The Library Meme, as invented at Gwenda Bond's blog:
List all the books you have checked out from the library. (My addition) 'Splain.
I'm down from my recent high of 41 books, but my all-time best was in the 70s, I do believe. Right now, I merely have 20.
The Complete Roman Army by Adrian Keith Goldsworthy.
Sometimes you gotta know everything there is to know about the Roman army, okay? And for me, "sometimes" means "most of the time." I was particularly checking this out for The Roman and the Regency in full-length novel version, but there are other applications.)
New perspectives on English historical linguistics
Because I am a junky for the history of English. Linguistics is cool, etymology is fine, but the history of the words I use to write every day? Crack, man. It's crack.
The war of 1886, between the United States and Great Britain by Samuel Rockwell Reed
This book--pamphlet, really--was published in 1882. It was clearly written as polemic about our relationship with Britain at the time. Okay, that's my interpretation, anyway. But what is awesome about this is the manner in which it is written, which is as a historical document outlining the war as it happened. It's early speculative fiction, is what it is.
Romantic conventions
A book about reading romances. I could probably take this one back, the parts I've delved into aren't enticing me to read further. Basically, I was trying to figure out what the root of my desire to read romances was.
Becoming a woman through romance by Linda K. Christian-Smith
Same project as above. This one looks more interesting.
Warfare and society in the barbarian West, 450-900 by Guy Halsall
When, exactly, do you write epic medieval fantasy and not need a book like this? Though, according to my new rules, I shouldn't be reading this, or at least, shouldn't be holding on to it, because I'm not, theoretically, working on Heroes of the Cold Island, and yet, here the book is.
Fighting techniques of the medieval world AD 500 to AD 1500
*cough* See above.
Lost in space by Marleen Barr
"Probing Feminist Sciece Fiction and Beyond." Need I say more?
Human evolutionary psychology by Louise Barrett
I firmly believe you have to have a really good handle on humanity before you can successfully write aliens. Plus, evolutionary psychology in general is a really good place to start with aliens, or any species. Though this is a bit textbooky (as it's a textbook), and my efforts to read it cover-to-cover are being met with narcolepsy.
The sounds of the world's languages by Peter Ladefoged
I have some mental image that I will consult this book when trying to make up alien languages. I am beginning to wonder how it would help me, though.
The diffusion of military technology and ideas
*loudly* And why not?
The healing hand Guido Majno
I'm not far into this, but have already taken sheets and sheets of notes. It's about wound doctorin' in them there ancient times. Great stuff.
The past in prehistoric societies by Richard Bradley
I need to get working on this. This is supposed to tell me everything I need to know about Lurian history for By Right of Conquest.
Presenting young adult science fiction Suzanne Elizabeth Reid
An underloved sector of YA. I'm curious.
The evolution of fashion by Margot Hamilton Hill
Covers 1066 to 1930, has amaaaaaazing details (written) about colors, fabrics, ways of dressing, for both men and women, and then has some very rough pattern shapes so you can discern how the clothes were put together, and it's JUST so COOL when you're trying to dress a medieval warrior woman or a Regency buck or, you know, almost anyone except jumpsuit-wearing space cowboys.
Frozen earth: the once and future story of ice ages by JD Macdougall
I should really read this. Even if I don't ever write "Thaw," which is what I got it for.
Why we read fiction Lisa Zunshine
I read the first chapter of this and it ATE my brain. I need to finish this.
Master class in fiction writing by Adam Sexton
This has some great exercises in it, but you kind of have to read the short stories that go along with it, and it's like, sheesh, who has the time??? Someday, maybe I will...
Fashion and its social agendas by Diana Crane
Sounds good. Haven't had a chance yet, though...
The forest for the trees by Betsy Lerner
I've mentioned this one. I'm reading faster now, as it's been recalled. *sigh* Not that there isn't another perfectly serviceable copy at another library on campus!
I must write (stories, novels) sequentially. This is known. This is true. It is how I think.
Only, on the way home today, I started whining to myself about something I need to edit and rewrite. I did not want to work on the second part. Because nothing really needs to be rewritten in the second part right now, basically, but it does need line edits and things like that. The boring stuff. The stuff that I can do anytime, but will just slow down my momentum.
