Year's Best Scifi 5 Part 15

Adele rang his room-phone at eight. "Rise and s.h.i.+ne, suns.h.i.+ne!" she said. "Your father will be at the airport in an hour!"

Sean dressed, but didn't bother shaving or brus.h.i.+ng his teeth. He staggered out to his rental and gave Adele a sheepish grin. Acid churned in his gut.

Adele waited by the pa.s.senger door, in a pair of slacks and a light blouse. She had hung a pair of sungla.s.ses around her neck on a gold chain, and carried an enormous sisal handbag. Staggering in the horrible daylight, Sean opened the pa.s.senger door for her, and offered his arm while she got in.

He put the car onto the Bee Line Expressway and pointed it at the airport.

"Oh, won't this be fun?" Adele said, as he ground the c.r.a.p from the corners of his eyes and steered with his knees. "I'm sure your father is charming. Maybe the five of us can go to Universal for an afternoon."

"I don't think we can take them off the ward," Sean grunted, changing lanes for the airport exit.

"You're probably right," Adele said. "I was just thinking that Universal might be enough to keep them both switched on."

Sean shot her a look and nearly missed his exit.

Adele rattled a laugh at him. "Don't look so surprised. I know which end is up!"

Sean pursed his lips and navigated the ramp-maze that guarded the airport. He pulled up to the loading zone at Air Canada arrivals and switched off the engine. He looked past Adele at the tourists jockeying for cabs. "I'm sorry about yesterday. I guess I'm a little wound up."

"Yesterday?" Adele said. "Oh! By the pool!" She put a frail hand on his forearm. "Sean, you don't get to my age by holding grudges. Ethan's father-he held grudges, and it killed him. Heart attack. He never forgave the doctors. I'm just happy to have a chauffeur."

Sean swallowed hard. "I'm sure that somewhere, Ethan knows that you're visiting him, that you love him. He's in there." He said it with all the sincerity he could muster.

"Maybe he is, maybe he isn't," Adele said. "But it makes me feel better. He's what I've got left. If you'd like, I'll wait with the car so you can go in and look for your father."

"No," Sean said. "That's all right. Dad'll come out for a cab. He's not the sort to dawdle."

"I like a decisive man. That's why I talked to you by the pool-you just jumped in, because you wanted a swim."

"Adele, that was stupid. It was like swimming in a urine sample."

"Same difference. I like a man who can make up his mind. That's what Ethan's father was like: decisive."

"You'll like my Dad," Sean said. He drummed his fingers on the wheel, then lowered and raised his window. He whistled tunelessly through his teeth. Adele gave him a considering stare and he stopped, and started in on powers of two in his head.

"There he is," Sean said, 224 later.

Sean had barely been in Florida for three days, but it was long enough that his father seemed as pale as freezer-burned ice cream. Sean checked the traffic in his rear-view, then pulled across the waiting area to where his father stood, acing out an irate cabbie for the spot.

Sean's father glared at the car and started to walk behind it to the taxi. Sean leaned on the horn andhis father stopped and stared. His expression was bland and grim and affectless.

Sean powered down Adele's window. "Dad!"

"Sean?" his father said.

Sean popped the locks. "Get in, Dad, I'll give you a ride."

Adele turned around as Sean's father was buckling in. "I'm Adele. Sean and I were thinking of taking you to Universal. Would you like that?"

Sean's father stared right through her, at Sean. "It's an obvious question, I know, but what are you doing here?"

"It's my thesis," Sean said, and floored the rental, headed for the Home.

"Whee!" Adele said.

"How's Grampa?" Sean's father asked.

"Oh, he's delightful," Adele said. "We introduced him to my Ethan yesterday, and they're getting along famously. Sean, introduce me to your charming father, please."

"Dad," Sean said, through gritted teeth, "this is Adele. Adele, my father, Mitch. We were thinking of getting day-pa.s.ses for Grampa and Ethan and taking them to Universal. You ever been to Universal, Dad? I hear you come here down a lot." His normally fragmented attention was as focused as a laser, boring into his father through the rear-view.

