Beggars Ride

by Nancy Kress

  “Have a good evening, Dr. Aranow,” the door said to him. “Shall I cancel your wake-up call?”

  “Yes,” Jackson said. “No. Cazie!”

  She’d already gone into the elevator: it closed. As he watched helplessly, the door opened again. She stood there, naked and muddy and smiling, lowering the inhaler. “Come on in. Jack, the water’s fine.”

  “Shall I wait, Dr. Aranow?” the elevator asked. “Or are you staying on this floor?”

  Jackson stumbled into the elevator. Cazie laughed. “Sixth floor, please.”

  “Cazie, you’re naked!”

  “And you’re not. But we can fix that. Isn’t it lucky the party’s right in your building?” She reached out one hand, hooked it into the top of his pants, and pulled him toward her. She undid the single clasp he’d had time to fasten when the elevator stopped and the door opened.

  “Sixth floor, Ms. Sanders,” the elevator said “Have a nice evening.”

  “Cazie…”

  “Come on, Jack! We’re late!” She ran down the hall, shedding mud. Cursing, Jackson followed.

  He should go home right now.

  The cheeks of her ass, smeared with mud, flashed alternately—left right left right…Her ass was firm but not so firm that it didn’t jiggle as she ran. Jackson followed.

  The party was at Terry Amory’s. Jackson knew Terry, but not well. The door was open. Cazie led him through a pseudo-Asian minimalist decor to the dining room. “He’s here! Let the games begin!”

  “And just in time,” Terry drawled. “We were going to start without you. Hello, Jackson. Welcome to the psychobank.”

  Six naked people, three men and three women, lolled on a feeding ground the size of Jackson’s bedroom. Water had been churned into the custom-mixed organic loam; the resulting mud was thick, rich, and subtly perfumed. The wall program displayed earth tones, grays and tans and ochres, with dissolving and re-forming cave paintings. Stalactites—probably holos—hung from the ceiling. Two of the women sprawled carelessly across one of the men who, Jackson saw, was Landau Carson, tonight not wearing bees. Landau and Terry were the only people Jackson recognized.

  The woman not lying on Landau, a tall, slim redhead with bright blue eyes, said to Jackson, “Well, take your pants off, darling. They don’t look very edible.”

  Jackson considered leaving. But Cazie inhaled again from whatever was scrambling her brain. The little fool. Did she even know what was in the inhaler? Didn’t she know there were street drugs that did permanent damage to the brain, altering neural pathways before the Cell Cleaner had a chance to destroy them?

  “Give me the inhaler, Cazie.”

  To his surprise, she did, holding it meekly out to him. When he reached for it she shoved him into the feeding ground.

  Fury tore through Jackson. Let her warp her brain. Let her fuck every single one of these diseases, of both genders. She was sick, less mentally healthy than Theresa, and with far less reason. Let her go to hell…He had hauled himself out of the mud to leave, when he saw the knives.

  Twelve of them, stuck in an orderly blades-down row into a molded stand. The hilts were all shaped differently, ornamented with crudely carved animals that echoed the cave paintings of the wall programming. Throwing knives, but not well balanced. Deliberately.

  “I’ve got the paint,” the redhead said. She sniffed from an inhaler. “Who’s first?”

  “Neophytes first,” Cazie said. “First me and then Jackson.”

  “Here,” Terry crooned, “let me assist you, as said Cro-Magnon to the Neanderthal. Ummmmmm, nice.” He dipped his hand in the pot and smeared paint the color of dried blood on both Cazie’s nipples. Then liberally on the fuzzy muddy mound between her thighs. Cazie smiled.

  The redhead handed her a belt with a small dark button in the front. Fumbling, laughing, Cazie strapped it around her waist and pushed the button. Jackson saw the faint shimmer of a personal Y-shield spring around her.

  Cazie slogged through the mud to the opposite side of the room. She stood flat against the wall, under a stalactite, arms straight at her side after one more whiff from the inhaler. Terry said, “Host’s prerogative, ladies and gentlemen,” and reached for the knife stand.

  Jackson thought rapidly. If the shield was standard—and it looked like it was—a knife would not pierce it. Terry might aim for the painted areas of Cazie’s exposed body, but the exposure wasn’t real. It was just playacting, a fake thrill, the simulation of danger.

