The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

ask about her again. Ever. Never. Or had that been in a dreamfeed?

=…mitochondrial functions are drastically reduced… =

Mariska felt as if she were swimming through the data in the feed. She was certain that she would never remember any of it. And Mr. Holmgren was going to have a meltdown when he saw how she had left her bench in the lab and she’d probably flunk tomatoes just like Jak had.

=In 2014 the first recombinant ground squirrel and human genes resulted in activity of PTL — pancreatic triacylglycerol lipase — in both heart and white adipose tissue under supercooling conditions.=

What had happened in 2018? She had never much cared for history. The Oil Crash must have started around that time. And Google 3.0. The founding of Moonbase Zhong? A bunch of extinctions. Datafeeds, sure, but mindfeeds didn’t come until the eighties. When did the fossil spacers launch the first starship?

As she touched the wall a foot tapped her on the shoulder. She twisted out of her flip turn and broke the surface of the water, sputtering. Random was standing at the edge of the pool, staring at her. His bathing suit had slid down his bony hips. “My penny,” he said. “Can I have it back now?” His pale skin had just a tinge of blue and he was shivering.

Random spilled his bundle of clothes onto the floor in front of her locker; he had the handle of a lunch box clamped between his teeth. Mariska slithered into her tube top as he set the lunch box on the bench between them. It had a picture of an apple on it; the apple was wearing a space helmet.

“This isn’t funny, Random.” Mariska slipped an arm into the sleeve of her tugshirt. “Are you stalking me?”

“No.” He punched the print button on the processor and an oversized pool towel rolled from the output slot above the lockers. “Not funny at all.”

She sealed the front placket of the tug and plunged both hands into its pouch. There it was. She must have taken the penny without realizing it. She extended the coin to him on her palm.

“First we talk, then you get the penny.” She closed her fist around it. “What’s this about?”

“I said already.” Random stripped off his wet bathing suit. “Your mother.” He crammed it into the input slot and began to dry himself with the towel.

Mariska set her jaw but didn’t correct him. “What about her?”

“She’s a fossil. The penny could have been hers.”

“Okay.” She wasn’t sure she believed this, but she didn’t want him to think that she didn’t know if it were true. The heroic fossils had been the first humans to go to the stars. They had volunteered to be genetically altered so that they could hibernate through the three-year voyage to the wormhole at the far edge of Oort Cloud and then hibernate again as their ships cruised at sublight speeds through distant solar systems. Most of the fossils were dead, many from side effects of the crude genetic surgery of the twenty-first century. “So?”

“She probably has stuff. Or maybe you have her stuff?”

“Stuff?”

“To trade.” He wrapped the towel around his waist and opened his lunch box. It was crammed with what looked to Mariska like junk wrapped in clear guardgoo. “Like my goods.” Random pulled each item out as if it were a treasure.

“Vanilla Girl.” He showed her the head of a doll with a patch over one eye. “Pencil,” he said. “Never sharpened.” He arranged an empty Coke bubble, a paper book with the cover ripped off, a key, a purple eyelight, a pepper shaker in the shape of a robot, and a thumb teaser on the bench. At the bottom of the lunch box was a tiny red plastic purse. He snapped it open and shook it so that she could hear coins clinking. “Please?”

Mariska dropped the penny into the purse. “How did you find out she’s a fossil?”

“It’s complicated.” He tapped his forehead and she felt a tingle as he offered her a feed. “Want to open up?”

“No.” Mariska folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t think I do.” She was chilled at the thought of losing herself in the chaos of feeds everyone claimed were churning inside Random’s head. “You’ll just have to say it.”

Random dropped the towel on the floor and pulled on his janitor’s greens. She was disgusted to see that he didn’t bother with underwear. “When the Corshkov came back,” he said, “everyone was happy.” He furrowed his brow, trying to remember how to string consecutive sentences together. “Happy people talk and make feeds and party all over. That’s how I know.” He nodded as if that explained everything.

Mariska tried not to sound impatient. “Know what?”

“It’s a beautiful planet.” Random made a circle with his hands, as if to present the new world to her. “Check the feeds, you’ll see. It’s the best ever. Even better than Earth, at least the way it is now, all crispy and crowded.”

“Okay, so it’s the Garden of slagging Eden. So what does that have to do with all this crap?”

“Crap?” He drew himself up, and then waved the pepper shaker at her. “My goods aren’t crap.” He set it carefully back in the lunch box and began to gather up the rest of his odd collection.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry.” Mariska didn’t want to chase him away — at least not yet. “So it’s a beautiful planet. And your goods are great. Tell me what’s going on?”

He stacked the Coke bubble and the eyelight on top of the book but then paused, considering her apology. “Most of the crew of the Gorshkov are going back.” He packed the pile away. “It’s their reward, to live on a planet with all that water and all that sky and friendly weather. Going back…” he tapped the bench next to her leg “… with their families.”

Mariska’s throat was so tight that she could barely croak. “I’m not her family.”

“Okay.” He shrugged. “But anything you want to trade before you go — either of you…”

Mariska flung herself at the security door.

“Just asking,” Random called after her.

When she burst into the kitchen, Al was arranging a layer of lasagna noodles in a casserole. Yet another of her favorite dishes; Mariska should have known something was wrong. She gasped when he looked over his shoulder at her. His eyes were shiny and his cheeks were wet.

“You knew.” She could actually hear herself panicking. “She wants to drag me off to some stinking rock twenty light years away and you knew.”

“I didn’t. But I guessed.” The weight of his sadness knocked her back onto one of the dining room chairs. “She stopped by right after you left. She’s looking for you.”

“I’m not here.”

“Okay.” He picked up a cup of shredded mozzarella and sprinkled it listlessly over the noodles.

“You can’t let her do this, Al. You’re my daddy. You’re supposed to protect me.”

“It’s a term contract, Mariska. I’m already in the option year.”

“Slag the contract. And slag you for signing it. I don’t want to go.”

“Then don’t. I don’t think she’ll make you. But you need to think about it.” He kept his head down and spooned sauce onto the lasagna. “It’s space, Mariska. You’re a spacer.”

“Not yet. I haven’t even passed tomatoes. I could wash out. I will wash out.”

He sniffed and wiped his eyes with his sleeve.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Why are you taking her side?”

“Because you’re a child and she’s your legal parent. Because you can’t live here forever.” His voice climbed unsteadily to a shout. Al had never shouted at her before. “Because all of this is over.” He shook the spoon at their kitchen.

“What do you mean, over?” She thought that it wasn’t very professional of him to be showing his feelings like this. “Answer me! And what about Jak?”

“I don’t know, Mariska.” He jiggled another lasagna noodle out of the colander. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

She stared at his back. The kitchen seemed to warp and twist; all the ties that bound her to Al were coming undone. She scraped her chair from the table and spun down the hall to her room, bouncing off the walls.

“Hello Mariska,” said her room as the door slid shut. “You seem upset. Is there anything I can… ?

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

She didn’t care if she hurt her room’s feelings; it was just a stupid persona anyway. She needed quiet to