Hugo Awards: The Short Stories (Volume 3) Read online

  “A very small one,” I said. “Besides, when I die, they’ll just wind up in the garbage, or maybe at Goodwill.”

  “Don’t talk about dying like that,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “So matter-of-factly.”

  “The closer you get to it, the more a matter of fact it becomes,” I said. “Don’t worry,” I added lightly. “I promise not to die before dinner’s over. Now, about those Austen books …”

  I could see her struggling with herself. “You’re sure?” she said at last.

  “I’m sure. You can have a matched set of the Brontës too, if you like.”

  “Thank you, but I don’t really like them.”

  It figured. I don’t think Deedee had ever cracked any of them open.

  “All right,” I said. “Just the Austen. I’ll bring them next week.”

  Suddenly she frowned. “I don’t think I can make it next week, Walter,” she said. “My fiancé’s been away on business, and I’m pretty sure that’s the day he comes home.”

  “Your fiancé?” I repeated. “You haven’t mentioned him before.”

  “We’ve only spoken twice,” she replied. “I wasn’t hiding the fact.”

  “Well, good for you,” I said. “You must know by now that I’m a believer in marriage.”

  “I guess I am, too,” she said.

  “You guess?”

  “Oh, I believe in marriage. I just don’t know if I believe in marriage with Ron.”

  “Then why are you engaged to him?”

  She shrugged. “I’m thirty-one. It was time. And he’s nice enough.”

  “But?” I asked. “There’s a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

  “But I don’t know if I want to spend the rest of my life with him.” She paused, puzzled. “Now why did I tell you that?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied. “Why do you think you did?”

  “I don’t know either,” she said. “I just have this feeling that I can confide in you.”

  “I appreciate that,” I said. “As for spending the rest of your life with your young man—hell, the way everyone gets married and divorced these days, maybe you won’t have to.”

  “You sure know how to cheer a girl up, Walter,” she said wryly.

  “I apologize. Your private life is none of my business. I meant no offense.”

  “Fine.” Then: “What shall we talk about?”

  I thought about Deedee. Sooner or later we talked about everything under the sun, but her greatest passion was the theatre. “Whose work do you like better—Tom Stoppard’s or Edward Albee’s?”

  Her face lit up, and I could tell she was going to spend the next ten minutes telling me exactly who she preferred, and why.

  Somehow I wasn’t surprised.

  We skipped the following week, but met every week thereafter for the next three months. Ron even came along once, probably to make sure I was as old and unattractive as she’d described me. He must have satisfied himself on those counts, because he never came back. He seemed a nice enough young man, and he was clearly in love with her.

  I ran into her twice at my local Borders and once at Barnes & Noble, and both times I bought her coffee.

  I knew I was falling in love with her—hell, I’d been in love with her from the first instant I saw her. But that’s where it got confusing, because I knew I wasn’t really in love with her; I was in love with the younger version of Deedee that she represented.

  Ron had to leave town on another business trip, and while he was gone she took me to the theatre to see a revival of Stoppard’s Jumpers and I took her to the racetrack to watch a minor stakes race for fillies.

  The play was nice enough, a little obscure but well-acted; I don’t think she liked the color and excitement of the track any more than Deedee had.

  I kept wondering if she could somehow be Deedee reincarnated, but I knew deep in my gut that it wasn’t possible: if she was Deedee—my Deedee—she’d have been put here for me, and this one was marrying a young man named Ron. Besides, she had a past, she had photos of herself as a little girl, friends who had known her for years, and Deedee had only been dead for seven years. And while I didn’t understand what was happening, I knew there couldn’t have been two of her co-existing at the same time. (No, I never asked myself why; I just knew it couldn’t be.) Sometimes, as a bit of an experiment, I’d order a wine, or mention a play or book or movie that I knew Deedee hadn’t liked, and invariably Deirdre would wrinkle her nose and express her lack of enthusiasm for the very same thing.

