Simon of Space: A Blook by Cheeseburger Brown

PostScript 6: Beyond Ephemera

2008-08-14T10:00:00.000-04:00

Good news, everyone!

Now that we've reached the end of availability for the limited edition Simon of Space hardcover from Ephemera Bound, I'm pleased to announce that the complete novel is now once again accessible via the Web to read for free.

Of course, if squinting at a computer display isn't your 'druthers, a brand new softcover third edition is also on sale now, featuring a freshly edited manuscript and all new cover art.

Finally, the highly creative experimental electronica combo Syntax Error has released an overture and complete symphonic suite of incidental music composed to accompany your read. All tracks are available as free MP3 downloads.

If you enjoy supporting independent artists, please buy my book. If you simply enjoy a thrilling, engaging and amusing story, please read it online. If you like to bop while you read, please feel free to download and share the new musical score.

Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown

PostScript 5: Publication

2008-02-16T14:31:00.003-05:00

Ephemera Bound's hardcover edition of Simon of Space is available now via Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

This new edition was re-edited by Marsha Rogers, and features original cover art by Ashley Bosch. Many thanks go out to Derek and Deanna Dahlsad for pulling everything together.

Please buy my book. In return, I'll trade you a story-world suitable for full imagination immersion without any assembly required; narrative hooks are included at no additional cost. Order now.

Yours,
Cheeseburger Brown

Post Script 4: Hardcover, Ho!

2007-10-21T16:09:00.001-04:00

Post Script 3: Revisions Rendered

2006-12-28T20:54:00.000-05:00

Hi friends. You know me. I'm your befuddled typographic host, Cheeseburger Brown.

A lot has happened over the course of the past year, including but not limited to the birth and subsequent colic of a second child, starting a new job at a bigger studio, an exciting lawsuit over water drainage, the launch of a new storytelling blog, and a load of tribulations automotive, fiscal and familial. Whee!

Despite all that hooplah, I've finally managed to finish revising the manuscript of Simon of Space for the publication of the second edition. Just moments ago I sent off the last attachments to my cheerful and charming editor, Marsha Rogers. I wish her good luck and godspeed in sorting my muck of tweaks back into a coherent novel.

I just thought you might appreciate an update. Publication details will follow as they're made available to me. Stay vaguely tuned.

Post Script 2: The State of Simon

2005-09-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

Simon of Space has been picked up for publication by the nice people at Ephemera Bound. As a consequence, the first edition of the book self-published by me is no longer available for sale. A heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who troubled to buy a copy. You sweet people are keeping me out of debtors' prison.

The text on this weblog has won a stay of execution, and will remain on-line and freely available for the time being. (You are safe, do not panic.)

As requested, I have set up a discussion board for announcements about the progress of the hardcover second edition, criticism and speculation, fanfic and inspired artwork, and general chit-chat. It's a bit experimental right now -- a bit bare bones. User registration isn't yet automated, for example. If things go well I'll upgrade to the commercial version of the discussion board software, which has niftier features.

Don't forget to check out Simon of Space: The Merchandise. You know it never really happened unless you have a T-shirt about it. Or at least a mug. (And who knows? In a few years you might be able to eBay it for a dirty sum. Keep your fingers crossed, friends.)

This post concludes the Simon of Space weblog.

Thank you, and good night.

[ Curtsy & Exit ]

Post Script 1: On Publication

2005-09-26T18:58:00.000-04:00

Dear readers,

Yes, I am negotiating the fate of Simon of Space with an actual publisher. If everything proceeds the way we all hope, the manuscript will receive the attention of a professional editor to help me polish up the rough spots and bang out the worst dents. The book will then be re-released with broader distribution and some attempts at real marketing.

A further consequence of the agreement would be that existing versions of the novel would cease to be available.

Thus, for those of you who planned to buy a copy of the current printed edition but have not yet done so, don't procrastinate too long. It may disappear without warning, along with this weblog's archives.

Such is the way the winds of commerce blow.

A big thank you goes out to everyone who troubled to purchase signed copies of the first edition of Simon of Space. Your books are being printed now. Unfortunately, no further orders for signed copies can be accepted at this time as the volume has become unmanageable and I don't have a secretary.

Some Simon of Space stuff is now available through Cafe Press, including shirts, mugs, and a poster. I hope to offer other illustrations as posters in the future...as soon as I get some time to draw I'd love to render a version of the Neago, for instance. But for now it's just the familiar profile of Jeremiah and the slogan of Fellcorp Mercy. Send me your design requests -- all suggestions will be considered.

Announcements relating to the release of the second edition will be posted here on this weblog, along with bits of new Simon of Space-universe content exclusive to the Internet. Stay tuned.

Love,

Cheeseburger Brown

I Am

2005-09-22T04:57:00.000-04:00

Dear reader,

This is your dactylographically ambitious host, Cheeseburger Brown. I'm delighted that you've been enjoying Simon of Space enough to push through the prior forty-four chapters on-line.

I hope your interest is sufficient to propel you to purchase a copy of the book, to see how it all concludes.

Now now, I know what you're thinking -- what a cruel bait and switch. To be candid, I kept all the chapters available for free for as long as I could but, in the end, a man has to pay bills.

So, if you've derived forty-four chapters worth of enjoyment from this story, I do hope you'll consider taking the final plunge: buy the book, and help support more projects of this kind. Thank you.

The Trial

2005-09-20T13:02:00.000-04:00

I am starting to feel quite at home here, despite the daily march of witnesses the prosecution calls to describe me in the worst possible terms. Did you know Boss Preen is a law-abiding Samundran importer-exporter whose employees I butchered without provocation? Me neither. But I didn't lose too much sleep over it -- that night Duncan made steak.

The worst came first: the widows and widowers, the tortured and barely sane, the stunned soldiers and sickened journalists. Almost all of them were moved to strong emotion by their own testimony or the prosecution's deft stoking. Several times the procedures came to a halt while the witness regained themselves, wiping at their eyes and swallowing.

Master Barrister for the Prosecution: "Please describe in your own smells the events following the transmission..."

Kamari Forever

2005-09-18T23:49:00.000-04:00

The office Greskin Mile shared with the Master Barrister for the Accused was divided in two by a pane of glass. The air in Greskin's partition was clear, while that in the Master Barrister's partition was hazy and faintly yellow. Beyond this there was no differentiation: on both sides of the glass were mountainous stacks of dataplates in vaguely furniture-like mounds, screens covered in dense text, and discarded disposable cups and bowls strewn about the floor.

"I know, I know," said Greskin as we walked in, "it looks like a tornado blew through here, cha."

"What's a tornado?"

Salutation By Meal

2005-09-16T11:14:00.000-04:00

The pedestal upon which I stood rose.

I was lifted up through the floor of the Pegasi fumatory and then the pedestal clicked into place with a faint shudder. I was positioned in a well surrounded by dozens of white Pegasi and hundreds of their scuttling staff. The Pegasi scarcely seemed to take notice of me, though many of their staff pointed their brown, cow-like eyes in my direction. The air was thick with talk.

The language management device built in to the intelligent plastic skin I wore seemed confused by the dense whorls of intermingling babble, and offered only surreal poetic snippets of what it could suss out from the miasma. "Frenzied locution," it said into my ear. "Predisposition for aggravated your plumage has silkened wonderfully good daycleft my estimable numerous counts of a new shampoo."

