Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

  If I go out there, I risk having those dreams ground away to nothing. And dreams are all I have. All I’ve ever had.

  o0o

  I went back to my hotel room for a little while, late in the afternoon, sitting on the edge of my bed, watching the sky turn brassy as the sun went down, feeling useless, worthless, whatever. Feeling the way I’d felt for the past thousand years, it seemed, wishing for... something.

  What are you wishing for, peckerhead? Just wishing for your apartment and job, your netvid and drink mixer and all those old, familiar comforts of home? Wishing, somehow, that you’d been given the grace to win a Garstang for yourself, all those years ago? Or... Well, there won’t be a Camilla Seldane out here in the colonies, but there might be...

  I picked up the barrette and shoved it in my hair, heading for the door, maybe an idea in my head, maybe not, maybe nothing, maybe just more dreams, I... Whisper in my head, the voice of the suit, Wait. Gaetan. Image forming in the back of my head, faint and full of shadows. Ah, yes. The little dartgun I’d taken out of Random Walk’s small arms locker, almost without impulse, thrown in my suitcase before heading into town. This is Green Heaven. Green Heaven. World of all your dreams. Men are dangerous here. Men carry guns here...

  Dangerous men. Women love dangerous men. Only dangerous men. Men who carry guns. Not little putzes who spend their lives playing with mechanical toys, I... The suit AI whispered, Please, Gaetan. Put the gun in your pocket. Very earnest, sincere, ethereal fingers reaching into my head, stirring thought into action. All right. Little thing hardly big enough to cover my palm, not even making a bulge in my jacket pocket as I went out the door.

  o0o

  Walking in the darkness, bright stars pocking the sky overhead, growing in number as I walked away from the bright heart of the big city, walking into a darker landscape of shadowy buildings, passing by dark doorways, the hollow entrances of forbidding alleyways, a landscape of nightmares, more than mere dreams.

  Nobody here. An occasional black, irregular shadow, the outline of a human form, always fleeing. Fetid smells, sewer smells, fresh toilet smells from every beckoning alley. I imagined myself sliding along through the darkness, eyes wide, gun in hand like some adventure hero, some... private eye. What would I find?

  Rotting garbage and dead cats, perhaps.

  Who do I want to be, right now? Travis McGee, following the hot trail of fresh, steaming gold and impossible, honey-scented women? Wrong landscape. Somebody else belongs here. Some sullen Chandler hero, some broken-spirited Hammett man, functioning still because functionality is all he has left.

  I turned down a street full of lights, lights and people, tall fellow on the corner, black, curly hair shining in the streetlight, as if freshly oiled, dark eyes on me, watching me pass on by. Hunger a soft twist in my stomach now.

  A storefront that had once had windows, glass still in place, covered from the inside by what looked like big sheets of paper, heavy paper that might once have been white, was stained yellow-brown now by airborne dust, by the rays of Green Heaven’s golden sun. Something had been drawn on the paper, once upon a time, very well drawn, in fact, in delicate charcoal shadings. The image of a child’s doll, doll stripped naked. If you looked closely, you could see it had been a very detailed doll, a girl doll, with tiny nipples, a bellybutton, a little slit of baby vulva.

  The eyes though. Just a doll. Obviously a doll, not a real child at all. Not even a fancy robot, the sort of thing a certain kind of man...

  The door next to the window popped open, banging against the wall by the frame, disgorging a staggering man, a puff of odd-scented air. Peculiar smell, indefinable smell, so quickly come and gone I couldn’t even begin to sketch its... parameters. Just the sense that the hair on the back of my neck began to prickle.

  The man reeled in the doorway, staggered down the steps, door closing itself behind him with a muted hiss. Stood there on the sidewalk, dark face upturned, eyes fixed on the sky. Heaved a heavy breath, sucking in the night air.

  Rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, hand coming away shiny, wet with sweat. “Jesus!” Muttered, but quite loud enough. “Fucking dollies. My God...”

  Glancing at me then, eyes rolling, as if terrified, then turning, walking swiftly away into the darkness at the end of the street, tall man on the corner watching him go, nodding slowly, seeming... Maybe that’s a smile on his lips. Maybe a sneer. Maybe something else.

