DAW 30th Anniversary Science Fiction Part 13

"Oh, they are, Khiri. It is difficult to imagine, but they are."

Khiri was dismayed. Even though Vhid had told him much of what was said in the meeting, he understood very little at all.

Maybe there was nothing wrong with being a Master Former. Certainly, it was an honorable thing to be. Not everyone could hope to be a Planner. Why should he try to be something he was not?

While Khiri walked back across the plain with Vhid, two of the giant Sacar came out of the s.h.i.+p. Behind them came a train of the two-legs. They were gaunt and pitiful creatures. Some wore rags of cloth. Some wore nothing at all. Each of the two-legs carried a box upon its shoulders. The boxes were clearly heavy, and, as Khiri watched, one of the creatures staggered and fell.

The box dropped to the ground. The Sacar became very angry. They yelled in their mud-tongue, and beat the two-legs until it lay still. Then they made another of the beings pick up the box and move along.

"Why do they do that?" Khiri wanted to know. "The Sacar have devices that could carry much more. Using the two-legs is not the best way to get things from one place to the next."

"The Sacar use the creatures in this manner because they like to," Vhid said."Because it shows they are stronger than the two-legs."

Khiri was puzzled. "Everyone knows the Sacar are stronger. If they were not, they would not have conquered this world. We would not be building a Pattern here."

"You are thinking like a S'ai, Khiri. This is why I took you to the meeting, so you would begin to see the things a Planner must understand. The S'ai fight among themselves, for only the best among us must survive.

"We show we are strong, but only to better the S'ai. The Sacar show their strength, because they imagine one day they could find some creature that is stronger than themselves. This has never happened, but it is something they will always fear. Do you understand what I say?"

"I must tell you I do not," Khiri said. "Perhaps I will never be a Planner, Master Vhid."

"You will. But you are not a Planner now."

14.

He could not stop thinking about the great stars.h.i.+p on the plain- about the strange worlds where the stars.h.i.+p had been. He wondered what these worlds were like, and how many he himself might see.

More than anything, though, he thought about the two-legs. He could not forget how the Saear had beaten it until it was around into the dirt. Could Vhid be right in what he said? How could a fearsome creature like the Sacar be afraid of anything at all?

As work neared completion, he spent more and more time with Vhid. To Khiri's great relief, the Master Planner did not take him to any more meetings with the Sacar and the Dri. Instead, he set to work teaching Khiri a great many things he had no desire to learn. He learned about the scratches, marks, and see-things the Sacar and the Dri used to remember what they said. He tried to understand the noises they made with their faces when they spoke. He knew, now-though it was almost impossible to believe-that noises were the only way they could communicate at all.

"You will learn," Vhid told him more than once. "It simply takes time. You cannot understand other beings simply because you know what they are saying.

That, I must tell you, is the easiest part. What they menu is something else.

"The Sacar do not like the Dn, and the Dri do not like them. One is stronger.

One knows how to build machines. The S'ai do neither of these. Yet, we do something the others cannot. The S'ai can make a Pattern. That is why they need us. And that is why, young Khiri, they fear us and hate us more than they fear and hate each other, or any of the other creatures among the stars."

Vhid paused to let Khiri consider this. "Now you see why it is vital to learn their ways. Why it is so important to become a good Planner. It is the highest calling among the S'ai, the greatest thing you can ever hope to do. . . ."15 In the days that followed, he had many talks with Vhid. One of the things a Planner had to do was learn to think like the Sacar and the Dri. Of course, this was impossible to do, but a Planner had to try.

The most dreadful, appalling thing he learned was how the Sacar and the Dri looked upon the S'ai. Each in their way, scorned the S'ai, and laughed at their manner and appearance. Each, in the tongue they used to speak to one another, called them The Grubbers, a name they had for ugly creatures that scurried about beneath the ground.

"They have no right to demean us like that," Khiri said, outraged at Vhid's words. "If we stopped building their Patterns, they would regret this att.i.tude.

They would value what the S'ai do then!"

For a moment, Vhid said nothing at all. Instead, he looked up into the dark night sky.

"As you know, Khiri, the S'ai have a world of their own. Though you have never seen it, you have been given the pictures in your head."

Yes, Vhid, 1 have."

"And you know what a stars.h.i.+p can do to a world. You are aware of that as well."

"They would never do that. They cannot build a Pattern without the S'ai."

