Nebula Awards Showcase 2016

by Mercedes Lackey

  It was August.

  The outside world, with which they had no contact, had ceased to exist for them, even as they raced to save it.

  Workboots—

  Oxfords—

  Sandals—

  NOAH

  Rain fell in the garden. Noah tilted his head to the artificial sky. He loved rainy afternoons, even if this was not really rain, nor afternoon. Soon he would experience the real thing.

  Llaa^moh¡ came toward him through the dark, lush leaves open as welcoming hands. Noah was surprised; these important days she rarely left the lab. Too much to do.

  She said, “Should not you be teaching?”

  He wanted to say I’m playing hooky but had no idea what the idiom would be in Worldese. Instead he said, hoping he had the tenses right, “My students I will return at soon. Why you here? Something is wrong?”

  “All is right.” She moved into his arms. Again Noah was surprised; Worlders did not touch sexually in public places, even public places temporarily empty. Others might come by, unmated others, and it was just as rude to display physical affection in front of those without it as to eat in front of anyone hungry.

  “Llaa^moh¡—”

  She whispered into his ear. Her words blended with the rain, with the rich flower scents, with the odor of wet dirt. Noah clutched her and began to cry.

  VI: S minus two weeks

  MARIANNE

  The Commons outside the lab was littered with frozen food trays, with discarded sterile wrappings, with an empty disinfectant bottle. Harrison slumped in a chair and said the obvious.

  “We’ve failed, Marianne.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I know.” And then, fiercely, “Do you think the Denebs know more than we do? And aren’t sharing?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Fucking bastards,” Marianne said. Weeks ago she had crossed the line from defending the aliens to blaming them. How much of humanity had been ahead of her in that? By now, maybe all of it.

  They had discovered nothing useful about the anomalous protein in Marianne’s blood. The human body contained so many proteins whose identities were not understood. But that wouldn’t make any difference, not now. There wasn’t enough time.

  “Harrison,” she began, and didn’t get to finish her sentence.

  Between one breath and the next, Harrison Rice and the lab, along with everything else, disappeared.

  NOAH

  Nine, not counting him. The rest had been put ashore, to face whatever would happen to them on Earth. Noah would have much preferred to be with Llaa^moh¡, but she of course had duties. Even unannounced, departure was dangerous. Too many countries had too many formidable weapons.

  So instead of standing beside Llaa^moh¡, Noah sat in his energy suit in the Terran compartment of the shuttle. Around him, strapped into chairs, sat the nine Terrans going to World. The straps were unnecessary; Llaa^moh¡ had told him that the acceleration would feel mild, due to the same gravity-altering machinery that had made the World section of the Embassy so comfortable. But Terrans were used to straps in moving vehicles, so there were straps.

  Kayla Rhinehart and her little son.

  Her sister, Isabelle.

  The surly Tony Schrupp, a surprise. Noah had been sure Tony would change his mind.

  A young woman, five months pregnant, who “wanted to give my baby a better life.” She did not say what her previous life had been, but there were bruises on her arms and legs.

  A pair of thirty-something brothers with restless, eager-for-adventure eyes.

  A middle-aged journalist with a sun-leathered face and impressive byline, recorders in her extensive luggage.

  And, most unexpected, a Terran physicist, Dr. Nathan Beyon of Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

  Nine Terrans willing to go to the stars.

  A slight jolt. Noah smiled at the people under his leadership—he, who had never led anything before, not even his own life—and said, “Here we go.”

  That seemed inadequate, so he said, “We are off to the stars!”

  That seemed dumb. Tony sneered. The journalist looked amused. Austin clutched his mother.

  Noah said, “Your new life will be wonderful. Believe it.”

  Kayla gave him a wobbly smile.

  MARIANNE

  She could not imagine where she was.

