Nature Futures 2 (34 page)

Outside the bar, it was quieter. The Chicken Nebula — named after an extinct legendary beast from Old Earth, I was told — shone like a parade of angel starships in the blue interstellar sky.

I pulled out my banjo, leaned against the dingy wall of the building, and started plucking a few chords.

That was when Shankarlati appeared.

“Hello, stranger.”

I looked up and saw her standing.

“Why, hello there,” I said, taking my hat off.

She smiled. “You're quite the gentleman.”

“My auntie brought me up after my parents died in a drowning skyscraper, taught me all I need to know. Brush your teeth, eat your legumes, and most of all respect women … particularly…”

“Particularly…?”

“Say, are you…?”

“Part-human?” Each blue tooth stood out like the ridge of a knuckle in her grin. “I am.” She twirled around, as if to prove she wasn't hiding a tail or an extra head somewhere. “I saw you there, lone cowboy, thought I'd say hello. Rare to see another human — full human, especially — in this sector, you know.

“But you must know, of course.”

Well I did, and I also knew why she was
really
here. I've been approached by girls like Shankarlati too many times not to know immediately what the deal is before they even breathe the ‘h' in their ‘hello'. The hair pulled tight into a neat bun. Old-fashioned aluminium tweed coat. Horn-rimmed glasses. The pile of books under her left arm. Crafty lips, like she had debated her way out of her mama's womb. The pens in her skirt pocket. Oldest profession in the Universe.

“Like what you see?” She twirled again, then took out a pen, as if to make a point.

I clicked my tongue. “Sorry, ma'am. I mean no offence — you're a very pretty lady, you are — but, unfortunately for you, I'm Muslim.”

Shankarlati seemed momentarily stunned. Then she burst out laughing. “Are you really?” she asked, disbelieving. “A Muslim cowboy? Well I'll be damned. Did your auntie bring you up to be the generic human poster boy?”

“Afraid she did, butt of everyone's jokes back in school.” The way I said it, it was as though she had just given me a compliment.

She paused, eyeing my features. “Don't tell me you're Chinese, too?”

“No, I'm not, but —” I twanged my banjo almost guiltily “— I
am
a country singer.”

That seemed to make some fireworks inside her sputter and explode. She laughed so hard, she dropped all her books:
Astrophysiology of the Pleiadean 298th Century
,
Martian Art History through the Lightyears
,
Cosmo Sutra
 …

“As one does, I sing about religion and sex after marriage, too,” I added, gratefully soaking in every inflection in her laughter, every crease of reaction in her face. I've always known I was a walking stereotype — just short of the right subclass to meet the alien encyclopaedic definition of humanness. Trying to hide who I was from my friends (who were all aliens) was pretty difficult, especially having to pray five times a day, so I've got used to being everyone's favourite punchline.

But to meet someone who can laugh at me — not
mockingly
, but
appreciatively
, and not in expectant surprise, but with an utterly pleasant manner of shock — was new.

Wonderful.

Exciting.

Incredible, even.

Shankarlati was clutching her stomach, laughter now fading into hiccupy sobs. Finally, she straightened up. “I didn't mean to laugh at you. I'm sorry.”

“You don't have to be, I laugh at myself too sometimes. Heck, when I told my auntie I was going to be a country singer, she almost passed out — there isn't a human who'd want to do country music these days if he weren't a parody of himself.”

Shankarlati had picked up all her books. “I guess you haven't made it anywhere yet?”

“Tried all seven sectors, ma'am. Am still trying,” I said, striking a chord on my banjo, as if to prove that I was.

“Well, you keep trying, aspiring human country singer. If I hear you on the spacewaves, I'll buy your album.”

“I'd appreciate that.” There was a momentary silence between us, more filled with a comfortable timidity than awkwardness.

“Hey, I know a place just two lightstops from here,” she said, finally. “You want to get coffee or something?”

“I'd be happy to,” I responded, almost too quickly, then made up for it, as quickly. “I'm sorry, ma'am, I forgot to introduce myself — name's Yisma'el.”

