The Last Dancer

by The Last Dancer (new ed) (mobi)

  "It wouldn't be appropriate."

  "It would upset the god," Sedon said.

  Denice shrugged. "It would make him happy if I were to kill you."

  Sedon looked at her over the autoshot. "Do you think you could?"

  "I won't."

  Sedon nodded. "Be careful how you spurn him, child. His pain is vast, and if you touch upon it you will regret it."

  "I'll take my chances."

  "He is not used to having Dancers who will not obey."

  Some time later, Denice said, "We'll never make Japan in this thing. Were you planning on rendezvousing at some point?"

  Sedon looked at her over the rifle. "We can't reach Japan in this car?"

  Denice felt her skin prickle. "You didn't know that?"

  He considered it. "No. What's wrong with it?"

  Denice said slowly, "There's not enough fuel in it."

  "But all four of these vehicles were fueled before we took off."

  "They're vans. They're designed for short trips; eight or nine hundred klicks, tops."

  Sedon considered it. "I have never had occasion to operate one," he conceded. "Do we have fuel to return to California?"

  "I don't know--" Denice rose and went forward, looked for the fuel display. To the far left; untouched by the sole autoshot blast to the center panel. She turned back to Sedon. "We're past the halfway mark now. We're going to have to swim some no matter what we do."

  Sedon nodded. "I see."

  Denice came back, stood over him. "Do you want to live?"

  Sedon looked up at her. "I think I would like that. Does that sound a very foolish thing to say at this point?"

  Denice said softly, "Give me the gun."

  Gi'Suei'Obodi'Sedon leaned forward slightly, reversed the weapon, and handed it to her.

  "Awaken me when it's time," he said.

  And he closed his eyes and leaned back to sleep.

  She awoke William Devane, told him.

  "Have you tried calling out?"

  "He shot the Net link."

  "To be sure, what else." Devane paused, said in his ruined voice, "We should kill him now."

  "We will not."

  "We'll not make shore, I think. He's in no shape to swim. We'd be doin' him a favor."

  "Your brogue has gotten much stronger."

  Devane shrugged, eased back in his seat. "He's a bore, Dvan is. Single minded and with a refreshing lack of introspection, but I've had enough. I got rid of him."

  "That's a neat trick."

  "I've no need to die to see Hell. A damn eternity of pain Sedon put us through; but Dvan took it personally. And the Speakings, he didn't take those too well either." Devane paused. "Think on it. A quick jump over the side, you and I--and our own chances that much the better."

  Denice sat next to him and watched the fuel gauge. "No."

  Devane nodded. "How far off shore will we drop?"

  "A hundred klicks. Maybe a hundred and twenty."

  "I am a good swimmer. But I have never swum that far."

  "I have."

  "Sure, and we should let him go down with the car."

  "William Devane, killing is wrong."

  "And I hope you're a very good swimmer, lass." Devane paused. "My lady."

  "Cut that out."

  "Denice."

  "Sedon?"

  "Yes?"

  "Are you awake?"

  "As much as I need to be."

  "Come on. We're going into the water."

  He looked up at her. "Denice, I wish you'd been a boy."

  Denice said nothing, then: "I think Lan was going to say the same thing to me."

  A day and a half later, near morning, as false dawn lit the skies to the east with a faint grayness, the waves washed ashore a pair of limp, motionless forms.

  After a time, Denice Castanaveras rolled over onto her back, and stayed that way while the morning sun came up and made the world warm around her.

  The still form beside her did not move.

  Some time later Denice let go of his wrist.

  She opened her eyes and stared up into the pale blue sky and figured the odds.

  The CityStates were not a bad bet; a quick bout of biosculpture, change the color of her eyes, pick up the Erika Muller identity permanently; the knowledge that Denice Daimara was Denice Castanaveras, even if it got out, would not damage her much.

  Join Trent.

  Or she could stay on Earth, take the chance of ending up in Peaceforcer hands.

  People who knew: Trent, Jimmy, Jodi Jodi. Robert and Devane. Her brother, wherever he was. Lan, and Chris Summers, Doctor Derek and Sedon. McGee, Ring, and Ralf the Wise and Powerful.

