The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 15

by Gardner Dozois

  “All’s well that end’s well,” another crew member said finally. “Though the government here expects the AIs will order everyone off the planet. That may not be a happy ending.”

  Lydia took another walk on the breakwater. Once again, it was sunset, and the kids were whizzing back and forth on their bikes. Whitecaps dotted the ocean. A fair distance out, K’r’x breached, his huge body rising out of the water, fins spread like wings.

  “Wow! Wow!” a kid cried.

  Lydia put on the headset and told him where she was, then scrambled down over the breakwater’s broken stones, stopping at the water’s edge.

  He reached her soon after, a long pale shape gliding just under the surface. Above her, she heard the kids’ shrill, excited voices.

  He paused in front of her, water washing over his back, his fins rippling just a little at their edges. His tentacles were curled up around his mouth. His frontal eyes regarded her, and she, looking through his eyes, saw herself: an odd, tiny, alien figure.

  At the same time as she looked at herself, she looked at him. This close, she could see the marks the disks had left on him. Still round, they were dark green now, the unpleasant hue of aging bruises. They dotted his body and fins.

  The rescue team said I should go to Fish Fjord. There are biologists there who can treat my injuries. I wanted to say goodby to you first, Lydia. He uncoiled a fingered tentacle, extending it toward her. She took it. The cold, wet, boneless fingers gripped her hand firmly. In his mind, she felt fatigue and loneliness and affection.

  Do Divers do this? she asked.

  Entwine tentacles? Of course. We are a tactile species. Though this is the first time I’ve entwined tentacles with someone who did not belong to my species.

  If you get tired of your home, get in touch with me, she told him. I’ll talk to Stellar Harvest. They might want to hire you.

  I thought your actors were human or humanoid.

  Mostly, yes, Lydia said in her mind. But the company knows the galaxy is full of many kinds of intelligent life. If they use only humans, they are showing a version of the galaxy that is obviously unreal. So they use non-humanoid actors, usually in supporting roles. You might have to start as a villain.

  I, who have always kept my posture level and swum straight forward, never turning to the side?

  After a moment, Lydia translated this: “I, who have always been upright and sincere?” His mind did not feel affronted. He must be joking, she decided, though she suspected he was upright and sincere.

  I will consider the possibility of a career in drama, K’r’x added. After I have become bored with home.

  She sat for some time, holding the Diver’s hand. A couple of kids came down finally. “Will it shake hands with us?” asked the girl.

  “K’r’x is male,” Lydia said. “You should call him ‘he.’ ”

  “Okay,” said the boy.

  Lydia relayed the request to K’r’x. He complied.

  “He feels ishy,” the girl said.

  “He’s a guest on this planet,” Lydia said. “A member of a scientific expedition. Treat him with respect.”

  “My mom says we’re going to have to leave,” the boy said.

  “His mom is the mayor,” the girl added.

  “Because of the expedition,” the boy continued. “The scientists screwed up, and now the AIs are mad at all of us. Are you a scientist?”

  “No,” said Lydia.

  “Is he?” the boy asked, waving at K’r’x. The Diver was moving backward into deeper water. In her mind, Lydia heard him say, Human skin feels so odd.

  “No. He and I were on the expedition, but only as hired help.”

  “That’s good, I guess,” the boy said. “Do you know what will happen to us?”

  “The AIs will help your families find another world,” Lydia said. “And you will settle on it.”

  “It won’t be the same,” the girl said.

  That was certainly true. Lydia could think of nothing comforting to say. Change is inevitable? The galaxy is full of planets as lovely as this one? Neither remark seemed useful at the moment.

  K’r’x lifted a tentacle, this one covered with spines, waved farewell to her, and dove.

