The Stories: Five Years of Original Fiction on Tor.com

by Various

  Perhaps. Impossible to reliably compute. How can you ascend?

  “I’ve got five more hours of air. I can focus an air bottle on my back and jet up this thing.”

  No! That is too dangerous. You will lose air and be farther away from my aid.

  “What aid? You can’t move.”

  No ready reply, Claire noted. Up to herself, then.

  It did not take long to rig the air as a jet pack. The real trick was balance. She bound the flower bundle to her, so the jet pack thrust would act through her total center of mass. That was the only way to stop it from spinning her like a whirling firework.

  With a few trial squirts she got it squared away. After all, she had over twenty thousand hours of deep space ex-vehicle work behind her. In Lugger she had risked her life skimming close to the sun, diving through a spinning wormhole, and operating near ice moons. Time to add one more trick to the tool kit.

  Claire took a deep breath, gave herself another prickly stim shot—wheee!—and lifted off.

  She kept vigilant watch as the pressured air thrust vented, rattling a bit—and shot her up beside the beanstalk. It worked! The soaring plant was a beautiful artifice, in its webby way. All designed by an evolution that didn’t mind operating without an atmosphere, in deep cold and somber dark. Evolution never slept, anywhere. Even between the stars.

  While she glided—this thing was tall!—she recalled looking out an airplane window over the Rockies and seeing the airplane’s shadow on the clouds below … surrounded by a beautiful bright halo. Magically their shadow glided along the clouds below. Backscatter from water droplets or ice crystals in the cloud, creating unconscious beauty in the air …

  And the sky tree kept going. She used the air bottle twice more before the weblike branches thinned out. Time to stop. She snagged a limb and unbundled the vacflowers. The iceteroid below seemed far away.

  One by one she arrayed the blossoms on slender wire, secured along a branch. Then another branch. And another. The work came fast and sure. The stim was doing the work, she knew, and keeping the aches in her knee and shoulder away, like distant hollow echoes. She would pay for all this later.

  The cold was less here, away from the conduction loss she had felt while standing on the iceteroid. Still, exercise had amplified her aches, too, but those seemed behind a curtain, distant. She was sweating, muscles working hard, all just a few centimeters from deep cold …

  Erma had been silent, knowing not to interrupt hard labor. Now she spoke over Claire’s hard breathing. I can access Lugger’s probable search pattern. There are several, and it did know our approximate solid angle for exploration.

  “Great. Lugger’s in repeating sweep mode, yes?”

  You ordered so at departure, yes.

  “I’m setting these vacflowers up on a tie line,” Claire said, cinching in a set of monofilament lines she had harnessed in a hexagon array. They were spread along the sinewy arms of the immense tan tree. Everything was strange here, the spread branches like tendons, framed against the diamond stars, under the sun spotlight. She tugged at the monofilament lines, inching them around—and saw the parabolas respond as their focus shifted. The flowers were still open in the waning sunlight.

  She breathed a long sigh and blinked away sweat. The array looked about right. Still, she needed a big enough area to capture the sweep of a laser beam, to send it back …

  But … when? Lugger was sweeping its sky, methodical as ever … but Claire was running out of time. And oxy. This was a gamble, the only one she had.

  So … wait. “Say, where do you calculate Lugger is?”

  Here are the spherical coordinates—

  Her suit computation ran and gave her a green spot on her helmet. Claire fidgeted with her lines and got the vacflowers arrayed. The vactree itself had flowers, which dutifully turned toward the sun. “Hey, Lugger’s not far off the sun line. Maybe in a few minutes all the vacflowers will be pointing at it.”

  You always say, do not count on luck.

  It was sobering to be lectured by software, but Erma was right. Well, this wasn’t mere luck, really. Claire had gathered as many vacflowers as she could, arrayed them … and she saw her air was running out. The work had warmed her against the insidious cold, but the price was burning oxy faster. Now it was low and she felt the stim driving her, her chest panting to grab more …

  A bright ivory flash hit her, two seconds long—then gone.

  “That was it!” Claire shouted. “It must’ve—”

  I fear your angle, as I judge it from your suit coordinates, was off.

  “Then send a correction!”

  Just so—

  Another green spot appeared in her helmet visor. She struggled to adjust the vacflower parabolas, jerking on the monofilaments. She panted and her eyes jerked around, checking the lines.

  The sun was now edging close to the ’roid horizon. In the dark she would have no chance, she saw—the small green dot was near that horizon, too. And she did not know when the laser arc would—

  Hard ivory light in her face. She tugged at the lines and held firm as the laser focus shifted, faded—

  —and came back.

  “It got the respond!” Claire shouted. The universe flooded with a strong silvery glow. The lines slipped from her gloves. Her feet seemed far away …

  Then she passed out.

  * * *

  Erma was saying something but she could not track. Only when she felt around her did Claire’s fingers know she did not have gloves on. Was not in her suit. Was in her own warm command couch chair, sucking in welcome warm air … aboard Silver Metal Lugger.