His father's stern face refused to expose any of his confusion. "I don't think I want to go to Universal," he said.

"Oh, but it's wonderful," Adele gushed. "You shouldn't knock it until you've tried it."

"I don't think so," Sean's father repeated. "What's your thesis?"

Sean plunged headlong into the breach. "It's called 'The Tri-Generational Deficit: What's My Father's Excuse?'"

Sean's father nodded curtly. "And how's it going?"

"Well, you have to understand, I'm just warming up to the subject with Grampa. And then I'll have to do an interview series with you, of course."

"Did I miss something? When did I become the princ.i.p.al ogre in your pantheon? Are you angry at me?"

Sean barked a laugh and turned onto the Home's exitramp. "I guess I am, Dad. Grampa had the operation-it was easy for him to switch off. You needed to make a special effort." The words flew from his mouth like crows, and Sean clamped his jaw shut. He tensed for the inevitable scathe of verbiage.

None came. He risked a glance in his rear-view.

His father was staring morosely out at the Home. Adele patted Sean's hand and gave him a sympathetic look. Sean parked the car.

"Hi, Pop," Sean's father said, when they came to the table where Grampa sat. Ethan sat across from him.

Grampa glared at them. "This guy won't leave me alone. He's a f.u.c.king vegetable," he said, gesturing at Ethan. Adele pursed her lips at him. He patted her arm absently. "It needed to be said."

Sean's father reached around the table and gave Grampa a stiff hug. "Good to see you, Pop."

"Yeah, likewise. Sit down, Mitch. Sit down, Sean. Sit down, Adele." They sat. "Ask your questions, Sean," he ordered.

Sean found himself tongue-tied. He heaved a deep breath and closed his eyes for a moment. He thought about why he was here: not the reason he'd given his thesis advisor, but the real G.o.dd.a.m.n reason. He wanted to understand-his father, himself. He wanted to reverse-engineer his father's childhood. He looked at Ethan, slack as Grampa had been whenever they'd visited. An inkling glimmered. "Does Ethan scare you, Grampa?"

Adele tsked and scowled.

"Do I scare you, Mitch?" Grampa said, to Sean's father.

"Yes," Sean's father said."Yes," Grampa said. "Next question."

"Do you think that switching off is a sign of weakness?" Sean said, sneaking a glance at his father, seeing his grandfather's features echoed in his father's face.

"Yes," his father said.

"Of course," his grandfather said.

"Then why?" Sean said.

"You know why," Ethan said, his eyes glittering.

They all swiveled to look at him. "Because the alternative is the purest s.h.i.+t," Ethan said, standing up, starting to pace, almost shouting to make himself heard over the din of the ward. "Because if you have to ask, you'll never understand. Because dessert is better than dinner, because the cherry on top is the best part of the sundae. Because strength is over-rated."

Grampa applauded briefly, sardonically. "Because holding your nose and taking your medicine is awful. Because boredom is a suppurating wound on the mind. Because self-discipline is over-rated. You getting all this, Sean?"

But Sean was watching his father, who was staring in fascinated horror at Grampa. Nauseous regret suffused Sean, as he saw his father's composure crumble. How many times had he tried to shatter that deadly cool? And here he'd done it. He'd really done it.

Still looking at his father, Sean said, "Do you ever wonder how it feels to rank below oblivion in someone's book?"

Grampa spread his hands on the table. "I can't help it if you take it personally."

Sean's father reeled back, and Sean swallowed a throb of anger. "Of course not, Grampa. I understand. It's a reflex. The world's full of sops who'll take offense at any little thing"-Lara shriveling under the heat of his tongue, and him still watching the TV over her shoulder-"but it's a reflex. It's not conscious. It's no one's fault."

"Don't humor me," Grampa snapped. "I know what you all think of me. I can feel your G.o.dd.a.m.n blame. I can't do anything about it."

"You could apologize," Ethan said. Adele took his hand and wiped at her tears with its back.

