The good new stuff, p.14
The Good New Stuff, page 14
The Minotaur opened his mouth to speak. At the sound of his words, resonant and deep, people would stop to listen for the briefest second … for just a moment longer … they would sit down in the road. The hormonal combinations that enforced strictest truth before the newshawks were to be in his voice, but combined with the strong eloquence of earlier in the day. He would speak plainly, with a fine parsimony of syllables. He would speak in strict accord with the ancient oratorical traditions. He would speak with tongues of fire.
The waterfront would fill and then overflow as people entered and did not leave, as they joined the widening circle of hushed listeners, as the fisherfolk came up from their boats and down from their masts, the boy prostitutes came out from the brothels, the offworld tourista joined with the kitchen help to lean over the edges of their terraces.
In future years this same telling, fined down and refined, elaborated and simplified, would become the epic that was to mark this age—his age—as great for its genesis. But what was to come in just a moment was only a first draft. A prototype. A seed. But it was to be beautiful and moving beyond all possible imagining of its listeners, for it was new, an absolutely new word, a clear new understanding. It was to sum up an age that most people did not realize was over.
“Listen,” said the Minotaur.
He spoke.
Vernor Vinge
THE BLABBER
Born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, Vernor Vinge now lives in San Diego, California, where he is an associate professor of math sciences at San Diego State University. He sold his first story, “Apartness,” to New Worlds in 1965; it immediately attracted a good deal of attention, was picked up for Donald A. Wollheim and Terry Carr’s collaborative World’s Best Science Fiction anthology the following year, and still strikes me as one of the strongest stories of that entire period, holding up well even in comparison with more famous stories also reprinted in that same anthology, such as Clarke’s “Sunjammer” or Ellison’s “‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman.” Since this impressive debut, he has become a frequent contributor to Analog; he has also sold to Orbit, Far Frontiers, If, Stellar, and other markets. His novella “True Names” was a finalist for both the Nebula and Hugo awards in 1981, his novel A Fire Upon the Deep, one of the most epic and sweeping of modern Space Operas, won him a Hugo Award in 1993, and these days Vinge is regarded as one of the best of the new breed of American “hard science” writers, along with people such as Charles Sheffield and Greg Bear.
Vinge is not a prolific writer, although the few stories he does produce usually have a strong impact on the field. “True Names,” for instance, is famous in Internet circles and among computer enthusiasts well outside of the usual limits of the genre, and is cited by some as having been the real progenitor of cyberpunk rather than William Gibson’s “Burning Chrome” or Neuromancer. Certainly, at the very least, it can be said to have prefigured many of the tropes of “cyberspace” before Gibson got there, although it lacks the aesthetic/political “punk” flavor of Gibson’s work, as well as the intensely romantic and attractive archetype of the Gibson Hero, an alienated hacker/cowboy who must go down the Mean Streets of the future all alone—both elements which helped to make Gibson’s stuff the cult favorite that it became. “True Names” has an even better claim to being one of the first Virtual Reality stories and, as such, the progenitor of a host of “computer gaming/VR” stories that would follow in years to come.
Adventure elements have always been strong in Vinge’s work, from “Apartness” through such stories as “The Barbarian Princess,” “Gemstone,” and “Grimm’s World” (later expanded into the novel Tatja Grimm’s World), on to novels such as The Witling and A Fire Upon the Deep. Seldom has he—or anybody else—put everything together better, though, than in the fast-paced, colorful, highly inventive novella that follows, “The Blabber.” The influence of Robert A. Heinlein is strong and obvious here—in fact, the story is in part an undisguised homage to Heinlein’s The Star Beast, which novel is specifically invoked in the text—although traces of the influence of Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, Charles Harness, and perhaps Roger Zelazny (whose influence shows up even more clearly in “True Names,” I think) can be discerned as well. Although consciously modeled on the plot of The Star Beast, Vinge does some exciting new things with this familiar story, as well as a lot of shrewd and radical new thinking about what interstellar societies would really be like, thinking that prefigures his well-known speculations about “The Singularity” (the point waiting ahead for us all where technological change speeds up to such a degree that society becomes incomprehensible even to the people living in it)—and thinking that would perhaps have as great an impact (although a largely unacknowledged one) on future Space Adventure stories as “True Names” had had on the Virtual Reality tale.
