Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 2)

by Anthology

  A group of five red-and-black laborers, each over two and a half meters tall, waded through the crowd singing—or at least chattering rhythmically in unison. A swarm of black juveniles crawled over them in the opposite direction, flinging handfuls of glittering green rings into the air. All around, aliens large and small spun in circles, waving their hands in the air. Some pounded drums or wheedled on high-pitched flutes.

  A yellow merchant with black spines grabbed Walker’s elbows and began spinning the two of them around, colliding with walls and with other members of the crowd. The merchant chattered happily as they spun, but its words were lost in the maelstrom of sound that surrounded them. “Let go! Let go!” Walker shouted, clutching his suitcase and his bag as he tried to squirm away, but the merchant couldn’t hear—or wasn’t listening—and its chitinous hands were terribly strong.

  Finally Walker managed to twist out of the merchant’s grasp, only to spin away and collide with one of the hulking laborers. Its unyielding spines tore Walker’s jacket.

  The laborer stopped chanting and turned to face Walker. It grasped his shoulders, turned him side to side. “What are you?” it shouted. Its breath was fetid.

  “Visitor from Earth,” Walker shouted back, barely able to hear himself.

  The laborer called to its companions, which had moved on through the crowd. They fought their way back, and the five of them stood around him, completely blocking the light.

  “This one is a visitor from h’th,” said the first laborer.

  One of the others grabbed a handful of green rings from a passing juvenile, scattered them over Walker’s head and shoulders. They watched him expectantly.

  “Thank you?” he said. But that didn’t seem to be what they wanted.

  The first laborer cuffed Walker on the shoulder, sending him reeling into one of the others. “The visitor is not very polite,” it said. The aliens loomed close around him.

  “This-most-humble-one-begs-the-honored-one’s-forgiveness,” Walker chattered out, clutching the carry-bag to his chest, wishing for the lost solidity of his grandfather’s briefcase. But the laborers ignored his apology and began to twirl him around, shouting in unison.

  After a few dozen spins he made out the words of the chant: “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Desperately, not at all sure he was doing the right thing, he tried to dance in circles as he had seen some of the aliens do.

  The laborers pulled the bag from Walker’s hands and began to stomp their feet. “Rings, dance! Rings, dance!” Walker waved his arms in the air as he spun, chanting along with them. His breath came in short pants, destroying his pronunciation.

  He twirled, gasping “rings, dance,” until he felt the hot sun on his head, and twirled a while longer until he understood what that sun meant: the laborers, and their shade, had deserted him. He was spinning for no reason, in the middle of a crowd that took no notice. He stopped turning and dropped his arms, weaving with dizziness and relief. But the relief lasted only a moment—sudden panic seized him as he realized his arms were empty.

  There was the carry-bag, just a meter away, lying in the dirt surrounded by chitinous alien feet. He plowed through the crowd and grabbed it before it got too badly stomped.

  But though he searched for an hour, he never found the suitcase.

  Walker leaned, panting, against the outside wall of Amber Stone’s factory. He had fought through the surging streets for hours, hugging the bag to his chest under his tightly buttoned jacket, to reach this point. Again and again he had been sprinkled with green rings and had danced in circles, feeling ridiculous, but not wanting to find out what might happen if he refused. He was hot and sweaty and filthy.

  The still-damp pheromone line drawn across the office’s labia read CLOSED FOR FTHSHPK.

  Walker covered his face with his hands. Sobs thick as glue clogged the back of his throat, and he stood with shoulders heaving, not allowing himself to make a sound. The holiday crowd streamed past like a river of blackberry vines.

  Eventually he recovered his composure and blew his nose, patting his waist as he pocketed the sodden handkerchief. His money belt, with the two hard little rectangles of his passport and return ticket, was still in place. All he had to do was walk to the transit gate, and he could return home—with nothing to show for his appallingly expensive trip. But he still had his papers, his phone, and his reader, and his one prospective customer. It was everything he needed to succeed, as long as he didn’t give up.

  “I might have lost your briefcase, Grandpa,” he said aloud in English, “but I’m not going to lose the sale.”

  A passing juvenile paused at the odd sound, then continued on with the rest of the crowd.

  Walker would never have believed he’d be glad to see anything on this planet, but his relief when he entered the Spirit of Life Vegetarian Restaurant was palpable. The city’s tortuous streets had been made even more incomprehensible by the Fthshpk crowds, and he had begun to doubt he would ever find it, or that it would be open on the holiday. He had been going in entirely the wrong direction when he had found the address by chance, on the pheromone-map at a nearby intersection.

