A Large Anthology of Science Fiction

by Jerry

  “Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” she answered. Then in a louder voice, “This is the wrong store, you idiot. Look!” She held up a sleeve. “These are kids’ clothes! They’re nice—” She stopped and smiled at a green-skinned female clerk. “—but they won’t fit mother. I’ll never find a gift for her. Take me somewhere else.”

  Niko’s mind raced, and he realized her game: pampered princess and clueless servant. The clerk wouldn’t suspect that they were hiding in the shop. “I’m sorry, miss, where shall we go next?”

  Sarah was already moving through the store, right past the clerk. “There’s a great place in the next block, and there’s a rear entrance here. And don’t touch anything. I don’t want to pay for anything you get soiled.”

  Niko hurriedly followed Sarah out the door. “That was brilliant, kid,” he said. But she was already moving. Where was she going in such a hurry?

  Then he remembered. The Concordia. The danger. Damn epinephrine hangover. Lucky she was thinking straight. He ran to keep up with her.

  Then as they neared the hotel district, Sarah started running as well, and he really started feeling the fatigue.

  He was trembling and gasping when they reached the side door of the Concordia. He almost dropped his key card twice before it let them in. He pulled the metal door shut behind them, fell against the wall, and spent seconds catching his breath—seconds they couldn’t spare, but the epinephrine left him no choice.

  Sarah pulled at his arm. “Come on! Can’t stop now.”

  Niko nodded, and he straightened, but he still shook all over. He led the girl to his windowless ground floor room and keyed them in.

  His spare kit was near the door. He swung the door shut and locked the deadbolt. For good measure he pressed his taser against the electronic lock, shorting it out. Gasping still, he pointed at the big chair. Sarah looked at it, realized what he meant, and slid it up against the door.

  Niko fell upon the bed. He had to treat his exhaustion, or he would collapse. Pawing through his kit, he found a quick-acting sedative. He jabbed himself with it and waited for his tremors to subside. As soon as he had control, he found ampules to treat his racing heart and his blood pressure.

  Once Niko’s pulse dropped into a normal range, he packed up his kit and got off the bed. Then he pointed at it. “This, too.” She nodded, and they moved the bed up against the chair.

  Niko turned to the heating panel in the rear wall. Normally these were sealed units, but he had unsealed his. With a quick twist, he removed the screws that held it in place. Then he gently set it down outside, avoiding any noise.

  Sarah squeezed into the narrow opening. As she climbed through, Niko heard distant shouting from the corridor. Again, the booming voice: “Dagma!” It was followed by a crash of breaking glass.

  Dagma? Niko started another search as he followed Sarah through to the service yard, a small paved area stacked with crates, tools, and artificial plants. He stuck the heating panel back into place, and then he and Sarah pushed a heavy crate in front of it.

  “All right, over here.” He brought smaller crates to the fence, and Sarah stacked them to form makeshift stairs. When the crates reached within a meter of the top, he said, “Hold it.”

  Just then, they heard crashing from his room, and Niko wondered how long the door would hold. “Hurry!” Sarah said softly.

  Niko climbed until he could examine the top of the fence. There were power lines and spy eyes. He reached out a sensor pulse to touch them, and found stun beams concealed within. He could shut the systems down locally, but not for long before port security would detect them.

  There was a louder crash from the room, followed by a thump. The blockades were falling, one by one.

  Niko motioned Sarah up next to him. “OK, kid,” he said, “when I say so, get your ass over that fence and don’t stop to climb down. You can take the fall. Find cover and wait for me to follow.” Another crash, and the heating panel shuddered. “But if I don’t join you in thirty seconds, make your way to Pad 34, Berth 9. Find the pilot. Tell him you’re Amy, and Mitch sent you. Got that?”

  The large crate shifted a couple centimeters. Sarah nodded, and Niko thought a command through his network. When the spy eyes went down, he said, “Go!”

  Sarah grabbed the fence top and vaulted over in one smooth motion. Niko liked her style, and he hoped she would get away.

