The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  "That way," suggested Ibn Cut-Throat, springing from a hidden trapdoor behind a Ming vase. He pointed through an archway at one side of the hall. "Be seeing you!" His eyeballs gleamed with villainous promise.

  A black-robed figure in a full veil was staring at me from behind two implausibly weaponized clankie hashishin at the back of the party. I got an odd feeling about them, but before I could say anything Toadsworth snagged my free hand in his gripper and began to tug me toward the old tipple-station. "Come-on! Inebriate!" He buzzed: "All enemies of sobriety must be inebriated! Pip-pip!" Jeremy let out a squealing trumpet blast close to my ear and began to kick. Not having a third hand with which to steady him, I let go and he shot off ahead of us, stubby ears flapping madly in the low Martian gravity.

  "Oh dear," said Miss Feng.

  "Why don't you just run along and see to my chambers?" I asked, irritated by the thought that the bloody elephant might poop in the punchbowl (or worse, dip his whistle in it) before I got there. "Leave the beast to me, I'll sort him out later."

  "Inebriate! Inebriate!" cried Toadsworth, hurtling forward, the lights on his cortical turret flashing frantically. "To the par-ty!"

  7. In which Ralph explains the nature of his relationship with Laura

  Now dash it all, it behooves a young fellow to remain discreet and close-lipped about matters of an embarrassingly personal nature. But it's also true to say that this story won't make a lot of sense without certain intimate understandings—a nod's as good as a wink to a deaf robot and all that—and in any event, ever since the minutiae of my personal affairs became part of the public gossip circuit following the unfortunate affair involving the clankie dominatrix, the cat burglar, and the alien hive-mind, it would be somewhat hypocritical of me to stand upon my privacy. So where a more modest cove might hesitate, allow me to step in it and, at risk of offending your sensibilities, explain something about my complex relationship with Laura.

  I sometimes fancy that life must have been so much simpler back in the days of classical Anglo-American civilization, when there were only two openly acknowledged genders and people didn't worry about whether their intimate affairs were commutative, transitive, or reflexive. No clankie/squishie, no U or non-U, nothing but the antique butch/femme juxtaposition, and that was pretty much determined by the shape of the external genitalia you were born with. Perverts dashed well knew what they were, and life was simple. Modern life is enough to drive a cove to drugs in my opinion, but as a Butch U Squishie of impeccable ancestry I have the social option of maintaining a mistress, not to mention the money, and that's where Laura comes in.

  Laura is very clankie and very frilly femme with it, but with a squishie core and sufficiently non-U to make a casual relationship just barely acceptable to polite society on the usual sub-rosa Morganatic basis. We met on a shooting weekend at one of the Pahlavi girls' ranches on Luna, doing our bit for evolution by helping thin the herd of rampaging feral bots during their annual migration across the Sea of Tranquility. I'm not sure what she was doing there, but I think it was something to do with working her way around the solar system on a cut-price non-U grand tour: laboring as a courtesy masseuse in Japan and a topiarist on Ceres while saving up the price of her next interplanetary jaunt. Her maternity factory or mother or whoever was sending her a small allowance to help pay her way, I think, but she was having to work as well to make ends meet, a frightfully non-U thing for a cute little clankie princess to have to do. Our eyes met over the open breech of her silver-chased Purdey over-and-under EMP cannon, and as soon as I saw her delicately wired eyelashes and the refractive sheen on her breasts, simultaneously naked and deliciously inaccessible in the vacuum, I knew I had to have her. "Why, I do declare I'm out of capacitors!" She fluttered at me, and I bent over backwards to offer her my heart, and the keys to the guest room.

  There is something more than a little bit perverse about a squish who chases clankie skirt: even, one might suppose, something of the invert about them; but I can cope with sly looks in public, and our butch/femme U/non-U tuple is sufficiently orthodox to merely Outrage the Aunts, rather than crossing the line and causing Offence. If she showed more squish while being less non-U, I suppose it would be too risqué to carry on in public—but I digress. I trust you can sympathize with my confusion? What else is a healthy boy to do when his lusts turn in a not-quite-respectable direction?

