The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

As far as is known, Haik never wrote her ideas down a second time. If she did, the book was lost, along with her fossils, in the centuries between her life and the rediscovery of evolution. Should she have tried harder? Would history have been changed, if she had been able to convince people other than Ettin Hattali? Let others argue this question. The purpose of this story is to be a story.

The Ettin became famous for the extreme care with which they arranged breeding contracts and for their success in all kinds of far-into-the-future planning. All through the south people said, “This is a lineage that understands cause and effect!” In modern times, they have become one of the most powerful families on the planet. Is this because of Haik’s ideas? Who can say? Though they are old-fashioned in many ways, they’ve had little trouble dealing with new ideas. “Times change,” the Ettin say. “Ideas change. We are not the same as our ancestors, nor should we be. The Goddess shows no fondness for staying put, nor for getting stuck like a cart in spring rain.

“Those willing to learn from her are likely to go forward. If they don’t, at least they have shown the Great Mother respect; and she-in return-has given them a universe full of things that interest and amaze.”

The Whisper of Disks - JOHN MEANY

John Meaney works as a consultant for a well-known software house, is ranked black belt by the Japan Karate Association, and is an enthusiastic weight lifter. He’s sold a number of stories to Interzone. His first novel, To Hold Infinity, was published in 1998, followed by a second, Paradox, in 2000. His most recent book is a new novel, Context. He lives in Tumbridge Wells, England.

Here he gives us a fascinating look at some of the eccentric ancestors of a young girl-and at her own eccentric and dazzling future.

OXFORD, 2102

So this is the city: millennium-old spires encased in clear ice, enwrapped by winter’s gloom. There, the Bodleian Library, its elegant domed Radcliffe Camera gleaming beneath a transparent shell; there, the Ashmolean’s stately grandeur, white snow banked at the stone columns’ feet. The streets form ice-chasms where occasional bug-cars slide through softly falling flakes, navigating the whiteout by radar.

I should never have left. Or never returned.

Augusta’s vantage point is high: a curlicued smartglass tower, the ellipsoid hotel complex sitting at its apex. She is in the most expensive suite, with floor-to-ceiling convex windows. In the glass, her reflection, like a saddened ghost, overlays the icebound, moribund city.

Her long white hair is bound with platinum wire. Her shining pale-blue gown is high-collared-it keeps her warm-and falls in long straight elegant lines. Straight-backed, she stands, though her left hand holds a slender cane.

Unseen, within the formal garments, a slender exoskeleton provides the real support for her tired, narrow, pain-racked body.

You’ve been here longer than I, she tells the ice-locked buildings silently. But we’re both near the end.

She might have spoken aloud, save for the small silver sphere which floats above her right shoulder: her official biographer.

I’ve outlived my enemies. But that’s no excuse for relaxing vigilance.

Instead, she snaps her fingers, places a call to her lawyers. Instantly-despite the fact that it is 4 a.m. in California-her chief legal officer comes on line. The head-and-shoulders image in the holovolume is system-generated (she can tell the difference), but then she has probably woken him up.

Everything is different.

Outside, dull winter presses against the window. Since global warming finally tipped the North Atlantic convection cell, English winters are an Arctic hell. And she has grown to hate the cold; she should have stayed in California.

“I’ve decided. I’m going into space.” She speaks with utter finality. “I want to see, in person. To be there when the flight takes place.”

“But-” The lawyer stops, then: “Yes, ma’am. I’ll confirm the arrangements now. Oh, and Happy B-”

“Good. Augusta out.”

No one dares to call me Gus anymore.

But that is the least measure of her success-if it is success. For she has outlived her friends, as well as her enemies. With a lonely decade, maybe two, ahead of her… if she strictly follows her medics’ conservative, over-protective regimen.

Her name is Augusta Medora de Lauron (the surname from her seventh husband, which she has kept because she likes it), her personal wealth exceeds anything she ever dreamed of, and today is her 113th birthday.

OXFORD, 1997

When she was eight years old, she told her mother that her real name was Gus.

“ Augusta sounds silly,” she announced with great solemnity. “And I’m not silly.”

She waved a spoon as if for emphasis. Dessert was a banana mashed up with a little milk-some sugar sprinkled on top, for the extra calories-and it was a favourite.

“Does Augusta sound silly?”