The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Yes, and headed somewhere else. It was sending out a regular beamed transmission, one that swept around as the ship rotated, every forty-seven seconds.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’re sure?”

  “Let’s say it’s a working hypothesis.”

  “Look, you’re tired, maybe put this aside before jumping to conclusions.”

  He gazed at her and saw the lines tightened around her mouth. “You’ve been through a lot yourself. I’m sorry.”

  She managed a brave, thin smile. “It tore me up. I do want a child.”

  He held his breath, then went ahead. “So . . . so do I.”

  “Really?” They had discussed this before but her eyelids fluttered in surprise.

  “Yes.” He paused, sucked in a long breath, and said, “With you.”

  “Really?” She closed her eyes a long time. “I . . . always imagined this.”

  He grinned. “Me too. Time to do it.”

  “Yes?”

  “Yes.” Whoosh.

  They talked on for some moments, ordered drinks to celebrate. Smiles, goofy eyes, minds whirling.

  Then, without saying anything, they somehow knew that they had said enough for now. Some things should not be pestered, just let be.

  They sat smiling at each other and in a soft sigh she said, “You’re worried. About . . .”

  Ralph nodded. How to tell her that this seemed pretty clear to him and to Harkin, but it was big, gaudy trouble in the making. “It violates a basic assumption we always make, that everything in the night sky is natural.”

  “Yeah, so?”

  “The astronomy community isn’t like Hollywood, y’know. It’s more like . . . a priesthood.”

  He sipped his coffee and stared out the window. An airplane’s wing lights winked as it coasted down in the distance toward the airport. Everybody had seen airplanes, so seeing them in the sky meant nothing. Not so for the ramscoop ship implied by his radio maps.

  There would be rampant skepticism. Science’s standards were austere, and who would have it differently? The angles of attack lived in his hands, and he now faced the long labor of calling forth data and calculations. To advance the idea would take strict logic, entertaining all other ideas fairly. Take two steps forward, one back, comparing and weighing and contrasting—the data always leading the skeptical mind. It was the grand dance, the gavotte of reason, ever-mindful of the eternal possibility that one was wrong.

  Still . . . When serendipity strikes . . . let it. Then seize it.

  “You need some sleep.” Her eyes crinkled with concern. “Come home with me.”

  He felt a gush of warm happiness. She was here with him and together they could face the long battle to come.

  “Y’know, this is going to get nasty. Look what happened to Carl Sagan when he just argued there might be intelligent life elsewhere.”

  “You think it will be that hard to convince people?”

  “Look at it this way. Facing up to the limits of our knowledge, to the enormity of our ignorance, is an acquired skill—to put it mildly. People want certainty.”

  He thought, If we don’t realize where the shoreline of reasonably well established scientific theory ends, and where the titanic sea of undiscovered truth begins, how can we possibly hope to measure our progress?

  Irene frowned. Somehow, after long knowledge of her, he saw that she was glad of this chance to talk about something larger than themselves. She said slowly, “But . . . why is it that your greatest geniuses—the ones you talk about, Hawking, Feynman, Newton—humbly concede how pitifully limited our reach is?”

  “That’s why they’re great,” he said wryly. And the smaller spirits noisily proclaim the certainty of their conclusions. Well, here comes a lot of dissent, doubt, and skepticism.

  “And now that ship is gone. We learned about them by watching them die.”

  She stared at him. “I wonder . . . how many?”

  “It was a big, powerful ship. It probably made the plasma ahead of it somehow. Then with magnetic fields it scooped up that plasma and cooked it for energy. Then shot it out the back for propulsion. Think of it as like a jet plane, a ramscoop. Maybe it was braking, using magnetic fields—I dunno.”

  “Carrying passengers?”

  “I . . . hadn’t thought of that.”

  “How big is it? . . . was it?”

  “Maybe like . . . the Titanic.”

  She blinked. “That many people.”

  “Something like people. Going to a new home.”

  “Maybe to . . . here?”

  He blinked, his mind cottony. “No, it was in the plane of the sky. Otherwise we’d have seen it as a blob, head on, no tail. Headed somewhere fairly near, though.”

  She sat back, gazing at him with an expression he had not seen before. “This will be in the papers, won’t it.” Not a question.

  “Afraid so.” He managed a rueful smile. “Maybe I’ll even get more space in National Enquirer than Andy did.”

  She laughed, a tinkling sound he liked so much.

  But then the weight of it all descended on him. So much to do . . . “I’ll have to look at your idea, that they were headed here. At least we can maybe backtrack, find where they came from.”

  “And look at the earlier maps, data?” she ventured, her lip trembling. “From before . . .”

  “They cracked up. All that life, gone.” Then he understood her pale, tenuous look. Things living, then not. She nodded, said nothing.

  He reached out and took her hand. A long moment passed and he had no way to end it but went on anyway. “The SETI people could jump on this. Backtrack this ship. They can listen to the home star’s emissions . . .”

