Ferrell crouched huddled at at the rear corner of the vehicle’s hold while the carter loaded the last crates of fruit into the cool darkness. The hold was nearly full, and the carter shoved at the crates near the door to make space, jamming Ferrell abruptly between the chill metal wall of the hold and a large box of what smelled like oranges, twisting his ankle sharply. Ferrell stifled a yelp as tears leapt from his eyes, but the sound was covered by the scrape of the crates and the whinnying of the horses picketed out in the Grammar Courtyard.

To judge by his relieved cursing, the carter had finished his work. All was quiet for a moment until the hatch of the vehicle’s hold slammed shut, pitching Ferrell into a darkness shot through with a few pin-thin shafts of dusty light and making his heart clench with fear. It was too late to turn back now … and the price of turning back would be worse than the cost of seeing it through. Ferrell hunkered down and nervously ate a loose orange as he waited for the cityman to return and take him away from Midhurst forever.

After what seemed like hours Ferrell felt the vehicle shift slightly. Suddenly a vast mechanical roar coughed into life beyond the front wall of the hold he was jammed against, and the vehicle tipped and slopped about slightly like a canoe on choppy waters. The roar raised in pitch as if in triumph, its bassy throb reverberating in the hold, and the vehicle became steady before beginning to move. Fingers jammed in his ears, Ferrell felt a wash of elation and fear - he’d done it. He had escaped.

#

Not long afterwards, Ferrell felt the gliding motion of the vehicle slow to a halt. The machine’s roar stopped abruptly, and Ferrell’s ears rang with a high note as the vehicle settled downward with a gassy groaning noise. He’d thought it would take longer to get to the city than this - it was nearly thirty miles by the old roads, the merchants said. He decided the machine must travel far faster than the tractors the Landed used, and prepared to wait for his opportunity to slip away.

The hatch opened, and Ferrell heard the quiet grunts and puffs as someone lifted crates out of the hold. Within a few minutes light was flooding in and falling against the hold wall right next to where his feet were hidden by a crate. The sounds stopped, and Ferrell waited.

“Come on, kid, get out,” said a deep voice. The cityman! Ferrell stayed still.

“I have a schedule to keep, you know, and I think you’ll find the ride a lot more comfortable up front.” The cityman sounded amused. “I know you’re there, kid - the Gasbag has cameras. Magic eyes, y’know, so I can see if the carters try to lift my stuff. Not often I get left with something extra instead of something less.” Laughter.

“You’ll not take me back, sir? You’ll not take me back there?” asked Ferrell, still huddled away in his corner.

“What, and have the Rurals hang me for trying to steal a Saved child?” The cityman chuckled. “If I’d not wanted to carry you, I’d have got you out before I left. Now come on out of there. You’re planning to live in the big city, you better get used to facing shit you’re scared of.”

Ferrell shuffled forward on his behind and peered around the crates; the cityman was sat in the hatchway, smoking a small pipe. Ferrell carefully scrambled toward the hatchway, squeezed past the cityman’s leather-clad shoulders and stepped out onto the cracked blackstone of the old road. He turned to face the cityman, who was grinning around his pipe. The stranger held out a set of goggles much like his own.

“Come on, kid. We’re past the estate borders, but it’s another twenty miles before we get to New Southsea. Now help me get these crates back in the hold, and we’ll consider your ride paid for, OK?”

[ Crikey. A few weeks out of the routine, and my confidence has ebbed considerably. Need to get back into practice; this is a poor showing for about five hours of frustration. But hey - back in the saddle, right? ]

Weng-Li worked his worn knuckles along the knotted RJ45 cable stapled to the altar. The stereo played today’s freshest animantras through a sun-shot fog of Nag Champa and cheap Afghani hashish; Weng-Li altered the cadence of his chant slightly, modulating it to incorporate and celebrate the roar and clatter of the train as it passed over the shanty. All must be included in the One.

Weng-Li didn’t need to look behind him to know his client was kneeling patiently on the packed dirt in the corner of his shack as instructed. His reputation spoke for itself, and a client with sincerity would know not to disobey; just like the old gods, the new ones were not to be disrespected.

