The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Sixth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “I crawled along until I was directly across from the stable spot I had seen from below. I took a running start, jumped over three meters of black space and rolled to a stop.

  “I was on a sort of stainless steel mesa, the highest point in the landscape of sprockets and armatures and escapements—all clanking and tearing and grinding against each other. Something was terribly wrong.

  “After a while the logic of mechanism became clearer to me. There were groups of components, and groups of groups, and so on to the fifth or sixth order. At a great distance, among the less immediately related groups, the gears seemed to be spinning more regularly. The disorder grew with proximity to my position. The focal point seemed to be somewhere in the shadows directly beneath my feet. I studied the situation for a few more minutes, then I lowered myself from the ledge into the chaos below.

  “I worked my way around a spring and a halted flywheel to a point where black smoke was rising and the screeching sounded continuously. I could just make out a machine head screw the size of a oil drum jammed between two gears.

  “I don’t remember the next few minutes very well—just the sounds of machinery tearing itself apart, and shifting shadows and plumes of sparks that flew each time the gears ground against the screw. I crawled down into the mechanism—I don’t know why exactly, but it seemed very important that I do so. I braced myself against something and pushed at the screw until it jumped free and went skittering across a field of polished chrome.

  “I stood up, breathing deeply. The clamor softened, became more rhythmic and tonal. After a few minutes I could distinguish notes, then melodies, then antiphonal responses from more distant parts of the mechanism. As I climbed back onto the mesa, the music synchronized and resonated and interwove until it became something I could almost feel and taste.

  “I stood on a ledge, head thrown back, consumed by the music, while, haltingly at first, then more surely, the sun began to rise.

  “I closed my eyes, and when I opened them again I was back in my room. I saw Martin sitting near me with his snout extended. Something in his posture exuded pride and pleasure.”

  * * *

  “The rain stopped just after dark, and Martin and I went for a walk on a back lane bordered by dripping trees. Grouse rushed through the heather from time to time as we passed. Otherwise, the world was perfectly still. Martin moved quickly. I puffed a bit trying to keep up.

  “After an hour or so, the fields on either side of us began to turn translucent. The effect seemed perfectly natural to me—I took only the most casual notice of it. I had the sensation of stars rushing by overhead.

  “We crested a hill, and Martin grew more excited. At the top I could just make out the dark silhouette of a large, angular house.

  “A cobbled pathway led up to the entrance. Martin shuffled forward expectantly. I stopped short of the front door—I didn’t want to alarm the residents. Each of the cobbles, I noticed, had a figure inscribed into it. I had my notebook in my back pocket; I knelt over and made a quick rubbing. When I looked up, Martin was knocking on the front door with his snout.

  “The wind off the plowed fields began to bite. I observed peripherally that the stars had slowed and stopped in unfamiliar patterns. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Martin seemed very sure of himself. He knocked again.

  “At the second knock the door swung heavily inwards. The entryway was very dark, very empty—just a long expanse of bare wall and odd, twisted floorboard. What held my attention was the figure at the door. It was a squat shape about three feet high, enveloped in a loose black cloak. The cloak hid all its features, but I could distinguish a rounded projection at floor level, like the head of a beetle. The shape rose up slowly, and the cloak fell back.

  “The night was very dark. Even the starlight was dim, almost red, as if the stars themselves had grown terribly old. But I could see the creature’s face well enough. It was a circle of six lidless, compound eyes surrounding a mass of waving tentacles with a black, glistening hole in the center.

  “I stood frozen in the doorway for a moment. Then … I turned and walked away. I remember the night being terribly quiet. The only sounds were my footsteps striking the incised cobbles in front of the house and the splashing of huge wet drops falling from the trees. After a few yards I tripped over a root and fell heavily. I scrambled to my feet and ran.

  “I didn’t slow down until I could see the lights of the village. I leaned against a tree and gulped air until my chest stopped burning. I finally remembered to look around for Martin. He was at my feet, shivering.”

