The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2020 Edition

by Rich Horton

  In French to the waiter, Isabella says, “Mademoiselle, what would you think if I told you we were all aliens from outer space?”

  For a moment the waiter does not answer, and the silence becomes gravity. Even Isabella’s confidence wanes. Perhaps this was too far? The waiter’s face changes from amusement to confusion to fear. She studies our faces like multiple choice answers, and then, in beautiful natural French, she mercifully says, “I would say you were wasted.”

  The laughter is like steam released from a pressure valve. The waiter leaves.

  “See, girl, there are actually no such thing as local agents, you know that, right?” Isabella says, in Haitian Creole or whatever. She rolls her eyes, “Earthling Special Agents employed at clandestinely discovering and capturing Tourists? Pssh. Not a dime of truth. These locals barely know there are other sentient species in the rest of the universe. The Tourism Advisory just puts that fear in you because they don’t want another Unzogdhh-Tar.”

  We swallow our breath at the name of the planet that in seventeen cycles has become the name of an event. The name of a tragedy.

  “God, could we not mention Unzogdhh-Tar?”

  “It’s true.”

  “I cannot ever forget what the Tarrish did to us. Animals.”

  “Who could . . . ”

  “I was near the Unzogdhh-Tar system on the night of the Tourist massacre. How quickly the Advisory recalled us. My god.”

  “Not quickly enough.”

  “Two hundred and fifty-five thousand dead.”

  The table grows silent again. A soft thought about our shared tragedy flutters in and then is mercifully allowed to escape.

  “But it’s not like that here,” Tony says in Swahili or whatever. “The Humans are kind-hearted and fun-loving. They’re not paranoid, xenophobes like the Tarrish. They make jokes. They make songs!”

  “They make Bordeaux.”

  “They make paintings about cows listening to music.”

  “They made Paris.”

  At this my hearts melt. This beautiful city, these beautiful primitive sentients. I want so much to believe these are Tourists, to believe that it is only a fiction stopping me from sharing the joy of my travels with someone. I say, “How can . . . I know for sure . . . you are who you say you are?”

  Isabella crouches beside me, her lips curled into a warm smile. Her onyx eyes twinkle in tune with the blinking lights behind me. “What language am I speaking?” she says in English or Tongan or . . .

  “What about me?” Sylvia says in Frisian or Polish or Russian or . . .

  “I don’t . . . I don’t know”

  “That is correct. You can understand us but you’re having trouble knowing in what way, right?” Tony says in Spanish or Turkmen or Welsh or . . .

  “It’s because of the translators. When two translators speak to each other you hear the content but never the actual language. You understand but you can’t hear what it’s translated from. It comes out as . . . ”

  “Whatever.”

  They smile. “Yes. This confusion is a sign that you’re talking to another Tourist.”

  I let this information wash over me. It makes sense now. His way of speaking is strange. It is both foreign and fluent. “I want to believe you,” I say, “but . . . ”

  The man who brought me here rises, “I’d like to propose a toast,” he says in English or whatever. The others lift their purple filled glasses shaped like singularities. “On this Holiday when the locals celebrate the night their god came down from the sky and became incarnate in a humanoid form, let us toast to all Tourists everywhere, to those who died on the planet Unzogdhh-Tar and especially to those here on the planet Earth tonight. What a privilege it is to travel the universe, and what a privilege it is for me to get to share it with you.” His black eyes land on me.

  “Cheers,” they say in Mandarin or Italian or whatever.

  A misanthropic laugh echoes from the lobby doors. How long has Julian been standing there, listening?

  In Punjabi or whatever, Julian says, “I hope you’re proud of yourself for adding one more to this damned motley crew.” His nothing-eyes are daggers pointed at the man who brought me here. “You risk the lives and the freedom of all Tourists by once again revealing yourselves to another stranger.”

  “Julian, the translator proves . . . ”

  In Guarani or whatever, Julian says, “As I have said many times before: she could be local and wear a translator, and it would be the same effect.” He leans a gaunt arm to his Bordeaux. The others become small at his approach, save for the man who brought me here.