  I looked back at the drawing of the doll again, wondering what drama I might be missing, what glimpse into other men’s dirty dreams, then walked on, compelled by a simpler hunger.

  o0o

  Barroom, neon sign with what the library told me was a rather archaic form of the Greek word for a male cat, underneath it a little placard, All Girl Staff, Private Counseling Available. But there was a distinct food smell coming from somewhere inside, so I went in, took a booth by the rear wall, waited for the all-girls to come.

  Comfortable place of warm, deep, secretive shadows, a place you could huddle if you needed to huddle, by yourself, reduced to nothing more than eyes. Round tables packing the floor between the wall booths and the low stage, a bar with stools and rail off to one side, men lining the bar, bearded bartender tapping beer, so much for the all-girl staff, I...

  Young woman in tight shorts and halter top, cloth so tight you could make out the location of her nipples, maybe imagine the architecture of her vulva... eyes on me. Waiting. She said, “Want a menu?”

  Defining moment: “Sure.”

  She put it in front of me, a flat, laminated sheet with a couple of dozen items, went away without a backward glance.

  Plenty of people in here, men at the bar, one woman sitting on a corner stool, sloppy looking woman with big tits inside a loose blouse, sitting turned away from the bar, away from the men, looking toward the stage. People sitting around the tables, clustered toward the stage, mostly men, some women. Shadows of people visible in the other booths.

  The waitress passed by again, let me order a nameless beer and something the translator insisted would be a chef salad.

  This is a familiar place, warmth flooding out of the walls, getting inside me somehow. Not a clean place. Not well lighted. Familiar. I feel like I know these people.

  Skinny man, young, sweaty-looking, hair plastered flat on his scalp, came out on the stage and went to a drum kit set up in the corner, sat down behind it, started fiddling around, people at stageside tables turning so they could face the lights, men at the bar turning around, leaning their elbows on the formica, grinning, muttering to one another.

  Waitress brought my bottle and bowl, fork and a few squares of paper towel, waited while I produced bits of local currency, paper money I’d picked up at the hotel desk because the library AI told me it’d be a good idea. Tip, whispered the voice of the suit. She’s waiting for a tip.

  Waitress’s dark eyes on me, unsmiling. I gave her thirty percent and watched her eyes brighten, a little smile as she turned away, a bit of a nod. Maybe she’ll come back later to see if I want anything else? What will I want?

  A sip of beer. Too fizzy. Too sweet. Almost flavorless, but for that faint nip of alcohol, that little scent of tar. Forkful of salad. Peppery dressing. Bits of crumbled, stinky cheese. Black olives.

  Drummer on the stage banging a single thump, stamping his foot on a pedal, bump. Room full of people, mostly men, some women, looking up, room transforming itself, somehow, into a sea of eyes, my eyes among them. Thump, silence, no “...lay-dees an’ gennulmunn...” Bump-bump-a-bump-bump-a...

  Half naked woman sliding out on stage, gliding on blue-slippered feet, muscular woman all sleek white skin and long, wavy brown hair, hair cascading down her back all the way to her ass, whirling, clingy blue underpants, silky blue bra...

  Not much for a stripper to take off.

  Dancing, dancing around, seeming to linger before the few tables that had women, women among the men.

  Women at the tables all eyes, all attention, me
n with them reaching out to stroke their necks, lean toward them, as if waiting to smell their rising heat. Stripper dancing, taking off what little she had on, breasts bouncing as the bra fell away, red nipples immense, sticking out like dowel rods of flesh, then the little panties, kicked out over the audience’s heads, falling on the floor in the middle of nowhere, lying there, a lifeless scrap...

  Trite drum bumping away in its corner while the naked woman danced, drum supposed to speed up our hearts, make us want to...

  Watching a man and a woman close by the stage, woman arching her neck under the man’s hand, woman at the table watching the naked woman dance... Man? Eyes on his woman, not the creature on the stage.

  Would I want to be that man? No. Any of the people here? Be like the women whose ardor was aroused watching another woman spread her legs for men to see? How about the men leaning on the bar? Look closely. Grinning men, drinking beer, erections ignored.

  No.

