The Cunning Blood

by Jeff Duntemann

  There are different kinds of freedom. And different kinds of imprisonment.

  Morning surfaced in his consciousness with a cast-wide door and two black-clothed men pushing breakfast on a cart. One of the men pushed the cart to Geyl's side of the cell. The other stood before Peter.

  "Peter. Come on. We've got an appointment." His voice carried a distinct New York accent.

  Peter rubbed his eyes. Deja vu... "Uhhh, can't it wait until I eat something?"

  "Bilenda Paton wants to speak with you."

  "She can't wait ten minutes? I eat fast."

  His summoner was young, and taller than he. On the broad leather belt that cinched his jacket were two sidearms; one seemed a conventional pistol, and the other was small and ominous-looking for its size. "Peter, any guy in Rho Alpha Delta would slit your throat for an invitation like that. I'm one of them. Let's go."

  Peter raised his hands. "Hey. Unarmed man. Orange, see? I'm coming." He swung out of the cot, reached over and patted Geyl's calf. She was only beginning to stir. "Be back later, hon. Been summoned by an impatient woman. Sounds a little like you, in fact."

  Peter marched beside his escort to the outside of the building, where a tall, blockish vehicle was waiting with its engine idling. Peter saw the carbon haze in its exhaust.

  |Diesel. But now I have to wonder if they've got Otto cycle engines too.|

  Otto cycle engines have been made with non-electrical flame ignition. I have a patent application dated 1896, in which a cam periodically exposes a torch flame to the combustion chamber. It never worked very well, and was never perfected or mass-produced. It didn't need to be. Electric ignition was easier.

  |It's starting to look like Hell's invented all the stuff we didn't have to invent because we had electricity. I wonder how they do their radios.|

  With some patience we may even find out. And the Nautonnier will need to know. Nanotechnology could thrive in a culture like this. Electronics makes secret-keeping difficult—and nanotechnology has no dependence whatsoever on electronics. It now becomes even more important that we return to Earth.

  Inside the vehicle were two bench seats face-to-face, with the driver on a small perch virtually on the left wall. The setup was simple and utilitarian, the metal walls painted in muted shades of brown. It smelled of leather and new plastic. Peter noted, with some unease, the gun racks on the ceiling and small gun ports on the walls and doors on both sides.

  Folded neatly on the bench seat beside him was a suit of trousers, shirt, and hooded jacket like those everyone on Hell seemed to wear, in black.

  "You'll need to get dressed in real clothes," his escort instructed. "Drops in orange can't go where you're going."

  "Drops."

  "People who just land. Earth drops them on us. You, f'rinstance."

  Peter gladly ditched the orange coverall, and slipped on the garb of his new captors. The escort looked him over critically, told him to center the buckle of the wide leather belt over his jacket, and pronounced him acceptable.

  The escort pulled back on a lever, and steel shields withdrew from the windows on both sides of the vehicle. The car was hurtling down a broad highway set amid scraggly grassland. Low warehouses and other buildings could be seen in clusters in every direction. Alongside the highway were rows of steel towers perhaps ten meters high, each supporting a peculiar device that aimed a parabolic reflector at the sun. Within the latticework of the towers Peter saw reciprocating engines of some sort, pumping slowly.

  "Any chance you could tell me what all those towers do?"

  The escort shrugged. "Sure. Solar engines. The concentrator follows the sun on a fluidic servo, heats a fluid that drives a Sterling engine pump. Contributes pressure to the Plenum."

  "Which is?"

  "Network of compressed air reservoirs and mains. Central power distribution. Comes right to a socket in the wall of your bathroom. You plug your shaver into it, cooks plug their rotisseries into it, laundry plugs in their washing machines. Does everything electricity does, and it won't kill you as easy."

  "How do you keep the pressure up at night?"

  "Natural gas turbines run pumps, though we've got places down the coast where we harvest geothermal heat too. Up toward Uriel in the foothills we have dams, for hydro, running pumps instead of generators. Anywhere there's an energy delta, we harvest it." The man was obviously proud of Hell's accomplishments. "Not bad for a bunch of crooks, huh?"

