Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2007 Edition

by Rich Horton

  I blink. “From the Manual."

  "Be glad you didn't end up Nebuchadnezzar."

  Maybe this is where Derek learned to be so cheeky. “How is it I can see you? It has something to do with the chair, doesn't it?"

  "It has plenty to do with the chair, and with its ability to create a microwave interface with your visual cortex. I can give you a more detailed technical specification if you like, but I imagine you have more pressing questions you'd like to ask."

  I'm delighted in spite of myself, and I raise my head out of the cradle several times in succession just to watch Geoff flicker in and out of existence.

  "Careful,” he says, rising from his illusory chair. “You'll make yourself sick."

  He's right. My head has started pounding and the room whirls. My stomach feels none too steadfast in its grip on breakfast. I lie back and Geoff strokes my forehead. His cool fingers fail to disturb the swelling droplets of perspiration. I take deep breaths, digging my fingers into the padding of the armrests.

  "Tell me about this vacuum-hardening process my boss keeps telling me about,” I say, eyes squeezed shut. “How does it work?"

  "There's not a lot to it,” Geoff says in a reassuring tone. “What it does is construct around your lungs a sort of a cellular retaining wall that gets deployed on any catastrophic drop in air pressure. It actually seals shut your lungs and can temporarily prevent the gases in your bloodstream from expanding and killing you. This retaining wall is also capable of breaking oxygen atoms loose from the carbon dioxide your blood returns to your lungs, so you can effectively keep rebreathing the same old air. That's only temporary too, of course. It's like any filter—eventually it's going to get choked with carbon and fail. But you can last an hour that way, anyway. More than enough time for help to get to you. In most circumstances."

  It sounds so reasonable when Geoff says it. I'm looking at him again now, and he has returned to his seat. “Is the procedure expensive?” I ask, praying the answer will be yes.

  "Not at all,” Geoff says. “And if you can demonstrate a need for it in the course of your job, the station covers it anyway. You do qualify, by the way."

  "Are there side effects?"

  "You might feel a little short of breath after the procedure, a little dizzy and weak, but your lungs will adjust within a day or so. That's all, really."

  I take a deep breath. “And the procedure itself—it sounds complicated. How long does it take?"

  "Oh, about twenty minutes,” Geoff says, tilting his head to one side.

  "Twenty minutes! That's all?"

  "You'd have the entire shift off, though, for recovery and observation. With pay."

  "But—but how is that possible?” I'm groping for words. “I mean, it's Sculpting, right? You can't just snap your fingers and it's done."

  "That would be true, Jude ... if we were starting from scratch. We're not."

  Now I can't breathe, and my insides seem to freeze. “What do you—what do you mean?"

  Geoff stands up and clasps his hands behind his back. “You are what you call Sculpted, Jude, as is every other member of the Machinist Guild on Netherview Station. You've been that way since before birth, the nanodocs passed on to you via your mother's bloodstream. Your nanodocs don't do anything more than maintain reasonably good health and let me keep tabs on you. But the potential is there for more. Much more."

  "But—but why?” Tears gather in the corners of my eyes. “How can you do this to us? It's—it's monstrous!"

  Geoff's looks pained. “Jude, please understand what a fragile environment this station is. We have two million permanent residents and millions more who pass through every month. We can't have people running loose who aren't monitored in some way."

  "But it's wrong. It's my body!"

  "Jude, if I weren't helping out, your body would have broken the first time you left the Quarter. Your devotions keep your muscles strong, but the low gravity weakens your bones. You've had supplements in your food all your life to counteract the effects."

  I roll my head from side to side. “Lies."

  "I'm not lying, Jude."

  "Not now, but all along! Everything we know, my people, it's all lies."

  "I told you the first opportunity I had. Jude, you have the right to get this information at the age of ten, when you become a provisional citizen of Netherview Station—that's about thirteen and a third by your Guild calendar. Unfortunately, the Guild can keep that knowledge from you until age fifteen—twenty to you. You still have the right to ask and get answers, like you're doing now, but what good does that do most of you when you don't know you can ask?"

