by Neil Clarke
“That’s not on the newsfeed.” The accusatory voice came from the rear of the bus. From one of the off-worlders. Tahira shrugged. “I did not tell the media this. But you are safe.” Her smile was genuine this time. “The lion pride does not water where we will be. This is not their territory.”
She wasn’t sure if they were relieved or disappointed. She cut off their questions by launching into her usual lecture, pointing out the changing ecosystem—it had not reached full climax equilibrium yet—directing their links to the coy-dog family holed up in the shade, waiting the cool of evening. The puppies were playing a game of tug with a scrap of dirty hide and links bristled, zooming in to record. The larger animals were all chipped so the links would offer up the ID information for each animal, their stage of development toward the Pleistocene ideal as the engineers evolved them into their own ancestors.
Voyeurs, she thought as they pointed and murmured. An observable reality, but not personal. Not threatening.
She politely refused to say any more about the death, telling them only that the authorities would handle it. The tourists were distracted by the smaller horse herd. One of the young stallions had been challenging the herd sire over the past few weeks and he chose this day to take his challenge to a new level. Dust rose in tan clouds as the two horses circled and feinted, ears flat, striking snake-like for a bite, whirling to kick. This time, the youngster wasn’t backing down and the two stallions rose, chest to chest, teeth bared. “These horses are very much like the Equus verae, the horses that grazed this plane a million years ago. If you’ll put on your glasses, you’ll be able to identify the young male.” She paused while the tourists all fumbled for the glasses they’d been given at the start. They were slaved to hers. She IDed the young male by chip number and a green halo instantly surrounded him. “This young stallion was foaled four years ago in the spring. The engineers believe that he is a good likeness of the original Equus verae. All the stock began with Przewalksi’s Horse, the last truly wild horse species.” They were all watching now, as the stallions shouldered and circled, wheeling to kick, or rearing to feint and bite at each other’s faces. Tahira stifled a sigh. “The herd sire is nearly ten years old. That’s a long life for a herd sire.” The young challenger had been born of artificial insemination with the new, improved genes. If the old herd sire didn’t get ousted soon, she’d have to help a new challenger along. “This is not reality,” she murmured. “It is our version of reality.”
“Pardon?” One of the off-worlders had moved to the front of the bus for a better look, was pointing his link at the fight, recording.
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “I was just talking to myself.”
“It’s so . . . uncontrolled.” He had friendly dark eyes and a wide smile that made his too-fragile body seem less different. “Hard to imagine living in a world this . . . chaotic.”
“It’s not chaotic,” she said softly. “Only humans are chaotic.”
The horses saved her from the questions surfacing in his eyes. The young stallion whirled as the herd sire struck and his heels caught the herd sire full in the face. They heard the thud of hoof on bone, even at this distance, and the sire went down in a cloud of dust. He struggled instantly to his feet, but his jaw looked twisted and blood darkened the dun hide. A low murmur of horror washed through the bus.
“What now?” The white-haired woman’s voice rose over the babble. “What will happen now?”
“This was an accident. Fights like this rarely result in serious injury.” Tahira blocked the tourist glasses, but had her own zoom in on the injured stallion. No point in showing them the bloody details up close. The youngster had run him a few meters from the mares and now trotted back and forth, tossing his head, tail erect as the ousted sire stood with head drooping. She winced at the white gleam of either bone or teeth visible in the bloody mess of his face. Violence seemed to be gathering over the Preserve like a dark cloud. “His jaw is broken.” She didn’t need the text diagnosis scrolling across the visual field. “He won’t be able to eat. The lions will probably kill him, or even the wild dogs. This coy-dog is heavier than the old North American coyotes and they hunt in small packs. They occasionally kill large prey species, mostly when the animal is weak or crippled.”
“Why don’t you do something about it?” A woman spoke up, her voice shrill.
“You could take him in and heal him, right?”
