by T. J. Bass
A gallbladder and gastric rugal folds waited.
Moses Eppendorff approached the shaft cap through icy air. Rows of misty plankton domes surrounded him. Blobs of sticky scum marked the previous passing of a pond skimmer. Moses picked up a handful of scum. ‘Do we have to go into the city?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
Intertriginous eccrine flowed copious and salty as the evening meld tightened up around fat Walter. Busch flexed. Bitter sighed. Dee Pen wiggled on her belly, moving her Howell-Jolly body through the tangle of arms and legs to her new position on top. Resting her chin on someone’s knee, she smiled down at Walter and continued their conversation.
‘Soul?’ she said, ‘Of course modern citizens have souls – a nice comfortable share of society’s collective soul.’
The meld warmed up. Walter extended sweaty arms and wheezed a question.
‘What if the term soul applied to the life principle of ancient, individual man – and there was another term for the collective soul?’
‘Such as hive—’ she suggested. ‘What difference?’
‘If citizens were more of a burden on society – parasites on the hive – wouldn’t the term soul lose much of its meaning? They’d have sold their soul for quarters and calories – not traded it for a piece of the collective soul as you’d like to think.’
Dee Pen was open-mouthed at his anti-ES blasphemy.
Neutral Arthur reached through the meld and patted her soothingly.
‘Don’t take Walter too literally – he is just goading you into a philosophical debate. He is a job-holder, and likes to think of all nonworkers as deadwood – parasites.’
‘The citizen is not a parasite,’ she flared. ‘He is a useful part of the hive. Look at all the good that the hive has done – cooperation enables the planet to support a hundred times the population of the old prehive cultures.’
‘Greatest good for the greatest number?’ prodded Walter.
‘Of course,’ she smiled. ‘Man has replaced most of the lower life forms on this planet. The hive is a very successful life form. More intelligent life is better than less.’
‘A pound of man is better than an equal weight of bugs and worms?’ he paraphrased.
‘Certainly.’
‘What about trees?’ he asked.
Dee Pen paused to organize her didactics on trees.
‘The tree is just a fabric of the ecosystem in the forest or jungle. Cities are the ecosystem for man. The only trees we need are man’s food chain – flavor trees, calorie trees.’
Walter lost his grip in the moisture and slipped lower in the meld. He struggled to reposition himself and attack her from another point of view.
‘Greatest good for the greatest numbers?’ he began. ‘What about men’s minds? Suicide is a symptom of mental malfunction. The incidence seems to be going up as the Big ES increases the population density. How can that be good?’
‘Everyone has to die someday,’ she parroted. ‘The hive protects its citizens from many of the ancient causes of death – like accidents, infections, war, tumors – even old age. What can’t be cured today is put into suspension until research comes up with a cure. That leaves only suicides.’
‘And murder,’ he added.
‘And murder,’ she admitted. ‘But suicide and murder are IA – Inappropriate Activity. The weak five-toed gene is not suited for hive living. It was weeded out by IA. So, you see, suicide is Nature’s way of purifying the hive genes – only the four-toeds can be crowded successfully.’
Walter smiled. Little Dee Pen had absorbed all the latest Big ES philosophy. She made it sound wrong to interfere with a suicide – since the death would only remove an undesirable gene anyway. As a Dabber he clung to the pure old philosophy of the Neolithics – dirt, adobe and bamboo. As a follower of Olga he awaited Olga’s return. In this belief he weakened, for he saw his life span coming to an end – with no sign from Olga.
‘When hive genes are all four-toed—’ he asked, ‘will IA disappear then?’
Dee Pen shrugged: ‘I suppose.’
‘What will be the most common cause of death then?’ he asked.
She smiled. ‘We’ll see when the time comes.’
Mount Tabulum was hectic. Tons of meat dried in the sun to be pounded into trek sausage. The Hip sent succulent coweye baits to dance in front of the optics of Big ES. Burly spearchuckers stalked the coweye’s trail to draw and quarter any hunters lured out.