"f.u.c.k off, zombie," Grampa said, glaring at him.

Sean's father stood abruptly. "I'm glad to see you're in good health, Pop," he said. "Sean, thanks for the ride. I guess I'll see you once you've finished your research." His face was hard, composed. "Adele, nice to have met you."

"Likewise," Adele said.

"Bye, then," Sean's father said, and walked with dignified calm to the elevator.

"Bye, Dad," Sean called softly at his retreating back.

He turned back to Grampa, but Grampa's eyes were dull, and he was methodically twitching, top-to-bottom.

"Adele," Sean said, taking her free hand.

"Yes?" she said.

"How would you and Ethan like to come to Universal with me for the afternoon?"

"I'd love to," Ethan said. Sean looked at Ethan, and couldn't decide if he was switched off or not.

Whichever, Adele didn't seem to mind.

Border Guards

GREG EGAN.

Internationally famous for his stories and novels, Greg Egan hit his stride in the early 1990s and became one of the two most interesting new hard SF writers of the decade (the other is Stephen Baxter). His first novel was published in 1983 but his writing burst into prominence in 1990 with several fine stories that focused attention on his writing and launched his books. His SF novels to date are Quarantine (1992), Permutation City (1994), Distress (1995), and Teranesia (1999); his shortstory collections are Our Lady of Chern.o.byl (1995), Axiomatic (1995), and Luminous (1999).

Significant indicators of his att.i.tudes toward writing are the fact that he remains socially isolated from the SF field-no one has met him in person-and he has written a strongly-worded attack on national ident.i.ties in SF. He does not identify himself as an Australian SF writer, but as a writer of SF in the English language who happens to live in Australia.

"Border Guards," complex and complicated hard SF about humanity transformed, is what Egan is best known for. It appeared in Interzone, where much of his best fiction has first appeared.

It begins with an invented game, quantum soccer, that you might wish to learn more about later: http://www.nets.p.a.ce.net.au/~gregegan/BORDER/Soccer /Soccer.html In the early afternoon of his fourth day out of sadness, Jamil was wandering home from the gardens at the centre of Noether when he heard shouts from the playing field behind the library. On the spur of the moment, without even asking the city what game was in progress, he decided to join in.

As he rounded the corner and the field came into view, it was clear from the movements of the players that they were in the middle of a quantum soccer match. At Jamil's request, the city painted the wave function of the hypothetical ball across his vision, and tweaked him to recognize the players as the members of two teams without changing their appearance at all. Maria had once told him that she always chose a literal perception of colour-coded clothing instead; she had no desire to use pathways that had evolved for the sake of sorting people into those you defended and those you slaughtered. But almost everything that had been bequeathed to them was stained with blood, and to Jamil it seemed a far sweeter victory to adapt the worst relics to his own ends than to discard them as irretrievably tainted.

The wave function appeared as a vivid auroral light, a quicksilver plasma bright enough to be distinct in the afternoon sunlight, yet unable to dazzle the eye or conceal the players running through it. Bands of colour representing the complex phase of the wave swept across the field, parting to wash over separate rising lobes of probability before hitting the boundary and bouncing back again, inverted. The match was being played by the oldest, simplest rules: semi-cla.s.sical, non-relativistic. The ball was confined to the field by an infinitely high barrier, so there was no question of it tunnelling out, leaking away as the match progressed. The players were treated cla.s.sically: their movements pumped energy into the wave, enabling transitions from the game's opening state-with the ball spread thinly across the entire field-into the range of higher-energy modes needed to localize it. But localization was fleeting; there was no point forming a nice sharp wave packet in the middle of the field in the hope of kicking it around like a cla.s.sical object. You had to shape the wave in such a way that all of its modes-cycling at different frequencies, travelling with different velocities-would come into phase with each other, for a fraction of a second, within the goal itself. Achieving that was a matter of energy levels, and timing.

