by Kage Baker
“You know we all ended up here because we don’t get along with anyone else. But you make the rest of us look good.”
I squirmed against him in mock outrage, giggling.
“Plenty of crews—plenty of households—don’t ever get babies,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
“I don’t care about a baby so much,” I said. “I’m just tired of fighting all the time.”
It was normal for children to fight with their parents, their households, and even their committees as they grew. But it wasn’t fair, for me to feel like I was still fighting with a mother I’d never known.
The next day, when Nina and I went down to do some cleaning on Amaryllis, I tried to convince myself it was my imagination that she was avoiding me. Not looking at me. Or pretending not to look, when in fact she was stealing glances. The way she avoided meeting my gaze made my skin crawl a little. She’d decided something. She had a secret.
We caught sight of Elsie again, walking up from the docks, a hundred yards away but her silhouette was unmistakable. That distracted Nina, who stopped to stare.
“Is she really that interesting?” I said, smiling, trying to make it a joke.
Nina looked at me sideways, as if deciding whether she should talk to me. Then she sighed. “I wonder what it’s like. Don’t you wonder what it’s like?”
I thought about it a moment and mostly felt fear rather than interest. All the things that could go wrong, even with a banner of approval flying above you. Nina wouldn’t understand that. “Not really.”
“Marie, how can you be so . . . so indifferent?”
“Because I’m not going to spend the effort worrying about something I can’t change. Besides, I’d much rather be captain of a boat than stuck on shore, watching.”
I marched past her to the boat, and she followed, head bowed.
We washed the deck, checked the lines, cleaned out the cabin, took inventory, and made a stack of gear that needed to be repaired. We’d take it home and spend the next few days working on it before we went to sea again. Nina was quiet most of the morning, and I kept glancing at her, head bent to her work, biting her lip, wondering what she was thinking on so intently. What she was hiding.
Turned out she was working up the courage.
I handed the last bundle of net to her, then went back to double check that the hatches were closed and the cabin was shut up. When I went to climb off the boat myself, she was sitting at the edge of the dock, her legs hanging over the edge, swinging a little. She looked ten years younger, like she was a kid again, like she had when I first saw her.
I regarded her, brows raised, questioning, until finally she said, “I asked Sun why Anders doesn’t like you. Why none of the captains talk to you much.”
So that was what had happened. Sun—matter-of-fact and sensible—would have told her without any circumspection. And Nina had been horrified.
Smiling, I sat on the gunwale in front of her. “I’d have thought you’d been here long enough to figure it out on your own.”
“I knew something had happened, but I couldn’t imagine what. Certainly not—I mean, no one ever talks about it. But . . . what happened to your mother? Her household?”
I shrugged, because it wasn’t like I remembered any of it. I’d pieced the story together, made some assumptions. Was told what happened by people who made their own assumptions. Who wanted me to understand exactly what my place in the world was.
“They were scattered over the whole region, I think. Ten of them—it was a big household, successful, until I came along. I don’t know where all they ended up. I was brought to New Oceanside, raised up by the first Amaryllis crew. Then Zeke and Ann retired, took up pottery, went down the coast, and gave me the ship to start my own household. Happy ending.”
“And your mother—they sterilized her? After you were born, I mean.”
“I assume so. Like I said, I don’t really know.”
“Do you suppose she thought it was worth it?”
“I imagine she didn’t,” I said. “If she wanted a baby, she didn’t get one, did she? But maybe she just wanted to be pregnant for a little while.”
Nina looked so thoughtful, swinging her feet, staring at the rippling water where it lapped against the hull, she made me nervous. I had to say something.
“You’d better not be thinking of pulling something like that,” I said. “They’d split us up, take the house, take Amaryllis—”
“Oh no,” Nina said, shaking her head quickly, her denial vehement. “I would never do that, I’d never do anything like that.”
