The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Dinner that night was grim. A fact-finding commission of representatives from some of the governments that had mounted the project had arrived unexpectedly, and its members were determined to find out why the project had not produced useful results after over a year. Rob’s father was one of the senior scientists the commission had convoked for that evening to testify as to what they thought they had accomplished, and why they should be allowed to continue and not be replaced with some other team. Rob brought up his idea for a trip to Torcello as something the whole family could do together that Saturday or Sunday, but his father just nodded distractedly and said, “Maybe, Rob, if I’ve got the time,” in a way that let Rob know there was no chance he ever would. The rain was coming down even harder than before, with lightning out over the sea, and thunder.

  “I hope you can convince them,” Rob’s mother said as she helped his father into his plastic raincoat. “They couldn’t do better with anyone else.”

  “Why? Isn’t that what you want, too?”

  “Not like that. Not because they forced you.”

  “Then you’d try to fight it?”

  “No. That’s not how I want to leave, but I still want to leave.”

  Rob’s mother stood at the window, looking after his father for a moment as, seemingly suspended in midair above the garden and canal where the geraniums glowed with soft, shimmering whorls of green and gold phosphorescence, he tapped carefully in front of him with his grope stick like a blind man with his cane while he made his way slowly out over the garden wall and down the Rio delle Ermite.

  In the bathtub that evening, looking out over the glowing garden, Rob tried to talk with the Tla, but, though Sth’liat and one or two of the others whose voices he could still recognize despite the change that had made them youthful again cried greetings to him, their voices were full of the storm’s excitement and the beating of the waves and he couldn’t get them to pay any attention to him.

  Come play with us, they called to him, and when he whispered, “No, wait, please, I need to talk to you,” they only laughed and told him, later, after the storm.

  * * *

  The next day he ate lunch in the canteen with his father, hoping to get a chance to tell him how much he loved the city, how important it was for him to be able to stay and not be sent away to school, but his father was too involved in the discussion he was having about the walkways and preservative film for Rob to talk to him privately. Rob tried to listen, since the more he knew about the problems they were trying to solve, the better he’d be able to get the answers for them when the Tla finally started telling him things, but the conversation was too technical, all about enzymes and isomers. He thought they were saying that the Tla had spun the walkways and protective film out of themselves, like spiders building their webs, but when he asked if that’s what they meant, Mr. Mondolo told him that it was an interesting idea and one that might even be worth studying—with a smile that meant he was just trying to be nice to Rob—but that what they were talking about this time was something else entirely.

  Just before he had to go back to school, the conversation turned to the Tla starship. Rob asked if he could go inside again for another look.

  “No.” His father shook his head. “I’m sorry, Rob. It’s not like you could hurt anything, even if you wanted to, but they’ve tightened security again.”

  “They’re not even sure they want to let us in anymore,” Dominique’s father said with a bark that was supposed to be a laugh but just sounded angry.

  “Maybe in a couple of weeks, when the commission’s gone again and everybody’s had a little more time to forget that latest bombing attempt,” Mr. Mondolo said, trying to be nice again, and everybody nodded.

  Rob finally got his father alone the next evening, while his mother was cooking dinner.

  “Dad—”

  “What, Rob?”

  “I heard you and Mother talking about sending me away to school next year.”

  “It would be sort of hard for you not to hear, the way we’ve been yelling at each other,” his father said. “I’m sorry.”

  “That’s O.K. I mean, that’s not what I want to talk about. What I want to say is, I love it here, Dad. Everything. The geraniums, all of it. I don’t want to leave here. Not ever. But I can’t make Mother understand.”

  “Neither can I. I wish I could, but I can’t. She just doesn’t want to listen.”

  “Can you tell her for me anyway, Dad. Tell her to let me stay here? Please. She’ll have to listen to you, even if she doesn’t want to.”

  “I’ll do what I can. But I’m having a pretty hard time keeping her from leaving, herself.”

  “Promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Rob woke up in the middle of the night and heard them arguing again, but their bedroom was at the other end of the hall, and though he knew they were arguing about him again, he couldn’t tell what they were saying. Only how angry they were, how much they hated each other.

  It’s because she’s afraid of the city. Afraid of it for me. Because she doesn’t understand it. Even Dad doesn’t really understand it. If they understood, she wouldn’t be afraid anymore. Then she’d see how beautiful it is here, how perfectly it all goes together now, and they wouldn’t fight anymore.

  The full moon was shining brightly in through the window, and when he sat up he could see the geraniums pulsing and glowing in the garden. The clock by the bed said it was a little after three in the morning. I can’t wait any longer, he realized. Not if they’re going to hate each other like that. He waited until the sounds of their fight had died away, then forced himself to wait another half hour by the clock to make sure they were asleep.

  He put his pajamas on, and eased the bedroom door open, then sneaked down the hall. In their house in Arizona, the floor had creaked whenever he’d tried to sneak downstairs for cookies after he was supposed to be in bed, but the Tla’s film had fixed this house’s warped floorboards in place so that they were solid and his footsteps didn’t make any noise.

