Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 116

Podcast 23 Why Agents Reject Things (1/2)

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In my interview with Jennie Goloboy, a talented and ambitious literary agent for Red Sofa Literary, We talk about:

Rejecting manuscripts (and the sub-genres that used to be really popular but are now becoming passe)

WorldCon 2013 (stay tuned to learn what turns out to be hot this year)

Ray Bradbury’s Martian Chronicles (and the horrible things on the edge of happening)

On following trends: “You read something and you think ‘I would like to do this, but better.’ And it’s a great way to start, but not a great way to finish.”

The mystery writer Lawrence Block and his book Telling Lies for Fun and Profit

50 Shades of Grey (is this really the first time I’ve referenced that book?)

Groom of the Tyrannosaur Queen!

Maryrose Wood and The Mysterious Howling

Paranormal romance+sasquatch+=…shaving creme scene?

Didactic literature

Der Struwwelpeter describes a boy who does not groom himself properly and is consequently unpopular.

On Tyrannosaur Queen: “People find a way to make things better by…connecting better.”

 

 

Martian Law 12/12

“Well then, I ask you, my friend, to explain the situation in some way a woman raised on earth can understand.”

“After which point,” said Miss Sheehy, “you may explain the situation to Mr. Singh in a way that may be understood by an ice-blooded half-alien man can understand.”

I straightened my fez and pulled myself upright. I shall. Singh, you must hire Miss Sheehy as your consultant. Miss Sheehy, you must prepare yourself to learn post-colonial political expediency. And both of you must meditate upon the nature of sacrifice. And forethought.

“In that case,” she said, “I shall set to work breaking us out of this house. For I will not allow us to depart before I understand out how Scottish agents smuggled a rocket and a heat-ray into my city.”

Singh scowled, although I know he had intended the same thing. “It mystifies me how you can speak so cavalierly about risking my and Mu-rau’s safety while piling censure upon me for my humble plans.”

She rolled her eyes in human exasperation. “God above, it will be a sacrifice indeed to work with you.”

“So you do intend to join us?” Singh asked shyly.

“Only until I can convince Mu-rau Effendi to fire you.” Miss Sheehy stood. “I beg your leave, gentlemen. I have work to do.”

“Mu-rau Effendi is not my employer. He merely aids me. By donating money. When the Selenian government wishes to withhold my pay. Such as now.” Singh’s mouth, snapped shut as if by act of will, and he downed the rest of his arrack. “That conversation did not go as I had planned.”

I arched a tentacle. My plans, however, have been wonderfully fulfilled. Follow my lead on occasion, my human friend, and you may yet someday breed.

His face lit up with infrared. “That is not assistance I require.”

I coiled a gentle tentacle around his ankle. Do not worry. It is only a matter of demonstrating  your better qualities.

“Showing myself in the best…light?” His eyes rose sardonically to the ceiling, as if looking for orbiting mirrors. “Her husband has been jailed. It was a marriage of convenience, but still, it may take some time for her to come back to a romantic frame of mind.”

You were raised according to the best precepts of Martian civilization, Singh, I spread my tentacles in the equivalent of a smile. I am sure your vast and cool intellect is capable of a little patience.

Martian Law 11/12

“Well,” Singh’s exoskeleton crackled as put down his glass of ice arrack on a bookshelf and stretched against the wall of our sitting room. “That went well.”

“’Well?’” Miss Sheehy, the former Mrs. Dunwitty crossed her arms and scowled. “I and Mu-rau Effendi were nearly killed. You were nearly killed. The Selenian embassy was heavily damaged, and we,” she jabbed a hand at the window, through which the black helmets of the bobbies were clearly visible even to human eyes, “we are under damned house arrest.”

“Only until the next shuttle to the moon.” Singh said, “and in my opinion the successful untangling of Scotio-Anglian relations more than makes up for any mere danger to my body.”

“And my body, Mr. Singh? What of it?”

Do not tell her it’s very nice. I signed.

“I was not planning to.” Singh leaned forward, long spine curving, thin arms on knees, dark brows drawn together. “Miss Sheehy, I have already pointed out that you were in no more danger in your former husband’s tentacular clutches than you were in his embrace every night since you’re wedding.”

“Not exactly.” Miss Sheehy’s eyes flashed. “I generally put something in his whisky. And I married the man of my own will for my own purposes. I was not manipulated into my actions by some Lunar scarecrow who thinks he’s a Martian.”

