by John F. Carr
“Welcome back,” said Tern, remembering how he had expected these two to be dead by now. “Bataar and Luke—right?”
“That’s right, Major,” said Bataar. “Take a look.”
The two men driving the wagon jumped to the ground and pulled on ropes that lifted the canvas.
Tern walked up and found a man tied and gagged in the back of the wagon, sitting up. “Don’t tell me—that’s the son of a bitch?”
“That’s Timur,” said Bataar. “Traitor to the Mahdi—”
Timur jerked his body, thumping his feet on the floor of the wagon, and tried to shout, but his voice was muffled.
“And he led his men to burn our town,” Luke added. “In return, we killed every man in the United Front except him.”
“So the United Front is gone,” said Bataar. “He’s the last one.”
Tern studied the hate-filled eyes of the gagged man. “And you brought him all this way? Why bother?”
“He’d rather die out on the steppe than work in the Dover mines,” said Luke.
“Oh?” Tern looked from Luke to Bataar.
“Our fathers are giving him back to the CoDominium as a gift,” said Bataar. “Send him back to Dover.”
Tern gave Timur a hard, humorless grin. “Consider it done.” He waved for his sentries to take custody of the prisoner. “Say, you and your men are welcome to stand down, have some dinner. It’s the least I can do.”
“Thank you, Major, but we have to start back.” Bataar offered his hand.
“As you wish.” Tern shook hands with both of them. He waited as Bataar and Luke mounted up and the drivers climbed onto the wagon.
“See ya.” Luke touched the brim of his cowboy hat and reined away.
Tern hoped he would be retired if the CoDominium ever wanted a remote post like Fort Stony Point to go alone against these two someday. As he watched them lead the column in a U-turn for the journey home, he heard Bataar and Luke start singing. The rest of the column, Free Tribe and Americans alike, joined in.
“Then to the plains we rode so bold,
Cat’s Eye glowing brightly,
Far from the mines so dark and cold—
And the girl I left behind me.”
WHAT THE DINOSAURS KNEW
Don Hawthorne
2089 A.D., Sauron
ON THE MORNING OF his last day on the job, Jack Wilson’s daughter drove him to work. She insisted.
“I’ve driven myself to work for forty years, Donna. No reason I can’t drive myself on my last day.”
He turned to look at his daughter’s profile. Silhouetted by the morning glare off a blue-glass monolith across the street, she looked like one of those Earth Tourist Board commercials they used to film on the mother world in a place called California, back when there still was a California: Auburn-haired, emerald-eyed, beautiful; a heart-breaking smile and, in Wilson’s eyes, eternally five years old.
Donna Wilson-Diettinger smiled. “It wasn’t just my idea.” She glanced to the rear scanner. “Right, honey?”
Jack ignored the protests of his aged spine and made a half-turn to smile at his granddaughter strapped into the back seat. It was easy to remember Donna at five; her own daughter Melinda was now that age, and practically her clone.
Well; Wilson reminded himself, not just ‘practically.’
Looking at Melinda, strapped into her car seat with a stuffed dinosaur clutched under one arm and a book with pictext of the same subject, Wilson had to remind himself that most of the normal protective instincts she inspired in him were irrelevant.
Mindy would never catch a cold, never suffer a life-threatening fever or any other serious disease for any longer than it took to drive her to the pediatric geneticist for treatment. It was unlikely she would ever—or even could ever—break a bone.
Like every child born on Sauron in the last twenty years, Melinda’s genes had been systematically modified since conception. Donna had married well, into a Firstholder family. The Diettingers were among the first settlers of Sauron; respected, influential, almost indecently rich. It didn’t hurt that all the ones Jack Wilson had met, especially including his son-in-law, Kalvan, were also good people.
But good though the Diettingers might be, they were also powerful, and on Sauron that meant they were expected to lead by example. Thus, if the State declared genetic tailoring to be a Good Thing, then every Sauron citizen was expected to comply, and the leading citizens were expected to be the first in line. Wilson and his wife Mary had dutifully opted for the procedure for Donna. But Donna and Kalvan had not been given any choice. By the time they were married, all pregnancies on Sauron were required by law to undergo the procedure.
