The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Ahead he could see clearly the glowing blank wall ringing the Station. Massive, five meters tall. And, he remembered from his tourist tour of the place, rimmed with broken glass.

  Behind him came gasps as Sheelah labored up the slope. The wound in her side made her gait stiff, face rigid. She refused to hide below. They were both near exhaustion and their chimps were balky, despite two stops for fruit and grubs and rest.

  Through their feeble vocabulary, their facial grimacing and writing in the dust, they had “discussed” the possibilities. Two chimps were vulnerable out here. They could not expect to be as lucky as with the raboons, not tired out and in strange territory.

  The best time to approach the Station was at night. And whoever had engineered this would not wait forever. They had hidden from fliers twice more this last day. Resting through the next day was an inviting option, but Leon felt a foreboding press him onward.

  He angled up the hillside, watching for electronic trip wires. Of such technical matters he knew nothing. He would have to keep a lookout for the obvious and hope that the Station was not wired for thinking trespassers. Chimp vision was sharp and clear in dim light for nearby objects, but he could find nothing.

  He chose a spot by the wall shadowed by trees. Sheelah panted in shallow gasps as she approached. Looking up, the wall seemed immense. Impossible.…

  Slowly he surveyed the land around them. No sign of any movement. The place smelled peculiar to Ipan, somehow wrong. Maybe animals stayed away from the alien compound. Good; that would make security inside less alert.

  The wall was polished concrete. A thick lip jutted out at the top, making climbing it harder.

  Sheelah gestured where trees grew near the wall. Stumps nearer showed that the builders had thought about animals leaping across from branches. But some were tall enough and had branches within a few meters of the top.

  Could a chimp make the distance? Not likely, especially when tired. Sheelah pointed to him and back to her, then held hands and made a swinging motion. Could they swing across the distance?

  He studied her face. The designer would not anticipate two chimps cooperating that way. He squinted up at the top. Too high to climb, even if Sheelah stood on his shoulders.

  Yes, he signed.

  A few moments later, her hands holding his feet, about to let go of his branch, he had second thoughts.

  Ipan didn’t mind this bit of calisthenics, and in fact was happy to be back in a tree. But Leon’s human judgment still kept shouting that he could not possibly do it. Natural chimp talent conflicted with human caution.

  Luckily, he did not have much time to indulge in self-doubt. Sheelah yanked him off the branch. He fell, held only through her hands.

  She had wrapped her feet securely around a thick branch, and now began to oscillate him like a weight on a string. She swung him back and forth, increasing the amplitude. Back, forth, up, down, centrifugal pressure in his head. To Ipan it was unremarkable. To Leon it was a wheeling world of heart-stopping whirls.

  Small branches brushed him and he worried about noise and then forgot about that because his head was coming up level with the top of the wall.

  The concrete lip was rounded off on the inside, so no hook could find a grip.

  He swung back down, head plunging toward ground. Then up into the lower branches, twigs slapping his face.

  On the next swing he was higher. All along the top of the wall thick glass glinted. Very professional.

  He barely had time to realize all this when she let him go.

  He arced up, hands stretched out—and barely caught the lip. If it had not protectively protruded out, he would have missed.

  He let his body slam against the side. His feet scrabbled for purchase against the sheer face. A few toes got hold. He heaved up, muscles bunching—and over. Never before had he appreciated how much stronger a chimp could be. No man could have made it here.

  He scrambled up, cutting his arm and haunch on glass. It was a delicate business, getting to his feet and finding a place to stand.

  A surge of triumph. He waved to Sheelah, invisible in the tree.

  From here on it was up to him. He realized suddenly that they could have fashioned some sort of rope, tying together vines. Then he could lift her up here. Good idea, too late.

  No point in delaying. The compound was partly visible through the trees, a few lights burning. Utterly silent. They had waited until the night was about half over, he had nothing but Ipan’s gut feelings to tell him when.

  He looked down. Just beyond his toes razor wire gleamed, set into the concrete. Carefully he stepped between the shiny lines. There was room among the sharp glass teeth to stand. A tree blocked his vision and he could see little below him in the dim glow from the Station. At least that meant they couldn’t see him, either.

