The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15

by Gardner Dozois

  It’s the fish that are the real problem, K’r’x went on. I’m not especially paternal. Sex is nice, but one can’t make an entire life out of mating. I would like to swim with other Divers again. You cannot imagine how it feels, when a school travels together. The common joy! The camaraderie! Most of all, I would like to bite into a living, healthy, frightened, struggling armored fish.

  You need a vacation, Lydia said.

  What?

  A trip home to swim and hunt fish and mate.

  K’r’x was silent for a while, continuing to swim in the luminous dark.

  We have no such thing, though our men – and some of our women – have a wanderjahr before settling down to raise children. This is how we explore the ocean, locating new places that are safe for children, new sources of fish, new kinds of strangeness to put into stories.

  Some men never settle down. I am one, though I have traveled farther than other wandering males.

  What about the women? Lydia asked. Do they all settle down?

  A few wander their entire lives, coming back now and then to share information. They don’t have children, of course. Our young are vulnerable and must be raised by many adults working together. Only a madwoman would stay by herself after becoming pregnant.

  If I worked long enough I could manage to go and return, he said after another period of silence. But in a few years, I’d be lonely again. What then?

  Go on another vacation, Lydia said.

  You are suggesting that I work in order to escape the place where I work, then return to the place from which I have escaped and work some more, so that I will be able to escape again and return again?

  Yes, said Lydia.

  It seems to me that one ought to either escape or not escape.

  What about the AIs? Lydia asked. Won’t they help you?

  We are interested in anomalous behavior, said her AI. In revolutionaries, bohemians, travelers to distant places, people who can’t or won’t go home and live like the rest of their species. Why should we help K’r’x become ordinary? And while we are willing to rescue beings who interest us, we don’t intend to make their lives easy.

  I’ll think about this thing you have described, K’r’x said. What did you call it? A gap? An empty place?

  A vacation, Lydia said.

  The next day was rougher. Foam streaked the ocean, and high clouds covered most of the sky. Lydia drank tea and took motion sickness pills. She felt better on deck than below, so spent most of her time there, huddled in a corner where the wind didn’t reach, her jacket fastened to the top.

  K’r’x could breach, she discovered. When she didn’t join him in his submarine world, he exploded from the water beside the ship: his pale sleek body ten meters long, his fins spread like wings, and his tentacles coiled up around his head like petals on an eerie flower.

  He hit the water with a splash that put spray on the deck, then was gone.

  In the morning, Lydia rose to find most of the clouds vanished. Foam still dotted the ocean, and her stomach was not entirely happy. She joined K’r’x after skipping breakfast. Her discomfort vanished the moment she plugged in the headset. Now, instead of the surface chop, she felt water rushing through his respiration/excretion tubes and the smooth beat of his fins. Looking through his dorsal eye, Lydia saw the shadow of the Persistent, surrounded by the upper water’s brightness. The vessel had slowed to a crawl. A rope hung down from it; flat pieces of clear plastic were attached at intervals. Using his fingered tentacles, K’r’x removed a sheet and carried it, while he – the two of them – swam. Lydia was silent, afraid of distracting the Diver.

  Ribbons fluttered around them. There was a school of small, red spheres covered with rapidly beating cilia. K’r’x passed among them, his fins moving slowly. At last he saw a quilted bell. His fingered tentacles did something to the plastic, and it became a box at the end of a clear plastic handle. A scoop, thought Lydia, as K’r’x scooped up the bell. The box’s lid closed as soon as the bell was inside. The trapped animal pulsed more rapidly. Afraid?

  Most likely, said her AI.

  There is a computer in the plastic, K’r’x said. It has sensors and the machinery necessary to change the plastic from a sheet to a box. In addition, after the sheet has become a box, the computer aerates the water and monitors the specimen’s condition. We never developed this technology. Of course, we don’t need it, since we don’t take fish – or anything else – out of the ocean.

  Do you ever capture anything alive? Lydia asked.

