The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “I wouldn’t.”

  “That’s what my old professor said.”

  Anthony turned away, fury running through him like chill fire. Philana looked at him levelly for a moment, then dropped her forehead to her knees. She sighed. “I don’t know, Anthony. I don’t know anymore. If I ever did.”

  Anthony stared fixedly at the distant white dwarf, just arrived above the horizon and visible through the hatch. We are, he thought, in a condition of permanent bafflement. “What do you want, Philana?” he asked.

  Her head came up, looked at him. “I want not to be a tennis ball in your game with Telamon, Anthony. I want to know I’m not just the prize given the winner.”

  “I wanted you before I ever met Telamon, Philana.”

  “Telamon changed a few things.” Her voice was cold. “Before you met him, you didn’t use my body to send messages to people.”

  Anthony’s fists clenched. He forced them to relax.

  Philana’s voice was bitter. “Seems to me, Anthony, that’s one of Telamon’s habits you’re all too eager to adopt.”

  Anthony’s chest ached. He didn’t seem able to breathe in enough air. He took a long breath and hoped his tension would ease. It didn’t. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s not … a normal situation.”

  “For you, maybe.”

  Silence hung in the room, broken only by the whale clicks and mutters rising through the boat. Anthony shook his head. “What do we do, then?” he asked. “Surrender?”

  “If we have to.” She looked at him. “I’m willing to fight Telamon, but not to the point where one of us is destroyed.” She leaned toward him, her expression intent. “And if Telamon wins, could you live with it?” she asked. “With surrender? If we had to give him what he wanted?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I have to live with it. You don’t. That’s the difference.”

  “That’s one difference.” He took a breath, then rose from his place. “I have to think,” he said.

  He climbed into the cockpit. Red sunset was splattered like blood across the windscreen. He tried to breathe the sea air, clear the heaviness he felt in his chest, but it didn’t work. Anthony went up onto the flybridge and stared forward. His eyes burned as the sun went down in flames.

  * * *

  The white dwarf was high overhead when Anthony came down. Philana was lying in the forepeak, covered with a sheet, her eyes staring sightlessly out the open hatch. Anthony took his clothes off and crawled in beside her.

  “I’ll surrender,” he said. “If I have to, I’ll surrender.” She turned to him and put her arms around him. Hopeless desire burned in his belly.

  He made love to Philana, his nerves numb to the possibility that Telamon might reappear. Her hungry mouth drank in his pain. He didn’t know whether this was affirmation or not, whether this meant anything other than the fact there was nothing left to do at this point than stagger blindly into one another’s embrace.

  * * *

  A Dweller soloed from below, the clearest Anthony had ever heard one. WE CALL TO OURSELVES, the Dweller said, WE SPEAK OF THINGS AS THEY ARE. Anthony rose from bed and set his computer to record. Sings of Others, rising alongside to breathe, called a hello. Anthony tapped his keys, hit TRANSMIT.

  Air Human and I are in a condition of rut, he said.

  WE CONGRATULATE ANTHONY AND AIR HUMAN ON OUR CONDITION OF RUT, Sings of Others responded. The whooping whale cries layered atop the thundering Dweller noises. WE WISH OURSELVES MANY HAPPY COPULATIONS.

  HAPPY COPULATIONS, HAPPY COPULATIONS, echoed Two Notches.

  A pointless optimism began to resonate in Anthony’s mind. He sat before the computer and listened to the sounds of the Deep Dwellers as they rumbled up his spine.

  Philana appeared at the hatch. She was buttoning her shirt. “You told the whales about us?” she said.

  “Why not?”

  She grinned faintly. “I guess there’s no reason not to.”

  Two Notches wailed a question. ARE ANTHONY AND AIR HUMAN COPULATING NOW?

  Not at present, Anthony replied.

  WE HOPE YOU WILL COPULATE OFTEN.

  Philana, translating the speech on her own, laughed. “Tell them we hope so, too,” she said.

  And then she stiffened. Anthony’s nerves poured fire. Philana turned to him and regarded him with Telamon’s eyes.

  “I thought you’d see reason,” Telamon said. “I’ll surrender. I like that.”

