Грег Иган - The Year's Best Science Fiction, Volume 1

Rich Larson (richwlarson.tumblr.com) was born in Galmi, Niger, has lived in Canada, the United States, and Spain, and is now based in Prague, Czech Republic. He is the author of the novel Annex , and the collection Tomorrow Factory , which contains some of the best of his more than 150 published stories. His work has been translated into Polish, Czech, French, Italian, Vietnamese, and Chinese.

Burgewick was playing spitters with Gib on the lawn of the House Noctambulous as dusk turned the sky inky black. The spitters were a gift from Burgewick’s favorite uncle, who had arrived earlier that day by crawling carriage. Uncle Bellerophon dabbled in gene art, and so always brought interesting gifts for Contagion’s Eve.

The latest were two fleshy purple stalks that spat, at the pull of the little bone trigger, a shiny clear glue viscous enough to trap one’s fingers together or stick one’s feet to the ground, which naturally became the goal of the newly invented game.

“Don’t dodge so much, Gib,” Burgewick scolded. “Or I’ll never get you.”

Gib only grinned with all his crooked teeth, wiped his nose on the pale yellow servant smock that covered most of his lesions. “You be a good dodger, too, if you was a kitchen boy. Cook has that metal hand, dun he.”

Burgewick darted forward and squeezed his trigger; a long ribbon of glue shot through the air but Gib danced away.

“You be the kitchen boy and I be the House,” he sang. “And I eat vatmeat all day in bed while Cook boxes your ears.”

“That’s a horrible idea and I should have you beaten,” Burgewick replied, but he made the threat often and rarely followed through. Gib was a much better playmate than Burgewick’s older brother Mortice, even if he was only a servant, and it was Contagion’s Eve besides. Everything felt topsy-turvy; the air itself seemed to buzz, so it was understandable that Gib would think such a strange and improper thought.

“This is good practice for the hunt,” Burgewick said as it occurred to him. “Mortice has a new rifle, so I get his old one.”

“You told me,” Gib said, then sprang with his spitter. “Ya!”

Burgewick dove to one side, but it still splattered the knees of his black hyde. The cilia rippled in response and began chewing away at the glue. Burgewick got to his feet, laughing, and gave chase as Gib turned tail and ran.

They dashed across the lawn, using the eerie yellow glowtrees and decorative foam crypts for cover. It was dark enough now that the hardlights were flickering to life, which added excitement to the game whenever an infected monster lunged from the dark, jaws snapping, or a flock of plague birds swirled past. The servants setting up the last of the decorations looked distinctly unhappy to see globs of glue hurled so near to their work. One even tried to press-gang Gib into helping them, but Burgewick interceded.

The final decoration for the lawn was a drowning tank, the clever kind with faucets you could turn that would make the water flow faster or slower, or hotter or colder, and there was even a lever to release a spiny little biting creature once the tank was full enough. It was lit soft blue from the inside.

Most years it was a doppel in the drowning tank, but this year it was the young man who had stolen a vial of Mother’s cell-knitters last week. He crouched at the bottom puffing short panicked breaths.

Gib slowed to watch as they wheeled the drowning tank into place, and Burgewick finally managed to stick his playmate’s right foot to the ground.

“Got you!” he crowed.

Gib looked down at his trapped foot, giving it an experimental tug but hardly seeming to care, then looked back up to the tank. “Poor Cluny,” he said.

“What?” Burgewick asked, annoyed that Gib was not more annoyed.

“Poor Cluny,” Gib muttered. “He thought they’d work for his daughter, for her blindness and all. Stupid Cluny. Didn’t know nothing about genestuff.”

Burgewick didn’t much like drowning tanks, but it was a Contagion’s Eve tradition, same as the hardlights and the sweets and the games and the Doppelhunt. He scratched at the back of his neck, peeling away a bit of glue that his hyde hadn’t reached, feeling uncomfortable and a bit angry at Gib for dulling the fun.

He was thinking of something to say, something that would make Gib feel better but also remind him that thieves needed to be punished, when his brother came striding across the lawn. Mortice was already wearing his hunting cloak, a feathery silvery cape grown separately from his hyde; judging from the way it wriggled and shivered on his shoulders the two garments were not yet entirely accustomed to each other.

“Little Wicky and his little catamite,” Mortice said. “What’s that thing? What have you got?”

Burgewick felt a small stab of unease, as he often did when his brother spotted him and there was nowhere to escape to. As Mortice drew closer, Burgewick saw the skin between his eyebrows was angry red from plucking the unruly hairs that grew there.

Mortice cared very much about how he looked lately, especially on nights like this where all the relatives came to the House. It seemed to have made him crueller.

“Master Mortice,” Gib mumbled. He finally yanked his foot free, taking a clod of damp earth and moss with it—the lawn’s caretakers would have been aghast—and bowed low.

“They’re spitters,” Burgewick said, hefting his present. “For playing spitters.”

Mortice rapped his knuckles against the drowning tank, where the servant named Cluny was hugging his knees to his chest. “Hope you’re thirsty, bastard,” he said, then thrust his hips against the glass.

Burgewick saw anguish spiral across Gib’s face for a moment before it became blank again. “They were a gift from Uncle Bellerophon,” he announced, loudly, to retake Mortice’s attention.

His older brother spun around. “They’re from Uncle Belly, and you gave mine to your filthy little friend?”

“Uncle didn’t say who they were for. Not exactly.” Burgewick swallowed back his pride. “I’m sorry.”

Mortice snatched the spitter from Gib’s slack grip and gave him a sharp slap he didn’t dodge. The loud smack made Burgewick flinch. Gib went to rub the red imprint of Mortice’s palm; Mortice yanked his arm back down and gave him a second slap, harder, to the same cheek. Specks of drool flew from the corner of his mouth.

“So you thought that this year, unlike all the other years, Uncle Bellerophon brought a gift for kitchen boy Gib.” Mortice turned the spitter over in his hands. “You’re very stupid, aren’t you, Burgewick?”

“I’m sorry,” Burgewick repeated. “I should have brought it to you.”

“You should have,” Mortice agreed. “But I forgive you, little brother. Now, how’s it work? What’s it do?” He held it to his crotch and slapped it up against the drowning tank, waggling it back and forth in front of the servant, whose eyes were now squeezed shut. “Look at my spitter, bastard! Look, look!”

“It shoots a kind of glue,” Burgewick said, holding up his arm, which was still streaked with the stuff. “Doesn’t come off very easily.”

Mortice threw his head back and laughed, for a reason Burgewick was maybe half-sure he understood, then pointed his spitter at Gib. “Don’t move,” he said. “And I’d shut my eyes, if I were you.”

Burgewick looked at Gib, whose cheek was aglow with the bright red mark of Mortice’s slap. He looked at the servant Cluny, who was so miserable in the drowning tank. He felt a strange nervous energy building in his chest.

It was Contagion’s Eve, after all. Everything was topsy-turvy.