Writers of the Future, Volume 28 Read online

  “Dawn is still five hours away,” Jack said.

  “Does it matter? We have to assume they know where we are now.”

  Twenty minutes later we stood atop the diamond cube and beneath a brilliant Martian night. Somewhere out in that thick star mass lived other sentient beings. It was now fact, not speculation. We looked down, switched on our helmet lights and dropped to hands and knees.

  The pearl clump was near a top corner and when our lights revealed it, we both gasped, then laughed. When viewed from the correct angle, the thirty-five pearls formed a ring around a central point or star. The last line in the “path” connected to a pearl in that ring.

  Daylight still hadn’t penetrated the canyon when we took one last look at the cube.

  Jack fidgeted, looking from me to his wrist computer, then back at me. “This still makes me nervous, Malcolm. What if there’s another storm or radiation alert?”

  “It’s a risk, but I can override communication security with voice recognition and you can’t. And if we all go, they will find us for sure. Nellie’s tracks are just too easy to see from the air.”

  He still looked uneasy. In order to insure that MarsCorp didn’t hide the find for years while they tried to think up a way to exploit it, we’d decided to break the news to Earth ourselves. Jack would go east, then call base telling them he was looking for me. That would hopefully make them focus their search east of the canyon while I went west to the uplink antenna on the crater wall a mile from the base camp.

  “You’re just pissed that you have to provide the diversion this time.”

  He didn’t laugh or even smile. “If you run most of the day, you should be back at the base camp just after sunset. You have the extra tank and water?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  He gripped my arms and squeezed. “Call if you get in trouble. And I’ll come and rescue your sorry tail again.”

  “Get moving!” I said.

  He started south, to exit the canyon from that end, and his graceful, gazelle-like stride took him out of sight in seconds. My gait was awkward as I started for the canyon’s north end, but it soon smoothed out. Jack was still definitely the best Martian, but I was getting better.

  The Paradise Aperture

  written by

  David Carani

  illustrated by

  PAUL PEDERSON

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  David Carani was born and raised in Illinois, where he became familiar with both cities and cornfields. Despite his love of corn and tall buildings, he found he prefers neither. Instead, he lives in a place that is a wondrous combination of the two, called a suburb.

  The oldest of eight, David grew up wandering the acres of forest behind his home. A heavy rainfall or snowstorm could transform those woods into another world, and he often spent his days exploring and creating stories.

  After earning a degree in economics from the University of Illinois (hence the cornfields), he returned home and married the girl of his dreams. Like any good editor, when she isn’t diligently working to improve his stories, his wife gives him all the encouragement he could ever need.

  Beyond writing, David works in sales, reads submissions for the Hugo-nominated Lightspeed Magazine and writes articles for the website Fantasy Faction. This is his first published work.

  ABOUT THE ILLUSTRATOR

  Paul Pederson was born August 11, 1980, in Bessemer, Alabama. He was raised in St. Augustine, Florida (the oldest city in the nation). Art and history were prominent features in the small tourist town and this had a tremendous influence on him. At an early age, he loved to draw and paint. Paul and his older brothers were always fascinated with works of fantasy and science fiction. Subsequently he leaned more toward fantasy illustrations. Paul’s parents established a private school known as Taldeve (Talent Development) School of the Arts that Paul attended through middle school and high school. This gave him the rare opportunity to study one-on-one under professional artists in the north Florida area. After high school, Paul moved to Australia for two years, spending much of his time learning the Aboriginal culture and doing freelance art. He later studied art and design at Dixie State College in Utah, and has worked for over ten years as a graphic designer, painting murals and illustrations. He currently resides in St. George, Utah, where he works as an illustrator and hopes to take full advantage of his talents.

  The Paradise Aperture

  I eyed the door with distrust. The shocking blue was brighter than I usually photographed, but maybe that was where I’d been going wrong. Marie had always loved vibrant colors. If she was behind any door, it would be one like this.

  Two years ago, I’d barely left the Midwest, let alone the country. Yet here I was, halfway across the world, standing in the long-dead garden of an abandoned house in Tunisia.

  The town of Sidi Bou Said spread along the sparkling Mediterranean below, stark white buildings accented in bold strokes of blue. Once I would have been entranced by the breathtaking vista. Now it just looked tired and dusty.

  I turned back to the door. Set in white stone and arched at the top, it had been intricately inked in swirling black dots reminiscent of henna. I rested my hand on the rough wood and closed my eyes. It didn’t feel any different than a normal door, but then, they never did.

  I shook my head, halting my admiration. I couldn’t be sidetracked. The mystical blue doors had drawn me here, but ultimately they were just a means to an end.

  “We waitin’ for something, Jonny?”

  The voice belonged to my daughter, Irene. One hand on her hip, she watched me with a tapping foot, occasionally blowing swooped bangs from her eyes. She had Marie’s hair, a fire-engine red that looked fake but wasn’t. Unlike her mother, Irene kept it short—like her temper.

