The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

“Thank you. You want some?” Ford held out the bucket timidly.

  “No,” said Bill. “I want to go to sleep. Go on, clear out of here!”

  “Okay,” said Ford, edging into the cab. “It’s nice meeting you, Billy.”

  “Bill!” said Bill, and slammed the door in his face.

  Muttering to himself, he dimmed down the lights and lay down in his bunk. He threw the switch that inflated the mattress, and its contours puffed out around him, cradling him snugly as the freighter began to move. He didn’t know why he was so angry, but somehow finding Ford here had been the last straw.

  He closed his eyes and tried to send himself to sleep in the way he always had, by imagining he was going down the Tube to the long Acres, step by step, into green, warm, quiet places. Tonight, though, he kept seeing the two MAC colonists from the holo, whaling away at each other like a couple of clowns while the city people looked on and laughed.

  * * * *

  Ford, clutching his dinner, sat down in the cab and looked around. With all the screens lit up there was plenty of light by which to eat.

  “Is it okay if I sit in here?” he asked Billy, who waved expansively.

  “Sure, kid. Don’t mind li’l Bill. He’s cranky sometimes.”

  Ford opened the bucket and looked inside. “Do you have any forks?”

  “Yeah. Somewhere. Try the seat pocket.”

  Ford groped into the pocket and found a ceramic fork that was, perhaps, clean. He was too hungry to care whether it was or not, and ate quickly. He wasn’t sure what he was eating, but it tasted wonderful.

  As he ate, he looked up at the screens. Some had just figures on them, data from the drives and external sensors. Four of them had images from the freighter’s cameras, mounted front and rear, right and left. There was no windscreen—even Ford knew that an Earth-style glass windscreen would be scoured opaque by even one trip through the storms of sand and grit along the High Road, unless a forcefield was projected in front of it, and big forcefields were expensive, and unlikely to deflect blowing rocks anyhow. Easier and cheaper to fix four little forcefields over the camera lenses.

  The foremost screen fascinated him. He saw the High Road itself, rolling out endlessly to the unseen night horizon under the stars. It ran between two lines of big rocks, levered into place over the years by Haulers to make it easier to find the straightest shot to the pole.

  Every now and then Ford caught a glimpse of carving on some of the boulders as they flashed by—words, or figures. Some of them had what looked like tape wrapped around them, streaming out in the night wind.

  “Are those…” Ford sought to remember his lessons about Earth roads. “Are those road signs? With, er, kilometer numbers and all?”

  “What, on the boulders? Nope. They’re shrines,” said Billy.

  “What’s a shrine?”

  “Place where somebody died,” said Billy. “Or where somebody should have died, but didn’t, because Marswife saved their butts.” He reached out and tapped the little red lady on the console.

  Ford thought about that. He looked at the figurine. “So… she’s like, that Goddess the Ephesians are always on about?”

  “No!” Billy grinned. “Not our Marswife. She was just this sheila, see? Somebody from Earth who came up here like the rest of us, and she was crazy. Same as us. She thought Mars, was, like, her husband or something. And there was this big storm and she went out into it, without a mask. And they say she didn’t die! Mars got her and changed her into something else so she could live Outside. That’s what they say, anyway.”

  “Like, she mutated?” Ford stared at the little figure.

  “I guess so.”

  “But really she died, huh?”

  “Well, you’d think so,” Billy said, looking at him sidelong. “Except that there are guys who swear they’ve seen her. She lives on the wind. She’s red like the sand and her eye is a ruby, and if you’re lost sometimes you’ll see a red light way off, which is her eye, see? And if you follow it, you’ll get home again safe. And I know that’s true, because it happened to me.”

  “Really?”

  Billy held up one hand, palm out. “No lie. It was right out by Two-Fifty-K. There was a storm swept through so big, it was able to pick up the road markers and toss ‘em around, see? And Beautiful Evelyn got thrown like she was a feather by the gusts, and my nav system went out. It was just me and li’l Bill, and he was only a baby then, and I found myself so far off the road I had no clue, no clue, where I was, and I was sure we were going to die out there. But I saw that red light and I figured, that’s somebody who knows where they are, anyway. I set off after it. Hour later the light blinks out and there’s Two-Fifty-K Station right in front of me on the screen, but there’s no red lights anyplace.”

  “Whoa,” said Ford, wondering what Two-Fifty-K station was.

  “There’s other stories about her, too. Guys who see her riding the storm, and when she’s there they know to make for a bunker, because there’s a Strawberry coming.”

  “What’s a Strawberry?”

  “It’s this kind of cyclone. Big big storm full of sand and rocks. Big red cone dancing across the ground. One took out that temple the Ephesians built, when they first got up here, and tore open half the Tubes. They don’t come up Tharsis way much, but when they do—“ Billy shook his head. “People die, man. Some of your people died, that time. You never heard that story?”

