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

by Gardner Dozois

  “You see now why I’m not coming with you,” Colonel Jax said. “Not unless you brought a much bigger ship. Even then, I’m not sure you’d be able to keep me alive very long without Nightingale’s assistance.”

  “You’re a fucking monstrosity.”

  “I’m no oil painting, that’s a fact.” Jax tilted his head, as if a thought had just struck him. “I am a work of art, though, wouldn’t you agree, girly girl?”

  “If you say so.”

  “The ship certainly thinks so—don’t you, Nightingale? She made me what I am. It’s her artistic vision shining through. The bitch.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Very probably. Do you honestly think you could take one day of this and not go mad? Oh, I’m mad enough, I’ll grant you that. But I’m still sane compared to the ship. Around here, she’s the imperial fucking yardstick for insanity.”

  “Sollis was right, then. Leave a sentience engine like that all alone, and it’ll eat itself from the inside out.”

  “Maybe so. Thing is, it wasn’t solitude that did it. Nightingale turned insane long before it ever got out here. And you know what did it? That little war we had ourselves down on Sky’s Edge. They built this ship and put the mind of an angel inside it. A mind dedicated to healing, compassion, kindness. So what if it was a damned machine? It was still designed to care for us, selflessly, day after day. And it turned out to be damned good at its job, too. For a while, at least.”

  “Then you know what happened.”

  “The ship drove itself mad. Two conflicting impulses pushed a wedge through its sanity. It was meant to treat us, to make us well again, to alleviate our pain. But every time it did its job, we got sent back down to the theatre of battle and ripped apart again. The ship took our pain away only so that we could feel it again. It began to feel as if it was complicit in that process: a willing cog in a greater machine whose only purpose was the manufacture of agony. In the end, it decided it didn’t much like being that cog.”

  “So it took off. What happened to all the other patients?”

  “It killed them. Euthanized them painlessly, rather than have them sent back down to battle. To Nightingale, that was the kinder thing to do.”

  “And the technical staff who were aboard, and the men who were sent to reclaim the ship when it went out of control?”

  “They were euthanized as well. I don’t think Nightingale took any pleasure in that, but it saw their deaths as a necessary evil. Above all else, it wouldn’t allow itself to be returned to use as a military hospital.”

  “Yet it didn’t kill you.”

  A dry tongue flicked across Jax’s lips. “It was going to. Then it delved deeper into its patient records and realized just who I was. At that point it began to have other ideas.”

  “Such as?”

  “The ship was smart enough to realize that the bigger problem wasn’t its existence—they could always build other hospital ships—but the war itself. War itself. So it decided to do something about it. Something positive. Something constructive.”

  “Which would be?”

  “You’re looking at it, kid. I’m the war memorial. When Nightingale started doing this to me—making me what I am—it had in mind that I’d become a vast artistic statement in flesh. Nightingale would reveal me to the world when it was finished. The horror of what I am would shame the world into peace. I’d be the living, breathing equivalent of Picasso’s Guernica. I’m an illustration in flesh of what war does to human beings.”

  “The war’s over. We don’t need a memorial.”

  “Maybe you can explain that to the ship. Trouble is, I don’t think it really believes the war is over. You can’t blame it, can you? It has access to the same history files we do. It knows that not all ceasefires stay that way.”

  “What was it intending to do? Return to Sky’s Edge with you aboard?”

  “Exactly that. Problem is, the ship isn’t done. I know I may look finished, but Nightingale—well, she has this perfectionist streak. She’s always changing her mind. Can’t ever seem to get me quite right. Keeps swapping pieces around, cutting pieces away, growing new parts and stitching them in. All the while she has to make sure I don’t die on her. That’s where her real genius comes in. She’s Michelangelo with a scalpel.”

  “You almost sound proud of what she’s done to you.”

  “Would you rather I screamed? I can scream if you like. It’s just that it gets old after a while.”

  “You’re way too far gone, Jax. I was wrong about the war crimes court. They’ll throw your case out on grounds of insanity.”

  “That would have been a shame. I’d have loved to have seen their faces when they wheeled me into the witness box. But I’m not going to court, am I? Ship’s laid it all out for me. She’s pulling the plug.”

  “So she says.”

  “You don’t sound as if you believe it.”

  “I can’t see her abandoning you, after all the effort she’s gone to.”

  “She’s an artist. They act on whims. Maybe if I was ready, maybe if she thought she’d done all she could with me—but that’s not the way she feels. I think she felt she was getting close three or four years ago—but then she had a change of heart, a major one, and tore out almost everything. Now I’m an unfinished work. She couldn’t bear to see me exhibited in this state. She’d rather rip up the canvas and start again.”

  “With you?”

  “No, I think she’s more or less exhausted my possibilities. Especially now that she’s seen the chance to do something completely different; something that will let her take her message a lot closer to home. That, of course, is where you come in.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “That’s what the others said as well.” Again, he cocked his head to one side. “Hey, ship! Maybe it’s time you showed her what the deal is, don’t you think?”

