The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “I can’t,” I said, but I let him make up my mind for me.

  We went around the side, tracking through the dry snow where no one much walked, through the lacy wintertrees to the door to the storage in the back. It was as cold in the back as it was outside, and it was dark. It smelled like mash and whisak and the faint charcoal smell of the charred insides of the kegs. Brass whisak, Sckarline whisak.

  He boosted me on a stack of kegs and kissed me.

  It wasn’t that I really cared so much about kissing. It was nice, but Tuuvin would have kissed and kissed for hours if I would let him and if we would ever find a place where we could be alone for hours. Tuuvin would kiss long after my face felt overused and bruised from kissing. But I just wanted to be with Tuuvin so much. I wanted to talk with him, and have him walk with me. I would let him kiss me if I could whisper to him. I liked the way he pressed against me now; he was warm and I was cold.

  He kissed me with little kisses; kiss, kiss, kiss. I liked the little kisses. It was almost like he was talking to me in kisses. Then he kissed me hard, and searched around with his tongue. I never knew what to do with my tongue when he put his in my mouth, so I just kept mine still. I could feel the rough edge of the keg beneath my legs, and if I shifted my weight it rocked on the one below it. I turned my face sideways to get my nose out of the way and opened my eyes to look past Tuuvin. In the dark I could barely make out Uukraith’s eye burned on all the kegs, to keep them from going bad. Uukraith was the door witch. Uukraith’s sister Ina took souls from their mother and put them in seeds, put the seed in women to make babies. The kegs were all turned different directions, eyes looking everywhere. I closed mine again. Uukraith was also a virgin.

  “Ohhhh, Heth! Eeeuuuu!”

  I jumped, but Tuuvin didn’t, he just let go of my waist and stepped back and crossed his arms the way he did when he was uncomfortable. The air felt cold where he had just been warm.

  My little sister, Bet, shook her butt at us. “Kissy, kissy, kissy,” she said. “Mam, Janna’s back in the kegs with Tuuvin!”

  “Shut up, Bet,” I said. Not that she would stop.

  “Slobber, slobber,” she said, like we were stabros trading cud. She danced around, still shaking her butt. She puckered up her lips and made wet, smacking noises.

  “Fucking little bitch,” I said.

  Tuuvin frowned at me. He liked Bet. She wasn’t his little sister.

  “Mam,” Bet hollered, “Janna said ‘fucking’!”

  “Janna,” my mother called, “come here.”

  I tried to think of what to do to Bet. I’d have liked to slap her silly. But she’d go crying to Mam and I’d really be in trouble. It was just that she thought she was so smart and she was really being so stupid.

  Mam was on her high stool, tallying. My mam wore trousers most often, and she was tall and man-faced. Still and all, men liked her. I took after her so I was secretly glad that men watched her walk by, even if she never much noticed.

  “Leave your little sister alone,” she said.

  “Leave her alone!” I said. “She came and found me.”

  “Don’t swear at her. You talk like an old man.” Mam was acting like a headman, her voice even and cool.

  “If she hadn’t come looking—”

  “If you had been working as you’re supposed to, she’d have had no one to look for, would she.”

  “I went out to see the visitors,” I said. “There are two. An old man and a girl. I helped Da carry their things to the visitors’ house.”

  “So that means it is okay to swear at your sister.”

  It was the same words we always traded. The same arguments, all worn smooth and shining like the wood of a yoke. The brand for the kegs was heating in the fire and I could smell the tang of hot iron in the dung.

  “You treat me like a child,” I said.

  She didn’t even answer, but I knew what she would say, that I acted like a child. As if what Tuuvin and I were doing had anything to do with being a child.

  I was so tired of it I thought I would burst.

  “Go back to work,” Mam said, turning on her stool. Saying, ‘this talk is done’ with her shoulders and her eyes.

  “It’s wrong to live this way,” I said.

  She looked back at me.

  “If we lived with the clans, Tuuvin and I could be together.”

