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The Tale of the Golden Eagle [MultiFormat]
eBook by David D. Levine
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$0.85 |
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eBook Category: Science Fiction Nebula Award(R) Preliminary Ballot Nominee, Locus Recommended Reading List, Rich Horton's Virtual Best of the Year, Hugo Award Nominee, Sturgeon Award Nominee
eBook Description: This is a story about a bird. A bird, a ship, a machine, a woman--she was all these things, and none, but first and fundamentally a bird. It is also a story about a man--a gambler, a liar, and a cheat, but only for the best of reasons. A heartrending story of love and sacrifice in the tradition of Cordwainer Smith.
eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, 2003
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2004
Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [93 KB], eReader (PDB) [35 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [22 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [20 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [80 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [93 KB], hiebook (KML) [79 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [46 KB], iSilo (PDB) [18 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [23 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [51 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [34 KB]
Words: 7047
Reading time: 20-28 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED
 
"David D. Levine's "The Tale of the Golden Eagle" is more science fiction with the touch and feel of fantasy, and also a delightful story. Nerissa was once a golden eagle but was transformed into a ship's brain back in the cruel times when people thought that was acceptable. She loved the joy of soaring through the skies, but is now something almost human, and a formidable storyteller. She has become the property of a gambler, who appreciates her as she is, but can also use her to remake his fortunes. Ultimately, the story is about his moral choice, as well as being a history of the world in which they both live. This story has the feel of a futuristic folk tale. And Levine's summaries of the political changes that took place in the universe as it moved toward what may be a more compassionate time gave me pause: As he kept saying that these things happened in the bad old days before people were so enlightened, I found myself thinking of the many times I've said the same thing and wondering what the future will say of our time."--Nancy Jane Moore, Tangent Online (Learn more about Tangent Online, the Internet's leading SF&F short fiction review website)
"Best of all is promising new writer David D. Levine's 'The Tale of the Golden Eagle,' about a brain encased in a spaceship that becomes a derelict, and the man who discovers and frees this brain far in the future ... Recommended."--Rich Horton, Locus
"Out of all the stories [in this issue], 'The Tale of the Golden Eagle' is the only one I'd consider a must read."--Steve Lazarowitz, SF Site "These days, myth-making tends to be left to the hands of the fantasy writers, while the tropes of science fiction are used to other ends.... But Levine, like Cordwainer Smith before him, weaves old ideas ... into [a] new myth, a myth of the future, a haunting story of man, machine, and sacrifice."--BlueJack "'The Tale of the Golden Eagle' has that lyrical feel, of a story told many times over the millenia ... A strong story, which suggests a bright future for Levine."--Mark Watson, Best SF
This is a story about a bird. A bird, a ship, a machine, a woman--she was all these things, and none, but first and fundamentally a bird.
It is also a story about a man--a gambler, a liar, and a cheat, but only for the best of reasons.
No doubt you know the famous Portrait of Denali Eu, also called The Third Decision, whose eyes have been described as "two pools of sadness iced over with determination." This is the story behind that painting.
It is a love story. It is a sad story. And it is true.
* * * *
The story begins in a time before shiftspace, before Conner and Hua, even before the caster people. The beginning of the story lies in the time of the bird ships.
Before the bird ships, just to go from one star to another, people either had to give up their whole lives and hope their children's children would remember why they had come, or freeze themselves and hope they could be thawed at the other end. Then the man called Doctor Jay made a great and horrible discovery: he learned that a living mind could change the shape of space. He found a way to weld a human brain to the keel of a starship, in such a way that the ship could travel from star to star in months instead of years.
After the execution of Doctor Jay, people learned that the part of the brain called the visual cortex was the key to changing the shape of space. And so they found a creature whose brain was almost all visual cortex, the Aquila chrysaetos, or as it was known in those days the golden eagle. This was a bird that has been lost to us; it had wings broader than a tall man is tall, golden brown feathers long and light as a lover's touch, and eyes black and sharp as a clear winter night. But to the people of this time it was just another animal, and they did not appreciate it while they had it.
They took the egg of a golden eagle, and they hatched it in a warm box, and they let it fly and learn and grow, and then they killed it. And they took its brain and they placed it at the top of a cunning construction of plastic and silicon which gave it the intelligence of a human, and this they welded to the keel of the starship.
It may seem to you that it is as cruel to give a bird the intelligence of a human, only to enslave its brain, as it is to take the brain of a human and enslave that. And so it is. But the people of this time drew a rigid distinction between born-people and made-people, and to them this seemed only just and right.
Now it happens that one golden eagle brain, which was called Nerissa Zeebnen-Fearsig, was installed into a ship of surpassing beauty. It was a great broad shining arrowhead of silver metal, this ship, filigreed and inlaid with gold, and filled with clever and intricate mechanisms of subtle pleasure.
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