  It was uncanny. And in a way it was frightening, because I couldn’t understand why it was happening.

  This wasn’t my Deedee. Mine had lived her life with me, and that life was over. I was a seventy-six-year-old man with half a dozen ailments who was just beating time on his way to the grave. I was never going to impose myself on Deirdre, and she was never going to look upon me as anything but an eccentric acquaintance … so why had I met her?

  From time to time I’d had this romantic fancy that when two people loved each other and suited each other the way Deedee and I did, they’d keep coming back over and over again. Once they’d be Adam and Eve, once they’d be Lancelot and Guinevere, once they’d be Bogart and Bacall. But they’d be together. They wouldn’t be an old man and a young woman who could never connect. I had half a century’s worth of experiences we could never share, I was sure the thought of my touching her would make her skin crawl, and I was long past the point where I could do anything but touch her. So whether she was my Deedee reborn, or just a Deedee, why were the two of us here at this time and in this place?

  I didn’t know.

  But a few days later I learned that I’d better find out pretty damned quick. Something finally showed up in all the tests I’d been taking at the hospital. They put me on half a dozen new medications, gave me some powerful pain pills for when I needed them, and told me not to make any long-term plans.

  Hell, I wasn’t even that unhappy about it. At least I’d be with my Deedee again—the real Deedee, not the charming substitute.

  The next night was our regular dinner date. I’d decided not to tell her the news; there was no sense distressing her.

  It turned out that she was distressed enough as it was. Ron had given her an ultimatum: set a date or break it off. (Things had changed a lot since my day. Most of my contemporaries would have killed to have a gorgeous girlfriend who had no problem sleeping with them but got nervous at the thought of marriage.) “So what are you going to do?” I asked sympathetically.

  “I don’t know,” she replied. “I’m fond of him, I really am. But I just … I don’t know.”

  “Let him go,” I said.

  She stared at me questioningly.

  “If you’re not certain after all this time,” I said, “kiss him off.”

  She sighed deeply. “He’s everything I should want in a husband, Walter. He’s thoughtful and considerate, we share a lot of interests, and he’s got a fine future as an architect.” She smiled ruefully. “I even like his mother.”

  “But?” I prompted her.

  “But I don’t think I love him.” She stared into my eyes. “I always thought I’d know right away. At least that’s the myth I was brought up on as a little girl, and it was reinforced by all the romance novels I read and the movies I saw. How was it for you and your Deedee? Did you ever have any doubts?”

  “Never a one,” I said. “Not from the first moment to the last.”

  “I’m thirty-one, Walter,” she said unhappily. “If I haven’t met the right guy yet, what are the odds he’s going to show up before I’m forty, or sixty? What if I want to have a baby? Do I have it with a man I don’t love, or with a guy I love who’s living six states away before it’s even born?” She sighed unhappily.

  “I have two good friends who married the men of their dreams. They’re both divorced. My closest friend married a nice guy she wasn’t sure she loved. She’s been happily married for
ten years, and keeps telling me I’m crazy if I let Ron get away.” She stared across the table at me, a tortured expression on her face.

  “I’d give everything I have to be as sure of a man—any man—as you were of your Deedee.”

  And that was when I knew why I’d met her, and why the medics had given me a few more months atop Planet Earth before I spent the rest of eternity beneath it.

  We finished the meal, and for the first time ever, I walked her home. She lived in one of those high-rise apartment buildings, kind of a miniature city in itself. It wasn’t fancy enough to have a doorman, but she assured me the security system was state of the art. She kissed me on the cheek while a couple of neighbors who were coming out looked at her as if she were crazy. I waited until she was safely in the elevator, then left and returned home.

  When I woke up the next morning I decided it was time to get busy. At least I was going to be in familiar locations where I felt comfortable. I got dressed and went out to the track, spent a few hours in the grandstand near the furlong pole where I always got the best view of the races, and didn’t lay a single bet, just hung around. Then, after dinner, I started making the rounds of all my favorite bookstores. I spent the next two afternoons at the zoo and the natural history museum, where I’d spent so many happy afternoons with Deedee, and the one after that at the ballpark in the left field bleachers. I had to take a couple of pain pills along the way, but I didn’t let it slow me down. I continued my circuit of bookstores and coffee shops in the evenings.

