Rich Horton - The Year's Best Science Fiction & Fantasy, 2019 Edition

The group of us rode the slideway to Vanavara portway, where Engku, Megat, and Bruce were waiting. Under the towering archway, I hugged and kissed the kids, told them to have lots of fun, and waved at their retreating backs. Then Long Meng and I were on our own.

She took my arm and steered us into Vanavara’s passeggiata, a social stroll that wound through the hab like a pedestrian river. We drifted with the flow, joining the people-watching crowd, seeing and being seen.

The hab had spectacular sculpture gardens and fountains, and Venus’s point-nine-odd gravity was a relief on my knees and hips, but the kids weren’t wrong about the stench. Vanavara smelled like oily vinaigrette over half-rotted lettuce leaves, with an animal undercurrent reminiscent of hormonal teenagers on a cleanliness strike. As we walked, the stench surged and faded, then resurfaced again.

We ducked into a kiosk where a lone chef roasted kebabs over an open flame. We sat at the counter, drinking sparkling wine and watching her prepare meal packages for bot delivery.

“What’s wrong with the air scrubbers here?” Long Meng asked the chef.

“Unstable population,” she answered. “We don’t have enough civil engineers to handle the optimization workload. If you know any nuts-and-bolts types, tell them to come to Vanavara. The bank will kiss them all over.”

She served us grilled protein on disks of crispy starch topped with charred vegetable and heaped with garlicky sauce, followed by finger-sized blossoms with tender, fleshy petals over a crisp honeycomb core. When we rejoined the throng, we shot the chef a pair of big, bright public valentines on slow decay, visible to everyone passing by. The chef ran after us with two tulip-shaped bulbs of amaro.

“Enjoy your stay,” she said, handing us the bulbs. “We’re developing a terrific fresh food culture here. You’ll love it.”

In response to the population downswing, Venus’s habs had started accepting all kinds of marginal business proposals. Artists. Innovators. Experimenters. Lose a ventilation engineer; gain a chef. Lose a surgeon; gain a puppeteer. With the chefs and puppeteers come all the people who want to live in a hab with chefs and puppeteers, and are willing to put up with a little stench to get it. Eventually, the hab’s fortunes turn around. Population starts flowing back, attracted by the burgeoning quality of life. Engineers and surgeons return, and the chefs and puppeteers move on to the next proposal-friendly hab. Basic human dynamics.

Long Meng sucked the last drop of amaro from her bulb and then tossed it to a disposal bot.

“First night of vacation.” She gave me a wicked grin. “Want to get drunk?”

When I rolled out of my sleep stack in the morning, I was puffy and stiff. My hair stood in untamable clumps. The pouches under my eyes shone an alarming purple, and my wrinkle inventory had doubled. My tongue tasted like garlic sauce. But as long as nobody else could smell it, I wasn’t too concerned. As for the rest, I’d earned every age marker.

When Long Meng finally cracked her stack, she was pressed and perky, wrapped in a crisp fuchsia robe. A filmy teal scarf drifted under her thrusting jawline.

“Let’s teach these Venusians how to raise kids,” she said.

In response to demand, the booking agency had upgraded us to a larger auditorium. The moment we hit the stage, I forgot all my aches and pains. Doctor Footlights, they call it. Performing in front of two thousand strangers produces a lot of adrenaline.

We were a good pair. Long Meng dynamic and engaging, lunging around the stage like a born performer. Me, I was her foil. A grave, wise oldster with fifty years of crèche work under my belt.

Much of our seminar was inspirational. Crèche work is relentless no matter where you practice it, and on Venus it brings negative social status. A little cheerleading goes a long way. We slotted our specialty content in throughout the program, introducing the concepts in the introductory material, building audience confidence by reinforcing what they already knew, then hit them between the eyes with the latest developments in Ricochet’s proprietary cognitive theory and emotional development modelling. We blew their minds, then backed away from the hard stuff and returned to cheerleading.

“What’s the worst part of crèche work, Jules?” Long Meng asked as our program concluded, her scarf waving in the citrus-scented breeze from the ventilation.

“There are no bad parts,” I said drily. “Each and every day is unmitigated joy.”

The audience laughed harder than the joke deserved. I waited for the noise to die down, and mined the silence for a few lingering moments before continuing.

“Our children venture out of the crèche as young adults, ready to form new emotional ties wherever they go. The future is in their hands, an unending medium for them to shape with their ambition and passion. Our crèche work lifts them up and holds them high, all their lives. That’s the best part.”

I held my cane to my heart with both hands.

“The worst part is,” I said, “if we do our jobs right, those kids leave the crèche and never think about us again.”

We left them with a tear in every eye. The audience ran back to their crèches knowing they were doing the most important work in the universe, and open to the possibility of doing it even better.

After our second seminar, on a recommendation from the kebab chef, we blew our credits in a restaurant high up in Vanavara’s atrium. Live food raised, prepared, and served by hand; nothing extruded or bulbed. And no bots, except for the occasional hygiene sweeper.

Long Meng cut into a lobster carapace with a pair of hand shears. “Have you ever noticed how intently people listen to you?”

“Most of the time the kids just pretend to listen.”

“Not kids. Adults.”

She served me a morsel of claw meat, perfectly molded by the creature’s shell. I dredged it in green sauce and popped it in my mouth. Sweet peppers buzzed my sinuses.

“You’re a great leader, Jules.”

“At my age, I should be. I’ve had lots of practice telling people what to do.”

“Exactly,” she said through a mouthful of lobster. “So what are you going to do when the Jewel Box leaves the crèche?”

I lifted my flute of pale green wine and leaned back, gazing through the window at my elbow into the depths of the atrium. I’d been expecting this question for a few years but didn’t expect it from Long Meng. How could someone so young understand the sorrows of the old?

“If you don’t want to talk about it, I’ll shut up,” she added quickly. “But I have some ideas. Do you want to hear them?”

On the atrium floor far below, groups of pedestrians were just smudges, no individuals distinguishable at all. I turned back to the table but kept my eyes on my food.

“Okay, go ahead.”

“A hab consortium is soliciting proposals to rebuild their failed crèche system,” she said, voice eager. “I want to recruit a team. You’d be project advisor. Top position, big picture stuff. I’ll be project lead and do all the grunt work.”

“Let me guess,” I said. “It’s Luna.”

Long Meng nodded. I kept a close eye on my blood pressure indicators. Deep breaths and a sip of water kept the numbers out of the red zone.

“I suppose you’d want me to liaise with Luna’s civic apparatus too.” I kept my voice flat.

“That would be ideal.” She slapped the table with both palms and grinned. “With a native Lunite at the helm, we’d win for sure.”

Long Meng was so busy bubbling with ideas and ambition as she told me her plans, she didn’t notice my fierce scowl. She probably didn’t even taste her luxurious meal. As for me, I enjoyed every bite, right down to the last crumb of my flaky cardamom-chocolate dessert. Then I pushed back my chair and grabbed my cane.