Some of the Best from Tor.com: 2019 Edition

by Elizabeth Bear

  Biting the inside of her lip, Ruby fumbled with the thick straps while holding on to a handrail with one hand. Her own tethers stabilized her a little, but not enough.

  Eugene crackled onto the comm. “Do you think an APFR would give you better leverage?”

  Articulated Portable Foot Restraint. She stopped what she was doing and stared at the ship. The handrail she was using was between two sockets built into the skin of the lunar shuttle. She’d been using the solution as just a navigation point. All she had to do was use one of those two sockets to attach a foot restraint and free both hands.

  And she’d been avoiding using a foot restraint because she’d been unconsciously avoiding pain. To get her feet into the APFR, she’d have to twist her ankle in and out of the restraint. Normally the MC trusted the astronaut on decisions like that during a dev run, to figure out what worked best for them. Ruby had been screwing things up because she’d gone dancing.

  “Good call.” The silver lining to the number of runs they’d done was that she knew where the nearest APFR was stored. She’d passed by it at least twice during this run, which made it all the worse that she hadn’t thought of it. “Translating back over the river and through the woods.”

  “If you’re reversing course, shouldn’t that be through the woods and over the river?”

  “Pretty sure there are woods on both sides of the river.” Ruby pulled herself hand over hand to the port sensor array, which was, thankfully, within reach of her safety tether. Even so, fighting the water resistance made her arms burn with effort. In the back of her head, time ticked away. “I could have collected this on my previous pass, which would buy some time.”

  Jason Tsao responded. “Good note, EV2. I’ll pass that up to station.”

  He didn’t say “if this works” but the question hung in the water with her. Ruby attached a Retractible Equipment Tether to the foot restraint. Once the RET was secure, she pulled the foot restraint off the WIF by turning the collar and depressing the “petals” at the base of the post. The bayonet slid out of the socket. It was a ridiculous thing to feel triumph about, but at the moment she would take even small victories.

  Turning to reverse course, Ruby swung her body through the water so that her feet trailed behind her The water resistance grabbed her feet and seemed to slowly twist her ankle. Ruby locked her jaw and breathed through her nose. This was an acceptable level of pain but the translation back to the work site seemed twice as long. She didn’t have the energy for banter.

  When she got back to the handrail, she snapped her local tether back into place. “Slider locked, black on black.”

  Closing her stiff fingers around the foot restraint, she plugged its bayonet into the nearest socket. The litany of locking things in place continued. “Collar locked, black on black.” She wrapped her hands round the APFR to make sure it was seated correctly. “Good twist and pull test”

  “Copy EV2.”

  Ruby retrieved the RET and restowed it. The last thing she needed was to get snarled in something she’d forgotten to put away.

  Adjusting her tethers to allow her to “stand up” perpendicular to the lunar rocket, Ruby put her feet next to the foot restraint. She slid the toes of her left foot under the restraint and twisted her foot to slide the heel ridge into the restraining slot.

  Biting the inside of her cheek, she slid her right foot under the restraint and twisted it. It felt as if her boot was filled with broken glass. It wasn’t. She was pretty sure she wasn’t doing permanent damage to the ankle. Slowing down recovery time, yes, but even if it was permanent damage, at the end of the day it just meant she wouldn’t be able to dance.

  But she’d still be able to play bridge with Myrtle and Eugene.

  Ruby reached for the tether and yanked on it with both hands. Something in her ankle went pfft and snapped.

  A small cry escaped. Ruby bit down hard. She would live, and so would the people on that ship if she had anything to say about it. Grimacing, she hauled on the tether until the tube snuggled up against the mockup station and the grapple clicked into place.

  Tears streaked across her cheeks, and for once the 1-G was a benefit because the moisture didn’t build up in watery balls over her eyes. Ruby nodded for the camera. “Thanks, Eugene. The answer is APFR. With that, I can pitch back. I can grab the bag. Anchor it. I can maneuver my body and not have to pitch or roll with the handrail. Sorry it took so long to work out.” Her ankle throbbed with each beat of her heart. “What’s next?”

