“Oh, mister, what happened to you?” The young man set his burden down and raced to help Parsons into one of the curved plastic chairs. Parsons gave him points for not reacting when blood dripped onto the young man’s sleeve and shoes. He ran for piles of fiber towels and began to blot at him. His eyes turned to concern as he smoothed the fabric over Parsons’s head. “That is a … terrible haircut.”
“It was a malfunction,” Parsons whispered. He glanced up toward the ceiling. In between lights and safety sensors, he recognized a nest of security cameras that covered the break room. With mere will giving him strength, he pulled Shalit toward a rear wall, away from their overseeing eyes. Surely by now the entire salon’s system had been compromised. The young man looked startled, but he didn’t let out a sound.
“Do you know where the Infogrid cutoff is?” Parsons asked. Shalit nodded. “We must detach the salon’s computer system from the planetary Infogrid.” The youth raised his eyebrows, but nodded silently. That action would ring alarm bells as far away as Keinolt, but it needed to be done. It was only the first step. Parsons had to see that the entire planet was detached from the rest of the Infogrid until the menace was gone. “Show me the node.”
Barely moving, Shalit tilted his head toward a cabinet set in the wall. It surface was stained with multiple colors from dye packets that were no doubt stored within it. Parsons moved smoothly across the room, as though in search of just the right color of auburn for a client. At the rear of the mounted red box, masquerading as a bracket holding it on the wall, was the Infogrid node. He browsed the tubes and bottles in the cabinet. The primitive detector system did not detect him as an intruder as his hand wavered over two different shades of platinum blonde, until his fingers darted out and yanked the component out of its socket. Tiny lightning bolts shot out of the box, trying to make him drop it, but he threw it to the ground. The pinpoint lights beside the camera head died away.
“There.”
Parsons removed the security device from underneath his torn robe. He stooped to lay it over the node transmitter, and activated a tiny switch in the base of the flat box. Gray dust flew out from under the protective cap. When it fell away, the red node was gone.
“Why did you do that?” Shalit whispered, his voice quavering. “What happened?”
“A security breach. Bokie is dead.”
“Did you …” The young man gulped. “… did you kill him?”
Parsons shook his head a miniscule distance. “No. He took his own life to protect all of us. To protect you and the others here. There is a computer breach that threatens all life on this planet.”
The sudden steel in the young man’s chin reassured Parsons as to why he had been enlisted by Covert Services. “What do we need to do?”
“The threat will be removed. In the meantime, use no electronic devices if you can. Do not update the Infogrid until after the ships in orbit have departed. And do not refer to this incident, even in your reports.”
“Yes, sir,” Shalit said. “We won’t get in trouble for that, will we, sir?”
“No,” Parsons said. He sat down in the chair again. Nearly his entire body had been battered, but duty summoned him. “I must go and make my next contact. It’s vital.”
“You can’t go out there like that, sir. Let me clean you up.” Shalit hurried to get damp and dry towels from metal hatches in the red brick wall. He also took a device from a locked hatch beside the lavatory door.
“What’s that?”
Shalit looked embarrassed. “Emergency surgery kit.”
“No!” Parsons said, firmly. “It might try to finish the job.”
“No, sir,” Shalit said, shrugging. “It’s not intelligent. It’s just a machine. From the old days.” He looked even more embarrassed. “I had to use it on customers a few times while I was starting out. They didn’t really teach us barber techniques in … Mr. Frank’s school. I had a lot to learn.”
Parsons allowed a modicum of a smile to lift the left corner of his mouth. “Proceed.”
The gleaming, chrome-plated surgerybot unfolded out of its case. When it was activated, it scanned both humans from head to toe with a red light, then turned to work on Parsons.
