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    Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165
    Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165
    Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165
    Ebook214 pages3 hours

    Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165

    By Neil Clarke, M.L. Clark, D.A. Xiaolin Spires and

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    About this ebook

    Clarkesworld is a Hugo and World Fantasy Award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine. Each month we bring you a mix of fiction (new and classic works), articles, interviews and art. Our June 2020 issue (#165) contains:

    • Original fiction by D.A. Xiaolin Spires ("The Iridescent Lake"), Kenji Yanagawa ("How Long the Shadows Cast"), M. L. Clark ("Nine Words for Loneliness in the Language of the Uma'u"), Priya Chand ("Optimizing the Path to Enlightenment"), and Dennard Dayle ("Own Goal").
    • Non-fiction by Carrie Sessarego, interviews with John Murphy, Taiyo Fujii and Xia Jia, and an editorial by Neil Clarke.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWyrm Publishing
    Release dateAug 6, 2020
    ISBN9781642360585
    Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165
    Author

    Neil Clarke

    Neil Clarke (neil-clarke.com) is the multi-award-winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and over a dozen anthologies. A eleven-time finalist and the 2022/2023 winner of the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form, he is also the three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director. In 2019, Clarke received the SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community. He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons

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      Book preview

      Clarkesworld Magazine Issue 165 - Neil Clarke

      Clarkesworld Magazine

      Issue 165

      Table of Contents

      The Iridescent Lake

      by D.A. Xiaolin Spires

      How Long the Shadows Cast

      by Kenji Yanagawa

      Nine Words for Loneliness in the Language of the Uma’u

      by M. L. Clark

      Optimizing the Path to Enlightenment

      by Priya Chand

      Own Goal

      by Dennard Dayle

      Isolation in Fiction and Reality

      by Carrie Sessarego

      The Woman With No Name: A Conversation with John P. Murphy

      by Arley Sorg

      The Three-Science-Fiction-Author Problem: A Conversation

      by Roderick Leeuwenhart

      Editor's Desk: SF/F Fiction Magazines, Pandemic Edition

      by Neil Clarke

      Plains of Forgotten Hopes

      Art by Viko Menezes

      **

      © Clarkesworld Magazine, 2020

      www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

      The Iridescent Lake

      D.A. Xiaolin Spires

      I skate around the iridescent lake, bobbing my head along to the eerie laser noises the ice makes, when it gives way to pressure. The colossal plasticine walls shoot up before me and I shield my eyes from the rays of sun poking through the microlattice ceiling net. I count ten visitors already today, and the natural rink has only been open an hour. A skater passes by me, his bioenhanced skates emitting Pew! Pew! and he pivots, grinding toward a stop as he bends to fix the tack compressions on his ankles, pressing them down to adhere better. Something flops out of his pocket as he races away into a flip.

      I glide across, kneeling to grab a foreign object on the ice. It’s a trapezoidal palm-sized card, glowing neon, with a series of swirls embedded. It’s one of those new-fangled key fobs, the glow indicating that the vehicle’s not too far away. I’m surprised to see one here; I keep hearing how the rocks don’t cooperate with the navigation and wheels. I turn to the skater, who’s now doing some stretches against the railing.

      Hey, did you drop this? My comm projects my voice into his receiver. He gives me a look of slight alarm, his pupils contracted, whites wide at the sight of my security badge, no doubt, and at the cascade of languages my holotranslator is projecting above my head—a look I catch through the slick designer glass on his helmet.

      His eyes look almost like my lost son’s and they give me a start. I catch my breath and exhale. It’s been a while since I had that kind of reaction; I thought the wound was healing. The boy shakes his head, No, I didn’t drop it, but comes barreling at me with his brand name suit, an intent look, and furrowed brows.

