The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2014 Edition

by Rich Horton

  I stand up, and he follows suit, and shuffles to his helicopter without a farewell. It turns out that we will not be shooting satellite armaments into the ruins of Buenos Aires—not together, at least. I discount his outburst as mere petulance. He loves his helicopters and studio-fortress and fame too much. He will never change.

  After a week of constant confinement, Roxy appears to have calmed, though her behavior is a bit erratic. She paces, she sleeps, she makes tiny trilling noises from the back of her throat. She tips her head back and laughs. I have never seen her laugh before. A troupe of teenagers from New Dubai traipse through the museum halls, disinterested in any of the work, soldiering on as if polar explorers from another century. As they walk past Roxy—the tour guide wisely decides not to dwell on her—she splays herself on the glass of her case and bares her teeth, her double line of fangs.

  All of her teeth are uncapped.

  Several of them begin shrieking, placing calls to their parents and nannies to rescue the teenagers. The tour guide fumbles with the emergency response interface attached to her arm. A sleeping gas fills the case and fogs it. Roxy struggles and lashes out, longer than I thought would have been possible, until at last she slumbers. She is taken to the Department of Restoration.

  The next morning I decide that I need to buy some new art to clear my head. A fresh start for my collection.

  As I make preparations to fly to Cape Adare—my favorite gallery spot—I wonder how Roxy will respond to restoration. John Priestly would have been the ideal candidate for the task, of course, but that is out of the question. The museum has the best team on the continent. So they say. I hear that Epoxy and Paint are in restoration as well. The atmosphere has been growing more chaotic in the Arboretum, even with Roxy’s absence: more scuffles with guards, more cunning attempts at communication with other pieces of art.

  In a way I am already beginning to say goodbye to Roxy, as a squandered investment to write off. It will hurt, but not as much as these constant tantrums on her part. Art, above everything else, is a sign of one’s station in life, and it is difficult to properly display one’s station if there is not decorum.

  I am about to put on my favorite art-buying suit and go up to the helipad, but I get the ping from the museum.

  Roxy has escaped.

  My body trembles. I desperately want to harangue the museum concierge, but instead I hang up and retreat to my study. I turn on the camera view of Roxy and breathe a sigh of relief: the surveillance bees are still active.

  I see cacophony. An alarm has gone off and Roxy is running, alongside a galloping Paint and Epoxy, past display case after display case. Many are opened and empty. A museum guard stands in front of them, sparks flying off his gloves. Paint leaps forward in an arc and punctures the guard’s heart with one of his legs. Roxy fumbles through the guard’s red uniform, and rips the interface patch off his arm, and puts it between her teeth.

  They keep running. Roxy thinks she is going to make it. She thinks she’s going to be safe—though she’s still terrified, even I can sense that. More guards behind them—they hesitate. Those three works of art are worth more than a thousand of the guards’ lifetime salaries combined. In that second, Epoxy puts a hand on Roxy’s shoulder, and pushes her in another direction, away from the oncoming crush. She runs into a colder, narrower tunnel, and affords herself only one look back. The look is anguished. The halogens affixed in the ceiling grow dimmer, and then it’s almost dark, and she stops.

  The bees have kept up, and they start to luminesce. She scowls at them. The link is still there. I can’t imagine what I would do without that lifeline. She puts her hands on her knees and catches her breath in the near-dark. It must be a service tunnel she is in, for museum employees.

  She hears screams and shouts, and considers going back. But she takes a few steps, and there is dim light ahead. She begins walking forward again, her hand on the wall, which is jagged and powdery. The air’s ventilation is thin here. The tunnel curves left, then right. She is determined, which is clear from the look on her face, in her hunched shoulders and tense tail.

  When the light grows bright enough to see by, she takes her hand off the wall and starts running again to the end of the tunnel. There must be lag; the bees struggle to keep up and I see the back of her ragged shirt as she runs.

  The end of the tunnel is a rock wall with a door with a porthole set into it.

