Catherine Asaro - Nebula Awards Showcase 2013

Minutes ago, her mind had seemed like syrup. Now it bubbled with alarm. In fact, she didn’t know her father wasn’t Vind. It had never mattered, so she had never cared. But here, all the things that defined her—her interests, her aptitudes, her internal doubts—none of it counted, only her racial status. She was in a place where identity was assigned, not chosen or created.

“What happens if I fail the test?” she asked.

“You will be sent back.”

“And what happens if I don’t take it?”

“You will be sent back.”

“Then why did you even ask?”

He gave a regulation smile. If she had measured it with a ruler, it would have been perfect. She stood up, and the chair sounded like it was laughing. “All right. Where do I go?”

They took her blood and sent her into a waiting room with two doors, neither of which had a handle. As she sat there idle, the true rashness of what she had done crept up on her. It wasn’t like running away on-planet. Maya didn’t know where she had gone. By now, they would be different ages. Maya could be dying, or Thorn could be older than she was, before they ever found each other. It was a permanent separation. And permanent punishment for Maya.

Thorn tried to summon up the righteous anger that had propelled her only an hour and thirty-two years before. But even that slipped from her grasp. It was replaced with a clutching feeling of her own guilt. She had known Maya’s shortcomings when she took the ice owl, and never bothered to safeguard against them. She had known all the accidents the world was capable of, and still she had failed to protect a creature that could not protect itself.

Now, remorse made her bleed inside. The owl had been too innocent to meet such a terrible end. Its life should have been a joyous ascent into air, and instead it had been a hellish struggle, alone and forgotten, killed by neglect. Thorn had betrayed everyone by letting the ice owl die. Magister Pregaldin, who had trusted her with his precious possession. Even, somehow, Jemma and the other victims of Till Diwali’s crime—for what had she done but reenact his failure, as if to show that human beings had learned nothing? She felt as if caught in an iron-bound cycle of history, doomed to repeat what had gone before, as long as she was no better than her predecessors had been.

She covered her face with her hands, wanting to cry, but too demoralized even for that. It seemed like a self-indulgence she didn’t deserve.

The door clicked and she started up at sight of a stern, rectangular woman in a uniform skirt, whose face held the hint of a sneer. Thorn braced for the news that she would have to waste another thirty-two years on a pointless journey back to Glory to God. But instead, the woman said, “There is someone here to see you.”

Behind her was a familiar face that made Thorn exclaim in joy, “Clarity!”

Clarity came into the room, and Thorn embraced her in relief. “I thought you were going to Alananovis.”

“We were,” Clarity said, “but we decided we couldn’t just stand by and let a disaster happen. I followed you, and Bick stayed behind to tell Maya where we were going.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Thorn cried. Now the tears that had refused to come before were running down her face. “But you gave up thirty-two years for a stupid reason.”

“It wasn’t stupid for us,” Clarity said. “You were the stupid one.”

“I know,” Thorn said miserably.

Clarity was looking at her with an expression of understanding. “Thorn, most people your age are allowed some mistakes. But you’re performing life without a net. You have to consider Maya. Somehow, you’ve gotten older than she is even though you’ve been traveling together. You’re the steady one, the rock she leans on. These boyfriends, they’re just entertainment for her. They drop her and she bounces back. But if you dropped her, her whole world would dissolve.”

Thorn said, “That’s not true.”

“It is true,” Clarity said.

Thorn pressed her lips together, feeling impossibly burdened. Why did she have to be the reliable one, the one who was never vulnerable or wounded? Why did Maya get to be the dependent one?

On the other hand, it was a comfort that she hadn’t abandoned Maya as she had done to the ice owl. Maya was not a perfect mother, but neither was Thorn a perfect daughter. They were both just doing their best.

“I hate this,” she said, but without conviction. “Why do I have to be responsible for her?”

“That’s what love is all about,” Clarity said.

“You’re a busybody, Clarity,” Thorn said.

Clarity squeezed her hand. “Yes. Aren’t you lucky?”

The door clicked open again. Beyond the female guard’s square shoulder, Thorn glimpsed a flash of honey-gold hair. “Maya!” she said.

When she saw Thorn, Maya’s whole being seemed to blaze like the sun. Dodging in, she threw her arms around Thorn.

“Oh Thorn, thank heaven I found you! I was worried sick. I thought you were lost.”

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” Thorn kept saying as Maya wept and hugged her again. “But Maya, you have to tell me something.”

“Anything. What?”

“Did you seduce a Vind ?”

For a moment Maya didn’t understand. Then a secretive smile grew on her face, making her look very pretty and pleased with herself. She touched Thorn’s hair. “I’ve been meaning to tell you about that.”

“Later,” Bick said. “Right now, we all have tickets for Alananovis.”

“That’s wonderful,” Maya said. “Where’s Alananovis?”

“Only seven years away from here.”

“Fine. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters as long as we’re together.”

She held out her finger for the secret finger-lock. Thorn did it with a little inward sigh. For a moment she felt as if her whole world were composed of vulnerable beings frozen in time, as if she were the only one who aged and changed.

“We’re a team, right?” Maya said anxiously.

“Yeah,” Thorn answered. “We’re a team.”

The Monday before spring break I told my English lit class we were going to do Shakespeare. The weather in Colorado is usually wretched this time of year. We get all the snow the ski resorts needed in December, use up our scheduled snow days, and end up going an extra week in June. The forecast on the Today show hadn’t predicted any snow till Saturday, but with luck it would arrive sooner.

My announcement generated a lot of excitement. Paula dived for her corder and rewound it to make sure she’d gotten my every word, Edwin Sumner looked smug, and Delilah snatched up her books and stomped out, slamming the door so hard it woke Rick up. I passed out the release/refusal slips and told them they had to have them back in by Wednesday. I gave one to Sharon to give Delilah. “Shakespeare is considered one of our greatest writers, possibly the greatest,” I said for the benefit of Paula’s corder. “On Wednesday I will be talking about Shakespeare’s life, and on Thursday and Friday we will be reading his work.”

Wendy raised her hand. “Are we going to read all the plays?”

I sometimes wonder where Wendy has been the last few years—certainly not in this school, possibly not in this universe. “What we’re studying hasn’t been decided yet,” I said. “The principal and I are meeting tomorrow.”

“It had better be one of the tragedies,” Edwin said darkly.

By lunch the news was all over the school. “Good luck,” Greg Jefferson the biology teacher said in the teacher’s lounge. “I just got done doing evolution.”