The Year's Best Science Fiction: Fifteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  I shrugged and stood straight.

  Indian finished his cigarette and put the still-glowing butt into the back pocket of his jeans. He carefully gathered all the ash in his hand into a neat pile, then brushed his hands together and scattered the ash all over the floor.

  Bob stood. He was well over six feet and two hundred pounds, and all of it muscle. Steve and I made Bob look short. The three of us formed up next to Indian and made a living wall. Rose huddled behind us.

  Indian looked up, his eyes bleary.

  "Yep, yeah, Sai- was my friend."

  "We know, Indian. We know."

  He stepped back. We stepped forward. Without any contact we did a slow dance to move him toward the door and out of the house.

  "So, you and Teddy Wahford been running any races lately with your town cars?" Bob asked. He tried to keep Indian's mind occupied while we got him out of the house.

  "Hell, no. Teddy's golf cart can't keep up with me," Indian said. He laughed. Two more steps closer to the door. "He's too damn slow."

  "You take the blade off your town car, Indian?" I asked. Two more steps. "Yep, yeah, I had to," Indian said. He laughed again, his voice deep and thick with mucus. "Too much rock going' into windows. Had to take it off."

  "You go faster with the blade off?"

  "Slower. Don't know why. Maybe I'll put it back if Teddy gets a fresh charge in his cart."

  Finally, the door.

  "Yep, yeah, Sam was my buddy," Indian said. He looked up at us again. "You think he left me anything in his will?"

  "Good-bye, Indian."

  He pushed through the door and went outside, back into what was now a mix of freezing rain and snow. Rose watched through the window as Indian got on his town car and pulled the starter cord.

  Roaarrr

  He drove off down the gravel road. "That's a riding lawn mower," Rose said flatly. Bob grinned.

  "Oh, no. That's Indian's town car."

  Indian slid out of sight around a corner and past a stand of trees. The engine sound dwindled. The phone rang.

  I picked it up, and it was Indian.

  "Hey, big bastard, I forgot to tell you something," he said, his voice barely audible above the roar of his engine and the crackle of cellular phone static. "There's something asking for you in the pool hall."

  "Something. What's something?"

  "Damned if I know what it is. But it's not part of any Summit line and the boys and girls got a little liquor in 'em. Whatever that thing is, if you want it to stay in one piece, you might want to get on down there."

  "Jesus, Indian, thanks for telling me right away," I said sarcastically. Now I was angry. "We don't need any trouble with someone from the flats who got up here by accident. You get yourself in there and tell everyone to calm down. I'm coming straight down."

  "What if the stranger isn't from our line?"

  "Then tell everyone that as far as I'm concerned, that stranger is associated until I get down there. And if the stranger gets hurt before I get there, then someone else is going to get hurt after I get there. Got it?"

  "Done," he said. "Don't take long."

  The phone went dead.

  Sam's Pool Hall faced on Main Street, directly across from the bank, in what I always thought of as some kind of weird commentary on the divine and profane of commerce. A blue and red neon Hamm's sign flashed in the window. I stepped up onto the landing, gave my boots a quick pass on the metal edge of the mudscraper to knock off the worst of the mud, and opened the door. Memories hit me like a sledgehammer.

  Along the right wall were a dozen heavy oak chairs with high backs and broad armrests, like a king's throne. The wood was dark, almost black, and worn to fit by fifty years of use. The chairs were chained firmly together and then bolted to the wall so no one could take them down and use them in a fight. They smelled of stale beer and moonshine and furniture polish.

  Pink sawdust was scattered across the floor and piled up a couple of inches deep against the feet of the two pool tables that dominated the center of the room. There they squatted, the leather cups worn and cracked, the green felt tight and shiny, one in line behind the other down the middle of the room. A single lamp with cheap imitation. Tiffany glass and a huge light bulb hung over each table. Wire, with scoring disks strung along it like beads on a necklace, stretched taut high in the air above and across each table. The only way to move the disks was to reach up and push them with a pool cue.

