Acts of Conscience

by William Barton

  I wonder what Leah Strachan is up to, right now. No sign of Torus X-2 out on the landing field. Gone back home, most likely, taking her with it, perhaps. I imagined her, already home, wrapped in the circle of Gordon Lassiter’s strong, uncomplicated arms. Uncomplicated? No, Gaetan, that’s just the excuse you make, a way you can look down on him.

  I unhooked the suit and started putting it on, first this piece, then that, integument swaddling me everywhere, rainbow shadows starting to sparkle upon the bulkheads and control panels as I pulled on the helmet, completing the circuit. When I put the circlet round my brows, I could feel the warm glow of the suit’s happiness. Identical, in every respect, with every surge of happiness I myself have ever felt.

  Is that all I ever was? A tool, happy to be employed?

  Soft pocking of tiny footsteps behind me, like little horse’s hooves on the hard plastic deck. I turned and beheld the Kapellmeister, standing still, seven eyes waving above it’s back, looking at me.

  “Feeling well, I trust?”

  I shrugged. “Ready to go?”

  It came forward, crawling into the leg space under the control console, then hopped up in the flight engineer’s chair, settling itself against the upholstery like some kind of impossible dog. “I’ve stowed my rats and rabbits in the stateroom you indicated.”

  Momentary image of a bunkroom full of loose rats, rabbits hopping around, suspecting their eventual fate, all of them looking for a way to escape.

  The library AI whispered, In cages, Gaetan. The cages are well secured.

  “OK.” I sat down in the pilot’s seat, put my hands on the armrest controls, watched the ship come to life, everywhere, all at once, numbers and graphs cycling and spinning, telling me God was in His Heaven and all was right with the universe.

  Little voices, all around me. The voices of my true friends. My only friends. One of them now asking the tower for clearance, vectoring me obliquely up out of the atmosphere, on a trajectory that would, very quickly, carry me out of the plane of the Cetian ecliptic, beyond the necessity of space traffic control.

  Outside, an amber light began to flash, and I imagined antique klaxons hooting. Imagined workers across the field turning to watch me rise, workers filled with envy because they too have dreamed this dream. Felt my heart start to flutter with that old, familiar, well-loved excitement.

  Green Heaven was an old dream, a childhood dream, a boy’s dream.

  Blue light played around the field, flickering on the other ships, lighting up the front of the terminal building, reflected in its glass, then the ground fell, taking my breath away. By God.

  One long, hard moment of joy as I felt the ship respond to my will, soft chatter of cooperating AIs in the background, ship tipping, ground angling away beneath me as I passed over the heart of Orikhalkos. Right there. That’s my hotel. There, by the waterfront, those drydocks. The killpit where... Over there, that’s the dollhouse where Delakroë and van Rijn...

  We left the ramshackle mess of little boxes that was the city behind, rising higher, then higher still, out over the Koperveldt plain. Down there, rivers and hills, tiny colored dots that I knew must be boerderij houses. Where are you now, Gretel Blondinkruis? I imagined her outside, standing tall and proud, shading her eyes as she watched my little ship transit her heaven. Do you wish you were going with me, Gretel Blondinkruis? Wish someone would come and take you away from your ordinary world?

  Then, the foothills of the Thÿsbÿs were rising, plains of brass replaced by a rolling landscape of metallic green forest, then mountains covered with snow, slopes steepening, angling upward to the heights, where not even snow could fall... The ship slowed abruptly, so quickly the compensators miscalculated, allowing me to feel a slight tug through my inner ear, ship turning, careening past a vast gray cliff, coming to a dead stop in midair, hanging this for just a moment, then falling straight down into a saddleback pass in the mountains.

  Time for one quick look around, Opveldt and Koudloft over there. Yellow-white wasteland of the Adrianis Desert in the opposite direction. This is the Aardlands Bergpas, trekked by the embryonic Groeteboeren as they fled the abandonment of Kalyx Station, headed into the wilderness. Then we were down.

  From the top of the gangplank, the view was disquieting, if for no other reason than that they were... all there. Somehow, I hadn’t anticipated the... reality.

  Beside me, the Kapellmeister said, “I count sixty-four dollies.”

