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****** ***** The Online Magazine ***********
****** ***** of Amateur Creative Writing ************
---------------------------
======================================================================
October 1989 Circulation: 278 Volume I, Issue 2
======================================================================
Contents
Etc... .................................................. Jim McCabe
Editorial
Shadow Box ............................................ Lois Buwalda
---------- Fiction
Haute Cuisine ........................................ Phillip Nolte
------------- Fiction
Solitaire .............................................. Garry Frank
--------- Fiction
Picture Perfect (part 2 of 2) ........................... Gene Smith
--------------- Fiction
******************************************************************
* *
* ATHENE, Copyright 1989 By Jim McCabe *
* This magazine may be archived and reproduced without charge *
* under the condition that it is left in its entirety. *
* The individual works within are the sole property of their *
* respective authors, and no further use of these works is *
* permitted without their explicit consent. *
* Athene is published quasi-monthly *
* by Jim McCabe, MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET. *
* This ASCII edition was created on an IBM 4381 mainframe *
* using the Xedit System Product Editor. *
* *
******************************************************************
Etc...
Jim McCabe
MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET
======================================================================
This one makes Athene monthly!
After the first issue, I was more than a little worried about
finding enough material to fill still another one. But, just as it
usually happens, things seemed to have worked out on their own. Not
only was there enough material for another issue, there was enough to
make for a really GOOD issue.
The past couple weeks have also brought a new surprise -- Quanta.
Quanta is a new electronic magazine that deals with topics in the
world of science fiction and fantasy. The magazine will include short
fiction as well as some reviews and articles. Like Athene, Quanta is
available in PostScript as well as normal straight text. For more
information, contact:
Daniel K. Appelquist
da1n+@andrew.cmu.edu
Quanta is an entirely new magazine and I wish its publishers
nothing but the best of luck. The competition can only help.
Since the first issue I have also made available a new index of
Athene back issues. The index lists the contents of each issue,
including the title and author of each work. Back issues and the
index can be ordered by sending mail to me at MCCABE@MTUS5.BITNET.
(Note to Bitnet users: please do not send interactive messages,
instead use NOTE or some other mail package.)
I am also happy to comment that the readership has grown by
thirty five percent (about seventy new subscribers), including a
couple local redistribution sites.
All things considered, it's been a pretty good month for Athene.
Let's hope it continues to move in the same direction,
-- Jim
Shadow Box
By Lois Buwalda
LOIS@UCF1VM.BITNET
Copyright 1989 Lois Buwalda
======================================================================
She dipped the brush into the jar of green paint, then drew it
deftly across a scrap piece of paper. The color was the perfect
shade, but the paint was still a little too thick. Well, unlike
yesterday, she had plenty of paint thinner on hand. As she reached up
to the top shelf, she paused, looking at the picture on the easel in
front of her.
It was a woodland scene, only partially finished. When done,
there would be a sparkling brook, lush grass, and towering trees. It
reminded her a lot of the vacation spot where she went every year with
her parents until her mother died. In fact, she suddenly realized,
she probably was painting that spot. Her mother would have liked it.
Her mother never tried painting, Megan knew, but she had loved to
make pencil drawings of the places they visited. Megan still had one,
tucked away in the bottom drawer of her desk where all her special
papers resided. Her father had destroyed the rest when her mother
died. He hated her drawings--they were a waste of time, he said.
Megan frowned at the thought, then shook her head. Enough of
memories. She resolutely grabbed the paint thinner from its place on
the top shelf and added a little to the paint. Once again she swirled
some on the paper and held it up to the light. Perfection! Or at
least as close to perfection as an amateur could come.
Megan closed her eyes, imagining the picture as she wanted it to
be. She imagined the grass swaying in the breeze. It should be long
and untrampled, like the area where her mother always spread the
picnic blanket. Most of all, it should look alive.
She opened her eyes again, and surveyed her paints. Maybe a
touch of silver would help suggest the movement of the grass in the
breeze, she mused. She painted a few strokes of the green grass,
added the silver highlight, then leaned back to critique the result.
She sighed. Maybe Dr. Burnstrom was right.
"Megan," he had said at one of her father's parties, "you've got
talent. But you still don't know how to use it properly." He pulled
out a business card and a pen and scribbled something on it. "Here's
the name of an excellent art professor at your college. If you really
want to learn how to paint, you should take a class with him." Handing
the card to Megan, he continued, "He'll be able to smooth out your
problems with technique."
She had accepted the card at the time, Megan remembered, but she
had never looked up the professor. After all, she had enough pre-law
classes to take without trying to fit an art class in somewhere.
Besides, dad was paying for the classes, and he would have hit the
roof at the thought of his daughter "dabbling in paints." But now that
she had a scholarship for her last two years, maybe she could take
what she wanted to take ...
Megan's eyes lit up briefly at the thought, then dimmed again.
No, dad still wouldn't approve. Come to think of it, her friends
wouldn't understand, either. They had their eyes set on exciting
trials and prestigious positions. They were practical, not dreamers
like her.
Megan sighed, then began putting away her paints. The painting
just wasn't going well today. Better to put it off until tomorrow.
Besides, Michele was going to pick her up in another hour. Today was
Freddy's birthday, so they were all going out to celebrate. Not that
she was terribly thrilled by the idea, or anything. Freddy was a good
friend, and she loved Italian food, but she just wasn't in the mood to
put up with the group.
Megan picked up the picture and carried it back to her bedroom.
Though she liked painting in front of the big picture window with the
fall breezes blowing through her hair, Michele would be sure to
comment if she saw it. Better to tuck it away in her room, and never
let anyone back there.
It was amazing how many people asked to see "the whole
apartment," as they phrased it, but Megan always managed to get out of
it by pleading a messy room. Only Dr. Burnstrom, an old childhood
friend of her mother's, knew that she still painted. And she intended
to keep it that way.
The doorbell rang. Megan dropped her brush on the counter and
ran to get the door in her bare feet. "Hi, Michele!" she said. "Come
on in." She stepped back to let Michele pass. "I'm almost ready.
Just let me grab my shoes and we'll be off."
"Sure thing," Megan heard Michele say as she hurried back to her
room. She grabbed the nearest pair of shoes, shoved her feet into
them, picked up a purse (it didn't match, but she didn't feel like
stopping to change it), then rushed back to the living room. Michele
was staring at a picture on the wall.
"Hey, I kind of like this picture," Michele exclaimed. "Who's it
by?" She reached out to touch it. Megan winced. Why does everyone
always have to touch everything?
"Dali," Megan replied. "Salvador Dali. He just died a few
months ago." She looked up at the picture. It was one of her
favorites, given to her by her mother after they had visited the Dali
museum in St. Petersburg.
"Ahh, that's too bad," Michele said. To Megan she sounded
insincere. But on the other hand, Michele was no Dali scholar, so
Megan was willing to overlook it. "What's it a picture of, anyway?"
Michele continued. "It's, err, hard to tell."
Megan laughed. "Yeah, Dali definitely has some strange stuff."
She wondered what Dali would think of one of her pictures, barely
stifling a giggle at the thought. "Anyway, the picture is called
'Velazquez Painting the Infanta Margarita with the Lights and Shadows
of his Own Glory.' What's interesting about it is that, as the title
suggests, it actually has another painting hidden within it." She
pointed to the picture, tracing lines in the air in front of it with
her finger as she talked. "See, here's the girl's head, and the red
squiggles down here form the trim on her gown. It billows out down
around the bottom." Megan pulled her arms down from the picture and
gestured around her legs in a rough approximation of the shape of the
gown.
Michele nodded. "Sure, I see it now," she said, looking at her
watch. "That's interesting."