      Erratic behavior, I think, and my training kicks in before I can even register my movement. I shift aside, knees bent, waiting for that blow so I can launch him away. But last minute, like paper in a gust, he plucks the key from my hands and veers away, the Pew! Pew! whining of the ice tracking behind him in his wake. He glides away with his obnoxious mellx-leather gloves glued into a thumbs-up sign as his last bit of communication to me.

      Strange characters decide to live out in these lands, I tell myself for probably the tenth time since I moved here. It’s only been about a few months and already I’ve gotten shoved half a dozen different ways, leered at, poked, stepped on.

      In turn, residents have gotten their fair share of retribution from me—jabs, elbows, inadvertent contact, and of course icy smiles. I’m told that’s how it is here on this auburn rock. People don’t get too chummy and I fell into place right along with them.

      It’s just not typical that they have the same features and expression as Haolai’s.

      The last time I got too chummy and complacent, Haolai disappeared. Right before my eyes. Masked men. That was on the solar outreaches, before I took the job here. I hunted for ages, gave up. They sent his body later. There are wounds that never scab over. This one grows a thin layer of platelets and fibrin before being yanked off by some resonant memory. The look in that boy’s eyes just now—that fear, that’s that scab being ripped off. That’s the hollow feeling in my stomach as I taste vomit and hide the ache pounding in my chest. I swallow up bitterness and pain in one black hole of gulp and continue scanning the ice as more visitors clamber onto the rink, holding hands, laughing through their helmets, and slipping about like holotoons.

      I’m on exit duty as session ends. Trumpets blare as if a cue for that awful music that the bazaar vendors play when they’re closing shop. Exhausted skaters, barely lifting puffy suit-encased arms, do their last lap. My partner-in-security Dran herds the stragglers to my vestibule—Here, Yunhe, take care of ’em—where they’ll get suctioned off of any remaining ice and water.

      I yank the lever at every entrance, letting the vestibule’s ceiling emit high-power vacs that suck up every bit of excess moisture on these visitors’ bods. Then I scan their passes, projected onto their shoulders, to verify that they’ve left. The scan inputs a ten percent discount into their systems for the next time they visit. It also implants an ad that they’ll pass on to any other resident with any contact. Even public parks need some viral advertising. One of the visitors gives me some trouble—a woman who insists she already went through the watertug and refuses to go through it again.

      I grab Dran and we check her, scanning her as she shakes red curls within her helmet and curses about civil liberties. The scan beeps as irregularities flow from this woman’s sides. Honey, scanning is not a violation, not here at least, Dran’s saying as she tries skating away. The words appear above Dran’s head, as they do with all security, and the word Honey written in gold script makes me smirk. They tried putting personalities to the words with fonts to convey emotions and it always comes off a bit awry. She pulls loose from Dran and in bullet speed veers left and away toward the other side of the rink. She’s almost across the ice when I race over and grab her again, dragging her back to the checkpoint—sure enough, another scan proves she’s got pocketfuls of ice kept in the tiny refrigeration chambers. She’s got at least a dozen of them.

      No mood-ice rings for your customers. My voice is gruff, unsympathetic.

      She thrashes. Only then do I see the tiny pocketknife. I pull back as a flash of pain registers on my arm. There’s a cut in my suit, and I bark at Dran as I’m seeing the red ooze from my skin. Dran races over and holds her down as I spray the remi-glu over my skin and suit. Such a strong smell, with an effect just as potent. The redhead’s eyes are big and round and as bloodshot as her hair. She looks as frightened as newcomers when they land here.

      Pretty lucky, says Dran. He’s got her arms pinned down in his steel grip and I release the weapon and kick it away from her hand. She squeezes her fist and opens it, as if surprised she had used it at all. The knife goes flying across the ice, as innocuous as rock. I empty her stash out into the retrieval bin.

