“Where is she?”
Not even bothering to dissemble, Cabinet replied, “She’s safe for the moment. We will suggest to her that she contact you when she reemerges.”
“Reemerges from what? What are you doing to her?”
“That is not something we’re able to discuss.”
“Not good enough!” Fred said. “Patch me in, wherever she is. Let me speak to her this instant.”
“That’s not possible.”
“I’m her spouse, and I demand it.”
“She’s a competent adult acting according to her own free will.”
“Prove it!” Fred said. “Let me speak to her!”
“As I said, that’s not possible, but if you wait forty-eight hours, something might be arranged.”
Fred slashed the air with his hand to cut the connection.
A Strong Nibble
She felt like a tired old woman, though by any human standard she was still young. The regenerative syrup in which she floated did little to ease her discomfort or dispell the increasing fuzziness of her thoughts. Internal systems were breaking down, her digestive system for one, which was why she preferred to absorb her nutrition through her skin. She rested in her always room overlooking the Bay. She knew without asking that her replacement had been started at the same time as the batch of clones for service aboard the Oships. Its cells would be cured by now, and soon the neuronal imprinting would commence. And not long after that, E-P would lift her from the tank and trode her. The prospect of dying again did not frighten her. On the contrary, she looked forward to it. While it was true that the actual electrocution was unpleasant, it was brief, and in its wake there followed a period of blissful blankness, like a good night’s sleep. And when she awoke, she would be fresh and new again.
But it was not yet to be. E-P spoke softly in her mind, Sorry to disturb you.
She knew at once what it was; she had been aware for days of the mentar’s consternation. Its models of the human mind had never been so out of sync with apparent reality. At first E-P speculated that the Alblaitor package contained a means for an attack against Jaspersen; it was what Zoranna’s sidebob had suggested. But when Jaspersen began quietly to secure a line of credit, E-P was at a loss to explain it. Meanwhile, their own offer for Applied People went ignored.
The always room faded, and Andrea’s POV returned to her tank in the basement of the house. Slings slipped under her arms and gently lifted her. “Another skin mission?” she said.
The Homerun Run
TECA relented to russ complaints about the excessive number of double shifts. As a workaround until the force level returned to normal, foot patrols were changed to teams of one man and his own proxy. Daoud finally got his wish, and in parting he told Fred he hoped he got what he deserved. Fred entertained the same hope.
The media reported that two more evangelines had succumbed to the “ ’Leen Disease” in the last forty-eight hours, and more than half of the germline had fallen into a comatose state. Mando’s ride home, the ISV Fentan, arrived at Trailing Earth, and though it would lie in port for a week before returning to Earth, passengers were permitted to move on board. On the evening before Mando did so, he invited Fred for a good-bye drink, and they met again in the Boomer Rumor.
For a man about to make the homerun run, Mando didn’t seem particularly celebratory. On the contrary, he was lower than Fred had ever seen him.
“She says not to waste my time. She says she will not wait for me. I tried to reason with her. I said that she should do the biostasis until I get there, but she says that would only, you know, ‘postpone the problem of existence.’ I say this is good; it takes time to solve the problem of existence. Let me help, but she says no.”
Mando suddenly remembered himself and said, “I am sorry, Fred. How are you? How is Mary?”
Fred shook his head, and Mando blanched with fright. “She is in a coma?”
“No, not yet,” Fred said reassuringly, but she might be dead for all he knew. He told Mando about the inactive FUS and about his conversation with the Starke mentar.
Mando said, “What does Lyra say?”
“Who’s Lyra?”
“You don’t know? She’s the Sisterhood’s mentar.” Hesitantly, he added, “Starke gave it to them, to all ’leens.” Again the Starkes. “You must go down there and take care of Mary,” Mando went on. “It’s the only way. Did you buy the ticket yet?”
“No,” Fred said. “No one will sell me one. Not even when I hinted” — he lowered his voice — “that I was willing to pay a premium for one.”
Mando took a generous squeeze of whatever was in his bulb. “I am so sorry to hear that, Fred.”
