The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 61

From Boss Gui, far away-"Hurry!"

Sometimes she wondered what would have happened if Darwin's Choice had stayed behind. It was possible for kathoey to give birth, these days... could an Other foster a child? Would he want to?

Or he could have flesh-ridden a host... she would have kept the male parts just for that. If he'd asked her.

But he never did.

The hijacker must have had an emergency eject. She had to find the trigger for it- Wind was rus.h.i.+ng at her, too fast. It was hard to maintain balance on the soft spongy flesh of the slug. It was accelerating-too fast.

She was behind the hijacker now-she reached out, put her hand on the back of his head. A black box...

She punched through with a data-spike while her other hand-

Darkness. The smell of rotting leaves. The smell of bodies in motion, sweat-hunger, a terrible hunger- "Who the f.u.c.k are you? How did you get get in here?" in here?"

Panic was good. She sent through images-her standing behind him, the data-spike in his head-and what else she was doing.

"You can't do that...."

She had pushed a second data-spike through his clothes and through the sphincter muscle, into the bowels themselves-detached a highly illegal replica-tor probe inside.

She felt the slug slow down, just a fraction. The hijacker trying to understand- She said, "I am being nice."

She was.

He had a choice.

The probe inside him was already working. It was the equivalent of graffiti artists at work. It replicated a message, over every cell, every blood vessel, every muscle and tendon. It would be impossible to scrub-you'd need to reach a good clinic and by then it'd be too late.

The message said, I killed the slug train to Nong Khai I killed the slug train to Nong Khai.

It was marking him. He wasn't harmed. She couldn't risk killing him, killing the interface. But this way, whether he got off the train or not, he was a dead man.

"I'll count to five."

He let go at three.

Light, blinding her. The wind rushed past-the driver sat as motionless as ever, but the train had slowed down. The hijacker was gone-she followed him back through the hole in the wall.

He was lying on his bunk, still reading his book. He wasn't listening to music any more. Their eyes met. She grinned. He turned his gaze. She had given him a choice and she'd abide by it-but if the Toads happened to find out, she didn't rate his chances....

Well, the next stop was in an hour. She'd give him an extra half-hour after that-a running start.

She went back to the boss.

"It's coming!" Boss Gui said. She knelt beside him. His belly-sac was moving, writhing, the thing inside trying to get out. She helped-a fingernail slicing through the membrane, gently. A sour smell-she reached in where it was sticky, gooey, warm-found two small arms, a belly-pulled.

"You sorted out the problem?"

"Keep breathing."

"Yes?"

"Yes, of course I did! Now pus.h.!.+"

Boss Gui pushed, breathing heavily. "I'm getting too old for this..." he said.

Then he heaved, one final time, and the small body detached detached itself from him and came into her hands. She held it, staring at the tiny body, the bald head, the small p.e.n.i.s, the five-fingered hands-a tiny Boss Gui, not yet fat but just as wrinkled. itself from him and came into her hands. She held it, staring at the tiny body, the bald head, the small p.e.n.i.s, the five-fingered hands-a tiny Boss Gui, not yet fat but just as wrinkled.

It was hooked up with a cord to its progenitor. With the same flick of a nail, she cut it cleanly.

The baby cried. She rocked it, said, "There, there."

"Drink," Boss Gui said-weakly. One of the Toads came forward. Boss Gui fastened lips on the man/toad's flesh and sucked-a vampire feasting. He had Toad genes-so did the baby, who burped and suddenly ballooned in her hands before shrinking again.

"A true Gui!" the Old Man said.

She stared at the little creature in her hands.... "Which makes how many, now?" she said.

The boss shrugged, pus.h.i.+ng the Toad away, b.u.t.toning up his own s.h.i.+rt. "Five, six? Not many."

"You would install him at Vang Vieng?"

"An a.s.surance of my goodwill-and an a.s.surance of Gui control there, too, naturally. Yes. An heir is only useful when he is put to use."

She thought of Darwin's Choice. "Evolution is everything," he would have told her. "We evolve constantly, with every cycle. Whereas you..."

She stared at the baby clone. It burped happily and closed its little eyes. Gui's way was not unpopular with the more powerful families... but sooner or later someone would come to challenge succession and then it wouldn't matter how many Guis there were.

Suddenly she missed DC, badly.

She rocked the baby to sleep, hugging it close to her chest. The train's thoughts came filtering through in the distance-comfort, and warmth, food and safe-ty-the slow rhythmic motion was soothing. After a while, when the baby was asleep, she handed him to the Old Man, no words exchanged, and went to the dining car in search of a cup of tea.