Tinker walked up behind Hip, who was supervising the dressing-out process. Coweyes trimmed.
‘Looks a bit watery to me,’ commented Tinker.
‘Agree,’ said Hip. ‘But it is the best there is. The hive always sends us the best – protein-poor protoplasm that it is.’
‘Why the large stores? Planning an expedition?’
‘A migration. The entire village will trek to the river – The River! Olga returns soon.’
The villagers bowed their heads at the sacred words of their seer. Tinker remained respectfully silent. He had observed the Hip’s little tricks – short trances, lights in the crystal ball – even uncanny predictions. But he didn’t swallow the old wizard’s entire occult fixation. Tinker was a natural scientist. However, as long as Hip was so accurate with the future, he felt that he, Mu Ren and Junior would be safer with the villagers than fighting off hunters alone. He kept his head bowed until Hip finished.
‘A time of Fulfillment has come!’ Hip cried.
Foxhound XI returned to face Val’s rancor.
‘Lost your entire squad again?!’ he shouted.
Foxhound coughed and clouded his screen.
‘I put them down on fresh spoor – squeak. They went into their tracking frenzy. I have good optic records of the naked prey – usually young females – small coweyes. No apparent problems, but when I returned they were gone . . . squeak.’
‘But what happened to them?’ shouted Val, hitting the screen with the palm of his hand to clear the focus.
‘There is nothing in my scanners to explain it.’
Val studied the old sensors on the ship. His shoulders drooped. Cataracts on the optics. Demyelination on the sensory webs. Image converters spotty.
‘Sorry, old meck,’ he said. ‘Not your fault.’
Val stalked back to his desk console and put in a call for requisition priority. After receiving the usual conciliatory excuses, he exploded.
‘I’ve lost over a hundred hunters in the last month alone. Lost without a trace. Not even a dead body! I need some up-to-date equipment here.’
The face on the screen mumbled something about doing the best they could with the material they had. Then it passed his call up another step in the hive hierarchy.
The new face was older – more tired.
‘Are the crops in danger, Sagittarius?’
‘No, but the hunters . . .’ sputtered Val.
‘The crops are your primary concern. Population control is a different department.’
‘Population control?’ protested Val. ‘I’m talking about hunters’ lives. We send them out there to protect our crops. The least we could do is give them adequate equipment.’
‘I’m afraid you are losing your perspective,’ said the tired old face. ‘You are talking about a death rate of hunters that averages about three per day for the entire sector. The death rate in that same sector from all causes is over 30,000 per day – half of those are suicides. You have five hundred million citizens down there in Orange – three deaths per day is a small price to pay to protect their crops.’
Val relaxed. He didn’t like losing the hunters, but he thanked Olga that he didn’t have the responsibility of cleaning up after all those suicides. That would really depress him. He went back down to the garage and put in overtime cleaning EM retinas and polishing contacts.
Walter didn’t come in for his usual shift, so Val left the Scanner meck in charge and dropped in on Walter at his quarters. He found the fat old man in bed – face ashen gray. Female B
itter rubbed his hands and feet – trying to get her bread-winner back on the job.
‘Life span coming to an end?’ asked Val callously.
The old man nodded – smiling weakly.
‘It was a good life,’ said Val. ‘You did your duty in the hive. Shall I call a Mediteck? Maybe they’ll suspend you before you die. The future generations may—’
Walter’s face changed from gray to purple with exertion.
‘My life isn’t over yet,’ he protested. ‘Not quite yet. But I’ll live out the whole span in this generation. Thank you.’
Bitter pleaded: ‘Let him rest here for a couple days. He will be back to work soon. You’ll see.’
Val understood Walter’s uncertainty over suspension. Few were being rewarmed at the present population density.
‘Fine,’ nodded Val. ‘I can manage HC alone for a while. I’ll just move my cot in and keep Scanner company. Buckeye sightings are way down.’
Walter relaxed and dozed off. His old face pinked up a little.
Several days later, fat Walter managed to wheeze in to Hunter Control. He was full up to his neck with Bitter’s herbs and nostrums. His feet and lungs were still full of excess fluids, but he felt he could get more rest in his HC couch without Bitter hovering about. He had to pick his way through irregular piles of junk – boxes, wires, tubes and screens – to get to his console.
Val saw the old man ease into his chair and tilt it back. Two Engineering tecks walked in rolling a big black barrel on a cart.
‘What’s all this?’ wheezed Walter.
Val looked up from a crude splice.
‘It’s some of the gear from Tinker’s quarters. I think we have a working tightbeam here. The magnetic squeeze components have a very fine tuning. We’ve been listening to unauthorized transmissions from Outside. I’d like to get the gear working to transmit too. Maybe we’ll be able to get a fix on them if they focus.’
Walter rested his head back on the cushion. He closed his eyes and asked conversationally: ‘Pick up anything interesting?’
‘Crazy things,’ said Val. ‘I’ll put them through your audio so you can listen. There must be dozens of renegade mecks out there from the number of broadcasts. I can’t understand why a meck would give up his energy socket to run with the five-toeds.’
Walter kept his eyes shut.
‘The mecks probably identify with them.’
‘Identify?’ asked Val, setting down his tools.
‘Buckeyes are strong and fast,’ said Walter. ‘Mecks earn their energy by doing a job – Tiller, Door, Garage or whatever. To do a better job they should be strong and fast. It is the quality they admire. A simple association.’
Val scowled. He remembered the Harvester that blew up at the base of Mount Tabulum. There was more than a simple association there. Someone had reprogrammed the meck’s almond.
‘A bad circuit,’ mumbled Val. ‘Like the buckeye has a bad gene.’
Walter didn’t answer. He was listening to chants picked up on the tightbeam.
A five-toed buckeye desires to run free.
He possesses immunological competency.
He mates and runs, and then he lives alone.
He eats red meat and marrow from the bone.
He has a five-toed heart and heavy skeleton;
With abundant calcium salts and collagen.
His neurohumoral autonomies and Gamma A;
Keep him out of the Hive where souls turn gray.
He keeps the rainbow colors of his genes—
Melanocytes that mark the buckeye In-betweens.
Walter didn’t try to catch all the words the first time through. They were spit fast to the racing jingle of tambourines with a running guitar base. He asked for a flimsy printout – glanced at it with one eye – and shut his eyes again.
‘We all know that buckeyes are different,’ said Val. ‘Why sing about it?’
‘Maybe it is a singing machine,’ suggested Walter.
The next chant was shorter—
Oh happy day
Oh happy da-ay
When Olga comes
She’ll show the way.
Fat Walter coughed and sat up straight – Olga?
‘That singing machine sounds like a FO – a Follower of Olga,’ he wheezed.
Val finished his wiring and stepped back.
‘Remember the Harvester that crushed those two workmen? It was a killer meck – killing in the name of someone or something that didn’t translate. Remember?’
Walter nodded.
‘Could it have been killing in the name of – Olga?’ asked Val. ‘That eerie buckeye wizard with the crystal ball – could he be a Follower of Olga?’
Walter’s old face darkened as he fumbled for his box of buckeye artifacts. The beads were potentially sacred relics to him now, for they might lead him to Olga. Cyanosis darkened his lips as he asked his viewscreen for a projection of planetary positions. Astronomy charts began to take shape.
‘No, no,’ he interrupted. ‘Astrology – geocentric zodiac.’
Occult diagrams appeared. Symbols of the planets moved from sign to sign as a calendar rolled through the months. The projections were given a very low probability rating. The Big ES had little use for such data, and it had not been updated for years. Walter moved the planets back and forth through time, but saw no chance for the four planet conjunction in the forseeable future. He slumped, visibly depressed.
Val looked over his shoulder, patting the old man’s back.
‘We tried that before. Remember? If Olga is waiting for the planets to match those beads, she has centuries,’ said Val.