  Not bad at all.

  Peter alternated between rubbernecking and chatting with his escort. Unlike the various 1Earth guards Peter had encountered in the previous several days, the man did not keep a weapon in hand at all times. In fact, the leather strap was still snapped over his sidearm's holster—a quiet note of arrogant confidence that made him seem even more ominous.

  "So what's your job with Rho Alpha Delta?" Peter asked.

  "I'm a force courier. I get stuff where it really has to go. You, f'rinstance."

  "Am I that big a deal?"

  "If Snitzius says you are, you are. But I don't think it's your pretty face."

  There was something in what the man said that suggested to Peter that Hell was still largely a penal colony after all. What had 9 said the night before? There are different kinds of imprisonment. "How'd you get sent to Hell?"

  "My brother broke a chair over my back while we were playing stud. He's a real shit when he's drunk. So I threw my beer stein at him. Fractured his skull."

  "Did he live?"

  "Sure! Take more than a cracked skull to slab him. We ended up on the same lander. He runs a scoop for the Bildogs. We play cards every Sunday."

  "Do you two still fight?"

  "Ha! He could blow me away, and visa-versa. So we're real nice to each other. When I call him a shit, he laughs. They got heavier chairs here anyway."

  The transition from outskirts to city was abrupt. The grasslands ended, and the broad highway dispersed into a boulevard at the foot of a cliff-wall of immense eight and ten story stone buildings. Moloch was old, and the stone was weathered and aged without quite seeming stained. It reminded Peter of Old LaSalle Street at the center of Chicago, where five-hundred-year-old marble buildings like the Rookery defied time and history.

  The streets were arranged in a rectangular grid, also like Chicago, but the blocks were much longer. Peter guessed that it was at least a half klick between the streets, and the major thoroughfares were at least a kilometer apart. In the subdued light between the stone buildings, the driver dodged cable-driven streetcars and other vehicles much like their own. Pedestrian traffic was heavy, with bicycles weaving in and around walkers, and tiny diesel scooters putt-putting their way just outside the curb.

  The buildings were grandiose in the classical style, with monumental arches and fluted columns, and order insignia chiseled into the marble at titanic scale. Peter noticed that there was no advertising, and apparently no shops; in most cases street level was blank stone, or wide windows revealing office environments or light manufacturing plants.

  They passed a broad, partly forested park that was half a kilometer on each side. Peter watched, astonished, as a group of men pushed baby strollers down a park path, accompanied by children of both sexes batting a bright blue ball back and forth. All the children wore pea-green uniforms with brass buttons, girls as well as boys in identical trousers and crisp jackets.

  "You have kids here!" Peter had assumed that Hell, to have broken its actuarial estimates, must have found a way to reproduce. But it was somehow shocking to see children of every age and race on the world where 1Earth consigned its violent criminals.

  "Hey, our biggest holiday is Reversal Day. Winter 18th, Hell Era 98. The Bones announced that they had reversed the tubals on five women, and all five were pregnant. Four of the five babies were girls. Good omen."

  Perhaps 1Earth's stupidest error lay in assuming that thermocauteral tubal ligations are impossible to reverse en masse. It takes microsurgery and considerable skill, but it had been done as
early as the end of the 20th century. The problem is that in the wake of the population crash of Bad 50, demand on Earth for tubals—and hence reversals—was close to nil, and the procedure was never fully developed and largely forgotten. I'm a little surprised, in fact, that it took Hell a full hundred years to work it out.

  Eventually the vehicle turned hard to the left, waited for pedestrians to hesitate, and then vanished into an immense wall of gray marble. The escort raised the lever beside him, and the steel shields rose from inside the doors, blocking Peter's view of the building's interior. "Orders," the escort said. "Nothing personal."

  The vehicle continued for longer than Peter thought was possible inside a single building—if indeed they remained inside one building. When the car finally halted, the escort handed Peter what looked like a black cloth bag.

  "Over your head. My job's done. Somebody else'll take you to Bilenda. Don't do anything stupid or you'll get agged."

  "Agged."

