Year's Best Scifi 7 Part 39

"I can't promise anything. It depends on whether you were telling me the truth. You'll be discharged, of course, and sent off-planet, but that might be the worst of it. The discharge might not even be dishonorable."

Walter seemed to relax a little. She stood and nodded to the guard to unlock the interview room, then headed for home.

She thought that she knew now how Hiraz had identified Walter: his dog had sniffed him out. Thank G.o.d they had the right person, and that the people responsible would be punished, just as she had promised Go-Between.

She hated to admit it, though, but she understood how Walter felt. "Dammit," she thought, "they are our dogs!"

In the days that followed, Walter came forward with the names of others in the crowd, and they and San Corio were arrested. Corio denied everything at first, but when several people identified him as the instigator, he broke down and confessed.

Meanwhile, the talks dragged on. One day, during a particularly long pause, a dog came over and sniffed at her hands. It was Hiraz's dog; she recognized the crooked tail and sharp pointed ears. She patted him carefully. "I'm glad to see he's well enough to go outside," she said.

"He's not well at all, I'm sorry to say," Go-Between said. "He turned out to have suffered severalbroken ribs."

"You mean he hasn't left the hearth?"

"Not since that night."

"But-" Majli hesitated. "Think twice about everything you say," her father had said. "Then think once more."

The h.e.l.l with that. She shut her father out. There was something strange here, something these people were hiding from her, and she had to get to the bottom of it. She could no longer afford diplomacy.

"How did Hiraz recognize the person in the crowd that night?" she asked bluntly. "I thought the dog recognized his smell, but you said the dog hasn't been out. And we all look alike to you; you said that too."

Go-Between was silent for a long moment. "There are things we do not tell you," he said finally. "Just as I am certain there are things you do not tell us."

The dog lowered his nose to her shoes, apparently finding a fascinating scent there. Suddenly, a good many puzzles came together. The long silences, and the friends.h.i.+p with dogs, and the fact that King Darhu never spoke....

"Hiraz recognized Walter by smell," she said. "You communicate by smell, don't you? You translate what I say for the king, and he answers you, all by scent. That's why you talk so loudly-because normally, when you're close to each other, you don't use your voice at all. Speech is only for long distances, isn't that right?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I thought you were the power here, but you're only the translator."

"The Go-Between. We have never lied to you."

"And dogs-they communicate by smell too," she said, thinking quickly. G.o.d, it was worse than she'd thought; the implications were devastating. "You-somehow you can talk to dogs, actually speak to them. Hiraz even told me so, but I didn't listen. That's why the dogs here are so well-behaved."

Delgado took out his notebook and stylus and began to write furiously. Great, she thought, he's going to get a paper out of this. I'm going to be posted to some backwater, and he's going to be famous! She shook her head; she had to concentrate.

"Is that true?" Delgado asked. "Do dogs have language? How much can they communicate?"

"More than you suspect," Go-Between said.

"But what do they talk about? Can they understand abstract concepts?"

"Enough of this," Majli said, snapping at Delgado. "You can interview him later." She turned to Go-Between. "You said-you said that there was no way of knowing now how Hiraz's dog got injured.

The important word was 'now,' and I missed it. What you meant was, you'd ask him when he woke up.

Isn't that right? And what did he tell you? How was he hurt?"

"A car accident. As you thought."

"And the broken ribs?" She held her breath.

"A man in the crowd kicked him. Kicked him several times."

She slumped. "And so you know-"

"Know what?" Go-Between said. His muzzle opened; he was smiling, though she could not imagine what he found so amusing.

"Know that we are not the way we represented ourselves," Majli said. "That we are crueler than you thought."

Delgado gave her a warning look. She shook her head. There was nothing she could salvage from this situation; she might as well tell the truth. She stood, ready to leave if Go-Between dismissed her.

