The Mammoth Book of Best New SF 25 (Mammoth Books) by Gardner Dozois

shimmered like shot silk under the hot blue sky. Some way beyond it, a tug was dragging a string of barges south. The shoreline of Thurne Point emerged from the heat haze, standing up from mudbanks cut by a web of narrow channels, and they turned east, skirting stands of seagrass that spread out into the open water. It was a little colder now, and the wind was blowing more from the northwest than the west. Lucas thought that the bank of fret looked closer, too. When he pointed it out, Damian said it was still klicks and klicks off, and besides, they were headed straight to their prize now.
    “If it’s still there,” Lucas said.
    “It isn’t going anywhere, not with the tide all the way out.”
    “You really are an expert on this alien stuff, aren’t you?”
    “Just keep heading north, L.”
    “That’s exactly what I’m doing.”
    “I’m sorry about that crack about your mother. I didn’t mean anything by it. Okay?”
    “Okay.”
    “I like to kid around,” Damian said. “But I’m serious about getting out of here. Remember that time two years ago, we hiked into Norwich, found the army offices?”
    “I remember the sergeant there gave us cups of tea and biscuits and told us to come back when we were old enough.”
    “He’s still there. That sergeant. Same bloody biscuits too.”
    “Wait. You went to join up without telling me?”
    “I went to find out if I could. After my birthday. Turns out the army takes people our age, but you need the permission of your parents. So that was that.”
    “You didn’t even try to talk to your father about it?”
    “He has me working for him, L. Why would he sign away good cheap labour? I
did
try, once. He was half-cut and in a good mood. What passes for a good mood as far as he’s concerned, any rate. Mellowed out on beer and superfine skunk. But he wouldn’t hear anything about it. And then he got all the way flat-out drunk and he beat on me. Told me to never mention it again.”
    Lucas looked over at his friend and said, “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
    “I can join under my own signature when I’m eighteen, not before,” Damian said. “No way out of here until then, unless I run away or win the lottery.”
    “So are you thinking of running away?”
    “I’m damned sure not counting on winning the lottery. And even if I do, you have to be eighteen before they let you ship out. Just like the fucking army.” Damian looked at Lucas, looked away. “He’ll probably bash all kinds of shit out of me, for taking off like this.”
    “You can stay over tonight. He’ll be calmer, tomorrow.”
    Damian shook his head. “He’ll only come looking for me. And I don’t want to cause trouble for you and your mother.”
    “It wouldn’t be any trouble.”
    “Yeah, it would. But thanks anyway.” Damian paused, then said, “I don’t care what he does to me anymore. You know? All I think is, one day I’ll be able to beat up on him.”
    “You say that but you don’t mean it.”
    “Longer I stay here, the more I become like him.”
    “I don’t see it ever happening.”
    Damian shrugged.
    “I really don’t,” Lucas said.
    “Fuck him,” Damian said. “I’m not going to let him spoil this fine day.”
    “Our grand adventure.”
    “The wind’s changing again.”
    “I think the fret’s moving in too.”
    “Maybe it is, a little. But we can’t turn back, L. Not now.”
    The bank of cloud across the horizon was about a klick away, reaching up so high that it blurred and dimmed the sun. The air was colder and the wind was shifting minute by minute. Damian put on his shirt, holding the jib sheet in his teeth as he punched his arms into the sleeves. They tacked to swing around a long reach of grass, and as they came about saw a white wall sitting across the water, dead ahead.
    Lucas pushed the tiller to leeward. The boat slowed at once and swung around to face the wind.
    “What’s the problem?” Damian said. “It’s just a bit of