The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2015

by Paula Guran

  “Yeah. I box.”

  “Can be a good workout. I’m going to need to see your ID.”

  “Don’t got it on me. Sorry.”

  “We’ll need to check you against the database, then. That isn’t a problem, is it?”

  “Think I got the right to refuse that, don’t I?”

  “You do,” the team lead said, letting a hint of hardness slip into his voice beneath the casual words. “But then we’d need to take you to the substation and do the full biometric scan to exclude you from the persons of interest list, and there are a whole lot of very unpleasant people who are in that queue. You don’t want to hang out with them. Not if you have someplace you need to be.”

  The big man seemed to consider this. He glanced back over his shoulder.

  “Looking for someone?” the team lead asked.

  “Was more thinking there might be some folks looking for me.”

  “So. How do you want to play this?”

  The man shrugged and held out his hand. The team’s data analyst stepped forward and tapped the collector against the thick wrist. The readout stuttered red, then went to solid green. The seconds ticked away.

  “If there’s something you want to tell me,” the team lead said, “this would be the time.”

  “Nah,” the big man said. “I think I’m good.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You know,” he said, “good enough.”

  The team lead’s hand terminal chimed. He pulled it out with his left hand, his right still on the butt of his gun. The readout had the red border of a flagged profile. The big man’s body went very still while they read. It was a long moment before the team lead spoke.

  “Amos Burton.”

  “Yeah?” the big man said. It could have meant, Yes, I killed him, or What about him? All the team lead heard was the affirmation.

  “I’ve got a travel flag on you here. You’re cutting it pretty close.”

  Amos Burton’s eyebrows rose and the corners of his mouth turned down. “I am?”

  “You’re shipping out to Luna on the noon launch from Bogotá station, Mr. Burton. These apprenticeship programs are tough to get into, and last I heard, they take it mighty poorly if you miss your berth. Might wind up waiting another decade to get back on the list.”

  “Huh,” the big man said.

  “Look, there’s a high-speed line about nine blocks north of here. We can take you there if you want.”

  “Erich, you sonofabitch,” the big man said. Instead of looking north, he turned to the east, toward the sea and rising sun. “I’m not Mr. Burton.”

  “Sorry?”

  “I’m not Mr. Burton,” the man said again. “You can call me Amos.”

  “Whatever you want. But I think you’d better haul ass out of town if you don’t want to get in some serious shit, Amos.”

  “You ain’t the only one that thinks that. But I’m good. I know where the high-speed lines are. I won’t miss my ride.”

  “All right then,” the team lead said with a crisp nod. “Have a better one.”

  The security team moved on, flowing around the big man like river water around a stone. Amos watched them go, then went to the tea-and-coffee stand, bought a cup of black coffee and a corn muffin. He stood on the corner for a long minute, eating and drinking and breathing the air of the only city he’d ever known. When he was done, he dropped the cup and the muffin wrapper into the recycling bin and turned north toward the high-speed line and Bogotá station and Luna. And, who knew, maybe the vastness beyond the moon. The sweep of planets and moons and asteroids that humanity had spread to, and where the chances of running into anybody from Baltimore were vanishingly small. A needle in a haystack all of humanity wide.

  Amos Burton was a tall, stocky, pale-skinned man with an amiable smile, an unpleasant past, and a talent for cheerful violence. He left Baltimore to its dynamic balance of crime and law, exotics and mundanity, love and emptiness. The number of people who knew him and loved him could be counted on one hand and leave most of the fingers spare, and when he was gone, the city went on without him as if he had never been.

  THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

  K. J. Parker

  “It’s perfectly true, gentlemen of the jury,” I said. “I murdered my wife. I put hemlock in her milk, she drank it, she died. It was no accident. I did it on purpose.”