Greskin Mile slithered out of the crowd and stood beside me. A Pegasi who turned out to be the Master Barrister for the Accused bounced calmly into place on my other side. I was having some difficulty distinguishing one Pegasi from another, particularly as they seemed to wear no clothes and have no given names. Greskin explained that they recognized one another by scent, and that maps of their familial relationships involved model trees whose individual leaves exuded a distinct musk upon being tickled. Greskin added that business cards were even more tricky...

A Succession Of Cells

2005-09-12T08:31:00.000-04:00

I spent many hours in a small white room, sitting on a narrow cot with my back against the wall and talking to my little blue plastic diary. "Your Majesty, I said," I said, "I am Terron Volmash." As I recited a lump formed in my throat around which I worked the words.

I was quiet for a few moments, and then roused the effort to conclude. I pushed the bauble back into the hip pocket of my tattered pants, their original grey lost under a patchwork of stains and grime.

Once or twice I gasped and looked over at my uninjured shoulder, certain I could feel the Nightmare Cannon alighted there. But it was gone. I was alone.

I was startled when a slot along the bottom of the wall snicked open and a tray of hot food was ejected, skidding across the floor. It bumped into my bare, raw feet and stopped there, the cup of water threatening to spill. I leaned down and caught it, then drained the cup into my mouth...

Aurora My Witness

2005-09-08T11:11:00.000-04:00

I awoke to chanting. I opened my eyes and sat up. A few snoring pilgrims slept on around me, but most blankets were abandoned.

The predawn light was grey and meagre, the plaza beneath the temple in which I had slept suffused with an unsettling, inconstant green cast from the slowly boiling aurora overhead. Dozens of people knelt in neat rows along the plaza, all pointed in same vaguely south-westerly direction, and sang.

I pulled on my longcoat and went down the steps to the ground level where a toothless crone with a wide smile handed me a steaming bowl of broth. I accepted it gratefully, sipping at it as I walked. I met Utopia, who had her own bowl of broth. She crinkled her nose at the contents. "You like fish?"

"Sure."

"Not me. Except octopus. Have you ever had octopus?"

"I don't know what an octopus is."

"People say you shouldn't eat them, because they're clever," Utopia said thoughtfully, stirring her finger absently in her bowl. "But of course I expect to be eaten when I die. It's only proper. And sometimes some people say I'm clever."

The Pilgrim Way

2005-09-04T22:01:00.000-04:00

"Callicrates," breathed Utopia, reaching up to touch the glass through which shone a sharp crescent of blue and white, edging one side of a massive round shadow occulting the background stars. "The entire world is one great city. Can you believe that, Simon? You can see the lights shining on the nightside."

I squinted. "Those orange blurs?"

She nodded. "Each one home to millions."

Amalasthuna

2005-08-31T10:35:00.000-04:00

Terron Volmash had been a paranoid man.

His tunnels ran endlessly beneath the fallen city of Thallos. It seemed to me that a thousand thoughtless days and dreamless nights passed while we trudged those dim corridors, my strange family and I.

I was given fixers and water, medicinal wafers and an emergency ampule of wine. Glory worked in the dark beside me, milling about in a Fellcorp Mercy first-aid pouch. "So this fornicated bird is the faecal thing?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Thought it'd be bigger...you know -- badder."

"Common mistake," I assured her. "It seems, however, that this Volmash character had quite a thing for birds."

The Clouds

2005-08-29T15:39:00.000-04:00

I stood alone at the centre of Volmash's phantasmagoric underground phrontisterion, my loyal companion and sworn enemy a green-plated superman masquerading as a slave now fed bodily into a great black gun two storeys high presided over by a twittering flock of brown-flecked sparrows. I paced in circles, stepping over a smashed silver robot when necessary.

I heard footfalls and looked up to see the girl in white and two pale, unarmed soldiers stopping at the threshold. One of them was cradling a wounded arm. I levelled the Smith-Shurtook at them. "No fancy soldiering, please," I said. "Just stay where you are."

Minotaur

2005-08-26T08:26:00.000-04:00

At the bottom of the elevator shaft we found the lift car, smashed. Jeremiah helped me over the debris and we came out into a long corridor dimly lit by little yellow lamps. At intervals their light was aided by white orbs on metal stands, connected to the thick cylinder of cabling laid by engineers of the Citadel of the Recovery. Jeremiah strode down the silent corridor and I followed him, still chilled by his latest revelation about the untamed galactic wilderness beyond the borders of the Panstellar Neighbourhood...

Unto The Hegemon

2005-08-23T14:35:00.000-04:00

The world of Metra turned beneath us, an ocean veiled in bands of cloud reflecting winking speckles of orange from the fat, dim orb of Kamari Star. A diffuse band of irregular flotsam girdled the planet, metal fragments glinting as they spun. Before the pocked face of Metra's moon floated a massive derelict spaceship, its scarlet plating rent aside exposing twisted decks and clouds of spinning kipple.

The space around Metra was a graveyard for warships.

Flight Of The Neago

2005-08-21T22:45:00.000-04:00

I woke up feeling very hot and stuffy, so I blindly kicked away the blankets.

They burst into flame.

"Simon!" screeched Glory, scrambling backward across her bed and pressing herself into the bulkhead. Her wide eyes were fixed on the circle of bright white light crawling across the cabin, leaving everything in its wake a blackened ruin. As the air filled with smoke it illuminated the shaft of blazing light all the way to its origin at the view-port.

"The shade is fornicated!" Glory contributed astutely.

The door slid open and a medical robot rushed inside.

"I don't feel safe," I shouted to it. "Is this a good time to panic?"

Jeremiah's Secret

2005-08-17T01:07:00.000-04:00

I awoke. This, in and of itself, was surprising.

I inhabited a hazy world of white light and soothing voices, defocused and meaningless. Nurse Randa patted my cheek at one point, and I tried to turn to kiss her hand but I was too weak. Nurse Wennel was laughing at something. A machine went ping!

Though I did not notice the transition, it became apparent to me that Nurse Hiwai was straddling me. I wondered if we were having sex. She was thrusting down upon my chest, her face pinched in effort. "Stay with me!" she sang. "Come on now, Simon -- don't let go!"

"Okay," I agreed, and the machine went ping! again.

Mass Of The Halcyons

2005-08-15T07:52:00.000-04:00

A white-skinned naked man with a shaved head appeared at the door of our cell and bowed low, his pale forehead actually touching the smooth stone floor with a muted thud. His drawn, expressionless face turned up. His eyes looked like they were made of glass, and I shivered. Before the prostrate naked man could say a word Brother Phi grinned and claimed, "He says he's here to escort me to the Halcyon Hall."

He then stared at the naked man, who stared back.

The Flying Citadel

2005-08-10T15:27:00.000-04:00

"I don't feel any different," I said.

Dr. Pemma snapped off the little light she had been shining into my eyes and nodded to herself, tapping quickly on the plate she held in her other hand. "That's good," she pronounced.

Lick A Bet Outta Hell

2005-08-08T00:05:00.000-04:00

I was back in the hospital, about to catch scent of Nurse Randa.

And then I wasn't, but the dreamy aftertaste inspired me with the will to open my sleep-stuck eyes without dread. Though I saw no sunlight, my body was telling me many hours had passed -- perhaps more than a usual night of sleep. For the first time in days my brain did not feel as if it were working through a haze, and my chest did not ache with worry.

The canopy of hard stars shining through the port was slowly revolving. I was in space.