  In Yoruba or whatever, Julian says, “I will retire for tonight. And I have decided tomorrow to continue my Tour alone, as we all should. I no longer wish to be party to this dangerous ritual. Your companionship has been pleasant, but I find no joy in this guessing game.”

  He lifts the Bordeaux to his thin lips and downs the purple liquid and places ten euros onto the table.

  As he leaves, in Azerbaijani or whatever, Julian says, “And if you studied more about these locals you would know that they eventually killed their god when they learned what he was.” His footsteps clatter away into nothingness.

  Another silence like gravity. This one returns their feet to the ground.

  “You know,” Tony says, in English or whatever, “I half expected him to say Bah Humbug.”

  A dam breaks and everyone is again laughing.

  • • •

  The wine is too good and it is now late and I learn today I love to laugh. “You’re beautiful, you’re perfect,” he says, in Rohingya or Samoan or Finnish or whatever. I wrap my arms around his neck. I press my face into the place where his neck meets his shoulder. His skin is made of trichomes of fire. He smells of pine needles and fog and airlock.

  The off-worlders were the ones to name us Tourists. Many of the sentients we encounter see that we have no interest in conquest or trade or even formal relations. They see in our eyes only the blindness and blackness of our single-minded yearning: to know, to see, to walk amongst. Many have come to accept this. Others, to our great tragedy, do not.

  Ours is a curiosity beyond quenching. Within twenty cycles of being born, we contract the same illness, what the Advisors call the Ache. Not a hunger nor a thirst nor a lust can compare.

  Our ancestors, gaunt creatures with as much reason as lost pets, wandered the rust-coral sands of the tundras of our primeworld like nomadic acolytes in ecstasy, worshipping the compulsion that forgoes all other compulsions: our unrelenting aching to see. They wandered to their deaths, these sojourners of old, starving atop mountains, freezing in great waters, soft bodies burst open by predators, all of them alone. Our entire civilization, our entire culture is meant to kraal us to safety, to contain the detriment of this Ache, to harness it. And that we did.

  Governments and institutions were installed to help facilitate our unstoppable will to travel. New technologies brought us safer, faster ways to venture into the emptiness between the worlds. Nano-machines help to translate our unspeakable Yrrgz-ai into, well, whatever. Bodies of exacting imitation allow us to look as the off-worlders look, feel as they feel, to experience life as the locals experience it.

  Perhaps, then, it is this local Human form I wear or perhaps it is the Bordeaux or perhaps it is Paris itself, but since meeting him, I now feel a new compulsion. One that, inexplicably, supersedes the Ache. It is a strange sensation that gathers in my stomach and culminates in my hearts. I have never felt anything like it.

  His skin is electricity. It makes my teeth chatter. It raises the hairs on my arms. He’s the only one who feels this way to me. The only one to make me feel this way. I have touched the others. I have held onto them tight and kissed their cheeks like wine compels one to do and their skin is not mint and pop rocks and seltzer. It is only he whose skin is static.

  He tells me he is certain we are the only six of our kind in Paris. He thinks there are maybe hundreds in all of Europe. He says h
e wants to find them all. With me. He wants us to go to Amsterdam next.

  “I love being in Paris with you,” I say.

  “Me, too,” he says, in Belarussian, or whatever. His almond eyes are black like the black matter that runs the hyperspatial drives. Like the dark energy that fuels the slipstream. Like the inky black between the stars.

  We arrive at his room. Our bodies are so entwined we do not try to find the light.

  “Do you consent to copulate?” he says with my mouth on his mouth. “Shall I take off my clothes?”

  “Mmmhmm.” I say, in whatever. I am already taking off mine.

  The body he is wearing is perfect. It is finer than all the sculptures of the Musée du Louvre

  We embrace in our local forms. His skin is rainfall on a tin roof. It is the needle-fall in the Forest of Mzhodd-oi. It is the tingle before replicators convert energy into your favorite meal, the white noise of skyships as they enter the slipstream. Why do I feel this with him and him alone? Is this what the locals call love?

