The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“There is a bright side,” I said. “I’ve got a buyer. A mining engineer five light years down the Hercules Vent, looking to illuminate veins of tungsten ions through the Nautilus Nebula. We’ll need precision-speed transportation to get the lyghnium to him before it decays. But I’ve got a pilot who does her best work just below light speed. She will milk those time dilation effects for all they’re worth.”

“You’re giving us five years to get out of the lyghnium business.”

“Under the circumstances, I’d say I was being generous.”

Dryden had this caustic laugh of amazement. “You’re talking about some of the poorest economies in the Scatterhead Nebula. Speculators will short them into currency devaluations. Governments will collapse.”

“What you get for bothering my wife.”

He put up his hands in this placating gesture I’ve never seen anyone make but other Anglos. “We made a decision.” He put up his hands again. “A painful decision-to put the lives of the many before the lives of the few. I know this is hard for you to understand-”

I checked my watch. “You have four years, four hundred and ninety-nine days, forty-nine hours, forty-nine minutes.”

“I’ve seen your portfolio. You’re heavily invested in these currencies. You will go down with them.”

“Forty-eight minutes.”

“Seсora Contreras may lose interest in market speculation. Then where will you be? You’re just half-an-hour across the bay from Jimmy-Jim Town.”

I could see the conversation turning petulant. Besides, Martisela’s ship would be leaving soon. But I wanted to leave him with a memento of his time among the Spaniards.

Dryden hefted Esteban’s perbladium sample, smiling his rigid smile. “So what is this stuff exactly?” Proud to the last.

“Spanish version of a crystal ball. Gaze into it awhile. You might just see your future.”

A deep-water ferry was passing along the canal toward the bay. I had to sprint to catch it. I’d like to say I never looked back, but really, it was a freighted moment.

I have this lasting image of Dryden. He is leaning over the rail, chucking Esteban’s perbladium in its leaded sleeve and staring toward the gathering dawn as if surprised by the light.

I have seen him since. He seems to have taken the blame for the collapse of the Scatterhead Nebula economies. Maybe he should have killed me when he had the chance. He’s a front man for the National Socialists these days. Or some tiered-market business operated by the Communists. Whatever, I lose track.

I have acquired this cachet. Paradoxical, I know-I am the cause of eight billion tragedies. But infamy is a commodity like any other. It requires less promotion than heroism, though it helps that I went broke along with the eight billion residents of the Scatterhead-and for love no less. Heartbreak is only slightly less compelling than villainy.

As for the money? I could tell you I don’t miss the money. You might laugh. I will tell you that there are compensations.

I savor the memory of Martisela on the dock at Malecуn de Viejas. The boarding bell is ringing, and we’re arguing. Heatedly. And this old grandfather slides in close to hear tales of drunkenness and cruelty. I remember the look on his face as he realized we were fighting over the destruction of worlds.

I remember Martisela’s face against my palm.

I remember her kiss.

She has arrived in Bougainville. She speaks of this faded rose of a city. Talc-white streets and arsenic-tinged chocolate and the reptile opera. Her note is a bit tentative. She’s reaching across five years. That last good-bye on the docks at Malecуn de Viejas, she did tell me not to wait for her.

I suppose I’m nervous as well. She remembers a clever young man untroubled by conscience, who lived behind the kiosks on Borregos Bridge and toyed with worlds.

What will she think of the man he became? The canal-boat pilot with friends and bills in about equal proportion?

I may leave for Bougainville and be gone forever. I may be back in a week. But right now, I am breathless with anticipation. Do you know how long it’s been since I was breathless?

Agent Provocateur - ALEXANDER IRVINE

New writer Alexander Irvine made his first sale in 2000, to The Magazine of Fantasy amp; Science Fiction, and has since made several more sales to that magazine, as well as sales to Asimov’s Science Fiction, Sci Fiction, Strange Horizons, and elsewhere. His well-received first novel, A Scattering of Jades, was released in 2002, and was followed by his first collection, Rossetti Song. He lives in Sudbury, Massachusetts.

In the sly and tricky story that follows, he shows us how sometimes everything can turn on the simplest things: the flip of a coin, say, or whether a ball is dropped or caught. And when we say everything-we mean everything.