Harvest of Stars

by Poul Anderson

“But that, that’s incredible, sir,” Kyra stammered. “You don’t owe us—this much—”

  Tahir gave her a look. “I have an impression that a duty has fallen upon us.” Somberness turned impersonal. “Perhaps later they will think to check whether this man was indeed brought to Ibn Daoud Hospital. Records will show that he was, biorepair went well, and he was soon discharged to recuperate at home.”

  Islamic solidarity? wondered Kyra. Could it be that reliable? Mightn’t Tahir have Chaotic connections? Experienced undergrounders could do a better job on a database, couldn’t they? Yes, it made sense. Of necessity, Avantism gave official tolerance to traditional faiths and lifeways, but it also gave them a hard time and in the long run it would destroy them. Thus the Chaotics, whoever they were, became natural allies of theirs.

  “At the hospital you must reclaim your burden and leave us,” Tahir told Lee. “We can do nothing further for you.”

  “We understand. We hope someday we can explain exactly how much you did do.”

  Unease stirred. “Excuse me,” Kyra said, “but what about me? I need out too!”

  “You can simply leave, can you not?” Tahir replied. “Have they reason known to them for stopping you?”

  “N-no, I don’t suppose so.”

  “Best you start now. That will spread the risk. Have you someplace, preferably outside this country, where you can go?”

  The thought cataracted over her. It was as if she saw the house on Lake Ilmen, blue and white above her mother’s rosebeds, nestled by the glittering water in a grove of birches. Leaves rustled, sunlight and shadow danced in them, the breeze smelled of greenwood, here was a fragment of Old Earth and not in a quivira but real, real … She had ample funds. Get home, go to Russian HQ and let them know what the situation was—

  Shock followed. No! How in MacCannon’s name could she have spent a microsecond on such an excuse to cut and run? She was Fireball. She had given and taken troth, like her parents and two of her grandparents before her.

  She stiffened her shoulders. “Yes, but I’d better not,” she said. “We’ve got to get this thing we’re carrying to safety.” Once she had Guthrie well hidden, maybe then she should flit with her information. Maybe then Fireball could mount a rescue operation, or appeal to the Peace Authority, or something. But first and foremost was keeping him from the hands of the reprogrammers. “That means me. Bob—They’ll be after Sr. Lee with everything they’ve got. No, they already are. I don’t see how any disguise can save him for long.”

  She forced herself to meet the young man’s eyes while she spoke. Had he slept at all, knowing what could happen to him at the hands of the Sepo? His face hardly stirred.

  “True,” he said quietly. “We’ll rendezvous and I’ll turn the object over to you.”

  “Where?” They hadn’t discussed that, as weary and shaken as they were yesterday and as distracted this morning. Amateurs. Why hadn’t Guthrie reminded them? Because he figured there was little point in it before they knew better what they would be doing? She’d rather believe that than that his own wits had failed him.

  “Write it down,” Tahir urged. “I should not hear.” He turned his back.

  “Good thinking, sir.” Lee swung around and sat down at the terminal. Kyra went to stand behind him. She saw how the sinews were tensed in his hands. But the fingers keyed flowingly. Words jumped onto the screen. Do you know Quark Fair?

  Almost, she replied aloud, then leaned over and reached past him. Only by a multi program or two. I have never been there. At the time they left this area, her parents deemed her still too young for that sort of thing. She felt how her right breast pressed lightly on his shoulder.

  We can disappear into it for a while. The hand stumbled ever so slightly. And I can get something that can scarcely be gotten anyplace else.

  Where in Quark Fair? she wrote.

  She saw a wry smile. I have not exactly been an habitué, but I have visited occasionally and collected information from other sources, because it has some regional importance. Go to Mama Lakshmi’s Tea House. Take a room and wait for me. Give a false name so they can tell me which room. They will ask no questions but they will want cash.

  A lodging that didn’t enter guest ident in the police database—in North America? Its existence couldn’t be unknown to them. But those were the civil police. Quite bribable, she’d heard. As for the Sepo and the real authorities, bueno, they’d allowed Quark Fair to continue all these years, no matter how foul a plague spot they officially called it. A commentator on a program she’d once watched had said that from their viewpoint, it gave atavistic impulses and incorrigibility an outlet in a geographically contained space. Sometimes the police raided it. After a day or two you couldn’t tell that anything had happened.

