The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

by Kevin J. Anderson

  She finds herself aroused by the thought of grass against her hands, because it is the only thing that she has thought of for a long time that is not the alien or Gary or the Ins and Outs. But perhaps its soft blades against her fingers would feel like the alien’s cilia. Her ability to compare anything with anything else is slipping from her, because there is nothing to compare.

  She feels it inside everywhere, tendrils moving in her nostrils, thrusting against her ear drums, coiled beside the corners of her eyes. And she sheathes herself in it.

  When an Out crawls inside her and touches her in certain places, she tips her head back and moans and pretends it is more than accident. It is Gary, he loves me, it loves me, it is a He. It is not.

  Communication is key, she thinks.

  She cannot communicate, but she tries to make sense of its actions.

  What is she to it? Is she a sex toy, a houseplant? A shipwrecked Norwegian sharing a spar with a monolingual Portuguese? A companion? A habit, like nailbiting or compulsive masturbation? Perhaps the sex is communication, and she just doesn’t understand the language yet.

  Or perhaps there is no It. It is not that they cannot communicate, that she is incapable; it is that the alien has no consciousness to communicate with. It is a sex toy, a houseplant, a habit.

  On the starship with the name she cannot recall, Gary would read aloud to her. Science fiction, Melville, poetry. Her mind cannot access the plots, the words. All she can remember is a few lines from a sonnet, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments” – something something something – “an ever-fixèd mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wand’ring bark. . . .”

  She recites the words, an anodyne that numbs her for a time until they lose their meaning. She has worn them treadless, and they no longer gain any traction in her mind. Eventually she cannot even remember the sounds of them.

  If she ever remembers another line, she promises herself she will not wear it out. She will hoard it. She may have promised this before, and forgotten.

  She cannot remember Gary’s voice. Fuck Gary, anyway. He is dead and she is here with an alien pressed against her cervix.

  It is covered with slime. She thinks that, as with toads, the slime may be a mild psychotropic drug. How would she know if she were hallucinating? In this world, what would that look like? Like sunflowers on a desk, like Gary leaning across a picnic basket to place fresh bread in her mouth. The bread is the first thing she has tasted that feels clean in her mouth, and it’s not even real.

  Gary feeding her bread and laughing. After a time, the taste of bread becomes “the taste of bread” and then the words become mere sounds and stop meaning anything.

  On the off-chance that this will change things, she drives her tongue through its cilia, pulls them into her mouth, and sucks them clean. She has no idea whether it makes a difference. She has lived forever in the endless reeking fucking now.

  Was there someone else on the alien’s ship? Was there a Gary, lost now to space? Is it grieving? Does it fuck her to forget, or because it has forgotten? Or to punish itself for surviving? Or the other, for not?

  Or is this her?

  When she does not have enough Ins for its Outs, it makes new ones. She bleeds for a time and then heals. She pretends that this is a rape. Rape at least she could understand. Rape is an interaction. It requires intention. It would imply that it hates or fears or wants. Rape would mean she is more than a wine glass it fills.

  This goes both ways. She forces it sometimes. Her hands are blades that tear new Ins. Her anger pounds at it until she feels its depths grow soft under her fist, as though bones or muscle or cartilage have disassembled and turned to something else.

  And when she forces her hands into the alien? If intent counts, then what she does, at least, is a rape – or would be if the alien felt anything, responded in any fashion. Mostly it’s like punching a wall.

  She puts her fingers in herself, because she at least knows what her intentions are.

  Sometimes she watches it fuck her, the strange coiling of its Outs like a shockwave thrusting into her body, and this excites her and horrifies her; but at least it is not Gary. Gary, who left her here with this, who left her here, who left.

  One time she feels something break loose inside the alien, but it is immediately drawn out of reach. When she reaches farther in to grasp the broken piece, a sphincter snaps shut on her wrist. Her arm is forced out. There is a bruise like a bracelet around her wrist for what might be a week or two.

