Marty Halpern's Blog, page 42

The Marty Halpern Interview on Suvudu.com

Publicist Matt Staggs (@mattstaggs) interviews me for Suvudu.com. Matt writes: "...When Halpern told me that he had finished a new anthology called Alien Contact, I thought now would be a good time for us to have a conversation about his career as an award-winning editor1 and what it takes to get a start in the business today."




Here's a taste:

Tell me about your new project. How did it come together? Who is involved?




When I queried authors about contributing to the Fermi paradox anthology (the previously mentioned Is Anybody Out There?), a few responded with similar comments: they had already written what they felt was their best alien contact story, and they didn't wish to write yet another. So this got me thinking about all the incredible alien contact stories that have been written in the past, say, thirty years — and wouldn't it be great to have these all (or at least as many as possible) collected in one volume. And thus Alien Contact was born. After much perseverance, I sold the anthology to Night Shade Books. (Note: I actually have enough quality stories to easily fill another volume!)

Please check out Matt's interview with me on Suvudu.com.





---------------

Footnote:




1. Actually, that should be "award-nominated editor" -- though I'm a winner in my own heart!

Alien Contact Anthology -- Story #25

Alien Contact is now available for preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and hopefully other booksellers as well, and will be published in November by Night Shade Books. If you are new to these "Story" postings, you may want to begin here. This is story #25 (of 26):





"MAXO Signals:

A New and Unfortunate Solution to the Fermi Paradox"

by Charles Stross







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This "story" was originally published in the August 25, 2005, issue of Nature magazine, and is a short-short of approximately 800 words.




In fact, due to this story's short length -- and the style in which it was written -- I won't be quoting any of its actual content in this blog post. Regarding the story's style and content, Charles Stross had this to say:

I got an invite to write a short-short for Nature, one of the most prestigious real science journals there is! Which was great. However, there's a fly in the ointment: Nature's SF stories run on the back page. Not back pages, page singular.



It's kind of hard to write a one-page short story: you have to throw out a whole bunch of stuff you'd normally need in an SF story. Characterization, plot, theme, ideas -- pick any two and trash 'em ruthlessly and you'll still have to cut, and cut, and cut.



In the end, I decided to go tech: write a pastiche in the general style of a Letter to Nature -- not a peer-reviewed paper but a communiqué from a research group. What could they be researching? How about extra-terrestrial intelligence?



Let's take SETI seriously. We're listening for messages that Someone Out There feels strongly enough about to broadcast to the stars for decades or centuries on end. What on earth (or off it) could possibly repay the investment implicit in running an interstellar transmitter (a fearsomely high-powered device) for such a length of time? Well, there might be two-way communication: "I'll tell you how I build fusion reactors if you tell me how you build..." -- sort of a very slow-motion Galactic internet. But that's pretty unlikely. Because once you build an email system that anyone can broadcast on or listen into, sooner or later you'll get MAXO Signals...

I don't want to give too much away, but let me say that anyone who has received a solicitation email from Nigeria -- and that's pretty much everyone who has an email account -- will appreciate this short story. If you would rather not wait for the publication of Alien Contact, you can read an actual scan of the story from Nature via this PDF link.





[Story #26 -- the last story -- Forthcoming]

Alien Contact at World Fantasy Convention

The upcoming 2011 World Fantasy Convention will take place October 27-30 at the Town and Country Resort Hotel and Convention Center in San Diego, California.




The fine folks at Night Shade Books assure me that Alien Contact is still on schedule to ship nationally on October 28, and that copies of the anthology will indeed be available at their booth in the dealers room at the convention.




The following contributing authors to Alien Contact will be in attendance at the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego:



Neil Gaiman (Author GOH)

Jeffrey Ford

Bruce McAllister

Pat Murphy

Robert Silverberg

Harry Turtledove



And hopefully yours truly, Marty Halpern. (see previous Status post)




Friday evening at the World Fantasy Con is always devoted to a mass meet-the-pros and autograph signing. Hopefully, all of the above authors -- and me as well -- will be on hand for this event. So attendees should be able to have copies of the anthology signed by all present at that time. We're also trying to arrange some various times when these individuals can stop by the Night Shade booth in the dealers room to do a bit of book signing, too. I, for one, plan to have them all sign my own copy of the book.




So, if you'll be at WFC in San Diego at the end of the month, please try to track me down, introduce yourself if we don't already know one another, and do say "Hi" and chat a bit. I look forward to meeting many of the readers of this blog at the convention.

Alien Contact Anthology -- Story #24

If you are a Goodreads member, please sign up for the chance to win a free copy of Alien Contact. (See the Goodreads widget to the right.) Pictured in the giveaway is the Advanced Reading Copy, but winners will be receiving copies of the published version of the book. Alien Contact is also available for preorder from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and hopefully other booksellers as well, and will be published in November by Night Shade Books. If you are new to these "Story" postings, you may want to begin here. This is story #24 (of 26):



"Swarm"by Bruce Sterling



This story was originally published as the cover story in the April 1982 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction , and is approximately 9,600 words in length. (The cover art for this particular issue was created by Carl Lundgren, who went on to create poster art for classic bands such as The Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Pink Floyd.)

"Swarm" is part of Bruce Sterling's Shaper/Mechanist world, which includes four additional stories as well as the novel Schismatrix. As I was preparing for this blog post, I dug up my copy of Schismatrix Plus (Ace Books, 1996) -- a single volume that contains the complete Shaper/Mechanist stories, and reread Bruce's introduction, written in November 1995. Here are a few excerpts:

"Swarm" was also my first magazine sale...[and] is still the story of mine most often reprinted. I'm still fond of it: I can write a better prose now, but with that story, I finally gnawed my way through the insulation and got my teeth set into the buzzing copper wire.



[...]



In those days of yore, cyberpunk wasn't hype or genre history; it had no name at all. It hadn't yet begun to be metabolized by anyone outside a small literary circle. But it was very real to me, as real as anything in my life, and when I was hip-deep into SCHISMATRIX chopping my way through circumsolar superpower conflicts and grimy, micro-nation terrorist space pirates, it felt like holy fire.

[...]

People are always asking me about—demanding from me even—more Shaper/Mechanist work. Sequels. A trilogy maybe. The schismatrix sharecropping shared-universe "as created by" Bruce Sterling. But I don't do that sort of thing. I never will. This is all there was, and all there is.

