The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Heat and the rotten-egg smell woke him. He limped dazedly to the window and cracked the shutter. It was just as hot and smelled just as bad outside, but the view was impressive. Sunset made the vast poisonous cloud hanging over the volcano a thing of beauty. He started to return to the cot when he saw his coat hanging on a peg set into the wall. His trousers and shirt hung over the back of the chair, and there was a bundle on the table that had to be his underwear. His shoes were by the door; they still looked tired. Medlin removed the trousers and shirt, dragged the chair over to the door, and wedged the back under the handle.

  He slept poorly and rose early. Madame had arisen even earlier and came tapping at the door as he was washing his face. She apologized profusely and repetitiously for the breakfast she brought. The ash was in everything, she said. The bread was stale, the fruit was speckled. There was no cream for the coffee, which tasted of sulphur anyway.

  He thanked her all the same. He ate and drank and then resignedly opened the shutters to meet the new day. This Monday morning, the volcano had crowned itself with wisps of dirty white smoke. Most people in the street had handkerchiefs tied over their lower faces. It reminded him irresistibly of Tokyo and Mexico City.

  The old woman was almost directly below his window, stirring up ash on the sidewalk with her remnant of a broom. She was absorbed in her work until a carriage drew up at the curb; Medlin caught some infinitesimal, unseeable, untouchable, but undeniable portion of Garrick’s being. A glimmering arm appeared at the window of the cab and rested on the sill. The shimmering hand beckoned. Oblivious to the glow but radiating her own suspicion, the woman shuffled over to the carriage. Words were spoken, and she suddenly turned to look up at him. There was no mistaking the hatred in her expression. She nodded to the person in the cab and disappeared through the door below.

  Medlin shook the ash out of his coat and shoes and rushed downstairs, catching the old woman as she was still sullenly conveying her message to Madame.

  “Please excuse my hurry,” he said as he dashed past, “but I must go!” The carriage was covered with ash. Both the driver and the horse were red-eyed and miserable. The cab door was flung open invitingly, and it did not surprise Medlin, as he stepped up to climb in, to see Garrick waiting for him. Still, he paused, and hung half in and half out while his face grew hot and the muscles in his forehead contracted into a frown. Garrick was dressed in white and had a stylish hat on her head. She was so old and faded that, but for the pale blue band of her hat and the glimmer around her, she would have been achromatic. One hand, as gnarled as mangrove roots, curled around the handle of a wooden walking stick. Her other hand was drawn into a knobby fist like the head of a shillelagh. Poking from the fist was a small revolver. The muzzle was negligently trained on Medlin’s midriff.

  Garrick grinned, and skin around her eyes crinkled like parchment. The rest of her face was smooth and taut. Her skin looked shrinkwrapped over the pointed chin and nose and the high, sharp cheekbones. She said, “It’s good to see you, Med. How was World War Two?”

  “Garrick,” Medlin said tonelessly, eyeing the revolver, and then after a second added, “is a gun necessary?”

  “It depends. How sure are you of your own loyalties?”

  “At the moment…”

  “Just to be on the safe side, why don’t I trouble you for the gun you’re carrying? Lean in just a bit.” Garrick let go of the walking stick, slipped her hand into the pocket of Medlin’s coat, withdrew his revolver by the barrel, gingerly, as though it were a dead mouse. “Why do men always have to have such big guns?” she said, as she put it and her own weapon into a handbag. “Now come on in.”

  Medlin stepped in as she told the driver to proceed to the Morne d’Orange. The driver addressed his horse, there was the soft swick of a whip cutting the air, and the carriage began to move. Its wheels made no sound on the ash carpet and had trouble getting sufficient traction. The vehicle skidded alarmingly as it negotiated a turn.

  Garrick settled back in her seat and looked along her shoulder. Her expression became mock-concerned. “You look like your feelings’ve really been hurt.”

  Medlin exhaled with some vehemence. “Until now,” he said, his voice threatening to shake, “I was sure it was all a mistake, that everything’d be okay once you went back and explained. Now…”

  “Well,” she said, “I guess there’s nothing like having a friend point a gun at you to make you have serious doubts about the relationship.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  Now her expression became mock-surprised. “Is that their line? I’m this senile and dazed old dear who’s wandered off in time? Or is it that I’ve been under a lot of stress and gone harpo?”

