Free Asimov's Science Fiction - June 2014 by Penny Publications Page B

cop—miraculously—was coming around. The fat clown produced a novelty bouquet. Just as the cop gave in and reached for it, the clown jerked it back with a flourish. The bouquet had transformed into a bear claw donut, which Fatso handed over like a blushing courter come a-callin'. The cop laughed. Taylor smacked him on the back.
    Behind them a big yellow Ryder truck cruised slowly up the street. It was riding low, like it was overloaded, and the kid behind the wheel—this scrawny crew-cut in an Abe Lincoln T-shirt, of all things—looked absolutely terrified. He slowed almost to an idle, scanning the crowds of clowns and ponies and kids like it was the most god-awful thing he'd ever seen in his entire life. Suddenly he slammed on the gas, tearing up the block; it was a miracle he didn't roll that truck or hit one of the kids racing out to join the carnival. But no one else really seemed to notice. After all, what's one more guy driving like an asshole?
    I was down on my hands and knees, and had just gotten ahold of both legs of one of the ducks, when it happened. This terrible boom, like lightning striking way too close. I was sprawled facedown on the goat-stanking f loor mats. Car alarms screamed awake all over the parking lot.
    But the sky was clear and bright, and for just a second, I couldn't get my head around what had happened. Then Taylor was helping me up so he could coax the goat back into the Honda.
    "Where's the kitten carton?" I asked, dazed.
    "I gave it to the top cop," he said. "We'd better go. I don't have money to pay any of these people."
    "What happened?" I was yelling. My ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton.
    "Terrible shipping accident," he said patly. "Some poor bastard blew his truck up over by the freeway."
    "Shit!"
    "It's okay; just the driver was killed, and he was sort of a total asshole. But everyone's commute is gonna suck today, and that's a bummer."
    I nodded. "I don't want to drive back to Topeka with the stupid goat," I said. "I'm going to college for a reason."
    Taylor smiled. "That's fine." He held the goat's lead high and, with all due solemnity, dropped it. Then he hauled back and slapped her backside hard, sending her charging into a knot of clowns and children. "We could use the extra cover just about now. Get in." Pulling out of the increasingly frantic parking lot, we headed west, putting the rising sun and the column of smoke and the welling sirens all to our backs.
    This isn't going to be a guy story, where you kill Hitler to save the world. And it isn't going to be a girl story, where they kiss and wed and live happily ever after. It's just a regular road-trip story, where a couple of college kids drive all day, pull a prank, stiff some clowns, and no one gets hurt. And maybe a little something good happens after that.
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MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
    Lavie Tidhar | 14477 words

    Lavie Tidhar's newest story for us is set in the same milieu as his Bookman Histories trilogy of steampunk-influenced novels. He is the World Fantasy Award winner of
Osama
and his latest novels are
Martian Sands
(PS Publishing) and
The Violent Century
(Hodder and Staunghton). Lavie lives in London where, he tells us, he tweets too much.

    From the Lost Files of the Bookman Histories
    The year is 1888 and in London the Lizard-Queen Victoria reigns supreme. Discovered by Amerigo Vespucci on a remote island in the Carib Sea, the Queen and her get, a race of intelligent alien lizards, have since taken over the British throne. The lizardine navy rules the seas and it is said that the sun never sets on the Lizardine Empire.
    Meanwhile, in France, sentient machines joined by humans form the Quiet Council, maintaining French independence in opposition to the lizards across the English Channel.
    Into this political powder-keg comes the young man known only as Orphan. An innocent poet last seen working at Payne's Bookshop on the Charing Cross Road, Orphan has recently lost his beloved, Lucy, in an audacious