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

by Gardner Dozois

  Grampa nodded. Despite the half-scowl on his face, he nodded.

  “Wonderful, wonderful. I’m glad you agree. Mikla will set up accounts for all of you today. We’ll run our own private bank—with secured deposits for all pending contracts held in an independent escrow.”

  “A local escrow, please,” said Finn.

  “Of course, of course. We have to make sure that everybody is well taken care of or this won’t work. Not at all. Not at all.”

  After they left, we all looked at each other. “Well,” said Charlie, “it does make sense.”

  Finn snorted. Grampa puffed furiously on his pipe. I said nothing. Finally, Grampa took his pipe out of his mouth and said, “Used to be, a man’s handshake was enough. All these secrets—it makes a man wonder.” He put his pipe back in his mouth and resumed wondering.

  I said, “The way I heard it, a contract is a list of all the ways two people don’t trust each other.”

  Finn smiled. “That sounds about right. If Mr. Costello doesn’t think other people can be trusted, maybe it’s because he knows he can’t.”

  Charlie said, “I’ve been studying all these protocols, all the riders, all the guarantees. A lot of it is boilerplate, but I don’t see anything dangerous here. I’m not getting any red flags.”

  Lazz hardly ever spoke. He was the quiet one, but now he said what we were all thinking. “It’s just not the way we’re used to doin’ business.”

  “He’s an offworlder,” said Charlie. “Maybe he doesn’t know any better. Maybe he’s been burned before—maybe he’s learned he needs strong fences to keep horgs out of his fields.”

  “That’s probably it,” said Finn. “Still, it makes the back of my neck itch.”

  “I think we’re all a little uneasy here,” Marlie said. “Perhaps it’s just having so many horgs sniffing around—one wrong smell and we could have a stampede or a frenzy.”

  “Yep,” said Finn. “I think I’ll spray around the trucks again tonight. All of ’em. Might want to make sure the windows and vents are sealed, too.”

  The next few days, we fell into an easy routine—easy only because we were still waiting. Mr. Costello hadn’t said anything about how we were going to get the horgs into the processing plant. But each night, the crowd of horgs gathering to gorge themselves continued to grow. Trina and Marlie went off to gather more wood. This time they went southeast so as not to assault the same forests as Charlie and Lazz had visited.

  By the time they got back, we were seeing 70 or 80 horgs coming out of the trees each night. They jostled past each other with the usual snuffling and grumping, occasionally giving deep warning rumbles as they milled about, but by now there was a real order to the process. The largest of the animals approached first. They sniffed around, inspecting the various piles of wood chips and seedpods on the feeding deck. When they were finally satisfied—a process that usually involved selecting the largest piles for themselves—they grunted their approval. The others then followed and feeding began.

  The next day, the first trucks from Settlement arrived. We knew the Hellisons, we recognized the Herkles—they were an all-male family, except when they needed to make a baby—but we didn’t know the Maetlins except by reputation. They were big and brawny, the family you called in when you meant business. We had a little meet-and-greet when they arrived, but they were impatient to set up their camp and went straight to work.

  I suppose I should mention that a lot of families go unigender except when it’s baby-making time. I can see the logic of it, it makes for a different kind of emotional stability when you don’t have all those unaligned hormonal and emotional cycles in conflict, never really achieving stability, all the different relationships having to be constantly refreshed. But I can argue the other side of it, too—high-maintenance has its virtues. It demands continual reinvention.

  But even as I chugged along on that train of thought, I realized what was happening to me—I was assimilating my rejuve. My past was starting to assert itself again and my old ways of thinking and being were coming back. I’d have to watch myself now. I’d have to spend some time apart, so I found a place on the slope that was off the main paths, where I could sit and watch. That was probably a bad idea, too—but I could lose myself in the watching.

