Gravity Wells (Short Stories Collection)

plans.

It was an imposition on his life…but then, it was an imposition on Diana's life too. She was obviously devoted to the goddess scenario—she probably lived in a marble palace on a mountainside with lots of other divinities, doing all kinds of divinity things.

It must be a real letdown for her to be mated to a storekeeper, even a hardware storekeeper. If she was prepared to make such a sacrifice for their child, George should be too.

'I'm sorry,' he said to her. 'I was being selfish. We can, uhh, get married. Or whatever you think is right.'

Slowly her body returned to its previous coloration. The cobra skulls gave a peevish-sounding sniff in unison, then went back to being dead. 'All right,' she said. 'Apology accepted. Diana is a strict goddess, but fair.'

'What do we do now?' George asked.

'We learn to love each other.'

George had watched a few couples courting in his town, and he thought they should try the same sort of thing: an arm-in-arm walk down to the ice cream parlor. With Diana at her present height, that was easier said than done. Graciously, she assumed a persona no taller than George—a trim lynx-woman with two-inch talons and a pelt of stiff brown fur. George recognized her new body from a collection of clip-art personas published the year before. He'd chosen his own appearance from the same book—Kindly Shopkeeper with a Twinkle in His Eye, #4.

People on Main Street stared as they walked by, but showed the kind of small-town courtesy George had known they would. 'Well, George, got a new friend, I see. Oh, she's your mate. Well, well. Pleased to meet you, missus. A goddess! Well, George, she's a catch, all right. How long are you going to keep that special on nails?'

At the ice cream parlor, the robot attendant served them two strawberry sundaes. George didn't try to eat his—lifting a spoonful of ice cream took a lot of concentration, and when he put it into his mouth, it would fall right through his astral body anyway. George preferred to watch it all melt into a smooth white cream with swirls of strawberry—it reminded him of paint, just after you add a slurp of red colorizer to the white base, before you put it on the mixing machine and let it shake itself pink.

Diana, on the other hand, dug into the ice cream immediately. 'This is a pleasant town,' she said to George as she inserted a spoonful into her mouth. George heard a liquidy plop as the ice cream fell through her and landed on her chair. 'Of course, the town is quiet for my tastes. But it has potential. I have a friend who does werewolves and he could really liven up the place. You know, lurk on the outskirts, savage a few locals from time to time. Not hurt them for real, of course, just scare them and make them promise to go to another scenario for a while. But as people began to disappear, as the town devolved into a panicky powder keg waiting to explode in an orgy of hysterical butchery, you and I could hunt down the monster and kill it. Wouldn't that be fun?'

It didn't quite match George's notion of why his neighbors were living in the small-town scenario, but he knew he could be wrong. He went to a lot of movies. He knew that small towns were full of people just waiting to stir up a bloodbath.

Dirty Ernie Birney came into the ice cream parlor just as George and Diana were finishing up. George shuddered; Dirty Ernie was not the sort of person anyone wanted to meet on a date. The older folks in town said Ernie was at least thirty-five, but he wore the persona of a rotten little eight-year-old. He was foul-mouthed, brattish, whiny, and persistent. George grabbed Diana's furry elbow and said, 'Let's get out of here.'

As she stood up, Dirty Ernie whistled and pointed at her chair. 'Hey, lady,' he said, 'looks like you pooped a pile of ice cream.'

Diana moved so fast George's eyes could scarcely track her. Slash, gash, and Ernie's astral arm was nothing but tattered ectoplasm. The boy howled and bolted out the door, the ribboned flaps of his arm trailing after him like red plastic streamers on bike handles.

'You shouldn't have done that,' George said. He thought there was a chance he might throw up, if astral projections could do such a thing.

'He can fix his arm any time,' Diana said. 'It's just like assuming a new persona.'

'Yes, but…'

'Well, I couldn't let him insult me. I'm a goddess, for heaven's sake! Rotten little prick. In a proper scenario, he'd know his place.'

