The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25

by Gardner Dozois

  The ramp widened as it approached the pillar, and offered enough space for a cart to carefully turn onto the bridge itself. The bed of the span was barely wide enough for a cart with two oxen abreast, so Nearside and Farside would have to take turns sending wagons across. For now, Kit thought: Later they can widen it, or build another. They: it would be someone else.

  The sky was overcast with high tin-colored clouds, their metallic sheen reflected in the mist below Kit. There were no railings, only fish-skin ropes strung between the suspension cables that led up to the chain. Oxen and horses wouldn’t like that, or the hollow sound their feet would make on the boards. Kit watched the deck roll before him in the breeze, which was constant from the southwest. The roll wasn’t so bad in this wind, but perhaps they should add an iron parapet or more trusses, to lessen the twisting and make crossing more comfortable. Empire had sent a new engineer, to take care of any final projects: Jeje Tesanthe. He would mention it to her.

  Kit walked to one side so that he could look down. Sound dropped off behind him, deadened as it always was by the mist, and he could almost imagine that he was alone. It was several hundred feet down, but there was nothing to give scale to the coiling field of hammered metal below him. Deep in the mist he saw shadows that might have been a Big One or something smaller or a thickening of the mist, and then, his eyes learning what to look for, he saw more of the shadows, as if a school of fish were down there. One separated and darkened as it rose in the mist until it exposed its back almost immediately below Kit.

  It was dark and knobby, shiny with moisture, flat as a skate; and it went on forever – thirty feet long perhaps, or forty, twisting as it rose to expose its underside, or what he thought might be its underside. As Kit watched, the mist curled back from a flexing scaled wing of sorts; and then a patch that might have been a single eye or a field of eyes, or something altogether different; and then a mouth like the arc of the suspension chains. The mouth gaped open to show another arc, a curve of gum or cartilage or something else. The creature rolled and then sank and became a shadow, and then nothing as the mist closed over it and settled.

  Kit had stopped walking when he saw it. He forced himself to move forward again. A Big One, or perhaps just a Medium-Large One; at this height it hadn’t seemed so big, or so frightening. Kit was surprised at the sadness he felt.

  Farside was crammed with color and fairings, as well, but Kit could not find Rasali anywhere. He bought a tankard of rye beer, and went to find some place alone.

  Once it became dark and the imperial representatives were safely tucked away for the night, the guards relaxed the rules and let their friends (and then any of the locals) on the bridge to look around them. People who had worked on the bridge had papers to cross without charge for the rest of their lives, but many others had watched it grow, and now they charmed or bribed or begged their way onto their bridge. Torches were forbidden because of the oil that protected the fish-skin ropes, but covered lamps were permitted, and from his place on the levee, Kit watched the lights move along the bridge, there and then hidden by the support ropes and deck, dim and inconstant as fireflies.

  “Kit Meinem of Atyar.”

  Kit stood and turned to the voice behind him. “Rasali Ferry of Farside.” She wore blue and white, and her feet were bare. She had pulled back her dark hair with a ribbon and her pale shoulders gleamed. She glowed under the moonlight like mist. He thought of touching her, kissing her; but they had not spoken since just after Valo’s death.

  She stepped forward and took the mug from his hand, drank the lukewarm beer, and just like that, the world righted itself. He closed his eyes and let the feeling wash over him.

  He took her hand, and they sat on the cold grass and looked out across the river. The bridge was a black net of arcs and lines, and behind it was the mist glowing blue-white in the light of the moons. After a moment, he asked, “Are you still Rasali Ferry, or will you take a new name?”

  “I expect I’ll take a new one.” She half-turned in his arms so that he could see her face, her pale eyes. “And you? Are you still Kit Meinem, or do you become someone else? Kit Who Bridged the Mist? Kit Who Changed the World?”

  “Names in the city do not mean the same thing,” Kit said absently, aware that he had said this before and not caring. “Did I change the world?” He knew the answer already.

  She looked at him for a moment, as if trying to gauge his feelings. “Yes,” she said slowly after a moment. She turned her face up toward the loose strand of bobbing lights: “There’s your proof, as permanent as stone and sky.”

  “ ‘Permanent as stone and sky,’ ” Kit repeated. “This afternoon – it flexes a lot, the bridge. There has to be a way to control it, but it’s not engineered for that yet. Or lightning could strike it. There are a thousand things that could destroy it. It’s going to come down, Rasali. This year, next year, a hundred years from now, five hundred.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “All these people, they think it’s forever.”

