The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection (61 page)

7

When Daniel emerged from the opiate haze, a doctor informed him that he had burns to sixty per cent of his body. More from heat than from radiation. He was not going to die.

There was a net terminal by the bed. Daniel called Lucien and learnt what the physicists on the team had tentatively concluded, having studied the last of the Play Pen data that had made it off-site.

It seemed the Phites had discovered the Higgs field, and engineered a burst of something akin to cosmic inflation. What they’d done wasn’t as simple as merely inflating a tiny patch of vacuum into a new universe, though. Not only had they managed to create a “cool Big Bang”, they had pulled a large chunk of ordinary matter into the pocket universe they’d made, after which the wormhole leading to it had shrunk to subatomic size and fallen through the Earth.

They had taken the crystals with them, of course. If they’d tried to upload themselves into the pocket universe through the lunar data link, the Thought Police would have stopped them. So they’d emigrated by another route entirely. They had snatched their whole substrate, and ran.

Opinions were divided over exactly what else the new universe would contain. The crystals and the Play Pen floating in a void, with no power source, would leave the Phites effectively dead, but some of the team believed there could be a thin plasma of protons and electrons too, created by a form of Higgs decay that bypassed the unendurable quark-gluon fireball of a hot Big Bang. If they’d built the right nanomachines, there was a chance that they could convert the Play Pen into a structure that would keep the crystals safe, while the Phites slept through the long wait for the first starlight.

The tiny skin samples the doctors had taken finally grew into sheets large enough to graft. Daniel bounced between dark waves of pain and medicated euphoria, but one idea stayed with him throughout the turbulent journey, like a guiding star:
Primo had betrayed him
. He had given the fucker life, entrusted him with power, granted him privileged knowledge, showered him with the favours of the Gods. And how had he been repaid? He was back to zero. He’d spoken to his lawyers; having heard rumours of an “illegal radiation source”, the insurance company was not going to pay out on the crystals without a fight.

Lucien came to the hospital, in person. Daniel was moved; they hadn’t met face-to-face since the job interview. He shook the man’s hand.

“You didn’t betray me.”

Lucien looked embarrassed. “I’m resigning, boss.”

Daniel was stung, but he forced himself to accept the news stoically. “I understand; you have no choice. Gupta will have a crystal of his own by now. You have to be on the winning side, in the war of the Gods.”

Lucien put his resignation letter on the bedside table. “What war? Are you still clinging to that fantasy where überdorks battle to turn the moon into computronium?”

Daniel blinked. “Fantasy? If you didn’t believe it, why were you working with me?”

“You paid me. Extremely well.”

“So how much will Gupta be paying you? I’ll double it.”

Lucien shook his head, amused. “I’m not going to work for Gupta. I’m moving into particle physics. The Phites weren’t all that far ahead of us when they escaped; maybe forty or fifty years. Once we catch up, I guess a private universe will cost about as much as a private island; maybe less in the long run. But no one’s going to be battling for control of this one, throwing grey goo around like monkeys flinging turds while they draw up their plans for Matrioshka brains.”

Daniel said, “If you take any data from the Play Pen logs —”

“I’ll honour all the confidentiality clauses in my contract.” Lucien smiled. “But anyone can take an interest in the Higgs field; that’s public domain.”

After he left, Daniel bribed the nurse to crank up his medication, until even the sting of betrayal and disappointment began to fade.

A universe
, he thought happily.
Soon I’ll have a universe of my own
.

But I’m going to need some workers in there, some allies, some companions. I can’t do it all alone; someone has to carry the load.

THE EGG MAN

Mary Rosenblum

One of the most popular and prolific of the new writers of the nineties, Mary Rosenblum made her first sale, to
Asimov’s Science Fiction
, in 1990, and has since become a mainstay of that magazine – one of its most frequent contributors – with almost thirty sales there to her credit. She has also sold to
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
,
Science Fiction Age
,
Pulphouse
,
New Legends
, and elsewhere.

Her linked series of Drylands stories have proved to be one of Asimov’s most popular series, but she has also published memorable stories such as “The Stone Garden”, “Synthesis”, “Flight”, “California Dreamer”, “Casting at Pegasus”, “Entrada”, “Rat”, “The Centaur Garden”, “Skin Deep”, “Songs the Sirens Sing”, and many, many others. Her novella
Gas Fish
won the Asimov’s Readers Award Poll in 1996, and was a finalist for that year’s Nebula Award. Her first novel,
The Drylands
, appeared in 1993 to wide critical acclaim, winning the prestigious Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel of the Year; it was followed in short order by her second novel,
Chimera
, and her third,
The Stone Garden
. Her first short story collection,
Synthesis and Other Stories
, was widely hailed by critics as one of the best collections of 1996. She has also written a trilogy of mystery novels under the name Mary Freeman. Her most recent book is a major new science fiction novel,
Horizons
. A graduate of Clarion West, Mary Rosenblum lives in Portland, Oregon.

In the tense story that follows she takes us to an ecologically devastated future that seems all too likely to be around the corner for a look at people struggling to survive – and perhaps, if they can, to hold on to a bit of their souls.