“Good,” I said, relieved. I trusted her and didn’t think she would. Then again, my mother’s household probably thought that about her too. I hopped over to the dock. We collected up the gear, slinging bags and buckets over our shoulders and starting the hike up to the house.
Halfway there Nina said, “You don’t think we’ll ever get a banner, because of your mother. That’s what you were trying to tell me.”
“Yeah.” I kept my breathing steady, concentrating on the work at hand.
“But it doesn’t change who you are. What you do.”
“The old folk still take it out on me.”
“It’s not fair,” she said. She was too old to be saying things like that. But at least now she’d know, and she could better decide if she wanted to find another household.
“If you want to leave, I’ll understand,” I said. “Any house would be happy to take you.”
“No,” she said. “No, I’ll stay. None of it—it doesn’t change who you are.”
I could have dropped everything and hugged her for that. We walked awhile longer, until we came in sight of the house. Then I asked, “You have someone in mind to be the father? Hypothetically.”
She blushed berry red and looked away. I had to grin—so that was how it stood.
When Garrett greeted us in the courtyard, Nina was still blushing. She avoided him and rushed along to dump her load in the workshop.
Garrett blinked after her. “What’s up with her?”
“Nina being Nina.”
The next trip on Amaryllis went well. We made quota in less time than I expected, which gave us half a day’s vacation. We anchored off a deserted bit of shore and went swimming, lay on deck and took in the sun, ate the last of the oranges and dried mackerel that J.J. had sent along with us. It was a good day.
But we had to head back some time and face the scales. I weighed our haul three times with Amaryllis’ scale, got a different number each time, but all within ten pounds of each other, and more importantly twenty pounds under quota. Not that it would matter. We rowed into the slip at the scale house, and Anders was the scalemaster on duty again. I almost hauled up our sails and turned us around, never to return. I couldn’t face him, not after the perfect trip. Nina was right—it wasn’t fair that this one man could ruin us with false surpluses and black marks.
Silently, we secured Amaryllis to the dock and began handing up our cargo. I managed to keep from even looking at Anders, which probably made me look guilty in his eyes. But we’d already established I could be queen of perfection and he would consider me guilty.
Anders’ frown was smug, his gaze judgmental. I could already hear him tell me I was fifty pounds over quota. Another haul like that, he’d say, we’ll have to see about yanking your fishing rights. I’d have to punch him. I almost told Garrett to hold me back if I looked like I was going to punch him. But he was already keeping himself between the two of us, as if he thought I might really do it.
If the old scalemaster managed to break up Amaryllis, I’d murder him. And wouldn’t that be a worse crime than any I might represent?
Anders drew out the moment, looking us all up and down before finally announcing, “Sixty over this time. And you think you’re good at this.”
My hands tightened into fists. I imagined myself lunging at him. At this point, what could I lose?
“We’d like an audit,” Nina
said, slipping past Sun, Garrett, and me to stand before the stationmaster, frowning, hands on her hips.
“Excuse me?” Anders said.
“An audit. I think your scale is wrong, and we’d like an audit. Right?” She looked at me.
It was probably better than punching him. “Yes,” I said, after a flabbergasted moment. “Yes, we would like an audit.”
That set off two hours of chaos in the scale house. Anders protested, hollered at us, threatened us. I sent Sun to the committee house to summon official oversight—he wouldn’t try to play nice, and they couldn’t brush him off. June and Abe, two senior committee members, arrived, austere in gray and annoyed.
“What’s the complaint?” June said.
Everyone looked at me to answer. I almost denied it—that was my first impulse. Don’t fight, don’t make waves. Because maybe I deserved the trash I got. Or my mother did, but she wasn’t here, was she?
But Nina was looking at me with her innocent brown eyes, and this was for her.
I wore a perfectly neutral, business-like expression when I spoke to June and Abe. This wasn’t about me, it was about business, quotas, and being fair.
“Scalemaster Anders adjusts the scale’s calibration when he sees us coming.”
