The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fifth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  I wanted to see more, but my mother pulled me toward the kitchen, scolding me and worrying about what might have happened in the same breath. All the rest of the day and all that evening, the kitchen bustled as we prepared a formal meal. My father had declared Florey to be the honored guest of the house.

  “Which simply means extra work for us,” my mother said, sitting as usual on one side of the great fireplace, her fat, naked arms resting on the arms of her high-backed chair as she watched her daughters-in-law and their children cook and carve and clean.

  My grandmother, shrunken and frail in her own chair on the other side of the fire, said that outsiders always brought trouble, and it was lambing time, too; you couldn’t expect the men to care about that now. I was carding wool in the corner by the door, pretending not to listen. I wanted to sit at the feast and hear all the stranger had to say, but of course I couldn’t. I was only a girl. The only reports I had were the breathless exclamations of the women as they brought out empty plates and waited to take in the next course. One told my mother that the stranger claimed that his family had once lived in the countryside around, hundreds of years ago; another said that he had a little metal stick, and that was what had knocked us all down. “Fancy all this happening to us,” she said, and scurried out with a platter of fruits as big as her head balanced on one shoulder.

  “A three-day wonder,” my mother said, picking at her own food. “And what good will it do us? That little stick won’t get the lambs born or the seed sown, for all the men gape and gawk at it.”

  “In my day,” my grandmother said, “we didn’t have any of this trickery, not even the glowing-tubes. Just lanterns and candles. Though I do like the light now. It doesn’t jump about so.”

  “One thing’s certain,” my mother said. “He isn’t here to sell to us, much less give anything away. Live off us awhile and move on, I shouldn’t wonder. I’ll have a word about that.”

  But I wanted the stranger to stay; I wanted to gawk, just like the men. Later that evening my fiancé rode over and we sat at the edge of the fields. His dog lay a discreet distance away, her head on her crossed paws, as I told Elise all of what had happened.

  Elise was scornful. “He’s probably just some fake.”

  “How could he do what he did? You’re just jealous because your family didn’t find him.” I felt that the stranger was mine in a way; as if I had charmed him awake and led him to the house. Yes, just like one of the old stories. By defending him I was defending myself. “If you ask my father, I’m sure he’ll let you meet him; then you’ll see he’s no fake. He’s real, Elise.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You ask. It’s all right, you’ll be one of our family soon enough.”

  “It’s not that. I just don’t want to, Clary. This man’ll be gone soon enough and nothing will have changed, you’ll see.” And he leaned over and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. I leaned against him, stroking the bumpy top of his head through his short, crisp hair. He was a tall, lean, gawky boy, but handsome enough when he smiled, and gentle. I hadn’t any choice in the matter—like all marriages then, it was an arrangement; and in exchange for my hand, my father would have certain rights of passage over the land of Elise’s family—no choice, yes, it’s true. But I felt lucky about Elise, cared enough for him not to press him about seeing the stranger.

  So we sat side by side in the twilight, the lights of the house behind us, the dark forest rising beyond the flat, bare fields. The first stars were out, and you could see a few of the swift sliding lights that Seyour Mendana had once told me were ships and whole cities forever falling across the sky. I leaned against Elise, feeling the hard muscles in his arm, his comfortable warmth, and wondered about the stranger, wondered which light he had stepped down from and why, until it was time for Elise to go.

  Even after Elise had politely bid my mother good night and had ridden off, and I was lying in my own room unable to sleep, my thoughts were of the stranger, his white face and the way he had handed me my knife, the way he had lain there on the ivy in the forest, all unawares. He was somewhere in the house. The thought was thrilling and alarming, and I listened for some sign of his presence, but heard nothing except the usual night noises. And later, at last, I slept.

  * * *

  And the next morning, truly as if I had somehow stepped into a story where wishes come true, the stranger, Gillain Florey, came looking for me in the kitchen. He explained to my mother that he needed a guide for the day. “Just a little trip into the forest, back along the river.”

