Analog SFF, December 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Reaching up to rub his neck, Johnson asked, “What—?"

  "Thilosone butyrate,” I told him. “Truth serum."

  He faced Carla. “You're going to be sorry."

  She said, “Bit late for threats, Professor."

  He snorted.

  Daniel retreated to Carla's side. He reached for the rifle.

  "No,” she said. “Get out your phone. Take down his answers.” Then to Johnson she said, “All right, Professor, where do you keep the coordinates of the nest site?"

  His mouth opened, but then he snapped it shut. He clenched his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut, as if fighting for control.

  Carla sighed. Her gun made a small movement—

  —and my left hand burned as if it were immersed in flame. I yelped and reflexively jerked my forearm to my chest.

  Carla watched, dispassionate.

  I held the hand out before me. Its skin had turned bright red, and blisters bulged from the backs of three fingers. I glared at Carla as I lifted my hand to blow cool air at it.

  "Well, Professor?” she asked. “Or are you going to just stand there while I set her whole body on fire?"

  He'd been staring at my hand. Now he met my eyes, his expression pathetic in its helplessness. He turned to Carla.

  "Damn you,” he said.

  She shrugged. “The coordinates?"

  "I committed them to memory."

  "Good for you. Well?"

  He glared for another second. Then his shoulders slumped. “Fifty-four point seven three two,” he said. “Fifteen point six."

  Daniel jabbed at his phone.

  Johnson continued, “Three point one five four."

  "Wait,” said Daniel. “That's too many numbers. Give it to me again."

  Johnson took a breath. “Sixty-eight thousand and three. Eleven point five one seven."

  "No!” Daniel looked up. “That doesn't make any sense!"

  Carla was frowning. “It's also different from his first answer. The injector—"

  Daniel said, “I gave him the right dose!"

  Her eyes narrowed. After a few seconds she said, “Professor, tell me that we're on Earth."

  "What?"

  "You heard me.” She pointed her gun at my face. “Say it!"

  "All right, all right! We're on—” He grimaced. “We're on—"

  "Professor!” Her finger shifted on the trigger.

  "We're—damn it! Don't shoot her! We're not on Earth!"

  Carla gave a puzzled nod and the pistol lowered slightly. “Okay, so the thilosone is working. But then why..."

  I said, “He told you that you'd be sorry."

  Her gaze shifted my way.

  "It wasn't a threat,” I explained. “I guess you showed up too late to hear about his stroke—he can't do numbers anymore.” At her baffled expression, I turned to him. “Dr. Johnson, can you tell Carla what number follows fifteen?"

  "Six,” he answered. “No—eleven?” He frowned as the thilosone compelled him to try to come up with the truth. “Wait, you said the number after thirteen?"

  "Thanks, that's good enough. Sorry.” To Carla I said, “Sort of an ironic situation, huh?"

  The confusion on her face changed to reluctant comprehension and then, for an instant, to fury. But then her anger faded and she looked lost, like an explorer who'd studied all the maps and plotted all the routes, but now found herself gazing outward from the precipice of an impossible cliff.

  Daniel broke the silence. “Dr. Johnson, you must have recorded this somewhere! In what data file? Is it online? What are the passwords?"

  "No passwords,” he replied, looking a little smug now. “No files."

  Carla gestured to Daniel; he picked up the rifle and aimed it at Johnson's chest. Her own gun continued to point my way. “Well, then, Professor, I suppose we'll all just have to try a bit harder here."

  "Not necessarily,” said a new voice. Through the doorway strolled Garcia Ortega, his gun aimed at Carla. To me he gave an exasperated look. “So you're always careful, are you?"

  For a second we all stared at him. Then both Carla and Daniel suddenly recalled Johnson and me. They shifted their positions to keep us and Garcia Ortega all in view.

  I said to him, “If there's anybody else lined up outside that doorway, could you ask them to come in now? I don't want to spend my entire day doing this."

  He studied the scene. “You must be Daniel Vargas—I've always wondered whether someday you'd become a problem. And Dr. Johnson, of course.” He gave a polite nod. Then he addressed Carla. “But you...” He shook his head, as if she had somehow disappointed him. He knew her?

