The door opened and a young cyborg with a round, effeminate face poked his head into the operating room. Both his legs were metal frames, painted black, and his left arm frame was steel. The napalalene cords that served as muscles hung loosely within the frames. The massive form of Perfecto filled the hallway behind him. The bridge of Perfecto’s nose was swollen and his eyes were black, but as Abriara had predicted, he smiled enthusiastically when he saw me.
The young man said, "Sergeant, it’s time to go to practice."
Abriara turned to him. "Zavala, meet don Angelo Osic."
The boy nodded. "I’m pleased to meet you, don Angelo."
"When the steers talked of shipping you back to Earth," Abriara said, "Mavro and Zavala here swore to rip the tongues out of anyone who continued to talk like old women. Every one of them backed down."
I took the cue and said graciously, "Thank you, Señor Zavala. You sound like a brave one."
"It is nothing." The youth shrugged. By the way he smiled I knew I’d said the right thing.
Abriara got up, and I prepared to follow her and I noticed I was barefoot. Everyone else was barefoot, too. "No shoes?" I asked Abriara.
"Not on ship," Zavala answered eagerly. "Our employers won’t allow it. Also, I must warn you: When you meet a Japanese, you must lower your eyes and bow. And you must never call them names—not even steer or pubic hair. You must call them master."
I’d dealt with Japanese clients many times, and had never heard of such a thing. "¡Me pelo rubio!" I said, "You tease me!"
"No! They even hired a cultural expert to tell us these things. On Baker everyone is Japanese. It’s some kind of experiment in social engineering, artificial cultures."
He said the words "artificial cultures" as if they explained everything. It was obvious that whatever he’d heard had gone over his head. "Hmmmph," I grunted.
"But you can make them act like pubic hairs," Zavala said. "I’ll show you the trick!" He waved me forward and walked out the door.
Mavro and Perfecto waited for us to lead the way down the hall. They both slapped me on the back and shouted "¡Hola, muchacho! It’s good to see you again!" and acted so happy I thought they’d throw a party. Mavro was a full head shorter than me, something I hadn’t noticed earlier.
Abriara and Zavala led the way, while the others walked behind, and I realized they’d put me in a protected position in an inconspicuous manner. The cream-colored corridors were narrow, just wide enough for one man to walk easily, and the plastic floors bent when you put your weight on them, so you always felt as if you were sliding either backward or forward between the struts. We passed several men; each had wet hair as if returning from the showers, and we had to stop, turn sideways, and inch past one another. This was very uncomfortable, since I thought any one of them could be an Alliance assassin, and I continually fingered the knives hidden in my sleeves.
We were on the 300 level, so when we came to a ladder, we climbed up.
At the top of the ladder stood a Japanese man wearing a silk kimono, dark blue with white lotuses; a short sword was strapped to his waist. Like the gun of a policeman, the sword was a badge of his authority on ship. His build was stocky, too much like Perfecto’s to have come about as the result of the process of natural selection. It was obvious Motoki was engineering warriors on Baker, but I had to wonder what upgrades he had. He did not look like a chimera. His long hair, tied back in a pony tail, was so black it shone blue, and he had only one dark eyebrow that ran across his forehead. He didn’t even acknowledge our presence when we prepared to squeeze past him in the hall. Instead, he stared down the hallway and pretended we didn’t exist. This seemed very strange.
"Daytime, Master," Zavala said, bowing to and addressing the Japanese. Then in an excited tone he shouted, "Noses have flown through the pudding, and salmon swim along the intestine! Hurry!" And he pointed down the ladder.
A strange expression washed over the Japanese man’s face and he opened his mouth wide, using body language so alien I couldn’t read it. He appeared very distressed, and muttered, "Hai! Hai!" and a microspeaker pinned to his robe said "Yes! Yes!" as he hurried down the ladder.
We watched him go, and when he was out of earshot, Zavala chuckled. "See, I told you I could get him to act like a pubic hair. They all wear electronic translators strapped to their necks, and if you talk convincingly, they think that the translators are broken."
