Best Science Fiction of the Year

by Neil Clarke

  “But what about the Assembly?” Euclid asked her one day when they were in the studio, shielded from surveillance by noise and interference of Vega’s crafting. “Do they still care about the purpose of the Ring? Do you think we still have a mission?”

  The war had ended without a clear victor. The SDC-MME had collapsed and the board had been tried, convicted and exiled to long-sleep until a clear treaty could be hammered out. Jupiter, Mars, Venus and some of the richer orbitals had assumed the shares and responsibility of the original solar charter. A tenuous peace existed.

  Dhaka nodded. “I was wondering that too, but look, here’s the name of the company that’s organising our tour.”

  Euclid leaned in to read her screen. Bouscholte, Bouscholte & Abrams.

  Captain Abrams revealed nothing until they were all cramped into the tiny cockpit of a descent craft for Venus’s upper atmosphere.

  He checked for listening devices with a tiny wand, and then, satisfied, faced them all. “The Bouscholte family would like to thank you for your service. We want you to understand that you are in an even better position to help us, and we need that help now, more than ever.”

  They’d come this far. Euclid looked around at the Rovers. They all leaned in closer.

  “The Director of Consolidated Ring Operations and Planetary Reconstruction will be at your concert tonight.” Abrams handed Euclid a small chip. “You will give this to him—personally. It’s a quantum encrypted key that only Director Cutler can access.”

  “What’s in it?” Dhaka asked.

  Abrams looked out the window. They were about to fall into the yellow and green clouds. The green was something to do with floating algae engineered for the planet, step one of the eventual greening of Venus. “Something Cutler won’t like. Or maybe a bribe. I don’t know. But it’s an encouragement for the Director to consider a proposal.”

  “Can you tell us what the proposal is?”

  “Yes.” Abrams looked at the band. “Either stop the redevelopment of Earth and further cement the peace by returning the orbitals inhabitants to the surface, or …”

  Everyone waited as Abrams paused dramatically.

  “… approve a cargo transit across Mercury’s inner orbit to the far side of the Glitter Ring, and give us the contracts for rebuilding the orbital habitats.”

  Dhaka frowned. “I wasn’t expecting something so boring after the big ‘or’ there, Captain.”

  Abrams smiled. “One small course adjustment at the start can change an entire orbit by the end of a journey,” he said to Euclid.

  That sounded familiar.

  “Either one of those is important?” Euclid asked. “But you won’t say why.”

  “Not even in this little cabin. I’m sure I got the bugs, but in case I didn’t.” Abrams shrugged. “Here we are. Ready to change the solar system, Mr. Slinger?”

  Venusian cities were more impressive when viewed from the outside. Vast, silvery spheres clustered thickly in the upper atmosphere, trailing tethers and tubes to the surface like a dense herd of giant cephalopods. Inside, the decor was sober, spare and disappointing, hinting at a slow post-war recovery.

  The band played their first concert in a half-century to a frighteningly respectful and very exclusive audience of the rich and powerful. Then it was off to a reception where they awkwardly sipped imported wine and smiled as their assigned liaison, a woman called Halford, briskly introduced and dismissed awe-struck fans for seconds of small talk and a quick snap.

  “And this is Petyr Cutler,” Halford announced. “Director of Consolidated Ring Operations and Planetary Reconstruction.”

  Bodyguards quickly made a wall, shepherding the Director in for his moment.

  Cutler was a short man with loose, sandy hair and bit of orbital sunburn. “So pleased to meet you,” he said. “Call me Petyr.”

  He came in for the vigorous handshake, and Euclid had already palmed the small chip. He saw Abrams on the periphery of the crowd, watching. Nodded.

  Cutler’s already reddened cheeks flushed as he looked down at the chip. “Is that—”

  “Yes.” Euclid locked eyes with him. The Director. One of the most powerful people in the entire solar system.

  Cutler broke the gaze and looked down at his feet. “You can’t blackmail me, not even with this. I can’t change policy.”

  “So you still redeveloping Earth?” Euclid asked, his tone already dull with resignation.

