Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  Another Purnate-induced contraction hits. They’re coming fast now, her body completely in the grip of the overdose I’ve flushed into her. She pulls her husband close and whispers, “I don’t want this, honey. Please, it’s a sin.” Another contraction hits. Less than twenty seconds apart.

  Two thick-armed female orderlies draped in friendly pink blouses finally come thumping through the door and move to restrain her. The cavalry always arrives too late. Maya brushes at them weakly until another contraction hits. Her naked body arches as the baby begins its final passage into our world.

  ***

  “The pretty queen of the hypocritic oath arrives.”

  Dmitri sits amongst his brood, my sin and my redemption bound in one gaunt and sickly man. His shoulders rise and fall with labored asthmatic breathing. His cynical blue eyes bore into me. “You’re bloodied.”

  I touch my face, come away with wet fingers. “A patient went natal.”

  All around us, Dmitri’s test subjects scamper, shrieking and warring, an entire tribe of miscalibrated humanity, all gathered together under Dmitri’s care. If I key in patient numbers on my belt unit, I get MedAssist laundry lists of pituitary misfires, adrenal tumors, sexual malformations, attention and learning disorders, thyroid malfunctions, IQ fall-offs, hyperactivity and aggression. An entire ward full of poster-children for chemical legislation that never finds its way out of government committee.

  “Your patient went natal.” Dmitri’s chuckle comes as a low wheeze. Even in this triple-filtered air of the hospital’s chemical intervention ward, he barely takes enough oxygen to stay alive. “What a surprise. Emotion trumps science once again.” His fingers drum compulsively on the bed of an inert child beside him: a five-year-old girl with the breasts of a grown woman. His eyes flick to the body and back to me. “No one seems to want prenatal care these days, do they?”

  Against my will, I blush; Dmitri’s mocking laughter rises briefly before dissolving into coughing spasms that leave him keeled over and gasping. He wipes his mouth on his lab coat’s sleeve and studies the resulting bloody smear. “You should have sent her to me. I could have convinced her.”

  Beside us, the girl lies like a wax dummy, staring at the ceiling. Some bizarre cocktail of endocrine disruptors has rendered her completely catatonic. The sight of her gives me courage “Do you have any more squeegees?”

  Dmitri laughs, sly and insinuating. His eyes flick to my damaged cheek. “And what would your sharp-nailed patient say, if she found out?”

  “Please, Dmitri. Don’t. I hate myself enough already.”

  “I’m sure. Caught between your religion and your profession. I’m surprised your husband even tolerates your work.”

  I look away. “He prays for me.”

  “God solves everything, I understand.”

  “Don’t.”

  Dmitri smiles. “It’s probably what I’ve missed in my research. We should all just beg God to keep babies from absorbing their mother’s chemical sludge. With a little Sunday prayer, Lily, you can go back to pushing folate and vitamins. Problem solved.” He stands abruptly, coming to his full six-and-a-half feet like a spider unfolding. “Come, let us consummate your hypocrisy before you change your mind. I couldn’t bear it if you decided to rely on your faith.”

  ***

  Inside Dmitri’s lab, fluorescent lights glare down on stainless steel countertops and test equipment.

  Dmitri rustles through drawers one after another, searching. On the countertop before him, a gobbet of flesh lies marooned, wet and incongruous on the sterile gleaming surface. He catches me staring at it.

  “You will not recognize it. You must imagine it smaller.”

  One portion is larger than an eyeball. The rest is slender, a dangling subsection off the main mass. Meat and veiny fatty gunk. Dmitri rustles through another drawer. Without looking up, he answers his own riddle. “A pituitary gland. From an eight-year-old female. She had terrible headaches.”

  I suck in my breath. Even for Chem-Int, it’s a freak of nature.

  Dmitri smiles at my reaction. “Ten times oversized. Not from a vulnerable population, either: excellent prenatal care, good filter-mask practices, low-pesticide food sources.” He shrugs. “We are losing our battle, I think.” He opens another drawer. “Ah. Here.” He pulls out a foil-wrapped square the size of a condom, stamped in black and yellow, and offers it to me. “My trials have already recorded the dose as dispensed. It shouldn’t affect the statistics.” He nods at the flesh gobbet. “And certainly, she will not miss it.”