  Should he jump? too high. The tree that hid him was close, but he could not see into it.

  He stood and thought, but nothing came to him. Meanwhile Sheelah was behind him, alone, and he hated leaving her where dangers waited that he did not even know.

  He was thinking like a man and forgetting that he had the capability of a chimp.

  Go. He leaped. Twigs snapped and he plunged heavily in shadows. Branches stabbed his face. He saw a dark shape to his right and so curled his legs, rotated, hands out—and snagged a branch. His hands closed easily around it and he realized it was too thin, too thin—

  It snapped. The crack came like a thunderbolt to his ears. He fell, letting go of the branch. His back hit something hard and he rolled, grappling for a hold. His fingers closed around a thick branch and he swung from it. Finally he let out a gasp.

  Leaves rustled, branches swayed. Nothing more.

  He was halfway up the tree. Aches sprouted in his joints, a galaxy of small pains.

  Leon relaxed and let Ipan master the descent. He had made far too much noise falling in the tree but there was no sign of any movement across the broad lawns between him and the big, luminous Station.

  He thought of Sheelah and wished there were some way he could let her know he was inside now. Thinking of her, he measured with his eye the distances from nearby trees, memorizing the pattern so that he could find the way back at a dead run if he had to.

  Now what? He didn’t have a plan. That, and suspicions.

  Leon gently urged Ipan—who was nervous and tired, barely controllable—into a triangular pattern of bushes. Ipan’s mind was like a stormy sky split by skittering lightning. Not thoughts precisely; more like knots of emotion, forming and flashing around crisp kernels of anxiety. Patiently Leon summoned up soothing images, getting Ipan’s breathing slowed, and he almost missed the whispery sound.

  Nails scrabbling on a stone walkway. Something running fast.

  They came around the triangle peak of bushes. Bunched muscles, sleek skin, stubby legs eating up the remaining distance. They were well trained to seek and kill soundlessly, without warning.

  To Ipan the monsters were alien, terrifying. Ipan stepped back in panic before the two onrushing bullets of muscle and bone. Black gums peeled back from white teeth, bared beneath mad eyes.

  Then Leon felt something shift in Ipan. Primeval, instinctive responses stopped his retreat, tensed the body. No time to flee, so fight.

  Ipan set himself, balanced. The two might go for his arms so he drew them back, crouching to bring his face down.

  Ipan had dealt with four-legged pack hunters before, somewhere far back in ancestral memory, and knew innately that they lined up on a victim’s outstretched limb, would go for the throat. The canines wanted to bowl him over, slash open the jugular, rip and shred in the vital seconds of surprise.

  They gathered themselves, bundles of swift sinew, running nearly shoulder to shoulder, big heads up—and leaped.

  In air, they were committed, Ipan knew. And open.

  Ipan brought both hands up to grasp the canines’ forelegs.

  He threw himself backward, holding the legs tight, his hands
barely beneath the jaws. The wirehounds’ own momentum carried them over his head as he rolled backward.

  Ipan rolled onto his back, yanking hard. The sudden snap slammed the canines forward. They could not get their heads turned around and down to close on his hand.

  The leap, the catch, the quick pivot and swing, the heave—all combined in a centrifugal whirl that slung the wirehounds over Ipan as he himself went down, rolling. He felt the canines’ legs snap and let go. They sailed over him with pained yelps.

  Ipan rolled over completely, head tucked in, and came off his shoulders with a bound. He heard a solid thud, clacks as jaws snapped shut. A thump as the canines hit the grass, broken legs unable to cushion them.

  He scrambled after them, his breath whistling. They were trying to get up, turning on snapped legs to confront their quarry. Still no barks, only faint whimpers of pain, sullen growls. One swore vehemently and quite obscenely. The other chanted, “Baaas’ard … baaas’ard…”

  Animals turning in their vast, sorrowful night.

  He jumped high and came down on both. His feet drove their necks into the ground and he felt bone give way. Before he stepped back to look he knew they were gone.