  She presses her face against the window. She sees a hangar on the other side. A huge space, as large as my villa, with a ceiling that can’t be seen. About a dozen large-scale art installations are in the hangar—massive, bulbous. The airlock to the arid outdoors is closed. The largest installations float, and The Leviathan is the largest of them all—three blue whales conjoined at the head and attached to a hovercraft, looking like the floating petals of a gargantuan poppy flower. On their sides are embedded the complete works of Jackson Pollock. The artist, a native to the continent named Tin Hester, was funded by the Antarctic Arts Research Council to buy the paintings on the cheap, since Pollock really hasn’t been in favor for quite some time.

  It is magnificent.

  About a dozen people in gray suits work in the hangar—jetting near the larger installations and hovering like dragonflies to tweak a propulsion unit or diagnose an adhesion rivet.

  Roxy crosses her arms and tries to decide what to do next. They will find her; she is sure of that.

  No—I see it in her eyes. She is trying to figure out how to do what she already plans to do.

  This is the moment that should be flagged, sent higher up the food chain, when a predator is neither contained with other predators nor immediately threatened.

  Roxy says something, but I can’t understand it. She bangs on the window, and then takes the guard’s interface out of her mouth. She presses a few buttons on it and casts it aside. Then she retrieves something else from her mouth, from underneath her long tongue. She slaps a small patch of yellow goo on the window and she takes a few steps back. I’m told that they’ve finally made a connection with her again. They are coming for her.

  She covers her face. The door blows open. Metal shards nick her, but she manages to sidestep most of them. There’s a yellowish fog in the corridor; the goo keeps emitting smoke. Behind her, guards call for her. She calls back, but again I can’t understand what she’s saying.

  She darts into the hangar, choking but staggering forward. I can’t see her because of the mist. The guards plunge through the broken doorway as well, but they are not prepared for the mist, and they halt and begin coughing.

  I cannot see Roxy in the hangar at all, but in another minute, the hangar door heaves open, letting in the bright, unyielding Antarctic sunlight, and the dry, bitter air.

  The art installations’ cables have snapped; whether it’s because of the mist, I cannot say. I am shaking. They slowly float out of the hangar: a hot air balloon attached to a large black heron, a hybrid of a dragon and a biplane. The Leviathan is the last to leave, as the whales’ bodies rotate slowly. Roxy is still nowhere to be seen.

  That’s when my bees start to die. The view of the hangar gets fainter and scratchier, and then there is only the blank screen the color of black pearl.

  I feel feverish. I stand up and check on my wife, who is resting in the study. I see—if for only an instant—Roxy’s face in hers. That is why it is important to understand art before you buy it, to know how to see what is in front of you. But after my wife entered her coma, I became not only a connoisseur, but a patron. Commissioning Roxy with my wife’s DNA was not theoretically legal, even in Antarctica. But I would not be deterred.

  I stroke my wife’s gray locks of hair. She doesn’t stir. I feel the air from her breathing apparatus. When Roxy broke into the study—what did she know? How could she have known of my wife? She must have stared at my wife’s face and seen something of herself there, some unblemished vision, without the animal splicings, without the flowers blossoming inside her arms.

&nb
sp; That’s when she tried to unplug my wife. I found her just in time. She shrieked at me in babble—of course it was incomprehensible—and darted past me. I called the local militia and explained the situation as I struggled to keep up with her roaming through the villa. I should have known that Roxy was veering toward my wife’s old suites. She managed to break in and lock the main door behind her. When the militia finally entered the locked-off rooms by cutting a hole in the ceiling, Roxy was dressed in my wife’s favorite peacock gown and had torn all her favorite paintings off the walls—Degas, Twombly, Hals—and stacked them in a pile. My wife had always been old-fashioned; she cared little for contemporary art.