When I asked Bruce to share some thoughts on "Swarm" with readers, this is what he wrote:

I have scientists in my family, and one of my uncles is an entomologist. That was how I came to understand, as a child, that insects were not just creepy vermin in one's Texan backyard, but could be proper objects of prolonged and serious study. They were here long before us and have every likelihood of being here long after us.



Social insects have a parallel alien world. One has to like the modest way they go about their own business without attempting alien contact. If these much older civilizations levelled with us about our current dominion of the planet, we likely wouldn't much care for that conversation.

In 2008, when I had begun my research and story gathering for this anthology, I contacted a number of authors for story recommendations. Author Alastair Reynolds was the one to suggest "Swarm." Years (and years) ago, I had read the five Shaper/Mechanist stories in Bruce's 1989 Arkham House collection, Crystal Express.; I also own the 1985 first edition hardcover of Schismatrix (Arbor House). But at some point in the past (I don't recall when, but obviously after 1996) I purchased Schismatrix Plus, so that when I read the stories yet again, I wouldn't have to handle the book with kid gloves because it was just a reprint trade paperback. So I'm rereading the introduction, as I noted above, and the next thing I know I've read past the prologue and into the first chapter of Schismatrix. That's the sign of a good book -- and good writing -- when it sucks you in like that. I'm now on chapter 2, so this appears to be the book I am currently reading.

Let's see if I can suck you in with this excerpt from the story. As the story opens, Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel is en route to meet the Swarm:

"I will miss your conversation during the rest of the voyage," the alien said.

Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel folded his jeweled hands over his gold-embroidered waistcoat. "I regret it also, ensign," he said in the alien's own hissing language. "Our talks together have been very useful to me. I would have paid to learn so much, but you gave it freely."

"But that was only information," the alien said. He shrouded his bead-bright eyes behind thick nictitating membranes. "We Investors deal in energy, and precious metals. To prize and pursue mere knowledge is an immature racial trait." The alien lifted the long ribbed frill behind his pinhole-sized ears.

"No doubt you are right," Afriel said, despising him. "We humans are as children to other races, however; so a certain immaturity seems natural to us." Afriel pulled off his sunglasses to rub the bridge of his nose. The starship cabin was drenched in searing blue light, heavily ultraviolet. It was the light the Investors preferred, and they were not about to change it for one human passenger.

"You have not done badly," the alien said magnanimously. "You are the kind of race we like to do business with: young, eager, plastic, ready for a wide variety of goods and experiences. We would have contacted you much earlier, but your technology was still too feeble to afford us a profit."

"Things are different now," Afriel said. "We'll make you rich."

"Indeed," the Investor said. The frill behind his scaly head flickered rapidly, a sign of amusement. "Within two hundred years you will be wealthy enough to buy from us the secret of our starflight. Or perhaps your Mechanist faction will discover the secret through research."

Afriel was annoyed. As a member of the Reshaped faction, he did not appreciate the reference to the rival Mechanists. "Don't put too much stock in mere technical expertise," he said. "Consider the aptitude for languages we Shapers have. It makes our faction a much better trading partner. To a Mechanist, all Investors look alike."

The alien hesitated. Afriel smiled. He had appealed to the alien's personal ambition with his last statement, and the hint had been taken. That was where the Mechanists always erred. They tried to treat all Investors consistently, using the same programmed routines each time. They lacked imagination.

[...]

"It seems a shame," the alien said, "that a human of your accomplishments should have to rot for two years in this miserable, profitless outpost."

"The years won't be wasted," Afriel said.

"But why have you chosen to study the Swarm? They can teach you nothing, since they cannot speak. They have no wish to trade, having no tools or technology. They are the only spacefaring race that is essentially without intelligence."

"That alone should make them worthy of study."

[...]

There came a fluting burst of alien music over the ship's speakers, then a screeching fragment of Investor language. Most of it was too high-pitched for Afriel's ears to follow.

The alien stood, his jeweled skirt brushing the tips of his clawed birdlike feet. "The Swarm's symbiote has arrived," he said.

And so begins Captain-Doctor Simon Afriel's journey into the Nest. "Swarm" was a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, and the Locus Award.



[Story #25 Forthcoming]

Alien Contact Anthology -- Story #23

I have set up an "Alien Contact Anthology" Facebook page; in the column to the right, scroll down a bit to see the widget. If you are an FB user, please consider a "Like" on this FB page for future updates, including the full text of more stories, book giveaways, and more. Alien Contact is now available for preorder and is forthcoming in November from Night Shade Books. This is story #23 (of 26):







"Lambing Season"

by Molly Gloss







This story was originally published in the July 2002 issue of Asimov's Science Fiction , and is approximately 5,700 words in length.




The weekend of March 11-13, I attended the first of what appears to be an annual Bay Area SF convention: FOGcon. One of the panels I sat in on was on the idea of "Regional SF." Panelist Terry Bisson raved about the story "Lambing Season" by Molly Gloss, stating that it was one of the best stories he had read that dealt with "sense of place." I was able to support Terry's comments about this story, and also to state that I had acquired it for inclusion in a forthcoming anthology. But I will let this excerpt from the beginning of the story speak for itself:

From May to September Delia took the Churro sheep and two dogs and went up on Joe-Johns Mountain to live. She had that country pretty much to herself all summer. Ken Owen sent one of his Mexican hands up every other week with a load of groceries but otherwise she was alone, alone with the sheep and the dogs. She liked the solitude. Liked the silence. Some sheepherders she knew talked a blue streak to the dogs, the rocks, the porcupines, they sang songs and played the radio, read their magazines out loud, but Delia let the silence settle into her, and, by early summer, she had begun to hear the ticking of the dry grasses as a language she could almost translate....



[...]



The wind blew out of the southwest in the early part of the season, a wind that smelled of juniper and sage and pollen; in the later months, it blew straight from the east, a dry wind smelling of dust and smoke, bringing down showers of parched leaves and seedheads of yarrow and bittercress. Thunderstorms came frequently out of the east, enormous cloudscapes with hearts of livid magenta and glaucous green. At those times, if she was camped on a ridge, she'd get out of her bed and walk downhill to find a draw where she could feel safer, but if she was camped in a low place, she would stay with the sheep while a war passed over their heads, spectacular jagged flares of lightning, skull-rumbling cannonades of thunder....