  “Pleasure or pain?” Terry mused theatrically. His hand hovered over one knife after another. “Pain or pleasure? And for such a beautiful body, too…so full and ripe…pleasure or pain?” He chose a knife.

  As Terry pulled it free of the stand. Jackson saw that the knife blade, too, was encased in the shimmer of a Y-energy shield. Sudden cold prickled the base of his spine.

  The redhead sank into the mud on her belly, wriggled in the depression her body made, and rolled onto her back, streaked with mud. She raised herself on her elbows to get a better view of Cazie. Her conical breasts rose and fell with her breathing.

  Terry threw the knife, and Cazie screamed.

  Jackson scrambled forward across the mud. But Cazie wasn’t hurt; the knife was embedded in the dining-room wall and Cazie laughed down at Jackson. “Fooled you, darling!”

  Before he could react, Terry threw another knife. Jackson saw it fly through the air—it was unbalanced, the knives were designed to be hard to make a hit with—and strike Cazie’s left breast, to the left of the painted nipple. The knife bounced off her shield and fell into the mud.

  “No points!” the redhead said. “Bad, bad, bad aim, Terry darling.”

  “One more throw,” said the man Jackson didn’t know. “Cazie’s friend, get out of the way, please. We can’t see, and some of us are too entangled to move.”

  “I may never move again,” said one of the two women lying twisted around Landau Carson. “Oh, do that again, Landau.”

  A third knife whistled through the air, missed Cazie, and embedded itself in the wall.

  “Three strikes and you’re out, Terry,” Landau said. “I’m next.”

  “As thrower?”

  “Garrote the thought. As target, of course.”

  Landau took Cazie’s place against the wall. Cazie flopped down in the mud on her belly and used her inhaler. Jackson watched the green-eyed redhead select a knife, with much dramatic deliberation, and hurl it at Landau’s genitals. It hit and bounced off into the mud.

  “Uuummmmmmmm,” Landau said. “Nice.”

  Cazie said, “You know you can’t feel it through your shield, Landau. Irina, three points.” She lifted the inhaler again. Her eyes were shiny.

  Irina threw a second knife. It missed.

  “Oh, don’t hiccup now,” Landau said. “Hit me, lover.”

  She did. The third knife struck right above Landau’s erect cock. Everyone laughed and cheered. “Six points!” Terry called. “Irina, what do you choose?”

  Irina gazed, smiling, at Landau. He looked back expectantly. Jackson felt the subtle shift in the room: a different kind of tension, tauter and hotter.

  Irina said, “I choose to take the knife myself.”

  Landau looked disappointed. But there was something else in the disappointment, Jackson thought, something incongruous. Relief? He looked again at the stand of knives, encased in their shimmering shields. Why shields?

  “Wait,” Cazie said. “Don’t choose yet, Irina. Terry, help me, you slug.”

  Cazie and Terry gathered the six thrown knives from the mud. As they squished through the thick sludge, Terry smeared a quick, proprietary glob across Cazie’s back. Suddenly Jackson knew that Terry had already had sex with Cazie, earlier. As part of the general mud-rolling foreplay to the knife game. Jackson’s chest constricted and burned.

  “Okay, that’s all of them,” Terry said. “Irina, choose.”

  Twelve knives, six gleaming and six muddy, stood phallic in their stand. Irina knelt b
efore them in the mud, lips pursed, drawing out her moment of choice. The others watched, mud frosting their beautiful genemod bodies, faces keen and hot-eyed. Landau rubbed his fingers across his clavicle. One of the women caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  “This one,” Irina said.

  She drew a clean knife, its hilt carved with a crude mammoth head. Irina’s thumb did something to the hilt. The shimmer of Y-shield disappeared.

  “Pleasure or pain, pain or pleasure,” Landau chanted softly. “Pleasure or pain…”

  Irina smiled at each face in turn. Then she drew the knife across the soft, mud-smeared flesh of her upper arm. Blood spurted out. A woman winced. Landau bared his teeth.

  For a long moment no one moved. Then Irina collapsed onto the mud, facedown, writhing. Cazie grabbed her and pulled her to a sitting position.

  “Pleasure!” Landau crowed.

  Irina’s face transformed. Her head tilted back; her back arched; her whole body shuddered. Then she collapsed against Cazie, trembling. Her eyes closed.

  “A strong dose,” Terry said. “Lucky Irina.”