We continued up the ladder until we stepped off at the second level. Another Japanese, a weary-looking clone of the first, walked down the corridor. Zavala sent him rushing down the ladder by shouting, "Water hernias have broken your friend! Downstairs. Japanese, downstairs!"
The corridor was like a spoke on a wheel. Six corridors met at the ladder at the center of the hub, and then each corridor also intersected a corridor that circled the ship. When we got to the wheel’s rim we turned left and followed the hall. The emblem of a green crane crossing the sun shone above a doorway. Beneath the emblem were the words: Battle Room 19.
Abriara stopped for a moment. "Is everyone prepared for a taste of the future?" she said, then opened the door: The room was small, perhaps five meters square. Pale green battle armor the color of aged foliage hung on the walls around the room like chitinous exoskeletons. A replica of a large hovercraft with an open top and elevated plasma turrets occupied most of the room. Two Japanese rigidly sat on the floor in front of the hovercraft in the ancient seiza style—feet under the buttocks, toes pointed back—a feat requiring so much flexibility that few people can manage it. The man on the left was a monster with an enlarged musculoskeletal system; he’d have stood well over two meters tall, and he dwarfed even Perfecto. Like the others I’d seen, he wore a blue flowered robe and a sword. The man on the right was small though, smaller than me, and he carried no weapons. Zavala stared at the floor and bowed as he entered the room, and each of us followed suit. The Japanese acknowledged our bows by nodding in return.
"Put on armor, quickly!" the small one shouted.
We all rummaged through the armor, looking for pieces that fit. The armor design was unlike any I’d seen before. It was thin, without the heavy concussion padding that usually makes armor so hot. It had elegant lines and joints that made its wearer appear taller than normal and made for easy walking. I soon realized why it was different: The armor was designed to reflect the beams of heat weapons, not to absorb impact from projectiles. Also, the helmet had an unusual optic system with a number of polarized lenses that rotated automatically to keep the amount of incoming light constant. This created a bulge around the eyes like the humps on the eyes of a chameleon. Each helmet had a small hole at the base of the skull so we could run lines from our cranial jacks to the simulator in the hovercraft’s computer. Normal helmets have air filtration systems, to protect one from smoke or poisonous gas, planted over the nose and mouth, but this had pipes with filters that wrapped around the face to the back of the head.
It seemed a waste to wear this armor for nothing, when we wouldn’t fight a real campaign, but it did serve a purpose: It stopped sensory leak from the real world. When one is plugged into a cranial jack, the jack bypasses the sensory and motor areas of the brain while the jack’s processor carries on a two-way conversation with the computer—the processor carries sensory input to the brain while the brain sends motor responses back to the computer. In this way, you can maintain the illusion of the dreamworld. However, the cranial jack’s bypass system is not fool-proof. One always gets sensory leak from the world outside. Bright lights or loud noises in the real world can adversely affect the quality of a dream world. So by wearing the armor and helmets, we could actually reduce leakage to the aural, tactile, and visual senses, thus locking us firmly into the illusion provided by the simulator. The armor serves the same purpose as the visors on dream monitors, except that the armor shields the senses to a much greater degree.
Zavala dressed quickest, and as he pulled on his helmet he said, "Hey, look at me! I’m a big
green grasshopper!" He stuck his fingers up by his head and wiggled them like antennas. The speaker in the helmet made his voice sound like the growl of an animal, but with his bulging eyes and green exoskeleton he did look surprisingly like a grasshopper.
Perfecto laughed and said, "No you’re not. You’re a praying mantis. Remember that. We’re all mantises—and the Yabajin are grasshoppers."
The big Japanese grumbled something, and the microspeaker on his kimono shouted "No talking!"
We all put on our armor quietly. When we were done, we no longer looked human.
The small Japanese clapped his hands and pointed to the floor in front of him. "Sit, please," he said in halting Spanish. And we sat on the floor so we were at a level lower than them.
The small one said, "I am Cultural Envoy Sakura Chimori, and to my right is your master, Master Kaigo. He will instruct you in the arts of the samurai. We are sorry that the situation for instruction is not ideal, but we hope you will find happiness serving Motoki Corporation."
