IGMS Issue 49 Read online

  "You found your meal satisfactory, sir?"

  "No, I found it incredible. I've had the pleasure of dining in Singapore and Malacca many times, and your otak-otak was the finest I've ever sampled."

  "I will pass your words on to our chef. Please, how else may I be of assistance?"

  I'd hoped for more of a reaction, but I hadn't praised the food to soften her up. "This is going to sound very odd, but I would like to rent out your restaurant for the rest of the day."

  "Sir? I am sorry, but if you wish to host a dinner party here, you would need to give us at least six days notice."

  "You misunderstand. I don't want dinner. I want the restaurant. Actually, just the kitchen. But everyone can go home. Everyone has to go home. I want to pay you for the use of your empty kitchen and have you close your restaurant. Just for the next few hours."

  "What you ask is not possible."

  "Normally, I suppose not. But it's your lucky day. I'm traveling with a fish poet of some renown." I took out my credit chip, keyed in the cost of lunch, moved the decimal point three places to the right, and handed it to her. "Possible?"

  She stared at the chip long enough to confirm the number. Then she pulled back a sleeve to reveal a standard comm bracelet and clipped my chip to its transaction port before I could change my mind. As she handed back my chip she spoke to her wrist, a rapid singsong of instructions. In the next instant she was gone.

  Rhine stared at me. "She just ordered her staff to tell all the patrons there's been a small fire in the kitchen, apologize, and ask them to leave, while inviting them to return for a complimentary meal any time in the future."

  "Excellent!"

  "What are you doing?"

  Before I could answer our waiter returned. "If you will follow me please?"

  "To the kitchen?" She nodded. I stood and tucked Reggie under my arm. "C'mon, Rhine. Time to make history."

  "We're making history?"

  "No, just me. You're making seven cheese cribble puffs!"

  The kitchen staff was leaving as we came in. Reggie began scampering around ready to wreak havoc but calmed down once I built him a bed of dish towels. Rhine seated himself on a tall stool near a walk-in freezer. With Reggie napping, I forced an apron and the Bwill equivalent of a toque on the fish poet.

  "What's the point of this? You said it yourself, I'm not Nery. I'm no kind of chef. I can carve stonefish, but I can't cook."

  Instead of replying, I positioned him in the middle of the kitchen, right where an executive chef would stand to command his sous-chef and the various station chefs below. But no, that wasn't right. Nery had never allowed anyone in the kitchen with him when he made his cribble puffs. Which meant he'd had to be able to reach and do everything by himself.

  Those legendary seven cheese cribble puffs had defied classification. A braised entree that was also a fish dish that nonetheless had the delicacy of the finest pastry. I moved Rhine to a spot midway between whereNyonya Baba's poissonnier and rôtisseur would have stood, a quick step would take him to either spot. The pastry chef's station was a bit further but still near.

  "Mr. Conroy, what do you expect me to do?"

  I stood directly in front of him, and caught his gaze. "Ride a bicycle," I said.

  "What?"

  "Hestia Ambrosia." Rhine responded to the trigger I'd installed and slipped instantly into trance. His eyes closed and he swayed in place. "Listen carefully now. Let your mind go blank. I don't want you to think. You don't need to think. It doesn't matter that you don't remember anything of Nery's life. You don't need his mind to be a master chef. The memory of how to cook is in your muscles and reflexes. Your body knows everything Nery knew. In a moment, you're going to open your eyes. You won't need to think. You won't be able to think. You'll just respond to the needs of the situation. Your body knows what to do. Let it do it. Just go with it. If you understand, let your mind sink deeper, surrender yourself to the situation, open your eyes and let your body respond."

  I stepped back out of his line of sight. Rhine opened his eyes, tensed and waiting.

  "Order in, chef," I said. "Seven cheese cribble puffs!"

