Tobias S. Buckell - Tides From the New Worlds

Table of Contents

Introduction

by Mike Resnick

The first time I met Tobias Buckell was in the wilds of Michigan, where I was teaching at Clarion, that unique course for embryonic science fiction writers. There were some very bright, very talented people in that class; I think more than half have already broken into print, but Tobias made a very special impression. They all listened, but he assimilated. You could just look at his face and say to yourself: Hey, this stuff is getting through to him. He was the youngest member of the class, and by far the hardest-working.

Hed hand in a 6,000-word story, and the class would criticize it, sometimes brutally. And while they were each taking a week or more to hone their 5,000-worders, there Tobias would be the next morning, unshaken and undeterred, with a brand-new story... and it wasnt a one-time phenomenon. Tobias produced a new story every day that I was there and he had a learning curve you wouldnt believe. I could see a difference in just the week that I was there and what he produced that week was light-years ahead of the stories he had written to gain admission to the program.

He had an interesting background. He was raised in the Caribbean, and there was a strong flavor of it in some of his stories. He had a work ethic you couldnt help but admire. And he clearly had skill.

We became friends, and when the course was over I told him to keep in touch and let me know how he was doing. Well, by now everyone knows: sale after sale, a continuous trajectory of improvement, and finally a nomination for the Campbell Award, science fictions Rookie of the Year award.

Along the way I bought some of the stories in this book for anthologies I was editing, and I collaborated with him on another. At the 2001 Worldcon in Philadelphia, I introduced him to an agent I thought would fit him, and sure enough, he soon sold his first novel to Tor Books.

This young mans got a hell of a future ahead of him. But hes also got a very impressive present, so its probably time for me to stop telling you about it and let you experience it for yourself.

Enjoy. I certainly did.

The Fish Merchant

Since I was in sixth grade Id been drawing spaceships taking off not from gantries, but from island harbors (I lived aboard yachts in the islands as a kid). While I had used some early island settings, a lot of my early SF aped the SF I was reading; galactic empires, apocalyptic vistas, and so on. But I began to add pieces of Caribbean background to roughly a third of my stories when I started getting serious about writing. I was using a character, or a place, or certainly inspiration from island history and anecdotes. As someone with Caribbean roots and background, I really wanted to bring these themes to my favorite genre.

I sat down to write this story while trying to bring all that together. So I added one Steppin Razor kind of badass (Pepper), a non-Caribbean but non-Western locale (China), adventure genre action, and a twist on a traditional SF trope (first contact). It was a heady rush: this was exactly the sort of thing I wanted to read.

It was my first professionally published short story, appearing in the magazine Science Fiction Age and also getting me into the prestigious Science Fiction and Fantasy workshop Clarion. Both of these events were to jump start my writing career, so it makes a certain sense to include this story as the first.

Li Hao-Chang, standing in front of a colorful array of fresh-caught fish, bargains with a Cantonese peasant over the price of yellow-tailed snapper. Where the Wharf tapers out, and the harbor is too shallow for the larger trawlers, the fish market thrives over a patch of old concrete and dirt.

The peasant finally offers enough yuan to satisfy Li.

Xie xie, Li thanks the peasant, wrapping the fish up in old newspaper. The edge of the newspaper catches Lis eye.

Signals From Outer Space, it reads.

Li doesnt much care. All men can be awed by discovery, for Li there is selling fish. He has to make enough to pay rent, to eat, and to save. If he doesnt sell enough fish for rent, the local thugs come over to beat him up. If he doesnt make enough to eat, his wife goes hungry, and if he cant save, hell never be able to leave Macau and the smell of fish that seems to taint his life.

The frenzied noise dips slightly near the stall. Li looks up from tossing ice on the fish to see what it is. A dark figure in a duster, moving through the fish stalls with a quiet confidence.

Pepper.

The man called Pepper stops and sniffs. Li knows the air he sniffs is alive with fish, and street sewer, and sweat. And something else. On the edge of all the sandpapery shark and still croaking grouper is the smell of fear.

Li Hao-Chang watches Pepper carefully. Li stands nervously behind his untreated plywood table glistening with fish juices, and keeps his eyes averted.

Maybe the mercenary senses something, maybe his reflexes are keyed up beyond belief, a soup of tailored chemicals thudding through his bloodstreams. Maybe he is about to reach beneath the heavy folds of his dark gray oilskin duster and pull out a massive shotgun.

Peppers steely gray eyes roll over the street and bore into Li Hao Chang.

Afternoon, Hao-Chang.

His voice is as artificially gray as his eyes. All are carefully designed with respect in mind. Li knows Pepper sure as hell isnt here to buy grouper.

Afternoon, Mr. Pepper.

Li is careful to keep conversation at a minimum. Pepper is usually not out in the street to chat.

Pepper looks around the surrounding stalls, his presence cutting though the babble of the crowd. The kaleidoscope of multi-racial faces washes past Lis table, their differences slight in comparison to Peppers own contrasting strangeness. Rastafarian mercenaries do not seem to belong in any landscape, let alone Macau. His leather duster hangs low, the soft rain running off in rivulets and his half dreadlocks are tied back into a ponytail.

Li notices slight movement in the far distance, the crowd jostled by someone, and his ears catch the distant delayed puff of a silenced weapon. Peppers body jerks sideways, and he crumples to the sidewalk. A peasant hurries past, ducking. The man who steps forward out of the crowd pockets his gun, then leans over. Li can hear the distinctive British lilt.

Oy. Hes down.

A silver armored Rolls Royce with tinted windows quickly parts the wave of panicked fish buyers. The rear doors open forward, and the mercenary is pulled across the cement, up into the car. The Brit has enough grafted muscle to have trouble getting into the Rolls.

Li looks down at spotted grouper and waits for the Rolls to leave. When he looks back up there is only an empty sidewalk in front of his table.

Ni hao, he mutters to himself. The sidewalk is not entirely empty. A small disk lies near a puddle of thickening blood, already rust colored against the dirty cracked concrete of the wharf.

Li darts out to pick it up. Pepper haunts the wharf regularly. If Li does him a favor and saves the disk, then maybe Pepper will do him a favor.

The disk, covered in green symbols Li doesnt understand, makes a snick sound as he picks it up. He looks down at his finger to see a point of blood, and thinks maybe he has cut his finger on a piece of glass.

Li Hao-Chang returns to his stall and puts the case into his purse. Maybe Pepper will pay him yuan for the case.

If Pepper returns, he thinks, dabbing at the cut with a piece of newspaper.

But Li has faith in Pepper. Pepper gives off a mystique of calculated invincibility. Pepper walks the Wharf, and the Wharf stays away from him. All the local gangs, no matter what color. Tan Italian, pale American, each learn Peppers skills the hard way. They never try again.