  “I’ve been around before you were born, Mr. Slinger. I know how generational projects go. They build their own momentum. No-one wants to become the executive who shut down two hundred years of progress, who couldn’t see it through to the end. Besides, wars aren’t cheap. We have to repay our citizens who invested in war bonds, the corporations that gave us tech on credit. The Earth Reconstruction project is the only thing that can give us the funds to stay afloat.”

  Somehow, his words eased the growing tightness in Euclid’s chest. “I’m supposed to ask you something else, then.”

  Cutler looked suspicious. He also looked around at his bodyguards, wanting to leave. “Your people have big asks, Mr. Slinger.”

  “This is smaller. We need your permission to move parts across Mercury’s orbit, close to the sun, but your company has been denying that request. The Rock Devils cohort also wants to rebuild the surviving temporary Earth orbitals.”

  “Post-war security measures are still in place—”

  “Security measures my ass.” Jeni spoke so loudly, so intensely that the whole room went quiet to hear her.

  “Jeni—” Kumi started.

  “No. We’ve sacrificed our lives and our children’s lives for your damn Ring. We’ve made it our entire reason for existence and we’re tired. One last section to finish, that could finish in less than three decades if you let us take that shortcut to get the last damn parts in place and let us go work on something worthwhile. We’re tired. Finish the blasted project and let us live.”

  Kumi stood beside her and put his arm around her shoulders. She leaned into him, but she did not falter. Her gaze stayed hard and steady on the embarrassed Director who was now the centre of a room of shocked, sympathetic, judging looks.

  “We need clearance from Venus,” Director Cutler mumbled.

  Euclid started humming a quick back beat. Cutler looked startled. “Director,” Euclid sang, voice low. He reached for the next word the sentence needed to bridge. Dictator. How to string that in with . . . something to do with the project finishing later.

  He’d been on the stage singing the old lyrics people wanted to hear. His songs that had once been extempo, but now were carved in stone by a new generation.

  But right here, with the bodyguards all around them, Euclid wove a quick song damning him for preventing progress in the solar system and making trouble for the cohorts. That’s right, Euclid thought. That’s where the power came from, singing truth right to power’s face.

  Power reddened. Cutler clenched his jaw.

  “I can sing that louder,” Euclid said. “Loud enough for the whole system to hear it and sing it back to you.”

  “We’ll see what we can do,” Cutler hissed at him, and signalled for the bodyguards to surround him and move him away.

  Halford the liaison congratulated the band afterwards. “You did it. We’re cleared to use interior transits to the other side of the Ring and to move equipment into Earth orbit.”

  “Anything else you need us to do?” Dhaka asked.

  “Not now, not yet. Enjoy your tour. Broadcasting planetwide and recording for rebroadcast throughout the system—you’ll have the largest audience in history.”

  “That’s nice,” Euclid said vaguely. He was still feeling some discomfort with his new status as legend.

  “I can’t wait for the Earth concert,” Captain Abrams said happily. “That one will really break the records.”

  “Earth?” Kumi said sharply.

  Halford looked at him. “After your next long-sleep, for the
official celebration of the completion of the Ring. That can’t happen without the Mighty Slinger and his Rovers. One last concert for the cohorts.”

  “And maybe something more,” Abrams added.

  “What do you mean, ‘more’?” Euclid demanded, weary of surprises.

  Halford and Captain Abrams shared a look—delight, anticipation, and caution.

  “When we’re sure, we’ll let you know,” the captain promised.

  Euclid sighed and glared at the door. He nervously twirled a pair of virtual-vision goggles between his fingers.

  Returning to Earth had been bittersweet. He could have asked to fly over the Caribbean Sea, but nothing would be the same—coral reef islands reclaimed by water, new land pushed up by earthquake and vomited out from volcanoes. It would pollute the memories he had of a place that had once existed.

  He put the past out of his mind and concentrated on the present. The Rovers were already at the venue, working hard with the manager and crew in technical rehearsals for the biggest concert of their lives. Estádio Nacional de Brasilia had become ENB de Abrams-Bouscholte, twice reconstructed in the last three decades to double the seating and update the technology, and now requiring a small army to run it.

