The Mammoth Book of the Best of Best New SF

by Gardner Dozois

  Mirriam grimaced and got up. “No matter. Burson will find you.” She brushed the dust from her skirts. “You hear me? Burson will find you.” She left the pantry.

  Lidia waited for Mirriam to go away. It galled her that Mirriam was right. Burson would find her. He found her every time, if she waited too long. Silent time could only be stolen for so many minutes. It lasted as long as it took Belari to lose patience and call the jackals. Then another hidey-hole was lost.

  Lidia turned Stephen’s tiny blown-glass bottle in her delicate fingers a final time. A parting gift, she understood, now that he was gone, now that he would no longer comfort her when Belari’s depredations became too much. She forced back tears. No more time to cry. Burson would be looking for her.

  She pressed the vial into a secure crack, tight against the stone and roughhewn wood of the shelving where she hid, then worked a vacuum jar of red lentils back until she had an opening. She squeezed out from behind the legume wall that lined the pantry’s top shelves.

  It had taken weeks for her to clear out the back jars and make a place for herself, but the jars made a good hidey-hole. A place others neglected to search. She had a fortress of jars, full of flat innocent beans, and behind that barrier, if she was patient and bore the strain, she could crouch for hours. She climbed down.

  Carefully, carefully, she thought. We don’t want to break a bone. We have to be careful of the bones. She hung from the shelves as she gently worked the fat jar of red lentils back into place then slipped down the last shelves to the pantry floor.

  Barefoot on cold stone flagging, Lidia studied her hidey-hole. Yes, it looked good still. Stephen’s final gift was safe up there. No one looked able to fit in that few feet of space, not even a delicate fluted girl. No one would suspect she folded herself so perfectly into such a place. She was slight as a mouse, and sometimes fit into surprising places. For that, she could thank Belari. She turned and hurried from the pantry, determined to let the servants catch her far away from her last surviving hidey-hole.

  By the time Lidia reached the dining hall, she believed she might gain the practice rooms without discovery. There might be no punishments. Belari was kind to those she loved, but uncompromising when they disappointed her. Though Lidia was too delicate to strike, there were other punishments. Lidia thought of Stephen. A small part of her was happy that he was beyond Belari’s tortures.

  Lidia slipped along the dining hall’s edge, shielded by ferns and blooming orchids. Between the lush leaves and flowers, she caught glimpses of the dining table’s long ebony expanse, polished mirror-bright each day by the servants and perpetually set with gleaming silver. She studied the room for observers. It was empty.

  The rich warm smell of greenery reminded her of summer, despite the winter season that slashed the mountains around the castle. When she and Nia had been younger, before their surgeries, they had run in the mountains, amongst the pines. Lidia slipped through the orchids: one from Singapore; another from Chennai; another, striped like a tiger, engineered by Belari. She touched the delicate tiger blossom, admiring its lurid color.

  We are beautiful prisoners, she thought. Just like you.

  The ferns shuddered. A man exploded from the greenery, springing on her like a wolf. His hands wrenched her shoulders. His fingers plunged into her pale flesh and Lidia gasped as they stabbed her nerves into paralysis. She collapsed to the slate flagstones, a butterfly folding as Burson pressed her down.

  She whimpered against the stone, her heart hammering inside her chest at the shock of Burson’s ambush. She moaned, trembling under his weight, her face hard against the castle’s smooth gray slate. On the stone beside her, a pink and white orchid lay beheaded by Burson’s attack.

  Slowly, when he was sure of her compliance, Burson allowed her to move. His great weight lessened, lifting away from her like a tank rolling off a crushed hovel. Lidia forced herself to sit up. Finally she stood, an unsteady pale fairy dwarfed by the looming monster that was Belari’s head of security.

  Burson’s mountainous body was a cragged landscape of muscle and scars, all juts of strength and angry puckered furrows of combat. Mirriam gossiped that he had previously been a gladiator, but she was romantic and Lidia suspected his scars came from training handlers, much as her own punishments came from Belari.

  Burson held her wrist, penning it in a rock-like grasp. For all its unyielding strength, his grip was gentle. After an initial disastrous breakage, he had learned what strain her skeleton could bear before it shattered.