"This is so. And this is why the S'ai are free, and yet not free at all. The Sacar are a savage, thoughtless race. If they had their way, they would treat us no better than they do the creatures here.

"The Dri, though, are cunning and wise. They do not know us well-they can never be certain what these grubber things might do if we were faced with a terrible choice some day.

"And that is what a Planner is for, Khiri. Now you understand what I am-and what you, too, must be."

16.

When the task was done, when there was nothing more to do, he stood with the others in the night and looked at the Pattern against the sky. Its perfection laced the stars from one horizon to the next. It bound this world in its delicate web of power. It sang a song that only the S'ai could ever hear. It glowed with a color that only the S'ai could see.

In the morning, the stars.h.i.+p would rise above the plain and give itself to the Pattern. For a moment that never was, a time that could never be, it would touch the pale breath of forever. Then, it would wink along the Patterns of a thousand other worlds, trailing a wisp of nowhere in its wake.

Khiri wondered where this journey would take him, and what he might see.

He knew, only, there would be another world, and another Pattern to build.

He thought about the two-legs, huddled in fear in their rocky hollows above the plain. For a moment, he imagined he could hear them, see the faint whisper of their minds. It was scarcely a sound, scarcely an image at all, for thetwo-legs were not the S'ai. They could never know the Pattern, never know the beauty he could see, for they were as blind to that great wonder as the Sacar and the Dri. . . .

C. J. Cherryh.

In 1975, something rather incredible happened at DAW Books. My father received two unsolicited ma.n.u.scripts from an unpublished writer whom he knew, almost at once, was destined to become one of the great voices in science fiction. The writer was a young Oklahoma teacher of cla.s.sics, and her name was Carolyn Janice Cherry.

Carolyn Janice Cherry.

In 1975, science fiction was still a male-dominated genre. Would a boy buy a science fiction book by a writer with such a feminine name? Would a man, for that matter? This young writer's name was really more suited to an author of romances (perish the thought!] Even the veteran author Alice Norton had had to use the androgynous pen name Andre throughout her career. But how would Ms. Cherry react if a publisher called her from out of the blue and said, "We like your books, but your name-it just won't work!" Don thought it over. What if, rather than asking her to completely change her name, he just proposed a slight alteration. Many female authors had dropped their given names in favor of their initials, so proposing that the author use C. J. rather than Carolyn, would be obvious. But what about Cherry? It was really a very nice name, bringing to mind not only images of sweet fruit, but of lovely blossoms as well, but it just wouldn't sell in SF-no way. What if one were to put a silent 'h' on the end, making it Cherryh? C.J. Cherryh-it would still be p.r.o.nounced the same way, was still essentially the same name-her name-but now it looked rather exotic, almost alien. How perfect!

Luckily, Carolyn liked the idea.

And so C. J. Cherryh was born. . . .

And she went on to become, just as Don had predicted, one of the greatest voices our field has ever heard. An author with more than fifty books to her credit, who has won three Hugo Awards (so far], and been the inspiration for numerous hard science fiction writers of both genders. Her vision of the far future, of life in s.p.a.ce, her depiction of humans living among alien races is unparalleled because it is so real.

When I read her books, I can truly believe that's how it could be.

Her fans call her C.J., her family calls her Janice, but to me she'll always be Carolyn.

-BW.

THE SANDMAN, THE TINMAN, AND THE BETTYB.

C. J. Cherryh.

CRAZYCHARLIE: Got your message, Unicorn. Meet for lunch?DUTCHMAN: Charlie, what year?

CRAZYCHARLIE: Not you, Dutchman. Talking to the pretty lady.

T_REX: Unicorn's not a lady.

CRAZYCHARLIE: Shut up. Pay no attention to them, Unicorn. They're all jealous.

T_REX: Unicorn's not answering. Must be alseep.

CRAZYCHARLIE: Beauty sleep.

UNICORN: Just watching you guys. Having lunch.

LOVER18: What's for lunch, pretty baby?

UNICORN: Chocolate. Loads of chocolate.

T_REX: Don't do that to us. You haven't got chocolate.

UNICORN: I'm eating it now. Dark chocolate. Mmmm.

T_REX: Cruel.

CRAZYCHARLIE: Told you she'd show for lunch. Fudge icing, Unicorn . . .

CRAZYCHARLIE: . . . With ice cream.

DUTCHMAN: I remember ice cream.

