The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

think, sort through all the lies that had been her life. It must have been some other girl who had drawn funny aliens on the walls or listened to the room tell stories — lies! — about a space captain named Mariska or who had built planets inhabited by unicorns and fairies and princesses in her room’s simspace. She didn’t belong here. Not in this goddamn room, not on the moon, not anywhere.

Then it came to her. She knew what she had to do. Only she wasn’t sure exactly how to do it. But how hard could going deep be? It was in her genes — her mother’s genes. Slag her. Everyone so worried that she would go deep without really meaning to. So that must mean that she could. That’s how the fossils had done it, before there were hibernation pods and proper euthermic arousal protocols.

She didn’t know what good going deep would do her. It was probably stupid. Something a kid would do. But that was the point, wasn’t it? She was just a kid. What other choice did she have?

She lay back on her bed and thought about space, about stepping out of the airlock without anything on. Naked and alone, just like she had always been. The air would freeze in her lungs and they would burst. Her eyes would freeze and it would be dark. She would be as cold as she had ever been. As cold as Natalya Volochkova, that bitch.

The Earth is up,” the room murmured. “And I am always up. Is Mariska ready to get up yet?”

Mariska shivered from the cold. That wasn’t right. Her room was supposed to monitor both its temperature and hers.

“The Earth is up, and I am always up,” cooed her room. It wasn’t usually so patient.

Mariska stretched. She felt stiff, as if she had overdone a swim. She opened her eyes and then shut them immediately. Her room had already brought the lights up to full intensity. It was acting strangely this morning. Usually it would interrupt one of her dreams, but all that she had in her head was a vast and frigid darkness. Space without the stars.

Mariska yawned and slitted her eyes against the light. She was facing the shelf where Feodor Bear sat. “Dobroye utro,” it said. The antique robot bumped against the shelf twice in a vain attempt to stand. “Good morn-ing Mar-i-ska.” There was something wrong with its speech chip; it sounded as if it were talking through a bowl of soup.

“Good morning, dear Mariska,” said her room. “Today is Wednesday, November 23, 2163. You have no bookings scheduled for today.”

That couldn’t be right. The date was way off. Then she remembered.

The door slid open. She blinked several times before she could focus on the woman standing there.

“Mariska?”

Mariska knew that voice. Even though it had a crack to it that her room had never had, she recognized its singing accent.

“Where’s Al?” When she sat up the room seemed to spin.

“He doesn’t live here anymore.” The woman sat beside her on the bed. She had silver hair and a spacer’s sallow complexion. Her skin was wrinkled around the eyes and the mouth. “I can send for him, if you like. He’s just in Muoi Zone.” She seemed to be trying on a smile, to see if it would fit. “It’s been three years, Mariska. We couldn’t rouse you. It was too dangerous.”

She considered this. “Jak?”

“Three years is a long time.”

She turned her face to the wall. “The room’s voice — that’s you. And the persona?”

“I didn’t want to go to Delta Pavonis, but I didn’t have a choice. I’m a spacer, dear, dear Mariska. Just like you. When they need us, we go.” She sighed. “I knew you would hate me — I would have hated me. So I found another way to be with you; I spent the two months before we left uploading feeds. I put as much of myself into this room as I could.” She gestured at Mariska’s room.

“You treated me like a kid. Or the room did.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t think I’d be gone this long.”

“I’m not going to that place with you.”

“All right,” she said. “But I’d like to go with you, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not going anywhere.” Mariska shook her head; she still felt groggy. “Where would I go?”

“To the stars,” said Natalya Volochkova. “They’ve been calling you. Alpha Centauri. Barnard’s. Wolf. Lalande. Luyten. Sirius.”

Mariska propped herself on a elbow and stared at her. “How do you know that?”

She reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Mariska’s forehead. “Because,” she said, “I’m your mother.”

James Patrick Kelly has had an eclectic writing career. He has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays, and planetarium shows. His most recent book, a collection of stories, was The Wreck of the Godspeed. His novella Burn was awarded the Nebula in 2007, his only win in twelve nominations — but who’s counting? He has won the Hugo Award twice and his fiction has been translated into eighteen languages. With John Kessel he is coeditor of Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology, Rewired: The Post-Cyberpunk Anthology, and the The Secret History of Science Fiction. He writes a column on the Internet for Asimov’s Science Fiction magazine and is on the faculty of the Stonecoast Creative Writing MFA Program at the University of Southern Maine and the Board of Directors of the Clarion Foundation. Hear him read “Going Deep” and many other stories on his podcasts: James Patrick Kelly’s StoryPod on Audible.com and the Free Reads Podcast. His website is www.jimkelly.net.

BRIDESICLE Will McIntosh

FROM THE AUTHOR: One of my writing friends once described my writing process as thinking up a bunch of hopefully cool ideas, throwing them up against the wall, and seeing what stuck. I hope that’s not completely accurate, but I do tend to be driven by overt ideas and interesting characters, and underlying themes or resonance tends to develop outside my awareness. In other words, as a writer I’m not terribly self-aware, so writing about my writing can be a struggle.

This same writing friend pointed out that almost all of my fiction to date explores romantic love. It astonished me that I had never noticed. I write love stories — who’d have thought?

“Bridesicle” is a love story. It didn’t start out that way, though. I originally wrote “Bridesicle” from the perspective of Lycan, a man visiting a cryogenic dating center who, unbeknownst to his potential mates, can’t afford to save any of them. In the original story Mira, who is the protagonist in the final version, was one of a number of women Lycan “dated” at the center. I posted the original story for my online writing group to critique, and they politely panned it. Mary Robinette Kowal suggested the story would work better from the perspective of one of the women trapped at the center and, after a few weeks of acclimating to the idea that I should toss the original story in its entirety and start over, I tossed the original story in its entirety and started over. So I have Mary to thank for guiding me toward the story as it was published in Asimov’s.

While I’m not exactly suffering from imposter syndrome, to say I was stunned to learn that “Bridesicle” had been nominated for a Nebula Award would be an understatement. When I began writing at age thirty-nine it never occurred to me that I might turn out to be any good at it. I wrote because I discovered I loved it more than anything I had ever done, and eighty-eight straight rejections to begin my career didn’t deter me, because I just