"Nutmeg, no."
"Peter, yes." She reached for his right hand, and placed it on her right breast. He felt her small nipple tighten under his hand. "You know, if you don't go see your SI often enough, she comes looking for you. Bilenda was a helluva good babe. I'm just helping her out a little. It's what she'd've done. Now come along." She took his hand with both of hers and pulled him to his feet.
"But if I can't have you forever..."
"You can't have nobody forever. But you can have me right now. And I wanna be had. Let's go." Nutmeg led Peter toward a stand of palms in the shadows. In the sky, the Hans Moravec was crossing the zenith, its partner stars drawing ever farther away.
15. Skyhook
They were running out of time. Geyl pressed herself against a cushion of wadded blankets and tried to feel the subtle vibration of the clock/geocompass embedded in one of her ribs. Twenty Hell hours. Two more days. They still had hundreds of klicks to go. Geyl yelped again in surprise.
The kiteskinners had veered off the trail out into the open grass to avoid another caravan of mastodons and Twelver trucks, and had just taken them through another little gully. Little enough, but with the grass hurtling past at fifty klicks per hour, the jolt had thrown Geyl half a meter into the air and across the basket, nearly into Filer's lap.
The kiteskinners were madmen, and the charvolant was a vehicle that uniquely suited them: a deep basket a little less than three meters wide by four long, of wicker interwoven with magnesium wire, set on four tall wheels of magnesium with circular steel springs holding the hubs to the rims. The springs translated every little stone and rut into a bouncing dance that would long since have emptied Geyl's stomach had there been anything left in it.
And up in the air, swooping like demented bats, were two huge kites, each almost three meters high and wide. They were winged Conyne kites according to Filer, who wedged himself between his packs and other parcels the Moomoo cattlemen had tossed in the charvolant, picked on his file and sang. The kiteskinners, strapped into little wicker seats perched on the lead edge of the basket, gripped pivoted control rods to which four cords from each kite were tied. The kites were steerable—approximately. The fierce east wind that raked the high plains of Dis wanted to draw them to the right, and the kiteskinners yipped and yeehawed as they leaned leftward, tacking across the grass to press remorselessly southward.
This was the fifth day that Geyl had spent in the devil's contraption, which according to Filer was the fastest thing on the plains that didn't fly. The kiteskinners gleefully unfurled the kites as soon as the winds came up after dawn, and didn't reel them in until the light had grown so bad that they would risk colliding with the columns of mastodons marching stolidly toward the equator.
Geyl relished the cold nights bundled behind Filer, and ate what little she did before turning in, hoping to spend the following day hungry rather than nauseated. Filer had the proverbial iron stomach, and would gnaw a length of jerky on and off throughout the day, unperturbed by the perpetual bone-rattling antics of the charvolant.
He was answering fewer and fewer of her questions—which led her to believe she was finally asking the correct ones.
"Filer," she whispered across their pillow of dirty clothes, "why are the Moomoos going where we're going?"
She felt his little chuckle through his back without hearing it. "Ma'am, I might tell you that if you'd tell me why you're going where the Moomoos are going."
"So you know where they're going."
"16:11:48. Same place you're going."
"And you know why they're going there."
"Unfortunately, yes."
"It's a bad thing, isn't it?"
"'Bout as bad as they come, Ma'am."
"But you won't tell me what."
"You first."
"Filer!"
His voice acquired an edge that she had begun to hear more often in recent days. "Ma'am, my guess is that the basket's pretty comfortable when it's not moving..."
This night would be their last on the journey, the kiteskinners told them. Just as well. If no more wheel repairs had to be made and if no more rivers had to be forded and if Geyl could somehow keep her bladder from bursting on the last long run, they would reach the pickup point with perhaps three Hell hours to spare.
Geyl stood in the deepening gloom facing east, massaging her aching hindquarters and trying to settle her stomach enough to eat the scraps that she allowed herself. Somewhere a mastodon trumpeted, and another Twelver was rumbling closer on the nearby trail.
Then, finally, she saw it: A steady silver star rising above the hazy horizon to join and pass the fainter, twinkling stars emerging into the night.
