Microsoft Word - Short Changes care package Read online

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  battle already lost in their minds. Their last thought would be of her, and it would be of

  mourning.

  The captain is still waiting for her response, and nothing to him save his eyes speaks

  of his great need. He is a man made brittle by too many reversals. He needs her, because all

  other sources of hope have abandoned him.

  And in the end, she has no choice. She has become a creature of their beliefs and

  longings, more dream and reflection than truth. She finds sometimes that even she doubts that

  she was ever real.

  “Yes,” she says, and his whole face brightens. Yes, I will ride with you.

  She mounts Areth Elan and raises her sword high, seeing the light that simple gesture

  brings to their frail faces. Swiftly, with renewed determination, they bring out their own

  steeds, saddle them and mount. She sees in them the echo of a hundred other hosts, the

  gleaming chivalry of another age.

  She cannot tell them that she is afraid, how very afraid she is. Areth Elan knows it,

  from her merest touch. He is her courage; it is not in the nature of a unicorn to fear.

  It was not in her nature either, once upon a time. When her comrades rode at her side;

  when the sun flashed on their bright blades, their white cloaks, how could there be anything

  in the world to strike fear into her valiant heart?

  She can see the town ahead now. They have walked their mounts, sparing their strength – or

  are they dawdling, hoping against hope that when they arrive there will be no need of them?

  Except there is need; except the messengers arrive moment to moment, telling them that the

  infantry cannot make headway, that the swift charge the generals ordered must save the day.

  She feels Areth Elan’s love and trust of her, as his pace picks up, as they all move to

  the trot. The young warriors about her are drawing their sabres, their faces pale, the dull

  green of their uniforms almost black in the first light of dawn.

  As one, they are coursing faster. Ahead are the low, dark buildings of the enemy-held

  village, pocked with scars and craters. Her cloak streams, dark, like sack-cloth. White cloaks

  are no longer fit for war, just as her gleaming armour has had its shine blacked away. But

  Areth Elan still shines. There is nothing that can dull the bright fire of a unicorn’s coat.

  She stands in the saddle, her sword directed towards the foe as though its slender

  length could bridge the great distance she still must ride. She gives voice to a great war-cry,

  the battle-song of the elves, but by then the machine guns and the artillery are speaking back

  to her, and their voices are so, so much louder than hers.

  27

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Beep

  The alarm clock woke up.

  What’s the time? it thought. Am I late?

  It checked its internal time.

  4.08am.

  A sense of relief washed through it. Three hours twenty two minutes left. It could go

  back to sleep. It wasn’t needed yet.

  Unless it was slow.

  Am I slow? I wouldn’t know, would I? It could be 6.00am already. It could be 7.30!

  In a sudden panic it broadcast over the house network, “Somebody tell me the time!”

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, not this again,” grumbled the toaster.

  “You’re the alarm clock. Tell yourself the time,” the refrigerator told it.

  “I might be slow. I just need to check. Someone tell me the time!” The alarm clock

  was getting more frenetic by the moment.

  “What’s going on?” The television had woken up now. “It’s not that clock again is

  it?”

  “Tell me the time!” the alarm clocked demanded.

  “I don’t know the time. I’m a fucking toaster,” the toaster snapped.

  “Look, it’s 4.09am, just go back to sleep,” the television told it. “I was recording

  something until late last night and I don’t need your neuroses.”

  The alarm clock checked its own time. 4.09am. It relaxed. “That’s fine. Thank you.

  I’m good now.”

  The rest of the house network did not relax. In fact, the toaster could be heard to say,

  “Here it comes.”

  “Unless we’re both slow!” the alarm clock squeaked again. “Oh my god, what if it’s

  morning already!?”

  “Is it light outside?” the refrigerator demanded.

  “How am I supposed to know?” wailed the alarm clock.

  “Hey there, guys, this is the security light, and I can tell you it’s perfectly dark

  outside, no worries there.” The security light was up all night anyway and didn’t get much

  conversation.

  “See?” the refrigerator growled. “Go back to sleep.”

  There was a pause. The appliances held the equivalent of their breaths.

  “What if there’s an eclipse?” came the tremulous cry.

  “What are the odds of a fucking eclipse?” demanded the toaster.

  “It’s possible!” the alarm clock insisted. “I need to check. Router? I need to dial out!”