  Nery flew into action. It was the same deliberate movement I'd seen on the pier when the fish poet's knives had juggled and carved a massive stonefish. He grabbed bowls and pans, opened cupboards and cabinets, sought and discarded ingredients and spices. Nyonya Baba's kitchen had everything he needed, and I watched as he prepared the signature dish that had died with him twenty years before. Seeing the intricacy of it, the elaborate construction of the entree, made me understand why it had never been duplicated. It was culinary complexity that made fish poetry look like throwing together a peanut butter and jelly sandwich by comparison. And then, after an eternity that passed too quickly, he was done. Nery placed several circular pans into a pre-heated oven and set a timer. Then he stepped back, tensed and waiting once more.

  "Both of you, step away from the oven doors. Now!"

  While I'd been absorbed watching Nery, another Bwiller had entered the kitchen. Her voice sounded familiar, and when I turned toward the entrance and saw Dugli standing in front of her, soaking wet and with a chef's knife at his throat, the pieces all fell into place. It was Plorm.

  "Why couldn't you leave him to his sonnets?"

  I eased Rhine/Nery away from the oven, positioning one of the station chef's tables between us and the others. "You knew who he was all along."

  "Of course I knew. He was the sun to me. A pair of overalls and beard couldn't blind me to him. He made me all that I am. But cooking wasn't enough for him. For years after his death his students suffered the shame of his crimes. Now my name burns brightly on its own, no longer tainted by his. But you wanted to bring him back."

  I could have kicked myself. "You tampered with the bottle in my suite. The steward who brought it was the driver, who was also a busboy at Stone Fin."

  "My son," said Plorm.

  Dugli sobbed. "He tried to drown me, Conroy! He drove me into the sea."

  Plorm shoved Dugli in my direction, freeing her other hand and drawing another knife from her belt. "This ends now. I didn't set out to hurt anyone. Your mad quest for Nery's recipe will destroy everything I've rebuilt. But you've conveniently arranged for everyone to be gone from here tonight, and every chef knows how dangerous a kitchen can be. A trio of tragic but fatal accidents."

  The bell on the oven dinged. Reggie woke up and barked. Plorm shifted her glance for an instant to my buffalito. Nery snatched up a circular pan and flung it into the air.

  Plorm ducked, but it wasn't necessary. The pan flew wide and high, passing harmlessly over her at great speed. She laughed once and took another step toward us, brandishing both knives.

  With a clang the pan hit the wall, ricocheted off, struck the adjacent wall, bounced again, and caught Plorm in the back of the head with sufficient force to knock her to the ground senseless.

  The authorities took Plorm away to a forensic hospital to test for a concussion, and sent someone to pick up her son back at Stone Fin. They took Dugli to the hospital too, just to check him over. Other officials suggested that Rhine and I leave the kitchen-turned-crime scene sooner rather than later. I agreed, but asked the fish poet to get Reggie for me. As he did, I found a clean, cloth sack and emptied the contents of two cooking pans into it from the oven.

  We left the restaurant and walked a while. Office workers coming off shift flooded the street around us, and if these worthy Bwillers found anything unusual in the sight of a human, his buffalo dog, and a transpersonified fish poet they had the good grace not to let it show. After several blocks, a pedicab stopped in front of us and the operator invited us aboard in broken Traveler. We set off for my hotel.

  Rhine hadn't said a word, even after I brought him out of trance. The only sound was the cabby's feet slapping against the street. I considered using his trigger again, to understand and try to ease his obvious pain, but I didn't have that right. Instead I said, "Rhine, talk to m
e."

  He looked up at me and reached for Reggie, pulling my buffalito into his lap and cradling the animal tenderly. That simple gesture broke something open in him. "I could have killed her. How did I do such a thing? How is it possible?"

  "You didn't do a thing. That was all Nery."

  "No, you said you couldn't reach Nery, that he was gone. That leaves only me. I did it."

  "Rhine, were you ever a champion disc caster?"

  "What? No, I told you, I just fooled around with it as a kid."

  "That's right. But Nery was the best on Bwill. He trained at it, burned the knowledge into his muscles. When the situation called for it, the body remembered how to do it, and was able to do it because I prevented youfrom being there to interfere. Do you see that?"

  "I... suppose."

  "And another thing. Plorm was never in danger for her life. She'd been Nery's protégé; he'd never have hurt her. I don't know if some part of him still resides in you and knew her or not, but consider the cast that took her down. A double ricochet to catch her by surprise? Nery was that good. If he'd wanted to do more than knock her out, do you have any doubt it would have happened?"

