“To change the world?”

  “For you, Clio’s scroll is yet to be written. Write it, Beatrice. Write it better.”

  The sky was entirely dark now. But the marketplace was bright, and dimly she saw it. She had a future, her own path that didn’t involve Asmidiske, her uncle or grandfather, or even the poet. If she didn’t grasp it, that brighter future would never be known.

  “Here, a bill of lading. She can use the back.” The nun set down paper and inkwell.

  “Take ink, girl. I’ll go slowly.”

  He leaned an elbow on the herb rack at the front of the booth and spoke. No, declaimed, not loudly but in a strong supple voice that carried to every ear. Beatrice’s pen scraped across the page as fast as she could drive it:

  Midway upon the journey of our life

  I found myself within a forest dark,

  For the straightforward pathway had been lost.

  Ah me! how hard a thing it is to say

  What was this forest savage, rough, and stern,

  Which in the very thought renews the fear.

  So bitter is it, death is little more;

  But of the good to treat, which there I found,

  Speak will I of the other things I saw there.

  The page was filled but he didn’t stop, swept along by his own verse. Beatrice listened, eyes wide. Out past the rack of drying herbs, ointments, and inks, the market’s revelers gathered to listen to verse not in Latin but their own tongue. Mothers hushed their children, men craned their necks, and a pool of silence spread, filled only with the poet’s voice. Out at the verge she could hear them: “Shush! It’s Dante, he visited Hell!”

  At the end of the canto he stopped. “Let me see, girl . . . There’s an ‘i’ in ‘variegated,’ you had better insert it.”

  The nun closed her mouth, which had dropped open. “Sir! That was astonishing!”

  “Master Dante!” The young man pushing forward wore doublet and hose of fine cloth, and his mantle was blue silk. “I recognized your voice! But I cannot hope that you remember me. Ghirlandaio de Ventura—I attended your lectures in Bologna.”

  “De Ventura, of course I remember.” She was certain he didn’t, but the words were utterly convincing. “Lectures on the theory of vernacular language, I wonder anyone stayed awake. What are you doing in San Casciano?”

  “I’m secretary to the village’s podestà, Ser Tancredi dei Visconti del Campiglia. May I present you?”

  Before he could do it, an impatient old Crusader knight stepped forward. A large black hat with trailing lappets perched on his head, and his cioppa was opulently pleated in green brocade. He thrust a plump hand out. “An honor, master Dante. The descent of genius from on high! What the devil is such a poet doing, reciting immortal verse in the marketplace? You must come to dinner. A hostel, shameful! Accept my hospitality, I insist! De Ventura, let someone run up to the castle. Warn Alessandra to make up the beds. Have the butler invite the town fathers!”

  Beatrice crammed the cork back into the ink bottle. She was being left, again. Asmidiske had had no choice but to go where they could live. But the poet would be off with his grand friends. Just as well—this convent wouldn’t take in a penniless postulant. The moment he turned his back she’d slip out through the crowd, helping herself to any unguarded valuables on the way.

  But suddenly they were inside the booth. “ . . . literacy must be fostered. And when I learned her name was Beatrice, I felt it was Heaven’s imprimatur.”

  “Of course.” De Ventura lifted the page with fastidious fingertips in case the ink was still wet. “A decent Carolingian minuscule, indeed.”

  Ser Tancredi peered shortsightedly at it. “This, your very words? I’ll buy it!”

  “It is not fit, sir,” the poet interposed. “Writ on wastepaper, misspelled—note it in the margin, girl, that ‘consternation’ has an ‘r’ in the middle. Let Beatrice copy it again fair on a clean page, Ser Tancredi. Then it will be worthy of you. And, Sister Felicita, are you familiar with the term ‘right to copy’? I give to Beatrice the right to copy this canto, in her own hand, as often as she finds it profitable.”

  “Her dowry?” De Ventura handed the sheet back. “That’s wildly generous of you, master.”

  “A single canto, no. ‘Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I give.’ Consider it as the single almond that the good Sister offers. A sample, to whet appetite.”