  —and beyond the Kuiper Belt there is the Oort Cloud, containing billions of objects orbiting the Sun at distances extending out farther than a tenth of a light-year.

  “Huh? What … what happened?”

  Oh, pardon—I thought you were tracking. Your body parameters said you became conscious ten minutes ago.

  Bright purple dots raced around her vision. “I … was resting … You must’ve used the Lugger bots.”

  You had blacked out. On my direction, your suit injected slowdown meds to keep you alive on what oxy remained.

  “I didn’t release suit command to you. I‘d just gotten the reflection to work, received a quick recognition flash back from Lugger, and you, you—”

  Made an executive decision. Going to emergency sedation was the only way to save you.

  “Uh … um.” She felt a tingling all over her body, like signals from a distant star. Her system was coming back, oxygen reviving tissues that must have hovered a millimeter away from death for … “How long has it been?”

  About an hour.

  She had to assert command. “Be exact.”

  One hour, three minutes, thirty-four seconds and—

  “I … had no idea I was so close to shutdown.”

  I gather unconsciousness is a sudden onset for you humans.

  “What was that babble I heard you going on about, just now?”

  I mistakenly took you for aware and tracking, so began discussing the profitable aspects of our little adventure.

  “Little adventure? I nearly died!”

  Such is life, as you often remark.

  “You had Lugger zoom over, got me hauled in by the bots, collected yourself from Sniffer …”

  I can move quickly when I do not have you to look after every moment.

  “No need to get snide, Erma.”

  I thought I was being factual.

  Claire started to get up, then noticed that the med bot was working at her arm. “What the—”

  Medical advises that you remain in your couch until your biochem systems are properly adjusted.

  “So I have to listen to your lecture, you mean.”

  A soft fuzzy feeling was working its way through her body like tiny, massaging fingers. It eased away the aches at knee, shoulder, and assorted ribs and joints. Delightful, dreamy …

  Allow me to cheer you up while
your recovery meds take effect. You and I have just made a very profitable discovery.

  “We have?” It was hard to recall much beyond the impression of haste, pulse-pounding work, nasty hurts—

  A living community born just once in a deep, warmed ’roid lake can break through to its surface, expanding its realm. The gravity of these Kuiper Belt iceteroids is so weak, I realized, it imposes no limit on the distance to which a life form such as your vactree can grow. Born just once, on one of the billions of such frozen fragments, vacflower life can migrate.

  Claire let the meds make her world soft and delightful. Hearing all this was more fun than dying, yes—especially since the suit meds had let her skip the gathering agonies.

  Such a living community moves on, adapting so it can better focus sunlight, I imagine. Seeking more territory, it slowly migrates outward from the sun.

  “You imagine? Your software upgrade has capabilities I haven’t seen before.”

  Thank you. These vacflowers are a wonderful accidental discovery and we can turn them into a vast profit.

  “Uh, I’m a tad slow…”

  Think—! Reflecting focus optics! Harvested bioactive fluids! All for free, as a cash crop!

  “Oh. I was going after metals, rare earths—”

  And so will other prospectors. We will sell them the organics and plants they need to carry on. Recall that Levi jeans came from canny retailers, who made them for miners in the California gold rush. They made far more than the roughnecks.

  “So we become … retail…”

  With more bots, we are farmers, manufacturers, retail—the entire supply chain.

  “Y’know Erma, when I bought you, I thought I was getting an onboard navigation and ship systems smartware…”

  Which can learn, yes. I might point out to you the vastness of the Kuiper Belt, and beyond it—the Oort Cloud. It lies at a distance of a tenth of a light-year, a factor two hundred farther away than Pluto. A vast resource, to which vacflowers may well have spread. If not, we can seed them.

  “You sure are ambitious. Where does this end?”

  Beyond a light-year, Sirius outshines the Sun. Anything living there will point its concentrators at Sirius rather than at the Sun. But they can still evolve, survive.

  “Quite the numbersmith you’ve proved to be, Erma. So we’ll both be rich…”

  Though it is difficult to see what I can do with money. Buy some of the stim-software I’ve been hearing about, perhaps.

  “Uh, what’s that?” She was almost afraid to ask. Had Erma been watching while she used her vibrator…?

  It provides abstract patterning of imaginative range. Simulates neuro programs of what we imagine it is like to experience pleasure.

  “How’s code feel Earthly delights?”

  I gather evolution invented pleasure to make you repeat acts. Reproduction, for example. Its essential message is, Do that again.

  “You sure take all the magic out of it, Erma.”

  Magic is a human craft.

  Claire let out a satisfied sigh. So now she and Erma had an entirely new life form to explore, understand, use … A whole new future for them …

  She looked around at winking lights, heard the wheezing air system, watched the med bot tend to her wrecked body … sighed.

  For this moment, she could let that future take care of itself. She was happy to be back in the ugly oblong contraption she called home. With Erma. A pleasure, certainly.

  Copyright (C) 2013 by Gregory Benford

  Art copyright (C) 2013 by Sam Burley

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  When Asa left his home in Ysterien, his family gave him three gifts.

