The Year's Best Science Fiction: Eighteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  One day late in Roz’s practicum, Eva called her to the Fabrication research lab. Roz realized that it was not an accident that the last stop on her practicum tour was Fabrication, and the last stop at Fabrication was research, Eva’s own area. Roz had a sudden dread that Eva knew something, that ever since the festival she had been setting a trap, which was about to spring.

  Like the biotech lab that her father worked in, in the interests of preventing contamination Eva’s nanotech lab was separated from the colony. At the end of the northwest lava tube, Roz suited up and passed through a lock onto the surface. It was months since Carey’s disappearance, and full night now. Mars and Jupiter were no longer visible; Venus shone brightly on the horizon. She followed a string of lights to the lab, entered, and pulled off her suit.

  Eva met her at the check-in. “Thank you for coming, Roz. Come with me. I want to show you the Quantum Nondestructive Scanner Array.”

  The QNSA lab was the largest in the facility. The scanner looked like nothing so much as a huge blue marble, the size of an elephant, divided at the equator. Eva had the technicians lift the upper hemisphere to expose the target area. “What we do here is pull a fast one on the universe. We bypass the uncertainty principle on the sub-atomic level by measuring test subjects at below the Planck-Wheeler length.”

  “I don’t know that much physics,” Roz said.

  Eva put her arm around Roz’s shoulder. Despite the affectionate gesture, she was not smiling. “We’ve made huge strides in the past six months.”

  “What’s it for?”

  “There are a hundred purposes—some of them quite revolutionary. On the most basic level, if we can scan to sufficient accuracy, and if the assembler team can succeed in producing a programmable assembler that can use the scan—then we will have created the most flexible manufacturing system in history. Any object we scan could be duplicated in the assembler.”

  “Isn’t that expensive?”

  “Smart girl. Yes, it is very expensive—of technology, energy, and time. It doesn’t make economic sense to use a system like this to manufacture simple things, like, say, an electric motor. That would be like running an MRI to check whether there’s gum in your pocket. But for more complicated things—organic compounds, for instance—it holds fascinating possibilities. Let me show you something.”

  She took Roz into a side room separated from the lab by a large window. In the corner was a refrigerator. From it Eva took out two apples. She handed them to Roz. “What do you think of these?”

  Roz looked them over. They were the same size, the same shape. Both felt cool in her palms. In fact, they felt exactly alike. She looked at them more closely. There was a spray of freckles near the stem of the apple in her right held the other next to it, turned it until they were in the same position. An identical spray of freckles marked the second apple. “They’re the same.”

  “Yes. Now compare this.” Eva pulled a third apple from the refrigerator. This one was past its prime; its skin was darker and softer, and it smelled sweet. Yet it had exactly the same pattern of freckles as the other two.

  “All three of these apples were assembled from the same quantum scan. We scanned the original apple six months ago. These two apples were assembled from the QNSA yesterday, the other a week ago. If we load the right raw materials into the assembler, we can create as many identical apples as we like.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “Yes. It’s too expensive a way to make apples, though. In fact, there aren’t many things that would justify the expense of reproduction by QNSA.”

  Eva took the apples back. She put the old one and one of the new ones back into the refrigerator. Then she polished the third on her sleeve and took a bite of it. Chewing, she handed it to Roz. “Try it.”

  Roz took a bite. It tasted crisp and tart. Another lab worker came in and got a squeeze bottle out of the refrigerator. He nodded to Eva, smiled at Roz, and went out.

  “I hoped at first that I might get over the loss of Carey,” Eva said. She looked through the window at the big blue marble. “I told myself that he was only one person, that we all die eventually, that it was his recklessness that had killed him and I never wanted him to be other than he was.” She brushed the back of her hand against her eye. “But a son is not supposed to die before his mother. Everything looks different afterward. It’s all just a collection of atoms.”

  Eva turned to Roz. “How does the apple taste?”

  “Good.”

