The Year's Top Hard Science Fiction Stories 3

by Allan Kaster

  “There’s only one problem, Long Meng,” I said. “Luna doesn’t deserve crèches.”

  “Deserve doesn’t really—”

  I cut her off. “Luna doesn’t deserve a population.”

  She looked confused. “But it has a population, so—”

  “Luna deserves to die,” I snapped. I stumped away, leaving her at the table, her jaw hanging in shock.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  Halfway through our third and final seminar, in the middle of introducing Ricochet’s proprietary never-fail methods for raising kids, I got an emergency ping from Bruce.

  Tré’s abandoned the tour. He’s run off.

  I faked a coughing fit and lunged toward the water bulbs at the back of the stage. Turned my back on two thousand pairs of eyes, and tried to collect myself as I scanned Tré’s biom. His stress indicators were highly elevated. The other five members of the Jewel Box were anxious, too.

  Do you have eyes on him?

  Of course. Bruce shot me a bookmark.

  Three separate cameras showed Tré was alone, playing his favorite pattern-matching game while coasting along a nearly deserted slideway. Metadata indicated his location on an express connector between Coacalco and Eaton habs.

  He looked stunned, as if surprised by his own daring. Small, under the high arches of the slideway tunnel. And thin—his bony shoulder blades tented the light cloth of his tunic.

  Coacalco has a bot shadowing him. Do we want them to intercept?

  I zoomed in on Tré’s face, as if I could read his thoughts as easily as his physiology. He’d never been particularly assertive or self-willed, never one to challenge his crèche mates or lead them in new directions. But kids will surprise you.

  Tell them to stay back. Ping a personal security firm to monitor him. Go on with your tour. And try not to worry.

  Are you sure?

  I wasn’t sure, not at all. My stress indicators were circling the planet. Every primal urge screamed for the bot to wrap itself around the boy and haul him back to Bruce. But I wasn’t going to slap down a sixteen-year-old kid for acting on his own initiative, especially since this was practically the first time he’d shown any.

  Looks like Tré has something to do, I whispered. Let’s let him follow through.

  I returned to my chair. Tried to focus on the curriculum but couldn’t concentrate. Long Meng could only do so much to fill the gap. The audience became restless, shifting in their seats, murmuring to each other. Many stopped paying attention. Right up in the front row, three golden-haired, rainbow-smocked Venusians were blanked out, completely immersed in their feeds.

  Long Meng was getting frantic, trying to distract two thousand people from the gaping hole on the stage that was her friend Jules. I picked up my cane, stood, and calmly tipped my chair. It hit the stage floor with a crash. Long Meng jumped. Every head swiveled.

  “I apologize for the dramatics,” I said, “but earlier, you all noticed me blanking out. I want to explain.”

  I limped to the front of the stage, unsteady despite my cane. I wear a stability belt, but try not to rely on it too much. Old age has exacerbated my natural tendency for a weak core, and using the belt too much just makes me frailer. But my legs wouldn’t stop shaking. I dialed up the balance support.

  “What just happened illustrates an important point about crèche work.” I attached my cane’s cling-point to the stage floor and leaned on it with both hands as I scanned the audience. “Our mistakes can ruin lives. No other profession carries such a vast potential for screwing up.”

  “That’s not true.” Long Meng’s eyes glinted in the stage lights, clearly relieved I’d stepped back up to the job. “Engineering disciplines carry quite the disaster potential. Surgery certainly does. Psychology and pharmacology. Applied astrophysics. I could go on.” She grinned. “Really, Jules. Nearly every profession is dangerous.”

  I grimaced and dismissed her point.

  “Doctors’ decisions are supported by ethics panels and case reviews. Engineers run simulation models and have their work vetted by peers before taking any real-world risks. But in a crèche, we make a hundred decisions a day that affect human development. Sometimes a hundred an hour.”

  “Okay, but are every last one of those decisions so important?”

  I gestured to one of the rainbow-clad front-row Venusians. “What do you think? Are your decisions important?”

