INTERZONE 253 JUL-AUG 2014 (6 page)

He imagined these fake meals must really annoy the plants.

Not that they had feelings.

Feelings were overrated, in any event.

As a boy he had imagined Venus flytraps were linked to the eponymous planet. They certainly appeared to be an alien species.

Not that he could imagine what an alien species might look like.

In a school encyclopaedia he remembered seeing a drawing of a human flanked by two creatures supposedly from planets of differing gravity. One was tall and thin, the other short and fat. The short and fat specimen was marked as a possible inhabitant of Venus.

Should the Venusians exist.

He had doubted the veracity of the speculation without any of the knowledge of what he was.

It would turn out to be correct.

•••

“Tell me something…”

“This is getting boring.”

Beth sighed. Laura was becoming less and less the person she thought she knew.

People changed, didn’t they? It didn’t require an alien visitation for that to occur, they changed naturally. Their emotions fluctuated dependent on external circumstances, their cells degenerated, they were open to other influences and ran with them. What was once funny could be poignant after a disaster. What was a disaster could often become funny. Sometimes only moments after it occurred.

And Laura’s distance heightened Beth’s wish for change. If only something might happen which would
bond
them again. Best friends forever, that was what their necklaces said. Her mother had told her to grow up, but she
was
fully grown. Wasn’t a childhood retreat comforting anyway, like returning to the womb?

Sometimes she wanted a return to the womb.

Sometimes she wanted the whole of humankind to return to the womb.

Laura had got a job in the centre of town. Beth rode the bus with her, to support her on the first day. It had been a while since she had ridden a bus. She looked at the faces of each of the passengers as they boarded, none of them smiling. The bus was an elongated coffin, taking them all to their deaths. Or maybe it was one of Finney’s pods, adapted because of its time spent on Earth.

But these passengers had already been changed beyond the people they believed they were going to be in their youth.

Beth didn’t want to be one of them.

She wanted to continue in life as she was.

•••

Adamson wasn’t sure if it was his hand which was warm or whether it was the object.

He pulled out his mobile phone. There was a torch function which he used when getting behind the TV to change the SCART from the DVD player back to the television. His wife always sighed as he did this, but she never got up to do it herself. The light ran the battery down quick.

The shape was split in two, resembling a halved coconut. Adamson ran his hand around the outside. Could he describe it as hair? Fur? No, neither. The object’s interior was smooth.

He would fit inside it, he realised, with a jolt.

At the same time he knew he
would
step inside it.

He had been going to step inside it all along.

Wistfully he looked back to where the animal had been.

He put down the mobile phone, leaving the light switched on. Then he removed his shoes and socks. Placed his socks inside the shoes. He unbuttoned his belt, undid the button at the top of his jeans, slid them down his legs and stepped out of them. Folded them beside his shoes. This was followed by his jacket, jumper, T-shirt.

Naked, he stepped inside the object and the sides closed around him like a blink of an eye in the blink of an eye.

It was even darker in the pod than it had been outside it. But Adamson knew there would be light.

When the pod re-opened and the body stepped out of it and re-dressed, Adamson’s core was already returning to Venus.

•••

Gareth met her at the garden centre. A few years younger, but a few years wiser. She was looking at the sundews.

They weren’t common. But after Gareth had expressed his interest in carnivorous plants the owner had bought a few in.

She was tall, with long black hair and a red gash where her lips should be.

He couldn’t help himself.

“The sundews, less commonly known by their Latin name of
Drosera
, are so called because of the shiny drops of mucilage at the tip of each tentacle reminiscent of morning dew.”

She turned and smiled. “I know,” she said. Then she said: “Do you know why you’re drawn to the flytraps, Gareth?”

And then she said: “It’s all in the name.”

Gareth felt as if a button had been pushed in the back of his head. Enlightenment.

“It’s time to go,” she said. “Time to move on.”

She reached for his hand and he took it; half in, half out of himself. He felt like a millstone that grinds against another millstone when there is nothing between them to grind.

He got in her car with barely a passing thought about his.

Her legs were as bare and as light as ice lolly sticks.

Gareth smiled. In the language of humans only a vowel separated a plant from a planet.

And it was time for separation.

•••

Change.

“Change is only natural,” Laura said. “Don’t you think so, Beth?”

You’re becoming something you shouldn’t be
, thought Beth.
You’re dumbing down
.