  She gave him an icy glance, then turned her attention to me. Her gun lifted slightly, as did the corners of her mouth.

  Not wanting to let her retake the initiative, I blurted, “What the hell are you doing here?"

  Carla frowned, for an instant not realizing to whom I was speaking.

  "Your phone,” said Garcia Ortega, “has been offline since yesterday. I was worried."

  "Okay, but how did—” The answer became obvious as soon as I started to ask the question. “You bastard!” Some hotshot investigator I was—based on my recent performance, the next time I needed to sneak out of town I might as well post my destination in sky writing. “Your data crystal—it programmed my scanner into a tracker."

  He shrugged. “Also a microphone. So in addition to rescuing you, I've saved you the trouble of having to fill me in on your past hour's conversations."

  "Gee, thanks.” I held up my reddened hand. “Though your rescue might have come just a few minutes sooner."

  "Will you shut up!" demanded Carla. By now she was looking more than a little irritated. “Both of you! You're outgunned, damn it. Shoot one of us, Jorge, and either Johnson or your girlfriend dies. This is still my play."

  Garcia Ortega didn't appear particularly disturbed by either prospect. “You think so, Miriam? Even after Daniel learns what you're up to?"

  The tip of Daniel's rifle twitched. But apart from a deepening of his frown and a slight narrowing of his eyes, no other visible reaction escaped.

  "'Miriam'?” I asked.

  Garcia Ortega nodded. “Miriam Halpern. She's an assistant to one of my subcommittee's staff members. How did you think she learned about the Warrant, and about you? And also, I suppose, about Daniel here."

  Daniel's frown deepened further. He glanced at her, then at Garcia Ortega, then back to her.

  I examined her face more closely than I had earlier, trying to imagine her brittle features softened by a bit more flesh. The resemblance was subtle, but ... “You're related to Fiona Halpern,” I said.

  "Shut up,” she said.

  "You know, Fiona once told me about her little sister. Her sister idolized her, Fiona said. She'd even convinced Fiona to give her access to Fiona's diary, so she'd always know what Fiona was doing and thinking."

  Miriam's thin lips tightened. Her gun hand extended toward me.

  "Steady...” cautioned Garcia Ortega.

  I kept my voice soft and even. “So I'm a little surprised that you'd be working for the Central Committee. Considering how, in the City Hall raid, the Committee Police put four bullets through your sister's head."

  The threat of Garcia Ortega's gun kept her from broiling me with her maser. But not from giving me a look so cold that I wouldn't have been surprised if Johnson's lizards beside me had suddenly evolved fur.

  Daniel said, “So that's why you joined the underground! To avenge your sister's death."

  She held her glare on my face as she answered him. “Don't be an idiot."

  Daniel's injured expression suggested that he wasn't accustomed to Miriam addressing him so harshly.

  She continued, “You can't avenge yourself on a system, Daniel. Or change one. Fiona tried that—she's dead. No, all there is in this life is what you can get for yourself."

  "But ... what about the Warrant?"

  Miriam didn't answer, so I decided to h
elp him out. “Cash, Daniel. Anonymous ransom notes. A carefully arranged money drop. Lots and lots of cash."

  I hadn't seen such a miserable, disillusioned face since ... well, since I'd witnessed his brother Luis listening to the cheer rise from a stadium of his fellow citizens upon the execution of his comrades.

  In a constricted whisper, as if he'd just been punched in the stomach, Daniel asked, “And the resistance?"

  Still facing me, Miriam rolled her eyes.

  Garcia Ortega remained alert, his gaze twitching between Daniel and Miriam. For the moment, though, apparently he was leaving the conversation to me.

  "A fairy tale,” I told Daniel. “Dreamed up to pull your—our—strings."

  Daniel shook his head. His fingers, one of them wrapped around the rifle's trigger, clenched and unclenched in a way that made me very nervous.

  "No.” His voice grew louder as his conviction firmed. “Carla, everything you told me, everything you believe—you couldn't have been making that up! Not all of it!"

