The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction: 23rd Annual Collection (56 page)

A part of her wanted to duck, as if they were pointing weapons. The gesture was, her hind brain told her, the same. Was it, she wondered briefly, that this pointing of links to acquire information was a hostile act? Or was it that the men who had fired on the refugees when she was a child hadn’t been hostile, had treated the dealing of death as casually as these tourists treated the gathering of information? She didn’t know, hid her flinch and smiled for them as the guide did the introduction that they weren’t listening to. Their eyes were on their links as she downloaded onto their screens life and death, love and loss, success and failure, rendered in text and images. She climbed onto the bus after them, took the plush seat up front, facing them. The guide sat beside her in the other rear-facing seat. Some of the tourists were from off-planet, perhaps one of the orbital platforms or perhaps even Mars. They had brown skin, lighter than her Lesotho skin, but their bodies seemed frail, out of proportion. They looked at her, eyes bright.

They did not look quite human.

“Go straight out of the compound and take the first right,” she told the driver, who was a regular. “We’ll take the road down along the river.”

“We’re here to see the Mastodon calves.” One of the off-planet tourists looked up from her link. “The park map IDs them to the west, over in the hills.”

“The old cow always brings them down to their favorite place on the river at dusk, to drink.” Tahira spoke patiently. “You’ll have time to stretch your legs and have some dinner before they show up.”

“Why don’t we just go where they are?” Someone else spoke up.

“Our rhythms are more flexible than those of the animals.” She kept her voice patient. “They know we will be there at the river, we are usually there, that does not bother them. It is familiar. If we arrive unexpectedly in an unusual place . . . they will be bothered. And that is unhealthy.”

That didn’t satisfy all of them but she didn’t expect it to.

“Hey.” A woman with a very young face, golden skin, and hair as silvery white as Jen looked up from her screen. “I just got a newsfeed . . . a tourist got killed by a lion! Last night! This is the second lion kill!”

Murmurs swept the bus and all eyes focused on the link screens.

“It wasn’t a tourist.” Her words fell like stones into the murmur and eyes pried themselves from link screens. “A young woman was dropped from a hovercraft for the lions to find.” She spoke into silence now. All eyes were on her and somehow, this felt no different than the pointed links. “She was intended to die. Someone videoed her death. That person will sell the video for a lot of money. Violent death is very valuable. It is an ugly trade.” Only the purr of the bus’s power plant could be heard now. “But it is a very old trade. No matter. I saw the vehicle that brought her, I saw the person who operated it. I observe that lion pride every night and I was there in the darkness. He will be caught.”

“That’s not on the newsfeed.” The accusatory voice came from the rear of the bus. From one of the off-worlders. Tahira shrugged. “I did not tell the media this. But you are safe.” Her smile was genuine this time. “The lion pride does not water where we will be. This is not their territory.”

She wasn’t sure if they were relieved or disappointed. She cut off their questions by launching into her usual lecture, pointing out the changing ecosystem – it had not reached full climax equilibrium yet – directing their links to the coy-dog family holed up in the shade, waiting the cool of evening. The puppies were playing a game of tug with a scrap of dirty hide and links bristled, zooming in to record. The larger animals were all chipped so the links would offer up the ID information for each animal, their stage of development toward the Pleistocene ideal as the engineers evolved them into their own ancestors.

Voyeurs, she thought as they pointed and murmured. An observable reality, but not personal. Not threatening.

