“There came a squalling from the cave. Goshevan clapped Lokni on the back and started laughing. But the cries of his newborn son were followed by a low wailing and then a whole chorus of women crying. He felt a horrible fear and leapt to his feet even as Lokni tried to hold him back.

  “He ran to the warmest, deepest part of the cave where the men were not supposed to go. There, in the sick yellow light of the oilstones, on a blood-soaked newl fur, he saw his son lying all wet and slippery and pink between Lara’s bent legs. Katerina knelt over the struggling infant, holding a corner of the gray fur over his face. Goshevan knocked her away from his son so that she fell to the floor, winded and gasping for air. As Haidar and Palani grabbed his arms, Lokni came to him and with such a sadness that his voice broke and tears ran from his eyes, he said, ‘It is the Law, my friend. Any born such as he must immediately make the journey to the other side.’ Then Goshevan, who had been full of blind panic and rage, looked at his son. He saw that growing from the hips were two tiny red stumps, twitching pathetically where they should have been kicking. His son had no legs. And to Lokni, who had gathered up the baby in his arms, he said, ‘The Devaki do not kill each other.’ And Lokni said, ‘A baby is not a Devaki until he is named.’ Then Goshevan raged so that Einar and Pauli had to come hold him as well. ‘I name him Shanidar,’ he said. ‘Shanidar, my son, whom I love more than life.’ But Lokni shook his head because life is so hard the Devaki do not name their children until four winters have passed. With his forefinger, he made a star above the screaming baby’s head and went out to bury him in the snow.

  “Lokni, whose white parka was stained crimson with frozen blood, returned alone with his hands shielding his eyes as if to protect them from false winter’s noonday sun. Goshevan broke free and picked up the mammoth spear which had been his wedding gift. He threw it at Lokni in desperation, too blind with pain and fear to see the point enter his stomach and emerge from his back. And he ran outside to find his son.

  “An hour later he returned. And in his arms, frozen as hard as a mammoth leg, he held his quiet, motionless son. ‘Lara,’ he said. And like a drunkard, he stumbled towards his wife. But Lara, who had seen what had passed between her legs and what her husband had done, opened the great artery of her throat with her hide scraper before he could get too close. And when he cried out that he loved her and would die if she died, she told him that the essence of the Law is that life must be lived with honor and joy or not lived at all. So Lara died as he watched and the best part of him died with her. Knowing that his life had come to an end, he unknotted the ties of his parka, exposing the black matted hair of his chest so that Einar and Alani and the others might more easily spear him. But Goshevan had learned nothing. Lokni, lying on his back with the blood running from a great hole in his abdomen, said, Go back to the City, foolish man. We will not kill you; we are not hunters of men.’

  “They gave Goshevan a team of snarling dogs and a barrel of baldo nuts and sent him out onto the ice. And he, who should have died a hundred times, did not die because he was full of the madness which protects desperate men, and a new idea had come into his head. So he made his way back across the ice of the Starnbergersee. This time, he ate his dogs when they died and didn’t care that his beard was crusted with their black, frozen blood. He came once again to Neverness as a seeker; he came to my cutting shop, wretched, starving, covered with filth and dead, frostbitten skin rotting on his face. He came to me and said, ‘I seek life for my son.’

  “He stood in this very room, above this table. From a leather bag full of snow and rimed with frost, he removed a twisted, pinkish lump of frozen meat and laid it on the table. ‘This is my son,’ he said. ‘Use all your skills, Cutter, and return my son to me.’

  “Goshevan told me his story, all the while cradling in his arms the leather bag to which he had returned his poor son’s corpse. He was mad, so mad that I had to shout and repeat myself over and over before he would cease his ranting. ‘There isn’t a single cryologist in the city,’ I told him, ‘who can bring your son back to life.’

