The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Thereafter nigh a surfeit of good talk, as is custom at my lord’s. He mentioning sims, I did relate my own dealings with Peg and Will, to which he listened with much interest. He thinks on buying some for his own household, and unaware I had done so.

  Perhaps it was the wine let loose my tongue, for I broached somewhat my disjoint musings on the sims and their place in nature, on the strangeness of the American fauna and much else besides. Lord Sandwich did acquaintance me with a New World beast found in their southerly holdings by the Spaniards, of strange outlandish sort: big as an ox, or nearly, and all covered over with armor of bone like a man wearing chain. I should pay out a shilling or even more for to see’t, were one conveyed to London.

  Then coffee, and it not watered as so often at an inn, but full and strong. As I and Elizabeth making our departures, Lord Sandwich did bid me join him tomorrow night to hear speak a savant of the Royal Society. It bore, said he, on my prior ramblings, and would say no more, but looked uncommon sly. Even did it not, I should have leaped at the chance.

  This written at one of the clock, for so the watchman just now cried out. Too wound up for bed, what with coffee and the morrow’s prospect. Elizabeth aslumber, but the sims also awake, and at frolic, meseems, from the noises up the stairway.

  If they be of human kind, is their fornication sans clergy sinful? Another vexing question. By their existence, they do engender naught but disquietude. Nay, strike that. They may in sooth more sims engender, a pun good enough to sleep on, and so to bed.

  * * *

  May 21. All this evening worrying at my thoughts as a dog at a bone. My lord Sandwich knows not what commotion internal he did by his invitation, all kindly meant, set off in me. The speaker this night a spare man, dry as dust, of the very sort I learned so well to loathe when at Cambridge.

  Dry as dust! Happy words, which did spring all unbidden from my pen. For of dust the fellow did discourse, if thereby is meant, as commonly, things long dead. He had some men bear in bones but lately found by Swanscombe at a grave-digging. And such bones they were, and teeth (or rather tusks), as to make it all I could do to hold me in my seat. For surely they once graced no less a beast than the hairy elephant whose prototype I saw in menagerie so short a while ago. The double-curving tusks admit of no error, for those of all elephants with which we are anciently familiar form but a single segment of arc.

  When, his discourse concluded, he gave leave for questions, I made bold to ask to what he imputed the hairy elephant’s being so long vanished from our shores yet thriving in the western lands. To this he confessed himself baffled, as am I, and admiring of his honesty as well.

  Before the hairy elephant was known to live, such monstrous bones surely had been reckoned as from beasts perishing in the Flood whereof Scripture speaks. Yet how may that be so, them surviving across a sea wider than any Noah sailed?

  Meseems the answer lieth within my grasp, but am balked from setting finger to’t. The thwarting fair to drive me mad, worse even, I think, than with a lass who will snatch out a hatpin for to defend her charms against my importuning.

  * * *

  May 22. Grand oaks from tiny acorns grow! This morning came a great commotion from the kitchen. I rushing in found Will at struggle with a cur dog which had entered, the door being open on account of fine weather, to steal half a flitch of salt bacon. It dodging most nimbly round the sim, snatched up the gammon and fled out again, him pursuing but in vain.

  Myself passing vexed, having intended to sup thereon. But Will all downcast on returning, so had not the heart further to punish him. Told him instead, him understanding I fear but little, it were well men not sims dwelt in England, else would wolves prowl the London streets still.

  Stood stock still some time thereafter, hearing the greater import behind my jesting speech. Is not the answer to the riddle of the hairy elephant and other exotic beasts existing in the New World but being hereabouts long vanished their having their but sims to hunt them? The sims in their wild haunts wield club and sharpened stone, no more. They are ignorant even of the bow, which from time out of mind has equipt the hunter’s armory.

  Just as not two centuries past we Englishmen slew on this island the last wolf, so may we not imagine our most remotest grandsires serving likewise the hairy elephant, the spear-fanged cat? They being more cunning than sims and better accoutered, this should not have surpassed their powers. Such beasts would survive in America, then, not through virtue inherent of their own, but by reason of lesser danger to them in the sims than would from mankind come.

