He laughs as if this is the wittiest thing in the world, and spins around, arms and fists pumping in beat with the music.
But I am burning already. The thought of Ali is a fire in my mind and a searing pain in my flesh, an unquenchable flame, even though I know all my feelings for her are wrong. Still, I will go do my duty tomorrow, and marry rather than burn.
The next morning, I arise with the other bachelors before dawn. Many have hangovers, and some are too sick to marry this time. Their absences are noted by the priest"s a.s.sistant in his white jacket as we board the bus. Those who have not made it are roundly mocked by even the sickest of those aboard. The other men are hugging, wishing each other well, but I hold myself apart. There are only a dozen of us, so it is easy to take a seat away from the others.
My stomach is queasy as we head for the Temple of the Waters, and not just from last night"s drinking. Our route takes us along the edge of the women"s quarter and none of us are wearing veils. I slouch in my seat. Several of the men pull their robes up over their noses; others put their hands on their heads, or pretend to rub their faces. The priest"s a.s.sistant, who misses nothing, points this out to them and they all laugh. But I can only think that perhaps Ali is sitting in another bus without her veil on either; and I wonder if her mouth is as round and full as her eyes, if the arch of her lips matches that of her brow, if the curve of her neck is as graceful as the bridge of her nose.
Would I even recognize her? I do not know.
The Temple of the Waters sits at the center of the Government Quarter, across from the Palace of Congress. It is an oasis of green and blue marble in a desert and steel and concrete and sandstone. The giant telescreens that surround it show images of the ocean, the surge of waves in calm weather, but they remind me of the storm-tossed gray of Ali"s eyes and I breathe faster.
As we"re climbing off the bus, the priest"s a.s.sistant steps in front of me and grips me by the shoulder. Instantly, I know that he saw how I stayed apart, he knows that I am different from the others.
But he only says, "Why don"t you smile? this is going to be a good thing- think of the pride you"ll feel!"
I force myself to smile and pull away from him to follow the others. We strip in the anteroom. A few of the men are as young as I am, but they range in age up to a solemn gray-haired old man who goes about his preparations with all the grim seriousness of a surgeon in a touchy operation. The room is as hot as a sauna and several men grow visibly excited. One man, a boy almost, younger than me, can"t help himself and spills his seed there on the floor. The others chastise him until he starts to cry, but the priest enters through a second door and all falls silent.
Noticing the mess, he says "Don"t worry, I"m sure there"s more where that came from. "
Everyone laughs and the boy rubs his tears from his cheeks, and grins, and everyone is at ease again; everyone but me.
The priest asks how many of us have married before, and most of the men raise their hands.
"Yours is a sacred trust," the priest tells us. "there are two kinds of people in the world, those to whom society is given, and those who have the sacred duty to give to society, to perpetuate it. You have been called to that latter. It is a holy trust, a gift from our heavenly father, who spilled his seed in the primal ocean and brought forth all the manner of life. "
This is the standard speech, words, except for the calling, that we"ve heard all our lives. It is meant to be calming, we were taught, but I feel a rising surge of panic.
"Earlier this morning," the priest continues, "the women entrusted with their half of this sacred duty came down from their quarter. They entered the main chamber of the temple a short while ago, and even now immerse themselves in the pool. In just a moment it will be your turn to enter. Look to the older men who have been here before and do what comes naturally to you. "
Some nervous laughter follows this.
The priest looks at the boy who spilled himself, who is already excited again, and says "Hold on to that a little longer, friend. "
Now a madness is upon me; this fire burning within me is h.e.l.l itself. I look at the doors, seeking a way to extinguish the flame of my desire.
The priest checks the door. "Hurry now, it is time," he says, and the men press forward, somehow scooping me up so that I, the most reluctant of them, am at the head of the phalanx.
The doors swing open.
One group of acolytes stand there with towels as we enter, while a second set waits to collect the results of our labor. A door identical to ours, but opposite, clicks shut as the last of the women leave. A womb-shaped pool of bodywarm water fills the center of the circular room. The women have e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed their eggs into it already-however they do that, I do not know. But they float in a few tiny gellatinous clumps on the surface.
"Hurry now," the priest in the white coat says. "Timing is important. "
An acolyte reaches out his white gloved hand to help me down the steps and into the pool. The other bachelors crowd the water"s edge.
There are two kinds of people in the world: h.o.m.os.e.xuals and hydros.e.xuals. But I am neither.