An amber lamp glowed in the alcove above my bed. There were three other lamps, in a row. Thus eight tiny pinprick reflections gleamed in the eyes of Jeremiah, standing sentinel by the door. Now more familiar to me than Nurse Randa ever was, I took a moment to consider how the robot had ended up both my and Pish's keeper.

Corinthia Tag spoke in my ear, making me jump.

You Are Safe, Do Not Panic

2005-08-05T22:43:00.000-04:00

I won't leave you in suspense: Glory found a washroom.

But she was still crossing her legs and grumbling as the Neago grew before us against the spangled velvet: a great rounded wedge of gleaming white metal with a slowly turning torus embedded in a midship cavity, like a canine tooth run through by an ivory ring. A set of blue formation lights winked on and off patiently at the extremes of the wings and nose, on which were painted the image of a human hand in red. We had just drawn close enough to discern the orange glow from the turning ring's port-holes when my telephone buzzed in my ear.

Conference With An Incorporation

2005-08-02T00:42:00.000-04:00

I dreamed that a bird, a terrible raptor, was eating my eyes. Needless to say I awoke somewhat discomfited.

Thus it was with a feeling of great relief that I looked around to see orange dappled light playing across the ceiling, and smelled the moist, hot air of Maja's equatorial balm. I was not blind, nor dead. Life chirped and whinnied beyond the windows. I heard the screech of a large bird and shuddered, gooseflesh rising on my arms. I sat up. I looked around the bed, in which I had slept alone.

What morning was this? And why did it smell like afternoon?

A Curious Malady

2005-08-01T16:23:00.000-04:00

I crossed the hall in a blink, and took the stairs three at time. I threw open the doors of the master bedroom and strode over to the dark bed. I pawed through the covers savagely until I found Jia's arm, and then jerked her upright with a brutal thrust.

She let out a little scream and pulled the covers to her chest. "Simon?" she whispered, blinking.

"Who are you?" I roared.

Lions & Tigers & Bears

2005-07-28T11:31:00.000-04:00

Not for the first time, I felt the fool.

This time, however, it was not my fault: I was dressed as an elephant. I peered through the almond-shaped eye-holes of my masque into the mirror, appreciating how Jia's application of grey paint helped to blend my skin with the stylized visage of the long-nosed, wide-eared beast. The lower half of my face was exposed, and she was tickling my chin by painting it grey.

I looked over at Pish, who also seemed nonplussed. He was rubbing the white paint off his lips with a sneer, steadfastly refusing to catch a glimpse in the mirror of himself as a mouse. His whiskers twitched fretfully.

I couldn't help but smile when I looked at Jeremiah, though. After breaking up a terse argument between Jia and Pish we had decided that Jeremiah would indeed accompany us to be the ball, on condition that he wear a costume like everybody else. Jeremiah had not commented on this, but I knew he was not enjoying standing attired as he was, disguised as a reading lamp.

I Hate Moondays

2005-07-27T06:33:00.000-04:00

I awoke in a new place, but did not regret the inconsistency. Before I opened my eyes I dreamed half sleeping of Jia's scent on the pillow beside me. When I looked all I could see was the play of shadows from leaf-dappled light swaying on the white ceiling above the bed.

A Jolly Holiday

2005-07-24T22:17:00.000-04:00

The thing I miss most about Castle Misne is awakening each morning to the same blurry view of the flared edge of bulkhead by my head where the cot met the cabin, my plastic blue diary resting in the corner with its eye casting a feeble glow into the mattress.

It was not a magnificent view, but it was consoling in its regularity. Aside from my time in the hospital it was the only period in my life in which I have slept in the same place for more than one night.

Thus, it was with a kind of pre-emptive nostalgia that I considered the polished wooden edge of the night-stand as I awoke. I smelled the heavy, warm air moved by the slowly turning ceiling-fans. I heard the pizzicato chirps and warbling laments of the birds and other assorted Solar bric-a-brac living in the trees outside.

Jia

2005-07-22T02:38:00.000-04:00

Morning came with a gentle rocking.

I opened my eyes. The sky outside was red, and dotted with birds. The pool of ruby light opposite the window crawled back and forth in time to the motion of the carriage.

I straightened and peered outside through the glass: the World Train seemed to be moving across a narrow causeway now, a sparkling ocean extending from horizon to horizon on either side, its surface whipped by wind. In the east the scarlet eye of Nsomeka Star burned through a thin veil of cloud, the west presided over by the striped face of a gas giant called Soshu.

The Death Of Simon Fell

2005-07-19T20:47:00.000-04:00

Constable Guillaume escorted me wordlessly back to the grey interview room. I sat down on the cold chair and appreciated the minimal insulation provided by my orange plastic jumpsuit, which rustled and squeaked as I moved.

I was experimenting with my newfound ability to whistle when Greskin Mile burst in and sat down opposite me. "Good news, Mr. Fell!"

"We're free?"

Showdown With Hyperspace

2005-07-18T01:35:00.000-04:00

Pish squeezed my hand. "It'll be okay, Simon."

I squeezed back and tried to chuckle with nonchalant confidence. Instead I coughed. "Of course it will, Pish. I'm sure it's...perfectly safe. Isn't that so, Jeremiah?"

"Sir," he said.

Descended from the Annapurna Hyperspace Gate Hotel, we stood in a row of three at the end of a long arcade whose terminus was a two-storey bank of little round doors flanked by helpful robots in hotel colours. Neat queues of travellers ranged themselves before the ports. Every few moments a group were led through one of the doors. None emerged.

Announcements echoed off the tiles. "Passengers bound for Nsomeka are asked to check in at gate eight. Gate eight, please, for all passengers bound for Nsomeka Star, including Maja, Mahuea, and all Ninurtan destinations."

"Well boys," I declared jauntily, "that's us."

We had crossed the final barriers: we were standing before the gates, tickets in hand. We moved across the arcade too briskly. I felt I could sense the weight of the great dish above us, yawning at the sky. A cold sweat broke out on my back. What if I should step inside, and awake erased again?

A Meek Cancer

2005-07-15T07:49:00.000-04:00

A young maid woke me up to inform me in broken language it would now be my special privilege to be washed in dung.

"I'm sorry?" I said.

On the way outside the cave Greskin Mile the limping lawyer-cum-taxicab driver explained to me that the Ruffians had been moved by the recounting of my adventures last night, and that they wanted to make us all honourary members of their clan. This would involve several noxious rituals, including a ceremonial public bathing in the sanctified dung of a rare silver cow.

March Of The Ants

2005-07-13T09:06:00.000-04:00

The gong for breakfast did not wake me, but being hit across the face and thrown out of my hammock did. "Wakey-wakey-wakey!" invited someone unfriendly. "It's time for eggs and breaky, my little mules."

I opened my eyes and coughed, finding myself entangled with Pish in the web of vines beneath our bunks. Pish was staring with wide eyes at the two scar-faced thugs glaring down at us from the round wooden balcony that surrounded the nook, wound out of the face of the living tree. "Is this some kind of Annapurnese wake-up call?" I muttered groggily. "I distinctly remember asking not to be pistol-whipped."

Have Gun, Will Travel

2005-07-11T09:25:00.000-04:00

I have never been so tired in all my life.

I feel like I've been hit by a ton of bricks. In fact, I am a ton of bricks. Whatever else you may hear let me for one assure you with authority and conviction: gravity sucks.

Ahem. We have arrived on Annapurna.

