The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2020

by John Joseph Adams

  “Why did you hide this from us?” a steward asked Hutchins.

  “That clip was taken nearly fifty-five years ago!” Hutchins stormed. “It’s completely immaterial. We analyzed it numerous times and learned nothing. We don’t know what the captain was doing at the time. It could have been a pH test. It could have been an experiment!”

  “Not an experiment,” Mafokeng said, shaking her head. “Not an experiment at all. This was a ritual. Look at the way the people addressing the captain exaggerate their movements as they present the captain with whatever is in their hand. Look at the water she is dropping it into. It is like a raised dais—like an altar. That place is important to them. Important enough that they don’t just hand it over; they’re dancing, moving their entire bodies to underscore its significance. This is a symbolic act. They are feeding the fish that keep their crew alive, and whatever has been handed over is precious. This was a virtuous cycle, a cycle of renewal and sustenance, one that was essential to the mission. The images you shared with us, Steward Hutchins, were taken much later, several decades later, in fact, and we can assume that the culture evolved along with it. And I believe you left one important piece of information out—that the images you shared were also shared deliberately. They were not automated. We did not catch them in the act, as it were. The images were meant to show us the act in all its grim practicality. They were showing us how they survived.”

  Hutchins stood there contemplating Mafokeng’s words, but she could see that he was not swayed. “Steward Mafokeng, if I may present my point of view.”

  “Of course.”

  “And the point of view of the council, and the president, all of whom voted unanimously to retire the ship. The Covenant is crystal clear on a prohibition against cannibalism. There is no exception for anthropophagy, or what you call human sacrifice. The reason is that we are not supposed to interpret their actions. When we spot cannibalism, we are supposed to condemn it. And we have. Your theories are fascinating—insightful, even. But they do not take away from the fact that these people are consuming human flesh. Your obstinance in the face of these facts makes you the barbarian. You will be the one who is blamed when the public learns that a council member wanted to permit cannibalism aboard one of our ships—the very ships designed to save civilization as we know it. They needn’t know that a steward who lost her ship was driven crazy with guilt from the loss and would do anything to prevent the loss of another, even if its passengers embodied evil itself. Or that the steward herself was born into mining royalty and never knew true suffering.”

  Mafokeng reeled at the insinuation. Her family had already shamed her enough for her failures.

  “Steward Mafokeng,” he went on, “we are offering you our hand. You can join us and we will unite as one voice condemning the act together. No one need know of your dissent. Cast your vote for retirement and we can move, as a body, to focus our energies on the remaining ships so that they do not suffer such a terrible fate. If you don’t, you will be overruled and the shame you feel will be of your own making.”

  Mafokeng considered Hutchins’s offer, wondering if he was correct, that she was merely ignoring the evidence before her eyes. The guilt she felt was real, and her life had been shaped by the loss of her own ship, causing even her retreat to Earth, where she wallowed in her dignified isolation underground. What did he see with those augmented eyes? Which members of the council were leaning to his point of view? She felt hopelessly blind as she watched the impassive faces of the other stewards. She had no deep insight like he did into what they were thinking. Hutchins was right; she couldn’t prove her theory—she could only trust in the evidence, see the correlations without being able to show the causation.

  Except for the fish. The fish were still thriving, alive, and present.

  “As stewards,” Mafokeng responded, “our art form is making sense of the specific assemblage of data sent along to us across wide swaths of time and space. I would even argue that our highest duty involves interpreting these images in furtherance of the mission. I would argue that Steward Hutchins has failed this duty, not out of malice, or ill will, but because his emotional response to the images clouded a more rational one. Steward Hutchins is incorrect. My role here is not to prove my theory. My role here is to argue for the lives of the three hundred crew members aboard the Lion’s Mane, and provide us with more time to make a decision, a truly informed decision with no evidence withheld from us. This ship has traveled farther than any other. Its crew appears to be alive and healthy, which means they have discovered some secret to prolong their journey. My theory is based on what we see before us, and it is no less compelling than Steward Hutchins’s claims. I do not ask you to allow the crew to live indefinitely. I merely ask that we cancel the signal for retirement, and wait for further contact from the ship. Then we will have more information. Crucial information.”

