The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Tenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  I’d like making quilts a lot better if I could do different things, like the top part, too. If I were going to make a new society, I’d have people do different things, not the same things all the time. So that somebody wouldn’t always get stuck doing the stuff that no one likes to do.

  At break one day, I tell Paul about my idea.

  “That’s a good idea,” he says. “But who would make the schedule?”

  I shrug. “Maybe everybody could talk about it. Like consensus.” In political meetings we’ve been talking about consensus, having everybody come to agreement. It means that when you know you’re outvoted, you give in, because you know you’re not going to win. First you talk, and everybody kind of finds out what everybody else thinks, then when you vote, it’s not really a vote, you consent. And if one persons says no, then you have to talk about it until everybody agrees. But you shouldn’t say “no” unless you really have to. Everybody has to kind of trust everybody else, you have to decide, you may disagree, but do you disagree enough to stop everything?

  “Quaker socialism,” Paul says. For a moment I think he’s laughing at me, but he’s not. Things strike him funny that aren’t funny to anyone else.

  “What’s that mean?” I ask.

  “Quakers were a religious group that practiced some socialist techniques,” he says.

  “Religion is anti-socialist,” I say, which everybody knows is true. Opiate of the masses and all that.

  “A lot of Christian groups experimented with communal living,” he says, “and some of the ways they found are very practical, like consensus. And socialism uses a lot of—” he stops.

  “What,” I say.

  He shakes his head. “So you would use consensus to establish your schedule. I think that’s a good idea. Have you figured out how to build your factories yet?”

  He’s changing the subject, because it’s wrong to say that socialism is like religion. “No,” I say. “I’m still working on it.”

  And then we have to go back to work. But the nice thing about going back to work after our two-thirty break is that it’s only four more hours until dinner. And I’m thinking about what Paul said, about socialism being like religion. Which is very, very weird, because everybody knows that religion is all superstition.

  But I don’t say anything about religion to Paul. I just kind of store that away. And then I go back to thinking about my quilt factory.

  Dinner is some sort of stew with floury dumplings, we don’t always have beans. There’s a bit of fatty meat in my bowl and I save it for last. Fat tastes so good to me. That sounds disgusting, but it does. I think I could eat straight fat. I’m hungry when I’m done, but I save my roll, because Paul and I always eat our bread right before we go to sleep. Some people save their cornbread from morning, they save it all day.

  The next morning Corbin says that Nesly doesn’t have to work.

  Nesly says he’ll work, it’s okay, even though he’s really sick and he’s not even making eighty quilts a day. He’s real thin, the bones in his chest are real sharp and his wrists look like sticks and his skin is real dry and scaly. His hair is coming out, too. Sometimes when I look over, he isn’t even sewing, he’s just got his head down on his table. Sometimes his eyes are closed, sometimes they’re open.

  We all know why he wants to go to work, if he doesn’t go to work he’ll be on infirmary rations.

  Corbin says he should stay and rest and it’s like Nesly just doesn’t care. Like the walking dead.

  Nesly is going to die.

  When we’re sewing, once in awhile I hear someone coughing—a lot of people cough—and then I think, “It’s not Nesly. Nesly is going to die.”

  Nothing I can do.

  In my society, Nesly wouldn’t go on half rations, not if everybody felt Nesly was really trying. I think about what group thirty-six could do. If everybody gave Nesly a spoonful of their food, that would be thirty-one spoonfuls. That would be a lot, added to his half-ration, then he wouldn’t starve. If everybody does it, that spreads it out, so nobody has to do a whole lot. Not that I think people really would, not for Nesly.

  I don’t tell anybody, though. They’d think I’d gone soft in the head.

  * * *

  Natalie hands out lapboards again, and the little stubby pencils. I’ve still got the pen stuck in the seam of my pants, it’s been there since I stuck it in the seam of my pants when they told us we could only take what we were wearing. I never even think of it. Sometimes, Paul used to kind of play with it through my pants, but we don’t do anything anymore but sleep. I look over at Paul, and he looks scared. Which makes me real nervous.

