Excerpts From Nonexistent Books

Aged Chief Justice Marshall rose and read from a paper. “In the case of Worcester v. Georgia, the court finds in favor of Worcester by a vote of five yeas, one concurrence, and one nay.”

A murmur ran through the audience; the President would not be pleased with such a ruling. But the loudest complaint came from the front row, where a robed man rose and cried “”John Marshall has made his decision; now let him enforce it!” He then cast off his robe to reveal President Jackson, resplendent in his old military uniform.

Marshall, 77 years old and ill with bladder stones, rose from the bench. He removed his bifocals, his rheumy eyes narrowing. “Very well,” he said.

At his signal seven of the other eight justices rose in unison; Henry Baldwin remained seated, dissenting now as he had before. “Enforce the decision!” Marshall cried.

Justice McLean, who had concurred with the opinion but for reasons of his own, struck first. He pirouetted over the bench, long robes flowing gracefully, and lunged at the President with a drawn gavel. Jackson ducked backwards, fluidly avoiding the blow; he brought a hand up an instant later and struck the gavel from McLean’s hand. Off-balance, the justice found himself locked in a hold by the President, who then flung him roughly into the galleries where he shattered a bench on landing.

Jackson had used only a single arm to defend himself, the other resting on the hilt of his sword. He extended his arm abd beckoned the other justices tauntingly on.

Infuriated, Marshall banged his gavel; justices Johnson, Duvall, Story, and Thompson attacked as one. The first three vaulted over the bench much like McLean had, while Thompson instead made a 10-yard vertical jump toward the chandelier. With a single hand as before, Jackson swatted Johnson aside, striking him on the throat, sweeping his legs out from under him, and then seizing his judicial robes and flinging him at the others. Duvall dodged the flying, flailing Johnson and swept behind the President, seizing both his arms as Story attempted to pummel him into submission.

President Jackson kicked himself off the floor, planting both boots on Story’s chest and then giving him a mighty kick, which had the dual effect of launching Story through one of the chamber windows and somersaulting the President over Duvall’s back. With that momentum, Jackson was able to blast Duvall through the domed ceiling; there was a distant splash as the Justice landed in the Potomac.

At that moment, Thompson descended from the chandelier. As he picked up speed, he cast open his robes to reveal eight razor-sharp silver gavels clutched between his fingers. Jackson bobbed and weaved as the weapons buried themselves in the chamber floor, but was struck a glancing blow by Thompson when he landed. Jackson quickly regained his balance and somersaulted up to the vistor gallery, where he perched by his bootheels on one of the railings.

Enraged, Thompson produced more gavels and flung them in a whirling metal storm of death. Jackson, finally deigning to use his other hand, unsheathed his sword and swatted each of the hundreds of projectiles aside easily, diverting them back toward their source. The flat of one blade struck Thomspon on the bridge of his nose and he collapsed, unconscious.

President Jackson held out his saber, pointing it at Marshall in a defiant gesture. “Let him enforce it!”

The Chief Justice shot up, not leaping so much as flying, and landed on Jackson’s very blade, balancing easily on the razor edge. From somewhere deep in his robes he unsheathed the golden two-handed Ur-Gavel, richly engraved with eagles, crackling with raw judicial energy. According to legend, it could not be resheathed without establishing constitutional precedent.

The two men regarded each other for a moment, and then the real battle began.

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Aureliana Aldalgisa came not from the aristocratic Old Families or the plebian Newtowners but the grey space in between, people with enough of the Gift to succeed in the bureaucracy of the Sorcerous Republick but without the connections or influence to make that possible. Her ancestors included a member of the Council, albeit one who had served only briefly and resigned under a cloud, as well as a prominent revolutionary in the failed Newtown Uprising. With a father in Republick service as a clerk, a mother who taught basic cantrips at a local finishing school, and three older sisters, Aureliana would have seemed destined for a minor teaching assignment, a civil service post, or a life as a homemaker.

