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

by Gardner Dozois

  “Well?” Captain Spolar stared at her, waiting.

  “They’re going under thrust,” Jenna said. “Probably within the next six hours. They want us to get clear before they engage their drivers.”

  “We can’t let them go,” the com-tech said, his frustration plain. “We’ve barely figured out how to talk to them.”

  “I don’t think we have any choice in the matter,” Jenna said quietly. She looked up at the captain. “The Theid triss take a long time to reach a consensus, but once they do, it’s all but impossible to change their minds.”

  Spolar scratched her long, thin nose as she weighed their limited options. After a moment, she pressed the sense pad on the underside of her left wrist. “Airlock? Proceed with immersion.” She seemed to be speaking with ghosts as the transducers in her jaw relayed the message. “Send Dr. Markser below, but tell her if she hasn’t convinced the aliens to abort within three hours she is to leave without question.” To Jenna she added, “You better get to your station. Markser will be going below any minute now.”

  “All right.” Jenna made her way back to her chair and eased into it. The link was still functioning, though Markser’s bio-stats had risen dramatically. As much as she hated it, Jenna found herself sympathizing with Emily Markser. Memories of her own immersion came back, the stark, drowning sensation as the liquid filled her lungs, the sensory overload as the olfactor began gathering and emitting information. Jenna watched the monitor carefully. She had been given the luxury of months to train for her time with the Theid and it had still taken days before she adjusted to the aquatic environment. To expect Markser to do it in a matter of hours bordered on folly.

  Without prelude, the bio-stats flared. Across the cockpit, the bearded technician called out, “She’s in.”

  Quickly, Jenna split her screen. A watery blue glow filled the left side of the monitor, the video feed sharp. She watched Markser drift downward, feet first, tiny bubbles trailing in her wake. Three long, enormous shapes rose up from the depths to greet her. The nearest of the Theid triss wrapped long tentacles around Markser’s legs. Immediately, the others joined the tangled dance. Jenna watched the other half of the screen as Markser’s pulse raced, the adrenalin levels dangerously high.

  “Stop fighting it,” she whispered, as if the woman on the screen could hear her warning. The mainscreen at the front of the room lit up with the same view. A writhing jumble of tentacles all but hid Markser’s desperate flailing as the Theid drew her deeper into the River.

  “They’re attacking her,” someone shouted.

  “No.” Jenna raised her own voice. “It’s a welcoming ritual.”

  She glanced again at Markser’s stats. To her dismay, the woman’s condition had worsened dramatically. Suddenly, the spiked graphs began to fall. Jenna spun her chair around.

  “Captain,” she said. “Markser’s passed out.”

  With alarming speed, the image on the screen diminished as Markser continued to sink. The Theid triss cradled her as she drifted downward.

  “Get her out of there,” Spolar said over her link. “Send in the divers.”

  “Captain,” Jenna stood up. “The Theid might see that as a threat. Right now, they consider Dr. Markser a guest. If we try to take her out by force they may very well defend her.”

  “I’ll risk it,” Spolar said. “We need to get her out of there before the aliens go under power. Send in the divers.”

  Two figures appeared on the screen, sleek black shapes in wetsuits, their faces obscured by diving masks. Although the oxygenated fluid in the River was breathable, the emergency crews had opted for traditional diving gear. Moving in formation, the pair swam rapidly toward the core. Jenna held her breath, waiting, watching.

  With blinding speed, two of the Theid twisted around and lashed out at the divers. A gasp ran around the control room as on screen they watched the two humans beaten back. Bits of hoses and torn neoprene drifted in a cloud, along with thin traces of blood. Within seconds, the divers retreated, their naked bodies covered in welts. The Theid triss returned to Markser and escorted her out of camera range. A hard lump tightened in Jenna’s stomach. She took a deep breath, then approached Spolar.

  “Tell the airlock I’m on my way.”

  “What are you going to do?” Spolar asked.

  “I’m going under.” Jenna tried not to let her fear show through. “After that, it depends on the Theid.”

  * * * *

  By the time she reached the airlock the divers had already been taken to the infirmary. A smeared set of bloodied footprints led away from the sealed floor hatch. It was hot within the chamber but Jenna shivered. The closer she came to the hatchway, the stronger her fears grew. A single technician, the same young woman who had operated the airlock on her own immersion months ago, waited beside the control console.

  “Hello doctor,” the girl said. “Captain Spolar needs you to call in.”

  “Thanks.” Jenna thumbed the intercom. Spolar’s face, distorted by the fish-eye lens, flashed on-screen.

  “Dr. Ree, FYI, the aliens have broken contact. I don’t know if this is a technical problem or a deliberate response to what happened. Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

  Jenna hesitated. The last thing, she realized, that she wanted was to return to the alien vessel. Before, armed with the symbiotic implants and the olfactor, she had been able to speak to the Theid in their own drifting, dreamlike language. She had become one of them, so much so that she had nearly lost herself. But now, lacking the enhancements, she had no idea if she could even make herself understood. Worse, she feared she might slip back into the Theid patterns, her sanity sacrificed. She wanted to turn and run, but instead faced the tiny lens.

