Nebula Awards Showcase 2016 (7 page)

After a while, the pain came on. At first, she thought it was just the aches from the unusual exercise, but it didn't abate, washing over her in a huge, belly-clenching wave, cutting her breath until she had to halt. Touching her belly, she found it hard, pointed, and the baby a compressed weight under her hands. A contraction. She was entering labour. No, not now—it was too early. She couldn't afford—couldn't lose everything—

“Elder aunt?” Mau was by her side, suddenly, her hands running over her belly.

“It's starting,” she said.

“Yes.” Mau's voice was grave, expressionless. Rechan didn't want to look at Akanlam, who'd always been bad at disguising her emotions. “It's your first one, elder aunt. This can go on for hours. There is still time, but you have to walk.”

“I can't—” she whispered through clenched teeth, bracing herself against the next contraction. “Too—tired—” And they were going to reach that plateau, and she was going to find there was no ship, that her dreams were lies, that it had never been there—how she wanted to be the ship now, hanging under the vastness of the heavens, without heaviness, without pain, without a care in the world . . .

Mau's hands massaged her, easing the knots of pain in her back. “One an hour at first, elder aunt. Or more apart. There is still time. But you have to walk.”

“The drones?” she asked, and it was Akanlam who answered.

“They haven't come back.”

Not yet
, she thought, tasting bile and blood on her tongue. She hauled herself as upright as she could, gently removing Mau's hands. “Let's walk,” she said, and even those words were pain.

There was a divinity, watching over thoughtless teenagers; there had to be one for thoughtless adults, too; or perhaps it was her ancestors, protecting her from their distant altar—her thoughts wandering as she walked, step after step on the path, not knowing how far the ending lay, not caring anymore—step after step, with the occasional pause to bend over, gasping, while the contraction passed, and then resuming her painful, painstakingly slow walk to the top.

She found her mind drifting—to the ship, to his shadow hanging over her, remembering the coldness of the stone against her hand, the breath that seemed to have left her altogether; remembering the voice that had boomed like ten thousand storms.

Come with me, breath-sister.

Come with me.

He was there on the plateau, waiting for her, and what would she tell him?

They climbed in silence. There was just Mau's hands on her, guiding her, supporting her when she stumbled; and Akanlam's tunic, blue against the grey of the rock, showing her the way forward.

She was barely aware of cresting a rise—of suddenly finding herself not flush against a cliff face, but in the middle of a space that seemed to stretch forever, a vast expanse of
lamsinh
rocks caught by the noon sun—all shades of the spectrum, from green to palest white; and a trembling in the air that mirrored that of her hands.

“There is no ship,” Akanlam said, and her voice was almost accusatory.

Shaking, Rechan pulled herself upwards. “He'll be deeper into the plateau. Where I carved him. We have to—”

“Elder Aunt,” Mau said, low and urgent.

What? she wanted to ask; but, turning to stare in the same direction as Mau, she saw the black dots silhouetted against the sky—growing in size, fast, too fast . . .

“Run”.

She would have, but her legs betrayed her—a contraction, locking her in place, as frozen as the baby within her womb, as helpless as a kid to the slaughter—watching the dots become the sleek shape of flyers, hearing the whine of the motors getting louder and louder . . .

Run run run, she wanted to shout to Mau and Akanlam—there's no need for you to get caught in this. Instead, what came out of her was a scream: a cry for help, a jumble of incoherent syllables torn out of her lungs, towards the Heavens; a deep-seated anger about life's unfairness she'd last felt when carving the ship. It echoed around the plateau, slowly fading as it was absorbed by the
lamsinh
stone.

Her hand was cold again, her breath coming in short gasps—and, like an answer to a prayer, she saw the ship come.

He was sleek, and elegant, and deadly. Banking lazily over the plateau—illuminated by the noonday sun, as if with an inner fire—he incinerated the flyers, one by one, and then hovered over Mau and Akanlam, as if unsure what to do about them. “No you don't!” Rechan screamed, and then collapsed, having spent all her energy.