Megan hardly noticed the movement. "Yes. Dali really liked
Velazquez's work, so he included his painting in here as a tribute to
him." She paused. "Some day I'm going to frame a copy of Velazquez's
picture and hang it up here next to this one." She turned to face
Michele, and grinned. "Then you won't have any problems seeing the
Infanta in it."
Michele laughed politely, then looked at her watch again.
"Great," she said. "We really should be going, though."
Megan took a long last look at the picture. Looking at it always
made her happy. You could see it as a relatively normal painting, or
you could dig deeper and find what else it hid. She liked that. "I
suppose so," she said with a sigh. "Let's go." She reached into her
purse for her keys, came up empty-handed, then looked around the room
for them. She was forever misplacing them. "Once I find my keys,
that is," she said ruefully.
Michele dangled them in front of her face. "They were under the
chair," she said, wagging her finger playfully in Megan's face.
"Great filing system. Some lawyer you're going to make!"
Michele was still laughing as she went out the door. Megan
paused, looking up at the picture again. "Yeah," she muttered. "Some
lawyer I'm going to make." She pulled the door shut on the picture and
followed Michele out into the night air.
"Sure, criminal law might be fun," Greg said as he helped himself
to more salad, "but corporate law is where the big bucks are." He took
a bite of salad and rolled his eyes in pleasure at the taste.
"Besides, I'd probably get to travel a lot. Private plane, champagne,
caviar, the works!" He linked his hands behind his head, stretched his
legs out, and smiled with self satisfaction.
Greg probably would be good for corporate law, Megan mused. His
blond hair and trim body set off his elegant clothes to perfection.
Megan always felt slightly underdressed around him. A little
uncomfortable, too. He was just so elegant!
"Well, you go ahead and be rich," Freddy drawled. "I still like
the old-fashioned concept of having lawyers around to help people." He
grinned. "Although I'm certainly not going to turn down any
high-paying cases."
Megan couldn't help but smile at Freddy. She liked his drawl,
his barreling laugh, and even his crushing handshake. "I don't think
you'd have a problem collecting your fees," Megan teased. Freddy was
6'5", a couple of hundred pounds, with thick unruly black hair. And
some people thought he looked even bigger.
Freddy swatted at Megan playfully. "Unlike you, you mean," he
said. Megan was not known for her size. "So what's up with you, Meg?
Still planning on civil law?" he asked.
Right then the waiter arrived with their food. Megan waited
until they were served, then replied, "Looks that way." She was dimly
aware of an argument at the other end of the table over who had eaten
the last breadstick. It sounded like Jason was taking the brunt of
the harassment. "My father would like me to be a judge some day," she
continued.
"Your father, huh," Freddy said. "But what do you want?" Megan
thought back to the unfinished picture in her bedroom. She looked up
into Freddy's troubled eyes. "Actually," she said hesitantly, "I
think I might like to--"
"Get a load of this!" Jason interrupted from the other end of the
table. "John here says he wants to take a creative writing class. He
wants to be a writer!"
"I didn't say I wanted to be a writer," John said. "I just might
take a class, that's all." He brushed his hair from his eyes. "One
lousy little class!"
Megan felt sorry for John. He was the quietest member of their
group. He didn't seem to fit in with their usual boisterousness, but
Freddy had dragged him along on the last couple of outings, so no one
felt like complaining. But on the other hand, he had really goofed
confiding in Jason. Jason was the type who stepped all over people's
feelings without ever noticing that he hurt them.
"Sure, one class, and then you'll start getting ideas," Jason
said. "Next thing we know, it'll be bye-bye law school." He laughed
scornfully. "Don't you know how hard it is to make money as a writer?
You'd be crazy to settle for that!"
Greg nodded his agreement. "He's right, John, it would be a bad
move. Trust me." He spooned another spoonful of soup into his mouth.
It was amazing how Greg always seemed to assume that his opinions were
the definitive word on everything. Generally, Megan was amused by his
attitude, but tonight she was merely angry. She twirled a gob of
spaghetti onto her fork and jabbed it angrily into her mouth, not
trusting herself to speak.
Michele put a hand on John's shoulder. "Hey, we all have our
doubts about law school sometimes," she said. "It's hard and it takes
forever, but it's gonna be worth it. You'll see." More condescension,
Megan thought, shaking her head. Michele and Greg would make a
perfect match.
Okay, she thought. So what. The others were all jerks. Freddy
would speak up, though. He was always fair. She remembered the time
he didn't speak to his best friend for a week because he had punched
out the kid who had stolen Freddy's bike. Freddy didn't like the kid
either, but a bloody nose was a pretty unfair treatment, he had
believed.
Megan looked over at him, waiting for him to speak. The others
turned to look at Freddy also. Although Greg was the flashiest and
liked to think that he had the last word, it was Freddy that they
depended upon for the solid advice.
Freddy finished chewing the last bite of his garlic bread. He
wiped some stray spaghetti sauce from his chin, carefully folded his
napkin on the table, then finally spoke. "I'm sorry, John, but I've
got to go along with the others on this." He pushed his seat back to
give his scrunched knees more room. "Writing's a fun hobby, but it's
just not practical to live off of." He looked at John thoughtfully.
"Look, my advice is to hold off on the class for a while, then take it
later if you have time. You don't want to get behind on graduation so
early on."
John's hands tightened on his glass, his knuckles turning white
from the strain. Megan was entranced by the glimmer of the candles on
the glass as he twisted it back and forth in the light. Finally, he
looked up and nodded slowly. "Yeah, I guess it was a silly idea
anyway." He smiled weakly. Michele mercifully changed the subject.
Megan stared back at Freddy. He pulled the replenished basket of
breadsticks toward himself, considered for a moment, then grabbed one
and ate on, unaware of Megan's disbelief. Greg nudged her, pointing
to the fork still clutched tightly in her fist. She set it down on
the plate, tines down, then pushed the plate away from herself. She
was no longer hungry.
Freddy licked his fingers to get the last bit of garlic, then
turned to her. "So where were we, Megan?" he asked. His brow
furrowed in concentration. "Ahh, I know! You were going to tell me
what you were interested in." He looked at her expectantly, tapping
out a beat on his water glass with his class ring. Megan never
understood why he still wore it.
She looked down the table. The others were off discussing
football. John stared morosely into his glass of Pepsi, rarely adding
a comment to the discussion. Music played softly in the background.
Megan watched and listened for a bit, then turned back to face Freddy.
She thought first of her unfinished picture, then of the Dali
painting. Always in the background, she thought.
"Civil law, of course," she said aloud.
---------------------------------------------------
Lois is simultaneously pursuing an M.S. degree in
Computer Science and a B.A. in English
(Literature). Commenting on her unique combination
of studies, she says with a grin, "English majors
wonder how I survived Calculus and Physics,
Computer majors leave the room when I mention
English, and everyone else just plain thinks I'm
weird." Lois works part time in Systems Support at
the University of Central Florida. "Shadow Box" is
her first story, which she wrote for a creative
writing class over the summer.
---------------------------------------------------
Haute Cuisine
By Phillip Nolte
NU020061@NDSUVM1.BITNET
Copyright 1989 Phillip Nolte
======================================================================
It had been one of those rare one-on-one encounters between
warships--our ship, the FWS Macbeth and the Chirr-is-tat, an Archeon
light cruiser. This Archeon ship had hit the L-5 military base at New
Argent--hard. Slashing in with ultra high-energy pulse-beams and
laser-guided projectiles, they'd left the old orbital base in sorry
shape. It would have been a highly successful raid, except that their
timing was awful. Our ship had just left the same base not three
hours before their attack. We had stopped there to pick up a very
special group of experimental soldiers and bring them back to HQ for
further testing. We brought the Macbeth about and answered New
Argent's distress call as quickly as we could.
Their ship was a little bigger but ours was a little faster.