I was amazed when they turned accusing gazes at him and not at me. Anders’ mouth worked, trying to stutter a defense, but he had nothing to say.
The committee confirmed that Anders was rigging his scale. They offered us reparations, out of Anders’ own rations. I considered—it would mean extra credits, extra food and supplies for the household. We’d been discussing getting another windmill, petitioning for another well. Instead, I recommended that any penalties they wanted to levy should go to community funds. I just wanted Amaryllis treated fairly.
And I wanted a meeting, to make one more petition before the committee.
Garrett walked with me to the committee office the next morning.
“I should have been the one to think of requesting an audit,” I said.
“Nina isn’t as scared of the committee as you are. As you were,” he said.
“I’m not—” But I stopped, because he was right.
He squeezed my hand. His smile was amused, his gaze warm. He seemed to find the whole thing entertaining. Me—I was relieved, exhausted, giddy, ashamed. Mostly relieved.
We, Amaryllis, had done nothing wrong. I had done nothing wrong.
Garrett gave me a long kiss, then waited outside while I went to sit before the committee.
June was in her chair, along with five other committee members, behind their long table with their slate boards, tally sheets, and lists of quotas. I sat across from them, alone, hands clenched in my lap, trying not to tap my feet. Trying to appear as proud and assured as they did. A stray breeze slipped through the open windows and cooled the cinderblock room.
After polite greetings, June said, “You wanted to make a petition?”
“We—the Amaryllis crew—would like to request an increase in our quota. Just a small one.”
June nodded. “We’ve already discussed it and we’re of a mind to allow an increase. Would that be suitable?”
Suitable as what? As reparation? As an apology? My mouth was dry, my tongue frozen. My eyes stung, wanting to weep, but that would have damaged our chances, as much as just being me did.
“There’s one more thing,” I managed. “With an increased quota, we can feed another mouth.”
It was an arrogant thing to say, but I had no reason to be polite.
They could chastise me, send me away without a word, lecture me on wanting too much when there wasn’t enough to go around. Tell me that it was more important to maintain what we had rather than try to expand—expansion was arrogance. We simply had to maintain. But they didn’t. They didn’t even look shocked at what I had said.
June, so elegant, I thought, with her long gray hair braided and resting over her shoulder, a knitted shawl draped around her, as much for decoration as for warmth, reached into the bag at her feet and retrieved a folded piece of cloth, which she pushed across the table toward me. I didn’t want to touch it. I was still afraid, as if I’d reach for it and June would snatch it away at the last moment. I didn’t want to unfold it to see the red and green pattern in full, in case it was some other color instead.
But I did, even though my hand shook. And there it was. I clenched the banner in my fist; no one would be able to pry it out.
“Is there anything else you’d like to speak of?” June asked.
“No,” I said, my voice a whisper. I stood, nodded at each of them. Held the banner to my chest, and left the room.
Garrett and I discussed it on the way back to the house. The rest of the crew was waiting in the courtyard for us: Dakota in her skirt and tunic, hair in a tangled bun; J.J. with his arms crossed, looking worried; Sun, shirtless, hands on hips, inquiring. And Nina, right there in front, bouncing almost.
I regarded them, trying to be inscrutable, gritting my teeth to keep from bursting into laughter. I held our banner behind my back to hide it. Garrett held my other hand.
“Well?” Nina finally said. “How did it go? What did they say?”
The surprise wasn’t going to get any better than this. I shook out the banner and held it up for them to see. And oh, I’d never seen all of them wide-eyed and wondering, mouths gaping like fish, at once.
Nina broke the spell, laughing and running at me, throwing herself into my arms. We nearly fell over.
Then we were all hugging, and Dakota started worrying right off, talking about what we needed to build a crib, all the fabric we’d need for diapers, and how we only had nine months to save up the credits for it.
