Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

  When I looked through the range finder I could see them all, plain as day, dollies running together, even though if they scattered, some might escape. What the hell good will that do them? A lone dollie is just a prey animal. There. White wolfen scuttling through the grass in all directions, frantic, several of their number already down and dead. And over here, of course, my party of hunters. Somewhere nearby, I knew I’d find their truck, with its dollie cages and...

  The spacesuit AI, frantic, whispered, Gaetan. Gaetan! This is a bad decision you’re making! Gaetan, I beg you, don’t...

  Felt myself squeeze the trigger.

  Zzzip.

  The hunter in my range finder seemed to explode in a haze of blood, flying gobbets of fine red meat.

  Gaetan! Please Gaetan...

  I could hardly hear it through the singing in my ears.

  Zzzip.

  Another lovely explosion, down on the brassy plain.

  I scanned for a third hunter. Nothing. Widened the range finder view. Nothing. No one. They’ve had sense to throw themselves down in the tall grass already.

  What else? Dollies still running, running for all they’re worth, getting away. And... there. There was a white wolfen, reared up in the grass, looking back toward where the hunters had been, then turning to look up at my hill, obviously seeing me and...

  POCK!

  Something exploded in the grass nearby, overturning my table, spilling what was left of my lunch, peppering me with bits of flying dirt.

  The Kapellmeister said, “They are returning fire, Gaetan.”

  POCK! Another near miss. I crouched down below the brow of the hill, and said, “I guess we’d better get out of here, hmh?”

  Floating eyes regarded me for a moment. Then it said, “Yes. It’s... time we were on our way.”

  When we flew away, a final shot rocked the camper, scarring the plastic canopy of the cockpit.

  o0o

  We flew on in silence, away from the battlefield, skimming low over the whipping copper plains, barely high enough to clear the occasional cluster of tall trees, the occasional low hill. Silence. In the cab, inside my head. Nothing to say, anyone? Certainly nothing for me to say, hands gripped tight on the control yoke, knuckles white, like bare bone.

  Finally, the Kapellmeister said, “You’d better slow down, Gaetan. They’ll be looking for someone flying a souped-up camper and...”

  Voice tight: “Who? Who’ll be looking?” No authorities out here on the veldt...

  The library, imaginary voice somehow mournful, whispered, The party of hunters you assaulted has put in a call for help to the nearest grange, Gaetan. Ambulances have been dispatched. And a meeting has been called for the purpose of putting together a vigilante posse.

  Posse? Like in some Wild West drama?

  The library whispered, Correct. Though the Groenteboeren observe a strict code duello among themselves, crimes by omgangers are treated severely, since the Groenteboeren know they can count on no justice at all from the cities of the Compact.

  Oh.

  I slowly throttled back, dropping the camper down until it was just barely skimming above the grass. Up ahead, I could see the silvery twist and sprawl of a big river, the Chan, I knew, flowing westward across the southern Koperveldt, right through the heart of Orikhalkos, all the way to the sea. There’ll be a road there I can pick up, follow on into town.

  The spacesuit whispered, Before you can turn in the camper, you’ll have to reset the governor.

  Right. Do that now? No, stupid. If there’s a... posse. Jesus Christ, how can I take something like that seriously? Still, if I need to run... I thought, I’ll do it back at the spaceport. Maybe we can do something about the canopy scar as well.

  When we got to the dirt road, I throttled back, dropping down until the camper was floating sedately along like an unmodified vehicle. Attract less attention this way, I guess. Though it would now take the rest of the fucking day to get back to Orikhalkos. Should I just make a dash for it, get back in two hours or less? No way to know.

  The Kapellmeister said, “Why did you do it, Gaetan?”

  I turned and looked, trying to read the set of its eyes. Don’t you know? Hell, maybe you do. Maybe you just want to hear me say it. I shrugged. Tried to formulate a reply. Finally, I said, “Just then, just for a moment, those bastards seemed less human to me than the dollies and wolfen.”

  Less... human. Christ.

