Unidentified Funny Objects 2

UNIDENTIFIED FUNNY OBJECTS 2

Edited by Alex Shvartsman

PUBLISHED BY:

UFO Publishing

1685 E 15th St.
Brooklyn, NY 11229

www.ufopub.com

Copyright © 2013 by UFO Publishing

Stories copyright © 2013 by the authors

Trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-9884328-2-6

All rights reserved. No part of the contents of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Cover art: Arnie Swekel

Interior art: Barry Munden

Interior design: Windhaven Press (www.windhaven.com)

E-book design: Elizabeth Campbell

Graphics design: Emerson Matsuuchi

Logo design: Martin Dare

Copyeditor: Elektra Hammond

Associate editors: James Aquilone, Cyd Athens, James Beamon, Anatoly Belilovsky, Frank Dutkiewicz, Michael Haynes, Nathaniel Lee, Fran Wilde

Visit us on the web

www.ufopub.com

Alex Shvartsman
FOREWORD

Ken Liu
THE MSG GOLEM

Esther Friesner
SERVICE CHARGE

J. W. Alden
ITEM NOT AS DESCRIBED

Jim C. Hines
STRANGER VS. THE MALEVOLENT MALIGNANCY

Fran Wilde
HOW TO FEED YOUR PYROKINETIC TODDLER

Matt Mikalatos
A STIFF BARGAIN

Josh Vogt
THE GIRL WITH THE DAGON TATTOO

M.C.A. Hogarth
IMPROVED CUBICLE DOOR

Mike Resnick
ON SAFARI

Konstantine Paradias
HOW YOU RUINED EVERYTHING

Jody Lynn Nye
INSIDER INFORMATION

K.G. Jewell
THE HAUNTED BLENDER

Tim Pratt
THE RETGUN

Heather Lindsley
THE DIPLOMAT’S HOLIDAY

Michelle Ann King
CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR APOTHEOSIS

Desmond Warzel
ONE THING LEADS TO YOUR MOTHER

James Beamon
CLASS ACTION ORC

Wade Albert White
THE WIGGY TURPIN AFFAIR

Robert Silverberg
HANNIBAL’S ELEPHANTS

About the Editor

by Alex Shvartsman

How do you follow a hit?

In 2012, I set out to create something that wasn’t available in the speculative anthology space—a collection of humorous short stories. As a reader, I was frustrated with the dearth of science fiction and fantasy venues for such material. This kind of book was something I’d welcome, and I was betting there were enough fans of the lighter fare who wanted it, too. And thus,
Unidentified Funny Objects
was born.

The book was a success, well-received by both critics and the reading public. But my ambitions extended beyond creating a single hit. I envisioned
UFO
as an annual series of anthologies, providing a consistent outlet for the type of light-hearted, optimistic short story that is seldom seen elsewhere. But how do you provide that consistent experience and yet keep things fresh?
UFO2
is my attempt to answer this question with:

New headliners:
Robert Silverberg and Esther Friesner are among the exciting group of well-known authors to lend their talents to the
UFO
series.

Familiar worlds:
Jody Lynn Nye, K.G. Jewell, and Matt Mikalatos revisit the characters and settings they created for the first
UFO
volume. Each story is a stand-alone and can be enjoyed without having read the previous installment, but it’s a nice bit of continuity, and an extra reason for new readers to seek out the inaugural anthology.

Different lengths:
UFO
was packed with twenty-nine shorter stories.
UFO2
includes nineteen mostly-longer tales.

Picture it:
This book includes original illustrations for nine of the stories, drawn by Barry Munden.

Bring the wacky:
UFO
stories are often about outrageous settings and characters. From madcap time travelers to orc lawyers to alien beasts in Central Park, this book turns the wacky setting up to eleven.

Please enjoy the stories collected here. If I did my job right, this book will not only be a worthy successor to the previous volume, but will also have you marking your calendar for the release date of
UFO3
. And while you wait, be sure to check out several additional free stories posted at
www.ufopub.com

by Ken Liu

On the second day after the spaceship
Princess of the Nebulae
left Earth, God spoke to Rebecca.

“Rebecca Lau, listen to me. I need you.”

The ten-year-old girl took off her headphones. The cabin was silent save for the faint rumble of the spaceship’s engines. “Dad, did you say something?”

“It’s me, God.”

“Right.” Rebecca climbed onto a chair to examine the speakers in the ceiling. The voice did not seem to be coming out of them.

She climbed down and peered closely at her computer. “If I find out you had anything to do with this, Bobby Lee…” she muttered darkly. Bobby had been jealous when he heard that her family was going on this cruise to the vacation colony on New Haifa for winter break. It was entirely possible that he decided to play a trick on her by programming her computer.

“Bobby has nothing to do with this,” God said, slightly miffed.

“So which god are you?”

“
The
God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
Your
God! Jason Engelman explained me to you over lunch last semester.”

“Oh, so you’re Jason’s god. The Jewish one.”

“You are a Jew.”