  "Daniel,” she said, “just shut up.” She pointed her maser straight into my eye. “And you—"

  We had all forgotten Johnson. This whole time he must have been very slowly easing his hand into his lab coat, until it had reached the holster on his belt. Now he yanked out his gun and swung on Miriam.

  The movement drew Daniel's attention; the barrel of his rifle jerked toward Johnson's chest.

  "No!" I shouted.

  Garcia Ortega's gun fired nearly simultaneously with Daniel's.

  Daniel let out a loud gasp, then slowly folded at the waist.

  I threw myself full length onto the concrete floor as Miriam's maser sizzled and Garcia Ortega's gun barked again. My body curled in on itself, eyes squeezed tightly shut. My heart hammered—I needed air, but a rigid band gripped my ribs. “No,” I whispered. “No no no—"

  Hot liquid sprayed across my cheek and something hard crashed down onto my burnt fingers. My hand shrieked with pain; louder, more terrible shrieks echoed in my mind.

  The pain drove my eyes open. Johnson's gun lay on the floor by my hand, his arm outstretched and unmoving beyond it. I pivoted my head to look up. Miriam, facing away from me, was the only one still standing.

  Miriam's maser angled downward, toward the doorway against which Garcia Ortega now sprawled. I imagined a red dot sliding across his forehead.

  And suddenly I was filled with rage. No! Not this time. Not again.

  I lunged forward into a rolling dive over Johnson's arm, scooping up his gun with my good hand. Miriam spun at the sound—Johnson's sleeve burst into flame and heat scorched my calves. My roll carried me up onto my knees; I aimed and shot Miriam in the thigh.

  She screamed and grabbed her leg. Behind her, Garcia Ortega's gun sounded once more. Miriam's body slammed against the end of one of the lab benches, slid to the floor. She moaned for a few seconds, then let out one long, last breath.

  She lay facing me, her gray eyes staring in disappointed surprise. Her delicate features didn't look quite so hard or angular now.

  Behind me, a wet cough. I twisted around to examine Johnson. His sleeve still smoldered—the fabric's gray smoke spread into the room with an acrid scent that partly masked the smells of fired ammunition and singed hair and burnt flesh. The front of Johnson's coat was all blood; I forced myself to focus on his ash-gray face.

  He noticed me watching him. His gaze locked intensely onto my face; he tried to say something, but couldn't manage it. He lifted his unburned arm and pointed upward, past me.

  He was pointing at the underside of the lab bench's stone counter. I leaned toward it and looked closely, but there was nothing there. Puzzled, I turned again to Johnson. His arm had dropped back to the floor. He was no longer breathing.

  Numb, I used my good hand to push myself up to a crouch and then to standing. The backs of my calves stung as I straightened my legs.

  Daniel was unconscious, but breathing slow and steady.

  Garcia Ortega had managed to sit himself up against the doorframe. The left side of his face was bright red and hugely swollen; his left arm lay in his lap, charred. His breaths came in deep, wheezing gasps as his right eye followed my movements.

  Somewhere during the excitement my phone had gotten smashed. I staggered out of the lab into the living room. There was probably a radio or a phone tucked away in there somewhere, but a quick survey didn't turn it up. I continued through the alcove and outside.

  The harsh sun stung my burnt hand and legs. I squinted. Miriam's rover sat beside my bike and Johnson's vehicle. On the dusty ground behind them sat a two-seater helicopter.

  The copter was too small to carry the three of us back to town. But Garcia Ortega hadn't locked down the controls; I was able to radio for an air ambulance. Half an hour, they told me.

  I found Johnson's first-aid kit in the kitchen. An oxygen mask seemed to ease Garcia Ortega's breathing—though I had to prop the mask on his chest, rather than pulling its straps across his seared face. A pain injector seemed to help, too.

  I stretched Daniel out on his back, using a couple of cushions from the living-room armchairs to elevate his legs. Besides the spot on his back where Garcia Ortega's bullet had entered, I didn't see much blood, and his breathing didn't sound labored. I covered him with one of the storm coats from the front alcove.

