The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, Volume Ten

by Jonathan Strahan

  Possessed by terror, Qad reached for his own sword. The Executive snarled, grabbed his wrists, and powered him to the floor. The fur of the rug turned steely and wrapped itself around his arms and legs, pinioning him spreadeagled. On his knees, the Executive straddled him, straightened, and wrapped his arms around his own belly to pull it out of the way. His prehensile ovipositor writhed from his body, extending from his crotch.

  All four of Qad’s little sisters snapped their teeth and craned toward it, but its attention focused on the eldest. It brought its tip to the little sister’s orifice and plunged inside.

  Qad cried out in apprehension. The force opened him – his little sister – and extended along their tangled nerves. The ovipositor flexed and bulged, propelling the ovum along its length. The bulge reached the little sister’s orifice, pushed, failed to press past the teeth.

  The little sister bit, severing the tip of the ovipositor. Lubricated by blood, the ovum squirted into the orifice. The Executive screamed and shuddered in agony and triumph.

  The ovipositor dragged itself slowly back into the Executive’s body to regenerate.

  Horrified, Qad felt his own ovipositor clench and writhe below his belly, aching to push out of his body. Groaning, holding himself, he managed to repress it.

  The Executive rose. He gazed at Qad.

  “You may leave,” he said, as if they were back in the council meeting. His docked ovipositor vanished into his body, leaving blood spatter on the Executive’s legs, on the rug, on Qad.

  The rug’s restraints retracted, returning to fur, releasing him. Qad staggered to his feet, clutching his torn and stained modesty apron. Holding it against him, covering himself, he stumbled after the leader light, back to Glory, as his little sister moaned and keened and finally fell silent.

  He slept.

  He had no idea how long he remained insensible in his pod. When he awoke, a faint light permeated Glory’s center. His body ached.

  “Glory?”

  “Sleep.”

  Desperately grateful for the sounds of his ship’s voice, he obeyed.

  He could barely move. He hurt all over. Glory’s bulkheads glowed, more brightly than the last time he came out of his fugue. He pushed aside the material of his pod – clean now but much rougher than normal.

  The eldest little sister protruded from his belly, a curve of taut skin, with a faint silver scar where the orifice had been. The other little sisters had retreated into him, leaving their sharp teeth snapping in defense and disappointment. He was ravenous. His arms and legs had shriveled to bone-thin appendages, fat and muscle absorbed to nourish the Executive’s growing interbreed. He tried to call for food, for wine. An Artificial Normal approached him – an unfamiliar one, not belonging to Glory.

  It must be the Executive’s, Qad thought, here to watch and keep me.

  He asked it for wine.

  It extended an appendage and snapped him hard against the forehead. He fainted. After that, he no longer begged for wine. He submitted to the discomfort, even to the pain.

  When the Executive pounded on the access hatch, Qad wept with relief. He struggled out of his pod, clasping his hands beneath the enormous bulge of the little sister – no longer a little sister, but the Executive’s interbreed. If he let go, it bounced uncomfortably and kicked from inside.

  He found the foreign Artificial Normal scratching and probing at the clenched sphincter, insensible to the damage it inflicted. He pushed the Artificial aside and opened Glory by hand, as gently as he could. He imagined that his ship whispered appreciation.

  The Executive entered, striding on stick-thin legs, cupping his belly in his long arms. Qad imagined that he carried even more little sisters than before. Their eyes sparkled and blinked at him from beneath the modesty apron. The Executive smiled, baring long teeth beneath cadaverous gums. “It is time?” Qad asked.

  “You have plenty of time.”

  The Executive guided him back to his pod, waited while he settled in, and sat on a chair produced – how? Qad wondered, and realized that the Executive’s patronage gave the Executive authority over Glory’s resources.

  He slept and woke again and again. He lost track of time. A nutrition tube crawled down his throat, assuaging his hunger but leaving the aches untouched, the discomfort of the interbreed increasing. Always when he woke he found the Executive watching him. He tried to speak but the tube gagged him and kept him silent.