  On the sixth night I decided I was getting tired of Italian food—hell, I was getting tired, period—and I went to the Olympus, another restaurant I’ve been frequenting for years. It doesn’t look like much, no Greek statues, not even any belly dancers or bouzouki players, but it serves the best pastitso and dolmades in town.

  And that’s where I saw him.

  His face didn’t jump right out at me the way Deirdre’s did, but then I hadn’t really looked at it in a long time. He was alone. I waited until he got up to go to the men’s room, and then followed him in.

  “Nice night,” I said, when we were washing our hands.

  “If you say so,” he answered unenthusiastically.

  “The air is clear, the moon is out, there’s a lovely breeze, and the possibilities are endless,” I said. “What could be better?”

  “Look, fella,” he said irritably, “I just broke up with my girl and I’m in no mood for talk, okay?”

  “I need to ask you a couple of questions, Wally.”

  “How’d you know my name?” he demanded.

  I shrugged. “You look like a Wally.”

  He cast a quick look at the door. “What the hell’s going on? You try anything funny, and I’ll—”

  “Not to worry,” I said. “I’m just a used-up old man trying to do one last good deed on the way to the grave.” I pulled an ancient photo out of my wallet and held it up. “Look at all familiar?”

  He frowned. “I don’t remember posing for that. Did you take it?”

  “A friend did. Who’s your favorite actor?”

  “Humphrey Bogart. Why?” Of course. Bogie had been my favorite since I was a kid.

  “Just curious. Last question: what do you think of Agatha Christie?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m curious.”

  He stared at me for a moment, then shrugged. “I can’t stand her. Murders take place in back alleys, not vicarages.” It figured. I’d always hated mystery novels where the murder was committed primarily to provide the detective with a corpse.

  “Good answer, Wally.”

  “What are you smiling about?” he asked suspiciously.

  “I’m happy.”

  “I’m glad one of us is.”

  “Tell you what,” I said. “Maybe I can cheer you up, too. You know a restaurant called Vincenzo’s—a little Italian place about three blocks east of here?”

  “Yeah, I stop in there every now and then. Why?”

  “I want you to be my guest for dinner tomorrow night.”

  “Still why?”

  “I’m an old man with nothing to spend my money on,” I said. “Why don’t you humor me?”

  He considered it, then shrugged. “What the hell. I don’t have anyone to eat with anyway.”

  “Temporarily,” I replied.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just show up,” I said. Then, as I walked to the door, I turned back to him and smiled. “Have I got a girl for you!’

  LAST CONTACT

  Stephen Baxter

  March 15th

  CAITLIN WALKED INTO the garden through the little gate from the drive.

  Maureen was working on the lawn.

  Just at that moment Maureen’s phone pinged. She took off her gardening gloves, dug the phone out of the deep pocket of her old quilted coat and looked at the screen. “Another contact,” she called to her daughter.

  Caitlin looked cold in her thin jacket; she wrapped her arms around her body. “Another super-civilization discovered, off in space. We live in strange times, Mum.”

  “That’s the fifteenth this year. And I did my bit to help discover it.

  Good for me,” Maureen said, smiling. “Hello, love.” She leaned forward for a kiss on the cheek.

  She knew why Caitlin was here, of course. Caitlin had always hinted she would come and deliver the news about the Big Rip in person, one way or the other. Maureen guessed what that news was from her daughter’s hollow, stressed eyes. But Caitlin was looking around the garden, and Maureen decided to let her tell it all in her own time.

  She asked, “How’re the kids?”

  “Fine. At school. Bill’s at home, baking bread.” Caitlin smiled. “Why do stay-at-home fathers always bake bread? But he’s starting at Webster’s next month.”

