Low Port Part 1

Lee, Sharon & Miller, Steve.

Low Port.

Introduction.

What you have in your hands is a tangible example of the cla.s.sic science fiction question "What if?"

That question is usually seen as the start for a single story, but it came to us over dinner as we discussed a Liaden Universe project in which Solcintra's Low Port was mentioned (and which eventually became the story "Phoenix" in the SRM Publisher chapbook Loose Cannon).

"What if?" we asked, we could interest Stephe Pagel, our long-time publisher at Meisha Merlin in an anthology that dealt with the people of Low Port. Not our Low Port necessarily, but the prototypical Low Port that must exist across universes... That of course would mean dealing with strange heroes, odd protagonists, not with the usual iconic heroes of our genre-swashbuckling swordsman, square-jawed astronaut, magic-flinging wizard or witch, world-saving physicist-but with the other people you might expect to find in a world, the people who lived with the results of the swashed buckles, the new satellite, the saved world.

Stephe had already shown a willingness to try new things in his collaborative editing of the Bending the Landscape anthologies with Nicola Griffith, and certainly Lee Martindale's Such A Pretty Face anthology for Meisha Merlin showed more evidence of the same.

The idea stayed at the dinner table a few days as we finished projects in hand and planned our next series of novels; it peeked out from under the napkins and around the salt cellar, and over the course of a month or so it burst forth three or four times along with the daily minutiae of a writing household-"have we got enough toner to print three copies of that thing?" "Oops, the inkjet is low on color," "Ach-are we out of dollar stamps, again?" and many ceteras.

The idea mutated from dealing with the average people of the world to dealing with the fringes-the down-and-outers, the people who lived really on the edge, the people who lived over the edge-and took on more of the port aspect. As it mutated the idea became more tangible. It swooped across the dinner table, it interfered with us while we were reading magazines, and it insisted that it be written down on the long "Talk To Stephe Pagel" list we keep on the table beside the to-do list.

A few nights after we put the idea on our list, Stephe Pagel called to check up on some arrangements for an upcoming convention and we put him on the speaker phone so we could gang-up on him-oops, so we could both talk to him at the same time-and eventually got to the bottom of the list and whispered back and forth (quietly, we thought) about actually asking him about Low Port.

"All night, all right-I hear you guys conspiring over there. What's going on now?"

Discovered, we mentioned the idea, hurriedly.

"Did you say anthology? Antho? I dunno, guys, I mean, anthologies are just such a hard sell..."

There was a pause then, and he said, "Can you run the idea by me again?"

Which we did, in two-part harmony, pointing out that so many stories these days seemed to be about the grand schemes, the rich and famous, the...

"OK, hold up. Why don't you give me something in writing? I mean a lot of people can talk a good anthology-and I'm not sure I'm in the market for an anthology right now-but if you can put together a proposal I can at least see if there's something there that we can work with..."

In the way of such things, the proposal took longer to write than we expected. We'd never done a print anthology before, so we researched how others did it, we compared our notes with what people sent to us, we refined the language, and then we shipped it off. In the way of such things, it took longer for the publisher to look at the proposal than we'd expected and then longer to get an answer.

In fact, we'd been thinking about the project for over a year-and we'd just about given up on anything happening-when were asked to be panelists (along with Stephe Pagel and Lee Martindale and several others) at ConQuest 32 in Kansas City on the subject of editing. Stephe, with his publisher's hat on, was explaining the kind of determination and focus it took to put an anthology together, the difficulties in selling anthologies to readers, the necessity of having a good, clear concept. Then he spoke of how pleased he'd been to work with Lee Martindale on Such A Pretty Face, and how he was looking forward to working with Sharon and Steve on Low Port, which proposal he'd just accepted.

Wait a minute! That's us. Could've knocked us over with a feather.

So now, several years later, you're seeing Low Port as envisioned by writers you know and writers you will know, brought to you as science fiction, as fantasy, as magic realism, as noir of this or that kind, as comedy and tragedy, as original visions come to life by writers eager to take the challenge-"What if there was a Low Port?"

We hope you'll be as amazed, and as moved, by the diversity of answers to that question as we were.

Sharon Lee and Steve Miller October 2002 Unity, Maine

VOYEUR.

Eric M. Witchey

Andre's palm warmed. His subsistence credit adjustment had arrived.

He closed his fingers around the status bead embedded in his hand. Squeezing the hard lump in his fist like it might keep the money from leaking out, he sucked in the rank air of his quarters and held the breath. He glanced at the dingy white shelves of his empty galley. A starving roach skittered across a shelf and fell into the yellowed sink.