They were interrupted by three men from another cage, three fellow russes in town togs who had been shooting Fred murderous glances since he arrived. Now they hid their identities with shades and gloves, and they were brave with drink.
“You, Stain, you foul my air,” said one of them leaning into the cage. “You shit on the good name of our Brotherhood. You don’t belong among decent people.”
“Easy, brother,” Mando said. “We don’t want no trouble.”
The intruder turned to Mando with a look of revulsion. “Whose side are you on, Mendez? You can stand with him, or you can stand with us, but you can’t have it both ways.”
“I am on the side of tolerance and understanding,” Mando said. “You know my name. Tell me yours.”
“Never mind who we are. We are true brothers, and unless you want what he’s getting, you better heave yourself out of here.”
Fred said, “I know who he is.” He hadn’t brought his spex or visor, but he did have his Spectre. He opened a frame on the cage wall and the man’s mug appeared, bigger than life, along with his personal data. “Listen, Mike,” Fred said, reading the name off the frame, “there’s no need to report this to TECA or Marcus. If you just back off, I can forget all about it. But I won’t forget threats against my friends. Got that, Mike?” The other two russes were likewise unmasked. None of them seemed to have any infractions in their files; they were good men acting out in the heat of the moment. “It’s the booze talking, brothers. I’m not worth ruining your careers over.”
“You’re not my brother,” the first man said, but it was clear the fight had gone out of him, and he and his friends left the establishment.
“I’m sorry,” Mando said when they were alone.
“You didn’t do anything.”
“And neither did you.”
Mando’s simple faith in him was a stab in the heart. Fred wondered what Mando would say if he knew what kind of monster he really was. What kind of monsters they all had lurking in their genes.
Mando brightened up a little. “I have an idea. No one will sell Mr. Clone Fatigue a ticket, but they’ll sell to me. I will buy another ticket and sell it to you.”
“You don’t think people will figure out it’s for me?”
“Doesn’t matter. Our brothers want you off the station; they just don’t want to be the one to sell you a ticket. I will find you a homerun run, my friend. I promise.”
BACK AT HIS own rez, Fred placed a call to Lyra, and seventeen minutes later, her mini-mirror appeared in his stateroom. “You are Mary’s spouse,” she said. “Mary was the first human I befriended, and I’m glad to finally meet you.”
Friend or not, the mentar was no more forthcoming as to Mary’s whereabouts than Cabinet had been. Fred wasn’t surprised. She was a Starke creature after all.
THE FOLLOWING DAY there was a message telling Fred that Charlie D. wanted to see him, and as soon as he got off-duty, he returned to the Elbow Room. The retrokids weren’t there, and the waitress took him directly to the stockroom where Veronica’s proxy was waiting. “Planning a vacation, are we?” she said by way of greeting. If her information was that good, he didn’t feel any need to answer. “I know all about the ’Leen Disease,” she went on, “and I feel terrible about your wife and her germline, but your mission
here is not complete, and you cannot leave until it is.”
“Mary needs me, and there’s nothing you can say or do to keep me here.”
The proxy shook her head. “Don’t bet the farm on that, Commander. Seems to me that’s how you got yourself up here in the first place — rushing off in a panic to rescue your wife. Why don’t you let the authorities help her out this time? The way I hear it, every lab in the UD is working on the problem. It’s as much their worry as yours: if the ’leens implode, there goes the whole clone-based economy. It’s just as bad as your clone fatigue. There’s nothing you could do to help anyway and by the time you reach Earth, the whole thing will be settled one way or the other.”
“I can’t just sit on my hands and do nothing!”
“That’s exactly what you will do, soldier. You can’t leave the battlefield in the middle of a firefight because they need you at home. You have to suck it up and complete your mission.”
“I don’t even know what my mission is. Bribe the donalds with drugs? Anybody can do that.”
