The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021
- Автор: Рот Вероника, Адамс Джон Джозеф
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: HMH Books : Mariner
- ISBN: 9780358470076
- Жанр: Малые литературные формы прозы
Электронная книга - «The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021». Краткое содержание книги:
This year’s selection of science fiction and fantasy stories, chosen by series editor John Joseph Adams and bestselling author of the Divergent series Veronica Roth, showcases a crop of authors that are willing to experiment and tantalize readers with new takes on classic themes and by exchanging the ordinary for the avant-garde. Folktales and lore come alive, the dead rise, the depths of space are traversed, and magic threads itself through singular moments of love and loss, illuminating the circulatory nature of life, death, the in-between, and the hereafter.
The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021 captures the all-too-real cataclysm of human nature, claiming its place in the series with compelling prose, lyrical composition, and curiosity’s never-ending pursuit of discovering the unknown.
“He’s unarmed. I shot an unarmed ensign.”
“I can testify to Ensign Anson being both armed and unarmed at once, if it comes to that. Also, the ship’s cause-and-effect has been acting up all day. But enough about the dead ensign; once more, who are you and what are you doing on my ship?”
“I’m Corporal Alice Aste, USFSF. I’ve been sent here to find out what happened to this ship.”
“Quite a lot! We just lost an ensign, and the rest of my command deck crew have reported nonexistent. But what’s the rush!”
“Your last communication was over six weeks ago, and you’ve been adrift since. I’m here to find out what kind of assistance is needed, and then to get that assistance for you.”
“That’s hardly possible,” he said. “I sent a message just yesterday.”
“None have been received.”
“No, no, no, I would’ve remembered if I had sent silence. I didn’t. I sent a message that went like this: Please stay away.”
“That wasn’t it. What we received was, We aren’t here again today,” Alice said. “Do you remember sending that?”
“Ahhh.” Captain Hadder clapped his hands on the side of his head. “I got it wrong, I meant to say, I wish, I wish you’d stay away.”
Captain Hadder had been going in and out of rhyme for the entire conversation. At first, she thought it was just an accident of word choice. Now she was thinking he was doing it on purpose, and also that he’d begun to lose his mind, just like his ship’s computer. Unless she was losing her mind. She’d just shot a crew member, but if asked to explain how that happened, the best she could come up with was that the shot was fired before she pulled the trigger.
“Why did you want us to stay away?” Alice asked. “You seem in need of rescue.”
“Rescue! It’s only been a day.”
“Again, it’s been more than six weeks, Captain.”
“Computer, how long has it been?”
“It has been a day, Captain,” the computer said.
“There, you see?” Hadder said. “If you received that message six weeks ago, that’s hardly my fault. I sent it yesterday; you should be receiving it now.”
“Captain Hadder, you know there’s something wrong with your ship’s computer, don’t you?” Alice asked. “It’s been providing me with inaccurate information since I boarded.”
“Not at all! It’s adjusted quite well. You must have been asking it the wrong questions.”
“Computer,” she said, “how many life signs are there aboard the ship?”
“There are between one and eighty-six,” the computer said, “or zero, or two hundred and six.”
“There,” Alice said. “See? That’s an unacceptable response.”
“Why, it’s a ridiculous question!” Hadder said. “The answer is clearly variable from moment to moment. You should expect to have a different answer every time. Now where is Ensign Anson?”
“Isn’t he the one I shot?”
“Yes, yes, but he should be back by now.”
Ensign Anson was still lying dead on the floor, and Captain Hadder was clearly insane. Alice put her hand on her blaster, reflexively. It was probably a bad idea, given she’d only just not-shot-but-also-shot Anson, but instincts existed for a reason.
“Once again, Captain, why did you send the stay away message? Did something happen here? An accident maybe?”
“Nothing is the matter,” he said, which was clearly untrue.
“Then why did you send that message?”
“Because nothing is the matter! Ask Anson; he can explain it better.”
“Maybe I should ask someone else from the crew,” Alice said slowly. She’d begun to talk more slowly and deliberately with Captain Hadder, the way one might talk to a person in a bomb vest. “Captain, can you tell me where everyone else is?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But if you didn’t see them on your way to the bridge, they’re probably in their quarters.”
“All right. Don’t you need them in order to work the ship? Maybe you can find your own way out of this quadrant, with a little help. One of the engineers?”
“Ensign Anson and I can handle the bridge ourselves,” he said. “Little to do when you’re adrift.”
“My point is that you don’t need to be adrift. Some members of the crew could be enacting repairs.”
“I see your reasoning, but about the engines, there’s nothing to be done. They work perfectly, or they would; it’s the physics that are wrong.”
“Then someone should fix . . . the physics?”
He was surely speaking nonliterally. Alice remembered a particularly sarcastic first officer who—in the middle of a war—would say things like, “Barring some change in the laws of physics, this next torpedo will be a direct hit; brace for impact.” Captain Hadder’s delivery was wanting, but she felt certain that he was aiming for the same sort of droll wit.
“They’re not broken, they’re wrong,” he said. “I’m amazed you’ve survived on board the ship for this long, Corporal.”
“I haven’t . . . Captain. Just tell me where the rest of the crew is, and I’ll go find someone who can help.”
“As I said, they could be in their quarters. Computer, are the crew in their quarters?”
“The crew may or may not be in quarters, Captain.”
“There, see?” he said. “They may be there.”
“Then should we go down and check?” she asked. “I passed the quarters on my way.”
“Oh, goodness no, don’t do that. Imagine the consequences.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Corporal, it’s really very simple. I don’t know if they’re alive or not. If I check, I will definitely know. Who wants that on their conscience?”
“They’re either alive or they’re not alive,” Alice said.
“The computer confirmed, they are both. Have you ever seen a person who was both alive and dead?”
“Of course not. Those are binary states.”
“Neither have I. Therefore, if they are currently both alive and dead, and one of us were to go down to see which one it was, and we have never seen a person who was both alive and dead, then by checking, we will ensure that they are either one or the other, and I want no part of that! Neither should you, after what happened to poor Ensign Anson. Already enough blood on your hands.”
About 95 percent of Alice thought this was the most ridiculous thing she’d ever heard. The 5 percent that didn’t was the same 5 percent that was in charge when she ran down the corridor in deck five, in the midst of something like a panic attack. She didn’t want to open those doors either, even before having her intelligence assaulted by Captain Hadder’s nonsense.
“How about if we just open a comm line, right now?” she asked. “We can hail the Rosen.”
“Oh no, that’s impossible. Nothing on the bridge works right now.”
She looked around. The panels were lit, which wasn’t an expectation on a nonworking bridge.
“You have power. It all looks like it’s working.”
“It’s not,” he said. “Hasn’t been since yesterday. And even though we clearly do have power, the engine isn’t providing it. Couldn’t tell you what is.”
She pointed to one of the chairs at the front of the deck. “May I?” she asked.
Captain Hadder stepped aside and waved her through.
She sat down at what was—if she remembered the ship design specs accurately—the helmsman’s chair. It had all the navigational instrumentation, and the communications matrix.