The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “Angela, look!”

  “What is it?” she asked. She reached over with her gloved hands to take the object from him.

  “Gently,” he said as he handed over the sheet. “It’s paper. Real paper.”

  Angela took it and handled it almost reverently. Once again, she looked around the large cavern at the many inscribed marble columns, flashing her light into every dark corner.

  “Paper? That dead wood stuff you told me about? Made from trees?”

  Smith nodded. “It’s true. We’ve found the ancient lost library of New Earth. And maybe, just maybe, in these volumes we’ll find the final clue that will lead us to the location of the original human home world.”

  —Abraham Beard,

  The Searchers (1950)

  The day after my diagnosis, Emma comes to visit me at home. When she rings the bell, I get up from my seat in the living room, where I’ve been watching Forbidden Planet on DVD for the past hour, and I shuffle over to the front door at the end of the hall.

  A cold wind blasts me as I creak open the door. I shiver momentarily as Emma strides past me.

  As I shut the door, she opens the hall closet and lets her hands dance upon the hangers. She ignores the empty wooden ones and selects a blue plastic one.

  “It’s the middle of the day and you’re still in your bathrobe?” she asks me as she slips off her overcoat.

  “I’m retired and it’s the weekend,” I say. “Why should I get dressed up?”

  “Because your only daughter is coming to visit? Oh, never mind.” She hangs up her coat.

  “Where’s Frank and the kids?” I ask her.

  She sniffs. “They decided to stay at home.”

  The kids decided to stay at home. My grandchildren, Zachary and Kenneth. Or Zach and Ken, as Emma told me they prefer to be called. I haven’t seen them in months. “They didn’t feel like schlepping out to Queens?”

  “It’s too cold.”

  “So why the visit?”

  Emma purses her lips and glances at the floor. “I thought it would be nice to see you.”

  I know there must be more to it than that, but I don’t press it. Emma will tell me in her own sweet time. “Are you hungry?” I ask as we walk to the living room. “Do you want something to eat?”

  She smiles. “What are you going to offer this time? A red pepper? A clementine?”

  As it so happens, the refrigerator crisper holds many peppers and clementines, but I refuse to give Emma the satisfaction. “I thought you might want some ice cream.”

  “Ice cream?” she asks with bemusement. “Sure, I’d love some ice cream. Where is it?”

  “It’s in the freezer,” I tell her, although it should be obvious. Where else does one keep ice cream?

  The first thing Larry noticed was the cold. It filled the core of his being, then slowly began to recede as tendrils of warmth entered his body.

  Then he noticed a faint white light blinking in the distance. Either the light became larger or it moved closer, and it continued to pulsate in a regular rhythm.

  And finally he heard a hiss, the sound of air leaking quickly across a barrier. He tried to breathe and felt as if his lungs were filled with liquid. He tried again—

  —when suddenly a door swung open, and Larry realized that he was floating vertically in a round glass chamber. The gelatinous liquid surrounding him quickly drained, and Larry fell into the arms of two men in silver jumpsuits.

  “Easy now,” the taller one said. “Your muscles need time to adjust.”

  Larry shook off their support. “I’m fine,” he croaked. He coughed up some fluid and spoke again. “I don’t need any help.”

  “If you say so,” the taller man said.

  “I do, indeed,” Larry answered. He stretched out of his stoop, and although his legs felt like they would give way, he refused to give these strangers the satisfaction of seeing him fall.

  “Where am I? What’s going on?” he asked.

  “All in due time,” the shorter man said in a thin, reedy voice.

  Larry turned to stare at him. “I am Larry Garner, the richest man on Earth, and I demand you tell me what’s going on, now!”

  The two men looked at each other, and the shorter one shrugged. “Usually, we give people more time to adjust, but if you insist—”

  “I do!”

  “You’re in the future,” the man said. “It’s two thousand years since you died.”

  Larry fainted.

  —Abraham Beard,

  The Unfrozen (1955)

  “Earth to Dad? Hello? Are you there?”

  Emma is waving a hand in front of my face.

  “Sorry,” I say. “I was just thinking. My mind—”

  “Was elsewhen. Yeah, I’ve heard that before.”

  I realize that we are sitting in the dining room and that Emma has scooped two bowls of ice cream, one for each of us. I pick up my spoon and take a bite. It’s butter pecan.

  I hate butter pecan, but I bought some for when Zach and Ken were last here.

  The ice cream is very badly freezer-burned. It’s so cold against my tongue that it hurts. I put the spoon down into the bowl and watch Emma eat her ice cream.

  “You can take the rest of it when you leave,” I say. “The kids might enjoy it.”

  Emma gives me a half-smile. “Even with the cold outside, it’ll probably still melt before I get it home.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  We sit in silence for a few moments, the only sound the tick of the analog clock in the other room, the clock my wife, Sheila, bought when we got married, the clock that hangs above the flatscreen television set that Emma and Frank gave me for my last birthday.

  “So, how are things?”

  “Things are good.”

  “The kids doing well at school?”

  “Yeah.” Emma smiles. “Zach did a PowerPoint presentation on blogging for one of his teachers.”

