The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  By and by they came with the hooks and the ladders and the bull’s-eye lanterns and the grapples and the torches. They climbed up from inside the great old house across the alley and then they climbed up the steep-pitched roof. And Eszterhazy climbed with them. (Had he made this climb before? He had … hadn’t he?)

  “Aye, he be dead. And have been. He’m stiff.” This from a volunteer fireman, a coal-porter by his sooty look. “See how wry his neck? He did fell and bruck it.” And:

  “Am these claw-marks?” asked another. Answering himself, “Nay, not here in The Town,” meaning Bella. “I expects he somehow tore himself when he fall … for fall to his dread death ‘tis clear he did, may the Resurrected Jesus Christ and all the Saints have mercy on him and us. Aye. Man did fell.…”

  Dread death.… Mercy.…

  The very-slightly-odd lordship who lived in the smaller and lower house which faced Turkling Street the other side of the alley, he shook his head. “If so, how came he here?” was his question, almost as though asking of himself. “Here—high above the street on the peak of a house with no higher one to fall from? Dead men fall down. They don’t fall up.”

  It was so. There being no more to say to that, they brought the dead man down.

  Old Helen, Baroness Johan’s old housekeeper-cook, served them the traditional hot rum-and-water. While they were sipping it: “Sir Doctor. Pardon, sir. The police want to know who ‘tis. The late deceased. Can Sir Doctor—living ‘cross the lane—tell them who ‘twas and what was doing there?”

  Sir Doctor started to nod. What indeed? Had it all been a dream which he had earlier seen as he lay upon his bed? Or “a vision of the night?” Or—His mouth moved silently; then, “The deceased called himself ‘Melanchthon Mudge.’” he said. He took another swallow of the grog. It was very strong.

  Just as well.

  * * *

  Just as well? Aye, well, add it up. That there were rings which were rings of power was a mere commonplace in the lore of legend. And what Dr. Eszterhazy knew about the lore of legend was more, even, than he knew about anything in which he had ever been granted a degree—though who would grant him a degree in it? The thumb-ring of Duke Pasquale (which Duke Pasquale? did it even matter?) was a very late entry into the lore of legend, and had come to Eszterhazy’s attention only yesterday, as it were. How had Melanchthon Mudge learned of it?—whoever “Melanchthon Mudge” really was? hunted down as though by a leopard and killed as though by a leopard and left high up aloft as though by a leopard. What had he done for the third Napoleon of France and the second Alexander of Russia and the first and last Amadeus of Spain, all men of subsequent ill-fate, that they should have given him (doubtless at his request) portions of the time-scattered Pasqualine jewels? Nothing very good, one might be sure. (Was it all adding up? Well, one would see. Get on with it. Go on. Go on.)

  Was the power of Duke Pasquale’s ring that it gave one a capacity to turn for a while into an animal, a beast, a wild beast? Well could one imagine the glee of roaming wild and free of human form—Well. And once again he marvelled at what must have been the long, long restraint (if this were all true) of the self-imagined Royal couple in never having made use of the Pasqualine ring. Never? “Never” was a longer word than its own two syllables; never? Surely neither of them, old King, old Queen, would ever (never) have used it for mere glee or mere power. Only an inescapable need for defense, for self-defense, the defense of Eszterhazy and the house of Count Cruttz and perhaps of that whole great city of Bella (.… a leopard shall watch over thy cities …) against the great evil thing, the vengeful and killing thing which called itself Melanchthon Mudge, could have impelled them to make use of it. If this were all true: could this all be true? all of it? any of it?—for, if it was not, what was the other explanation? If there was another explanation.

  Try as he might, as he added all this up, Eszterhazy could think of no other explanation.

  * * *

  A dozen frontiers were being “rectified.” A dozen boundaries were changing shape, none of them large enough to show upon a single map in an atlas; but, as to matters of straightening here and bending there, here a square mile and there some several kilometres: a dozen frontiers and boundaries were changing shape. And for every quid a quo, with dust being blown off a thousand parchment charters. In order to assure that a certain area in the Niçois Savoy be restored to its natural outlines, it was necessary to compensate … to, well, compensate two municipalities, one diocese, and … and what was this? to compensate the heirs of the fourth marriage-bed of the august Duke Pasquale III, in lieu of dower-rights, rights of conquest, rights of man, rights of women … rights.