  Rhine looked down into Reggie's soulful brown eyes and managed a smile. "You're almost as convincing as your Caliopoean."

  "I'll take that as a compliment. Now, what do you want to do?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "You're not Nery, but I could help you to recover some of the things your body remembers. You could recreate his recipes, maybe even become a competitive disc caster if you like."

  He passed Reggie gently from his lap to mine. "No, Mr. Conroy. Those skills belong to someone else. I told you, I'm content to be a fish poet."

  There was nothing left to say and the pedicab continued on in silence again. I offered Rhine the sack and he reached in and helped himself to a puff. I took two, one for myself and one for Reggie. They were still warm. I bit into mine and it burst in my mouth like a succulent explosion of savory delight. Beside me I heard Rhine gasp.

  "Oh my! I think I finally understand what brought you and Mr. Dugli to Bwill."

  "Yeah. Nothing else like it in the world. On any world."

  "May I have another? For inspiration? I think there are sonnets that need to be written about these things. What did you call them?"

  "Nery's legendary seven cheese cribble puffs. Sure, have as many as you like."

  He laughed. "I don't dare. There wouldn't be any left for you or Mr. Dugli."

  "Good point. He'd better hurry back if he expects to get some."

  The End

  InterGalactic Interview With Lawrence M. Schoen

  by Darrell Schweitzer

  * * *

  Our regular reprint editor and interviewer, Lawrence M. Schoen, just published a book he's been working on for more than 20 years, and to celebrate we thought it only right to put him in the hot seat and invite his predecessor, Darrell Schweizter, back to interview him. Which of course is what we did:

  Psychologist, professor, author, linguist, and (lately) hypnotherapist Lawrence M. Schoen may have once been best known as "the Klingon guy," but he is surely too accomplished for that now. True, he founded the Klingon Language Institute, edited a Klingon journal for thirteen years, and published the original Klingon text of Hamlet, but he has also been nominated for the John W. Campbell award, the Hugo award, and the Nebula award (three times). His most recent novel is Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard, published by Tor. His other books include Buffalito Destiny, Buffalito Contingency, Buffalito Buffet, Aliens and A.I.s, and Sweet Potato Pie and Other Surrealities. He founded the small press publishing imprint Paper Golem. He has also edited anthologies.

  Schweitzer: Tell me something about your illustrious self, your background, education, etc. When did you start writing? What was your first success?

  Schoen: I was born in Chicago, IL, the youngest of four children. My family moved to southern California when I was about 18 months old, and though I have extended family numbering at least 100 souls in the Midwest, I've scarcely any memory of any of them. Part of being the youngest meant that when my father worked at the swap meet -- which he did both days of every weekend -- I got tagged to go with him, which I did from age five to eighteen, freed from my indenture by the act of going off to university. The reason I mention this is because I started writing on those weekends. I remember buying endless spiral bound notebooks, a new one each weekend, and sitting on the gate of the van during the long day, writing stories that came into my head. This in turn led to me reading science fiction and fantasy as I grew up, and hanging out with people who wanted to talk about books. Somewhere in high school though, I somehow got distracted. My academic proficiencies landed me in the math/science track, and when I left high school my exposure to the vast humanity I'd observed during my years at the swap meet probably influenced my decision to study psychology. Fiction and writing never so much as popped up as a possibility.

  Psychology gave way to linguistics, which in turn gave way to a hyphenated discipline of psycholinguistics and a year spent petitioning the university to let me design my own piecemeal major with half again as many courses as the standard ones. That led me to graduate work in cognitive psychology, a master's degree followed by a doctorate, and then ten years as a professor in my own right before one of my grad students lured me away to the private sector.

  I wrote off and on throughout college, but I started taking it seriously (i.e., trying to sell things) in grad school. I invented an atrocious pseudonym, because my department made it clear that "serious doctoral candidates did not write science fiction" (anecdotes of Isaac Asimov notwithstanding).

