Best Science Fiction of the Year

by Neil Clarke

Teal took the dun-coloured garment and studied it with unveiled distaste. “What good will this do?”

  “Put it on. I want to show you what I lost.”

  “We’ll win this war in reality, not simulations. There’s nothing you can show me that . . . ” “Just do it, Teal.”

  She scowled at him, but went into a back room of Tyrant to remove her own clothes and don the tight-fitting immersion suit. By the time she was ready Merlin had slipped into the other suit. He nodded at Teal as she spidered back into the cabin. “Good. Trust is good. We’ll only be inside a little while, but I think it’ll help. Ship, patch us through.”

  “The Palace, Merlin?”

  “Where else?”

  The suit prickled his neck as it established its connection with his spine. There was the usual moment of dislocation and Tyrant melted away, to be replaced by a surrounding of warm stone walls and tall fretted windows, shot through with amber sun.

  Teal was standing next to him.

  “Where are we?”

  “Where I was born. Where my brother and I spent the first couple of decades of our existence, before the Cohort came.” Merlin walked to the nearest window and bid Teal to follow him. “Gallinule created this environment long after we left. He’s gone now as well, so this is a reminder of the past for me in more ways than one.”

  “Your brother’s dead?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  She left it at that. “What world are we on?”

  “Plenitude, we called it. Common enough name, I suppose.” Merlin stepped onto a plinth under the window, offering a better view through its fretwork. “Do you see the land below?”

  Teal strained to look down. “It’s moving—sliding under us. I thought we were in a castle or something.”

  “We are. The Palace of Eternal Dusk. My family home for thirteen hundred years—as long as the interval between your visits to that system.” He touched his hand against the stonework. “We didn’t make this place. It was unoccupied for centuries, circling Plenitude at exactly the same speed as the line between day and night. My family were the first to reach it from the surface, using supersonic aircraft. We held it for the next forty generations.” He lifted his face to the unchanging aspect of the sun, hovering at its fixed position over the endlessly flowing horizon. “My uncle was a bit of an amateur archaeologist. He dug deep into the rock the palace is built on, as far down as the anti-gravity keel. He said he found evidence that it was at least twenty thousand years old, and maybe quite a bit more than that.” Merlin touched a hand to Teal’s shoulder. “Let me show you something else.”

  She flinched under his touch but allowed him to steer her to one of the parlours branching off the main room. Merlin halted them both at the door, touching a finger to his lips. Two boys knelt on a carpet in the middle of the parlour, their forms side-lit by golden light. They were surrounded by toy armies, spread out in ordered regiments and platoons.

  “Gallinule and I,” Merlin whispered, as the younger of the boys took his turn to move a mounted and penanted figure from one flank to another. “Dreaming of war. Little did we know we’d get more than our share of it.”

  He backed away, leaving the boys to their games, and took Teal to the next parlour.

  Here an old woman sat in a stern black chair, facing one of the sunlit windows with her face mostly averted from the door. She wore black and had her hands in her lap, keeping perfectly still and watchful.

  “Years later,” Merlin said, “Gallinule and I were taken from Plenitude. It was meant to be an act of kindness, preserving something of our world in advance of the Huskers. But it tore us from our mother. We couldn’t return to her. She was left here with the ruins of empire, her sons gone, her world soon to fall.”

  The woman seemed aware of her visitors. She turned slightly, bringing more of her face into view. Her eyes searched the door, as if looking for ghosts. “She has a gentle look,” Teal said quietly.

  “She was kind,” Merlin answered softly. “They spoke ill of her, but they didn’t know her, not the way Gallinule and I did.”

  The woman slowly turned back to face the window. Her face was in profile again, her eyes glistening.

  “Does she ever speak?”

  “She’s no cause to.” Merlin’s mouth was dry for a few moments. “We saw it happen, from the swallowship. Saw the Husker weapons strike Plenitude— saw the fall of the Palace of Eternal Dusk.” Merlin turned from the tableau of his mother. “I mean to go back, one of these days—see what’s left with my own eyes. But I find it hard to bring myself to.”

