The Best Science Fiction And Fantasy Of The Year Part 68

I lean into the wind. I move toward the light.

This is not the plan. But I think I have an answer, now: I think I may have had it even before I sent myself back into exile. It's not an easy thing to admit. Even now I don't fully understand. How long have I been out here, retelling the tale to myself, setting clues in order while my skin dies by low degrees? How long have I been circling this obvious, impossible truth?

I move towards the faint crackling of flames, the dull concussion of exploding ordnance more felt than heard. The void lightens before me: gray segues into yellow, yellow into orange. One diffuse brightness resolves into many: a lone burning wall, miraculously standing. The smoking skeleton of MacReady's shack on the hill. A cracked smoldering hemisphere reflecting pale yellow in the flickering light: Child's searchlight calls it a radio dome radio dome.

The whole camp is gone. There's nothing left but flames and rubble.

They can't survive without shelter. Not for long. Not in those skins.

In destroying me, they've destroyed themselves.

Things could have turned out so much differently if I'd never been Norris.

Norris was the weak node: bioma.s.s not only ill-adapted but defective defective, an offshoot with an off switch. The world knew, had known so long it never even thought about it anymore. It wasn't until Norris collapsed that heart condition heart condition floated to the surface of Copper's mind where I could see it. It wasn't until Copper was astride Norris's chest, trying to pound him back to life, that I knew how it would end. And by then it was too late; Norris had stopped being Norris. He had even stopped being me. floated to the surface of Copper's mind where I could see it. It wasn't until Copper was astride Norris's chest, trying to pound him back to life, that I knew how it would end. And by then it was too late; Norris had stopped being Norris. He had even stopped being me.

I had so many roles to play, so little choice in any of them. The part being Copper brought down the paddles on the part that had been Norris, such a faithful Norris, every cell so scrupulously a.s.similated, every part of that faulty valve reconstructed unto perfection. I hadn't known known. How was I to know? These shapes within me, the worlds and morphologies I've a.s.similated over the aeons-I've only ever used them to adapt before, never to hide. This desperate mimicry was an improvised thing, a last resort in the face of a world that attacked anything unfamiliar. My cells read the signs and my cells conformed, mindless as prions.

So I became Norris, and Norris self-destructed.

I remember losing myself after the crash. I know how it feels to degrade degrade, tissues in revolt, the desperate efforts to rea.s.sert control as static from some misfiring organ jams the signal. To be a network seceding from itself, to know that each moment I am less than I was the moment before. To become nothing. To become legion.

Being Copper, I could see it. I still don't know why the world didn't; its parts had long since turned against each other by then,every offshoot suspected every other.

Surely they were alert for signs of infection infection. Surely some some of that bioma.s.s would have noticed the subtle twitch and ripple of Norris changing below the surface, the last instinctive resort of wild tissues abandoned to their own devices. of that bioma.s.s would have noticed the subtle twitch and ripple of Norris changing below the surface, the last instinctive resort of wild tissues abandoned to their own devices.

But I was the only one who saw. Being Childs, I could only stand and watch. Being Copper, I could only make it worse; if I'd taken direct control, forced that skin to drop the paddles, I would have given myself away. And so I played my parts to the end. I slammed those resurrection paddles down as Norris's chest split open beneath them. I screamed on cue as serrated teeth from a hundred stars away snapped shut. I toppled backwards, arms bitten off above the wrist. Men swarmed, agitation bootstrapping to panic. MacReady aimed his weapon; flames leaped across the enclosure. Meat and machinery screamed in the heat.

Copper's tumor winked out beside me. The world would never have let it live anyway, not after such obvious contamination. I let our skin play dead on the floor while overhead, something that had once been me shattered and writhed and iterated through a myriad random templates, searching desperately for something fireproof.

They have destroyed themselves. They. have destroyed themselves. They.

Such an insane word to apply to a world.

Something crawls towards me through the wreckage: a jagged oozing jigsaw of blackened meat and shattered, half-resorbed bone. Embers stick to its sides like bright searing eyes; it doesn't have strength enough to sc.r.a.pe them free. It contains barely half the ma.s.s of this Childs's skin; much of it, burnt to raw carbon, is already, irrecoverably dead.

What's left of Childs, almost asleep, thinks motherf.u.c.ker motherf.u.c.ker, but I am being him now. I can carry that tune myself.