  Thumb-at-the-nose naughtiness tingled in Kyra. She searched her memory. A name, a name, preferably no association with her—On a long space haul, ransacking your recreational database, you often turned up obscure old works. I will be Emma Bovary.

  Tell them you are expecting John Smith. Lee’s grin stretched. It is conventional.

  He wiped the file and rose. “Muy bien, we have decided, sir,” he said to Tahir. “You and I had better get busy.” He turned to Kyra. “Have a care, amiga. Buena suerte.”

  “And a clean orbit for you, consorte,” she answered, as if he were also a spacer. They clasped hands.

  Tahir raised his right palm. “Fî amân illah,” he bade her gravely. “Go in the peace of the Lord.”

  Not knowing what else to do, she gave him the salute due a commanding officer. “Gracias for everything,” she said clumsily, and left them. For the first several seconds she was mainly conscious of wishing she had his trust in Providence.

  But no, that would mean setting reason aside, wouldn’t it? She entered the corridor and its crowd. Awareness shifted outward. Again stares prickled her skin. If only Tahir had thought to bring her clothes less brazen, less conspicuous. If only she had thought to ask for them.

  Bueno, probably the Sepo wouldn’t get around to rummaging this quarter for some days yet, if ever. By that time she’d have blurred in memory, an outsider among many, no special date or anything attached. Not that a dweller would likely volunteer information if he did recall. Just the same, Kyra grabbed the first fahrweg she spied.

  On the way out, she made herself plan ahead. Thus every uniform she saw brought only a nasty little jerk in her pulse, a gulpdown of dry cotton in her throat. Worst was passing from courtyard to street. They stood there at the gate, two big men in tan on either side. One of each pair kept eyes on the instrument he gripped, the other’s raked all who went by. Those were fewer than yesterday. Word must have gotten around. Kyra held her mind to a mantra.

  But then she was past, lost in the throng, under a sky turned mild and sunny. Free!

  For a while. If she wanted the while to last, she should keep moving.

  Near the vehicle rack she found a public information outlet. Setting her informant, she stepped into the booth and paid it with a coin. Not until she had drawn the particulars she wanted did she notice how hard her wrist had pressed the contact. With a rueful small laugh she proceeded to her bubbletrike, ransomed it, and drove off.

  She must get rid of her Hawaiian garb, which marked her. What she needed was a medium-priced tailor shop some distance hence. The directions the informant spelled out led to an address in the Tonawanda area. The district was venerable, mostly brick buildings a few stories high and some detached houses that survived as tenements. Sidewalks were uncrowded, pedestrians went quietly. Full-size vehicles murmured along the pavement between, allowed because they were few. At first Kyra felt peacefulness. The giants beyond these roofs seemed remote, miragelike; the babel around them had dwindled to a susurrus barely heard.

  Then she looked closer and saw crumbling masonry, store displays sparse, grimy hyalon, shabby clothes, furtive glances at her the stranger. Grass grew rank while the leaves of trees were unseasonably yellowed in a park
where two men snored by an empty bottle. When she was a child, she had not known of anything like this anywhere in the whole region, in spite of the prolonged hard times and unrest that had aided the Avantists to power.

  An occasional place still seemed in fairly good shape, a factory, a genetic clinic, two or three restaurants, the kind of establishments that could draw custom from a wide radius but, being of modest size, could not afford to move into higher-rent locations. The tailor’s was one such. Its interior was neat and clean, the live clerk who greeted her polite and well-clad. He offered assistance, explaining apologetically that the equipment was obsolete and the programming didn’t include the newest international fashions.

  “Never mind,” Kyra said. “I remember shops like this from when I was a kid.” She didn’t, but her profession had whetted the innate talent for mechanics that it required. “What I’m after is just a few serviceable garments.”

