The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 13

by Gardner Dozois

  Gennady crawled backward along the beam. The horrible thing was, he did know, he couldn’t have explained it, but the dragon’s words were striking him deeply, wounding him far more than its metal hands had.

  “So look.” The dragon gestured behind it at the pit. It had arranged some chairs and a table around the black calandria. A bottle on the table held a sprig of wildflowers. There was other furniture, Gennady now saw – filing cabinets, bookshelves, and yes, books everywhere. This monster had not merely visited this place; it lived here.

  He saw another thing, as well. On the back of the dragon, under a cross of bent metal spars, was a small satellite dish. This spun and turned wildly to keep its focus on some distant point in the heavens.

  “Lisa, he’s linked directly to the dragon. No repeaters.”

  “That a problem?”

  “Damn right it’s a problem! I can’t stop the thing by pulling any plugs.”

  “You and I have had the same ambition,” the dragon said to Gennady. “To live in the invisible world, visit the place that can’t be visited. Except that I was forced to it. You’re healthy, you can walk. What made you come here?”

  “Don’t,” said Gennady.

  The searchlights found and pinned him again. “What hurt you?” asked the dragon.

  Gennady hissed. “None of your business.”

  The dragon was now perfectly still. “Is it so strong in you that you can never admit to it? Tell me – if I were to say I will hunt your body down and kill you now unless you tell me why you came here – would you tell me?”

  Gennady couldn’t answer.

  The dragon surged to its feet. “You don’t even know what you have!” it roared. “You can walk. You can still make love – really, not just in some simulation. And you dare to come in here and try to take away the only thing I’ve got left?”

  Gennady lost his grip on the beam and fell. A bookshelf shattered under him.

  The dragon towered over him. “You can’t live here,” it said. “You’re just a tourist.”

  He expected a blow that would shatter his connection, but it didn’t come. Instead the monster stepped over him, making for the exit.

  “I can run faster than your little motorbike,” it said. Then it was gone, up the entrance shaft.

  Gennady tried to rise. One of his legs was broken. One-legged, one-armed, there was no way he was getting out of here.

  “Gennady,” said Lisa. “What’s happening?”

  “He left,” said Gennady. “He’s gone to kill me.”

  “Break the link. Run for it. You can get to the motorcycle before he gets to you, can’t you?”

  “Maybe. That’s not the point.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He raised himself on his good elbow. “We haven’t got our proof, and we don’t know if there’s a dead-man switch. Once he’s done with me he’s just going to come back here and tear the roof off. Are Merrick’s commandos on their way?”

  “Yes.”

  “Maybe they can stop him. But I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m in his den. Maybe I can find what we need before he gets to me.”

  For a moment her breath laboured in his ear, forming no words. Gennady told himself that he, in contrast, felt nothing. He had lost, completely. It really didn’t matter what he did now, so he might as well do the decent thing.

  He bent to the task of inspecting the dragon’s meagre treasure.

  “Talk to me,” she said. Lisa sat hunched over her work table, out of the Net, one hand holding the wood as if to anchor herself. All her screens were live, feeding status checks from her hired hackers, Merrick’s people, and all the archival material on Jaffrey that she could find.

  “There’s no bombs here,” he said. His voice was flat. “But there’s three portable generators and fuel drums. They’re near the entrance shaft. I guess the dragon could blow them up. Wouldn’t be much of an explosion, but fire would cause release, you know.”

  “What else is there? Anything that might tell us who this is?”

  “Yes – filing cabinets.” That was all he said for nearly a minute.

  “What about them?” she asked finally.

  “Just getting there –” Another pause. “Tipped them over,” he said. “Looking . . . papers in the ashes. What the hell is this stuff?”

  “Is it in English or Russian?”

  “Both! Looks like records from The Release. Archival material. Photos.”

  “Are any of them of Jaffrey?”

  “Lisa,” he snapped, “it’s dark, my connection’s bad, and I only saw that one photo you showed me. How in God’s name am I to know?”