      She grimaces, mumbles a sorry as Dran locks her arms behind her. It’s a plant. Someone planted them on me. I’ve never seen those marble things before. Her look of rabid regret gives her away. She’s desperate. I know how much they’d fetch on the market. Once the ice is carved into jewelry and set in climate-controlled shreela bezelcages, they’ll be more valuable than the purest diamond, even more coveted for courtship rituals, big events, playthings of magnates and celebs—put on a ship and transported away. Even the hardware for the fridge tech is a small fortune. I wonder how much trouble she’ll get in for losing those in addition to the ice. I try to feel sorry for her, but there’s nothing in me left. I’m wrung dry.

      She assaulted me and my sympathy only goes so far.

      Even through the disturbance, my mind is still laser focused. I’ve been waiting for Haolai-look-alike to come around and make the exit, but I didn’t see him at all. He must have left at some point, hiding behind his darkened helmet. There’s an empty pit in my heart as I palm the suck for seized goods. The fridge tech marbleminis tumble about until they’re wrung dry and I palm a few of the dozen or so that have just been purified.

      The cut is barely throbbing, healing proper thanks to the spray. I shake my arm. The cut’s pretty superficial but it could’ve been bad.

      She gives me a look of distress and I kick myself for being so soft. She looks so slippin’ desperate. I can’t help her much at all, really, not without losing my own job.

      Don’t do it again, I say, shoving her as I slip a few empty marbleminis down her pocket. At least she could sell those and get something out of it. Maybe enough to buy herself out of the trouble she’s in with whoever hired her, at least enough to try to escape. Dran’s watching me, saying nothing. He’d keep his mouth shut.

      I don’t know why you risk termination. Dran passes through the vestibule, clean going in, clean going out, as he punches out with a beep.

      I shoot him a nonchalant look, like I don’t know what ya mean, with a shrug.

      It’s clear he knows. He can count and he has fast eyes. He holds up his fingers. Four.

      The number of fridge tech marbleminis I slipped down her pocket.

      What can I say? I know desperation. I smell it. It stinks like remi-glu. I pity her and am disgusted by her all at once. It’s a way to placate that smell. At least that’s what I tell myself.

      I walk through the vestibule. Even security’s got to run through the protocol. I don’t shiver, even though my neck is on the line. I’ve got a dozen new mocks of marbles, all filled with ice myself, and I’m hoping that the new contraband tech sticks. I’ve got about an hour before the upgraded patch goes through security, so if everything’s timed right . . .

      I hold my breath.

      Green. I’m good. I pass right through, embezzling what I’m supposed to protect.

      The ice here isn’t like ice anywhere else. It doesn’t simply cave and let you carve it up. It resists. It has its own weird autonomy. Sometimes it relaxes itself into a super slippery state with an iridescent tinge and you can’t help but slide backward into a slapstick butt plant. Sometimes it draws itself into tiny ridges, like an infinitesimal mountain range, which guides your skates into grooves and toward one direction or another. Scientists have come to this near-barren planet with kits and pop-up labs, coming up with hypotheses that ultimately get disproven. From the local lore, the ice is supposed to have both medicinal properties and be a source of bad luck—causing breakups, miscarriages, gambling downturns, and other misfortunes. That’s why they pay me top dollar to pose as a security guard here. Superstition has driven up my salary. Though, there’s something else going on and my other paycheck is the one that covers the objective of figuring out what it is.

      I steal back in on the day it’s closed. All my leads on the uniqueness of the ice have led me nowhere. I’ve only entrusted the ice to the underground scientists that swing by the bazaar who I have personally worked with and whose families I’ve met—with enough integrity to not double-cross me and with just enough unscrupulousness to wave away small infractions. I ferry the ice specimens back after they do the tests, purifying them again for reentry. I don’t know who the big boss is. All I know is that it’s for science. That’s enough for me.

      I see a streak on the ice and for a moment, I stay still. I realize it’s just a stray reflection of a faraway light, a trick of the eye. It reminds me of Haolai’s farewell holo—the one of his stillness being ejected into the distance. I need to earn to pay off my son’s funeral still. The costs are staggering. Shooting a kid into space as his final wish is more expensive than a colony wedding. I didn’t want his face haunting me, his eyes imploring, accusing, for not giving him his dying wish. So, there it is. His frozen body is out there somewhere—if the projections are right—orbiting around the sun near the Sunaba belt. I make it past the streak, no longer spooked by it.