After a harrowing three-day chase at hyperdrive velocities that
strained both ships to the limit, we caught up with them way out near
Heard's World where they stopped and turned to make a stand. What
followed was a classic, almost heroic struggle with high-speed thrusts
and feints as each captain tried to out-think and outmaneuver the
other. At last, our superior agility gave us the tiny opening we
needed. The crew cheered wildly as we put a HellHound missile into
their port side. But we had celebrated too soon. As we flashed past
them they struck back with two direct hits, pulse-beam charges that
breached the shields and put a jagged two-meter hole in our
hull--right near the bridge. It had been a hard- fought encounter
between nearly equal adversaries and the outcome was more-or-less a
draw with both ships sustaining heavy enough damage to make forced
landings.
The alien ship went down at the same time as we did. They had
little choice, we had locked on to them with an attractor field and
pulled them with us as we began our descent. We released the field at
the last possible moment, hoping their ship would be destroyed by a
heavy impact with the planet. This last-ditch effort was well
conceived but it didn't work; we picked up their distress call within
a half- hour of the crash. Just our luck, some of them had survived
and they were right next door, probably within a few kilometers!
Our ship was so badly damaged that only a few systems on board
were even partially usable. Life support and the emergency power
generator were okay but pulling the Archeon ship down had all but
ruined our main drive, and the navigation computers, the Hopkins
defense shield and the beam weapons were out. We had also lost our
Captain and three crewmen, leaving only three officers and five crew,
two of whom were pretty banged up. The platoon of highly trained,
fully equipped, experimental marines had made it through just fine.
My name's Harris and I was the Food Procurement Specialist for
the Macbeth. That's "ship's cook" to those of you who might be
civilians. Now on a modern warship that doesn't amount to much
usually. Feeding the men is mostly a matter of programing a big
automated kitchen that synthesizes perfectly balanced (and very tasty)
meals from stockpiles of raw materials--big canisters of amino acid,
sugar and fatty acid stocks or whatever other kind of biomass we put
into it. But, that doesn't mean I can't cook! I had been well-
trained in the same time-honored cooking techniques that chefs have
used for centuries because every now and then, I cooked real food for
the officer's mess and for other special occasions. A big part of my
duties was to have consisted of keeping the marines supplied with the
right kind of nutrients in their diet. These guys had been
extensively modified surgically and had biomechanical and electronic
implants that were supposed to make them into some very nasty fighting
units. Because there were still a few bugs in the procedure, they
needed more things in their food than normal people, people like you
and me. Del said that their amino acid requirements were totally
different. For maximum efficiency they needed several D-form amino
acids that didn't occur in regular food and weren't produced in their
bodies. I'm not sure why, it had something to do with the interface
between their biochemical and electronic components. I would have
been reprogramming the food unit several times a day to supply the
right amounts of these supplements in their food. Normally, it
wouldn't have been a big problem.
Normally.
In that running fight out in space with the Archeon ship and the
bone-jarring forced landing that followed, our frightfully complex and
absolutely essential food synthesizing unit had been reduced to a
crumpled, burnt and useless chunk of fused metal and plastic. HQ said
three weeks, minimum, before we could hope for any kind of help to
arrive. Three weeks! No doubt about it, we were in deep Sardinian
sludge! Those twelve marines needed about 5000 Kcal per day apiece
just to stay awake! There wasn't much on the planet's surface that we
could use either. When it was working, the kitchen could make useful
food out of almost anything, including the miserable scrub brush that
grew sparsely on that desert world. But, without it and the special
supplements it supplied, my marines would be helpless in a few days
time!
Within three hours of the crash we sent out a small damage
control party to survey the wreckage of our ship. Heard's World is
hot, almost unbearably so, but at least the air is breathable so they
didn't need suits. As a precaution, three of the experimental marines
went out with them as an armed guard. The enemy must have been
waiting for something like that because not five minutes passed before
they attacked. There were half-a-dozen of them on a small antigrav
sled, armed with portable weapons. With their augmented strength,
speed and agility, our three marines were way more than a match for
the six hapless Archeons. It was incredible! Those guys fought like
demons, leaping and dodging, spinning and weaving--all while firing
with deadly accuracy! The conflict ended abruptly when Marquardt, the
gunner's mate, dashed up to the front gun pod and cut their sled to
ribbons with a burst of 20 mm explosive projectile fire. The marines
had gotten three of them before the rest went scurrying away to
safety, over a dune.
Full of confidence from our easy victory, we struck back. The
raid that we staged on them ended with five Archeon casualties, two
dead and three wounded, but without any real appreciable change in the
situation. Two rounds--slight advantage earth. The Archeons closed
up their ship and wouldn't come out after that. Meanwhile, my marines
were getting hungry and edgy.
I made a sort of gruel out of some local plants and herbs that we
had analyzed as non-poisonous. I mixed them with some of the twenty
or so kilos of amino acid stock that had somehow survived the damage
to the food module. They ate it but they didn't like it. Worse, it
wasn't doing them much good either. "Jesus Christ, Harris! What the
hell is this slop?" said Fenster, a hulk of a marine who had been
slightly wounded in the raid on the Archeon ship. "Fighting men gotta
have real food! You can shove this bullshit!"
I didn't get upset with them, they were just letting off some
steam. Those marines had a lot of energy, it was a consequence of the
modifications that they had undergone. You see, it wasn't just their
bodies that had been changed, their heads had been messed with too. A
lot.
As a chief petty officer I had to share my quarters with one of
the junior officers, a tall, skinny, black kid named Delmont
Richardson. He was a xenobiologist, sort of the ship's "Archeon
expert" if there really was such a thing. Del's not a bad guy, but he
takes the scientific approach too far sometimes. It gives him some
very strange ideas. He asked me to come with him to examine the
bodies of the enemy soldiers that had been killed in their ill-fated
raid on our ship. I shrugged and went along; there weren't that many
able-bodied men about and he needed help. Besides, he was my friend.
When we got there we found one of them still alive, although not
in very good shape. Del said that we were two of just a handful of
people who had actually seen a live Archeon up close. They were a lot
different than I had imagined. To tell the truth, I thought they were
kind of pretty. We called the Archeons "crabs" because they look a
lot like an oversized horseshoe crab. They have the same pointy tail,
the rounded shell and the multiple pairs of jointed legs. Their eyes
are violet and there are six of them, four right on the front of the
shell and two that are borne on short, delicate stalks. Below the
eyes are the intricate, ornate and very complex mouthparts. Just
behind the mouth are the manipulators, the first pair of legs which
have evolved to serve them much as our hands do for us. There's a
pleasing symmetry to the Archeon form, meaning the proportions are
right and all that, but there's real beauty in the patterns of
blue-green iridescence that shine in their carapaces--rich and
colorful when they're alive, but it fades quickly when they die. I
know, we watched the colors fade as the badly torn-up survivor finally
lost his battle for survival.
Del said that the familiar shape was an incredible case of
something he called "convergent evolution". That means that even
though they look like the old-earth creature, they aren't really
related at all. They're the products of completely different
evolutions. I don't know, it makes sense to him.
We brought the "survivor" and the remains of his two buddies back
to Del's little bio-lab which was one part of the ship that hadn't
been wrecked in some way or another. He came out three hours later
blinking his eyes and stretching to get the kinks out of his muscles.
Apparently that biological investigation stuff can be hard work. He
looked dog-tired!
"What did you find out, Del?" I asked him.
"Interesting anatomy," he said. "It's a basic arthropod
architecture much like the forms found on earth. They have a
chitinous exoskeleton, an open circulatory system and paired ventral
nerve chords. Where they differ dramatically is that three or four of
the front ganglia on each nerve chord are swollen and fused into a
huge masses of nerve tissue that probably serve them as the centers
for higher learning. At least I think so. If it's true, their brains
are actually larger for their body size than ours are!" When Del
starts to ramble like that, I just sort of let him go, even though I
don't understand a lot of what he's saying. It helps him to relax. I
had no trouble understanding what he said next, however.