Wilson himself was one of the last Sauron citizens whose parents had to rely on selective breeding; genetically-structured marriage arrangements to maximize their odds of producing healthy citizens. Like most other parents of their generation, they had enjoyed some luck with the process. Wilson had always been healthy as a horse.
But seventy-five and healthy was still seventy-five. Sauron’s sons and daughters lived in what was still very much a frontier world. Work could be hard or dangerous or both; life could be short, and maintaining one’s good health into old age was a carefully State-regulated activity for those of Wilson’s generation, whose chromosomes were unsuited for the newest gene-therapies designed for the tailored genotypes of the new generations. The genetically-tailored cures for all humanity’s ills were tailored for an already-tailored humanity; Wilson’s generation was, alas, one step removed.
Sauron was now literally making hardier and healthier citizens than any other world of the CoDominium; Donna and her descendants would never know an illness or injury that could not be cured or repaired outright by virtue of a gene code that was completely mapped and utterly malleable. But Wilson was an obsolete being, a man born of careful mating rather than outright design, and while he could expect an active lifestyle well into his ninetieth year, beyond that the new tools of medicine were as useless for healing him as an arc welder would be for repairing a birch bark canoe.
“I want to see your desk, grandpa,” Melinda said. She held her schoolbook and a stuffed toy close to her chest while her feet paddled the air before her.
“Why would you want to see an old desk, Mindy?” Wilson asked.
“Because Daddy says it’s made out of firewood and I’ve never seen a firewooden desk.”
“Oops,” Donna said. She looked sideways at her father. “I think Kal meant—”
“It’s all right, honey, I know what he meant. And he’s right, it’s an antique, and it probably should get burned after I go.” Wilson had received his desk as a gift from Chief Regher when the Old Man had retired twenty years earlier. Despite Wilson’s own retirement having been common knowledge on the force for the last five years, no one had asked him for the desk when he left. There wasn’t any perceptible sense of tradition in the new breed of detectives, and anyway, the new desks were demonstrably better.
“Although it’s probably worth a lot to some damn fool collector. Not many real wooden desks left on Sauron anymore.”
Donna let the car park itself; they had arrived. The new Amberlea City Police Headquarters would be completed in six months, but while everyone on the force was packed and prepared for the move, the work went on with no let-up in the ‘Old HQ’. Wilson climbed out of his daughter’s car and looked up at the stone façade of the building. The wide stairs and portico were fashioned of Sauron Blue Granite, one of the colony’s first and most lucrative exports.
There had been a time when the notion of interplanetary trade in such heavy materials would have been ludicrous, but Sauron had a reputation in the CoDominium of setting goals that seemed impossible for any world, even Earth, to achieve; and then exceeding them.
Wilson pulled his briefcase—another hopelessly outdated affectation—from behind the passenger seat and leaned in the window to trade kisses with Mindy.
The child pressed her
stuffed dinosaur against her grandfather’s chest. “Grandpa, Buttons wants to go to work with you today.”
“She does, does she?”
Mindy corrected him, “No, Buttons is a boy, all Triceratops are boys.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, Buttons, I forgot.” Wilson let Melinda stuff the toy tail-first into the pocket of his jacket. The head of the ancient Earth reptile stuck out over the pocket, distinctive bone frill with twin horns surmounting the stuffed-toy’s face and its expression of glassy-eyed indifference.
“Thank you for not pointing out the flaw in her gender-reasoning,” Donna whispered as she hugged her father.
Wilson shrugged. “Who knows, if the dinosaurs had Breedmasters too, maybe triceratops were all boys.”
“All girls, more likely, dad,” Donna smiled. She looked down at the fuzzy orange toy in her father’s pocket. “Are you really taking that thing to work with you?”
“Oh, yeah. Buttons insists. And one should never argue with a dinosaur.”
