The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 26 (Mammoth Books)

by Gardner Dozois

  “My husband wants to hire you,” Quee Lee said, “but I won’t survive the journey. My goal is to make the halfway point, into the mountains, and from there someone will have to carry me.”

  “What about that Wogfound?” Perri asked. “She looks unbreakable.”

  “Except she’ll mock you relentlessly,” Katabasis warned.

  “I had one on my first trek,” Perri said. “Wogfounds are masters of insults and name-calling.”

  “Well, if I’m riding, then I deserve her abuse,” Quee Lee said. “And if I’m dead for a spell, what could the noise matter?”

  Three humans and several other alien hikers came to terms with their porters. Contracts were spun and sealed, monies were dropped into accounts of trust, and by then the day was half finished. The habitat’s original owners had come from a world with an eleven-hour day-night cycle, and the present owners maintained at least that tradition. Food and equipment still had to be collected, which was why the porters and their clients wouldn’t embark until the next dawn.

  Perri asked to be responsible for his needs. Alone, Katabasis returned to that comfortable and familiar but ultimately alien home. A pot of boiled fish and twenty kilos of flame-blackened bread were the day’s meal, and then she chewed a stick flavored with mint and iron, walking the salty sand of her favorite beach. The night’s sleep lasted for most of three hours, which was typical, and then she woke when the dreams left her no choice, returning to the present and its stolid comforts full of hard work followed by more hard work, from this moment and until the time’s end.

  2

  The good porter knew what to leave behind. Extra clothes were burdens to drop in your tracks. Charms and religious symbols needed to be lighter than whispers, or they were unlucky evils. Even the richest flavors had to be carried in tiny doses, and only dead sticks could be collected along the way, soaked and chewed and then discarded with the body’s waste. Water in the wilderness was often tainted and sometimes putrid, if not outright laced with toxins. One rough filtering might leave a thousand awful tastes behind. But immortals lived inside tough, enduring bodies, and what was adventure without suffering? The one great law that couldn’t be cheated was that physical work required energy. Energy always meant food. But many of the habitat’s species were rare, and some had fallen extinct on their home world, which was why every visitor, local and tourist alike, was forbidden from hunting and grazing. That’s why every meal was carried and why each mouthful had to be jammed with nutrition. And the good porter fed herself before the client, because it was imperative that she be the strongest beast on the trail.

  Katabasis never brought treats or wet meals. A client might pocket dried fruits or hide away some bloody bit of meat, but if she found these indulgences, she took them for herself. The preferred rations were dense desiccated nuggets. Flavors were coded to color and every tongue had favorites, but basically these were lumps of highly purified fat that would test even an immortal’s adaptable guts.

  The trek’s first days always brought gas and embarrassing smells.

  Katabasis expected jokes and had a few of her own at the ready, but Perri and his wife seemed untroubled by the rude noises.

  The Wogfound was much less discreet. But the couple treated his jabs as just another series of farts, inevitable and natural, barely worth mentioning in a realm full of oddities.

  The humans walked the jungle trail in slow, measured steps. Pseudo-gravity was difficult for its crushing pressure, but another complication was at work: The Great Ship had its own tug, and as the habitat’s rim spun upwards, everyone’s apparent weight increased. Then the wheel peaked and fell and down came both the body and weight. A one-gee swing rolled past every eight minutes. Clients had to contend with the shifting rules of walking and falling. Humans always fell, and they eventually broke. The other clients and their porters pushed ahead, but Katabasis’ little group conquered two kilometers on the first day and tried to hold that pace thereafter, passing through stands of pillar trees and a grove of golden willows growing around cores of carbon fiber, and then came another stretch of pillars that looked identical to the first but were born on an entirely different world. After ten days, the forest came to an abrupt end, replaced with a long valley filled with wooden reefs covered with bug-eating anemones and flower-mouths collected from scattered, left-behind worlds.

