Smith's Monthly #5 Read online

  Copyright Information

  Smith’s Monthly Issue #5

  All Contents copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith

  Published by WMG Publishing

  Cover and interior design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing

  Cover art copyright © by Customposterdesigns/Dreamstime.com

  “Introduction: Now for Something a Little Different” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith

  “If Sex is all a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover illustration by Ivan Mikhaylov/Dreamstime.com

  “That Lost Riddle” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Alexannabuts/Dreamstime.com

  The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Designwest/Dreamstime.com

  “Stand For Home” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Bokonoist/Dreamstime.com

  The Adventures of Hawk copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Wisconsinart/Dreamstime.com

  “Love with the Proper Napkin” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover photo by Anita Nowack/Dreamstime.com

  Sector Justice copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, cover design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, cover art by Dreamstime.com

  Poems: “She Laughed,” and “Born to be Weightless” copyright © 2014 Dean Wesley Smith, header design copyright © 2014 WMG Publishing, header illustration by Mariagrazia Orlandini/Dreamstime.com

  Smashwords Edition

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in the fiction in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

  Introduction: Now for Something a Little Different

  If Sex is All a Dream, Then Who Cleans Up the Mess?

  That Lost Riddle: A Poker Boy Story

  The Life and Times of Buffalo Jimmy: Chapters 13-15

  She Laughed

  Stand For Home

  The Adventures of Hawk: Chapters 13-15

  Love With the Proper Napkin

  Sector Justice

  Born to be Weightless

  Full Table of Contents

  Smith’s Monthly

  About the Author

  Copyright Information

  Introduction:

  NOW FOR SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT

  SINCE THIS IS MY MAGAZINE and the fine folks at WMG Publishing are letting me roam off into doing different forms (within reason), I figured I would have some fun. So I’m doing an issue with a novel and a couple of stories that have a little hotter sex in them.

  Now, don’t worry, these stories are far from erotica. A long ways, actually, so no worries there. But there are sex scenes (or at least hinted at sex in one) in two of the four stories and in the novel.

  The novel in this book, Sector Justice, is pure science fiction, but it has sex scenes. Most science fiction with sex scenes tends to end up over in the romance subgenre areas, even though Phillip Jose Farmer brought sex into the science fiction genre with the ground-breaking novel Flesh back in the early 1950s.

  Sure, you see it in some stories and some books in science fiction, but for the most part, science fiction is a “sweet” genre (in romance terms) where the love scenes sort of fade off and let what happens in the sex scene to the imagination of the reader.

  Remember the famous scene of James T. Kirk putting on his boots in Original Star Trek. And that was almost too much for some viewers and readers. Science fiction, for the most part, (inside the walls of the literary field of science fiction) has kept sex to “putting on your boots.”

  Mostly, as a science fiction writer over the years, I have done the same thing in my stories and novels. But then I started writing mysteries and thrillers where real sex can happen. And then I wrote some romance where they actually grade a book on how much sex the book has in it, from “sweet” (pulling on your boots) to “hot” meaning just this side of full erotica.

  Nothing in this issue gets to “hot” levels, but a few places I sort of get in the neighborhood.

  Also, as a form of playing with this issue, I have three stories that actually were published under pen names or my name and the publications went out of business almost instantly after publication.

  All the rights were reverted and it wasn’t until just lately I went back and looked at them again and realized I liked them. All three of them, actually. Two are science fiction and the other is a western. The science fiction stories have a little sex in them, so the varied genres fit perfectly with Smith’s Monthly and the sex scenes in two (actually only hinted at in one) fit perfectly with the novel in this issue.

  And now these stories can finally have a few more readers. They had almost no readers at all when they first came out.

  Also, in this issue, I’m starting something new. I’ve been writing brand new stories for every volume of the Fiction River Anthology Series. I figured now, after doing that for a year, I would spotlight stories that I wrote that have only been in Fiction River, starting with the first volume that came out a year ago. I won’t do this feature every month, but I’m proud of all the stories I wrote for Fiction River and would like them to get some new readers.

  However, if you are not subscribing to Fiction River, you are missing some great stories by a lot of great writers from around the world.

  Thanks for putting up with my craziness. I hope you are enjoying the ongoing volumes of Smith’s Monthly as much as I am writing the stories and novels and putting out the volumes.

  Dean Wesley Smith

  January 6, 2014

  Lincoln City, Oregon

  USA Today bestselling writer turns science fiction on its head with a strange sexual journey through space.

  It seemed like such a simple cargo run between systems for Sabrina and her husband. No passengers, lots of great alone-time for a couple in love to enjoy each other. What more could they ask for?

  But then the cargo rebelled. And you thought sex caused a mess before.