Vinge’s other books include the well-received novels The Peace War and Marooned in Realtime, Hugo finalists, which have been released in an omnibus volume as Across Realtime, and two short-story collections, True Names and Other Dangers, and Threats and Other Promises. He has not published a new novel since A Fire Upon the Deep, but the current word is that a new novel entitled A Deepness in the Sky will be out soon. His fans wait eagerly for it—as do I.
Some dreams take a long time in dying. Some get a last-minute reprieve … and that can be even worse.
It was just over two klicks from the Elvis revival to the center of campus. Hamid Thompson took the long way, across the Barker’s stubbly fields and through the Old Subdivision. Certainly the Blabber preferred that route. She raced this way and that across Ham’s path, rooting at roach holes, and covertly watching the birds that swooped close on her seductive calls. As usual, her stalking was more for fun than food. When a bird came within striking distance, the Blab’s head would flick up, touching the bird with her nose, blasting it with a peal of human laughter. The Blab hadn’t taken this way in some time; all the birds in her regular haunts had wised up, and were no fun anymore.
When they reached the rock bluffs behind the subdivision, there weren’t any more roach holes, and the birds had become cautious. Now the Blab walked companionably beside him, humming in her own way: scraps of Elvis overlaid with months-old news commentary. She went a minute or two in silence … listening? Contrary to what her detractors might say, she could be both awake and silent for hours at a time—but even then Hamid felt an occasional buzzing in his head, or a flash of pain. The Blab’s tympana could emit across a two hundred kilohertz band, which meant that most of her mimicry was lost on human ears.
They were at the crest of the bluff. “Sit down, Blab. I want to catch my breath.” And look at the view … And decide what in heaven’s name I should do with you and with me.
The bluffs were the highest natural viewpoints in New Michigan province. The flatlands that spread around them were pocked with ponds, laced with creeks and rivers, the best farmland on the continent. From orbit, the original colonists could find no better. Water landings would have been easier, but they wanted the best odds on long-term survival. Thirty klicks away, half hidden by gray mist, Hamid could see the glassy streaks that marked the landing zone. The history books said it took three years to bring down the people and all the salvage from the greatship. Even now the glass was faintly radioactive, one cause for the migration across the isthmus to Westland.
Except for the forest around those landing strips, and the old university town just below the bluff, most everything in this direction was farmland, unending squares of brown and black and gray. The year was well into autumn and the last of the Earth trees had given up their colored leaves. The wind blowing across the plains was chill, leaving a crispness in his nose that promised snow someday soon. Halloween was next week. Halloween indeed. I wonder if in Man’s thirty thousand years, there has ever been a celebration of that holiday like we’ll be seeing next week. Hamid resisted the impulse to look back at Marquette. Ordinarily it was one of his favorite places: the planetary capital, population four hundred thousand, a real city. As a child, visiting Marquette had been like a trip to some far star system. But now reality had come, and the stars were so close … . Without turning, he knew the position of every one of the Tourist barges. They floated like colored balloons above the city, yet none massed less than a thousand tonnes. And those were their shuttles. After the Elvis revival, Halloween was the last big event on the Marquette leg of the Tour. Then they would be off to Westland, for more semi-fraudulent peeks at Americana.
Hamid crunched back in the dry moss that cushioned the rock. “Well, Blabber, what should I do? Should I sell you? We could both make it Out There if I did.”
The Blabber’s ears perked up. “Talk? Converse? Disgust?” She settled her forty kilo bulk next to him, and nuzzled her head against his chest. The purring from her foretympanum was like some transcendental cat. The sound was pink noise, buzzing through his chest and shaking the rock they sat on. There were few things she enjoyed more than a good talk with a peer. Hamid stroked her black and white pelt. “I said, should I sell you?”