  * * *

  “I didn’t sleep that night. I paced around my room, replaying the scene at the door. I tried to recall more details. I couldn’t be sure—the house was so dark, and I was so startled by that alien figure—but I thought I remembered more of the black creatures huddled at the end of the corridor.

  “The next morning—as soon as the sun was up—I dropped Martin in my pack and went looking for the house. The roads looked different in the daylight, and I wasn’t entirely sure of the route I’d taken. I must have crisscrossed the countryside a dozen times. I went again the next night, letting Martin walk alongside me, then again the night after that.

  “I never found it.

  “Very early one morning—we’d been out all night—we had to walk back through the village green on the way home. I let Martin play on the lawn for a while. He seemed to enjoy that. He rolled in the grass, poked at it with his snout, ate some. I could tell where he’d been from the faint hexagonal patterns he left behind.

  “He was nosing around a sign post when an elderly gentleman with a splendid mustache popped out of the shadows right in front of us.

  “I smiled weakly and said good evening—I didn’t know what else to do.

  “The old fellow came gradually to a stop and looked us over. His eyesight, I suspected, wasn’t what it had once been.

  “‘That’s a fine looking animal you have there,’ he said. He tended to shout a bit.

  “I thanked him.

  “‘Ah, what is it exactly?’

  “I thought for a while. ‘A jabberwock?’ I meant it as a lame sort of joke.

  “‘A sort of terrier then?’

  “‘Exactly.’

  “He nodded in a knowledgeable way. ‘American breed?’

  “‘Right.’

  “‘A fine specimen. Well, see that you curb him, sir.’ With that he pushed on.

  “I nearly expired on the spot.”

  * * *

  “That was enough. The next day I said goodbye to my landlady and caught the train to London. I took the first plane home, called you from the airport.” He shrugged. “And here I am.”

  Roger’s voice had faded almost to extinction. He seemed desperately tired. But I couldn’t let him stop.

  “Go on,” I said.

  “That’s all.”

  I shook my head. “What happened to Martin?”

  “Martin’s in my backpack.”

  I tried to say something, failed. I looked at his pack. “He’s here?”

  “Of course. Did you think I’d left him behind? I was a little concerned about customs, but they didn’t inspect my bag, so there wasn’t a problem. Would you like to see him?”

  A truck drove by, rumbling through half a dozen gears as it rounded a corner.

  “Now?” I asked.

  “It’s a little bright in here…”

  Roger waited while I turned out the lights, then he unzipped the bottom compartment of his pack and reached inside. I noticed a tart smell, rather pleasant, with strains of cinnamon and an earthier tone I couldn’t identify.

  He took out something elongated and blackly iridescent and put it on the floor. It moved towards me with a sound like rustling silk.

  I took an involuntary step backwards.

  “Jesus, Roger … what is it?”

  “It’s an instrument, like the thing my ancestor found. Only this one is organic. The artifa
ct in the mine had to last for millions of years, so it was built out of a material that served that purpose. But ceramic couldn’t do Martin’s job.”

  The creature—there was no doubting that it was alive—moved closer. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could see the tapering projection that Roger referred to as its snout. It uncoiled to a length of eight inches or more and sought one of my shoes. I nearly fell over getting out of the way. Roger steadied me.

  “Really, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  I took a deep breath. “All right. But what is it? Something like … that can’t be space-faring.”

  “No, of course not. Martin isn’t a sentient alien. He’s a machine. Very specialized. His function is to help me contact his people.”

  I held out my hand tentatively and let the creature probe it with its snout. The touch was slightly electric.

  “The information was stored in his genetic material somehow. And he was able to pass it directly into my brain, like copying a computer file. His job amounted to establishing a communications protocol, then performing a tricky format conversion—translating his data into our neural idioms. I wish I understood how he did it.”

  I rubbed my forehead. “Roger, stop. What are you talking about?”