"You know what that is, don't you?" asked Filer from behind her.
"I do." She felt his strong hands around her waist. His heat was welcome, but his vague hints of involvement in this mysterious Moomoo migration chilled her. "Do you?"
He pulled her closer to him. "It's a thing called a skyhook, and it's coming to take you back to Earth."
"You're not supposed to know that."
"It's my hunchmaker's best guess."
She turned and put her arms around his back, wriggling her head into the warm space between the sides of his parka. "It's a real good guess. I'm from the 1Earth government body known as SIS. We do difficult things, like going to Hell and back. How'd you know it was a skyhook?"
She felt him bend down and kiss the top of her hair. "The Moomoos think it's coming for them."
"That's insane. Filer, I have to be on that skyhook when it touches down and lifts again. It's more important than you know. We can't allow the Moomoos to steal it."
"I'd sooner the Moomoos not get anywhere near it myself, and would just as soon not explain why. But if you promise to stop asking questions, I'll promise to do everything I can to get you on that skyhook."
"A real promise? You're not just telling me what I want to hear to shut me up?"
She could feel his head shake in denial while his hands stroked her back. "I have a system of ethics. It took me years to get it sorted out. Agape keeps its promises. Eros doesn't. Besides, it's not the skyhook that's about to be stolen."
"Filer!"
"No more questions. You're my babe. Come to bed."
Geyl smelled the Moomoo encampment long before the charvolant jarred to a final stop. Everywhere she looked there were mastodons in groups of threes and fives, shoveling down mouthfuls of hay and corn cobs, and excreting them just as quickly and in considerable volume. Dozens of different kinds of tents were pitched at wild angles, in little groups huddled together or long rows with clan flags flying smartly in front of each. Those Moomoos who weren't hauling boxes and carts or driving lines of mastodons sat on the ground or on little stools, drinking. All of them seemed to know Filer. Several small groups cheered as he walked stolidly past.
Certainly, all they passed watched her with interest as she walked beside Filer. Geyl realized that she had not seen a single woman among the Moomoos.
She was bruised, hungry, dehydrated, and half-crazed with anticipation and fear. Unless there had been some unanticipated delay, the Hans Moravec would touch down in less than two hours, and touch down here, amidst this sprawling hovel settlement full of drunken armed madmen.
Why were they here? Who had told them? The thought of such wholesale betrayal filled her with a molten rage, and a new dread: No one else on Hell had been told of the Hans Moravec's arrival, nor where it would touch down. Filer, of course, had been correct: Geyl's original coordinates for the pickup point had been a diversion, one that would have been fatal had Geyl pursued them. Clearly, there had been treachery within the SIS. And she thought of Filer's words: "It's not the skyhook that's about to be stolen."
He knew. Filer was somehow a part of that treachery. But how far up did it go? Could she force herself to believe that Sophia Gorganis…but what other conclusion could she draw?
Glum, she walked on beside Filer, who was saying less and les
s, and looking more and more edgy and distracted. Here and there they passed an open space, with a single Twelver truck parked at its center. On the truck's bed was mounted a strange steerable device like an ancient artillery piece, its decimeter-wide muzzle aimed into the sky, pointed northeast. The end of the muzzle was closed, and glinted dark green in the dusk light from the darkening sky.
"Filer, do you know what that is?"
"Yes, Ma'am. Wish I didn't."
With less than an hour to go before touchdown, Geyl and Filer stood at the entrance to a large, vaulted tent big enough to hold a small circus. A picket of grim-faced men in broad-brimmed hats and ponytails stood with rifles ready around its entire perimeter.
The big tent stood at the edge of a large open space surrounded by other tents, with fires and mastodons and small clots of men milling around. Near the center of the open space was another hulking Twelver truck with chemical tanks and other inexplicable machinery on its broad flat bed. Lancing up from the machinery was a stabbing beam of continuous blue-green light, only faintly visible except when curls of smoke from the many cookfires drifted into its path. Then it was a brilliant emerald column disappearing into the scattered clouds of the new night sky.
