Beneath Strange Stars: A Collection of Tales Read online

  Before you head off into the stories, let me tell you a tale about Kira, who was my favorite. I started writing about her back in the early 80’s, a tall, muscular woman clad in black leather and bronze armor, a follower of the Triple Goddess, a holder-on to old ways even as the world changed around her, bronze giving way to the new metal iron. Her world was based solidly in the Bronze Age, but was also touched by magick and the gods. With her, I traveled to the edge of the known world and beyond, to America, Australia, Africa, the Orient, the vast necropolis of Nordhelm, and even to the far future. She was a popular character, and I drew many drawings of her in leather skirt and armor based on Mycenaean designs, with her boots and her weapons historically accurate. I thought we would be together for a very long time, for I had written a score of stories and had ideas for many more, including several novels.

  Then Kira went away.

  I had suspected the end was coming, for I had seen signs, but it was still shocking when it finally happened. Editors began rejecting the stories. Finally, I received a note from an editor with whom I had never worked, and I knew the end was at hand:

  Dear Mr Von: Not a bad story but you can

  do better than copy Xena: Warrior Princess,

  can’t you?

  I did not submit any further Kira stories after that. Kira could prevail against any foe, human or supernatural, but not against the power of television.

  I’ve always been a fan of alternate universe fiction, a reader of the history of the Byzantine Empire, a follower of Fortean events, and a student of criminology. In this story, published in Charlie Ryan’s “Aboriginal Science Fiction,” I managed to combine all four of my interests.

  Fluxed in Nova Byzantium

  A Tale of Alternate Timelines

  The heat was fierce, potent enough to blister an icon’s hide, or so it seemed to Detective Hapline MacGreggor. This heatwave gripping Nova Byzantium frayed tempers and cut them deathly short. Three days of heat and the homicide rate had spiked.

  “Lunch?” Hap asked.

  His partner was sprawled in the passenger seat of their steamer, eyes closed, letting the hot wind slap his face through the open window. Theo Papilagios was a thin, gray man, thirty years Hap’s senior. The heat made him seem even more haggard than usual.

  “Yeah, Hap, fine with me,” he muttered. “Just something light and very cold to drink. This heat’s all but murdered my appetite.”

  The streets were packed. Hap concentrated on getting out of the downtown jam of pedestrians and steamers. A shadow passed over them. Hap looked up, saw the shadow was from an airship finishing a trans-Atlantic crossing and carrying the new Emperor, Michael III Annellica, on his first visit to Nova Byzantium. The ornate airship, its many steam engines chugging, was heading for the mooring mast of the Emperor’s State Building.

  “A remarkable Emperor, from what I’ve read in the official papers,” Hap commented.

  Theo opened one eye and squinted at the airship.

  Gradually they made their way out of the urban center, where they’d been summoned to investigate a body found in an alley. The investigation had been a formality. Just a bum, probably killed by another bum. After three days of heat, it was no longer a novelty.

  “Here we are,” Hap said, braking the steamer.

  Theo sat up slowly and looked around. “When you go slumming, you don’t believe in half measures.”

  “That café is the best.”

  “Sure.”

  “And it has beer colder than ice.”

  “Now you’re talking.”

  Hap and Theo climbed out of the auto and reluctantly buckled on their short swords. Hap had never used the traditional weapon for anything more deadly than slicing cheese. He had much more confidence in his Colt Dragon .475, that seven-shot monster that slept in the upside-down break-away holster under his left arm.

  Hap walked around the auto. A hot wind tousled his dark hair and ruffled his kilt. Hap noticed Theo’s envious glance.

  “It’s pretty cool,” Hap said.

  “Maybe I’ll go primitive too, claim my granddad was Keltic or something,” Theo replied. “Damned heat’s getting to me.”

  The heatwave had hit the city unexpectedly. Meteorologists on the radio spoke of stationary fronts and sunspots, but ultimately it was just a damned mystery.

