And then she signed off.
She couldn’t do anything she had just threatened Jarvis with. The food thing hadn’t risen to the level where she could charge Faulke, and that was if she could prove that he had put the bodies into the crates himself. He had an android guard, which the Chief of Police had had to approve—those things weren’t supposed to operate inside the city—and that guard had probably done all the dirty work. They would just claim malfunction, and Faulke would be off the hook.
Jarvis fritzed back in, fainter now. The image had one meter sideways, which meant he was superimposed over one of her office chairs. The chair cut through him at his knees and waist. Obviously, he had no idea where his image had appeared, and she wasn’t about to tell him or move the image.
“Okay, okay,” Jarvis said. “I’ve managed to make this link as secure as I possibly can, given my location. Guarantee that your side is secure.”
Gumiela shrugged. “I’m alone in my office, in the Armstrong Police Department. Good enough for you?”
She didn’t tell him that she was recording this whole thing. She was tired of being used by this asshole.
“I guess it’ll have to be. Yes, Faulke is running the clones that we have embedded with major criminal organizations on the Moon.”
“If the clones malfunction—” She chose that word carefully “—what’s he supposed to do?”
“Depends on how specific the clone is to the job, and how important it is to the operation,” he said. “Generally, Faulke’s supposed to ship the clone back. That’s why Armstrong PD approved android guards for his office.”
“There aren’t guards,” she said. “There’s only one.”
Jarvis’s image came in a bit stronger. “What?”
“Just one,” she said, “and that’s not all. I don’t think your friend Faulke has sent any clones back.”
“I can check,” Jarvis said.
“I don’t care what you do for your records. According to ours—” and there she was lying again—“he’s been killing the clones that don’t work out and putting them in composting crates. Those crates go to the Growing Pits, which grow fresh food for the city.”
“He what?” Jarvis asked.
“And to make matters worse, he’s using a hardening poison to kill them, a poison our coroner fears might leach into our food supply. We’re checking on that now. Although it doesn’t matter. The intent is what matters, and clearly your man Faulke has lost his mind.”
Jarvis cursed. “You’re not making this up.”
It wasn’t a question.
“I’m not making this up,” she said. “I want him and his little android friend out of here within the hour, or I’m arresting him, and I’m putting him on trial. Public trial.”
“Do you realize how many operations you’ll ruin?”
“No,” she said, “and I don’t care. Get him out of my city. It’s only a matter of time before your crazy little operative starts killing legal humans, not just cloned ones. And I don’t want him doing it here.”
Jarvis cursed again. “Can I get your help—”
“No,” she said. “I don’t want anyone at the police department involved with your little operation. And if you go to the chief, I’ll tell her that you have thwarted my attempts to arrest a man who threatens the entire dome. Because, honestly, Ike baby, this is a courtesy contact. I don’t have to do you any favors at all, especially considering what kind of person, if I can use that word, you installed in my city. Have you got that?”
“Yes, Andrea, I do,” he said, looking serious.
Andrea. So he had heard her all those times. And he had ignored her, the bastard. She made note of that too.
“One hour,” she said, and signed off.
Then she wiped her hands on her skirt. They were shaking just a little. Screw him, the weaselly little bastard. She’d send someone to that office now, to escort Jarvis’s horrid operative out of Armstrong.
She wanted to make sure that asshole left quickly, and didn’t double back.
She wanted this problem out of her city, off her Moon, and as far from her notice as possible.
And that, she knew, was the best she could do without upsetting the department’s special relationship with the Alliance.
She hoped her best would be good enough.
* * *
Up the back stairs, into the narrow hallway that smelled faintly of dry plastic, Koos led the raid, his best team members behind him. They fanned out in the narrow hallway, the two women first, signaling that the hallway was clear. Koos and Hala, the only other man on this part of the team skirted past them, and through the open door of Faulke’s office.
