Peter F. Hamilton,Baxter,McAuley & McDonald

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FUTURES - FOUR NOVELLAS.

Contents

Introduction by Peter Crowther

Watching Trees Grow by Peter F. Hamilton

Reality Dust by Stephen Baxter

Making History by Paul McAuley

Tendeloe's Story by Ian McDonald

FOUR NOVELLAS PETER F. HAMILTON STEPHEN BAXTER PAUL MCAUUY IAN McDONAlD

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Introduction

by Peter Crowther

Let's talk about space:

Well, it makes a kind of sense, you've either bought this book (Hurrah!) or you're thumbing through it-

maybe thinking about buying it, maybe just hanging around until the counter queue disappears so you

can hit on the assistant you've been eyeing up for the past few weeks, or maybe you've just ducked into a

bookstore and you're waiting for the rain to stop. Whichever, you've still picked up what is, to all intents

and purposes (given the fairly obvious packaging), a science fiction book, so we'll take it as read you've

got some kind of interest in space.

So we'll move forward a little.

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Do you remember who first took you into space? Because, let's face it, we've all been up there, either via

the printed page, the movie theater or the TV set. So who was that person into whose care you entrusted

your imagination ... saying, albeit silently, "Here I am ... make my senses spin and my jaw drop .. .feed

me Wonder!"?

If it was by the printed page then maybe it was in the capable hands of H. G. Wells or Jules Verne, with

their futuristic visions of space travel, in cumbersome rockets whose viii trajectory and power source

were a little shaky even then, around about a century ago for most of those marvelous tales. Or maybe it

was the pulp-fictioneers, those penny-a- word scribes who filled page after page of exotic planetary

locations usually populated by scantily-clad females and horrible monsters (boy, it must have been tough

being a girl on some of those orbiting rocks ... at least until the torn- suited Earth astronaut crash-landed

to save the day).

Maybe it was the likes of the "serious" writers ... guys like Isaac Asimov, with his agoraphobic

investigator, his robotic hordes and the mind-boggling read that were the Foundation books; and Ray

Bradbury, with his homespun humanistic homilies of interstellar needles descending onto the Martian

quilt and poverty-line families constructing soapbox rockets in their back yards; and Arthur C. Clarke,

with his barroom fables from the White Hart and the short story "The Sentinel" that became 2001: A

Space Odyssey.

In fact, maybe it was film-the sight of Spielberg's mother ship descending onto the mountain-top or the

spectacle of the alien toddler bursting out of John Hurt's stomach -or TV (Joseph Stefano's insectoid

Zanti misfits from The Outer Limits, perhaps ... or the scene when one of the folks in Rod Serling's

Twilight Zone diner reveals he's a Martian) that lit the fire in your soul and set you dreaming about out

there.

There are so many writers and artists and directors who, year upon year, decade upon decade, have

continued the craft, fashioning their own voices and their own ideologies, that it's a genre in which, no

matter where you start into it, it's eminently possible-and frequently essential-to travel back to earlier

works for further entertainment and enlightenment. ix nMfc»*. .--«Mti*£$lsBii»

As we've been told through our TV sets for more than 30 years, space may well be the final frontier.

Of course there's Time to be unraveled yet, and Immortality, but the vastness of space-with its seemingly

infinite possibilities of worlds, cultures, environments, eco structures and so on-invariably strikes the

loudest chord in the minds of fiction readers and mo vie-watchers the world over. And no matter how far

we manage to progress into the void, that frontier will still be there... the line just being constantly

rubbed out and redrawn again and again, each time a little further away.

Although I've spent much of the last 10 or 12 years involved with horror, dark fantasy and even crime-

both writing it and editing anthologies of the stuff-science fiction (or, more specifically, space fiction)

was my first love ... fed from the British black and white reprints of full-color American comic books

such as Mystery In Space or curled up on a sofa listening to the BBC's radio renditions of Charles

Chilton's Journey Into Space.

