Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

Wonderful tore past, feet flying, flicking mud in Craw’s face. He saw Scorry flit between two huts up ahead, then swift as a lizard around one of the gateposts and out of the village. He hurled himself after, under the arch of branches. Jumped down the bank, caught his hurt foot, body jolting, teeth snapping together and catching his tongue. He took one more wobbling step then went flying, crashed into the boggy bracken, rolled over his shield, just with enough thought to keep his sword from cutting his own nose off. He struggled to his feet, laboured on up the slope, legs burning, lungs burning, through the trees, trousers soaked to the knee with marsh-water. He could hear Brack lumbering along at his shoulder, grunting with the effort, and behind him Yon’s growl, “bloody… shit… bloody… running… bloody… shit…”

He tore through the brush and wobbled into the clearing where they’d made their plans. Plans that hadn’t flown too smoothly, as it went. Raubin was standing by the gear. Wonderful near him with her hands on her hips. Never was kneeling on the far side of the clearing, arrow nocked to his bow. He grinned as he saw Craw. “You made it then, chief?”

“Shit.” Craw stood bent over, head spinning, dragging in air. “Shit.” He straightened, staring at the sky, face on fire, not able to think of another word, and without the breath to say one if he had been.

Brack looked even more shot than Craw, if it was possible, crouched over, hands on knees and knees wobbling, big chest heaving, big face red as a slapped arse around his tattoos. Yon tottered up and leaned against a tree, cheeks puffed out, skin shining with sweat.

Wonderful was hardly out of breath. “By the dead, the state o’ you fat old men.” She slapped Never on the arm. “That was some nice work down there at the village. Thought they’d catch you and skin you sure.”

“You hoped, you mean,” said Never, “but you should’ve known better. I’m the best damn runner-away in the North.”

“That is a fact.”

“Where’s Scorry?” gasped Craw, enough breath in him now to worry.

Never jerked his thumb. “Circled round to check no one’s coming for us.”

Whirrun ambled back into the clearing now, hood drawn up again and the Father of Swords sheathed across his shoulders like a milkmaid’s yoke, one hand on the grip, the other dangling over the blade.

“I take it they’re not following?” asked Wonderful, one eyebrow raised.

Whirrun shook his head. “Nope.”

“Can’t say I blame the poor bastards. I take back what I said about you taking yourself too serious. You’re one serious fucker with that sword.”

“You get the thing?” asked Raubin, face all pale with worry.

“That’s right, Raubin, we saved your skin.” Craw wiped his mouth, blood on the back of his hand from his bitten tongue. They’d done it, and his sense of humor was starting to leak back in. “Hah. Could you imagine if we’d left the bastard thing behind?”

“Never fear,” said Yon, flipping open his pack. “Jolly Yon Cumber, once more the fucking hero.” And he delved his hand inside and pulled it out.

Craw blinked. Then he frowned. Then he stared. Gold glinted in the fading light, and he felt his heart sink lower than it had all day. “That ain’t fucking it, Yon!”

“It’s not?”

“That’s a cup! It was the thing we wanted!” He stuck his sword point-down in the ground and waved one hand about. “The bloody thing with the kind of bloody light about it!”

Yon stared back at him. “No one told me it had a bloody light!”

There was silence for a moment then, while they all thought about it. No sound but the wind rustling the old leaves, making the black branches creak. Then Whirrun tipped his head back and roared with laughter. A couple of crows took off, startled from a branch it was that loud, flapping up sluggish into the gray sky.

“Why the hell are you laughing?” snapped Wonderful.

Inside his hood Whirrun’s twisted face was glistening with happy tears. “I told you I’d laugh when I heard something funny!” And he was off again, arching back like a full-drawn bow, whole body shaking.

“You’ll have to go back,” said Raubin.

“Back?” muttered Wonderful, her dirt-streaked face a picture of disbelief. “Back, you mad fucker?”

“You know the hall caught fire, don’t you?” snapped Brack, one big trembling arm pointing down towards the thickening column of smoke wafting up from the village.

“It what?” asked Raubin as Whirrun blasted a fresh shriek at the sky, hacking, gurgling, only just keeping on his feet.

“Oh, aye, burned down, more’n likely with the damn thing in it.”

“Well… I don’t know… you’ll just have to pick through the ashes!”

“How about we pick through your fucking ashes?” snarled Yon, throwing the cup down on the ground.

Craw gave a long sigh, rubbed at his eyes, then winced down towards that shit-hole of a village. Behind him, Whirrun’s laughter sawed throaty at the dusk. “Always,” he muttered, under his breath. “Why do I always get stuck with the fool jobs?”

Robert Reed was born in Omaha, Nebraska. He has a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Nebraska Wesleyan University, and has worked as a lab technician. He became a full-time writer in 1987, the same year he won the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest, and has published eleven novels, including The Leeshore , The Hormone Jungle, and far future science fiction novels Marrow and The Well of Stars . An extraordinarily prolific writer, Reed has published over 200 short stories, mostly in Fantasy & Science Fiction and Asimov’s , which have been nominated for the Hugo, James Tiptree, Jr., Locus, Nebula, Seiun, Theodore Sturgeon Memorial, and World Fantasy awards, and have been collected in The Dragons of Springplace and The Cuckoo’s Boys . His novella “A Billion Eves” won the Hugo Award. Nebraska’s only SF writer, Reed lives in Lincoln with his wife and daughter, and is an ardent long-distance runner.

The hull was gray and smooth, gray and empty, and in every direction it fell away gradually, vanishing where the cold black of the sky pretended to touch what was real. What was real was the Great Ship. Nothing else enjoyed substance or true value. Nothing else in Creation could be felt, much less understood. The Ship was a sphere of perfect hyperfiber, world-sized and enduring, while the sky was only a boundless vacuum punctuated with lost stars and the occasional swirls of distant galaxies. Radio whispers could be heard, too distorted and far too faint to resolve, and neutrino rains fell from above and rose from below, and there were ripples of gravity and furious nuclei generated by distant catastrophes—inconsequential powers washing across the unyielding, eternal hull.

Do not trust the sky, the walker understood. The sky wished only to tell lies. And perhaps worse, the sky could distract the senses and mind from what genuinely mattered. The walker’s only purpose was to slowly, carefully move across the Ship’s hull, and if something of interest were discovered, a cautious investigation would commence. But only if it was harmless could the mystery be approached and studied in detail. Instinct guided the walker, and for as long as it could remember, the guiding instinct was fear. Fierce, unnamed hazards were lurking. The walker could not see or define its enemies, but they were near, waiting for weakness. Waiting for sloth or inattentiveness. Regardless how curious it was or how fascinating some object might be, the walker scrupulously avoided anything that moved or spoke, or any device that glowed with unusual heat, and even the tiniest example of organic life was something to be avoided, without fail.