Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

Maybe.

  But all I wanted to do, just then, was send for that nameless, faceless, neatly-shaven whore, throw her naked in my bed, lay her across this wonderful patch of sunshine and screw the hell out her, until I’d forgotten all about the last few weeks, the months before that, then all the years, all the...

  Forget about Rua Mater, lost in dreams. Forget about Leah Strachan, about Garstang, about Jayanne and her discarded baby. Forget about Lara Nobisky, who’d been mine only in the short-lived realization of a boy’s fantasy, even before concerned adults had had her... cured.

  The head of my dick was turning purple, skin shiny and tight, from the strangle-hold I had on it.

  I let the damned thing go and lay back on the bed, hands behind my head, staring at the ceiling, and thought, There aren’t many people who would not laugh at me now, laugh at the notion that a man’s spirit could be so elevated by a paid-for fuck that lasted all of two minutes. Maybe it doesn’t matter.

  After a while, when answers, the will to action, failed to emerge from the ceiling, I picked up the remote and hit the power button. There was a sizzle of static, a smell of dusty burning, and the instrument in the corner came to life, shimmering color image leaning forward out of the glass screen. Great. Three-hundred year old holodeck technology...

  Fuck. I sat up in bed, heart pounding, staring at a view from the spaceport, view of the landing field, in the middle of which sat the silver disk of Random Walk, surrounded by what looked like armed, uniformed police, hatches open, people coming down the ramp, while a deep voiced announcer babbled in rapid, fluid Greek from which I could pick out nothing but the few conjunctions I’d subconsciously memorized.

  I grabbed for the barrette and shoved it into my hair. Almost panicky: Ship? Suit? What the Hell... The library AI’s voice whispered, Here, Gaetan. All is well.

  Well? What the hell are those people doing in my ship? Jesus fucking...

  The suit’s voice whispered, No one’s in here, Gaetan. Random Walk is secure. A second FTL ship landed during the night—we’ve been waiting for you to log on.

  Library: We were seriously considering attempting to ring your hotel phone through the InfoNet gateway we’ve established. It’s late and we were worried.

  Announcer’s voice, translated now: “...this ship, Torus X-2, which carried a special legation from Orikhalkos to Earth several months ago, under the corporate aegis of Berens-Vataro Enterprises, has now returned that delegation. As we mentioned earlier, the ship now appears to be under the command of the Earth’s Board of Trade Regents, who have sent a delegation of their own to Green Heaven. The basileïos of Orikhalkos has arranged for a special conference call to the mayors of the other Compact Cities, with the object of creating a planetary agency for dealing with these new developments...”

  A sigh of relief, then. Nothing really the matter. Just... the beginning of the next phase. I... The library whispered, Gaetan, there’s something else you should know.

  The holodeck image began to pan away from Torus X-2, making a longer shot across the concrete wasteland of the cosmodrome, where dozens of ships, large and small, of endlessly varied design, lay waiting, until it focus on yet another small, shiny silver disk.

  Uh-oh.

  That’s what we wanted to tell you, said the ship.

  The announcer’s small, monkey-like face came up, floating disembodied in the upper right-hand corner of the image. “When Torus X-2 landed last night, with great fanfare, we sent crews to cover the event. And we began to wonder: to whom does this ship, so obviously of the same design, belong?”

  Fucking great.

  “When we attempted to approach, we were turned away by spaceport security. Authorities would only tell us that the ship landed a few weeks ago and discharged its passengers, tourists apparently. The crew then paid for a slip rental of three months and disappeared.”

  The man’s face enlarged, so the audience could see how serious his expression was, face wreathed in a wrinkling frown, eyes dark and flashing. “This reporter is outraged to find that a faster-than-light ship can appear in our star system, land at our largest spaceport unannounced, and sit there for weeks, apparently unnoticed!”

  I flopped back on the bed, warm sunshine spoiled, erection gone wherever the hell it is erections go when they’re gone, and thought, Great. What next? And what the hell happens when I try to go get my ship?