  “How long Fthshpk?” he asked the server, once he had eaten. It was the same server as before, brown with white spine-tips; it stood behind the counter, hands folded on its thorax, in a centered and imperturbable stance.

  “One day,” it replied. “Though some believe the spirit of Fthshpk should be felt in every heart all year long.”

  Walker suppressed a shudder at the thought. “Businesses open tomorrow?”

  “Most of them, yes. Some trades take an extended holiday.”

  “Building supplies?” Walker’s anxiety made him sputter the word.

  “They will be open.” The server tilted its shoulders, a posture that seemed to convey amusement. “The most honored visitor is perhaps planning a construction project?”

  “No.” He laughed weakly, a sound that startled the server. “Selling, not buying.”

  “The visitor is a most intriguing creature.” The server’s shoulders returned to the horizontal. “This humble one wishes to help, but does not know how.”

  “This one seeks business customers. The server knows manufacturers? Inventory controllers? Enterprise resource management specialists?”

  “The guest’s words are in the Thfshpfth language, but alas, this one does not understand them.”

  “To apologize. Very specialized business.”

  The server lowered itself smoothly, bringing its face down to Walker’s level. Its gills moved like seaweed in a gentle current. “Business problems are not this one’s strength. Is the honored visitor having troubles with family?”

  It took Walker a moment to formulate his response. “No. Egg-parent, brood-parent deceased. This one no egglings. Brood-partner . . . departed.” For a moment he forgot who, or what, he was talking to. “This one spent too much time away from nest. Brood-partner found another egg-partner.” He fell silent, lost in memory.

  The server stood quietly for a moment, leaving Walker to his thoughts. After a while it spoke: “It is good to share these stories. Undigested stories cause pain.”

  “Thanking you.”

  “This humble one is known as Shining Sky. If the visitor wishes to share further stories, please return to this establishment and request this one by name.”

  When Walker left the Spirit of Life, the sun had already set. The Fthshpk crowds had thinned, with just a few revelers still dancing and twirling under the yellow-green street lights, so Walker was relatively unimpeded as he walked to hotel after hotel. Alas, they all said, this humble one apologizes most profusely, no room for the most honored visitor. Finally, exhausted, he found a dark space between buildings. Wrapping his jacket around the carry-bag, he placed it under his head—as a pillow, and for security. He would grab a few hours’ sleep and meet with his customer the first thing in the morning.

  He slept soundly until dawn, when the first hot light of day struck his face.
He squinted and rolled over, then awoke fully at the sensation of the hard alley floor under his head.

  The bag was not there.

  He sat up, wide-eyed, but his worst fears were confirmed: his jacket and bag were nowhere to be seen. Panicked, he felt at his waist—his passport and return ticket were safe. But his money, his papers, his phone, and his reader were gone.

  “Ah, human!” said Amber Stone. “Once again the most excellent visitor graces this unworthy establishment.” It was late in the morning. Robbed of street signs, addresses, and maps by the loss of his reader, Walker had wandered the streets for hours in search of the factory. Without the accustomed weight of his briefcase, he felt as though he might blow away on the next breeze.

  “You requested I come yesterday,” Walker hissed. “I come, factory closed. Come again today. Very important.” Even without the papers from his briefcase, he could still get a verbal commitment, or at least a strong expression of interest . . . some tiny tidbit of achievement to prove to his company, his father, his grandfather, and himself that he wasn’t a complete loss.

  “Surely the superlative guest has more important appointments than to meet with this insignificant one?”

  “No. Amber Stone is most important appointment. Urgent we discuss purchase of software.”

  “This groveling one extends the most sincere apologies for occupying the exalted guest’s time, and will not delay the most highly esteemed one any further.” It turned to leave.

  “This-most-humble-one-begs-the-honored-one’s-forgiveness!”

  Amber Stone spoke without turning back. “One who appears at a merchant’s establishment filthy, staggering, and reeking of Fthshpk-rings is obviously one whose concerns are so exalted as to be beyond the physical plane. Such a one should not be distracted from its duties, which are surely incomprehensible to mere mortals.”

  Walker’s shoulders slumped in defeat, but then it was as though he heard his father’s voice in his inner ear: Ask for the sale. Walker swallowed, then said “Would the honored Amber Stone accept indefinite loan of inventory management system from this humble merchant?”

