The Best of Galaxy’s Edge 2013-2014 by Larry Niven, Nancy Kress, Mercedes Lackey, Ken Liu, Brad R. Torgersen, C. L. Moore, Tina Gower Read Free Book Online

hangs the last shirt and shakes her hands dry.
    “What fun that would be,” I tell her, in just the tone of voice that should make clear my feelings on the subject.
    “Tuber of Many Roots,” Sissel mutters, “such a sour neep I never met. Gartner Poulson will make himself sick on you.”
    Very good. Let him.
    * * *
    When the sky has lost its blueness and is freckled with silver stars, I rub out the last ashes of my secret cigarette and head back into the house.
    As much as it would please me to snub Mads, I do not dare. I find him in in his study, writing a lengthy letter to the head office in Copenhagen, telling them that the salt mine is nearly used up. They will tell him the same thing that they always tell him—keep trying, send what you find, write again next month—and things will go on as they always have. The mine has always been falling apart, and the head office has always sent him dry form letters with no useful advice or meaningful dispatches.
    “Good night, Mads,” I say, letting my fingertips trail across his shoulders. He likes being called Mads when he is working, because it makes him feel at home. I know all his likes and dislikes; after all, he carved me.
    He nods, but does not look up at me, does not even pause in the writing of his letter. So I am left in peace to head to the root cellar.
    Only twelve steps separate the cellar from the rest of the house, but they lead to another world. Even out in the open air, I am never really myself. My people, from neep to turnip, are a people made for dwelling underground.
    I step past cook’s plot to mine. The field workers do not sleep inside, and cook both retires and rises earlier than I. My plot is against the wall, where I can hear the occasional blast of dynamite more clearly than the Gartner’s movements about the house. I take off my tunic and hang it on its nail, to keep it out of the soil. The Gartner, like all his people, believes that dirt is shameful. I hide my cigarettes and my matches behind a loose board; if they are tainted with insulation or asbestos, so much the better. At last, naked, I slip into my plot.
    It is so peaceful underground. I stretch out all my fingers and toes into the soil—even though it is flavored with punctured veins of salt—and relax. I let the damp earth feed me. I try to remember what it was like, before Mads Poulson dragged me up into the air and carved me a face.
    He didn’t create me, no matter what he likes to think. He only changed me, and that’s poor magic.
    I am drifting, my thoughts freed from my body, when it strikes me: if people pay their money to see this actress, the woman Sissel spoke of, then she must indeed be beautiful. And if they think she is beautiful, maybe Mads will think she is beautiful. And if Mads thinks she is beautiful, maybe he will hunger for her and not for me.
    And he will forget about me.
    And I will escape.
    And so, I must cause him to meet this woman. It must happen soon, before I begin to flower.
    * * *
    For the hot meal, cook serves Mads liver paste and smoked cod alongside two thick slices of rye bread and a pile of roast baby potatoes.
    I sit at table with him, but only to watch. I do not eat the same way he does. Still, he prefers my company. He likes my eyes on him; he likes to see my expression when his white teeth cut into those golden baby tubers, their brown skin crackling. Their butter smell seeps into my leaves. I don’t mind the suffering of the cow, or even of the fish—but each time he spears a potato, I feel as though my own flesh is speared, as if my own fibers are being ground to pulp between his molars.
    He swallows, and I see his Adam’s apple bob as the potato slides down his throat and is lost. “You are quiet today, Pluto.”
    “Sissel says there is a woman in town.” The words bubble out of me like a spring flood. “Everybody is talking about her.”
    Mads raises his eyebrows and takes a bite of liver paste on rye bread.
    “She is an