The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy 2016 Edition

by Rich Horton

  As Major Nuhane condescends from violation space, emerging near a violator yacht in the Southern Local Supervoid, he wonders how he’s going to explain this to the Bureau. They’ll study his ansible. They’ll suspect he tampered with its debt meter, but won’t be able to prove it. What they’ll be able to do is ground him with therapy sessions. Nuhane fears that more than anything.

  The yacht winds up its violation ring, but Nuhane imposes lockdown before the ring completes its first test cycle.

  He barely pays attention as the yacht wavers, begins to dim. His mind is still in violation space, in headlong discovery of joy. Why did he violate without permission? Was it really because of that informant at New McMurdo? The vacuum dweller had given him bad information before. Nuhane had vowed never to use her again. This time she claimed to know someone who knew Phlogiston, a violator no less, and she had coordinates for this violator’s next jump.

  Nuhane didn’t hesitate. The informant was a known liar, her claim preposterous. Nuhane paid her. It was about a promise to Lao Wang, of course—not an excuse to violate.

  “Officer,” a female voice says.

  A video feed follows: twenty naked youths laze about in a garden setting, like an indolent pantheon of gods. Only one woman is standing, a sculpture in translucent flesh with inhuman black eyes and a cloud of silver hair. “I won’t insult your intelligence by denying our crime,” she says. Most of her companions aren’t even looking his way. Some appear to sleep.

  “Big of you,” Nuhane says.

  “You’re with the Bureau. You have violated. You know how it feels.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you know why we do it.”

  They are libertines. They violated purely to experience violation space. Nuhane suspected this when the informant gave him the coordinates. The common breeds of violator—colonists, shippers, transports—have no reason to jump to an inter-filament void. Out here there is only vacuum and a novel view. The lights sprinkled across the blackness are all galaxies. In the varying density of this field, the large-scale structure of the universe is discernible.

  Nuhane suffers a wave of nausea. Nowhere else is the universe’s dumb magnitude more apparent. He allows his cutter to feed him a palliative. He longs for a cave, or the alchemy of violation space. Did Lao Wang ever yearn for it like this? Nuhane remembers a time, long before the old man’s senility, when he seemed obsessed with violation, with its nature. But did he crave it? Perhaps all Bureau officers do.

  “How can you blame us for wanting that transcendence?”

  “I don’t deal in blame,” Nuhane says. “Think of me as a maintenance man.”

  An Apollo in the background chuckles, saying, “There it is.”

  The nymph at his side murmurs, “What did you expect?”

  “I take it you don’t believe in the danger of spacetime fissuring,” Nuhane says.

  A ripple of laughter animates the pantheon. “Do you?” the translucent goddess asks.

  Nuhane hates this old debate, but he wants to feel these people out. “Set aside the overwhelming scientific consensus, if you like. Shouldn’t we proceed with caution? It’s the fabric of spacetime, after all. We need it.” This elicits more laughter, and Nuhane gets angry despite himself—angry at himself, more than these Deniers. He should be used to their kind. The age of unchecked FTL travel, the so-called Age of Innocence, left Deniers scattered across the cosmos. He has to remind himself of the Bureau’s role: not to correct delusional thinking, not even to keep up with the damage, an impossibility. But to act as a deterrent. “Laugh if you like,” he says. “Laugh all the way into lockdown.”

  “Bureau fascist,” the nymph says.

  “You want violation for yourselves,” Apollo says. “First rule of bureaucracy and so on. You imagine what humanity could be given by unchecked violation, and it terrifies you.”

  “You hate freedom,” says another woman.

  They may have tweaked themselves to believe this drivel. Judging by their composure in the face of lockdown, they are no strangers to mental rewrites—and their bodies are certainly customized. Not for the first time, Nuhane wonders what it would be like to see and think like a Denier. Driven by fear. Unable to live with the possibility, however remote, of the universe splitting along its fissures and flying apart. Choosing to believe otherwise.

  Nuhane could go to a clinic, get the tweak. Then he could lose himself in violation. But the notion is fleeting. If he did that, he wouldn’t enjoy the resulting fantasy. Someone new would.

