The Year's Best Science Fiction--Thirty-Fourth Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Temp is half a day across the Rumpled Hills, up Narrow Canyon and down Abysmal, and then follow Occasional River for another half day. We leave the day before and camp overnight at Empty Meadow. We talked once about carving a road from here to there, but it was a very short discussion. Construction would use up the better part of a year and even if it might shorten our trip to only a few hours, it’d also open up the slopes for traffic. When you build a road, people drive it. And traffic would annoy the glitter-bushes enough to disrupt their breeding—plus careless tourists would encourage the horgs to aggressiveness. The conversation ended when Grampa (his title, not his description) said that roads are too much like civilization and we didn’t come to Haven to be city-folk, did we? But there wasn’t anyone in the family arguing for it anyway.

  We crossed the river at the shallows and drove up onto the common track that thirty years of trucks had worn into the turf. We could tell from the ruts, wider and deeper, that traffic from the landing ports was up again. Not a good sign. Tourists are trouble; immigrants are worse, even rich ones.

  Thirty klicks along, we came over the crest of the hill and there was Temporary. A busy day. Too many rigs linked in. Even worse, the Jacklins had added an extension to the public dock. Bad news, that. This was the new normal. Regular traffic. It wasn’t unexpected—there was a new station up on the southern ridge, far enough away it wouldn’t bother us and mostly good folks, tho it did make for bigger gatherings.

  But Temporary was still the right size for a visit. The Jacklins had started with a six-pod spider and connected it by weather-tubes to a scattering of inflatable domes, all sizes. Each dome wrapped a different cargo drop, the leftovers from when Temporary was a landing site for a resource-development company. The Jacklins bought it after the company was persuaded to pull out by a series of unexplainable delays.

  After the first winter, the Jacklins sprayed the domes with a meter of shelterfoam, so now, despite the name, the domes were permanent until further notice and sturdy enough to stand up by themselves, even with three or four meters of snow, ice, and occasionally a few centimeters of frozen carbon dioxide piled on top of that.

  One of the larger domes served as a public swap and meeting place. Two of the others had long since been emptied and served now as occasional habitats for migrant workers and transients. Plus the inevitable call-boys and -girls working the western circuit. During the summer, with the Jacklins’ grudging permission, various pass-throughs and unsettleds used a few of the old mineshafts as a retreat. During the winter, too. I say grudging because it’s bad business to kill off customers, but some customers need to be killed. They used the tunnels that weren’t habitated as storehouses and winter-bunkers. The bots had dug a whole network of tubes and tunnels inside the mountain, but the topmost part of Temporary still looked haphazard, unplanned, and accidental.

  Most folks land at Settlement or at the bigger port farther north where the beanstalk touches down. They put wheels on their pods and head east and then south. The dumber ones head south first, and then east. Those are the ones who come through Temporary, and sometimes we all make a bit of money off them, especially from towing them out of ditches and ravines, repairing broken axles, or just hiring ourselves out as guides to the caravans and wagon trains. A train can be as many as twenty or thirty family-rigs—standard cargo pods laid horizontal and mounted on six or more fluffy polymer spheres two or three meters in diameter, depending on the terrain. It’s standard practice to use bright colors; it helps identify your rig from a distance, especially if it’s surrounded by snow. Our family colors were Florentine, equal stripes of red and yellow on the trucks and tires.

  A cargo pod makes a good house—or a truck. Or both at the same time. Whatever you need. They’re designed to be reused after landing. A standard unit can house six in comfort, eight if they’re friendly, ten if they’re small. If you’re homesteading, you can drop one or two or three on a site, depending on how many of you there are and how much room you need. You can connect as many as eight to a central nexus and call it a spider. And you can link one spider to another to make an estate; I’ve seen linked clusters and chains of twenty or more spiders, but that’s too many people for me. That’s practically a city.