As I read this story I could smell the air of Joe-Johns Mountain -- the way it smells on an early summer morn, or when there is a bit of storm in the wind. Or the scent of wet grass after a heavy downpour. The two paragraphs above are only a small taste of this story's sense of place. Here's one more brief excerpt, with a hint of what is in store for Delia:

Lame Man Bench was a great upthrust block of basalt grown over with scraggly juniper forest. As she climbed among the trees, the smell of something like ozone or sulfur grew very strong, and the air became thick, burdened with dust. Threads of the yellow contrail [which she had seen moments early in the night sky] hung in the limbs of the trees. She went on across the top of the bench and onto slabs of shelving rock that gave a view to the west. Down in the steep-sided draw below her there was a big wing-shaped piece of metal resting on the ground, which she at first thought had been torn from an airplane, but then realized was a whole thing, not broken, and she quit looking for the rest of the wreckage. She squatted down and looked at it. Yellow dust settled slowly out of the sky, pollinating her hair, her shoulders, the toes of her boots, faintly dulling the oily black shine of the wing, the thing shaped like a wing.

I asked Molly Gloss to share with readers of this blog some thoughts on the story, and she wrote these very personal words:

After my husband died of cancer, I went three years without writing a single damn thing. "Lambing Season" was the first prose piece I wrote after that long dry spell. I knew it would be a first contact story but didn't know that the alien would be doglike until I came to the sentences describing him. My fifteen-year-old Dalmatian had just died--a dog that had behaved so protectively and so strangely during my husband's last illness and death--and I suppose the "alienness" of my dog's behavior must have been in my mind. And I then wrote into Delia's history a husband and a dog--just a sentence or two--that reflected something of my own experience, and everything I needed to know about Delia suddenly became clear to me.

And I believe I will let Molly's words close this blog post. "Lambing Season" was a finalist for the Nebula Award, the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, and the Asimov's Readers' Award.





[Story #24 Forthcoming]

September Links & Things

This has been one of those days, one of those weeks, one of those months....for any concerned individuals, please see my earlier "Status" blog post.




This is my monthly wrap-up of September's Links & Things. You can receive these links in real time by following me on Twitter: @martyhalpern. Note, however, that not all of my tweeted links make it into these month-end posts. Previous month-end posts are accessible via the "Links and Things" tag in the right column.

My friend, the New York Times Notable author Judith Moffett (about whom I have blogged on numerous occasions, two examples being here and here), has a newly revised website: judithmoffett.com. It's still "under construction," as they say, as Judith is currently in the midst of relocating from Kentucky to Pennsylvania.

As we say good-bye and bemoan the loss of Borders Books & Music (chain store or not, the loss of any bookstore is sad), this poignant photo was taken by Reddit user "Jessers25" at a Borders going-out-of-business sale:







The photo (with additional links) was originally posted on mediabistro.com/galleycat (@galleycat).



The 2012 Jim Baen Memorial Writing Contest has been announced; submissions are being accepted between October 1, 2011 and February 1, 2012. Only stories of no more than 8,000 words on the subject of near future (no more than 50 to 60 years out) manned space exploration are being considered. Please be sure to read the contest rules/guidelines. (via Cynthia Ward's Facebook page)
Speaking of magazines, Steve Davidson -- of The Crotchety Old Fan and The Classic Science Fiction Channel fame -- has been granted the "Amazing Stories" trademark, and plans to resurrect the magazine. Here's the full Press Release. Steve is looking for feedback, suggestions, etc. on his website. (via Ernest Hogan's (@NestoHogan) Facebook page)
Author Jaye Wells (@jayewells) has a very worthwhile post entitled "The Journeyman Writer." In this post she answers the question that her son posed to her one morning: "Mom, how do you write a book all the way to the end?" Ms. Wells writes: "The year I turned 30, I decided to finally stop nattering on about how I wanted to write a book and finally do the damned thing. I signed up for a writing class at the local community college and showed up with sweaty palms and a spiral notebook. Finally, I thought, I'll find out the secret. The only secret the teacher revealed was that writing a book is hard work. And that, if it feels hard, you're probably doing something right. It turns out this knowledge was incredibly freeing because it allowed me to finally give myself permission to be a novice...." (via @lilithsaintcrow)
It's amazing what one can find online via Facebook and Twitter, as you can tell from my many entries in these monthly Links & Things. @Richard_Kadrey tweeted a link that I missed; the link was picked up (i.e. RT'd) by @AdviceToWriters, which I did catch. The link was to a blog post by Robert Bruce (@robertbruce76) who is reading and blogging his way through Time magazine's 100 Greatest Novels (at the time, he was on book #12). In this blog post, from March 2011, Robert is referencing a UK Guardian article that is nearly 2 years old, from February 19, 2010. Here's the article's header: "Ten rules for writing fiction: Get an accountant, abstain from sex and similes, cut, rewrite, then cut and rewrite again – if all else fails, pray. Inspired by Elmore Leonard's 10 Rules of Writing, we asked authors for their personal dos and don'ts." The 29 authors who provide these dos and don'ts include Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Franzen, Neil Gaiman, Joyce Carol Oates, Philip Pullman, Will Self, and Zadie Smith, to name but a few.
Self-published author Pete Morin rants about the "stigma" of self-publishing by providing examples that prove the absurdity of it all. Morin writes: "The quality of someone else's work doesn't have any effect on mine. One might argue it makes it look even better. It certainly might make it harder to get eyes on the cover, but that's a marketing challenge, not a 'stigma.'" (via @LeviMontgomery)
And lastly, from BBC News comes this report: "NASA unveils Space Launch System vision" -- "The Space Launch System (SLS), as it is currently known, will be the most powerful launcher ever built -- more powerful even than the Saturn V rockets that put men on the Moon. On top of the SLS, Nasa plans to put its Orion astronaut capsule, which is already in development." (via @spacefuture)

"It's alive, alive!"

"Exo-Skeleton Town" by Jeffrey Ford (Part 4 of 4)

Exo-Skeleton Town

by Jeffrey Ford




[Continued from Part 3]





Suddenly the house lights went up, as they used to say, and again I was buried up to my neck in nightmare. I entertained the idea of coming clean with Gloriette and telling her of my predicament. Out of the kindness of her heart, she might turn the movie over to Stootladdle to save me, but at the same time she would know I had betrayed her. I did not want to lose her, but I did not want to die either. Even Cotten, expert thespian that he was, couldn't disguise my quandary. After dinner the night that Vespatian had delivered the dreaded message, Gloriette asked what was troubling me.