The ma.s.s extends a pseudopod to me, a final act of communion. I feel my pain: I was Blair, I was Copper, I was even a sc.r.a.p of dog that survived that first fiery ma.s.sacre and holed up in the walls, with no food and no strength to regenerate. Then I gorged on una.s.similated flesh, consumed instead of communed; revived and replenished, I drew together as one.

And yet, not quite. I can barely remember-so much was destroyed, so much memory lost-but I think the networks recovered from my different skins stayed just a little out of synch, even reunited in the same soma. I glimpse a half-corrupted memory of dog erupting from the greater self, ravenous and traumatized and determined to retain its individuality individuality. I remember rage and frustration, that this world had so corrupted me that I could barely fit together again. But it didn't matter. I was more than Blair and Copper and dog, now. I was a giant with the shapes of worlds to choose from, more than a match for the last lone man who stood against me.

No match, though, for the dynamite in his hand.

Now I'm little more than pain and fear and charred stinking flesh. What sentience I have is awash in confusion. I am stray and disconnected thoughts, doubts and the ghosts of theories. I am realizations, too late in coming and already forgotten.

But I am also Childs, and as the wind eases at last I remember wondering, Who a.s.similates who Who a.s.similates who? The snow tapers off and I remember an impossible test that stripped me naked.

The tumor inside me remembers it, too. I can see it in the last rays of its fading searchlight-and finally, at long last, that beam is pointed inwards inwards.

Pointed at me.

I can barely see what it illuminates: Parasite. Monster. Disease. Parasite. Monster. Disease.

Thing.

How little it knows. It knows even less than I do.

I know enough, you motherf.u.c.ker. You soul-stealing, s.h.i.t-eating rapist.

I don't know what that means. There is violence in those thoughts, and the forcible penetration of flesh, but underneath it all is something else I can't quite understand. I almost ask-but Childs's searchlight has finally gone out. Now there is nothing in here but me, nothing outside but fire and ice and darkness.

I am being Childs, and the storm is over.

In a world that gave meaningless names to interchangeable bits of bioma.s.s, one name truly mattered: MacReady.

MacReady was always the one in charge. The very concept still seems absurd: in charge in charge. How can this world not see the folly of hierarchies? One bullet in a vital spot and the Norwegian dies dies, forever. One blow to the head and Blair is unconscious. Centralization is vulnerability-and yet the world is not content to build its bioma.s.s on such a fragile template, it forces the same model onto its metasystems as well. MacReady talks; the others obey. It is a system with a built-in kill spot.

And yet somehow, MacReady stayed in charge in charge. Even after the world discovered the evidence I'd planted; even after it decided that MacReady was one of those things one of those things, locked him out to die in the storm, attacked him with fire and axes when he fought his way back inside. Somehow MacReady always had the gun, always had the flamethrower, always had the dynamite and the willingness to take out the whole d.a.m.n camp if need be. Clarke was the last to try and stop him; Mac-Ready shot him through the tumor.

Kill spot.

But when Norris split into pieces, each scuttling instinctively for its own life, MacReady was the one to put them back together.

I was so sure of myself when he talked about his test test. He tied up all the bioma.s.s-tied me me up, more times than he knew-and I almost felt a kind of pity as he spoke. He forced Windows to cut us all, to take a little blood from each. He heated the tip of a metal wire until it glowed and he spoke of pieces small enough to give themselves away, pieces that embodied instinct but no intelligence, no self-control. MacReady had watched Norris in dissolution, and he had decided: men's blood would not react to the application of heat. Mine would break ranks when provoked. up, more times than he knew-and I almost felt a kind of pity as he spoke. He forced Windows to cut us all, to take a little blood from each. He heated the tip of a metal wire until it glowed and he spoke of pieces small enough to give themselves away, pieces that embodied instinct but no intelligence, no self-control. MacReady had watched Norris in dissolution, and he had decided: men's blood would not react to the application of heat. Mine would break ranks when provoked.

Of course he thought that. These offshoots had forgotten that they they could change. could change.

I wondered how the world would react when every piece of bioma.s.s in the room was revealed as a shapeshifter, when MacReady's small experiment ripped the facade from the greater one and forced these twisted fragments to confront the truth. Would the world awaken from its long amnesia, finally remember that it lived and breathed and changed like everything else? Or was it too far gone-would MacReady simply burn each protesting offshoot in turn as its blood turned traitor?

