"Space - A Fishy Tale" by John Taloni

Editor's Introduction: This week Sirius Science Fiction presents a very plausible story set in a near Earth obit, that kicks off with a joke that becomes the basis of a revelation. It's called...

Space: A Fishy Tale

By John Taloni

 Base camp spun slowly in the inky black of space.  Located in geosynchronous orbit some 25,000 miles above Brazil, Base was the last destination of the Space Elevator – and the starting point for trips to all other parts of the Solar System.  A kilometer wide, the station was crammed full of warehouses, hotel rooms, and research facilities.  Space was at a premium.  But travelers of all kinds wanted a place to congregate.  And so there was a bar as well.

Peter sipped his drink and looked around the bar.  About half were regulars.  There were no social boundaries, and hotel staff mingled freely with research scientists, miners, and pleasure travelers.  

Peter had made a lot of money as one of the early prospectors, taking several long trips to the Asteroid belt to prospect for rare minerals or just building materials to be boosted back to near Earth.  Even with the Space Elevator, it was generally cheaper to obtain raw materials from outside the gravity well of Earth.

“Rodrigo! ‘Nother round for my friends here,” Peter waved to the bartender, vaguely indicating his table and a few around him.  “One for the new guy, too,” he said, indicating a man sitting alone, eating a sandwich from the bar’s limited menu.  Peter waved a welcome and the man came over.  The regulars grew silent.  Peter was working up to a whopper of a pun, but the free drinks generally made it worth listening.

“So, did you ever wonder why you can’t get a good plate of fish in space?” Peter asked, pointing at the sandwich.

“No.  I can not say that I have, Mr……?”  the newcomer trailed off.  “I’m Peter,” he replied.  “And you?”  “Call me Dmitri,” said the newcomer.  His English was excellent, but there was a trace of an accent indicating that it was not his first language.  His features were exotic, and Peter took him to be a mestizo mix from Brazil. 

“Oh, not that they haven’t tried,” Peter continued.  “In fact, I knew a guy who got involved in a fish farming venture.  John was his name.  He and his partner Tim had just gotten back from a prospecting mission.  Damn shame too – their ship got damaged and they were pretty much broke.”  The regulars knew this was preposterous on the face of it, since geologists willing to take the long tour to the Asteroid belt were highly compensated. 

“One day John and Tim were passing by a restaurant, kind of like this one.  There was a celebration going on and they went inside.  Seems a group of fish farmers had had some early success with Cod.  It’s hard to get them to thrive in space, since the Coriolis effects from rotating for gravity throw off their senses.  They don’t tend to like to feed.”  This, at least, was plausible, although none of the regulars had any idea if it was true.

Peter went on.  “John thought it smelled delicious, so he pulled Tim in and asked if they could join them.  They had a lot of food, so they said OK.  John thought it was marvelous!  It was a batch of young Cod, but being New Englanders, they called it by the local name – Schrod.  Meanwhile, Tim didn’t like it at all and left early to go work on the ship.”

“Turns out having a fish fry was one way to test the quality of the fish, so they did it pretty regularly.  John joined up with their group and started helping out.  He had a lot of experience fixing spacecraft, so he was pretty helpful to them.  Tim did most of the repair work on their ship while John was off with the fish group, and he was getting kind of annoyed.  Time came for them to go out again, and John decided to stay.  He signed over his interest in the ship to Tim and took a job with the fishery.  They had Schrod at least once a week.  Delicious!  John loved it.”

“Well, the mission didn’t go well for Tim, and he came back to Base camp.  Didn’t want to go back to Earth either, so he took odd jobs.  Meanwhile, the fish experiments weren’t going all that well either.  You could get the fish to grow, but they required so much tending that it would never be profitable to raise them.  Still, there were a few rich people who really wanted fresh fish in space.  The Japanese in particular wanted sushi.”

“So, a bunch of the fish farmers gave up and went back to Earth, but John wanted to keep the venture going.  He signed up with the high end farmers, who set him up with his own station.  On his way out, he passed his former partner.  His new associates turned their nose up at him.  He’d become broken down, a shadow of his former self.”

“But, John said he couldn’t judge him harshly.  After all….”  Peter trailed off. 

“What?” asked one of the regulars.  It was part of the ritual.

“John said he didn’t want to judge,” Peter continued.  “As he said, ‘there but for the taste of Schrod go I.’”

There was a stunned silence in the bar.  One of the regulars gulped down his drink, waved a goodbye, and ran out of the room.

Peter ordered another round.  Dmitri spoke up.  “Ah yes, the tall tale, set in space.  I have been wondering when Paul Bunyan or his like would show up.”  Dmitri overpronounced several of the words.  “It is an interesting way of dealing with the unknown.”

“There’s a lot of unknowns,” said Peter.  “Tell me, do you ever wonder what’s out there?”

“No, not particularly,” replied Dmitri. 

“Really?” said Peter.  “Black holes, galaxies with huge jets of gas shooting out of their centers, our own Oort cloud – nothing?  The possibility of alien civilizations?”

“Ah, aliens,” said Dmitri.  “Really, what would they want with humanity?  One would have to assume that any civilization advanced enough to come here would not be especially interested in humanity’s foibles.  They would be well beyond such struggles.”

“Maybe, maybe not,” replied Peter.  “Technological advancement doesn’t necessarily imply cultural sophistication.  They might be a lot like us.” 

“Mmm, I doubt it,” said Dmitri.  “Still, a few might come.”

“What are you thinking?” asked Peter.  “Hey Rodrigo, hit me again and one for my friend,” he said, indicating Dmitri.  “What are you drinking?”

“Ah, I’m traveling soon,” said Dmitri.  “Just water.”  Around them, most of the patrons were leaving. 

Rodrigo brought over the drinks.  As he came out from behind the bar, Peter watched him pass in front of the viewing area.  An entire section of the wall was clear, showing a view of space.  Earth took up the main portion of the viewing area.  Earth seemed to spin slowly around the Strand that made up the Elevator, as Base rotated around the docking section.  Essentially decoupled from the Strand, people exited the Space Elevator by moving on to a rotating section as it went past.