  The rack with the pool cues and the stretcher and the spare set of balls was tucked behind the bar, out of reach of anyone in search of a quick weapon to settle an argument. The bar was Sam's pride and joy.

  It was thirty straight feet of dark wood that looked like it was carved out of a single tree trunk. A brass step rod, always polished until it shone, ran along the bottom of the bar. A wall-length mirror, the bottom obscured by rows of half-full liquor bottles, covered the left wall itself.

  Chuck stood behind the bar. He'd worked for Sam as a bartender as far back as I could remember, and he never seemed to get any older. Now he held a skullknocker club as shiny and polished as his bald head, and faced the rear of the pool hall with a bored look on his face. When the door opened and I came in he glanced at me briefly, and then pointed with his chin toward the rear of the pool hall.

  Indian was in the back at a table, a long-neck beer in his hand and a smile on his face. When he saw me he wiped the smile off and tried to look serious.

  Foremost faced three drunks, two men and a woman. He was in a low crouch, his cowl pushed back, his snout forward, his hands relaxed and up. As I watched him I saw his claws flicker in and out.

  The drunk woman held a knife, some kind of a slip blade, in her right hand. As I watched she pulled a feint, flipped the knife into her left hand, and slashed. Foremost caught the blade in his robe, whipped it away almost contemptuously, and struck her quickly on the shoulder.

  She spun around, staggered, and kept her footing. She got a stubborn look on her face, glanced around quickly, and started for Indian's bottle. He got a protective look on his face and began to push his chair back, away from her.

  "No way, Dove," he said. He held the bottle away from her. "No breaking bottles in the pool hall. You know Sam's rules. You can't use this anyway. I'm not done with it. No way-"

  "What the hell is going on here?" I shouted in my best parade sergeant voice.

  Everyone froze.

  I reached over the bar, took Chuck's club, and tapped it lightly in my hand as I walked to the end of the bar. Indian quickly stood and arranged himself behind me.

  Dove and the two other drunks looked up at me and said nothing. Foremost straightened out of his crouch and stood silently.

  "Chuck!" I shouted, my eyes locked on Dove's. "Give my friends here a beer."

  Three beers later I had Dove and her friends sitting down at a table. Another round later, including one for Indian and one for me, and a crème de menthe for Foremost, and we were all best friends.

  "Hell, we never knew he was with you, Tony," Dove said. She spilled half the beer down her throat and half down her chin. She wiped her lips with her sleeve. I motioned to Chuck to bring her another beer. "We just thought he didn't look like he was part of a line. We thought we'd have a little fun with him."

  "Well, you were right," I told Dove soothingly. "It's important to watch for things like that, just in case flatlanders show up. And he's not part of my line. But he's associated."

  "If he's associated, that's all right," Dove said, her head bobbing. "If he's good enough for you, he's good enough for us."

  "Now, I appreciate that, Dove. I'm touched. Really touched. So I'm going to tell Chuck to keep bringing you beer," I said. I stood, and motioned Indian and Foremost to stand also. "Just for tonight, mind you. But all you can drink tonight."

  We moved to the little office in the back of the bar to the accompaniment of cheers from Dove and her friends. Once inside I dropped into the green, fake leather chair behind the desk. Fore
most took the guest chair, a high-backed wood job with a dirty white padded seat, and Indian stood.

  "Indian, get the word out that Foremost here," I motioned to the alien, "is associated. I don't want any more accidents with people like Dove. Once is an accident and I can understand that. Twice is deliberate and I'll consider that an attack on the line. Understand?"

  "Got it, Tony. I'll get the word out. He's associated and you want him left alone," Indian said. I nodded.

  "And I want him protected while he's here," I said. "I want you to do that job yourself."

  Indian looked down at his half-empty beer bottle. Something almost like shame seemed to flicker across his face.

  "Maybe I'm not the best one for that, Tony. I'm not sure I'm everything I used to be," he said slowly.

  "I'm not asking you, Indian. I'm telling you. You need some food and some sleep. Get a Polish and some decaf from Chuck to take home. You look like hell."

  He opened the door to leave. I hesitated. "You did good tonight, Indian. Just like the old days."