  “You can still stop this lockdown,” the translucent goddess says.

  They haven’t reached the point of no return, but they’re close. Nuhane allows his cutter to underclock him to match their continually slowing reference frame. “That’s right.”

  “We’re rich.”

  “Congratulations. I’m after someone named Phlogiston.”

  Apollo and his nymph stop laughing. The rest of the pantheon subtly emerges from its contrived disinterest. This charged moment takes three months in Nuhane’s resting universe.

  The goddess says: “That’s not his real name.”

  Nuhane is old, a commander, and the dwarf glares murkily just light-seconds away. The ominous substar seems familiar, or perhaps significant beyond its fearsome absurdity.

  “Sir?” It’s patrol officer Wen Ting, his junior partner. He can hear the concern mixed with youthful impatience in her voice. “Jump to orbit, or what?” She knows violation syndrome has him by the throat. How could she not, by now? He remembers his own premonitions as Lao Wang deteriorated.

  They have followed a ragged tear in spacetime to an abandoned long-range rig that only accounts for ninety-one percent of the debt. Something else launched from the rig and likely headed for the dwarf.

  Instead of giving the order Wen Ting craves, Nuhane contemplates the fissure. One of billions now. He gazes into the night and watches them in real time, no matter how far away they are, because they violate. They seem to propagate from him toward a distant haze woven through the microwave background.

  “The L-T object,” Wen Ting prompts.

  Nuhane returns his gaze to the dwarf, remembers they’re here to lock down someone named Willard. The cutter doses him with the latest syndrome therapy. It activates random memories and loosens his tongue: “Patrol Officer, did you know that my people were one of the first branches from baseline humanity? We were called fey because we bred ourselves small and claustrophilic for interstellar travel. And because our enterprise seemed like a death wish.”

  “Fascinating, commander.”

  “We were the first to colonize many worlds. We did it fair and square, no FTL. But on Lalo our civilization collapsed. When a wave of violators arrived, all that remained of us was an underground theocracy. Of course the violator civ also collapsed. They went medieval, demonized us, blamed us for crop failures, plagues, everything. Then they industrialized, declared total wars on each other. Most of our caverns were beneath a republic called Iomang, a desperate state ruled by a madman.”

  “Yes sir,” Wen Ting says absently, then adds, “Something’s orbiting the dwarf.”

  Nuhane feels vaguely insulted. Hoping to embarrass her in turn, he asks, “Why did you join the Church of the Indemnity?”

  “Willard’s shuttle is correcting toward the orbiter,” she says, then seamlessly adds: “My people were violators. The Bureau wasn’t going to let me in. Getting the Church tweak was the only way to prove my loyalty. At least, that’s what I thought before. Now I see that this was the universe’s way of guiding me toward the Faith.”

  Nuhane realizes she’s explained this before. He ends up embarrassed for himself again. Furthermore, he finds nothing to mock in her story.

  With a note of confusion Wen Ting announces: “Grav harmonics from the orbiter, but not the signature of violation tech.” She waits for Nuhane’s order. Nuhane can’t seem to focus. “Jump over and intercept before he can dock?” she prods.

  When she
initiates without consent, Nuhane realizes this mission will be his last.

  Nuhane has been to several Bureau lockdown ceremonies, but Lao Wang’s is the first to fill him with dread of the future. Captain Nuhane feels old for the first time in his life. He is on the observation deck of Achindoun, the Bureau hab that has long stood watch over the Nobly Locked Down. He’s joined by fellow officers and a smattering of Lao Wang’s proxied relations.

  Lagrange point 4 of the Pluto-analog Kvichak and its moon Igiugig: here hang thousands of Bureau officers in their lockdown pods, most of them redshifted beyond casual observation. Lao Wang’s has just shed its attitude jets, having found its place among the others.

  The bagpipes sound, and the lensing of his pod signifies the beginning of lockdown. Some of his loved ones allow their proxies to broadcast sobs. Nuhane wonders what that says about the authenticity of their grief. He can only stare in numb transfixion.