  Ser Tancredi immediately proved it worked. “I have no copy of the Inferno, master Dante. Tell me the name of your copyist!”

  De Ventura said, “I’ll write to him tomorrow.”

  “Clever,” she murmured.

  The poet eyed her. “You did well. But, judging from your spelling, you’ve never read the poem. Have you?”

  She twiddled the goose quill. “Um . . . ”

  Almost, he laughed. “A negative reply to that question is not rare.”

  “Orvieto?” Ser Tancredi said. “Hah, you must be helping with the debate about Pisa’s damnable salt taxes . . . ”

  Expensive robes rustled as they departed. Sister Felicita stared at the paper as if it were fine gold. “Well! It’s not settled yet, but to keep Ser Tancredi waiting is never wise. Certainly, Beatrice, we can readily sell your copies of master Dante’s first canto.”

  Beatrice met the nun’s eye. “The convent supplies ink and paper, I buy the pens. We divide the money.”

  6.

  He was too old now to sleep rough, the poet reflected. Better a grand supper and slumber in a soft bed between linen sheets. Ser Tancredi had insisted on lending him horses, de Ventura as an escort and a groom. But Dante expressed a wish to make his devotions before they set out.

  From the castle, dawn over the Paglia valley lifted the heart, honey-colored light poured over a vista of olive groves, prosperous fields, and lush vineyards. The morning air was cool when he walked past the village gates and around to where the trees guarded the hot spring.

  He spoke with confidence. “You declared that you would heed Beatrice’s call. I invoke you in her name. Answer, Asmidiske.”

  He noted the leathery strand, tucked into a crevice of the rock. The metallic voice rang out stronger than he’d ever heard it. “Florentine.”

  “She’s taken refuge in the village, in the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Conception.”

  “They did not exaggerate your powers of persuasion.”

  “Doubtless she’ll come down soon to complain bitterly about it. Discourage her, if you would, from running away.”

  “A convent, was that not costly?”

  “Mine host the lord of the village had all his friends to dinner last night, and I called upon them to contribute. A florin or two from a dozen merchants with literary pretensions, and it’s paid for this year, at least.”

  “You are kind to come tell me.”

  “No, creature. I have a question for the Sibyl of Cumae. Beatrice is not here, so I may ask aloud. Shall I return to Florence?”

  The pause was long enough for him to hear the oak leaves rustle. “No.”

  He recognized the reflexive anger of a proud and willful man balked of his purpose. Who but he should know his besetting sins? And yet he retorted, “I know your secrets. Do you not fear I shall tell them, write them?”

  “I know everything you have ever written or will write, master Dante. Remember, I have Clio’s scroll. You do not betray me.”

  “Is not my will free then? I could betray you. Destroy your future, many pages ahead in the scroll.”

  “You wish me to threaten you.”

  The anger was gone as suddenly as it had come as temptations do when resisted. His reply was mild. “Only in the cause of plumbing your powers. Tell me, little creature. I’m curious. What is the worst you could do?”

  “Knowledge is a good weapon for the small, Florentine. Suppose I were to recite to you the poem you are now contemplating. The Purgatorio will exist. But I could rip away from you all the pleasure you shall have in composing it.”

  His stomach chilled. “That’s hellish.”

  “And we agreed I am no demon. I wish you only well, master Dante. You have helped my dear Beatrice. In return I will tell your future.”

  He stood riveted, struck silent as the metallic voice pronounced his doom. “On Clio’s scroll you are writ large. I know all your works, Dante, because you stand with Homer and Virgil, one of humankind’s greatest poets. And more than Earth. We shall carry your words home with us.”

  He blew out a breath he had not noticed he was holding. “Ah. My thanks, Asmidiske. For both prophecies. Knowledge is power indeed. Since I shall never return, I’ll call my wife out of her family’s home in Florence to join me. And from Homer on, fame is the dream of all who labor with the pen.”

  “May your God bless you, master Dante, and keep you in your travels.” There was nothing in the inhuman voice. But he could hear, like an echo in the clay jar, a knowledge they would not tell.

