The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-Volume Four (95 page)

Someone snuffled behind her. The female stood blinking outside the hut. "Where are you?" she asked. "Are you gone already?"

Small Cat walked to her.

"I knew you would go," the dog said. "This is my home, but you're like the puppies will be when they're born. We're good hunters, so the man will be able to trade our puppies for fabric, or even spear heads." She sounded proud. "They will go other places and have their own lives. You're like that, too. But you were very interesting to know, whatever you are."

Small Cat came close enough to touch noses with her.

"If you're looking for the road," the female said, "it's on the other side, over the stream." She went back inside, and the door flap dropped behind her.

Small Cat sharpened her claws and trotted across the log, back toward the road.

Traveling got harder at first, as spring grew warmer. Helped along by the bright sun and the spring rains, the snow in the mountains melted quickly. The rivers were high and icy-cold with snow-melt. No cat, however tough she was, could hope to wade or swim them, and sometimes there was no bridge. Whenever she couldn't cross, Small Cat waited a day or two until the water went down or someone passed.

People seemed to like seeing her. This surprised her. Maybe it was different here. They couldn't know about cats, but maybe demons did not frighten them, especially small ones. She wasn't afraid of the people, either, so she sniffed their fingers and ate their offerings, and rode in their wagons whenever she had the chance.

The road wandered down through the mountains and hills, into little towns and past farmhouses. Everything seemed full of new life. The trees were loud with baby birds and squirrels. The wind rustled through the new leaves. Wild yellow and pink flowers spangled the meadows, and smelled so sweet and strong that she sometimes stepped right over a mouse and didn't notice until it jumped away. The fields were full of new plants, and the pastures and farmyards were full of babies: goats and sheep, horses, oxen and geese and chickens. Goslings, it turned out, tasted delicious.

Journeying was a pleasure now, but she knew she was almost ready to stop. She could have made a home anywhere, she realized—strange cats or no cats, farmer or hunter, beside a shrine or behind an inn. It wasn't about the stories or the garden. It was about her.

But she wasn't quite ready. She had wanted to find The Cat From The North's home, and when that didn't happen she had gone on, curious to find how far the road went. And she didn't know yet.

Then there was a day when it was beautiful and bright, the first really warm day. She came around a curve in the road and looked down into a broad valley, with a river flowing to a distant bay that glittered in the sun. It was the ocean, and Small Cat knew she had come to the end of her travels. This was North.

There was a village where the river and the ocean met. The path led down through fields green with new shoots, and was full of people planting things or digging with hoes. The path became a lane and others joined it.

Small Cat trotted between the double row of houses and shops. Every window and door and screen was open to let the winter out and the spring in. Bedding and robes fluttered as they aired. Young grass and white flowers glowed in the sun, and the three trees in the center of the village were bright with new leaves.

Everyone seemed to be outside doing something. A group of women sang a love song as they pounded rice in a wood mortar to make flour. A man with no hair wove sturdy sandals of straw to wear in the fields, while he told a story about catching a wolf cub when he had been a child by falling on it. A girl sitting on the ground beside him listened as she finished a straw cape for her wooden doll, and then ran off calling for her mother. The geese who had been squabbling over a weed scrambled out of her way.

A man on a ladder tied new clumps of thatch onto a roof where the winter had worn through. Below him, a woman laid a bearskin across a rack. She tied her sleeves back to bare her arms, and hit the skin with a stick. Clouds of dirt puffed out with each blow. In between blows, she shouted instructions up to the man on the roof, and Small Cat recognized that this was a story, too: the story of what the man should do next.

A small Buddhist temple peeked from a grove of trees, with stone dogs guarding a gate into the grounds. A boy swept the ground in front of a Shinto shrine there. Small Cat smelled the dried fish and mushrooms that had been left as offerings: it might be worth her while later to find out more.

Two young dogs wrestled in the dirt by a sheep pen until they noticed her. They jumped to their feet and raced about, barking, "Cat! Cat!" She wasn't afraid of dogs any more—not happy dogs like these, with their heads high and their ears pricked. She hopped onto a railing where they couldn't accidentally bowl her over. They milled about, wagging their tails.

