Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show Read online

  Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

  By Orson Scott Card from Tom Doherty Associates

  Empire

  The Folk of the Fringe

  Future on Fire (editor)

  Future on Ice (editor)

  Invasive Procedures (with Aaron Johnston)

  Keeper of Dreams

  Lovelock (with Kathryn Kidd)

  Maps in a Mirror: The Short Fiction of Orson Scott Card

  Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

  Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus

  Saints

  Songmaster

  Treason

  A War of Gifts

  The Worthing Saga

  Wyrms

  THE TALES OF ALVIN MAKER

  Seventh Son

  Red Prophet

  Prentice Alvin

  Alvin Journeyman

  Heartfire

  The Crystal City

  ENDER

  Ender’s Game

  Ender’s Shadow

  Shadow of the Hegemon

  Shadow Puppets

  Shadow of the Giant

  Speaker for the Dead

  Xenocide

  Children of the Mind

  First Meetings

  HOMECOMING

  The Memory of Earth

  The Call of Earth

  The Ships of Earth

  Earthfall

  Earthborn

  WOMEN OF GENESIS

  Sarah

  Rebekah

  Rachel & Leah

  From Other Publishers

  Enchantment

  Homebody

  Lost Boys

  Magic Street

  Stone Tables

  Treasure Box

  How to Write Science Fiction and Fantasy

  Characters and Viewpoint

  Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

  Edmund R. Schubert

  and

  Orson Scott Card

  A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK

  NEW YORK

  The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you without Digital Rights Management software (DRM) applied so that you can enjoy reading it on your personal devices. This e-book is for your personal use only. You may not print or post this e-book, or make this e-book publicly available in any way. You may not copy, reproduce or upload this e-book, other than to read it on one of your personal devices.

  Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  “In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat,” by Bradley P. Beaulieu

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #2

  Copyright © March 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Mazer in Prison,” by Orson Scott Card

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #1

  Copyright © October 2005, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Tabloid Reporter to the Stars,” by Eric James Stone

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #4

  Copyright © February 2007, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Audience,” by Ty Franck

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #2

  Copyright © March 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “The Mooncalfe,” by David Farland

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #2

  Copyright © March 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Cheater,” by Orson Scott Card

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #3

  Copyright © October 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Dream Engine,” by Tim Pratt

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #3

  Copyright © October 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Hats Off,” by David Lubar

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #3

  Copyright © October 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Eviction Notice,” by Scott M. Roberts

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #1

  Copyright © October 2005, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “To Know All Things That Are in the Earth,” by James Maxey

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #3

  Copyright © October 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Beats of Seven,” by Peter Orullian

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #4

  Copyright © February 2007, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Pretty Boy,” by Orson Scott Card

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #2

  Copyright © March 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Respite,” by Rachel Ann Dryden

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #1

  Copyright © October 2005, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “The Box of Beautiful Things,” by Brian Dolton

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #3

  Copyright © October 2006, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Taint of Treason,” by Eric James Stone

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #1

  Copyright © October 2005, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “Call Me Mr. Positive,” by Tom Barlow

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #4

  Copyright © February 2007, Hatrack River Enterprises

  “A Young Man with Prospects,” by Orson Scott Card

  First appeared in IGMS Issue #4

  Copyright © February 2007, Hatrack River Enterprises

  All reprint rights reassigned to authors.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Copyright Acknowledgments

  Foreword

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Introduction

  BY EDMUND R. SCHUBERT

  In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat

  BY BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU

  Mazer in Prison

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Tabloid Reporter to the Stars

  BY ERIC JAMES STONE

  Audience

  BY TY FRANCK

  The Mooncalfe

  BY DAVID FARLAND

  Cheater

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Dream Engine

  BY TIM PRATT

  Hats Off

  BY DAVID LUBAR

  Eviction Notice

  BY SCOTT M. ROBERTS

  To Know All Things That Are in the Earth

  BY JAMES MAXEY

  Beats of Seven

  BY PETER ORULLIAN

  Pretty Boy

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Respite

  BY RACHEL ANN DRYDEN

  The Box of Beautiful Things

  BY BRIAN DOLTON

  Taint of Treason

  BY ERIC JAMES STONE

  Call Me Mr. Positive

  BY TOM BARLOW

  A Young Man with Prospects

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  Credits for the Illustrations

  Copyright

  Foreword

  BY ORSON SCOTT CARD

  The Medicine wagon rolls into town. With brightly painted signs, it advertises cures for every ailment, from cancer to impotence to senility to drought. The man on the wagon can do miracles.