  Lidia struggled, testing his hold on her wrist, then accepted her capture. Burson knelt, bringing his height to match hers. Red-rimmed eyes studied her. Augmented irises bloodshot with enhancements scanned her skin’s infrared pulse.

  Burson’s slashed face slowly lost the green blush of camouflage, abandoning stone and foliage colors now that he stood in open air. Where his hand touched her though, his skin paled, as though powdered by flour, matching the white of her own flesh.

  “Where have you been hiding?” he rumbled.

  “Nowhere.”

  Burson’s red eyes narrowed, his brows furrowing over deep pits of interrogation. He sniffed at her clothing, hunting for clues. He brought his nose close to her face, her hair, snuffled at her hands. “The kitchens,” he murmured.

  Lidia flinched. His red eyes studied her closely, hunting for more details, watching the unintentional reactions of her skin, the blush of discovery she could not hide from his prying eyes. Burson smiled. He hunted with the wild fierce joy of his bloodhound genetics. It was difficult to tell where the jackal, dog, and human blended in the man. His joys were hunting, capture, and slaughter.

  Burson straightened, smiling. He took a steel bracelet from a pouch. “I have something for you, Lidia.” He slapped the jewelry onto Lidia’s wrist. It writhed around her thin arm, snakelike, chiming as it locked. “No more hiding for you.”

  A current charged up Lidia’s arm and she cried out, shivering as electricity rooted through her body. Burson supported her as the current cut off. He said, “I’m tired of searching for Belari’s property.”

  He smiled, tight-lipped, and pushed her toward the practice rooms. Lidia allowed herself to be herded.

  Belari was in the performance hall when Burson brought Lidia before her. Servants bustled around her, arranging tables, setting up the round stage, installing the lighting. The walls were hung in pale muslin shot through with electric charges, a billowing sheath of charged air that crackled and sparked whenever a servant walked near.

  Belari seemed unaware of the fanciful world building around her as she tossed orders at her events coordinator. Her black body armor was open at the collar, in deference to the warmth of human activity. She spared Burson and Lidia a quick glance, then turned her attention back to her servant, still furiously scribbling on a digital pad. “I want everything to be perfect tonight, Tania. Nothing out of place. Nothing amiss. Perfect.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  Belari smiled. Her face was mathematically sculpted into beauty, structured by focus-groups and cosmetic traditions that stretched back generations. Cocktails of disease prophylaxis, cell-scouring cancer inhibitors, and Revitia kept Belari’s physical appearance at twenty-eight, much as Lidia’s own Revitia treatments kept her frozen in the first throes of adolescence. “And I want Vernon taken care of.”

  “Will he want a companion?”

  Belari shook her head. “No. He’ll confine himself to harassing me, I’m sure.” She shivered. “Disgusting man.”

  Tania tittered. Belari’s chill gaze quieted her. Belari surveyed the performance hall. “I want everything in here. The food, the champagne, everything. I want them packed together so that they feel each other when the girls perform. I want it very tight. Very intimate.”

  Tania nodded and scribbled more notes on her pad. She tapped the screen authoritatively, sending orders to the staff. Already, servants would be receiving messages in their earbuds, reacting to their mistress�
��s demands.

  Belari said, “I want Tingle available. With the champagne. It will whet their appetites.”

  “You’ll have an orgy if you do.”

  Belari laughed. “That’s fine. I want them to remember tonight. I want them to remember our fluted girls. Vernon particularly.” Her laughter quieted, replaced by a hard-edged smile, brittle with emotion. “He’ll be angry when he finds out about them. But he’ll want them, anyway. And he’ll bid like the rest.”

  Lidia watched Belari’s face. She wondered if the woman knew how clearly she broadcast her feelings about the Pendant Entertainment executive. Lidia had seen him once, from behind a curtain. She and Stephen had watched Vernon Weir touch Belari, and watched Belari first shy from his touch and then give in, summoning the reserves of her acting skill to play the part of a seduced woman.