  (Note: This story appeared once before in an anthology from a company that went out of business when the book appeared and only authors in the book saw the story. But I liked this story, so here it is again. This does have sexual content.)

  IF SEX IS ALL A DREAM, THEN WHO CLEANS UP THE MESS

  SABRINA KNEW she was dreaming when the vast green ocean of smooth water that covered the blue planet rippled like someone had dropped a stone in it, obscuring her reflection, turning her from a young woman to one with wrinkles and shimmering skin. Then the ripples sucked back in on themselves, as they can only do in a dream, and the ocean became smooth again, showing her almost-true face in the reflection as she drifted through the air.

  She had long hair in this dream, not short and cut tight against her scalp like she had kept it for the last four years. And her nose was shorter, just like she’d always wished.

  And her hips were narrower.

  And she was naked.

  And hungry.

  She could see fish swimming down under the water, smiling up at her with the face of her old history teacher back in college on Earth. She could eat one of them, but she doubted they would taste very good, since she had always hated his classes.

  Ahead she could see a small island, with two large trees and a man standing under one tree. The next instant she stood beside him under the othe
r tree, the shade making her nipples hard and goosebumps form on her arms. The man was her husband, Lyman, and he was naked as well. He was taller than her, and looked even more handsome than she thought he looked normally. His blue eyes seemed to shine with extra light, and his dark hair blew in the breeze.

  She realized she was hungry for him, not food.

  “Sabrina,” he said, “you’re naked and dreaming and thinking about sex and I like your hair longer and your nose shorter.”

  “I know,” she said as a giant fish six feet long flopped up on the shore between them. Instantly it started to smell foul, as if rotting and burning at the same time.

  It stared at her with one fish-eye, as if daring her to get near it, to get past it to be near her husband. She tried.

  And tried.

  But no matter how hard she wanted sex with her husband, she couldn’t get past the smell to be near him, to touch his body, to feel him inside her, to let him touch her shorter nose.

  The stench became like a cloud, filling the air, choking her, forcing her to her knees. This was quickly becoming a nightmare, not a dream. She had to wake up.

  Like swimming for the surface of a deep ocean, she fought to come out of the sleep. She blinked and opened her eyes, staring at the ceiling over her bed. Thank heavens she was awake.

  But the smell was still there.

  Rotting fish and burning trash.

  “What...?”

  She tried to push the dream back and clear the sleep from her head. She was in their private cabin on board their charter ship, the Sweet Adele. They were on a five day run to the colony on Daring Three. No passengers this time, just three plastic crates of cargo. High paying cargo, but cargo.

  They were the only two on board, but if there had been a major problem with the ship, or a fire on board, the alarms would have ripped her from the bed. Clearly the ship’s sensors didn’t think the smell was a major problem.

  Lyman was beside her, tossing and turning as if in a nightmare. He had kicked the covers down to a point just below his waist, exposing his firm stomach, hard chest, and just a hint of pubic hair. She liked making love right after they woke up. And over the last four days of this trip, they had made love a lot. But just like in her dream, that smell wasn’t going to allow her to pull that blanket even lower at the moment.

  She grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Lyman! Wake up. We have a problem.”

  He didn’t want to come awake.

  “Lyman!” She shook him really hard that time. “We have a problem!”

  He jerked and opened his green eyes. “Wow, that was a weird dream...” Suddenly he sat up. “What’s that smell?”

  “That’s the problem,” she said.

  By the time he had on his pants and shoes, she had put on a halter top, a pair of shorts, and her shoes and was headed out the door. In the main corridor that ran the length of their thin, long ship, the smell was even worse. It choked her and she covered her nose in a useless defense.

  “Has to be coming from the cargo,” Lyman said.

  She turned and headed for the cargo bay with Lyman right beside her. With every step it felt as if she was climbing a steeper and steeper slope, slick with slime and goo. The air seemed to get thicker and thicker, holding her back.

  Finally she stopped and leaned against the bulkhead, not wanting to breathe in any more of the foulness that surrounded her. The cargo bay door was still a good twenty paces ahead.

  Lyman stopped beside her, his face white and sick-looking.

  “What do you think is holding us back?” she asked, barely managing to keep the snack she had eaten before going to bed in her stomach. The smell was so bad now, it was as if she had put her head inside a rotting fish, and then stuck pieces of it up her nose.

  “I have no idea,” he said. “Let’s get back to the control room.”

  She nodded. They had access to the security cameras there, as well as environmental suits. Together they turned around and headed away from the cargo bay.

  Suddenly it seemed as if the air was pushing them, helping them move faster and faster down the corridor, as if they were in a strong river and the current was rushing them toward something. It was the strangest thing she had ever felt.