"What I really want to work on is that part where the big thing happens," I said.
(Yes, I talk to myself in the car.)
(It's okay because I don't answer back.)
And it occurred to me: just because I write the damn things in order does not mean they have to be rewritten in order.
Angels then burst through the clouds singing "Ode to Joy." That's how big this epiphany was.
Okay, I'm going off to rewrite now.
Here we will be using the north Michiganian sense of "a couple" where a couple may be three things instead of two.
Item the first: people who recall books from other patrons (ME) when there are perfectly good copies sitting on shelves in the Undergraduate Library RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the Graduate Library (from whence the recalled book came) are not my favorite people.
Item the second: I am training a new person at work, and to my entertainment, he decided that the arcane processes of interlibrary loan are just like spell-casting. Get the order wrong, and your books turn turquoise. *poof*
Item the third: I have applied to, been accepted to, and have registered for library school, aka, a Master's program in Library and Information Science. Since I'm taking a whopping three credits a semester (for six years!), I don't anticipate that it will interfere overmuch with writing. If anything, it should help focus me as I'll have less time to screw around on the Internet, though that might be a pipe dream, I admit.
Now. Since I'd like to write books about libraries for the rest of my life, don't you think I should be able to deduct the cost of library school since it's clearly empirical research? Hm.
I need to sell six stories this month (and one reprint). This way I can focus more on novels, instead of staring at Duotrope for twenty minutes a day, mulling over queries and whatnot.
And it has to be sales. We can't have rejections, and you know why? Because rejections would mean that I'd still be looking at Duotrope.
Just a suggestion, dear Universe. But please do take it under advisement.
Love and quiches,
Mer
PS If you just can't place "Wedding Dress Tea Parties," I'll understand. That's a toughee.
There's been too much good material floating past lately, and it's time to capture some of it. Especially as it gets more relevant.
(Semi-sidenote: I'm rereading The Forest for the Trees by Betsy Lerner. Or rather, reading further than last time. Last time, four years ago, I read through to chapter three and said, "ACK! She knows WHO I am, HOW I sabotage myself, and if I KEEP READING, Betsy Lerner's hand is going to come out of the book and smack me. Me. On the nose. I better play it safe, put the book down, and GO WRITE." Brilliant. Three chapters kept my butt in the chair for almost five years. But it was time to pick it up again. Though if the person I lent it to would reveal themselves, I'd be grateful--I know I lent it to you and said, "If I need it, I'll ask for it back," but I don't know who that was anymore. Right now I'm reading a library copy.)
(Anyway, the side-note was to say that I am working, rather diligently, on one single novel again.)
(Though I am not done with Betsy Lerner.)
Ahem.
On the topic of revisions...
Picture going on a cross country road trip, only to have to return to your house every two hours because you forgot something. Every day. For a month straight.
I tend to hack the book into all of its component pieces, spread them out, and then systemically (don’t ask me what kind of system that matically refers to) rearrange them and delete them. From there, I reshape the story and write it again.And there are pictures of her COLOR-CODED system of story events. It's writing-office supply porn, folks, and it is good.
On points in the writer's life...
You have to be good. You have to be great. And you can’t do that 100% of the time. But still, even at this level of acceptance, you realize you know nothing.He speaks truth. It's not all of the truth, and it's not everyone's truth, but it's truth.
Breaking in is almost as confusing as being an aspiring writer, except with more internal validation. You sell a story, then two more, maybe even to a top-level market you've dreamed of since you were a kid hiding in the library bookstacks during the dodgeball games. Suddenly your writer friends start looking at you funny, while your non-writer friends (and likely family) have no idea what the big deal is.Ah... well, true on the non-writer friends having no idea what the big deal is, but I don't think a couple of pro sales several years apart engenders the funny looks that Jay Lake must have gotten when he broke in. Because there's a vast difference between selling four or five stories a year (me) and selling about fifty (Jay Lake) in your breaking-in years.
The purpose of a goal is to be obtained, but once that happens its job is done. A goal in its essence is a direction, not a destination. You don't clear a lot, build a split-level with a pool in the back and move in. That way lies stagnation. If you don't want to stagnate, you have to look for the next goal or retire. Those are your choices. Pick one.
