The Very Best of the Best

by Gardner Dozois

  If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and a man.

  It was Mark Twain. But then, so were a lot of true things. And I was determined to prove myself more like the dog than the man. Jean-Khalil was an old man. Surely he could use my help. And I knew I needed his. I didn’t see Jean-Khalil. But just as the waves of panic and abandonment—again, just like after Rose—were cresting in me, I spotted someone. Leaning against the wall by the door was Numair.

  Numair had seen me first—I’d been moving, and he’d been looking for me—so he saw me stop dead and stare. He raised his hand hesitantly.

  “Buy you dinner?” he asked. He didn’t flinch when he looked at me.

  From the angle of the light outside, I realized it was nearly sunset. “As long as we can get it someplace standing up.”

  * * *

  That meant street meat, and three hotdogs with everything were the best food I’d ever tasted. Numair drank beer but he didn’t eat pork, so he ate potato chips and watched me lean forward so the chili and onions didn’t drip down my filthy shirt. I knew it was ridiculous, but I did it anyway. It felt like preserving my dignity to care. What dignity? I wasn’t sure. But it still mattered.

  “I’m sorry,” Numair said. “I’m really sorry. If I’d realized you didn’t know about Rose—I just never imagined. You two were so close. And you never mentioned her—I figured you didn’t want to talk about her.”

  “I didn’t.” We’d had a fight, I wanted to say. Something to absolve myself of not checking. But when she stopped logging in, I figured she’d just decided to cut me off. She wouldn’t be the first, and I knew she had another life. A wife. We’d talked about telling her she was having an affair.

  And then she’d just … stopped messaging. People fall out of social groups all the time. It happens. I guess somebody more secure wouldn’t have assumed they were the problem. But I was used to being the problem. Numair’s the only friend I have left from the gang I hung around with all the time in grad school.

  I swallowed hot dog, half-chewed. It hurt. He handed me an open can of soda, and I washed the lump down. “How’d she die?”

  She hadn’t been old. I mean, she hadn’t skinned old. But who knew what the hell that meant, in the real world.

  “She killed herself,” Numair said, bluff and forthright. Which was just like him.

  I staggered. Literally, sideways two steps. I couldn’t catch myself because the last hotdog was balanced against my chest on the pristine cast. I already had the instinct to protect that food. I guess you don’t have to get too hungry to learn fast.

  “Jesus,” I said, and felt bad.

  He made a comforting face. And that was when I realized that if he could see me, he wasn’t skinning. “Numair. You came all the way down here for me?”

  “Charlie. Like I’d let an old friend go down without some help.” He put a hand on my shoulder and pulled it back, frowning. He looked around, disgusted. “You know, you hear on the news how bad it is out here. But you never really get it until you see it. Poisoned environment, whatever. But this is astounding. Look, we can get you a hearing. Appeal your status. Maybe get you a new number. You can stay with Ilona and me until it’s settled.”

  There were horror vids about this sort of thing. The baselines lived outside of social controls, after all. There was nothing to keep them from committing horrible crimes. “You’re going to take in a baseline? That’s a lot of trust. I’m a desperate woman.”

  He smiled. “I know you.”

  * * *

  Ilona only knew me as a skin, but when I showed up at her house in the unadorned flesh, she couldn’t have been nicer. She, too, had turned off her skinning so she could see me and interact. I could tell she was uncomfortable with it, though—her eyes kept flicking off my face to look for the hypertext or chase a link pursuant to the conversation, and of course there was nothing there. So after a bit she just showed me the bathroom, brought me clean clothes and a towel, and went back to her phone, where (she said) she was working on a deadline. She was an advertising copywriter, and she and Numair had converted one corner of their old house’s parlor into an office space. I could hear her clicking away as I stripped off my filthy clothing and dropped it piece by piece into the bathroom waste pail. It was hard, one-handed, and it was even harder to tape the plastic bag around my cast.