"I do have some good news for you though, Harris," he said. "I'm
done with them. I've put what I need to save in the freezer."
"Great, Del," I said. "Ah...what does that mean to me?"
"It means that the chemistry of those beasts is such that they
have all of the D-amino acids you could possibly need to feed your
marines."
You see what I mean about strange ideas?
"Jesus, Del," I asked incredulously. "You don't mean that I
should cook dead crab and serve it to those marines do you? You
should've heard them complaining about the food before!"
"It sounds kind of gruesome, I know," he shrugged. "But there
are reports that they eat humans when they get the chance so that
shouldn't be a problem. Besides, I don't see any other solution to
this food thing. I checked them over extensively, they should be
perfectly safe to eat. As for the marines, they might bellyache some
but they'll follow orders. Let's talk to Gibbs."
The ship's acting commander, Lieutenant Theodore Gibbs, felt the
same when we asked him about it, although he thought about it for a
while before he made up his mind. "It seems a bit barbaric, I agree,"
he said. "But we really don't have much choice do we? I'll give the
order."
That night I built a small fire out in the sand a short distance
from the ship. In a pot fashioned out of a big bearing cup that I'd
scrounged from engineering, I cooked up a generous portion of "crab
stew" for my marines to eat. An Archeon is a little bigger than a
man, so there was no shortage of the rich, white meat. I can still
picture that makeshift pot bubbling and frothing over a smoldering
scrub brush fire with a bunch of long, jointed crab legs sticking up
out of it. I used all my cooking skills and the meager stock of local
herbs in an effort to make the stuff palatable. I won't repeat the
things that the marines were saying as they watched me cook. To
demonstrate to them that it was safe, I ate some first.
You won't like the way this sounds, but that stew was good;
damned good! Our enemy cooked up into a meal fit for a gourmet! The
flavor was sort of like a cross between snow crab and lobster but it
was better than either one of them! Several of the men asked for
seconds. Best of all, they began to regain their strength.
The biggest surprise awaited us the following morning when we
were contacted by the master of the Archeon ship. Unexpected good
news! He wanted to talk about some kind of cooperative agreement
between them and us that would enable our two small parties to
survive. We decided that they must have had enough of our marines and
wanted an end to the business. To our knowledge, it was the first
time that any kind of meaningful dialogue had ever been attempted with
a crab war party since mankind had first encountered them and the war
had started, over eighteen months before.
We were understandably a little nervous.
We met them out in a wide-open area that was about eqi- distant
from both ships. From that spot we could see both ships; with its
tail in the air and the fuselage bent and crumpled, theirs didn't look
any better than ours did! Each group was represented by six
individuals. Richardson and I were included in the delegation because
he was what passed for the local crab expert and I was one of the few
men left who were well enough to make the trip. They gave me the job
of holding the Kravitz universal translator; across the way I could
see a crab counterpart holding a similar device. Their leader was
easy to pick out, he was a little bigger than the others and the
blue-green of his shell had purple highlights in it. He was also the
first to speak. This was a series of staccato clicks and chirps made
with his mouthparts that was followed shortly by the synthesized voice
of the translator.
"Greetings are given to the valiant earth-born warriors. We come
in peace." He did a sort of bow. Gibbs hesitated a second and bowed
in return.
"We are honored," Gibbs replied. "The Archeon soldiers also
fight gallantly. I complement them. We come with peaceful intent
also. You spoke of cooperation. We feel it would be advantageous to
both of our races."
There was another series of chirps and clicks.
"We the descendants of the great Archeon hive-den were greatly
touched by your act of supreme respect for our fallen comrades,"
continued the leader.
"We have nothing but supreme respect for all Archeons," said
Gibbs, "But I must apologize. I'm not sure I know what you're talking
about."
"I refer to the consumption of the flesh of our hive- mates.
Your rites were observed last evening by a large group of our
warriors, including myself. Because of this most reverent act, we
feel that we can safely extend to you an offer for peace."
"I..um..ah..on behalf of the Federation, I accept your offer!"
said Gibbs. He was caught off-guard but wasn't about to let the
opportunity slip away.
The crab leader continued.
"One of the major obstacles to peace between our races has been a
total lack of understanding of each other's customs. By your most
gracious act, your small party has made enormous strides towards a
peaceful relationship with our race in the future."
We were absolutely blown away! Over the next two weeks, we were
able to maintain a genuine, if rather uneasy, peace. Of course, we
didn't allow our marines to have any contact with the aliens at all.
By their very nature, they were difficult to reason with, even for
their fellow humans! Most of the actual dialogue and contact was
undertaken by Del Richardson and me. Yes, me. The crabs had insisted
on it.
Our usual contact was a smaller (younger?) Archeon named
Clack-whirr-snap-click-click who seemed to actually enjoy our company.
We got to know "Click" well enough to ask some pointed questions.
Yes, they thought our marines were demon fighters. No, they weren't
afraid of them, just respectful of their abilities. On that fateful
night, a war party consisting of all of their remaining able-bodied
soldiers (about thirty, I think) had been poised for an all-out attack
when they saw me and the marines at our little cookout and realized
what we were doing. They had immediately called off the attack.
He told us that the Archeons always had a ritual for their dead
which included the consumption of at least a portion of the dead
comrade's flesh. A little more talk and some further investigation
revealed why.
The crabs have a sort of racial memory. Each member of the race
inherits these memories from both parents at conception. All of the
experiences of each individual are somehow added to this racial memory
and can be passed on to a living member of the race, usually by eating
a small portion of the flesh. The experiences of the individual are
thus passed on to whichever of his mates eats a part of him. To pass
away uneaten, and therefore without the retention of his memories by
at least some other member of the race is the worst thing that can
happen to a crab! They had observed our stew-making party and had,
luckily for us, assumed that we were paying homage to their dead, thus
the overtures for peace from their leader the next day. What an
incredible break!
The one who does the actual cooking is usually the hive's
religious leader, a greatly honored position. I guess that's why they
wanted me as a contact and why all of them, including the ship's
leader, treated me with so much respect!
Del took a closer look at some of the crab remains that he'd put
in the freezer that night. It didn't take him long to find what he
was looking for. Each and every cell in the creature's bodies
contained a number of large pieces of extrachromosomal DNA. He called
them "plasmids". These structures were the agents by which both the
racial and individual memories were passed on. These particular
plasmids are extraordinarily heat stable so they survive being cooked
and they are also evolved to reach and enter the recipient's cells by
way of the gut. Once inside a cell they replicate and spread,
replicate and spread, much like a virus, until every cell in the body
contains them. A perfectly evolved method for passing on
information--by eating it!
On a hunch he took blood samples from me and some of the marines
who had eaten the stew and checked us for presence of the same
plasmids. To my utter shock and amazement, he found them in our cells
as well! Our biochemistries are similar enough to the Archeons that
"infection" can occur.
Fortunately, I don't have the necessary enzyme systems for my
body to translate or "decode" the Archeon plasmids, so I can't get at
any of the memories, thank God! No, Del says that they'll probably
just remain in my system, not doing much of anything, but not hurting
anything either, just sitting there.
You would think that a race with such a well-evolved means of
passing on information would be very wise indeed. In many ways and
about many things, they are. Unfortunately, they'd had a run-in with
a couple of mammalian races early in their history. These had been
faithfully recorded in their racial memories and, as a result, every
Archeon had a sort of built-in paranoia against warm-blooded
fur-bearing creatures. Creatures like us. In their minds anything
but war with us was unthinkable when they had first encountered men.
