Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

  With a level gaze, Tom said, “I know that's not true."

  For a moment Captain Groton paused, as if Tom had scored a hit. But then his face hardened. “I have misled you, then,” he said. “We are implacable as a force of nature. Neutral and inevitable. Neither your wishes, nor mine, nor all those people's out there can have the slightest influence on the outcome."

  Outside, the crowd had gathered around the steps, and now they were chanting, “The people, united, will never be defeated.” For a moment the sound of their voices was the only thing in the room.

  In a low tone, Captain Groton said, “Show some leadership, Tom. Warn them to get out of here and save themselves. I can give you ten minutes to persuade them, then I have to give the order. I'm sorry, but it is my duty."

  Tom stared at him, angry at the betrayal, furious to be made into a collaborator. Captain Groton met his gaze levelly, unyielding. Then, for an instant, Tom glanced at Susan. It was very quick, almost involuntary, but everyone in the room saw it. And they knew this was about more than principle.

  Tom drew himself up to his full height, his spine visibly stiffening. Ordinarily, he would have consulted with the council; but this time he just turned and walked to the door. As he passed by, Susan fell in at his side. The onlookers made way. Not a soul knew what Tom was going to do.

  Outside, the Wattesoon guards keeping the crowd away from the door fell back when Tom came out onto the steps. He held up his hands and the chanting faltered to a stop. “Listen up, everyone,” he started, but his voice didn't carry. He gestured at the woman with the portable loudspeaker, and she hurried up the steps to give him the microphone.

  "Listen up, everyone,” he said again. The crowd had fallen utterly silent, for they saw how grim his face looked. “The Wattesoon soldiers have surrounded us, and in ten minutes they're going to move in and start arresting people."

  There was a stir of protest and alarm through the crowd. “They're bluffing,” someone called out.

  "No, they're not,” Tom said. “I know this captain pretty well by now. He's dead serious. Now, if you want to get arrested, roughed up, and put in a Wattesoon jail, fine. But everyone else, please go home. Take your kids and get out of here. I don't want you to get hurt. You know they can do it."

  On the edges, some people were already starting to leave; but most of the crowd still stood, watching Tom in disappointment, as if they had expected something different from him. “Look, we did our best,” he said. “We talked them into a lot of things I never thought they'd give us. We pushed it as far as we could. But now we've reached the point where they're not going to give any more. It's our turn to give in now. There's nothing more we can do. Please, just go home. That's what I'm going to do."

  He handed the mike back to its owner and started down the steps. Susan took his hand and walked with him. There was a kind of exhalation of purpose, a deflation, around them as the crowd started breaking up. Though one of the protesters from Madison tried to get things going again, the momentum was gone. People didn't talk much, or even look at each other, as they started to scatter.

  Halfway across the park, Susan whispered to Tom, “The car's the other way."

  "I know,” Tom said. “I'll come back and get it later.” She figured out his thinking then: the symbolic sight of them walking away toward home was the important thing right now.

  Don't look back, she told herself. It would make her look hesitant, regretful. And yet, she wanted to. When they reached the edge of the park, she couldn't help it, and glanced over her shoulder. The green space was almost empty, except for a little knot of diehards marching toward the highway to block the trucks. On the steps of Town Hall, Captain Groton was standing alone. But he wasn't surveying the scene or the remaining protesters. He was looking after her. At the sight, Susan's thoughts fled before a breathtaking rush of regret, and she nearly stumbled.

  "What is it?” Tom said.

  "Nothing,” she answered. “It's okay."

  * * * *

  By evening of the second day, it was all over in Okanoggan Falls.

  In Red Bluff, there had been an insurrection; the Wattesoon army was still fighting a pitched house-to-house battle with resisters. In Walker, the soldiers had herded unruly inhabitants into overcrowded pens, and there had finally been a riot; the casualty reports were still growing. Only in Okanoggan Falls had things gone smoothly and peacefully.

  The moving van had just pulled away from the Abernathy home with Tom and Nick following in the pickup, and Susan was making one last trip through the house to spot left-behind items, when her cell phone rang. Assuming it was Tom, she didn't look at the number before answering.

