The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2020 Edition

by Rich Horton

  • • •

  The room was white. Floor to ceiling, it was covered in some sort of sheet or tile that fit seamlessly and gave no impression of angles or perspective. It was like stepping onto a blank canvas, and it made Nuhu’s head hurt to look at it. Ambient light from no direct source filled the room. In the center of it—or what Nuhu assumed was the center; he had no real way of judging distance in this space—a small man in a white djellabiya floated in mid-air, his legs crossed in the lotus position. He was tiny, no bigger than a small child, and though his face was seamed with thousands of wrinkles, he seemed ageless.

  “Welcome Mr. Danbatta,” said the Djinn. “Please, come in.”

  Nuhu realized he was still standing in the lift. The spell had ushered him into it and pressed a red button which was on its own pad, separate from the bank of other buttons. He stepped cautiously into the room. Behind him the lift slid shut, and the room became a featureless white space once more.

  He took off his cap in deference and greeted politely. The small man returned the greeting and waved a hand at a red armchair in front of him. Nuhu was certain the chair hadn’t been there a moment before. The Djinn waited for Nuhu to sit before speaking again.

  “I understand you want to discuss your account,” he said. Nuhu shifted uncomfortably, his throat suddenly dry.

  “I have come to beg you: Please, spare my child,” Nuhu said. He could feel a lump of tears at the back of his throat.

  The Djinn sighed and tugged at his long white beard.

  “Would that I could,” he said. The boredom of a thousand lifetimes leaked through his voice. “This is all in the contract, Mr. Danbatta. That child is mine by rights.”

  “He is not even human. He would be of no use to you.”

  The Djinn laughed, an oddly hollow sound. “For a moment, I thought you might have something new to say . . . Look, you may have sullied yourself through your animal union with the fox, but your abomination of a child is still a human spirit. I can always find use for him. The contract stands, I’m afraid.”

  Nuhu thought of his tiny, beautiful, helpless son as nothing but a tool in the Djinn’s employ. Anger flared in him and he stood.

  “No! I refuse to accept this!” he shouted. “You promised us freedom, yet you are no better than the masters. Nothing has changed. We are slaves to you as surely as we were to them.”

  The Djinn cocked a shaggy white eyebrow. “How so? I provide you everything you desire through the Catalogue.”

  “You fulfil our desires, but not our needs.”

  The Djinn shrugged at that. “What can I say? Humans are such short-sighted creatures . . . ”

  “You will not take my baby,” Nuhu said. “You will have to kill me first.”

  The Djinn was suddenly standing in front of Nuhu, his face inches away. His expression grew ugly and Nuhu saw the ancient creature behind the human mask.

  “I cannot kill you, Mr. Danbatta, but I can hurt you,” it said with soft menace. “And should you try to stop me from taking what is mine, I will.”

  “If you could hurt me, you would have done so already,” Nuhu said, and he felt the truth of his words as he spoke them. “You have no power over us. None except what we give you, year after year. That is why you send us the Catalogues.”

  The Djinn stared hard at him for a moment, then he burst into laughter. He laughed so hard his tiny frame shook.

  “Well done, Mr. Dambatta. I knew there was a reason I liked you,” the Djinn said when he could finally catch his breath. A chair matching Nuhu’s appeared behind the Djinn, and he sat down on it. “So, now you understand. But that still does not free you from the contract you signed. Your child is due for collection today.”

  “No. You may have our liberty, but you have no claim on my son.” As Nuhu spoke, another realization hit him.

  “Why is that, Mr. Danbatta?” The Djinn seemed genuinely eager to hear Nuhu’s next statement.

  “I saw my file, and I saw that my parents made a wish for me—a boy child—and in exchange, you took their only living daughter. She’s still here, isn’t she?”

  “Perhaps . . . ” The Djinn leaned back and steepled his fingers, a smile creeping over his face. “I have so many employees.”

  “You signed a contract with Nuhu Aliyu Danbatta the son of Ahmed Mahmood Danbatta—but I am not his son, am I?”

