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Fictionwise
www.Fictionwise.com
Copyright ©2003 by Jay Lake
First published in L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future XIX, August 2003
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NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Making copies of this work or distributing it to any unauthorized person by any means, including without limit email, floppy disk, file transfer, paper print out, or any other method constitutes a violation of International copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines or imprisonment.
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This story originally appeared as a first place winner in L. Ron Hubbard's Writers of the Future, Volume XIX, Galaxy Press, August, 2003. It is now on the 2004 Hugo ballot for Best Novelette. It was also my qualifying sale for placement on the 2004 John W. Campbell, Jr. Award for Best New Writer. “Into the Gardens of Sweet Night” was inspired by a dog named Binky, and by the boy I wish I could go back and be."—Jay Lake
A Chance Meeting by Road
“Penny for your thoughts, stranger."
Elroy glanced around. His mind had wandered as he followed his footsteps down the ancient metal highway. No one was in sight.
He felt a tug on the leg of his trousers.
“Down here, stranger. Fancy a Justiciary penny?” The voice was high, almost squeaky.
Elroy looked down. A tan pug dog with a black face and ears trotted on its foot paws next to him, one thumbed paw loosely caught in the muslin of his trousers at the level of his right knee. The pug wore a green flowered waistcoat.
At two meters in height, Elroy towered far over the Animal. “A Justy penny? Truly?"
“Spend ‘em anywhere,” said the pug with pride. The dog's brown eyes darted back and forth, while a long tongue licked its nose. Its curly little tail wagged quickly.
Considering the unmodified muzzle, Elroy thought the pug had a remarkably clear voice. It offered him the promised penny in its right thumbed paw. Without breaking his stride, Elroy leaned down and grasped the coin. He slipped it into his belt pouch. Justies spent anywhere, not like the various city scrips backed only by faithless reputations and threat of local violence.
Elroy was returning from a year-long spirit quest among the Little Brothers of High Impact in the Glass Mountains of Oklahoma. He was headed home to his family's little treetop cabin in the rain forest around Pilot Knob. Elroy wanted to climb lianas, gather bananas in the clearings, and hunt tamarin monkeys in the high forest canopy. He wanted to court a familiar girl, wed the old-fashioned way, and raise a family up in the trees as Texans always had. Which required funds, something he had in small supply after a year in a monastery. And he was still five hundred kilometers from home, a long lonely walk down the decrepit highway.
The pug tugged again at his trousers. “Well?"
“Animals.” Elroy shot a sidelong glance at the pug. “I am thinking about Animals."
The pug sidestepped away, disappointment flashed in his canine eyes. His tail drooped. “I did not pay for an insult, friend."
“You neither bought my friendship with a Justiciary penny, stranger,” snapped Elroy. “But I won't insult you. I said Animals, not beasts."
“Your thoughts, then?” The pug growled and narrowed its eyes.
Elroy could see the pug's hackles rise above the collar of its waistcoat. He sighed, regretful for having mishandled the situation so quickly. “What is servant to a mounted man, peer to a footed man, and master to a legless man?"
The pug's hackles dropped back below its flowered collar. “A poor riddle, as you already gave me the answer. Scarcely worthy of my investment."
Elroy slowed, stepping to the roadside next to a weathered sign that read “New Dallas 82 klmtr.s, Fresh Fruit next Left."
“My deepest apologies, gentle pug.” Elroy recalled his school days and the whippings he routinely received from Master Stenslaw for inattention the finer points of law and social custom. “I am rarely approached under the terms of the Mutual Contract, and am unversed. I intended no offense."
“None taken, I'm sure,” muttered the pug.
“Enough, then.” Elroy smiled. “I stop to dine. It's poor fare I have, but I offer it freely."
The pug laughed, a strangled bark. Its tail flickered again. “I like generosity in the young. They are usually too callow to comprehend the value of a gift freely given. Let us instead repair to the fruit vendor ahead. In recognition of your kind offer to share your food, I will stand us a pair of kumquats, or whatever else they might have that suits."