  Cool darkness, with the sky above her brightening every second. It had been so long since she’d seen a dawn sky, or any sky. Silver-gray, then pearl, and now the first flush of pink. The floor rocked gently. Then the last of the knock-out gas left her brain and she sat up. A kind of glorified barge, flat and wide with a single square rod jutting from the middle. The barge floated gently on New York Harbor. The sea was smooth as polished gray wood. In one direction rose the skyline of Manhattan; in the other, the Embassy. All around her lay her colleagues: Dr. Rafat, Harrison Rice and Ann Potter, lab techs Penny and Robbie, all the rest of the twenty-two people who’d still been aboard the Embassy. They wore their daily clothing. In her jeans and tee, Marianne shivered in a sudden breeze.

  Nearby lay a pile of blankets. She took a yellow one and wrapped it around her shoulders. It felt warm and silky, although clearly not made of silk. Other people began to stir. Pink tinged the east.

  Harrison came to her side. “Marianne?”

  Automatically she said, because she’d been saying so many times each day, “I feel fine.” And then, “What the fuck?”

  He said something just as pointless: “But we have two more weeks!”

  “Oh my God!” someone cried, pointing, and Marianne looked up. The eastern horizon turned gold. Against it, a ship, dark and small, shot from the Embassy and climbed the sky. Higher and higher, while everyone on the barge shaded their eyes against the rising sun and watched it fly out of sight.

  “They’re going,” someone said quietly.

  They. The Denebs. Noah.

  Before the tears that stung her eyes could fall, the Embassy vanished. One moment it was there, huge and solid and gray in the pre-dawn, and the next it was just gone. The water didn’t even ripple.

  The metal rod in the center of the ship spoke. Marianne, along with everyone else, turned sharply. Shoulder-high, three feet on a side, the rod had become four screens, each filled with the same alien/human image and mechanical voice.

  “This is Ambassador Smith. A short time from now, this recording will go to everyone on Earth, but we wanted you, who have helped us so much, to hear it first. We of World are deeply in your debt. I would like to explain why, and to leave you a gift.

  “Your astronomers’ calculations were very slightly mistaken, and we did not correct them. In a few hours the spore cloud will envelop your planet. We do not think it will harm you because—”

  Someone in the crowd around the screen cried, “What?”

  “—because you are genetically immune to this virus. We suspected as much before we arrived, although we could not be sure. Homo sapiens acquired immunity when Earth passed through the cloud the first time, about seventy thousand years ago.”

  A graphic replaced Smith’s face: the Milky Way galaxy, a long dark splotch overlapping it, and a glowing blue dot for Earth. “The rotation of the galaxy plus its movement through space-time will bring you back into contact with the cloud’s opposite edge from where it touched you before. Your physicists were able to see the approaching cloud, but your instruments were not advanced enough to understand its shape or depth. Earth will be passing through the edge of the cloud for two-point-six years. On its first contact, the cloud killed every homo sapiens that did not come with this genetic mutation.”

  A gene sequence of base pairs flashed across the screen, too fast to be noted.

  “This sequence will appear again later, in a form you can record. It is found in what you call ‘junk DNA.’ The sequence is a transposon and you will find it complementary to the spores’ genetic code. Your bodies made no antibodies against the spores because it does not consider them invade
rs. Seventy thousand years ago our people had already been taken from Earth or we, too, would have died. We are without this sequence, which appeared in mutation later than our removal.”

  Marianne’s mind raced. Seventy thousand years ago. The “bottleneck event” that had shrunk the human population on Earth to a mere few thousand. It had not been caused by the Toba volcano or ferocious predators or climate changes, but by the spore cloud. As for the gene sequence—one theory said that much of the human genome consisted of inactive and fossilized viruses absorbed into the DNA. Fossilized and inactive—almost she could hear Evan’s voice: “Or so we thought. . . .”

  Smith continued. “You will find that in Marianne Jenner, Ahmed Rafat, and Penelope Hodgson this sequence has already activated, producing the protein already identified in Dr. Jenner’s blood, a protein that this recording will detail for you. The protein attaches to the outside of cells and prevents the virus from entering. Soon the genetic sequence will do so in the rest of humanity. Some may become mildly ill, like Robert Chavez, due to faulty protein production. We estimate this will comprise perhaps twenty percent of you. There may be fatalities among the old or already sick, but most of you are genetically protected. Some of your rodents do not seem to be, which we admit was a great surprise to us, and we cannot say for certain what other Terran species may be susceptible.

