Asimov's Science Fiction: September 2013 Read Online Free Page A

believe I do. But how about
you,
Jon? What do you think?"
    "You know me," he says. "More than capable of thinking several things at once. And believing, or not believing, all of them."
    "Doubting Thomas," she says, taking another step forward so he can smell patchouli.
    "Or Hamlet."
    "Here of all places, why not?"
    For a while, they stand there in silence.
    "This whole castle is designed to be incredibly protective of me," she says eventually. "It admits very few people this far. Only the best and oldest of friends. And Bartleby insists I wear these as an extra precaution, even though they can sometimes be distracting...." She raises her braceletted wrist. "As you've probably already gathered, he's pretty protective of me, too."
    "We've spoken. It wasn't exactly the happiest reunion.
    " She smiles. "The way you both are, it would have been strange if it was. But look, you've come all this incredible way. Why don't we go out somewhere?"
    "You must have work to do. Projects—I don't know—that you need to approve. People to meet."
    "The thing about being in Elsinore is that things generally go more smoothly when Thea Lorentz isn't in the way. You saw what it was like last night at dinner. Every time I open my mouth people expect to hear some new universal truth. I ask them practical questions and their mouths drop. Important deals fall apart when people get distracted because Thea's in the room. That's why Kasaya's so useful. He does all that's necessary—joins up the dots and bangs the odd head. And people scarcely even notice him."
    "I don't think he likes it much when they do."
    "More
questions, Jon?" She raises an eyebrow. "But everything here on Farside must still seem so strange to you, when there's so much to explore...."
    Down stairways. Along corridors. Through storerooms. Perhaps these are the secret routes Kasaya hinted at, winding through the castle like Escher tunnels in whispers of sea-wet stone. Then they are down in a great, electric-lit cavern of a garage. His Bentley is here, along with lines of other fine and vintage machines long crumbled to rust back on Lifeside. Maseratis. Morgans. Lamborghinis. Other things that look like Dan Dare spaceships or Fabergé submarines. The cold air reeks of new gas, clean oil, polished metal. In a far corner and wildly out of place, squatting above a small black pool, is an old VW Beetle.
    "Well," she says. "What do you think?
    " He smiles as he walks around it. The dents and scratches are old friends. "It's perfect."
    "Well, it was never
that.
But we had some fun with it, didn't we?"
    "How does this work? I mean, creating it? Did you have some old pictures of it? Did you manage to access—"
    "Jon." She dangles a key from her hand. "Do you want to go out for a drive, or what?"
    "The steering even
pulls
the same way. It's amazing....
    " Out on roads that climb and camber, giving glimpses through the slowly thinning mist of flanks of forest, deep drops. Headlights on, although it makes little difference and there doesn't seem to be any other traff ic. She twiddles the radio. Finds a station that must have stopped transmitting more than fifty years ago. Van Morrison, Springsteen, and Dylan. So very, very out of date—but still good—even back then. And even now, with his brown-eyed girl beside him again. It's the same useless deejay, the same pointless advertisements. As the road climbs higher, the signal fades to a bubbling hiss.
    "Take that turn up there. You see, the track right there in the trees...?
    " The road now scarcely a road. The Beetle a jumble of metallic jolts and yelps. He has to laugh, and Thea laughs as well, the way they're being bounced around. A tunnel through the trees, and then some kind of clearing, where he stops the engine and squawks the handbrake, and everything falls still.
    "Do you remember?"
    He climbs out slowly, as if fearing a sudden movement might cause it all to dissolve. "Of course I do...."
    Thea, though, strides ahead. Climbs the