  Cazie laughed. Jackson couldn’t watch her. He half turned away, standing ankle-deep in mud.

  It must be a selective nerve stimulator, going right to the pleasure center. Addictive, degenerative, illegal. Blood still dripped from Irina’s soft arm. The Cell Cleaner would take care of it: repair the cut faster than could the unaided body, destroy any infectious bacteria, consume the mud in the wound. No risk.

  He said, “What’s on the ‘pain’ knives?”

  Terry said, “Just that. The stimulator works directly on the brain.”

  Landau said, “Very unpleasant. And it seems to last an eon.”

  “You’re all sick,” Jackson said. “Every one of you.”

  “Oh, dear,” Landau said. “More morality.”

  “Jackson, it’s a party,” Cazie said. “Don’t be so grim.”

  He gazed bleakly at her. Smiling back at him, tenderly cradling Irina. These people were biologically underaroused. Underarousal produced thrill-seeking behavior. He could recite the neurochemistry: deficient levels of monoamine oxidase, serotonin, and cortisol. Slow heart rate, low skin conductance, high threshold for nerve triggering. Excess of dopamine, imbalance of norepinephrine and alintylomase. Plus, of course, whatever imbalances they were creating with the inhalers.

  Knowing the biochemistry didn’t modify his disgust.

  “Come on, Cazie. We’re leaving. You and me. Now.”

  She went on smiling at him, naked and covered with mud, the dreamily comatose Irina in her arms. She would refuse to go with him, of course. She had always refused anything he demanded. His mood shifted suddenly, to a fearful elation. She would refuse. And then, after seeing her like this, with these underaroused diseases…after this, he would be free of her. Finally. It would be over. He would be free.

  “All right, Jackson,” Cazie said. “I’m coming.”

  She laid Irina carefully on the mud and stood up, wiping a thick glob of mud off her wrist.

  “Hey, Caz, you can’t go now!” Terry said. “The party’s just starting!”

  “And I’m up next,” a woman said. “Who wants to throw?”

  “Loser’s prerogative,” Landau said. “Since Irina didn’t choose me for the knife.”

  “Cazie! Don’t go!”

  “Good night,” Cazie said. “Tell Irina I’ll call her tomorrow.” She took Jackson’s hand. He dropped hers: bleakly, angrily, with trapped love.

  She followed him meekly to the elevator, down the hall—they met no one, it was 3:00 A.M.—into the apartment. Into the shower. Jackson saw that she’d left her inhaler behind.

  “I’m sorry, Jack,” Cazie said when they were both clean. “I didn’t think well. Of course you wouldn’t like such a party. It’s just that…I missed you.”

  He stared at her, trying to maintain his disgust, knowing he failed. “You didn’t miss me. You just wanted more thrills. The only experiences you’ve ever thought worth having were intense thrills.”

  “I know.”

  “That’s not normal, Cazie. Normal people don’t need constant dangerous excitement to feel happy!”

  “Then there are a hell of a lot of donkeys who aren’t normal. Not anymore. Hold me, Jack.”

  He stood stiffly, not moving. She put her arms around him and pressed against him. His naked cock rose into her belly. Her soft breasts breathed gently into his chest.

  “Oh, Cazie…” It was a groan, half desire and half defeat. “No…”

  “I’ll be sweet,” she mumbled against his neck. “You’re so good to watch out for me…”

  She did stay sweet. And tender, and gentle—a vulnerable Cazie, holding back nothing, giving everything. Afterward she fell asleep against his shoulder, curled into him like a child. The sheets were wet from the bodies they hadn’t dried after their shower, from the sweet juices of lovemaking.

  Jackson lay awake in the dark, holding her, wishing that she hadn’t come with him from the party, wishing that she would never leave his bedroom, wishing that he were a different kind of person from what he was. More resolute. More able to sustain anger. More able to write her off.

  There were neuropharms that would do that. Modify his neurochemistry, rebalance transmitters and hormones and enzymes. Less CRF. More testosterone. Less serotonin. Fewer dopamine reuptake inhibitors. More ADL.

  Like the people at the party. Terry and Irina and Landau.

  No.

  He couldn’t sleep. After thrashing and turning for half an hour, he eased himself out of bed. He kissed Cazie’s cheek, put on a robe, and padded to the library.

  “Caroline, messages, please.”

  “Yes, Jackson,” said his personal system in the slightly formal voice he preferred. “You have four messages. Shall I list them in the order received?”

