Other Earths by Jay Lake, edited by Nick Gevers

away from the rest.
    She stared up at the sea of suns. “If we are all lost in this gulf, we ought to learn to get along.”
    Dreamer grunted. “You convince the emperors. I will speak to the Inca.”
    She imagined Earth swimming in light. “Dreamer, will we ever sail back to the sea of suns, back to where we came from?”
    “Well, you never know,” he said. “But the sea is farther away than you imagine, I think. I don’t think you and I will live to see it.”
    Jenny said impulsively, “Our children might.” “Yes. Our children might. Come on. Let’s get this wretched dinner over with.”
    The stateroom roof slid closed, hiding the sea of suns from their sight.

CSILLA’S STORY
    Theodora Goss
     
     
    P orch steps. Wooden steps, with a dandelion growing through a hole in the wood. A dandelion covered with white tufts.
    The breeze blew away a tuft, with its brown seed attached, and a frightened voice said, “She hasn’t talked since I met her at the airport.” A hand touched her arm. “What’s your name, child? Your real name? Mi a ne’ve ?” The hand withdrew, and the frightened voice continued, “Did I pronounce that correctly?”
    And the other woman, the one standing on the porch steps, with two dandelion tufts caught in the fabric of her dress, said, “How long has the child been traveling, Mrs. Martin?”
    Mrs. Martin said, her frightened voice growing fainter, “A week, I think. The trip to Vienna should only have taken one day, but Helga was stopped at the border, and the guards kept telling her to wait another day and then another, although she’d given them all her money, until finally she gave them her wedding ring, and they let her through.” She added, her voice so faint that it seemed to float away on the breeze, “But in Vienna they had a passport ready and put her on the plane to New York . . .”
    Another tuft detached itself from the dandelion. An inchworm stretched and hunched onto the bottom step.
    “I tried to buy her something to eat on the train . . .”
    “And the border guards never found her?” Now the woman on the porch steps had three dandelion tufts caught in her dress.
    “Well, you see, the car had two bottoms, and she was lying between them.”
    From the corner of her eye, a ghost. No, a handkerchief fluttering down to rest on the grass. It was wrinkled, and she remembered Miss Martin sitting in the train compartment, crumpling a handkerchief in her hands.
    “You mean that for three days she lay between . . .” The woman on the porch steps moved, and the tufts caught in her dress floated away over the grass. “I’m surprised the child is alive.” Her voice was not frightened. There was another word for it, perhaps angry, or tired, or—the inchworm stretched and hunched up to the next step.
    “I’m so terribly sorry, Mrs. Mad’r.”
    But already she was climbing the porch steps, and Miss Martin was behind her, bending to pick up the handkerchief, and the hand on her shoulder belonged to the woman on the porch, who was wearing a turban on her head, like Imre when he hid in the Turkish camp, and whose voice was neither tired nor angry as she said, “Drink this.” And the pillow smelled like grass.
     
    In one corner of the room was a spider. Her grandmother had kept a spider in one corner of the apartment, because spiderwebs caught good fortune. A house with a spider would always have good fortune in it.
    “I’m glad you’re awake,” said Mrs. Mada’r. “Will you take some broth?”
    It tasted like her grandmother’s mushroom soup. The mushrooms were gathered by moonlight . . .
    “No, child. I want you to pay attention. Can you tell me your name?”
    The spider let itself down from its web and dangled in the corner. A crack ran across the ceiling, from the spiderweb to the window.
    “Do you remember the train ride? Being in the airplane? Leaving Budapest?”
    Outside the window she could see a tree. One of its branches tapped against the