  “The dark house, that’s what this is all about. I think it was Martin’s idiom for his home planet. He took me there somehow—I don’t know if we moved physically or what. But I’m sure the house only existed within Birwood city limits on that one night.”

  I shook my head. “I still don’t understand. It sounds so complicated. Why not just leave … I don’t know, a transmitter or a spaceship or something?”

  Roger picked Martin up, scratched him gently behind the snout. “I thought about that. Too risky. You don’t want just anyone knowing where you are. One of Martin’s jobs must have been to test us, me—that’s what the clockwork dream was for. Were we smart enough? Harmless enough? I suppose we were. He tried to take me home.

  “But I only got the one chance. We never went back, and I haven’t had any more dreams.”

  His voice was like broken glass.

  “It all sounds so … ephemeral,” I said. “Are you sure the house was real?” Roger reached into a pocket and took out a sheet of paper covered with pencil rubbings. He unfolded it carefully.

  “I found this in my notebook the morning after I visited the house—the inscription on the cobble.”

  The revealed figure showed a striking, stylized design: a ring of six small circles surrounding a radiating swirl of short, wavy lines. A face.

  My hands trembled a bit. “What are you going to do? Call a press conference?”

  Roger shook his head. “Would you mind if I went to sleep first? You can’t begin to imagine how tired I am.”

  * * *

  The smell of fresh coffee mixed with the faintest of cinnamon scents early the next morning. I called to Roger. No answer. With the curtains drawn, the living room was quite dark. Even so, I knew immediately that he was gone.

  There was a familiar leather-bound book on the coffee table with a note tucked inside its front cover. I picked up the note; I had to push the curtains apart before I could make it out. I was struck by how similar the handwriting was to Captain John Knowles’s inscription on the flyleaf. The voice, though, was very much Roger’s:

  I’m sorry I evaded your question last night. No, I won’t be giving a press conference. You will. I’ve left you with enough evidence, I think, to convince anyone. You’ll be able to handle the reporters much better than I could.

  I’m not really much of a hero.

  That’s a subject I’ve had occasion to think considerably on during the last few days. Mostly I’ve been trying to understand why I walked away from that dark house at the top of the hill. I was terrified, of course; but I could control that. I also felt, rationally or otherwise, that if I walked through the door, I wouldn’t be coming back. I can honestly say that frightened me even less.

  But I’d been so secretive. I hadn’t told anyone. I had reasons at the time. Still, if I’d accepted the creature’s invitation, the artifact and Martin and everything else would have vanished along with me. I really couldn’t let that happen—even an unemployed scientist has some professional responsibilities. And, to be honest, there was more to it than that. I wanted people to know who I was, what I’d done.

  You’ll tell them won’t you?

  And I’ll ask one more favor. I need two months. That’s why I came back instead of keeping my appointment in Cambridge. I needed someone I could trust.

  As you read this I’m on my way to England. I’ve already bought the chemicals. The artifact is intact; I can make another Martin, find that house again.

  I won’t run this time.

  Roger’s glyph was scrawled at the bottom. I put the note down and drew the curtain shut. Martin’s snout curled towards me inquisitively from beneath the table. He looked very hungry.

  PAT CADIGAN

  It Was the Heat

  Pat Cadigan was born in Schenectady, New York, and now lives in Overland Park, Kansas. One of the best new writers in SF, Cadigan made her first professional sale in 1980 to New Dimensions, and soon became a frequent contributor to Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, and Shadows, among other markets. She was the co-editor, along with husband Arnie Fenner, of Shayol, perhaps the best of the semiprozines; it was honored with a World Fantasy Award in the “Special Achievement, Nonprofessional” category in 1981. She has also served on the Nebula Award Jury and as a World Fantasy Award Judge. Her first novel, Mindplayers, was released in 1987 to excellent critical response, and she has just completed her second novel. Her story “Angel” was in our Fifth Annual Collection; “Pretty Boy Crossover” was in our Fourth Annual Collection; “Roadside Rescue” was in our Third Annual Collection; “Rock On” was in our Second Annual Collection; and “Nearly Departed” was in our First Annual Collection.