  We are not primitive. We have nets, cages, scoops, harpoons, and scientists. We even have computers, though they are colonies of a very small animal called the “adder.” The colonies are large and slow, but excellent at self-repair. They rarely make fatal errors. Evolution has eliminated that trait.

  He swam back to the rope and attached the box, then took another piece of plastic. This time he collected one of the red spheres.

  That was the day. K’r’x collected alien marine animals. Lydia watched and thought about a planet where computation was done by colonies of marine animals.

  Finally, her AI said the ship’s crew was having dinner.

  She returned to her cabin, which she had never left, of course. But it was hard to remember this, until she was reminded by extreme muscular stiffness and a full bladder. Cursing, she hobbled to the head, then on deck.

  The day, which she had almost entirely missed, was ending with a splendid crimson sunset. Setting amid clouds, the sun shed horizontal rays. Wave tops glittered. The troughs between waves were full of shadow. Something lay ahead of them in the east: a line of darkness. A low island?

  Dr. Johannesburg joined her at the prow. “The mat,” he said. “We will stop and put out deep water anchors. I don’t want to approach the creature after dark.”

  After dinner, the two doctors went off to discuss the next day’s plans. Lydia sat in the lounge with Ziri, the captain, and a couple of crew members, red-brown humans, one a short broad man, the other a rangy woman.

  “You’re sure this is a good idea?” the red-brown woman asked. “I’ve heard bad stories about the mats.”

  “I’ve heard the same stories,” Captain Bombay said. “I don’t believe them. That thing out there is a very large hunk of seaweed. It doesn’t move on its own; it can’t think, even at the most primitive level, and we have no reason to believe it’s poisonous. If it is, K’r’x will find that out before we come into contact.”

  “Maybe it’s poisonous to us and not to squid,” the red-brown man said.

  “Well, then, the scientists will find that out. No ocean is safe, Len. If you’re going to worry, find another line of work.”

  The crew members got out a chess board and set up the pieces. Lydia watched for a while, then went on deck. The ship was anchored now, motionless except for a gentle rocking as waves rolled under it. The engines were still running, but their noise had dropped to a purr. Keeping the ship at right angles to the waves, maybe. Or repowering batteries. How would she know, a child of prairies? She did exercises to get rid of the day’s stiffness: a long process that left her feeling relaxed and happy. Leaning on the ship’s rail, she looked at the ocean. The giant had set, and the sky was full of unfamiliar stars.

  For a moment, she felt nostalgia for the constellations of her home planet: the Truck and its Mechanic, the Benzene Ring, the Settlers, the Rat. No one, however ignorant of astronomy, could miss the Ring. The Rat was also pretty easy, due to its eye: a bright, red star. Once that was found, the rest of the animal could be made out.

  Being a city kid, she had not learned most of the others, till she became a revolutionary and took to the hills. There – as here, on this ship – the sky was close, the stars brilliant, and the ability to get around without roads and road maps was important. So she’d learned to find the other constellations. Her favorite remained the Rat, glaring down with its one red eye. To her, it was an emblem of all the creatures and people who survived and had their own
agendas, in spite of the best efforts of those in authority.

  K’r’x surfaced next to the ship, barely visible in the starlight. She could hear him clearly, his triangular teeth clicking together. A tentacle rose from the water holding a glowing ribbon, went back and then forward. The ribbon sailed onto the deck, where it twisted and glowed. A gift. How sweet. She crouched and looked without touching. It was remarkably featureless: no eyes, no mouth, no fins, no gills, unless the frills along its edges were gills. The frills looked like many small ribbons; they might be its young. The only other structure she could make out was a row of dots along the ribbon’s side. Maybe these were mouths or gills. No matter how the animal breathed – through frills, holes, or whatever – it seemed likely air would kill it. She stood and used the toe of her boot to push the ribbon overboard.

  K’r’x chattered and dove. Lydia went to bed.

  Waking, she heard the deep thrum of the ship’s engines. They must be in motion again. She showered, dressed, and went to the lounge.