  “No,” said Ford. “But we’re not supposed to talk about bad stuff after it happens.”

  “Really?” Billy looked askance.

  “Because we can’t afford to be afraid of the past,” said Ford, half-quoting what he remembered from every Council Meeting he’d ever been dragged to. “Because fear will make us weak, but working fearlessly for the future will make us strong.” He chanted the last line, unconsciously imitating his dad’s intonation.

  “Huh,” said Billy. “I guess that’s a good idea. You can’t go through life being scared of everything. That’s what I tell Bill.”

  Ford looked into the takeaway bucket, surprised that he had eaten his way to the bottom so quickly.

  “It’s good to hear stories, though,” he said. “Sam, that’s my brother, he gets into trouble for telling stories.”

  “Heh! Little white lies?”

  “No,” Ford said. “Real stories. Like about Earth. He remembers Earth. He says everything was wonderful there. He wants to go back.”

  “Back?” Billy looked across at him, startled. “But kids can’t go back. I guess if he was old enough when he came up, maybe he might make it. I hear it’s tough, though, going back down. The gravity’s intense.”

  “Would you go back?”

  Billy shook his head. “All I remember of Earth is the insides of rooms. Who needs that? Nobody up here to tell me what to do, man. I can just point myself at the horizon and go, and go, as far and as fast as I want. Zoom! I can think what I want, I can feel what I want, and you know what? The sand and the rocks don’t care. The horizon don’t care. The wind don’t care.

  “That’s why they call this space. No, no way I’d ever go back.”

  Ford looked up at the screens, and remembered the nights he had watched for the long light-beams coming in from the darkness. It had given him an aching feeling for as long as he could remember, and now he understood why.

  He had wanted space.

  * * * *

  4

  They drove all night, and at some point Billy’s stories of storms and fights and near-escapes from death turned into confusion, with Sam there somehow, and a room that ran blue with water. Then abruptly Ford was sitting up, staring around at the inside of the cab.

  “Where are we?” he asked. The foremost screen showed a spooky gray distance, the High Road rolling ahead between its boulders to… what? A pale void full of roaming shadows.

  “Almost to Five-Hundred-K Station,” said Billy, from where he hunched over the wheel. “Stop pretty soon.”

  “Can Security
follow us out here?”

  Billy just laughed and shook his head. “No worries, kiddo. There’s no law out here but Mars’s.”

  The door into the living space opened abruptly, and Bill looked in at them.

  “Morning, li’l Bill!”

  “Good morning,” said Bill in a surly voice. “You never stopped once all night. Are you ever going to pull us off somewhere so you can sleep?”

  “At Five-Hundred-K,” Billy promised. “How about you fix a bite of scran, eh?”

  Bill did not reply. He stepped back out of sight and a moment later Ford felt the warmth in the air that meant that water was steaming. He could almost taste it, and realized that he was desperately thirsty. He crawled from his seat and followed the vapor back to where Bill had opened the kitchen and was shoving a block of something under heating coils.

  “Are you fixing tea?”

  “Yeah,” said Bill, with a jerk of his thumb at the tall can that steamed above a heat element.

  “Can I have a cup, when it’s ready?”

  Bill frowned, but he got three mugs from a drawer.

  “Do you fight much, in the Collective?” he asked. Ford blinked in surprise.

  “No,” he said. “It wasn’t me fighting, actually. It was just my dad and my brother. They hate each other. But my mum won’t let them fight in the house. Sam said he was deserting us and my dad went off on him about it. I ran when the Security came.”

  “Oh,” said Bill. He seemed to become a little less hostile, but he said: “Well, that was pretty bloody stupid. They’d only have taken you to Mother’s until your dad sobered up. You’d be safe home by now.”

  Ford shrugged.

  “So, what’s your name, really?”

  “Ford.”

  “Like that guy in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?” Bill smiled for the first time.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a book I listen to all the time. Drowns out Billy singing.” Bill’s smile went away again. The tea can beeped to signal it was hot enough, and Bill turned and pulled it out. He poured dark bubbling stuff into the three mugs, and, reaching in a cold-drawer, took out a slab of something yellow on a dish. He spooned out three lumps of it, one into each mug, and presented one to Ford.

  “Whoa.” Ford stared into his mug. “That’s not sugar.”

  “It’s butter,” said Bill, as though that were obvious. He had a gulp of tea, and, not wanting to seem picky, Ford took a gulp too. It wasn’t as nasty as he had expected. In fact, it wasn’t nasty at all. Bill, watching his face, said:

  “You’ve never had this before?”

  Ford shook his head.

  “But you guys are the ones who make the butter up here,” said Bill. “This is MAC butter. What do you drink, if you don’t drink this?”

  “Just… batch, and tea with sugar sometimes,” said Ford, wondering why this should matter. He had another gulp of the tea. It tasted even better this time.

  “And the sugar comes from the sugar beets you grow?” Bill persisted.

