Year's Best SF 2 Read online

  We left Hidden Lodge during the middle of the storm, let the snows cover our trails until we reached the cabin. We found Bessie gone from the cabin. The front door was open, and an armload of wood lay on the floor just inside. I knew then that the Martians had gotten her, had snatched her as she tried to warm herself. I tramped through the snow until I found her frozen, bloodless corpse not far outside the cabin.

  I was overcome with grief and insisted on going out, under cover of darkness, and burying her deep in the snow, where the wolves would not find her. I did not care if the Martians took me. Almost, I wanted it.

  The storm had passed. The Arctic night was brutally cold, the stars piercingly bright. The aurora borealis flickered green on the northern horizon in a splendid display, and after I buried Bessie, I stood in the snow for a long hour, looking up.

  Doctor Weatherby must have worried at why I stayed out for so long, for he came out and put his hands on my shoulders, then stared up into the night sky.

  “I say, there it is—isn't it? Mars?” He was staring farther south than I had been watching, apparently believing that I was studying events elsewhere in the heavens. I had never been one to study the skies. I did not know where Mars lay. It stared down at us, like a baleful red eye.

  After that, Doctor Weatherby stayed on for a week to care for me. It was an odd time. I was brooding, silent. On the woodpile, the good doctor set out petri dishes full of agar to the open air. Small colored dots of bacteria were growing in each dish, and by watching these, he hoped to discover precisely what species of bacteria were destroying the Martians. He insisted that cultures of such bacteria might provide an overwhelming defense in future wars. I was intrigued by this, and somehow, of all the things that happened that winter, my numbed mind remembers those green splotches of mold and bacteria better than just about anything else.

  After the doctor left, it was the most difficult time of my life. I had no food, no warmth, no comfort during the remainder of that winter. Sometimes I wished the Martians would take me, even as I struggled to stay alive.

  Before the end of the cold weather, I was forced to eat my dogs, and ultimately boil the gut strings from my snowshoes to eat these at the last. I struggled from day to day under each successive frozen blast from the north.

  I managed to live.

  And slowly, haltingly, like the march of an old and enfeebled man, after the lean winter, came a chill spring.

  In the Upper Room

  TERRY BISSON

  Terry Bisson slips back and forth between science fiction and fantasy in his stories and novels, but when he writes science fiction, it is full of detail and fascination with how things work, deadpan humor, wit, and stylish grace. His SF novel, Voyage to the Red Planet, is perhaps both the most heroic and the funniest chronicle of the first voyage to Mars in all science fiction. His Fire on the Mountain is an unconventional alternate history utopia, and his Talking Man is a wild outright fantasy. In the 1990s, Bisson began to write short stories and hit the ground running. One of his first was “Bears Discover Fire,” which won the Hugo and Nebula Awards, and several others. His short fiction has been a regular fixture on award ballots during this decade. This piece is an aside set in the same future as his 1996 novel, Pirates of the Universe, which was one of six SF novels chosen by the New York Times as “distinguished” in the year. Only Bisson could have invented the idea of a science fiction story using the prose style of the Victoria's Secret catalog, and then sold it to Playboy. This was a year in which VR, virtual reality, was a major theme in science fiction and here is Bisson's take on it.

  “You will feel a slight chill,” the attendant said. “Don't worry about it. Just go with it, OK?”

  “OK,” I said. I had heard all this before.

  “You will feel a slight disorientation. Don't worry about it. A part of you will be aware of where you are, and another part will be aware of where you really are, if you know what I mean. Just go with it, OK?”

  “OK,” I said. “Actually, I have heard all this before. I was on the Amazon Adventure last year.”

  “You were? Well, I am required to say it anyway,” the attendant said. “Where was I? Oh yes, go slow.” He wore squeaky shoes and a white coat and carried a little silver hammer in a loop on his pants. “If you look at things too closely at first, nothing will be there. But if you take your time, everything will appear, OK?”

  “OK,” I said. “What about—?”

