* * *
Radio managed to hold herself together through the endless ceremonies of a military funeral. To tell the truth, the pomp and ceremony of it—the horse-drawn hearse, the autogyro fly-by, the lines of dignitaries and endlessly droning eulogies in the Cathedral—simply bored her to distraction. There were a couple of times when Mack had to nudge her because she was falling asleep. Also, she had to wear a dress and, sure as shooting, any of her friends who saw her in it were going to give her a royal ribbing about it when next they met.
But then came the burial. As soon as the first shovel of dirt rattled down on the coffin, Radio began blubbering like a punk. Fat Edna passed her a lace hanky—who’d even known she had such a thing?—and she mopped at her eyes and wailed.
When the last of the earth had been tamped down on the grave, and the priest turned away, and the mourners began to break up, Radio felt a hand on her shoulder. It was, of all people, Rudy the Red. He looked none the worse for his weeklong vacation from the flesh.
“Rudy,” she said, “is that a suit you’re wearing?”
“It is not the uniform of the oppressor anymore. A new age has begun, Radio, an age not of hierarchic rule by an oligarchy of detached, unfeeling intellects, but of horizontally-structured human cooperation. No longer will workers and managers be kept apart and treated differently from one another. Thanks to the selfless sacrifice of—”
“Yeah, I heard the speech you gave in the Cathedral.”
“You did?” Rudy looked strangely pleased.
“Well, mostly. I mighta slept through some of it. Listen, Rudy, I don’t want to rain on your parade, but people are still gonna be people, you know. You’re all wound up to create this Big Rock Candy Mountain of a society, and good for you. Only—you gotta be prepared for the possibility that it won’t work. I mean, ask any engineer, that’s just the way things are. They don’t always work the way they’re supposed to.”
“Then I guess we’ll just have to wing it, huh?” Rudy flashed a wry grin. Then, abruptly, his expression turned serious, and he said the very last thing in the world she would have expected to come out of his mouth: “How are you doing?”
“Not so good. I feel like a ton of bricks was dropped on me.” She felt around for Edna’s hanky, but she’d lost it somewhere. So she wiped her eyes on her sleeve. “You want to know what’s the real kicker? I hardly knew Amelia. So I don’t even know why I should feel so bad.”
Rudy took her arm. “Come with me a minute. Let me show you something.”
He led her to a gravestone that was laid down to one side of the grave, to be erected when everyone was gone. It took a second for Radio to read the inscription. “Hey! It’s just a quotation. Amelia’s name ain’t even on it. That’s crazy.”
“She left instructions for what it would say quite some time ago. I gather that’s not uncommon for flyers. But I can’t help feeling it’s a message.”
Radio stared at the words on the stone for very long time. Then she said, “Yeah, I see what you mean. But, ya know, I think it’s a different message than what she thought it would be.”
The rain, which had been drizzling off and on during the burial, began in earnest. Rudy shook out his umbrella and opened it over them both. They joined the other mourners, who were scurrying away in streams and rivulets, pouring from the cemetery exits and into the slidewalk stations and the vacuum trains, going back home to their lives and families, to boiled cabbage and schooners of pilsner, to their jobs, and their hopes, and their heartbreaks, to the vast, unknowable, and perfectly ordinary continent of the future.
“It followed that the victory would belong to him who was calmest, who shot best, and who had the cleverest brain in a moment of danger.”
—Baron Manfred von Richthofen (1892-1918)
Copyright © 2009 Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn
Audio recording generously provided by Readercon.
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday October 06, 2009 12:35pm EDT
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday October 06, 2009 01:22pm EDT
So, is Amelia Spindizzy this alt-history's Amelia Earhart?
Wednesday October 07, 2009 03:29pm EDT
Wednesday October 07, 2009 09:25pm EDT
Wednesday October 07, 2009 09:35pm EDT
VIEW ALL BY · Thursday October 08, 2009 08:36pm EDT
Given my usual tendencies, this is darned high praise for the smoothness and integration of your story.
I even enjoyed the flying/flight parts, though really, a gyrocopter competing with a fixed-wing aircraft? Well, it would make a visually appealing movie.
A great story: thanks Michael & Eileen for writing it, and Tor for making it available.
Friday October 09, 2009 02:53am EDT
Heresiarch: I like to think of Earhart as being our timeline's Amelia Spindizzy.
A. Dorrance: Glad you heard the Readercon performance: Swanwick and I are only rarely in the same place and time. It was great fun to do. There may be a tape of it somewhere.
BenHM3: You're quite right. Amelia had to rely on the element of surprise if she was ever going to knock Eszterhazy's plane out of the sky. That's why she tended to position herself between him and the sun. Also, her gyro was really noisy and erratic in flight -- but then, so was his plane.
Friday October 09, 2009 06:43am EDT
I had nearly given up the genre since it has been handed over to the dragons, swords and sandals, and feudal epics.
THIS kind of writing I can get behind, and intend to start exporing all the authors connected with it, starting with an old favorite, Gibson.
THANK YOU Mr. Swanwick and Ms. Gunn and TOR.COM for opening my eyes, and giving me back a sense of wonder!
VIEW ALL BY · Friday October 09, 2009 06:44am EDT
gxianfranko
VIEW ALL BY · Friday October 09, 2009 10:16am EDT
Friday October 09, 2009 10:34am EDT
VIEW ALL BY · Friday October 09, 2009 01:51pm EDT
I enjoyed every aspect of this story - my only complaint would be that it isn't long enough. I'm totally ready for a novel length version of it, or a novel length story set before the fall of the brains.
Great job, thank you for writing it that I should be able to read it.
VIEW ALL BY · Saturday October 10, 2009 01:34pm EDT
Saturday October 10, 2009 04:51pm EDT
likwidoxigen - I hesitate to post a spoiler, but you can get the drift from pages 11 and 13.
Wednesday October 21, 2009 09:32pm EDT
VIEW ALL BY · Friday October 30, 2009 11:34am EDT
VIEW ALL BY · Tuesday November 10, 2009 01:17am EST
Thursday November 19, 2009 02:22pm EST
Good story!