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    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 28, September 2017: Galaxy's Edge, #28
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 28, September 2017: Galaxy's Edge, #28
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 28, September 2017: Galaxy's Edge, #28
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    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 28, September 2017: Galaxy's Edge, #28

    By Kevin J. Anderson

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    A Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy

    ISSUE 28: September 2017

    Mike Resnick, Editor
    Taylor Morris, Copyeditor
    Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

    Stories by: Robert Jeschonek, Rachelle Harp, Kevin J. Anderson, Larry Hodges, Sean Patrick Hazlett, John DeChancie, Zach Shephard, Stewart C Baker, Barry N. Malzberg, Nick DiChario, T. R. Napper, James Wesley Rogers

    Serialization: Daughter of Elysium by Joan Slonczewski

    Columns by: Robert J. Sawyer, Gregory Benford

    Recommended Books: Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye

    Interview: Joy Ward interviews Nancy Kress

    Galaxy’s Edge is a Hugo-nominated bi-monthly magazine published by Phoenix Pick, the science fiction and fantasy imprint of Arc Manor, an award winning independent press based in Maryland. Each issue of the magazine has a mix of new and old stories, a serialization of a novel, columns by Robert J. Sawyer and Gregory Benford, book recommendations by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye and an interview conducted by Joy Ward.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPhoenix Pick
    Release dateAug 24, 2017
    ISBN9781612423814
    Galaxy’s Edge Magazine: Issue 28, September 2017: Galaxy's Edge, #28
    Author

    Kevin J. Anderson

    Kevin J. Anderson has published more than eighty novels, including twenty-nine national bestsellers. He has been nominated for the Nebula Award, the Bram Stoker Award, and the SFX Reader's Choice Award. His critically acclaimed original novels include Captain Nemo, Hopscotch, and Hidden Empire. He has also collaborated on numerous series novels, including Star Wars, The X-Files, and Dune. In his spare time, he also writes comic books. He lives in Wisconsin.

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      Book preview

      Galaxy’s Edge Magazine - Kevin J. Anderson

      ISSUE 28: SEPTEMBER 2017

      Mike Resnick, Editor

      Taylor Morris, Copyeditor

      Shahid Mahmud, Publisher

      Published by Arc Manor/Phoenix Pick

      P.O. Box 10339

      Rockville, MD 20849-0339

      Galaxy’s Edge is published in January, March, May, July, September, and November.

      Galaxy’s Edge is an invitation-only magazine. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts. Unsolicited manuscripts will be disposed of or mailed back to the sender (unopened) at our discretion.

      All material is either copyright © 2017 by Arc Manor LLC, Rockville, MD, or copyright © by the respective authors as indicated within the magazine. All rights reserved.

      This magazine (or any portion of it) may not be copied or reproduced, in whole or in part, by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

      ISBN: 978-1-61242-381-4

      SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION:

      To subscribe to the digital (EPub, MOBI or PDF) edition, visit www.weightlessbooks.com.

      To subscribe to the paper edition visit www.GalaxysEdge.com/sub.htm.

      ADVERTISING:

      Advertising is available in all editions of the magazine. Please contact advert@GalaxysEdge.com.

      FOREIGN LANGUAGE RIGHTS:

      Please refer all inquiries pertaining to foreign language rights to Shahid Mahmud, Arc Manor, P.O. Box 10339, Rockville, MD 20849-0339. Tel: 1-240-645-2214. Fax 1-310-388-8440. Email admin@ArcManor.com.

