Strings

by Dave Duncan

  Damn, but his gut hurt! He wondered about the four percies that Bagshaw had brought with him—were there watchers inside those, staying silent? Was Bagshaw genuine? If he was, then why so nasty? If not, then what use was all that extra equipment? None of that mattered much, Cedric decided. Having used up the last of his credit calling Madge, he had left himself with no options but to do as he was told.

  “That rental abortion probably has more pitches and patches on it than you could believe,” Bagshaw remarked. “I turned it off before I even opened the door. I could have taken it over and made it break your neck instead. Never, ever, trust anyone else’s percy!”

  Cedric gave up hope that the water would run hot, or the soap ever produce a lather. Perhaps such things were luxuries that only places like Meadowdale could provide. He turned off the water and reached for the dryer.

  “Don’t!” Bagshaw shouted. “Jeez, man! Those things are deadly!”

  “I’ve used one hundreds of—”

  “Easiest booby trap in the world!”

  Cedric scowled back at the older man’s glare. “All right, how do I dry myself?”

  “With the bed sheets, dummy! You’ll catch some bugs and funguses, of course, but we can treat most of those. You probably got them already, just sleeping there.”

  Not sure how much of that to believe, Cedric stalked across to the bed, feeling absurdly aware of his nudity as he did so. He hauled off a sheet. “Tell me about your friends,” he said. He nodded at the percies.

  Bagshaw had pivoted to watch him. “Those? Just some girls I know.” He laughed meanly. “Naw, they’re empty. Backup equipment.”

  “You run them?”

  “Sure.” Bagshaw frowned, making odd wrinkles in his synthetic skin. “My job. I’m a pro, sonny. Remember, percies are only robots. That means computers. Computers have limitations. They’re not good enough for the real enchiladas, the nobs, the big bumps on the world’s ass—they have personal guards as well, real human beings who go everywhere with them, who open the doors and taste the soup and defuse the bombs and step in front of the bullets…usually a team of two or three, taking shifts. They’re known as bulls.”

  “Short for pit bulls,” Cedric said, to show he knew such things. “You’re telling me you’re a bull? You guard Gran?”

  “Naw. I’m not senior enough to be trusted with her. The Institute has five people who rank high enough for bulls—the old girl herself and the four horsemen…deputy directors.”

  “Five?” Cedric was impressed. “Five just in 4-I?”

  “Don’t call it that! It’s the Institute. Yes, five—right up there with the Secretary General, and the chairman of IBM, and the Speaker of the Chamber.”

  Cedric threw his bag on the bed and rummaged for clothes. “So why are you telling me this?”

  “Because from now on it’s six. I’m your bull, buster.”

  Half into his pants, Cedric tried to turn around and almost fell over. “Me? You’re crazy! I don’t rank a bodyguard!”

  Bagshaw rose from his invisible chair. He stretched and yawned. “Yes, you do. Two of us—me and Giles Ted. In future, one or the other of us will be breathing on your neck and stepping on your toes twenty-four hours a day. Like your grandmother said, you’ll obey orders. Ted or me’ll be calling the shots, and you will do exactly as we tell you. With a little luck, we’ll keep you alive, healthy, and sane. That’ll be nice, won’t it?”

  Cedric could only assume that the man was serious. He did not look as though he were joking. He might be crazy, of course. “But I—I’m nothing! You said yourself—fresh from a foster home, wet behind the ears. Green as grass.”

  “That’s right, sonny. But you’re grandson to the best hated woman in the world.”

  “Gran? Hated?”

  “Get dressed!”

  “But who—”

  “Get dressed!” Bagshaw repeated. “I’ll run you a list when we get back to HQ. It runs to ten or twelve pages: Earthfirsters and ecology freaks and pilgrim groups and half the cults on the globe; them that’s scared the Institute will poison the planet, them that says it’s doing too much, and them that says it ain’t doing enough. People who want to disband it, and people who want to take it over. People who believe it really has discovered habitable worlds and is keeping them secret…every type of nut there is.”

  Cedric’s head emerged through the top of his poncho. “But what has this to do with me?”