Walter wasn’t being soothed. ‘I want to see Olga with these eyes—’ he mumbled. ‘Perhaps if we consider one bead as our own moon – add the major asteroids to the chart – where is Pluto? Neptune?’
Val watched the viewscreen jump with its own guesses. The Big ES just did not know. Ancient positions were given.
‘Those are buckeye beads,’ reminded Val. ‘They are probably based on visible planets – six at the most. Eyeballs.’
The two tecks stood behind Val as he warmed up the tightbeam. The screen flashed with pulsing lights as the music increased in volume. Val rotated the antenna. Concentric rings appeared. He tried to focus the shaped magnetic field.
‘If I can trick them into establishing a tightbeam with us we should be able to pinpoint their location – Damn! Where is all that smoke coming from?’ cursed Val.
The black capacitor barrel steamed as the insulation bubbled. Sparks jumped. Acrid fumes billowed out of the heat sink. One of the tecks poured water into the sink with a loud hiss.
‘It was dry.’
‘Obviously,’ grumbled Val. ‘The screen has clouded. That’s about all we can do now until we get replacement parts.’
‘Can we still listen?’ asked Walter weakly.
‘Oh, I suppose so,’ said Val. ‘But we’ll never catch them that way.’
Walter lay back with his eyes shut listening—
Oh happy day
Oh happy da-ay
When Olga comes—
She’ll show the way.
6
Dundas Incident
Tinker moved eastward ahead of the villagers. As they left their mountain retreat he searched out the buckeye sensors and disabled them. He worked carefully – subtly – a loose fitting, a pile of kale leaves, mud on a lens: enough to protect the villagers; not enough to alert Hunter Control.
Two spearchuckers stood by Mu Ren and Junior while Tinker smeared himself with mud and leaves. He peeked through the rhubarb toward the next ridge. Two hundred yards of freshly plowed synthesoil separated him from the tower of a buckeye detector.
‘I recognize that BD model. Its optics ought to be pretty senile by now. If I crawl slowly it shouldn’t be able to pick me out of the dirt.’
Mu Ren clutched her child. They watched him crawl almost casually toward the tower. The ball of neurocircuitry and sensors contin
ued its monotonous rotation at the top. His muddy camouflage seemed to be working. A Tiller worked the soil at the base of the tower. The bulky machine politely moved out of the way while he studied the cable. Pulling the plug, he smeared the contacts with mud. Then he replaced the plug – waving at Tiller as he left.
‘That should fog up reception enough to protect us,’ he said, waving the first villagers over the ridge.
Moses followed the Harvester’s tracks up to the blank face of the shaft cap – ten yards of wall broken only by baleful optics and the huge doors of the Agromeck garage. The grill above was dark. Toothpick spoke silently to the door – exerting his class six authority. Nothing happened. Moses tightened his grip on the cyber.
‘Are they suspicious?’ he whispered.
‘Just sluggish,’ said Toothpick. ‘We’re just items in their memory banks until we cause loss of life or materials.’
The door opened. Moses stepped into the nest of machines.
‘Try to find a door to the spiral along the inner wall,’ said Toothpick. ‘Watch out for those little service robots. Some are blind. This isn’t the safest place for a soft-skinned human.’
Powerful Agromecks slept in their bays while small Servomecks worked. Some dangled from ceiling cables while others sat on the floor surrounded by new and used components. The outer wall was piled high with broken parts and vegetable debris. Moses picked his way carefully until he came to an inactive bay he could cross safely.
On the spiral Moses melted into the apathetic crowd and softened his face to match the surrounding lethargy. He matched their sluggish gait. Toothpick remained silent until they reached the first dispenser.
‘Let me handle this,’ hissed Toothpick. ‘Your Au-grams were confiscated long ago.’
The dispenser issued one item in each food category and one issue tissue garment. Moses staggered away under the load.
‘Caution,’ whispered Toothpick. ‘The lighting is changing. Shorter wavelengths have been added. The Watcher optics must be searching for your melanin and carotenoids – they fluoresce. If they get a fix on you they’ll know you’re from the Outside.’