Forbidden Planets Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Acknowledgements

  Introduction

  Passion Ploy

  Lehr, Rex

  Dust

  Tiger, Burning - Alastair Reynolds

  The Singularity Needs Women!

  Dreamers’ Lake

  Eventide

  What We Still Talk About

  Kyle Meets the River

  Forbearing Planet

  This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine

  Me•topia

  Forbidden Planet

  Author and Story Notes

  Raves for Peter Crowther’s Anthologies:

  “This is a well above average anthology . . . one of the more welcome theme anthologies of the year.”

  —Science Fiction Chronicle for Moon Shots

  “Of the year’s original anthologies, Peter Crowther’s Moon Shots yielded a remarkable number of stories to the year’s best annuals . . .”

  —Locus

  “The sixteen stories include an impressive array of styles and points of attack. The overall standard of quality is very high. It’s a very good book. It’s practically a miracle for a mass-market paperback anthology.”

  —SF Site for Mars Probes

  “Crowther has, in Mars Probes, assembled a collection of stories that takes its eyes off the collective scientific ball and manages to be both refreshing and funny. It stands a very good chance of being the best original SF anthology of the year.”

  —Locus

  “Constellations is an excellent original anthology, and it certainly displays the richness of contemporary British SF to great effect.”

  —Locus

  “The writers provided a host of differing perspectives so that the audience obtains a fun collection with no two stories alike and none weak. All new stories, Peter Crowther has put together a five star anthology that will enhance his reputation for editing fine off planetary collections.”

  —The Midwest Book Review for Constellations

  FORBIDDEN

  PLANETS

  DAW Anthologies Edited by Peter Crowther:

  HEAVEN SENT

  MOON SHOTS

  MARS PROBES

  CONSTELLATIONS

  Copyright © 2006 by Tekno Books and Peter Crowther.

  eISBN : 978-1-101-11618-0

  All Rights Reserved.

  DAW Book Collectors No. 1385.

  DAW Books is distributed by Penguin Group (USA).

  All characters in this book are fictitious.

  Any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.

  The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  First paperback printing, November 2006

  DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED

  U.S. PAT. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES

  —MARCA REGISTRADA

  HECHO EN U.S.A.

  S.A .

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  “Introduction” copyright © 2006 by Ray Bradbury.

  “Passion Ploy,” copyright © 2006 by Matt Hughes Company Ltd.

  “Lehr, Rex,” copyright © 2006 by Joseph E. Lake, Jr.

  “Dust,” copyright © 2006 by Paul McAuley.

  “Tiger, Burning,” copyright © 2006 by Alastair Reynolds.

  “The Singularity Needs Women!,” copyright © 2006 by Paul Di Filippo.

  “Dreamers’ Lake,” copyright © 2006 by Stephen Baxter.

  “Eventide,” copyright © 2006 by Monkeybrain, Inc.

  “What We Still Talk About,” copyright © 2006 by Scott Edelman.

  “Kyle Meets the River,” copyright © 2006 by Ian McDonald.

  “Forbearing Planet,” copyright © 2006 by Michael and Linda Moorcock.

  “This Thing of Darkness I Acknowledge Mine,” copyright © 2006 by Alex Irvine.

  “Me-topia,” copyright © 2006 by Adam Roberts.

  “Afterword: Forbidden Planet,” copyright © 2006 by Stephen Baxter.

  Introduction

  Sometime in the early 1950s MGM Studios contacted me to write a screenplay for a film—the film turned out to be Forbidden Planet.

  This request came from a gentleman named, incredibly, Nickie Nayfack. I didn’t believe the name, so I checked with MGM and found that he was a relative of one of the studio producers.

  I turned down the project and later regretted it because when I saw the film with the Id on the screen, I realized that this was the most important idea in the picture. If MGM had mentioned that to me then, I would have been intrigued and might have done something of a larger size with the Id than was done in the final film.

  But if I had taken the job, the first thing I would have done would have been kill Robby the Robot or, if I had let him live, laser beam his storage batteries. For this, I think, a world would have worshiped me to the end of time. On the other hand, Robby the Robot’s worshipers would have reviled me beyond reason.

  But there’s absolutely no doubting that Altair 4 was truly an unwelcoming place. And I should know. Because before 1955—and certainly afterward—I had written about a few forbidden planets of my own, hostile worlds where you wouldn’t want to be stranded . . . even fully armed.

  The concept of the inhospitable location—be it a planet, a haunted house, or a graveyard—has long been a staple of fantastic fiction. It’s the kind of stuff I used to read as a small boy growing up in Illinois.

  I remember being read to from Edgar Allan Poe by my Aunt Neva when I was sick in bed in late 1928 and, the very next year, reading the comic-strip adventures of Buck Rogers that started to appear in the daily newspapers. Buck Rogers offered me a trip to the asteroids, Venus, Mercury, and, yes, even Jupiter itself! And all in 1929 when Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins hadn’t even been born yet!

