Clarkesworld: Year Six

by Aliette de Bodard

  When I return to the moldline with the chessboard, Tchaikovsky is gone and I’m missing my only knight. Vinegar Tom, I’m sure. When I get back to base, I’ll dump out all his Pepto-Bismol. For now, I don’t have any tools to carve a new piece. But there’s the mold, of which I grab a handful. I measure out the perfect size.

  “You ever seen one up close?” Spitzer asks.

  The four of us are north of Tycho, cutting mold squares and tossing them into the grill box. With the base radio still dead, we’ve had to break out the two-way walkie-talkies in our emergency kits. Thankfully, with a week to go, this is our last harvest load.

  “I’ve seen pictures,” says Tamsen.

  “The Megafaun Wars,” Spitzer says between strokes. “Sounds so far away.”

  “One kissed me on the nose before I chopped it off.” I’ll believe a butcher on this.

  I keep cleaving into the mold. Every fifth chop I wipe down the bladeface.

  “Murph?”

  I throw down my cleaver and I take up two baling hooks and I lift the mold square with a heavy grunt.

  “He’s seen them all right,” says Vinegar Tom as he wipes off his own cleaver. “Old Murph had them over for breakfast one morning.” I picture his bucked-tooth grin in the darkness of his helmet. “Thing was, those Megafauns didn’t like his wife’s cooking. They sent it back; they wanted something fresh, something—”

  The mold square in my grip doesn’t hit the ground before I’m already lunging for the bastard, ready to broil him in the grill box. As my head bangs into his chest, we both lose our footing. We hit the mold in a slow freefall—me punching his kidneys with the T-hook handles and him beating down on my back with the cleaver’s butt. Our suits are so thick we can’t really feel it, but it feels good to punch what’s soft and alive. Tamsen and Spitzer shout. Vinegar Tom slams my helmet with his and I pin his arms down in a bearhug. Then something tackles the both of us. We go rolling. Deeper into the mold, we punch and roll until we can’t anymore. Now all I can see is Tom’s name patch and all I can feel is something moving underneath us, then not. Tamsen keeps shouting.

  We bury Spitzer in his suit. It was strange how we hadn’t even heard him gasp when the T-hook cracked his helmet. It only took seconds, I imagine.

  I lock myself in my cabin. I flick off my radio. The walls are too close to pace more than four steps. I can’t sleep. Don’t want to eat. Don’t want to be near anybody but the Russian and even that sounds like an ordeal. I sit down at the same old chess game and plan the same old moves. Rd1+, Rd2+, Ne3, Rg2++.

  I flip the game board into the air. The pieces scatter. I carve whatever pleasure I can out of stomping and grinding and smashing them until I’m surrounded by a gray haze. At this point I turn off the light, switch on my headlamp, and imagine my body atomizing in space, all everywhere forever.

  A knock at my cabin door.

  Tamsen: “You want to spore?”

  Ten minutes later, I’m calm, cool. Tamsen’s yellow eyes glaze over as she sits on the bed opposite me. She cried while we buried Spitzer. I told her over the radio to pull it together, get serious. I’m sure she blames me. But there’s no sign of it now. I have to hand it to her, she would make a lovely lady to share a house and a family and a pet with. “Has anyone ever told you . . . ” but then I don’t know what I’m trying to ask.

  “Told me what?”

  Rising moments of sheer ecstatic nothing. Then: “Do you know any stories?”

  “Only the worst.”

  “I remember one, that’s all.”

  “Better be a good one.”

  “Goodnight comb and goodnight brush.“

  Tamsen sprinkles more spores onto the foil strip. “Weird beginning.”

  “Goodnight nobody and goodnight mush.“

  Tamsen burns the spores, inhales, hands it off.

  “Goodnight to the old lady whispering—” With the next toke, the sinus burn fades into this raincloud drizzle inside my face. It’s a slick, puffy kind of high. I can’t remember the rest. Instead: “I saw you and Tom.”

  Tamsen goes into a loud coughing fit.

  I shrug a little. “It’s fine. We’re all leaving soon.”

  After she recovers, there’s this look on her tinted face that says all the things I haven’t thought of yet: that she already knows, that she’s sorry it happened this way, that if this wasn’t the moon and the Earth wasn’t dry and the animals down there weren’t huge and thirsty, we wouldn’t be up here, we wouldn’t even be us. I lean over to hand her the foil and lighter, but then I stay close. There is a place, on her jaw, that is still colored a fine peach, a place that I am now kissing, it and only it.