He felt concern as thin arms unfolded, wielding such devices as a nerve-deadener, micro-scalpel and suturing gun, but the surgerybot proved to be unaffected by tainted programming. It was, as the aesthetician had said, too old to have the sophisticated function of an LAI. The relief as the numerous gouges in his face were numbed allowed Parsons to concentrate on the data he had amassed and what must follow on from those discoveries. While the bot sutured the gash in his ear, he filtered the information. The only treatment that brought him out of his study was when the surgerybot extruded two extra hands to wrench both ends of his broken rib out enough for the ends to meet. A snub-ended device hummed against Parsons’s side. He knew from multiple occasions that it was intended to spur the healing of the bone.
Ping. Once it had cleaned and closed the last gouge on his left arm, the surgerybot disposed of soiled swabs and used needles, cleansed itself, folded up its many arms and collapsed into its carrying case.
“Now, let me tidy you up, sir,” Shalit said. He helped Parsons off with the green robe, which he threw into a sonic cleaning machine, and helped him to sit beside a cabinet filled with paints, pastes and tubes.
To his credit, the young man rose magnificently to the occasion. He swooped in with tufts of false hair and cosmetics, tucking here and daubing there. When he was finished, in remarkably short a time, he held up a combination mirror. Parsons was pleased.
“You see, sir?” Shalit asked, with understandable pride. “You can’t see a thing.”
“Good work,” Parsons said, surveying his reflection. His complexion and skin tone appeared to be just as they had been when he had entered the salon. Only minor swelling here and there on his face indicated any difference. “Very good work, Shalit.”
The youth beamed. “Thank you, sir. Let me show you out.” He led the way to the front of the salon.
Parsons rewrote his mental note to Mr. Frank. There were good people here. One fewer than before.
He picked up the tiny drive from a sadly subdued Nicole at the desk as he left. He hoped that whatever was on the small memory chip was worth the life of a brave and resourceful agent.
CHAPTER 12
“The Temple of Sport was a bit disappointing,” Madame Deirdre said, as we flew away from our third stop, a massive complex that stood alone in a valley a thousand kilometers west of Nerk. “I expected more in the way of commemorative statuary and fitting architecture.” She glanced up at me. “Your farewell dance to the temple was far more interesting than anything we saw. You captured the excitement of matches and games past. Too bad nothing like that was on show for visitors.”
“Thank you,” I said, sketching a light bow. I had improvised a brief performance at every one of our stops, both to commemorate and comment upon our visits. “I tried to evoke the spirit and enthusiasm of sports heroes past. I am glad you saw the virtue in my performance.”
“I did. There is, though, always room for improvement.”
“Missed photographic opportunity,” Redius said.
“Sorry, sir,” Billimun said, as he steered us toward to the southwest. The Energy Barons’ estates lay ahead five hundred kilometers. Along the way, our driver had scheduled three or four more stops. “I know there’s hardly anything to take pictures against, but that’s where the Temple of Sports used to be. During the building material shortages, a lot of stuff got recycled into modern housing, and those got torn down a century or so later. The population goes up and down over the centuries, ma’am. We seem to go back to around half a billion.”
“That’s rather small, considering the natural resources of this world, isn’t it?” I asked.
The big man sat back in his chair and shook his beard from side to side.
“Ah, but, my lord, you don’t know. So much of that got
tapped out to make colony ships to settle the rest of the Imperium. We’re living within our means as best we can. It hasn’t been easy. Everyone sees this world and thinks it’s easy to exploit it, but it’s not. Can’t just make rare earths out of nothing, sir. And we’re a long way from anywhere, you know.”
“I do,” I said. I had perused the star charts in one of Billimun’s databases. The skies were surprisingly empty around Counterweight. I was beginning to wonder to what, if anything, it was a counterweight at all, or if the name was a wry joke on the part of our ancestors. As we made our way toward the platform, the skies would grow all the emptier. I wondered if that was due to the eons-long efforts of the Zang, or merely chance. Perhaps I could discuss the matter with our visitor.