  Natalie just hands back all those pieces of paper that we wrote before, and I look mine over. It really looks stupid.

  Natalie says, “All of you left things out, things that we know about, so please explain further. Please tell us more about yourself and your self-struggle.”

  My self-struggle? I look up at the twelve rules. Look back down at my lapboard. It’s real lousy plastic, bumpy with scrapes and scratches so that when I write my pencil will catch in the indentations. What do they know about that I didn’t say? Juvenile reform?

  I was in jewvinile reform becase I stol a player and some chips. I had a chanse to reform at Brigum House but I did not. Sosiaty had to pay mony to fed me and give me cloths and when I got out of Brigum House I did the same bad things.

  I know I’m doing good, now. At Brigham House they were always talking about our debt to society. And here they talk about that too. In a way we’re like Nesly, we never make our quotas, so now society has to pay for us, like a spoonful from everybody.

  Now I am here …

  I want to say in Protection, but I’m not sure how to spell it,

  … and Sosiaty gives me food and has to buld a camp so I have to work hard and make alot of quiwlts so I can give back to sosiaty. When I go home, I have to be a productiv memeber of sosiaty. Soshalisum means everbody together in sosiaty.

  I underline the part about everybody together. I understand what Natalie had been trying to teach us, socialism means that everybody shares. The way to build the factory was to share, if everybody gave a little bit, like if we all gave a teaspoon of food to Nesly, nobody would notice the little bit. But put all the little bits together, and then you have a lot, and you can build a factory. I had figured it out, all by myself. I want to tell somebody, I want to tell Natalie, or Paul.

  Paul is just sitting, looking at his lapboard. Natalie is answering someone’s question. Natalie looks up at Paul, then walks over to him and says, “Aren’t you going to add anything?”

  Paul shrugs. “I added something.”

  Natalie walks up beside him, so she can read it. “I have failed to renew my commitment to the revolution each day,” she says, in a funny voice. “Is that all you can think to add, Paul?”

  “That’s all,” he says.

  Natalie flicks open her notebook. “What about Kevin Hanrahan?”

  Paul says, like he doesn’t care, “What about him, Natalie?”

  “Why don’t you write about him?”

  He bends over his lapboard. We’re all watching. Natalie always ignores Paul, she never says anything to him. Politicals aren’t allowed to say anything in political meetings for the first two years.

  She reads, “Natalie has asked me to write about Kevin Hanrahan. Kevin Hanrahan was a student of mine six years ago. After he left my class I had no further communication with him.”

  She shakes her head. Natalie looks mean. I think of when we first had political meetings, when she made Nancy stand up and say she was a prostitute. I wonder what Natalie did to get sent to a labor camp. I mean, Natalie always just seemed like a person who you felt sorry for, a chump, I was never afraid of her before.

  “Paul,” she says. “Wasn’t there a letter?”

  He doesn’t say anything. Then he says, “I don’t remember a letter.”

  “You’re holding out,” she says. “You realize, hold
ing out on us will only hurt you, and hurt Kevin Hanrahan.”

  “Maybe when Degraff—” the camp guard I always called Helga “—used me as a demonstration model on the perimeter there was brain damage, Natalie.” He says her name sarcastic, like he’s being polite, and he’s not.

  “This isn’t a camp for Politicals,” Natalie says. “This camp is easy. You don’t want to end up somewhere like Rushville.”

  “Why don’t you go help the kids with their compositions,” he says, but this time he doesn’t sound sarcastic at all, he just sounds like he doesn’t care.

  But he does, because when we climb into our bunk, he’s shaking all over, all tense and scared. And I don’t know what to do, so I don’t do anything. And after awhile he goes to sleep.

  * * *

  A couple of days later they take Nesly to the infirmary. He can’t’ walk anymore, and he mutters all the time, talking, talking, but he doesn’t know what he’s saying and nobody can understand him.