But it was Patrick Moore who first took me into space via a book.

The year was 1958, and it was probably my first hardcover ... bought by my parents for Christmas (it's

neatly inscribed in my mother's handwriting, penned, I'm sure, little realizing the effect such a gift was

to have on her son) a book entitled Peril on Mars, written by the great astronomer himself. It was

wonderful stuff and I had no hesitation in scribbling down the titles of the three earlier adventures of

Maurice Gray and his friends on the Red Planet. I've since had the opportunity of acknowledging that

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formative experience by commissioning an Introduction from Patrick for Mars Probes, an anthology of

new stories about our closest x planetary neighbor to be published in the US in late 2001- it's always

nice to square the books and repay your dues, no matter how long it takes.

Anyway, back in the 1950s and hungry for more science fictional inspiration, I haunted the bookshops

and quickly discovered Angus McVicar's Lost Planet series, featuring young Jeremy Grant, and E. C.

Eliott's tales of Kemlo and his friends on Satellite Belt K. And then on to H. G. Wells's The War of the

Worlds-which I had already read as a Classics Illustrated and so knew the story-and Edgar Rice Bur-

roughs's Princess of Mars and its many sequels.

After that, courtesy of my English Language tutor at Leeds Grammar School, came Ray Bradbury's The

Illustrated Man ... in which "Kaleidoscope", a one-act tale of a doomed astronaut adrift in the void,

brought the concept of space travel firmly into the realms of the possible-even the probable-and,

paradoxically, its downbeat finale made the prospect of such adventure even more attractive than the ray-

gun variety of SF favored by the comic books and the once-so-called "juvenile" adventures.

From then I was firmly hooked.

As I grew older and more adventurous and demanding in my reading, the emphasis on space gave way

to terra firma tales set sometimes in possible futures, sometimes in the present and occasionally on an

alternate version of Earth on which accepted historical facts and events had been altered ... sometimes

subtly and sometimes not. Thus it was that the science-or simply the developmental and speculative

possibilities inherent in this brave and frequently audacious brand of literature-wove its spell.

Now I can enjoy the so-called hard science (quite an achievement for someone who regularly marvels at

both car and computer-and even, when the muse hides for a while, my desk lamp-when they obligingly

respond to the flicking of a switch) just as much as the space opera of, say, E. E. Smith's Lensman books

and old issues of Amazing and Fantastic.

All of these still grace my crowded bookshelves, though old faithfuls such as some of the ones I've

already mentioned and the likes of Carey Rockwell's adventures of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet are

(despite, in the latter, the exemplary technical assistance of Willey Ley) a little more mannered today

than they seemed to be all those years ago. But mannered or not, they all make up a glorious confusion

of adventures and stories set both on Earth and on worlds near and far, and in strange futures ... realities

populated by fantastic creatures and barely recognizable versions of ourselves. And every single word

on every page continues to fight the good fight and carry forward the baton of imaginative fiction.

The quartet of novellas in Futures, the second in what will be a continuing series of the very best in long

short fiction, comes from four writers working at the forefront of British science fiction ... four writers

who have carried that baton of imagination with tremendous vigor.

There are echoes of many of the authors I've already mentioned -and a whole lot more-in these four

great works.

I could say that, for me at least, lan McDonald's latest tale of the rampaging alien infestation known as

the Chaga and, specifically, of its effects on the life of a young East African girl, calls to mind much of

J. G. Ballard's work circa The Drowned World; that Stephen Baxter's consideration of godhood and

immortality on one of Saturn's moons in the sixth millennium seems a touch reminiscent of Arthur C. xii

Clarke's almost mystical parables of Mankind's true destiny set against a backdrop of supposed future

Utopias; that Peter F. Hamilton's centuries-long murder investigation conducted, as forensic science

develops, by descendants of the Roman Empire on an alternate Earth, carries the feel of both Agatha

Christie's Hercule Poirot tales and the Gil Hamilton stories of Larry Niven; and that Paul McAuley's

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epoch- stretching, post-uiet War saga of politics, upheaval and opera at the edge of the solar system

features all the very best in hard science and future history as exemplified by Isaac Asimov's Foundation

cycle.