George took Diana by the hand and led her back to the hardware store. He could tell that while they were learning to love each other, it would be a good idea to leave town.

They leaned on the store's front counter and looked at the latest catalog of available scenarios. Diana was only interested in the heroic ones. She swore if she could watch George rescue her from a dragon, she would fall hopelessly in love with him. George was beginning to suspect his new bride had a pretty narrow range of interests…but then, newlyweds had to learn to accept each other for what they were.

When Diana had chosen a scenario, George called to Benny, his robot stockboy, who was down in the basement rearranging the plumbing supplies. (Benny did all the physical work around the store. He loved hauling around boxes and often restacked the entire storeroom out of sheer high spirits.) George told Benny he was going away with Diana for a few days and Benny would be in charge of the store. The robot bounced about in a little circle and piddled machine oil in his excitement. George couldn't tell if Benny was excited because he'd be running the store or because George was acquiring a mate. Probably both. Benny's way of thinking ran the same direction as George's on a lot of things.

For George, the best part of assuming the persona of a knight was designing the coat of arms. He decided on a hammer and screwdriver rampant, argent sur azure. His motto was, 'Ferrum meum spectari': My Iron Stands the Test. Diana said she approved of the sentiment.

Of course, Diana was now captive in the highest tower of a castle overlooking the Rhine. It was the stronghold of the unspeakable Wilhelm von Schmutzig, sorcerer, murderer, ravisher, and author of six pornographic trilogies about elves. A dragon prowled the castle courtyard; mercenaries patrolled the halls. Rumor claimed that diabolical experiments were even now reaching fruition in the castle's dungeons and soon a horde of…of…(George pulled the brochure from his saddlebag to refresh his memory) a horde of disease-bearing zombies would be released on a helpless world. Only one man, the brave Sir Your-Name-Here could avert the onrushing tide of destruction.

George asked his horse how much farther it was to the castle.

'Just around the bend,' the horse said. It was the astral persona of a man named Hawkins who heartily enjoyed the equine life. 'You get to be really big,' Hawkins had said. 'You can rear up on your hind legs and scare people. You get to eat grass.' Hawkins had been doing knightly steeds for years and never tired of the role. He'd told George that sometimes he moonlighted as a Cape buffalo, but it wasn't his first love.

Hawkins stopped at the bend and let George scout ahead. Skulking wasn't easy in full plate mail, but the forest was thick on both sides of the road so there was little chance of being seen.

The walls around the castle were high and thick, the moat deep and foul-smelling even at this distance. The drawbridge was up, the portcullis down, and frankly, the place looked impregnable.

George considered breaking the seal on the scenario's Hint Booklet. Back at the Population Storage Facility, the robots might impregnate Diana any time now; if George was too slow in winning her love, all would be lost. On the other hand, would Diana love him when she saw he'd looked at the hints? (George was certain she'd check.) No, she would view him as a cheater and a cad, and their baby would probably grow up to be a lawyer.

George clanked up against a tree to think. If this was a movie, what would the hero do?

'Halloo, the castle!'

A mercenary's head looked down on George from one of those little slots castles have instead of real windows. George was once again wearing his red Handee Hardware blazer, and Hawkins had acquired a Handee Hardware saddle blanket. 'What do you want?' the mercenary asked.

'I'm just a poor peasant merchant and I have a delivery for the Lord von Schmutzig.'

'What kind of delivery?'

'Nails,' said George. 'Three-quarter-inch finishing nails for the final assembly of the horde of disease-bearing zombies.'

'Nobody told me anything about nails,' the mercenary said. 'Last night at cocktails, the lord said he had everything he needed to complete his evil zombie horde.'

'Some fool delivered one-inch finishing nails instead of three-quarter-inch ones,' George said, improvising. 'Building zombies is a precision business. You use nails a quarter inch too long and they'll stick out all over the zombie's body. They'll keep catching on things.'

