The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “Why do you want me to see all of these terrible things?”

  “Object lesson. It’s time you looked up and saw the mountain.”

  “What?” But Garrick merely turned and walked away. Medlin’s options were to follow her or wrestle her to the ground. He followed, and when he drew abreast he said, “It shouldn’t take a genius to figure out, but damned if I know what you’re up to. Unless you’re trying to lose Ranke and me in all the confusion when the volcano does pop.”

  She pivoted on her nearer foot and stabbed a finger as hard and sharp as an antler into his breast. “I can lose you without the volcano’s goddamn help, thank you. You couldn’t follow my trail around the corner, and you know it.”

  “I’m not the one you have to worry about.”

  Garrick looked slightly sheepish. “Okay,” she said, “so I am counting on getting a little help from Pelée. It never hurts to give yourself an edge when you’re dealing with Ranke. I think he may find it hard to concentrate in this place. It’s very stressful here. The air’s full of static electricity, there’s this stinking ash, the barometric pressure’s all screwy—”“Doesn’t sound like that much of an edge to me.”

  She frowned. “Don’t you doubt that I can lose him if I want to.”

  “So why don’t you? Why are you still here?”

  “I can’t leave you behind, Med. I’ve got to get you to go with me, and you know that can only happen if you go willingly.”

  “Go where?”

  “Anywhere!”

  “What is this game you’re playing?”

  Garrick gestured at the town before them. The waterfront was a shambles. Each of the two sailing ships—mastless, shattered hulks—could be seen sitting in its own pile of rubble. “If all I was doing,” she said, “was playing games, I’d’ve gone someplace nice, done something fun. Parisians are rioting at the premiere of Stravinsky’s new ballet in nineteen thirteen. I might even’ve come here, in some happier year. This is a beautiful island, even if Little Paris is a bit lusty for my taste. But now it’s hot as hell here, it stinks, and it’s infested with snakes. And it’s doomed. Hundreds of people’ve died around this volcano since Saturday. Thirty thousand are going to die here before it’s all done. Most of ’em are going to be killed by superheated gas and politics. I know that sounds redundant, but it’s the truth. Thirty thousand people, a fourth of the population of Martinique in nineteen oh two, all victims of arrogance and ignorance.”

  “So it’s an object lesson. What’m I supposed—”

  “Learn something from it!” Two faint reddish spots appeared high on the woman’s cheekbones. “Here’s all this self-important scramble down here, and, up there, looming catastrophe! And like I said, it’s time for you to look up and see the mountain. I’m hoping you’ll go with me. If you stick with the scramblers, you’re going to get wiped out with them. I don’t want that to happen. You’re important to me. I’m important to you, too.”

  “Maybe not important enough to defect for.”

  “Then maybe you’ll think this is important enough. Someone, the president, the military, I don’t know who, has been sold the bright idea that past events can be revised to suit present needs. Can and should be.”

  Medlin looked at her and thought, Crazy. Suspecting it before and believing it now were two different things. It hurt now that he saw just how crazy she was.

  She must have seen how skeptical he was, for she said, “It’s true, Med.”

  “Oh, come on. People’ve been saying crap like that since before anyone knew how to travel. It’s a joke. Oh God, if only I could go back in time and not have the accident with the scoozip. Oh God, if only I could renew the insurance policy the day before I had the accident with the scoozip. Oh God, if only I could buy the roto instead of the scoozip.”

  Garrick grinned like a skull. “Pretend for a second I’m presenting this scheme in a really positive light, and pretend you’re the president or someone impressionable like that. God, be honest, wouldn’t it sound so tempting? Make a big mistake somewhere, lose a war or an election? No problem. Accidentally kill everybody in Arizona? Well, no big loss, but still no problem. Just go back, change things to make ’em come out the way you want! They’re calling it ‘temporal engineering.’ There’s no telling what havoc’ll be created if those idiots ever actually give it a try.”