  The Djinn’s smile grew into a grin of ghoulish glee. “No, you are not. Your father could not sire sons, no matter how many wives he took. And I can do many things, but even I cannot create human spirits.”

  “Who am I, then?” Nuhu asked, his mind reeling. “Whose child am I?”

  “No idea. When I first started, I’d take the children myself. But the organization has grown so quickly, and your people are so eager to give up your children for a bit of material comfort . . . ” The Djinn shrugged and spread his hands. “I don’t really handle the paperwork anymore.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Nuhu, sadly. “Your contract with me is void. Take back your fox wife, leave me my child.”

  “Of course,” The Djinn stood with an inexplicable air of satisfaction. “After all, my purpose has only ever been to serve the desires of men.”

  From somewhere behind him, Nuhu heard the lift ding open. The spell he’d seen in the lobby emerged; she was holding his son, Umar. Face to face, Nuhu could see how much she resembled his father in a way he never had. She smiled as she handed the child to him.

  “Is she happy here? With you?”

  “Happier than she would ever have been among your people,” the Djinn said. “I have always known the value of women.”

  Nuhu didn’t know what to say to that, so he nodded dumbly. He wasn’t sure what was what anymore—and he realized that he no longer cared. Cradling his precious son, he turned and went home.

  Fix That House!

  by John Kessel

  On this episode of Fix That House! we restore

  a stately home from the antebellum South.

  Judy and I did not know what we were letting ourselves in for when we bought the ancient, grand but seedy mid-19th century mansion out on Chinaberry Road. Certainly we knew from the start that the place had seen better days, but we had no idea of the many details to which we would have to attend, and the at times seemingly impossible roadblocks we would face—and have to figure out a way around—before we could live in our dream home.

  From the day we moved in we were determined to bring the pre-Civil War manor house back to something resembling its former grandeur. One of the problems was that the original structure, completed in 1846, did not offer the amenities that people in later years came to value. The absurdly large kitchens, the closets the size of studio apartments, and the over-luxurious baths that people demand today—not to mention indoor plumbing and electricity—all these had come later, done well or poorly, and each alteration had taken the house farther from its original majesty. We did not want to live in a house lacking electricity or plumbing, certainly, but Judy and I were determined to hold these compromises to a minimum.

  Many changes made by successive owners had to be undone. A hideous bay window had been cut into the parlor. A marble counter added to the kitchen had resulted in plastering over one of the tall windows. The original six-inch oak plank floors had been covered by linoleum, carpet, or tile.

  One of the first decisions we had to make was what materials to use in the reconstruction. For only one example, the interior walls had deteriorated drastically over the last century. The original walls had been constructed of plaster over wooden lath that was nailed in horizontal strips at right angles onto the structural members. The plaster, an inch thick, was made from sand, slaked lime, and horsehair. The lime used in the original construction came from ground limestone and oyster shells. Where were we to find an adequate supply of oyster shells, let alone horsehair?

  A common solution to this problem is to rip down the original walls and replace them with modern gypsum wallboard. Judy
and I were determined not to take this easy way out.

  Authenticity was our watchword. After some research we located an oyster farm on the coast that offered plenty of shells from which to prepare our plaster. Judy, an accomplished equestrienne, had some stable-owner friends whose clients were forever clipping their thoroughbreds; they became our horsehair connection.

  Then the problem became finding workmen who knew how to use these materials, or who were willing to learn, at a price that did not break our bank account. We had to put up with their balkiness and mistakes. Workers of Northern European descent, as were most at the time of the house’s construction, were at a premium. Poorly educated Irishmen might have made an acceptable substitute, and were historically credible, but it was hard nowadays finding men willing to work for the low wages we could afford to pay.

  Sweat equity was one solution. But Judy and I had sixty-hour-a-week careers to pursue. The brokerage could not be left to function without me for days at a time. Judy was busy with her work for the Heritage Center.

