David Hartwell - Year's Best SF 17

Cara sighed happily. “After all of these years, I was beginning to think the purple ones were just a myth.”

“Are you going to dive for more?”

“No, I have to go meet Juan Carlos for lunch.”

“Don’t go.” Disappointment washed across Beatrix’s face. “Cara, don’t take this the wrong way, but … I don’t like what you’ve told me about him.”

Cara raised an eyebrow. It was unlike Beatrix to make a negative statement about a human being—let alone to express her disagreement so openly. Normally, if her opinion differed from Cara’s she would hesitate or turn her head away when responding. When something moved her, she would tilt her head to the left and nod. Cara had learned to read her subtle mannerisms.

“You don’t know Juan Carlos,” Cara said.

“Why doesn’t he ever join us?”

“He’s busy.” Cara could never bring herself to tell Beatrix the truth. Despite Juan Carlos’s many fine qualities—his drop-dead looks, his sharp wit and analytical mind, his love for her—he had a low threshold for socializing with Wergens. He made it a point to minimize the time he spent in their presence. “They’re lapdogs, Cara,” he had said to her that morning, trying to persuade her not to visit Beatrix. “Doesn’t it offend you? That such intelligent beings can be so fatuous, so sycophantic … They’re like lovesick schoolchildren.”

Undeniable, really. But he had never met Beatrix, and their friendship transcended that species drive. Cara had to believe that. And certainly she had no biochemical reason for the fondness she felt for Beatrix. “If it’s so offensive,” she had answered, “maybe we shouldn’t be accepting their technology, hmm?” She made a face and kissed him on the cheek. “I know you don’t want me to go, but I really need to visit Bea at the lake.” Juan Carlos’s objections had dissuaded her from seeing Beatrix over the past few weeks. “I don’t like the way I left things with her the last time we met. I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Now, as she toweled off, Cara spotted a shape that Beatrix had sculpted in the sand. Instead of a spaceship, it was the familiar oval outline of a Wergen hearth. “Are you going to talk to your father about joining one of the next few expeditions?” Cara said. “Juan Carlos and I were thinking of Langalana …”

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Beatrix said.

“What do you mean?”

“CE doesn’t need any more Wergens. The Explorata is already swamped with qualified volunteers. Ambus thinks that we might be better off staying here.”

Cara didn’t know how to respond. She stuffed her towel into her carrytube and said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Beatrix stared in Ambus’s direction. “I found where Ambus kept the suppressant, Cara. And I threw it away. That’s why he’s keeping his distance. He knows that if he speaks to you, if he sees you up close, he’ll feel the same way that I feel about you.”

“Bea, once you’re … encorporated …”

“You’ll see, you and Ambus will be good friends, I know it.”

Cara’s eyes filled, and she nodded. “Yes, of course we will.” But she said this only for Beatrix’s sake. She knew that Ambus wanted to resist falling under humanity’s spell and that she’d respect his wishes by keeping her distance. It wouldn’t be fair to him if she didn’t. Then again, how fair had she been to Beatrix all these years?

Beatrix’s lips quivered and she reached out and clutched Cara’s wrist. “Promise me we’ll be friends forever.”

“Bea …”

“Promise me?”

“Friends forever, Bea,” Cara said. She hesitated. “Does it still feel … good to hold my hand?”

“More than you can know.”

Maybe Cara had been fooling herself all these years. Maybe Beatrix’s loyal unconditional love was just the product of a biochemical reaction. Maybe she’d been as unfair to Beatrix as Ambus claimed.

“I have to go,” Cara said.

“Now?”

“I’m afraid so,” she answered. “I don’t want to have another fight with Juan Carlos.” She took a few steps away from the Wergens, then turned and hurried back to Beatrix. Without saying a word, she slipped the purple perpuffer onto her best friend’s wrist.

ENCRYPTED Med. Journal Entry No. 227 by Dr Juan Carlos Barbarón: Encorporation. As the headtail continues its relentless contraction, dermal contact follows, and nerve fibers penetrate the pore receptors on the scales across the passive Wergen’s body. This quickly disintegrates cell walls as the mates merge, commencing macromitosis. Genetic materials, primarily nucleic acids, flow from the dominant to the passive Wergen and impregnation of the rear sac results. Scales along the dorsal spine grow into multiple nubs—fetuses that develop outside the Wergen’s body, attached to its back. (See Related Entry No. 195 on Multiple-Birth Wergen Broods and their Vulnerability to Dopamine Neurotramsitters as a Counteragent to Suppressor Drugs.)Cara and Juan Carlos stepped through the hearth’s archway as the bots skittered into the back rooms to alert Beatrix and Ambus of their arrival.

“Five minutes,” Juan Carlos said. “Not one minute longer.” He’d only permitted her to come on the condition that he accompany her to ensure she’d be out quickly. He said he feared that they’d encounter more Wergens than necessary since they tended to mob around humans.

“It’s not safe for you to be walking around these Wergen neighborhoods. With the terrorist bombings at the Martian colony, how long will it be before they strike here on Titan? We maybe forced to make some difficult decisions at Biotech, but we need to protect ourselves.” He turned away and tapped his eyelids to open up a retinal connection to the newscasts. “Five minutes.” He blinked and made a connection, his eyes glazing over.

Juan Carlos enjoyed being in control but she knew he had her best interests at heart. She thought about objecting—she had no doubt he was overreacting—but didn’t want to provoke an argument. The media had blown out of proportion an incident involving a faction of so-called ‘Wergen rebels’—an oxymoron if ever she’d heard one—that had caused some unrest on Mars and other sister colonies.

A minute later, Beatrix and Ambus entered the room. They now stood no more than six inches apart. Their tether had lost its elasticity and Beatrix’s head drooped to one side. Her left leg had disappeared inside of Ambus’s right leg so they walked awkwardly, like a three-legged monstrosity lurching forward. In a matter of months, Beatrix, her friend, would be gone forever, absorbed into Ambus’s form and broken down into the chemical components that would leave him impregnated.

Beatrix’s face had a semi-glazed look, a blank stare. But when she caught sight of Cara, a brightness washed over her face.

“Cara?” she said. But then the spark of recognition faded.

Cara stood to hug her, but couldn’t do so without also putting her arms around Ambus.

“Thank you for visiting,” Ambus said.

Juan Carlos blinked off his retinal connection. He had a strange expression Cara couldn’t quite identify—disgust? fascination?—as he greeted them.

Beatrix and Ambus went to take a seat but couldn’t do so because of their physical condition.

“It’s kind of you to come,” Ambus said. “I know how much Bea wanted to see you.” From the way he smiled and bowed his head, he clearly had no suppressant in his system.

“Oh, Beatrix,” Cara said. “Bea …”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Ambus said. “How have you been? How are your parents?”

She told them about her mother’s death, about her father joining the expedition to Langalana. And as they conversed, Cara noticed that only Ambus spoke. She gazed directly into Beatrix’s eyes and tried speaking only to her. “Do you remember the seasons we spent diving off the shore of Ontario Lacus? We practically covered ourselves head to toe with perpuffers.”