  They were moving east and south. A wide wake spread behind them. Looking out a window, she saw the mat: a dark region in the water north of the ship. A hundred meters away, she judged. The animal was floating just under the surface, rising and falling with the waves, so that the entire huge sheet – it extended east, west, and north as far as she could see – undulated gently.

  She ate breakfast with several crew members. The two docs were already on deck, planning their approach to the mat.

  The red-brown man, Len, said, “The captain is right. All oceans are dangerous, and at least the oceans here are alive and healthy. Even if this trip turns out badly, I’d sooner be on Newtucket than on Earth.”

  “Have you ever been on Earth?” Lydia asked.

  He nodded. “I grew up in an arcology on one of the arctic islands. The ice is long gone, of course, and the ocean has not recovered from the environmental crash in the twenty-first century. It will, given enough time. I didn’t have the time, so I left. Praise Allah for the AIs and their gates!”

  Lydia went on deck and leaned on a railing, watching the mat. Now and then, a section broke through the surface. Sunlight flashed off the wet skin. Was it skin?

  Too Ziri joined her. For a moment, they stood together in silence. Then Ziri said, “Dr. J wants you to join K’r’x. He wants a close look at the creature, before we on the ship act.”

  “Anything in particular?”

  “Ask K’r’x to go along the edge of the animal, then underneath. We have a recorder. K’r’x has used it before. You, of course, are an expert with recorders.”

  Soon she was back in her cabin, then in K’r’x’s mind. He floated under the Persistent, his broad fins barely moving. The strange flavors of an alien ocean touched his – their – tongue, and Lydia felt cool water flows past his – their – gills.

  Welcome, he said.

  The recorder – a Ljotmal, almost as good as the model she used – descended on a rope. K’r’x took it. His fins beat once, and they were out from under the ship, gliding through sunlit water.

  Joy, he cried and beat his fins again, driving them through a school of tiny, transparent ribbons. Looking out his eyes, Lydia saw the animals on both sides, above and below, undulating rapidly and glinting like pieces of glass. A few ended in the Diver’s open mouth. He flicked them out with an almost prehensile tongue.

  Like gnats, thought Lydia.

  That’s an animal I don’t know. Does it live in oceans?

  In the air, Lydia replied, and remembered the summer when her FLPM battalion had been in a marshy northern forest on her home planet. The biting bugs were native to the world and not much interested in humans, though everyone in the battalion had modified DNA, enabling them to eat the local proteins. In spite of this, the humans did not smell like food.

  Like the biting bugs, the gnats were native. Only their name had come from Earth. Clouds of them filled the forest shadows. They got in eyes, mouth, nose, ears. Harmless and biteless, but an unending aggravation.

  What is a revolution? K’r’x asked. Is it like the other thing you described? When you leave a place in order to return?

  Not exactly, Lydia said. A vacation is going away from a home that does not change.

  And returning.

  Yes. A revolution is an attempt to change one’s home.

  My home needs no changes. It’s a fine place. But I want to visit other places.

  And go home now and then, Lydia said.

  Yes K’r’x said, then slowed.

  Ahead of them the water was shadowed. They had reached the mat. K’r’x turned, swimming along the edge. His tentacles were curled close to his head, except for the two with fingers. These held the recorder, which was on now. Lydia saw the operation light.

  How do you have it set? she asked.

  For low illumination and middle distance, though I can see clearly. This machine has poor vision.

  In the shadow below the mat, ribbons wriggled, hundreds of them. Or were there thousands? Other animals were intermixed, furry spheres and pulsing bells.

  It is characteristic of cold oceans to have a limited number of species, but those in great numbers, K’r’x said. It seems to me the numbers here are greater than elsewhere in this ocean.

  Saying that, he swam under the mat. At first, Lydia could make out nothing. Then K’r’x’s pupils adjusted and she saw the grooves in the animal’s ventral surface. They were straight lines, arranged in rows which crossed at right angles. The result was a checkerboard pattern. Where the lines intersected, clusters of cilia wriggled. There was no other visible structure and no variation in color. The entire animal was a single dark hue.