Someone else made a link roundup...
In the "obvious, but obviously not obvious enough" category...
And for the "everyone else is bookmarking it" file:
And as for advice I've actually taken in the last week:
Have you ever been blocked while playing Frisbee? Eating doughnuts? Dancing naked in your living room? Those are joyful things and there’s nothing at stake: if you fail, who cares? Nobody. If there are no rules, and no judgment, psychological blocks are impossible.
I realized recently that I do some research on a regular basis that may be of interest to my readers. Granted, you probably already do this research yourself, but hey. I'm doing it, I currently keep track of it in a text document on my desktop, and frankly, I'd like to put it in a place where I can access it anywhere, anywhen, and it might be useful to someone.
Anyway. What this research is: it's keeping track of the good-looking anthology markets. I rarely submit to anthologies, because I rarely have the right story at the right time, and I'm terrible about writing to non-contractual deadlines. I'm mostly trawling these markets, hoping against hope that I have something appropriate to send. I rarely do. Still.
Also, a good-looking anthology market, to me, fulfills at least three of the following criteria:
This month, I've got my eye on the following markets (presented in deadline order):
I so owe this blog the rest of the Getting Beyond Competent stuff. The rejections, mainly. I'm so loathe to go look at the rejections, though, it's not even funny. Perhaps tomorrow I'll be braver?
In the meantime:
I'm so freaking impressed with Context, I can barely talk. They are so very organized. But my main source of unspeakable impressment is because they have my name up on their page, where I'm listed as an attending author. With a link and all. Now, granted, I've shared TOCs with Lucy A. Snyder (who runs the sheang) a couple times, so we know of each other, and the other half of this is, as authors go, I'm no big deal and I don't expect anyone to actually pay attention to me. But if you are going to go to the trouble of pimping the authors attending your convention, it's so very smart to actually be able to recognize them when they show up. It's freaking good attention to detail. The kind of thing geeks are supposed to be good at and so frequently aren't. (AFAIK, I'm not on panels or anything, I'm just an attending author, but cool nonetheless.)
I read two more books this week:
(38) The Good House by Tananarive Due [horror]
(39) Titans of Chaos by John C. Wright [fantasy]
Discussions after the cut, and yeah, they might be spoilery.
(38) The Good House by Tananarive Due [horror]
Due reads a lot like Stephen King, though I was sort of sick-horrified by the horror in this one because I don't know anything about Due (I pretty much know how far King is going to go; plus, he leaches abuncha the tension out of things by telling you ahead of time when people are going to die, in the name of foreshadowing), and didn't know where she was going. On the whole, it's a damn good thing I didn't put the book down the six times I almost put the book down, because the ending was great.
Anyway, yeah. Stephen King. I couldn't get him out of my head while reading this; the approaches to character are very similar, the writing is transparent and stays out of its own way in a Kingian way, and yet, Due is very clearly doing her own thing here. And she doesn't telegraph her endings, so there's some serious win there. I'll be looking for more Due, as soon as I stop being scared.
(39) Titans of Chaos by John C. Wright [fantasy]
'Member how I love, love, loved the first one in this series? Yes, well. Unfortunately, I've read Wright's blog in the meantime, and now that I know him as other than an avant-garde neo-feminist, I had a hard time sticking with my interpretation of the gender politics in the series. In other words, it was much harder to like what was going on. Ultimately, yeah, well-written (EXTREMELY well-written), interesting (EXTREMELY interesting) stuff; ultimately, probably not going to purchase any more Wright. I'm cranky that way. I don't often let politics interfere with my entertainment, but sometimes its unavoidable.
First off, you should be aware of the Strange Horizons Fund Drive. They pay pro-rates to their fiction writers, and they are also non-profit and self-supporting. It's like donating to NPR or what have you--except they don't keep interrupting A Prairie Home Companion to take your pledge. They publish some of my favorite writers on a regular basis (like Steph Burgis and Patrick Samphire and Deb Coates and Sarah Prineas and oh! Check out Leah Bobet's "The Girl from Another World" this week!), and have even published me once upon a time.
So. If you have change to spare, it'd be cool.
Okay. Here's what I've read lately. Impressions after the cut.