  What cared the historians and the cartographers? and for that matter, what cared the minor statesmen around this particular “green table,” for the right or plight of the heirs of the fourth marriage-bed etc? Nothing. Save that if it were not taken care of, then neither could other boundaries and rights be taken care of, and a certain sand-bar in the Gambia would remain out of bounds and no-man’s-land, to vex the palm-oil and peanut-oil trade of certain citizens of certain Powers.

  “So, you see, Doctor,” said Stowtfuss of the Foreign Office of the Triune Monarchy, “you were quite right in your suggestion and we passed it on and they passed it on; and, now, well, the King of the Single Sicily is still not really King of the Single Sicily and never will be … a good thing for Sicily, and a better thing for him. But now at least he can pretend his pretensions at a healthily higher standard of living. A tidy little income, that, from the old estate in the Nice-Savoy.”

  Eszterhazy nodded. “And his wife needn’t scrub the floor on her aged knees,” he said. Old woman, old wife, old she-cat with claws. And with that one ring of power which wanton Mr. Mudge had so terribly wanted. That he, too, might have claws? And, turning, changing his spots—and more than alone his spots—use such claws in the night?

  “Yes, yes,” said Stowtfuss, pityingly. “Yes, poor chaps, the poor old things. He and his old wife are cousins, you know. They are also related to … what’s the name? her maiden name?… a relation to the poet, same as the old man’s mother’s maiden name, to the poet Count Giacomo—ah yes! Leopardi! Leopardi! Count Giacomo Leopardi was their cousin. I suppose you may guess the animal in that coat of arms.”

  JOE HALDEMAN

  More Than The Sum Of His Parts

  Born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, Joe Haldeman took a B.S. degree in physics and astronomy from the University of Maryland and did postgraduate work in mathematics and computer science. But his plans for a career in science were cut short by the U.S. Army, which sent him to Vietnam in 1968 as a combat engineer. Seriously wounded in action, Haldeman returned home in 1969 and began to write. He sold his first story to Galaxy in 1969, and by 1976 had garnered Nebula and Hugo awards for his famous novel The Forever War, one of the landmark books of the ’70s. His next novel, Mindbridge, sold for a record six-figure advance, and he took another Hugo Award in 1977 for his story “Tricentennial”. His other books include a mainstream novel, War Year, the SF novels Worlds, All My Sins Remembered, and (in collaboration with his brother, SF writer Jack C. Haldeman II) There Is No Darkness; a short-story collection, Infinite Dreams, and as editor, the anthologies Study War No More, Cosmic Laughter, and Nebula Award Stories Seventeen. His most recent books are Worlds Apart, the sequal to Worlds, and Dealing In Futures, a collection. Upcoming are the third volume in the Worlds trilogy, Worlds Enough And Time, as well as several other novels “in various stages of incompletion”. His story “Manifest Destiny” was in our First Annual Collection.

  Here’s a razor-edged story that carries the science of prosthesis to its ultimate conclusion—with unfortunate results.

  MORE THAN THE SUM OF HIS PARTS

  Joe Haldeman

  21 August 2058

  They say I am to keep a detailed record of my feelings, my perceptions, as I grow accustomed to the new parts. To that end, they gave me an apparatus that blind people use for wr
iting, like a tablet with guide wires. It is somewhat awkward. But a recorder would be useless, since I will not have a mouth for some time, and I can’t type blind with only one hand.

  Woke up free from pain. Interesting. Surprising to find that it has only been five days since the accident. For the record, I am, or was, Dr. Wilson Cheetham, Senior Engineer (Quality Control) for U.S. Steel’s Skyfac station, a high-orbit facility that produces foamsteel and vapor deposition materials for use in the cislunar community. But if you are reading this, you must know all that.

