Nebula Awards Showcase 2010 (52 page)

BOOK: Nebula Awards Showcase 2010
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His boredom and amused interest in the incessant theological wrangling drained from Garth in an instant. He had not been really thinking or he would have realised where all this was leading. By turning slightly he could see the illustration in the Bible where Itin held it open, and knew in advance what picture it was. He rose slowly from his chair, as if stretching, and turned to the priest behind him.
“Get ready!” he whispered. “Get out the back and get to the ship, I’ll keep them busy here. I don’t think they’ll harm—”
“What do you mean . . . ?” Father Mark asked, blinking in surprise.
“Get out, you fool!” Garth hissed. “What miracle do you think they mean? What miracle is supposed to have converted the world to Christianity?”
“No!” Father Mark said. “It cannot be. It just cannot—”
“GET MOVING!” Garth shouted, dragging the priest from the chair and hurling him towards the rear wall. Father Mark stumbled to a halt, turned back. Garth leaped for him, but it was already too late. The amphibians were small, but there were so many of them. Garth lashed out and his fist struck Itin, hurling him back into the crowd. The others came on as he fought his way towards the priest. He beat at them but it was like struggling against the waves. The furry, musky bodies washed over and engulfed him. He struggled until they tied him, and he still struggled until they beat on his head until he stopped. Then they pulled him outside, where he could only lie in the rain and curse and watch.
Of course the Weskers were marvellous craftsmen, and everything had been constructed down to the last detail, following the illustration in the Bible. There was the cross, planted firmly on the top of a small hill, the gleaming metal spikes, the hammer. Father Mark was stripped and draped in a carefully pleated loincloth. They led him out of the church and at the sight of the cross he almost fainted. After that he held his head high and determined to die as he had lived, with faith.
Yet this was hard. It was unbearable even for Garth who only watched. It is one thing to talk of crucifixion and look at the gentle carved bodies in the dim light of prayer. It is another to see a man naked, ropes cutting into his skin where he hangs from a bar of wood. And to see the needle-tipped spike raised and placed against the soft flesh of his palm, to see the hammer come back with the calm deliberation of an artisan’s measured stroke. To hear the thick sound of metal penetrating flesh.
Then to hear the screams.
Few are born to be martyrs and Father Mark was not one of them. With the first blows, the blood ran from his lips where his clenched teeth met. Then his mouth was wide and his head strained back and the awful guttural horror of his screams sliced through the susurration of the falling rain. It resounded as a silent echo from the masses of watching Weskers, for whatever emotion opened their mouths was now tearing at their bodies with all its force, and row after row of gaping jaws reflected the crucified priest’s agony.
Mercifully he fainted as the last nail was driven home. Blood ran from the raw wounds, mixing with the rain to drip faintly pink from his feet as the life ran out of him. At this time, somewhere at this time, sobbing and tearing at his own bonds, numbed from the blows on the head, Garth lost consciousness.
He awoke in his own warehouse and it was dark. Someone was cutting away the woven ropes they had bound him with. The rain still dripped and splashed outside.
“Itin,” he said. It could be no one else.
“Yes,” the alien voice whispered back. “The others are all talking in the church. Lin died after you struck his head, and Inon is very sick. There are some that say you should be crucified too, and I think that is what will happen. Or perhaps killed by stoning on the head. They have found in the Bible where it says . . .”
“I know.” With infinite weariness. “An eye for an eye. You’ll find lots of things like that once you start looking.”
“You must go, you can get to your ship without anyone seeing you. There has been enough killing.” Itin as well spoke with a newfound weariness.
Garth experimented, pulling himself to his feet. He pressed his head to the rough wall until the nausea stopped.
“He’s dead.” He said it as a statement, not a question.
“Yes, some time ago. Or I could not have come away to see you.”
“And buried of course, or they wouldn’t be thinking about starting on me next.”
“And buried!” There was almost a ring of emotion in the alien’s voice, an echo of the dead priest’s. “He is buried and he will rise on High. It is written and that is the way it will happen. Father Mark will be so happy that it has happened like this.” The voice ended in a sound like a human sob, but of course it couldn’t have been that since Itin was alien, and not human at all. Garth painfully worked his way towards the door, leaning against the wall so he wouldn’t fall.
“We did the right thing, didn’t we?” Itin asked. There was no answer. “He will rise up, Garth, won’t he rise?”
Garth was at the door and enough light came from the brightly lit church to show his torn and bloody hands clutching at the frame. Itin’s face swam into sight close to his, and Garth felt the delicate, many-fingered hands with the sharp nails catch at his clothes.
“He will rise, won’t he, Garth?”
“No,” Garth said, “he is going to stay buried right where you put him. Nothing is going to happen because he is dead and he is going to stay dead.”
The rain runnelled through Itin’s fur and his mouth was opened so wide that he seemed to be screaming into the night. Only with effort could he talk, squeezing out the alien thoughts in an alien language.
“Then we will not be saved? We will not become pure?”
“You were pure,” Garth said, in a voice somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “That’s the horrible ugly dirty part of it. You were pure. Now you are . . .”