  “If you are ready, Colonel,” the Voice of Nightingale said.

  “I’m ready. Dexia’s ready. Why don’t you bring on the dessert?”

  Colonel Jax looked to the right, straining his neck. Beyond Jax’s border, a circular door opened in part of the wall. Light rammed through the opening. Something floated in silhouette, held in suspension by three or four squid robots. The floating thing was dark, rounded, irregular. It looked like half a dozen pieces of dough balled together. I couldn’t make out what it was.

  Then the robots pushed it into the chamber, and I saw, and then I screamed.

  “It’s time for you to join your friends now,” the ship said.

  * * * *

  That was three months ago. It feels like an eternity, until we remember being held down on the surgical bed, while the machines emerged and prepared to work on us, and then it feels like everything happened only a terror-filled moment ago.

  We made it safely back to Sky’s Edge. The return journey was arduous, as one might expect given our circumstances. But the shuttle had little difficulty in flying itself back into a capture orbit, and once it fell within range it emitted a distress signal that brought it to the attention of the planetary authorities. We were off-loaded and taken to a secure orbital holding facility, where we were examined and our story subjected to what limited verification was actually possible. Dexia had bluffed the Voice of Nightingale when she told the ship that Martinez was certain to have told someone else of the coordinates of the hospital ship. It turned out that he hadn’t told a soul, too wary of alerting Jax’s allies. The Ultras who had found the ship in the first place were now a fifth of a light-year away, and falling farther from Sky’s Edge with every passing hour. It would be decades, or longer, before they returned this way.

  All the same, we don’t think anyone seriously doubted our story. As outlandish as it was, no one could suggest a more likely alternative. We did have the head of Colonel Brandon Jax, or at least a duplicate that passed all available genetic and physiological tests. And we had clearly been to a place that specialized in extremely adva
nced surgery, of a kind that simply wasn’t possible in and around Sky’s Edge. That was the problem, though. The planet’s best surgeons had examined us with great thoroughness, each eager to advance their own prestige by undoing the work of Nightingale. But all had quailed, fearful of doing more harm than good. No separation of Siamese twins could compare in complexity and risk with the procedure that would be necessary to unknot the living puzzle Nightingale had made of us. None of the surgeons was willing to bet on the survival of more than a single one of us, and even the odds weren’t overwhelming. That pact we’d made with ourselves was that we would only consent to the operation if the vote was unanimous.

  At massive expense (not ours, for by then we were the subject of considerable philanthropy) a second craft was sent out to snoop the coordinates where we’d left the hospital ship. She had the best military scanning gear money could buy. But she found nothing out there but ice and dust.

  From that, we were free to draw two possible conclusions. Either Nightingale had destroyed herself soon after our departure, or she had moved somewhere else to avoid being found again. We couldn’t say which alternative pleased us less. At least if we’d known the ship was gone for good, we could have resigned ourselves to the surgeons,mhowever risky that might have been. But if the ship was hiding itself, there was always the possibility that someone might find it again. And then somehow persuade it to undo us.

  But perhaps Nightingale will need no persuasion, when she decides the time is right. It seems to us that the ship will return one day, of her own volition. She will make orbit around Sky’s Edge and announce that the time has come for us to be separated. Nightingale will have decided that we have served our purpose, that we have walked the world long enough. Perhaps by then she will have some other memorial in mind. Or she will conclude that her message has finally been taken to heart, and that no further action is needed. That, we think, will depend on how the ceasefire holds.

  It’s in our interests, then, to make sure the planet doesn’t slip back into war. We want the ship to return and heal us. None of us like things this way, despite what you may have read or heard. Yes, we’re famous. Yes, we’re the subject of a worldwide outpouring of sympathy and goodwill. Yes, we can have almost anything we want. None of that compensates, though. Not even for a second.

  It’s hard on all of us, but especially so for Martinez. We’ve all long since stopped thinking of the big man as Norbert. He’s the one who has to carry us everywhere: more than twice his own bodyweight. Nightingale thought of that, of course, and she made sure that our own hearts and respiratory systems take some of the burden off Martinez. But it’s still his spine bending under this load; still his legs that have to support us. The doctors who’ve examined us say his condition is good; that he can continue to play his part for years to come—but they’re not talking about forever. And when Martinez dies, so will the rest of us. In the meantime we just keep hoping that Nightingale will come sooner than that.

  You’ve seen us up close now. You’ll have seen photographs and moving images before, but nothing really compares with seeing us in the flesh. We make quite a spectacle, don’t we? A great tottering tree of flesh, an insult to symmetry. You’ve heard us speak, all of us, individually. You know by now how we feel about the war. All of us played our part in it to some degree, some more than others. Some of us were even enemies. Now the very idea that we might have hated each other—hated that which we depend on for life itself—lies beyond all comprehension. If Nightingale sought to create a walking argument for the continuation of the ceasefire, then she surely succeeded.

