Isaac Asimov's SF-Lite Read online

  ISAAC ASIMOV’S SF LITE

  edited by Gardner Dozois

  * * *

  ACE BOOKS, NEW YORK

  If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”

  This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously published.

  ISAAC ASIMOV’S SF LITE

  An Ace Book / published by arrangement with Bantam Doubleday Dell Direct, Inc.

  PRINTING HISTORY

  Ace edition / March 1993

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 1993 by Bantam Doubleday Dell Direct, Inc. Cover art by Gary Freeman.

  This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

  ISBN: 0-441-37389-5

  Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.

  The name “ACE” and the “A” logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  10 987654321

  * * *

  Grateful acknowledgment is made to the following for permission to use their copyrighted material:

  “The Critic on the Hearth” by Isaac Asimov, copyright © 1992 by Dell Magazines, reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Perpetuity Blues” by Neal Barrett, Jr., copyright © 1987 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Bears Discover Fire” by Terry Bisson, copyright © 1990 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “The Sorceress in Spite of Herself” by Pat Cadigan, copyright © 1982 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Nine Tenths of the Law” by Susan Casper, copyright © 1991 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “The Front Page” by Ronald Anthony Cross, copyright © 1989 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Body Man” by Avram Davidson, copyright © 1986 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the agent, Richard D. Grant;

  “Pickman’s Modem” by Lawrence Watt-Evans, copyright © 1991 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the Scott Meredith Literary Agency;

  “Space Aliens Saved My Marriage” by Sharon N. Farber, copyright © 1990 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “The Hemstitch Notebooks” by John M. Ford, copyright © 1989 by John M. Ford, reprinted by permission of the agent, Valerie Smith;

  “The Faithful Companion at Forty” by Karen Joy Fowler, copyright © 1987 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Blunderbore” by Esther M. Friesner, copyright © 1990 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Stable Strategies for Middle Management” by Eileen Gunn, copyright © 1988 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Something Rich and Strange” by R. A. Lafferty, copyright © 1986 by R. A. Lafferty, reprinted by permission of the Virginia Kidd Literary Agency;

  “The Day the Invaders Came” by O. Niemand, copyright © 1984 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Do Ya, Do Ya, Wanna Dance?” by Howard Waldrop, copyright © 1988 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Jesse Revenged” by Don Webb, copyright © 1986 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author;

  “Ado” by Connie Willis, copyright © 1987 by Davis Publications, Inc., reprinted by permission of the author.

  All stories previously appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine, published by Dell Magazines.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The editor would like to thank the following people for their help and support:

  Shawna McCarthy and Kathleen Moloney, who purchased some of this material; Sheila Williams, who has labored behind the scenes on Asimov ’s for many years and who played a part in the decision-making process involved in the buying of some of these stories; Susan Casper, who helped me with much of the word-crunching and lent me the use of her computer; Ian Randal Strock, Scott L. Towner, and Adam Stem, who did much of the other thankless scut work involved in preparing the manuscript; Constance Scarborough, who cleared the permissions; Cynthia Manson, who set up this deal; and especially to my own editor on this project, Susan Allison.

  THE SORCERESS IN SPITE OF HERSELF

  Pat Cadigan

  “The Sorceress in Spite of Herself ” was purchased by Kathleen Moloney during her brief tenure as editor, and appeared in the December 1982 issue of Asimov’s, with an illustration by Janet Aulisio. Cadigan has gone on to be a mainstay of Asimov’s since then, under two subsequent editors. Many of her stories have appeared on major award ballots, and one of them, “Pretty Boy Crossover,” an Asimov’s story, has recently appeared on several critics’ lists as being among the best science fiction stories of the 1980s. Born in Schenectady, New York, Cadigan now lives in Overland Park, Kansas. She made her first professional sale in 1980. She was the co-editor, along with husband Arnie Fenner, of Shayol, perhaps the best of the semiprozines of the late ’70s; it was honored with a World Fantasy Award in the “Special Achievement, Non-Professional” category in 1981. She has also served as Chairman of the Nebula Award Jury and as a World Fantasy Award judge. Her short work has been assembled in the landmark collection Patterns. Her first novel, Mindplayers, was released in 1987 to excellent critical response, and her second novel, Synners, appeared in 1991 to even better response. She has just turned in a new novel called Fools.

  * * *

  “Oh, damn it, please be here,” she muttered for the millionth time, yanking open the top drawer of her bureau and pawing through the mess of lingerie inside. Her frantic fingers brushed a small green box and she flicked the lid open with her thumb. It was empty. She stared at it for several seconds, trying to remember what had been in it originally—the silver leaf brooch or the butterfly pin? She shook her head, putting the box on the cluttered dresser top. It was an old box, and she probably hadn’t put any jewelry in it for ages. She continued searching the drawer.

  “Lou?”

