Nebula Awards Showcase 2015

by Greg Bear

  I break out of the circle and cartwheel into a double-toe flying jump. I land onto a curved, ornamental retaining wall made out of the pearl and skate along its top away from the nuns.

  Behind me, the four nuns leap onto the wall one after another. They skate in pursuit on the top of the undulating wall behind me in a line, rising and falling with the rhythms of the wall like a New Year’s dragon. A slow, ugly New Year’s dragon. Do they really think they can ever catch me?

  But then, behind them, I see someone. She is skating hard. From the way that she balances on one skate and pushes behind with the other skate, I can tell that this girl has received proper Wu-Liu training and that she is not without talent.

  It is the girl who was staring at me in the line for the hair amputations, with the long, straight hair like a waterfall and the stinking expression on her face. As she catches up with the train of nuns, she extends her arms straight out. She knows the lightning lotus forward flip! This girl has received some serious Wu-Liu training. I see her cantilever and flip on the axis formed by her own arms and sail over the entire train of nuns to land in front of them.

  As she closes the distance between us, she begins to do one lily pad forward flip after another, building her momentum and gathering her center of Chi. Pump, flip, glide. When her center of Chi is fully gathered, she unleashes it into a seven-fingered somersault flip. She catapults over my head and lands in front of me.

  I reach out and grab her long length of waterfall hair as she lands. Wah! Her hair is silky and beautiful. It is hard to get a grip on it, as it feels like it was dressed with whale placenta extract. This girl must come from money.

  The girl’s fist shoots out and twists itself into my hair. Aiyah, she is going to crease it! In the distance, I see the four nuns skating in a line towards me, like some evil, brown sea serpent. The one in the lead has a sword drawn.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” I cry at the girl with the waterfall hair. “Who are you?”

  The girl does not answer.

  “They are going to cut your hair, too!” I scream at her. “Why are you helping them?”

  “Because you talk too much,” says the girl with the waterfall hair.

  We continue to wrench each other’s beautiful hair, neither of us releasing our grip. Aiyah, I am crying thinking about all that beautiful hair being creased but it is as if she does not even care! Then, when it is clear that neither of us will gain the advantage over the other, the girl pushes me as far away as my grip on her hair will allow. With her hair stretched between us, she does a strange sort of twisting single-toe flip that I have never seen before and uses the blade of her own skate to cut through her own hair. It makes a sickening sound as it cuts through, half creak and half crunch, as if I had just skated over somebody’s arm. She twists free of my grip. I am holding her length of beautiful hair that must have taken ten years to grow and thousands of taels to dress, and I am so shocked and sickened by her mutilation of herself that I drop my defense.

  In that moment, she whips me in a half circle by my hair and sends me sliding into the four nuns. They grab my limbs and, with one ringing swing of the sword, amputate my beautiful, legendary hair.

  Aiyah, why me? Why me? Why me? I want to die.

  But first, I must have my revenge on this evil, evil girl.

  I learn that the evil girl who helped the nuns to amputate my beautiful hair is called familial name Liang, personal name Doi. Her father is Chairman of New Dei-Tsei Pearlworks Company. They live in a compound at the top of Dowager’s Peak.

  It turns out that Doi Liang was in fact Baby Swan Doi. Of course! When she was ten years old, Baby Swan Doi became the youngest person ever to win first place at the Season of Glimmers Pageant of Lanterns Wu-Liu Invitational. Her short routine, “The Dragon and the Swan” became a sensation because of the interplay between the train of taiko drummers on skates thundering after her and her little fluttering swan moves to evade the dragon. But people say she ran into some “trouble” and disappeared from view and no one has heard anything about her in the last four years.

  Doi Liang’s parents probably sent her to Pearl Colony to clean her up and stage a comeback so that they can make sure she passes this year’s examination to get into Pearl Opera Academy to properly complete her Wu-Liu training.

