Tour of Duty: Stories and Provocation (34 page)

Lumber again seemed to shrug.

Was he doomed? He was an actor in a sim. He wasn’t really in this world.

“Do I have a water bottle?” he asked.

“Sure. Inside your armor, tube next to your mouth.”

He turned, and yes. He had a hydration pack. He gulped thirstily, and the water was cool and fresh . . . then warm and stale. He spit the second mouthful out.

“Why did you have to get realistic there?” he asked. “Especially as it doesn’t fit the milieu anyway.”

“What milieu? When did knights on mammothback ever face cowboys on dinosaurs? This is my universe, bub. Deal with it.”

“Okay, okay, not to be killing the actor, please.”

“Here, try again.”

He carefully took another sip. It was now a cold, malty beer.

“Much better, thanks,” he said.

Joseph said, “Right, well, the weapons are semi-lethal, to keep things exciting, and it’s an arena type game. Sporting. We’ll call it ‘Strongest Warrior.’ Or ‘Last Grunt Standing.’”

“I think both of those were done in the Twenty-twenties.”

“Really? Listen, if I can keep you here somehow, I can make a fortune.”

“I think the universe, real universe, wherever it is, would frown on me doing that. Anyway, you’ve had influence on my mind, so the results won’t be reliable.” He hoped it made sense.

“No, not that, winning lottery numbers or some crap. I’d rather create genres and themes. Money is okay, but history lasts.”

“As you noted, you’re controlling me, at least in part. If you want to create stuff, it has to be done honestly.”

“I thought I was doing pretty well.”

There was another swirl, and more hodgepodge characters popped up in groups.

Phil was impressed. “But some of this stuff is real. Old interpretations, but real, like the T-Rex and the Victorian era Romans. Some of this is nightmarish, and some just weird.”

Some of it was all of that at the same time. He wanted out.

Just then, something crashed into the ground nearby, and they all flinched. It was, or had been, a planted pot—a geranium. Amidst the scattered shards and rays of soil lay the remains of several abused flowers.

Buttercup said, “Oh, no. Not again. Move to the rocks. Quickly.”

Lumber gave a nod and took the advice directly, carrying Phil straight toward the nearby outcrop at an elephantine trot. Where had that come from?

“What are we waiting for?” he asked.

“Anything,” Buttercup said, settling in and tucking beak under wing like some monstrous, misshapen duck.

A faint whistling turned rumbly, then something large and dark slammed into the ground. Phil had a momentary perception of a flipperlike tail, then the air was filled with dirt and chunks of sour-smelling flesh.

“Was that a whale?”

“It was. Anything might fall here. Once it was a phone booth with a crazy man inside.”

“Okay, we need an actual plot, a conflict and then a resolution so I can get out of here,” Phil thought. “Any idea where he’s going with this?”

“He’s a writer. They say that writers feel compelled to write the stories that the characters whisper in their ears—shout in some cases. Aren’t you the character?”

Phil paused. He really hadn’t been expecting decent advice from a talking Toucansaurus named Buttercup. Buttercup was right however; he’d better start giving the author some input and quickly if he wanted to get out of this with a whole mind. Or maybe just get out of this at all.

Clearing his throat, he hesitated. “Joseph?” Phil noticed that while he and Buttercup had been dodging office plants and whales, another layer of realism had been added to the scene—smell. That whale was really starting to reek in this heat. John must be busy, but it was really time to get his attention.

“Uh, Joseph? Are the Roman costumed Victorians with the steam powered spiders on my side or against me?”

The God replied, “If I were you, I’d worry more about the Norwegian trolls and the AfrikaCorps.”

“Okay, okay, I admit it, you have a fantastic imagination. I’m not sure what the point is, but it is impressive. Now, how do I stay alive?”

He heard the wind sigh.

“The problem is that the readers like carnage.”

“But the hero survives.”

“Sometimes. I’m known for . . . being mean to my characters.”

“Great. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger.” He was sweating heavily now, and it wasn’t just from the armor and heat. Nor was his nausea entirely from the environment. If he died here, was it permanent? It certainly seemed as if it would be.

“Well, the other option is gratuitous sex, but I don’t think you’d like a Victorian orgy with Romans.”