"Nothing," I told her, but later, after we had taken the smoke, she asked again. The drug weakened me and my growing fear forced me to rely on her mercy. I was sitting next to her on the couch. I reached over and took her hand in mine. She sat up and leaned toward me. "I have a confession to make," I said.




"Yes?" she said, looking into my eyes.




I did not know how to begin and sat long minutes simply staring at her beautiful face. From out across the veldt came the sound of thunder, and then an instant later the rain began to fall, tapping lightly at the parlor window.




I opened my mouth to speak, but no sound came forth. She took this as a sign and moved her face close to mine, touching her lips against my own. We were kissing, passionately. She wrapped her arms around me and drew me closer. My hand moved along the thin material of her dress, from her thigh to her ribs to her breasts. She made no protest for she was as hot as I was. We fondled and kissed for an unheard of length of time, more true to the manner of the twentieth century than our own. When I could stand it no longer, I reached beneath her dress. My hand sailed along the smooth inner skin of her thigh, and when I was about to explode with excitement, my fingers came to rest on the cold steel of her exhaust spigot. I literally groaned.




The suit makers, in all of their art and cunning, had left out that which may be the most important aspect of human anatomy. Think of the irony, a suit made to enhance a commerce dealing ultimately in sex, but having no sex itself. At the same moment I groped her steel pipe, she was doing the same to mine. We released each other and sat there in a state of total frustration.




"The box," she said. "Tomorrow we will go to town, to the box."




"Are you sure?" I asked.




"We have to," she said.




"But can you afford it? I haven't the money," I said, still slightly trembling.




"No, I can't afford it either, but there is something that Stootladdle wants that I can trade for a half-hour in the chamber," she said.




Then it struck me, just like in Gloriette's movie, love would prevail. She was going to trade the film for me, and I would live and not be found out by her. Frank Capra himself couldn't have conceived of anything more felicitous.




Vespatian woke me from a warm, bright dream of summer by the sea. "Mrs. Lancaster is waiting for you in the truck," he said. I hurriedly got dressed and went downstairs.




As I climbed into my chair, I saw that Gloriette was holding the movie tin in her hand. She tapped it nervously against her knee.




"Good morning, Joseph," she said. "I hope you are well rested."




"I'm ready," I said with a lightness in my heart I had not felt since landing on the bug planet.




She wore a yellow dress and a golden bee pendant on a thin cable around her neck. Her hair was done in braids, and she shone more vibrantly than the veldt itself.




"Exo-Skeleton Town," she called to Vespatian.




"As is your pleasure, madame," said the grasshopper, and we were off.




We rode in silence through the dark. Somewhere, after we had left the veldt far behind and I couldn't see two feet in front of me, I felt her hand touch mine and we intertwined our fingers. All went well until we reached the outskirts of Exo-town, and there, beneath a streetlamp, we witnessed a despondent Judy Garland, in blue gingham, put a stinger gun to her head and pull the trigger. Her exo-skin must have been poorly made because, instead of her leaking out, it blew apart like a bursting balloon, spewing blood and guts of her true self across the passenger door of our truck.




Gloriette covered her eyes with her hand. "I wish I hadn't seen that," she said. "This is surely Hell."




"It's all right," I told her. "She's better off."




The bluebottles immediately appeared and began devouring the remains.




"Drive faster, Vespatian," she called.




The grasshopper hit the gas pedal, and we were driving down the main street of Exo-Skeleton Town no more than three minutes later.




Stootladdle was beside himself with cordiality when he finally understood the deal that Gloriette was putting before him.




"An old movie and not well known," he said, taking the film tin from her. "But, in deference to your late husband, and because you are so delightful, I will take this token in exchange for a half-hour in the box for you and your friend."




"When you see me in the scene at the end of the film, where I am in the bar," she said to him. "Always remember that at that moment, as I am saying my final line, my left high heel is flattening a roach beneath my bar stool."




"It will thrill me to the very thorax," said the mayor.




"The box," she said.




"Yes, follow me," said the flea. As we left his office, he turned to me and whispered, "Cotten, you damn rascal."




The box was in an otherwise abandoned building down the street from the mayor's office. He unlocked the door with the end of a long thick hair that jutted from his cheek. We stepped into the deep shadows behind him. There before us, almost indistinguishable from the rest of the darkness, was a large black box, ten by ten by ten. Stootladdle moved to the front of it and appeared to be pressing some buttons. There was a sound of old gears turning slowly, and a panel slid back revealing bright light, as if from my dream of summer.




"Remember," said the flea, "you must wait until the gong sounds inside before you can molt your outer skin. Also, when the gong sounds for the second time, you must replace your skin within five minutes or you will die when the door opens again. All this was told to me by the dear Earth man who invented it."




"Joseph?" asked Gloriette.




"Let's go," I said.




"This is surely paradise," said Stootladdle as he swept out his arms to usher us into the box of light.




I could hear the door slowly closing behind us but could see nothing, my eyes temporarily blinded. It was warm, though, and there were sound effects—a stream running, birds singing, a tinkling wind chime, and the rustling of leaves.




Just as my vision cleared, I heard the gong sound.




"Isn't it perfectly lovely," said Gloriette.




"The most beautiful place I've ever been," I said. I looked around and there was nothing inside, just the floor and walls padded with deep foam rubber covered in crimson silk.




"Come, Joseph, make me forget about the veldt," she said.




I put my arms around her. She gently pushed me away. "Let's molt," she said with a nervous laugh.




Four successive taps at the center of the forehead made the exo-skin peel down like the sectioned hide of an orange. We reached out and tapped each other.




Imagine wearing a pair of ill-fitting shoes, shoes far too tight. Imagine walking for months in them with no relief. And then imagine finally taking them off, and you will know one hundredth the relief of shedding an exo-skin. This sensation itself verged on orgasm. Cotten fell away and lay rumpled around my ankles. I kicked him into a corner of the box. When I looked back at Gloriette, she had her back to me. I was pleased to see her real hair was a perfect color match for that of the actress. Stepping up behind her, I put my hands on her shoulders.




"Scratch my back," she said, and I did.




"That feels so good," she said, with a sigh.




Then she turned and I took a step away from her. My eyes went wide as did hers. I noticed a sudden hollow feeling in my chest. She wasn't beautiful anymore, and she wasn't homely by any means, but she was different. That difference thoroughly chilled me even in the warm light of the box. What was more, I saw from the look in her eyes the reflection of her own grave disappointment. All of my pent-up desire vanished, leaving me limp inside and out. I saw her bottom lip begin to tremble and the sight of this brought tears to my eyes.




