The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Three

by Jonathan Strahan

  Both sides declared a ragged truce.

  Eight days later, Joe was released from his cell, guards escorting him along a tunnel marked by pheromones and infrared signatures. Glory was waiting, wearing her best gown and a wide, hopeful smile. The Antfolk man beside her seemed less sure. He was a giant hairless creature. Leader of the nest's political caste, he glared at the muscular sapien, and with a cool smooth voice said, "The tunnel before you splits, Mr. Carroway. Which way will you travel?"

  "What are my choices?" asked the prisoner.

  "Death now," the man promised. "Or death in some ill-defined future."

  "I think I prefer the future," he said. Then he glanced at Glory, meeting her worried smile with a wink and slight nod.

  The look that Glory shot her superior was filled with meaning and hope.

  "I don't relish the idea of trusting you," the man confessed. "But every story you've told us, with words and genetics, has been confirmed by every available source. You were once a man named Magnificent. We see traces of your original DNA inside what used to be Joseph Carroway. It seems that our old enemy was indeed taken prisoner during the Luna Revolt. The Eagles were a talented bunch. They may well have camouflaged you inside Mr. Carroway's body and substance. A sorry thing that the species was exterminated—save for you, of course. But once this new war is finished, I promise you: my people will reconstitute yours as well as your culture, to the best of our considerable abilities."

  Joe dipped his head. "I can only hope to see that day, sir."

  The man had giant white eyes and tiny blond teeth. Watching the prisoner did no good; he could not read this man's soul. So he turned to Glory, prompting her with the almost invisible flick of a finger.

  She told Joe, "The U.N. attack was almost exactly as you expected it to be, and your advice proved extremely useful. Thank you."

  Joe showed a smug little smile.

  "And you've told us a lot we didn't know," Glory continued. "Those ten agents on Pallas. The Deimos booby trap. And how the U.N. would go about searching for the rest of our nuclear devices."

  "Are your bombs safe?"

  She glanced at her superior, finding encouragement in some little twitch of the face. Then she said, "Yes."

  "Do you want to know their locations?" the man asked Joe.

  "No."

  Then in the next breath, Joe added, "And I hope you don't know that either, sir. You're too much of a target, should somebody grab you up."

  "More good advice," the man replied.

  That was the instant when Joe realized that he wouldn't be executed as a precaution. More than three years of careful preparation had led to this: The intricate back-story and genetic trickery were his ideas. Carrying off every aspect of this project, from the Eagle's identity to his heightened capacity to read bodies and voices, was the end result of hard training. Hundreds of specialists, all AIs, had helped produce the new Joseph Carroway. And then each one of those machines was wiped stupid and melted to an anonymous slag.

  On that day when he dreamed up this outrageous plan, the Antfolk were still just one of a dozen Rebirths that might or might not cause trouble someday.

  Nobody could have planned for these last weeks.

  Killing the guards to free the woman was an inspiration and a necessity, and he never bothered to question it. One hundred fusion bombs were scattered across a helpless, highly vulnerable planet, and setting them off would mean billions dead, and perhaps civilization too. Sacrificing a few soldiers to protect the rest of the world was a plan born of simple, pure mathematics.

  The Antfolk man coughed softly. "From this point on, Joe . . . or should I call you Magnificent?"

  With an appealing smile, he said, "I've grown attached to Joe."

  The other two laughed gently. Then the man said, "For now, you are my personal guest. And except for security bracelets and a bomblet planted inside your skull, you will be given the freedoms and responsibilities expected of all worthy visitors."

  "Then I am grateful," said Joe. "Thank you to your nation and to your good species, sir. Thank you so much."