All that is changed now. Diplomats of both races, armed with a
bit more knowledge about each other--mostly because of the chance
events on Heard's World--were able to hammer out a peaceful agreement
for coexistence. Within two months, the war had ended. A truly
significant step forward for man and crab!
There was a part of the treaty that isn't well publicized,
however. Like I said, the crabs hate to lose the life experiences of
even a single one of their individuals. So the authorities are
keeping a watchful eye on your's truly. I'll be allowed to live out
my normal life just fine but as soon as I began to show signs of
fading they're shipping me off to Archea-hive, the Archeon home
planet. I house the memories of three of their fallen mates. Their
solution to this problem is simple: I'll attend a gathering of the
families of the deceased--as the main course on the menu! A chance
for me to serve mankind by being "served" myself! In a way I suppose
it's a kind of honor so I'm not complaining. I just wish they could
do something about the awful dreams I've been having lately...
---------------------------------------------------
Phil is a research specialist in Plant Pathology at
NDSU in Fargo, North Dakota. He is also a Ph.D.
candidate at the same time. He's been writing
science fiction for about three years but has
enjoyed reading it all his life. He comments, "I
got interested in the writing end because of the
many disappointments I've had while attending
science fiction movies and coming away wondering
how they could have spent so much money on actors
and special effects, and so damned little on a
decent story!" This is his fifth story, of seven
total.
---------------------------------------------------
Solitaire
By Garry Frank
CSTGLFPC@UIAMVS.BITNET
Copyright 1989 Garry Frank / Failsafe Productions
======================================================================
Davidson warned me about it. He said it wasn't a good idea. Now
it's too late and I'm not sure how I feel. The time doesn't help any
and since a human brain takes up only about a thousand cubic
centimeters, you realize how small that volume is, and how little it
can possibly contain, and you simply don't have anything left inside
to think about. I never liked how it started, and I'm not sure if I
like how it finished, but a story is a story.
I am a murderer. I don't like being a murderer, and to be
totally honest, I never really intended to kill. I suppose, in all
fairness, nothing could be more irrelevant at this point. I just
thought I'd throw it in to try and convince myself that I used to be
an educated, thinking creature at one time, and try not to let
society, and I suppose that includes myself, stamp me as a murderer.
I'm not the unshaven, wobbly-eyed drunk that killed for money or the
psychotic, crazed youth who killed for sport. I'd like to say that I
was framed, but I can't think of anyone who could have framed me
except God. I got into an argument at a party. One of my friend's
wife's friend's deals. I went alone. I didn't even know the guy. I
disagreed with him about disagreeing with me. I was drunk and raving
about nuclear weapons. Next thing I know, push comes to shove, and I
suddenly see him on the floor with blood pouring out of his eyes and a
long, furrowed welt on the side of his head deep enough to hold water.
I look down and see a fireplace poker in my right hand. I passed out.
I won't dwell on that too much.
Needless to say, after a lengthy trial I got fifty to seventy. I
never even knew what hit me. Now, if there's one thing I got out of
this, it's the dim realization of how easy prison is. No shit. You
have so many people screaming about mistreatment and abuse in prisons,
and the government dumps out quadrillions of bucks to fix the places
up, and to try and give the inmates more opportunity for growth and
creative development, Lord help us all, and it's really a swell place
now. I got to read a lot, and think, and do some writing, and they
showed us movies all the time, and during the first two years, I began
to wonder if it was supposed to be torture at all.
I was the bright guy. I could help people with financial
problems, and relationships with the outsiders, and I was setting up
huge CD accounts for the long term inmates whom after they got out in
fifty years would discover their ten thousand dollars had blossomed
into half a million. Needless to say, I was pretty popular. Davidson
was big on keeping track of shit on the outside. He had newspapers
and current magazines spread out in his cell as though he was
housebreaking a dog. He came to me because he considered me his
intellectual equal. We had been designated the smart ones. He wanted
my opinion. He also wanted me to go first.
He told me about the new sentencing system that the NSC was
trying to put into effect. He told me about the NASA mergers and the
grant funds and about how it was just in the beginning stages, and the
more he talked, the more I began to feel like Alex in A Clockwork
Orange, finding out about the new treatment that gets him out of
prison quick, provided he becomes brainwashed. That, I think, was
when the first light pangs of fear kicked in. But Davidson was
constant, and he really thought I should talk to the warden. When I
asked him why, he told me about a recent vote in the Senate he had
uncovered, a vote attached to some other goofy bill that wouldn't show
up in Newsweek, but would in the Congressional Record, for anybody
bored or boring enough to sift through its all-text pages. Turns out
the Senate vote was that the selection for the test orbital was to be
pulled from Gladstone Maximum Security, which was the place both
Davidson and I were staying at the time, courtesy of the United States
judicial branch. That's why he was so interested in it. I
reluctantly agreed, and went to see the warden the next day.
He was a little stunned, and wanted to know where I came across
my information, and again I felt like I had just fallen onto the set
of A Clockwork Orange. I just beat the bush for a bit, and then he
settled back into his naugahyde chair and decided to tell me about it.
The NSC and NASA were working together to develop what they called the
orbiting cell. The idea was to lock a hardened criminal in a tiny
clear plastic bubble, with food and air and shit, and fire him into
orbit. The idea was that he could see out, and it would feel as
though there was nothing between him and space. This plus the raw
boredom, the soundproofing, and just the goddamn loneliness were
supposed to be really good rehabilitation methods. I wondered why and
how. I guess it had something to do with the philosophy behind
solitary confinement. I had been in solitary several times, and I
didn't really mind it. It was relaxing. It seemed kinda fun to me,
and that's what I told the warden. He smirked and said that he
wouldn't want to try it. He said that studies had proven the orbiting
cell was sheer torture, and some other studies said it could cause
insanity or even be lethal. That's why they wanted to try it out.
I'm not sure why I did it. Sometimes I dream that I did it just
to help the scientific research aspect of it, that I did it so the
people who designed it could know more about it, but I know that's not
true. I suppose it was just the short duration of it. They said that
if I stayed in the bubble for one month, that the rest of my sentence
would be remitted and I would be a free man. In the words of Fibber
McGee, it seemed like a good idea at the time. To make the dull part
brief, I was taken to a NASA training center, specially built for the
Orb. That was what they called it, the "Orb". They had built only
one of them so far, and they let me see it before I began my
debriefing. Apparently, it went up with the automated shuttles. It
was sealed, and placed in a huge apparatus in the shuttle bay which
would put it into orbit and could also retrieve it. Then the shuttle
would land. The whole thing was automatic, and the plan was for
nobody to be on board except me, as though they thought I might
actually try to hijack a space shuttle.
They showed me the Orb. It was a clear plexiglass sphere about
four feet across. There wasn't any hatch. They would have to cut the
top off of it to let me in, then they would seal it shut again with
some kind of torch. It didn't leave any seams. It was incredible. A
clear, plastic bubble just floating in space. The only thing that
marred it was this black box on the outside. It was about a foot on
all sides, and it was attached to the outside of the bubble like a
parasite. The box contained a special algae. I could tell the goofy
scientist who was there just loved to brag about it. They developed a
new strain just for this project. They built their own life form, how
about that. I guess it was like being God.
The box had this algae in it, and a self-contained light source
that would let it grow. Three holes connected it with the Orb. One
of the holes was for the air. Through it, the algae used my carbon
dioxide and made water and oxygen. Just enough for one man. The
second hole was for processing urine and feces. It wasn't fancy, and
it wasn't comfortable, but it worked. Through the third hole, I could
sip some water mixed with algae. That was my food. I was supposed to
eat this plant. No shit. They told me it was tasteless and very
nourishing and the tube only let a certain amount go through. Enough
to support one man indefinitely. It was a little ecosystem, a
controlled one. It would let me live, but it would not let me enjoy
it.