“I guess random gunfire isn’t too terrible,” Phil said with a shiver and a flush.

The mammoth-mounted cavalry started charging the tanks. The spiders waded into the melee, but their legs weren’t strong enough to take impact from the tanks. The Romans leapt down to jab javelins and swords into the turrets, while the trolls jumped onto the mammoth riders. Then the Nazis started shooting back with machine guns and occasional barks of the turret guns. Those were loud. Painfully so. He could feel the shockwaves and hear the sizzling of transonic rounds nearby.

Then his helmet started talking to him.

“Sire, what are your orders? What do you want us to do?”

The men on the rearing mammoths were his, and they were dying. Mammoths apparently squealed in agony, and writhed with feet in the air.

“Joseph, what the hell? Do I have a radio?”

“Yes, I made you duke. The royalty sit back and aren’t as exposed. You’ll see the Roman legate up on the low hill, and Rommel over to the left.”

“Dukes are not always royalty. They can be nobility. But whatever. That Roman should be a tribune.”

“I often mix those up. I remember this one story where . . .”

“Screw that, are there more Toucanodactyls?”

“There can be. How many?”

“At least one hundred.”

“It’s going to take a while. The artist isn’t going to like that, either. It means more work for him.”

“As opposed to the work of keeping me alive. I understand your priorities are different from mine.”

“I’m still having a hard time believing you’re real.”

“Well, believe yourself, and I’ll believe me, and just write this so I come out alive.”

“But what about all the other characters?”

“Are they talking to you? Do they have names?”

“Other than Rommel, who was a pansy twit anyway, no.”

“Then they’re not personalities, just figures.”

“Right. I’ll try not to talk to them.”

“There we go. But I need to talk to them, and to the Toucans.”

“Okay.”

“Buttercup, can you and the others . . . there they are . . .” There were swarms of them, in mobs of ten or so. “Can you have them fly over the battle, then point straight up and flap as if our lives depend on it?”

“I can. But there may be a—”

“Perfect. Do it.” Then he found the switch that let him transmit.

“Retreat.” he ordered. “Just pull back out of the fight, and await reinforcements.”

His unnamed assistant said, “Aye, sire!”

Mammoths needed distance to turn around, and it took some time, as they bumped and shoved their way clear, taking more casualties as they did. The duckbill dinosaurs darted around nimbly. The cowboys shot at Romans.

The beaked beasts were big enough to displace air into local gusts, almost like helicopters, and there were a lot of them. Dust churned into concealing clouds, and that was a good start.

Then they reached the center of the battle in concentric rings, hardly noticed amidst the wreckage below. They swept back their wings, pointed those huge beaks up, and cawed in huge gasps as they heaved their shoulders into the effort.

And just like birds, they ejected ballast as they rose. At a guess, something that size should drop about fifty kilos. In fact, if it was his world, that’s what he wanted. Five tons of dinopoop, give or take.

It rained down amidst the clouds of dust, clogging mechanisms, splattering everywhere, and crushing one poor Roman bastard who took it straight to the head at speed. It flattened him much as if it were an industrial bag of soil.

One of the Nazis got clever, and lucky, and managed to get a burst of machine gun fire into one of the flyers. The tracers made streaks visible even through the dust.

Then he realized his mistake as several tons of flappy, dying lizardbird dropped straight down onto his tank, crushing him and bending the main gun forward into the dirt.

In the near distance, if he didn’t know better, he’d swear the trolls were doing a Maori war dance—a Haka. Then they went in ripping Nazis and Romans apart and carrying off haunches, apparently for dinner.

It was so godawfully macabre he couldn’t help but laugh, and he heard Joseph cackling maniacally overhead.

“That does it,” he said. “I can work with that. This is going to be an epic tale of dead Nazis and reaving trolls, with dinosaur crap air support.”

“Great, just no more whales. Now, how do I get home?”

“Oh, that. Easiest thing in the world. Writer’s stupid copout number three.”

“What’s that?”

Overhead, a dot resolved into a growing sphere of someone’s catapult stone.

No, it wasn’t a stone. It was a man in armor . . . a midget . . . a cat . . . in armor . . . Japanese armor . . . with a frowning face.