  He was less hopeful for himself. The big crate moved a little more. Soon the man behind it would squeeze an arm through and get more leverage. Niko made one last attempt to slow the man down more: he kicked down a few of the crates in his stairs. Then he grabbed the fence. He wasn’t as spry as Sarah, but he hauled himself up to the top and looked down.

  And he saw Sarah struggling to escape the grip of Inspector Ravn.

  Niko paused, suspended between dangers. The crate made a scraping sound as it slid on the concrete, and one arm groped through the opening.

  The kid would delay the inspector; and what could they charge her with? He could escape the yard before the big man came through. He should just run.

  Niko swung his legs over the fence, dropped down into the spaceport, and landed in front of Inspector Ravn.

  He was unsteady, an aftereffect of the epinephrine, but he straightened and turned to Ravn. “Let her go, inspector. It’s me you want. I’m . . . your modder.”

  The inspector laughed. “Give her up? If you were really Sandoval, maybe the reward would be worth it, but we know better, right? You’re just a petty modder. Don’t you know who she is?”

  Just then his search engine pinged with the answer. “Dagma Bruun.”

  “Uh-huh,” Ravn said, and the kid deflated. “Only daughter of Povl Bruun, the boss of half this city. We’ve got her on breaking and entering into a spaceport. That’s an interstellar crime. Papa will do anything to protect her from that kind of trouble. It’s the first real leverage we’ve had over him.”

  Niko heard a long scrape of plastic on concrete. “And that’s Svend, I suppose.”

  Sarah—no, Dagma—nodded. For the first time Niko saw tears on her face. “Please . . . What he’ll do . . .”

  Niko looked at the kid, then at Ravn. “Stay calm, inspector. I’ll give you what you want, and more. Dagma . . .” He looked back at the girl. “Gently take out my payment and show it to her.”

  Dagma looked at Ravn, and the inspector let go of her wrist. The girl reached into her pocket and held out a large silver card.

  “What’s that?” Ravn asked.

  “A datacrypt. Let her go and it’s yours.”

  Ravn eyed him suspiciously. “I can take it now. And both of you.”

  “Uh-uh,” Niko stared straight into her eyes. “I can pulse it from here, wipe it clean, and you’ll lose everything.” It was a bluff. That model of datacrypt was double hardened. But he hoped the inspector didn’t know that.

  “Everything?” she asked. “Meaning . . .?”

  “Everything. Every note she has on the Bruun family operations, it’s all there. Dates and places, operators and victims. She knows it all.” Dagma nodded.

  “You’re an honorable woman, inspector,” Niko continued. “If you give your word, you’ll keep it. Once Dagma gives you that information, you have to let her escape. She won’t be safe here anymore. You can have the datacrypt—” His voice wavered. “—but let me get Dagma off this world.”

  Ravn glared at him, her lips drawn into a hard line. “I could let her go, but I have more questions for you.”

  For an instant, the inspector stared at Dagma. The woman was distracted, and Niko saw a chance to surprise her with the ’plaster. But that would engulf Dagma as well. If she had an allergic reaction, he could never get her to Zeke’s ship in time. He had no choice. It was all up to the inspector.

  Then Ravn nodded. “We have a deal. Give it to me.” Niko nodded as well, and Dagma handed over the datacrypt.

  “Now what?” Dagma asked, trembling.

  “Same as before,�
�� Niko answered, “Pad 34, Berth 9, Amy, Mitch. But inspector, can she get there without getting stopped? She has no credentials.”

  “These are your credentials,” the inspector said. She pulled off her helmet, once more revealing the curls beneath, and handed it to Dagma. “Put this on.” Then she took off her jacket and handed it over as well. “Act like you’re in charge, and those’ll get you past most of the port staff. If anyone stops you, give them code Z921, and tell them you’re on an errand for Inspector Ravn. They’ll contact me, and I’ll clear you.”

  “Z921,” Dagma repeated. “Pad 34. Where is it?”

  The inspector pointed. “Over on the south field.”

  Dagma turned away, then turned back. “Niko, I—Thank you.”

  Niko kept his face impassive. “Get moving, kid. Don’t miss that launch.” She started jogging away, and Niko shouted after her, “Tell Mitch if he doesn’t take good care of you, I’ll kick his ass.”