  Of course, I was younger and rather more foolish when I first clapped eyes on the dame, and we've had our ups and downs since then. She was, to be fair, unaware of my unfortunate neurohormonal problems: and I wasn't entirely clear on the costs, both mechanical and emotional, of maintaining a clankie doxie in the style to which she would want to become accustomed. Nor did I expect her to be so enthusiastic a proponent of personality patches, or so prone to histrionic fits and thermionic outrages. I expect I had some surprises for her, too. But we mostly seemed to bump along all right—until that last pre-drop walk-out, and her failure to turn up at the drop zone.

  8. Jeremy Runs Amok; A Dreadful Discovery before Dinner

  Among the various manners of recovering from the neurasthenic tension that accompanies a drop, I must admit that the one old Abdul had laid on for us took first prize for decadent (that means good) taste. It's hard to remain stressed out while reclining on a bed of silks in a pleasure palace on Mars, with nubile young squishies to drop pre-fermented grapes into your open mouth, your very own mouth-boy to keep the hookah smoldering, and a clankie band plangently plucking its various organs in the far corner of the room.

  Dancers whirled and wiggled and undulated across the stage at the front of the hall, while a rather fetching young squishie lad in a gold lamé loin cloth and peacock feather turban waited at my left shoulder to keep my cocktail glass from underflowing. Candied fruits and jellied Europan cryoplankton of a most delightful consistency were of course provided. "What-ho, this is the life, isn't it?" I observed in the general direction of Toadsworth. My bot buddy was parked adjacent to my bower, his knobbly mobility unit sucking luxuriously conditioned juice from a discreet outlet while the still squishie bits of his internal anatomy slurped a remarkably subtle smoked Korean soy ale from a Klein stein by way of a curly straw.

  "Beep beep," he responded. Then, expansively and slowly, "You seem a little melancholy about something, old chap. In fact, if you had hyperspectral imagers like me, you might notice you were a little drawn. Like this: pip." He said it so emphatically that even my buggy-but-priceless family heirloom amanuensis recognized it for an infoburst and misfiled it somewhere. "Indiscretions aside, if there's anything a cove can do to help you—enemies you want inebriated, planets you want conquered—feel free to ask the Toadster, what?"

  "You're a jolly fine fellow and I may just do that," I said. "But I'm afraid it's probably nothing you can help with. I'm in a bit of a blue funk—did you know Laura left me? She's done it before several times, of course, but she always comes back after the drop. Not this time, though, I haven't seen gear nor sprocket of her since the day before yesterday and I'm getting a bit worried."

  "I shall make inquiries right away, old chap. The clankie grapevine knows everything. If I may make so bold, she probably just felt the need to get away for a while and lube her flaps: she'll be back soon enough." Toadsworth swiveled his ocular turret, monospectral emitters flashing brightly. "Bottoms up!"

  I made no comment on the evident fact that if the Toadster ever did get himself arse over gripper he'd be in big trouble righting himself, but merely raised my glass in salute. Then I frowned. It was empty! "Boy? Where's my drink?" I glanced round. A furry brown sausage with two prominently flared nostrils was questing about the edge of the bower where my cocktail boy had been sitting a moment before.

  "Grab him!" I swore at the lad, but I fear it wasn't his fault: Jeremy had already done him a mischief, and he was doubled over in a ball under the nearest curtain, meeping pathetically. Jeremy sucked the remains of my Saturnian ring ice-water margarita up his nose with a ghas
tly slurping noise, and winked at me: then he sneezed explosively. An acrid eructation of margarita slapped my face. "Vile creature!" I raged, "What do you think you're doing?"

  I'm told that I am usually quite good with small children and other animals, but I have a blind spot when it comes to Jeremy. He narrowed his eyes, splayed his ears wide, and emitted a triumphant—not to say alcohol-saturated—trumpet-blast at me. Got you, he seemed to be saying. Why should you two-legs have all the fun? I made a grab for his front legs but he was too fast for me, nipping right under my seat and out the other side, spiking my unmentionables on the way as I flailed around in search of something to throw at him.

  "Right! That does it!" People to either side were turning to stare at me, wondering what was going on. "I'm going to get you—" I managed to lever myself upright just in time to see Jeremy scramble out through one of the pointy-looking archways at the back of the hall, then found myself eyeball to hairy eyeball with Ibn Cut-Throat's administrative assistant.