“Aw, crap,” he thought, and braced himself for the crack.

He had a momentary glimpse of striped fur under the helmet as the creature blotted out the sky and smacked into him.

“Phil, are you okay?”

The voice belonged to Franklin Maas, whom he’d worked with the last week.

“Wow. I’m dizzyish. Am I back?” He stared up at the lights. The aches and bruises felt real enough.

“Back? You’re on an auto gurney in the green room.”

“Right. So I am. How am I?”

“Physically you seem fine. What happened out there?”

He suddenly didn’t want to talk about it.

“What did you see?” he asked.

Maas grinned and said, “You went boggle. It was great. The director is pissed, though. You ignored him totally. It was almost as if you were actually talking to the author yourself. He messaged in and said no one ever gave feedback like that.”

“Good modeling?”

“He seems to think so. Fight movements, gallops, the works. Then you took a tumble.”

“Yeah. Is my neck okay?”

“It’s fine. A few days’ rest and some mild regen. You’ve already got a medicated wrap.”

“I can feel it, yes.”

“You even got a kudo from the artist. He said the toucan beak makes the lizard work.”

“Ah, that. Good.”

He remembered to say, “We should discuss some additional contracts, then.” Then his rational mind caught up and thought,
Or retirement. Right now. Because that was too goddam real.

“I need some water.”

Maas said, “You’re still wearing your stage kit.”

“Oh. Good,” he said. He found the tube and took a pull . . . and it was full of malty beer.

The universe still made no sense, and he wasn’t sure Joseph had any future as a creator of genres, though he might make a good living if he switched to screenplays for stoner films.

At least now he knew why there was a Toucansaurus on the front of the book - even if he still didn’t know why it was named Buttercup.

End

April Fool

At LosCon in L.A. one year, there was a rumor that Brad Linaweaver was very unhappy with me, because
Freehold
was “Certain” to beat his
Anarquia
for the Prometheus Award. I wasn’t so sure. (In the end, he won.) then there was that Heinlein pastiche put together by Spider Robinson.

Spider is a fine writer and a fine man, to be sure. I respect him, and don’t fault him taking the money and writing the best story he could. However, regardless of what some promoters say, Spider is not Heinlein. Certainly good, certainly worthy, but they are not the same.

A few years later there was another “lost” Heinlein novel. I think it was lost for a reason—the same reason the first draft of my story “The Price” is lost. The author wasn’t happy with it.

Once again, Spider stepped up and did a professional writing job.

However, I e-mailed Brad and mentioned that each successive story was written from less original material, and Locus Magazine’s April Fool’s edition was approaching . . .

He concurred with my logic, and we actually did get paid for this. I guess that was our April Fool’s joke on Locus.

New Heinlein Novel To Be Written

With Brad Linaweaver

April 1, 2008, Locus Online

While going through the archives of Wilson “Bob” Tucker, writers Michael Z. Williamson and Brad Linaweaver found an as-yet unpublished Heinlein novel.

“It turns out Heinlein and Tucker were at dinner one night during MidAmeriCon,” (The 1976 Worldcon in Kansas City) Linaweaver said. “Bob (Tucker) made notes of their conversation on three napkins.”

The napkins are currently being analyzed for impressions and other marks, and to clarify part of the text blurred by a coffee stain.

“It looked like ‘Time for the Pie,’” Williamson said. “But we knew that was wrong. My guess is that it’s, ‘Time for the Pie in the Sky,’ based on a reference he made frequently. Brad thinks it’s ‘Time for the Pied Piper,’ hearkening back to one of his earlier stories.”

Since the notes were not in Heinlein’s archives, and since Tucker had no legal claim to Heinlein’s intellectual property, the ideas were free for the finding. They could be developed in any direction desired.

“As a formality, we’re currently in negotiations with the Heinlein estate,” Linaweaver said. “We’re looking to do something different with this valuable find, and actually write it the way Heinlein would have.” Williamson said, “Spider’s a fine writer, but he ticked off a lot of fans with his hippie take on Variable Star. I figure Brad’s got the libertarian philosophical depth for this, and I’ve got the right wing militarism down cold.”

Readers can expect to see a development of this lost story within two years.