ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/stories/harrison/har13

Text File | 1992-02-22 | 51KB | 1,049 lines

               Copyright 1992 by Jim Vassilakos.
                      All Rights Reserved.
           Permission is hereby granted by the copyright
           holder to copy and freely redistribute copies
          of this work, such that no commercial or barter
       consideration is obtained in exchange for such copies.




                        Chapter Thirteen




"Don't'cha think you're overdoing it?"
   She continued dotting her cheeks, ignoring her sister's
gleeful convulsions. The luminescent liqui-dots glowed faintly in
the locker room's damp air. Underwater, they'd be a beacon for
her regulars: gaudy but effective.
   "They don't make you look grown-up, if that's what you're
thinking."
   "How'd you know, shrimp?"
   "At least I don't look like a lighthouse."
   She shot her sister a mean look, the kind their mother used to
use when she pretended to be angry. The dark-coated man was
watching again from behind her sister's shoulder. He sat
motionless, dripping in the dense humidity. Then turned away, and
a thick lump started to build in his throat. He winced and
swallowed it down, narrow crevices of concentration forming along
his forehead.
   "Hey, mister."
   A water droplet trickled down his chin.
   "Hey, mister. You looking at me?"
   "Maybe he's deaf."
   "Hey!"
   He looked over again, spurting something in Galanglic. She
knew a little bit, enough to get by with customers.
   "You offworlder?"
   He smiled.
   "Imperial? You Imperial, mister?"
   He nodded, and said something else. A question probably.
   "My baby sister think the dots... um... you know... make me
less pretty? Do I say right?"
   "The dots?"
   "You think pretty?"
   He shuffled his gaze to the floor, unsure how to answer.
   "C'mon... you shy? Looking for a good time?"
   He laughed, embarrassment flushing his already steamed cheeks.
The practiced lines always did the job.
   "Hey, don't be a stranger, okay?"
   Someone in the service corridor started screaming for the
bouncers. It sounded serious, and the man stood up and began
striding toward the double doors. She watched him, annoyed that
the interruption had blown her pitch. Now her sister would be
able to laugh all the harder at the stupid dots.
   Suddenly, the noise of gun spray filled the corridor, sharp
bursts clamoring down the staircase, pinning her feet firmly to
the cement. The man jumped behind a row of metal lockers, the
noise of empty cartridges still hitting the floor as the service
doors swung open. A single chiphead slipped awkwardly on the wet
cement, his gun leveled at her as he scanned the room. For a
moment, she couldn't move, except to look toward the dark-coated
man hiding between two rows of lockers. He huddled against the
thin metal barriers, shaking with anticipation as he fumbled a
pistol from his coat.
   The chiphead dashed across the moist cement, placing his shot
with the direction of her gaze as he crossed the floor. In an
instant, a shower of blood and bits of skull erupted against the
rusty, grey wall. She watched it, captivated by the individual
particles as they lingered in mid-air, falling leisurely like the
jagged splinters of a shattered jar. Her sister lay under the
bench. She held a sponge towel over her head as the bouncers
warily entered the locker room, their weapons fixed on the dead
man near the center.
   "Where'd he go?"
   She motioned them up the stairs after pausing a moment to
consider the question. Droplets of cranial fluid still tricked
along the lockers, forming a sickly, sweet scent in the warm,
moist air. Peering up from the sponge towel, her sister seemed
innocent and bewildered.
   "What happened?"
   She bent cautiously over the bench, opening her mouth to
explain as small fingers clutched numbly onto the slippery, red
plastic. No words came out. Only the contents of her stomach,
churning sluggishly like the first time her mother had taught her
the business, thrust upward with a sour, sticky taste, spilling
over her lips in frenzied spurts to a haphazard puddle on the
cold, cement floor.