  The Kapellmeister said, “You know, medical science on Green Heaven is probably insufficiently advanced to repair those men you shot.” A remembered image of two men, blown to bits, watched through the panel of my range finder. Back on Earth, their heads, almost certainly still intact, would have been taken to a hospital, hooked up to life support, and in a few weeks they’d walk out in new bodies, hale and hearty and hell-bent on revenge.

  I said, “I don’t feel sorry.”

  Silence, as we drove along beside the river. The Kapellmeister said, “On Salieri, there are many who feel we must intervene with the development of other civilizations, in order to preserve our own. And there are just as many who feel we must not, that we must leave well enough alone. Only a few feel the compulsion to intervene for the sake of the other species themselves, to... help them along the road to salvation.”

  I looked over at it, and thought, Salvation? Like in so many damn-fool religions? “I just hope those wolfen and their dollies got away.”

  The library whispered, They did, Gaetan. Ambulances are on site now, tending to the injured.

  Just injured?

  No, Gaetan. One of the men you shot is now in a suspended animation box, with some chance of recovery. The other suffered irreversible cerebrospinal damage due to hydrodynamic shock, and has been declared dead. A third lost an eye when she was struck by a piece of flying bone.

  Why do I feel satisfaction at all that?

  I said, “Did you ever feel a compulsion to... do the right thing, even when you don’t know what it is?”

  The Kapellmeister said, “I am familiar with the feeling, Gaetan du Cheyne.”

  o0o

  Nightfall. No sign of pursuit. No sign of anything on the net, my AIs reporting the survivors of the attack had been taken away to the hospital, and that was that. How would a disorganized group like the Groenteboeren grange find me? No technical detective work for them. No...

  I drove on, increasingly at my ease, while Tau Ceti slowly fell down the blue vault of afternoon and settle on the horizon, streaking the sky with crimson, patches of green here and there, backlighting the few low clouds.

  By now, we were seeing more traffic, wheeled vehicles like the others I’d seen, mostly trucks with fat pillow tires, once even a big thing with wooden sides hauling what appeared to be a load of hay, library AI telling me the farms hereabouts were mainly devoted to raising terragenic livestock for the citizens of Orikhalkos.

  Still, if I hadn’t seen it, I would never have imagined any such thing survived, anywhere in human space. Imagine. A hay wagon.

  Just after nightfall, I pulled into the parking lot of what appeared to be restaurant, letting the camper settle in its cloud of dust, listening to the engine wind down while I heard out the AIs roster of misgivings, reasons why I shouldn’t be stopping on the road home.

  There is nothing on the net. They’ve given up.

  Someone appeared in the door of the building, a tall, pudgy woman wearing a red and white checked apron. Stood looking out at me for a minute, wiping her hands in a fold of the apron, went on back inside. Finally, I said, “I’m just going to get a decent meal, before we head on in. I...” I looked helplessly at the Kapellmeister. It said, “I’ll wait here, Gaetan. Take all the time you need.”

  “Thanks.” I knew you’d understand.

  I got out of the camper, walked slowly across the gravel parking lot, listening to the gravel crunch under my boots, smelling the fresh night air. Went on in. Table for one? Thank you ma’m. Ordered a meal, ate it, thinking all the while
.

  Do you know what you want to do, Gaetan du Cheyne? Is there anything you can do? Is there anything worth doing? All your life, you’ve known, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no one man can make any difference at all in this. You’re born, grow up, do you job if you’re lucky enough to have one. Fuck around a bit, watch the vidnet. Eventually you die.

  I finished, got up, paid for the meal, went back outside, leaving through the rear door, so... Yes. I stood on the restaurant’s back porch, looking out over the dark vistas of nighttime Koperveldt, black plains under a starry black sky.

  This is the only thing that ever brought me any real pleasure, isn’t it?

  Think about what you’re doing, Gaetan. You’re going to drive back into town, power up your ship, pick up your cargo of God damned dollies and take them away to slavery on another world.

  You just killed a man whose only sin was procuring dollies for someone to take away, just like you.

  But.

  Yes, there it is. I need the fucking money.

  That’s why you worked like a slave. Not because you liked the fucking job. Not because you liked the company of your fellow slaves.

  So what am I supposed to do then? Sell the ship and... what? Go back home and... sit?

