The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction, Vol. 3 Read online

  In quick, brief paragraphs, he laid out his reasons for agreeing that this year, 6607, was a good year to consider the Tri-Millennial Anniversary (3,333 years, in the official terminology) of the founding of Tristopolis. In that first year, City Hall was inaugurated, and seventeen of its greatest towers were completed.

  But while I agree with the founding year, he continued, the date within that year is contentious.

  He stopped, found his old dictionary, and checked the spelling of “contentious.” Yawning, he nodded, then decided this was enough for the first night. Besides, he had facts but not what you might call a theme. He wanted this essay to shine, to excel, to amaze Sister Stef. Thank Hades he had until Sep-day to finish.

  Lying down on the bed, he thought about linking to his spiders, but drifted into ordinary sleep.

  NEXT MORNING, IN the schoolyard, Carl stared up at the indigo sky, allowing his eyes to defocus. His spiders were in Dad’s office and—Dad was at work.

  He broke contact.

  Any Archivist was sensitive to resonance, and if Dad sensed computational blood that was not quite his own... Carl, blinking, thought he saw someone draw back inside an upper window of the school. Had Sister Stef been watching him?

  A game of snatchball was starting up, but Carl had no interest, except that it meant no one was looking his way. Eyelids fluttering, he sank inside his awareness, linking to his other spider, which remained hidden inside the turn-up of a Bone Listener’s pants leg.

  Now, Carl caused the spider to clamber out of hiding, and scuttle across a wide-seeming floor to hide beneath a filing cabinet formed of bone. This must be the subterranean OCML—the Office of the Chief Medical Listener. Here, forensic Bone Listeners carried out autopsies on suspicious deaths. There might be police officers in attendance.

  I could be in big trouble.

  He checked his spider was out of sight, then broke the link. In the schoolyard, the snatchball game swirled in joyful chaos, a communal celebration of physicality and energy that had nothing to do with him.

  ALONE IN HER CELL, Stef stared at the wall, seeing the memory of nightmare: shuffling men and women on the docks of TalonClaw Port, heading for the gangways that led downwards, into the great dockside holds.

  At the time, as a girl, she had noticed only the well-dressed passengers on the overhead bridges, boarding the vast teardrop-shaped suboceanic liners, with their shining rear propellers. If she thought at all about the devastated, hopeless individuals who would board via the hidden tubes beneath the waves, it was with a snooty superiority: she would never travel third-class.

  “I didn’t know.”

  Her eyes, so animated in class, now held only loss.

  “Oh, Pop. I loved you.”

  No other sound entered the cold stone cell.

  IN THE EVENING, once more alone in his room, Carl resumed the link. His lone spider traversed several ceilings until he came to a room in which autopsies took place. There, he was sickened to watch a Bone Listener drive platinum divining forks into a corpse which could never feel pain.

  During life, microstructures laid down in bone resonated with the neural patterns and neuropeptide flow of thought and emotion and memory. The bones stored interference patterns that could scatter or concentrate necroflux in ways Carl did not understand.

  He felt awful as he withdrew.

  But later, when he should have been asleep, he could not help himself. He re-formed the link and rode the spider as it dropped to a uniformed porter’s shoulder, and hid beneath the epaulet. The man assisted in moving a body onto a gurney, and then along corridors to an underground garage.

  A black ambulance was waiting with its wings furled, but the porter and his colleagues rolled the gurney past it. They stopped at the rear of an ordinary-looking indigo van. On its side shone the Skull-and-Ouroboros logo of the Energy Authority. The porters loaded the corpse into the back, beside two other pale bodies; then they sat down on metal benches inside the van.

  Someone closed the doors, and soon the van was in motion. No one sensed the scarlet spider clinging to the porter’s shoulder, beneath his epaulet.

  An hour later (during which Carl had broken the link only twice, to go to the bathroom and to make himself a cup of helebore tea), the porter was in the Westside Energy Complex. Here the air seemed awash with half-glimpsed black waves, as if necroflux were visible to arachnid sight. The spider’s form was suffering in this environment, so Carl caused it to move quickly, wanting to see as much as possible before the spider disintegrated.

