The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-I

by Jonathan Strahan

  A long, keening screech, like feedback, like a machine dying. Madhuri's withered hands fly to her face. Her breathing tube curdles with tobacco smoke.

  'Monster! Monster! Unnatural child, ah, I should have left you in that basti! Away from me away away away!'

  Esha retreats from the old woman's mad fury as hospital staff come hurrying across the scorched lawns, white saris flapping.

  * * *

  Every fairytale must have a wedding.

  Of course it was the event of the season. The decrepit old Shalimar Gardens were transformed by an army of malis into a sweet, green, watered maharajah's fantasia with elephants, pavilions, musicians, lancers, dancers, filmi stars and robot bartenders. Neeta and Priya were uncomfortable bridesmaids in fabulous frocks; a great brahmin was employed to bless the union of woman and artificial intelligence. Every television network sent cameras, human or aeai. Gleaming presenters checked the guests in and checked the guests out. Chati mag paparazzi came in their crowds, wondering what they could turn their cameras on. There were even politicians from Bharat, despite the souring relationships between the two neighbours now that Awadh constructors were scooping up the Ganga sands into revetments. But most there were the people of the encroaching bastis, jostling up against the security staff lining the paths of their garden, asking, she's marrying a what? How does that work? Can they, you know? And what about children? Who is she, actually? Can you see anything? I can't see anything. Is there anything to see?

  But the guests and the great were 'hoeked up and applauded the groom in his golden veil on his white stallion, stepping with the delicacy of a dressage horse up the raked paths. And because they were great and guests, there was not one who, despite the free French champagne from the well-known diplomatic sommelier, would ever say, but there's no one there. No one was at all surprised that, after the bride left in a stretch limo, there came a dry, sparse thunder, cloud to cloud, and a hot mean wind that swept the discarded invitations along the paths. As they were filing back to their taxis, tankers were draining the expensively filled qanats.

  It made lead in the news.

  Kathak stars weds aeai lover!!! Honeymoon in Kashmir!!!

  Above the chowks and minarets of Delhi, the djinns bent together in conference.

  * * *

  He takes her while shopping in Tughluk Mall. Three weeks and the shop girls still nod and whisper. She likes that. She doesn't like it that they glance and giggle when the Krishna Cops lift her from the counter at the Black Lotus Japanese Import Company.

  'My husband is an accredited diplomat, this is a diplomatic incident.' The woman in the bad suit pushes her head gently down to enter the car. The Ministry doesn't need personal liability claims.

  'Yes, but you are not, Mrs. Rao,' says Thacker in the back seat. Still wearing that cheap aftershave.

  'Rathore,' she says. 'I have retained my stage name. And we shall see what my husband has to say about my diplomatic status.' She lifts her hand in a mudra to speak to AyJay, as she thinks of him now. Dead air. She performs the wave again.

  'This is a shielded car,' Thacker says.

  The building is shielded also. They take the car right inside, down a ramp into the basement parking lot. It's a cheap, anonymous glass and titanium block on Parliament Street that she's driven past ten thousand times on her way to the shops of Connaught Circus without ever noticing. Thacker's office is on the fifteenth floor. It's tidy and has a fine view over the astronomical geometries of the Jantar Mantar but smells of food: tiffin snatched at the desk. She checks for photographs of family children wife. Only himself smart in pressed whites for a cricket match.

  'Chai?'

  'Please.' The anonymity of this civil service block is beginning to unnerve her: a city within a city. The chai is warm and sweet and comes in a tiny disposable plastic cup. Thacker's smile seems also warm and sweet. He sits at the end of the desk, angled towards her in Krishna-cop handbook 'non-confrontational'.

  'Mrs. Rathore. How to say this?'

  'My marriage is legal. . .'

  'Oh, I know, Mrs. Rathore. This is Awadh, after all. Why, there have even been women who married djinns, within our own lifetimes. No. It's an international affair now, it seems. Oh well. Water: we do all so take it for granted, don't we? Until it runs short, that is.'

  'Everybody knows my husband is still trying to negotiate a solution to the Kunda Khadar problem.'

  'Yes, of course he is.' Thacker lifts a manila envelope from his desk, peeps inside, grimaces coyly. 'How shall I put this? Mrs. Rathore, does your husband tell you everything about his work?'

  'That is an impertinent question. . ..'

