Double Vision, page 1
Table of Contents
Critical Praise for Lee and Miller’s | Liaden Universe®
About this Book
Double Vision
Copyright Page
Double Vision
Dedicated to:
Ginger and the Bully | of Lowergate Court
The Cat’s Job
A Matter of Ceremony
Coffeecat
The Big Ice
Rain Day
Master of the Winds
The Pretender
The Silver Pathway
The Year They Brought the Bears to Belfast
Kinzel the Foolish
Kinzel the Innocent
Kinzel the Arbiter
And Hawks for Heralds
Charioteer
Stormshelter
The Solution
The Girl, The Cat and Deviant
The AfterImage
Master Walk
Two for the Tarot
The Handsome Prince
Stolen Laughter
The Winter Consort
The Inventoried
Gonna Boogie With Granny Time
Passionato
Candlelight
Authorial Discursions, 2009 edition
About the Authors (2009)
Joint afterthoughts on Double Vision, 2nd edition, 2024
Novels by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Novels by Sharon Lee
Pinbeam Books Publications
Thank You
Critical Praise for Lee and Miller’s
Liaden Universe®
″No one does space opera better than Lee and Miller.”—SF Site
“The writing is as rich with detail as anything by C. J. Cherryh, while the general approach... reminds of Andre Norton.”—Tom Easton, Analog
“...tight, well-wrought prose, economical characterization, and basically charitable vision of humanity—characteristics I found in all of these stories.”—Thomas Marcinko, Tangent
“...the authors’ craftsmanship is top-notch, recalling the work of Elizabeth Moon and Lois McMaster Bujold ....”—Publishers Weekly
“The combination of wit, relationship, and space opera may appeal to readers of Lois McMaster Bujold.”—Booklist
“The craftsmanship and love that clearly went into them makes them easy to read, the way a well-made chair feels good to sit on. There’s an element of wish-fulfillment in these stories, but the wish is to reach some kind of meaningful understanding with a strange or estranged Other. It’s one of the great themes of science fiction, and it’s a wish well worth having.”—Thomas Marcinko, Tangent
“...good, solid space opera ... a very fine piece of entertainment.”—Don D’Ammassa, Chronicle
“As a writer, I admire (the authors’) deft turn of phrase, subtle humor, and elegance of prose. As a reader, I especially enjoy stories in which a member of one culture must find a way to adapt to another.”—Susan Krinard, author of To Tame a Wolf
“Sharon Lee and Steve Miller are so good it’s scary.”— S. L. Viehl, author of the Stardoc novels
“These authors consistently deliver stories with a rich, textured setting, intricate plotting, and vivid, interesting characters from fully-realized cultures, both human and alien.”—Elizabeth Moon, author of Speed of Dark
“Imagine Georgette Heyer crossed with James Bond in a universe of starships and psychic wizardry, and you’ll have something like the Liaden novels of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller—nobody else in the field combines space opera and comedy of manners with the same deftness and brio as these two.”—Debra Doyle, co-author of the Mageworlds novels
“...I loved the action, the conflict of cultures, the characters, the romance. But best of all, and what makes each story enduringly special to me, is the strong sense of honor that impels the actions of the main characters and is often the basis of the conflicts among them. The Liaden world is an admirable world. Bravo!”—Mary Balogh, author of The Secret Pearl
About this Book
Double Vision is a yours, mine, and ours collection from long-time Liaden Universe co-authors Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. This volume of twenty-nine early works was originally published in 2009 by SRM Publisher, Ltd. This Pinbeam Books edition replaces the long-out-of-print SRM Publisher paper edition published 15 years ago—you can consider this a 15th anniversary edition of that 2009 collection if you like. Most of the text of that edition has been retained but some additional editing and reformatting has been performed.
NOTE: The cover of this edition is used by special permission of the artist, Chris McGrath—it was previously used for the Meisha Merlin edition of Low Port, edited by Lee and Miller.