Weng-Li closed his eyes one last time, slowly lowering the mantra to a looping drone as the shafts of sun drew mandalas through his lids. The last clangorous chord of the tinny temple music faded away, replaced by the muted rattle and chatter of the shanty market in full swing. Weng-Li opened his eyes, looked down at the altar in front of him – at the small pile of grubby used dollar bills resting on a cracked china plate, and at the eviscerated circuit board of the broken DVR. His mind was clear; the paths were plain.

Still holding the holy note in his throat, Weng-Li stretched out his hand and reached into his toolbox.

[ With apologies to Jeff Noon for the blatant theft of the title ... but then again, it's his fault I write sf anyway, so there's your divine justice, I guess.

This is a tweaked and polished version of the sketch I produced during our Friday Flash Fiction workshop at Eastercon, in case you were wondering. More of a vignette than a story, I guess, but there you go.]

Emmeline’s throat was raw, and the acid stench of her own vomit steaming in the gutter made her retch again, without results. Angus stood off to the side smoking a cigarette and trying to look like he wasn’t nervous. A few yards away, the thing’s corpse was decomposing rapidly on the sun-dappled tarmac of the road.

“First time’s always the hardest,” said Angus, grinding out his fag with his boot heel.

Emmeline coughed a weak little laugh. “Oh, that’s reassuring,” she said. “Great news. Maybe after a while I’ll actually start to enjoy killing things.”

“You don’t want that to happen,” said Angus, giving the corpse a wide berth as he walked toward her.

“Oh? Why not?”

Angus passed the rifle back to her. “How d’you think they got like that in the first place?”

The food tastes no different to the flash-frozen irradiated crap I’ve been eating for the last twelve months. I don’t know what I expected; it’s not as if they were going to give me a special treat or anything. That would just have shaved from the bottom line.

I’ve got about half an hour, the mission doctor said. It’s almost funny; he used the exact same dead-pan serious tone the brain specialist back home used when he told me I had two years. Almost two years ago. I thought I’d be more scared the closer I got, but it doesn’t work that way. At least, it hasn’t for me.

I start to suit up for the last time, and at the same time I start counting off seconds. I’m almost ready to put the helmet on when Doctor Morton’s voice comes over the link. Ten minutes forty-three - he spoke as soon as he saw me move for the suit, allowing for the round trip of the laser carrier.

“Er - what are you doing with the suit, Rogers?”

“Thought I’d wear it out on the surface one last time, doc,” I say. “We’ve become pretty close, me and this suit. Can’t think of a better friend to be with at a time like this. Well, none that are near enough. Might be nice to have you here, but I guess that’s out of the question, right?”

I’ve got another ten minutes before he can reply, and the last twelve months have shown they’re too professional to discuss me with the line open, let alone harangue me without waiting for my replies. They can see me on video in sync with my voice, though, so they know what I’m doing. I fix the helmet to my suit and perform the checklists, then I cycle myself through the little pod’s airlock one last time.

It’s coming up for sunset; the sun’s burning faint and red just above the mountains on the horizon, and there’s very little dust. Pretty good weather, all things considered. I make my way in bounding steps to the edge of the cliff, and I sit myself on the roughly square block of umber rock that I have taken to referring to - in the privacy of my own skull, and purely facetiously - as my throne.

Mike Rogers - First King Of Mars.

It’s not much of a kingdom, to be fair. Mars is like a long holiday in a foreign country; everything’s thrilling and new for the first few weeks, but after a few months you become as accustomed to the routine as you would back home.

Still, no regrets. I’ve not lost any time I would have had otherwise - that lump in my brain is due to make an end of me real soon. I’ve made my mark on history; the Neil Armstrong of my generation. And I know Kathy and Emma will be provided for for the rest of their lives, because that was my condition for coming - the one bit of the contract I got to stipulate.

My count reaches ten forty-two for a second time, and here comes Morton’s passionless voice again.

“The contract says twelve months before cessation, Rogers. You gain nothing by going outside. We saw you eat the food; just relax and let the toxin do its work.”

