The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New SF

by Gardner Dozois

  “I could live with that,” said David calmly, opening his menu.

  The waiter took our orders. We sat for a moment in a companionable silence, the self-congratulation that follows ordering high-fiber foodstuffs. Then I told them the story of my encounter with Harry Winthrop.

  “There’s something wrong with me,” I said. “Why suck his blood? What good is that supposed to do me?”

  “Well,” said David, “you chose this schedule of treatments. Where did you want it to go?”

  “According to the catalog,” I said, “the No. 2 Insect Option is supposed to make me into a successful competitor for a middle-management niche, with triggerable responses that can be useful in gaining entry to upper hierarchical levels. Unquote.” Of course, that was just ad talk – I didn’t really expect it to do all that. “That’s what I want. I want to be in charge. I want to be the boss.”

  “Maybe you should go back to BioEngineering and try again,” said Greg. “Sometimes the hormones don’t do what you expect. Look at my tongue, for instance.” He unfurled it gently and rolled it back into his mouth. “Though I’m sort of getting to like it.” He sucked at his drink, making disgusting slurping sounds. He didn’t need a straw.

  “Don’t bother with it, Margaret,” said David firmly, taking a cup of rosehip tea from the waiter. “Bioengineering is a waste of time and money and millions of years of evolution. If human beings were intended to be managers, we’d have evolved pin-striped body covering.”

  “That’s cleverly put,” I said, “but it’s dead wrong.”

  The waiter brought our lunches, and we stopped talking as he put them in front of us. It seemed like the anticipatory silence of three very hungry people, but was in fact the polite silence of three people who have been brought up not to argue in front of disinterested bystanders. As soon as he left, we resumed the discussion.

  “I mean it,” David said. “The dubious survival benefits of management aside, bioengineering is a waste of effort. Harry Winthrop, for instance, doesn’t need B-E at all. Here he is, fresh out of business school, audibly buzzing with lust for a high-level management position. Basically he’s just marking time until a presidency opens up somewhere. And what gives him the edge over you is his youth and inexperience, not some specialized primate adaptation.”

  “Well,” I said with some asperity, “he’s not constrained by a knowledge of what’s failed in the past, that’s for sure. But saying that doesn’t solve my problem, David. Harry’s signed up. I’ve signed up. The changes are under way and I don’t have any choice.”

  I squeezed a huge glob of honey into my tea from a plastic bottle shaped like a teddy bear. I took a sip of the tea; it was minty and very sweet. “And now I’m turning into the wrong kind of insect. It’s ruined my ability to deal with Product Marketing.”

  “Oh, give it a rest!” said Greg suddenly. “This is so boring. I don’t want to hear any more about corporate hugger-mugger. Let’s talk about something that’s fun.”

  I had had enough of Greg’s lepidopterate lack of concentration. “Something that’s fun? I’ve invested all my time and most of my genetic material in this job. This is all the goddamn fun there is.”

  The honeyed tea made me feel hot. My stomach itched – I wondered if I was having an allergic reaction. I scratched, and not discreetly. My hand came out from under my shirt full of little waxy scales. What the hell was going on under there? I tasted one of the scales; it was wax all right. Worker bee changes? I couldn’t help myself – I stuffed the wax into my mouth.

  David was busying himself with his alfalfa sprouts, but Greg looked disgusted. “That’s gross, Margaret,” he said. He made a face, sticking his tongue part way out. Talk about gross. “Can’t you wait until after lunch?”

  I was doing what came naturally, and did not dignify his statement with a response. There was a side dish of bee pollen on the table. I took a spoonful and mixed it with the wax, chewing noisily. I’d had a rough morning, and bickering with Greg wasn’t making the day more pleasant.

  Besides, neither he nor David has any real respect for my position in the company. Greg doesn’t take my job seriously at all. And David simply does what he wants to do, regardless of whether it makes any money, for himself or anyone else. He was giving me a back-to-nature lecture, and it was far too late for that.