  I nod and try to keep my face neutral, but Emma sees right through me. “You disapprove?”

  “It’s not that,” I say. “It’s just—”

  “I know what it is. Rant number twenty-three.”

  “I’m not that predictable.”

  She crosses her arms. “Fine. Then what were you thinking?”

  I pause for a moment, but she doesn’t sound sarcastic so I say, “When I was growing up, the future seemed so full of possibilities.”

  “We have possibilities, Dad.”

  I shake my head. “We’ve turned inward. All of us have. We used to dream of a world as big as the sky. Now we’re all hunched over our tiny screens.”

  Emma rolls her eyes. “Like I said, rant number twenty-three. Within three sentences, you’re going from the Internet to the lack of a manned space program again.”

  “You don’t think it’s a problem?”

  “It’s just that I’ve heard it before.”

  “The more true something is, the more it bears repeating.”

  “Nothing bears repeating if you can’t do anything about it.” She sighs. “I mean, seriously, what did you ever expect me to do at the age of twelve when you first warned me about the eventual heat-death of the universe?”

  The starship HaTikvah had finally made it to the edge of the universe. A hopeful mood filled the souls of the fifty thousand humans and aliens who occupied the ship, each the last of their kind.

  On the bridge, Captain Sandra McAllister spoke into her intercom. “Fellow sentients,” she said, “this is the proverbial ‘it.’ The universe is ending, the embers of the stars are fading into nothing, and in a moment we’ll tap into the power of Black Hole Omega. If all goes according to plan, we’ll break out of our dying universe and into a new one, one that’s young and vibrant. Our own personal lives will continue, but more importantly, we will continue to exist in order to be able to remember all of those who came before us.”

  McAllister turned to her first officer and said, “Any time you’re ready, Jacob. Push the button.”<
br />
  Jacob nodded and reached out with his spindly fingers to the Doorway Device. But just as he was about to depress the red button, a blast rocked the ship.

  “What was that?” he cried out.

  Virilion, the ship’s robotic helmsman, replied in a croak, “It’s the Nichashim! They’ve come to stop us!”

  McAllister narrowed her eyes. “Like hell they will,” she said. “Virilion, fire at will! Blast them out of our sky!”

  —Abraham Beard,

  Fire and Ice (1980)

  “Dad? Dad?”

  “You don’t need to shout.”

  “You were gone again,” she says.

  “Perhaps,” I say, “I’m turning inward because I’m getting old.”

  For the first time since she came into the house today, Emma looks worried. “You’re not that old, Dad.”

  I smile at Emma to keep her from noticing the wetness I feel in my eyes. “That’s nice of you to say, but it’s not true. I am old.”

  “You’re only as old as you feel. You told me that once.”

  I shake my head. “It’s hard to feel young when so many of my colleagues are gone.” First Robert, then Isaac, now Arthur, I think, although I don’t say it aloud. I know Emma too well; she might laugh at me for placing myself among such giants.

  Instead, she doesn’t seem to know what to say in response. She fidgets for a few seconds, eats some more ice cream, and then changes the subject.

  “Listen, Dad, I’m here because I have news.”

  “Funny, so do I. You go first.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure. What is it?” I ask.

  She takes a deep breath and looks me in the eye. “We’re moving to California.”

  Jackie looked at the gleaming silver spaceship with portholes running all up and down its sides. She felt more excited than she ever had before in her six years of life. Soon, her family would leave behind this polluted, depressing planet for a new world filled with cool green fields, rich with possibilities.

  Jackie’s mother and father held tightly onto her hands as the three of them walked in the line out onto the launching pad. The hoverlift floated next to them, carrying their luggage, while Jackie’s robot dog kept running ahead and back toward Jackie, matching her excitement.

  Finally, after what seemed like hours but Jackie knew was only minutes according to her chronometer, Jackie and her parents made it to the open hatch of the spaceship. A stewardess, her hair dyed platinum blonde, stood at the doorway greeting the immigrants with a big smile. She took their tickets and welcomed them aboard.

  “Is this really it, Dad?” Jackie asked.

  Her father removed the pipe from his mouth and smiled. “It is indeed,” he said. “Goodbye, Earth! Next stop, Mars!”

  —Abraham Beard,

  The Burns Family on Mars (1960)

  “Dad? You’re gone again.”

  “No, I’m not,” I say.

  “So,” Emma says. “We’re moving to California.”

  “Why?”

  She takes a deep breath. “Frank’s got a new job. UCLA is offering him a tenured position. Full professor.”

  “UCLA. Hmm. California.” I try to sound as noncommittal as possible, although Emma must know how much this news hurts me.

  “Yes, California.”

  “From what I hear, California is a nice place.”

  She frowns and looks puzzled. “Aren’t you going to object?”

  “Are you asking me to?”

  “Don’t you even want to know why we’re moving?”

  “You told me – Frank’s got a job offer.” I pause. “What about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “I don’t think you’ll be able to keep working at the New-York Historical Society if you’re living in L.A. Have you found a job at a museum there?”

  Now she pauses before speaking. “I’m not planning to get another job, at least not right away.”