I laugh. “Contract tells me when I have to die, doc, but it doesn’t say anything about where. I should know, I’ve read the damned thing through enough times. Now shut up and let a man die in peace, will you?”

It’s feeling even less scary the nearer I get. Maybe that’s the toxin working, I’m not sure. I am starting to feel a little sleepy, but then it’s near to my scheduled time for lights-out anyway, so that could just be the conditioning. The valley stretches away in front of me, its walls layered with grades and shades and levels of colour, like the terracotta swatch card Kathy got for the kitchen in our first apartment. And it reminds me of Arizona, that time we went when I was little. So many reds, so much dust. Arizona was much hotter than this, though, wasn’t it Mom?

“God bless you, Rogers,” comes Mom’s voice. No, not Mom, the doc. Morton’s voice. Musta dropped the count there. Damned theist doctor.

Sun’s going down. Like the mountains are burning; looks real pretty.

Guess it’s bedtime now.

G’night, Mom.

[ * Apologies to Jason Stoddard for the title. Space-news geeks may well guess that this story was inspired by the Lone Eagle Mars mission idea; and yes, I'm aware that the plan doesn't call for the guy to die alone, but I thought I could make a story out of a situation where it did. ]

Now this is a good idea. The StarShipSofa boys are going to podcast all five of the short stories on the shortlist for this year’s BSFA Awards.

The first one will appear on Monday 10th March, with one daily after that - which means they’ll all be ready well in advance of voting time at Eastercon.

So none of your “I was too busy to read ‘em” excuses*!

If you aren’t too busy to read them, here are the links:

• “Lighting Out” – Ken MacLeod (disLocations)
• “Terminal” – Chaz Brenchley (disLocations)
• “The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” – Ted Chiang (F&SF, September)
• “The Gift of Joy” – Ian Whates (TQR)
• “The Sledge-Maker’s Daughter” – Alastair Reynolds (Interzone #209)

So, who’s psyched for Eastercon, eh?

[ * OK, to be fair, this is usually my excuse. ]

We have promised; now we have delivered.

I am as proud as anything to see the first piece of new original fiction go up at Futurismic - it’s been a long time coming, but I think it’s been worth the wait.

It’s a great story, too - I certainly think so. A study in the development of narrative voice, with just the right blend of tragedy and triumph.

Go read “Uxo, Bomb Dog” by Eliot Fintushel and tell me what you think.

After only a couple of hours on the road with Rex, I was already regretting picking him up. Thankfully the roar of the trike’s engine made a convenient excuse for not hearing his attempts at conversation, and I focused on watching the scrub at the sides of the cracked concrete motorway for potential ambushes.

To be fair, Rex wasn’t the “hands-on” type – but then they’re actually easier to deal with, because your course of action is clear. Rex was pretty free with his eyes, though, and seemed to think that I’d offered him a lift to the Fayre for more than my stated reason of wanting an extra pair of hands. At first I’d figured it was vanity – he wasn’t bad looking for a rural freelance.

It soon became clear that vanity had less to do with it than stupidity; Rex was plainly not very bright. Still, both looks and brains is too much to expect of anyone - as countless end-of-night Romeos have tried to tell me in the past.

At least Rex had some good tools. It wasn’t so important to be leet at the Fayre as it was to look like you had the capability of being leet.

The trike’s GPS was on the blink again and all the old road-signs had been scavved years ago, so it was almost a shock to crest a hill and see the Fayre sprawled along a few miles of beachfront in the distance. Behind me, Rex grunted something and gesticulated at the turn-off we’d just passed. I decided to ignore him. There’s always a quieter route in, and when the Fayre’s involved it’s the course of wisdom to stay out of the way of nubes and their predators.

A few miles on was smaller turn-off that led through a picked-clean ghost town, street after street of eyeless buildings that must once have catered to people coming here to spend time by the beach, back when tourism was still an industry and not an anachronism.

The Fayre was not a tourist attraction.