  "Please not to create so much of a noise, Ralphie-san," said the junior under-vizier. "His Excellency has an announcement to make."

  And it was true. Human flunkies were discreetly passing among the audience, attracting the guests' attention and quieting down the background of chit-chat. The band had settled down and was gently serenading us with its plucked vocal chords. I glanced after Jeremy one last time: "I'll deal with you later," I muttered. Even by Jeremy's usual standards, this behavior was quite intolerable; if I didn't know better, I'd swear there was something up with the blighter. Then I looked back at the stage at the front of the room.

  The curtain sublimed in a showy flash of velvet smoke, revealing a high throne cradled in a bower of hydroponically rooted date palms. His Excellency Abdul al-Matsumoto, younger sibling of the Emir of Mars, rose from his seat upon the throne; naked eunuch bodyguards, their skins oiled and gleaming, raised their katanas in salute to either side. "My friends," old Abdul droned in a remarkably un-Abdul-like monotone: "It makes me more happy than I can tell you to welcome you all to my humble retreat tonight."

  Abdul wore robes of blinding white cotton, and a broad gold chain—first prize for atmosphere diving from the club, I do believe. Behind him, a row of veiled figures in shapeless black robs nudged each other. His wives? I wondered, Or his husbands? "Tonight is the first of my thousand nights and one night," He continued, looking more than slightly glassy-eyed. "In honor of my sort-of ancestor, the Sultan Schahriar, and in view of my now being, quote, too old to play the field, my elder brother, peace be unto him, has decreed a competition for my hand in marriage. For this night and the next thousand, lucky concubines of every appropriate gender combination will vie for the opportunity to become my sole and most important sultana."

  "That's right, it's not just a date!" Added Ibn Cut-Throat, from the side-lines.

  "I shall take the winner's hand in marriage, along with the rest of their body. The losers—well, that's too boring and tiresome to go into here, but they won't be writing any kiss-and-tell stories: they should have made backups before entering the competition, that's not my problem. Meanwhile, I ask you to raise a toast with me to the first seven aspiring princesses of Mars, standing here behind me, and their intelligence and courage in taking up Scheherazade's wager." He sounded bored out of his skull, as if his mind was very definitely busy elsewhere.

  Everyone raised a toast to the competitors, but I was losing my appetite even before Ibn Cut-Throat stepped to the front of the stage to explain the terms of the competition, which would begin after the banquet. I may come from a long line of Japanese pretenders to the throne of a sheep-stealing bandit, but we'd never consider anything remotely as blood-thirsty and mediaeval as this. The prospect of spending a night with dashing young Abdul gave a whole new and unwelcome meaning to losing your head for love, as I suppose befitted a pretender to the crown of Ibn Saud—never mind the Sassanid empire—by way of Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. "I don't think this is very funny," I mumbled to Toadsworth. "I wish Laura were here."

  Toadsworth nudged me with his Inebriator. "I don't think you need to worry about that, old chap. I spy with my little hyperspectral telescopic imager—"

  —Ibn Cut-Throat was coming to the climax of his spiel: "Gaze upon the faces of the brave beauties!" he crowed. "Ladies, drop your veils!"

  I gaped like a fool as the row of black-garbed femmes behind the prince threw back their veils and bared their faces to the audience. For there, in the middle of the row, was a familiar set of silver eyelashes!

  "Isn't that your mistress, old boy?" Toadsworth nudged me with his Inebriator attachment. "Jolly rum do, her showing up here, what?"

  "But she can't be!" I protested. "Laura can't be that stupid! And I always forget to remind her to take her backups, and she never remembers, so—"

  "'M 'fraid it's still her on the stage, old boy," commiserated the Toadster. "There's no getting around it. Do you suppose she answered an advertisement or went through a talent agency?"

  "She must have been on the rebound! This is all my fault," I lamented.

  "I disagree, old fellow, she's not squishie enough to bounce. Her head, anyway."

  I glanced up at the stage, despondent. The worst part of it was, this was all my fault. If I'd actually bothered to pull myself out of my pre-drop funk and talked to her, she wouldn't be standing on stage, glancing nervously at the court executioners standing to either side. Then I saw her turn her head. She was looking at me! She mouthed something, and it didn't take a genius of lip-reading to realize that she was saying get me out of here.

