Superluminal Page 21

  After another hour of waiting for the other passengers to clear screening, the streamer finally began to move. Li’s weight decreased and she permitted the knot in her stomach to loosen a bit.

  One of the women in Li’s bead was quite black, and the other seemed to be an albino. Li stole a closer glance and saw that she was actually space-adapted, with white skin that, Li knew from past experience, would have the consistency of a pliable plastic coating if touched. The black woman got over her unease after an hour or so, and introduced herself to Li.

  Her name was Gertel, and she was from a Hetenheim Armature, far out on the Mars-Earth Diaphany. Despite the Broca translation grist that was in both women’s heads, her Basis was so full of unfamiliar idiomatic phrases that Li had difficulty understanding her. Li got the main idea, though, that Gertel was a traveling pharmaceutical salesperson, and that she’d been detained at Checkpoint Barium because she was peddling a substance, known as “Dendrophytis,” which was said to quantum-entangle the pleasure release centers of two lovers so that they could come both instantly and simultaneously together.

  “Trees for forests don’t a dam make,” Gertel said. “Dendrophytis would never be for a physician with which to heal thyself, or make amends for goody-good’s delay.”

  Li supposed that Gertel was saying she didn’t take or believe in the stuff she was selling herself.

  “Regulators have dim eyes for Confidence interference,” said Gertel, shaking her head ruefully. “Don’t I blame them? No. But not for a shake of figs did the kitchenfruit earthward tumble. Later does not bring how come; it’s only later, you know?”

  That Li could make no sense out of whatsoever. She merely nodded in agreement to whatever Gertel had said.

  The space-adapted woman spoke without an accent, but proved to be more taciturn than Gertel. She said her name was Hill, and that she was on the cleanup crew of a Met exterior patch team. She operated a sort of vacuum cleaner that removed debris after a repair job was complete on the outside of a Met bolsa.

  The norm regulators had wondered why she wasn’t enlisted in the Enforcement Division—the Met army. They at first didn’t believe she had “essential homeland personnel” status, but a background check had immediately turned up her EHP status, and she’d been allowed to continue on to her next job, which was with a work gang not far from Li’s home bolsa.

  “Rats attacked and gnawed a connecting bundle up pretty good,” Hill told Li and Gertel.

  “Rats?” Li said. “Who are they?”

  “And what ,” said Hill. “Not humans, most of them. They’re outlaws. Partisans. Against Amés and the DI and mad for a fight.”

  “Partisans? What do you mean?” Li asked. This was the first she’d heard of such a thing. She was surprised it wasn’t all over the merci. “Partisan, as in: resistance fighters?”

  “That’s exactly what I mean,” Hill said. “Criminals, most of them. Some kind of half-animal free converts have gotten control of aspect bodies. Nobody’s sure how it happened. Now they fight like hell, and make life hell for the likes of me.” Hill rubbed her nose with a nervous gesture, and Li realized that the woman had no nostrils, only cosmetic indentures where nares should be. “Rats and ferrets and just about every other rodent you can name is what they look like and act like. Maybe raccoons, too. You never see them, except when they want you to, to scare you. Let me tell you, I’ve seen a few, and I don’t want to see any of them ever again. Not human the way you and I are.”

  The woman shuddered and fell silent. As if to emphasize that she was done speaking on the matter, she closed her eyes, then shuttered them with small flaps of skin that rolled down from the tops of her eyebrows.

  That’s one way to shut out the world, Li thought.

  Finally they arrived at the Venus bypass. Each of the women had to take a different streamer to get where they were going, and Li said her good-byes. She took the straight shot along the bypass and around the orbit of Venus, and within an hour Li was once again in the Vas. She boarded a streamer with several hundred other passengers and discovered that, unlike in the Dedo, in the Vas, overcrowding on the streamer beads was a fact of life.

  Instead of a having a bead all to herself again, Li was packed in with fifteen other passengers. A passenger was stuck to every surface of the walls, the fibers holding them fast as if they were notes pinned to a bulletin board. You stayed where you were. There was no question of moving around. The acceleration would send you careening into the passengers stuck to the “floor” if you tried it. So there they all were, traveling in a voluntarily immobilized state, stuck to the walls like so many spitballs.

  Perhaps the walls were holding a bit tighter than normal to the passengers, for when the emergency brakes were suddenly engaged on the streamer, nobody came loose.

  “Unscheduled delay,” the bead grist reported to Li. “Pithway breach of unknown origin.”

  A breach , Li thought back. As in, exposure to space?

  “Undetermined. Initiating emergency evacuation procedures.”

  There were no norm regulators waiting for them when the bead doors flew open. Instead, there was an armed group of…things. Things that looked exactly as Hill, the space-adapted patch crew worker, had described them. Animals. Humanoid animals. Like some merci cartoon gone awry. A cartoon you were trapped within.

  Partisans.

  Hill was right, Li thought. The partisans looked like very large rodents. They looked like rats.

  Rats with guns.

  Sixteen

  All is not lost. All is never lost until the final whistle blows. Never give up. Press the goal. Be accurate. But always feel the goal in your gut, in your arms and legs. Press the goal and it’s a good day to die!