  Put this budding thought at luncheon today to my lord Sandwich. Him back at me with Marvell to his coy mistress (the most annoyingest sort!), viz., had we but world enough and time, who could reckon the changes as might come to pass? And going on, laughing, to say next will be found dead sims at Swanscombe.

  Though meant but as a pleasantry, quoth I, why not? Against true men they could not long have stood, but needs must have given way as round Plymouth and Virginia. Even without battle they must soon have failed, as being less able than mankind to provide for their wants.

  There we let it lay, but as I think more on’t, the notion admits of broader application. Is’t not the same for trout as for men, or for lilacs? Those best suited living reproduce their kind, whilst the trout with twisted tail or bloom without sweet scent die all unmourned leaving no descendants. And each succeeding generation, being of the previous survivors constituted, will by such reasoning show some little difference from the one as went before.

  Seeing no flaw in this logic, resolve tomorrow to do this from its tachygraphic state, bereft of course of maunderings and privacies, for prospectus to the Royal Society, and mightily wondering whatever they shall make of it.

  * * *

  May 23. Closeted all this day at the Admiralty. Yet did it depend on my diligence alone, I fear me the Fleet should drown. Still, a deal of business finished, as happens when one stays by it. Three quills worn quite out, and my hands all over ink. Also my fine camlet cloak with the gold buttons, which shall mightily vex my wife, poor wretch, unless it may be cleaned. I pray God to make it so, for I do mislike strife at home.

  The burning work at last complete, homeward in the twilight. It being washing-day, dined on cold meat. I do confess, felt no small strange stir in my breast on seeing Will taking down the washing before the house. A vision it was, almost, of his kind roaming England long ago, till perishing from want of substance or vying therefore with men. And now they are through the agency of men returned here again, after some great interval of years. Would I knew how many.

  The writing of my notions engrossing the whole of the day, had no occasion to air them to Lord Brouncker of the Society, as was my hope. Yet expound I must, or burst. Elizabeth, then, at dinner made audience for me, whether she would or no. My spate at last exhausted, asked for her thoughts on’t.

  She said only that Holy Writ sufficed on the matter for her, whereat I could but make a sour face. To bed in some anger, and in fear lest the Royal Society prove as close-minded, which God prevent. Did He not purpose man to reason on the world around him, He should have left him witless as the sim.

  * * *

  May 24. To Gresham College this morning, to call on Lord Brouncker. He examined with great care the papers I had done up, his face revealing nought. Felt myself at recitation once more before a professor, a condition whose lack these last years I have not missed. Feared also he might not be able to take in the writing, it being done in such haste some short-hand characters may have replaced the common ones.

  Then to my delight he declared he reckoned it deserving of a hearing at the Society’s weekly meeting next. Having said so much, he made to dismiss me, himself being much occupied with devising a means whereby to calculate the relation of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. I wish him joy of’t. I do resolve one day soon, however, to learn the multiplication table, which meseems should be of value at the Admiralty. Repaired there from the college,
to do the work I had set by yesterday.

  * * *

  May 26. Watch these days Will and Peg with new eyes. I note for instance them using between themselves our deaf-man’s signs, as well as to me and my wife. As well they might, them conveying far more subtler meanings than the bestial howlings and gruntings that are theirs in nature. Thus though they may not devise any such, they own the wit to see its utility.

  I wonder would the shimpanse likewise?

  A girl came today asking after the vacant maidservant’s post, a pretty bit with red hair, white teeth and fine strong haunches. Thought myself she would serve, but Elizabeth did send her away. Were her looks liker to Peg’s, she had I think been hired on the spot. But a quarrel on it not worth the candle, the more so as I have seen fairer.

  * * *

  May 28. This writ near cockcrow, in hot haste, lest any detail of the evening escape my recollection. Myself being a late addition, spoke last, having settled the title “A Proposed Explication of the Survival of Certain Beasts in America and Their Disappearance Hereabouts” on the essay.