I couldn't believe it when MacReady plunged the hot wire into Windows's blood and nothing happened nothing happened. Some kind of trick, I thought. And then MacReady MacReady's blood pa.s.sed the test, and Clarke's. blood pa.s.sed the test, and Clarke's.

Copper's didn't. The needle went in and Copper's blood shivered shivered just a little in its dish. I barely saw it myself; the men didn't react at all. If they even noticed, they must have attributed it to the trembling of MacReady's own hand. They thought the test was a crock of s.h.i.t anyway. Being Childs, I even said as much. just a little in its dish. I barely saw it myself; the men didn't react at all. If they even noticed, they must have attributed it to the trembling of MacReady's own hand. They thought the test was a crock of s.h.i.t anyway. Being Childs, I even said as much.

Because it was too astonishing, too terrifying, to admit that it wasn't.

Being Childs, I knew there was hope. Blood is not soul: I may control the motor systems but a.s.similation takes time. If Copper's blood was raw enough to pa.s.s muster than it would be hours before I had anything to fear from this test; I'd been Childs for even less time.

But I was also Palmer, I'd been Palmer for days. Every last cell of that bioma.s.s had been a.s.similated; there was nothing of the original left.

When Palmer's blood screamed and leapt away from MacReady's needle, there was nothing I could do but blend in.

I have been wrong about everything.

Starvation. Experiment. Illness. All my speculation, all the theories I invoked to explain this place-top-down constraint, all of it. Underneath, I always knew the ability to change-to a.s.similate a.s.similate-had to remain the universal constant. No world evolves if its cells don't evolve; no cell evolves if it can't change. It's the nature of life everywhere.

Everywhere but here.

This world did not forget how to change. It was not manipulated into rejecting change. These were not the stunted offshoots of any greater self, twisted to the needs of some experiment; they were not conserving energy, waiting out some temporary shortage.

This is the option my shriveled soul could not encompa.s.s until now: out of all the worlds of my experience, this is the only one whose bioma.s.s can can't change. It change. It never could never could.

It's the only way MacReady's test makes any sense.

I say goodbye to Blair, to Copper, to myself. I reset my morphology to its local defaults. I am Childs, come back from the storm to finally make the pieces fit. Something moves up ahead: a dark blot shuffling against the flames, some weary animal looking for a place to bed down. It looks up as I approach.

MacReady.

We eye each other, and keep our distance. Colonies of cells shift uneasily inside me. I can feel my tissues redefining themselves.

"You the only one that made it?"

"Not the only one..."

I have the flamethrower. I have the upper hand. MacReady doesn't seem to care.

But he does care. He must must. Because here, tissues and organs are not temporary battlefield alliances; they are permanent permanent, predestined. Macrostructures do not emerge when the benefits of cooperation exceed its costs, or dissolve when that balance shifts the other way; here, each cell has but one immutable function. There's no plasticity, no way to adapt; every structure is frozen in place. This is not a single great world, but many small ones. Not parts of a greater thing; these are things things. They are plural plural.

And that means-I think-that they stop stop. They just, just wear out wear out over time. over time.

"Where were were you, Childs?" you, Childs?"

I remember words in dead searchlights: "Thought I saw Blair. Went out after him. Got lost in the storm."

I've worn these bodies, felt them from the inside. Copper's sore joints. Blair's curved spine. Norris and his bad heart. They are not built to last. No somatic evolution to shape them, no communion to restore the bioma.s.s and stave off entropy. They should not even exist; existing, they should not survive.

They try, though. How they try. Every thing here is walking dead and yet it all fights so hard to keep going just a little longer. Each skin fights as desperately as I might, if one was all I could ever have.

MacReady tries. tries.

"If you're worried about me-" I begin.

MacReadyshakes his head, manages aweary smile. "If we've got any surprises for each other, I don't think we're in much shape to do anything about it..."

But we are. I am.

A whole planet of worlds, and not one of them-not one one-has a soul. They wander through their lives separate and alone, unable even to communicate except through grunts and tokens: as if the essence of a sunset or a supernova could ever be contained in some string of phonemes, a few linear scratches of black on white. They've never known communion, can aspire to nothing but dissolution. The paradox of their biology is astonishing, yes; but the scale of their loneliness, the futility of these lives, overwhelms me.