  A camera bug zipped down to capture her answer for the seminar’s shared feed. The Venusian licked her lips nervously and shifted to the edge of her seat.

  “Some decisions are,” she said in a high, tentative voice. “You can never know which.”

  “That’s right. You never know.” I thanked her and rejoined Long Meng in the middle of the stage. “Crèche workers take on huge responsibility. We assume all the risk, with zero certainty. No other profession accepts those terms. So why do we do this job?”

  “Someone has to?” said Long Meng. Laughter percolated across the auditorium.

  “Why us, though?” I said. “What’s wrong with us?”

  More laughs. I rapped my cane on the floor.

  “My current crèche is a sixteen-year sixsome. Well integrated, good morale. Distressingly sporty. They keep me running.” The audience chuckled. “They’re on a geography tour somewhere on the other side of Venus. A few minutes ago, one of my kids ran off. Right now, he’s coasting down one of your intra-hab slideways and blocking our pings.”

  Silence. I’d captured every eye; all their attention was mine.

  I fired the public slideway feed onto the stage. Tré’s figure loomed four meters high. His foot was kicked back against the slideway’s bumper in an attitude of nonchalance, but it was just a pose. His gaze was wide and unblinking, the whites of his eyes fully visible.

  “Did he run away because of something one of us said? Or did? Or neglected to do? Did it happen today, yesterday, or ten days ago? Maybe it has nothing to do with us at all, but some private urge from the kid’s own heart. He might be suffering acutely right now, or maybe he’s enjoying the excitement. The adrenaline and cortisol footprints look the same.”

  I clenched my gnarled, age-spotted hand to my chest, pulling at the fabric of my shirt.

  “But I’m suffering. My heart feels like it could rip right out of my chest because this child has put himself in danger.” I patted the wrinkled fabric back into place. “Mild danger. Venus is no Luna.”

  Nervous laughter from the crowd. Long Meng hovered at my side.

  “Crèche work is like no other human endeavor,” I said. “Nothing else offers such potential for failure, sorrow, and loss. But no work is as important. You all know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  Long Meng squeezed my shoulder. I patted her hand. “Raising children is only for true believers.”

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  Not long after our seminar ended, Tré boarded Venus’s circum-planetary chuteway and chose a pod headed for Vanavara. The pod’s public feed showed five other passengers: a middle-aged threesome who weren’t interested in anything but each other, a halo-haired young adult escorting a floating tank of live eels, and a broad-shouldered brawler with deeply scarred forearms.

  Tré waited for the other passengers to sit, then settled himself into a corner seat. I pinged him. No answer.

  “We should have had him intercepted,” I said.

  Long Meng and I sat in the back of the auditorium. A choir group had taken over the stage. Bots were attempting to set up risers, but the singers were milling around, blocking their progress.

  “He’ll be okay.” Long Meng squeezed my knee. “Less than five hours to Vanavara. None of the passengers are going to do anything to him.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Nobody would risk it. Venus has strict penalties for physical violence.”

  “Is that the worst thing you can think of?” I flashed a pointer at the brawler. “One conversation with that one in a bad mood could do lifelong damage to
anyone, much less a kid.”

  We watched the feed in silence. At first the others kept to themselves, but then the brawler stood, pulled down a privacy veil, and sauntered over to sit beside Tré.

  “Oh no,” I moaned.

  I zoomed in on Tré’s face. With the veil in place, I couldn’t see or hear the brawler. All I could do was watch the kid’s eyes flicker from the window to the brawler and back, monitor his stress indicators, and try to read his body language. Never in my life have I been less equipped to make a professional judgement about a kid’s state of mind. My mind boiled with paranoia.

  After about ten minutes—an eternity—the brawler returned to their seat.

  “It’s fine,” said Long Meng. “He’ll be with us soon.”

  Long Meng and I met Tré at the chuteway dock. It was late. He looked tired, rumpled, and more than a little sulky.

