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

Precisely when Alone turned to flee, he couldn’t say.

He was at a loss to understand which word triggered the wash of emotion, even as he was rushing away from the room and its densely packed bodies…even as a few of the less devoted worshippers heard what might be a moan and turned in time to notice the faint but unmistakable glow, red as a dying ember, racing off on legs growing longer by the stride.

Ten thousand and forty-eight years after first discovering the hole, Alone returned. The winch remained fixed in place, but someone else had visited, and possibly more than once. Boot prints showed in the dust. He could smell and taste signs of a second human. But nobody had stood up on this ground for a very long while, and when he went below, he found the body exactly where he had left it—only more dried, more wasted. More helpless, if that was possible.

Once again, Alone emptied the pack of its belongings, but this time he tenaciously studied the design and contents of even the most prosaic, seemingly useless item. He taught himself to read. He mastered the old, once-treasured machines that had thoroughly recorded one life. The mummified man had a long, cumbersome name, but he answered easiest to Harper. Eyes pushed against the digital readers, Alone marveled at scenes brought by Harper from the distant Earth. Here were glimpses of strange brightly lit lives, the toothy faces of a family, and a sequence of lovers. But each of those individuals were left behind when Harper sold every possession, surrendering his home and safety for a ticket to ride the Great Ship—embarking on a glorious voyage to circumnavigate the Milky Way.

Between the man’s arrival at Port Alpha and this subsequent disaster, barely fifty years passed. Which was no time at all. What’s more, Harper had filled his days with a single-minded hunt for the Ship’s ancient builders. Infused with a maniacal hunger, the human not only presumed that some grand and purposeful force had built the derelict starship, but the same force was still onboard, hiding in an odd corner or unmapped chamber, biding its time while waiting for that brave, earnest explorer that would discover its lair.

Harper intended to be that very famous man.

Alone studied every aspect of the lost life. There were gaps in the records, particularly near the end. But he wasn’t familiar enough with human ways to appreciate that another hand might have blanked files and entire days, erasing its presence from the story. What mattered was digesting the full nature of this alien beast, learning Harper’s manners and looks and duplicating his high, thin voice. Then Alone refilled the pack. But this time, he left the hole with the lost man’s possessions carried under what looked like a human arm.

At the top of the hole, he transformed his face, his body.

There were many ways to be alone. The next weeks were spent duplicating the voice and gestures on the digitals. Then he abandoned the safety of the cavern. The local time was night, as he had planned. Obeying customs learned only yesterday, Alone summoned a cap-car that silently carried him halfway around the Ship. He paid for the service with funds pulled from an account that hadn’t been touched for thousands of years. The modest apartment hadn’t seen this face for as long, but its AI said, “Welcome.” The master’s sudden reappearance didn’t cause suspicion or curiosity. Entering a home that he didn’t know, Alone spent the next ten days and nights studying the lost man. Then his apartment announced, “You have a visitor, sir.”

Baffled, he asked, “Who?”

“It is Mr. Jan.”

“Who is Mr. Jan?”

“I have no experience with the gentleman. But he claims to be your very good friend.”

Alone considered the implications.

“What shall I tell him, sir?”

“That I have no friends,” he replied.

“Very well.”

The matter seemed finished. But fifty-three minutes later, the apartment warned, “Mr. Jan is still waiting at your door, sir.”

“Why?”

“Apparently he wishes to speak with you.”

“But I’m not his friend,” Alone repeated.

“And I told him as much. But the man is quite upset about some matter, and he refuses to leave until he shares words with you.”

“Let him into the front hall.”

A narrow, nervous human crept inside the apartment. Mr. Jan had a familiar scent, and judging by the intricacy of the braids, he was quite proud of his thick red hair. The hallway was thirty meters long, which wasn’t long enough. The two figures stared at one another from opposite ends, and when Mr. Jan took a small step forward, the other soul said, “No. Come no closer, please.”

“I understand,” the guest whispered. “Sure.”

“What do you want with me?”

What did Mr. Jan want? The possibilities were too numerous or too vast for easy explanations. He gazed down at his pale hands, as if asking their opinion.

Then quietly and very sadly, he said, “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?”

“Yes I am.”

Alone felt sick to be this near a stranger. But his voice remained calm, under control. “For what are you apologizing?”

Mr. Jan straightened his back, surprised by those words, and on reflection, angered by them too. “I’m apologizing for everything, of course! I’m sorry for the entire mess!”

Alone waited, his new face unchanged.

“But these things weren’t just my fault,” the visitor insisted. “You used me, Harper. And I know you made fun of me. We were supposed to have a business relationship, a partnership. I heard quite a few promises about money, but did you give me even half of what I’d earned?”

“What did I give you?”

“None of it. Don’t you remember?”

“Then I must have cheated you,” Alone observed.

“‘Cheat’ doesn’t do it justice,” Mr. Jan insisted.

Alone wasn’t certain what word to offer next.

“Look,” said Mr. Jan. “What I did…I was just trying to scare you. Taking you that deep, down where your nexuses couldn’t reach anybody. And then cutting the sapphire before you went down into that room. It looks bad, if you look at things that way. But it was meant to be a warning. Nothing else.”

“You were trying to scare me,” Alone guessed.

“Don’t you remember? I spelled out all of my reasons afterwards.” Mr. Jan looked at the granite floor and then the matching ceiling. With a stiff, self-absorbed voice, he said, “You heard me calling down to you. I know you heard, because you answered me. I told you that I was going to let you sit there and commune with the Great Ship until you promised to give me everything that I was owed.”

“I remember,” Alone lied.

“Money and respect. That’s what I wanted, that’s what I deserve. And that’s why I did what I did.” The walls were only partly tiled. Like the rest of the tiny apartment, the hallway was far from finished. Mr. Jan leaned against the shifting quasicrystals, beginning to cry. “All you needed to do…I mean this…was to say a few words to me. You could have just told me another lie. I never wanted to leave you down there. I’m not cruel like that. If you’d made any promises, anything at all, I’d have pulled you right out of there. Yes, I would have saved you in an instant.”

The voice faded.

“I should have done that,” Alone agreed. “Lying would have been right.”

“Well, I don’t know if that’s quite true.” The weeping man looked at his nemesis—a ghost that had stalked him for eons. “But listen, Harper. You have no respect for anyone but you. Yelling those insults up at me. Yes, you hurt me. Words like that…they last forever. They’re cutting me still, those awful things that you said to me.”