The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year: Volume Eight

by Jonathan Strahan

  I was starting to panic. I had, after all, been sent there to pass on the word of the Invincible Sun; my death was merely ancillary to that, and there was a terrible risk of missing the point of the exercise. I tried to protest, but the kettlehats proved to be very skilful at moving a person who didn't want to be moved, efficiently and unobtrusively. Mostly it was done by judicious barging and blocking, with firm but gentle pressure from a hand in the small of the back; you have to go where you're nudged, or you lose your balance and fall over. I guess they'd had the practice, but still, I was impressed.

  "Gentlemen, be reasonable," I said. We were at the foot of the steps. "A few last words, is that too much to ask? I just want to –"

  "Sorry." A knee pressed the back of my knee, and somehow I was standing on the first step. If I'd been ten times stronger and trained from boyhood in the secret arts of the warrior, I don't think there was anything I could've done. I could see the hangman waiting for me at the top of the steps. He had a sort of black bag over his head. This was all wrong. I had to deliver my message, but time was running out. I thought; if He could be bothered to level the Potteries with an earthquake to let me escape the first time, surely He can do something, some little thing, to give me a chance to carry out His explicit instructions. Made no sense. I'd done exactly what I'd been told, so what had gone wrong?

  I looked up and there He was, a round white eye in a sea of clear blue, watching, not doing anything. I let them nudge me up the steps, and the hangman grabbed me and put the noose round my neck. "Excuse me," I started to say, but he tightened the knot so I couldn't speak. He trod on my toe, making me step back so I was properly centred on the trapdoor. "Just a –" I croaked, and he pulled the lever.

  Now then, let's see.

  Motivation, we have been taught, doesn't matter. All that counts is the outcome, the end result. Therefore, it didn't matter that my colleagues and I had started the Church as a criminal conspiracy to cheat gullible people out of money. Clear away the nettles and brambles of motive, and underneath them you find a set of circumstances capable of producing the desired result. You find a group of people with a unique combination of talents and abilities – the scientist, the poet, the skilled forger, the scholar and the preacher. Driven by, motivated by, an urgent need of their own, they set about the task of bringing a god to the attention of the public. Consider how many religions, how many gods, show up on our streets in any twelve-month period; scores, hundreds even, and how many of them make it to mainstream acceptance? Quite. But, I dare say, a fair proportion of those religions, those gods, have perfectly viable doctrines, sufficient to serve as the basis for a thoroughly satisfactory Church. The margin, is what I'm trying to say, the edge, the difference between the three hundred failures and the one success, is tiny; but it's real, it's there. It's not just a matter of luck. To succeed, you need the perfectly pitched message, the unforgettably phrased scriptures, the eyecatching iconography, the significant moments indelibly etched on the public consciousness. The trouble with most religions is the people who propound them. They may be charismatic and inspirational, but they're not quite charismatic and inspirational enough. Also, they're deficient in those core skills we've just examined. Their scriptures are written in a pedestrian style. They're too new, without the sanctity of ancientness. They're internally inconsistent, or they ask people to believe stuff that ordinary folk can't quite stomach. Their preachers lack that certain indefinable but absolutely indispensable something. They are, in other words, amateurs. They lack the professional touch.

  We, by contrast – well. Think about it. Suppose you were the Invincible Sun, with the whole human race to choose from. We were conmen, whose business was getting sceptical people to believe us. Would you really select a bunch of unskilled nobodies – farm workers, fishermen, carpenters – or would you insist on nothing but the best; well-born, university-educated, intelligent and naturally articulate, and motivated (I'm repeating that word so you'll notice it) by ferociously intense selfinterest. Well, wouldn't you? If you want a house built, you hire builders. If you want a gallstone taken out, you pay the best doctor you can afford. So, if you want people persuaded, you enlist the best persuaders in the business.

  Once you realise the simple truth that motive is irrelevant, it all makes sense. Really, you don't need a special flash of insight direct from the lips of the Invincible Sun to figure that one out. There is no right and wrong, only good and bad. Faith is good; it's essential, if you want to survive in a perverse and gratuitously cruel universe. Nihilism is bad; it deprives the world of meaning, so why the hell bother with anything? Anything that can induce people to have faith, have hope, believe that there is meaning, is good. Motive is irrelevant.

