Year's Best SF 17

Still he said nothing. She got up, blind to everything but the intensity of her thoughts, and went to the door. She glanced back before leaving, and he was looking at her with an expression that was nothing like what he ought to feel—not shame, not rage, not self-loathing. Thorn slammed the door behind her and fled.

She walked around the streets of the Waste for a long time, viciously throwing stones at heaps of trash to make the rats come out. Above the buildings, the sky seemed even redder than usual, and the shadows blacker. She was furious at the magister for not being admirable. She blamed him for hiding it from her and for telling her—since, by giving her the knowledge, he had also given her a responsibility of choosing what to do.

When she got home the kitchen was empty, but she heard voices from the living room above. She was mounting the stairs when the voices rose in anger, and she froze. It was Hunter and Maya, and they were yelling at each other.

“Good God, what were you thinking?” Hunter demanded.

“She needed help. I couldn’t say no.”

“You knew it would bring the authorities down on us!”

“I had a responsibility—”

“What about your responsibility to me? You just didn’t think. You never think; everything is impulse with you. You are the most immature and manipulative person I’ve ever met.”

Maya’s voice went wheedling. “Hunter, come on. It’ll be okay.”

“And what if it’s not okay? What are you going to do then? Just pick up and leave the wreckage behind you? That’s what you’ve been doing all your life—dragging that kid of yours from planet to planet, never thinking what it’s doing to her. You never think what you’re doing to anyone, do you? It’s all just yourself. I never should have let you in here.”

There were angry footsteps, and then Hunter was mounting the stairs.

“Hunter!” Maya cried after him.

Thorn waited a minute, then crept up into the living room. Maya was sitting there, looking tragic and beautiful.

“What did you do?” Thorn said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Maya said. “He’ll get over it.”

“I don’t care about Hunter.”

Mistaking what she meant, Maya smiled through her tears. “You know what? I don’t care either.” She came over and hugged Thorn tight. “I’m not really a bad mother, am I, Thorn?”

Cautiously, Thorn said, “No. …”

“People just don’t understand us. We’re a team, right?”

Maya held out her hand for their secret finger-hook. Once it would have made Thorn smile, but she no longer felt the old solidarity against the world. She hooked fingers anyway, because she was afraid Maya would start to cry again if she didn’t. Maya said, “They just don’t know you. Damaged child, poppycock—you’re tough as old boots. It makes me awestruck, what a survivor you are.”

“I think we ought to get ready to leave,” Thorn said.

Maya’s face lost its false cheer. “I can’t leave,” she whispered.

“Why not?”

“Because I love him.”

There was no sensible answer to that. So Thorn turned away to go up to her room. As she passed the closed door of Hunter’s office, she paused, wondering if she should knock. Wondering if she should turn in the most notorious Gminta collaborator still alive. All those millions of dead Alloes and Vinds would get their justice, and Hunter would be famous. Then her feet continued on, even before she consciously made the decision. It was not loyalty to Magister Pregaldin, and it was not resentment of Hunter. It was because she might need that information to buy her own safety.

The sound of breaking glass woke her. She lay tense, listening to footsteps and raised voices below in the street. Then another window broke, and she got up to pull back the curtain. The sun was orange, as always, and she squinted in the glare, then raised her window and climbed out on the roof.

Below in the street, a mob of white-clad Incorruptibles was breaking windows as they passed; but their true target obviously lay deeper in the Waste. She watched till they were gone, then waited to see what would happen.

From somewhere beyond the tower fans of the park she could hear shouts and clanging, and once an avalanche-like roar, after which a cloud of dust rose from the direction of Weezer Alley. After that there was silence for a while. At last she heard chanting. Fleeing footsteps passed below. Then the wall of Incorruptibles appeared again. They were driving someone before them with improvised whips made from their belts. Thorn peered over the eaves to see more clearly and recognized their victim—Ginko, the heshe from the Garden of Delights, completely naked, both breasts and genitals exposed, with a rope around hisher neck. The whips had cut into the delicate paisley of Ginko’s skin, exposing slashes of red underneath.