On International Women’s Day, several of the best writers in SF/F today reveal new stories inspired by the phrase “Nevertheless, she persisted”, raising their voice in response to a phrase originally meant to silence.
The stories publish on Tor.com all throughout the day of March 8th. They are collected here.
More than Nothing
She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted in singing her pagan prayers.
Pines cast feathery shadows on the brightness far below. Smoothing her polka dot apron over her fresh-pressed jeans, Cora parted her full lips. Ready to pour from them a wordless yearning she’d never been taught. Liquid like the lake, golden like the light of the setting sun, calling—
“Cora!” Pastor Rose slashed through the gathering evening with his voice. “You finished washin them spoons for ice cream?”
He’d married her twin Nora, but he acted like they were two mints in one. “You wanted me to wash all of em?”
It was a steep trail up to the bluff’s viewpoint; she saw Pastor’s bald head before his white-shirted shoulders. Sweating just slightly. He stood beside her, pretending to take in the darkening vista. “However many we brought,” he said. “However many times they used. They gotta be clean when we put em away tonight in the church kitchen.” He smiled as if forgiving a child. “I know you miss your grandmama, but she raised you better than to go lazin off by yourself when there’s work.”
“I only needed a little air. I’ll be down to the picnic shelter directly,” she lied.
“All right.” But Pastor lingered. “You heard them stories about how the lake so special? Wishin on stars and that nonsense?”
Cora nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, don’t let it affect you. The Devil’s in that mess, waitin to lure you to his side. Won’t nobody protect you then.” He stepped closer, held out a big hand. Cora ignored it. “Well?”
At last he left. Cora heard his scuffing feet kick up fainter and fainter disturbances in the forest floor’s carpet of shed needles.
He was gone. But she still wasn’t alone. “Come on out.” Stubborn silence. “No use hidin, Spence. I seen you slip behind that tree after you followed Pastor here.”
“Awright.” A thin-necked school boy came from behind the not-terribly-adequate shelter of a white pine’s trunk. “But you ain’t gonna lemme keep you from doin magic. Is you?”
“How you know what I’m doin?”
The boy thrust out his chin. “Cause you had me feelin the same way I felt when you said that spell stopped them bad kids beatin me up.” He swiped a palm across his short-clipped kinks. “Magic makes my skin on top of my head tingle and—” He stopped, then started again, talking faster. “—and I don’t know why come but it does. It just does. And it works. Someways. Maybe you could show me what you tryin and I’ll figure out how?”
“What if it’s evil?” Cora asked him.
“Evil? Nawwww. You my favorite babysitter!” Suddenly Spence wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her. She hugged back by reflex. He tilted his head to smile up at her, brown eyes sparkling in the last of the light. “Come on! We gotta study this! You could be conjurin a brand new 1949 convertible!”
“I got a better idea.”
“Yeah?”
“A city fulla factories! All for us! We can build our own convertibles.” Those she prayed to would be fine with that. Wouldn’t they?
“Yeah!”
What if what I feel is a mistake? Cora wondered. This hope. This dream. What if it turns out to be nothing, no answer, nobody home? But despite all her doubts, she took Spence’s hand, turned to face the fading twilight, and let fly the first notes of their new prayer.
Could the revelation that Neelix lied and only worked with models be an homage to Hardy Kruger and Giovanni Ribisi’s characters in The Flight of the Phoenix and its remake?
Milo: So I was about to type, “Of course it was inspired by that, didn’t you read the Trivial Matter?” but then I realized that I forgot to put that in the Trivial Matters. Herpity derpity derp. Will go fix that…
—Keith R.A. DeCandido
It’s a decent action thriller, but the mishandling of the space elevator concept annoyed me. I mean, it was nice that they used the concept, possibly the first time it was used in SFTV, but they bungled the specifics. They said the tether is 300 km long, which is a couple of hundred times too short for a viable space elevator around an Earth-sized planet. You need to have the center of mass of the thing at a synchronous orbital altitude, so the period of the orbit is exactly equal to the planet’s rotation period and thus it stays constantly over the same point. And that’s just the center of mass, so you need more tether extending out beyond it an equal length (or else a shorter length with a proportionally massive counterweight). It’s typical of Trek to shrink the size of things that should be ginormous, like the tiny solar sails on Bajoran sailships in DS9: “Explorers” and “Accession.”
