Scardown

by Elizabeth Bear

  “Eat quick,” Dad said.

  Leah shook her head, her hair leaving tracks like a sidewinder's across her shoulders as she trotted into the kitchen. She caught her hip on the edge of the doorway and rolled her eyes. “I'll grab a breakfast bar.”

  The train ride was crowded but uneventful. If it hadn't been so icy, the distance was short enough to walk, but with frozen rain still spitting and half the sidewalks like glass, they decided it was a good day to take advantage of Toronto's white-tiled subterranean architecture. Leah's math class was only six people: herself, Patty, and the four boys: Bryan, Winston something—a dirty blond she thought she liked, in a geeky sort of way—and the two Davids, whom she could never keep sorted out.

  Leah gave Patty a quick hug as they walked into the classroom, but Patty flinched away. “Did you go to see Carver yesterday?”

  “There's no point,” Patty answered, and Leah understood that the topic was closed. She still picked the desk beside the one Patty chose, and worked steadily until Mr. Powell left the room. Kept working, until Patty hunched down so that her hair concealed her interface plate and tapped quick messages on her desktop.

  Leah, I found out something from Papa Fred.

  ?

  The ships are colony ships. They're taking people someplace else.

  Now? We're not ready to fly them now.

  No, not now, silly. Whenever they're done.

  Are they coming back?

  They must be. Patty looked up quickly as a shadow crossed the door, but nobody entered. I mean, you wouldn't spend that much money on something and use it just once, would you?

  I—Leah's quick fingers were interrupted by Mr. Powell's return. With only six students in the room, she knew she'd get caught, so she wiped the chat with a pass of her hand and quickly foregrounded her math application again.

  Her heart wasn't in it, and the timer beeped at her tinnily while she was still staring through the sixth problem of ten. I need to tell Elspeth, she thought, ignoring Mr. Powell's glare and restarting the problem set, pushing her thoughts aside. And Aunt Jenny, too.

  9:30 AM

  Tuesday 5 December, 2062

  Chestnut Hill Road

  South Glastonbury, Connecticut

  Hartford's civilian commissioner of police let her hands rest on her thighs, fighting the urge to collapse against her squeaky leather sofa cushions. Images and data slid slowly—midair—around her living room. She knew if she leaned back, she would be out like a light. “Hawaii,” she said, trying the word. “San Diego.” Hawaii would probably be better, as long as she stayed away from Honolulu. Although protected by the massive Army Corps engineered series of locks across the harbor, San Diego's water rationing was severe enough to lower its status as a vacation destination. “Palm trees,” she said.

  The clatter of nails on terra-cotta broke her concentration. Her dog, Moebius, wandered in from the kitchen, his dreadlocked white coat swaying with every step and brushing the ankle-deep rug. Kuai's spare time went into planning tropical vacations she never got around to taking, and the money she didn't spend on them went into her house, even if she didn't have anyone but a hundred-pound Hungarian sheepdog to share it with. A real dog, an old-fashioned dog. Not a puppymorph with oversized ears and feet and no sense of responsibility.

  No matter how grim the day, the random pattern of ink-spot freckles on Moebius's pale-pink skin where it showed between the dreadlocks still had the power to make her smile. And, lacking sheep to guard, the komondor would be more than happy to use the biggest set of teeth she had ever seen on anybody who might threaten Kuai. And any houseguests who moved too quickly for his taste. Not that she had many houseguests.

  She patted the sofa and Moebius jumped up beside her and laid his head on her knee with a sigh, pleased to be invited onto the furniture. Frowning, Kuai contemplated the information slowly patterning and repatterning before her. She ran her fingers through her hair and judged it clean enough for a telephone call and the hour finally late enough to be decent.

  She waited while the call rang through, introduced herself to a receptionist who seemed to recognize her from news broadcasts, was puzzled by the young man's bright, “Oh, he's expecting you!” and waited a few more moments while Dr. Simon Mobarak was summoned to the phone.

