Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

"Not all,” he said. “Just most. If someone more powerful has some other vision, or if everyone around you remains unconvinced, your efforts will come to nothing. You see how important it is, the right kind of thinking.” He sat up straight, and brought his feet down off the chair in front of him. “You see how malicious it was, for Asery to suggest that Tharsis was badly off."

  I allowed that I did.

  "The discipline is not only in bringing one's will to bear, but in keeping in mind the proper order of things."

  I had no reply, and in a moment Atkins continued his story.

  * * * *

  I fled through the palace to the stables (he said), where I mounted a raptodont, a stallion with splendid black feathers. These are nothing like your Earth horses. They are two-legged, nearly six feet from clawed foot to powerful shoulder, and nearly twice that from dagger-toothed snout to the tip of the long, muscular tail.

  I rode away from the palace, safely past the town and away into the countryside. I might have followed the canal west, but I would be too easily caught. The lake lay to the east, and north was Tharsis—I could expect no help there. South then.

  The southern Fortunae was too obvious a route, so I rode southwest through the gentle grasslands that surround the Lake of the Sun, an ocean of green starred here and there with flowers of pink, blue, and yellow. After an hour or so the grass gave way to a desolate, rolling landscape of blue-gray moss, rocks showing through like bones, and I turned south and rode with the wind at my back.

  As I rode I tried to think of some way to defeat Asery. I could work towards small things that would, in the end, lead to his undoing, but what? And as I thought, another idea came to me. What if I did not work with the future, but the past? What if I brought my will to bear in a time before anyone could believe or disbelieve in his existence? Was it even possible? I had never heard of anyone doing such a thing before, but the idea pleased me so well I began straightaway. Let Asery's father never have conceived him! And his father and his father, for good measure, all the way back to the founder of the line. To this end I bent my will.

  Eventually I turned southeast, into grassland again, and soon after reached the shores of the canal. The wind out of the north had increased, and now blew cold and hard, whipping and flattening the grass and chilling me, but just over the next rise I knew I would see the bulk of a pumping station and beside it the white walls of the barracks. I urged my mount faster up the incline.

  And then pulled hard on the reins, coming to a sliding halt that nearly overset me. Ahead was no station. The wind-tossed grass and the waters of the canal simply ended, as though by the stroke of a sword. Beyond was a desert of dry dirt and rocks, where the wind threw up red-brown clouds and whirlwinds. Behind me was grass, water, and blue sky. Ahead was lifeless rock, and a sky turned red with dust. As I watched, a foot of green crumbled into dirt and blew away—the line was advancing!

  Did Asery have so much power, and was this, then, his goal? Not merely the overthrow of the royal house of Hesperia, but the destruction of all life on Mars?

  At the speed that line of destruction was advancing, I could not possibly reach Hesperia in time to find help. My campaign to erase Asery from the history of Mars had clearly not succeeded. My only hope—Mars’ only hope—was to kill him outright, no matter how difficult that might prove. I turned my exhausted mount and rode north.

  I rode all that evening and into the moonless night, the jeweled stars thick overhead, until nearly within sound of the great falls my mount collapsed in mid-stride and fell dead on the grass. I left it where it had fallen, and ran on.

  When I could see the glint of starlight on the lake, and the falls were a constant thunder, I stopped and knelt in the tall grass for a brief rest, and to take stock. This saved my life; no sooner had I sunk down than I heard the faint sound of voices. As I knelt, hardly daring to breathe, the voices came closer.

  "That's the last of you. Keep a close watch! It's worth our lives if we let him escape."

  I did not recognize the voice, or the next one. “Are we so sure he's nearby?"

  "We found his mount not far from here, dead but still warm. You know your orders."

  "Kill him on sight.” Two voices together.

  Here was a dreadful pass! Crouched down in the grass, mere yards from my enemies, who had just expressed their determination to kill me. I could not stay where I was for long—the rising sun, or the most cursory search, would reveal me. On the other hand, the third man seemed to be leaving, perhaps to report to Asery himself! If I could follow him unseen...