  All around them in the shadowy water were ribbons, more ribbons, bells, and spheres. The water’s flavor had gown stronger and changed. It was acrid now. Unpleasant.

  Is that coming from the mat? Lydia asked.

  The taste? I believe so, K’r’x said.

  I don’t think it likes us.

  You are assuming that its sense of taste is like K’r’x’s, her AI put in. Maybe it’s signaling friendship.

  Nothing more happened. K’r’x swam under the mat. The water’s flavor remained the same.

  Suddenly they were back in sunlight, the mat behind them. K’r’x drove toward the surface and, with a mighty beat of his fins, breached. For a moment, they were in air, light blazing around them. Then he returned to the ocean with a splash.

  Excuse me if I startled you, K’r’x said. But it seemed to me I had to do that. Having the mat above me was unnerving; I kept wanting to dive deep or swim rapidly away; the flavor it’s excreting is worse than dead and frozen fish.

  They took the long way back, following the mat’s edge. K’r’x kept close to the surface, in sunlight. The flavor grew fainter, till it was lost in the ordinary, alien flavor of the ocean.

  At last, K’r’x broke through the surface, and Lydia saw the ship ahead of them. Goodby, she said, took off the radio headset and found herself in her cabin. Her clothing was sweat-damp, her body stiff. She crawled off the bed and into the shower. No question, Lydia thought as hot water beat on her skin. The mat was not happy to have them around.

  You are being hasty, her AI said.

  You really think it might be friendly.

  My impression, influenced by your neurochemistry and that of K’r’x, is that the creature is mean as a snake and almost certainly angry. But your responses may be due to lack of light and a bad taste. Humans are diurnal; and that flavor was definitely something K’r’x did not like.

  The AI fell silent as Lydia lathered her hair. Ah! What a feeling! And what a scent! Synthetic replicas of ancestral herbs ran over her shoulders and down her front. She rinsed. The AI said, I was curious about the phrase “mean as a snake” and checked my copy of the Encyclopedia Galactica. A snake is a legless reptile still found on Earth. It’s unlikely to be mean, since meanness is an emotion, and emotions originate in a part of the brain that is not well developed
in reptiles.

  “It’s a figure of speech, not based on current or recent science,” said Lydia, and briskly dried herself. What was that aroma?

  Lavender.

  “How do you know?”

  The label on the bottle. I read it as you picked it up.

  After dressing, she went to the lounge. The two scientists were there, along with Too Ziri.

  “We have reached the south-east corner of the mat and will stop for the night,” Dr. Johannesburg said.

  Lydia nodded, and helped herself to various objects on an appetizer tray: pickled cabbage, pickled turnip, and bean curd flavored with the new experimental animals from the Fish Fjord Research Station.

  “Cod,” said Dr. Diop. “They are a large, hardy, ugly fish that humanity almost managed to exterminate, after they fed Europe every Friday for a thousand years. Now we are modifying them to live here.”

  Lydia ate a fish curd cake. Not bad.

  The scientists excused themselves. They had more work to do. Lydia, tired after her long session with K’r’x, stayed in the lounge and chatted with Too Ziri.

  Dinner took place after nightfall. As they settled down to spicy vegetarian wonton soup, the lights went out. Lydia listened for the engines. They had stopped entirely. Jez Bombay cursed and left.

  The lights came back on, shining dimly. The engines remained silent.

  Jez Bombay returned. “That’s the emergency generator. The engines were overheating. We cool with water, as you might imagine, and the engines aren’t getting any. K’r’x is going down with a light and find out what’s happened to our intake tubes.”

  “Do you want me to go?” asked Lydia.

  Jez shook her head. “This is a repair problem. I’m going to use a regular radio and talk K’r’x through whatever’s happening.”

  Several people left with Jez. The rest ate and speculated. The lights remained dim, the engines silent. Lydia finished quickly and went on deck.

  The sky had clouded over. The ocean was dark, except for a glimmer around the hull: repair lights underwater. Looking toward the mat, she saw a region of blackness.