Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2008 Edition

by Rich Horton

  “Not true,” said the honest Sergeant Lu. “Teli can fight fine. They just didn't.”

  “That don't make sense, Sergeant.”

  And it didn't.

  Unless...

  All that night I worked in Vault D at the computer terminal which had replaced my free-standing C-112. The terminal linked to both the downside system and the deebees on the Scheherezade. Water dripped from the ceiling, echoing in the cavernous space. Once something like a bat flew from some far recess. I kept slapping on stim patches to stay alert, and feverishly calling up different programs, and doing my best to erect cybershields around what I was doing.

  Lu found me there in the morning, my hands shaking, staring at the display screens. “Sir? Captain Porter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sir? Are you all right?”

  Art history is not, as people like General Anson believe, a lot of dusty information about a frill occupation interesting to only a few effetes. The Ebenfeldt equations transformed art history, linking the field to both behavior and to the mathematics underlying chaos theory. Not so new an idea, really—the ancient Greeks used math to work out the perfect proportions for buildings, for women, for cities, all profound shapers of human behavior. The creation of art does not happen in a vacuum. It is linked to culture in complicated, nonlinear ways. Chaos theory is still the best way to model nonlinear behavior dependent on small changes in initial conditions.

  I looked at three sets of mapped data. One, my multi-dimensional analysis of Vaults A through D, was comprehensive and detailed. My second set of data was clear but had a significant blank space. The third set was only suggested by shadowy lines, but the overall shape was clear.

  “Sir?”

  “Sergeant, can you set up two totally encrypted commlink calls, one to the Scheherezade and one by ansible to Sel Ouie University on 18-Alpha? Yes, I know that officially you can't do that, but you know everybody everywhere ... can you do it? It's vitally important, Ruhan. I can't tell you how important!”

  Lu gazed at me from his ruddy, honest face. He did indeed know everyone. A Navy lifer, and with all the amiability and human contacts that I lacked. And he trusted me. I could feel that unaccustomed warmth, like a small and steady fire.

  “I think I can do that, sir.”

  He did. I spoke first to Dalo, then to Forrest Jamili. He sent a packet of encrypted information. I went back to my data, working feverishly. Then I made a second encrypted call to Dalo. She said simply, “Yes. Susan says yes, of course she can. They all can.”

  “Dalo, find out when the next ship docks with the Scheherezade. If it's today, book passage on it, no matter where it's going. If there's no ship today, then buy a seat on a supply shuttle and—”

  “Those cost a fortune!”

  “I don't care. Just—”

  “Jon, the supply shuttles are all private contractors and they charge civilians a—it would wipe out everything we've saved and—why? What's wrong?”

  “I can't explain now.” I heard boots marching along the corridor to the vault. “Just do it! Trust me, Dalo! I'll find you when I can!”

  “Captain,” an MP said severely, “come with me.” His weapon was drawn, and behind him stood a detail of grim-faced soldiers. Lu stepped forward, but I shot him a glance that said Say nothing! This is mine alone!

  Good soldier that he was, he understood, and he obeyed. It was, after all, the first time I had ever given him a direct—if wordless—order, the first time I had assumed the role of commander.

  My mother should have been proud.

  * * * *

  Her office resembled my quarters, rather than the vaults: a trapezoidal, low-ceilinged room with alien art etched on all the stone walls. The room held the minimum of furniture. General Anson stood alone behind her desk, a plain military-issue camp item, appropriate to a leader who was one with the ranks, don't you know. She did not invite me to sit down. The MPs left—reluctantly, it seemed to me—but, then, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that she could break me bare-knuckled if necessary.

  She said, “You made two encrypted commlink calls and one encrypted ansible message from this facility, all without proper authorization. Why?”

  I had to strike before she got to me, before I went under. I blurted, “I know why you blocked my access to the meteor-deflection data.”

  She said nothing, just went on gazing at me from those eyes that could chill glaciers.

