The Rubber Glove Theory of the Universe, and Other Diversions By: Walter Shawlee 2 Sphere Research Corporation Contents Copyright: 1994, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2009, 2010 by Sphere Research Corporation All Rights Reserved Cover Photo courtesy of the ISS/NASA ISBN: 978-0-557-36993-5 Available though LuLu.com Also http://www.sphere.bc.ca/document.html Page 1 Contents Before... Warcorp Miranda Father & Son Images Surplus Store Evening Kiss The Rubber Glove Theory of the Universe Magic Vacation Small Signs Maxine PRA Night Event Into the Dark The Man on the Beach Feelings When the Music’s Over After... The Black Path Page 2 Before: hort stories have one truly redeeming value. They let you explore something interesting without making you wade through 350 S questionable pages in order to actually do that simple task. Not so unexpectedly, their most irritating feature is that they may end just as you are starting to feel right at home there. Well, I just can’t help that part; short stories are, after all, short. These stories are a series of small commando forays into the global bureaucracy of the future, a private look inside the mind of an ancient king, a quick but hopefully cogent explanation of how the universe really works and a field exercise in practical magic. You will get a chance to poke around in the future courtesy of a convenient motel room, die in several very unpleasant ways, and hopefully feel your heart break. You will visit life after death here, encounter voodoo criminals and maybe fall in love with a machine. These are the smiling reflected faces in shop windows that you have always wanted to know more about, and some of the dreams that you had trouble remembering after you woke up. These stories are not exactly science fiction, and not exactly fantasy. They are just how the ideas came out once I started to think about them. The mechanics aren’t very important; the message is really all about the content. This is my chance to thank all of you, close and distant, for my life. There is a lot more to tell you, but we will appropriately leave that for after. Page 3 WARCORP This story was originally written for Jerry Cutler, Friend, Probably the world’s best Bell 212 pilot, professional scoundrel and inventor of the phrase: O-Dark Thirty, used to describe getting up way too damned early. Site 2: Lac La Ronge, Saskatchewan. Contract war between Argentina & The United Kingdom n exhausted Argentinean soldier in wrinkled tan fatigues hunched down on the sparse grassy plain outside of Lac La Ronge, sweating nervously despite the dry and bitter cold. The advance scout tried A for the fifth time to force the cumbersome 30 round banana clip into his Oerlikon assault rifle, without any visible signs of success. He heard the regular, slow rotor beat of a helicopter gunship approaching, and threw the useless rifle and mud-clogged clip into the marshy grass and dived frantically for cover behind the few scrub trees. He prayed to a variety of Latin patron saints that the British were enroute to the main fighting, and weren't interested in him and his currently ineffective firepower. The dark camouflage colored Westland combat helicopter raced by his position at over 180 knots, only a few meters above the ground, but didn't loiter. The Union Jack roundel on the fuselage faded from sight as Page 4 the ship dipped into a ravine by the shoreline of Lac La Ronge. After they were gone, he scrambled out to retrieve his weapon, the blue and gold Argentine shoulder flash on his jacket catching the last brief moment of afternoon light. He levered the curved clip out of the rifle and inspected the jammed mechanism with disgust. He began to blow into the chamber, trying to shake out anything that was lodged in the breech, cursing steadily while absorbed in the process, when the helicopter suddenly returned above the ravine and backtracked directly over his now fully exposed position. The pilot saw his quarry suddenly appear highlighted in the FLIR scanning sight, and called out to the gunner to arm the ordnance, while he put the ship into a stable hover with the Stability Augmentation System to allow a clean shot. A Wizard anti-personnel heat-seeker flashed to the ground, and the Argentinean soldier, still cursing the jammed rifle, was gone in a second. The pilot signaled the kill to his unit's flight command on a secure VHF tactical comm channel, and veered the ship back to his unit. He held his gloved hand in a thumbs up salute to the gunner, and pushed the cyclic forward towards their field hangar. The afternoon sun was chilly in Saskatchewan, since fall at this latitude in Canada looks a lot like winter everywhere else, so the pilot turned up the bleed air cabin heat in the cockpit, and wished once again he had remembered earlier to put on some extra socks. Page 5 Thousands of miles overhead, a geostationary surveillance satellite positioned at 55 degrees north latitude produced a concise, if somewhat poorly detailed, image set of the encounter, and sent it in burst telemetry to a ground station below for analysis. One of the pictures would make up part of a photo collage on page six of that Friday’s London Times, with a short sidebar outlining the progress of the week's combat for those following the battle. In the staging area just outside of Lac La Ronge, the Syrians were quickly building up their forces through massive airlifts, and were expected to be at full combat strength within two weeks. The Free Lebanese forces that they would soon meet were quartered 150 kilometers to the west, busily engaged in the same activities, with substantial financial and logistic assistance from the Saudis. There was a lot of speculation that both forces would be at a severe disadvantage because of the Canadian climate and terrain conditions, but no other time slot or location was available quickly, and their disagreement evidently wouldn't wait. They had opted for full saturation coverage of the conflict to be broadcast back to their countries. It would require seven satellites, four ground stations and virtually all the spare transponders in the Mediterranean/middle east relay area. Warcorp had arranged all the technical details with their usual dispatch, and the show would be exceptional in its detail and coverage. Page 6 Real-Time: Toronto General Hospital dward Saavin was very close to death, and he could feel the pain spread like warm suffocation in his chest. Unlike many people who fear and loathe death, he had made his personal accommodation with the world gracefully, and accepted the idea of Ehis dying with no particular regret. He had no sudden desire to own someone else's second-hand heart for a few more years of re-cycled and badly faded life. He was fully satisfied with his own. He had enjoyed his sins hugely, and was grateful for his chances to make other people happy. He had loved three women to the very best of his ability, savoring everything about them. One had given him two sons that he was well pleased with, and enough good memories to last for whatever duration purgatory might eventually involve. He reached out and pressed the call button by his hospital bed, and waited for the watch nurse to appear. She was there within a few seconds, and took his instruction to get his youngest son, who had been waiting patiently out in the hall for him to regain consciousness. His son walked in, and slipped off the overcoat he was wearing. He smiled slightly, and took the old man's right hand in both of his. The two of them regarded each other for a few minutes without speaking, and their gray eyes and strong faces looked like still photos of the same man, taken forty years apart. Page 7 "I love you." Benjamin Saavin said quietly. His father relaxed slightly, not knowing what he had expected to hear, but pleased it had not been something idle, or foolish in their last few minutes together. "David will be here later tonight, his flight gets in from Singapore in a few hours." he continued, speaking about his fractionally older twin brother. Benjamin sat on the edge of the bed, and ran his hand through his father's hair, pushing it out of his face, where the thick silver hair had fallen slightly over his brow. He thought to himself that the man who had, in essence, franchised global warfare, looked surprisingly peaceful and untroubled this evening. Edward felt the pressure inside his chest getting worse, so he sat up slightly against the pillows, and spoke quietly to his son. "John, I don't think I'll get a chance to see David tonight, so you tell him how I feel, please." He stopped for a minute to let the pressure in his chest ease enough to let him talk again. "Try and remember the real lessons, son. Always leave both your friends and enemies with their honor and their dignity intact. Always leave them their own lives and self-respect, no matter how bitter the fight or how deep the love. The two of you will become great men, because you will never be satisfied with less, but in the end it will surely come to nothing if you forget that." He shifted slightly on the bed, trying to ease the growing pressure on his chest, but it was like a blue- white star trying to pass through him.