  They walked slowly, conserving energy. Though the café was good, Hap had to admit that it was in a bad part of town, one of the sections hardest hit during the Blue/Green riots a few years back.

  A woman’s scream cut through the air.

  Weapons drawn (revolvers, not swords), they rushed toward the screams. At an alley entrance, a wild-haired hag with feral eyes crashed into them. They steadied her, holding on, refusing to let go. She saw who they were. Her shrieks dissolved into wracking sobs.

  “It’s murder!” she cried. “Godawful cruel murder!”

  “Calm yourself down,” Hap snapped.

  “Yes, woman, we’re the law.”

  “It’s godawful cruel murder,” she sobbed, less hysterically.

  “Tell us what happened,” Theo said.

  “In the alley,” she gasped. “I was tending my own business, hunting reclaimables when I seen him. He was there. Half there.”

  “What are you babbling about?” Hap demanded.

  “A murdered man,” she said, her voice starting to rise again. “Someone done cut him in half! Laying there, he was. From the waist up, he was there; waist down was somewhere else. Done cut him in half and dumped half in the alley!”

  “Have you been…” Theo made a tippling motion.

  The woman crossed herself. “By the blood of Jesus, sirs.”

  “You stay here,” Theo said. “My partner and I will check it out. If this is a false report, by God, you’ll have a room for a week.”

  “Blessed Virgin be a cow if I’m lying, sirs!”

  Hap let the woman go. The two detectives cautiously entered the alley. The alley was laced with shadows, but was no cooler. Hotter, if anything. It was torrid and dead and smelled of lost souls and shattered dreams. Hap told himself it was nothing more than a garbage-strewn alley, but something terrible might have happened here. He saw something under a stairway.

  Hap gestured, not trusting his voice.

  “Sweet Mother of God,” Theo murmured. Despite the oaths he’d taken to become a policeman, he had never been big on religion. Now he crossed himself with the barrel of his revolver.

  The torso of the man lay under the stairs, in deep shadow. His back was turned to them. Below the waist there was nothing, just empty space. Just as the street woman had said, some maniac had cut a man in half, leaving only one half.

  Hap and Theo, fascinated by the dreadful sight, moved closer.

  The man who was only half there writhed around to face them.

  “Thank goodness,” the man breathed. “I thought no one…that crazy woman. Please pull me through!”

  When Hap moved forward, Theo followed. They holstered their weapons and dropped to a crouch under the stairs.

  “Take the left,” Hap said.

  Hap and Theo grabbed the bisected man under the arms and pulled. Nothing happened. To an observer, it would have seemed a tableau of two and a half people. The detectives strained. New sweat layered old sweat. A half-step back, then a full one. They were making some kind of progress.

  Hap glanced down the shortened body of the man. His hips were visible now, and his legs were sliding into view, from somewhere, or nowhere. Then the three of them flew back and landed in a heap.

  “That was harder than I thought it would be,” the man gasped. “Talk about a salmon fighting its way upstream. Oh brother!”

  Hap sat up. “Who the hell are you and what just happened?”

  “Fair questions,” he said. “My name is Carl Lesser. As far as what happened and where I’m from, that will take a bit of explaining. This isn’t the place.” He looked around. “Please tell me what city this is and the date. The
full date.”

  “You’re in Nova Byzantium, administrative capital of the New Territories of New Rome,” Hap replied after a moment. “The date is the Eleventh of September, Year of Our Lord 1986.”

  The man sighed. “Ah. About a half-hour after noon?”

  Theo looked at his pocket watch. “Thirty-three minutes.”

  “Zero time lapse.”

  Theo said: “You’d better come with us.”

  “Are you police officers?” he asked. “Am I under arrest?”

  “Detectives,” Hap explained. “Homicide division. No, not arrested, but we do need to get you off the street.”

  Lesser agreed to accompany them, to explain the situation.

