The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy Novellas 2016

by Paula Guran

  “I’m not evil,” I said.

  I heard whispering and rustling behind the door. Then the more female voice said, “Open this door.”

  “No!”

  They muttered among themselves. Minutes passed. I sunk to the floor, leaning against the door. The blue current sunk with me, streaming through the door at my shoulder; more green leaves bloomed there, some fell down my shoulder onto my lap. I leaned my head against the door and stared down at them. Green tiny leaves of green tiny life when I was so close to death. I giggled and my empty belly rumbled and my sore abdominal muscles ached.

  Then, quietly, calmly, “You are understanding us?” this was the growling voice that had been calling me evil. Okwu.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Humans only understand violence.”

  I closed my eyes and felt my weak body relax. I sighed and said, “The only thing I have killed are small animals for food, and only with swift grace and after prayer and thanking the beast for its sacrifice.” I was exhausted.

  “I do not believe you.”

  “Just as I do not believe you will not kill me if I open the door. All you do is kill.” I opened my eyes. Energy that I didn’t know I still had rippled through me and I was so angry that I couldn’t catch my breath. “Like . . . like you . . . killed my friends!” I coughed and slumped down, weakly. “My friends,” I whispered, tears welling in my eyes. “Oooh, my friends!”

  “Humans must be killed before they kill us,” the voice said.

  “You’re all stupid,” I spat, wiping my tears as they kept coming. I sobbed hard and then took a deep breath, trying to pull it together. I exhaled loudly, snot flying from my nose. As I wiped my face with my arm, there were more whispers. Then the higher pitched voice spoke.

  “What is this blue ghost you have sent to help us communicate?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, sniffing. I got up and walked to my bed. Moving away from the door instantly made me feel better. The blue current extended with me.

  “Why do we understand you?” Okwu asked. I could still hear its voice perfectly from where I was.

  “I . . . I don’t know,” I said, sitting on my bed and then lying back.

  “No Meduse has ever spoken to a human . . . except long ago.”

  “I don’t care,” I grunted.

  “Open the door. We won’t harm you.”

  “No.”

  There was a long pause. So long that I must have fallen asleep. I was awakened by a sucking sound. At first I paid no mind to it, taking the moment to wipe off the caked snot on my face with my arm. The ship made all sorts of sounds, even before the Meduse attacked. It was a living thing and like any beast, its bowels gurgled and quaked every so often. Then I sat up straight as the sucking sound grew louder. The door trembled. It buckled a bit and then completely crumpled, the gold plating on the outside now visible. The stale air of my room whooshed out into the hallway and suddenly the air cooled and smelled fresher.

  There stood the Meduse. I could not tell how many of them, for they were transparent and when they stood together, all I could see were a tangle of translucent tentacles and undulating domes. I clutched the edan to my chest as I pressed myself on the other side of the room, against the window.

  It happened fast like the desert wolves who attack travelers at night back home. One of the Meduse shot toward me. I watched it come. I saw my parents, sisters, brothers, aunts, and uncles, all gathered at a remembrance for me—full of pain and loss. I saw my spirit break from my body and return to my planet, to the desert, where I would tell stories to the sand people.

  Time must have slowed down because the Meduse was motionless, yet suddenly it was hovering over me, its tentacles hanging an inch from my head. I gasped, bracing myself for pain and then death. Its pink withered tentacle brushed my arm firmly enough to rub off some of the otjize there. Soft, I thought. Smooth.

  There it was. So close now. White like the ice I’d only seen in pictures and entertainment streams, its stinger was longer than my leg. I stared at it, jutting from its bundle of tentacles. It crackled and dried, wisps of white mist wafting from it. Inches from my chest. Now it went from white to a dull light-grey. I looked down at my cramped hands, the edan between them. The current flowing from it washed over the Meduse and extended beyond it. Then I looked up at the Meduse and grinned. “I hope it hurts,” I whispered.

  The Meduse’s tentacles shuddered and it began to back away. I could see its pink deformed tentacle, part of it smeared red with my otjize.

