The Year’s Best Science Fiction: Third Annual Collection

by Gardner Dozois

  Kathy swipes at the back of her booth. “And Charlie’s right. That thing scared me half to death, coming in here like that. And where there’s food being served, too.” She snorts and sprays on more disinfectant.

  Well, she’s a flake. Always has been.

  “The National Enquirer,” Kathy goes on, “told how they have all this firepower up there in the big ship that hasn’t landed yet. My husband says they could blow us all to smithereens, they’re so powerful. I don’t know why they even came here. We don’t want them. I don’t even know why they came, all that way.”

  “They want to make a difference,” I say, but Kathy barrels on ahead, not listening.

  “The Pentagon will hold them off, it doesn’t matter what weapons they got up there or how much they insist on seeing about our defenses, the Pentagon won’t let them get any toeholds on Earth. That’s what my husband says. Blue bastards.”

  I say, “Will you please shut up?”

  She gives me a dirty look and flounces off. I don’t care. None of it is anything to me. Only, standing there with the disinfectant in my hand, looking at the dark windows and listening to the music wordless and slow on the radio, I remember that touch on my arm, so light and cool. And I think they didn’t come here with any firepower to blow us all to smithereens. I just don’t believe it. But then why did they come? Why come all that way from another star to walk into Charlie’s diner and order a green salad with no dressing from an ordinary Earth person?

  Charlie comes out with his keys to unlock the cash register and go over the tapes. I remember the old couple who stiffed me and I curse to myself. Only pie and coffee, but it still comes off my salary. The radio in the ceiling starts playing something else, not the sad song, but nothing snappy neither. It’s a love song, about some guy giving and giving and getting treated like dirt. I don’t like it.

  “Charlie,” I say, “what did those government men say to you?”

  He looks up from his tapes and scowls, “What do you care?”

  “I just want to know.”

  “And maybe I don’t want you to know,” he says, and smiles nasty-like. Me asking him has put him in a better mood, the creep. All of a sudden I remember what his wife said when she got the stitches, “The only way to get something from Charlie is to let him smack me around a little, and then ask him when I’m down. He’ll give me anything when I’m down. He gives me shit if he thinks I’m on top.”

  I do the rest of the cleanup without saying anything. Charlie swears at the night’s take—I know from my tips that it’s not much. Kathy teases her hair in front of the mirror behind the doughnuts and pies, and I put down the breakfast menus. But all the time I’m thinking, and I don’t much like my thoughts.

  Charlie locks up and we all leave. Ouside it’s stopped raining, but it’s still misty and soft, real pretty but too cold. I pull my sweater around myself and in the parking lot, after Kathy’s gone, I say, “Charlie.”

  He stops walking toward his truck. “Yeah?”

  I lick my lips. They’re all of a sudden dry. It’s an experiment, like, what I’m going to say. It’s an experiment.

  “Charlie. What if those government guys hadn’t come just then and the … blue guy hadn’t been willing to leave? What would you have done?”

  “What do you care?”

  I shrug. “I don’t care. Just curious. It’s your place.”

  “Damn right it’s my place!” I could see him scowl, through the mist. “I’d of squashed him flat!”

  “And then what? After you squashed him flat, what if the men came then and made a stink?”

  “Too bad. It’d be too late by then, huh?” He laughs, and I can see how he’s seeing it: the blue guy bleeding on the linoleum, and Charlie standing over him, dusting his hands together.

  Charlie laughs again and goes off to his truck, whistling. He has a little bounce to his step. He’s still seeing it all, almost like it really had happened. Over his shoulder he calls to me, “They’re built like wimps. Or girls. All bone, no muscle. Even you must of seen that,” and his voice is cheerful. It doesn’t have any more anger in it, or hatred, or anything but a sort of friendliness. I hear him whistle some more, until the truck engine starts up and he peels out of the parking lot, laying rubber like a kid.

  I unlock my Chevy. But before I get in, I look up at the sky. Which is really stupid because of course I can’t see anything, with all the mists and clouds. No stars.