  Pain roused him.

  The bulge of the interbreed clenched, released, clenched again. Its nerves, tangled with his own, fired agony into his belly, his ovipositor, his spine. He screamed against the nutrition tube. It scrambled out of his way, falling from his lips. The Executive stood over him, silently watching.

  The scar of the little sister’s orifice split open, searing him with a pain more intense than any he had ever experienced. The head of the interbreed protruded through the toothless opening, followed by shoulders, then skinny, spidery arms. As the Executive reached down, the interbreed’s sharp teeth snapped. The Executive flicked his fingernail against the interbreed’s cheek, bringing a long, wailing cry, which the Executive ignored. He picked up the new being, whose long thin legs and delicate feet slid from the pouch created by the little sister’s presence. The neck of the pouch closed and cut it off, spilling fluids into Qad’s nest. The pouch shriveled and fell away.

  “Let me hold –” Qad cut himself off when he heard his own voice, dry and raspy, begging. The Executive gazed down at him, impassive, one arm cradling the interbreed, the other his belly.

  If he lets me hold the interbreed, Qad thought, I’ll never let go. I’ll have to duel him.

  And he will win.

  Glory groaned as the Executive’s Artificial wrenched open the access sphincter, but a moment later the lights and power returned, along with the soft sounds of Glory’s life.

  “Sleep,” whispered the ship.

  Qad obeyed.

  In a millennium of time, he woke. Glory pulsed around him, full of life and starlight, sensing nearby untouched worlds.

  Qad’s belly ached where the little sister had lived, where the interbreed had grown. He throbbed with longing for the interbreed, but Glory was so far from the ship dock that the Executive must have solidified his new lineage. The interbreed would be entirely his creature. The Executive would give the interbreed a modern ship and send him out to conquer, to colonize, to perform evolutionary eliminations with the audacity the Executive so valued. Qad would never see either of them again.

  A spiral of arousal moved beneath the scar of the interbreed’s birth. A new little sister, descended from the one he had lost, struggled to grow from its leftover ganglion. The other little sisters craned to see it. Qad snatched up the modesty apron that Glory had created anew for him, and flung it over them. Following his custom, it was solid and opaque. The little sisters squeaked and snapped, competing for his attention beneath the heavy shipsilk.

  Three only, Qad thought. They are pure. The fourth is... gone, used up, contaminated. I want never to think of the eldest little sister again.

  He reached toward it through his nerves, to its leftover ganglion, and extinguished it with a rush of anger. It burned out, leaving him bereft.

  Ignoring the other little sisters, for now, he turned his attention to Glory, and singled out a new world.

  GHOSTS OF HOME

  Sam J. Miller

  SAM J. MILLER (www.samjmiller.com) is a writer and a community organizer. His fiction has appeared in Lightspeed, Asimov’s, Clarkesworld, and The Minnesota Review, among others. He work has been nominated for the Nebula and Theodore Sturgeon Awards, and has won the Shirley Jackson Award. He is a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop and lives in New York City. His debut novel The Art of Starving is forthcoming from HarperCollins. His story “Calved” appears elsewhere in this book.

  THE BANK DIDN’T pay for the oranges. They should have – offerings were clearly listed as a reimbursable expense – but the turnar
ound time and degree of nudging needed when Agnes submitted receipts made the whole process prohibitive. If she bugged Trask too much around the wrong things she might lose the job, and with it the gas card, which was worth a lot more money than the oranges. Sucking up the expense was an investment in staving off unemployment.

  Plus, she liked the feeling that since they came out of her pocket, it was she that was stockpiling favor with the spirits, instead of the bank. What did JPMorgan Chase need with the gratitude of a piddling household spirit in one of the hundreds of thousands of falling-down buildings that dotted its asset spreadsheets? All her boss cared about was keeping the spirits happy enough that roofs would not collapse or bloodstains spread on whitewashed walls when it came time to show the place – or a hearth god or brownie cause a slip or tumble that would lead to a lawsuit. The offerings came from her, and with each gift she could feel their gratitude. Interaction with household spirits was strictly forbidden, but she enjoyed knowing they were grateful. As now, entering the tiny red house at 5775 Route 9, just past the Tomahawk Diner. She breathed deep the dry wood-and-mothballs smell. She struck a match, lit the incense stick, made a small slit in the orange peel with her fingernail. Spirits were easy to please. What they wanted was simple. Not like people.