  On the holodeck, the image had shifted away from Random Walk, was now focused on a scene of the dark-faced reporter, who was posing angry questions to a slim, neatly-dressed bald fellow, under whom floated a luminous placard that said, Zeïos Keimannon, Spaceport Manager. Just now, he was saying, “You understand me correctly, Mr. Demókissas. So long as the landing fees are paid, it’s none of our business who these ships belong to, or where they come from!”

  I found myself wondering, briefly, what he’d say if the starfish-shaped warship X-4’d met at Regulus turned up, wanting to rent out a landing slip.

  o0o

  Washed and dressed, hair combed and teeth brushed, I walked across the hotel lobby, headed for the sunshine-flooded street, thinking I might get breakfast while I tried to figure out what I might want to do next. Go the spaceport and try to sneak aboard my ship? Unlikely, with these media dogs watching and... right, Leah Strachan will have seen this too, will be coming in to contact the crew of X-2, looking to cash her repatriation ticket.

  Maybe, somewhere deep down, I was figuring she’d come crawling back to me, looking for a ride home so she could take up her contract with Nomiura. Maybe I was imagining what I’d do then.

  The library AI said, Right now, if you can get aboard Random Walk, the spaceport authorities of Orikhalkos will let you go, It seems unlikely, of course, that any laws will change in the immediate future, but...

  So. And did you have any ideas about where I should go, dear starship persona. I mean...

  “Mr. du Cheyne?”

  Greek voice in translation, pulling me up short, making me look around. A woman’s voice, after all... Young woman, standing behind the concierge’s desk in the corner of the lobby, looking at me, hand raised.

  “Mr. du Cheyne, you have a message waiting for you.”

  Leah Strachan, perhaps? There was an inappropriate, icy dread. I’ve got the starship. There are more worlds than this one. More than just Earth. What could happen that...

  Library AI: You can refuel anywhere there’s a cosmodrome, but the ship will need repairs, refitting every now and again. Shipyards with that capacity are to be found on Earth and Kent, where you’ll need some sort of legitimate pilot’s licence. Not to mention the economics of the thing. I keep avoiding that. Just don’t think about it. Maybe the whole business will go away?

  The message she handed me was written by some sort of stylus on a little paper message pad, technology so old I almost didn’t know what it was, at first. Greek letters in blue on pink paper. I stared, puzzled, waiting... finally shifted the barrette to the back of my head so it could rest over my visual cortex. Watched with interest as the letters squirmed, changed from Greek to Roman, Watched as the words rearranged themselves, watched as they changed from transliterated Greek to colloquial English.

  Gaetan du Cheyne: I have a business proposition for you. I will have a luncheon table at “Kalikanzáros,” 1330 this afternoon, if you’re interested. Santos Delakroë.

  Hmh. Business? No prickle of foreboding. No sense of... shit. What do my feelings have to do with reality? Nothing, of course. I thanked the concierge, who smiled like a pretty girl, turned and headed for the street.

  o0o

  Kalikanzáros turned out to be a classic-style Greek restaurant, like the ones you’d find somewhere in a big orbital mall, back in the Solar System, at the interface between the main downtown business complex and the waterfront warehouse district where I’d done so much of my recent wandering. A lot of stuff down here. Plenty of deserted blocks, big, empty buildings where an enterprise can be... enterprising, I guess.

 
; Inside the frosted glass doors, I told the maitre d’ I was joining a Mr. Delakroë, was led to a table near the back wall of a big, gloomy dining room with slowly wheeling paddle fans on the ceiling, feeling ever more intensely like a character in some cheap vidnet show. Maybe that’s what atmosphere is all about, feedback between life’s original archetype and the simplified ectypes of fiction.

  Santos Delakroë was a tall, thin man, extraordinarily pale-skinned despite his dark eyes, with a long, narrow face under salt-and-pepper hair, gray-streaked goatee framing lips that looked almost white in this light. He stood, and took my hand, “Mr. du Cheyne?” Gestured to another man, sitting at the table. “My associate, Andrész van Rijn.”

  This one was short and fat, with dark, shiny skin and long, oily-looking black hair that fell in sticky ringlets down the sides of his flabby neck. When he shook my hand, murmuring, “Duquesne...” I noticed he had a heavy ring on every thick finger, gold and silver intermingled, some with gemstones, red, green, yellow, the rings on his thumbs plain, like old-fashioned wedding bands.