  'Yes yes, forgive me, but if you'll look at these photographs.'

  Big glossy hi-res prints, slick and sweet smelling from the printer. Aerial views of the ground, a thread of green blue water, white sands, scattered shapes without meaning.

  'This means nothing to me.'

  'I suppose it wouldn't, but these drone images show Bharati battle tanks, robot reconnaissance units and air defense batteries deploying within striking distance of the construction at Kunda Khadar.'

  And it feels as if the floor has dissolved beneath her and she is falling through a void so vast it has no visible reference points, other than the sensation of her own falling.

  'My husband and I don't discuss work.'

  'Of course. Oh, Mrs. Rathore, you've crushed your cup. Let me get you another one.'

  He leaves her much longer than it takes to get a shot of chai from the wallah. When he returns he asks casually, 'Have you heard of a thing called the Hamilton Acts? I'm sorry, I thought in your position you would. . . but evidently not. Basically, it's a series of international treaties originated by the United States limiting the development and proliferation of high-level artificial intelligences, most specifically the hypothetical Generation Three. No? Did he not tell you any of this?'

  Mrs Rathore in her Italian suit folds her ankles one over the other and thinks, this reasonable man can do anything he wants here, anything.

  'As you probably know, we grade and licence aeais according to levels; these roughly correspond to how convincingly they pass as human beings. A Level 1 has basic animal intelligence, enough for its task but would never be mistaken for a human. Many of them can't even speak. They don't need to. A Level 2.9 like your husband'—he speeds over the word, like the wheel of a shatabdi express over the gap in a rail—'is humanlike to a fifth percentile. A Generation Three is indistinguishable in any circumstances from a human—in fact, their intelligences may be many millions of times ours, if there is any meaningful way of measuring that. Theoretically we could not even recognise such an intelligence, all we would see would be the Generation Three interface, so to speak. The Hamilton Acts simply seek to control technology that could give rise to a Generation Three aeai. Mrs. Rathore, we believe sincerely that the Generation Threes pose the greatest threat to our security—as a nation and as a species—that we have ever faced.'

  'And my husband?' Solid, comfortable word. Thacker's sincerity scares her.

  'The government is preparing to sign the Hamilton Acts in return for loan guarantees to construct the Kunda Khadar dam. When the Act is passed—and it's in the current session of the Lok Sabha—everything under Level 2.8. will be subject to rigorous inspection and licensing, policed by us.'

  'And over Level 2.8?'

  'Illegal, Mrs. Rathore. They will be aggressively erased.'

  Esha crosses and uncrosses her legs. She shifts on the chair. Thacker will wait forever for her response.

  'What do you want me to do?'

  'A.J. Rao is highly placed within the Bharati administration.'

  'You're asking me to spy. . . on an aeai.'

  From his face, she knows he expected her to say husband.

  'We have devices, taps. . . They would be beneath the level of aeai Rao's consciousness. We can run them into your 'hoek. We are not all blundering plods in the Department. Go to the window, Mrs.
Rathore.'

  Esha touches her fingers lightly to the climate-cooled glass, polarised dusk against the drought light. Outside the smog haze says heat. Then she cries and drops to her knees in fear. The sky is filled with gods, rank upon rank, tier upon tier, rising up above Delhi in a vast helix, huge as clouds, as countries, until at the apex the Trimurti, the Hindu Trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, Siva look down like falling moons. It is her private Ramayana, the titanic Vedic battle order of gods arrayed across the troposphere.

  She feels Thacker's hand help her up.

  'Forgive me, that was stupid, unprofessional. I was showing off. I wanted to impress you with the aeai systems we have at our disposal.'

  His hand lingers a moment more than gentle. And the gods go out, all at once.

  She says, 'Mr. Thacker, would you put a spy in my bedroom, in my bed, between me and my husband? That's what you're doing if you tap into the channels between me and AyJay.'

  Still, the hand is there as Thacker guides her to the chair, offers cool cool water.

  'I only ask because I believe I am doing something for this country. I take pride in my job. In some things I have discretion, but not when it comes to the security of the nation. Do you understand?'

  Esha twitches into dancer's composure, straightens her dress, checks her face.

  'Then the least you can do is call me a car.'