  That made her angry. “This is a better life than the clans,” she said. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Go back to work.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just hated her. She didn’t understand anything. She and my Da hadn’t waited until they were old. They hadn’t waited for anything, and they’d left their clan to come to Sckarline when it was new. I stood in front of her, making her feel me standing there, all hot and silent.

  “Janna,” she said, “I’ll not put up with your sullenness—” It made her furious when I didn’t talk.

  So she slapped me, and then I ran out, crying, past Bet who was delighted, and past Tuuvin, who had his mouth open and a stupid look on his face. And I wished they would all disappear.

  * * *

  Veronique sat with Tuuvin and me at dinner in the guesthouse. The guesthouse was full of smoke. We all sat down on the floor with felt and blankets. I looked to see what Veronique would be sitting on and it was wonderful. It was dark, dark blue and clean on the outside, and inside it was red-and-black squares. I touched it. It had a long metal fastener, a cunning thing that locked teeth together, that Veronique had unfastened so she could sit on the soft red-and-black inside. Dark on the outside, red on the inside; it was as if it represented some strange offworld beast. My felt blanket was red but it was old and the edges were gray with dirt. Offworlders were so clean, as if they were always new.

  Ayudesh was with the old man who had come with Veronique. Wanji was there, but she was being quiet and by herself, the way Wanji did.

  Tuuvin had brought the puppy into the guesthouse. “She asked me to,” he said when I asked him what he was doing.

  “She did not,” I said. “People are watching a dog in this house. Besides, you don’t understand her when she talks.”

  “I do too,” he said. “I was in school too.”

  I rolled my eyes. He was when he was little but he left as soon as he was old enough to hunt. Men always left as soon as they were old enough to hunt. And he hated it anyway.

  Veronique squealed when she saw the puppy and took it from Tuuvin as if it were a baby. Everyone watched out of the corner of their eyes. Ayudesh thought it was funny. We were all supposed to be equal in Sckarline, but Ayudesh was really like a headman.

  She put the puppy on her offworld blanket and it rolled over on its back, showing her its tan belly. It would probably pee on her blanket.

  My da leaned over. “I hope it isn’t dinner.” My da hated dog.

  “No,” I said. “She just likes it.”

  My dad said to her, “Hie.” Then to me he said, “What is she called?”

  “Veronique,” I said.

  “Veronique,” he said. Then he pointed to himself. “Guwk.”

  “Hello, Guwk,” Veronique said.

  “Hello, Veronique,” said my da, which surprised me because I had never heard him say anything in English before. “Ask her for her cup,” he said to me.

  She had one; bright yellow and smooth. But my da handled it matter-of-factly, as if he handled beautiful things every day. He had a skin and he poured whisak into her cup. “My wife”—he waved at Mam—“she makes whisak for Sckarline.”

  I tried to translate but I didn’t know what whisak was in English.

  Veronique took the cup. My da held his hand up for her to wait and poured himself a cup. He tossed it back. Then he nodded at her for her to try.

  She took a big swallow. She hadn’t expected the burn, you could see. She choked and her face got red. Tuuvin patted her on the back while she coughed. “Oh my God,” she said. “That’s strong!” I didn’t think I needed to transl
ate that.

  ii

  The sound of the guns is like the cracking of whips. Like the snapping of bones. The outrunners for the Scathalos High-on came into Sckarline with a great deal of racket; brass clattering, the men singing and firing their guns into the air. It started the dogs barking and scared our stabros and brought everyone outside.

  Scathalos dyed the toes and ridgeline manes of their stabros kracken yellow. They hung brass clappers in the harnesses of their caravan animals and bits of milky blue glass from the harnesses of their dogs. On this sunny day everything winked. Only their milking does were plain, and that’s only because even the will of a hunter can’t make a doe stabros tractable.

  Veronique came out with me. “Who are they?” she asked.

  Even after just three days I could understand Veronique a lot better. “They are from a great clan, Scathalos,” I said. “They come to buy whisak.” We hoped they would buy it. Sometimes, when Scathalos outrunners came, they just took it.

  “They’re another clan?” she asked. “Where are the women?”

  “They’re outrunners,” I said. “They go out and hunt and trade. Outrunners are not-married men.”