  The truce was shattered with one desperate assault—three brigades of shock troops riding inside untested star-drive boosters, supported by every weapon system and reconfigured com-laser available to the U.N. The cost was twenty thousand dead sapiens and a little less than a trillion dollars. One platoon managed to insert itself inside Joe's nest, but when the invaders grabbed the nursery and a thousand young hostages, he distinguished himself by helping plan and then lead the counterstrike. All accounts made him the hero. He killed several of the enemy, and alone, he managed to disable the warhead that would have shattered their little world. But even the most grateful mother insisted on looking at their savior with detached pleasure. Trust was impossible. Joe's face was too strange, his reputation far too familiar. Pheromones delivered the mandatory thanks, and there were a few cold gestures wishing the hero well. But there were insults too, directed at him and at the long lovely woman who was by now sleeping with him.

  In retribution for that final attack, the Antfolk detonated a second nuclear weapon, shearing off one slope of the Hawai'i volcano and killing eight million with the resulting tsunami.

  Nine days later, the U.N. collapsed, reformed from the wreckage and then shattered again before the next dawn. What rose from that sorry wreckage enjoyed both the laws to control every aspect of the mother world and the mandate to beg for their enemies' mercy.

  The giants in the sky demanded, and subsequently won, each of their original terms.

  For another three months, Joe lived inside the little asteroid, enduring a never-subtle shunning.

  Then higher powers learned of his plight and intervened. For the next four years, he traveled widely across the new empire, always in the company of Glory, the two of them meeting an array of leaders, scientists, and soldiers—that last group as suspicious as any, but ever eager to learn whatever little tricks the famous Carroway might share with them.

  To the end, Joe remained under constant observation. Glory made daily reports about his behaviors and her own expert impressions. Their relationship originally began under orders from Pallas, but when she realized that they might well remain joined until one or both died, she discovered, to her considerable surprise, that she wasn't displeased with her fate.

  In the vernacular of her species, she had floated into love . . . and so what if the object of her affections was an apish goon?

  During their journey, they visited twenty little worlds, plus Pallas and Ceres and Vesta. The man beside her was never out of character. He was intense and occasionally funny, and he was quick to learn and astute with his observations about life inside the various nests. Because it would be important for the last member of a species, Joe pushed hard for the resurrection of the fabled Eagles. Final permission came just as he and Glory were about to travel to outer moons of Jupiter. Three tedious, painful days were spent inside the finest biogenic lab in the solar system. Samples of bone and marrow and fat and blood were cultured, and delicate machines rapidly separated what had been Joe from the key traces of the creature that had been dubbed Magnificent.

  A long voyage demands large velocities, which was why the transport ship made an initial high-gee burn. The crew and passengers were strapped into elaborate crash seats, their blood laced with comfort drugs, eyes and minds distracted by immersion masks. Six hours after they leaped clear of Vesta, Joe disabled each of his tracking bracelets and the bomblet inside his head, and then he slipped out of his seat, fighting the terrific acceleration as he worked his way to the bridge.

  The transport was an enormous, utterly modern spaceship. The watch officer was on the bridge, stretched out in his own crash seat. Instantly suspicious and without even the odor of politeness, he demanded that his important passenger leave at once. Joe smiled for a moment. Then he turned without complaint or hesitation, showing his broad back to the spidery fellow before he climbed out of view.

  What
killed the officer was a fleck of dust carrying microchines—a fleet of tiny devices that attacked essential genes found inside the Antfolk metabolism, causing a choking sensation, vomiting and soon death.

  Joe returned to the bridge and sent a brief, heavily coded message to the Earth. Then he did a cursory job of destroying the ship's security systems. With luck, he had earned himself a few hours of peace. But when he returned to his cabin, Glory was gone. She had pulled herself out her seat, or somebody had roused her. For a moment, he touched the deep padding, allowing the sheets to wrap around his arm and hand, and he carefully measured the heat left behind by her long, lovely body.

  "Too bad," he muttered.