  “But he never understood me. He went out onto the slidderies and glissades, telling his story to every cutter, splicer and cetic who would listen to him. Thus it came to be known throughout the city that I had tampered with his DNA and tampered badly. I was brought before the akashics and their accursed optical computers which laid bare my brain and recorded my actions and memories for all to see. ‘If you ever again break the laws of our city,’ the master akashic told me, ‘you will be banished.’ To ensure that I would obey the law, he ordered me to submit to their computer on the first day of each new year ‘so long as you live.’ Curiously, although I had scandalized most of the city, my ‘Neanderthal Procedure’ became immediately popular among the many farsiders who come to Neverness seeking to be other than what they are. For many years thereafter, the glidderies of our quarter were filled with squat hairy supermen who looked as if they could have been Goshevan’s brother.

  “And Goshevan, poor Goshevan—though he pleaded with and threatened every cryologist in the quarter—death is death, and no one could do more for him than give him a hot meal and a little toalache and send him on his way. The last I heard of him, he was trying to bribe his way to Agathange, where, he said, the men were no longer men and miracles were free to anyone who would surrender up his humanity. But everyone knows Agathanian resurrection is just a myth dreamed up by some fabulist drunk with the fire of toalache, no more real than the telepaths of The Golcanda. And so Goshevan disappeared into the back alleys of our Unreal City, no doubt freezing to death one dark winter’s night. And there, my young friend, my story ends.”

  Painfully, I stood up to indicate that our conversation was over. But the young man kept to his chair, staring at me silently. His eyes grew so intense, so dark and disturbed, I thought that, perhaps, all men who desire the unobtainable must be touched with some degree of madness. I felt the acids of the kvass and coffee burning in my stomach as I said, “You must go now. You understand now, you understand why.”

  Suddenly, he slapped the table. The tearoom echoed with the loud rattle of teacups and the young man’s trembling voice. “There the story does not end,” he said. “This is the end, the true end of Goshevan’s story that they tell in the silver mines of Summerworld.”

  I smiled at him then because the story of Goshevan is now a legend, and the endings to his story are as many as the Thousand Islands. Although I was certain to be bored by one of the fabulist myths in which Goshevan returns triumphantly to the Patwin or Basham or some other tribe of the Alaloi, one can never be truly certain. As I am a collector of such myths, I said, “Tell me your ending.”

  “Goshevan found Agathange,” the young man said with conviction. “You yourself said he was hard to kill, Cutter. He found Agathange where the men—I guess I really shouldn’t call them men because they were many-sexed and looked more like seals than men—where the Agathanians brought Shanidar back to life. They fitted him with mechanical legs stronger than real legs. They made him fifty sets of replacement legs, in graduated lengths to accommodate his growth. They offered Goshevan the peace of Agathange’s oceans, the wisdom and bliss of cortically implanted bio-chips. But Goshevan, he said he wasn’t fit for an ice-world that was less than civilized and that he certainly wasn’t worthy of a water world that was beyond civilization. He thanked his hosts and said, ‘Shanidar will grow up to be a prince. I will bring him home to Summerworld where men such as we belong.’

  “To Summerworld he came many years later as an old man with white hair and a stooped back. He called upon the favor of his old friends, asking for the loan of rich delta land so that he could reestablish his estates. But no one recognized him. They, those wily, arrogant lords swathed in their white summer silks, they saw only an old madman—who I guess must have looked more like a beast to them than a man—and a strange-looking boy with proscribed Agathanian legs. ‘Goshevan,’ said Leonid the Just, who had once helped Goshevan put down Summerworld’s forty-eighth servile revolt ‘was as hairless as an elephant. He stuttered, too, if my poor memory serves me right.’ And then—are you listening, Cutter?—then Leonid ordered them sold into the silver mines. Sondevan, the obese slavemaster, removed Shanidar’s legs and strapped a cart to his abdomen so that he could wheel himself along the steel tracks that led into the ground. And though Goshevan was old, he was as strong as a water buffalo. They shoved a pick at him and set him hacking at a vein of sylvanite. ‘Goshevan,’ said the slavemaster, ‘was my father’s name. He was small and weak and let the Delta Lords buy his land for a tenth a talann per cubage. This ugly animal is not he.’