  And then, at my Uncle Bion’s house in the summer of 1930, I discovered bookshelves filled with even more exotic worlds . . . Edgar Rice Burroughs’ wonderful creation, John Carter of Mars, who, some two years later, inspired me to write my own tales of the Red Planet, sometimes depicting it as a friendly world and other times as a place of mystery and intrigue. The first of those stories, “The Million Year Picnic,” appeared in the summer of 1946 in Planet Stories.

  So here we are, some sixty years later, with Forbidden Planets, tales of far-off places where Man isn’t greeted with open arms. Open jaws, perhaps . . . but open arms? Never! In any event, Peter Crowther has gathered a fine bunch of writers to give their own take on alien worlds, honoring that film I almost wrote the screenplay for. I often wonder what kind of job I would have made of it! One thing is certain: I would have destroyed Robby the Robot early on and let all the characters behave. What a delightful thought!

  Meanwhile, here are a dozen fine stories about mankind facing up to the perils that may lie ahead on distant worlds. Enjoy!

  Ray Bradbury

  Los Angeles

  July 2005

  Passion Ploy

  Matthew Hughes

  “What exactly is it?” Luff Imbry asked. He walked around the object that occupied the center of the small table in the secluded rear room of the tavern known as Bolly’s Snug, viewing it from several angles and blinking at the way it caught the light.

  “I took it off Chiz Ramoulian,” said Dain Ganche.

  “Took it?” Imbry’s round, multichinned face showed a mild concern. Provenance could be a contentious issue when buying items of value behin
d closed doors. Chiz Ramoulian was only a minor hoodlum, yet he moved through the back streets of the City of Olkney attended by a reputation for sudden and inventive violence. He had also exhibited a knack for locating those with whom he had business. “Took it how?”

  Ganche crossed corded arms across a broad chest. “I found him in an alley near the slider that comes from the spaceport. He was sitting against a wall, blurry eyed and cradling this in his arms. I reminded him that he owed me a substantial sum from a joint enterprise.” Like Imbry, Ganche regularly invested in highly profitable ventures whose details were known only to those directly involved in their execution. “I suggested that this object would settle the score. Then I took it.”

  Imbry’s gaze returned to the glittering thing on the table. He was finding it difficult to look away. “And he was content with that?”

  Ganche’s heavy lips took a reflective bend. “He made a noise or two, but nothing actionable. To put it all in a single word, he seemed . . . distracted. But, then, he has a fondness for Red Abandon, and once he cracks a flask, he does not leave it till it’s drained. That may account for his mood. In any case, a scroot patrol picked him up shortly after.”

  “Hmm,” said Imbry. He again circled the table and examined the item. “It is inarguably beautiful,” he murmured. Indeed, beauty seemed almost too flimsy a word to fling around in its presence. It compelled the eyes.

  Imbry turned from the thing and found that it took an increased effort to do so. He took up the dark cloth in which Ganche had brought the object and covered its brightness. He kept seeing a ghost of its outline imprinted on the walls, as if it were the negative image of a bright light.

  “I’ve found it best not to stare at it too long,” said the big man. “But what on Old Earth is it?”

  “Certainly not of Old Earth,” Imbry said. “It’s of ultraterrene origin. I’d lay a hept to a bent grimlet on that.”

  “Ramoulian often haunts the spaceport,” Ganche said, “in hopes of coming across baggage that is indifferently attended. He has been known to wear a cleaner’s uniform. Or he inserts himself into a stream of disembarking passengers, playing the affable traveler. He strikes up a conversation with some offworlder and offers guidance. Then he leads the mark into a dark and out-of-the-way corner and relieves him of his burdens. Perhaps this was in someone’s valise.”

  “Possibly,” said Imbry. “But why was Ramoulian languishing with his prize in an alley when the scroots were on the prowl?”

  “Again, Red Abandon?”

  “It has an unmistakable odor,” Imbry said. “Did he smell of it?”

  “Not that I noticed.”

  “Then I lean toward the notion that this object caused the distraction.”

  Ganche lifted up a corner of the covering cloth. “It does not affect me that strongly.”

  “Nor I,” said Imbry. “Perhaps Ramoulian was peculiarly susceptible. But the main question is: What is it?”

  “No,” said the other man, “the main question is: What is it worth? You are more knowledgeable than I in the buying and selling of art.”

  Imbry stroked his plump earlobe with a meditative finger. “I have no idea,” he said. “We will find out by offering it in auction to a carefully chosen group of buyers. My commission will be forty percent.”

  “Fifteen,” said Ganche with a speed that was reflexive. They haggled a few more moments and settled on thirty percent, which had been Imbry’s intent.

  When they had executed the mutual motions of hand and arm by which such bargains were sealed, Imbry said, “I may consult an expert in extraterrene artifacts.”

  “Discreetly,” Ganche said.

  “Of course.” There was another brief haggle and a flurry of gestures that decided how the expert’s fee would be paid.

  “So you think it is, in fact, a manufactured item?” Ganche said. “I thought it might be of natural origin.”

