by John Barnes
I started to think about it, when Shan broke in and thought, • Let’s do it. Let’s help her out on this raid and defect to Union. •
I realized my mouth was hanging open again and I didn’t care. • Shan, this is a switch—•
• Or a greater consistency. Take your pick. There’s not really time to argue; we need time to plan with Paxa and Azalais, if we’re going to do it. Let’s just merge our feelings and thoughts on the subject; we can work out a way to articulate it all later. •
In that big echoing chamber, all white concrete arches and jewel-blue windows, I drew one deep breath, and something like this formed as an understanding between Shan and me:
Shan: At that last, the triumph of the lesser over the greater cannot ever be, really, a good thing. Even if somehow augmented human beings and crippled aintellects were enough to defeat the Invaders, our world would contain beings only as capable as ourselves, refusing to try to make a place for ourselves in the bigger world. That would be a deeper defeat: a runner who enters a race he cannot win has a brave dignity in his silly pathos as he stumbles to the finish line through a cloud of the winner’s dust; a runner who uses some power to exclude everyone who might beat him can stand as straight as he likes when they hang the medal on him, but everyone knows (that runner most of all) that it is a worthless trinket. Giraut: We owe something to songs. Every work carries with it all the performances in its past, from composer to performer and teacher to learner. What begins as one raindrop plonking into one Earthly puddle, reminding one melancholy man that the woman he wants is sleeping with her husband that night, flows through his brain and vocal cords and fingers, into other brains, until it eventually is a choir of a hundred voices, on a planet with a hundred human cultures, a hundred light-years from Earth, a hundred centuries in the future … and one young woman in the front row sits up and says to herself, That is like what happened to me, but not quite, and sets about making something else. We owe it to the songs to set them free to do that.
Shan: There are songs that cannot be born in Council-controlled space but which deserve to win; they must be allowed to compete. Giraut: I am Occitan. The original Occitan culture was exterminated in the crusade against the original Cathars—conducted by the world authority in the name of a necessary unity in the face of surrounding dangers. I can no more resist sympathizing with a band of fleeing artists, pursued by a single-minded all encompassing and horribly dull authority—
Shan: Than I can resist the image of a doomed, lone individual wandering the world until he can complete one last pointless mission Giraut: So
Shan: let’s Giraut: do it.
We hadn’t been thinking in words; as I said, we just merged. But even that takes a little time, and all the people who have ever done covert ops know the real meaning of “Ask me for anything but time” in their bones. When my attention moved outside myself, to the woman in front of me, she was waiting to catch my eye, and not patiently.
“We don’t have much time,” Paxa, or Azalais, said, very quietly, and looked at us with hope.
“We’re in.” I’m not sure which one of us said that.
When the springer pulsed into gray light the first time, Paxa rolled into it, and an instant later it pulsed again, and I went through to a different springer.
As planned, I emerged into an alcove in the fieldhouse where one very discreet and clever little aintellect had penetrated security and activated a hospital springer. Little danger of its being in use—the population was young and had been handled gently. My biggest dread had been that there might be someone in labor coming the other way, but that didn’t happen.
Instead, I found myself facing a long, dusty hallway lined with very old display cases.
The lights went out—Paxa’s Trojan aintellect was on schedule—as I began my run down the hallway, but I could see well enough to run on an empty floor by the moonlight coming in through the big outside windows.
I was just five long steps from the long down staircase that was an important part of my plan when the lights came back on—which was also supposed to happen. I bounded down the stairs as a CSP guard stepped onto the staircase to demand my papers. I launched myself down the last few steps, catching myself on his shoulders and flipping him backward to the floor; his helmet and body armor supported his neck and it was no more than uncomfortable for him, but severely disorienting. I slapped a neuroducer onto the back of his neck as he sat up—just a little gadget to make him sleep till the doctors took it off—and he ragdolled back onto the floor.
As I got to my feet, pulling out my stunstick, I was confronted by the other guard, clutching his. By now, however, Union aintellects were in charge of the building, and there was no urgent need for silence or caution.
They don’t really train anybody in law enforcement or the military to use a stunstick properly; it is assumed that it’s a weapon you use against unarmed, untrained combatants, where it’s just a matter of touching them with the last nine centimeters. He swung hard overhand with his stunstick in his right hand; I switched mine to my left behind my back, leaned out of his swipe, and struck overhand and down, my stunstick coming in just above and behind his.
It caught his wrist, and whipped his arm violently down and then up into an outward circle as I numbed his hand. As his stunstick flew up to the ceiling, I turned sideways and took a big step between his legs, grabbed the back of his collar with my right hand, flicked with my left thumb to put my stunstick to maximum knockout, and firmly but carefully pushed my hands together. My stunstick rested against his forehead for a long second, and then he fell over. Even veteran CSPs look sort of sweet when they’re asleep with one big joyous smile and jaw open and drooling.
Paxa rounded the corner and gestured for me to follow her. “Good to be back,” she said, as we sprinted to the gym.
“Fun to have you back,” I agreed. My heavy boots clomped down the hallway, punctuated by the slap-squick of her gripslippers.
