The Future We Wish We Had

Ro shook her head. “This is not an emergency, Doctor. We are willing to be contacted on a case-by-case basis in the event of an emergency, when someone actually needs Alden’s help. What we are refusing is a business arrangement. We want our son to be a child first, and a commodity only if he chooses to be.”

“He wouldn’t be a commodity,” Dr. Wyatt said.

She stared at him for a long time. “Maybe not to you,” she said. “But the biotech company who bought his genes wouldn’t know him. To them, he would be something that would enable them to make a profit. To other patients, he would be another tool. To us, he is a person already. And people make their own choices, and their own commitments. We’re sorry, doctor.”

She stood. So did Gil. Finally Dr. Wyatt did as well. He ran a hand along Alden’s small face. “He is a perfect child.”

“No,” Ro said. “He’s not. He’s got good genes. That’s all.”

“That’s plenty,” Dr. Wyatt said. “Promise me you’ll tell him of this opportunity when he’s grown.”

“You will,” Gil said. “Or someone in your clinic will. We will stipulate that. We have an attorney who can draw up a document.”

“It was kind of you,” Ro added, “not to mention the money.”

Dr. Wyatt took Alden’s tiny hand in his own. “You realize how rare and precious he is.”

Ro smiled. “Yes,” she said softly. “We do.”

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Kevin J. Anderson has more than sixteen million books in print in thirty languages, including Dune novels written with Brian Herbert, Star Wars and X-Files novels, and a collaboration with Dean Koontz. He just finished the sixth book in his epic space opera, The Saga of Seven Suns. He and his wife Rebecca Moesta have written numerous bestselling and award-winning young adult novels.

Loren L. Coleman is a full-time novelist. His first novel, Double-Blind, was published in 1998. He has since explored the universes of BattleTech, Magic: The Gathering, Crimson Skies, MechWarrior: Dark Age, Star Trek, and Conan. His latest works are a new trilogy set in the Conan universe and co-development of a new fiction market for the Classic Battle Tech and MechWarrior universe: www.BattleCorps.com. Currently he resides in Washington State with his wife, Heather Joy, two sons, Talon LaRon and Conner Rhys Monroe, and a young daughter, Alexia Joy. The family owns three of the obligatory writer’s cats, Chaos, Ranger, and Rumor, and one dog, Loki. His personal website can be found at www.rasqal.com.

Brenda Cooper has published fiction in Analog; Oceans of the Mind; and Strange Horizons; and in the anthologies Sun in Glory; Maiden, Matron, Crone; and Time After Time. Brenda’s collaborative fiction with Larry Niven has appeared in Analog and Asimov’s. She and Larry wrote a novel, Building Harlequin’s Moon, and her solo novel, The Silver Ship and the Sea, was published in 2007. Brenda lives in Bellevue, Washington, with her partner Toni, Toni’s daughter Katie, a border collie, and a golden retriever. By day, she is the City of Kirkland ’s CIO, and at night and in early morning hours, she’s a futurist and writer.

Dave Freer was born at a very early age. And then, alas, things started to go downhill for him. He was unable to maintain the status quo; despite considerable and lifelong resistance to growing up, he has found himself married to Barbara and a father to two sons-who were also born at a very young age, proving it must be hereditary. In a desperate and vain attempt to change the world and also to pay the rent, Freer turned to the writing of fantasy and science fiction. He believed they were closely related fields; both paid badly and required a great deal of intellect and very little common sense; and therefore it was something he could do. Fortunately he was wrong about the intellect it required of him, although it has taken him ten books-eight of them with co-authors Eric Flint and/or Mercedes Lackey-to figure this out. “Boys” is his eighth short story sale. When not writing Freer can sometimes be found clinging to rocks, both on the sides of mountains or in the raging sea, in the mistaken impression he is getting back to his roots.

Esther M. Friesner is the author of over 30 novels and over 150 short stories, plus poetry, articles, an advice column, and one professionally produced play. She won the Nebula Award for her short stories in two consecutive years. At present she is best known for having created and edited the five extremely popular Chicks in Chainmail anthologies. Her most recent novels are Temping Fate (Dutton/Penguin, June 2006) and Nobody’s Princess (Random House, April 2007). She lives in Connecticut with her husband, is the proud mother of two all-grown-up kids, and harbors cats.