  “Venus is stupid,” he said.

  “That’s ridiculous, a planet can’t be stupid,” Long Meng snapped. She was tired, and hadn’t planned on spending the last night of her vacation waiting in a transit hub.

  Let me handle this, I whispered.

  “Are you okay? Did anything happen in the pod?” I tried to sound calm as I led him to the slideway.

  He shrugged. “Not really. This oldster was telling me how great his hab is. Sounded like a hole.”

  I nearly collapsed with relief.

  “Okay, good,” I said. “We were worried about you. Why did you leave the group?”

  “I didn’t realize it would take so long to get anywhere,” Tré said.

  “That’s not an answer. Why did you run off?”

  “I don’t know.” The kid pretended to yawn—one of the Jewel Box’s clearest tells for lying. “Venus is boring. We should’ve saved our credits.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Everybody else was happy looking at rocks. Not me. I wanted to get some value out of this trip.”

  “So you jumped a slideway?”

  “Uh huh.” Tré pulled a protein snack out of his pocket and stuffed it in his mouth. “I was just bored. And I’m sorry. Okay?”

  “Okay.” I fired up the leaderboard and zeroed out Tré’s score. “You’re on a short leash until we get home.”

  We got the kid a sleep stack near ours, then Long Meng and I had a drink in the grubby travelers’ lounge downstairs.

  “How are you going to find out why he left?” asked Long Meng. “Pull his feeds? Form a damage mitigation team? Plan an intervention?”

  I picked at fabric on the arm of my chair. The plush nap repaired itself as I dragged a ragged thumbnail along the armrest.

  “If I did, Tré would learn he can’t make a simple mistake without someone jumping down his throat. He might shrug off the psychological effects, or it could inflict long-term damage.”

  “Right. Like you said in the seminar. You can’t know.”

  We finished our drinks and Long Meng helped me to my feet. I hung my cane from my forearm and tucked both hands into the crease of her elbow. We slowly climbed upstairs. I could have pinged a physical assistance bot, but my hands were cold, and my friend’s arm was warm.

  “Best to let this go,” I said. “Tré’s already a cautious kid. I won’t punish him for taking a risk.”

  “I might, if only for making me worry. I guess I’ll never be a crèche manager.” She grinned.

  “And yet you want to go to Luna and build a new crèche system.”

  Long Meng’s smile vanished. “I shouldn’t have sprung that on you, Jules.”

  In the morning, the two young people rose bright and cheery. I was aching and bleary but put on a serene face. We had just enough time to catch a concert before heading up the umbilical to our shuttle home. We made our way to the atrium, where Tré boggled at the soaring views, packed slideways, clustered performance and game surfaces, fountains, and gardens. The air sparkled with nectar and spices, and underneath, a thick, oily human funk.

  We boarded a riser headed to Vanavara’s orchestral pits. A kind Venusian offered me a seat with a smile. I thanked him, adding, “That would never happen on Luna.”

  I drew Long Meng close as we spiraled toward the atrium floor.

  Just forget about the proposal, I whispered. The moon is a lost cause.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  A little more than a year later, Ricochet was on approach for Earth. The Jewel Box were nearly ready to leave the crèche. Bruce and the rest of my team were planning to start a new one, and they warmly assured me I’d always be welcome to visit. I tried not to weep about it. Instead, I began spending several hours a day helping provide round-the-clock cuddles to a newborn with hydrocephalus.

  As far as I knew, Long Meng had given up the Luna idea. Then she cornered me in the dim-lit nursery and burst my bubble.

  She quietly slid a stool over to my rocker, cast a professional eye over the cerebrospinal fluid-exchange membrane clipped to the baby’s ear, and whispered, We made the short list.

  That’s great, I replied, my cheek pressed to the infant’s warm, velvety scalp.

  I had no idea what she was referring to, and at that moment I didn’t care. The scent of a baby’s head is practically narcotic, and no victory can compare with having coaxed a sick child into restful sleep.