The bar was on the outer hull, where rotation simulated Earth’s gravity.  There was also a window in the floor, but Peter didn’t like to look at it.  Watching the Universe spin around every few minutes gave him an upset stomach.

“As I was saying,” Dmitri continued, “a few aliens might take an interest in Earth.  Chroniclers of various kinds.  Anthropologists.  The main body of any advanced civilization would likely be uninterested in Earth.  But there might be a few who cared enough to visit.  They may have government agencies, or societies, that take an interest.  Think of how Greenpeace looks to whales.  Or how a British anthropologist seemed to the African natives.”

“Well, why not just reveal themselves?” asked Peter. 

“Ah, but if they did, then what?” asked Dmitri.  “You must assume that this civilization you speak of would have at least several races of beings.  They would presumably have some experience in first contact.  And they may have good reasons to avoid such a thing.  Imagine what might happen if a group of spaceships suddenly appeared above various national capitals?  There would be widespread panic.  Some groups would take it as a religious sign.  There would be many deaths.  Perhaps some wars.  And for what?  There would be no change in how humanity acts.  Just proof of extraterrestrial life.  And even that proof would be denied by some people, with their minds unable to handle the concept.”

“So…..what, then?” asked Peter.  “Hide themselves forever?”

“No, I don’t see that happening either,” said Dmitri.

“Still, now does not seem a good time, does it?  Films treat aliens alternately as violent invaders or unthinking killing machines.  The best show them as coldly calculating evolutionists.  If you were an alien, would you consider that a friendly environment to reveal yourself?”

“No, I suppose not,” said Peter.

The side wall showed night falling on Earth.  Some 25,000 miles below, darkness was moving from the ocean on to South America, touching the Brazilian city that marked the other end of the Strand.  As the day/night terminator passed, Earth’s shadow hit the Base.  The bar became dark.  Behind them, Rodrigo began cleaning.  Patrons were starting to leave.  After a few minutes, Rodrigo came over and sat down.

Dmitri went on.  “Consider what happened with the New World.  When the Europeans arrived, the locals were completely unprepared.  Yet if the Aztec and Mayan civilizations had been more advanced, they might have met as equals.  It seems that Vikings made it as far as what is today Mexico City.  Hence the legends of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Quetzlcoatl in what seems much like a Viking Longship.”  The statement was controversial, but there was some proof behind what Dmitri was saying.  “Had the Vikings been able to teach the Mayans, they might have brought up their technological level.  Had Columbus also been delayed a hundred years, the history of the New World might be very different.”

“Mmm,” said Peter.  “So, what you’re saying is that the aliens would come as observers?  Teachers?”

“It would be more complicated than that,” chimed in Rodrigo.  “Humanity is pretty violent.  We haven’t gotten over our evolutionary past.   No one would blame us for being violent a few thousand years ago, when it was necessary to survive.  But we’re still doing it.  Not exactly confidence building for an advanced civilization.  They might have made scientific discoveries that are used peacefully, but could be used for destruction on a massive scale.  Imagine a fusion engine that can accelerate at several gravities.  Now imagine it used as a weapon, pointed at a city.  Or an inertialess mass driver, in the hands of terrorists.  They could drop asteroids on Earth.  It’s not like it’s past us - we’ve exploded fission weapons on our own surface”

“So they might be here already?” asked Peter.  “Looking like us, hiding among us, pursuing their agenda?”

“More of an uplift,” said Dmitri.  “They would have to be compassionate, or they would simply leave Earth alone and hope humanity killed itself off.  You certainly came close enough during the Cold War.  For all we know, they may have intervened then.”

Peter laughed quietly.  He had a sudden vision of Stalin ordering an attack on the US, only to find that the missiles would not leave the silos, or of Eisenhower ordering a nuclear strike on North Korea, yet the fission reaction was somehow dampened.  Such an event would have left the intelligence agencies of many countries perplexed.

Dmitri went on.  “Depending on who you believe, they may have been visiting intermittently for thousands of years.  And seeing the reaction to their presence, they may have been scared off.  Imagine being worshipped by people you wished to greet as equals.”

“Still,” said Rodrigo, “I can’t believe that they’d stay completely underground.  I imagine that they’d reveal themselves to selected people – sympathetic people who could help them.  And slowly spread the word.  Gain gradual acceptance of the idea of civilization of worlds, before eventually revealing themselves.  It could take generations.  Perhaps it has.”

“Yes, you may be right,” said Dmitri.  He looked at his watch.  “Well, I must be going, I have a seat on the Space Elevator leaving shortly.  And anyway, it seems to be closing time here.” He stood up.  “I wouldn’t want to miss my departure.  It is my first trip Down, and I have a world to explore.”

“S’long” said Peter.  He was more than a little tipsy.

Peter was halfway recovered from his hangover the next morning before he realized what Dmitri had said.

END

About the author:

John Taloni has been reading SFF since the age of eight when he stumbled across a copy of Alexei Panshin's "Rite of Passage." His major influences include Anne McCaffrey and Larry Niven, with a healthy side of Spider Robinson. He is a long-time attendee at SF conventions, and met his wife while dressed as a Pernese dragon rider. Their daughter asked at the age of four if they could watch more of the show with "the robots that say 'exterminate,'" and the entire family has happily watched Doctor Who together ever since. Taloni is an associate member of the Science Fiction Writers of America (SFWA.) His recent works can be found at Compelling Science Fiction, Zooscape Zine, Itty Bitty Writing Space, and the Corporate Cthulhu anthology. 

The Lung-Ma's Tests by Susan Macdonald

Editor's Introduction: This week Sirius Science Fiction brings you a young Teddy Roosevelt and the Emperor Norton an alternate San Francisco that includes airships and Chinese supernatural creatures. Enjoy and read about...

The Lung-ma’s Tests

by Susan Murrie Macdonald

            Theodore Roosevelt looked out the airship window and whistled.  “San Francisco.”

            “Beautiful city,” Sheriff James Wilmington agreed.  The city lay spread out beneath them, hills and houses, beaches and bays, roads and rooftops.