  Behind the bar, the barkeep was taking glasses out of some crude dishwashing robot, wiping smudges away with a clean white cloth, putting the glasses on a shelf until they were needed. Barkeep blasé, chewing a toothpick, ignoring the naked dancer, ignoring the drums.

  There was a momentary irrational pang, something like jealousy, then I turned back to the stage, watched the dancer writhe and play with herself as I ate my wretched salad and drank my tasteless beer.

  o0o

  Outside again in the now fresh-seeming midnight air. Black sky still overhead, not so full of stars because the street lights here were too bright, but I new they were there. Sense of fullness under my breastbone, no so much from the little salad as from swallowed beer fizz trying to get out.

  The man with the dark curls was still down at the corner, leaning on a lamppost now, looking my way. Maybe that’s a man with a job too? Standing guard? Or is he just a certain kind of whore? I started walking toward him, thinking maybe now that I’d seen what the tom cats were up to I could investigate the goings on in the dollhouse.

  Sharp memory of that other man, staggering out the door, drinking deep drafts of night air. Dollies. What could he have meant by that? Somewhere in the back of my head I could feel the library AI’s unease at being unable to answer my question. Should it expect to know everything about Green Heaven, everything about all the faraway worlds of the Tau Ceti system?

  Biff.

  Soft, meaty sound, almost wet sound, coming out of an alleyway. Man at the lamppost not so far away unmoving, as if he’d heard nothing.

  Soft yip of a man’s voice, touched with pain. Biff. Then a soft gabble of Greek. Translator: “...little son of a bitch fucking bit me!” Metallic chatter, like scissors being snapped, over and over again, then biff. “Fucking asshole...”

  I can’t imagine what force impelled me into the mouth of the dark alleyway just then. Maybe no force at all, merely the absence of fear, of any force keeping me away. Sliding through the darkness then, smelling the alley’s shit smells, slinking like a thief around some big metal box reeking of discarded food, eyes straining, listening to biff and boff and the scuffling of leather shoes on asphalt pavement.

  A chattering of scissors and “Ow! Fuck!” and biff.

  Don’t know what I was expecting to see as I peered around the edge of the dumpster, keeping my body back in the shadows as much as I could. Danger here. You know there’s danger here... heart pounding like mad, making me feel afraid and excited all at once.

  Making me feel like I was, for once, really part of a netvid show.

  Prickling at the back of my neck. Sometimes, in your better sort of netvid show, you see the hero slink forward, peering into the night, facing the pickup remote, so you see not what he sees, but the view over his shoulder, the shadow of an upraised arm, the looming club about to strike...

  Christ.

  Chatter. Scuffle. “Shit!”

  And... biff.

  Three slim men, no more than shadows in the dark alleyway, sort of dancing around each other. Fighting? No. Kicking. Kicking something small, a black outline no bigger than a medium sized dog, something with the outline of a well-upholstered hassock.

  Something like a lobster’s claw coming up in black silhouette, claw snapping at the nearest leg, making a sound like sharp metal, like whetstone and iron, “Yi!” skinny man dancing back, then biff! Black hassock rolling over and over from the kick.

  Gabble of Greek, curses untranslated, translator AI muttering about unrecorded slang, derived from foreign loan words, Russian perhaps or...

  Spacesuit’s voice a frantic whisper: Get out of there, Gaetan! This is none of your business! Get back out to the street; leave well enough alone... Tingle of fear in my head, impelling me to shrink back, but... The barrette’s reach wasn’t enough, ethereal fingers unable to reach deep enough into my limbic system, traverse my brainstem and...

  Chitter. Chatter. Clink. Snap.

  Thing on the ground among stamping feet and kicking legs, desperately trying to defend itself.

  Defend itself and live.

  No impulse.

  No nothing.

  Just me watching. Impassive. Watching. Waiting. I...

  I stepped forward, stepped around the side of the dumpster, out of the shadows into the alleyway’s lesser darkness. Stood still. My mouth opened, reaching round the spacesuit’s anguish to grab the translator’s attention. Nothing. Frantic urgings to... “Hey!”

  Thee men freezing, spinning round. Shadow hassock with waving claws backing up, getting itself into the corner made by two dark brick walls. Three men staring at me, looking beyond me, fathoming the night, then one of them said a single word, several syllables long.