  “Maybe it wouldn’t have any effect,” Medlin said. “Nothing ever has before. Time’s resilient, forgiving. It’s accommodated us so far.”

  “So far,” she snapped, “we haven’t tested its patience! We haven’t tried to show it who’s boss! Can you imagine the kind of force needed to really change an event so that it affects things up the way? Experts were brought in to say what everybody wanted to hear. That the past can be altered to produce the desired present. Isn’t that a lovely term? The desired present. And here’s where it stuck for me, these experts made it a major, fundamental point that if you want to alter the past, you have to have complete control of travel, because you don’t want somebody unaltering things on you. So no more mavericking around for you and me!” She paused, panting and glaring. He had never seen her quite so upset before. “The really insulting part is, they broached this insanity to me like they expected me to go for it!”

  Medlin shook his head. “I’m just not sure I believe a word of this,” he said. “Why didn’t Thomas tell me anything about it? Why didn’t you?”

  “Someone—maybe Thomas, but I think probably not—didn’t tell you because they were hedging their bet. I couldn’t tell you because you were in nineteen forty when I decided to bolt. I couldn’t wait around for you to get back. They were ready to roll on this thing. You’d’ve been told soon enough. After all, a traveler’s essential to this project, and if I’m dead or AWOL, you’re it. We’re the only real travelers they’ve got, the only ones who can go anywhere we set our minds to, almost—anywhere there’s the least little crack, I don’t want to squander this gift playing fetch. Nor should you. Thomas isn’t your friend. And the agency isn’t your home.”

  “And you’re not my mom.”

  Garrick looked pained. “I’m trying to save your soul here.”

  “To say nothing of saving the purity and essence of time. Look, forget about my soul for a minute. If temporal engineering’s such a big deal with you, why don’t you stop it? It’s not as though you don’t have clout of your own.”

  “Their minds are made up. The only way to stop ’em is for us to not go back and help ’em get started.” She extended her hand to him; after a moment, he took it. There was nothing to it but bones and milky skin. “We can skip this depressing catastrophe,” she said, “and go see Stravinsky’s ballet. It’s only an ocean and eleven years away.”

  “I don’t know. What about Ranke?”

  She made an impatient face. “What about him?”

  “He’s going to show up here whether I’m still around to take him home or not.”

  “Perhaps Pelée’ll give him a warm welcome. If he’s smart, and he sometimes is, he’ll get the hell out of town.”

  “And we just let him wander around lost in nineteen oh two forever?”

  “Do not waste your concern on Ranke. He’d find his niche wherever he is. There always is a niche for people like Ranke.”

  Medlin let go of Garrick’s hand. His arm fell to his side. “I can’t.”

  “Oh, God, why not?” She was the picture of exasperation.

  “Because I just can’t. I’m not … I don’t know, I can’t make up my mind.”

  “That’s always been your problem! Well, I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re finally going to have to take decisive action. You just can’t go along and get along any more.”

  A darkening pall of ash and smoke lay over the town like twilight. The carriage was still waiting at the base of the hill. Driver and horse looked as though they had been carved from dirty rock. Garrick climbed into the carriage and slammed the door.

  Dismayed, Medlin sa
id, “Are you going to leave me stranded here?”

  She looked out the window. “It may come to that!”

  “I can’t see thirty feet here!”

  “Wherever you are in a town this size, you’re never too far from anyplace else. Just go back to the Avenue Victor Hugo. It’ll lead you right back to Madame Boislaville’s street.”

  “Maybe her street isn’t there any more! Even if it is, maybe I won’t be able to find it.”

  “I understand your distress, but we’re still waiting for Ranke, remember? I’ve taken a big chance here already. As long as your loyalties are all tangled, I’d rather not be around you when he does pop up.”

  “This is so crazy,” he said sorrowfully.

  “I’m going to have to kill him,” she said, “or he, me. He knows you can’t take me back without my cooperation. I’m sure he doesn’t expect me to oblige him by going back under my own power.”

