Year's Best Scifi 6 Part 28

Predjin stood, so that he dominated the youth. His expression was grave and sympathetic. "Look at me, son, and do not be ashamed. All our lives are filled with such hammering as we hear now. It is the sound of an enormous material world breaking in on us. We must not heed it. This wrong belief must make you miserable."

"Father, I have respects for your theology. But maybe what is wrong belief is right for me. No, I mean...Is hard to say it. To arrive at a clear belief-it's good, is it?-even if the belief is wrong. Then maybe is not wrong after all. Is instead good."

With the merest hint of impatience, Father Predjin said, "I don't understand your reasoning, Julius.

Can we not pull out this wrong belief from your mind, like a rotten tooth?"

Sankal looked up at his mentor defiantly. He showed clenched fists, white-knuckled above the desk.

"My belief is that this island has not been maked- made by G.o.d. It also is an illusion, made by G.o.d's terrible Adversary."

"That's nothing more than non-belief." It came out defiantly: "No, no. I believe the Evil Ones made our place where we live. Our goodness itself is an illusion. I have proof it is so."

Thinking deeply before he replied, Father Predjin said, "Let us suppose for an instant that we are living on an island made by these frightful beings who now possess the solar system, so that all is illusion.

But yet Goodness is not an illusion. Goodness is never an illusion, wherever found. Evil is the illusion..."

Even as he spoke, he imagined he saw something furtive and evil in the eyes of the youth standing before him.

Father Predjin studied Sankal carefully before asking, "And have you come suddenly to your conclusion?"

"Yes. No. I realize I have always felt like this way. I just did not know it. I've always been running, have I? Only coming here-well, you gave me time for thinking. I realize the world is evil, and it gets worse. Because the Devil rules it. We always spoke of the devil in our family. Well, now he has come in this horse-like shape to overwhelm us."

"What is this proof you speak of?"

Sankal jumped up, to face the father angrily. "It's in me, in the scars on my mind and on my body since I am a boy. The Devil does not have to knock to come in. He is inside already."

After a pause, the father sat down again, and crossed himself. He said, "You must be very unhappy to believe such a thing. That is not belief as we understand it, but sickness. Sit down, Julius, and let me tell you something. For if you seriously believe what you say, then you must leave us. Your home will be in the world of illusion."

"I know that." The youth looked defiant, but seated himself on the rickety chair. The hammering above continued.

"I was just discussing with someone how we were going to keep warm in the coming winter," the father said, conversationally. "When first I arrived on the island with two companions, we managed somehow to survive the long winter. This building was then in a terrible condition, with half the roof missing. We had no electricity and could not have afforded it had it been available.

"We burnt logs, which we chopped from fallen trees. Mannsjo was then more wooded than now it is.

We lived virtually in two rooms on the ground floor. We lived off fish and little else. Occasionally, the kind people of Mannjer would skate across the ice to bring us warm clothes, bread, and aquavit.Otherwise, we prayed and we worked and we fasted.

"Those were happy days. G.o.d was with us. He rejoices in scarcity.

"As the years have pa.s.sed, we have become more sophisticated. At first we made do with candles.

Then with oil lamps and oil heaters. We are now reconnected to the electricity supply from Mannjer.

Somehow it still works. Now we have to prepare for a longer darker winter, the winter of Unbelief."

"I do not understand what you hope for," Sankal said. "This little piece of the past is lost somewhere outside the galaxy, where G.o.d-where your G.o.d has never been heard of."

"They hear of him now." The priest spoke very firmly. "The so-called tourists hear of him. The so-called workers labor on his behalf. As long as the evil does not enter into us, we do the Lord's work, wherever in the universe we happen to be."

Sankal gave a shrug. He looked over one shoulder. "The Devil can get to you, because he owns all-every things in the world he made."

"You will make yourself ill believing that. Such beliefs were once held by the Cathars and Bogomils.

They perished. What I am trying to tell you is that it is easy to mistake the danger we are in-the more than mortal danger-for the work of the Devil. There is no Devil. There is merely a desertion of G.o.d, which in itself is extremely painful in many spiritual ways. You are missing G.o.d's peace."

From under his brows, Sankal shot Predjin a look of mischievous hatred. "I certainly am! So I wish to leave."