* * * *
A Dinner of Fruit in the Rainforests of Texas
“Well, you're a couple of likely lads.” The old woman at the fruit stand smiled a gap-toothed smile.
“I am hardly a lad, good woman. Do not mistake my size for youth.” The pug drummed its claws on the edge of the old woman's table. “We will have two kumquats, and a liter of wine fit for consumption."
“No kumquats today. Guavas three for a New Dallas dollar, I'm out of wine but you can have sweet plum jack two NewDees a liter,” she recited in a bored voice.
“Two Justies for the guavas and the plum jack,” the pug countered.
“Three."
They bargained in a desultory manner, settling on two Justiciary pennies and a New Dallas dollar, which the pug handed over from the pocket of its waistcoat.
“Thank you, my good woman.” The pug stepped back from the table. “Get our supper, my boy."
Elroy considered arguing that he was not, in any sense, the pug's boy. The smell of the guavas changed his mind, being far more appetizing than the stale bread crusts he had planned to eat. He took the three guavas and the liter of plum jack, served with the loan of a translucent tube with white volumetric markings on the side, and followed the pug away from the fruit stand.
* * * *
They ate in the shadow of the glossy green leaves of a blooming mango tree. Elroy was grateful for the two guavas the pug had generously given him. They passed the plum jack back and forth swig for swig, although Elroy drank considerably more than the pug at each pass. The mango tree sat on a bluff above the highway, giving them an excellent view of several kilometers of the road. In the distance, a land train puffed dark smoke and light steam into the sky, while the heavy scent of the mango blossoms and the drone of insects lulled Elroy toward sleep.
“Magnifera indica.” The pug waved at the tree above them. “In Vedic tradition this tree symbolizes abundance and divine sweetness.” The pug grasped the tube of plum jack in both thumbed paws and gulped. “Alcohol is dangerous for small dogs,” the pug continued, panting. “Slows down their breathing, interferes with the central nervous system."
The conversation worried Elroy. Animals were not beasts, and for the pug to refer to its base canine ancestry so casually violated a widespread taboo. The great projects of the Viridian Republic had long since vanished from history, save for Animals, who now labored in many of the occupations of the world. They carefully fashioned their succeeding generations in their own images, and were equally jealous of their heritage and the secrets of their kind. Elroy held his tongue, choosing silence over potential insult.
“Well,” the pug continued after a long pause, “a man who knows when to hold his thoughts.” It passed the plum jack to Elroy.
“I am a traveler far from home. It is trouble enough for me to know my own thoughts, let alone mind those of others."
“A worthy attitude. Would that all were as wisely discreet."
Elroy opted for tact. “Discretion is the better part of a man."
The pug studied Elroy closely, licking its nose repeatedly as brown canine eyes scanned hi
s face. “Are you heading home, or setting out?"
It was a question not asked in polite conversation. Elroy recognized the seriousness of the pug's request, gave consideration to its open-handedness with the guavas and the plum jack.
“Returning, sir pug, from a long course of spiritual study and physical pursuits."
“Were you successful?"
Elroy shifted, uncomfortable but trapped by the pug's hospitality and the opening created by his own honest answer. One boy in every generation from his town of Pilot Knob boy was set out on the road to the Little Brothers. Some returned, some did not. Many who did became village hetmen in their time. Elroy felt no ambition to rule, but he had found balance, strength and a small measure of wisdom among the Little Brothers—qualities he recognized as desirable in a future leader. “Yes, I succeeded."
“So your duties to faith and family have been fully discharged?"
“Yes. I am free, and bound for home."
“Then I would offer you a post of service with me, for a time.” The Animal smoothed the front of its flowered waistcoat, showing more than reflexive nervousness. “My terms are generous, especially if we meet with success in my ventures."
Elroy did not want to take service with the pug, to be distracted from home and finding a bride. On the other hand, starting a family took money, or at least resources. The pug's Justiciary penny had already doubled his savings, and having left the monastery, he was no longer a mendicant.