  “Let’s take him to your place,” Theo said. “This would be too weird for my wife. Hell, it’s probably too weird for me, but at least I won’t run to our priest about demons from Hell.”

  “Damn, it seems hotter.” Hap said.

  Theo loosened his collar.

  “The heat is my fault,” Carl said. “Partly. But things are going to get worse for your timeline if I don’t find a certain man..”

  The old woman was gone when they reached the mouth of the alley, which was just as well.

  Heading to Hap’s apartment, Carl Lesser held silence. They parked in the underground garage of Hap’s building and rode up the clattering, hissing steam-lift. Hap let them into the apartment, then locked the door. He poured drinks of the strong stuff. No ice cubes. His icebox was doing well just to keep the food cool, and the block was nearly melted. They all sat in the tiny living room.

  “The first thing I have to tell you is that I am not from this world,” Carl said. He smiled thinly. “Considering the condition you found me in that should not be too hard to accept.”

  “You mean Venus, Mars, something like that?” Theo asked skeptically.

  “It’s a little more complicated.”

  “Surely not Heaven or Hell,” Hap said self-consciously. He had not been to church services in nearly a year.

  “Nothing like that,” Carl said with a short laugh. “The world I’m from is closer, yet much farther. My world occupies the same time and space, but a different line of existence. The same planet, but with a different history. In my world, the Empire of New Rome, what we call the Byzantine Empire, fell in 1453, when the Turks destroyed Constantinople.”

  “Ridiculous,” Theo said, somewhat weakly. “Constantinople’s never been conquered by anyone.”

  “Not in your world, but in mine,” Carl said. “You’ve never heard of the Confederated States of America, have you?”

  “No.”

  “That’s because our histories diverged sometime in the past,” Carl continued. “Even with extensive research I doubt we could discover the cause of the divergence. But there was a split. Do you follow what I’m trying to say?”

  Theo shook his head, but Hap said; “Different events create different worlds? Real worlds with an existential reality?”

  “Exactly. I’m from one of those worlds.”

  “What about the condition we found you in?” Hap asked.

  “It was harder to break through than I’d planned. Took more energy. ” He sighed. “I tried to get that old woman to help me, but I doubt she saw anything once she started screaming.”

  “History is history.” Theo insisted quietly “Every time an event has multiple outcomes new worlds are created?”

  “No, not quite,” Carl admitted. “Used to think so, but I found not all timelines are stable. Most collapse back on the timeline they split from, creating energy fluxes that produce manifestations. Ever seen rain fall from a clear sky? Strange lights or animals? Ever experience a feeling of being someplace before though you now you haven’t? Have you ever been uncertain about the validity of a past event or whether something was real or just a very vivid dream?”

  “Nearly everyone has,” Hap said.

  “Those are all manifestations of collapsing timelines,” Carl said. “Most decisions don’t make one whit of difference in the larger sense of the timeline, so they collapse. Some, however, do make a difference. They have the greatest chance of creating a stable divergent timeline, of overcoming the inertia of the parent timeline. The longer a timeline endures, the more stable it grows.”

  “I can follow your line of reasoning,” Theo said. “And I have to believe you. Either that or come up with some other explanation for the way we found you.” He sighed wearily. “Jesus, it’s hot in here.”

  Hap said: “You said you were to blame for this heat.”

  “Partly to blame,” Carl corrected. “Forcing my way into your timeline created something of a constant and stationary energy flux, giving the appearance of a heatwave. Despite what your scientists might say, it’s been inexplicable, hasn’t it?”

  Hap’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, it has, but it also started three days ago. Before you arrived.”

  “That brings me to the reason I came here,” Carl said. “Has there been a rise in the homicide rate, perhaps, especially, among people living in the streets?”

  “Yes. But you expect that when the heat frays…”

  “There is a murderer in your city who murders just for the thrill it gives him,” Carl said. “He is not of your world, but mine. His name is Kyle Watson. Until three days ago, he worked with me at Consolidated Universities of New York, where I’m employed. Kyle was linked to a series of brutal murders. He used our timeline investigation device to escape into your world. The police of my world think he just blew town. I could hardly tell them the truth.

