The Best Science Fiction of the Year

by Neil Clarke

  The void in his head was filled by a flood of anger, red and warm and good.

  He remembered what his first running coach had told him in high school.

  The best fuel for finishing a race is hate.

  Jyri flopped to his belly, got to his knees, and stayed there for a moment, breathing hard. There was a boulder next to him. He embraced it like a lover, found a handhold, and pulled himself up. He leaned against the rocky surface, pressed his forehead against it. His legs wobbled but held.

  He would make it back. He would prove what had happened, destroy Alessandro’s name.

  He squirted an energy gel pack into his mouth. The hydrogel-encapsulated carbohydrates released an expanding bubble of warmth in his belly.

  He let go of the rock, took one step, then another, fighting the rigs. After three steps, it started to get easier.

  After 10 steps, he broke into a jog.

  The descent was even worse than the ascent. Most ultrarunners walked uphill and ran downhill, but the trail was so rough Jyri had to slow down to a walk to give the microtears in his muscles a chance to heal.

  It was almost dark when he finally emerged from the cloud cover and realized he had made it further than he’d thought.

  Only in the wrong direction.

  The interior of the island spread before him in the pale moonlight: rolling hills, a dry riverbed, ash-colored dead trees. Jyri had taken a wrong turn on the plateau. The village was behind him. He would have to climb back up and retrace his steps—a 14-hour journey, back when he was still fresh.

  The fatigue fell upon him, heavy and thick. He nearly stumbled again. What did he have left? In theory, 40 percent: That’s what science claimed you could still draw upon when you reached all limits of endurance.

  It would have to be enough.

  He turned to start the long climb back up, and heard a shout from below.

  “Salo! Down here!”

  Alessandro. He was perhaps 100 meters below Jyri, on rough but level ground. A short distance away from him was a herd of goatbots, at least 20 of them. As Jyri watched, Alessandro dashed toward them. The herd erupted in all directions. Alessandro chased one for a half-minute, but then it swerved away, and the herd simply regrouped behind the Italian. There was no way to tell which one it had been.

  If Jyri had retained any strength, he would have laughed aloud. The goatbots were persistence-hunting Alessandro, playing a shell game that would eventually exhaust him.

  Maybe I should just sit down and watch. The bastard deserved it.

  “Salo, damn it, I need some help here! You can’t catch these motherfuckers alone. They gang up and then there is no way to tell them apart. We need to work together. Come on!”

  “If you’d wanted my help, maybe you shouldn’t have screwed with me,” Jyri shouted. His voice was hoarse.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?”

  Jyri was now halfway down to the clearing. He imagined punching Alessandro, but was not sure he could actually lift his arm.

  “I know you hacked me,” Jyri said. “Back in the village.”

  Alessandro stopped and stared at him, eyes wide.

  “You too?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “My metabolism is fucked. I thought it was a malfunction.”

  Maybe it was just the moonlight, but Alessandro did look pale.

  “Bullshit,” Jyri said. He needed the hate, goddamn it. There were tears in his eyes.

  “Think about it, Salo. It was that bitch La Gama. Those smoothies—why do you think they made us drink them? She was the only one who knew enough about our hacks to develop countermeasures against them.”

  The hate cooled down to an ember. Jyri stared at Alessandro. His hands started shaking.

  Alessandro lowered his voice.

  “Look, man. You’re a good guy. I know I left you in a bad spot, back in the day.” His grin was gone. “I don’t need to cheat, damn it. But right now, I need you. So . . . I’m sorry I screwed you, all right?”

  Jyri looked at him. One apology was not enough to erase five years of back-breaking work and anxiety. How stupid did Alessandro think he was?

  Then he remembered Zheng and Simak, running in tandem.

  “This is the whole point of the Race,” Jyri said. “La Gama gave us a challenge that’s impossible to meet individually, no matter how good your enhancements are. The Whales must be hating it.”

  He looked at Alessandro’s leonine face. There had been no malice in the betrayal. Out here, it was easier to see it. Just an animal, running after the prey, as was its nature.