But that's just my take-yours may well be entirely different: just as we all bring different things to the

reading process, so too do we take away different things when that process has been completed.

All that is certain is that great writing is here in these pages ... great invention and great characterization,

too- finally laying to rest (if such a ceremony were really needed anymore) the hoary old chestnut that

SF cares less about humanity and personal relationships than it does about detailing the workings of a

rocket's engines. And you're due for some of the most wonderful and disconcerting suggestions as to

what may lie ahead for the human race.

In their introduction to the 1992 edition of The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction, John Clute and Peter

Nicholls rightly recognize that the secret history of SF is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside ...

and the further in you go, the bigger it gets. Science fiction is more popular now than ever before:

moreover, having at last escaped the withering stigma imposed by the constraints of the old pulp

magazines in terms of both content and execution, it's finally finding warmer receptions in the one-time

frosty corridors occupied by the literati-as surely evidenced by John Updike's recent Toward the End of

Time.

What the great supporters of the field have always said is true: science fiction is the literature of ideas.

Here are four more ... but they are four covering a whole host of styles and images and approaches to the

field.

Space Opera, Future Civilizations, Alien Invasions, Scientific Advancement, Political Chicanery,

Human Relationship and even Police Procedural-they're all here. But then they would be ... because

those are what science fiction is all about. So no matter who took you into space the first time, you're

about to go again ... in the safe hands of four of the best interstellar pilots in the galaxy. Enjoy the trip.

matching Trees Grouu

WATCHING TREES GROW

by Peter F. Hamilton

Peter Hamilton brings his trademark flair for narrative sweep and epic ideas to a short novel that tells the

story of a near immortal mankind that grew from the Roman Empire.

ONE

Oxford. England DO 1832

If I was dreaming that night I forgot it the instant when that blasted telephone woke me with its shrill

two-tone whistle. I fumbled round for the bedside light, very aware of Myriam shifting and groaning on

the mattress beside me. She was seven months pregnant with our child, and no longer appreciated the

calls which I received at strange hours. I found the little chain dangling from the light, tugged it, and

picked up the black bakelite handset.

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I wasn't surprised to have the rich vowels of Francis Haughton Raleigh rolling down the crackly line at

me. The family's old missi dominici is my immediate superior. Few others would risk my displeasure

with a call at night.

"Edward, my boy," he growled. "So sorry to wake you at this ungodly hour."

I glanced at the brass clock on the chest of drawers; its luminous hands were showing quarter past

midnight. "That's all right, sir. I wasn't sleeping."

Myriam turned over and gave me a derisory look.

"Please, no need to call me, sir. The thing is, Edward, we have a bit of a problem."

"Where?"

"Here in the city, would you believe. It's really the most damnable news. One of the students has been

killed. Murdered, the police seem to think."

I stopped my fidgeting, suddenly very awake. Murder, a concept as difficult to grasp as it was

frightening to behold. What kind of pre-Empire savage could do that to another person? "One of ours?"

"Apparently so. He's a Raleigh, anyway. Not that we've had positive confirmation."

"I see." I sat up, causing the flannel sheet to fall from my shoulders. Myriam was frowning now, more

concerned than puzzled.

"Can we obtain that confirmation?" I asked.

"Absolutely. And a lot more besides. I'm afraid you and I have been handed the family jurisdiction on

this one. I'll pick you up in ten minutes." The handset buzzed as the connection ended.

I leaned over and kissed Myriam gently. "Got to go."

"What is it? What's happened?"