  Fortunately Captain Abrams (retired) knew a bit about armies and logistics, which was why Euclid was not at technical rehearsal with his friends but on the other side of the city, waiting impatiently outside a large simulation room while Abrams took care of what he blithely called ‘the boring prep.’

  After ten minutes or so the door finally opened and Captain Abrams peeked around the edge, goggles pushed up over his eyebrows and onto his balding head. “We’re ready! Come in, Mr. Slinger. We think you’ll like what we’ve set up for you.” His voice hadn’t lost that boyish, excited bounce.

  Still holding his goggles, Euclid stepped into the room and nodded a distracted greeting to the small group of technicians. His gaze was quickly caught by an alloy-plated soprano pan set up at the end of the room.

  “Mr. Djansi says you were a decent pannist,” Captain Abrams said, still brightly enthusiastic.

  “Was?”

  Captain Abrams smiled. “Think you can handle this one?”

  “I can manage,” Euclid answered, reaching for the sticks.

  “Goggles first,” the captain reminded him, closing the door to the room.

  Euclid put them on, picked up the sticks and raised his head to take in his audience. He froze and dropped the sticks with a clang.

  “Go on, Mr. Slinger. I think you’ll enjoy this,” Abrams said. “I think we all will.”

  On the night of the concert, Euclid stood on the massive stage with his entire body buzzing with terror. The audience packed into stadium tiers all around him was a faceless mass that rose up several stories, but they were his family and he knew them like he knew his own heart. The seats were filled with Rock Devils, Gladhandlers, Sunsiders and more, all of them from the cohorts, workers representing every section of the Ring and every year and stage of its development. Many of them had come down from Earth orbit and their work on the decaying habitats to see the show.

  Euclid started to sing for them, but they sang for him first, calling out every lyric so powerful and sure that all he could do was fall silent and raise his hands to them in homage and embrace. He shook his head in wonder as tears gathered in his eyes.

  Kumi, Vega, Dhaka and Jeni kept jamming, transported by the energy, playing the best set of their careers, giving him a nod or a sweet smile in the midst of their collective trance as he stood silently crying and listening to the people sing.

  Then it was time.

  Euclid walked slowly, almost reverently, to the soprano pan at the centre of the stage. Picked up the sticks, just as he had in the simulation room. Looked up at his audience. This time he did not freeze. He played a simple arpeggio, and the audience responded: lighting a wedge of stadium seating, a key for each note of the chord, hammered to life when he hammered the pan. He lengthened the phrase and added a trill. The cohorts followed him flawlessly, perfected in teamwork and technology. A roar came from overhead as the hovering skyboxes cheered on the Mighty Slinger playing the entire stadium like it was his own personal keyboard.

  Euclid laughed loud. “Ain’t seen nothing yet!”

  He swept his arm out to the night sky, made it a good, slow arc so he was sure they were paying attention. Then the other arm. Showmanship. Raise the sticks with drama. Flourish them like a conductor. Are you ready? Are you ready!?

  Play it again. This time the sky joined them. The arc of the Ring blazed section by section in sync with each note, and in step with each cadence. The Mighty Slinger and his cohorts, playing the largest instrument in the galaxy.

  Euclid grinned as the skyboxes went wild. The main audience was far quieter, waiting, watching for one final command.

  He raised his arms again, stretched them out in victory, dropped the sticks on the thump of the Rovers’ last chord, and closed his eyes.

  His vision went red. He was already sweating with adrenaline and humid heat, but for a moment he felt a stronger burn, the kiss of a sun where no sun could be. He slowly opened his eyes and there it was, as Abrams had promised. The real last section of the Ring, smuggled into Earth’s orbit during the interior transits permitted by Venus, now set up in the mother planet’s orbit with magnifiers and intensifiers and God knows what else, all shining down like full noon on nighttime Brasilia.

