Clarkesworld Anthology 2012 Read Online Free PDF Page A

scattered
Along the River of Heaven, with no bridges to lead them home
The long yearning
Cuts into my heart

    This is the last poem we received from Xu Anshi; the last one she composed, before the sickness ate away at her command of High Mheng, and we could no longer understand her subvocalised orders. She said to us then, “it is done”; and turned away from us, awaiting death.
    We are here now, as Wen looks at the pale face of her grandmother. We are not among our brethren in the crowd — not clinging to faces, not curled on the walls or at the corner of mirrors, awaiting orders to unfold.
    We have another place.
    We rest on the coffin with Xu Anshi’s other belongings; scattered among the paper offerings — the arch leading into the Heavens, the bills stamped with the face of the King of Hell. We sit quiescent, waiting for Xu Wen to call us up — that we might flow up to her like a black tide, carrying her inheritance to her, and the memories that made up Xu Anshi’s life from beginning to end.
    But Wen’s gaze slides right past us, seeing us as nothing more than a necessary evil at the ceremony; and the language she might summon us in is one she does not speak and has no interest in.
    In silence, she walks away from the coffin to take her place among the mourners — and we, too, remain silent, taking our understanding of Xu Anshi’s life into the yawning darkness.
    “With apologies to Qiu Jin, Bei Dao and the classical
Tang poets for borrowing and twisting their best lines”
    About the Author
    Aliette de Bodard lives and works in Paris, where she has a day job as a Computer Engineer. In her spare time, she writes speculative fictionshe is the author of the Obsidian and Blood trilogy of Aztec noir fantasies, and her writing has been nominated for a Hugo Award, a Nebula Award and the Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

What Everyone Remembers
    Rahul Kanakia
    I remember being with maman in the cabin of her ship, anchored someplace where the wind was always howling, the temperature was always freezing, and fires were always dancing just beyond the horizon. I spent most of my time inside the mattress where she slept, burrowing as close as I could to maman so that I could feel her solidity and heat spreading out above me without burrowing so close that I came in contact with the harsh light and cold air. It was a delightful spongiform environment, flecked with tinier insects — mites and flies and spiders — and with the crumbs of food and flakes of human skin on which the lesser creatures fed. Life was not hard for me there.
    But maman frightened me. When I emerged from the mattress, she would sometimes grab me, pinch my useless wings and interrogate me in front of bright lights. She’d put me in her nest of tubing and plastic cupboards and order me to run from one place to another as quick as I could. She would touch delicate golden wires to my various legs and my body would dance with strange impulses.
    Usually my days passed in total silence, except for the few occasions when maman interacted with the other occupant of the ship, Uncle Frederick. These conversations were always initiated by Frederick, who would stare at her for a long time, then nod. They’d go onto the deck, shut the cabin door behind them, and talk in very low voices. On one of these occasions I oozed out through a crack in the doorway and tried to listen to them more clearly.
    They were huddled together behind the wheel of the ship.
    Frederick said, “…have to interact with her. Want all of her descendents to be poorly socialized?”
    “It is an insect,” maman said. “Don’t anthropomorphize it. It can be anything it wants to be. Why should it carry all our human baggage? I want to give them a blank slate.”
    “And what about survivors? What if she finds more of us? Or if her descendents do? What will they think of us if we don’t at least try to be kind to her?”
    “I developed it. I know what is best for it.”
    “And I