  I glanced nervously over their heads at the sundial on the far wall. Time was getting on. How long does it take to find a self-confessed murderer guilty and string him up, for crying out loud? But the jurors were gazing at me solemnly, still and quiet as little mice, expecting more. What? Did they think the confession, the cut-and-dried, open-and-shut admission of guilt I’d just so thoughtfully given them was some sort of rhetorical trick? Yes, probably. In any event, they weren’t convinced. I blame the lawyers.

  “Just to clarify,” I said. “I did it. The mandatory sentence for murder is, I believe, death.” I lowered my head. “I rest my case.”

  Awkward silence. The prosecutor was staring at me. For God’s sake, man, I could hear him thinking, pull yourself together. I gave him a polite nod; carry on. Please. We’re on the clock here.

  Slowly he rose to his feet. He was probably a decent enough fellow, with a sense of fair play that I’d have admired in other circumstances. “Gentlemen,” he said, “we have a clear confession. I therefore move that—”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something scuttle across the floor. Hell, I thought.

  The prosecutor was still banging on about something. “ . . . Evidence we have heard from the investigating magistrate, I feel we ought to consider the issue of the accused man’s mental capacity. If, as would seem to be the case, this man is not in his right mind, it is open to you to substitute a sentence of detention for life at the monastery of the Golden Heart—”

  I jumped up. The kettlehat made a grab for my arm, but I elbowed him in the eye. “Don’t listen to him,” I shouted. “I’m not mad, I’m as sane as you are. I killed her for her money, that’s all there is to it.”

  I noticed a man in the front row of the jury benches pulling a frown. I got the impression he didn’t approve of killing rich wives for their money. Excellent. But the shadow on the sundial was almost touching the ornately gilded Six. I turned and faced the prosecutor. “Please,” I said. “I know you’re doing what you think is best, but really, I’m not worth it. I killed that poor, loving, trusting girl so I could get her money and marry a prostitute from the Velvet Shadow. My conscience—”

  The prosecutor shrugged and sat down. The usher stood up and cleared his throat. I held my breath. Nearly there.

  “Gentlemen of the jury—”

  But they weren’t looking at him. They weren’t looking at me, either. Slowly, with an aching heart, I turned and looked over my shoulder at the crowd in the public seats. A beautiful young woman with light brown hair and a sweet and simple smile was standing up, about two rows from the front. “Excuse me,” she said.

  “Silence in court,” the usher mumbled, but you could tell he didn’t mean it.

  “I’m sorry,” the lovely girl said, “but I must speak. You see, I’m this man’s wife. And I’m not dead.”

  Ah well. I sat down again.

  It took the prosecutor a moment to pull himself together. He stood up. “Please approach the bench,” he said.

  I could hear the murmur of voices behind me. As she passed me, she turned her head and smiled. Don’t worry, the smile said, it’s going to be all right. I closed my eyes. Why is there never a brick around when you need one?

  With a little gentle prompting from the prosecutor, the lovely girl gave her evidence. Her name was Onofria; here was a copy of the register of births, sealed by the City Prefect, and here was a copy of the Temple register, recording her marriage to me on the 17th Feralia, AUC 667, and here were twelve affidavits sworn by leading citizens confirming that she was who she claimed to be. The prosecutor was happy to confirm that all the seals an
d signatures were in order. It had all been, she went on, a silly, silly misunderstanding. Because of an illness she’d had from childhood, she had to take special medicine, which contained a small amount of hemlock. To take the taste away, she drank it mixed with honey and milk. Usually, her husband poured it for her at bedtime. On this occasion, she’d mistakenly thought he’d be out for the evening, so she took a dose herself. Later, her husband had mixed another dose for her, as usual. Absent-mindedly, entirely her own silly fault, she’d drunk the second dose out of force of habit. The two doses had made her very ill. The doctor came. They took her to the Priory hospital. Her poor husband, thinking she was dead and out of his mind with grief and guilt, had gone to the Prefecture and told them he’d just poisoned his wife. But it was all a silly mistake; she’d made a full recovery, only to discover that her poor darling was on trial for murder. So, of course, she’s rushed over straight away and, well, here she was—

  Case dismissed.

