Shoreline of Infinity 9 Read online

  Science fiction magazine from Scotland

  ISSN 2059-2590

  ISBN 978-1-9997002-3-2

  © 2017 Shoreline of Infinity.

  Contributors retain copyright of own work.

  Shoreline of Infinity is available in digital or print editions.

  Submissions of fiction, art, reviews, poetry, non-fiction are welcomed: visit the website to find out how to submit.

  www.shorelineofinfinity.com

  Publisher

  Shoreline of Infinity Publications / The New Curiosity Shop

  Edinburgh

  Scotland

  200917

  We are grateful to Martyn Turner, who sponsored the artwork for Spirejack in this issue. Martyn has supported us on Patreon for almost a year now and we thank him for his generosity. For more information on sponsorship please visit our Patreon site at

  www.patreon.com/shorelineofinfinity

  Cover: Reader at the Thought Discharger

  Stephen Pickering

  Editorial Team

  Editor & Editor-in-Chief:

  Noel Chidwick

  Art Director:

  Mark Toner

  Deputy Editor & Poetry Editor:

  Russell Jones

  Reviews Editor:

  Iain Maloney

  Assistant Editor & First Reader:

  Monica Burns

  Copy editors:

  Iain Maloney, Russell Jones, Monica Burns

  Extra thanks to:

  Caroline Grebbell, M Luke McDonell, Katy Lennon, Abbie Waters

  First Contact

  www.shorelineofinfinity.com

  [email protected]

  Twitter: @shoreinf

  and on Facebook

  Table of Contents

  Shoreline of Infinity 9

  Pull Up a Log

  The Last Days of the Lotus Eaters

  Keeping the Peace

  Death Acceptance

  Apocalypse Beta Test Survey

  Spirejack

  The Last Moonshot

  Lowland Clearances

  The Sky is Alive

  The Useless Citizen Act

  SF Caledonia

  Colymbia (extract)

  Interview: Cory Doctorow

  The Beachcomber Presents

  Reviews

  Multiverse

  Parabolic Puzzles

  Support Shoreline of Infinity

  Pull Up a Log

  “What science fiction writers can do is to inspire and to warn”

  —Cory Doctorow

  Shoreline of Infinity spent a lot of time this summer at the Edinburgh International Book Festival – handily on our doorstep. We were honoured to be asked to host our live science fiction cabaret Event Horizon, and also to publish a special edition of Shoreline of Infinity, Issue 8½. This gave us a good excuse to include contributions from writers Ken MacLeod invited to talk at the Festival, as well as stories from Scottish writers we published in Shoreline of Infinity. Take a peek at the back cover ad to see what a fine line-up we had.

  Our contributors took the chance to reflect on the role of science fiction in this topsy-turvy world. In his guest editorial, Ken MacLeod says “SF can’t predict the future, but it can shape it” and “we read it for entertainment and enlightenment.”

  Charles Stross points out that “what we write reflects the zeitgeist, so when current affairs seem menacing our visions of the future turn dark and dismal” but noting the time lag between conception and publication. Iain Maloney backs up Stross’s thoughts with the observation of the domination of dystopia in young adult fiction, and shows how Scotland is more than pulling its weight in “producing its fair share of near-future dystopias.”

  And in this issue of Shoreline of Infinity, Cory Doctorow adds: “But I think what science fiction writers can do is to inspire and to warn – we can help people think about different ways of approaching the problems that are coming.”

  So when someone asks you why you read – or write – science fiction, you can tell them it’s the most important thing you can do.

  No pressure, folks, but by reading this issue of Shoreline you are helping to save the world – and having some fun along the way.

  Noel Chidwick

  Editor-in-Chief

  Shoreline of Infinity

  September 2017

  The Last Days of the Lotus Eaters

  Leigh Harlen

  Art: P Emerson Williams

  The earth, and the creatures in it ate her flesh, but the tree kept her bones, its roots wrapped around and entwined every remaining bit of her. Wind stirred the branches of the tree and it tickled as if it were her own leaves being caressed and tossed about. Birds perched on the branches and she felt their hopping feet and heard the chirps of their offspring. She remembered what it was to have a beating heart, breath in her lungs, and feel the wind toss her hair about, so that it tickled her face. She was awake, but not alive.

  Lita wasn’t forgotten immediately. After she was buried, when she was only half awake, the roots not yet able to reach her bones, she heard her parents weep above her. Every day they came to wail and lament and she hated them. Hated them for not believing her. When her flesh was consumed and the roots fused to her bones huge blossoms appeared on the tree that for years had produced fewer and more pitiful flowers as it died little by little. Now they were rich and fragrant, dense and beautiful in a way she had heard the old folks talk about when they were melancholy and nostalgic and flushed with too much wine.