It was around now that I began to get a little scared. I had no
idea what it would be like, and I spent most of my four-day training
period worrying. Again, to make the boring part short, they sealed me
up, naked, in my little Orb, and set me up for launching. It was
pretty uneventful, since I spent the entire launch in the blackness of
the cargo bay. I just sat and waited. And enjoyed the lack of
gravity.
The terror started when the hatch opened. There was some kind of
goop in the plexiglass that would prevent nasty rays from burning up
my skin, but it didn't seem to change the fact that the earth was
agonizingly bright. I had to shield my eyes for about seven minutes,
while the launcher shoved me out into orbit. Squinting, I looked out
and saw the engines fire, and the shuttle went out ahead of me. I was
in orbit. I was alone.
At first, I was impressed by the bright sun, which was tolerable
now, as was the earth. I studied the motions and the shapes. I
watched the shadows of the earth bounce off the moon, and I stared at
the motions of cloud patterns and land shapes with hypnotic intensity.
But after a few hours, you just plain run out of stuff to see. I got
bored with earth and started studying some other planets and stars.
Needless to say, I got bored with them fairly quickly as well. I'd
say about five hours had passed since my launch, and already I could
think of nothing to do.
The minutes, which used to pass by like seconds, now seemed to
drag into endless days. I began to slowly lose my sense of time. I
ate as much of the algae as it would let me, and I had a good shit,
but then what else is there to do? I started to wonder if eating and
shitting would become priceless luxuries now that they were the only
real physical activities I could do. I wondered how long it would be
until I could get more food. The horrible idea that the food
distributor might be broken flashed across my mind. I had nothing to
do but think.
I started talking to myself for a while. I began to just talk
and talk about anything that came to mind. All of the background
voices in my brain which are cut off somewhere before they get to my
mouth just blurted themselves out. After a while, I ran out of
thoughts and began to recite poetry. I'm not sure why. Little
fragments of stories and plays and shit I was supposed to have
forgotten after I graduated from college. Shards of Shakespeare and
Dante. Verses of Homer and Frost. I babbled nonsensically for hours
until I realized I wasn't even listening to myself. I realized that I
had just been staring out of the side of the Orb the entire time, and
got hold of my brain. I decided talking to myself accomplished very
little and decided not to do it again as I wiped a river of saliva off
of my chin and neck. My breathing slowed down.
I began to spend entire days with my eyes closed. It was easier
to think if you didn't have to look at the nothingness above your head
and the earth, a two hundred kilometer drop below your feet. I was
comfortable with the blackness behind my eyelids, and that was what I
stared at for the next week. Things began to play themselves out in
swirling images, trying to replace the black, to cut into it like
fireworks. I started to play movies in my head. Every fragment I
could remember, it was flashed onto the silver screen behind my
eyelids, larger than life. The sounds were totally clear, and the
images flowed easily. I replayed Bogart and Jimmy Stewart. I
replayed Hoffman, Redford, and Malcolm McDowell. Sean Connery.
Michael Caine. Endless Woody Allen lines flashed across my mind with
unbelievable ferocity, and I found myself laughing out loud more than
once, half from comedy, half from shock. The second half of the week
was filled with songs. Thousands of them, played back across my ears
like some flawless recording system. Every move. Every note.
Classical, rock, and all the Jazz I could remember. But, perhaps for
the same reason why we forget a good tune in daily life, I became
bored hearing Beethoven's Ninth six million times, and started
grabbing at fragments of songs I had only heard once ore twice,
mentally scrambling to catch hold of one or two notes that could lead
to a ladder of music. It was frustrating, and I found myself crying
continuously without even being aware of it.
I started to think about what was beyond the glass. The vast,
black emptiness which I could see, yet couldn't see. It was black
because there was no light, but I could still see it, even with this
lack. I could see the lack of light. The blackness. It was
literally nothing. There was nothing out there. The fear turned into
claustrophobia over the next two days. I found myself blinking too
often. I found myself unable to focus on sound. I found myself
tapping the glass for no apparent reason with the tip of my finger,
very lightly, just tapping, and unconsciously intensifying it into a
light slap and I remember sweating madly as the power of my taps
increased until I was pounding on the glass with the full force of my
fist and not even being aware of it. I would scream at the top of my
lungs for minutes straight with my fist pounding against the side of
the plexiglass with booming rhythm. I started to see things in the
black emptiness of space. My mind started to play horrible tricks on
me. I began getting paranoid. I kept jerking around, glancing over
my shoulder thinking that something was in the bubble with me.
Sometimes I would push myself away from one side of the bubble where I
thought that something was outside trying to get in, then I'd think
that the same thing was happening on the other side, and whirl around
again, screaming with fear, yet unable to hear myself, lashing my
fists and legs out into the clear, cold solidity of the Orb.
That was how I cut myself the first time. Pow! Into the side of
the glass. Stinging pain in my knuckles. The red spot on the wall.
I found myself staring at that red spot for hours on end afterwards
for lack of better things to do. The blood tricked upwards from my
hand and began to separate into little globs that bobbled in the air
like tiny acrobats. I watched the blood flow into the zero-g of the
Orb, a thin stream of red responding to it's own laws of physics. I
jammed the knuckle into my mouth and kept it there for about an hour,
staring at the red spot on the side of the Orb with shaking eyes and
terrified sweat. I kept it there until the bleeding stopped. Then I
passed out.
Sleep was rare and fragmented. My body's timetable had been
turned inside- out, and it seemed as though I was never totally sure
if I had gotten too much sleep, or not enough. My sleep was liberally
coated with nightmares too horrifying to mention. Visions of evil I
hadn't had nightmares about since I was a kid came back, as if to
haunt me, as if to say "You thought you were scared of your closet!
Ha! Whaddya think of this?!" I think that was when my mind started to
go. I think I just plain ran out of stuff to think about. I spent a
day mowing lawns. Mentally mowing lawns which I had plotted out in
size and shape beforehand, noting every tree, every tall weed, and
when I came to them, mower buzzing furiously, sometimes I would have
it choke or run out of gas, and I would mentally imagine every second
of my angered, sweaty trip to the garage to get a gas can or a wrench.
I spent a week building houses. Plotting out the land, surveying it,
pouring in the cement foundations. I imagined every insignificant
motion, every board, every nail, every stroke of the hammer. It was
all flawless. I once spent five minutes on the same set of shingles.
I built seven houses in all. Very big ones, too. But as I said
before, you just run out of stuff to think about. You can feel your
mind just slowing down, devoid of not just active thought, but
creative energy too, and you run out of stuff to do. It's difficult
to describe, I know, and a part of me hopes that none of you ever find
out exactly what it's like. I started to think of HAL in 2001, and
about his dying words: "My mind is going. My mind is going, Dave. I
can feel it." I spent the next two days repeating his lines in my
head: "My mind is going. I can feel it." Over and over again, for
forty-eight hours: "I can feel it." I no longer knew where the lines
were from: "My mind is going. I can feel it." I no longer had the
urge to cry, or to sleep, or to think, or even to move. My joints
began to stiffen up: "My mind is going."
I'm not sure how long I remained in that trance, but I do know I
came out of it. It was something on the outskirts of my vision,
something almost subliminal that made me realize that I should have
been paying more attention to the planet. I remember suddenly being
able to think again, and I remember my first thought being pain. Pain
in my knees and back. I hadn't shifted my position in God knows how
long. Weeks? The pain subsided quickly, and I whirled myself around
to face the planet Earth. The first thing I noticed that was odd was
all of the flashes. All over the surface of the planet, bright
flashes would erupt, then spread slowly over areas the size of Brazil
as their glare reduced from a pinpoint flash to a dull smoky glow.