  “Oh?”

  “I want to be there full time for the kids.”

  I stare into her eyes, seeing the six-year-old girl who wanted nothing more than to be the first astronaut to walk on Jupiter. “Is that really what you want?”

  She glares at me. “I think at least one parent should be devoted full time to raising the kids.”

  I feel the sting of her words. I consider once again telling her what I’ve told her before: that times were tough, that money was tight, and that Sheila and I both had to work to support Emma properly. But then I recall the many times I shut the door of my home office on Emma to meet a deadline, and I realize that the chance for apologies and explanations has passed far into the mists of time.

  Allen Davidoff walked around the floating cube of mist, careful not to let any of the tendrils touch him. There was nothing else on this planet for miles around.

  The Keeper, still covered entirely in her white garment, walked three paces behind him until he finally came to a stop.

  He turned to face her. “Impressive,” he said. “An atmospheric phenomenon?”

  She laughed and her hazel eyes twinkled. “You are pretending to be the fool,” she said. “You know better than that.”

  Allen nodded; she was right. He did know better, but he had previously allowed his hopes to be raised during his quixotic quest only to have them dashed time and time again.

  “Then I’ve really found it?” he asked.

  She nodded. “You have indeed.”

  Allen looked back into the white mist. “It’s the Gateway of Time,” he said. “I can go anywhen into the time stream I want.”

  “It’s the Gateway of Time,” the Keeper echoed. “You can go to any time period and any location in the universe you want. But there is one problem.”

  Allen waited. The Keeper remained silent as Allen’s watch ticked off the seconds, and so finally he asked, “What’s the problem?”

  The Keeper grinned evilly. “The only problem is, once you’ve made your choice and entered the past, you can never return. The trip is one way and final.”

  “So—”

  “So choose wisely.”

  —Abraham Beard,

  Amidst the Mists (1991)

  “I hope it works out for you,” I say. “You know that I only want what’s best for you and the kids.”

  If she notices that I don’t mention Frank, she doesn’t say anything about it. Instead, she nods and says, “You said before that you had news as well.”

  I open my mouth to tell her about my diagnosis, as I had planned to do when she first called to tell me that she and the family wanted to see me, but then I hold back. I’m not dying yet, but I am old. My doctors say that my mind is not as sharp as it once was and my years are drawing to a close. If I tell her, maybe she and Frank will postpone the move, or at least stay closer to New York City, so I can keep seeing them in my dwindling, final days.

  The last man on Earth said farewell to the spaceship carrying the rest of humanity to the stars. As the ship became a tiny dot in the sky, he took a deep breath of the fresh air and smiled. Someone had to watch over the planet as it was dying, and it was only right, he felt, that it should be he, and only he.

  —Abraham Beard,

  The Final Days of Planet Earth (1970)

  I decide not to tell Emma about the diagnosis. It wouldn’t be fair to her or the kids to add that factor into the equation. But she’s waiting for me to tell her my news, and I only have one other piece of news to share. It’s extremely private, and possibly just the first symptom of my oncoming dementia, but I’ve felt the need to tell someone. And Emma is here, and Sheila is no longer here.

  “Emma, may I confide in you?”

  She tilts her head. “You never have before.”

  I open my mouth to object, and then realize that she has a point.

  “Well, I want to confide in you now. You know all those stories, all those novels that I wrote?”

  “Yes,” she says flatly. “What about them?”

/>   “My entire life, I never felt like I was coming up with anything on my own.” I stare over her shoulder. “Sometimes, when I was lying awake at two or three in the morning, I would get the feeling that the images in my mind weren’t just things I was making up myself. I felt as if I was a conduit, as if I had lifted an antenna into some sort of cosmic fog and that I was receiving messages, real messages, from the future in my dreams.”

  Emma sits stoically as I tell her this. I don’t know what reaction I am hoping for, but Emma rolling her eyes is definitely not it. Still, it’s what she gives me.

  “So what’s the news?”

  “I’m not really sure,” I say. “You know how I haven’t written anything new for five years now? That’s because the messages stopped. Except . . .”

  “Except what?”

  “The dreams have started up again. I’ve been waking up again in the middle of most nights, feeling as if the future is trying to reach me one more time. But as soon as I wake up, the images the future is trying to send me recede into the distance.”

  She sighs and stands up; I can’t tell if she’s angry or just frustrated. “You’re bouncing story ideas off of me again, aren’t you?”

  “No,” I say, shaking my head. “No, I’m not. This is really happening to me.”

  Emma’s expression is pitiful. “So that’s your excuse,” she says softly. “The future was really trying to contact you, and that’s why you always had your head lost in the clouds.”

  I try to protest, but, ironically, I have no words. Emma picks up the bowls and used spoons and takes them into the kitchen. I hear her wash them quickly and leave them on the drainer while I sit at the table, unsure of what to say to her to make it all better.

  She emerges from the kitchen and dashes through to the hall closet. I hear her put on her coat, and then she is back in the dining room, standing over me.

  “Dad, you were always so busy living in the future that you never enjoyed your present. And now you don’t even live in the future anymore. You’re living in the past.”