The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 18

by Gardner Dozois

  “I will call Dr. Rhodes,” Kiri said.

  “No,” I said. “Dr. Rhodes does not . . .” I stopped, not knowing what to say. “You need to tell someone else,” I said. I was talking louder than I needed to.

  I did not care. I was twelve years old and I cracked coconuts in my mandibles. I crawled on the ocean bottom and found gold in the rocks.

  Dr. Rhodes would tell me that it was not appropriate to shout. I thought it was appropriate. There was a man named Evan Collins on my beach and it was appropriate to shout.

  “There is a man,” I shouted. “His name is Evan Collins. He is on my beach. I have no more coconuts for Evan Collins. He needs water. He needs help.”

  “Evan Collins,” Kiri repeated. “I understand.”

  “He told me the story of Cinderella. He told me the story of Jack and the beanstalk. His name is Evan Collins and he has sixteen flea bites on his left cheek. He has a broken leg. His boat is underwater.”

  I felt Kiri’s hand on my shoulder. “I will tell my uncle,” she said. “I’ll tell Uncle Mars.”

  I didn’t like the touch of Kiri’s hand on my shoulder. I didn’t like the glare of the lights. I lay back down in my tank. “You will tell Uncle Mars,” I said. “I will go back to my mechano.”

  Back on the island, the sun was up. I left the charging hut and headed for the beach. The only tactile sensation was the pressure of the ground against the feet of the mechano. Just enough pressure to let me know that I was standing on solid ground. Just enough to be comfortable, no more.

  Evan Collins lay on the sand, still asleep. He was still breathing.

  Kiri would tell Uncle Mars now about Evan Collins. I pictured the chart of relationships, where Kiri and Evan Collins and I were connected by lines, making a triangle. I put Uncle Mars’ name on the chart and drew lines connecting him to Kiri and Evan Collins. It made another triangle. Together, the first triangle and the second triangle made a diamond. That was a good pattern, I thought. A diamond was a rock and I liked rocks.

  I left Evan Collins on the beach. I walked into the water, happy when it closed over my head. I spent all day collecting rocks by the hydrothermal vent.

  MATAREKA WARADI

  Kiri’s uncle was Matareka Waradi, but everyone called him Mars. Supervisor of remote mining operations for the Cook Islands division of Atlantis Mining and Salvage, he was a man with influence – a large man with a large personality. He knew everyone, and everyone knew him.

  He had arranged for Kiri to work in the California headquarters of Atlantis Mining. Kiri was a good girl. She had worked hard to get a degree in nursing, and she had wanted very much to go to the United States for a time. At about the time that Kiri had mentioned this desire to Mars, the California office requested that he leave one of the mechanos at an exhausted mining site as part of an experimental program. The office wanted to put an unqualified operator in charge of this mechano. It was crazy what they wanted – Mars had asked around and found out that it was a pet project of Eric Westerman, the company president. Westerman was the son of the man who founded Atlantis Mining, and old hands in the company generally regarded him as a bit of a fool.

  If Eric Westerman wanted to risk an expensive mechano in some crackpot experiment, Mars certainly couldn’t stop him. But Mars learned (through a cousin who worked in the company’s Human Resources Department) that this crazy project needed a nurse to care for the unqualified operator back in California.

  So Mars made a deal. If Human Resources would hire Kiri to be the nurse, Mars would allow the unqualified operator to use the mechano. Mars insisted, of course, that he would not take responsibility for any damage to the mechano or other Atlantis Mining equipment resulting from operator error. And all had been well – until Mars received an e-mail from Kiri.

  Kiri was, Mars knew, a levelheaded girl, a smart girl. And so he paid attention when he received an urgent e-mail from her. Kiri said that the unqualified operator – Annie, Kiri called her – had told Kiri that there was a man on the remote island, that the man’s name was Evan Collins, and that he needed medical attention. Kiri was quite concerned.

  It was a beautiful day with clear blue skies. Mars needed to check on operations on an unnamed atoll not far from the island where Kiri’s operator was working. Besides, he needed to fix the cameras on that island – he’d received three emails from central headquarters about that. The man in charge of the experimental program, a fellow named Dr. Rhodes, had complained several times that he could no longer monitor the island. Mars had been ignoring the maintenance request on basic principles. He didn’t know Dr. Rhodes. Kiri had mentioned in an earlier e-mail that the man was unfriendly. So Mars saw no need to extend himself on behalf of Dr. Rhodes.

