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

by Gardner Dozois

  “I dunno. I never thought about feeding horgs before. Mostly, I don’t want ’em feeding. Not as much as they want to, that is. They’d eat the whole crop to the ground if they could.”

  “See? That’s my point. You know horgs much better than I do. So what’s your advice? If you wanted to get the horgs to come to you, how much would you put out?”

  Charlie said slowly, “Well, it all depends. I guess if you want to see most of the herd, you’d put out fifty, maybe a hundred kilos. They’d finish it off right quick, but they’d make a real mess of it and the smell would keep ’em snuffling around for a while searching for leavings. Sometimes they ain’t too smart.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on—that we are smarter than horgs.” Mr. Costello continued, “Why don’t we try your idea? We’ll put out a hundred kilos tonight.” He suddenly remembered something. “There are lights on top of those masts. Do you think we can leave them on? Or will the light drive the horgs away?”

  Marlie leaned forward then. “I never knew a horg to resist a free meal. Once they figure out there’s food, they’ll come. And once they figure the lights are where the food is, they’ll come whether there’s food or not. Just in case.” She pushed her glass forward and Mr. Costello happily refilled it.

  So that was that.

  Grampa asked Mr. Costello and his partners to join us for dinner. Lazz and I cooked up a Storm—actually, the full name of the stew was Shit Storm, but not everybody got the joke so we just called it a Storm for short. It’s a familiar recipe. I’ve heard it called Leftover Stew, Ingredient Soup, Glop, Bottomless Pot, Slumgullion, Scouse, Irish Cesspool, Gutter Slime, Desperation, and Oh God, Not Again.

  But Lazz is pretty good with spices and I don’t do so bad myself with the basics—rice, beans, and noodles. And we had five truckloads of fresh pods—we could serve up a mess of those as well.

  Pods have another virtue in the kitchen, too—it’s one of the better tricks of Haven cuisine. You can add curry powder, red pepper, blue pepper, jalapeños, habaneros, Pot Douglahs, Trinidad Moruga Scorpions, Carolina Reapers, and a few other spices with Scoville ratings so high they melt the equipment—it doesn’t matter. You can neutralize most of the heat with glitter-bush pods, leaving only the flavor and just the slightest hint of sweetness. Mostly, though, we stop at habaneros. The other peppers are better used in horg-repellent sprays. It slows ’em down. Sometimes. But one of the attractions of Jubilee is the spice-cookout. You bring in your hottest dish and see who can eat a whole bowl of it. The survivors win free medical care until they can walk again.

  We opened up our own deck, set out tables and chairs, dropped the side-silks to slow down bugs and dust, laid the table for everyone, and rang the triangle. Everyone was already gathered, but it’s part of the ritual. The weather on Haven doesn’t always encourage eating outside, but when it does, you do. We still had another hour of sunset.

  Mr. Costello praised the Storm as if it was a culinary discovery of the first order. Jerrid and Mikla even asked for seconds and extra bread to mop their bowls, so we knew tonight’s Oh God, Not Again had been a success.

  After they headed back to their own trucks, after both the suns had finally dipped below the western horizon, we all retreated inside for the Circle. It’s how we keep ourselves centered. We sit around the table with coffee or tea, and we go round and round until we’re done.

  One by one, first we acknowledge whatever might be gnawing at us, hurts and upsets, simmering frustrations, whatever. You have to say what you want and need to make things right. Nobody interrupts. Nobody gets to offer advice. Nobody gets to play peacemaker. All of those things are arrogant and disrespectful. You have three minutes to say whatever you have to say. Then to the next person, and the next.

  On the second round, whatever upsets might have come up—you get to take responsibility for your part of it, you get to offer support to those who need it, you get to be a partner to whoever needs partnership. The second round keeps going round and round until the air has been cleared and everything that needs to be said has been said.

  Usually, the first round is about the frustrations of the day’s work, not about our frustrations with each other. While it’s not a firm rule, if any two people in the family have an upset with each other, they’re supposed to resolve it before we get to Circle. So first round is usually about outside annoyances and second round is about creating strength to deal with them. But if a personal upset doesn’t get resolved before Circle, if it’s that important, we deal with it there.