  She had no idea what had happened to Devane or Robert, but did not think either of them could be braindrained anyway, even if the PKF caught them. Summers and Lan and Sedon were dead beyond doubt. McGee, and Ring and Ralf the Wise and Powerful. Ralf was safe.

  Trent and Jimmy were in the Belt.

  It left Ring, McGee, and Jodi Jodi, Doctor Derek and her brother.

  There might be others; but it was a chance she would have to take.

  She sat up slowly. For the first time since she had known him, Sedon's features seemed not watchful, or calculating, or enraged, nor anything except peaceful.

  His eyes were open and caked with salt.

  She wiped the salt free and closed his eyes, watched him lying peacefully in the sand throughout the long morning, the corpse of the man who had invented rebellion fifty thousand years prior; and it came to her that it must be very hard to be a hero.

  They first saw the form walking down the empty beach, at the waterline, a body slung over one shoulder.

  It moved slowly down the packed wet sand, water washing around its ankles.

  The PKF outpost sat at the edge of Pacific Coast Highway, looking down over the beach. Eight PKF unslung laser rifles and brought them to bear on the slowly advancing figure.

  The Elite in command, twenty-nine year old Elite Sergeant Pekar, saw her more clearly.

  His optics resolved her in detail when she was still a kilometer away. A woman of slightly above average height, young, lean and muscular, wearing black fatigues whose sleeves were cut off at the shoulders. She was barefoot, with white skin and vaguely Asian features, with black hair so short it looked like a military cut.

  When she was still a hundred meters away he made out the color of her eyes, a green the color of emeralds.

  When she was twenty meters away, at the edge of PCH, Pekar called her to a halt. With his men covering him he came forward to meet her.

  "Identify yourself."

  The woman grinned at him, a grin with no humor in it. "I'll do better." Like a bricklayer unloading a bag of dry ferrocrete, she unslung the dead man's body and dropped it unceremoniously to the pavement in front of them. She raised her voice to be heard by the PKF behind him. "This is the corpse of Mister Obodi, the leader of the Johnny Rebs." Pekar was aware of the murmur that went through the mostly American Peaceforcer troops standing behind him. "I am the personal assistant of Unification Councilor Douglass Ripper, Jr." The sunlight dazzled against the brilliant green of her eyes, against the single drop of sweat trickling down the sculpted muscle of her upper arm. "The bounty for Obodi was dead or alive. Well, this is him, and he can't get any more dead than this. I'm Denice Daimara, and I'm alive. And I'm claiming the six million Credits."

  * * *

  The Last Dancer

  You say you had to do it

  But I don't believe that's true

  And I guess that later on tonight

  I'll say a prayer for you

  --Independence Day

  "Street Songs," 2078 Gregorian

  Mahliya Kutura

  DateLine: November 30, 2076

  I'm feeling very relaxed these days, so I wanted to take a moment of your time--to catch up on my mail, make a threat, and share a dream I had.

  I am not back from my retirement.

  For all of you who
wrote and especially for all of you who got emotional, asking that I return to writing the column--I mean, Jesus. Get a life.

  Speaking of Jesus, this one is for the webdancer in Philadelphia. I don't know how you got my Net ID, and I don't care. Don't call again. I've never turned anyone to DataWatch in my life, but you could be the first. (And if not DataWatch, I know a couple Players who eat punks like you for lunch.) I appreciate that Jesus died for my sins--but I didn't ask him to, and frankly it seems a little presumptuous on his part. I'm a big boy and I'll handle my own sins.

  Speaking of sins, to the girl in Baton Rouge--yes. I've tried that one. But thanks for the offer anyway; you have a genuine flair for description.

  And on the subject of offers, to Michaud Delancie, press secretary to the Secretary General: you ugly sociable disingenuous pig-fucking diseased lying greasy-palmed stringy-haired frog son of a bitch. I wouldn't write speeches for the Secretary General if he was the last Secretary General on Earth, which, it seems clear, is the idea. The immense arrogance of the man would be appalling if it wasn't exactly what we've come to expect from SecGen Eddore. Still, I'm troubled--are you sure this man is an American? That he was born here?