  I press against him so hard it hurts. Like the prickles of static as winter clothes cling to you. I am kissing him so hard and our bodies are so close that I mistakenly click off my translator.

  He says something.

  I am stopped.

  He says it again, and I am finally sure of what I hear.

  “Oh my god,” I say.

  His skin is white noise, not like the others.

  He is a creature who winks.

  He suspects there are hundreds of Tourists in Europe. He says he wants to find them all.

  “Oh god.”

  He says something again, and now I can tell he is angry. His skin jolts alive. It is not pop rocks or seltzer. This is not love. His skin is electricity for an execution. It is static of flesh as it touches hot oil. It is the white noise of an approaching hurricane.

  Oh, I should have known! I should have listened to the Advisor, to Julian. Don’t trust anyone. Don’t linger with others. Don’t reveal yourself. It was all for my own safety. For our safety! Oh god, the others! How can I warn them? How can I tell them that it is happening again! Like it did seventeen cycles ago! But now it has come to us.

  They have come to Earth.

  Naked I step away from him. I struggle to find the light, to leave the room. He pushes his hand into my mouth, trying, I assume to turn my translator back on. But he cannot, and it is too late. I already know.

  In his climbing, bounding rage he says something again. I am perfectly, deathly sure of what language I hear. It is not French or Mongolian or English or Yrrgz-ai or whatever.

  He is speaking in the language of Unzogdhh-Tar.

  He is speaking in Tarrish.

  Vīs Dēlendī

  by Marie Brennan

  The Masters file into the high-vaulted chamber with its ceiling of clear, faceted crystal. The rainbow light cast by the sun finds its echo in their robes, fine silks in all the shades of their titles: sky-blue, steel-grey, rose-red, blood-red. The thrones upon which they seat themselves are carved from impossibly large blocks of the stones for which they are named. Kings covet thrones as fine as these, but anyone who thinks to conquer this place and take them as a prize will soon have a thousand reasons to regret his error.

  In the center sits the Opal Master, resplendent and stern. Without a single sweep of her hand she raises the wards that will shield this room from sight and sound; they mute the light from the crystal ceiling, and in the gloom the Masters and their thrones glow all the more vividly.

  She declares the thirteen convened, and the most junior among them, the Turquoise Master, asks the first question. “Who stands before us?”

  The words are ritual. For weeks the halls of the academy have echoed with whispers, rumors and speculations and more than a few wagers. Everyone knows who. Everyone knows why. But no one knows what—or how it will play out.

  He steps forward, wearing the undyed muslin of a candidate, and halts on the block of dull granite that marks the center of the floor. “I am Harrik Neconnu, and I stand before the Masters.”

  “For what purpose do you come before us?” Jasper, second most junior. The more interesting questions are reserved for the senior Masters.

  “I come before you to submit myself for examination.”

  Now comes the first chance for something unexpected, with the question of the Lapis Master. “What degree do you seek?”

  “I seek the degree of vīs faciendī.”

  A soft rustle of silk, as the Masters shift in their seats.

  They are not surprised. To achieve the degree of vīs sciendī requires examination by only three Masters, and vīs mūtandī requires seven. They would not be here, all thirteen of them, if they had not known how Neconnu would answer.

  But still: ambition is always noteworthy. Vīs faciendī is the most difficult of the three degrees, and the most rarely bestowed.

  The Hematite Master says, “Do you understand that if you fail this test, you will be put out of the academy, and not permitted to return?”

  “I do.”

  He is not a remarkable student, Neconnu. Some among more senior Masters—those not required to take on teaching duties—did not even recognize his name when they found it entered into the lists for examination. But this is not as unusual as one might think; magi are not known for their humility. Already this year three candidates have overreached themselves, and been sent away.

  Odds are high that Neconnu will be the fourth. But he must have his chance.