  Shit. I clattered down the stairway, trying not to look at them, walked over to where Delakroë and van Rijn stood beside the tailgate of a large truck, one with a big wooden cage for a cargo bay.

  The library whispered, This resembles the sort of truck used on Earth in late Medieval times for hauling swine to the slaughterhouse.

  Van Rijn, smiling his gappy smile, rubbed his hands together, breath a frosty jet in the cold mountain air. “Good to see you again, Mr. du Cheyne.”

  I gestured at the dollies, huddled together in their chains. “This isn’t exactly what we contracted for.”

  A sigh. “We’ll pay you pro rata for the increase. When we get to Epimetheus.”

  I smiled, turning finally and looking right at the dollies. Little cowgirls, all of them looking right at me. Wondering? No way to know. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck try to stand up. I said, “If you don’t, I’ll impound the cargo and sell it myself.”

  Click-crack.

  I looked up to find Delakroë had pulled a solid-propellant revolver similar to the one I’d seen in Tegenzinstad. Was aiming it at my head. I said, “What do you think will happen if the ship’s communications laser is discharged at you?”

  A sigh from van Rijn. “Sometimes, Delakroë...”

  The other man looked nervously at the ship, then uncocked the gun and slid it back inside his coat.

  Van Rijn said, “If the money’s not forthcoming at our destination, you can simply shoot me, Mr. du Cheyne. Our Epimethean hosts will most likely pay handsomely for the privilege of watching you do it. They’re like that.”

  I took a deep breath, looking at the dollies again. “Let’s just get them on board and get going.”

  o0o

  The large, habitable moon Epimetheus, circling the planet Prometheus, itself circling 40 Eridani A, lies some 9.72 light years from Green Heaven, circling Tau Ceti. At Random Walk’s best pseudo-velocity, that would be a voyage of eight days, twenty-one hours, zero minutes, forty-nine-point-six-eight seconds.

  Instantaneous, of course, from the point of view of the voyagers, but then it would take us more than thirty hours to reach the jump point, even though what passed for a Cetian systemic government, Compact Traffic Control, set no speed limits for out-of-ecliptic travel.

  The glory of the takeoff then, rising straight up out of Aardlands Bergpas, hearing van Rijn’s muttered astonishment, the Kapellmeister commenting on the impressive view. My hands on the controls as Green Heaven became a cloud swirled, entirely undistinguished little globe, lost among the stars. Velocity rising as we sailed out of plane...

  The ship, a stolid voice, whispering, At any reasonable relativistic velocity, you will waste too much fuel. Take it easy. Reminding me, in its own oblique way, that fuel costs money. And money, of course, is why... I tried not to think about the dollies, locked in their staterooms below, like so many doomed rats and rabbits.

  Now, I sat alone in the control room, still in my suit, but with the helmet off and tucked through my belt, eating my dinner alone, looking out at the stars. Motionless, unidentifiable stars, just so many steady, meaningless lights.

  Van Rijn had been surprised when I’d taken him below, had shown him how to use the galley, had told him he’d be eating dinner alone tonight. Hurt look on his face? I couldn’t tell, didn’t want to imagine him saying, Don’t you like me, Mr. du Cheyne?

  Well, I don’t, you oily son of a bitch, but...

  The Kapellmeister had stood still in the galley, watching as I’d turned and headed back to the c
ontrol room. Making no movement to follow me? None. Maybe it would just go on down to its room full of rats and rabbits and suck itself a nice little dinner. Or maybe stay up and have a nice chat with Mr. van Rijn, surely an interesting sort of human character for an alien to investigate.

  I wondered how van Rijn would react to a Kapellmeister’s eating habits.

  No matter. And no matter how I sealed myself in, I couldn’t escape from some feral awareness of all those dollies stowed away on my ship. Is everyone else immune to it? Well, no. Silly. But why isn’t van Rijn reacting? That dollhouse back in Orikhalkos didn’t have every sort of man in it. Just a certain kind of man.

  I put my dinner aside, parking it at the top of the control panel, stood and started pacing back and forth, looking out the windows, trying to think, trying not to think, failing at both endeavors.

