“And now, dear Annie, you must set it all to music,” I

  told the Communications Chairperson, giving her a hug.

  2 8 3

  J A M E S M O R R O W

  Rupert and Melvin decided to spend the night aboard

  the Folly to Be Wise, providing Annie with moral support and instant coffee while she labored over her translation.

  I knew that Valerie and Bobby would be worried about

  me, so I said my farewells and headed for home. So great

  was my exhilaration that I ran the whole three miles to

  Delancey Street without stopping—not bad for a weekend

  jogger.

  I’m writing this entry in our bedroom. Bobby’s asleep.

  Valerie wants to hear about my day, so I’d better sign off.

  The news from Clarence Morant is distressing. Defeated

  in the Battle of Times Square, the Deimosians have re-

  treated to the New York Public Library and taken up po-

  sitions on the steps between the stone lions. The

  Phobosians are encamped outside Grand Central Station,

  barely a block away.

  There are over two million volumes in the New York

  Public Library, Morant tells us, including hundreds of irreplaceable first editions. When the fighting starts, the Martians will be firing their heat rays amidst a paper

  cache of incalculable value.

  AUGUST 13

  Phobos and Deimos. When Asaph Hall went to name

  his discoveries, he logically evoked the two sons and

  companions of Ares, the Greek god of war. Phobos,

  avatar of fear. Deimos, purveyor of panic.

  Fear and panic. Is there a difference? I believe so. Be-

  yond the obvious semantic distinction—fear the chronic

  condition, panic the acute—it seems to me that the Pho-

  bosians and the Deimosians, whether through meaning-

  2 8 4

  T H E WA R O F T H E WO R L DV I E W S

  less coincidence or Jungian synchronicity, picked the

  right moons. Phobos, fear. Is fear not a principal engine behind the supernaturalist worldview? (The universe is

  manifestly full of terrifying forces controlled by powerful gods. If we worship them, maybe they won’t destroy us.)

  Deimos, panic. At first blush, the scientific worldview has nothing to do with panic. But consider the etymology

  here. Panic from Pan, Greek god of forests, pastures, flocks, and shepherds. Pan affirms the physical world.

  Pan says yes to material reality. Pan might panic on oc-

  casion, but he does not live in fear.

  When I returned to the Folly to Be Wise this morning, the lunatics were asleep, Rupert lying in the far corner, Annie curled up in her tiny bedroom, Melvin snoring beside her. He still wore his dish antenna. The pro-

  Deimosian argument lay on the harpsichord, twelve

  pages of sheet music. Annie had titled it “Materialist Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor.”

  I awoke my friends and told them about the imminent

  clash of arms at the New York Public Library. We agreed

  there was no time to hear the fugue right now—the world

  premiere would have to occur on the battlefield—but An-

  nie could not resist pointing out some of its more com-

  pelling passages. “Look here,” she said, indicating a staff in the middle of page three. “A celebration of the self-correcting ethos at the heart of the scientific enterprise.”

  She turned to page seven and ran her finger over the top-

  most measures. “A brief history of post-modern acade-

  mia’s failure to relativize scientific knowledge.” She drew my attention to a coda on page eleven. “Depending on

  the definitions you employ, the materialist worldview

  precludes neither a creator-god nor the possibility of

  transcendence through art, religion, or love.”

  2 8 5

  J A M E S M O R R O W

  I put the score in my rucksack, and then we took hold

  of the harpsichord, each of us lifting a corner. We pro-

  ceeded with excruciating care, as if the instrument were

  made of glass, lest we misalign any of Annie’s clever tinkerings and canny modifications. Slowly we carried the

  harpsichord across the deck, off the island, and over the bridge. At the intersection of Second Avenue and 57th

  Street, we paused to catch our breath.

  “Fifteen blocks,” said Rupert.

  “Can we do it in fifteen minutes?” I asked.

  “We’re the Asaph Hall Society,” said Annie. “We’ve

  never failed to thwart an extraterrestrial invasion.”

  And so our great mission began. 56th Street. 55th

  Street. 54th Street. 53rd Street. Traffic being minimal, we forsook the sidewalks with their frequent impediments—

  scaffolding, trash barrels, police barriers—and moved di-

  rectly along the asphalt. Doubts tormented me. What if

  we’d picked the wrong side of the controversy? What if

  we’d picked the right side but our arguments sounded

  feeble to the Phobosians? What if panic seized Annie, raw Deimosian panic, and she choked up at the keyboard?

  By the time we were in the Forties, we could hear the

  Martians’ glissando chirpings. Our collective pace quick-

  ened. At last we reached 42nd Street. We turned right and bore the peace machine past the Chrysler Building and

  the Grand Hyatt Hotel. Arriving at Grand Central Station, we paused to behold the Phobosian infantry maneuvering for a frontal assault on the Deimosian army, still presumably holding the library steps. The air vibrated with

  extraterrestrial tweets and twitters, as if midtown Man-

  hattan had become a vast pet store filled with demented

  parakeets.