  “You cow,” I muttered.

  We were walking arm in arm through the arch that leads from the law courts into the Market Square. She was still smiling. She has a lovely smile, when she’s human.

  “I’m not talking to you,” she said.

  “Good.”

  “Honestly.” Someone I knew vaguely stopped to stare. She beamed at him and he walked on. “If you ever kill me again, I shall be seriously annoyed.”

  I first met her during my brief tenure as governor-general of the Leuga Islands.

  It was a very brief tenure, and when we met it was rapidly drawing to an end, mostly because the real governor had showed up unexpectedly early. I was packing to leave. I like to travel light when running for my life; a few gold bars and a handful of uncut gemstones thrown into an old satchel, and I’m good to go. I’m always extremely careful about what I take around with me. In my line of work, you have to be; you never know when you’re going to be stopped and searched. Ironically, I distinctly remember going through my bag just to make sure I wasn’t carrying anything that could possibly cause me problems later. Of course, she wasn’t in the damn bag.

  I remember walking briskly down the steps of the governor’s palace, across the square and out to the private jetty, where a boat was waiting to take me to Sezanza. It was one of those dazzlingly clear blue-sky days you get in the Leugas, when everything is crisp and sharp and you feel like you could do anything. I remember feeling a nip and an itch on the back of my neck as I climbed into the boat. I thought: Shame it didn’t work out, but who wants to be in a place where even the governor’s palace has got bedbugs? All in all, I was feeling pretty good about myself. I was happy.

  I felt something on the back of my neck, light but definitely perceptible. I slapped the area vaguely with the flat of my hand. The warmth of the sun and the gentler rocking of the boat were wonderfully soothing, and the excitement and stress of the last few days were starting to slip away. I lay down with my back to the rail and closed my eyes.

  When I woke up I was in shadow. “Hello,” I said.

  She really does have a nice smile. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Onofria. Who are you?”

  Good question. For the last few days I’d been the honorable Leucas Metellas. I hadn’t quite made up my mind who I was going to be in Sezanza. “I’m Buto,” I said.

  She sat down beside me. She was wearing a long yellow silk dress and yellow silk slippers, embroidered with red roses. “Where are you going?”

  “Sezanza,” I said. “How about you?”

  “Sezanza. I’m going to stay with my aunt and uncle. They live in a little village in the hills. Parecoina.”

  “What an amazing coincidence,” I said.

  We never got to Parecoina. Instead, we spent three days in a grubby little inn on the outskirts of the Tanners’ Quarter in Ap’Coele, which is what passes for civilization in Sezanza. We didn’t go out much, but there’s precious little to see in Ap’Coele.

  On the morning of the fourth day I woke up early, and she wasn’t in the bed with me. I got dressed and went to look for her, and found her in the stable yard. She’d got a clay cup from somewhere. It was half filled with woodlice, crawling and scrambling over each other. She put it down on the mounting block and smiled at me.

  “You’re up and about early,” I said.

  She leaned forward and kissed me on the nose. “It’s such a beautiful day,” she replied. “Let’s go for a walk.”

  We went down to the harbor, where the fishing boats were just setting out. “Your uncle and aunt,” I said. “They’ll be wondering where you’ve got to.”

  She frowned, for some reason. “Don’t worry about them,” she said. Then she stopped. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

  It seemed such an odd thing to say. “No, of course not.”

  “That’s all right, then. I’ll write to them,” she said, and the smile came back. “They’re used to me,” she added.

  “I see. You do this sort of thing all the time, then?”

  I’d meant it as a silly joke. “Yes,” she said. “Oh look, a cormorant.”

  You know how young men are when they’re showing off: mines of useless information. “That’s a trained cormorant,” I said. “If you look closely, you can see the collar.”

  “What’s that for?”

  “It’s to stop them swallowing the fish. They catch them, but they can’t eat them, so they fly back home again. The fish are stuck in their throats until the fishermen pull them out.”