"I'm not Gloriette Moss," she said.




"I know," I told her and stepped forward to put my arms around her once again.




For fifteen minutes of our precious time in paradise, we stood holding each other in silence, not as lovers but as frightened, lost children. The notion of sex was as distant from that box as we were from the true sun. Like a desperate confession, she began frantically to whisper into my ear her life story. Born on Earth as Melissa Bower to a military man and his wife, she married very young to a career diplomat, who forced her to accompany him to the bug planet. In choosing her exo-skin, he would not allow her to become anyone of any recognition. She had wanted Jane Mansfield, but instead was allowed only Gloriette Moss. His main desire was to achieve great wealth for himself. The ambassador, it turns out, was as abusive a species of vermin as Stootladdle. It was she who did Lancaster in with a hatpin to the eye. "I used something so very thin, so there would be no evidence and he would suffer longer as he turned to jelly," she said. "The smoke was my only friend."




Her honesty made me feel as naked within as without. I told her the truth about how I had come to her house and why. As I explained, I heard her give a brief groan and then felt her slump in my arms as if she were now no more than an empty exo-skin. When I finished, I eased her onto the floor and lay beside her. She did not cry, but stared vacantly into the corner of the box.




"We have each other now," I told her. "We can help each other beat the smoke, and if we sell all the things in your house, we can return to Earth. We might even come to love each other." I kissed her on the cheek, but she did not respond.




I talked and projected and promised, rubbed her arm and ran my open palm the length of her hair. Then the gong sounded, waking me suddenly from the dream of the future I was spinning.




I immediately began fitting my suit back on. "It will be fine," I said right before I momentarily died and was revived. When I was again Cotten, I looked down and to my horror, she hadn't moved.




"Come on, hurry!" I yelled. "There are only minutes left."




She lay motionless, staring. I tried to slip her suit onto her—an impossible task unless the wearer is standing—but she was curled in a fetal position. Those few minutes were an eternity, and when I thought they should have long been over, I lifted her and held her to me.




"Why?" I asked. "Why?"




She slowly turned her face to me. "You know why," she said.




Then the door slid open, and she turned to rain in my arms.





[The End]





[Story #23 Forthcoming]





---------------

"Exo-Skeleton Town" is © 2001 by Jeffrey Ford and is reprinted here by permission of the author. The story was originally published in the premiere issue of Black Gate magazine, Spring 2001.







"Exo-Skeleton Town" is one of 26 stories included in anthology Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern and forthcoming from Night Shade Books in November. For more information on this anthology, you may want to start here.




Jeffrey Ford is a graduate of Binghamton University, where he studied with the novelist John Gardner. He published his first story, "The Casket," in Gardner's literary magazine MSS in 1981, and his first full-length novel, Vanitas, in 1988. His next three novels comprised the "Well-Built City" trilogy: The Physiognomy, Memoranda, and The Beyond. Jeff has twelve nominations for the World Fantasy Award, and has won the award six times: two for novels The Physiognomy and The Shadow Year; two for collections The Fantasy Writer's Assistant and Other Stories and The Drowned Life, one for novella "Botch Town," and one for short story "Creation." He teaches Writing and Early American Literature at Brookdale Community College.

"Exo-Skeleton Town" by Jeffrey Ford (Part 3 of 4)

Exo-Skeleton Town

by Jeffrey Ford




[Continued from Part 2]





The Lancaster house was a creaky old retro affair from the part of Earth's history when they used wood to build dwellings. I'd seen pictures of these things before. The style, as I had read in one of my many film books, was Victorian. These baroque shelters with lacelike woodwork and myriad rooms were always popping up in the flicks from the thirties and forties. Pointed rocket-ship-looking turrets on either side of a big three-story box with a railed platform that went all the way around it. As I made my way toward the steps that led to a door, I quickly, out of desperation, mind-wrote the script for the next scene.




I knocked once, twice, three times, and waited, hoping the lady of the house was home. There was no way I would ever make it to Exo-town on my own. Eventually the door pulled back and a young woman appeared behind an inner screen door.




"Can I help you?" she asked, almost in a whisper.




"I'm lost," I said. "I wandered away from town, hoping to see the luminous veldt, and although I've found it, I don't think I can return. Something has been chasing me through the tall grass. I'm scared and tired." Having said this, I had a feeling my words had come out too stiffly to be believed.




She opened the screen door and looked at me. "Joseph Cotten?" she said.




I nodded and looked as forlornly as possible.




"You poor man," she said, and motioned for me to enter.




As I crossed the threshold, it became clear to me that old Joe was on the job. If it had been only me, she most likely would have locked the door and called the Beetle Squad, but since it was Cotten, the consummate professional of ingratiating Third Man haplessness, she immediately felt my pain.




Inside the bowels of the old Victorian, standing on an elaborately designed rug, amidst the spiraled wooden furniture, in the face of an ancient stand-up clock, I took in the beauty of Gloriette Moss. Stootladdle knew his film, because here was obvious star quality in the supernova range—an exotic hybrid of the young Audrey Hepburn and the older Hayley Mills. She was this and more than this, with a mid-length blonde wave, a face so fresh and innocent, a smile that was straight grace until the corners curled into mischief. She wore a simple, cobalt-blue dress and no shoes. She was Jean Seberg with hair, Grace Kelly minus the affectation.




"I rarely have visitors now that my husband has passed away," she said, her hands clasped behind her back.




"Sorry to trouble you," I said. "I don't know what I was thinking, coming out here into the wilderness on my own."




"It's no trouble, really," she said. "I rather enjoy the idea of company."




"Well, just let me get my bearings and I'll be off," I said, and though I spoke this plainly, I could feel Cotten creating a look of half-hidden dejection.




"Nonsense," she said. "You've come all this way to see the veldt. You can't go back to town by yourself, you're lucky you made it here alive. There are things in the grass, you know. Things that would just as soon eat you."




"I'm sorry," I said. "I had come all the way from Earth to scout locations for a film about the bug planet. I'm thinking of reviving the art of cinema back on the home world, and I thought what better place to make a movie than the only place in the universe where movies are still appreciated for their art and not how much freasence they will bring."




"That's wonderful," she said, her face brightening more than ever. "Stay here with me for a while and I will show you the veldt. This house has so many empty rooms."




"Are you sure I won't be putting you out?" I asked.




"Please," she said. "I'll have my man show you upstairs and get you situated."