As we neared the beach, I could see the reports were true; the sea was festooned with bobbing cargo of all sizes as well as Fayregoers working hard to land the stuff safely. Cloud consensus seemed to be that it was the contents of the Republic’s last big diesel freighter, sunk mid-Atlantic by hell-knows-what on its way to hell-knows-where. The facts were probably out there if you wanted them, but most people here weren’t as interested in the facts as they were the lure of free salvage rights.

In no time at all, the roar and buzz of the Fayre was audible over the trike’s engine, and we pulled into a field that had been commandeered by an entrepreneurial crew and labeled with a crudely-lettered sign that read “valay parkin”. The tires of vehicles were turning the spring-moist soil into a morass, but I’d built the trike for that sort of work and she rolled neatly to the far corner of the field that the boss-eyed kid in the booth by the gate had pointed at.

Rex watched me extract the ECU from the trike and stuff it in one of my webbing pouches.

“Now what?” he asked, his arms hanging loose at his sides, eyes betraying an awe and nervousness he was otherwise hiding well.

“Now we go make it clear to the parking gang that any damage to the trike will be taken out on their bodies when we return. Then we head over to the Fayre office, and get us a trading permit.”

“A permit? But we’re not planning to trade what we salvage at the Fayre, I thought you said. Why do we need a permit?”

I laughed; I couldn’t help it. “Look, man, let me handle all the paperwork. You just keep your mouth shut, act like you’ve been to the Fayre before and know it all, and you’ll get your thirty percent cut. Are we good?”

He shrugged resignedly, and began trudging slowly through the mud toward the parking tollbooth. I reached under the chassis activated the countermeasures on the trike before heading after him.

Gabe was about half way through the watering when he saw the Unsaved girl.

He’d just reached the window end of the tenth row. He liked to work away from the standpipe and outwards each time, because he enjoyed the sensation of moving slowly and steadily towards the light and warmth of the sun.

He liked feeling the watering can swing easier in his hand as he limped from plant to plant, testing the soil for moistness with his thumb the way Brother Matthew had showed him to, gently tipping the liquid into the containers when required.

And at the end of each row, he liked to stand and look out of the open side of the tower, over the Unsaved city at its feet, across the Solent with its gaggle of grey glowering hulks and on to the emerald of the Island.

He wasn’t supposed to stop at all, because The LORD frowned on laziness. But it was only for maybe a fraction of a minute each row, and Gabe secretly thought that if The LORD really didn’t want him to look out of the tower sometimes, he wouldn’t have made it seem so interesting. He knew better than to mention that to Brother Matthew, though, just like he knew better than to get caught.

As he turned around to return, Gabe gasped to see a girl of marriage age crouched mannishly at the standpipe, dressed in garish clothes that left her arms and legs uncovered, her cupped hands catching water and raising it carelessly to her mouth.

Gabe started at the sound of his watering can hitting the floor, and the girl looked up.

“Hey man, didn’t notice anyone here,” she said, standing to face him. “Otherwise I’d have asked first.”

It wasn’t clear with her stood in the shadows, but there was something strange about her right eye. “You shouldn’t be here, sister,” Gabe stammered.

“How come?” replied the girl, plucking a tomato as she wandered towards him. “Not like there’s any bars on those big open sides, is it?”

“This is a House of The LORD, sister, and you are Unsaved,” said Gabe, still staring at the girl’s eye, which seemed to be surrounded and covered over by metal and plastic. “The Unsaved may enter, but only through the Door of Penitence.”

“Ah, right,” said the girl around a mouthful of tomato. “Never knew a cult had the top of this tower. Probably wouldn’t have climbed it otherwise – no offence. Hey – my eye freaking you out or something?”

Gabe felt his face heat and he looked at the floor. “I meant no insult, sister, I -”

“No worries, I’m used to it. Draws a lot of attention, even downtown. Beats the shit out of only having one good eye, though.”

Gabe’s head jerked up. “So it’s true? The Unsaved really use machines to remove the flaws which The LORD deemed necessary to balance the gift of your life?”

The girl laughed – not the modest laugh of a Saved Daughter, but something that seemed to pass through her like a spirit.

