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

by Ken Liu

  He lifted his hand over his eyes to block the smoldering orange sky, only to find his fingertips had turned blue. He half stood, panting for breath, but his knees locked and he fell against the boat’s smooth walls, inches from going overboard. Like the shed, he realized, too late—the air was different, unbreathable.

  “Wh—” he said, but his tongue froze inside his mouth, the saliva made ice, his teeth aching. Blue had leaked from his fingertips, up his hands and arms in thin, veiny streaks.

  I’m going to die out here.

  His lungs pumped a strange mixture of gases, in and out, never sated. But through his coarse gasping, a new noise rose over that of the water, of his frantic pulse.

  Shhhhh, it said, shush, shush.

  Above him, the boat’s bladed sail tremored like a rattlesnake tail. Something touched his shoulder.

  Shhhhhhhhhh. Again the sail trembled.

  His chest seized. Everything was turning gray.

  The touch upon his shoulder slithered up to his chin, wet and groping. Friend Paolo tried to look, but his neck wouldn’t respond; he could only stare in terror toward the approaching platform. Soundless, the thing pushed against his neck. Tiny hairs emerged from it, crept up his face like ivy on stonework. Past his chin and his paralyzed lips, scraping filaments across his tongue, they probed at his throat. He tried to breathe, tried to scream, and they plunged forward, threading through his lungs and into his bronchial tubes.

  High on the platform, something moved.

  Friend Paolo was not dead.

  The sky burned, strange cancerous growths had overtaken the platform, and within the buildings leggy shadows scurried past windows—and Friend Paolo was not dead.

  He stood in a narrow canyon between the platform’s distorted shapes, learning to breathe again. Thousands of rubbery strings webbed through his body, emerging from his mouth and nose and even his pores to snake back through the alleys and streets to the edge of the fantastic cityscape where they rooted him to the sailboat. Pain dotted hot white stars across his vision. But in this strange place, even though he might have died—who could know—before the loving symbiosis of the boat brought him back, he felt more vibrant than he’d felt in years.

  At the center of the once-smooth platform, where he had once gulped impossibly fresh water, where he’d argued with his oldest friend, there was now an enormous, fleshy cone, stuttering open and closed at the top as it gasped in air and belched out a frosted mist that curled slow, lazy spirals around his ankles.

  Beside it, the shell, the device, whatever it was, rested on one of only two unaltered areas of steel. Its interface panels had unfolded and unfolded again, into a prism of shapes that could not exist. And yet they persisted. Twice as tall as him and wider still, they cast a pulsing green glow over everything. Endless symbols flashed and scrolled within the panel-wings, but the hieroglyphics were meaningless to Friend Paolo except to show that the object was hard at work.

  And beside the shell, on a small circle of the unblemished rig was Paolo: still kneeling, but naked, blackened, and withered. Only the flutter of his eyelids and the rise and fall of his emaciated chest suggested he was still alive.

  Friend Paolo sighed, and his ribs creaked, the cords in his lungs swelling with the effort of extracting and delivering oxygen.

  Symbols on the interface quickened, thousands upon thousands of them flaring to life and fading in long meteoric streaks. High above, ropy growths separated from the buildings and coalesced into spider-like creatures. They exhaled ribbons of vapor as they descended, their long legs tapping sharp against the walls.

  The threads in him writhed and flexed; everything blurred with tears—but he had to stop it, whatever Paolo had done, whatever the device was still doing.

  He reached for the thing, smooth black beneath its green wings, closed both hands around it, and everything flared white—green?—white, blinding—as within him, the ties to the boat yanked and inflated, cracking bone, tearing muscle, and he floated, perhaps, or…

  Amputated…

  And—Paolo? Paolo?—Paolo was gone.

  Friend Paolo felt himself unmoored, vertiginous, in the interstices of the cosmos. Stars, planets, the precise mathematics of orbits and heavenly trajectories, the fluttering pathways of comets, all were laid out like a map. And scattered among them, fragile clusters of life, strangers in the dark. Or... friends.

  Friends?

  He was not alone.

  Something shared his mind. Something purposeful. Fanatical.

  The object—the Seed, that was its name, he suddenly knew—rested heavy in his hands. He saw the platform again and his own body, still intact, and the overgrown ruins of Paolo’s buildings, and he knew now their pinpoint place in the expanse.

  Instructions, or instinct, coursed through him—the unstoppable drive to take root, to create—and he sank in the undertow of the Seed’s will. Molecular bonds separated before them; atoms waited for guidance. Within them, together, they held the power to remake the world.

  But buried beneath that, deep beneath that, Friend Paolo felt something else. Something pitiful, and with pity.

  Hello? said a voice that was not a voice. Hello? Hello? Hello?

  Something responded to the Navigator’s greeting. A new presence, softer than the other, the one that had flared and fallen. It thought at her in strange sounds, a string of guttural code; the language was alien, but beneath it there was common ground in the emotion and the intent.

