Burn

Burn
James Patrick Kelly
Tachyon Publications | San Francisco
Burn
Copyright © 2005 by James Patrick Kelly
This work, is distributed under the following Creative Commons License:
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5. Please see last page of this document for
more information.
This is a work of fiction. All events portrayed in this book are fictitious, and any
resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental. All rights reserved, including
the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Tachyon Publications
1459 18th Street #139
San Francisco, ca 94107
(415) 285-5615
www.tachyonpublications.com
Series Editor: Jacob Weisman
isbn: 1-892391-27-9
For H. D. T.
a timeless visionary
and
for my children,
Maura, Jamie, and John
We might try our lives by a thousand simple tests; as, for instance, that the same sun
which ripens my beans illumines at once a system of earths like ours. If I had
remembered this it would have prevented some mistakes. This was not the light in which I
hoed them. The stars are the apexes of what wonderful triangles! What distant and

different beings in the various mansions of the universe are contemplating the same one
at the same moment! Nature and human life are as various as our several constitutions.
Who shall say what prospect life offers to another?
- Walden
One
For the hero is commonly the simplest and obscurest of men.
- Walden
Spur was in the nightmare again. It always began in the burn. The front of the burn took
on a liquid quality and oozed like lava toward him. It licked at boulders and scorched the
trees in the forest he had sworn to protect. There was nothing he could do to fight it; in
the nightmare, he wasn't wearing his splash pack. Or his fireproof field jacket. Fear
pinned him against an oak until he could feel the skin on his face start to cook. Then he
tore himself away and ran. But now the burn leapt after him, following like a fiery
shadow. It chased him through a stand of pine; trees exploded like firecrackers. Sparks bit
through his civvies and stung him. He could smell burning hair. His hair. In a panic he
dodged into a stream choked with dead fish and poached frogs. But the water scalded his
legs. He scrambled up the bank of the stream, weeping. He knew he shouldn't be afraid;
he was a veteran of the firefight. Still he felt as if something was squeezing him. A
whimpering gosdog bolted across his path, its feathers singed, eyes wide. He could feel
the burn dive under the forest and burrow ahead of him in every direction. The ground
was hot beneath his feet and the dark humus smoked and stank. In the nightmare there
was just one way out, but his brother-in-law Vic was blocking it. Only in the nightmare
Vic was a pukpuk, one of the human torches who had started the burn. Vic had not yet set
himself on fire, although his baseball jersey was smoking in the heat. He beckoned and
for a moment Spur thought it might not be Vic after all as the anguished face shimmered
in the heat of the burn. Vic wouldn't betray them, would he? But by then Spur had to
dance to keep his shoes from catching fire, and he had no escape, no choice, no time. The
torch spread his arms wide and Spur stumbled into his embrace and with an angry
whoosh they exploded together into flame. Spur felt his skin crackle....
"That's enough for now." A sharp voice cut through the nightmare. Spur gasped with
relief when he realized that there was no burn. Not here anyway. He felt a cold hand
brush against his forehead like a blessing and knew that he was in the hospital. He had
just been in the sim that the upsiders were using to heal his soul.
"You've got to stop thrashing around like that," said the docbot. "Unless you want me to
nail the leads to your head."
Spur opened his eyes but all he could see was mist and shimmer. He tried to answer the
docbot but he could barely find his tongue in his own mouth. A brightness to his left
gradually resolved into the sunny window of the hospital room. Spur could feel the firm
and not unpleasant pressure of the restraints, which bound him to the bed: broad straps
across his ankles, thighs, wrists and torso. The docbot peeled the leads off his temples

and then lifted Spur's head to get the one at the base of his skull.
"So do you remember your name?" it said.
Spur stretched his head against the pillow, trying to loosen the stiffness in his neck.
"I'm over here, son. This way."
He turned and stared