  Varid was somewhere ahead of them, walking with a Tristerman and the largest Yttytt that Katabasis had ever seen. Tracks and the wind claimed that he was matching paces with those stronger aliens. Perhaps the human felt that he had some point to prove. Maybe he was overextending himself, or maybe Katabasis had been wrong about his nature. The truth didn’t matter. She had a client and hers was quite cheerful about his pain, while his wife was proving resilient. Ten days was nothing in a very long journey, but they had a reasonable pace and ample rations, and their camp was pitched before darkness, time left to eat another dense, gut-knotting meal before managing a few hours of sleep and dreams.

  The couple slipped into their little tent, and in the careful fashion of weaklings trapped in high gravity, they made love.

  The porters listened to the sex, and because he couldn’t help himself, the Wogfound offered insults. “Before I carry that monkey,” he said, “I will wrap her inside her bedding. She is too ugly to touch in any way.”

  “She is a beast,” Katabasis said agreeably. “But I don’t think you will ever carry her.”

  The challenge was noted. “A wager then, your guess against mine.”

  “No.”

  “If you have seen the future,” said the Wogfound, “I will pay you what my bonus would have been.”

  Again, she said, “No.”

  Pulling his legs beneath his long body, the Wogfound prepared for sleep. “How many times have we walked together, Katabasis?”

  “I cannot say.”

  “Many times perhaps.”

  “More than many,” she said.

  “Yet I don’t know you at all,” he said.

  Looking at the armored shell and the three jewel-like eyes, she said, “You are as stupid as you are ugly.”

  The laughter was abrupt and thunderous. Every anemone yanked into its home, and save for the grunting of two monkeys hiding inside their tent, the reef fell silent. Then with a brazen joyful voice, the Wogfound said, “I know what I am. I am beautiful and brilliant.”

  “A good thing to know,” Katabasis replied.

  Shortly after that, the camp fell asleep.

  They caught Varid on the seventeenth day, inside an arid valley blasted by the brilliant blue mirage of a sun. He had spent the night there, his tent and rations packed up but still lying on the hot rock. Varid was stretched out on a skeletal chair. He smiled when the others arrived. He aimed the smile at them and spoke a few quiet words, perhaps to his porter, and the One-after-another gave a deep snort. A furnace would be hotter, but not much. Varid was drenched with sweat, but to prove his strength he lifted one of those very powerful arms, wincing when he held the open hand high.

  “I’ve been waiting for you,” he said.

  Perri was leading. Seventeen days and the previous trek had taught him how to move against the relentless weight. Never lift the leg higher than necessary; keep the back straight and strong. Only motions essential to covering the next half-meter were allowed. He wore minimal clothes and light boots and a body that could live for another million years. But immortality didn’t make animals into machines. He was suffering as he shuffled forward, and his voice was slow when he said, “Thank you for waiting. You’re nothing but kind.”

  Katabasis heard sarcasm and pain.

  Varid appeared oblivious. Still smiling, he turned and said something else to his porter, and then he broke into an oversized laugh.

  With her four back legs, the One-after-another stomped at the ground. They weren’t a verbal species, but those motions signaled frustration.

  “I was traveling with several friends,” said Varid, “but I tr
ipped and fell yesterday, rather hard, and the others continued without me.”

  They had seen their chance to get free of you, thought Katabasis.

  Perri stopped walking, breathing deeply. “A bad fall, was it?”

  “Bones poking through skin and some torn tendons.”

  Quee Lee caught up with her husband. “Are you having trouble healing?”

  “I never have trouble healing.” Varid sat up, the veins in his forehead ready to burst. “No, I decided to let you catch me. I wanted someone to talk to.”

  “I am dreary company,” said the One-after-another.

  Varid stood carefully, and his chair collapsed into a fist-sized bundle.

  Katabasis had served hundreds of humans, and none were like him. She wondered about the effects of drugs and other elixirs ingested for this journey. She wondered if one of the alien “friends” had tripped the man, perhaps intentionally—a common event out on the trails.