“But Miss Sheehy,” my friend continued his doomed attempt at justification, “your presence was necessary. The free European press is still in its infancy, and only the most overblown of imagery would have achieved international recognition. An English war perambulator menacing a Selenian embassy or a Selenian citizen would have made sacredly a ripple in Geneva or Crater Prague. A perambulator menacing a Martian and a damsel in distress, however—“

“Distress you orchestrated and only my actions prevented from turning lethal.” She gestured in my direction. “If anyone is the knight in shining armor in this situation, it is Mu-rau Effendi. You, I consider rather to be the Mordred.”

Singh blinked. “I am unfamiliar with that reference. Nor do I understand why you refuse to accept the logic of my arguments.” He turned to me, signing, is there something I’ve failed to calculate?

I flicked the tip of a tentacle. Yes.

Martian Law 10/12

EH? SQUID?

“The moon, of which I am a humble citizen, creates a light which many Earthly animals use to navigate. Fishermen use artificial light to mimic the moon, which causes these squid to rise to the surface where they can be netted by such fishermen as the journalists of the international press.”

FOREIGN COLLABORATORS TO THE EXTRATERRESTRIAL YOKE! I could feel the sneer through the skin of the walker. WHAT DOES A TRUE ENGLISHMAN FEAR OF THE FOREIGN PRESS?

I do not know how Singh responded, for at that moment Mrs. Dunwitty threw her arm around my middle and pointed at a rooftop southeast of us.

Her lips moved. “Fishermen such as the Scotch assassins I contacted.”

The rocket streaked from the roof of a nearby townhouse almost too fast to follow. The tough shell of the perambulator, even reinforced to withstand bombardment by the weapons of a planet rich in nitrates, could not withstand the blast.

The huge machine twisted and sank as more shots rang off the armor. Mrs. Dunwitty and I clutched at each other as we lurched downward. Or rather I clutched at her, while she, estimable woman that she is, gathered as much of billowy body into her arms as she could and jumped free of the falling tentacle. We landed in the mud, a tangle of arms and tentacles.

Singh rode his own tentacle to the ground with rather more panache. By the time I had extricated myself and was ready to stand on my own three tentacle-bundles, he was before the fallen perambulator’s hatch, tall and slender as a minaret.

He knocked on the iron, presumably still speaking to the man cowering within. As he did so, figures crept out of the buildings, surrounded the perambulator, and dragged into view a heavy old-fashioned heat-ray.

Only when the Scotch assassins had melted the hatch and ripped the general from his shell did the spotlight turn back on. It grew smaller. More focused. Warmer.

With curses, the attackers left the general in the mud. Naked, bruised, and very badly sunburned, but alive.

“Now to await the police,” said Singh, turning to us. “Why, Mu-rau, you have not lost your fez.”

Martian Law 9/12

Many Martians would call what I did next foolish. Why would someone crawl through the high-gravity mud of Earth, achieve the cool safety of a friendly embassy, only to throw himself back into danger that his weak body could not hope to survive? Such people have not come to know the mercy of God and have not learned that with the comfort of certitude in God’s mercy, there come certain moral imperatives. Certain sacrifices. I could not withhold my aid from Mrs. Dunwitty, for that would have been wrong and unbefitting a good Muslim being.

I had barely enough strength to keep myself from falling as the tentacle rose, sweeping us high above the dirty London streets.

SELMA, YOU TRAITOROUS BITCH, I felt the vibrations travel from the body of the perambulator below. I HAVE YOU NOW.

My mantle wrapped around my frantically twisting face as I struggled to find Singh. There he was, absurdly thin and fragile in the coils of a second tentacle below and south of mine and Mrs. Dunwitty’s. His lips moved.

“Correction, my dear general. I have you.”

Light. Blinding in its purity, shimmering from ultraviolet to infrared. The beam shone from the sky above, as if God Himself had trained a magnifying glass on the anthill of the Earth.

“—is a solar relay satellite.” Singh’s lips swam back into focus. “It could easily be tuned to cook you in your walker, General Dunwitty.”

IT COULD, rang the general’s voice, BUT HERE I REMAIN. RAW.  An amplified chuckle rippled through the perambulator’s superstructure. COULD IT BE THAT YOU HAVE NOT BEEN AUTHORIZED TO USE LETHAL FORCE?

“You are correct, sir. Now put Mrs. Dunwitty and my friend down.”

OR WHAT?

Singh smiled. “Are you familiar with the means by which one catches squid?”

Martian Law 8/12

The embassy door was no real airlock, but the Selenian engineers who installed it had built in enough insulation to create a sharp temperature gradient between the, to them, sweltering English air and the pleasantly cool interior. Frost formed on my mantel and my eyes swam.