  “That’s the engineers in Oxford?”

  “That’s right. Not that it makes much difference now. We won’t run out of money before, well, before it doesn’t matter.” Caitlin considered the garden. It was just a scrap of lawn really, with a quite nicely stocked border, behind a cottage that was a little more than a hundred years old, in this village on the outskirts of Oxford. “It’s the first time I’ve seen this properly.”

  “Well, it’s the first bright day we’ve had. My first spring here.” They walked around the lawn. “It’s not bad. It’s been let to run to seed a bit by Mrs. Murdoch. Who was another lonely old widow,” Maureen said.

  “You mustn’t think like that.”

  “Well, it’s true. This little house is fine for some-one on their own, like me, or her. I suppose I’d pass it on to somebody else in the same boat, when I’m done.”

  Caitlin was silent at that, silent at the mention of the future.

  Maureen showed her patches where the lawn had dried out last summer and would need reseeding. And there was a little brass plaque fixed to the wall of the house to show the level reached by the Thames floods of two years ago. “The lawn is all right. I do like this time of year when you sort of wake it up from the winter. The grass needs raking and scarifying, of course. I’ll reseed bits of it, and see how it grows during the summer. I might think about getting some of it relaid. Now the weather’s so different, the drainage might not be right anymore.”

  “You’re enjoying getting back in the saddle, aren’t you, Mum?”

  Maureen shrugged. “Well, the last couple of years weren’t much fun.

  Nursing your dad, and then getting rid of the house. It’s nice to get this old thing back on again.” She raised her arms and looked down at her quilted gardening coat.

  Caitlin wrinkled her nose. “I always hated that stupid old coat. You really should get yourself something better, Mum. These modern fabrics are very good.”

  “This will see me out,” Maureen said firmly.

  They walked around the verge, looking at the plants, the weeds, the autumn leaves that hadn’t been swept up and were now rotting in place.

  Caitlin sa
id, “I’m going to be on the radio later. BBC Radio 4. There’s to be a government statement on the Rip, and I’ll be in the follow-up discussion. It starts at nine, and I should be on about nine-thirty.”

  “I’ll listen to it. Do you want me to tape it for you?”

  “No. Bill will get it. Besides, you can listen to all these things on the websites these days.”

  Maureen said carefully, “I take it the news is what you expected, then.”

  “Pretty much. The Hawaii observatories con-firmed it. I’ve seen the new Hubble images, deep sky fields. Empty, save for the foreground objects. All the galaxies beyond the local group have gone. Eerie, really, seeing your predictions come true like that. That’s couch grass, isn’t it?”

  “Yes. I stuck a fork in it. Nothing but root mass underneath. It will be a devil to get up. I’ll have a go, and then put down some bin liners for a few weeks, and see if that kills it off. Then there are these roses that should have been pruned by now. I think I’ll plant some gladioli in this corner—”

  “Mum, it’s October.” Caitlin blurted that out. She looked thin, pale, and tense, a real office worker, but then Maureen had always thought that about her daughter, that she worked too hard. Now she was thirty-five, and her moderately pretty face was lined at the eyes and around her mouth, the first wistful signs of age. “October 14th, at about four in the afternoon. I say ‘about.’ I could give you the time down to the attosecond if you wanted.”

  Maureen took her hands. “It’s all right, love. It’s about when you thought it would be, isn’t it?”

  “Not that it does us any good, knowing. There’s nothing we can do about it.”

  They walked on. They came to a corner on the south side of the little garden. “This ought to catch the sun,” Maureen said. “I’m thinking of putting in a seat here. A pergola maybe. Somewhere to sit. I’ll see how the sun goes around later in the year.”

  “Dad would have liked a pergola,” Caitlin said. “He always did say a garden was a place to sit in, not to work.”

  “Yes. It does feel odd that your father died, so soon before all this. I’d have liked him to see it out. It seems a waste somehow.”