  He paused in front of his parents’ door and heard his father snoring, the sound of his mother’s regular breathing, so he knew he was safe. But even so, there would be too much chance of waking them up if he ran a tub, so he continued on past the bathroom and downstairs.

  The living room window was open. It was a perfect night to talk to the Tla: warm, calm, bright, with nothing to distract them. He felt his way along the walkway on his hands and knees until he was just over the statue. He didn’t want to get his pajamas wet, so he took them off and climbed down the statue till he was standing on its pedestal with his legs in the geraniums up to his knees and his ankles underwater.

  He lay down on his stomach on the geraniums, feeling the springy mass swaying beneath him. He pushed them out of the way with his hands, put his head down by the water again the way he had on the Punta della Dogana, whispered, “Are you there? Can you hear me?” Then he closed his eyes and stuck his head underwater so he could hear their answer.

  We can hear you, Rob, he heard Sth’liat say.

  He lifted his head back up out of the water. “You have to help me,” he whispered. “I need your help.”

  Why? One of the Tla asked him when he stuck his head back under again. What’s wrong?

  “My parents,” he told them. “They’re going to send me away.” He told them all about it, how his mother hated Venice, how she wanted to send him away to school.

  You can come back and see us later, they told him when he put his head in the water again, already losing interest. We’ll still be here. We’ll be here. We’ll be here until we grow up again. You’ll have plenty of time to come back and play with us then.

  “Is that why you talk to me and not to the others? Because I’m just a kid like you now?”

  Because you wanted to be my friend, Sth’liat said. And the others are too old for us. We won’t be that old again for hundreds of years.

  “But if I go away, I’ll get too old
for you!”

  Then come play with us now, Sth’liat told him. Leave your old body and come swim with us. That way you won’t have to get old before we do.

  “I can’t do that.”

  You can if you want to. We’ll help you.

  “Can I just leave my body for a little while, an hour or two, and then come back to it?”

  No. You’ll have to wait until your new body grows up again.

  “I can’t. I’m just a kid. Mother and Father’d miss me.”

  Then come back to us later, when you can. We’ll still be here waiting for you.

  “Show yourselves to me. Please, let me see what you look like.”

  Put your head in the water again and open your eyes.

  He wedged his head as far as he could into the geraniums, opened his eyes. The salt water stung. All he could see was the geraniums’ pulsating phosphorescence.

  He held his breath until, suddenly, he heard their laughter and saw a quick, darting spark of light, and then another. Like fireflies. Underwater fireflies.

  A third spark joined them, and a fourth. Then, as suddenly as they had come, they were gone.

  “Sth’liat?” he asked. But there was no answer. He got to his feet, climbed the statue back to the walkway, sneaked back to his room.

  They’ll never believe me, he realized the next day as school was getting out. The fireflies are too different. Even if I can show the fireflies to them, nobody’ll ever believe that those are really the Tla.

  They’re little kids. Too little. Babies. They won’t ever tell me the kind of thing I need to convince people that they’re really here talking to me.

  He wandered around until it started getting dark, using his grope stick to follow the walkways’ twistings and turnings with automatic skill. It was only when he finally took the way back to his house and, looking in through the living room window, saw his parents sitting stiffly across from each other, glaring as though they’d been fighting yet again, that he at last realized what he’d been doing had been saying good-bye to the city.

  The Tla had been so beautiful, darting through the water. So free and joyous.

  “Where were you?” his mother said when he reached the window. “We were worried about you.”

  “Out. Just walking around.”

  “Well, don’t. Not without telling us.”

  He looked at them, the fear and anger on his mother’s face, the anger and frustration on his father’s, and thought: The sooner I tell them I want to go away to school, the better. When they don’t have me around to worry about, they won’t have to hate each other anymore.

  “Mother, I—”

  “What, Rob?”

  “Nothing.” He couldn’t say it. I’ll tell them tomorrow, he decided. At breakfast. I’ll sneak out tonight after they’re asleep to watch the Tla again and tell them tomorrow.

  “Then sit down,” his father said. “We’ve got something to tell you.” Rob sat down on the couch.

  “We’ve decided that you’ve got to go away to school,” his father said. “Your mother’s been checking out boarding schools for you, but we didn’t want to say anything until we were sure. She’s found a school in Switzerland that looks perfect, except that you’re a little weak in languages for them. So you’ll be starting intensive summer school courses in two weeks to give you a chance to catch up with the other students there.”

  “But you told me—”

  “I know, Rob.” His father couldn’t meet his eyes. “But I didn’t want to make you unhappy. I wanted you to enjoy the rest of your time here.”

  “When? When did you decide?”

  “Last week,” his mother said.

  “The morning I heard you fighting before school?” he asked his father.

  “Yes.”

  “You lied to me! You promised you’d help me stay!”

  “I promised your mother I wouldn’t tell you anything first.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, Rob, but that’s how it has to be. You’ll understand better when you’re older.”

  Everything he’d tried to do for them, all the ways he’d been willing to give up everything he wanted to make them happy, and they’d been lying to him, they’d already decided to send him away. Suddenly he wasn’t willing to sacrifice anything for them anymore. They had to let him stay. He had to make them let him stay.

