Kevin Anderson: The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

Merchant, keep your attar of roses,
your ambers, your oud,
your myrrh and sandalwood. I need
nothing but this dust
palmed in my hand’s cup
like a coin, like a mustard seed,
like a rusted key.
I need
no more than this, this earth
that isn’t earth, but breath,
the exhalation of a living city, the song
of a flute-boned woman,
air and marrow on her lips. This dust,
shaken from a drum, a door opening, a girl’s heel
on stone steps, this dust
like powdered cinnamon, I would wear
as other girls wear jasmine and lilies,
that a child with seafoam eyes
and dusky skin might cry, There
goes a girl with seven thousand years
at the hollow of her throat, there
goes a girl who opens her mouth to pour
caravans, mamelukes, a Mongolian horde
from lips that know less of roses
than of temples in the rising sun!

Damascus, Dimashq
is a song I sing to myself. I would find
where she keeps her mouth, meet it with mine,
press my hand against her palm
and see if our fingers match. She
is the sound, the feel
of coins shaken in a cup, of dice,
the alabaster clap of knight claiming rook,
of kings castling — she is the clamour
of tambourines and dirbakki,
nays sighing, qanouns musing, the complaint
of you merchants with spice-lined hands,
and there is dust in her laughter.

I would drink it, dry my tongue
with this noise, these narrow streets,
until she is a parched pain in my throat, a thorned rose
growing outward from my belly’s pit, aching fragrance
into my lungs. I need no other. I
would spill attar from my eyes,
mix her dust with my salt,
steep my fingers in her stone
and raise them to my lips.

Jeremiah sits in a room at Cornell
Lit by fluorescent lights
His ears are covered by headphones, and he’s bopping along as he searches
(He doesn’t look anything like Jodie Foster)
He’s not listening to the telescope — his headphones are blasting Queen
The telescope sends to him nothing but a string of numbers
His fingertips are doing the search
Writing a new algorithm to implement frequency-domain filtering
Sorting out a tiny signal of intelligence
(hypothetical intelligence)
from the thousand thousand thousand sources of noise from the sky
It’s four a.m., his favorite time of night
No distractions
Outside, the stars are bright
Inside, the stars sing to him alone.

Nine hundred light years away
In the direction of Perseus
Intelligent creatures are wondering why they hear nothing from the skies
They are sending out messages,
Have been sending out messages for hundreds of years
One of their number, renowned for his clear thinking,
Has an electromagnetic pickup on his head
(or, what would pass for a head)
He is thinking clear, simple thoughts
1 + 1 = 2
1 + 2 = 3
1 + 3 = 4

And the electromagnetic signals of his brain
(or, what would pass for a brain)
Are being amplified and beamed into the sky
In the direction of Earth
It is the simplest signal they know
A brain thinking
1 + 1 = 2
2 + 2 = 4

Jeremiah has been searching for years
He has a beard like Moses
Glasses like Jerry Garcia
A bald head like Jesse Ventura
Patience like Job
They are out there
If only the telescope arrays were larger…
if only they could search deeper…
If only his filtering algorithms were more incisive.

Nine hundred light years away
In the direction of Perseus
The aliens are patient
They are sending their thoughts to the stars
Clear, simple thoughts
We are here
We are here
We are here
Where are you?