  She gave me an odd sort of a look, one which I’ve always remembered. “Sensible arrangement,” she said.

  I shrugged. “For the fisherman. I can’t really see what the bird gets out of it.”

  “It’s just a bird. And anyway, the fisherman looks after it.”

  “Does a bird need looking after?”

  “Let’s go and paddle in the sea.”

  We didn’t stay out long. A bit later, she asked me, “What are you? I mean, what do you do?”

  I was sleepy, the way you are afterwards. “Oh, not much.”

  “Ah. A gentleman.”

  Usually I’d have said yes, that’s right, because why bother with the truth when I’d be gone in a day or so? But I said, “How about you?”

  She shrugged. “I’m not anything, really.”

  I’d formed my own assessment some time earlier. You have to be able to sight-read people in my line; you don’t have the luxury of finding out slowly and possibly getting it wrong. I’d figured she was a merchant’s daughter—well-dressed, not gentry, but she’d never have to work for a living; she wouldn’t be marrying some farmer, or a tradesman or craftsman. I guessed she was what’s usually termed “difficult”—awkward, hard to control, the sort who won’t stay home and behave nicely. Not allowed in the best families, and down the other end of the social scale they don’t have the option, too busy helping put food on the table. But a merchant’s daughter can have a few years of gadding about if she wants to, and generally no harm done. “I find that hard to believe,” I said.

  “No you don’t,” she replied. “But you haven’t answered my question. What do you do?”

  Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t love or anything. But I was beginning to think that maybe three or four days wasn’t quite enough. Besides, I was in no hurry. I had a bit of money for a change, and as far as I was aware, nobody was uncomfortably hot on my trail. The truth is, I liked her. A kindred spirit, perhaps—no ties, no commitments, a leaf in the wind. And there was something else, a hint of mischief, devilment. I like that in a person. Just possibly, I thought, she might understand. And wouldn’t that be fun? Someone I could be honest with, tell the truth to. A whole new experience for me. So I took a deep breath.

  “Actually,” I said, “I’m a thief.”

  She nodded. “Thought so.”

  I really wasn’t expecting that. “You did?”

  “Mphm. Well, you’re not a merchant, or where’s your stock in trade? Not a courier, because I looked in your bag while yo
u were asleep.” She smiled. “That’s when I thought, thief.”

  “Did you really.”

  Two thoughts collided in my head. First, it takes one to know one. But I dismissed that, because the contents of my bag were still there; I’d checked. I check about once an hour, on average. The other thought was: she doesn’t seem to mind, particularly.

  “What sort of a thief?” she said. “Do you climb in through windows, or hit people over the head, or what?”

  I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation. But it was intoxicating. “Nothing so vulgar,” I said.

  “You’re a con man,” she said, and there was a sort of girlish delight in her voice.

  I sort of shrugged. “That’s overstating it a bit,” I said. “What I actually do is pretend to be people. Usually government officials. I read the government gazette when they post up the new appointments, to see who’s been posted where. Then I get there first.”

  “I see.” Her eyes were laughing at me. “Sort of a shape-changer.”

  “That would be a very useful skill,” I said. “It’s a shame it’s not actually possible. But I manage without it.”

  She nodded. “Do you wear disguises? Wigs and false beards and stuff like that?”

  “No need,” I said. “All I do is ask myself, what would it be like to be so-and-so? Like an actor, I guess. I thought of being an actor once, but there’s no money in it.” I smiled. “I like money.”

  “Me too,” she said.

  “A shared interest,” I said, “that’s good.” Well, I thought, we’re being honest with each other, asking the sort of questions you usually don’t, so why not? I asked, “Have you got any?”

  “What? Oh, money. Yes, from time to time. It’s never been a problem.”

  I’d previously arrived at the conclusion that she wasn’t any of the innumerable finely distinguished subspecies of prostitute; you can tell, almost immediately, once you get to that stage in the proceedings. Not a thief, either. Of the three vocations open to women in our enlightened society, that was two ruled out. “Are you a musician?”