  This whole lunch was a waste of time. I was tired of listening to them, and felt an intense urge to get back to work. A couple of quick stings distracted them both: I had the advantage of surprise. I ate some more honey and quickly waxed them over. They were soon hibernating side by side in two large octagonal cells.

  I looked around the restaurant. People were rather nervously pretending not to have noticed. I called the waiter over and handed him my credit card. He signaled to several busboys, who brought a covered cart and took Greg and David away. “They’ll eat themselves out of that by Thursday afternoon,” I told him. “Store them on their sides in a warm, dry place, away from direct heat.” I left a large tip.

  I walked back to the office, feeling a bit ashamed of myself. A couple days of hibernation weren’t going to make Greg or David more sympathetic to my problems. And they’d be real mad when they got out.

  I didn’t use to do things like that. I used to be more patient, didn’t I? More appreciative of the diverse spectrum of human possibility. More interested in sex and television.

  This job was not doing much for me as a warm, personable human being. At the very least, it was turning me into an unpleasant lunch companion. Whatever had made me think I wanted to get into management anyway?

  The money, maybe.

  But that wasn’t all. It was the challenge, the chance to do something new, to control the total effort instead of just doing part of a project. . . .

  The money too, though. There were other ways to get money. Maybe I should just kick the supports out from under the damn job and start over again.

  I saw myself sauntering into Tom’s office, twirling his visitor’s chair around and falling into it. The words “I quit” would force their way out, almost against my will. His face would show surprise – feigned, of course. By then I’d have to go through with it. Maybe I’d put my feet up on his desk. And then –

  But was it possible to just quit, to go back to being the person I used to be? No, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I’d never be a management virgin again.

  I walked up to the employee entrance at the rear of the building. A suction device next to the door sniffed at me, recognized my scent, and clicked the door open. Inside, a group of new employees, trainees, were clustered near the door, while a personnel officer introduced them to the lock and let it familiarize itself with their pheromones.

  On the way down the hall, I passed Tom’s office. The door was open. He was at his desk, bowed over some papers, and looked up as I went by.

  “Ah, Margaret,” he said. “Just the person I want to talk to. Come in for a minute, would you.” He moved a large file folder onto the papers in front of him on his desk, and folded his hands on top of them. “So glad you were passing by.” He nodded toward a large, comfortable chair. “Sit down.”

  “We’re going to be doing a bit of restructuring in the department,” he began, “and I’ll need your input, so I want to fill you in now on what will be happening.”

  I was immediately suspicious. Whenever Tom said “I’ll need your input,” he meant everything was decided already.

  “We’ll be reorganizing the whole division, of course,” he continued, drawing little boxes on a blank piece of paper. He’d mentioned this at the department meeting last week.

  “Now, your group subdivides functionally into two separate areas, wouldn’t you say?”

  “Well – ”

  “Yes,” he said thoughtfully, nodding his head as though in agreement. “That would be the way to do it.” He added a few lines and a few more boxes. From what I could see, it meant that Harry would do all the interesting stuff and I’d sweep up afte
rwards.

  “Looks to me as if you’ve cut the balls out of my area and put them over into Harry Winthrop’s,” I said.

  “Ah, but your area is still very important, my dear. That’s why I don’t have you actually reporting to Harry.” He gave me a smile like a lie.

  He had put me in a tidy little bind. After all, he was my boss. If he was going to take most of my area away from me, as it seemed he was, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. And I would be better off if we both pretended that I hadn’t experienced any loss of status. That way I kept my title and my salary.

  “Oh, I see.” I said. “Right.”

  It dawned on me that this whole thing had been decided already, and that Harry Winthrop probably knew all about it. He’d probably even wangled a raise out of it. Tom had called me in here to make it look casual, to make it look as though I had something to say about it. I’d been set up.

  This made me mad. There was no question of quitting now. I’d stick around and fight. My eyes blurred, unfocused, refocused again. Compound eyes! The promise of the small comb in my hand was fulfilled! I felt a deep chemical understanding of the ecological system I was now a part of. I knew where I fit in. And I knew what I was going to do. It was inevitable now, hardwired in at the DNA level.

