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

No.

“Or maybe the Founder-clans and technorati don’t want you to figure it out. Because then where would they be? Not gods among us, just other bright lights among many. Not kings. Just selfish men.”

No.

“Then you’re smarter than I was. My ship was damaged on atmospheric entry, beyond repair. I grew my skin only out of desperation as my nutrients ran low, and I wept as soon as my tear ducts formed. But the people here cared for me. Poor paranoid creature from a cruel, miserly world—how could they not pity me? Even though I was nothing but a servant, fetching scraps of ancient cancer so that his masters could flirt with immortality.”

You wanted this mission. You could have done other work, the usual tasks that the bots can’t accomplish. Well, no, of course you wouldn’t have earned a skin for that. Only the best of us deserve such privileges.

“No one will stop you if you want to leave. Even now, you can go back to where they’ll reduce you to raw meat and stuff you back into a biotech bag, and Tellus— Earth —won’t stop you. People here don’t agree with your primitive practices, but they won’t interfere with your right to practice them.”

We aren’t primitive.

“But before you decide to leave, I want you to know one more thing.”

Do not touch us do not lean close do not speak any more —

“You? Aren’t the first deserter.” He’s lying.

“I don’t know how many there have been. Earth keeps track of the visitations, but it’s unimportant to them, so the records can be difficult to find. Sometimes more than one soldier arrives, each sent to different parts of the world; sometimes there’s just one. The arrivals are random—or rather, they happen whenever home’s demand for HeLa cells outstrips the supply. I wondered, for a while, why none of the other soldiers had reported the truth. Why no one at home knew that Earth is alive. Then I realized: all the ruling classes want are the HeLa cells. Why would they waste any on giving skins to glorified errand boys?”

We don’t understand why you would believe this traitor over us. Haven’t we helped you?

“And they can’t have you telling anyone else that the promised reward, of skin, was a lie. No one would ever volunteer for a mission like this again. You need willing service for some jobs.”

We’ve given you everything you wanted. Beautiful you. You are the best of us.

“Such a simple thing to program a composite suit to kill its occupant. Just a simple verbal command, or the press of a button, impersonal and efficient. Best to do it before you even land, so no one sees you return a hero and then asks awkward questions when you disappear. Pluck the cell cultures from the remains once the ship docks. They get what they want. Never mind that the truth about Earth dies with you. And even if some of them figure it out from the recorded data… why would they tell anyone else? Their world, limited as it is, contains everything they’ve ever wanted: immortality, the freedom to take anything they want, slaves whom they can control right down to the skin. They don’t want to come back. And they certainly don’t want anyone of the lower classes realizing there’s another way to live.”

He’s lying, we told you, you’ll be rewarded, we promised— How dare you.

“Oh, is that what you have in mind? Interesting. Then you’re braver than me too.”

No. This isn’t the mission. How dare you.

“It won’t be an easy thing, though. Remaking a society. Earth couldn’t, not until it got rid of the Founders. You. Us.”

We will strip the black skin from your flesh and leave you to rot without a composite, raw and screaming.

“Skin is the key. While most of the lower classes wear composites, the Founder clans and technorati can threaten them with nutrient deprivation, defibrillation, or suffocation. Even a small suit breach kills when you don’t have skin to keep infections at bay. And most don’t get the more advanced suits that are capable of generating skin. How do you mean to get around that?”

You’re ugly. No one will want to be like you. No one will support this, this, disruption .

“I see. Yes, it’s not that difficult to make a kind of composite suit hack. I doubt it would even take half the HeLa cells you’re carrying there; skin generation is much easier than age reversal. So an automated hacking tool containing a cell package, bundled into something like a translator device… I don’t know how to make something like that, but I know people here who could teach you. Once you’ve spread the hack, how would you activate it? Oh, I see. Using your nag’s authorization signal to get around security and surveillance monitoring? Interesting.”

We will never help you.

“But if you force thousands of people into skin they don’t want to be in, that’s not going to get you the result you want.”

Yes. Our society is orderly. It is rational. It is superior .

“Just walking around as you are, proud of your skin instead of ashamed? Younger brother, they’d shoot you.”

We’d shoot you a thousand times!

“Well, if you stay here long enough to learn how to build transmutation hacks, yes, you’d certainly arrive at an unexpected time. I suppose that if you can reprogram your ship, have it land somewhere off the grid, stay hidden from the security bots, give the hack only to those who request it… It will be terribly dangerous. Still. You turned out lovely. The Founder clans might deny it, but the people’s eyes won’t lie. You’re supposed to look like a mistake. What you really look like is a little piece of Earth come to life.”

You’re the most hideous nothing degenerate throwback of subhuman inferiority we have ever seen. And it’s Tellus .

“Some of them will decide that they also want to be beautiful and free, like you. Some will fight for this, if they must. Sometimes that’s all it takes to save a world, you see. A new vision. A new way of thinking, appearing at just the right time.”

Do not do this.

“I brought something else for you. Something that will help.”

We’ll tell. As soon as you reach comm range, we’ll log in and tell the technorati everything you plan.

“That thing in your head. It’s wetware, but I can remove it. Earthers did the same thing for me when I first arrived. There are nanites in this injection; they’ll deactivate key pathways without damaging your neural tissue. You should still be able to access its files—use the Founders’ own knowledge against them—but the AI will be dead, for all intents and purposes. No more voice in your head, except your own.”

We’ll tell we’ll tell we’ll tell. Deformed, mud-skinned thing. Self-pleasurer. Woman-thinker. We’ll tell the technorati how wrong they went in training you. We’ll tell the Founder clans to dissolve every soldier from your breeding line. We’ll tell.

“Give me your arm. Make a fist—yes, like that. Nice and strong, brother. Are you ready? Good. Can’t start a revolution with the enemy shouting in your head, after all.”

What is a revolu

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OFFLINE

Ken Liu (kenliu.name) is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed , and Strange Horizons , among other places. His debut novel, The Grace of Kings , is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, the Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Award for Best First Novel and was a Nebula Award finalist. He subsequently published the second volume in the series, The Wall of Storms ; two collections of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories and The Hidden Girl and Other Stories ; and a Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker . Forthcoming is the conclusion to the Dandelion Dynasty. He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.