“And what will the lions eat tonight?” Tahira faced the woman, watched horror and anger ripple across her features. “These are not our rules. They are much older than us,” she said gently. “That is what the Preserve is all about . . . returning to the old rules. Without the horse, a lion cub may die because of insufficient nutrition.” She waited for the horrified comments to ebb. You could hear the excitement beneath the horror. Now they had a prize in the video files they’d just uploaded to their personal space—something to show proudly to friends, so they could commiserate over that raw moment of blood, and pain, and imminent death. The woman who had spoken up wasn’t satisfied. She was talking about cruelty and emails to powerful people.
“Did you make this happen for us?” The off-worlder was looking at her, and his eyes were shocked and cold.
“No.” She met those eyes, saw her own reflection in them, tiny and perfect. “But I knew the old stallion would be forced out sooner or later. The horses decided to make it happen now. The kick was a freak accident. Horses are good at dodging.”
He didn’t believe her. You cannot conceive of no control, she thought. And wondered suddenly if her daughter had gone off-planet. The Council Security Forces were everywhere. She had never thought of that before, and it chilled her, she was not quite sure why. She would be much older than this man, now.
They moved on and the tour guide, a seasoned professional, texted her a request to show them something to change the now-soured mood. She had anticipated this and had already called up her inventory. “Turn left just past that clump of willow . . . yes, there.”
The bus took the dirt track easily, it’s off-road suspension barely sloshing the drinks that the attendant was handing out. “The engineers have had excellent success with the long-horned bison. They are very like the bison that grazed this plain during the Pleistocene. Three cows have calved this month and the latest was last night. She scanned for the IDs, found the three cows in close proximity 200 meters from the road. “They’re out in the grass, so we can watch them without disturbing them. If you’ll look through the left windows and follow the arrow directions on your glasses, they’ll direct you to the calves.” A green arrow winked on her glasses, pointing to the right and as she turned her head, it was replaced by one pointing straight up. She lifted her head, and there, in the distance, she spied the small black dots that were the grazing bison. The bus had come to a halt. “Have you all found the bison?” She waited while the slow ones fumbled their way to the bison herd. Zoom while they were panning and they’d get sick every time. “Okay, here we go.” The field blurred and suddenly seemed to be rushing toward her. The tiny specks enlarged, became a dozen shaggy brown beasts with their noses in the sun-burned grass, backs dotted with cowbirds. Small white herons stalked among them, snatching up beetles and the occasional rodent stirred up by the bison’s hooves. Their long horns gleamed in the sun as they tossed their heads at flies.
The newborn calf hugged his mother’s flank, his horns mere bumps. He suddenly butted beneath her flank, tail wriggling as he nursed. The collective sigh from the tourists made the guide breathe his own sigh of relief, she noted. Well, upset guests would hardly give him a fat tip. She let them watch the two older calves butt heads and the herd even obliged by grazing closer to the bus. By the time they moved on to the elephant watching spot for cocktails and their gourmet dinner, the mood was festive once more, the injured stallion forgotten.
Tomorrow, she would go check on him. Assure herself that the predators had found him. Injured as he was, the dog pack that patrolled that
territory would almost certainly take him, but perhaps not right away. She called up that sector, scanned the predator inventory. To her relief, the lions were headed in that direction. They should get to him quickly.
During dinner they lucked out and a scimitar cat—quite shy and a rare sighting—chose that night to come down to the river to drink. The tourists flocked to the windows, their links pointing as they videoed in night mode. The elephants showed on time and the new Mammoth type calf went so far as to walk nearly up to the bus, trunk lifted in curiosity, before his mother shooed him nervously away, and stomped a threat toward them, her ears erect, trunk curled back like a cobra.
The tour guide looked pleased, as if Tahira had orchestrated the whole show. Tahira sat back in her seat as they returned to the compound in the gathering darkness, answering questions, giving small lectures on the history of the Preserve, the geneticists’ work, the effect of the huge preserve areas on climate stability. They asked occasional questions about the injured stallion.