There was an opulent banquet on the night before we left, and Captain Gold insisted that Fartles sit by him so that he might enjoy the high comedy of the dog's various effluvia working their magic to bend the pretentions of the upper crust. Pish and I were also seated at the captain's table, which earned us venomous looks from the two displaced Rouleighs throughout the night. When one of them swept past me to have a word with Captain Gold she hissed, "Improper!" in my ear...

Revelations, Redux

2005-07-08T11:18:00.000-04:00

Annapurna! I have never seen its like.

We are still four days from port and the world remains small to the naked eye, but two nice kids I met in the rotating observation gallery this afternoon showed me how to key up a magnification window on my plate. Within a ring of tiny numbers the blue-purple disc leapt forward to become a great globe: bronze continents outlined by rusty seas, girdled in a torn white blanket of clouds that turned blue toward the planet's limb. The poles were frosted white tinged with yellow.

"Why does it look so blue when it's small?" I asked. "Everything is so orange."

The kids shrugged. I looked over at their white and red robot, who returned my gaze impassively. "It may be a trick of the light, sir," it contributed lamely.

Revelations

2005-07-07T12:09:00.000-04:00

I have spent the whole of the last three days with my charming and wise friend Corinthia Tag, which is why I was surprised when she did not turn up for tea in the sun-lounge as has been our private custom. I came to her cabin and my plate told me she was there. I signalled, and was admitted...

A Galactic Primer

2005-07-06T15:04:00.000-04:00

Forgive me, diary. I have left you under my pillow for a week. What can I say? Life moves slowly on an interplanetary castle with room service.

But I met an interesting lady today.

After breakfast this morning Captain Gold took Pish and Fartles off to ride horses in the gymnasium. I wandered the commercial galleria for a while, trying to understand the strange fashions and trinkets proffered by garish boutiques beneath mesmerizing signs. Ladies in wide dresses held their oval plates before them on carved grips, peering through this window at all things, escorted by cadres of purchase-laden robots and bored stewards. I also saw a blue dog.

Lunch was taken in an echoey court of cold marble, presided over by service robots with marble-patterned carapaces. They fetched me fried eggplant, spiced bread, brown rice and yogurt. I also received a purple concoction to drink, but I somehow failed to fathom the opening of its vessel and ended up spraying the whole of the frothy contents on my shirt and face.

"A serviette, sir?"

"Please."

Castle Misne is fitted with twin observation galleries which rotate at the ends of armatures long enough to give occupants a view of space largely unobstructed by the castle itself. Pish was very enthusiastic about the experience after visiting one of the galleries with Captain Gold, so I had promised him I would see for myself.

The observation deck was transparent, and dark. Were it not for fleeting highlights against the glass it would seem that I had entered unto void. I climbed down the ladder to the clear flooring, unable to resist testing the surface experimentally with my toe before letting go of the rungs. Tentatively I stepped on the sky, swarms of stars occulted by my silhouetted shoes.

Above me wheeled the long castle, encrusted with tiny lights and glowing ports. To my left yawned the diminishing ruddy face of Aramaiti, to my right a hard blue point. The star Aino beamed at my back, filtered from brilliance to a crisp coin of white. The stellar sail was gauzy haze above, the stars seen through it scintillating and tinted with spectral halos.

There were three other shadows in the observation gallery at first, but two left shortly after I had arrived. I cleared my throat awkwardly. "Is it inappropriate to speak here?"

"Not at all," said a papery female voice that was strangely familiar to me.

"May I ask madam, do you know whether that blue point is Annapurna?"

"Indeed it is."

I looked at the blue disc, and then back over my shoulder at the globe of Aramaiti. "How amazing that space should be so vast that it takes sixteen days to travel between two points that can be seen one from the other with the naked eye."

The woman stepped closely beside me but I still could not make out her features in the weak, filtered light. The shadow of her face was long, with a regal profile. There seemed to be a bun of hair atop her head. "Sixteen days is a jaunt. The transit was much longer on my way out -- nearly three months."

"Forgive me, madam. I don't know a thing."

"Ignorance is my business," she replied, her voice again striking a chord in my memory. "Questions indulge me. I am a schoolteacher."

I smiled. "You really wouldn't mind if I ask you something else then?"

"If I go too long without teaching I may regain my senses and take up a more rewarding career."

"Madam, I think you are just the sort of person I've been looking for. I'm called Hellig Apples. I'm from Samundra."

"I'm Corinthia Tag," she told me. "And you're not from Samundra, though you carry the accent well, Hellig. Where are you really from?"

"I'm told my home is on Maja."

"You're told? Now this is intriguing, Hellig. Next thing you're going to tell you've come out of a hyperspatial gate with Interstellar Amnesia!" She chuckled in a way that reminded me of a certain plump chicken at Duncan's Bliss, which pleased me. But when I did not reply her tittering ceased. "My dear Hellig, I do hope I haven't offended you."

"Well, it's true," I sighed. "Joke as it may be, it's true."

"You really came through a gate without your self?" I nodded in the shadows and she whistled.

I jumped. "How did you do that?"

"What, this?" She whistled again. "Whistling?"

"It sounds like a kettle!"

There came a pause. In the gloom I saw Corinthia Tag retreat a few paces, and then turn around and walk back closer to me. "Hellig, I can see that I have you at a serious disadvantage. Perhaps I had best let you ask some of your questions, in order to catch up."

"Really?"

"Please."

And so I deluged her. "Who runs the worlds? Where did people come from? How do interstellar gates work? What were the shuttle's shields made of?"

"One question at a time!" she begged.

I took a breath and thought about it. "How long is history?"

She laughed, her shadow cantering back against the stars as she clapped. "That's a wonderful question, Hellig. Hominid civilization has enjoyed some ten thousand years of recorded history, dating from the advent of primitive writing systems by human tribes on Terra, the first Earth."

"Tribes like Captain Gold's Jews?"

"Very much so. The Hebrews of Terra give us some of the earliest examples of written history, along with the Vedics, the Hellenes and the Chaldeans."

"When did we first leave the Earth?"

"At the dawn of informatics, four thousand years ago -- knowledge being power, of course. The same era saw the birth of the telegraph, the automobile, the spaceship, the microprocessor, the robot..."

"How many worlds in the galaxy are populated with human life?"

"There are thirty-nine Solar worlds. You must always remember, Hellig, that human life is not an island. We are supported by a host of organisms that are every bit as integral to sustaining Solar civilization as we are. Why, there are millions of microscopic organisms on or inside of you right now."

I shivered. I felt itchy. "What are they doing?"

"Some of are doing critical things like making the digestion of your food possible. Others are just along for the ride. Your cells are powered by wee things called mitochondria who even have their own genome, distinct from your own."

"I had no idea."

"And that's just one of end of the spectrum. To breathe we require the carbon dioxide sinks of vast forests; and forests are maintained by armies of organisms, from moulds and mosses to beetles, bats and birds. Solar life is a broad family, which is in part what makes it so difficult to transport across lightyears of space. Seeding the galaxy is a slow process."

I considered this. "But can a man not simply step through a gate, and find himself on a new world?"

She chuckled again. "Indeed, but who builds the gate?"

I was dumbstruck. "I never thought of that. Who does build the gate?"

"Robots. But they have to get there the long way, first. It takes many centuries to travel between the stars. When a colonizer arrives at a candidate planet it begins by broadcasting Solar micro-life, laying the bacterial framework for engineering the climate even before construction on the hyperspatial transmitter is started. In some cases the robots have opted to wait for hundreds of years before engaging the transmitter, to allow for the decay of radioactivity left over from atomic blasting to release subsurface gases."