  Maybe Kathy’s husband is right. Maybe they do want to blow us all to smithereens. I don’t think so, but what the hell difference does it ever make what I think? And all at once I’m furious at John, furiously mad, as furious as I’ve ever been in my life.

  Why does he have to come here, with his birdcalls and his politeness? Why can’t they all go someplace else besides here? There must be lots of other places they can go, out of all them bright stars up there behind the clouds. They don’t need to come here, here where I need this job and that means I need Charlie. He’s a bully, but I want to look at him and see nothing else but a bully. Nothing else but that. That’s all I want to see in Charlie, in the government men—just small-time bullies, nothing special, not a mirror of anything, not a future of anything. Just Charlie. That’s all. I won’t see anything else.

  I won’t.

  “I make so little difference,” he says.

  Yeah. Sure.

  WALTER JON WILLIAMS

  Side Effects

  There’s an old adage to the effect that we don’t know what we’re looking for until we find it. Here new writer Walter Jon Williams suggests that sometimes we don’t know what we’re looking for even if we do find it …

  Walter Jon Williams was born in Minnesota and now lives in New Mexico. He has sold stories to Omni, Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Far Frontiers, and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction. His novels include Ambassador of Progress, Knight Moves, and Hardwired. Upcoming is a new novel, Icehawks, from Tor. In his spare time he sails small boats in New Mexico, though wiser heads have suggested that the sailboats are figments of his over-fertile imagination, or possibly desert mirages.

  SIDE EFFECTS

  Walter Jon Williams

  1.

  Tolinal (Registered Trademark)

  Prescribing information for this product, which appears on pages 788 and 789 of the PDR, has been revised as follows. Write “See Supplement B” alongside the product heading. Delete the first paragraph of the WARNINGS section and replace with the following:

  Warnings: Hypomagnesemia, hypocalcemia, hypokalemia, and hypophoshatemia have been reported to occur in patients treated with Tolinal and are probably related to renal tubular damage. Tetany has occasionally been reported in those patients with hypocalcemia and hypomagnesemia. Generally normal serum electrolyte levels are restored by administering supplemental electrolytes and discontinuing Tolinal.

  2.

  Angel Hernandez was in his fifties, his hands were calloused, and massive corded muscles enveloped his neck, evidence of a life of manual labor. Old blue tattoos on his forearms were only partially hidden by the rolled-up sleeves. There was a softness around his middle that suggested a fairly steady consumption of beer, but the rest of him was hard. To come and speak to the doctor, he had worn a tie.

  His wife, Filomena, was in her fifties. What had probably once been a voluptuous form had become heavy and shapeless, but her ankles were still delicate above the open-toed high heel sandals she’d worn even through the freezing East Coast spring. Her broad face was expressionless; her white hair was tied back. There were dark smudges beneath her eyes, and in spite of the plumpness of her face, heavy jowls were forming at the corners of her rosebud mouth. She sat in the chair, looking down at her polished toenails. Her husband did all the talking.

  According to her records, she had carried seven living children in ten years. Incredible, Dr. Winkelstein thought. How can people live like this?

  “The thing is,” Hernandez said. His voice was
hesitant. “Is that she don’t mind most of it. All ladies gotta dry up, I guess. But, you know, it hurts. It hurts her, I mean.”

  It took Dr. Winkelstein a few seconds to realize what Hernandez was saying. Oh, Christ, he thought, suddenly understanding. How stupid can these people be? Carefully he assumed a grave and professional expression.

  “Mr. Hernandez,” he said. Hernandez leaned forward to better hear his soft voice: Winkelstein often took care to speak in low tones, finding that it helped people to pay attention. “The decrease of vaginal secretions is a common side effect of menopause. But there are treatments that can relieve it. They’ve been available for years.” He swiveled his chair toward his desk and reached for his pen.

  Hernandez looked at him with hopeless eyes. “How much these treatments gonna cost, Doctor?” he asked. “I been off unemployment for three months, and things are kinda bad right now.”