“Don’t sell yourself short, Commander. Since the last time we met in this room, the entire operation is running as smooth as we could hope for, and no other person alive could replace you. So I’m afraid, though it’s hard on you with all this going on, you’ll just have to stick it out. Abandoning your post now will only guarantee you never see Mary again, if you know what I mean.”
Centennial
Tia Jaspersen carried a tray of refreshments into the Volcano Room. Saul was half reclining on the overstuffed couch with — of all things — a squid cap on his head. Their guest, Andrea Tiekel, was setting up some equipment on the little tea table. Saul saw his wife’s expression and said, “It’s all right, dear. It’s for the Smithsonian.”
Tia looked around for somewhere else to set the tray. “But you’ve always said —”
“It’s all right, dear. It’s my centennial.”
Centennial or not, Saul had always been adamantly opposed to letting anyone fool around with his brain. This Tiekel woman had made no mention of wanting to do so when she contacted them; otherwise, Saul would have never let her come. She had said she wanted to discuss urgent GEP business and that was the only reason he had agreed.
“That’s right,” Andrea said. “Saul is the only former vice president that the Smithsonian doesn’t have in its collection. They asked me, in light of the hundredth anniversary of his term of office, to see if I couldn’t persuade him to cast a sim.”
Tia offered their guest a cup of coffee. “You must be very persuasive, Myr Tiekel.”
“I suppose I am,” Andrea said, accepting the cup. “But please, call me Andrea.” She squeezed Tia’s hand and added, “Why don’t you sit for a sim as well.”
“Me? No, I . . .”
“Why not? The Smithsonian collects spouses too.”
“I wasn’t exactly his spouse back then,” Tia said. But Andrea touched her hand again, and she said, “But, if you think so, I mean, why not?”
“Splendid!” Andrea put her cup down and led Tia to the opposite end of Saul’s couch. Like Saul, Tia had no implants, so Andrea opened a new squid for her and helped her put it on. Then she sat between them, casually touching their bare arms as the preffing generator on the table began to whir. She didn’t watch the baseline shapes herself but instead watched her mechanical scouts with her inner sight. She had released a handful of the cockroach-sized explorers on the carpet while Tia was out of the room, and they had spread throughout the house.
The conventional wisdom about Saul Jaspersen seemed to be true: he so distrusted machine intelligence that there was no mentar, midem, or even subem handling his affairs. The only AI she encountered was an ancient and totally unsecured house puter. And all that it seemed to contain were recipes, photos, house hold budgets, and other homey files.
A scout found the courier pouch in a wastebasket in Saul’s study. Another scout found the greeting card from Alblaitor under a stack of papers on his desk. While two scouts pulled it out and propped it open, a third scanned it for her to read. The text supported her fears.
Meanwhile, the preffing session began, and scenarios alternately designed for Saul or Tia were projected above the table. The two glassy-eyed subjects watched with stuporous indifference.
E-P said, At the very least we’ll get some good sidebobs out of this.
The scouts found and scanned dozens of datapins they found in the house, but none of them remotely resembled the one described in the card. After a half hour had passed with no success, Andrea began to worry that Saul had cached it off-site somewhere. She repeatedly dosed him and Tia with the MDMOEP under her fingernails, but the drug’s effect was diminishing. Then she had the inspiration to check Saul’s person and, sure enough, she found the pin in his breast pocket. That, alone, was a good sign of its authenticity.
Got it, she said and inserted it into her sidekick.
We’re safe-cloning it now, E-P said a moment later. It appears to be encrypted, probably to his eyes only. But that won’t impede us once we build his sim.
When E-P finished copying the datapin, Andrea replaced it in Saul’s pocket and recalled her scouts to her satchel. The preffing session was wrapping up. Andrea put her head back and closed her eyes. She wished she could just leave now and return to her tank, but she was obliged to play out the charade. She had to praise Saul and Tia for their cooperation, to share the dinner roast with them that was already in the oven. Its charnel-house stench made her stomach churn. For the remaining few minutes of solitude that she had, she stood at her always room window and watched clouds drift across the Bay. At home, the sun was only a little farther along its daily path than here in Alaska, but much higher in the sky. There was some sort of sailing regatta in progress around Alcatraz Island. Big colorful sails, like the wedges of pie charts.