"Sit down, please," Go-Between said. He said nothing for a long moment; she thought she might scream from the tension, then realized that he and the king were communicating, just as she had guessed.

The spicy scent around her grew stronger.

"On the contrary," Go-Between said finally. "We would like to accept your offer and lease the port to you. We are eager to share all the learning you have promised us."

"You-you are? But why?"

"The dogs told us. They said that you could be cruel, yes, but that you were rarely so. They said thatthey have loved you for years uncountable. That you are good, and worthy of our trust."

She grabbed an armful of her clothes from the closet and thrust them into her suitcase, the hangers still attached. A knock came at her door. She didn't answer.

"h.e.l.lo?" someone said. Delgado stepped inside. "My G.o.d, what are you doing? Are you leaving?"

She faced him, still feeling the anger that had driven her to start packing. "Do you know how my father negotiated the Peace of Altair?"

Delgado said nothing.

"He did it by lying to them. Over and over, until he came up with lies each side wanted to hear.

Beautiful lies, all of them. Beautiful, worthless lies."

"Are you drunk?"

"No. No, I'm fine."

"Listen, you wouldn't believe what I'm learning about dogs! This is amazing. Do you know why they wag their tails? It's to spread their scent around-it's like shouting. And when they're frightened and they tuck their tails beneath them-that's to make sure that no one can smell them out, can hear them, if you like, and find them."

Majli plucked the hangers from her clothes. "That's nice."

"And when they urinate, that's like writing. They can pack enormous amounts of meaning into it.

Go-Between says it's almost like epic poetry, one vast poem that every dog adds to. All this communication going on around us, and we never knew."

Majli said nothing.

"What's wrong?" Delgado asked. "Are you leaving?"

"Yes."

"But why? You did a great job here. You got us the port. Sure, you went a little crazy toward the end there, told them that stuff about us being cruel, but no one back at s.p.a.ceAdmin has to know that. I won't mention it in my report, if that's what's worrying you."

"What's wrong is that we're misrepresenting ourselves to the Hwaru. The dogs told them that we're wonderful people. Well, dogs are saps, you know that! You can kick them and kick them and they still come back, they still love you. Dogs don't know anything!"

She turned toward him. "We're not wonderful. Look at those soldiers, ready to riot just because they saw a Hwaru with a dog. And here I was, trying to pretend we were something else, kind, generous people who wouldn't hurt a flea. Wouldn't hurt a dog. I was lying, just like you said. All I thought about was getting that port, was winning. It never occurred to me that if we won, the Hwaru might lose. We haven't changed-we'll never change. We're still the same people who gave the Native Americans those blankets."

"Well, but we're trying. We're more careful now. That's what I'm here for, that's why they send anthropologists to these talks. To make sure we understand who we're dealing with, that we don't screw it up this time."

"And we won't? Can you promise me that? We're going to have thousands of people coming here to work on the port. Can you promise me the Hwaru won't be attacked again?"

"No, of course not. Of course not. But-"

"All my life, I wanted to be an amba.s.sador. Thought I wanted to be an amba.s.sador. But it was just my father, pus.h.i.+ng me and pus.h.i.+ng me. You know, there was a part of me that was glad when he died.

Glad I wouldn't have to hear any of those stupid homilies again. I didn't know that I'd be hearing them for the rest of my life, that I'd never get rid of them. That they'd play on an infinite loop in my brain."

"You are drunk."

"Maybe. Maybe a little. But I'm not changing my mind. I'm quitting. I can't go on telling these-these lies about us to everyone we meet. You didn't see those soldiers, that mob, when they attacked Hiraz. It was horrible. We're horrible."

"Maybe," Delgado said. "But you know, the dogs like us. That's got to count for something."