  For a time he watched workers direct quicksilver shrikes—a flock of living metal birds—to strip away the flesh from corpses on biers. The shrikes, as if in payment for their sustenance, dragged thin dark threads from the bodies, and dropped them on the floor. Afterwards, when the bones were stripped and the flock was nesting overhead once more, the human workers coiled the dark threads around spools of bone. The threads were nerves, and Carl had no idea why they might be useful to keep.

  But his spider had limited time, so it scuttled fast across the ceiling, following his sense of energy in the air, heading for the greater concentration.

  Soon, it was perched high on the external cladding of a reactor pile, one of many that stood in long rows inside the cavern complex. This was a huge place, immense to human eyes, impossible for Carl to comprehend through his spider.

  More workers (these in heavy protective suits with gauntlets) were loading bones into an opened reactor, stacking them in careful alignment inside the resonance cavity. Once filled, the reactor would contain the bones of 2,000 dead people. Waves of necroflux would pulse back and forth, building intensity until the energy could be used to deliver warmth and lighting and motive power to the city overhead.

  No one intended the side effect, as the sweeping necroflux replayed a tangled burning chaos of thoughts and emotions, the mashed-together pain of 2,000 lives, forced into one tortured whole. That awful crescendo was playing out now in each reactor pile, over and over, until the bones were used up, and more fuel was required.

  Oh, Hades.

  It was terrible. It was impossible to look away.

  I knew it, hut I didn’t understand.

  Everyone knew, and everyone ignored the reality.

  I can’t look.

  But he did look, remaining linked with his spider until the spillover resonance finally shook it apart. Then its body began slopping away into liquid blood, thickening and denaturing into stickiness, and the link was gone.

  In his room, Carl sat with his mouth open, breathing fast, wishing he’d severed the link earlier.

  But I’ve got it.

  He had needed a theme. He’d read the dates, but the history had been far removed, listing events that seemed unreal.

  I wish I didn’t.

  But he had his essay now.

  FINALLY, IT WAS Sepday and the beginning of class.

  The essay was inside Carl’s desk. He felt its presence like a glow from beneath the ancient, defaced desktop. He had written something special, and he knew it.

  “I mentioned we would try something new.” Sister Stef spoke without smiling. She’d looked serious for days. “We’re going to read our essays aloud, one at a time.”

  Normally, the thought of such a thing would have terrified Carl. But with an essay like the one he’d written, a feeling of unstoppable triumph was rising inside him.

  “We’ll take turns, but I’ll ask for volunteers to start—”

  Carl’s hand was up, as if it had risen by itself.

  “—so it’ll be Carl first, then Angela.”

  He felt warm, energized.

  “Of course,” continued Sister Stef, “Ralen can just relax. Welcome back, from all of us.”

  That was when Carl realized that Ralen had been sitting in his normal desk all along, so subdued—his gaze directed down at his desktop—that the usual signals of dissatisfaction and potential violence had been absent.

  Oh, no.

  Poo
r Ralen was devastated, as Carl knew Dad had been when Mother died, when his world was ripped away from him. And that was awful.

  I can’t read it. Not aloud.

  Because the cleverness of his essay was also shocking, depending on the listeners’ ignorance—if Carl read it aloud—of the reality of life and death. He’d thought he was being smart, writing about things that people didn’t want to know, but now—

  “So, Carl. Will you start?”

  “I... I didn’t do it, Sister. I... forgot.”

  “You forgot.”

  “Yes, Sister.” He felt a whirlpool of sickness inside. “Sorry.”

  “Then”—Sister Stef breathed out, and looked at the steel punishment ruler on its hook—”you’ll step forward to the front of the class.”

  Blurred, the classroom seemed to recede as Carl stood, and shakily walked to Sister Stef.

  “Hold out your hand.”

  He raised it, palm upwards, wishing he didn’t know what was about to come.