  “Dr. Hua?” Mobarak was a solid-looking Middle Eastern man, prematurely middle-aged, looking not quite as tired as she felt. “I had given up hope that you would call back.”

  “Call back?” Her eyes were so tired that her involuntary blink hurt, and Kuai made the executive decision that she wasn't going in to work today after all.

  “I left you a message several days ago, but you must not have gotten it. You were in an autopsy when I called.”

  Sally. I might as well have kept my overprotective mother and saved the price of a paycheck. Kuai scratched Moebius behind the ear; he moaned softly and lifted his head into the viewfinder. Dr. Mobarak laughed as he saw the dog.

  Kuai tilted her head in wry acknowledgment and blew her bangs out of her eyes. “I was calling you about the Park River homicides. I understand you used to have a patient named Genevieve Casey—”

  “Strange,” he interrupted. “I can't share patient information without a subpoena, of course. But I had called you about the same thing. I've been passed some very interesting data, and I couldn't think who else to send it to.”

  “Really?”

  “Oh.” And she saw the crease of concern between his eyes, and what she thought was bitten-back anger. “Oh, yes.”

  0930 Hours

  Tuesday 5 December, 2062

  HMCSS Montreal

  Earth orbit

  Trevor shifted uncomfortably, weight on the balls of his feet, but didn't speak. Captain Wainwright was staring down at the back of her hands, pale against the blue blotter on her gray issue desk, the expression on her face as sour as if she were trying to figure out how to floss her teeth on the tendons. She lifted one of the hands and brushed it through her dark, orderly hair. She was a small woman, trim and forceful in air force blue, affecting a manner the crew found comforting. “Lieutenant,” she said through thinned lips, “I understand that there are medical issues involved. But can you at least attempt to build a rapport with the rest of my crew?”

  Koske bit his tongue on a retort that sounded defensive even to him. “Ma'am. I can try.” He tried to keep his eyes straight ahead, but she caught his gaze and wouldn't drop it. Her direct gaze pinned him until he found his voice again. “Do you have a suggestion, ma'am?”

  The expression around her eyes remained unchanged, but color returned to her mouth. “Why don't you join the zero-G handball team? I imagine you'd excel and who knows—you might develop a taste for it. While I applaud your dedication to duty, I think it would be healthy for you to find outlets other than simulator training and punching the heavy bag.”

  “Ma'am.” It could have been worse. At least she wasn't going to force him to do anything egregiously stupid, like morale. “I think I can manage that.”

  “Good,” she said, and pushed her chair aside on its swivel arm as she stood. “You're dismissed, Koske. And don't worry”—interrupting him as he turned for the hatchway—“you will get to fly this bucket, too.”

  The parting shot rattled him. He leaned against the corridor wall on the other side of the hatch, feeling cool steel hard against his scalp as he pressed the back of his head to the bulkhead. Am I that transparent? And then he smiled, sardonically, in spite of himself. “Or are you just feeling the same way anybody in your shoes would feel?”

  Trevor Koske nodded unconsciously. A creeping headache colored the sides of his face and the back of his eyes. Cold metal felt good, but the tension was still creeping down his neck, and a familiar prickle on his skin suggested someone was watching him. He straightened and lifted his shoulders, glancing right and left to see if anyone had witnessed his moment of exhaustion.

  The corridor was empty.

  He went to sign the fre
e-fall handball team tryout roster, and then he went to find Ramirez. Koske was moving rapidly along a gray-matted corridor when he stopped and snorted softly, remembering. The Montreal's AI was active now. He lifted his head and spoke clearly to the air. “Montreal?”

  “Lieutenant. How may I be of service?”

  “The location of Lt. Christopher Ramirez, please.”

  “Aft officers' lounge, Lieutenant.” The voice's lack of inflection was soothing. Koske understood that the AI's programming constrained it, placed it under the control of the ship's pilots and the captain. He hoped that was true. There was something a little bit creepy about walking around inside a ship with a mind of its own.