  “The mines were cooler than the rice paddies, but they were hellishly hot compared with the frozen forests of Kweitkel. Goshevan—do you remember how you removed his sweat glands, Cutter?—Goshevan lasted two hours before he keeled over from heatstroke and fell into delirium. But before he died, he told his son the story of his birth and explained the Law of the Devaki. His last words before the slavemaster’s silver mallet caved in his head were, ‘Go back!’

  “So I’ve come back,” the young man said. The cutting shop was silent around us. As I stood there on the cold tile floor, I could hear the ragged hissing of my breath and taste the bittersweet tang of coffee coating my tongue and teeth. Suddenly, the young man rose to his feet so quickly that he bumped the table with his hip, sending one of my priceless teacups shattering against the floor. He opened his furs and dropped his trousers. There, badly fitted to his hips as if by some ignorant apprentice cutter, I could see the prosthetic legs—the kind they make badly on Fostora or Kainan—where they disappeared beneath reddened flaps of skin.

  “I’ve come back to you, Grandfather,” he said. “And you must do for me what you failed to do for Goshevan, who was my father.”

  And there my story really and truly ends. I do not know if the young man who came to me was the real Shanidar. I do not know if the story he told of Goshevan’s death is really true. I prefer to believe his story, though it isn’t stories that matter. What matters is precision and skill, the growing of new limbs for the legless and the altering, despite the law of civilization, the tampering with a young man’s DNA when the need to tamper and heal is great. What matters is men who aren’t afraid to change the shape and substance of their flesh so that they might seek out new beginnings.

  When, on the first day of midwinter spring, I am brought before the master akashic and banished from my mysterious and beloved city, I will not seek out Agathange, tempting though the warmth of their oceans might be. I am too old to take on the body of a seal; I do not wish for the wisdom of cortically implanted biochips. To paraphrase the law: A man may do with his DNA as he pleases but his soul belongs to his people. It is to my people, the Devaki, that I must return. I have bitterly missed all these years the quiet white beauty of Kweitkel and besides, I must put flowers on my daughter Lara’s grave. I, Arani, who once came to Neverness from the sixteenth and largest of the Thousand Islands like any other seeker, will take my grandson back across the frozen Starnbergersee. And for Goshevan, child of my lasers and microscopes, for my poor, brave, restless son-in-law I will pray as we pray for all who make the great journey: Goshevan, mi alasharia la shantih Devaki, may your spirit rest in peace on the other side of day.

  Introduction to “Speech Sounds”

  by Octavia E. Butler

  People sometimes ask me who, in my opinion, is the best science fiction writer working today. This is an impossible question, of course. Best at what kind of science fiction? For what audience? Do we include the average quality of all an author’s works, or just his or her best? For sheer gung-ho swashbuckling sci-fi adventure, maybe Mike Resnick’s Santiago but maybe Dave Wolverton’s Golden Queen series; but that category does grave injustice to both writers because it seems to suggest that that’s all their novels are. How about best writer of “hard” sf? Well, how hard? Or the best writer of good prose? Define “good,” please. The questions quickly evaporate as soon as they’re given any serious thought. Who is the best science fiction writer today? Don’t waste my time.

  Except…there’s this nagging feeling that the question does have an answer, and the answer is, quite possibly, Octavia Butler.

  It’s not an accident that when I was writing a book on how to write science fiction and fantasy, and needed an example of how to unfold exposition at the opening of a story or novel, I turned to a book by Octavia Butler. Her science is rigorous, her extrapolation at once wide-ranging and profound. Her characterizations are plausible yet quirky, her philosophy compelling and intelligent. As adventures her stories are gripping; the reader can’t wait to find out what happens next. Tragedy infuses her work, along with a deep morality against which all other moralities may properly be judged.