  But Kiri was worried. And it was a nice day for a flight in the company’s Bush Hawk-XP floatplane. Piloting that was one of the benefits of Mars’ position with Atlantis Mining.

  Mars called his assistants and told them they were going out to the island to replace the cameras and check on how the experimental operator was doing.

  From the air above the island, Mars spotted the sunken sailboat in the water. He swore beneath his breath and landed in the lee of the island. His assistants inflated the Zodiac, and they took the rubber dinghy in. They found Evan Collins in the shade of the palms, surrounded by empty water bottles and broken coconuts. He was delirious with thirst, but when they shook him, he returned to consciousness enough to drink. By the look of him, he’d been there for a few days.

  They draped his head and wrists with wet cloths, mixed a packet of electrolyte powder with a bottle of water, and supported him while he drank, checked the splinting on his leg. His pulse was weak and fast, and he drifted in and out of consciousness.

  Mars’ assistants were carrying the man to the Zodiac when the mechano emerged from the water, carrying a rock. The mechano came toward Mars, its eyes focused on Evan Collins.

  “Why didn’t you tell someone about this man immediately?” Mars asked the mechano. “He’s been here for days.”

  The mechano dropped the rock at Mars’ feet. “I told Dr. Rhodes. He said the man was here to fix the cameras.”

  “Dr. Rhodes is an idiot,” Mars said. “A fool and an incompetent.”

  “I told Kiri,” the mechano said. “She told Uncle Mars.”

  “I’m Uncle Mars. Mars Waradi.” Mars studied the mechano, wondering about the person who operated it.

  THE MECHANO

  Evan Collins lay in the bottom of the rubber dinghy. Soon he would be gone and I would be able to watch the crabs again.

  The two other men were dragging the Zodiac into the water while Uncle Mars stood studying me. He leaned down and picked up the rock that I had dropped. “What’s this?” he said. “A man is dying of thirst, and you bring him a rock?”

  “It’s for the crabs,” I said. “I brought coconuts for Evan Collins, but I ran out of coconuts. I brought him all the water bottles from the boat. I was very helpful.”

  Uncle Mars was looking closely at the rock in his hands. “Where did you find this?” he asked.

  “By the vent,” I said.

  The other men were shouting for Mars to come and join them. He looked at me, looked at the rock, then said, “I’ll be back to talk to you about this.” Then he turned away and joined the men at the boat.

  I watched the plane take off, then I tidied up the area where the man had been, placing all the coconut shells in a pile, all the water bottles in another pile. It looked better when I was done. I felt better when I was done.

  MATAREKA WARADI

  Mars landed on the lee side of Annie’s island and took the Zodiac in. He had received an e-mail from Kiri that morning, saying that Dr. Rhodes’ experimental program was being canceled. Evan Collins had survived. But after his rescue, the researcher had had to explain exactly why he had failed to let anyone know that a man was stranded on the island. Upper management had reviewed the videotapes of Dr. Rhodes’ sessions with Annie, and Annie’s a
ttempts to tell Dr. Rhodes about the stranded man had been noted.

  “I feel bad for Annie,” Kiri had written. “She’s a strange little girl, but she has a good heart. Dr. Rhodes will be telling her today that he’s wrapping up the program by the end of the week. I don’t think she’ll take it well.”

  Mars pulled the Zodiac up on the beach, out of reach of the waves. He spotted the mechano over by the mangroves. As he approached, Mars noted the rocks that had been placed on the sand by many of the crab burrows. All of them were similar to the rock that he had taken with him when he rescued Evan Collins.

  “Hello, Annie,” he said.

  “Hello, Uncle Mars,” the mechano said in its flat voice.

  Mars sat in the sand beside the mechano. “You know, I analyzed that rock you brought back,” he said. “Very high concentration of gold ore.”

  “Yes,” the mechano said.

  “Looks like you’ve collected a fair number of rocks like that one,” Mars observed.

