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

by Gardner Dozois

  “Beyond that tower,” Rit offered.

  “Thank you.” Then to her companion, she said, “Help me, will you dear? I’m not sure I can manage such a long walk.”

  Her young man was holding their essential bags, a faint smile showing as he stared off to the north. With an agreeable tone, he said, “I’m sure you’ll do fine.” Then he winked, adding, “Start right away. As fast as you can.” And with the strength of youth, he ran off into the ruddy gloom, dropping his bags and hers in his wake.

  Other passengers began to follow him.

  “Well,” the old woman muttered. Then with a shuffling gait, she tried to keep up.

  Rit glared at Do-ane. Appalled by the circumstances, he asked, “So just how big is this elevator? And how fast? And will it take all of us at once?”

  She tried to answer, but her voice kept failing her.

  Rit looked back at the worm, then focused on the tower.

  “Where are you going?” Master Brace hollered. He was still up near the worm’s mouth, but moving toward them as fast as he could manage. “What are you people doing? What in the hell are you thinking?”

  Do-ane saw him coming. Then she threw down everything but her precious book, and glancing at Jopale one last time, she turned and sprinted across the empty plain.

  Rit considered Jopale, plainly doubting his good sense and sanity. Then he was gone, too, his long stride letting him catch up to Do-ane, then the old woman, leaving both of them behind.

  “Sir,” said Brace, staggering up next to Jopale.

  He would say his good-byes; then he would run too. Jopale had made up his mind, or so he believed.

  “Don’t,” was the caretaker’s advice.

  “Don’t what?” Jopale asked.

  Brace took him by the shoulder. Panting from his run, he said, “I like you, sir. And I honestly meant to warn you before now.”

  “Warn me?”

  “And then… then I saw the girl talking to everybody, and I didn’t think… I couldn’t imagine… that all of you would actually believe her-”

  “What is this?” Jopale cried out.

  “She’s ridden my worm in the past, sir.” Brace looked across the plain. The fire to the east was tall enough and bright enough to illuminate each of the fleeing passengers. Tiny now. Frantic little shapes soon to be lost against that great expanse of dead dry wood.

  “I know she’s ridden this way,” Jopale said. “Of course she has. She comes here to study the secret mountain.”

  Brace shook his head.

  “No, sir,” he said.

  Then he looked Jopale in the eye, saying, “She does this. She has that book of hers, and she befriends a man… usually an older man… convincing him that everything she says is real. Then she steps off at this place and invites him to join her adventure, and of course any man would happily walk off with a pretty young thing like that.

  “But she is insane, sir. I am sure.

  “On my worm, she has ridden west at least five times now. And three times, she has set off a flare to make us stop here and pick her up on our eastbound leg.” He gulped the cool air. “That’s what people do in this country when there is no station, sir.” Offering a grim smile, he added, “But sometimes we haven’t brought her, and it’s her men who set off the flares. We’ve rescued several gentlemen of your age and bearing, and they’re always angry. ‘She showed me this big book,’ they’ll say. They’ll say, ‘I was going to explore an ancient starship and look at the bones of gods.’”

  Jopale wrapped his arms around his chest, moaning softly.

  “That girl is quite crazy, sir. And that’s all she is.” Brace placed a comforting hand upon Jopale’s shoulder. “She takes her men walking in the darkness. She keeps telling them that their destination is just a little further now. But there’s nothing to find out there. Even the most foolish man figures that out. And do you know what she does? At some point, she’ll turn and tell him, ‘You are the problem. You don’t believe, so of course we can’t find it.’

  “Then those fellows return here and continue their journey west. And she wanders for a little while, then comes and waits here for the next eastbound worm. Somehow she always has money. Her life is spent riding worms and reading her book, and when she forgets that nothing on those pages is real, she comes back this way again. And that’s all that she does in her life, from what I can tell.”

  Jopale was confused, and he had never been so angry. But somehow none of this was a perfect surprise.

  “I should have said something,” Brace admitted. “In my baby’s stomach, when I saw her talking to everybody…”

  “Should we chase after them?” Jopale asked.

  But the caretaker could only shake his head, telling him, “There isn’t time, sir. And honestly, I don’t think we could make those people listen to reason now. They’re chasing the only hope they’ve got left.”

  “But we should try to do what’s right,” Jopale maintained. “Perhaps we can convince one or two of them to turn back—“

  “Sir,” Brace interrupted.

  Then the old fellow laughed at him.

  “I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, sir. But there is an exceptionally good chance that we ourselves won’t be alive for much longer.”

  Again, Jopale heard the soft watery rumbling of the fire.

  “Yes. Of course…”

  * * * *

  TOWARD PORT OF KRAUSS

  Brace began walking toward the worm’s head.

