Year's Best SF 17

All the time we’d been talking, the men sitting at their little tables hadn’t made a noise. Nor had any of them turned to face us. They simply sat hunched in place—not drinking, not smoking, not speaking. Just listening. It came to me then how large they were, and how still. How alert. It came to me then that if I turned Mary down, I’d not leave this room alive.

So, really, I had no choice.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “And God damn you for asking me to.”

Mary went to hug me and I pushed her roughly away. “No! I’m doing this thing for you, and that puts us quits. I never want to see you or think of you again.”

For a long, still moment, Mary studied me calmly. I was lying, for I’d never wanted her so much as I did in that instant. I could see that she knew I was lying, too. If she’d let the least sign of that knowledge show, I believe I would have hit her. But she did not. “Very well,” she said. “So long as you keep your word.”

She turned and left and I knew I would never see her again.

Liam walked me to the door. “Be careful with the package outside in the rain,” he said, handing me an umbrella. “It won’t work if you let it get damp.”

I was standing in Shannon Starport, when Homeworld Security closed in on me. Two burly men in ITSA uniforms appeared to my either side and their alien superior said, “Would you please come with us, sir.” It was not a question.

Oh, Mary, I thought sadly. You have a traitor in your organization. Other than me, I meant. “Can I bring my bag?”

“We’ll see to that, sir.”

I was taken to their interrogation room.

Five hours later I got onto the lighter. They couldn’t hold me because there wasn’t anything illegal in my possession. I’d soaked the package Liam gave me in the hotel room sink overnight and then gotten up early and booted it down a storm drain when no one was looking. It was a quick trip to orbit where there waited a ship larger than a skyscraper and rarer than almost anything you could name, for it wouldn’t return to this planet for centuries. I floated on board knowing that for me there’d be no turning back. Earth would be a story I told my children, and a pack of sentimental lies they would tell theirs.

My homeworld shrank behind me and disappeared. I looked out the great black glass walls into a universe thronged with stars and galaxies and had no idea where I was or where I thought I was going. It seemed to me then that we were each and every one of us ships without a harbor, sailors lost on land.

I used to say that only Ireland and my family could make me cry. I cried when my mother died and I cried when Dad had his heart attack the very next year. My baby sister failed to survive the same birth that killed my mother, so some of my tears were for her as well. Then my brother Bill was hit by a drunk driver and I cried and that was the end of my family. Now there’s only Ireland.

But that’s enough.

The Ki-anna GWYNETH JONES

Gwyneth Jones (homepage.ntlworld.com/gwynethann) lives in Brighton, in the UK. She writes both intellectually ambitious SF novels under her real name, as well as books for young adults under the name Anne Halam. She writes aesthetically ambitious, feminist intellectual science fiction and fantasy, for which she has won lots of awards. In a recent interview, she said, “I’m frequently identified as a feminist writer, but just as frequently rejected by feminists.” “My most recent book is called Spirit,” she says, “a retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo. In the world of Spirit it’s against the law for an AI to be embodied in human form, with the exception of sex workers and street-level police officers. These two jobs are thought to be too psychologically and physically dangerous for human beings, and yet best conducted in human-shaped form. So there are bots … fully sentient software agents, temporarily inhabiting human-shaped machines.” Make that humanoid aliens and you have something like the setup for “The Ki-anna.”

“The Ki-anna” is a murder mystery that appeared in Jonathan Strahan’s anthology Engineering Infinity. It takes place in the established Buonarotti SF future of many other Jones stories and novels. It is about dualized predator-prey relationships among aliens: the protagonist’s twin sister has died. How did it happen?

If he’d been at home, he’d have thought Dump Plant Injuries. In the socially unbalanced, pioneer cities of the Equatorial Ring, little scavengers tangled with the recycling machinery. They needed premium, Earth-atmosphere-and-pressure nursing or the flesh would not regenerate—which they didn’t get. The gouges and dents would be permanent: skinned over, like the scars on her forearms. Visible through thin clothing, like the depressions in her thighs. But this wasn’t Mars, and she wasn’t human, she was a Ki. He guessed, uneasily, at a more horrifying childhood poverty.

She seemed very young for her post: hardly more than a girl. She could almost have been a human girl with gene-mods. Could have chosen to adopt that fine pelt of silky bronze, glimmering against the bare skin of her palms, her throat and face. Chosen those eyes, like drops of black dew; the hint of a mischievous animal muzzle. Her name was Ki-anna, she represented the KiAn authorities. Her partner, a Shet called Roaaat Bhvaaan, his heavy uniform making no concession to the warmth of the space-habitat, was from Interplanetary Affairs, and represented Speranza. The Shet looked far more alien: a head like a grey boulder, naked wrinkled hide hooding his eyes.

Patrice didn’t expect them to be on his side, this odd couple, polite and sympathetic as they seemed. He must be careful, he must remember that his mind and body were reeling from the Buonarotti Transit—two instantaneous interstellar transits in two days, the first in his life. He’d never even seen a non-human sentient biped, in person, this time last week: and here he was in a stark police interview room with two of them.

“You learned of your sister’s death a Martian year ago?”

“Her disappearance. Yes.”

Ki-anna watched, Bhvaaan questioned: he wished it were the other way round. Patrice dreaded the Speranza mindset. Anyone who lives on a planet is a lesser form of life, of course we’re going to ignore your appeals, but it’s more fun to ignore them slowly, very, very slowly—

“We can agree she disappeared,” muttered the Shet, what looked like mordant humour tugging the lipless trap of his mouth. “Yet, aah, you didn’t voice your concerns at once?”

“Lione is, was, my twin. We were close, however far … When the notification of death came it was very brief, I didn’t take it in. A few days later I collapsed at work, I had to take compassionate leave.”

At first he’d accepted the official story. She’s dead, Lione is dead. She went into danger, it shouldn’t have happened but it did, on a suffering war-torn planet unimaginably far away …

The Shet rolled his neckless head, possibly in sympathy.

“You’re, aah a Social Knowledge Officer. Thap must be a demanding job. No blame if a loss to your family caused you to crash-out.”

“I recovered. I examined the material that had arrived while I was ill: everything about my sister’s last expedition, and the ‘investigation.’ I knew there was something wrong. I couldn’t achieve anything at a distance. I had to get to Speranza, I had to get myself here—”

“Quite right, child. Can’t do anything at long distance, aah.”

“I had to apply for financial support, the system is slow. The Buonarotti Transit network isn’t for people like me—” He wished he’d bitten that back. “I mean, it’s for officials, diplomats, not civilian planet-dwellers.”

“Unless they’re idle super-rich,” rumbled the Shet. “Or refugees getting shipped out of a hellhole, maybe. Well,