  Koske nodded and turned aft. Ramirez was alone in the smaller and colder of the two lounges—the one without a view—staring at the wall. It did have a coffee tap, however, and the walls and floor were upholstered in a muted beige and blue pattern that matched the couches. Koske ducked through the hatchway quickly and dogged it behind him, the alloy wheel smooth in his hands. He liked metal and smooth cloth, cool ceramic. Things that minimized tactile feedback.

  “Chris?”

  Ramirez blinked as if clearing a contact and touched his ear clip. “Trev. Come on in.”

  “Watching a movie?” Make an effort, he told himself. Try to remember how to make small talk, to connect with other men. It was better than it had been; the surgery had changed a lot. Not enough, but a lot.

  “My wife sent up some holo chips. I miss my favorite shows. You look bugged.”

  “I am bugged. Wainwright is on me to improve my social skills.” Koske focused on the coffee tap, crossed the room to it, and pulled a cup out of the dispenser without looking up. He dialed a mocha and waited while the soy milk steamed and the cup filled. It tasted like soy milk, and he made a face. “She says they suck.”

  “Trev,” Ramirez said. “Your social skills do suck.”

  He stuffed his hip into his pocket and swung his feet off the pearl-blue ottoman, leaning forward between his knees. Koske caught it out of peripheral vision, but studied a bland pastel print matted and sealed in hard poly flush with the wall instead. “I'm good at my job.”

  “You wouldn't be here if you weren't. Flying's your life, isn't it.”

  Not a question, but Koske nodded anyway. He fussed with his recyclable cup. “It's not enough to just be good, is it?”

  “Eh.” Ramirez reached over the low overstuffed back of the sofa and retrieved a drink Koske hadn't noticed from an elongated table behind it. He cupped it between both hands, resting in his lap, and looked up at a ceiling that boasted the same blue-silver patterned weave. It didn't matter which way was up in zero G. “You ever think about how much better you have to be at something now than you did two hundred years ago?”

  “What do you mean?” Koske turned around and leaned his butt against the wall. The mocha was okay as long as he let himself drink it on automatic, without trying to taste it.

  “Say in nineteen hundred, or whatever, before there was television and radio.”

  “There was radio in nineteen hundred,” Koske corrected, but he wasn't sure after he said it.

  “Whatever. The point is, you're a singer in the year whatever, and you're a pretty good singer, and you make a pretty good living at local bars or singing on street corners or at fairs or whatever. And suddenly somebody invents the radio, and you don't have to be the best singer in the town anymore. Now you have to be the best singer in the country. And then you have television, and you have to be the best singer in the world. And you have to be pretty, too, and look good on camera.”

  Koske realized he'd finished his mocha and folded the cup into the recycler. “Okay.”

  “So a lot of people are frustrated, and go to work making widgets or whatever, because everybody in the world has access to the, like, ten best singers anywhere.”

  “Huh. Doesn't that kind of compare to nations, too? They keep getting bigger . . .”

  “I was going there, actually.” Ramirez licked his hand and smoothed it across his hair to tame a platinum cowlick. “Sure. You go from tribes and principalities to city-states with empires, from empires to nation-states with bigger empires, then to supranations like PanMalaysia, the Commonwealth, PanChina, the EU, the United States. I'd say both things are a function of people just being able to talk to each other better.”

  “The radio.”

  “And the Nets, going back to the mid-twentieth century. If there's one thing people are good at, other than killing each other, it's talking. Hell, we even talk to dogs and dolphins. Or try.”

  Koske suddenly choked, harsh amusement tightening his throat. “You're telling me Wainwright is right, and if I don't talk to people I'm subhuman.”

  The blond man shrugged, tossed back his beverage, and stood, crumpling the disposable cup in one rawboned fist. “I'm not telling you anything. Except you have to be the best at your job in the world, or you're not going to get what you want. But I keep thinking there's got to be a way for people to—well, there's some sense in the New Chinese system.”

  Koske flinched away as Ramirez brushed past him to drop the cup into the recycler. “PanChina is pretty repressive.”