  Vernon Weir had made Belari famous. He’d paid the expense of her body sculpting and made her a star, much as Belari now invested in Lidia and her sister. But Master Weir extracted a price for his aid, Faustian devil that he was. Stephen and Lidia had watched as Weir took his pleasure from Belari, and Stephen had whispered to her that when Weir was gone, Belari would summon Stephen and reenact the scene, but with Stephen as the victim, and then he would pretend, as she did, that he was happy to submit.

  Lidia’s thoughts broke off. Belari had turned to her. The angry welt from Stephen’s attack was still visible on her throat, despite the cell knitters she popped like candy. Lidia thought it must gall her to have a scar out of place. She was careful of her image. Belari seemed to catch the focus of Lidia’s gaze. Her lips pursed and she pulled the collar of her body armor close, hiding the damage. Her green eyes narrowed. “We’ve been looking for you.”

  Lidia ducked her head. “I’m sorry, Mistress.”

  Belari ran a finger under the fluted girl’s jaw, lifting her downcast face until they were eye to eye. “I should punish you for wasting my time.”

  “Yes, Mistress. I’m sorry.” The fluted girl lowered her eyes. Belari wouldn’t hit her. She was too expensive to fix. She wondered if Belari would use electricity, or isolation, or some other humiliation cleverly devised.

  Instead, Belari pointed to the steel bracelet. “What’s this?”

  Burson didn’t flinch at her question. He had no fear. He was the only servant who had no fear. Lidia admired him for that, if nothing else. “To track her. And shock her.” He smiled, pleased with himself. “It causes no physical destruction.”

  Belari shook her head. “I need her without jewelry tonight. Take it off.”

  “She will hide.”

  “No. She wants to be a star. She’ll be good now, won’t you, Lidia?”

  Lidia nodded.

  Burson shrugged and removed the bracelet, unperturbed. He leaned his great scarred face close to Lidia’s ear. “Don’t hide in the kitchens the next time. I will find you.” He stood away, smiling his satisfaction. Lidia narrowed her eyes at Burson and told herself she had won a victory that Burson didn’t know her hidey-hole yet. But then Burson smiled at her and she wondered if he did know already, if he was playing with her the way a cat played with a maimed mouse.

  Belari said, “Thank you, Burson,” then paused, eyeing the great creature who looked so man-like yet moved with the feral quickness of the wilds. “Have you tightened our security?”

  Burson nodded. “Your fief is safe. We are checking the rest of the staff, for background irregularities.”

  “Have you found anything?”

  Burson shook his head. “Your staff love you.”

  Belari’s voice sharpened. “That’s what we thought about Stephen. And now I wear body armor in my own fief. I can’t afford the appearance of lost popularity. It affects my share price too much.”

  “I’ve been thorough.”

  “If my stock falls, Vernon will have me wired for TouchSense. I won’t have it.”

  “I understand. There will be no more failures.”

  Belari frowned at the monster looming over her. “Good. Well, come on then.” She motioned for Lidia to join her. “Your sister has been waiting for you.” She took the fluted girl by the hand and led her out of the performance hall.

  Lidia spared a glance back. Burson was gone. The servants bustled, placing orchid cuttings on tables, but Burson had disappeared, either blended into the walls or sped away on his errands of security.

  Belari tugged Lidia’s hand. “You led us on a merry search. I thought we would have to spray the pheromones again.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No harm. This time.” Belari smiled down at her. “Are you nervous about tonight?”

  Lidia shook her head. “No.”

  “No?”

  Lidia shrugged. “Will Master Weir purchase our stock?”

  “If he pays enough.”

  “Will he?”

  Belari smiled. “I think he will, yes. You are unique. Like me. Vernon likes to collect rare beauty.”

  “What is he like?”

  Belari’s smile stiffened. She looked up, concentrating on their path through the castle. “When I was a girl, very young, much younger than you, long before I became famous, I used to go to a playground. A man came to watch me on the swings. He wanted to be my friend. I didn’t like him, but being near him made me dizzy. Whatever he said made perfect sense. He smelled bad, but I couldn’t pull away from him.” Belari shook her head. “Someone’s mother chased him away.” She looked down at Lidia. “He had a chemical cologne, you understand?”

  “Contraband?”

