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

“There’s only one problem, Long Meng,” I said. “Luna doesn’t deserve crèches.”

“Deserve doesn’t really—”

I cut her off. “Luna doesn’t deserve a population.”

She looked confused. “But it has a population, so—”

“Luna deserves to die,” I snapped. I stumped away, leaving her at the table, her jaw hanging in shock.

Halfway through our third and final seminar, in the middle of introducing Ricochet’s proprietary never-fail methods for raising kids, I got an emergency ping from Bruce.

Tré’s abandoned the tour. He’s run off.

I faked a coughing fit and lunged toward the water bulbs at the back of the stage. Turned my back on two thousand pairs of eyes, and tried to collect myself as I scanned Tré’s biom. His stress indicators were highly elevated. The other five members of the Jewel Box were anxious too.

Do you have eyes on him?

Of course. Bruce shot me a bookmark.

Three separate cameras showed Tré was alone, playing his favorite pattern-matching game while coasting along a nearly deserted slideway. Metadata indicated his location on an express connector between Coacalco and Eaton habs.

He looked stunned, as if surprised by his own daring. Small, under the high arches of the slideway tunnel. And thin—his bony shoulder blades tented the light cloth of his tunic.

Coacalco has a bot shadowing him. Do we want them to intercept?

I zoomed in on Tré’s face, as if I could read his thoughts as easily as his physiology. He’d never been particularly assertive or self-willed, never one to challenge his crèche mates or lead them in new directions. But kids will surprise you.

Tell them to stay back. Ping a personal security firm to monitor him. Go on with your tour. And try not to worry.

Are you sure?

I wasn’t sure, not at all. My stress indicators were circling the planet. Every primal urge screamed for the bot to wrap itself around the boy and haul him back to Bruce. But I wasn’t going to slap down a sixteen-year-old kid for acting on his own initiative, especially since this was practically the first time he’d shown any.

Looks like Tré has something to do, I whispered. Let’s let him follow through.

I returned to my chair. Tried to focus on the curriculum but couldn’t concentrate. Long Meng could only do so much to fill the gap. The audience became restless, shifting in their seats, murmuring to each other. Many stopped paying attention. Right up in the front row, three golden-haired, rainbow-smocked Venusians were blanked out, completely immersed in their feeds.

Long Meng was getting frantic, trying to distract two thousand people from the gaping hole on the stage that was her friend Jules. I picked up my cane, stood, and calmly tipped my chair. It hit the stage floor with a crash. Long Meng jumped. Every head swiveled.

“I apologize for the dramatics,” I said, “but earlier, you all noticed me blanking out. I want to explain.”

I limped to the front of the stage, unsteady despite my cane. I wear a stability belt, but try not to rely on it too much. Old age has exacerbated my natural tendency for a weak core, and using the belt too much just makes me frailer. But my legs wouldn’t stop shaking. I dialed up the balance support.

“What just happened illustrates an important point about crèche work.” I attached my cane’s cling-point to the stage floor and leaned on it with both hands as I scanned the audience. “Our mistakes can ruin lives. No other profession carries such a vast potential for screwing up.”

“That’s not true.” Long Meng’s eyes glinted in the stage lights, clearly relieved I’d stepped back up to the job. “Engineering disciplines carry quite the disaster potential. Surgery certainly does. Psychology and pharmacology. Applied astrophysics. I could go on.” She grinned. “Really, Jules. Nearly every profession is dangerous.”

I grimaced and dismissed her point.

“Doctors’ decisions are supported by ethics panels and case reviews. Engineers run simulation models and have their work vetted by peers before taking any real-world risks. But in a crèche, we make a hundred decisions a day that affect human development. Sometimes a hundred an hour.”

“Okay, but are every last one of those decisions so important?”

I gestured to one of the rainbow-clad front-row Venusians. “What do you think? Are your decisions important?”

A camera bug zipped down to capture her answer for the seminar’s shared feed. The Venusian licked her lips nervously and shifted to the edge of her seat.

“Some decisions are,” she said in a high, tentative voice. “You can never know which.”

“That’s right. You never know.” I thanked her and rejoined Long Meng in the middle of the stage. “Crèche workers take on huge responsibility. We assume all the risk, with zero certainty. No other profession accepts those terms. So why do we do this job?”

“Someone has to?” said Long Meng. Laughter percolated across the auditorium.

“Why us, though?” I said. “What’s wrong with us?”

More laughs. I rapped my cane on the floor.

“My current crèche is a sixteen-year sixsome. Well integrated, good morale. Distressingly sporty. They keep me running.” The audience chuckled. “They’re on a geography tour somewhere on the other side of Venus. A few minutes ago, one of my kids ran off. Right now, he’s coasting down one of your intra-hab slideways and blocking our pings.”

Silence. I’d captured every eye; all their attention was mine.

I fired the public slideway feed onto the stage. Tré’s figure loomed four meters high. His foot was kicked back against the slideway’s bumper in an attitude of nonchalance, but it was just a pose. His gaze was wide and unblinking, the whites of his eyes fully visible.

“Did he run away because of something one of us said? Or did? Or neglected to do? Did it happen today, yesterday, or ten days ago? Maybe it has nothing to do with us at all, but some private urge from the kid’s own heart. He might be suffering acutely right now, or maybe he’s enjoying the excitement. The adrenaline and cortisol footprints look the same.”

I clenched my gnarled, age-spotted hand to my chest, pulling at the fabric of my shirt.

“But I’m suffering. My heart feels like it could rip right out of my chest because this child has put himself in danger.” I patted the wrinkled fabric back into place. “Mild danger. Venus is no Luna.”

Nervous laughter from the crowd. Long Meng hovered at my side.

“Crèche work is like no other human endeavor,” I said. “Nothing else offers such potential for failure, sorrow, and loss. But no work is as important. You all know that, or you wouldn’t be here.”

Long Meng squeezed my shoulder. I patted her hand. “Raising children is only for true believers.”

Not long after our seminar ended, Tré boarded Venus’s circum-planetary chuteway and chose a pod headed for Vanavara. The pod’s public feed showed five other passengers: a middle-aged threesome who weren’t interested in anything but each other, a halo-haired young adult escorting a floating tank of live eels, and a broad-shouldered brawler with deeply scarred forearms.

Tré waited for the other passengers to sit, then settled himself into a corner seat. I pinged him. No answer.

“We should have had him intercepted,” I said.

Long Meng and I sat in the back of the auditorium. A choir group had taken over the stage. Bots were attempting to set up risers, but the singers were milling around, blocking their progress.

“He’ll be okay.” Long Meng squeezed my knee. “Less than five hours to Vanavara. None of the passengers are going to do anything to him.”