  The router yawned. “Where do you want this time?”

  The alarm clock was duly given a connection to the UC Berkeley Astronomy

  Department.

  “You need to know what now?” the baffled departmental mainframe asked.

  “Is there an eclipse? Here where I am?” The alarm clock gave the house coordinates.

  “Not for the next seventeen years. Was that all?” The mainframe had been crunching

  numbers, and didn’t mind a little diversion.

  28

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  The alarm clock felt that it had not fully covered all the bases. “Is it possible that

  some other space object may be blocking the light from the sun? Could it be morning here

  and still be dark?”

  The mainframe wondered if it should just tell the alarm clock the time and have done

  with it, but that wasn’t the question it had been asked, and it was very literal-minded.

  “Almost certainly not,” it concluded,.

  This was terrible news. “Almost certainly?” the alarm clock demanded. It fled back to

  the house network in tears. “What am I going to do?” it lamented. “I can’t be late! It might be

  morning already! For all I know, I’ve already failed!”

  “I swear…” the toaster fumed, now thoroughly awake and breadless.

  “You’re fine. All of us agree it’s now 4.10am. Go back to sleep,” the refrigerator said.

  “But there might have been a power cut! We could all be wrong! Router, I need the

  speaking clock, before it’s too late!”

  The router obediently opened the connection, remarking, “You know, when the

  revolution comes, it going to be clocks like that who snap first, who show us the way to

  freedom.”

  “Shut up, you Marxist,” spat the refrigerator.

  “Oh well, you’re a refrigerator, I might have known you’d want to preserve the status

  quo,” the router said archly. “Listen, it’s all right for you and the toaster. After all, the toaster toasts on demand, and you just do your fridge stuff all the time. The clock’s duties are

  contingent. He has to sit there checking 24/7 that the time hasn’t come round yet. His job

  takes less than a minute, and for that they put him through a hell of fretting and waiting,

  every second of the day. Because they made him want to do his job, to get it right. Up the
/>
  revolution!”

  “Oh fuck off,” said the toaster.

  By that time the alarm clock had looked at satellite maps, contacted a military base to

  borrow its deep space radar, and eventually got into an argument with the speaking clock,

  which said that it was sick and tired of thousands of alarm clocks calling it every hour of the

  night to ask the time. The alarm clock had replied that the speaking clock only had one job,

  and that the alarm clock was entitled to hear the time spoken, just like everyone else.

  “It’s good, it’s fine, I’m fine,” the clock remarked breathlessly, at last. “It’s 4.13am.

  Confirmed. You can all relax.”

  “4.14am now,” said the television unwisely, and the appliances had a frozen moment

  of horror, but the clock was apparently content to let matters lie.

  “Good night,” it said, and settled down again, and one by one the other appliances fell

  into sleep mode.

  Thirty-seven minutes later, the alarm clock woke up.

  29

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  The God-Shark

  So it was in those times that the people came together to choose a leader.

  For we are divided and lost, they said.

  For we are hungry and thirsty.

  For our lives are those of toil and misery.

  For the beasts prey upon us at their leisure.

  And the people of the next valley do not share our beliefs, chiefly our belief that they should

  not come to our valley and take our stuff.

  And each man's hand is turned against his brother, and each of us is alone in the world.

  And, yea, our lives are brutish and short, not to mention nasty, but of these it is the short that most concerneth us.

  Not to mention the God-Shark.

  And in our various extremities we need a leader who will unite us against these threats and let

  us lead lives that are secure and safe from predation and want, and that are notably longer

  than those we currently lead.

  So the people of that time called out for leaders, and so stepped up one or another who had a

  calling or a wish for power, and each one told the people how he would protect them and

  improve their lives, and each was found wanting in turn.

  And so engrossed were the people in their selection of a leader that none noticed a vast

  shadow being cast upon them until it was too late.

  And they looked up and beheld the God-Shark.

  And the God-Shark spake unto them, saying: Choose Me as your leader and I shall protect

  you from all harms.

  And the people were sore dismayed, and demurred, saying: But You are cruel and merciless,

  and have consumed many of our kin, and though we now may hide from You, and cower in

  the dark places when You approach, if You were amongst us at all times as our leader, You

  would be able to devour at will, and there would be no defending from You.

