Gene Wolfe - The Best of Gene Wolfe: A Definitive Retrospective of His Finest Short Fiction

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE

BY GENE WOLFE FROM TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES

THE WIZARD KNIGHT
The Knight
The Wizard

THE BOOK OF THE SHORT SUN
On Blues Waters
In Greens Jungles
Return to the Whorl

THE BOOK OF THE NEW SUN
Shadow & Claw
(comprising The Shadow of the Torturer and The Claw of the Conciliator)
Sword & Citadel
(comprising The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the Autarch)

THE BOOK OF THE LONG SUN
Litany of the Long Sun
(comprising Nightside of the Long Sun and Lake of the Long Sun)
Epiphany of the Long Sun
(comprising Cald of the Long Sun and Exodus from the Long Sun)

NOVELS
The Fifth Head of Cerberus
The Devil in a Forest
Peace
Free Live Free
The Urth of the New Sun
Latro in the Mist
(comprising Soldier of the Mist and Soldier of Arete)
Soldier of Sidon
There Are Doors
Castleview
Pandora by Holly Hollander
Pirate Freedom
An Evil Guest

NOVELLAS
The Death of Doctor Island
Seven American Nights

COLLECTIONS
Endangered Species
Storeys from the Old Hotel
Castle of Days
The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other Stories
Strange Travelers
Innocents Aboard
Starwater Strains

A DEFINITIVE RETROSPECTIVE
OF HIS FINEST SHORT FICTION

GENE WOLFE

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in these stories are either products of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously.

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE: A DEFINITIVE RETROSPECTIVE OF HIS FINEST SHORT FICTION

Copyright 2009 by Gene Wolfe

All rights reserved.

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor-forge.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-2135-0

ISBN-10: 0-7653-2135-1

First Edition: March 2009

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is for Alison Goulding,
with much love from her granpa.

THE BEST OF GENE WOLFE

Then you go home, knowing that behind you the Atlantic is destroying your work.

Home is the big house on Settlers Island, but Settlers Island, so called, is not really an island and for that reason is not named or accurately delineated on maps. Smash a barnacle with a stone and you will see inside the shape from which the beautiful barnacle goose takes its name. There is a thin and flaccid organ which is the gooses neck and the molluscs siphon, and a shapeless body with tiny wings. Settlers Island is like that.

The goose neck is a strip of land down which a county road runs. By whim, the mapmakers usually exaggerate the width of this and give no information to indicate that it is scarcely above the high tide. Thus Settlers Island appears to be a mere protuberance on the coast, not requiring a nameand since the village of eight or ten houses has none, nothing shows on the map but the spider line of road terminating at the sea.

The village has no name, but home has two: a near and a far designation. On the island, and on the mainland nearby, it is called the Seaview place because in the earliest years of the century it was operated as a resort hotel. Mama calls it The House of 31 February, and that is on her stationery and is presumably used by her friends in New York and Philadelphia when they do not simply say Mrs. Babcocks. Home is four floors high in some places, less in others, and is completely surrounded by a veranda; it was once painted yellow, but the paintoutsideis mostly gone now and The House of 31 February is gray.

Jason comes out the front door with the little curly hairs on his chin trembling in the wind and his thumbs hooked in the waistband of his Levis. Come on; youre going into town with me. Your mother wants to rest.

Hey tough! Into Jasons Jaguar, feeling the leather upholstery soft and smelly; you fall asleep.

Awake in town, bright lights flashing in the car windows. Jason is gone and the car is growing cold; you wait for what seems a long time, looking out at the shop windows, the big gun on the hip of the policeman who walks past, the lost dog who is afraid of everyone, even you when you tap the glass and call to him.

Then Jason is back with packages to put behind the seat. Are we going home now?

He nods without looking at you, arranging his bundles so they wont topple over, fastening his seat belt.

I want to get out of the car.

He looks at you.

I want to go in a store. Come on, Jason.

Jason sighs. All right, the drugstore over there, okay? Just for a minute.

The drugstore is as big as a supermarket, with long, bright aisles of glassware and notions and paper goods. Jason buys fluid for his lighter at the cigarette counter, and you bring him a book from a revolving wire rack. Please, Jason?

He takes it from you and replaces it in the rack, then when you are in the car again takes it from under his jacket and gives it to you.

It is a wonderful book, thick and heavy, with the edges of the pages tinted yellow. The covers are glossy stiff cardboard, and on the front is a picture of a man in rags fighting a thing partly like an ape and partly like a man, but much worse than either. The picture is in color, and there is real blood on the ape-thing; the man is muscular and handsome, with tawny hair lighter than Jasons and no beard.

You like that?

You are out of town already, and without the streetlights its too dark in the car, almost, to see the picture. You nod.

Jason laughs. Thats camp. Did you know that?

You shrug, riffling the pages under your thumb, thinking of reading, alone, in your room tonight.

You going to tell your mom how nice I was to you?

Uh-huh, sure. You want me to?

Tomorrow, not tonight. I think shell be asleep when we get back. Dont you wake her up. Jasons voice says he will be angry if you do.

Okay.

Dont come in her room.

Okay.

The Jaguar says hutntntaaa... down the road, and you can see the whitecaps in the moonlight now, and the driftwood pushed just off the asphalt.

You got a nice, soft mommy, you know that? When I climb on her its just like being on a big pillow.

You nod, remembering the times when, lonely and frightened by dreams, you have crawled into her bed and snuggled against her soft warmthbut at the same time angry, knowing Jason is somehow deriding you both.

Home is silent and dark, and you leave Jason as soon as you can, bounding off down the hall and up the stairs ahead of him, up a second, narrow, twisted flight to your own room in the turret.