  All of a sudden, Jyri felt less heavy.

  “That’s why we didn’t make good partners, man,” Alessandro said. “You were way too clever for me.”

  Jyri took a deep breath.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s hunt.”

  It took Jyri and Alessandro several tries to separate a goatbot from the herd. One of them rushed the herd and chose a target; the other intercepted whenever it tried to join the others. It took bursts of speed Jyri would not have imagined he still possessed. Alessandro’s face was purple, all traces of arrogance wiped away by pain. Between dashes, they shared their remaining energy gels and water.

  By 2 in the morning they finally had a goatbot on the run. The herd followed close behind, so they could not let their attention waver.

  Forty percent, Jyri kept thinking, as they raced along the dry riverbed. This was what he imagined the land of the dead was like, arid and endless.

  Yet, somehow, he found himself enjoying the run. His mind was quiet. How long had it been since he’d run in flow, disappearing into a task at the edge of his ability? The Finnish word for thinking was ajatella. It originally meant harrying one’s prey until the end.

  Their lungs worked like bellows. There was no breath for words, but Alessandro was a silent presence at his side, focused on the same goal. With every synchronized step they took, the anger and the anxiety leaked out.

  After a while, there was only the satisfaction of joint pursuit: the bot’s indistinct shape ahead, the rattle of rocks beneath their feet.

  The coastal cliffs were rimmed with light when the goatbot finally slowed, collapsed in a tangle of limbs, and lay still.

  Jyri stared at it, trying not to collapse himself as his heart rate slowed and the blood pressure in his limbs dropped. Alessandro was doubled over, hands on his knees, as he retched.

  “You . . .” the Italian waved breathlessly. “You . . . do the honors.”

  Jyri half-walked, half-hopped to the machine. Up close, it looked even more like an animal. Its black carapace moved up and down, as if it was breathing. Gingerly, he touched the white stick figure on its flank. A round hole snapped instantly open. He reached inside, and his fingers found two objects: a vial filled with a clear liquid and a pneumatic injection needle.

  Alessandro wiped vomit from his beard and looked at him.

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked. “It’s the antidote, stupid.”

  Jyri weighed the vial and the needle in his hand. Was this some final trick? Did it even make sense that there would be a universal antidote to hacks against all the contestants’ different enhancements? Of course. The smoothies: They were probably probiotics with bacteria producing a variety of customized biologics in the runners’ guts. They would have a universal genetic off-switch, triggered by whatever the vial contained.

  One shot, and the drive to run would be his again. And yet there was something pure about the night air, the light in the horizon, the dust on his face. He was here, not in the anxiety-ridden past or uncertain tomorrow. Did he really want the overriding, relentless drumbeat back? He was in pain, but this pain was something he had chosen. It belonged to him.

  He shook his head and handed the antidote to Alessandro.

  “You do it,” he said. “I’ll find my own way back.”

  The Italian looked at him, green eyes unreadable. With a practiced move, he filled the
vial and found a vein in his arm. The clear liquid went in with a hiss. Alessandro took a deep breath. His skin flushed, and he stretched expansively.

  “I’ll tell them to come get you,” he said. “Find some shelter and stay there. And I’ll do that intro to Zheng, and brag about your mad motivation-hacking tech. I know you were bluffing earlier about talking to her, but you should. I think she’ll be interested.”

  Jyri nodded and raised a hand.

  He watched Alessandro’s white form recede into the distance until he disappeared behind the withered foliage on the dry riverbank.

  He waited until the sun came up. Long shadow-fingers stretched across the valley, and the coastal cliffs glinted golden. A mirage hovered above the dry expanse of the island. It looked like a ghost city, with floating towers and pillars.

  Jyri felt empty and light. His Camelbak was dry, and he let his backpack fall to the ground. Gazelle or lion, he thought.

  Then he started running.