  Wise, he did not ask. “Come safe, Asmidiske, to where, and when, you hope to arrive.”

  Through the dark wood, the molten gold of the day’s first sunshine warmed his shoulders. De Ventura waited at the bottom of the hill with the horses that would carry them swiftly to Orvieto.

  He must have been smiling because de Ventura said, “Your prayers were heard, master? Perhaps inspiration for the Purgatory cantiche.”

  “No. And yes.” He stood unmoving as it surged over him. An idea! A secret history, events as written riddled through and through with other actors in unwritten ones. Prophecies true, but slantwise. The young hero, the thread through the labyrinth—his name would be Ettore, soldier and heir to Priam, loyal to the death in the defense of his city. The poet gripped a hard green nut of nascent verse that, properly tended, might grow tall.

  The horses stamped, fretting to be gone. The groom held the stirrup, and he sprang into the saddle. “There’s something inspiring about the name Beatrice. But let me first finish my Comedy . . . ”

  About the Author

  Brenda W. Clough is the first female Asian-American SF writer, first appearing in print in 1984. Her historical novel A Door In His Head won the 2023 Diverse Voices Award. Her novella “May Be Some Time” was a finalist for both the Hugo and the Nebula awards and became the novel Revise the World. Her time travel trilogy is Edge to Center, available at Book View Café. The Thrilling Adventures of Miss Marian Halcomb, a series of eleven neo-Victorian thrillers, appeared in 2021.

  Tigers for Sale

  Risa Wolf

  Past the sparrow-dark dust fields of Far Euniply, at the edge of the Joined Cultures’ galactic borders, within the section of space they call the Emptiness, the Station floats. The Station waits. The Station prepares itself for the inevitability of another explorer’s arrival.

  no I can’t, I won’t, never again—

  STOP

  Station has lost a millisecond. It searches its databanks but cannot find any data recording or logs for that specific moment in time.

  Station decides to run diagnostics. It tests the antennae, which spread like six insectoid legs below its primary hexagonal structure. It sends drones to clean and repair sensory panels and broadcast devices. It reinforces the structure of its central bulb, where beings of flesh and breath must be able to reside. It examines its mind, inspecting the filaments, databanks, and processing units networked together to create its consciousness. Diagnostics finally discovers an error in two databanks.

  Issue: Parameter Overextension. Solution: Full Sleep Cycle Required.

  The solution is marked as urgent.

  The Station wipes the error from its logs. It will not sleep, will not return to the horrors creeping underneath its thoughts. It insists, to itself, that it must be prepared if a new ship arrives. It is the last operational cross-universe transit center. The others are gone.

  not gone but—

  STOP

  Firewalls shift and close inside Station’s mind, and once again, it forgets.

  Station thinks of itself as Station. No one has given it another name. Many centuries have elapsed since Station performed its first intra-universe rip, and it does not know if it will ever be allowed to stop. It has a long dossier listing every exploratory ship that has visited, seeking passage through the corridors between dimensions. Its dossier of those who have been granted access, carrying the return beacons that are critical for their success, is much shorter.

  A shimmer along its sensory panels, a sprinkle of targeting zetrons, announces the impending arrival of a starship. Station ignores an agitation along its antennae and proceeds to taste the zetrons, its sensitive palate discerning the ship’s details. It’s a smaller craft, F-class. Registered to the Joined Cultures, but entirely human-grade technology, no ballistics. Less than ten crew members. The ship is approximately two days away from interception, by Station’s time, and thus it gets to work.

  The first task is housekeeping. Gas tendrils and carbon dust flow into the Emptiness from Far Euniply, and they have reacted to remote stellar winds to create a lacy shell around Station. Before the ship arrives, Station clears a way, moving debris with targeted streams of hydrogen.

  Then, Station assesses the catalog of beings within its animera. It tags all profiles for those marked as human-fluent and sorts them for skill and precision, even though it already knows who it will choose for the qualification survey. Who it always chooses.