  “No, we don’t,” Rasali said. “Maybe Atyar does, but we know better here. Do you need to tell a Ferry that nothing will last? These stones will fall eventually, these cables – but the dream of crossing the mist, the dream of connection. Now that we know it can happen, it will always be here. My mother died, my grandfather. Valo.” She stopped, swallowed. “Ferrys die, but there is always a Ferry to cross the mist. Bridges and ferry folk, they are not so different, Kit.” She leaned forward, across the space between them, and they kissed.

  “Are you off soon?”

  Rasali and Kit had made love on the levee against the cold grass. They had crossed the bridge together under the sinking moons, walked back to The Deer’s Heart and bought more beer, the crowds thinner now, people gone home with their families or friends or lovers: the strangers from out of town bedding down in spare rooms, tents, anywhere they could. But Kit was too restless to sleep, and he and Rasali ended up back by the mist, down on the dock. Morning was only a few hours away, and the smaller moon had set. It was darker now and the mist had dimmed.

  “In a few days,” Kit said, thinking of the trunks and bags packed tight and gathered in his room at The Fish: the portfolio, fatter now, and stained with water, mist, dirt, and sweat. Maybe it was time for a new one. “Back to the capital.”

  There were lights on the opposite bank, fisherfolk preparing for the night’s work despite the fair, the bridge. Some things don’t change.

  “Ah,” she said. They both had known this; it was no surprise. “What will you do there?”

  Kit rubbed his face, feeling stubble under his fingers, happy to skip that small ritual for a few days. “Sleep for a hundred years. Then there’s another bridge they want, down at the mouth of the river, a place called Ulei. The mist’s nearly a mile wide there. I’ll start midwinter maybe.”

  “A mile,” Rasali said. “Can you do it?”

  “I think so. I bridged this, didn’t I?” His gesture took in the berms, the slim stone tower overhead, the woman beside him. She smelled sweet and salty. “There are islands by Ulei, I’m told. Low ones. That’s the only reason it would be possible. So maybe a series of flat stone arches, one to the next. You? You’ll keep building boats?”

  “No.” She leaned her head back and he felt her face against his ear. “I don’t need to. I have a lot of money. The rest of the family can build boats, but for me that was just what I did while I waited to cross the mist again.”

  “You’ll miss it,” Kit said. It was not a question.

  Her strong hand laid over his. “Mmm,” she said, a sound without implication.

  “But it was the crossing that mattered to you, wasn’t it?” Kit said, realizing it. “Just as with me, but in a different way.”

  “Yes,” she said, and after a pause: “So now I’m wondering: how big do the Big Ones get in the mist ocean? And lives there?”

  “Nothing’s on the other side,” Kit said. “There’s no crossing something without an end.”

&nbs
p; “Everything can be crossed. Me, I think there is an end. There’s a river of water deep under the mist river, yes? And that water runs somewhere. And all the other rivers, all the lakes – they all drain somewhere. There’s a water ocean under the mist ocean, and I wonder whether the mist ends somewhere out there, if it spreads out and vanishes and you find you are floating on water.”

  “It’s a different element,” Kit said, turning the problem over. “So you would need a boat that works through mist, light enough with that broad belly and fish-skin sheathing; but it would have to be deep-keeled enough for water.”

  She nodded. “I want to take a coast-skimmer and refit it, find out what’s out there. Islands, Kit. Big Ones. Huge Ones. Another whole world maybe. I think I would like to be Rasali Ocean.”

  “You will come to Ulei with me?” he said, but he knew already. She would come, for a month or a season or a year. They would sleep tumbled together in an inn very like The Fish or The Bitch, and when her boat was finished, she would sail across Ocean, and he would move on to the next bridge or road, or he might return to the capital and a position at University. Or he might rest at last.

  “I will come,” she said. “For a bit.”

  Suddenly he felt a deep and powerful emotion in his chest: overwhelmed by everything that had happened or would happen in their lives: the changes to Nearside and Farside, the ferry’s ending, Valo’s death, the fact that she would leave him eventually, or that he would leave her. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “I’m not,” she said, and leaned across to kiss him, her mouth warm with sunlight and life. “It is worth it, all of it.”

  All those losses, but this one at least he could prevent.