      www.GalaxysEdge.com

      Table of Contents

      The Editor’s Word, by Mike Resnick

      The Breakout Story of Galaxy’s Edge Ten Million, by Robert Jeschonek

      As Sunlight Grabs Me, by Rachelle Harp

      Cold Dead Turkey, by Kevin J. Anderson

      Theater of Death, by Larry Hodges

      The Sultan’s Cellar, by Sean Patrick Hazlett

      The Seepage Factor, by John DeChancie

      Tessa and the Troll, by Zach Shephard

      Cut-Rate Couples Weekend at the Witch House Inne and Tavern, by Stewart C Baker

      A Delightful Comedic Premise, by Barry N. Malzberg

      The Sweater, by Nick DiChario

      The Great Buddhist Monk Beat Down, by T. R. Napper

      Ergomonochron, by James Wesley Rogers

      Recommended Books, by Bill Fawcett & Jody Lynn Nye

      Ten Thousand Years of Solitude, by Gregory Benford

      Laws of Robotics, by Robert J. Sawyer

      Joy Ward Interviews Nancy Kress

      Serialization: Daughter of Elysium(Part 2), by Joan Slonczewski

      The Editor’s Word

      by Mike Resnick

      Welcome to the twenty-eighth issue of Galaxy’s Edge.That’s right: twenty-eight issues and still going strong. This issue features new stories by new and newer writers Rachelle Harp, Robert Jeschonek, Stewart C Baker, James Wesley Rodgers, Zach Shephard, T. R. Napper, Sean Patrick Hazlett, plus a pair who have sold us enough that they’re not quite in the new category any more—Larry Hodges and Nick DiChario. We’ve also got some classic reprints from some classic and classy writers: John DeChancie and Kevin J. Anderson. We’ve got the usual Recommended Books column by Bill Fawcett and Jody Lynn Nye, Gregory Benford’s science column, and Robert J. Sawyer’s column on literary matters. The subject of Joy Ward’s interview this issue is Nancy Kress. And finally, we have part two of our serialization of Joan Slonczewski’s novel, Daughter of Elysium.

      * * *

      I wrote the following almost twenty years ago. Not much has changed. The title, then and now, is Stoopid is as Stoopid Does:

      Science fiction movies have a lot in common with the Cincinnati Bengals football team. Stick around and you’ll find out why.

      The question everyone asks is: Why are so many science fiction films so dreadful? Why can’t they at least try to do something proud? No one says Blade Runner or The Matrix were perfect, but at least they treated both the material and the audience with some respect.

      So why aren’t there more of them? Who is responsible for this endless stream of science-fictional dreck coming from Hollywood?

      You’re not going to like the answer.

      Let’s confine ourselves to a discussion of movies that aspired to something more than just being a product. After all, no one expects Space Sluts in the Slammer—yes, there really was such a film a couple of years back—to make people forget about Lawrence of Arabia and The Maltese Falcon.

      So let’s start with Godzilla, living proof of the adage that Hollywood never met an old idea it didn’t like. Cost $115 million to make. Starred Matthew Broderick, a fine young actor. Had the Japanese films on hand so they could correct the more glaring errors.

      And Lord, was it a turkey! You know it. I know it. More to the point, the producers knew it. At the last minute, they upped their ad budget to $120 million—more than the cost of making the movie—to try to salvage something from this disaster.

      How about Armageddon? Another disaster. It is absolutely ludicrous to assume you can train oil riggers to be astronauts faster and cheaper than you can train astronauts to do whatever the hell it was that Bruce Willis’ company of social misfits did. And the director knew he had problems—that’s why you rarely go more than three seconds without cutting away to a new shot. It was a good theory: dazzle and confuse them enough and maybe they won’t notice there’s no plot. And since, as I said, Hollywood has yet to meet an old idea it didn’t like, and Armageddon came out a few months after Godzilla, they quickly upped the ad budget to more than $100 million.

      Waterworld? Plot holes you could drive one of those silly ships through.

      Even the supposedly good sci-fi movies have serious problems.

      You think not?

      Let’s look at E.T., which grossed $900 million worldwide, and is still among the top five grossers of all time. Nice tight plot, right? I mean, this is Steven Spielberg here; there aren’t any clumsy mistakes in a Spielberg film, certainly not a hit like E.T.

      Well, let’s consider that plot, shall we?

      1. If E.T. can fly/teleport, why doesn’t he do so at the beginning of the film, when he’s about to be left behind? (Answer: because this is what James Blish used to call an idiot plot, which is to say if everyone doesn’t act like an idiot you’ve got no story.)

      2. What mother of teenaged children walks through a kitchen littered with empty beer cans and doesn’t notice them? (Answer: in all the world, probably only this one.)

      3. While we’re on the subject of the mother and the kitchen, what is a divorced woman with a day job doing living in an $800,000 house in one of the posher parts of the Los Angeles area? (Even I don’t have an answer to that.)

      4. Why does E.T. die? (Answer: so he can come back to life.)

      5. Why does E.T. come back to life? (Still awaiting an answer, even a silly one, for this.)

      6. When E.T. finally calls home, the lights in the room don’t even flicker. I would have figured the power required would have shorted out the whole city.