"Filer, that's some kind of laser," she hissed, leaning in toward his shoulder.
"Yes, Ma'am."
"There shouldn't be lasers here, though I recall something about being able to make chemical lasers that don't require electricity. Is that what's about to be stolen?"
"No, Ma'am. It's a beacon."
Geyl thought for a moment. The high plain of Dis was a large and mostly featureless place, much like the subtundra steppes of central Asia. She could know precisely where she was at any time because the picopower geocompass in her rib was constantly telling her, in coded vibrations that only she could feel—unless its synthetic bacteria-protein case provided less immunity to the MGIDs than the SIS technologists had assured her. But how would the Moravec trim the last few seconds of its descent to arrive precisely where she would be waiting? It would be on the ground for less than one Hell minute, and if it touched down farther from her than she could run in that tiny sliver of time, it would lift again without her.
They had told her that the Hans Moravec would be guided to ground by a sacrificial XGPN receiver, sufficiently MGID-hardened to last the two hundred seconds it would spend inside Hell's magnetopause before touchdown. A human pilot in the traverser module would operate the capsule's trim canards with hydraulic controls, guided by the receiver—which only had to work for a little while, and only once.
Unless...
Unless the Moravec were being deployed to mount a full, manned invasion of Hell!
That would take dozens or even hundreds of trips from orbit to the surface, as well as a beacon bright enough to be seen from orbit by human eyes and permanent enough to last as long as the invasion might take.
But why hadn't the Governor General told her?
Geyl shivered in the evening chill. Sophia Gorganis had meddled in the mission from the start. Evidently Geyl's testimony wasn't required. No, the Governor General was impatient, impatient enough to commit 1Earth troops without a mandate from 1Consensus. It was a bold move, an illegal move, one that Geyl Shreve would not have supported—nay, would have revealed to 1Consensus in a heartbeat—so perhaps the Governor General felt that Geyl was too dangerous to remain on Earth.
Obviously, what was being stolen wasn't the skyhook at all. It was Hell itself, to be stolen from orders like Rho Alpha Delta...and given to the Moomoos. Better that Hell be run by illiterate cowboys riding mastodons than keen-minded technologists in starships, right? Better a change in control than indiscriminate destruction, right? It began to make sense to her. Therefore, it had long since made sense to Sophia Gorganis.
Geyl realized that she was no longer important to the mission. She reached up and pulled Filer's face down next to hers. "Filer! There's going to be an invasion!"
"Yes, Ma'am," Filer said, with a face more sad than she had yet seen it. "And I was supposed to lead it."
They were both thoroughly searched by heavily armed young men, Geyl more thoroughly than she expected normal prudence to require. Her little grenade launcher was taken, as was Filer's assault rifle. They were then led into the large tent, and taken before Crispus McGaughey, Boss of Mu Mu Mu.
In the light of pressure lanterns on poles Geyl saw a tall, burly redheaded man seated on a leather recliner chair. On a table by the recliner chair was a tall pilsner glass half full of beer, beside several brown bottles.
"Filer!" McGaughey shouted when he saw them. "How in tarnation did you get here, son? You was supposed to be slabbed six times over!"
Filer shrugged, his face sour. "You don't send your best guys, Boss. Leastways you didn't send your best guys this time."
The big man cranked a lever on the chair forward, then got to his feet and plodded toward them, finally slapping Filer hard on the back. "Well, whaddaya think? I gotta keep the best ones here to look after me! Hey, heh-heh, you gotalong back to apologize for all that fuss, right? And brought me a babe for a present! Y'know, I'm going to turn fifty-one next week, so she'll be just in time to party, once we hose her down a little and get her tarted up proper-like. That's some rack o'ribs she's got there!"
McGaughey stood in front of Geyl, squinting one eye and looking her over with a corrosive leer. He reached out a huge, beefy hand and squeezed her left breast roughly. Geyl spun and kicked the man hard in the crotch—and felt her boot ring against hard metal inside his baggy, stained denim pants.
McGaughey staggered back a step or two, laughing. "Hoo-whee! Must be one of them virgos I hear tell about! Sorry, babe. I keep the family jewels behind four millimeters of steel. Who'd preg everybody if the machinery got damaged?"