The bus stopped and they both got off. For a while they walked in silence up the High Street, their long friendship threadbare, coming apart at the seams.

“This is where we part,” Laura said, pointing to the large glass façade of the office block where individuality, creativity and independence were culled on a daily basis. She looked excited, but the glint in her eye was temporary; she was in for the long haul.

Beth stepped back. She took a look at her life, speculated her future. Laura’s future was not for her. She didn’t want the end of the road, with a terraced house and an average husband and average children watching average television programmes in an average living room.

She wanted the stars.

They air kissed.

Beth turned to walk back towards the bus stop, then stopped.

What if Finney had got it right, but reversed it. What if he knew but couldn’t tell people the truth?

In
The Body Snatchers
human’s resisted change because they didn’t want to lose their core, the essence of what made them human. Their soul. The replacements were identical but emotionless. That single substance, the enigma which separated humans from other life forms – such as plants – was gone. But what if the reverse were true. What if humans were in fact empty shells and Venusians came to Earth and entered their bodies and everything which was championed as human intelligence was in fact alien. What if how we defined ourselves wasn’t us at all. Or in fact, was us; but we had forgotten where we came from?

She looked up at the stars but couldn’t see them because it was daytime.
Silly!

When she returned her gaze to the street and saw the mundanity there – the people no more than insects – she realised she was right. But that the intelligence was ebbing, humankind – the real, bland, unadventurous, frankly lazy humankind – had begun to dominate.

She sighed.

What she would give for her soul to be repatriated.

What she would give to remain herself again.

•••••

This is Andrew’s first appearance in
Interzone
although he has been published several times in our sister magazine
Black Static
. Stories have recently appeared in
Strange Tales IV
,
Chiral Mad 2
, and the anthology
La Femme
, and will shortly appear in
PostScripts
, the similarly-named Canadian anthology
Postscripts to Darkness
, and
Jupiter SF
. He has edited a collection of punk-inspired stories,
punkPunk!
, for DogHorn Publishing and co-edits
Fur-Lined Ghettos
magazine. Next year should see the publication of
Human Maps
, a short story collection through Eibonvale Press, whilst in the interim he has made available two early short story collections long out of print through Kindle. And his crime novel,
The Immortalists
, was published by Telos earlier this year with a second novel,
Church of Wire
, to follow in 2015. Sometimes he sleeps.

NEIL WILLIAMSON

ILLUSTRATED BY MARTIN HANFORD

Felix Kapel believed the sweet smell of success to be that of gold. This was his logic: Gold was the highest standard in the world of finance, and in Felix’s own business as a globally respected olfactory specialist, a
nose among noses
, it stood to reason that any person who could discern the subtle smell of gold would rightly have attained the pinnacle of the fragrance world. Gold, Felix imagined, would have an aroma that was cool and warm, bright and mellow. It would be
rich
too of course but, at the same time… Well, it would be pointless to attempt to convey what the smell of gold was
like
because it would be unique.

Felix kept a South African Krugerrand in a velvet-lined box in his desk drawer. On days when business had gone particularly well he took it out, but as successful as he became – and during his career he had been on retainers with Parisian perfumeries and Assam tea producers, the cosmetics divisions of several famous multinationals and every distillery on the Scottish island of Islay – he had yet to detect even a glimmer of that elusive smell.

Now, sitting at breakfast –
linen with not too much detergent, a carbon scrape of toast, the earthy jag of espresso
– he was beginning to think he never would. Not the way the world was heading these days. All the computer modelling, nanoscale particulate sensors, and organic synthesis were pushing craftsmen out. Modernisation, his customers told him regretfully. The push for quality control and molecular copyright couldn’t be guaranteed by human abilities alone any more.

Felix snapped shut his ancient laptop, hiding the latest missive of dismissal, and took his coffee to the window. Only a year ago his view had been of elegant Wipplinger Strasse, a quiet street, a block or so from a place that sold the best Kaiserschmarrn in Vienna. The new apartment in Ottakring offered a far poorer vista. Rain-dark and utilitarian, blare and grit. It wasn’t a happy change, but finances had forced it. The one thing he hadn’t had to compromise on yet was his coffee. He lifted the demitasse and breathed deep, let the aroma cloud about him, fill his passages. He did not waste the experience by drinking it. People who drank good coffee were, in Felix’s book, degenerate criminals.

He turned when Joanna entered with the morning’s mail and her yipping dog. She dumped most of envelopes on the dining table but retained one, waved it. He knew without looking that it was the revised quote from the decorators.