  Winkelstein, his eyes on his desk, nodded and reached for the permission forms he kept in his drawer. “Under the new regulations,” he said, “the standard hormone cream won’t be covered by Medicaid. But don’t worry.” He began filling out the form, copying carefully from Filomena Hernandez’s file in his strong hand. Kimberlee, he wondered. What am I going to say to Kimberlee when I get home? It would be her second abortion, and she was only seventeen. It wasn’t as if there weren’t birth control available, for chrissakes; he’d prescribed it himself. And her grades were so awful he despaired of getting her into a good school. At least Norton Junior was shaping up well, in his third year of premed at Yale and getting excellent grades.

  “I was just going to mention that there’s a new program just started,” Winkelstein said. “Tempel is making a new product available, and we can prescribe it to your wife. It won’t cost you anything.”

  “We don’t have to pay?” Hernandez looked startled for a moment, then grinned. “That’s pretty good, Doc.”

  “If your wife could fill out this form,” Winkelstein said. He turned toward them in his chair, a sheaf of white, blue, pink, and yellow flimsies in his hand. Hernandez scanned them with a baffled expression, then he knit his brows and began working his way through the print syllable by syllable. His lips moved as he read. He looked up at Winkelstein with a surprised expression.

  “It says somethin’ about my wife being used for in-ves-ti-gational purposes,” he said, spelling it out slowly. “What’s that mean?”

  “It means that since we’re dealing with a new product, I’m required to obtain the consent of Mrs. Hernandez before we can start,” he said. “Don’t worry. What it means is that Mrs. Hernandez will have very good care while she’s in the program, including free monthly checkups.”

  Doubt clouded Hernandez’s eyes, but he pursed his lips and began reading again. Winkelstein nodded thoughtfully to himself. He had long ago learned never to use the word experimental around a patient. For some reason they often took fright.

  “Mrs. Hernandez,” he said softly. For the first time she looked up, her eyes docile, uncomprehending. “Do you have any other symptoms? Hot flashes, night sweats, dizziness, headaches? Perhaps we can help you with those.”

  3.

  TEMPEL PHARMACEUTICALS

  GRANTS-IN-AID

  STATEMENT OF AGREEMENT

  Grant No. 89-T-002

  I, Norton G. Winkelstein, M.D., agree to conduct a study of evaluating the efficacy of Tynadette as reliever of certain postmenopausal symptoms according to the attached protocol approved by the American Division of Tempel Pharmaceuticals, Inc., and me, dated March 22, 1983.

  I understand that the total approved grant for this study is forty thousand—dollars. The initial payment will by $10,000. Subsequent payments will be made according to the following schedule:

  $10,000 upon completion of ½ of the case reports.

  $10,000 upon completion of 2/3 of the case reports.

  $10,000 upon completion of twenty-five (25) case reports.…

  4.

  “Thanks, Doc,” Hernandez said, and stuck out his hand. Winkelstein looked down at it with antiseptic disapproval, then shook it. He looked over Hernandez’s shoulder at his wife’s submissive features.

  “My girl will give you a card with your appointment time,” he said. “Put it somewhere where you can see it.” He had no confidence in Filomena Hernandez’s ability to remember appointment dates.

  The woman nodded and flashed a smile—and for a moment, to Winkelstein’s surprise, a beautiful young lady shone through the wreckage. She must have been quite a catch when she was young.

  In the end she had signed the Informed Consent Form twice; once for the Tynadette study, another for a study for The Baum Company’s Pharmacological Laboratories for a drug designed to suppress Mrs. Hernandez’s hot flashes and night sweats. It was against the study rules, though not the law, to give the same patient more than one experimental drug; but Winkelstein had never seen sense in that. He’d prescribe as he saw fit: and what Tempel and The Baum Company didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt them.

  Winkelstein approved of the precision of the new drugs. Instead of a broadband treatment of the symptoms, the new drugs targeted each symptom individually. There would be fewer side effects that way, less interference with the metabolism.