  Ipan’s blood surged with joy. Leon had never felt this tingling thrill, not even in the first immersion, when Ipan had killed a Stranger. Victory over these alien things with teeth and claws that come at you out of the night was a profound, inflaming pleasure.

  Leon had done nothing. The victory was wholly Ipan’s.

  For a long moment Leon basked in it in the cool night air, felt the tremors of ecstasy.

  Slowly, reason returned. There were other wirehounds. Ipan had caught these just right. Such luck did not strike twice.

  The wirehounds were easy to see on the lawn. Would attract attention.

  Ipan did not like touching them. Their bowels had emptied and the smell cut the air. They left a smear on the grass as he dragged them into the bushes.

  Time, time. Someone would miss the canines, come to see.

  Ipan was still pumped up from his victory. Leon used that to get him trotting across the broad lawn, taking advantage of shadows. Energy popped in Ipan’s veins. Leon knew it was a mere momentary glandular joy, overlaying a deep fatigue. When it faded, Ipan would become dazed, hard to govern.

  Every time he stopped he looked back and memorized landmarks. He might have to return this way on the run.

  * * *

  It was late and most of the Station was dark. In the technical area, though, a cluster of windows blossomed with what Ipan saw as impossibly rich, strange, superheated light.

  He loped over to them and flattened himself against the wall. It helped that Ipan was fascinated by this strange citadel of the godlike humans. Out of his own curiosity he peeked in a window. Under enamel light a big assembly room sprawled, one that Leon recognized. There, centuries ago, he had formed up with the other brightly dressed tourists to go out on a trek.

  Leon let the chimp’s curiosity propel him around to the side, where he knew a door led into a long corridor. The door opened freely, to Leon’s surprise. Ipan strolled down the slick tiles of the hallway, quizzically studying the phosphor-paint designs on the ceiling and walls, which emitted a soothing ivory glow.

  An office doorway was open. Leon made Ipan squat and bob his head around the edge. Nobody there. It was a sumptuous den with shelves soaring into a vaulted ceiling. Leon remembered sitting there discussing the immersion process. That meant the immersion vessels were just a few doors away down—

  The squeak of shoes on tiles made him turn.

  ExSpec Ruben was behind him, leveling a weapon. In the cool light the man’s face looked odd to Ipan’s eyes, mysteriously bony.

  Leon felt the rush of reverence in Ipan and let it carry the chimp forward, chippering softly. Ipan felt awe, not fear.

  Leon wondered why Ruben said nothing and then realized that of course he could not reply.

  Ruben tensed up, waving the snout of his ugly weapon. A metallic click. Ipan brought his hands up in a ritual chimp greeting and Ruben shot him.

  The impact spun Ipan around. He went down, sprawling.

  Ruben’s mouth curled in derision. “Smart prof, huh? Didn’t figure the alarm on the door, huh?”

  The pain from Ipan’s side was sharp, startling. Leon rode the hurt and gathering anger in Ipan, helping it build. Ipan felt his side and his hand came away sticky, smelling like warm iron in the chimp’s nostrils.

  Ruben circled around, weapon weaving. “You killed me, you weak little dope. Ruined a good experimental animal too. Now I got to figure what to do with you.”

  Leon threw his own anger atop Ipan’s seethe. He felt the big muscles in the shoulders bunch. The pain in the side jabbed suddenly. Ipan groaned and rolled on the floor, pressing one hand to the wound.

  Leon kept the head down so that Ipan could not see the blood that was running down now across the legs. Energy was running out of the chimp body. A seeping weakness came up the legs.

  He pricked his ears to the shuffle of Ruben’s feet. Another agonized roll, this time bringing the legs up in a curl.

  “Guess there’s really only one solution—”

  Leon heard the metallic click.

  Now, yes. He let his anger spill.

  Ipan pressed up with his forearms and got his feet under him. No time to get all the way up. Ipan sprang at Ruben, keeping low.

  A tinny shot whisked by his head. Then he hit Ruben in the hip and slammed the man against the wall. The man’s scent was sour, salty.