  “Haven’t you?”

  “Haven’t I which?”

  “Either, hell, I don’t know!”

  “If I’d done one or the other—gone senile, gone crazy—would I be able to say, one way or another? I guess if you really pressed me for an answer, I’d say I’ve just gone fishing.”

  Medlin licked his gritty lips. “They say you stole two dozen ampoules of the drug.”

  “Oh,” she said happily, “I stole the drugs, all right. But I wouldn’t put too much faith in anything else they told you. They’re really just mad because I took my ball and went home. In their present state of mind, maybe I should say, in their future state of mind, they’re liable to accuse me of anything. Was I hard to find?”

  “After you checked out everything the library has on volcanoes, Martinique, and fin de siècle? Took us about thirty minutes to decide you’d come here and weren’t just throwing us off the track. Took me most of a day to locate the hole you came through, but, then, I was dead tired. I’d just brought Witts back from watching Hitler roll up Europe. Otherwise … an earthmover leaves fainter tracks than you did.”

  “Ah. Well, you can’t’ve had much time to familiarize yourself with the situation here.” Garrick cocked an eyebrow. “By the way, where’d you tell me Ranke is?”

  “I didn’t.”

  “Well, tell me now.”

  “Why should I know where he is?”

  “Now don’t be coy,” she said, looking more amused, “it doesn’t become you. We both know you’re the only one who could’ve come after me here. But you’re mush inside.” Her colorless eyes locked with Medlin’s and dared him either to deny the accusation or to look away. “So they had to send Ranke, too. I don’t think he’s arrived yet. Timing’s never been his strong suit, but I’ve never known him to just not show up at all.”

  “He could’ve come to grief.”

  “Mm, I wouldn’t bet on it. You’ll bring him through, sooner or later. You’re good at what you do. You damn well ought to be. I trained you.”

  “You trained Ranke, too.”

  Garrick laughed. It was no wonder Madame Boislaville had been charmed; notwithstanding the circumstances, Medlin still thought she had the pleasantest laugh he had ever heard. “And won’t my face be red if he nails me! But, listen, just in case he does, you better get used to the idea of having him around, because you won’t be going anywhere without him from now on. They have a plan, dear heart, and they’re not going to let it get fouled up by anybody’s mavericking. They trust Ranke. He’s the kind of person they use to keep an eye on all the other kinds of people they use. By the way, how do you like Madame Boislaville’s?”

  “Best dive I’ve ever been in.”

  “Don’t be a snob. I’ll have you know that Madame Boislaville runs a good, clean establishment—as clean as any place can be with this, anyway. She does it all pretty much without help, too, except for that girl of hers. And she’s not a whore, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Medlin looked away quickly, guiltily.

  Garrick kept talking as though she had not noticed. “Sorry I couldn’t afford to check you into the International Hotel or such, but we’re on a budget. They didn’t provide you with any money, did they? Trés typical. Best-case-scenario planners, e
very one.” She took a small purse from her bag, riffled through the franc notes in it, and stuffed a handful into Medlin’s coat pocket. “Don’t worry, I didn’t hit anybody over the head to get this. I won it mostly fair and square. Believe it or not,” and she made herself look shocked for a moment, “there’s gambling in this town! You better learn your denominations before you try to spend any of that. There’re thieves in this town, too. You’ll be relatively safe and well-cared-for at Madame’s. She won’t be as curious about your business as white folks at the International would be. You won’t have to answer any hard questions.”

  “Mind telling me where we’re going?”

  “Just for a ride.”

  Medlin glared at her in exasperation. “You never just do anything.” “Sightseeing, then. What do you think of St. Pierre so far?”

  “I think things are going to hell here, but the newspaper’s playing down all the volcanic activity. The authorities are discouraging people from leaving town.”