  “You are the foundation of evil,” it said. It was the one called Okwu. I nearly laughed. Why did this one hate me so strongly?

  “She still holds the shame,” I heard one say from near the door.

  Okwu began to recover as it moved away from me. Quickly, it left with the others.

  Ten hours passed.

  I had no food left. No water. I packed and repacked my things. Keeping busy staved off the dehydration and hunger a bit, though my constant need to urinate kept reminding me of my predicament. And movement was tricky because the edan’s current still wouldn’t release my hands’ muscles, but I managed. I tried not to indulge in my fear of the Meduse finding a way to get the ship to stop producing and circulating air and maintaining its internal pressure, or just coming back and killing me.

  When I wasn’t packing and repacking, I was staring at my edan, studying it; the patterns on it now glowed with the current. I needed to know how it was allowing me to communicate. I tried different soft equations on it and received no response. After a while, when not even hard equations affected it, I lay back on my bed and let myself tree. This was my state of mind when the Meduse came in.

  “What is that?”

  I screamed. I’d been gazing out the window, so I heard the Meduse before I saw it.

  “What?” I shrieked, breathless. “I . . . what is what?”

  Okwu, the one who’d tried to kill me. Contrary to how it had looked when it left, it was very much alive, though I could not see its stinger.

  “What is the substance on your skin?” it asked firmly. “None of the other humans have it.”

  “Of course they don’t,” I snapped. “It is otjize, only my people wear it and I am the only one of my people on the ship. I’m not Khoush.”

  “What is it?” it asked, remaining in the doorway.

  “Why?”

  It moved into my room and I held up the edan and quickly said, “Mostly . . . mostly clay and oil from my homeland. Our land is desert, but we live in the region where there is sacred red clay.”

  “Why do you spread it on your skins?”

  “Because my people are sons and daughters of the soil,” I said. “And . . . and it’s beautiful.”

  It paused for a long moment and I just stared at it. Really looking at the thing. It moved as if it had a front and a back. And though it seemed to be fully transparent, I could not see its solid white stinger within the drapes of hanging tentacles. Whether it was thinking about what I’d said or considering how best to kill me, I didn’t know. But moments later, it turned and left. And it was only after several minutes, when my heart rate slowed, that I realized something odd. Its withered tentacle didn’t look as withered. Where it had been curled up tightly into itself, now it was merely bent.

  It came back fifteen minutes later. And immediately, I looked to make sure I’d seen what I knew I’d seen. And there it was, pink and not so curled up. That tentacle had been different when Okwu had accidently touched me and rubbed off my otjize.

  “Give me some of it,” it said, gliding into my room.

  “I don’t have any more!” I said, panicking. I only had one large jar of otjize, the most I’d ever made in one batch. It was enough to last me until I could find red clay on Oomza Uni and make more. And even then, I wasn’t sure if I’d find the right kind of clay. It was another planet. Maybe it wouldn’t have clay at all.

  In all my preparation, the one thing I didn’t take enough time to
do was research the Oomza Uni planet itself, so focused I was on just getting there. All I knew was that though it was much smaller than earth, it had a similar atmosphere and I wouldn’t have to wear a special suit or adaptive lungs or anything like that. But its surface could easily be made of something my skin couldn’t tolerate. I couldn’t give all my otjize to this Meduse; this was my culture.

  “The chief knows of your people, you have much with you.”

  “If your chief knows my people, then he will have told you that taking it from me is like taking my soul,” I said, my voice cracking. My jar was under my bed. I held up my edan.

  But Okwu didn’t leave or approach. Its curled pink tentacle twitched.

  I decided to take a chance. “It helped you, didn’t it? Your tentacle.”

  It blew out a great puff of its gas, sucked it in and left.

  It returned five minutes later with five others.

  “What is that object made of?” Okwu asked, the others standing silently behind it.

  I was still on my bed and I pushed my legs under the covers. “I don’t know. But a desert woman once said it was made from something called ‘god stone.’ My father said there is no such . . . ”

  “It is shame,” it insisted.