  She waited for her words to sink in, looking for a sign from the delegates as to their feelings. Their silence made her feel as if Hutchins was right, that she was the lone dissenter in the face of overwhelming evidence.

  “How is it possible to cancel the retirement pulse?” a steward asked.

  This gave her hope, at least, something to speak for.

  “Thank you for your question, Steward. It is not possible to cancel the retirement pulse. It is a five-gigawatt pulse traveling at the speed of light. And the pulse itself does not retire the crew, of course. It sends an encrypted code through a back door on the ship’s systems to kill the passengers. However, our charts suggest that we can transmit a signal from the orbiting station on Io to several ships in the vicinity of the Kuiper Belt. These ships can scatter the retirement pulse by simultaneously activating their transmission beacons. The interference would weaken the signal so that it would be unlikely to reach the Lion’s Mane. I urge my fellow delegates to act quickly, as the pulse is nearing the Kuiper Belt at this very moment.”

  She did not expect the council president to come to her point of view. Throughout the proceedings, he had remained silent, merely listening without objection. But his had been the crucial dissenting vote all along. Only he could prevent the council from overruling her.

  The council had tolerated her up to this point, allowing her to remain active even after the loss of her ship, a privilege not afforded to any other council members. This would surely be too much. After her meddling, Hutchins would see to it that she was removed from proceedings. Strip her to an honorary nonvoting role, or worse, kick her off altogether.

  “The answer is clear,” the president declared. “We must jam the pulse. We must await further transmission from the Lion’s Mane before executing retirement. And we appoint Steward Mafokeng, as well as an independent investigator, to examine the archives. Steward Hutchins is hereby suspended from stewardship of the ship until the next transmission is retrieved. We should have had all the available information before he persuaded us to order retirement. In this chamber, we uphold total transparency. It is one of our highest virtues, and through his actions we have ignored it. Move for a vote.”

  And it was done. Fifteen minutes later, Mafokeng watched as the council’s transmission operators sent the new signal through. If they were fortunate, light would scatter light, and the pulse would not reach the ship.

  Already her aunt was hailing her from somewhere, likely having learned about the vote from her sources. She would be concerned about her reputation. Mafokeng pondered what to tell her. That she had allowed the passengers to dance around their altar for another day? That they would sleep well in their berths, their bellies full of fish, believing as always that their journey would continue on?

  * * *

  On the Renewal Pond, I stand my ground in the shallow pool of dark water. The trout swirl beneath the thick glass I stand upon, their shimmering skins dancing in my vision. I wear only loose fabric to protect myself, carrying a thick rubber club, while my finder holds an electric trident with tips so sharp they can slice through th
e hardest stone. My boots are fixed to the bottom by weights that feel like nails have been driven through my feet. I am surprised when the crew cheers for me and not for my finder. Perhaps the chief gen-gineer was right. Maybe my peers still believe, somehow, that I can become captain. But no person has ever been captured during a Finding and survived. The odds are against me. My ceremonial role now is to prolong our struggle for as long as possible. I allow each breath of the ship’s air to gather in my lungs, gathering energy. All I can do is fight.

  She slashes at me with her electric trident and—whack! whack! whack!—I slam her across the jaw with my club so hard that she falls to the ground. When she turns back, her face is flush with anger, and she grits her teeth with determination. It’s the same expression she wore when we first made love.

  “Come again!” I shout, hoisting my club above me. The club is twice as long as her trident but designed not to be able to cause her real damage.

