Fictions

by Nancy Kress

  But why? Were they waiting for the planet to hold only cooperative humans to ally with, or passive humans to easily conquer?

  Suddenly I was very tired. I wanted to sleep, and I wanted it with the passionate intensity of a five-year-old lusting for ice cream. Since our fight, Ian had been staying at the lab. I staggered toward the bedroom.

  The doorbell rang.

  Ian? Wanting to reconcile? That would be the only thing better than sleep. Tears blinded me as I stumbled to fling open the door.

  My mother stared at me, white-faced and clutching her two canes, before one of them gave way and she collapsed into my arms.

  “You . . . wouldn’t . . . an . . . answer . . .”

  Shame flooded me, followed immediately by anger. It felt old, the same anger that we had passed back and forth since I was ten years old. I snapped, “Of course I wouldn’t answer. You were harassing me sixteen times a day. Nobody sane could deal with that! And are you an idiot, coming all the way over here in your condition—how did you even get here?”

  “Ar . . . armored . . . cab . . .”

  “For chrissake, sit the fuck down!” I eased her to the sofa, got her a glass of water, stared at her trembling legs and twitching face as if a hard gaze could drill sense into her equally hard skull. An armored cab cost a small fortune. The trip cost my mother even more in strength. And I knew what was coming.

  “Sophie,” she said when she’d recovered enough to speak, “you have to go!”

  “To the settlement,” I said. Stupid—of course to the settlement. Carrie was what mattered, was what had mattered most to my mother for our entire lives. I shifted to the balls of my feet, like a fighter.

  But my mother had a momentary distraction. “This place is a wreck. It smells. So do you.” And then, “Where’s Ian?”

  I didn’t want to discuss Ian. “What’s happening at the settlement? More random attacks?”

  “Not yet. No—it’s bears!”

  “Bears?”

  “A whole herd of them! They come into the buildings and take food and then yesterday one of them killed one of Carrie’s friends! Mauled him to death!” My mother started to cry.

  She cried easily now, since the MS got so bad, this woman who had never cried when I was a kid. Back then she’d been stronger than diamond cable, and her present tears struck me as deeply wrong on a physical level, as if she’d just grown a second nose. But even I, a city woman, knew that bears can usually be scared off by making noise and waving your arms. And anyway—

  “Mom, are you telling me that Carrie’s demented pacifists won’t even do violence to animals? To bears or wildcats or even tigers if one should happen to show up in Erie County?”

  “Of course they would. But they have no guns, nothing to fight bears!” Suddenly the terror of an old woman was replaced with an odd dignity. She said quietly, “All I want you to do is go out there and give them a gun. A big one. That’s all.”

  “They won’t take it.”

  “Not before. But maybe they will now. For the bears.”

  She looked at me then, her gaze steady in her exhausted face, her failing body held as upright as she could manage on my hideous sofa in my stinking apartment. She’d worked all kinds of crappy jobs to give Carrie and me as decent a life as she could. Back in another world, when decency was still possible for people who were not Sweets.

  “Okay, Mom,” I said wearily. “When it’s daylight, I’ll take Carrie a gun.”

  • • • •

  I took Ian’s twelve-gauge shotgun, a lot of ammunition, and a .45 sidearm; the .50 caliber had too much recoil for me to manage it well. I hesitated over the AK-47—did you need that much power to stop a bear?—but then left it.

  The day was clear and warm. A whole encampment of people had appeared in a field about half a mile from the Sweet settlement; they hadn’t been there a few weeks ago. Last summer the field had held cows; I didn’t know what happened to them. Eaten, maybe. Now there was a collection of patched tents, a few cars, an ancient RV. This far out from Buffalo, tent towns were rare until crops were ready to harvest, or steal. It was only May.

  And then there was the flag.

  It was the only new thing I saw as I slowed down for a tent count. Twenty, maybe, and no kids playing on the trampled weeds. This wasn’t a camp of refugees. The flag flapped above it atop a tall pole that might have been the mast of an old boat. Clean white cloth with bright red appliquéd letters: NO ALIEN SWEETS. Each letter dripped blood.