The hammering above them ceased. They heard the footsteps of the workers overhead.

Father Predjin cleared his throat. "Julius, there is evil in men, in all of us, yes."

Sankal's shouted interruption: "And in the horse-devils who did such a thing in the world!"

The priest flinched but continued. "We must regard what has happened to be part of G.o.d's strategy of free will. We can still choose between good and evil. We have the gift of life, however hard that life may be, and in it we must choose. If you go from here, you cannot come back."

They looked at each other across the wormy old desk. Outside, beyond the round windows, a watery sun had risen from behind the eastern mountains.

"I want you to stay and help us in the struggle, Julius," the father said. "For your sake. We can get another baker. Another soul is a different matter."

Again Sankal gave a cunning look askance.

"Are you afraid my hideous belief will spread among the other people in the monastery?"

"Oh yes," said Father Predjin. "Yes, I am. Leprosy is contagious."

When the youth had left, almost before his footsteps had faded from the winding wooden stair, Father Predjin hitched up his ca.s.sock and planted his knees on the worn boards of the floor. He clasped his hands together. He bowed his head.

Now there was no sound, the workmen having finished their hammering, except for a tiny flutter such as a heart might make; a b.u.t.terfly flew against a window pane, unable to comprehend what held it back from freedom.

The father repeated a prayer mantra until his consciousness stilled and sank away into the depths of a greater mind. His lips ceased to move. Gradually, the scripts appeared, curling, uncurling, twisting about themselves in a three dimensional Sanskrit. There was about this lettering a sense of benediction, as if the messages they conveyed were ones of good will; but in no way could the messages be interpreted, unless they were themselves the message, saying that life is a gift and an obligation, but containing a further meaning which must remain forever elusive.

The scripts were in a color, as they writhed and elaborated themselves, like gold, and often appeared indistinct against a sandy background.

With cerebral activity almost dormant, there was no way in which intelligence could be focused on any kind of interpretation. Nor could a finite judgment be arrived at. Labyrinthine changes taking place continually would have defied such attempts. For the scripts turned on themselves like snakes, now forming a kind of tugra upon the vellum of neural vacancy. Ascenders rose upward, creating panelsacross which tails wavered back and forth, creating within them polychrome branches or tuft-like abstractions from twigs of amaranth.

The elaboration continued. Color increased. Large loops created a complex motorway of lettering and filled themselves with two contrasting arrangements of superimposed spiral scrolls in lapis blue with carmine accents. The entanglement spread, orderly in its growth and replication.

Now the entire design, which seemed to stretch infinitely, was either receding or pressing closer, transforming into a musical noise. That noise became more random, more like the flutter of wings against gla.s.s. As the scripts faded, as consciousness became a slowly inflowing tide, the fluttering took on a more sinister tone.

Soon-intolerably soon-breaking the mood of transcendent calm-the fluttering was a thundering of inscrutable nature. It was like a sound of hooves, as though a large animal was attempting clumsily to mount impossible stairs. Blundering-but brutishly set upon success.

Father Predjin came to himself. Time had pa.s.sed. Cloud obscured the sky in the pupil-less eye of the round window. The b.u.t.terfly lay exhausted on the sill. Still the infernal noise continued. It was as if a stallion was endeavoring to climb the wooden twisting stair from below.

He rose to his feet. "Sankal?" he asked, in a whisper.

The father ran to the door and set his back against it, clenching the skin of his cheeks back in terror, exposing his two rows of teeth.

Sweat burst like tears from his brow.

"Save me, sweet heavenly Father, save me, d.a.m.n you! I'm all you've got!"

Still the great beast came on, the full power of Pentivanashenii behind it.

Sheena 5

STEPHEN BAXTER.

Stephen Baxter (www.sam.math.ethz.ch/Epkeller/Baxter-Page.html) is now one of the big names in hard SF, the author of a number of highly regarded novels (he has won the Philip K. d.i.c.k Award, the John W. Campbell Memorial Award, the British SF a.s.sociation Award, and others for his novels) and many short stories. He published four books in 2000, including a collaboration with Arthur C. Clarke, The Light of Other Days; Longtusk (Mammoth, book two); Reality Dust ; and s.p.a.ce: Manifold 2 (to be t.i.tled Manifold: s.p.a.ce in the US); and won the Philip K. d.i.c.k Award for his collection Vacuum Diagrams (1999). In the mid and late 1990s he produced nearly ten short stories a year in fantasy, SF, and horror venues, and in 2000 he did it again. He appeared in most of the major magazines, sometimes twice, and there were several of his stories in contention for a place in this book. No wonder his collections are so good.

