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

No. That last part would not endear her to anybody.

It didn’t endear her to her .

Quinn held her challenging gaze for a moment. “No,” she said at last, without looking down. “I’m going to beg you. Tell me what you know. Let justice take its course. The person who did this will kill again.”

He would. Carmen knew it. She hadn’t slept the night before. Every time she closed her eyes, images of the struggling, stumbling victim and the killer shoving her along the embankment had returned. Carmen could imagine too well what it would feel like: wire cutting your wrists, the sickening plummet, the icy disorienting splash—

The futile struggle. The pain of water filling your lungs.

Carmen pushed her coffee away.

“Whatever I do here is not the right thing,” Carmen said. “The right thing to do cannot be reached from where we’re standing. We have to build a bridge from here to the right thing before we can touch it.”

“You need a place to stand before you can build a bridge. What you’re suggesting is just not practical. There’s no path.” Quinn shook her head. “Some people,” she said definitely, “are just plain mean.”

“That’s what they said about addressing climate destabilization, too,” Carmen said. “Too hard. Not practical. But here I am. And an unstable climate contributes to social stresses and antisocial behavior. So if we can mitigate one, why not the other?”

Quinn crossed her arms and cocked a shoulder against the wall. “Okay. What would be the right thing?”

“To save the world,” said Carmen. “And all the people in it.”

“You’re saving lives if you put this guy away.”

“In the short run,” Carmen agreed. “In the long run, I’m reinforcing a system that ruins and sacrifices far more lives.”

“You’ve got yourself some kind of bullshit ethical trolley problem there.”

“I’m already compromising my principles.”

“All we have is expedience and approximations. All we ever have. Would it make you feel better if I got the prosecutor to subpoena whatever information you have? It wouldn’t be your fault, then.”

It seemed like a genuine, friendly offer of help. She realized with a shock that Quinn was sincere. That she didn’t agree with Carmen—she probably thought Carmen was an idiot—but that she also respected Carmen’s right to make those choices, even when they annoyed the hell out of her.

Carmen shook her head but didn’t argue. God help me, she thought. She stood up. “I have to go.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out the thumb drive nestled there. She held it out to Quinn. Quinn took it gently, watching Carmen’s face as if observing some shy animal.

“I won’t testify,” Carmen said.

“Okay. I can’t speak for the DA. But that’s more than fair.” Quinn tilted her head to one side. A rose-gilt earring flashed. “I hope someday you realize that you’re a hero.”

Carmen folded her arms across her chest and squeezed herself as tightly as she dared. “There are no heroes in a tragedy.”

N. K. Jemisin (nkjemisin.com) lives and writes in Brooklyn, New York, and has published nine novels, including the Inheritance trilogy, the Dreamblood duology, the Broken Earth trilogy (which includes Hugo winners The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate , and The Stone Sky ), and The City We Became . She is the only person to win three consecutive Hugo Awards for Best Novel. Jemisin’s short fiction has been published in Clarkesworld, Postscripts, Strange Horizons, Jim Baen ’ s Universe , and various print anthologies and is collected in How Long ’til Black Future Month? She has also won a Nebula Award, two Locus Awards, and a number of other honors. Jemisin is also a member of the Altered Fluid writing group. In addition to writing, she has been a counseling psychologist and educator (specializing in career counseling and student development), a hiker and biker, and a political/feminist/antiracist blogger. She is a former reviewer for the New York Times Book Review and still writes occasional long-form reviews for them.

You are our instrument.

Beautiful you. Everything that could be given to you to improve on the human design, you possess. Stronger muscles. Finer motor control. A mind unimpeded by the vagaries of organic dysfunction and bolstered by generations of high-intelligence breeding. Here is what you’ll look like when your time comes. Note the noble brow, the classical patrician features, the lean musculature, the long penis and thighs. That hair color is called “blond.” [Please reference: hair variations.] Are you not magnificent? Or you will be, someday. But first, you must earn your beauty.

We should begin with a briefing, since you’re now authorized for Information Level Secret. On its face, this mission is simple: return to the ruined planet Tellus, from which mankind originates. When our Founders realized the world was dying, they built the Muskos-Mercer Drive in secret. Then our ancestors bent the rules of light and fled to a new world circling another sun, so that something of humanity—the best of it—would survive. We’ll use the MMD, much improved by our technorati over the years, to return to that world. The journey, from your perspective, will take days. When you return, years will have passed. How brave you are to walk in your forefathers’ footsteps!

No, there’s no one left alive on Tellus. The planet was in full environmental collapse across every biome when our people left. There were just too many people, and too many of those were unfit, infirm, too old, or too young. Even the physically ideal ones were slow thinkers, timid spirits. There was not enough collective innovation or strength of will between them to solve the problems Tellus faced, and so we did the only merciful thing we could: we left them behind.

Of course that was mercy. Do you think your ancestors wanted to leave billions of people to starve and suffocate and drown? It was simply that our new home could support only a few.

Tellus is nearly a thousand light-years from home, meaning that the light we receive from that world is hundreds of years old. We cannot directly observe it in real time—but we knew the fate that awaited it. Tellus is by now a graveyard world. We expect that its seas have become acidic and barren, its atmosphere a choking mix of carbon dioxide and methane. Its rain cycle will have long since dried up. It will be terrible to walk through this graveyard, and dangerous. You’ll find toxic drowned cities, still-burning underground coal fires, melted-down nuclear plants. Yet the worst of it might be seeing our past greatness, on this world that was once so ideal. Mankind could build high into the sky, there where the gravity wasn’t as heavy. We could build all over the planet because it was not tidally locked. [Please reference: night.] Look at the names whenever you find them on buildings or debris. You’ll see the forebears of our Founder clans—all the great men who spent the last decades of that planet’s life amassing the resources and technology necessary to save the best of mankind. If for no other reason, this world should be honored because it nurtured them.

To ensure success, and your mental health during extended isolation, we have equipped you with ourselves—a dynamic-matrix consensus intelligence encapsulating the ideals and blessed rationality of our Founders. We are implanted in your mind and will travel with you everywhere. We are your companion, and your conscience. We will provide essential data about the planet as a survival aid. Via your composite, we can administer critical first aid as required. And should you suffer a composite breach or similar emergency, we are programmed to authorize adaptive action.