  RAVEN DREAM

  Robert Reed

  Robert Reed sold his first story in 1986, and quickly established himself as a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Asimoy’s Science Fiction, as well as selling many stories to Science Fiction Age, Universe, New Destinies, Tomorrow Synergy, Starlight, and elsewhere. Reed may be one of the most prolific of today’s young writers, particularly with short fiction, seriously rivaled for that position only by authors such as Stephen Baxter and Brian Stableford. And – also like Baxter and Stableford – he manages to keep up a very high standard of quality while being prolific, something that is not at all easy to do. Reed’s stories such as “Sister Alice,” “Brother Perfect,” “Decency,” “Savior,” “The Remoras,” “Chrysalis,” “Whiptail,” “The Utility Man,” “Marrow,” “Birth Day,” “Blind,” “The Toad of Heaven,” “Stride,” “The Shape of Everything,” “Guest of Honor,” “Waging Good,” and “Killing the Morrow,” among at least a half-dozen others equally as strong, count as among some of the best short work produced by anyone in the ’80s and ’90s. Nor is he non-prolific as a novelist, having turned out eight novels since the end of the ’80s, including The Lee Shore, The Hormone Jungle, Black Milk, The Remarkables, Down the Bright Way, Beyond the Veil of Stars, An Exaltation of Larks, and, most recently, Beneath the Gated Sky. His reputation can only grow as the years go by, and I suspect that he will become one of the Big Names of the first decade of the new century that lies ahead. His stories have appeared in our Ninth through Seventeenth Annual Collections. Some of the best of his short work was collected in The Dragons of Springplace. His most recent book is Marrow, a novel-length version of his 1997 novella of the same name. Reed lives in Lincoln, Nebraska.

  Here’s a fascinating look into a completely different world, closely guarded but fragile as a dream, that exists unsuspected and unnoticed entirely within our own world, surrounded by it, like a bug in amber.

  “NOTHING BUT THE WORLD is real and true,” Grandfather began. His voice was soft, whispery and wise. His eyes were as black as the darkness beneath the good ground. “Everything that does not belong to the world is false and untrue,” he continued. “It is the stuff of spirits.”

  “It is a lie,” Raven continued, knowing the lesson by heart. “Spirit stuff only looks like green grass and white sand.”

  Grandfather smiled at the boy. “Who rules in the spirit realm?”

  “The demons rule it,” Raven answered.

  Then the old man waved his good hand, signifying each of the four winds. “And what do we know about the demons?”

  “They should be feared,” Raven replied.

  Grandfather nodded and said nothing, a crooked smile revealing the last of his yellowed teeth.

  The boy looked at the sky and across the darkened land. Quietly, he mentioned, “The spirit realm must be very large.”

  “It is large. Yes.”

  “And the world is small,” Raven added.

  “Oh, no,” said Grandfather. “The world is plenty huge. It feeds our bellies and our senses, does it not? If a small boy wanders away from home, won’t he lose his way in the world?” Then the old man laughed, adding, “The same as you swallow a grasshopper, the world can swallow you. If you wander off, you will get lost and die without a proper burial, and your miserable soul will never return to the earth.”

  Even smiling, Grandfather was a scary presence.

  “As long as you are a boy,” he continued, “you must remain home. You may not go farther than the river or the sky.”

  “Yes, Grandfather. I know what is allowed.”

  Their home was inside a great hill that stood beside the river. All the world’s water flowed past their feet. The channel was too wide to leap across, and
where the river cut against the hill, it swirled, making a deep, dangerous hole. Even the strongest man respected the water’s power. Raven liked to follow one of the narrow trails down to the river’s lip, and there he would practice hiding as he watched the chill water slide past. Tangles of dead junipers let him vanish. Like any boy in his seventh year, he knew how to remain perfectly still, breathing in secret, blinking only when the pain in his eyes was unbearable. He knew how to watch the world with all of his senses. The sun would fall, pulling the night across the sky, and after a little while, Raven’s brother and uncle and the other men would slip down the trails. They moved downstream, crossing where the river was straight and shallow. What noise they made was hidden by the water sounds. What footprints they made were washed away in moments. Like graceful threads of darkness, the hunters climbed up the far bank, and then Raven’s brother, or maybe his uncle, would look back at him. The boy could hide in many places, but they always knew where he was. Raven didn’t fool them, and they never pretended to be fooled, and for at least one more night, he was still very much the child.