  It communicated fear. Not for itself, not at first, but for its home, and for its friend.

  Safe? said the creature, without words.

  The Navigator, pinned to the sand, felt the creature’s helplessness. No, she said. Not safe.

  Why? Why not safe? Seed?

  Correct. Seed, not safe.

  Paolo is strong. Save him? I can save him?

  The creature’s love and longing flooded the Navigator and, reflexively, she mirrored it with her own. Her whips lifted in the current, a mockery of her former lightness.

  No, she said. You cannot save him.

  They were quiet, alone together.

  Finally, the creature spoke again. Why?

  He stood before it like a wall. Battered to dust.

  And now?

  Everything changes.

  I can stop it?

  No, said the Navigator. Batter you to dust.

  We can stop it?

  No. It does not stop. Batter us to dust.

  Something penetrated the expanding cracks of her armor and scraped its mouth against her. She was so soft now.

  The creature insisted: Slow it?

  It has a mission.

  You brought it to kill us?

  No, she said. I was not to be here. You would not have been there. Mission is to build new home.

  The waterlife bit into her. Pain radiated through the segments of her body, like before, when she was fragile.

  Reminded of her former fragility, she thought of her people withering without a home and, without meaning to, she shared visions of this new world flaring orange and red, disintegrating before the transformative power of the Seed. The creature panicked, then paused. The Navigator could feel its emotions smoothing.

  Redirect it? the creature said after a pause. Let the Seed build somewhere else? The creature thought of other planets nearby—dead, harmless places, so close.

  I am broken, said the Navigator. It will build here.

  The creature considered. Its mind was visible to her. It thought incessantly of the other as if pleading or praying for response, then it was lost in the magnitude of the planet and, beyond that, the breadth of space.

  It thought in great whorls and loops like the other creature had, but stiffer, more effortful, and less fruitful. But the other was gone; the other was dust, and this new creature froze in long contemplation.

  And gradually the shape of its thoughts hardened into grids and schematics, an imposition of order.

  Contain it, it said finall
y. The creature showed her a platform, perched atop the ocean, surrounded by the maelstrom which contained the Seed’s changes.

  It is too small, she said, but immediately the creature shared a new vision, of mountains and plains, an entire continent raised from the ocean floor for the Seed to do its work upon, all cabined within those same walls of wind and water, made as impermeable as minerals leached from saltwater, leaving the contents pure. Walls reaching out beyond the alien-blue sky. A whole world within their world.

  The Navigator saw this and had her own, secret, vision—of the Seed raising her up from the crushing depths to see starlight again, even if only for a brief moment.

  Maybe enough, she said. Maybe yes. But very difficult. Flooding, containment; very difficult.

  Only details. The creature’s thoughts were steady now. Leave to me. Talk to Seed? Explain?

  Maybe yes. But do not trust it.

  Air rushed back into Friend Paolo’s lungs. Deep inside, the threads from the boat retracted. He was free.

  The Seed still buzzed with energy, but its influence around him faded; the plan was under way. Structures froze, mid-transformation. Everything was as quiet as when the Seed first unfolded, glassening the sea.

  The stillness was broken only by Paolo, toppling backward, his familiar face collapsed, unrecognizable, his eyes white and unmoving. Friend Paolo knelt and cradled him, but found no tears.

  Far above them, the clouds moved again.

  A tremor rocked the platform, then a second and a third. Enormous swells distorted the water around them. The Seed was at work. Somewhere distant, the ocean floor began to reach toward the sky.

  Friend Paolo was no longer afraid of the darkness or the whips; the Navigator had shared with him the burn and the helpless rush of freefall, and how they had finished her. Cold and alone, she was nothing compared to the menace of the Seed that lay before him.

  What would they do if the Seed decided it didn’t want to be contained? What if it wanted more? Perhaps, together... he reached out again.

  But the Navigator, too, was lost to him.

  The Seed called out, and from a thousand directions, a thousand answers.

  The Navigator heard and joined their chorus. Please, she sang into the vacuum. And finally, riding the signal of the Seed, she felt again the electric thrill of the Sisterhood’s contact.

  They endured the strobing flashes of her message—water, life, creatures, these creatures that swarmed—and this one that knew her. The Seed, blooming, insistent, inhaling the old world and exhaling the new. Contain it, she sang, contain it.

  The Seed chirped, and the Navigator cracked open like an egg. But as she faded, rocked to sleep by foreign tides, the presence of the other navigators enveloped and warmed her.

  Sister, they whispered, sister, they said, be patient.

  We are coming.

  Other Anthologies from SFFWorld.com

  The End

  Visions of Apocalypse

  Lucky or Unlucky?

  Thirteen Stories of Fate

  Wars to End All Wars

  Alternate Tales from the Trenches

  An Expression of Thanks

  In November of 2015, the creators of this book ran a Kickstarter campaign with two core objectives: to recoup the very modest costs of production, and to get as many copies of the book in the hands of readers as was humanly, or inhumanly, possible.