  She cannot stop touching the bruise. The alien has had the ability to stop her fist inside it, at any time. Which means it has made a choice not to stop her, even when she batters things inside it until they grow soft.

  This is the only time she has ever gotten a reaction she understands. Stimulus: response. She tries many times to get another. She rams her hands into it, kicks it, tries to tears its cilia free with her teeth, claws its skin with her ragged, filthy fingernails. But there is never again the broken thing inside, and never the bracelet.

  For a while, she measures time by bruises she gives herself. She slams her shin against the feeding tube, and when the bruise is gone she does it again. She estimates it takes twelve days for a bruise to heal. She stops after a time because she cannot remember how many bruises there have been.

  She dreams of rescue, but doesn’t know what that looks like. Gary, miraculously alive pulling her free, eyes bright with tears, I love you he says, his lips on her eyelids and his kiss his tongue in her mouth inside her hands inside him. But that’s the alien. Gary is dead. He got Out.

  Sometimes she thinks that rescue looks like her opening the lifeboat to the deep vacuum, but she cannot figure out the airlock.

  Her anger is endless, relentless.

  Gary brought her here, and then he went away and left her with this thing that will not speak, or cannot, or does not care enough to, or does not see her as something to talk to.

  On their third date, she and Gary went to an empty park: wine, cheese, fresh bread in a basket. Bright sun and cool air, grass and a cloth to lie on. He brought Shakespeare. “You’ll love this,” he said, and read to her.

  She stopped him with a kiss. “Let’s talk,” she said, “about anything.”

  “But we are talking,” he said.

  “No, you’re reading,” she said. “I’m sorry, I don’t really like poetry.”

  “That’s because you’ve never had it read to you,” he said.

  She stopped him at last by taking the book from his hands and pushing him back, her palms in the grass; and he entered her. Later, he read to her anyway.

  If it had just been that.

  They were not even his words, and now they mean nothing, are not even sounds in her mind. And now there is this thing that cannot hear her or does not choose to listen, until she gives up trying to reach it and only reaches into it, and bludgeons it and herself, seeking a reaction, any reaction.

  “I fucking hate you,” she says. “I hate fucking you.”

  The lifeboat decelerates. Metal clashes on metal. Gaskets seal.

  The airlock opens overhead. There is light. Her eyes water helplessly and everything becomes glare and indistinct dark shapes. The air is dry and cold. She recoils.

  The alien does not react to the light, the hard air. It remains inside her and around her. They are wrapped. They penetrate one another a thousand ways. She is warm here, or at any rate not cold: half-lost in its flesh, wet from her Ins, its Outs. In here it is not too bright.

  A dark something stands outlined in the portal. It is bipedal. It makes sounds that are words. Is it human? Is she? Does she still have bones, a voice? She has not used them for so long.

  The alien is hers; she is its. Nothing changes.

  No. She pulls herself free of its tendrils and climbs. Out.

  Kij Johnson is the author of several novels and more than thirty fantasy, science fiction, and slipstream stories; winner of th
e 2009 World Fantasy Award; and a finalist for the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards. She is also the winner of the Theodore Sturgeon Award for best short story of the year, and the IAFA’s Crawford Award, for best new fantasist of the year. She is the vice chairman for the Clarion West Writers Workshop, and an associate director for the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas, where she teaches an annual summer workshop on the novel. She lives in Seattle.

  SFWA AUTHOR

  EMERITUS

  – Neal Barrett, Jr.

  AUTHOR EMERITUS

  – NEAL BARRETT, JR.

  SFWA inaugurated the Author Emeritus program in 1995 to recognize and appreciate senior writers in the genres of science fiction and fantasy who have made significant contributions to our field but who are no longer active or whose excellent work is no longer as well known as it once was. SFWA is proud to name Neal Barrett, Jr. this year’s Author Emeritus.

