Ecotones: Ecological Stories from the Border Between Fantasy and Science Fiction

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Ecotones: Ecological Stories from the Border Between Fantasy and Science Fiction Page 24

by Ken Liu


  She burned the tent. The metaphor would not be lost on Ball O’ Fat and Silver Nose.

  Asséta gasped when she saw Cybere’s data.

  “The mood of the market has crashed,” it said. “We are in trouble.”

  “But what can we do?”

  “There is a madman here,” Cybere said. “Djeneba attacked.”

  “You mean the crossbow man?” Asséta asked.

  Cybere looked in astonishment at her. “She was shot at with a crossbow?”

  “Silver Nose was. What attack were you referring to?”

  “The flower burning. Is Djeneba well?”

  Asséta nodded. “Doubtless the mood enfolding the Old Council was triggered in your mind. But the assassination attempt failed. It was therefore performed by somebody who knows nothing of our market secrets. A Green Wall man, quite possibly, though Silver Nose thinks otherwise.”

  “The Green Wall of Africa is full of humans.”

  Asséta said, “There’s something bad going on. The Old Council should meet. We haven’t faced this kind of threat before, and we can’t just ignore it.”

  Cybere said nothing for a full minute. Its face became white as it cast its gaze down to the ground. Then it said, “You are correct. I will arrange it.”

  Asséta watched as it departed. Something was wrong between her and Cybere, but she could not put her finger on it. Had anything useful been said? Somehow… somehow… she thought not.

  Djeneba smiled at Silver Nose and Ball O’ Fat. These were green people, who did real things. She said, “I have the information you need to assimilate the market.”

  “You, eh?” said Ball O’ Fat. “And why?”

  “Because I believe you to be correct. Africa has long been green.”

  Ball O’ Fat nodded. “Not always,” he said, “but you’re right, aye, you’re right. So wha’s this info?”

  “The accession codes for Cybere. You can remove it. You can lop the head off the market.”

  “And then?”

  Djenaba glanced down at her skin. “Can you make me real? I want to live again.”

  Ball O’ Fat shrugged. “Lady, you might’ve had your metal hacked off, but you’re still one of them.” He gestured at the market. “Not one of us, see?”

  Silver Nose tapped Ball O’ Fat on the arm. “Listen,” he said. “This could work for us. This Euro-spawn seems genuine.”

  Ball O’ Fat scowled. “Don’t talk as though she’s not here!”

  Djeneba felt a touch of desperation. “I’ll do anything,” she said. “I’ll work for you. I don’t want the old ways any more, honestly.”

  Silver Nose glanced at Ball O’ Fat, then grinned.

  The next Old Council meeting was well attended. Djeneba sat at the back of the crowd, concealed in the public padock, a faux-silver cloak rippling around her, a silicon-software wig on her head. Just a regular marketeer, or so it appeared. But she had given Cybere’s accession codes to the men of the Green Wall; now all she had to do was wait for an appropriate moment to open the way, initiate the assimilation.

  Nearby, Ball O’ Fat and Silver Nose lay hidden amidst the new-grown mirror flowers of Ouagadougou’s surroundings, like monkeys in junk.

  Cybere stood beside the market bell, towering over everybody. “The mood of the market has crashed,” it said. “We are in trouble.”

  Asséta stepped forward, and in spite of herself Djenaba felt a flicker of uncertainty. When she was grieving her flowers, when she was bleeding alone, Asséta had been there. And now…

  “But what can we do?” Asséta asked.

  “There is a madman here,” Cybere said. “Djeneba attacked.”

  “You mean the crossbow man?” Asséta asked.

  Cybere looked at her. “She was shot at with a crossbow?”

  “Silver Nose was. What attack were you referring to?”

  “The flower burning. Is Djeneba well?”

  From her vantage point, any lingering doubts within her died. No, she thought, Djeneba is not well. Not here, not any more. She gripped the tiny rat-switch in her right hand.