  "I'll rescue you, Laura," I promised, collapsing in a heap of cushions. Then my mouth-boy stuck a hookah in the old cake-hole and the situation lost its urgent edge. Laura wasn't number one on the old chop-chop list, it appeared. There'd be time to help her out of this fix after dinner.

  9. An After-Dinner Show; Discussions of Horticulture

  Dinner took approximately four hours to serve, and consisted of tiresomely symbolic courses prepared by master chefs from the various dominions of the al-Matsumoto empire—all sixty of them. The resulting cultural mélange was certainly unique, and the traditional veal tongue sashimi on a bed of pickled jellyfish couscous a l'Olympia lent a certain urgency to my inter-course staggers to the vomitorium. But I digress: I barely tasted a single bite, so deeply concerned was I for the whereabouts of my cyberdoxy.

  After the last platter of chili-roast bandersnatch in honey sauce was cleared and the desert wine piped to our tables, the game show began. And what a game show! I sat there shuddering through each round, hoping against hope that Laura wouldn't be called this time. Ibn Cut-Throat was master of ceremonies, with two dusky-skinned eunuchs to keep track of the score cards. "Contestant Number One, Bimzi bin Jalebi, your next question is: What is His Excellency the Prince's principal hobby?"

  Bimzi rested one elaborately be-ringed fingertip on her lower lip and frowned fetchingly at the audience. "Surfing?"

  "A-ha ha ha!" crowed Ibn Cut-Throat. "Not quite wrong, but I think you'd all agree she had a close shave there." The audience howled, not necessarily with joy: "So we'll try again. Bimzi bin Jalebi, what do you think His Excellency the Prince will see in you?"

  Bimzi rested one elegant hand on a smoothly curved hip and jiggled seductively at the audience: "My unmatched belly-dancing skills and—" wink—"pelvic floor musculature?"

  "I'm asking the questions around here!" mugged the vizier, leering at the audience. Everybody ooh'd. "Did you hear a question?" Everybody ooh'd even louder.

  "Pip-pip," said Toadsworth, quietly. He continued: "I detect speech stress analyzers concealed in the pillars, old boy. And something else."

  "Let me remind you," oozed the Vizier, "that you are attending the court of His Excellency the Prince, and that any untruth told before me, in my capacity as grand high judicar before his court, may be revealed and treated as perjury. And—" he paused while a ripple of conversation sped around the room—"now we come to the third an
d final cut-off question before you spend a night of delight and jeopardy with His Royal Highness. What do you, Bimzi bin Jalebi, see in my Prince? Truthfully now, we have lie detectors and we know how to use them!"

  "Um." Bimzi bin Jalebi smiled, coyly and winningly, at the audience, then decided that honesty combined with speed was the best policy: "A-mountain-of-gold-but-that's-not-my-only—"

  "Enough!" Cut-Throat Senior clapped his hands together and her a-borning speech was arrested by the snicker-snack of eunuch katanas and a bright squirt of arterial blood. "To cut a long story short, his Excellency can't stand wafflers. Or gold-diggers, for that matter." He glanced at one particular section of the audience who, standing under guard, were white with shock, and smiled toothily: "And so, now that we're all running neck and neck, who'd like to go first?"

  "I can't bear this," I groaned quietly.

  "Don't worry, old fellow, it'll be all right on the night," Toadster nudged me.

  To prove him wrong, Ibn Cut-Throat hunted through the herd of candidates and—by the same nightmare logic that causes toast to always land buttered-side down except when you're watching it with a notepad and counter—who should his gaze fall on but Laura.

  "You! Yes, you! It could be you!" cried the ghastly little fellow: "Step right up, my dear! And what's your name? Laura bin, ah, Binary? Ah, such a fragrant blossom, so redolent of machine oil and ceramics! I'd spin her cams any day of the week if I still had my undercarriage," he confided to the crowd as my pale person of pulchritude clutched a filmy veil around her and flinched. "First question! Are you the front end of an ass?"

  Laura shook her head. The crowd fell silent. I tensed, balling my hands into fists. If only there was something I could do!