No one brought up the dead girl. Not one.
She climbed down from the bus into the cooling night beneath the white arch of the Milky Way and a sliver of new moon. They would go back to the comfort of the resort to have dessert and drinks and to compare video clips. The tour guide gave her a wide grin and a wave as the door closed, anticipating good tips, obviously.
Jen would have left for the day and she would have the place to herself.
You have a visitor, the door murmured as she reached the verandah. He had an official security pass to enter. His personal ID is blocked. “I know who it is.” She sighed, then straightened her shoulders. “Open.”
“What the hell is going on, Tahira?” Detective Malthers levered himself up from the sofa in the main room. “Do you know just how much trouble you’re going to cause me when my boss starts getting the feeds?”
“He has his link shut off tonight? I would have thought he’d have the news already.” She headed for the kitchen wall, thirsty. “And if I protest your use of a security pass to override my door lock, I hope you can produce the warrant.” She closed her eyes as he seized her arm. Halted. “Shawn . . . I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” He spun her around to face him, his face pale. “You withheld information from me? You lied to me about that girl’s death? And then you spill it to a bunch of tourists?” His nostrils were pinched. “You’d damn well better be sorry.”
Some of them had certainly blogged from the bus. She had counted on that. She met his eyes. “I did not lie to you.”
“Then why did you tell them . . . ” His eyes narrowed and he let go of her arm. “No way. No way you do that.”
“Do what?” She widened her eyes. “If I tell a story to tourists to enliven their trip and they exaggerate it in their personal blogs, this is not a crime. Your boss can deny whatever he wishes to deny and if the outcry is loud enough, my boss will probably fire me. Would you like some water?”
“What do you think you’re going to do?” His voice was harsh.
“Go to bed.” She filled a glass from the refrigerator tap, filled a second glass.
“I’m going to get a warrant for your arrest.” He ignored the proffered glass.
“On what grounds?” She raised an eyebrow. “I suspect your boss will not agree with you. It will be hard enough to deal with the media when they get hold of the tourists’ mistaken statements. It will be much worse if you have arrested the manager of the Preserve and then have to release her. Your boss is very conscious of his media image.”
“I’m staying here tonight.” He glared at her.
“Be my guest.” She shrugged. “I told you, I’m going to bed.”
“Good.” He stretched out on the sofa, his jaw set.
She turned her back on him and activated her holo-field. Checked the Preserve first. Minor Perimeter alerts only—a couple of licensed backcountry backpackers who had retreated when they triggered the broadcast security announcement, a small herd of pronghorn that moved off when the repulsion field activated, broadcasting an unpleasant sonic pulse that discouraged most wildlife and the occasional lost livestock. Nothing else. Red icons signaled stationary chips—indicating that a bearer hadn’t moved for twelve hours. That usually represented death or serious injury. She checked the IDs . . . all prey species except for one elephant from the northernmost herd. An old female, but not so old that she should be dying yet. The elephants and the larger predators had been implanted with biometric chips. Tahira checked it, found signs of physical distress, but no clear diagnosis. She transferred the ID to her link. She’d fly over in the morning and check on it, on her rounds to chip new births. See what had happened.
Her AI search of the Security video of the running girl had turned up a match. Eighty-nine percent. Tahira drew a deep breath, touched the green icon. A merchant site. Models? A naked woman lounged suggestively on a grizzly’s hide, caressing the dead, snarling face, tongue-tip peeking pink from lush, crimson lips. The secure interface requested a user ID and password. And a credit card. The entry fee made her purse her lips. She flagged the link, emailed it.
Malthers was peering at his link, his feet propped on the arm of the sofa. He looked up as she shut down her field. “What if the person who dropped her was a woman?” His eyes were hard.
She shrugged. “You are too tall for that sofa. Would you like me to inflate the guest bed?”
“No, thank you.” He went back to his link. “I don’t plan on sleeping.”