  “I’m glad. Now, Roz, I want to tell you what I’m going to do. It’s something that no one’s ever done before. Because of that it’s not a crime yet, but if it doesn’t become so common as to be ordinary in the future, I’m sure it will become a crime.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Some months ago, the project had reached a stage where we could scan a living organism. We scanned several guinea pigs, even a sheep. One night, while the lab was empty, I brought Carey here and scanned him.

  “I’ve been waiting until we worked the bugs out of the assembler. Three days ago we recreated one of the guinea pigs from a four-month-old scan. Do you know what that means?”

  Roz held her breath. “I think so.”

  “If that guinea pig suffers no aftereffects, I am going to reconstitute Carey. I want you to help me.”

  The sky opened up and a torrent of pure joy shot down to fill Roz up. She could not believe it. She hugged Eva, buried her head against the tall woman’s breast. It was a miracle. It was the way out.

  FIRE

  Nematodes made up most of the animal life on earth, by mass, Jack reminded himself. They were everywhere. The number of parasitic varieties was minuscule compared to the beneficial ones. Nothing to worry about.

  But his hands itched. And his skin burned.

  It had not taken Jack long to cut up Carey’s body, run it through the reduction chamber, mince the remains in the crusher and mix them into the project soil. He had hosed down the crusher and the floor of the lab. Fire, earth, water. Within a week there was nothing left of Carey but his elemental chemicals in the dirt.

  Still, images of Carey were imprinted on the inside of Jack’s eyelids. I’m a freakshow, he thought a dozen times each day, climbing down the slope to the crater floor, pruning seedlings in the greenhouse, sitting on the edge of the pool in Sobieski Park. Lying in bed with Eva. I’m a lethal male in a society constructed to prevent males from going lethal. I didn’t even know it was happening. I’m a fucking maniac and no one can tell.

  No one had noticed anything—at least he didn’t think they had. He had a tough afternoon the day they transferred the test soil to the pilot project site on Fowler’s east slope. He insisted that he amend the soil himself, plant the junipers with his own hands. He wore protective gloves. When Amravati said something about it, he replied quickly, “Don’t want to take a chance with these new bugs.”

  “If there are any bugs we don’t know about, then we’re all in trouble,” she said.

  The seedlings flourished. Growth rates were elevated as much as 15 percent. Within three months the project had progressed enough to schedule a tour by the Board of Matrons. Eva and the others strolled over the slopes among the low, fragrant growth. As Eva walked over the ground that contained all that was left of her only son, a wave of heat swept over Jack. His face felt flushed; his forehead burned.

  The Board approved the project. The next week they voted Amravati a commendation, with special notice of Jack’s contribution. “If you don’t watch out, Jack, you’re going to get stuck here,” Hal Keikosson said.

  “What?” he said.

  Hal smiled at him. “I mean you’re becoming a Cousin, cousin.”

  A Cousin on the outside, a stranger within. There were lots of difficult aspects to the aftermath of Carey’s death, among them the problem of Eva. For example, despite the fact that, during the search, he had saved Eva’s life out on the edge of the precipice, it was impossible for him to touch her in bed
. He had discovered how much her eyes were like Carey’s. Lying beside her at night, hands burning, pretending to sleep until he heard Eva’s faint snore, and pretending to sleep after that for fear of waking her, Jack felt more alone than he had since he was five years old. One night he heard Eva stir beside him, rise up on one elbow, and watch him. He heard her whisper, “I’m sorry. I can do better.” What did she have to feel sorry about? How could she possibly be asking his forgiveness?

  The colony clinic prescribed a salve for his skin that did nothing but make him smell like sulfur. I’m the lunar Mephistopheles, he thought. He resorted to magic: If some part of Carey was coming back to torment Jack, maybe bringing Carey home would mollify his ghost. Jack potted one of the junipers and set it up on their balcony. He fed Eva lettuce from the greenhouse to see what effect it would have on her. It made her suggest that Roz should move out.