  A truck passed me, a twenty-year-old Chevy pick-up, two men in the cab. The passenger gave me a hard stare. They turned down the road toward Carrie’s settlement. When I got there, however, I didn’t see the Chevy.

  But I did see the bears.

  Two adult black bears rummaged in what I guessed was some sort of compost heap, digging out anything edible. A third one ambled toward the wooden community hall, and a deer stood on the ridge behind the settlement—the place had turned into a fucking zoo. No people in sight. Which one of these bears, if any, had killed, and why?

  Several people emerged from the community hall, banging on pots and pans, shouting and singing. The bear paused, turned away. I felt like an idiot, standing beside the car with Ian’s twelve-gauge; clearly I was not needed. At the far edge of the group of pot-bangers stood Carrie, her lips open in a song indistinguishable in the din. The sight of her brought such a rush of conflicting emotions that I turned to get back in the car. I despised her, all of them. Passive cowards. They were, indirectly, costing me Ian. She was carrying a niece or nephew, but that baby would just be another coward, unwilling to even try to resist its biology.

  The bear, waddling away from the community hall, suddenly let out a huge roar and raced forward. A second later I saw the cub on the ridge beside a stand of trees. Between mother and cub, but much closer to the cub, walked a boy of about six.

  The child heard the roar, saw the bear, and froze. Where the hell had he come from and why was he outside when nobody else was? With that heightened, slow-motion perception that makes such moments sharp enough to cut glass, I saw the boy’s mouth open to scream, as pink inside as Carrie’s had been in song.

  Carrie dropped her pot and rushed toward the child. She was closer to him than the bear was—they would reach the kid at the same time.

  I fired while I had a clear shot, then fired again. The bear dropped. Carrie clutched the child. The other bears fled. The cub vanished into the trees.

  When I reached Carrie she was on her knees, the boy in her arms, her face raised to mine. “Oh, Sophie, thank you! But that poor cub, we have to get him now and maybe raise him because you—”

  I slapped her across the face. Nothing ever felt so good.

  But then someone was turning me around with a firm pull on my shoulder, his other hand holding down my gun arm. It was the man from the pickup truck, a bearded and none-too-clean guy dressed in jeans and t-shirt, his gray chest hair spilling over the stretched-out neck of the tee. “Ma’am? You with us?”

  “With who?” I shook off both his hands. “Who the fuck are you?”

  “Just some folks come here to prevent a slaughter. And we ain’t got much time. A few hours, is my guess.”

  The man who’d driven the truck stood talking to the group at the community hall. A few Sweets were shaking their heads. Carrie still knelt at my feet, murmuring to the terrified child she’d risked her life to save. They both still looked terrified—but not frozen.

  The man said mildly, “Damn fools, every last one of ’em. But still don’t deserve to get massacred by that lot in the tents.” He spat on the ground. “So you with us or you leaving? We gotta make a plan.”

  • • • •

  There was time to call Ian. He answered right away. Maybe my mother got to him. I told him where I was, and why. I didn’t ask if he would come out to the settlement with the rest of his weapons. I already knew the answer. We stumbled around for a while, and then he said abruptly, “You never asked me wh
at our breakthrough was.”

  “What?” It didn’t seem the right time for a chat about science.

  “The night I moved to the lab. You never asked me what the research breakthrough was. The one I rushed to the apartment to tell you about.”

  “Ian, we were a little busy fighting and—”

  “You never asked me. Never called to inquire.”

  “So what is it?” I heard the sarcasm in my voice, regretted it, did nothing to soften it. “Can you cure all the Sweets?”

  “You know it doesn’t work that way. What we found is a really important step in how the Sweet brains have been rewired.” He laughed sourly. “And anyway, you’d hate it if we could cure them.”

  “What?” I was genuinely confused.

  All at once his voice took on venom I had never suspected he felt. “If we could ‘cure’ the Sweets, you’d have no reason to be angry at yourself, for not being as good as your sister is. And without that anger, you’d have no idea who you are.”

  When my fingers, all eight of them, could work again, I cut the phone connection.

