rising out of their homes as well.

The wind began to buffet the hut, whipping Ravi's hair into his face. "Get in, Anu! We must strap you in." Remembering the safety lectures given at the village center once a year, Ravi said, "Put your feet in those rubber loops and hold onto these ropes." Ravi attached the plastic and Velcro straps around Anu's waist. He turned to help Chandni, but she was already strapped in and ready.

As the inflation of the sphere was nearly complete, Ravi reached up to zip and seal the top flaps. Three of the top panels had to be loose on one side, to let some air in. As each section curved closed, a glow stick along each spine cracked, allowing the chemicals to mix and produce a green glow. Just before Ravi could close the final flap, however, there was a furious fluttering noise outside and a black and white tufted duck flew into the sphere with a loud "Mack! Mack! Mack! Mack!"

"Oh no!" cried Ravi and he chased the duck, saying, "Shoo! Shoo!" The duck managed to just evade him even though the sphere was only a meter and a half across. "Let him stay, Bappi!" said Anu, giggling. "He wants to be saved from the storm too." "Yes, let him stay," said Chandni, "and then we will have something to cook and eat when the storm is over. Besides, the rain is coming in. Close up and strap in yourself."

"Very well," said Ravi, finishing the final flap. "But you may not be so happy with your choice when he beats you with his wings and scratches you with his feet." As the final gray sunlight was closed off, the interior of the sphere glowed with eerie green light as if they were underwater. Edging around the duck, Ravi strapped himself in halfway between Anu and Chandni, and grabbed the plastic guide ropes. The duck settled itself in the very center of the sand-weighted floor between the three of them, muttering an annoyed "buck... buck... buck..."

A strong gust hit the sphere, blowing it a few feet back. Ravi heard his neighbors call out to each other from their spheres, "Courage! Hold on! Stay safe!" Then the wind-wall of the storm hit and the cries of encouragement changed to shouted prayers, to Allah, to Christ, to Vishnu. Ravi whispered his prayers to the latter, as he felt their sphere blown off the pier platform. Then, to his shock, it was raised into the air. Anu and Chandni cried out as the sphere bounced against other spheres and the edge of the pier platform, and then splashed into the water of the sea. Through it all, the duck wobbled and jumped and muttered to itself, but never strayed from the center of the sphere floor.

Ravi gripped the ropes tight and scanned the floor for leaks in the dim green light, but saw no water coming in. He leaned his head back against the sphere wall as their craft spun and rose up and up, then down and down on what must have been enormous swells on the sea. Sea foam spat in through the open vents. Rain thundered on the top of their sphere and they could hear screams in the distance.

"Bappi, Mammi," whined Anu, "I'm scared. I'm going to be sick!"

"Don't be scared," said Chandni. "This craft was built by very smart people. It will save us."

"Don't be sick," said Ravi. "Look at the duck. See how comfortable he is? He is not afraid. He knows we will be safe. Watch the duck and you will be all right."

Indeed, the duck had hunkered down in place and other than the occasional soft "ack, ack," did not seem perturbed. Ravi himself watched the duck and found it calming, the strange vision of this odd visitor with the silly tufts of feathers bouncing on his head. Folk tales told of ancient philosophers whose souls had been reincarnated into ducks. Perhaps their visitor had been a grumpy teacher in some former life, thought Ravi. Or an old soothsayer on the temple steps, chiding passers-by to mend their ways. "Maybe you were like my grandfather, eh?" murmured Ravi. "Proclaiming the end of the world, and yet you take a chance and come ride with us. Do you chide us for our fear or for our hope?"

Nausea and worry made a battleground of Ravi's stomach as their craft scudded and rolled and rose up and down and spun and wobbled in the wind. He tried to keep an eye on his son and wife—Anu watched the duck with determined fascination, and Chandni had her head leaned back against the sphere wall, eyes closed tight.

The hours passed as Ravi stood, braced against the storm. He could not say how long it had been when he became aware that the roaring of the wind had stopped. The rain overhead had become only a light patter and the rocking of the sphere was gentle, like in a mother's arms. The duck had tucked its beak under its wing to sleep and Ravi thought that was a good idea.

He was woken up by the whine of an approaching small outboard motor. "Halloo! Halloo in there!" a man called to them.

"Hello!" Ravi called back, hoping they had not been discovered by thieves, even though they had nothing to steal.

"Is everyone all right?"

Ravi glanced at Anu and Chandni, who were awake and blinking their eyes. "Yes, we are alive."

"Good. Does anyone need urgent medical care?"

"No, we are fine!" said Ravi.

"All right, we are going to tow you to shore. Just stay put."

"Who are you? Where are we?" asked Chandni.

"We are fishermen from the village of Mandarmani, near the Rupnaryan River. You are off the coast of the state of Bengal."

"That's more than a hundred kilometers," said Ravi, marveling at the distance they had traveled, south and west. At least they had not become lost in the swamps of Sundarban. The outboard motor roared louder and he felt the sphere pulled in a purpose ful direction. Ravi could only hope the men who caught them were not pirates. The duck was awake and looking from side to side with a disgruntled "mack... mack... mack..."

"Just a little bit further, duck," said Chandni, "and we shall all have a good lunch. Except for you. You shall be the lunch."

"Mammi!" Anu protested. Chandni laughed. "He doesn't understand us, silly. Why should he be upset?"

After a while, the outboard roar lowered to a tiger's purr. A man slapped the top of their sphere. "Still awake in there? We have come to shallow water. You can get out here and wade your way to shore. Is it all right if I open up?"

"Yes, please!" said Ravi, dying to breathe air that didn't smell like wet rubber and old rope. He detached the Velcro straps from his waist. Carefully walking around the duck, Ravi pulled aside flaps and unzipped them, opening up triangles of light gray morning sky. A thin man with a short beard and weathered baseball cap smiled in at them.

Suddenly the duck jumped into the air, deposited a sloppy, smelly poop on the center of the floor, and flew out through the opening. It slapped Ravi's face with its feathers as it ascended, squawking, into the sky.

The astonished fisherman readjusted his cap and said, "I'm sorry. You should have said you had a loose duck in there. I would have been more careful."

Ravi waved a hand tiredly. "That's all right. It wasn't my duck. It was just hitching a ride. Thank you for coming to our aid."

"It is nothing," said the fisherman. "We men of the sea, we help each other, yes? Now we must go help others.
Salaam alaikum."

"And with you," said Ravi. As the little white fishing boat sped off in a cloud of oil smoke, Ravi unzipped the rest of one of the side pieces, like the rind of a section of an orange, and he slipped into the water. The warm sea was only as deep as his knees and his feet sank into soft sand. He pulled the rubber plug on a couple of tubes so that the sphere could slowly deflate. "You can unstrap now, but stay inside until we reach shore." Muscles tight and numb from the ordeal, Ravi turned toward a palm-fringed beach and began to walk, pulling the sphere behind him.