  The alien paused at the threshold of its inner office, then turned back to Walker. “If that is what the most exalted one desires, this simple manufacturer must surely pay heed. Would fifty-three million be sufficient compensation for the loan of a complete system?”

  Stunned, Walker leaned against the wall. It was warm and rounded, and throbbed slightly. “Yes,” he said at last. “Yes. Sufficient.”

  “Where the hell have you been, Walker? Your phone’s been offline for days. And you look like shit.” Gleason, Walker’s supervisor, didn’t look very good himself—his face on the public phone’s oval screen was discolored and distorted by incompatibilities between the alien and human systems.

  “I’ve been busy.” He inserted Amber Stone’s data-nodule into the phone’s receptor.

  Gleason’s eyes widened as the contract came up on his display. “Yes you have! This is great!”

  “Thanks.” Gleason’s enthusiasm could not penetrate the shell of numbness around Walker’s soul. Whatever joy he might have felt at making the sale had been drowned by three days of negotiations.

  “This will make you the salesman of the quarter! And the party’s tomorrow night!”

  The End-of-Quarter party. He thought of the bluff and facile faces of his fellow salesmen, the loutish jokes and cheap congratulations of every other EOQ he’d ever attended. Would it really be any different if his name was the one at the top of the list? And then to return to his empty apartment, and go out the next day to start a new quarter from zero. . . .

  “Sorry,” Walker said, “I can’t make it.”

  “That’s right, what am I thinking? It’s gotta be at least a five day trip, with all the transfers. Look, give me a call whenever you get in. You got my home number?”

  “It’s in my phone.” Wherever that was.

  “Okay, well, I gotta go. See you soon.”

  He sat in the dim, stuffy little booth for a long time. The greenish oval of the phone screen looked like a pool of stagnant water, draining slowly away, reflecting the face of a man with no family, no dog, no little house in the woods. And though he might be the salesman of the quarter today, there were a lot of quarters between here and retirement, and every one of them would be just as much work.

  Eventually came the rap of chitinous knuckles on the wall of the booth, and a voice. “This most humble one begs the worthy customer’s forgiveness. Other customers desire to use the phone.”

  The booth cracked open like a seed pod. Walker stuck out his head, blinking at the light, and the public phone attendant said “Ah, most excellent customer. This most unworthy one trusts your call went well?”

  “Yes. Most well.”

  “The price of the call is two hundred sixty-three.”

  Walker had about six in cash in his pants pockets. The rest had vanished with his jacket. He thought a moment, then dug in his money belt and pulled out a tiny plastic rectangle.

  “What is this?”

  “Ticket to Earth.”

  “An interstellar transit ticket? To Earth? Surely this humble one has misheard.”

  “Interstellar. To Earth.”

  “This is worth thousands!”

  “Yes.” Then, in English, he said “Keep the change.”

  He left the attendant sputtering in incomprehension behind him.

  The man was cursing the heat and the crowds as he pushed through the restaurant’s labia from the street, but when he saw Walker he stopped dead and just gaped for a moment. “Jesus!” he said at last, in English. “I thought I was the only human being on this Godforsaken planet.”

  Walker was lean and very tan; his salt-and-pepper hair and beard were long but neatly combed, and he stood with folded hands in an attitude of centered harmony. He wore only a short white skirt. “Greetings,” he said in the Thfshpfth language, as he always did. “This one welcomes the peaceful visitor to the Spirit of Life.”

  “What are you doing here?” The English words were ludicrously loud and round.

  Walker tapped his teeth together, making a sound like tk’tk’tk, before he replied in English: “I am . . . serving food.” The sound of it tickled his mouth.

  “On this planet, I mean.”

  “I live here.”

  “But why did you come here? And why the Hell did you stay?”

  Walker paused for a moment. “I came to sell something. It was an Earth thing. The people here didn’t need it. After a while I understood, and stopped trying. I’ve been much happier since.” He gestured to one of the squatting-posts. “Please seat yourself.”

  “I, uh . . . I think I’ll pass.”

  “You’re sure? The thksh hspthk is very good today.”

  “Thanks, but no.” The man turned to go, but then he paused, pulled some money from his pocket, ran a reader over it. “Here,” he said, handing it to Walker. “Good luck.”

  As the restaurant’s labia closed behind the visitor, Walker touched the money, then smelled his fingertip. Three hundred and eleven, a substantial sum.

  He smiled, put the money in the donation jar, and settled in to wait for the next customer.