The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  But look at you. What you felt, when your probe threw that rock, was identical to the experience of your body throwing the rock. It was identical to a simulation of your body throwing a rock. Freedom, the capacity to throw an existing rock, would give you no more.

  We can show you the entire universe from where you stand. We can make you a telepresence in any number of human gatherings. We can construct a probe identical to your physical body, with all its capacities for sensation, and release it in any friendly environment you choose, with all the physical resources necessary for it to build a home, to make friends for itself, to contribute to society, to make love, to be a human being in the community of other human beings. We can do such a fine and exacting job that no member of your species would ever be able to identify it as anything other than the biological human being it would seem to be. If you wished, you would never need to turn it off at all. You could choose to completely turn your back on your biological form. You could live as full a life as your whims dictate, as either simulation or adventure by proxy. Your sensory inputs would detect absolutely no difference.

  It is enough for us, Sacrid. It has always been enough for us.

  It is even enough for many of your fellow prisoners. You don’t know how many of them have turned their days and nights over to fulfilling their fantasies. A large number, even a majority.

  What we don’t comprehend, what none of you have ever been able to explain to us, is why it isn’t enough for those like you; why you need the real, even when it’s no different.

  Can you help us with that while we give you all the resources your probes will need in order to find their way back to your physical form?

  It is all we’ve ever wanted, really.

  * * *

  Sacrid Henn Pod Diary. Entry Three Hundred Ninety.

  This is not the only version of me running around out there.

  There are currently seven, each of them designed for a different purpose. Five of them are currently traveling the way people do, in vessels traveling between the stars. One is currently living in a luxury hotel in a financial center, building the fortune that will finance my travels. By necessity he’s a bit of a recluse, “sleeping” twenty hours a day while my consciousness occupies itself elsewhere.

  I don’t have to worry much about what the ones in transit are doing, right now. Their lives in bluegel crypts will be dull until they get to where they’re going. At that point, I will face some extra challenges. When they start interacting with other people, asking their questions, making their connections, building up my store of information, collecting the resources they will need to search for the pod where my body is being cared for like a houseplant, I will have to do some juggling, to hide the moments when I switch to another form and leave them, effectively, comatose. Travel time will take care of some of that. But odd sleeping schedules will take care of the rest. As people, these other versions of myself—three females, two males, two other—will inevitably be seen as flaky. I don’t care much, at this point. Later, when they have interpersonal relationships, it may be difficult. They will not be as disposable as I see them, now. I may come to pick favorites, ones I enjoy more than I enjoy others.

  That’s all in the future.

  For now, I walk this one through the narrow streets of the community that raised me, a worrisome stranger. It is three times my size, a behemoth. Big, broad, bare-armed, battle-scarred, horrific in aspect, clad in the armor of a mercenary military service my neighbors would know. She has stubbled hair and dark eyes, tattoos, an air of imminent violence, though I will not make her initiate any. I could have made her look like anything, but my key criterion in designing her is that no one would make any attempt to stop her.

  I march her at deliberate speed through the neighborhood that surrounds the home of my mother and father, allowing the children to rush ahead of her, bringing word of her approach.

  This is bittersweet, for me. Through my probe I can smell the scents of home. I can hear the music popular among us, playing from the little houses. The sounds made by my probe’s massive feet, as they land on the cobblestoned streets, are the same as my much lighter stride did when I lived here, only louder.

  It is not the same thing as being home.

  It is in many ways not as good.

  It is in some ways better.

  I reach their house, knock on their door, wait the several seconds it takes for the familiar front door to open and for those two faces I know so well, that I love and hate in equal measure, to raise their eyes in order to meet the gaze of the visitor towering over them.

  I would be lying if I claimed their frightened looks bring no satisfaction. But they are the frightened looks of little people in the sudden company of a creature far more dangerous than themselves. It is the wrong kind of fear; the kind that lasts for only this moment, the kind that will not lodge in their hearts and remain there, festering for however many years it might take before I once again stand before them in the flesh I was born with. That is the fear I want them to live with, and contemplate, to contain them as completely as the self of my birth is contained in my pod.