            “Pity cattle hate flying,” Roosevelt said.  “Think how much faster we could get them to market.” The rancher, a brown-haired man in his late twenties, gazed transfixed out the window, his pale blue eyes staring at the city below.

            “Sorry, Ted, you’ll just have to rely on good, old-fashioned cattle drives.”  Wilmington, a dark-haired man a few years older than Roosevelt, had participated in a few cattle drives in his younger days, before becoming first a Texas Ranger and then a small-town sheriff.  He and Roosevelt had met in the airship’s saloon, and quickly become friends over some shared Mexican beer.

            Roosevelt nodded.  It still amazed him that it had taken less time to fly from Denver to California than it had to get from his ranch in North Dakota to the air station in Denver.  First he’d ridden from Elk Horn Ranch to the town of Medora, then he’d taken the stagecoach to Bismarck, then taken the train to Denver, before boarding the airship to San Francisco.  Unfortunately, it would take his ranch hands far longer to drive his cattle to market.

            1885 was a wonderful time to be alive. With phlogiston-powered airships, he could go to New York City to visit his family or his publisher, and the trip only took a day and a half. He could even keep in touch with his political colleagues from his time as a state assemblyman.  Living in the Dakotas no longer meant exile from the civilized world.

            “Amazing view,” Roosevelt said as he looked down on the city.  He spied something.  “Good God, what is that?”

            Something red and shiny disappeared into the clouds.

            Wilmington swore softly. He rubbed his cookie-duster. “Looked like a flying horse.”

            “A pegasus?”  Roosevelt turned his head, trying to find the whatever-it-was.

            “Well, Elphame does have a consulate in San Francisco.  Anything’s possible where they’re concerned.” 

            Roosevelt nodded.  There was an Elphame retreat on Long Island, and those who dared to venture close reported seeing odd things.

            “Lots of scientists and engineers in San Francisco.  Could be somebody experimenting with a new invention,” Wilmington suggested.

            Roosevelt nodded again.  San Francisco had grown over the years, going from a sleepy colonial village with the obligatory Spanish mission to a gold rush town with a bad reputation for shanghai-ing, cardcheats, and robbery, to a modern city, the Athens of the West, as advanced as any city on the Atlantic Coast.

            #

            Lin Yu-wei sat in the garden of the Buddhist temple, his eyes closed in meditation.  He heard an odd noise, like the flapping of a bird’s wings, only a hundred times louder, like a flock of birds or an impossibly giant eagle.  He opened one eye to peek.  Then both eyes opened wide.

            He scrambled out of lotus position, amazingly quickly for a man approaching sixty winters, and bowed deeply.  “You are most welcome, Honored One.”

            Before him stood a lung-ma.  Its scales were red, the color of good fortune.  Each dragon scale was the size of a child’s hand, and as hard and shiny as the polished armor worn by the emperor’s bodyguard at the Forbidden City.  The lung-ma appeared in the shape of a winged horse.

            Lin Yu-wei bowed again.  The priest had no idea whether to offer it hay for the horse’s shape it bore, meat for its draconic nature, or even a dish of pearls.  Who knew what a creature of magic ate?  “You have travelled far, Honored One.  May I bring you water?  Wine?”

            “Water, with my thanks.”  The lung-ma spoke in a woman’s voice.

            If Lin Yu-wei was surprised that the lung-ma was a mare rather than a stallion, he said nothing.  He did not summon an acolyte, but hurried himself to fetch the water.  He waited until she had finished drinking before he dared to ask, “You have not come this far for me.  How may I serve you?”

            “I have come, but not for you.”  Lin Yu-wei could almost hear the smile in her voice as she spoke.  “There is one I must test.”

            The priest nodded.  Seeing a lung-ma was an omen of a sage-ruler, like Huang Ti or the Roman Marcus Aurelius.

            “I must see if he is truly worthy,” she said.

#

            “Not even New York City has these trains through the streets,” Roosevelt remarked.  “Are they powered by phlogiston or steam or what?”

            Wilmington shrugged.  “Don’t know.  Much faster than the cable cars they used to have, my sister says.”

“Clockwork,” one of the other passengers spoke up.  “With all the hills, the cable cars were hard on the horses.  Wore ‘em to death in just a few years, poor creatures.”

            Another passenger interrupted.  “Saved the emperor’s life, these clockwork trains did.”

            Several other passengers on the street-train nodded enthusiastically.

            “The emperor?” Roosevelt asked.

            “Four or five years ago, Emperor Norton collapsed in the middle of the street.  Likely would’ve died where he fell if he’d had to wait for a cable car or a taxi carriage.  He was rushed to the hospital – the engineer skipped all the other stops – and they were able to save him.”

            Roosevelt chuckled.  “Ah, I’ve read about your Emperor Norton.  The town lunatic.”

            “My sister says he eats in the best restaurants in town, and never pays a penny,” Wilmington said.

            “Show some respect when you speak of His Majesty,” an old lady warned.

            “Yes, ma’am.”  Wilmington touched his hat to her politely.  Then he whispered to his travelling companion, “He may be a lunatic, but he’s their lunatic.  Whole town loves the man.”

            Roosevelt discreetly changed the subject and chatted of other matters until the train stopped in front of his hotel.  He and Wilmington parted company cordially, Roosevelt to lodge in a hotel where a few night’s stay would have cost the sheriff a month’s wages, and Wilmington on to his sister’s.  They would not meet again for several years.

#

            Roosevelt strolled down the street, enjoying the sight of the Pacific Ocean, if not the smell of the fishing boats.  Between the ocean to the west and the hills of the city – far more than Rome’s mere seven – San Francisco was quite a picturesque city.

            “My wallet!  My wallet’s gone!” a passerby called out.  He looked around for the thief, then pointed to a brown-skinned boy of eight or ten.  “That Mexican boy!  He took it.”

            “No, no, señor.  I not steal,” the boy protested.

            “Lying Mex.  These Mexicans all steal, iffen they get the chance,” he retorted.

            “I have no idea who stole your wallet, sir, but this child is innocent,” Roosevelt spoke up.  “He has not been within twenty feet of you.”