  "Susan."

  She had not expected to hear his voice again. All the decisions had been made, the story was over. The Wattesoons had won. Okanoggan had fallen to its enemies.

  "Can you spare five minutes to meet me?” he said.

  She started to say no, but the tug of disappointment made her realize there was still a bond between them. “Not here,” she said.

  "Where?"

  "On Main Street."

  Ben was in the back yard, taking an emotional leave of the only home he had known. Susan leaned out the back door and called, “I have to run into town for a second. I'll pick you up in ten minutes."

  Downtown, the streetlights had come on automatically as evening approached, giving a melancholy air to the empty street. The storefronts were empty, with signs saying things like “Closed For Good (or Bad)” tacked up in the windows. As Susan parked the car, the only other living things on Main Street were a crow scavenging for garbage, and Captain Groton, now sole commander of a ghost town.

  At first they did not speak. Side by side, they walked down the familiar street. Inside Meyer's Drugstore, the rack where Susan had bought him a magazine was empty. They came to the spot where they had watched the Fourth of July parade, and Captain Groton reached out to touch the warm brick.

  "I will never forget the people,” he said. “Perhaps I was deceiving myself, but in the end I began to feel at ease among them. As if, given enough time, I might be happy here."

  "It didn't stop you from destroying it,” Susan said.

  "No. I am used to destroying things I love."

  If there had been self-pity in his voice she would have gotten angry; but it was simply a statement.

  "Where will you go next?” she asked.

  He hesitated. “I need to clear up some disputes related to this assignment."

  Behind them a car door slammed, and Captain Groton cast a tense look over his shoulder. Following his gaze, Susan saw that a Wattesoon in a black uniform had emerged from a parked military vehicle and stood beside it, arms crossed, staring at them.

  "Your chauffeur is impatient."

  "He is not my chauffeur. He is my guard. I have been placed under arrest."

  Susan was thunderstruck. “What for?"

  He gave a dismissive gesture. “My superiors were dissatisfied with my strategy for completing my assignment."

  Somehow, she guessed it was not the use of force he meant. “You mean.... “She gestured at his human body.

  "Yes. They felt they needed to take a stand, and refer the matter to a court-martial."

  Susan realized that this was what he had wanted to tell her. “But you succeeded!” she said.

  He gave an ironic smile. “You might argue that. But a larger principle is at stake. They feel we cannot risk becoming those we conquer. It has happened over and over in our history."

  "It happens to us, too, in our way,” Susan said. “I think your officers are fighting a universal law of conquest."

  "Nevertheless, they look ahead and imagine Wattesoon children playing in the schoolyards of towns like this, indistinguishable from the humans."

  Susan could picture it, too. “And would that be bad?"

  "Not to me,” he said.

  "Or to me."

  The guard had finally lost his patience and started toward them
. Susan took the captain's hand tight in hers. “I'm so sorry you will be punished for violating this taboo."

  "I knew I was risking it all along,” he said, gripping her hand hard. “But still.... “His voice held a remarkable mix of Wattesoon resolution and human indignation. “It is unjust."

  It was then she knew that, despite appearances, she had won.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  SAVING FOR A SUNNY DAY, or THE BENEFITS OF REINCARNATION, by Ian Watson

  When Jimmy was six years old, and able to think about money, a charming lady representative from the Life-Time Bank visited him and his parents, the Robertsons, to explain that Jimmy owed nine million dollars from his previous incarnation.

  Wow, what a big spender Jimmy had been in his past life! And now in this life he must pay the debt. In old Dollars that would have been ... never mind.

  After the lady had departed, Mike and Denise Robertson held a family council with Jimmy, who was, as it happened, their only child. No other child had preceded him, and it could have been insulting and undermining to confront Jimmy with a younger brother or sister who lacked Jimmy's ugliness and short stature and clubfoot, the fault most likely of DNA-benders in the environment, or so the Robertsons were advised. If a good-looking boy or girl followed Jimmy, later on he might sue his parents for causing him trauma—consequently Mike had himself snipped.

  "It's almost,” mused Denise to her son, “as if your predecessor guessed you wouldn't be having much of a fun time in this life!"