I was also frustrated by the reset-to-zero tension between Tuvok and Neelix, and the missed opportunity to follow up on “Tuvix.” That episode ended without making it clear whether they remembered anything from their time as one being, and “Rise” seems to establish that they don’t. But it would’ve been so much more interesting if they had remembered, if this episode had given us the followup that “Tuvix” deserved.
“as his Vulcan physiognomy can handle the thinner air better than the others.”
You mean “physiology.” Physiognomy means facial or outward appearance.
Gyar. Thanks, Christopher, for that catch. I’ve corrected it to the right word. Sigh.
—Keith R.A. DeCandido, grateful for the edit function to catch the dumbshit mistakes he makes while writing after a long day
What is so annoying to me about this (and so many other Neelix moments) is that there is really no reason for him to lie about his experience. They are trapped on this planet, and models or no models, he still has far more experience with this kind of thing than anyone else. All lying did was making it more dangerous, because they likely would have taken further precautions if they knew Neelix’s experiences were mainly theoretical instead of practical.
I think the episode once again makes the mistake of thinking that the audience harbors far more goodwill toward Neelix than we do. Tuvok is meant to come across as mean and dismissive, but he is a trained Starfleet officer with extensive experience, and Neelix is their goofy cook who exaggerates his knowledge and expertise. Even without the “Vulcans don’t have gut instincts” angle, it’s still pretty reasonable that Neelix’s “I have a funny feeling that requires some extremely dangerous and life-threatening actions to confirm” would be ignored. And his desired to be liked by Tuvok is just grating, really. He seems to be well-liked (lord knows why) by the rest of the crew, so it isn’t like he is desperate for friends. He is purposely annoying to Tuvok, and then gets all huffy when a Vulcan doesn’t find it endearing.
I remember liking this one when I first saw it. I thought the space elevator was really cool, it was a fun thing to finally see having come across references to the concept in other fiction. The Tuvok/Neelix interactions never bothered me because I assumed that after “Tuvix” they would have no memory of the event and the relationship here makes that clear. I always liked the way the two characters played off each other and Russ and Phillips do great things with it. I’m glad that bit didn’t change.
Somebody on Facebook asked an interesting question: Is there any reason this episode couldn’t come before “Tuvix”? I can’t think of a reason, other than maybe Janeway’s hairstyle, but then there’s “Parturition” where her hair was short for a week and then magically got long again the next.
@5/wildfyrewarning: “What is so annoying to me about this (and so many other Neelix moments) is that there is really no reason for him to lie about his experience.”
That’s the point, though, that it’s coming from his insecurity, his imagined fears rather than any genuine need. Starfleet characters in Berman-era Trek had to be perfect, but outsiders like Neelix could be screwed up and neurotic and self-defeating.
You know, watching this season again, the whole Neelix and Kes breakup is still really weird. For instance, in this episode, Neelix stops by medical to grab some supplies and briefly interacts with Kes. The interaction is as though the two characters don’t have a history. It’s not like the awkward interaction between exes trying to act normal, but as though they were strangers. I’ve never seen a show just drop a relationship before with very little explanation. It was bizarre when the show first aired and still very much a head-scratcher now.
KRAD wrote:
Or did it? The only way to stay sane with long-running Trek, I’ve found, is to assume each project is purely episodic except when a previous adventure is explicitly referenced; otherwise there’s a “reversion to the mean”, as it were (“reversion to the series bible concept of the characters and milieu”, more pertinently). If two characters have a certain relationship, we can infer that something led to that relationship, but we can’t say what it was — maybe an aired adventure? But conversely, if their relationship goes backwards, maybe an unaired adventure negated it. (While passing through the evidently-not-so-expansive Nekrit Expanse, aliens accidentally wipe their memories and inexpertly restore them. Makes as much sense as anything else this crew endures.)
No, it’s not satisfying if one demands large-scale consistency; but if an episode can entertain me on the small scale, I’ll restrain my complaints in the interest of healthy blood pressure.
I always thought along the same lines as @@@@@6/lesleyk and assumed that Neelix and Tuvok has no memory of Tuvix. I figured that added to the tragedy of the character. Sarek’s memories lived on through Picard/Spock and Data through Lal/B4, but Tuvix just didn’t exist anymore.
I always enjoy space elevators when they pop up, but I guess its name does sound a little silly compared to other names like “Dyson sphere” and “warp drive”. That said, “space elevator” is way better than “orbital tether”! The latter just sounds like more standard technobabble that viewers tend to tune out, rather than an actual scientific concept.