  Asséta replied, “Doubtless the mood enfolding the Old Council was triggered in your mind. But the assassination attempt failed. It was therefore performed by somebody who knows nothing of our market secrets. A Green Wall man, quite possibly, though Silver Nose thinks otherwise.”

  Djeneba thought Poor Asséta, then shook her head.

  “The Green Wall of Africa is full of humans.”

  Asséta said, “There’s something bad going on… there’s something bad going on…” She paused, then repeated the mantra: “There’s something bad going on… we haven’t faced this kind of threat before, and we can’t just ignore it.”

  Cybere’s face became white as it cast its gaze down to the ground. “You are correct. I will arrange it.”

  This was the penalty of working with software, Djeneba knew, software eternally in debt to the European originals. A mixture of dog-eat-dog and callous exploitation; human greed dissolved into silicon lies.

  Asséta seemed frozen, as if confused, aware that a flaw in the conversation had developed. Djeneba sat upright as the audience murmured—also aware, but uncomprehending.

  Cybere said, “You are correct. I will arrange it.”

  “There’s something bad going on,” said Asséta. “We haven’t faced this kind of threat before, and we can’t just ignore it.”

  Whatever machinations the green men had worked, there was no question now that both Cybere and Asséta were looping. Ending it would almost be an act of kindness.

  Djeneba pressed the switch.

  At once Cybere staggered backwards. The partial mirrors of the pavilion interior turned green. Black hyperducts fell to the ground, like autumn’s dead branches. Bird calls faded… then returned. But the new sounds suggested the noise of real birds: birds in trees.

  Through a flap at the side of the pavilion two men emerged, one bulbous and grinning, one with a silver nose.

  The first man cleared his throat. “We have assumed control,” he said.

  The Grass is Greener on the Other Side

  Igor Ljubuncic

  Igor Ljubuncic is a physicist by vocation and a Linux geek by profession, and worked in the high-tech medical industry before dabbling with operating systems. In addition to a four-part series of fantasy novels, he is a veteran of two of SFFWorld's previous anthologies and his piece last year, The Girl with the Flaxen Hair, was nominated for the Sidewise Award for short-form Alternate History at the 2o15 World Science Fiction Convention.

  In his story this time, we are shown a glimpse of the absurdity that might lie in wait if, in championing ecological well-being, a culture takes a few steps too far. Clean living is all well and good, but if you want to really taste life you might need to get a little dirty…

  “How do you feel, Ruan?”

  “Anxious,” Ruan replied over the helicopter intercom, the digital buzz hiding the intensity of his emotion. This was his first anti-smuggling operation.

  “Real combat is nothing like training, Son,” his father, seated next to him, said for the thousandth time. “Not with 3D helmets, not with laser guns. But you will be all right.”

  The squad members all gave him a hearty thumbs up. Most of them were his father’s age, highly experienced hunters, with hundreds of hours spent chasing the Deniers near the bioborder. To share the seat on a helicopter with them made Ruan feel incompetent, despite his outstanding academy record.

  He wasn’t afraid of the enemy. He was terrified of letting his father down.

  The landscape flitted in a roll of blurred colors, tundra brown, filthy ice, lethargic green, russet scrub, hazy blue. Ruan had seen detailed imagery of the Chaos, but this was the first time he found himself outside the highly controlled, precise, pure world he called home. A world normal people called home.

  “Let me tell you a story, boy,” the squad sergeant piped in. “It all started in the late 20th century...”

>   Ruan sighed. He wasn’t in the mood for fighters’ melancholy, for that ever so slightly distorted view of history the way soldiers had it. Ruan had read all the books and listened to all the lectures, and he knew all there was to know. He did not plan on respecting his foe.

  There was nothing to respect in people who tried to smuggle toxins into his world. There was nothing noble about men who tried to ruin his way of life, to destroy the delicate balance of his home.

  As far as he was concerned, the smugglers were targets for his rifle’s scope, and that was it.

  “27... 28... 29... 30.”

  Ruan slowly raised his face from the sanitizing fluid. It burned his skin, but he had to be sure. He might be harboring a disease or an infection that the normal world had eradicated a hundred years ago.

