Then he was gone, and we were walking again. Now more interested in the doings of the women than the sights around me, I began to match my pace to theirs, both of them on one side, my left, the better to talk with them.
“Who was that?” I asked for openers.
“Meat—”
“—a real thief—”
“—the kind that relieves you of material possessions—”
“—but a good friend—”
“—who if you hadn’t been with us—”
“—and you hadn’t been so obviously bankrupt—
“—would have stolen your rear molars—
“—before you knew it.”
“Meat—that’s his real name?”
One of the women—Judy? Jezzie?—shrugged and, surprisingly, replied solo.
“It’s what he goes by. Most people in the Commensality choose and alter their names whenever they feel like it. It’s part of our notions about freedom.”
I thought about the burdensome nomenclature I had discarded when I fled the dead man lying in the HT room in my father’s mansion. Was the easy dismissal of my heritage one more sign that I was Commensality-inclined? But what about all the other confusing things I felt? Was I one thing only, or two, or many? It seemed impossible to decide.
So I said, “Are you two really sisters?”
“No—”
“—not by birth.”
“Are you”—Sandy hesitated—“like, uh, clones?”
The sisters laughed, a duet that trilled back and forth.
“Why would the Commensality—”
“—bother with clones—”
“—when what we cherish—”
“—is diversity?”
“No, our genes—”
“—are heterogenous—”
“—as are our psyches—”
“—and it’s only our facades—”
“—that are deliberately modified—”
“—to symbolize a tenet—”
“—of information theory—”
“—and perhaps to confuse—”
“—and thereby facilitate—”
“—our schemes.”
“So we are sisters only—”
“—by inclination—”
“—and mutual temperament.”
I pondered this paradox. “You got yourself altered because of some stupid theorem?”
“It’s not a ‘stupid theorem.’”
“It’s the basis for what we do.”
“When we told you earlier—”
“—that information has to breed—”
“—we didn’t mention that the birth of new information—”
“—usually involves—”
“—the destruction of old information.”
“For instance—”
“—take two plus two—”
“—equals four.”
“The expression ‘two plus two—’”
“—is information—”
“—and so is ‘four.’”
“But if we just told you ‘four—’”
“—you couldn’t deduce whether it came—”
“—from ‘three plus one—’”
“—or ‘two plus two.’”
“The destruction of information happens—”
“—whenever two previously distinct facts or situations—”
“—become indistinguishable—”
“—subsumed in the new creation.”
“Witness us—”
“—two distinct beings—”
“—now indistinguishable—”
“—one new fact.”
I had gotten lost somewhere in the bilateral barrage. The sisters seemed to sense this, and abandoned their fusillade for a single-pronged attack.
“We know it’s rather hard to comprehend, if you’re not used to the concepts,” said Judy or Jezzie. “But just watch what we do today, and maybe it’ll make more sense.”
I nodded acquiescence. We walked on further in silence, until I broke it.
“How come you didn’t say what you wanted to say to Meat by TAP, instead of whispers?”
“Well, it’s like this. Babylon is the intermediary in all communication via the TAP. Now, Babylon has certain responsibilities and duties, all governed by its basic biofabbed inhibitions relating to the freedom of us, its charges. One of Babylon’s duties is to protect the Commensality, this outpost in particular. Any behavior that threatens our common stability—and such behavior is pretty rare, simply because there’s not much an individual can do to undermine what amounts to practical anarchy—is frowned upon by Babylon. And so it tries to stop such things. Meat, I’m sorry to say, frequently indulges in certain practices, such as egregious theft, which Babylon finds contraproductive. So we don’t discuss such things mentally. What we retain within our own skulls can’t get to Babylon. And what Babylon doesn’t know can’t hurt us.”
I sensed that the sister speaking had left something unsaid. Thinking of all the remote manipulators—mek and organic—Babylon operated, I asked, “What happens to those troublemakers Babylon catches?”
For a few seconds, the Sisters said nothing. Then, as if seeking refuge in mutuality again, they reverted to antiphonal response.
“They’re cored—”
“—their higher brain centers removed—”
“—leaving just the stem—”
“—and a mass of paraneurons substituted—”
“—which puts Babylon in direct control—”
“—of the body—”
“—giving him another agent—”
“—to implement—”
“—his policies—”
“—for our own good.”
“So if you ever spot—”
“—an individual—”
“—with no expression—”
“—deadfaces—”
“—you’re confronting Babylon—”
“—itself.”
I looked nervously around. Everything appeared different. A dimness or veil seemed to have occluded my sight. I thought it was a reaction to this new knowledge. Then I realized we had passed into Shadow. Looking up, I saw the floating mass of the Hanging Gardens, making its leisurely way over the rooftops and under the lights. I pressed closer to the women on my left, until I was almost in their nonexistent pockets, causing them to say:
“Hey—”
“—what do you—”
“—think we all are?”
