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

“Good hunting, Breesha,” he said, and then he was alone.

The red blot on his tracker was moving fast but zigzagging, disorientated. Burgewick felt the same way as he followed it. The trees seemed to tilt and sway and their branches leapt out of the dark like claws. He heard booted feet crashing through the underbrush, a distant shout of triumph. One shot. Another. Both made him flinch.

For a moment he considered turning around, heading back to the lighted warmth of the House. But there would be laughter, and Father would look at him but say nothing, and the Old Madam’s words were reverberating in his head: We kill the weak part of ourselves . That was what he had to do. He would kill his doppel, before Mortice could kill his, and it would make him strong. Maybe strong enough to hit back.

Burgewick sped up, plunging deeper into the woods, following the red blot. His lantern strobed the frosty ground and he saw snapped brambles, the imprint of a foot. Once he saw movement in the shadows, but it was only a drone on the prowl. He skipped over twisted roots and ducked swaying branches, adrenaline thrumming under his skin, speeding his hot pulse. The red blot finally slowed, and Burgewick felt a dart of triumph.

The red blot disappeared.

Burgewick skidded to a halt, panting. His steaming breath coiled around his head. The doppel’s sensor had failed, or else the doppel was standing perfectly still. Burgewick crept forward slowly, moving on the balls on his feet, rifle ready. The doppel had to be close. He tried not to make a sound. He couldn’t hear the other hunters anymore; they were too far and the woods were too dense.

He thought he saw something moving on his left, but the tracker was still black and when he swept around the side of the tree there was nothing there. Another topsy-turvy thought came to him: maybe the doppel had turned off the sensor on its own. Maybe it was watching him. Maybe it was hunting him.

Burgewick’s entire skin was goosebumps that his hyde couldn’t warm away. The stock of his hunting rifle was turning slick in his clammy hands. He put them to his stomach, to wick away the moisture, but they were crawling with fresh sweat only a moment later.

A branch snapped; he whipped his head and saw a dark moving figure, raised his hunting rifle with badly shaking hands, sighted—

“Still looking, are you?” Mortice asked, switching on his lantern. “I bagged mine ages ago.”

Burgewick lowered his rifle, but only just. Every nerve in his body was singing high and sharp. Mortice’s rifle was stowed on his back; his hyde had grown webbing to holster it. He held his lantern in one hand and proof of his claim in the other, dangling from the capcutter. The doppel’s mask had been removed and its face was an ugly parody of Mortice’s own, purple-lipped and glassy-eyed, clotted with gore from the severing. Burgewick’s bile surged at the sight.

“I know my nose isn’t that big,” Mortice said casually, twisting the doppel’s head back and forth in the lantern light. “Is it?”

“No,” Burgewick said by rote, hating himself for it.

“No,” Mortice agreed. His grin was over-wide, almost manic. “Let’s find this doppel of yours, shall we?”

Burgewick hesitated, wishing Breesha or one of the uncles, even the sot, would appear from the trees to join them. But they were alone. He gave his brother a stiff nod. Mortice returned it with exaggerated solemnness, then barked a laugh and turned away, probing the dark with his lantern. Burgewick followed behind him, mind whirring.

Maybe Mortice was just looking for the right branch to whip him with, or waiting for the right moment to hold him down and twist his ears and make him lick the blood from his doppel’s dead face. Or maybe Mortice wanted to rob his kill, go back to the banquet hall with two heads, and explain that his little brother had been too slow, too scared, too stupid to do it himself. That would shame him how he’d been shamed.

But maybe it didn’t have to end that way. Burgewick’s stomach churned. Maybe he was Wendell, and Mortice was Eddard. If he were to shoot Mortice, and pretend it was an accident, pretend that his silvery hunting cloak had blended with the silvery tree trunks, he would be free of his brother’s torments forever. At close enough range, he reasoned the smart bullets wouldn’t have time to turn away. His rifle crept upward until it was pointing at Mortice’s spine.

Then he saw it. Crouched at the base of a tall tree, in the cradle formed by two gnarled roots, its head cocked to one side. His doppel’s reflective costume was half-coated in dirt and the beak of its mask was crooked, as if it had bashed into something. It was still, so still Burgewick thought for an instant it might already be dead.

Its head twitched, ever so slightly, and before Mortice could spot it and steal it, Burgewick raised his rifle and fired. The stock slammed back into his shoulder and the crack made Mortice jump. Burgewick felt some savage satisfaction in seeing his brother flinch, felt even more of it seeing the doppel’s body jerk and crumple.

He’d done it. He’d done it, and it had been easy. Mortice gave a wild laugh, and for a moment Burgewick felt like laughing, too. Lightheaded, he jogged over to the doppel. Smart bullets were designed to disperse on impact and the doppel’s costume was a shredded mess from hip to ribs. A dozen punctures were weeping sticky red blood. Its chest was heaving.

“Well done, little brother,” Mortice said. “You know the right end of a rifle.”

Something was wrong. Burgewick felt it bone deep. Mortice shouldn’t be happy. The doppel shouldn’t have hidden itself so well, shouldn’t have covered the reflecting parts of its costume. With trembling hands, Burgewick reached for the doppel’s mask. He tugged, but it was stuck. Mortice squatted beside him, breathing hot in his ear, eager.

Burgewick pulled hard. The mask tore free, taking shreds of skin with it. Gib’s eyes were panicked and bloodshot, his nostrils were flared wide, and his mouth was coated in spitter glue.

Burgewick’s stomach dropped like the bottom had been gnawed away, slipping through itself, plummeting out of reach. He sank to one knee, splaying a hand for balance on the dead soil. His vision was blurry black; his pulse was roaring in his ears. The doppel was Gib. Gib was the doppel. Everything was topsy-turvy.

“He fits the costume just right, doesn’t he,” Mortice said. “We told him we were playing a trick on you, to make him put it on. And once he was all drugged, he acted just like one.”

Burgewick thought of all the games they had played together and how Gib had always helped him win. His splintered ribcage was still rising and falling. Maybe back at the House, with enough cell-knitters, he could still be saved. But Burgewick knew the cell-knitters weren’t for him or Cluny or any other parasites, and he realized Gib could still help him win one last time.

He swallowed the rage, swallowed the anguish, swallowed every last thing he was feeling. Then he unhooked the capcutter from his hip and slipped it over Gib’s head.

“Clever joke, Mortice,” he said, with his voice and his face both perfectly blank. “But you shouldn’t play with servants. It’s unbecoming.”

Burgewick pulled the lever and the capcutter slashed and snapped, spattering his hands with hot dark blood.

Han Song is a Chinese writer and journalist who works for the state news agency Xinhua. His first short story collection, Gravestone of the Universe , was published in 1981, and waited ten years for publication in the People’s Republic of China. Han has received the Chinese Galaxy Award for fiction six times. The Los Angeles Times described him as China’s premier science fiction writer. His novels include Subway, My Homeland Does Not Dream, Red Star Over America , and Red Ocean .