  “I guess so,” said Ford. “I never thought about it.”

  “What’s it like, living down there?”

  “What’s it like?” Ford stared at him. Why in the world would anybody be curious about the Long Acres? “I don’t know. I muck out cow sheds. It’s boring, mostly.”

  “How could it be boring?” Bill demanded. “It’s so beautiful down there! Are you crazy?”

  “No,” said Ford, taking a step backward. “But if you think a big shovelful of cow-shite and mega-roaches is beautiful, you’re crazy.”

  Billy shouted something from the front of the cab and a second later Beautiful Evelyn swerved around. Both boys staggered a little at the shift in momentum, glaring at each other, and righted themselves as forward motion ceased.

  “We’re at Five-Hundred-K Station,” Bill guessed. There was another beep. He turned automatically to pull the oven drawer open as Billy came staggering back into the living area.

  “Mons Olympus to Five-Hundred-K in one night,” he chortled. “That is some righteous driving! Where’s the tea?”

  They crowded together in the cramped space, sipping tea and eating something brown and bubbly that Ford couldn’t identify. Afterward Billy climbed into his bunk with a groan, and yanked the cord that inflated his mattress.

  “I am so ready for some horizontal. You guys go up front and talk about stuff, okay?”

  “Whatever,” said Bill, picking up his Gamebuke and stalking out. Billy, utterly failing to notice the withering scorn to which he had just been subjected, smiled and waved sleepily at Ford. Ford smiled back, but his smile faded as he turned, shut the door behind him, and followed Bill, who he had decided was a nasty little know-it-all.

  Bill was sitting in one corner, staring into the screen of his Gamebuke. He had put on a pair of earshells and was listening to something fairly loud. He ignored Ford, who sat and looked up at the screens in puzzlement.

  “Is this the station?” he asked, forgetting that Bill couldn’t hear him. He had expected a domed settlement, but all he could see was a wide place by the side of the road, circled by boulders that appeared to have been whitewashed.

  Bill didn’t answer him. Ford looked at him in annoyance. He studied the controls on the inside of the hatch. When he thought he knew which one opened it, he slipped his mask on. Then he leaned over and punched Bill in the shoulder.

  “Mask up,” he yelled. “I’m going out.”

  Bill had his mask on before Ford had finished speaking, and Ford saw his eyes going wide with alarm as he activated the hatch. It sprang open; Ford turned and slid into a blast of freezing air.

  He hit the ground harder than he expected to, and almost fell. Gasping, hugging himself against a cold so intense it burned, he stared in astonishment at the dawn.

  There was no ceiling. There were no walls. There was nothing around the freighter, as far as the limits of his vision, but limitless space, limitless sky of the palest, chilliest blue he had ever seen, stretching down to a limitless red plain of sand and rock. He turned, and kept turning: no domes, no Tubes, nothing but the wide open world in every direction.

  And here was a red light appearing on the horizon, red as blood or rubies, so bright a red it dazzled his eyes, and he wondered for a moment if it was the eye of Marswife. Long purple shadows sprang from the boulders and stretched back toward his boots. He realized he was looking at the rising sun.

  So this is where the lights were going to, he said to himself, all those nights they were going away into the dark. They were coming out here. This is the most wonderful thing I have ever seen.

  Somehow he had fallen into the place he had always wanted to be.

  But the cold was eating into his bones, and he realized that if he kept on standing there he’d freeze solid in his happy dream. He set off toward the nearest boulder, fumbling with the fastening of his pants.

  Someone grabbed his shoulder and spun him around.

  “You idiot!” Bill shouted at him. “Don’t you know what happens if you try to pee out here?”

  From the horror on Bill’s face, even behind the mask, Ford realized that he’d better get back in the cab as fast as he could.

  When they were safely inside and the seals had locked, when Bill had finished yelling at him, Ford still sat shivering with more than cold.

  “You mean it boils and then it explodes?” he said.

  “You are such an idiot!” Bill repeated in disbelief.

  “How was I supposed to know?” Ford said. “I’ve never been Outside before! We use the reclamation conduits at home—“

  “This isn’t the Long Acres, dumbbell. This is the middle of frozen Nowhere and it’ll kill you in two seconds, okay?”

  “Well, where can you go?”

  “In the lavatory!”

  “But I didn’t want to wake up your dad.”

  “He’ll sleep through anything,” said Bill. “Trust me.”

  Red with humiliation,
Ford crawled into the back and after several tries figured out how to operate the toilet, as Billy snored away oblivious. Afterward he crawled back up front, carefully closed the door and said:

  “Er… so, where does somebody have their bath?”

  Bill, who had turned his Gamebuke on again, did not look up as he said:

  “At the Empress.”

  “No, I mean… when somebody has a bath out here, where do they have it?”

  Bill lifted his eyes. He looked perplexed.

  “What are you on about? Nobody bathes out here.”