  Finally, third round is about completion. We go around and each person acknowledges the strengths they see in the family, the gifts they see in others, the gifts they wish to be to the whole. By then we’re usually on the second or third cup of coffee or tea. We finish by all holding hands and reminding ourselves that being in the family is a gift and a privilege. Then we have whatever special dessert or treat we’ve saved for ourselves.

  That’s when the real fun begins. We share all the best gossip we’ve heard, all the most interesting stories and jokes, all the news that’s come down the channels. And … we also take some time to make sure we’re all on the same page about the business at hand. Those discussions sometimes go on for an hour or longer.

  This night, we talked about Mr. Costello and his partners. We tried to figure out who they were and what they were planning and whether or not we could trust them—and most of all, what they weren’t telling us. We speculated, we guessed, we imagined, we goggled the web and came up empty. Finally, we paired off for the night, our usual couplings, and headed to our bunks.

  I lay down next to Finn and sighed, mostly happy to be with Finn, but also concerned for no reason I could identify. “What I said in Circle. I still feel that way. Mr. Costello makes me uneasy. I don’t know why. There’s just something about him.”

  Finn didn’t answer immediately. He was rubbing my back, my shoulders, my neck, working out the tensions of the day. When he finished, I would do the same for him. Finally, he said, “I think it’s because he’s too nice. It’s like he’s trying too hard.”

  I had to think about that for a while. “If he’s trying too hard, isn’t that a kind of lying? Maybe he doesn’t trust his own plan?”

  “No, I think he trusts his plan. But I wonder if maybe the plan he’s showing us is only the top part of the plan he isn’t showing us.” He patted my shoulders affectionately. “You’re done. My turn.”

  He sprawled face down on the bed and I straddled him, digging into his spine. He was all muscle and I had to use all my weight and all my leverage. After a while, I said, “You and Grampa have been here longer than anyone. You’ve seen a lot of schemers and scammers come through here—”

  “Yep. Most of ’em are buried on Idjit Hill.”

  “—so why do you trust Mr. Costello?”

  “I don’t. But his money spends just as good as anyone else’s. What Grampa said—if we don’t take it, someone else will. So far, I haven’t seen any reason to distrust him. Maybe his manner is just the way he is.” He grunted as I worked his shoulders. “He’s a starsider. Maybe that’s how they behave on other worlds.”

  I thought about my next words, decided to say them anyway. “I’ve been on a lot of planets, Finn. More than I’ve told you about. You haven’t asked and I haven’t volunteered. Because I’ve done some things—”

  “We don’t care about who you were before you got here,” said Finn. “We care about who you are now. If we didn’t, you wouldn’t be in this family. You wouldn’t be here in this bed tonight. And you wouldn’t be screaming my name to the ceiling.”

  “I’m not doing that.”

  “Not yet, but you will—”

  “First let me finish what I was going to say. I’ve bounced around a few systems and I’ve never met any starsider who behaved like Mr. Costello. No, let me say it another way. Maybe I’ve seen a few—he reminds me of some of them. Some of them ended up the guest of honor at an airlock dance.”
>
  “You have been around—”

  “If you really want to know—”

  “Do I need to?” Even in the dark, I could see the expression on his face. “Or will it hurt you to tell more than it would hurt me to hear?”

  I didn’t answer. That was answer enough.

  He grabbed me, rolled me over on my back, and pushed my knees up toward my nipples. He leaned his weight on my bent legs so he could look down on me. “This is where I want you, right here, right now. Is that enough?”

  I barely had time to gasp my answer.

  Sometime after first sleep, when we were all awake for midnight meal, Lazz powered up two bots and had them dump a hundred kilos of pods in the center of Mr. Costello’s polycrete floor. The lights on the pylons blazed down from the two nearest corners. There were cameras there as well, so we had an excellent view of the entire field.

  “How long do you think we’ll have to wait?”

  “Dunno,” said Marlie, and swiveled to face a wall of screens. One display showed our location. Another tracked the herd. “They’re not directly downwind but they should catch the scent soon enough. See? There.” Marlie pointed. “Some of the outliers are turning.”