Double Vision
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Pinbeam Books
PO Box 1586
Waterville, ME 04903
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious, except those mentioned in "Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court"
Copyright Page
Double Vision Copyright ©2009 and ©2024 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without the written permission of the authors . Originally published by SRM Publisher, 2009
Ginger and the Bully of Lowergate Court ©1996 Sharon Lee; The Cat’s Job ©1997 Steve Miller; A Matter of Ceremony ©1980 Sharon Lee; Coffee Cat ©1986 Sharon Lee; The Big Ice ©1998 Sharon Lee; Rain Day ©1981 Steve Miller; Master of The Winds ©1984 Sharon Lee; The Pretender ©1981 Sharon Lee; The Silver Pathway ©1981 Sharon Lee; The Year They Brought The Bears to Belfast ©1999 Sharon Lee; The Naming of Kinzel ©1984 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Innocent ©1984 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Kinzel The Arbiter ©1987 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; And Hawks for Heralds ©1999 Steve Miller; Charioteer ©1978 Steve Miller; Stormshelter © 1981 Sharon Lee; The Solution ©1978 Steve Miller; The Girl, the Cat, and the Deviant ©1981 Sharon Lee; The Afterimage ©1996 Sharon Lee; Master Walk ©2003 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller; Two for the Tarot: Choices © 1981 Steve Miller, Cards ©1981 Sharon Lee; The Handsome Prince © 1981 Sharon Lee; Stolen Laughter © 1982 Sharon Lee; The Winter Consort ©1982 Sharon Lee; The Inventoried ©1976 Steve Miller; Gonna Boogie With Granny Time ©2003 Sharon Lee; Passionato ©1996 Sharon Lee; Candlelight ©1995 Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Cover art copyright ©2009 Chris McGrath; used by permission
Cover design by Steve Miller
Published by Pinbeam Books by arrangement with the authors
PO B0X 1586, Waterville, ME 04903
www.pinbeambooks.com
First Pinbeam edition, June 2024
ISBN: 978-1-948465-27-4
Double Vision
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller
Twenty-nine short works
Dedicated to:
Millea Kenin
and
Elinor Mavor
Ginger and the Bully
of Lowergate Court
Sharon Lee
FOR NINE YEARS Steve and I (with Archie, Arwen, Brandee and Buzz-z) lived in an impossible little townhouse on Lowergate Court in Owings Mills, Maryland. Lowergate was one of five courts that comprised the stunningly misnamed Bright Meadows, the entire campus of which was roughly three quarters of a mile around.
The best thing about Bright Meadows (besides that the rent was cheap and the roof kept the rain off. Mostly.) was that there were many dozens of cats in the neighborhood. Steve and I would go for walks up and down and around the various courts and say hi to Jazz and Mom, Sasquatch, Pirate, Taffy, Sandy, The Gentleman, Blue and Ginger.
Ginger was the mayor. I didn’t say he was the mayor—anyone could see that he was, just by looking at him. An orange striped cat of middle years with a habitual demeanor of grave attentiveness, he made his rounds every day, up, down and around the courts, across to World’s End and down the back woods.
He would stop by our place mid-morning and trade orange cat stories with Archie through the bottom screen in the kitchen door. At least once I saw him at World’s End with Brandee, hunting moles. He cuffed Buzz-z once when they first met and that took care of that—deference to the mayor was Buzz-z’s rule, ever after.
Ginger was a non-partisan mayor. He was a cat, true enough, but he held every resident of the courts to be citizens, equally subject to his authority— and his protection. Steve saw him run off a stray dog that had frightened one of the toddlers in the playground. I saw him streaking to the rescue, the day Pirate was treed by a couple of boys with too much time on their hands.
The Gentleman, who was Brandee’s special friend, was a Cat of the World—a wire-tough black-and-white with gnawed-up ears and a limp off the back right leg—and even he accorded Ginger the respect of his rank, whenever he found himself on Hizzoner’s turf.