  Sitting on a ceramic stool, I leaned against the lab bench and watched over the two of them while I contemplated the disaster I'd made of this job. Rafe and Johnson dead, Daniel unconscious, Garcia Ortega—my client—seriously injured. I actually had managed to locate the Warrant—but I'd also virtually guaranteed that it would never be recovered. No doubt Garcia Ortega would arrange a continuous watch for salmon-lizard orgies, but the desert was a very big place, the lizards were small and well camouflaged, and his people would get only a few hours to spot each gathering.

  One way or another, five years from now it was quite unlikely that I'd still be living in this colony.

  Did I really want to spend those final five years continuing in my current career?

  I knew the career I'd always wanted to pursue. All these years I'd done my best to stay current, but I knew how rusty my math skills had become. Still, how about offering some informal tutoring? Plenty of Hab Town residents would welcome a chance at a bit of university-level instruction. Teaching would help me ease myself back into the game—eventually I might even make some minor contribution in the years remaining. Of course, for a license to teach I'd need somebody to pull a few strings for me—maybe I could talk Garcia Ortega into a favor.

  That's what I was mulling when the medics arrived. As they fussed over Daniel and Garcia Ortega, I studied the body of Miriam Halpern. Under the circumstances I couldn't bring myself to feel very bad about her death. Still, who knew how she might have turned out if her sister had never been shot at City Hall? Which got me thinking about Fiona—and for once I was able to recall some of the good times the two of us had shared.

  But I lost my smile when I turned and saw Johnson. Damn. I wished that I'd met him a long time ago, that we'd had more time together.

  Then I remembered his final gesture, pointing toward the bottom of the lab bench. And for an instant all of my thoughts and emotions stopped.

  The medics and their patients weren't paying any attention to me. As casually as I could, I walked down the aisle between the two lab benches until I came to Johnson's station. Pretending to examine a nearby skeleton, I ran my hand along the underside of the counter. Nothing but rough stone. I took a step to one side and continued my search. After a few seconds my fingers brushed the edge of a small piece of paper. I worked it free of its adhesive, and then gave it a quick glance as I pushed it into a pocket of my shorts: the paper bore two short rows of numbers, plus a date.

  Apparently Johnson hadn't completely trusted his memory, even before his stroke.

  I returned to the other end of the room, giving Johnson's pyramidal drying rack a little tap with my finger as I pa
ssed by. The medics were getting ready to wheel their charges out to the ambulance; one of them took a moment to dress my burned hand and apply ointment to some of my cuts and scrapes.

  From what Johnson had told me, I figured there was a significant chance that the salmon-lizards would return in less than five years. That they'd bring with them enough of the Warrant's gems that the device could be reassembled seemed possible, though certainly not guaranteed. Combine those probabilities and then require the reconstituted Warrant to actually function after such abuse, and I guessed the overall chances of success as slightly better than the odds of a snowball fight breaking out tomorrow in Hab Town.

  In other words, the colony's likelihood of surviving beyond the next five years had just shot up by a huge factor.

  Assuming that somebody decided to meet the salmon-lizards.

  I declined a ride in the ambulance. Before they left, the ambulance pilot helped me confirm that Miriam's rover would respond to my commands. He also helped me load my bike into the rover; I planned to return to Glendora and check on Roger and then take Demetri's rover home. After that I expected days of interrogation and reams of virtual paperwork from the Committee Police, unless Garcia Ortega recovered quickly enough to get me off the hook.

  In the meantime, I didn't plan to wait here until the police showed up. Before I left, though, there were a couple of tasks remaining for me in the lab.

  I gave Miriam's body one last look, then turned to view the stains and medical debris that marked the positions of Garcia Ortega and Daniel. Demetri's rifle lay where Daniel had dropped it; the police wouldn't appreciate me taking it back, so I figured I owed Demetri a new gun.

  I removed my scanner from my pocket, then plucked out Garcia Ortega's crystal and dropped it onto one of the stone counters. Just to be safe, I pulled the power cell from the scanner before returning it to my pocket.

  Finally I faced the other body. I had to clear my throat a couple of times before I could speak. “Okay, Dr. Johnson. Today somebody's not going to look the other way. Satisfied?” I stood by him for another minute or two.

  Then I fetched what I'd come for and headed back outside.