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

by Rich Horton

  They’re a hundred paces away, galloping through an open meadow, when they turn and make for her, although she stood swathed in heavy-branched shadows. All five are looking straight at her, so she steps forward, into afternoon sunlight, and stands as they come to a halt, spread in an arc before her. Their expressions are unreadable.

  She nods, civil, and when they make no response, she holds up the brace of hares. “I need fire.”

  The one in front merely laughs, a raucous sound that bears no trace of chioumor. The one to his left—a lieutenant?—speaks up. “Ask Prometheus.”

  It is a more learned response than she had expected. Unsure what to make of it, she says equably, “I will share my meal with them who will skin and cook it.”

  This time the laugh is distinctly unpleasant. “Give it to Forvasia,” the leader says.

  They all trot to one side, mincingly, and she sees one in the back she has not noticed before. For a second she simply stares.

  The one who stands before her is slighter than the others, though with the same insolent grinning expression. The tangled hair is only slightly worse than the others’ and the features only slightly less brutal, but the woman’s dugs are unmistakable. Asia stares. It is a female!

  She has been holding her bough with one end planted in the ground, a neutral gesture, but now she lifts it to step carefully forward. Three steps, and she holds out the conies for the female. The creature makes no move to take them, and Asia pauses. To toss them to her feet would be an affront, but Asia balks at trotting up to someone who refuses to advance halfway.

  Besides (she abruptly notices), the males have now shifted ground, spreading out as though preparing to surround her. She drops the conies and shifts the bough to the right hand. At this, several of them growl.

  Without thinking, she slides her grip from the middle of the shaft to its narrow end and swings it in a fast arc before her. It cuts through the air with the whoosh of expelled breath. She means it as a warning, but the males howl with rage. A second later they charge her.

  Even humans think fast in such circumstances. The centaurs will converge as they approach, so she rushes them instantly. The ugly one in the middle comes at her and she swings the bough, regretting that it is not a club. His kind cannot dodge as readily as twofoots, and it strikes an arm as he reaches for her. The roar of pain and outrage is lost as she gallops past, through the meadow behind them and toward the hills.

  Her pursuers will lose seconds in turning about, which she knows not to let them recover. Through the meadow and into the glade beyond, between trees that the pack must jostle to get through. She tosses the bough aside and makes for higher ground.

  If she cannot match the speed of a stallion, neither can the others. She scrambles over loose stones (hoping to send them tumbling downhill) and cuts back and forth nimbly up the bluff. At a rocky outcrop she turns to face the rabble, which is following her path at the cost of having to proceed in single file. She laughs aloud, causing them to look up from their efforts, their expressions contorted with fury.

  Just above her, a sheet of rock has broken away from the cliff face and begun to angle toward the valley. Sure-footed, she reaches the spot where a chest-high column of cracked limestone stands like stacked plates. Bracing herself against the uphill slope, she places both hands against it and with more-than-human strength shoves hard. The pile tips and bursts, crashing down toward her tormentors with the sound of rolling thunder. It would be satisfying to pause and watch, but she turns and scrambles for the crest, at times using all six limbs to pull herself upward.

  It is only when she reaches the top that she glimpses flickers of light on the horizon. Dark clouds are massing to the south, whence a brisk wind now blows. Was this a sign from the gods? Impossible to foresee what might catch their attention, or how their sympathies (or anger) might be roused. No time in any event to muse upon what vagaries might provoke Notos to bring up a southern storm.

  The lightning flash is brighter than she expects, for she has not noticed how swiftly the clouds have overtaken her. It is only then that she sees two pairs of hands reach over the brink and grasp the rocky ledge. Up rise twin sets of eyes, burning with fury. And as the creatures haul themselves far enough for their forelegs to come clear, a third pair of hands appears.

  She whirls and flees, hooves clattering on the moss-free stones. The ridge runs north for miles, its outlines lost in the sudden gloom. She can see enough, however, to confirm that there is no stand of trees where she can lose herself, no scatter of boulders behind which she can disappear and descend unseen. It is a landscape fit only for heedless flight.