  Dagma looked back with a brief smile and then kept jogging. Only when her back was to him did he let himself smile in return.

  Niko and the inspector watched the dwindling figure picking her way toward the berths. Then a scraping sound reminded him that they weren’t out of trouble yet. “Inspector,” he said softly, “you’re about to have a visit from Svend Bruun.”

  “Oh, really?”

  Niko nodded and turned back to the fence. Ravn turned as well to see elegantly coiffed green hair rise over the fence. She reached for her gun, but Niko gently said, “He’ll run. Look away, pretend we didn’t see him.” She frowned, but she did as he said. “Did you know your security is vulnerable to a Q-modal cyber attack? Someone with the right software can shut them right down.”

  “No!” The inspector’s eyebrows raised. “Really?”

  Niko nodded when he heard heavy shoes thump against the fence. “Or turn them back on.” He thought the command, and vibrant pops of multiple stun beams sounded behind them. They turned to see Svend fall into the spaceport, unconscious. “What was it you said? Breaking and entering into a spaceport, an interstellar crime?”

  “It couldn’t happen to a nicer creep.”

  Ravn opened a comm to summon a pickup team. When she was done, Niko held his arms out, wrists exposed. “Well,” he said, “we had a deal. I’m an honorable man. Take me in.”

  Ravn laughed. “An honorable modder, imagine that. You’re sure you never watched ‘The Gene Wizard’ ?” Then she laughed again, shaking her head and ignoring his wrists. “You didn’t have to save her. You could’ve gotten away, gotten lost in the city. But that character in the show . . . ‘Never double-cross a client, especially not when they’re in danger.’ ”

  Ravn leaned in closer, and she whispered. “I lied. I loved that show when I was a kid. I wanted to be Sandoval, or one of his clients . . . to change my life, to be someone else and get off this rock.” She stepped back and spread her arms. “But this—” She waved her hands, gesturing at her uniform. “—this is as close as I’ll ever get. In the Traffic and Customs Bureau, once in a while I get out to the orbital platform. Twice I went on extraditions to other stars . . . but I didn’t have the guts to sneak away and just keep going.” She turned and looked at the fading speck that was Dagma. Niko thought he saw moisture welling up in her eyes.

  He lowered his wrists and cleared his throat. “You didn’t have to save her either. You could’ve stuck with your original plan, used her for leverage. It would’ve worked.”

  Ravn snorted. “Or I could’ve just taken the card. Pulse wipe? On a silver datacrypt? Not a chance.”

  “You knew I was bluffing? But then . . .”

  “For a moment, I was a kid again, wanting to believe that the Gene Wizard would pull off a miraculous save. And then your plan . . . It was the right thing to do. She would’ve been a prisoner, locked away until Povl married her off to unite with another family. No.”

  Niko stared at Dagma, dialing his lenses to maximum zoom. “She’ll still stick out like a . . . well, like a green thumb. Not many Pedersens in Manifold Space. If Povl wants her back, he’ll find her.”

  “No he won’t,” the inspector said. “Not after you mod her.”

  “What?”

  Ravn slapped his shoulder. “Get moving. We can’t hold that launch window all day.” Then she smiled. “Get to your ship, Charlemagne. Or Niko, or whatever your name is.”

  Niko smiled. “You’re a good person, inspector.”

  They shook hands, awkwardly, and she said, “I’d ask if I’ll ever see you again, but you’re a modder. I won’t recognize you if I do, will I?”

  Niko squeezed her hand. “No, you won’t. But I’ll recognize you. And I won’t forget you.”

  PARABLES OF INFINITY

  Robert Reed

  THERE WERE BETTER workers aboard the Great Ship. Virtuous entities with proven resumes reaching back across the aeons. But the timetable was inflexible, the circumstances brutal. Seventeen hours, six minutes, and two breaths. The job had to be completed within that impossible span, beginning now. Now. The client was among the weakest citizens of the galaxy, reasonably healthy one moment, and in the next, passing out of life. What wasn’t a home and wasn’t a shell had to be rebuilt from scratch. If the client perished, nobody was paid. But the respectable guilds would take too much time. The Avenue of Tools. That’s who the experienced contractor approached when trying to dodge the bureaucracies. Speaking through private channels, he could offer extraordinary pay for brutal, brief work. “But only for those who get here first, and I mean immediately.”