  The transport carried five fully equipped lifepods. Working fast, Joe killed the hangar's robots and both of the resident mechanics. He dressed in the only pressure suit configured for his body and crippled all but one of the pods. His plan was to flee without fuss. The pods had potent engines and were almost impossible to track. There was no need for more corpses and mayhem. But he wanted a back-up plan, that's what he was working on when the ship's engines abruptly cut out.

  A few minutes later, an armed team crawled into the hangar through a random vent.

  There was no reason to fight, since Joe was certain to lose.

  Instead he surrendered his homemade weapons and looked past the nervous crew, finding the lovely hairless face that he knew better than his own.

  "What did you tell them?" Glory asked.

  "Tell who?"

  "Your people," she said. "The Earth."

  Glory didn't expect answers, much less any honest words. But the simple fact was that whatever he said now and did now was inconsequential: Joe would survive or die in this cold realm, but what happened next would change nothing that was about to happen elsewhere.

  "Your little home nest," he began.

  She drifted forward, and then hesitated.

  "It will be dead soon," he promised. "And nothing can be done to save it."

  "Is there a bomb?"

  "No," he said. "A microchine plague. I brought it with me when I snatched you away, Glory. It was hiding inside my bones."

  "But you were tested," she said.

  "Not well enough."

  "We hunted for diseases," she insisted. "Agents. Toxins. We have the best minds anywhere, and we searched you inside and out . . . and found nothing remotely dangerous."

  He watched the wind leak out of her. Then very quietly, Joe admitted, "You might have the best minds. And best by a long ways. But we have a lot more brains down on the Earth, and I promise, a few of us are a good deal meaner than even you could ever be."

  Enduring torture, Glory never looked this frail or sad.

  Joe continued. "Every world you've taken me to is contaminated. I made certain of that. And since you managed to set off two bombs on my world, the plan is to obliterate two of your worlds. After that, if you refuse to surrender, it's fair to guess that every bomb and disease on both sides is going be set free. Then in the end, nobody wins. Ever."

  Glory could not look at him.

  Joe laughed, aiming to humiliate.

  He said, "I don't care how smart or noble you are. Like everybody else, you're nothing but meat and scared brains. And now you've been thrown into a dead-end tunnel, and I am Death standing at the tunnel's mouth.

  "The clock is ticking. Can you make the right decision?"

  Glory made a tiny, almost invisible motion with her smallest finger, betraying her intentions.

  Joe leaped backward. The final working lifepod was open, and he dove inside as its hatch slammed shut, moments before the doomed could manage one respectable shot. Then twenty weapons were firing at a hull designed to shrug off the abuse of meteors and sapien weapons. Joe pulled himself into the pilot's ill-fitting chair, and once he was strapped down, he triggered his just-finished booby trap.

  The fuel onboard two other pods exploded.

  With a silent flash of light, the transport shattered, spilling its contents across the black and frigid wilderness.

  Iv. The Assassin

  "Eat," the voice insisted. "Don't our dead heroes deserve their feast?"

  "So that's what I am?"

  "A hero? Absolutely, my friend!"

  "I meant that I'm dead." Joe looked across the table, measuring his host—an imposing Chinese-Indian male wearing the perfect suit and a face conditioned to convey wisdom and serene authority. "I realize that I got lost for a time," he admitted. "But I never felt particularly deceased."

  "Perhaps that's how the dead perceive their lot. Yes?"

  Joe nodded amiably, and using his stronger arm, stabbed at his meal. Even in lunar gravity, every motion was an effort.

  "Are your rehabilitations going well?"

  "They tell me that I'm making some progress."

  "Modesty doesn't suit you, my friend. My sources assure me that you are amazing your trainers. And I think you know that perfectly well."

  The meat was brown and sweet, like duck, but without the grease.

  "Presently you hold the record, Joe."

  Joe looked up again.