  “Yes,” said the mechano. “I brought them for the crabs. I am very helpful.”

  “Can you show me where you found them?” Mars asked.

  “Yes,” said the mechano.

  “We thought the mining was tapped out around this island,” Mars said. “My best operators had followed a rich vein of ore. They’d explored the nearby seabed, searching for other possibilities, and they’d come up empty. But you’ve found what looks like a promising source. How do you explain that?”

  “I like rocks,” the mechano said.

  “Yes, I guess you do,” Mars agreed. “I’m wondering if you’d like to work for me.”

  “Will I be able to look for rocks?” the mechano asked.

  “That would be your job,” Mars said.

  “Will this be my mechano?” the mechano asked.

  “It certainly could be.”

  “Yes,” said the mechano. “I’d like that.”

  It took some doing, of course. Kiri spoke with Annie’s parents, explaining at length what had happened, explaining what Mars saw as Annie’s potential. Kiri had to find a therapist who was willing to continue meeting with Annie every other day. Mars had to make many arrangements – with child welfare authorities, with labor organizers, with company officials. But Mars was a man with many resources. He had many friends, a cousin in the Human Resources Department, and a niece Annie trusted, as much as she trusted anyone she met in her meat body. Eventually, he worked it all out.

  THE MECHANO

  The tide was beginning to come in. I stood motionless and watched the crabs.

  A big crab sidled out of his burrow, eyes goggling in my direction. He had shiny black legs and a bright red carapace. He had a small black claw and a very big red claw, which he held up in front of his face and waved in my direction. When I didn’t move, the crab turned to look seaward.

  Other crabs were coming out of their burrows. Each one stared at me, then checked out the other crabs, waving his oversized red claw at the other male crabs around him. One crab sidled toward another crab’s burrow, and they both waved their claws until the first retreated.

  As I watched, a female crab approached, and the activity among the males increased. They were all waving their claws, while the female watched. She stared at one male and he ran toward her and then ran back to his burrow, toward her and back to his burrow, always waving his claw.

  The female followed him, hesitated at the entrance to the burrow for a moment, then went into the burrow. The male crab rushed in after her. I watched as the mouth of the burrow filled with mud, pushed up from below. The male crab was closing the door.

  The other crabs were waving their claws as other females approached, all of them communicating with each other and behaving according to rules that they all seem to know.

  I liked watching the crabs. I didn’t understand them, but I was happy to help them with rocks.

  I thought about Uncle Mars and Kiri and my mother and my father and Dr. Rhodes, Kiri had explained to me what was happening – and when she explained, I had drawn a chart in my mind. Kiri talked to my parents (that was a triangle with Kiri and my mother and my father – I was off to one side, connected to Kiri by a line). Uncle Mars talked to me and talked to Kiri. Another triangle. Dr. Rhodes was off by himself, connected to no one. The crabs were connected to me. And Evan Collins was connected to me by a line.

  I thought about the story of Cinderella. I thought I might be like the fairy godmother. I sent Evan Collins to the party with the other NTs. Now he would live happily ever after.

  I liked fairy tales. I liked rocks. I would collect rocks for Atlantis Mining and Uncle Mars. I would bring rocks to the crabs, who would communicate with each other using gestures I could not understand. And I would live happily ever after, alone on my island.

  START THE CLOCK

  Benjamin Rosenbaum

  Americans are known for watching the clock, but, as the ingenious story that follows suggests, you may not have seen anything yet . . .

  New writer Benjamin Rosenbaum has made sales to The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Argosy, The Infinite Matrix, Strange Horizons, Harper’s, McSweeney’s, Lady Churchill’s Rosebud Wristlet, and elsewhere. Recently returned from a long stay in Switzerland, he now lives with his family in Falls Church, Virginia. He has a Web site at: http://home.datacomm.ch/benrose.

  THE REAL ESTATE AGENT for Pirateland was old. Nasty old. It’s harder to tell with Geezers, but she looked to be somewhere in her Thirties. They don’t have our suppleness of skin, but with the right oils and powders they can avoid most of the wrinkles. This one hadn’t taken much care. There were furrows around her eyes and eyebrows.