Jamil had noticed that one team was under-strength. The umpire would be skewing the field's potential to keep the match fair, but a new partic.i.p.ant would be especially welcome for the sake of restoring symmetry. He watched the faces of the players, most of them old friends. They were frowning with concentration, but breaking now and then into smiles of delight at their small successes, or their opponents' ingenuity.

He was badly out of practice, but if he turned out to be dead weight he could always withdraw. And if he misjudged his skills, and lost the match with his incompetence? No one would care. The score was nil all; he could wait for a goal, but that might be an hour or more in coming. Jamil communed with the umpire, and discovered that the players had decided in advance to allow new entries at any time.

Before he could change his mind, he announced himself. The wave froze, and he ran on to the field.

People nodded greetings, mostly making no fuss, though Ezequiel shouted, "Welcome back!" Jamil suddenly felt fragile again; though he'd ended his long seclusion four days before, it was well within his power, still, to be dismayed by everything the game would involve. His recovery felt like a finely balanced optical illusion, a figure and ground that could change roles in an instant, a solid cube that could evert into a hollow.

The umpire guided him to his allotted starting position, opposite a woman he hadn't seen before. Heoffered her a formal bow, and she returned the gesture. This was no time for introductions, but he asked the city if she'd published a name. She had: Margit.

The umpire counted down in their heads. Jamil tensed, regretting his impulsiveness. For seven years he'd been dead to the world. After four days back, what was he good for? His muscles were incapable of atrophy, his reflexes could never be dulled, but he'd chosen to live with an unconstrained will, and at any moment his wavering resolve could desert him.

The umpire said, "Play." The frozen light around Jamil came to life, and he sprang into motion.

Each player was responsible for a set of modes, particular harmonics of the wave that were theirs to fill, guard, or deplete as necessary. Jamil's twelve modes cycled at between 1,000 and 1,250 milliHertz.

The rules of the game endowed his body with a small, fixed potential energy, which repelled the ball slightly and allowed different modes to push and pull on each other through him, but if he stayed in one spot as the modes cycled, every influence he exerted would eventually be replaced by its opposite, and the effect would simply cancel itself out.

To drive the wave from one mode to another, you needed to move, and to drive it efficiently you needed to exploit the way the modes fell in and out of phase with each other: to take from a 1,000 milliHertz mode and give to a 1,250, you had to act in synch with the quarter-Hertz beat between them.

It was like pus.h.i.+ng a child's swing at its natural frequency, but rather than setting a single child in motion, you were standing between two swings and acting more as an intermediary: trying to time your interventions in such a way as to speed up one child at the other's expense. The way you pushed on the wave at a given time and place was out of your hands completely, but by changing location in just the right way you could gain control over the interaction. Every pair of modes had a spatial beat between them-like the moire pattern formed by two sheets of woven fabric held up to the light together, s.h.i.+fting from transparent to opaque as the gaps between the threads fell in and out of alignment. Slicing through this cyclic landscape offered the perfect means to match the accompanying chronological beat.

Jamil sprinted across the field at a speed and angle calculated to drive two favourable transitions at once. He'd gauged the current spectrum of the wave instinctively, watching from the sidelines, and he knew which of the modes in his charge would contribute to a goal and which would detract from the probability. As he cut through the s.h.i.+mmering bands of colour, the umpire gave him tactile feedback to supplement his visual estimates and calculations, allowing him to sense the difference between a cyclic tug, a to and fro that came to nothing, and the gentle but persistent force that meant he was successfully riding the beat.

Chusok called out to him urgently, "Take, take! Two-ten!" Everyone's spectral territory overlapped with someone else's, and you needed to pa.s.s amplitude from player to player as well as trying to manage it within your own range. Two-ten-a harmonic with two peaks across the width of the field and ten along its length, cycling at 1,160 milliHertz-was filling up as Chusok drove unwanted amplitude from various lower-energy modes into it. It was Jamil's role to empty it, putting the amplitude somewhere useful. Any mode with an even number of peaks across the field was unfavourable for scoring, because it had a node-a zero point between the peaks-smack in the middle of both goals.