  The worm was slowly crawling forward, gulping down the big sweet barrels as she moved. Farther ahead, several dozen mockmen were being coaxed down onto the trail. At a distance, they looked entirely human. They seemed small and plainly scared, clinging to one another while their bare feet slipped on the white grease.

  Jopale caught Brace, and before he lost his own scarce courage, he made an enormous request.

  “I know it’s asking a lot,” he admitted.

  “That won’t make much difference,” the old man said, offering a dark little laugh. Then he paused and cupped his hands around his mouth, shouting new orders into the wind.

  The red-haired female was separated from the other mockmen.

  Jopale rejoined his companion, and the two of them grabbed his bags and then a rope ladder, climbing onto the worm’s wide back.

  Without prompting, the mockman claimed one of the low chairs, facing forward, her long legs stretched out before her. If the creature was grateful, it didn’t show on her stoic face. Either she was too stupid to understand what he had done, or she was perceptive enough to despise him for saving only her, leaving her friends to their gruesome fate.

  The worm’s bare flesh was warm to the touch. Jopale sat directly behind his mockman, letting her bulk block the wind. He could feel the great spine shifting beneath his rump. Facing backwards, he didn’t watch the rest of the feeding, and save for a few muddled screams, he heard nothing. Then the worm began to accelerate, drugs and this one meal lending her phenomenal energy. And after a little while, when they were racing across the empty landscape, Master Brace came and sat beside him.

  “But the book,” Jopale began.

  “It certainly looks real enough,” the old man replied, guessing his mind. “And maybe it is genuine. Maybe she stole it from a true scientist who actually knows where the starship is buried. Or maybe it’s an ancient manuscript, and there was once a starship… but the ship sank to the core ages ago, and some curious fluke has placed it in her strange hands.”

  “Or she invented everything,” Jopale allowed.

  “Perhaps.” Watching the firestorm, Brace nodded. “Perhaps the girl heard a story about space flight and lost worlds, and she has a talent that lets her draw elaborate diagrams and play games with cameras. And these times are what made her insane. The terrors and wild hopes tell her that everything she can dream up is real. Perhaps.”

  Or she was perfectly rational, Jopale thought, and the starship really was waiting out there. Somew
here. While Brace was the creature whose sanity had been discarded along the way, his mind lying to both of them, forcing them to stay onboard his treasured worm.

  Good Mountain

  “But the name,” Jopale muttered.

  “Sir?”

  “’Good Mountain.’ She told me why the scientists used that old word. And honestly, I can’t think of another reason for placing that noble name on this ridiculous place.”

  “First of all, sir—”

  “Call me Jopale, please.”

  “Jopale. Yes.” Brace held both of his hands against the worm’s skin, listening to the great body. “First of all, I know this country well. If there were a project here, a research station of any size, it would not be a secret from me. And I can tell you frankly, Jopale… except for that one strange girl and her misguided men, nobody comes to this wasted space…”

  A small quake rolled beneath them.

  When it passed, Brace suggested, “We might be in luck here, sir. Do-ane may have told you: There’s a dead island under this ground. There’s a lot of wood sitting between us and the methane. So when the fire gets off the Tanglelands, it should slow down. At least for a little while. This wood’s going to burn, sure, but not as fast as that damned gas does.”

  Jopale tried to feel encouraged. Then he repeated the words, “‘First of all.’ “

  “Sir?”

  “You said, ‘First of all.’ What’s second of all?”

  Master Brace nodded in a thoughtful fashion, then said, “You know, my mother was a caretaker on a worm exactly like this one. And her father was a driver on a freighter worm that crawled along this same trail, bringing the new iron back from Port of Krauss. It was that grandfather who told me that even when there was sunlight here, this was an awful place to live. Flat like this. Sapless. Hard to farm, and hard on the soul. But some greedy fellow bought this land for nothing, then sold pieces of it to people in more crowded parts of the world. He named his ground ‘Good Mountain’ because he thought the old word sounded strong and lasting. But of course, all he wanted was to lure fools into his trap…”

  Jopale reached back over his head, burying one of his hands into the mockman’s thick hair. Then he pushed with his legs, feeling a consuming need to be closer to her, grinding his spine hard up against her spine.

  “It’s just one old word,” Brace was saying. With his face lit up by the endless fire, he said, “And I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, sir. But words… what they are… they’re just sounds and scribbles. It’s people who give them meaning. Without us, the poor things wouldn’t have any life at all.”

  And they pressed on, rushing toward the promised Ocean, with the End of the World following close behind.

