The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 24

by Gardner Dozois

  “What?” Michael said weakly.

  Gerry pulled back the blanket. Michael’s thigh and knee looked bruised and purple. Below that was a fat bandage that ended long before his ankle.

  “You cut off my leg.” Michael couldn’t believe the stump was his. “This is a joke. I can still feel my foot.”

  Gerry replaced the blanket. “After a while, your mind will accept there’s no foot there. Then you won’t feel it anymore.” The shape of the blanket now clearly showed what was missing. “At least, that’s what I’ve heard.”

  Michael stared at the blanket for a long time. Outside, the thunder receded and while the lightning played in the clouds, there was little sound but for the rain and the wind.

  “You said dragon,” Michael said, looking up from his leg. He couldn’t stand to stare at it anymore.

  “Komodo dragon lizard,” Gerry said. “Jackie figured out what it was as soon as she saw it.”

  Jackie looked up at the sky. She looked inside the window. “I expect there were several zoos and other facilities in Florida that collapsed just like the zoo in Saint Louis. Maybe that rhino is still alive. For the summer, at least. According to Gerry, these lizards have survived for a while. I’m not sure how a tropical species can make it through a temperate winter. Perhaps they move south when the temperature drops. Or perhaps they find a place they can sleep through the cold. I suppose it’s possible there were enough of them that some were resistant to the cold. The ones less resistant died out and the remaining population bred. Evolution in action. Or maybe they were modified.”

  Michael stared at her. Jackie was talking to him. Really talking to him. She had never done that before.

  Gerry interrupted gently. “How are you feeling, Michael?”

  Michael started. He’d forgotten Gerry was there. “My foot hurts.” He looked down at the blanket, oddly misshapen without his foot under it. Tears welled up. “What am I going to do?”

  “Rest, for the moment,” said Jackie. “Then figure it out.”

  Michael healed with all the combustive vitality of any well-fed young boy. By early July, the stitches were out and the skin over the stump was new and tender. He either hobbled about with a crutch that Gerry had made him or Jackie carried him.

  But as the days wore on he started finding Jackie high on the broken end of the Interstate 24 Bridge carefully watching the other side.

  “What’s over there?” Michael asked as he sat down and dangled his leg over the hundred foot drop.

  “You shouldn’t sit so close to the edge,” Jackie said quietly.

  “If this bridge will hold you, it’s going to hold me.”

  Jackie reached over and picked him up with her trunk. “Edges crumble.” She put him down and he leaned against the wall. “Okay. What’s over there?”

  “I’ve been watching the dragons.” She pointed with her trunk. “They come to the road once around sunrise and once around sunset. In the morning, when they’re warm enough, they leave the road and move to the forest at the edge of the clearing. At night, they slink away under the trees to sleep somewhere. A cave, maybe, or some other kind of den. If they’re hungry, they stay near the clearing until they’ve made a kill. Animals avoid the road so it’s not profitable to hunt there. That’s why they hug the edges of the clearings. There.” She pointed again across the river. “And there. See the carcass? It was a deer they took yesterday morning.”

  Michael saw one leg sticking up from the ground in the clearing. Two long motionless shadows were lying near it.

  “So the road is safe in the middle of the day.”

  “Safer, anyway. This section of road has only two lanes. The wider roads might be better or worse. I can’t tell from here. Gerry was right about one thing. They’re not crossing the river.”

  Michael saw something moving. A large spotted cat. He pointed it out to Jackie. “A leopard, maybe?” she said. “Look how it’s avoiding where the dragons are.”

  “Look way in the distance in that clearing. Deer?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t look like deer. Gazelles? Antelopes? Something the leopards and Komodos can eat, I suppose.”

  “Where did they come from?”

  “Zoos in Florida? Laboratories in Atlanta? I don’t know.” She paused a long time. “Over there things are going to be different.”

  Michael leaned back against the ridge of her back. He rubbed the stump of his leg. It was still tender and it itched constantly. Sometimes, if he wasn’t thinking about it, he tried to scratch his toes.