“I’ll look at it later.” Bijoux sniffed at his shoes, then looked up expectantly, all brown eyes and pink tongue. He nudged it away with a gentle kick.

“Oh, Felix, it’s really not that expensive.”

“Later, Joanna.”

She stilled. “It’s been nearly a
year
. And we’re still living like this.” Dramatically, she thrust out her hand. She could have been pointing anywhere, it wouldn’t have mattered. It was all shabby and none of it was chic. “You promised.”

He scowled. “And you promised not to let Bijoux into the dining room. He stinks when he’s been out in the rain.”

Joanna ignored him and sat to butter herself some toast. He rejoined her and flicked through the rest of the mail. Bills mostly. He pushed them aside.

“What’s that one from
Gustav & Jacob
?”

Her buttery knife was levelled at a cardboard box. Felix should have recognised the logo of the Czech chocolatiers immediately. He’d consulted on their aromatics for nearly fifteen years, until they too had taken the leap to automation and dispensed with his services.

Felix slit open the box –
hamster cage packaging, sex toy polyurethane
– and scooped out the shredded paper and a padded bag. Inside the bag was an arrangement of white plastic. A moulded respirator cup was attached by a neatly coiled tube to a box. Nestled into the top of the box was an ampule of amber liquid. Next to that was a switch.

The scribble, in English, on the
G&J
compliment slip was from their old production manager, Karel Bilek. Felix had thought he’d retired.

Felix

Good to hear from you before Christmas. If it were up to me I’d have you in like a shot, but you know the way the business is now. I’m truly sorry.

You and I were craftsmen, son, but the world has moved on. Did you know they can record smells now? Not perfectly, but it won’t be long.

Do yourself a favour, give these guys a call and offer your services. They’ll bite your hand off. Take their schilling for a few years and then enjoy a nice retirement when it comes.

Karel

Underneath Bilek had printed a company name,
Teleroma
, and a Swiss phone number. Felix vaguely recognised the name, but it took a moment to dredge it up. On sufferance, he had been forced to converse via the odious Skype with the makers of a film-star endorsed scent range in the USA, establishing a few details as a matter of formality before closing the contract, but when he raised the subject of when they wanted him to fly over the young man in the little window had laughed.
No need, Mr Kapel. We can do all of that over the internet with the Teleroma.

Felix hadn’t known what Teleroma was, but he wanted nothing to do with it. He’d politely backed out of the negotiations at the earliest opportunity.

Now, he didn’t know whether to be saddened or insulted. It was all right for Karel to talk about resting easy. He already had at least one foot up on the comfy cushions. Felix had fifteen years to fill before he could even consider retirement, and he had difficulty enough keeping Joanna and the dog under this roof let alone putting anything significant by for the future. And besides, while it was nice of Karel to acknowledge his craftsmanship, a little wider recognition would be nice too. By this stage in his career Felix should have been publishing books and giving lecture tours. There was still time left to make his mark, and he wasn’t going to throw away the chance of doing so by selling out to the very people who were killing his industry.

Felix crumpled the note in his fist.

“What is it then?” Joanna leaned over his shoulder. That terrible perfume –
crushed
roses and children’s candy
– that she liked made him gag.

He handed her the apparatus. “See for yourself.” With that he stood, dusted the toast crumbs from his lap and strode towards the door.

“Felix!” The urgency in Joanna’s voice made him turn. She was holding the box in one hand, the mask in the other hovering in front of a face that was stretched in uncommon delight. “Violets!” She crossed the room, talking. “Is this new? Something you’re working on? You clever man.” She kissed him on the forehead and pressed the apparatus gently back into his hands. “Clever, clever man.”

Once Joanna had breezed out of the room, her smelly little dog trotting after, Felix closed the door and retook his seat. He placed the device on the table, knowing he ought to toss it straight in the bin but now curious. He had shared many examples of his craft with his wife over the years. Some she had liked well enough, others she had not, but he had never seen her express such delight in a scent before.

Felix pressed the sterile, soft plastic over his nose, closed his eyes, flicked the switch, and inhaled.

“Fuck me,” he whispered.

He had smelled violets in many forms over the years – crushed, dried, distilled; violet water, violet powder, violet essence – but none got close to this. This was fresh, living blooms of
V. odorata
growing in a meadow at the height of spring. With his eyes closed even Felix could not have told the difference between this synthesis and the real thing.