Her face had filled with worry. So much so that I was unable to answer in truth. It wasn't that she lacked

strength. Myriam was a senior technical nurse, seeing pain and suffering every day at the city clinic-

she'd certainly seen more dead bodies than I ever had. But blurting out this kind of news went against

my every instinct. Obscurely, it felt to me as though I was protecting our unborn. I simply didn't want

my child to come into a world where such horror could exist. Murder. I couldn't help but shiver as I

pulled on my shirt, cold fingers making a hash of the small pearl buttons. "Some kind of accident, we

think. Francis and I have to investigate. I'll tell you in the morning." When, the Blessed Mary willing, it

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might be proved some ghastly mistake.

My leather attache case was in the study, a present from my mother when I passed my legal exams. I had

been negligent in employing it until now, some of its fine brass implements and other paraphernalia had

never even been taken from their compartments. I snatched it up as if it were some form of security tool,

its scientific contents a shield against the illogicality abroad in the city that night.

I didn't have a long wait in the lobby before Francis's big black car rolled up outside, crunching the

slushy remnants of last week's snowfall. The old man waited patiently while I buckled the safety

restraint straps around my chest and shoulders before switching on the batteries and engaging the

gearing toggle. We slipped quietly out onto the cobbled street, powerful yellow headlamps casting a

wide fan of illumination.

The apartment which Myriam and I rent is in the city's Botley district, a pleasant area of residential

blocks and well-tended parks, where small businesses and shops occupy the ground floors of most

buildings. The younger, professional members of the better families had taken to the district, their

nannies filling the daytime streets with prams and clusters of small excitable children. At night it seemed

bleaker somehow, lacking vitality.

Francis twisted the motor potentiometer, propelling the car up to a full twenty-five miles an hour. "You

know, it's at times like this I wish the Roman Congress hadn't banned combustion engines last year," he

grumbled. "We could be there in half a minute."

"Batteries will improve," I told him patiently. "And petroleum was dangerous stuff. It could explode if

there were an accident."

"I know, I know. Lusting after speed is a Shorts way of thinking. But I sometimes wonder if we're not

being too timid these days. The average citizen is a responsible fellow. It's not as if he'll take a car out

looking to do damage with it. Nobody ever complains about horse riding."

"There's the pollution factor as well. And we can't afford to squander our resources. There's only a finite

amount of crude oil on the planet, and you know the population projections. We must safeguard the

future, we're going to spend the rest of our lives there."

Francis sighed theatrically. "Well recited. So full of earnest promise, you youngsters."

"I'm thirty-eight," I reminded him. "I have three accredited children already." One of which I had to fight

to gain family registration for. The outcome of a youthful indiscretion with a girl at college. We all have

them.

"A child," Francis said dismissively. "You know, when I was young, in my teens in fact, I met an old

man who claimed he could remember the last of the Roman Legionaries withdrawing from Britain when

he was a boy."

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I performed the math quickly in my head. It could be possible, given how old Francis was. "That's

interesting."

"Don't patronize, my boy. The point is, progress brings its own problems. The world that old man lived

in changed very little in his lifetime-it was almost the same as the Second Imperial Era. While today, our

whole mindset, the way we look at our existence, is transformed every time a new scientific discovery

drops into our lap. He had stability. We don't. We have to work harder because of that, be on our guard

more. It's painful for someone of my age."

"Are you saying today's world makes murder more likely?"

"No. Not yet. But the possibility is there. Change is always a domino effect. And the likes of you and I

must be conscious of that, above all else. We are the appointed guardians, after all."

"I'll remember."

"And you'll need to keep remembering it as well, not just for now, but for centuries."

I managed to prevent my head from shaking in amusement. The old man was always going on about the

uncertainties and dangers of the future. Given the degree of social and technological evolution he'd

witnessed in the last four hundred years, it's a quirk which I readily excuse. When he was my age the

world had yet to see electricity and water mains; medicine then consisted of herbs boiled up by old

women in accordance with lore already ancient in the First Imperial Era. "So what do we know about

this possible murder?"