  Slowly, piece by piece, took the spacesuit off, listening to its last moments of disquiet before disassembly brought deactivation. Don the new barrette I’d taken out of storage, cut the suit back on line, just like old times? I looked at the thing, sitting on the arm of the pilot’s chair, nestled amid the hand controls, where I’d left it.

  Well. No.

  Finally, I gave up, gave up with mingled anger and despair, went on back down the hatch, heading down the corridor to all those locked staterooms, determined to... I don’t know. Hell. Confront the issue somehow.

  o0o

  Silence, standing in a dim corridor lined with stateroom doors, standing motionless before the first such door, waiting to decide. Once again, that eerie feeling of the hair on the back of my neck, prickling, moving with a life of its own.

  My father’s voice: Right? Wrong? Forget all that shit. Decide what’s best for you. Big, blunt workingman’s finger, poking me uselessly in the middle of the chest. If the AIs were here, they’d be urging me to turn and run. Turn away and save myself. Rule sieves tell them if you don’t want to get burned, stay out of the fire. Meanwhile, I could feel that invisible, odorless, impalpable miasma, reaching around the door, through the bulkhead, up my nose and into my soul. I reached out and touched the contact.

  There was a long, still moment... curious technician awakening inside, reminding me this was an autoreflex door that should recognize my touch as owner and master and... well. Also keyed to the ship’s operating system. Which... knows.

  I growled, “Open the door, God damn it.”

  The door slid open.

  Darkness within.

  Nobody thought to leave a nightlight on for the poor dollies.

  Shadows within.

  Distant stirring.

  Shadows turning toward the light from the door.

  I stepped inside and let the door slide shut behind me. Darkness, for a moment, absolute. Then my eyes started to adapt, pick up the faint radiance coming from the wall panels, about what you’d get on a planetary surface, starlight coming in past the curtains.

  There. Dark shadows marked by just the faintest glimmer of shining eyes, some of them sitting in the bunks, others huddled over in the corner. All of them looking at me, waiting.

  I took a deep breath.

  Nothing?

  Gentle, sourceless voice, Idiot. Idiot... then I felt it get me, somewhere inside, a soft, insidious, seductive hand sliding over my skin, almost imperceptible, but... there.

  Well, this is what you came for, buddy boy. Why not be about it? I could already feel the familiar beginnings of sexual arousal, arousal free of the unease that always comes with... real women. Arousal quickening the way it did with the one’s I didn’t have to... believe in.

  One of the dollies got off the bunk and came padding softly over, looking up at me. My night vision was already switched on, irises relaxed, open to admit maximum light, letting me see her, it... little women. Like little women, nothing... animal about them at all.

  Dollie looking up at me, eyes... I don’t know. Curious? Dog’s eyes always look curious, as if they’re trying to fathom... The dollie reached out and touched me, a soft touch, reaching up to touch my chest, drifting slowly downward, hovering for a moment over my crotch where, to my mingled joy and horror, things were... ready.

  The dollie looked back over its shoulder, back at its comrades, whispered something. Dollie words beyond my kenning. Do I wish the Kapellmeister were here, able to tell me what they say? Or even the barrette, so the library AI could at least help me guess?

  No.

  A second dollie came forward, coming to stand by the other one, the two of them nearly alike in this almost darkness, twin cowgirls looking up at me, waiting for... something. The second dollie looked me right in the eye, held my gaze for a heartbeat, then spoke softly, unknown, unknowable words.

  I imagine they mean, What do you want? The first dollie reached out a touched me again, briefly, right on the bulge humping up the front of my pants, sending a tingle of anticipation shooting right up my spine, some primitive thing within urging me, frantically, to get on with it.

  What do I want?

  Well... you know.

  The dollies looked at one another, as if baffled. The first one reached up and fiddled with my belt buckle for a second, obviously... something. Knowing what was involved, not knowing quite how to work the mechanism, dollies evolved in a world where mechanisms were unknown.

  A little voice in my head reminded me that these dollies had been in human captivity for some time now. So. Maybe they do know. Or maybe it’s just some Clever Hans effect, enhanced to a supernatural power by the dollies’ very real intelligence.

  Whisper. Whisper. Dollies on the bunk whispering together.