Breath-sister
. The ship—Sang—loomed over her once more.

She'd forgotten how beautiful Sang was; how terribly wrong, too—someone that didn't belong on Voc, that shouldn't have been here. He should have hung, weightless, in space; instead he moved sluggishly, crushed by gravity; and his hull was already crisscrossed by a thousand fracture lines, barely visible against the heat of the stone. The
lamsinh
was weathered and pitted, not from meteorite strikes but from weapons—in fact, dusty and cracked he looked like a rougher, fuzzier version of the rebel flyers he'd incinerated.

You need me,
the ship said, and came lower, hull almost touching her outstretched hands.
Let me give you your breath back.

It was wrong, all wrong—everything she had desired, the breath she needed for her baby, the birth she'd been bracing herself for—and yet . . . “You shouldn't be here,” she said. “You're a spaceship, not a flyer.” She was barely aware of Mau standing by her side, looking up at Sang with wide eyes; of Akanlam, spreading her tunic on the ground.

I waited for you.

“You can't—” But he could, couldn't he? He could do exactly what she'd thought of, when she'd carved him—all her anger at the war, at the rebels, at the unfairness of it all—year after year of hunting down rebels because that's what she'd wanted at the time; not a breath-sibling to help her with a birth, but someone born of her anger and frustration, of her desire to escape the war at any cost.

Come with me.

She'd wondered what she would do, were Sang to ask that question of her again, but of course there was only one possible answer. The world had moved on; she had moved on; and only Sang remained, the inescapable remains of her history—a sixteen-year-old's grandiloquent, thoughtless, meaningless gesture.

“You have to go,” she said, the words torn out of her before she could think. “Into space. That's what I carved you for. Not this—this butchery.”

The ship came close enough for her to touch the exhaust ports: there was a tingle on her hands, and a warmth she'd forgotten existed—and, within her, for the first time, the baby quickened, kicking against the confines of her womb. She ought to have felt relief, but she was empty—bracing herself against the next contractions and trying to crane her head upwards to see Sang.

You need me,
he said.
Breath to breath, blood to blood. How else will you bear your children? Come with me. Let's find the stars together.

“I can't. You have to go,” she said, again. “On your own.”

You will not come with me?
The disappointment, in other circumstances, would have been heartbreaking.

“Go, Sang. When this is over—go find the stars. That's all you've ever dreamt of, isn't it?”

The contractions were hitting in waves now—one barely over before the next one started.
Your child is coming
, Sang said.

“I know.” Someone—Akanlam—grabbed her, laid her on the ground—no, not on the ground, on the tunic she'd spread out. It was becoming hard to think, to focus on anything but the act of giving birth.

What will you do, for your other children? You need me.

She did; and yet . . . “I'll find you,” she said, struggling for breath. “If I need you.” Of course she wouldn't; even with her link to him, all she'd have to go on would be fuzzy dream-images; she wouldn't leave Voc, wouldn't venture among ten thousand planets and millions of stars in a fruitless search. But it didn't matter. Sang would finally be free.

Sang was silent, for a while
. I will come back,
he said.

He wouldn't. Rechan knew this with absolute certainty—Sang was the desire to escape, the burning need for flight that she'd felt during her adolescence. Once he found space, he would be in the home he'd always been meant for; and who could blame him for not looking back? “Of course,” she lied—smoothly, easily. “You can always come back.”

There would not be other babies beyond this one, no large family she could raise; not enough to fill the emptiness of the house. But did it matter, in the end? She'd had her wish, her miracle—her birth. Could she truly ask for anything else?

I am glad.

“So am I.” And it almost didn't feel like a lie. Rechan relaxed, lying flat on her back; and she settled herself down to wait for the beautiful, heartbreaking sound of her child's first breath.