A woman stretching fabric started to say something to the dogs. When she saw Small Cat, her mouth made an O of surprise. "A cat!" She whirled and ran toward the temple. "A cat! Look, come see!"

The woman knew what a cat was, and so had the dogs! Ignoring the dogs, ignoring all the people who were suddenly seeing her, Small Cat pelted after the woman.

The woman burst through a circle of children gathered around a seated man. He was dressed in red and yellow, his shaved head shiny in the sun. A monk, but not her monk, she knew right away: this one was rounder, though his face was still open and kind. He stood up as the woman pointed at Small Cat. "Look, look! Another cat!"

The monk and the children all started talking at once. And in the middle of the noise, Small Cat heard a meow.

Another
cat?

A little ginger- and white-striped tomcat stood on a stack of boxes nearby, looking down at her. His golden eyes were bright and huge with excitement, and his whiskers vibrated. He jumped down and ran to her.

"Who are you?" he said. His tail waved. "Where did you come from?"

When she had decided to make this her home, she hadn't thought she might be sharing it. He wasn't much bigger than she was, or any older, and right now, he was more like a kitten than anything, hopping from paw to paw. She took a step toward him.

"I am so glad to see another cat!" he said. He purred so hard that his breath wheezed in his throat. "The monk brought me here last year to catch mice, all the way from the capital in a basket! It was very exciting. There are so many things to do here! I have a really nice secret place to sleep, but I'll show it to you." He touched her nose with his own.

"There's no fudoki," he said, a little defensively. "There's just me."

"And me now," said The Cat Who Walked A Thousand Miles, and she rubbed her cheek against his. "And I have such a tale to tell!"

The following stories would appear in this volume if space permitted. All of them are recommended, and would repay your attention.

Daniel Abraham, "Balfour and Meriwether in the Adventure Of The Emperor's

Vengeance",
Postscripts 19

Daniel Abraham, "The Best Monkey",
The Solaris Book of New Science Fiction:

Volume 3

Peter M. Ball, "Horn"
,
Twelfth Planet Press

Peter M. Ball, "On the Destruction of Copenhagen by the War-Machines of the

Merfolk",
Strange Horizons
, July 2009

Peter S. Beagle, "Vanishing",
Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show
,