(34) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling [fantasy]
(35) Sins of a Duke by Suzanne Enoch [romance]
(36) The Sharing Knife: The Beguiling by Lois McMaster Bujold [fantasy]
(37) The Sharing Knife: Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold [fantasy]
(34) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling [fantasy]
Loved it. I think that's all I can say about it at this point--it's the only one in the series I want to reread for its own sake, and not just to keep up with the series.
(35) Sins of a Duke by Suzanne Enoch [romance]
I had a really hard time getting into this one. I didn't like the heroine much; she starts out slapping the hero, and I suppose that just never worked for me. I felt like the acceptance between Peep and the princess was unearned. I don't know! I'm so sad, because Enoch is such a fave of mine. I don't know why this one didn't work for me, unless it is possibly an issue of expectations hoisted too high on Sebastian's book.
(36) The Sharing Knife: The Beguiling by Lois McMaster Bujold [fantasy]
(37) The Sharing Knife: Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold [fantasy]
Supposed to be one book in two volumes... could've been one book in two volumes... yet, it cleaved very nicely at the halfway point, and I felt that the ending of the second book was much more "narrative-interrupted." I enjoyed these, no question, but I didn't feel the same love I did for Curse of Chalion or half the Miles canon. Early on in the books, I bounced against moments that I can only describe as Mercedes Lackey-esque. Something I think I'd like to examine further, when I have a moment to myself, but something in the magic system and the way the Lakewalkers worked, early on, reminded me of Valdemar magic and the Heralds--right up until Bujold problematized it and reminded me why I love her to pieces. So. Yeah.
So, you ever have one of those weeks where your washer breaks, you break out in the nastiest case of poison ivy you've had since the time your eyes swelled shut from it when you were 10, your computer gets a virus (or thirty), you got ant and fruit fly infestations all in one day, and your dayjob went just as non-stop as dayjobs get?
That was my week.
I did manage to accomplish non-vermin, non-allergen, non-crisis related things this last week--moments of grace included a good evening working on a novel (not the right novel, but a novel), seeing Becoming Jane, and learning that you can actually catch more flies with vinegar (white wine balsamic) than with honey.
Tomorrow, I'll throw down a book-readin' post, and Tuesday, expect some good rejection-sharing on the Getting Beyond Competent experiment.
What a long week.
So, here's the story I'm going to be going over the next few weeks, now that I've decided it's unsellable.
After the cut, "Souls on a String."
"Souls on a String"
There is darkness, and a thousand points of departure. A personal dreamtime, made bitter, made into a burst of blood on the tongue.
I am at the height of my disassociation in this, my tenth crèche. In the next life, beyond fragmentation, departure, dreamtime, all will integrate. The next life is open to saner chemicals and more wholesome experiences.
Darkness. Can't see, can't really taste, but I know--they know--we know--the salt, the taste. It's tidal. It's primal. Vast and briny, like an evolving ocean. There's even a gentle sound, a reverberation, to remind a young heart to move.
Lub-dub, lub-dub.
If I could see, would I notice distant lights? Maybe I can see, and they simply haven't turned the lights on. How big is the nursery? Are there two or twenty or five-hundred? Or none? I don't know where I left off, so I don’t know where I shall begin.
Fingers are webbed still, a nice complement to my gills. Fingers have been tap-tap-tapping, for music or a programming pad--I don't even know. Fingers moving, undulating up/down/up/down/up, trying to relate the experience.
To whom?
To me.
Take a back seat, my lords, the new consciousness might not enjoy hitchhikers.
Be subtle.
Don't they ever turn on the damn lights? Don't they know stimulus is just as important as nutrition?
How many days? How do you mark days, anyway? How many heartbeats, simulated or otherwise?
Thousands.
Lub-dub, lub-dub.
Who's there?
#
"What's your name?" she asks, shining lights into my eyes. I think she's pretty, but it's hard to focus.
I roll my infantile tongue around in my mouth. It feels stubby and mole-blind, and it's not the first time I've had to figure out how to do this. But you can't prepare ahead of time. Practice speech with a mouthful of amniotic fluid, sometime--it doesn't work, no matter what they tell you.
"Lughnwaddddddd..." I try.