Silently, he prayed the status bead glowed green. He swore if it did he would never again pay the dwarf, never again go into the world's darkest places to stare through the tiny window.

He opened his palm.

In the center of his grimy lifeline, the dirty bead glowed dim green. He exhaled his relief. The adjustment had raised his credit rating enough to buy food. The thought made his belly heave and growl as though it were angry over three days of emptiness.

Andre's quarters were at the fringes of the world, the dark warrens where outsiders lived out slow deaths away from the eyes of productive insiders. The fringes were the last places. Stale air came there only after the rest of the world had breathed it. Sickening yellow water trickled from the faucets, its last stop on the way to recycling. Wh.o.r.es, addicts, and outsiders all eventually found their way to the fringes to hide from debts, from their own shame, and from the judging eyes of the productive. In the end, they too went to the recyclers, or they rotted, forgotten, wrapped in their paper blankets inside tiny, stained steel quarters until another tortured soul cleared away their remains and moved in.

Andre hated himself for living there, for having fallen so far that he could go three days without food. But the same poverty that starved him made the dwarf turn him away. He hadn't sat in the rickety chair at the tiny window for two days.

If he could stay away from the window for two days, he could stay away for three. If three, then four. He'd be an insider again, a productive citizen.

He rummaged through the louse infested rags covering his floor until he found a tattered shirt and a pair of pants that mostly covered. He put them on and used collected lengths of twine to tie down the loose folds around his emaciated frame. He left his quarters determined to own and eat a fifty gram tofu ration. A shining white block of extra firm would be his sacrament of salvation.

Barefoot, he plodded along the curving corridors of the fringe until he came to the straight, bright halls where insiders lived. At the first inside hallway, he stopped. A few people, clean and brightly dressed, busy with meaningful lives, paused in their strides to stare. One woman, pale skinned and dark haired, gasped and covered her mouth and nose.

He had once reacted to outsiders that way, afraid of stench and disease. He reached out to touch her, to calm her.

She ran.

"b.i.t.c.h," he said, but there was no venom in the word. He would eat. If he ate, things would change. As an insider, he could touch a woman and she might touch him back.

The straight hallway before him was the shortest path to food. The distribution center was a five minute walk along that hall then across Alpha Park. Andre had once been a groundskeeper in Alpha Park. He knew that direct sunlight and open s.p.a.ces scared people, so that way lay fewer judging eyes and faces. Of course, that was also the way to the blackberry patches that hid the hatch to the tunnels, the entrance to the dark labyrinth that hid the albino dwarf and the perverse little windows that had stolen Andre's soul.

The hallway angling off to his left joined Main, the grand corridor that ran the length of the world and pa.s.sed between the boundaries of Alpha Park and Beta Park. Main would let him stay among insiders and far from the secret tunnels, the twisted little man, and the window.

Faster is better, he thought. The more judging eyes he saw, the more he would want to hide from them. The more time he had to think, the more likely he would fall to the dark call. The freshest air was in the parks. The sun would feel good on his wasted face. He would walk fast and be past the bushes without so much as a glance.

When the corridor spilled him out onto the green lawns of Alpha Park, he paused and looked up. The yellow ball of fire hung in the sky midway between him and the distant greenery of Park Epsilon on the opposite wall of the world. Sweat beaded on his forehead and trickled into his eye. The sting made him wince.

A breeze carried the scent of berry blossoms. He looked across the park's groomed lawn. Maybe a hundred meters away, the berry bushes, a bright clump of green covered in pink white blossoms, guarded his dark secret. Long, th.o.r.n.y tentacles stretched up toward the sun. The new groundskeeper had neglected their tr.i.m.m.i.n.g. They seemed to sway, to beckon. The hole in his world called to him through the bushes.

He looked away. To burn the darkness from his mind, he stared directly into the sun.

He no longer wondered how many people knew where the tunnel entrance was. When he had found it, he thought it a great secret. Exploring the labyrinth was an adventure that broke the boredom of his life. He had thought others would want to go with him. They did not. Now he knew it was something unimportant that the world had chosen to forget. He cursed his discovery for separating him from the rest of mankind, for turning him into an outsider.

The sun was too bright. He closed his eyes against it. The image of a woman appeared on the backs of his lids. His wife. He brought her here once, he confessed to her and showed her the hatch beneath the bushes. She left him.

The bright image cooled and faded. Her name was...

It didn't matter. It was a small thing long forgotten. It was like the memories of taking joy in his hands clasping cool pruning shears or pressing into sun warmed soil. Her name was no more or less than any paled memory of his life before the window. She was the tiny echo of lost feelings.

