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

Once the airship touched down, the members of House Crepuscule disembarked in solemn single file. The last to exit, orbited by an assortment of servants, was the Old Madam. Unlike Breesha, she was smaller than Burgewick remembered her. Breathing tubes were threaded into her wattled neck and she was ensconced deeper than ever into her chair, which scuttled along on legs that were partly black nanocarbon and partly red bands of living muscle.

“My father says this is the last year she comes in person,” Breesha said in a low voice. “Her whole body’s falling apart.”

Burgewick frowned. “Can’t she take extra cell-knitters, or something?”

“Father says cell-knitters can only do so much for the old stock.” Breesha stared with undisguised fascination as the Old Madam skittered from one descendant to the next, receiving their greetings. “She was the last person born underground, you know. During the Contagion.”

“They didn’t know nothing about genestuff back then,” Burgewick said, with a ghost of a grin.

“Anything,” Breesha corrected, shooting him an odd look. “They didn’t know anything. ”

Burgewick watched Mortice give a flourishing bow, his handsome face in its most charming rictus as he wished the Old Madam a happy Contagion’s Eve, his hunting cloak swirling gracefully around his shoulders.

Maybe, just maybe, he would forget all about the spitters.

Soon thereafter, the festivities began in earnest, with everyone milling about the lawn in conversation, circles breaking and joining like the amoebas Burgewick had studied with his tutor. Servants slithered here and there with flutes of wine and bacterial beer. The hardlights were starting to weave their animations together, so monsters chased plague birds and vice versa.

Burgewick felt very much adrift, especially once Breesha left him to join Mortice and the older cousins. He wanted to stay out of his brother’s sight, and he was too young to enjoy their talk about fashions and fights anyway.

But he was too old to play with Ferrick and Freya, who were both hounding House Immaculata’s greenman, darting in to yank the twists of licorice from his knees and giggling as he made his noises of mock protest and waved his stiff stumpy hands. Burgewick also noticed a sort of orange-spotted mushroom growing from between the greenman’s shoulder blades, far out of the children’s reach. Some of the adults leaned out to surreptitiously pick one as the greenman ambled past. Uncle Bellerophon was one of these, and when he saw Burgewick watching he put a finger to his lips and winked.

At one point Burgewick saw his father staring at him, or maybe staring at something near to him, and realized that it was strange and improper for him to be wandering around the party so silently, just looking at people without speaking, so he attached himself to a group of aunts who crowed about how tall he was, and how soon he would be sprouting a beard like his father’s.

They soon went back to comparing the behaviors of their newly implanted calorie worms, which was interesting for a while, but when Aunt Violetta peeled open her hyde to display her pale flat stomach and the rust-colored organism just barely visible under her skin, Burgewick flushed and looked away, and their laughter made him flush even redder so he slunk off.

“But you’re a young man, now,” Aunt Violetta called after him. “Aren’t you in the hunt tonight?”

Burgewick knew he ought to be excited for the Doppelhunt, knew he ought to be enjoying the party, but he was starting to feel anxious more than anything else. There were too many people about. It had been better when it was only him and Gib playing on the lawn. He made a wide circle around the drowning tank, where a small crowd was watching Cluny splutter and gasp on tiptoe, and was nearly to the refuge of the ablution tent when Breesha intercepted him.

“There you are,” she said, and he could tell by her shiny eyes and red nose that she had been sneaking the bacteria beer she’d only ever talked about trying last year. “Everyone’s heading in for dinner. Come sit at our table, or you’ll get stuck with the twins.”

“Mortice might not want me to,” Burgewick said. “I might just sit with…” He trailed off. He’d been going to say Mother and Father, and judging by the horrified look on Breesha’s face, she knew it.

“Fuck Mortice and his fancy cloak,” Breesha said. “He’s too busy puffing himself up to pay you any mind. From how he talks, you’d think this were his thirtieth Doppelhunt instead of his third.” She rolled her eyes and slipped her bone-white mask back on. “Come.”

The banquet hall of House Noctambulous had been transformed into an underworld: plague birds picked their way along the tables, painted acrobats dangled by suspension hooks from the rafters or from slow-wheeling drones, and the usual warm yellow biolights had been replaced by a pale violet glow. When Burgewick looked down at his hand, he could see the bones through his skin.

Half the guests, who hadn’t seen the deadlight trick before, were tittering and inspecting each other’s skeletons. Burgewick dimly remembered that this sort of light was dangerous; they would probably have extra cell-knitters in their meal to compensate.

The acrobats couldn’t use cell-knitters, though, and neither could the servants bustling around with drink trays, though some had stiff heavy aprons on and maybe that helped. Burgewick hoped Gib wasn’t poking his nose out of the kitchen too often.

Mortice’s hunting cloak looked very grand indeed in the deadlight, leaving shimmery silver traces in the air when he moved. He was telling cousin Orry some loud sort of joke when Burgewick and Breesha arrived at the table. His eyes flickered onto Burgewick for only a second, then slid over him as if he were invisible. But he didn’t make any protest as they sat down, and Burgewick knew from experience that being ignored by his brother was preferable to the alternative.

A few more of the cousins joined them, Fenella and the sister whose name Burgewick could never remember, and they all settled in. Burgewick heard, faintly, Cook’s distinctive voice barking orders. A moment later a flock of servants emerged from the kitchen laden down with food. There were vatmeats stacked in quivering towers, amniotic puddings, spheres of scop shaped and pigmented to look like gourds and pumpkins and other things that had grown once. Burgewick thought of Aunt Violetta’s calorie worm and hoped it was up to the task.

He wasn’t particularly hungry, and had only eaten a few bites off his plate when Fenella nudged him under the table. “Want a drink, little cousin?” she asked.

She nudged again, and Burgewick caught on and looked beneath the table. She and her sister had taken the dregs from enough bottles that they could start brewing their own: the bucket’s contents were thinner and foamier than the original bacteria beer, but it carried the same pungent smell.

“It’ll help your nerves.” Fenella beamed. “For the hunt.”

Burgewick looked around. No adults were watching them—Uncle Bellerophon was draped over Aunt Violetta’s shoulder, laughing uproariously, because Father, normally so somber, was doing his trick where he made his slick black eyeballs crawl down from their sockets and race each other around the table on little spindly legs; one was intent on skittering beneath Aunt Nefertiti’s skirts and she was swatting at it with a bunched-up fan. He didn’t see Mother.

Breesha was already filling her glass from the bucket, and so were Orry and Mortice, the latter of whom held it out to Burgewick with a smirk. Burgewick dipped his glass into the bucket, half-expecting his brother to dump it all over his trousers or call Mother over and pin the whole affair on him somehow. Instead Mortice only gave him a brief nod of approval.