  The Maetlins started by leveling an area at least as big as the feeding platform, just on the other side of the first wall. They staked it out and raised two conjoined inflatables, giving themselves a good-sized warehouse right next to the feeding floor. Shelterfoam followed, then airlocks and vents. No windows. Even before it hardened, they started off-loading various ominous-looking pieces of machinery. Too many blades and hooks for my liking. They said it would take at least a week to assemble the line.

  While they did that, we prepared the biggest pot of Shit Storm we’d ever cooked. The whole family worked on it, cutting vegetables, tasting, adding spices, scrounging ingredients. Everybody contributed. The Hellisons had a half-finished kettle of turkey. The Herkles carved a big chunk of beef from the shoulder they were growing in one of their meat tanks, the Maetlins gave us a fresh spice rack, and we turned the gathering Storm into Last Chance Chili.

  After we ate, the newcomers finally asked to see what we had accomplished. They didn’t look impressed, there wasn’t much to see—at least not until the horgs arrived.

  By now, the assembling crowds of horgs were large enough that as the feeding subsided, many of the animals were still hungry, so they started searching beyond the feeding deck. Occasionally, several ventured around the edges of the fence and stared uphill, growling. A couple of sniffs of the ground, however, and the blistering stink of Finn’s pepper spray was usually enough to dissuade them, but it always made for an uneasy few moments.

  On the third day of that behavior, we met again with Mr. Costello. The short version—it was agreed to put up another fence, this time between posts two and three. The horgs hadn’t minded the first fence, they probably wouldn’t mind the second. We’d find out soon enough.

  That night, most of us stayed up late to watch the monitors. The horgs arrived as usual but didn’t immediately rush to the feeding platform. The three largest snuffled forward and sniffed the new fence, then after they satisfied themselves that it was not a threat they turned their attention to the piles of glitter-pods and wood chips. At the first satisfied grunt, the other animals trundled forward. We all breathed a sigh of relief.

  But the pack was larger than ever, and Finn said, “We might have to put up a third fence soon. Look at the size of that pack—they’ll wander off the edges of the platform unless we can contain them.”

  And as he said that, I realized exactly how Mr. Costello planned to conquer the herd. But I didn’t say anything. Not then. Not so anyone else could hear.

  Besides—

  There was something else I didn’t want to tell him. And that was more important. I knew the red-haired Herkle twins. I’d met them the week I arrived on Haven. The Herkles were one of the families I’d applied to. The Herkle boys had bedded me—but no invitation had followed. I felt used. I never shared that with anyone, not even Finn.

  But in all the hustle and bustle of everyone settling in, meeting and greeting, sorting things out, sharing news and gossip, trading tools and whatever, the Herkle boys had somehow tracked me to the south end of the slope.

  One of the parts of our contract with Mr. Costello—we got first dibs on the dung. Glitter-bush seeds need to pass through a horg’s gut to germinate. All that dung—there should be enough fertile seeds to start three, maybe four new meadowlands. This was a side benefit that Grampa had smartly added to our arrangement with Mr. Costello and Mr. Costello had agreed without argument. Either he didn’t understand or he didn’t care. Whatever, this was the real reason Grampa had so readily accepted Mr. Costello’s initial proposal.

  See, you could follow the herds and hope to gather dung from areas rich in glitter-bushes. Or you could put out piles of feed near the herds and hope you c
ollected the right dung. Or you could hope that a few passing animals would drop by and eat just enough pods from your crop to give you enough fertile seeds for the next season. More than that, if you had extra seeds that had been fertilized, you could sell or trade them anywhere.

  Yeah, there are artificial ways to force a seed to germinate, I guess, but most folks around here don’t think much of lab-germinated. General opinion holds that lab crops are missing something, they’re stunted and flavorless. Mebbe good for industrial use, mebbe good for animal feed, but not exactly a quality product. If anybody has done a real study, I haven’t seen the report, and I haven’t seen any lab crops myself, so I have to take Grampa’s word for it.