  “They’re at least ten klicks away,” said Charlie. “That’s an hour, minimum, more likely two.”

  “We gonna wait up for ’em?”

  “Might could,” said Grampa. “Then again, just as easily I might could go back to sleep. If they got pods to eat, they ain’t comin’ up the hill to see what we’re doin’.” A thought occurred to him. “You sprayed those trucks good, Finn?”

  “Five coats, all the worst peppers. I spent two hours in that damn suit. I sprayed until the paint blistered. If any horgs can sniff the pods in our trucks, they’re welcome to ’em. At this point, I ain’t gonna argue. My eyes are still burning. And that was two days ago.”

  “Told y’to wear the goggles.”

  “I did. Even with the goggles, even with the mask, even with the hood, even with the O-tanks, that spray gets through. Y’know, people have died just breathing downwind from that crap.”

  “Ayep,” said Grampa, lighting his pipe and grinning.

  In the morning, while Lazz and Trina fixed first breakfast, the rest of us reviewed the night’s videos. Only a few horgs showed up, mostly outliers, mostly curious. Maybe a dozen. Maybe a few more. I didn’t count. They sniffed around the piles of pods cautiously—probably the unfamiliar scent traces of machines and humans made them suspicious—but after a bit, they bent their massive heads and inhaled the pods like so much dandelion fluff.

  Horgs are sloppy eaters. They snuffled around, spreading pods every which way, smashing them under their feet, smearing the honeyed juices everywhere. The monitors showed their excitement rising as the scent grew stronger. Even after the last few pods had been slobbered away, they still licked eagerly at the now-oily surface of the polycrete. If they weren’t horgs, it could have been adorable.

  But they were horgs and it was disgusting.

  Horgs look like the mutant offspring of a rhinoceros and a warthog, only a lot bigger and ruddier and fatter and flatter and hairier. They have sharp razorback armor all along their spines, extending from the ends of their thick flat tails forward to their thick plated skulls. That’s where the armor splits and curves downward around their jaws, finally turning into two savage curving tusks. They have big paddle-like feet, so they can swim as well as they gallop—not fast, but pretty much unstoppable. On the deep savannahs, they travel in herds that can sprawl as wide as a hundred kilometers. They have to—they’d overpower the local ecology if they massed any closer together. Few predators are big enough to bring down a horg, but there are swarms of little things that can worry one to death.

  Away from the plains, in the foothills and the forests, horgs become loners. And that makes them even more vicious, because they attack everything. It has something to do with not being able to sync their biological cycles with their fellows. They turn into psychopaths.

  Horgs are omnivorous. They eat everything. Mostly, they eat grass, flowers, trees, bark, glitter-bushes, wailing willows, insects, grubs, roots, fungi, mushrooms, snakes, worms, lizards, birds, carrion, and any small horgs that get in their way. Loners tend to overeat, not just because they’re hungry, but because they need to build up bulk in case of a mating fight. Away from the herd, the majority of matings are injurious or fatal.

  And those are their good points.

  In the morning, after first breakfast, we all walked down to the feeding deck with Mr. Costello’s group and examined the aftermath. One of the smaller horgs had lost an argument with one of the larger horgs. There were still traces of blood everywhere and carrion birds were picking at the few remaining scraps of skin and bone.

  Mr. Costello found that very interesting. He didn’t approach the scavengers. They looked feisty, so he studied them from a distance. Mikla and Jerrid frowned and whispered between themselves. Finally, Mr. Costello turned back to us and waved his cigar at the bloodstains on the polycrete. “How many did we lose?”

  Finn was studying the blood smears, too. He shook his head. “Hard to say. I’d have to process the video to be sure. And even then, I dunno. Once the fighting started, it was a scramble—impossible to tell what was happening. All I can say for sure is that there were a lot fewer horgs leaving than arriving. Mebbe five or six fewer.”

  For the first time, Mr. Costello looked unhappy. “This was unexpected. Very unexpected.” He turned to Grampa. “This—this cannibalism. Is that normal behavior?”

