The Best Science Fiction of the Year, Volume 3

by Neil Clarke

  A face appears; it is her colleague Selena, brushing a wisp of brown hair away from her eyes. “Pele. We’re all on L3, 7.”

  Blue dots on a map. “Together? In a breakaway?” Breakaways are, essentially, modules to be jettisoned in an emergency. She finds the yellow dots, the children. “Why are the children all on the bridge?” But she knows why.

  “You don’t understand,” says Selena. “We all need to talk. In person. Now. Hurry.”

  She does understand. She does hurry.

  Pele enters the breakaway breathless, and sees her friends, her colleagues, her fellow dreamers, surrounded by screens on which blink schematics, warnings, plans, arguing.

  She has known all of them for a very long time. They have labored together, here and in their various universities, think-tanks, and labs, over the past fifty years, as technologies changed and changed and changed again, holding to the same vision, generating theoretical and actual drives, ship design, exoplanet possibilities, and iterations of Moku in model and, slowly, in reality. Most have rotated onto Moku for a total of at least five years, with breaks, and something is always new when each arrives. They are only a handful compared to all their colleagues on Earth, the Moon, Mars, and various space communities. They have never been together in this particular configuration, which changes monthly as some rotate out and others in, but have known each other from meetings and through their work for longer than most humans have lived. They number thirty-two.

  She knows that they, like she, feel as if Moku is their own body.

  “Pele is here,” says Selena, and they all turn.

  Pele says, “Earth should know, by now. We’ll have radio backup.”

  Bijo, usually laboring in his beloved rain forest, which will never be ready, shakes his head, bowed like a slender, heavy-headed blossom after a downpour. “We are completely isolated. The children have blocked all communication.”

  The face of Ta’a’aeva, a glowing, bulky Polynesian girl, her short, black kinky hair shaved in a zigzag, her face patterned by a fierce, asymmetrical tattoo, appears on a screen. “We see you are all there. I am the spokesperson for the Intergalactic Federation of Gifted Children.” Her deep, melodious voice rings through the compartment.

  “We were all GC’s,” says Quinn, his thatch of dark hair falling across his face, hands on his hips, facing the screen. “Now we’re Gifted Adults. Not quite as shiny as we were brought up to think we were. Knocked on our asses a few times. As far as I can tell, what really makes us gifted is getting back up again after that happens, every time. Living to be adults, which we have done. As adults, it’s up to us to decide what to do so that you can live to be this old.”

  “This isn’t a joke. You have no choice,” says Ta’a’aeva, her voice calm. “We are leaving for Object Shining Leaf. You are all coming with us.”

  “Object Shining Leaf? The only place we’re going is back to Earth,” Quinn says, with finality.

  Ta’a’aeva says, “The civilians are being returned to Earth. All of you are staying with us.”

  “May I please speak with Bean?” says Pele.

  “Bean is busy.”

  But then Bean’s shy, olive-colored face appears on another screen. She and Pele look at one another for a moment. Bean blinks, and swallows.

  Quinn says, loudly, “Look here,” but Pele shushes him with a hand.

  “Bean, what’s happening?”

  Ta’a’aeva says, “I’ll tell you,” but Bean speaks, in a whispery, uninflected voice, and slowly. “We have recoded the ship. All of the children who have been here before, too. All of us have worked on it for years. Some of us since we were little. I didn’t even know what this was, really, when I started. They gave me things to do. Every problem was like a new toy or a new puzzle. It was fun.” She closes her eyes and nods as if to some internal rhythm. Her screen goes dark.

  Ta’a’aeva says, “Half of us want to kick you off the ship. Me included. We don’t need any bosses. We want to get adults out of the picture. You live too long and hog up all the air. You can’t think in new ways. You have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo.”

  “That’s not true!” says Quinn, hotly.

  Ta’a’aeva ignores him. “Some of the insecures think we might need you eventually.”

  “Like now,” says Mi, a swarm robotics specialist. “My respectful advice is that you call this off.”

  “Not possible. We initiated the launch sequence for the Orion drive before we even arrived. The nukes are armed. No one noticed, right? Think about that.”

  “But why?”