"Very little. The police phoned the local family office, who got straight on to me. The gentleman we're

talking about is Justin Ascham Raleigh; he's from the Nottingham Raleighs. Apparently, his neighbor

heard sounds coming from his room, and thought there was some kind of fight or struggle going on. He

alerted the lodgekeepers. They opened the room up and found him, or at least a body."

"Suspicious circumstances?"

"Very definitely yes."

We drove into the center of Oxford. Half past midnight was hardly late by the city's standards. There

were students thronging the tree-lined streets, just starting to leave the cafes and taverns. Boisterous,

yes; I could remember my own time here as a student, first studying science, then later law. They

shouted as they made their way back to their residences and colleges; quoting obscure verse, drinking

from the neck of bottles, throwing books and bags about... one group was even having a scrum down,

slithering about on the icy pavement. Police and lodgekeepers looked on benignly at such activity, for it

never gets any worse than this.

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Francis slowed the car to a mere crawl as a bunch of revelers ran across the road ahead. One young man

mooned us before rushing off to merge with his laughing friends. Many of them were girls, about half of

whom were visibly pregnant.

"Thinks we're the civic authorities, no doubt," Francis muttered around a small smile. "I could show him

a thing or two about misbehaving."

We drew up outside the main entrance to Dunbar College. I hadn't been inside for well over a decade,

and had few memories of the place. It was a six-story building of pale yellow stone, with great

mullioned windows overlooking the broad boulevard. Snow had been cleared from the road and piled up

in big mounds on either side of the archway which led into the quad. A police constable and a junior

lodgekeeper were waiting for us in the lodgekeeper's office just inside the entranceway, keeping warm

by the iron barrel stove. They greeted us briskly, and led us inside.

Students were milling uneasily in the long corridors, dressed in pajamas, or wrapped in blankets to

protect themselves from the cool air. They knew something was wrong, but not what. Lodgekeepers

dressed in black suits patrolled the passages and cloisters, urging patience and restraint. Everyone fell

silent as we strode past.

We went up two flights of spiraling stone stairs, and along another corridor. The chief lodgekeeper was

standing outside a sturdy wooden door, no different to the twenty other lodgings on that floor. His

ancient creased face registered the most profound sadness. He nodded as the constable announced who

we were, and ushered us inside.

Justin Ascham Raleigh's accommodation was typical of a final year student-three private rooms:

bedroom, parlor and study. They had high ceilings, wood paneled walls dark with age, long once-grand

curtains hanging across the windows. All the interconnecting doors had been opened, allowing us to see

the corner of a bed at the far end of the little suite. A fire had been lit in the small iron grate of the study,

its embers still glowing, holding off the night's chill air.

Quite a little group of people were waiting for us. I glanced at them quickly: three student-types, two

young men and a girl, obviously very distressed; and an older man in a jade-green police uniform, with

the five gold stars of a senior detective. He introduced himself as Gareth Alan Pitchford, his tone somber

and quiet. "And I've heard of you, sir. Your reputation is well established in this city."

"Why thank you," Francis said graciously. "This is my deputy, Edward Buchanan Raleigh."

Gareth Alan Pitchford bestowed a polite smile, as courteous as the situation required, but not really

interested. I bore it stoically.

"So what have we got here?" Francis asked.

Detective Pitchford led us into the study. Shelving filled with a mixture of academic reference books and

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classic fiction covered two walls. I was drawn to the wonderfully detailed star charts which hung upon

the other walls, alternating with large photographs of extravagant astronomical objects. A bulky

electrically powered typewriter took pride of place on a broad oak desk, surrounded by a litter of paper

and open scientific journals. An ordinary metal and leather office chair with castors stood behind the

desk, a gray sports jacket hanging on its back.