  “May I walk with you?” Varid asked.

  “Absolutely,” Quee Lee said, slowly passing her husband.

  The One-after-another stowed the chair and balanced all of the gear on her broad back. Three humans and their porters continued up the desert valley. A long stone wall had been cut through the middle with explosives, and they slipped into the gap and entered the remains of someone’s attempted home—tunnels and oval rooms and bits of debris that might have been precious once or might have been trash. Katabasis never enjoyed walking this ground. Each time, without fail, she thought about lost homes and the ignorant strangers who would feel nothing when they passed through what others had once treasured.

  Quee Lee was in the lead. Perceiving a challenge, Varid found his legs and got busy chasing her.

  Every tradition told the porters to remain behind, watching the slow, painful, and ultimately useless race.

  The parched trail eventually swung back toward the wheel’s center, and after a long climb over a diamondcrete ridge, they dropped into a fresh drainage and different climate. The sun was always directly overhead, but now it turned pale and small. The air filled with mist. The vegetation was several shades of black, every plant held up by multiple trunks, supporting hungry canopies and fluorescing wings wrapped around giant insect bodies.

  “Beautiful,” said Quee Lee.

  Glancing up, Perri stumbled, the bones in his left leg splintering from the unexpected impact, and he collapsed and hit the ground, shattering his cheek and eye socket against bare stone.

  Quee Lee returned to him. There was no reason for worry, but she settled beside him anyway.

  Varid was ahead of everyone, smiling at his fortune.

  “I could make you feel better,” Quee Lee said.

  “In no time,” her husband agreed.

  “But others are lurking.”

  The two of them laughed.

  Then Quee Lee looked at the other human. “Have we met him? He seems just a little familiar.”

  They didn’t have access to a nexus. Memory was what counted, and despite the blood plastered across his face and a crooked leg trying to straighten itself, Perri had enough focus to decide, “I don’t remember a man like him. And I think I would.”

  “Maybe he isn’t the same person now,” said Quee Lee.

  Perri wiped the gore from under his eye. “Maybe something happened to him.”

  “Maybe I should ask him,” Quee Lee said.

  Perri laughed softly.

  “You’re right,” she said. “This is a long walk. There’ll be plenty of boring to fight off before the end.”

  A central valley led toward the distant mountains, and the River East was slow leaden water down its middle. For three days the trail pushed close to the water, and just when the routine and climate became familiar, they crossed the river on a massive bridge of granite slabs and granite columns.

  Another ridge demanded to be climbed.

  Half a kilometer was one day’s work, and they weren’t yet to the top.

  They camped again and ate shavings from their supplies, and nobody complained about the taste of the water. The spring at their feet was cool and clear, little crustaceans leaving feces that tasted like something called pepper. Beside them was a grove of tashaleen trees—massive trunks laced with glass, each supporting fat bladders filled with sulfuric acid. Tashaleens periodically flooded the landscape to maintain their monoculture, but none were ripe at present, and they had lovely red colors that pushed deep into the infrared.

  Today Varid had broken the little bones inside one foot. They healed fast enough, but the foot needed hard rubbing.

  The couple sat opposite him, leaning against one another.

  Katabasis was sitting alone, chewing steadily on a dead black stick laced with bright flavors.

  After a long silence, Varid cleared his throat. Smiling at his foot, he lifted his hand, and then he turned to smile at his fingers as he said, “Name anyone luckier than us.”

  There was optimism in the voice.

  And there wasn’t.

  “Nobody is luckier,” Quee Lee said.

  Perri watched the man. “What luck are you talking about?”

  “Buying passage on the Great Ship,” said Varid. “That’s an honor beyond measure.”

  How could anyone disagree?

  “I feel blessed.”

  “Where did you come from?” Perri asked.

  “Mellis 4.”

  “That’s a colony world,” Quee Lee said. “In the Outskirt District, isn’t it?”