“Siamese—”
“—triplets?”
Some few meandering meters on, one of the Sisters chose to disappear. At the door of a building they told me was a “sensorium,” Judy—or Jezzie—went inside, leaving the other woman to wait in the street with me.
I was growing more and more curious about what was to happen, and so tried to pump my companion for more details, all the while tracking with half an eye the comings and goings of the various variegated and variform vessels of sentience who vanished through the doorless arch into the sensorium.
“Exactly who are you looking for?” I asked.
(A two-meter tall mantis, arms held prayerfully, saliva irridescing its mandibles, passed by us, and into the building.)
“Anyone who’s just made the transition in from a world called Doradus,” said Judy (or Jezzie).
“And how do you know that anyone has even come from there lately?”
“By checking with Babylon. One of the Commensality’s principles, you see, is absolutely unimpeded access to public information. Anything that’s not private knowledge—the results of someone’s unique life-experiences—is available to whoever requests it. That’s simultaneously one of the hallmarks and one of the causes of equality among individuals. Well, part of the public dataflow is arrivals and departures of sophonts into and out of Babylon. So just by TAPPING, we can learn if any individuals fulfilling our specs are here.”
I considered this, suddenly wonder
ing if the Sisters had learned of my arrival in the same way, and been waiting for me, for reasons I was as yet unable to fathom. Or was that being too paranoid? And exactly what degree of paranoia was too much?
Dismissing this issue, I said, “Okay. So you’re interested in this world—Doradus?—for whatever reason. Why don’t you just go there? Isn’t that what our age is all about? Just picking up and taking off, when the urge strikes you?”
(A rubbery-faced neotenic newt-like biped sidled by, and tried to brush against me; I yanked away with quivering repugnance.)
“If we were interested in that world qua world, then sure, we’d go. But we’re not. We just want to make a profit off it. And for that, all we need is accurate information about it. Now, the handy thing about information—in these days of hot heels and itchy feet—is that nine times out of ten, it’ll come to you. Have you ever heard it said that the aggregate movements of individuals in our era resemble Brownian motion? Well, using that model, you realize that all particles—or people—eventually interact, and that a random, or even null, motion is as good as a planned course.”
Trying to recall if I had ever heard my father speak of Doradus before, and why it might be so important, I asked, “What sector is this world in?”
Judy laughed. “How the hell should I know? All I have are its relativistic coordinates.”
I grew a bit irked at Judy’s careless quashing of my question. I was willing to compromise on a lot of things, but to others—maybe not even objectively the most important—I still held fast.
“I can’t get over how you Commensality types refuse to assign a world to its proper stellar sector. At home, all I ever heard was talk of spheres about influence and contention, and how important it was to know where worlds were in relation to each other. Don’t you have any holistic view of the universe?”
“And I can never comprehend why you Conservancy fossils still think imaginary lines in space are so important. You’re so concerned with the galaxies that you can’t see the stars, let alone the gigatrillions of sentients who flourish—despite your best efforts to deny them freedom—beneath those myriad suns.”
I was about to reply hotly—whose freedom had I ever stifled, except perhaps my own?—when Jezzie came out.
She was accompanied by a woman much shorter than herself, whose skin was maculated rather like that of a Truehome giraffe: brick-colored irregular splotches on a clay-colored background.
Jezzie, guiding the stranger with a long arm around her waist, turned away from Judy and me. I was about to hail the returned sister when Judy clamped a hand over my mouth.
“If you had gotten a TAP when we asked you to, you’d know Jezzie doesn’t want us to join her yet. We’re supposed to follow at a distance.”
Released, I lamely said, “Oh.”
“Come on, then.” Judy set off.
I followed, casting a last backward glance at the sensorium, wondering (but really knowing) what had transpired inside between Jezzie and the woman she now ambled hip-to-waist with down the crowded street. But did that mean that all those, those creatures—
(A sinuous feline sophont flicked his tail in my face, tickling my nose and making me jerk back.)
Judy was getting too far ahead, and I hurried to catch up.
For half an hour we followed the pair through the city. Eventually I said:
“Hey, how come you two never fly, and save on the legwork?”
“It discourages the close contact and mixing we need for our work. Did you ever try to strike up a casual verbal conversation in midair?”
I couldn’t say that I ever had, the Conservancy not being too keen on unvehicled flight, as expressive of a kind of suspect abandon.
At last Jezzie and her companion came to a broad open paved plaza set among towers. They joined a queue. Judy and I held back, around a corner.
“Airbus stop for the Gardens,” explained Judy. “For those like us, who don’t care to fly unenclosed.”
A bus set down, and the members of the queue filed forward.
“Now Jezzie’s telling her she’d prefer to wait for the next bus, so they can be alone.”
I didn’t ask why.