  Afterward, when he couldn’t see them anymore, Raven would put away his sadness and climb to the sky. The world had no higher place. Just past the windy crest, limbless dead trees stood in a perfect line stretching from dawn to dusk. Metal ropes, thin and bright, were strung between the trees. This was the end of the world; everything beyond only pretended to be real. Only a grown man could slip beneath the lowest rope. Only a brave man properly trained and purified could hope to survive that magical realm. Demons were demons, dangerous by any measure; but because they were demons, they also had treasures worth stealing. Two or three times every year, Raven’s uncle – the bravest, holiest man in the world – journeyed alone into the spirit realm. He would be gone for days and days, returning home with a heavy pack jammed full of gifts. Then afterward, Uncle would keep to himself, pretending to be deaf while staring hard at nothing, moving his lips, talking to the demons that were plainly haunting his mind.

  “Why is the world shaped as it is, Grandfather?”

  “Because it is the world, Raven.”

  The boy and old man were sitting on the hilltop, inside a little bowl of packed sand. Raven watched the river move in the moonlight and listened to the constant chittering of insects. A wind was blowing straight from summer. The two of them wore demon clothes decorated with tufts of grass and smudges made with blackened coals. Neither moved, and neither spoke louder than a whisper.

  “Does the world need a reason to have its shape?”

  Raven hesitated, and then he said, “Yes, Grandfather.”

  The old man had a wrinkled face and long hair that had turned white years before Raven was born. When Grandfather was young, a demon had shattered his arm and left it crippled. His old legs were losing their strength. But he was wise. He had experience and a practical nature, and his answers were shaped to serve a purpose. He looked at the boy, and then he sighed and looked back over his shoulder, staring out into the spirit realm. “You are right. All things beg for a shape.”

  The boy nodded and smiled.

  “And the world just happens to have its own shape. Is that too difficult to accept?”

  “No, Grandfather.” Raven used a finger, drawing in the sandy earth. He made a line and another line, marking the borders with winter and summer, and then he drew a curling line between them. He drew the river that he could see from above, and he added what he knew from stories. Each bend of the river had its name. Every waterfall and every rapids were famous. Grown trees had histories worth knowing by heart. Raven was barely in his seventh year, but he knew the world from the stories that were told in the cool dampness of the underground.

  Grandfather watched him, and after a long moment, he took his good hand and finished the drawing. Two more straight lines marked dawn and dusk, cutting across the ends of the river.

  He said, “This is the world.”

  “I know, Grandfather.”

  “You can never doubt its shape.”

  “I know.”

  But instead of dropping the subject, the old man asked, “What would be a better shape? If you were to choose.”

  Raven shrugged, admitting, “I do not know.”

  “Think about it. Think hard.”

  They sat in the darkness, neither speaking. Upriver, the short-hairs were mooing about nothing. One of the demon machines blinked and rumbled as it crossed the sky. Then a buck deer came out of the spirit realm, stopping before the metal ropes to sniff at the wind. When the deer felt safe, it leaped, an easy strength carrying it over the highest rope, black hooves landing in the grass inside the world. Then Raven moved, and the deer spooked, bounding off into the trees.

  But Grandfather did not reprimand him. Instead, he watched the boy draw an enormous circle around the square world. Where they were sitting was the circle’s center. Why that shape seemed right, Raven didn’t know. But it felt right, and he said so.

  Grandfather nodded, and after a moment, he said, “Yes.”

  He said, “This is the shape of the spirit realm,” and he threw his good arm over his grandson. “It is a sign, I think. You knowing this already.”

  “Is it a good sign?” asked the boy.

  “Unless it brings evil,” Grandfather allowed. “Truthfully, it is too early even to guess about such things.”