"So there are robots out there doing this? Even now?"

"Certainly."

"When were they sent out?"

"They are sent out continuously. Civilization has been building and launching colonizers for thousands of years. It is a sacred activity managed directly by the Panstellar Neighbourhood."

"This is the body that rules Solar worlds?" I asked.

"Rules?" she echoed. "Goodness me, no. Each star system is autonomous, in order that civilization might be worked upon by natural selection."

"What is natural selection?"

She took a deep breath and thought about her answer. "Hellig, there is no creature alive or dead who knows the one best way to run a Solar world. It is an answer that is beyond our philosophy, but not beyond the great computer of time and space. Thus, each world is governed as its populace sees fit, without interference from any greater authority. In time, worlds that are successful will contribute more culture, genomes and materiel to newly colonized worlds than less successful ones. Do you follow me, Hellig?"

"Not entirely..."

"Success is viral, if tyranny is suppressed," she said emphatically. "In this way we hope to steer toward a destiny where the entire galaxy is populated by stable worlds, each governed by politics honed by millions of generations of experience. Since cultural reproduction is predicated on a sustainable high quality of life for its citizens, the culture that comes to dominate our worlds shall be tested and optimal."

"I think I see," I said. "But how can one assure that the people of failing worlds do not emigrate in a wave, and thereby cause a cancer of failure that springs from world to world?"

"That is where the accords of the Panstellar Neighbourhood come into play. Sick worlds have their hyperspatial gates shut down. The connection is not re-opened until auditing reveals a change in the internal situation."

"How is sickness defined?"

"Starvation, mass death, uncontrollable crime. There are a number of metrics, but it isn't easy to earn the disfavour of the Neighbourhood. Affiliation asks little beyond basic civility. As I said, interference is minimized in order to let the social organisms of worlds evolve according to their own internal forces. The strictest regulations concern warfare: no star system may hold a world beyond its own heliopause."

"But worlds may war between one another within a system?"

"Assuming such warfare does not drag the world into barbarity, for if so the entire system loses. Hyperspatial gates are either open or closed with regard to a given star...it is not possible to secure gates on a world-by-world basis."

For a moment I stared into the stars, wondering which ones might be playing host to colonizing robots, nascent civilizations or quarantined barbarians. "Has any star system ever tried to conquer a foreign world?"

"Oh, well of course," she snapped, and then apologized. "-- Look at me, a schoolteacher, stammering over it. How silly of me. It seems so impossibly strange to have to explain to someone the defining event of our times..."

I let her collect her thoughts, patiently scanning the panorama as she played her fingers against one another, leaning to and fro. I turned to look at her shadow as I heard her draw in breath to speak. "Ten years ago the hegemony at Kamari Star moved against Cassiopeia, igniting a terrible war. The Panstellar Neighbourhood was forced to mount navies to protect the galactic interest, and in retaliation Kamari deployed an unspeakable weapon against us all."

"Unspeakable?"

She took a deep breath. "There is a proper name for it, but it is always called by the name Radio Kamari used: the Nightmare Cannon. It is a weapon designed to transmit the worst kind of human suffering over a signal capable of being carried along with everyday holographic media. You...did not experience the Horror, I take it."

"My amnesia is total."

"I..." she paused, and I heard her breath catch in her throat. "There is no way to explain to you what happened to so many of us on that day. I caught only a glimpse. And I know I will take that glimpse to my mausoleum."

"A glimpse of suffering?"

"Ultimate suffering," she whispered fiercely. "Soul-tearing suffering. Riveted into my mind! Many died instantly. Suicides followed. We were all watching the war broadcast when the Panstellar Navy engaged the Kamari forces at Cassiopeia. Everyone was watching..." She trailed off again, and took a moment to re-compose herself. "With his empire on the brink of defeat a terrible man engaged the cannon, and in less than five minutes irrevocably brutalized half the galaxy."

"Terrible indeed," I echoed.

"Engaging the cannon isn't what made him terrible, Hellig," she replied quickly. "It was what he did. The Nightmare Cannon is not a creative device, but a projective one. To transmit its payload of ultimate suffering it must first record it."

"Record it? How?"

Corinthia coughed. She may have retched. Her breathing was ragged. "That is unspeakable, my dear Hellig. I'm sorry. But even schoolteachers have their limits."

I let a moment pass. The stars crawled as we rotated about the castle. I asked, "Was this man brought to justice?"

"No," she said mournfully. "He escaped. Many, many people have dedicated their lives to hunting him down for just that purpose. And to learn the location of the Nightmare Cannon, so that it might be destroyed once and for all. In fact, it is on a grant from the Citadel of the Recovery that I have toured Samundra, following up some research they thought might help the cause."

I hugged my shoulders. "I had no idea the galaxy could house such evil. I thought I knew how sheltered I had been when I was betrayed by a friend, but now I see how little I have been through."

She sniffed, and touched my arm with her hand. "Don't let me upset you. You're one of the lucky ones, to have no idea what I'm talking about." She dropped her hand from me and crossed her arms, turning to the black sky once more. "Goodness knows what I wouldn't give to have never heard the name Terron Volmash."

My telephone buzzed, startling me. I jumped and gasped, startling Corinthia. I heard her voice sound in my head: "Incoming missive from Jeremiah. Response?"

"How do you know Jeremiah?" I asked Corinthia.

"What?"

"Incoming missive from Jeremiah. Response?"

"Hello?" I cried.

"Sir," said Jeremiah smoothly through my telephone. "Will you be joining us for dinner? The captain has invited us to his private buffet."

"Let me get back to you," I told him. "My telephone sounds like you," I said to Corinthia, bemused.

"Ah yes," she groaned. "I get that a lot. My speech was modeled years ago, and the rights have been sold so many times I've lost track of everywhere it ends up."

I laughed. "For weeks I've had this irrational want to meet the friendly lady in my telephone," I said. "And now I have. It has been a genuine pleasure to make your acquaintance, Madam Tag. Would you consider joining me for dinner with the captain?"

She tittered. "I'd be delighted, my dear Hellig. But there is one thing, before we go."

"Of course."

"Will you kiss me?" she breathed. "Here, now, in the dark -- before you see me in the light."

"Are you ugly, Corinthia?"

"I am old."

We kissed, very gently but very sweetly. Her skin was soft and dry, like a fallen leaf. She told me my face was sticky, and I was forced to explain to her about my purple juice mishap. She giggled like a girl.

Dinner with the captain was noisy, largely on account of Captain Gold himself who was endeavouring to teach Pish some sort of a throaty, lugubrious song with words I could not identify. Fartles crooned along, which made the captain nearly choke as he laughed.

Corinthia Tag's hair was white, and her skin creased with hundreds of tiny lines that seemed to mark every expression she had ever worn, with a bias toward open-browed smiling that folded the skin around her green eyes. She was the colour of chocolate, her hands long and careworn. We didn't talk much over dinner, but every once and a while we looked over at one another and smiled.

After dinner she took me to the Spider Tree Garden in the third habitat ring of the castle, a mad labrynth of freefall plant life interspersed with great yellow orbs of suspended light clotted with translucent moths. For someone who described herself as "geriatric and planet-chained" she navigated the webby, floating world of the garden with grace. I will not detail my own tribulations, but suffice it to say Corinthia seemed to find my artlessness somehow charming.