  I hit her again and again until blood spills from her lips, dodging the point of her trident by shifting my feet. But the effort to lift the heavy boots depletes my energy for the next thrust. I manage to land several more blows, at one point slashing her arm so hard that she drops briefly to the glass in pain. Except she has learned my weakness by now—all she must do is wait. She knows I am losing my strength. A spark alights in her eyes and I can see that something has changed. She bides her time until I am so weak that my feet refuse to move at all. I swing my club limply at her, and she lunges at me swiftly with her trident, severing my hand from my arm.

  As soon as my flesh touches the water, the automated systems of the Pond take over, immediately injecting my body with pain-numbing anesthetic. The crew erupts in the Ballad of the Pond, a delicate, mournful melody that celebrates the memory of all who have sacrificed themselves before me. I refuse to cry out from the shock, and raise my voice to join the chorus when I can:

  When we arrive, when we arrive

  The watered death, the silver scales

  All for the journey

  Together

  When we arrive

  The steady march of the drum keeps me singing. Finally, after so many verses that I can barely remain standing, we come to my verse, and it’s my turn to sing:

  When we arrive, when we arrive

  Fingers slip through cool water

  Hiroko will gather oceans

  For our roe

  When we arrive

  My shipmates repeat the verse, and the system laser-etches it into the Journey Tablet. Soon I will be gone, too. The system will dismember my body, lasering my flesh into smaller and smaller pieces, until I am drained into the tanks.

  Captain Chennoufi leans forward and whispers the mystery to me in my ear. The mystery that is never taught yet always known. She explains that cortisol induced by stress is what excites the bacteria. I induced it during the Finding, and I made more while fighting on the Renewal Pond. The missing ingredient of the tanks was in my own body all along. And it means that I will live on, and begin my journey again.

  I call out one final time to the crew: “When we arrive!”

  And they return it, their voices exultant in my ears. “When we arrive!”

  Then the captain presents the finger of my right hand to my finder, who steps forward to taste it.

  KELLY BARNHILL

  Thirty-Three Wicked Daughters

  from The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction

  It started with whispers, and if it had remained so, then perhaps King Diodicias could have contented himself with doing nothing. One can, he reasoned, build a fine career on doing nothing as a matter of policy. Indeed, it was a strategy that had served the King well all these years.

  That his Daughters were, by all accounts, uniformly wicked was not a thing of particular concern. After all, what was wickedness, anyway? Wasn’t it all a bit in the eye of the beholder? His Daughters, despite the whispers, did not seem particularly wicked to him. Indeed, the King felt his Daughters were—while numerous and chattering and a whirlwind of arms and legs and hair and minds and endless, endless plans . . . well. He thought they were rather marvelous, if he were to be truthful about it.

  Albina, for example—his dear, dear Albina, the eldest of the thirty-three—who was, at this very minute, constructing a wealth-distribution scheme that would, within ten years’ time, permanently erase poverty in the nation, removing the mandated tithes and tariffs to the Baronry, and, while she was at it, abolishing the Baronry. That didn’t sound particularly wicked, now did it? The King was uncomfortable with the Barons anyway: they were, as a rule, an uncouth, bullying, brutish bunch. Perhaps it was better if they learned a trade.

  The Barons disagreed. They lobbied to have Albina’s documents burned and to have her banned from any official business. There was a vote and it was unanimous. And the King supposed he should respect such a thing . . . But he loved it when Albina sat by his side during the presentations of his economists and financiers and policy makers, and he loved listening to her argue, and gosh darn it, he said to himself, didn’t she just sound so reasonable? So he did nothing.

  Wicked, the Barons said. And they began to seethe.

  And Arlene, who made it her habit to show up unannounced at Council meetings and invoke the wisdom of scholars and philosophers so numerous and obscure that by the time the Honorable Council Members finished finding enough corresponding quotations to even hope to contradict her, she already had new decrees penned, royally signed, and sealed, and had distributed each one to the relevant Ministries, Offices, and Bureaucrats, which meant that they could never be undone without endless meetings and processes and forms signed in triplicate. Arlene, better than anyone else in the kingdom, knew how government worked. And she worked it.