  “Goddammit!”

  “Now, now. See you soon, I hope. Driver!”

  Driver and horse shook gray powder from themselves. The carriage soundlessly pulled away. Medlin stumbled after it vengefully, but it was quickly lost to sight in the false dusk. He swore, rammed his fists into his trousers pockets, and walked slowly and half-blind to the Avenue Victor Hugo.

  He came to the edge of the devastated area. The wave had been a spent force by the time it lapped around these houses. Slowed or not, it had turned the thick blanket of ash into a putrid-smelling porridge of mud seasoned with foodstuffs, utensils, odd pieces of clothing, whole and shattered pieces of furniture, stranded marine life, dead livestock, and human bodies. The living stood about numbly, and then by ones, twos, and threes they came forward, searching for their homesites, belongings, missing families. The pall was murkily suffused with light from torches and supercharged with static electricity. Brilliant streaks of lightning intermittently shot through it. There was a constant background chorus of moans and cries.

  Splattered with muck, his eyes, nose, and throat burning and his stomach heaving, Medlin wandered lost in a darkened, debris-clogged maze. It was not until he found his way blocked by a mass of splintered wooden spars, shredded canvas, and tangled ropes—part of the mast and rigging of one of the ravaged ships—that he realized that he had strayed off the main thoroughfare. When he attempted to retrace his steps, he emerged onto a great sloping square. A solemn crowd lined its edges. Lying in rows in the center were scores of dead bodies. They had been dusted with quicklime and looked like broken statuary. A priest and a policeman walked side by side among the rows, the priest either calling out a name for each body or else calling on onlookers to identify it, and the policeman writing the name in a roster. The supply of coffins must have been exhausted. Soldiers were wrapping the bodies in banana leaves, loading them onto stretchers, and carrying them away.

  Medlin thought of Garrick and was filled with a great hot surge of hatred that sustained him until he unexpectedly found himself standing before Madame Boislaville’s house. The wave had not penetrated her street. Everything looked the same, gray, silent, unmoving, dead—normal, he thought sourly as he pounded on the door with the side of his fist.

  She let him in and slid the bolt home with a good, solid, reassuring thunk. He sank into a chair. They regarded each other dumbly.

  “I am glad,” he finally told her, “to see that you are all right.”

  “And you, Monsieur.”

  “I watched the wave come, saw it hit.”

  “It is—”

  She could not find a word for what it was, but he nodded agreement anyway. He ran his tongue over his lips and spat at the taste.

  “Madame, is there anything to drink?”

  “There is still water for coffee, and some bread and pickles if you are hungry. And there is no shortage of rum.”

  “May I please have some rum?”

  Almost before he had asked for it, there was a drink on the table. The rum cut a ravine through the sulphur bed in his mouth. He finished it and asked for another. When he had finished that one as well and asked for still another, Madame said, “Too much rum will make you sorry to be alive.”

  He ignored the warning and got the drink. The next thing he knew was that he was drunk as he had ever been in his life and filled with horror and self-pity. Madame had disappeared for a time but now returned, from either the kitchen or whatever part of the building was her living quarters. There was no sympathy in her expression. She had warned him, he had ignored the warning, now here he was, the foolish American, truly sorry to be alive.

  “Join me, Madame,” he said thickly. “We’ll drink to this doomed town.”

  She shook her head. “I had better make the coffee and bring you some food.”

  “Why are you still here?”

  She had started to leave. She turned to answer. “I am here because this is my home, Monsieur.”

  “Your home is doomed. Look out the window.”

  “Perhaps the worst is past.”

  “This town is going to be destroyed. Anyone who stays here is going to die. There is still time to escape. Take your girl and your grandmother and go.”