  Wind shifted in the attic above her, and she caught the scent of potpourri. A sachet left in a closet upstairs, perhaps, or the scented breath of the spirit of the place. Agnes knew nothing about this one, or any of the foreclosed houses on her route. Who had lived there. Where they went. All she knew was the bank evicted them. A month ago or back in 2008 when the bubble first began to burst. Six months on the job and she still loved to investigate, but her roster of properties was too long to let her spend much time in each. And the longer she stayed, the harder it was to avoid interacting.

  When she turned to go, he was standing by the door.

  “Hello,” he said, a young man, bearded and stocky and bespectacled, his voice disarmingly cheerful. She thought he was a squatter. That’s the only reason she spoke back.

  “Hi,” she said, carefully. Squatters weren’t her job. Trask had someone else to handle unlawful inhabitants. Most of the ones she’d met on her rounds were harmless, down on their luck and hiding from the rain. But anybody could get ugly, when they thought their home was threatened. Agnes held up an orange. “I’m just here for the offerings,” she said. “I won’t report that you’re sleeping here. But they do checks, so you should be prepared to move on.”

  He tilted his head, regarded her like a dog might. “Move... on?”

  “Yeah,” she said, and bit her tongue to keep from warning him. The guy Trask uses, he’s a lunatic. He’ll burn the place down just to punish you. She knew she should have been sympathetic to all the people overcrowded or underhoused because the banks would rather keep buildings empty than lower the prices. But nobody knew better than Agnes that when you broke the law, you had to be ready for the consequences.

  “Oh!” he said, at last. “Oh, you think I’m a human!”

  She stared. “You’re... not?”

  “No, no,” he said, and laughed. A resounding, human, manly laugh. It reverberated in her belly. “No... let’s just say I can’t move on. This is my house.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Agnes bowed her head, panic swelling in her stomach at her accidental disobedience. If Trask knew they spoke, she could get fired. “I meant no disrespect.”

  “I know,” he said. Spirits could see that much, or so the stories went. Beyond that it was tough to tell. Some were all-knowing and some were dumb as boxes of rocks. What else did this one know about her?

  Agnes had given up long ago trying to figure out why household spirits manifested differently. Sometimes it made sense, like the Shinto-tinged ancestor embodiment in the house where a Japanese family had lived, or the feisty boar-faced domovoi in a rooming house they had seized from a Russian lady. Others resisted explanation – who knew why an ekwu common to the Igbo people kept a vigil in a McMansion six thousand miles from Nigeria that had never been occupied by anyone, of African descent or otherwise... or why a supposedly timeless spirit would manifest as a scruffy hot man with a sleeve of tattoos like a current-day skateboarder? Weird, but no weirder than the average manifestation.

  “Thank you for the orange,” he said, and crossed the room to take it out of her hand. She could smell him: He smelled like any other man. She could feel his heat. His hair was brown red. His glasses magnified his eyes slightly, making him look a little like a cartoon character.

  “You like oranges? It’s usually a safe bet. Some houses like some pretty wacky shit, though. I don’t kill cats for anybody.” She realized she was doing that thing. The thing where she talked too much. Because she wanted somebody – a man – to like her. For an instant she did that other thing, where she immediately hated herself for this, and then realized none of it mattered. This wasn’t a man. It could never leave. It knew nothing of the world but what it found between these walls. And she had to go. Now.

  He peeled the orange. She half-expected his hand to pass right through it, but that was silly. She knew spirits could affect the physical world in ways far more varied and impressive than any human. Once she watched a building burst into sudden, all-encompassing flames, reducing itself to ash and windblown smoke in four minutes.

  “I like oranges,” he said. “Also whiskey. Could you bring me some of that, next time?”