Not so, the Siamese.
I do not at this distance remember the Siamese’s name. Perhaps I never knew it. Steve claims some vague recollection of having heard him called “Khan.”
I’m not so sure. What I am sure of is that he arrived outside my kitchen door one April morning, just before Ginger’s daily visit, swearing and cussing and hissing at Archie, who was standing up on his hind legs and giving back as good as he got. I threw a glass of water on him through the screen and told him to get a life, which, as it happens, was a mistake.
From that moment on, the Siamese targeted our house. He would show up at all hours, bitching and screaming. He would crouch under the bush by the door and leap on Brandee, or Steve or me as we left.
But we weren’t the only ones.
He made Taffy’s life a misery. He jumped The Gentleman so many times that The Gentlemen went to visit friends in the country. He clawed Jazz so badly the vet was afraid he wouldn’t be able to save the eye. S’quatch would scream when he saw the Siamese coming his way and scramble up the drain pipe to sit wailing in the rain gutter until his lady fetched him down. Brandee would flatten herself to the ground and her ears to her head and dare him to try it, which was also Sandy’s approach—damages there were minor, but the name-calling sessions were deafening.
Ginger tried to reason with him, to no avail. I tried to reason with his owner and was told to mind my own business and if that cat come missing, she’d know who to blame.
This went on from April until August.
And one hot August afternoon, with the heat beating out of the sky colliding with the heat rising off the tarmac at the level of your ears—up at the top of Lowergate Court, right next to the dumpster—an amazing thing occurred.
The Siamese was sitting in the parking lot, swearing at Pirate, who was scrunched down under a starveling cedar tree, pretending to be invisible.
They had been doing this for some time.
Suddenly, in other parts of the court, there was—movement.
From up-court came Mom and Sasquatch; from down-court, Brandee and Sandy. Taffy and Jazz drifted down the hill across and Blue pussyfooted in from somewhere and sat next to the cedar tree, tail wrapped around his toes.
The Siamese cut off in mid-curse and looked around him. The rest of the cats kept moving, slowly and purposefully, even Snowball-called-Avalanche, who never left her patio, until they had made a circle, with the Siamese in the center.
The Siamese yawned. He got up and headed for the gap between Jazz and Taffy. The cats moved closer together as he approached. Somebody growled. The Siamese backed up.
After a minute, he chose another direction, this one toward the cedar tree. He started to growl as he got closer and puffed himself up. But Pirate screamed back and made himself even bigger and Blue said something that was perhaps not quite polite.
The Siamese slunk back to the center of the circle and sat, carefully, down.
***
WHICH WAS WHEN Ginger left his place in the ring and walked forward.
Immediately, the Siamese was on his feet, fur every-which-way, swearing like a ship full of sailors.
The circle of cats drew a little closer together. Ginger kept moving forward.
The Siamese flattened his belly to the tarmac and his ears to his head and swore he was the master of every cat there and a black belt in seventeen secret martial arts, besides.
Ginger kept coming.
The Siamese yelled for his mommy.
Ginger reached out and smacked him upside the head, none-too-gently. The Siamese babbled and wailed.
Ginger smacked him again, a little harder, but not nearly as hard as the Siamese had hit Jazz.
The Siamese stopped screaming. V-e-r-y slowly, he sat up. Even more slowly, he got his ears back into position. He licked his lips. Ginger sat down, utterly at ease, and began to bathe. All around, the cat circle waited.
They held that tableau for half-an-hour, I guess, then, one-by-one, the cats in the circle drifted away, back to their usual rounds. Ginger, spotlessly clean, left last, saving only the Siamese, who waited another four or five minutes, blue eyes darting this way and that. When he was certain he was unobserved, he got up and headed for home.
I never heard another ill word out of him, from that day until we moved.