I lunge across the room, dodging the outstretched hands and shocked eyes of the panicked acolytes. My hand falls on the latch of the door into the women"s anteroom. I will run through there searching for Ali, and if I don"t find her, out into the streets, and through the women"s quarter until I do. Ai! Ali, my all, my everything, the eye of the only hurricane whose deluge can drown the unnamed flame of sin that burns within me.
From h.o.m.ogenous To Honey.
by Neil Gaiman & Bryan Talbot.
Neil Gaiman"s most recent novel, the international bestseller The Graveyard Book, won the prestigious Newbery Medal, given to great works of children"s literature. Other novels include American G.o.ds, Coraline, Neverwhere, and Anansi Boys, among many others. In addition to his novel-writing, Gaiman is also the writer of the popular Sandman comic book series. Most of Gaiman"s short work has been collected in the volumes Smoke and Mirrors, Fragile Things, and M is for Magic. His latest book is a hardcover edition of his poem, Instructions, ill.u.s.trated by Charles Vess.
Bryan Talbot is a comics writer and artist. He is the creator of the comic The Adventures of Luther Arkwright, and he"s worked as an artist on books such as h.e.l.lblazer, Sandman, Fables, and Batman. Other writing credits include the graphic novels Alice in Sunderland and Grandville.
Our next piece isn"t just words on a page-it"s a sequential art story, the short fiction love child of a comic strip and a graphic novel. It originally appeared in 1988, in the comic anthology A. A. R. G. H. , edited by Alan Moore, and was recently reprinted in the GLBT anthology, The Future is Queer edited by Richard Labonte and Lawrence Schimel. the story is a response to a piece British legislation that had a decidedly anti-h.o.m.os.e.xual flavor.
This story uses scathing sarcasm to present a future without h.o.m.os.e.xual influences. No art, no plays, no books, no cultural referents to anything gay, lesbian, transs.e.xual or remotely queer. For the story"s masked narrator, it"s a perfect world. But the images behind him suggest something a little darker.
The narrator of this piece speaks through a mobile white mask with very abstracted features, strikingly reminiscent of a Guy Fawkes mask. It"s interesting to note that at the time, V for Vendetta, a 1980s British comics series featuring a character who wears a Guy Fawkes mask (and written by Alan Moore, the first editor of this piece) was very popular.
Different motivations, different details-but Moore"s character, Gaiman"s narrator, and Guy Fawkes were all men perfectly willing to destroy the world for their own black purposes.
Amaryllis.
by Carrie Vaughn.
Carrie Vaughn is the bestselling author of the Kitty Norville series, which started with Kitty and the Midnight Hour. Her latest books are Kitty Goes to War; a young adult novel, Voices of Dragons; and a stand-alone fantasy novel, Discord"s Apple. Her short work has appeared many times in Realms of Fantasy and in a number of anthologies, such as By Blood We Live; The Mammoth Book of Paranormal Romance; Fast Ships, Black Sails; and Warriors. She has a story forthcoming in my anthology The Mad Scientist"s Guide to World Domination, and this story first appeared in my online science fiction magazine, Lightspeed.
"Amaryllis" gives us a world that, compared to some dystopias, feels downright wholesome. No one is tortured; no one lives under scrutiny; no one is executed. But the characters are caught in a society that has taken away their reproductive control. For most of us, that"s a pretty basic human right.
But there"s a good reason to take family size out of individual control, with the world"s population spinning out of control. As the author says: "in the industrialized world at least, a financially successful family or individual can stay pretty isolated from their community, if they so choose. But if there"s ever a cataclysmic loss of resources, that could change. " And in the future Carrie Vaughn spins, a desperate community must contain its population-or die.
Our next story"s debatable dystopic quotient aside, this story explores the idea that while one never sets out to create a dystopia, in order for a society to survive, sometimes it is necessary to become one.
I never knew my mother, and I never understood why she did what she did. I ought to be grateful that she was crazy enough to cut out her implant so she could get pregnant. But it also meant she was crazy enough to hide the pregnancy until termination wasn"t an option, knowing the whole time that she"d never get to keep the baby. That she"d lose everything. That her household would lose everything because of her.
I never understood how she couldn"t care. I wondered what her family thought when they learned what she"d done, when their committee split up the household, scattered them-broke them, because of her. Did she think I was worth it?
It was all about quotas.
"They"re using cages up north, I heard. Off sh.o.r.e, anch.o.r.ed," Nina said. "Fifty feet across-twice as much protein grown with half the resources, and we"d never have to touch the wild population again. We could double our quota. "
I hadn"t really been listening to her. We were resting, just for a moment; she sat with me on the railing at the prow of Amaryllis and talked about her big plans.