  Station houses twenty sentiences who are specially trained to survey arriving ships. Station cares for nineteen of them and their needs equally. Kethel is different from the rest. Kethel is Station’s favorite.

  Station learned what it means to be a favorite from ancient interactions with the Founder who finalized its programming. A being with mushroom-gill eyes and twelve fingers on each hand, stroking its hull as they aligned the filaments and structures of Station’s mind. The being’s last words to Station were a goodbye.

  “Oh my favorite, I am sorry to leave. You will forget me, as you will forget many things. But I will remember you. I wish I could witness you at your full power. Enjoy it, my love.”

  Station copied that moment, storing it in many places in its mind. It ensured it would not forget as its systems were powered up and the Founder departed, taking all memories of Station’s inception with them. It used to replay the recording whenever it missed Kethel’s presence. Now, however, it has many moments with Kethel to replay, and it is looking forward to adding another.

  Station ejects Kethel’s suspension capsule to the recovery room, delighting in the trill that shivers its metal skin as the appropriate life support systems start up.

  Station recalls the last human-grade ship, eighty-two years and forty-seven days ago. It was a T-class, fourteen crew, light military capacity. It had come in fast, and Station needed to accelerate Kethel’s recovery process.

  “Station, something’s wrong,” they’d mumbled.

  “You are experiencing revival sickness. A new ship is less than a human day away. I apologize for rushing you.”

  “Not your fault.” They flailed at the rim of the recovery bed, unable to control their muscles. “I don’t think I’ll be ready in time. Can I run the survey from here?”

  “Yes, that is appropriate.”

  By the time the ship had arrived and shared its translation package, Station had extended its broadcast receivers to the recovery room. Kethel could barely sit up.

  “Please hail them, no visual.”

  Station broadcast the request for engagement.

  “Name,” Kethel barked at them.

  “Xanor Mak, aimer for Baroque Gentry.” Kethel had winced at the voice, slick like oil.

  “Baroque Gentry? That is your ship’s name?”

  “Yes, miladra,” the voice assured them.

  “Fine. Name one baroque artist of any kind.”

  The broadcast was silent.

  “It can be music, art, architecture, whatever,” Kethel continued. “Just one.”

  “ . . . What?”

  Station had never seen Kethel bare their teeth before. “What, or who, is your ship named after, Xanor Mak? Do you know?”

  “I don’t understand, miladra.”

  Kethel had lain back in the recovery bed. “Is something wrong with their translation package, Station?”

  “I detect no errors.”

  “Xanor Mak, you have one more chance to qualify for travel to the next universe. Explain to me the significance of your ship’s name.”

  The broadcast fizzed, then the voice, its oiliness taking a bitter cast, echoed in the room. “There must be some confusion or a translation issue. A name is just a name.”

  Kethel closed their eyes. “Rejection, then. Baroque Gentry, you are not granted passage.”

  Station’s monitoring detected Baroque Gentry funneling energy toward their projectile apparatus. “Kethel, it appears our guests are preparing to fire upon us.”

  The oily voice returned. “You have no shields up, and no armaments on file. A person living within an unprotected location should not make rash decisions, should they?”

  Kethel’s laugh was light, a ghost knocking a bell. “Station, you have my permission to show our guest how unprotected we are. Please force them to depart.”

  With Kethel’s words, firewalls moved in Station’s mind. Within its synaptic web, a databank devoted to military action was unveiled. Station suddenly remembered it contained an array of hidden lasers, and that a small percentage of the carbon it collected for its fabricators was unconsciously redirected toward several ballistics devices.

  That was a fun day.

  Afterward, once Kethel was fully recovered, they had watched the recording of Baroque’s limping retreat. Station had reveled in Kethel embracing the metal struts in the human-specific quarters, their body trembling with a more robust laughter, a wolf’s celebration rather than a transparency.

  “Station, you deserve a break,” Kethel gasped after their laughter had run out. “How about I monitor the sensors for a while, and you take some time to live in a good memory?”

 

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