  Fortunately, none of those stories sold, so the world never saw that pen name, and no, I'm not going to tell you now. Once I was off doing the professor thing I submitted stories under my own name, and the sales began, mostly to second- and third-tier markets that paid very little, but at least paid in coin rather than just copies or "exposure." An exception was a sale to Analog, which started my eligibility for the Campbell award and subsequent nomination. Other sales led to other magazines and anthologies, a Hugo nomination, and more recently three Nebula nominations. I've had five books published by small presses, and last month (from the perspective of when this interview will run) I've had my first book come out from one of the big New York presses. Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard was published by Tor Books on the 29th of December.

  Schweitzer: But you also have your own page in Weird Pennsylvania as the Klingon Guy. So what about this? How and why did you suddenly become one of the world's leading experts in Klingon?

  Schoen: I was teaching at a small liberal arts college in northern Illinois, and they'd had several years of declining enrollment. It got so bad that they decided they needed to cut four faculty lines, and I was the newest hire in the largest department on campus so my number was up. But in such situations in academia, you have a year as a lame duck, which is good because you need that long to reach out and try to find new employment. Once I'd sent off all my papers and applications, I needed something to distract myself from the weeks and months of waiting for the phone to ring, and someone handed me a copy of The Klingon Dictionary. I'd played a bit with Tolkien's languages as a teen, hanging out with older, college-age fans who got me interested in language and linguistics, and as I looked at Klingon I wondered who else out there might be playing with it, and how I might use my experience in academia to organize them into a sort of professional society with a journal and lo, I would have my distraction for a few months. Then the media found out what I was doing and the whole thing exploded. What was supposed to only last until I found a job (which I did, and why I landed in Philadelphia) has turned into 23 years of traveling the world and speaking at conventions and museums, publishing translations of Shakespeare and The Tao Te Ching and Gilgamesh, editing a quarterly, peer-reviewed journal for 13 years, and ending up with three-and-a-half pages in Weird Pennsylvania. It's been a wild ride, and as you can i
magine it has both helped and hindered my efforts as a professional author.

  Schweitzer: Do you ever get strange requests for your Klingon expertise? I read somewhere about a police department that wanted to keep a Klingon expert on call, just in case they ever dealt with a psychotic who only spoke Klingon …

  Schoen: Some of what you hear is apocryphal (no surprise), and some tame by compared to the reality. I've been asked for tattoo inscriptions (both in Romanized form and in Klingon script), wedding proposal and ceremonies, eulogies. There are organizations that exist to gather up translations of their respective target works, such as Sherlock Holmes stories or the Alice books, and both groups reach out to me every few years. I've been commissioned to provide translations of ad copy for everything from carpenters' tools to theme parks to DVD collections. In fact, one of the very first DVDs ever sold -- a collection of images of the Earth from space -- contacted me for Klingon rendering to be used on one of the alternate language captioning tracks. And of course, I get lots of translation requests for localization of software, both games and serious applications and developers' tools. It's... interesting.

  Schweitzer: So you were an overnight success after years of trying? What do you think caused the sudden breakthrough? I remember reading some of your stuff in a workshop and it was at first, if you don't mind my saying so, not very good. But then there were sudden and dramatic improvements. What had been undeveloped little snippets became full-blown stories with strong narrative, and you were on your way. I don't take any credit for this. So what happened?

  Schoen: My strength has always been in characterization and dialogue, but back in the day I couldn't recognize a decent plot if you dropped it into my arms. So what happened is I worked at it. And slowly over time and a lot of words written, I went from clueless to really bad to poor to mediocre to adequate. The big turning point for me was in 2010 when I went up the mountain and spent two weeks at Walter Jon Williams's master class, the Taos Toolbox. Walter is the master of plot, and he beat it into my head slowly and with great force and small words until I got it. Or at least, I had the beginnings of it. Like anything else in the business, it's an ongoing process. I'm very happy with the plotting of Barsk, but I'd do it differently now because the experience of writing that book has taught me even more and if I'm lucky the same thing will happen with the next one as well. We don't just learn from our mistakes, we learn from what we get right too. Or at least, that's how I think it's supposed to work.