  Leon lost all control. Ipan bounced Ruben off the wall and instantly slammed arms into the man with full force.

  Ruben tried to deflect the impact. Ipan pushed the puny human arms aside. Ruben’s pathetic attempts at defense were like spiderwebs brushed away.

  He butted Ruben and pounded massive shoulders into the man’s chest. The weapon clattered on the tiles.

  Ipan slammed himself into the man’s body again and again.

  Strength, power, joy.

  Bones snapped. Ruben’s head snapped back, smacked the wall, and he went limp.

  Ipan stepped back and Ruben sagged to the tiles. Joy.

  Blue-white flies buzzed at the rim of his vision.

  Must move. That was all Leon could get through the curtain of emotions that shrouded the chimp mind.

  The corridor lurched. Leon got Ipan to walk in a sidewise teeter.

  Down the corridor, painful steps. Two doors, three. Here? Locked. Next door. World moving slower somehow.

  The door snicked open. An antechamber that he recognized. Ipan blundered into a chair and almost fell. Leon made the lungs work hard. The gasping cleared his vision of the dark edges that had crept in but the blue-white flies were there, fluttering impatiently, and thicker.

  He tried the far door. Locked. Leon summoned what he could from Ipan. Strength, power, joy. Ipan slammed his shoulder into the solid door. It held. Again. And again, sharp pain—and it popped open.

  Right, this was it. The immersion bay. Ipan staggered into the array of vessels. The walk down the line, between banks of control panels, took an eternity. Leon concentrated on each step, placing each foot. Ipan’s field of view bobbed as the head seemed to slip around on the liquid shoulders.

  Here. His own vessel.

  He fumbled with the latches. Popped it open.

  There lay Leon Mattick, peaceful, eyes closed.

  Emergency controls, yes. He knew them from the briefing.

  He searched the polished steel surface and found the panel on the side. Ipan stared woozily at the meaningless lettering and Leon himself had trouble reading. The letters jumped and fused together.

  He found several buttons and servo controls. Ipan’s hands were stubby, wrong. It took three tries to get the reviving program activated. Lights cycled from green to amber.

  Ipan abruptly sat down on the cool floor. The blue-white flies were buzzing all around his head now and they wanted to bite him. He su
cked in the cool dry air but there was no substance in it, no help.…

  Then, without any transition, he was looking at the ceiling. On his back. The lamps up there were getting dark, fading. Then they went out.

  * * *

  Leon’s eyes snapped open.

  The recovery program was still sending electrostims through his muscles. He let them jump and tingle and ache while he thought. He felt fine. Not even hungry, as he usually did after an immersion. How long had he been in the wilderness? At least five days.

  He sat up. There was no one in the vessel room. Evidently Ruben had gotten some silent alarm, but had not alerted anyone else. That pointed, again, to a tight little conspiracy.

  He got out shakily. To get free he had to detach some feeders and probes but they seemed simple enough.

  Ipan. The big body filled the walkway. He knelt and felt for a pulse. Rickety.

  But first, Kelly. Her vessel was next to his and he started the revival. She looked well.

  Ruben must have put some transmission block on the system, so that none of the staff could tell by looking at the panel that anything was wrong. A simple cover story, a couple who wanted a really long immersion. Ruben had warned them, but no, they wanted it so.… A perfectly plausible story.

  Kelly’s eyes fluttered. He kissed her. She gasped.

  He made a chimp sign, quiet, and went back to Ipan.

  Blood came steadily. Leon was surprised to find that he could not pick up the rich, pungent elements in the blood from smell alone. A human missed so much!

  He took off his shirt and made a crude tourniquet. At least Ipan’s breathing was regular. Kelly was ready to get out by then and he helped her disconnect.

  “I was hiding in a tree and then—poof!” she said. “What a relief. How did you—”

  “Let’s get moving,” he said.

  As they left the room she said, “Who can we trust? Whoever did this—” She stopped when she saw Ruben. “Oh.”

  Somehow her expression made him laugh. She was very rarely surprised.

  “You did this?”