The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

She held one of his shirts to her nose, sniffed, and made a face. “Did I ever tell you about the time I got arrested? I was thirteen, and Derek Silviasson and I were screwing backstage in the middle of a performance of A Doll’s House. We got a little carried away. When Nora opened the door to leave at the end of the second act, she tripped over Derek and me in our second act.”

“They arrested you? Why?”

“The head of the Board was a prude. It wouldn’t have mattered so much but A Doll’s House was her favorite play.”

“You and Derek Silviasson were lovers?”

She sat down on his bed, a meter from him, and leaned forward. “After the paint bombing, Erno, they went back to examine the recordings from the spex of the officers at the Oxygen Warehouse riot. Who do you suppose, to my surprise, they found there?”

Erno swiveled in his chair to avoid her eyes. “Nick already told you I went there.”

“But you didn’t. Not only were you there, but at one point you were together with Durden.”

“What was I doing?”

“Don’t be difficult. I’m trying to protect you, Erno. The only reason I know about this is that Harald Gundasson let me know on the sly. Another report says Durden met you outside the North airlock one day. You’re likely to be called in for questioning. I want to know what’s going on. Are you involved in some conspiracy?”

His mother looked so forlorn he found it hard to be hostile. “As far as I know there is no conspiracy.”

“Did you have something to do with the paint bomb?”

“No. Of course not.”

“I found out you haven’t been to your practicum. What have you been doing?”

“I’ve been going to the gym.”

“Are you planning a trip to Earth?”

“Don’t be stupid, mother.”

“Honestly, Erno, I can’t guess what you are thinking. You’re acting like a spy.”

“Maybe I am a spy.”

His mother laughed.

“Don’t laugh at me!”

“I’m not laughing because you’re funny. I’m laughing because I’m scared! This is an ugly business, Erno.”

“Stop it, mother. Please.”

She stared at him. He tried not to look away. “I want you to listen. Tyler Durden is a destroyer. I’ve been to Aristarchus, to Tycho. I’ve seen the patriarchy. Do you want that here?”

“How would I know? I’ve never been there!” His eyes fell on the copy of Stories for Men. “Don’t tell me stories about rape and carnage,” he said, looking at the book’s cover. “I’ve heard them all before. You crammed them down my throat with my baby food.”

“They’re true. Do you deny them?”

Erno clenched his jaw, tried to think. Did she have to browbeat him? “I don’t know!”

“It’s not just carnage. It’s waste and insanity. You want to know what they’re like-one time I had a talk with this security man at Shackleton. They were mining lunar ice for reaction mass in the shuttles.

I put it to him that using lunar ice for rocket fuel was criminally wasteful. Water is the most precious commodity on the moon, and here they are blowing it into space.

“He told me it was cheaper to use lunar ice than haul water from Earth. My argument wasn’t with him, he said, it was with the laws of the marketplace. Like most of them, he condescended to me, as if I were a child or idiot. He thought that invoking the free market settled the issue, as if to go against the market were to go against the laws of nature. The goal of conquering space justified the ex penditure, he said-that they’d get more water somewhere else when they used up the lunar ice.”

“He’s got an argument.”

“The market as a law of nature? ‘Conquering space?’ How do you conquer space? That’s not a goal, it’s a disease.”

“What does this have to do with Tyler Durden?”

“Durden is bringing the disease here!”

“He’s fighting oppression! Men have no power here; they are stifled and ignored. There are no real male cousins.”

“There are plenty of male cousins. There are lots of role models. Think of Adil Al-Hafaz, of Peter Sarahsson-of Nick, for pity’s sake!”

“Nick? Nick?” Erno laughed. He stood. “You might as well leave now, officer.”

His mother looked hurt. “Officer?”

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”

“Erno, I know you don’t like me. I’m dull and conventional. But being unconventional, by itself, isn’t a virtue. I’m your mother.”

“And you’re a cop.”

That stopped her for a moment. She took a deep breath. “I dearly love you, Erno, but if you think-”

That tone of voice. He’d heard it all his life: all the personal anecdotes are over, now. We’re done with persuasion, and it’s time for you to do what I say.

“You dearly love nothing!” Erno shouted. “All you want is to control me!”

She started to get up. “I’ve given you every chance-”

Erno threw Stories for Men at her. His mother flinched, and the book struck her in the chest and fell slowly to the floor. She looked more startled than hurt, watching the book fall, tumbling, leaves open; she looked as if she were trying to understand what it was-but when she faced him again, her eyes clouded. Trembling, livid, she stood, and started to speak. Before she could say a word Erno ran from the room.

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