"Sheena 5" was published in a.n.a.log, which like its companion magazine Asimov's had a particularly strong year in 2000. Baxter exploited this same setting and characters in a short piece in Nature.

This story is good old-fas.h.i.+oned hard SF adventure, with a sympathetic (though non-human) heroic central character and vistas of wonder in s.p.a.ce and in the future.

Sheena didn't mean it to happen. Of course not; she knew the requirements of the mission as well as anyone, as well as Dan himself. She had her duty to NASA. She understood that.

But it felt so right.

It came after the kill. The night was over. The sun, a fat ball of light, was already glimmering above the water's surface.

The squid emerged from the gra.s.ses and corals where they had been feeding. Shoals formed in small groups and cl.u.s.ters, eventually combining into a community a hundred strong.

Court me. Court me.

See my weapons!

I am strong and fierce.

Stay away! Stay away! She is mine!...

It was the ancient cephalopod language, a language of complex skin patterns, body posture, texture, words of s.e.x and danger and food; and Sheena shoaled and sang with joy.

...But there was a shadow on the water.

The sentinels immediately adopted concealment or bluff postures, blaring lies at the approaching predator.

Sheena knew that there would be no true predators here. The shadow could only be a watching NASA machine.

The dark shape lingered close, just as a true barracuda would before diving into the shoal, seeking to break it up.

A strong male broke free. He spread his eight arms, raised his two long tentacles, and his green binocular eyes fixed on the fake barracuda. Confusing patterns of light and shade pulsed across his hide.

Look at me. I am large and fierce. I can kill you. Slowly, cautiously, the male drifted towards the barracuda, coming to within a mantle-length.

At the last moment the barracuda turned, sluggishly.

But it was too late.

The male's two long tentacles whipped out, and their clublike pads of suckers pounded against the barracuda hide, sticking there. Then the male wrapped his eight strong arms around the barracuda's body, his pattern changing to an exultant uniform darkening. And he stabbed at the barracuda's skin with his beak, seeking meat.

And meat there was, what looked like fish fragments to Sheena, booty planted there by Dan.

The squid descended, las.h.i.+ng their tentacles around the stricken prey. Sheena joined in, cool water surging through her mantle, relis.h.i.+ng the primordial power of this kill despite its artifice.

...That was when it happened.

As she clambered stiffly down through the airlock into the habitat, the smell of air freshener overwhelmed Maura Delia.

"Ms. Delia, welcome to Oceanlab," Dan Ystebo said. Ystebo, marine biologist, was fat, breathy, intense, thirtyish, with c.o.ke bottle gla.s.ses and a mop of unlikely red hair, a typical geek scientist type.

Maura found a seat before a bank of controls. The seat was just a canvas frame, much repaired with duct tape. The working area of this hab was a small, cramped sphere, its walls encrusted with equipment.

A sonar beacon pinged softly, like a pulse.

The sense of confinement, the feel of the weight of water above her head, was overwhelming.

She leaned forward, peering into small windows. Sunlight shafted through empty gray water. She saw a school of squid jetting through the water in complex patterns.

"Which one is Sheena 5?"

Dan pointed to a softscreen pasted over a scuffed hull section.

The streamlined, torpedo-shaped body was a rich burnt-orange, mottled black. Winglike fins rippled elegantly alongside the body.

The s.p.a.ce Squid, Maura thought. The only mollusk on NASA's payroll.

"Sepioteuthis sepioidea," Dan said. "The Caribbean reef squid. About as long as your arm. Squid, all cephalopods in fact, belong to the phylum Mollusca. But in the squid the mollusk foot has evolved into the funnel, here, leading into the mantle, and the arms and tentacles here. The mantle cavity contains the viscera and gills. Sheena can use the water pa.s.sing through her mantle cavity for jet propulsion-"

"How do you know that's her?" Dan pointed again. "See the swelling between the eyes, around the oesophagus?"

"That's her enhanced brain?"