Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

  "Wine, Captain?” she said.

  He hesitated. “If that is customary. I regret I am not familiar with your dietary rituals. I only know they are complex."

  "It's fermented fruit juice, mildly intoxicating,” she said, pouring a little bit in his glass. “People drink it to relax."

  He took the glass gingerly. Susan saw that he had stumpy nubbin fingers. As a nurse, she had had to train herself to feel compassion even for the least appealing patients, and now she was forced to call on that skill to disregard his appearance.

  "Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass.

  There was a snap as the stem on Captain Groton's glass broke in two. The wine slopped onto his hand as he tried to catch the pieces. “Pardon me,” he mumbled. “Your vessel is brittle."

  "Never mind the glass,” Susan said, taking it and handing the pieces to Tom. “Did you cut yourself?"

  "No, of course—” he stopped in mid denial, staring at his hand. A thin line of blood bisected the palm.

  "Here, I'll take care of that,” she said. Taking him by the arm, she led him to the bathroom. It was not until she had dabbed the blood off with a tissue that she realized he was not recoiling at her touch as he had before. Inwardly, she smiled at small victories. But when she brought out a bottle of spray disinfectant, he did recoil, demanding suspiciously, “What is it?"

  "Disinfectant,” she said. “To prevent infection. It's alcohol-based."

  "Oh,” he said. “I thought it might be water."

  She spritzed his hand lightly, then applied a bandage. He was looking curiously around. “What is this place?"

  "It's a bathroom,” she said. “We use it to—well, clean ourselves, and groom, and so forth. This is the toilet.” She raised the lid, and he drew back, obviously repulsed. She had to laugh. “It's really very clean. I swear."

  "It has water in it,” he said with disgust.

  "But the water's not dirty, not now."

  "Water is always dirty,” he said. “It teems with bacteria. It transmits a thousand diseases, yet you humans touch it without any caution. You allow your children to play in it. You drink it, even. I suppose you have gotten used to it, living on this world where it soils everything. It even falls from the sky. It is impossible to get away from it. You have no choice but to soak in it."

  Struck by the startling image of water as filth, Susan said, “Occupying our world must be very unpleasant for you. What is your planet like?"

  "It is very dry,” he said. “Miles and miles of hot, clean sand, like your Sahara. But your population does not live in the habitable spots, so we cannot either."

  "You must drink water sometimes. Your metabolisms are not that different from ours, or you would not be able to eat our food."

  "The trace amounts in foods are enough for us. We do not excrete it like you do."

  "So that's why you don't have bathrooms,” she said.

  He paused, clearly puzzled. Then it dawned on him what she had left out of her explanation. “You use this room for excretory functions?"

  "Yes,” she said. “It's supposed to be private."

  "But you excrete fluids in public all the time,” he said. “From your noses, your mouths, your skin. How can you keep it private?"

  For a moment the vision of humans as oozing bags of bacteria left her unable to answer. Then she said, “That's why we come here, to clean it all off."

  He looked around. “But there is no facility for cleaning."

  "Sure there is.” She turned on the shower. “See?"

  He reacted with horror, so she quickly shut it off. She explained, “You see, we think of water as clean. We bathe in it. How do you bathe?"

  "Sand,” he said. “Tubs of dry, heated sand. It is heavenly."

  "It must be.” She could picture it: soft, white sand. Like what lay under the Okanoggan limestone. She looked at him in dawning realization. “Is that why you want—?"

  "I cannot say anything about that,” he said. “Please do not ask me."

  Which was all the answer she needed.

  When they came back out, Tom and the boys were in the kitchen, so that was where they went.

  "Sorry, we got caught up in a really interesting conversation,” Susan said breezily, with an I'll-tell-you-later look at Tom. “Captain Groton, these are our sons, Ben and Nick.” The boys stood up and nodded awkwardly, obviously coached not to shake hands.

  "They are both yours?” the Wattesoon asked.