“Oh, yeah, why’s that?” Donna laughed.
Wilson shifted his briefcase and kissed his daughter on the cheek. “Trust me.”
The office was unusually busy this morning; clearly some major operation was in the works, drawing personnel from several departments for participation or simply to see what was going on. Wilson’s commander, Police Chief Burek, was standing in front of The Board, a massive wall screen used for briefings and running cases. This morning it displayed an area of the city about fifteen blocks from the Police Station. The Chief was watching several detectives carefully pointing out areas on the screen, illuminating intersections and grid points as they seemed to become progressively irritated with one another and frustrated by the issue being depicted on The Board.
Chief Burek was impassive as he scanned the image, assimilating everything he was told, analyzing every detail, missing nothing. He was Third Crèche, the latest and brightest of Sauron’s fully genetically engineered generations to come into their maturity to lead the State, and even in that arena he was regarded as a brilliant rising star whose assignment as Chief of the Amberlea Police had been assured since the day of his birth.
He was twenty-two years old.
Wilson put his briefcase on his desk and acknowledged Burek’s glance. “Good morning, Chief,” he said, pressing a button on his desk’s comm panel to summon coffee.
“Detective Wilson,” Burek nodded, grey-green eyes flashing with the prodigious intellect behind them. “This is your last day on the force.”
“It is, sir,” Wilson sat down, the motion accompanied by an incongruous squealing pweep sound. He reached into his pocket and pulled out Buttons, placing the toy on his desk. Burek glanced briefly at the stuffed dinosaur and turned back to the screen. One of the detectives who had been working the image grinned over his shoulder at Wilson. The words The Old Guy is finally losing it were practically tattooed on his forehead.
Burek’s gaze took in the toy with no more reaction than to a falling leaf. “Going to retire to a teaching position, Detective?” The Chief looked back at the cluster of young detectives who had gathered at The Board. “If so, please consider the Police Academy.”
Was that exasperation Wilson heard in the Chief’s voice? He did seem to be riding herd on a fairly unruly group of detectives at The Board. In Wilson’s experience, the volume of a conference was in direct inverse proportion to its productivity, and he had no trouble hearing every participant in the ongoing discussion.
“He’s using slidewalks to make the runs in Districts Seven and Four…” one detective was saying.
“No, only for a random number of blocks; he switches intermittently to the metrail, then goes on foot to use public bike rentals…”
“But see, over here he’s just on ped lanes for several blocks, also random…”
“There’s no pattern, either; I’m running algorithms to predict his position but we’re getting less than a fifteen percent accuracy return.”
“And when we do get a lock on his position, he’s co-opted the traffic computers to change lights and re-route traffic to block our access and give himself time to get out of the net… again.”
“Guy’s a frigging ghost, Chief.”
Burek ignored the last comment. Instead he walked up close to The Board, gave it another overall look, and turned to his detectives.
“This perp is Fourth Crèche, detectives.” Wilson recalled the Crèche System spaced birthings at six-year intervals. The perp they were after was only sixteen.
Burek continued: “That means he’s smarter than all of you. That’s not an insult; it means he’s smarter than me, too. He’s managed to manipulate the transportation and traffic control system of an extremely large area of the city so that he can move freely within it, using the totality of all possible pathway layouts, private and public transportation, even alleys and rooftops, in an optimally randomized pattern.
“The total area he’s mapped out for this purpose,” Burek gestured at The Board, “is just large enough to be beyond our manpower capabilities to watch every pathway, but small enough for him to compromise the computers running the traffic grid control system when he needs to; never too often, never too much. A ‘Don’t Walk’ sign here, a slide-walk stoppage there. You are concentrating on getting the strings of a net around him; meanwhile, all he’s seeing are the holes.” Burek regarded his detectives as a group. “That’s how he’s beating you, detectives.”
This was Wilson’s last day. Every detective at The Board had a genetically-enhanced IQ at least twenty points above his own. His coffee was getting cold and, without realizing it, he was idly twirling an absurd, orange, stuffed dinosaur toy in his left hand. Despite all these incongruities, Wilson had found himself staring at The Board, sharing in the case.