                          *     *     *


If there was any city within which a person could just walk
around unnoticed, it had to be Xaos. It was like the Silver-Tri
Acrology on Tizar, except that instead of playing the towering
eyesore, Xaos was built entirely underground in a tremendous man-
made chasm reaching to several kilometers in height. In its upper
reaches, business and government buildings were supported by
narrow, cermelecon spines.  At the bottom, a network of pumps
tirelessly coaxed the icy Aeluin which seeped between polymer
coated patches on the cavern's stone walls. Below even the pumps,
however, was a great hub composed of several narrow, concentric
bands known as the furrows. These circled the dual fusion
reactors set within the city's basement, and here, from at least
an engineering standpoint, was the city's heart, the source of
its power and the source of much of Xin's and Xekhasmeno's as
well.
   The furrows were basically suburbs populated mainly by
maintenance and transit personnel and, of course, by the diggers.
Each possessed its own separate character and norms, however, at
the same time they were linked by a common purpose and by a
common, underlying commerce that the uninitiated tourist rarely
stumbled across by chance. For the native, however, it was well
known that in the furrows of Xaos a person of means could
purchase anything or anyone.
   Mike had visited there once, albeit not by choice. The
particular locale to which he had the pleasure of returning,
unnoticed, was called Delta-3 by the city planners, also known as
Jangletown by its residents. It held mostly a collage of diggers
and fix-it jocks hitching rides on the government trams which
travelled up and down the coreward expressway. Two years before,
they were looking for heavy elements used in the processing of
eka-metals. There was part of the reason the Imperial's wanted to
stay in Xekhasmeno. It was also the reason they financed much of
the region's mining operations.
   Despite the rampant inflation, the misery, and the corruption,
Calanna was a world fabulously blessed with natural resources.
Mike found it difficult to accept that such a world could be so
callously mismanaged without some grassroots revolt by its
inhabitants, and he often reminded himself that as free-spirited
as the Calannans seemed, their's was essentially an obedient
society which was mastered by fools. The idea seemed to him
somehow unconventional, even exotic, and yet curiously stale,
like the seeping walls of Xaos, that peculiar yet obvious result
one gets when combining water, stone, and time.
   Mike kept his head down, turned away from the view as the
seeping walls and cermelecon spider web ascended into the hazy
darkness. Two boxes of quaggahaggis still dangled from one hand,
his other resting in a baggy pants pocket with Bill's small,
fiberglass pistol. The crowd of passengers began to rub
shoulders, a woman sneezing somewhere in their midst as the
lift's grating fence slid open with a fitful whine. Mike had
forgotten about the smell of the air, one of those odd details he
had somehow managed to strike from a not very selective memory.
This time the stench reminded him of his father's black boots, a
nagging, musty, lived-in scent that stuck to the roof of his
mouth wafted halfway down his throat. Under different
circumstance it would have made him grin.
   Jangletown was alive with its usual splendor if one could call
it that. The hustlers were so busy turning tricks that customers
had to take a number just to get a place in line. Then there were
the sensitizer shops, for new and exotic cerebral pleasures, the
sort of stuff that could kill you and still leave you smiling. It
was chiphead heaven.
   Mike wandered the various tunnels, mentally categorizing the
few features he still remembered. At one spot was a fire
retardant valve he'd once tripped over in a mad rush. Not far
away was a small casino known locally as The Pit, named after the
twenty foot hole where fights were held for a nightly mob's
wagering and entertainment. The new, fiberglass tubes of its
neon-caked entrance were another reminder as to why he'd been in
such a hurry.
   Mike found the comm-shaft without too much difficulty, its
access code unchanged since his last visit. Gaudy, green paint
still flaked off the metal ladder. As he climbed downward, he had
to skip several steps in order to avoid whole bunches of cables
which were carelessly draped between the runners. Finally, he
reached the access way. Red paint still marked the surface.
"Danger. High Voltage." Mike rapped the pistol's handle against
the door. The sound reverberated up the shaft. Somewhere in the
dim light, he could imagine some hidden lens focusing on his
face, his image being digitized and fed through optical fibers
into Cecil's brain.
   "C'mon...."
   He knocked again, but there was no response. Giving up, Mike
started to head down further to the Delta-4 sector when the
portal suddenly opened. A stranger looked down at him, yellow,
crooked teeth grinning an unfettered acknowledgement. The leather
jacket the stranger wore seemed to gather about his body like
crumpled folds of dead flesh, a grimy brown paste mixing along
the front with the moldy smudges of some feverishly enjoyed meal.
He snorted beneath it, his breath raspy and wet as oily strands
of auburn settled over his slumped shoulders. Mike climbed
upward, an uneasy feeling sloshing in his stomach.
   "I'm looking for Cecil."
   The stranger nodded.
   "Is he around?"
   "Left shoe."
   "What?"
   "Give to me left shoe."
   Slipping off his left shoe, Mike handing it to the stranger
who began to pinch the sole at various points, finally pulling
out a pocket knife and jabbing it into the rubbery material.
There emerged a tiny metal ingot less than a quarter centimeter
in diameter.
   "What is it?"
   "Locator. No harm. Tunnel shielded. Come in."
   Mike inwardly cursed himself as he crossed the portal to the
dim chamber beyond. Several candles lit the area, their orange
flames glowing dimly in the cold, cramped darkness. A semi-sour
fragrance of scented wax hung loosely to the thin air as wisps of
fine, white smoke, snaked upward along the cluttered shelves,
dancing blindly about various pieces of electronic paraphernalia
and scuttling carelessly along the blurry, grey walls. Cecil sat
in the center of the rug, a slight smile forming in his lips as
the dozen or so cameras situated about the chamber turned to face
Mike. The stranger stepped onto the ladder, closing the portal
behind him as he left. For the first time since he left Tizar,
Mike felt totally at ease. He picked a place by the wall,
settling first to his knees and then letting his legs unfold
carelessly beneath his body.
   "How were the cellars?"
   Cecil grimaced, his nose flatting against his face. Mike tried
to stifle a grin.
   "That's what I figured. I brought you some food. You like
quaggahaggis? It should help you recover."
   Cecil accepted one of the containers, first fingering it,
testing to see if it would jump out at him, Mike supposed.
   "Go ahead. Eat."
   Cecil nodded toward Mike's general direction, his expression
stony. Mike laughed.
   "C'mon Cecil. Don't you trust me?"
   Mike opened up his own box, stirring it around with a finger
before tilting his head with a wink for the camera. A quarter of
the container's warm contents slid down his throat before he came
back up for air.
   "See? It's some kind of meat pudding. I'm not really sure what
its made of exactly."
   "Cecil knows."
   "Tell me."
   "Liver of quagga."
   "Liver's not so bad."
   "Heart of quagga."
   "Heart too? I'm not surprised."
   "Lungs of quagga."
   "They sure do use everything, don't they?"
   "Fat of quagga's kidneys."
   "My dad loved kidneys."
   "Boiled in stomach of quagga."
   "Cecil, that's enough, okay?"
   "With loins of quagga, the meatier the merrier."
   "Well... thank you for spoiling my dinner."
   Cecil beamed, the crevices in his face crumpling into tight
wads of skin. Mike set the container of food gingerly to the
floor, watching Cecil's shady outline from the corner of his eye.
It seemed to stiffen for a moment, as though emersed in the most
serious concentration. Then it became relaxed again. Mike had
seen Cecil do it many times before. It was his version of
wandering around looking for something he'd lost.
   "What is it?"
   "Message from Spokes. He wants you to meet him at the
Runyaelin after the midnight ceremony."
   "You know Spokes?"
   Cecil shrugged.
   "How did he know I'd be seeing you?"
   "Perhaps he supposed that on Tizar one should pay a visit
after a most kind and courteous rescue. Actually, he figured
you'd be begging for money."
   It was Mike's turn to shrug as Cecil nodded toward the money
jar.
   "Go ahead. It's what you came here for, isn't it?"
   "Did he say anything else?"
   "Yes," Cecil seemed to chew on the moment. "You seem to owe
him something."
   Mike smiled, "I hope this isn't going to be an attempt at
collecting?"
   "Doubtful."
   "Why's that?"
   "He seems to like you."
   Mike dropped the smile, somewhat to Cecil's amusement. The
cameras swiveled in circles like dancers on a stage: Cecil's way
of telling people he was mildly entertained. Then they stopped.
Cecil frowned, uncertainty forming in the wrinkles around his
eyes. Mike looked toward the money jar again, then back at Cecil.
   "Did he say something else?"
   "Getting police reports, Michael. You're popular."
   "It's been one of those days."
   "Hmm... the Mermaid. Trashy place. Why do you always do this?"
   "Does it say anything about casualties?"
   "Two fatalities, a male and a female."
   Mike felt his heart sink to somewhere in the pit of his
stomach, the cameras drooping slightly with Cecil's chin.
   "Friends of yours?"
   "I'll tell you about it later." Mike stood up, the cameras
pivoting with his slight ascension.
   His old friend wore a dour expression, as though he'd been the
one eating the quaggahaggis and just realized what it was made
of. Mike crossed the room, the green jar half-way hiding behind
an optical storage device.
   "I'm gonna need a loan to get surface-side. You sure you don't
mind?"
   "One shouldn't have to warn you that going through the
Underway at this particular juncture of your career is..." Cecil
gulped a lump of air, "hideously stupid."
   "It's important, Cecil. I'll be back after I see Spokes."
   "Is that a promise you can't keep or a threat you'll never
carry out?"
   "One or the other. Wish me luck?"
   Mike picked a healthy wad from the jar and then crept back
into the access shaft, leaving Cecil alone with his dusty cameras
and the multitude of unseen, electronic visitors. As he climbed
the ladder, he imagined one of Cecil's constructs floating beside
him, keeping an eye out for danger. Beneath miles of steel and
stone and water, Cecil began to sleep the strange sleep of the
void, his dreams curling about the incoming data, isolating,
analyzing, distant voices muttering numbly beneath the vague
current of electronic wind. "Good luck, my hideously stupid
friend. Good luck."


                          *     *     *


For some bizarre reason, Mike felt lucky. Perhaps it came from
seeing Cecil again. That plus the present surrounding brought
more than the usual tide of memories.
   They'd first met on Tyber, Mike the aspiring gatherer and
Cecil a doctoral candidate in artificial sentience. Only a few
years older than Mike, he was a published success, the mousy
upstart in a rapidly evolving field. These days he seemed more
like a zombie long since fallen from grace, his brilliance and
natural sight taken by pitfalls of the electronic ether.
   Cecil never expressed remorse about the past except to joke
from time to time about how one's eyes were the first thing to
rot in the cellars, the mind generally following soon after. He
seemed to delight in the wickedness of it, and Mike occasionally
wondered if Cecil had ever taken his past achievements seriously
or instead treated them merely as passing curiosities, his brush
with fame a transient, ephemeral state somewhere between
happiness and idiocy. Though strangely enviable, the latter case
was rare. More often, when success slowly evaporated like a tide
pressing out to sea, its addictive lure would drive those it had
intoxicated to actions both hideous and stupid lest they curl and
whither like fallen leaves. Mike reconsidered the advice Spokes
had given him for all of two seconds. How much of this was he
doing for John Doe #17, and how much of it was for himself?
   Ascension from the furrows was uneventful, and Mike stepped
off the rollers shortly before reaching the Underway. Long ago,
he'd figured out a plan for getting topside, if ever there were
unfriendlies within the station. At the time it seemed more of a
creative exercise to pass the time, something to keep his mind
from numbing under the influence of the more noteworthy of the
local intoxicants.
   Kitara was always the experimenter when it came to that sort
of stuff. She'd drag him along just to shove various mixtures
down his throat, often at his own expense, and then compare his
reaction with her own. Anyone else would have to bully Mike into
such an exercise, but she always knew exactly what to say in as
few words as possible to coax him into tagging along. He'd told
her about his "great idea" on one of those occasions, but she
just stared back at him sort of sympathetically and sort of like
she wanted to slap him silly. The she said something that stuck.
"Coianders make plans when sober." Mike looked the word up later
on.
   Coianders are those that live longest.


                          *     *     *


Sarn leaned back, tired, his brain slipping quietly into neutral.
The sugary aroma from a pink box of stale pastries teased about
his nostrils as his boots idly clapped the rhythm of some
neghrali-noise beside the smooth, grey frame of a black and white
surveillance monitor. It was the sort of job he appreciated
because it didn't demand a great deal of cognitive activity. The
computers did most of the work for him.
   *Beep*
   He shifted slightly, subconsciously debating whether or not to
ignore it.
   *Beep*
   Sarn blinked open his eyelids with some effort, a long yawn
escaping as he tapped a key at the station.
   "Underway Surveillance #4."
   "Anything happening over there?" It was Beth.
   "Should there be, Commander?"
   "Some orders just came down the chain. It looks like they're
after somebody pretty bad. I'm sending image recognition code on
the target."
   Sarn sat upright, fingering his keyboard and opening a
reception channel.
   "Hmm... a chiphead. Who is he?"
   "Offworlder, apparently. Orders are to search for him at the
exclusion of all other targets. DOA."
   Sarn blinked, "Sounds like fun. What's the reward?"
   "Thirty days off at double pay."
   "Ha! They must be desperate."
   "Central guesses that he'll try to get surface-side sometime
tonight."
   "If he comes through my end, he's history."
   "I'm told he's slippery, so stay on your toes for once."
   "Of course, Commander. Don't I always?"
   Static was the only response, and Sarn chuckled as he loaded
up the new program. At least she'd had the courtesy to deny him
an answer.


                          *     *     *


Erestyl awakened to another day of darkness, to a body he
couldn't feel, his consciousness drifting within a infinitely
vast pool of silent oblivion. He didn't know for certain how long
he had been there. It seemed like a long time, though he couldn't
actually remember arriving. He thought about it for some time,
slipping into and out of sleep so often he occasionally found it
difficult to distinguish conscious from its counterpart.
   Bizarre images would flash just behind the door to his memory,
their details blurry, as if trapped behind a cloud of fog. Then
they'd be gone, not just gone for the moment, but gone forever,
like a page ripped out of a book, so utterly removed that he was
no longer sure whether or not they had ever existed.
   "Is this what it is like to be dead?"
   The question gnawed on him, something obscene about it
burrowing slowly into the inner sanctum of his spirit, and an
answer beckoned so tormentingly close. It was just across the
periphery of thought like a candle burning in the darkness. All
he had to do was reach forth a tentacle of volition to touch it,
but to summon forth the memory even for the briefest moment would
be to sacrifice it, like all the others.
   He could somehow sense that something out there beyond the
numbing cloud was waiting for that moment. For an instant he
remembered the old battle of two great warriors, patience and
time. Time always won, eventually.


                          *     *     *


*Beep*
   "Huan here."
   "Karl, it's Beth."
   "Nothing to report, Commander."
   "I need you to circle your people around to the south entrance
immediately."
   "What happened?"
   "Sector 3 just had a steam main burst. Looks like vandalism.
All the surveillance cameras are useless, but we have a guard at
the gate. If you get your team there to reinforce the perimeter,
we'll have our target trapped inside the sector, and we can do a
person by person search until we find him."
   "If he's there."
   "Just do it Lieutenant. I'll worry about the risks."
   "Yessir. Huan out. You heard her. Get the others and meet me
at the south gate. Mitzo, you stay here."
   "Right, okay... I'll just kick back.... I don't believe this.
I always miss out on the good shit. Mitzo, you stay here. Mitzo,
lick my boots. Whoa... raise that hood mister. Oh... sorry ma'am.
Go ahead. Damn. They do this to me every time. I'm as good as
they are. Hey guys... yeah, you two. Hold up. Where do you think
you're taking the carpet?"
   "On the train."
   "If you want to get that topside you have to send it through
cargo."
   "Cargo hasn't moved for the last ten cents."
   "Don't tell me about it. There's been a little bit of a
backlog. That's all."
   "Look man, we've been trying to get this roll of carpet
topside all night."
   "Hey, I sympathize with your plight, but there's nothin' I can
do."
   "Look, here's a donation to security from our employer. Can we
just go through? We're already late, you know?"
   "Aww... this is cheesy. Okay look, just go ahead. If anyone
asks, we never met."


                          *     *     *


The walk to Vilya's was quiet. Most of the food vendors had
turned in for the night, and taxi's coasted through the narrow
streets carrying people to and from the Underway. Earlier in the
evening, they'd have to stop every ten meters due to the
congestion, but most of the late night action was below ground in
Xkutyr or Xaos depending on which part of the capital you
frequented, the old or the new. Xin was more of a suburb, a
mostly residential area for people who liked to breathe fresh air
at home and recycled air at work. Tonight the air was cold, and
Mike considered calling a taxi more than once. He knew he
wouldn't, though. Cecil's comment had voided that option. He was
getting just a little too famous for public transit of any kind.
   The cat sat outside on her steps, licking its black coat and
meowing in Mike's general direction as he approached. He leaned
over to pet it, but it ran away before he could so much as touch
its tail, ducking behind the back tire of a yellow motorbike. Its
bright yellow eyes watched him, unblinking.
   "I never did get your name, did I."
   "Meow."
   "Food? Dinner?"
   "Meow?"
   "C'mon."
   The cat followed him cautiously up the steps. Mike paused at
the door, unlocking it with a swift twirl of the key. The dead
bolt clicked audibly in the darkness.
   Inside, everything seemed to be turned upsidedown. All the
drawers and cabinets were opened, their meager contents strewn
about in haphazardly piles. The bookcase in the living room was
turned horizontal, the three-vee having been ripped right off its
cable. Mike crept inside, drawing Bill's pistol with his right
hand and peeking left. The door to Vilya's bedroom was part way
open, a sliver of light shining into the hallway. Mike inched
slowly toward her room, finally kicking it open and ducking to
the floor. The flapping of red twill curtains was the only
movement as the whine of a motorbike rose above the noise of
Mike's heart beating.
   Mike ran around to the front, but the yellow bike was gone.
The dodec was still in the toilet's flushing mechanism where he'd
left it. He stuck it into a plastic sack which he tied to his
waist belt. The largest of Vilya's jackets was still a bit
smaller than he was used to, but he took it anyway, remembering
the temperature outdoors. He finally taped the pistol to his
stomach, catching the cat into a tight grip before he left.
   The ceremony at the Runyaelin was nearly over when Mike
arrived. He waited outside, cheers from the crowd still to be
heard over the cries of its remaining victims. The temple served
a dual purpose; it was institution of both sacrifice and justice.
Felons from all over the continent eventually found their way to
the Runyaelin if they didn't manage to fetch a decent price at
any of the slave exchanges along the way. Their executions would
at least contribute something to Calannic society in the way of
the mandatory temple donations.
   The crowds slowly dispersed after the show. Inside, it was
like a sports arena with a large pool as the centerpiece. Two
attendants were still hosing off the circlet of stockades
surrounding its small, marble island.
   Mike sat down at the bottom of the stands and looked out over
the dim, crystal pool. Its shallows rippled in the moonlight, and
a quiet chill seemed to ascend from the waters. The bottom was
coated with a dark grey film, bits of bone and tangles of hair
interspersed between the various incinerated remains of the
temple's most recent victims.
   The cat scratched toward the sky as a black hawk soared
somewhere overhead, the dark sky betraying its presence only by
the dim light reflected by Baal, Calanna's lesser moon. Mike
remembered the moon from orbit, its cavernous and broken texture
somehow noble and violet, as the pool itself. He studied its gaze
in the water's surface, light reflected twice from two points so
distant and different and still so near and so very much alike.
   Spokes sat on the pool's narrow ledge, his long, bony legs
stretching outward as the thin spikes on his scalp jutted upward,
cutting distinct lines against the moon's reflection. He regarded
Mike and the cat with a cheerful smirk, like the kid in the
Underway, except more malignant.
   "You traded one friend for another?"
   "The cat was Vilya's."
   "Was?"
   Mike shuffled his gaze toward the ground. "It needs a place to
stay for a little while. Do me a favor?"
   "What do I look like, Harrison? An animal shelter?"
   Mike shook his head, trying hard to make it look sincere. "You
wanted to see me, Spokes. What about?"
   "Because I know something you don't."
   Mike imagined the size splash Spokes would make were he to be
propelled violently backwards into the murky water. The tall,
bony one seemed to read his mind, leaning forward with a bit more
tension in the veins of his neck.
   "You wanna hear it or not, Harrison?"
   "Go ahead."
   "You remember when I told you to buzz off yesterday?"
   Mike tried to conjure a smile, but Spokes continued before he
could claim success.
   "After that, I decided to do some playing around."
   "Good for you."
   "I located the comm-address of that restricted line you were
using from Gardansa's estate by comparing the amplitude logs on
the Doggie-Blitz and some census dialing records on that
district."
   "Pure research, I take it?"
   "The purest. Against my better judgement, I did some
listening. Turns out that Gardansa was setting you up."
   The hawk drifted downward, closer to the water, finally
sweeping to the surface and then darting skyward. A burnt chunk
of someone's body dangled from its talons, more of a vulture's
victory.
   "You aren't surprised?"
   Mike shrugged, "A little, I guess. I didn't think he would
destroy his own limo."
   "The man is obviously a maniac."
   "I don't think so. You have to understand Gardansa. He was
doing me a favor with Cecil. That sort of entitled him to take
something in return."
   "Like your life?"
   "If he wanted that, he could have had it. You have to know the
guy. It's just a big game to him."
   "Well maybe you choose the wrong fuckin' friends."
   Mike nodded, "That's what he said."
   Spokes gathered his lanky mass beneath his feet. Reaching into
his pocket, he handed Mike a crumpled flimsi-leaf.
   "What's this?"
   "The comm-address... just in case you decide to tune in."
   He began to walk away, taking long, casual steps, as though he
was early for a meeting.
   "Spokes."
   "Yeah?"
   "Why you helpin' me?"
   His tall spikes seemed to bounce back and forth as he shrugged
and continued walking. The cat leapt from Mike's arms to follow
him, stopping Spokes in his tracks. So much for feline loyalty,
Mike figured, and added out loud, "Only for a couple days, okay?"
   Spokes picked up the cat, seeming to inspect its belly. "Do I
have a choice?"
   A thin mist coated the narrow streets outside, various lurkers
of the night huddling together in the alleyways, some seeking
warmth, other seeking the strange companionship formed by similar
circumstance. Many crowded around the motorcars as they tried to
leave, knocking on windows for handouts. Mike kept his head bowed
in the darkness, his new coat's wet collar buttoned taunt around
his neck. He stepped over the occasional native as he made his
way toward the west side, trying not to think too much as he
walked. The prospect of being set up still foamed in his mind
along with memories of Vilya, Niki and Bill. He could almost feel
the corpses stacking up around him, one by one. It was like
multiple slaps in the face, except that he had seen each of them
coming in a strange sort of way and refused to duck out of sheer
stubbornness. Maybe that was the sort of stupidity Cecil had been
talking about.
   "Hey, friend. Spare a drin?"
   It was a young boy, trembling in the gutter, dirty, wet hair
tangled over half his face. He couldn't have been a year past
puberty. Just another one of the homeless, Mike could only guess
as to what he did to survive.
   Mike reached into his pocket, somewhat surprised to hear the
jingle of several loose coins. He withdrew two, allowing one to
slip between his fingers on the way out. The kid slapped his hand
over it before it made a clinking noise on the pavement. Then he
looked up again, expectantly. Mike let the other coin twirl on
his fingertips and he glanced around and behind.
   "What's your name?"
   "What it matter?"
   "Good point. You willing to work for money?" Mike let the
other coin drop.
   "What you want me to do?"
   "Just attract attention. C'mon... I'll show you."
   The walk was a long one, taking them across town and well into
the outskirts of the city. They'd passed the rowens, along the
way, and Mike considered cutting through for all of about one
second. Then he shoved the idea where it belonged. Walking though
it during the day had been risky enough, but during night would
be suicide. The kid looked toward the hedges with an ominous
glare, then toward Mike as though he knew what the gatherer was
contemplating.
   Mike shook his head, "Don't worry. I'm not quite as stupid as
I look," adding," at least not at the moment," under his breath.
   A light sprinkle began to fall as they reached the west end of
downtown, a glossy sheen forming on the vacant, asphalt streets
like a coat of wax. Many of the houses were burned out, and glow-
in-the-dark graffiti painted a multi-hued display. Most of it was
undecipherable for Mike, except for the occasional Calannic or
Galanglic name. One wall depicted the Archduke in a particularly
unflattering pose. A budding political humorist, Mike figured,
wishing he had his camera.
   Mike heard the hum of a grav-car come to a halt across the
street. He turned around to inspect. It was a slicked down
version of the Sebastian-Z48, a real cruise-mobile, except that
it had absolutely no altitude control. It would just zoom around
at about a half a meter off the terrain: as sporty as you could
get and still miss the whole point of having gravitics. Five kids
hopped out, one holding a minisaw which he waived around as he
started yelling something about chipheads in thick, Calannic
slang.
   "Just what I need. What's he saying?"
   "He say we are trespassing."
   "Fine, we were just leaving. Kelelmet."
   "No, he say we no can go that way."
   "Which way is it okay to go?"
   "He say you have to pay for safe passage."
   "Look, tell him to just slow down."
   Mike considered drawing the gun, but there were five of them
and only four bullets to go around. He decided that he hated
arithmetic as he dug out his best of his broken Calannic. They
already knew he was neghrali and a chiphead so there wasn't much
left to conceal anyway.
   "How much?"
   "Hundred k'drin and we let you walk. Otherwise you sorry you
ever come here."
   "I'm already sorry."
   Mike reached into his pockets and forked over the cash,
grateful to Cecil that he had enough. Then he turned around and
tried to leave. Two were still blocking his way, one with a
shotgun pointed toward the night sky like he wasn't particularly
planning on using it.
   "What is it now?"
   "Hundred only for one person. I see two."
   "Look, here's the rest. That's all I got." Mike turned the
rest of his pockets inside out.
   "What's in there."
   Mike opened the small bag hanging from his waist belt and took
the dodec out. The kid with the minisaw regarded it with
suspicion.
   "Give to me."
   Mike tossed it to him perhaps a little too high. Yanking the
fiberglass out from under his shirt, he deposited a slug between
the kid's eyes as the dodec reached the pinnacle of its arc. It
came down slowly as the kid clenched forcefully to his minisaw,
head snapping backward and back of skull erupting in typical
Calannic splendor. Twice in one night, Mike reflected how it was
far better to give than to receive.
   The next two squeezes took the kid with the shotgun in the arm
and shoulder. The shotgun skidded onto the pavement as the kid
waffled around on the ground shouting obscenities. Mike guessed
that he'd never even gotten the safety unlocked.
   The rest of them scrambled madly for the ground-speeder. Mike
scooped up the dodec on its first bounce and ran down the street,
leaving Cecil's money in a pool of blood. He expected them to
give chase, but the only person behind him was the beggar, young
legs taking ground against older if more experienced ones.
   "Idiot neghrali! How you pay me now?!"
   Mike turned down an alley and kept running.