  Alastair Reynolds was born in Barry, South Wales, in 1966. He studied at Newcastle and St. Andrews Universities and has a Ph.D. in astronomy. He stopped working as an astrophysicist for the European Space Agency to become a full-time writer. Revelation Space and Pushing Ice were shortlisted for the Arthur C. Clarke Award; Revelation Space, Absolution Gap, Diamond Dogs, and Century Rain were shortlisted for the British Science Fiction Award, and Chasm City won the British Science Fiction Award.

  DIFFERENT SEAS

  Alastair Reynolds

  Twelve hours out from Valparaíso Lilith saw her first and only Aurora Australis. Spokes of pastel color came wafting out of the south, like the light spillage from some vast, silent carnival going on over the horizon.

  Pretty good way to end the voyage, Lilith thought, crawling into her bunk on the Dolores.

  She opened up her pad to send a message back to her sister.

  Hey, Gabriela. Nearly done with this gig. Still sorry you didn’t make it to Montevideo in time, but—and don’t take this the wrong way—it hasn’t been as bad being on my own as I thought it would be. The ship starts feeling like a home, and after a while you get used to its sounds and moods. You see some beautiful things. Sunsets, sunrises, flying fish, pods of dolphins racing alongside us, oh, and tonight’s light-show of course. And it’s so quiet, with just the slap of the waves, the rippling of the sails, the occasional hum as she spools in a sail or adjusts her trim. I know it’s only been a few weeks but I think I’m going to have a hard time sleeping on dry land, especially in a busy, noisy city like Valparaíso. Guess I’ll find out tomorrow. Won’t be there long, though. I’ll close up the paperwork with Gladius, make sure the money’s in my account, then book myself onto the Pan-Pacific slev. Tourist class, admittedly. Do you still think you’ll be able to meet me in Quito? It would be good to see a friendly face before I go under the—

  A window popped up to block her message—something about an all-sector weather advisory. Lilith closed it without reading. She had studied the meteorological conditions before she came off deck, seeing only clear skies and calm seas, nothing that was going to cause her any difficulties between now and port. There was just enough of a breeze to help the clipper along.

  But later that night—long after she’d completed and sent the message to her sister—something jolted her awake. Her first thought was that—improbable as it seemed—they’d somehow crashed into something. But it wasn’t quite that kind of bump. Different—but no less ominous.

  More like a door, suddenly slamming in an empty house.

  The jolt had startled her so badly she had banged her forehead against the coving over her bunk. A nice bruise by tomorrow, she thought, dabbing at the tender area. It felt damp. Maybe she’d even cut the skin, drawn a little blood. Might need disinfecting. Somewhere on this ship there had to be a first-aid kit. That could wait, though.

  Why was the room tilting?

  She went up on deck, wondering—dreading—the possibility that they might have been holed, that the clipper was taking in water. But as she looked along the length of the hull, she decided that the problem had to lie somewhere else. The rudder was hard over—she could see the actuator rams, pushed to their maximum limits. Hard to . . . she had to think for a second. Long after she’d memorized the names of the masts and yards and sails, the mizzens and jibs and sprits, the stupid business of left and right—or the nautical equivalents—was still foxing her. Starboard. That was it. Actuator hard to starboard as if the ship was making a sharp starboard turn. But no such instruction had been given, and there had been nothing about a course change in the overnight schedule.

  Ok, she thought. Emergency course change, for whatever reason. Such things happened.

  But it wasn’t that, either.

  The sails were fighting the rudder, trying to hold the clipper on something like its original course. That was the reason she was crabbing so badly, with a tilt to the deck. Like a lame dog dragging itself along the sidewalk.

  But the sails were only able to correct part of the problem. The clipper was still veering, nosing away from Valparaíso and in the general direction of . . .

  Lilith swore.

  Not good. Not good at all.

  The auroral show was done. Full dark to the south, a scattering of stars overhead, faint intimations of dawn to the west. To the northeast, where she was now headed, a series of rectangular black shapes sat so still and heavy in the water that they might have been parts of a reef.

  Lilith went back down to the cabin, fumbled on the microphone and headset, wincing as she brushed the sore spot on her forehead. “Gladius,” she said. “Come in, Gladius.”