  Her parents gasped, taking the blossoming to be a sign, a comfort. She felt the tug as they each plucked one, the grinding of their teeth as they chewed, reveling in its sweetness. The flowers slid down their throats, into their acid filled bellies and then plucked out their memories, their fear, and their grief. It all passed into her, tasting like bitter dust. Her mother’s agony as she was birthed, and her father’s joy mixed with terror as he held her tiny body in his arms for the first time, thinking how fragile she was and how much his life was about to change. She saw herself running through the woods and understood the fear they had shoved down brought on by her careless certainty that no matter where she ran or how high she jumped she would never be hurt. And she felt the doubt that had crept in when she told them over and over that the sky shouldn’t be so black, so empty, and there should be life beyond the walls of their little village. Their minds were emptied of all that made them doubtful and unhappy while she felt swollen and sick.

  At night, the wind stirred the blossoms and carried pollen through the air and into the lungs of the sleeping villagers, dulling the fears that had been growing as the tree died. When people heard that it was producing flowers again, they came to eat them and one by one their fears and doubts were erased completely and buried in her.

  Only the priests took vows not to eat the flowers, though they were also soothed by its pollen, their faith fortified and guilt dulled if not erased. They read secret texts that told them what to do to keep the tree from dying and they needed to remember. All except one, one priest was given leave to break his vows and eat the blossoms. The one who had killed her.

  He walked up to the tree and picked a flower. With his other hand he took out a flask and raised it to the tree. “I truly am sorry, Lita, you were a remarkable young woman. But you were wrong.” He took a sip of wine and ate the flower and gave her his memories.

  The night he heard that there was a little girl who talked about stars and the end of the universe, he was relieved and terrified. The tree was dying and they needed to revive it, but he had hoped that necessity would come when he had passed his position on to a younger priest. He stayed awake all night, reading the holy book to fortify his nerves and starin
g into the flickering light of a candle knowing it would still be years before the ritual could be performed, the text and his conscience demanded certainty.

  In the bright morning she was running through the grass, running so fast she felt like maybe she could outrun the end of the world. She stopped when he stood in front of her.

  “Lita, could I walk with you for a little while?” he said.

  She had been taught to trust and respect the priests and though she wanted to keep running, she nodded.

  “I heard you telling stories at the market yesterday,” he said.

  “They aren’t stories. The night sky is empty and it didn’t used to be. I read about stars in the library, there were so many of them and they were so beautiful that people wrote poetry about them and used them to navigate. There was a moon and there were huge oceans. Entire planets where people lived and travelled. Not just one little village with an empty sky,” she said.

  He smiled. “Most people would say those are just stories, fairy tales. It’s unusual for a girl your age to believe such things.”

  She glared at him. “They aren’t made up. Why would so many of the ancient writers all make-up something like that?” She wouldn’t be reasoned with, not about this. She had told her parents, her grandparents, her friends and their parents since she was old enough to look at the sky and wonder why there was nothing but the sun in all that big black emptiness. No one believed her, she had hoped the priest would be different, that he would know some arcane secrets and share them with her.

  Having consumed those secrets, she understood he was different, he did know. He had wanted her to say, “Yes, you’re right. They’re just stories.” He wanted her to take it all back because he liked her, he liked that she was smart and not afraid to argue with him. He didn’t want to have to kill her, but there was also a coldness in him, a small shard at the center that made him certain that he could, that gave him a feeling of righteousness. He was doing what was best for everyone. What was one little girl’s life in the face of chaos and despair for an entire people?

  He left her alone with her confusion but he didn’t leave her completely. She often saw him out of the corner of her eye, listening to her conversations just a little too intently, watching her when the villagers gathered to dine together with a dark and contemplative expression.

  A couple of years after that first strange conversation, he stopped her while she was walking home from school.

  “Would it be alright if I walked with you?” he said.

  “Of course.” Even if he was a bit strange, her parents would send her to bed without dinner if she was rude to a priest.

  “Tell me, do you still think the sky is too empty?” he said.

  “I know it is.”

  “What if you’re right? What would be the purpose of knowing?”

  Lita hadn’t thought about that. She’d spent her life so angry and frustrated that no one believed her that she hadn’t thought much about why she wanted so badly for them to know beyond simple vindication.

  “The sun is a star. Whatever happened to the stars could happen to our sun too and we’d all die.”

  “And what would you do about it?”

  “I-I don’t know. I just think people should know.”

  “Would it make them happier to know if there’s nothing to be done about it? What would be the point of being good, of having children, working for a future that might be snuffed out with the sun at any moment?” he said.

  She frowned. “Why would knowing the truth mean people don’t do those things?”

  “Does that belief make you happier? Because it seems to me you don’t have any interest in those things. You don’t have many friends and you’ve never expressed interest in having a boyfriend or a girlfriend like other girls your age. Your teachers say you’ve never talked about wanting to be a farmer, a builder, a healer, a baker, or any other role in the village when you finish your studies. Do you see yourself having a future?”