  The strength of this conviction triggered another change in the chitin, and for the first time I could actually feel the rearrangement of my mouth and nose, a numb tickling like inhaling seltzer water. The stiletto receded and mandibles jutted forth, rather like Katharine Hepburn. Form and function achieved an orgasmic synchronicity. As my jaw pushed forward, mantis-like, it also opened, and I pounced on Tom and bit his head off.

  He leaped from his desk and danced headless about the office.

  I felt in complete control of myself as I watched him and continued the conversation. “About the Model 2000 launch,” I said. “If we factor in the demand for pipeline throughout and adjust the media mix just a bit, I think we can present a very tasty little package to Product Marketing by the end of the week.”

  Tom continued to strut spasmodically, making vulgar copulative motions. Was I responsible for evoking these mantid reactions? I was unaware of a sexual component in our relationship.

  I got up from the visitor’s chair and sat behind his desk, thinking about what had just happened. It goes without saying that I was surprised at my own actions. I mean, irritable is one thing, but biting people’s heads off is quite another. But I have to admit that my second thought was, well, this certainly is a useful strategy, and should make a considerable difference in my ability to advance myself. Hell of a lot more productive than sucking people’s blood.

  Maybe there was something after all to Tom’s talk about having the proper attitude.

  And, of course, thinking of Tom, my third reaction was regret. He really had been a likeable guy, for the most part. But what’s done is done, you know, and there’s no use chewing on it after the fact.

  I buzzed his assistant on the intercom. “Arthur,” I said, “Mr. Samson and I have come to an evolutionary parting of the ways. Please have him re-engineered. And charge it to Personnel.”

  Now I feel an odd itching on my forearms and thighs. Notches on which I might fiddle a song?

  KIRINYAGA

  Mike Resnick

  Mike Resnick is one of the best-selling authors in science fiction, and one of the most prolific. His many novels include Santiago, The Dark Lady, Stalking the Unicorn, Birthright: The Book of Man, Paradise, Ivory, Soothsayer, Oracle, Lucifer Jones, Purgatory, Inferno, A Miracle of Rare Design, The Widowmaker, The Soul Eater, and A Hunger in the Soul. His award-winning short fiction has been gathered in the collections Will the Last Person to Leave the Planet Please Turn Off the Sun?, An Alien Land, Kirinyaga, A Safari of the Mind, and Hunting the Snark and Other Short Novels. In the last decade or so, he has become almost as prolific as an anthologist, producing, as editor, Inside the Funhouse: 17 SF Stories about SF, Whatdunits, More Whatdunits, and Shaggy B.E.M Stories, and a long string of anthologies co-edited with Martin H. Greenberg – Alternate Presidents, Alternate Kennedys, Alternate Warriors, Aladdin: Master of the Lamp, Dinosaur Fantastic, By Any Other Fame, Alternate Outlaws, and Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, among others – as well as two anthologies co-edited with Gardner Dozois. He won the Hugo Award in 1989 for “Kirinyaga,” the story that follows. He won another Hugo Award in 1991 for another story in the Kirinyaga series, “The Manumouki,” and another Hugo and Nebula in 1995 for his novella “Seven Views of Olduvai Gorge.” His most recent books include the novel The Return of Santiago, and the anthologies Stars: Songs Inspired by the Songs of Janis Ian (edited with Janis Ian), and New Voices in Science Fiction. His stories have appeared in our Third, Fourth, Sixth, Eighth, Tenth and Thirteenth annual collections. He lives with his wife, Carol, in Cincinnati, Ohio.

  The “Kirinyaga” series, taking place on an orbital space-colony that has been remade in the image of ancient Kenya as a utopian experiment (the stories have been gathered in the collection Kirinyaga), has been one of the most talked-about and controversial series in the recent history of science fiction. This, the very first story of the sequence and still one of the best, reminds us that although we like to compliment ourselves, rather smugly, on the brightness and rationality of our tidy, shiny modern world, the Old Ways still exist – and maybe always will.