            “Mind yer own business, mister.  He took it, and he’s gonna give it back.”  He stepped toward the frightened child.

            Roosevelt stepped in front of the boy to shield him.  “The lad was nowhere near you.  He couldn’t have taken your wallet; he never touched you.”

            “I’m gonna make him gimme back my money.”

            “Pick on someone your own size.”  Roosevelt raised his hands and assumed a boxing position, in the best Marquess of Queensberry fashion.

            The man hesitated.  Roosevelt was 5’10, easily three inches taller than he was, and riding the Dakota range had given him a wiry strength.

            A whistle blew.  A policeman hurried up to see what the commotion was.  As Roosevelt and the wallet-less man attempted to speak over each other, the Mexican boy took advantage of the distraction and ran off.  In the crowd, an old man in a tattered red coat nodded, giving the least little hint of a smile.

            “He could have minded his own business, a virtue amongst these Americans.  He could have said nothing.  He spoke up for one falsely accused.”  The old man in the red coat stepped into a nearby alley, away from all the commotion.  “He passes the test of honesty.” 

            The old man faded into transparency, and then invisibility.

#

            “Ladies and gentlemen, I am grateful and honored that you invited me here.”  Roosevelt told the audience at the Academy of Natural Sciences, “I am flattered that you wish to hear from my latest book.”

            The audience clapped politely, and Roosevelt began reading aloud.

             “Far different from the low-scudding, brush-loving white-tail, is the black-tail deer, the deer of the ravines and the rocky uplands. In general shape and form, both are much alike; but the black-tail is the larger of the two, with heavier antlers.”

            Roosevelt read excerpts from Hunting Trips of a Ranchman for forty minutes, reading about the difference between white-tail deer, black-tail deer, and pronghorn antelope, their habits and habitats, and the different techniques used to hunt them.  The floor was then opened to questions.

            An older man, queerly dressed, sat in the front row.  He wore an army officer’s coat, somewhat the worse for a few stains, but embellished with gold epaulets and a wilting rosebud tucked into the label.  A tall beaver hat sat on his lap, adorned with a white ostrich plume.  The feather must have been new, for it was the cleanest thing the man wore.  A cavalry saber hung from his hip.  “Mr. Roosevelt, you called the extermination of the buffalo a ‘veritable tragedy’ of the animal world. Do you truly think this beast, the ‘lordly buffalo,’ as you called it, is in danger of extinction?”

            “I do, sir.  Indeed, I regard it merely a question of time, and more likely to be measured in years than decades,” Roosevelt replied.

            “I must see to that,” the oddly dressed man said.  “I must issue a proclamation.”

            Roosevelt raised an eyebrow at that announcement.  Someone else asked a question about the bone hunters, who collected buffalo bones for the phosphate, and Roosevelt explained.  The man in the unusual garb asked several questions, all well-thought out, and showing he had paid close attention to the reading.

            Afterwards, Professor Jenkins introduced them.  “Your Majesty, by your leave, I should like to present Mr. Theodore Roosevelt of Elk Horn Ranch.  Mr. Roosevelt, His Majesty, Emperor Norton.”

            Roosevelt gave a half-bow, unsure of the correct protocol in addressing self-appointed royalty.

            “You are most welcome to Our capital city, Mr. Roosevelt,” Emperor Norton told him.

            Professor Jenkins winked.  “Emperor Norton is the Emperor of the United States and the Protector of Mexico.”

            “Jenkins, you have not honored Us with a game of chess recently.  We must play some afternoon.”  Emperor Norton glanced across the room.  “Excuse Us, We must go greet Mrs. Barkley.”

            “So that’s the infamous Emperor Norton,” Roosevelt said once he was out of earshot.  “I must admit he took me by surprise.  For a lunatic, he asked intelligent questions.”

            “Oh, there’s nothing wrong with his wits for ordinary matters,” Jenkins assured him.  “Before his bankruptcy he was considered one of the cleverest men in California.  It’s just this delusion that he’s the imperial master of North America.  He’s otherwise quite harmless, and very much the darling of the town.”

#         

            Roosevelt was surprised at the crowd at the Golden Palace Theater.  He hadn’t expected so many people to be interested in musical theater in California.  Certainly his ranch hands back in the Dakota badlands had no interest in Gilbert and Sullivan.  He was looking forward to seeing The Pirates of Penzance again, although he feared the local cast would not be up to the standards of the performance he had seen in New York a few years ago.          

            “Dogs and Chinese shouldn’t be allowed in public buildings,” a middle-aged woman complained to the man beside her.  Her dulcet voice bore traces of magnolia blossoms and mint julips, and she was neatly dressed in last year’s fashion.

            Next to the middle-aged white man and woman were two Chinese people.  The man was bald, and wore the saffron robes of a Buddhist priest.  The woman beside him was hardly more than a girl.  She wore a long crimson silk tunic, elaborately embroidered with flowers, over a yellow underskirt, also decorated with embroidery.

            “Bad enough to have them in the theater,” the white man sniffed, “but for this old heathen to bring his concubine out in public amongst decent people is going too far.”

            “I regret that our presence disturbs you, good sir,” the Buddhist priest said, “but I have paid for my tickets, just as you have, and my granddaughter and I have as much right to see the play as anyone else.”  

            The white woman harrumphed.  “Granddaughter, a likely story.”

            “I beg your pardon,” Roosevelt interrupted.  “I’ve taken a box for the evening, and I wonder if you would be my guests in the balcony?”

            “That is kind of you, suh, but I don’t believe we are acquainted,” the southern gentleman replied stiffly.

            “Excuse me, sir.  I was addressing this gentleman and his granddaughter.”  As the other couple frowned at the snub, he continued, “My name is Theodore Roosevelt, and it would give me great pleasure to be your host this evening.”

            “I am Lin Yu-wei.”  He bowed.  “This is my granddaughter, Lin Feng-ju.  We accept your kind offer with pleasure.”

            “Do you speak English, Miss Lin?” Roosevelt asked as they left the shocked couple behind.

