Jeff VanderMeer - Dead Astronauts

4th Estate

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

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London SE1 9GF

www.4thEstate.co.uk

This eBook first published in Great Britain by 4th Estate in 2019

Copyright © 2019 by VanderMeer Creative, Inc.

Cover illustration © Maalavidaa

Cover design © Jo Walker

Lyrics from “Suicide Invoice” copyright © 2002 by Rick Froberg (lyricist) and the Hot Snakes.

Frontispiece and ornament illustrations copyright © 2019 by Mario Tauchi.

The salamander-language diagram was drawn and provided by Jeremy Zerfoss.

Jeff VanderMeer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008375324

Ebook Edition © December 2019 ISBN: 9780008375348

Version: 2019-11-08

FOR ANN, ALWAYS, ACROSS ALL THE WORLDS

And when I dream

I keep my promises to you

I really do.

—HOT SNAKES

7 “What version is this?”

7 “Zero. It’s version zero.”

7 “Do you trust me?”

7 “I do.”

7 “Do you love me?”

7 “I do.”

7 “Hold on to me, then.”

7 “I will.”

7 “Even when I’m not me.”

7 “I will, Moss.”

0 “And I will always be there.”

Even before I know you.

Even after I’ve known you.

Even then.

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

1. THE DREAM OF THE BLUE FOX

2. THE THREE

3. BOTCH BEHEMOTH

4. CAN’T REMEMBER

5. LEVIATHAN

6. THE BODY

7. CORPSE

8. THE DARK BIRD

9. CAN’T FORGET

10. THE DEAD ASTRONAUT

0. A SCRAP OF PAPER FOUND IN CHEN’S SUIT

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Also by Jeff VanderMeer

About the Publisher

So they ran threaded through the breaches, found the seams. So they ran with a memory of the City without buildings. So they navigated two worlds: the new and the old. When the ancient seabed had been green with reeds and lakes and the low salt-poisoned trees with their thick moss-encrusted limbs upon which they might sleep.

Now they must come to rest on half-collapsed roofs and in the shadows of the great rocks out in the desert. Now they must dream where they could and trust in the lookout who would not sleep. Must trust in how thought danced from mind to mind. How there was nothing but a lightness to that. How they knew each other’s will.

They were the color of sand, which might shift and stall, pass between the paws unnoticed, but would never not be there. Would never become weathered down because it was already what it was meant to become.

One from another in the night they snapped at the winking rescue lights of giant fireflies. Savored the crunch of wing, the collapse of carapace. Let in the coolness of the dark. Played games in the aftermath, searched for hidden water, dug their own shallow wells. Licked at the salt when needed. Mated and had cubs. Sometimes looked up at the stars distant and for a moment contemplated what lay beyond. Even though it meant nothing more to them than the fireflies.

Until Nocturnalia.

Until the blue fox.

For one night there came a flare of blue across the heavens and a nimble quicksilver thought in their heads that was both familiar and strange. They sat at the border between the desert and the City. Hearts pumping fast. Motionless but ready to leap, to run, to bite.

Out across the desert came the Source. At a trot. With a familiar grin of fangs. The blue fox. Larger than them by half. Projecting to them what he wanted to project.

Love. Power. Fate. Destiny. Chance.

Showing them another world. Another way.

But why should they have a leader? Why should they not roam like wild things? For they were wild things. Why should they have a purpose? For they were wild things.

I will tell you why said the blue fox as he approached. I will tell you why it matters. To you .

Soon under the glancing moon, the blue fox stood before them. He stood mighty before them. He stood respectful before them. He stood before them.

Came a mighty yipping and barking from the multitudes, the gathered folk that were foxes but not foxes as had been known in the past. For what had a fox been but what a human thought it was?

The blue fox said:

There shall come scavengers to the City from far away. They will call themselves the Company. They shall have no face. They shall have no body at which to strike, but many limbs.

There shall issue forth from the Company beasts and monsters and creatures that shift their form in ways that you cannot imagine. There shall come threats you cannot imagine.

The little foxes seethed, withdrew, seethed around the blue fox, moving like a memory of the sea. Cusp of a new thing, considering what the blue fox showed them.

And by the time the foxes left that place, the blue fox was their leader, and although not one of them could say why this should be, it felt right. It felt true. And in no particulars could it be said that their lives changed in the short-term. In no particulars were they not themselves after. Yet in their hearts they felt the change.