  I suppose that some people might think that she is a little bit more beautiful than I am, but her mouth is too wide and her complexion has exactly zero radiance. Also, she is always looking down at the ground, so you cannot even tell if her eyelids are monolid or duolid.

  By the end of the day when they amputated my hair, I have gotten all 24 girls enrolled at Pearl Colony to make vows of sisterhood with me to take down that Doi Liang and get her kicked out of Pearl Colony at all costs. No one likes a traitor.

  If Doi Liang gets kicked out of Pearl Colony, there is no way that Pearl Opera Academy will ever accept her. Not with an expulsion on her record. She will never perform legitimate Wu-Liu again. She will never get cast in a role again, except in some variety show production called “Has-Beens of Wu-Liu” or “Nobodies on Skates” or else some topless skating chorus in a saloon in Cleanside.

  But the question is how can we get her kicked out of Pearl Colony? Normally, girls get kicked out for smoking sinkweed or violating curfew or getting caught with boys in their rooms, but this one is so uptight, she probably wipes her ass with lace scarves.

  On the first day of class, we are presented with the perfect way to get that Doi Liang kicked out. When we assemble on the training court on the first day, we are all devastated to see that our Wu-Liu instructor is Sensei Madame Tong. She is an instructor at Pearl Opera Academy. However, she also wrote that ghastly parenting guide “How to Raise Dutiful, Successful Children the Traditional Imperial Way” that has been giving our parents stupid ideas. Piss me off to death. How am I going to survive three months under her rule?

  However, the lesson system and grading plan that Sensei Madame Tong sets forth for us that first day give us the perfect path to get that Doi Liang kicked out of Pearl Colony.

  “Wicked, ungrateful daughters,” says Sensei Madame Tong. She would be beautiful if she did not purse her lips so much.

  “Question: What is the greatest cause of all evil in this world? Answer: Undutiful children.

  “Question: What is the greatest joy that a person can have in this life? Answer: To show respect to one’s esteemed parents.

  “As we start our first day of lessons at Pearl Rehabilitative Colony for Ungrateful Daughters, let us remember the story of young Mei-Ching the Dutiful, who, when her parents were too old and weak to work, chopped all the trees on the mountain where they lived to give them firewood, then cut off her own head to make soup to feed her parents.

  “You shall be subject to a Motivation at the end of each of the three months of this term. The Motivation is an examination to make you all perform your best and place as high in the rankings as you can. You shall be ranked from first place to last place based on your performance during the Motivation.

  “Your final rankings after all three Motivations shall be taken into consideration when you take the entrance examination for Pearl Opera Academy next year. Further, after each Motivation, the girl ranked in last place shall be expelled, as reminder to all of what happens to lazy, ungrateful girls with no virtue or excellence.”

  All of us girls start whispering in excitement to each other, and then we all look at that Doi Liang. We will seize every opportunity when Sensei Madame Tong is not looking to sabotage her and take her down and get her kicked out of Pearl Colony.

  On that first day, Sensei Madame Tong starts us with three hours of basic tan-toe kicking and drills. No toilet breaks.

  At the end of the three hours, she allows us to rest for five minutes. We can choose to either rest or rush back to the dormitory compound to try to use the two toilets there.

  Then she has us immediately start with six hours of jumping drills. At the end of the first thre
e hours, we are allowed a five-minute break but instead of allowing us to rest, she makes us kneel directly on the hard pearl, with our skates on, and listen to the nuns recite poems from the twilight of the Zhang Dynasty of the empire of Shin. They mumble on and on about how the empire was brought down not by the floods following the Great Leap of Shin, but as Heaven’s punishment for all the ungrateful children in the empire.

  Several girls pull muscles during the last three hours of jumping drills. One girl even slips on a triple jump and falls, cutting her leg with her own skate. We all rush to help her, but Sensei Madame Tong does not permit us. She says the girl has dishonored her parents and wasted their money by failing in front of her Colony mates and she should be made to feel the full force of her shame so that her parents get their money’s value.