  “How many died?” Teal asked.

  “Hundreds of millions. We were the only two that Quail managed to save, along with a few fragments of cultural knowledge. So I know what it’s like, Teal—believe me I know what it’s like.” He turned from her with a cold disregard. “Ship, bring Teal out.”

  “What about you?”

  “I need a little time on my own. You can start remembering everything I need to know about the binary system. You’ve got about five hours.”

  Tyrant pulled Teal out of the Palace. Merlin stood alone, silent, for long moments. Then he returned to the parlour where his mother watched the window, imprisoned in an endless golden day, and he stood in her shadow wondering what it would take to free her from that reverie of loss and loneliness.

  They made a safe emergence from the Waynet, Merlin holding his breath until they were out and stable and the syrinx had stopped ringing in its cradle like a badly cracked bell.

  He took a few minutes to assess their surroundings.

  Two stars, close enough together for fusion ships to make a crossing between them in weeks. A dozen large worlds, scattered evenly between the two stars. Hundreds of moons and minor bodies. Thousands of moving ships, easily tracked across interplanetary distance, the vessels grouped into squadrons and attack formations. Battle stations and super-carriers. Fortresses and cordons. The occasional flash of a nuclear weapon or energy pulse weapon— battle ongoing.

  Tyrant was stealthy, but even a stealthy ship made a big splash coming out of the Waynet. Merlin wasn’t at all surprised when a large vessel locked onto them and closed in fast, presumably pushing its fusion engines to the limit.

  Teal carried on briefing him as the ship approached.

  “I don’t like the look of that thing,” Tyrant said, as soon as they had a clear view.

  “I don’t either,” Merlin said. “We’ll treat it respectfully. Wouldn’t want you getting a scratch on your paintwork, would we?”

  The vessel was three times as large as Merlin’s ship and every inch a thing of war. Guns bristled from its hull. It was made of old alloys, forged and joined by venerable methods, and its engines and weapons depended on the antique alchemy of magnetically bottled fusion. A snarling mouth that had been painted across the front of the ship, crammed with razor-tipped teeth.

  “It’s a Havergal ship,” Teal said. “That’s their marking, that dagger-and-star. It doesn’t look all that different to the ships they had when we were here before.”

  “Fusion’s a plateau technology,” Merlin remarked. “If all they ever needed to do was get around this binary system and blow each other up now and then, it would have been sufficient.”

  “They knew about the Waynet, of course—hard to miss it, cutting through their sky the way it does. That interested them. They wanted to jump all the way from fusion to syrinx technology, without all the hard stuff in between.”

  “Doesn’t look like they got very far, does it?”

  The angry-looking ship drew alongside. An airlock opened and a squad of armoured figures came out on rocket packs. Merlin remained tense, but commanded Tyrant’s weapons to remain inside their hatches. He also told the proctors to hide themselves away until he needed them.

  Footfalls clanged onto the hull. Grappling devices slid like nails on rust. Merlin opened his airlock, nodded at Teal, and the two of them went to meet the boarding party. He was half way there when
a thought occurred to him. “Unless they bring up your earlier visit, don’t mention it. You’re just along for the ride with me. I want to know if there’s anything they say or do that doesn’t fit with your picture of them—anything they might be keeping from me.”

  “I speak their language. Isn’t that going to take some explaining?”

  “Feign ignorance to start with, then make it seem as if you’re picking it up as you go. If they get suspicious, we’ll just say that there are a dozen other systems in this sector where they speak a similar dialect.” He flashed a nervous smile at Teal. “Or something. Make it up. Be creative.”

  The airlock had cycled by the time they arrived. When it opened, Merlin was not surprised to find only two members of the boarding party inside. There would not have been room for more.

  “Welcome,” he said, making a flourishing gesture of invitation. “Come in, come in. Take your shoes off. Make yourselves at home.”

  They were a formidable looking pair. Their vacuum armour had a martial look to it, with bladed edges and spurs, a kind of stabbing ram on the crowns of their helmets, fierce-looking grills across the glass of their faceplates. All manner of guns and close-combat weapons buckled or braced to the armour. The armour was green, with gold ornamentation.