She smiles. "It's ok. Don't get frustrated. I haven't met a baby born talking yet."
I jerk my head, angry.
"I'm Kijai," she says, "And I'm going to pick you up now. I mean no disrespect, you understand, but your body needs this."
She takes me into her strong arms, cradles me, rocks me, feeds me from her breast. I take no offense. I barely remember this from other times. Memories of memories, really; my brain will change with time, and I'll have to struggle to take memories across the divide. But I will. I always have.
And she's right about my body; it needs her warmth, the feeling her love, the stimulus her touch. If I don't get it, my brain is doomed, and I may as well start over.
And I feel grateful that I don't have to think just yet. My head isn't too muzzy; I don't have the physiological backlash of actual birth this time. I've had surrogates before. The crèche is my preference.
The first few months, Kijai is the only one I see. She's my mother for now, and I think, maybe, she loves me. I see love, or something like it, in her brown eyes.
She croons to me, and I don't object. She tells me stories, and I don't object. She rubs my little body, and I don't object--and she doesn't object when I get an erection, either. It happens with regular babies, now and then, and of course it's going to happen to an eight-hundred-year old man, no matter how short he is, or how undeveloped his motor skills.
The advantage I have over regular babies is that I know the rewards of what I do. Nothing primal motivates me to build muscle strength or to practice speech--I am driven, for I need to be what I was before.
I can't fight brain development, of course; that's been proven. I can't force my body to grow, either; or rather, I can, but then I'm shaving years off the other end of my life.
I lie awake at night in my crib, fitfully moving my legs to practice the coordination necessary to walk again. I think about evolution. I think about how each time I am cast forth from egg and sperm, I regress through the stages that brought forth my species. There's a point when a fetus looks like a fish, and a point where it looks like a monkey.
Sometime between fish and monkey, though, I come into the clone and become myself once more; a graduated personality can't start too early. If they could squeeze me into the blastocyst, they would--but they can't. The brainworkers need a brain to work with.
My evolution continues. I'm already moving around on all fours, like a good monkey. Tool-use, and on its heels bipedalism: I'm a backwards sort of H. habilis. Soon, I will be mankind again.
Alone in my crib, I run my little legs to death. Chug-chug-chug. I pump myself up imaginary staircases, not that I can think of the last time I saw a staircase. Sometime in my third life, when I left the earth for my greater destiny? Some place with marble stairs. I frown, fighting to bring the memory forward.
Damn.
I'm not going to lose another memory to the process. I think. It was long before I took humanity to the stars...
Da Vinci!
Kijai leans over the edge of the crib. "Did you say something?"
"Dabinti," I tell her.
"Leonardo?" she asks.
"Yes."
"I have a book." She picks me up. She rocks me in a rocking chair and holds a book for me. A bright, primary-colored model of Da Vinci's helicopter floats on the screen. I give an involuntary squeal of delight, lean forward and mash the button with my palm, about all the dexterity I own.
The page flips, and there's the Mona Lisa, rendered properly. I flip forward, mashing the page button for all I'm worth, until--there. The great staircase at Chambord, supposedly designed by Da Vinci himself.
"Stairs," I say, enunciating carefully.
"Yes," Kijai says. She is smiling. I don't hold it against her. I'm certainly a cute baby, and it takes a different kind of woman than Kijai to fight the mothering instinct.
She talks to me whenever I'm awake: when she massages me, when she feeds me, when she bathes me, when she changes my swaddling clothes. I waste no time learning to walk, and bladder and bowel control is actually not difficult at all, compared to all the other things I'm trying to rush. Potty training is a matter of comprehension as much as control. I comprehend.
I wake up one morning. I know it is time.
I let Kijai feed me once more, nuzzling into her breast with gentle gusto, sighing and reveling in her milky scent. It's the last time I'll touch a woman intimately in this life.
"It's time, Kijai," I tell her when I'm done. Her eyes are sorrowing. She covers herself, and I regret the weaning already, as her nipple slides out of sight for the last time. She's beautiful.
"I'll alert the College, Father," she says, now formal and deferent. She backs out of my presence.
When she's gone, I slide off the chair and toddle over to the computer. I'm nearly deft as I start punching at the control board, though it's still too big for my hands.