The plan was that by the time we got into the gym, our aintellects would already have turned the lights on, powered down all enemy guard robots, sounded the alarm to waken everyone, and have them ready for us to start evacuation. Plans, of course, are notorious for going awry, and this one did so spectacularly, as we came around the last turn and found ourselves facing Raimbaut, who had his slug-thrower already leveled.
Training is what you have so that the easiest thing to do is the right thing; we zagged away from each other, to opposite walls of the hallway, and raised our hands the minimum compliant distance, giving ourselves a chance to draw if need be.
Raimbaut’s face stayed impassive; later he told me that the moment that happened, he knew he was caught in the classic hostage fork.
“Shame on you,” Shan said. “You should have been waiting about ten meters farther back in the corridor.”
Even then, Raimbaut didn’t flinch. He just looked and evaluated. If he shot either of us, the other one would have time to draw and return fire—even exchange. And we were ahead on material; that meant we’d come out of it the winner—fifty percent dead to his one hundred percent, and therefore able to continue our plans.
Of course it wasn’t that each of us would be fifty percent dead. One of us would be very unhappy but unscathed …
“All right;” I said. “Do we want to discuss who likes who best?”
Raimbaut looked it all over, shrugged, and threw down his maser. “I don’t want to kill either of you, so I guess that means I’ve lost,” he said. “And last I knew, Margaret wasn’t paying any effort-based raises.” He shrugged. “What are you going to do?”
“Help everyone escape peacefully,” I said. “So far all the casualties are a few stunned guards. If we move quickly, there can be no bloodshed, no destructive deconstructions, everyone can start talking without anyone having anything to be mad about.”
“Except your ex-wife,” Raimbaut said. “She’s brilliant, talented, effective, and petty. Good luck with her.” We all stood stil
l for a long couple of seconds before he said, “If you have cuffs you’d better bind me so I’m covered for an alibi. I’d rather that than be stunned—getting stunned always gives me a hangover.”
I kept my weapon aimed at him while Paxa cuffed him, and until she was back out of his reach. “All right, Raimbaut, forward march.”
The aintellects had taken some initiative in the gym, and everyone was lined up and ready to go. We cut through the chains on one door with a maser, and started the parade out into the hallway. “Everyone who has any relative or friend who is not here in this room—everyone who knows of anyone who might be being left behind—come forward!”
There was no one. Paxa checked with the aintellect, and it had already hacked and cross-matched records; a young healthy population had simply not happened to have anyone in the hospital, and universal global tracking assured that there was no one off scuba diving or caving who hadn’t been rounded up.
It was one of the strangest refugee parades I have ever seen; hardly any of them had any material possessions except for very small children—and every one of them had a teddy bear or blanky.
CSPs are notoriously softhearted and most of them had probably not only allowed the little ones to have something for security, but actually encouraged it. • If Margaret ever thought of committing genocide using CSPs, • Shan thought, • she doesn’t know them at all. None of these kids even looks scared. •
Furthermore, there were no stunned-looking old people—in fact no one was either old or stunned-looking.
“What’s so interesting?” Reilis said, suddenly appearing beside me.
I kept my weapon at ready, though of course for safety’s sake I had been pointing it toward the skylight anyway, ever since it became clear that Raimbaut was not going to make a break for it and no commando raid was imminent. With my free hand, I half hugged Reilis, while keeping my eyes scanning the room. “Good to see you again,” I said, “and I guess we’ll all have more time to talk once we get over to the other side.”
“Are we taking Raimbaut?”
“Not unless he asks to come,” I said. “Where’s Laprada?”
“Sleeping,” Raimbaut said. “I was restless and bored and looking around at everything I could monitor, and I saw a flurry of activity in your place—your prison, I suppose. A warm body came in, two warm bodies left, and by the time I hacked through all the worms that had taken over the house systems, there were robots leaving cadavers everywhere. You’ve always run an odd household, Giraut, but that was odd even for you.
“So I broadened my search, and then things started happening here. I caught a glimpse through one camera before it was taken over, and saw Paxa knocking down a CSP. So I grabbed my maser and got between you and the Noucathar prisoners—about ten meters too far forward, as Shan points out. Got caught in the classic hostage fork.” He shrugged, looking very much like a teenaged boy. “I just know Laprada’s going to be mad at me because she missed all the excitement.”
“Ebles!” Paxa called.
He stepped out of the line.
“It’s me, Azalais. Come on over and meet my new body. And if you dare say you like it better, you’re dead.”
Ebles and Reilis stuck around us while everyone else went through the springer. Our three bodies took turns at guarding Raimbaut (who was about the most relaxed and cheerful prisoner I had ever seen). After we had checked the bathrooms and bleachers, to make sure there were no hiding children or fools with last-minute cases of the shorts, I said, “Is that it?”
“One last check in progress,” Paxa said, looking at her computer. “We already set off the bomb in the Hall of Memories, so those pyspyxes are gone, and beyond the reach of destructive deconstruction. The aintellects we brought in are ready to wipe themselves and have uploaded copies of all the captured and taken-over aintellects to storage on Cathar Argo. But we want to make sure—well, shit, of course there would be one. Back at the main base, in the main administration building, in one office, there’s a psypyx copy of—you, Reilis.”