  It had never bothered me to discard ruined clothing before, but now I found it anxiety-inducing. That’s still good. Somebody could wear that. I set the shower for hot and climbed in. The water I got fell in a lukewarm trickle; barely wetting me.

  They probably skinned it hotter when they showered.

  I tried to linger, to savor the cleanliness, but the chill of the water in a chilly room drove me out to stand dripping on the rug. As I was dressing in Ilona’s jeans and sweatshirt, the sound of a child crying filtered through.

  I came out to find Numair up from his desk, changing a diaper in the nook beside the kitchen. His daughter’s name was Mercedes; she’d always been something of a little pink blob to me. I came up to hand him the grease for her diaper rash and saw the spotted blood on the diaper he had pushed aside.

  “Christ,” I said. “Is she all right?”

  “She’s nine months old, and she’s starting her menses,” he said, lower lip thrust out in worry. I noticed because I was looking up at the underside of his chin. “It’s getting more common in very young girls.”

  “Common?”

  With practiced hands, he attached the diaper tabs and sealed up Mercedes’ onesie. He folded the soiled diaper and stuck it closed. “The doctor says it’s environmental hormones. It can be skinned for—they’ll make her look normal to herself and everyone else until she’s old enough to start developing.” He shrugged and picked up his child. “He says he treats a couple of toddlers with developing breasts, and the cosmetic option works for them.”

  He looked at me, brown eyes warm with worry.

  I looked down. “You think that’s a good enough answer?”

  He shook his head. I didn’t push it any further.

  * * *

  They put me to sleep in their guest room, and fed me—unskinned, the food was slop, but it was food, and I got used to them not being able to see or talk to me at mealtimes. After a week, I felt much stronger. And as it was obvious that Numair and Ilona’s intervention was not going to win me any favors from Revenue, I slowly came up with another plan.

  I couldn’t find Jean-Khalil under the bridge. His fire circle was abandoned, his blankets packed up. He’d moved on, and I didn’t know where. Good deed delivered.

  You’d think, right? Until it clicked what I was missing.

  I showed up at the free clinic first thing next Tuesday morning, just as Dr. Tankovitch had suggested. And I waited there until Dr. Tankovitch walked in and with her, his gaunt hand curved around a cup of coffee, Dr. Jean-Khalil Samure.

  He didn’t look surprised to see me. My clothes were clean, and the cast was only a little dingy. I’d shaved, and I was surprised he recognized me without the split lip and the swelling.

  “Jean-Khalil,” I said.

  I guessed accosting the clinic doctors wasn’t what you did, because Dr. Tankovitch looked as if she might intercept me or call for security. But Jean-Khalil held out a hand to pause her.

  He smiled. “Charlie. You look like you’re finding your feet.”

  “I got help from a friend.” I frowned and looked down at my borrowed tennis shoes. Ilona’s, and too big for me. “I can’t do this, Jean-Khalil. You’ve got to help me.”

  I’m sure the clinic had all sorts of problems with drug addicts. Because now Dr. Tankovitch was actively backing away, and I saw her summoning hand gestures. I leaned in and talked faster. “I need your tax number,” I said. “You’re not using it. Look, all I need is to get back on my feet, and I can help you in all sorts of ways. Money. Publicity. I’ll come volunteer at your clinic
—”

  “Charlie,” he said. “You know that’s not enough. The way you live—the way you have been living. That’s a lie. It’s not sustainable. It’s addictive behavior. If everybody could see the damage they’re doing, they’d behave differently.”

  I pressed my lips together. I looked away. Down at the floor. At anything but Jean-Khalil. “There’s a girl. Her name is Rose.”

  He looked at me. I wondered if he knew I was lying. Maybe I wasn’t lying. I could find somebody else, skin her into Rose. Maybe she’d have a different name. But I could fix this. Do better. If he would only give me the chance.

  “You’re not using it,” I said.

  “A girl,” he said. “Your daughter?”

  “My lover,” I said.

  I said, “Please.”

