The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Fourteenth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  “You were smarter than me, Roy. If you couldn’t fix things, what was I supposed to do?” He decided to change the subject. “How’s Hannah?”

  “Fine. Her branch is in charge of this burn.” Roy hesitated, then said, “How about Sophie?”

  “I don’t know,” Julian said, carefully. He and Sophie had been together for two years, the same amount of time he had worked with Agon Systems. He had noticed a depressing pattern in his life—one relationship per job. All Julian knew was that this breakup had been the most painful yet. With Sophie he had begun to allow himself to consider marriage, children. Most of his friends (a group which did not include Ty or Duwayne) had chanced one or the other; some both. Julian had begun to feel left out.

  But then he remembered his own rage at learning of his own life sentence aboard Mission. He did not want to be the target of that sort of rage from his own children. He had made that clear to Sophie. Who was now gone.

  Now he was left wondering if he was going to change jobs.

  “How are you doing for money?”

  This was another sore subject. Theoretically every gen two—every person officially listed as a member of Population—had a deployment and a salary. The salaries were subject to mandatory deductions for base habitation, facilities use (including air), medical maintenance, and diet. You’d have to try hard to starve aboard Mission, but the salary actually left little for what Management termed elective/quality-of-life purchases. Julian had gotten into trouble that way in the past, charging against his salary until Finance stopped him. Several times he had had to go to Roy for money, though not lately.

  “I’m keeping ahead,” Julian replied. “I realize I still owe you…”

  Roy waved that off, which infuriated Julian even more than having it brought up in the first place. “I figured you’d be able to make money at Agon.” He sighed. “Everybody does.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “They’re bad guys, Julian.”

  “They’re licensed contractors, Roy.”

  “They’re the next best thing to Mafia—” Suddenly aware that every tech in maintenance was eagerly listening, Roy shut up.

  Searching for some way to salvage the conversation, Julian said, “I’m having a party tomorrow night. My birthday.”

  “I know,” Roy said. “I’m still your brother.”

  “Why don’t you bring Hannah, if you can get her to go south of Korou?”

  “We have a burn scheduled.”

  “There’s never been a burn in Mission history that took place on time.”

  “Julian … I didn’t come here to pick a fight.” That they would fight was inevitable. They were gen-two kids, the children of the hated contractors who had fought their way into Management. But while Julian had quit, Roy had risen all the way to Level C, the highest onboard authority. He had compounded the insult by marrying a woman from a Management family too. Julian turned his head and looked directly at Roy, amazed at how much he resembled their father.

  Now Roy said, “You and your … associates wouldn’t be trying to bias the burn in any way.”

  There was always a pool on Mission events. “Since when do you care about the leisure activities of the underclass?”

  “Whenever it affects Mission safety.”

  “Is this an official inquiry?”

  “Do you have any official data?”

  Julian wished again that Roy had skipped law school. “Here’s what I can tell you: If there are any friendly, private wagers on private networks—did I mention the word ‘private’?”

  Roy had the grace to smile. “I believe so.”

  “They are reactive, not proactive. To put it another way, nobody is trying to fix your fucking burn.”

  “Relax. I was really just asking.”

  Julian was surprised at his own vehemence. Because for the first time in his two years with Agon, he realized he didn’t know the answer to Roy’s question.

  Roy smiled faintly. “I’m going to try to get to your party.” He rolled his shoulder. “You’d think with all the maintenance we’ve had, we’d be in better shape.”

  “For human beings a world this small is toxic.”

  “Come on, Julian. We designed it.”

  “Maybe you did.” Then he lay back and let the sweet new blood flow. For a brief moment, at this point in the very long, never really begun voyage, A.C. didn’t equal death.

  * * *

  Mission was theoretically self-sufficient, with air, water, and waste purified and recycled for an indefinite period, assuming strict Population control, though most Red Team simulations suggested that eighty years was a more realistic system life than infinity. That is, the “closed” Eco system would sustain itself for at least that long, which was still beyond the maximum allowable duration for the trans-Alpha voyage. (In some simulations the optimum system lifetime actually allowed for a round trip—160 years—providing, of course, that Population decreased.) Renewable resources had already been detected on Eden early in the design process so that refueling at Alpha Cen was the primary mode, while a closed system with return was only a backup.

  Eco was an in-house Management program in which Agon Systems was the major subcontractor. This fit nicely with the company’s role in Facilities, which was collecting garbage. With Population constantly changing, not to mention the ongoing construction and repairs, garbage was a serious problem. Scrap metal and composites could be redeployed to the Fabrik program, Mission’s own manufacturing arm. But everything else, from plain old litter to discarded toys to dust in the air, had to be tracked, retrieved, and dealt with.

  Julian didn’t have an office; Agon Systems had converted to virtual facilities a century back, so most mornings found Julian planted at a table to the rear of the Seagull, a café that catered to Bikers. With his laptop and Duwayne nearby Julian monitored the endless flow of Mission debris. He also monitored various cargo manifests, Mission or informal, controlling the flow of materials, information, and people into and out of the high bay. The challenge was knowing how much of a shipment was capable of being “lost” or “damaged,” and who to compensate, and with what.