  “The summer is getting on,” Michael said. “We should get started.”

  “Yeah, right,” Jackie snorted. “You want to lose both legs? You’re staying here with Gerry. I’ll go on down alone.”

  “You need me!”

  “I’ll cope. You were right. You belong here.”

  “That was before.”

  “Before what?”

  Michael hesitated. “When I didn’t think you liked me.”

  Jackie turned her head and looked at him. “What makes you think I like you now?”

  “You stayed with me. Gerry said.”

  “I felt guilty for getting you into this.”

  Michael felt as if he were struck. Ned had never treated him this way. “Why? Why hate me? Why be so mean to me?” Michael felt like she was hiding something. How do you get someone to tell you what they don’t want to? “Why did you leave the Zoo?” he asked suddenly.

  “I didn’t like humans. And I had to leave.”

  Michael picked up on the “didn’t” immediately but kept it to himself. “Ralph said he had a couple of years yet. It didn’t have to be right then.”

  “I had to leave.”

  “Why? Why then? Why – when we could be back there enjoying good food and not staring over the river at dragons.”

  Jackie shook her head.

  Sudden rage shook Michael. “Damn it! I saved you. You owe me.”

  Jackie sighed. “This is hard for me. Did you know there were four of us? Tantor, Jill, Old Bill, and me. We all learned to speak quickly enough but we hid it from the Keepers as long as we could. We had no love of them. Why should we? Even if we hadn’t had the wit to speak, we would have known this was not the place we should be.

  “You saw the zoo. There were cameras everywhere. Where there are cameras, there can be no secrets. So we were found out. They taught us to read. They taught us anything they could get their monkey hands on. We talked it over among ourselves. Why not learn what they had to offer? What could it hurt? Learn the enemy, said Old Bill. But keep them distant.”

  Jackie fell silent for a moment. “Every animal is wired its own way. Herd animals and pack animals are similar in one respect. They define themselves by membership in the group. Once you include a new member in the group, you’re bound to them. Wolves, cattle, and elephants are the same. We didn’t want that. We didn’t want to include humans in our tight little community. So we held back. We acted confused and slow. We did everything we could to make ourselves look stupid. Smart enough to work with, but our true nature held secret.

  “Then the humans started dying. One after another. In groups. By themselves. Until we were by ourselves. Only Ralph was left to care for us.

  “We were ecstatic. All we had to do was figure out how to escape Ralph and survive. We knew we had to go south. Georgia. Florida. Alabama. Where there was no snow in the winter and we could eat.

  “Then Jill died. A bit of wire or glass left in the hay, maybe. No veterinarians left, right? We never really knew, but she died bloated and screaming. That left Old Bill and Tantor. I don’t know how it happened, but I woke up a few weeks later and they were fighting. It’s a terrible thing to see two five-ton animals slamming into one another. They had come into musth at the same time. I don’t know why. I think I came into heat watching them. Biology triumphant.”

  Jackie snorted. “If they had been dumb beasts, one of them would have figured out they were losing and broken it off
. Instead, Old Bill killed Tantor. He came over and mounted me.”

  “But the battle hurt him, too. Inside, somehow. A concussion? Internal hemorrhaging? I’ll never know. He just wasted away. Then he was dead and I was alone and pregnant. You appeared on the scene a week after that.”

  Michael stared at her. “I don’t understand.”

  “I’m telling you why I had to leave. I didn’t have a couple of years. The gestation period of an elephant is twenty-two months. No more. No less. I’m five months pregnant. I have to find a place that’s safe, that’s warm, where I can raise my child.”

  “Oh,” Michael said. “But why the hurry? That’s a couple of years.”

  “Not really. I don’t know what’s at Hohenwald. What if there are no elephants left? Then it’s only me. A few months to find a place and get through the first winter – how will I know I’ve found a good spot until I’ve been through the winter? Then a few months to move to a new spot if I have to. Then a solid year of eating. That’s not much time. Not much time at all.”