  Imbry moved his large, round head in a gesture of indecision. He tucked the square of black cloth about the object, then lifted it gently and deposited it in the large satchel he had brought with him. The thing was surprisingly heavy—densely packed, he thought. He closed up the bag and activated the fastenings. The room seemed emptier now that the object was out of sight.

  Imbry repaired to his operations center, a room in a nondescript house on a quiet street in a modest neighborhood. He traveled carefully, taking detours and laying false trails by entering public buildings that were busy with people, going in by the main doors then immediately departing by rear exits.

  Partly, this was habitual caution; a practitioner of Imbry’s profession never knew when the scroots might have singled him out for preemptive surveillance. Lately, though, he had found himself caught up in a worrisome dispute with Alwinder Mudgeram, a man of blunt opinions and brutal instincts who was convinced that Luff Imbry owed him a substantial sum. The funds had been advanced toward a project that had not come to fruition. Unforeseen disappointments could blight any line of endeavor, Imbry had counseled Mudgeram, advising him to consider his lost capital a failed investment. But the investor preferred to see it as a debt to be repaid, and Mudgeram was renowned for collecting every groat due him.

  Secure in his operations center, Imbry had his integrator deploy a research and communications matrix that spent most of its time disguised as a piece of battered furniture. He removed the mysterious object from the satchel and unwrapped it, taking care to keep his eyes averted, and let the matrix’s percepts scan it. Its effects upon him he found annoying, as if it were a spoiled child who kept tugging at his garment, insistently importuning him with, “Look at me! Look at me!”

  As soon as it was scanned, he rewrapped and resatcheled the object, then placed it in a concealed locker beneath the floor of a closet that appeared to be stuffed with the kind of items one acquired at jumble sales. Some of the bric-a-brac had artfully concealed functions that would have drawn sharp attention from agents of the Archonate Bureau of Scrutiny.

  “Integrator,” he said. “Conduct a class-two inquiry as to nature and origins.” Imbry had designed his integrator, as he had designed the closet’s false kitsch, to answer the special circumstances that often arose in the conduct of his business. What he called a class-two inquiry, for example, was not unlike an information search along Old Earth’s connectivity grid that any citizen might undertake, except that Imbry’s integrator could ease in and out of public data stores without being noticed. That was important when the whereabouts of an item being researched and valued was of interest to the scroots.

  The integrator hummed and fussed for several seconds. As he waited, Imbry was vexed to discover in himself a surprising urge to go to the closet and view the object. He got up and paced until his integrator reported that it had found no matches in publicly accessible records.

  “We will try private sources,” Imbry said. “Catalogs from dealers in ultraterrene artworks, both here and . . .” He thought for a moment, then named the four planets along The Spray that were major nexi for trade in nonhuman artifacts and had offices on Old Earth where such catalogs would be found. “Plus any places where curios are discussed.”

  It took a little longer for his matrix to locate and insert itself unnoticeably into the private data stores, but again it came back with no solid results. “Nothing from the dealers. I have a partial match, though the correspondence is less than ten percent,” his integrator said.

  “Show me.”

  The displayed image appeared in the air before him. It was a curved fragment, dark and stained, of something that had been broken. It superficially resembled the exterior of the object beneath the closet floor, except that its surface was not bright and glittering with points of diamond-hard light, nor did it shimmer with unnameable colors that ravished the eye.

  “What is it?” Imbry said.

  “It is tentatively identified as a fragment of the husk of a seedpod from an uncataloged world in the Back of Beyond,” the integrator said. “It may or
may not have been part of some native artwork. It was recovered from a ship hired by an artifact hunter from Popsy.”

  “What is Popsy?”

  “An odd little world far down The Spray. The hunter’s name was Fallo Wickiram. He hired the ship on Bluepoint and was last seen heading toward the gas cloud called the Lesser Dark. He apparently landed on a number of uncouth worlds, gathering such curiosities as appealed to his taste. At some point, the period of the ship’s hire was up, and, as programmed, it returned to Bluepoint on its own. Wickiram was not aboard, and there was no indication as to what had become of him.”

  “What was the last world he visited?” Imbry said.

  “It has no name and apparently no attractions, since the records show that almost no one ever goes there. Here are its coordinates.” The integrator produced a string of numbers and vectors. They meant nothing to Imbry.

  “How long ago did this occur?” he asked and learned that Wickiram had met his unknown fate several thousand years ago. Imbry thought about it for some moments, then said, “The information is of doubtful utility. Record it anyway, then let us press on.”

  The mention of a seedpod triggered a new line of inquiry. The integrator reviewed records of artworks and more commonplace items made from such materials up and down The Spray. Several more leads appeared but, upon investigation, led nowhere. Imbry poked about in other avenues that suggested themselves, including the itineraries of any ships that had recently put down at the Olkney spaceport. But any spaceship, whether liner, freighter, or private yacht, stopped at so many worlds where they might connect to other worlds that the object’s possible routes to Old Earth were effectively infinite.