  I lay belly-down and crept forward, hoping that until I was past the sentries any movement of the grass would be attributed to the rising wind. I quickly lost any sound of the officer, but at least I knew what direction to take, and was, I judged, going to pass the two sentries safely.

  But at the last moment my luck deserted me. With a thud an arrow buried itself into the ground inches from my shoulder. I immediately pushed myself upright and ran, and another arrow hissed past me. Stealth was impossible now. My best hope was to escape into the caves of the falls.

  The shouts of my pursuers behind me, their arrows flying to the left and right of me, I gained the path that leads to the largest of the caverns. It is narrow, and the water-covered stones are cold and slick, and I had to slow somewhat to avoid slipping and tumbling to the water-pounded rocks below. Still, I heard Asery's men behind me, and I did not dare to stop and see if it were only the first two or if others had joined them. I plunged ahead, and finally into the entrance of the Wheel of Heaven.

  No Earth monument can be as grand as the ancient ruins of Mars! The cavern entrance is plain at first, but as you go deeper the ceiling rises and is lost in darkness, though the lights that in those far-off days lit the hall still light it now. The walls of black stone narrow to a corridor, on the walls of which are ancient figures of men and beasts in bas-relief, men that are long dead and turned to dust, beasts the like of which Mars has not seen in ten thousand years. In the eerie gleam of the ancient lights the figures seem to be on the verge of movement or speech. Near the entrance to the Wheel is a shadowed side-path, a turning that leads into a maze of tunnels that honeycomb the bluff. If I could gain that I would be safe.

  The corridor ended in a broad step of rough black stone, smoothed at its center, where so many feet have trod. In the wall at the back of the step was a doorway, a rectangular hole with no frame, and darkness within. Black stone blocked a third of the doorway, and as I watched the stone slipped forward just the smallest amount. I must have ridden longer into the night than I had realized, and it was nearly dawn, and the day's chamber passing on.

  I knew the path I sought was along the wall to my left, but as I turned to search for it, my pursuers came into view, nearly a dozen armed men. I was out of time! Quickly I made for the black step. “Stop him!” cried a voice, and arrows rained down, but I was through the inexorably closing door. Captive in the Wheel of Heaven for a year, but safe from Asery meanwhile.

  * * * *

  "The year is nearly past,” Atkins said. “When the chamber opens again I will return."

  "And where will you find this chamber?” I asked. “We're nowhere near Mars."

  "The well in your cellar is the opening,” he said.

  "There is no well in my cellar."

  He made that almost-shrug again. “You aren't enough to trouble me, and no one else has been down there for years."

  "Are you certain?"

  He laughed, and said nothing else, and so I bade him good night and left him sitting on the terrace. I went into the kitchen, meaning to make myself a drink, but when I opened the ice-box I found that the ice I'd bought that day wasn't there.

  The events of the next day are quickly and easily told. This part of the official account is accurate: that morning I saw Atkins go down to the cellar, the only entrance to which is by steps leading down from the kitchen. I heard a terrible scream, as did Mr. Stark, who came running from the l
iving-room. He was down the steps before me, and moments later I heard him shout, “Help! John has fallen into the well!"

  The police came, and several of the neighbors, and all were in the cellar for some time, and when they came up I was told that they had been unable to retrieve Mr. Atkins’ body from the well. I was assured that his death was unquestionably accidental, and that I should not feel in any way responsible. When they had left, I made my way down the steps, to find only the packed dirt floor of the cellar covered over with a layer of dry, red-brown dust.

  I swear to you that I am sane, and that every word I have set down here is true. Of course, it is impossible that your cousin was indeed a fugitive prince of Mars—John Atkins was born here on Earth, and Mr. Stark had known him since boyhood. But it is also certain that he went down into my cellar and disappeared without a trace. How am I to understand these events? I have pondered the question at some length, and have reached certain conclusions.