  She had that Mommystyle thing going on: blue housedress, frilly apron, Betty Crocker white gloves. If you’re going to be running around this part of Montana sporting those gigantic, wobbly breasts and hips, I guess it’s a necessary form of obeisance.

  She said something to someone in the back of her van, then hurried up the walk toward us. “It’s a lovely place,” she called. “And a very nice area.”

  “Look, Suze, it’s your mom,” Tommy whispered in my ear. His breath tickled. I pushed him.

  It was deluxe, I’ll give her that. We were standing under the fifty-foot prow of the galleon we’d come to see. All around us a flotilla of men-of-war, sloops, frigates, and cutters rode the manicured lawns and steel-gray streets. Most of the properties were closed up, the lawns pristine. Only a few looked inhabited – lawns strewn with gadgets, excavations begun with small bulldozers and abandoned, Pack or Swarm or Family flags flying from the mainmasts. Water cannons menacing passersby.

  I put my hands in my pants pockets and picked at the lint. “So this is pretty much all Nines?”

  The Thirtysomething Lady frowned. “Ma’am, I’m afraid the Anti-Redlining Act of 2035 – ”

  “Uh-huh, race, gender, aetial age, chronological age, stimulative preference or national origin – I know the law. But who else wants to live in Pirateland, right?”

  Thirtysomething Lady opened her mouth and didn’t say anything.

  “Or can afford it,” Shiri called. She had gone straight for the ropeladder and was halfway up. Her cherry-red sneakers fell over the side of the gunnel running around the house. Thirtysomething Lady’s hands twitched in a kind of helpless half-grasping motion. Geezers always do that when we climb.

  “Are you poor?” Tommy asked. “Is that why you dress like that?”

  “Quit taunting the Lady,” Max growled. Max is our token Eight, and he takes aetial discrimination more seriously than the rest of us. Plus, he’s just nicer than we are. He’s also Pumped Up: he’s only four feet tall, but he has bioengineered muscles like grapefruit. He has to eat a pound or two of medicated soysteak a day just to keep his bulk on.

  Thirtysomething Lady put her hand up to her eyes and blinked ferociously, as if she were going to cry. Now that would be something! They almost never cry. We’d hardly been mean to her at a
ll. I felt sorry for her, so I walked over and put my hand in hers. She flinched and pulled her hand away. So much for cross-aetial understanding and forgiveness.

  “Let’s just look at the house,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets.

  “Galleon,” she said tightly.

  “Galleon then.”

  Her fingers twitched out a passkey mudra and the galleon lowered a boarding plank. Nice touch.

  Frankly, we were excited. This move was what our Pack needed – the four of us, at least, were sure of it. We were all tired of living in the ghetto – we were in three twentieth-century townhouses in Billings, in an “age-mixed” area full of marauding Thirteens and Fourteens and Fifteens. Talk about a people damned by CDAS – when the virus hit them, it had stuck their pituitaries and thyroids like throttles jammed open. It wasn’t just the giantism and health problems caused by a thirty-year overdose on growth hormones, testosterone, estrogen, and androgen. They suffered more from their social problems – criminality, violence, orgies, jealousy – and their endless self-pity.

  Okay, Max liked them. And most of the rest of us had been at least entertained by living in the ghetto. At birthday parties, we could always shock the other Packs with our address. But that was when all eight of us were there, before Katrina and Ogbu went south. With eight of us, we’d felt like a full Pack – invincible, strong enough to laugh at anyone.

  I followed the others into the galleon’s foyer. Video game consoles on the walls, swimming pool under a retractable transparent superceramic floor. The ceiling – or upper deck, I guess – was thirty feet up, accessible by rope ladders and swing ropes. A parrot fluttered onto a roost – it looked real, but probably wasn’t. I walked through a couple of bulk-heads. Lots of sleeping nooks; lockers, shelves; workstations, both flatscreen and retinal-projection. I logged onto one as guest. Plenty of bandwidth. That’s good for me. I may dress like a male twentieth-century stockbroker, double-breasted suit and suspenders, but I’m actually a found footage editor. (Not a lot of Nines are artists – our obsessive problem solving and intense competitiveness makes us good market speculators, gamblers, programmers, and biotechs. That’s where we’ve made our money and our reputation. Not many of us have the patience or interest for art.)