  Mission did much of its own processing, turning chemicals into composites, and sometimes the other way around. But there was a gratifying percentage of the population which was still willing to pay for exotic food from Earth … fashions … hardware … data. (Information and entertainment were beamed directly aboard, though Management controlled the intra-Mission network.) Software judged violent, subversive, or otherwise incorrect was subject to censorship; Julian was happy to shift it to the undernet.

  This morning was particularly busy because a Chinese vehicle had docked, one of ten officially manifested resupply flights per year. It wasn’t until after lunch that Julian was able to ask Duwayne to go up on Mission net. “Tell me about this SteadiState propulsion event.”

  Duwayne blinked, then came back into focus. “It’s been in development since F.Y. 25 or so, originally intended for constant-boost outer-planet missions. Abandoned.”

  “Because of technical problems?”

  “Fiscal. SteadiState’s just too expensive. There were some instabilities during its initial use … one loss of vehicle in F.Y. 79 contributed to replacement by another system.”

  “Anything anywhere to show that it’s not a good idea? Red Team reports?”

  “Nothing on Mission.”

  “Well. Is it going to light up on time?”

  “It’s running two hours late.”

  Julian stood up. That was typical. “Duwayne … do you ever wonder what you’d do if it worked?”

  “Propulsion? You mean, if we actually got to departure?”

  “Yeah.”

  Duwayne mulled this for a moment, his consciousness spread over God knew what pages of the nets, then smiled. “You’re kidding, right? Mission’s never going to go anywhere.”

  “Suppose it did. Suppose they stopped the resupply flights and kicked out
everybody who wasn’t in Population. Buttoned her up and said, ‘Next stop is Alpha Cen … sixty years.’”

  “I’d be on the last flight down.”

  “Don’t want to see Eden?”

  “I’ve seen it from Pickering.” He nodded toward the view of dayside Africa rolling past on the television. “It looks like that, only colder.”

  “You’ve been here your whole life. What are you going to do downstairs?”

  “I don’t know. But at least I won’t be off-line.” Duwayne was as fully integrated as anyone Julian knew. He spent most of his waking moments—probably his dreaming ones too—awash in data and imagery. For him, trying to live without the nets would be like trying to live without air. Which was reason number three that Julian had never accepted integration. Duwayne said, “My parents signed up to go to Alpha Cen, not me. It’s not my fault they died before they got their chance.” He smiled. “A.C. equals death.”

  Julian realized that a lot of gen twos agreed with Duwayne, yet the attitude suddenly annoyed him. “Duwayne, you’ve never been cold. Never been rained on. They have weather downstairs. They have dirt. The Mission’s a pretty small town too. How would you like to be sharing space with ten million people? I bet you wouldn’t last five minutes in Munich.”

  “I bet I won’t have to.”

  “Did you put anything into this burn pool?”

  “I don’t do that. The house cooks the books.”

  He couldn’t believe the words were coming out of his mouth. Not because they weren’t true, but because he didn’t really want to pick on Duwayne. “Ah, let’s get ready for a party.”

  * * *

  Julian lived minus-x-ward of Node Canaveral in Node Palmachim, the oldest residential volume on Mission, one plus-x from Bike. It was probably safer there than in the heavily patrolled management node, especially for Julian, who had many supportive friends, but its drawback was that it was ugly, nothing but a hilly street of warehouses scarred by collisions with Bike haulers and marked by forty years of tags.

  Assuming that Sophie would not show up, Julian had allowed Duwayne to invite as many female “visitors” as he wanted—which turned out to be a trio of entertainers who said they were planning to head back downstairs to Branson, Missouri, anyday now.

  He sent Ty with the cart to pick up Roy and Hannah; to Julian’s great surprise, Roy accepted, bringing Hannah’s regrets. “She’s on the trajectory panel and doesn’t want to miss the countdown.”

  Just as well: Julian had not seen Hannah since the wedding. A Management female wouldn’t know what to say to someone like him.

  Roy examined the volume. He did not need a calculator to judge its size. “I think I’m going to let you pay me back after all,” he told Julian. “You have three times the volume Dr. Riordan has.” Riordan was Mission administrator, the highest Level C manager on site.

  “I thought Management principles mandated equal volume for all.”

  “Several years ago two guys in D offered to give up their volume to enlarge the MA’s suite.”

  “He’s got all those meetings to hold.…”

  “It was seen to be quite a noble gesture.”

  “And what happened to them, Roy?”

  “One of them is now Dr. Riordan.”

  “And you complain about my business.” Julian nodded at one of the hostesses, who brought over the tray of drinks. Julian helped himself as Roy looked them over carefully. “If you don’t see anything you like, name it and I’ll get it.” When Roy continued to hesitate, Julian realized what the problem was. “I guess Management doesn’t want its integrated managers to be substance abusers. They must really track you all the time.”

  Roy picked up a clear drink. “Not all the time.” He clinked glasses clumsily with Julian. “Happy birthday.”