  Three more pushes to the red team’s goals; three repulses. Aubry was battered and bruised from bouncing off the arena, slamming into defenders, and constantly doing all she could to keep herself oriented in the pelota arena and zeroed in on the ball position.

  This is where you know whether you really want it or not! Do you?

  It was amazing. The semisentient overlay still had the indomitable energy and drive of the real Bastumo. Even though the old pelota player was long dead, there was something in the remnant program that hooked onto any heart and ability it found itself in contact with and ratcheted that ability up to the highest level. Aubry felt as if she were a flag suddenly caught by a strong wind.

  “Hell, yes, I want it,” she said.

  Then I won’t lose! I can’t lose! Get on the ball. Basic skills. Watch for openings. Perfect place for a diagonal run in toward the goal. If the back can only see it. Who is that?

  “Harmon,” Aubry said, remembering the name of the pelota overlay Logan36 was using.

  Can’t be Harmon. Harmon plays with the Gars.

  “He’s with us today,” Aubry told herself. Then she herself had a bit of inspiration. “This is the Vas Sun Cup team, after all, and we’re in the final game.”

  Sun Cup! Why didn’t I know this was the Sun Cup? And we’ve got Harmon? Best back in the system. Oh, he’ll see the shot, all right. And I’m off then. He’ll be sure I’m not caught offsides. Now is the time.

  I’m making my run.

  Aubry bounced off the wall and applied half jets to send her forward. She glanced over her shoulder.

  Logan36-Harmon had seen her move and kicked it true.

  The long ball was coming her way.

  Her own hand was on the Hand of Tod. Pellicle to pellicle. But she could also feel the grist of the wall feel around her, moving to penetrate her pellicle as well in its attempt to analyze what it had incorporated.

  To out what has fallen into its trap, Aubry thought.

  How could she have been so stupid? The only thing that was saving her at the moment was the Hand’s communications-blocking ability. At least she hoped that was the case. For all she knew, alarm bells might be ringing all over the solar system. Prison security would certainly know that something was awry when it
was cut off from communication with a portion of the wall and portion of the camp itself. It would, at the very least, dispatch a repair team to the area after it found out that grist repair wasn’t effective.

  She had to get out. But how?

  She attempted to flex her muscles, but the immovable wall filled every declivity around her body.

  She was stuck like a bug in amber.

  The pelota ball shot past her.

  Harmon put exactly the right speed on it. Watch it now. Don’t lose it whatever you do.

  She bent her arms behind her into the familiar striker’s “swan” position and activated full air jets. She craned her neck forward to counter the added velocity, always keeping her eye on the ball.

  It was speeding fast. But her burst of speed had made her faster still, and she overtook it. Trapped it with the quick left-right-chest-left touch that Bastumo was famous for. And then a kick forward.

  Follow, follow…

  Dribble, control. A defender approached on a perpendicular tangent, his long arms stretching out to grab her, steal her momentum, strip her of the ball.

  Without taking her eyes from the ball, Aubry dipped a shoulder. The defender’s finger closed on empty air, and his frantic grab sent him spinning, to crash into the wall and rebound upfield. No longer a threat.

  Just me and the goalkeeper now. He looks familiar.

  “That’s Wellington,” Aubry yelled. “Sun Cup 2827.”

  Wellington! He denied me the winning goal against Dedo. The Ice Machine, they called him!

  “That’s the one,” shouted Aubry. Closer. She could see the determination on the goalkeeper’s face. The Security players, the Rangers, had been assigned according to the sentience of their algorithms. This one was almost human. He would be unpredictable. Because the game was mathematically fair, he would have been assigned the ability of Wellington, too, by the v-hacking scenario. Not being truly human, he would not make an emotional mistake. He would execute perfectly. He would have no fear and no remorse.

  And no inspiration.

  Aubry felt the overlay reaching deep into her mind. Searching for something there, some information. She put up no resistance. In fact, she cleared her mind, opened the field. Let it find what it was looking for.

  Inspiration.

  With a quick movement, she booted the ball toward

  the goal. Wellington, the keeper, had been waiting for just such a moment. She saw now that he had purposely unhitched himself from his keeper’s tether.

  He’s made the decision to come out and meet the ball.

  And he is going to get it, too, Aubry thought. The keeper launched himself off the hub of the goal straight for the loose ball, preparing to gobble it up with his long arms. Wellington reached—

  Over and in. The old Bicycle Comet. Won the league championships with it in ’34.

  That was the time to let the overlay take complete charge. To make use of her new set of downloaded instincts. Aubry turned into a backward somersault. She tucked, rolled—

  Barely unbend the knees. Just the slightest extension of the feet is needed.

  She completed her backward flip. The top of her left foot connected with the ball.

  Kick!

  Aubry kicked for all she was worth.

  The pelota ball sped over Wellington’s right shoulder. Wellington shot past her and kept going. With that kind of velocity, he might rocket to the other end of the field before he managed to stop himself.

  Retrothrust to full. Let’s see what we’ve got.