“What service, what terms, and what is the mark of success?"
The pug licked its nose. “I need a person of discretion and physical skill to assist me as a traveling companion and bodyguard. I offer expenses, board, and a Justiciary penny per day, plus substantial bonuses upon success of my own mission.” The pug paused, plucked at its waistcoat as it stared forlornly at its foot paws. Its curled tail drooped. “I was a gardener, but have been lost to my work. I need help to find my way back into the Gardens of Sweet Night."
Elroy laughed in spite of himself, spraying plum jack on his crossed legs and the grass in front of him. “A child's bedtime tale,” he said, coughing up more plum jack, “and one with which to frighten bullies and cowards. A thousand pardons, but your jest is in poor taste."
The pug drew itself to its full seventy centimeters. “I do not jest. I know the way back to the Gardens, but it is not a road that I can travel alone. I can see I have wasted my time here. Good day, sir man."
“Wait, wait.” Elroy stretched a hand toward the pug, palm outward. “I can see that you are serious about this fable. How is it that you plan to return?"
“Well,” the pug sniffed. “It is an arduous journey, hence my need for a traveling companion. I have offered you a position of trust to travel at my side, if you will trust me to know where I am going."
Elroy nodded. “Your funds will stand me good stead when I return home. It is not my ambition to be a servant, but I will accept your wage. I am a human man called Elroy, and I will take your service."
“Friend Elroy, I accept your offer of service under the terms discussed. I am an Animal called Wiggles."
Elroy was profoundly glad he had no more plum jack in his mouth as he swallowed another laugh.
* * * *
Somewhat Is Learned Concerning the Gardens
They walked toward New Dallas the balance of that day before settling down to rest under a baobab tree on a sparsely vegetated plateau. “Adansonia digitata,” Wiggles identified the tree. “The South African baobab. They grow in rain shadows and drylands, as they do not favor too much water. The tree is not native to the Western Hemisphere. We are lucky it is not in fruit—they are notoriously rank."
The trunk of the tree was broad, like a wooden silo ramified with exposed roots, spreading to a great crown high above their heads. “I've never seen one,” said Elroy. Baobabs did not grow around Pilot Knob.
“They can store one hundred tons of water. In their native ecosystems they serve as reservoirs that anchor dryland ecosystems. There is one in Babylon much larger, but that is the nature of things there."
Elroy waited politely for the pug to continue.
Wiggles sighed. “Babylon, one of the Gardens of Sweet Night.” He scratched in the loam at their feet, drawing seven long ovals like sausages laid end to end. He pointed to them in turn.
“Heligan, Babylon, Suzhou, Eden, Daisenin, Gethsemane and Tuileries.” His voice was sadness itself. “The green wealth of our Earth, captured and multiplied by the guiding genius of man and Animal."
“And you came from there?"
Wiggles nodded, a very manlike gesture. “Born and raised in Heligan."
“Why did you leave?"
The pug stared at Elroy, licking his own black face. “There was a misunderstanding. I was cast out for eating the apples of our Lord."
“Your Lord?"
“Liasis, High Commissioner of the Cis-Lunar Justiciary and Lord of Implementation for the Atlantic Maritime Territories."
Elroy had never heard of such a person. “Who is he?"
“The man who owns the world."
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They watched the stars rise over the eastern horizon, the two of them stretched out together under the edge of the baobab's scattered branches. Venus came first, then Yurigrad, brightest of the thousand satellite stars, on its fast course through the sky.
“The stars shine like diamonds cold and hard in the skies that surround the Gardens,” said Wiggles in a sleepy voice.
“This Liasis...” Elroy struggled with the name. “How does he own the world?"
The pug's tail thumped against the ground. “Do you pay taxes at home?"
“Me, no, but the village of Pilot Knob tithes every third moon."
Wiggles sat up, began grooming himself, tongue lapping through his fur. He stopped for a moment. “To whom does your village tithe?"
“The Travis Caldes."