  “You won't know her name,” he said. “Not in the demo. But if you sign up for a tour, you will know it automatically. Ready? Lie down. Take a deep breath.”

  Ready or not, the drawer started sliding in and I felt a moment of panic, which I remembered from the year before. The panic makes you take another breath, and then there is the sharp smell of the Vitazine, and there you are. It is like waking from a dream. I was in a sunlit room with a deep-piled rug and high French windows. She stood at the windows overlooking what appeared to be a busy street, so long as you were careful not to look at it too closely.

  I was careful not to look at it too closely. She was wearing a sand-washed burgundy silk chemise with a sheerlace Empire bodice, cross-laced on the plunging back. No stockings. I have never really liked stockings. She was barefoot but I couldn't make out her feet. I was careful not to look at them too closely.

  I liked the way the bodice did on the sides. After a while I looked around the room. There was wicker furniture and a few potted plants by a low door. I had to duck my head to step through and I was in a kitchen with a tile floor and blue cabinets. She stood at the sink under a little window overlooking a green, glistening yard. She was wearing a long-sleeved panne velvet bodysuit with a low sweetheart neckline, high-cut legs and a full back. I liked the way the velvet did in the back. I stood beside her at the window, watching the robins arrive and depart on the grass. It was the same robin over and over.

  A white wall phone rang. She picked it up and handed it to me, and as soon as I put the receiver to my ear and heard the tone, I was looking up toward what seemed at first to be clouds but was in fact the water-stained ceiling of the Departure Hall.

  I sat up. “That's it?” I asked.

  “That's the demo,” said the attendant, who hurried over to my opened drawer, shoes squeaking. “The phone is what exits you out of the system. The same way the doors elevate you from level to level.”

  “I like it,” I said. “My vacation starts tomorrow. Where do I sign up?”

  “Slow down,” he said, helping me out of the drawer. “The Veep is by invitation only. You have to talk to Cisneros in client services first.”

  “The Veep?”

  “That's what we call it sometimes.”

  “Last year I did the Amazon Adventure,” I said to Dr. Cisneros. “This year I have a week, starting tomorrow, and I came in to sign up for the Arctic Adventure. That's when I saw the Victoria's Palace demo in the brochure.”

  “Victoria's is just opening,” she said. “Actually, we are still beta testing sectors of it. Only the middle and upper-middle rooms are open. But that should be plenty for a five-day tour.”

  “How many rooms is that?”

  “Lots.” She smiled. Her teeth looked new. The little thing on her desk said B. CISNEROS, PH.D. “Technically speaking, the Veep is a hierarchical pyramid string, so the middle and upper middle includes all the rooms but one. All but the Upper Room.”

  I blushed. I'm always blushing.

  “You wouldn't be getting that high in just five days anyway.” She showed me her new teeth again. “And because we're still beta testing, we can make you a special offer. The same price they charge for the Arctic and Amazon adventures. A five-day week, nine to five, for $899. The price will go up substantially when Victoria's Palace is fully open next year, I can assure you.”

  “I like it,” I said. I stood up. “Where do I go to pay?”

  “Accounts. But sit back down.” She opened a manila folder. “First I am required to ask a clinical question.
Why do you want to spend your vacation in Victoria's Palace?”

  I shrugged to keep from blushing. “It's different and that appeals to me. You might say I'm sort of a VR freak.”

  “Direct experience,” she corrected me primly. “And the word is enthusiast,” she added.

  “DE, then. Whatever.” Every company has its own name for it. “Anyway, I like it. My mother says I—”

  Dr. Cisneros cut me off by raising her hand like a traffic cop. “This is not the answer I need,” she said. “Let me explain. Because of its content, Victoria's Palace is not licensed as an adventure simulation, as are the Arctic and the Amazon. Under our certification, we can operate it only as a therapeutic simulation. Are you married?”

  “Sort of,” I said. I could just as easily have said, “Not exactly.”