Then I saw the source of the flashes. I was not the only thing in
orbit. Emerging from strategic points on every single land mass,
there were tiny disruptions in the atmosphere which propelled
themselves in smooth, flawless arcs, leaving trails of smoke behind
them, and touched the surface again to create other pinpoint
explosions. It was then that I knew. I knew what was happening.
The sizes of the warheads were staggering, six thousand megatons
at least. I watched slowly as the United States civilization was
wiped clean off the surface of the globe, as if by God himself. I
watched retaliatory strikes do the same to almost every corner of
every continent, and it was then that I knew that the remaining
population would be lucky to be a number in the millions.
I glanced back to the United States. There are only three
shuttle launch stations, and all of them were practically in the
center of some detonation radius. I am almost certain the Orb design
station is now rubble, and I am starting to think that nobody even
remembers my name.
The temperature in here is seventy-two degrees Fahrenheit, but I
still feel very, very cold.
---------------------------------------------------
Garry is a Broadcasting and Film major attending
the University of Iowa. He is an aspiring
screenwriter and an accomplished playwright, with
three of his full-length plays having been produced
by the West Side Players, an alternative theatre
organization at Iowa. He writes short fiction in
his spare time, and watches too many movies.
Garry's other interests include reading, skiing,
acting, "splitting atoms and graduating."
---------------------------------------------------
Picture Perfect (part 2 of 2)
By Gene Smith
ESMITH@SUVM.BITNET
Copyright 1989 Gene Smith
======================================================================
Sunday crawled by. Phil got up early and worked on three more
lawns that day but his heart wasn't in his work. He kept remembering
the pictures he had seen. He'd look at a bed of flowers and wonder
how they would look in a picture taken by the new camera. He'd see a
bird in flight and wonder the same thing. Sunday finally ended.
On Monday morning Phil awoke early, went over to Mr. Harris's
house to mow his lawn and when he had completed his work there took
his bike, trailer and all, to the schoolyard. He went into the all
too familiar building and to the physics lab where he hoped Mr. Riley
would be found.
Stephen Riley was there trying to get across the coefficient of
friction to a group of three students. Phil poked his head into the
classroom and made a quick motion with one hand indicating the
laboratory. Mr. Riley nodded that he understood and continued with
his lecture. This was a signal that they had used many times in the
past. The schools darkroom was located just off of the physics
laboratory and Phil needed permission to use it. As photography
editor he actually didn't need permission, but it was school policy
that someone had to know whenever anyone was using the darkroom. This
policy came about after he had lost track of time last year while
working in the darkroom and was locked in the laboratory overnight.
The principle wasn't too upset over the whole episode but his mom
had been hysterical! No one had known where he was until the janitor
had let him out of the locked physics lab the following morning. By
that time the police were looking for him and his mother was certain
that he had been kidnapped. He was grounded for two weeks for that!
It was Mr. Riley that had suggested this notification scheme and it
satisfied all concerned. If Phil was going to be working late in the
darkroom Mr. Riley would let the night janitor know. Before he
locked up, the janitor would stop by the lab and tell Phil it was time
to go. It worked well for everyone.
Phil had been waiting in the laboratory for about half an hour
when Mr. Riley came in. "I thought you were going to be working in
the darkroom," Mr. Riley said as he saw Phil sitting at one of the
laboratory benches.
"No, actually I wanted to talk to you," Phil told him. Mr.
Riley had taught Phil everything about photography that he now knew.
Darkroom technique and safety, developing, printing, cropping, air
brushing and everything else he had learned from Mr. Riley.
"Well, I'm done for the day," Mr. Riley said sighing, "I hope
those kids pick this stuff up this time. They won't graduate without
it." He then added, "I just hate to see a kid not graduate because of
what could be my failure to get something across to them. Now, what
do you want to talk about?"
Phil again explained the new camera and the pictures to Mr.
Riley. He had told him that he had practically made up his mind and
that he had the money with him right now. After he left the school he
was planning to head to the camera shop. Mr. Riley urged caution.
"I know you're excited about the camera but I've never heard of
that make, though the name does sound familiar for some reason. Nor
have I ever heard of a camera capable of taking pictures of the type
you describe. I'd wait a few days before making the purchase.
Something that sounds too good to be true usually is."
Phil thought to himself, "First my father and now Mr. Riley.
They both don't want me to buy the camera. Hell, they haven't even
seen it or those pictures!"
Aloud he said, "Thanks Mr. Riley. I'll think about it."
Mr. Riley replied, "You do that Phil. I'll tell you what, I'll
check into the literature I have and see what I can find out. The
name is familiar but I don't know why. Stop back in a couple of days
and I'll let you know what I find out."
As Phil was leaving the lab he said to Mr. Riley, "Thanks again.
I'll stop back in a couple of days." He left the school to where he
had parked his bike and trailer. On the way out of the school
building he had decided that he couldn't wait to own that camera. He
was going to go back to the shop and purchase it today.
He headed downtown to the camera shop, parked his bike so that
the trailer wouldn't interfere with anyone walking by and went inside
the shop. The bells attached to the door announced his entry again as
he opened then closed the door. The heat inside the shop was as bad
as it had been two days previous. Phil was surprised at this since
the weather had cooled off Saturday night and it was no nowhere near
as warm as it had been on Saturday afternoon.
The storekeeper came though the doorway leading to the back and
said cheerfully, "Good Morning young man. Back I see. Have you
decided on purchasing the camera?" All the time he was smiling that
disconcerting smile.
Phil was again uneasy as he said, "Yes I have." He then quickly
asked, "Can the camera be returned if it isn't all you claim it is?"
"Oh, by all means," assured the storekeeper. "If this camera
doesn't give you pictures just as good as these," he indicated the
pictures still lying on the counter top, "you bring it right back.
I'll refund every penny, no questions asked."
"You've got a deal!" said Phil excitedly. He reached into his
pocket and pulled out the $200.00 he had brought along with an
additional amount sufficient to cover the sales tax.
"Oh, this is unnecessary," said the storekeeper after having
counted the money Phil had handed to him. He handed Phil the amount
Phil had given him to cover the sales tax and said, "My price was
$200.00 even. Put the remainder in your pocket to purchase film." He
was smiling as he counted the money as though enjoying a private joke.
Phil was surprised that he didn't have to pay sales tax. You
paid sales tax on almost everything in New York! He didn't argue
further however. He put the money back in his pocket and waited.
"Ah, your camera." said the storekeeper apologetically. "I had
almost forgotten." Reaching into the display case he removed a box
containing the Follis 138. He opened the box and checked the contents
and asked Phil to do the same. The box contained an instruction
booklet, the camera, and a black carrying case. "Here you go. Enjoy
your pictures," he said as he slid the box and it's contents across
the counter to Phil.
Phil excitedly closed the box and said, "Oh, I will!" and quickly
left the store. If Phil had turned around he might have been
disturbed to see the wicked grin on the storekeepers face.
Carefully maneuvering his bike and trailer another three blocks,
Phil made his way to the ShutterBug. He walked inside, carrying his
purchase, and made his way to the display counter at the back of the
store. The ShutterBug, specializing in photography equipment and
supplies, displayed photographs on every wall. On this side, where
Phil was walking, was a winter theme. A skier was in mid-air, caught
in the instant he hurtled from the top of a large dune. Next to this
was a photo of three skiers, taken from above, making snake pattern
traces as they skied down a mountainside.
"Wait until they see my photographs," Phil thought to himself.
He patted the box he was carrying. "It will put these to shame."
He made his way to back and set his purchase on the counter. He
looked at the man behind the counter and said, "Mr. Jenson, I'd like
a roll of Kodacolor 135-24, ASA 100, and a roll of Tri-X Pan film, ASA
400, please."
Mr. Jenson, the owner of the ShutterBug, was familiar with Phil
having seen him in the store many times before. He looked at the box
Phil had set on the counter top and asked, "Buy a camera Phil?"
