Nebula Awards Showcase 2019

by Rebecca Roanhorse

  A woman stands outside the window, and even from across the room, the glare of her violet eyes shines brighter than the sun. She has the same shape of face, the same nose as Fish. “I been looking for you all day!”

  “Moms!” Fish says, dropping her pad. She leaps to her feet.

  I walk to the front door to let the woman in, but she gives me a look as if I’m a demon come to eat her soul and stays put. “DOLANDRA!” she shouts.

  Fish sprints around my legs, outside and onto the grass. Her shirt and hands are stained black as she stands beside her mother, head hung low, and I can’t help but feel guilty even though I know I’ve done nothing wrong.

  “Why you shut your neural?” her mom says, eyeing me. “What the bones and dreck, girl?”

  “I’s . . .” Fish says. “I’s drawing, Moms.”

  The woman stares lasers at me. “I got your number,” she says. “You stay the fuck away from my daughter, or I show you real Ardabaabian justice.” She grabs Fish by the shirt and yanks her away, down the path toward the sea. Before they turn around a bend of sugarcane, Fish looks back.

  I wave goodbye, because I have a feeling I’ll never see her again.

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  The bungalow is quiet without Fish’s exuberance. I try to write on the porch, but find myself scribbling random shapes on the page, which pale in comparison to her art. I try the beach, seeking the inspiration I found on my first days here, hoping Fish might return to plop beside me. But I meet only wind and floating gulls and the occasional ship drifting slowly across the sky. To jar my inspiration I buy a neur-graft of Gardni Johnner and experience her famous BASE jump on Enceledus, the one where she tore her suit on a rock and nearly died. But this just leaves me shaken and craving solid earth. At night I drink and stare at Fish’s drawings, following each delicate line, wishing she were here. And still my words do not flow. I’m as dry as a lizard carcass in the sun.

  The baby lizard still sits in the yard, just leather now. Even the ants have departed for tastier shores. The rain and wind have tossed it about, but the carcass lingers always near, as if it’s trying to tell me something.

  “I know,” I tell it. “I know.”

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  It’s been six days since Fish has left, and I’ve written a sum total of negative three thousand words (I have scrapped two chapters) when I activate my neural for the first time since I arrived. I request a skinsuit from the local We, and after it instructs me on the standard safety precautions—using my dead wife’s voice again, the bastard—I walk down to the beach.

  I’ve found the address of one Dolandra Thyme Heurex in the local wiki, and my neural guides me to her home. While the hot sun slowly rises over the placid waters, I wade into the turquoise sea. I’ve swum in a skinsuit before, but my heart still pounds as I fully submerge. Fins grow from my feet and hands, and black-and-yellow striping appears on my body to mimic a local species.

  And there are many. Their sheer number and palettes of bright colors make me gasp. It’s as if some ancient god let her creative spirit loose on the canvas of the sea. Crimson and gold fans of coral wave like bashful geishas of old. Barracudas peer curiously at me before swimming off. Schools of fish flash in the sun as they dart from my grasp. In the distance, a pair of bottle-nosed dolphins inspect a sponge on the sea floor.

  Fish’s house is set among a group of blue-gray domes in twenty meters of water. I swim up to the door and try the chime.

  “Who’s there?” I recognize the voice of Fish’s mom.

  “Havair Heurex? It’s Reuth Bryan Diaso. I’d like to speak with you about your daughter.”

  “I warned you!” she says.

  “Look,” I say. “I did nothing wrong and won’t apologize. Your daughter is a supremely talented artist. She was illustrating my book. I’m an author—”

  “A what?”

  “An author.”

  A wiki-length pause. “Go on.”

  “The truth is, Havair Heurex, your daughter and I have become friends. I respect your decision to keep her from me—you don’t know me at all—but I wanted you to know what a talented artist she is, and I hope that you’ll encourage her to pursue it in the future, that you won’t keep her from her art.”

  The channel is still open, but I hear only silence.

  “Anyway, that’s all I wanted to say. Good-bye, Havair Heurex.”