  Another knock on the door.

  Vinegar Tom comes in, Desperate Passage in hand. His skin practically glows. “You don’t look so hot,” I say, my voice catching on my lips still shaped around the kiss.

  He looks from me to Tamsen then back to me. If he had a nose, it would have twitched with suspicion. Instead, there’s just a ripple in the folds. He’s in shorts and a muscle shirt. “I feel goddamn hot.”

  Tamsen says, “Lay off the spores then.”

  I can feel his eyes boring into me. “What are you two doing?” He looks worried.

  “I never know,” I say. “Whatever we’re supposed to be doing.”

  “Hatching a plan on where to bury me next, no doubt.”

  “No doubt,” Tamsen says. “Debating how to cook you.”

  “What parts to eat for dessert,” I add.

  He reaches into his pocket. For a knife, no doubt, or an ice scream scoop. Defending myself is the last thing this tingling body’s ready for. Instead, Vinegar Tom throws something small at me. It hits my shoulder and lands in my lap: the black knight. “Left this in Buggy 2,” he says, “and we’re out of Pepto.”

  Tamsen tells him there might be some in Buggy 1. He gives her another eyeful, says without looking at me, “Remember, Murph, if it was cheese out there, this’d be a whole different ball game,” then leaves without shutting the door.

  Tamsen stands quickly, saying she ought to help him.

  “Wait.”

  She does, but the look from before has vanished. Now it’s just yellowyellowyellow again. Even the spot on her jaw. “I killed Spitzer, didn’t I.”

  “Would I let a killer kiss me?”

  “You’d leave one here by himself.”

  “You’re right,” she says. “I would.”

  The day before the transport’s arrival, I take another ride toward Tycho. By habit I bring the chessboard and the one knight with me. The moldline’s only ten miles from base camp and traveling upward of a mile every twelve hours. More and more I’ve decided that when the transport comes, I’m not going to get on it.

  There’ll be the ride back with Tamsen and Tom, them sporing, maybe them trying to fuck one last time in zero-G, the life they’ll probably lead together if the vinegar doesn’t eat his insides, and then my house in Denver, the hole in my basement, no Ralphie. It’s death to stay up here, sure, but no different down there.

  At the moldline, before I even climb out of Buggy 2, there’s Tchaikovsky. Something about that yellow makes him look exceedingly jolly, one capable of cartoon physics. “Come, come, let finish vhat ve began.” I expect him to burst into soap bubbles or grow nine feathery tails.

  “Can’t. Lost all the pieces.”

  “But you have not lost your hands, no?”

  On our knees, we mold a new set together.

  I lose.

  Not because I was wrong about mate in eight moves—that’s entirely true.

  I lost because he had me in seven. Because in the penultimate step, I moved my only knight and opened up the diagonal for his queen to slip in: Qf7++. He knew my plan all along.

  I flick over my black king. “Checkmate.”

  He nods.

  “I’m going to stay here.”

  “Ah, yis, more game.”

  “No,” I say. “When the transport comes,
I’m staying.” I feel overwhelmingly important.

  Tchaikovsky sighs. He plays with one of his pawns. “You have heard Laika, no?”

  A little.

  “Laika you know is happy pioneer, big star.” He sweeps his hands over his head. Then he points at the earth. “Real Laika?—she vas stray. Real Laika vas picked off streets of Moscow and put cage. No one vanted zis dog back, not after space. She vas flash in pan, already wodka under ze cake. Real Laika vas meant to die.”

  “That’s terrible.” The flatness of my own voice unnerves me. I don’t want to talk.

  “Is fine. She vas stray, no? Stray is hard life. Space death: very zimple.” He starts setting up the board again; I don’t have it in me for one more loss. “But it is day ’til launch. Real Laika ready. Ze stray is ready! Then scientist take Laika home. He let Laika play with childs. Scientist say, ‘I vanted to do somezing nice for her.’ Childs laugh. Laika love.”

  “So she had a good last day; so what?”