  Roxy was also wielding, with her tail, a broadsword from my wife’s extensive medieval armor collection. The first fool who dropped through the ceiling was beheaded with surprising force. Blood gushed everywhere, but Roxy was careful to put herself in front of the paintings, so that they wouldn’t get spoiled. It took a dozen militia soldiers to stun and subdue Roxy.

  That was when I decided she needed to be loaned out. I immediately sold all of the paintings that she had torn off the wall. I could not bear to have them within my villa.

  Roxy would have ruined everything with my wife. Yet I am upset that she is gone, and likely dead, because she didn’t give me the chance to ruin her.

  I exit the study and put on my suit and then go outside. There is a smog advisory around Ross Bay. Along the shore, the hills of bell heather and the crabgrass burn, only a few kilometers from the villa. No one is going to stop them from burning. There’s no point. The weeds will grow again and burn again. The air has a pink tinge; I actually think it’s beautiful.

  If The Leviathan were to come to me, I would not see it descend, until it was almost too late. What would my wife have thought of those Jackson Pollocks? Surely she would have been riveted by the sight?

  I go back inside. I try to put the incident behind me. Cashing the insurance settlement helps. Many of the works from the museum are recovered—albeit damaged—but not Roxy. I decide that I want to go shopping in earnest this time, for a work of art that, by active contemplation of it, will help ease my unease. I put out feelers for a few weeks to the best galleries.

  I cross John Priestly off my list, naturally.

  After a week, when I am ready to visit my favorite galleries in person to bargain for a sale, I receive a package, about half my height. It doesn’t list a sender. I am often the recipient of enticements from galleries. After the courier leaves, I take it to my study—it is not heavy at all—and press my hands against the black box. The sides flop open.

  Inside the package is a sculpture of me. Though only a meter tall, it is like me in every aspect. Its skin gleams white as mine gleams. Its eyes are opalesque like mine. Its hands are at its sides. I am filled with both flattery and fear; flattery at the daring attempt at hyperrealism, and fear from the blank, unnerving stare from my miniature twin.

  It is staring at me. Its head has moved imperceptibly, but it now looks in my eyes. I am transfixed, despite my best efforts. I immediately desire to know who the artist is, and what the genetic provenance is. As I take a step toward it, the sculpture turns its head to one side. It’s like a glitch, or as if the sculpture is thinking or listening to an inner voice.

  Then the objet d’art puts both hands against its ears, squeezes tightly, and rips its own head off.

  The sculpture holds its head over its body. Yellow mist spews from its neck. I manage to look at my wife, before the mist overtakes us.

  Kormak the Lucky

  Eleanor Arnason

  There was a man named Kormak. He was a native of Ireland, but when he was ten or twelve, Norwegians came to his part of the country and captured him, along with many other people. They were packed into a ship and carried north, along with all the silver the Norwegians could find, most of it from churches: reliquaries and crosses, which they broke into bits so it could be traded or spent.

  The Norwegians planned to take their cargo to one of the great market towns, Kaupang in Norway or Hedeby in Denmark. There the Irish folk would be sold as slaves.

  The ship left Ireland late and got caught in an autumn storm that blew it off course. Instead of reaching Norway, it made land in Iceland, sailing into the harbor at Reykjavik in bad condition. The Norwegians decided it would be too dangerous to continue the journey through the stormy weather. Instead, they found Icelanders who were willing to host them for the winter. The Irish were sold. They brought less than they would have in Kaupang or Hedeby, but the Norwegians did not have to house and feed them through the winter.

  In this manner, Kormak came to Iceland and became a slave. He was a sturdy boy, sharp-witted and clever with his hands. But he was also lazy and curious and easily distracted. This did not make him a good worker. As a result, he was sold and traded from one farmstead to another, going first east, then north and west, finally back south to Borgarfjord. It took eight years for Kormak to make this journey around Iceland. In this time, he became a tall young man with broad shoulders and rust-red hair. His eyes were green. He had a beard, though it was thin and patchy, and he kept it short when possible. A long scar ran down the side of his face, the result of a beating. It pulled at the corner of his mouth, so it appeared that he always had a one-sided, mocking smile.