  I put my hands in my pockets and started walking, head down, along the rear wall of the restaurant, passing under what I was sure was an open kitchen window, warm light spilling out, along with the smell of grilling native meat, sweet as candy in the fire.

  A woman’s voice, “There he is.”

  A man, speaking Groentans, “Thank you Miz Ruyker. We’ll take it from here.”

  I turned and looked back toward the door. Four men walking toward me. Four big men, each carry a big stick. No. Those are not sticks. Squares of metal on the end of each stick. What would they want with axes? Men looking at me now, dark faces quite serious.

  The man said, “You sure that’s him, Wubbo?”

  Another man, Wubbo apparently, said, “How the hell can I be sure? He was a long way off.”

  Third man: “You saw the camper out front, Lÿr. Who else would it be?”

  I put my hand in my jacket pocket, feeling my heart start to pound, my fingers trembling, almost expecting to curl around the handle of my little dartgun. But you left that on the counter back in Tegenzinstad, didn’t you Gaetan du Cheyne?

  I said, “Maybe you gentlemen are making a mistake.”

  Lÿr said, “Doesn’t matter, really.”

  “What do you mean?” Starting to turn away. Maybe I can run...

  Lÿr said, “Some omganger’s done a killing. Now some omganger’s going to die.” Wubbo said, “It all evens out in the end.”

  Beyond the restaurant building, I heard the camper’s engine whine, high and soft against the night, as it started up.

  Lÿr swung his axe, hard, unexpected, and I put my arm up to ward off the blow, feel my heart throb in my chest. The blade hit me in the elbow with a small, wet sound, and then my forearm was dangling at a weird angle, fingers gone impossibly numb.

  Wubbo said, “Hope that hurts, omganger. Jena says her eye sure as hell hurts.”

  Another blow, this time in the neck, black blood spraying, getting all over the men’s shirts.

  Lÿr said, “God damn it, Marits, why can’t you be more careful? My wife’s going to kill me for this.”

  I staggered, turning away from them, tottering away, arm flapping at my side, warm blood flowing down my chest inside my shirt, somehow completely numb. The sky seemed awfully far away. As far away as the stars.

  Wubbo said, “Hell, just hit him in the head and get it over with.”

  I went down on my knees, feet tangling together, unable to walk, and then I must have fainted, for I remember nothing more.

  o0o

  I awoke, not quite with a start, opening my eyes to find I was looking at a featureless white ceiling, ceiling lit by some cool, indirect light. Lying in a bed. Not kneeling in the darkness, numb, waiting for some bastard to split my head with an axe. I felt my heart starting to pound, the first real sign that I was actually... still alive.

  Male voice, speaking English with some kind of thick accent, “Ah. I see you’re awake, Mr. du Cheyne.”

  Why is it so quiet inside my head? Something... missing. Like a part of me’s been... sliced away. I... Just hit him in the head and get it over with. Jesus Christ. I turned slowly, conscious of an incredible weakness in my neck, of rough cloth swaddling my throat. There. A man in dark clothing, man with dark hair and dark eyes, neat little moustache, sitting in a chair by my bed.

  This is a hospital room, isn’t it?

  No answer.

  The man said, “My name’s Pietros. Detective-Sergeant Pietros, Orikhalkan Compact Police. How’re you doing, Mr. du Cheyne?” He seemed to smile at me.

  “Detective?” My voice, if it was mine, seemed all strange and rusty.

  Pietros said, “You’re a lucky man, Mr. du Cheyne. If your... friends hadn’t gotten you to the hospital so quickly, I don’t think the doctors here would’ve been able to reverse the neural damage. Head split open like that. Ninety percent of your blood gone...”

  “Friends?”

  He smiled again. “Two of your... assailants are in this hospital too, Your... autopilot ran them over with the camper, then landed the damned thing on top of them. They’re lucky to be alive too. Pretty badly crushed, I understand.”

  I tried to reach up and feel my head, but my left arm was stiff, covered, apparently, with some stiff elastic bandaging. I put up my other hand, right arm looking just fine, and tried to feel the side of my head. More bandages. And quiet.