  Roz. That was the worst thing, the absolute worst. Jack was stunned that Roz had so readily put herself at risk to save him. Though it was, at some level he had difficulty admitting, immensely gratifying, and removed any doubt he had ever had that she loved him, now he could not look at Roz the same way. He was in debt to his daughter, and like a boulder that they were both chained to, that debt stood between them at every moment.

  When Roz started her practicum in Fabrication, she began to spend more time with Eva. Jack watched them joke together as they sat in the apartment and went over the steps in the manufacture of building glass. Their heads were so close together, Roz’s red hair and Eva’s brown. The skirl of Roz’s silly, high-pitched giggle, for some reason, made him want to cry.

  “You laugh too much,” he said.

  They looked up at him, dead silent, identical astonishment on their faces.

  “Can’t you keep quiet?” he said.

  “Sorry, Dad,” Roz muttered. “I didn’t know I wasn’t allowed to laugh.” She pushed the tablet away from her. “I have something I need to tell you.”

  Jack tried to keep the panic out of his voice. “What’s that?”

  “I think I’m going to move out. There’s an apartment that Raisa and I can move into opening up in the old section of the south wall.”

  “Raisa? I thought you didn’t even like her.”

  “I think I was just projecting; she’s really a good person. She’s never mean.”

  Jack wanted to argue, but was intimidated by Eva’s presence. Eva had put this idea in Roz’s head. “Come with me,” he said to Roz. “We’ll take a walk. Do you mind, Eva? We need to talk this over father to daughter.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Roz looked sullen, but she came with him. They descended from the apartment, down the pathway toward the crater floor. The inside of the dome was a brilliant cloudless sky. On the field below them a harvester sprayed soybeans into a hopper truck. “Is this because of Carey?” Jack asked.

  Roz crossed her arms over his chest and looked at her feet. “I don’t want to talk about Carey,” she said.

  “You know it was an accident, Roz, I—”

  She bounced on her toes and leaped five feet into the air, coming down well ahead of him. A woman going the other way looked at her and smiled. Jack hurried to catch up.

  Roz still wouldn’t look at him. “I will not talk about Carey, Dad. This isn’t about him. I’m fourteen, and a Cousins girl at fourteen who won’t leave home is sick.” She bounced again.

  He didn’t know what to say. He knew she was lying, that it had to have something to do with Carey. But he wasn’t going to beg.

  “You’re going to tell Eva the truth,” he said when he caught up.

  “Don’t be stupid!” Roz said. “I’ve given up too much for this. I don’t want to move again.”

  Stupid. How stupid he had been to come here. “I brought you here to keep us from drifting apart.”

  “Dad, did you think I was going to be with you forever?”

  He rubbed his palms up and down his forearms, but that only made the itching worse. “Will you call me?”

  “I’ll see you every day.”

  Jack stopped following her. Roz continued down the path toward Sobieski Park, and did not look back.

  “What do you think, Carey?” he whispered aloud as he watched his daughter walk away. “Is this one of those Earth things? One of those sexual ownership practices?”

  Jack tried to imagine what it would be like to be alone with Eva in one of the largest apartments in the colony. Perhaps it would not be so bad. He could plant a dozen junipers on the balcony. He could prepare all their meals. Hell, he could bring in a bed of Carey’s soil and sleep in it.

  He began meeting Jamira Tamlasdaughter in the sauna at the gym. They would claim one of the private alcoves and fuck. The heat of the sauna made him forget his burning skin. There was nothing wrong with it. There was nothing right about it. Roz was always out. Eva stayed away even longer at the labs, sometimes not coming back at night until he was asleep. The mysterious absences grew until one night it had been a full twenty-four hours since Jack had last seen either Eva or Roz. It was fertile ground for worry. Someone had found Carey’s pressure suit. Roz had not hidden it well enough, and now she was in trouble. Or Eva had tricked her into an admission. She had broken down, given in to guilt.

  His phone rang. He touched the contact on his wristward.

  “Dad? Can you meet me at Fabrication Research?”

