by Neil Clarke
“You won them enough time,” Scented Coolabar said in a flicker of blue and green. The game was over. It ended at the lowest place in the world, but it had been won years before, she realized. It had been won the moment Rose of Jericho diverted herself away from the Soulhouse into a meditation tree on the Holy Plains of Hoy.
“I believe so,” Rose of Jericho said, hovering a kiss away from the crystal wall, holding herself against the insane Coriolis storms that stirred this high-gravity domain of waters. “It will be centuries before the Clade arrives in force.”
“The Chamber of Ever-Renewing Waters could regard it as treachery,” Harvest Moon said. Rose of Jericho touched the transparency with a tentacle.
“Do I not serve them with heart and mind and life?” The soft fireworks were fewer now; one by one they faded to nothing. “And anyway, what would they charge me with? Handing the Clade the universe on a plate?”
“Or condemning the Clade to death,” said Scented Coolabar.
“Not our Clade.”
She had been brilliant, Scented Coolabar realized. To have worked it out in those few minutes of subjective flight, and known what to do to save the Clade. But she had always been the greatest strategic mind of her generation. Not for the first time Scented Coolabar wondered about their lost forebear, that extraordinary female who had birthed them from her ploaded intellect.
What is Verthandi’s Ring? A closed cosmic string. And what is a closed cosmic string? A time machine. A portal to the past. But not the past of this universe. Any transit of a closed timelike loop led inevitably to a parallel universe. In that time-stream, there too was war; Clade and Enemy, locked in Darwinian combat. And in that universe, as the Enemy was driven back to gaze into annihilation, Verthandi’s Ring opened and a second Enemy, a duplicate Enemy in every way, came out of the sky. They had handed the Clade this universe; the prize for driving its parallel in the alternate time-stream to extinction.
Cold-blooded beneath millions of tons of deep cold pressure, Scented Coolabar shivered. Rose of Jericho had assessed the tactical implications and made the only possible choice: delay the Chamber of Ever-Renewing Waters and the Deep Blue Something so they could not prevent the Enemy exiting this universe. A bloodless win. An end to war. Intelligence the savior of the blind, physical universe. While in the second time-stream, Clade habitats burst like crushed eyeballs and worlds were scorched bare and the Enemy found its resources suddenly doubled.
Scented Coolabar doubted that she could ever make such a deal. But she was an Engineer, not a Mistress of Arms. Her tentacles caressed Rose of Jericho’s lobed claspers; a warm sexual thrill pulsed through her muscular body.
“Stay with us, stay with me,” Harvest Moon said. Her decision was made, the reluctant incarnation; she had fallen in love with the flesh and would remain exploring the Heart-world’s concentric tiers in thousands of fresh and exciting bodies.
“No, I have to go.” Rose of Jericho briefly brushed Harvest Moon’s sexual tentacles. “They won’t hurt me. They knew I had no choice, as they had no choice.”
Scented Coolabar turned in the water. Her fins rippled, propelling her upward through the pitch-black water. Rose of Jericho fell in behind her. In a few strong strokes, the lights of Harvest Moon’s farewell faded, even the red warmth of her love, and all that remained was the centuries-deep shine of the starbow beyond the wall of the world.
PUBLICATION HISTORY
“Alien Archeology” by Neal Asher. Copyright © 2007 by Neal Asher. First Published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, May 2007.
“The Lost Princess Man” by John Barnes. Copyright © 2009 by John Barnes. First Published in The New Space Opera 2 edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan. “The Muse of Empires Lost” by Paul Berger. Copyright © 2006 by Paul
Berger. First Published in Twenty Epics edited by Susan Marie Groppi and David Moles.
“A Cold Heart” by Tobias S. Buckell. Copyright © 2014 by Tobias S. Buckell. First Published in Upgraded edited by Neil Clarke.
“All the Painted Stars” by Gwendolyn Clare. Copyright © 2012 by Gwendolyn Clare. First Published in Clarkesworld Magazine, #64 January 2012.
“The Waiting Stars” by Aliette de Bodard. Copyright © 2013 by Aliette de Bodard. First Published in The Other Half of the Sky edited by Athena Andreadis and Kay Holt.
“Riding the Crocodile” by Greg Egan. Copyright © 2005 by Greg Egan. First Published in One Million A.D. edited by Gardner Dozois.
“Section Seven” by John G. Hemry. Copyright © 2003 by John G. Hemry. First Published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, September 2003.
“Night’s Slow Poison” by Ann Leckie. Copyright © 2012 by Ann Leckie. First Published in Electric Velocipede, Issue #24, Summer 2012.
“Ghostweight” by Yoon Ha Lee. Copyright © 2011 by Yoon Ha Lee. First Published in Clarkesworld Magazine, #52 January 2011.
“Winning Peace” by Paul J. McAuley. Copyright © 2007 by Paul J. McAuley. First Published in The New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan.
“Verthandi’s Ring” by Ian McDonald. Copyright © 2007 by Ian McDonald. First Published in The New Space Opera edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan.
“Looking Through Lace” by Ruth Nestvold. Copyright © 2003 by Ruth Nestvold. First Published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, September 2003.
“Seven Years from Home” by Naomi Novik. Copyright © 2010 by Naomi Novik. First Published in Warriors edited by Gardner Dozois and George R. R. Martin.
“The Man with the Golden Balloon” by Robert Reed. Copyright © 2008 by Robert Reed. First Published in Galactic Empires edited by Gardner Dozois, Updated for publication in The Greatship, by Robert Reed (2013).
“The Impossibles” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. Copyright © 2011 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. First Published in Analog Science Fiction and Fact, December 2011.
“Firstborn” by Brandon Sanderson. Copyright © 2008 Dragonsteel Entertainment, L.L.C. First Published in Tor.com, Dec 17, 2008.
“Invisible Empire of Ascending Light” by Ken Scholes. Copyright © 2008 by Ken Scholes. First Published in Eclipse edited by Jonathan Strahan.
“The Colonel Returns to the Stars” by Robert Silverberg. Copyright © 2004 by Robert Silverberg. First Published in Between Worlds edited by Robert Silverberg.
“The Wayfarer’s Advice” by Melinda M. Snodgrass. Copyright © 2010 by Melinda M. Snodgrass. First Published in Songs of Love and Death, edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois.
“A Letter from the Emperor” by Steve Rasnic Tem. Copyright © 2010 by Steve Rasnic Tem. First Published in Asimov’s Science Fiction, January 2010.
“Utriusque Cosmi” by Robert Charles Wilson. Copyright © 2009 by Robert Charles Wilson. First Published in The New Space Opera 2 edited by Gardner Dozois and Jonathan Strahan.
ABOUT THE EDITOR
Neil Clarke is an award-winning editor and anthologist. As the editor of Clarkesworld Magazine, he has won three Hugo Awards and a World Fantasy Award. His anthologies include The Best Science Fiction of the Year series, Upgraded, and several Clarkesworld anthologies. Neil currently lives in New Jersey with his wife and two sons. You can find him online at neil-clarke.com.