  At times we compromised. We lucked out when we located clever Manuel, an industrious immigrant who ran a crew experienced in reconstruction projects. Fortunately, many of these men were undocumented, so they came cheap, and Judy very much enjoyed putting her Spanish minor to real use.

  About that time Judy discovered she was pregnant. We’d been talking about starting a family, and we were both overjoyed that we would soon be parents. We talked over whether she should keep her job. I suspected that once we had a child Judy would not want to go back to work, and the ongoing reconstruction of the house offered an additional reason for her to take a leave from the Heritage Center. And so she did. Judy would manage the reconstruction, on site much more than I could be to monitor the workmen.

  Six months into the renovation Judy’s pregnancy was proceeding well, but the restoration of the Chinaberry Road house had stalled. It looked like she would produce an heir long before we would be able to produce the home we hoped to raise our children in. The stress of the pregnancy and of living in a half-renovated house was wearing on our nerves and, to be perfectly honest, our marriage.

  We were cooking over a hot plate and washing dishes in the laundry room. The longer this dragged on, the edgier we got. This time the problem was not with workmen or materials, but a difference in our individual visions. Judy and I both loved the idea of historical authenticity, but our commitments to it were unequal. I wanted our home to be as close to an accurate representation of what those more gracious times had offered, while Judy, though she was on board for “the whole voyage,” as she put it, was conflicted when it came to a choice between faithfulness to the past and comfort.

  Where this showed itself in the renovation was the kitchen. I wanted the kitchen to have a wood burning stove, big wooden counters and tables, a water pump, washtubs, and a cast iron oven. Judy agreed that such a kitchen would be beautiful, but insisted that it would be hard to prepare meals in such a throwback. Plus, in the summer it would get intolerably hot in there.

  “But we have air conditioning,” I said. I had given in on that one. Nobody could be asked to live through a Southern summer without AC.

  Judy resisted. As her pregnancy had progressed her mood had become more fragile. We were at an impasse.

  Then it hit me: the solution would come not by fighting against the demands of authenticity, but by fulfilling them.

  “We’ll turn the garage into a cookhouse, an outdoor kitchen! A modern one, connected by a covered walkway,” I said. “Then we can keep the indoor one as it should be, but do most of the cooking in the outdoor one. That’s the way they did it back then, anyway.”

  Judy was skeptical, but after a little persuasion she agreed to try it out. I admit that I was nervous when, after we completed the indoor kitchen as a faithful reproduction of its antebellum ancestors, it proved more showplace than workspace; still, we now had the cookhouse to serve as the place where the real meal preparation was done.

  Judy was not mollified. By this time she was seven months pregnant, and it was no fun for her having to go back and forth between the house and the outbuilding on those hot Southern days. I could not pretend that the situation as it stood was satisfactory.

  So we invested in some slaves. First just a personable young kitchen slave, Dottie. But then I threw out my back at the racket club and was unable to do as much around the house, so we bought a male, Tommo.

  Soon after this our daughter Sally was born, an apple-cheeked little darling with the bluest of eyes and blonde hair like cornsilk. We had so much fun with her that immediately I suggested we produce a brother to match. Our house, the jewel of Chinaberry Road, was rounding into shape, and I was doing so well at the brokerage that there was no need for Judy to go back to work. We had a family to grow, and her fine sensibilities and womanly charms were all that was lacking to complete the transformation of our house into a true home. Eventually she saw the sense of what I proposed.

  Last night as I sat out on steps of the verandah watching the sun descend behind the pines, I turned to Tommo, who was sitting one step down from me, and asked, “Is Dottie in her cabin? Had her supper?”

  Tommo, a fellow of few words, simply nodded his wooly head.

  “That’s good. We’ll let her rest for a bit. I’ll go out and visit her later.”

  We regarded the western sky, black trees silhouetted against the purple, orange, and pink of a glorious sunset. “It’s a beautiful world, isn’t it, Tommo?”

  “Yassuh,” said Tommo.