The purring stopped, and for a moment the Blab seemed to give the matter thoughtful consideration. Her head turned this way and that, bobbing—a good imitation of a certain prof at the University. She rolled her big dark eyes at him, “Don’t rush me! I’m thinking. I’m thinking.” She licked daintily at the sleek fur at the base of her throat. And for all Hamid knew, she really seemed to try to understand … and sometimes she almost made sense. Finally she shut her mouth and began talking.
“Should I sell you? Should I sell you?” The intonation was still Hamid’s but she wasn’t imitating his voice. When they talked like this, she typically sounded like an adult human female (and a very attractive one, Hamid thought). It hadn’t always been that way. When she had been a pup and he a little boy, she’d sounded to him like another little boy. The strategy was clear: she understood the type of voice he most likely wanted to hear. Animal cunning? “Well,” she continued, “I know what I think. Buy, don’t sell. And always get the best price you can.”
She often came across like that: oracular. But he had known the Blab all his life. The longer her comment, the less she understood it. In this case … Ham remembered his finance class. That was before he got his present apartment, and the Blab had hidden under his desk part of the semester. (It had been an exciting semester for all concerned.) “Buy, don’t sell.” That was a quote, wasn’t it, from some nineteenth-century tycoon?
She blabbered on, each sentence having less correlation with the question. After a moment, Hamid grabbed the beast around the neck, laughing and crying at the same time. They wrestled briefly across the rocky slope, Hamid fighting at less than full strength, and the Blab carefully keeping her talons retracted. Abruptly he was on his back and the Blab was standing on his chest. She held his nose between the tips of her long jaws. “Say Uncle! Say Uncle!” she shouted.
The Blabber’s teeth stopped a couple of centimeters short of the end of her snout, but the grip was powerful; Hamid surrendered immediately. The Blab jumped off him, chuckling triumph, then grabbed his sleeve to help him up. He stood up, rubbing his nose gingerly. “Okay, monster, let’s get going.” He waved downhill, toward Ann Arbor Town.
“Ha, ha! For sure. Let’s get going!” The Blab danced down the rocks faster than he could hope to go. Yet every few seconds the creature paused an instant, checking that he was still following. Hamid shook his head, and started down. Damned if he was going to break a leg just to keep up with her. Whatever her homeworld, he guessed that winter around Marquette was the time of year most homelike for the Blab. Take her coloring: stark black and white, mixed in wide curves and swirls. He’d seen that pattern in pictures of ice pack seals. When there was snow on the ground, she was practically invisible.
She was fifty meters ahead of him now. From this distance, the Blab could almost pass for a dog, some kind of greyhound maybe. But the paws were too large, and the neck too long. The head looked more like a seal’s than a dog’s. Of course, she could bark like a dog. But then, she could also sound like a thunderstorm, and make something like human conversation—all at the same time. There was only one of her kind in all Middle America. This last week, he’d come to learn that her kind were almost as rare Out There. A Tourist wanted to buy her … and Tourists could pay with coin what Hamid Thompson had sought for more than half his twenty years.
Hamid desperately needed some good advice. It had been five years since he’d asked his father for help; he’d be damned if he did so now. That left the University, and Lazy Larry … .
By Middle American standards, Ann Arbor Town was ancient. There were older places: out by the landing zone, parts of Old Marquette still stood. School field trips to those ruins were brief—the prefab quonsets were mildly radioactive. And of course there was individual buildings in the present-day capital that went back almost to the beginning. But much of the University in Ann Arbor dated from just after those first permanent structures: the University had been a going concern for 190 years.
Something was up today, and it had nothing to do with Hamid’s problems. As they walked into town, a couple of police helicopters swept in from Marquette, began circling the school. On the ground, some of Ham’s favorite back ways were blocked off by University safety patrols. No doubt it was Tourist business. He might have to come in through the Main Gate, past the Math Building. Yuck. Even after ten years he loathed that place: his years as a supposed prodigy; his parents forcing him into math classes he just wasn’t bright enough to handle; the tears and anger at home, till he finally convinced them that he was not the boy they thought.