  I'm shaking my head. “I don't believe you. That would mean—that would mean everyone knows. All the adults—my father. Everyone knows."

  "Actually, no.” Geoff purses his lips sadly and lays a hand on my arm. “Just because they know they have the right to ask doesn't mean they'll actually do it. By the time they reach twenty, most of them don't want to know."

  "I don't want to know!” I say, wrenching my arm through Geoff's hand to paw the water from my eyes. “Why are you telling me this?"

  "Jude..."

  "No! You're the Wrecker! I don't want to hear it."

  Geoff sighs. “As far as I'm aware, I am not the Wrecker. In fact, I'm not certain I'm capable of telling a lie. I try my very best to do good, really."

  Uncomfortably aware of how childish I'm being, I cross my arms and turn my head away from the preening phantom before me. I lie that way for some time, mind churning. When I look at Geoff again he's watching me expectantly. I feel hollow inside.

  "Geoff,” I say, my voice small, “can you fix my brain?"

  Geoff leans forward, looking concerned. “What's wrong with your brain, Jude?"

  "I—I mean—"

  "Yes?"

  "I think I'm out of true.” I'm almost whispering. “Bent."

  "How do you mean?"

  "You know."

  "Pretend I don't."

  I lick my lips. “I think I like boys.” The admission leaves me feeling curiously flat, detached. “Can you fix me?"

  Geoff tugs at his white mustache. “Jude, there are various therapy regimens I can initiate, but I don't ‘fix’ things like sexual inclination. Not that I'd call you homosexual at all in the sense you'd think of it. The truth, I believe, is rather more interesting and complicated than that."

  My heart leaps. “What's the truth?"

  "Your Guild likes to treat sexuality and gender as binary values, either this or that, one right, one wrong, no other possibilities. But the ones you call Sculpted understand these characteristics more as a spectrum of possible values, fluid and multidimensional. There's no either-or, nor even necessarily a permanent identification with any given point on the grid.” Geoff spreads his hands in an eerily Builderlike gesture. “Now, this is a preliminary diagnosis only, but you would appear to me to suffer from a multivalent somatocognitive dysphoria."

  "A what?” I ask, vague trepidation gnawing at my stomach.

  "To put it more bluntly, your body is male, but the personality inside may be closer to the female end of the continuum. Not all the way there, of course, but more so than not."

  I shake my head despite the nausea I feel. “No, no. That's ridiculous."

  "You would have learned very early to hide the symptoms—the wants and behaviors your people wouldn't find acceptable in a little boy. But that, plus overcompensation in areas of archaically male pursuit, still wouldn't make them go away."

  "You're crazy.” The notion is offensive, repulsive. “The Builder doesn't make mistakes like that."

  "In a perfect world, maybe not,” Geoff says. “But this world's anything but perfect, and we all have to come to our own accommodations with that fact. Now, I can recommend and even direct a course of therapeutic counseling, just as a starting point, and of course participation would be entirely up to—"

  "No!” I shout. “Stop it!"

  "Jude, let's at le
ast talk about this for a—"

  "You lying, false machine, shut up! I can't think."

  Geoff folds his hands in his lap as I turn my eyes to the white ceiling, chewing the inside of my cheek. I'm furious, and terrified for my soul, to realize how easily I've been taken in by the lies of this Wrecker-spawned abomination. The right thing to do—the right degree of compromise—has never been more clear.

  "I'm going to do it,” I say, the steel in my voice a wall holding back utter dissolution.

  "I'm sorry—do what?” Geoff asks.

  "The vacuum-hardening. I'm going to do it."

  "Are you sure?” He sounds dubious.

  "Absolutely. But so you don't get any ideas, I'm doing it for the Guild, not for myself."

  "I'm not certain what you mean by that."

  "The more hazard pay I get,” I say, “the more quickly my people can get off this godforsaken station."

  "Your pay is yours. It doesn't have to go to your Guild."

  "I don't care."

  "It won't make any difference,” Geoff says. “The Guild's debts are considerable."

  "I don't care."

