Heiresses of Russ 2016: The Year's Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction
Page 40
As usual, there’s music on as a distraction. The rich, mournful tones of Bertha Oliver float in the still air, punctuated by the odd clink or buzz as I work.
Doubt thou the stars are fire
Doubt that the sun doth move
Doubt truth to be a liar
But never doubt I love.
“Do you trust me, Maranda?” Athene asks.
I frown at the blinking lights inside her head. “Of course. What kind of a question is that? I mean, I’m poking around inside your skull, isn’t this the point when you wonder if you can trust me?”
“No. I always trust you.” Athene shifts a little, which isn’t like her. She’s upset and I’m not sure why. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
I think I know what’s wrong. It’s what keeps me up at night, sometimes, thinking about what will happen when I’m old and she isn’t. It’s probably easier for me. She’s the one who will have to manage on her own, when I’m gone.
There’s something else, though. Something not quite right.
I go deeper inside her head than I ever have before, making scans at every stage so that I can layer them later using my simulation equipment at Hachi. We go in just before four a.m., when the lab should be empty for a while. Athene sits on the edge of a worktable, watching me set up the sim. Together, we stare at the results, and I feel the full weight of everything I don’t know settle on my shoulders.
She says aloud what we’re both thinking. “We need help.”
There are a lot of brilliant minds at Hachi, but the only one I trust not to share this around is Professor Hisaishi. He is the friend who met us in Beijing, the one who invited us to Hachi in the first place. At seventy, he’s the oldest professor at the academy, a pioneer of modern robotics with enough discoveries under his belt to resist the siren call of ambition, or at least I really hope he can. Anyway, if Athene has to trust someone who isn’t me, he’s our best choice.
The professor studies the scans for a long time in silence. Even after he snaps off the projector, he doesn’t say anything, just sits quite still with one finger absently stroking the bridge of his glasses. It’s strange—usually Hisaishi is bubbling over with enthusiasm for everything from his latest project to his grandchildren’s expertise at drawing dinosaurs. He should be asking questions. And he’s not.
My stomach plummets. We have made a mistake.
“So you found a Gorgon,” he says, at last. “I thought they were all gone.”
“What is a Gorgon?” Athene asks, composedly, as if it doesn’t matter in the least. Her fingers flex slightly on the arms of her chair, betraying her tension. I’m not that subtle; I jump to my feet and start prowling around the room, arms folded, waiting for Hisaishi to stop thinking and answer the fucking question already.
“I was sent scans almost identical to these eleven years ago,” Hisaishi says, tapping the projector lightly. “My task was to turn them into a workable design. I wondered about that when I first met you, Ms Athene. There was a certain flair to the Gorgons.”
“Who else was involved? Who were you working for?”
“I really don’t know,” Hisaishi says mildly. “I would receive updates to incorporate into my own work, so I know there were others. I never met them, though, and the company financing us was almost certainly a front.”
“Why did you agree to be involved if you weren’t told anything? Didn’t you even know where the scans came from?” Hisaishi smiles wryly. “Scientists of my generation, Ms Salvadore, are used to secrecy, even if we do not like it. I always assumed it was a government project. That is how they do things. How could I refuse such an opportunity? It was the greatest challenge of my career.”
“You thought the Gorgons were gone,” Athene says quietly. “Why is that?”
Hisaishi hesitates. “For some time, I was kept up to date with their progress. I was a senior member of the team. Then suddenly, the communications stopped. For months I heard nothing. One day I was sent a message: the project is a failure, the Gorgons are discontinued. I never found out why.”
I stop, standing behind Athene. I don’t know whether to believe him or not. There is a pressure inside my head, a sense of dissonance that is beginning to take the shape of a migraine. As I close my eyes, the room wavers around me.