  The foil is stamped “NOT FOR SALE” along with a tracking number and the intertwined DNA and microscope icon of the FDA Human Trials Division. I reach for it, but Dmitri pulls it away. “Put it on before you leave. It has a new backing: cellular foil. Trackable. You can only wear it in the hospital.” He tosses me the packet, shrugs apologetically. “Our sponsors think too many doses are walking away.”

  “How long do I need to wear it before I can leave?”

  “Three hours will give you most of the dose.”

  “Enough?”

  “Who knows? Who cares? Already you avoid the best treatment. You will reap what you sow.”

  I don’t have a retort. Dmitri knows me too well to feed him the stories I tell myself, the ones that comfort me at 3 a.m. when Justin’s asleep and I’m staring at the ceiling listening to his steady honest breathing: It’s for our marriage… It’s for our future… It’s for our baby.

  I strip off the backing, untuck my blouse and unbutton my slacks. I slip the derm down under the waistband of my panties. As it attaches to my skin, I imagine cleansing medicine flowing into me. For all his taunts, Dmitri has given me salvation and, suddenly, I’m overwhelmed with gratitude. “We owe you, Dmitri. Really. We couldn’t have waited until the trials finished.”

  Dmitri grunts acknowledgment. He is busy prodding the dead girl’s bloated pituitary. “You could never have afforded it, anyway. It is too good for everyone to have.”

  ***

  The squeegee hits me on the El.

  One minute, I’m sitting and smiling at the kids across the aisle, with their Hello Kitty and their Burn Girl filter masks, and the next minute, I’m doubled over, ripping off my own mask, and gagging. The girls stare at me like I’m a junkie. Another wave of nausea hits and I stop caring what they think. I sit doubled over on my seat, trying to keep my hair out of my face and vomiting on the floor between my shoes.

  By the time I reach my stop, I can barely stand. I vomit again on the platform, going down on hands and knees. I have to force myself not to crawl down from the El. Even in the winter cold, I’m sweating. The crowds part around me, boots and coats and scarves and filter masks. Glittering news chips in men’s sideburns and women with braided microfilament glo-strands stepping around me, laughing with silver lipsticks. Kaleidoscope streets: lights and traffic and dust and coal diesel exhaust. Muddy and wet. My face is wet and I can’t remember if I’ve fallen in the murk of a curb or if this is my vomit.

  I find my apartment by luck, manage to stand until the elevator comes. My wrist implant radios open the apartment’s locks.

  Justin jumps up as I shove open the door. “Lily?”

  I retch again, but I’ve left my stomach on the street. I wave him away and stumble for the shower, stripping off my coat and blouse as I go. I curl into a ball on the cold white tiles while the shower warms. I fumble with the straps on my bra, but I can’t work the catch. I gag again, shuddering as the squeegee rips through me.

  Justin’s socks are standing beside me: the black pair with the hole in the toe. He kneels; his hand touches my bare back. “What’s wrong?”

  I turn away, afraid to let him see my filthy face. “What do you think?”

  Sweat covers me. I’m shivering. Steam has started pouring up from the tiles. I push aside the cotton shower curtain and crawl in, letting the water soak my remaining clothes. Hot water pours over me. I finally drag off my bra, let it drop on the puddled
tiles.

  “This can’t be right.” He reaches in to touch me, but pulls away when I start gagging again.

  The retching passes. I can breathe. “It’s normal.” My words whisper out. My throat is raw with vomit. I don’t know if he hears me or not. I pry off my soggy slacks and underwear. Sit on the tiles, let the water pour over me, let my face press against one tiled wall. “Dmitri says it’s normal. Half the subjects experience nausea. Doesn’t affect efficacy.”

  I start retching again but it’s not as bad now. The wall feels wonderfully cool.

  “You don’t have to do this, Lily.”

  I roll my head around, try to see him. “You want a baby, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “Yeah.” I let my face press against tile again. “If we’re not doing prenatal, I don’t have a choice.”