  “If I don’t go, who will?”

  She began undressing, letting her uniform and shoes drift to the far wall. The gravity had increased noticeably, the spin rate faster as the Theid triss prepped for launch. Behind her, she heard the door leading into the corridor sigh open.

  “What in the hell do you think you’re doing?”

  Yastrenko stood in the doorway, his eyes red. He stepped toward her, but she drew back and crossed her arms over her breasts. Although Yastrenko had seen her naked hundreds of times, suddenly, standing in front of him in her underwear made her skin crawl.

  “Markser’s unconscious. I don’t know if she fainted or if she’s having seizures. Either way, she needs to get out before the Theid triss go under power.”

  “So, you play the hero, eh?” Yastrenko’s heavy cheeks darkened. “Is this your way of getting back at me?”

  “What?” Jenna gaped at her husband. “This has nothing to do with you. For that matter, it has nothing to do with Markser.”

  “Really?” Yastrenko snorted. “Then let the rescue teams go after her. Why do you have to throw this in everyone’s face, the wounded heroine off to save her rival.”

  “I don’t have time for this.” Angry now, her earlier fear shunted aside, Jenna pulled her bra over her head, then slipped off her panties. To the tech, she said, “Open the lock.”

  Yastrenko glared at her as the outer door hissed shut. Jenna ignored him, concentrating instead on what she had to do as the air pressure in the little chamber rose. She pinched her nose and blew until her ears popped, then stepped to the hatch in the floor and took hold of the railing above it. Slowly, it slid aside. Water jiggled in the hatch as if a membrane was stretched taut across it.

  “Jenna,” Yastrenko said, pleading now. “Don’t do this. I don’t want to lose you again.”

  She met his eyes, but said nothing. Before she could change her mind, she grasped the rail, stepped into the water and pushed herself down.

  The River was warm and thick as amniotic fluid, a comforting envelope. She let herself drift, the hunger for air growing in her lungs until she couldn’t stand it any longer. Fighting her instincts, Jenna inhaled. Liquid poured down her throat, filled her airways, bubbled in her nose. She had forgotten how unc
omfortable the transition was. Deliberately, she forced the fluid out, then took another breath. The emptiness in her chest abated as oxygen once more entered her bloodstream. She burped as the gas in her stomach gushed out, leaving a foul taste in her mouth, then drew another breath and swirled the syrupy water over her tongue. Old, half-forgotten flavors teased her. Salt. Copper. A hint of citrus and vinegar. Honey, urine, and rust. Every thought the Theid triss uttered drifted around her, a mélange of swirling images. She tried to make sense of it, but couldn’t. Without the olfactor to translate the faint chemical traces she was deaf. Still drifting, Jenna looked downward toward the softly glowing core.

  Far below, a pair of dark shapes rose to meet her. Jenna froze. Every instinct said flee, and it took real effort not to kick back toward the airlock, already little more than a small white square above her. The Theid triss were peaceful by nature but tended to lash out if provoked. It was vital, she knew, to remain calm. She sculled with her fingertips to remain upright in the strong current as the pair of Theid, young hermaphrodites not yet grown to sexual maturity, arrived. She struggled to remember their names but couldn’t.

  The nearer of the Theid brushed a tentacle across her face, its skin slick and cool. The long, leathery arm withdrew. The pair of sentries studied her, their black, multifaceted eyes less than a meter from her own. One of them opened its broad mouth and sang a short, undulating trill. The overpowering taste of something that reminded Jenna of anchovies filled her mouth.

  “I’m sorry,” Jenna responded in the simple graphic forms the Theid triss used for radio communication. “I can’t understand you.”

  The Theid repeated the phrase, then slowly backed away. Hesitantly, Jenna raised her right arm. When the sentries made no move, she experimented further and raised both arms over her head. Again, the pair did nothing. Jenna took it as a sign that she had passed their test.

  “Thank you,” she said, her own voice nearly unrecognizable to her. Slowly, she bent at the waist and flipped, ready to swim down and find where they had taken Markser.

  A sharp pain bit her heel. Jenna gasped and rolled over. A brown cloud floated around her left foot. The tentacle that had delivered the lash followed her, ready to strike again. The warning was plain. She was not to descend.

  “Please. I need to retrieve my friend.” Jenna ignored the irony of the phrase. “She is ill. I have to take her home.” She pointed at the bluish glow around the heat vent. Her movements more deliberate than before, Jenna twisted again until she faced head down and started to swim.

  The water around her exploded. She gasped as lash after lash cut her skin, the tentacles that had earlier kissed her face now a flurry of whips. Unable to escape the onslaught, Jenna curled into a tight ball, wincing as the sentries flailed her unprotected skin. A new scent filled the water around her, her own blood. She felt herself tumbling, carried into the deeper, thicker waters by the River’s flow.

  “Please, stop!” she shouted, but couldn’t remember if she was speaking Theid or English. It didn’t matter. The sentries seemed unable, or unwilling, to listen. A strange detachment uncoiled in her as she realized she was about to die.

  “Stop.”