  Ta’a’aeva wrinkles her nose in disdain. “Moku was completed thirty years ago. She could have left then. But, mysteriously, the launch is always delayed. Brave, willing crews spend years in training limbo, all wasted.”

  “Not at all true!” objects Petr, a German who studies communication. “Their training yields crucial information.”

  Ta’a’aeva makes a moue of anger, which her tattoos intensify. “Moku has been turned into a money-making boondoggle. An amusement park. A research facility. A vacation destination. We are moving humanity’s dream forward. Now. You won’t find a way out.” She disappears.

  No way out? These words give Pele a fleeting, subconscious jolt.

  “She’s a brilliant engineer,” says Victor. “We’d better believe her. She modeled something very like this in one of her past projects. If anyone can do it, she can. I personally approved her. I’m sorry I didn’t realize—”

  “That her dreams were real?” Selena smiles, closes her eyes, and resumes her habitual tuneless humming. “I’m leaving. I have great-greats.” Selena, a mathematician, most often appears to be doing nothing. She walks a lot, taking swings through all the environments with a small backpack and hiking sticks. She lobbied vigorously for a High Sierra environment, and got it, manifesting a little-used gift for politics, though perhaps all simply went as one of her sociological models predicted.

  Quinn says, “My vote is for staying, getting this under control, and stopping the launch. It is our responsibility to the world, and we have a moral responsibility to keep the children from the consequences of their unreason.”

  “Nicely put,” says Prajan, tall as a corn stalk and as thin. He has slung himself against a wall, head bent over his device. He looks up, his eyes questioning; challenging. “So do you have a plan? Because the more I dig, the more I find that they trapped us here.”

  His mobile face shifts to immense amusement, and then his startling, uproarious laugh is magnified by the metal walls. “Heads in jars! That’s what we’ll be. Sparkling in a row, nutrient juice shot through with starlight, like in all those old, crumbling pulp magazines and sci-fi movies!” Wrapping his arms around himself, he bends over. “AHHAAhahaha.” Tears trickle from the corners of his eyes, and he flicks them away with the forefingers of both hands. “Who says dreams can’t come true? And usually at the most goddamned inconvenient time.” He stuffs his device in his pocket, gazes downward, and continues to erupt in weak chuckles.

  Wilhelm, a steady middle-aged physician, sighs, his brown, usually merry eyes sad. “I’m with Selena. I’ve got to get back home. I’m sure most of us are in the same boat. Ta’a’aeva is right. Space travel is not my dream. Using an off-planet environment to generate new therapies, new interventions, for all of us on Earth and Mars, is. And let’s be honest. All of us, or our companies, have profited, and Jane is not the only attorney in our midst with the responsibility of making sure that their employer’s contracts are honored, whether they be government, academic, or private industry, well past our own long lifetimes. Frankly, I’ve never even considered that they might at some point expire.”

  Quinn says, “They’re just too damned smart. Their parents paid for genetic and neuroplasticity enhancements. AI nannies. They’re probably not even human anymore.”

  “They are,” says Pele firmly, “as much as any of us are.” Silence.

  By the way all of them shift t
heir eyes from side to side, Pele sees they are all thinking things they dare not say.

  Pele is finding it hard to focus.

  Before the Hsus, during the nameless time, some kind hand floated Pele on her back, at night, in warm, protected waters, where she could watch the stars. Ala Moana, perhaps.

  They know she was born in Honolulu, but there is a gap from that time until she was, literally, captured in an alley by social workers, restrained, drugged, confined, despaired over, until one day she found herself at the top of a mountain.

  Petr squints, working his device. After a moment, he looks up.

  “I’ve closed all of our outside communications with an emergency override, but they’ll break through quickly. Let’s talk.”

  She didn’t know it was the top of a mountain; she did not use words, but the pictures were new, bright, powerful. There was distant blue, stretching forever, far below. Gigantic white big-porched house. Children of all sizes, staring at her.

  Walter Hsu, an astrophysicist, and Sunny Hsu, a renowned child therapist, had quite a collection of children—five foster-children and three of their own—at the end of the road on Aiea Heights, along with transient young nannies sparkling with laughter, refugee chefs of all nationalities, visiting international experts on every imaginable subject, screenwriters and crackpots, and a crowd of helpers, all part of the tribe.