STILL LIFE.

(A s.e.xAGESIMAL FAIRY TALE).

IAN TREGILLIS.

Ian Tregillis is a 2005 graduate of the Clarion Writers Workshop. His first novel, Bitter Seeds Bitter Seeds, debuted in April 2010. The second and third volumes of the Milkweed trilogy (The Coldest War and and Necessary Evil Necessary Evil, respectively) are forthcoming from Tor in October 2011 and 2012. He is also a contributor to several Wild Cards shared-world superhero anthologies. He holds a doctorate in physics from the University of Minnesota for research on radio galaxies, but lives in New Mexico, where he consorts with scientists, writers, and other unsavory types. His website is www.iantregillis.com.

Every evening was a fin de siecle fin de siecle in the great sprawling castle-city of Nycthemeron. But, of course, to say it was evening meant no more than to say it was morning, or midnight, or yesterday, or six days hence, or nineteen years ago. For it was every inch a timeless place, from the fig trees high in the Palazzo's Spire-top cloud gardens all the way down to the sinuous river Gnomon encircling the city. in the great sprawling castle-city of Nycthemeron. But, of course, to say it was evening meant no more than to say it was morning, or midnight, or yesterday, or six days hence, or nineteen years ago. For it was every inch a timeless place, from the fig trees high in the Palazzo's Spire-top cloud gardens all the way down to the sinuous river Gnomon encircling the city.

Nycthemeron had tumbled from the calendar. It had slipped into the chasm between tick and tock, to land in its own instantaneous eternity. And so its residents occupied their endless moment with pageants and festivals and reveled in century-long masques, filled forever with decadent delights. They picnicked in the botanical gardens, made love in scented boudoirs, danced through their eternal twilight. And they disregarded the fog that shrouded their city with soft gray light.

As for time? Time was content to leave them there. It felt no pity, no compa.s.sion, for the people stuck in that endless now now. This wasn't because time was cold, or cruel, or heartless. But it had no concern for that glistening place, no interest in the people who existed there.

Except one. Her name was Tink.

And it was said (among the people who said such things) that if you sought something truly special for your sweetheart, or if you yearned for that rarest of experiences-something novel, something new-you could find it at Tink's shop in the Briardowns. For Tink was something quite peculiar: she was a clockmaker.

Indeed, so great were her talents that normally staid and proper clock hands fluttered with delight at her approach. Time reveled in her horological handiwork. If it had to be measured, quantified, divvied up and parceled out, it would do so only on a timepiece of Tink's design.

How could this be? She was a clockwork girl, they said. And indeed, if youwere to stand near Tink, to wait for a quiet moment and then bend your ear in her direction, you might just hear the phantom tickticktickticktickticktick tickticktickticktickticktick serenading every moment of her life. Who but a clockwork girl would make such a noise, they said. And others would nod, and agree, and consider the matter settled. serenading every moment of her life. Who but a clockwork girl would make such a noise, they said. And others would nod, and agree, and consider the matter settled.

But they were wrong. Tink was a flesh and blood woman, as real as anybody who danced on the battlements or made love in the gardens. She was no mere clockwork.

Tink was the object of time's affection. It attended her so closely, revered and adored her so completely, that it couldn't bear to part from her, even for an instant. But time's devotion carried a price. Tink aged aged.

She was, in short, a living clock. Her body was the truest timepiece Nycthemeron could ever know; her thumping heart, the metronome of the world.

But the perfectly powdered and carefully coifed lovelies who visited her shop knew nothing of this. They made their way to the Briardowns, in the shadow of an ancient aqueduct, seeking the lane where hung a wooden sign adorned with a faceless clock. Midway down, between an algebraist's clinic and a cartographer's studio, Tink's storefront huddled beneath an awning of pink alabaster.

Now, on this particular afternoon (let us pretend for the moment that such distinctions were meaningful in Nycthemeron) the chime over Tink's door announced a steady trickle of customers. The Festival of the Leaping Second was close, and if ever there was an occasion to ply one's darling with wonderments, it was this. Soon revelers would congregate on the highest balconies of the Spire. There they would grasp the hands of an effigy clock and click the idol forward one second. Afterward, they would trade gifts and kisses, burn the effigy, then seek out new lovers and new debaucheries.