  The prior speakers addressed one the organs internal of bees and the other the appearance of Saturn in the optic glass, both topics which interest me but little. Then called to the podium by Lord Brouncker, all aquiver as a virgin bride. Much wished myself in the company of some old soakers over roast pigeons and dumplings and sack. But a brave front amends for much, and so plunged in straightaway.

  Used the remains of the hairy elephant presented here a sennight past as example of a beast vanished from these shores yet across the sea much in evidence. Then on to the deficiencies of sims as hunters, when set beside even the most savagest of men.

  Thus far well-received, and even when noting the struggle to live and leave progeny that does go on among each kind and between the several kinds. But the storm broke, as I feared it should and more, on my drawing out the implications therefrom: that of each generation only so many may flourish and breed; and that each succeeding generation, being descended of these survivors alone, differs from that which went before.

  My worst and fearfullest nightmare then came true, for up rose shouts of blasphemy. Gave them back what I had told Elizabeth on the use of reason, adding in some heat I had expected such squallings of my wife who is a woman and ignorant, but better from men styling themselves natural philosophers. Did they aim to prove me wrong, let them so by the reason they do profess to cherish. This drew further catcalling but also approbation, which at length prevailed.

  Got up then a pompous little manikin, who asked how I dared set myself against God’s word insofar as how beasts came to be. On my denying this, he did commence reciting at me from Genesis. When he paused for to draw breath, I asked most mildly of him on which day the Lord did create the sims. Thereupon he stood discomfited, his foolish mouth hanging open, at which I was quite heartened.

  Would the next inquisitor had been so easily downed! A Puritan he was, by his somber cloak and somberer bearing. His questions took the same tack as the previous, but not so stupidly. After first enquiring if I believed in God, whereat I truthfully told him aye, he asked did I think Scripture to be the word of God. Again said aye, by now getting and dreading the drift of his argument. And as I feared, he bade me next point him out some place where Scripture was mistaken, ere supplanting it with fancies of mine own.

  I knew not how to make answer, and should have in the next moment fled. But up spake to my great surprise Lord Brouncker, reciting from Second Chronicles, the second verse of the fourth chapter, wherein is said of Solomon and his Temple, Also he made the molten sea of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass, and the height thereof was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits did compass it round about.

  This much perplexed the Puritan and me as well, though I essayed not to show it. Lord Brouncker then proceeded to his explication, to wit that the true compass of a ten-cubit round vessel was not thirty cubits, but above one and thirty, I misremember the exact figure he gave. Those of the Royal Society learned in mathematics did agree he had reason, and urged the Puritan make the experiment for his self with cup, cord and rule, which were enough for to demonstrate the truth.

  I asked if he was answered. Like a gentleman he owned he was, and bowed, and sat, his face full of troubles. Felt with him no small sympathy, for once one error in Scripture is admitted, where shall it end?

  The next query was of different sort, a man in periwigg enquiring if I did reckon humankind to have arisen by the means I described. Had to reply I did. Our forefathers might be excused for thinking otherwise, them being so widely separate from all other creatures they knew.

  But we moderns in our travels round the globe have found the shimpanse, which standeth nigh the flame of reasoned thought; and more important still the sim, in whom the flame does burn, but more feebly than in ourselves. These bridging the gap twixt man and beast meseems do show mankind to be in sooth a part of nature, whose engenderment in some past distant age is to be explained through natural law.

  Someone rose to doubt the variation in each sort of living thing being sufficient eventually to permit the rise of new kinds. Pointed out to him the mastiffe, the terrier, and the bloodhound, all of the dog kind, but become distinct through man’s choice of mates in each generation. Surely the same might occur in nature, said I. The fellow admitted it was conceivable, and sat.

  Then up stood a certain Wilberforce, with whom I have some small acquaintance. He likes me not, nor I him. We know it on both sides, though for civility’s sake feigning otherwise. Now he spoke with smirking air, as one sure of the mortal thrust. He did grant my willingness to have a sim as great-grandfather, said he, but was I so willing to claim one as great-grandmother? A deal of laughter rose, which was his purpose, and to make me out a fool.