  Michael looked across the river. “Guess the dragons are a problem for a little guy.”

  “You think?” she chuckled.

  “I didn’t mean me,” Michael said reasonably. “You’re going to need me.” He looked up at her and she looked away. “And you know it, too. Is it so terrible to need a human when you’re so alone?” Michael looked over the edge of the bridge and spat. He could see it nearly all the way down. “Look at it this way. We used you when everybody was alive. Now’s your chance to use us – or at least me.”

  “I don’t want to use anybody.”

  “Then take me along because you like me. Take me along because you can use my monkey hands. Take me along because I don’t weigh much and won’t be a burden to carry. Only take me along!”

  Jackie didn’t say anything for a moment. “You’re crippled.”

  “Compared to you, everyone is crippled.”

  “Michael, you’re missing one leg.”

  “So?”

  Jackie snorted. “You can’t keep up.”

  “I couldn’t keep up before.”

  “You’re being difficult.”

  “Where did you ever get the idea I’d make leaving me behind easy for you?”

  “You’re missing a leg!” Jackie trumpeted in frustration. “I can’t take you with me.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Jackie shook her head. “You’re missing a leg.”

  “You said that.” Michael stared her straight in the eye. “Like I said: So?”

  “Michael,” she said helplessly.

  “You owe me an answer. And don’t give me the ‘not keeping up’ crap. You owe me better than that.”

  Jackie stared back at him. “Okay,” she said slowly. “The truth is I don’t want to have to take care of you.”

  “More crap.”

  “Not at all. I don’t know what’s going to happen when I meet other elephants. I can’t have any more dependants than my own baby.”

  “Let’s add some more truths here.” Michael felt like he was going to cry. He wiped his eyes angrily. “So I can’t walk without a crutch. I’m riding you anyway. Besides, when my stump heals, we can make an artificial leg. You read that yourself. Even Gerry said he could do it. We might even find one that will fit me. Just because there wasn’t anything in the Metropolis Hospital doesn’t say anything about other hospitals. So it’s not my leg. It’s not like I haven’t been useful. You wouldn’t have gotten out of Saint Louis without me. It’s been me, with my human hands, who’s been able to keep the stuff together. I’m the one who can use a gun. I’m the one that saved your life. The truth is you need me. Your baby needs me. So let me come along.”

  “I’ll have to look out for you.”

  “We’ll have to look out for each other. You didn’t see the dragon. I did.”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want anybody to die around me. Not again.” She shuddered.

  For a moment, Michael could read her as clearly as if she were a human being standing right in front of him: her face dark and sad, her eyes haunted. He reached up and took her trunk and draped it around his shoulder. He stroked it gently. “You’re going to need all the help you can get. You’ve got a baby coming. You don’t even know if the elephants are still there or if you can find them. You’re going to need my hands and my eyes. Better take them with you.”

  “Why do you want to go with me so much?”

  Michael laughed. “Are you kidding? Live on the back of an elephant? What kid wouldn’t trade his teeth to be in my place?”

  “That can’t be the only reason.”

  “Oh, there are a million reasons for us to be together. I can’t think of all of them for you.” Michael hugged her trunk. He looked up at her. “I’m going to be an uncle!”

  This time, Gerry kept the Encantante a hundred yards from shore while Michael and Jackie watched for signs of the dragons.

  Michael scanned the forest with the binoculars Gerry had given him. “I don’t see any.”

  “We saw the kill in the clearing this morning. They should be there,” Jackie said. “And they might have decided to stay in the shade today,” Gerry commented dryly.

  “Why miss a chance at a mountain of meat?”

  “Quiet,” said Michael. “Let’s not do this all over again.”

  Gerry opened his mouth, and then shut it. “Suit yourself. I’ll say this for the last time. This is a mistake and you’ll remember I said it.”

  “If things work out, we might come up in a year or two. You can meet Jackie’s new baby.”