      How hard would it have been for Spielberg, who can have anything he wants, to fix those little problems?

      Not very.

      But why should he? After all, the film made $900 million.

      And now we come to the crux of it.

      Why does Hollywood keep turning out such intellectually offensive fare? Why do they keep arming science fictional villains with computer-operated weapons that keep missing when everyone in the audience saw one of our smart bombs go down an Iraqi chimney a full decade ago? Why do they ask you to believe, in Independence Day, that the President of the United States will don his leather jacket, hop into the pilot’s seat of a fighter plane, and lead a jet attack on the aliens? (But you bought it—and remembering that adage about old ideas, you’ll notice that Harrison Ford became Teddy Roosevelt and Hulk Hogan and Doc Holliday all rolled into one heroic president in the next season’s Air Force One.)

      Why do they do it?

      Simple.

      Godzilla, disaster that it was, is in profit. They advertised and you came.

      Armageddon became Disney’s biggest earner of 1999. Same scenario: they trumpeted the fact that it was an action-filled sci-fi movie, and you bought your ticket.

      Independence Day pulled over $300 million domestically and even more than that worldwide. The knowing critics, the opinion makers who know zip about the field, all concluded that this was the purpose of science fiction: cheap laughs inside a dumb plot. And still you came.

      E.T.—well, you know about E.T.

      Everybody admits that The Phantom Menace was an artistic flop—but even with horrible word of mouth, it grossed $400 million domestically, and is closing in on $1 billion worldwide.

      Starting to make sense to you?

      You are the culprits. You knew Godzilla was dreadful, but most of you saw it anyway. Ditto The Phantom Menace and Armageddon. The buzz was good on E.T. and most of you loved it, and were willing to forgive its ton of logical flaws—and by forgiving its faults to the tune of $900 million, you made Hollywood decide that those faults were virtues.

      Back to the object of the exercise:

      Remember I mentioned the Cincinnati Bengals? I live in Cincinnati. So do the Bengals. They had the worst record of any team during the recently concluded decade. Five different times they won either three or four games and lost either twelve or thirteen. (Quality-wise, this equates to being on a somewhat lower level than Space Sluts in the Slammer). They started bad, they stayed bad through the middle of the decade, and they remain bad today.

      Why?

      Because they still sell 50,000 tickets a game—just about what they sold during their Super Bowl seasons in the 1980s. And as long as the owner can make a substantial profit putting a poor team on the field, he has no incentive to assemble a good team.

      Now take the Cincinnati Reds. They used to be The Big Red Machine, feared everywhere in baseball. Then they broke up the machine to save money. The team stunk—and attendance dropped three hundred percent. The Reds got the message. It took them over a decade to rebuild—their latest move was to pay through the nose to add Ken Griffey, Jr. to the team—but they’re playing to full houses again.

      Now transfer that to Hollywood.

      They know how to make good science fiction. They did it back in the 1950s with Forbidden Planet, and the 1960s with 2001: A Space Odyssey, and more recently with Blade Runner and a couple of others.

      But as long as they know science fiction fans will pay to see anything labeled science fiction, they’re under no pressure to try to produce anything better than Godzilla and Waterworld.

      If you want better films, there is only one way to get them, and that is to stop supporting bad films.

      It’s up to you. Hollywood is sure you’ll buy anything they put on a screen, as long as it’s got a spaceship or a zap gun and some nifty special effects.

      Prove them wrong.

      If you don’t, you’ve got no one to blame but yourselves.

      * * *

      OK, back to the present. I stayed away from science fiction movies for a few years, then finally broke down and watched a recent zillion-dollar-earning science fiction film, Guardians of the Galaxy. All I’ve got to say is that Hollywood hasn’t learned much about making non-intellectually-insulting science fiction films—but they have learned one thing: pour enough CGI into a truly stupid piece of celluloid, and it’s almost impossible not to gross a billion dollars. *sigh*

      Robert Jeschonek is a prolific author of short stories and articles, and has thirteen novels to his credit, including Battlenaut Crucible and Day 9, an International Book Award winner.

      The Breakout Story of Galaxy’s Edge Issue Ten Million

      by Robert Jeschonek

      It all started in the distant past—which, to you, would be the distant future. It all happened in the state called Galaxedgia, so named because it was patterned after the very popular magazine of which you hold a copy in your hands or tentacles or sexoplasm or whatever.