March 2009

Elizabeth Bear, "Cuckoo",
Shadow Unit

James P. Blaylock, "The Dry Spell",
Subterranean
, Winter 2009

Leah Bobet, "Sugar",
Shadow Unit

Damien Broderick, "The Qualia Engine",
Asimov's Science Fiction
, August 2009

Pat Cadigan, "Don't Mention Madagascar",
Eclipse Three

Paul Cornell, "One of Our Bastards Is Missing",
The Solaris Book of New Science

Fiction: Volume Three

Andy Duncan, "The Dragaman's Bride",
The Dragon Book

Greg Egan, "Hot Rock",
Oceanic

James Enge, "Fire and Sleet",
Pyrsf.com

Sara Genge, "Shoes-to-Run",
Asimov's Science Fiction
, July, 2009

Theodora Goss, "Child-Empress of Mars",
Interfictions 2

Steven Gould, "A Story, with Beans",
Analog Science Fiction and Fact
, December

2009

Paul Haines, "Wives",
X6

Cecelia Holland, "Dragon's Deep",
The Dragon Book

Gwyneth Jones, "Collision",
When It Changed

John Kessel, "Events Preceding the Helvetican Renaissance",
The New Space

Opera 2

Caitlin R. Kiernan, "Galapagos",
Eclipse Three

Ellen Klages, "Singing on a Star",
Firebirds Soaring

Ted Kosmatka & Michael Poore, "Blood Dauber",
Asimov's Science Fiction
,

October/November 2009

Nancy Kress, "Act One",
Asimov's Science Fiction
, March 2009

Ellen Kushner, "Dulce Domum",
Eclipse Three

Margo Lanagan, "Sea-Hearts",
X6

Jessica Lee, "Superhero Girl",
Fantasy Magazine
, June 2009

Paul McAuley, "Crimes and Glory",
Subterranean
, Spring 2009

Ian McDonald, "Vishnu at the Cat Circus",
Cyberabad Days

Maureen F. McHugh, "Useless Things",
Eclipse Three

James Morrow,
Shambling Towards Hiroshima
,
Tachyon Publications

Kim Newman, "Moon Moon Moon",
Subterranean
, Summer 2009

Garth Nix, "The Heart of the City",
Subterranean
, Summer 2009

Holly Phillips, "The Long Cold Goodbye",
Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
,

March 2009

Tim Pratt, "Unexpected Outcomes",
Interzone 222

Chris Roberson, "Edison's Frankenstein",
Postscripts 20/21

Tansy Rayner Roberts, "Siren Beat",
Siren Beat/Roadkill

Rudy Rucker and Bruce Sterling, "Colliding Branes",
Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine
, February 2009

Geoff Ryman, "You",
When It Changed

Gord Sellar, "Of Melei, of Ulthar",
Clarkesworld Magazine
, October 2009

Lucius Shepard, "Sylgarmo's Proclamation",
Songs of the Dying Earth

Robert Silverberg, "The True Vintage of Erzuine Thale",
Songs of the Dying

Earth

William Browning Spencer, "Come Lurk with Me and Be My Love",
Lovecraft

Unbound

Bruce Sterling, "Esoteric City",
The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction
,

August/September 2009

Harry Turtledove, "We Haven't Got There Yet",
Tor.com

Steven Utley & Michael Bishop, "The City Quiet as Death",
Tor.com

Catherynne M. Valente, "The Radiant Car Thy Sparrows Drew",
Clarkesworld
Magazine
, August 2009

Jeff VanderMeer, "Errata",
Tor.com

Jo Walton, "Escape to Other Worlds with Science Fiction",
Tor.com

Robert Charles Wilson, "This Peaceable Land; or The Unbearable Vision of

Harriet Beecher Stowe",
Other Earths

John C. Wright, "One Bright Star to Guide Them",
The Magazine of Fantasy &

Science Fiction,
April/May 2009

John C. Wright, "The Far End of History",
The New Space Opera 2

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
INTRODUCTION

Jonathan Strahan

IT TAKES TWO

Nicola Griffith

THREE TWILIGHT TALES

Jo Walton

THE NIGHT CACHE

Andy Duncan

THE ISLAND

Peter Watts

FERRYMAN

Margo Lanagan

"A WILD AND A WICKED YOUTH"

Ellen Kushner

THE PELICAN BAR

Karen Joy Fowler

SPAR

Kij Johnson

GOING DEEP

James Patrick Kelly

THE COLDEST GIRL IN COLDTOWN

Holly Black

ZEPPELIN CITY

Michael Swanwick and Eileen Gunn

DRAGON'S TEETH

Alex Irvine

THIS WIND BLOWING, AND THIS TIDE

Damien Broderick

BY MOONLIGHT

Peter S. Beagle

BLACK SWAN

Bruce Sterling

AS WOMEN FIGHT

Sara Genge

THE CINDERELLA GAME

Kelly Link

FORMIDABLE CARESS: A TALE OF OLD EARTH

Stephen Baxter

BLOCKED

Geoff Ryman

TRUTH AND BONE

Pat Cadigan

EROS, PHILIA, AGAPE

Rachel Swirsky

THE MOTORMAN'S COAT

John Kessel

MONGOOSE

Sarah Monette and Elizabeth Bear

ECHOES OF AURORA

Ellen Klages

BEFORE MY LAST BREATH

Robert Reed

JOBOY

Diana Wynne Jones

UTRIUSQUE COSMI

Robert Charles Wilson

A DELICATE ARCHITECTURE

Catherynne M. Valente

THE CAT WHO WALKED A THOUSAND MILES

Kij Johnson

RECOMMENDED READING