"Do you think I could be March Peebles?" I asked her.

She smiled consolingly. "I'm afraid not, Hellig. March Peebles is only a folk legend."

"My name is Simon," I said.

"Oh?"

And so I recounted for her my tale, beginning while we kicked across the open field at the mouth of the Spider Tree Garden and concluding in the sitting room of her suite over glasses of a pale amber wine served cold with slices of iced grape. I explained about the hospital ward and Nurse Randa, running through the forest and being adopted by Pish, my all too brief friendship with poor Duncan before the police took him, the betrayal of Nilo and Glory, and the way I marched out and took Jeremiah back from them.

When I was done she exclaimed, "My goodness, dear Hellig -- or Simon, I should say. It sounds like a thriller!"

I smiled sheepishly. "So life is not always quite this challenging?"

"Perhaps it is," she admitted, sitting down on the sofa next to me. "But it's usually a little more spread out. I'm sure I've had as many adventures as you have, but I'm nearly two hundred years old and...how old did you say you were, Simon?"

"Two months or thirty-six years, depending on how you look at it," I replied, and then marvelled: "Two hundred years! Is that how long life is?"

She likewise marvelled: "Thirty-six! I can remember it."

We sipped our wine. After an interval she closed her eyes and recounted in a distant, dreamy voice: "I was a thirty-six year old girl when I met the Queen of Space at Eridani Star. It feels so long ago and it feels like yesterday. I felt so small and so foolish, standing in her court surrounded by ministers and executives -- but when she looked at me, and spoke to me, she made me feel like being a citizen of the neighbourhood gave me all the dignity I needed. She behaved as if she were my servant: earnest, tactful, humble, kind."

"What place does a queen have in a neighbourhood without a ruler?"

"She is a symbol," Corinthia explained, opening her eyes and turning to face me. "Each race of life represented in the domain of the Panstellar Neighbourhood has its own ceremonial figurehead and aworldly mouth. The Pegasi have their Metamaster To-Ma-Fe -- whom I believe is currently Bo the Twelfth -- and the Hennish always have the current iteration of the Great Henniplasm to speak for them."

"And so Solar life has the Queen of Space?"

"Exactly. It is an office established long ago by the House Aresou, the exiled monarchs of pre-Martian Ares."

"I have heard of Mars. Captain Gold told me it was a war-like world."

She shook her head. "Never so simple. It was the acme of force as Mars, it was a bastion of freedom as Ares. History knows the world in both forms, and our modern culture owes its heritage to both. The schism and bond between Ares and Mars is the cornerstone of much philosophy." She yawned. "But I think I am too tired for philosophy, dear Simon. Forgive an old woman."

She fell asleep against my shoulder, her breath against my chest. I put my arm around her and cradled her gently, the white bun of hair atop her head tickling my nose. I sneezed but she didn't wake up.

I carefully lifted her up and carried her into the bedroom. I placed her on the bed and asked the light to dim down a bit, which it did after briefly objecting in a staccato, chuckly language I could not understand. I noticed a grey robot standing quietly in an alcove, and asked him to look over his mistress while she slept.

"Does master wish me to examine the mistress?" asked the robot loudly.

"Shut up!" I hissed. "She's sleeping, you idiot. Don't you know what 'look over' means? I know what it means and I'm only two months old!"

"I am sorry to have disturbed master, master," said the robot in a slightly quieter voice. After a moment of consideration it added, "Would young master care for a bottle of warm milk?"

"What are you talking about?"

"I am trying to determine the needs of master, master."

I grabbed the robot by the elbow and pulled him out of the alcove. "Do you see that woman sleeping there?" The robot claimed so. "See to her needs, will you? If she wakes up and wants something, give it to her, okay? Tell her Simon wishes her sweet dreams."

The robot hesitated. "Does master wish me to awake mistress to inform her of master's wish for the mistress to have sweet dreams?"

"Are you malfunctional?" I asked.

"Executing self-diagnostic," the robot reported abruptly, retreating to its alcove and standing erectly in place. I could not get it to respond again. I sighed, shrugged, and quit Corinthia's chambers for my own.

I tip-toed in to pull out my diary without waking Pish, and then sat in our sitting room to dictate this. Our sitting room is just like Corinthia's, only with a different floral motif on the walls and no Corinthia. By looking through the ports I can see that the angle of the stellar sail has changed, and now our view scintillates and is tinted with spectral halos, smears of green and violet, crimson and cobalt.

Fartles farts. I yawn. I have learned a lot today, and it is time to sleep.

Captain Gold

2005-06-28T07:39:00.000-04:00

I spent the day moping in the cabin while Pish explored the castle with Jeremiah, but they finally managed to coerce me to come out in time for dinner with the captain. For the first time ever I opened up our luggage and dug around through the new clothes Glory had bought for us back in Thaumas. I found a clean set of duds for Pish and myself, and a heavy metal container which Jeremiah identified as a "black hole box" used to evade the scanners.

I opened it up and was less than surprised to find it filled with row upon row of Glory's little orange sticks. "Is it a narcotic?" I asked.

"Dilly chalk," answered Jeremiah with a nod. "Highly illegal to transport."

"Super."

I snapped the lid shut and decided to deal with that little problem later. I reluctantly doffed my plush blue robe and we got changed for dinner.

To arrive at the dining room we had to pass out of our rotating habitat hub and into an adjacent hub, neccesitating another embarrassing session of freefall gymnastics. Pish said I was doing much better, but I still couldn't keep up with the dog. It didn't help that the tunnel between the hubs was transparent, tempting me to distraction as I gaped at the castle spread fore and aft of us, space all around.

The dining hall for our "intimate dinner" was a vast auditorium filled with high-backed wooden chairs and mahogany tables spread with shining silverware. A chandelier lit by a thousand tiny points of light hung heavily over us, making me feel faintly uneasy. A maroon robot escorted us to our assigned seats one table over from the head table. Other maroon robots were escorting other guests, the buzz of unintelligible chatter drowning out the quiet music...

A Face Of God

2005-06-27T02:16:00.000-04:00

I swear it felt like we would spend our lives in line.

Amid a garish clutch of gibbering tourists we shuffled slowly forward to be processed in turn by a customs agent, a reservations clerk, and a robot with inoculative needles for fingers. Everyone smiled, even the robot. At all times we were surrounded by dancing holographic characters, witness to staccato bursts of terrifying music, and itermittantly sprayed with a sampling of promotional designer scents.

"Enjoy your flight, Mr. Apples."

"Say who? Oh, yes of course. Thank you."

Two dozen of us were corralled into a high-walled square with a grassy floor, where vendors hung around the rosebushes and proffered drinks and trinkets. It seemed like everybody had a giant hat and a small dog. Fartles comported himself admirably.

One white wall sported a wide screen carrying dense tables of departure times and destinations beside a bamboozling stream of flashing video imagery out of which I could occasionally catch glimpse of a car, a breast, or a celebration. Pish tugged on my sleeve and I realized firstly that I had been mesmerized, and secondly that I should probably consult Pallando Financial Services with regard to risk-managed interstellar investment before the close of the next tax season. Some restrictions may apply in certain jurisdictions.

"Funny sign," I said, craning my head around to look at it again.

Lesson In Loyalty

2005-06-24T05:22:00.000-04:00

A bird woke me up.