  He shook his head, eyes rolled up and away. Then he yanked his hand out of his pocket brusquely. “On your head be it.”

  I was not prepared for the naked relief that filled me. I looked down, abjectly, and folded my hands. “Thank you so much.”

  “You can’t save people from themselves,” he said.

  Someday

  JAMES PATRICK KELLY

  James Patrick Kelly made his first sale in 1975, and since has gone on to become one of the most respected and popular writers to enter the field in the last twenty years. Although Kelly has had some success with novels, especially with Wildlife, he has perhaps had more impact to date as a writer of short fiction, with stories such as “Solstice,” “The Prisoner of Chillon,” “Glass Cloud,” “Mr. Boy,” “Pogrom,” “Home Front,” “Undone,” and “Bernardo’s House,” and is often ranked among the best short story writers in the business. His story “Think Like a Dinosaur” won him a Hugo Award in 1996, as did his story “1016 to 1,” in 2000. Kelly’s first solo novel, the mostly ignored Planet of Whispers, came out in 1984. It was followed by Freedom Beach, a mosaic novel written in collaboration with John Kessel, and then by another solo novel, Look into the Sun, as well as the chapbook novella, Burn. His short work has been collected in Think Like a Dinosaur and Strange but Not a Stranger. Recently he published the novel Mother Go and a series of anthologies co-edited with John Kessel: Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, The Secret History of Science Fiction, Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, and Nebula Awards Showcase 2012. Born in Minneola, New York, Kelly now lives with his family in Nottingham, New Hampshire. He has a website at www.JimKelly.net, and reviews internet-related matters for Asimov’s Science Fiction.

  Here’s an examination of the peculiar courtship customs and divergent biology that have developed on a Lost Colony world that has drifted out of touch with the rest of humanity—with a final clever twist waiting at the end.

  Daya had been in no hurry to become a mother. In the two years since she’d reached childbearing age, she’d built a modular from parts she’d fabbed herself, thrown her boots into the volcano, and served as blood judge. The village elders all said she was one of the quickest girls they had ever seen—except when it came to choosing fathers for her firstborn. Maybe that was because she was too quick for a sleepy village like Third Landing. When her mother, Tajana, had come of age, she’d left for the blue city to find fathers for her baby. Everyone expected Tajana would stay in Halfway, but she had surprised them and returned home to raise Daya. So once Daya had grown up, everyone assumed that someday she would leave for the city like her mother, especially after Tajana had been killed in the avalanche last winter. What did Third Landing have to hold such a fierce and able woman? Daya could easily build a glittering new life in Halfway. Do great things for the colony.

  But everything had changed after the scientists from space had landed on the old site across the river, and Daya had changed most of all. She kept her own counsel and was often hard to find. That spring she had told the elders that she didn’t need to travel to gather the right semen. Her village was happy and prosperous. The scientists had chosen it to study and they had attracted tourists from all over the colony. There were plenty of beautiful and convenient local fathers to take to bed. Daya had sampled the ones she considered best, but never opened herself to blend their sperm. Now she would, here in the place where she had been born.

  She chose just three fathers for her baby. She wanted Ganth because he was her brother and because he loved her above all others. Latif because he was a leader and would say what was true when everyone else was afraid. And Bakti because he was a master of stories and because she wanted him to tell hers someday.

  She informed each of her intentions to make a love feast, although she kept the identities of the other fathers a secret, as was her right. Ganth demanded to know, of course, but she refused him. She was not asking for a favor. It would be her baby, her responsibility. The three fathers, in turn, kept her request to themselves, as was custom, in case she changed her mind about any or all of them. A real possibility—when she contemplated what she was about to do, she felt separated from herself.

  * * *

  That morning she climbed into the pen and spoke a kindness to her pig Bobo. The glint of the knife made him grunt with pleasure and he rolled onto his back, exposing the tumors on his belly. She hadn’t harvested him in almost a week and so carved two fist-size maroon swellings into the meat pail. She pressed strips of sponge root onto the wounds to stanch the bleeding and when it was done, she threw them into the pail as well. When she scratched under his jowls to dismiss him, Bobo squealed approval, rolled over and trotted off for a mud bath.