  At the end of the last hour of jumping drills, Sensei Madame Tong has the Shinian servant girls skate out with our dinner, a bowl of wakame miso soup with a scoop of rice dropped in it. She announces that only girls who are able to successfully do a combination triple scissor kick quadruple spin will be allowed to eat. And we each get only one try.

  Only a few girls manage to do the combination triple scissor kick quadruple spin on the first try. I am one of them. Two of the others who succeed are sisters, Chiriko and Yoneko, whom I already knew because their parents are friends with my parents. I think it was their parents who gave my parents a copy of Sensei Madame Tong’s book, though, and gave them the idea to send me to Pearl Colony. Piss me off to death. But then they were among the first to agree to help me get Doi Liang kicked out so then we became very close friends again.

  Also, another girl named Lin-En did the combination move successfully. Her father is a high-ranking bureaucrat in the Tariff Blockade Ministry. Sweet girl. She seems to want to become friends with me very much. She is not talentless, which is a good thing, since no one is going to give her a role based on her face.

  And also that girl Doi Liang. She also did the combination on the first try.

  Sensei Madame Tong makes the five of us eat our bowls of soup in front of the other girls, who are denied any dinner. When we have finished, Sensei Madame Tong orders the Shinian servant girls to take the uneaten nineteen bowls of soup and empty them into the ocean. Then we are sent to bathe and go to sleep.

  We thought that that miserable first day was just Sensei Madame Tong’s way of scaring us, but no. That first day was just the beginning of a month of terrible days.

  At the end of each day, Sensei Madame Tong tallies the points of all the girls made during the jumps for the day. She continually adjusts our rankings based on our performance and posts them outside the principal skating court.

  The top five rankings never change day to day. I am ranked first, of course, and Chiriko and Yoneko are ranked third and fourth, and then sweet Lin-En is ranked fifth.

  That Doi Liang also ranks pretty well. Too well.

  At the end of the first month, we face the First Motivation. Sensei Madame Tong reveals the full depth of her evil by making us take a twelve-hour Motivation. For the first eight hours, we do endless competitions testing kicking, jumping, spins, free hand combat, footwork routines, short weapons combat, and long weapons combat. For the last four hours, we are tested on combining these skills with lyrical skating and carving figures into the pearl with our skates.

  At the end of the First Motivation, the results are no surprise. In the top five positions, I am first, Chiriko and Yoneko are third and fourth, and sweet Lin-En is fifth.

  And that Doi Liang is ranked second.

  The pretty, fair-skinned girl with the big eyes is ranked last. As we watch her pack up her belongings and leave the colony in failure and shame, my heart is filled with a thousand strains of sorrow and tears roll down my face because it is not that Doi Liang that is getting kicked out.

  I cannot just stand aside and do nothing about this. I have to do something. We all have to do something.

  At the beginning of the second month at Pearl Colony, Sensei Madame Tong tells the remaining girls that we will spend the next month preparing for the Second Motivation, the Imperial Tea-Service test.

  The Imperial Tea-Service test requires you to take a little teacup filled with hot tea. You are required to skate a circuit atop the perimeter wall encircling the campus of Pearl Colony without spilling the cup of tea. Everyone is ranked by how quickly they complete the circuit. However, if you come back without at least half a cupful of tea left, you fail.

  When Sensei Madame Tong has finished explaining the rules, all the girls look at me, and then we all look at that Doi Liang.

  This will be easy. When the Second Motivation is given, we will all attack Doi Liang when Sensei Madame Tong is not looking and knock the tea out of her cup, causing her to fail the Motivation.

  The second month turns out to be far more difficult than the first month. We train for fourteen hours each day. We have not only to practice all the moves that we trained during the first month. We must also learn the architecture of the perimeter wall that we will be skating on during the Second Motivation. We must learn how to navigate the towers, turrets, and minarets that break the wall, and how to use adjoining rooftops and balconies to avoid the obstacles and overtake each other, since the wall is only one skater wide. And we must learn to keep our cups in such perfect balance during all of these leaps that we do not spill the tea in them.