  Once a pod is down, after twelve hours of unpacking you’re ready to settle in; sooner if the first thing you unpack are the bots. If you’re smart, you’ll mount the rigs on wheels and give yourself mobility. As the saint says, “A man should be prepared to move fast at least three times in his life.” It’s a lot easier if you can just put the house in gear and drive to the dustoff—something I didn’t expect to do on Haven, at least not until my third or fourth rejuvenation. And that was just the way I wanted it. This planet is far enough out that people don’t drop round because they’re in the neighborhood; Haven is a destination, not a rest stop.

  But as much as I dislike crowds, I will admit that other people have their uses. For one thing, making love is better with a partner. And it’s easier to find a partner in a crowd than a wilderness. If you’re looking. I’m not. Not anymore. Not since my husbands and wives picked me out of a lineup, married me, and dragged me into the living pod. It was storm season, which is also honeymoon season for most folks, so we didn’t come out for three weeks and that was only to check the anchor blocks on truck two. It wasn’t the storm making it move, so we went back in and resumed what we’d only just begun. By first thaw we’d slowed down a bit, and by spring had pretty well finished ’mooning for a while. By Midsummer, the new bots were trained well enough that we could take a week off for Jubilee. Lot of work to do before autumn, so we unchocked the bubbles on truck two, unlinked, and rolled. The break would do us all good.

  As we bumped downslope, we saw a big black rig that none of us recognized—three industrial pods in a train, like a traveling factory, maybe a bio-refiner, and a couple more drones parked off-site. They had to be passing through, on their way to the richer territories southeast. The huge bulk of the rolling stock loomed over all the other vehicles like a cluster of broodysaurs.

  For the most part we can tell who else is in attendance by the other rigs in the field, but sometimes we see a few strangers—not always newbies, this isn’t that kind of neighborhood, just folks just passing through on their way to places they believe are going to be better than the places they left. Over the years, we’ve seen geologists, zoologists, biologists, mappers, trappers, huskers, buskers, peddlers, meddlers, tinkers, dinkers, migrants, handicrafters, and the occasional salesman. Once in a while, even a tourist, though there isn’t really a lot to see, just trees and savannah and occasionally a horg in the distance. But you can see horgs at Settlement; they have a zoo, not a big one, but big enough to maintain a family of horgs, and if you’re a tourist, that’s what you come to see. Horgs. Once, a circus passed through, but I don’t think they made much money. They only stayed for a day. Temp is not a place where anyone stays, not for long; it’s just a place to rest overnight before heading deeper into the continent.

  Grampa drove us in and found our dock. Most of the time, you just take whatever slot is open, but for Jubilee, the Jacklins always reserve key slots for local families. It’s not just a question of good will—it’s good management. When trouble breaks out, as it sometimes does, the locals are right there to handle it quickly.

  The outside air was warm, by Haven standards, and clean enough that we could have parked and walked. Jackets and air filters would have been enough protection, but anyone who’s lived on Haven longer than a week knows how hard it is to keep the inside air filtered and clean with folks coming in and out all the time. And one thing you learn real fast, running an airlock costs, especially bio- and particle-filtering, and the more you run it, the more it adds up. So as a courtesy to our hosts—Mik and Jik and Tilda Jacklin, the only real permanents at Temporary—we linked to the public access and ran our own airlock.

  There’s a ritual to follow. First you all go to the big common dome and say hello and shar
e a beer and catch up on any gossip that’s happened since you last logged on to the community. Then, if you’re living in that kind of a family—I’m not, I’m in a closed contract, but some people are—you start filling out your dance card, who you’re going to sleep with tonight. Then, and only after you’ve taken care of all the social business, then you can start talking about what you’re looking to buy and what you brought to trade or sell. Otherwise, you look rude. Or worse, desperate. And people take advantage of you when you’re desperate. So it’s not a good idea to be impatient. The merchandise will still be on the shelves an hour from now, but the seller’s good feelings might not.

