Nebula Awards Showcase 2006 Read Free

silence from the sea to her resting place in the bright green-dappled forest canopy.
    She had been an ape once, a siamang, and she felt perfectly at home in the treetops.
    During her excursion, she had speared a yellowlip emperor, and this she carried with her in a mesh bag. She filleted the emperor with a blade she kept in her nest, and tossed the rest into the sea, where it became a subject of interest to a school of bait fish. She ate a slice of one fillet raw, enjoying the brilliant flavor, sea and trembling pale flesh together, then cooked the fillets on her small stove, eating one with some rice she’d cooked the previous evening and saving the other for later.
    By the time Michelle finished breakfast, the island was alive. Geckoes scurried over the banyan’s bark, and coconut crabs sidled beneath the leaves like touts offering illicit downloads to passing tourists. Out in the deep water, a flock of circling, diving black nod-dies marked where a school of skipjack tuna was feeding on swarms of bait fish.
    It was time for Michelle to begin her day as well. With sure, steady feet, she moved along a rope walkway to the ironwood tree that held her satellite uplink in its crown, straddled a limb, took her deck from the mesh bag she’d roped to the tree, and downloaded her messages.
    There were several journalists requesting interviews—the legend of the lonely mermaid was spreading. This pleased her more often than not, but she didn’t answer any of the queries. There was a message from Darton, which she decided to savor for a while before opening. And then she saw a note from Dr. Davout, and opened it at once.
    Davout was, roughly, twelve times her age. He’d actually been carried for nine months in his mother’s womb, not created from scratch in a nanobed like almost everyone else she knew. He had a sib who was a famous astronaut, a McEldowny Prize for his Lavoisier and His Age, and a red-haired wife who was nearly as well-known as he was. A couple of years ago, Michelle had attended a series of his lectures at the College of Mystery, and been interested despite her specialty being, strictly speaking, biology.
    He had shaved off the little goatee he’d worn when she’d last seen him, which Michelle considered a good thing. “I have a research project for you, if you’re free,” the recording said. “It shouldn’t take too much effort.”
    Michelle contacted him at once. He was a rich old bastard with a thousand years of tenure and no notion of what it was to be young in these times, and he’d pay her whatever outrageous fee she asked.
    Her material needs at the moment were few, but she wouldn’t stay on this island forever.
    Davout answered right away. Behind him, working at her own console, Michelle could see his red-haired wife Katrin.
    “Michelle!” Davout said, loudly enough for Katrin to know who’d called without turning around. “Good!” He hesitated, and then his fingers formed the mudra for . “I understand you’ve suffered a loss,” he said.
    “Yes,” she said, her answer delayed by a second’s satellite lag.
    “And the young man—?”
    “Doesn’t remember.”
    Which was not exactly a lie, the point being what was remembered.
    Davout’s fingers were still fixed in . “Are you all right?” he asked.
    Her own fingers formed an equivocal answer. “I’m getting better.” Which was probably true.
    “I see you’re not an ape any more.”
    “I decided to go the mermaid route. New perspectives, all that.” And welcome isolation.
    “Is there any way we can make things easier for you?”
    She put on a hopeful expression. “You said something about a job?”
    “Yes.” He seemed relieved not to have to probe further—he’d had a realdeath in his own family, Michelle remembered, a chance-in-a-billion thing, and perhaps he didn’t want to relive any part of that.
    “I’m working on a biography of Terzian,” Davout said.
    “. . . And his Age?” Michelle