  Julian watched Roy scan the crowd—not a large one, in spite of the available volume. It was still rather early in the evening for Mission’s underclass to be out. The crowd was evenly split between men over thirty years of age and women under. “Amazing,” Roy finally said. “Most of your guests don’t appear to exist. Population can’t match any of these faces with files.”

  “Some of them are visitors.”

  “Visitors have their own category in Population, Julian. How do they stay maintained? Mission won’t cover you if you’re not in Population. If you haven’t been officially deployed.”

  Julian shrugged. “Maybe Mission’s database isn’t as comprehensive as it’s supposed to be. Clearly everybody here is maintained—”

  “—And they all appear to be working.” Roy shook his head. “It’s quite an operation you have here.”

  “I can’t take credit for it.”

  “I wasn’t going to give you credit. I just said it was amazing.”

  Julian busied himself for a moment by accepting a second drink, or was it his third? “Roy … you said something yesterday that was interesting.”

  “About how you’re still punishing Dad?”

  This was worse than asking Roy for money. All the worse because Julian didn’t know for sure that somebody in Agon Systems, or more likely, with access to Agon Systems, was going to screw up the burn. But having been a part of this operation for two years now, he had learned to trust his instincts, especially when it came to events like this. And his instincts were telling him there was influence.

  But what did he want Roy to do? Unleash Internal Affairs? Agon would never allow that, and the moment they discovered Julian’s involvement (and they would), he was in big trouble. It was one thing to play games with Management and Personnel: Getting Agon mad at you was a form of suicide. Julian might have to move downstairs. He might be lucky to survive to make the move.

  “What you said about getting into Management.”

  Roy must have stared at him for a full five seconds. “That’s a surprise. Integration and all?”

  “I don’t know about that. I just said—”

  “—That you were interested in going back to Management—”

  “—That I was interested in what you said.” Neither one of them was going to make the first concession. “Look, forget it.”

  “Not a chance. I’m fascinated. Something really big must have happened since this afternoon, to make my kid brother give up the glamorous life of gambling, drugs, and smuggling—”

  That did it. “Climb down from the pedestal, Roy. Mission runs its lotteries, manufacturers its own drugs, and makes sure Managers have first pick. The import-export laws change everytime somebody in Munich sneezes. Some of us don’t fit in Mission. We’re just making our own world.”

  “Which looks a lot like the bad one we left behind.”

  Julian nodded toward the television. Blue and brown, Earth rolled past, three hundred miles below. “You haven’t managed to leave yet.”

  * * *

  Pleading fatigue, Roy left after an acceptable hour’s attendance, at which point Julian lost interest in his party. It wasn’t intended to honor him so much as it was a chance for his associates to eat and drink for free. He had begun to pay attention to one of the Branson singers, a woman named Hope, when Duwayne found him. “Sorry to bother you,” he said. “IA.”

  Julian removed Hope from his lap. “Here?”

  “The Seagull.” Duwayne fell back into the net for a moment, then surfaced. “It’s two Internal Affairs teams—must be up from Munich, since they’re not in Population.”

  Julian was already stepping over his more persistent party-goers on the way out the door. Duwayne struggled to walk while staying up on Mission. “What are they doing?”

  Another pause. “Facing Ty and his people. Picking stuff up.”

  “Any activity on either net?”

  “Mission’s devoted to that burn, now at T-minus-six hours. Undernet has the usual.”

  “This is insane.”

  He and Duwayne ran out to the cart and headed for the access point that would take them across to Node Baikonur.

  * * *

>   Mission had a unique legal status. No nation or group of nations had any sovereignty over it. Originally its model was Antarctica, an “open” center for research. But habitation at the Antarctic stations was limited; people went home after their tours. There was no permanent population.

  During the early assembly phase Mission was treated as a commercial facility, like an ocean-oil platform, except that the “corporation” which funded Mission was a consortium of nations, some of whom were virulently opposed to commercial ventures. Again, commercial facilities did not have permanent residents.

  All through the development and assembly phases there were popular stories—even a couple of Hong Kong movies—about Mission becoming an independent nation, with its own laws, currency, government. It was the kind of thing gen twos talked about when they were in their early teens and forgot about when they started having sex.

  Mission remained a vehicle: The permanent Population was, legally, no such thing. Julian and Roy, for example, were technically citizens of the United States, since that was what their parents were. Never mind that Julian had come no closer to the U.S. than a vertical separation of at least two hundred and fifty miles; he had the right to return there as a voting citizen. The same applied to the rest of Population.

  Only when Mission burned out of orbit on a trans–Alpha Cen trajectory would it begin moving toward any kind of actual independence. From what Julian had heard, when he bothered to pay attention, Management was still struggling to address the form of this government, and the transition to it.

  In practical terms, however, Mission was technically a free port. The only laws were Management directives, and in at least one international court case these had been shown to be quite limited, dealing mostly with Mission property—in effect, Management could enforce directives only among its actual employees. Other members of Population, 70 percent of whom actually worked for contractors, could abide by or ignore the directives as they chose, subject only to possible loss of contract with Management.

  Agon Systems, the corporation, preferred its own rules. As far as it was concerned, there were no Sunday closing laws. No casino or liquor licenses. No censorship. And Management’s Internal Affairs staff was only an annoyance.