One wouldn’t have expected her to become one of the most notorious sorcerous criminals in the Republick.

A voracious reader with natural talents in the Gift that far outstripped her family and peers, Aureliana was frequently left unsupervised and had little opportunity to distinguish herself without powerful connections. She turned inward instead, researching arcane lore and eventually various forbidden arts, mostly in the areas of divination and transfiguration. Investigators from the Republick Bureau believe that Aureliana’s original plan was to abduct a member of an Old Family and assume their place, using her increasingly sophisticated and dark skills to maintain the charade.

Working out of a squalid apartment she had purchased, Aureliana’s first attempt apparently met with disaster. Rather than allowing her to assume the aspect and knowledge of victims (mostly members of minor Old Families who had fallen from grace and were eking out livings in Newtown), they were instead reduced to incorporeal shades with only the barest connection to the material world in the form of a small quantity of “essential salts.”

Based on the Bureau’s investigation, they believe that Aureliana became obsessed with the unintended consequences of her sorcery and the absolute control it offered over the shades of her victims. There were 35 vials of “essential salts” in her possession when she was apprehended after a lengthy investigation; while the disappearances had piqued the Bureau’s interest, it wasn’t until she attempted to send a shade out into the city that Aureliana was discovered. Her ultimate ambition, it seems, remained the same.

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The precinct doors flew open, and a squat figure entered flanked by uniformed officers (well, perhaps they were more following than flanking, given how much of the corridor the man took up). An officer offered him a chair opposite the negotiation team; the man shook his head and pointed to a nearby loveseat, the one that had been in the office ever since Josie in dispatch had been pregnant. When it was wrestled into place, the man settled into it like an oversized armchair, leaving little room on either side.

“Sherman Gregward?” Chief Strong said.

The man tossed his head, with its dark hair thinning in front and gathered into a ponytail in back. “That’s me. Sherwood Greg, if you prefer. Collector, scholar, dungeon master, level 24 elven sorceress, and head of the Council of Twelve and overall coordinator for Nerdicon.”

“Mr. Gregward,”Strong said. “I assume you’ve heard about the events at SciCon earlier today?”

“SciCon’s a competitor, but a respected one,” Sherwood Greg replied. “I’ve deigned to attend on occasion, when campaigning is slow. I hear they went and got their guest of honor kidnapped.”

“Nestor Pressman, who played…” Strong looked at the sheet in front of him. “Captain Why of Timeship Omega in the 1983-87 tv series TimeTrek Wars.”

“Don’t patronize me, captain,” Greg sniffed.” I know Pressman. He was at Nerdicon three times before he went to the other side.”

“We’re had no luck in finding the kidnapper or kidnappers, and the demands that were left for us are, well, incomprehensible.”

“So you brought in an expert. Smart.” Greg waved an outstretched hand; Strong gave him a copy of the dossier with the cut and paste ransom note:

BR1|\|9 Ph1\/3 |-|U|\|DR3D 7|-|0U54|\|D d0LL4R5 (45|-| 4 (0/\/\PL373 1985 5(1-(0|\| (0/\/\/\/\3/\/R471\/3 (0LL3(710|\| 7|-|3 L057 3P150D3 0Ph 71/\/\3-7R3|<-\/\/4R5 4|\|D 4LB3R7 /\/\3LL5731|\|'5 5(R33|\| 7357 Ph0R (R'/P7 r0BB3R 70 7|-|3 (17'/ bU5 73R/\/\1|\|4L b'/ 319|-|7 70/\/RR0\/\/ 0R pR355/\/\4|\| 15 0U7 0Ph 71/\/\3

“It’s gibberish,” Strong said.

Greg glanced at it. “Bring $500,000 cash, a complete 1985 SciCon commemorative collection, the lost episode of TimeTrek Wars and Albert Mellstein’s screen test for Crypt Robber to the city bus terminal by eight tomorrow or Pressman is out of time,” he read.