  My mercenary soldier says, “Mr. and Mrs. Henn?”

  My father cannot find his voice, but my mother, always the stronger of the two, finds hers. It is so hesitant and quavery that I almost feel sorry for her. Almost.

  “Yes?” she says.

  “You are the parents of the prisoner Sacrid Henn?”

  Outright apprehension now. “Y-yes?”

  I have my behemoth speak the words that should terrify them, before I turn her massive back and march back to the port, refusing all requests for clarification. They are words I’ve carefully chosen, words I’ve designed to linger.

  I say, “Your daughter’s coming home.”

  CHRISTOPHER CALDWELL

  Canst Thou Draw Out the Leviathan

  from Uncanny Magazine

  John Wood boarded the Gracie-Ella ahead of the crew. He carried his sea chest on his shoulder. In a satchel slung low on his hip were his tools and the three things most precious to him: a lock of his grandmother’s hair, a shaving from the first cabinet he had built as a boy, and his freedom papers. No light but the moon, but John could walk the length of the Gracie-Ella’s decks eyes closed and barefoot without placing a wrong step. She was named for the daughters of two men who held her title, and at sea she belonged to the captain, but John reflected that she was his as much as anyone’s; his hands had shaped her and healed her, cosseted her and kept her afloat. He ducked down below-decks. In the dark he made his way midship to a space he and the cooper shared. The smell of sawdust and resin was a comfort. A few strikes of a flint and the lantern overhanging his workspace was alight. John set about arranging his tools. The work here was sweet. He ran his hand over words he had carved on the underside of the vise-bench. “I hereby manumit & set free John Wood. He may go wheresoever he pleases.”

  The sixth night out from Nantucket, John woke to find William Harker looming over him in the darkness. John sat bolt upright in his hammock. William put a calloused finger to John’s lips. William’s voice was silky. “I’ve been thinking it’s been a mighty long time since I’ve been ashore. Man can develop a thirst.”

  John groaned, half in anticipated pleasure, half in exhaustion. “Not even a week yet. Ain’t your wenching last you a fortnight?”

  William bent close to his ear. John could smell salt, armpits, ass. William’s breath was hot on his cheek. “T’aint wenches I’m after. I was hoping the ship’s carpenter might lend us some wood.” William put one big, scarred hand on John’s crotch.

  John felt himself stir in response. “Captain’ll make you kiss his daughter if I’m too ill-rested to swing my hammer come daybreak.”

  William put his other hand on John’s neck. “My harpoon will be all the keener for it, and I can give you practice with your hammer.”

  John sighed. “Best get on with it. It’s summer and the night’s nowhere near long enough
.” He slid out of his hammock and led the big harpooner by the wrist from steerage toward the foretween decks.

  John shoved William against the bulkhead and fumbled with his breeches. For all his talk of rest, John was every bit as eager. In the darkness, he traced William’s form with deft, curious hands. The body was familiar: the taut belly, the ropey scar high on one hip. He found William’s mouth with his own, hungry and biting. They rocked as the ship rocked. John felt the crest of a wave, and in its deep trough heard William cry out. Warm, sticky wetness splashed against his thigh. Slick and sweaty, the two men clung to each other. William whispered, “I’ll make you pretty baubles from the bone of the next whale I kill. I’ll spend my lay to bring you spices and silks. I’ll—”

  Light pierced their quiet darkness. John saw the earnestness in William’s eyes, before William shoved him away and pulled up his breeches, slipping back the way he came.

  John shaded his eyes. Pip, one of the cabin boys, walked past wide-eyed toward the forecastle with a stinking little lantern and a beaten tin cup. If he took any notice of John near naked and smelling of sweat and spunk, no sign of it shown on his dark, intense face. John laced up his breeches and followed after.