  Demons looked much like people. They walked on two legs and spoke like real men and women, and they wore clothes and carried all manner of tools. But their walk was a noisy, graceless shamble, and their words came out too fast, twisted around a strange, inhuman tongue. Their clothes were made from stuff not found in the world, and their tools were magical things that could only come from the spirit realm.

  A few demons had names.

  There was Yellow Hair and Cold Stone; but most familiar to Raven was a large, round-faced creature named Blue Clad. Blue Clad was named for his blue trousers and various blue coats. He usually came from dawn riding inside a noisy metal wagon that everyone knew by sound and sight. He usually kept his wagon on the open grass and the smaller hills. Sometimes he cut across what was real, traveling to some other part of the spirit realm. But on other days, Blue Clad brought Yellow Hair and Cold Stone. Working together, the three demons would lead a herd of short-hairs to where the world’s sweet grass waited, or they would fix the metal ropes around the world, or they would take away their fat animals, leaving the grass to grow tall again.

  Most demons didn’t require names. They usually came in summer, riding down the river inside metal bowls. The bowls were long and narrow, gliding easily across the water. A person could hear them from three bends downriver. They were noisy creatures, spanking the water with flat pieces of wood, kicking at the bright metal, talking endlessly and loudly while laughing with their coarse voices, seeing nothing of the beautiful world sliding past their bright, blinded eyes.

  Late one day, four demons appeared on the river.

  It was that next summer. Raven was in his eighth year, almost a man. When Uncle brought word of intruders, the boy set to work with the adults, brushing away footprints and picking up the occasional bit of trash. Then together, the people moved underground. Doors were dragged into place and lowered and sealed. The only light fell through the air holes, and then one of the old demon torches was lit, and people sat in its tired light and waited.

  Only Uncle and Grandfather were outside. When the demons had passed, they would give the signal by pounding their feet.

  A long while passed. Then when the pounding came, it was the wrong signal. Twice and then twice again, someone struck the main door. Raven’s mother helped pull the door open. The darkness outside was bright compared to the darkness underground. Grandfather crawled through, his narrow face smiling but his voice sad and worried. “They are not leaving,” he admitted. “The demons made camp on the far bank.”

  Raven wanted to climb outside and look. But he didn’t move or breathe, watching the old man shuffle down the narrow
passageway. Straightening his back, Grandfather said, “The demons are using our river and our firewood. Your uncle had to leave for a time. I want you to go down there in place of him. Go down and steal a treasure or two. Would you do that for me?”

  “Yes, Grandfather.”

  The old man was speaking to Raven’s brother. Snow-On-Snow was in his twelfth year, which made him a full man. He was taller than his brother, but not by much, and he was famous for his endless caution.

  “Use your night clothes,” Grandfather suggested. “And I have a charm that will help you.”

  “Thank you, Grandfather.”

  Raven said nothing, but a sound leaked from his lips.

  Grandfather turned. He wasn’t even pretending to smile. In the weak light of the demon lamp, he looked angry. But with his calmest voice, he said, “I was going to send you with your brother. But if you can’t control your tongue here, how can we trust you down there?”

  “You can trust me, Grandfather.” Raven dipped his head, and in every way possible, he made no sound.

  A leathery hand touched him on the shoulder.

  “Night clothes,” Grandfather said to him. “And since you are not ready for this duty, I will give you a very powerful charm.”

  But Raven was ready. He slipped back into the little chamber where he kept his few possessions, and in the blackness, by feel alone, he found the black demon clothes and black mask that would cover him completely. They were old clothes that still smelled of their long-ago owners. That enhanced their power. When Raven was dressed, he came into the main tunnel. Everyone was waiting for him. Snow-On-Snow was speaking to the charm around his neck, begging for its help. Grandfather handed Raven an owl foot with owl feathers tied to the bone, the wing of a bat wrapped around everything. Raven pretended to speak to the charm, but only because the others were watching. Then he tucked it inside his black shirt and looked at the staring faces.