Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 Read online

  George was actually a bit of a challenge, at the start. I first wrote The Troupe from a fairytale perspective, and as such George was initially a naive, soft, somewhat mopey and painfully earnest character. Overall, he was very bland and, as one early reader put it, “kind of a pussy.”

  When I heard this, I knew that I had problems with numbers 1 and 2 of the formula above.

  Which is when I realized that, if he grew up without a father figure, George would naturally overcompensate, and emulate a discerning maturity as much as possible, and if he’d grown up marvelously talented, he would also be conceited as hell, much more so than the average teenager (which is already plenty).

  So I re-imagined him as a bit of a vain, self-important young man, the sort of kid we all know who tries to talk about things he doesn’t know much about while everyone else at the table exchanges glances as if to say, “Well there he goes again, just don’t say anything.” Then he became quite easy for me.

  It’s worth keeping in mind that the rules I laid out can, of course, be broken by anyone with a large enough vision or talent. Passive, wandering protagonists don’t matter if the prose, world, or story itself is involving enough.

  What about an antagonist?

  Antagonists just need cool hats, really, preferably black.

  Atmosphere is so central to your novels. How do you capture and create atmosphere?

  A lot of atmosphere is in voice — the “how” of looking and talking about things. But there is a sense of physical movement to atmosphere: zipping or touring or stumbling through a background or location. The way this occurs — whether it’s a plod, or a cruise, or a downward climb into what feels like a dark tunnel (though it may be a hallway) — is what builds atmosphere the most.

  Description is not necessarily just a means of relaying characteristics: when you describe an object, you inadvertently imbue that object with new characteristics, just as a result of the way you describe it. Describing it shapes the way the audience perceives it. So, you have the option of imbuing objects which are quite still and static with a sense of action. Or you can reduce that feeling of action in a room until it feels like not only is nothing happening, but nothing has ever happened in that room, nor will it ever.

  In what ways, if any, is The Troupe a horror novel? In what ways isn’t it?

  The Troupe is a horror novel in that it contains creatures and elements that are dark, unnerving, and disturbing.

  However, to me, true horror inculcates in the reader a very vicious sort of loneliness: any horror, be it cosmic or slasher, makes you feel powerfully alone, vulnerable, and helpless. That is its chief goal.

  The Troupe does not have that goal. It is not so much about feeling helpless in the world, but rather learning about the world and gaining perspective and, most importantly, understanding that there are things you will never understand. It could possibly be about learning to move past that deep loneliness inherent in all of us, and finding peace.

  Have you found peace yet?

  On occasion. Peace, like happiness, is not a destination at the end of a road: it’s momentary, and frequently coincidental. It just takes work, and a lot of luck, to become the sort of person who can feel happy, or peaceful, with more ease and frequency. I do not think I am quite there yet — but no one really does.

  So if you were in vaudeville... what would your act be?

  Do you know, I have no idea. A lame answer, but a true one.

  About the Author

  Jeremy L. C. Jones is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher. He is the Staff Interviewer for Clarkesworld Magazine and a frequent contributor to Kobold Quarterly and Booklifenow.com. He teaches at Wofford College and Montessori Academy in Spartanburg, SC. He is also the director of Shared Worlds, a creative writing and world-building camp for teenagers that he and Jeff VanderMeer designed in 2006. Jones lives in Upstate South Carolina with his wife, daughter, and flying poodle.

  2011 Reader’s Survey

  Neil Clarke

  Every year, we give you the opportunity to pick your Clarkesworld favorites from the prior year. This time around, you’ll have the opportunity to select your favorite story and cover art from 2011, as well as give us a little feedback. Feel free to use the comments area on our site to help promote your favorites. (No attacking other people’s choices.)

  You can take the survey at http://clarkesworld2011.questionpro.com.

  Please cast your votes by January 30th. Results will be published in our February issue.