I was so blind, so quick to blame. But the violence I've suffered at the hands of these things reflects no great evil. They're simply so used to pain, so blinded by disability, that they literally can't conceive of any other existence. When every nerve is whipped raw, you lash out at even the lightest touch.

"What should we do?" I wonder. I cannot escape into the future, not knowing what I know now. How could I leave them like this?

"Why don't we just-wait here awhile," MacReady suggests. "See what happens." "See what happens."

I can do so much more than that.

It won't be easy. They won't understand. Tortured, incomplete, they're not able able to understand. Offered the greater whole, they see the loss of the lesser. Offered communion, they see only extinction. I must be careful. I must use this newfound ability to hide. Other things will come here eventually, and it doesn't matter whether they find the living or the dead; what matters is that they find something like themselves, to take back home. So I will keep up appearances. I will work behind the scenes. I will save them from the to understand. Offered the greater whole, they see the loss of the lesser. Offered communion, they see only extinction. I must be careful. I must use this newfound ability to hide. Other things will come here eventually, and it doesn't matter whether they find the living or the dead; what matters is that they find something like themselves, to take back home. So I will keep up appearances. I will work behind the scenes. I will save them from the inside inside, or their unimaginable loneliness will never end.

These poor savage things will never embrace salvation.

I will have to rape it into them.

THE ZEPPELIN CONDUCTORS' SOCIETY ANNUAL GENTLEMEN'S BALL GENEVIEVE VALENTINE.

Genevieve Valentine's fiction has appeared in Clarkesworld Clarkesworld, Strange Horizons Strange Horizons, Lightspeed Lightspeed, Fantasy, Fantasy, and other magazines, and in the anthologies and other magazines, and in the anthologies Federations Federations, The Living Dead 2 The Living Dead 2, Running with the Pack Running with the Pack, Teeth, Teeth, and more. Her short story "Light on the Water" was a 2010 World Fantasy Award nominee. Her first novel, and more. Her short story "Light on the Water" was a 2010 World Fantasy Award nominee. Her first novel, Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti Mechanique: A Tale of the Circus Tresaulti, is forthcoming from Prime Books in 2011.

So hook yourself up to an airship Strap on your mask and your knife For the wide open skies are a-calling And oh, it's a glorious life!

-Conductors Recruitment Advertis.e.m.e.nt, 1890

The balloon of a Phoenix-cla.s.s airship is better than any view from its cabin windows; half a mile of silk pulled taut across three hundred metal ribs and a hundred gleaming spines is a beautiful thing. If your mask filter is dirty you get lightheaded and your sight goes reddish, so it looks as though the balloon is falling in love with you.

When that happens, though, you tap someone to let them know and you go to the back-cabin Underneath and fix your mask, if you've any brains at all. If you're helium-drunk enough to see red, soon you'll be hallucinating and too weak to move, and even if they get you out before you die you'll still spend the rest of your life at a hospital with all the regulars staring at you. That's no life for an airship man.

I remember back when the masks were metal and you'd freeze in the winter, end up with layers of skin that peeled off like wet socks when you went landside and took the mask off. The polymer rubbers are much cleverer.

I've been a conductor for ages; I was conducting on the Majesty Majesty in '78 when it was still the biggest ship in the sky-you laugh, but back then people would show up by the hundreds just to watch it fly out of dock. She only had four gills, but she could cut through the air better than a lot of the six-fins, the in '78 when it was still the biggest ship in the sky-you laugh, but back then people would show up by the hundreds just to watch it fly out of dock. She only had four gills, but she could cut through the air better than a lot of the six-fins, the Laconia Laconia too. too.

They put the Majesty Majesty in a museum already, I heard. in a museum already, I heard.

Strange to be so old and not feel it. At least the helium keeps us young, for all it turns us spindly and cold. G.o.d, when we realized what was happening to us! But they had warned us, I suppose, and it's fathoms better now than it was. Back then the regulars called you a monster if they saw you on the street.

The coin's not bad, either, compared to factory work.They say it's terrible what you end up like, but if you work the air you get pulled like taffy, and if you work in the factory you go deaf as a post; it's always something.

I'm saving a bit for myself for when I'm finished with this life, enough for a little house in the Alps. I need some alt.i.tude if I'm going to be landlocked; the air's too heavy down here.