  None of them moved to enter my room. Three of them made loud puffing sounds as they let out the reeking gasses they inhaled in order to breathe.

  “There is nothing shameful about an object that keeps me alive,” I said.

  “It poisons Meduse,” one of the others said.

  “Only if you get too close to me,” I said, looking straight at it. “Only if you try and kill me.”

  Pause.

  “How are you communicating with us?”

  “I don’t know, Okwu.” I spoke its name as if I owned it.

  “What are you called?”

  I sat up straight, ignoring the fatigue trying to pull my bones to the bed. “I am Binti Ekeopara Zuzu Dambu Kaipka of Namib.” I considered speaking its single name to reflect its cultural simplicity compared to mine, but my strength and bravado were already waning.

  Okwu moved forward and I held up the edan. “Stay back! You know what it’ll do!” I said. However, it did not try to attack me again, though it didn’t start to shrivel up as it approached, either. It stopped feet away, beside the metal table jutting from the wall carrying my open suitcase and one of the containers of water.

  “What do you need?” it flatly asked.

  I stared, weighing my options. I didn’t have any. “Water, food,” I said.

  Before I could say more, it left. I leaned against the window and tried not to look outside into the blackness. Feet away from me, the door was crushed to the side, the path of my fate was no longer mine. I lay back and fell into the deepest sleep I’d had since the ship left Earth.

  The faint smell of smoke woke me up. There was a plate on my bed, right before my nose. On it was a small slab of smoked fish. Beside it was a bowl of water.

  I sat up, still tightly grasping the edan. I leaned forward, and sucked up as much water from the bowl as I could. Then, still holding the edan, I pressed my forearms together and worked the food onto them. I brought the fish up, bent forward and took a bite of it. Smoky salty goodness burst across my taste buds. The chefs on the ship fed these fish well and allowed them to grow strong and mate copiously. Then they lulled the fish into a sleep that the fish never woke from and slow cooked their flesh long enough for flavor and short enough to maintain texture. I’d asked the chefs about their process as any good Himba would before eating it. The chefs were all Khoush, and Khoush did not normally perform what they called “superstitious ritual.” But these chefs were Oomza Uni students and they said they did, even lulling the fish to sleep in a similar way. Again, I’d been assured that I was heading in the right direction.

  The fish was delicious, but it was full of bones. And it was as I was using my tongue to work a long, flexible, but tough bone from my teeth that I looked up and noticed the Meduse hovering in the doorway. I didn’t have to see the withered tentacle to know it was Okwu. Inhaling with surprise, I nearly choked on the bone. I dropped what was left, spat out the bone and opened my mouth to speak. Then I closed it.

  I was still alive.

  Okwu didn’t move or speak, though the blue current still connected us. Moments passed, Okwu hovering and emitting the foul-smelling gasp as it breathed and me sucking bits of fish from my mouth wondering if this was my last meal. After a while, I grasped the remaining hunk of fish with my forearms and continued eating.

  “You know,” I finally said, to fill the silence. “There are a people in my village who have lived for generations at the edge of the lake.” I looked at the Meduse. Nothing. “They know all the fish in it,” I continued. “There is a fish that grows plenty in that lake and they catch and smoke them like this. The only difference is that my people can prepare it in such a way where there are no bones. They remove them all.” I pulled a bone from between my teeth. “They have studied this fish. They have worked it out mathematically. They know where every bone will be, no matter the age, size, sex of the fish. They go in and remove every bone without disturbing the body. It is delicious!” I put down the remaining bones. “This was delicious, too.” I hesitated and then said, “Thank you.”

  Okwu didn’t move, continuing to hover and puff out gas. I got up and walked to the counter where a tray had been set. I leaned down and sucked up the water from this bowl as well. Already, I felt much stronger and more alert. I jumped when it spoke.

  “I wish I could just kill you.”

  I paused. “Like my mother always says, ‘we all wish for many things,’ ” I said, touching a last bit of fish in my back tooth.