  A beep. The connection closes. I’m just about to swim off when the side of the dome shivers and a panel slides open. A door, for me.

  I swim in, the panel closes, the water drains, and the pressure equalizes. My skinsuit, sensing air, melts away. The inner door opens into a spacious and tidy living room. The outside of the dome was opaque, but from within the walls are transparent. The sea and its colorful fish surround us. Fish’s mom stands in a wavering sunbeam, violet eyes flickering. “Why you write novels if no one reads them?”

  Pads and scraps of paper are spread across the living room, each covered with a different drawing. Fountain pens lie everywhere. “The same reason,” I say, “that Fish continues to draw. I can’t stop.”

  “Her name is Dolandra.”

  “She told me her name was Fish.”

  “We moved under the sea because of her. Every day she gets up before dawn to watch the fish in the sunrise.”

  “It’s her favorite thing.”

  “I know.” Havair Heurex flares her nose at me, an expression that reminds me of her daughter. She turns to her kitchenette. “Would you like some tea?”

  “I’d love some, thank you.”

  She pours me a cup and it’s better than anything I’ve had in a long time. “No one shuts off their neural round here,” she says. “When I found you with my daughter that day, I got nervous.”

  “I don’t blame you. You were only being a mother.”

  “I looked you up. Not your public wiki. I . . . I used some favors. I got the local We to glean some of your private data.”

  I hold back my anger. Yet one more reason to hate the local Wees. “Oh?”

  “You’re dying?”

  I nod. “Decades ago I drank Europan sea water. It’s loaded with—”

  “Microorganisms.” Eyes wide, she retreats from me a step.

  I hold up my hand. “Don’t worry, I’m not contagious. But those microorganisms are loaded with genetic material similar to—but different enough from—our own that over fifty Solar years they’ve altered my biochemistry to the point that one day soon I simply won’t wake up. If they’d discovered this forty years ago, they might have fixed me. But the genetic damage is too far gone now. I guess it’s my punishment for one stupid night of hallucinogenic bliss.”

  Havair Heurex sighs deeply. “So you’ve come to Ardabaab to die?”

  A school of rainbow parrotfish swims past the window. “It just seemed like the right place. Also, I came here to finish my last novel. Fish . . . she’s been a muse of sorts. She reminds me a bit of my daughter. Is she here?”

  “She’s with her uncle on the other side of the planet.”

  “Well,” I say, standing. “Thank you for your hospitality, Havair Heurex, but I should be going if I’m to finish my book before . . .”

  “Yes,” she says. “Good luck and all.”

  “Thank you,” I say, heading for the door. But I pause. “Does Fish know?”

  “That you’re dying?”

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t told her.”

  “Then if it’s all the same, please keep it that way.” I look around the room at her many drawings. “She seems to be doing just fine without me.”

  “So you’re the last one?” she says, and I know what she means.

  “Goodbye, Havair Heurex.”

  I swim away from her underwater home, and when I arrive back at the bungalow that afternoon, I surprise a green monke
y while it’s inspecting the dead lizard. The monkey leaps away, leaving the carcass behind.

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  I press every page of my book, inserting lithographs of Fish’s drawings throughout the text. But my novel is incomplete. I have the final chapters yet to write. And as each day comes to a close and I look at my hastily scrawled words that make no sense I worry that I won’t finish this before I die.

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  “Moms says I can see you again, long as I keep my neural on.”

  Fish stands above my bed, the morning light slicing my bedroom in half.

  I sit up. “Fish! Hello!”

  “I’s at my uncle’s,” she says. “But I’s back now. Get up you loafing fool, ’cause we gots work to do!”

  I laugh, and it’s as if a switch has been flipped and an engine turned on. My words flow as easily as water again. I will finish this after all.

  Fish comes by every day now. In the mornings, she studies the art of bookbinding. In the afternoons, she creates new illustrations. She says we have too many, but I tell her there’s always room for more art.