'Ugh,' said the mercenary and let George in.

George left his horse Hawkins to take care of the dragon. Hawkins knew the dragon personally from other scenarios—it was the astral persona of a woman named Magda who enjoyed being vanquished on a regular basis. Hawkins was sure Magda would agree to feign sleep while Hawkins drove a few nails through her wings with his hooves. She would gladly thrash and moan, spiked helplessly to the dirt, until George found time to plunge his cruel broadsword into the vulnerable soft spot of her abdomen.

George moved on to the tower where Diana was imprisoned. His red blazer was perfect camouflage; the mercenaries scarcely glanced his way as he passed. 'Some hardware-hawking peasant,' he heard one mutter in disgust.

At the top of the tower steps, George resumed his knightly persona. The armor made it impossible to walk silently and he knew there might be more danger ahead; however, Diana would be expecting him in heroic guise. With broadsword in one hand and shield in the other, he clanked forward to a closed door.

He could hear nothing from the other side of the door. Considering the thickness of his helmet, George was not surprised. He tried the latch and found the door unlocked. It would be nice to kick the door open the way people did in movies, but concentrating on his astral foot as hard as he could, he barely managed to move the door at all. When it was open enough to squeeze through, he sidestepped his way into the room.

Diana sat in a chair, bound by coils of thick white cord and gagged with a purple silk scarf. Though she wore the persona of a kidnapped princess—low-cut gown of green velvet, straight brown hair that reached the floor, eyes red from weeping—she still carried vestiges of the goddess of the hunt. The cobras on her belt had already gnawed through the cords around her waist and were snapping at the bindings on her wrists.

George hurried forward to untie her, but she shook her head violently and nodded toward the far corner of the room. 'Mmmph mmph mmph,' she explained.

At first when George looked in the direction she indicated, he saw only a rumpled four-poster bed surrounded by confusing watercolor prints of elves. George found it disturbing that Diana was so eager to draw his attention to the bed while she was still bound and gagged. In fact, finding himself unexpectedly alone with her in an elaborate bedroom stirred nervous flutters in his stomach. He hadn't pictured this moment coming so suddenly. The part of his mind that normally said, 'This is what you should do,' was completely silent; the part that said, 'This is what might happen,' had hiccups. It was a huge relief when a lean figure stepped from the shadows behind the bed-curtains and said, 'So. Some fool believes he can foil my schemes.'

George recognized the man as another clip-art persona: Seductive Yet Dangerous Scoundrel with Pencil Mustache, #2. He wore a white puff-sleeved swashbuckler shirt, tight black chinos, and knee-high boots of black leather. He would have intimidated George even if he hadn't been carrying a saber with a dripping crimson blade.

'Wilhelm von Schmutzig, I presume,' George said in a voice he wanted to sound brave.

'At your service,' said the villain, giving a courtier's bow. 'Shall we duel to the death or would you prefer to impale yourself on my blade immediately?'

'I will not rest until I have cleansed the Earth of your foul presence, von Schmutzig.' George was rather pleased with that speech—Hawkins had suggested he should have some appropriate soliloquy for the final confrontation with the villain, and George had practiced till he could say the line without fumbling.

George was still congratulating himself when von Schmutzig attacked. With lightning-swift strikes, the villain rained blows upon George's armor. The saber itself had no effect, but the clanging noise ringing against his helmet gave George a throbbing headache. He did his best to fight back, but was far too slow and clumsy to come close to his opponent. Occasionally he managed a parry, but never a successful thrust.

'Are you the best the forces of virtue could muster?' von Schmutzig sneered as he played on George like a steel drum. 'I expected a hero.'

'Just because you're evil doesn't mean you should be rude,' George replied. 'You'll get yourself in trouble someday.' But it was clearly George who was in trouble as he clattered back and forth around the room. At last he was driven back against a post of the bed and his weapon was flicked out of his hand by a fencing maneuver something like the little twist of the wrist you need when