First published in Central Maine Morning Sentinel, 1996
The Cat’s Job
Steve Miller
“THE CAT’S JOB is to be pretty!” Sheila said with some asperity. “That’s all a cat in my house has to do. Purr once in awhile, let me touch it, and be pretty. What more would you have a cat do?”
Greg shook his head sadly. They’d only moved in together three days ago and things had looked so bright. This might not work out after all....
“Well, for starters, I expect the cat to sleep in the same room I do. It helps guard against things that come in the night. It gets the flies that buzz around in the summer. It kills the smelly socks, finds the balled up trash paper, hides the extra pens and puts them away—normal stuff for a cat—and it reminds us the world is not run for our convenience.”
The cat at hand was majestically above such discussions. So gray it was nearly blue, with a large squarish face and a wonderful tuft of fur on each large ear, this was no ordinary cat. This was the cat who lived here. It felt, without ever putting it into so many words, of course, that what a cat does is solely up to the cat.
“Come now, Greg. Really, I don’t mind your cat sleeping in the same room with us, though I don’t think it ought to stare at us that way when we make love. I don’t even mind if it sleeps at the foot of the bed. But I don’t think we have to keep that stupid bag of his.”
“Hers! I told you that ‘Landy’is short for Mrs. Landsdale!”
“Whatever! Just let me get rid of that bag!”
“Sheila ...” he said and now the argument moved out of the kitchen and up the stairs.
Landy continued to sit serene on the kitchen floor for several moments and then jumped without preamble to the table, with a good view of the bag.
The argument wandered around the townhouse as the couple got ready to go out. It stayed for a few moments in the bathroom while he shaved; it meandered into the bedroom while she changed her blouse twice, decrying the weather forecast, then it moved into the upstairs hall as he searched again for the new can of deodorant in the linen closet.
“But you were serious,” she said again. “I like you, Greg. I love you. I like Landy. But I know when you’re being serious and I don’t think people are going to think we’re quite sane if we keep a beat-up old grocery bag on the kitchen floor all of the time. You sounded so damn serious and convincing last night when you told everyone that Landy’s job was to guard the monster in the bag!”
Slowly into the front bedroom went the argument, the bedroom that doubled as the electronic entertainment center. “I promised him a tape last night. Somewhere. Somewhere ...” Greg said as he stared at the wallful of tapes, until finally saying, “ta-da!”
He turned to Sheila as if finding the tape had made his point.
“Sheila, listen to me. Landy has been with me ever since she was a kitten. Seven years. In those seven years she’s had two or three toys, a couple of pets, and a couple of jobs. You know, things that she took a shine to and played with or watched or what-have-you. I want to keep her happy, because I’ve only had good luck since she’s been with me. So what if I say she catches the monsters? It keeps me happy and it keeps her happy. It can keep you happy, too, if you’ll give it a shot.”
Downstairs, from the kitchen table, Landy spotted a subtle movement in the bag. She was positive that the little bunch of paper there in the back, next to the second crease north of the red “F” in Frank’s Foodarama had moved again. Twice this week it had moved!
Cautiously, Landy moved herself to alert, changing her casual side-lean into a genuine crouch. Her ears were near tuft-forward, she was concentrating so hard, and all four feet were firmly under her. She didn’t try to control her tail; the tip of it started the count of a proper launch rhythm as she waited.
Now the bag appeared to puff a little, to expand.
They were trying to sneak through, again. Hah! As if she’d ever let one in without a tussle!
NOW!
The ugly green-black of the silent tentacle slid out of the bag, slowly, as if testing the air, as if vivid memory might have lent some caution.
Landy leapt, uttering a war-cry a thousand generations old as she pounced on the very tip of the insidious invading pseudo-pod.
She felt it move as she landed on it, felt it try to wriggle away to the left and she attacked it there, too, threatening to get her good, strong claws into the ugly flesh and drag it into the light, to blind it forever and then carry her trophy to Greg.