  Here she takes us to the French Quarter in old New Orleans for a scary and deliciously erotic look at how easy it is to lose yourself, once you let go just a little.…

  IT WAS THE HEAT

  Pat Cadigan

  It was the heat, the incredible heat that never lets up, never eases, never once gives you a break. Sweat till you die; bake till you drop; fry, broil, burn, baby, burn. How’d you like to live in a fever and never feel cool, never, never, never?

  * * *

  Women think they want men like that. They think they want someone to put the devil in their Miss Jones. Some of them even lie awake at night, alone, or next to a silent lump of husband or boyfriend, or friendly stranger, thinking, Let me be completely consumed with fire. In the name of love.

  Sure.

  Right feeling, wrong name. Try again. And the thing is, they do. They try and try and try, and if they’re very, very unlucky, they find one of them.

  * * *

  I thought I had him right where I wanted him—between my legs. Listen, I didn’t always talk this way. That wasn’t me you saw storming the battlements during the Sexual Revolution. My ambition was liberated but I didn’t lose my head, or give it. It wasn’t me saying, Let them eat pie. Once I had a sense of propriety but I lost it with my inhibitions.

  You think these things happen only in soap operas—the respectable, thirty-five-year-old wife and working mother goes away on a business trip with a suitcase full of navy blue suits and classy blouses with the bow at the neck and a briefcase crammed with paperwork. Product management is not a pretty sight. Sensible black pumps are a must for the run on the fast track and if your ambition is sufficiently liberated, black pumps can keep pace with perforated wing tips, even outrun them.

  But men know the secret. Especially businessmen. This is why management conferences are sometimes held in a place like New Orleans instead of the professional canyons of New York City or Chicago. Men know the secret and now I do, too. But I didn’t then, when I arrived in New Orleans with my luggage and my paperwork and my inhib
itions, to be installed in the Bourbon Orleans Hotel in the French Quarter.

  The room had all the charm of home—more, since I wouldn’t be cleaning it up. I hung the suits in the bathroom, ran the shower, called home, already feeling guilty. Yes, boys, Mommy’s at the hotel now and she has a long meeting to go to, let me talk to Daddy. Yes, dear, I’m fine. It was a long ride from the airport, good thing the corporation’s paying for this. The hotel is very nice, good thing the corporation’s paying for this too. Yes, there’s a pool but I doubt I’ll have time to use it and anyway, I didn’t bring a suit. Not that kind of suit. This isn’t a pleasure trip, you know, I’m not on vacation. No. Yes. No. Kiss the boys for me. I love you, too.

  If you want to be as conspicuous as possible, be a woman walking almost late into a meeting room full of men who are all gunning to be CEOs. Pick out the two or three other female faces and nod to them even though they’re complete strangers, and find a seat near them. Listen to the man at the front of the room say, Now that we’re all here, we can begin, and know that every man is thinking that means you. Imagine what they are thinking, imagine what they are whispering to each other. Imagine that they know you can’t concentrate on the opening presentation because your mind is on your husband and children back home instead of the business at hand when the real reason you can’t concentrate is because you’re imagining they must all be thinking your mind is on your husband and children back home instead of the business at hand.

  Do you know what they’re thinking about, really? They’re thinking about the French Quarter. Those who have been there before are thinking about jazz and booze in go-cups and bars where the women are totally nude, totally, and those who haven’t been there before are wondering if everything’s as wild as they say.

  Finally the presentation ended and the discussion period following the presentation ended (the women had nothing to discuss so as not to be perceived as the ones delaying the after-hours jaunt into the French Quarter). Tomorrow, nine o’clock in the Hyatt, second-floor meeting room. Don’t let’s be too hung over to make it, boys, ha, ha. Oh, and girls too, of course, ha, ha.