  He wiped his face and looked at himself in the mirror.

  His gums were bleeding from flossing, and his lips were shriveled from the disinfectant solution he had injected. The air around him smelled like chlorine and mint.

  His mind replaying the encounter with the smuggler girl, Ruan walked back into his simple soldier’s bedroom, bright white except for his gear, currently sealed in a cleaning machine, undergoing treatment.

  He checked his calendar. 15:30, he had the mission debriefing. 16:30, his first kill trauma appointment with a combat psychiatrist. 17:00, his second kill trauma appointment with another psychiatrist. 17:30, yoghurt enema. 18:00, yoga. 19:00, gym.

  He walked to the door. He put his hand on the breathing kit, and his hand trembled as it touched the silver capsule of carbon-dioxide, attached to the mixer. The little dial still read two thirds, and he had enough for until at least next week.

  He put the mask on, and left.

  “Scanners show a scattering of human targets, seven kilometers, bearing 021 degrees,” the mission leader in the isolated flight cockpit announced on the intercom.

  “This is it, Son,” his father emphasized.

  Ruan focused on his routine checks. Gun, ammunition, safety, scope, batteries. His helmet, his breathing kit. He had already made sure all his gear was working and properly calibrated, but there was solace in repetition. He liked the predictability of the outcome.

  The helicopter side doors growled open. A violent gust of wind rushed into the helicopter, shaking the craft, making them sway, tugging at their uniforms, lifting their feet off the perforated floor. The temperature dropped instantly, and the large red readout above their heads plunged deep below zero. Strange, Ruan thought, that the world affected by global warming would have so much snow and ice. And even more so on the side occupied by the Deniers.

  “Take positions,” the squad commander ordered.

  Giving his harness a last tug, Ruan leaned out of the helicopter. He wanted to blink and squint instinctively, but the helmet kept the world away from his face. He was breathing a perfect mixture of breathable air, and the visor blocked all harmful radiation. He was safe from harm.

  What his protective gear couldn’t help with was the buffeting.

  His shoulder slammed into the side of the fuselage, then he detached suddenly, violently, and would have dropped his rifle had it not been secured to his harness. A fresh fist of condensed air bobbed him up, then down. He had trained in the helicopter simulator for many hours, but nothing really compared to real winds, deadly winds, trying to snag him away.

  The pilot lowered the craft and slowed, assuming a standard strafing run. Two men to each side, they would engage targets in the front sector, where it was easier to hit. Being right handed, Ruan was on the starboard.

  He shouldered the rifle and waited for the target feed from the mission leader. Soon enough, he saw them. Five… six… nine human shapes, lighter shades of gray on a monochrome display, moving through the sparse spruce forest, spread out. They were still too far to engage, but that gave Ruan plenty of time to aim. It would be a shame if he missed his first shot. He tried to forget about his father right then.

  The smugglers were cunning. They used dozens of methods to evade detection. They had countermeasures for ground sensors, air sensors, satellites, cameras. It was a never-ending battle, technology and skill locked in a lethal wrestle. This enemy team had almost managed to get to the bioborder undetected—until an underground listening station had picked up human voices. Now Ruan was about to get baptized in combat.

  He felt no anger, no hate for the deluded humans living on the other side. Truth to be told, he pitied them. He pitied their primitive, anarchistic ways, he pitied their disregard for science and fact, and he wished they would embrace the future. But for all his sympathy, he was wildly protective of his world. He wouldn’t let smugglers bring in poison.

  Safety off.

  “How do you feel, Ruan?” the doctor asked.

  “Defiled,” he admitted. He had spent the last three hours undergoing medical examinations.

  The doctor nodded. “We shall have to book you an appointment with a psychiatrist. Post enemy contact treatment and counseling.”

  “Doctor?”

  “Yes, Ruan?”

  “Will I live?”

  “The checks indicate no viral or bacterial infection. The damage from exposure you suffered in the Chaos atmosphere is minimal. However, I would still recommend a lung purification session, and you might want to adjust your diet for a week or two, with more fiber and protein.”