  She looked at him disbelievingly. “Is that stuff you came here knowing or what you’ve personally figured out since you got here? Oh, never mind. Authority is invested locally in Mayor Fouché, who of course enjoys the unqualified support of that rag, Les Colonies. Fouché’s got his own expert, too, a science teacher from the local school, to back up his assertion that the volcano’s no threat. Fouché also asserts that there’s medical evidence to show that sulphur can be beneficial for chest and throat complaints. It’s all politics, of course. It always is politics. Er, you did notice there was a primary election yesterday, didn’t you?”

  “I was busy yesterday,” Medlin said testily, “noticing food riots and volcanic eruptions and stuff.”

  “Ah, yes, hasn’t this been just the most interesting couple or three days? Always something exciting going on in Little Paris, now more than ever. Thomas probably said, Go find Garrick, and don’t get blown up by the volcano. Am I right? Sure I am. I’m only too familiar with his kind of briefing. Get in, get it done, get out. Makes me wonder what sex’s like for Missis Thomas.”

  Medlin bristled slightly. “I know the volcano erupts and destroys the town at eight o’clock Thursday morning, the eighth of May. I know thousands of people die here because city and government officials encourage them not to leave. It has something to do with every registered voter in this town actually having to vote in this town.”

  “That’s barely adequate,” said Garrick. “Do you know anything about bridges dropping out from under folks, a prison revolt—did you hear those rifle volleys yesterday afternoon? That tremor last night collapsed a bridge over the River Roxelane, which flows through town. A funeral party happened to be crossing at the time. All this ruckus and more and an election, too. The final election’s scheduled for next Sunday, and it isn’t for dog-catcher, either. It’s for the French Chamber of Deputies, all the way over in La Métropole. Politics here are just like politics everyplace else. There’re maybe a hundred and thirty thousand Martiniquais. Most of ’em are people of color, but, surprise surprise, it’s whites who own everything—whorehouses, plantations, the government.”

  “The place seems pretty wide open to me.”

  “That’s just commerce. The government’s very conservative. Martiniquais may be the most racially mixed people on Earth, and the most race-conscious. The whites’ve exploited that ever since slavery was abolished and everyone was enfranchised. But their grip slipped in the last election. The coloreds finally put together a viable political party and sent a black senator to Paris. This election, the white party looks to suffer more embarrassment. You can see why neither party wants voters leaving town.”

  “Garrick, what does any of this have to do with anything?”

  “Stop fidgeting. Listen, and maybe you’ll learn something—besides the obvious, which is, never live on an active plate margin.” Garrick pointed at the smouldering mountain through the window on Medlin’s side of the cab. “There’s a wild card in this deck. I give you Montagne Pelée—”

  “No goddamn thanks.”

  “—cloud-herder, lightning-forger, and rainmaker,” she went on, not missing a beat, “drawing to itself all the white vapors of the land, robbing lesser eminences of their shoulder-wraps and head-coverings.” She smiled wistfully. “Lafcadio Hearn. Not one of the forbidden writers, just one of the forgotten ones. He also wrote that St. Pierre was the queerest, quaintest, and prettiest of all West Indian cities. He outlived the place by a couple of years. I wonder if he ever saw the photographs taken after its destruction. Place looks like Hiroshima.”

  Without warning, the carriage stopped, hurling them forward. In the next moment, Medlin heard the report of a gun and an exultant cheer. He looked out. The street was choked with people, including a number of soldiers. An officer was holstering his sidearm. The civilians were running about shouting excitedly. One held up a length of bamboo, and Medlin saw, impaled on its sharpened end, a writhing thing as long as the man’s arm.

  Garrick yelled to the driver, “Go around!” and plopped back into her seat as the carriage moved again. Pinned to her breast was an old-fashioned watch, with a dial and hands; she looked at it and murmured, “We’ll still make it in time.”

  “What’s all the shooting and shouting about?”

  “Snakes. All the refugees here aren’t human. Every stinging, biting thing in the jungle is on the move. Snakes, ants, centipedes. The mulatto quarter’s infested with fer-de-lances. Dozens of people are dead of snakebite. Now what’s the matter?”

  The carriage had stopped again. “My apologies, Madame,” the driver called down, “but the horse cannot climb even such a small hill as this.” “Then my friend and I shall walk. Please wait here for us. Come on, Med, I believe we’re just in time.”

