Asimov's Science Fiction: July 2013 Read Online Free

city, away to something completely different, to some wide open spaces, and you couldn't get more wide open than space. Same impulse as Zelda, opposite direction. Once at the academy, I discovered an aptitude for security. From there, the Diplomatic Corps beckoned because of the prestige. They were the best, they saw the real action. Almost a thousand space-faring species populated the galaxy, and I wanted to meet them all. I wanted to keep moving. In the years since then, I'd never been bored.
    People sometimes said there was nothing new in the universe, but there was. Mil Div was finding new civilizations all the time. Trillions of sentient beings in the universe, and the thing that made them all alike was that they made choices. Each choice that each life made was new to that life.
    Nobody could say that Zelda and I had picked wrong. We'd each picked our direction and kept running full tilt. Something to be admired in that.
    I still wasn't bored with the job, with Mil Div or the Diplomatic Corps. I still had a good nine hundred species to encounter. So I hadn't come to Ariana because I'd gotten bored. I'd come because I was tired. For the first time, I'd come to a fork and not known which way to go.
    I fell asleep on the last few miles of driving to the farm, and even though I protested that I was fine, Zelda diagnosed rocket lag and put me to bed. My own bed, in a wide room that would have fit four cabins on the
Raja Ampat,
with wood-paneled walls and gauze curtains. A room with a window. It was novel.
    Zelda hung a blanket over the window to cut out the sunlight, and I slept for twelve standard hours.
    After waking up, I wandered into the kitchen wrapped in a soft cotton robe Zelda had left for me. I ran my hands along the wood-paneled walls. Real wood, which seemed extravagant to eyes used to sleek metal and plastiform. The texture of it intrigued me, and Mim found me in the living room, hands pressed to the walls, caressing them.
    "You okay?" she asked, and I blinked back to wakefulness. I was fine.
    Mim stuffed food and coffee into me—fresh coffee, grown on another continent on Ariana, was a revelation. My medical alert had reset itself overnight and went off again, ranting about excessive addictive compounds and potential for systemic overload. That was the point, I muttered at it. I got dressed, wandered outside, and Tom and Zelda taught me how to milk goats. It was the most visceral, organic thing I'd ever done in my life, except for eating and sex.
    The goats reminded me of at least a couple of species I'd dealt with. Their eyes with the warped pupils, their f lopping accidental ears. Their tempers, expressed in the way they bounced on sharp hooves and bleated indignantly. Hell, I'd met ambassadors who sounded like that.
    My visit didn't stop the others from working—work never let up on a farm, with goats and chickens to feed and garden plots to weed and the rest. I was happy enough to sit, watch, and not think about much of anything in particular.
    I slept another ten hours, amazed that I hadn't noticed how tired I was. Ten missions on thirteen worlds in the last year alone—I should have noticed. No wonder Song wanted me to take time off.
    I thought about calling Captain Song, or better yet the XO, Achebe, to find out if an initial report on the Cancri Four incident had been issued yet, and what it said about me. Had my abrupt disappearance started any rumors? I wasn't sure I cared, but it would be nice to know.
    I finally had a chance to unpack and distribute the gifts I'd brought: a silk tunic-style shirt for Zelda, who tried it on immediately, then spun and admired the way the light played off the blue and yellow abstract pattern; a string of hand-made glass beads for Mim; and a bottle of scotch for Tom. Gifts quickly chosen from an import boutique at the Cancri transit station when I realized I'd be coming to visit. They seemed appreciative.
    Then came another meal: potatoes, chicken, asparagus, more