  Anyway, I went down to the south end, where three of the agri-bots were picking up the dung balls, weighing them, scanning them, and measuring the various compositions—this was all useful information about the health of the herd—and if there were any fertile seeds inside, they’d toss the dung ball into a hopper. The useless dung balls were shredded and spread, which would make it easier for the various soil bugs to go to work faster. The bots could have done the job without me—or I could have monitored their progress from the truck, but I was tired of the truck, I was tired of Mr. Costello, I wanted to get away—and I wanted to see how this worked first hand. I didn’t want to watch screens all the time.

  It was a mistake—one I quickly realized. The stink on this field was bad, terrible, even under the hood I wore. But I was too proud to turn around and march back up the hill, so I followed the bots and tried to figure out how they could tell which dung balls were good and which were not. I was beginning to sense that size had something to do with it when the Herkle twins showed up.

  Kind of surprising that they found me. I hadn’t gone looking for them. If anything, I’d been avoiding them, deliberately moving to the opposite side of whatever assembly they joined. So I figured they had to be tracking me specifically, and this meeting wasn’t an accident.

  I was right.

  I never could tell the difference between Dane and Dyne, even when they wore dissimilar earrings, even when they wore different hairstyles and hair colors. I always just called them Herkle. It didn’t matter, either would answer.

  I didn’t want to talk through the hood and I certainly wasn’t going to have this conversation on any channel, wireless or otherwise. I’d learned the hard way about people listening in. Actually, I was in no mood to talk to them at all, so I marched up the hill away from them.

  They didn’t take the hint. They followed me across the polycrete—which was starting to show some serious cracking from the pounding weight of the horgs—and up into the corner of the fences, out of anyone’s line of sight, before I pulled off my hood and turned around, annoyed. “What do you want?”

  Both of them flashed dazzling grins. The one on the left said, “We kinda feel bad you didn’t join our family.”

  “I never got an invitation.”

  They looked confused. “But we sent you one.”

  “No. You didn’t.”

  “Yes, we did.”

  “I never got it.”

  They looked at each other, even more confused. “Well, uh, okay. There must have been some mix-up. But the invitation is still there, still open. Any time you want to be a Herkle—”

  I didn’t have a bad opinion of the Herkles. They were mostly a good family. They kept their word, they paid their bills on time, and they were always there for anyone in need. I just didn’t have a good feeling about the twins. They acted like you weren’t allowed to say no to them, and if you did, they couldn’t understand why you’d said it. They weren’t bad in bed, though, I couldn’t say it wouldn’t be fun. And one thing was well known: the Herkles ate good.

  I stood there, looking back and forth between them, trying to figure out what they really wanted—and at the same time listing in my mind all the reasons I should slap their faces and walk away.

  I’d already earned some credential in Grampa’s family. And whatever happened with Mr. Costello, I could see that we were still going to do very well off this exercise. And I was happy in Finn’s bed. So the only advantage in going to the Herkle twins’ bed would be … what? I’d be just another toy they shared. I’d be back to zero seniority and there were over a dozen invested members in the Herkle brood, so my cut would be proportionally smaller. They were a rich family, but not so rich as to make the offer dazzling.

  So … why the invitation? Why now?

  Apparently I was taking too long. The one on the right said, “We like having you between us. Even if you don’t want to take up our invitation now … well, we have an empty cabin in truck three. If you want to visit tonight, we could have some fun.”

  Well, that was blatant. I said, “Sorry. I’m married.”

  “So are we.”

  “Not to me.” And I strode away, feeling confused, frustrated, angry—and a little horny. Because, dammit, those two were gorgeous, exciting, and energetic. Also spoiled rotten.

  The only thing I could figure—they wanted to pump me. For information, too. Only there probably wasn’t anything I could tell them that Mr. Costello hadn’t already.

  I didn’t know if I should tell Finn about it. I didn’t want to upset him. I certainly didn’t want him to get angry. We didn’t need a fight with another family, especially not here, not now. I took a long hot shower, put on the blue dress that Finn had bought—the one he’d said we’d take turns wearing, this was the first time either of us had put it on—and went in to help with dinner. Trina noticed the dress but said nothing. Neither did anyone else. I guess they figured this was between Finn and me.