“I am not sure you can be called a Gorgon, any longer,” Hisaishi is saying, thoughtfully. “The changes run so deep. You are something new, though what that might be, I can’t say—”
“Athene,” I say, “come outside.” She looks up, startled, but follows me into the hallway. I push open the doors at the far end and step out onto a long balcony, taking deep breaths. It’s early still, the sky an eggshell of pale blue arching above our heads, the spring air cool against my face. In the university grounds below, the first buds of blossom turn avenues of cherry trees into grids of pink and white. It all feels so real, but it’s not. “What happened?” I ask, turning to look at Athene. “What happened? You interrupted the professor for no apparent reason, before I could ask even half of the questions I want—”
“We didn’t come here,” I interrupt. “What happened in our apartment, when you first told me about the scans? We researched for years before we went to Hisaishi. He didn’t tell us about the Gorgons at the first meeting, either. You’ve compressed nearly eight years into a few days, and I’d like to know why. What happened to me, Athene?” “You were shot.” She comes to the balcony railing and looks away from me, towards the slowly rising sun. Doubt that the sun doth move. Oh, Athene. What have you been trying to tell me? “A needle full of ECS was fired into your bloodstream. You were in a medically induced coma for two weeks while the doctors tried to clear the infection, but it wouldn’t respond.” I take a few minutes to absorb that. “I’m dying?” Athene closes her eyes. “Maranda, you’re dead. I’m so, so sorry. I did all I could.” We stand in silence for a long time. Birds trill in the trees, and in the distance I can hear the rumble of Tokyo traffic. I don’t feel dead.
“So…” I smile numbly. “Is the afterlife a simulation, or is that just for me? If we’re going to be revisiting the highlights of my life, I should get to pick where we go.”
“The investigators said it was a lone extremist who attacked you. I don’t think that’s true. I think you were murdered.” Athene turns to face me. “I didn’t know what else to do. The only person I could ask for advice was you, and I wanted you to have just a little longer before you had to know.”
The simulation flickers. The sky fades, the sun goes out, and I’m sitting upright in my workroom at home, in England. Athene is standing by my side, her expression calm as ever, her hands twisting as she watches my face.
There’s a red light blinking under the skin of my wrist. I flex my fingers carefully, stretch out my arms. It’s so easy to stand up, no aches and pains at all.
“So this is how it feels,” I remark dreamily, studying the skin that isn’t mine, that isn’t skin at all. These eyes can tell the difference, but they aren’t mine either. Well—I suppose they are now. It feels like I’ve arrived suddenly, a mystery destination finally announced. How else was it going to end, for us?
I’m alive. Close enough, anyway.
I look up at Athene. “You made me all by yourself?”
“Not really.” She smiles. “I’ve been watching the best.”
I crouch to test my knee joints and bounce upright again, enjoying the newfound speed. I could outrun anyone.
Which is good, really, because something tells me we’ll soon be doing an awful lot of that.
About the Authors
Megan Arkenberg’s work has appeared in dozens of publications, including Shimmer, Lightspeed, and Asimov’s, and has been nominated for the Seiun Award, the WSFA Small Press Award, the Pushcart Prize, and the Rhysling Award (which she won in 2012). She edits the fantasy e-zine Mirror Dance and was recently the nonfiction editor for Queers Destroy Horror!, a special issue of Nightmare. Megan lives in Northern California,
where she is pursuing a Ph.D. in English literature.
Bo Balder is a freelance writer who lives and works in the ancient Dutch city of Utrecht, close to Amsterdam. When she isn’t writing, you can find her madly designing knitwear, painting, and reading anything and everything from Kate Elliott to Iain M. Banks or Jared Diamond. Her short fiction has appeared in F&SF, Nature Futures, Penumbra, Electric Spec and quite a few anthologies. Her sf novel The Wan will be published by Pink Narcissus Press,
Felicia Davin lives in western Massachusetts with her partner and their cat. When not teaching and translating French, she is finishing her novel Thornfruit. She is bilingual and bisexual, but not ambidextrous. You can find her on twitter @FeliciaDavin.
Claire Humphrey is the author of Spells of Blood and Kin (St Martin’s Press, 2016). Her short fiction has appeared in Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex, Crossed Genres, Fantasy Magazine, and Podcastle. Her short story ‘‘Bleaker Collegiate Presents an All-Female Production of Waiting for Godot’’ appeared in the Lambda Award-nominated collection Beyond Binary, and her short story “The Witch Of Tarup” was published in the critically acclaimed anthology Long Hidden.
Alice Sola Kim is a 2016 Whiting Award winner. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in publications such as McSweeney’s Literary Quarterly, Tin House, Lenny Letter, and The Year’s Best Science Fiction and Fantasy. She was a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has received grants and scholarships from Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and the Elizabeth George Foundation.