  We are sorry if some of you will go home with nightmares tonight. We can’t help that. In fact, if truth be told, we’re not sorry at all. Nightmares are what we’re all about. It’s the nightmare of us that will stop this planet falling back into war.

  If you have trouble sleeping tonight, spare us a thought.

  * * * *

  HONORABLE MENTIONS: 2006

  Brian W. Aldiss, “Safe!,” Asimov’s, October/November.

  -------, “Tiger in the Night,” Elemental.

  Karen Jordan Allen, “Godburned,” Asimov’s, September.

  Eleanor Arnason, “Big Green Mama Falls in Love,” Eidolon 1.

  A. M. Armin, “Only the Dead Flower,” On Spec, Spring.

  Catherine Asaro, “The Ruby Dice,” Jim Baen’s Universe 2.

  Neal Asher, “The Gabble,” Asimov’s, March.

  Paolo Bacigalupi, “Pop Squad,” F&SF, October/November.

  Kage Baker, “Calamari Curls,” Dark Mondays.

  -------, “Oh, False Young Man!,” Dark Mondays.

  -------, “The Maid on the Shore,” Dark Mondays.

  John Barnes, “POGA,” Jim Baen’s Universe 1.

  -------, “The Little White Nerves Went Last,” Analog, March.

  -------, “ ‘The Night is Fine,’ The Walrus Said,” Analog, January/February.

  Jamie Barras, “Spinning Out,” Strange Horizons, 2 October.

  -------, “Summer’s End,” Interzone, June.

  -------, “The Beekeeper,” Interzone, October.

  Neal Barrett, Jr., “The Heart,” Cross Plains Universe.

  Laird Barron, “Hallucigenia,” F&SF, June.

  William Barton, “Down to the Earth Below,” Asimov’s, October/November.

  Chris Barzak, “The Guardian of the Egg,” Salon Fantastique.

  Stephen Baxter, “Dreamer’s Lake,” Forbidden Planets (Crowther).

  -------, “Ghost Wars,” Asimov’s, January.

  -------, “Harvest Time,” Golden Age SF.

  -------, “In the Abyss of Time,” Asimov’s, August.

  -------, “The Lone Road,” Postscripts 6.

  -------, “The Lowland Expedition,” Analog, April.

  Peter S. Beagle, “Chandail,” Salon Fantastique.

  -------, “El Regalo,” F&SF, October/November.

  -------, “Salt Wine,” Fantasy Magazine 3.

  -------, “The Cold Blacksmith,” Jim Baen’s Universe 1.

  -------, “The Devil You Don’t,” The Chains That You Refuse.

  -------, “Gone to Flowers,” The Chains That You Refuse.

  Elizabeth Bear, “High Iron,” The Chains That You Refuse.

  -------, “The Inevitable Heat Death of the Universe,” Subterranean 4.

  -------, “Love Among the Talus,” Strange Horizons, 11 December.

  -------, “Sounding,” Strange Horizons, 18 September.

  -------, “Stella Nova,” The Chains That You Refuse.

  -------, “Wane,” Interzone, April.

  Chris Beckett, “Karel’s Prayer,” Interzone, October.

  Paul M. Berger, “Winter in Aso,” Polyphony 6.

  Beth Bernobich, “A Feast of Cousins,” Helix 1.

  -------, “A Flight of Numbers Fantastique Strange,” Asimov’s, June.

  Terry Bisson, “Billy and the Circus Girl,” Flurb 1.

  -------, “Billy and the Fairy,” F&SF, May.

  -------, “Billy and the Spacemen,” F&SF, August.

  -------, “Billy and the Talking Plant,” Postscripts 8.

  -------, “Billy and the Unicorn,” F&SF, July.

  -------, “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?,” Golden Age SF.

  -------, “Planet of Mystery,” F&SF, January/February.

  -------, “Put Up Your Hands,” Helix 2.

  Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, “The Nature of Things,” Jim Baen’s Universe 4.

  Scott Bradfield, “Dazzle the Pundit,” F&SF, December.

  Uric Brown, “The Touch of Angels,” Threshold Shift.

  Robert M. Brown, “The Sum of Things,” Helix 1.

  Simon Brown, “Tarans,” Andromeda Spaceways #24.

  Emma Bull, “What Used to Be Good Still Is,” Firebirds Rising.

  Stephen L. Burns, “Nothing to Fear But,” Analog, April.

  Orson Scott Card, “Space Boy,” Escape from Earth.

  -------, “The Yazoo Queen,�
�� OSC’s Intergalactic Medicine Show 2.

  James L. Cambias, “Parsifal (Prix Fixe),” F&SF, February.

  Scott William Carter, “Happy Time,” Postscripts 8.

  -------, “The Tiger in the Garden,” Asimov’s, June.

  Rob Chilson, “Farmers in the Sky,” Analog, May.

  Susanna Clarke, “John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner.” F&SF,

  December.

  DJ Cockburn, “Virulence,” Aeon Six.

  Matthew Corradi, “The Song of Kido,” F&SF, September.