The Year's Best Science Fiction, Vol. 20

“This isn’t like playing around in your garden,” Ty said. “This is for real.”

“My garden has nothing to do with this,” Somerset said.

“Ty didn’t mean anything by it,” Maris said.

“I meant,” Ty said doggedly, “that this is the real world, where what you do has real consequences for real people. We rescued Alice, Somerset, so it’s up to us to look after her.”

“I believe that we have all agreed that Barrett would almost certainly kill Alice if he found out about her,” Somerset said, with acid patience. “It follows that the only morally correct course of action is to assume responsibility for her care. I merely point out that it is also a very dangerous course of action.”

“Nevertheless, we’re all in this together,” Maris said.

Everyone looked at everyone else. Everyone said yes. Alice smiled.

Maris, strung out by anxiety and the physical exhaustion of zero-gravity work, fell asleep almost as soon as she wriggled into her sleeping bag. She slept deeply and easily, and when she woke in the middle of the night, it took her a little while to realize what was wrong.

The spavined rattle and bone-deep thrum of the air conditioning was gone.

Maris pushed up her mask, hitched out of the sleeping bag, and ducked through her privacy curtain. Ty and Bruno hung in midair, watching Alice mime something in the soft red light of the hab-module’s sleep-cycle illumination. Ty spun around as Maris caught a rung. He was chewing gum and grinning from ear to ear. “She fixed the air conditioning,” he said.

“You mean she broke it.”

“She fixed it,” Ty insisted. “Listen.”

Ty and Bruno and Alice watched as Maris concentrated on nothing but the sound of her own ragged breath… and heard, at the very edge of audibility, a soft pulsing hum, a whisper of moving air.

Somerset shot through its privacy curtain, caught a rung, reversed. Its crest of white hair was all askew. It said, “What did she do?”

Bruno said, “She altered the rate of spin of every fan in the system, tuning them to a single harmonic. No more vibration.”

“Alice knows machines,” Ty said proudly.

“ It seems she does not sleep,” Bruno said. “So, while we slept, she fixed the air conditioning.”

Swaddling,” Somerset said. “Or a tether. I am serious. Suppose she meddles with something else? We do not know what she can do.”

“Alice knows machines,” Ty insisted, proud as a new parent.

Which, in a sense, he was, Maris thought. Which, in a sense, they all were. She sculled through the air until her face was level with Alice’s. Those strange silver-on-gold eyes, unreadable as coins, stared into hers. She said gently, “You did a good job, but you mustn’t touch anything else. Do you understand?”

The little girl nodded-a fractional movement, but a definite assent.

“If she did a good job,” Ty said, “what’s the problem?”

“We hardly know anything about her,” Somerset said. “That’s the problem.”

“You can find out,” Bruno told Somerset. “Use those data mining skills of yours to dig deeper.”

“I have found all there is to find,” Somerset said. “The war wrecked most of the infonet. I am surprised that I found anything at all.”

“Let’s all get some rest,” Maris said. “We have to start work in three hours. A lot of work.”

She did not think that she would get back to sleep, but she did, and slept peacefully in the harmonious murmur of the fans.

They started their shift early. As they all sucked down a hasty breakfast of gritty, fruit-flavored oat paste and lukewarm coffee, Somerset made it clear just how unhappy it was about leaving Alice alone in the hab-module.

“We should take her with us,” the neuter said. “If she is as good with machines as Ty claims, she can be of some help.”

“No way,” Maris said. “Even Barrett can count up to five. What do you think he’ll do if he spots an extra body out there?”

“Then someone should stay behind with her,” Somerset said stubbornly.

“If Barrett can count up to five,” Maris said, “he can also count up to three. None of us can afford to lose any more pay, and we’ll never catch up on our schedule if we’re one body short.”

Ty said, “Alice, honey, you know we have to go out, don’t you? You promise you’ll be good while we’re away?”

Alice was floating in midair with her arms hooked under her knees, watching TV; when she heard her name, she looked over at Ty, eyes flashing in the half-dark, and nodded once.

“You see,” Ty said. “It’s not a problem.”

“I don’t like what she did to the air,” Somerset said. “It smells strange.”

“If by strange you mean it doesn’t smell of crotch-sweat and stale farts anymore,” Ty said, “then I don’t think it’s strange-I think it’s an improvement!”

“The temperature is higher, too,” Somerset said.

“Yeah,” Ty said. “Nice and comfortable, isn’t it? Look, Somerset, Alice is just a kid. I guess, what with your religious bent and all, you might not know much about kids, but I do. I used to look after a whole bunch of them back in the clan. Trust me on this. There’s no problem.”

“She is not merely-”