  “They have a lot of guns,” she said.

  They had more guns than I had ever seen. Usually when outrunners came they had one or two guns. Guns are hard to get. But it looked as if almost every outrunner had a gun.

  “Does Sckarline have guns?” Veronique asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “They’re not appropriate, right?”

  A lot of people said we should have guns, whether Ayudesh and Wanji thought they were appropriate or not. They had to buy the clips that go with them. Ayudesh said that the offworlders used the need of the clips to control the clans. He said that it wasn’t appropriate because we couldn’t maintain it ourselves.

  My da said that maybe some things we should buy. We bought things from other clans, that was trade. Maybe guns were trade too.

  The dogs nipped at the doe stabros, turning them, making them stop until outrunners could slip hobbles on them. The stabros looked pretty good. They were mostly dun, and the males were heavy in the shoulders, with heads set low and forward on their necks. Better than most of our animals. The long hairs on their ears were braided with red and yellow threads. Handlers unhooked the sleds from the pack stabros.

  Two of them found the skimmer tracks beyond the schoolhouse. They stopped and looked around. They saw Veronique. Then another stared at her, measuring her.

  “Come with me,” I said.

  Our dogs barked and their dogs barked. The outrunner men talked loudly. Sckarline people stood at the doors of their houses and didn’t talk at all.

  “What’s wrong?” Veronique asked.

  “Come help my mam and me.” She would be under the gaze of them in the distillery too, but I suspected she would be under their gaze anywhere. And this way Mam would be there.

  “Scathalos come here for whisak,” I said to my mam, even though she could see for herself. Mam was at the door, shading her eyes and watching them settle in. Someone should have been telling them we had people in the guesthouse and offering to put their animals up, but no one was moving.

  “Tuuvin is in back,” Mam said, pointing with her chin. “Go back and help him.”

  Tuuvin was hiding the oldest whisak, what was left of the three-year-old brass whisak. Scathalos had come for whisak two years ago and taken what they wanted and left us almost nothing but lame stabros. They said it was because we had favored Toolie Clan in trade. The only reason we had any three-year-old whisak left was because they couldn’t tell what was what.

  So my da and some of the men had dug a cellar in the distillery. Tuuvin was standing in the cellar, taking kegs he had stacked at the edge and pulling them down. It wasn’t very deep, not much over his chest, but the kegs were heavy. I started stacking more for him to hide.

  I wondered what the outrunners would do if they caught us at our work. I wondered if Tuuvin was thinking the same thing. We’d hidden some down there in the spring before the stabros went up to summer grazing but then we’d taken some of the oldest kegs to drink when the stabros came back down in the fall.

  “Hurry,” Tuuvin said softly.

  My hands were slick. Veronique started taking kegs too. She couldn’t lift them, so she rolled them on their edge. Her hands were soft and pretty, not used to rough kegs. It seemed like it took a long time. Tuuvin’s hands were rough and red. I’d never thought about how hard his hands were. Mine were like his, all red. My hands were ugly compared to Veronique’s. Surely he was noticing that too, since every time Veronique rolled a keg over her hands were right there.

  And then the last keg was on the edge. Uukraith’s eye looked at me, strangely unaffected. Or maybe amused. Or maybe angry. Da said that spirits do not feel the way we feel. The teachers never said anything at all about spirits, which was how we knew that they didn’t listen to them. There was not much space in the cellar, just enough for Tuuvin to stand and maybe a little more.

  Tuuvin put his hands on the edge and boosted himself out of the cellar. In front of the store we heard the crack of the door on its hinges and we all three jumped.

  Tuuvin slid the wooden cover over the hole in the floor. “Move those,” he said, pointing at empty kegs.

  I didn’t hear voices.

  “Are you done yet?” Mam said, startling us again.

  “Are they here?” I asked.

  “No,” she said. “Not yet.” She didn’t seem afraid. I had seen my mam afraid, but not very often. “What is she doing here?” Mam asked, looking at Veronique.

  “I thought she should be here, I mean, I was afraid to leave her by herself.”