Abriara said, "Excuse me, but I understood we were to be members of an assault team." She nodded toward the hovercraft. "That piece of trash doesn’t have enough armor to be an assault vehicle! And what about outriders and snoopers and mini-nukes?"
The big samurai’s back stiffened, and he scowled at Abriara’s tone, though he continued staring straight ahead. The little man, Sakura, sucked his teeth to make a hissing noise and looked at Kaigo. Master Kaigo held out his hand, palm toward the floor, and wiggled it. I knew Abriara had angered them, but I didn’t understand what their gestures indicated.
Sakura turned to Abriara. "Sah," he said, letting out a hiss. "We have no offensive weapons. If you cannot kill a man with the weapons we give you, then he does not deserve to die.
"Now, I understand that relationships between men and women are relaxed in your country. But I must warn you, Sergeant Sifuentes, things are not the same on Baker. Please quickly adopt the sweet, subservient demeanor that is so becoming to women, lest one of our samurai remove your head in a fit of righteous anger.
"When addressing the Master, drop to your knees and bow your head, then ask permission to speak. This rule is the same for all of you." Sakura stared at each of us woodenly, to make certain we understood.
"Now," he said, "we have told you that your work on Baker is strictly of a defensive nature. So, what gives you the idea that you are an assault team? "
Abriara’s fists tightened and she swayed from side to side a little. Her anger was obvious, though her helmet concealed her face. She said in a carefully neutral voice, "Common sense. Our contract says you’re paying our way there and back, with a stay of three months. A defensive team would need to stay years—not months."
Sakura smiled triumphantly and his gaze drifted over each of us. "See what happens when a woman thinks!" he said. As if speaking to an idiot, he addressed Abriara. "You didn’t read your contract carefully. It said you would have a minimum stay of three months. You may be on the planet for a very long time. Let us have no more talk of attacks. We must be clear: Motoki is hiring you for defensive purposes, as we’ve repeatedly told the Alliance. And since the Alliance prohibits offensive weapons on Baker, an assault would seem implausible.
"But you should also know that the hovercraft, armor, and light plasma rifles are all defensive weapons provided for researchers engaged in field studies outside of protected zones. You may use these weapons as you will." Sakura let the final words dangle in the air. His meaning was obvious. It was illegal for Motoki to hire us to attack the Yabajin, so they’d just provide the "defensive" weapons and a means of locomotion and let us do the job ourselves.
Perfecto bowed at the waist, unwilling to fall to his knees. "Señor, what will our enemy’s defensive weaponry consist of?" He spoke to the floor
Sakura nodded politely, indicating that Perfecto’s show of humility was adequate. "Cities are protected by automated perimeter defense systems—puff mines, neutron cannon, and plasma turrets for the outer layers, weasels and cybernet tanks for the inner defenses."
Abriara stared at the floor, thinking.
Perfecto said, "That’s not so bad."
He was right. Most of the mercenaries had penetrated defenses just as tough in the jungles of Colombia and the highlands of Peru.
"I don’t understand," Mavro said, bowing. "It sounds easy. Why do you need us?"
Sakura stared off into the air for a moment, then began an obviously memorized speech: "Over a hundred years ago, Motoki Corporation embarked on a noble experiment. Decades of complacency, Westernization, and overabundant wealth had weakened the spirit of the Japanese people, sapping them of their strength. Economic indicators clearly showed that Japan would soon lose its industrial lead to the Chinese, perhaps forever. The executives at Motoki could not allow this, so they considered alternatives. It became evident that problems in Japan could only be solved by reengineering the very fabric of society—restoring the ancient ideals of unity, honor, and willingness to work that had once made Japan strong. But success could only be assured by isolating a segment of the population, removing it from weaker cultures so it would not be contaminated. If one were to cultivate a rare and beautiful flower, one would not allow it to become pollinated by a lesser flower. So, Motoki removed a portion of its top executives—the best specimens of humanity—to Baker, and initiated a new Meiji, a cultural restoration.
"Unfortunately, we undertook this great plan in concert with the Japanese government. The government hired its own cultural engineers and selected its own representatives—lesser genetic specimens. These people were unable to tear from their souls the ignoble ideals and polluting doctrines that had so bereaved our country. They were worldly, aristocratic, and lazy. As a result, their settlements are populated by Yabajin, barbarians who seek constantly to destroy us. They have sent so many assassins to bomb our incubation stations and slay our upgraded children that the Alliance has officially forbidden the use of incubation vats on the entire planet. Not fifty years ago we were a blossoming civilization with a population of two million. Now our planet is nearly decimated, and only a few thousand remain."
He said the last words with a tone of heaviness, signifying that the speech was over. "So, we hire you to protect our cities. However, if we exterminated all eighty thousand Yabajin, we would not repay one-tenth the damage they have done to us."
I did not believe Sakura’s description of the political climate on Baker. I’m sure the Yabajin would have described it differently. It was clear that Sakura’s people were a race of megalomaniacs—a problem typically encountered when visionaries become isolated, as shown time and again by the festering settlements from LaGrange to Barnard’s star. Sakura called his enemies Yabajin, barbarians, yet all the Japanese I’d seen were half naked and carried swords.
When I’d signed on ship, it had been to escape Earth. I’d known Motoki wanted a soldier, but I’d imagined running a cybernet defense system, not scorching women with lasers and killing their children. The idea of committing genocide sickened me. Clearly this was not a job for me.
The big man, Kaigo, spoke in a rumbling voice, and his microspeaker translated, "We start with weapons."
Sakura left. Kaigo instructed Mavro and Perfecto to take stations at the plasma turrets while the rest of us picked up laser rifles. For the next hour and a half he acquainted us with the weapons. The laser was similar to the one I’d shot Arish with, using the same chemical clip for power, but it had a much longer barrel and delivered 8000 degrees over an area four centimeters in diameter. With so much heat, the lenses and focusing mirrors needed much cooling, so the barrel was wrapped in insulation and cooled with liquid nitrogen. At 100 meters it could deliver a burst that the body armor could withstand for a just over a second, but on the moving hovercraft it was difficult to hold aim so long. For this reason, each laser was provided with a targeting computer connected to a focusing mirror that corrected for jostling after the trigger was squeezed. In other words, once
you pulled the trigger, you hit what you last aimed at—whether it was empty sky, the head of a nail, or a man—and you couldn’t shoot again for two seconds.
The plasma turrets mounted to the hovercraft used the hovercraft’s solid fuel to superheat metal balls and explode metallic gases toward the enemy in great bursts. The turrets were more effective than lasers, since at close range the heavy gases could gouge armor in a fraction of a second. Since the turrets were so effective, the gunners became the enemy’s primary target.
After Kaigo discoursed on the strengths and weaknesses of the weapons, he made us practice reloading and targeting until we tired. "Tell me when you are ready for a battle," he said. His tone held a note of warning.
Abriara shrugged and said, "Let’s do it."
We got on the hovercraft.
Zavala, with the decreased sensitivity in his metal arm, seemed least capable of handling a weapon, so we put him in the driver’s seat. Perfecto and Mavro took the turrets while Abriara and I held rifles and took seats on either side of the turrets, ready to replace any fallen turret gunner.
Kaigo went to each seat and pulled out the cords that ran from the computer terminal to our cranial jacks. He plugged us in. A message flashed before my eyes:
And then we were bouncing across a red desert at full speed, the hovercraft droning like a dragonfly. It would hit small dips and rises, and its whole undercarriage would shudder, making my teeth feel as if they’d rattle from their sockets.
The sky was a hazy, indistinct violet with bands of earthy yellow and green clouds that twisted from horizon to horizon like rivers in the sky. These were not gaseous clouds, but it took several moments before I realized they were animals—flocks of birds high in the atmosphere.
In the battle room my armor had smelled fresh and resinous. But the simulator supplied the nauseating odor of stale sweat, as if I’d lived in armor for months without a bath.
On My Way to Paradise Page 12