  The word rumbled around her, a great, gushing hiss followed by a burst of acetic acid so strong it burnt the cuts that covered Jenna’s back and legs. Abruptly, the storm of tentacles ended. Jenna felt a swirl of cool water around her as the sentries fluttered away. Stunned, she opened her eyes. A third Theid triss, a female fully twice the size of the young sentries, floated level with her, the creatures’ dark eyes unreadable. Despite her pain, Jenna smiled.

  “Finder?”

  The old Theid’s probing arms reached toward Jenna and gently ran along her back. She seemed concerned at the welts and blood. Speaking slowly, as if to a hatchling, Finder drew closer to Jenna.

  “Strange Sister,” she rumbled. “Why have you come back?”

  “My friend is ill,” Jenna repeated, hoping she used the correct inflections. “Please. May I see her?”

  Finder said nothing. Jenna’s heart sank. Without the surgical enhancements, she realized, her words were little more than babble to the people she had once lived among. She drew a deep breath of the thick, salty water, but before she could say anything else, Finder opened her gill slits and released a bitter jet of yellowish fluid. Far below, more Theid triss picked up the scent, the command clear, and as one rose upward and stopped respectfully beneath Finder. Jenna stared in amazement as she saw Markser cradled in a nest of tentacles. The ancient female touched Jenna on the forehead, then repeated the gesture with Markser.

  “Your sister?” Finder trilled.

  Jenna looked down at the comatose woman. Markser’s face was rigid, her arms and legs twitching as the seizures continued to wrack her nervous system. Jenna looked back at Finder, then touched her forehead. “Yes,” she said. “My sister.”

  Finder fluttered her grasping arms, an acknowledgment. “Sister go home.”

  The enormous Theid triss released another command, greenish-gold in color, and without hesitation, the people below her started upward, bearing Markser toward the airlock. Finder waited until they were alone, then once again touched Jenna’s forehead.

  “My sister stay?” Finder kept her words simple, but the emotion was plain to Jenna even without an olfactor to interpret. “Go with the River now?”

  For a fleeting moment Jenna almost said yes, the thought of traveling among the stars with the Theid triss enticing. She had been happy here once, content to share their long, endless dreams. But, she knew sadly, that time was gone. Her life, wrecked as it might be, lay elsewhere. Reverently, she swam closer to Finder and touched her tapered snout.

  “I go home,” she said.

  Time seemed to fail. Jenna stopped breathing, afraid she might slip back into the Theid patterns that had once devoured her. Slowly, Finder drew a small device from under her torso and held it. Hesitantly, Jenna touched the strange object. Slick, gray ceramic swirled and curved it on itself, an endless twisted loop, as if a nautilus had been inverted then warped into something dangerous and alien. The device vibrated, the water around it warmed. Jenna stared into Finder’s dark eyes.

  “This is one of your engines,” she said.

  “You came for this, yes?”

  “Yes,” Jenna said softly. The massive Theid pressed the device into her hands.

  “Sister, be well.” Finder gave her a final caress with her grasping arms, then vanished into the swirling water. Jenna started upward. The Theid around the airlock drew back in a wide circle and let her pass. She paused beneath the airlock and took a last look around her, then darted through the square hatch. Strong arms grabbed her and helped her to the deck. She fell to her knees and let the water gush from her airways. Yastrenko looked chagrined as he wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.

  “Thank God, you’re back,” he said. “Are you all right?”

  Jenna wiped her face with the blanket and looked around the little chamber. Markser lay on a stretcher, surrounded by medics, a ventilator down her throat. Already, the woman seemed calmer. The device Finder had given her still pulsed in her grip. It seemed heavier out of the water, more energetic, almost alive. Carefully, she passed the device to the technician. Yastrenko stepped closer, but she warned him off with a frown. She wasn’t ready to forgive him. Not yet. After everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure it even mattered anymore.

  “Am I all right?” She struggled to her feet, then calmly said, “No. But I will be.”

  <>

  * * * *

  INCARNATION DAY

  Walter Jon Williams

  In every society, in every age, the transition from child to adult, the time of coming of age, is a profound and significant milestone, sometimes even a dangerous one. Never so profound, or dangerous, though as in the brilliantly depicted future society shown to us here by Walter Jon Williams, where successfully coming of age makes the difference between having flesh an
d life—and being erased.

  Walter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His short fiction has appeared frequently in Asimov’s Science Fiction, as well as in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Wheel of Fortune, Global Dispatches, Alternate Outlaws, and in other markets, and has been gathered in the collections Facets and Frankensteins and Other Foreign Devils. His novels include Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, Hardwired, The Crown Jewels, Voice of the Whirlwind, House of Shards, Days of Atonement, Aristoi, Metropolitan, City on Fire, a huge disaster thriller, The Rift, and a Star Trek novel, Destiny’s Way. His most recent books are the first two novels in his acclaimed Modern Space Opera epic, “Dread Empire’s Fall,” Dread Empire’s Fall: The Praxis and Dread Empire’s Fall: The Sundering. Coming up are two new novels, Orthodox War and Conventions of War. He won a long-overdue Nebula Award in 2001 for his story “Daddy’s World,” and took another Nebula in 2005 with his story “The Green Leopard Plague.”