  She sliced the tumors thin, dipped the pieces in egg and dragged them through a mix of powdered opium, pepper, flour, and bread crumbs, then sautéed them until they were crisp. She arranged them on top of a casserole of snuro, parsnips and sweet flag, layered with garlic and three cheeses. She harvested some of the purple blooms from the petri dish on the windowsill and flicked them on top of her love feast. The aphrodisiacs produced by the bacteria would give an erection to a corpse. She slid the casserole into the oven to bake for an hour while she bathed and dressed for babymaking.

  Daya had considered the order in which she would have sex with the fathers. Last was most important, followed by first. The genes of the middle father—or fathers, since some mothers made babies with six or seven for political reasons—were less reliably expressed. She thought starting with Ganth for his sunny nature and finishing with Latif for his looks and good judgment made sense. Even though Bakti was clever, he had bad posture.

  * * *

  Ganth sat in front of a fuzzy black and white screen with his back to her when she nudged the door to his house open with her hip. “It’s me. With a present.”

  He did not glance away from his show—the colony’s daily news and gossip program about the scientists—but raised his forefinger in acknowledgment.

  She carried the warming dish with oven mitts to the huge round table that served as his desk, kitchen counter and sometime closet. She pushed aside some books, a belt, an empty bottle of blueberry kefir, and a Fill Jumphigher action figure to set her love feast down. Like her own house, Ganth’s was a single room, but his was larger, shabbier, and built of some knotty softwood.

  Her brother took a deep breath, his face pale in the light of the screen. “Smells delicious.” He pressed the off button; the screen winked and went dark.

  “What’s the occasion?” He turned to her, smiling. “Oh.” His eyes went wide when he saw how she was dressed. “Tonight?”

  “Tonight.” She grinned.

  Trying to cover his surprise, he pulled out the pocket watch he’d had from their mother and then shook it as if it were broken. “Why, look at the time. I totally forgot that we were grown up.”

  “You like?” She weaved her arms and her ribbon robe fluttered.

  “I was wondering when you’d come. What if I had been out?”

  She nodded at the screen in front of him. “You never miss that show.”

  “Has anyone else seen you?” He
sneaked to the window and peered out. A knot of gawkers had gathered in the street. “What, did you parade across Founders’ Square dressed like that? You’ll give every father in town a hard-on.” He pulled the blinds and came back to her. He surprised her by going down on one knee. “So which am I?”

  “What do you think?” She lifted the cover from the casserole to show that it was steaming and uncut.

  “I’m honored.” He took her hand in his and kissed it. “Who else?” he said. “And you have to tell. Tomorrow everyone will know.”

  “Bakti. Latif, last.”

  “Three is all a baby really needs.” He rubbed his thumb across the inside of her wrist. “Our mother would approve.”

  Of course, Ganth had no idea of what their mother had really thought of him.

  Tajana had once warned Daya that if she insisted on choosing Ganth to father her baby, she should dilute his semen with that of the best men in the village. A sweet manner is fine, she’d said, but babies need brains and a spine.

  “So, dear sister, it’s a sacrifice…” he said, standing, “but I’m prepared to do my duty.” He caught her in his arms.

  Daya squawked in mock outrage.

  “You’re not surprising the others are you?” He nuzzled her neck.

  “No, they expect me.”

  “Then we’d better hurry. I hear that Eldest Latif goes to bed early.” His whisper filled her ear. “Carrying the weight of the world on his back tires him out.”

  “I’ll give him reason to wake up.”

  He slid a hand through the layers of ribbons until he found her skin. “Bakti, on the other hand, stays up late, since his stories weigh nothing at all.” The flat of his hand against her belly made her shiver. “I didn’t realize you knew him that well.”