T_REX: Chocolate ice cream.

FROGPRINCE: Stuff like they've got on B-dock. There's this little shop . . .

T_REX: With poofy white stuff.

DUTCHMAN: Strawberry ice cream.

FROGPRINCE: . . . that serves five different flavors.

CRAZYCHARLIE: Unicorn in chocolate syrup.

UNICORN: You wish.

HAWK29: With poofy white stuff.

UNICORN: Shut up, you guys.

LOVER18: Yeah, shut up, you guys. Unicorn and I are going to go off somewhere.

CRAZYCHARLIE: In a thousand years, guy.

Ping. Ping-ping. Ping.

Sandwich was done. Sandman snagged it out of the cooker, everted the bag, and put it in for a clean. Tuna san and a coffee fizz, ersatz. He couldn't afford the true stuff, which, by the time the freight ran clear out here, ran a guy clean out of profit- which Sandman still hoped to make but it wasn't the be-all and end-all. Being out here was.

He had a name. It was on the records of his little two-man op, which was down to one, since Alfie'd had enough and gone in for food. Which was the first time little BettyB had ever made a profit. No mining. Just running the buoy. Took a d.a.m.n long time running in, a d.a.m.n long time running out, alternate with Penny-Girl. Which was how the unmanned buoys that told everybody in the solar system where they were kept themselves going. Dozens of buoys, dozens of little tenders making lonely runs out and back, endless cycle. The buoy was a robot.

For all practical purposes BettyB was a robot, too, but the tenders needed a human eye, a human brain, and Sandman was that. Half a year running out and back, half a year in the robot-tended, drop-a-credit pleasures of Beta Station, half the guys promising themselvesthey'd quit the job in a couple more runs, occasionally somebody doing the deed and going in.

But most didn't. Most grew old doing it. Sandman wasn't old yet, but he wasn't young.

He'd done all there was to do at Beta, and did his favorites and didn't think about going in permanently, because when he was going in and had Beta in BettyB's sights, he'd always swear he was going to stay, and by the time six months rolled around and he'd seen every vid and drunk himself stupid and broke, h.e.l.l, he was ready to go back to the solitude and the quiet.

He was up on three months now, two days out from Buoy 17, and the sound of a human voice-his own-had gotten odder and more welcome to him. He'd memorized all the verses to Matty Groves and sang them to himself at odd moments. He was working on St. Mark and the complete works of Jeffrey Farnol. He'd downloaded Tennyson and Kipling and decided to learn French on the return trip-not that any of the Outsiders ever did a d.a.m.n thing with what they learned and he didn't know why French and not Italian, except he thought his last name, Ives, was French, and that was reason enough in a s.p.a.cescape void of reasons and a s.p.a.cetime hours remote from actual civilization.

He settled in with his sandwich and his coffee fizz and watched the screen go.

He lurked, today. He usually lurked. The cyber-voices came and went. He hadn't heard a thing from BigAl or Tinman, who'd been in the local neighborhood the last several years. He'd asked around, but n.o.body knew, and n.o.body'd seen them at Beta. Which was depressing. He supposed BigAl might have gone off to another route. He'd been a hauler, and sometimes they got switched without notice, but there'd been nothing on the boards. Tinman might've changed handles. He was a spooky sort, and some guys did, or had three or four. He wasn't sure Tinman was sane-some weren't, that plied the system fringes. And some ran afoul of the law, and weren't anxious to be tracked. Debts, maybe. You could get new ID on Beta, if you knew where to look, and the old hands knew better than the young ones, who sometimes fell into bodacious difficulties. Station hounds had broken up a big ring a few months back, forging bank creds as well as ID-just never trust an operation without bald old guys in it, that was what Sandman said, and the Lenny Wick ring hadn't, just all young blood and big promises.

Which meant coffee fizz was now pricey and scarce, since the Lenny Wick bunch had padded the imports and siphoned off the credits, which was how they got caught.

Sandman took personal exception to that situation: anything that got between an Outsider and his caffeine ought to get the long, cold walk in the big dark, so far as that went. So Lenny Wick hadn't got a bit of sympathy, but meanwhile Sandman wasn't too surprised if a few handles out in the deep dark changed for good and all.

Nasty trick, though, if Tinman was Unicorn. No notion why anybody ever a.s.sumed Unicorn was a she. They just always had.

FROGPRINCE: So what are you doing today, Sandman? I see you . . .