  • • • •

  Now I wait in my assigned place, on the roof of the community hall, behind a pile of concrete blocks. Luke Ames, our self-appointed leader, determined the positions, weapons, and ammunition for the five of us defenders. In a long-ago life he was a Navy SEAL. We don’t know how many will come against us. We do know the Sweets will be no help.

  If we could cure the Sweets, you’d have—

  Luke’s AK-47 feels warm in my hands. I have a hat, but the summer sun is full on the gunmetal. I should be mentally rehearsing all the instructions Luke gave his tiny army, but instead my mind is full of different images. Of all the things that the world is losing, the things that made the texture of the life I grew up in. Football on crisp autumn afternoons. War movies full of heroism. Sexy military uniforms.

  —no reason to be angry at yourself for—

  Anna Karenina and Oliver Twist and Charlotte’s Web. Businesses started in garages and built through stubborn, ornery individualism in the face of all consensual wisdom. Sweets did everything by consensus and nobody was stubborn or ornery. Nobody would think of letting an orphan starve, or of throwing themselves under a train for love, or of killing Wilbur the pig for bacon.

  —not being as good as your sister is. And without that anger, you’d—

  In two generations, maybe less, my lost world would be incomprehensible to the human race. If it survived at all.

  —have no idea who you are.

  Harbingers of the End Times, the religious nuts call the Sweets. Angels of the apocalypse. But there are all kinds of apocalypses.

  The first of the attackers comes into sight down the road. There are three trucks, driving very slow so as to not outpace the walkers beside them. Everyone is armed. On the back of a dusty red pick-up rests some sort of missile launcher. I raise my weapon and wait for Luke’s signal.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nancy Kress is the author of thirty-two books, including twenty-five novels, four collections of short stories, and three books about writing. Her work has won two Hugos (“Beggars in Spain” and “The Erdmann Nexus”), five Nebulas (all for short fiction), a Sturgeon (“The Flowers of Aulit Prison”), and a John W. Campbell Memorial Award (for Probability Space). The novels include science fiction, fantasy, and thrillers; many concern genetic engineering. Her most recent work is the Nebula-winning and Hugo-nominated After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall (Tachyon, 2012), a long novella of eco-disaster, time travel, and human resiliency. Forthcoming is another short novel from Tachyon, Yesterday’s Kin (Fall 2014). Intermittently, Nancy teaches writing workshops at various venues around the country, including Clarion and Taos Toolbox (yearly, with Walter Jon Williams). A few years ago she taught at the University of Leipzig as the visiting Picador professor. She is currently working on a long, as-yet-untitled SF novel. Nancy lives in Seattle with her husband, writer Jack Skillingstead, and Cosette, the world’s most spoiled toy poodle.

  2015

  BLESSINGS

  We move by night, silently, widely separated. It’s impossible to know how much the enemy can detect. Their technology is, of course, better than ours. But we have had many successes. We will have more. And we will not give up.

  • • • •

  “Jenna? You awake yet?”

  Nothing. I raise my voice.

  “Jenna!”

  She emerges from her bedroom, my sweet daughter, sleep-tousled hair and dream-wide eyes. “I’m sorry, Dad—I overslept! I’ll be ready in five minutes!”

  I pour two more coffees, one for her and a half-cup for me. Four minutes later I hand her the ceramic mug; she drinks it as we walk to the lab. People smile and greet us as we pass, and Jeanette Foch—whose son brought her down from Quebec twenty years ago and who still speaks no English—murmurs, “Tres belle, tres belle.” At twenty Jenna is prettier than her mother was, prettier than my mother, much prettier than my grandmother, whose faded picture hangs on the wall of our bungalow. My grandparents, Sophie and Luke Ames, once saved this settlement from horrors I can’t bear to think about, during the first years of the Blessing. Their photograph used to hang in the Common Hall, but of course nobody else could bear to think about what Sophie and Luke did, either, so the picture stays in a drawer.

  I don’t know how my people survived the constant violence during the early years of the Blessing.

  Jenna stops to greet more people. Old Mr. Caruthers has his breathing mask on today. CO2 is 1.9% and falling. A generation ago, it looked like all of us might have to wear breathing masks.

