Майкл Салливан - Deep Magic. Fourth Collection

Once I’d climbed down into the rowboat, it took some weaving to get clear of the merchant ships that had surrounded the Carrion Crow . Fortunately, none spotted me, their attention was on the battle still raging across the decks above.

As I rowed for land, I couldn’t help but wonder if Cross’s crew would manage to fight their way down into the Flower ’s vault. If so, I imagine they would be disappointed when they got there, for all they would find is the magic to determine whether or not someone is lying. Very useful for building a merchant trading empire, but not so useful for escaping a fleet of ships. Once Lord Buckworth turned him over to the governor’s courts, Captain Cross would soon after find himself on the uncomfortable end of a noose. Too bad he’d been misled about the Flower ’s vault holding storm magic, but he should have known better than to believe everything he hears. Who knows how such wild and reckless rumors get started?

Although, I must say, my former captain was dead right on one account. For the children of those noble houses whose magic he stole, growing up in the slums did make them tough and resourceful. Some of them tough enough to live like a pirate for years. And some of them resourceful enough to concoct a swindle wherein they recover their family’s magic while at the same time revenging themselves against the very pirate captain who’d stolen it from them.

It wasn’t until David VonAllmen’s high school professor thought one of his short stories was suspiciously high in literary merit and threatened to have him expelled for plagiarism that he realized he just might have the talent to be a real writer. David’s writing has appeared in Galaxy’s Edge, Daily Science Fiction, Factor Four, and other professional publications. David is the Grand Prize winner of the 2018 Baen Fantasy Adventure Award. He lives in his hometown of St. Louis with his wife, Ann, and children, Lucas and Eva, who write some pretty darn good stories of their own.

Website:www.davidvonallmen.comE

Facebook:DavidVonallmen

Twitter:@VonAllmenDavid

Email:dave@davidvonallmen.com

5,000 words

NOBODY TOLD ME the new girl was a centaur.

Centaur ’s probably not the politically correct term, I thought as I watched her move into the dorm room down the hall. We’d all known she was coming; the International Space Relations Consulate made sure the entire town, not just the college, knew that an alien creature would be integrating into our normal Earth community. It was all part of their efforts to join the new Space Coalition—some mumbo-jumbo about interplanetary cultural exchange. And what better way to integrate members of other “advanced” races than to dump them straight into our educational system?

Yeah, we’d gotten a real laugh out of it too.

Doors stayed clamped shut all along the hall, but Mom always said I was curious to a fault. There were four races in the Space Coalition, but this had to be the strangest: her torso and arms and head looked human enough, albeit furry and pointy-eared, but it all fell to pieces when your eyes moved down to the four-legged body of some giant dog/cat beast, complete with huge paws and fluffy tail. Straight out of Narnia, except the centaurs I liked as a kid had hooves, not paws. They also didn’t use their feet to turn doorknobs. I leaned farther out involuntarily, staring as the alien lady pushed her way through the door with two boxes balanced on her horizontal back. No student valets out today. Shouldn’t somebody be helping her move in?

“Elliot, you moron, get in here!” My roommate chucked a blue coaster at my head, which missed, because his aim is terrible. “It’s bad enough we have to live in the same dorm without introducing ourselves. Leave it alone.”

“Her,” I muttered, but I closed the door. Luke was right. I didn’t need to be getting involved in any alien business.

I saw her again later that week, as I crossed the quad toward Physics II. She was eating the leaves off a decorative bush outside the administration building.

OK, no one could blame me for stopping and staring this time. She didn’t see me, which was fine since my natural instincts decry being noticed by anything more than three times my body weight. I just stood there and watched as her delicate humanoid hands stripped leaves from branches and then stuffed them into her mouth. She had a rubbery tip to her nose, like my old German shepherd, and it sniffed each handful lightly before she ate with apparent relish.

A bell sounded in the distance, reminding me that I was officially late for class. The dogtaur’s ears twitched at the sound, and then she turned around and saw me. We stared at each other for a few seconds. How did something from another planet end up with a face that looked that human? It defied science. She smiled and opened her mouth as if she might say something.

I finally snapped out of it and spun, hurrying toward Building 6 with my newsie cap tugged low over my face. Hopefully nobody saw that. Voices from around the corner preceded a group of people coming in my direction, and I ducked through them to further my escape. I was halfway down the next sidewalk when I heard catcalling behind me.

“Whoa, hey, the alien chick! What’s it doing in the bushes?”

“Is it eating leaves? ”

“It’s a space cow!”

I gritted my teeth and kept walking.

It figured she would end up in my calculus course. What subject is more universal than math, right? Although they probably stuck her in this one because it was only half-full, and the desks could move. I was early and helped Professor Doppler shift chairs around to make room. Apparently, the alien didn’t need an actual chair, so the space we made stayed empty.

“They like to stand, I’m told,” Prof said when I asked about it. “Or lie down. The whole staff received information packets on felnim cultural norms to help make it comfortable, but I frankly don’t care. So long as it has a mind for learning, it can do what it wants.”

“Her,” I muttered. What was with people calling her an it ? Anyone with eyes could see she was a girl. Even her animal half had that graceful build you saw in most female mammals.

Prof had the decency to look embarrassed. “Right,” he mumbled as I stacked the last chair. He ran a hand through his hair and glanced at me, then out the window, taking in the blue sky. “Right. This will take some getting used to, won’t it? Aliens among us and all.”

“No kidding” was my only response as I went to sit in the back. Stuff like this would probably become more common if we kept going the way we were going. That didn’t mean it had to be any of my business.

Felnim . . . so that’s what she was.

Class proved more eventful than usual, if only because, instead of falling asleep in their chairs, everyone kept sneaking glances at the alien centaur. She didn’t stand or lie down, just sat on her haunches like a dog and took notes on a tablet. Her facial fur was darker brown around the eyes, giving her almost a raccoon look. Her only clothes were a modest Earth-style T-shirt and a kind of broad band around her lower half’s belly and back, with attachments like saddlebags on the sides. Some of the guys whispered rude comments about pants. I fidgeted with my mechanical pencil and focused on taking notes.