  “I’m disappointed, Carl Thargulis.” Sister Stef made no move toward the ruler. “There are so many things I don’t believe in, including the teaching power of violence. But you, you I did have faith in. Sit down.”

  Carl returned to his desk, feeling worse than if pain had cut into his soft palm. Taking his seat, he only half-noticed the sympathy on Ralen’s face.

  This was awful.

  Now IT WAS her final day. Stef moved in a trance, teaching mechanically, scarcely responsive to questions for fear the emotional dam might give way. Sister Zarly Umbra avoided her for the same reason, being the only other nun, besides Reverend Mother, to know that Stef’s packed bags already waited atop the cot in her cell, that a room in a hostel was already booked.

  Tonight Stef would slip out through the iron gates forever.

  At the end of the last lesson—the last lesson ever—she watched her pupils file out, hoping Angela would thrive, that the city would somehow change back to the way it had been, tolerating near-humans. And there went Carl, such a disappointment. Even Ralen, the bully, had suffered such trauma, and she hoped his life would turn around, and regretted that she was unlikely to learn how things worked out for any of them, her boys and girls.

  But this was not her home, not any longer. The classroom was empty. She felt insubstantial, like a wraith who could slip through floor or wall to disappear. Soon enough, in an ordinary human way, that was what she had to do. “Damn it,” she said. “Damn it all to Hades.” How would the children feel tomorrow, when a new teacher greeted them? “They’ll forget me. So what?” Her gaze descended to Carl’s desk. Yes, he had disappointed her, particularly since she had been so sure he was excited by the essay theme.

  She walked to Carl’s desk and raised the lid. Perhaps an intuitive part of her already knew what she would find inside. The lace-bound pages lay on top of his textbooks. There was a title page, and it read:

  TRI-MILLENNIUM

  THE DATE’S TRUE MEANING

  by Carl Thargulis, aged 12

  She lifted the essay out of the desk.

  AN HOUR LATER, she was hammering on Bone Listener Jamie Thargulis’s door, with Carl’s essay in hand. Jamie opened the door.

  “I’d like a word,” she said.

  “Er... All right.” Jamie Thargulis stepped back. “Have you been crying?”

  Stef ran a hand through her hair, then adjusted her unfamiliar coat. Jamie Thargulis was staring.

  “Where’s Carl, Mr. Thargulis?”

  “Upstairs in his room. I’ll just—”

  “No. There’s something I need to talk about. To a... friend.”

  “You’d better come in. And call me Jamie, if you’d like.”

  “Yes. Please.”

  She followed him—Jamie—to a small sitting room. There he gestured to an old, overstuffed armchair, and she sat down. The room was cluttered and cozy, comforting.

  “I’ve left the order.”

  But that wasn’t what was overwhelming her. It was Carl’s doing, truly, but it wasn’t his fault, that was the thing. He’d written something wonderful, but now she was hurting.

  “You’ve... what?”

  “So I can’t talk to Reverend Mother, not now, and I need to. Talk. To someone.”

  “All right.” Jamie closed the door, and crossed to the other armchair. “Tell me.”

  “My mother—please don’t laugh.”

  “Why should I?” Jamie’s voice sounded so gentle. “Just talk.”

  “She was a big woman, and an alcoholic. She used to wait for my father, for Pop to come home, and then she’d... beat him. With empty bottles, or a roller from the wringer.”

  “Oh, Thanatos.”

  “Yes. Pop was small, and never fought back. He got drunk to numb the pain. He—”

  “It’s okay. You don’t need to tell me.”

  “I do. It’s just—Sometimes, as a girl, I’d go down to the docks. You know I lived in TalonClaw Port?”

  “Carry on.”

  “I used to see... people. Shuffling to the docks. I didn’t realize—”

  “What was that?”

  “I thought they were passengers, you see. I didn’t realize. Because I was young, and we all of us ignore the realities.”

  Jamie’s fingertips touched the back of her hand.

  “Tell me.”

  “My father,” she said aloud, after all these years, “sold himself. He became one of them. The shuffling horde. The doomed.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She passed over the pages she’d been holding.

