The Years Best Science Fiction, Vol. 18

The old woman made a wide gesture into the dark. “We didn’t lose one single person on the trip. You’re saying you can’t guarantee that for us at Xingu, though. Is that right?”

“Right,” said Maria.

“But we’d be free.”

Maria didn’t say anything.

The old woman made a sharp gesture. “It’s time for the Jamarikuma spirit to leave. If that’s what she actually is.” She closed her eyes and began to hum, a spirit-dismissing song, Maria supposed, and she glanced at the Cure, who leaped to his feet.

“I am leaving. With the Jamarikuma.”

The old woman nodded, still humming, as though she was glad he’d finally made up his mind.

The Cure took a step away from the fire. He walked-no, he sauntered around his silent friends, family, maybe even his wife. No one said anything and no one was shedding any tears. He came over to Maria and stood beside her.

“I will not come back,” he said.

The old woman hummed a little louder, like she was covering his noise with hers.

When they got back to the Toyota, Maria unlocked the passenger side and let him in. He shut the door and she walked slowly around the back to give herself time to breathe. Her heart was pounding and her head felt empty and light, like she was dreaming. She leaned against the driver’s side, just close enough to see his dim reflection in the side mirror. He was rubbing his sweaty face, hard, as though he could peel away his skin.

In that moment, she felt as though she could reach into the night, to just the right place and find an invisible door which would open into the next day. It was the results of a night with him that she wanted, she realized. He was like a prize she’d just won. For the first time, she wondered what his name was.

She pulled the driver’s side open and got in beside him. She turned the key in the ignition and checked the rearview mirror as the dashboard lit up. All she could see of herself was a ghostly, indistinct shape.

“Is something wrong?” he asked.

“Everything’s fine.” She said and let the truck blunder forward into the insect-laden night.

Later, when the access road evened out to pavement, he put his hot palm on her thigh. She kept driving, watching how the headlights cut only so far ahead into the darkness. She stopped just before the main road, and without looking at him, reached out to touch his fingers.

“Are we going to Xingu?” he asked, like a child.

“No,” she said. “I can’t go back.”

“Neither can I,” he said, and let her kiss him. Here. And there.

The Suspect Genome - Peter F. Hamilton

Here’s an absorbing and intricately plotted mystery set in a troubled future England, a story that expertly and effortlessly mixes two genres to produce a hybrid worthy of the best of either: a science fiction mystery full of surprises, where nothing is as itseemsto be.
Prolific new British writer Peter F. Hamilton has sold toInterzone, In Dreams, New Worlds, Fears,and elsewhere. He sold his first novel, Mind-star Rising,in 1993, and quickly followed it up with two sequels, A Quantum Murderand The Nano Flower,all detailing further adventures of Greg Mendel, who also features in “The Suspect Genome.” Hamilton’s first three books didn’t attract a great deal of attention, on this side of the Atlantic, at least, but that changed dramatically with the publication of his nextnovel, The Reality Dysfunction,a huge modern Space Opera (it needed to be divided into two volumes for publication in the United States) that is itself only the start of a projected trilogy of staggering size and scope, the Night’s Dawntrilogy. The Reality Dysfunctionhas been attracting the reviews and the acclaim that his prior novels did not, and has suddenly put Hamilton on the map, perhaps a potential rival for writers such as Dan Simmons, Iain Banks, Paul J. McAuley, Greg Benford, C. J. Cherryh, Stephen R.
Donaldson, Colin Greenland, and other major players in the expanding subgenre of Modern Baroque Space Opera, an increasingly popular area these days. The subsequent novel in the trilogy, The Neutronium Alchemist,generated the same kind of excited critical buzz. Hamilton’s most recent books include his first collection, A Second Chance at Eden,the third novel in the Night’s Dawntrilogy, The Naked God,and a novella chapbook, Watching Trees Grow.

One-The Dodgy Deal It was only quarter past nine on that particular Monday morning, but the September sun was already hot enough to soften the tarmac of Oakham’s roads. The broad deep-tread tires of Richard Townsend’s Mercedes were unaffected by the mildly adhesive quality of the surface, producing a sly purring sound as they crossed the spongy black surface.

Radio Rutland played as he drove. The station was still excited by the news about Byrne Tyler-the celebrity’s death was the biggest thing to happen in the area all month. A newscaster was interviewing some detective about the lack of an arrest. The body had been found on Friday, and the police still had nothing.

Richard turned onto the High Street, and the road surface improved noticeably. The heart of the town was thriving again. Local shops were competing with the national brand-name stores that were muscling in on the central real estate, multiplying in the wake of the economic good times that had come to the town. Richard always regretted not having any interests in the new consumerism rush, but he’d been just too late to leap on that gravy train. Real money had been very short in the immediate aftermath of the PSP years, which was when the retail sector began its revival.

He drove into the Pillings Industrial Precinct, an area of small factories and warehouses at the outskirts of the town. Trim allotments down the right hand side of the road were planted with thick banana trees, their clumps of green fruit waving gently in the muggy breeze. The sturdy trunks came to a halt beside a sagging weed-webbed fence that sketched out a jumble of derelict land. All that remained of the factory that once stood there was a litter of shattered bricks and broken concrete footings half glimpsed among the tangle of nettles and rampant vines. A new sign had been pounded into the iron-hard ocher clay, proclaiming it to be Zone 7, and Ready For Renewal, a Rutland Council/Townsend Properties partnership.

Zone 7 was an embarrassment. It was the first site anyone saw when they entered the Pillings Precinct: a ramshackle remnant of the bad old days. The irony being Pillings was actually becoming quite a success story. Most of the original units, twentieth-century factories and builders’ merchants, had been refurbished to house viable new businesses, while the contemporary zones, expanding out into the verdant cacao plantations that encircled the town, were sprouting the uniform blank sugar-cube structures of twenty-first-century construction. Seamless weather-resistant composite walls studded with mushroom-like air-conditioning vents, and jet-black solar-cell roofs. Whatever industry was conducted inside, it was securely masked by the standardized multipurpose facades. Even Richard wasn’t sure what some of the companies did.

He parked the Merc outside his own offices, a small brick building recently renovated. Colm, his assistant, was already inside, going through the datapackages that had accumulated overnight on his desktop terminal.

“The architect for Zone 31 wants you to visit,” he said as Richard walked in. “There’s some problem with the floor reinforcements. And a Mr. Alan O’Hagen would like to see you. He suggested 10:30 this morning.”

Richard paused. “Do I know him?”

Colm consulted his terminal. “We don’t have any file on record. He said he may be interested in a zone.”

“Ah.” Richard smiled. “Fine, 10:30.”

It was a typical morning spent juggling data. Builders, suppliers, clients, accountants, local planning officials; they all expected him to clear up the mess they were making of their own jobs. He’d spent a lot of his own money