Science Fiction: The Best of the Year, 2006 Edition

by Rich Horton

  The Negative Spaces are all terribly exciting, and it all makes perfect sense if you think of the set of actors who Kevin Bacon refuses to work with.

  Or I'm told that it all makes sense, if you think of that.

  I smile nicely and try not to let on that I don't quite understand where Kevin Bacon comes into things, although he was very fine in Stir of Echoes which is highly recommended if you like very spooky horror films in which cute boy actors go around with their shirts off.

  Ray, on the other hand, likes spooky horror films in which cute girl actors go around with their shirts off.

  He's rather mannish, in that respect.

  And that, finally, is our secret.

  We have similar interests, but not identical.

  And yes, I mentioned that idly to Kelly and Abbie, who got all excited and started measuring frequencies of average Jenna Space interest-distances in all the couples they knew. There's an optimum range of values, apparently, which Abbie and Kelly call the Hot Spot, and—wouldn't you know—Ray and I fall bang smack in the middle with a score of 1.772, which is now the JennaRay Number and means that our relationship is enshrined forever in psycho-socio-mathematical law.

  "Is that better than being married?” I said to Kelly and Abbie. “I mean, it sounds very pleasing and solid, but is that bond stronger or weaker than—"

  Their eyes went wide.

  "God, that's beauti—"

  I covered my ears and started singing to myself so I couldn't hear them.

  A girl can spark off too many mathematical papers, you know.

  It can get kind of wearing.

  But when Kelly wrestled my hands from my ears and stopped me singing she was breathless and excited but not about maths at all.

  "Let's all get married!” she said. “The four of us! A double wedding!"

  "But no maths,” I said, wanting to take a stand before I said yes. After all, I didn't want to find I was vowing to uphold the value of pi or anything.

  "No maths at all,” she said. “Although of course we'll seat the guests by minimising the distance between neighbours in Ray Space and Jenna Space, while maximising their Negative Ray Space and Negative Jenna Space distances."

  "What does that mean?” I said.

  "That means Cousin Steven sits with the caterers,” said Abbie.

  And that decided it.

  * * * *

  Though of course I hadn't, technically, asked Ray to marry me yet.

  So I waited for an opportune moment. A trip to Paris, say, or a walk along a starlit beach. But as we showed no sign of doing either of those things in the next few hours—and as I'm impatient—I chomped down on the bullet and selected the next most opportune moment.

  That evening we were sitting on my couch, after oral pleasure. Of the ice-cream variety.

  I idly brought up the subject of marriage and watched him closely for signs of falling off the couch in shock and fear.

  He remained admirably vertical.

  "Marriage?” he said.

  "Would ... would that be something you are interested in?” I said.

  "Yes,” he said, with a big soppy smile. He kissed me. I kissed him back.

  Then I looked round for orchestras and fireworks and happy couples on gondolas, applauding, like they always do in movies when the leads get engaged, but as we were alone in my apartment there was a shortage of those sorts of things.

  So instead we clinked our spoons in a celebratory manner, and finished off the rest of the ice cream.

  Then we switched off every phone in the house and went to bed.

  And then we tried to reduce to zero the distance between Jenna Space and Ray Space.

  Which, according to a forthcoming joint paper by a certain couple, is mathematically impossible.

  But, what do you know, we just did great.

  [Back to Table of Contents]

  Understanding Space and Time by Alastair Reynolds

  "Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids"

  —

  Part One

  —

  Something very strange appeared in the outer recreation bubble on the day that Katrina Solovyova died. When he saw it, John Renfrew rushed back to the infirmary where he had left her. Solovyova had been slipping in and out of lucidity for days, but when he arrived he was glad to find her still conscious. She seldom turned her face away from the picture window, transfixed by the silent and vast twilight landscape beyond the armoured glass. Hovering against the foothills of Pavonis Mons, her reflection was all highlights, as if sketched in bold strokes of chalk.

  Renfrew caught his breath before speaking.

  "I've seen a piano."

  At first he did not think she had heard him. Then the reflection of Solovyova's mouth formed words.

  "You've seen a what?"

  "A piano,” Renfrew said, laughing. “A big, white, Bösendorfer grand."

  "You're crazier than me."

  "It was in the recreation bubble,” Renfrew said. “The one that took a lightning hit last week. I think it fried something. Or unfried something, maybe. Brought something back to life."

  "A piano?"

  "It's a start. It means things aren't totally dead. That there's a glimmer of ... something."

  "Well, isn't that the nicest timing,” Solovyova said.

  With a creak of his knees Renfrew knelt by her bedside. He'd connected Solovyova to a dozen or so medical monitors, only three of which were working properly. They hummed, hissed and bleeped with deadening regularity. When it began to seem like music—when he started hearing hidden harmonies and tonal shifts—Renfrew knew it was time to get out of the infirmary. That was why he had gone to the recreation bubble: there was no music there, but at least he could sit in silence.

  "Nicest timing?” he said.

  "I'm dying. Nothing that happens now will make any difference to me."