      A vast state, as befits a place modeled on settings from thousands of issues of Galaxy’s Edge magazine, Galaxedgia spanned much of what was once the Pacific Northwest of the former United States of America. Its reaches encompassed everything from replicas of alien encampments to robotic wonderlands to dinosaur jungles to mad scientists’ labs . . .

       . . . to bizarre kingdoms where modern-day knights and dragons co-existed in ways made possible by technology so advanced that it might as well have been magic. Once upon a time, in one such kingdom on the remote outskirts of Galaxedgia, a shabby castle shivered on rolling green hills under the noonday summer sun. This castle, called Castle Spasmodic, was like something brought to life from a story in the pages of Galaxy’s Edge magazine . . . because it was.

      So was its inhabitant, a broken-down would-be star-knight in tin pan armor with a shaggy white beard and bushy eyebrows. As he rattle-clanked out the front door of the castle, Sir Reptitious of the Dingly Dangly Kingdom was instantly recognizable to anyone who’d read the story titled Drag Knight vs. Space Grendel’s Inner Showgirl in Galaxy’s Edge#320.

      This man had been transformed by implausible super-science into a real-life replica of a character from the magazine . . . just like all the other inhabitants of Galaxedgia. They loved Galaxy’s Edge so much that they had let themselves be changed into perfect copies of the denizens of its stories.

      Another such inhabitant—Cosset of the Ever-Blazing Allergies, that purple-scaled, fire-sneezing, inter-dimensional dragon-beast from Galaxy’s Edge issue 512 (Here’s Looking Atchoo, Kid)—was flapping lazily overhead when Sir Reptitious walked out of the castle with a white business envelope in his hand.

      "What’s the good word down there, you old tinpot?" Cosset blew out a blistering sneeze, barely getting out the last word of the sentence.

      Sir Reptitious smiled up from under the pie plate visor of his garbage pail helmet. As much as knights and dragons were known foes in most stories, these two were best friends in the scienti-magical land of Galaxedgia.

      They had a lot in common, after all. Neither was overly happy with life in Galaxedgia. Being a constantly-sneezing dragon-beast wasn’t as much fun as you might think after a couple of years.

      Neither was being not-very-much-of-a-star-knight who couldn’t even seem to do that very well. According to online reviewers who watched over micro-drone webcams buzzing throughout the kingdom, his performance—his life, in other words—was thoroughly disappointing. The consensus was, someone with much more talent ought to don the trash pail and pie plate and take up the pink feather boa that substituted for deadlier weapons of the sci-fi variety.

      Still, Sir Reptitious held out hope. Hello, friend Cosset! He waved the white envelope he was carrying, which had his name scrawled on the front. "Look what arrived by carrier pickle just now!"

      Cosset swooped lower, then let loose a sneeze so extreme that the force of it pushed him back up again. The answer to your request?

      "It should be, good dragon. Eagerly, Sir Reptitious tore open the envelope. I sent it some time ago, after all." His hands shook a little as he pulled out the folded letter inside. Was it possible? Had the powers that be in Galaxedgia granted the request he’d made months ago?

      Had they given him rewrite permissions? Would he finally be allowed to make his character more competent and dramatic, giving him off-book opportunities to impress the critics for once?

      Not yet, apparently.

      Oh, calamity! Sir Reptitious stroked his shaggy white beard and stomped in circles over the rainbow-colored grass, which cursed his every step with extreme chitter-chirping profanity. It’s nothing at all to do with my request!

      Sorry to hear that, amigo. Cosset released a blazing sneeze on the last syllable. His disappointment, like the flames of his sneeze, was palpable; he’d been hoping to apply for rewrite permissions of his own if Sir Reptitious was granted his wish.

      It is news of an altogether different sort, I’m afraid. The not-very-much-of-a-star-knight sounded grim as he shook the letter overhead. We must sound the alarum! Portals are opening up throughout our green and pleasant land, disgorging visitors most strange . . . and unplanned!

      "Unplanned visitors? said Cosset. That’s unheard of!"

      It was true, and precisely why Sir Reptitious wanted rewrite permissions so much. With all interactions carefully scripted by Galaxedgia’s planners, opportunities for any one inhabitant to truly stand out and impress critics were few.

