A MOSQUE AMONG THE STARS     Edited by:    Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad  &  Ahmed A. Khan These are works of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Cover art © Lee Kuruganti A ZC Books Presentation www.zcbooks.ca Copyright © 2008 by ZC Books ISBN 978-0-9783057-1-0 First Edition November 2008 Printed in Canada All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information and permissions, please contact the publisher ([email protected]). TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmed A Brief Note on the Contents Ahmed A. Khan A Walk Through the Garden Lucius Shepard Squat Donna McMahon Organic Geometry Andrew Ferguson Synchronicity Ahmed A. Khan Cultural Clashes in Cadiz Jetse De Vries Servant of Iblis Howard Jones The Weight of Space and Metal Camille Alexa Miss Lonelygene’s Secret C. June Wolf Recompense Pamela Kenza Taylor A Straight Path Through the Stars Kevin James Miller Emissary G.W. Thomas For a Little Price Tom Ligon Introduction Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad The current anthology has its roots in the Islam and Science Fiction website.1 When one of us, Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, first started the website a couple of years ago he had not anticipated that the overwhelming positive response that the website would get. The scope of the website was to explore and document the range of depictions of Islam and Muslims in the Science Fiction literature. The idea of Anthology was conceived by one of us, Ahmed A. Khan who is a Canadian Science Fiction author. We both immediately recognized the need and usefulness of this Endeavour. It is an opportunity to present Islam and Muslims in a different light. Islam is an often-misunderstood religion. The media often presents a somewhat caricatured picture of Muslims which cannot be further from the truth. At the same time there are people who do use Islam for their own deranged purposes. However the overwhelming majority of Muslims throughout the world are peace loving people and are as diverse as any other group of people. Science Fiction has sometimes been described as a quintessentially American genre of fiction. Although biased, the view however conveys some sense of how Science Fiction is perceived by many through out the world. From a historical point of view Science Fiction was the product of the times – a confluence of the industrial revolution and the socio-economic upheavals of the 19th century. While it was almost always focused on the future, Science Fiction was exploring the present through the lens of the future. These themes are especially relevant to the Muslim world as it makes it transition to modernity. Most Islamic cultures and languages traditionally associated with Islam have a rich history of fantasy epics – One Thousand and One Nights in Arabic, Shahnama in Farsi, and Dastan-Amir-Hamza in Urdu especially come to mind. However Science Fiction as a popular genre of fiction is not yet a phenomenon in the Muslim world despite the fact that the fans of Science Fiction amongst the younger generation of Muslims may be as widespread in the Muslim world as anywhere in the West. Indigenously produced Science Fiction, although not a rarity, is still less common. Western Muslims and non-Muslims who are interested in Islamic themes, have emerged as a distinct demographic in recent years. Consequently the number of Muslims depicted in Science Fiction has greatly increased in the last years and thus the need for the current anthology. 1 http://islamscifi.com Outside the world of fiction, the Muslim world offers an interesting glimpse of the transformative power of science and technology. Thus Dubai looks like a city straight out of a classic science fiction story. Even the conservative interpretations of Islamic law are relatively open-minded towards many opportunities offered by bio-technology and genetic engineering. The current volume, which is also the first anthology on the topic of Islam and Science Fiction explores a whole range of topics related to Islam, paints Muslims in a different light and puts them in contexts which many people in the do not usually associated with Muslims. It is thus the hope of the editors that the current volume would be an important contribution to the expanding sub-genre of exploring Islamic or Muslim related themes in Science Fiction. August 1, 2008 2 A Brief Note on the Contents Ahmed A. Khan When the final assembling of the anthology came about, the editors divided some tasks among ourselves. Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad would write the introduction, putting the stories into perspective and I would take care of the author bios and brief notes preceding each story. This happens to be the third anthology I have edited in the last two years (the other two being “Fall and Rise” and “SF Waxes Philosophical”) but this anthology differs from the other two in several respects. First, this is the first anthology where I am partnering with another editor. Second, this is the first anthology where we are paying the writers an honorarium in addition to providing contributor’s copy. Third, size-wise, this is the biggest anthology of the three. Fourth, content-wise, this has more original content (as opposed to reprints) ratio than the other two anthologies. The first two stories are the only ones that are out and out reprints. The next four stories, starting with “Organic Geometry” and ending with “Servent of Iblis” are reprints with revisions new to this anthology. All the rest of the stories are appearing in print for the first time here. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the writers for the excellent stories and to Lee Kuruganti for the exciting cover art. I have received moral support and encouragement from several of my writer friends – even those who are not included in this anthology – and I would like to thank them all: Ted Kosmatka, Paul Carlson, Berry, Marian Powell, to name a few. I would also like to thank the readers for buying this book and would love to receive feedback. Ahmed A. Khan http://ahmedakhan.livejournal.com Email: [email protected] 3 AAAA WWWWAAAALLLLKKKK TTTTHHHHRRRROOOOUUUUGGGGHHHH TTTTHHHHEEEE GGGGAAAARRRRDDDDEEEENNNN Lucius Shepard What can one say about Lucius Shepard that has not already been said? He is one of the most original writers of modern SF and has been writing since 1981. His works have graced almost all the leading SF magazines and many non-genre magazines as well. He has won the John W. Campbell, Nebula, Hugo and the Rhysling awards. His stories are stylish and thought- provoking, and none more so than the present story. When the idea for this anthology started taking form in the minds of the editors, the first story I thought of was this one (originally published in Sci- Fiction, August 2003) and Lucius graciously let me have it. So here it is – a very strong start to the anthology. Paradise awaits. It begins at the foot of a mountain, a slice of which has been carved away by bombardment to expose a field of yellow flowers beneath—it looks as if the entire base is hollow, an immense cave utilized for this pretty purpose. Unreal. Like a puddle of yellow blood spilled from the side of a wounded rock, spread out over a patch of dead ground. To Wilson, who hails from Colorado, where the mountains have snow on their slopes, this mountain is just a big ugly hill. He's not sure, either, that he would classify the field of flowers as the gateway to Paradise. There seems to be a division of opinion as to what the field is. The bomb they used to open up the cave was something new. Nobody is clear about what happened. According to Wilson's buddy, Baxter Tisdale, a corporal who's friends with some of the tech specialists, the brainiacs are talking about paradigm shifts, changes on the quantum level. When Wilson asked what the fuck was all that, Baxter told him to do some IQ, he wasn't going to attempt an explanation that Wilson, his intellect unamplified, couldn't possibly comprehend. Wilson was tempted to do as Baxter said. He likes IQ, likes the rush of getting suddenly smart, the way the world fits around him differently. But he doesn't want to be too smart to do his job. In the morning they'll walk through the field of flowers and into the shadowy places beyond. Chances are he'll do IQ at some point before the mission, but right now he doesn't want to be thinking about that walk too deeply. Wilson is sitting cross-legged atop a boulder on the outskirts of a mountain village in northern Iraq, gazing west over a barren valley, a position directly across from the field of flowers. He's shirtless, wearing desert-camo fatigue pants and a helmet, the optics of its faceplate magnified, 4 so it seems he's looking at the flowers from a distance of fifty feet and not, as is truly the case, more than a mile. Wilson loves his helmet forever and happily ever after. It looks dangerous-robot slick with the tiger stripes he painted on the sides. It has a TV mounted above the visor so he can watch his favorite shows. It feeds him, dopes him, keeps him cool, plays his tunes, tells him when to fire, where to hide. An hour before, it reminded him to record messages for family and friends. He sent love to his parents, talked dirty to his girlfriend, Laura Witherspoon, and to his best friend back in Greeley, he said, "Yo, Mackie! I am the magic! My boots store energy—I can jump twenty-five feet straight fucking up, dude! Tomorrow we're gonna kick some brutal ass! Talk to ya later!" Now he's in a more reflective mood. The thought of invading Paradise is fresh, but he's not too sure, you know. Intel is promoting the idea that the flowers are a terrorist hydroponics experiment. That sounds bullshit to Wilson. There's little doubt the ragheads believe it's Paradise. If the village wasn't cordoned off, the entire population would go running into the darkness under the mountain, even though the ones that did so before the Americans arrived never reappeared. Here and there among the flowers lie chunks of rock, some big as troop carriers. Wilson tells his helmet to go tight on one of the blossoms next to the big rock. It's long and fluted like a lily, its interior petals convulsed like those of a rose. He's never seen a flower resembling it. Not that he's an expert. The weird thing is, there are no bugs. He scans from blossom to blossom. Nary an ant, an aphid, or a bee. Maybe Intel isn't bullshitting, maybe the ragheads have developed a strain of flowers that don't need bugs to fertilize them. Maybe they're like a cool new drug source. Better than opium poppies. Wilson indulges a brief fantasy. He's back in Greeley, at a party, in a room with Mackie and a couple of girls, and they're about to twist one up when he produces a baggie filled with dried yellow petals and says, "Magic time." A few minutes later he and Laura Witherspoon are screwing on the ceiling, the walls have turned to greenish blue music, the carpet is the surface of a shaggy planet far below. He wishes for things he can't have. That Laura was with him, that he never re-upped. Most of all he wishes that he never volunteered for Special Ops. Depressed, he instructs his helmet to feed him a trippy level of downs via ocular mist. A minute drools off the lip of time. His head feels full of syrup, a warm sludge of thought. He's got Chinese eyes, he's nodding like the yellow flowers in the breeze … They're so close it looks as if he could reach out and snap off a blossom, lift it to his lips and drink secret nectar from the Garden of Allah. · · · · · 2018 hours 5