The Best Science Fiction of the Year

by Neil Clarke

  We ducked into a kiosk where a lone chef roasted kebabs over an open flame. We sat at the counter, drinking sparkling wine and watching her prepare meal packages for bot delivery.

  “What’s wrong with the air scrubbers here?” Long Meng asked the chef.

  “Unstable population,” she answered. “We don’t have enough civil engineers to handle the optimization workload. If you know any nuts-and-bolts types, tell them to come to Vanavara. The bank will kiss them all over.”

  She served us grilled protein on disks of crispy starch topped with charred vegetable and heaped with garlicky sauce, followed by finger-sized blossoms with tender, fleshy petals over a crisp honeycomb core. When we rejoined the throng, we shot the chef a pair of big, bright public valentines on slow decay, visible to everyone passing by. The chef ran after us with two tulip-shaped bulbs of amaro.

  “Enjoy your stay,” she said, handing us the bulbs. “We’re developing a terrific fresh food culture here. You’ll love it.”

  In response to the population downswing, Venus’s habs had started accepting all kinds of marginal business proposals. Artists. Innovators. Experimenters. Lose a ventilation engineer; gain a chef. Lose a surgeon; gain a puppeteer. With the chefs and puppeteers come all the people who want to live in a hab with chefs and puppeteers, and are willing to put up with a little stench to get it. Eventually, the hab’s fortunes turn around. Population starts flowing back, attracted by the burgeoning quality of life. Engineers and surgeons return, and the chefs and puppeteers move on to the next proposal-friendly hab. Basic human dynamics.

  Long Meng sucked the last drop of amaro from her bulb and then tossed it to a disposal bot.

  “First night of vacation.” She gave me a wicked grin. “Want to get drunk?”

  When I rolled out of my sleep stack in the morning, I was puffy and stiff. My hair stood in untamable clumps. The pouches under my eyes shone an alarming purple, and my wrinkle inventory had doubled. My tongue tasted like garlic sauce. But as long as nobody else could smell it, I wasn’t too concerned. As for the rest, I’d earned every age marker.

  When Long Meng finally cracked her stack, she was pressed and perky, wrapped in a crisp fuchsia robe. A filmy teal scarf drifted under her thrusting jawline.

  “Let’s teach these Venusians how to raise kids,” she said.

  In response to demand, the booking agency had upgraded us to a larger auditorium. The moment we hit the stage, I forgot all my aches and pains. Doctor Footlights, they call it. Performing in front of two thousand strangers produces a lot of adrenaline.

  We were a good pair. Long Meng dynamic and engaging, lunging around the stage like a born performer. Me, I was her foil. A grave, wise oldster with fifty years of crèche work under my belt.

  Much of our seminar was inspirational. Crèche work is relentless no matter where you practice it, and on Venus it brings negative social status. A little cheerleading goes a long way. We slotted our specialty content in throughout the program, introducing the concepts in the introductory material, building audience confidence by reinforcing what they already knew, then hit them between the eyes with the latest developments in Ricochet’s proprietary cognitive theory and emotional development modelling. We blew their minds, then backed away from the hard stuff and returned to cheerleading.

  “What’s the worst part of crèche work, Jules?” Long Meng asked as our program concluded, her scarf waving in the citrus-scented breeze from the ventilation.

  “There are no bad parts,” I said drily. “Each and every day is unmitigated joy.”

  The audience laughed harder than the joke deserved. I waited for the noise to die down, and mined the silence for a few lingering moments before continuing.

  “Our children venture out of the crèche as young adults, ready to form new emotional ties wherever they go. The future is in their hands, an unending medium for them to shape with their ambition and passion. Our crèche work lifts them up and holds them high, all their lives. That’s the best part.”

  I held my cane to my heart with both hands.

  “The worst part is,” I said, “if we do our jobs right, those kids leave the crèche and never think about us again.”

  We left them with a tear in every eye. The audience ran back to their crèches knowing they were doing the most important work in the universe, and open to the possibility of doing it even better.

  After our second seminar, on a recommendation from the kebab chef, we blew our credits in a restaurant high up in Vanavara’s atrium. Live food raised, prepared, and served by hand; nothing extruded or bulbed. And no bots, except for the occasional hygiene sweeper.

  Long Meng cut into a lobster carapace with a pair of hand shears. “Have you ever noticed how intently people listen to you?”

  “Most of the time the kids just pretend to listen.”

  “Not kids. Adults.”

  She served me a morsel of claw meat, perfectly molded by the creature’s shell. I dredged it in green sauce and popped it in my mouth. Sweet peppers buzzed my sinuses.

  “You’re a great leader, Jules.”

  “At my age, I should be. I’ve had lots of practice telling people what to do.”

  “Exactly,” she said through a mouthful of lobster. “So what are you going to do when the Jewel Box leaves the crèche?”

  I lifted my flute of pale green wine and leaned back, gazing through the window at my elbow into the depths of the atrium. I’d been expecting this question for a few years but didn’t expect it from Long Meng. How could someone so young understand the sorrows of the old?

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll shut up,” she added quickly. “But I have some ideas. Do you want to hear them?”

  On the atrium floor far below, groups of pedestrians were just smudges, no individuals distinguishable at all. I turned back to the table but kept my eyes on my food.

  “Okay, go ahead.”

  “A hab consortium is soliciting proposals to rebuild their failed crèche system,” she said, voice eager. “I want to recruit a team. You’d be project advisor. Top position, big picture stuff. I’ll be project lead and do all the grunt work.”

  “Let me guess,” I said. “It’s Luna.”

  Long Meng nodded. I kept a close eye on my blood pressure indicators. Deep breaths and a sip of water kept the numbers out of the red zone.

  “I suppose you’d want me to liaise with Luna’s civic apparatus too.” I kept my voice flat.

  “That would be ideal.” She slapped the table with both palms and grinned. “With a native Lunite at the helm, we’d win for sure.”

  Long Meng was so busy bubbling with ideas and ambition as she told me her plans, she didn’t notice my fierce scowl. She probably didn’t even taste her luxurious meal. As for me, I enjoyed every bite, right down to the last crumb of my flaky cardamom-chocolate dessert. Then I pushed back my chair and grabbed my cane.

  “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 al
ong 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 the 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.