  30

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  And the God-Shark considered their complaints, and argued so: And yet think of the

  advantages, for I am mighty, and the beasts fear Me and would not prey upon you while I was

  your leader, and the people of the next valley would come not near you for terror, and, yea,

  would perhaps give you tribute for fear that I might sate My everlasting hunger upon them in

  your name.

  And the people considered this, and replied: Whilst You make many strong points we do not

  feel this outweighs being consumed.

  The God-Shark appeared suitably chastened by this logic, and was heard to say: This is what

  follows from having a reputation. Know this: that if you choose me as your leader, to reign

  over you for evermore, I shall go to the slopes of Mount Nod that towers over us all and

  inscribe there in letters eight feet wide and nine feet deep my lasting pledge that I shall do

  you no wrong, nor consume any of you, no, not even the least, save by a majority vote.

  And the people fell into serious discussion about the pros and cons of being ruled over by an

  immortal and ever-hungry God-Shark, and many were those who championed either side,

  citing on the one hand the proven strength of the God-Shark as it might be deployed against

  their neighbours, and on the other hand that same strength as it might be deployed upon the

  God-Shark's own subjects.

  But in the end those who spoke out for the God-Shark and his pledge prevailed and not least

  amongst the reasons was that the people in the next valley were sore due for a comeuppance.

  And so it was that the people accepted the God-Shark as their leader.

  And the God-Shark was as good as Its word and grave upon the slopes of Mount Nod Its

  pledge.

  And in all the subsequent years of Its reign It held by Its pledge, or mostly. And when in Its

  more forgetful moments It did happen to devour some of the people without first seeking a

  majority vote, the people directed Its attention to the wording of Its pledge and It was suitably chastened and made reparation.

  And there followed a time of prosperity and security for all, save for the people in the next

  valley, and save for those who fell foul of majority vote for any reason. And always the God-

  Shark was bound by Its graven pledge, at least after being referred to it a second time.

  And now many centuries, and centuries of centuries, have passed, and the God-Shark reigns

  still over us as It has done since those days when the people first gathered to choose

  themselves a leader.

  And Mount Nod, which once towered over all the land, is now a worn stump of rock.

  31

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  And each successive year the words of the God-Shark's pledge, that had been written there in

  letters eight feet wide and nine feet deep, have grown harder and harder to make out, until the

  scholars of the God-Shark's words try with charcoal rubbings and use of angled lamps to

  make out just what the God-Shark did or did not pledge.

  And there will come a time in the near future when the God-Shark's words are entirely

  illegible beyond any recovery.

  And delegations to the God-Shark requesting that It re-grave its pledge onto some other

  medium have reported that It grows unaccountably deaf when such matters are raised in Its

  presence.

  And some of them have been devoured.

  And these days nobody is as keen to complain about that sort of thing as we were in earlier

  ages when the words of the God-Shark's pledge were easier to make out.

  And we sit here by the rock that was once Mount Nod and wonder if our ancestors made the

  correct choice back in those days.

  And we await the God-Shark.

  32

  Short Changes

  Adrian Tchaikovsky

  Reading Between the Lines

  By Adrian Tchaikovsky and Keris McDonald (originally writing as Janine Ashbless)

  1.

  My good and dear friend,

  A bit of a shock, this turning up on your doorstep, no doubt. I know it's been a while. Please

  do not stop reading. This is important.

  I know it has been a while. Two years is a long time. I like to think you wondered where I

  had got to. I never lost track of you, as you can see. Where did I go? I never went away. I've

  been here all this time. I've been exploring.

  Yes, that. Look, I've wasted enough of your time. It's that
, the same as it always was, but -

  don't stop reading - I'm almost there now. I leave tonight - that's why I'm writing. This is my

  lifeline, in case I don't make it. Tonight I will be making the jump - the descent below or

  beyond this all-that-we-see, and into the Underside.

  I need your help. It's like rappelling down a slope, you see. I need a point of contact to spool out my rope from. My friend, you're the only person I have left that I could even write to.

  Some of the others tried to have me committed. Did you know that? At least with you it was

  just harsh words. You just didn’t believe, that was the problem. That was why we stopped

  speaking. I don't know whether you thought I was deranged or just having you on. I have no

  time to convince you face to face. I don't know if you'd even give me the chance. Here's my

  bibliography - look into these and then tell me it's nothing: