The Apex Book of World SF 2 by Lavie Tidhar

do you
explain your presence here, Pomahuanca? How do you explain your education,
completely free, with the highest quality standards and in the best
universities? Your healthcare? According to your logic, only the whites, as you
call us, should be on this mission."
    Anatolio Pomahuanca
shook with anger and hatred. He closed his fists while, out of his mouth came
the thoughts that had been growing in his mind ever since the mission had
begun. They could do what they wanted afterwards, they could sanction him,
degrade him; at least he'd had the pleasure of telling this captain what he
really thought of the mission.
    "Because I am an
ornament! A symbol! Because you needed me in order to say you sent a Peruvian
into space! So that everybody could believe that "harmonic conviviality" thing!"
    The smile on the
captain's face disappeared. His eyes became small decoloured slits, parallel to
the lipless long hole that was his mouth. He furled his hearing appendages as
he stepped to the command dashboard. Except for the blue crest his species
displayed on the head, his scaled skin lacked any pigmentation. The few
earthlings who had survived the wars of conquest of the invaders from space had
been right in calling them whites.
    "You can leave,
Pomahuanca, Be ready for your second shift," said the captain, waving him off
with his membranous hands.

 
    Eyes in the Vastness of Forever
Gustavo Bondoni
 
Argentinean writer Gustavo
Bondoni grew up in Buenos Aires and spent some of his formative years in the
United States. His stories have appeared in Jupiter SF , the StarShipSofa podcast, Expanded Horizons and elsewhere.
     
Every few moments, one of the
lights would blink. It was for only an instant and almost unnoticeable because
of their sheer number, but Joao De Menes was watching intently, defying the
devil-eyes to come closer. If they did, he would show them the power of a
Portuguese right arm.
     
    Magalhaes had
laughed at him, simply saying, "If you fear the Indians' camp-fires on the
coast so much, perhaps you should take all the watches tonight," and had then
ordered the anchor dropped.
    The captain might be
an arrogant fool, but Joao knew the truth: those eyes were watching and
weighing, the eyes of hundreds upon hundreds of hungry demons, waiting for the
foolish Europeans to sail their ship beyond the edge of the world.
    He didn't know what
lay beyond the end of the world. Some men told of a magic mist that you
wandered around in forever, with no exit and no heaven, while demons feasted on
your spirit. Others simply said you dropped off the edge of the planet,
straight into the fires of hell. Still others spoke of eternal blackness,
impossible torment.
    Whichever was true,
there were demons, and those demons possessed eyes that stared down at the ship
malevolently from the cliffs that marked the edge of the world.
    And every once in a
while, one of them would blink.
     
Dawn broke lightless
and drizzling, but Magalhaes was adamant: a boat was lowered and a fearful crew
selected. It was impossible to fault the captain's courage—he was the first to
nominate himself—but easy enough to resent his cruelty. Of the ten men
selected, five were the strongest on the Trinidad , while the other five
were the most superstitious. Magalhaes was convinced that they could be cured
of their foolishness by force, and exposure to the fact that what they believed
to be demons were, in fact, just natural phenomena.
     
    Predictably, De
Menes was amongst them. He hadn't even bothered to go to sleep following his
watch because it was obvious that he would be on the boat. He boarded sullenly,
ignoring the wind-driven spray. That wasn't what was bothering him; his concern
lay in the fact that he had no inkling as to what devils might await them on
the barren patch of rocky land ahead.
    The place looked
innocuous enough: an empty brown and grey shore with low cliffs broken by periodic
inlets. But De Menes knew that daytime often found malignant