  Who among us does not yearn for some noble purpose? Who would not wish to take the part of the prince and the hero, in an ancient and romantic world where men war openly and honorably with sword and bow? And who can blame John Atkins if, discovering a way to make this desire a reality, he threw aside all else in life but this one aim? Who would grudge him Hesperia, if he could attain it?

  I say plainly—I would. And I do.

  Let a million readers of dime-novels lose themselves between the pages of their books, and let them rise refreshed and ennobled by what they find. But let that dream become a reality—how many Princes of Hesperia can there be? There is only room in the story for one. What of the rest of us? And if such a thing is possible, what of Earth? Who might re-shape our world with his imagining, and to what ends?

  This is what I think happened: John Atkins did succeed in opening a door to Mars. But the Mars he found was not the Mars he imagined. Reality delivered the ultimate rebuke to his tampering, and at the last showed him not the waters of the Lake of the Sun and the verdant grasslands surrounding it, but the dry and lifeless Mars that would assert itself even as he tried to banish it with his fantasy. So I interpret his story. So I must believe, for the safety of my own world.

  I am not a prince, or a noble anything. I can only do my small part. I've swept the dust from the cellar floor, and disposed of it. One of my neighbors has brought a chair down for me, and here I sit. Mr. Stark has gone, and I've had no visitors for some time, except the doctor, who is clearly concerned. And I can't explain myself—how could I, without sounding completely mad? I am as sane as anyone, perhaps saner than most. I align myself with the real. I am witness to the truth.

  There is not now, nor has there ever been, a well in my cellar.

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  INCARNATION DAY, by Walter Jon Williams

  It's your understanding and wisdom that makes me want to talk to you, Doctor Sam. About how Fritz met the Blue Lady, and what happened with Janis, and why her mother decided to kill her, and what became of all that. I need to get it sorted out, and for that I need a real friend. Which is you.

  Janis is always making fun of me because I talk to an imaginary person. She makes even more fun of me because my imaginary friend is an English guy who died hundreds of years ago.

  "You're wrong,” I pointed out to her, “Doctor Samuel Johnson was a real person, so he's not imaginary. It's just my conversations with him that are imaginary."

  I don't think Janis understands the distinction I'm trying to make.

  But I know that you understand, Doctor Sam. You've understood me ever since we met in that Age of Reason class, and I realized that you not only said and did things that made you immortal, but that you said and did them while you were hanging around in taverns with actors and poets.

  Which is about the perfect life, if you ask me.

  In my opinion Janis could do with a Doctor Sam to talk to. She might be a lot less frustrated as an individual.

  I mean, when I am totally stressed trying to comprehend the equations for electron paramagnetic resonance or something, so I just can't stand cramming another ounce of knowledge into my brain, I can always imagine my doctor Sam—a big fat man (though I think the word they used back then was “corpulent")—a fat man with a silly wig on his head, who makes a magnificent gesture with one hand and says, with perfect wisdom and gravity, All intellectual improvement, Miss Alison, arises from leisure.

  Who could put it better than that? Who else could be as sensible and wise? Who could understand me as well?

  Certainly nobody I know.

  (And have I mentioned how much I like the way you call me Miss Alison?)

  We might as well begin with Fahd's Incarnation Day on Titan. It was the first incarnation among the Cadre of Glorious Destiny, so of course we were all present.

  The celebration had been carefully planned to showcase the delights of Saturn's largest moon. First we were to be downloaded onto Cassini Ranger, the ship parked in Saturn orbit to service all the settlements on the various moons. Then we would be packed into individual descent pods and dropped into Titan's thick atmosphere. We'd be able to stunt through the air, dodging in and out of methane clouds as we chased each other across Titan's cloudy, photochemical sky. After that would be skiing on the Tomasko glacier, Fahd's dinner, and then skating on frozen methane ice.

  We would all be wearing bodies suitable for Titan's low gravity and high-pressure atmosphere—sturdy, low to the ground, and furry, with six legs and a domelike head stuck onto the front between a pair of arms.

