Kevin Anderson - The Mammoth Book of Nebula Awards SF

He chuckles and draws you — by his steps rather than his hand — into the nearest glimmering copse. Tell me about Elise, he says. Tell me all about Elise.

Later, drained again, you return to the entry clearing still in the father’s company, unsure of the amount of time that has passed but grateful for the alacrity with which it has sped. Twilight still reigns in the Arboretum, but the clock-ticks in your heart hint that you have talked with Father H— forever. You touch his shoulders and yank him to you in an irrepressible hug.

Thank you, you tell him. Thank you. I may be able to sleep now.

The gray-clad pastor separates from you and smiles through his beard. I’ve done nothing, Ms. K—.

You’ve done everything.

His smile turns inward, but you feel like a little boy who makes mud pies and carries them to the hungry.

Padre H— takes your plastic card, which he calls a crib sheet, and accompanies you to the mailroom.

If you use this thing — he fans himself with the card, like some dowager aunt in an airless August sanctuary — you’ll look like a clueless newbie. He chuckles and shakes his head.

Am I the only one?

Hardly. Soldiers die every hour. But try to look self-assured — as if you belong.

The corridor now contains a few used-adult orphans, some walking in wind suits, some pushing mobile IVs, some hobbling on canes or breathing through plastic masks as they enter lifts or try the stairs. None looks self-assured, but all appear to know their way about. None wears an institutional gown, but beiges, browns, and sandy hues characterize the garments they do wear.

Raw depression returns to knot your stomach and redden your eyes. One or two residents glance toward you, but no one speaks.

Friendly bunch, you mumble.

They just don’t trust anyone they haven’t met, says Father H—. And who can blame them? You could be a security creep or an insurance snoop.

Carrying these bags?

What better way to insinuate yourself among them?

You enter the Mail Room by a door near the screen on the second gallery. This shadowy chamber teems with ranks of rainbow-colored monitors, not with persons, and Father H— bids you goodbye. (Where is he going? Maybe to hear the confession of a sinful yew?)

A young person in a milky-orange vest approaches. You can’t really tell if she’s male or female, but you decide to think of her as a woman.

May I help you?

I don’t know. I’ve just come. You hoist your duffels, aware now that they prove absolutely nothing.

Tell me your name, ma’am.

You do, and she takes you to a monitor, keyboards briefly, and summons a face-on portrait of Elise in her battle regalia. Several other people sit in this room (you realize now) before pixel images of their dead, trying to talk with them, or their spirits, through arthritic fingertips. You touch the liquid shimmer of the screen with an index finger, and Elise’s skin blurs and reshapes after each gentle prod. Your guide asks if you would like to access any family messages in her unit file, for often soldiers leave private farewells in their unclassified e-folders.

You murmur a supplicating Please.

A message glows on the monitor: either Elise’s last message or the message that she arranged to appear last.

Dear Mama,

Do you remember when Brice died? (Well, of course you do.) I recall you telling somebody after they’d shipped Brice’s body home, Elise was Mick’s and Brice was mine; now I’m forever bereft. You didn’t see me in the corner, you had no idea I’d heard.

From that day on, Mama, I began thinking, What can I do to become yours, if I’m not yours now?

Then it hit me: I had to change myself into the one you claimed — without betraying Dad or Brice or my own scared soul. So I tried to become Brice without pushing away Dad or undoing myself.

As soon as I could, I enlisted. I trained. I went where they sent me. I did everything you and they said, just like Brice, and you sent me messages about how proud you were — but also how scared.

If you’re reading this, your fears have come true, and so has my wish to do everything just like Brice, even if someone else had to undo me for me to become just what you loved. With all my heart, I wish you pleasant mourning, Mama, and a long bright day.

You read this message repeatedly. You must wipe your eyes to do so, also using the linen tail of your blouse to towel the keyboard and your hands.

Upsettingly, you have something else to tell Father H— about Elise, and indeed about yourself.

The young woman, or young man, from the Mail Room gives you directions to your next stop. You ride a slow glass-faced elevator up two gallery levels to the Guest Suite, which has this legend in tight gold script across its smoky door:

A bellhop — or an abrupt young man in the getup of a bellhop — takes your duffels. I’ll carry these to the Sleep Bay, ma’am, he says. Stow them there later, under your cot or whatever. And he swings away.

Old people in brown evening clothes stand at the bar sipping whiskey or imported dusky beer. A gaunt pretty woman detaches herself from the bar and moves insouciantly into your space. Her nose tip halts only inches from your own.

It’s terrible when a child dies, she declares, but people treat you so well, at least for a while.

You take a step back. Is that right?

Didn’t you find that to be true after your son was killed?

I suppose. I didn’t know much of anything then. I just sort of— You stop, stymied by the task of saying exactly what you found to be true.

An IED transformed our son into rain. It fell red, you understand, but he scarcely suffered. And afterward — afterward, everyone was very sweet. For as long as they could stand to be, of course.

You gape at the woman.

To save him from an IED, I could have used an IUD — but that occasion was so long ago I never imagined a child of mine facing such danger. You just don’t think.

That’s true, you reply, because You just don’t think rings with more truth than any other utterance out of her mouth.

(And, by the way, has she just equated an Improvised Explosive Device with an intrauterine contraceptive?)

And, she continues, people’s kindness toward the bereaved merits our notice and gratitude. She waves at the bar — at the banks of flowers, an alcove of evening clothes, the teeming buffet, a table of architecturally elaborate desserts.

You say: I’d prefer people rude and my children still alive.

Come now, the woman counters. Bereavement bestows glamour. Pick out a gown, have a dry martini.

No, you say. You plant a dismissive kiss on the woman’s papery brow and weave your way back to the door.

The nearby glass-faced elevator drops you into the mazelike basement of the Wrong-Way, Used-Adult Orphanage, where you sashay, as if by instinct, to the Chantry. The Chantry now accommodates Father Hand several old-looking women, virtual babushkas, so unlike the denizens of the Guest Suite that they appear to belong to a different species.

These women groan on kneelers before the altar at which Father H— stands, his arms spread like those of the military effigy impaled on an olivewood cross hanging overhead. They wear widows’ weeds, which strain at the seams about their arms, waists, and hips. Maybe the father has shrived them. Now, though, he blesses a monstrance of tiny spoiled rice cakes and a syringe of red-wine vinegar, and moves along the altar rail to dispense these elements.

Ms. K—, he says upon noticing you. ’S great to see you again.