  She hung in the water, listening to the sound of her own fans. Around her, support divers slowly turned the water with their fins while they all waited. Her ankle consumed the rest of her attention.

  The line crackled as Jason came back on the line. “Let’s get you out of the pool.”

  “I’m fine to continue.”

  “Thank you, but we’re transmitting this part of the procedure up to Lunetta. We’ll let Paul and Serge dev the process of getting the tube back to the other end of the ship. It’s comparatively straightforward.”

  “It’s not a problem.”

  “Ruby.” Eugene’s voice cut in. “I’ve played bridge with you. I know your tells.”

  She opened her mouth, staring at the camera in front of her. “Right. See you topside.”

  Her support divers swam up around her and pulled her away from the ship. In space, right now, someone on Lunetta was suiting up to go out and do this as a real spacewalk, not as a development run in a pool. Or heck, maybe they were all ready to go and had just been waiting for a viable solution.

  All the mistakes that Ruby had made were ones that the real rescue team wouldn’t have to. The pool was hard. Space would kill you.

  Ruby let herself go limp in her suit, watching the bubbles of her support divers stream past like flecks of snow. In her ears, the conversation with the other team continued as they kept working to try to mate an umbilical to the lunar rocket. She realized that she had no idea how long she’d been down.

  When the divers got her attached to the donning stand and the crane hauled her above the pool, Eugene was waiting poolside. He still wore his Snoopy cap, with the comm unit in place so he could stay in the loop. His lower lip had a raw spot as if he’d been biting it constantly while she was under the water.

  He could hear her if she spoke, but she waited until her suit was depressurized and her suit tech had her helmet off. She flexed her hands against the ache in the joints and met Eugene’s gaze as the tech pulled her Snoopy cap off.

  Eugene took his own off and stepped forward. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell them to pull you earlier.”

  “That was the right choice.” She shifted her weight to her left foot as her tech released the hard aluminum ring connecting her pants to the suit. “How long do they have?”

  “Six hours.” He glanced across the room at the clock on the wall. “It’s enough.”

  Ruby nodded and squirmed down, with a tech on either side to catch her. It was standard practice, but Eugene stepping forward, hands out, wasn’t. For the first time since she’d gone under, Ruby put weight on her right foot. Her head was still in the suit and the fiberglass interior seemed to light up like a meteor striking the Earth.

  Hands caught her and the next thing she knew, she was seated in a chair, still blinking back tears. Swallowing, Ruby shook her head. “I’m fine—GAH!” The sound ripped out of her as the techs tried to pull the spacesuit pants down. Her ankle was so swollen that it caught in the boot.

  Gripping the side of the chair, she panted until the spots faded from her vision.

  The nearest suit tech toggled on his mic. “We need medical for EV2.”

  She winced, but calling a medic was inevitable. “Not urgent. I aggravated a previous injury, that’s all.”

  “Aggravated?” Eugene shook his head. “You’re going to aggravate me if you keep lying.”

  “I’m not— Okay. I am. I’ve likely torn a ligament in my ankle. But y’all are going to pull these goddam
n pants off of me because if the medic gets here first, she’s going to try cutting it off.”

  The tech looked up, appalled. “Oh hell, no.”

  “Right?” Ruby stuck out her hurt leg. “You are Go for removal.”

  He looked up at Eugene, who grimaced and then nodded. Eugene stepped behind her and braced Ruby with his hands on her shoulders. Putting a hand on either side of the boot, the tech hauled back. Ruby managed not to scream, but if Eugene weren’t bracing her, she probably would have fallen out of the chair.

  Beneath the mesh of her cooling garment, her ankle was swollen to twice the size it should be. Eugene whistled. “Aggravated a previous injury?”

  “Sprained it last night.” Her entire leg was pulsing in hot and cold waves around the burning core of her ankle. It was past a sprain now, but Ruby tried to keep her voice military calm. “But … not really a choice, was there?”

  “Thank you.” He squeezed her shoulder.