  “Your son would. He’s not afraid to look.”

  “Carl?”

  Jamie stared at the essay, then returned his gaze to her, focusing those incredible dark eyes on her.

  “It’s not like the necroflux piles,” she said, “but it’s close enough. Except in the suboceanic liners, they don’t extract bones from corpses. They use entire human beings. Alive. I can’t begin to imagine the agony.”

  Jamie shook his head.

  “The money,” Stef continued, “was enough to buy me passage, away from TalonClaw Port, and to enroll in college. It was hidden in my bed, the whole roll of cash. But I blew the lot on airfare, because I couldn’t bear to travel by ship. Not after—”

  “Tell me,” said Jamie once more.

  “Pop wasn’t a passenger,” she said. “He was fuel, along with all the others. He sold himself to set me free.”

  IT WAS ANOTHER Sepday, three months later, when they stood together, the three of them amid a crowd of over a million people, thronging the heart of Tristopolis. They stood on the sidewalk at the northern end of Avenue of the Basilisks, watching the great parade pass by.

  “Hey,” said Dad. “There’s the Leviathan that Carl and I saw.”

  “The balloons at Mobius Park?” asked Stef. “That’s terrific.”

  She leaned close and kissed him, hard. Keeping her arm around Dad, she ruffled Carl’s hair, and he grinned up at her.

  “It was neat,” he said.

  “‘Neat,’ huh? You have a better command of the language than that, young man.”

  “I know.”

  Dad smiled.

  “You two,” he said.

  A clown floated past, borne by freewraiths whose half-materialized forms glowed festive orange and yellow.

  “It’s not just a Tri-Millennial we’re celebrating, is it?” said Stef.

  During the past three months, there had been two changes of mayor, and a turnaround in public mood. The Trueblood Bill had passed, then been revoked. Now the city was returning to its previous cosmopolitan acceptance of everyone.

  “No.” Dad kissed her. “It’s our celebration too, thanks to this young miscreant.”

  He winked, and Carl grinned.

  “The interview,” said Stef, “at Tech tomorrow?”

  She meant the secular college she’d applied to for a teaching post.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “Reverend Mother rang w
hile you were at work. She said if Bill—that’s the principal—didn’t offer me the position on the spot, I was to say that some people remember what he got up to behind the bike sheds thirty years ago.”

  “Some other kind of anniversary?”

  “Shh.” Stef’s hand was gentle as she touched Carl’s head. “Not in front of our boy.”

  ON THAT NIGHT she’d shown up at the door, the night she left the Order of Thanatos for good, she’d sat in the old armchair for a long time. Finally, after the tears were done, she had asked Jamie to hand back Carl’s essay. Then she’d read the beginning aloud.

  “And the date, Sepday 37th of Unodecember 6608,” she’d recited, “confuses two anniversaries. While it is 3,333 years since the inauguration of City Hall, the date of Unodecember 37th is remarkable for something else, dating back only six centuries.

  “It is hard to imagine what a city would be like without heat and lighting. But it is impossible to know where the power comes from, if you can’t imagine how the bones hurt and scream. When a person dies, what happens is—”

  She stopped, then continued to the end, forcing her way through the step-by-step description that Carl had provided, and the revelation that 600 years ago, on Unodecember 37th, the first necroflux reactor pile had gone online, delivering its power to the city.

  “You’re a Bone Listener,” she said then. “Do you realize how hard that is for a person to read?”

  “Yes,” Jamie said, before doing something strange: taking hold of the blue-and-white photo of Mareela, and placing it face down on a table. “Carry on, please.”

  “That’s it. Fine writing.”

  “Disturbing,” said Jamie, for reasons that became clear only later, when he and Stef quizzed Carl about his Archive-derived knowledge, and his observation of the inner workings of the Energy Authority.

  “Yes. I remember my first day at the school”— Stef put down the essay—”when I stood in the yard, watching the children play a game called Ring-Around-A-Rhyme. You know it? They didn’t have it where I came from.”

  She pointed to the essay, where Carl had written the second verse of the rhyme.