  Mighty Are the Meek and the Myriad

  by Cassandra Khaw

  On the day they signed the treaty, the sky was singed Cherenkov blue, a spectral ultramarine pricked by the dimming headlights of ten thousand warbots; a postcard moment that would eventually become so exhaustingly familiar, no one would remember the color of that irradiated sky as anything but an omen of a Saint Martin’s summer. Similarly, lost as it was amid the thunderous celebrations of the world’s nations, no one would recall either the small voice that said very softly:

  “Oh no.”

  • • •

  Harold was late.

  He disliked being late.

  Men who allowed themselves to be tardy never amounted to anything; they did not become First Secretary to the American Ambassador at the age of twenty-four, a trust-fund baby turned self-manufactured success. Nor were they called upon to provide diplomatic support to the Ministry of Automation Recovery, which was, as Harold understood it, still a nascent department, but there was no doubt it would become a thing.

  Unfortunately, Harold lived by the Circle Line, and ever since the government impaled the circuit on the cockspur of Hammersmith, tardiness was inevitable. He shuffled closer to the lip of the platform, hunching into his coat. Harold disliked being late; he hated London. He could not understand why anyone would maim the Circle Line in such a fashion, not when it was so elegant, a perfect loop circulating well-kept English people through the arteries of their metropolis. Of course, that wouldn’t have mattered if the Brits had the class to keep their offices in Westminster.

  “Bit of a faff, innit?” said a cheery voice by his right shoulder.

  Harold looked down.

  The person addressing him was not, strictly speaking, a person. At least, not in his eyes. To Harold, personhood entailed skin, meat, alimentary systems, ambitions that were not extrapolated from Big Data, a sense of morality that did not require, once every six months, federal inspection and recertification. He understood that this made him convictable of bigotry but try as he might, Harold could not yet expunge himself of this unusual provincialism. So he did what any man who thought of himself as “good” despite a few psychological aberrations: Harold ignored the problem when he could and was courteous when he could not.

  “Yes?”

  The robot smiled. Its teeth gleamed as only over-polished metal could. “The service this mornin’. Train’s a soddin’ six minutes and twenty-nine seconds late.
On a Tuesday, too.”

  Harold nodded. There was, he felt, little he could contribute to his acquaintance’s rather jocular diatribe. The fact that Harold found the entire interaction repugnant, a horrendous simulacrum of what passed for small talk in laconic England, was beside the point. The robot sighed, a sound like the whistle of the eggshell-blue kettle in his girlfriend’s Chelsea flat.

  “Can’t say it won’t happen again,” the robot announced as it tipped the brim of its little felt bowler hat. “But we can at least make sure we pack as many of you as we can into the next train. Make up for some of the lost time that way.”

  There were many reasons why Harold despised London. The absence of decent bacon. Its punctiliousness in regard to matters of hot water. The classism, its schizophrenic view of Americans, the cost of good bourbon in its pubs. More than anything else, Harold’s loathing was propelled by London’s ideas on how best to rehabilitate the robots from the war.

  For some reason, it involved hats.

  Hats and parasols and cutout mustaches made of cheap aluminum. The advisory brochures described the accoutrements as a means of humanization, but Harold had a different word for it. Stupid. He thought the whole endeavor ill-guided, ill-considered, and frankly insulting, indicative of the government’s true opinion of its flock. As though a monocle could distract from the fact these things once vaporized whole cities with their cyclopean stares.

  How quickly people acclimatized.

  How quickly they forgot.

  Headlights strobed in the dark of the tunnel and the train came—six minutes and twenty-two seconds late, according to Harold’s police-auction Chopard—thundering to its appointed platform, bringing with it a whiff of the cold. Winter had settled on London like dust in an old miner’s lungs, and it smelled to Harold of frost and filth and a film of sulfur. Although the media claimed otherwise, said any contrary testimony was the consequence of a cultural wound, a kind of phantom pain become national epidemic, the country still septic from the memory of war, Harold knew better. That lingering, greasy, spoiled-egg odor was mustard gas or whatever was left over after the atmosphere had tried, again and again, to rinse itself of the chemical agent.