  Five days ago I was inspecting the aluminum deposition facility and had a bad accident. There was a glitch in my jetseat controls, and I flew suddenly straight into the wide beam of charged aluminum vapor. Very hot. They turned it off in a second, but there was still plenty of time for the beam to breach the suit and thoroughly roast three quarters of my body.

  Apparently there was a rescue bubble right there. I was unconscious, of course. They tell me that my heart stopped with the shock, but they managed to save me. My left leg and arm are gone, as is my face. I have no lower jaw, nose, or external ears. I can hear after a fashion, though, and will have eyes in a week or so. They claim they will craft for me testicles and a penis.

  I must be pumped full of mood drugs. I feel too calm. If I were myself, whatever fraction of myself is left, perhaps I would resist the insult of being turned into a sexless half-machine.

  Ah well. This will be a machine that can turn itself off.

  22 August 2058

  For many days there was only sleep or pain. This was in the weightless ward at Mercy. They stripped the dead skin off me bit by bit. There were limits to anesthesia, unfortunately. I tried to scream but found I had no vocal cords. They finally decided not to try to salvage the arm and leg, which saved some pain.

  When I was able to listen, they explained that U.S. Steel valued my services so much that they were willing to underwrite a state-of-the-art cyborg transformation. Half the cost will be absorbed by Interface Biotech on the Moon. Everybody will deduct me from their taxes.

  This, then, is the catalog. First, new arm and leg. That’s fairly standard. (I once worked with a woman who had two cyborg arms. It took weeks before I could look at her without feeling pity and revulsion.) Then they will attempt to build me a working jaw and mouth, which has been done only rarely and imperfectly, and rebuild the trachea, vocal cords, esophagus. I will be able to speak and drink, though except for certain soft foods, I won’t eat in a normal way; salivary glands are beyond their art. No mucous membranes of any kind. A drastic cure for my chronic sinusitis.

  Surprisingly, to me at least, the reconstruction of a penis is a fairly straightforward procedure, for which they’ve had lots of practice. Men are forever sticking them into places where they don’t belong. They are particularly excited about my case because of the challenge in restoring sensation as well as function. The prostate is intact, and they seem confident that they can hook up the complicated plumbing involved in ejaculation. Restoring the ability to urinate is trivially easy, they say.

  (The biotechnician in charge of the urogenital phase of the project talked at me for more than an hour, going into unnecessarily grisly detail. It seems that this replacement was done occasionally even before they had any kind of mechanical substitute, by sawing off a short rib and transplanting it, covering it with a skin graft from elsewhere on the body. The recipient thus was blessed with a permanent erection, unfortunately rather strange-looking and short on sensation. My own prosthesis will look very much like the real, shall we say, thing, and new developments in tractor-field mechanics and bionic interfacing should give it realistic response patterns.)

  I don’t know how to feel about all this. I wish they would leave my blood chemistry alone, so I could have some honest grief or horror, whatever. Instead of this placid waiting.

  4 September 2058

  Out cold for thirteen days and I wake up with eyes. The arm and leg are in place but not powered up yet. I wonder what the eyes look like. “They won’t give me a mirror until I have a face.) They feel like wet glass.

  Very fancy eyes. I have a box with two dials that I can use to override the “default mode”—that is, the ability to see only normally. One of them gives me conscious control over pupil dilation, so I can see in almost total darkness or, if for some reason I wanted to, look directly at the sun without discomfort. The other changes the frequency response, so I can see either in the infrared or the ultraviolet. This hospital room looks pretty much the same in ultraviolet, but in infrared it takes on a whole new aspect. Most of the rooms’ illumination then comes from bright bars on the walls, radiant heating. My real arm shows a pulsing tracery of arteries and veins. The other is of course not visible except by reflection and is dark blue.

  (Later) Strange I didn’t realize I was on the Moon. I thought it was a low-gravity ward in Mercy. While I was sleeping they sent me down to Biotech. Should have figured that out.

  5 September 2058

  They turned on the “social” arm and leg and began patterning exercises. I am told to think of a certain movement and do its mirror image with my right arm or leg while attempting to execute it with my left. The trainer helps the cyborg unit along, which generates something like pain, though actually it doesn’t resemble any real muscular ache. Maybe it’s the way circuits feel when they’re overloaded.