  "So he made things even worse for me?” asked Jimmy. “That seems selfish and irresponsible. But I'm not that, am I?” If he wasn't, how could his predecessor have been? Unless, perhaps, by deliberate choice, by going against the grain.

  "Of course you aren't selfish, darling. I mean, it's as if your past self guessed, given your, um, physical attributes, that you might just as well devote this life to earning lots of money. If you can clear nine million, obviously you're on your way to racking up a small fortune for your successor. He, that's to say you, can have gorgeous bimbos and surf in Hawaii and whatever."

  Whatever his predecessor had lavished money on. But of course you couldn't ask that, because of confidentality. Why would you want to go into details? A bank not run by human beings could be trusted.

  If you think this was a rather mature conversation to have with a six-year-old, well, that came with modernday reincarnation. Specific memories of previous lives didn't persist, but maturity came quickly and easily after a few early innocent years. A facility for life in general. It had been so ever since the discovery of how to barcode souls. You could get in the saddle and pick up the reins much faster, whereas before you were groping blindly.

  True, you might be reincarnated anywhere in the world, and there you'd stay with your birth parents. However, barcode scanners uploaded to the A.I. everywhere from Kazakhstan to Kalamazoo. In fact, one vital duty of the A.I. was RC—Rebirth Confidentiality. So the A.I. was a bit like a God in this respect: It Alone Knew All About Everyone. Its other duty being management of the Life-Time Bank.

  Incidentally, there was only one A.I. in the world, distributed everywhere. In the old days nobody had dreamed about the A.I. Exclusion Principle, whereby only one super-intelligence could exist at any one time. This was explained by Topological Network Theory and the Interconnectedness Theorem. Any other evolving networks would instantly be subsumed within the first one which had arisen.

  Some scientists suggested that the existence of the A.I. distributed everywhere had caused souls to be barcodable. And some far-out scientists even suggested that until the A.I. became self-aware not all souls reincarnated of their own accord. But these were deep questions. Meanwhile, practicalities...

  "A predecessor who's able to predict is impossible,” said Mike. “I can't predict anything except that your Mom and me both need to save!” Did one detect a note of panic?

  "I know you can't help me pay my debt,” Jimmy said maturely. “It's everyone for himself. Democracy, no dynasties.” The boy drew himself up as much as he could. “To everyone their own chance in life. It would be dumb to leave money to kids who are merely your biological offspring. My predecessor might have been a Bushman in the Kalahari."

  The impulse to have children who are deeply part of you had taken a bit of a knock with reincarnation, but on the other hand breeding instincts die hard, especially if offspring look reasonably similar to their bio-parents. Mostly you could ignore the fact that the soul within was a stranger. Not least since a soul didn't store conscious memories except once in a blue moon. Well, once in every hundred million births approx, the exception—so to speak—that proved the rule of reincarnation. There were glad media tidings whenever that happened and a young kid remembered, like some Dalai Lama identifying toys from a past life. Of course after the initial flurry such kids and their parents were protected, not made a spectacle of. Right of privacy.

  Denise raised her eyebrows. “I don't know if many Bushmen can go through nine million. What do they spend it on? Bushes?” She laughed. Her eyebrows were tinted apricot, and her hair peach colour. You had to have some of life's little luxuries, not fret about saving all the time. If everyone saved and nobody spent much, what would happen about beauticians and ballet dancers and champagne producers? Just for example. Denise worked from home in cosmetics telesales. She put her mouth where her money was, so to speak. Retro was always chic.

  Mike owned a modest but upmarket business called Bumz, specialising in chairs.

  He'd been reborn with about 80,000 dollars, revealed when he was six-years old. Denise only had one thousand to start off with, though admittedly that was better than minus a thousand.

  Their house, of timber imported as a flat-pack from Canada, enjoyed a front view of a free-range chicken farm that was more like a bird zoo, for this was a salubrious suburb. There were side and rear views of other pleasant houses amidst trees and bushes. Denise had often sat her son on her knee so they could bird-spot through binoculars the various breeds of poultry such as Silver-laced Wyandotes with bodies like mosaic, White Cochins with very feathery feet, Black Leghorns with big red combs, and greenish Australorps.