  “We know that we are fatally susceptible. We cannot alter our own genome, at least not for the living, but we have learned much from you. By the time the spore cloud reaches World, we will have developed a vaccine. This would not have been possible without your full cooperation and your bodily samples. We—”

  “If this is true,” Penny Hodgson shouted, “why didn’t they tell us?”

  “—did not tell you the complete truth because we believe that had you known Earth was in no critical danger, you would not have allocated so many resources, so much scientific talent, or such urgency into the work on the Embassy. We are all human, but your evolutionary history and present culture are very different from ours. You do not build identity on family. You permit much of Earth’s population to suffer from lack of food, water, and medical care. We didn’t think you would help us as much as we needed unless we withheld from you certain truths. If we were mistaken in our assessment, please forgive us.”

  They weren’t mistaken, Marianne thought.

  “We are grateful for your help,” Smith said, “even if obtained fraudulently. We leave you a gift in return. This recording contains what you call the ‘engineering specs’ for a star drive. We have already given you the equations describing the principles. Now you may build a ship. In generations to come, both branches of humanity will profit from more open and truthful exchanges. We will become true brothers.

  “Until then, ten Terrans accompany us home. They have chosen to do this, for their own reasons. All were told that they would not die if they remained on Earth, but chose to come anyway. They will become World, creating further friendship with our clan brothers on Terra.

  “Again—thank you.”

  Pandemonium erupted on the barge: talking, arguing, shouting. The sun was above the horizon now. Three Coast Guard ships barreled across the harbor toward the barge. As Marianne clutched her yellow blanket closer against the morning breeze, something vibrated in the pocket of her jeans.

  She pulled it out: a flat metal square with Noah’s face on it. As soon as her gaze fell on his, the face began to speak. “I’m going with them, Mom. I want you to know that I am completely happy. This is where I belong. I’ve mated with Llaa^moh¡—Dr. Jones—and she is pregnant. Your grandchild will be born among the stars. I love you.”

  Noah’s face faded from the small square.

  Rage filled her, red sparks burning. Her son, and she would never see him again! Her grandchild, and she would never see him or her at all. She was being robbed, being deprived of what was hers by right, the aliens should never have come—

  She stopped. Realization slammed into her, and she gripped the rail of the barge so tightly that her nails pierced the wood.

  The aliens had made a mistake. A huge, colossal, monumental mistake.

  Her rage, however irrational, was going to be echoed and amplified across the entire planet. The Denebs had understood that Terrans would work really hard only if their own survival were at stake. But they did not understand the rest of it. The Deneb presence on Earth had caused riots, diversion of resources, deaths, panic, fear. The “mild illness” of the twenty percent like Robbie, happening all at once starting today, was enough to upset every economy on the planet. The aliens had swept like a storm through the world, and as in the aftermath of a superstorm, everything in the landscape had shifted. In addition, the Denebs had carried off ten humans, which could be seen as brainwashing them in order to procure prospective lab rats for future experimentation.

  Brothers, yes—but Castor and Pollux, whose bond reached across the stars, or Cain and Abel?

  Humans did not forgive easily, and they resented being bought off, even with a star drive. Smith should have left a different gift, one that would not let Terrans come to World, that peaceful and rich planet so unaccustomed to revenge or war.

  But on the other hand—she could be wrong. Look how often had she been wrong already: about Elizabeth, about Ryan, about Smith. Maybe, when the Terran disruptions were over and starships actually built, humanity would become so entranced with the Deneb gift that we would indeed go to World in friendship. Maybe the prospect of going to the stars would even soften American isolationism and draw countries together to share the necessary resources. It could happen. The cooperative genes that had shaped Smith and Jones were also found in the Terran genome.

