Nebula Awards Showcase 2003 Part 17

she often told me, "a Monarch or something equally as beautiful."

Eleven days after her death it happens.

I am walking a block from our house when a quick flutter of velvet wings, dark against the pale dome of the sky, pa.s.ses left to right inches from my face, causing me to pull up short in mid-stride.

Turning to the right I see a b.u.t.terfly has landed on the sidewalk at my feet.

Black and brown shadings striated by vermilion bands, speckled with white.

(Not a Monarch but a Red Admiral, I later discover in one of her books.)

"Is that you, sweetheart?" I whisper.

I am a fifty-six-year-old man suddenly kneeling on the cement spilling out his love and regrets to a lone insect he hopes is a reincarnation of his wife.

Clearly as beautiful as any Monarch, an epiphany of color in my flat world, the b.u.t.terfly appears to be listening.Brilliantly hued wings shift slowly up and down as if they sense the coa.r.s.e human sounds filling the air.

Even once language deserts me, it/she remains a moment by my side (together like partners after a dance!) before soaring into a sky all-at-once blue, vanishing into her future and my past, alive and free as our finest memories.

JANUARY FIRES.

Joe Haldeman

27 January 1967

precisely one month before I'd leave for Vietnam

the TV went silent

we all looked into the white noise

news bulletin the Apollo One astronauts Grissom Chaffee White have died in a freak fire

(killed by pure oxygen and one spark on a wire's cheap cotton insulation) no pictures please no pictures

years later tempered by combat I saw those grim unheroic pictures ugly and real as napalm death

one almost got the door open

28 January 1986

Daytona Beach tropic morning winter cold rigid splash of icy breakers

freezing seabirds stalk annoyed on cold sand

three launch holds no more patience coffee cold and bitter gritty waiting and grit and cold that's all we talked about talking to keep warm

it finally went up

six jocks and one schoolteacher riding a white column of steam

to a solid spasm of fire

cloud tombstone on the edge of s.p.a.ce

the tourists cheering madly madly thinking it was part of the show booster separation or the rest whatever they call it of us in shock

watching pieces fall into the frigid water

no parachutes no parachutes

two hours later numb the resident expert I sat down in front of a microphone and the pale talkshow woman asked whether I would still go up

sure I said twenty-five to one odds did you ever draw to an inside straight and did you expect to make it while something inside

still stalking jungle trail

said liar liar

you know

you would kill anything

to stay alive you

would even kill a dream MIKE RESNICK.

There is no overlooking Mike Resnick, ever. Exuberant, large, and big-hearted, he is as delighted to discover and encourage new talent as he is quick to praise good work from established writers. Mike enlivens any party, one way or another (his style of flirting runs to invitations to mud wrestle). Some of my most memorable SF dinners have been spent with Mike and his wife, Carol.

His literary range is astonishing, from raucous adventure to the bittersweet "Kirinyaga" stories, with their memorable characters trapped in an unworkable and quixotic re-creation of a dead past. The author of over forty novels, twelve story collections, and more than 140 stories, Mike apparently never sleeps. He has edited over twenty-five anthologies, won four Hugos and a Nebula, and had his work translated into twenty-two languages.

"The Elephants on Neptune" is an uncla.s.sifiable short story, sui generis. It invites us to look at ourselves from an entirely new perspective, with very disquieting results.

THE ELEPHANTS ON NEPTUNE.

Mike Resnick The elephants on Neptune led an idyllic life.

None ever went hungry or were sick. They had no predators. They never fought a war. There was no prejudice. Their birth rate exactly equaled their death rate. Their skins and bowels were free of parasites.

The herd traveled at a speed that accommodated the youngest and weakest members. No sick or infirm elephant was ever left behind.

They were a remarkable race, the elephants on Neptune. They lived out their lives in peace and tranquility, they never argued among themselves, the old were always gentle with the young. When one was born, the entire herd gathered to celebrate. When one died, the entire herd mourned its pa.s.sing.

There were no animosities, no petty jealousies, no unresolved quarrels.

Only one thing stopped it from being Utopia, and that was the fact that an elephant never forgets.

Not ever.

No matter how hard he tries.

When men finally landed on Neptune inA .D. 2473, the elephants were very apprehensive. Still, they approached the s.p.a.ceship in a spirit of fellowship and goodwill.

The men were a little apprehensive themselves. Every survey of Neptune told them it was a gas giant, and yet they had landed on solid ground. And if their surveys were wrong, who knew what else might be wrong as well?

A tall man stepped out onto the frozen surface. Then another. Then a third. By the time they had all emerged, there were almost as many men as elephants.

"Well, I'll be d.a.m.ned!" said the leader of the men. "You're elephants!"

"And you're men," said the elephants nervously.

"That's right," said the men. "We claim this planet in the name of the United Federation of Earth."

"You're united now?" asked the elephants, feeling much relieved.

"Well, the survivors are," said the men.

"Those are ominous-looking weapons you're carrying," said the elephants, shifting their feet uncomfortably.

"They go with the uniforms," said the men. "Not to worry. Why would we want to harm you? There's always been a deep bond between men and elephants."

That wasn't exactly the way the elephants remembered it.

326 b.c.Alexander the Great met Porus, King of the Punjab of India, in the Battle of the Jhelum River.