Year's Best SF 8
Page 7
Even though the poem was not erotic, my male and female parts became increasingly excited. Ah! I was rubbing against myself. Ah! I was making soft noises! The poet and scribe could not feel this sexual pleasure, of course, but the sight of the rest of me tumbling on the rug was distracting. Yes, neuters are clear-eyed and rational, but they are also curious; and nothing arouses their curiosity more than sex. They stopped working on the poem and watched as I fondled myself.5
Only the scout remained detached from sensuality and went into the defecating closet. Coming out with a bucket of cold water, the scout poured it over my amorous bodies.
I sprang apart, yelling with shock.
“This is more magic,” the scout said. “I did not know a spell inciting lust could be worked at such a distance, but evidently it can. Every part of me that is male or female, go in the bathroom! Wash in cold water till the idea of sex becomes uninteresting! As for my neuter parts—” The scout glared. “Get back to the poem!”
“Why has one part of me escaped the spell?” I asked the scout.
“I did not think I could lactate without laying an egg first, but the child’s attempts to nurse have caused my body to produce milk. As a rule, nursing mothers are not interested in sex, and this has proved true of me. Because of this, and the child’s stubborn nursing, there is a chance of finishing the poem. I owe this child a debt of gratitude.”
“Maybe,” grumbled my male parts. The poet and scribe said, “I shall see.”
The poem was done by sunset. That evening I recited it in the lord’s hall. If I do say so myself, it was a splendid achievement. The wishik’s cry was in it, as was the rocking up-and-down rhythm of a sexually excited goxhat. The second gave the poem energy and an emphatic beat. As for the first, every line ended with one of the two sounds in the wishik’s ever-repeating, irritating cry. Nowadays, we call this repetition of sound “rhyming.” But it had no name when I invented it.
When I was done, the lord ordered several retainers to memorize the poem. “I want to hear it over and over,” she said. “What a splendid idea it is to make words ring against each other in this fashion! How striking the sound! How memorable! Between you and the traveling plumber, I will certainly be famous.”
That night was spent like the first one, everyone except me feasting. I feigned indigestion and poured my drinks on the floor under the feasting table. The lord was tricky and liked winning. Who could say what she might order put in my cup or bowl, now that she had my poem?
When the last retainer fell over and began to snore, I got up and walked to the hall’s main door. Sometime in the next day or so, the lord would discover that her wizard had lost a part to death and that one of her paperweights was missing. I did not want to be around when these discoveries were made.
Standing in the doorway, I considered looking for the treadmill. Maybe I could free the prisoners. They might be travelers like me, innocent victims of the lord’s malice and envy and her desire for hot water on every floor. But there were likely to be guards around the treadmill, and the guards might be sober. I was only one goxhat. I could not save everyone. And the servant had said they were criminals.
I climbed the stairs quietly, gathered my belongings and the baby, and left through a window down a rope made of knotted sheets.
The sky was clear; the brilliant star we call Beacon stood above the high peaks, shedding so much light I had no trouble seeing my way. I set a rapid pace eastward. Toward morning, clouds moved in. The Beacon vanished. Snow began to fall, concealing my trail. The baby, nursing on the scout, made happy noises.
Two days later, I was out of the mountains, camped in a forest by an unfrozen stream. Water made a gentle sound, purling over pebbles. The trees on the banks were changers, a local variety that is blue in summer and yellow in winter. At the moment, their leaves were thick with snow. “Silver and gold,” my poet murmured, looking up.
The scribe made a note.
A wishik clung to a branch above the poet and licked its wings. Whenever it shifted position, snow came down.
“The wishik cleans wings
As white as snow.
Snow falls on me, white
As a wishik, ”
the poet said.
My scribe scribbled.
One of my cudgel-carriers began the discussion. “The Bane of Poets was entirely neuter. Fear of death made it crazy. Bent Foot was entirely male. Giving in to violence, he stole children from his neighbor. The last lord I encountered, the ruler of the heated keep, was female, malicious and unfair. Surely something can be learned from these encounters. A person should not be one sex entirely, but rather—as I am—a harmonious mixture of male, female, and neuter. But this child can’t help but be a single sex.”
“I owe the child a debt of gratitude,” said my best scout firmly. “Without her, I would have had pain and humiliation, when the lord—a kind of lunatic—unrolled my testes, as she clearly planned to do. At best, I would have limped away from the keep in pain. At worst, I might have ended in the lord’s treadmill, raising water from the depths to make her comfortable.”
“The question is a good one,” said my scribe. “How can a person who is only one sex avoid becoming a monster? The best combination is the one I have: male, female, and both kinds of neuter. But even two sexes provide a balance.”
“Other people—besides these three—have consisted of one sex,” my scout said stubbornly. “Not all became monsters. It isn’t sex that has influenced these lords, but the stony fields and spiny mountains of Ibri, the land’s cold winters and ferocious wildlife. My various parts can teach the child my different qualities: the valor of the cudgel-carriers, the coolness of poet and scribe, the female tenderness that the rest of me has. Then she will become a single harmony.”