  Anthony looked at the possessed woman and groped for a vehicle for his message. Words seemed inadequate, he decided, but would have to do. “You haven’t won yet,” he said.

  Philana’s head cocked to one side as Telamon viewed him. “Has it occurred to you,” Telamon said, “that if she’s free of me, she won’t need you at all?”

  “You forget something. I’ll be rid of you as well.”

  “You can be rid of me any time.”

  Anthony stared at Telamon for a moment, then suddenly he laughed. He had just realized how to send his message. Telamon looked at him curiously. Anthony turned to his computer deck and flipped to the Dweller translation file.

  I/we, he typed, live in the warm brightness above. I am new to this world, and send good wishes to the Dwellers below.

  Anthony pressed TRANSMIT. Rolling thunder boomed from the boat’s speakers. The grammar was probably awful, Anthony knew, but he was fairly certain of the words, and he thought the meaning would be clear.

  Telamon frowned, stepped to gaze over Anthony’s shoulder.

  Calls came from below. A translation tree appeared on the screen.

  “Trench Dweller” was probably one of the Dwellers’ names. “Bubbleward” was a phrase for “up,” since bubbles rose to the surface. Anthony tapped the keys.

  We are from far away, recently arrived. We are small and foreign to the world. We wish to brush the Dwellers with our thoughts. We regret our lack of clarity in diction.

  “I wonder if you’ve thought this through,” Telamon said.

  Anthony hit TRANSMIT. Speakers boomed. The subsonics were like a punch in the gut.

  “Go jump off a cliff,” Anthony said.

  “You’re making a mistake,” said Telamon.

  The Dweller’s answer was surprisingly direct.

  Anthony’s heart crashed in astonishment. Could the Dwellers stand the lack of pressure on the surface? I/We, he typed, Trench Dweller, proceed with consideration for safety. I/We recollect that we are small and weak. He pressed TRANSMIT and flipped to the whalespeech file.

  Deep Dweller rising to surface, he typed. Run fast northward.

  The whales answered with cries of alarm. Flukes pounded the water. Anthony ran to the cabin and cranked the wheel hard to starboard. He increased speed to separate himself from the humpbacks. Behind him, Telamon stumbled in his unfamiliar body as the boat took the waves at a different angle.

  Anthony returned to his computer console. I/We are in a state of motion, he reported. Is living in the home of the light occasion for a condition of damage to us/Trench Dweller?

  “You’re mad,” said Telamon, and then Philana staggered. “He’s done it again,” she said in a stunned voice. She stepped to the starboard bench and sat down. “What’s happening?” she asked.

  “I’m talking to the Dwellers. One of them is rising to say hello.”

  “Now?”

  He gave her a skeletal grin. “It’s what you wanted, yes?” She stared at him.

  I’m going over cliffs, he thought. One after another.

  That, Anthony concluded, is the condition of existence.

  Subsonics rattled crockery in the kitchen.

  Anthony typed, I/We happily await greeting ourselves and pressed TRANSMIT, then REPEAT. He would give the Dweller a sound to home in on.

  “I don’t understand,” Philana said. He moved to join her on the bench, put his arm around her. She shrugged him off. “Tell me,” she said. He took her hand.

  “We’re going to win.”
/>   “How?”

  “I don’t know yet.”

  She was too shaken to argue. “It’s going to be a long fight,” she said.

  “I don’t care.”

  Philana took a breath. “I’m scared.”

  “So am I,” said Anthony.

  The boat beat itself against the waves. The flying yacht followed, a silent shadow.

  Anthony and Philana waited in silence until the Dweller rose, a green-grey mass that looked as if a grassy reef had just calved. Foam roared from its back as it broke water, half an ocean running down its sides. Anthony’s boat danced in the sudden white tide, and then the ocean stilled. Bits of the Dweller were all around, spread over the water for leagues—tentacles, filters, membranes. The Dweller’s very mass had calmed the sea. The Dweller was so big, Anthony saw, it constituted an entire ecosystem. Sea creatures lived among its folds and tendrils: some had died as they rose, their swim bladders exploding in the release of pressure; others leaped and spun and shrank from the brightness above.

  Sunlight shone from the Dweller’s form, and the creature pulsed with life.