I summon a file I created back before I died. Information has been dumping into this file periodically since then, building up slowly like a stalagmite. There's earlier information here, too, a cave full of old stalagmites. I've avoided looking since I left the crèche.
I don't remember everything yet, but I will. It's all here at the computer, my private files and the dry details of the lives that came before me. It will work; reminders are all I need. Memory is created from pattern. We remember whole faces, not one individual feature... but a familiar feature recalls to us an entire face. It takes only a little prod to start the avalanche.
I read what I can, until the screen flashes red. The College is coming. I turn away from the monitor, straighten my white robes, and stand to meet them.
They file in silently, their red robes rustling, the only sound of their passing. They turn to face me: a dozen men and women wearing the bodies of children, their faces calm and beatific.
"Behold," I say, holding up my arms in an attitude of benediction. "I am reborn among you."
Their voices ring out triumphant. "Holy is our Lord and Father! Blessed be his name! Blessed be the Church!"
"Amen."
#
There is darkness, and a thousand points of departure.
From body to body, the sleep process changes. This body happens to be an insomniac. I lie awake for hours in the darkness, trying to calm my racing mind. I suppose I could tell my doctors about it, but I don't want to.
I lie very still, my fingers laced over my chest. We near my second birthday. Tomorrow, the College will announce to the world that the Church has been reborn, that I have returned. My three-year absence was no hardship on anyone except me. Three years, after all, is the length of the Progress, and I undertake that at least twice every lifetime.
In the darkness, older parts of me bubble up. We are not the grand, unified whole that everyone would believe, that I would like them to believe. There are other graduated personalities in the universe; we all maintain the public fiction that it's a simple procedure with no moments of doubt.
Technically, I don't doubt. In the night, when I stand at the edge of my sanity and look out over the abyss, I know that it is better to have these thousand points of departure than to have died.
Once, though... There was one lifetime when I had a problem. My personality fragmented. I told no one. I coped. I cut my bodily tenure short by a few decades, and came into being again in a fresh brain. It worked. The next personality did not split, not in the waking world. In my dreams... Well, my dreams are vivid, but fade quickly.
I am dreaming now. I must have fallen asleep, because I am dreaming now that I am alone in my room, and there is a monster in the corner. I believe it lingers in the shadows cast by starlight. I breathe deeper, more evenly, to simulate sleep, trying to fool the shadow.
I will laugh at myself in the morning. I believe in monsters again. How cliché. How appropriately toddlerish. Hilarious.
The presence comes closer. In my nightmares, the things that threaten me in the dark have claws of red adamant; they are the hands of a devil, sent from Hell. But I don't fear claws tonight so much as knives. That's a new nightmare.
"Lights!" I call, frantic.
Lights come on.
A young woman stands frozen in the light. She is dressed for stealth, wearing a shadowsuit, which, among other things, hides her body heat from the sensors. It does not hide her from human eyes, however.
"Oh, God," she swears, and moves toward me.
She has a knife. I roll away from the edge of my bed, towards the wall, and squirm between the two.
"Goddammit!"
"Do not take the Lord's name in vain!" I say from under the bed.
Silence. The sound of her breathing draws close. The light dims as she comes to the bed and peers under. She reaches for me, but her arms are too short. I scramble closer to the wall.
"Come out of there."
"You are here to kill me," I say. "So I think not."
Silence.
The bed shakes, but does not move. The bed is molecularly locked to the floor. Artificial gravity isn't very reliable.
She swears again.
The bed shakes as though she has gotten into it, and then an arm shoots down in that narrow slot between wall and bed. I scramble, but I'm too slow. She snags me by my pajamas.
I shriek. I try to get out of my clothes, but she's pulled them tight against my skin. There's no slack. I reach out, grasp the underside of the bed, and hang on.
"Let go, murderer!" She screams. I pray.
She may have fooled the sensors, but my guards are going to hear her screaming. I hold on. The slats of the bed cut into my soft hands, but my strength, it's more than either of us expected.
Eventually, they come. The door bursts open; the guards shout, there are threats made, and the hand lets go of me. I slump to the floor. Wild cursing from the girl. The captain of my guard looks under the bed.