“H-how did you…?”

“Child’s play. I’ve decoded leetspeak twice as hardcore before second breakfast. And before you ask: the 1985 SciCon commemorative collection is a legendarily rare swag bag from the first convention of which only 5 are known to exist, the lost episode of TimeTrek Wars was filmed but never edited just before the series was canceled in 1987 with only a few black and white stills known to survive, and after he won an Oscar Albert Mellstein was so anxious to cover up that he tried out for the lead of Crypt Robber that he bought and publically burned the negative.”

Strong’s jaw hung agape.

“See? You picked the right man for the job. Also, that last bit? Captain Why’s catchphrase was ‘we’re never out of time’ in the show. You’re welcome.”

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“You selfish, self-important bastard!” Konrad the navigator cried. “You’d put the lives of our entire crew, and their families, in the hands of that…thing? That computer? I refuse to have any part in the dismantling of my bridge!”

“Please, Alik,” Captain Lebedev said. “There’s no need for this.”

“There is!” Konrad roared, stabbing a finger at Berenty. “Surely there is! We’ve put up with this bully for too long, all of us! Now the safety of this ship—of your families—is at risk! Who else will stand up with me?”

Berenty said nothing; there was a curiously neutral expression on his face.

“Step down, you fool,” Lebedev hissed at Konrad.

“No, I will not!” continued Konrad. “I’ve seen enough! Good men turned into lapdogs, just like in the old days, armed men down every corridor, and the stink of fear for everyone. You, Grisha Sergeyevich Berenty, will be the death of everyone aboard.”

“You are correct,” Berenty said, suddenly. He shrugged.

“What?” said Konrad.

Lebedev later theorized that Berenty’s shrug must have been a prearranged signal, for the next moment Korenchkin had unlimbered his AKS and leveled it at Konrad. He snapped off a tight burst of shots, filling the room with a deafening report and an overwhelming stink of gunpowder. Konrad’s chest was reduced to a swamp of frothy blood; the navigator toppled to the floor without a sound.

“No!” Lebedev cried. He rushed to his fallen officer and tried to step the flow of blood with his own crumpled captain’s jacket, but it was too late. Konrad had bled to death and the light had gone out of his eyes after no more than a few seconds.

“Yes, he was correct!” Berenty shouted. “I will indeed be the death of everyone aboard if they do not do as they are told! I will be the death of every traitor, every malcontent, every wrecker the miserable lot of you has to offer! We are engaged in a great work here, and every one of us is expendable to further the cause!”

Thick hands seized the captain’s collar and hauled him upright. “You and your crew will be retained as advisors in case of a temporary malfunction of the Elbrus,” said Berenty. “Unless, of course, any of you feel some solidarity with the late Officer Konrad?”

Burning, seething hatred bubbled at the captain’s temples and threatened to turn his vision red. But with great effort, he restrained himself—it would do no good for anyone if he were to end up like Konrad. “No, colonel,” Lebedev said, almost in a monotone.

“Are you sure of that, captain?” asked Berenty. “You seemed rather emotional a moment ago when your man got his nine grams ten times over.”

“I have never lost a man under my command,” Lebedev said. “I fear for how his rash actions will reflect upon me.”

Berenty grinned. “Worry not, captain! Your own conduct has been exemplary. Get yourself cleaned up.”

“Yes, colonel,” said Lebedev, and he slunk away to his quarters—beaten, but alive. From his window, he saw Mikoyan and Korenchkin fling Konrad’s body into the sea, and bitter, helpless tears burned on his cheeks.

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“Come in, come in.” The manager was an orc; that much was clear even without looking at him. He had a UV light near his desk to help nourish the chloroplasts that gave his skin its deep emerald hue, and had a small but functional shield—more a targe, really—painted with his clade’s distinctive glyph was hung prominently on the wall.

