The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twentieth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “They arrested you? Why?”

  “The head of the Board was a prude. It wouldn’t have mattered so much but A Doll’s House was her favorite play.”

  “You and Derek Silviasson were lovers?”

  She sat down on his bed, a meter from him, and leaned forward. “After the paint bombing, Erno, they went back to examine the recordings from the spex of the officers at the Oxygen Warehouse riot. Who do you suppose, to my surprise, they found there?”

  Erno swiveled in his chair to avoid her eyes. “Nick already told you I went there.”

  “But you didn’t. Not only were you there, but at one point you were together with Durden.”

  “What was I doing?”

  “Don’t be difficult. I’m trying to protect you, Erno. The only reason I know about this is that Harald Gundasson let me know on the sly. Another report says Durden met you outside the North airlock one day. You’re likely to be called in for questioning. I want to know what’s going on. Are you involved in some conspiracy?”

  His mother looked so forlorn he found it hard to be hostile. “As far as I know there is no conspiracy.”

  “Did you have something to do with the paint bomb?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  “I found out you haven’t been to your practicum. What have you been doing?”

  “I’ve been going to the gym.”

  “Are you planning a trip to Earth?”

  “Don’t be stupid, mother.”

  “Honestly, Erno, I can’t guess what you are thinking. You’re acting like a spy.”

  “Maybe I am a spy.”

  His mother laughed.

  “Don’t laugh at me!”

  “I’m not laughing because you’re funny. I’m laughing because I’m scared! This is an ugly business, Erno.”

  “Stop it, mother. Please.”

  She stared at him. He tried not to look away. “I want you to listen. Tyler Durden is a destroyer. I’ve been to Aristarchus, to Tycho. I’ve seen the patriarchy. Do you want that here?”

  “How would I know? I’ve never been there!” His eyes fell on the copy of Stories for Men. “Don’t tell me stories about rape and carnage,” he said, looking at the book’s cover. “I’ve heard them all before. You crammed them down my throat with my baby food.”

  “They’re true. Do you deny them?”

  Erno clenched his jaw, tried to think. Did she have to browbeat him? “I don’t know!”

  “It’s not just carnage. It’s waste and insanity. You want to know what they’re like—one time I had a talk with this security man at Shackleton. They were mining lunar ice for reaction mass in the shuttles.

  I put it to him that using lunar ice for rocket fuel was criminally wasteful. Water is the most precious commodity on the moon, and here they are blowing it into space.

  “He told me it was cheaper to use lunar ice than haul water from Earth. My argument wasn’t with him, he said, it was with the laws of the marketplace. Like most of them, he condescended to me, as if I were a child or idiot. He thought that invoking the free market settled the issue, as if to go against the market were to go against the laws of nature. The goal of conquering space justified the ex penditure, he said—that they’d get more water somewhere else when they used up the lunar ice.”

  “He’s got an argument.”

  “The market as a law of nature? ‘Conquering space?’ How do you conquer space? That’s not a goal, it’s a disease.”

  “What does this have to do with Tyler Durden?”

  “Durden is bringing the disease here!”

  “He’s fighting oppression! Men have no power here; they are stifled and ignored. There are no real male cousins.”

  “There are plenty of male cousins. There are lots of role models. Think of Adil Al-Hafaz, of Peter Sarahsson—of Nick, for pity’s sake!”

  “Nick? Nick?” Erno laughed. He stood. “You might as well leave now, officer.”

  His mother looked hurt. “Officer?”

  “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

  “Erno, I know you don’t like me. I’m dull and conventional. But being unconventional, by itself, isn’t a virtue. I’m your mother.”

  “And you’re a cop.”

  That stopped her for a moment. She took a deep breath. “I dearly love you, Erno, but if you think—”

  That tone of voice. He’d heard it all his life: all the personal anecdotes are over, now. We’re done with persuasion, and it’s time for you to do what I say.

  “You dearly love nothing!” Erno shouted. “All you want is to control me!”

