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    Forever Magazine Issue 9: Forever Magazine, #9
    Forever Magazine Issue 9: Forever Magazine, #9
    Forever Magazine Issue 9: Forever Magazine, #9
    Ebook145 pages2 hours

    Forever Magazine Issue 9: Forever Magazine, #9

    By Neil Clarke, Sean Williams, Caroline M. Yoachim and Joe Haldeman

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    About this ebook

    Forever is a new monthly science fiction magazine that features previously published stories you might have missed. Each issue will feature a novella, a brief interview with the novella's author, two short stories, and cover art by Ron Guyatt. Edited by the Hugo and World Fantasy Award winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, Neil Clarke.

    Our ninth issue features a novella by Sean Williams ("A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure (and the Threat it Entails)"), a novelette by Caroline M. Yoachim ("Stone Wall Truth"), and a short story by Joe Haldeman ("Sleeping Dogs").

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWyrm Publishing
    Release dateOct 1, 2015
    ISBN9781519925282
    Forever Magazine Issue 9: Forever Magazine, #9
    Author

    Neil Clarke

    Neil Clarke (neil-clarke.com) is the multi-award-winning editor of Clarkesworld Magazine and over a dozen anthologies. A eleven-time finalist and the 2022/2023 winner of the Hugo Award for Best Editor Short Form, he is also the three-time winner of the Chesley Award for Best Art Director. In 2019, Clarke received the SFWA Kate Wilhelm Solstice Award for distinguished contributions to the science fiction and fantasy community. He currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons

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      Book preview

      Forever Magazine Issue 9 - Neil Clarke

      Forever Magazine

      Issue 9

      © Wyrm Publishing, 2015

      wyrmpublishing.com

      forever-magazine.com

      Table of Contents

      Introduction

      by Neil Clarke

      A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure (and the Threat it Entails)

      a novella by Sean Williams

      Stone Wall Truth

      a novelette by Caroline M. Yoachim

      Sleeping Dogs

      a short story by Joe Haldeman

      About the Artist and Authors

      Introduction

      Neil Clarke

      Welcome to the ninth issue of Forever Magazine!

      Much of last month was spent catching up on secret projects I still can’t tell you about and reading, lots of reading, for the my Best Science Fiction of the Year series. This past month, the first volume became available for preorder at Amazon and B&N. I know I’ve been working on this for a while, but that just made the whole thing feel a lot more real. I can’t wait to be able to share it with you.

      This month, I’ll be visiting the D.C. area and attending Capclave (www.capclave.org). I’ll end up spending most of my time in the dealer’s room selling old my old bookstore inventory and Clarkesworld-related stuff. Ron Guyatt sent me some great postcards featuring some of the series we’ve been using for our covers. So if you’re in the area that weekend, stop by and say hi and I’ll give you some.

      As always, thanks for reading! If you enjoy the issue, please consider posting a review on Amazon, B&N, or any of the other places that sell Forever! Nine months in and we haven’t convinced anyone to do that yet, so you could be the first!

      Until next month . . .

      -Neil

      A Glimpse of the Marvellous Structure

      (and the Threat it Entails)

      Sean Williams

      It is difficult to measure the time since my last communication. Too much has passed, I fear, for the suspicion of my demise not to have become a certainty in some minds. Suspend all judgement, Master Catterson, on that score and any other, until I have conveyed the full import of recent events to you.

      As suspected, the citizens of Gevira have uncovered something wondrous beneath the veneer of their civilisation—wondrous and at the same time utterly strange and deadly. Here is my account of it, sent a second time in full now I know my previous missives have gone unread. I leave to you, as always, the divination of the will of the Guild.

      Security Officer Gluis alerted the shift supervisor of his discovery at 1900 hours. I arrived at 1910. Both Gluis and Supervisor Nemke were in attendance, but no other security officers beyond a small detail preserving the scene from the public.

      (As Guild regulations demand, I have attached audiovisual recordings of the events should you need to verify my abbreviated transcript.)

      I’ve called topside. Nemke indicated the unsealed container that Gluis had pulled out of the habitat walls. They’re sending an investigator immediately. Before they come, Donaldan, I want you to tell me what you see. Step aside, Rudi, and let him look.

      Gluis backed away with a contemptuous look solely for my benefit. It irked me that Supervisor Nemke insisted on using our first names, but I swallowed my irritation and complied. As the greenest of Nemke’s security detail, I allowed her to educate me only so far as it complied with my goals. You know, Master Catterson, that I consider you my only teacher. That day’s lesson, however, was one I am unlikely to forget.

      The container was a standard-issue one-meter cube that slid on low-friction runners from its recess and opened by rolling its flexible top panel along runners down the front of the container, revealing a catalogue number stenciled in black. A quick search of inventory determined that it was supposed to contain scrubbers for the masks used on the main face. Someone—Gluis, I presumed at the time, and have no reason to doubt now—had swept aside the scrubbers to reveal something much more sinister.

      The body was curled in a foetal position, with its thighs against its chest and arms tightly folded around its legs. The head had been tipped back to reveal its face. Slight features; a delicacy of ears, nose and jaw; brown hair longer than a man’s; full lips, slightly parted—all suggested, correctly, that the corpse was that of a woman. An attractive one too, I thought, allowing myself the observation in case it related to the woman’s demise and subsequent concealment. Deep frown lines suggested recent unhappiness, not yet smoothed away by death. More scrubbers had been pushed away to reveal her clothing, a khaki fieldsuit of crisply synthetic material. There were no bulges in the pockets, and no obvious sign of injury.