  "Agonil." The escort removed the small weapon from its holster. "It's what puts the hell in Hell, heh-heh. Everybody's nice here, pretty much. But once you get agged, you're real nice."

  Peter nodded and drew the bag over his head. His escort pulled a drawstring not quite tight around his neck. Peter felt the escort's breath through the bag as the man tied a knot in the drawstring. The bag was porous enough to breathe easily through, but it passed very little light.

  He stumbled out of the vehicle, and his escort passed him on to an unseen man with a deeper voice and an Eastern European accent. This escort was not interested in chatting, and Peter walked silently with the man's strong hand on his shoulder, down echoing halls and up two elevators.

  Finally they passed through a door, and Peter realized he was in the sun, out in the open. "Stay here," said the gruff voice, and Peter heard the door close again.

  We are in a garden on the roof of a large building. My agent is nearby. A woman is approaching.

  Peter heard no footsteps. But moments later someone was working at the knot in the drawstring, and he felt the bag drawn up over his head, to leave him blinking in strong morning sunlight.

  "Peter, welcome to Hell!" said a woman standing barefoot amidst an explosion of flowers. She grasped Peter's right hand with both of hers and squeezed without shaking, as Duncan Eukamp had done, then stood on tiptoe to kiss him lightly on his cheek. She pressed a small object into his hand. "Here's your accordion."

  "My accordion." Peter held the object close to his face. It was a lapel pin in silver, of a concertina with golden bellows. On a hunch Peter squeezed the two ends of the concertina, and the tiny instrument emitted a high, pure chord.

  She laughed. "It's an ancient joke. It means we like you and want you to work with us. Like a college fraternity pledge pin. Here, let me." She took the pin from his hand and attached it to the broad lapel of his black jacket. "You look good in the habit," she said.

  "You guessed good on the size."

  "Guess? The Ralpha Dogs never guess. Duncan's people took a calibrated photo of you at Reception. Rule One: Do not underestimate Rho Alpha Delta."

  "I wouldn't dare. Bilenda?"

  "The one." She dipped slightly by flexing her right knee, and bowed. "Bilenda Paton, Director, Social Integrators, Rho Alpha Delta. Let me apologize for your trip here. Snitzius sent a force courier, as though you were a load of platinum!"

  "He doesn't trust me."

  "You he can handle. It's certain of our fellow orders he worries about, and we don't want you memorizing paths through our masterhouse until you're ours." She took both his hands in hers. "Come in! I have breakfast ready."

  Peter stood, nonplussed, with his hands in hers. Something about the woman was interfering with his ability to think clearly. Bilenda was not young; he saw the tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and in her forehead, and while not obese, she had the modest extra weight that middle age brought to most women. Her very black hair was elaborately done, and framed her face perfectly, falling in waves that broke just at her shoulders. Her dress was plain, mid-calf length, in layered black chiffon that implied more transparency than it delivered. Her nails, like her hair, were perfectly groomed, and polished a pale silver-bronze, fingers and toes.

  Hormones for breakfast! I am beginning to understand what a 'social integrator' is...and I suspect you are about to be offered a signup bonus.

  Peter made no reply to 9's inner smirk. Bilenda released his right hand but kept his left, and led him down a flagstone path that wove through a micro-landscape rich with flowers and little trees, complete with a tiny stream that flowed between small ponds. Birds chattered in the trees and flower stands. Peter wondered which one was the Sangruse Device's agent. The whole was a fraction of an acre, but enclosed as it was by stone walls, it seemed much larger.

  The path crossed the stream on an oriental-looking stone bridge, to end at the door of a small house, low-and single-storied, which also displayed a Japanese influence. The roof was copper, patinated a deep and uniform sea-green. Through the cast-wide door were only three rooms: A sitting room, a bedroom, and a kitchen, in an open plan largely defined by Asian statuary and carved wooden dividers painted with dragons and battle scenes.

  At the center of the sitting room was a table set for two, with elaborate silver service and fine linen. Without a word she stood beside one of the chairs until Peter woke from his reverie and pulled it back for her. Only when seated did she nod, and he took the opposite chair.