  “There must be something!”

  “I’m sure there is,” he said. “But I don’t have time to find it now.”

  She glanced at the clock. The dragon had left five minutes ago. Was that enough time for it to get to Gennady’s building?

  “But we have to be sure!”

  “I know you do,” he said quietly. “I’ll keep looking.”

  Lisa sat back. Everything seemed quiet and still to her suddenly; the deep night had swallowed the normal city noises. Her rooms were silent, and so were her screens. Gennady muttered faintly in her ear, that was all.

  She never acted without certain knowledge. It was what she had built her life on. Lisa had always felt that, when a moment of awful decision came, she would be able to make the right choice because she always had all the facts. And now the moment was here. And she didn’t know.

  Gennady described what he saw as he turned over this, then that paper or book. He wasn’t getting anywhere.

  She switched to her U.S. line connection. The FBI man who had unluckily pulled the morning shift at NCSA Security sat up alertly as she rang through.

  Lisa took a deep breath and said the words that might cost her career. “We’ve got our proof. It’s Jaffrey, all right. Shut him down.”

  Relief washed over Gennady when she told him. “So I’m safe.”

  Her voice was taut. “I’ve given the commands. It’ll take some time.”

  “What? How much?”

  “Seconds, minutes – you’ve got to get out of there now.”

  “Oh my God, Lisa, I thought this would be instant.”

  Gennady felt the floor tremble under him. Nothing in the den of the sarcophagus had moved.

  “Now!” She almost screamed it. “Get out now!”

  He tore the link helmet off: spang of static and noise before reality came up around him. Sad wallpaper, mouldy carpet. And thunder in the building.

  Gennady hesitated at the door, then stepped into the hallway. Light from inside lit the narrow space dimly – but it was too late to run over and turn out the lamp. From the direction of the stairwell came a deep vibration and a berserk roar such as he had only ever heard once, when he stood next to an old T35 tank that was revving up to climb an obstacle at a fair. Intermittent thuds shook the ceiling’s dust onto Gennady’s shoulders; he jerked with each angry impact.

  Gennady shut the door, and then the end of the hall exploded. In the darkness he caught a confused impression of petalling plasterboard rushing at him, accompanied by a gasp of black dust. The noise drowned his hearing. Then Jaffrey’s eyes blazed into life at ceiling level.

  He was too big to fit in the hallway – big as a truck. So Jaffrey demolished the corridor as he came, simply scooping the walls aside with his square iron arms, wedging his flat body between floor and ceiling. The beams of his halogen eyes never wavered from pinioning Gennady as he came.

  Into the apartment again. The dial on the Geiger counter was swinging wildly, but the clicking was lost now in thunder. The windows shattered spontaneously. Gennady put his hands over his ears and backed to the balcony door.

  Jaffrey removed the wall. His eyes roved over the evidence of Gennady’s plans – the extra food supplies, the elaborate computer setup, the cleaning and filtering equipment. A deep and
painful shame uncoiled within Gennady, and with that his fear turned to anger.

  “Catch me if you can, you cripple!” he screamed. Gennady leapt onto the balcony, put one foot on the rail and, boosting himself up, grabbed the railing of the balcony one floor above. He pulled himself up without regard to the agony that shot through his shoulders.

  Jaffrey burst through the wall below, and as Gennady kicked at the weather-locked door he felt the balcony under him undulate and tilt.

  The door wouldn’t budge. Jaffrey’s two largest hands were clamped on the concrete pad of the balcony. With vicious jerks he worked it free of the wall.

  Gennady hopped onto the railing. Cool night air ruffled past and he caught a glimpse of dark ground far below, and a receding vista of empty, black apartment towers. He meant to jump to the next balcony above, but the whole platform came loose as he tried. Flailing, he tried a sideways leap instead. His arms crashed down on the metal railing of the balcony next door.