  It was Ruan’s turn to nod. “Thank you, Doctor.”

  He was just about to shoot when the enemy started running. They had heard the helicopter. Breathing evenly, Ruan aimed and aimed, tracing a dashing target over small ridges and tiny dips in the ground, around trees and rocks, down dried up and frozen river beds. It took patience and focus, but he managed to keep the crosshairs steady on the leftmost target.

  He fired. The white blob of heat on the display stopped moving.

  “Well done,” someone cheered.

  He wanted to shout his thrill until they had to mute him on the intercom, but there were still eight more targets to kill. He pushed his excitement down and focused.

  The helicopter rocked. A wild, sudden drop, and Ruan’s rifle slammed into the hardened visor of his helmet. The aircraft spun a quarter of a circle, and Ruan lost aim. The Deniers vanished outside his envelope, behind the craft’s double tail.

  “Gents, I’m afraid we have sustained damage to the main rotor,” the pilot announced calmly. “I will have to land.”

  Ruan hesitated only a second before he pulled himself into the rear cabin. There was no indication the helicopter was damaged, no smoke, no alarm, no fires or shouting. But the pilot was a veteran, and he knew what he was doing.

  Ruan waited.

  Old, dirty snow blasted up as the downwash of the rotor disturbed the chaotic landscape. Ruan waited for the harness light to go off.

  The commander clicked his tongue to draw their attention. “Squad, we continue on foot. Be careful. This is their turf, and they know what they are doing. They also seem to be armed with heavy weapons. Don’t take any chances please. Switch to in-helmet systems, now. Make sure your positioning beacons are working. Half circle pattern and back, half a kilometer out. Now, good luck.”

  “Good lu—”

  “How do you feel, Ruan?”

  “Angry, Dad.”

  “Why is that? The mission?”

  “Yes, the mission.”

  “It was a good mission, Son. You don’t need to feel bad about it. We killed five of them, with no casualties on our side. You had two kills yourself, and that’s mighty impressive for a first combat sortie. And you almost managed to kill a third, despite your helmet and gun malfunctions. I am proud of you.”

  Ruan sighed. “I know, Dad.”

  “So what’s the matter, Son?”

  “I got confused. I wasn’t focused.”

  “If every one of us told you about all the times we had our mistakes, confusions, fears, terrors, and bungles, you’d finish your military service twice over before we got to tell you t
he half of it.”

  Ruan grimaced. “It’s not that, Dad. It’s…”

  The landing was hard.

  Raw pain jolted up his buttocks, into his spine, his neck. His head banged into something—or someone. The helicopter interior was flashing red. The noise was deafening. Anything that could ring rang, low tone, high tone, low tone, high tone. Then, the sound went away in a sudden pop, and there was a single, empty note in its place, drilling into the center of his brain. It was pitch black. More pain.

  “How do you feel, Ruan?”

  “Disoriented.” Ruan waited for the pinging in his ears to subside.

  “Ruan?” He waved and nodded. “The rendezvous is—BLIP—will be there. Got it?”

  Ruan tapped his helmet. Maybe the comms were damaged, maybe his ears refused to work. There was thick, oily smoke gushing from the fuselage, curling up and away in the strong wind. They would not be flying back in the same craft.

  “Spread—BLIP.”

  Ruan stared at the commander? “Go? Go?”

  “Yes! Go!”

  Ruan edged out of the damaged helicopter, and was sprinting the moment his boots touched the gravelly ice, running toward the forest. His breathing system automatically adjusted the mixture level, and the metab-unit injecting chemicals into his blood stream, keeping his lungs open and his muscles rested.

  The pinging faded. His head cleared.

  The filthy, spoiled world of Chaos unfolded before him. Ugly, wild, unpredictable. True, they had the sky the same color as back home, but it was polluted with carbon-dioxide and methane. The trees had needles and the shrubbery even grew flowers here and there, but Ruan figured they were all acidic and drenched in heavy metals. Why anyone would subject themselves to life in such conditions baffled his intelligence and intuition.

 

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