The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2013-2014 by Larry Niven, Nancy Kress, Mercedes Lackey, Ken Liu, Brad R. Torgersen, C. L. Moore, Tina Gower Page A
Authors: Larry Niven, Nancy Kress, Mercedes Lackey, Ken Liu, Brad R. Torgersen, C. L. Moore, Tina Gower
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gone—but that one match remains.
* * *
All the next day, Mads avoids me. He has got a letter from the head office in Copenhagen, and has locked himself in the study with it. Sometimes these letters make him swear, but today I hear nothing.
All day, I play with my match.
Mads does not even come to his hot meal, which is strange. What is stranger still is that cook does not come out to serve it. I can hear cook moving about in the kitchen, but there is another sound in there too, like a squeezed mouse. This does not make sense to me, and I make sure to stay away.
Late in the afternoon, I see a plume of grey smoke rise over the salt mine. I sit out on the steps, playing with my match, and watch it absently.
I feel as if a storm is coming. I get the same feeling before a big rain: like the soil is twisted up in anticipation. Only this time it is me twisted up.
Sissel Peals arrives before the sun fully sets, and when she sees me she rushes toward me and catches me up in her arms. “Oh, Pluto!” she wails. “Oh! You are still with us!” And in between her cries she makes that squeezed-mouse sound like cook has been making all day.
“Where else would I be?” I ask. Surely she cannot know about my bud.
She pushes me back to arm’s length and shakes me. “Idiot neep, where is Gartner Poulson?”
“In his office,” I say, but the plume of smoke catches my eye and every fiber of my body ignites. “Isn’t he?”
Sissel shakes her head, pointing toward the smoke. “The mine,” she says. “The mine is finished. Gartner Poulson has been called back to Copenhagen.”
I turn slowly on the spot, refusing to believe and also certain that what she says is true. Mads is done with the mine, and that fire, all that smoke, is what remains of the neeps and turnips who worked there, and have no purpose now that it is to be closed. They are not valuable enough to the company to warrant transport back to the city.
I am not valuable enough to Mads, either. To spare himself the expense of my train ticket, he will roast me too, flowers or no.
“Get out of here,” I hiss at Sissel. “You never saw me.”
She shrinks away from me—neeps are not supposed to be full of wrath and fire, but when that actress pretended to roast, it was as though all that heat flowed through her and into me.
I am not Gartner Poulson’s creation. He only changed me, and I can change myself back.
* * *
There is nothing worth stealing from the house. There is no such thing as a wild neep, not really, and stealing a hundred kroner would do me little good; no human would take it from me, and money is no use beneath the soil.
So I decide to burn it down.
My fingers tremble with the matchbox, and at first it fails to strike. The sulfur scrapes against the strip, leaving a grey streak. The second strike fares the same.
But the third time, the match flares, and I drop it hurriedly to the small pile of paper made from shreds of the letter that doomed our mine, and I wave my hand over it to create a draft.
Turnips are not friends of fire; I have lit a cigarette, but never a house. The paper burns and chars the wood floor, but my flame dies before taking the building with it.
I scream and batter the floor with my fists until white pulp shows through my purple skin. I would keep pounding forever, until either my body or the house gave way, but Mads stamps through the doorway and hauls me to my feet.
“No more of that,” he snarls at me. “You’re mine to keep. Mine to eat. Mine to destroy.”
I struggle against him, but he is strong, and my fists are battered all to mush. In the end, he simply lifts me off the floor and carries me to the kitchen.
* * *
Cook whimpers while she prepares me, no doubt because she knows she will be next.
“At least you’re worth eating, Pluto,” she tells me while when she cuts my leaves away. The miners and cook are no good for eating. They will be roasted to ash and left in the open air. At least the one who
* * *
All the next day, Mads avoids me. He has got a letter from the head office in Copenhagen, and has locked himself in the study with it. Sometimes these letters make him swear, but today I hear nothing.
All day, I play with my match.
Mads does not even come to his hot meal, which is strange. What is stranger still is that cook does not come out to serve it. I can hear cook moving about in the kitchen, but there is another sound in there too, like a squeezed mouse. This does not make sense to me, and I make sure to stay away.
Late in the afternoon, I see a plume of grey smoke rise over the salt mine. I sit out on the steps, playing with my match, and watch it absently.
I feel as if a storm is coming. I get the same feeling before a big rain: like the soil is twisted up in anticipation. Only this time it is me twisted up.
Sissel Peals arrives before the sun fully sets, and when she sees me she rushes toward me and catches me up in her arms. “Oh, Pluto!” she wails. “Oh! You are still with us!” And in between her cries she makes that squeezed-mouse sound like cook has been making all day.
“Where else would I be?” I ask. Surely she cannot know about my bud.
She pushes me back to arm’s length and shakes me. “Idiot neep, where is Gartner Poulson?”
“In his office,” I say, but the plume of smoke catches my eye and every fiber of my body ignites. “Isn’t he?”
Sissel shakes her head, pointing toward the smoke. “The mine,” she says. “The mine is finished. Gartner Poulson has been called back to Copenhagen.”
I turn slowly on the spot, refusing to believe and also certain that what she says is true. Mads is done with the mine, and that fire, all that smoke, is what remains of the neeps and turnips who worked there, and have no purpose now that it is to be closed. They are not valuable enough to the company to warrant transport back to the city.
I am not valuable enough to Mads, either. To spare himself the expense of my train ticket, he will roast me too, flowers or no.
“Get out of here,” I hiss at Sissel. “You never saw me.”
She shrinks away from me—neeps are not supposed to be full of wrath and fire, but when that actress pretended to roast, it was as though all that heat flowed through her and into me.
I am not Gartner Poulson’s creation. He only changed me, and I can change myself back.
* * *
There is nothing worth stealing from the house. There is no such thing as a wild neep, not really, and stealing a hundred kroner would do me little good; no human would take it from me, and money is no use beneath the soil.
So I decide to burn it down.
My fingers tremble with the matchbox, and at first it fails to strike. The sulfur scrapes against the strip, leaving a grey streak. The second strike fares the same.
But the third time, the match flares, and I drop it hurriedly to the small pile of paper made from shreds of the letter that doomed our mine, and I wave my hand over it to create a draft.
Turnips are not friends of fire; I have lit a cigarette, but never a house. The paper burns and chars the wood floor, but my flame dies before taking the building with it.
I scream and batter the floor with my fists until white pulp shows through my purple skin. I would keep pounding forever, until either my body or the house gave way, but Mads stamps through the doorway and hauls me to my feet.
“No more of that,” he snarls at me. “You’re mine to keep. Mine to eat. Mine to destroy.”
I struggle against him, but he is strong, and my fists are battered all to mush. In the end, he simply lifts me off the floor and carries me to the kitchen.
* * *
Cook whimpers while she prepares me, no doubt because she knows she will be next.
“At least you’re worth eating, Pluto,” she tells me while when she cuts my leaves away. The miners and cook are no good for eating. They will be roasted to ash and left in the open air. At least the one who
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