  But—it would happen only if those who wanted it worked hard to convince the rest. Worked, in fact, as hard at urging friendship as they had at ensuring survival. Was that possible? Could it be done?

  Why are you here?

  To make contact with World. A peace mission.

  She gazed up at the multi-colored dawn sky, but the ship was already out of sight. Only its after-image remained in her sight.

  “Harrison,” Marianne said, and felt her own words steady her, “We have a lot of work to do.”

  NEBULA AWARD WINNER

  BEST NOVEL

  EXCERPT FROM ANNIHILATION

  JEFF VANDERMEER

  Jeff VanderMeer’s most recent work is the New York Times–bestselling Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance), all released in 2014. A three-time World Fantasy Award winner and thirteen-time nominee, VanderMeer has been a finalist for the Nebula, Philip K. Dick, and Shirley Jackson Awards, among others. Annihilation was published by FSG Originals.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The tower, which was not supposed to be there, plunges into the earth in a place just before the black pine forest begins to give way to swamp and then the reeds and wind-gnarled trees of the marsh flats. Beyond the marsh flats and the natural canals lies the ocean and, a little farther down the coast, a derelict lighthouse. All of this part of the country had been abandoned for decades, for reasons that are not easy to relate. Our expedition was the first to enter Area X for more than two years, and much of our predecessors’ equipment had rusted, their tents and sheds little more than husks. Looking out over that untroubled landscape, I do not believe any of us could yet see the threat.

  There were four of us: a biologist, an anthropologist, a surveyor, and a psychologist. I was the biologist. All of us were women this time, chosen as part of the complex set of variables that governed sending the expeditions. The psychologist, who was older than the rest of us, served as the expedition’s leader. She had put us all under hypnosis to cross the border, to make sure we remained calm. It took four days of hard hiking after crossing the border to reach the coast.

  Our mission was simple: to continue the government’s investigation into the mysteries of Area X, slowly working our way out from base camp.

  The expedition could last days,
months, or even years, depending on various stimuli and conditions. We had supplies with us for six months, and another two years’ worth of supplies had already been stored at the base camp. We had also been assured that it was safe to live off the land if necessary. All of our foodstuffs were smoked or canned or in packets. Our most outlandish equipment consisted of a measuring device that had been issued to each of us, which hung from a strap on our belts: a small rectangle of black metal with a glass-covered hole in the middle. If the hole glowed red, we had thirty minutes to remove ourselves to “a safe place.” We were not told what the device measured or why we should be afraid should it glow red. After the first few hours, I had grown so used to it that I hadn’t looked at it again. We had been forbidden watches and compasses.

  When we reached the camp, we set about replacing obsolete or damaged equipment with what we had brought and putting up our own tents. We would rebuild the sheds later, once we were sure that Area X had not affected us. The members of the last expedition had eventually drifted off, one by one. Over time, they had returned to their families, so strictly speaking they did not vanish. They simply disappeared from Area X and, by unknown means, reappeared back in the world beyond the border. They could not relate the specifics of that journey. This transference had taken place across a period of eighteen months, and it was not something that had been experienced by prior expeditions. But other phenomena could also result in “premature dissolution of expeditions,” as our superiors put it, so we needed to test our stamina for that place.

  We also needed to acclimate ourselves to the environment. In the forest near base camp one might encounter black bears or coyotes. You might hear a sudden croak and watch a night heron startle from a tree branch and, distracted, step on a venomous snake, of which there were at least six varieties. Bogs and streams hid huge aquatic reptiles, and so we were careful not to wade too deep to collect our water samples. Still, these aspects of the ecosystem did not really concern any of us. Other elements had the ability to unsettle, however. Long ago, towns had existed here, and we encountered eerie signs of human habitation: rotting cabins with sunken, red-tinged roofs, rusted wagon-wheel spokes half-buried in the dirt, and the barely seen outlines of what used to be enclosures for livestock, now mere ornament for layers of pine-needle loam.