  Ramirez chuckled. “Have you looked at the privileges granted our government under the Military Powers Act? The prime minister can essentially force anybody she wants into military service. Jail anybody—for no reason at all. Based on their ethnicity. And we're so in the pocket of the PanMalaysian corporations it's not funny. Canada might as well just admit that it's Southeast Asia's army and get on with life in a mercenary fashion. And let's not even get into some of the things that went on in the U.K.—back when it could still claim to have a government. And the Christian Fascists in the United States—”

  “You don't think a democratic government is superior to a totalitarian one? I fought in that war, Chris. Maybe you're too young to remember, but we had good reasons for going over there. For South Africa, too.”

  “Sure. That's not the point. What I'm saying is in the old system, people who had a gift were nurtured. Even if they weren't the best in the world. And PanChina has protocols that take the place of that sort of nurturing—”

  “—creche environments for kids, parental visits on weekends.”

  “There's an old political philosophy . . . do you know any history, Trev?”

  Trevor snorted and kicked his heel against the wall. “Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs.”

  “Have you ever heard the expression from each according to his ability, to each according to his need?”

  “Can't say I have. Why?”

  Ramirez shrugged and moved to the dispenser to refresh his drink. “It's the boiled-down version of a discredited political philosophy. One that was the root of the PanChinese system, several revolutions ago. They also believe in individual service to the state, and state service to the individual. It doesn't seem like a bad ideology to me. I think more people can excel, given the kind of support you see on a village level rather than worldwide competition. And I think people should be given a chance to just be good at something, and live their lives. Instead we've got a world full of unhappy people in dead-end jobs medicating themselves to stay sane.”

  Wouldn't it be nice not to have to be the best to be recognized?

  Hell no, Koske thought. I want to be the best. On my own merit. And if that means outflying and outthinking Genevieve Casey, well. She's got to lose one of these days.

  “You're depressing me, Chris.”

  “Sorry about that.” Ramirez finished his coffee in a gulp. “Come on. Let's run some laps.”

  1000 Hours

  Tuesday 5 December, 2062

  Allen-Shipman Research Facility

  St. George Street

  Toronto, Ontario

  When I do get to work Gabe's lying in wait, looking sexy in a white shirt, open at the collar, and tan loafers. Damn his eyes. Leaning against the wall beside my office door, engrossed in something on his hi
p.

  “I'm sorry.” I key the door open and press my thumb to the lock plate. “It won't happen again.”

  He doesn't look up. “Accepted.” And from the level tone of his voice I know he's going to hold me to it. “What the hell happened last night? I couldn't decide if I was more worried or if Elspeth was.”

  “I— Gabe, I need a cup of coffee. Want to go for a walk?” I'm still trying to decide what to tell Valens. Whether I should tell Valens anything.

  Gabe taps his hip off, stuffs it into a pocket, raises his gaze to mine. “Anytime.”

  I fall into step beside him, turning back the way I came, comforted by his presence. We pass through the external doors into the parking lot, and a big dark-haired kid—maybe twenty-one, a little old for the program—steps around us, coming in. I do get a good look at his ragged jeans and laser decal high-tops, luminescent tattoo on his cheekbone, and think he's probably a messenger. Except he badges past security like he belongs there.

  I hold the door for him; he grunts an indelicate acknowledgment that isn't quite a thank-you. His name's painted across the back of his leather jacket over a lovingly detailed oriental phoenix in crimson and gold, going toe to toe with an indigo dragon. “You're welcome, Farley,” I say, and grin when he turns around, pale eyes startled under heavy brows. “That jacket your work?”

  “Yeah.” Defensive.

  “Nice,” I say, and let the door shut over his face before I hustle to catch up with Gabe.

  “You're such a bitch sometimes, Jen,” he says, and drapes an arm over my shoulder.

  “I was nice. Why do kids like that always seem to wear name tags?” I know the answer, though: so the world will have to concede that they're people and not just stereotypes.

  Gabe ignores me and sticks his nose in my hair. “How come you smell like chocolate?”

  “Funny story about that. A girl threw her cocoa in my face this morning.”

  “Student? Patty?”

  “No, in the hotel lobby. And she called me by name.”