  Still, alone in the design room, stripped and measured, she took her time. It was fun, it was therapy, projecting this and that image onto the life-size hologram of herself, watching appearances shift as the computer modified patterns to fit, keying in her alterations and seeing them adapted. Four changes of underwear should do. Two pair slacks, perlux, one black and close-fitting, one blue and flare-bottomed with a thin red stripe down either leg. A stout gray work shirt, a more feminine apricot iridon tunic, a blouse fluffy and puffy in white luna but—she made sure—allowing free movement. A full tigryl skirt, calf length. A pale green cloak with hood, in case of rain. That gave her a variety of combinations which should fit most occasions. As a standard item she chose a carryall for them and her former apparel, convertible to a daypack.

  Her finger pressed Complete. The price flashed onto the screen. It exceeded the cash she had with her. Reluctantly, she debited her account. If the Sepo somehow came to suspect her and ordered a data retrieval, here was a footprint left for them to find.

  Bueno, with luck it wouldn’t happen, at least not for days during which she’d be running. And she didn’t suppose that even in Avantist North America the system had recorded the specs of her purchase. Its capacity was enormous but finite. Minor data like the transaction itself were doubtless expunged after some such period as three years.

  A statute of limitations. She giggled.

  No, stay serious. Use the time while the machines worked to think further about her situation, and Guthrie’s. Cash didn’t leave tracks. Dollars were no longer convertible, but nevertheless preferable till she’d escaped across the border. Ucus were eagerly accepted, of course, but tended to fix her in memory. If she went to a bank and swapped, that would get into the database and could make somebody wonder why she’d done it. Yet she needed more bills and coins. And if she could lay a false trail—

  A carillon rang, irritatingly jolly. A rack slid out, bearing her new clothes. She tried them on, selected the tunic and black pants, packed the rest, and left. “I hope you’re pleased, Miz Davis,” said the clerk. His smile looked smarmy, and why had he asked his terminal for her name? She hoped he hadn’t bollixed the privacy circuit and peeped at her.

  “Yes, this will do,” she answered curtly.

  “Are you from space?”

  She tensed. “What makes you think that?” Unauthorized, he could not have called up her address. Anyway, Earthside it was merely a reroute program in Quito.

  “Oh, your … appearance, miz. You sound North American but you bear yourself … proudly. I always wanted to visit space.”

  She heard wistfulness and felt a bit of pity. Had he ever traveled at all? The honorific he used was rare outside these parts.

  Travel—Your multi gave you holographic audiovisuals. If you could afford a vivifer attachment, you could have extra sensations. But to see and hear Tychopolis Gardens in the round, feel a whiff suggestive of perfumes pouring from the giant flowers, get tricks played on your nerves to hint at the kinesthesia of low-weight—it wasn’t just impoverished, it was passive. You were not there, you did not go freely about, nothing happened that wasn’t programmed into the show.

  She recognized an opportunity. “Yes, I work skyside.” No sense in being specific. Pilots had more glamour than was wise for her. She sighed, hoping it came across believably. “On vacation, but I’m afraid that’s being cut short. The news this morning.”

  His eyes widened. “About the Fireball company? Do you work for them?”

  “All outfits with interests in space are affected,” she said truthfully if ambiguously. “I’d better report to my company’s nearest agent outside this country. In person; com lines seem … tied up.” Maybe he’d understand that had to be a euphemism. “Bueno, I always wanted to visit Québec. But I needed suitable clothes, no?”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Beautifully chosen and designed, Miz Davis. I’m sorry your vacation was interrupted, but have a nice trip. Come again anytime, por favor. Muchas gracias.” She left him jittery in his doorway and drove off.

  So. If the Sepo did check, they should get the idea from him that she had headed northeastward. The border wasn’t sealed or the ’cast would have said so. Given as many people as crossed every day in either direction, at a large number of different points, mass screening of them couldn’t amount to more than an identicard scan, whether before they boarded aircraft or when they came to the border by ground transport. No record would be kept unless something unusual turned up. Probably everyone who had anything with them that might be a neural network was now being stopped and searched. Thus, if the Sepo ran a data retrieval on her and found nothing about her exiting, the reasonable conclusion should be that she’d simply panicked and bolted, and was of no further interest to them.