  The next-to-last man who owned him was a farmer named Helgi, who did not like his work habits better than any of Kormak’s previous owners. “It’s past my ability to get a good day’s work out of you,” Helgi said, “so I am selling you to the Marsh Men at Borg, and I can tell you for certain, you’ll be sorry.”

  “Why?” asked Kormak.

  “The master of the house at Borg is named Egil. He’s an old man now, but he used to be a famous Viking. He’s larger than most human people, ugly as a troll, and still strong, though his sight is mostly gone. The people at Borg are all afraid of him and so are the neighbors, including me.”

  “Why?” asked Kormak a second time.

  “Egil is bad-tempered, avaricious, self-willed, and knows at least some magic, though mostly he has used brute force to get his way. He’s also the finest poet in Iceland.”

  This didn’t sound good to Kormak. “You said he’s old and mostly blind. How can he rule the household?”

  “His son Thorstein does most of the managing. He’s an even-tempered man and a good neighbor. He will cross his father if it’s a serious matter, but most of the time he leaves the old man alone. If you make Egil angry, he will kill you, in spite of his blindness and age.”

  Several days later, Thorstein Egilsson came down the fjord to claim Kormak. He was middle-aged, fair-haired, and handsome with keen blue eyes. He rode a dun horse with black mane and tail and carried a silver-mounted riding whip. A second horse, a worn-out mare, followed the first. My mount , Kormak thought.

  Thorstein paid for Kormak, then told him to mount the mare, which had a bridle but no saddle. Kormak obeyed.

  They rode north. The season was spring, and the fields around them were green. Wild swans nested among the grazing sheep.

  After a while, Thorstein said, “Helgi says you are strong, which looks true to me, and intelligent, but also lazy. You have been a slave for many years. You should have learned better habits. I warn you that I expect work from you.”

  “Yes,” replied Kormak.

  “I know you can’t help your smile,” Thorstein added, “but I want no sarcasm from you. There are enough difficult people at my homestead already.”

  They continued riding up the valley. After a while, Thorstein said, “I have one more thing to tell you: stay away from my father.”

  “Why?” asked Kormak, though he was almost certain he knew the answer to this question.

  “He used to be a great Viking. Now he’s old and blind, and it makes him angry. I plan to use you in the outbuildings away from the hall. It isn’t likely you’ll meet him. If you do and he asks you to do anything, obey and then get away from him as quickly as you can.”
/>
  “Very well,” said Kormak.

  They came over a rise, and he saw the farm at Borg. There was a large long hall, numerous outbuildings, and a home field fenced with stone and wood. Horses and cattle grazed there. Farther out were open fields that spread across the valley’s floor, dotted with sheep. A river edged with marshy ground ran past the farm buildings. Everything looked prosperous and well made. It was a better place than any farm he’d known before.

  They rode down together, and Thorstein led the way to an outbuilding. A large man stood in front of it. He was middle-aged with ragged black hair and a thick black beard.

  “This is Svart,” Thorstein said. “You’ll work for him, and he will make sure you do your work.”

  Svart grunted.

  That must be agreement, Kormk thought.

  Thorstein and Kormak dismounted, and Svart took the reins of Thorstein’s horse. “Come,” he said to Kormak.

  They unsaddled Thorstein’s mount and rubbed the two animals down, then led them to the marshy river to drink. Kormak’s feet sank deep into the mucky ground.

  Svart said, “Thorstein is a good farmer and a good householder, but he’s firm. Do exactly as he tells you. No back talk and no hiding from work.”

  “Yes,” said Kormak, thinking this might be a difficult place.

  They let the horses free in the home field to graze, and Svart began to tell Kormak about the labor he would do.

  So began Kormak’s stay among the Marsh Men. The family got its nickname from their land, which was marshy in many places. Channels had been cut in the turf to draw water out and carry it to the river. This helped the fields. Nothing could make the riverbanks anything but mucky.