  "Yes,” Tom said. “Do you have any kids, captain?"

  "Yes. A daughter."

  "How old is she?” Susan said, pouring some more wine for him in a mug.

  Captain Groton paused so long she wondered if she had said something offensive, but finally he shook his head. “I cannot figure it out. The time dilation makes it too difficult. It would mean little to you anyway; our years are so different."

  "So she's back home on your planet?"

  "Yes."

  "Your wife, too?"

  "She is dead."

  "I'm so sorry. It must have been hard for you to leave your daughter behind."

  "It was necessary. I was posted here. I followed my duty.” It had occurred to Susan that perhaps cow-excretion pie was not the thing to offer her guest, so she began rummaging in the cupboard, and soon assembled a buffet of dry foods: roast soybeans, crackers, apple chips, pine nuts, and a sweet potato for moisture. As Tom tried valiantly to engage the captain in a conversation about fishing, she started assembling the pizza for her family. The dog was barking at the back door, so she asked Ben to feed him. Nick started playing with his Gameboy. There was a pleasantly normal confusion all around.

  "What sorts of food do you eat at home?” Susan asked her guest when she had a chance.

  Groton shrugged. “We are less preoccupied with food than you are. Anything will do. We are omnivores."

  Ben muttered, “Better watch out for our dogs."

  "Ben!” Susan rebuked him.

  Captain Groton turned marbly eyes on him. “We have no interest in your food animals."

  The whole family stared in horror. “Our dogs aren't food!” Ben blurted.

  "Then why do you keep them?” the captain asked reasonably.

  Tom said, “For companionship."

  Ben said, “For fun."

  Susan said, “Because they remind us that we're human. Without other species around, we'd forget."

  "Ah. I see,” the Wattesoon said. “We feel the same."

  In the awkward silence that followed, the humans all wondered who were the Wattesoons’ pets.

  They were saved by the timer. The pizza came out of the oven, and soon all was cheerful confusion again.

  The internet had told Susan that Wattesoons were frugal eaters, but Captain Groton seemed ravenous. He ate some of everything she put on the table, including two slices of pizza.

  * * * *

  To spare their guest the troubling sight of counters, tabletop, and utensils being smeared with water, Susan asked him out to see the back yard so the others could clean up. The screen door banged shut behind them and the dog came trotting up, eager to smell the stranger, till Susan shooed him into the kitchen. She then led the Wattesoon out into the humid, crickety twilight.

  It was a Midwestern evening. The yard backed up onto the river bluff, a weathered limestone cliff overgrown with sumac and grapevine. Susan strolled out past the scattered detritus of Frisbees and lawn darts toward the quiet of the lower yard, where nature had started to encroach. There was an old swing hung from a gnarled oak tree, and she sat down in it, making the ropes creak. In the shady quiet, she swung idly to and fro, thinking of other evenings.

  She had never realized how desperately she loved this place until she was forced to think of losing it. Looking toward the dark bushes by the cliff, she saw the silent flare of fireflies. “Are you able to find this beautiful?” she said, not trying to hide the longing in her voice.

  After a few moments of silence, she looked over to find the cap
tain gazing into the dark, lost in thought. “I am sorry,” he said, recollecting himself. “What did you ask?"

  Instead of answering, she said, “I think we each get imprinted on a certain kind of landscape when we're young. We can enjoy other spots, but only one seems like we're made from it, down to our bones. This is mine."

  "Yes,” he said.

  "Can you understand how it is for us, then? We talk a lot about our investments and our livelihoods, but that's just to hide the pain. We love this place. We're bonded to it."

  He didn't answer at once, so she stopped the swing to look at him.

  "I understand,” he said.

  "Do you?” she said hopefully.

  "It changes nothing. I am sorry."

  Disappointed, she stared at his lumpy face. Now that she was a little more accustomed to him, he did not seem quite so rubbly and squat. He gave an impatient gesture. “Why are your people so fond of being discontent? You relish resisting, protesting, always pushing against the inevitable. It is an immature response, and makes your lives much harder."