  A rumble comes from directly overhead, heavy with meaning though not clarity. Was she being urged onward, or was this an expression of displeasure? Grim are the prospects of those who misread signs; yet those who heed them often fare no better.

  The howls behind her have grown too wild for her to distinguish, but she fears there are now more than three. She does not know how one centaur can overtake another—would he seize her streaming tail?—but the image of two of them pulling alongside fills her with such alarm that she decides—

  The blow strikes her shoulder so hard that she staggers. Through the pain she realizes what has happened: someone has flung a stone. The implications are immediately clear: the distance one loses in stopping to pick up a stone is more than made up by a good throw. The gambit’s success will of course be swiftly imitated, and a few seconds later a wild cast shies off to the left, followed by the heavy thud, somewhere behind her, where a too-heavy missile lands.

  The next stone hits her flank and she leaps as though jabbed. She can make out rough ground ahead, though she hesitates to slow down. A lightning flash suddenly illuminates the landscape: a steep defile, perhaps thirty feet deep, which she will have to descend and regain in order to continue north. The dilemma is immediately clear: She must pick her way carefully, while exposing herself to an assault of heavy rocks flung downward at her.

  Her only option is a bad one, but she takes it at once. The western slope is the gentler descent, and she is bounding down it as fast as she dares. Within seconds she can hear howls of exultation from above, and her shoulders tighten involuntarily. The first rock crashes loudly a half dozen steps to her left. She knows that they cannot throw while coming down, so if she manages to make it out of range—

  The blow sends her crashing into rubble she had been preparing to dodge. No pain, simply a thunderclap that obliterates all thought, then a headlong tumble and the sensation of legs breaking. Eyes wide, she lies still, feeling the world spinning about her as the scree where she sprawls cracks loudly with further impacts. A hammer blow to her ribs stuns her into awareness.

  No final seconds wasted in wondering whether they will now leave her, perhaps to stumble somehow to her feet: she can hear them descending. So the last thing she sees will be their leering faces, with one perhaps hoisting a huge rock to smash in her head?

  The pain is suddenly of a different order, pulling at her, twisting. She can feel herself seeping into the ground below, as though her dripping blood had nerves. Is this how one descends to the Underworld? Yet her chest is rising, not with a final breath but farther, reaching into the air.

  The metamorphosis is well underway before she fully understands what is happening. Is this salvation? Out of pity, a sense of justice, or simply the inscrutable polytropos of divine caprice? The deliverance visited upon Daphne, Lotis, Arethusa is hers, but is she being transformed into a plant or a spring?

  She feels herself pressing into the soil, assuming density, growing into something still and rooted. Has she become one of the gnarled pines, to stir in the winds that scour the ridge but never to move further?

  The creatures, shrieking with glee, are approaching. Their heedless prancing kicks loose pebbles and stones, which come clattering down upon her.

  And at once she is moving, slowly at first but unstoppably. No lotus tree or laurel, she slides off the cliff face l
ike a turtle off a river stone, she is herself a wall of stone: no spring, but able to flow, and quickly flow faster.

  Like a cascade she races down the slope, leaving a crumbling chasm into which the victors fall screaming, sweeping up material as she descends and making it part of herself. When she crashes at last into the valley floor, it is with a roar of triumph, a series of concussions as though in answer to the thunder, and the greater part of her substance flings itself to rest on the quivering earth even as her evaneros unfolds, rising as a vast cloud into the air.

  • • •

  “Are you feeling all right?” The question was posed so calmly, in a voice so trustful of reason in matters of inquiry, that Asia relaxed even as she ascended into consciousness. It was only after reflecting for several serene seconds that realization pricked her and she opened her eyes.

  She was lying on a couch in a small office. A woman, one of the older ones, sat studying her. Her expression did not seem stern.