“THE VAPORIZATION ENTHALPY OF A PECULIAR PAKISTANI FAMILY”

USMAN T. MALIK

This is Usman T. Malik's first nomination for a Nebula Award. “The Vaporization Enthalpy of a Peculiar Pakistani Family” won the Bram Stoker Award and was first published in the anthology
Qualia Nous.

1

The Solid Phase of Matter is a state wherein a substance is particulately bound. To transform a solid into liquid, the intermolecular forces need to be overcome, which may be achieved by adding energy. The energy necessary to break such bonds is, ironically, called the
heat of fusion
.

On a Friday after jumah prayers, under the sturdy old oak in their yard, they came together as a family for the last time. Her brother gave in and wept as Tara watched, eyes prickling with a warmth that wouldn't disperse no matter how much she knuckled them, or blinked.

“Monsters,” Sohail said, his voice raspy. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at the sky, a vast whiteness cobblestoned with heat. The plowed wheat fields beyond the steppe on which their house perched were baked and khaki and shivered a little under Tara's feet. An earthquake or a passing vehicle on the highway? Perhaps it was just foreknowledge that made her dizzy. She pulled at her lower lip and said nothing.

“Monsters,” Sohail said again. “Oh God, Apee. Murderers.”

She reached out and touched his shoulders. “I'm sorry.” She thought he would pull back. When he didn't, she let her fingers fall and linger on the flame-shaped scar on his arm. So it begins, she thought. How many times has this happened before? Pushing and prodding us repeatedly until the night swallows us whole. She thought of that until her heart constricted with dread. “Don't do it,” she said. “Don't go.”

Sohail lifted his shoulders and drew his head back, watched her wonderingly as if seeing her for the first time.

“I know I ask too much,” she said. “I know the customs of honor, but for the love of God let it go. One death needn't become a lodestone for others. One horror needn't—”

But he wasn't listening, she could tell. They would not hear nor see once the blood was upon them, didn't the Scriptures say so? Sohail heard, but didn't listen. His conjoined eyebrows, like dark hands held, twitched. “Her name meant a rose,” he said and smiled. It was beautiful, that smile, heartbreaking, frightening. “Under the mango trees by Chacha Barkat's farm Gulminay told me that, as I kissed her hand. Whispered it in my ear, her finger circling my temple.
A rose blooming in the rain
. Did you know that?”

Tara didn't. The sorrow of his confession filled her now as did the certainty of his leaving. “Yes,” she lied, looking him in the eyes. God, his eyes looked awful: webbed with red, with thin tendrils of steam rising from them. “A rose God gave us and took away because He loved her so.”

“Wasn't God,” Sohail said and rubbed his fingers together. The sound was insectile. ‘Monsters.” He turned his back to her and was able to speak rapidly, “I'm leaving tomorrow morning. I'm going to the mountains. I will take some bread and dried meat. I will stay there until I'm shown a sign, and once I am,” his back arched, then straightened. He had lost weight; his shoulder blades poked through the khaddar shirt like trowels, “I will arise and go to their homes. I will go to them as God's wrath. I will—”

She cut him off, her heart pumping fear through her body like poison. “What if you go to them and die? What if you go to them like a steer to the slaughter? And Ma and I—what if months later we sit here and watch a dusty vehicle climb the hill, bouncing a sack of meat in the back seat that was once you? What if . . .”

But she couldn't go on giving name to her terrors. Instead, she said, “If you go, know that we as we are now will be gone forever.”

He shuddered. “
We
were gone when
she
was gone. We were shattered with her bones.” The wind picked up, a whipping, chador-lifting sultry gust that made Tara's flesh prickle. Sohail began to walk down the steppes, each with its own crop: tobacco, corn, rice stalks wavering in knee-high water; and as she watched his lean farmer body move away, it seemed to her as if his back was not drenched in sweat, but acid. That his flesh glistened not from moisture, but blood. All at once their world was just too much, or not enough—Tara couldn't decide which—and the weight of that unseen future weighed her down until she couldn't breathe. “My brother,” she said and began to cry. “You're my little brother.”