  Irene smiled without humor. “And we can send them a message. Condolences.”

  “Yeah.” The room had stopped whirling and she reached out to take his hand.

  “Come on.”

  As he got up wearily, Ralph saw that he was going to have to fight for this version of events. There would always be Andys who would triangulate their way to advantage. And the chairman, Gossian . . .

  Trying for tenure—supposedly a cool, analytic process—in the shouting match of a heated, public dispute, a howling media firestorm—that was almost a contradiction in terms. But this, too, was what science was about. His career might survive all that was to come, and it might not—but did that matter, standing here on the shores of the titanic ocean he had peered across?

  <>

  * * * *

  IN THE RIVER

  Justin Stanchfield

  The old proverb to the contrary, it is possible to go home again—but, as the suspenseful tale that follows suggests, if your voyage away from home has been transformative enough, you might have difficulty recognizing it when you get back …

  New writer Justin Stanchfield is a rancher who lives with his family in Wise River, Montana. His stories have appeared in Interzone, Black Gate, On Spec, Paradox, and Empire of Dreams and Miracles, as well as in Cricket, Boy’s Life, and Jack & Jill.

  * * * *

  JENNA REE screamed as she was dragged into the cold air, a keening, inhuman wail as the oxygenated water poured out of her lungs. She lashed out with her arms and legs but the strange, pale creatures holding her were too strong. They strapped her to a hard board then carried her away from the rectangular hatch that led back to the warmth and safety of the ship beneath the airlock. Panic struck as the last of the water drained out her throat.

  “Don’t fight it. Take long, deep breaths, Dr. Ree,” one of the creatures said. Another, its face framed in brown hair, pushed the first creature aside.

  “Jenna? It’s me, Val. You have to breathe.”

  “She can’t understand you,” the first creature said. “Now step back, Dr. Yastrenko. Please. Let us work.”

  The harsh, clipped sounds meant nothing to her. Only the roaring in her ears seemed real. She tried to beg, but her olfactor no longer functioned. The stark, white light drew to a pinpoin
t, the edge of her vision a dark ring.

  “Valium, now! Get the resuscitator ready.”

  Something bit her on the throat, but Jenna was beyond caring. She had the vague sensation of her jaws being pried apart and something cold and metallic pushed down her throat. ‘Let me go home to die,’ she thought as the light faded. ‘Why won’t they let me go home?’

  * * * *

  She swam again in the River, the light soft and blue. Outside the moss covered walls, beyond the scattered viewports, stars burned bright, always moving as the world revolved around its axis. She knew in abstraction the River was a construct, a machine grown to travel the void, an endless stream that flowed from star to star, but the distances seemed impossible. None here had seen Old Home. None would live long enough to see it again. Jenna felt a wave of sorrow pass over her tongue, the flavor of copper and bitter fish.

  Far below, where the water thickened with krill and fresh salts, the family drifted with languid abandon around a heat vent. Jenna tried to dive down, but couldn’t move. One of the people noticed her and broke away. She knew Finder by the mottled patch of green behind her long skull. Slowly, her elegant tentacles fluttering in the rhythm of sadness, the great creature rose into the cooler water above.

  “Sister,” Jenna breathed in the language of respect. “I think I am ill. I can no longer swim down to meet you.”

  “Strange Sister…” Finder graced her with a clutching arm, a simple brush across her face. Jenna tasted regret, but also joy in the ancient pilot’s words. “It is time for you to go home.”

  “But, I am home.”

  “No, small one. You must go to your birth home now, above the water.”

  “There is only death above the water.” Jenna repeated the old children’s adage she had learned as a hatchling. Or had she? Her thoughts were mottled, a confused, tainted patchwork. Again, Finder brushed her cheek.

  “Good-bye, Strange Sister. May your waters be rich.”

  “No!” Jenna tried to follow the massive creature down, but couldn’t. Already, the sweet water grew thin. Cold, she shivered. Nearby, a faint rustling caught her attention and she forced her eyes open. The light was painfully sharp, but from the corner of her vision she saw movement. The creature with the bearded face approached and loomed over her, a length of beige cloth in his hand. He lay the blanket over her chest and smoothed it around her body.

  “Welcome back, sleepy head. You don’t know how glad I am to see you.”

  To Jenna’s surprise, she understood the man, though the words made little sense. Hesitantly, she tasted the air. A faint chemical trace drifted on it.

  “Who are you?” she croaked.

  “My name,” he said slowly, “is Valeri Yastrenko. I’m your husband.”

  * * * *

  Her life fell into a new routine. Gone were the lazy mornings, replaced by painful, frustrating bouts of physical therapy. Jenna hated the exercises and the patronizing tone the therapists used, as if she was a damaged hatchling better left to the mercy of a swift death. But none of the indignities she faced in those sessions compared to the hellish hours that waited after the midday break.