Z
IPAKNA HALTED AT
midday to let the Dragon power up the batteries. He checked on the chickens clucking contentedly in their travel crates, then went outside to squat in the shade of one fully deployed solar wing in the 43 centigrade heat. Ilena, his sometimes-lover and poker partner, accused him of reverse snobbery, priding himself on being able to survive in the Sonoran heat without air conditioning. Zipakna smiled and tilted his water bottle, savouring the cool, sweet trickle of water across his tongue.

Not true, of course. He held still as the first wild bees found him, buzzed past his face to settle and sip from the sweat-drops beading on his skin. Killers. He held very still, but the caution wasn’t really necessary. Thirst was the great gentler here. Every other drive was laid aside in the pursuit of water.

Even love?

He laughed a short note as the killers buzzed and sipped. So Ilena claimed, but she just missed him when she played the tourists without him. It had been mostly tourists from China lately, filling the underwater resorts in the Sea of Cortez. Chinese were rich and tough players and Ilena had been angry at him for leaving. But he always left in spring. She knew that. In front of him, the scarp he had been traversing ended in a bluff, eroded by water that had fallen here eons ago. The plain below spread out in tones of ochre and russet, dotted with dusty clumps of sage and the stark upward thrust of saguaro, lonely sentinels contemplating the desiccated plain of the Sonoran and in the distance, the ruins of a town. Paloma? Zipakna tilted his wrist, called up his position on his link. Yes, that was it. He had wandered a bit farther eastward than he’d thought and had cut through the edge of the Pima preserve. Sure enough, a fine had been levied against his account. He sighed. He serviced the Pima settlement out here and they didn’t mind if he trespassed. It merely became a bargaining chip when it came time to talk price. The Pima loved to bargain.

He really should let the nav-link plot his course, but Ilena was right about that, at least. He prided himself on finding his way through the Sonora without it. Zipakna squinted as a flicker of movement caught his eye. A lizard? Maybe. Or one of the tough desert rodents. They didn’t need to drink, got their water from seeds and cactus fruit. More adaptable than
Homo sapiens
, he thought, and smiled grimly.

He pulled his binocs from his belt pouch and focused on the movement. The digital lenses seemed to suck him through the air like a thrown spear, grey-ochre blur resolving into stone, mica flash, and yes, the brown and grey shape of a lizard. The creature’s head swivelled, throat pulsing, so that it seemed to stare straight into his eyes. Then, in an eyeblink, it vanished. The Dragon chimed its full battery load. Time to go. He stood carefully, a cloud of thirsty killer bees and native wasps buzzing about him, shook free of them and slipped into the coolness of the Dragon’s interior. The hens clucked in the rear and the Dragon furled its solar wings and lurched forward, crawling down over the edge of the scarp, down to the plain below and its saguaro sentinels.

His sat-link chimed and his console screen brightened to life.
You are entering unserviced United States territory.
The voice was female and severe.
No support services will be provided from this point on. Your entry visa does not assure assistance in unserviced regions. Please file all complaints with the US Bureau of Land Management. Please consult with your insurance provider before continuing.
Did he detect a note of disapproval in the sat-link voice? Zipakna grinned without humor and guided the Dragon down the steep slope, its belted treads barely marring the dry surface as he navigated around rock and thorny clumps of mesquite. He was a citizen of the Republic of Mexico and the US’s sat eyes would certainly track his chip. They just wouldn’t send a rescue if he got into trouble.

Such is life, he thought, and swatted an annoyed killer as it struggled against the windshield.

He passed the first of Paloma’s plantings an hour later. The glassy black disks of the solar collectors glinted in the sun, powering the drip system that fed the scattered clumps of greenery. Short, thick-stalked sunflowers turned their dark faces to the sun, fringed with orange and scarlet petals. Zipakna frowned thoughtfully and videoed one of the wide blooms as the Dragon crawled past. Sure enough, his screen lit up with a similar blossom crossed with a circle-slash of warning.

An illegal pharm crop. The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. This was new. He almost turned around, but he liked the folk in Paloma. Good people; misfits, not sociopaths. It was an old settlement and one of his favourites. He sighed, because three diabetics lived here and a new bird flu had come over from Asia. It would find its way here eventually, riding the migration routes. He said a prayer to the old gods and his mother’s
Santa Maria
for good measure and crawled on into town.

Nobody was out this time of day. Heat waves shimmered above the black solar panels and a lizard whip-flicked beneath the sagging Country Market’s porch. He parked the Dragon in the dusty lot at the end of Main Street where a couple of buildings had burned long ago and unfurled the solar wings again. It took a lot of power to keep them from baking here. In the back Ezzie was clucking imperatively. The oldest of the chickens, she always seemed to know when they were stopping at a settlement. That meant fresh greens. “You’re a pig,” he said, but he chuckled as he made his way to the back to check on his flock.