  “Gladius Mercantile,” came the reply. “We read you, Lilith. What’s your status?”

  “My status is . . . I’m not too sure. I think something’s gone wrong with the ship. The rudder’s jammed over. We should be on a direct course for Valparaíso, keeping well clear of the offshore raft, but it looks as if we’re steering right into it.”

  There was a pause—long enough to make her uncomfortable. “Affirmative, Lilith. We have a diagnostic update. You no longer have rudder authority. The solar weather event may have caused a voltage spike in your power bus.”

  She fingered her bruise, wincing as she picked away a strand of hair that was sticking to it.

  “The what event?”

  “The solar weather event. Biggest in a hundred years, they’re saying. Major auroral storms. Power blackouts where the grid hasn’t been hardened, comms and navigation dropouts, satellites offline, spacecraft damaged, the works. Not the end of the world, but it’s going to take a day or two to get everything back up and running.”

  Lilith’s perspective underwent a slow, humbling readjustment, like a picture zooming-out from a close-up. Dented forehead aside, her problem was evidently small and local compared to that patchwork of screw-ups.

  Grinning—not out of humor, but sheer exasperation—she looked up and down the long length of the tilting deck, taking in the masts, the winches, the salt-lashed control machinery, the lading hatches, the absolute absence of another human being. Beyond the deck, the tilt of the horizon, and—closer now, she swore—the black presence of the Valparaíso Offshore Raft Farm.

  “That . . . advisory . . . must have come in after I hit the sack.” Lilith swallowed hard.

  “There wouldn’t have been much you could have done other than ride it out, anyway. The Dolores is one of the older clippers in the fleet—doesn’t have all the latest redundancies. If you have a rudder impairment, sail control will default to a safe condition. You may have to sit tight for a few more hours before we can get a repair team to you. May get a little queasy, riding the swell, but at least you’re not going to crash into anything.”

  “When you say sail control . . .”

  “Upon detection of a fault condition the sails will spool in automatically. You needn’t worry about that.”

  “They’re not,” Lilith answered. She checked again, just to make sure her own eye
s weren’t playing games. “The sails are all run-out. Mains, gallants, royals, spritsails. Nothing’s spooling in. Other than this tilt to the deck, and the rudder being jammed, we’re still sailing hard. And it looks to me as if we’re running straight into the raft.”

  Now the voice had gone from harried but friendly to slightly concerned and trying to hide it.

  “Sails all still deployed, you say?”

  “I’m not making this up, Gladius. We’re at full sail.”

  There was a silence.

  “Just a moment, Lilith.”

  The moment became a minute, then two, then a third, while whoever was on the other end consulted with somebody, who—she guessed—had to consult with someone else, up and up the chain. It was not a pleasant feeling, suddenly feeling herself coming to the attention of people to whom she had previously meant nothing, just an anonymous caretaker contractee on a single-trip voyage.

  “Um, Lilith?”

  “Hello.”

  “We confirm your situation. You have a cascade failure across a whole level of sail-control systems. They can’t be spooled-in, not without a patch repair. We also confirm your present trajectory.”

  “Then—politely—what you’re saying is, I’m pretty screwed?”

  “We are coordinating a response, Lilith. If we can regain rudder control, then at least you can steer.”

  “Good. You’d better get that repair team out here faster than you were planning.”

  She heard the catch in the voice, the slight hesitation. “There’s no way we can get anyone warm to you in time, I’m afraid—not with things stretched the way they are.” There was a pause. “But we have the next best thing.”

  She unlatched the bright yellow plastic suitcase from its stowage rack, then lowered it down on the cabin floor until it was horizontal and she could break the foil anti-tamper seals and flip open the lid.

  Steadying herself on a handrail, she stepped back.

  The proxy gave a twitch and began to extract itself from its foam matrix in the case, unbending and elongating like a clever puzzle. It stepped out of the case, rising to its full height. It was adult-humanoid in its general size and proportions, with two legs, two arms, a torso and a blank curving mask instead of a face.