  As I sat, Delakroë muttered, “Du Cheyne.”

  Van Rijn said, “Mph. Of course.” They let me order a drink, one of those resinous beers is what I asked for, let it come and watched me take a long pull before starting in. Delakroë said, “Mr. du Cheyne, we’d, um... like to discuss a charter with you. Random Walk will be here for another ten weeks before your passengers go on to their next destination, wherever...”

  A little pang at that, but... I held up my hand. “How did you...”

  Van Rijn: “We do, um, a lot of business at the cosmodrome, Mr. du Cheyne. Your ship was noticed and, um... well it was a simple matter to get into All Worlds’ office computer system and...” His wide, thin leer showed small, widely-spaced yellow teeth.

  A quirk of irritation on Delakroë’s face. “Andrész, please.” Then he said, “Mr. du Cheyne. Gaetan. The fact is, we know more or less everything about your visit to Green Heaven. We’ve... talked to Captain Strachan as well and...”

  I had a sense of cringing inside, imagining the sort of thing she might have said, but. Well, these are men here. Mere men. I imagined myself taking Santos Delakroë by his long, spindly neck. Smacking him face first into the side of van Rijn’s nice, round head. I put my hands together on the table, fingers neatly interlaced, and said, “I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t interested in hearing about your... proposal.”

  Men glancing at each other, maybe a little taken aback, probably not. Delakroë said, “All right. Simple enough. We’d like you to carry a cargo from here to Epimetheus. With your ship, we think we can get a good price for our... product. And we can pay a prime rate for the haul.”

  Epimetheus. Interesting. 40 Eridani A2i, 9.72 light-years from Tau Ceti, closer than any colony world except Shayol at Epsilon Eridani, 5.25 light-years. And Prometheus, of course, 40 Eridani A2. You don’t see much about Prometheus and Epimetheus on the vidnet back home. Creepy, unsavory places that...

  The library AI whispered, We did what checking we could. Santos Delakroë appears to be a legitimate businessman, president of the Keravnos export-import service, dealing mostly in interstellar luxury trade futures. Mr. van Rijn, though, has a police record and appears to be some kind of smuggler, though of what we couldn’t find out. It’s difficult to say what the two of them have in common.

  I snorted softly. Failure of imagination is a common failing of artificial minds, just as it is with your natural sort. I said, “So. What’s this illegal cargo you want me to risk my license for?”

  Delakroë blinked and sat back in his chair, obviously surprised. Van Rijn glanced at him, then back at me, that unpleasantly toothy grin spreading his fat cheeks again. “Oh, Mr. du Cheyne. You don’t have a license.”

  Delakroë, recovering: “Or a pilot.”

  I cracked my knuckles and shrugged. “I do know how to fly my ship.”

  Van Rijn snickered, “We were sort of hoping you did.”

  Delakroë: “What would you say if I told you we could get you a pilot’s license that would be acceptable to the authorities on Kent?”

  Kent, Alpha Centauri A4, where there are any number of decent shipyards. I said, “Legitimately acceptable to the Kentish Space Command?”

  Van Rijn laughed. “If you take your license to the portmaster of astronautics at Bakunin Cosmodrome, People’s Republic of the Vardon River Valley Project on Kent, he will see to it that you receive a valid Solar System flight endorsement.”

  The expression on my face must have been enlightening.

  Delakroë smiled and slid a white cardboard square across the table to me, green letter embossing the Orikhalkan address for something called “Club Gámoi.” He said, “You come here tonight at midnight and give this card to the doorman. We’ll... show you the prospective cargo and talk over the details.”

  o0o

  Club Gámoi was in a section of town down by the oldest, shabbiest part of the waterfront, a section so deserted it made me a little nervous. Walking through, I didn’t see a soul, though I did once stand in the shadows of an empty alleyway while a police car cruised slowly past, console radio muttering softly to the car’s two officers, a reedy voice filtered by window glass.

  Quiet in the alleyway. No rustle of rats, or whatever passed for rats in a Cetian night. The library AI whispered, Rats descended from early laboratory animals, now interbred with other strains brought in on poorly packaged S.A. cargo pallets. They are a nuisance in the cities, but apparently cannot survive in the wild, where they are out competed by native scavengers and subject to severe predation.