It was much smaller than Koos expected. Faulke was only three meters from him. Faulke was scrawny, narrow-shouldered, the kind of man easily ignored on the street.
He reached behind his back—probably for a weapon—as Koos and Hala held their laser rifles on him.
“Don’t even try,” Koos said. “I have no compunction shooting you.”
Faulke’s eyes glazed for a half second—probably letting his android guard know he was in trouble—then an expression of panic flitted across his face before he managed to control it.
The other members of Koos’s team had already disabled the guard.
“Who are you?” Faulke asked.
Koos ignored him, and spoke to his team. “I want him bound. And make sure you disable his links.”
One of the women slipped in around Koos, and put light cuffs around Faulke’s wrists and pasted a small rectangle of Silent-Seal over his mouth.
You can’t get away with this, Faulke sent on public links. You have no idea who I am—
And then his links shut off.
Koos grinned. “You’re Cade Faulke. You work for Earth Alliance Intelligence. You’ve been running clones that you embed into businesses. Am I missing anything?”
Faulke’s eyes didn’t change, but he swallowed hard.
“Let’s get him out of here,” Koos said.
They encircled him, in case the other tenants on the floor decided to see what all the fuss was about.
But no one opened any doors. The neighborhood was too dicey for that. If anyone had an ounce of civic feeling, they would have gone out front to stop the fight that Koos had staged below.
And no one had.
He took Faulke’s arm, surprised at how flabby it was. Hardly any muscles at all.
No wonder the asshole had used poison. He wasn’t strong enough to subdue any living creature on his own.
“You’re going to love what we have planned for you,” Koos said as he dragged Faulke down the stairs. “By the end of it all, you and I will be old friends.”
This time Faulke gave him a startled look.
Koos grinned at him, and led him to the waiting car that would take them to the Port.
It would be a long time before anyone heard from Cade Faulke again.
If they ever did.
* * *
DeRicci hated days like today. She had lost a case because of stupid laws that had no bearing on what really happened.
A woman had been murdered, and DeRicci couldn’t solve the case. It would go to Property, where it would get stuck in a pile of cases that no one cared about, because no one would be able to put a value on this particular clone. No owner would come forward. No one would care.
And if DeRicci hadn’t seen this sort of thing a dozen times, she would have tried to solve it herself in her off time. She might still hound Property, just to make sure the case didn’t get buried.
Maybe she’d even use Broduer’s lies. She might tell Property that whoever planted the clone had tried to poison the city. That might get some dumb Property detective off his butt.
She, on the other hand, was already working on the one good thing to come out of this long day. She was compiling all the documents on every single thing that Rayvon Lake had screwed up in their short tenure as partners.
Even she hadn�
��t realized how much it was.
She would have a long list for Gumiela by the end of the day, and this time, Gumiela would pay attention.
Or DeRicci would threaten to take the clone case to the media. DeRicci had been appalled that human waste could get into the recycling system; she would wager that the population of Armstrong would too.
One threat like that, and Gumiela would have to fire Lake.
It wasn’t justice. It wasn’t anything resembling justice.
But after a few years in this job, DeRicci had learned only one thing: Justice didn’t exist in the Earth Alliance.
Not for humans, not for clones, not for anyone.
And somehow, she had to live with it.
She just hadn’t quite figured out how.
* * *
Deshin arrived home, exhausted and more than a little unsettled. The house smelled of baby powder and coffee. He hadn’t really checked to see how the rest of Gerda’s day alone with Paavo had gone.
He felt guilty about that.
He went through the modest living room to the baby’s room. He and Gerda didn’t flash their wealth around Armstrong, preferring to live quietly. But he had so much security in the home that he was still startled the clone had broken through it.
Gerda was sitting in a rocking chair near the window, Paavo in her arms. She put a finger to her lips, but it did no good.
His five-month-old son twisted, and looked at Deshin with such aware eyes that it humbled him. Deshin knew that this baby was twenty times smarter than he would ever be. It worried him, and it pleased him as well.