  Finn and I always shop together. The rest of the family goes looking for practicals, but Finn and I like to start with the clothing aisles. Of course, there’s not a lot on the hangers that we can wear outside. As good as either one of us might look in a kilt or a pinafore, those are party clothes, not work detail. And Finn is a lot bigger than me, almost burly. But we still like to fantasize, and sometimes it’s fun for whoever’s being a husband this season. This trip, we contented ourselves with some fancy underwear. We’d take turns wearing it for each other.

  During melting-season, that’s when the hard work begins. Especially if you’re ranching/farming. We had the long downslope of Restless Mountain, the western side, hence the spectacular sunsets. But the other side was Bareback Ridge. With that behind us, sunrise isn’t until 9 or 10am, depending on the time of year, just a few hours of bright sky first, bright enough that we can get out early with the bots and start herding the glitter-bushes up and down the fields, making sure they get more sunlight per season than they would if they just sat in one place and brooded.

  We spend most of summer harvesting, then start moving the bushes up toward higher ground. It’s like herding cats in slow motion, but it’s necessary to the survival of the herd. We have to do it before first autumn, because that’s when the bushes start slowing their metabolism, saving their summer fat and closing up before long winter settles in. That’s when they’re most vulnerable to the horgs. A horg-pack can shred most of a herd in a matter of days, even digging down through the frozen ground to rip out the fatty stores at the heart of each bush.

  Left to itself, a glitter-bush will take root inside a grove of tall wailing trees. It’s not that the bushes don’t like sunlight, they do, but swarms of spider-bats nest in the wailing trees, and at night, just before taking to the air, they all drop their guano. The bushes raise their roots to collect the rich fertilizer, so whenever a glitter-bush gets hungry it heads for the shade of a wailing willow, hoping to secure the best feeding spot for itself. Generally, the bushes only venture any distance into the meadows during midsummer because that’s when the intense sunlight excites them to breed.

  By having the bots herd them back into the fields where we can bright them, we’re forcing two or three extra breeding cycles in a season, but that exhausts the bushes, so they strive for the trees even harder—despite us bringing them our own rich fertilizer, a lot more potent than the bat-shit they’re accustomed to. One good garbage-refiner can generate both burnable oil and a lot of nitrogen-rich granules.

  A determined glitter-bush can cover almost a klick a day. But a more determined bot can herd it by using mirrors to focus even more sunlight on the bush. The bush will reverse course and head back to the center of the meadow and the rest of its community.

  An individual bush will breed continually, but when they’re raised in herds, they breed in synchronized cycles, releasing clouds of spores. That’s why we wear masks outside. The air on Haven is breathable, but glitter-spores can take root in your lungs. Not hard to kill, but who wants to inhale that much ammonia?

  Because we brighten them, our bushes grow taller and thicker than the wild ones and their seedpods get two or three times as big. And with the bots patrolling the perimeters, we don’t lose many to marauding horgs. Mostly, horgs don’t come up this high, but dry season always sends them uphill, so midsummer usually brings excitement as well as magic.

  This year, it brought Mr. Costello.

  We were still looking at clothes when Trina came to get us. Finn was holding up a blue longshirt he thought would look good on me—more of a dress than a longshirt, but it could be worn either way. I smiled in embarrassment and said I wasn’t planning to shift back for a while. He said he didn’t care, he’d buy it for me and I could wear it now, it would show off my calves. I admitted it was pretty, but when I looked at the price tag, I told him no, we weren’t that rich yet. Trina came up behind me and said it was cute and she and I could share it and yes we could too afford it and I said, “Only if Grampa approves,” and that was the end of it for now. I was still the newest member of the family and they were still spoiling me a little, but I wasn’t going to be a spoiled brat.

  After Finn hung the dress back on the rack, Trina grabbed both our arms. “You don’t wanna miss this. There’s a guy bragging he’s got a better way to commit suicide.”

  She dragged us into the big dome which doubled as bar, restaurant, dance floor, auction hall, and flea market, depending on the time of day. A small group had gathered around a stocky man in an orange suit. He had a thick fringe of black beard framing a round, unweathered face. He looked too innocent to be here, but here he was anyway. He had two blank-faced companions sitting at the table beside him. One was dressed in a tight black suit that looked vaguely military; the other looked like some kind of tech.