  Then, one final enticement.

  “And no background checks,” the contractor promised.

  The Avenue looked more like a clogged artery than any traditional street, and the ‘Tools’ portion of the name was a stubborn relic of intentionally clumsy translations. Every resident was a devised organism that lived against the walls, stacked high on its neighbors and waiting for work. Many were AIs, yes. But there were also organics drawn by various means, most sporting rugged exoskeletons and interchangeable limbs. According to galactic law and the ruling captains, every ‘tool’ was emancipated. All were competent, purpose-capable individuals. But like stone hammers and old plasma drills, they shared one sorry feature: each had been discarded by a previous owner.

  The Great Ship was a vast machine, and the Avenue wasn’t particularly close. But seven tools boarded slam-caps and made the journey. All were hired immediately, but finding more than enough hands, the contractor modified his earlier promise. Criminal histories were examined. One member of the team was subsequently released and arrested. The remaining six received wetware educations, and the new team plunged into the frantic work. Which has zero bearing on the story. With two breaths to spare, the project was finished and finished successfully. Competence never makes for an interesting tale. Tools appreciated that even more than humans did. But of course competence should always be welcomed with a glad heart, and that’s why the contractor was humming while he paid his crew.

  “Never seen an odder job,” he mentioned.

  The fresh funds were eagerly consumed by those ex-employees. Five offered agreeable, “Thank yous,” and then five of them rushed off.

  But the quiet tool preferred to linger.

  She was female by choice or design, or maybe only by chance. Her visible biography reached back ten million years, which wasn’t particularly remarkable. Well-designed AIs could yank out their own cognitive centers, replacing the weakest for better and then shifting their identities into fresh neurons. But today’s background check showed several names riding the entity, and most interesting, the oldest name was based on a language extinct for millions of years.

  Offering that old name, the contractor repeated his thanks.

  Then the tool said, “I’ve been swallowed by many assignments far more peculiar than this, sir.”

  Neither of them had pressing engagements. The contractor sat on the edge of a cultivation chamber, and knowing how to prompt machin
ery, he said, “Let me judge what’s peculiar.”

  The tool was large when she was naked, and she was dressed and gigantic now. The carapace was Mandelbrot-inspired, made from lovely diamond and a lovelier iron, and it was punctured in dozens of places. Where needed, arms and legs had been added. What wasn’t a mouth produced words, and what couldn’t be confused for eyes were staring at the human who demanded to be impressed. What did she know about this man? Quite a lot, she felt. Her research as well as a dedicated sieving of social noises proved that this compilation of meat and bioceramics was born on the Great Ship, and more importantly, he was barely a thousand years old. Which made him innocent and smug. Humans often felt they were blessed, and with reason: their young species owned the largest, most impressive starship ever constructed. And that’s why the tool picked the story sure to leave her audience astonished.

  “I’m older than you realize,” she began.

  “I see ten million years.”

  “I’m far older than that, sir.”

  The human had a perfectly reasonable face, ageless but holding the jittery energies common to recently born boys. Except there were occasions, like now, when the man seemed more complicated than a coy little sack of meat. In the eyes, mostly. When those wet white and blue eyes looked at her, she discovered a focused intensity that she had never witnessed in any other contractor.

  The tool’s longest limb reached toward his patient face and then reached farther. What served as toes gripped the cultivation chamber, first by a long helve and then a sealed extrusion valve. The just-completed project had demanded several thousand kilos of an exceptional grade of hyperfiber. Their former client was now sleeping safe inside the universe’s finest armor. Unless, of course, a weapons-grade plasma torch arrived, or a black hole decided to gut the new home.

  The tool said, “My first assignment,” and paused.

  The human offered silence. Nothing else.

  “Was to cultivate hyperfiber,” she continued. “That’s the only reason I was built. And if I have a genius, hyperfiber is it.”