  Within the past fifty years, Neal Barrett, Jr. has penned such lauded works as Prince of Christler-Coke (2004), Dawn’s Uncertain Light (1989), Through Darkest America (1987), and over 50 other novels in the fields of science fiction, fantasy, western, and mystery. His short works, which number more than 70, have appeared in such major magazines such as Amazing, Galaxy, Omni, The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine.

  His early inspirations included the Barsoom books of Edgar Rice Burroughs, as well as the science fiction of such well-known magazines as Planet Stories, Startling Stories, Astounding, and If. Neal has also lent his enormous talent to the world of juveniles writing Hardy Boys adventures as Franklin W. Dixon and Tom Swift stories as Victor Applegate. He’s also produced novelizations of Judge Dredd and Dungeons & Dragons, and put some time in writing comic scripts for Batman, Predator, Dark Horse Presents, and others. He continues to write and publish. His most recent stories appear at Subterranean Press, and collected in Perpetuity Blues and Other Stories from Golden Gryphon Press.

  NEAL BARRETT,

  JR.: WRITER OF

  EXCELLENCE, AND

  MY BROTHER

  Joe R. Lansdale

  First off, don’t misspell his name.

  It’s Neal, not Neil.

  His first name, as well as his last, has been misspelled as much as my last name, and he hates that. I know. Just to get him going I used to write him letters with his name misspelled, and he in turn would write me letters with Lansdale spelled Landsdale, with two Ds. He always told me that the first D was silent.

  But back to my purpose for being here with you on the printed page.

  It’s hard to express how honored, how excited I am that my good friend, and great writer, Neal Barrett, Jr., is receiving this award.

  For years, Neal has been a favorite writer of mine, and I have actually been amazed at the lack of attention his work has received, compared to that of some others.

  Don’t misunderstand me. I wish all those others the best. I am not saying they are not deserving of their recognitions.

  But Neal Barrett, Jr. is an amazing stylist and creator of some of the most original fiction ever consigned to paper, or computer screen. And to be honest, he has been taken for granted. He has not been without respect or influence. He has taught many a new writer a thing or two with his smooth prose, humorous point of view, and brilliant ideas.

  I am one of those influenced by him, and maybe, considering that admission, I should apologize to him and readers everywhere. I may have learned a thing or two from the master, but Neal, he’s still the man.

  I met Neal . . . Oh, my God! I met Neal in the mid-seventies, though he may not remember it. Met him in Houston, Texas, at a science-fiction convention. I brought a few things of his I had, asked him to sign, and he did. I was there not only because I was a fan of his, knew he was going to be there, but because I, too, wanted to write, and my wife insisted I go because she knew how deeply I loved his work and wanted to meet him.

  I had already sold a few nonfiction articles, and maybe even a piece of fiction or two, but what I remember was, when I first met him and told him I badly wanted to write full time. He told me “Good luck.”

  Seemed he hadn’t figured that whole full time thing out himself. At least not then. That was to come later.

  I also remember that there were some young writers there, my age, a little older in some cases, or a little younger, who wouldn’t give me the time of day. They treated my like a leper. I’ve never forgotten that. I don’t hate them for it, but somewhere in the back of my mind I made a little mark in a mental book, and that mark is still as darkly blood red and clear in my brain as the first day I made it. They knew not what they did. But I damn sure did.

  Neal was different. I’ve never forgotten how kindly he treated a stranger who desperately wanted to make a career as a writer.

  Bless you for that, Neal. You have no idea how encouraging that was then.

  Neal gave me advice. Most of it simple and direct.

  Keep doing it, and keep trying to do it better. This is really the only advice that matters.

  It may not sound profound, but it was exactly what I needed at the time. It was nice to meet one of your heroes and find out they were as special as you hoped they would be.

  A few years later I met Neal again, at AggieCon, and this time we really hit it off. Maybe it’s because I complimented his work again. Neal enjoys that sort of thing, and, he should.

  His work is worth complimenting.

  After that meeting, we not only became fast friends, I soon had the privilege of reading some of his works as they came out of his typewriter, via Xerox and mail. That’s how we did it in the old days.