  Terrified, elated, Philana and Anthony rose to say hello.

  JAMES PATRICK KELLY

  Home Front

  Not all battles are fought on the battleground; some are won considerably closer to home …

  One of the hottest new writers in science fiction, James Patrick Kelly was born in Mineola, New York, and now lives in Durham, New Hampshire. Kelly made his first sale in 1975, and has since become a frequent contributor to The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine; his stories have also appeared in Universe, Galaxy, Amazing, Analog, The Twilight Zone Magazine, and elsewhere. His first solo novel Planet of Whispers came out in 1984, followed by Freedom Beach, written in collaboration with John Kessel. His most recent novel is Look Into the Sun. His story “Friend,” also in collaboration with Kessel, was in our First Annual Collection; his story “Solstice” was in our Third Annual Collection; his story “The Prisoner of Chillon” was in our Fourth Annual Collection; his story “Glass Cloud” was in our Fifth Annual Collection.

  HOME FRONT

  James Patrick Kelly

  “Hey, Genius. What are you studying?”

  Will hunched his shoulders and pretended not to hear. He had another four pages to review before he could test. If he passed, then he wouldn’t have to log onto eighth grade again until Wednesday. He needed a day off.

  “What are you, deaf?” Gogolak nudged Will’s arm. “Talk to me, Genius.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Come on, Gogo,” said the fat kid, whose name Will had forgotten. He was older: maybe in tenth, more likely a dropout. Old enough to have pimples. “Let’s eat.”

  “Just a minute,” said Gogolak. “Seems like every time I come in here, this needle is sitting in this booth with his face stuck to a schoolcomm. It’s ruining my appetite. What is it, math? Español?”

  “History.” Will thought about leaving, going home, but that would only postpone the hassle. Besides, his mom was probably still there. “The Civil War.”

  “You’re still on that? Jeez, you’re slow. I finished that weeks ago.” Gogolak winked at his friend. “George Washington freed the slaves so they’d close school on his birthday.”

  The big kid licked his lips and eyed the menu above the vending wall at the rear of the Burger King.

  “Lincoln,” said Will. “Try logging on sometime, you might learn something.”

  “What do you mean? I’m logged on right now.” Gogolak pulled the comm out of his backpack and thrust it at Will. “Just like you.” The indicator was red.

  “It doesn’t count unless someone looks at it.”

  “Then you look at it, you’re so smart.” He tossed the comm onto the table and it slid across, scattering a pile of Will’s hardcopy. “Come on Looper. Get out your plastic.”

  Will watched Looper push his ration card into the french-fry machine. He and Gogolak were a mismatched pair. Looper was as tall as Will, at least a hundred and ninety centimeters; Looper, however, ran to fat, and Will looked like a sapling. Looper was wearing official Johnny America camouflage and ripped jeans. He didn’t seem to be carrying a schoolcomm, which meant he probably was warbait. Gogolak was the smallest boy and the fastest mouth in Will’s class. He dressed in skintight style; everyone knew that girls thought he was cute. Gogolak didn’t have to worry about draft sweeps; he was under age and looked it, and his dad worked for the Selective Service.

  Will realized that they would probably be back to bother him. He hit save so that Gogolak couldn’t spoil his afternoon’s work. When they returned to Will’s booth, Looper put his large fries down on the table and immediately slid across the bench to the terminal on the wall. He stuck his fat finger into the coin return. Will already knew it was empty. Then Looper pressed select, and the tiny screen above the terminal lit up.

  “Hey,” he said to Will, “you still got time here.”

  “So?” But Will was surprised; he hadn’t thought to try the selector. “I was logged on.” He nodded at his comm.

  “What did I tell you, Loop?” Gogolak stuffed Looper’s fries into his mouth. “Kid’s a genius.”

  Looper flipped channels past cartoons, plug shows, catalogs, freebies, music vids, and finally settled on the war. Johnny America was on patrol.

  “Gervais buy it yet?” said Gogolak.

  “Nah.” Looper acted like a real fan. “He’s not going to either; he’s getting short. Besides, he’s wicked smart.”