I recovered enough to hold Nina at arm’s length, so I could look her in the eyes when I pressed the banner into her hands. She nearly dropped it at first, skittering from it as if it were fire. So I closed her fingers around the fabric and held them there.
“It’s yours,” I said. “I want you to have it.” I glanced at Garrett to be sure. And yes, he was still smiling.
Staring at me, Nina held it to her chest, much like I had. “But . . . you. It’s yours . . . ” She started crying. Then so did I, gathering her close and holding her tight while she spoke through tears, “Don’t you want to be a mother?”
In fact, I rather thought I already was.
Carrie Vaughn is the author of the New York Times bestselling series of novels about a werewolf named Kitty, the most recent of which is Kitty Rocks the House. She’s also the author of young adult novels (Voices of Dragons, Steel) and contemporary fantasy (Discord’s Apple, After the Golden Age). A graduate of the Odyssey Fantasy Writing Workshop, she’s a contributor to the Wild Cards series of shared world superhero books edited by George R. R. Martin, and her short stories have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. An Air Force brat, she survived her nomadic childhood and managed to put down roots in Boulder, Colorado. Visit her at www.carrievaughn.com.
In the other stories of After the End, humankind evidently managed to muck up the world entirely on its own. In this one, it seems like we had some outside help. Margo Lanagan posits a disturbing future in which the most essential elements of even being human are forever altered.
THE FIFTH STAR IN THE SOUTHERN CROSS
Margo Lanagan
I had bought half an hour with Malka and I was making the most of it. Lots of Off girls, there’s not much goes on, but these Polar City ones, especially if they’re fresh off the migration station, they seem to, almost, enjoy it? I don’t know if they really do. They don’t pitch and moan and fake it up or anything, but they seem to be there under you. They’re with you, you know? They pay attention. It almost doesn’t matter about their skin, the feel of it a bit dry and crinkly, and the color. They have the Coolights on all the time to cut that color back, just like butchers put those purply lights over the meat in their shop, to bring up the red.
Anyway, I would say we were about two-thirds th
e way there—I was starting to let go of everything and be the me I was meant to be. I knew stuff; I meant something; I didn’t givva what anyone thought of me.
But then she says, “Stop, Mister Cleeyom. Stop a minute.”
“What?” I thought for a second she had got too caught up in it, was having too good a time, needed to slow things down a bit. I suppose that shows how far along I was.
“Something is coming,” she said.
I tensed up, listening for sounds in the hall.
“Coming down.”
Which was when I felt it, pushing against the end of me.
I pulled out. I made a face. “What is it? Have I got you up the wrong hole?”
“No, Mister Cl’om. Just a minute. Will not take long.”
Too late—I was already withering.
She got up into a squat with one leg out wide. The Coolight at the bedhead showed everything from behind: a glop of something, and then strings of drool. Just right out onto the bedclothes she did it; she didn’t scrabble for a towel or a tissue or anything. She wasn’t embarrassed. A little noise came up her throat from some clench in her chest, and that clench pushed the thing out below, the main business.
“It’s a puppy?” I said, but I thought, It’s a turd? But the smell wasn’t turd; it was live insides, insides that weren’t to do with digestion. And turds don’t turn over and split their skin, and try to work it off themselves.
“It’s just a baby,” Malka apologized, with that smile she has, that makes you feel sorry for her, she’s trying so hard, and angry at her at the same time. She scooped it up, with its glop. She stepped off the bed and laid it on top of some crumpled crush-velour under the lamp. A white-ish tail dangled between her legs; she turned away from me and gathered that up, and whatever wet thing fell out attached to it.
This was not what I’d had in mind. This was not the treat I’d promised myself as I tweezered HotChips into artificial tulip stalks out at Parramatta Mannafactory all week.
The “baby” lay there working its shoulders in horrible shruggings, almost as if it knew what it was doing. They’re not really babies, of course, just as Polar “girls” aren’t really girls, although that’s something you pay to be made to forget.
