The Final Frontier Read online

  ALSO EDITED BY NEIL CLARKE

  MAGAZINES

  Clarkesworld Magazine – clarkesworldmagazine.com

  Forever Magazine – forever-magazine.com

  ANTHOLOGIES

  Upgraded

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 1

  Galactic Empires

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 2

  More Human Than Human

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 3

  Not One of Us (forthcoming 2018)

  The Best Science Fiction of the Year Volume 4 (forthcoming 2019)

  (with Sean Wallace)

  Clarkesworld: Year Three

  Clarkesworld: Year Four

  Clarkesworld: Year Five

  Clarkesworld: Year Six

  Clarkesworld: Year Seven

  Clarkesworld: Year Eight

  Clarkesworld: Year Nine, volume 1

  Clarkesworld: Year Nine, volume 2

  Clarkesworld Magazine A 10th Anniversary Anthology (forthcoming 2018)

  Copyright © 2018 by Neil Clarke

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Night Shade Books, 101 Hudson Street, 37th Floor, Suite 3705, Jersey City, NJ 07302.

  Night Shade Books is an imprint of Start Publishing LLC.

  Visit our website at www.nightshadebooks.com.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Clarke, Neil, 1966- editor. Title:

  The final frontier : stories of exploring space, colonizing the universe, and first contact / edited by Neil Clarke.

  Description: New York : Night Shade Books, [2018]

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018003101 | ISBN 9781597809399 (pbk. : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Science fiction. | Outer space--Exploration--Fiction. |

  Human-alien encounters--Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PN6071.S33 F56 2018 | DDC 808.83/8762--dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018003101

  eISBN: 978-1-59780-650-3

  Cover illustration by Fred Gambino

  Cover design by Jason Snair

  Please see page 581 for an extension of this copyright page.

  Printed in the United States of America

  CONTENTS

  Introduction

  A Jar of Goodwill — Tobias S. Buckell

  Mono no aware — Ken Liu

  Rescue Mission — Jack Skillingstead

  Shiva in Shadow — Nancy Kress

  Slow Life — Michael Swanwick

  Three Bodies at Mitanni — Seth Dickinson

  The Deeps of the Sky — Elizabeth Bear

  Diving into the Wreck — Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  The Voyage Out — Gwyneth Jones

  The Symphony of Ice and Dust — Julie Novakova

  Twenty Lights to “The Land of Snow” — Michael Bishop

  The Firewall and the Door — Sean McMullen

  Permanent Fatal Errors — Jay Lake

  Gypsy — Carter Scholz

  Sailing the Antarsa — Vandana Singh

  The Mind is Its Own Place — Carrie Vaughn

  The Wreck of the Godspeed — James Patrick Kelly

  Seeing — Genevieve Valentine

  Travelling into Nothing — An Owomoyela

  Glory — Greg Egan

  The Island — Peter Watts

  Permissions

  For Johnny

  INTRODUCTION

  I consider this anthology to be a sister to Galactic Empires, which was published last year. During the preliminary reading for that project, I came across several great stories that weren’t quite right for the anthology, typically because the empire element was non-existent or too thin. As that list continued to grow, a theme began to develop around them: space exploration and discovery. If Galactic Empires was Star Wars, this anthology is all those standalone episodes of the various Star Trek series where they discover some new phenomena, make contact with a new species, or explore the remnants of some long forgotten race.

  Gene Roddenberry provided the perfect way to describe those stories in the opening of the original Star Trek back in 1966: Space: the final frontier. When the first episode of that series aired, we were still three years away from Neil Armstrong’s first steps on the moon. It was a show born of an age when we were reaching for the stars and despite being canceled before that moon landing, the show has carried on in new series, movies, books, and fan projects for over fifty years even while the era of manned space exploration has waned. Shows like Star Trek, as well as books and stories like those in this anthology, keep the dream alive.

  I was born the same year that Star Trek first aired. I’m told I was in front of the TV while Armstrong bounced along the surface of the moon, but I was far too young to remember, but I am a child of that era. Someday we would go to the stars and I would live to see it. As a child, we visited Kennedy Space Center and saw the massive Saturn V rocket, reality boosting that sense of awe. The vertical stabilizer of the first space shuttle poked out from behind the wall it was hidden behind and just that tiny glimpse was enough to send my imagination soaring. We were going, but maybe not as soon as my favorite books and movies predicted.

  We sent probes out to fly by or land on other planets in our solar system. Even the early, grainy images brought awe and inspiration. In school, these discoveries were turned into educational opportunities and we learned the dangers of space. As reality intruded, my expectations took steps backward. Space was more inhospitable than it was in books and TV. We were not well-prepared enough to leave our home. More research was necessary, but budgets were shrinking and priorities changed. While there have been many amazing accomplishments and discoveries made by our astronauts and scientists in the time since, that no one has returned to the moon since 1972 is still very disappointing.