  Behind the house, tropical forest, a park, to the peak of the mountain. On the other side, miles away, a steep drop to the Kona side of Oahu. Huge mango tree dropping fruit the kids had to shovel into the gully once a week. Their neighbor’s manicured Japanese garden at the far side of their house site, complete with a grumpy old Japanese gardener shaking his fist when they trespassed. A treehouse. The crumbling remnants of a sacred Hawaiian stone platform, a heiau, far down in the forest, the older children’s secret.

  But for now, there are just Pele’s snapshots. Blue. Green. Wind on her skin. Faces, faces, faces. Teeth and eyes.

  “Give her room, kids,” says Sunny.

  Briskly, Theresa, silent till now, sets forth a plan for containing and jettisoning the children back to Earth, a split-second manipulation of partitions, robots, and gas.

  Here are two stories. Pele does not remember them. Yet, within her, they fight.

  This is the first story:

  Pele makes a dash for the trees, but the man grabs her by the waist. His face, when he hunkers down, is big and smiling. “My name is Walter. He takes her hand. “Let’s take a look around.” For some reason, she walks with him.

  No one else can touch her.

  She won’t let them comb her hair. She shrieks and runs away.

  Walter cuts it off swiftly; gently. She feels her head in wonder. Stares at them. Darts into the forest.

  Weeks later, perhaps. Months. How would she know? Pele screams, flings a chair across the room, laughs. Kicks over a tall vase, which shatters.

  “Whoops,” says Sunny, rushing into the living room, carrying an empty black garbage bag. “Should have put that up.” She grabs Pele and drops into a chair, holding Pele tightly in her lap.

  Pele is a storm of sharp elbows, wriggling on the crinkly, slippery bag. She straightens, bends, twists, fights with all her might, grunting and crying in rage. She has to escape! She will! She is stronger and faster than everyone! She always gets away!

  “That’s okay,” says Sunny from behind her. “You can fight me.” Sunny’s long, black hair brushes the side of Pele’s face. Pele tries to grab it, but Sunny deftly uses her left arm to hold down both of Pele’s arms, her right hand to push back her hair.

  As she writhes, Pele feels Sunny’s strong, skinny arms around her. She bounces on Sunny’s hard, bony thighs. When she kicks with her heels, Sunny leans down, pins her legs. “That’s okay. I won’t let you hurt me. You can fight with me.”

  The other children gather round, watching from a safe distance. Sunny yells, “Get away, you kids! This is our time. Pele’s and mine.” They scatter.

  Pele turns her head to bite; a firm, flat hand presses her chin, keeps it forward. “I can’t let you hurt me.”

  Pele spits; drool runs down her face. She shrieks. “Faugh!”

  Sunny says, insistently, her voice low and firm, “What do you want?”

  Pele bears down and pees. Surely this woman will let her go!

  “I have a plastic bag on my lap, Pele. Pee all you want.”

  Pele erupts into a frenzy, but is gently, firmly, held.

  “What do you want?” Sunny says. “Tell me. Tell me!”

  It bursts from her. “Let me go!”

  “Ah! All right!” The arms release. She springs free!

  Pele faces Sunny, scowling. Sunny smiles at her, gently. “You see? Talking does things. I am listening.”

  She opens her arms. Crying, Pele rushes into them, and nestles in a warm embrace. “Let go,” she demands.

  Sunny’s arms open.

  She still doesn’t talk. But she knows she can, if necessary. And that someone is listening.

  This is the second story:

  The whole family is at Oahu’s Pali overlook, behind a low stone wall. The parking lot is full; people mill around, exclaiming, buffeted by the wind.

  The drop below is steep; breathtaking.

  Pele likes it up here. She likes it a lot. She shrieks like the wind. “Whoooo. Eeeeeeaaaah!” She runs to the side, spies a faint trail, leaps over the stone wall. Runs faster. Get away!

  Get away!

  The side goes down, straight down. The wind pushes at her. She trips on a root, starts to fall.