Viewpoint

GENE WOLFE

Gene Wolfe lives in Barrington, Illinois, and is widely considered the most accomplished writer in the fantasy and science fiction genres; his four-volume Book of the New Sun is an acknowledged masterpiece. Although his novels are most often science fiction, his richly textured far-future worlds often feel like fantasy. His most recent book is Return to the Whorl, the third volume of The Book of the Short Sun (really a single huge novel), which some of his most attentive readers feel is his best book yet. He has published many fantasy, science fiction, and horror stories over the last thirty years and more, and has been given the World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement. Collections of his short fiction include The Island of Dr. Death and Other Stories and Other Stories, Storeys from the Old Hotel, Endangered Species, and Strange Travelers.

"Viewpoint," from Red s.h.i.+ft, is a Gene Wolfe adventure in social satire mode, reminiscent of Robert Sheckley's cla.s.sic "The Prize of Peril." Here, a backcountry man becomes a contestant on a TV show that gives him $100,000 in cash and sends the public (and the government) to try to rob him.

" I have one question and one only," Jay declared. "How do I know that I will be paid? Answer it to my satisfaction and give your orders."

The youngish man behind the desk opened a drawer and pulled out a packet of crisp bills. It was followed by another and another, and they by seven more. The youngish man had brown-blond hair and clear blue eyes that said he could be trusted absolutely with anything. Looking at them, Jay decided that each had cost more than he had ever had in his entire life to date.

"Here's the money," the youngish man told Jay softly. "These are hundreds, all of them. Each band holds one hundred, so each bundle is ten thousand. Ten bundles make a hundred thousand. It's really not all that much."

"Less than you make in a year."

"Less than I make in three months. I know it's a lot to you." The youngish man hesitated as though groping for a new topic. "You've got a dramatic face, you know. Those scars. That was your edge. Did you really fight a bobcat?"

Jay shrugged. "The bullet broke its back, and I thought it was dead. I got too close."

"I see." The youngish man pushed the packets of bills toward him. "Well, you don't have to worry about getting paid. That's the full sum, and you're getting it up front and in cash." He paused. "Maybe I shouldn't tell you this."

Jay was looking at the money. "If it's confidential, say so and I'll keep it that way."

"Will your'

Jay nodded. "For a hundred thousand? Yes. For quite a bit less than that."

The youngish man sighed. "You probably know anyway, so why not? You can't just go out and stick it in a bank. You understand that?"

"They'll say it's drug money."

For a moment the youngish man looked as if he were about to sigh again, although he did not. "They'll say it's drug money, of course. They always do. But they really don't care. You have a lot of money, and if it gets into a bank Big Daddy will have it in a nanosecond. It'll take you years to get it back, and cost a lot more than a hundred thousand."

Though skeptical, Jay nodded. "Sure."

"Okay, I didn't want to give you this and have them grab it before five. They'll take a big cut of anything you spend it on anyway, but we've all got to live with that."

Jay did not, but he said nothing.

"Count it. Count it twice and look carefully. I don't want you thinking we cheated you for a lousy hundred thou." Jay did, finding it impossible to think of what so much money could buy. He had needed money so badly that he could no longer calculate its value in terms of a new rifle or a canoe. It was money itself he hungered for now, and this was more than he had dared dream of.

"You want a bag? I can give you one, but that jacket's got plenty of pockets. It's for camping, right?"

"Hunting."

The youngish man smiled the smile of one who knows a secret. "Why don't you put it in there? Should be safer than a bag."

Jay had begun to fill them already-thirty thousand in the upper right inside pocket, twenty more in the upper left, behind his wallet. Twenty in the left pocket outside.

"You're BC, right?"

"Sure." Jay tapped the empty screen above his eyes.

"Okay." The youngish man opened another drawer. "As a bonus you get a double upgrade. Couple of dots. Sit still."

Jay did.

When the youngish man was back behind his desk, he said, "I bet you'd like to look at yourself. I ought to have a mirror, but I didn't think of it. You want to go to the men's? There's a lot of mirrors in there. Just come back whenever you've seen enough. I've got calls to make."

"Thanks," Jay said.