Nebula Awards Showcase 2013 by Catherine Asaro

tobacco shop. It was a renegade priest from Glory to God who had adopted the Waster lifestyle as if it were his own. Everyone called him Father Sin.
    â€œAh, girl!” he exclaimed. “So eager for knowledge you knock down old men?”
    â€œFather Sin, what’s that sound?” she asked.
    â€œThey are beating the doorways of their houses in grief,” he said. “It is tragic, what has happened.”
    She dashed on. The sound had become a ringing by the time she reached Magister Pregaldin’s doorway, like an unnatural Note. She had to wait several seconds after knocking before the door opened.
    â€œAh, Thorn! I am glad you are here,” Magister Pregaldin said when he saw her. “I have something I need to. . . .” He stopped, seeing her expression. “What is wrong?”
    â€œHaven’t you heard the news, Magister?”
    â€œWhat news?”
    â€œThe Protector is dead. Assassinated. That’s what the ringing is about.”
    He listened as if noticing it for the first time, then quickly went to his terminal to look up the news. There was a stark announcement from the Protectorate, blaming “Enemies of God,” but of course no news. He shut it off and stood thinking. Then he seemed to come to a decision.
    â€œThis should not alter my plans,” he said. “In fact, it may help.” He turned to Thorn, calm and austere as usual. “I need to make a short journey. I will be away for two days, three at most. But if it takes me any longer, I will need you to check on my apartment, and make sure everything is in order. Will you do that?”
    â€œOf course,” Thorn said. “Where are you going?”
    â€œI’m taking the wayport to one of the other city-states.” He began then to show her two plants that would need watering, and a bucket under a leaky pipe that would need to be emptied. He paused at the entrance to his bedroom, then finally gestured her in. It was just as cluttered as the other rooms. He took a rug off a box, and she saw that it was actually a small refrigerator unit with a temperature gauge on the front showing that the interior was well below freezing.
    â€œThis needs to remain cold,” he said. “If the electricity should go out, it will be fine for up to three days. But if I am delayed getting back, and the inside temperature starts rising, you will need to go out and get some dry ice to cool it again. Here is the lock. Do you remember the recursive equation I showed you?”
    â€œYou mean Jemma’s equation?”
    He hesitated in surprise, then said, “Yes. If you take twenty-seven for the first value of X, then solve it five times, that will give you the combination. That should be child’s play for you.”
    â€œWhat’s in it?” Thorn asked.
    At first he seemed reluctant to answer, but then realized he had just given her the combination, so he knelt and pecked it out on the keypad. A light changed to green. He undid several latches and opened the top, then removed an ice pack and stood back for her to see. Thorn peered in and saw nested in ice a ball of white feathers.
    â€œIt’s a bird,” she said in puzzlement.
    â€œYou have seen birds, have you?”
    â€œYes. They don’t have them here. Why are you keeping a dead bird?”
    â€œIt’s not dead,” he said. “It’s sleeping. It is from a species they call ice owls, the only birds known to hibernate. They are native to a planet called Ping, where the winters last a century or more. The owls burrow into the ice to wait out the winter. Their bodies actually freeze solid. Then when spring comes, they revive and rise up to mate and produce the next generation.”
    The temperature gauge had gone yellow, so he fitted the ice pack back in place and latched the top. The refrigerator hummed, restoring the chest to its previous temperature.
    â€œThere was a . . I suppose you would call