As my vision adjusted to the chill, I made out the form of Mrs. Dunwitty, shivering in one of the embassy’s public parkas.

Mrs. Dunwitty, I signed, you must retreat to safety.

“Where is there safety?” she mouthed past chattering teeth. “My husband knows everything. He is one step ahead of his assassins and two steps ahead of the scandal of marrying a spy. And I,” her eyes darted to the airlock, “am not at all ahead of him. He will kill me, Mr. Mu -Rau.”

Not in here, he won’t, I signed stoutly. Your husband will be stopped and brought to justice.

“By whom? There are no war walkers to oppose the general. No soldiers with heat rays.” She waved her thickly-clad arms. “There is nobody here Mu-rau Effendi.”

Singh must have had the embassy evacuated.

“Oh yes,” her lips twisted. “Wouldn’t do for any Selenians to be injured in this mummery show he’s arranged. A nice little drama except he neglected to supply the heroine with her stage direction.”

I undulated soothingly at her. Peace, Mrs. Dunwitty. Your husband is surely surrounded by the press even now. Photographers shooting images of his war machine threatening a Selenian citizen of note right in front of the embassy. Surely that—

“Will do nothing, Effendi. Selenia is widely hated in England and in any case you cannot shame a tyrant into behaving himself.”

Are you…sure?

“I know my husband.”

Oh dear. I wrung my tentacles together. What do you suggest we do?

She squinted around in what must be, too her, the gloom of the embassy. “Does this place have any weapons?”

Only the orbital lens array.

“Yes,” she said. “Good. Fry him like a bug under a magnifying glass.”

We can’t do that, I protested. He may have turned his back on mercy, but we have not. To kill him would be utterly wrong. And in any case I haven’t the access—

The noise drove all thought from my brain.

It is untrue that Martians are deaf. While we are poor at picking up vibrations through even the thick air of Earth, our tentacles are quite sensitive to vibrations in the ground. It was these vibrations, the tremors of a building being ripped apart, that sent me shuddering away from the door.

And not a moment too soon. The heavy insulated metal rang with another mighty blow and the massive body of an air conditioner flew out of a window. The shimmering hot air of London followed it, as well as an articulated tentacle as thick as my body. The manipulator of the war-perambulator smashed from side to side, widening its hole, the glass eye on its tip quivering, writhing, questing for the huddled body of the general’s wife.

Her mouth opened in a scream I could not hear.

Podcast 22 Hook your readers (2/2)

Listen to PODCAST

What makes a reader keep reading? In this workshop I did with Kalin Nenov of the Human Library, we try to answer the question: why do people finish reading books?

See part one for our discussion of what elements hook readers. Now we break those elements down by genre.

Romance (who will get married?)

Mystery (who did it?)

Horror (who will get eaten next? And who will survive?)

Drama (what can we learn about human beings?)

Speculative fiction (what new thing will they discover next?)

Thriller (what will happen next?)

The difference between setting and genre.

The Lövheim cube of emotion (that’s neurotransmitters, not neuro-recepters. Sorry)

The Kite Runner

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 10 Process

I’m at chapter ten of New Frontiers and feeling a bit lost about what should happen next. When that happens, I know I need to:

A) Take a walk and think of some cool stuff.

jorge says

zehra finally. your honoer and madam ambssador i am pleased to see you re well.

xxx

the special police had learned how to deal wth people who could temporarily revoke the conduction of electrons. these people walked. and they hurled their robots at us like grenades.

xxx

i am so glad we found you safe. if you feel you are in danger here perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of amazonia zone.

ooh can me.

i m afraid not

then if you allow me to accompany you …

he looks at me.

he s looking at me as if i can help him. is his expression pleading? what does jorge want?

what all of us want. the power to protect ourselves.

power embodied in alien technology.

and he thinks i can do something about it.

hey i say. i hate to ask this but can you let me see your crystal ball before you go?

this one

well yes. take it harry you know it might do you some good.

the bubble dims and floats away from the oonkhs. when i touch it i feel nothing but the bubble pops. i jump

look at your index fingermy fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. when i press my thumb to it the light expands back into a bubble which floats over my head.

B) Write down all the people in the scene and figure out what each would want in this situation.

C) Add cool stuff to that diagram (see below)

D) Transfer it to the computer and put in all the other snippets I wrote in my original outline for this chapter.

