Thomas A. Easton’s GMO Future MEGAPACK®

by Easton, Thomas A.

  Anatol pushed her abruptly from behind. “Someone’s coming. I’ve got to close the door.”

  That made her move, even if it did bring her closer to the strangers who were now turning toward her. She heard footsteps on the other side of the door behind her. Were they hesitating? No. They were going past, and now she must face the room before her.

  “Want to meet some people tonight?” Anatol had been standing beside her cage when he asked the question that made her back away. His knee and hip and shoulder had already been positioned for her to climb.

  “You mean here?”

  “Uh-uh. A private party. Maybe a dozen people, and you can trust them all.”

  “They’re Engineers.”

  “So am I. And you trust me. Don’t you, Angie?”

  “But I don’t know them.”

  “I do. Come on.” He had pointed at his knee, urging her to take the first step. “You say your friends can’t ransom you. So you’re doomed. So what do you have to lose?”

  “You.” She had lifted her foot slowly, reluctantly. Was he really that precious to her?

  “Ah, well.” He had gripped the bars to steady the ladder he was. “And I’d hate to lose you too.”

  She had landed beside him. “There has to be some risk.”

  “I think it’s worth taking.”

  And now here she was. Taking that risk despite her better judgment, facing strangers who thought it a lark to invite a prisoner of war among them.

  Or did they think it a lark? They held drinks. Trays of snacks occupied shelves and tables around the room. But they were sipping only rarely from their glasses and eating not at all, while the sound that emanated from them was sober, quiet, quite unlarkish. Nor, she suddenly realized, had the sound been any different when she first opened the apartment door.

  She patted her wig. She plucked at the waist of her shirt. “Now what?”

  “Over here.” He led her to a bowl of pretzels and poured her a glass of something bubbly. “Hard cider. It’s the closest we can come to beer. Apple trees grow well here.”

  Pearl Angelica laughed at the thought of an orchard on the Moon. “Are there enough of them in the halls?”

  “And greenhouses,” said another voice. It belonged to a small, round-faced woman whose only ornament was a trio of tiny gilded washers that dangled from one ear. Her skin was dark, and her hair was the color and texture of steel wool. “Whole tunnels full of trees and vegetables.”

  “He hasn’t shown me those.”

  “If he doesn’t, I will. You don’t look dangerous to me.”

  “She doesn’t, does she?” murmured still another voice. People were now clustering around Pearl Angelica, leaning toward her, handing her tidbits from other trays, refilling her glass. Many of them wore no mechanical ornaments at all. When she looked for Anatol Rivkin, she saw him on the other side of the room, looking on with an expression that was both amused and proud. His people were making asses of themselves, but the center of their attention was someone he had brought. His girl. She grinned anxiously at him, and he raised his glass in salute.

  “Quite human,” someone said. “Is that a wig? Take it off, please. Oh, look at the petals!”

  “Too bad they’re all gone on Earth.”

  “But bots have fronds!” Waving hands indicated the long leaves the speaker meant. “I’ve seen them on Munin. She’s not a bot. Not the same thing at all!”

  “I see leaves under her shirt.”

  “Maybe she’s the Mark II.”

  “More like Mark VI,” said Pearl Angelica. “Or maybe Mark X.”

  “Are you really hybrids?”

  She nodded.

  “But how?” asked the woman who had mentioned greenhouses.

  Pearl Angelica shrugged. If she said as much as she knew—which was by no means enough to repeat the work—it would just be wasted on Engineers. “I don’t know, but it all began on Earth. It’s in the literature.”

  A man snorted in disgust. “Which doesn’t exist anymore. Unless it’s under lock and key somewhere.”

  There was a moment of silence, broken only by a few mutters that suggested others shared the man’s disgust. The bot sipped her cider and said at last, “Is it my turn now?” Her smile was tentative. These people were Engineers, but they were not much like the others she had met. They were more like Anatol. There was so much she wanted to ask about them. “Who are you? What… ?”

  “He didn’t tell you?” There was quiet laughter. Another man stepped forward, tall and thin, dark-skinned. He wore thick glasses, and a thick cuff of grey plastic covered half his forearm. “Technical sorts, mostly. We like to think we’re forward-looking. Mostly, we don’t believe that a person or a creature can be evil just because they contain genes from more than one species.”

  Now that the talk was on familiar ground, the others turned away, back to whatever conversations they had been having before she had arrived. “You don’t believe in names either?” she asked.

  “Only in noms de guerre, to slow Security down a bit if they catch anyone. Me, I doubt it will slow them much.” He offered her a half-bow. “You can call me Esteban.” He did not say whether that was his real name.

  “Are you one of those technical sorts you mentioned?” she asked. “Anatol’s a tunnel-digger.”

  “Who’s always looking for novelties. Like you. And me. He saw this one day…” He indicated the cuff on his forearm. “And followed me. We had to let him join us.”

  “What is it?”

  “Look.” He slid aside a cover plate to reveal a speaker grille, a screen, and a rectangular time display. “There’s a keyboard too, but it’s not really necessary. Speak up, Stan.”