Hunger grinding at his belly was now and real. He opened his eyes. He looked past the calling bushes. He locked his eyes on the far entrance to the hallways leading to food. He managed a step. He managed another.

Then he was under the bushes, fighting the thorns and pulling up the hatch. Then he was in the darkness, slipping along low tunnels he wished were not familiar. Down a tunnel, hand on the left wall. Down another, hand on the right. Down a ladder, another tunnel, another ladder. Every heartbeat took him further from food and salvation.

He decided to turn back ten times. Twenty. Thirty. Finally, under muted red light, he watched his hand unfold before the scarred face of the albino dwarf guarding the tiny rooms, the ancient chairs, and the windows. The light made the dwarf's skin pink. It made his pink eyes seem empty and ancient. Andre knew the little man had grown old taking the money of lost souls like him.

The dwarf pa.s.sed his extractor over Andre's palm. The status bead cooled and dimmed. Andre found his viewing room, settled in the warped spindle chair, reached behind him, and closed the door. Absolute darkness and the stink of urine and sweat engulfed Andre.

He didn't care. Only the moment when the metal blind slid away from the window was important. His heart beat faster, antic.i.p.ating the obscene bliss that would wipe away his hunger and shame.

It was obscene. It was the worst of addictions, a sickness that would kill him. He had tried a thousand times, and he couldn't stop himself. That tiny, round window was his reason to live. He couldn't remember when the worn wood of the spindly chair had become more comfortable than the sofa in his living room or when the vision beyond the gla.s.s had become more exciting than his wife.

He touched the cold wall and found the metal blind and the circular window frame. He cupped his bony hands around the steel frame. He knew he wouldn't see faster because he was closer. He knew there was no light in the room to reflect the old chair and his bony frame. Still, he pressed his forehead to his cupped hands.

Even squinting in the darkness waiting for the window to open, he told himself he could get up, turn away, and walk back inside. He could still go back where men and women lived lives that mattered. The tofu ration was lost, but he didn't have to be an outsider.

Deliberately, he put his hands on his knees as though to stand.

"Stand," he said to the darkness. "Stand like a man. Go back inside."

The hand trick never worked.

He found his hands back at the little window trying to shield out distractions that came more from the darkness within than from the darkness surrounding him.

The metal blind slid away.

Andre pressed his face to the gla.s.s, trying to fill himself with the sight beyond, trying to pour himself out between his hands into the infinite s.p.a.ce between a billion stars.

"Stars," the dwarf chanted when they first met. "Galaxies, nebulae, the secrets of the universe can be yours if you have eyes that can see."

The dwarf had told the truth.

Andre stared into the mind of G.o.d. His mortal thoughts streamed outward into sublime forever. A chill of blissful awe shook his frail body. Infinity flooded his mind and washed away the guilt and shame of looking outward.

DIGGER DON'T TAKE NO REQUESTS.

John Teehan

Four years, 8 months, 23 days So I'm flatpicking up a bit of "Foggy Mountain Breakdown", enjoying the h.e.l.l out of it, and finish with a trademark Doc Watson run. Got lots of people gathered around me by the observation deck; touries, techies, goonies and moonies on their way back and forth between here and the Concourse. Good crowd, and there be a couple of touriefems giving me a friendly eye. It's while I'm considering the possibilities that I click on this one nervous little moonunit in a sloppy jumpsuit hanging around the edge of the crowd. I can spell the trouble with this unit.

S-p-a-z-n-i-k.

I do a little patter about the Old Man on the Moon and how I met him my first week Up Here and how he taught me this next song which is nothing more than an old whaling song with some of the words changed. One grinning tourie recognizes the tune and whispers something to his ladyfriend. I send them a wink before the end of the song to let them in on the joke and figure the guy'll drop an extra dollie or two in the tin for making him look clever in front of his lady.

Never hurts to let the paying public feel good about themselves. h.e.l.l, it's the very soul of busking. Okay, the money is the heart of it, and the fun is in playing, but the soul is in the way people gather around and just gig.

I pick through and finish up another song to a scatter of applause, little kids jumping high over their parents heads to see me-enjoying the h.e.l.l out of the lighter gravity-when I catch a cough from a uniformed loonie goon by the pa.s.sageway entrance. They don't mind me playing, but the crowd's getting kind of dense and it's time to move along.

I give a little bow to thank and amuse whilst pa.s.sing the tin around. Not bad. Some loonie dollies and some meal tickets, and a b.u.t.ton. Ha! I love kids. Where'd they find a b.u.t.ton Up Here?