"Your Holiness?" he asks. "Are you all right?"
I'm gibbering. I can't function. I've wet myself. I act like the child that is my body, not the old man that owns my soul. "Kijai," I whimper. "Kijai."
Kijai doesn't come.
#
I have not yet been seated on the Throne of Humanity in this iteration. I walk forward, out onto the high dais with no swelling of pride, no sense of triumph for the grim duty ahead.
I do not have to use a step, nor do I have to climb awkwardly in front of the assembled. They have installed the throne of childhood, cut to my height, just as my clothes are cut to my height. My environment is mere adornment.
It is the first time I've held court since... I can't remember. I shake my head and frown. It is bad that I can't remember. I did not bring the memory with me.
There are those in the observation deck who will read the shaking of my head, the frowning, and think it means a death sentence. That's not what it means, but they would be wrong to think otherwise about the outcome.
The first day of the trial goes slowly. I find it tiresome, and a headache builds.
I'm cranky. Bored with the proceedings. Irritated with the bombast of my bishops. As if I need others to explain to me the true heinousness of her crime. This Kristjin Hentsleya's blasphemy is writ large in the adrenalin surge I get when I see her, in the bruises on my skin where my pajamas dug into my flesh.
Why can't I remember the last time I was in court?
Later, in my quarters, I check the file, and review my last court date. It was a territorial dispute in an out-planet parish. Important enough to need my attention at the time, but not that important. It matters not that it was not brought across the divide.
That's one question answered.
That night, I wake from dreams of blood, weeping, crying out for Kijai.
#
The second day of trial is more wearying than the first. The physical evidence is brought forth and displayed: the shadowsuit, to begin, and other pieces that Hentsleya touched on her path towards destruction. The cash she paid honest merchants to hide her on the station; the drivekey of the light transport she stole to come here. After lunch, the testimony of my guards. Hentsleya stands, frozen and silent by implants through all of this, but remains awake and aware. Her facial muscles are not affected by the paralysis: her eyelids blink, and her mouth works, hurling silent curses towards me.
So much hatred. It is mystifying. I am loved; I have been loved for many centuries. It is the natural state of my being.
Court ends for the day, and I would retire, but that I have a duty.
I go down to the cells and visit the assassin.
"I would hear your confession," I say.
She glares at me with murder in her eyes, making me glad she's behind a shock barrier. I press a button on the cell panel, and the voice suppressor releases her larynx.
"I should have used one of those on you," she says, massaging her throat.
"You screamed more than I did," I pointed out. "You should have used it on yourself. Or stopped screaming blasphemies."
She glares at me.
"What did I do?" I ask. "That made you want to kill me."
"You ask me now? The trial is all but over. Or is this my chance to speak?"
"You get no chance to speak. But I want to know."
She smiles, slowly. "And I'm supposed to believe you don't know. This is a fun game."
"But I don't know. I don't take every memory with me. I can't take every memory with me."
"Then I guess you'll never know." She turns her back on me.
Just one of the crazies, I tell myself. There's nothing I can do.
"May the God of Humanity have mercy on your soul, child."
I leave the voice suppressor off and walk away.
Her name is Kristjin Hentsleya. We know everything about her; she grew up in a mud house in Riverbed Colony in a family of Devotees, true believers and members of my flock.
We know everything about her except why she tried to kill me.
We know she will die at the midnight after I deliver the verdict, surrendered to the void.
#
Delivering a sentence of death is always a chilling moment, but not without its secret thrill. There is a rush of fear and power, a heady mixture, which comes from condemning someone to death. I dread it--I always, always dread it--and yet...
But that little rush goes away, and leaves me drained.
I return to my room and sit down at the computer. I stare blindly at a blank screen for a long moment, before making a few deft keystrokes and pausing once again.
One final stroke, and the computer will call Kijai for me.
Why?
I decide not to answer that. I press the final key.
Instead of getting the expected call screen, a different program executes, a program, the status avatar tells me, called Kijai. Because of the name, I don't shut everything down immediately, even though it has the earmark of infection.
It's an infection, all right.