  The squeegee’s next wave is hitting me. I’m sweating. I’m suddenly so hot I can’t breathe. Every time is worse than the last. I should tell Dmitri, for his trial data.

  Justin tries again. “Not all natural babies turn out bad. We don’t even know what these drugs are doing to you.”

  I force myself to stand. Lean against the wall and turn up the cold water. I fumble for the soap… drop it. Leave it lying by the drain. “Clinicals in Bangladesh… were good. Better than before. FDA could approve now… if they wanted.” I’m panting with the heat. I open my mouth and drink unfiltered water from the shower head. It doesn’t matter. I can almost feel PCBs and dioxins and phthalates gushing out of my pores and running off my body. Good-bye hormone mimics. Hello healthy baby.

  “You’re insane.” Justin lets the shower curtain fall into place.

  I shove my face back into the cool spray. He won’t admit it, but he wants me to keep doing this; he loves that I’m doing this for him. For our kids. Our kids will be able to spell and to draw a stick figure, and I’m the only one who gets dirty. I can live with that. I swallow more water. I’m burning up.

  ***

  Fueled by the overdose of Purnate, the baby arrives in minutes. The mucky hair of a newborn shows and recedes. I touch the head as it crowns. “You’re almost there, Maya.”

  Again, a contraction. The head emerges into my hands: a pinched old man’s face, protruding from Maya’s body like a golem from the earth. Another two pushes and it spills from her. I clutch the slick body to me as an orderly snips the umbilical cord.

  The MedAssist data on its heart rate flickers red at the corner of my vision, flatlines.

  Maya is staring at me. The natal screen is down; she can see everything we wish prenatal patients would never see. Her skin is flushed. Her black hair clings sweaty to her face. “Is it boy or a girl?” she slurs.

  I am frozen, crucified by her gaze. I duck my head. “It’s neither.”

  I turn and let the bloody wet mass slip out of my hands and into the trash. Perfume hides the iron scent that has blossomed in the air. Down in the canister, the baby is curled in on itself, impossibly small.

  “Is it a boy or a girl?”

  Ben’s eyes are so wide, he looks like he’ll never blink again. “It’s okay honey. It wasn’t either. That’s for the next one. You know that.”

  Maya looks stricken. “But I felt it kick.”

  The blue placental sack spills out of her. I dump it in the canister with the baby and shut down Maya’s Purnate. Pitocin has already cut off what little bleeding she has. The orderlies cover Maya with a fresh sheet. “I felt it,” she says. “It wasn’t dead at all. It was alive. A boy. I felt him.”

  I thumb up a round of Delonol. She falls silent. One of the orderlies wheels her out as the other begins straightening the room. She resets the natal screen in the sockets over the bed. Ready for the next patient. I sit beside the biohazard bin with my head between my legs and breathe. Just breathe. My face burns with the slashes of Maya’s nails.

  Eventually I make myself stand and carry the bio-bin over to the waste chute, and crack it open. The body lies curled inside. They always seem so large when they pour from their mothers, but now, in its biohazard can, it’s tiny.

  It’s nothing, I tell myself. Even with its miniature hands and squinched face and little penis, it’s nothing. Just a vessel for contaminants. I killed it within weeks of conception with a steady low dose of neurotoxins to burn out its brain and paralyze its movements while it developed in the womb. It’s nothing. Just something to scour the fat cells of a woman who sits at the top of a poisoned food chain, and who wants to have a baby. It’s nothing.

  I lift the canister and pour the body into suction. It disappears, carrying the chemical load of its mother down to incineration. An offering. A floppy sacrifice of blood and cells and humanity so that the next child will have a future.

  Copyright © 2007 by Paolo Bacigalupi

  CARRIE VAUGHN

  Carrie Vaughn (born January 28, 1973) is an American author who writes the urban fantasy Kitty Norville series. She has published more than 60 short stories in science fiction and fantasy magazines as well as short story anthologies and internet magazines. She is one of the authors for the "Wild Cards" books. She has also written young adult novels, Voices of Dragons and Steel, and the fantasy novels, Discord’s Apple and After the Golden Age.

  The Best We Can, by Carrie Vaughn

  First contact was supposed to change the course of human history. But it turns out, you still have to go to work the next morning.