JORGE GOES TO ZEHRA

jorge says

zehra finally. your honoer and madam ambssador i am pleased to see you re well.

SOLDIERS TRY TO STOP HIM

Xxx

the special police had learned how to deal wth people who could temporarily revoke the conduction of electrons. these people walked. and they hurled their robots at us like grenades.

THE OONKHS USE CRYSTAL BALL to DE-ESCALATE

JORGE IS GRATEFUL TO HARRY

ZEHRA:GLAD TO SEE YOU BOYS GETTING ALONG

YAMASHITA SAYS WE SHOULD TAKE THIS TO THE EMBASSY

JORGE SAYS LET’S GO WITH OONKHS

OONKHS SAY HE CANT

jORGE TURNS TO HARRY

i am so glad we found you safe. if you feel you are in danger here perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of amazonia zone.

ooh can me.

i m afraid not

then if you allow me to accompany you …

he looks at me.

he s looking at me as if i can help him. is his expression pleading? what does jorge want?

what all of us want. the power to protect ourselves.

power embodied in alien technology.

and he thinks i can do something about it.

hey i say. i hate to ask this but can you let me see your crystal ball before you go?

this one

well yes. take it harry you know it might do you some good.

the bubble dims and floats away from the oonkhs. when i touch it i feel nothing but the bubble pops. i jump

look at your index finger my fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. when i press my thumb to it the light expands back into a bubble which floats over my head.

HARRY ASKS PLAMEN ABOUT THE BALL

OH, THAT’S A PANOPTICON

F) Consider those big plot points (in all caps) and write some stuff explaining them. Put these chunks of text in the right places and massage them until they meld with the rest of what I wrote.

E) Read through it and make the changes that seem natural. Rinse and repeat until the chapter is a chapter and not an outlined mess.

I nearly collapse right there on the pavement as the apartment building’s big, blacked-out doors swing open and Zehra emerges. She’s riding  the New Ambassador like a houda on a baby elephant.

“How long have you been waiting to make an entrance?” I mutter.

She’s a dozen yards from me on the other side of a military cordon, but her voice hums in my earpiece like a purring jaguar. “Since before you showed up. Forward, sir.” That last is directed at her mount.

The New Ambassador has grown. He towers over his owner-wives and the human soldiers, who do their best not to break ranks as he whip-cracks his tentacles at them and trumpets gleefully bloody threats. “Make way for my harem, unparalleled on all the plains under all the clouds of all the skies within the Wave Front. Make way or be ripped apart!”

He stomps toward us, the head of a wedge driving back the arc of soldiers.  “All right, you eunuch athletes, game’s over.”

“We’ve enjoyed your displays of prowess, but it really is time for us to leave.”

Plamen’s voice has shifted to a higher register. It’s not quite as convincing as when he has a voice synthesizer to help him, but I recognize the female voice of the Technology Liaison. She’s standing behind her husband-pet, holding aloft what looks like a soap bubble the size of a cantaloupe.

“What’s that thing in its tentacle?” Whispers Yamashita. She’s sidled around next to me.

“Her tentacle, and I don’t know.” I say. “I call it the Orb, and I wouldn’t advise pissing these people off.”

“As if I had any—“

“Greetings,” says Jorge. “Your honor and madam ambassador, I am pleased to see you’re well. Zehra, my dear, I should never have worried about you.”

“Step away from the extraterrestrials!” A shout from the EU block and a soldier in blue and gold approaches the New Ambassador. “All respect to our alien guests, but you are interfering with delicate, and internal, human affairs. We would appreciate greatly the removal of yourselves.”

“Why didn’t he just speak French?” Plamen grumbles, before he clears his throat and gives the Technology Liaison’s reply.

“We depart shortly. In the meantime, I do hope you continue your conflict-ceremony.” She waggles the Orb, which glows warmly.

The captain flinches away. “We must insist that you return to your embassy.”

“And we insist we do not.” Her ears flap, and I catch a warning whiff of cinnamon and gasoline.

“But,” he looks to Yamashita, then to his men, as if hoping someone will provide him with orders he’s capable of following. “But you obeyed our interdict before.”

“When someone puts up a do not cross sign, you tend not to cross it, even if it’s printed on tissue paper,” says Zehra. “Captain Pavić, order your men to withdraw.”

His head tilts up, probably so he can give her a scary expression. I could have told him not to bother. “You don’t give me orders.”

 “By the time this is over I’ll outrank you, I’m sure.”

“Our orders are intended to keep you and your owner-wives safe,” Yamashita says.