It was brightly coloured, and as large as my head. It sat on the sill of the open window, looking at me and emitting a soft cooing noise. Its eyes were amber and its curved bill was a plastic shade of yellow. Blinking and yawning I sat up in bed. The bird screamed like a woman in distress, startling me, and flapped away, its wings flashing in the bronze morning light.

"Wow. Did you see that bird?"

"Shut up," muttered Glory from beneath the covers, the edge of which was stained with a crust of sour vomit.

I got out of bed and met Pish in the sitting room. We rolled around on the floor tickling the dog for a while and then ran out to the terrace to spit over the side. I think I hit a taxi, but Pish claims I missed...

Monkeys & Borders

2005-06-22T09:17:00.000-04:00

Let me tell you a little bit about Monkey.

He has hands for feet, and he lives in a room where the gravity's been dampened. His ears stick out further than mine and he's always smiling. His teeth are yellow and he speaks very loudly. He is enthusiastic about pretty much anything. He wears a blue coverall covered in grease stains, his name written across the breast in faded white. He smells like a toilet.

Never the less, he was one of the nicest people I've ever met.

I met him after waking up in our cramped room with Fartles nestled against me. I blinked and the dog licked my face, then farted. I left the small room in some haste and followed the sound of voices downstairs, Fartles loping at my heels...

Hither And Thither, Bugs And A Beard

2005-06-20T01:46:00.000-04:00

I awoke to rain drooling down the window, the light blue and feeble. I stirred but Glory said, "Stay still."

"Where's Pish?" I muttered, my mouth dry and cottony.

"He's safe. He's eating. Stay still."

"My neck hurts."

"For the sake of faeces will you keep your anus still?"

I considered this brain-teaser for a moment, my eyes adjusting to the shadows. Glory sat on the bed beside me. Her brown hair was drawn into a series of beaded braids which clicked together as she moved. Her hard eyes were fixed on my neck. As I awoke fully the dull pain in the wounds there became a strange, persistent itch -- a writhing tickling that became more intense with every breath. "What's going on? What are you doing to me?" I gasped, reaching for my neck...

Glory Of The Low Streets

2005-06-16T12:34:00.000-04:00

The night was wet. The rising waters in the drainage outlet forced us to find perches higher and higher along its irregular interior, finishing the evening on a narrow ledge overlooking the rushing brown waters below littered with twigs and leaves. A weak, grey light bloomed in the east.

Come morning we elected to wait out the rain, and when the rain hadn't stopped by noon we elected to brave it. It was a torrential downpour, the forest misty with thick vapour and a constant, clamouring slapping of drops against leaves sounded on all sides. We trudged through the mud, trying to stick to the high ground as Pish directed us along paths he knew well down out of the hills and toward the delta valley where the grand city of Thaumas lay.

Thaumas was a wonder.

As we crested a hill I opened my mouth to say something about the surprisingly geometric paths of the birds up ahead until the advancing march of perspective revealed my mistake in scale. "Are those cars?" I asked in wonder.

"Yup," said Pish.

A great valley was spread out beneath us, bisected by a wide river. The ground of this valley seemed at first to be composed of some kind of strangely rectilinear lichen, shimmering behind veils of grey rain. But in fact they were buildings, hundreds of thousands of buildings, stretching to the opposite hills. The roofs of the buildings were planted with trees, and the avenues between them were planted with grass. It became apparent as I looked on that the true ground was hidden, and the height of the buildings was impossible to discern. The air above the city churned with lines of gnat-like cars, their humming lost to the distance and the weather...

When The Going Gets Tough

2005-06-15T08:48:00.000-04:00

Pish and I were shaking handfuls of seeds out for the brown chickens when Duncan whistled loudly from the house. "Oi! Simon!"

I jogged over, picking up my robe from a nearby branch along the way. I wiped the sweat from my brow as I walked through the creepy robot statue garden and pushed into the house. Duncan waved me over to the sofa, where my bits were spread out on the cushions. "Give me your telephone," he said.

I reached behind my ear and plucked it off. He waved a small device over its surface until it beeped, and then he handed the telephone back to me. "Your telephone, your wallet and your plate are now the property of one Hellig Apples of Samundra's Western Territories."

"Who's Hellig Apples?"

"You are, my friend," said Duncan, shaking my hand. "Nice to meet you."

The Statue Garden At Duncan's Bliss

2005-06-14T09:05:00.000-04:00

My morning began with a concussive series of horrors.

My dream world was antiseptic and warm, permeated by the echoey, tinny murmurs over the intercom system. Somewhere, a machine beeped. I smelled Nurse Randa and rejoiced to be safe in my ward. I opened my eyes. The vicious cat was sitting on my chest, staring into my eyes with its unholy, malformed pupils.

I screamed and jerked. The cat dashed away with a sort of screeching howl. I sat on the floor and went to rub the gashes on my neck, but screamed again when I found the area to be blazing with pain.

Wincing and breathing hard I turned around to manoeuvre my way outside, but found the tiny doorway blocked by the fearsome face of a monstrous albino ape, eyes hard and lips sneering. "Buh!" I said, in a shining moment of eloquence and poise...

Simon of the Woods

2005-06-13T01:10:00.000-04:00

One time at the hospital we ate pretzels. I never thought I'd be one.

I awoke this morning in a position suitable for the discussion of high-dimensional manifold topology. Various portions of my body were pressed up against other parts who had not heretofore been mutually introduced. For example, I had not until this morning been aware of the fact that I could scratch my ass with my elbow.

Live and learn.

I untangled myself with a series of dignified grunts and eventually tumbled akimbo in the middle of the tiny wooden house. I tried to get up but I smacked my head on the low ceiling and immediately found myself sitting again, cradling my skull in my filthy palms.

"Nurse?" I called hopefully...

Forest Flight

2005-06-09T23:29:00.000-04:00

Have you ever had one of those days? Well, I haven't. At least, not until today. Or yesterday, I suppose. I don't know what time it is.

It's very dark.

The day began with breakfast in bed. I was surprised and delighted. Nurse Randa fixed my tea just the way I like it, which is just the way she taught me to like it. I also had crumpets, pears, bambloss sticks, and a bowl of hot cocoa.

Dr. Pent arrived with a package. "These are your clothes," he explained. "And your bits."

I frowned and brushed crumbs off my lap. "A change of pajamas?"

"Well, not exactly," smiled Dr. Pent. He opened the package, presenting a square of folded grey fabric that looked uncomfortably coarse. Beneath it seemed to be a short chemise and a thin fabric diaper. "This is a pretty dapper suit, Simon," commented the doctor.

I shrugged suspiciously. "And...bits?"

"Yes of course. Your telephone, your wallet, your plate." He placed three small trinkets on the bed.

"Which is which?" I asked.

He furrowed his brow. "Right. Well, this little bit here, yes, you place that behind your ear. Let me help you. Right behind the -- ah, perfect. Does that feel alright? Here, I'll give you a call..."

Childhood's End

2005-06-08T11:56:00.000-04:00

"Well," said Dr. Pent, and I knew that something was up. "Well, Simon," he said again, the stink of nerves rising whenever he shifted in his clothes. "How are we coming along?"

"Good," I said noncommittally, sitting up in bed and blinking against the orange morning sun. "Fine."

"Good," echoed Dr. Pent, nodding at nothing. He jammed his hands into the pockets of his labcoat and pretended to be inspecting some aspect of the wall above my head. "I'd like to talk to you about going home."