  She started to get up. “I’ve given you every chance—”

  Erno threw Stories for Men at her. His mother flinched, and the book struck her in the chest and fell slowly to the floor. She looked more startled than hurt, watching the book fall, tumbling, leaves open; she looked as if she were trying to understand what it was—but when she faced him again, her eyes clouded. Trembling, livid, she stood, and started to speak. Before she could say a word Erno ran from the room.

  Property

  A man on his own is completely isolated. Other men might be his friends or lovers, but if he has a legal connection to anyone, it is to his mother.

  Beyond a certain point, property among the cousins is the possession of the community. Private property passes down from woman to woman, but only outside of the second degree of blood relation. A woman never inherits from her biological mother. A woman chooses her friends and mates, and in the event of her death, her property goes to them. If a woman dies without naming an heir, her property goes to the community.

  A man’s property is typically confined to personal possessions. Of course, in most families he is petted, and has access to more resources than any female, but the possessions are gotten for him by his mother or his mate, and they belong to her. What property he might hold beyond that belongs to his mother. If he has no mother, then it belongs to his oldest sister. If he has no sister, then it goes to the community.

  A man who forsakes his family has nowhere to go.

  NINE

  The great jazzmen were all persecuted minorities. Black men like Armstrong, Ellington, Coltrane, Parker. And the comedians were all Jews and black men. Leaving his mother’s apartment, Erno saw himself the latest in history’s long story of abused fighters for expressive freedom.

  Erno stalked around the perimeter road, head down. To his left, beyond the parapet, the crater’s inner slope, planted with groundsel, wildflowers, and hardy low-G modifications of desert scrub, fell away down to the agricultural fields, the park, and two kilometers distant, clear through the low-moisture air, the aspen-forested opposite slopes. To his right rose the ranks of apartments, refectories, dorms, public buildings and labs, clusters of oblong boxes growing higgledy-piggledy, planted with vines and hanging gardens, divided by ramps and stairs and walkways, a high-tech cliff city in pastel concrete glittering with ilemenite crystals. A small green lizard scuttled across the pebbled composite of the roadway and disappeared among some ground cover.

  Erno ignored the people on their way to work and back, talking or playing. He felt like smashing something. But smashing things was not appropriate cousins behavior.

  In the southwest quad he turned up a ramp into a residential district. These were newer structures, products of the last decade’s planned expansion of living quarters, occupied for the most part by new families. He moved upward by steady leaps, feeling the tension on his legs, enjoying the burn it generated.

  Near the top of the rimwall he found Gilman 334. He pressed the door button. The screen remained blank, but after a moment Alicia’s voice came from the speaker. “Erno. Come on in.”

  The door opened and he entered the apartment. It consisted mostly of an open lounge, furnished in woven furniture, with a couple of small rooms adjoining. Six young women were sitting around inhaling mood enhancers, listening to music. The music was Monk, “Brilliant Corners.” Erno had given it to Alicia; s
he would never have encountered twentieth century jazz otherwise.

  There was something wrong with Monk in this context. These girls ought to be listening to some lunar music—one of the airy mixed choral groups, or Shari Cloudsdaughter’s Drums and Sunlight. In this circle of females, the tossed off lines of Sonny Rollins’ sax, the splayed rhythms of Monk’s piano, seemed as if they were being stolen. Or worse still, studied—by a crew of aliens for whom they could not mean what they meant to Erno.

  “Hello,” Erno said. “Am I crashing your party?”

  “You’re not crashing.” Alicia took him by the arm. “This is Erno,” she said to the others. “Some of you know him.”

  Sharon was there, one of the hottest women in Alicia’s cohort at school—he had heard Sid talk about her. He recognized Betty Sarahsdaughter, Liz Bethsdaughter, both of them, like Alicia, studying social work, both of whom had turned him down at one time or another. Erno liked women as individuals, but in a group, their intimate laughter, gossip, and private jokes—as completely innocent as they might be—made him feel like he knew nothing about them. He drew Alicia aside, “Can we talk—in private?”