  A notation that she had today bought a substantial amount of dollars would contradict this. However—She nodded to herself. She was a rookie in Erie-Ontario, after her years of absence, but she’d been in other cities where the poor were plentiful.

  Pulling over, she put a map of the Quark Fair area on the trike’s screen and studied it. If she remembered aright what she had heard as a child, the section was then a rough circle about a klick in diameter. It had since shrunk little if at all. At first reconstruction had moved rapidly into the devastation left by the Buffalo meteorite strike. But the Second Republic soon started breaking down in earnest, and nobody respectable had a chance to do anything further. When the Avantists took over, they promised quick rehabilitation. They had promised many things. Kyra shrugged and proceeded.

  A bus station lay about two kilometers from her goal. She racked the trike and called the rental agency as Lee had suggested yesterday. Speaking breathlessly, she tossed in the superfluous explanation that she must catch the first available carrier to Montréal. Just in case. Bag on back, she cast about afoot till she found a bank. Slotting her ident into a teller, she instructed it 1000 Universal Currency Units in twenties.

  A total of 430 is available in fifties and hundreds, it flashed. Do you wish to wait for delivery?

  Damn! This was a good-sized branch. Had inefficiency become so pervasive? Cancel she ordered. 430 Universal Currency Units. When the envelope popped out, she took care to count the bills before she slipped them into the guard pocket of her tunic.

  Onward, now. The neighborhood was as raucous as that around the Blue Theta. Then abruptly, when she crossed a street, she found herself amidst total decay. Broken windows, patched over, were like wounds on sooty walls. Doorways gaped on hollowness. Graffiti misspelled words of rage or obscenity. They were brighter colored than the few shop signs. A beggar sat ragged on the walk, hand out, chanting over and over his litany of hard luck. Two shapeless women squabbled wearily. Three children ran from an alley to pluck at her garments and shriek for alms. She strode on, ignoring them, for otherwise she would instantly be caught in a horde. An old man lurched past, staring into air, mumbling. Four young men hooted after her. A large man bound the opposite way veered as if to intercept. His face bristled; she smelled him two meters off. She drew a breath and p
repared her body. Aikido was a favorite activity of hers, though the thought of using it in anger tasted foul.

  He squinted, changed course, and went by. She heard him spit. No matter. Would politicians never learn that what an economy managed by the state mainly produced was poverty?

  Not that unrestricted free enterprise guaranteed wealth. Racket waxed ahead, a hubbub, shouts, horns, drum-pulse, machinery, noises less easily knowable. Kyra rounded a corner, walked one more block, and entered Quark Fair.

  This part was a flea market. Already now at noontide it pullulated. Many vendors sat on the ground, perhaps with a scrap of rug between buttocks and cracked pavement, their wares spread before them. Some had a chair and table. Some had thrown pieces of plastic siding together to make booths. They seemed to be of every breed, male and female, youthful and elderly and in hardened middle age, clean and dirty, plump and bony, cheerful and woeful. Chanted praises of what they had to offer cut through the chatter and footfalls of visitors who wandered among the displays, chaffered, bought, sold, traded. Those were of nearly every condition in life; not only Low Worlders came here. They milled in more hundreds than Kyra could estimate. It was unpleasant, being so surrounded and jostled.

  Farther away she glimpsed real buildings, mostly shanties, a few larger and more solid. Above them reared the stump of a skyscraper, broken off at the twentieth floor by the impact blast. Rusted and twisted, its skeleton thrust snags above the remnants of walls. Window glass flashed with sunlight; nothing better had replaced the original panes. Everywhere, signs blinked, flared, writhed, luridly hued. Their effect after dark must be gyrocephalic.

  A man sidled next to her. He was thin, sallow, clad in a grubby yellow coverall. “Change money?” he asked hoarsely.

  Ah, ha. She stopped. He took stance before her. “I give better rate than bank,” he proposed.

  “How much can you handle?” She expected to deal with several petty operators before she had converted enough.

  He tautened. “How much you got?” When she hesitated: “I arrange. Safe, honest, good rate.” And never a database entry.