  Merlin tapped his throat. “Take your helmets off. The worst you’ll catch is a sniffle.”

  They came into the ship. Their faces were lost behind the grills, but he caught the movement as they twisted to look at each other, before reaching up to undo their helmets. They came free with a tremendous huff of equalising pressure, revealing a pair of heads. There were two men, both bald, with multiple blemishes and battle-scars across their scalps. They had tough, grizzled-looking features, with lantern jaws and a dusting of dark stubble across their chins and cheeks. A duelling scar or similar across the face of one man, a laser burn ruining the ear of the other. Their small, cold-seeming eyes were pushed back into a sea of wrinkles. One man opened his mouth, revealing a cage of yellow and metal teeth.

  He barked out something, barely a syllable. His voice was very deep, and Merlin caught a blast of stale breath as he spoke. The other man waited a moment then amplified this demand or greeting with a few more syllables of his own.

  Merlin returned these statements with an uneasy smile of his own. “I’m Merlin,” he said. “And I come in peace. Ish.”

  “They don’t understand you,” Teal whispered.

  “I’m damned glad they don’t. Did you get anything of what they said?”

  “They want to know why you’re here and what you want.”

  The first man said a few more words, still in the same angry, forceful tone as before. The second man glanced around and touched one of the control panels next to the airlock.

  “Isn’t war lovely,” Merlin said.

  “I understand them,” Teal said, still in a whisper. “Well enough, anyway. They’re still using the main Havergal language. It’s shifted a bit, but I can still get the gist. How much do you want me to pretend to understand?”

  “Nothing yet. Keep soaking it in. When you think you’ve given it long enough, point to the two of us and make the sound for ‘friend.’” Merlin grinned back at the suited men, the two of them edging away from the lock in opposite directions. “I know; it needs a little work, doesn’t it? Tired décor. I’m thinking of knocking out this wall, maybe putting a window in over there?”

  Teal said something, jabbing one hand at her chest and another at Merlin. “Friendly,” she said. “I’ve told them we’re friendly. What else?”

  “Give them our names. Then tell them we’d like to speak to whoever’s in charge of that planet you mentioned.”

  He caught “Merlin” and “Teal” and the name “Havergal.” He had to trust that she was doing a good job of making her initial efforts seem plausibly imperfect, even as she stumbled into ever-improving fluency. Whatever she had said, though, it had a sudden and visible effect. The crag-faced men came closer together again and now directed their utterances at Teal alone, guessing that was the only one who had any kind of knowledge of their language.

  “What?” Merlin asked.

  “They’re puzzled that I speak their tongue. They also want to know if you have a syrinx.”

  “Tell them I have a syrinx but that it doesn’t work very well.” Merlin was still smiling at the men, but the muscles around his mouth were starting to ache. “And tell them I apologise for not speaking their tongue, but you’re much better at languages than me. What are their names, too?”

  “I’ll ask.” There was another halting exchange, Merlin sensing that the names were given grudgingly, but she drew them out in the end. “Balus,” Teal said. “And Locrian. I’d tell you which is which, but I’m not sure there’d be much point.”

  “Good. Thank Balus and Locrian for the friendly reception. Tell them that they are very welcome on my ship, but I’d be very obliged if the others stopped crawling around outside my hull.” Merlin paused. “Oh, and one other thing. Ask them if they’re still at war with Gaffurius.”

  He had no need of Teal to translate the answer to that particular part of his query. Balus—or perhaps Locrian—made a hawking sound, as if he meant to spit. Merlin was glad that he did not deliver on the gesture; the intention had been transparent enough.

  “He says,” Teal replied, “that the Gaffurians broke the terms of the recent treaty. And the one before that. And the one before that. He said the Gaffurians have the blood of pigs in their veins. He also says that he would rather cut out his own tongue than speak of the Gaffurians in polite company.”

  “One or two bridges to build there, then.”

  “He also asks why they should care what you think of the ones still on your hull.”