  She jumped, making a small shriek and inadvertently tossing several pairs of panties into the air. In the mirror she saw Tony standing in the doorway of the bedroom, looking amused. She hoped he couldn’t see the stricken expression in her own reflection at that distance. If she could get through the evening without his finding out, maybe she could get to a jeweler tomorrow and buy replacements. It would put her in hock up to her ears, which was as good a level as any, considering, but since they had separate bank accounts, it wouldn’t be hard to conceal the expenditure from him. She’d done that often enough in the past.

  “I realize turning thirty is traumatic,” he said with gentle sarcasm, “but if you don’t put a move on, we’re going to be unforgivably late for your birthday dinner. They’ll give our reservations away.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.” She looked down at the open drawer and then at the scatter of items on the bureau top. There was no use in continuing her search. This was the fourth time she’d ransacked the dresser, and if they weren’t there the first three times, they weren’t about to appear now. Besides, if she delayed any longer, Tony was going to be suspicious. She pushed the drawer closed, plucked her purse out of the mess on the bureau, and forced a bright s
mile as she turned around. “Well, then, let’s go.”

  Tony shook his head. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  A cold knot gathered in Lou’s stomach. “Ah, am I?”

  Tony tapped his left earlobe. “I thought you wanted to show off tonight.”

  “Oh. Well.” She shrugged, trying to look natural. “You know, I was reading the paper and there was this news story about a woman who was wearing some ruby earrings and a guy walked right up to her on the street and just ripped them right out of her ears. Tore her earlobes to shreds. She had to go to the hospital and everything.” Lou shuddered. “It kind of scared me, you know? I mean, I’m thinking about not even taking a purse tonight.”

  She could tell he didn’t buy the explanation by the stunned look on his face. “Oh, Lou, you didn’t—”

  “They’re safe, honest, Tone, I put them away—”

  “—didn’t really lose them—”

  “—in the box where I always—”

  “—please tell me you didn’t lose the diamond earrings that cost me half a year’s savings—”

  “—for Chrissakes, they’re in the drawer now. Let’s go! We’re going to be late!"

  They stared across the room at each other in the sudden silence.

  “Oh, God, Lou,” Tony said finally.

  Lou burst into tears. That was a dead giveaway. She knew it as soon as she did it, but she couldn’t control herself. She was a crier under pressure, and she could no more break herself of that than she could break herself of losing things. Sobbing as much over her lack of control as with sorrow for Tony’s discovery of the loss, she groped her way to the bed and sat down.

  Tony stood helplessly in the doorway for a few moments and then went to her. “Lou, Lou, Lou,” he chanted, pulling her into his arms. The comforting sound he was trying to put into his voice was not quite there. She sobbed harder.

  “Come on, now,” he said after a minute. “Pull yourself together, and I’ll help you look for them.”

  “It’s no use, Tony,” she wept, pushing him away. She went to the bureau and slid a tangle of necklaces off a box of tissues. Before taking one, she felt around the inside of the box, but it contained nothing but tissues. “They’re gone for good. I looked everywhere and they’re not in the house.”

  “Did you ever take them off at work?”

  She wagged her head from side to side. “I never wore them to work. Diamonds in the office would be a little much.” She blew her nose.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure!” she snapped. “I’m not a complete feeb, you know!”

  Tony stood up and folded his arms. “Don’t get mad at me. Vm not the one who lost your earrings.”

  “No? I’m not so sure about that.” She lifted her head, her tears drying up almost instantly. “You’re always cleaning things up and putting things away where I can’t find them. Maybe you saw my earrings lying around and decided to put them in a safe place. Only it’s so safe that it’s even safe from me!”

  Tony’s face hardened. “Look you, you can’t just leave diamond earrings lying around. And someone’s got to pick up the clutter around here. If I didn’t, we’d be ass-deep in junk and you know it!”

  Lou’s shoulder’s slumped and she leaned on the bureau. “Oh, God, Tony. My earrings.”

  He took a deep breath. “When did you see them last?”

  “I don’t know,” she said sadly, staring at the floor.

  “Try to remember. Did you wear them last weekend?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, when was the last time you wore them that you can remember?”

  She made a pained face. “I think I wore them to the company dinner. In fact, I know I did, because Jack Waverly said something about them.”

  “Okay. Then what? After we came home, what did you do?”

  “How should I know? That was a week and a half ago.”

  “Think.”

  “I must have put them where I always put them—on top of the bureau. In my jewelry box.”

  He got up and looked at the jumble of necklaces, pins, and other earrings in the shallow open box. “Are you sure they’re not in there hiding under something?”

  “I looked a million times, Tone.”

  “Goddamit, I don’t see how you can find anything in that mess.” He snatched the box off the bureau and upended it over the bed.

  “Jesus, Tony, now you’ve made a bigger mess.”