  "But, Captain, there are some things that ought to be protested."

  "What things?"

  "Folly. Malice. Injustice."

  He cut her off in a pained tone. “These things are part of the nature of the world. There is nothing we can do to prevent them."

  "You would not even try?” she said.

  "Life is not just. Fairness is a fool's concept. To fight brings only disillusion."

  "Well, we are different. We humans can put up with a thousand evils so long as we think they are fair. We are striving all the time to bring about justice, in ourselves and our society. Yours too, if you would just let us."

  "So your truculence is all an effort to improve us?” the Wattesoon said.

  Surprised, Susan laughed. “Why, Captain Groton, no one told me your people had a sense of irony."

  He seemed taken aback by her reaction, as if he regretted having provoked it.

  "I was not laughing at you,” she explained hastily. “At least, not in any way you would not wish."

  "You cannot know what I would wish,” he said stiffly.

  She said, “Oh, I don't know about that.” For the time being, here out of all official contexts, he seemed just as difficult and contradictory as any human male. Speculatively, she said, “Your answer just now, about justice. You sounded bitter, as if you spoke from some experience. What was it?"

  He stared at her with that unreadable, granitic face. For a few moments she thought he wasn't going to answer. Then he said, “It is in the past. There is no point in talking about it. Today is today. I accept that."

  They remained silent for a while, listening to the sounds of life all around. At last Susan said, “Well, the great injustice of our lives is still in the future."

  The thought of it flooded into her. All of this gentle valley would be gone soon, turned into an open wound in the landscape. Tears came to her, half anger and half loss, and she got up to go back inside. When she reached the back porch, she paused to compose herself, wiping the tears from her face. Captain Groton, who had followed her, said in a startled voice, “You are secreting moisture."

  "Yes,” she said. “We do that from time to time, in moments of intense emotion."

  "I wish—” he started, then stopped.

  "Yes? What do you wish?"

  "Never mind,” he said, and looked away.

  That night, lying in bed, she told Tom all she had learned.

  "Sand,” he said in disbelief. “The bastards are moving us out so they can have bathtub sand."

  He was not feeling charitable toward the Wattesoons. After their dinner guest had left in his tinted limousine, Tom had gotten a call from the mayor of Walker, the closest Wal-Mart metropolis. The captain in charge of their evacuation was an unbending disciplinarian who had presented the residents with a set of non-negotiable deadlines. The news from Red Bluff was even less encouraging. The captain assigned there was a transparent racist who seemed to think evacuation was too good for the native population. Force seemed to be his preferred alternative.

  "Larry wants us to mount a unified resistance,” Tom said. “A kind of ‘Hell no, we won't go’ thing. Just stay put, refuse to prepare. It seems pretty risky to me."

  Susan lay reflecting. At last she said, “They would think it was an immature response."

  "What, like children disobeying?” he said, irritated.

  "I didn't say I agreed. I said that was what they would think."

  "So what should we do?"

  "I don't know. Behave in a way they associate with adults. Somehow resist without seeming to resist."

  Tom turned his head on the pillow to look at her. “How come you learn all these things? He won't give me anything but the official line."

  "You're his counterpart, Tom. He has to be formal with you. I don't count."

  "Or maybe you count more. Maybe he's sweet on you."

  "Oh, please!"

  "Who would have thought I'd lose my wife to a potato?” Tom mused.

  She quelled the urge to hit him with a pillow. “You know, he's something of a philosopher."

  "Socrates the spud,” he said.

  "More like Marcus Aurelius. I don't think he really wants to be here. There is something in his past, some tragedy he won't talk about. But it might make him sympathetic to us. We might win him over."

  Tom rose on one elbow to look at her earnestly. “My god, he really did open up to you."

  "I'm just putting two and two together. The problem is, I'm not sure what winning him over would get us. He's just following orders."