She politely refused to say anymore about the death, telling them only that the authorities would handle it. The tourists were distracted by the smaller horse herd. One of the young stallions had been challenging the herd sire over the past few weeks and he chose this day to take his challenge to a new level. Dust rose in tan clouds as the two horses circled and feinted, ears flat, striking snake-like for a bite, whirling to kick. This time, the youngster wasn’t backing down and the two stallions rose, chest to chest, teeth bared. “These horses are very much like the Equus verae, the horses that grazed this plane a million years ago. If you’ll put on your glasses, you’ll be able to identify the young male.” She paused while the tourists all fumbled for the glasses they’d been given at the start. The were slaved to hers. She IDed the young male by chip number and a green halo instantly surrounded him. “This young stallion was foaled four years ago in the spring. The engineers believe that he is a good likeness of the original Equus verae. All the stock began with Przewalksi’s Horse, the last truly wild horse species.” They were all watching now, as the stallions shouldered and circled, wheeling to kick, or rearing to feint and bite at each other’s faces. Tahira stifled a sigh. “The herd sire is nearly ten years old. That’s a long life for a herd sire.” The young challenger had been born of artificial insemination with the new, improved genes. If the old herd sire didn’t get ousted soon, she’d have to help a new challenger along. “This is not reality,” she murmured. “It is our version of reality.”

“Pardon?” One of the off-worlders had moved to the front of the bus for a better look, was pointing his link at the fight, recording.

“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I was just talking to myself.”

“It’s so . . . uncontrolled.” He had friendly dark eyes and a wide smile that made his too-fragile body seem less different. “Hard to imagine living in a world this . . . chaotic.”

“It’s not chaotic,” she said softly. “Only humans are chaotic.”

The horses saved her from the questions surfacing in his eyes. The young stallion whirled as the herd sire struck and his heels caught the herd sire full in the face. They heard the thud of hoof on bone, even at this distance, and the sire went down in a cloud of dust. He struggled instantly to his feet, but his jaw looked twisted and blood darkened the dun hide. A low murmur of horror washed through the bus.

“What now?” The white-haired woman’s voice rose over the babble. “What will happen now?”

“This was an accident. Fights like this rarely result in serious injury.” Tahira blocked the tourist glasses, but had her own zoom in on the injured stallion. No point in showing them the bloody details up close. The youngster had run him a few meters from the mares and now trotted back and forth, tossing his head, tail erect as the ousted sire stood with head drooping. She winced at the white gleam of either bone or teeth visible in the bloody mess of his face. Violence seemed to be gathering over the Preserve like a dark cloud. “His jaw is broken.” She didn’t need the text diagnosis scrolling across the visual field. “He won’t be able to eat. The lions will probably kill him, or even the wild dogs. This coy-dog is heavier than the old North American coyotes and they hunt in small packs. They occasionally kill large prey species, mostly when the animal is weak or crippled.”

“Why don’t you do something about it?” A woman spoke up, her voice shrill. “You could take him in and heal him, right?”

“And what will the lions eat tonight?” Tahira faced the woman, watched horror and anger ripple across her features. “These are not our rules. They are much older than us,” she said gently. “That is what the Preserve is all about. . . . returning to the old rules. Without the horse, a lion cub may die because of insufficient nutrition.” She waited for the horrified comments to ebb. You could hear the excitement beneath the horror. Now they had a prize in the video files they’d just uploaded to their personal space – something to show proudly to friends, so they could commiserate over that raw moment of blood, and pain, and imminent death. The woman who had spoken up wasn’t satisfied. She was talking about cruelty and emails to powerful people.

“Did you make this happen for us?” The off-worlder was looking at her, and his eyes were shocked and cold.

“No.” She met those eyes, saw her own reflection in them, tiny and perfect. “But I knew the old stallion would be forced out sooner or later. The horses decided to make it happen now. The kick was a freak accident. Horses are good at dodging.”

He didn’t believe her. You cannot conceive of no control, she thought. And wondered suddenly if her daughter had gone off-planet. The Council Security Forces were everywhere. She had never thought of that before, and it chilled her, she was not quite sure why. She would be much older than this man, now.

They moved on and the tour guide, a seasoned professional, texted her a request to show them something to change the now-soured mood. She had anticipated this and had already called up her inventory. “Turn left just past that clump of willow . . . yes, there.”