  Most recently, wealthy individuals and companies have been investing heavily in and pioneering space-related industries. I couldn’t help but think back to old novels and stories when Elon Musk’s SpaceX managed to safely land the first stage of their rocket back on Earth. Obviously, reusing these expensive pieces of hardware make economic sense, but despite that iconic imagery, it had never been done before. In interviews, he freely admits to being influenced by science fiction books, films, and TV. In many ways, you can see that science fictional spirit in SpaceX’s approach. With Musk at the helm, they have declared their intention to send a manned mission to Mars in the mid-2020s.

  “You want to wake up in the morning and think the future is going to be great—and that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about. It’s about believing in the future and thinking that the future will be better than the past. And I can’t think of anything more exciting than going out there and being among the stars.” —Elon Musk

  Even if these plans should fail or be delayed, the energy and enthusiasm being brought back to the table is a good thing. It helps shape public opinion and will inspire a new generation to believe that they’ll be the ones who get visit another world. It can help direct much-needed funding into technologies that will help us achieve those goals and along the way, potentially provide solutions to problems we have right here and right now on Earth, be it medical, environmental, or simply improve our quality of life.

  I may never visit another planet, but perhaps my children, or their children will. In the meantime, I’ll have to be satisfied to continue my exploration of the final frontier through stories like these, while the astronauts, scientists, robots, and innovators do the real world work that will t
ake us there someday. And if something here inspires you, well, I’m honored to have played a small role in keeping that dream alive for you.

  Tobias S. Buckell is a New York Times bestselling author born in the Caribbean. He grew up in Grenada and spent time in the British and US Virgin Islands, which influence much of his work. His novels and over fifty stories have been translated into eighteen different languages. His work has been nominated for awards like the Hugo, Nebula, Prometheus, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Science Fiction Author. He currently lives in Bluffton, Ohio with his wife, twin daughters, and a pair of dogs. He can be found online at www.TobiasBuckell.com.

  A JAR OF GOODWILL

  TOBIAS S. BUCKELL

  POINTS ON A PACKAGE

  You keep a low profile when you’re in oxygen debt. Too much walking about just exacerbates the situation anyway. So I was nervous when a stationeer appeared at my cubby and knocked on the door.

  I slid out and stood in front of the polished, skeletal robot.

  “Alex Mosette?” it asked.

  There was no sense in lying. The stationeer had already scanned my face. It was just looking for voice print verification. “Yes, I’m Alex,” I said.

  “The harbormaster wants to see you.”

  I swallowed. “He could have sent me a message.”

  “I am here to escort you.” The robot held out a tinker-toy arm, digits pointed along the hallway.

  Space in orbit came at a premium. Bottom-rung types like me slept in cubbies stacked ten high along the hallway. On my back in the cubby, watching entertainment shuffled in from the planets, they made living on a space station sound exotic and exciting.

  It was if you were further up the rung. I’d been in those rooms: places with wasted space. Furniture. Room to stroll around in.

  That was exotic.

  Getting space in outer space was far down my list of needs.

  First was air. Then food.

  Anything else was pure luxury.

  *

  The harbormaster stared out into space, and I silently waited at the door to Operations, hoping that if I remained quiet he wouldn’t notice.

  Ops hung from near the center of the megastructure of the station. A blister stuck on the end of a long tunnel. You could see the station behind us: the miles-long wheel of exotic metals rotating slowly.

  No gravity in Ops, or anywhere in the center. Spokes ran down from the wheel to the center, and the center was where ships docked and were serviced and so on.

  So I hung silently in the air, long after the stationeer flitted off to do the harbormaster’s bidding, wondering what happened next.

  “You’re overdrawn,” the harbormaster said after a needle-like ship with long feathery vanes slipped underneath us into the docking bays.

  He turned to face me, even though his eyes had been hollowed out long ago. Force of habit. His real eyes were now every camera, or anything mechanical that could see.

  The harbormaster moved closer. The gantry around him was motorized, a long arm moving him anywhere he wanted in the room.

  Hundreds of cables, plugged into his scalp like hair, bundled and ran back along the arm of the gantry. Hoses moved effluvia out. More hoses ran purified blood, and other fluids, back in.

  “I’m sorry,” I stammered. “Traffic is light. And requests have dropped off. I’ve taken classes. Even language lessons . . .” I stopped when I saw the wizened hand raise, palm up.

  “I know what you’ve been doing.” The harbormaster’s sightless sockets turned back to the depths of space outside. The hardened skin of his face showed few emotions, his artificial voice was toneless. “You would not have been allowed to overdraw if you hadn’t made good faith efforts.”

  “For which,” I said, “I am enormously appreciative.”

  “That ship that just arrived brings with it a choice for you,” the harbormaster continued without acknowledging what I’d just said. “I cannot let you overdraw any more if you stay on station, so I will have to put you into hibernation. To pay for hibernation and your air debt I would buy your contract. You’d be woken for guaranteed work. I’d take a percentage. You could buy your contract back out, once you had enough liquidity.”

  That was exactly what I’d been dreading. But he’d indicated an alternate. “My other option?”