  “It’s a fair question. How good do you think you’re getting with this language of theirs?”

  “Better than I’m letting on.”

  “Well, let’s push our luck a little. Tell Balus—or Locrian—that I have weapons on this ship. Big, dangerous weapons. Weapons neither of them will have ever seen before. Weapons that—if they understood their potency, and how near they’ve allowed that ship of theirs to come—would make them empty their bowels so quickly they’d fill their own spacesuits up to the neck ring. Can you do that for me?”

  “How about I tell them that you’re armed, that you’re ready to defend your property, but that you still want to proceed from a position of peaceful negotiation?”

  “On balance, probably for the best.”

  “I’ll also add that you’ve come to find out about a syrinx, and you’re prepared to discuss terms of trade.”

  “Do that.”

  Merlin waited while this laborious exchange was carried on. Teal reached some sort of critical juncture in her statement and this drew a renewed burst of angry exclamations from Balus and Locrian—he guessed they had just been acquainted with the notion that Tyrant was armed—but Teal continued and her words appeared to have some temporary soothing effect, or as best as could be expected. Merlin raised his hands in his best placating manner. “Honestly, I’m not the hair-trigger type. We just need to have a basis for mutual respect here.”

  “Cohort?” he heard one of them say.

  “Yes,” he answered, at the same time as Teal. “Cohort. Big bad Cohort.”

  After a great deal of to-ing and fro-ing, Teal turned to him: “They don’t claim to know anything about a syrinx. Then again, I don’t think these men necessarily would know. But one of them, Locrian, is going back to the other ship. I think he needs to signal some higher-up or something.”

  “It’s what I was expecting,” Merlin said. “Tell him I’ll wait. And tell the other one he’s welcome to drink with us.”

  Teal relayed this message, then said: “He’ll stay, but he doesn’t need anything to drink.

  “His loss.”

  While Locrian went back through the airlock, Balus joined them in the lounge, looking incongruous in his heavily armoured suit. Teal tr
ied to engage him in conversation, but he had obviously been ordered to keep his communications to a strict minimum. Merlin helped himself to some wine, before catching his own pink-eyed reflection and deciding enough was enough, for now.

  “What do you think’s going on?” Teal asked, when an hour had passed with no word from the other ship.

  “Stuff.”

  “Aren’t you concerned?”

  “Terribly.”

  “You don’t look or sound it. You want this syrinx, don’t you?”

  “Very much so.”

  Balus looked on silently as his hosts spoke in Main. If he understood any part of it, there was no clue on his face. “But you seem so nonchalant about it all,” Teal said.

  Merlin pondered this for a few seconds. “Do you think being not nonchalant would make any difference? I don’t know that it would. We’re here in the moment, aren’t we? And the moment will have its way with us, no matter how we feel about things.”

  “Fatalist.”

  “Cheerful realist. There’s a distinction.” Merlin raised his empty, wine-stained glass. “Isn’t there, Balus? You agree, don’t you, my fine fellow?” Balus parted his lips and gave a grunt.

  “They’re coming back,” Teal said, catching movement through the nearest window. “A shuttle of some sort, not just people in suits. Is that good or bad?”

  “We’ll find out.” Merlin bristled a hand across his chin. “Mind me while I go and shave my beard.”

  “Shave your tongue while you’re at it.”

  Merlin had just finished freshening up when the lock completed its cycle and the two suited individuals came aboard. One of them, wearing a green and gold suit, turned out to be Locrian. He took off his helmet and motioned for the other, wearing a red and gold suit, to do likewise. This suit was less ostentatiously armoured than the other, designed for a smaller frame. But when the figure lifted their helmet off, glanced at Locrian and uttered a few terse words, Merlin had no difficulty picking up on the power relationship between the two.

  The newcomer was an old man—old, at least, in Merlin’s reckoning. Seventy or eighty years, by the Cohort way of accounting such things. He had fine, aristocratic features, accented by a high, imperious brow and a backcombed sweep of pure white hair. His eyes were a liquid grey, like little wells of mercury, suggesting a sharp, relentless intelligence.