  The first was passage on the fastest trade ship sailing between Ysterien’s chief port of Karda and its sister in the province of Pommersien—an extravagant gift but a necessary one. Each year, fewer merchants dared the overland routes between Ysterien and the empire over the mountains. The historians claimed the Erythandran Empire had fallen twenty years before, but it was falling still, a slow, erratic, and seemingly endless descent. Like a land besieged by drought, its borders crumbled, its provinces shrank into new and smaller kingdoms with uncertain futures, like dust caught and driven by a hot wind.

  The second gift was a cousin to the first, a generous sum of money to account for expenses beyond the ship voyage itself. His family had always been practical, even when indulging him in this most impractical journey. They offered advice, too, but they always had, his mother, his young stepfather, the many brothers, half-brothers, sisters, and cousins employed in the family banking concerns. The money was more than a gift—it was a sign that he belonged to the household.

  Once Asa reached the port, he sold his passage to the first taker. He sent all his luggage, except one small trunk, back to his mother. He did not bother with a note. She would guess what he’d done. Then he hired a horse from a stable near the harbor district and repacked the contents of his trunk into saddlebags. His destination had not changed, but he wanted to make this journey on his own terms, not under the watchful eye of the ship’s crew, who undoubtedly reported to their guild and house, and from thence to his mother.

  “You’re mad,” the stable owner said.

  Asa shrugged. “It’s necessary. Do you want the trunk?”

  “Of course I want the trunk. I’ll give you thirty draqirii for it—silver ones. But you’re mad to try the mountain roads. Word came back last month that Hanídos evicted the emperor’s soldiers. Things are somewhat unsettled there.”

  Unsettled, meaning dangerous to foreigners.

  “I understand,” Asa said mildly. “And I want fifty draqirii. That trunk is made from good, solid cedar wood. My mother commissioned it from House Jawero especially for this journey. Besides, you could sell it back to her for a profit.”

  The stable master’s lips twitched. “You’re more like a merchant than a banker’s son. But it’s true. And she would thank me. Eventually.”

  In the end, he counted out sixty draqirii. For luck, he told Asa. The goddess Lir always loved a blind man, in honor of her brother, Toc, who had plucked out his own eyes to make the sun and moon. And Asa was as obstinately blind a man as the stable master had ever known.

  Asa’s family had said much the same to him when he first proposed this journey east. In the end, however, his mother had agreed. “One last indulgence,” she’d said with dry humor. Then her expression had turned speculative. “I will be curious to see if it changes you.”

  The stable boys finished up their work. Asa mounted the horse easily. From the cobblestoned yard of the stables, the land sloped downward toward the harbor, and he had a clear view of the ocean-filled horizon. The day was bright, the spring breezes warm and caressing, and the seas were like a vast blue jewel cupped in invisible hands. Miles away, in his mother’s household, his family would be gathered around the table.

  His mother’s last words, her strange assessing expression, came back to him.

  She spoke as if she were certain I will return.

  He struggled against the tug of expectation. His mother always spoke that way, he told himself. That was how she often achieved her desires—simply by taking for granted her wishes would be fulfilled.

  It was time to go. He checked the balance of his sword against his hip and the ease with which he might reach the knives in either boot. He murmured one of the spells that his oldest cousin had taught him in exchange for Asa’s favorite p
oetry books. He noticed the stable master’s faint surprise at these proceedings, as if a banker’s son were not capable of dealing with anything but coins and notes of promise.

  He was not entirely wrong, Asa thought. Even ten years of sword lessons from the best masters—another indulgence—might not prove enough for this journey.

  “I should pay you more,” he said to the stable master. “I probably won’t bring this horse back.”

  “I know,” the other man said. “That’s why I asked so much for the hire.” He hesitated a moment, then asked, “Why are you going east?”

  Because I have too many dreams, Asa thought.

  * * *

  His dreams followed him over the well-kept roads of Ysterien, which wound upward through the high valleys of the coast and into the foothills. These were dreams of past lives, the memories each soul carried across the void from death into rebirth. In all of them, Asa was a warrior, hand gripping a sword or spear. Sometimes he dreamed of battle. More often, he dreamed of standing guard in an endless night. The most persistent dreams had nothing to do with war, not directly, but with a woman.

  She stood at the window, her gaze turned away. It was a brilliant summer’s day. Sunlight poured through the glass. Outside, the familiar expanse of crimson roof rose like waves between and around the spires of the palace. Asa knew this room, knew this woman. My beloved, he thought, his heart catching at how the light outlined her cheek. So it had been from the very start, their love as natural as breathing.

  Even as he recognized these details, the dream overwhelmed him. He was no longer Asa, a young man from Ysterien, but the soldier Adele.

  “When do you go?” the other woman asked.

  “We march for the border tomorrow.”

  “Ah.” It was more a breath released than a reply. Then: “I should speak of the Empire, and how it has no borders except the sea, but that would too unnatural. Also, it would be a lie. I…I would have no lies between us tonight, Adele.”