  * * *

  That evening she whirls to the tabla and shehnai across the day-warmed marble of a Jaipuri palace Diwan-I-aam, a flame among the twilit pillars. The audience are dark huddles on the marble, hardly daring even to breath. Among the lawyers politicians journalists cricket stars moguls of industry are the managers who have converted this Rajput palace into a planetary-class hotel, and any numbers of chati celebs. None so chati, so celebby, as Esha Rathore. Pranh can cherry-pick the bookings now. She's more than a nine-day, even a nine-week wonder. Esha knows that all her rapt watchers are 'hoeked up, hoping for a ghost-glimpse of her djinn-husband dancing with her through the flame-shadowed pillars.

  Afterwards, as yt carries her armfuls of flowers back to her suite, Pranh says, 'You know, I'm going to have to up my percentage.'

  'You wouldn't dare,' Esha jokes. Then she sees the bare fear on the nute's face. It's only a wash, a shadow. But yts afraid.

  Neeta and Priya had moved out of the bungalow by the time she returned from Dal Lake. They've stopped answering her calls. It's seven weeks since she last went to see Madhuri.

  Naked, she sprawls on the pillows in the filigree-light stone jharoka. She peers down from her covered balcony through the grille at the departing guests. See out, not see in. Like the shut-away women of the old zenana. Shut away from the world. Shut away from human flesh. She stands up, holds her body against the day-warmed stone; the press of her nipples, the rub of her pubis. Can you see me smell me sense me know that I am here at all?

  And he's there. She does not need to see him now, just sense his electric prickle along the inside of her skull. He fades into vision sitting on the end of the low, ornate teak bed. He could as easily materialise in midair in front of her balcony, she thinks. But there are rules, and games, even for djinns.

  'You seem distracted, heart.' He's blind in this room—no camera eyes observing her in her jewelled skin—but he observes her through a dozen senses, a myriad feedback loops through her 'hoek.

  'I'm tired, I'm annoyed, I wasn't as good as I should have been.'

  'Yes, I thought that too. Was it anything to do with the Krishna Cops this afternoon?'

  Esha's heart races. He can read her heartbeat. He can read her sweat, he can read the adrenaline and noradrenaline balance in her brain. He will know if she lies. Hide a lie inside a truth.

  'I should have said, I was embarrassed.' He can't understand shame. Strange, in a society where people die from want of honour. 'We could be in trouble, there's something called the Hamilton Acts.'

  'I am aware of them.' He laughs. He has this way now of doing it inside her head. He thinks she likes the intimacy, a truly private joke. She hates it. 'All too aware of them.'

  'They wanted to warn me. Us.'

  'That was kind of them. And me a representative of a foreign government. So that's why they'd been keeping a watch on you, to make sure you are all right.'

  'They thought they might be able to use me to get information from you.'

  'Did they indeed?'

  The night is so still she can hear the jingle of the elephant harnesses and the cries of the mahouts as they carry the last of the guests down the long processional drive to their waiting limos. In a distant kitchen a radio jabbers.

  Now we will see how human you are. Call him out. At last A.J. Rao says, 'Of course. I do love you.' Then he looks into her face. 'I have something for you.'

  The staff turn their faces away in embarrassment as they set the device on the white marble floor, back out of the room, eyes averted. What does she care? She is a star. A.J. Rao raises his hand and the lights slowly die. Pierced-brass lanterns send soft stars across the beautiful old zenana room. The device is the size and shape of a phatphat tire, chromed and plasticed, alien among the Mughal retro. As Esha floats over the marble towards it, the plain white surface bubbles and deliquesces into dust. Esha hesitates.

  'Don't be afraid, look!' says A.J. Rao. The powder spurts up like steam from boiling rice, then pollen-bursts into a tiny dust-dervish, staggering across the surface of the disc. 'Take the 'hoek off!' Rao cries delightedly from the bed. 'Take it off.' Twice she hesitates, three times he encourages. Esha slides the coil of plastic off the sweet-spot behind her ear and voice and man vanish like death. Then the pillar of glittering dust leaps head high, lashes like a tree in a monsoon and twists itself into the ghostly outline of a man. It flickers once, twice, and then A.J. Rao stands before her. A rattle like leaves a snake-rasp a rush of winds, and then the image says, 'Esha.' A whisper of dust. A thrill of ancient fear runs through her skin into her bones.

  'What is this. . . what are you?'