I began to speak, but she said, "I'll hear nothing to the contrary," and that ancient, elegant phrase, issuing from that smooth face made me weak.




"Vespatian," she called out, and a moment later a pale green grasshopper as tall as me, dressed in a black short-coat and trousers, appeared at the entrance to a hallway leading left.




"We have a visitor," she said. "Mr. Cotten will be staying for a time. See him to the large room on the third floor, the one with the view of the veldt."




"As you wish, madame," said the bug with the obsequious air of a David Niven. "This way, sir."





As I was delivered to the door of an upstairs room, Vespatian informed me that dinner would be at eight. I thanked him and he gave a pained sigh before deftly spinning and walking away.




The minute I was in my room, I became the Cotten of Shadow of a Doubt. I laid down on the bed, a view of the glowing waves of grass out beyond the floor-to-ceiling window making it feel as though I were on a ship sailing a sea of light, and began to scheme.




At dinner, we ate charbroiled centipede steaks and sipped at fermented roach mucous from fine crystal Earth goblets. I'd always thought if I had the money, I'd bring pizza to the bug planet, but that is something else again.




"Now, Joseph," said Gloriette. "I know you from your films, but I bet you have never heard of me before."




"But I have," I said, taking a chance of revealing too much. "I've never seen it, but anyone interested in film knows of The Rain Does Things Like That. After meeting you, I can now see why it is such a cult classic."




She laughed like a girl and then as suddenly a look of sorrow came over her. "My husband, the great Burt Lancaster, loved that movie," she said. "That is all that is important to me about it."




"Yes," I said. "I was sorry to hear about the ambassador when I arrived from Earth."




"He was a great man," she said, and the nano-technology produced delicate tears true to her obvious feelings.




We ate then in silence. I dared not speak and interrupt the memories clearly she was reliving. She sat motionless for some time, a piece of centipede on her fork, staring down at the table.




When I finished, I quietly got up and left the dining room. I went to bed and tried to sleep, but now that my situation was fixed and the nervous tension generated from an uncertain fate had worn off, my desire for the smoke began to scratch at my brain. I was so strung out I thought I smelled it wafting about my room. It became impossible to lay still any longer, and I got up and paced. There came a death scream of some prey from out on the veldt, punctuating the ambient drone of crickets. I let myself out of the room and quietly snuck downstairs.




I crept through the darkened house from room to room, wondering at all of the twentieth-century gewgaws that lined the shelves. The ambassador, it was evident, was a real fan of ancient Earth. Then, I truly did smell the smoke, and at the same time saw a light coming from a room at the end of a long hallway on the first floor. As I approached, I heard soft music—Ella Fitzgerald, I believe. At the entrance, I looked in and saw Gloriette sitting on a couch. Before her on a low table were a huge bottle of the concoction we had at dinner, a full glass, and a smoke pot, smoldering away, the orange mist hovering about the room. The long tube from the pot draped down and then up beneath her dress, between her open legs.




At that moment, she turned and saw me. Her half-opened eyes registered no alarm or embarrassment. She smiled, now much older than before, a smile devoid of mirth.




"Smoke?" she asked.




"If I may," I said twitching inside my exo-suit.




She patted the couch cushion next to her, and I went over and sat down.




Reaching beneath her dress, she unhooked the tube that led to the pot. The woosh sound of her spigot closing followed. She handed me the tube, and I pulled down my zipper, maneuvered myself into position and hooked up.




My God, what a relief. I still remember it even through the haze of all the intervening years of smoke. When I had finished, we sat in the orange cloud, listening to the heavenly music.




"Who are you, Joseph?" she asked in a whisper.




I knew what she meant, but it was too dangerous to speak of such things. On the bug planet, the charade of the exo-suits had not quite been figured out. Stootladdle and his minions really thought we were the stars we appeared to be. They were so enchanted by our personas, they had not bothered to apply the necessary logic to the situation. It was like the secret of Santa Claus, and I didn't want to be the one to blow it.




"A friend," I said, amazed at myself for having the wherewithal not to prattle under the influence of the smoke.




"Do you miss Earth?" she asked.




"Yes," I said. "I miss the sunlight."




"I could go back any time I wished," she said. "But there is nothing for me there. When the ambassador died, in a way, so did I."




"A good man," I said.




"A very good man," she said. "He loved his work. No one could wrap Stootladdle around their finger like my husband. The freasence market owes him such a debt. And not only his work, he was so good to me too. We always talked and joked, and twice a year, using his own wealth, we would go to town and, I hope you don't mind me mentioning it, visit the box."




"The box?" I asked.




"Stootladdle has a pressurized chamber you can get into and remove your exo-skin. It costs a great deal to use, but my husband thought nothing of the expense."




"But didn't that give the secret away?" I asked.




"No, Joseph," she said, and laughed. "They think when we enter it, we are merely molting. They think of it in bug terms. A place for us to shed our outer skins and mate." She blushed and her giggling overtook her for a time.




"Imagine what their concept of humanity must be," I said, and laughed.




"A man from Earth invented the box and paid to have it brought here. It was popular for a time among the expatriates because he did not charge so much, but when Stootladdle saw that there was wealth to be made from it, he had the inventor meet with an accident and confiscated the box. Now he charges exorbitant rates for little more than an Earth half-hour."




"He is a bastard," I said.




"I shouldn't be telling you this, but I don't care now. In the box, we knew each other as the people that we truly are." Here, she set herself up for another toke, and after that the conversation died. The old phonograph finished the black platter and the music became a scratch, scratch, scratch that in its insistence blended with the crickets outside. I dozed and when I awoke, Gloriette was gone. I stumbled upstairs to bed.




The next day, which of course was always night, Vespatian brought the truck around. Gloriette and I sat on the open platform in the back on lounge chairs bolted to the metal deck. We had a pitcher of drinks and a picnic lunch.




"Into the veldt, Vespatian," she ordered.




"As you wish, madame," said the grasshopper from the cab.




She showed me the sights of that illuminated flatland, and I could tell she felt a vicarious wonder through my own astonishment at its beauty. In the afternoon, we came upon a dung ranch. Out in the tall grass, behemoth insects, called Zanderguls, elephant-sized water bugs, moved slowly through the veldt. Gloriette explained that these lumbering giants ate the grass, which was set aglow by tiny microbe-sized insects that carried their own luminescence. As the huge beasts dined, they excreted, in near equal proportion, globules of the freasence. A chemical reaction of the microbes mixing with the digestive juices of the Zanderguls gave freasence its special love qualities for earthlings. Behind each organic aphrodisiac machine followed a flea, one of Stootladdle's brethren, with a cart in which they would place the lumpen riches of the bug planet.