  “Why not.” He poured himself a whiskey from the sideboard.

  “Message from Kenneth Bishop, from Wichita. Subject: Willoughby plant.” The TenTech chief engineer. He had finally checked on the deranged factory. A week late. Maybe TenTech needed another chief. Christ, Jackson hated dealing with this shit.

  “Message from Tamara Gould, from Manhattan. Subject: party.” The last thing Jackson wanted tonight was another party. Would Cazie want to go? If he took her, would Cazie stay with him a little longer?

  “Message from Brandon Hileker, from Yale. Subject: class reunion.” Oh, God, had it been ten years since his B.A.? A reunion. And what do you do, Jackson? A doctor? Isn’t that a little…superfluous?

  “Message from Lizzie Francy. Subject: baby project.” Baby? Project? What did that mean? Had something happened to the baby Jackson had delivered last week? Why call it a “project”? But, then, what did Jackson really know about what Livers called anything?

  “Caroline, give me that message, please.”

  Lizzie’s face formed on the wall screen. Unlike the last time he had seen them, Lizzie’s expression was alert and her hair neatly combed. Her black eyes sparkled. Her speech, he noted, sounded donkey, not Liver. Victoria Turner’s doing?

  “This is Lizzie Francy for Dr. Jackson Aranow. Dr. Aranow, I’m calling because I need your help. It’s a project connected to the babies’ health—not just my baby that you delivered, but all babies in the tribe. And maybe other tribes.” She hesitated, and her voice changed. “Please call back. It’s really really important.” Another hesitation, then a curiously stiff little bow of the head. “Thank you.”

  “End of message,” Caroline said. “Do you wish to reply?”

  “No. Yes.” If the baby had had some kind of accident…“project”? “Record message.”

  “Recording.”

  “Dr. Jackson Aranow for Lizzie Francy. Please give me more details about your problem. Is the baby in need of medical attention? If so, then—”

  To his surprise, Lizzie’s face in real-time interrupted his recording. It was 4:30 in the morning. What was she doing, overriding
his personal system? And how was she doing it?

  “Dr. Aranow, thank you for calling back! I—we—desperately need your help. Could you—”

  “Is the baby all right?”

  “The baby’s fine. See?” She enlarged the screen scope; he saw that she was nursing her infant son.

  “Then why did you say this ‘project’ was for the baby’s health?”

  “It is. But long-term. I didn’t know who else to ask. It’s a really important project!”

  Jackson had the feeling he should hang up. Livers. It was always a mistake to get involved with them. Provide the basic necessities out of human charity, yes. Donkeys had tried to do that: it wasn’t the donkeys’ fault if Livers had rejected the social contract—goods for votes—that had provided for their needs. Beyond that, Livers were difficult. Uneducated, demanding, ungrateful, dangerous. And the sight of Lizzie’s full breast in her child’s mouth made him oddly uncomfortable. He thought of Cazie, asleep in his bed.

  Lizzie said, “Did you ever hear of a woman named Ellie Sandra Lester?”

  Jackson drew in a breath. “Yes,” he said. “Go on.”

  I N T E R L U D E

  TRANSMISSION DATE: November 28, 2120

  TO: Selene Base, Moon

  VIA: Boston Ground Station, GEO Satellite 1453-L (U.S.), Luna City Ground Station

  MESSAGE TYPE: Encrypted

  MESSAGE CLASS: Class B, Private Paid Transmission

  ORIGINATING GROUP: GeneModern, Inc., Boston, Massachusetts

  MESSAGE:

  Ms. Sharifi:

  As we said in our previous two transmissions, GeneModern is interested in pursuing a commercial partnership with Selene Base in developing viable extensions of your patented product, the Cell Cleaner™. We believe that our research facilities, among the best in the world, have succeeded in duplicating some of the nonpatented aspects of your groundbreaking work in cellular biology (see attached documents). The rest remains not only proprietary but—let us be frank—beyond our current capabilities. What we can bring to a partnership with Selene is unparalleled manufacturing abilities, superb international distribution, and high-quality investment interest. The former two attributes may be more necessary to you than formerly, since your relocation at Selene. The latter would relieve you of the financial exposure your first venture must have entailed. In addition, our data security system, designed by Kevin Baker, ranks among the most excellent anywhere (see attached documents).