  Unlike some other terrestrial life forms we all know and love.

  No smell in the alleyway either, just a faint, stale tang, like old, sterile dirt. No rats because no garbage because no one lives here anymore. The little gun became a comfortable bump in my pocket, protecting me from nothing.

  The club doorman, a skinny, homely young man chewing your classic toothpick, seemed to sneer through his grin as I approached. “What can I do for you, ska’fai?”

  The translator whispered, Ska’fai—possibly a contraction of skatá, excrement, and fai, an emphatic form of eat. I silently handed him the business card. He frowned, then said, “Oh. I took you for a new scumbag. Sorry.” He handed it back. “Go on in and sit down, Mr. du Cheyne. I’ll let the boss know you’re here.”

  Inside, Gámoi was the usual big room, a half-amphitheater rather than in the round like the wolfen pit, tables on tiers not quite so steep, arrayed around a small proscenium stage, dark now, room filled, I noticed with a slightly stark pang of...

  God damn, I feel... strange. Like my hair’s about to stand on end, like... Nothing but men here. Men at every table, some in groups, laughing and talking, others alone, silent and staring. Where is it you don’t find women? Homosexual clubs? Oh, there are always a few faghags hanging around around. Stripjoints always have women in the audience too, as well as up on the stage, slumming lesbians and curious “tourists,” the inevitable I’ll-do-whatever-you-want girlfriends of domineering men.

  I took a table off to one side, away from what I perceived as excessively crowded tables, sat and... Creepy. God damn it I feel... I took a deep breath and wondered just why the hell I was getting so sweaty. I... There’s a smell in here. Something I can’t quite put my... finger on. I...

  The house lights fell away and what little noise there was hushed, leaving us in near darkness, darkness filled with an uncanny prickle of anticipation. Anticipation and that smell. Stage lights rising, ever so slightly, putting a rosy flush on the curtain and...

  What the hell is... that? Someone already on the stage. A little girl, perhaps, dressed in a white cowgirl outfit. Little girl with long, pale, golden brown hair, white cowgirl outfit just touched with brown as well, maybe the tips of all those fine little tassles streaked with golden brown, moving as she swayed, swayed when she walked...

  The faint, tingling pang I’d felt when I first came in here turned to
a distinct dread at what I imagined I was going to see next. Hell. This sort of thing’s illegal in the Solar System. Illegal and one of damned few things actually persecuted by the authorities. Persecuted and prosecuted. Now we’re going to see that little girl, size such that she must be no more than eight or nine years old, take off that elaborate, obscuring costume, show us her naked flesh and... I realized with a horrid little shock that the little fat man at the next table was lolling back in his chair, muttering softly to himself, that he’d gotten his dick out and was already masturbating. Christ, was just the idea of the little girl on the stage enough to...

  Now there were two little girls on the stage, dressed in identical, weird looking little cowgirl costumes. Two forlorn little... Well, no, you can’t tell just how forlorn those little girls are. Three little girls now, with some kind of mask covering their little faces. Animal masks, making them look like some kind of little white teddy-bear cowgirls, with big, sad eyes that...

  Memory of watching pornography, just once, with Garstang, so long ago. We’d watched a movie together, gotten aroused, made love on the floor, wallowing right into the misty depths of the vidnet display, had spent ourselves, and were lying back, still watching, as the actors and actresses went on and on, though we ourselves could not.

  She’d said, I always thought part of the attraction of pornography was seeing the sad look in the people’s eyes. Ineradicable sadness, no matter how they grimace and posture and... The very word pornography, with it’s deep Latin roots. Stories about whores. Sad-eyed whores, presumably.

  As opposed to what? Erotica? Is erotica really stories about Eros and love? What about romance then? Garstang had laughed, and said, Yeah? What about it?

  Four little girls now, fat man at the next table still muttering as he mopped up his mess with a napkin. What a waste of time. What will you do now? Now that you’ve spent your... Five little girls dancing in a chain, dancing across the stage to a little flight of stairs, stairs leading down toward the audience, men in the darkness stirring now, filling the room with an electricity of anticipation. Electricity and that... smell.