  The patrol trotted across a defoliated clearing toward a line of trees. With the sun gleaming off their helmets, they looked to Will like football players running a screen, except that Johnny was carrying a minimissile instead of a ball. Without warning, Johnny dropped to one knee and brought the launcher to his shoulder. His two rangefinders fanned out smartly and trained their lasers on the far side of the clearing. There was a flash; the jungle exploded.

  “Foom!” Looper provided the sound effects. “Yah, you’re barbecue, Pedro!” As a sapodilla tree toppled into the clearing, the time on the terminal ran out.

  “Too bad,” Gogolak poured salt on the table and smeared a fry in it. “I wanted to see the meat.”

  “Hey, you scum! That’s my dinner.” Looper snatched the fries pouch from Gogolak. “You hardly left me any.”

  He shrugged. “Didn’t want them to get cold.”

  “Stand-ins.” A girl in baggy blue disposables stood at the door and surveyed the booths. “Any stand-ins here?” she called.

  It was oldie Warner’s granddaughter, Denise, who had been evacuated from Texas and was now staying with him. She was in tenth and absolutely beautiful. Her accent alone could melt snow. Will had stood in for her before. Looper waved his hand hungrily until she spotted them.

  “Martin’s just got the monthly ration of toilet paper,” she said. “They’re limiting sales to three per customer. Looks like about a half-hour line. My grandpa will come by at four-thirty.”

  “How much?” said Looper.

  “We want nine rolls.” She took a five out of her purse. “A quarter for each of you.”

  Will was torn. He could always use a quarter and he wanted to help her. He wanted her to ask his name. But he didn’t want to stand in line for half an hour with these stupid jacks.

  Gogolak was staring at her breasts. “Do I know you?”

  “I may be new in town, sonny—” she put the five on the table “—but you don’t want to rip me off.”

  “Four-thirty.” Gogolak let Looper take charge of the money. Will didn’t object.

  * * *

  Martin’s was just next door to the Burger King. The line wasn’t bad, less than two aisles long when they got on. There were lots of kids from school standing in, none of them close enough to talk to.

  “Maybe she got tired of using leaves,” said Gogolak.

  Looper chuckled. “Who is she?”

&nb
sp; “Seth Warner’s granddaughter,” said Will.

  “Bet she’s hot.” Gogolak leered.

  “Warner’s a jack,” said Looper. “Pig-faced oldie still drives a car.”

  Most of the shelves in aisle 2 were bare. There was a big display of government surplus powdered milk, the kind they loaded up with all those proteins and vitamins and tasted like chalk. It had been there for a week and only three boxes were gone. Then more empty space, and then a stack of buckets with no labels. Someone had scrawled “Korn Oil” on them: black marker on bare metal. At the end of the aisle was the freezer section, which was mostly jammed with packages of fries. Farther down were microwave dinners for the rich people. They wound past the fries and up aisle 3, at the end of which Will could see Mr. Rodenets, the stock boy, dispensing loose rolls of toilet paper from a big cardboard box.

  “How hard you think it is to get chosen Johnny America?” Looper said. “I mean really.”

  “What do you mean, really?” said Gogolak. “You think J.A. is real?”

  “People die. They couldn’t fake that kind of stuff.” Looper’s face got red. “You watch enough, you got to believe.”

  “Maybe,” Gogolak said. “But I bet you have to know someone.”

  Will knew it wasn’t true. Gogolak just liked to pop other people’s dreams. “Mr. Dunnell swears they pick the team at random,” he said.

  “Right,” Gogolak said. “Whenever somebody gets dead.”

  “Who’s Dunnell?” said Looper.

  “Socialization teacher.” Will wasn’t going to let Gogolak run down Johnny America’s team, no matter who his father was. “Most of them make it. I’ll bet seventy percent at least.”

  “You think that many?” Looper nodded eagerly. “What I heard is they get discharged with a full boat. Whatever they want, for the rest of their lives.”

  “Yeah, and Santa is their best friend,” Gogolak said. “You sound like recruiters.”

  “It’s not like I’d have to be J.A. himself. I just want to get on his team, you know? Like maybe in body armor.” Looper swept his arm down the aisle with robotic precision, exterminating bacon bits.