He tore the cup from his face, pushed the device away. The movement disturbed the pile of bills, exposing the corner of something he had not spotted earlier. A postcard, plain apart from the inked stamp of the shop that had sent it.

Antikzone

Gerhardt Zickler, proprietor

On the reverse, next to Felix’s own address was a handwritten message:
Herr Kapel, we have your item.

•••

The shop was above a café bar half way to the 12th district. The barman directed him through the partitioned half of the room where smoking students cast him looks that confirmed he was every bit as out of place as he felt. By the time he had crossed the room, the cigarette haze had entirely numbed his sense of smell, but on seeing the piles of mouldering books crowding the wooden stairs, the reaches of necrotic mildew crawling the walls as he climbed, he was grateful.

Herr Zickler, when Felix found the proprietor slouched at a desk at the centre of the maze of lumber like a torpid spider, was a surprise. From the tone of his emails, the sure, unfussy knowledge he had displayed on the Habsburg History site that Felix’s ineffectual Googling had led to after reading about the artefact in the Karlheinz Kuntz biography, he had expected tweeds, greying temples, a professorial air. Not this…
loafer.

Zickler acknowledged his arrival with a nod, but did not remove his headset or divert his attention from his laptop screen. “Five minutes, Herr Kapel,” he said, covering his microphone. “Raiding on Warcraft. Dungeon boss. Have a look around.”

Having no choice in the matter, Felix did as he was bid. He wandered curving aisles of casement clocks whose complicated faces once told who knew what manner of things in addition to mere time, but now were still and smelled of lacquer and dust. He brushed past rails of military coats pungent with moth balls. Teetering towers of books and sheet music and old documents of all sorts. Plastic tubs of spectacles and opera glasses, watches and hip flasks. Forests of walking sticks.

Old things for which the world no longer had a use.

“What a load of junk,” he muttered.

“One man’s junk, Herr Kapel.” Zickler’s beaky countenance appeared between two stacks of pulp science fiction magazines. “Is another’s gold.”

Felix reddened, but the proprietor did not appear to have taken offence.

“Come,” Zickler said. “I’m printing out your provenance…such that it is.”

Felix followed him back to the desk where a printer was spewing a sheaf of papers. “Such that it is?”

Zickler grinned good-humouredly. “As I explained before,” he said, “with an artefact like the Nose, there’s really no way to prove its veracity. I can tell you where I got it from, and where my vendors got it from, and so on. But there’s no way of ascertaining that this is the
real
one. If indeed there ever
was
a real one. The Habsburg Nose is legendary, man. And legends, by their nature…”

“So you can give me no guarantee.”

“Absolutely not.” Zickler adjusted his glasses. “But I
can
guarantee that it’s very old and a lot people have
believed
it to be the real deal down the years. Including Karlheinz Kuntz in the years before his unfortunate demise.” Zickler folded the papers and placed them on top of the unremarkable cardboard box that had replaced his laptop on the desk. “I believe we said eight hundred and fifty.”

Felix licked his lips. The money wouldn’t have been enough to repaint the entire apartment, but it would have got a couple of rooms done. He was gambling it on what? A legend? And not just money, his entire career. He needed an edge, was hoping for a miracle. If it didn’t work, he’d be out of business within the year.

“Will it really
do
anything?” He was surprised by the plaintiveness in his own voice. “I mean,
really
?”

“Who knows, Herr Kapel.” Zickler tapped his nose. “I imagine you’re the only man in Vienna who will be able to tell.”

•••

To the layman, Felix had always believed, real skill, real
art
, should be indistinguishable from magic. What else do you call it when another human being achieves something which, for you, would be impossible?

Karlheinz Kuntz had been a magician. A contemporary of Escoffier in Lucerne and a more than decent chef in his own right, he had been obsessed with the importance of aroma in cooking.
Without smell
, he said,
your soul is unnourished. You might as well eat air
. In pursuit of what started as a theory but quickly became an obsession, Kuntz had pioneered blindfolded tastings, then entirely dark restaurants. Towards the end of his life it was said he took to wearing a prosthetic nose made of gold. He died in a sanatorium in 1931 suffering from something called
psychosomatic putrescence
. According to the biography, the physicians had detected nothing physically wrong with the man. He had just wasted away, and near the end he had smelled so rotten the sanatorium staff had to be paid extra even to enter his room. A tragic and ironic fate for such a gifted individual.