As he rose to greet Sheniqua she could see a small, dull axe—about tomahawk size— dangling from his belt. That and the targe represented him following the letter of the Hamurabash if not its spirit: an orcish male or unmarried female was always to carry their axe and have their shield close by.

“Now, Ms. Washington, what can I do for you?” This particular orc, a Mr. Shamash to judge from his name plate, had apparently gone to greater lengths than most to function comfortably within a polyspecies world. He’d either filed down or removed the large canine teeth, so necessary for proper Hamuraorg speech, that made many orcs appear to slobber or growl when they tried to speak other languages. Shamash had given himself a speech impediment among his own people to communicate better with outsiders.

He also had close-cropped, well-groomed (if receding) hair. While there was nothing in the Hamurabash about one’s hair, cultural traditions led most orcs to take an all-or-nothing approach, either letting their hair grow unchecked and dreadlocked or keeping it shaven billiard-smooth. With a little foundation makeup and a bit of nose putty, he could have passed for human or perhaps half-dwarf.

Sheniqua couldn’t help but wonder if she would be willing to live under the strictures of the Hamurabash or use a dental prosthesis to give out bank loans in the orc homeland.

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Irene Keruk Qikiqtagruk was seated in a rocking chair, wrapped in a shawl and threadbare quilts. She smiled at the guests, bright eyes shining behind thick glasses seeming to belong to a woman much younger than 101.

“I’ll put some tea on,” her granddaughter said. “Give you a moment alone. But like I told you, she doesn’t speak much anymore. And never of the…unpleasantness.”

Adrienne sat down on the couch nearby and gestured for the others to find seats. “That’s a lovely quilt you’ve got there,” she said, gesturing to Irene’s wrappings. “Did you make that?”

“It is kind of you to pretend to care about my old sewing.” Irene’s voice was soft but surprisingly deep, issuing from some great well in her weak frame. “You hope to get me talking and turn things to the unpleasantness. It is the way of all the more considerate people who come to visit.”

The reporter’s face fell. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I suppose there’s not much I can say to change your mind, is there?”

Irene’s expression turned thoughtful. “When I walked however many miles it was over the ice, after everyone had died, I promised myself that I would never speak of what had happened as long as I lived.” She laughed. “I did not expect it to be so long. It’s been almost ten years since the last person came to ask, and somehow I do not think I will last another ten. Tell me what you know, and I will think about filling in some of the blank spots.”

“You, your parents, and your uncle were recruited by a Canadian man to participate in the Imperial Arctic Expedition of 1914,” Adrienne said carefully. “Your ship was trapped in ice, drifted into Russian waters, and crushed. There was…unpleasantness…among the expedition members, and you and your parents followed a group to Kellett Island while the others made for Tikegen Island. You walked nearly fifty miles to Tikegen, alone, nearly a year later to find the others just before they were rescued by an American icebreaker, and you refused to discuss what had happened.”

Irene laughed. “You are too kind in leaving out the juiciest part,” she said over the whistle of a teakettle in the kitchen. “When they searched Kellett Island, they found what was left of the people who I had departed with. All dead, even though they had shelter and supplies enough to last a whole year.”

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“Sid Fleek, Majordomo Used Motors.” Sid’s smile was casual, natural, unlike the forced leer of most used car salesmen. “I bet you’re thinking that it would take a pretty cold day in Hell to get you driving one of these junkers for free, much less paying for one.”

The customer nodded. “Yeah. I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Like a Florida citrus grove,” Sid continued. “Lemons everywhere, none that would even get you to the grocery store on a Sunday.”

“I dunno, that Volvo doesn’t look as bad as, say, that Chevy,” the customer said, indicating a rustbucket Vega on lot’s edge.

Fifteen minutes later, he was leaving the lot in the driver’s seat of that selfsame Volvo as Sid finished the paperwork with a flourish.

“How do you do it, Sid?” Dean Fleidermann, one of the transport drivers, said. “That Volvo’s got a bad transmission and a cooling system that’s older than Betty White but with fewer active fans.”