  She draws: Yvalu’s transport ship landing in heavy rain; a flock of migrating sea birds on Muandiva silhouetted in the bright sun; a pine forest reflected in the glassy lake of Naa; Yvalu and Ubalo, da Vinci-like, reaching for each other’s hand, galaxies swirling behind them; Yvalu tasting the dirt of Muandiva. And sometimes, she inks words, which she will never let me read.

  I write:

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  “Yes, I’s seen him,” the street vendor said to Yvalu as she showed the woman a holo of Ubalo’s likeness. “On Suntiks, he sat over there in the shade, throwing back lagers, listening to them steel drum bands.”

  “You sure?” Yvalu said, her hopes rising. “You certain?”

  “Absolute,” the woman said. “Certain as Shaddai makes the sun rise and the stars turn.” She made the namaste gesture and bowed. “This mentsh, he were here, same as you stand now.”

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  I pause to laugh.

  “What is it?” Fish says, eyes flashing as she looks up from her pad.

  “I’ve figured it out!” I say. “I know how my book will end.”

  “Don’t tell me!” Fish says. “I want it to be a surprise.”

  “Okay,” I say, smiling. “Okay.”

  Later, when the sun dips low, Fish goes home, and I head out to the porch to relax in the cooling afternoon. The early stars emerge, their constellations familiar to me now. The sugarcane bends in the breeze. The crickets chirp in the grass. High above, a ship, bright as a star, moves across the sky and vanishes. I take a deep breath. I’m so tired. So damn tired. But all is good, all is good.

  I search the yard, but the lizard is gone.

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  “Reuth Bryan Diaso, citizen of Ganesha City, Mars. Born on Google Base Natarajan, Earth orbit, one gravity Earth-natural. Died on Ardabaab, Eish orbit. Age: ninety-one by Sol, two hundred ninety-three by Shoen.”

  So says Reuth’s wiki now. In the morning, I’s coming to see him, but he wasn’t in bed. Why don’t he answer my call? I thought. Where’s he at?

  I found him under a coconut tree, flat on the grass. He get real intox and pass out? The ants were on him something bad.

  Moms and I buried him in the sea. We thought he’d like that, being with all them colorful fish. His wife and kid died a long time ago, I learned. And that crazy fool left everything to me!

  Mornings are stellar quiet without the sounds of his pen on paper and the clink of setting type. There ain’t no more words to press. Moms don’t like it, but I sit out back in his bungalow, drinking tea, watching the gulls cross the sky, just like him.

  A baby lizard skitters ’cross the deck and pauses to gaze at me. I pick up my pen and write:

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  “Don’t you worry, Ubalo!” Yvalu shouts to the stars. “I’s confused before, but not no more. I know where you at, and I’s coming to get you!” Yvalu walks freylik down to the sea, cause that’s where the most beautiful fish swim, specially in mornings, when the sun comes up and turns them bright rainbows. “I know you hiding under there, waiting for me, Ubalo, so you best be shiny. I got such a kiss waiting for you, it’ll make stars shine, it’ll make universes.”

  END

  Small Changes Over Long Periods of Time

  K.M. Szpara

  I'm trying to piss against a wall when the vampire bites me. Trying because drunk-me can barely hold a glass, much less maneuver a limp prosthetic cock.

  My attacker holds me like he did on the dance floor, one arm wrapped around my chest, this time digging into my ribs. I struggle against his supernatural strength and the slow constriction of my lungs. Through ragged breaths, I inhale the Old Spice on his thick black hair, where he bows his head to grip my neck.

  The sting of his fangs barely registers and what does shoots straight to my cunt—can’t help it. If I knew he weren’t going to kill me, I’d relish the shock and pain, loss of control. I kind of do, anyway. His venom numbs my neck but I can still feel the strong clamp of his jaw. Like a new piercing, my body screams to reject the intrusion. I want to stay awake—stay pressed between his cold hard body and the cold hard wall. I want him to touch me, reach between my legs. I want to stay alive.