“Murderers,” Itin said, and the water ran down from his lowered head and streamed away into the darkness.
THE SFWA AUTHOR EMERITUS
S
FWA inaugurated the Author Emeritus program in 1995 to recognize and appreciate senior writers in the genres of science fiction and fantasy who have made significant contributions to our field but who are no longer active or whose excellent work is no longer as well known as it once was. Fiction by the first five authors emeriti is collected in
Architects of Dreams
. The 2009 Author Emerita is M. J. Engh.
PAST NEBULA AWARD WINNERS
2008 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
Powers
by Ursula K. Le Guin
Best Novella:
The Spacetime Pool
by Catherine Asaro
Best Novelette:
“Pride and Prometheus” by John Kessel
Best Short Story:
“Trophy Wives” by Nina Kiriki Hoffman
Best Script:
WALL-E
Screenplay by Andrew Stanton, Jim Reardon, Original story by Andrew Stanton, Pete Docter
Andre Norton Award:
Flora’s Dare: How a Girl of Spirit Gambles All to Expand Her Vocabulary, Confront a Bouncing Boy Terror, and Try to Save Califa from a Shaky Doom (Despite Being Confined to Her Room)
by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Solstice Award:
Kate Wilhelm, Algis Budrys, and Martin H. Greenberg
SFWA Service Award:
Victoria Strauss
Bradbury Award:
Joss Whedon
Grand Master Award:
Harry Harrison
Author Emerita:
M. J. Engh
2007 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
The Yiddish Policeman’s Union
by Michael Chabon
Best Novella:
Fountain of Age
by Nancy Kress
Best Novelette:
“The Merchant and the Alchemist’s Gate” by Ted Chiang
Best Short Story:
“Always” by Karen Joy Fowler
Best Script:
Pan’s Labyrinth
by Guillermo del Toro
Andre Norton Award:
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows
by J. K. Rowling
Grand Master:
Michael Moorcock
Author Emeritus:
Ardath Mayhar
SFWA Service Award:
Melisa Michaels and Graham P. Collins
2006 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
Seeker
by Jack McDevitt
Best Novella:
Burn
by James Patrick Kelly
Best Novelette:
“Two Hearts” by Peter S. Beagle
Best Short Story:
“Echo” by Elizabeth Hand
Best Script:
Howl’s Moving Castle
by Hayao Miyazaki, Cindy Davis Hewitt, and Donald H. Hewitt
Andre Norton Award:
Magic or Madness
by Justine Larbalestier
Grand Master:
James Gunn
Author Emeritus:
D. G. Compton
SFWA Service Award:
Brook West and Julia West jointly
2005 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
Camouflage
by Joe Haldeman
Best Novella:
Magic for Beginners
by Kelly Link
Best Novelette:
“The Faery Handbag” by Kelly Link
Best Short Story:
“I Live with You” by Carol Emshwiller
Best Script:
Serenity
by Joss Whedon
Andre Norton Award:
Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie
, by Holly Black
Grand Master:
Harlan Ellison
Author Emeritus:
William F. Nolan
2004 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
Paladin of Souls
, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Best Novella:
The Green Leopard Plague
by Walter Jon Williams
Best Novelette:
“Basement Magic” by Ellen Klages
Best Short Story:
“Coming to Terms” by Eileen Gunn
Best Script:
The Lord of the Rings—The Return of the King
by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson; based on
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Grand Master:
Anne McCaffrey
Service to SFWA Award:
Kevin O’Donnell Jr.
2003 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
The Speed of Dark
by Elizabeth Moon
Best Novella:
Coraline
by Neil Gaiman
Best Novelette:
“The Empire of Ice Cream” by Jeffrey Ford
Best Short Story:
“What I Didn’t See” by Karen Joy Fowler
Best Script:
The Lord of the Rings—The Two Towers
by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and Stephen Sinclair and Peter Jackson; based on
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Grand Master:
Robert Silverberg
Author of Distinction:
Charles Harness
Service to SFWA Award:
Michael Capobianco and Ann Crispin jointly
2002 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
American Gods: A Novel
by Neil Gaiman
Best Novella:
Bronte’s Egg
by Richard Chwedyk
Best Novelette:
“Hell Is the Absence of God” by Ted Chiang
Best Short Story:
“Creature” by Carol Emshwiller
Best Script:
The Lord of the Rings—The Fellowship of the Ring
by Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson; based on
The Lord of the Rings
by J. R. R. Tolkien
Grand Master:
Ursula K. Le Guin
Author Emeritus:
Katherine MacLean
2001 NEBULA AWARDS
Best Novel:
The Quantum Rose
by Catherine Asaro
Best Novella:
The Ultimate Earth
by Jack Williamson
Best Novelette:
“Louise’s Ghost” by Kelly Link
Best Short Story:
“The Cure for Everything” by Severna Park
Best Script:
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
by James Schamus, Kuo Jung Tsai, and Hui-Ling Wang; from the book by Du Lu Wang
President’s Award:
Betty Ballantine
BOOK: Nebula Awards Showcase 2010
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