  “There was no deflection of that meteor. The meteor wasn't on our tracking system because Humans haven't spent much time in this sector until now. You caught a lucky break, and whatever deflection records exist now, you added after the fact. Your so-called victory was a sham.” I watched her face carefully, hoping for ... what? Confirmation? Outraged denial that I could somehow believe? I saw neither. And of course I was flying blind. Captain Susan Finch had told Dalo only that yes, of course officers had access to the deflection records; they were a brilliant teaching tool for tactical strategy. I was the only one who'd been barred from them, and the general must have had a reason for that. She always had a reason for everything.

  Still she said nothing. Hoping that I would utter even more libelous statements against a commanding officer? Would commit even more treason? I could feel my breathing accelerate, my heart start to pound.

  I said, “The Teli must have known the meteor's trajectory; they've colonized 149-Delta a long time. They let it hit their base. And I know why. The answer is in the art.”

  Still no change of expression. She was stone. But she was listening.

  “The answer is in the art—ours and theirs. I ansibled Forrest Jamili last night—no, look first at these diagrams—no, first—”

  I was making a mess of it as the seizure moved closer. Not now not now not in front of her...

  Somehow I held myself together, although I had to wrench my gaze away from her to do it. I pulled the holocube from my pocket, activated it, and projected it on the stone wall. The Teli etchings shimmered, ghostly, behind the laser colors of my data.

  “This is a phase-space diagram of Ebenfeldt equations using input about the frequency of Teli art creation. We have tests now, you know, that can date any art within weeks of its creation by pinpointing when the raw materials were altered. A phase-state diagram is how we model bifurcated behaviors grouped around two attractors.... What that means is that the Teli created their art in bursts, with long fallow periods between bursts when ... no, wait, General, this is relevant to the war!”

  My voice had risen to a shriek. I couldn't help it. Contempt rose off her like heat. But she stopped her move toward the door.

  “This second phase-space diagram is Teli attack behavior. Look ... it inverts the first diagrams! They attack viciously for a while, and during that time virtually no Teli creates art at all ... Then when some tipping point is reached, they stop attacking or else attack only ineffectively, like the last raid here. They're ... waiting. And if the tipping point—this mathematical value—isn't reached fast enough, they sabotage their own bases, like letting the meteor hit 149-Delta. They did it in the battle outside 16-Beta and in the Q-Sector massacre ... you were there! When the mathematical value is reached—when enough of them have died—they create art like crazy but don't wage war. Not until the art reaches some other hypothetical mathematical value that I think is this second attractor. Then they stop creating art and go back to war.”

  “You're saying that periodically their soldiers just curl up and let us kill them?” she spat at me. “The Teli are damned fierce fighters, Captain—I know that even if the likes of you never will. They don't just whimper and lie down on the floor.”

  Kai lanu kai lanu...

  “It's a ... a religious phenomenon, Forrest Jamili thinks. I mean, he thinks their art is a form of religious atonement—all of their art. That's its societal function, although the whole thing may be biologically programmed as well, like the deaths of lemmings to control population. The Teli can take only so much dyin
g, or maybe even only so much killing, and then they have to stop and ... and restore what they see as some sort of spiritual balance. And they loot our art because they think we must do the same thing. Don't you see—they were collecting our art to try to analyze when we will stop attacking and go fallow! They assume we must be the same as them, just—”

  “No warriors stop fighting for a bunch of weakling artists!”

  “—just as you assume they must be the same as us.”

  We stared at each other.

  I said, “As you have always assumed that everyone should be the same as you. Mother.”

  “You're doing this to try to discredit me, aren't you,” she said evenly. “Anyone can connect any dots in any statistics to prove whatever they wish. Everybody knows that. You want to discredit my victory because such a victory will never come to you. Not to the sniveling, back-stabbing coward who's been a disappointment his entire life. Even your wife is worth ten of you—at least she doesn't crumple under pressure.”

  She moved closer, closer to me than I could ever remember her being, and every one of her words hammered on the inside of my head, my eyes, my chest.