  “For what?”

  “You’ll see.”

  They stepped from the carriage at the foot of one of the hillocks that formed the amphitheater. Above them, the mouths of ancient muzzle-loading cannon gaped over a crumbling parapet. Ahead, other people were climbing the slope—well-dressed white people, ladies and gentlemen. Thick gray smoke billowed from the crater, and the ladies hurried along with the hems of their long skirts lifted clear of the ground and their parasols spread in a brave attempt to protect fair skins and good hats.

  “Why,” Garrick said as she and Medlin began to labor up the slope, “I do believe that’s Missis Prentiss up ahead there. I keep running into her. She’s the American Consul’s wife. Saw her in the crowd on the Place Bertin yesterday. The idea seemed to percolate through everyone’s head for a moment that the volcano’s behavior was legitimate cause for worry. They were whipping themselves into a fine state of hysteria when a churchman arrived in a coach. He got ’em calmed down with a prayer. But about one minute later, the volcano started a new demonstration.” She was panting as they neared the top of the hillock, but she still had breath enough for an exhalation that did not stop much short of a guffaw. “So much for the efficacy of prayer, even dear Missis Prentiss’.”

  The gentlemen and ladies assembled at the summit of the hillock. Most of them peered seaward, but one man looked around at Medlin and Garrick as they approached, and there was puzzlement in his expression.

  “We’re being noticed,” Medlin said, trying to appear as though he were not talking.

  “Well, we’re white,” Garrick said unconcernedly, “and well-dressed—I am, anyway—and we’re total strangers to all these white, well-dressed folks who all know one another. But don’t worry, they aren’t interested in us. They came up here because they heard someone say that the sea’s acting peculiarly,” and she nodded toward the roadstead.

  Even as Medlin looked, a stiff breeze was blowing across the harbor, shredding the veil of cinders. Behind and above the Morne d’Orange, the volcano growled bad-temperedly. After a moment, he became aware of two other sounds, one a sort of sizzling, rushing noise, the other a rising, undulating chorus of cries from the direction of the waterfront. Running figures spilled int
o the Avenue Victor Hugo.

  “What,” he said, “what’s—”

  Garrick consulted her antique timepiece again, and as she said, “Here it comes, right on schedule,” Medlin suddenly saw as well as heard it, a great wave, coming hissing from the north. It was already halfway across the roadstead. It came up under two small sailing ships moored in its path, lifted them up, carried them along. They hung on the crest of the steep shoulder of water and then, as the wave avalanched with shattering impact onto the waterfront, hurtled completely over the quayside row of buildings. Houses, shops, and warehouses twisted on their foundations, disintegrated. The wave surged up the thoroughfare, rising to the second-floor balconies. It reached the lighthouse, swirled around its base, and inundated the square on which it stood. There it hesitated. It hesitated forever. Then, slowly, reluctantly, it started to retreat.

  Medlin was on the ground. He had no memory of sitting down. There was a sustained moan from the other watchers on the hillock. They were pale-faced, open-mouthed, awestruck. He knew the feeling.

  He got to his feet and brushed ash from his sleeve. Garrick turned to leave, but he angrily grabbed her arm. She looked at his hand and then at his face and said, “Gentlemen do not mishandle ladies.”

  He waved his free hand at the scene below and managed to gasp out, “What—?”

  “This is nothing, Med,” she said mildly, and detached herself. “Wait. You’ll see.”

  “You keep saying that! What’ll I see? More of the same?”

  “Oh God, yes. More and worse. The wave was just a side-effect. Not even a prelude. We have a ways to go before it’s time for the grand finale, the show-stopper—the glowing cloud! That being the literal meaning of nuée ardente—” she spoke the term the way she might have savored a continental delicacy “—which is the name given to the particularly nasty phenomenon that’s going to destroy this burg. In case you neglected to research this detail, it’s an incandescent cloud of rock fragments and hot gases. Pelée’s going to spit out one of these horrors Thursday morning. It’ll come right down that big notch in the mountainside there. It’ll hit the town at incredible speed, with tremendous force.”