“While you are up, then, maybe you can see what’s for sale on the video sex markets. I just sent you a link that you might . . . find interesting. I don’t have the budget to access it.” She turned and went into her room. When she woke briefly in the middle of the night, the light in the main room was still on and he was sitting on the sofa, hunched over his link.
She slept without dreaming, after that, and when she woke, he was gone.
The door seal sighed as it released and Jen strode in, bringing a smell of hot noontime dust and heat, a hint of lion and sex. “Hey, how was your tour last night? Did they do a fancy spread?” He came up behind her, dropped his collecting bag onto the tiles with a small thump. “What’s with the reporters outside? The newsfeeds were full of the killing this morning. You were a witness? To the girl’s death?” His sandy brows arched over his pale eyes. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“I know I didn’t.” Tahira waved her hand through the field and the numbers and icons, the map of this girl’s history written in molecules, winked out. “Let’s not talk about it, okay?”
“You haven’t opened your secure email from the boss yet.”
“I know what it says.” She sighed.
“Tahira . . . ” His hands came to rest lightly on her shoulders. “I work with the lions, too. I can do this euthanasia for you. You don’t have to. Just give me the chip ID.”
His hands offered comfort not sex. She let her shoulders relax a bit beneath the warmth and acknowledged the small heat of desire between her legs. He was very pretty. He would try hard to please her in bed. Her shiver of anticipation made her . . . sad. She was old enough to be his grandmother. The flesh had its own morality. She sighed, and his hands slid from her shoulders as she rose. “I appreciate your offer.” She smiled for him. “But it is my duty. It is my failing that the girl was able to be here.”
“That’s not true.” He shook his head, frowning. “She bought hackware good enough to get through the Perimeter sensors. It’s happened before. Remember those rich kids that came in here with a rifle? Right after I started working here? The ones who thought they were going to kill an elephant? That’s not your responsibility—that’s the responsibility of the company that contracts security to the Preserve.”
“That’s not what happened.” Tahira blanked the icons with a wave of her hand. “This is not like those teenage poachers with their utterly inadequate rifles. I knew they were there.”
“So her hackware was better, that’s all.” Jen shrugg
ed. “Come on, Tahira. Nobody is blaming you . . . except you.”
“I doubt that is true.” She turned to meet his pale eyes. “Her mother? A lover? Who is mourning her? She was a girl, Jen, even if nobody claimed her as missing. The poor don’t bother. You know that no one will really look. You know where they have gone.” She turned away from the blue incomprehension of his eyes. “But they are blaming me. Besides, she was not rich enough to afford that level of hackware.”
He shook his head and heaved a sigh for her to hear. She ignored it as she ran through the surveillance program, suppressing a twinge of guilt because she hadn’t yet checked on the stationary elephant cow. Everything was fine, although the main horse herd was pushing into the grazing territory of the old mare’s small, splinter herd. This was a dry year and the grass was poor. She’d have to let them get pushed off their riverside pasture. That would weaken this year’s crop of still-nursing foals, and increase the kill rate by the northern pride. If another dry spring followed, she thought, the small herd would probably end up being absorbed back into the larger group. The old mare wouldn’t survive that merger.
The guide reports were routine. No problems, no accidents on any of the daily motorized tours currently winding through the Preserve and only a sprained ankle from one of the self-guided backpacking treks that were in progress. The hiker had been handled by a contracted first aid skimmer and planned to continue the trek in an augmented cast, having signed a health waiver. Tahira checked the location of the various lion prides and elephant groups to make sure that the guides would provide visual contact for the guests. Four were lion treks and one was an elephant trek. But all their guides were experienced and they could find the chip signatures with their own software. They were all on target to give the paying hikers the thrill of a live sighting. Routine day. She retinaed the report, packed a few necessary items into her field bag, then left Jen to his microscope and took the skimmer out into the Preserve.
Shawn had not gotten his warrant, but then she had known he would fail.