  But during Circle, Grampa looked across to me and said, “You wanna dump it? Or you wanna let it fester?”

  I started crying. I didn’t know why. It was everything and nothing. It was silly and I felt stupid. I thought—after all the stuff I’d been through before getting to Haven—that I’d hardened myself. Now I realized the only person I’d been fooling was me.

  Next thing I knew, Finn picked me up and carried me back to our cabin. The door slid shut behind us and he put me gently down on the bed. He didn’t say anything, just popped open a water bottle and handed it to me. He sat down opposite and waited, a concerned look on his face—not judging, just ready to listen.

  “I’m not a good person, Finn. I don’t know why you took me into your family, but you’re the best people I’ve ever known and I’m grateful for the little bit of time I’ve had here. You should probably invite me out now, before I hurt you.”

  “You can’t hurt us,” he said. “No, that’s not true. The only way you could hurt any of us would be by leaving. We love you. We care about you. Whatever it is, we have your back.”

  “Yes, that’s the right thing to say. You always know the right thing to say, but you don’t know who I really am—”

  “Yes, I do—”

  “I’ve been lying to you. Lying to the whole family.”

  “Sweetheart, stop it. Just stop.” He tilted my head up and looked me in the eyes. “You haven’t been lying. You’ve just been afraid. With good reason. We know your real age, we know about the rejuve, we know how old you really are. We don’t care. We know what you did on Flatland, we know what you did on Myrva, we know who you were on Borran. We’ve known all along. We don’t care. We know who you are on Haven. That’s the only thing we care about.”

  “You’ve known—?”

  “We figured you’d tell us when you were ready. And if you never told us, well—that would be fine, too. We’ve all done things—”

  “I killed people, Finn. I was—”

  “Stop.” He put a finger across my lips. “Are you planning to kill anyone today?”

  “No. No, of course not.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter.”

  “But it does—”

  “Another time, another place. You put it behind you. You put everything behind you when you rejuved. You’ve got the body and the spirit—a
nd the confusion—of a brand-new adolescent. You’ll be another ten years growing up again. But here’s the thing, sweetheart. It was necessary, it was the right thing to do—it was the only way you could abandon your past. And it’s one of the things that convinced us to take you in. Even after the way the Herkles treated you—”

  “You know about that?”

  “Yes, I do. The Family does. That’s one of the reasons we watch out for you so closely—we know how fragile you are. Everybody your age is fragile, even when you’re doing it for the second or third time. Because you’re so full of life and hope and energy and enthusiasm—it overwhelms all the stuff you thought you knew, all the stuff you thought was worth knowing. You know how you say, ‘I wish I’d known this when I was young’? Well, guess what—knowing it doesn’t slow down the impulsiveness of the adolescent spirit.”

  He pulled me into a hug and held me close. “Now have a good cry, as much as you need to—but those had better be tears of happiness.” After a bit, after we finished kissing, too, he said, “By the way, I was right. The blue dress really does look good on you.”

  “I wore it for you.”

  “I know.” He nuzzled my ear. “I knew what it meant. I was glad to see it.” He helped me take it off, pulling it up over my head, hanging it carefully on a hook.

  “Next time, you wear it,” I said.

  “Promise,” he said.

  And then we stopped talking for a while.

  Two days later, we put up the third fence. It didn’t slow the horgs down. By now, they were so eager to eat they barely noticed it. They had a nice comfortable U-shaped enclosure with the biggest piles of feed located at the back wall of the U.

  And it was finally obvious to everyone what the next step would be. Jerrid and Mikla were already prepping it. But right now, we were just waiting to see how many horgs would show up to feed in a night. We were counting as many as ninety.

  Our camp was growing. Another dozen trucks arrived and set up shop, three more families to help with the processing, packing, and pickling. While it didn’t affect our accounting, I could see that Mr. Costello’s bank channels were picking up a lot more traffic.