Rose Lemberg is a queer, bigender immigrant from Eastern Europe and Israel. Rose’s work has appeared in Lightspeed’s Queer Destroy Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Unlikely Story, Uncanny, and other venues. Their Birdverse novelette “Grandmother-nai-Leylit’s Cloth of Winds” has been nominated for the Nebula Award, and long-listed for the Hugo Award and the Tiptree Award. Rose’s debut poetry collection, Marginalia to Stone Bird is available from Aqueduct Press. Rose can be found on Twitter as @roselemberg, on Patreon at patreon.com/roselemberg, and on roselemberg.net.
Faith Mudge is a writer from Queensland, Australia, with a passion for fantasy, folk tales and mythology from all over the world – in fact, almost anything with a glimmer of the fantastical. Her stories have appeared in various anthologies, including Kaleidoscope, Cranky Ladies of History, Hear Me Roar and Daughters of Frankenstein. She posts reviews and articles at beyondthedreamline.wordpress.com, and can also be found at beyondthedreamline.tumblr.com.
Tamsyn Muir is a horror, fantasy and sci-fi author whose works have appeared in Nightmare Magazine, F&SF, Fantasy Magazine, Weird Tales and Clarkesworld. Her short story “The Magician’s Apprentice” was nominated for the 2012 Shirley Jackson Award, and “The Deepwater Bride” was nominated for the Nebula Award, the Shirley Jackson Award, the World Fantasy Award and the Eugie Foster Memorial Award. She is from Howick, New Zealand.
Sarah Pinsker is the author of the novelette In Joy, Knowing the Abyss Behind, winner of the 2014 Sturgeon Award and 2013 Nebula Award finalist, and 2014 Nebula finalist, A Stretch of Highway Two Lanes Wide. Her fiction has appeared in Asimov’s, Strange Horizons, Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Lightspeed, and in anthologies including Long Hidden, Fierce Family, and The Future Embodied. She is also a singer/songwriter and has toured nationally behind three albums; a fourth is forthcoming. In the best of all timelines, she lives with her wife and dog in Baltimore, Maryland. She can be found online at sarahpinsker.com and on Twitter @sarahpinsker.
A. Merc Rustad is a queer non-binary writer who lives in the Midwest United States. Favorite things include: robots, dinosaurs, monsters, and tea. Their stories have appeared in Lightspeed, Fireside Fiction, Apex, Escape Pod, Shimmer, Cicada, with reprints included in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2015, Wilde Stories 2016, and Transcendent 2016. Merc likes to play video games, watch movies, read comics, and wear awesome hats. You can find Merc on Twitter @Merc_Rustad or their website: amercrustad.com
Melissa Scott was born and raised in Little Rock, Arkansas, and studied history at Harvard College. She earned her PhD from Brandeis University in the comparative history program with a dissertation titled “The Victory of the Ancients: Tactics, Technology, and the Use of Classical Precedent.” She also sold her first novel, and quickly became a part-time graduate student and an—almost—full-time writer. Over the next thirty-five years, she published more than thirty original novels and a handful of short stories, most with queer themes and characters.She won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer in 1986, and won Lambda Literary Awards for Trouble and Her Friends, Shadow Man, Point of Dreams, written with long-time partner and collaborator, the late Lisa A. Barnett, and Death By Silver, co-written with Amy Griswold. She has also been shortlisted for the Tiptree Award. She has won Spectrum Awards for Shadow Man, Death By Silver, Fairs’ Point, and the short story “The Rocky Side of the Sky.” Her most recent short story, “Firstborn, Lastborn,” is in the Athena Andreadis-edited anthology To Shape the Dark. Her latest novels are Oath Bound, written with Jo Graham, and Fairs’ Point. Scott can be found on LiveJournal at mescott.livejournal.com, and is @blueterraplane on Twitter.
Priya Sharma ’s fiction has appeared in Albedo One, Interzone, Black Static and on Tor.com. She’s been anthologised in several of Ellen Datlow’s Best Horror of the Year series, Paula Guran’s Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror series, Jonathan Strahan’s The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2014, Steve Haynes’ Best British Fantasy 2014 and Johnny Main’s Best British Horror 2015. She was nominated for a Shirley Jackson Award finalist and won a British Fantasy Award for “Fabulous Beasts”.