  “You don’t look like a human Oomza Uni student,” it said. “Your color is darker and you . . . ” It blasted out a large plume of gas and I fought not to wrinkle my nose. “You have okuoko.”

  I frowned at the unfamiliar word. “What is okuoko?”

  And that’s when it moved for the first time since I’d awakened. It’s long tentacles jiggled playfully and a laugh escaped my mouth before I could stop it. It plumed out more gas in rapid succession and made a deep thrumming sound. This made me laugh even harder. “You mean my hair?” I asked, shaking my thick plaits.

  “Okuoko, yes,” it said.

  “Okuoko,” I said. I had to admit, I liked the sound of it. “How come the word is different?”

  “I don’t know,” it said. “I hear you in my language as well. When you said okuoko it is okuoko.” It paused. “The Khoush are the color of the flesh of the fish you ate and they have no okuoko. You are red brown like the fish’s outer skin and you have okuoko like Meduse, though small.”

  “There are different kinds of humans,” I said. “My people don’t normally leave my planet.” Several Meduse came to the door and crowded in. Okwu moved closer, pluming out more gas and inhaling it. This time I did cough at the stench of it.

  “Why have you?” it asked. “You are probably the most evil of your people.”

  I frowned at it. Realizing something. It spoke like one of my brothers, Bena. I was born only three years after him yet we’d never been very close. He was angry and always speaking out about the way my people were maltreated by the Khoush majority despite the fact that they needed us and our astrolabes to survive. He was always calling them evil, though he’d never traveled to a Khoush country or known a Khoush. His anger was rightful, but all that he said was from what he didn’t truly know.

  Even I could tell that Okwu was not an elder among these Meduse; it was too hotheaded and . . . there was something about it that reminded me of me. Maybe its curiosity; I think I’d have been one of the first to come see, if I were it, too. My father said that my curiosity was the last obstacle I had to overcome to be a true master harmonizer. If there was one thing my father and I disagreed on, it was that; I believed I could only be great if I were curious enough to seek greatness. Okwu was young, like me. And maybe
that’s why it was so eager to die and prove itself to the others and that’s why the others were fine with it.

  “You know nothing of me,” I said. I felt myself grow hot. “This is not a military ship, this is a ship full of professors! Students! All dead! You killed everyone!”

  It seemed to chuckle. “Not your pilot. We did not sting that one.”

  And just like that, I understood. They would get through the university’s security if the security people thought the ship was still full of living breathing unmurdered professors and students. Then the Meduse would be able to invade Oomza Uni.

  “We don’t need you. But that one is useful.”

  “That’s why we are still on course,” I said.

  “No. We can fly this creature ship,” it said. “But your pilot can speak to the people on Oomza Uni in the way they expect.” It paused, then moved closer. “See? We never needed you.”

  I felt the force of its threat physically. The sharp tingle came in white bursts in my toes and traveled up my body to the top of my head. I opened my mouth, suddenly short of breath. This was what fearing death truly felt like, not my initial submission to it. I leaned away, holding up my edan. I was sitting on my bed, its red covers making me think of blood. There was nowhere to go.

  “That shame is the only reason you are alive,” it said.

  “Your okuoko is better,” I whispered, pointing at the tentacle. “Won’t you spare me for curing that?” I could barely breathe. When it didn’t respond, I asked, “Why? Or maybe there is no reason.”

  “You think we are like you humans?” it asked, angrily. “We don’t kill for sport or even for gain. Only for purpose.”

  I frowned. They sounded like the same thing to me, gain and purpose.

  “In your university, in one of its museums, placed on display like a piece of rare meat is the stinger of our chief,” it said. I wrinkled my face, but said nothing. “Our chief is . . . ” It paused. “We know of the attack and mutilation of our chief, but we do not know how it got there. We do not care. We will land on Oomza Uni and take it back. So you see? We have purpose.”

  It billowed out gas and left the room. I lay back in my bed, exhausted.