  "Jeez, even one friend among the Wattesoon is progress. I say go for it."

  "Is that an order, Mr. Mayor?"

  "My Mata Hari,” he said, with the goofy, lopsided grin she loved.

  She rolled closer to put her head on his shoulder. All problems seemed more bearable when he was around.

  * * * *

  In the few weeks, no one saw much of Captain Groton. Information, instructions, and orders still emanated from his office, but the captain himself was unavailable—indisposed, the official line went. When she heard this, Susan called the Wattesoon headquarters, concerned that he had had a reaction to the odd menu she had fed him. To her surprise, the captain took her call.

  "Do not concern yourself, Susan,” he said. “There is nothing you can do."

  "I don't believe you,” she said. “You're so in love with stoical acceptance that you could have toxic shock before you'd admit there was anything wrong."

  "There is nothing wrong."

  "I'm a nurse, Captain Groton. If you are sick, you have become my job."

  There was an enigmatic pause on the line. “It is nothing you would recognize,” he said at last. “A Wattesoon complaint."

  Concerned now that he had admitted it, she said, “Is it serious?"

  "It is not mortal, if that is what you mean."

  "Can I see you?"

  "Your concern is gratifying, but I have no need of assistance."

  And she had to be content with that.

  In the end, Tom saw him before she did. It was at a meeting the captain couldn't avoid, a progress report on preparations for the evacuation. “It must be some sort of arthritis,” Tom answered Susan's questions vaguely. “He's hobbling around with a cane. A bit testy, too."

  Not trusting a man to observe what needed to be noticed, Susan called Alice Brody, who had also been at the meeting. She was more than willing to elaborate. “He does seem to be in discomfort,” Alice said. “But that's not the strange part."

  Aha, Susan thought.

  "He's taller, Susan. By inches. And proportioned differently. Not quite so tubby, if you know what I mean. It looks like he's lost a lot of weight, but I think it's just redistributed. His skin is different, too—smoother, a more natural color."

  "What do you think is going on?"

  "Damned if I know."

  That was when Susan got the ide
a to invite Captain Groton to the Fourth of July celebration. Observing the holiday at all had been controversial, under the circumstances—but the city council had reasoned that a day of frivolity would raise everyone's spirits. The Wattesoons regarded it as a quaint summer festival and completely missed the nationalist connotations, so their only objection was to the potential for disorder from the crowds. When the town agreed to ban alcohol, the occupiers relented.

  Okanoggan Falls's Fourth of July always climaxed with the parade, a homegrown affair for which people prepared at least three hours in advance. There was always a chainsaw drill team, a convertible for the Butter Princess, a Dixieland jazz band on a flatbed truck, and decorated backhoes and front-end loaders in lieu of floats. Deprecating self-mockery was a finely honed sport in Wisconsin.

  Tom was going to be obliged to ride in a Model T with a stovepipe hat on, so Susan phoned the Wattesoon commander and asked him to accompany her.

  "It will be a real demonstration of old-time Americana,” she said.

  He hesitated. “I do not wish to be provocative. Your townsfolk might not welcome my presence."

  "If you were riding in a float, maybe. But mingling with the crowds, enjoying a brat and a lemonade? Some people might even appreciate it. If they don't, I'll handle them."

  At last he consented, and they arranged to meet. “Don't wear a uniform,” was her last instruction.

  She had no idea what a dilemma she had caused him till he showed up in front of Meyer's Drugstore in a ragbag assortment of ill-fitting clothes that looked salvaged from a thrift shop. However, the truly extraordinary thing was that he was able to wear them at all—for when she had last seen him, fitting into human clothes would have been out of the question. Now, when she greeted him, she realized they were the same height, and he actually had a chin.

  "You look wonderful,” she blurted out.

  "You are exaggerating,” he said in a slightly pained tone.

  "Are you feeling all right?"

  "Better, thank you."

  "But your clothes. Oh dear."