  "Manners matter here, don't they?" he asked.

  "Manners should matter everywhere. They matter here like they haven't mattered on Earth in over four hundred years. Peter, please, I'd like some tea."

  Beside the table was a small cart on which a teapot steamed over an alcohol flame. Peter poured gray tea into her china cup, and poured some for himself.

  "I hope this isn't decaf," he said.

  "It's as strong as it gets, dear," she said with a small laugh. She sipped her tea slowly and regarded him, and Peter felt himself being gauged and measured as clearly as Duncan Eukamp had measured him for the black habit he wore. Her flashing eyes were pale green, and met his absolutely without hesitation, holding them so long he eventually had to look away.

  Peter took a long draught from the teacup and stared at the linen tablecloth. The tea was bitter and strange, but satisfyingly strong. "Ma'am, please be straight with me. Are you trying to…"

  "…seduce you?" She smiled. "No."

  "Not that. I mean, is this a sort of…"

  "Bribe? Not at all. Peter, you're blushing. Would you feel better if I told you I had no intention of making love to you?"

  Peter felt a sudden pang of disappointment, made worse by its unexpectedness. "Ever?"

  "Today. After that, no promises, either way!"

  They both laughed, and Peter found himself able to face her green eyes again. "I guess I'm starting to feel like some kind of prize in this contest you're having with the Airhogs, and that you were going to…um…sweeten the deal a little."

  She smiled, and shook her head ever so slightly. "Actually, I'm about to level the playing field a little bit, and explain something very important to you. Alpha Mu Tau is about to cheat. They're going to offer you something they don't have the power to offer you. And once you sign they're going to renege. So Tofir Snitzius pulled some strings to get you here with me. The Airhogs would be furious if they knew. But if they find out and file a grievance with the Mootpolitik, we'll reveal some intelligence we have about their own plans. They won't like that at all."

  "How do you know this?"

  "We pay for information. And there are people who respect the Charter above all else. Cheating is difficult here."

  "So what could they offer me that you can't?"

  Bilenda set her empty cup down on its saucer with a sharp click. "Your wife."

  Peter's face must have showed the confusion he felt, and it wasn't until she responded that Peter realized she had misunderstood.

  "I know
you must love Gina," Bilenda said, looking into the empty depths of her teacup, "and it may be hard to accept, but I'll explain. Marriage as you knew it on Earth isn't done here. It's…illegal."

  "Marriage. Illegal. Yow."

  Her eyes met his again, and there was pleading in them. "Peter, when 1Earth withdrew from Hell, the ratio of men to women was fourteen hundred to one. By Reversal it was down to eight hundred to one—mostly because so many men had died in various conflicts. Since Reversal we've done very well, and currently the ratio is just under three to one. If nothing drastic happens…" Peter saw her hesitate slightly, as though remembering something painful, "…we will be at parity within fifty years. But for now, marriage is impossible."

  Peter reached for a strawberry in a silver bowl beside his plate, then caught his hand and drew back, and used a fork instead. "Well, impossible for 80% of the guys here. You could have a lottery or something."

  "Peter, think: Nothing will make a man kill another man faster than competition for a sexual bond with a woman."

  Peter thought. He'd been in several fights (and fortunately had never been caught) but no really bad ones, and never over women. What's to fight about? He still had his looks, and there was always another one in the next bar down the street.

  The Sangruse Device sensed his doubt. Come on. I've tasted your blood when someone in a bar has gotten gallant with Laura. The adrenalin wants to rise, and I have to adjust it to keep you from doing something stupid. Suppose she were having sex with someone else...

  |Yeah. Like she probably is right now. |

  Well?

  |You fight over women, you get sent to Hell. Happens all the time. |

  What if you're already on Hell?

  Peter thought of his force courier's little gun. |Mmph.|

  Bilenda went on. "If we let you and Gina live together and obviously display a sexual bond, the envy it would generate would do more than interfere with your ability to work on our team. Someone would die. It might not be you. But it might. And we haven't had an AE drop for over twenty-five years. We're not going to lose you to a hormone war."