  “She’s not a child,” Mam said. But she said it mildly, so I knew she didn’t really mind. Then Mam helped us stack kegs. We all tried to be quiet but they thumped like hollow drums. They filled the space around us with noise. It seemed to me that the outrunners could hear us thumping away from outside. I kept looking at Mam, who was stacking kegs as if we hid whisak all the time. Tuuvin was nervous too. His shoulders were tense. I almost said to him, “you’re up around the ears, boy,” the way the hunters did, but right now I didn’t think it would make him smile.

  Mam scuffed the dirt around the kegs.

  “Will they find them?” I asked.

  Mam shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  * * *

  There was a lot to do to get ready for the outrunners besides hiding the best whisak. Mam had us count the kegs, even Veronique. Then when we all three finally agreed on a number she wrote it in her tally book. “So we know how much we sell,” she said.

  We were just finishing counting when outrunners came with Ayudesh. They came into the front. First the wind like a wild dog sliding around the door and making the fires all sway. Then Ayudesh and then the outrunners. The outrunners looked short compared to Ayudesh. And they looked even harder than we did. Their cheeks were winter red. Their felts were all dark with dirt, like they’d been out for a long time.

  “Hie,” said one of the men, seeing my mother. They all grinned. People always seemed surprised that they were going to trade with my mam. The outrunners already smelled of whisak, so people had finally made them welcome. Or maybe someone had the sense to realize that if they gave them drink we’d have time to get things ready. Maybe my da.

  My mam stood as she always did, with her arms crossed, tall as any of them. Waiting them out.

  “What’s this,” said the man, looking around. “Eh? What’s this? It stinks in here.” The distillery always stank.

  They walked around, looked at the kegs, poked at the copper tubing and the still. One stuck his finger under the drip and tasted the raw stuff and grimaced. Ayudesh looked uncomfortable, but the teachers always said that the distillery was ours and they didn’t interfere with how we ran it. Mam was in charge here.

  Mam just stood and let them walk all around her. She didn’t turn her head to watch them.r />
  They picked up the brand. “What’s this?” the man said again.

  “We mark all our kegs with the eye of Uukraith,” Mam said.

  “Woman’s work,” he said.

  He stopped and looked at Veronique. He studied her for a moment, then frowned. “You’re no boy,” he said.

  Veronique looked at me, the whites of her eyes bright even in the dimness, but she didn’t say anything.

  He grinned and laughed. The other two outrunners crowded close to her and fingered the slick fabric of her sleeve, touched her hair. Veronique pulled away.

  The first outrunner got bored and walked around the room some more.

  He tapped a keg. Not like Mam thumped them, listening, but just as if everything here were his. He had dirty brown hair on the backs of his hands. Everywhere I looked I was seeing people’s hands. I didn’t like the way he put his hands on things.

  Then he pointed to a keg, not the one he was tapping on but a different one, and one of the other men picked it up. “Is it good?” he asked.

  My mam shrugged.

  He didn’t like that. He took two steps forward and hit her across the face. I looked at the black-packed dirt floor.

  Ayudesh made a noise.

  “It’s good,” my mam said. I looked up and she had a red mark on the side of her face. Ayudesh looked as if he would speak but he didn’t.

  The outrunner grabbed her braid—she flinched as he reached past her face—and yanked her head. “It’s good, woman?” he asked.

  “Yes,” she said, her voice coming almost airless, like she could not breathe.

  He yanked her down to her knees. Then he let go and they all went out with the keg.

  Ayudesh said, “Are you all right?” Mam stood back up again and touched her braid, then flipped it back over her neck. She didn’t look at any of us.

  * * *

  People were in the schoolhouse. Ayudesh sat on the table at the front and people were sitting on the floor talking as if it were a meeting. Veronique’s teacher was sitting next to Ayudesh and Veronique started as if she were going to go sit with him. Then she looked around and sat down with Mam and Tuuvin and me.

  “So we should just let them take whatever they want?” Harup said. He wasn’t clowning now, but talking as a senior hunter. He sat on his heels, the way hunters do when they’re waiting.