Just being out there near so much freasence turned my thoughts to sex. Gloriette, I noticed also had a certain flush about her, and I detected the presence of her nipples from beneath her demure pink party dress. When she saw me noticing, she called out to Vespatian, "That's enough for today."




The dutiful insect started the truck and took us back by way of a river path. Its waters were blacker than the night, but in its depths pinpoints of light darted about.




"There is Earth," said Gloriette, pointing out into space at a star that was smaller than one of the river mites.




"So it is," I said, but did not look.




That night, after dinner, after Vespatian had retired, Gloriette and I sat in the parlor staring through the orange fog at The Rain Does Things Like That. Earlier, when we had come in from the porch, an antique projector and a portable screen had already been set up. After a few good tokes, she turned off the lights and flipped the switch on the movie machine.




To be honest, the film was awful, the plot was what was known as a tearjerker, but Gloriette Moss was so radiant even in black and white, so honest, that the other lousy actors, the poor cinematography, the creaking scenario, didn't matter. It was about a young woman who, because she had been abused by her first husband, had become an alcoholic. We see her stumble out of a bar in the middle of a rainstorm and make her way along a city block. She is drenched when a young man approaches her with an umbrella and asks if she would like to share it with him. As it turns out, he too has a drinking problem. To make it short, they fall in love. Then they decide to help each other overcome their respective addictions. There is much overacting in relation to delirium tremors consisting of, among other things, swarms of insects, but finally love prevails. After the couple has succeeded, we see them married, living in an apartment building, modest but cozy. Life is wonderful, and then it starts to rain. The young husband tells her he is going across the street for a pack of cigarettes. From the window she watches him leave the building. As he crosses the street a car, driven by none other than the perpetually annoying Red Buttons, careens around the corner. The brakes are slammed, the car skids, and Gloriette's lover is killed. In the last scene of the movie, she is back at the bar. The bartender says that he hasn't seen her in some time and that she looks awful. She sips her drink, takes a puff of her cigarette and says, "The rain does things like that."




When the movie ended and the tail of the film slapped the projector with each spin of the spool, Gloriette turned to me and said, "You know, I have almost come to believe that this is an actual memory and that I am watching the real me when I was younger."




I told her she was fabulous in it, but she waved her hand in a manner that told me to leave the room. At the doorway, I turned back and told her she was beautiful. I don't think she even heard me, so intent was she rethreading the film as if intending to watch it again.




The days passed and I forgot completely about my assignment from Stootladdle. I had unwisely fallen in love with my mark. At every turn I had expected her to see through me, but each and every flaw in my design was masked and made charming by Cotten, so that I began to become aware, through the long hours we spent together, that she also had feelings for me. It was as if I were in a movie, some grade-B flick that, with its exotic backdrop of the veldt and the alchemy of its stars, transcended the need to aspire to "A" status and would live in the hearts of its viewers.




Or so I dreamed, until one day I passed Vespatian in the hall. He grabbed me by the arm, squeezing hard, and whispered, "Stootladdle sends a message. You have two days to deliver the film or on the third, if you do not, you will be hanging slack with Omar Sharif."





[Part 4 Forthcoming]







---------------

"Exo-Skeleton Town" is © 2001 by Jeffrey Ford and is reprinted here by permission of the author. The story was originally published in the premiere issue of Black Gate magazine, Spring 2001, and will be included in anthology Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern and forthcoming from Night Shade Books in November.

"Exo-Skeleton Town" by Jeffrey Ford (Part 2 of 4)

Exo-Skeleton Town

by Jeffrey Ford




[Continued from Part 1]





I would have rather sat on the bowl backwards for a year than take that space flight. It seemed endless, but I spent my time reading books about ancient movies and dreaming what I would do with all my gold after I scored my load. My ace in the hole was that I had a great movie to trade. This was a real one too. It had been handed down over generations on my father's side. To tell the truth, I stole it from him the day I left for the spaceport. It was a little low budget job called Night of the Living Dead. My old man would dust it off for holidays and we'd watch it. Who knew what the hell was going on in the film? It was in black and white, but supposedly, from what I had read, it was a cult classic in its time. I remember once, as a kid of about ten, my old man leaned over to me where I lay on the floor one Christmas watching it with the rest of the relatives. He said to me, "You know what the deeper implications are here?" pointing to the monitor. I shook my head. "The director is trying to say that the dead will eat you." My old man was as profound as a stone. All I saw was a bunch of stiffs marching around. For years I thought it was a parade. If I were to see that movie today, it would probably still get me in the holiday spirit. Anyway, it wasn't as early as I would have liked, but I thought the whole anti-Hollywood, independent movie scene, a late-twentieth-century phenomenon, might be ready to explode on the bug planet.




I still remember the day when we landed at the little spaceport next to Exo-Skeleton Town, and I looked out the window at a village of one-story concrete bunkers in the dark lit by streetlights. It was like a nightmare. Putting on the Cotten was the only thing that saved me from crying. Climbing into those skins is a painful experience at first. There's a moment when you have to die and then be revived by the suit's biosystem. The one thing nobody told me about was how it itches when you first get in. I thought it would drive me wild. Then another guy who had been to the bug planet before stepped into a smart little Nick Adams getup and warned me, "Whatever you do, don't think about the itching. It can seriously drive you insane." I was in agony when I stepped through the airlock and into the slow, heavy world of insects.




It cost me a fortune but I managed to arrange a meeting with Stootladdle only a few days after my arrival. He was a sight to behold. Hairy, too many arms. His eyes were round as saucers and a thousand mirrors each. I became momentarily dizzy trying to watch each and every me he was seeing all at once. The voice that came through the translator was high and thin and full of annoyance.




"Joseph Cotten," he said. "I've seen you in a few things."




"Shadow of a Doubt?" I asked.




"Never heard of it," said the flea.





Now, as I gaze through the pale orange haze into the mirror behind Spid's smoke bar, I realize all that was a long time ago. Five, ten years may have passed since I came to the bug planet. The smoke has a way of paralyzing time, blotting out its illusion of progress, so that yesterday might as well be today and vice versa. Whatever this stuff is that Spid burns to make the smoke, it looks like big handfuls of antennae. The mind spins with a logic as sure as a spider web. Real memories intrude now and then as do self-admonitions for a wasted life, but the smoke's other feature is that it lets you not give a shit about anything but taking in more smoke.