  “Good.” She made a mark in the folder. “Our most acceptable Victoria's Palace clients—the only ones we can accept, in fact—are married men who want to improve the intimacy level of their relationships through the frank exploration of their innermost sexual fantasies.”

  “That's me,” I said. “A married man who wants to enter the most intimacy through Frank's sexual fantasies.”

  “Close enough,” Dr. Cisneros said. She made another mark in the folder and slid it toward me with a smile. “Sign this release and you can start tomorrow morning at nine. Accounts is down the hall on the left.”

  That night Mother asked, “What did you do today? If anything.”

  “I signed up at Inward Bound,” I said. “My vacation starts tomorrow.”

  “You haven't worked in two years.”

  “I quit my job,” I said. “I didn't quit my vacation.”

  “Didn't you do Inward Bound already?”

  “I did the Amazon Adventure last year. This year I'm doing the, uh, Arctic Adventure.”

  Mother looked skeptical. She always looks skeptical.

  “We're going for a seal hunt along the edge of a polynya,” I said.

  “Who's this Pollyanna? Somebody new at last?”

  “It's where the ice never freezes over.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mother said. “But you don't need me to tell you that. You always have. You got another letter from Peggy Sue today.”

  “Her name is Barbara Ann, Mother.”

  “Whatever. I signed for it and put it with the others. Don't you think that you at least ought to open it? You have a stack this high on that thing you call a dresser.”

  “Well, what's for supper?” I said to change the subject.

  The next morning I was first in line at Inward Bound. I was let into the Departure Hall at precisely nine, and I sat down on a stool outside my drawer and changed into a robe and sandals.

  “What's the little silver hammer for?” I asked the attendant when he showed up in his squeaky shoes.

  “Sometimes the drawers are hard to open,” he said. “Or close. Lie down. You did the Amazon last summer, right?”

  I nodded.

  “I thought so. I never forget a face.” He was sticking the little things to my forehead. “How high did you go? Could you see the Andes?”

  “You could see them in the distance. The jungle girls wore little bark bras.”

  “You'll see plenty of little bras in the Veep. Five days will get you pretty high there, too. Don't look around the rooms too soon, because as soon as you see a door you'll go through it. Slow down and enjoy yourself. Close your eyes.”

  I closed my eyes. “Thanks for the tip,” I said.

  “I worked on the programming,” he said. “Breathe deep:” The drawer slid in. There was the sharp smell of the Vitazine and it was like waking from a dream. I was in a dark, wood-paneled library. She was standing by a Tudor window with narrow panes overlooking what appeared to be a garden. She was wearing a tangerine-seamed silk charmeuse teddy with flutters of lace trim at the sides and a low-cut bodice with covered buttons and lace-trimmed, wide-set straps. For a moment I thought I didn't know her name, but then I said it: “Chemise.” It was like opening your hand and finding something you had forgotten you were holding.

  I joined her at the window. The garden was filled with low hedges and gravel walks that spun if you looked too closely at them. I looked away and that's when I saw the door. It was in the far wall, between two bookcases. I ducked my head to go through and I was in a wallpapered bedroom with white-frame windows. The floor was pine with knitted throw rugs.

  “Chemise,” I said. She was standing between two windows wearing a bodysuit in creamy-white stretch satin, with underwire cups and a plunging V center. The cups were edged with white lace. The treetops just below the window were shimmering as if in a breeze.

  I was getting higher. The sheer satin back of her bodysuit was cut in a low V that matched the V in front. I liked the way the straps did. As soon as I turned away I saw the door. It was down one step, and I had to duck my head, and I was in a long, dark room with narrow windows hung with heavy drapes. Chemise was kneeling on a curved love seat wearing a baby-blue baby doll in tulle with lace trim, over a ruffled bra and matching panties. Using one hand I pulled back the drapes. I could see treetops far below, and beneath them, brick streets wet with rain.

  I sat down beside her. Her face was still turned away but I could tell that she was smiling. And why not? She didn't exist unless I was with her. She wore little slippers trimmed with lace, like her panties. I'm not into feet, but they made her feet look sexy. I lingered, letting the lace on her panties make an identical pattern on my heart. Then I thought I heard a faint voice calling for help.