  2010 Fiction

  Ghostweight by Yoon Ha Lee

  Tying Knots by Ken Liu

  Diving After the Moon by Rachel Swirsky

  Three Oranges by D. Elizabeth Wasden

  The Book of Phoenix (Excerpted from The Great Book) by Nnedi Okorafor

  Perfect Lies by Gwendolyn Clare

  The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees by E. Lily Yu

  Matchmaker by Erin M. Hartshorn

  Whose Face This Is I Do Not Know by Cat Rambo

  The Architect of Heaven by Jason K. Chapman

  Semiramis by Genevieve Valentine

  Trickster by Mari Ness

  Trois morceaux en forme de mechanika by Gord Sellar

  Frozen Voice by An Owomoyela

  Conservation of Shadows by Yoon Ha Lee

  The Fish of Lijiang by Chen Qiufan

  Pack by Robert Reed

  Signals in the Deep by Greg Mellor

  Staying Behind by Ken Liu

  Pony by Erik Amundsen

  Silently and Very Fast by Catherynne M. Valente

  A Militant Peace by David Klecha and Tobias S. Buckell

  The Smell of Orange Groves by Lavie Tidhar

  In Which Faster-Than-Light Travel Solves All of Our Problems by Chris Stabback

  Sirius by Ben Peek

  Cover Art

  Beckoning Ancient Depths by Alejandro MGNZ

  Nautili by Julie Dillon

  Connie and Donnie by Patryk Olejniczak

  Post-apolacalyptic Fisherman by Georgi Markov

  The Towers of KEILAH by Ferdinand Ladera

  Off Road by Facundo Diaz

  Valley of Mists by Peter Mohrbacher

  Into the Woods by Erik Storstein

  Forest Spirit by Mike Azevedo

  A Sense of Importance by Bryn Jones

  Planetary Alignment by Julie Dillon

  Reactor by Folko Streese

  About the Author

  Neil Clarke is the publisher of Clarkesworld Magazine and owner of Wyrm Publishing. He currently lives in NJ with his wife and two children.

  Clarkesworld Magazine

  Issue 65

  Table of Contents

  And the Hollow Space Inside

  by Mari Ness

  A Hundred Ghosts Parade Tonight

  by Xia Jia

  All the Young Kirks and Their Good Intentions

  by Helena Bell

  From Farm to Fable: Food, Fantasy, and Science Fiction

  by Matthew Johnson

  Everything's Surprising: A Conversation with Lev AC Rosen

  by Jeremy L. C. Jones

  Wendigo Waistcoat Spyglass and Other Words with Lisa L. Hannett

  by Jeremy L. C. Jones

  2011 Reader's Poll Results

  by Neil Clarke

  Pilot

  Art by Alexander Trufanov

  © Clarkesworld Magazine, 2012

  www.clarkesworldmagazine.com

  And the Hollow Space Inside

  Mari Ness

  Doug reaches for my hand as the ship approaches. He continues to hold it as the great doors open, as we watch them leave the ship. They pause; they have been in space and ultra-low gravity for five years now. Five years, one month, and three days, to be precise; I cannot believe my mind has memorized this.

  We are too far away to see this, but I know their eyelids are blinking as they adjust, process, calculate, move, adjust again, the change in gravity no more than a problem to be solved.

&nb
sp; As always, I am struck by how human and inhuman they look. Even their pauses have a precise, calculated feel. No one has ever seen them show uncertainty. No one ever will.

  Gravity adjustments made, they walk with precision to the terminal, directly in front of us. It takes me a moment to recognize her, out of the eight faces. That is not surprising; it has been twelve years since I last saw her. What is surprising is how, even now, I am still desperately looking for any trace of my daughter’s smile in my daughter’s face.

  The Mars missions, we were assured, would be the eventual saving grace of humanity. Oh, certainly, we hadn’t managed to use up all of the world’s resources yet, but that was only a matter of time. Population growth had slowed, but not stalled out completely, and wars over resources kept getting bloodier — while not reducing the population much. Mars was the only planet we could reach in an acceptable period of time, terraform, and begin colonizing. Other worlds would come, but by the time we reached the next nearest acceptable planet — a 40 year journey each way, under optimum conditions that few scientists thought we would meet — it would be too late for Earth. The Mars missions offered us that saving grace.

  Only one problem: ordinary humans couldn’t survive the trip.

  Beside me, Doug takes a deep breath. “She looks good.”

  “Yes,” I agree.

  The four years in low gravity, not to mention the years of dehydrated food before that, should have taken their toll, but she still looks fit and considerably younger than her actual age. Then again, she always did. They all did, a side effect of programming and lack of temptation, and (but this is only my opinion) emotions and stress.

  The eight of them reach the terminal, turn in unison, and wave in precision. I have to remind myself once again that I have been assured that they all have individual implants and computers, individual programming. They were all expected to perform different tasks, after all; it would make no sense to have them

  They vanish into the facility.

  “They didn’t say hello,” says Doug.

  I do not tell him that I am relieved.

  The facility explained: humans needed interaction. A mere eight people, stuck together in the tight confines of a ship, and then on the almost equally tight confines of the first Mars base, could not be trusted to stay sane. The astronauts on the space stations had remained sane only because they were regularly rotated in and out, and could also continue to converse via radio and satellite to people back on earth. By the time the mission reached Mars, these transmissions would be delayed — not by much, but just enough to leave a long silence after a statement.

  Just enough to drive people over the edge — only this edge was out in space, or on a hostile planet with no real edge to go to.

  Unless they had no edge to fall off from.

  Amy is blind, navigating with touch, sound and precision memory. Her taste and pleasure centers are nonfunctional. She eats carefully balanced meals at carefully programmed times, although she is never hungry.

  “I don’t understand why they’re using the… children.” I shouldn’t have hesitated before that word, but I’d never been comfortable using it. They weren’t children. I didn’t know what they were, but they weren’t children, not by any definition of the word. But Doug hated the other, better word: implants. And adults just sounded wrong. The hesitation made Doug flinch. Which might have been why I’d hesitated. “If they think regular people can’t handle it, then why not just send out regular robots?”

  Doug flinched again. Any reminder that his — our — daughter was any sort of robot did that to him. “As I understand it, they want to understand and see the long term effects of Mars gravity and terraforming on human bodies, since eventually they do plan to send the rest of us out there.”