  My mother held the long braid that fell over her right shoulder and said that it was not the sort of thing a girl did. Florey smiled and told her, “Now, I know she goes up there because that’s where she found me. And I can look after her. You saw my defenses, right?”

  “It isn’t exactly that,” my mother said uncomfortably. I’d never seen her like that before: at bay in her own kitchen, her kingdom, as if she were no more than what she seemed, a fat woman twisting her braid in a fat white hand.

  Florey’s smile widened. His silvercapped eyes. His white, white teeth. “You’re worried about her honor! I can assure you, Seyoura, that nothing is further from my mind. No, I need a guide, that is all, and I wouldn’t divert one of your menfolk from their work. You know the problem I’ve been set. Well. I’m going up to solve it, if I can.”

  My mother began to deny precisely the thing she had been worried about, and Florey waved a hand negligently. “Please, you have not insulted me. No, not at all. Where is your daughter? Ah, there. Yes, come now…”

  So I went with him, my heart bumping as we passed through the compound and crossed the fields, people gaping after us as if we were a parade. We followed the creek into the forest, and once we were out of sight of the house, Florey sighed and slowed his pace.

  “I thought they might follow us. Well, that’s all right.”

  “They wouldn’t—I mean, you’re a guest.”

  He smiled and I blushed. “I’m glad to hear it. I hardly slept at all last night. Even with this.” He drew out, from a pocket inside a flap of his vest, a little tube.

  “Is that what knocked us all down?”

  “To be sure.” He showed me the clear lens set in one end, and in his hand it began to shine, growing so bright that I had to look away, blinking back tears and green afterimages.

  “Brighter than a thousand suns. Well, not quite, but bright enough to cause disorientation with nanosecond pulses at the right frequency. The silver in my eyes protects me from that, you understand? The other end is a sonic caster. It’ll put you to sleep, like that poor horse, but its range is limited. And that’s all I have, which is why I didn’t sleep much last night. But I’m a guest, you say. Well.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “To see the fabled ruins of Earth, of course. Escaping from civilization, if you know what that is. I can’t believe the way you all live here. You’re not in the net? No? Not even receivers? Not even electricity?” Each time I shook my head, his smile widened, until at last it seemed as bright as his light-stick. He laughed. “Well! Just about perfect. And no one bothers you here?”

  “Only Seyour Mendana. And sometimes a flying machine brings a doctor.”

  “Who is this Mendana?”

  “He buys the furs the men trap in winter. You’re really from another world?”

  “What? Oh yes, yes. Try and name one I haven’t come from. Well. Looks like the M.C.C. really does keep you sealed off. About time my luck changed; perhaps I’ll stay here after all. Come on, then, let’s follow the river. Your father wants me to solve a problem. You really can’t cross it farther up?”

  “It runs too quickly, and there’s a gorge, up beyond our land and the Shappards’. The creek is the border between us, you see. Down here there’s only one path we’re allowed to use on the other side, and we have to pay for that.”

  “That’s what your father said.”

  For a while we climbed besid
e the creek in silence. Florey was awkward as he scrambled over the smooth white boulders the spring snowmelts had year after year tumbled from the higher slopes, and soon he was puffing and panting. As he perched on one great boulder, catching his breath, I asked at random—there was so much I wanted to ask—“What’s the M.C.C.?”

  He looked at me. “To be sure, the child doesn’t know who owns her. The Marginal Culture Council: the M.C.C. They’re what keeps you safe from the outside world—though to be truthful, if it weren’t for San Francisco, I suppose the whole area would be sealed off.”

  “San Francisco?”

  “A port. A couple of hundred kays from here. You really don’t know, do you?”

  “I’d like to. I’d like—” I paused, but I couldn’t hold it back. “I’d like to see what it’s like, outside the forest. Except I’ll be married soon enough, and then I suppose I’ll be too busy bringing up babies.”

  “To be sure,” Florey said quietly. I don’t think he understood me. He got up, and we walked and scrambled higher. When we reached a smoother part of the way, he had breath enough to ask me about my family. “I guess I should know whom I’m staying with.”