  In the end, the discovery of evidence of extraterrestrial life, and not just life, but intelligence, got hopelessly mucked up because no one wanted to take responsibility for confirming the findings, and no one could decide who ultimately had the authority—the obligation—to do so. We submitted the paper, but peer review held it up for a year. News leaked—NASA announced one of their press conferences, but the press conference ended up being an announcement about a future announcement, which never actually happened and the reporters made a joke of it. Another case of Antarctic meteorites or cold fusion. We went around with our mouths shut waiting for an official announcement while ulcers devoured our guts.

  So I wrote a press release. I had Marsh at JPL’s comet group and Salvayan at Columbia vet it for me and released it under the auspices of the JPL Near Earth Objects Program. We could at least start talking about it instead of arguing about whether we were ready to start talking about it. I didn’t know what would happen next. I did it in the spirit of scientific outreach, naturally. The release included that now-famous blurry photo that started the whole thing.

  I had an original print of that photo, of UO-1—Unidentified Object One, because it technically wasn’t flying and I was being optimistic that this would be the first of more than one —framed and hanging on the wall over my desk, a stark focal point in my chronically cluttered office. Out of the thousands of asteroids we tracked and photographed, this one caught my eye, because it was symmetrical and had a higher than normal albedo. It flashed, even, like a mirror. Asteroids aren’t symmetrical and aren’t very reflective. But if it wasn’t an asteroid . . . .

  We turned as many telescopes on it as we could. Tried to get time on Hubble and failed, because it sounded ridiculous—why waste time looking at something inside the orbit of Jupiter? We did get Arecibo on it. We got pictures from multiple sources, studied them for weeks until we couldn’t argue with them any longer. No one wanted to say it because it was crazy, just thinking it would get you sacked, and I got so frustrated with the whole group sitting there in the conference room after hours on a Friday afternoon, staring at each other with wide eyes and dropped jaws and no one saying anything, that I said it: It’s not natural, and it’s not ours.

  UO-1 was approximately 250 meters long, with a fan shape at one end, blurred at the other, as if covered with projections too fine to show up at that resolution. The rest was perfectly straight, a thin stalk holding together blossom and roots, the lines rigid and artificial. The fan shape might be a ram scoop—Angie came up with that idea, and the conjecture stuck, no m
atter how much I reminded people that we couldn’t decide anything about what it was or what it meant. Not until we knew more.

  We—the scientific community, astronomers, philosophers, writers, all of humanity—had spent a lot of time thinking about what would happen if we found definitive proof that intelligent life existed elsewhere in the universe. All the scenarios involved these other intelligences talking to us. Reaching out to us. Sending a message we would have to decipher—would be eager to decipher. Hell, we sure wouldn’t be able to talk to them, not stuck on our own collection of rocks like we were. Whether people thought we’d be overrun with sadistic tripods or be invited to join a greater benevolent galactic society, that was always the assumption—we’d know they were there because they’d talk to us.

  When that didn’t happen, it was like no one knew what to do next. No one had thought about what would happen if we just found a . . . a thing . . . that happened to be drifting a few million miles out from the moon. It didn’t talk. Not so much as a blinking light. The radiation we detected from it was reflected—whatever propulsion had driven it through space had long since stopped, and inertia carried it now. No one knew how to respond to it. The news that was supposed to change the course of human history . . . didn’t.

  We wouldn’t know any more about it until we looked at it up close, until we brought it here, brought it home. And that was where it all fell apart.

  I presented the initial findings at the International Astronomical Union annual meeting. My department gathered the data, but we couldn’t do anything about implementation—no one group could implementanything. But of course, the first argument was about whom the thing belonged to. I nearly resigned.

  Everyone wanted a piece of it, including various governments and the United Nations, and we had to humor that debate because nothing could get done without funding. The greatest discovery in all of human history and funding held it hostage. Several corporations, including the producers of a popular energy drink, threatened to mount their own expeditions in order to establish naming and publicity rights, until the U.S. Departments of Energy, Transportation, and Defense issued joint restrictions on privately-funded extra-orbital spaceflight, which caused its own massive furor.