  Of course, they’re all fake. You’ll get a bottle of something, but it’s a sure thing it won’t cure any of the things he’s said it will cure.

  He’ll keep only one of his promises, and that one is the unstated one: He’ll put on a great show.

  He stops the wagon; he stands on top of it, or at the top step at its back, and he makes his pitch.

  And here’s where his talents have to shine. He has to h
ave a voice that can be heard all through a town square, in order to draw a crowd. He has to have a face that knows how to zero in on an audience, member by member, so that they take his words seriously, so that their eyes are drawn to him and can’t escape.

  Even if they know he’s lying, even if they’re determined not to believe, they can’t bear to miss the show.

  We fiction writers are all medicine men. All we have to sell are lies. Everyone knows they’re lies. We admit they’re lies. If somebody sues us for libel, we insist they’re lies. We made it up. None of it ever happened anywhere, to anybody.

  So why do people buy these tales of ours?

  One reason is the voice. We fiction writers speak with confidence. We declare that we know the answers to the great mysteries, and we can tell you with certainty:

  Why people do the strange, hurtful, terrible, wonderful, cruel, kind things they do.

  That’s the miracle of our made-up stories. When we tell you why a person does something, nobody can argue with us. Nobody can say, “No, the real reason he did it is something else entirely.”

  Because the person doesn’t exist. It’s a character, existing only in the storyteller’s mind. There is no authority but the author.

  And yet…when the author gets it right, the characters he made up resonate with us. They feel true and right: Yes, this is why people do what they do. Now I understand. Things make sense. And in the midst of fiction, awash with lies, we tie ourselves to the mast of a kind of truth we cannot ever find in the real world.

  So we authors speak with a voice of command. And as we weave our tales out of thin air, if you believe in them, you allow us to spin threads in your own mind and begin to weave a fabric in your memory. It is composed of pieces of your own experience that we cannot see, but when we say certain things, your own memories are awakened and fibers of this and that from your real life get twisted into the threads and woven into the textiles that our text creates.

  It’s magic. When we’re done, you have memories implanted in your minds—vivid ones, powerful ones, treasured ones, if we’ve done our job aright—and these memories we’ve given you are clearer than anything in real life.

  That’s the medicine in our bottles. That’s the show we put on.

  Short stories are the treasurehouse of fiction. Few writers are ready to tackle a novel as their first venture into fiction. It is in the short stories that they can try out their voice, make their first tentative explorations into new worlds, and test new ideas to see if there’s any truth in them.

  In recent years, the market for short fiction has shrunk to a shocking degree. Yet the need for it has not. I believe that the reason is not that the audience does not want short stories, but rather that the marketplace offers no easy way to reach an audience.

  Printing magazines is expensive—even on the cheap pulp paper that has typified the magazines in the speculative fiction genre. Publishing online carries far less risk, and a far higher percentage of earnings can go to the writers.

  That’s why I launched Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show a few years ago, at http://www.oscIGMS.com.

  From the start, I determined that even though it’s expensive, our stories would all be illustrated. For me, that’s one of the hallmarks of magazine publication. The story begins with a splash of evocative art to set the tone.

  At first I edited the magazine myself, but quickly discovered that editing a magazine takes more time than I could devote to the task—not if I wanted to do it well. I was doing a bad job of keeping up with submissions and getting issues out on time. So I fired me.

  That’s when I invited Ed Schubert to take the helm. He is doing a superb job, except, of course, for the problem of working with me. I have promised an Ender’s Game story in every issue, in the hopes that we can draw some of the readers of that series of books to this magazine. Sometimes Ed has to wring my ear a little to squeeze the story out anywhere near the due date. But that’s why he gets the big bucks.

  Oh, wait. He doesn’t get big bucks. He gets paid with bags of dirt. But it’s good dirt. Magical dirt. Dirt just right for growing magic beans. If you know where to get magic beans.

  Even with the low overhead of an online magazine, there are few ways to get the word out that the website even exists. That’s why I proposed to my publisher, Tom Doherty of Tor, that we bring out an anthology of stories that will show the variety and quality of what our magazine offers.

  So please, don’t just sample our wares here in this book. Come to our website and see the latest issues and read the latest stories. We think you’ll find that our kind of patent medicine really does deliver.