Burek, who missed nothing, had not missed this, either.
“Detective Wilson.”
“Chief?”
“Would you care to add anything?”
One of the detectives rolled his eyes.
“What’s the perp wanted for, Chief?”
Burek glanced at the eye-roller. “Detective Grohe, bring Detective Wilson up to speed.”
Detective Grohe, apparently the lead investigator, was obviously less than thrilled that the Chief had brought Wilson into the mix. He answered in the clipped tone that had once been reserved for media conferences, back when Sauron’s police were still answerable to the media.
“He’s the money runner for Drayson’s borloi operation. He carries credit transfers and software, which means he has records of every dealer, every user and every transaction. Drayson hasn’t been heard from in six weeks, during which time his drug operation has expanded by thirty-seven percent. We think he may have killed Drayson and taken over the operation.” Grohe offered up the last piece of information in a challenging tone.
“Hmm.” Wilson said. If Grohe thought Wilson was going to voice any doubt that a sixteen-year old Fourth Crèche would murder his boss to take over a lucrative drug dealership, he was as ignorant of history in general—and criminal history in particular—as he was of the coffee stain on his own shirt.
Wilson rose and approached The Board.
How many times have I stood right where Grohe is, he thought. In the middle of it all, everything I need to know to bring in the perp, superior officer breathing down my neck and not a goddamn clue where to go from here. It’s a bloody cliché, but it’s a cliché because it happens somewhere every day, all over Sauron, all over Earth, throughout the whole CoDominium. Hell, somewhere some alien Chief of Police is probably pointing a third arm at a Board just like this and saying “Let’s get this guy”.
“He randomizes his stops.” Wilson said.
Grohe nodded, seeing it coming. “Yeah, but his signal to his contacts is scrambled and burst transmitted, so tapping his comms isn’t productive. By the time they’re deciphered both he and his contact are gone.” Grohe’s tone was unmistakable: We thought of that, Old Man.
> “’Kay,” Wilson kept looking at The Board. All the pieces of data were important, but only because it took trees to make a forest, and the forest was the goal. Sooner or later, it would come to him. It almost always did, and when it didn’t, it came to someone else on the team. The immutable truth of police detective work was simply numerical advantage: One perp might outthink and outmaneuver one cop, or two, or a dozen or even a thousand…but he couldn’t outthink them all, Fourth Crèche or Fiftieth. Sooner or later, the aggregate would produce a nemesis in the form of one cop or a team who either bested the perp or—and this happened far more often—simply got lucky.
“What are these stops?” Wilson pointed at several marks on the perp’s previous movements outlined in blue; the color code indicated neutral activity, not related to any known criminal activity or contact. There were hundreds.
“Cover stops,” Grohe answered with a tired sigh. “Part of his randomization pattern. They cloud the patterning software, it’s why he makes them. Did I mention he’s Fourth Crèche?”
“Uh-huh,” Wilson said. “What’s his cover?”
One of Grohe’s junior detectives answered. “Pizza delivery.”
Wilson turned and gave the detective an incredulous look. “You’re kidding.”
“No,” Grohe almost snorted. “Detective Shale is not ‘kidding’, Detective Wilson. It’s part of the perp’s cover and it’s pretty damned brilliant at that. He’s got a legitimate reason for being anywhere and a perfect reason for people to forget he was ever around. He’s anonymous and invisible to citizens and he can walk right into a police station then go out the back door and conduct a money exchange with no one being the wiser, and he’s gone before we even know he was here.”
Has he really done that?”
“Yes, he really has. He gets off on it. He knows he’s smarter than us and he likes to prove it. He’s smarter than you, too, Detective Wilson. Or have I not yet made that clear?”
“Detective Grohe,” Chief Burek spoke softly. “I understand your frustration, and while in fact you do outrank Detective Wilson, I remind you that he does possess a considerable margin of seniority, and with it, an expectation of courtesy, if not respect.”