  “When the time comes,” he said: “When you sail. I will come with you,”

  A fo ben, bid bont. To be a leader, be a bridge.

  —Welsh proverb

  HONORABLE MENTIONS

  2011

  Daniel Abraham, “Balfour and Meriwether in The Vampire of Kabul”, Subterranean, Fall.

  Brian W. Aldiss, “Benkoelen”, Welcome to the Greenhouse.

  Michael Alexander, “Someone Like You”, F&SF, July/August.

  Nina Allan, “The Silver Wind”, Interzone 233.

  Charlie Jane Anders, “Six Months, Three Days”, Tor.com.

  ———, “Source Decay”, Strange Horizons, 1/3.

  Eleanor Arnason, “My Husband Steinn”, Asimov’s, October/November.

  Kage Baker, “Attlee and the Long Walk”, Life on Mars.

  Peter M. Ball, “Memories of Chalice”, Electric Velocipede 21/22.

  John Barnes, “The Birds and the Bees and the Gasoline Trees”, Engineering Infinity.

  Neal Barrett, Jr., “D.O.C.S.”, Asimov’s, September.

  ———, “Where”, Asimov’s, March.

  Christopher Barzak, “Smoke City”, Asimov’s, April/May.

  Stephen Baxter, “Gravity Dreams”, PS Publishing.

  ———, “On Chryse Plain”, Life on Mars.

  ———, “Rock Day”, Solaris Rising.

  ———, “Transients”, Fables from the Fountain.

  Peter S. Beagle, “Music, When Soft Voices Die”, Ghosts by Gaslight.

  ———, “Underbridge”, Naked City.

  Elizabeth Bear, “Gods of the Forge”, TRSF.

  ———, “King Pole, Gallows Pole, Bottle Tree”, Naked City.

  ———, “The Leavings of the Wolf”, Apex Magazine, November.

  ———, “Needle”, Blood and Other Cravings.

  Chris Beckett, “Day 29”, Asimov’s, July.

  ———, “Two Thieves”, Asimov’s, January.

  Steve Bein, “The Most Important Thing in the World”, Asimov’s, March.

  Gregory Benford, “Eagle”, Welcome to the Greenhouse.

  ———, “Mercies”, Engineering Infinity.

  Holly Black, “Noble Rot”, Naked City.

  Richard Bowes, “Sir Morgravain Speaks of Night Dragons and Other Things”, F&SF, July/August.

  Marie Brennan, “Dancing the Warrior”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, 4/7, 4/21.

  ———, “Love, Cayce”, OSCIMS, 4/11.

  Philip Brewer, “Watch Bees”, Asimov’s, August.

  Patricia Briggs, “In Red, with Pearls”, Down These Strange Streets.

  Damien Broderick, “Time Considered as a Series of Thermite Burns in No Particular Order”, Tor.com.

  ——— & Barbara Lamarr, “Walls of Flesh, Bars of Bone”, Engineering Infinity.

  Keith Brooke, “Imago”, Postscripts 24/25.

  ——— & Eric Brown, “Eternity’s Children”, Solaris Rising.

  Eric Brown, “Starship Winter”, PS Publishing.

  Tobias S. Buckell, “The Fall of Alacan”, Subterranean, Spring.

  ———, “Mirror, Mirror”, Subterranean, Summer.

  Emma Bull, “Nine Muses”, Eclipse Four.

  Karl Bunker, “Bodyguard”, F&SF, March/April.

  ———, “Overtaken”, F&SF, September/October.

  ———, “Worm Days”, Electric Velocipede 21/22.

  Sue Burke, “Healthy, Wealthy, and Wise”, Interzone 232.

  Jim Butcher, “Curses”, Naked City.

  Pat Cadigan, “Picking Up the Pieces”, Naked City.

  Richard Calder, “Whisper”, Postscripts 24/25.

  James L. Cambias, “Object Three”, F&SF, November/December.

  Tracy Canfield, “One-Eyed Jacks”, Strange Horizons, July.

  Jeff Carlson, “Planet of the Sealies”, Asimov’s, February.

  Siobhan Carroll, “In the Gardens of the Night”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, July.

  Adam-Troy Castro, “Hiding Place”, Analog, April.

  Jason Chapman, “The Architect of Heaven”, Clarkesworld, May.

  ———, “This Petty Pace”, Asimov’s, October/November.