Her azure dentals flashed again. “Yisma'el, I'm Shankarlati.”

Shan-kar-la-ti
, I pronounced in my head, letting each viscous syllable ring full. My heart gave a whoop.

“Shankarlati,” I repeated. “Like the butterfly?”

“Like the butterfly.” She extended her hand. “Come.” I hesitated. “Anything wrong?” she asked.

“No. It's just that I think I want to write a song about you. And I think I've got a tune already.”

“What're you going to call it?”

“
Out of the blue
.”

Mohamad Atif Slim is originally from Malaysia. He lives in New Zealand, where he recently qualified as a doctor.

Steve Sepp, Tasty! Tasty!

Matthew Sanborn Smith

We didn't eat Steve on a Tuesday, which I think was one of the things that made him special.

Steve Sepp — he was one of those all-time losers you talk about to make your own life seem bearable. Lived in a mobile home that hadn't run in a year and a half (that was what he called his car, anyway); couldn't get work; divorced; running from every-body. You didn't want to hang with the guy, because you didn't want to catch whatever he had, you know what I mean? But I felt bad for him and other people did too. The wife would bring him a loaf of bread she baked or some corn muffins or whatever, usually Tuesday nights when we were on our way to the hospital.

This one night though, Steve's sick as a dog, doubled over in pain. He took it until he couldn't take it anymore, which wasn't long really, 'cause Steve was a major wuss on top of all his other problems. Mira and I, we hustle him over to the ER. Nurse asks a couple questions, presses her hand against his belly button. “Might be your appendix,” she says, and they grab a wheelchair and whisk him off.

Of course, of all the people we know, Steve was the guy who gets appendicitis. That's his luck. “Well, at least he doesn't have to wait,” I says to Mira. She slaps my arm and we head to the south end of the building where we wanted to go in the first place.

The Baker Street Hospital is the place to go on Tuesday nights if you aren't already sick. Tuesday's usually their biggest outpatient day and the Outpatient Diner is what draws people from all over the neighbourhood and beyond. All those little bits and pieces they cut off of people during the day, they wind up on the menu. You know, stew, pulled-meat sandwiches, what have you. If you're an outpatient, you get a freebie after your surgery. Most of 'em want a bite of themselves. You could call it cannibalism I suppose, but everyone who was on that menu was up and walking around (or wheeling around). The hospital has the waivers. It's all on the up and up.

Not having any insurance, Steve signed the waivers without a blink because it defrayed some of his costs. Not a lot, but every little bit helps. He was in the hole as it was. If he lived through this, it would kill him.

So, like I say, Tuesday nights are hopping at the diner. It got so that regulars like me and Mira couldn't even get in. We're getting bumped by celebrities, for chrissakes, like the guy who does Sharona LaHaye's hair and that pip who sells Maxi all her pet supplies.

So we give up and go back on Wednesday, hoping maybe to get a discount on day-old spleen soup or something, I don't know what we were thinking, but we were glad we did. 'Scuse me, my mouth is watering just remembering it.

We walk in not knowing what's what and the place is nuts. Jimmy Palbro runs up to us before we even sit down, and says, he says, “Al, Mira, you guys gotta try this!” He's got a couple of biscuits with some gravy on 'em like it's the south or somethin', only it's brown gravy. Anyway we taste 'em and me and Mira, our eyes bug out.

“What is this?” I ask him. And he says: “It's Steve Sepp gravy! Steve from down the street? They musta brought him in for somethin'.”

“Yeah,” I says, “Mira and me. We brought him in last night.”

“You hear that, everybody?” Jimmy Palbro yells. “Al and Mira are the ones who brought Steve in!” And they're hollerin' and applaudin' like we're the ones who made him sick.