  He waved a hand, and a holographic image of the ship I’d just seen coming in to dock hung in the air. “They’re asking for a professional Friend.”

  “For their ship?” Surprise tinged my question. I wasn’t crew material. I’d been shipped frozen to the station, just another corpsicle. People like me didn’t stay awake for travel. Not enough room.

  The harbormaster shrugged pallid shoulders. “They will not tell me why. I had to sign a nondisclosure agreement just to get them to tell me what they wanted.”

  I looked at the long ship. “I’m not a fuckbot. They know that, right?”

  “They know that. They reiterated that they do not want sexual services.”

  “I’ll be outside the station. Outside your protection. It could still be what they want.”

  “That is a risk. How much so, I cannot model for you.” The harbormaster snapped his fingers, and the ship faded away. “But the contractors have extremely high reputational scores on past business dealings. They are freelance scientists: biology, botany, and one linguist.”

  So they probably didn’t want me as a pass-around toy.

  Probably.

  “Rape amendments to the contract?” I asked. I was going to be on a ship, unthawed, by myself, with crew I’d never met. I had to think about the worst.

  “Prohibitive. Although, accidental loss of life is not quite as high, which means I’d advise lowering the former so that there is no temptation to murder you after a theoretical rape to evade the higher contract payout.”

  “Fuck,” I sighed.

  “Would you like to peruse their reputation notes?” the harbormaster asked. And for a moment, I thought maybe the harbormaster sounded concerned.

  No. He was just being fair. He’d spent two hundred years of bargaining with ships for goods, fuel, repair, services. Fair was built-in, the half-computer half-human creature in front of me was all about fair. Fair got you repeat business. Fair got you a wide reputation.

  “What’s the offer?”

  “Half a point on the package,” the harbormaster said.

  “And we don’t know what the package is, or how long it will take . . . or anything.” I bit my lip.

  “They assured me that half a point would pay off your debt and then some. It shouldn’t take more than a year.”

  A year. For half a percent. Half a percent of what? It could be cargo they were delivering. Or, seeing as it was a crew of scientists, it could be some project they were working on.

  All of which just raised more questions.

  Questions I wouldn’t have answers to unless I signed up. I sighed. “That’s it, then? No loans? No extensions?”

  The harbormaster sighed. “I answer to the Gheda shareholders who built and own this complex. I have already stretched my authority to give you a month’s extension. The debt has to be called. I’m sorry.”

  I looked out at the darkness of space out beyond Ops. “Shit choices either way.”

  The harbormaster said nothing.

  I folded my arms. “Do it.”

  JOURNEY BY GHEDA

  The docking arms had transferred the starship from the center structure’s incoming docks down a spoke to a dock on one of the wheels. The entire ship, thanks to being spun along with the wheel of the station, had gravity.

  The starship was a quarter of a mile long. Outside: sleek and burnished smooth by impacts with the scattered dust of space at the stunning speeds it achieved. Inside, I realized I’d boarded a creaky, old, outdated vehicle.

  Fiberwire spilled out from conduits, evidence of crude repair jobs. Dirt and grime clung to nooks and crannies. The air smelled of sweat and worse.

&nbs
p; A purple-haired man with all-black eyes met me at the airlock. “You are the Friend?” he asked. He carried a large walking stick with him.

  “Yes.” I let go of the rolling luggage behind me and bowed. “I’m Alex.”

  He bowed back. More extravagantly than I did. Maybe even slightly mockingly. “I’m Oslo.” Every time he shifted his walking stick, tiny grains of sand inside rattled and shifted about. He brimmed with impatience, and some regret in the crinkled lines of his eyes. “Is this everything?”

  I looked back at the single case behind me. “That is everything.”

  “Then welcome aboard,” Oslo said, as the door to the station clanged shut. He raised the stick, and a flash of light blinded me.

  “You should have taken a scan of me before you shut the door,” I said. The stick was more than it seemed. Those tiny rustling grains were generators, harnessing power for whatever tools were inside the device via kinetic motion. He turned around and started to walk away. I hurried to catch up.

  Oslo smiled, and I noticed tiny little fangs under his lips. “You are who you say you are, so everything ended up okay. Oh, and for protocol, the others aren’t much into it either, by the way. Now, for my own edification, you are a hermaphrodite, correct?”

  I flushed. “I am what we Friends prefer to call bi-gendered, yes.” Where the hell was Oslo from? I was having trouble placing his cultural conditionings and how I might adapt to interface with them. He was very direct, that was for sure.

  This gig might be more complicated than I thought.

  “Your Friend training: did it encompass Compact cross-cultural training?”

  I slowed down. “In theory,” I said slowly, worried about losing the contract if they insisted on having someone with Compact experience.

  Oslo’s regret dripped from his voice and movements. Was it regret that I didn’t have the experience? Would I lose the contract, minutes into getting it? Or just regret that he couldn’t get someone better? “But you’ve never Friended an actual Compact drone?”