Asimov's Science Fiction: September 2013 by Penny Publications Read Free Book Online Page A

Greenbloom and maple. Shot through with every color of autumn as dawn blazes toward the white peaks of the Seven Mountains. He's never seen such beauty as this. The tide's further in today. Its salt smell, as he winds down the window and breathes it in, is somehow incredibly poignant. Then the road sweeps up from the coast. Away from the Westering Ocean. As the virtual Bentley takes a bridge over a gorge at a tirescream, it dissolves in a roaring pulse of flame.
    A few machine parts twist jaggedly upward, but they settle as the wind bears away the sound and the smoke. Soon, there's only the sigh of the trees, and the hiss of a nearby waterfall. Then there's nothing at all.
----

THE UNPARALLEL'D DEATH-DEFYING FEATS OF ASTOUNDIO, ESCAPE ARTIST EXTRAORDINAIRE
    Ian Creasey | 9029 words

    The author says, "I got the idea for this story after watching a TV documentary about famous escapologists. I found myself wondering what kind of escapology stunts would exist in the future, and this was the result." Ian's most recent appearances include stories in
Daily Science Fiction
and Orson Scott Card's InterGalactic Medicine Show.

    Escaping from a black hole is one of the most challenging stunts an escapologist can attempt. Firstly, there are many diff iculties of presentation: it's not an exploit that can be performed onstage in an ordinary theatre. Secondly, the audience needs to be educated to appreciate the feat, as half of them won't even know what a black hole is, let alone that escaping it was once proverbially impossible. Thirdly, and most importantly, the show has to
mean
something: it must create an emotional impact. That's the hardest part to achieve, when nowadays we're all so sated with sensation.
    I solved the first two problems by putting the audience on a spaceship and playing them an in-f light movie. By the time they arrived at the auditorium orbiting the black hole, they understood what they saw: a cascade of stellar debris plunging to an inexorable doom. The hole's accretion disc glowed in purple tints that matched my costume and the auditorium's décor. Half of showmanship is attention to detail.
    "Welcome!" I said, standing center-stage with the viewscreen behind me. "Thank you all for coming. Let me begin by asking a question: is there anyone here who doesn't want to die?"
    A nervous titter went round the room. Everyone in Cockaigne is immortal—it wouldn't be utopia if you weren't immortal. But the flipside of immortality is a fascination with death.
    In the front row, Veronica smiled in the manner of someone accepting a dare. A pulse of excitement raced through me. No matter how long we'd been together, I still loved to see her smile. And it boded well for today's real performance: the more diff i-cult escape I would attempt after the black hole.
    "That's not a rhetorical question," I continued. "Everyone can watch the show from here, but I'm also offering you the chance to accompany me into the black hole. The only problem is that you won't come out." I paused for emphasis. "I'll come back, but that's because I'm an escapologist—it's my job. The rest of you will all die." I said this with cheery relish.
    "Here's how it works: you'll each create a temporary disposable copy, which will transmit full-sense signals back to your original self. The copy will enter the black hole, and the original will stay behind. Or vice versa! Either way, you'll simultaneously watch yourselves die, while also experiencing your own deaths.
    "But only if you want to. If you'd rather not—if you think that death is perhaps a little too extreme for an evening's entertainment—then you're perfectly at liberty to opt out, and refrain from joining our descent." I smiled. "I promise not to think any less of you, as you sit safely here and watch the rest of us plummet to obliteration."
    A buzz of excitement arose. I let it build for a few moments, then went on, "There are a limited number of seats available on the shuttle. First come,