      My suit is armed with camouflaging and mule-ferrying tech more than ten times my own value. Usually only the most exquisite drugs line these pockets. Although in my case, it’s operatic ice encased in swank marbles. I’m banking on a big discovery, one that will get me paid so much cred it’ll be a joke.

      Steal only when everyone’s watching, but while no one’s actually looking. I’m breaking that word of advice now by coming here in the dark. This is when bot security is the highest—when the world is still and there is no distraction and no cover. Yet, I can’t help it. It was too hard to meet my quota during the day. I get low and creep around the periphery of the frozen crater lake, finding the spots least likely to sing. I turn off my mind from the job and let my body take over. It knows the spots of variation on the ice. I’ve passed by so many times in the last two weeks, taking intel, processing through my limbs and into the depths of my suit. I crawl along, finding a less traversed area of the amoebic borders of the lake rink, and careful as I can, crack the pricey minicoolers over and massage the ice back into place.

      I can feel the strange coolness even through my gloves. It reminds me of when I used to massage shampoo into Haolai’s hair, when he was a little boy. He’d smile at me an innocent smile—all baby teeth and pure enthusiasm as he popped suds. And now—that look of fear. Even more potent than the sorry-Mom-I’ve-done-something-wrong expression. Except, well, it’s not him. I’ve searched everywhere for the Haolai-look-alike and it has gotten me nowhere. Not at the bazaar. Not at the shanties. I can still see his expression of surprise then despair. I know it’s not Haolai, but still, I want to find the boy. This doppelgänger’s anomalous appearance and disappearance has gotten me agitated and the only way to clear my head is to put myself on a mission. Too bad it’s occupational suicide.

      I’m just taking a stroll, clearing my head, I tell myself, as I’m on all fours, trying to float across the ice, hoping my negation tech will hold up. They want samples from all areas of the ice—I’d have to traverse to the far edge. Luckily, the ice is cooperating; not melting at the surface, not forming ripples.

      A light approaches, flicks on in the distance, and I gasp lightly. It bobs along the strange changing color of the ice. It’s not the streak from before—this is a lot more—moving. More than what I’ve seen ice do. Sounds follow it. Some of the ethereal sounds when skates glide over it. And something else. Something more . . . human. Mumbling. My heart thumps as it approaches.

      Be as small as possible. They won’t see you.

      Yunhe, is that you? The familiar voice cuts into my harried breaths. It’s Dran.

      I start. Should I respond or try escaping? I consider how I wouldn’t hesitate to tackle a trespasser and I’m sure Dran wouldn’t either. He’s faster than I am. I look up at him through my helmet. Yeah, hi, I say, the holotranslator off.

      Funny I’d find you here. I’m guessing you couldn’t sleep, too, he said. We shouldn’t be here, though. I put a temporary stop on the watchers when I saw it was you. Overrode it with my code. He gives me a funny expression, a kind of half-squint, before reaching out to help me up.

      I shake off shreds of ice. Yeah, well, couldn’t sleep and thought I’d do some reconnaissance.

      It is a nice quiet spot to do some thinking, he says. Now I see him looking me up and down, standard procedure for checking pockets, visually locating any suspicious items. You know, Yunhe, I don’t have you pegged as someone who would be involved in anything too . . . risky. He waits for me to say something. I just look at him. He continues. I was in fact hoping to meet you here. I found some strange materials I wanted you to review. About a corp—

      He gags then, and I hear a sudden burst almost a bit too late, as if my mind has suddenly realized it heard it. A chill travels up my spine as I see what has happened. An arrow has pierced his collarbone. I reach out for him as he falls, face forward, and

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