  “I’d always known that Kyle was, well, a bit unstable, but I’d never considered him violent. He’s a genius. If it hadn’t been for Kyle, I probably would not have been able to transform my dreams into reality. We were conducting final tests when I learned he’d been murdering men and women living in the streets.”

  “And you think he’s here to practice his hobby?” Hap ventured.

  Carl nodded. “He likes to kill. I discovered a diary in his room in which he had recorded the details of every murder he’d ever committed, from the first kitten he tossed into a lit oven. I found out he was planning a crime that would not only give him the biggest thrill he’d ever known, but create a new timeline.”

  “What?”

  “Kyle planned on killing the President of the CSA, the leader of my country.” Carl explained. “A world away, President Long is visiting New York City. Our President may be safe, but Kyle is in Nova Byzantium, back to his old ways.”

  There was a thunk against the door.

  “Afternoon newspaper,” Hap muttered, standing. He opened the door, picked up the newspaper, looked at the headline, closed the door, and tossed the open newspaper onto Carl Lesser’s lap. “Your President may be safe, but our Emperor is not.”

  Carl looked down at the engraving stretched across three columns of the newspaper. It showed the arrival of Airship One in Nova Byzantium.

  “He’ll do it,” Carl said. “He won’t be able to pass it up.”

  “Great, a heatwave and an assassin,” Theo said breathlessly.

  “The murders must be stopped and your Emperor must be saved, of course,” Carl said, “but the energy flux phenomenon is more dangerous. The heat will increase in the city, then will spread. Other, more devastating, phenomena will occur. Entropy is a two-way street. When I left New York City, we were experiencing the coldest September day in history, and it was getting colder. I have to put things in order by taking Kyle back, and quickly. I’ve been thinking. If I had a place to work, I’d be able to construct a device to return us. It would be a jury-rigged slap-dash thing, but it would work. Since we’d be returning to where we belong, the energy level won’t be a problem. It’ll be like water falling to its own level – the opposite of what I had to go through to get here.”

  Hap had stopped listening. He was staring at Theo. The flushed face, the shallow breathing, the unfocused eyes – Hap knew the signs well, especially since the start of the heatwa
ve. He rushed to his friend’s side.

  “Lie down, Theo,” he said gently.

  “What’s the matter?” Carl asked.

  “Call an ambulance.”

  “Nine-one-one?”

  “What? Never mind. Stay with him while I make the call.”

  Hap’s status in the police department brought an ambulance sooner than one would have arrived on its own. He felt helpless as he watched his friend carried out on a stretcher. They had been partners for five years, and five years was as good as a lifetime for men who daily faced death. Hap called Theo’s wife, whom he knew slightly, and told her what had happened. He hung the receiver back on the body of the phone and turned to Carl Lesser.

  “What do we do now?” he asked.

  “You need to put aside what happened to your friend and consider the greater good,” Carl said. “You have to find me a place to work and you have to help me get Kyle Watson. Like it or not, we’ve got the job. I’m sorry about Theo, but the only way we’re going to help anyone is to do what we have to do.”

  Hap sighed and gazed out the open window at the city that now shimmered in the heat, like a mirage. “What do you need?”

  “Electronics equipment, the most advanced.”

  “I can get you into the police laboratory with little problem. The stuff there should be as good as any.”

  “From what I’ve seen, it won’t be easy anywhere.”

  “All right,” Hap said testily. “Let’s go.” Hap heard something slap smartly against the windowsill. “Sweet Mother of Jesus.”

  “What’s…” Carl joined him at the window. “Holy Cow.”

  Very small fish were falling from the bright sky. They writhed as they fell. The shower of silvery fish did not last long, perhaps thirty seconds. People on the street looked up with expressions of awe and fear.

  “We’d better move fast,” Carl said. “This will get worse.”