The body was crumpled in a corner, covered with a navy- blue nylon sheet. A considerable quantity of

blood had soaked into the threadbare Turkish carpet.

It started with a big splash in the middle of the room, laying a trail of splotches to the stain around the

corpse.

"This isn't pretty," the detective warned as he turned down the sheet.

I freely admit no exercise in self control could prevent me from wincing at what I saw that moment.

Revulsion gripped me, making my head turn away. A knife was sticking out of Justin Ascham Raleigh's

right eye; it was buried almost up to the hilt.

The detective continued to pull the sheet away. I forced myself to resume my examination. There was a

deep cut across Justin Ascham Raleigh's abdomen, and his ripped shirt was stained scarlet. "You can see

that the attacker went for the belly first," the detective said. "That was a disabling blow, which must

have taken place about here." He pointed to the glistening splash of blood in the middle of the study.

"I'm assuming Mr. Raleigh would have staggered back into this corner and fallen."

"At which point he was finished off," Francis said matter- of-factly. "I would have thought he was dying

anyway from the amount of blood lost from the first wound, but his assailant was obviously very

determined he should die."

"That's my belief," the detective said.

Francis gave me an inquiring look.

"I agree," I stuttered.

Francis gestured weakly, his face flush with distaste. The sheet was pulled back up. Without any spoken

agreement, the three of us moved away from the corpse to cluster in the doorway leading to the parlor.

"Can we have the full sequence of events, please?" Francis asked.

"We don't have much yet," the detective said. "Mr. Raleigh and five of his friends had supper together at

the Orange Grove restaurant earlier this evening.

It lasted from half past seven to about ten o'clock, at which point they left and separated. Mr. Raleigh

came back here to Dunbar by himself around twenty past ten-the lodgekeepers confirm that. Then at

approximately half past eleven, his neighbor heard an altercation, then a scream. He telephoned down to

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the lodgekeeper's office."

I looked from the body to the door which led back out into the corridor. "Was no one seen or heard to

leave?"

"Apparently not, sir," the detective said. "The neighbor came straight out into the corridor and waited for

the lodge- keepers. He didn't come in here himself, but he swears no one came out while he was

watching."

"There would be a short interval," I said. "After the scream he'd spend some time calling the

lodgekeepers-a minute or so."

"People must have been using the corridor at that time," the detective said. "And our murderer would

have some blood on their clothes. He'd be running too."

"And looking panicked, I'll warrant," Francis said. "Someone would have seen them and remembered."

"Unless it was the neighbor himself who is the killer," I observed.

"Hey!" one of the students barked. "Don't talk about me as if I'm a piece of furniture. I called the

lodgekeepers as soon as I heard the scream. I didn't bloody well kill Justin. I liked him. He was a top

chap."

"Peter Samuel Griffith," the detective said. "Mr. Raleigh's neighbor."

"I do apologize," Francis said smoothly. "My colleague and I were simply eliminating possibilities. This

has left all of us rather flustered, I'm afraid."

Peter Samuel Griffith grunted in acknowledgment.

I looked straight at the detective. "So if the murderer didn't leave by the front door..."

Francis and I pulled the curtains back. Justin Ascham Raleigh's rooms looked inward over the quad.

They were in a corner, where little light ventured from the illuminated pathway crossing the snow-

cloaked lawn. Mindful of possible evidence, I opened my case and took out a pair of tight- fitting rubber

gloves.

The latch on the window was open. When I gave the iron frame a tentative push it swung out easily. We

poked our heads out like a pair of curious children at a fairground attraction. The wall directly outside

was covered with wisteria creeper, its ancient gnarled branches twisted together underneath a thick layer

of white ice crystals; it extended upwards for at least another two floors.

"As good as any ladder," Francis said quietly. "And I'll warrant there's at least a dozen routes in and out

of Dunbar that avoid the lodgekeepers."

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Peter F. Hamilton, Baxter, McAuley & McDonald - Futures

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