A second bus came a minute later, before the two-person queue had acquired any new members.
Jezzie and her friend moved to board.
Judy urged, “Now! Run!”
She tugged me along with her.
We clip-clopped and foot-slapped across the plaza and tumbled into the bus just as its gullwing door shut and the craft lifted off.
I got a confused glimpse of the interior of the mek-piloted bus: white curved cushioned walls and overhead handholds, no seats. Then I focused on the three women.
Judy (or Jezzie) had the giraffe-patterned woman pinioned. The captive had time to say, “Hey! What’s going on?” before the other Sister lowered her head toward the woman’s chest.
What the Christ?, I thought. Was this some bizarre kind of rape?
As the Sisterly crown of frizzy black curls came level with the captive’s neck, something stirred beneath the hair. I watched in utter amazement as what seemed to be a thin tendril whipped out and fastened itself for a moment on the third woman’s neck before retreating beneath Jezzie’s hair.
The bitten woman stiffened, eyes rolling up, then relaxed. Judy let her collapse gently to the floor. Jezzie bent over the victim and checked her pulse. After a few seconds, she seemed satisfied with the results of her attack. She spoke to the woman on the floor.
“You are one of the directors of the nuprene industry on Doradus. Is it true that you have a secret plan to switch to biopolymers?”
“Yes,” said the woman in a drugged voice.
“You will forget the events of the last hour in their entirety,” Jezzie commanded, apparently finished with her questioning.
The airbus docked with a bump at the Hanging Gardens. The whole trip of less than a minute was over.
The Sisters, effortlessly supporting the unconscious woman between them, exited; I followed. They dumped her unceremoniously behind a potted bush, and took the next bus down.
On the ground, I could contain myself no longer. I wanted to know what Jezzie had concealed in her hair, but more importantly, I couldn’t figure out the desirability of what they had learned.
“You went to all that trouble and risk just to ask a question about the frigging plastics industry on some world halfway to nowhere?”
“That’s—”
“—right.”
“And we’re not—”
“—done yet.”
In the next three hours Judy and Jezzie pulled the same scam, mutatis mutandis, four more times, all on returned visitors from, or citizens of, Doradus, learning:
That one individual planned to market solo flight harnesses;
That hardly anyone followed the pronouncements of a certain syndicated commentator on interstellar affairs anymore;
That a group of extremists was campaigning for strict genetic mapping as a prerequisite for enfranchisement;
And that simple bodymods—nothing more radical than the giraffe woman’s skin—were quite respectable.
After picking this last datum out of a man’s mind, the Sisters retreated to a bench with a view of the Bay. While methane waves licked the dome wall, and a methane rain gently fell, they consulted, with me listening in amazement.
“If we add the switch—”
“—to biopoly and harnesses—”
“—to the disbelief in—”
“—that grey eminence, whatsizname—”
“—and don’t forget to include—”
“—the acceptance of mods—”
“—but we have to subtract—”
“—because of those extremists—”
“—then the secret’s just as plain—”
“—as the sun in the sky—”
“—except of course—”
“—that you can’t see—”
“—the sun from
Babylon—”
“—unless you can penetrate the fog!”
I was beside myself. (Or could only the Sisters claim that?) “What is it? What’s so obvious? Come on, tell me.”
Jezzie and Judy seemed to be enjoying my confusion. Or perhaps they were only thrilled by what they had learned. They watched me struggle to decipher what they meant for a few seconds, then gave in to my importuning.
“Well, first you have to know—”
“—that Doradus is a neutral world—”
“—courted alike—”
“—by Conservancy and Commensality—”
“—and what we’ve discovered—”
“—by adding two plus two—”
“—to get four—”
“—is that with just a little push—”
“—Doradus is ready—”
“—to join the Commensality!”
I considered. I seemed to remember now some mention in the past by my father of this world. If what the Sisters said was true, he could see the value of this information.
I whistled. “Then you can sell this to—”
“—Babylon himself—”
“—who while you were slowly starting to understand—”
“—we already TAPPED—”
“—and who agreed to credit—”
“—our joint account—”
“—by a sum so big—”
“—that your eyes would pop—”
“—if we told you—”
“—and moreover—”
“—Bablyon has already dispatched—”
“—messages to his fellow AOI’s—”
“—who will now concentrate their efforts—”
“—to capture Doradus—”
“—for the side of the good guys.”
I was stunned. “I’ll be damned.” There was nothing else I could say about what the Sisters had acomplished. Then I remembered my curiosity about the sisters’ secret weapon, which I had confusedly witnessed in action five times.
“What did you use to knock out all those people?”
Lowering her head, one of the women reached up to part her thick nest of curls. I looked down, not really knowing what I expected to see.
Coiled flat up against her scalp were four inches of a snake thin as my little finger, whose rear portion fused imperceptibly into the woman’s skin.
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