  He saw the Hernandezes on their way and then turned to wash his hands. They were his last case of the day. It was three o’clock, and on his Health Group days he always left early, hoping to get out of Brooklyn before the rush started. He hated traffic: there was a kind of squalid fervor to it that always upset him.

  He took off his white coat, then stepped to the hall closet where he kept his jacket. He put it on, smoothing the lapels, and then walked to the mirror at the end of the hall to straighten his tie. He could hear the voice of Dr. Asad Ashraf through the transom above the examining room door.

  “Why don’t you wash?” Ashraf asked. His clipped voice displayed annoyance.

  “I’m bleeding,” came the answer. From the sound of her voice, the girl was in her teens.

  “I don’t care. You should wash,” Ashraf said.

  Winkelstein frowned and listened, but Ashraf began to mutter, and he could hear no more. Good, Winkelstein thought. He didn’t want to have to speak to the man.

  Winkelstein owned the Brooklyn Family Health Group in partnership with Dr. Irving Sussman. Winkelstein and Sussman had their regular practices on Long Island and only spent one day each week at the Health Group. The day-to-day work was done by young M.D.’s fresh from school, trying to earn enough to pay off their school debts or buy into a practice somewhere. Here in New York, many of the young doctors were Indians, Pakistanis, or, like Ashraf, Iranians. They all worked hard, but many of them had odd, fastidious cultural notions with regard to basic feminine biological realities. It made Winkelstein wonder why they went into family practice in the first place.

  Winkelstein picked up his briefcase and left the building by the back stair. He wanted to avoid the waiting room: it wasn’t any of his patients’ business when he left—and besides, he always felt a strange, reproachful, and unpleasant contrast when he saw many of his Health Group patients at once. Here in the Health Group, his patients were elderly or disadvantaged, single mothers and young girls without education, the unemployed, the mentally deficient, the foreign-born or hopeless or down-on-their-luck or alcoholic. There were a lot of blacks and Puerto Ricans. Their children were always with them, usually wandering unsupervised in the waiting room, getting in people’s way. The vast majority didn’t carry insurance. Winkelstein couldn’t understand how people could live like that.

  Nevertheless, these people got sick, and it was possible to help them when they did. The state paid most of their bills, and it was often possible to get them on one program or another from one of the pharmaceutical companies. One thing about family practice was that there was always an enormous variety in terms of illness displayed, which the pharmaceutical companies loved because they were always producing a vast number of new chemicals that
needed approval.

  New birth control pills—Winkelstein did a lot of business in those. Other methods of birth control. Pills to relieve arthritic swelling. New methods of asthma relief. Pain relievers. Experimental antibiotics. New hormonal treatments. Interferon. An enormous flow of medicine to help treat heart conditions. Most had never been tested before, except supposedly on animals. The companies needed human subjects, and were willing to pay any qualified M.D. who provided them.

  Filomena Hernandez was a good example. Winkelstein was being paid forty thousand dollars by Tempel Pharmaceuticals to produce twenty-five case studies complying with FDA formalities—which in this case were purely formalities, since Winkelstein happened to know that the FDA had given approval before receiving all the follow-up studies, and that Tempel was mass-marketing the drug within the next six months. All that Winkelstein’s study really meant was that Winkelstein would make sixteen hundred dollars from Mrs. Hernandez alone, and during that time all he had to do to earn the money was sign a few forms, hand out the drugs, and give a free pelvic exam once a month for the next six months.

  On top of the Tempel study, Winkelstein was also getting $32,000 from The Baum Company for the second product Mrs. Hernandez was testing, which meant another $1,250 for the same patient, with no extra work except signing a few forms after having the clerical staff fill them out.

  Mrs. Hernandez was typical. Winkelstein could usually get his patients onto more than one program, the heart patients in particular because there were so many new products jumping onto the market all the time. The Family Health Group was turning record profits.

  Which was good, because though the profits from Winkelstein’s regular practice on Long Island were still higher than those of the Health Group, they were declining. There was no denying that people in general—those who could afford to take care of themselves, anyway—were healthier than they had been. Better diet, more exercise, more care about overwork.…