“Well, you could put it that way,” she said. “But I don’t think some sky fairy messed up my eye before I was born any more than one did for your leg, there.”

Gabe felt awkward again; not ashamed of the flaw that was his burden from The LORD, but ashamed at wondering what it would be like not to limp. He squashed the thoughts, as they were impious.

“Hey, I guess I’d better go – I’m making you twitchy,” said the girl, maintaining an endless stream of chatter as she started unclipping various strange objects from her belt and attaching them to a large coil of rope across her shoulder. “Hell knows how you get any work done with that view there, though – what I came up to see in the first place. Tomatoes and conversation a bonus, right?”

“You … you climbed the tower?”

“Yah. Kind of a hobby, but everyone’s started doing it now, so the fun’s fading. I liked it for the solitude, y’know? Anyway, better leave you to yours. Name’s Jez.”

She stuck out an open hand toward Gabe, who found himself unable to do anything more than stare at it blankly.

“No shakes with the unsaved, huh? Fair enough. Not even gonna tell me your name? Gabriel - OK. Well, maybe see you around, man. You ever come downtown, gimme a shout. I’ll get you lunch in exchange for the tomatoes and the water.”

Gabe watched, still dumbstruck, as the girl who called herself Jez pulled on some odd-looking gloves, attached some small devices to the lip of the window, and clambered downwards out of sight with a shouted farewell.

“I heard voices, Brother Gabriel; to whom were you speaking?”, asked Brother Matthew as he entered the growing room.

Still staring out over the city, Gabe told an outright lie for the first time he could remember. “No one, Brother Matthew. No one at all.”

[This just doesn't work the way I wanted it to, because as I started writing it I realised there's much more to tell than will fit in a piece of flash. But I had no time to do another piece, so this is what you get. Selah.]

Junior had felt someone watching him as he haggled over the batch of pistols in the Foreign Quarter. His suspicions were confirmed as he arrived on the rusty wharf of Spithead’s Northside to find a suit lounging in his skiff.

“Paid my taxes at point of sale,” said Junior. “What’s the problem?”

“No problem,” replied the suit. “Just thought I’d sit and watch the sunset. I find it calming – as a man of the water, don’t you agree?”

Even without the latent threat of the suit’s tone, his shit-eating grin would have told Junior that this wasn’t going to go his way. Still, no reason to cave in too easily.

“Not your boat to sit in.”

“But it’s not yours either, is it? You New Southsea folk don’t believe in property, do you?”

“Misconception,” sighed Junior. “Anyways, I signed for it with your man up there, so it’s legally mine while I’m on the Nation.”

The suit looked up the creaking wharf towards the customs booth. “It would appear the customs officer is on a break, though. So the burden of proof falls on you, doesn’t it?”

Junior wondered how much more the suit had bribed the customs kid to vanish than Junior had paid him to stick around. The Nation’s version of the Cloud, usually thick with agents like a dog with fleas, was unusually quiet down here by the water. The suit had clout. Or monkeys, if there was any difference.

“What d’you want, then?”, he asked.

“You’re a ferryman, aren’t you? When you’re not importing foreign weapons into our Nation, that is.”

“Word gets around,” replied Junior. “Where you going, and why should I take you?”

“I thought I might visit New Southsea. You should take me because it’s an easier option than me stealing this boat and leaving you to swim back.”

Not much easier, thought Junior. The swim back was doable in daytime, but suicidal at night; the Nation was no place for a freeman on his own with nothing left to sell, and he’d already transferred his profits from the guns over to the credit network in New Southsea. The suit knew this already; the suit seemed to know everything. But Junior knew a thing or two himself.

“Customs will know I didn’t take the boat I signed for when they find me sitting here by an empty mooring space,” he said.

“But if they don’t find you there, they’ll assume you did take it,” said the suit as he drew a chunky handgun from under his shoulder and levelled it at Junior. “Customs not finding you could be rather easily arranged, don’t you think?”