  By the time they reached the control room at the other end of the Sweet Adele’s long central corridor, the smell was very weak, the intensity of it gone from everything but memory. There was no way she would ever forget that smell. She may never eat another fish as long as she lived.

  Lyman shut the door to the control room behind him, clearly hoping to keep the smell out. She doubted that would work. The control room was as comfortable to her as her living room in her parents’ home when growing up. Over the past five years she and Lyman had made the Sweet Adele their home, making hundreds of runs in this area of space, ferrying passengers and cargo. And lots of strange things had happened, but never anything like this.

  Usually they took on up to a dozen passengers, ferrying them from the Bank System to the interstellar jump hub in the Dawson System. But two days ago a man named Garren Fore had hired them to take three large crates to Daring Three, a small, out-of-the-way colony world. He had paid full price for the ship, and added a nice bonus for on-time delivery.

  He had demanded that no passengers be taken, as if anyone was in a rush to go to Daring Three anyway. He just wanted the three crates to be the only thing aboard and was willing to pay for it, which had been fine with Sabrina and Lyman. They had both figured to spend the time catching up on work and making love. And for the first four days, they had done just that. It had been wonderful. Now it seemed their cargo wasn’t going to be so trouble-free as they expected.

  Lyman moved over to the communications panel and punched up the security images of the cargo bay. The three crates were no longer secured ten paces apart. Somehow, they had moved together and merged, as if they had always been one unit.

  A pool of liquid covered the floor around them. The same color as the ocean in her dream. The thought made her shudder.

  The rest of the cargo bay looked as if it had been sprayed with slime-like paste. It was going to take a long time to clean up that mess.

  “How did they get like that?” She asked, staring at the three crates. Only she and Lyman were on this ship, yet something had moved those crates together.

  “I have no idea,” Lyman said. He flicked through five different images of the crates, looking at them from all sides. They seemed to be the standard, hard plastic crates used to ship everything from food to medical supplies. Except now they were fused together somehow, the hard plastic melted and reformed.

  And there was no telling what was going to happen next. Maybe they should have been just a little more insistent on knowing what was in those crates before they started. But the money Fore had offered had been so good, it just didn’t seem important enough to push the issue.

  The smell in the room was starting to get worse. Clearly they were running out of time.

  Lyman moved over and put the environmental controls on higher pressure for the control room. That would help keep the airflow moving outward from them. But she doubted that would do much good, either. It wouldn’t be long until the entire ship was contaminated. They had to do something and do it quickly. But what? Against what? A smell?

  Sabrina laughed at the thought. She moved to the communications panel and opened a channel to the communications hub on Banks Two. She knew it would be a very costly expense. Any sub-space conversation costs a lot per second, but this seemed to be the time to spend the money. Besides, Fore was going to pay for it if she had her way.

  After the standard ten second jump-lag setting up the link, the officer on duty appeared on the screen. “Channel open and tied in. Go ahead Sweet Adele.”

  “We need to make an emergency call to a Mr. Garren Fore.” She gave the officer Fore’s communication link information and waited as the screen went blank.

  Lyman moved over beside her and stood with his han
d on her shoulder. Clearly he agreed with what she was doing. As far as she could see, they had no other choice. They had to know what was in those crates, so they could figure out a way to fight what was happening.

  When Fore’s weathered and wrinkled face appeared on the screen and saw her, he actually paled and swallowed. “Is there a problem with my cargo?”

  “You tell me,” she said, sending him the image of the cargo bay and the three fused crates. Then she said, “We can’t get near them for some reason, and the smell is enough to choke a pig.”

  Fore looked almost angry, not at her, but clearly at himself. “This wasn’t supposed to have happened.”

  “No kidding,” Sabrina said. “So how about starting from the beginning and tell us exactly what is in those crates and what is happening.”

  Fore nodded. “Ever hear of Pelagic Prime?”

  She nodded and glanced up at Lyman, who clearly had also heard of the planet.

  “The water-world in the Bella System,” Sabrina said.

  “What is in the crates are a dozen Elucidations from Pelagic Prime,” Fore said.

  “Fish?” Sabrina asked. The idea stunned her.

  “Very special fish,” Fore said. “Telepathic fish for a scientist on Daring Three.”

  “Telepathic fish?” Sabrina almost laughed, but somehow managed to contain it. Around them the smell was getting worse.

  “So what’s going on in our cargo bay?” Lyman asked, leaning down beside her so his face was captured on the com-link camera.

  “The Elucidations are mating,” Fore said simply. “This wasn’t supposed to start for another ten days.”

  “Wonderful,” Sabrina said. “Smelly fish sex.”

  Fore said nothing.

  “And they have the power to fuse plastic and hold us away?” Lyman asked.

  “They do,” Fore said. “Their telepathic and telekinetic abilities are fantastic when they are mating.”