            The beautiful maiden shook her head.  “Parlez-vous français, Monsieur Roosevelt?”

            “Mais oui, mademoiselle.”

            “Are you not the author of The Naval War of 1812?” she asked in fluent, if oddly accented French.

            “I am.  Have you read it?”

             They chatted congenially in French as he escorted her and her grandfather to the balcony.  The two of them enjoyed the play, conversing in French during the intermission, sitting silently during the performance.  Lin Yu-wei endured the play; he did not care for European music.

            Afterwards, Roosevelt insisted on walking them to the street-train, and offered to escort them back to Chinatown.

            “It is not necessary,” Lin Yu-wei politely informed him.  “We shall be perfectly safe on the way home.”

            “Good night to you then, sir.  Bonne nuit, Mademoiselle Lin.”

            “Bonne nuit, Monsieur Roosevelt.”  She smiled at him.

            Lin Yu-wei and his “granddaughter” rode the street-train all the way back to Chinatown, as the novelty of the device amused her.  When they reached their destination, she announced, “He would not permit those people to be rude to us, and invited us to share his box, although we were strangers and not of his kind.  He passes the test of courtesy.”

#

The next morning was a busy one.  Roosevelt had business meetings with Californian cattle ranchers, and a high-stakes poker game at lunch.  That afternoon, he decided to go to Chinatown.  Meeting the Lins the night before had given him the idea of purchasing a doll dressed in Chinese robes for his daughter Alice.  Such a thing would amuse her.

It only took him a few shops to find what he was looking for, as well as a jade necklace for his sister Anna.

            When he stepped out of the shop, he saw twenty men heading down the road.  Some carried clubs.  Some carried torches, despite it being broad daylight.  A few held guns.  Roosevelt swore softly. 

            A mob had many arms, but no brain.

            “Burn their houses down.”

            “Smoke ‘em out.”

            “Chase ‘em out of San Francisco.”

            “Chase ‘em clear back to China.”

            Roosevelt took a deep breath and stepped into the middle of the street.  “What’s going on here?”

            “We’re gonna get these Chinee.”

            “You’re very brave in a bunch.  Are any of you brave enough to fight man to man?”

            “Got nothing against you, mister.  Get out of the way and you won’t get hurt.”

            “What have these people done to you?” Roosevelt demanded.

            “They stole and ate my dog,” the mob leader accused.

            “First they eat our dogs and cats, then they’ll eat our children next,” another man yelled.

            “But not if we stop ‘em first, the yellow blackguards,” shouted a third man.

            “What evidence have you that your dog was stolen and eaten?” Roosevelt asked.  “What makes you think these people had anything to do with it?”

            “They’re Chinee.  Can’t put anything past ‘em.”

            “Sam Shoemaker, you know perfectly well that the police shoot stray dogs,” a voice came from the left.

            Shoemaker turned to see who had called his name.

            “Like as not the police mistook your dog for a stray,” Emperor Norton walked into the street, a few feet away from Roosevelt.  “Or it might have simply run away.”

            “Emperor Norton.”

            “It’s the emperor.”

            The crowd began murmuring.  They were riled up, but not drunk enough to attack their city’s favorite citizen.

            “And I say them Chinee ate him!” Shoemaker insisted.  He stepped forward, a club in his hand.

            “If you dare lay a hand on a man old enough to be your father, Mr. Shoemaker, I shall make you regret it.”  Roosevelt balled his hands into fists.

            “White or yellow, we are all children of the Lord.”  Norton bowed his head.  “Our Father, Who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.  Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done –“

            Roosevelt lowered his fists.  He began reciting along with the emperor.  “ – on earth as it is in Heaven.  Give us this day our daily bread….”

            A few of the mob automatically began reciting along with them.  Some said “Forgive us our trespasses,” others said, “forgive us our debts.”  A few sheepishly backed away, unwilling to assault an old man praying. From the shop windows, the inhabitants of Chinatown peeked out, but did not dare face the mob in the street.

            When Emperor Norton said “Amen,” he did not hesitate, but began the prayer over again.  One by one, the mob drifted off.  By the time he and Roosevelt had recited the Lord’s Prayer four times, the mob was down to three people.

            “Go home, Sam,” Emperor Norton ordered.  “We doubt anyone here ate your dog.  And if they did, have a little Christian charity on those who are worse off than you are, that they needed to stoop to that level to survive.”

            Before Shoemaker could reply, a fog rolled in.  That was not unusual for San Francisco.  This fog was warm, not cool and clammy.  That was unusual.  Shoemaker and his friends looked around.  They screamed and ran.

            A red winged-horse trotted up to them, breathing smoke.  It had scales like a dragon, hard and red and shiny.  Excited chatter could be heard from the nearby shops and houses.  As Sam Shoemaker ran, and Roosevelt and Norton stared, the inhabitants of Chinatown rushed out to see the lung-ma.

The lung-ma bowed toward Norton and Roosevelt. “You have acted with courage and honor. It is easy to be brave with a sword or a pistol.  To face an angry mob armed with naught but prayer takes true courage.”  Too low to be heard, the mare whispered to herself, “He knows when not to fight.  He passes the tests of bravery, discretion, and discrimination.”

The people of Chinatown shouted and rejoiced at the honor paid to Emperor Norton by the lung-ma.  They loved the imperial lunatic as much an any other denizens of San Francisco.

#

            In 1901, when Vice-President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded the late President McKinley, only an elderly priest in San Francisco’s Chinatown remembered the stranger who had stood beside Emperor Norton years before.

The End 

About the Author: Susan Murrie Macdonald is a stroke survivor and a wordsmith. She is a staff writer for Krypton Radio, Sci-Fi for your Wi-fi.. She is also a freelance writer and proofreader, with over a dozen short stories published (mostly fantasy). Before her stroke she was a substitute teacher. She was a volunteer at the Mid-South Renaissance Faire for five years, and is the author of a children's book, R is for Renaissance Faire. She lives in western Tennessee with her husband and two teenagers. She is attempting to write a fantasy novel. Her stories can be found in Alternative Truths, The Caterpillar, Cat Tails: War Zone, Bumple, Wee Tales, Itty Bitty writing Space, Paper Butterfly, Medium, and Heroic Fantasy.