Phil said proudly, "Yes. My first one. Bought it just today at
the new camera store where the old arcade used to be. Need to get
some film though. The store hadn't stocked any yet."
"New camera store huh?" said Mr. Jenson. "I'm not aware that
another had opened up. Well, the competition might do me good," he
said laughing. "What did you buy Phil?" he asked genuinely
interested, "Mind if I take a look?"
"No, go ahead Mr. Jenson," Phil said, pleased to have an adult
take interest in something he himself enjoyed. Phil opened the box
the camera was setting in and slid it across the counter top to Mr.
Jenson.
"A Follis ay?" asked Mr. Jenson. "Can't say I've ever heard of
it before." Looking at the camera more closely Mr. Jenson said, "Phil
this camera has no controls, no way to set the aperture or shutter
speed."
"I know," replied Phil. "It doesn't need them. It's fully
automatic. All I have to do is load the camera and shoot the
picture."
Placing the camera back into the box Mr. Jenson said, "Well good
luck with the camera son." He then added with a wink, "You know I'm a
little disappointed that you didn't buy a camera from me. Would have
given you a good deal too."
Phil blushed a little with embarrassment and said, "Well I would
have bought the camera here, you know that, but I got such a good deal
and the pictures this camera takes are so incredible I had to buy it."
"I understand," said Mr. Jenson as he retrieved a roll of black
and white and color film from the honeycomb display behind him.
"Here's the film you wanted, and here," Mr. Jenson selected another
roll of film from the display case and placed it with the other two.
"I assume you're testing the camera with both black and white and
color film. This roll is on the house. It's a 1600 ASA color film.
If you want to test a camera thoroughly test it through the extremes."
"Thanks Mr. Jenson, I do appreciate that!" Phil said, honestly
surprised. "I'll be back in a day or two to have this film developed.
You still have same day processing don't you?"
"Oh yes," said Mr. Jenson collecting the money for the two rolls
of film he had rung up on the register as they talked. "Bring in the
film before noon and you'll have your pictures ready before closing
time."
Taking the bag containing the film and carefully picking up the
box containing his camera Phil made his way out of the store. He was
now ready to shoot pictures with his new camera. HIS new camera!
Phil made his way carefully back home. The camera was placed in
the wire basket in front on the bike. Phil took his time, avoiding
most of the bumps and walking his bike around the worst of them.
When he got home he called the customers on his list that he had
scheduled for the next two days and told them he would not be coming
on the regular day. He would catch them up during the weekend or the
following week. He then took his new purchase to his room, closed the
door, laid on the bed with the box next to him and began reading the
instructions.
The instructions were understandably brief. They were more of a
sales pitch than instructions. After showing how to load the camera
the instructions touted the camera's ease of use and the quality of
pictures that could be expected.
Phil removed the camera from the box, loaded the black and white
film according to the directions, then put the camera in the carrying
case provided. He put the other 2 rolls of film in the pouches
provided in the camera carrying case. He was ready to shoot his own
pictures!
Phil grabbed his notebook from the desk and went downstairs to
find his mother. She was in the living room sewing the pockets in a
pair of his jeans. He had somehow managed to put a hole in them last
week and had told his mother about it.
"Mom, I bought a camera. I'm going out to shoot some pictures.
I'll be home in time for supper," Phil told her.
Phil's mother stopped her sewing and looked at Phil with a little
concern. She knew better than to say anything about how he spent his
money, he worked hard for it and it was his. She simply said, "I hope
you got a good deal. Please try to be home on time tonight."
Phil smiled and said, "I did. And I will, promise." He walked
over and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek. He then hurried outside.
Phil wasted no time. He selected subjects the he thought would
test the capabilities of the camera. He photographed dark subjects in
a bright background, colorful storefronts, canopies, and anything else
he thought might make an interesting photograph. After he took a
photograph he logged each subject in his notebook. He noted the time
the picture was taken and the subject. He had no idea of the shutter
speed or aperture settings so he left those notations blank. He even
made the entries of the pictures he shot of Cathy Danis!
He had been so intent on taking pictures and making notes that he
hadn't noticed that he had made his way to her house. She was outside
dressed in a halter top and shorts and was raking the lawn. He felt a
little like a peeping Tom as he photographed her through the hedges
surrounding the schoolyard adjacent to her parent's house. If she had
seen him with his camera she would have immediately gone into the
house. His heart was pounding as he snapped shot after shot. "I
can't wait to see how good these look!" he thought to himself.
It didn't take long for him to shoot the three rolls of film. He
made his way back home, placed his camera and notebook on his desk and
went back downstairs. It was only 3:00 pm and he wanted to get the
film to Mr. Jenson before 5:00 pm, closing time.
He couldn't find his mom so he left her a note and placed it on
the kitchen table. He took his bike out of the garage and made his
way to the ShutterBug to turn the film in for processing. He arrived
well before closing and went to the back of the store with the three
rolls of film.
"Back so soon?" said Mr. Jenson surprised. "I would have
thought it would have taken you another ten minutes to shoot three
rolls of film!" he said jokingly.
Phil laughed too and said, "Well I am a little anxious to see how
these turn out. Will they be ready tomorrow?"
Mr. Jenson looked at the clock on the wall and said, "Tell you
what Phil. I'll develop the negatives tonight and print the pictures
tomorrow. They'll be ready about noon. How's that?"
"Oh, that would be great Mr. Jenson! Thanks!"
Phil went home and for the second time in three days hardly paid
attention to supper. He was thinking about how great the pictures
were going to be, how clear the images were going to look, and yes,
how Cathy was going to look raking her lawn.
The hours crept by and Phil hardly slept. The next day was no
better. Noon seemed to take an eternity to arrive. Shortly before
noon Phil headed out to pick up his pictures. He arrived at the
ShutterBug just at noon and went to see Mr. Jenson.
"Are the pictures ready Mr. Jenson?" Phil asked excitedly.
"Yes they are Phil. Came out of the printer just a little while
ago," he said, indicating a complicated looking piece of equipment
further back in the store. "I put them into their packages a few
minutes ago. I purposely didn't look at them as they were coming out
of the machine. Care to share them with me?" he asked.
Phil thought of the pictures of Cathy. Not that they were
anything to be ashamed of, he just didn't want anyone to know he liked
her. "Uh," Phil began, "I'd rather not if you don't mind. Not this
time."
Mr. Jenson smiled and said, "I understand. Your first pictures
and you want to look at them yourself first. Don't blame you. I did
the same thing with my first camera too!" He rang up the sale and
placed the three envelopes of pictures into a yellow plastic bag with
the ShutterBug's logo on the side. He handed this to Phil and said,
"Hope they turned out alright."
Phil was relieved at not having to explain any further and said,
"Thanks again Mr. Jenson. I'll stop back and show you how they
turned out." Mr Jenson smiled at that, and Phil quickly made his way
out the door.
He raced home and went quickly inside. His mother was on the
phone and he heard her say, "Oh, wait a minute he just came home.
"Phil," she called to him, "it's Mr. Riley from school. He wants to
talk to you."
Surprised, Phil went into the living room and picked up the
telephone receiver from the table where his mother had placed it.
"Hello Mr. Riley," Phil said. "What can I do for you?"
"Phil," he heard Mr. Riley begin, "I wanted to let you know what
I found out about your camera." Mr. Riley continued as Phil took the
packages of pictures out of the bag and opened one.
"The name seemed familiar to me but I couldn't place it," Mr.
Riley continued. "I looked in the literature I have here and couldn't
find any reference to the Follis 138. After looking through
everything I had, I gave up and was going to call you to let you know.
Then this morning I was in the teachers lounge having a cup of coffee
when Mrs. Landry, the biology teacher, came in and sat down next to
me. She looked at the piece of paper I had written the name of your
camera on and began to laugh."
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