  "Five and a half years in freefall," said Mr. Li, slowly shaking his head. "Assumed dead, and in your absence, justly honored for the accomplishments of an intense and extremely successful life. I'm sorry no one was actively searching for you, sir. But no Earth-based eye saw the Antfolks' spaceship explode, much less watched the debris scatter. So we had no starting point, and to make matters worse, your pod had a radar signature little bigger than a fist. You were very fortunate to be where you happened to be, drifting back into the inner solar system. And you were exceptionally lucky to be noticed by that little mining ship. And just imagine your reception if that ship's crew had been anyone but sapiens. . . . "

  The billionaire let his voice trail away.

  Joe had spent years wandering through the solar system, shepherding his food and riding roughshod over his recycling systems. That the lifepod was designed to carry a dozen bodies was critical; he wouldn't have lasted ten months inside a lesser bucket. But the explosion that destroyed the transport damaged the pod, leaving it dumb and deaf. Joe had soon realized that nobody knew where he was, or even that he was. After the first year, he calculated that he might survive for another eight, but it would involve more good luck and hard focus than even he might have been able to summon.

  "I want to tell you, Joe. When I learned about your survival, I was thrilled. I turned to my dear wife and my children and told everybody, 'This man is a marvel. He is a wonder. A one-in-a-trillion kind of sapien.'"

  Joe laughed quietly.

  "Oh, I'm well-studied in Joseph Carroway's life," his host boasted. "After the war, humanity wanted to know who to thank for saving the Earth. That's why the U.N. released portions of your files. Millions of us became amateur scholars. I myself acquired some of the less doctored accounts of your official history. I've also read your five best biographies, and just like every other sapien, I have enjoyed your immersion drama—Warrior on the Ramparts. As a story, it takes dramatic license with your life. Of course. But Warrior was and is a cultural phenomenon, Joe. A stirring tale of courage and bold skill in the midst of wicked, soulless enemies."

  Joe set his fork beside the plate.

  "After all the misery and death of these last two decades," said Mr. Li, "the world discovered the one man who could be admired, even emulated. A champion for the people."

  He said the word "People" with a distinct tone.

  Then Mr. Li added, "Even the Rebirths paid to see Warrior. Paid to read the books and the sanitized files. Which is nicely ironic, isn't it? Your actions probably saved millions of them. Without your bravery, how many species would be ash and bone today?"

  Joe lifted his fork again. A tenth of his life had been spent away from gravity and meaningful exercise. His bones as well as the connecting muscles had withered to where some experts, measuring the damage, cautioned their patient to expect no miracles. It didn't help t
hat cosmic radiation had slashed through the pod's armor and through him. Even now, the effects of malnutrition could be seen in the spidery hands and forearms, and how his own lean meat hung limp on his suddenly ancient bones.

  Mr. Li paused for a moment, an observant smile building. Whatever he said next would be important.

  Joe interrupted, telling him, "Thank you for the meal, sir."

  "And thank you for being who you are, sir."

  When Joe left the realm of the living, this man was little more than an average billionaire. But the last five years had been endlessly lucrative for Li Enterprises. Few had more money, and when ambition was thrown into the equation, perhaps no other private citizen wielded the kind of power enjoyed by the man sitting across the little table.

  Joe stabbed a buttery carrot.

  "Joe?"

  He lowered the carrot to the plate.

  "Can you guess why I came to the moon? Besides to meet you over dinner, of course."

  Joe decided on a shy, self-deprecating smile.

  This encouraged his host. "And do you have any idea what I wish to say to you? Any intuitions at all?"

  Six weeks ago, Joe had abruptly returned to the living. But it took three weeks to rendezvous with a hospital ship dispatched just for him, and that vessel didn't touch down on the moon until the day before yesterday. Those two crews and his own research had shown Joe what he meant to the human world. He was a hero and a rich but controversial symbol. And he was a polarizing influence in a great debate that still refused to die—an interspecies conflict forever threatening to bring on another terrible war.

  Joe knew exactly what the man wanted from him, but he decided to offer a lesser explanation.

  "You're a man with enemies," he mentioned.