Wiggles burrowed briefly into his groin. “And to whom do they in turn pay taxes?"
Elroy recalled his lessons in civics and economics. “I suppose they must pay them to the Republician government in Waco."
Another pause for air. “And to whom do the Republicians tithe?"
“I never imagined that they tithe anyone, sir pug. I did not know who might stand above them."
“Everybody tithes, in one fashion or another. And it all flows upward, friend Elroy. Only the Lord Liasis does not tithe. He and a few of his brethren."
“How can it be,” wondered Elroy, “that if I am a free man, everything is owed to someone of higher station?"
“What does freedom mean?” Wiggles turned around several times and went to sleep.
* * * *
The warmth of the new day washed over them. The baobab lay some kilometers behind. Elroy considered his bread crusts with longing as Wiggles spoke.
“I believe I can find a maglev station to speed us on our way to New Dallas. We will have far to go from there."
Old tutelage in archaeoscience tumbled through Elroy's memory. “Maglev. Magnetic levitation, yes? An ancient mode of rapid transport."
“Correct.” Wiggles smiled while licking his nose. “Normally subterranean. This system was originally developed near the end of the First North American Ascendancy. As I recall, the La Grangians reconditioned it."
“I had no idea it was still active."
“Many things move above your head and beneath your feet of which you have never dreamed."
The discussion of last night still weighed on Elroy's mind. “How free am I?"
Wiggles laughed again. “You breathe of your own choosing, yes?"
“Yes, I suppose that I am free to breathe."
“Some people dwell in places where that is a right, licensed and paid for every turning of the moon. Yet they consider themselves free."
Elroy was shocked. “Free? When they must pay for the very air they breathe?"
“Some claim there is absolute freedom in holding responsibility for every aspect of
their lives, including the air they breathe. Every day they live or die by the consequences of their actions."
Behind them a shrill blast from a steam whistle warned of an oncoming land train. Elroy and Wiggles left the road to stand in the twinned shadows of a honeysuckle that struggled over slow years to overwhelm a banyan tree.
“Ficus benghalensis.” Wiggles tapped a thick aerial root with a thumbed paw. “A relative of the mulberry, mistakenly thought by the ancients to be a fig tree. Another colonizer of these American shores. Traditionally, this tree represents shelter given by the gods, a symbol of their benevolence toward man."
The clanking, screeching land train overtook them, all brass piping, bright paintwork and great iron wheels. Elroy did not feel particularly sheltered.
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Beset by Wolves, Any Man May Be a Hero
The land train groaned to a shuddering stop before their banyan tree. The sixth and final car halted directly in front of Elroy and Wiggles. Three security wolves jumped over the red and yellow ironwork sides, surprising them. One slammed Elroy back against the banyan tree using a rough arm across his chest while another knocked Wiggles down to pin him under a foot paw.
The lead security wolf leaned one forearm against the banyan tree while tapping Elroy on the chest with his staff. The wolf was definitely male, as were his gray and tan fellows. They all wore black armored vests. He growled through a toothy smile. “You two pups are in our crimebase, Freshmeat.” The odor of his breath gagged Elroy.
Elroy was frightened, not for his life, but certainly for his safety, and that of Wiggles. Gathering his calm, he protested. “You don't even know our names. We have rights under the Mutual Contract."
“Rights.” The lead wolf laughed, a very human sound. “I've heard of those.” He leaned closer, the lolling tongue nearly swiping Elroy's nose.
“This little dog is a dangerous character, friend man. You'd do well to avoid his type.” The wolf glanced down at Wiggles, squirming and whining on his back. “Breeding error, you know."
Elroy sized up the three wolves. Each stood taller than he, armed with iron-shod staves and stun guns. One was occupied standing on Wiggles, while the other two cornered Elroy against the aerial roots of the banyan. Bad odds, from a poor position, but he would not allow either fear or tactics to keep him from his responsibilities. His vows with the Little Brothers forbade attack, but defense was another matter entirely. Elroy centered himself as he had been taught, then drew a steady breath.