  Pietros held up my barrette, curiously twisted looking, and said, “Here’s another reason you’re alive, Mr. du Cheyne. Good old Lÿr hit this as well as your skull. Otherwise you’d probably be in therapy, trying to grow new brain tissue. An axe blow to the left temporal lobe is a serious thing.”

  So they say. “Ship.”

  He nodded, frowning. “The... uh, your library software has informed us you’ve got special medical facilities aboard that can heal you much faster than our... primitive medical methods. We’ll be transporting you to the cosmodrome this afternoon.”

  “Thanks.”

  He frowned, turning the ruined barrette over in his hands. “Mr. du Cheyne, do I understand your... software has the power to override standard injunctions against taking human life?”

  I think I managed a smile of my own. “That’s just an old myth, Mr. Pietros.”

  Dark eyes on mine. “Mmm. I didn’t know that.” He tossed the thing onto the nightstand by the table. “Look, I don’t know what the hell happened, out there on the veldt. I guess I don’t really care. Those two fellows down in the broken-bone ward... well, one’s in no shape to talk. Wubbo says you killed one of his friends, shot up a hunting party for some reason, that he and the others were just...” An expressive shrug, “Bringing you to justice.”

  I thought about denying it, but: “I guess so.”

  Anger briefly creased his brow. “You guess so. Fucking asshole.” He seemed to stare for a minute, as though trying to read my thoughts, “Mr. du Cheyne, do you know we have the death penalty here in the Compact Cities? Even for vreemdelings like you?”

  I shrugged.

  “One little shot and you go to sleep and then we bury your ass.”

  “How nice.”

  More anger, a darkening of his already swarthy complexion. “Your... friend, the Salieran... being, says you were trying to save the wolfen.”

  “Maybe so.”

  A sigh. “I guess I don’t care why you did it, Mr. du Cheyne. You didn’t do it here, so its none of our damned business. We’ll be taking you out to your ship, where you can spend as long recovering as you want. After that, we want you off Green Heaven.”

  “No planetary government here.”

  A look of solid contempt. “No, Mr. du Cheyne. There’s nobody can force you to leave. But no Compact City will have yo
u, Mr. Troublemaker, and the Groenteboeren...” He smiled again. “Maybe you can go visit Les Iles des Français, or even go hang around with the Hinterlings.”

  “Thanks.”

  He got up and walked out of the room, without looking back.

  Seventeen: Late the next day, I sat alone

  Late the next day, I sat alone on the bridge of Random Walk, looking out across the cosmodrome’s landing field. Ships out there, of various types. That one a big cargo hauler, engines on the bottom, control cabin in the nose, the rest of it just empty hull with yawning doors, waiting to be filled. Off to one side, mounted on meilerwagens, standing in a neat row, I could see the external fuel tanks, cheap, disposable, fully biodegradable, waiting to be mounted.

  As old a design as you’d want to see. Twenty-second-century vintage, tanks most likely filled with incandescent compressed air, air crushed until the molecules’ electron clouds were at the edge of collapse. Not efficient. Not pretty. Just cheap.

  I flexed my left harm, holding the elbow joint in my hand, marveling at how well I felt. Took care of a lot of minor maintenance problems while they were dealing with the big stuff. I remembered being brought out here in an ambulance, Pietros and his people helping me up the gangplank, watching as the hatch closed behind me.

  I don’t know how I managed the long hobble to medical bay, just remember collapsing into the diagnostic chair, remember feeling the cap slide down over my head, head filling with alien thoughts... Gaetan! the suit’s joyous whisper. Heard the medical software’s pompous voice, Considerable peripheral damage from incompetent treatment modalities. He’s lucky to have survived at all.

  Felt the diagnostic probes slide in, like cold icepicks stabbing deep, here, there... felt my blood start to fizz, pain everywhere, all at once, at the symbiotes were reprogrammed for a major overhaul. I remember thinking, just before I blacked out, This feels like love.

  Silly.

  And yet...

  I got up out of the engineer’s seat, stood with my hands on the back of the pilot’s seat, hands on the spacesuit’s warm, living integument, looking out across the field to where a group of workers and machines were folding up a photosail, packing it away into its launcher pod.