  Introduction

  THE STORY BEHIND THE STORIES BY EDMUND R. SCHUBERT

  Everyone loves the line from the end of The Wizard of Oz when the wizard booms out in his most ominous voice, “Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!”

  But if you think for a moment, you’ll recall that the wizard’s booming quickly turned to blustering and ultimately did nothing to stop Dorothy and her friends from pulling back the curtain to see what secrets it hid.

  That’s because there’s something basic to human nature that wants—almost needs—to know what’s going on behind the veil. Even when the wizard turns out to be a charlatan, there’s something about a charlatan behind the veil that is far more interesting than a wizard in front of it.

  That’s why when it comes to short story collections and anthologies, my favorites have always been those filled with stories written by the late, great Dr. Isaac Asimov. I know that sounds terribly disjointed, but stay with me for a moment. Did I seek out the good doctor’s collections because he wrote such wonderful stories? (He did, there’s no question about that.)

  No, the reason those collections enthralled me so was because Asimov always took the time to write anywhere from a few lines to a few paragraphs about each story. The story behind his stories.

  To get a glimpse into Asimov’s mind, to find out what he was trying to accomplish, or why he wrote a particular story, or the trials and tribulations the story endured on its way to publication—that fascinated me. I couldn’t get enough. And given how much I have always loved stories—long, short, printed, on the big screen, it doesn’t matter; I just love stories—the opportunity to be a fly on Isaac Asimov’s wall was a beautiful gift.

  Why, maybe it was that secret part of my soul that, even at the age of fourteen, longed to be a writer, a storyteller. Or maybe it was nothing more than the fundamental aspect of human nature that simply relishes feeling like we’re “in” on someone else’s secrets. Or maybe it was: C) all of the above. Did it matter? Not really. Not to me. I freely admit I was addicted.

  To me the best stories have a life of their own. They breathe, they think, they move, and in so doing they move me. You should also have no trouble, then, understanding why it was absolutely necessary, once I had found these living, breathing stories, to find out how they came to be born and what kinds of lives they’ve led before arriving on my doorstep.

  The problem, I must confess, is that I enjoy these moments of insight so much that sometimes, going back to Asimov’s collections, for instance, I’d go through his books and read all the essays before I read any of the stories.

  If you are also the kind of person who does that sort of thing, let me take this opportunity to warn you against doing so in this anthology. With this assemblage of stories, all of the authors have written their “stories behind the stories.” The catch is that some of these essays contain spoilers—tidbits of information you don’t want to know until after you’ve read the stories. That’s why the essays are published as afterwords, not introductions. Trust me when I say there are a few stories herein where you really don’t want to spoil the surprise. Just a couple, but if I tell you which ones, we both know you’ll go look. So no peeking, now. I mean it.

  The afterwords will make re-reading these stories even richer—and there are stories here that you will defini
tely want to read more than once—but let them stand on their own the first time around.

  Yes, even though they’re standing behind a curtain and the wizard just told you to pay them no attention…

  Orson Scott Card’s InterGalactic Medicine Show

  In the Eyes of the Empress’s Cat

  BY BRADLEY P. BEAULIEU

  Al-Ashmar sat cross-legged in the tent of Gadn ak Hulavar and placed his patient, a spotted cat, onto a velvet pillow. Gadn lounged on the far side of the spacious tent, puffing on his hookah and waiting for the diagnosis of his grossly thin cat.

  Al-Ashmar held his fingers near the cat’s nose. She sniffed his hand and raked her whiskers over his knuckles. When the cat raised her head and stared into his eyes, Al-Ashmar found a brown, triangle-shaped splotch in the right eye, along the left side of the green-and-gold iris. The location of the mark indicated the cat’s liver, but in this case it was the strong color that was most disturbing.

  “What have you been feeding her?” Al-Ashmar asked as he stroked the cat, noting its muscle tone.

  Gadn shrugged his massive shoulders. “Nothing. Cats find food.”

  Al-Ashmar smiled, if only to hide his annoyance. The wealthy always wanted cats of status, but when it came time to care for them, they hadn’t an idea worth its weight in sand.

  “Not this one,” Al-Ashmar said as he picked up the cat and stood, absently continuing to stroke its ears. “Please, go to the bazaar; buy a large cage and some swallows. Once a day, put her in the cage with one bird. The activity should interest her enough to induce appetite. Do this for a week and her normal eating pattern should return. If it doesn’t, send me word.”

  A bald servant boy rushed into the room and bowed deeply. “Master, if you please, there is a messenger.”