Our rendezvous with Proton Zang was not scheduled until late afternoon, so I allowed myself to relax and take in the sights. When other tour vehicles and private skimmers passed us, I offered them all cheerful waves. Billimun’s range of cameras, none as fine as the collection I left gathering dust in my cupboards back in the Imperium compound, yet sturdier, took images of us enjoying fine food and beverages, passing among the artifacts of the past, and enjoying the leisure of our flight.
A treble horn hooted, and a bright blue vehicle like a modified skimmer pulled up beside us. Two very shapely young women wearing very skimpy swimming costumes stood up and waved their arms at me. I waved back.
“The scenery is very fine,” I said, with a grin. They waved again and pulled ahead and upward toward the sun. In moments, they were out of sight.
“Concern with observers?” Redius asked. He sat further in the middle of the big car, following the map on the navigational screentank instead of the landscape.
“Not at all,” I said, airily. “If the Kail really have time to sift through the Infogrid and determine who I am, then they’re more easily distracted than one would believe. Without my viewpad to connect me to my Infogrid file, I might pass for an ordinary human.”
“South Town, ladies and sirs!” Billimun announced, as we swirled down for a look. This was even more bereft of artifacts than the Temple of Sports had been, although from above the layout of the massive city complex gave a fascinating look at how our ancestors had lived. On a pale beige desert plane, grids were marked out, then ignored by the urban planners, who overran the sensible blockwork with curlicues of trails, irregular blobs that once held artificial parklands, and cul-de-sacs that wound into one another like fractals. On the east, it was bound by the curving shore around an almost circular body of water, but on the west, it was as boundless as human imagination.
“I wanted you to see this place,” he said. “It’s one of our most honored sites. You’ve probably heard stories about it.”
“Why empty?” Redius asked, peering over the side at the endless plains. The humid air slapped me in the face like a wet fish.
“Not a lot is left from the middle days,” Billimun admitted, taking us for a spin over some of the more intricate roadways. “After our ancestors launched all the unusable plastics into the sun, well, things changed. The stuff made of stone, wood and metal is still around, but this place got torn down and recycled. As a result, a whole lot of the middle ages are gone. You don’t see too much of the old stuff, either. It all got buried in the cataclysm that changed the face of the planet. We used to have seven continents. Now there’s eight, all messed about.”
“I had heard that plastic formed the basis of Earth civilization,” Madame Deirdre said. “You certainly don’t see as much of it as you used to.”
“Plastic, yes, it was easy to manufacture, for a while,” Billimun said. “Our ancestors reached into the earth for petroleum products, but it wasn’t sustainable. We ran out. Since then, like in the dawn of humanity, we’ve built with more durable stuff. Then, the explorers figured it would be better to look for more resources on other worlds. From here, they reached out. From this simple beginning, the whole of the Imperium began. Here, right on the coast, is where the space program really began. From here we went to the stars.” He spread out his hands to encompass the entirety of the galaxy. “This is our cradle.”
“Here?” I asked, blinking as the thoughts percolated into my consciousness. “This is old Earth?”
“A lot of people believe it’s so,” Billimun said in his hearty way. “Look, sir, how could there be two worlds where we could breathe and eat without terraforming it at the genetic levels?”
“I had always heard that all but a few were forced off Earth when a disaster threatened,” I said. “Half a billion is by no means a few.”
“It is by population standards today,” Billimun said. “How many humans are there now? A trillion or so? My ancestors are the ones who stayed behind. To mind the store, so to speak, in case people wanted to come back and see where they came from. Like your good self, my lord. But look around you. This is the rightful home of humankind.”
“Really?”
I stood up in the car and stretched out my arms. This was the birthplace of my species? I hardly dared think that I would ever stand on, or at this moment, above the land that gave rise to the spreading empire of humanity. Earth! I breathed in the heavy air, imagining that I was with my ancestors. As they prepared to step off the bounds of this blue planet and out into the unknown, what must have gone through their minds? Fear, certainly, but excitement must have overwhelmed that fear. I felt as though I could sense their feelings. I did my best to draw it in along with the fragrant air and the sense of the enormous blue sky daubed with brilliant white puffs of cloud. Did they know where they would find safe haven, or were they prepared for the long and potentially disappointing search, until that day that they would happen upon the Core Worlds sector, and history would be born?