  “Sure.” She took Erno to one of the bedrooms. She sat on the bed, gestured to a chair. “What’s the matter?”

  “I had a fight with my mother.”

  “That’s what mothers are for, as far as I can tell.”

  “And the constables are going to call me in for questioning. They think I may be involved in some conspiracy with Tyler Durden.”

  “Do you know where he is?”

  Erno’s defenses came up. “Do you care?”

  “I don’t want to know where he is. If you know, keep it to yourself. I’m not your mother.”

  “I could be in trouble.”

  “A lot of us will stand behind you on this, Erno. Sharon and I would.” She reached out to touch his arm. “I’ll go down to the center with you.”

  Erno moved to the bed beside her. He slid his hand to her waist, closed his eyes, and rubbed his cheek against her hair. To his surprise, he felt her hand between his shoulder blades. He kissed her, and she leaned back. He looked into her face: her green eyes, troubled, searched his. Her bottom lip was full. He kissed her again, slid his hand to her breast, and felt the nipple taut beneath her shirt.

  Leave aside the clumsiness—struggling out of their clothes, the distraction of “Straight, No Chaser” from the other room, Erno’s momentary thought of the women out there wondering what was going on in here—and it was the easiest thing in the world. He slid into Alicia as if he were coming home. Though his head swirled with desire, he tried to hold himself back, to give her what she wanted. He kissed her all over. She giggled and teased him and twisted her fingers in his hair to pull him down to her, biting his lip. For fifteen or twenty minutes, the Society of Cousins disappeared.

  Erno watched her face, watched her closed eyes and parted lips, as she concentrated on her pleasure. It gave him a feeling of power. Her skin flushed, she gasped, shuddered, and he came.

  He rested his head upon her breast, eyes closed, breathing deeply, tasting the salt of her sweat. Her chest rose and fell, and he could hear her heart beating fast, then slower. He held her tight. Neither said anything for a long time.

  After a while he asked her, quietly, “Can I stay here?”

  Alicia stroked his shoulder, slid out from beneath him, and began to pull on her shirt. “I’ll talk to Sharon.”

  Sharon. Erno wondered how many of the other women in the next room Alicia was sleeping with. Alicia was a part of that whole scene, young men and women playing complex mating games that Erno was no good at. He had no idea what “talking to Sharon” might involve. But Alicia acted as if the thought of him moving in was a complete surprise.

  “Don’t pull a muscle or anything stretching to grasp the concept,” Erno said softly.

  Alicia reacted immediately. “Erno, we’ve never exchanged two words about partnering. What do you expect me to say?”

  “We did talk about it—in the park. You said you would talk to Sharon then. Why didn’t you?”

  “Please, Erno.” She drew up her pants and the fabric seamed itself closed over her lovely, long legs. “When you’re quiet, you’re so sweet.”

  Sweet. Erno felt vulnerable, lying there naked with the semen drying on his belly. He reached for his clothes. “That’s right,” he muttered, “I forgot. Sex is the social glue. Fuck him so he doesn’t cause any trouble.”

  “Everything isn’t about your penis, Erno. Durden is turning you into some self-destructive boy. Grow up.”

  “Grow up?” Erno tugged on his pants. “You don’t want me grown-up. You want the sweet boy, forever. I’ve figured it out now—you’re never even there with me, except maybe your body. At least I think it was you.”

  Alicia stared at him. Erno recognized that complete exasperation: he had seen it on his mother. From the next room drifted the sound of “Blue Monk,” and women laughing.

  “Sharon was right,” Alicia said, shaking her head. And she chuckled, a little rueful gasp, as if to say, I can’t believe I’m talking with this guy.

  Erno took a step forward and slapped her face. “You bitch,” he breathed. “You fucking bitch.”

  Alicia fell back, her eyes wide with shock. Erno’s head spun. He fled the room, ran through the party and out of the apartment.