  He heard Jaffrey laugh. This platform was already loose, its bolts rusted to threads. As he pulled himself up Jaffrey tossed the other concrete pad into the night and reached for him.

  He couldn’t get over the rail in time, but Jaffrey missed, the cylinders of his fingers closing over the rail itself. Jaffrey pulled.

  Gennady rolled over the top of the railing. As he landed on the swaying concrete he saw Jaffrey. The dragon was half outside, two big legs bracing him against the creaking lintel of the lower level. He was straining just to reach this far, and his fingers were now all tangled up in the bent metal posts of the railing.

  Gennady grabbed the doorknob as the balcony began to give way. “Once more, you bastard,” he shouted, and deliberately stepped within reach of the groping hand.

  Jaffrey lunged, fingers gathering up the rest of the metal into a knot. The balcony’s supports broke with a sound like gunshots, and it all fell out from under Gennady.

  He held on to the doorknob, shouting as he saw the balcony fall, and Jaffrey try too late to let go. The bent metal held his black hand, and for a second he teetered on the edge of the verge. Then the walls he’d braced his feet against gave way, and the dragon of Pripyat fell into the night air and vanished briefly, to reappear in a bright orange flash as he hit the ground. Rolling concussions played again through the streets of the dead city.

  The doorknob turned under Gennady’s hand, and the door opened of its own accord – outwards.

  Trying to curse and laugh, hearing wild disbelief in his voice, he swung like a pendulum for long seconds, then got himself inside. He lay prone on some stranger’s carpet, breathing the musty air and crying his relief.

  Then he rose, feeling pain but no more emotion at all. Gennady left the apartment, and went downstairs to get on with his life.

  Lisa sat up all night, waiting for word. The commandos had gone in, and found the violated sarcophagus, and the body of the dragon. They had not found Gennady, but then they hadn’t found his bike either.

  When the FBI cut off Jaffrey’s signal, the feed to the dragon had indeed stopped. They had entered his stronghold apartment minutes later, and arrested him in his bed.

  So her career was safe. She didn’t care; it was still the worst situation she could have imagined. For Gennady to be dead was one thing. For her not to know was intolerable. Lisa cried at four a.m., standing in her kitchen stirring hot milk, while the radio played something baroque and incongruously light. She stared through blurred eyes at the lights of the city, feeling more alone than she could have prepared herself for.

  It was mid morning when Gennady called. Her loneliness didn’t vanish with the sound of his voice. She started crying again when she heard him say her name. “You’re really all right?”

  “I’m fine. At a gas station near Kiev. Didn’t feel like sticking around to be debriefed, you know. Sorry I lost the cell phone, I’d have called earlier.” There was a hesitancy in his voice, like he wasn’t telling her everything.

  “Merrick says there was no release. Were you irradiated?”

  “Not much. Ten packs or so, I guess.” Despite herself she laughed at his terminology. She heard him clear his throat and waited. But he said nothing else.

  She held the phone to her ear, and glanced around at her apartment. Empty, save for her. Lisa felt a sadness like exhaustion, a deep lowering through her throat and stomach. “You’re just a voice,” she said, not knowing her own meaning. “Just a voice on the phone.”

  “I know.” She wiped at her eyes. How could he know what she meant, when she didn’t?

  “Look,” he said, “I can’t go on like this.” His voice faded a bit with the vagaries of the line. “It’s not working.”

  “What’s not working, Gennady?”

  “My – my whole life.” She heard the hesitant intake of breath again. “I can’t control anything. It’s just . . . beyond me.”

  She was amazed. “But you did it. You got Jaffrey for us.”

  “Well, you know . . .” His voice held a self-conscious humour now. “It was your hand on the switch. I just kept him busy for you. It doesn’t matter. I don’t know what to do.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t just go back to Kiev. Sit around the flat. Jack into the Net. It’s not enough.”

  “You don’t have to,” she said. “You have money now. I’ll make sure Merrick comes clean.”