The scout paused. The rest of me looked dubious. The scout continued.
“Many people lose parts of themselves through illness, accident, and war; and some of these live for years in a reduced condition. Yes, it’s sad and disturbing, but it can’t be called unnatural. Consider aging and the end of life. The old die body by body, till a single body remains. Granted, in many cases, the final body dies quickly. But not always. Every town of good size has a Gram or Gaffer who hobbles around in a single self.
“I will not give up an infant I have nursed with my own milk. Do I wish to be known as ungrateful or callous? I, who have pinned all my hope on honor and fame?”
I looked at myself with uncertain expressions. The wishik shook down more snow.
“Well, then,” said my poet, who began to look preoccupied. Another poem coming, most likely. “I will take the child to a crèche and leave her there.”
My scout scowled. “How well will she be cared for there, among healthy children, by tenders who are almost certain to be prejudiced against a mite so partial and incomplete? I will not give her up.”
“Think of how much I travel,” a cudgel-carrier said. “How can I take a child on my journeys?”
“Carefully and tenderly,” the scout replied. “The way my ancestors who were nomads did. Remember the old stories! When they traveled, they took everything, even the washing pot. Surely their children were not left behind.”
“I have bonded excessively to this child,” said my scribe to the scout.
“Yes, I have. It’s done and can’t be undone. I love her soft baby-down, her four blue eyes, her feisty spirit. I will not give her up.”
I conversed this way for some time. I didn’t become angry at myself, maybe because I had been through so much danger recently. There is nothing like serious fear to put life into perspective. Now and then, when the conversation became especially difficult, a part of me got up and went into the darkness to kick the snow or to piss. When the part came back, he or she or it seemed better.
Finally I came to an agreement. I would keep the child and carry it on my journeys, though half of me remained unhappy with this decision.
How difficult it is to be of two minds! Stil
l, it happens; and all but the insane survive such divisions. Only they forget the essential unity that underlies differences of opinion. Only they begin to believe in individuality.
The next morning, I continued into Ib.
The poem I composed for the lord of the warm keep became famous. Its form, known as “ringing praise,” was taken up by other poets. From it, I gained some fame, enough to quiet my envy; and the fame led to some money, which provided for my later years.
Did I ever return to Ibri? No. The land was too bitter and dangerous; and I didn’t want to meet the lord of the warm keep a second time. Instead, I settled in Lesser Ib, buying a house on a bank of a river named It-Could-Be-Worse. This turned out to be an auspicious name. The house was cozy and my neighbors pleasant. The child played in my fenced- in garden, tended by my female parts. As for my neighbors, they watched with interest and refrained from mentioning the child’s obvious disability.
“Lip-presser on one side.
Tongue-biter on t’other.
Happy I live,
Praising good neighbors.”
I traveled less than previously, because of the child and increasing age. But I did make the festivals in Greater and Lesser Ib. This was easy traveling on level roads across wide plains. The Ibian lords, though sometimes eccentric, were nowhere near as crazy as the ones in Ibri and no danger to me or other poets. At one of the festivals, I met the famous plumber, who turned out to be a large and handsome male and neuter goxhat. I won the festival crown for poetry, and he/it won the crown for ingenuity. Celebrating with egg wine, we became amorous and fell into each other’s many arms.
It was a fine romance and ended without regret, as did all my other romances. As a group, we goxhat are happiest with ourselves. In addition, I could not forget the prisoners in the treadmill. Whether the plumber planned it or not, he/it had caused pain for others. Surely it was wrong—unjust—for some to toil in darkness, so that others had a warm bed and hot water from a pipe?
I have to say, at times I dreamed of that keep: the warm halls, the pipes of water, the heated bathing pool and the defecating throne that had—have I forgotten to mention this?—a padded seat.
“Better to be here
In my cozy cottage.
Some comforts
Have too high a cost.”
I never laid any fertile eggs. My only child is Ap the Foundling, who is also known as Ap of One Body and Ap the Many-talented. As the last nickname suggests, the mite turned out well.
As for me, I became known as The Clanger and The Wishik, because of my famous rhyming poem. Other names were given to me as well: The Child Collector, The Nurturer, and The Poet Who Is Odd.
At Dorado
GEOFFREY A. LANDIS
Geoffrey A. Landis
“At Dorado” is a hard SF story of love and death in the distant future. It was published in Asimov’s, which had another fine year publishing fiction at the top of the field. Set on a black hole transit station in space, far from any planet, a girl loves a man who is a cad. As in all the best hard SF, the nature of the physics, the science of the situation, makes the story special.
Aman Cheena barely knew came running to the door of the bar. For a brief second she thought that he might be a customer, but then Cheena saw he was wearing a leather harness and jockstrap and almost nothing else. One of the bar-boys from a dance house along the main spiral-path to the downside.
In the middle of third shift, there was little business in the bar. Had there been a ship in port, of course, the bar would be packed with rowdy sailors, and she would have been working her ass off trying to keep them all lubricated and spending their port-pay. But between dockings, the second-shift maintenance workers had already finished their after- work drinks and left, and the place was mostly empty.