  By the end of the session I was able to make a fist without help, though there is hardly enough grip to hold a pencil. I can’t raise the leg yet, but can make the toes move.

  They removed some of the bandages today, from shoulder to hip, and the test-tube skin looks much more real than I had prepared myself for. Hairless and somewhat glossy, but the color match is perfect. In infrared it looks quite different, more uniform in color than the “real” side. I suppose that’s because it hasn’t aged forty years.

  While putting me through my paces, the technician waxed rhapsodic about how good this arm is going to be—this set of arms, actually. I’m exercising with the “social” one, which looks much more convincing than the ones my coworker displayed ten years ago. (No doubt more a matter of money than of advancing technology.) The “working” arm, which I haven’t seen yet, will be all metal, capable of being worn on the outside of a spacesuit. Besides having the two arms, I’ll be able to interface with various waldos, tailored to specific functions.

  I am fortunately more ambidextrous than the average person. I broke my right wrist in the second grade and kept re-breaking it through the third, and so learned to write with both hands. All my life I have been able to print more clearly with the left.

  They claim to be cutting down on my medication. If that’s the truth, I seem to be adjusting fairly well. Then again, I have nothing in my past experience to use as a basis for comparison. Perhaps this calmness is only a mask for hysteria.

  6 September 2058

  Today I was able to tie a simple knot. I can lightly sketch out the letters of the alphabet. A large and childish scrawl but recognizably my own.

  I’ve begun walking after a fashion, supporting myself between parallel bars. (The lack of hand strength is a neural problem, not a muscular one; when rigid, the arm and leg are as strong as metal crutches.) As I practice, it’s amusing to watch the reactions of people who walk into the room, people who aren’t paid to mask their horror at being studied by two cold lenses embedded in a swath of bandages formed over a shape that is not a head.

  Tomorrow they start building my face. I will be essentially unconscious for more than a week. The limb patterning will continue as I sleep, they say.

  14 September 2058

  When I was a child my mother, always careful to have me do “normal” things, dressed me in costume each Halloween and escorted me around the high-rise, so I could beg for candy I did not want and money I did not need. On one occasion I had to wear the mask of a child star then popular on the cube, a tightly fitting plastic affair that covered the entire head, squeezing my pudgy featu
res into something more in line with some Platonic ideal of childish beauty. That was my last Halloween. I embarrassed her.

  This face is like that. It is undeniably my face, but the skin is taut and unresponsive. Any attempt at expression produces a grimace.

  I have almost normal grip in the hand now, though it is still clumsy. As they hoped, the sensory feedback from the fingertips and palms seems to be more finely tuned than in my “good” hand. Tracing my new forefinger across my right wrist, I can sense the individual pores, and there is a marked temperature gradient as I pass over tendon or vein. And yet the hand and arm will eventually be capable of superhuman strength.

  Touching my new face I do not feel pores. They have improved on nature in the business of heat exchange.

  22 September 2058

  Another week of sleep while they installed the new plumbing. When the anesthetic wore off I felt a definite something, not pain, but neither was it the normal somatic heft of genitalia. Everything was bedded in gauze and bandage, though, and catheterized, so it would feel strange even to a normal person.

  (Later) An aide came in and gingerly snipped away the bandages. He blushed; I don’t think fondling was in his job description. When the catheter came out there was a small sting of pain and relief.

  It’s not much of a copy. To reconstruct the face, they could consult hundreds of pictures and cubes, but it had never occured to me that one day it might be useful to have a gallery of pictures of my private parts in various stages of repose. The technicians had approached the problem by bringing me a stack of photos culled from urological texts and pornography, and having me sort through them as to “closeness of fit.”

  It was not a task for which I was well trained, by experience or disposition. Strange as it may seem in this age of unfettered hedonism, I haven’t seen another man naked, let alone rampant, since leaving high school, twenty-five years ago. (I was stationed on Farside for eighteen months and never went near a sex bar, preferring an audience of one. Even if I had to hire her, as was usually the case.)