  She wasn’t unhappy, but it was true that she took little interest in planning for the future and her insistence that the world had ended and they were the last to know drove people away and gave her a reputation for being strange.

  “I don’t object to doing those things, they just don’t seem very important,” she said.

  “I think you are quite remarkable in that. Most people who believed that would lose all hope, they would do nothing but wallow in their despair and possibly act out in rage and be violent to others or themselves. But even if everyone took the knowledge as well as you but the sun was still there and shining bright for fifty years, a hundred years, we would still need to plan for a future. We would still need food and people to heal us when we’re sick or hurt. We would still be better for having lived full lives.”

  “Are you trying to tell me that I should stop telling the truth?”

  “I am asking you to consider that maybe other people should not know it.”

  “But they’re believing a lie, it’s not right. I don’t know how to explain why it’s not right, but it’s not.”

  The priest sighed. She understood now that he was seeking some kind of acceptance or consent from her to do what he knew must be done to sooth his own conscience. But at the time she had been confused, he was talking to her as if he might believe her but it gave her no peace because he was raising questions she didn’t have answers to and making her feel foolish. It was evident to her that it was true and people should know it for the very simple reason that it was wrong not to know the truth.

  The priest came to her one more time shortly before she was to finish her schooling. She was sitting in the grass reading from a dusty book she had found in the library, a book about cosmology and theories about the creation of the universe. It had been filed as science fiction and forgotten by everyone but her.

  “I hear you’ve decided to become a teacher, Lita,” he said.

  She nodded. Although the priest made her uncomfortable, she was also happy to see him. In her sixteen years, he was the only person who had ever engaged with her about her belief that the universe was ending, even though she left each conversation feeling confused and chastised, it was a relief to be taken seriously and she felt more prepared to argue with him each time.

  “Would you care to walk with me a bit?” he said.

  She closed her book and slipped it into her bag. “Okay.”

  “What led you to want to teach?”

  “There are so many things we’ve forgotten. Technology that could make our lives easier and maybe even save us if someone with a brain that works just the right way learns about it.”

  “You still think the world is ending?”

  “I know the universe is ending. Everything is being pulled further and further apart and soon it’s going to start getting too cold to grow things, then it will get too cold to live on the surface and we’ll need to go underground, and eventually it will be too cold to live anywhere. We need to prepare.”

  “That doesn’t sound like something anyone could prepare for. If annihilation is inevitable, why not let people live happily until the end?” he said.

  “Maybe it is inevitable. But we would last longer and we might have a chance to avoid it for a long time if only people knew. And I think that’s worth the fear and even the despair.”

  They came to the dying tree and he stopped and looked at her. “You are very certain of yourself.”

  She was proud, for the first time she felt she came out of a conversation with the priest as the victor. “I am.”

  He pulled a small flask from his jacket. “I still disagree. I think you are young and idealistic and want to believe that people think and act like you, that they would accept inevitable doom with grace and resilience. But I do admire you.”

  “Thank you,” she said.

  He raised the flask. “To the moral certainty of youth and to the intellect and tenacity you have grown into so well.” He took a drink – although she now knew that he let it
graze his lips and slosh back inside.

  He passed the flask to her. “Just a sip, I can’t have it said a holy man is getting young women drunk.”

  She hesitated, but she was flattered and her parents only let her have wine on holy days. She took a sip. It tasted like vinegar and ash and in just seconds she was unconscious.

  The priest believed that the drug would prevent her from waking up and feeling any part of the ritual, but he was wrong. The tree did not share the priest’s minimal compassion and the ritual was not one that it allowed its sacrifice to sleep through. She also knew from being forced to carry his memories that even if he had known, he would have buried her still alive at the base of the tree anyway, such was his faith and conviction.

  When she woke, she choked on the dirt and screamed as the roots bore into her like hungry fingers, ripping into her soft skin, ravenous for the life bleeding out of her body and the taste of the knowledge that had marked her for death. It had been a long time since it had been given a new life to nourish it.

  As the blossom pulled out and transferred the priest’s memories of her and of how he had liked her and how he had vomited when he heard her muffled screams coming up through the ground, she wanted to tell him that she still knew he was wrong and that she still intended to be a teacher in her own way.

  He walked away, his mouth still sweet from the blossom he had consumed and his mind emptied of terrible memories and doubts about the righteousness of his actions. He returned to the priesthood a blank slate, prepared to watch for the next girl who wanted to know why the sky was so dark.

  Years passed and her parents and all the people she had known when she was alive died, their names soon as forgotten as her own to the handful who struggled to survive on the increasingly hostile surface. The sun still shone in the sky, but it looked smaller, the plants began dying, and the people above whispered through frostbitten fingers, “Winter is almost over, summer is on its way.” But she knew winter would never end and soon the people above forgot that there had been such a thing as summer.