  Rob Chilson, “Less Stately Mansions”, F&SF, July/August.

  Gwendolyn Clare, “Ashes on the Water”, Asimov’s, January.

  Glen Cook, “Shadow Thieves”, Down These Strange Streets.

  ———, “Smelling Danger: A Black Company Story”, Subterreanean Dark Fantasy 2.

  Matthew Cook, “Insha’allah”, Interzone 235.

  S. C. E. Cooney, “The Last Sophia”, Strange Horizons, 3/11.

  Albert E. Cowdrey, “The Black Mountain”, F&SF, May/June.

  ———, “The Bogle”, F&SF, January/February.

  ———, “How Peter Met Pan”, F&SF, November/December.

  ———, “Scatter My Ashes”, F&SF, March/April.

  ———, “Where Have All the Young Men Gone?”, F&SF, September/October.

  Ian Creasey, “I Was Nearly Your Mother”, Asimov’s, March.

  ———, “The Odor of Sanctity”, Asimov’s, September.

  John Crowley, “And Go Like This”, Naked City.

  Leah Cypess, “Twelvers”, Asimov’s, July.

  Don D’Ammassa, “The Buddy System”, Analog, November.

  ———, “Martyrs”, Panverse Three.

  Colin P. Davies, “Fighter”, Asimov’s, June.

  Aliette de Bodard, “Exodus Tides”, OSCIMS, April.

  ———, “Shipbirth”, Asimov’s, February.

  Michael J. De Luca, “The Nine-Tailed Cat”, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, June.

  Bradley Denton, “The Adakian Eagle”, Down These Strange Streets.

  Paul Di Filippo, “Farmearth”, Welcome to the Greenhouse.

  ———, “A Pocketful of Faces”, F&SF, March/April.

  ———, “Specter-Bombing the Beer Goggles”, TRSF.

  ———, “Sweet Spots”, Solaris Rising.

  Cory Doctorow, “The Brave Little Toaster”, TRSF.

  ———, “Martian Chronicles”, Life on Mars.

  Alexandra Duncan, “Rampion”, F&SF, May/June.

  Andy Duncan, “Slow as a Bullet”, Eclipse Four.

  Thoraiya Dyer, “Breaking the Ice”, Cosmos, March.
r />   Carol Emshwiller, “The New and Perfect Man”, Postscripts 24/25.

  David Farland, “Against Eternity”, Lightspeed, October.

  K. M. Ferebee, “Seven Spells to Sever the Heart”, Fantasy, November.

  Sheila Finch, “The Evening and the Morning”, F&SF, March/April.

  Michael F. Flynn, “The Frog Prince”, Analog, January/February.

  Jeffrey Ford, “The Double of My Double Is Not My Double”, Eclipse Four.

  Eugie Foster, “Black Swan, White Swan”, End of an Aeon.

  Karen Joy Fowler, “Younger Women”, Subterranean, Summer.

  Esther M. Friesner, “The One That Got Away”, Asimov’s, April/May.

  Gregory Frost, “The Dingus”, Supernatural Noir.

  Nancy Fulda, “Movement”, Asimov’s, March.

  Diana Gabaldon, “Lord John and the Plague of Zombies”, Down These Strange Streets.

  Neil Gaiman, “And Weep Like Alexander”, Fables from the Fountain.

  James Alan Gardner, “Three Damnations: A Fugue”, Fantasy, September.

  Laura Anne Gilman, “Crossroads”, Fantasy, August.

  Lisa Goldstein, “Little Vampires”, Realms of Fantasy, April.

  ———, “Paradise Is a Walled Garden”, Asimov’s, August.

  Kathleen Ann Goonan, “Angel and You Dogs”, PS Publishing.

  ———, “Creatures with Wings”, Engineering Infinity.

  Theodora Goss, “Pug”, Asimov’s, July.

  Gavin J. Grant, “Windows in the World”, Strange Horizons, February.

  Joseph Green, “Turtle Love”, Welcome to the Greenhouse.

  Simon R. Green, “Hungry Heart”, Down These Strange Streets.

  Daryl Gregory, “Persistence”, Unpossible.

  John Gribben, “The Alice Encounter”, PS Publishing.

  Eileen Gunn, “Thought Experiment”, Eclipse Four.

  Joe Haldeman, “Complete Sentence”, TRSF.

  Peter F. Hamilton, “Return of the Mutant Worms”, Solaris Rising.