  Had I carried steel, I should have drawn on him. As was, rage sharpened my wit to serve for the smallsword I left at home. Told him it were no shame to have one’s great-grandfather a sim, as that sim did use to best advantage the intellect he had. Better that, quoth I, than dissipating the mind on such digressive and misleading quibbles as he raised. If I be in error, then I am; let him shew it by logic and example, not as it were playing to the gallery.

  Came clapping from all sides, to my delight and the round dejection of Wilberforce. On seeking further questions, found none. Took my own seat whilst the Fellows of the Society did congratulate me and cry up my essay louder, I thought, than either of the other two. Lord Brouncker acclaimed it as a unifying principle for the whole of the study of life, which made me as proud a man as any in the world, for all the world seemed to smile upon me.

  And so to bed.

  HOWARD WALDROP

  Fair Game

  Here’s another unusual look at a writer, this one catching a famous author at a very odd point in his life indeed—the moment of his death.

  Already a Legend in His Own Time (probably the only person alive, for instance, ever to act out on stage all of the old horror movies of the fifties), Howard Waldrop has perhaps the wildest and most fertile imagination of any SF writer since R. A. Lafferty. Like Lafferty, Waldrop is known for his strong, shaggy humor, offbeat erudition, and bizarre fictional juxtapositions. In the past, he had given us a first-rate SF story about dodos (“The Ugly Chickens”), a tale set in an alternate world where Eisenhower and Patton are famous jazz musicians and Elvis Presley is a state senator (“Ike at the Mike”), a story in which the Marx Brothers and Laurel and Hardy travel back in time to attempt to prevent the plane crash that killed Buddy Holly (“Save a Place in the Lifeboat for Me”), and a stylish and meticulously researched fantasy in which Izaak Walton goes fishing in the Slough of Despond with John Bunyan (“God’s Hooks”).

  Born in Huston, Mississippi, Waldrop now lives in Austin, Texas. He has sold short fiction to markets as diverse as Omni, Analog, Playboy, Universe, Crawdaddy, New Dimensions, Shayol, and Zoo World. His story “The Ugly Chickens” won both the Nebula and World Fantasy Award in 1981. His
first novel, written in collaboration with fellow Texan Jake Saunders, was The Texas-Israeli War: 1999. His first solo novel, Them Bones, appeared in 1984. His most recent book, the collection Howard Who?, is already being recognized as one of the most important collections of the eighties. Upcoming is another collection, All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past: Neat Stories by Howard Waldrop, from Ursus Books. His story “Man-Mountain Gentian” was in our First Annual Collection, and his “Flying Saucer Rock and Roll” was in our Third Annual Collection.

  FAIR GAME

  Howard Waldrop

  “AN OLD MAN IS A NASTY THING.”

  He heard church bells ringing anxiously on the wind.

  He felt the cool air on his skin.

  He saw the valley spread out below him like a giant shell.

  It was a valley he had known, thirty-five or forty years ago, when he had been there for the skiing. It was a small valley in Bavaria, with its small town. He had never seen it in this season, having been here only in winter. This was spring. Patches of snow still lay in the shade, but everything was greening, the air was a robin-egg blue above the hovering mountains.

  He was on the road into town, moving toward the sound of the bells. He lifted his eyes up a little past the village (the glare hurt them, but in the last few years so had all bright lights). Through a slight haze he saw a huge barn, far off on the road leading out the other side of the town.

  He looked quickly back down at his feet. He did not like looking at the barn.

  He noticed his boots; his favorites, the ones he had hunted in until two years ago when his body had turned on him after all the years he had punished it, when he couldn’t hunt anymore. When he could no longer crouch down for the geese in the blinds, he had taken to walking up pheasant and chukar. But then even that ability had left him, like everything else he ever had.

  Walking toward the town was tiring. His pants were that tattered old pair from the first hunt in Africa, the one the book came out of. He had kept those pants in the bottom of an old trunk filled with zebra hides.