The crowd disperses (as do the touriefems, alas) and up comes my nervous little spaznik in the sloppy suit.

"You Digger?" he asks. He looks something Asian. About a meter and a half tall and stick thin. He blinks at me through a tangled ma.s.s of black hair and seems a little unsteady.

I count up my takings and divide it among many pockets. "Be me. Who you?"

Like some newbie, he sticks his hand out, "Kimochi Stan."

Shaking hands is a Down There thing to do. It's nothing personal-you touch friends, even some acquaintances of good reputation, but you never know when some newbie with the sniffles slips by the Quarrines. Still, the kid looks like he could use a friend so I take his hand and pump it all gregarious like.

"Cool sobriquet," I tell him, "something like 'feels good' in j.a.ppongo, right?"

He looks embarra.s.sed. Most of us who end up b.u.mming around the Concourse pick up these little nicknames. Sometimes they're given, like Ice Cream Lou's or Amazing Gracie's or we make them up ourselves. Instant notoriety. No crime. Kimochi must be American or Canadian born though. j.a.pan doesn't fool around with travel visas to the moon; and my new pal Stan doesn't seem to be weighed down with an accent.

I tune up the guitar by touch, m.u.f.fling the homemade strings with my fingers. "So what's up, 'Feel Good'?"

"I want to go home," he says like his heart is about to freeze up and shatter. Poor kid shivers before me. Lunar fidgets we call it. Like homesickness, but a hundred times worse. Maybe the good feelings he came up here with pffted out into vacuum. Hope he don't bawl on me. Tears ain't good for business not unless you're playing real skinned knee bluegra.s.s. I wonder how long it took before Feel Good's fidgets started settling in. Sometimes takes a month. Sometimes they start as soon as the shuttle docks. Poor little breast fed babies.

"Shouldn't be a problem," I tell him. I stow my guitar into its carrybag and lean it against a wall. "You got a return chit. Sooner or later they gotta send you back."

"No, I want to go home now. I can't take it here anymore," he stammers and twitches like a jumping bean. "Tattooed Lydia said you could help me out."

Lydia, oh Lydia, say have you met Lydia? Lydia the tattooed lady? Nice girl-looks like a living picture book. Real friendly too, if you get my drift. And she sends a lot of business my way.

The orb of Earth had long since ceased to be a gollygee sight, but the observation deck was still milling with eager-eyed touries. I look around for goons-both kinds-the loonie goons with the uniform stripes on their arms, and cheesehead goons, the muscle for Concourse queens like Amazing Gracie. The loonie goon from before is gone, and no other two legged security in sight. Plenty of cameras in a public place like this, but cameras don't bother me. Brahe City Security isn't who I'm concerned about.

"Maybe. Maybe not," I tell him. "How good is your chit?"

He reaches under his shirt and pulls out a gray plastic tag on a thin chain. Along the underside is a magnetic strip. "It's got two and a half months left. I need to go home tomorrow."

Survived two whole weeks Up Here, eh?

"Cool your jets, buddy guy," I say. "You think you're booking a jump to Las Vegas? Best I can do is a berth to Mexico City in a week." That much is almost true. Let's see what else he's got. With only so many spots available on transports going Up and Down, even charity has its bounds. And it's not like he can just walk up to Lunar Authority and say "take me home." They got iron sphincter schedules with every seat going up or down booked well in advance of some poor moonunit with the fidgets. You can buy whatever kind of visa chits you want Down There but to book an early pa.s.sage downside, you need an expiring chit saying you've used up your prepaid welcome. No Travelers Aid around here. Not yet anyway.

The best Kimochi Stan can do if he wants to bug out is either fake an illness-which will land him in the Quarrines for a spell-or do something to get tossed into Facilities for an undetermined amount of time until Lunar Authority decides they might have some cargo s.p.a.ce available. Doing crimes got you put in jail Up Here, but once you got sent Down There you spent even more time in jail. The only smart way to get back to Earth before your time is to get hold of an expiring chit and grab the seat a.s.signment before the shuttle takes off. Most touries know this. It's the moonunits who think they can just wing it without a plan.

"I can't make it another week," says Stan, all distressed and the like-more warui by the second. Total spaznik. He pulls a handful of meal tickets from his pocket. "I have three week's of meals. Genuine!''

They better be. Getting caught with phony meal tickets gets you nothing but bread and water with the loonie goons until they kick you home for more of the same. I sling my guitar bag over my shoulder.