The twenty hens clucked and scratched in their individual cubicles, excited at the halt. “I’ll let you out soon,” he promised and measured laying ration into their feeders. Bella had already laid an egg. He reached into her cubicle and cupped it in his hand, pale pink and smooth, still warm and faintly moist from its passage out of her body. Insulin nano-bodies, designed to block the auto-immune response that destroyed the insulin producing Beta cells in diabetics. He labelled Bella’s egg and put it into the egg fridge. She was his highest producer. He scooped extra ration into her feeder.

Intruder
, his alarm system announced. The heads-up display above the front console lit up. Zipakna glanced at it, brows furrowed, then smiled. He slipped to the door, touched it open. “You could just knock,” he said.

The skinny boy hanging from the front of the Dragon by his fingers as he tried to peer through the windscreen let go, missed his footing and landed on his butt in the dust.

“It’s too hot out here,” Zipakna said. “Come inside. You can see better.”

The boy looked up, his face tawny with Sonoran dust, hazel eyes wide with fear.

Zipakna’s heart froze and time seemed to stand still.
She
must have looked like this as a kid, he thought. Probably just like this, considering how skinny and androgynous she had been in her twenties. He shook himself. “It’s all right,” he said and his voice only quivered a little. “You can come in.”

“Ella said you have chickens. She said they lay magic eggs. I’ve never seen a chicken. But Pierre says there’s no magic.” The fear had vanished from his eyes, replaced now by bright curiosity.

That, too, was like her. Fear had never had a real hold on her.

How many times had he wished it had?

“I do have chickens. You can see them now.” He held the door open. “What’s your name?”

“Daren.” The boy darted past him, quick as one of the desert’s lizards, scrambled into the Dragon.

Her father’s name.

Zipakna climbed in after him, feeling old suddenly, dry as this ancient desert.
I can’t have kids
, she had said, so earnest.
How could I take a child into the uncontrolled areas? How could I leave one behind? Maybe later. After I’m done out there.

“It’s freezing in here.” Daren stared around at the control bank under the wide windscreen, his bare arms and legs, skin clay-brown from the sun, ridged with goosebumps.

So much bare skin scared Zipakna. Average age for onset of melanoma without regular boosters was twenty-five. “Want something to drink? You can go look at the chickens. They’re in the back.”

“Water?” The boy gave him a bright, hopeful look. “Ella has a chicken. She lets me take care of it.” He disappeared into the chicken space.

Zipakna opened the egg fridge. Bianca laid steadily even though she didn’t have the peak capacity that some of the others did. So he had a good stock of her eggs. The boy was murmuring to the hens who were clucking greetings at him. “You can take one out,” Zipakna called back to him. “They like to be held.” He opened a packet of freeze-dried chocolate soy milk, reconstituted it, and whipped one of Bianca’s eggs into it, so that it frothed tawny and rich. The gods knew if the boy had ever received any immunizations at all. Bianca provided the basic panel of nanobodies against most of the common pathogens and cancers. Including melanoma.

In the chicken room, Daren had taken Bella out of her cage, held her cradled in his arms. The speckled black and white hen clucked contentedly, occasionally pecking Daren’s chin lightly. “She likes to be petted,” Zipakna said. “If you rub her comb she’ll sing to you. I made you a milkshake.”

The boy’s smile blossomed as Bella gave out with the almost-melodic squawks and creaks that signified her pleasure. “What’s a milkshake?” Still smiling, he returned the hen to her cage and eyed the glass.

“Soymilk and chocolate and sugar.” He handed it to Daren, found himself holding his breath as the boy tasted it and considered.

“Pretty sweet.” He drank some. “I like it anyway.”

To Zipakna’s relief he drank it all and licked foam from his lip.

“So when did you move here?” Zipakna took the empty glass, rinsed it at the sink.

“Wow, you use water to clean dishes?” The boy’s eyes had widened. “We came here last planting time. Pierre brought those seeds.” He pointed in the general direction of the sunflower fields.

Zipakna’s heart sank. “You and your parents?” He made his voice light.

Daren didn’t answer for a moment. “Pierre. My father.” He looked back to the chicken room. “If they’re not magic, why do you give them water? Ella’s chicken warns her about snakes, but you don’t have to worry about snakes in here. What good are they?”

The cold logic of the Dry, out here beyond the security net of civilized space. “Their eggs keep you healthy.” He watched the boy consider that. “You know Ella, right?” He waited for the boy’s nod. “She has a disease that would kill her if she didn’t eat an egg from that chicken you were holding every year.”

Daren frowned, clearly doubting that. “You mean like a snake egg? They’re good, but Ella’s chicken doesn’t lay eggs. And snake eggs don’t make you get better when you’re sick.”

“They don’t. And Ella’s chicken is a banty rooster. He doesn’t lay eggs.” Zipakna looked up as a figure moved on the heads-up. “Bella is special and so are her eggs.” He opened the door. “Hello, Ella, what are you doing out here in the heat?”

“I figured he’d be out here bothering you.” Ella hoisted herself up the Dragon’s steps, her weathered, sun-dried face the colour of real leather, her loose sun-shirt falling back from the stringy muscles of her arms as she reached up to kiss Zipakna on the cheek. “You behavin’ yourself, boy? I’ll switch you if you aren’t.”