It might be a good point, but she directs it at the New Ambassador, who only says, “that is so sweet of you.”

“You are under no obligation to us,” says the Technology Liaison. “And I can’t think of any way for you to fulfill it if you were.”

“Not all of us humans are totally helpless.” Jorge grins at me. “Don’t worry.  I picked up some extra toys in the safe room. You heard the Pristine Ones,” he raises his voice and waves at the soldiers, who stiffen, “go away now!”

The soldiers are no more amused by Jorge than me.

“Stay where you are!” Shouts Pavić. “Stop moving and disarm yourself, terrorist.”

Jorge hooks his multibranched fingers into claws. “Zehra, clear away these impediments.”

Pavić’s face turns crimson.  “We accept no orders from her or from you and we have a very extensive protocol for dealing with extralegal entities armed with alien technology.”

Jorge chuckles. “The ones that worked so well last time?”

“Guys?” says Plamen, “P’whapm has started swearing.”

Pavić assumes an aggressive stance, feet set wide, shoulders back. “You are targeted by weapons you cannot comprehend. Stand down immediately or face destruction.”

Maybe one of them makes a threatening move on some metaphysical outtech plane. Either that or the Euro soldiers’ definition of “immediate” is very strict indeed. Soldiers spread their hands and Jorge reddens, blurs, and shrinks.

He springs back into focus, only a foot to the side of where he was standing before. Dust swirls around him, crackling with sparks, before it is blow away in a wind I can’t feel. The asphalt under his feet bubbles and the air around him crystallizes into rainbows of impossible color.

“We have to stop this.” I am less worried about Jorge being killed than being scared enough to summon his beezles to protect himself. His alien orphan prostitute slave ring needs to be exposed, but maybe not in front of fifty heavily armed soldiers.

Jorge takes a step forward, fractal hands raised. Wind gusts from nowhere and silent, dark lightning flickers over the soldiers. But they’ve learned how to deal with people who can temporarily revoke the propagation of electrons. They hurl their robots like grenades.

The fat blue hexagonal bodies stick to the air as if to a magnetized surface, encasing Jorge in a spinning cage.

How can I deescalate this situation? I thrust aside mental images of dancing naked in front of the soldiers. Half of being a kink might be weaponized seduction, but the other is getting help from the people you’ve already seduced.

“Oh, New Ambassador,” I shout, “they’re hurting my friend! Oh it’s so dreadful and threatening.”

“You’re scaring my harem. Stop at once.” Tentacles writhing, the New Ambassador lurches toward the nearest soldier, who responds by summoning what looks like a splash of silvery water out of thin air and drawing it into a sheet between him and the oonkhs.

“How dare you block me, you troglodyte?”  He rears onto two massive legs, honking like a goose with operatic voice-training.

“Harry,” Zehra clutches his hairy, bucking dome, “you idiot.”

But the Technology Liaison is already in front of the frothing male, petting his legs and cooing.

“It’s all right,’ she says, “nobody is going to hurt anybody.” The glowing orb over her head rises and brightens to orange. “Isn’t that right?”

The soldiers draw back. The cage of robots drops to the re-solidified asphalt. The laws of physics settle back into their grooves and we all wait for someone to make a mistake.

Agent Yamashita is the first person to break the silence. “I am glad that cooler heads are prevailing. Let me take this opportunity to invite captain Pavić to join us all at the American embassy for…” her words die in her throat as the technology liaison turns the Orb in her direction “…or whatever you would like to do, Technology Liaison.”

“I’m surprised and gratified you’ve all decided to come to your senses,” the oonkh says. “And our wish is to leave this planet as soon as possible.” She waggles a tentacle in my direction. “Come on, Harry.”

“You can’t—“ say both Pavić and Yamashita, but the Technology Liaison flicks a tentacle at her Orb and they fall silent.

What is that thing? Do Yamashita and Pavić know, or are they just wisely assuming that whatever they don’t understand can kill them?

“We leave momentarily,” says the Technology Liaison. “Harry and Zehra, your passage is paid for, and we would be happy to accommodate Mr. P’whapm.”

The pnamn knots himself. “Oh thank goodness.”

Plamen coughs and speaks for himself, “Not that I’m eager to go blasting off into outer space, but how will you communicate without me?”

“Inacceptable,” says Captain Pavić. “Zehra, get off Mrs. the ambassador and tell these people that no human is permitted to leave.”

“Captain, I think you are in need to a distraction,” says Zehra. “P’whamp, sweetie, I think these human law-enforcers should hear all your complaints.”