Photo Credit: Laura Murrie 

The Drifter and Mr. Cronkite By F.M. Scott

Editor's Introduction: This week, Sirius Science Fiction brings you an alternate history (actually a secret history) set in Oklahoma in 1937. The story places the future CBS news legend Walter Cronkite in an encounter with an unhinged drifter on the streets of Oklahoma City (where he did an actual stint on WKY radio). The encounter escalates in a frightening way, shaking the young reporter--and foreshadowing a pivotal event in his future. Our original story this week is about...

The Drifter and Mr. Cronkite

By F.M. Scott

In the fall of 1937, Walter Cronkite made a career stop in Oklahoma City as the voice of OU Sooner football for WKY radio.  By all accounts, it was a dismal gig for the 21-year-old reporter, fraught with the technical limitations of a still young broadcast medium.

There exists very little legacy of Cronkite’s one-season stay—a fact that affords room for the legend of the newsman who would later cover the violence and upheaval of the 1960s, issuing the famous “Report from Vietnam” on CBS after visiting there in the wake of the Tet Offensive in February 1968.  The report proved to be a factor in President Lyndon Johnson’s withdrawal from a second-term nomination in that year’s election.

#

The small, pale, wiry man sat against the Union Station depot, huddled against the cold night air of Oklahoma City.  “Hey, Dick Tracy!” he shouted.  He scowled from underneath a dirty wool cap, his eyes a pair of shiny probes in the light of the skinny street lamps.  A gray linen bag, half-full and smeared, sat slumped beside him like a wrinkled, soiled fruit.  Nearby, passengers boarded the Rock Island train.

            A lanky, younger-looking fellow in a gray overcoat and a fedora stopped and turned.  A briefcase swung at his side.

            “Yeah, you.”  The small man rose.  His greasy, tattered clothes and shoes told the story of millions.

The gentleman in the coat moved toward him.  “What?”

“I see your H,” the man replied, pointing at the briefcase.  “And I need protection.”  Twin straps lay across a horizontal seam in the telltale shape.

“Beg pardon?”

“H,” he said.  “Heaven, hell, halfway, wherever you stop.”  He moved toward the edge of the sidewalk.  “Comin’ from the panhandle, the Rocky Mountains, the Ozarks, and waitin’ for you in every city you roll into!  Didn’t nobody warn you?”

“Uh, no.”

The little man smirked with real irritation.  “Well, I mighta known.  A man carryin’ a case like that wouldn’t know it.”  His eyes widened and he jerked his head downward.  “Don’t you talk to no stranger like that, Aldon,” he said.  “Don’t do it!”

The man in the coat leaned in. “You all right, fella?”

Aldon’s head shot up.  “Yeah, what’s it to you?”

“Don’t know.  Listen, I was just seeing a friend off.  I’m going back to Norman.”

“Norman, Norman town,” Aldon sang.  “Yeah, I heard ‘bout them college gals, whoo-wee!  All stacked and cushion for the pushin’.  Gonna get some on ya?”  He clapped and whistled.  “And what do they call you down in Norman town?”

“Walter,” the younger man said, extending a hand.  “Walter Cronkite.”

“A what kite?”

“Cronkite, WKY radio.  You ever listen to the Sooner football games?  That’s me, the announcer.”

“Well, that’s nice, buddy, just great,” Aldon said.

“The last game of the season’s tomorrow with A&M coming down from Stillwater.  Stidham’s boys are bound to have their hands full with—”

“You’re young, ain’t you?”  Aldon chuckled.  “You sound like you’re still learning a little bit ‘bout what you’re doin’, am I right?”  Again he jerked his head toward the pavement.

“I…suppose so,” Cronkite said.

“Well, hooray for the home team!”  The little man snickered through his teeth.

Cronkite studied him for a minute.  He’d seen beggars on the streets of Kansas City, men who’d lost everything after 1929 or maybe had nothing to begin with.  But this man told a different story.  Little he’d said or done tethered him to the idea that he was a rational human being.  But if something made sense to him, he’d call it.

“You know,” Cronkite said: “a year ago I was calling sports for KCMO, and they thought my last name wouldn’t go over on the radio.  Too German.  They made me change it to Wilcox.  I had to wait on messages coming over—”

“I’m the sweet bullet!” Aldon bellowed.  “Made it all this way through wires and holes in the ground.  Saw it all burn.  Made a light behind me.”

Cronkite turned his collar up, studying Aldon’s small frame, which seemed to sway with the wind.  “Fella, you look like you could use a bite to eat.”

Aldon issued a low grunt.

“C’mon, there’s a diner down the street there, and it still looks lit up.”

The place smelled of grease and stale tobacco smoke, odors that seemed to mix with the rest of the place.  Green and white linoleum, rutted and chipped at random, made an odd geometry along the floor.  Several hanging lamps had burned out, leaving uneven patches of light.  Aldon and Cronkite took a seat at the counter on stools with worn, ripped fabric.  Through the kitchen window, a bulky, scarred man in a grease-smeared apron stacked plates as he eyed the two mismatched patrons who dared to blow in this late on the night before Thanksgiving.  Aldon pulled a bottle from his inside coat pocket.  The label was torn and illegible.  He took a hearty swig and held out the bottle.  Cronkite hesitated a second, then took a big gulp of rye that sent a wave of heat—throat-warming, then soul-warming—through him.  He looked at Aldon, who gave him the nod for another.

“Helps me think straight,” Aldon declared.

“Hey!”  The bulky guy bolted out toward the counter; a blue vein sprang to attention on his forehead.  “You guys put that away right now!  I’m trying to keep my business here.  I got a family.”

Aldon frowned and tucked the bottle back into his coat.  The man took their orders and issued a spiteful look before disappearing into the kitchen.

“Might be a while before we eat,” Cronkite said.

Aldon shrugged.