  “The Tla,” he said. “They’re still here.”

  “What?” his mother asked.

  “What do you mean?” his father demanded.

  “They’re still alive. They didn’t die. They talk to me. That’s why you can’t send me away: you need me here, to talk to them for you.”

  His mother looked horrified. She opened her mouth to say something, but his father glanced over at her, shook his head slightly, and she closed her mouth again.

  “You don’t believe me. You think I’m making it all up!”

  “We found their bodies, Rob. You saw the photographs,” his father said, gently now. “I’m sorry they’re dead, I wish they weren’t as much as you do, but that doesn’t change the facts. They’re dead, Rob.”

  “Those were just their—like their cocoons. They’re different now. Young again.”

  “I don’t want to hear this,” his mother said.

  “No, wait. What are they like now, Rob?”

  “They’re tiny. They were too old, but when they get too old they don’t die, they just turn back into children.”

  “Can you show them to us, Rob?” his father asked.

  Rob turned to the open window. The garden was just beginning to glow faintly in the deepening twilight. “Show yourselves!” he yelled to the Tla. “Please show yourselves to them. Just this one time. Or they’ll make me go away.”

  “Rob—” his father began.

  “Please!” he shouted.

  And then, suddenly, there among the pulsing swirls of phosphorescence in the garden, he saw brighter sparks, like dozens of fireflies darting around in the geraniums.

  “They can’t see you!” he yelled. “Make them see you.”

  The sparks darted faster, and some came leaping out of the geraniums to dance in the air, shining and beautiful, for an instant before falling back.

  “There! Did you see them?”

  “See what?”

  “Those sparks, in the garden, the ones that looked like fireflies.”

  “That’s all they were, Rob. Fireflies,” his father said in that same horrible, gentle, pitying tone of voice that was worse than any anger could have been. “And your mother’s right. This city isn’t right for you. But we can’t wait until next fall to send you away.”

  “I’ll get us plane tickets for Monday,” his mother said. “We can go pack and stay with Mother until we figure out something better. Maybe she’ll be able to find us a good doctor.”

  “I don’t need a doctor. I’m not sick.” He wanted to yell it at them, but he was too tired, it was too hopeless, there wasn’t any reason to keep on talking to them. They couldn’t understand. They could never understand.

  That’s why the Tla talked to me and not to anybody else, he realized. Because I’m not like the rest of them. Because I could believe in them.

  “Go up and take your bath,” his mother told him. “I’ll come see you when you’re ready for bed.”

  She was treating him like he was six years old again. That’s how it was going to be from now on. They’d be watching over him all the time, listening to everything he said to see if he was crazy.

  It would be better to go with the Tla, he realized as he turned the water on and started to get undressed. Swim free of his body and play with them in the sinking city for hundreds of years until they were ready to grow up again.

  But what if he did go with the Tla? His mother and father would find his old body in the bathtub. Would they realize what had happened, decide the Tla were dangerous after all, maybe decide to destroy the whole city?

  But then he realized, no, they’ll just think I had an accident, or t
hat I was crazy and drowned myself trying to pretend I was like the Tla. They’ll be sad for a while, but they won’t have to fight over me anymore, and so they’ll be happy together again. Later on, when I’m more grown up, I’ll find a way to tell them what really happened, and then they’ll understand.

  “Sth’liat,” he called as he got into the tub. “Sth’liat, I’m ready. Ready to come play with you.”

  He heard their answering chorus as he slipped beneath the water. Open the drain so we can come to you, Sth’liat told him, and then they were all around him, dancing through the water like tiny burning minnows. He blew all the air out of his lungs, then breathed in and swallowed. He coughed and choked and sneezed until he couldn’t bear it anymore and his body took over and pushed his head up out of the water to gasp for air. But the Tla were still there, darting around him, calling encouragement to him, and he tried again, pushing his head down so violently that he hit it against the marble and half-stunned himself. This time when the water rushed into his nose and throat, he was too confused, to fight his will, and when he gasped for air he only sucked in more water. The pain in his chest was unbearable, he was drowning, he couldn’t find the surface even though it was only centimeters away, and then suddenly, as his body gave a last, violent sneeze, he could breathe again, and he was tiny, like the plastic skin diver he’d had when he was little that you filled with baking soda to make it go underwater, only even tinier than the skin diver had been as he was sneezed violently out of his old body’s left nostril. He felt a moment’s total disorientation, but the Tla were all around him, dancing with him, joyous and welcoming—and now that he was the same size that they were, he could see that they didn’t look like minnows or fireflies at all, but almost like tiny angels or even the fairies he’d seen in books, only with shimmering iridescent veils that rippled around them instead of true wings.

  I’m like them, now he realized with wonder, recognizing the strange sensation that had so confused him as the feel of his own veil-wings. He rippled them, delighting as they caught the water, propelled him into the Tla’s daring dance, faster and faster, so that when at last the sound of the bathroom door opening came to him as a low rumble through the waters, he was only a bright spark vanishing down the drain.