  <>

  * * * *

  I HOLD MY FATHER’S PAWS

  David D. Levine

  In his short career to date, new writer David D. Levine has won the James White Award and the Phobos Fiction Contest, and capped it by winning a Hugo Award this year for his story “Tk’tk’tk.” A graduate of Clarion West, his stories have appeared in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Albedo One, Realms of Fantasy, Talebones, All-Star Zeppelin Adventure Stories, and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Oregon, where he and his wife, Kate Yule, coedit the popular fanzine Bento.

  In the poignant story that follows, he shows us that family bonds can be very hard to break—even if you change your species to do so!

  * * * *

  THE receptionist had feathers where her eyebrows should have been. They were blue, green, and black, iridescent as a peacock’s, and they trembled gently in the silent breath of the air conditioner. “Did you have a question, sir?”

  “No,” Jason replied, and raised his magazine, but after reading the same paragraph three times without remembering a word he set it down again. “Actually, yes. Um, I wanted to ask you… ah… are you… transitioning?” The word landed on the soft tailored-grass carpet of the waiting room, and Jason wished he could pick it up again, stuff it into his pocket, and leave. Just leave, and never come back.

  “Oh, you mean the eyebrows? No, sir, that’s just fashion. I enjoy being human.” She smiled gently at him. “You haven’t been in San Francisco very long, have you?”

  “No, I just got in this morning.”

  “Feathers are very popular here. In fact, we’re having a special this month. Would you like a brochure?”

  “No! Uh, I mean, no thank you.” He looked down and saw that the magazine had crumpled in his hands. Awkwardly he tried to smooth it out, then gave up and slipped it back in the pile on the coffee table. They were all recent issues, and the coffee table looked like real wood. He tested it with a dirty thumbnail; real wood, all right. Then, appalled at his own action, he shifted the pile of magazines to cover the tiny scratch.

  “Sir?”

  Jason started at the receptionist’s voice, sending magazines skidding across the table. “What?”

  “Would you mind if I gave you a little friendly advice?”

  “Uh, I… no. Please.” She was probably going to tell him that his fly was open, or that ties were required in this office. Her own tie matched the wall covering, a luxurious print of maroon and gold. Jason doubted the collar of his faded work shirt would even button around his thick neck.

  “You might not want to ask any of our patients if they are transitioning.”

  “Is it impolite?” He wanted to crawl under the table and die.

  “No, sir.” She smiled again, with genuine humor this time. “It’s just that some of them will talk your ear off, given the slightest show of intrest.”

  “I, uh… thank you.”

  A chime sounded—a rich little sound that blended unobtrusively with the waiting room’s classical music—and the receptionist stared into space for a moment. “I’ll let him know,” she said to the air, then turned her attention to Jason. “Mr. Carmelke is out of surgery.”

  “Thank you.” It was so strange to hear that uncommon name applied in someone else. He hadn’t met another Carmelke in over twenty years.

  * * * *

  Half an hour later the waiting room door opened onto a corridor with a smooth, shiny floor and meticulous off-white walls. Despite the art—original, no doubt—and the continuing classical music, a slight smell of disinfectant reminded Jason where he was. A young man in a nurse’s uniform led Jason to a door marked with the name “Dr. Lawrence Steig.”

  “Hello, Mr. Carmelke,” said the man behind the desk. “I’m Dr. Steig.” The doctor was lean, shorter than Jason, with brown eyes and a trim salt-and-pepper beard. His hand, like his voice, was firm and a little rough; his tie was knotted with surgical precision. “Please do sit down.”

  Jason perched on the edge of the chair, not wanting to surrender to its lushness. Not wanting to be comfortable. “How is my father?”

  “The operation went well, and he’ll be conscious soon. But I’d like to talk with you first. I believe there are some… family issues.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  The doctor stared at his personal organizer as he repeatedly snapped it open and shut. It was gold. “I’ve been working with your father for almost two years, Mr. Carmelke. The doctor-patient relationship in this type of work is, necessarily, quite intimate. I feel I’ve gotten to know him quite well.” He raised his eyes to Jason’s. “He’s never mentioned you.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Jason heard the edge of bitterness in his own voice.

  “It’s not unusual for patients of mine to be disowned by their families.”

  Jason’s hard, brief laugh startled both of them. “This has nothing to do with his… transition, Dr. Steig. My father left my mother and me when I was nine. I haven’t spoken to him since. Not once.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Carmelke.” He seemed sincere; Jason wondered if it was just professional bedside manner. The doctor opened his mouth to speak, then closed it and stared off into a corner for a moment
. “This might not be the best time for a family reunion,” he said finally. “His condition may be a little… startling.”

  “I didn’t come all the way from Cleveland just to turn around and go home. I want to talk with my father. While I still can. And this is my last chance, right?”

  “The final operation is scheduled for five weeks from now. It can be postponed, of course. But all the papers have been signed.” The doctor placed his hands flat on the desk. “You’re not going to be able to talk him out of it.”

  “Just let me see him.”