She doesn’t shout, but Plamen relays the instructions to her alien sex-thrall, who says, “Oh, with pleasure. You there! Officer! Are you aware the gravity on your planet is only two thirds what it should be? And why is it that you allow air resistance to continue to exist? Air resistance, of all things. Oh, and you might want to decontaminate the suburb I irradiated. It’s over that way somewhere. You’ll have to ask my native guides for directions.”

Zehra gives more suggestions, and the New Ambassador ambles through the dissolving cordon to tower in front of me. “Harry,” he booms. “Let me get a good rendering of you.”

Ears fan wide and I imagine ultrasonic pings bombarding my body.

“You’re thin,” says the New Ambassador. “Have you been eating? And I’m not sure I like the look of that prostate.” Bristly manipulators coil around me, and damn if it doesn’t feel just a little comforting. Comforting and repulsive, but still.

“Nice to see you, sir.”

“Nice to have my harem back together,” he harrumphs. “When I heard you’d been snatched by that reprobate Junior, I didn’t know what to think.”

“It was…” I gloss over three potential Armageddons…”stressful. We owe our lives to the help of Mr. P’whapm, and” before he can butt in, “Jorge of course.”

“Jorge?” the huge alien cocks an ear and releases a suspicious cloud of goaty fish scent. “That smarmy amanuensis for Bubba? Always struck me as a bit of a shyster.”

Jorge glares at Plamen, who shrugs.

“Jorge wants the same thing as all of us,” I assure my client, “even if he has different ways of getting it. We’ve come to an understanding.”

“Oh really?” Zehra leans over to look down at me. Her smile tells me she knows exactly what I mean. “I’m very sorry I missed that conversation.”

“I was in the autodoc at the time,” says Plamen. “Remind me never to get in your way, Harry.”

“Are you kidding?” I give him my sexiest smile. “You wouldn’t know what hit you.”

Yamashita makes a strangled noise.

“Uh,” I can guess what she wants. “Where exactly are you oonkhs going? And why?”

“Deeper into the Light Cone,” says the Technology Liaison. “We can’t transmit all of our findings by proxy. “She twiddles a tentacle and the Orb shrinks to pea-size. “Besides, it’s too dangerous to stay here.”

“Don’t let them leave,” hisses Yamashita.

I shoot her an exasperated look, but speak to the oonkhs. “What do you mean dangerous? The crisis is over.” An absolute lie, and the Technology Liaison knows it.

“Even if you had found and somehow brought to justice Bubba’s murderer,” she says, “the crisis…the war…has only begun.”

“Excuse me?” says Yamashita. “What war?”

The New Ambassador releases a cloud of melancholy wet-dog-smell. “The unfortunate fact of your astropolitical situation, unfortunate for all of us, is that your species is so weak.”

“If you were strong,” the Technology Liaison elaborates, “we could pursue a policy of mutual deterrence, promising to obliterate each other in the event of armed conflict. Unfortunately, you possess no weapon that could possibly be considered a threat to us, and the reverse is far from true. We could smash you in a heartbeat in a fair fight, and so could any other technological species within the Light Cone. This creates an incentive for you to make the fight unfair by attacking us first. However, knowing as we do that this incentive exists for you, we would be wise to launch a preemptive strike against you, and so on.”

 “You’re talking about a Hobbesian Trap,” says Yamashita.

“You see? Even you people have a word for it.” The oonkh flaps he ears. “The stable equilibrium here is a war that would drive the human species extinct. And indeed such has been the rule for most of the low-tech species engulfed by the Wave Front. We all work, and must work constantly, to prevent the seeds of war from taking root until such time as your species has reached technological parity with us.”

Yamashita holds her hands out, as if to an idol. “So help us do that.”

“It isn’t in our remit to help the subjects of our studies.”

“No,” Zehra gives the New Ambassador like a fly on the back of a rhinoceros. “You cannot leave my species to be driven to extinction by bad politics.”

I wince. Does she think she’s dealing with a pnamn? But the New Ambassador only exudes an amused scent and pats her. “Oh, don’t worry,” he rumbles. “We have a plan for you and Harry. Are you familiar with the term adoption?”

I manage to talk before anyone else. “How many of us are you planning to adopt? Zehra, Plamen, Jorge?” I take a wild leap. “The whole human species?”

The Technology Liaison strokes her husband-pet who is vibrating the oonkh equivalent of a nod. “I’m sorry, but we don’t feel comfortable sharing our craft with so many strange sentients. You’re one thing, Harry, we know you.”