  She didn’t deserve thanks. If she’d done her homework on other ships. If she’d not been avoiding using her foot. If she’d just had her priorities straight—hell, if Eugene had been in the pool, he’d have figured this out faster than she did. She’d been trying to fit too many things into her life and had come within a hairsbreadth of failing at all of them. Failing her dance partner was disappointing. Failing the IAC could have been fatal.

  Ruby let her breath out slowly as the medic came barreling around the end of the pool. “Make a phone call for me? I have a rehearsal I need to cancel.”

  And after that, Ruby was going to go home, curl up in bed, and study every manual she could get her hands on. No one was going to come this close to dying on her watch ever again.

  She didn’t have that many pieces of Before left, but keeping them didn’t mean keeping them in the same way and shape. Lindy-hop could go back to being just a social thing. But where she belonged in life After the Meteor, was here.

  Here, she made a difference. Sprained ankle and all.

  About the Author

  Mary Robinette Kowal was the 2008 recipient of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer and a Hugo winner for her story “For Want of a Nail.” Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Asimov’s, and several Year’s Best anthologies. She also writes the Glamourist History series, which began with Shades of Milk and Honey. A professional puppeteer and voice actor, she spent five years touring nationally with puppet theaters. She lives in Chicago with her husband Rob and many manual typewriters.

  Copyright © 2019 by Mary Robinette Kowal

  Art copyright © 2019 by Jasu Hu

  Painless

  Rich Larson

  A Tom Doherty Associates Book

  New York

  Mars stands in the middle of the highway, knees locked, head tipped back. The sky overhead is choked with harmattan dust. There is so much dust he can stare directly at the rising sun, a lemon-yellow smear in the dull gray. There is so much dust it looks like everything—the scraggly trees, the sandy fields, the road itself—is disappearing, as he often wishes to disappear.

  He used a pirate signal to monitor the progress of the autotrucks coming from the refinery in Zinder, loaded with petroleum. He watched them snake along the digital map. Now he can feel them coming: Their thunder vibrates the blacktop under his feet. They move fast and their avoidance AI is shoddy. In the low light, they will not see him until it is too late.

  Mars takes a breath of cold, dry air. He bows his head, shuts his eyes. He can hear the first autotruck now: roaring, squeaking, clatter-clanking. He imagines it as a maelstrom of metal hurtling toward him. His heart thrums fast in his chest.

  When the truck flies around the curve, Mars realizes he still wants to live. He tries to dive aside. The impact splits his world in half.

  * * *

  Dusk falls and Mars is still waiting beneath a twisted baobab for Tsayaba, the old woman who claims she can find anybody in this city, anybody at all. So far only a stray dog he met early this morning has shown up. It sits in front of him, panting expectantly, tail thumping the sand.

  “You again.”

  The animal is gaunt, with fat black ticks studding its neck and shoulders, burrowing deep into matted fur. It has cuts on its backside from wriggling under some jagged fence. But it is luckier than some of the other strays here. Mars saw a man with an infected eye implant roving the streets with three skeletal dogs chained to his waist, intending to sell them down in Nigeria to a tribe that still eats dog meat.

  Mars takes out his nanoknife, the last piece of military equipment he carries. The stray recognizes it and starts to salivate.

  “I spoil you, dog.”

  Mars dices up his thumb and then his index, flicking the bloody chunks to the ground. The stray pounces on each one and whines when Mars stops at the gray-white knucklebone of his middle finger.

  “I give you any more, you’ll throw it all up.”

  The dog whines a little longer, blood-specked black lips peeled back off its teeth, then finally trots away. Mars is alone again. He inspects his stumps, which are already clotting shut. He inspects the darkening street, mudbrick walls topped with broken glass or razor wire.

  A slick-skinned maciyin roba wanders past on its little cilia feet, hunting for the flimsy black shopping bags half-buried in the sand. The plastivores were designed in some Kenyan genelab—for this, Mars feels a certain kinship with them—and were later set loose across the continent. They do their job well and reproduce on their own, but plastic trash has accumulated in the West African dust for nearly a century and it will take a very long time to recycle it all.

