“Premature,” he said. “I don’t want to push my luck.”
“I think we’re doing fine.”
“What exactly happened? What changed?”
“You’ve begun to believe in yourself. It’s all you needed.”
“And you arranged that by having me play John Wayne and Paul Henreid?”
“Not exactly. You had a chance to see what you could do. It fit within your essential parameters. It’s who you are, Walter. All you needed was to get acquainted with yourself.”
“I still don’t buy into it.”
“The technology has only been available for a few months, but there’s already been some research. Most of the people who fail in what they want to accomplish do so because they underestimate who they are. When they don’t believe they can succeed at something, they have little chance. Unless they get lucky. But show them visions of themselves exercising the qualities that most of us are born with, courage and a brain, and they tend to recognize the reality. After that, there’s no stopping them.”
“Well, Diana, I owe you. Maybe I can wander off now into the quantum world and win a Nobel.”
“It’s possible, Walter. But you’ve got a bigger responsibility at the moment.”
“What’s that?”
“Last time I looked, you had over a hundred students.” Their meals arrived. But neither was paying much attention to the food. “You want to watch a movie tonight?”
“Sounds like a good idea,” Walter said. “Do we have a copy of The High and the Mighty?”
“Actually, we do.”
“Okay, let’s go for it.”
“By the way, I don’t think I told you: I’m quitting Arbuckle.”
“Really? Why?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t imagine Ilsa Lund spending her life selling sofas.”
Jack McDevitt came to writing after establishing himself in numerous other careers, but he’s definitely made up for lost time. His first novel, The Hercules Text, received a special-citation Philip K. Dick Award in 1986. More recently, McDevitt was honored with the 2015 Robert A. Heinlein Award for lifetime achievement, in recognition of his prodigious body of work. (A dozen of his novels have been Nebula Award finalists.) Considered a master at science fiction mysteries, McDevitt is perhaps best known for his two main series: the Priscilla Hutchins books and the Alex Benedict series. Alongside his numerous novels and shorter works that have been nominated for the major science fiction awards, 2003’s Omega, the fourth Priscilla Hutchins novel, won the Campbell Award, and Seeker, the third Alex Benedict installment, won the 2006 Nebula for Best Novel. Like much of McDevitt’s writing, both were praised for their combination of expert storytelling and hard science.
Blue Delliquanti & Michele Rosenthal
A Cop’s Eye
Blue Delliquanti is an artist, comic writer, and illustrator based in Minneapolis. Since 2012, Delliquanti has been regularly publishing the webcomic O Human Star, a science fiction story about a roboticist who returns to life as an android after his mysterious death sixteen years before. Acclaimed for its complex examination of identity and relationships, O Human Star won the 2012 Prism Comics Queer Press Grant. In addition to her self-published work, Delliquanti has contributed to several anthologies, including Smut Peddler and Womanthology, and she’s collaborated with David Axe, Kevin Knodell, and Nathan Schreiber on nonfiction comics.
Michele Rosenthal is an accomplished Brooklyn-based illustrator and graphic designer. The Sonic Man Machine, a Risograph fan comic illustrated by Rosenthal and written by her brother Mike, features 1970s electronica band Kraftwerk going on a surreal, hot-pink adventure. She recently published her first children’s ebook, The Trouble with Falling Asleep, a bedtime story for kids with active imaginations. Rosenthal’s illustrations have been featured in numerous print publications and online at Funny or Die and POPSUGAR. Her film blog, Criterion Affection, chronicles (often through illustration) her effort to watch every single film in the Criterion Collection, and she also runs Queer Portraits in History, a blog profiling historical LGBTQ figures.
Robert J. Sawyer
Looking for Gordo
“Order in the court! All rise!” Emily Chiu and the two hundred other people in the wood-paneled room got to their feet. She was a witness, but most of the others had donated five thousand dollars apiece for their seats. Countless millions were also watching the streaming coverage online.
Richard Weisman—portly, with thundercloud-gray hair—entered through a side doorway and strode to the bench. Although the opposing counsels on this Saturday afternoon weren’t actual lawyers—one was an astronomer; the other, a historian—Weisman was a real judge, donating his time, just as the city had donated the use of the courtroom.
The US and California flags that normally stood behind the bench were in their usual places. Emily had pointed out to the reporter sitting next to her that the California one, depicting a big bear, was particularly apt, since today’s proceedings revolved around 47 Ursae Majoris, but she didn’t think the guy got the joke.