  Bagshaw rolled his eyes. “Ever heard of the Trojan horse? How do I know you haven’t already been rewired so’s you’ll strangle the old lady as soon as you meet her?”

  “That’s not possible!”

  “No?” Bagshaw somehow conveyed a shrug. “Well, not without a small amount of cooperation, it isn’t, I guess.”

  Cedric stood on one leg to pull on a sock. “So!”

  “So? So, you say? How about the media, sonny? The media have more short-term power than anybody. Homogenize Old Mother Hubbard’s grandson, and a thousand groups would try to claim credit. What you are is a bulletin standing by to interrupt normal programming.”

  Cedric found that his mouth was open again. He would have to watch that. “You are saying that…people…would kill me, just to spite Gran?”

  “Spite? Score off? Coerce? Turn? It wouldn’t matter much to you, would it? You’d be dead—or worse—in a week. I promise you. Why do you think she put you in Meadowdale in the first place?”

  Shoving feet into sneakers, Cedric thought of Glenda, who was Eccles Pandora’s cousin, and Gavin, whose father was president of ITT—and suddenly understood. “Neutral ground?”

  “Hey! Maybe you’re not quite as simple as you look. Of course, some of the real rabid groups wouldn’t respect any sort of sanctuary—the Sierra Club, or such—but you were fairly safe there. Now you’re in play, right? And the Institute has infinite money, so you’re a potential kidnap, too. Ransom victims rarely earn pensions.” Bagshaw was grinning grotesquely, enjoying Cedric’s horror. “Your dear gran’s got power, sonny, and anyone with power has enemies. She’s got more than most. BEST for example.”

  “BEST?”

  “Are you deaf? I thought you were just stupid. Hurry up and let’s get the hell out of here. Yes, BEST. She’s fought it off for years, and almost no one else has ever won a single round against BEST. This area happens to be BEST’s turf. You didn’t know that? There are hundreds of little power centers scattered around Nauc—some just local gang barons, others more important; even a few of the old legit governments still survive in places. There’s even a mob down Blue Ridge way calls itself the Congress of the United States. Has a good militia.”

  To save his life, Cedric could not have told how much truth there was in that tirade.

  And Bagshaw knew that. “But BEST’s HQ is less than ten miles from here, so of course it’s staked out its own territory all around. Now do you see? Sweet little Cedric with his feathers still wet flies out of the nest and perches right on the cats’ litter box. If BEST knew you were here, you’d be in surgery already. Apparently it doesn’t.”

  Cedric grunted and began stuffing things into his bag. His gut still hurt.

  “So just remember, sonny, that this ain’t the Meadowdale Organage no more and—”

  “Organage? What’s that mean? That’s the third time—”

  Then the helmet that hung behind Bagshaw’s head uttered a quiet beep. In an instant he had nodded the helmet into place, leaving Cedric to stare blankly at its shiny exterior. The inside would contain vid displays, of course, and speakers.

  Bagshaw emerged again, grim-faced. All trace of banter had vanished and there was only business showing.

  “We have company. Never mind all that stuff.” He took two steps to one of the percies and opened it. “Have you got anything here that’s valuable?”

  “My camera.”

  “Forget it. Anything that can’t be replaced—souvenirs, personal sentimental things?”

  “Just my coins.” Gran h
ad given him that camera…

  “Bring those, and leave the rest. They aren’t worth running through decon. Don’t leave any information, though. No letters, diaries?”

  Feeling more bewildered than annoyed, Cedric shook his head. Clutching his small bag of personal recordings, he stepped backward into the percy. Bagshaw reached in and swiftly began making the adjustments for him—the saddle and the shin pads, the chest and head straps. He was making them tight, and he had a deft touch despite his massive gauntlets.

  “Ouch!” Cedric muttered. His head felt as though it had just been set in concrete. The rental unit had not gripped nearly so hard. This one smelled much better—a clean, new, factory sort of smell. It was also larger.

  “Pull your chin in!” Bagshaw snarled, nimbly crushing Cedric’s aching belly with heavy padding. “This model’s guaranteed to twenty-five meters. Know what that means?”