Benjanun Sriduangkaew is a bee who dreams of strange cities and beautiful futures. Her fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld, Tor.com, Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies and the Heiresses of Russ: The Year’s Best Lesbian Speculative Fiction series. Her first novella, Scale-Bright, was nominated for the British Science Fiction Association award.
Sonya Taaffe’s short fiction and poetry can be found in the collections Ghost Signs (Aqueduct Press), A Mayse-Bikhl (Papaveria Press), Postcards from the Province of Hyphens (Prime Books), and Singing Innocence and Experience (Prime Books), and in various anthologies including Spelling the Hours: Poetry Celebrating the Forgotten Others of Science and Technology, An Alphabet of Embers: An Anthology of Unclassifiables, and Dreams from the Witch House: Female Voices of Lovecraftian Horror. She is currently senior poetry editor at Strange Horizons; she holds master’s degrees in Classics from Brandeis and Yale and once named a Kuiper belt object. She lives in Somerville with her husband and two cats.
A.C. Wise was born and raised in Montreal and currently lives in the Philadelphia area. Her fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Clarkesworld, Liminal, Shimmer, and Tor.com. Her collections, The Ultra Fabulous Glitter Squadron Saves the World Again and The Kissing Booth Girl and Other Stories, are available from Lethe Press. In addition to her fiction, she co-edits Unlikely Story, and contributes a monthly review column, Words for Thought, to Apex Magazine. Find her online at acwise.net.
Alyssa Wong studies fiction in Raleigh, NC, and really, really likes crows. Her story, “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers,” won the 2015 Nebula Award for Best Short Story, and her short fiction has been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize, the Bram Stoker Award, the Locus Award, and the Shirley Jackson Award. Her work has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, Nightmare Magazine, Black Static, and Tor.com, among others. She can be found on Twitter as @crashwong.
About the Editors
A.M. Dellamonica ’s first novel, Indigo Springs, won the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her fourth, A Daughter of No Nation, has won the Prix Aurora. She is the author of over forty short stories in a variety of genres; these can be found on Tor.com, Strange Horizons, Lightspeed and in numerous print magazines and anthologies, most recently Beneath Ceaseless Skies. She teaches writing in person at the Universi
ty of Toronto and online through the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program.
Alyx (who is named for Joanna Russ’s unforgettable adventuress) is married to fellow Aurora winner Kelly Robson; the two were able to make their outlaw wedding of 1989 legal, in 2003, when the Canadian Supreme Court conferred full marriage equality on same sex couples. Alyx tells people she is bigendered, bisexual and bisectional. (The latter means she sings both alto and soprano.) Heiresses of Russ 2016 is her editorial debut. Her website is at http://alyxdellamonica.com.
As an editor, Steve Berman has been a multiple finalist for the Lambda Literary Award as well as the Golden Crown Literary Award and Shirley Jackson Award. He adores reading queer speculative fiction.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
HEIRESSES OF RUSS 2016
Copyright
Dedication
INTRODUCTION A.M. Dellamonica
GRANDMOTHER-NAI-LEYLIT'S CLOTH OF WINDS Rose Lemberg
THE OCCIDENTAL BRIDE Benjanun Sriduangkaew
THE DEVIL COMES TO THE MIDNIGHT CAFE A.C. Wise
AND WE WERE LEFT DARKLING Sarah Pinsker
A HOUSE OF HER OWN Bo Balder
LOVE IN THE TIME OF MARKOV PROCESSES Megan Arkenberg
WHERE MONSTERS DANCE A. Merc Rustad
HUNGRY DAUGHTERS OF STARVING MOTHERS Alyssa Wong
FABULOUS BEASTS Priya Sharma
THE WOLLART NYMPHS Melissa Scott
THE NEW MOTHER Eugene Fischer
ELDRITCH BROWN HOUSES Clare Humphrey
THE TIP OF THE TONGUE Felicia Davin
WHEN CAN A BROKEN GLASS MEND? Sonya Taaffe
A RESIDENCE FOR FRIENDLESS LADIES Alice Sola Kim
THE DEEPWATER BRIDE Tamsyn Muir