P. R. Frost, the author of the Tess Noncorire Adventures series, resides on beautiful Mt. Hood in Oregon. She is currently finishing up the second novel in the series. She hikes the Columbia River Gorge for inspiration, reads omnivorously, and enjoys attending science fiction conventions. She grew up in a ballet studio, performing with the Ballet du Lac, a pro/am company out of Lake Oswego, Oregon.

It’s been almost exactly ten years since Sarah A. Hoyt sold her first short story. In the interim, she’s sold over three dozen short stories to magazines such as Amazing, Asimov’s, Analog, and Weird Tales, as well as an assortment of anthologies. Alongside the short stories, she’s sold a dozen novels. The most notable are her critically acclaimed Shakespeare Fantasy series, her Musketeer Mysteries series, written as Sarah D’Almeida (www.musketeersmysteries.com), and her new Urban Fantasy Shifter’s series (www.shifterseries.com.). Sarah lives in Colorado with her two teen sons, her husband, and a varied pride of cats. Catch up with her at http://www.sarahahoyt.com.

Julie Hyzy has loved science fiction since her eighth-grade teacher put a copy of Ray Bradbury’s The October Country in her hands many years ago. Julie’s short stories have appeared in Star Trek, Strange New Worlds (Pocket Books), and All the Rage This Year (Phobos). She’s also written several mystery novels, including Artistic License (stand-alone romantic suspense), Deadly Blessings (first in a series), and Deadly Interest. She lives with her family in Tinley Park, Illinois.

James Patrick Kelly has had an eclectic writing career. He has written novels, short stories, essays, reviews, poetry, plays, and planetarium shows. His books include Burn (2005), Strange But Not a Stranger (2002), Think Like a Dinosaur and Other Stories (1997), Wild-life (1994), Heroines (1990), Look Into the Sun (1989), Freedom Beach (1986), and Planet of Whispers (1984). His fiction has been translated into sixteen languages. He has won the World Science Fiction Society’s Hugo Award twice: in 1996 for his novelette “Think Like A Dinosaur” and in 2000 for his novelette “Ten to the Sixteenth to One.” 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. In 2004 he was appointed by the Governor of New Hampshire to be the chair of the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts.

Alan L. Lickiss fell in love with robot stories when he discovered science fiction. While he admires the robot vacuums that have shown up in recent years, he is still looking for the more versatile robots that can pick up his clothes first before they vacuum the carpet. He lives along the front range in Colorado with his wife and children, works a day job, and writes as much as he can in the evenings. Now if he only had a robot stenographer.

Rebecca Moesta is the author of 28 books and numerous short stories, including the award-winning Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights series, two original Titan A.E. novels, which she co-authored with husband Kevin J. Anderson, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer novel, Little Things. With Anderson, she has written an original young-adult fantasy series, Crystal Doors, for Little, Brown.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Lisanne Norman started writing at the age of eight in order to find more of the books she liked to read. In 1980, two years after joining The Vikings, the largest British reenactment society in Britain, she moved to Norfolk, England. There she ran her own specialist archery display team. Now living in America and a full-time author, she has created worlds where warriors, magic, and science all coexist in her Sholan Alliance Series. Her next novel in the series will be called Shades of Gray, from DAW.

Irene Radford has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian living in Oregon, she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon, where deer, bear, coyote, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck. In her spare time, Irene enjoys lacemaking and is a longtime member of an international guild.

Annie Reed is an award-winning writer whose short fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, three volumes of Strange New Worlds, and several DAW anthologies, including Time After Time, Hags, Sirens, and Other Bad Girls of Fantasy, and Cosmic Cocktails. She lives in northern Nevada with her husband, daughter, and a varying number of high- maintenance cats. In addition to science fiction, she writes mystery, romance, and women’s fiction.

Mike Resnick is the winner of five Hugos and a Nebula, along with other major awards in the USA, France, Japan, Spain, Croatia, and Poland. He is the author of more than 50 novels, 200 stories, 14 collections, and 2 screenplays, and the editor of more than 40 anthologies. His work has been translated into 22 languages.