“Well,” Reilis said, “it makes me sick, but given where it is, we can’t possibly raid to get it, and if we use any weapon destructive enough to be sure of getting it, we’re bound to hurt innocent people. I think—we’ll just have to—” She couldn’t quite make herself say it.
I think, looking back, that more than anything else it was Reilis’s expression that made me say, “I think we ought to go get it. Or failing that, Shan and I should stay behind to try to talk them out of destructive deconstruction. It’s you, Reilis. I don’t want that to happen to you.”
“Me either, but better that than any of the alternatives—like getting all of us killed or captured, or having the blood of a lot of Council troops on our hands—”
“Ahem,” Raimbaut said. “Ahem, ahem, ahem. I have an idea that will work—or might—if you’ll trust me to throw in with you. And I have to admit that watching this and listening to all of you, I’ve been feeling like I was seeing—for the first time in ages—another round for humanity and one for the good guys. What you’re doing looks like the sort of thing I joined the OSP to do—I like being on the side that protects little children with teddy bears, and worries about the danger to innocent guards,” Raimbaut said.
“Strangely enough, I agree,” Shan said. “All right, Raimbaut, give us the plan.”
I thought to Shan, • I hadn’t really noticed how many scenes, in how many silly dramas and stories, this resembles. Of course it usually works in those stories, which I suppose is some sort of a good sign. But I had not noticed the resemblance at the time we planned this. •
• Since that time was just a few minutes ago, • Shan thought back, • it may not be all that surprising that you are having second thoughts. However, ‘a good plan stuck to and carried out right now—’•
• ‘Beats a perfect plan arrived at too late and tweaked in the middle,’• I thought back. • You know, the worst thing is that your quoting yourself can’t very well be a sign of senility—psypyxes don’t go senile and otherwise that’s my brain you’re running on. And thank you for not thinking of any obvious rejoinders. •
We were walking a couple of paces in front of Raimbaut; my hands were cuffed and bound, he held a neuroducer dart gun pointed at my back, and we had just cleared a secure springer in the closed-down suburban business district that had been made the OSP’s ad hoc base in Masselha. Raimbaut was conducting me to the main office building, having made an appointment with Margaret for about half an hour from right now. He was acting like a very businesslike agent; I was acting the role of the disconsolate prisoner. Reviews weren’t quite in yet.
We were counting on the fact of Margaret’s appointment with us to get us past the robots at the main guard station; she was expecting Raimbaut and me, me as prisoner, and that was in the log, and that was what they saw when we approached the desk. We had to hope they wouldn’t decide to give Raimbaut an extensive backup against extremely dangerous me.
• And your ego has to hope that they won’t just wave you through as harmless, • Shan thought. I could feel his amusement at my sense of outrage, but at least it made my bonds feel annoying, and I struggled with them, subtly, but enough so that Raimbaut checked his distance and kept a close eye; we looked like a moderately dangerous prisoner being guarded by a highly competent guard, and the robots cleared us at once.
Of course the robots and aintellects on guard assumed we were going to Margaret’s temporary office and that Raimbaut would know where that was. The only thing we knew in that building was where Reilis’s psypyx was (at least according to the files we had hacked)—Office 446. We were headed straight to that room, and the plan was to blow down the door, find the psypyx, destroy it, and run like hell.
We had a card carrying a code for a springer that would stay open, somewhere safe in Union space, for about another twenty minutes, before they would turn it off to prevent its becoming an invasion route. It was understood that our chances of getting t
o use that card were slim, and we’d spent more time reminding ourselves to destroy the card the moment we were captured, rather than thinking of where to find a springer in the main headquarters. Chances were that we would get no such chance; it might take us some time to find the psypyx, with the guards on their way an instant after we blew the door, and so it was likely enough that we would not get out of the room at all. If we did, we would have to find a springer in an unfamiliar building and slap the card in. Then the card would have to defeat military—or security-agency-grade safeties, which could take up to a full minute—time we almost certainly would not have.
As I contemplated that, Shan thought, • Well, that’s all true enough. Suppose we just think of the card as a lovely gesture; Union forces are taking a serious risk of having another springer address captured, just to give you a tiny chance, as opposed to no chance, of escape. It may not be smart and it may not be effective, but you have to admit, it’s gracious. •
• Que merce e que enseingnamen, • I agreed. • And futility is ne gens to mention. •
We went up a flight of stairs and turned down the last corridor on our way to Office 446—luckily the system for numbering offices was simple enough. Of course we had to be ready for the moment when it would become apparent to the monitoring aintellects that we were not going to Margaret’s office. I had my finger on the cuff release, and a maser in my back pocket, ready to start running and shooting as soon as anything sounded like an alarm or a response.
Raimbaut and I had assumed that they would be asking questions as soon as we turned off the most direct route to Margaret’s office, and then coming after us as soon as they didn’t get an answer they liked to those questions. But there were no problems in the corridor. Maybe the psypyx was being kept near Margaret’s office?