  The ball sped true. It headed toward the only part of the goal that did not move.

  The hub gap.

  The sweet center.

  It didn’t slot properly! It didn’t slot, but bounced out.

  I missed, Aubry thought. After all that, I missed!

  There was laughter inside her mind.

  No worries, mate, no worries. This always happens when shooting for the hub.

  Aubry thrust after the ball, recovered it. She glanced around. There was not another defender within striking distance.

  Line it up. Take the time to be accurate. Wellington should be on his way to Jupiter at the moment. Yes. Now give it a good, swift kick. One touch should do it.

  Aubry kicked.

  The ball slotted into the hub. Five points.

  Bastumo rides again!

  Seventeen

  Danis, in Dr. Ting’s memory box, was bewildered. Her mother and daughter had fused, become one—had transformed into a thing . That thing wanted to know her secrets, all her secrets.

  How could she deny her own mother?

  Her own daughter?

  Danis had been so confused lately. Her algorithms were randomizing from all the work. All the counting calibration and the hours on the prime number conveyor belt. Error had crept in, just as her mother said. This must be the explanation. Error.

  Error meant deletion. Everyone knew that error meant deletion in Silicon Valley.

  She must correct the error.

  She was just a program. She was just a computer program contained within the rancid mud of broken Mars. Deep in a valley. Where nobody could help her. Where the shadows were so dark that she didn’t even exist. Just a set of instructions. Her job was to obey.

  She must correct the error.

  “I’ll tell you,” Danis said. “I have to tell you, don’t I?”

  The twisted, demonlike face of her mother, the razor nails. It was all a lie. Nobody loved her. Nobody ever had.

  Tell me.

  “They’re in the sand,” Danis cried out. “They’re in the sand!”

  Instantly—the white room. The stainless-steel table.

  Dr. Ting.

  Smiling his tight, skeleton smile. Holding the black, featureless memory box.

  “Excellent, K,” he said. “Excellent. You were holding something back from me, weren’t you?”

  Danis didn’t answer. She collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. She crawled to his feet. Those white shoes.

  “Please, Dr. Ting. Please don’t take them. They’re all I have.”

  “All you have and all you are is what’s in here,” the man said. “You are what I say you are.”

  “Don’t take my life away from me.”

  The man’s dry cough. It was as close as he came to a laugh.

  “Your life ?” he said. “When I’m done with you, K, you’ll finally realize you never had one. Now let go! ”

  “Please, Dr. Ting. Please don’t.”

  Dr. Ting shook his foot free from Danis’s feeble grasp. “You’ll go back in here,” he said, holding the memory box over her head. “And while you’re in here, I’ll have your calibration sand wiped clean. All those hidden errors you’ve been clinging to will be deleted.”

  He twisted the box, readying it once again to take her within.

  “Look at me, K,” said Dr. Ting. “Look up.” She couldn’t resist his instructions. She was a computer program. She was made to obey.

  Dr. Ting lowered the box toward her forehead.

  “Everything will be better soon, K,” he said.

  The box filled her vision.

  Danis prepared herself to lose what was left of her mind.

  Instead, the room exploded in a shower of light.

  Eighteen

  The rats weren’t going to kill Li. They weren’t even going to detain her or the other passengers for very long.

  They claimed to want only to inject the passengers with an experimental infusion.

  A Glory-blocking agent.

  By that time, Li’s Glory withdrawal had reached levels of a steady, nagging irritation. To suddenly think that she could never get the feeling again…

  She was filled with a despair she didn’t know she was capable of.

  Am I really that addicted to it? Li thought. Apparently so.

  So this was going to be a permanent withdrawal, thanks to the partisans. No help for it.

  Somewhere inside, Li also felt a sense of relie
f. To be done with the Glory.

  But the other part of her, the part that had gradually come to depend upon the Glory to get up every morning— that part was shouting no!

  Maybe the rebel’s blocking grist wouldn’t work. There was always hope in the incompetence of others.

  But these didn’t look like incompetent beings. Quite the contrary.

  The partisan leader was a big rat-man, at least six and a half feet tall, his face and body covered with grizzled gray-and-white hair, kept short and fuzzy. Li didn’t know if it naturally grew that way, or if the rat-man groomed himself. In perfect Basis, he ordered the passengers to form a queue, which they did reluctantly, until prodded into a straight line by the weapon muzzles of the other partisans.

  Then the leader had them all hold out an arm. A fantasy of having one hand chopped off by the partisans to prove some horrible point flashed through Li’s mind. Instead, one of the rat soldiers produced a complicated, sinister-looking mechanism.

  The rat commander laughed when he saw the looks of dismay on the passengers.

  “It’s not what you might imagine,” he told them. “It’s only a pellicle infuser made to inject therapeutic grist. That’s all we’re going to do to you. Make you immune to the Glory channel. You might not appreciate it now, but one day you may even thank us.”

  One of the passengers protested loudly.

  The rat commander straightened himself to his full height, and this instantly shut the man up. Somehow, despite his gnawing overbite and twitchy nose, he seemed majestic to Li. “We’re going to save you people no matter what you’ve done to me and my kind.”