“In the biblical sense,” says Jorge.

“But these other human creatures, fine as I’m sure they are, cannot accompany us all the way back to the frontier trading station.”

The New Ambassador fidgets. “But Liaison…”

“My word on this is final.”

Damn, I bonded with the wrong oonkh. But even if the oonkhs were willing, would I want to evacuate the earth? Do I want to escape? Does Jorge?

“No!” says Zehra. “You must stay here and protect my species.”

“Hush, now, little one. This is all very complicated.”

Zehra shoots me a look. She knows she’s screwed up, cast herself as an infant.

Jorge coughs self-importantly. “If you feel you are in danger here, perhaps we could discuss things in the safety of Amazonia zone.”

“Ooh,” says the New Ambassador, “can we?”

The Technology Liaison shuts her ears. “I’m afraid not.”

“Then if you allow me to accompany you…“I have money.”

“Real money?”

“I work for the beezles, of course I have…”

Yamashita, Pavic, and everyone else I can see squints and mutters something like “what did he say?” I look at Plamen, who’s gritting his teeth.

“Simultanized value-arbitrated signatures? Entangled worth-determining identities? Something like that,” says the translator. “I think we can expect another economic paradigm shift.”

“Shit,” says Yamashita, “again? I just got used to speed-segregated commodity exchange.”

“I’m afraid,” says the Technology Liaison, “that the sum you referenced wouldn’t cover your mass, let alone your adaptation surgery.”

“Wie bitte?” Zehra thumps on the New Ambassador’s domed upper body. “What kind of surgery?”

“You can’t expect to be able to breathe nitrox air in an oonkh habitat. Unless you want to be uploaded or to live in a terrarium…”

Jorge his looking at me.  Is his expression pleading? What does he want? And why does he think I can get it for him?

“I do not expect to breathe whatever,” says Zehra, “I intend to stay here on Earth.”

We all cringe back from the New Ambassador’s wave of bleach-scented fury. “You ingrateful little monkey! I offered you my protection.”

I hold up my arms, making my profile bigger. “We have responsibilities to protect our species. It may be hopeless, but we have to stay. Our traditions demand it.”

The quixotic plea works and the New Ambassador doesn’t hurl Zehra into the nearest wall. He only plucks her off his back and sets her next to me.

“So you became a man while I was gone,” he says. Plamen doesn’t have to tell me the alternate translation for that: so you went insane while I was gone.

“Oh you stupid cannibal Westerners.” Jorge pushes past me and waves at the oonkhs. “Are you just going to leave Harry?”

“If it’s what he wants,” says the Technology Liaison, “and what business is it of yours?”

The New Ambassador spits out of his apical vent. “At least all these other humans have the decency to keep quiet.”

“You’re not even going to leave him with anything to remember you by?” says Jorge. “What if he reconsiders? Or by some chance survives and wants to talk to you?”

“Oh, yes, what a nice idea.” The New Ambassador turns an ear toeard the Technology Liaison, who releases a sigh of hyacinth and hot metal.

“I suppose so.” She holds out a tentacle, over whose tip glows the color-shifting orb.”Take it, Harry. Who knows, it might do you some good.”

The bubble dims and floats toward me.

“Take it, you idiot,” growls Jorge.

When I touch it, I feel nothing, but the bubble pops. I jump.

“Look at your index finger,” says the Technology Liaison.

My fingertip glows with a pinprick of twinkling light. When I press my thumb to it, the light expands back into a bubble, which floats over my head.

“I do wish you’d reconsider,” says the New Ambassador.

The Technology Liaison holds up a tentacle. “We don’t have time. Our ride is here.”

A rush of wind, and a shadow falls across us.

The soldiers twitch, but fortunately, nobody shoots the huge metal tripod that has materialized over our heads. Very fortunately.

“Hello, Harry.” Say the Moores.

Martian Law 7/12

The Selenian embassy was in an old townhouse on Baker Street, its walls mostly scrubbed clean of graffiti and its windows blocked with bulky air-conditioning machines. Its roof hunched under a huge antenna spike and receiver dish almost as large as the building itself.

Human senses could not have perceived the modulated waves of magnetism that now pulsed from that spike, and even Martian eyes could not see the parabolic mirrors, far above the earth’s mantle of atmosphere, as they slid into position.

Singh, however, did not need superior senses to deduce these very phenomena. He had written the policy that now dictated events.  Thus it was with every confidence that he addressed General Dunwitty. His voice did not even crack when the articulated metal tentacle slithered through the air and wrapped itself around its torso.