  But the wall discolors; the red bricks spot with gray until they fuzz over and dull. My last thought before passing out is how weirdly validating it is that this cis gay guy targeted me, when I was too scared to even piss inside the bar’s men’s room.

  ◉ ◉ ◉

  My phone blares like there’s a Red Alert. I check the alarm. Oh right. I signed up for that Open Life-Drawing class at the community center. At 9:00 a.m. After half-priced vodka night. Optimistic.

  When I sit up, the full weight of my headache settles into my skull. I press a hand against my forehead to ease the pressure, but end up squinting at a dimly lit room. Not any room I’ve slept in before.

  The only light blurs from down a narrow hallway. Windows the size of cinder blocks line the top of each wall, but neatly hemmed black-out curtains fill them and glossy Ikea tchotchkes sit in front of those.

  I’m in a guest room, I assume. At the very least, I’m on a hard futon surrounded by throw pillows and machine-made quilts. I’m still dressed and—I lie back and shove my right hand down the front of my briefs—still packing. Just a little damp from my adventures in peeing outside.

  “You’re alive.” A familiar man leans against the threshold, holding a mug that says “Don’t talk to me until I’ve had my evening blood.” on the side. His skin is pale, but not pallid. His pose casual, but precise.

  “Barely,” is all I can think to say. Did we fuck? I don’t usually go home with strangers, much less drunk, much much less with vampires. I have fantasized about it, though. Maybe I finally did.

  “How do you feel?”

  “Hungover.”

  His chuckle resonates in his mouth, not his chest. The young ones react fairly human, still drawing air into useless lungs for huffs and sighs and rolling laughs. This one is clearly making an effort for my sake but is too old to get it right. I give him a seven out of ten.

  I’d feel a little better if I could remember his damn name, though, and I don’t know how to ask without also revealing I don’t know how I ended up in his guest room.

  “It’s Andreas,” he tells me. “And you’re Finley.”

  “O-Okay. I mean, I didn’t—” I trip over explanations of why I forgot his name before reminding myself I still haven’t asked.

  Scenes from last night force themselves on me; I watch them more than remember them. Drunk fumbling, a cold alley wall, and the rigid clamp of a jaw—his jaw, Andreas’s. The mix of pleasure and fear that slices through me isn’t a memory.

  “You bit me,” I say, because he hasn’t danced
around mystery, either. My grand accusation comes out as, “You’re not supposed to do that.”

  “I was hungry,” he says, calmly. Like the obvious result of hunger is biting someone.

  “So, go to a blood bank like you’re supposed to.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Yeah, because it doesn’t hurt people.” I pause. “You’re not still hungry, are you?”

  “I’m not going to bite you again, if that’s what you’re asking. I—” This time, he pauses. “—do regret what happened.”

  “Good.” I shake my hand out to stunt the tremor that seizes it. Nausea brews in my gut, dizziness behind my eyelids. I press the heels of my hands against my temples. “You don’t happen to have any Ibuprofen, do you?”

  “No.”

  “And we didn’t fuck, right?”

  “No.”

  “Great, then I’m going to head home—”

  The next second, the futon dips and he’s beside me. He presses a cool hand against my burning forehead. “You’re not hungover,” he says. “You’re dying.”

  His words impact me like news of a foreign tragedy: I know they’re bad but struggle to connect on a personal level.

  “And it’s my fault.” His hand tenses before he pulls it away.

  I flop back onto the futon and stare at the cream-colored ceiling. A fan spins overhead; the moving air ruffles Andreas’s shiny hair, an illusion of life.

  I don’t want to die.

  “You don’t have to.” Andreas replies to my thoughts again.

  I didn’t know vampires could do that.

  “Only the old ones.”

  “Would you let me die in peace?” I shout over the pounding in my skull.

  His shrug is too precise, like his shoulders are tied to a wooden toy’s pull string. Up, down. “If that’s what you want.”

  “Thank you.” I want to cry—try to cry. Before I started testosterone, I’d cry reading Bridge to Terabithia or watching a made-for-TV movie. I liked crying, the catharsis of it, the physical purge of sadness.