  The Obsidian Master asks the question that pulses behind every serene expression. “What act will you perform, to prove your right to the degree of vīs faciendī?”

  Harrik Neconnu says, “I am going to return the dead to life.”

  He isn’t the first to try.

  Countless magi, hoping to earn the highest of the three degrees, have turned to myths and legends for inspiration. In stories great heroes have brought the sun to a halt, traveled backward in time, transformed themselves into stars in the sky; why should it not be possible for magi to do the same? They command the forces of existence. Surely nothing is beyond their reach.

  And sometimes they are correct. The academy cultivates such hubris because from time to time it produces results; some of the invocations that now form part of the standard examination for vīs sciendī were once the means by which someone earned the degree of vīs faciendī, in the early days when the academy was new and few forms of magic were known.

  But resurrecting the dead . . . that, no one has yet achieved. Invoking ghosts, yes. Raising corpses as shambling puppets, yes.

  A true return to life?

  That has always remained out of reach.

  The Masters relax on their thrones. No one laughs, or even smiles; they have too much dignity and self-control for that. But now they know how exactly to classify the young man in front of them: a mediocre student, his ambition far in excess of his skill, hoping to make his name in one dramatic stroke. Vīs faciendī means a guaranteed position among their ranks in due course, once a seat becomes available; the Alabaster and Opal Masters both earned their titles that way. But this foolish boy is unlikely to join them.

  The Carnelian Master is not quite as well-controlled as the rest. A hint of indulgent amusement creeps into his voice as he says, “Where do you intend to perform this act? We have no body here for you to raise.”

  “We will have to leave this room,” Neconnu says. “My method requires us to visit the grave.”

  There is precedent. Although the examinations for all three degrees are customarily conducted in secrecy, some effects cannot be performed in the confines of this chamber. The Opal Master earned her degree on the rocky crag that rears up behind the academy’s halls, splitting the heavens with the lightning into which she had transformed her body.

  “What tools will you need?” the Agate Master asks.

  “None.”

  This time he has surprised them. There are things a magus can do without needing
material assistance from herbs or candles, bells or diagrams, feathers or the stones for which the Masters are named. But most of them are smaller effects, simple matters like manipulating objects at a distance or conjuring water or fire. Greater things can still be done unaided, as the Opal Master demonstrated in raising the wards, but this requires great skill and power; she holds the degree of vīs mūtandī as well as vīs faciendī. An unremarkable student like Neconnu is unlikely to be capable of any such thing.

  The traditions of this examination allot only one question to each Master, but Agate cannot hold back from saying more. Not bothering to hide his skepticism, he says, “You expect us to believe you can raise the dead by will alone?”

  “No,” Neconnu says. “But the one thing I need, I hold within myself.”

  This is more plausible. Blood, breath, hair, flesh—the components of the body have countless uses in a magus’s work. To achieve something as significant as restoring the dead to life without a great array of paraphernalia seems unlikely . . . but others have brought in wagonloads full of tools and still failed. Perhaps the answer will turn out to lie in simplicity after all.

  They return to the questions, with Chrysoprase leaning forward in her curiosity. “How much time do you need to prepare?”

  “None,” he says again. “I have already begun.”

  Something about him irks them all, and has done so ever since he entered the room. Perhaps it is the arrogance with which he stands there, this mediocre student, so unremarkable in his classes that half of them could not have named him or even known him for one of their own. He does not smile, any more than the Masters do, but they can all see him not smiling, as if he is too magnanimous to gloat over the accolade he has not yet earned . . . but not so magnanimous that he doesn’t want them to know that he is holding back.

  And their irritation finds just cause in that reply. Each Master has only one question to ask, but free rein to condemn the answers they receive. Chrysoprase slaps one palm against the arm of her throne, blue-green as the shallow sea and carved with intricate knots. “I deny the degree. You condemn yourself from your own mouth: we must see you demonstrate the power of creation in order to judge it. To begin without us is trickery.”