  On the day of the Second Motivation, we are all lifted up in joyful anticipation of the opportunity to take out that Doi Liang. We take our cups of tea and form a pack at the starting line.

  Sensei Madame Tong counts down. “San. Ni. I. Let fly!”

  We all burst and flip or cartwheel onto the perimeter wall and set off. Because the perimeter wall is only wide enough for one skater at a time, we all must follow along in a line. However, you can sprint when you skate past the rooftop of an adjacent building and do a diagonal three-point skid-step to pass somebody.

  Doi Liang keeps trying to pass the skater in front of her and move to the front of the line. However, we anticipate her moves and we work in unison against her like a school of fish.

  When we skate to a point that is blocked from Sensei Madame Tong’s view by the natural geography of the campus, we all let loose with our combat moves at Doi Liang, trying to make her spill her cup of tea.

  She is taken by surprise at the assault from ten sides. She performs quite well considering all those arms and skate blades coming at her.

  She quickly changes to the Pulling Hands technique, grabbing the girls’ limbs as they come at her, using the forward motion of their moves against them, and turning sideways to let them fly past her. The girl is not talentless, I must say that.

  But she is no match for so many girls. She is blocking off four girls who have stopped curbing their kicks and appear to be aiming open blades at her. If they are going to be using illegal moves on Doi Liang, I cannot stop them.

  Then, as Doi Liang passes the rooftop of the dormitory, little Lin-En skates up from the left side and slaps Doi Liang’s cup of tea. Good girl! It flies up in the air. Lin-En ends up skating right through the cloud of tea droplets, which stain all over her uniform robes. But at least we have succeeded in our mission. For Doi Liang snatches her teacup as it tumbles in the air and it is completely empty.

  As we skate into view of the Sensei Madame Tong again, I see that not only have I made Doi Liang come in last place, I am going to come in first place.

  See. Do not underestimate Her Grace, Radiant Goddess Princess Suki. No one will shame me. No one will deny me. As I streak down the finish line in first place, I sing out triumphantly,

  “No dutiful daughter am I!

  “No father or mother ruled by!

  “Behold me, for I am the Radiant Goddess!

  “I fly up and rip down the sky!”

  I finish first, Doi Liang is right behind me but with an empty teacup, then Yoneko, then Chiriko, then Lin-En.

  I am glad to see that sweet Lin-En
managed to place in the top few places again. For some reason, I am cheering for that girl. I skate over to her and say, “Keep skating like that and when we get to Pearl Opera Academy, I will start a sisterhood and you can be my first lady in waiting.” From the look of happiness on her face, you would think that I just gave her a gift of the moon. Sweet, open-hearted girl.

  When all the girls have crossed the finish line, it turns out that everyone finished with their cups at least half full except for Doi Liang. I figure that that means that she places 23rd, dead last in this Motivation and she will be expelled! I am overcome with joy.

  “What happened when the rise of the hill obscured all of you from my view?” asks Sensei Madame Tong. “Mistress Lin-En. Why is your uniform covered with tea?”

  Lin-En cries, “Doi Liang fell in front of me and spilled her tea on me.”

  Sensei Madame Tong’s neck and face fill with color. “Do not lie to me, worthless, shameful girl! Doi Liang has not fallen once during these weeks of training.”

  Lin-En begins to stutter and protest, but Sensei Madame Tong turns instead to Doi Liang.

  “Mistress Doi. Did you fall and spill your tea?”

  Doi Liang is silent, then finally answers in her low, hoarse voice, “No.”

  “Did Mistress Lin-En slap your teacup out of your hand?”

  Doi Liang does not look at Sensei Madame Tong. She does not look at Lin-En.

  She looks straight at me.

  She says, “Yes.”

  “Mistress Lin-En,” says Sensei Madame Tong. “Go pack your things. You are expelled.”

  Brave Yoneko skates to the front of the group and protests. “You cannot do that to her! You have no right to just disbelieve her!”