  Asia sat up, in the full gravity of Pod level. There was a stinging sensation high in her nostrils, and with a thrill of distaste she realized that Justin must have slid those wires, and perhaps more of them, up into her sinuses. Of course: the device had been transmitting impulses directly to her frontal lobes.

  “No headache or nausea?” the woman asked. “It wouldn’t surprise me, considering what you were doing.”

  “No, I’m fine,” Asia replied. Then, “Oh, yes—Justin said that the device would register if the story turned violent. And it did, so I guess the System became aware of it.”

  “I am sure that the System was aware of what was happening from the beginning,” the woman said.

  “Oh.” And after a pause, “I suppose that Justin is going to get in trouble?”

  The woman shrugged. “Perhaps, in some manner. But really, how? Where would we send him?”

  Asia moved to sit up, but the couch seemed suddenly to tilt sideways. The woman put out a restraining arm. “Your sense of balance may be impaired for a few minutes. Just sit, and we can talk for a bit.”

  Asia didn’t know whether she liked that.

  “My name is Liang,” the woman said. “I have a first name and a job title, but I am the only person aboard the Centaur with that name, so I enjoy being called that.” She smiled at Asia. “I am glad that your jaunt did not distress you.”

  Asia appreciated that Liang did not pretend she had not checked her vital signs for evidence of anxiety.

  “The Turntale is designed to facilitate certain cognitive operations, but if it is used as your friend encouraged you to, it creates a narrative—or rather, you do. These little adventures are called ‘jaunts,’ and they are not for children.” She smiled. “I am sure you do not think of yourself as a child, but to those who embarked on this voyage, those born after departure will always be its children.”

  Asia had been taught to respect her elders, but Liang must have seen something in her expression that she had not intended to show. “Remember, you will inherit this world,” the woman told her.

  Asia had heard this before. “We didn’t ask to be sent here. You made a decision to leave, which we will never be able to do.”

  Immediately, she apologized. Liang waved it away. “You are quite right, of course. But all generations are bound by what their parents could—or couldn’t—do. Virtually all of humanity is living in very nasty conditions, and not even those living offworld can truly expect their children’s to improve. We have delivered you from that—we are too far from Earth to be asked to bleed our resources to succor some fraction of their suffering population, and we sail above a frontier rich with resources. Earth and its habitats are attractive to you because you only know them from afar.”

  This carried a ring of truth so awful that Asia began to cry. The misery welled up like the rising seas inundating a house—she had seen many dramas showing this—and spilled incontinently from her eyes.

  Liang stood and took her hand. “Come with me,” she said in an adult’s authoritarian voice. Asia allowed herself to be led from the room and down a corridor leading onto a public concourse, and then, as Liang suddenly steered them toward a featureless expanse of wall, through a door that slid open at their approach and into darkness. Lights came up to disclose a narrow passageway. They were, Asia realized, behind the walls of their world, in one of the service spaces where the children were never allowed to go.

  Without a word Liang strode ahead, beneath overhead lights that swung slowly to the left and out of sight, following the curvature of the Pod. Abruptly, she stopped before a small hatch set in the wall to their right. It required both her touch and some spoken words before it swung open, and she had to step up to enter the space beyond. She disappeared without a glance at Asia, who hesitated before realizing that she was expected to follow. Nimbly (she had grown up in full gravity), she hopped up and climbed into darkness.

  There was a light somewhere ahead but none around them, and it was by touch rather than sight that she realized that the rough walls were of rock. She was in a tunnel, but walking in its near darkness Asia imagined she was venturing through a cave. The thought was not pleasant: Pholus and Creusa, Philoctetes and Odysseus’ crewmen had variously come to grief in such spaces.

  Liang strode forward confidently, compelling Asia to hasten after her, only slightly reassured by the flat ground beneath their feet. The light before them grew until it resolved into the outline of a narrow door. Asia hung back as Liang stood framed by the glowing edges, waiting for whatever command she had given to be followed.

  After several seconds the door slid open. Stars burst in upon them.