  The storm of dust parts into a smile

  'I-Dust. Micro-robots. Each is smaller than a grain of sand, but they manipulate static fields and light. They are my body. Touch me. This is real. This is me.'

  But she flinches away in the lantern-lit room. Rao frowns.

  'Touch me. . ..'

  She reaches out her hand towards his chest. Close, he is a creature of sand, a whirlwind permanently whipping around the shape of a man. Esha touches flesh to i-Dust. Her hand sinks into his body. Her cry turns to a startled giggle.

  'It tickles. . ..'

  'The static fields.'

  'What's inside?'

  'Why don't you find out?'

  'What, you mean?'

  'It's the only intimacy I can offer. . ..' He sees her eyes widen under their kohled make-up. 'I think you should hold your breath.'

  She does, but keeps her eyes open until the last moment, until the dust flecks like a dead tivi channel in her close focus. A.J. Rao's body feels like the most delicate Vaanasi silk scarf draped across her bare skin. She is inside him. She is inside the body of her husband, her lover. She dares to open her eyes. Rao's face is a hollow shell looking back at her from a perspective of millimetres. When she moves her lips, she can feel the dust-bots of his lips brushing against hers: an inverse kiss.

  'My heart, my Radha,' whispers the hollow mask of A.J. Rao. Somewhere Esha knows she should be screaming. But she cannot: she is somewhere no human has ever been before. And now the whirling streamers of i-Dust are stroking her hips, her belly, her thighs. Her breasts. Her nipples, her cheeks and neck, all the places she loves to feel a human touch, caressing her, driving her to her knees, following her as the mote-sized robots follow A.J. Rao's command, swallowing her with his body.

  * * *

  It's Gupshup followed by Chandni Chati and at twelve thirty a photo shoot—at the hotel, if you don't mind—for FilmFare's Saturday Special Center Spread—you don't mind if we send a robot, they can get places get angle
s we just can't get the meat-ware and could you dress up, like you did for the opening, maybe a move or two, in between the pillars in the Diwan, just like the gala opening, okay lovely lovely lovely well your husband can copy us a couple of avatars and our own aeais can paste him in people want to see you together, happy couple lovely couple, dancer risen from basti, international diplomat, marriage across worlds in every sense the romance of it all, so how did you meet what first attracted you what's it like be married to an aeai how do the other girls treat you do you, you know and what about children, I mean, of course a woman and an aeai but there are technologies these days geneline engineering like all the super-duper rich and their engineered children and you are a celebrity now how are you finding it, sudden rise to fame, in every gupshup column, worldwide celebi star everyone's talking all the rage and all the chat and all the parties and as Esha answers for the sixth time the same questions asked by the same gazelle-eyed girli celebi reporters oh we are very happy wonderfully happy deliriously happy love is a wonderful wonderful thing and that's the thing about love, it can be for anything, anyone, even a human and an aeai, that's the purest form of love, spiritual love her mouth opening and closing yabba yabba yabba but her inner eye, her eye of Siva, looks inwards, backwards

  Her mouth, opening and closing.

  Lying on the big Mughal sweet-wood bed, yellow morning light shattered through the jharoka screen, her bare skin good-pimpled in the cool of the airco. Dancing between worlds: sleep, wakefulness in the hotel bedroom, memory of the things he did to her limbic centres through the hours of the night that had her singing like a bulbul, the world of the djinns. Naked but for the 'hoek behind her ear. She had become like those people who couldn't afford the treatments and had to wear eyeglasses and learned to at once ignore and be conscious of the technology on their faces. Even when she did remove it—for performing; for, as now, the shower,—she could still place A.J. Rao in the room, feel his physicality. In the big marble stroll-in shower in this VIP suite relishing the gush and rush of precious water (always the mark of a true rani) she knew AyJay was sitting on the carved chair by the balcony. So when she thumbed on the tivi panel (bathroom with tivi, oooh!) to distract her while she towelled dry her hair, her first reaction was a double-take-look at the 'hoek on the sink-stand when she saw the press conference from Varanasi and Water Spokesman A.J. Rao explaining Bharat's necessary military exercises in the vicinity of the Kunda Khadar dam. She slipped on the 'hoek, glanced into the room. There, on the chair, as she felt. There, in the Bharat Sabha studio in Varanasi, talking to Bharti from the Good Morning Awadh! News.