Year's Best SF 17

“The human? I don’t know how you make that out.”

“Thap handsome Blue, yaas. I could smell pheromones.”

“He isn’t a ‘Blue,’ ” said the Ki-anna. “The almighty Blues rule Speranza. The humans left behind on Earth, or ‘Mars’—What is ‘Mars’? Is it a moon?”

“Noope. A smaller planet in the Blue system.”

“Well, they aren’t Blues, they’re just ordinary aliens.”

“I shall give up matchmaking. You don’t appreciate my help … Let’s hope the An-he finds your ordinary alien more attractive.”

The Ki-anna shivered. “I think he will. He’s a simple soul.”

Roaaat was an undemanding guest, despite his size. They shared a meal, based on “culturally neutral” Speranza Food Aid. The Shet spread his bedding. The Ki-anna groomed herself, crouched by a screen that showed views of the Warrens. Nothing untoward stirred, in the simulated night. She pressed knuckle-fur to her mouth. Sometimes the pain of living, haunted by the uncounted dead, became very hard to bear. Waking from every sleep to remember afresh that there was nothing left.

“I might yet back out, Officer Bhvaaan. What if we only succeed in feeding the monsters, and make bad worse?”

She unfolded her nest, and settled behind him.

He patted her side with his clubbed fist—it felt like being clobbered by a kindly rock. “See how it goes. You can back out later.”

The Ki-anna lay sleepless, the bulk of her unacknowledged bodyguard between her and the teeth of the An, wondering about Patrice Ferringhi.

When his appointment with alien royalty came around, Patrice was glad he’d had a breathing space. The world was solid again, he felt in control of himself. He donned his new transaid, settling the pickup against his skull, and set out for the high-security bulkhead gate that led to the Refuge Habitat itself.

Armoured guards, intimidatingly tall, were waiting on the other side. They bent their heads, exhaled breath loudly—and indicated that he was to get into a kind of floating palanquin. Probably they knew no English.

The guards jogged around him in a hollow square: between their bodies he glimpsed the approach to an actual castle, like something in a fantasy game. Like a recreation of Mediaeval Europe or Japan, rising from a mass of basic living modules. It was amazing. He’d never been inside a big space-station before, not counting a few hours in Speranza Transit Port. The false horizon, the lilac sky, arcing far above the castle’s bannered towers, would have fooled him completely, if he hadn’t known.

He met the An-he in a windowless, antique chamber hung with tapestries (at least, tapestries seemed like the right word). Sleekly upholstered couches were scattered over the floor. The guard who’d escorted him backed out, snorting. Patrice looked around, vaguely bothered by an overly-warm indoor breeze. He saw someone almost human, loose-limbed and handsome in Speranza tailoring, reclining on a couch—large, wide-spaced eyes alight with curiosity—and realised he was alone with the king.

“Excuse my steward,” said the An. “He doesn’t speak English well, and doesn’t like to embarrass himself by trying. Please, be at home.”

“Thank you for seeing me,” said Patrice. “Your, er, Majesty—?”

The An-he grinned. “You are Patrice. I am the An, let’s just talk.”

The young co-ruler was charming and direct. He asked about the police: Patrice noted, disappointed, that Ki-anna was a title, the Ki-she, or something. He wondered what you had to do to learn their personal names.

“It was a brief interview,” he admitted, ruefully. “I got the impression they weren’t very interested.”

“Well, I am interested. Lione was a great friend to my people. To both my peoples. I’m not sure I understand, were you partners, or litter-mates?”

“We were twins, that means litter-mates, but ‘partners’ too, though our careers took different directions.”

He needed to get partner into the conversation. The An partnership wasn’t sexual, but it was lifelong, and the closest social and emotional bond they knew. A lost partner justified his appeal.

The An-he touched the clip on the side of his head (he was using a transaid, too) reflexively. “A double loss, poor Patrice. Please do confide in me, it will help enormously if you are completely frank—”

In this pairing, the An-she was the senior. She made the decisions, but Patrice couldn’t meet her, she was too important. He could only work on the An-he, who would (hopefully) promote his cause … He had the eerie thought that he was doing exactly what Lione had done—trying to make a good impression on this alien aristocrat, maybe in this very room. The tapestries (if that was the word) swam and rippled in the moving air, drawing his attention to scenes he really didn’t want to examine. Brightly dressed lords and ladies gathered for the hunt. The game was driven onto the guns. The butchery, the bustling kitchen scenes, the banquet—

He realised, horrified, that his host had asked him something about his work on Mars, and he hadn’t heard the question.

“Oh,” said the An-he, easily. “I see what you’re looking at. Don’t be offended, it’s all in the past, and priceless, marvellous art. Recreated, sadly. The originals were destroyed, along with the original of this castle. But still, our heritage! Don’t you Blues love ancient battle scenes, heaps of painted slaughter? And by the way, aren’t you closely related, limb for limb and bone for bone, to the beings that you traditionally kill and eat?”

“Not on Mars.”

“There, you are sundered from your web of life. At home on Earth, the natural humans do it all the time, I assure you.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

Notoriously, the Ki and the An had both been affronted when they were identified, by other sentient bipeds, as a single species. Of course they knew, but an indecent topic! In ways, the most disturbing aspect of “the KiAn issue” was not the genocidal war, in which the oppressed had risen up, savagely, against the oppressors. It was the fact that some highly respected Ki leaders actually defended “the traditional diet of the An.”

The An-he showed his bright white teeth. “Then you have an open mind, my dear Patrice! It gives me hope that you’ll come to understand us.” He stretched, and exhaled noisily. “Enough. All I can tell you today is that your request is under consideration. You’re a valuable person, and it’s dangerous down there! We don’t want to lose you. Now, I suppose you’d like to see your sister’s rooms? She stayed with us, you know: here in the castle.”

“Would that be possible?”

“Certainly! I’ll get some people to take you.”

More guards—or servants in military-looking uniform—led him along winding, irregular corridors, all plagued by that insistent breeze, and opened a round plug of a doorway. The An-he’s face appeared, on a display screen emblazoned on a guard’s tunic.

“Take as long as you like, dear Patrice. Don’t be afraid of disturbing the evidence! The police took anything they thought was useful, ages ago.”

The guards gave him privacy, which he had not expected: they shut the door and stayed outside. He was alone, in his sister’s space. The aeons he’d crossed, the unthinkable interstellar distance, vanished. Lione was here. He could feel her, all around him. The warm air, suddenly still, seemed full of images: glimpses of his sister, rushing into his mind—

“Recreation” was skin-deep here. Essentially the room was identical to his cabin. A bed-shelf with a puffy mattress; storage space beneath. A desk, a closet bathroom, stripped of fittings. Her effects had been returned to Mars, couriered as data. The police had been and gone “ages ago.” What could this empty box tell him? Nothing, but he had to try.

Was he under surveillance? He decided he didn’t care.

He searched swiftly, efficiently studying the floor, running his hands over the walls and closet space, checking the seals on the mattress. The screen above the desk was set in an ornate decorative frame. He probed around it, and his fingertips brushed something that had slipped behind. Carefully, patiently, he teased out a corner of the object, and drew it from hiding.

Lione, he whispered.