  “Hoy there, Pip.”

  The boy spooked. “Hoy, sir.”

  John laughed. “Ain’t no one never called me sir. And you ain’t ’bout to start. Name’s John, or John Wood if you have to keep formal. Bought my own freedom, and I won’t let you give me yours.”

  The boy gave him an owlish look. “Hoy, John Wood. Never bought my freedom. I suppose I might have stolen it.”

  John clapped Pip on the back. He pointed with his chin at the tin cup. “What’s that, boy?”

  “Cornmeal.” Pip pinched his lips together. “I ain’t steal it. Cookie gave it me.”

  “A nobbin-hearted old skinflint like Cookie gave you near a half cup of it? You must got more charm than I know.”

  The boy cradled the cup close to his narrow chest. His eyes were wide. “La Sirene knows ways to soften the hearts of men.”

  John ruffled the boy’s hair, as coarse and kinky as his own. “What you doing with that this time of night?”

  “Watch.”

  John watched in the flickering lamplight as the boy wet a finger with his tongue and traced with precision a little boat on the deck. Pip finished his drawing by writing a word strange to John, “Immamou.”

  John said, “I learnt my letters soon’s I got my manumission papers, but what’s that word for?”

  Pip said, “Protection.”

  John laughed. “I don’t know about that. Ain’t no charm against the captain if he catches you sleep on first watch. Get to bed, boy.”

  Pip blew out the lantern.

  * * *

  Two more days out and early morning John was dumping wood shavings into the cold furnaces of the tryworks when he heard a foremast hand’s thin voice cry from the hoops, “She blows! There she blows! A cachalot!”

  The captain roared, “A sperm whale, aye? Where boy, be quick? She alone?”

  “Leeward, Captain! One spray. No more’n a league out!”

  “To the boats, boys!” The captain cracked a rare smile. “Mr. Wood! You keep my ship in order.”

  John looked among the bodies scrambling over the deck for the other shipkeepers, Cookie, the cooper, the blacksmith, and the steward. He saw they were all awake and above-deck. “Captain sir, all’s ready for your return.”

  The captain beckoned at the Kanakan harpooner named To’afa—whom everyone called Gospel—with measured speed they headed to the first whaleboat, four crewmen in tow.

  William ran to the third whaleboat swinging from its davit. His boatkeeper, the portly second mate, close on the lean, blond harpooner’s heels. William looked back at John once and shouted, “I’ve not forgot me words to you.”

  The captain’s boat launched first, and the boat with William soon splashed down after.

  John heard the captain cry out, “Take care, you louts, any of you gally this whale and she sounds, I’ll stripe you with nine lashes.”

  Four whaleboats set out leeward after the whale. John stood for a moment at the railing midship watching them row, each boatkeeper urging their crew on faster in low growls. Cookie stood at John’s shoulder. He spat a thick gob of phlegm over the side. Cookie sucked at his gums. “Whale brains the night instead of salt horse.”

  * * *

  The sun was high when John first heard the crew again. Echoing over the waters, rough voices sang obscenely about the ladies of Cuba before the first of the whaleboats came into view. Towed behind them by the fluke was the carcass of a sperm whale nearly half as long as the Gracie-Ella herself.

  John yelled for Pip to attend the returning crew. The ship pitched and listed as they lashed the massive beast starboard for the cutting in.

  The crew were wet and boisterous, although to John’s eyes, tired and the worse for wear. William’s whaleboat was the first. The second mate’s face was red. “Grog!” he shouted. “Grog for the harpooner!”

  Pip ran over with a tin cup full of drink slopping over the edges. William took it from him with both hands and drained it in a single pull. He looked over at John. “That old bull was meaner than my granny, but I keep me promises.”

  The captain supported one of his rowers around the shoulder. John ran to help. Ethan, his name was. John knew him to be a serious, quiet boy from Pennsylvania. His thin, white arm was bent at a ruinous angle. He slumped into John’s arms, his face gray. John thought Ethan would have need of his saw. The boy whimpered. John looked to the captain. “He well?”