Though little remained of the physical site, the soul of exploration enveloped me. I was, at that moment, every one of my ancestors: the engineers, the diplomats, the doctors, the poets, those who were afraid but were going nonetheless, and those who could see no other way for humankind to mature and prosper than by finding new worlds and new beings with whom they would share the galaxy. I felt myself stepping onto that ship that would take me into the unknown. Few artifacts remained of the earliest attempts at space travel, but one man’s voice, deep and a trifle nasal, intoning, “One small step for human, one giant leap for humankind.” Or so the translation machines always rendered it. Imperium standard language had changed greatly over the intervening millennia. The truth remained: I stood on the doorstep of the galaxy.
“Earth,” I breathed. I found myself poised, with one foot in the air as if ready to climb into that primitive spaceship.
“Doubtful,” Redius said.
My raised foot left the poets and the explorers behind and touched down onto prosaic floorboards.
“Why do you say that?” I asked. I was cross at the interruption of my dream, but Redius never punctured the balloon of my fancy without good reason. I still held out hope. “Why couldn’t this be Earth?”
The Uctu stuck his copper-colored tongue out a centimeter to show derision.
“Not old enough. Buildings too new.”
I seized the screentank and brought up images of the ancient monuments that we had already seen. “You heard his explanation. The disaster that sent most of humankind running offworld buried them deep in the heart of the continents. These are what were built since. The old places are underground.”
“All? Convenient.”
“Well, sir, you know, there’s some good and sound reasoning that this might be old Earth,” Billimun said, with a smile that entirely failed to penetrate Redius’s skepticism.
“Why renamed?” Redius asked.
“Well …” Billimun leaned forward as if to draw us into his confidence. “You know, humankind has its enemies. If we went on calling it Earth, it’s like a great big arrow saying, ‘come attack us!’ This way, they just see a tourist destination for humans. If you get my drift. It saves all the monuments and natural creatures as well as
ourselves.”
“Investigate records,” Redius said. “DNA of local flora shows evolutionary patterns. Mismatches indicate integration. Doesn’t hold?”
“Well?” I asked. My friend’s logic was inescapable, as heavy as it made my heart to admit it. I still hoped that Billimun could refute it in a manner that would satisfy all of us.
Billimun shrugged. “You’ve got me there, friend. I just know what I was taught. Makes pretty good telling, though. Lots of people like to think this is Earth that only a few of us know about. They go away thinking they are in on the biggest secret in the galaxy.”
I took no comfort in his admission. I was devastated. “So Earth remains lost.”
My shoulders drooped. I felt the corners of my mouth dragged down as though by gravity toward the center of this very pretty planet that was humanity’s temporary home, but not its first. I sat down heavily, all my limbs weighed with sorrow. If only this were long-lost Earth, but it is merely an interpretation of it, just as my performance is only an impression of the places I have been.
“There,” Madame Deirdre said, a triumphant gleam in her eyes. “Now you have the attitude of nostalgia! Hold onto that, my lord.”
I didn’t feel as though I could. I could barely hold my head up.
CHAPTER 13
“Fill up your water bottles from the tap,” Billimun said. The car tilted downward, beginning its descent. “Drink at least half a liter per hour. It’s dry here. The altitude will parch you. You won’t realize it until it sneaks up on you.” I glanced up from staring at my feet. I barely made note of the saddleback ridge as our car arched up and over it. The dimming, blue-tinted light of late afternoon caught my mood exactly. I sighed.
“You’ve been in a reverie for hours,” Madame Deirdre said. “Would you like something to eat before we land? Mr. Billimun’s snack plates are as good as a feast. There is a cheese pie made with a local goat cheese that is worth dancing for.”
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