It was unusual that a worker from one of the downside establishments would drop into a bar so far upspinward, and Cheena knew instantly that something was wrong. She flicked the music off—nobody was listening anyway—and he spoke.
“Hoya,” he said. “A wreck, a wreck! They fish out debris now.” The door hissed shut, and he was gone.
Cheena pushed into the crowd that was already gathered at the maintenance dock. The gravity was so low at the maintenance docks that they were floating more than standing, and the crowd slowly roiled into the air and back down. Cheena saw the bar-boy who had brought the news, and a gaggle of other barmaids and bar-boys, a few maintenance workers, some Cauchy readers, navigators, and a handful of waiting-for-work sailors. “Stand back, stand back,” a lone security dockworker said. “Nothing to see yet.” But nobody moved back. “Which ship was it?” somebody shouted, and two or three others echoed: “What ship? What ship?” That was what everybody wanted to know.
“Don’t know yet,” the security guy said. “Stand back now, stand back.”
“Hesperia,” said a voice behind. Cheena turned, and the crowd did as well. It was a tug pilot, still wearing his fluorescent yellow flight suit, although his helmet was off. “The wreck was Hesperia.”
There was a moment of silence, and then a soft sigh went through the crowd, followed by a rising babble of voices, some of them relieved, some of them curious, some dazed by the news. Hesperia, Cheena thought. The word was like a silken ribbon suddenly tied around her heart.
“They’re bringing debris in now,” said the tug pilot.
Some of the girls Cheena knew had many sailors as husbands. It was no great risk; any given ship only came to port once or twice a year, and each sailor could believe the carefully crafted fiction that Zee or Dayl or whoever it was was alone, was waiting patient and hopeful for him and only him. If the unlikely happens, and two ships with two different sailor-husbands come in to port at the same time—well, with luck and connivance and hastily fabricated excuses, the two husbands would never meet.
Cheena, however, believed in being faithful, and for her there was only one man: Daryn, a navigator. She might earn a few florins by drinking beer with another sailor, and leading him on, if a ship was in port, and Dari was not on it. What of it? That was, after all, what the barmaids were paid for; drinks could just as easily be served by automata. But her heart could belong to only one man, and would only be satisfied if that one man loved only her. And Daryn had loved her. Or so he had once proclaimed, before they had fought.
Daryn.
Daryn Bey was short and dark, stocky enough that one might take him for a dockworker instead of a navigator. His skin was the rich black of a deep-space sailor, a color enhanced with biochemical dye to counter ultraviolet irradiation. Against the skin, luminescent white tattoos filigreed across every visible centimeter of his body. When he had finally wooed her and won her and taken her to where they could examine each other in private, she found the rest of him had been tattooed as well, most deliciously tattooed. He was a living artwork, and she could study each tiny centimeter of him for hours.
And Daryn sailed with Hesperia.
The wormholes were the port’s very reason for existing, the center of Cheena’s universe. In view of their importance. it was odd, perhaps, that Cheena almost never went to look at them. In her bleak, destructive mood, she closed the bar and headed upspiral. Patryos, owner of the Subtle Tige
r, would be angry at her, because in the hours after news of a wreck, when nobody had yet heard real information and everybody had heard rumors, people would naturally come to the bar; business would be good. Let him come and serve drinks himself, she thought; she needed some solitude. The thought of putting on a show of cheerfulness and passing around gossip along with liquor made her feel slightly sick.
Still, sailors—even navigators—sometimes changed ships. Daryn might not have been on Hesperia. It might not be certain that the ship had been Hesperia; it could be debris from an ancient wreck, just now washing through the strange time tides of the wormhole. Or it could even be wreckage from far in the future, perhaps some other ship to be named Hesperia, one not yet even built. The rigid laws of relativity mean that a wormhole pierces not space alone, but also time. Half of the job of a navigator, Daryn had explained to her once—and the most important half at that—came in making sure that the ship sailed to the right when as well as to the right where. Sailing a Cauchy loop would rip the ship apart; it was the navigator’s calculation to make sure the ship never entered its own past, unless it was safely light-years away. The ship could skim, but never cross, its own Cauchy horizon.
Cheena made her way upspiral, until at last she came to the main viewing lounge. It featured a huge circular window, five meters across, a window that looked out on the emptiness, and on the wormhole. She entered, and then instantly pulled back: the usually empty lounge was throbbing with spectators. Of course it would be, she thought; they are watching a disaster.
She couldn’t stay there, but as she stood indecisive, there drifted into her mind like a piece of floating debris the thought that once Daryn had taken her to another viewing area, not exactly a lounge, but a maintenance hanger with a viewport. It was out of the public areas, of course, but Cheena had been at the station since she had been born, and knew that if she always moved briskly, as if she belonged, and arrived at a door just after an authorized person had opened it, nobody would question her. And after a few minutes, she found her maintenance hanger empty.