  "Yeah?" he asked, and his face brightened. "Yeah."

  He shut the door behind him, and carried his new smile with him. I turned back to Foremost. "Jesus, you're one hell of a lot of trouble."

  "It's good to see you again also," Foremost said, his voice deep and ragged. I sighed and shook my head. "What are you doing here, Ambassador?"

  "I've come here for protection. Someone has tried to kill me."

  I almost laughed at that, thinking about Dove, then realized he was serious. "Ambassador-"

  "Foremost," he said. "Call me Foremost."

  "Foremost," I continued, after a pause. "We caught the shooter from the capital and rolled up his network. Right now that's probably the safest-" "You don't understand," he interrupted. "I'm not talking about the attempt on Earth. Someone tried to kill me on the ship."

  The ship was a huge cylinder, bigger than Ceres, and massed less than if it was made out of water. This told us it was hollow. How many billions lived inside?

  No one knew. No human had ever been aboard.

  All I knew was that it covered too many stars in the night sky and scared the hell out of me.

  "After the last negotiation session in New York I went back to the ship," Foremost said. He drank from a fresh crème de menthe I got him at the bar while I nursed a Scotch.

  "The life-support system on my skimmer failed as I came out of the atmosphere into space. I tried to call for help, but my communications system was also broken. The temperature in the skimmer began to rise rapidly, and without life support I bad no way to get rid of the heat," he said. He sipped at his drink. "Neither of these accidents has ever happened in my memory. And I am old enough to remember the last time the ship found an intelligent race that lived on a planet. Now, suddenly, both of these systems fail? At the same time? Against my particular skimmer? At just the worst possible moment? I believe the universe is perverse and all luck is bad. But in this case, even I doubt chaos and suspect causality."

  "You're still alive," I pointed out.

  "I ejected. A secret precaution I put in place before the negotiations began."

  "Just in case we weren't friendly," I said grimly.

  "I am old," Foremost said. "Much, much older than you. I didn't get that way by accident."

  The windows in the office rattled in the wind and I glanced outside. The rain and ice had stopped falling, and the temperature seemed to be at least a few degrees above freezing. The clouds were still there, low and gray, but they were lighter now, thinner.

  Somewhere above them, the sun waited.

  "Why are you here?"

  "Before I left for the ship I asked about you, and was told about your resignation. Agent Carole also told me where the funeral would occur so I could send an appropriate memorial. I had the location with me and I coded it into my lifeboat. The computer did the rest."

  I shook my head.

  "No, Foremost. I don't want to know how you got here. I want to know why you got here," I said. "Carole would throw a security blanket over you like you never dreamed of, if you just ask her. Me? I can't even keep you out of a knife fight in a bar."

  He finished his drink and put it aside.

  "After the shooting I declared you part of my line. You accepted that, and carefully told me I was not part of your line, but that as long as I was here, I was associated with your line and under your protection," he said. He spread his arms wide. "Where else would I be safer than with you?"

  Damn all lines, I thought. Damn all governments.

  And damn my big mouth.

  "Why would someone from the ship want to kill you?" I asked.

  Foremost stood and walked to the window. The building next door to the pool hall was a feed store, and Claire bred bulldogs in a run behind her place.

  When we were kids we played with the animals and helped clean them and their run. They were big, stupid, friendly dogs, with oversized paws and ears and the ugliest faces we ever saw. They climbed on us and pulled our clothes for attention and generally proved out the stereotype of the bulldog puppy.

  Claire paid us in quarters, but we loved the dogs and we worked for candy when she was low on cash. Once, Steve and a runt got to be special friends. The two of them were constantly with each other, even to the point where he sneaked the dog out of the run when Claire was not looking.

  Then one day Steve came to see his friend and he was gone. Sold. Claire tried to explain that she was sorry, it was a business to her, but he never understood. Finally she gave him extra candy and quarters and he ran all the way home, his face streaked with tears.

  He gave everything to Bob and me, and never went back to Claire's again.

  "Mine is not the only race on the ship," Foremost said. "And mine is not the only line in my race.