  One-hundred and forty-two backers helped us succeed and so, in the order you came:

  To Nigel Price, Stephen Smith, Christina Klarenbeek, Javier Martinez, Eafiu, Pixie Bailestraid-Cnoc, Nathan Duby, Carrie Bissett, Luke Brown, Victor Karole, Julia Lewey, Patricia Cleary and Lee Ford, Ed Potter, Phil M., Rob Weber, Nick Stember, Steve Mashburn, Brian B, Susie Munro, Elias F. Combarro, David Tejera Expósito, Lala, Mike Berro, Cristina Macia, David Perlmutter, John Devenny, Yoshio Kobayashi, Andrew Hatchell, Phil Lindsey, Plateresca, Randi Misterka, Bonnie Warford, B. L. Draper, Zoltán Velkei, Gavran, Nancy Christine Anderson, Dirk Akkermans, Joris Meijer, Marcheto, Kristyn Willson, Gary Gassman, Margo-Lea Hurwicz, M. Jurado, David Shanahan, Alioth Drinkwater, Jim D, Vincent Baker, Penda Tomlinson, David Nevin, John Willson, Richard Gilmore, Nicholas Ramsey, Jez Patterson, Graeme Comyn, Sean Mike, J. R. Murdock, Jeff Hotchkiss, Estela Blanco, Georgina Scott, Claude Nougat, Erin M. Hartshorn, L.C., William Burton, Danny Carroll, Chattapeg, Herman Duyker, Alex Samaras, Rob, Paul Higgins, Hollywood Hollingsworth, Matthew Hughes, John Foster, Anonymous, Michael J. Sullivan, Cristina Jurado, Jessica Meade, the Lennhoff family, Peevish, Nathan, Richard Eyres, Rini Kirkpatrick, Ian Chung, Lloyd Haskins, Simo Muinonen, Clayton Hackett, Martin Bernstein, Michael Gale, Vanessa Fabiano, Rafael Anier, Richard Friedman, William Shaw, Steve Clifton, Shana DuBois, Ian Smith, Heather I. Sullivan, Nicholas Crutchley, Gertjan, David Mortman, Alexander Lyle, Pedro L. Fragoso, Jareb M. Collins, Jen Lammey, Brenda Cooper, Marissa Lingen, Patrick Di Justo, Emily J. Gertz, Contrarius Est, Sarena Ulibarri, Alex Livingston, Ann Marie Thomas, Mike Scott Thomson, Frankie & Em, Jo Richter, Marybeth Mitchell, Alex Owen-Hill, Doug Engstrom, Cathianne Hall, Nathan (the van-monkey's master), Sarah Hannis, Robert Cryer, Anja Braun, John Critchley, Bonnie Phlieger, Modernmyth, Nekrotikk, Paul Czege, Aaron M. Wilson, Jim Ryan, John Freeman, Xander Schrijen, Manuel de los Reyes, Laura Huelin, Juan Luis García Alonso, Darcy Ross, Joe Sherry, Christopher Stieha, Cat Jones, Russell Nohelty, Derek Freeman, Derya, Miguel Domingo and Anne McMillan...

  ...our grateful thanks to you all!

  Acknowledgements

  More goes into an anthology than just the work that graces its pages, so the editor would like to thank the team behind the scenes who helped throughout: Nila E. White, Dag Rambaut and Rob Bedford.

  My gratitude also to the proof-readers who caught my slips: Sue Burke and Steven Clifton. The cover art was created via the generosity and photographic skill of Paul Critchley and Petras Gagilas.

  Finally, if it were not for the three anthologies which preceded it Ecotones wouldn't exist at all. So on behalf of the denizens of SFFWorld.com, my thanks once more to Nila for having the good idea that made them all possible.

  Story Copyrights

  The Silva – Copyright © 2015 Rebecca Schwarz

  Inundated – Copyright © 2015 Jonathan Laidlow

  The Green – Copyright © 2012 Lauren Beukes

  First appearing in Armored, published by Baen

  Seeds by a Hurricane Torn – Copyright © 2015 Daniel Ausema

  Green Man – Copyright © 2015 P. J. Richards

  Stochasti-city – Copyright © 2010 Tobias S. Buckell

  First appearing in Metatropolis, published by Tor Books

  Homo Panthera – Copyright © 2015 Andrew Leon Hudson

  The First Feast – Copyright © 2015 Victor Espinosa

  Compatibility – Copyright © 2015 Ken Liu

  Not a Problem – Copyright © 2011 Matthew Hughes

  First appearing in Welcome to the Greenhouse, published by O/R Books

  The Pattern Box – Copyright © 2015 Christina Klarenbeek

  A Theft of Flowers – Copyright © 2015 Stephen Palmer

  The Grass is Greener on the Other Side – Copyright © 2015 Igor Ljubuncic

  Paolo, Friend Paolo – Copyright © 2015 Kurt Hunt

  -o-

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