Paavo smiled and extended his pudgy arms. Deshin picked him up. The boy was heavier than he had been just a week before. He also needed a diaper change.
Deshin took him to the changing table, and started, knowing just from the look on her face that Gerda was exhausted too.
“Long day?” he asked.
“Good day,” she said. “We made the right decision.”
“Yes,” he said. “We did.”
He had decided on the way home not to tell her everything. He would wait until the interrogation of Cade Faulke and the five clones was over. Koos had taken all six of them out of Armstrong in the same ship.
And the interrogations wouldn’t even start until Koos got them out of Earth Alliance territory, days from now.
Deshin had no idea what would happen to Faulke or the clones after that. Deshin was leaving that up to Koos. Koos no longer headed security for Deshin Enterprises in Armstrong, but he had served Deshin well today. He would handle some of the company’s work outside the Alliance.
Not a perfect day’s work, not even the day’s work Deshin had expected, but a good one nonetheless. He probably had other leaks to plug in his organization, but at least he knew what they were now.
His baby raised a chubby fist at Deshin as if agreeing that action needed to be taken. Deshin bent over and blew bubbles on Paavo’s tummy, something that always made Paavo giggle.
He giggled now, a sound so infectious that Deshin wondered how he had lived without it all his life.
He would do everything he could to protect this baby, everything he could to take care of his family.
“He trusts you,” Gerda said with a tiny bit of amazement in her voice.
Most people never trusted Deshin. Gerda did, but Gerda was special.
Deshin blew bubbles on Paavo’s tummy again, and Paavo laughed.
His boy did trust him.
He picked up his newly diapered son, and cradled him in his arms. Then he kissed Gerda.
The three of them, forever.
That was what he needed, and that was what he ensured today.
The detective could poke around his business all she wanted, but she would never know the one thing that calmed Deshin down.
Justice had been done.
His family was safe.
And that was all that mattered.
Planet of Fear
PAUL J. McAULEY
Born in Oxford, England, in 1955, Paul J. McAuley now makes his home in London. A professional biologist for many years, he sold his first story in 1984, and has gone on to be a frequent contributor to Interzone, as well as to markets such as Asimov’s Science Fiction, SCI FICTION, Amazing, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Skylife, The Third Alternative, When the Music’s Over, and elsewhere. His first novel, Four Hundred Billion Stars, won the Philip K. Dick Award, and his novel Fairyland won both the Arthur C. Clarke Award and the John W. Campbell Award in 1996. His other books include the novels Of The Fall, Eternal Light, Pasquale’s Angel, and Confluence—a major trilogy of ambitious scope and scale set ten million years in the future, comprised of the novels Child of the River, Ancient of Days, and Shrine of Stars—Life on Mars, The Secret of Life, Whole Wide World, White Devils, Mind’s Eye, Players, Cowboy Angels, The Quiet War, Gardens of the Sun, In the Mouth of the Whale, and Evening’s Empires. His short fiction has been collected in The King of the Hill and Other Stories,The Invisible Country, Little Machines, and a major retrospective collection, A Very British History: The Best Science Fiction Stories of Paul McAuley, 1985–2011; he is also the coeditor, with Kim Newman, of an original anthology, In Dreams. His most recent book is a new novel, Something Coming Through. Coming up is a sequel, Into Everywhere.
Here, he takes us to a remote mining station on the rugged coast of Venus’s mysterious, fog-shrouded equatorial continent, where the well-armed miners are on guard for an attack by monsters—for all the good it will do them.
Across the glistening slick of the subtropical sargasso, amongst shoals and archipelagos of bladderweed, several thousand sunfish floated in intersecting circles of churning foam. They were big, the sunfish, big humped discs ten or fifteen or even twenty metres across, patched with clusters of barnacles and thatched with purple-brown thickets of strapweed and whipweed, and all around them soldier remoras flailed and fought, flashing and writhing in frothing, blood-blackened water. A quadrocopter drone hung high above this shambles like a lonely seabird, avid camera eyes transmitting images to the ekranoplan anchored several kilometres beyond the sargasso’s southern edge.