  Cedric mumbled a negative as yet another strap immobilized his chin, wrenching his neck in the process.

  “It means you can drop about eight stories in it. I’ve tested one at twelve. Now, I’ll be running things, so you just relax and enjoy the ride. Keep your hands at your sides.”

  Cedric’s hands were almost the only thing he could move at all below his eyelids. The curious half-sitting position was surprisingly comfortable, as he knew from the previous day’s travels, and the new unit was a vastly better piece of machinery than the rental job that Bagshaw had scorned so much. It was even big enough for his freakish height. He had a good view through the front window, flanked by innumerable vids that he could see without moving his head, although few of their displays meant anything to him. He had a rear view through a mirror. A percy was a mobile coffin, a tomb with a view.

  Eight stories? That was only halfway down. It was the second half that would hurt.

  Bagshaw’s voice spoke in his ear. “Hear me okay?”

  “Fine.”

  The percies rose a few centimeters to lev position. They all tilted forward and began to move as a group for the door. Bagshaw was wearing only his bull suit, but his boots were off the floor also. He looked small and vulnerable between the five giant cylinders, as though he were a prisoner being escorted.

  He had put the rental job in front. It reached out its claws to flip the locks. Then it threw open the door and floated out into the corridor. White-hot fire jetted in from one side, searing right through the rented percy, cutting it in half, causing it to explode in a shower of molten metal and flaming plasteel. The carpet burst into flames. Even inside his armored tube, Cedric heard the roar and felt the blast. The blaze was bright enough to overload his viewplate and turn the images momentarily violet and red.

  “Well, damn!” Bagshaw’s voice muttered in his ear. “Looks like they want to play rough.”

  4

  Ionosphere, April 7

  ALYA AWOKE WHEN the seats were rotated to prepare for reentry. The cabin lights were still low. She had not been aware of dozing off, but the sudden return of her terror told her that it had been absent and therefore she must have been asleep. She had slept very little since the buddhi had begun tormenting her, two days before.

  The last time she had looked up, the viewscreens had been showing heavens full of stars, the way heavens were supposed to be, while the cruder manmade glare of Pacurb glimmered far below like spilled milk trickling down out of the hills to puddle against the edge of the ocean. She had identified Baja California and the Salton Sea.

  But then she must have dozed for a while. The world had grown closer and bigger, with a fiery sword slash of dawn showing dead ahead. The stars had fled, and even the myriad clotted lights of Nauc seemed faint. The super was pitching steeply downward, returning to Mother Earth.

  Yes, she had slept a little. Of course, by her time it was evening; in Nauc it would be Thursday morning again. She should not have slept. Sleep had left her with a hollow, weightless feeling, and already some time-zone disorientation. And still the wordless dread, that terrible why me? feeling. I do not wish to do this—let me go.

  Thousands of people, men and women and—Oh God, why me?—children, of course. She wanted to crumble away like dust or shrivel into a husk that someone might throw in a waste bucket, so she would never be seen again. Why would they not all leave her alone? Why would it not leave her alone? Why had she been born with a curse upon her? And yet perhaps the biting was not quite as vicious as it had been. Just boarding the plane had helped a little.

  Someone patted her hand, and she jumped. She had taken the seat next to the wall—the window seat, they called it still, although there were no windows on a super. Even in the twenty-first century a princess could pull rank once in a while, and she had established herself in a good defensive position between the wall and Moala, secure against unwelcome intruders. Obviously Moala had been removed while Alya slept. Jar Jathro was recognizable by his green hajji turban, although it seemed nearer black in the gloom. His greasy smile was not visible, but she could sense it. The lizard himself.

  “You rested.” He spoke Malay. “That is good. You are less troubled now?”

  “Perhaps a little,” she admitted.

  “Your sister, the Princess Talach, and your honored brother, Prince Omar—both of these told me that the burden became less troublesome as they progressed toward…our destination.”

  Alya wondered if she dared ask for Moala back. But she must not insult this man, however sleazy she found him. He was a skilled politician. Kas said he might well succeed Piridinar as prime minister—and soon, for the old man’s health was failing fast.