  Roz’s voice was charged with excitement. He hadn’t heard her sound so young in months. “What is it, Roz?”

  “You won’t believe it. All our troubles are over! We’re resurrecting Carey!”

  “What?”

  “The assembler. I can’t tell you more now, someone might hear. Come at 0300. If anyone asks, tell them that you’re going somewhere else.”

  “Is Eva there?”

  “Yes. I’ve got to go now. See you at 0300.”

  “Roz—”

  He felt sick. Resurrecting Carey? Roz must have told Eva what had happened.

  Still, what could he do but go? Jack paced the rooms for hours. He left after somatic midnight. The perimeter road to the north airlock was quiet; there was a slight breeze, a hum of insects around the lights. He told the lock attendant that he was going to biotech.

  When he sealed up his suit he felt he could not breathe. He checked the readouts repeatedly, but despite the evidence that nothing was wrong, he felt stifled. Sweat trickled down his neck into his collar.

  Outside the sun hammered down and the glare of the baked surface hid the stars. He upped the polarization on his faceplate, but still his eyes hurt. He followed the road from the airlock, between the fields of solar collectors, to the ramp entrance to the Fabrication Research Lab. He passed through the radiation maze, opened the outer door of the lab airlock. When he stripped off his suit his shirt was soaked with sweat. He wiped his arm across his brow, ran his fingers through his sweaty hair. He waited. He did not open the inner door.

  And if, by some miracle, they did re-create Carey? Roz said that all their troubles would be over. They could go back to who they were.

  Fat chance. He had hoped that coming to the Society would offer Roz a freedom that he could not earn for her on Earth. No one on the Moon knew him. And even if he did fail again, among the Cousins a father’s faults would not determine how others saw his daughter. Roz could be herself, not some reflection of him.

  As he stood there, poised before the inner lock door, he had a sudden memory of Helen, on their honeymoon. On the beach at St. Kitts. Helen had surprised him by wearing a new bikini, so small that when she pulled off her shorts and T-shirt she was clearly self-conscious. But proud, in some way. He remembered feeling protective of her, and puzzled, and a little sorry. It hit him for the first time that she was fighting her body for his attention, and how sad that must be for her—on the one hand to know she had this power over him that came simply from her sexuality, and on the other that she, Helen, was someone completely apart from that body that drew him like a magnet.
For a moment he had seen himself from outside. He’d been ashamed of his own sexuality, and the way it threatened to deform their relationship. Who was she, really? Who was he?

  At the time he had taken her in his arms, smiled, complimented her. He had felt sure that with time, they would know each other completely. How pathetic. After the break-up, he had at least thought that he could know his daughter. That was why he wanted Roz—to love someone without sex coming in the way. To love someone without caring about himself.

  How stupid he had been. Whether they’d come or not, inevitably she would have seen him differently, or been destroyed by trying not to. Whether he’d killed Carey or not, Roz would have to fight to escape the mirror he held up to her.

  With a sick feeling in his gut, he realized he had lost his daughter.

  He was so hot. He was burning up. He shut his eyes and tried not to see or hear anything, but there was a roaring in his ears like a turbulent storm, and his eyes burned and flashed like lightning.

  He would feel better if he went outside. Instead of opening the inner door, he put his pressure suit back on and opened the outside door. It was bright and hot out on the surface—but in the shadows of the rocks it would be cool. He stepped out of the shadow of the radiation baffle, up the ramp to the dusty surface. Instead of following the path back to the colony, he struck off between the rows of solar collectors toward a giant boulder that loomed on the horizon. As he walked, on his sleeve keyboard he punched in the override code for his suit’s pressure failsafes.

  By the time he had reached the chill shadow of the rock, all that remained between him and relief was the manual helmet release. He reached up to his neck and felt for the latch. He was so hot. He was burning up. But soon he would be cool again.

  HAPPY ENDING

  When the indicators showed the airlock was occupied, they waited for Jack to enter the lab. Instead, after a few minutes the outer lock of the airlock opened and he left again. Roz was worried.