They walked around the Quad, Hamid oblivious to the graceful buttresses, the ivy that meshed stone walls into the flute trees along the street. That was all familiar … what was new was all the Federal cop cars. Clusters of students stood watching the cops, but there was no riot in the air. They just seemed curious. Besides, the Feds had never interfered on campus before.
“Keep quiet, okay?” Hamid muttered.
“Sure, sure.” The Blab scrunched her neck back, went into her doggie act. At one time they had been notorious on campus, but he had dropped out that summer, and people had other things on their minds today. They walked through the main gate without comment from students or cops.
The biggest surprise came when they reached Larry’s slummy digs at Morale Hall. Morale wasn’t old enough to be historic; it was old enough to be in decay. It had been an abortive experiment in brick construction. The clay had cracked and rotted, leaving gaps for vines and pests. By now it was more a reddish mound of rubble than a habitable structure. This was where the University Administration stuck tenured faculty in greatest disfavor; the Quad’s Forgotten Quarter … but not today. Today the cop cars were piled two deep in the parking areas, and there were shotgun-toting guards at the entrance!
Hamid walked up the steps. He had a sick feeling that Lazy Larry might be the hardest prof in the world to see today. On the other hand, working with the Tourists meant Hamid saw some of these security people every day.
“Your business, sir?” Unfortunately, the guard was no one he recognized.
“I need to see my advisor … Professor Fujiyama.” Larry had never been his advisor, but Hamid was looking for advice.
“Um.” The cop flicked on his throat mike. Hamid couldn’t hear much, but there was something about “that black and white off-planet creature.” Over the last twenty years, you’d have to have been living in a cave never to see anything about the Blabber.
A minute passed, and an older officer stepped through the doorway. “Sorry, son, Mr. Fujiyama isn’t seeing any students this week. Federal business.”
Somewhere a funeral dirge began playing. Hamid tapped the Blab’s forepaw with his foot; the music stopped abruptly. “Ma’am, it’s not school business.” Inspiration struck: why not tell something like the truth? “It’s about the Tourists and my Blabber.”
The senior cop sighed. “That’s what I was afraid you’d say. Okay, come along.” As they entered the dark hallway, the Blabber was chuckling triumph. Someday the Blab would play her games with the wrong people and get the crap beat out of her, but apparently today was not that day.
They walked down two flights of stairs. The lighting got even worse, half-dead fluorescents built into the acoustic tiling. In places the wooden stairs sagged elastically under their feet. There were no queues of students squatting before any of the doors, but the cops hadn’t cleared out the faculty: Hamid heard loud snoring from one of the offices. The Forgotten Quarter—Morale Hall in particular—was a strange place. The one thing the faculty here had in common was that they had been an unbearable pain in the neck to someone. That meant that both the most incompetent and the most brilliant were jammed into these tiny offices.
Larry’s office was in the sub-basement, at the end of a long hall. Two more cops flanked the doorway, but otherwise it was as Hamid remembered it. There was a brass nameplate: “Professor L. Lawrence Fujiyama, Department of Transhuman Studies.” Next to the nameplate, a sign boasted implausible office hours. In the center of the door was the picture of a piglet and the legend: “If a student appears to need help, then appear to give him some.”
The police officer stood aside as they reached the door; Hamid was going to have to get in under his own power. Ham gave the door a couple of quick knocks. There was the sound of footsteps, and the door opened a crack. “What’s the secret password?” came Larry’s voice.
“Professor Fujiyama, I need to talk to—”
“That’s not it!” The door was slammed loudly in Hamid’s face.
The senior cop put her hand on Hamid’s shoulder. “Sorry, son. He’s done that to bigger guns than you.”
He shrugged off her hand. Sirens sounded from the black and white creature at his feet. Ham shouted over the racket, “Wait! It’s me, Hamid Thompson! From your Transhume 201.”