  The old man shoulders four hundred billion two hundred and eighty-seven thousand light-years of Noble Debt—an epic career, but not the record. No one knows why people can only violate so many times before losing their faculties. Most officers don’t break five hundred billion. Nuhane, now at ten billion four hundred and ninety million, wonders how far he’ll go.

  “Reductio ad absurdum,” Lao Wang PMs, “reductio ad infinitum. Redcutio ad absurdum, reductio . . . ” On he goes, repeating his nonsense mantra.

  “Listen Uncle,” Nuhane says. “We both know I’m not half the officer you are. I’ll probably check out long before four hundred big ones. We could emerge from lockdown around the same time. We’d be together, two old maniacs laughing at . . . whatever humanity is by then. How does that sound?”

  “ . . . ad infinitum. Remember that, boy.”

  “Alright.” Nuhane is used to dealing with him like this. He’s glad the old man had the sense to PM him, and not include his relatives.

  “Architectures, paradigms, we all fall down. Ashes, ashes.”

  “Yes, Uncle.”

  “Nuhane.” His transmissions are redshifting fast now.

  “I’m here, Uncle.”

  “Remember that lockdown in Mayall II?”

  “Mayall II . . . ”

  “Andromeda.”

  “Yes. I remember. The slaved pilot. We never found the perp.”

  “Phlogiston. He called himself Phlogiston. There was a file on him. You didn’t rate the clearance at the time, so I couldn’t tell you. He’s important.”

  Nuhane doesn’t know if this is the syndrome talking or not. “I remember wondering what you were hiding. Don’t worry, I’ll look at the file.”

  “It’s gone. They even wiped it from me, somehow, whoever they are. But I know he was part of something big. I know it!”

  “I believe you,” Nuhane says, not sure that he does.

  “Find him. Violate off the books if you have to. Promise me.”

  Nuhane is sure that his other, timeless self is here, reading his life like prose. The more he violates, the more certain he is of this.

  Nuhane’s counselor is Lectern, an instance of a Turing-passable expert system, an ancient Bureau creature possessed of unfathomable secrets. Colonel Nuhane is enduring another therapy session. All he can think about is getting back into violation space, which is the sort of thing Lectern would like to know, and the last thing Nuhane cares to admit.

  “We were talking about your old partner,” the system prods. “His lockdown ceremony.”

  “It was a hundred years ago,” Nuhane prevaricates.

  “Then let’s talk about your debriefing last week,” Lectern suggests.

  “An instance of you was there. Surely you’ve reintegrated by now.”

  “How did the questions make you feel?”

  “Angry.”

  “You violated without authorization. Shouldn’t we be concerned?”

  “For the last time, my ansible went into lockdown before I could request the jump. I was chasing a lead. I made a judgment call.”

  “There’s evidence that you tampered with your ansible. Its debt meter was dialed up.”

  “Like I said, it must’ve been faulty!”

  “Which isn’t supposed to be possible. But Bureau legend has it that Lao Wang knew how.”

  “He taught me a lot of things, but never that.” Nuhane is barely able to convince himself that this charade is about keeping his promise to Lao Wang, and not about hiding his addiction. The old man wasn’t clear, but he seemed to imply that someone inside the Bureau was working with Phlogiston. Nuhane doubts that Lectern is involved, but can’t be sure.

  “This lead you explained to the board . . . ”

  How much longer can he juggle the lies? In addition to the board inquiries, he has a new partner to deal with. She is from the Church of the Indemnity, tweaked to take an almost feline pleasure in the hunt. She wants to inflict lockdowns. She won’t tolerate a prolonged investigation full of dead ends.

  “I think it’s a fabrication,” Lectern continues. “If you’re investigating something off the books, you’d better come clean to the board. Regardless, we need to face the fact of your addiction.” Nuhane waits for the system to take a different tack. “Not today? Then how about your childhood on Lalo-honua? Are you ready to go there yet?”

  Nuhane restrains his irritation. He has always avoided this topic, but for the first time it seems preferable to everything else on the docket. “The bliss of violation space,” he says, “is like confronting infinity. It’s like the most wide open space possible, without fear. For me anyway.”

  “That makes sense,” Lectern says. “There have been two other Fey officers before you. They both said the same thing.”