  “You got yourself assigned here purposely to embarrass me, and now you want to go farther and ruin me. It's not going to happen, soldier, do you hear me? I'm not going to be made a laughing stock by you again, the way I was in every officer's club during your whole miserable adolescence and—”

  I didn't hear the rest. I went under, seizing and screaming.

  * * * *

  It is two days later. I lie in the medical bay of the Scheherezade, still in orbit around 149-Delta. My room is locked but I am not in restraints. Crazy, under arrest, but not violent. Or perhaps the General is simply hoping I'll kill myself and save everyone more embarrassment.

  Downside, in Vault D, Lu is finishing crating the rest of the looted Human art, all of which is supposed to be returned to its rightful owners. The Space Navy serving its galactic citizens. Maybe the art will actually be shipped out in time.

  My holo cube was taken from me. I imagine that all my data has been wiped from the base's and ship's deebees as well, or maybe just classified as severely restricted. In that case no one cleared to look at it, which would include only top line officers, is going to open files titled “Teli Art Creation.” Generals have better things to do.

  But Forrest Jamili has copies of my data and my speculations.

  Phase-state diagrams bring order out of chaos. Some order, anyway. This is, interestingly, the same thing that art does. It is why, looking at one of Dalo's mutomati works, I can be moved to tears. By the grace, the balance, the redemption from chaos of the harsh raw materials of life.

  Dalo is gone. She left on the supply ship when I told her to. My keepers permitted a check of the ship's manifest to determine that. Dalo is safe.

  I will probably die in the coming Teli attack, along with most of the Humans both on the Scheherezade and on 149-Delta. The Teli fallow period for this area of space is coming to an end. For the last several months there have been few attacks by Teli ships, and those few badly executed. Months of frenetic creation of art, including all those etchings on the stone walls of the Citadel. Did I tell General Anson how brand-new all those hand-made etchings are? I can't remember. She didn't give me time to tell her much.

  Although it wouldn't have made any difference. She believes that war and art are totally separate activities, one important and one trivial, whose life lines never converge. The General, too, will probably die in the coming attack. She may or may not have time to realize that I was right.

  But that doesn't really matter any more, either. And, strangely, I'm not at all afraid. I have no signs of going under, no breathing difficulties, no shaking, no panic. And only one real regret: that Dalo and I did not get to gaze together at the Sistine Chapel on Terra. But no one gets everything. I have had a great deal: Dalo, art, even some possible future use to humanity if Forrest does the right thing with my data. Many people never get so much.

  The ship's alarms begin to sound, clanging loud even in the medical bay.

  The Teli are back, resuming their war.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  * * *

  THREE DAYS OF RAIN

  Holly Phillips

  They came down out of the buildings’ shade into the glare of the lakeside afternoon. Seen through the sting of sun-tears, the bridge between Asuada and Maldino Islands wavered in the heat, white cement floating over white dust, its shadow a black sword-cut against the ground. Santiago groped in the breast of his doublet for his sunglasses and the world regained its edges: the background of red-roofed tenements stacked up Maldino's hill, the foreground of the esplanade's railings marking the hour with abbreviated shadows, the bridge, the empty air, lying in between. The not-so-empty air. Even through dark lenses Santiago could see the mirage rippling above the lakebed, fluid as water, tempting as a lie, as the heat raised its ghosts above the plain. Beyond stood the dark hills that were the shore once, in the days when the city was islanded in a living lake; hills that were the shore still, the desert's shore. They looked like the shards of a broken pot, like paper torn and pasted against the sun-bleached sky. The esplanade was deserted and the siesta silence was intense.

  “There's Bernal,” Luz murmured in Santiago's ear. “Thirsty for blood.” She sounded, Santiago thought, more sardonic than a lady should in her circumstances. He had been too shy to look at her as she walked beside him down from Asuada Island's crown, but he glanced at her now from behind his sunglasses. She had rare pale eyes that were, in the glare, narrow and edged in incipient creases. A dimple showed by her mouth: she knew he was looking. He glanced away and saw Bernal and his seconds waiting in the shadow of the bridge. Ahead, Sandoval and Orlando and Ruy burst out laughing, as if the sight of Bernal were hilarious, but their tension rang like a cracked bell in the quiet. Santiago wished he were sophisticated enough to share Luz's ironic mood, but he was too excited, and he had the notion that he would do this hour an injustice if he pretended a disinterest he did not feel.