  “Then I wish it were a little easier to get to.”

  “Ah!” he said, and some trick of the light caught his eyes in the dark. “But that was deliberate. Many people said it was too risky to build the transmensor anywhere on earth at all. Thinking of the power, you see; thinking of an explosion. I have studied this. When there was talk of using it also to explore other worlds, then of course the uproar was greater still. People said that monsters would escape! How foolish! But Labrador is a desert of bare rock, and safe. It was already connected to Nauc by powerlines. A most logical choice—distant but accessible.”

  “Thank you,” Alya said softly, and at once wanted to rap herself on the knuckles.

  “You are most welcome. The powerlines have been replaced now by satellite beams, of course.” He fell silent, waiting politely for her to carry the conversation forward.

  When she did not, he remarked, “You are the eleventh person in your family to make this pilgrimage.”

  “Yes.” The eleventh victim.

  “And you are also the youngest?”

  Alya pondered. “I suppose so. It started before I was born; but yes, that’s true.”

  “And all the other ladies were married.”

  She had not thought of that. Tal had been married, Omar not. Why should it matter that Alya was single and not matter about Omar? But, of course, Jathro was a Moslem. “Yes,” she said.

  “Your safety and comfort will always be nearest to my heart, Your Highness.” He laid his hand on hers again and left it there. It was hot and sticky. There was a curious odor of cloves about Jathro. “Anything I can do—anything at all—you have only to ask.”

  Alya hoped he had not felt her flinch at his touch. Mentally she assembled a tirade of obscenities in several languages. But what she said was, “You are most kind.”

  “I am not without influence, of course.” He leaned a little closer and peered at her. The lights were starting to brighten, but the cabin was still very dim. She could just make out the fringe of beard around a dark, narrow face. “My father was but a poor fisherman. The fisherfolk know me as one of their own.”

  “Their lot has been very hard. I have heard my brother speak of it many times.” She wondered what all his talk was leading to. The man had had a spectacular career as a slum populist—forty years old and already running one of the three top ministries in the government. So Kas had said on the way to the a
irport.

  “My people are aware of his concern,” Jathro said. “They have great affection for all members of your noble family. They always cheer when I mention your brother. Two thousand years of devotion are not easily forgotten.”

  “Their love is dear to us.” Alya toyed with the idea of removing the man’s turban and garroting him with it—perhaps the exercise would revive her.

  “The refugees, of course, do not have that same affection, although they are grateful to Banzarak for its help, and therefore they respect our national traditions.”

  Totally baffled, Alya crafted a smile. She did not enjoy being addressed like a public meeting. She wanted to be left alone with her misery.

  “So you see, I am familiar with the poverty of Banzarak, but I have also seen even greater need among the unfortunates whom we have taken into our bosom.”

  Make one move at my bosom, man, and I’ll break your neck. “My brother spoke with wonder about your work in the camps,” she said. A first-class demagogue, Kas had called him.

  “I feel for them deeply. Director Hubbard is a hard woman, but fair. I shall insist that the refugees in Banzarak are afforded special status only marginally less favorable than that of our own nationals…”

  Alya let him drone while she wandered away into her private desert. It was all very well to talk of negotiations, but what they all meant was haggling, and the goods on display were her. The precedents had been set before she was born. In a sense the dealing had begun centuries before—two thousand years, if one believed the legends. What am I offered? What price one princess of Banzarak, with guaranteed infallible buddhi? Start your bidding.

  A hard woman? By all accounts, Director Hubbard was a human anvil. Few indeed were the governments who could hope to negotiate on anything near equal terms with the director of 4-I, for 4-I was also Stellar Power, Inc. The rumors said that Hubbard had more than once threatened to pull the plug on a continent.

  And few indeed were the governments that could negotiate anything, for they had all been choked by their internal conflicts, the warring of special interest groups, loss of financial integrity…But Jathro would not appreciate a lecture on political science, not from a woman. For the son of an impoverished fisherman to negotiate with Old Mother Hubbard herself must be a delicious sensation. Jathro was going to be buying lives by the thousand, and his coin was Alya.