Wind pulled the sails taut and the fibergla.s.s hull cut through waves without a sound, we sailed so smooth. Garrett and Sun hauled up the nets behind us, dragging in the catch. Amaryllis was elegant, a 30-foot sleek vessel with just enough cabin and cargo s.p.a.ce-an antique but more than seaworthy. She was a good boat, with a good crew. The best.
"Marie-" Nina said, pleading.
I sighed and woke up. "We"ve been over this. We can"t just double our quota. "
"But if we got authorization-"
"Don"t you think we"re doing all right as it is?" We had a good crew-we were well fed and not exceeding our quotas; I thought we"d be best off not s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g all that up. Not making waves, so to speak.
Nina"s big brown eyes filled with tears-I"d said the wrong thing, because I knew what she was really after, and the status quo wasn"t it.
"That"s just it," she said. "We"ve met our quotas and kept everyone healthy for years now. I really think we should try. We can at least ask, can"t we?"
The truth was: No, I wasn"t sure we deserved it. I wasn"t sure that kind of responsibility would be worth it. I didn"t want the prestige. Nina didn"t even want the prestige-she just wanted the baby.
"It"s out of our hands at any rate," I said, looking away because I couldn"t bear the intensity of her expression.
Pushing herself off the rail, Nina stomped down Amaryllis" port side to join the rest of the crew hauling in the catch. She wasn"t old enough to want a baby. She was lithe, fit, and golden, running barefoot on the deck, sun-bleached streaks gleaming in her brown hair. Actually, no, she was old enough. She"d been with the house for seven years-she was twenty, now. It hadn"t seemed so long.
"Whoa!" Sun called. There was a splash and a thud as something in the net kicked against the hull. He leaned over the side, the muscles along his broad, coppery back flexing as he clung to a net that was about to slide back into the water. Nina, pet.i.te next to his strong frame, reached with him. I ran down and grabbed them by the waistbands of their trousers to hold them steady. The fourth of our crew, Garrett, latched a boat hook into the net. Together we hauled the catch onto the deck. We"d caught something big, heavy, and full of powerful muscles.
We had a couple of aggregators-large buoys made of sc.r.a.p steel and wood- anch.o.r.ed fifty miles or so off the coast. Schooling fish were attracted to the aggregators, and we found the fish-mainly mackerel, sardines, sablefish, and whiting. An occasional shark or marlin found its way into the nets, but those we let go; they were rare and outside our quotas. That was what I expected to see-something unusually large thrashing among the slick silvery ma.s.s of smaller fish. This thing was large, yes, as big as Nina-no wonder it had almost pulled them over-but it wasn"t the right shape. Sleek and streamlined, a powerful swimmer. Silvery like the rest of the catch.
"What is it?" Nina asked.
"Tuna," I said, by process of elimination. I had never seen one in my life. "Bluefin, I think. "
"No one"s caught a bluefin in thirty years," Garrett said. Sweat was dripping onto his face despite the bandanna tying back his s.h.a.ggy dark hair.
I was entranced, looking at all that protein. I pressed my hand to the fish"s flank, feeling its muscles twitch. "Maybe they"re back. "
We"d been catching the tuna"s food all along, after all. In the old days the aggregators attracted as many tuna as mackerel. But no one had seen one in so long, everyone a.s.sumed they were gone.
"Let"s put him back," I said, and the others helped me lift the net to the side. It took all of us, and when we finally got the tuna to slide overboard, we lost half the net"s catch with it, a wave of silvery scales glittering as they hit the water. But that was okay: Better to be under quota than over.
The tuna splashed its tail and raced away. We packed up the rest of the catch and set sails for home.
The Californian crew got their banner last season, and flew its red and green- power and fertility-from the top of the boat"s mast for all to see. Elsie of the Californian was due to give birth in a matter of weeks. As soon as her pregnancy was confirmed, she stopped sailing and stayed in the household, sheltered and treasured. Loose hands resting atop mountainous belly, she would sometimes come out to greet her household"s boat as it arrived. Nina would stare at her. Elsie might have been the first pregnant woman Nina had seen, as least since surviving p.u.b.erty and developing thoughts of carrying a mountainous belly of her own.
Elsie was there now, an icon cast in bronze before the setting sun, her body canted slightly against the weight in her belly, like a ship leaning away from the wind.
We furled the sails and rowed to the pier beside the scale house. Nina hung over the prow, looking at Elsie, who was waving at Californian"s captain, on the deck of the boat. Solid and dashing, everything a captain ought to be, he waved back at her. Their boat was already secured in its home slip, their catch weighed, everything tidy. Nina sighed at the image of a perfect life, and n.o.body yelled at her for not helping. Best thing to do in a case like this was let her dream until she grew out of it. Might take decades, but still. . .