  I turned and saw a low, arched hole in the wall. It was hardly bigger than a mouse hole. I had to lie flat on my belly, and even then I could barely squirm through, one shoulder at a time.

  I was in a concrete-floored hallway with no windows. The walls were bare. The floor was cold and it sloped in two directions at once. It was hard to stand. There was a stack of new lumber against one wall. A girl was sitting on it wearing a red hat. A baseball cap-type hat. She stood up. She was wearing a T-shirt that read:

  MERLYN SISTEMS

  SOFTWARE THAT WORKS HARD

  I could feel myself getting confused. “Chemise?”

  “Not Chemise,” she said.

  “Not Chemise,” I said. “What are you doing here? This is my—”

  “This isn't your anything,” she said. “You're not in the Veep right now. You're running parallel, in a programmer's loop.”

  “How did you get here, then?”

  “I'm the programmer.”

  “A girl?”

  “Of course a girl.” She was wearing full-cut white cotton panties under her T-shirt. “What do you think?”

  “I'm not supposed to have to think.” I could feel myself getting annoyed. “This is Direct Experience. And you are not one of my fantasies.”

  “Don't be too sure. I'm a damsel in distress. And you're a guy. You came when I called, didn't you? I need your help to get to the Upper Room.”

  The Upper Room! She said it so casually. “They told me it's not open yet.”

  “It is if you know how to get to it,” she said. “There's a shortcut through the mouse holes.”

  “Mouse holes?”

  “You ask too many questions. I'll show you. But you have to do exactly what I say. You can't be looking around on your own.”

  “Why not?” I could feel myself getting annoyed again. I looked around just to prove I could. I saw a door.

  “Because,” she said, behind me.

  But I was already stepping through, ducking my head. I was in an old-fashioned kitchen with white wooden cabinets. Chemise stood at the counter stirring a pot with a pair of big scissors. She was wearing a low-cut, smooth-fitting strapless bra in stretch satin and lace with lightly lined underwire cups, and a high-cut, wide-band brief with a sheer lace panel in the front, all in white. “Chemise!” I said. I wondered if she wondered where I had been.

  But of course she hadn't. Behind her someone was either get
ting into or out of a pantry door.

  It was me.

  I was wearing an Inward Bound robe and shower sandals.

  It was me.

  I was wearing an Inward

  It was

  I was looking straight up at the water-stained ceiling of the Departure Hall. “What happened?” I asked. My heart was pounding. I could hear shoes squeaking frantically. A buzzer was buzzing somewhere. Mine was the only open drawer.

  “System crash,” the attendant said. “They want to see you upstairs in client services. Right away.”

  “Our bit maps show you in places you couldn't have been,” said Dr. Cisneros. She was looking back and forth between the manila folder on her desk and something on her computer screen that I couldn't see. “Areas you couldn't possibly have entered.” She looked across the desk at me and her new teeth glittered. “Unless there is something you're not telling me.”

  When in doubt I play dumb. “Like what?”

  “You didn't see anyone else in the palace, did you? Anyone besides yourself and your DE image construct?”

  “Another girl?” I decided to go with my instinct, which is always to lie. “No.”

  “Could be a simple system error,” Dr. Cisneros said. “We'll have it sorted out by tomorrow.”

  “How did it go?” Mother asked.

  “Go?”

  “With your Pollyanna, your Arctic misadventure?”

  “Oh, fine,” I lied. I have always lied to Mother, on principle. The truth is too complicated. “I learned to handle a kayak. Lots of open water tomorrow.”

  “Speaking of open water,” Mother said, “I opened those letters today. Lucille says you have to get your stuff. She swears he won't hit you again.”

  “Barbara Ann, Mother,” I said. “And I wish you wouldn't open my mail.”

  “If wishes were pennies we'd all be rich. I stacked them back in the same order. Don't you think you should answer at least one?”