  “The sun needs to be at the right angle,” I said patiently, wishing again she wouldn’t call me Jonny. Usually I ignored her when she called me by my first name, but if I did that all the time, we’d never talk. The girl sure could be persistent.

  “How the hell do you know that?”

  I laughed. If she only knew the dozens of letters I got every day asking that same question. I guess you might say it was a gift, but too often, it felt like a curse.

  “For one thing, I watch my language,” I said.

  “Seriously.”

  “Gut feeling,” I said, shrugging. “I just know.”

  Irene wrinkled her nose and folded her arms across her chest, but said nothing. She played tough, but I knew the tribal tattoo down her left arm was a five-year temp and that she hated the onyx stud in her nose more than she hated her ex-boyfriend.

  A cool breeze rose off the bay, stealing a moment of heat and bringing sounds of the festival from the streets down the way. Ankle-deep in twisted weeds, I wiped sweat from my forehead and forced a clearing for the tripod.

  “Hand me the Deltex,” I said.

  Irene stared at me blankly.

  “The gray camera case.”

  With the gracelessness of inattentive youth, she fumbled with the case slung behind her back, unzipping it with one hand and peeling out the camera. I fought the urge to cringe, even when she tossed the camera instead of walking the two steps to hand it to me. Five thousand dollars of hardware whirled through the air, but it wasn’t the first time this had happened. I caught it easily.

  “What have we said about throwing things?”

  “Easy, Pops. You caught it fine. What’s the big deal?”

  Honestly, with money no longer an issue and three backups over her shoulder, it wasn’t a big deal. Not in the mood for a fight, I almost let it go. Almost.

  “The big deal,” I said, very calmly, “is you need
to learn respect for people’s things.”

  “Not like you can’t just—”

  “It doesn’t matter how many cameras I can afford,” I said, anticipating her biggest argument. “It’s a matter of principle.”

  “Principles suck.”

  I grinned. “That’s a matter of opinion.”

  She stuck out her tongue, but didn’t argue back. She knew I was right and, with Irene, that was as good as a victory.

  I squinted up at the sun, a searing white orb in the empty sky. It still didn’t feel right, but I set up the camera anyway, careful to frame the door with enough stone. Any cropping would destroy the image, so the proportions had to be perfect. If they weren’t, the door would never open and I’d be left with a very expensive, very useless life-size photo.

  I couldn’t take that chance. Once I captured a door, it couldn’t be recaptured no matter how identical the image. I’d found that out the hard way with a few photos, but I tried not to think about them. Surely, Marie wouldn’t have been behind those doors. They’d been so unexciting.

  “Why are we all the way up here?” Irene asked. “We’re missing the festival.”

  “We’re not here for the festival,” I said, adjusting the shutter speed for a longer exposure. “And I can’t risk some clumsy tourist ruining the picture.”

  “What’s so special about these doors?”

  I looked up from the viewfinder. “You got a lot of questions today,” I said. “Something on your mind?”

  Irene’s head dropped and her shoulders sagged. Suddenly she was far younger and more vulnerable than eighteen already was.

  “You really think Mom’s still out there?” she asked.

  “I can’t believe anything else,” I said. God knows I’m not the same man without her.

  “Nana thinks you’re cracked. She didn’t want me to come.”

  I grunted. My mother-in-law hadn’t spoken with me since we’d lost Marie. I couldn’t really blame her. If it wasn’t for my photos, Marie might still be here.

  “What do you think?” I asked.

  She bit her lip, hesitating. “I think . . . I think we’ll find her.”

  I nodded. “Then don’t ever let that go—no matter what anyone says. We’ll get her back, Reenie. I promise.”

  Irene seemed to relax. She even smiled, which was not something I was blessed with often.

  “I saw a yellow door on our way up here,” she said.

  A yellow door in a town of blue and white?

  “Sounds like we’ve got one more stop after this,” I said. “Nice catch.”

  The sun finally where I wanted it, I looked through the viewfinder, exhaled slowly and took the shot.

  Several weeks and a hundred photos later, we stood in Heathrow Airport, the ebb and flow of thousands of strangers bubbling around us. Crowds had never bothered me before, but it was different now that so many of them seemed to recognize me.

  Irene leaned against a pillar, eyes closed, bobbing to the music from her oversized headphones. I still don’t know why I agreed to bring her along. At times, it seemed like she didn’t even want to be along. But I knew how helpless she must feel. She wanted her mother back as much as I wanted my wife.

  A bald man in a business suit and overcoat wandered over, glancing at me over his newspaper. I nervously checked my watch. The only thing I hated more than flying was waiting to fly.

  The bald man made up his mind and moved toward me. I sighed internally. Here we go.

  “You’re that guy, aren’t you?”