  * * *

  I woke up.

  Later, I figured out that I must've banged my head on the gallows frame or the edge of the trap, which made me pass out. I had a lump the size of an egg and a splitting headache. I was lying on a bed. It hurt when I breathed in. There was someone sitting looking down at me. It was Zanipulus.

  "How are you feeling?" he asked.

  "Awful," I said. Then I frowned. "Zan?"

  "Hello, Eps."

  "Sorry," I said. Talking hurt. "I was expecting someone else."

  He laughed. "No doubt you were," he said. "But you'll have to make do with me. Now then, you've probably got a bad head and a hell of a stiff neck, but basically you're fine. You should be up and about in no time."

  "You –" I paused. " For God's – for pity's sake. What happened?"

  He smiled. "Exactly what we wanted to happen," he said. "Just for once, everything went according to plan, no balls-ups, no hitches. It was a complete success."

  I frowned at him. "I don't think so," I said. "I'm still alive."

  He stared at me; then he burst out laughing. "Eps, you idiot," he said. "You didn't seriously believe we actually wanted to kill you? Oh come on. We're your friends."

  "But –"

  He shook his head in disbelief. "We staged your execution," he said. "We made a martyr of you. Well? Isn't that what you told Accila you wanted?"

  A martyr's crown. "I thought –"

  "For crying out loud, Eps." He was amused, but also a little bit hurt, a little bit angry. "Obviously, when we realised you had issues with the direction we were going in, we knew it was time for you to go your separate way. And, equally obviously, we couldn't have you wandering off making a nuisance of yourself. So, we thought about it and decided that the best thing would be to stage your death, in public, so everyone could see, so there'd be no chance of you making a comeback and being a pain in the bum for the rest of us. Also, there was a fantastic opportunity to move the business up to the next level, by making you the Church's first martyr. Which has worked," he added, "beyond our wildest dreams. Where before we had one thrivingly successful Church, we now have two, in a state of perfect schism, the Orthodox and the Deodatists. Overall attendances are up twenty-one per cent. And," he added with a grin, "the Deodatists – your lot, I guess; our wholly owned subsidiary – are particularly generous with their donations. At this rate, we should be in a position to retire by the end of the current financial year." He stopped and frowned. "Hang on," he said. "Didn't Accila explain all this to you, the night before the –?"

  Earthquake. I winced. I could see precisely what had happened. In our brief conversation in my cell, I'd so annoyed Accila that he'd flounced off in a huff – intending, no doubt, to come back later and try again when he'd had a chance to simmer down. But then the earthquake happened, I vanished; Accila either neglected to mention to the others that he hadn't had a chance to fill me in on the plan, or else was ashamed of having flown off the handle and cocked it up, so kept quiet. Bloody fool. Next time I saw him, I'd kick his arse.

  "Of course he did," I said. "Sorry, I'm being a bit slow. I think I may have banged my head."

  Zanipulus relaxed and grinned at me. "That's all right," he said. "For a moment there, I was really worried. I thought,
what must he be thinking of us? He must reckon we're horrible."

  "You might have warned me," I said, "about the hanging thing. It was really convincing. If I hadn't known –"

  "Oh, that." He tried not to look smug. "Basically, just a really carefully padded noose and a precisely calculated drop, though there's a bit more to it than that, obviously. I'll draw it out for you some day, if you're interested."

  "So," I said. "I'm dead. What now?"

  He shrugged. "Up to you entirely," he said. "We've worked out your share." He named a figure, which made my head swim. "Accila was all for deducting the money you took from us with all those weird schemes of yours, but the rest of us managed to calm him down, make him see it was ultimately good for business – laying the foundations for the Deodatist schism, that sort of thing – and he came round in the end and he's fine about it now." He grinned. "If it's all right with you, we'll pay you half now in cash and the balance in instalments over, say, ten years, to save us from liquidity problems. Or if you prefer, we can give you rentcharges, the reversions on Church properties, it's entirely up to you. After all, we owe you a great deal. We'd never have maintained and increased our rate of exponential growth without you."

  "Cash and instalments will be just fine," I told him.

  "Splendid." He sat up a bit straighter. "So," he said, "any idea what you're going to do next? The world, as they say, is your oyster."

  "I hate oysters."