  Telling each other what?

  No way for me to know.

  I tried desperately to remember what it was like, being with real, human women. Memories of Lara and Jayanne, Garstang... Rua Mater’s hands on me perhaps the last real chance I would ever have to...

  One of the dollies stepped forward, took me by the hand for a second, tugging gently. What? Cold, clear, crisp voice, my own voice, so rational inside my head, where no one else can hear it: The dollies know. Know what they’ve been saved from, by whom, for what, and why.

  I unbuttoned my shirt while the dollies stood and watched, let the front hang open, lost my will for a moment and stood helpless. One of the dollies, I could no longer tell them apart, stepped forward, velvet hand stroking my skin, reaching up and feeling my chest. Beady little dark eyes looking up at me, glimmering in the faint light. Over in the corner, I could hear the other dollies whispering in unison now, chanting together.

  I kicked off my shoes, unbuckled my belt, let my pants drop, stepped out of the crumpled pile of cloth. Dollies watching me, standing relaxed, waiting. Slipped out of my underwear. Stood still, nerves wound up, blood pressure at crescendo, ringing in my ears a high, clear note.

  The first dollie stepped forward and took my nice hard prick in a velvety little hand, thrust the other one between my legs, gently palpating my scrotum, seeming to tug me forward, lead me to... I was astonished to see the other dollie already sprawled on the deck, legs spread, apparently ready for me.

  The cool voice of reason: Imagine how much these things are worth, buddy boy. Intelligent. Pretty. Easily trained. Small and weak and cooperative as hell. Sexually compatible with human males in a way that human females are not, stuffed with arousing pheromones to boot. Just imagine.

  I imagined myself a dollie, glad as hell no one was going to eat me for church supper when it was all done.

  In the background, the dollies’ chanting was louder, clearer, sounding entirely too much like human words, the voices of little girls in the choir.

  I pushed the dollie’s soft hands away, staggered and fell to my knees, gasping for breath, breathing in yet more odorless, chemically-laced air. The dollie at my side nuzzled my face and tried to kiss me. When I put my face on the floor, huddled like a child, I could feel its hands begin stroking my back, long, smooth, practiced strokes, all the way from nape to buttock.

&nbs
p; I held still, while something inside me tried to will those hands to lengthen their stroke. Yes, just a little bit more and you’ll find me again, still hard, still ready, still willing, still able.

  When I looked up, I could see the other dollie, no more than a meter away, splayed out just so, legs spread, waiting patiently, head lifted, looking at me curiously now.

  Oh, hell. Just crawl over and get on top of her. It, I mean. What the hell harm can it do?

  I took a deep breath. Sat back on my heels. Reached out and petted the dollie beside me gently, like it was some kind of cat.

  Other dollies. Whisper. Whisper. Chant. Chant. Our Father, Who Art in...

  I said, “Shut the fuck up, you God damned idiots!”

  Silence.

  Christ.

  Stood up slowly, stiff prick bouncing like it was mounted on some kind of spring. Retrieved my shorts and put them on. Pants. Shirt. Shoes. Buttons and zipper and belt buckle.

  The dollie that’d been waiting on the floor got up, came over to me, looking up with those empty black eyes, made a little sound in its throat, reached out and tugged briefly on my belt buckle.

  Now there’s something you didn’t think of, asshole. Maybe the dollies like being fucked. Wouldn’t that sort of make a difference?

  They say women like being fucked. But then they always have an ulterior motive, so you can’t really know. Even with the kind of communication technology we have now, you can’t really... physical, psychological, and social needs all tangled up together, so unlike the simple need of a man...

  Cool voice of reason: Well now, the dollies will have an ulterior motive as well, won’t they? I imagined myself a dollie again, human prick thrusting away in my cloaca, thinking: Humans are fucking me. No wolfen will eat me now.

  If the wolfen go extinct, the dollies will follow. They depend on the wolfen as part of their reproductive cycle. Do the dollies realize that?

  The cool voice of reason took the time to point out it might not be so. The odds are very high a technogenic means of dollie reproduction can be devised. Christ, exogenic birth is common even among modern humans. Won’t be that hard to set the dollies up.