Bleary eyed and dream headed it took me a moment to recognize that by "home" Dr. Pent did not mean the ward. He meant the home of the man who had walked into the gate out of which I was born five and half weeks ago...

Crushed Head Faeda

2005-06-07T08:26:00.000-04:00

When I feel a little lost I like to sink into bed and let myself be hypnotized by hospital routine. It takes me back to my early childhood a few weeks ago when the only place my bewildered mind could find comfort was in the clockstep march of the nurses' schedule.

And so this morning I didn't get up. I sat in bed and watched the world unfold.

Weeks ago when my words still failed me I witnessed these events like an animal -- reading posture, smelling sweat. We were watered and fed, tended and turned by a regular cycle of familiar faces, young women and men and robots with warm hands and soothing voices. Their every exchange was a wonder to me, and I struggled to lend meaning to it all using the only cues I could: micro-movements, shifts in weight, twitches in the face, flicks of the eyes, catches in the breath...

With language's return ward life gained a certain amount of chewable context.

By careful attention I learned that Nurse Hiwai had a new lover even before she told Nurse Wennel, and then Nurse Wennel told everybody else. I knew Nurse Randa alternately loved and hated Dr. Pent, and I felt the bloom of bad news waft down the hall a full quarter hour before they came to tell poor Omefrey his wife hadn't survived the crash.

After breakfast they fluff our pillows, up one row of beds and then down the other...

Forget Me Not

2005-06-05T23:22:00.000-04:00

The prettiest nurse in the whole ward is named Randa.

She isn't the youngest nurse and it's fairly certain she isn't the sweetest, but there is never the less an air about her that penetrates her calm and efficient manner, relaying uninterruptibly that she is every moment a woman. The infinite crispness of her pleats cannot hide the truth broadcast by the musky, visceral reality lurking beneath. It grips me.

I tried to explain this to her after I had again succumbed to the powerful adolescent urge to palpitate her behind while she was changing sheets. "I've had a brain injury!" I cried, hiding behind my arms.

"You'll have a brain injury," she promised darkly.

She turned to leave. "Listen," I called. "Can I ask you something?" She paused tolerantly so I asked, "Has what happened to me ever happened to anyone else before?"

I Think, Therefore

2005-06-04T18:39:00.000-04:00

Do you remember the first moment of your life?

I do, but then most people suffer from the inherent deficits of infancy when they're born, whereas I had the special indignity and privilege of being thirty-six years old at the time.

I admit that I did soil myself. In this respect I am on par with a lot of other people, though my insides were not stuffed with healthy black meconium but rather the still spicy remains of a sumptuous meal enjoyed shortly before the beginning of my life.

And to be entirely truthful the first first moment is hazy. I was lost in a world of synesthetic fire, pawing out at the incoherent jangle of sudden perceptive barf that stabbed in at the amorphous horror that was quickly coalescing into my sense of self.

I was released into a blazing light, and then I fell down.

It was bliss. There was a world of smooth coolness firmly beneath me and a world of warm, blurry fog above me. I felt very peaceful. I could have lived a life splayed out like that, seeing nothing and understanding none of what I heard -- currents of air, chirping birds, approaching footfalls, shouts of alarm. It was all a wondrous symphony of inexplicable and awesome stimuli, now that I'd managed to throttle the input a little by lying face down.

That's when the apes came. They rolled me over and wiggled their lips at me while they grunted. I thought it was beautiful and magical, but weird.

With the benefit of hindsight I recognize now that they were people, just like me. They were my fellow travellers. They had rushed over because I had collapsed as soon as I stepped out of the gate. What they wanted to know was, "Are you okay?"

In reply I smiled serenely, and reached out to touch their sparkly, wet-looking eyes. Funny monkeys!

"I think he shat himself," concluded somebody.

There I was, not two minutes old, lying on the polished floor of the travel terminal, a crowd of cooing strangers gathering around me, their periphery being pushed aside by concerned authorities and their minions. I was the subject of some excitement. That much was clear even to me as I drooled and hummed, dazzled by the sun.

An auspicious start, wouldn't you say?

That was five weeks ago now. This morning the nurses brought me a cupcake with five little candles jammed into it, and sang me a silly song. "Happy Birthday, Simon!" they cheered. "You're five weeks old!"

I blew out the candles with all the aplomb and dignity the situation warranted. "And yet I don't feel a day over a month," I said. "The secret is eating your greens."

We all had a good chuckle. They're an easy laugh, at the hospital. Nice people.

Doctor Pent strode in after them, and made a bit of show of thumbing through my chart and nodding to himself. Then he sat down on the end of my bed and put his hands in the pockets of his labcoat. He made small-talk for a few minutes and then slipped out this diary. "Simon, I'd like you to start keeping a journal."

"Oh?"

"I think it might help your memory."

"You mean I might remember everything again?"

"Well, I think it might address some of the issues we're still seeing with your short term retention. You've suffered a very unique kind of brain damage, Simon, and the entire structure of your memory has been rattled. It's not just the big picture, it's the details."

"I see," I said. "So this journal is to be a new facet of my treatment?"

"Not precisely," said Dr. Pent, shifting in his seat. "Frankly, we've done just about all we can do for you here. As soon as you feel up to it you're to be released. We've arranged transport back to your home where your family will meet you."

"Is that expensive?"

"Your insurance company is taking care of it."

"Ah."

After a moment he touched my sleeve. "Simon?"

I was staring out the windows across from the row of beds, watching birds flicker and twitter across the branches of a budding tree. "You must understand I have mixed feelings about all this," I said, chewing the inside of my lip thoughtfully. "This ward is all I've ever known. My family are strangers from my point of view." I turned to him. "Isn't there some way I could recover my memory before meeting them?"

Dr. Pent sighed. "Simon, we've been over this. This isn't a matter of recovering your long term memories -- they simply aren't there. I can't explain what happened to you when you crossed that gate, but I do know how to interpret crystal-clear brain tomography. As far as long term memory is concerned, you have the mind of a baby."

"Yet I recovered my speech!" I pointed out. "And I know things -- like what flowers are, and that you need to water them. I didn't learn that here. Doesn't that mean there's something there?"

"And yet you had to re-learn how to voluntarily control your bladder," said Dr. Pent heavily. "Five thousand years of medical science and the human brain continues to surprise us."

"Great," I grunted. "Do it up as a paper and transmit it to the journals."

He put his hand on my shoulder. "I know this is all very hard, Simon. But you have to trust me. There are people that care about you. They'll help you re-learn your life."

I snorted. "Makes you think, though."

"What's that?"

"Is it really my life?"

Dr. Pent stood up slowly, and patted the diary on the bed. "Put it in the journal, Simon. Take the time you need to figure out what you must -- but don't make them wait forever."

I nodded. He gave me a tight little smile and walked out. I turned the diary over in my hands.

Hello, my name is Simon. Or so they tell me. I've lived my whole charmed life in a friendly ward in a white hospital by the delta. I don't know anything about anything, but everyone here is very understanding and the food is amazing. I'm talking to a blue plastic diary sitting in the palm of my hand, charged with the task of coming to terms with leaving this place to travel lightyears across space to assume a life I've never known.

How am I beholden to the man who lived that life?

Am I not a sovereign human being, capable of making my own decisions? I may be only five weeks old, but I'm an adult. I seldom wet my pants anymore, and with the help of the nurses I've learned to recognize the boundaries of personal space. To whom does my destiny belong, if not me?

Furthermore, this journal is stupid. Forget it.