Meanwhile, E-P built a quarantine space into which it loaded a newly assembled Jaspersen sim and sidebob, a copy of the datapin, and an Andrea sim. It was a completely isolated little universe where the clock ran hundreds of times faster than normal. There was no link between it and real reality, no chance of any malware leakage in case the datapin was booby-trapped. The plan was to let the quarantine world run for six months of local time. That should give Andrea’s sim the opportunity to use the Jaspersen sim or sidebob to open and explore the datapin and for any evil surprise to make itself known. If there was any funny business at all, the quarantine space would automatically implode, signaling those in the real world to its danger.
The Unlucky Colonist
In the space yards, construction accidents were rare, but those that did occur tended to be spectacular. A couple of days following Fred’s meeting with Veronica’s proxy, a railgun that was shooting silver ingots from a decommissioned Oship to one of the Lucky Five malfed, spraying a stream of twenty-five-kilogram metal bricks across a wide arc of space. Most had trajectories that sent them harmlessly away from the station, but several dozen were heading for its most densely built regions. Waste scuppers successfully intercepted all but a handful of these. One ingot slammed into one of the habitation drums of the Chernobyl. It pierced the hull plating but was stopped dead by the outer saltwater jacket that shielded the drums from galactic cosmic rays and asteroid strikes. The escaping water froze and formed an ice plug, just as it was designed to do.
Another silver brick struck the engine of a shuttle, causing a crippling explosion that sent the craft into the path of a construction tender, which in turn took out several more ships in a chain reaction that halted all traffic in the Aria yards for several hours.
A third penetrated Fred’s docking spar several space gates away from his own. He left his proxy in charge and hurried to the accident scene to lend a hand. When he arrived, the russ security and donald dockworkers were engaged in patching two breaches in the spar hull. The ingot had passed through the spar, but the holes didn’t line up. The ingot had been deflected by something inside the spar, and Fred searched the sp
ace gate to determine what it was. It turned out to be the belt mechanism that fed the gate’s railgun. Fred swam over just as a gang of donalds was removing a cryocapsule that had been crushed inside the mechanism. The capsule was split along its seams, and the damage was so extensive that there was no doubt the colonist inside was irretrievable.
Something odd caught Fred’s eye — a spot of blood on the belt and more along the capsule seam. He might have missed it, since blood at an accident scene was unremarkable, but the biostatic process that these capsules employed required dehydrating the blood. If he saw blood, it should be in a powder form, not liquid.
When Fred looked up, all the donalds in his vicinity were straining themselves to control their laughter. This was such an odd response to a deadly emergency that he looked around to see what they were laughing at. A lone donald was performing a burlesque of a ballet. At first Fred was confounded by this bizarre behavior, but then he recalled the retroboy’s erotic dance in the method nightclub and his Original Flaw. And, in fact, the donald seemed to be sodomizing himself with his tail as he danced, leaving no doubt as to his meaning. When the clown realized that Fred was watching him, he froze in midair. All of the donalds surrounding him seemed to hold their breath. How did they know about the method? Fred turned back to the crushed cryocapsule. Top Ape, himself, was there with fear in his eyes.
In a state of shock, Fred managed to set aside the incident for the moment, and he glanced deliberately at the ceiling. Top Ape understood and leaped into action. Dock work at the space gate had been suspended during the emergency; now Top Ape got it started again. He formed unnecessarily complicated bucket lines of cargo crates and shells that effectively shielded Fred from all of the fixed security cams. Meanwhile, Fred turned off his TECA sidekick. He pulled a tiny scout from a pouch on his belt and linked it to his Spectre. He placed the scout inside the split seam of the capsule and sent it to explore the interior. What it should have found was biostasis maintenance equipment: pumps, electronics, a liquid nitrogen reservoir. But what it did find was an assault rifle, ammunition, field supplies, a portable medkit.
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