  It's common knowledge that Eddore's mother didn't speak to him for three years after the onset of the Troubles. How about it, Chuck? Getting the cold shoulder again?

  So. Anyhow, I keep having this dream I wanted to tell you all about, one where I pick up a pumped laser and go climb up on some high spot, some fine upper location with a view, and watch PKF Elite through the scope. The modification to blow the power supply out in three or four shots is, I'm told, ridiculously easy; I'm kind of surprised that it took a rebellion to get the knowledge out into the general public.

  I can't tell you how to make the modification. That's covered by the Official Secrets Act of 2076.

  But in my dream that I was having, the one where I went up to a high place and looked down, in that very same dream I was scanning through the Fall '76 Black Box Catalog, and I stop on Page 112, and the part number as4077b01 sort of leapt out at me. Yes. And it looks very much like a direct replacement for a part commonly found inside most Excalibur Series I through Series IV variable lasers.

  I'm told the same modification can be made to most hand masers, though you'll likely only get one shot with it.

  The Secretary General probably wouldn't appreciate my sharing this dream with you, but what the hell. I don't really appreciate the things he's been trying to share with me recently.

  Come to think of it, I suppose Eddore must be an American.

  'Cause the TriCentennial has certainly been good to him.

  If a little less so for the rest of us.

  Later.

  "Utter lie. Given Shawmac's frequent and well-publicized tirades against the office and person of the Secretary General, it hardly seems likely that we would attempt to retain him to write speeches for the Secretary General....you in the back. What's that? Oh. Yes. The Prosecutor General likely will try to have him executed for publishing that Black Box listing. So he couldn't write for us anyway."

  --Michaud Delancie, press conference, December 2, 2076

  * * *

  75.

  The PKF did not believe her story. Denice had never expected them to.

  But it made for excellent propaganda, and she pointed it out to them. She had learned that much from Ripper, that a thing need not be true if it could be made to seem so.

  They gave her the six million and made her famous. She was the woman whose loyalty to the Unification had been stronger than the ties of nationalism; a woman who had understood herself a citizen of the world.

  When it was over, she was, next to Secretary General Eddore himself, one of the most admired and hated human beings on the face of the planet.

  The Peaceforcers executed Robinette Cabot, the man who had introduced himself to Denice as Doctor Derek, on August 12, 2076. He was the four thousand, four hundred and eighth American executed since the end of the rebellion.

  They released video of his execution to the Boards, as they had released video of the executions of four thousand, four hundred and seven others; Rebs and Claw and even a few innocents wrongly accused.

  Denice had followed Cabot's case without intervening; she had not dared, not in his case or those of any of the others she recognized from her times in Iowa and Santa Monica. She watched him die, standing in front of a PKF firing squad, wondering why he hadn't used his knowledge of her to save his life.

  Perhaps he had tried, and they'd executed him anyway, to avoid warning her. The thought made the skin crawl on the back of her neck.

  They sat out on the patio, at Ripper's beach front house in Hawaii, early on the morning of December 15, and watched the returns come in. An exercise in futility, Ripper muttered at one point--with justification; they were going to lose and they had known it for a month.

  At lunch time Ripper ushered his aides outside and sat alone with Denice. Balloting was less than four hours underway, with over twenty left to go: nonetheless the results were clear. "Command, main off." Ripper turned away from the large holo field as it vanished. "He's the man who held the Unification together, and he's running fifty-five percent. I'm somewhere around thirty-two." In a matter-of-fact tone, Ripper said, "We're not even going to get a second ballot." He sighed, rubbing his temples. "If only Japan hadn't fought so well."

  Denice and Ripper ate lunch together quietly, sitting together in the large, empty dining room. The quiet babble of the newsdancers was barely audible in the background.

  When lunch was over Douglass went outside and sat on the balcony overlooking the bay.