  “Yeah. You know . . . I’ve got enough for a vacation, I figure.”

  Lisa leaned back in her work chair. She toyed nervously with a strand of her hair. “Yeah? Where would you go?”

  “Oh . . . Maybe London?”

  She laughed. “Oh yes! Yes, please do.”

  “Ah.” His shyness was such a new thing, and charming – but then, he wasn’t falling back on the safety of the Net this time. “One condition?” he ventured.

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t ask me too many questions.”

  For a second an old indignation took her. But she recognized it for the insecurity it was. “All right, Gennady. You tell me what you want to tell me. And I’ll show you the city.”

  “And the Tower? I always wanted to see the Tower.”

  Again she laughed. “It figures. But we go only once, okay? No more castles for you after that. Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  WRITTEN IN BLOOD

  Chris Lawson

  This story is an elegant and incisive look at some of the unexpected effects of high-tech bioscience, some of which may reach all the way down to the very marrow of your bones . . .

  New writer Chris Lawson grew up in Papua New Guinea, and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, Andrea, and son, Alexander. While studying medicine, he earned extra money as a computer programmer, and has worked as a medical practitioner and as a consultant to the pharmaceutical industry. He’s made short fiction sales to Asimov’s Science Fiction, Dreaming Down-Under, Eidolon, and Event Horizon. His story “Unborn Again” appeared in our previous Annual Collection.

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  In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate.

  THESE WORDS OPEN the Qur’an. They were written in my father’s blood. After Mother died, and Da recovered from his chemotherapy, we went on a pilgrimage together. In my usual eleven-year-old curious way, I asked him why we had to go to the Other End of the World to pray when we could do it just fine at home.

  “Zada,” he said, “there are only five pillars of faith. It is easier than any of the other pillars because you only need to do it once in a lifetime. Remember this during Ramadan, when you are hungry and you know you will be hungry again the next day, but your haj will be over.”

  Da would brook no further discussion, so we set off for the Holy Lands. At eleven, I was less than impressed. I expected to find Paradise filled with
thousands of fountains and birds and orchards and blooms. Instead, we huddled in cloth tents with hundreds of thousands of sweaty pilgrims, most of whom spoke other languages, as we tramped across a cramped and dirty wasteland. I wondered why Allah had made his Holy Lands so dry and dusty, but I had the sense even then not to ask Da about it.

  Near Damascus, we heard about the bloodwriting. The pilgrims were all speaking about it. Half thought it blasphemous, the other half thought it a path to Heaven. Since Da was a biologist, the pilgrims in our troop asked him what he thought. He said he would have to go to the bloodwriters directly and find out.

  On a dusty Monday, after morning prayer, my father and I visited the bloodwriter’s stall. The canvas was a beautiful white, and the man at the stall smiled as Da approached. He spoke some Arabic, which I could not understand.

  “I speak English,” said my father.

  The stall attendant switched to English with the ease of a juggler changing hands. “Wonderful, sir! Many of our customers prefer English.”

  “I also speak biology. My pilgrim companions have asked me to review your product.” I thought it very forward of my father, but the stall attendant seemed unfazed. He exuded confidence about his product.

  “An expert!” he exclaimed. “Even better. Many pilgrims are distrustful of Western science. I do what I can to reassure them, but they see me as a salesman and not to be trusted. I welcome your endorsement.”

  “Then earn it.”

  The stall attendant wiped his moustache, and began his spiel. “Since the Dawn of Time, the Word of Allah has been read by mullahs . . .”

  “Stop!” said Da. “The Qur’an was revealed to Mohammed fifteen centuries ago; the Dawn of Time predates it by several billion years. I want answers, not portentous falsehoods.”

  Now the man was nervous. “Perhaps you should see my uncle. He invented the bloodwriting. I will fetch him.” Soon he returned with an older, infinitely more respectable man with grey whiskers in his moustache and hair.