  He spread the jewelry around, combing through it with his fingers. She stood and watched, waiting for him to give up. It was a scene they had replayed over and over through six months of marriage, with car keys, house keys, wallets, rings, eyeglasses, and a multitude of other things, usually hers, being the objects of the search. Long ago he had learned not to give her anything of his to hold, not even for a moment, because she would make it disappear. That was her special talent, making things disappear. Mostly they were small but important items, though she had, in the past, worked miracles with a ten-pound bag of charcoal briquets, a twenty-five-pound frozen turkey and once, in an unparalleled feat of dematerialization, a full barrel of trash. She insisted even to herself that the barrel had been stolen on collection day. If that indeed had been the case, however, someone had stolen the trash in it as well, because Tony had discovered the loss before the collection truck arrived.

  Now Tony picked up the jewelry box and shook it vigorously over the bed again to dislodge anything that might have been jammed in there. Lou shook her head. He knew as well as she did that the box was empty. He dropped it on the bed and threw up his hands.

  “How do you do it?”

  She stared at his incredulous face, feeling like a monster.

  “How do you make things disappear like that? Tell me. Tell me and I’ll die a happy man!”

  “Oh, Tony—”

  “No, come on, now, Lou. How do you do it? Don’t you have any idea?”

  She brushed past him and began to gather up the scattered jewelry on the bed, dumping it back into the box by the handful. “Magic.”

  Tony slapped the bureau with his hand. “Well, goddamit, why didn’t you just say so? Magic. That’s great. Better than I thought. If you were just careless or disorganized, I’m not sure what I’d do. I mean, here you are, a woman with a Master’s degree in Business Administration who spends her days keeping the largest manufacturing firm in the state rolling along turning out widgets, gidgets, and gadgets but who can’t keep track of her possessions from one moment to the next— that would be too absurd to believe. But magic. Now there's an explanation that’s not only rational, but full of potential for profit! We could both quit our jobs and tour the country with our own magic act. Louise Belmont performing prestidigitation and sleights-of-hand before your very eyes, aided by her faithful husband Tony. We’ll play everywhere—Vegas, the Borscht circuit, who knows? Maybe even a command performance for the Queen in London! Your Majesty, where did you say you remember seeing the Crown Jewels last?”

  Lou straightened up slowly, holding the box tight against her stomach so she wouldn’t fling it in her husband’s face. “That’s no way to talk to a woman with a curse on her.”

  Tony exploded with laughter. She ignored him and set the box on the bureau. Then she sat down on the edge of the bed and watched him coldly until he wound down.

  “Oh, God,” he said, grabbing a tissue. “If this weren’t so serious, it really would be funny.” He dabbed at his eyes and laughed a little more.

  Lou’s mouth was an angry line. “Funny to you. I’m the one with the curse.”

  Tony’s smile faded away. “You don’t actually believe that—”

  “I don’t know what else it could be.” She looked away from him. “I’ve tried everything to keep from losing stuff—making lists, memory courses—I even went to a fancy, high-priced psychiatrist for some industrial-strength analysis. You know what he told me? I tend to lose things. What an analysis. I knew that already.” She wiped
her light brown hair away from her forehead. “The only explanation left is magic. Sorcery. I’m an inadvertent sorceress. Somehow I put spells on things and make them go away.”

  Tony bent and squinted into her face. “Lou.”

  “What.”

  “Look at me.”

  She raised her eyes to meet his.

  “Now I want you to look me square in the face and say all that again without laughing.”

  She turned away. “Lay off, Tone.”

  “I mean it, Lou. If you actually believe all that garbage you just said, you’ve got a bigger problem than just losing things. Not only am I going to have to lock up everything of value, but I’ll have to have you deprogrammed as well.”

  “I’m not crazy.”

  “Oh, no?”

  Lou sat up sharply, bouncing a little on the mattress. “I’ll prove it. Give me something.”

  Tony rolled his eyes. “Sweetheart—”

  “I’m not kidding. Give me something.”

  “For God’s sake—”

  “Give me something.”

  He picked up one of her necklaces from the bureau.

  “Not that. Something of yours. Something important to you.

  Something you don’t want to do without.”

  After a moment of thought, he began pulling off his wedding ring.

  “Oh, thanks a lot, pal."

  He held the ring up. “Something important to me.”

  Lou’s eyes narrowed. “You’re putting me in a bad spot, Tone. If it disappears, it’s gone forever. You’ll never see it again. But if it doesn’t, that’ll say more about you than it does about me. All of it bad.”

  “It’s important to me,” he insisted. “And you can’t make things disappear by magic. You’re just careless.”

  “I am not.” She took the ring from him. It was a simple white-gold band, just like her own, with their initials and the date of their wedding engraved on the inside. “Now. Observe.” He groaned as she reached down and pulled her blazer pocket inside out. “An ordinary pocket, perfectly intact, no holes in it—”