  "But maybe it would,” Renfrew said. “If the rec systems are capable of coming back on line, what else might be? Maybe I could get the infirmary back up and running ... the diagnostic suite ... the drug synth...” He gestured at the banks of dead grey monitors and cowled machines parked against the wall. They were covered in scuffed decals and months of dust.

  "Pray for another lightning strike, you mean?"

  "No ... not necessarily.” Renfrew chose his words with care. He did not want to offer Solovyova false optimism, but the apparition had made him feel more positive than at any time he could remember since the Catastrophe. They could not unmake the deaths of all the other colonists, or unmake the vastly larger death that even now it was difficult mention. But if some of the base systems they had assumed broken could be brought back, he might at least find a way to keep Solovyova alive.

  "What, then?"

  "I don't know. But now that I know that things aren't as bad as we feared...” He trailed off. “There are lots of things I could try again. Just because they didn't work first time..."

  "You probably imagined the piano."

  "I know I didn't. It was a genuine projection, not a hallucination."

  "And this piano...” The reflection froze momentarily. “How long did it last, Renfrew? I mean, just out of curiosity?"

  "Last?"

  "That's what I asked."

  "It's still there,” he said. “It was still there when I left. Like it was waiting for someone to come and play it."

  The figure in the bed moved slightly.

  "I don't believe you."

  "I can't show you, Solovyova. I wish I could, but..."

  "I'll die? I'm going to die anyway, so what difference does it make?” She paused, allowing the melancholic chorus of the machines to swell and fill the room. “Probably by the end of the week. And all I've got to look forward to is the inside of this room or the view out this window. At least let me see something different."

  "Is this what you really want?"

  Solovyova's reflection tipped in acknowledgement. “Show me the piano, Renfrew. Show me you ar
en't making this shit up."

  He thought about it for a minute, perhaps two, and then dashed back to the recreation bubble to check that the piano was still there. The journey took several minutes even at a sprint, through sunken tunnels and window-lined connecting bridges, up and down grilled ramps, through ponderous internal airlocks and sweltering aeroponics labs, taking this detour or that to avoid a blown bubble or failed airlock.

  Parts of the infrastructure creaked ominously as he passed through. Here and there his feet crunched through the sterile red dust that was always finding ways to seep through seals and cracks. Everything was decaying, falling apart. Even if the dead had been brought back to life the base would not have been able to support more than a quarter of their number. But the piano represented something other than the slow grind of entropy. If one system had survived apparent failure, the same might be true of others.

  He reached the bubble, his eyes closed as he crossed the threshold. He half expected the piano to be gone, never more than a trick of the mind. Yet there it was: still manifesting, still hovering a few inches from the floor. Save for that one suggestion of ghostliness, it appeared utterly solid, as real as anything else in the room. It was a striking pure white, polished to a lambent gloss. Renfrew strode around it, luxuriating in the conjunction of flat planes and luscious curves. He had not noticed this detail before, but the keys were still hidden under the folding cover.

  He admired the piano for several more minutes, forgetting his earlier haste. It was as beautiful as it was chilling.

  Remembering Solovyova, he returned to the infirmary.

  "You took your time,” she said.

  "It's still there, but I had to be sure. You certain you want to see it?"

  "I haven't changed my mind. Show me the damned thing."

  With great gentleness he unplugged the vigilant machines and wheeled them aside. He could not move the bed, so he took Solovyova from it and placed her in a wheelchair. He had long grown accustomed to how frail human bodies felt in Martian gravity, but the ease with which he lifted her was shocking, and a reminder of how close to death she was.

  He'd hardly known her before the Catastrophe. Even in the days that followed—as the sense of isolation closed in on the base, and the first suicides began—it had taken a long time for them to drift together. It had happened at a party, the one that the colonists had organised to celebrate the detection of a radio signal from Earth; originating from an organised band of survivors in New Zealand. In New Zealand they had still had something like a government, something like society, with detailed plans for long-term endurance and reconstruction. And for a little while it had seemed that the survivors might—by some unexplained means—have acquired immunity to the weaponised virus that had started scything its way through the rest of humanity in June 2038.

  They hadn't. It just took a little longer than average to wipe them out.

  Renfrew pushed her along the tortuous route that led back to the bubble.

  "Why a ... what did you call it?"

  "A Bösendorfer. A Bösendorfer grand piano. I don't know. That's just what it said."

  "Something it dragged up from its memory? Was it making any music?"

  "No. Not a squeak. The keyboard was hidden under a cover."

  "There must be someone to play it,” Solovyova said.

  "That's what I thought.” He pushed her onward. “Music would make a difference, at least. Wouldn't it?"

  "Anything would make a difference."

  Except not for Solovyova, he thought. Very little was going to make a difference for Solovyova from this point on.

  "Renfrew...” Solovyova said, her tone softer than before. “Renfrew, when I'm gone ... you'll be all right, won't you?"

  "You shouldn't worry about me."

  "It wouldn't be human not to. I'd change places if I could."

  "Don't be daft."

  "You were a good man. You didn't deserve to be the last of us."

  Renfrew tried to sound dignified. “Some might say being the last survivor is a sort of privilege."

  "But not me. I don't envy you. I know for a fact I couldn't handle it."