  I pretended not to hear, positioning myself between the man and Irene. Sometimes these guys turned out to be real headcases.

  He edged closer and tapped my shoulder, ignoring all concepts of personal space.

  “Yeah, I’ve seen you on the news,” he said, jabbing his finger at me. “You’re that photographer.”

  “You must have me confused—”

  “What do you call those pictures you take?” he asked. “Reclusive doors?”

  I gritted my teeth. He obviously wasn’t going to leave me alone. Did they ever?

  “Recursion doors,” I corrected, checking my watch again. Boarding time was two minutes late.

  “Yeah, that’s it. World within a world or something, right?”

  “Now boarding first class,” the flight attendant announced.

  Finally.

  “Something like that,” I said, nudging Irene and eagerly pushing forward to hand over our tickets. A few people glared at me, but I ignored them.

  The man persisted, grabbing my sleeve. I turned to say something, but stopped. The man’s breathing was heavy, his eyes bulging. I’d seen that look of fanaticism before.

  “Is it true what they say?” the man asked in a fierce whisper. “Did you really discover paradise?”

  The color drained from my face. Had the idea already come so far? It was like a virus I never meant to spread. I pulled my arm away and retreated down the ramp without answering.

  How could I?

  I slept for two days after returning home. The endless rounds of travel were definitely taking their toll, but it didn’t matter—pure exhaustion was the only way I slept these days. On the third day, Irene unceremoniously woke me.

  “Jonny!”

  She stood by my bed, snapping her fingers and pointing at the phone in her hand. I stared at her in the confusion of the half-awake.

  “It’s Nana.”

  I let my head fall back to the pillow. Why now?

  Irene put the phone in my hand and I lifted it to my ear.

  “Hello, Margaret.”

  “It’s time to put an end to this nonsense, Jonathan,” my mother-in-law said.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “I’ve humored you long enough. It was one thing when your actions affected only you. Now you’re bringing your teenage daughter along?”

  “It’s her decision.”

  She gave an exasperated sigh. “We’ve all accepted it. Why can’t you?”

  “Because I haven’t given up hope,” I said, sitting up. “I just have to find the right door.”

  “Damn it, Jonathan. The fire was two years ago,” she said. “You have to let it go. The door is gone.”

  I was silent.

  “Your daughter needs you,” she said. “And she needs the chance to move on.”

  “You want me to tell Irene her mother is dead?”

  “I want you to be her father.”

  “What happened to you?”

  Her voice softened. “I’m tired, Jonathan. For the longest time I wanted to believe you were right. But I can’t anymore—it’s just too hard. I’m too old for false hope.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “We’ll talk again soon. Goodbye, Margaret.”

  I hung up without waiting for an answer. My hands were trembling. I balled them into tight fists and pressed them against my forehead. Everyone thought I was crazy. What was so crazy about wanting to believe your wife was still alive?

  The day I lost Marie, I’d come home to our little apartment over the antique shop and found it ablaze. A caravan of firetrucks, police cars and ambulances had blockaded the collapsing building, a crowd of onlookers gawking into the flames with mixed looks of wonder and horror.

  I’d screamed and twisted and torn at the firefighters like a madman, but they’d held me back, told me the building was empty. They hadn’t understood that the building could appear empty, when
it was not. They couldn’t have known that while they’d held me down, my wife had been inside.

  Maybe I was crazy, but I knew one thing: Marie was alive. The door to our world was gone, but I would find another way in. I had to.

  Around noon, I dragged myself from bed and returned to the office. An unmarked stone building along the Chicago North Shore, it had a second-floor showroom, a first floor jammed with massive industrial printers and a basement full of discarded attempts to find my wife.

  Someone had stuck a sign to the front door, imploring me to repent of my evil ways. Needless to say, not everyone thought highly of my gift. I pulled the sign down, wondering again what good it did to have an unmarked building when everyone already knew where you were.

  I fumbled with my keys a moment before realizing there was no longer a keyhole in the door. I frowned at the keypad on the wall. Kensuke, my curator, had recently convinced me to upgrade the security system. It made sense, considering the inventory in my basement was valued in the billions; I just hadn’t ever used it. When had he found time to get it installed?

  I scratched the back of my head and stared into the surveillance camera, struggling to recall the eight-digit passcode. It was probably so obvious I’d never remember it. I threw up my hands in exasperation, suddenly regretting I’d asked Kensuke to leave off the buzzer.

  “Might I have a word, Mr. Ward?”

  I sighed and turned around. The man had the distinct look of a weasel in a suit, which was disappointingly unoriginal. His peppered hair was receding, the little he had left slicked back in greasy curls.

  Couldn’t these people stick to the phone, instead of ambushing me at my front door? At least the phone I could ignore.

  “What is it this time?”

  “I represent Renkoda Pharmaceuticals,” the representative said. He straightened his tie and flashed a smirk that turned my stomach. “We are the world’s largest—”