  Varid seemed to hear the question, and for a moment he looked ready to formulate an answer. But then his face emptied, and everybody sat waiting. Eventually he stared at Perri, and after another long pause asked, “What’s your background? From where did you come?”

  “Nowhere. I was born on the Ship.”

  “Are you some captain’s child, or something else?”

  “Something else,” said Perri.

  Varid nodded slowly, as if he was working through the myriad possibilities. But he didn’t ask for more information. He shifted his focus to Quee Lee, ready to ask the same question.

  “I was born on the Earth,” she volunteered.

  “I want to visit the Earth,” Varid said. “Once the voyage ends, I plan to walk all across its ancient ground.”

  The Great Ship wouldn’t return home for another two hundred thousand years. And that was assuming nothing disastrous happened during the long, long journey.

  The married humans glanced at each other.

  Varid appeared excited, staring at the ground and the once-injured foot, smiling and breathing faster until he suddenly looked up, hunting for another worthwhile face.

  “Katabasis,” he said.

  His porter let her plumage flatten, showing disinterest.

  “Your name,” he said. “There’s a human word that sounds like Katabasis.”

  The others looked at her. Even the other porters were curious.

  This had happened several times before, human clients recognizing the word. But to have this odd dim creature bring up the matter like this, without warning . . . well, it was astonishing. Katabasis held her breath, the hearts in her thighs pushing blood into her face, making it more purple than usual.

  “What word is ‘Katabasis’?” asked Quee Lee.

  “It is very old, and Greek,” Varid said. “I wish I could remember what it meant. Maybe I knew once, but then again . . .”

  His voice faded, yet the face seemed more alive than usual, dark eyes sparkling and the mouth very small, very intense.

  Perri looked at his porter. “Is that a coincidence?”

  “No,” she admitted.

  Quee Lee was interested enough to stand up and shuffle closer. “You took the name when you came here. Didn’t you?”

  “It’s a tradition,” Katabasis explained. “Move to another realm, and you embrace some name from those in power.”

  Varid’s face changed again, back to its flat, vague, and apparently empty ways. But he lifted
the hand that had rubbed the foot that couldn’t be any healthier, and he asked the hand, “How did you find your way to the Great Ship?”

  The other porters put their ears and eyes on her.

  Then Katabasis surprised herself. With her voice cool and pleasant, she said, “I walked here. And I walked and walked and walked.”

  3

  She wasn’t Katabasis and wasn’t immortal, and she knew her tiny age and critical place, always going to sleep certain that a great family loved her. She lived inside the world’s stronghold. A wedge-hole decorated with painted pretties was where she slept, and the girl had a collection of flavored sticks to chew on, and every morning one of the household warriors would lick her bare toes, waking her with a hot rough tongue.

  “The maiden is expected,” the warrior would say, or words to that effect. “The Five are waiting in the study with books and high expectations.”

  The Five were a fierce and wealthy and much respected marriage. Royalty and elected leaders didn’t exist in the world and couldn’t be envisioned by the People. But three women and two husband/brothers sat astride generations of obligations and large favors. The girl wasn’t one of the Five’s children, not by blood or by adoption. But she was a Hopeful, which meant that she was endowed with some talent or compelling strength that had made her worth purchasing from forgotten parents.

  “The Five are waiting,” was a ritual statement. Time was too precious to share with even the most promising half-grown citizen. But there were mornings when one of the Five, usually the younger brother/husband, would march past the two hundred Hopefuls, handing out assignments and lofty words about the future before chasing after even more pressing ceremonies.

  The typical morning brought small groups divided by skills and led by teachers who loved the subject in hand. Sometimes Hopefuls were gathered in the arena where they played elaborate games full of lessons and fun that kept them busy until the day’s meal and the night’s sleep. Even better were days when a girl was told to read alone and contemplate every word. But reflective lessons brought warriors on the next morning—warriors delivering hard training because it was important to drive the laziness from these young, spoiled souls.