  This brings Nuhane an odd sense of comfort. He is encouraged to go deeper: “I remember the explosions that opened up the Hall of Star Ancestors. The Iomangans were clever. The sunlight disoriented us.”

  “Disoriented you. Focus on your personal experiences.”

  “I was too young to understand. I thought the Iomangans were monsters. That’s what our priests taught. All I knew was that our world was falling down around us. Many were killed in the collapse.”

  “You saw that?”

  “I saw my father buried. Annihilated in moments. Also my great-great-grandmother, and many cousins.”

  “Go on.”

  “Then there were these giants. I’d never seen them before. They had fire magic, in addition to swords. They killed many, including my grandmothers, before a commander showed up and ordered them to stop. The rest of us were herded to the surface. Up there we were helpless with our phobias, all but blind. I was separated from my mother. They packed us into magic boxes that moved on metal tracks. Many more of us died in those, suffocated or starved. You could say I was lucky, having been packed against one of my great aunts. She opened a vein and fed me her blood. I slowly killed her in order to survive.”

  “No. That wasn’t murder.”

  Nuhane ignores this laughable claim. “And then there were the camps. We children learned how to hide and steal and survive. The adults fell into torpors and died, if they weren’t killed outright. There were medical experiments, you see. And labor they knew we couldn’t sustain. And random sport killings. I know what you’re thinking, Lectern. Don’t worry. I saw these things myself. All of them and more.”

  Nuhane watches the universe blue-shift around him, knowing he is old, that this is his Noble Lockdown—but sure of little else.

  Pseudo acceleration. But no pseudo equivalence principle. He doesn’t feel the gravities. How could he? He’s not going anywhere, not in space anyway.

  How did he get here? What was his last mission? He had another partner after Lao Wang. What was her name?

  His timeless observing other cannot enlighten him. The other wonders, as always, why he knows nothing beyond this lockdown. Does Nuhane die soon? Is it some effect of terminal violation syndrome? An immanent cure? Or is something catastrophic about to happen to time itself? Perhaps scientis
ts underestimated the deleterious effect of violation. Perhaps spacetime is about to unravel.

  Whatever the reason, the timeless other knows he is soon to be no more.

  Colonel Nuhane kneels with the other initiates before the torch-lit altar. Beyond is enshrined a fierce-looking idol, a Taoist god with bulging, hungry eyes. An urgent drum makes the incense-laden air pulse.

  Nuhane endures the ritual like he did his Bureau passing-out. He ought to be happier to be in a nice cave like this.

  “Eight hundred years ago,” declaims a red-robed man, “the emperor Kangxi consigned many Shaolin monks to fiery death. Five survivors escaped to a mountaintop temple, before which, using grass for incense, they formed a sacred brotherhood. They vowed revenge, pledging to oppose the Qing dynasty and restore the Ming.”

  “Fan qing fu ming!” the initiates affirm. Oppose the Qing and restore the Ming.

  “At the Red Flower Pavilion, the Five founded the Hong Society. The Hong conducted heroic but doomed uprisings. One hundred thousand Hong soldiers sacrificed themselves courageously for the Han race.” The man is a good actor. He appears stern and proud. Nuhane has no idea whether or not he’s actually Han—not that it matters. “And the Hong society continues to thrive today!”

  After a sufficient dramatic pause, he adds, “Begin the ceremony!”

  Senior brethren in black robes and red sashes enter the cave. One by one they’re stopped by two guards, who cross their broadswords and shout, “You are entering the Hong army fortress! Disobedience is punishable by death!” The black-robes reply with, “I am a Ming general! I build bridges and roads!” or “I cross mountains and ramparts! Don’t you recognize a brother?” And they’re allowed to pass.

  The stuff about bridges and crossings is uncanny. Nuhane wonders if the ancient Ming rebels had the gift of foresight. This secret society has had nothing to do with Ming restoration since the 20th century, possibly earlier. They devolved into gangsterism, eventually becoming the most powerful hei she hui on old Terra. When the communist party collapsed, they took over China. Two hundred years later, their sole passion was traveling faster than light.