  The answering voice had a ripe and fruity sound: “Whaddaya want, Ollie?”

  “I want you to meet someone,” said Esteban. “She’s a bot.”

  “You shouldn’t make cracks about the poor woman’s figure, Ollie.”

  “Bee—oh—tee.” He spelled it.

  “Ah, one of the flower people! The one from Tau Ceti?”

  “Her name’s Angie.”

  “Pearl Angelica,” said the bot. Anatol was approaching now, and he was the only one she had told to call her Angie.

  “Tell me!” said the machine. “Tell me everything about—” Esteban slid the cover plate back into place and the voice cut off. “It’s an artificial intelligence,” he said. “That’s my field. Robotics.”

  “I’ve never heard one that sounded so human,” said Pearl Angelica. “Or seen one that small.”

  “He’s a helluva programmer,” said Anatol.

  “The big problem was the power supply. Batteries were too bulky and didn’t last long enough. Photocells couldn’t generate enough power. But I managed to miniaturize a Q-flux generator.” Esteban spoke the words as matter of factly as someone else might say he had replaced a screw. “It’ll run forever.”

  “So will everything else,” said Anatol. “As soon as you publish. And you’ll be rich.”

  Esteban made a face as if that was the last thing he cared about. Pearl Angelica thought of all the things the Engineers—or the Gypsies—could do with an eternal energy source so small. When Anatol’s hand touched her arm, she shuddered. The von Neumann machines were now all too real a possibility.

  * * * *

  Pearl Angelica could and usually did—at home—sleep like a human, in a bed, flat on her back or curled on her side. Yet she was part plant; if a bed was not available, she could root herself in soil and lock her knees, close her eyes, and sleep as soundly as any tree.

  She had been tired when she returned from the party, and she had entered that state as soon as the artificial sunlight flooded her cage. Unfortunately, it was less than an hour before a muttered, “Where the he
ll were you?” shocked her awake once more.

  “Come on. I know that woke you up.” The voice seemed familiar now, but still she struggled to feign sleep, to ward off the moment of discovery and the final closing of the trap she suddenly felt around her. Someone had seen the empty cage. Someone knew that she had been loose in the Engineers’ lunar base. Then her breath caught in her throat as she thought that she had—of course!—been with Anatol, and he shared the trap with her. If she was caught, so was he.

  “I’m not a mechin’ Engineer.”

  She opened her eyes. The face before her was narrow, flattened, sallow. Water from the morning shower was still visible on the pavement beyond it. “Marcus!”

  “Damn right. I’m back. And the first thing I find out is you’re out of your box and wandering around somewhere. I hope you’re learning something useful, because—”

  A rapid clatter sounded from the mouth of a corridor. Marcus Yamoto and Pearl Angelica both snapped their heads to look as three Security guards ran into the concourse. Their guns were in their hands.

  “Freeze!” one yelled.

  “Litter,” Marcus said quite conversationally. “I’m supposed to tell you, the Orbitals would like to rescue you, but—”

  There was a shot, and a bullet spanged off a bar of the cage.

  He didn’t even try to finish what he was saying. He leaped from the dais and begun to run toward a corridor. More shots brought him down long before he reached his goal.

  * * * *

  The body was soon removed. The first gawkers arrived to study the bloodstained floor and crowd among the roses and mock oranges. A pot toppled, and then another. Pearl Angelica wondered how long it would be before someone discovered her disguise. But she was safe. Someone discovered thorns instead and swore. The crowd drew back a bit, though still it stared and jabbered.

  She did not understand a word of what they said. Instead, her mind was whirling round and round Marcus Yamoto’s last “but.” What might have followed it?

  But she was surrounded by too many Engineers for a rescue raid to succeed?

  But they didn’t have the troops or weaponry?

  But they didn’t think her life worth as many of theirs as the raid would cost?

  But they didn’t want to antagonize the Engineers who sold them food?

  But they wouldn’t or but they couldn’t. For whatever reason. She was stuck unless the Gypsies would part with the secret of the star-drive. But they wouldn’t. They couldn’t.

  Her own life was the price of safety for all her friends and kin.

  She knew that.

  She wished she could be sure no Engineer would ever invent the tunnel-drive on his own.

  And where was Anatol? Hadn’t he heard? Didn’t he think she needed reassurance and comfort? They couldn’t speak, of course, not with so many people all around. But his mere presence would help.

  The day passed. The gawkers trickled away, satisfied for now and eager to tell all their friends who had not been there what they had seen. The very spot where the alien spy had been killed! His very blood! The monster he had been talking to. Perhaps he had been telling it when to run amok and slaughter them all in their beds!

  Her imagination failed as the lights dimmed as they did every night. She bowed her head and closed her eyes and wished she could sleep for a while. But one more set of footsteps said she could not yet rest.

  She peered toward the edges of the concourse. Was it Anatol at last? No. The approaching man was not her friend, though he did seem familiar. He wore standard Engineer clothing; his belt buckle was an oval medallion bearing the word “Ford.” His nose was large. The valley in his upper lip was deep. The lips themselves were thin and pale.