If you were to ask the good people of Nycthemeron just how frequently they celebrated the Festival of the Leaping Second, they would smile and shrug and tell you: When the mood descends upon us. When the mood descends upon us. But Tink knew differently. The Festival came every twenty years, as measured by her tick-tock heartbeat. She felt this, knew it, as a fish feels water and knows how to swim. But Tink knew differently. The Festival came every twenty years, as measured by her tick-tock heartbeat. She felt this, knew it, as a fish feels water and knows how to swim.

To a marchioness with a fringe of peac.o.c.k feathers on her mask, Tink gave an empty, pentagonal hourgla.s.s. "Turn this after your favorite dance, and you'll live that moment five times over," she said.

To a courtier in a scarlet cravat, Tink gave a paper packet of wildflower seeds. "Spread these in your hair," she said. "They'll blossom the moment you kiss your honey love, and you will be the posy she takes home."

Tink requested only token payments for these trinkets, expecting neither obligation nor grat.i.tude in return. Some, like the marchioness, paid handsomely; others, such as the tatterdemalion scholar, gave what they could (in his case, a leather bookmark). And sometimes she traded her wares for good will, as she did with the stonemason and gardener.

Though she was young and strong and did not ache, Tink spent what her body considered a long day rummaging through her shop for creative ways to brighten static lives. Her mind was tired, her stomach empty.

Unlike the rest of Nycthemeron's populace, Tink had to sleep. She announced her shop closed for the remainder of the day. Cries of dismay arose from the people queued outside (though of course they had long ago forgotten the meaning of "day").

"The Festival!" they cried; a chorus of painted, feathered, and sequined masks. Everyone wore a mask, as demanded by the calculus of glamour.

"Come back tomorrow," she said (though of course they had forgotten the meaning of this, too). But a tall fellow in a cormorant mask came jogging up the lane.

"Wait! Timesmith, wait!"

n.o.body had ever called her that, but the phrase amused her. Few people dared tolettheword "time" touch their lips. The rest of Tink's pet.i.tioners grumbled at the bold fellow's approach. They dispersed, shaking their heads and bemoaning their bad luck.

"Sorry, pretties. Sorry, lovelies," said Tink. "You'll get your goodies tomorrow."

The newcomer laid a hand upon the door, panting slightly. His breeches, she noticed, displayed shapely calves. "Are you Tink?"

"I am."

"Fabled maker of clocks and wonderments, I hear."

"Let me guess," said Tink. "You're seeking something for the Festival. Something with which to impress your lady love. You want me to win her heart for you, is that so?"

His shrug ruffled the long silk ribbons looped around the sleeves of his s.h.i.+rt. Some were vermilion, and others cerulean, like his eyes. "It's true, I confess."

"The others wanted the same," she said. "I told them I could do no more today. Why should I become a liar?"

"Do it for my flaxen-haired beauty."

Tink thought she recognized this fellow. And so she asked, knowing the answer, "Will you love her forever?"

"Forever? That is all we have. Yes, I will love her forever, and she me. Until the Festival ends."

Aha. "You are Valentine." "You are Valentine."

He bowed, with a flourish. The ribbons fluttered on his arms again. "You know me?"

"Everybody knows you."

Valentine: the legendary swain of Nycthemeron. Valentine, who could spend centuries on a single seduction. Valentine, famed for his millennial waltz. Charmer, lothario, friend of everyman, consort of the queen.

Though it was against her better judgment, Tink beckoned him inside. Valentine's eyes twinkled as he examined her s.p.a.ce. The shelves were stacked with odds and ends culled from every corner of Nycthemeron: strange objects floating in yellow pickle jars; workbenches strewn with gears and mainsprings, loupes and screws and a disa.s.sembled astrolabe; the smell of oil and peppermint.

He said, "Your sign says 'Timepieces.'"

"Is that somehow strange?"

"But you gave that fellow with the scarlet cravat just a packet of wildflowers."

"You know this how?"

"I stopped him and asked. I knew he'd come from your shop because he looked happy." He crossed his arms. "Flowers are nice, but they're no timepiece."

"Everything is a clock," said Tink. "Even the buckles on your shoes and the boards beneath your feet. But this place," she said, with a gesture that implied all of Nycthemeron, "has forgotten that."

"The stories are true. You are a peculiar one." And then he c.o.c.ked his head, as if listening to something. "They say you are a clockwork, you know. "

His gaze was a stickpin and Tink a b.u.t.terfly. She shrugged, and blushed, and turned away.