  “—and when each person does their part, everybody makes money. Everybody wins.”

  That’s when Tilda Jacklin came up behind him and tape-measured the width of his shoulders.

  He turned around, puzzled. “What are you doing?”

  “Measurin’. Makin’ sure I got a body bag your size. Ye wanna pay fer it now? Discount it ten percent if ye do.”

  Give him credit, the stranger didn’t get angry. He reached up and patted Tilda on the shoulder and said, “You have a fine sense of humor, young man. Very fine. Are you looking for a job?”

  Tilda smiled, shook his head, and did a quick vertical measure of the man. “Not even two meters. Got plenty in stock. I’ll put one aside fer ye.” Then he went back behind the counter and poured three beers for Finn, Trina, and me.

  “What’s all that about?” Finn asked.

  “Horgs,” said Tilda.

  “What about ’em?”

  “That’s Mr. Costello. Says he can sell ’em.”

  “Really…?”

  “Ayep.”

  “Gotta catch ’em first.”

  Tilda grinned and scratched the top of his head, the way he did when he was amused. “Ayep.”

  “How’s he gonna do it?”

  Tilda shrugged, making that wide-eyed, stretched expression he makes when he’s reacting to stupidity. “Dunno. Says he needs two—three helpers. Says he’s got buyers upside. Says he can fill a pod every ten weeks, send ’em right up the beanstalk. That’s what he says. And he’s already scheduled two empties and a truck.”

  Finn frowned, shook his head. “Ain’t possible.” Trina agreed with a snort.

  I was already figuring in my head. “That’s a lot of tonnage. Even to fill one pod. He’s gotta be talking at least forty, maybe fifty head.”

  “He says sixty.”

  “Not possible,” said Trina.

  “Ayep. But he says his buyer is payin’ three hundred a ton. So he’s lookin’ to gross fifty-thou per pod, at least six times a year, he says. Mebbe more. Temptation like that, a man’ll go beyond crazy to pure unadulterated stupid.”

  “Ain’t never gonna happen,” said Finn. “No way to round up even a dozen of those bastards.”

  “Ayep. Horgs is horgs.”

  What Tilda said—you hear that everywhere on Haven. It’s a way of saying this is what it is and there ain’t no way of changing it. Rocks is hard, water is wet, and horgs is horgs.

  Horgs are … well, they’re big, they’re ugly, they smell bad, and they’re meaner th
an anything else on the planet, even humans, especially when they’re in rut. Horgs have only one sex—they don’t mate, they fight until exhausted. Or dead. The winner stabs the loser with a spiked penis. The sperm make their way through the bloodstream to the egg sac, where a litter of little horgs gets started. Sometimes the brood-horg survives, sometimes it doesn’t.

  Horgs aren’t choosy, sometimes they poke other things—even humans. When they do that, when there’s no eggs available, the sperm self-fertilizes, turns into mini-horgs, and the litter eat their way out. Not pretty. You get a couple hundred rat-sized critters. The big horgs eat ’em. And if it’s a horg with ripe eggs, they get fertilized that way. Crazy biology, but it works.

  Some people think Horg meat is a delicacy. I’m not one of them. Some people say that if horg meat is fixed right, it’s delicious. They can have my share. I’ve seen what an angry horg can do. And a horny one.

  But offworld, horgs are a commodity. People pay a lot for them—dunno why, there are better things to eat, but there’s a steady market. And that’s why the Jacklins do a fair business in body bags, funerals, and estate planning. There’s always some fool with a plan.

  If there’s a safe way to farm horgs, nobody’s found it yet. If there was a safe way to herd them, if there was a safe way to round them up, I’d export every last horg from the planet. And most everyone else feels the same way. But we can’t, and even if we could, we wouldn’t, because you don’t take the apex predator out of an ecology unless you want it to collapse. Without the horgs, we lose the glitter-bushes and everything else that makes Haven so interesting.