  The evening prayer call is starting, a distant mumble-hum projected from the mosques. Mars is not Muslim or anything else, but he likes the sound, the ebb and flow of distorted voices. He listens to it with his eyes shut and is nearly lulled to sleep before Tsayaba finally arrives.

  “Sannu.”

  Mars opens his eyes. Tsayaba is old, with a deep-lined face and many missing teeth, but she stands very straight and carries herself how Mars imagines a chief would, with slow, smooth motions, with high gravity. She wears a bright yellow–patterned zani and a puffy winter jacket.

  “Sannu,” Mars says. “Ina yini? How was the day?”

  “Komi lafiya,” Tsayaba says. “All is well. Ina sanyi?”

  “Sanyi, akwai shi,” Mars says, even though he does not feel the cold. “Ina gida?” He wants to know what Tsayaba has found, but he makes himself focus on the greeting. Things are done slowly here.

  “Gida lafiya lau. Well, very well.” Tsayaba frowns, clicks her tongue. “Ina jiki?” she asks. “The body?”

  Mars doesn’t understand for a moment, then realizes Tsayaba is looking at his hand. The fingers have grown back—the keratin of his nails is still spongy—but he forgot to wash away the blood.

  “Da sauki,” Mars says. “Better.”

  Tsayaba gives a grunt of acknowledgment, then lowers herself to a squat. “I have found who you are searching for,” she says. “I am almost certain. Early this morning, six men came with a truck. They paid the gendarmes. Now they are staying in the old hospital. But it is bad.”

  “What is bad?”

  “These men are killers. They have otobindigogi.” She makes her finger chatter, mimicking an autogun. “And they are here waiting for worse. They are waiting for a criminal called Musa, who will buy what they have. Musa, he was Boko Haram before the Pacification.”

  “When will he come?”

  “They are not sure. They are anxious. He was meant to come today.” Tsayaba shakes her head side to side, side to side. “Wahala,” she says. “Wahala, wahala. If your friend was taken by these men, I think he is not a captive. I think he is dead.”

  Mars does not think so. If what he suspects is true, then Musa is not coming for autoguns. He is coming for something much more valuable.

  “Na gode,” Mars says. “Na gode sosai.”

  Tsayaba accepts the thanks with a brief nod of the he
ad. She pulls a sleek black blockphone from the pocket of her coat and looks politely off into the distance. Mars takes out his own phone and taps it against hers, sending a small cascade of code equivalent to five hundred francs.

  “Yi hankali,” Tsayaba says.

  Mars cannot promise to be careful, but he nods and clasps the old woman’s hand once more—with his right hand, his clean hand—before he leaves.

  He has a busy night ahead of him.

  * * *

  The kasuwa is busy despite the fierce midday sun that bakes the color out of the sky. Traders lounge under their tarp-roofed stalls, barking prices, rearranging their wares. Heaps of dried beans and grasshoppers, papayas and tomatoes and purple onions, cheap rubber shoes, 3D-printed toys beside wood carvings, bootleg phones and even a few secondhand implants bearing telltale stains. Camels slouch their way through the crowd draped with rugs and solarskin, only their bony knees visible.

  “Miracle! Abin al’ajabi! Come see the miracle Allah has done!”

  Miracle workers are not uncommon at the market, proselytizing through jury-rigged speakers and selling elixirs from the backs of their trucks in old plastic bottles, but this time there is a new trick that draws eyes. A boy, eleven or twelve with a sleepy smile, is standing on a woven plastic mat. Cables trail from his outstretched arms and hook into a car battery beside him. The electricity hisses and snaps, and the boy twitches but does not cry out. He only stands and smiles.

  It is not a trick. Passersby come and touch the boy, certain the battery is dead, and even the slightest brush sends them reeling away in pain. His whole body is crackling with charge, but he feels nothing at all. The man who says he is his father circles through the crowd collecting coins.

  “Abin al’ajabi!” he calls. “Thing of wonder!”