Geyl stood back defiantly, disappointed that Filer was standing mute behind her. "Look, I may help you with the invasion, but I am not a camp follower. Keep your hands to yourself."
McGaughey frowned, knotted his sausage-thick fingers together and cracked his knuckles. He stepped up to Geyl, and put one huge hand around her neck. The hand reeked of beer, vomit, and rancid grease. He spoke more softly now. "Y'know, missy dear, I believe you are still not quite clear on the concept: Moomoo babes either make whoopie or make babies. I got plenty of dumb muscle to do ever-thing else." He squeezed, and Geyl felt the vicelike grip begin to close her windpipe.
"I…belong…to…Filer… " she hissed.
McGaughey shoved hard and downward, and Geyl hit the trampled grass, gasping. "Sure 'nuff. And Filer belongs to me. Do the math."
McGaughey turned with a dry chuckle and ambled back to the table. He raised the pilsner glass to his lips and began to drain it.
With more speed than Geyl thought one so tall could manage, Filer sprang, twisting in the air and planting both boots on the big man's gluteals. McGaughey fell forward onto the recliner chair, which pitched over backwards beneath the big man's bulk.
A stutter of automatic rifle fire went over their heads. Filer hit the ground, grabbed the little table beside the recliner chair and hurled it at the guard who had dared fire near the Boss. The table hit the guard's sternum corner-first and the man went down, yelping, his rifle spinning onto the grass. Filer leapt again, dove for the rifle just as the guard went down on one knee to retrieve it. Filer got one hand on the barrel hard enough to swing the stock upward into the guard's face. The guard fell forward, bloodied across his eyes and screaming.
Two more guards burst into the tent. One swung his rifle around in Filer's direction, but the fatal instant the newcomer had spent gauging the Boss's position in the melee was enough. Filer's rifle burped and the round passed through the gunman's forearm. The man fled the tent, howling in pain.
The second guard stood frozen, seeing Filer's rifle barrel leveled at his chest.
"Drop it, Rudy. We got plenty of hamburger to go 'round without you makin' a contribution."
The man complied and raised his hand
s. Filer approached the man, waved him back, and kicked the rifle in Geyl's direction. Geyl pounced on the weapon and relaxed into a familiar position with the muzzle gleefully directed at the Boss's upended posterior. More like it!
"Filer! Goldurn it, boy, you're at it agin!"
Filer shook his head and clucked. "Boss, get your feet on the ground and your manners screwed in right-side-up. And you might think more kindly of Karen now she's got a bead drawn where the sun don't shine. If you reckon you got all the holes in your ass one man's ever likely to need, get up slow-like and keep your hands in the air."
Slowly, waving his empty hands, Crispus McGaughey extricated himself from the recliner chair and turned to face Filer with a look halfway between mortification and hatred. "You told me you'd swored off babes forever, and fightin' too. So are you just a blamed liar, or are you changin' your mind in the direction of soo-perior wisdom?"
Geyl thought she saw the twitch of a smile at the corner of Filer's mouth. "Actually, I wouldn't call it wisdom so much as feelin' sorry for you. Boss, you're gettin' your pocket picked big-time, and I don't think you realize it."
While he spoke, Geyl watched numerous long-haired guards enter the tent cautiously, automatic rifles at ready, all watching McGaughey's raised hands with wide eyes.
"It's a babe with a gun!" one said incredulously.
"Better than that," Filer said. "It's a babe sicaria. She knows her stuff. And she has a bone to pick with the Boss. So I'd move real slow and keep your weapons down, boys. Somebody gets silly and fires in our direction, well, the Boss gets it first—and then we're gonna need a whole new set of gelding knives hereabouts."
"You gonna take the Boss's head, Filer?" another one of the guards asked.
"Only if he does something real dumb and hands it to me. I may be the Boss someday. But I don't much feel like picking up the job in the next ten minutes."
Geyl felt herself blanching at the thought. "Filer! You didn't tell me you were…"
The Cunning Blood Page 30