  It was full night now, the dome sprinkled with stars. He stalked down the switchback ramps toward the perimeter road, through the light thrown by successive lampposts, in a straight-legged gait that kicked him off the pavement with every stride. He hoped that anyone who saw him would see his fury and think him dangerous. Down on the road he stood at the parapet, breathing through his mouth and listening to the hum of insects in the fields below.

  In the lamplight far to his left, a person in a green uniform appeared. On impulse Erno hopped over the parapet to the slope. Rather than wait for the constable to pass, he bounced off down toward the crater’s floor, skidding where it was steep, his shoes kicking up dust. He picked up speed, making headlong four- or five-meter leaps, risking a fall every time his feet touched.

  It was too fast. Thirty meters above the floor he stumbled and went flying face forward. He came down sideways, rolled, and slammed his head as he flipped and skidded to a halt. He lay trying to catch his breath. He felt for broken limbs. His shirt was torn and his shoulder ached. He pulled himself up and went down the last few meters to the crater floor, then limped through the fields for Sobieski Park.

  In a few minutes he was there, out of breath and sweating. At the fountain he splashed water on his face. He felt his shoulder gingerly, then made his way to the amphitheater. At first he thought the theater was deserted, but then he saw, down on the stage, a couple of women necking, oblivious of him.

  He stood in the row where he had spotted Alicia some weeks before. He had hit her. He couldn’t believe he had hit her.

  TEN

  Erno slept in the park and in the morning headed for his biotech shift as if he had never stopped going. No one at the airlock questioned him. Apparently, even though his mind was chaos, he looked perfectly normal. The radiation warning had been renewed; solar monitors reported conditions ripe for a coronal mass ejection. Cousins obliged to go out on the surface were being advised to keep within range of a radiation shelter.

  When Erno arrived at the bunker he went to Lemmy Odilleson’s lab. Lemmy had not arrived yet. He sat down at his workstation, signed onto the system, pressed his thumb against the gene scanner and accessed the database.

  He tried the general index. There was no file named exposition. Following Tyler’s reference to “gross,” he looked for any references to the number 144. Nothing. Nothing on the gross structures of nucleotides, either. He tried coming at it from the virus index. Dozens of viruses had been engineered by the cousins to deal with problems from soil microbes to cellular breakdowns caused by exposure to surface radiation. There was no virus called exposition.
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br />   While he sat there Lemmy showed up. He said nothing of Erno’s sudden appearance after his extended absence. “We’re making progress on integrating the morphological growth genes into the prototypes,” he said excitedly. “The sequences for extracting silicon from the soil are falling into place.”

  “That’s good,” Erno said. He busied himself cleaning up the chaos Lemmy typically left in his notes. After a while, he asked casually, “Lemmy, have you ever heard about a virus called ‘exposition’?”

  “X-position?” Lemmy said vaguely, not looking up from a rack of test bulbs. “Those prefixes go with female sex-linked factors. The Y-position are the male.”

  “Oh, right.”

  As soon as Erno was sure Lemmy was caught up in his lab work, he turned back to the archives. First he went to Gendersites, a database he knew mostly for its concentration of anti-cancer modifications. X-position led him to an encyclopedia of information on the X chromosome. Erno called up a number of files, but he saw no point in digging through gene libraries at random. He located a file of experiments on female-linked syndromes from osteoporosis to post menopausal cardiac conditions.

  On a whim, he did a search on “gross.”

  Up popped a file labeled Nucleotide Repeats. When Erno opened the file, the heading read:

  Get

  Rid

  Of

  S limy

  girlS

  The sounds of the lab around him faded as he read the paper.

  It described a method for increasing the number of unstable trinucleotide re peats on the X chromosome. All humans had repeat sequences, the presence of which were associated with various diseases: spinal and bulbar muscular atrophy, fragile X mental retardation, myotonic dystrophy, Huntington disease, spinocerebrellar ataxia, dentatorubral-pallidoluysian atrophy, and Machado-Joseph disease. All well understood neurological disorders.