  “Bourbon, rye, scotch – single-malt, blended...” She recited the names like a list of lovers, men who had done her wrong, men who she still loved and would take back in an instant. She had no intention of bringing him booze. But saying the names made her blood thicken and her mouth dry.

  “Bring me your favorite,” he said.

  “That’s maybe not such a good idea,” she semi-whispered.

  He shrugged. “Whatever you like.”

  She wondered if she could trust the sadness in his voice. If spirits really were all that different from men. If, at bottom, they wanted something, and once they had it they were through with you.

  “Why don’t you stay?” he said, his eyes wide and throbbing with loneliness.

  “I’ve got two dozen houses left to visit today,” she said. “And then I’ve got to turn the keys in. Otherwise, the other maintenance workers won’t be able to get in.”

  “After, then. Come back here. You’re nice. I can see it.”

  “I wish I could,” she said. “But there’s people expecting me.”

  He nodded, and handed her half the orange.

  A door slammed, upstairs, in the long seconds that came next. The spirit’s head whipped to the side, his lips curling into a snarl, and for an instant Agnes saw the face of something savage and canine.

  “The wind,” she said.

  “Sorry,” he whispered, human again, pale and embarrassed. “I’ve been very on edge lately. I don’t know why.”

  “I’m Agnes,” she said, telling herself she had imagined the momentary monster-face. The next house was 12 Burnt Hills Road, and she hated that one. The spirit manifested as the house itself, floorboards opening like mouths and bricks shifting as she walked through.

  “Call me Micah.”

  He wiped one juice-wet hand on the hem of his flannel shirt, then extended it. They shook. She bowed her head again, and he laughed protestingly. Then she left.

  It was a lie, of course. No one was expecting her. No one cared where she was.

  HER MOTHER GAVE her a stiff-armed hug, her hands slick with tuna fish and mayonnaise.

  “Wouldn’t have been smoking if I knew you were coming over,” she said, stubbing out a Virginia Slim she’d just lit off the stove burner.

  “It’s fine, really,” Agnes said, sitting down at the kitchen table. The tiny trailer never failed to make her feel immense. “Can I help?”

  “Boil me some water.”

  Two days later, and Agnes couldn’t stop thinking about the man – the spirit – in the tiny red ranch. Even thoug
h her job was keeping spirits happy, she had only cared about them insofar as it might help her keep her job, and maybe one day get a better one.

  Her mother tore plastic wrap roughly off the roll. “You never come by without a reason.”

  Agnes almost said she simply missed her mother, but the woman was too sharp for lies. “I wanted to ask. About our house.”

  Her mother snorted cruelly. Pear-shaped, crookedly ponytailed, smelling of church-basement bingo, her mother’s mind still terrified Agnes. The woman probably knew lots about household spirits and how they worked, from all those endless Sunday services and prayer groups. All Agnes remembered from church was that God was the prime spirit, present in all things and tying it all together, and Jesus was his emanation. Just like Micah was the emanation of 5775. Anyway Agnes should have known they couldn’t have a civil conversation. Her mother had spent six months waiting for an apology, and Agnes didn’t believe she had anything to apologize for.

  “I wanted to ask about the spirit.”

  “Ganesha.”

  “It wasn’t actually Ganesha, mom. It just took that form.”

  “Took that name, too.”

  “Fine. But you never wondered why it took that form, and not another? Considering we’re not Hindu?”

  “You could have called,” her mother said. “If you just wanted to ask me stupid questions.”

  “I’m sorry to bother you,” Agnes said, and stood up. “I actually thought you might be happy to see me.”

  “You on something?” She looked at Agnes for the first time since she’d arrived.

  “No, mom.” She looked around, debated asking about the trailer and its spirit, but the subject was a sore one.

  She wondered if her mother knew. Where she slept at night.

  “Better not be,” her mother said. “You don’t want to lose that job.” She stirred a third spoonful of powdered milk into her instant coffee. Her face was hard as winter pavement. “Considering what you had to do to get it.”