Tor.com Short Fiction Fall 2019 Issue by Various Authors

Author:Various Authors [Various Authors]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: A Tom Doherty Associates Book
Published: 2019-12-09T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

Nyma was off with the presidential cadre on a diplomatic trip the day she turned twelve years old, but when she returned the following week, Tej brought a box of birthday teacakes to their class session.

“You remembered!” she said, delighted. The Tower staff kept a log and the ushers had made sure she got very traditional, professionally sugared teacakes on the day, but it was different when someone thought of you.

“How was the trip?” Tej asked.

Nyma closed the box and set it aside, careful not to drag her dagged sleeve in the sugar. She’d asked to stop wearing Tower livery of late—she wasn’t required to, and she found she liked having a say in designing outfits for herself. All under the watchful eye of the Tower communications staff, of course.

Besides, she was grateful to find one more distraction from the ever-pressing weight of the air around her.

“Nyma?”

“The feeds aren’t always right, you know. About the war.” She played with the hem of her sleeve instead of looking at Tej. “But I can always tell when it’s bad, because he stops talking to me.”

Cowardice, Tej wanted to say, but didn’t. They’d all been so hopeful this war would end two years ago. Instead it had dragged. And dragged.

And now the murmurs were becoming pointed shouts, and the editorials kept mentioning the words “land invasion.” Their nation hadn’t suffered a conflict on its own soil in two hundred years.

Tej was of the opinion that they’d earned that tranquility by striving so hard to be a force for peace. His countrymen didn’t seem so certain. Nyma’s ear might be on the feeds and the president’s mood, but Tej’s was on the populace, the growing rumbles of anger and discontent. That was what he feared most of all.

“Nyma,” he said. “I had a thought while you were away. Are you still writing?”

Her head came up in surprise. “You mean, writing poetry? Of course.”

“I think,” Tej said, “that we should publish some of it. A book.”

“My poems? But I’m—” Not good enough, still a child, still learning? “I’m not sure I’m—that’s like a dream, to be published, but Tej, I don’t even know if I have enough. I’m already embarrassed of what I wrote last year.”

“The ones you gave me last year for composition lessons were quite impressive,” he said, truthfully. It had still perhaps been obvious they had been from the hand of a child, but the emotion that bled between the lines had wrenched him. “We’ll have an editor help you. What do you think?”

“I don’t … I mean, I…” She couldn’t have said why, but it didn’t feel right. It was all too easy. If she weren’t the president’s carrier, she’d have to keep working at it, scraping and practicing until her verses caught the eye of a professional, wouldn’t she?

But if she weren’t the president’s carrier, she’d have a lifetime of years for that.

“All right,” she said to Tej. She felt real and unreal, excited and not excited, all balled up like twine in her heart.

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