Science Fiction: The Year's Best (2006 Edition). Аластер Рейнольдс

nickel. “Have you gone out to see ’em yet?”

      “Are you nuts? There’s thousands of people coming into the state to look at those things. It’s going to be a madhouse out there.”

      “I thought the roads seemed crowded. But it wasn’t as bad as all of that.”

      “It’s early still. You just wait.”

      * * * *

      Randy was right. By evening the roads were so congested that Delia was an hour late getting home. I had a casserole in the oven and the book open on the kitchen table when she staggered in. “The males have longer, more elevated horns, where the females have shorter, more forward-directed horns,” I told her. “Also, the males are bigger than the females, but the females outnumber the males by a ratio of two to one.”

      I leaned back in my chair with a smile. “Two to one. Imagine that.”

      Delia hit me. “Let me see that thing.”

      I handed her the book. It kind of reminded me of when we were new-married, and used to go out bird-watching. Before things got so busy. Then Delia’s friend Martha called and said to turn on Channel 3 quick. We did, and there I was saying, “dumb as mud.”

      “So you’re a cattle farmer now?” Delia said, when the spot was over.

      “That’s not what I told her. She got it mixed up. Hey, look what I got.” I’d been to three separate travel agents that afternoon. Now I spread out the brochures: Paris, Dubai, Rome, Australia, Rio de Janeiro, Marrakech. Even Disneyworld. I’d grabbed everything that looked interesting. “Take your pick, we can be there tomorrow.”

      Delia looked embarrassed.

      “What?” I said.

      “You know that June is our busy season. All those young brides. Francesca begged me to stay on through the end of the month.”

      “But—”

      “It’s not that long,” she said.

      * * * *

      For a couple of days it was like Woodstock, the Super Bowl, and the World Series all rolled into one—the Interstates came to a standstill, and it was worth your life to actually have to go somewhere. Then the governor called in the National Guard, and they cordoned off Chittenden County so you had to show your ID to get in or out. The Triceratops had scattered into little groups by then. Then a dozen or two were captured and shipped out of state to zoos where they could be more easily seen. So things returned to normal, almost.

      I was painting the trim on the house that next Saturday when Everett drove up in a beat-up old clunker. “I like your new haircut,” I said. “Looks good. You here to see the trikes?”

      “Trikes?”

      “That’s what they’re calling your dinos. Triceratops is too long for common use. We got a colony of eight or nine hanging around the neighborhood.” There were woods out back of the house and beyond them a little marsh. They liked to browse the margins of the wood and wallow in the mud.

      “No, uh…I came to find out the name of that woman you were with. The one who took my car.”

      “Gretta Houck, you mean?”

      “I guess. I’ve been thinking it over, and I think she really ought to pay for the repairs. I mean, right’s right.”

      “I noticed you decided against leasing.”

      “It felt dishonest. This car’s cheap. But it’s not very good. One door is wired shut with a coat hanger.”

      Delia came out of the house with the picnic basket then and I introduced them. “Ev’s looking for Gretta,” I said.

      “Well, your timing couldn’t be better,” Delia said. “We were just about to go out trike-watching with her. You can join us.”

      “Oh, I can’t—”

      “Don’t give it a second thought. There’s plenty of food.” Then, to me, “I’ll go fetch Gretta while you clean up.”

      So that’s how we found ourselves following the little trail through the woods and out to the meadow on the bluff above the Tylers’ farm. The trikes slept in the field there. They’d torn up the crops pretty bad. But the state was covering damages, so the Tylers didn’t seem to mind. It made me wonder if the governor knew what we know. If he’d been talking with the folks at the Institute.

      I spread out the blanket, and Delia got out cold cuts, deviled eggs, lemonade, all the usual stuff. I’d brought along two pairs of binoculars, which I handed out to our guests. Gretta had been pretty surly so far, which made me wonder how Delia’d browbeat her into coming along. But now she said, “Oh, look! They’ve got babies!”

      There were three little ones, only a few feet long. Two of them were mock-fighting, head-butting and tumbling over and over each other. The third just sat in the sun, blinking. They were all as cute as the dickens, with their tiny little nubs of horns and their great big eyes.

      The other trikes were wandering around, pulling up bushes and such and eating them. Except for one that stood near the babies, looking big and grumpy and protective. “Is that the mother?” Gretta asked.

      “That one’s male,” Everett said. “You can tell by the horns.” He launched into an explanation, which I didn’t listen to, having read the book.

      On the way back to the house, Gretta grumbled, “I suppose you want the number for my insurance company.”

      “I guess,” Everett said.

      They disappeared into her house for maybe twenty minutes and then Everett got into his clunker and drove away. Afterwards, I said to Delia, “I thought the whole point of the picnic was you and I were going to finally work out where we were going on vacation.” She hadn’t even brought along the travel books I’d bought her.

      “I think they like each other.”

      “Is that what this was about? You know, you’ve done some damn fool things in your time—”

      “Like what?” Delia said indignantly. “When have I ever done anything that was less than wisdom incarnate?”

      “Well…you married me.”

      “Oh, that.” She put her arms around me. “That was just the exception that proves the rule.”

      * * * *

      So, what with one thing and the other, the summer drifted by. Delia took to luring the Triceratops closer and closer to the house with cabbages and bunches of celery and such. Cabbages were their favorite. It got so that we were feeding the trikes off the back porch in the evenings. They’d come clomping up around sunset, hoping for cabbages but willing to settle for pretty much anything.

      It ruined the yard, but so what? Delia was a little upset when they got into her garden, but I spent a day putting up a good strong fence around it, and she replanted. She made manure tea by mixing their dung with water, and its effect on the plants was bracing. The roses blossomed like never before, and in August the tomatoes came up spectacular.

      I mentioned this to Dave Jenkins down at the home-and-garden and he looked thoughtful. “I believe there’s a market for that,” he said. “I’ll buy as much of their manure as you can haul over here.”

      “Sorry,” I told him, “I’m on vacation.”

      Still, I couldn’t get Delia to commit to a destination. Not that I quit trying. I was telling her about the Atlantis Hotel on Paradise Island one evening when suddenly she said, “Well, look at this.”

      I stopped reading about swimming with dolphins and the fake undersea ruined city, and joined her at the door. There was Everett’s car—the new one that Gretta’s insurance had paid for—parked out front of her house. There was only one light on, in the kitchen. Then that one went out too.

      We