  But my body would be one borrowed for the occasion, a body the resort kept for tourists. For Fahd it would be different. He would spent the next five or six years in orbit around Saturn, after which he would have the opportunity to move on to something else.

  The six-legged body he inhabited would be his own, his first. He would be incarnated—a legal adult, and legally human despite his six legs and furry body. He would have his own money and possessions, a job, and a full set of human rights.

  Unlike the rest of us.

  After the dinner, where Fahd would be formally invested with adulthood and his citizenship, we would all go out for skating on the methane lake below the glacier. Then we'd be uploaded and head for home.

  All of us but Fahd, who would begin his new life. The Cadre of Glorious Destiny would have given its first member to interplanetary civilization.

  I envied Fahd his incarnation—his furry six-legged body, his independence, and even his job, which wasn't all that stellar if you ask me. After fourteen years of being a bunch of electrons buzzing around in a quantum matrix, I wanted a real life even if it meant having twelve dozen legs.

  I suppose I should explain, because you were born in an era when electricity came from kites, that at the time of Fahd's Incarnation Day party I was not exactly a human being. Not legally, and especially not physically.

  Back in the old days—back when people were establishing the first settlements beyond Mars, in the asteroid belt and on the moons of Jupiter and then Saturn—resources were scarce. Basics such as water and air had to be shipped in from other places, and that was very expensive. And of course the environment was extremely hazardous—the death rate in those early years was phenomenal.

  It's lucky that people are basically stupid, otherwise no one would have gone.

  Yet the settlements had to grow. They had to achieve self-sufficiency from the home worlds of Earth and Luna and Mars, which sooner or later were going to get tired of shipping resources to them, not to mention shipping replacements for all the people who died in stupid accidents. And a part of independence involved establishing growing, or at least stable, populations, and that meant having children.

  But children suck up a lot of resources, which like I said were scarce. So the early settlers had to make do with virtual children.

  It was probably hard in the beginning. If you were a parent you had to put on a headset and gloves and a body suit in order to cuddle your infant, whose objecti
ve existence consisted of about a skazillion lines of computer code anyway ... well, let's just say you had to want that kid really badly.

  Especially since you couldn't touch him in the flesh till he was grown up, when he would be downloaded into a body grown in a vat just for him. The theory being that there was no point in having anyone on your settlement who couldn't contribute to the economy and help pay for those scarce resources, so you'd only incarnate your offspring when he was already grown up and could get a job and help to pay for all that oxygen.

  You might figure from this that it was a hard life, out there on the frontier.

  Now it's a lot easier. People can move in and out of virtual worlds with nothing more than a click of a mental switch. You get detailed sensory input through various nanoscale computers implanted in your brain, so you don't have to put on oven mitts to feel your kid. You can dandle your offspring, and play with him, and teach him to talk, and feed him even. Life in the virtual realms claims to be 100% realistic, though in my opinion it's more like 95%, and only in the realms that intend to mimic reality, since some of them don't.

  Certain elements of reality were left out, and there are advantages—at least if you're a parent. No drool, no messy diapers, no vomit. When the child trips and falls down, he'll feel pain—you do want to teach him not to fall down, or to bang his head on things—but on the other hand there won't be any concussions or broken bones. There won't be any fatal accidents involving fuel spills or vacuum.

  There are other accidents that the parents have made certain we won't have to deal with. Accidental pregnancy, accidental drunkenness, accidental drug use.

  Accidental gambling. Accidental vandalism. Accidental suicide. Accidentally acquiring someone else's property. Accidentally stealing someone's extra-vehicular unit and going for a joy ride among the asteroids.

  Accidentally having fun. Because believe me, the way the adults arrange it here, all the fun is planned ahead of time.

  Yep, Doctor Sam, life is pretty good if you're a grownup. Your kids are healthy and smart and extremely well educated. They live in a safe, organized world filled with exciting educational opportunities, healthy team sports, family entertainment, and games that reward group effort, cooperation, and good citizenship.