“Um.” Rebecca sat down on her bed. “I’m Chinese. We live in New York. You must have confused me with my friend Yael Wasserstein. Now I know we’re the same age and we both have long dark hair, but—”

“Be quiet! I need you to make a golem and catch all the rats on this ship. I’ll explain everything.”

BACK IN THE NINTH CENTURY, Jewish merchants from Persia settled in Kaifeng, the capital of China. The community grew so numerous that they built a synagogue in 1163. The Kaifeng Jews became known to their Chinese neighbors, who always paid lots of attention to food, as the “People Who Remove Sinew.”

For a thousand years, this community on the fringe of the Diaspora flourished and prospered. But over time, the Kaifeng Jews intermarried and gradually forgot most of their traditions. Many of them even forgot about God.

But God never forgot about them.

“SO I’M DESCENDED FROM ONE of these Kaifeng Jews?” Rebecca asked. “How come Mom never told me about this?”

“She doesn’t know either. I haven’t… er…”

“You haven’t needed to look us up,” Rebecca said, “until now.”

“I’ve been busy,” God said, a little stiffly. “You try to keep an eye on every molecule in the universe for a few days.”

Rebecca tried out the idea of being a Jew. Her eyes gradually lit up. “I get Hanukkah? And all the presents?”

“You get to celebrate Hanukkah, yes. The presents are up to your parents, not me.”

“Can I keep Christmas? And Chinese New Year?”

“That’s up to you,” God said. “I’m not—”

“Deal! But You need to make your presentation a bit punchier. That history lecture needed visual aids.”

Rebecca strained her ears and swore she heard God muttering. “What I have to work with… the closest thing to…”

“Hey!” Rebecca was hurt. “
You
came to
me
, remember?”

“Yes,” God said. “Don’t remind me. Can you get some mud?”

“Back up a minute. Why are there rats on this cruise ship? And what’s the big deal about rats? Aren’t they Your creatures, too?”

“Some family snuck aboard a pair of pet rats on the last cruise,” God said. “They escaped and multiplied. And now a hundred and fifty of them live in the walls of the ship. Ordinarily, I neither favor nor disfavor rats. But if these rats get to New Haifa, it’ll be a disaster.”

“Why?”

“There’s nothing in the ecosystem there to keep the rats in check. They’ll eat everything in sight, grains, crops, the eggs of songbirds, and baby chicks. Worst of all, there’s a virus on New Haifa that normally doesn’t affect people. But if the rats get there, the virus will infect them, and I can already see how the virus will mutate into new forms that will be very dangerous to people. It’s just one of those unforeseen interactions when you bring species across the galaxy together.”

“That sounds like a planning error on Your part.”

“Don’t start that again,” God groaned. “Everyone wants to blame me. You try to create all these worlds all by yourself, on the first try, no mistakes or oversights allowed.”

THE
PRINCESS OF THE NEBULAE
had a number of restaurants. Rebecca’s family favored the Chinese buffet, which had a good selection. But since Rebecca wasn’t sure exactly which foods were kosher (she knew that pork and shellfish were no good, but that was where certainty ended), she took only a plate of rice and bamboo shoots.

God was no help at all.

“I’m used to looking the other way at Chinese restaurants,” He declared, and refused to say anything more.

At their table, Rebecca made the announcement to her parents. David Lau and his wife Helen looked at each other and turned back towards their daughter.

“Is this like when you said you wanted to be Italian when you were seven?” Helen asked, cautiously. “Because you wanted to sing opera?”

“I don’t remember that. But no, it’s not.”

“You know,” Helen continued, struggling to keep her tone even, “when people say that the overseas Chinese are the ‘Jews of the Orient,’ it’s not meant to be taken literally.”

“Mom, I
really
am Jewish. So are you.”

“And God wants you to catch rats on this ship because they’re about to destroy an ecosystem? That’s not some metaphor I’m too old to understand?”

“No metaphors. God wants to protect the beaches and animals of New Haifa. And to prevent a plague.”

“Can I speak to God about this? He’s taking my daughter and I don’t get a say?”

“No,” God hissed at Rebecca. “Jewish mothers are bad enough. Chinese-Jewish mothers are worse. You deal with her.”

“God only talks to me,” Rebecca said. “He chose me to be his helper. You’ll have to ask a rabbi how this works.”

“Rebecca, you have an overactive imagination. If you invested one-tenth the energy you spend acting crazy on your school work—”

“
Mom
, I’m telling you the truth.”

“
Aiya
, David, are you listening to this? Talk to her.”

“What am I supposed to say?” David Lau shrugged. “According to her, she’s Jewish because of your side of the family. You read all the books on child development and psychology. Don’t they have chapters about stuff like this?”

“Don’t make fun of me. None of this would have happened if you paid more attention to her instead of always working.”

“Hey!”

Rebecca excused herself and quietly slipped out of the dining room.

REBECCA SCOURED THE DECKS and the halls, peeking into the theaters and dining spaces. The ficuses were in hydroponic planters, not soil. The flowers were fake. Metal, wood, and plastic gleamed everywhere. Not a smidgeon of mud in sight.