      Why do you think the knight and dragon got so excited all of a sudden? Dealing with impromptu invaders surely qualified as the kind of emergency situation in which they could improvise . . . show off, even.

      Fear not! Cosset paused to unleash another mighty sneeze, scorching a passing flock of origami cranes into ash with his sizzling breath. "No freakish visitation shall stand against our cast of heroes!"

      Just then, Indigesto, the Stroganoff That Walks Like a Man (The Meal Shall Inherit the Earth, Galaxy’s Edge#439), flip-flopped his way up a rise from the direction of Asynchronous Park. As usual, he looked like a six-foot-in-diameter heap of beef stroganoff—though his big sour-cream-sauce-slathered egg noodles fluttered with agitation. "Fight or flee! Flee or fight! They’re coming for us, whatever they are!"

      Whatever the story behind the invasion, Sir Reptitious wasn’t about to miss a chance to deliver a bravura performance. Drawing his pink feather boa from around his waist,he held it before him with a steely gaze. It was not very much of a weapon, straight from his character’s not-very-dignified story in Galaxy’s Edge, but he was determined to make it work for him dramatically. No brick, beast, or Bandersnatch shall breach Castle Spasmodic! What say you, Cosset?

      I say let’s give ’em a tale worth reprinting in the ten thousandth issue! roared the dragon. Complete with quips, ripostes, and derring-do aplenty!

      And you, Stroganoff? shouted Sir Reptitious. Will you fight alongside we brave and happy few?

      I’ll fight as hard as any noodle dish ever has, said Indigesto. "Though fleeing still strikes me as a not-unthinkable option."

      Suddenly, a dazzling portal rimmed with red and gold light spun open in front of Castle Spasmodic, unleashing a howl like a thousand kazoos in a hurricane. A big gray block of a thing tumbled out, neither blinking nor waving nor wagging nor anything-else-ing . . . but somehow speaking nonetheless with an echoing thunder that boomed throughout the kingdom.

      "Galaxy’s Edge#500,335, it said. Story name ’Ootch’."

      As if that explained everything. Or anything at all.

      "What in Galaxedgia? Sir Reptitious stepped forward, slashing the air with his boa. What are you talking about, sirrah?"

      Ootch ootch ootch, said the block.

      Indigesto slapped the ground with his noodles, slopping sauce every which way. "Could it mean the magazines?"

      "Galaxy’s Edge!Of course! hollered Sir Reptitious. But then that must mean it’s . . . "

      " . . . a reviewer!" Cosset’s purple-scaled maw lit up with a scalding sneeze of excitement.

      No! snapped Sir Reptitious. It’s . . . 

      " . . . an author?" ventured Indigesto.

      "A time traveler! Sir Reptitious flounced his boa for emphasis. From a far future era when Galaxy’s Edge has reached issue number 500,335!"

      Unless they increase the frequency! said Cosset. "Maybe they start publishing a thousand editions per month or something. Then it wouldn’t be that far in the future."

      (Just as YOU, DEAR READER, are thinking about jumping to another story, perhaps in another magazine entirely, Quicksie the Reassurer leaps in front of the action, looking like an adorable Corgi pup crossed with the lithe little sprite who used to perch on the rail of your crib and sing you to sleep at night when you were a baby. "No flipping! I promise, this nutso story ain’t that long! Woof!" Then, Quicksie dives out of the way with the sound of jingling bells and—for some reason—the smell of sauerkraut.)

      Suddenly, something else emerged from the portal. It looked like a huge, lobster-clawed sheep with ferns for a head and seven erect penises that shot sizzling red laser beams.

      Story name ’Ukk’, blurted the lob-sheep, claws clacking like giant maracas. "Galaxy’s Edge issue 757,891."

      Somebody get me some drawn butter! shouted Cosset. And mint jelly!

      Great lumpy long-johns! Sir Reptitious ducked one of the laser beams, stumbling over his own tin can-shod feet in the process . . . then caught himself and quickly regained his footing, very conscious of any critics who might be watching from afar. "How many issues of Galaxy’s Edge are there in the future, anyway?"

      The lob-sheep stomped forward, clacking away. Laugh! it howled. "Pull out your colons and laugh!"

      "Guess they laugh different in the distant future!" Indigesto scrambled away from the advancing creature.