  Jenna kneels by his wheelchair. “Are you taking your pills, Mr. Caruthers?”

  He nods, although I’m not sure he understands. I make a note to remind his granddaughter yet again about his zinc and iron. Kay Caruthers is among the sweetest people in New Eden, but not all that bright.

  Unlike Jenna, I think, and then chastise myself for ridiculous pride. Jenna’s intelligence and beauty are no more my conscious work than is Kay’s dimness, and comparisons only undermine Mutuality.

  In the lab, Dant23 greets me by waving a tentacle. I’d forgotten that he is observing today. The Dant—who look like a cross between a flower and an octopus—show up on a semi-regular schedule. Five tentacles where we have arms and legs, an elongated head that on top flares into segments that resemble petals, skin the color of prominent human veins. But they are DNA-based—panspermia is the usual conjecture—and they can breathe our atmosphere. Which is, of course, why they’re here.

  Humanity owes them a debt we can never repay. Sharing our planet does not even come close. Without the Blessing, we wouldn’t have gotten the runaway CO2 caused by sociopathic industrialization under control. We wouldn’t have stopped interpersonal violence and that most unthinkable of acts, war. We wouldn’t be free people, living in peace and Mutuality. The Dant remade us.

  We cannot, however, talk to them. They understand us, but their speech is pitched too high for human ears. All that we have learned from them has been by demonstration, gesture, pantomime. It is enough; it is more than enough.

  Jenna kisses Dant23’s cheek and says, “Good morning! How are the children?”

  Dant23 nods and waves a tentacle. After more ritual greetings, we get down to work. I look at the new plant samples in the greenhouse.

  Overnight, they’ve all died.

  • • • •

  We choose our destinations carefully. Never small villages, although most of the planet now lives in small villages. And of course not the cities, unlivable and abandoned. We pick large settlements: harder to attack, but that’s where the targets are.

  Usually.

  • • • •

  Jenna stares at the dead soybeans; this was her experiment. But I know she won’t cry. Unlike Zane and Sarah, my other two apprentices, Jenna can summon a sort of steeliness that sometimes worries me. Once, when she was small, I actually saw her hit another chil
d in a dispute over a toy. Hit him! He froze immediately, of course, in normal Extreme Involuntary Fear Bradycardia—but she did not. Even now, the memory makes me shudder.

  Genes are strange things. Even with the inhibiting compounds now tightly woven into our DNA from the Dants’ Blessing, we are individuals.

  Jenna says, “I’ll start the plant analyses.”

  Zane, who has come into the lab, says, “I’ll help.”

  She smiles at him. He smiles back. They make a plan to divide the work and I turn to my own experiments, which are not doing much better than Jenna’s. The wheat plants look normal, but CO2 levels have changed their physiology, and they contain thirty percent less iron and twenty-two percent less zinc than preserved samples from forty years ago.

  At least, I think those are the percentages. I nurse along my decades-old absorption spectrophotometer. So much sophisticated equipment on Earth is either falling apart or newly manufactured in ways that do—that must—protect the environment and the living things within it. The trade-off is worth it. Doing no harm comes first. Mutuality comes first. I don’t understand how pre-Blessing humans tolerated their world. Manufacturing chemicals leaching into the soil and water, people sickened and dying by the greed of others, whole landscapes destroyed by dangerous mining practices, toxic work environments . . .

  I breathe deeply, before I get overwhelmed.

  But, still, our equipment is inadequate. I remember computers; there were still a few around when I was a boy, running on cannibalized parts. We could not do now what Ian McGill did fifty years ago: describe the genetic changes that confer the Blessing. There are no gene sequencers left. Nor can we communicate the results of our scientific work to each other as easily as could McGill. But I have seen the great pile of shameful trash outside Buffalo, before the whole area was proscribed: dead computers, gasoline-powered cars, airplane fuselages, frivolous electronics, all costing innocent lives and destroying the Earth. Never again.

  Jenna finishes her tests and scowls. “This batch of soy shows more zinc and iron, but the plants couldn’t live with the CO2 level. And the batches that can live with it are still starving us of key nutrients!”