“This is unforgivable,” he informed the war-walker’s pilot. “I am a duly appointed representative of the Federation of Selenian Habitats.”

WHAT YOU ARE, MR. SINGH, IS A SPY. AGENT PROVOCATEUR, RABBLE ROUSER, AND FILTHY WIFE-STEALING CAD.

Spittle flew from his lips and my tentacles drew in toward my mantle in fear. No being in the solar system is as irrationally dangerous as a jealous male human.

The taxi rocked under me. The cabby, having disputed with us and lost his courage, now lost his strength and his patience. His hands tugged the actuator levers and the legs of the perambulator flexed.

My tentacles would be no match for the strength of the man’s arms. Nor could I leap from the carriage of the perambulator without breaking every cartilaginous brace in my body. Fortunately I had one, inherently Martian advantage. Quickly I slid a tentacle up past my mouth and dug in the pockets within my mantel. As the cabby spun our conveyance away from my friend, I extended my tentacles around him, holding out a knuckle-sized nodule of redweed.

Almost by animal instinct, it seemed, the man snatched at the blood-colored wealth, but I pulled my tentacle back.

Stop, I signed with the others. Let me down.

“I ain’t stopping. I’ll cut that out of your hide.”

You have no time. The leathery wrinkled plant was even now swelling in my grip, glistening in the moist English air. Stop now or I’ll throw it.

His fingers froze in the air, trembling as he imagined the redweed hitting the puddled street. All that wealth evaporating into a frenzy of useless growth. But if he could get the nodule to a bath of brine, or even keep it dry long enough to sell, he might never have to pilot a perambulator for pay again.

His hands flashed over the actuators and the machine under us belched steam. “Alright. Off.”

I dropped the redweed and wrapped myself around the descent ladder. I had not slid more than halfway down before the perambulator shuddered back into motion and I had to let go or be scraped off against a wall.

I squelched into a puddle without more injury than a coating of filth. I would need to visit a Martian salon soon or risk earthrot, but for the moment I was hale enough to reseat my fez over my pate and focus my attention on Singh.

My friend still hung above the rooftops in the mechanical clutches of Dunwitty. The motions of his mouth were too distant to read, but I m confident he was arguing with his captor. Attempting to make him reason. Or at least stall until those mirrors achieved their proper orbits.

Was the air growing warmer? I slithered through the refuse on the street, dragging my painful Martian way toward the embassy door.

WHO GOES THERE?

The carriage of the war tripod swiveled above me, but with a last desperate lurch, I wound three tentacles around the anchors that surrounded the building’s door and hauled myself to safety.

Martian Law 6/12

I signed to my friend with jerking tentacles. Why not simply let the assasins kill General Dunwitty? If he is as foul a man as you say…

Singh left off staring grimly through the windshield and replied. “He is all I have said and worse, but dead, he becomes a martyr and strengthens the very ultranationalism I am trying to discourage. No, it is the general’s career and good name we must destroy, not the man himself.”

So, when you instructed Mrs. Dunwitty to telegraph her husband from the Selenian Embassy with the news of his impending assassination, your intention was to clog his siphon? That is, provoke hot-headedness, but, I am afraid the Martian phrase is rather more vulgar. I was under some stress at that time.

“Yes. I aimed to provoke his rage in a way that will damage his reputation rather than put Mrs. Dunwitty’s life at risk. Let him vent his spleen against the Selenian Embassy’s walls.”

An excellent plan, Singh.

He turned back to staring at the blurred streets ahead, his skin positively glowing with nervous heat.

If only we had not been caught in traffic.

Our perambulator turned the corner onto Baker Street and swayed to a halt. Exoskeletal joints clicked and my mantle rustled as Singh and I leaned back to take in the huge blackened war-tripod parked between us and the embassy.

“If only,” breathed Singh.

HALT! I felt the vibration of the loudspeaker through my tentacles. WHO GOES THERE?

“It is I,” answered my friend, ratcheting up from the chair, “Professor Perceval Singh, Legal Consult. I demand access to my embassy immediately.”

OH, IT’S SINGH, IS IT? A hatch opened in the tripod’s cap, and a figure waved.

Martian distance vision far better than that of the human. I could clearly make out the man’s bejeweled uniform, his peacock-plumed hat, his waxed mustaches and famous gold-plated teeth. THANK YOU FOR SAVING ME THE TROUBLE OF FINDING YOU. General Dunwitty bellowed through the megaphone. I HEREBY PLACE YOU UNDER ARREST!