My Amaryllis crew handed crates off to the dockhand, who shifted our catch to the scale house. Beyond that were the processing houses, where onsh.o.r.e crews smoked, canned, and shipped the fish inland. The New Oceanside community provided sixty percent of the protein for the whole region, which was our mark of pride, our reason for existing. Within the community itself, the ten sailing crews were proudest of all. A fishing crew that did its job well and met its quotas kept the whole system running smoothly. I was lucky to even have the Amaryllis and be a part of it.
I climbed up to the dock with my folk after securing the boat, and saw that Anders was the scalemaster on duty. The week"s trip might as well have been for nothing, then.
Thirty-five years ago, my mother ripped out her implant and broke up her household. Might as well have been yesterday to a man like Anders.
The old man took a nail-biting forty minutes to weigh our catch and add up our numbers, at which point he announced, "You"re fifty pounds over quota. "
Quotas were the only way to keep the stock healthy, to prevent overfishing, shortages, and ultimately starvation. The committee based quotas on how much you needed, not how much you could catch. To exceed that-to pretend you needed more than other people-showed so much disrespect to the committee, the community, to the fishing stock.
My knees weak, I almost sat down. I"d gotten it exactly right, I knew I had. I glared at him. Garrett and Sun, a pair of brawny sailors helpless before the scalemaster in his dull gray tunic of authority, glared at him. Some days felt like nothing I did would ever be enough. I"d always be too far one way or the other over the line of "just right. " Most days, I"d accept the scalemaster"s judgment and walk away, but today, after setting loose the tuna and a dozen pounds of legitimate catch with it, it was too much.
"You"re joking," I said. "Fifty pounds?"
"Really," Anders said, marking the penalty on the chalkboard behind him where all the crews could see it. "You ought to know better, an experienced captain like you. "
He wouldn"t even look at me. Couldn"t look me in the eye while telling me I was trash.
"What do you want me to do, throw the surplus overboard? We can eat those fifty pounds. The livestock can eat those fifty pounds. "
"It"ll get eaten, don"t worry. But it"s on your record. " then he marked it on his clipboard, as if he thought we"d come along and alter the public record.
"Might as well not sail out at all next week, eh?" I said.
The scalemaster frowned and turned away. A fifty pound surplus-if it even existed-would go to make up another crew"s shortfall, and next week our catch would be needed just as much as it had been this week, however little some folk wanted to admit it. We could get our quota raised like Nina wanted, and we wouldn"t have to worry about surpluses at all. No, then we"d worry about shortfalls, and not earning credits to feed the mouths we had, much less the extra one Nina wanted.
Surpluses must be penalized, or everyone would go fishing for surpluses and having spare babies, and then where would we be? Too many mouths, not enough food, no resiliency to survive disaster, and all the disease and starvation that followed. I"d seen the pictures in the archives, of what happened after the big fall.
Just enough and no more. Moderation. But so help me I wasn"t going to dump fifty pounds just to keep my record clean.
"We"re done here. Thank you, Captain Marie," Anders said, his back to me, like he couldn"t stand the sight of me.
When we left, I found Nina at the doorway, staring. I pushed her in front of me, back to the boat, so we could put Amaryllis to bed for the night.
"The Amaryllis" scales aren"t that far off," Garrett grumbled as we rowed to her slip. "Ten pounds, maybe. Not fifty. "
"Anders had his foot on the pad, throwing it off. I"d bet on it," Sun said. "Ever notice how we"re only ever off when Anders is running the scales?"
We"d all noticed.
"Is that true? But why would he do that?" said Nina, innocent Nina.
Everyone looked at me. A weight seemed to settle on us.
"What?" Nina said. "What is it?"
It was the kind of thing no one talked about, and Nina was too young to have grown up knowing. The others had all known what they were getting into, signing on with me. But not Nina.
I shook my head at them. "We"ll never prove that Anders has it in for us so there"s no good arguing. We"ll take our licks and that"s the end of it. "
Sun said, "Too many black marks like that they"ll break up the house. "
That was the worry, wasn"t it?
"How many black marks?" Nina said. "He can"t do that. Can he?"
Garrett smiled and tried to take the weight off. He was the first to sign on with me when I inherited the boat. We"d been through a lot together. "We"ll just have to find out Anders" schedule and make sure we come in when someone else is on duty. "
But most of the time there were no schedules-just whoever was on duty when a boat came in. I wouldn"t be surprised to learn that Anders kept a watch for us, just to be here to rig our weigh-in.