  "Jude, I don't want you doing this under any false illusions. The Guild owes so much money they can't even pay the interest on it. It's practically a losing proposition to keep housing them."

  "Then why don't you just let them leave?” I demand, enraged.

  Geoff shakes his head. “I'll tell you if you really want to know—that's my function. But you won't like it."

  "I don't like it already! Just tell me."

  "As you wish. I have to be concerned about the well-being of the station as a whole, and having you here serves a purpose other than economic. The existence of a permanent underprivileged social class reinforces in the minds of the rest of the population the benefits of full participation in this pseudo-socialist post-scarcity paradise of ours. Superiority breeds contentment, of a sort."

  "So you're telling me my people live in poverty to provide an example of how undesirable poverty is?"

  "I told you you weren't going to like it."

  My anger has shrunk to a cold, clear gem in my heart. “As if it took a supercomputer to figure that out. And I told you I'd made up my mind already."

  "Well!” he says, raising his eyebrows. He looks as if he's about to offer more argument, but evidently decides otherwise. “So you give your consent for the vacuum-hardening procedure?"

  I give a curt nod. “Yes."

  "So be it,” Geoff says quietly. He almost sounds chastened. “I'll let your boss know you'll be occupied today, and we'll get started right away."

  I arrange myself stiffly in the chair, arms at my sides, as if waiting for the lid of my coffin to close.

  * * * *

  "You're all right from here?” Derek asks.

  We're standing at the PM Gate, the smells and tumult and humidity around us as heavy as ever. His arm around my shoulder helps offset the crushing gravity. I nod a little woozily and say, “It'll be easier inside. Quarter gee."

  As the end of the procedure drew near, Geoff roused me to suggest I might want a friend to walk me home. I said Derek's name before I really thought it through, but even after the fact, wondering if that had been a good idea, it didn't seem to me I really had a better option. Geoff contacted him, and Derek was there waiting outside the Geoffroom as soon as the hatch opened.

  Now he takes his arm from around me and watches with concern as I take a wobbly step on my own. “Is this ... you know ... are you going to be in trouble?"

  "How will anyone know?” I say. “There's nothing visible that's changed."

  Derek looks like he's about to say something, then extends his hand instead. Green is now his predominant hue; even his irises have changed color. “Well, Jude, just in case ... you've got a place to bunk down if you need it. No strings, just a place to stow your gear."

  I nod, my throat thickening. I try to say thank you, but I can't. I duck my eyes, pull the lever, and pass through the gate.

  I might be imagining it, but as the gate closes behind me I almost think I hear Derek saying, “Selah, Jude."

  Inside, it's late and the corridors are empty. This is good because even in the lower grav I'm having trouble walking a straight line. Geoff told me this is nothing to worry about, that I'll feel fine again by morning, but drawing the wrong kind of attention on the way home through the Quarter would be something to worry about.

  The cabin is dark when I slip inside, and Thomas lies motionless in his bunk. I strip off my coverall as quietly and cautiously as possible, crank down my bunk, and slip beneath the blanket. I lie on my back, unable to relax or even close my eyes. I spent most of the day in essentially this position. Like Geoff promised, the process took only twenty minutes—though, having felt nothing, I have only his word for that—but for the rest of my shift and beyond I lay fitfully dozing as I recuperated. I suspect Geoff would have liked to keep me longer than he did, but my father would have been livid if didn't come home all night.

  My heart pounds as I suddenly become aware that Thomas is sitting up. I try to fake deep, easy breathing as Thomas stands and pads across the narrow cabin. Even talking to him right now is too exhausting a thought to contemplate.

  "Son,” he says, almost a question, his voice subdued.

  I crack an eye. His face is a gray smear in the darkness, gazing down on me like the cinders of a burnt-out sun.

  "Son ... Jude...” He sighs, breath hitching like an unbalanced motor. “I've been thinking a lot. Praying hard. I think it was wrong to send you to work. You can quit if you like. We'll get by. We'll manage."

  I'm not sure he knows I'm awake, sees my eyes wide and dilated in the dark. It's like he's talking to himself. But when he reaches down to stroke my hair, his face draws nearer and his brows knit.