                          *     *     *


Red twill flapped freely in the soft breeze as Sule inspected the
flat with a mixture of curiosity and contempt. Either the abode
had been thoroughly ransacked, or somebody was a pretty slovenly
housekeeper. Major Doran was waiting outside the threshold as
instructed. He stayed at attention the entire time, not that his
stance had much to do with attentiveness. He wanted to impress
her. To do otherwise would jeopardize his career not to mention
his longevity.
   "Shall I send for the dusters, sir?"
   "No," Sule considered the problem. "You will remove yourself
and all other unnecessary personal from the premises. Then call
in our psyche and inform the locals that their target has escaped
the Undercity."
   "What about the Director, sir?"
   "You are dismissed, Major."
   Sule sat down on the steps outside the flat, the dark, cold
air quietly enveloping her as wrinkled, grey leaves scuttled
along the narrow sidewalk. It somehow reminded her of the vast,
black ocean to which she longed to return.
    The gatherer would have to be dealt with, of course. He had
made a fool of her two times in one night, an interesting if
annoying prey. If it meant turning the entire city inside out,
she would find him. Dead or alive, Harrison belonged to her.


                          *     *     *


Of all the places Mike had ever visited on Calanna, his favorite
was probably the Arien Mansion. Surrounded by five machine gun
turrets and a moat, the place had an atmosphere that typified the
world's turbulent and violent history, but somewhere in that
midst, it retained some semblance of tradition and honor that
Mike found difficult to pinpoint. The family was notoriously
reclusive yet highly networked with the power brokers of Calannan
society. They maintained their fortress-like estate on the
outskirts of Xin, over a square kilometer of property sealed off
from public eyes.
   Mike remembered the night with Kitara. They'd invited her to
attend out of respect for her family. Somehow he'd weaseled his
way into tagging along, or maybe he'd just allowed himself to be
dragged inside for the boozing. Sometimes it was difficult to
tell which was the actual case. It wasn't until he'd returned to
Tizar and emersed himself in her collection of private
correspondence that he pieced out exactly why she'd been
summoned. The Arien family were sponsors of psionic research and
instruction on planet. It was all kept secret, although there had
always been rumors floating around. The government turned a blind
eye so long as nothing could be proven, but people feared them
just the same.
   Mike decided they were a strange lot when he saw the worgs.
The creatures, four feet tall at the shoulder and perhaps seven
to eight feet long, were the genetically engineered descendants
of terran wolves. The family bred and trained them at the estate,
doling them out as gifts to local politicians and offworlders
alike. Although the worgs seemed relatively intelligent and well
behaved, Mike later heard horror stories from the locals about
the creatures' supposed pleasure for dismembering trespassers.
For some reason, he didn't find the stories so difficult to
believe.
   The first purple rays of the sunlight began peeking over the
eastern horizon as the two reached the tall, cermelecon gates.
Barbed wire and motion sensors laced the thin, black rods in
generous measure, and Mike figured that if good fences made good
neighbors, these people had to be the best neighbors money could
buy. The kid studied his expression as if trying to gauge his
level of sanity.
   "I not go in there. You not can pay me to go in there."
   "You're right; I can't."
   "Even if you have money, I mean."
   Mike squinted beneath a cool resin of perspiration. He saw
what he was looking for. A yellow motorbike was parked outside,
almost as if somebody had expected him to show up. It would be a
heck of a long sprint to the moat, though. The worgs would
probably catch him even if they were distracted.
   "I'm gonna need a favor from you."
   "I not..."
   "I know. I need you to make some noise at the other end of the
gate to attract the worgs, okay?"
   "You crazy. You get ripped into itty-bitty pieces."
   Mike nodded, "Maybe, but not if I can make it to the moat."
   "You jump in moat? You really crazy!"
   "Hey, worgs don't swim."
   "What about the moat monster?"
   "Oh, give me a break."
   "You not believe?"
   "No, I not... er, I don't." Mike shook his head to emphasize
his conviction. "What kind of moat monster?"