  It means we have to go to Luna for a presentation and interview.

  Realization dawned slowly. Luna? I’m not going to Luna.

  Not you, Jules. Me and my team. I thought you should hear before the whole hab starts talking.

  I concentrated on keeping my rocking rhythm steady before answering. I thought you’d given that up.

  She put a gentle hand on my knee. I know. You told me not to pursue it and I considered your advice. But it’s important, Jules. Luna will restart its crèche program one way or another. We can make sure they do it right.

  I fixed my gaze pointedly on her prognathous jaw. You don’t know what it’s like there. They’ll roast you alive just for looking different.

  Maybe. But I have to try.

  She patted my knee and left. I stayed in the rocker long past hand-over time, resting my cheek against that precious head.

  Seventy years ago I’d done the same, in a crèche crowded into a repurposed suite of offices behind one of Luna’s water printing plants. I’d walked through the door broken and grieving, certain the world had been drained of hope and joy. Then someone put a baby in my arms. Just a few hours old, squirming with life, arms reaching for the future.

  Was there any difference between the freshly detanked newborn on Luna and the sick baby I held on that rocker? No. The embryos gestating in Ricochet’s superbly optimized banks of artificial wombs were no different from the ones Luna would grow in whatever gestation tech they inevitably cobbled together.

  But as I continued to think about it, I realized there was a difference, and it was important. The ones on Luna deserved better than they would get. And I could do something about it.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  First, I had my hair sheared into an ear-exposing brush precise to the millimeter. The tech wielding the clippers tried to talk me out of it.

  “Do you realize this will have to be trimmed every twenty days?”

  “I used to wear my hair like this when I was young,” I reassured him. He rolled his eyes and cut my hair like I asked.

  I changed my comfortable smock for a lunar gray trouser-suit with enough padding to camouflage my age-slumped shoulders. My cling-pointed cane went into the mulch, exchanged for a glossy black model. Its silver point rapped the floor, announcing my progress toward Long Meng’s studio.

  The noise turned heads all down the corridor. Long Meng popped out of her doorway, but she didn’t recognize me until I pushed past her and settled onto her sofa with a sigh.

  “Are you still looking for a project advisor?” I asked.

  She grinned. “Luna won’t know what hit it.”

  Back in the rumpus room, Tré was the only kid to comment on my haircut.
<
br />   “You look like a villain from one of those old Follywood dramas Bruce likes.”

  “Hollywood,” I corrected. “Yes, that’s the point.”

  “What’s the point in looking like a gangland mobber?”

  “Mobster.” I ran my palm over the brush. “Is that what I look like?”

  “Kinda. Is it because of us?”

  I frowned, not understanding. He pulled his ponytail over his shoulder and eyed it speculatively.

  “Are you trying to look tough so we won’t worry about you after we leave?”

  That’s the thing about kids. The conversations suddenly swerve and hit you in the back of the head.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I’m totally fine.”

  “I know, I know. You’ve been running crèches forever. But we’re the last because you’re so old. Right? It’s got to be hard.”

  “A little,” I admitted. “But you’ve got other things to think about. Big, exciting decisions to make.”

  “I don’t think I’m leaving the crèche. I’m delayed.”

  I tried to keep from smiling. Tré was nothing of the sort. He’d grown into a gangly young man with long arms, bony wrists, and a haze of silky black beard on his square jaw. I could recite the dates of his developmental benchmarks from memory, and there was nothing delayed about them.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “You don’t have to leave until you’re ready.”

  “A year. Maybe two. At least.”

  “Okay, Tré. Your decision.”

  I wasn’t worried. It’s natural to feel ambivalent about taking the first step into adulthood. If Tré found it easier to tell himself he wasn’t leaving, so be it. As soon as his crèche-mates started moving on, Tré would follow.

  ☼ ☼ ☼

  Our proximity to Earth gave Long Meng’s proposal a huge advantage. We could travel to Luna, give our presentation live, and be back home for the boost.