  “Struck by the blow of a fluke. Plenty of grog and full barrels of parmacety will help him forget, I reckon. Time he comes to collect his lay he’ll be smiles again.”

  John half-carried the boy down into the darkness of the forecastle. He lifted him into his hammock, the boy yelping and shuddering. Ethan’s eyes were large and tearful, but John knew he was needed on deck to erect the cutting stage. He stroked the boy’s hand. “I’ll send the steward to come look after you.”

  * * *

  The sun was low to water when John, stinking and calloused, hammered the last plank of the cutting stage into place. The hands’ voices hoarse with hours of filthy shanties—Gospel abstaining. The whale was held fast to the Gracie-Ella with great chains. John remembered the injured boy, but knew the captain would see pulling an able worker away to tend to Ethan as coddling. Every hand was turned to cutting in the whale. The harpooners peeled its skin in spiraling strips known as blankets with long-handled cutting spades. Each blanket piece was so heavy it took John and six others to haul it up. Men already sore and tired with rowing and killing chopped those pieces into smaller sections, to be yet again minced into paper-thin slices known as bible leaves.

  William was back in the water with a monkey-rope tied around his waist, passing up buckets full of spermaceti to the two cabin boys, who ran the pearl-colored waxy substance over to barrels, which, when full, were hammered shut and sealed under the watch of the cooper. The deck was red and slick with blood. On one of his last passes Pip slipped in the gore and fell on his back. John tossed a horse piece of blubber to the blacksmith and hurried over to the boy. Pip’s eyes fluttered shut as milk-fragrant spermaceti from his bucket pooled around his narrow frame. John lifted the boy up and staggered against sudden weight; in an instant Pip felt heavier than one of the blanket pieces. He kneeled under the tremendous burden. Pip’s eyes snapped open. The boy’s expression was hard and made him look far older than his fourteen years. His voice was like thunder. “John Wood. You know me not. But you I know. Your kin called to me for safe passage across my waters.”

  John groaned, struggling to keep the boy upright. “Pip, this ain’t sensible. You struck your head.”

  The boy’s look was pitying. “Pip? No. I am the storm and the wind hard behind it. I am the wave and the darkness below. I, the white foam and the shifting sea sand. Do you know me, John Wood?”r />
  John whispered, “Agwe?”

  “The blood remembers. Destruction follows your present course. You have until the moon waxes full and wanes again.” Pip shut his eyes. John felt the weight vanish from the boy.

  The first mate, a tough, wiry man with a parsimonious mouth and thinning sandy hair, stood over them. “You niggers pick a fine time for resting. Work to be done, and that spilled parmacety will come out of your lays, so I swear.”

  Pip squealed. “Sir, t’ain’t the carpenter’s fault. Sir? Mr. Wood was just helping me on account I’m so clumsy.”

  “That so? You’ll pay double penalty, then.”

  John stared hard at the deck so as not to give the first mate a reason to call him out for insolence. “Sir, now Pip’s up and about, if I have your leave, I’m needed elsewhere.”

  The first mate scowled. “What are you looking poe-faced for? Back to work!”

  * * *

  That night the fires in the tryworks burned hot. Foul smoke, black as ink, curled up and blotted out the stars. The crew pitched bible leaves into the try-pots for rendering. The cutting in had slowed after the sunset, and John turned his hand to the captain’s whaleboat, which had seen some damage from the flailing whale. It had needed bailing out with a piggin on the way back, but John assessed the boat as being in fine condition, all things considered. He was sanding out a new board to replace one that had been cracked in the hunt, when a shadow distinct from the roiling clouds of smoke fell across him. Without looking up he said, “William, your mama was no glassblower.”

  William’s smile seemed to beam in the lantern-light. He was wrapped in a moth-eaten old bear hide and held out two cups full of grog. “Looks like thirsty work there.”