  "Son?” he says, his voice quavering. “Son, what have they ... what have you...?"

  His hand snaps back like the magnetic arm of a relay switch. But I have only an instant to steel myself before he shakes off the stun and whips back, seizing me by my throat and one thigh and hauling me off the bunk.

  "What in the Wheel have you done?” he cries, stumbling back as I watch the indistinct room tumble crazily around me. He loses his grip on my thigh, and my knees bounce off the deck even as my windpipe grinds against his other hand. I smash sideways against the bottom of the hatch, torn loose now from both his hands, and watch in the terrible clarity of low gravity as his leg swings back in an arc that will ultimately reverse and connect with my ribs.

  I've never felt revulsion before at his correctional touch, only the sort of accepting resignation born of an intimate belief in the justice of it. But now, sprawled on the deck, my skin crawls with a sense of wrongness and violation.

  Spasming, I curl myself around his leg at the moment of contact, I grab tight with both arms, I twist violently toward the hatch. Arms wheeling, Thomas hits the bulkhead face first.

  The lights brighten at his startled cry, and in the sudden glare I scuttle desperately to the cabin's far corner. Thomas's face leaves a lurid red smear on the door as he slides to the deck. Dizzy, I push myself to my feet, lungs heaving, alternately holding back sobs and retches.

  Thomas huddles on the floor with his arms over his head. “Oh, Builder,” he half coughs, half wails. “What did you do?"

  There's only one way he could have detected my mods. “You see it,” I say, nodding like a drunk. “You're Sculpted too, you hypocrite."

  He rolls over onto one side. “I couldn't do my job otherwise,” he says, wiping blood from his mouth. “The job I have to do for you and our people. You have no idea what I've sacrificed."

  "If I have no idea,” I shout, “it's because you never told me! You sent me out there to face the same choices, but you never told me what you chose!"

  He sits up, wiping his face and examining the blood on his hand. “I told you what was right, Jude. That's my job."

  "You think I can't figure that out for
myself?"

  "Obviously not. Just like your mother.” He's breathing hard, wincing. “She couldn't make the distinction either—what one person sacrifices out of necessity, and what that spares the rest of his family. She tore us apart because of it. She left this family in shambles.” He pushes himself to his feet. “And I suppose you want to join her now, Wrecker take you both."

  He totters the few steps toward me. I try to rise, intending to meet his assault on my feet, however it comes.

  When he lays hands on me, though, it's to take my elbow and help me rise. “Be my guest,” he says, gesturing to the hatch. “The door's there."

  "The door?” I repeat, confused. “But ... I thought..."

  "Thought what? Thought—” Understanding dawns on his face like it hasn't yet on mine. “Oh, Jude."

  "What?"

  "You know so much else. I thought you must have found that out too."

  I feel a tremble in my chest. “Found out what?"

  "About your mother. That she's..."

  Time seems to freeze. Something terrible roars somewhere far, far away, someplace only I can hear it.

  "Son?” Something in my expression causes Thomas to release my elbow and take a step back. “Son,” he says, hands up, “she was dead to us, dead in every way that mattered. She wasn't the same woman anymore. That woman died."

  I fling myself at him, fists pummeling his chest like I'm a two-year-old throwing a tantrum.

  "I was only trying to protect you, Jude! She's a monster now! She's Wreckerspawn!"

  "Liar!” I cry, spittle flying from my mouth, tears blinding my eyes. “You liar!"

  Now he's crying too, behind his upthrust arms, but it can't be from my pathetic beating. I shove him away in disgust. He staggers and sits down hard on his bunk. Not pausing to think, I snatch my clothing from the netted basket beside my bunk and cross to the hatch.

  "And now you're leaving me, too,” Thomas says bitterly. “You're her son in every way."

  "Good,” I say, turning the knob. “That's what I'd rather be anyway."

  I have one last glimpse of him—hunched on his bunk in the harsh light like a wild animal, clawing at his wet, puffy eyes—and the hatch snicks shut behind me.