  “We could have done something,” I tell Paul.

  He shakes his head. “There’s nothing you could do, Janee.”

  “No,” I say, irritated, “not me. Us. All of us, group thirty-six.” So I explain to him about if everybody gave him a spoonful. “That’s socialism,” I say, “that’s how you build the factory.”

  He nods. “So who owns the factory?”

  Owns the factory? “The people who work in it, I guess.” I think a moment. “No, everybody, because everybody put a spoonful in. It’s everybody’s factory.”

  He grins, “That’s right, that’s it, Janee. That’s socialism.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “And the people who work there decide the way to do the job, and they use consensus to make the schedule, and everybody takes turns, I mean, except for the jobs that someone can’t do, like you know, if they have to fix a sewing machine, I can’t do that, but all the rest of the jobs, people all trade around, so nobody has to do the boring stuff all the time.”

  “And there are no bosses,” he says.

  “But it doesn’t work that way,” I say. At least, I never heard of it working that way, I mean, we’re supposed to be socialist, even in Cleveland, and Cleveland sure isn’t like that.

  “No,” he says, “it doesn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  He shrugs, looks at the floor. “I don’t know,” he says.

  But I don’t believe him, he could answer me. He could tell me why it’s not working. It’s one of the things he won’t talk about, like that stuff about religion.

  We’re sitting in the factory, eating our breakfast. Corbin comes in. “Corbin’s not a prisoner,” Paul says.

  Which is stupid. “What, you think he’s a guard in disguise?” I say.

  “No, Corbin was in on a ten-year sentence. Chick, over in group thirty-one, told me.”

  That doesn’t make any sense. Why the hell would someone stay here after he’s served his time unless he’s soft upstairs? Corbin even told us that he’s served time in seven different work camps, some as far west as Colorado, out where there’s no water. Corbin is a little weird, in the summer he doesn’t wear shoes so he can save the people the cost of shoe leather. Corbin is a first-class chump.

  Corbin makes us all go to our sewing machines and then he tells us that the camp director has asked us all to show some unity, to show some spirit. “Today is our chance to show the rest of the camp that group thirty-six is not slacking,” Corbin says. It’s some sort of production push. “If you normally make 120 quilts, try to make 160. If you make 160, try to make 200.”

  Then the big news. “You’ll get extra beans at 2:30, because of your extra effort,” Corbin says. “But think, if you earn those extra beans, maybe this will happen more often.”

  Hell, for extra beans, I’d make 500 quilts.

  In the first hour I make nineteen, which is great, but my shoulders are killing me because I’m working the foot of the threader right at my fingers and pushing the cloth through as hard as I can and I’m afraid I’m going to get my fingers under the needle.

  The second hour I make twenty, which is the most I ever made in an hour. I can feel myself sweating. I mean, it’s cold in that stupid factory but I’m sweating, I’m concentrating so hard. And the third hour I mess up two in a row, and I only make sixteen. I tell myself I can still make 180. Chris makes 180 all the time, and he’s just some stupid dickhead from Detroit. When we break at 2:30 I’ve made 114 quilts, which is a personal best. Paul has made 106, which is good for him. Corbin makes us count, then we go for beans.

  Beans at 2:30, it’s wonderful. I can’t believe we get to eat again at 7:30. “We get beans at dinner, right?” I ask Corbin.

  “Yeah,” he says, “you do.” But he’s talking to some other group leaders.

  As soon as we eat the beans, Corbin hurries us back to our factory building. “Group fourteen is making an average of seventeen an hour,” he says. Then he makes us tell our figures out loud. Chris has made 127 quilts. Thirteen more than me. Two more an hour than me. But I’m okay, not the fastest, but not the slowest, either. I’m up in the top five. The slowest is Roy, who has only made 91.

  Everybody gets real quiet when Roy tells how many he’s made, everybody is thinking that he’ll pull our group average down.