  Distaste tugged at one corner of her mouth. “The old woman is my aunt. She is someone’s aunt, anyway. Everyone on Martinique … but my aunt, my aunt, she tells me terrible things. She says that she has visited a wizard.” Madame shuddered visibly, then crossed herself. “I have thrown her out, Monsieur. Let the wizard take her into his home. She terrifies my Elizabeth. The wizard told her not to place her trust in the power of white men’s god. He told her that the Holy Church has made the mountain erupt and caused all the deaths.”

  “Whosever’s fault it is, you must get out. You should have left when Madame Garrick—my great friend and mentor, ace of travelers, knower of all—should have gotten out when she told you to go. Last whenever it was.”

  For a moment he thought she was going to cry. Then she said, angrily, “She says that the mountain is a menace! The mayor says that it is not! I know, I know, that white people are great liars, but both Madame Garrick and the mayor are white, so I do not know who is lying.”

  “White or not, she knows what is going to happen here. So do I.”

  “Perhaps yes, perhaps no. You are white, too. You could be lying as well.” “Then the hell with you.”

  He pushed himself out of the chair and somehow made it up the stairs to the room. He stood in the doorway, assayed some calculations based on the distance between himself and the cot, took a long step forward. The room and its meager furnishings tilted sharply and rose about him. The floor caught him, not gently.

  He awoke on the cot, listening to a murmur of voices from the street outside. It hurt him to move his head. His mouth tasted of kitchen matches, a whole box of them. He had a dim memory of awakening once to call for water and at least once again to be violently sick in the chamber pot. Neither pitcher nor pot was in sight. He felt exhausted, unclean, poisoned.

  He staggered to the window and leaned on the sill. In the street below the window was what first appeared to be a vast funeral procession and then resolved itself into a dense bunch of lesser processions. The black-garbed mourners jostled one another, moving from shrine to shrine, and their prayers mingled in the hot, polluted air to become a soft mush of crying, prayers for the dead, and pleas for God’s intervention. There were other, harsher voices, too. Criers added to the confusion and congestion as they ran among the processions. Some shouted instructions from the Action Committee, whatever that was: everyone was to wash the ash from walls and roofs. Others were political sloganeers, broadcasting the political parties’ competing messages to the illiterate segments of the electorate.

  Unmindful of babble, the volcano industriously pumped out black smut. The sea was calm in the roadstead. Along the ruined waterfront burned regularly spaced fires. Medlin had no idea of what these signified, except more trouble. The sun was a ghostly orb sitting low in a cinder-filled sky, barely above the western horizon. Several sec
onds elapsed before the wrongness of that view registered, and then dread burst inside him like a soft, spoiled fruit. He lumbered noisily to the landing at the top of the stairs and gave a fearful raw-throated shout, “Madame Boislaville!”

  She swept into view below. She looked surprised and wary.

  “Yes, M—”

  “What day,” and then his headache caught up with him, forcing him to lower his voice, “what day is this?”

  “Tuesday, Monsieur.”

  “How can it—Tuesday. Of course.” Tuesday. Christ. He clutched the wooden bannister. Below, she wiped her hands on the apron and made her expression unfathomable. “Is there any breakfast?”

  “It is almost suppertime, and I have nothing to—”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yes, of course, Monsieur. I shall make some and bring it up to you at once.”

  “No, no. I am coming down.”

  “There is no food today. I am very sorry.”

  “No, I understand, it is all right,” and, clinging to the bannister, he went painfully down the stairs.

  She helped him into a chair and brought him a pot of black coffee and a cup. She also produced a pair of salty pickles, a stale heel of bread, and the latest edition of Les Colonies. The bread was too hard to eat, and the coffee was too hot to drink at first, so he dipped the one into the other and gratefully sucked on it. Most of Les Colonies was given over to an account of the previous day’s disaster. A lake on the mountainside had burst its walls, sending tons of mud and debris to pile into the sea north of the roadstead. The mass had incidentally buried a sugar refinery located at the mouth of the River Blanche, north of town.