  When he was close enough for her to see how light were his eyes, he winked and said, “Do you know what they’re going to do to you tomorrow?”

  He had reached through the bars, hadn’t he? He had stared then just as he did now, stripping her leaves away with his eyes, wanting…

  “They’re going to take you out of this cage and strap you to a table in a small room. They will attach wires to your body. They will ask questions. And if they do not like the answers, they will…”

  She understood. “Why?”

  He came closer and laid a thin-fingered hand on a bar at the level of her face. “What did Yamoto tell you before they shot him? That’s all they want to know.”

  She shook her head.

  “They have drugs too. They might use those first, but they’ll get to the wires eventually.” His hand darted forward, and he had her shoulder. The other hand approached her chest. He tore leaves away. He poked and squeezed. “But I have influence, you know. I can tell Security to leave you alone. All you have to do is come with me.”

  When he pulled her toward him, she stiffened. “No!” she cried as she pushed against the bars and tried to claw his hands from her shoulder and breast. “Get away from…!”

  But he knew he was right, for he was the one outside the cage. He had all the strength and confidence of the righteous, and she was quickly losing the struggle.

  Both of them were so intent on what he was doing with his hands that they did not hear the footsteps, so much softer than his own had been, coming up behind him until hands gripped his ears and pulled.

  He groaned and let go of Pearl Angelica.

  “Anatol!”

  Anatol’s knee was in the small of the Engineer’s back. His face was distorted by effort and anger and hate as he continued to pull on the man’s ears, bending him backward. Hands found his wrists and gripped, tugged, strained. Nails dug into his skin. A mouth opened and a voice began to bubble toward a scream of agony.

  It took Pearl Angelica only a second to see what she had to do. Then she stepped closer and slammed the heel of one hand into the man’s chin.

  There was the snap of breaking bone.

  Anatol let go, and the man fell to the dais. He was not dead, for life battered its wings against the inside of his head. His eyes rolled. His lips worked. A thin keening emerged from his throat.

  “Get me out of here.”

  Anatol positioned himself. Pearl Angelica climbed and jumped and said, “He’ll tell them about you.” Then she raised one foot above his throat, ignored the terror that suddenly bulged his eyes, and crushed his larynx.

  “You can’t come back here,” said Anatol. “You’ll have to hide.”

  “But where?”

  “My room.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Neither Anatol nor Pearl Angelica slept that night. Nor did they make love, for though they both undressed and lay down on Anatol’s bed, they did so only briefly. Neither was able to lie still. They held hands and paced.

  She told him the man they had killed had said she would be tortured. They huddled in each other’s arms on the couch, shivering even though the lunar base was never cold.

  Anatol said that Security did indeed use torture when it wanted answers, even though drugs were more reliable. They stood pressed together as if each could find safety and concealment inside the other’s body.

  “I’ve never killed anyone before,” said Pearl Angelica, more than once.

  “Me neither,” said Anatol. “I didn’t know I could.”

  “I couldn’t let him live.”

  “I never saw him before. He couldn’t have recognized me.”

  “He would have described you, and then… You should have left him alone.”

  “I couldn’t… I saw your leaves falling to the floor. I had to stop him, Angie.”

  “I’m glad you did.”

  I’m glad I did, she thought. She had never had a lover for whom she would have killed. Never one she could hold so close so long. Never one she wanted to keep for the rest of her life. Neve
r one she thought she could accept as the father of her children.

  But was it him? Or was it only that she was so alone among the Engineers that he was her only friend? Did she really love him? Or was she only clinging to the only thing that floated in this alien sea? What would she think of him if she could only take him home and see him among the other Gypsies?

  Toward morning they lay down again, but only to play through their script once more. There were minor variations, but it began as always with “I’ve never killed anyone before” and ended with “I’m glad you did.”

  Only after his computer terminal chimed and called from the kitchen, “Time to get up! Time to get up!” did she add anything really new. “I’ll have to wear that shirt all the time.” She made a face. “It’ll be two weeks before I can replace those leaves.”

  “What happens then?”

  “The buds will open. See?” She pointed. “Under every leaf, there’s a replacement waiting.” On her skin, faint lines traced the shape of each leaf, an up-pointed heart. At the tip of the point between the heart’s two lobes, a tiny, intensely green bud emerged from a pore.

  “Time to get up!” cried the terminal more loudly.

  He propped one elbow on the mattress and leaned over her. “Are they sensitive?” The tip of his tongue grazed a bud. When she shivered, he smiled for the first time all night. “It’s too bad I have to go to work.”

  “If you don’t, someone will come looking for you?”

  He nodded despite the arm she had around his neck.

  “Then they’d find me.”

  “Time to get up!” The terminal was now downright strident.

  “Then I have to go. Willy-nilly.” He pulled away from her and left the bed. He touched the wall, and a veedo screen lit up with an image of the cage Pearl Angelica had fled just a few hours before. There was no sign of any body.

  A voice was saying, “…was only a clerk in the Security department. If Crocin had called for trained help when he spotted the Gypsy agent, he would surely be alive today. His assassin would be in custody.”