In the close warmth of the fire control bay, bathed in the radiance of three big flatscreens, Katya Ignatova asked the petty officer piloting the drone to lock its cameras on a particular pair of sunfish. They were matched in size, each about twelve metres in diameter, and the fringes of their feeding tentacles had interlaced and fused and were now contracting, drawing them together. Dead and dying soldier remoras bobbed around them: slim, silvery torpedoes with chunks torn out of their flanks, shovel jaws gaping, eye clusters filmed white. Venusian fish were armoured in bony chainmail, had external gills and horizontal tail fins resembling whale flukes, but they possessed swim bladders. Like terrestrial fish, their corpses floated.
The drone pilot said, “Such fury. Such waste.”
“Soldiers attack everything that gets too close to their sibling,” Katya said. “Including other sunfish. They can’t mate until their soldiers have been neutralised. But the dead aren’t wasted. Their flesh feeds the ecosystem where the next generation develops.”
She hunched forward as the pair of sunfish began to jab at each other with the spears of their spermatophores, asked the drone pilot if he could get a close-up of the action.
“No problem,” he said, and made delicate adjustments to the joystick that controlled his little craft.
The views on the screens tilted and shifted, stabilised again. Katya prompted the pilot to zoom in on the tip of a calcified spear that scratched amongst drifts of purple-brown weed before abruptly driving forward.
“I believe they call that the money shot,” the pilot, Arkadi Sarantsev, said.
He was a slender, cynical fellow in his midtwenties, a few years younger than Katya. She had noticed that he kept apart from the companionable clamour in the mess, reading a vivid paperback thriller as he forked food from his tray. Sitting close to him in the television light, she
could smell the cola nut oil he’d used to sleek back his black hair.
“It isn’t sex as we know it,” she told him. “Sunfish are hermaphrodites, both male and female. If you could zoom out now … Yes. You see? Each has speared the other. They are exchanging packages of sperm. Injecting them into special areas of haploid epithelial cells that will develop into egg masses.”
She planned to collect some of those egg masses in a day or two, when the mating battles were over, to test the hypothesis that they contained both fertilised eggs that produced juvenile sunfish and unfertilised eggs that produced haploid soldiers. She hoped that she would be able to examine the rich and varied biota of the sargasso, too. The swarms of isopods and shrimp and thumb jellies on which sunfish larvae fed; the tripod octopi and fish which fed on them.
They really were amazing creatures, sunfish. They were eusocial, like ants, bees, and mole rats, with sterile, neotenous soldiers and fertile queens which not only lost their bilateral symmetry, like flatfish or the sunfish of Earth, but also lost their digestive systems, their eyes, and most of their nervous systems. And they were also symbiotic associations, like corals or lichens. The dense fringes of feeding tentacles of the queens, which filtered and digested plankton and extruded strings of nutrient-rich nodules which the schools of soldier remoras devoured, were derived from symbiotic ribbon jellies; the strapweeds and whipweeds rooted in their dorsal shells pumped sugars and lipids into their bloodstreams. Amazing creatures, yes, and really not much like anything at all on Earth.
Usually they led solitary, pelagic lives, drifting everywhere on the shallow seas of Venus, but every seventeen years they migrated to the sargassos where they had hatched, possibly following geomagnetic and chemical cues (another theory that needed to be tested), and mated, and spawned the next generation, and died. Katya’s observations and data would contribute to a multidisciplinary research programme into their life cycle, part of the International Biological Year, a milestone in the growing cooperation and rapprochement between the Venusian colonies of the People’s Republic, the United States, and the British Commonwealth.
The Year's Best Science Fiction - Thirty-Third Annual Collection Page 73