He had been a farmhand near Medford.  Every day he worked and sweated for a strapping, thick-browed man who kept his shirtsleeves rolled up and batted green walnuts into the air with part of a tree limb, a man who swore that he and his family would be called to heaven before he lost his farm.  That was because the Lord had spared his land some of the drought that had made a fine powder of so much overworked land to the west and south.

“He seen things in the light of ‘God help any man who’d rise up against me now,’” Aldon recalled.

He built fences and pitched hay while the farmer and his two sons tended the blessed, chosen wheat.  He’d take off his straw hat, muss up his matted hair to dislodge the searing afternoon heat.  The sweat trickled down his face.  Buckets of water from the well quenched his thirst and ran down his shirt and pants legs.

There were other eyes on him.  The deep blue eyes of a girl in a light gray dress with yellow flowers on it.  She tossed a bright red rubber ball from hand to hand.  The farmer’s daughter—Aldon never said her name or the names of her family—was strawberry blonde, looked older than her fourteen years, and had a laugh “that might mean good, like she liked you, or bad, like she was laughin’ at you.”  Whenever the girl started to talk during supper, her father cut off the first word with a look that…

“That what?” Cronkite said.

“That came from the word of God,” Aldon said.  God the Father.  A girl of fourteen had no business talking during supper, and no one else did, either.  Only the Father.  But the girl would smile a lot.  She’d be in the field every day, with that laugh.  When it meant good, Aldon said, it was too much.  One day she laughed about her pa and his preaching and skipped off, her long braids knocking against her shoulders.  When she was out of sight, Aldon dropped his pitchfork and headed for the toolshed.  There was a dark corner in it, and when he had finished, the voice of the Father sounded off from across the field: “Where are you, son?”  A crack of the tree limb, and a walnut must have gone sailing into the next county.

On another day, the girl’s laugh meant bad.  Aldon tried to impress her with his imitation of a coyote; she laughed and said, “How dumb can you be?”  He snatched a small red ball from the girl’s hands and hurled it across the field to skitter on a patch of dry soil.  She stared at him, not mad or upset but with “ways about her that her pa couldn’t see.”

That night he found the ball on his bed, dead center.

“I’m lyin’ there in the middle of the night, just tossin’ that thing up in the air, over and over.  Then she tippy-toed right in with a big grin on her face.  She made fun of her pa, talkin’ real big—‘the Lord’s at war with the Devil in my house and I’m his soldier’ and all that.  She just, what with smellin’ so good and all, like a little flower.”  He let go a jarring, high-pitched staccato giggle, then cut it off.  “I told her I wouldn’t do her no harm, she’d just go out to the toolshed with me, everything’d be all right.  I took her out there, tryin’ not to wake the hound dogs.  Smelled so good, felt so good.  We was done ’fore I knew it, and then I saw she weren’t smilin’ no more.  I think she even started to cry.”  He steeled his eyes.  “Then I could tell she was thinkin’ about what I done to her.  That’s when she got right holy and asked me was I a believer.  I told her I didn’t remember goin’ to church but maybe once or twice.  She said she didn’t know was it so the Lord was speakin’ through her pa.  If not, we didn’t have nothin’ to worry about.  But if her pa did receive the word of God, then his own anger would be no less.  I ran back in my room and stuffed everything I had in that there bag.  Outside I heard the hound dogs, and I looked back at that farmhouse and I saw a lantern lit up in the window.”

Aldon pulled the bottle of rye from his coat pocket, took a gulp, and put it back.  “I ran and I ran.  I found the railroad track and kept goin’ south on it by a sliver of light at the crack of dawn.  I’d only got a couple miles or so, and that’s when I seen it.”  He drew closer to Cronkite.  “The grain elevator.  That’s when I seen the truth.  The bigger truth I could only see right then and there.  That thing was full of the poison of that place.  It was feedin’ the real devils that lived in all those folks ‘round there, everybody sayin’ one thing and doin’ another.”  He pounded the counter with his fist.  “And goddamn ‘em, they was spreadin’ it around everywhere!  I had me an old shirt and some matches and some rye like I brung here.  I tore up the shirt in three pieces.  I climbed up in that thing, hopin’ with every bit of my being it was full.  I soaked those pieces and I lit ‘em all up one at a time and I threw ‘em down the spouts.  Then I scrambled down that ladder and I grabbed my bag and ran.  That fire behind me was gettin’ brighter, and I could hear yellin’ and screamin’, then the biggest BOOM! you ever heard.  Shook the ground right under my feet.  The goddamnedest ball of flame you ever saw!”

Two plates of food arrived: pan-fried steak with a mound of fried potatoes and gravy, and a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, slightly burnt at the edges.  The two men ate in silence, for reasons tied to the moment in general and to the amount of food each consumed.  When they finished, Aldon mopped gravy from his mouth, nose, and cheeks with the sleeve of his coat.  Cronkite tossed his cloth napkin onto the crusty remnants of his sandwich.  The cook appeared in the window, wiping a glass.  He raised a hurry-up brow.  Cronkite laid money on the counter.

            Outside, Aldon threw the linen bag over his shoulder.  “You’re awful quiet, buddy.”

            Cronkite shrugged.

            “How come?”

            “Don’t know.  Just all—took me by surprise, I guess.”

            Aldon smirked.  “That right?”

            “Yeah,” Cronkite said.  “Look, pal, I’m moving on.  It’s been nice talking to you, but I’m done here.”

            “I see.”  Aldon stepped closer .  “Then I reckon you ain’t got no business doin’ what you’re doin’.”

            “Beg pardon?”

            Aldon stared for a moment, then the bag slid down his back and hit the pavement.   “Bein’ a reporter.  That’s you, ain’t it?  With your briefcase and your big-city ways.  You’re just a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed kid with some dream, I can tell.”  He chuckled.  “A dream, you and every other jasshonkey.  I just gave you a story you could take to the papers if you wanted to.  A man fightin’ his own good fight, tryin’ just to survive in the dog-piss world he’s been thrown into!  Takin’ up against the devils who’ll wanna kill me sometime down the road!  And what is it you’re all about?”  He stooped like a quarterback awaiting a snap.  “Three, four, hut, hut!  Callin’ the big plays.”  He laughed.  “Damn, I bet you don’t even know who’s who on that field, do you?”