  “Only good day, Afraham Lincoln. Vithout zis day, she is happy pioneer to beyond. But now she knows.” Tchaikovsky twists his finished pieces so they all face forward, face me. “Childs. Toys. Laughs. Laika vants to come back to zis one good day.”

  The chessboard’s empty spaces, Mare Nubium and the sea of yellow mold, the earth above the horizon like a cheap sticker on a tinted window—a man stands practically weightless in all these gravities, remembering only how his daughters once asked him if dogs knew human words.

  “It’s not a place I want to go back to.”

  “But it is place,” Tchaikovsky says, pushing his king’s pawn to e4. “And ze moon—ze moon is not.”

  I sit down in front of the board. I pick up my black knight. Its slope and eye-notch, this craftsmanship, all are meticulously fine, each one better than the last carving’s. Instead of pushing the bishop’s pawn forward—c6—in the Sicilian Defense, I swing my knight out first.

  Rubbing his hands together like big paws, Tchaikovsky looks pleased with my decision. “You are getting better.”

  Fade to White

  Catherynne M. Valente

  Fight the Communist Threat in Your Own Backyard!

  ZOOM IN on a bright-eyed Betty in a crisp green dress, maybe pick up the shade of the spinach in the lower left frame. [Note to Art Dept: Good morning, Stone! Try to stay awake through the next meeting, please. I think we can get more patriotic with the dress. Star-Spangled Sweetheart, steamset hair the color of good American corn, that sort of thing. Stick to a red, white, and blue palette.] She’s holding up a resplendent head of cabbage the size of a pre-war watermelon. Her bicep bulges as she balances the weight of this New Vegetable, grown in a Victory Brand Capsule Garden. [Note to Art Dept: is cabbage the most healthful vegetable? Carrots really pop, and root vegetables emphasize the safety of Synthasoil generated by Victory Brand Capsules.]

  Betty looks INTO THE CAMERA and says: Just because the war is over doesn’t mean your Victory Garden has to be! The vigilant wife knows that every garden planted is a munitions plant in the War Fight Struggle Against Communism. Just one Victory Brand Capsule and a dash of fresh Hi-Uranium Mighty Water can provide an average yard’s worth of safe, rich, synthetic soil—and the seeds are included! STOCK FOOTAGE of scientists: beakers, white coats, etc. Our boys in the lab have developed a wide range of hardy, modern seeds from pre-war heirloom collections to produce the Vegetables of the Future. [Note to Copy: Do not mention pre-war seedstock.] Just look at this beautiful New Cabbage. Efficient, bountiful, and only three weeks from planting to table. [Note to Copy: Again with the cabbage? You know who eats a lot of cabbage, Stone? Russians. Give her a big old zucchini. Long as a man’s arm. Have her hold it in her lap so the head rests on her tits.]

  BACK to Betty, walking through cornstalks like pine trees. And that’s not all. With a little help from your friends at Victory, you can feed your family and play an important role in the defense of the nation. Betty leans down to show us big, leafy plants growing in her Synthasoil. [Note to Casting: make sure we get a busty girl, so we see a little cleavage when she bends over. We’re hawking fertility here. Hers, ours.] Here’s a tip: Plant our patented Liberty Spinach at regular intervals. Let your little green helpers go to work leeching useful isotopes and residual radioactivity from rain, groundwater, just about anything! [Note to Copy: Stone, you can’t be serious. Leeching? That sounds dreadful. Reaping. Don’t make me do your job for you.] Turn in your crop at Victory Depots for Harvest Dollars redeemable at a variety of participating local establishments! [Note to Project Manager: can’t we get some soda fountains or something to throw us a few bucks for ad placement here? Missed opportunity! And couldn’t we do a regular feature with the "tips" to move other products, make Betty into a trusted household name—but not Betty. Call her something that starts with T, Tammy? Tina? Theresa?]

  Betty smiles. The camera pulls out to show her surrounded by a garden in full bloom and three [Note to Art Dept: Four minimum] kids in overalls carrying baskets of huge, shiny New Vegetables. The sun is coming up behind her. The slogan scrolls up in red, white, and blue type as she says:

  A free and fertile tomorrow. Brought to you by Victory.

  Fade to white.

  The Hydrodynamic Front

  More than anything in the world, Martin wanted to be a Husband when he grew up.