  "So you do, I'd forgotten. Any plans? Or are you just going to bugger off to the sun and enjoy yourself?"

  Interesting choice of words. Deliberate? Who gives a shit? Motive is irrelevant. "I think that's what I'll do," I said. "Looking back, I never enjoyed my life particularly much. So I'm hoping my death will be one long giggle."

  As part of my severance package, I received a one-fifth share in the net profits of Officina Solis Invicti, a wholly-owned trading consortium with interests in, among other things, shipbuilding and arms production. That has proved to be a real slice of luck – heaven-sent, you might say – what with the dreadful wars we've been having lately, between the Orthodox empire and the Deodatist Aelians and Vesani. As I write this, Zanipulus is in the process of setting up a chain of arm's-length offshore subsidiaries so that OSI can open factories in Aelia and the Vesani republic, and we can start selling ships and weapons to both sides. And why not? It's only fair; last I heard, the Vesani had taken a hell of a beating from the empire, on account of their vastly superior military technology. It wouldn't do for God to be seen to be taking sides.

  Motive is irrelevant. The war is a terrible thing, but it was coming anyway, it was inevitable; once the empire had sorted out its traditional enemy the Herulians, it was only a matter of time before it picked a fight with the Vesani, the Aelians, anyone else it could find. By having the war now, and over religion rather than trade or boundaries, we limit the damage. It's highly unlikely that the empire will win, particularly if OSI arms the opposition. Defeat, or a stalemate, will put a limit on imperial expansionism for a century or more. As a result, tens of thousands of soldiers won't die, millions of civilians won't be enslaved. History will thank us, I have absolutely no doubt.

  Meanwhile, every trachy I get from OSI, my estates in the Mesoge, my mercantile and other investments, goes to feed the war refugees. I live here among them in the Chrysopolis camp, sharing their bad water and their plain, barely sufficient food, and I have to say, it's pretty horrible. We live in tents, or shacks built out of scrap packing cases. The refugees are surly and miserable, they yell at me and sometimes throw stones, because they have no idea what I'm doing there. Their idea of hygiene is rudimentary at best. I've nearly given up trying to keep them from slaughtering each other over trivial disputes (nearly) – beyond keeping them alive, I can't say I've done very much for them. But there's so many of them, a hundred, hundred and fifty thousand; all rabid Deodatists. Really, the only thing that keeps them going is their faith, which got them into this dreadful state in the first place and sustains them in the face of the torments of hell. The Invincible Sun, and the glorious example of His true prophet Deodatus, who died for them that they might live; except he didn't, but I wouldn't dream of telling them that.

  In fact, I don't dream of anything. At first, I was bitterly disappointed. I felt I was owed, at the very least, a well-done-my-good-and-faithfulservant, followed by a long overdue explanation and, just possibly, an apology. I'd have liked something, rather than complete and impenetrable silence. But there; they say that up in the Calianna Mountains there's an ancient Velitist monastery whose monks have spent the last two thousand years waiting for their gods to apologise for the Creation. They're hopeful, so reports say, but they aren't holding their breath.

  THE PROMISE OF SPACE

  James Patrick Kelly

  James Patrick Kelly (www.jimkelly.net) has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays and planetarium shows. His most recent book is a collection of stories entitled The Wreck Of The Godspeed. His short novel Burn won the Nebula Award in 2007. He has won Hugo Award for his novelettes "Think Like A Dinosaur" and "Ten to the Sixteenth to One." With John Kessel he is co-editor of five anthologies, most recently Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology. He is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and on the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation.

  Capture 06/15/2051, Kerwin Hospital ICU, 09:12:32

  … and my writer pals used to tease that I married Captain Kirk.

  A clarification, please? Are you referring to William Shatner, who died in 2023? Or is this Chris Pine, who was cast in the early remakes? It appears he has retired. Perhaps you mean the new one? Jools Bear?

  No, you. Kirk Anderson. People used to call you that, remember? First man to set foot on Phobos? Pilot on the Mars landing team?

  Captain Kirk.

  I do not understand. Clearly I participated in those missions since they are on the record. But I was never captain of anything.

  A joke, Andy. They were teasing you. It's why you hated your first name.

  Noted. Go on.

