The Best of World SF by Lavie Tidhar (children's ebooks free online .txt) 📕

you had left me for dead,’ my grandfather confessed. My grandmother stroked his hair and brought water to his lips. And my grandzyther hummed in approval, for their stratagem had worked perfectly.

In the weeks that followed, my grandzyther learned to impersonate other varieties of Xingzhou’s endemic flora and fauna: charizards and arcanines, tesla trees and starfruit. They lent their covert aid to other operations, securing food and transport, sabotaging the Elder Ones’ supply lines of butchered flesh. Growing impatient with the half-baked ideas of the resistance, they attempted to relay critical advice through the medium of dreams but found themselves challenged by the soldiers’ diverse physiologies. A Trisolarian’s central nervous system was, after all, quite different from a Tralfamadorian’s, just as a Skrull’s from a Strigoi’s.

Finally, they elected to materialize in the form of an angel, haloed in chryselephantine splendour, hovering in the aether with a dazzling array of rainbow-hued wings, pupils, limbs and lips. In one set of digits they bore a sword of coral lightning, in another, a creature most exotic to this land: a fish. To their consternation, the rebels received them only with joy, not astonishment: they had seen far stranger beings in their lifetimes, after all. They were, however, very grateful for the fish. My grandfather immediately prepared it for supper, steaming its body with ginger and stewing its head in curry.

‘You do not only lack strength,’ my grandzyther explained as the unit picked fishbones from their teeth. ‘You lack ambition. To rid your stars of this scourge, you must enlist the services of every denizen of the city.’

The rebels agreed. They began to approach their contacts in town, commandeering printing presses and radio stations, spreading the message of insurrection in every tongue. My grandzyther and grandmother embarked on a series of high-profile assassinations, terminating high-ranking Shoggoth officials and native quislings; their successes were broadcast as propaganda for the cause. Throngs of volunteers arrived in the jungle to join the rebel army, some bringing much-needed arms of lightsabers, pulse rifles and BFG 9000s. Yet their newfound notoriety came at a cost, for the Yog-Sothothian government grew determined to eradicate its opponents. Arrests and extrajudicial executions mounted. The flame forests filled with military police, mounted on byakhee, hunting down the rebels.

Eventually, the crackdowns slowed to a halt.

‘This cannot be mercy,’ said my grandmother as she lay in the cavern. My grandzyther and grandfather nestled next to her, naked. The three had entered a physical relationship of late, seeking to escape the horrors of the war in one another’s embrace.

‘I concur,’ said my grandfather. ‘Intelligence has deciphered the ways of the Elder Gods. If a colony grows too headstrong, they will not abandon it outright. They will strip it of all its worth, all its flesh and spirit, then move on to their next conquest.’

‘Then a time of great death is upon us.’

‘Maybe so,’ said my grandzyther, wrapping a lavender-scented wing about their lover’s hips. ‘But we need not be the victims thereof. What is the word from my twins?’

My grandfather was silent. For months, he had squatted, hunched over the portable ansible, seeking out the beings that had been one with my grandzyther’s body, now split and scattered across nameless regions of the cosmos. Finally, he had made contact with such an entity, infamous for their technological might and passion for warcraft. In the most abject of terms, he had exhorted them to ally themselves against this great evil, if not for the sake of Xingzhou, then at least for the sake of their kin.

‘There has been no reply, then?’

‘Only one. [Untranslatable].’

They slept little that night. But within minutes of their waking, the three heard a cry from the signallers’ shack. There were reports that the Mi-Go were fleeing in panic, as were the other species who lived to serve the regime. Those who had paused in their flight had been set upon by vengeful citizens, who ripped apart their exoskeletons with kitchen implements and gardening tools, intent on retribution for the years of blood.

More marvellous still was the reason for the mass evacuation. Rumour had it that unknown beings had constructed a colossal superweapon, more massive than a moon, training its beams on a point beyond spacetime where a configuration of thirteen iridescent globes was suspended in hyperspace. A single blast, and the chain of command across the universe had been rent asunder.

Yog-Sothoth was dead. His dominion was no more.

‘Blessed be my twins,’ said my grandzyther, still cloaked in their bedding. ‘Now, what’s for breakfast?’

Xingzhou erupted in celebration. Flags were hoisted in the streets, which once again glowed with glad and golden fire. Beakers of synthehol were cracked open so citizens could toast their triumph. Yet my grandzyther was perturbed to realize that many in the city had no desire to be free. Eagerly, these weaklings anticipated the return of the forces of the Galactic Empire: the very entity which had colonized the star cluster a century before.

‘Do not be tempted by peace,’ they whispered to my grandmother and grandfather, waving to the crowds in a flurry of confetti. ‘We must war against all who would have us relinquish power over our destiny. Only the first of our battles is won.’

*

My grandneither was a white fungus. E was born in Xingzhou, bioengineered by colonial scientists mere days before the descent of war, but abandoned in the lab in the chaos of the invasion. During the Occupation, e was exhibited as a curiosity in the Hypatia Museum of Natural History. E remained there after liberation, thriving on the chromospheric heat that penetrated the gallery walls, stimulated by the chatter of the intellectuals who passed through the cobwebbed chambers.

Over time, e gained sentience and sapience. Desiring to communicate with the world, e fashioned a primitive vocal tract from the tissue of eir pileus and hymenium, and pondered the first words e should pronounce to the public. Finally, e made eir choice. As a prelude, e attracted the attentions of the weekend sightseers by lilting a series