  Sandoval vaulted over the low gate at the end of the esplanade, dropping down to the steps that led to the bridge's foot. Orlando followed more clumsily, the hilt of his rapier ringing off the gate's ironwork, and Ruy climbed sedately over, waiting for Luz and Santiago to catch up. Luz hitched up the skirt of her lace coat to show athletic legs in grimy hose, but allowed Ruy and Santiago to help her over the gate. The gate's sun-worn sign still bore a memory of its old warning—deep water, drowning, death—but it could not be deciphered beneath the pale motley of handbills. One had to know it was there, and to know, one had to care.

  An intangible breeze stirred the ghost lake into gentle waves.

  Bernal and Sandoval bowed. Their seconds bowed. To Santiago the observer, who still trailed behind with Luz, they looked like players rehearsing on an empty stage, the strong colors of their doublets false against the pallor of the dust. Bernal drew his rapier with a flourish and presented it to Ruy to inspect. The bridge's shade gave no relief from the heat; sweat tickled the skin of Santiago's throat. Sandoval also drew, with a prosaic gesture that seemed more honest, and therefore more threatening than Bernal's theatricality, and Santiago felt a burst of excitement, thinking that Sandoval would surely win. Wouldn't he? He glanced at Luz and was glad to see that the sardonic smile had given way to an intent look. Belatedly he took off his sunglasses and her profile leapt out in sharp relief against the blazing lakebed beyond the shade.

  The blades were inspected and returned to their owners. The seconds marked out their corners. The duelists saluted each other, or the duel, and their blades met in the first tentative kiss. Steel touching steel made a cold sound that hissed back down at them from the bridge's underside. The men's feet in their soft boots scuffed and patted and stirred up dust that stank like dry bones.

  Santiago was there to watch and he did, but his excitement fragmented his attention, as if several Santiagos were crowded
behind a single pair of eyes, watching everything. The fighters’ feet like dancers', making a music of their own. The men's faces, intent, unselfconscious, reflecting the give and take of the duel. The haze of dust, the sharp edge of shade, the watery mirage. The rapiers hissed and shrieked and sang, and in the bridge's echoes Santiago heard water birds, children on a beach, rain falling into the lake. For an instant his attention broke quite asunder, and he felt blowing through that divide a cool breeze, a wind rich with impossible smells, water and weeds and rust. The duelists fell apart and Santiago heard himself blurt out, “Blood! First blood!” for scarlet drops spattered from the tip of Sandoval's sword to lay the dust. Bernal grimaced and put his hand to his breast above his heart.

  “It's not deep?” said Sandoval worriedly.

  “No, no,” Bernal said, pressing the heel of his hand to the wound.

  “Fairly dealt,” Santiago said. He felt he was still catching up to events, that he had nearly been left behind, but no one seemed to notice. A grinning Ruy clapped his shoulder.

  “A good fight, eh? They'll be talking about this one for a season or two!”

  “Talking about me for a season or two,” Luz said.

  Ruy laughed. “She wants you to think she's too modest to take pleasure in it, but her tongue would be sharper if we talked only about the fight, and never her.”

  Luz gave Santiago an exasperated look, but when Sandoval came to kiss her hand she let him. But then, she let Bernal do the same, and Bernal's bow was deeper, despite the pain that lined his face. There was not much blood on the ground, and what there was was already dulled by dust.

  “Does it make you want to fight, Santiago?” Ruy asked.

  Yes? No? Santiago said the one thing he knew was true. “It makes me want to feel the rain on my face before I die.”

  “Ay, my friend! Well said!” Ruy slung his arm around Santiago's neck, and Santiago laughed, glad to be alive.