  We transported the harpsichord another block and set

  2 8 6

  T H E WA R O F T H E WO R L DV I E W S

  it down at the Madison Avenue intersection, from which

  vantage we could see both Grand Central Station and the

  library. The Phobosian army had indeed spent the night

  bivouacked between the stone lions. Inevitably I thought

  of Gettysburg—James Longstreet’s suicidal sweep across

  the Pennsylvania farmlands, hurtling his divisions

  against George Meade’s Army of the Potomac, which had

  numerical superiority, a nobler cause, and the high

  ground.

  Rupert took the score from my sack, laid the twelve

  pages against the rack, and made ready to turn them.

  Melvin removed his dish antenna and got down on all

  fours before the instrument. Annie seated herself on his

  massive back. She laid her hands on the keyboard. A stiff breeze arose. If the score blew away, all would be lost.

  Annie depressed a constellation of keys. Martian lan-

  guage came forth, filling the canyon between the sky-

  scrapers.

  A high bugling wail emerged from deep within the

  throats of the Deimosian officers, and the soldiers began their march. Annie played furiously. “Materialist Prelude and Fugue,” page one . . . page two . . . page three . . .

  page four. The soldiers kept on coming. Page five . . . page six . . . page seven . . . page eight. The Deimosians continued their advance, parting around the harpsichord like an ocean current yielding to the prow of a ship. Page

  nine . . . page ten . . . page eleven . . . page twelve. Among the irreplaceable volumes in the New York Public Library, I recalled, were first editions of Nicolaus Copernicus’ De Revolutionibus, William Gilbert’s De Magnete, and Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica.

  Once again the Deimosian officers let loose a high

  bugling wail.

  2 8 7

  J A M E S M O R R O W

  The soldiers abruptly halted their advance.

  They threw down their weapons and broke into a run.

  “Good God, is it working?” asked Rupert.

  “I think so,” I replied.

  “It worked!” insisted Annie.

  “Really?” said Melvin, whose perspective on the scene

  was compromised by his function as a piano stool.

  “We’ve done it!” I cried. “We’ve really done it!”

  Within a matter of seconds the Deimosians accom-

  plished a reciprocal disarmament. They rushed toward

  their former enemies. The two forces met on Fifth Avenue, Phobosians and Deimosians embracing passionately, so

  that the intersection seemed suddenly transformed into an immense railroad platform on which countless wayward

  lovers were meeting sweethearts from whom they’d been

  involuntarily separated for years.

  Now the ovation came, two hundred thousand extra-

  terrestrials cheering and applauding Annie as she

  climbed off Melvin’s back and stood up straight. She took a bow, and then another.

  A singularly appreciative chirp emerged from a Pho-

  bosian general, whereupon a dozen of his fellows pro-

  duced the identical sound.

  Annie got the message. She seated herself on Melvin’s

  back, turned to page one, and played “Materialist Prelude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor” all over again.

  AUGUST 18

  The Martians have been gone for only five days, but

  already Manhattan is healing. The lights are back on. Re-

  lief arrives from every state in the Union, plus Canada.

  2 8 8

  T H E WA R O F T H E WO R L DV I E W S

  Valerie, Bobby, and I are now honorary members of

  the Asaph Hall Society. We all gathered this afternoon at Gracie Mansion in Carl Schurz Park, not far from Annie’s

  houseboat. Mayor Margolis will let us use his parlor

  whenever we want. In fact, there’s probably no favor he

  won’t grant us. After all, we saved his city.

  Annie called the meeting to order. Everything went

  smoothly. We discussed old business (our ongoing efforts

  to contact the Galilean satellites), new business (improving patient services at the Frye Institute and the Krauss Clinic), and criteria for admitting new participants. As

  long as they remember to take their medicine, my lu-

  natics remain the soul of reason. Melvin and Annie plan

  to marry in October.

  “I’ll bet we’re all having the same thought right now,”

  said Rupert before we went out to dinner.

  “What if Dr. Onslo’s quarter had come up heads?” said

  Melvin, nodding. “What if we’d devised arguments favor-

  ing the Phobosians instead? What then?”

  “That branch of the reality tree will remain forever

  hidden from us,” said Annie.

  “I think it’s entirely possible the Deimosians would’ve

  thrown down their arms,” said Valerie.

  “So do I,” said Melvin. “Assuming our arguments were

  plausible.”

  “Know what I think?” said Rupert. “I think we all just

  got very lucky.”

  Did we merely get lucky? Hard to say. But I do know

  one thing. In two weeks the New York Philharmonic will

  perform a fully orchestrated version of “Materialist Pre-

  lude and Fugue in C-Sharp Minor” at Lincoln Center,

  which miraculously survived the war, and I wouldn’t miss

  it for the world.

  2 8 9

  J A M E S M O R R O W

  *

  *

  *

  Editor’s Note: The author wishes to mention that he composed this story nearly a year before the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

  2 9 0

  Breathmoss

  by Ian R. MacLeod

  1.