  Wicked, the Council said.

  And Aneis, the cobbler, who produced shoes of such beauty, comfort, and efficiency that she singlehandedly opened the market once scrupulously cornered by the Shoemakers’ Guild. Similarly, she managed, through her own ingenious styling and construction, to create footwear for women that increased their comfort, well-being, and mobility, and suddenly, in the streets, market squares, trade floors, and halls of business, women were everywhere. And they didn’t seem eager to leave anytime soon.

  And to make it worse, she never bothered to license her designs with any of the Guilds, and instead widely distributed her drawings and instructions so that literally anyone could make them. On their own. Unlicensed shoes! How dare she?

  Wicked, grumbled the Guildmasters. And the futures traders. And the business peddlers. Wicked, wicked, wicked.

  And Andromeda, whose liturgical dances—all fluid movement and bare skin and ecstatic joy—caused temples full of worshippers to loosen their garments, shed their clothes, and begin dancing in delight and spiritual fervor for hours on end. It was said that even the universe sighed with pleasure. Nudity, the Priests’ Union complained. So much nudity. Well, the King thought, readjusting the drape of his robes and wishing, once again, that he could shrug it off. If the clothiers would bother making their stitching less uncomfortable, maybe people wouldn’t be so quick to undress.

  Wicked, the Priests said.

  And Althea, his favorite, who was right now in the slums of the kingdom, teaching reading and writing and mathematics to the children of laborers, telling their parents such pretty phrases like, “Knowledge and education are both categorized as a means of production, and their productive capacity belongs to you and your children and to no one else. And I should like to see you capitalize upon it.” Nothing pleased the King more than watching his Daughter teach. And while he wasn’t entirely sure what “means of production” meant, he simply loved hearing her say it.

  Wicked? the King thought. Surely not!

  And Alana, the tavern owner. Do you have any idea what goes on in that tavern in the middle of the night? the Council asked. The King didn’t. He went to bed far too early. But how bad could it be?

  And Annika, the boxer. Undefeated
, in any category. Still, booking agents put the odds against her every time—because how could they favor her to win? Against giants of men? And there she was, barely a hundred pounds soaking wet. And yet she crushed them. Every time. It went against reason. She even bested soldiers who came to try their luck—well trained and highly skilled all—who then had to face the wrath of their Generals for being so foolish as to be bested by a girl so small. How was it possible?

  Wicked, the Legion of Gamblers said. And the Generals, too. Wicked, wicked.

  And Aurora, and Anastasia, and Ada, and Abigail, and Adele, and Amara, and Alice.

  Wicked, wicked, wicked, wicked.

  The Daughters heard the whispers—of course they did. They weren’t stupid. And so they formed a Council of their own, and formed a plan.

  “The antidote to rumors is action,” they decided, “and the counterbalance to grumbling is positive change.”

  “We’ll build schools,” Althea said. “Lots of them. All over. We have money. More money than we need. We’ll put them everywhere. No one can argue with a school.”

  “We’ll create a community bank,” said Albina, “and allocate an annual income for every man, woman, and child. Have you seen Father’s treasury? No one needs that much. And anyway, it’s just sitting there. Better to get that money moving.”

  “We’ll distribute shoes to every child,” said Aneis. “Winter is coming, after all, and far too many kids walk barefoot.”

  “Community dinners,” said Alana.

  “We’ll teach girls how to fight and defend themselves,” said Annika.

  “We’ll dance without ceasing,” said Andromeda.

  Each Daughter proposed a plan to do good, to be good. Each Daughter agreed that they must, as a group, insist upon being of service to the kingdom. That is what it meant to be a King’s Daughter.

  (That is . . . while there are still Kings, each one thought in the quietness of her heart. Because how could there be, in the future? It just didn’t make any sense.)