  The skyboxes no longer cheered. There were screams, there was silence. Euclid knew why. If they hadn’t figured it out for themselves, their earpieces and comms were alerting them now. Abrams-Bouscholte, just hours ago, had became the largest shareholder in the Ring through a generation-long programme of buying out rights and bonds from governments bankrupted by war. It was a careful, slow-burning plan that only a cohort could shepherd through to the end.

  The cohorts had always been in charge of the Ring’s day-to-day operations, but the concert had demonstrated beyond question that only one crew truly ran the Ring.

  The Ring section in Earth orbit, with its power of shade and sun, could be a tool for geoengineering to stabilise Earth’s climate to a more clement range . . . or a solar weapon capable of running off any developers. Either way, the entire Ring was under the control of the cohorts, and so was Earth.

  The stadium audience roared at last, task accomplished, joy unleashed. Dhaka, Jeni, Kumi and Vega left their instruments and gathered around Euclid in a huddle of hugs and tears, like soldiers on the last day of a long war.

  Euclid held onto his friends and exhaled slowly. “Look like massa day done.”

  Euclid sat peacefully, a mug of bush tea in his hands, gazing at the cold metal walls of the long-sleep hospice. Although the technology had steadily improved, delayed reawakenings still had cost and consequences. But it had been worth the risk. He had lived to see the work of generations, the achievements of one thousand years.

  “Good morning, Baba.” One of Zippy’s great great grandchildren approached, his dashiki flashing a three-dimensional-pattern with brown and green images of some offworld swamp. This Baptiste, the head of his own cohort, was continuing the tradition of having at least one descendant of the Rovers in attendance at Euclid’s awakening. “Are you ready now, Baba? The shuttle is waiting for you.”

  “I am ready,” Euclid said, setting down his mug, anticipation rising. Every hundred years he emerged from the long-sleep pool. Are you sure you want this? Kumi had asked. You’ll be all alone. The rest of the band wanted to stay and build on Earth. Curiosity had drawn him to another path, fate had confirmed him as legend and griot to the peoples and Assemblies of the post-Ring era. Work hard. Do well. Baba will be awake in a few more years. Make him proud.

  They had done well, so well that this would be his last awakening. The Caribbean awaited him, restored and resettled. He was finally going home to live out the rest of his life.

  Baptiste opened the double doors. Euclid paused, breathed deeply,
and walked outside onto the large deck. The hospice was perched on the edge of a hill. Euclid went to the railing to survey thousands of miles of the Sahara.

  Bright-feathered birds filled the air with cheerful song. The wind brought a cool kiss to his cheek, promising rain later in the day. Dawn filtered slowly over what had once been desert, tinting the lush green hills with an aura of dusty gold as far as the eye could see.

  Come, Baba. Let’s go home.

  Karl Bunker’s short stories have appeared in Asimov’s, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Interzone, Cosmos, The Year’s Best Science Fiction, and elsewhere. In the past Bunker has been a software developer, jeweler, musical instrument maker, artist, and mechanical technician. He currently lives in a small town north of Boston, Massachusetts, with his wife, sundry pets, and an assortment of wildlife.

  THEY HAVE ALL ONE BREATH

  Karl Bunker

  A passing streetcar noticed me on the sidewalk. It slowed to a stop, opening its door and dinging its bell to invite me onboard. I ignored it, preferring to walk. It was hours before dawn, early to be heading home by the standards of some, but I’d had enough club-hopping for one night. My skull, my brain, my body were all still vibrating with echoes of the evening’s music. It was a good feeling, but I wanted to get home and put in a few hours of work before crashing. I was walking down Boylston Street, enjoying the cool evening air.

  There was a loose crowd filling the little plaza at Copley Square. As I walked past, a tall, thin figure separated himself from the rest and called out to me: “James! Hey James, Maestro James!” He laughed, dancing up to me on the balls of his feet.

  “How goes it, Ivan?”

  “Goes good, confrere.” He fell into step beside me, then lifted his hand and pointed straight up. “The sky is busy tonight. I don’t suppose you’ve noticed, walking along with your nose scraping the ground the way you do.”

  I looked up. He was right. White and blue sparklers were winking on and off in a dozen places, and three separate shimmery threads stretched across random patches of the sky.