The bus took the dirt track easily, it’s off-road suspension barely sloshing the drinks that the attendant was handing out. “The engineers have had excellent success with the long horned bison. They are very like the bison that grazed this plain during the Pleistocene. Three cows have calved this month and the latest was last night. She scanned for the IDs, found the three cows in close proximity 200 meters from the road. “They’re out in the grass, so we can watch them without disturbing them. If you’ll look through the left windows and follow the arrow directions on your glasses, they’ll direct you to the calves.” A green arrow winked on her glasses, pointing to the right and as she turned her head, it was replaced by one pointing straight up. She lifted her head, and there, in the distance, she spied the small black dots that were the grazing bison. The bus had come to a halt. “Have you all found the bison?” She waited while the slow ones fumbled their way to the bison herd. Zoom while they were panning and they’d get sick every time. “Okay, here we go.” The field blurred and suddenly seemed to be rushing toward her. The tiny specks enlarged, became a dozen shaggy brown beasts with their noses in the sun-burned grass, backs dotted with cowbirds. Small white herons stalked among them, snatching up beetles and the occasional rodent stirred up by the bison’s hooves. Their long horns gleamed in the sun as they tossed their heads at flies.

The newborn calf hugged his mother’s flank, his horns mere bumps. He suddenly butted beneath her flank, tail wriggling as he nursed. The collective sigh from the tourists made the guide breathe his own sigh of relief, she noted. Well, upset guests would hardly give him a fat tip. She let them watch the two older calves butt heads and the herd even obliged by grazing closer to the bus. By the time they moved on to the elephant watching spot for cocktails and their gourmet dinner, the mood was festive once more, the injured stallion forgotten.

Tomorrow, she would go check on him. Assure herself that the predators had found him. Injured as he was, the dog pack that patrolled that territory would almost certainly take him, but perhaps not right away. She called up that sector, scanned the predator inventory. To her relief, the lions were headed in that direction. They should get to him quickly.

During dinner they lucked out and a scimitar cat – quite shy and a rare sighting – chose that night to come down to the river to drink. The tourists flocked to the windows, their links pointing as they videoed in night mode. The elephants showed on time and the new Mammoth type calf went so far as to walk nearly up to the bus, trunk lifted in curiosity, before his mother shooed him nervously away, and stomped a threat toward them, her ears erect, trunk curled back like a cobra.

The tour guide looked pleased, as if Tahira had orchestrated the whole show. Tahira sat back in her seat as they returned to the compound in the gathering darkness, answering questions, giving small lectures on the history of the Preserve, the geneticists’ work, the effect of the huge preserve areas on climate stability. They asked occasional questions about the injured stallion.

No one brought up the dead girl. Not one.

She climbed down from the bus into the cooling night beneath the white arch of the Milky Way and a sliver of new moon. They would go back to the comfort of the resort to have dessert and drinks and to compare video clips. The tour guide gave her a wide grin and a wave as the door closed, anticipating good tips, obviously.

Jen would have left for the day and she would have the place to herself.

You have a visitor, the door murmured as she reached the verandah. He had an official security pass to enter. His personal ID is blocked. “I know who it is.” She sighed, then straightened her shoulders. “Open.”

“What the hell is going on, Tahira?” Detective Malthers levered himself up from the sofa in the main room. “Do you know just how much trouble you’re going to cause me when my boss starts getting the feeds?”

“He has his link shut off tonight? I would have thought he’d have the news already.” She headed for the kitchen wall, thirsty. “And if I protest your use of a security pass to override my door lock, I hope you can produce the warrant.” She closed her eyes as he seized her arm. Halted. “Shawn . . . I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” He spun her around to face him, his face pale. “You withheld information from me? You lied to me about that girl’s death? And then you spill it to a bunch of tourists?” His nostrils were pinched. “You’d damn well better be sorry.”

Some of them had certainly blogged from the bus. She had counted on that. She met his eyes. “I did not lie to you.”

“Then why did you tell them . . .” His eyes narrowed and he let go of her arm. “No way. No way you do that.”

“Do what?” She widened her eyes. “If I tell a story to tourists to enliven their trip and they exaggerate it in their personal blogs, this is not a crime. Your boss can deny whatever he wishes to deny and if the outcry is loud enough, my boss will probably fire me. Would you like some water?”

“What do you think you’re going to do?” His voice was harsh.

“Go to bed.” She filled a glass from the refrigerator tap, filled a second glass.