            Cronkite frowned and drew back.  This had indeed been an issue all season, due to problems with getting relays from the spotters on the field.

            “Listen, fella, who are you, anyway?  One of the boys at the station send you on a prank or something?  How do you come off like that?  And what’s more, you sat there and told me a story that’s either a king-sized crock or it’s your ticket to the big house.”

            Aldon drew close again.  “So that’s it?  All that power, and you’re too damned scared to use it.  You’re too scared to talk about all that’s done in the name of a God who rewards those who accept his son’s blood no matter what else they do, gives them land and cattle and crops—remember Job, though yea he’s now just a distraction they talk about to remind us all of the Devil, who’s really a tool in the Lord’s hands, thank you, Jesus!”  He tore off his cap and threw it to the concrete.  “How ‘bout it?  I wanna know, big man, whose side you on?  Yeah, you ain’t on no side at all.  You don’t care, just so long as you’re talkin’ on that big radio box!”  He retrieved his cap and bag.  “Goddamned football!  Like to see the big reporter man get his nose into some real business!”  He giggled.  “How ‘bout it?  Where you gonna be when you got to stand up and say somethin’?”  Aldon stalked off into the night, the bag bouncing off his back with every step.

            Cronkite stood in silence as he disappeared around a corner.  A drifter, a farmhand.  And for someone who hadn’t gone to church much, he seemed to talk up the Bible—which was all he needed to place himself at the center of some holy struggle.

            Inside Union Station, Cronkite phoned the chief at the Daily Oklahoman.  After relating his encounter with Aldon, he got a story in return: A grain elevator had exploded in Grant County in August, killing one worker.  A man with a bag was seen running from it at the same time.  Locals found fourteen-year-old Elsa Tibbs hanging by a rope in a barn, dying with such force that one eye burst from its socket.  Justus Tibbs, his wife Ralena, and their sons Abner and Charles, were found shot to death in the family farmhouse, a 12-gauge shotgun in the farmer’s hands and a pistol lying nearby.

            “Jesus Christ,” Cronkite said.  “I never heard a word about this.  Not one word.”

            The chief cleared his throat.  “That’s because the locals wanted it kept quiet.  We only found out last month, after one of them from Medford came to us with the story, somebody who knew the family.  But it was two months after the fact.”

            Cronkite paused.  “And you guys didn’t pursue this?”

            “Why should we?” the chief said.  “This man was filling me up with some pretty cockamamie stuff.  And I think your boy was doing the same.  There’s all kinds of crazies out there who’ll hear stories and say anything.  He acted like one, you said so yourself.”

            “But, sir, you sounded at first like you believed—”

            “Look, Cronkite, number one, we’ve moved on.  Second, would you be willing to walk into a nest of shotgun yahoos singing about some guy waving the very stick of God because his land was spared all this mess—one special fella, you see—and about how he killed his daughter in honor because she’d been defiled and that brought shame and the fear of damnation upon the whole family as a result?  You think you wanna give that a go, Cronkite?  Then you have at it, buddy.  You just march on up there and get ’em, tiger!”  The chief laughed, then the line clicked.

            The wind picked up as Cronkite walked the few blocks to his car.  It hammered against him and carried those walking from the opposite direction.  Facts, those prongs of both credibility and legality, had been both friend and foe.  He’d been canned at KCMO for calling out the boss when the latter fabricated details about the casualties of a neighborhood fire.  Then a natural gas explosion at a Texas school killed 295 people, bringing him face to face with full-scale carnage, extracting from him an objective yet heartfelt story of a national tragedy.

            But facts at this hour were toothed monsters, assembling and dissolving in a murky sea of arson, murder, child rape, and a farmer swinging the stick of God at his family and then himself.  And a community that scared off reporters.

#

            In Norman, the tiny box of an OU dorm room stank of mildew and stale pipe tobacco.  Cronkite went to his Olivetti typewriter, a heavy little job he’d bought secondhand in Kansas City, with the number 22768 scrawled on its side in white grease pencil.  He sat at his rickety desk and tried to hammer out something, if only for his own records.  But nothing came.

            Sonofabitch!  Words failing a journalist—even the possibility of it!  Another slug of that goddamned rye, he thought.  If only.  He lit his pipe and fell back onto the thin, hard mattress on his bed.

            He lay awake at two a.m., still trying to shake the question of Aldon.  His story had come forth in such a churn from a mind (and body) twitching with an unreal ferocity.  It was shaping up to be KCMO in reverse, but with the same result.  Or a false alarm for city police, who had better things to do with liquor laws and guys who just looked at them wrong.  But goddammit, given the story from the chief, and the one from Aldon, was there a talking gun or a smoking one?

            And at this hour, with the trail of this man gone, what’s left other than to assume a silent man’s war of conscience or take the route of a renegade?  As the question sits heavy and dense, so the hour itself sits.

            Cronkite put a fresh sheet of paper in the Olivetti.  A few moments passed.  Then, as if issuing from a carefully gauged faucet, some words came and then shut themselves off:

            With each crisis, a new note of truth.  What is not taken home intact shatters thoroughly, heavily, inviting new graves.

            He pulled the sheet from the carriage and read the two sentences.  Doggerel, mishmash, nothing to do with anything at hand.  A second pass, and it became an entry in the journal of a crackpot, gleaned from a showy but anemic understanding of Shakespeare or Sidney.  A third took him to a room where the eye forms an acrostic, a shedding of bombast like the melting of fat over a flame, every first letter of every word calling up the journalist’s credo that less equals more in this line of work.

            It all came down to words.  Everything did.

            Walter Cronkite laid the paper on his desk.  He lingered on it a moment, then turned to light a fresh pipe.

#     #     #

About the Author: F.M. Scott is from Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he lives and writes.  His work has appeared in The Horror Tree, The Tulsa Voice,  The Rock N' Roll Horror Zine.  He has several works forthcoming.  He supports his fiction habit by writing grants and providing public relations for Crossroads Clubhouse, a nonprofit serving adults with mental illness