That was an understatement. Fail to keep an eye on yourself in the Nation, and you could be on your way to the Continent as a selection of flash-frozen live organs within hours. Back at New Southsea, Junior would at least be out from under an arcane legal system he didn’t fully understand; the suit might shoot him on the way, but he could just have stolen the boat outright without the theatrics and avoided the risk of a murder charge under his own legal system.

Two outlanders in a day; Junior wished he’d fobbed off the jaeger that morning and done a few fishing runs for the market blocs instead. At least the jeager had paid enough for more than two trips; suit-boy was going to ride for free, one way or the other.

“All right. Let me get aboard and raise the sheets,” said Junior. “As passenger, you got to pay the border tax, though. Nation law.”

The suit laughed. “Oh, of course. I always admire you New Southsea people – you make such an effort to memorise the laws wherever you travel.”

“Not like we have much choice,” replied Junior. “We ain’t got no lawyers like yourself to do it for us.”

[ Poor Junior - doesn't have much luck with passengers, does he? I think that will change eventually. ]

Junior awoke from his doze as his little boat changed the pattern of its motion on the water. He opened his eyes to see a jumpy-looking jaeger stood staring down at him.

“You’re Charon, right?” asked the stranger.

“Cloud-kids call me that. Dunno why. Name’s Junior. Who’s asking?”

“Who I am doesn’t matter. I need to get to the Island; are you for hire?”

Junior sat up slowly, scrabbling one-handed in his tin for a smoke. “I seem to have a gap in my schedule,” he said. “Not keen on anonymous deals, though. No name, no public key, eh?”

“I have a public key -”

“Yeah, but you’re going to the Island,” Junior laughed, and lit his smoke with the old lighter his father had given him. “So it may not be valid in twelve hours time. Shit, it may not even be valid now.”

The stranger’s brows furrowed in annoyance as he looked away across the harbour crowded with pontoons, skiffs and smacks. Junior followed the jaeger’s gaze, absently noting that the morning fog was finally starting to burn off. The bulky hulls of the Spithead Nation were visible, resting at their moorings between the forts, and the rise of the Island could be made out as a neutrally dark haze beyond them. He’d need to get more baccy later, he reminded himself …

The jaeger’s voice snapped Junior out of his wandering thoughts.

“Look, public key doesn’t matter if we barter materiel for service. Tell me your normal rate for a ferry to the Island, and I’ll double it.”

“Well, I’m no marketeer, friend.” Junior was hard pressed not to let the smile reach his face. He loved the smell of desperation in the morning. “How do I know you’re not just going to offload depreciated stock on me, eh? Bearing in mind where you’re heading, and all.”

The jaeger made an exasperated noise, and threw one of his carry-alls at Junior’s feet. “I understand your nickname, now. Take what you think the trip’s worth out of the bag and let’s get moving, or I’ll find another ferry-man.”

“In a hurry as well as anonymous, is it?” Junior rummaged in the bag, his hands passing over cheap imported plastic handguns from the Continent, shrink-wrapped paper books and a bunch of what felt and looked like late-iteration cloud-routers. He hefted one into the sunlight for a closer look.

“Don’t wave it around like a bloody flag,” hissed the jaeger. “If you’re taking me, cast off - now.”

“Right you are, Mister Anonymous,” said Junior. “Get your stuff aboard, then.”

As the jaeger shifted his bags from the pontoon into the prow of the skiff, Junior pretended to busy himself with the kit-locker at the stern, taking the opportunity to slip his own antique pistol – so old it was all metal, except the rounds – into his pocket. You could never be too careful, neither with someone so liquid in hardware or someone heading for the Island.

It’d be a risky run, but the contents of that bag would make it well worth Junior’s while – probably clear a lot of his debts once he shifted it in the markets at Spithead. Junior smiled to himself as he slotted the rudder into place and hauled the patchwork sail up the mast, before casting off from the pontoon and aiming the prow with its agitated passenger toward the rusting mass of the Nation.

It was a fine morning to be out on the water.

[We're back in New Southsea again, albeit at the south edge as opposed to the north. I hope people are liking these, because every one I commit to the screen is generating ideas for at least three more...]