  A strong arm grabs her. “Pele!”

  Walter leans against a tree behind them, holding her so tightly that it hurts. He is shaking. He is crying.

  “Please, Pele. Please. Don’t ever do that again.”

  Pele listens to Theresa’s plan.

  Selena interrupts. “This has a fifty percent chance of succeeding. Actually … I’m tuned into their chatter … closer to forty, though it does fluctuate.” She closes her eyes in that dreamy way of hers, a slight smile on her face. “No … now sixty-two point five three seven …”

  Pele says, “No. Absolutely not. We are responsible for the children. Some of them will die.”

  “It serves them—” begins Quinn, then realizes what he’s saying. They are all getting heated; they are on the verge of panic.

  “We have two thousand, three hundred and thirty-two seconds to decide,” says Selena.

  Quinn says, “Well, Pele, it seems that you’re in charge, and that you’re on their side. Instead of the punishment they deserve for jeopardizing the one thing that’s unified our planet, and into which we have poured immense treasure, they’ll just leave and die, and so will we, as their prisoners. Moku is still here because it is, truly, perpetually unfinished. Technology is always changing. But the chief reason is that the voyage is impossible to survive in any meaningful way.”

  Ala Moana, press-worthy hullaballoo, picnicking families, hula dancers, the mayor of Honolulu, slack-key guitar, the smell of roasting pig. All are gathered for the ceremonial setting forth of Moe’uhane, a fifty-foot traditionally built double-hulled canoe, to Tahiti. Tall, triangular sails, filled with wind that keeps the anchor line taut, blaze red in the noonday sun.

  It is called Wayfaring, the Polynesian way of sailing over vast distances, targeting an island of a few square miles using complex techniques that draw on memory, wave patterns, star navigation. As birds cross the sea in their thousand-mile journeys, so do they sail.

  Walter is a friend of Bob, who will guide Moe’uhane on its long trip using only traditional star navigation. The Hsu tribe is right up front on bamboo mats when Bob begins his star chant. His deep voice rises.

  “Hoku lei’i …”

  Pele, a brown, skinny five-year-old in a faded red bathing suit, one long black braid undone, steps forward into his circle, opens her mouth and joins the chant, in Hawaiian, completely unselfconscious. Her singing voice, unlike her
harsh, flat speaking voice, is sweet and high.

  She knows this ancient chant—the directions for finding not just one island, but many, thousands of miles across the trackless sea.

  Walter and Sunny share a look. This comes from a different part of the brain than speech. Laid in early, during the mystery years.

  Another way in. Another way out.

  When twelve, Pele crews on a star-navigation trip to Samoa on the Moe’uhane with her father, other scientists and adventurers, and Bob.

  Waves rush beneath them with a show, rhythmic whoosh. The canoe rises and falls, its lashed joints creaking, its tall sails filled with salt wind. Pele, drenched with spray, stands braced on the forward platform, holding tight to the kaula ihu, the forestay line, with one hand. Thus immersed in immense, intensely black night, Pele answers with her voice. Pulsing stars move chant from deepest memories to her chest. She is a living tone, vibrating with ancient mindmap, with voyage; mission: huaka’i; a parade through time and space, which she now leads as pathfinder. She is a still point in deep infinity whose slow, reeling movement finds voice in song, lapped, increasingly for Pele, by mathematics.

  As she chants, Bob gently shapes and teaches. But he has also learned from her. Whoever taught her, and then abandoned her, for whatever reason, was a master navigator.

  “Look—there,” he says, when they pause. “Iwakeli’i. Cassiopeia.”

  Walter points. “Tau Ceti. Might have livable planets.”

  Pele stretches on tiptoe, links one arm around the ihu, opens her hands wide, pulls stars to her chest, looks at Walter and asks, “How?”

  There are fourteen emergency protocols regarding kidnapping, hostages— their situation—that they can put into play via a private sign language they all know.

  But someone has to make the call. Everyone looks at Pele.

  The wordless place of pictures that Pele has concealed so well through all the tests, all her life, once she knew it might come back to bite her, rears up like a tidal wave that’s touched bottom in its travel over fathoms of water.

  There is holding.