  “You really were going to leave?”

  “Really. I thought your father was after my stuff, so that’s why I asked you along this morning. A hostage in case of ambush, but there was no ambush. Really, you can go back down now.”

  “I’d like to go with you.”

  “O.K.”

  Now it was my turn to ask about him, and he explained that he was from a very rich family who grew something that made people immortal, that his home was a castle on a world called Elysium. “People from this continent settled Elysium before the war, hundreds of years ago. In fact, my ancestors came from this very region, which is why I went to San Francisco. My yacht is there now, waiting for me. Ever heard of the Californian Collectivists? No? Oh well, it was a long time ago. Anyway, I’m fabulously rich and have little to do, so that’s why I’m here. An important person. You might contrive to mention to your father that if I’m harmed, a scramble rescue team will be out here at once. So he shouldn’t get any ideas about kidnapping me, O.K.?”

  I nodded solemnly: I believed it all, would have believed him if he’d said that on his world, men swam through the air like fish and slept on clouds. It was only later that I wondered why, if he was able to call up help so quickly, he had been afraid of anything my father could do.

  But then, walking beside him over a thick carpet of pine needles at the edge of an ever deeper channel that the creek had carved for itself, I was too happy to think.

  The way grew steeper, and at last we reached the series of waterfalls and deep pools before the gorge, and climbed beside them using the narrow paths deer had made. At the top, at the edge of the cliff, Florey looked into the gorge and white water that thrashed amongst rocks toward the glossy lip of the first waterfall, then pointed upstream and shouted above the roar of the water, “That’s where I’ll have the sheep cross!”

  “But they always go through the Shappards’ land. And besides, sheep can’t fly, not on Earth.”

  “No need. Your father explained that he has to pay each year for passage to the fields or whatever higher up.”

  “The summer pasturage.”

  “Whatever. Well, your father asked if I could help; I think he hoped I’d stride into the midst of your neighbors and drop them left and right just as I had to drop all of you last night when the men tried to make fun of me. I have other ideas.” He gestured grandly. “I will have a bridge built. There, where the gorge narrows.”

  I couldn’t see what he meant, and his talk about suspension ropes and load bearing only confused me more. “You’ll see when it’s done, and your sheep will cross above your neighbors’ land. Better than frightening people, eh?” Then he looked away sharply. “Who’s that over there?”

  After a moment Elise stepped out from behind a tree, his dog following at his heels. Florey ordered him to us, and he came reluctantly, apprehension in his look. His dog watched Florey with her yellow eyes, her teeth showing between her loose black lips. I think that if I hadn’t been there, Elise would have run: men and their pride.

  “He’s my betrothed,” I said to Florey, and told Elise, “I don’t see what business you have following us around. If my father knew, he’d be mad.”

  “This is common land, up above the waterfalls, your father has no say here. Anyway, I was on my way to lay traps for banshee.” Elise was looking at the ground between his feet. “When I saw you, I thought…”

  “It’s true,” his dog said, her voice a low growl.

  Florey lifted Elise’s chin and said, “A handsome lad, Clary.” Elise twisted away, scowling. “You’re lucky to be in line for such a fine, caring husband. But why does everyone think the worst of me?”

  “We’re not used to strangers, I guess.”

  “I meant no harm,” Elise said. “I just wanted to see—”

  “I understand,” Florey said. He was looking at Elise’s face, at the spike-jawed traps hung at his belt, at his dog. “Are you walking back with us, young man?”

  “I really have to set the traps.” Elise looked at me. “I’ll see you later, Clary. Good-bye.”

  “Don’t hurry on my account,” I called as he walked away, but he didn’t look back. I was annoyed by his following us, as if my independence had been diminished, as if he had already married me, already taken possession.

  “You’ll make a fine, handsome couple,” Florey said, and put an arm over my shoulder. We walked like that all the way back: I was never so happy.