  Grampa shrugged. He took a moment to light his pipe while he considered his answer. “Well, there’s a lot of theories about that. Horgs get hungry, they eat what’s in front of ’em. But”—he paused to puff thoughtfully—“sometimes these critters work themselves into a feeding frenzy. Sometimes it’s hunger and sometimes it’s rage and sometimes the mating fights get out of control”—another puff, another thoughtful pause—“but in this case, mebbe you overstimulated them. In the wild, they don’t get big piles of pods. They have to work a bit for every mouthful. But you gave ’em a big fat feast. Drove ’em crazy, mebbe. Leastways, that’d be my guess.”

  Grampa didn’t guess. Grampa never guessed. But Grampa rarely spoke in declarative sentences, either. He let you do the work—kind of like Mr. Costello. The difference? Grampa was Grampa and Mr. Costello was Mr. Costello. That’s the only way I can explain it.

  Mr. Costello considered, then nodded his agreement. “Hm. That sounds likely. Is there a way to slow them down?”

  Grampa frowned in thought. “Now, that depends on what you want to do. I don’t mind horgs eatin’ each other if it thins the herd a bit. But it sounds to me like you want to feed ’em without getting ’em all worked up and agitated, right? You don’t want ’em killin’ each other.”

  “We can’t sell horgs we don’t have, can we?”

  “Nope,” agreed Grampa.

  And that’s how it went for a while. Back and forth, back and forth, with neither one ever quite saying anything in the clear.

  Finally, Finn spoke up again—I could tell he was getting frustrated. It’s bad enough having to deal with Grampa’s roundabout talk, but having to listen to the pair of them dancing around the subject like they didn’t know what they wanted, or more like whoever said it first would have to pay extra for the privilege of saying it first—Finn was exasperated.

  “Listen,” he said. “We’ll send a few bots up into the trees, have ’em bring down some branches. We’ll put ’em through the shredders and mix ’em into the pods. It’ll mean they have to do a lot more chewing. And instead of putting it all in one big pile, we’ll spread it out in a lot of little piles all over the feeding floor. We could try that.”

  Mr. Costello looked to Grampa. Grampa looked to Mr. Costello. They both were nodding thoughtfully, each waiting for the other to say, Let’s do it.

  Finn didn’t wait. He turned to Lazz. “Unpack the lumberjack gear. Use bots four a
nd six, they’ll have enough capacity. Number seven can do the shredding.” Some people named their bots, Finn didn’t. He insisted that people are people, machines are machines—mixing them up gets dangerous. I had to agree with that. I’d seen what happens when people forgot. Or worse, when machines forgot.

  Finn and Lazz talked for a bit about what kind of branches to cut down and how many and where. The rule was not to take from more than one tree per acre and never more than one of a kind, unless it was a monoculture. There was still too much we didn’t know about Haven’s ecology—all the different ways that all the different plants and animals interacted. Based on the evidence of history, both here and elsewhere, even stepping on a butterfly could have unintended consequences.

  By the time that conversation finished, Mr. Costello’s people had adjusted their plan as well. Jerrid was directing his construction bots to put up two more towers, these at the two remaining corners of the feeding floor.

  “Yes, that’s a very good idea,” said Mr. Costello. He turned to us. “You’ll have more cameras now with different angles on the creatures as they feed, so you’ll get better information on their behavior. That should be very useful.” Back to his own people. “Thank you, Jerrid. Thank you, Mikla. How long do you think all this will take?”

  I spent the next part of the day with Charlie, bringing the family’s finances up to date. Mostly, I handled the day-to-day stuff, paying bills, allocating shares, ordering necessities, coordinating deliveries—if something was urgent, we’d send out a drone to pick stuff up from Settlement or Temporary, if the weather permitted flight—otherwise we’d let the goods arrive on the Monthly. Eventually, Charlie would entrust me with access to the investment portfolios. I hadn’t been married in long enough to qualify for a permanent share, but another year or two, the others would vote. If they didn’t grant permanence, it would be a gentle way of saying, You are free to leave whenever you want.”

  I wasn’t worrying about it now. I’d learned that it’s more important to focus on what you can give than what you’re going to get. That works in finance almost as well as it does in bed. And that was another conversation I wanted to have with Finn—