  IN THE BEGINNING, Ngai lived alone atop the mountain called Kirinyaga. In the fullness of time He created three sons, who became the fathers of the Masai, the Kamba, and the Kikuyu races, and to each son He offered a spear, a bow, and a digging-stick. The Masai chose the spear, and was told to tend herds on the vast savannah. The Kamba chose the bow, and was sent to the dense forests to hunt for game. But Gikuyu, the first Kikuyu, knew that Ngai loved the earth and the seasons, and chose the digging-stick. To reward him for this Ngai not only taught him the secrets of the seed and the harvest, but gave him Kirinyaga, with its holy fig tree and rich lands.

  The sons and daughters of Gikuyu remained on Kirinyaga until the white man came and took their lands away, and even when the white man had been banished they did not return, but chose to remain in the cities, wearing Western clothes and using Western machines and living Western lives. Even I, who am a mundumugu – a witch doctor – was born in the city. I have never seen the lion or the elephant or the rhinoceros, for all of them were extinct before my birth; nor have I seen Kirinyaga as Ngai meant it to be seen, for a bustling, overcrowded city of three million inhabitants covers its slopes, every year approaching closer and closer to Ngai’s throne at the summit. Even the Kikuyu have forgotten its true name, and now know it only as Mount Kenya.

  To be thrown out of Paradise, as were the Christian Adam and Eve, is a terrible fate, but to live beside a debased Paradise is infinitely worse. I think about them frequently, the descendants of Gikuyu who have forgotten their origin and their traditions and are now merely Kenyans, and I wonder why more of them did not join with us when we created the utopian world of Kirinyaga.

  True, it is a harsh life, for Ngai never meant life to be easy; but it is also a satisfying life. We live in harmony with our environment, we offer sacrifices when Ngai’s tears of compassion fall upon our fields and give sustenance to our crops, we slaughter a goat to thank him for the harvest.

  Our pleasures are simple: a gourd of pombe to drink, the warmth of a boma when the sun has gone down, the wail of a newborn son or daughter, the footraces and spear-throwing and other contests, the nightly singing and dancing.

  Maintenance watches Kirinyaga discreetly, making minor orbital adjustments when necessary, assuring that our tropical climate remains constant. From time to time they have subtly suggested that we might wish to draw upon their medical expertise, or perhaps allow our children to make use of their educational facilities, but they have taken our refusal with good grace, and have never shown any desire to interfere in our affairs.

  Until I strangled the baby.

  It was less than a
n hour later that Koinnage, our paramount chief, sought me out.

  “That was an unwise thing to do, Koriba,” he said grimly.

  “It was not a matter of choice,” I replied. “You know that.”

  “Of course you had a choice,” he responded. “You could have let the infant live.” He paused, trying to control his anger and his fear. “Maintenance has never set foot on Kirinyaga before, but now they will come.”

  “Let them,” I said with a shrug. “No law has been broken.”

  “We have killed a baby,” he replied. “They will come, and they will revoke our charter!”

  I shook my head. “No one will revoke our charter.”

  “Do not be too certain of that, Koriba,” he warned me. “You can bury a goat alive, and they will monitor us and shake their heads and speak contemptuously among themselves about our religion. You can leave the aged and the infirm out for the hyenas to eat, and they will look upon us with disgust and call us godless heathens. But I tell you that killing a newborn infant is another matter. They will not sit idly by; they will come.”

  “If they do, I shall explain why I killed it,” I replied calmly.

  “They will not accept your answers,” said Koinnage. “They will not understand.”

  “They will have no choice but to accept my answers,” I said. “This is Kirinyaga, and they are not permitted to interfere.”

  “They will find a way,” he said with an air of certainty. “We must apologize and tell them that it will not happen again.”

  “We will not apologize,” I said sternly. “Nor can we promise that it will not happen again.”

  “Then, as paramount chief, I will apologize.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, then shrugged. “Do what you must do,” I said.

  Suddenly I could see the terror in his eyes.

  “What will you do to me?” he asked fearfully.

  “I? Nothing at all,” I said. “Are you not my chief?” As he relaxed, I added: “But if I were you, I would beware of insects.”