Science Fiction
The Giving Plague
You think you’re going to get me, don’t you? Well, you’ve got another think coming, ‘cause I’m ready for you.
You think you’re going to get me, don’t you? Well, you’ve got another think coming, ‘cause I’m ready for you.
Once upon a time, to a family of house mice there was born a son named Gordon. He looked very much like his father and mother and all his brothers and sisters, who were gray and had bright, twitchy, black eyes, but what went on inside Gordon was very different from what went on inside the rest of his family.
“I’m gonna visit Dad.” Matt is curled in the passenger seat of their antique minivan, scowling as offworlders tromp and slither past their front bumper. Shooting a glance at Ruthie through long, pretty eyelashes, he flips down the visor to check the mirror.
A hundred years ago, the blind instrument-maker known as Alem Das, or Alem the Master, made a dulcimer whose sound was sweeter, more passionate, and more filled with longing than any instrument that had ever been made.
There is such a thing as an antifuse. This device is used to maintain the ongoing flow of electricity when there is local failure. The antifuse works similarly to a fuse in that it is designed to be sacrificed for a specific goal. But while a fuse is sacrificed to stop electricity from flowing, an antifuse is sacrificed to guarantee that the electricity does not stop.
“Heresy,” he told me. The brackish waters of his pool sloshed gently.
“Another one?” I said wearily. “There are so many these days.”
Let the world tell all the lies it wants; I was there in the Year of the Children, and I know the truth. This is how it happened.
My inquisitor wore a hangdog look more than earned by the absurdity of this official interview. Had I the ability to be annoyed, I didn’t even imagine I would have been. Amused? Possibly: The incompetence of these proceedings was palpable enough.