  Sure, he had longed for other things when he was young and silly—to be a Milkman, a uranium prospector, an astronaut. But his fifteenth birthday was zooming up with alarming speed, and becoming an astronaut now struck him as an impossibly, almost obscenely trivial goal. Martin no longer drew pictures of the moon in his notebooks or begged his mother to order the whiz-bang home enrichment kit from the tantalizing back pages of Popular Mechanics. His neat yellow pencils still kept up near-constant flight passes over the pale blue lines of composition books, but what Martin drew now were babies. In cradles and out, girls with bows in their bonnets and boys with rattles shaped like rockets, newborns and toddlers. He drew pictures of little kids running through clean, tall grass, reading books with straw in their mouths, hanging out of trees like rosy-cheeked fruit. He sketched during history, math, civics: twin girls sitting at a table gazing up with big eyes at their Father, who kept his hat on while he carved a holiday Brussels sprout the size of a dog. Triplet boys wrestling on a pristine, uncontaminated beach. In Martin’s notebooks, everyone had twins and triplets.

  Once, alone in his room at night, he had allowed himself to draw quadruplets. His hand quivered with the richness and wonder of those four perfect graphite faces asleep in their four identical bassinets.

  Whenever Martin drew babies they were laughing and smiling. He could not bear the thought of an unhappy child. He had never been one, he was pretty sure. His older brother Henry had. He still cried and shut himself up in Father’s workshop for days, which Martin would never do because it was very rude. But then, Henry was born before the war. He probably had a lot to cry about. Still, on the rare occasion that Henry made a cameo appearance in Martin’s gallery of joyful babies, he was always grinning. Always holding a son of his own. Martin considered those drawings a kind of sympathetic magic. Make Henry happy—watch his face at dinner and imagine what it would look like if he cracked a joke. Catch him off guard, snorting, which was as close as Henry ever got to laughing, at some pratfall on The Mr. Griffith Show. Make Henry happy in a notebook and he’ll be happy in real life. Put a baby in his arms and he won’t have to go to the Front in the fall.

  Once, and only once, Martin had tried this magic on himself. With very careful strokes and the best shading he’d ever managed, he had drawn himself in a beautiful gray suit, with a professional grade shine on his shoes and a strong angle to his hat. He drew a briefcase in his own hand. He tried to imagine what his face would look like when it filled out, got square-jawed and handsome the way a man’s face should be. How he would style his hair when he became a Husband. Whether he would grow a beard. Painstakingly, he drew a double Windsor
knot in his future tie, which Martin considered the most masculine and elite knot.

  And finally, barely able to breathe with longing, he outlined the long, gorgeous arc of a baby’s carriage, the graceful fall of a lace curtain so that the pencilled child wouldn’t get sunburned, big wheels capable of a smoothness that bordered on the ineffable. He put the carriage-handle into his own firm hand. It took Martin two hours to turn himself into a Husband. When the spell was finished, he spritzed the drawing with some of his mother’s hairspray so that it wouldn’t smudge and folded it up flat and small. He kept it in his shirt pocket. Some days, he could feel the drawing move with his heart. And when Father hugged him, the paper would crinkle pleasantly between them, like a whispered promise.

  Static Overpressure

  The day of Sylvie’s Presentation broke with a dawn beyond red, beyond blood or fire. She lay in her spotless white and narrow bed, quite awake, gazing at the colors through her Sentinel Gamma Glass window—lower rates of corneal and cellular damage than their leading competitors, guaranteed. Today, the sky could only remind Sylvie of birth. The screaming scarlet folds of clouds, the sun’s crowning head. Sylvie knew it was the hot ash that made every sunrise and sunset into a torture of magenta and violet and crimson, the superheated cloud vapor that never cooled. She winced as though red could hurt her—which of course it could. Everything could.

  Sylvie had devoted a considerable amount of time to imagining how this day would go. She did not worry and she was not afraid, but it had always sat there in her future, unmovable, a mountain she could not get through or around. There would be tests, for intelligence, for loyalty, for genetic defects, for temperament, for fertility, which wasn’t usually a problem for women but better safe than sorry. Better safe than assign a Husband to a woman as barren as California. There would be a medical examination so invasive it came all the way around to no big deal. When a doctor can get that far inside you, into your blood, your chromosomes, your potentiality and all your possible futures, what difference could her white gloved fingers on your cervix make?