  Well? Translator?

  Whispered. Please, Gaetan. Then, resignation. It means, “Fucking asshole.”

  Not a policeman, you see. Not someone who fucking matters. Just a fucking asshole. He took a step forward, teeth visible, white in the shadows of his face, just below the liquid shine of his eyes. Grinning.

  I took the little dartgun out of my pocket and held it up so they could see.

  One of the other men said, “What the fuck is that?”

  I aimed it in his direction and pulled the trigger. Compressed air thup. Man jumping from the spock of the glass dart shattering on the wall beside his head, astringent anesthetic smell filling the air.

  Untranslated word, sudden realization that I’d learned skatá must mean shit in Greek.

  All three of them stepping forward as one, three angular shadows, grinning, reaching out for me. I shot the nearest one in the belly, watched him jump back, “Fuck...” reaching for the little dart, where it stuck out of his shirt. “Fuck, I.... hubbahubbahubbahubba...” Dropping to his knees, falling on his face, little tinkle of the dart being crushed.

  Two angular shadows stock still, then, “Demos?”

  The third man, silent until now, said, “Is... he dead?”

  “No. Asleep.” I motioned with the gun and, incredibly, they understood. Stooped, took their friend by shoulders and knees, picked him up, carried him away into the deeper shadows. Maybe this alley had another end. Maybe there was an open door. Maybe...

  I wonder how long it’ll be before they realize it’s a permanent anesthetic, that he’s not going to wake up without some medical help? I wonder if the doctors on Green Heaven will know what to do?

  Hassock thing still cowering in its corner. Soft chitter, chitter from its claws. Soft, rough sound, like desperate breathing.

  I came closer, stood looking down. Watched one eyestalk rise from its back, hard to discern in the dim light, blue maybe or some shade of pale green. Chitter, chitter. Claw reaching out for something nearby, a small box, perhaps.

  I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. Once upon a time it had been a very sophisticated, self-contained translation computer, orders of magnitude better than anything I could ever have afforded to buy, even with the wealth that’d given me Random Walk. Just now, it was stepped-on junk.

  I re
ached out and touched the... being, felt it flinch away from me, shuddering, felt some thick, sticky stuff on my fingers. Christ. I stood, looking down, and whispered, “Well, Mr. Kapellmeister, you are in deep shit, I’d say.”

  One claw came up, chitter-chitter-snap.

  Decisive agreement.

  o0o

  Waking up in my hotel room, sitting on the edge of my old-fashioned bed, golden sunlight streaming in through the window. Almost midday. Long night full of... interesting deeds? You could call them that. Image of myself gone numb, unfeeling in the darkness, facing three bold bravos, brave men satisfied to be kicking around something the size of a dog, kicking it, killing it, laughing together in celebration of their courage.

  Image of the dart appearing like magic, a bit of glassy glitter in the darkness, decorating the front of surprised Demos’ shirt, man clutching at himself, gabbling softly, falling down like a dead rag doll.

  Competence is a transient thing, deserting those men, flooding into me, men afraid to face my little weapon, afraid to take their chances and rush me. If they’d acted, I would most likely have fallen before their blows. Would I be dead now? Perhaps.

  Numb feeling inside that it wouldn’t have mattered.

  Competence pervades much of my life, you see. I can fix anything, from a wrecked starship to a broken safety pin. No mysteries before the magic of the godhead, you see, just...

  Well, violence is a form of competence as well, those two men cowering under my gun. I’d been secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t throw themselves on me, that they somehow knew I’d just shoot them down and turn away, full of a hero’s contempt for the weak, the fearful.

  Not even the first time, you see, because competence is everything, transcends fear, replaces courage. Why would you need courage, when you know you can win?

  I got up from the edge of the bed, stretching, feeling odd. Not lousy, not ill. Machinery in my blood sees to it that I always feel well. Why doesn’t it see to it that I feel well then?

  Someone once told me that the inability to develop a competent seduction strategy comes from a misplaced respect for women. Woman a sacred thing, you see, the object of heart’s desire, but then you want them to kneel in the dirt before you, suck your dick and swallow your scum, rub their face on your belly and worship you, lie on their backs and spread their legs for you with adoring, uncomplaining eyes.