  "Every time we find a new planet with something we want, some groups on board the ship prosper, and others lose. Overall, the ship gains. But that doesn't make it any easier for the groups that lose."

  "This time the potential gains are bigger than usual," I guessed. "So the losses will also be bigger than usual."

  "You understand," Foremost said. "So what are you going to do?"

  He stood back from the window, which made the bodyguard part of me relax, and went back to his chair.

  "I have a new proposal from your people," he said. "And I have a funeral to go to. I will think about one, and attend the other."

  "I'll call Carole," I said automatically. Then I stopped. "Who knows you're here?" I asked.

  "I don't know," he said. "No one, yet. By now my people will have found the empty skimmer and the message with my suspicions I left behind. The search will be on for me or my body."

  I finished the Scotch.

  "I have to bury Sam," I said, stubbornly. "If I call Carole we'll have flatlanders on us like a blanket."

  "Ship people as well," Foremost added. "Both my friends, and those who tried to kill me."

  The windows rattled to a fresh gust of wind and I heard the scattered pebble sound of freezing rain against the glass. "Did you bring any funeral clothes?"

  When we were young, before Steve was born, my family lived in Sam's house. Downstairs was the kitchen, the bathroom, the living room, and Sam and Laverne's bedroom. Upstairs were two tiny bedrooms.

  I remembered the stairs as tall and hard to climb and for once a childhood memory was accurate. The stairs were steep, almost like a ladder, but Foremost scrambled up them quickly. I moved more slowly, my head down so I did not hit it on the doorways or the ceiling.

  Foremost used the bedroom on the right. The bedroom on the left was completely filled with a huge, silvery, outdoor TV antenna. Foremost paused and looked at it.

  "Communications?"

  "Entertainment," I said. "Reception only."

  "Wouldn't it work better on top of the house?" Foremost asked.

  "Sam liked it right here where he could touch it," I said.

  Steve and Rose slept in the down
stairs bedroom. Bob camped out in the kitchen. Foremost used the upstairs and I was down on the couch in the living room.

  The next morning we were up and moving at dawn. Steve made everyone a breakfast of scrambled eggs with American cheese, thick bacon, and bagels. Foremost discreetly tested everything for allergens, then took a dry bagel to eat with his field rations.

  Bob finished his plate, pushed it back, and glanced at Foremost.

  "So what do we do today?" he asked.

  I finished my orange juice and put my plate by the sink. Steve got himself seconds from the skillet while Rose nursed a cup of coffee.

  "Today we bury Sam," I said.

  "We know that," Bob said impatiently. "Are you going to go get the Estep token?"

  "I don't have much choice, do I?" I asked. Bob shrugged and looked at Foremost again.

  "Always got choices. Might not like them, but always got choices," Bob said. "Token should be at the burial. Token always watches the Eldest get buried before it gets passed on to the new Eldest."

  "We'll go to Oly's house and pick it up," I decided. "If someone does come looking for the Ambassador, they'll come here first. We might as well be somewhere else."

  Bob grinned.

  "What will Oly think about your friend?"

  Steve snorted.

  "Oly probably won't notice anything different from normal when you two show up," he said, disgusted.

  "Oly's not so bad," I said, defensively.

  Bob and Steve both stared at me, then smiled. Bob pushed away from the table and stood.

  "We'll get everything ready at this end. Be at the cemetery a few minutes early," Bob said. I nodded and motioned for Foremost to follow me. As we got to the mudroom Bob tapped me on the shoulder.

  "Steve and I'll talk to the boys and girls," he said in a low voice. "We'll have eyes out to see if any strangers are in town."

  "The cemetery is an awfully lonely place. Lots of open country, except on the side with the woods," I said.

  "Easy to hide in them woods," Bob agreed. "Or on a hilltop in the corn stubble."

  "You'll take care of it?"

  "Done."

  Foremost and I took the car that Rose and I used to drive up to Summit. It was another dark, rainy day, perfect for a funeral, and I still dialed down the tint on the windows to make it even harder for someone outside to see inside.