  “Good afternoon, Dr. Ree,” said a gaunt woman with pale, lifeless hair. It made her look sickly, as if the flesh was ready to slip from her hones. “How are we today?”

  “Why do you call me ‘doctor’?” Jenna asked. It was becoming easier to form the clipped words. “Am I a healer?”

  “No. You are a teacher.”

  “What do I teach?”

  The pale woman smiled. Frustrated, Jenna repeated the question.

  “What do I teach, Dr. Emily Markser?”

  “Ah, you remembered my name today. Excellent.” She patted Jenna’s hand. “You are a professor of Abstract Mathematics. You volunteered for the Deep Immersion program because you felt you might be able to unlock the Tedris numbering system.”

  “You say the River People’s name wrong.” Jenna felt a sense of superiority over the pale woman. Even without her olfactor, she suspected she could make herself understood were she to return to the River. Markser and the others, she knew, never could. “Say it more slowly. Theid triss.”

  “Thed trezz,” Markser said, annoyed at the interruption. “Were you able to understand the Thed trezz numbering system?”

  “Valeri Yastrenko…” Jenna fumbled over the difficult phrase. “He says it is important that I remember how the Theid count.”

  “Yes. Very important.” A bell chimed and Markser rose and crossed the small chamber. Despite the low gravity, the woman swam like a wounded eel. She returned a moment later, a sealed mug in hand. Jenna caught a whiff of the bittersweet hot liquid within. Tea, she remembered. Dr. Markser took a hesitant sip. “Until we understand their mathematics, we have no way to unravel their technology. That’s why we came out here, to the edge of the solar system. We need to learn how they harvest zero-point energy.”

  Jenna frowned. Vaguely, she recalled the term and struggled to put it into context. “They call it the Unseen Flow.”

  Markser froze, her mug halfway to her lips. “You learned how they harness ZPG?”

  “Yes.” Jenna tried to frame her thoughts, but without her olfactor, without the thousand subtle expressions of taste and smell, she could not describe what she instinctively knew. She tried again, but failed. Cold sweat broke out on her face, and she felt herself become ill. The room seemed to draw in, the light flickering in nauseating pulses. She grabbed the table edge as the spinning sensation worsened. Shaking, unable to control her limbs, her eyes rolled up in their sockets. The light browned as she fell away from the confining chair. As darkness swept over her, she heard Markser yelling.

  “Damn it. She’s having another seizure.”

  * * * *

  “Why have you abandoned me?” Jenna cast her plea into the depths, but her words swirled away untasted. Farther below, lit from beneath by the warming vents, the family rested. A few lifted their long faces and sniffed the water, as if perhaps they caught a trace of her, but made no move to rise. Tears ran down Jenna’s face and vanished in the eddies. At long last, Finder broke away from the pod and swam in long spirals upward. One of her tentacles dabbed at the wetness beneath Jenna’s eyes, and carried the tear down to her broad, lipless mouth.

  “Go home, Strange Sister,” she said softly. “Go home.”

  * * * *

  “Jenna?”

  She forced her eyes open despite the throbbing in her skull. The lights in the little room were too bright, pinpoints surrounded by rainbow clouds. Valeri Yastrenko brushed a loose strand of hair away from her eyes.

  “You have to stop scaring me like this,” he said. “I am getting too old for these roller coasters of yours.”

  She understood less than half of what he said, but gathered enough from his tone to fill in the blanks. More and more she realized the key to this flat, often meaningless jargon depended on the listener as much as the speaker. She tried to imitate his smile, but the contortions made her headache worse.

  “I was ill?”

  “Ill?” Yastrenko gave his shaggy head a quick shake. “You died for almost a minute and a half. They had to use the defib on you.”

  “I was back in the River. I did not want to leave. I want to go back to my family.” She stared into his deep, gray eyes, then added, “Please.”

  He looked away, an expression on his face she could not understand. After a moment, he let out a long, slow breath. “Jenna, do you remember what they did to you? The surgeons, I mean, before you went to the Theid triss?” He stumbled over the word, as if perhaps the flavor of it burned his lips. “They implanted a packet of alien nerve tissue in your limbic system, and another in your corpus callosum. It was these strands of tissue that allowed you to interface.”

  Absently, Jenna freed her arm from beneath the confining blanket and let her fingers roam along her temples. A tiny scar rested above her left ear, the hair around it bristled and short. “The olfactor?”

&n
bsp; “Yes.” Gently, he pulled her hand away from the scar. “The olfactory node was attached to the interface points. It let you live among them. Let you communicate, maybe even think like they did. But, it is also the reason we had to take you out of the program earlier than expected. The alien tissue is breaking down and is affecting your brain. Dr. Markser and I agree we must remove the tissue before the damage becomes permanent.”

  With a clarity Jenna had not experienced since being cast out of the River she recoiled, shocked at what the man suggested.