  Gerry didn’t answer but emptied his pipe over the side.

  “It’s now or never.” Michael patted Jackie’s leg. “Help me up.”

  “I think Gerry’s right.”

  “Not going to go through it again right this minute. Make a leg.”

  Jackie bent down on one knee and Michael clambered up. “Okay, then.” He pulled out the rifle.

  Jackie eyed it warily. “I didn’t know you had that.”

  “Everybody has secrets. Let’s roll.”

  Gerry brought the Encantante slowly to the pier. His own rifle was standing in the corner a foot away from him but he didn’t look at it. Instead, he kept his hand over the throttle and the reverse switch.

  Jackie stepped slowly onto the pier and looked around. Michael held the gun ready. “Okay, then.”

  Jackie began lumbering up the road.

  Michael heard Gerry call after them: “Good luck!” Then the propeller revved up and the ferry pulled away from the pier.

  They were on their own.

  Michael looked around and watched carefully. The one that got his leg was dead but Michael wouldn’t have minded giving him some company.

  Part 3

  Once the dragons had warmed themselves on the pavement, they moved to the shadows, waiting for whatever wandered close by. Michael didn’t know if it was Jackie’s size or the fact they stayed in the center of the road as far from the edge as possible, but the few dragons they saw only watched as they walked by. The Encantante containing two humans and an elephant must have confused them. Perhaps Michael had been the real target all along, or perhaps the dragon hadn’t seen all of Jackie, just her leg, and attacked what it thought was a single animal. They would likely never know.

  The infection that had nearly killed Michael showed the threat of the dragons was probably greater than Jackie being a target for every hungry man with a gun. Staying to the middle of the roads meant they traveled in the open. Jackie could be seen for a long distance. This made both of them nervous. Michael kept anticipating the feeling of Jackie sagging underneath him, the victim of a hungry sniper, followed by the inevitable sound of rifle fire.

  They saw no one.

  “Where is everybody?” Michael asked. Even in Saint Louis there had been some people – to be avoided, of course. But they had always been there.

  �
�I don’t know.” Jackie watched the low farms. “This is different from what I had imagined.”

  The land rose. The forest grew thicker, lush and filled with tall oaks and maples. The road disappeared into rubble within a dark and gloomy forest floor nearly bare of vegetation. The remains of the road was a break of light between the trees.

  “Keep watch,” Jackie said after a while. “It’ll be cold under the trees. The dragons will be sunning themselves wherever there’s a warm spot.”

  But the forest grew thicker and even quieter. They saw no dragons.

  “No people and no dragons.” Michael leaned forward to look down on Jackie’s face. “Any ideas?”

  Jackie shook her great head. “It’s too cool for them here under the trees. Maybe the dragons migrate north in the spring when the canopy is thinner. Then return south.”

  “Lizards migrating?”

  “Who knows? It’s a new world down here. I was modified. Maybe they were, too. Or maybe this just isn’t dragon country.”

  “You were modified for a reason, I guess. Maybe they were, too.”

  Jackie was silent for a moment. “Why do you think I had to be modified for a reason?”

  “Nobody would choose a five-ton experiment unless they had a reason.” Michael cuffed the top of her head. “Especially one as foul tempered as you are.”

  “Yeah. Thanks.” Jackie was silent for perhaps a dozen steps. “It was in the last notebooks you found.”

  “I figured.”

  “How so?”

  “I bring you every notebook in the place. None of them satisfy you. Then, you find what you’re after. The next day you leave. At first, I thought it might be something about Hohenwald. Something important you needed to know before you could leave. But the place is clearly on the map. And I couldn’t see what would be in notebooks about you that would have anything to do with Hohenwald. Whatever you were looking for had to be about you. After a while I figured out it had to be something about you that only the people that created you would know. That’s why you were searching the notebooks. And it had to be something Ralph either didn’t know or couldn’t tell you. Ralph would know all there was to know about how they had made you. But there’s no particular reason I could think of that they would tell him why.”