The smoke has turned my brain to cotton, so that now I am cotton(en) inside and out. Yes, the Cotten went rotten a long time ago. So now I give old Spid, that affable arachnid, the crystal chip Gable dropped, and he says, "The usual, Joe?" I nod and bare my exhaust pipe. He fits the tube to my opening and I set the vacuum on intake by touching my left pinky finger to my right earlobe. The nano-machinery does its thing and sucks a bolus toke of the orange mist. With the smoke, you never exhale.




It wasn't long after I arrived that I got hooked on the smoke and ended up selling my movie for a ridiculously low price in order to get high one night. An elegantly thin cricket gave me ten crystal chips for it, and I spent the next three days dozing and smoking at Spid's. When my credit ran out, and a few hours passed, I came to and began to panic. That was how I became Stootladdle's flunky.




"How do you feel about living?" he asked me when the Beetle Squad brought me to his office. I had been caught on the street trying to score a turd without the proper papers. Even in my orange haze, I was surprised they hadn't plugged me.




"Tomorrow is another day," I said to him.




"I'm going to slap you around and you're going to like it," he said. Then he did, all those arms working me over at once. The blows were like a stinging swarm of locust and the nano-technology, true to its guarantee, registered every one. When I was thoroughly dazed, he gave a little jump in the air and kicked me right in the nuts, or where they would have been if the suit makers had bothered to render them. I fell forward and he caught me with his mandibles by the neck.




"I've got a spot for you in my private collection right between Omar Sharif and Annette Funicello," he said.




I promised I'd do anything he wanted if he let me live. He loosened his grip and I stood, rubbing my throat. He laughed loud and long, the sound of teeth scraping concrete, and he put two of his arms around me.




"Now, Joseph," he said, "I have a little job for you to do."




"Anything," I said.




Stootladdle waved away the Beetle Squad, and I was left alone with him in his office. He sat down at his desk and triple motioned for me to take the chair across from him.




"Feeling better?" he asked.




I looked into his eyes and saw myself nodding ad infinitum.




"Yes," he said. "Very well. Have you ever heard of a film called The Rain Does Things Like That?"




"Will it go badly for me if I haven't?" I asked.




He laughed. "It will go badly for you no matter what," he said.




"No," I admitted.




"It doesn't matter," he said. "I saw this movie once, years and years ago, very early on in our trade relationship with your planet."




"How is it?" I asked.




"It's the butterfly's dust," he said.




"If it's that good, how come I never heard of it?" I asked.




"The actors were unknown, but I tell you there is a young woman in it named Gloriette Moss, who is nothing less than startling. It's a love story. Poignant," said Stootladdle, scratching his hairy stomach.




"I'll have to catch it some time," I said.




"No, Joseph," he said, "you're going to catch it now. The only copy of the film on the planet resides out in the luminous veldt with the widow of Ambassador Lancaster. His widow, who still lives out there on the estate, is none other than Gloriette Moss. I've tried to buy the movie from her for my collection, but she refuses to sell. It was her husband's favorite film because she starred in it. Sentimental value, as you earthlings say. I want that movie."




"Why don't you just send out the Beetle Squad and take it?" I asked.




"Too delicate a situation," he said. "She has ties to Earth's military. How would it look if we started roughing up an ex-ambassador's wife? It could interrupt our thriving trade."




"If you send me back to Earth, I'll tell them to make her give you the film," I said.




"Ready for another beating, I see," he said. "No, I want you to go out there and get it for me. I don't care how you get it short of stealing it, but I want it. You can not harm her. She must willingly give it to you and then you will give it to me and I will let you live."




"How am I going to do that?" I asked.




"Your charm, Joseph. Remember how you were in The Third Man, bumbling yet sincere, but altogether charming?" he said.




I nodded.




"Succeed or suffer a slow, painful death."




"I think I hear zither music," I said.




Stootladdle put his slackey (like an ancient rickshaw conveyance) and driver, an ill-tempered termite, at my disposal for the trip out of town. Once beyond the dim glow of the streetlights of Exo-town, things got really dark. Our only guide was the ragged moon all jumbled and bashed. The driver kept complaining about the pests, miniscule mammals with gossamer wings, bats the size of Earth mosquitos, that traveled in clouds and stung viciously. He at least had a few extra appendages at his disposal with which to keep them away. I was frightened of him, frightened of the dark and my grim future, but the thing that scared me more than anything was the thought of going without the smoke for more than a day. The mayor had assured me that Gloriette Moss was a smoke fiend herself and had her own setup, keeping a huge supply on hand of whatever that stuff is that one burns to make it. I prayed he wasn't playing with me on this score. He said that the reason she never went back to Earth was because she was hooked.




After a jostling, potholed, nightmare of a journey, we came in sight of the luminous veldt—an immense pasture of long wind-blown grass that glowed against the dark with the resilient yellow-green of cat's eyes. The light from it eased my fear and its slow ocean movement was very relaxing. In the face of its beauty, I almost forgot my predicament. The driver turned onto a path that cut through the grass, and we traveled for another mile or so with me in a kind of stupor.




"Out, earthworm," he said, and I came suddenly to my senses.




"Where are we?" I asked.




"This is it," he said. "Get out."




"Where is the Lancaster estate?" I asked.




"Look," he said, and pointed out with three of his arms that we were at a crossroad of paths. The grass was high over our heads.




"Take that path. Up there a way, you'll see an Earth house. I can't take you any farther. If the lady sees me, she'll know you have come because of Stootladdle."




"Thanks," I said as I got down from the slackey.




"May maggots infest your nostrils," he said. Then he turned the hitch around and was gone.




There I was, Cotten, three light-years from Earth, on a bug planet of perpetual night. The stars were brilliant above me, but I did not look up for fear of the loneliness and recrimination I might feel at seeing the sun, a blinking dot in the distance. I thought of my parents, thinking of me, wondering what had become of me, and I saw my old man, shaking his head and saying, "That jerk-off took my movie."





[Part 3 Forthcoming]







---------------

"Exo-Skeleton Town" is © 2001 by Jeffrey Ford and is reprinted here by permission of the author. The story was originally published in the premiere issue of Black Gate magazine, Spring 2001, and will be included in anthology Alien Contact, edited by Marty Halpern and forthcoming from Night Shade Books in November.