“The secret is making them think it’s their idea. Just like with women. And children. And the elderly. And pansexual life partners. And animals.”

Dean shook his head. “That’s skill. So why are you slumming it at Majordomo? You don’t even make enough here to stay afloat; where’s that you’re moonlighting these days?”

“Bernstein Bros. Towing and Repossession Services. We take nice things from deadbeats who don’t like paying for them. I get to sneak around, unarmed, and repo the shit out of everything from diamonds to Mitsubishi Diamantes.”

“That sounds like the worst job in the world, man. You really need to grab the classifieds some day. “Dean wandered off, still shaking his head.

The cell in Sid’s desk rang. Not his personal phone, or his business phone. The other phone.

“We’ve got a client who wants a cherry Chrysler TC, red, with less than 100,000 miles acquired as soon as possible,” a voice said. “Pay is 100k with a 20k bonus for speed if you can get it by the end of the week. No questions asked; customer will generate title and paperwork if necessary.”

“A TC…Maserati body with a Detroit engine. Worst of both worlds.”

“Apparently it’s a gift. Client’s brother always wanted one and turns 50 next week.”

“I’m in. Drop the details at the usual location.” Sid ended the call. Selling used cars and repossessing things may not be glamorous, he mused, but they kept his edge sharp for the real work to be done.

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The object was first noticed by a US early warning system designed to detect intercontinental ballistic missiles; it was flagged as an error as the trajectory, speed, and destination were well outside the parameters for a nuclear strike. What possible use would there be in firing a missile at remote Bouvet Island in the South Atlantic, especially if the telemetry that indicated the object came from a lunar orbit was to be believed.

But remembering the Vela Incident of 1979, which may or may not have been a covert nuclear test, the US government duly warned Norway, which administered the remote and glacial rock in question. Bouvet Island was uninhabited but did feature an advanced weather station complete with a satellite link and video feed; the Norwegian government made this data available to the US as the object approached. It recorded impossible atmospheric conditions, a surge of radiation, and what appeared to be infrared or ultraviolet lights in the sky before the transmission was abruptly terminated. The object disappeared from scopes immediately afterward.

Unable to image the site due to heavy cloud cover, the light vessel USS Eldridge was dispatched to investigate with a hastily assembled American-Norwegian survey team aboard. Upon reaching a distance of approximately 6.2832km from Bouvet, contact with the Eldridge was lost after a few badly distorted final transmissions. A few pieces of debris traceable to the ship washed up on the coast of South Africa some months later. A second ship, the frigate HMAS Darwin, sought to investigate at the request of the American and Norwegian governments after the Eldridge vanished. It too vanished on reaching a position 6.2832km from shore.

With over 300 people now missing near Bouvet, any further attempts at investigation were suspended. Instead, several spy satellites equipped with radar and other advanced telemetry were moved to orbits above the island. In each case, the satellites malfunctioned shortly after arriving on station, as if they had been affected by a powerful electromagnetic pulse. Intense analysis of the fragmentary data seemed to indicate some kind of new construction on Bouvet and a series of bizarre trenches in the glaciers there. The designs and patterns of the structures and glacial trenches, such as they could be discerned, matched no known architecture.

Since that time, despite rampant speculation, no satellites, ships, or aircraft have approached Bouvet by order of the International Maritime Organization. Private vessels have attempted landings, often at the behest of fringe groups, but all have disappeared with only the occasional bit of scattered wreckage to attest their fate.

Whoever or whatever landed on Bouvet has not sought to interfere, but will brook no interference itself.

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As sensational a bestseller as Dalva’s book was, its success was quickly sullied by lawsuits. After its 10th straight week on the New York Times bestseller list, a representative of Kyoto Processed Ricepaper Concerns Press filed a suit claiming that A Lone Red Tree had been plagiarized from Jina Himenashi’s novel 偽翻訳 (roughly “red tree standing among dead chrysanthemum blossoms”), which had been published a full six weeks earlier.