Generally, you go down to the diner, you meet your buddies, the regulars, and you talk about the Sox or politics or whatnot, but this Wednesday, and I remember it like it was yesterday, this Wednesday all we can talk about is Steve. Holy Jesus, you should have tasted him on the mashed potatoes! When they wheeled him in for his share, the chef actually announced him and I tell you, we stood up and clapped and whistled louder than before. He coulda run for friggin' mayor that day. We would've carried him to his office on our shoulders. And he knew it too.

He's sittin' there in his wheelchair, lookin' skin-boney, like he always has, miserable as hell, and when he really gets it, that we're clapping for him, he sits up straighter. He even smiles. Well, with what teeth he has.

Somebody hands him a little plate of potatoes covered in himself. That was like a feast to Steve, even on a good day. The whole place gets quiet, and we're just standing there, watching him. The nurse gives him a spoon and he gets a little scoop, he's shakin' a little, and he puts it in his mouth and you can see his eyes get really wide. And he works his mouth a couple of times, but you don't really gotta chew it, you know that hospital stuff is basically mush, but he works it and he swallows and he goes to everybody: “I'm really good!”

And the whole house goes crazy!

Matthew Sanborn Smith's fiction has appeared at
Tor.com
,
Chizine
and
GUD Magazine
, among others. He is an occasional contributor to the StarShipSofa podcast, and podcasts himself at
http://bewarethehairymango.com
.

The Silver Bullet and the Golden Goose

Norman Spinrad

No, I'm not a Communist, but I'm not a capitalist either, not having the capital to finish the work any further myself, and
that's
the only reason I'm on my way to Cuba. If I can get there and convince the Cubans, the world won't care that they're Communists when they begin distributing the cure for cancer. But even paranoiacs can have real enemies, and if mine manage to stop me, maybe this missive, tossed into the media ocean like a desperate message in multiple bottles, will at least tell the world what is being suppressed.

And why.

Was I hopelessly naive?

That's what I was told one way or another by every major drug company I approached with the research that would surely lead to the cure for cancer. Not just for one specific cancer but for whole clades of malignancies. Not just another chemotherapy drug whose efficacy is measured in mere months of extended lifespan. Not something patients must take for the rest of their lives, like the AIDS cocktails, in order for those lives to continue.

The long-sought — or at least so I naively believed — silver bullet. The de-selfing of cancer cells and cancer cells alone, exposing every last one of them to destruction by any reasonably healthy human immune system without negative effects on any normal cells at all.

How much dare I reveal here not knowing who will read it?

I can tell you, whoever you may be, that
my
research has not been anything like that of the major drug companies and corporate laboratories upon which billions of dollars have been squandered since Richard Nixon declared the “War on Cancer” — a forever war, like the one on terrorism, that has produced many chemotherapy drugs that can hold back cancers, some for as long as they are taken, but damn little in the way of permanent cures.

I can tell you that my research has been based on the long-known fact that cancer cells arise and are destroyed by everyone's immune system all the time, and that if this process were perfected, cancer as a deadly disease would not exist.

I can tell you that I spent a decade and more travelling the globe to seek out small tribal populations where, in fact, it did not exist — in jungles, deserts, obscure little islands. And that I found a dozen of them.

I can't tell you where.

I depleted my finances getting the characteristic genomes of these isolated populations sequenced, only to find to my dismay that they seemed to have nothing relevant in common.

I can tell you that I realized the obvious under the influence of a local psychedelic in a hut in a jungle — if the cause of the absence of cancer in these isolated populations was not genetic, it could only be
environmental
.

Something common to a dozen isolated biomes, and probably a complex brew of many somethings coming together synergistically. Discover what the mix was, synthesize it and, voila, the silver bullet! It would take the financial and technical resources of a major drug company to do it, as it would require exhaustive studies of the populations I had discovered and of their total biome surroundings on an interactive molecular level; synthesis of candidate combinations and their large-scale testing on neutral populations.

But the companies could well afford it, it was just the sort of dogged process that produced their streams of chemotherapy drugs, and out the other end this time would come the broad-spectrum cure for most if not all cancer. I'd simply tell all of them and let them compete to produce the silver bullet.