      Next came the biggest anomaly so far from the portal—a rippling sheet of what looked like pink flesh, mottled and streaked with crimson.

      "Galaxy’s Edge issue 4,987,241. The voice of the flesh sounded like a back-masked record played backward on a turntable. Story title ’Shingles Inherits the Earth’."

      Indigesto’s noodles sagged. "That doesn’t sound like a great Galaxy’s Edge story!"

      "None of them do! said Cosset (whose dragon-sized ears enabled him to clearly hear the conversation far below, even through all the commotion). I’m starting to wonder if Galaxy’s Edge has anything to do with any of this!"

      It was then that THIS STORY ITSELF interrupted to set the characters straight: OH, BUT IT DOES! I ASSURE YOU!

      "Who said that?" Confused, Cosset flew in a herky-jerky circle as fiery sneezes shook him along the way.

      Before anyone could answer, another figure emerged from the portal, and then another, and another, and more. A full-fledged parade trooped over the threshold, each new arrival more bizarre than the last. At least they announced themselves, though the actual benefit of that was difficult to see.

      "Story name ’Huh’! Galaxy’s Edge issue 6,350,238."

      "’Caribou’! Galaxy’s Edge#156,003!"

      "’Bootstrap Soulevolence’! Galaxy’s Edge#9,345,871!"

      As the locals (whose ability to defend themselves was somewhere between -100 and -1,000,000 on a scale of 1 to 10) backed away from the gathering mob, they fought their own wits (or lack thereof) to make sense of the situation.

      AS IF THAT WAS GOING TO HELP THEM.

      "Who said that?" Cosset was so mixed up, he let off a particularly spectacular sneeze-splosion.

      Sir Reptitious, for his part, was determined to make sense of the situation . . . and show off his taking-charge chops. "Let’s assume these things are time travelers from a distant future, he said, stroking his shaggy beard. A future where Galaxy’s Edge has published millions of issues. Beyond that basic assumption, who exactly are they?"

      Indigesto huddled with the not-very-much-of-a-star-knight as the time-traveling weirdos paraded around them. "Perhaps it would make more sense if we asked who they aren’t."

      NO, IT WOULDN’T.

      Sir Reptitious shook his pink boa at the sky with out-of-character defiance. Curse you, whoever you are, for your dismissiveness in the face of rampant chaos!

      "As the newcomers emerge, they call out story names and Galaxy’s Edge issue numbers. Indigesto ducked the swooping bill of a giant, glowing goose that seemed to think his noodles were worms. Do you suppose . . .  Again, he ducked the goose. Do you think they, like us, are paying tribute to beloved characters from classic stories in those magazines?"

      "If so, the word beloved doesn’t exactly leap to mind! Or crawl, even, shouted Cosset. Maybe the magazine undergoes a change in direction in the far future, to egregiously un-entertaining."

      OR MAYBE, WHAT IS CONSIDERED ENTERTAINMENT CHANGES SO MUCH IN THE DEEP FUTURE, IT BECOMES UNRECOGNIZABLE TO INHABITANTS OF YOUR ERA.

      Yeah! Indigesto flipped up a noodle as if he were a human hiking a thumb at the sky. "What he said."

      "Or it," said Cosset.

      Or . . . hey! snapped Indigesto. "What the Omnipoturd are you, anyway, Big Voice Out of Nowhere?"

      NEVER MIND.

      Verily! said Sir Reptitious. "Mayhap thou are the true enemy against whom we should be taking up arms!"

      The knight is right! said Indigesto. "Playtime’s over, Big Voice! My pals and I are going to . . . "

      (Just as things grow ever more unsettling for YOU, DEAR READER, an old-timey TV test pattern appears, and Quicksie the Reassurer springs up in front of it with a merry wink and a zippy jig. This has been a test of the Emergency Plotcasting System! If this had been an actual story emergency, you would have been told where to go to find a more satisfying narrative elsewhere. We now return to our regularly scheduled nonsense, already in progress. P.s., no flipping! With the usual bell jingling and sauerkraut smelling, Quicksie and the test pattern vanish.)

      What were we saying? Indigesto sounded dazed.

      Something about entertainment being unrecognizable in the deep future. Cosset sneezed like a backfiring truck for emphasis. "Not that it matters. We’re surrounded."

      They were totally surrounded. Even Cosset was surrounded in the sky

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