  “Yes. From Asia. Not legal here. Vernon is like that. Your skin crawls but he draws you to him.”

  “He touches you.”

  Belari looked down at Lidia sadly. “He likes my old crone experience in my young girl body. But he hardly discriminates. He touches everyone.” She smiled slightly. “But not you, perhaps. You are too valuable to touch.”

  “Too delicate.”

  “Don’t sound so bitter. You’re unique. We’re going to make you a star.” Belari looked down at her protégé hungrily. “Your stock will rise, and you will be a star.”

  Lidia watched from her windows as Belari’s guests began to arrive. Aircars snaked in under security escort, sliding low over the pines, green and red running lights blinking in the darkness.

  Nia came to stand behind Lidia. “They’re here.”

  “Yes.”

  Snow clotted thickly on the trees, like heavy cream. The occasional blue sweeps of search beams highlighted the snow and the dark silhouettes of the forest; Burson’s ski patrols, hoping to spy out the telltale red exhalations of intruders crouched amongst pine shadows. Their beams swept over the ancient hulk of a ski lift that climbed up from the town. It was rusting, silent except when the wind caught its chairs and sent its cables swaying. The empty seats swung lethargically in the freezing air, another victim of Belari’s influence. Belari hated competition. Now, she was the only patron of the town that sparkled in the deep of the valley far below.

  “You should get dressed,” Nia said.

  Lidia turned to study her twin. Black eyes like pits watched her from between elfin lids. Her skin was pale, stripped of pigment, and she was thin, accenting the delicacy of her bone structure. That was one true thing about her, about both of them: their bones were theirs. It was what had attracted Belari to them in the first place, when they were just eleven. Just old enough for Belari to strip them from their parents.

  Lidia’s gaze returned to the view. Deep in the tight crease of the mountain valley, the town shimmered with amber lights.

  “Do you miss it?” she asked.

  Nia slipped closer. “Miss what?”

  Lidia nodded down at the shimmering jewel. “The town.”

  Their parents had been glassblowers, practicing the old arts abandoned in the face of efficient manufacturing, breathing delicate works into existence, sand running liquid under their supervision. They had moved to Belari’s fief for patronage, like all the town’s
artisans: the potters, the blacksmiths, the painters. Sometimes Belari’s peers noticed an artist and his influence grew. Niels Kinkaid had made his fortune from Belari’s favor, turning iron to her will, outfitting her fortress with its great handwrought gates and her gardens with crouching sculptural surprises: foxes and children peering from amongst lupine and monkshood in the summers and deep drifted snow in the winters. Now he was almost famous enough to float his own stock.

  Lidia’s parents had come for patronage, but Belari’s evaluating eye had not fallen on their artistry. Instead, she selected the biological accident of their twin daughters: delicate and blond with cornflower eyes that watched the world blinkless as they absorbed the fief’s mountain wonders. Their trade flourished now thanks to the donation of their children.

  Nia jostled Lidia gently, her ghostly face serious. “Hurry and dress. You mustn’t be late.”

  Lidia turned away from her black-eyed sister. Of their original features, little remained. Belari had watched them grow in the castle for two years and then the pills began. Revitia treatments at thirteen froze their features in the matrix of youth. Then had come the eyes, drawn from twins in some far foreign land. Lidia sometimes wondered if in India, two dusky girl children looked out at the world from cornflower eyes, or if they walked the mud streets of their village guided only by the sound of echoes on cow-dung walls and the scrape of their canes on the dirt before them.

  Lidia studied the night beyond the windows with her stolen black eyes. More aircars dropped guests on the landing pads then spread gossamer wings and let the mountain winds bear them away.

  More treatments had followed: pigment drugs drained color from their skins, leaving them Kabuki pale, ethereal shadows of their former mountain sun-blushed selves, and then the surgeries began. She remembered waking after each successive surgery, crippled, unable to move for weeks despite the wide-bore needles full of cell-knitters and nutrient fluids the doctor flushed through her slight body. The doctor would hold her hand after the surgeries, wipe the sweat from her pale brow and whisper, “Poor girl. Poor poor girl.” Then Belari would come and smile at the progress and say that Lidia and Nia would soon be stars.