Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 Read Online Free PDF
Author: Gardner Dozois
one foot still on the sidewalk and looked around at faces that all registered the same sense of shock. Was there a doctor here? he wondered. A French doctor? All his French seemed to have just drained from his head. Even such simple questions as Are you all right? and How are you feeling? seemed beyond him now. The first-aid course he’d taken in his Kenpo school was ages ago.
Unnaturally pale, the fallen man’s face relaxed. The wind floated his shock of thinning dark hair over his face. In the park, Terzian saw a man in a baseball cap panning a video camera, and his anger suddenly blazed up again at the fatuous uselessness of the tourist, the uselessness that mirrored his own.
Suddenly there was a crowd around the casualty, people coming out of stopped cars, off the sidewalk. Down the street, Terzian saw the distinctive flat-topped kepis of a pair of policemen bobbing toward him from the direction of the Palais de Justice, and felt a surge of relief. Someone more capable than this lot would deal with this now.
He began, hesitantly, to step away. And then his arm was seized by a pair of hands and he looked in surprise at the woman who had just huddled her face into his shoulder, cinnamon-dark skin and eyes invisible beneath wraparound shades.
“Please,” she said in English a bit too musical to be American. “Take me out of here.”
The sound of the reed pipes followed them as they made their escape.
He walked her past the statue of the Vert Galant himself, good old lecherous Henri IV, and onto the Pont Neuf. To the left, across the Seine, the Louvre glowed in mellow colors beyond a screen of plane trees.
Traffic roared by, a stampede of steel unleashed by a green light. Unfocused anger blazed in his mind. He didn’t want this woman attached to him, and he suspected she was running some kind of scam. The gym bag she wore on a strap over one shoulder kept banging him on the ass. Surreptitiously, he slid his hand into his right front trouser pocket to make sure his money was still there.
“Wonderwall,” he thought. Christ .
He supposed he should offer some kind of civilized comment, just in case the woman was genuinely distressed.
“I suppose he’ll be all right,” he said, half-barking the words in his annoyance and anger.
The woman’s face was still half-buried in his shoulder. “He’s dead,” she murmured into his jacket. “Couldn’t you tell?”
For Terzian, death had never occurred under the sky, but shut away, in hospice rooms with crisp sheets and warm colors and the scent of disinfectant. In an explosion of tumors and wasting limbs and endless pain masked only in part by morphia.
He thought of the man’s pale face, the sudden relaxation.
Yes, he thought, death came with a sigh.
Reflex kept him talking. “The police were coming,” he said. “They’ll—they’ll call an ambulance or something.”
“I only hope they catch the bastards who did it,” she said.
Terzian’s heart gave a jolt as he recalled the three men who let the victim fall, and then dashed through the square for his papers. For some reason, all he could remember about them were their black-laced boots, with thick soles.
“Who were they?” he asked blankly.
The woman’s shades slid down her nose, and Terzian saw startling green eyes narrowed to murderous slits. “I suppose they think of themselves as cops,” she said.
Terzian parked his companion in a café near Les Halles, within sight of the dome of the Bourse. She insisted on sitting indoors, not on the sidewalk, and on facing the front door so that she could scan whoever came in. She put her gym bag, with its white Nike swoosh, on the floor between the table legs and the wall, but Terzian noticed she kept its shoulder strap in her lap, as if she might have to bolt at any moment.
Terzian kept his wedding ring within her sight. He wanted her to see it; it might make things simpler.
Her hands were trembling. Terzian ordered coffee for them both.
Unnaturally pale, the fallen man’s face relaxed. The wind floated his shock of thinning dark hair over his face. In the park, Terzian saw a man in a baseball cap panning a video camera, and his anger suddenly blazed up again at the fatuous uselessness of the tourist, the uselessness that mirrored his own.
Suddenly there was a crowd around the casualty, people coming out of stopped cars, off the sidewalk. Down the street, Terzian saw the distinctive flat-topped kepis of a pair of policemen bobbing toward him from the direction of the Palais de Justice, and felt a surge of relief. Someone more capable than this lot would deal with this now.
He began, hesitantly, to step away. And then his arm was seized by a pair of hands and he looked in surprise at the woman who had just huddled her face into his shoulder, cinnamon-dark skin and eyes invisible beneath wraparound shades.
“Please,” she said in English a bit too musical to be American. “Take me out of here.”
The sound of the reed pipes followed them as they made their escape.
He walked her past the statue of the Vert Galant himself, good old lecherous Henri IV, and onto the Pont Neuf. To the left, across the Seine, the Louvre glowed in mellow colors beyond a screen of plane trees.
Traffic roared by, a stampede of steel unleashed by a green light. Unfocused anger blazed in his mind. He didn’t want this woman attached to him, and he suspected she was running some kind of scam. The gym bag she wore on a strap over one shoulder kept banging him on the ass. Surreptitiously, he slid his hand into his right front trouser pocket to make sure his money was still there.
“Wonderwall,” he thought. Christ .
He supposed he should offer some kind of civilized comment, just in case the woman was genuinely distressed.
“I suppose he’ll be all right,” he said, half-barking the words in his annoyance and anger.
The woman’s face was still half-buried in his shoulder. “He’s dead,” she murmured into his jacket. “Couldn’t you tell?”
For Terzian, death had never occurred under the sky, but shut away, in hospice rooms with crisp sheets and warm colors and the scent of disinfectant. In an explosion of tumors and wasting limbs and endless pain masked only in part by morphia.
He thought of the man’s pale face, the sudden relaxation.
Yes, he thought, death came with a sigh.
Reflex kept him talking. “The police were coming,” he said. “They’ll—they’ll call an ambulance or something.”
“I only hope they catch the bastards who did it,” she said.
Terzian’s heart gave a jolt as he recalled the three men who let the victim fall, and then dashed through the square for his papers. For some reason, all he could remember about them were their black-laced boots, with thick soles.
“Who were they?” he asked blankly.
The woman’s shades slid down her nose, and Terzian saw startling green eyes narrowed to murderous slits. “I suppose they think of themselves as cops,” she said.
Terzian parked his companion in a café near Les Halles, within sight of the dome of the Bourse. She insisted on sitting indoors, not on the sidewalk, and on facing the front door so that she could scan whoever came in. She put her gym bag, with its white Nike swoosh, on the floor between the table legs and the wall, but Terzian noticed she kept its shoulder strap in her lap, as if she might have to bolt at any moment.
Terzian kept his wedding ring within her sight. He wanted her to see it; it might make things simpler.
Her hands were trembling. Terzian ordered coffee for them both.