Dalva protested that he couldn’t read Japanese, and his lawyer added that while 偽翻訳 had been a Japanese bestseller there were no records of copies being sold or shipped overseas. Himenashi’s legal team presented a compelling argument, displaying translated excerpts of 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree side-by-side. With suitable differences to account for the differences in language structure, the descriptions and events were largely identical.

Particularly damning was the central piece of Dalva’s prose, which told of “a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts.” The comparable phrase of Himenasi’s novel, “いない本物の英語日本語への翻訳,” meant essentially the same thing without definite articles and dead cherry trees where Dalva had conifers. The central thrust of each plot, with a protagonist haunted by the image of that tree until they seek it out and are driven mad in the attempt, was also the same, save that Dalva’s title was set in his native Portland and Himenashi’s tale began in Sapporo.

A guilty verdict and a massive recall of Dalva’s book—to say nothing of a black eye for the press and reviewers behind it—seemed inevitable. But then a representative of Spanish author Cristobal Carminha came forward, claiming that the book Un solitario árbol rojo, which had been a modest seller in Galacia, was a dead match for both 偽翻訳 and Lone Red Tree and predated either by almost a year. The trial broke up in disarray not long after as the judge demanded a more thorough investigation.

Agents for the publishers in question soon found that no less than 150 books had been written in the previous two years featuring the haunting, maddening image of a single red tree standing in a dead forest ringed by forever stormfronts. Most had been rejected by publishers, but over 40 had made it into print in everything from vanity editions to professional bound copies.

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While there had been a flourishing trade with the outside world at times in the past, the ascension of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1603 gradually put an end to that. The Tokugawa shoguns recognized the need for trade and technology but were deeply suspicious of foreigners, and viewed Christianity in particular as a threat to the shogun’s authority. As such, outside trade was gradually curtailed until the Sakoku-rei or “closed-country edict” prohibited Westerners from entering, Japanese from leaving, and Catholics from existing.

A single area, Dejima Island in Nagasaki harbor, remained open to Portuguese and later Dutch traders, who were able to realize astounding profits of 50% or more at the cost of being confined to the small island and bound by a draconian set of procedural rules. But, as with the rest of the world, there were many adventurers from other areas—England, France, Scandinavia—who were unwilling to abide by those restrictions. After all, Japan had developed a taste for eyeglasses, firearms, astrolabes, coffee, chocolate, and other items that could only be obtained overseas.

The remaining Christians in Japan—persecuted, occasionally in open rebellion, and often driven underground—were a particularly lucrative source of income, as they had nowhere else to obtain crucifixes and weapons (and many of the illicit traders fancied themselves defending the faith in addition to making a profit). Their seamanship and swordpoints honed by the constant inter-European naval warfare of the period, these privateers were formidable smugglers.

Naturally, the Tokugawa shogunate was not helpless in the face of such unwanted foreign incursion. To maintain the fiction that Japan was inviolate, and to exercise the immediate death sentence the law proscribed for unauthorized foreigners on Japanese soil, the shogunate employed a network of coastwatchers and spies. Lucrative rewards were quietly offered for those who discreetly informed upon Catholics or those trading illicitly with outsiders, and specially-trained shinobi-no-mono retained by the shogun from the Iga and Kōga clans were dispatched to deal with such incursions.

During the great siege of Hara Castle during the Catholic-led Shimabara Rebellion in 1637-38, for example, European privateers supplied the rebels and engaged in gunnery duels with both Japanese ships and their shinobi-no-mono crews and Dutch vessels hired by the shogun. Though few records ever existed due to the illicit and clandestine nature of the struggle, quieter and small-scale actions would be contested between smugglers and shogunate mercenaries and troops for over a hundred years until the Napoleonic Wars at the turn of the 19th century.

And that, my friends, is how the long-standing enmity between pirates and ninjas came to be.

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