Free Supermen: Tales of the Posthuman Future by Gardner Dozois Page B

that no longer had as broad an appeal within the genre, like the immense, surreal Dhalgren— which did, however, become a bestseller outside of the usual genre boundaries, and help to gain him wide, new audiences. Although he did publish two more science-fiction novels, Triton and Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, most of his work throughout the decades that followed took him beyond the boundaries of the genre as they are usually drawn, first with a series of ornate and somewhat abstract intellectual fantasy works such as Flight from Neveryon, The Bridge of Lost Desire, and Tales of Neveryon, and then on into mainstream works such as Atlantis: Three Tales and The Mad Men; he has also created a large body of criticism and nonfiction writing, including Times Square Red, Times Square Blue, 1984, The Jewel-Hinged Jaw, Starboard Wine, The Straits of Messina, The American Shore, The Motion of Light in Water, Heavenly Breakfast, and Silent Interviews: on Languages, Race, Sex, Science Fiction, and Some Comics. Delany's other books include the novels The Jewels of Aptor, The Fall of the Towers, The Ballad of Beta-2, and Empire Star.

    *
    And came down in Paris:

    Where we raced along the Rue de Médicis with Bo and Lou and Muse inside the fence, Kelly and me outside, making faces through the bars, making noise, making the Luxembourg Gardens roar at two in the morning. Then climbed out, and down to the square in front of St. Sulpice where Bo tried to knock me into the fountain.

    At which point Kelly noticed what was going on around us, got an ashcan cover, and ran into the pissoir, banging the walls. Five guys scooted out; even a big pissoir only holds four.

    A very blond young man put his hand on my arm and smiled. "Don't you think, Spacer, that you… people should leave?"

    I looked at his hand on my blue uniform. "Est-ce que tu es un frelk?"

    His eyebrows rose, then he shook his head. "Une frelk ," he corrected. "No. I am not. Sadly for me. You look as though you may once have been a man. But now…" He smiled. "You have nothing for me now. The police." He nodded across the street where I noticed the gendarmerie for the first time. "They don't bother us. You are strangers, though…"

    But Muse was already yelling, "Hey, come on! Let's get out of here, huh?" And left. And went up again.

    And came down in Houston:

    "God damn!" Muse said. "Gemini Flight Control— you mean this is where it all started? Let's get out of here, please !"

    So took a bus out through Pasadena, then the monoline to Galveston, and were going to take it down the Gulf, but Lou found a couple with a pickup truck—

    "Glad to give you a ride, Spacers. You people up there on them planets and things, doing all that good work for the government."

    —who were going south, them and the baby, so we rode in the back for two hundred and fifty miles of sun and wind.

    "You think they're frelks?" Lou asked, elbowing me. "I bet they're frelks. They're just waiting for us to give 'em the come-on."

    "Cut it out. They're a nice, stupid pair of country kids."

    "That don't mean they ain't frelks!"

    "You don't trust anybody, do you?"

    "No."

    And finally a bus again that rattled us through Brownsville and across the border into Matamoros where we staggered down the steps into the dust and the scorched evening with a lot of Mexicans and chickens and Texas Gulf shrimp fishermen— who smelled worst— and we shouted the loudest. Forty-three whores— I counted— had turned out for the shrimp fishermen, and by the time we had broken two of the windows in the bus station, they were all laughing. The shrimp fishermen said they wouldn't buy us no food but would get us drunk if we wanted, 'cause that was the custom with shrimp fishermen. But we yelled, broke another window; then, while I was lying on my back on the telegraph-office steps, singing, a woman with dark lips bent over and put her hands on my cheeks. "You are very sweet." Her rough hair fell forward. "But