  It was a real treat to read stories and books by Neal before they were printed. It was great to spend time on the phone talking. We talked about everything under the sun, but mostly we talked about writing. Of course we met in person as often as possible, but we certainly burned those phone wires down, and faxed each other back and forth. In fact, one time Neal sent me a fax sheet with only a spot on it. It said, “Smell. Indian Food.”

  He, who had introduced me to it, knew how much I loved Indian food, so he sent me the fax, called me a few minutes later.

  He said, “Did you smell?”

  “Yep,” I said. “Even though I knew better.”

  “Knew you would,” he said, and hung up.

  But the thing that is more important to me, even than the writing, good as it is, is Neal himself. We have been close friends for over thirty years. We’ve had ups and downs over this and that, but never any ups and downs where one of us fell off the seesaw. In the end, we were always there to balance each other out. We love each other as family.

  Me and Neal, we’ve had some odd adventures together. We attract weirdness alone, but together, we seem to pull it out of the woodwork.

  I adore Neal’s wit. I adore his honesty and loyalty. I adore that he sees curiosity in things other people take for granted, or think of as everyday. He is like a small child when it comes to that. And in many other ways. I think his wife will stand by that statement as well.

  Like me, he loves animals. I adore that. I also adore that he adores his wife.

  Hell, I love the guy. My whole family does.

  And because of that, along with the fact I think he is a worthy recipient of this honor, I write this from the heart: I love you, Neal. I’m glad you are being honored in this way, and I’ve yet to forgive you for giving me a gift of a dollar bill torn in half.

  GETTING DARK

  Neal Barrett, Jr.

  FROM THE AUTHOR: I chose this story for the collection because it came to me in one of those pleasant moments when a writer feels he’s truly done it right this time – that he’s pierced that barrier between the world that seems real, and that other state of being, the one we’ve feared all along.

  I was a child growing up where “John-William’s mother” grew up, and during the very same years. I listened to the radio, read the
funnies, and was deathly afraid of the dark. For me, that awesome, timeless moment between daylight and dark was, as John-William’s mother recalls, “like sorrow come to stay.” I also heard the same grandmother tales that frightened John-William’s mother, and carried many nightmare memories for years. I can’t say what was real and what wasn’t in John-William’s mother’s life, and very possibly she couldn’t either. But that’s the point here, isn’t it? I sincerely hope you enjoy the story, and thank you for the privilege of having it appear in this volume.

  JOHN-WILLIAM’S MOTHER TURNS the water on low and peels carrots in the sink. Wet skins slick-slick quick off the cutter and stick in a huddle where they fall. This is what skins like to do. They like to huddle up, stick with their own kind. Peel a potato and a carrot in the sink, they won’t speak at all, they’ll bunch up with someone they know. Like nigger-folks and whites, thinks John-William’s mother. That’s what Jack used to say. One’s dark and one’s not. One’s that snake in the Garden, would’ve stuck it in Eve, but couldn’t figure how.

  John-William’s mother drops carrots in a pot, puts the pot on the stove. Leaves the skins alone, leaves them where they fell. They look like bird tongues to John-William’s mother, cut-cut dagger tongues, curled up at the end. She thinks about birds, big old black birds, harelipped fat birds without any tongues. “ ’weet! ’weet!” go the birds, poor little birds without any tongues. Poke in a peel now, that’d be fine, stick a little tongue in a pointy yellow bill.

  John-William’s mother peers out the screen door. The birds have black ruffle necks and glitter-green eyes. They perch on phone wires just behind the house. Birds in twos now, birds in threes, birds like notes on the music at Mama Sarah’s house. Note birds hop from one wire to the next. Hop down, hop up, up and down again. The birds play “Summit Ridge Drive,” play “Chatanooga Choo Choo,” and “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” When she hears those songs, John-William’s mother gets a tingle where a tingle shouldn’t ought to be.