  Indeed, it’s hard to find a kind of science fiction of which Octavia Butler is not a first-rate practitioner. (I suspect that if this shy, soft-spoken woman had ever donned mirrorshades and colored her hair, she’d have been claimed by the cyberpunks.) Does that make her best? Oh, who cares? If she isn’t, she’s close enough to being best that I now routinely use her as the easy, short answer to the question. It saves me having to go through a whole lecture about why there can’t possibly be a “best” science fiction writer. I just say “Octavia Butler” and go on.

  And I’ve never had anybody come back and argue with me about it. Not even the MacArthur Foundation people, who give out the “genius grants.” In fact, they agreed with me and gave her one.

  If that doesn’t raise your expectations for this story impossibly high, I don’t know what will. But I’m not worried. You won’t be disappointed.

  SPEECH SOUNDS

  Octavia E. Butler

  There was trouble aboard the Washington Boulevard bus. Rye had expected trouble sooner or later in her journey. She had put off going until loneliness and hopelessness drove her out. She believed she might have one group of relatives left alive—a brother and his two children twenty miles away in Pasadena. That was a day’s journey oneway, if she were lucky. The unexpected arrival of the bus as she left her Virginia Road home had seemed to be a piece of luck—until the trouble began.

  Two young men were involved in a disagreement of some kind, or, more likely, a misunderstanding. They stood in the aisle, grunting and gesturing at each other, each in his own uncertain “T” stance as the bus lurched over the potholes. The driver seemed to be putting some effort into keeping them off balance. Still, their gestures stopped just short of contact—mock punches, handgames of intimidation to replace lost curses.

  People watched the pair, then looked at each other and made small anxious sounds. Two children whimpered.

  Rye sat a few feet behind the disputants and across from the back door. She watched the two carefully, knowing the fight would begin when someone’s nerve broke or someone’s hand slipped or someone came to the end of his limited ability to communicate. These things could happen any time.

  One of them happened as the bus hit an especially large pothole and one man, tall, thin, and sneering, was thrown into his shorter opponent.

  Instantly, the shorter man drove his left fist into the disintegrating sneer. He hammered his larger opponent as though he neither had nor needed any weapon other than his left fist. He hit quickly enough, hard enough to batter his opponent down before the taller man could regain his balance or hit back even once.

  People screamed or squawked in fear. Those nearby scrambled to get out of the way. Three more young men roared in excitement and gestured wildly. Then, somehow, a second dispute broke out between two of these three—probably because one inadvertently touched or hit the other.

  As the second fight scattered frightened passengers, a woman shook the driver’s shoulder and grunted as she gestured toward the fighting.

  The driver grunted back through bared teeth. Frightened, the woman drew away.

  Rye, knowing the methods of bus drivers, braced herself and held on to the crossbar of the seat in front of her. When the driver hit the brakes, she was ready and the combatants were not. They fell over seats and onto screaming passengers, creating even more confusion. At least one more fight started.

  The instant the bus came to a full stop, Rye was on her feet, pushing the back door. At the second push, it opened and she jumped out, holding her pack in one arm. Several other passengers followed, but some stayed on the bus. Buses were so rare and irregular now, people rode when they could, no matter what. There might not be another bus today—or tomorrow. People started walking, and if they saw a bus they flagged it down. People making intercity trips like Rye’s from Los Angeles to Pasadena made plans to camp out, or risked seeking shelter with locals who might rob or murder them.

  The bus did not move, but Rye moved away from it. She intended to wait until the trouble was over and get on again, but if there was shooting, she wanted the protection of a tree. Thus, she was near the curb when a battered, blue Ford on the other side of the street made a U-turn and pulled up in front of the bus. Cars were rare these days—as rare as a severe shortage of fuel and of relatively unimpaired mechanics could make them. Cars that still ran were as likely to be used as weapons as they were to serve as transportation. Thus, when the driver of the Ford beckoned to Rye, she moved away warily. The driver got out—a big man, young, neatly bearded with dark, thick hair. He wore a long overcoat and a look of wariness that matched Rye’s. She stood several feet from him, waiting to see what he would do. He looked at the bus, now rocking with the combat inside, then at the small cluster of passengers who had gotten off. Finally he looked at Rye again.