  “But — ” I swallowed, tried to get my thoughts in order. “They’re programmed. They’ll be eating and exercising absolutely regularly in a way regular adults wouldn’t. Couldn’t. Even Olympic athletes aren’t that careful.”

  “But it will give them a general idea. Plus, they need to ensure that human bodies — ” it was my turn to flinch — “are capable of spending sustained time in a Martian environment.” He sounded like someone quoting a speech from a marketing consultant; it took me a second to realize that was probably exactly what he was doing.

  I gave up attempting to eat. “Ok. What I don’t understand is this. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because they want us to talk to her before she goes.”

  By “they” he meant the facility’s attorneys, of course.

  Amy is also a skilled engineer and astronaut, programmed with the equivalent of multiple doctorate degrees in engineering, computer science, astronomy, microbiology, geology and geophysics and to speak multiple languages with the same flat intonation, who has to be reminded by a computer program to eat, who has never laughed or cried in her entire life.

  “I’ll sign more papers if I have to,” I said. “I don’t want to see her.”

  “Crystal.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “Crystal. If you don’t go, she can’t go. And — ” He swallowed, and I saw that he was about to start crying. “She doesn’t belong here. You’ll see.”

  The reason for their quick disappearance is soon explained. The eight of them must be thoroughly checked — their programs are not yet perfectly adjusted for self-maintenance, although they are able to observe and check each other. Then a patch, to ensure that they are properly programmed to adjust to the new gravity, and another patch to ensure that they are able to translate and understand the very latest idioms in multiple languages.

  And, of course, they must eat, which none of us will want to see.

  This last part is true. The implants do not respond to appetite or taste, and although they are programmed to eat, with the precise, mechanical movements they use for everything else, they have difficulty with this. Eating, it turns out, is somewhat more complicated than mere programming, and it is not something I want to watch again.

  None of this is anything I want to watch again.

  “Of course she’s agreeing to go,” I ranted at Ariela, my best friend, the only one other than Doug who knew the whole story. “She’s programmed to go. Why do I have to go to see this for myself?”

  Ariela fiddled with her coffee cup. “I don’t think that’s it,” she said, after a moment.

  “Then what is it?”

  “I think they want you to be able to say good-bye.”

  I have a picture of my daughter, in her crib, surrounded by wires and tubes.

  It is the only one I have. Most of the time, I leave it buried at the bottom of a drawer in the guest room, face down. But sometimes I take it out, and try to imagine that in it, my daughter is smiling.

  When I found out my child would be born without a brain, I didn’t cry. I couldn’t. Everything inside me was swallowed up, gone, empty, and I had nothing to cry with. I just sat quietly, hands folded over my abdomen, listening. I didn’t have much to say.

  I had options, they explained, carefully. I could terminate the pregnancy — it was difficult to find anyone who would terminate late term pregnancies here, but a trip to Europe or Asia could be arranged. I could bring the child to term. (Beside me, Doug jerked, but didn’t say anything.) The child would not live, but some parents found that comforting, and I could hold her afterwards. (”Comforting”? The hollow part of me could not ask.)

  Or, they said, they could offer a third possibility.

  I’ve cried enough about this already. Enough.

  The medical procedure was less simple than they had promised. Eight hours of initial surgery, and then two days in bed, another surgery, and then a third. Doug tried to read books to me, but I was so sick I could barely understand his words. Finally he set me up with an tablet and music and let that play while he slept and slept.

  With each procedure, I dreamed, dreamed that metal was moving through my skin and bones, dreamed that wires were rep
lacing my nerves. I saw myself as a computer. I saw myself linking to my daughter.

  I threw up, over and over. The pregnancy, said the nurses sympathetically. Or the drugs. But I knew it wasn’t either.

  Even now, I sometimes wonder if some of those nanobots entered my blood, my skin, if their presence is why I can now look at my daughter and have no desire to hold her.

  I was allowed to hold her, briefly, after the birth. It was psychologically better for the mother, one of the doctors argued; a compassionate thing to do, agreed the attorneys, who probably had other fears in mind. I had no thoughts of a lawsuit, not then.

  She was small, so very small. And so limp. For some reason I had thought that the procedures would extend metal all the way through her body, but no. Not that she was lacking in metal; she had wires and tubes seemingly everywhere, controlling her food intake and bladder and monitoring pulse rates and the electronic activity in her brain.

  But no tubes in her nose or her mouth, and her tiny chest rose and fell steadily.

  “There were some problems,” Doug says.

  “Problems,” I repeat.

  He swallows. “They could send commands to them while they were on the mission, but apparently, something about the distance and time — anyway, they weren’t able to successfully upload all of the patches and fixes. Some of the programming broke down.”

  “And?”

  “Some of them — well, they’re saying some of them may be nonfunctional.”

  It takes me a moment to sort through the pronouns. “Amy?”

  “I don’t know.” He swallows miserably.

  “The implant is letting her breathe,” explained one of the doctors. “In time, it might allow her to do more.”