      Forensic technology on Gevira lags significantly behind ours, but I could tell that the corpse had been scanned by Gluis and Nemke, and that neither officer had teased the cause of death from other intimate details. It didn’t appear to be murder; that much was clear. The body’s organs had ceased functioning by an act of will. Euthanasia is socially acceptable on Gevira, but that fact prompted more questions than it answered. Why had this woman chosen such an option and then hidden her body in a container where it might never be found? Why was I called out in the middle of the night to witness its examination? Why summon a topsider, furthermore, to investigate what must surely have been a case of no great importance?

      The seven habitats on this level are kept uniformly cool in order to prevent thermal leakage into the bedrock outside. So close to the planet’s South Pole, the mine cannot afford any slippage due to melting permafrost. Touching the corpse’s smooth forehead, I found it be precisely at room temperature. The corpse’s memory dump was protected by security algorithms I could not penetrate.

      Well? What do you think?

      She’s dead, Supervisor Nemke, I said with practised nonchalance. Have you IDed her?

      That’s where it gets interesting. Nemke looked up as footsteps sounded in the corridor behind us. Here’s our colleague now. Donaldan, I’d like you to meet Investigator Cotton.

      I turned to see a slight woman approaching with her hand extended, but it was not her hand that made me recoil. Her face took me so completely off-guard that I stumbled backwards a step, caught my boot on the corner of the container, and fell gracelessly onto my backside.

      Officer Gluis uttered a restrained but clearly audible guffaw.

      Hello, E. C., said Supervisor Nemke, taking the woman’s hand and shaking it firmly. You’ll have to excuse young Donaldan, here. He’s new. I’ve taken the opportunity to introduce him to the realities of our work.

      Of course. How better? Her manner was guarded but not hostile. I felt a feather-light touch on my faked credentials. She was searching my details as smoothly as any Guild operative. Donaldan Shea Lough: security officer in the mines of Gevira, of no interest to anyone.

      You pronounce that . . . Lou? Luff?

      Low, I answered, regaining my feet, embarrassed and furious at myself.

      My name is Cotton. E. C. Cotton. Would you care to show me the body?

      I did so, able to take my eyes off her face only while presenting her with the container’s morbid contents. Glancing between them, I confirmed my initial impression.

      They were the same. E. C. Cotton and the woman in the container were identical. One wasn’t the clone of the other, however; the match was far too precise to allow for either possibility. Neither was the corpse a manufactured doppelganger of the living version, since even my brief scan proved that the body had once been perfectly vital. The only remaining possibility was impossible—logically, sensibly, patently—but fitted with rumours I had previously regarded as being too strange to be true.

      While I stared at her, reassessing all my former opinions, Cotton knelt down to repeat the examination I had performed. She came to the same conclusion.

      Without a doubt, it’s me, she said. No sign of foul play. Have you hacked into the dump?

      I thought we’d leave that to you, E. C. It’s your property, after all.

      Fair enough.

      She leaned over the corpse and pressed two fingers to the bone behind its right ear. I was close enough to feel the warmth of her living body but found no opportunity to eavesdrop on the data transaction. She, like the corpse, was protected.

      It’s empty, she said. The memory has been erased.

      Completely? Supervisor Nemke looked disappointed.

      I’m afraid so. Cotton stepped back, wiped her hand on the thigh of her fieldsuit, and glanced at me. You look like you’ve seen a ghost, newbie. Don’t worry about it. Things like this happen all the time down here.

      That she could be so nonchalant about it was perhaps the strangest thing of all. Why is that, precisely?"

      We’d all like to know the answer to that question. You’ll forget you asked, one day.

      Not me, I swore—and I renew that pledge to you now, Master Catterson, never to become like those who live in this place, inured to all that is fearsome or fantastic. No matter how many conundrums we encounter, the insoluble is not something to be shrugged off lightly or, worse, turned into a joke.

      Gluis, smirking, wandered off to talk to the perimeter detail.

      We’re analyzing the surveillance records of this area, Nemke said as though this were a perfectly ordinary murder scene. Someone must’ve placed the body here. We’ll find out who it was and—

      What, track them in the mines?

      We’ll do our best, E. C.

      I won’t hold my breath. In the meantime, you have my authority to dispose of the body as you see fit. Autopsy it, recycle it, donate it to science—I don’t care. I have no use for it, and no next of kin.

      The perimeter detail snickered at something Gluis said, and I studiously ignored them. E. C. Cotton interested me more. There was something decidedly odd about her, something beyond the fact that she was simultaneously alive and dead, like some kind of Schrödinger experiment.

      Her own body lay before her, tangling her timeline in ways that boggled the mind and subtly unravelled her insouciance. Confronted with the dire certainty of her death, her self-control was predictably less than perfect. Instead of fear or grief, however, I sensed excitement. Anticipation. Challenge.

      I want you to know I’m sorry, Supervisor Nemke was saying in a sober voice.

      Cotton didn’t shrug aside the hand Nemke had placed on her upper arm. Thank you. I’m glad you called me here. If I’d never known—

      A cry of alarm cut her off. Our heads turned. The security detail had bunched as one around a fallen figure. Red blood splashed between outstretched fingers. The sight was shocking, even at a fatal crime scene. Cries for help drew people from all directions.

      Nemke pushed into the huddle. I followed, almost slipping in a crimson pool that spreading fast as I approached. Cotton was beside me, her face ashen.

      The body at our feet was bruised and burst like an over-ripe fruit. His features were barely recognizable as male. I averted my eyes, keen both to isolate the cause of his death and to hide my revulsion,. What had killed him was not immediately apparent. If it struck again—

      Good god, Nemke said. She had bent down and wiped the gore from the dead man’s name badge, revealing his identity.

      Rudi Gluis.

      I felt as though I had been punched in the gut. Just a second ago, Gluis had been within meters of me, mocking me, and now he was dead,

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