  “We’ll stop for dinner, but then we’ll work late, so everybody has a chance to meet their quota.”

  We go back to work. Usually the four hours between 2:30 and dinner just drag by, but today they go fast. At dinner Corbin has us figure again. I’ve made 185 quilts, the most I’ve ever made. A lot of people have made more than they ever made before.

  Marisa says, “Maybe we should just take ten minutes for dinner and then come back, so we have more time until lights out at ten.”

  Corbin nods, and says we have to decide. So we vote, and decide we will, although some people don’t want to. I think about consensus. But first of all, if we wait until we have consensus it will take too much time. Second of all, a lot of people in the group don’t understand about consensus, they’re selfish.

  Anyway, we gobble our food—normally I never eat fast, normally I eat real slow, trying to make it last—and hurry back. Other groups are doing the same thing. It’s weird to be back in the factory with the clamp lamps on, and my table isn’t in good light, so I can’t see very well, so I have to go slower. I’m real tired. I’m so tired I can’t see good. I can’t focus.

  I get tired more easily. And if I try to comb my hair with my fingers, some of it comes out. I can’t concentrate on sewing, I keep thinking about Cleveland, about riding the bus down 1-90 past Martin Luther King Boulevard, and how right before Dead Man’s Curve you can see the lake, and the rocks. Sometimes the lake’s real clear, and sometimes, if there’s been a storm or something, the water’s real brown.

  So I start to cry a little, which is stupid. I hated the bus. I only took the bus when the rapid broke down—which it did fairly often. And then I had to stand because all the people who took the rapid were on the bus.

  Finally we stop, and I’ve only made 39 quilts. That’s 224. I don’t even remember falling into the bunk.

  The next morning some of us even get extra cornbread, because we went over 180 quilts, and after work we get extra beans, although my production is way down after the day before. I’m still tired from the push.

  And we have political instruction. I figure I’m just going to do nothing during political instruction, maybe I’ll sit in the back and go to sleep.

  But Natalie sees me in the back. “Janee,” she says, first thing, “what have you learned from all this?”

  The questions are all trick questions and I always get them wrong anyway. “That we work better for rewards,” I say. Natalie gets this little smile she has when she’s going to roast somebody’s ideology, “and that shows we need to analyze our own motives better,” I say, quick, because that’s always good. I’m just beginning to figure out what we’re supposed to be analyzing for.

  An
d all the sudden it’s like I know the right answer. Capitalism is selfish, our problem is that we are still selfish. What has to happen is that we have to be less selfish, otherwise socialism will never work. “If we were truly socialist,” I say, “we would work for the good of everybody, that’s society, but we still have old-fashioned, uh, capitalist ways of thinking and we work for rewards.”

  Natalie looks surprised, then she looks at Paul—who is staring at his long spider fingers and doesn’t look at me even though you think he’d be happy that I finally gave them back an answer they wanted. She thinks he told me what to say.

  “I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” I say. “I think that socialism is a really good idea, you know, everybody sharing, and everybody being equal and everything, but what I want to know is, why isn’t it like that on the outside?”

  Natalie frowns. I’ve made a mistake.

  “What I mean is, socialism says that, say, if we had a real quilt factory, everybody would own it, right? And the people that made the quilts, they’d like, trade jobs, so that sometimes you have to do the boring stuff, but sometimes you get to do the more interesting stuff, like putting the piece work, the stars and stuff, on the top. And that everybody would vote, like we did last night about coming back from dinner to work on our quota. But outside, things don’t work like that, there are bosses and people don’t trade. In a way,” I say, “we’re more socialist than they are outside.”

  Natalie looks really surprised. “Well, Janee,” she says, “the difference is that inside, we really analyze ourselves, and we really work together.”

  “So maybe everybody ought to have to do what we do,” I say, “but that makes it sound like everybody ought to come to a labor camp, which isn’t what I mean. But if I hadn’t come here, I’d have never figured this out.”