The program is vile. The worst kind of pornography: footage of me feeding at Kijai's breast, Kijai rocking me to sleep, Kijai's gentle, ebony hand on my head. In the footage, I'm the same tow-headed toddler that I am right now. These images--doctored, of course!--show a loving son and mother in revealing situations, not at all appropriate behavior between a supplicant and the Father of the Church of Humanity. She's even changing my diaper in one sequence.
The worst part is, I'm awake and aware, even looking at the camera, one thumb stuck obscenely in my mouth, a string of childish drool on my chin. I shudder, and close the program.
I delete the files immediately; then I ask the computer to dial Kijai again. The whole mess reappears. This time I let the program continue, and there's more. Kijai tickling me. Me laughing. Staring at the camera and laughing, a boyish gurgle in my throat.
I scream now, banging on the keyboard, trying to close the program again.
It's too late; something has shorted out the command functions. The program runs. "Leo..." the boy on the screen calls to me. Kijai is gone from the frame. "Leo," he calls in his high baby voice.
"This is the life," he says. "The life you've forsworn. You, the perfect ascetic, the spiritual father of Humanity. Rolling around in an excess of love and physical affection, every night."
I shrink from the screen. I cower. I hold my hands over my face, though I look through them.
"Leo," he says softly, and the camera's view shifts downward. The mess on the floor--the blood--. I have lost all breath. Kijai's dead body is there, and he's caressing her cheek. "The mother. Always the mother," he croons, and tastes of her blood.
I can't close the program, so I flee. I run, out of my room, down to the cells. She's still there; they haven't sent her into the void just yet. I release the locks.
"Hentsleya?"
She stares at me and stands at the door of the cell.
"You called me a murderer," I say, a toddler's pleading whine in my throat. "Did you know Kijai?"
"Kijai? No. I have no idea who that is."
"I am a murderer," I say. "You were right. I killed her. How did you know? I didn't even know."
She rocks back on her heels. Her eyes are guarded. "I'm not coming out."
"It's not a trap. Not a trick."
"Doesn't matter if it is, I'm doomed to the void anyway. But I'm not going to tell you."
"Hentsleya..." I open my hands to her, a gesture of surrender. "I'm killing people and I don't even know it."
Something about her softens. She believes me. For a moment, I almost remember everything, and feel a sudden, crafty need to gloat. It disappears, a forgotten memory that I don't know how to pursue.
She opens the door, and holds it for me.
"This is the only place I'll tell you," she says.
I do not point out that I can call guards, who have many skills and drugs that could cause her to do whatever I want. Instead, I enter the cell.
She closes the door behind us and leans against it.
"The Father of Humanity," she says. Her tone is mocking. "The only thing you've fathered is yourself."
"I suppose."
"Over and over and over again. The most graduated of graduated personalities. You've ruled the Church for almost a millennium."
"Eight centuries."
"Something broke, sometime, though. Graduated personalities were never meant to perpetuate themselves for so long, over so many bodies. No wonder..."
I am silent.
"You fathered a girl, once," she says, meditative.
There is no horror, for I am emptied of horror. There is only what there is. "One of the fractures had carnal relations with a woman," I guess, blunt, and too broken to be devastated further.
"No, no," she says. "Or maybe that did happen, but I don't know of it. One of the fractures replicated itself and graduated to a new body, though, some night when you weren't looking."
"Yes," I whisper. Somewhere within me, I know this is true. Someone within me knows it's true. The ghost of a memory...
I crumple.
Footsteps; she steps over me, to the door. It opens, and then comes the faint chirp that means the lock is activated. She comes back in, closing the door behind her.
"Will anyone come, to watch the execution?" she asks.
"No. No one will come. No one will watch." I would have been the only one to bother.
She kneels down beside me, takes me in her arms, and I cling to her, like a child. She strokes my hair.
"How much longer?" she asks. She has no chrono here, and keeping a sense of time in the cells is impossible. There is no night here.
"Not long now," I say, and put my fingers into my mouth.
She rocks me.
"It will all be over soon," she says.
I suck my fingers and think of Kijai.
Loud noises fill the cell, metal moving on metal. A pop and a hiss, and a crack appears on the far wall. We stare into the void.
"Always the father," she says. The air rushes past, and she clutches my head to her chest. "Always the father."
The void welcomes us.
And there is darkness.