  "Well, I can. I looked at my psychological evaluation. Practical, survivor mentality, they said."

  "I believe it,” Solovyova said. “But don't let it get to you. Understand? Keep some self respect. For all of us. For me."

  He knew exactly what she meant by that.

  The recreation bubble loomed around the curve in the corridor. There was a moment of trepidation as they neared, but then he saw the white corner of the floating piano, still suspended in the middle of the room, and sighed with relief.

  "Thank God,” he said. “I didn't imagine it."

  He pushed Solovyova into the bubble, halting the wheelchair before the hovering apparition. Its immense mass reminded him of a chiselled cloud. The polished white gleam was convincing, but there was no sign of their own reflections within it. Solovyova said nothing, merely staring into the middle of the room.

  "It's changed,” he said. “Look. The cover's gone up. You can see the keys. They look so real ... I could almost reach out and touch them. Except I can't play the piano.” He grinned back at the woman in the wheelchair. “Never could. Never had a musical bone in my body."

  "There is no piano, Renfrew."

  "Solovyova?"

  "I said, there is no piano. The room is empty.” Her voice was dead, utterly drained of emotion. She did not even sound disappointed or annoyed. “There is no piano. No grand piano. No Bösendorfer grand piano. No keyboard. No nothing. You're hallucinating, Renfrew. You're imagining the piano."

  He looked at her in horror. “I can still see it. It's here.” He reached out to the abstract white mass. His fingers punched through its skin, into thin air. But he had expected that.

  He could still see the piano.

  It was real.

  "Take me back to the infirmary, Renfrew. Please.” Solovyova paused. “I think I'm ready to die now."

  * * * *

  He put on a suit and buried Solovyova beyond the outer perimeter, close to the mass grave where he had buried the last survivors when Solovyova had been too weak to help. The routine felt familiar enough, but when Renfrew turned back to the base he felt a wrenching sense of difference. The low-lying huddle of soil-covered domes, tubes and cylinders hadn't changed in any tangible way, except that it was now truly uninhabited. He was walking back toward an empty house, and even when Solovyova had been ill—even when Solovyova had been only half present—that had never been the case.

  The moment reached a kind of crescendo. He considered his options. He could return to the base, alone, and survive months or years on the dwindling resources at his disposal. Tharsis Base would keep him alive indefinitely provided he did not fall ill: food and water were not a problem, and the climate recycling systems were deliberately rugged. But there would be no companionship. No network, no music or film, no television or VR. Nothing to look forward to except endless bleak days until something killed him.

  Or he could do it here, now. All it would take was a twist of his faceplate release control. He had already worked out how to override the safety lock. A few roaring seconds of pain and it would all be over. And if he lacked the courage to do it that way—and he thought he probably did—then he could sit down and wait until his air-supply ran low.

  There were a hundred ways he could do it, if he had the will.

  He looked at the base, stark under the pale butterscotch of the sky. The choice was laughably simple. Die here now, or die in there, much later. Either way, his choice would be unrecorded. There would be no eulogies to his bravery, for there was no one left to write eulogies.

  "Why me?” he asked, aloud. “Why is it me who has to go through with this?"

  He'd felt no real anger until that moment. Now he felt like shouting, but all he could do was fall to his knees and whimper. The question circled in his head, chasing its own tail.

  "Why me,” he
said. “Why is it me? Why the fuck is it me who has to ask this question?"

  Finally he fell silent. He remained frozen in that position, staring down through the scuffed glass of his faceplate at the radiation-blasted soil between his knees. For five or six minutes he listened to the sound of his own sobbing. Then a small, polite voice advised him that he needed to return to the base to replenish his air supply. He listened to that voice as it shifted from polite to stern, then from stern to strident, until it was screaming into his skull, the boundary of his faceplate flashing brilliant red.

  Then he stood up, already light-headed, already feeling the weird euphoric intoxication of asphyxia, and made his ambling way back toward the base.

  He had made a choice. Like it said in the psych report, he was a practical-minded, survivor type. He would not give in.

  Not until it got a lot harder.

  * * * *

  Renfrew made it through his first night alone.

  It was easier than he had expected, although he was careful not to draw any comfort from that. He knew that there would be much harder days and nights ahead. It might happen a day or a week or even a year from now, but when it did he was sure that his little breakdown outside would shrink to insignificance. For now he was stumbling through fog, fully aware that a precipice lay before him, and also that he would have to step over that precipice if he hoped to find anything resembling mental equilibrium and true acceptance.

  He wandered the corridors and bubbles of the base. Everything looked shockingly familiar. Books were where he had left them; the coffee cups and dishes still waiting to be washed. The views through the windows hadn't become mysteriously more threatening overnight, and he had no sense that the interior of the base had become less hospitable. There were no strange new sounds to make the back of his neck tingle; no shadows flitting at the corner of his eye, no blood freezing sense of scrutiny by an unseen watcher.

  And yet ... and yet. He knew something was not quite right. After he had attended to his usual chores—cleaning this or that air filter, lubricating this or that seal, scrutinising the radio logs to make sure no one had attempted contact from home—he again made his way to the recreation bubble.