  Denice turned the smaller holos off and joined him.

  "Well," said Ripper grimly, after a long silence, "he got what he wanted. Fourth term, fifth term--the clone of a bleeder plans to hold on forever."

  Denice nodded.

  Ripper said, "I'm going to have to do something about this."

  Later that evening they sat out on the patio and watched the waves ripple over the surface of the water. The wind had come up and it was chilly. The sun was only a few minutes away from touching the surface of the ocean.

  Douglass ordered them coffee drinks with whipped cream, and Denice sat cuddled inside the circle of his arms, watching the orange glow of the sun, while they waited for the waitbot to bring their drinks.

  Douglass murmured, "Romantic, isn't it?"

  "I noticed."

  Denice thought that perhaps Douglass was nervous; he said it very abruptly, without his usual smoothness. "Will you marry me?"

  Trent. The thought came and went; Denice smiled with just a touch of wistfulness, said gently, "No. No, I won't."

  His arms tightened around her slightly and he sighed. She did not think he was surprised. "Why not?"

  "I have things to do."

  He was silent then until their drinks came. After the waitbot had left he said quietly, "Such as?"

  Denice sipped at her drink. Whipped cream with chocolate shavings on top, coffee with brandy underneath. It was very good and it warmed her as it went down. She licked a dab of whipped cream off her upper lip. "I don't work for you, Douglass. And I can't tell you."

  He held her then while the sun set, flooding the bay with orange light. Even after the sun had completely set the sky was a gorgeous deep blue laced with glowing scarlet clouds. Glowfloats bobbed out over the bay, turned themselves on. One stationed itself a few meters above them. "I guess," said Douglass finally, "if you don't trust me enough to tell me about your personal business, marriage is probably a very bad idea."

  "I'll tell you some day. I promise."

  "Finish your drink and let's go to bed."

  "Do you trust me to tell you when I can?"

  "Let's go to bed."

  Before he dropped off to sleep, he said quietly, "You should run for the Unification Council. The people who vote in Unification elections are mostly pro-Unification anyway; they won't think you're such a traitor.
I think you'd win a seat."

  Afterward, laying in bed with Ripper, head on his shoulder, while listening to his quiet sleep, Ralf the Wise and Powerful came to her.

  "I traced him to Las Vegas."

  * * *

  76.

  Christine Mirabeau sat motionlessly on the prison cot. She did not get up when he came in. "Mohammed. I had hoped you'd come visit me before--before tomorrow."

  Vance nodded. His float chair stopped twenty centimeters away from her. He wore the formal uniform of the Elite Commander, the uniform Christine herself had worn until July 4, 2076.

  His left leg was gone above the knee. Fixing a badly injured Elite is difficult; the technology of the day did not permit them to clone a leg, cyborg the leg, and attach it. He'd probably end up with a robot leg, when he had time to learn to use it; it took a few weeks for the neural connection to grow in, and it was distracting until then. Christine had heard that his left arm had been in a cast until only a few weeks ago. Some of the finest biosculptors in the world had worked on him, in sessions lasting days. To Christine it seemed the only effect of it all had been to leave him with slightly less expressiveness than ever.

  "The uniform looks good on you," she said. "I always knew it would."

  "You're not surprised."

  "To whom else would they give it? You can be proud, Mohammed. To be forty-eight years old, and the second most powerful person in the System--it's a great accomplishment."

  "Apparently they haven't told you how you're to be executed."

  No PKF Elite had ever been executed before. Christine nodded, a bit jerkily. "No. I've been wondering; we're not easy to kill. In the mouth?"

  "No. Undignified, given that it will be done on holocam. We considered lethal injection and decided against that as well; the toxins and viruses with which we are familiar, your nanovirus immune system is also familiar. It would take quite a while even if successful; you would likely suffer convulsions, and it seemed inhumane. Some wanted to put you in front of a firing squad. Once again I dismissed it as inhumane; it would take several minutes for you to die. Drowning was discussed; so was dropping you from a high building. A few of the more bloodthirsty suggested that we use the pumped lasers the Rebs developed."