  In her twelfth standard year, which on Habara was the

  Season of Soft Rains, Jalila moved across the mountains

  with her mothers from the high plains of Tabuthal to the

  coast. For all of them, the journey down was one of un-

  hurried discovery, with the kamasheens long gone and

  the world freshly moist, and the hayawans rusting as

  they rode them, the huge flat plates of their feet sucking through purplish-green undergrowth. She saw the cliffs

  and qasrs she’d only visited from her dreamtent, and

  sailed across the high ridges on ropewalks her distant ancestors had built, which had seemed frail and antique to

  her in her worried imaginings, but were in fact strong

  and subtle; huge dripping gantries heaving from the mist

  like wise giants, which felt warm to the touch, were softly humming, and welcomed her and her hayawan, whom

  she called Robin, in cocoons of effortless embrace. Sway-

  ing over the drop beyond into grey-green nothing was

  almost like flying.

  The thing, the strangest thing of all in this journey of

  discoveries, was that the landscape actually seemed to

  rise higher as they descended and encamped and de-

  scended again; the sense of up increased, rather than that 2 9 1

  I A N R . M A C L E O D

  of down. The air on the high plains of Tabuthal was rar-

  efied—Jalila knew that from her lessons in her dreamtent; they were so close to the stars that Pavo had had to clap a mask over her face from the moment of her birth until

  the breathmoss was embedded in her lungs. And it had

  been clear up there, it was always clear and it was pleasantly cold. The sun shone all day hard and cold and white from the blue blackness, as did a billion stars at night, although Jalila had never thought of those things as she

  ran amid the crystal trees and her mothers smiled at her

  and occasionally warned her that, one day, all of this

  would have to change.

  And now that day was upon her, and this landscape,

  as Robin her hayawan rounded the path through an ur-

  rearth forest of alien-looking trees with wrinkled brown

  trunks and soft green leaves, and the land fell away and

  she caught her first glimpse of something far and flat on the horizon, had never seemed so high.

  Down on the coast, the mountains reared behind them

  and around a bay. There were many people here—not the

  vast numbers, perhaps, of Jalila’s dreamtent stories of the Ten Thousand and One Worlds—but so many that she was

  sure, as she first walked the streets of a town where the buildings huddled in ridiculous proximity and tired to

  stare and then not to stare at all the faces, that she would never know all their families.

  Because of its position at the edge of the mountains,

  the town was called Al Janb, and, to Jalila’s relief, their new haramlek was some distance away from it, up along

  a near-unnoticeable dirt track which meandered off from

  the blue-black serraplated coastal road. There was much

  to be done there by way of repair, after the long season

  2 9 2

  B R E AT H M O S S

  that her bondmother Lya had left the place deserted. The

  walls were fused stone, but the structure of the roof had been mostly made from the stuff of the same strange urrearth trees which grew up the mountains, and in many

  places it had sagged and leaked and grown back towards

  the chaos which seemed to want to encompass every-

  thing here. The hayawans, too, needed much attention in

  their makeshift stables as they adapted to this new cli-

  mate, and mother Pavo was long employed constructing

  the necessary potions to mend the bleeding bonds of

  rusty metal and flesh, and then to counteract the mould

  which grew like slow tears across their long, solemn

  faces. Jalila would normally have been in anguish to

  think of the sufferings which this new climate was visit-

  ing on Robin, but she was too busy feeling ill herself to care. Ridiculously, seeing as there was so much more

  oxygen to breathe in this rich coastal air, every lungful became a conscious effort, a dreadful physical lunge. Inhaling the damp, salty, spore-laden atmosphere was like

  sucking soup through a straw. She grew feverish for a

  while, and suffered the attentions of similar moulds to

  those which were growing over Robin, yet in even more

  irritating and embarrassing places. More irritating still was the fact that Ananke her birthmother and Lya her

  bondmother—even Pavo, who was still busily attending

  to the hayawans—treated her discomforts and fevers with

  airy disregard. They had, they all assured her vaguely,

  suffered similarly in their own youths. And the weather

  would soon change in any case. To Jalila, who had spent

  all her life in the cool unvarying glare of Tabuthal where the wind only ever blew from one direction and the trees

  jingled like ice, that last statement might as well have

  been spoken in another language.

  2 9 3

  I A N R . M A C L E O D

  If anything, Jalila was sure she was getting worse. The

  rain drummed on what there was of the roof of their

  haramlek, and dripped down and pooled in the makeshift

  awnings, which burst in bucketloads down your neck if

  you bumped into them, and the mist drifted in at every

  direction through the paneless windows, and the moun-

  tains, most of the time, seemed to consist of cloud, or to have vanished entirely. She was coughing. Strange stuff

  was coming out on her hands, slippery and green as the

  slime which tried to grow everywhere here. One morning,

  she awoke, sure that part of her was bursting, and stum-

  bled from her dreamtent and out though the scaffolding

  which was by then surrounded the haramlek, then bare-

  foot down the mud track and across the quiet black road