  No, this is impossible. I feel like I'm talking to an intelligent fucking database, not my husband. I don't know where to begin with you.

  Please, Zoe. I cannot do this without you. Go on.

  Okay, okay, but do me a favor? Use some contractions, will you? Contractions are your friends.

  Noted.

  Do you know when we met?

  I haven't yet had the chance to review that capture. We were married in 2043. Presumably we met before that?

  Not much before. Where were you on Saturday, May 17, 2042? Check your captures.

  The capture shows that I flew from Spaceways headquarters at Spaceport America to the LaGuardia Hub in New York and spent the day in Manhattan at the Metropolitan Museum. That night I gave the keynote address at the Nebula Awards banquet in the Crown Plaza Hotel but my caps were disengaged. The Nebula is awarded each year by the World Science Fiction Writers….

  I was nominated that year for best livebook, Shadows on the Sun. You came up to me at the reception, said you were a fan. That you had all five of my Sidewise series in your earstone when you launched for Mars that first time. You joked you had a thing for Nacky Martinez. I was thrilled and flattered. After all, you were top of the main menu, one of the six hero marsnauts. Things I'd only imagined, you'd actually done. And you'd read my work and you were flirting with me and, holy shit, you were Captain Kirk. When people – friends, famous writers – tried to break into our conversation, they just bounced off us. Nobody remembers who won what award that night, but lots of people still talk about how we locked in.

  I just looked it up. You lost that Nebula.;

  Yeah. Thanks for reminding me.

  You had on a hat.

  A hat? Okay. But I always wore hats back then. It was a way to stand out, part of my brand – for all the good it did me. My hair was a three act tragedy anyway, so I wore a lo
t of hats.

  This one was a bowler hat. It was blue – midnight blue. With a powder blue band. Thin, I remember the hatband was very thin.

  Maybe. I don't remember that one. Nice try, though.

  Tell me more. What happened next?

  Jesus, this is so wrong… No, I'm sorry, Andy. Give me your hand. You always had such delicate hands. Such clever fingers.

  I can still remember that my mom had an old Baldwin upright piano that she wanted me to learn to play, but my hands were too small. You're crying. Are you crying?

  I am not. Just shut up and listen. This isn't easy and I'm only saying it because maybe the best part of you is still trapped in there like they claim and just maybe this augment really can set it free. So, we were sitting at different tables at the banquet but after it was over, you found me again and asked if I wanted to go out for drinks. We escaped the hotel, looking for a place to be alone, and found a night-shifted Indonesian restaurant with a bar a couple of blocks away. It was called Fatty Prawn or Fatty Crab – Fatty Something. We sat at the bar and switched from alcohol to inhalers and talked. A lot. Pretty much the rest of the night, in fact. Considering that you were a man and famous and ex-Air Force, you were a good listener. You wanted to know how hard it was to get published and where I got my plots and who I like to read. I was impressed that you had read a lot of the classic science fiction old-timers like Kress and LeGuin and Bacigalupi. You told me what I got wrong about living in space, and then raved about stuff in my books that you thought nobody but spacers knew. Around four in the morning we got hungry and since you'd never had Indonesian before, we split a gadogado salad with egg and tofu. I spent too much time deconstructing my divorce and you were polite about yours. You said your ex griped about how you spent too much time in space, and I made a joke about how Kass would have said the same thing about me. I asked if you were ever scared out there and you said sure, and that landings were worse than the launches because you had so much time leading up to them. You used to wake up on the outbound trips in a sweat. To change the subject, I told you about waking up with entire scenes or story outlines in my head and how I had to get up in the middle of the night and write them down or I would lose them. You made a crack about wanting to see that in person. The restaurant was about to close for the morning and, by that time, dessert sex was definitely on the menu, so I asked if you ever got horny on a mission. That's how I found out that one of the side effects of the anti-radiation drugs was low testosterone levels. We established that you were no longer taking them. I would have invited you back to my room right then only you told me that you had to catch a seven-twenty flight back to El Paso. There still might have been enough time, except that I was rooming with Rachel van der Haak, and, when we had gotten high before the banquet, we had promised each other we'd steer clear of men while our shields were down. And of course, when I thought about it, there was the awkward fact that you were twenty years older than I was. A girl has got to wonder what's up with her when she wants to take daddy to bed.