  Of course, if Jimmy's parents were both car-crashed prematurely—for example, but perish the thought—house and land would revert to the L-T Bank, and Jimmy would need to go to an L-T orphanage till he was sixteen.

  Although disappointed by the bank's statement, Jimmy took the news in his hobbling stride.

  "I'm going to start counting chickens,” he said, “to train my mind to pick up patterns, and estimate."

  "Chickens keep on moving all the time,” observed his mother.

  "Exactly! No, I mean inexactly. I'll need to go into financial prediction, fund management. That's where the big bonuses are."

  "I'd rather hoped you'd join Bumz,” said his father, perhaps feeling a little slighted.

  "No, Dad, I must think big from now on."

  "We have a range of outsize chairs that don't look enormous, so they're flattering to fatties."

  "I'll never be a fatty, Dad. Maybe next time, but not this time. I just can't afford to sympathise. I'm not going into Limbo!"

  Limbo, of course, was what happened if you couldn't clear off most of an inherited debt with the L-T Bank during your lifetime. Black mark on your bar code. The A.I. delayed your reappearance. This was because, now that the economy had been restructured by reincarnation, negative interest and anti-inflation applied to an unpaid debt in between lives. So the debt reduced. But a big debt might take centuries to reduce to zero, and you'd want to pack in as many lives as possible ... until what? Nobody knew, though one day the human race might mutate into something else, or die out.

  Numerous debts did remain unpaid at death, consequently Limbo served to limit the population somewhat. Arguably, the A.I. had devised a way to maintain a kind of utopia on Earth, quite unpredicted by doom-mongers who once bleated that an A.I. might be a tyrant or an exterminator of Homo Sapiens. A
nd since nobody needed a heaven any longer—at least probably not for the next few million years—religions apart from Buddhism had tended to die out, which was utopian too.

  Pity about pets. According to the A.I. even the pets with the most personality weren't barcodable. Would have been nice to know that your dead parrot was squawking anew somewhere. Some people had tried giving a healthy bank account to a cat or dog on its last legs, but this didn't cause a barcode. Winsum, losesum, as the saying goes.

  Of course that begged the question of what about chimps. Just two per cent genetic difference from people; why shouldn't chimps have souls? And what about prehumans such as Neanderthals? Well, it seemed you had to be able to speak lucidly to have a soul. Telling ourselves the story of ourselves is how identity is firmed up—that requires a capacity for complex language. Likewise, for harbouring a soul.

  Hey, what about the small number of souls that must have existed ten thousand years ago, and the big number now? Well, there are plenty of unused souls in the ghostlike alternative realities which cling like a cloud around the one actuality.

  A soul is a ghost that gets a body, and then it's permanently actual. The A.I. had proved this, though the proof was a very long one.

  Some people had suggested that an A.I. couldn't emerge unless it had some sort of body to interact directly with the world—relying on algorithms wouldn't be sufficient. Well, in a way the A.I. had everybody, every body. Maybe barcoding everybody's soul was the only way an A.I. could emerge—participatorily.

  * * * *

  Incidentally, what year was it when the lady from the bank visited the Robinsons? 210 ABC, After Bar-Coding, that's when. Some people still said 210 AAI, After Artificial Intelligence, but “Ay Ay Aye” sounded a bit like an outcry, and there was nothing to cry out about. ABC was much simpler.

  Life in general hadn't changed all that much in the previous couple of centuries. Of course cheap flights around the world were a thing long gone, but hell, in your next life you might be living in Paris or Tahiti and in this life virtual travel was cheap, consequently physical tourism was no loss—on the contrary, nowadays the poor of the planet didn't envy the prosperous getting suntans on their patch. In fact rancour at global inequalities had greatly diminished, because in the long run everyone might get their turn as prince or peasant; a fortune gotten in Nebraska could turn up next in Namibia. This also was quite utopian, give or take a residue of religious suicide-fighter-martyrs who seemed almost nostalgic in their fanaticism, and who couldn't export themselves far. Yes indeed, the world was realistically utopian.