                          *     *     *


"Hey chief, look at this."
   Tiros glanced toward the gate monitor's station. A chiphead's
face stared out from the console, red, flashing symbols
overlaying his forehead.
   "I'd like to speak to a person, please."
   "Image recognition says he's a homicide suspect. Should I call
the police?"
   "No. Give me voice."
   "Is anybody home?"
   "What do you want?"
   Mike blinked, "I... I need to see the person who owns the
yellow motorbike in your parking lot."
   "Mute Voice. What's he talking about?"
   "Must be about the Draconian."
   Tiros nodded, "Put me back on. What's this about Mister...
Harrison?"
   Mike slumped his shoulders. He knew he should have ran it.
   "Look, don't call the police. I've got to see this person
right now. It's urgent."
   Tiros shrugged, "Hold a moment while I transfer you."
   Mike waited as the kid gave him a thumbs-up sign. Then the
line crackled with static, and Mike heard the sound of somebody
groggily waking. For a split second he found himself wondering if
perhaps the yellow bike was just a coincidence. There were
probably thousands just like it all over the city.
   "A little early, isn't it?" The screen was dead black.
   "That depends on how late you stay out following somebody."
   "What? Who is this?"
   Mike cringed, hoping the line was voice-only in both
directions. "Are you still interested in the dodec?"
   "The what?"
   "The robot brain."
   "I... uh... How did you find me?"
   Mike breathed a sigh of relief. "Why don't you meet me
outside? I think we should talk face-to-face."
   "Where are you?"
   "At the front gate."
   "Well, I can have the guards show you in."
   "I don't think so."
   "Okay. Just give me a milla to throw something on."
   The kid was still grinning as the line went dead. Mike
regarded him with all the good humor the situation allowed.
   "What are you so happy about?"
   "I was right. You were wrong. You owe me big-time now."
   "Don't worry. You'll get what's coming to you."
   Mike waited several minutes, idly wondering whether or not
they had called the police. He knew he was still banking on
several unproven assumptions, any one of which could completely
ruin his day.
   A woman and a man approached the gate, the former allowing the
latter to exit. He was probably in his 40's, slightly plump,
dirty brown hair and the makings of a beard. She smiled, lifting
his hands to both sides.
   "I'm unarmed. You want to frisk me or something?"
   Mike motioned the kid over.
   "I'll frisk him. Hey, he has money."
   Mike kept the gun to his side. One shot was all he had, and
one was all he'd need.
   "I assume you know who I am, Mister..."
   "My friends call me Johanes."
   "I assume you also know what happened to Vilya."
   "I know only that she's dead, Mr. Harrison."
   Mike nodded, "I want to know why were you following me and why
you tore up Vilya's apartment."
   "I can explain everything. Is that the dodec you spoke of?" He
pointed toward the bag.
   "Yeah."
   "May I see it?"
   Mike took it from the bag, "Satisfied?"
   He seemed to want to hold his breath instead of answer,
finally exhaling with an eerie expression.
   "We have a great many things to discuss, Mr. Harrison. I know
an all-night pub not too far away where we can talk."
   The place they went was quiet, very few of the locals willing
to pull an all-nighter just to go boozing. Johanes ordered a pot
of alqua vrasto, a large water fowl common to the planet stewed
with vegetables and baby trout. The bartender brought out a
complimentary loaf of bread with some olives and cheese. He
seemed to recognize Johanes, his manner friendly though not too
familiar. Mike kept his hand wrapped around the gun's handle
beneath the cover of a pocket as the kid plunged with zeal into
the appetizers.
   "I take it you no longer feed your research assistants Mr.
Harrison?"
   Mike opened his mouth to answer and then decided to have an
olive instead. Johanes frowned slightly, as though he was still
worried about getting shot.
   "If you don't mind, I'd like to know what happened to Vilya.
The full story."
   Mike swallowed hard, "I didn't kill her, if that's what you're
thinking. I spotted two ISIS people at the Mermaid. I figured
that Vilya might know something about it, so I called her into
the staff-only corridor for a little interrogation. We got
spotted by one of the employees who called the guards, and the
rest is history."
   Johanes looked back incredulously, "The guards fired on her?"
   "They fired on me. She was in the middle."
   "There's more you're not telling me."
   Mike focused on a pornographic etching in the table wood. At
another time it might have made him smile.
   "She made sure that she was in the middle. I don't know why.
She just wanted to be there."
   Johanes leaned back, "Perhaps I have an answer for you. Vilya
was a psychic."
   "I think I figured that much out myself."
   "We needed her to find you."
   "We?"
   "My employer."
   "The Draconian government?"
   Johanes nodded, "Psyches many times seem to have a strange
sense as to when their time has come, Mr. Harrison. They have
been known to be very accepting about it."
   "I know. A friend of mine once told me about it. Look,
Johanes. I've answered your question, but you haven't yet
answered any of mine."
   He frowned again. "I was following you in hope of... thank
you..."
   The pot of stew came with a number of large mugs. Johanes
began by serving the kid. Mike wondered if he was such a
gentleman naturally or if it just came with the job.
   "... in the hope of securing that very special item which is
currently in your possession."
   "Why didn't you just take it from Vilya's?"
   "She told me that you'd hidden it and that she never saw it
except for the first night you were with her."
   "You were there, that night?"
   "I was at the Mermaid. Vilya was an expert at finding people
based on their psychic impressions. She was the best on this
entire planet, Mr. Harrison, and she had a memory for detail
which bordered on the photographic."
   "The perfect spy."
   "Precisely."
   "Did she speak Galanglic as well?"
   "Enough to get along. Oh... you didn't know that, did you?"
   Mike winced as Johanes continued.
   "She was turned over to my guardianship by the Arien family.
You might have even seen her the last time you visited Calanna. I
believe you were a guest at one of the Arien's socials?"
   "You still haven't told me why you want the dodec."
   Johanes paused, searching for a place to begin.
   "ISIS is holding captive an man who is very important to the
Draconian Realm."
   "Erestyl?"
   "Yes. I need to find him."
   "Same here. How's the dodec supposed to help?"
   Johanes shook his head, "It contains a very small inertial
detection unit. As you have been carrying it around, it has been
mapping out your route in precise detail. According to an army
report, the dodec was turned over to an ISIS agent by the name of
Sule. It is my guess that Sule took it to her director as a prize
but that they decided to examine it away from the ISIS stronghold
on-planet for fear of counteractive consequences: things that
kill en masse, Mr. Harrison. Then it fell into your hands if my
understanding is correct."
   "Opening a bomb in the Undercity isn't my definition of
prudence."
   "They were probably more afraid of a biochemical or viral
agent. Don't look so surprised, Harrison. There are many way to
kill people. Not all of them necessarily involve explosions."
   "I'm not surprised. It just hits a little close to home."
   "Shattered Eden?"
   Mike nodded, "The Imps thrashed that entire world, and the
thing that still gets me was how easy it was for them."
   "Well, sometimes killing is like that. Easy."
   "What's important about Erestyl?"
   "Well, it all comes back to that, doesn't it?"
   "Both you and the Imps seem to want him pretty bad."
   Johanes chewed thoughtfully on a chunk of soggy bread. Mike
guessed he was deciding how much to spill out and how much to lie
about. The kid seemed to follow along pretty well with what
little Galanglic he knew. At least his eyes widened every now and
again as he continued to stuff his face. Johanes finally
swallowed down the last of his bread, looking up like it was his
turn to say something profound.
   "I'm not really sure how much I should tell you about
Erestyl."
   "How about you tell me what you can and then I push you for
more?"
   Johanes smiled, "We know that he was a Cassiopeiaen scientist,
a physical theorist to be more precise. He was working at the
Imperial Naval Shipyards at Hermes with a Cass Technics group
which was apparently in the process of completing a very
important project for the Archduke."
   "What sort of project?"
   Johanes looked toward the corner of the room, "Does the term
'doomsday' mean anything to you, Mr. Harrison?"
   "How 'doomsday' are we talking about?"
   "Enough that Erestyl decided to renege on the contract. He did
something to the device in question, but he was caught. The navy
decided to determine how to correct the damage he'd caused, even
if it meant ripping his mind apart to find the information they
needed. One of our people got to him, however. He was frozen and
shipped to Tizar and would have eventually made it to the Realm."
   "What happened?"
   "A great deal, apparently. Our agent who was organizing his
transportation was captured. Erestyl was lost in the process."
   "Lost?"
   Johanes grimaced. "There was nobody to pick him up when he
arrived at Tizar. The freighter carrying him decided to dump his
bones and run rather than face the authorities and explain why
they we're carrying in interstellar passenger without the proper
passports and whatnot. Then you got into the picture."
   "What did I do?"
   "You caught the attention of the Imps, Mr. Harrison. They were
paying close attention to you. You led them right back to
Erestyl."
   "Is that why Clay was asking me to retire from fieldwork?"
   "I don't know anything about Mr. Clay other than that he
screwed up."
   Mike popped another olive into his mouth, spitting the stone
back into his mug.
   "I don't understand why you just didn't take the dodec when
you had the chance. It was sitting in a locker at the Mermaid
that you could have easily ripped open."
   "It doesn't work that way, Mr. Harrison."
   "Well why not? You must have whatever access codes you people
need to get into her brain."
   "True, but I'd have to send her all the way back to Tizar and
risk losing her in the process. The Imps have the space lanes
between here and your world tied up tighter that you could
imagine."
   "Why send it back at all?"
   "She won't let in somebody she doesn't know, somebody she
doesn't already trust. As far as I can tell, Mr. Harrison, you're
the only person in this solar system who has a chance of cracking
the dodec, and if you want to get off the planet alive, you're
going to have to try."


           _   /|
           \`o_O'          Jim Vassilakos
             ( )     <---  [e-mail]
              U            ucsd!ucrmath!jimv (uucp)
          Aachk!
        Phft! Ftp!