What if you could learn a skill by extracting the ability directly from someone's brain? In the story, there is a professional cadre of people who study things, and then lose the knowledge as it is transferred from their brains to others. Here, the skill is swordsmanship.
This story appeared in the February 2009 issue of Jim Baen's Universe
--Extra Cheese for the Laboratory Mouse--
This was my very first published story, and I didn't even submit it.
A member of my online writers critique group was also a slush reader for
Space and Time magazine. She liked the story and asked if she could submit
it on my behalf. I acquiesced. The story was accepted and appeared in
issue #94 in 2001.