  * * *

  For three days things went just as Florey ordered them. It was as if he had supplanted my father’s authority, yet no one seemed to notice or to mind. The men felled a tall pine so that it lay across the gorge, and another was sawed into four and, using chocks and levers, the pieces were set at either end. Under Florey’s instructions a complicated web of ropes was strung between the spine of the bridge and the pillars, and a plank floor was laid. The men began to grumble that sheep would never cross it, but Florey simply smiled and showed them how to build high sides that leaned against the rope webbing. “What they can’t see can’t hurt them, and they’ll follow their leaders. Sheep are like men, yes?”

  I contrived to be near him as much as possible, taking up his food and running errands and looking after the notched stick and the weighted twine he used to work out how the ropes should hang. No, never so happy as then. He had us all under his spell, whether he was striding about and ordering the men in short bursts of energy, or sitting with his back against a pine trunk, amongst the feathery shoots, his eyes closed as I watched his white face.

  And in the evenings there were his stories.

  Florey would hold forth to the whole family for hours, pausing only to drink from the mug of cider I kept topped up for him as he told us about the other worlds: the singing stones of Ruby; the oleaginous oceans that girdled Novaya Rosya, boiling in summer and frozen in waxen floes in winter; the great canyon where everyone had to live on Novaya Zyemla; the beautiful empty seacoasts of Serenity. He described them all so vividly that we might have been there ourselves, and told tales at once so fantastic yet so plausible that the very trees seemed to lean closer to listen. Then he would smile and stretch all his length like a cat and say that it was time to sleep, and we would all be left gaping at each other, slowly becoming aware of the creek’s babble and the mosquito bites we had not heeded, the cold night air and the babies and animals bawling to be fed.

  Even Elise stayed still all of one evening, but afterwards he said to me, “Those tales don’t really matter, Clary.” He held one of my hands tightly, as if he were afraid I might fly away to one of Florey’s fabulous worlds. And I would have, if I could.

  “Gil makes them sound real. Isn’t that the same?”

  “He’s got you bewitched, all of you in this house. That’s what my father says.”

  “Your father�
��s just jealous. So are you.”

  He ran a hand over his head, his short hair making a crisp sound beneath his palm. “I guess I am. Aren’t you to be my wife, Clary?”

  “Oh yes, it’s all arranged.”

  “Except that bridge means your father won’t need the bride price anymore. Do you think he’ll still let you marry me?”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that the bridge would make so much of a difference. “I suppose it’s gone too far to be stopped.” His anxious look touched me: I still cared for him, I realized. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to run away from the marriage.”

  “Then you shouldn’t be hanging around this stranger, like, like—”

  “You aren’t my husband yet, though. So don’t tell me what to do.”

  We stood staring at each other, angry and frustrated. The frogs were croaking to each other down by the creek; in the other direction, by the house, someone sang a snatch of an old song, her voice clear and small in the night. O the times they are a-changing … Elise swore and turned on his heel and stumped off along the bank of the creek to where he had tethered his horse, beside the ford. His dog looked at me for a moment, then yawned and turned and loped after her master.

  * * *

  The next morning we hadn’t been up by the bridge for an hour when Florey said suddenly, “Are there any ruins nearby, Clary?”

  “Some. There are ruins everywhere, I guess. Do you want to see them?”

  “Yes. Right now.”

  “But what about the bridge?”

  Florey gestured at the men, naked to their waists, who were cutting and shaping planks for the sides. “They know more about carpentry than I do. I’ll have to show them how to fit it all together, but that won’t be until tomorrow at least. We won’t be missed.” He picked up the bag that contained the food I’d brought, looked at me with his silver-capped eyes, and smiled. “Don’t tell me you’re scared…”

  For a long time we walked through the forest without speaking, Florey swinging the bag at the new, tightly curled heads of the ferns. Sunlight slanted between the dark layers of the trees; once we saw a parrot fly off, and a moment later heard its shrieking alarm call. But I couldn’t stay silent forever, and the question I most wanted to ask, because it was the thing I most feared, at last had to be spoken.