  Liang stepped forward, not upon a walkway but into seemingly empty space. The stars about her were moving, wheeling in slow formation like the earthly firmament. There was nothing for Asia to do but follow, though she quailed at stepping onto nothingness. After two cautious steps, however, she could see a glimmer of refraction about them, reassurance that they were not standing naked to the void but inside a transparent walkway.

  Something moved beneath her feet, and she guessed it an instant before it rose before her: Neptune, enormous in its looming proximity, a vast sphere of white-streaked blue. Almost filling the sky, it ascended, passed before them, and then rose above her head and was lost from sight, replaced by the panoply of stars.

  “The Crystal Bridge, as they call it, swings all the way round to Castor, a great half circle arching over the heavens. So great a span you can scarcely sense its curvature in traversing its length. Soon it will be opened to foot traffic, that our people may venture beyond the confines of the Centaur, to gaze upon the world we have traveled so far to reach.

  “Don’t be frightened. We are within Neptune’s magnetosphere, so can venture beyond the shielding of our ship. The habitats surrounding the Earth, Mars, and the Moon enjoy no such protection, which is why their population must undergo lifelong treatments and eventual health problems. It’s that, or live beneath the lunar surface, or—” and here she laughed—“on Earth.”

  “Why are you showing me this?” Asia whispered.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? That’s a reason right there. And somewhere down there, or in the space around us, is where you will be living your life.

  “But most important: This is real, not mediated. The cloud tops’ brilliant azure? No image: the light waves striking your eyes were produced by the Sun, hours ago, and have reflected off methane molecules that absorbed the other wavelengths.”

  Liang smiled. “After your friend toyed with your perceptions—and, I am afraid, your emotions—you should be allowed to enjoy an unsimulated vista.

  “We should go back—it’s getting cold, isn’t it? I can feel the air molecules slowing!”

  And Asia could see a diffuse plume of vapor appear with Liang’s words. She stared at the tiny cloud, which swirled and vanished. Slowly—it grew warmer as they retraced their steps, so Liang did not hurry—they returned to the cave and through the space behind the
walls to a small concourse, sparsely populated at this time of day. Nobody glanced at them as Liang turned to smile at Asia.

  “Our journey out was one of the great voyages of human history, a tale you will relate to your children, and they theirs. But our ship was a pocket universe, isolated from the rest of humanity as it rose, like a soap bubble, through the air. And we inside the soap bubble could not really see beyond it, only its shimmering inner surface, distorted by its shape.

  “And so we gazed at shimmering images, or turned our gaze upon ourselves. And those who grew up within this bubble know the worlds beyond our confines through a different episteme—I bet you know that word—than those who grew up otherwise. That way of knowing, of living, will soon change for you—” and here she smiled—“rather abruptly, and forever.”

  It’s more complicated than that, said a voice in Asia’s head.

  “I hope you don’t find this alarming. Much of it, after all, is not really news to you.” Liang reached out and tousled Asia’s hair. “Better get home,” she said. “Your family is waiting for you.” She raised her arm, still smiling, and a tendril swung down to grasp it and sweep her away.

  For a long moment Asia simply stood there, oblivious to the passersby stepping around her. A query from home pinged on her wrist, and she absently responded with a touch. Her page offered to show her messages from friends, but she waved it away.

  A god had spoken to her, was showing her favor, which could not be good. It was a thought too great to ponder, a shadow that, sweeping over everything, offered no hint to its form.

  Instead she thought about the fields of Arcadia, where nymphs inhabited the rivers, springs, and trees, and satyrs cavorted, piping or perhaps lurking behind trees, any one of which might house (or somehow be) an oreiad or hamadryad. Through this land the centaurs had fled south, pitiable monsters whom the minor deities must have regarded with feelings beyond conjecture. A nymph could be molested by a human or a god, and sometimes only escape into sylvan form, but the brutish attentions of a centaur, assuming one managed to attract it, would trouble them no more than the attempted ruttings of a wild boar.