Half Past Human (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by T. J. Bass

  ‘Where are my children? Let me lead them out,’ shouted Moses.

  ‘Outside?’ mumbled Court.

  ‘I rewarmed them. Let me take care of them,’ shouted Moses. ‘The heavens are on our side. We need no help from the hive.’

  Big ES shuddered again. Nebishes cheered in their little cubicles. Hunters worried. Magnetic storms brought Huntercraft back to their garage refuge.

  Hugh Konte was jostled along with the other patients by parallel rows of Security guards carrying quarterstaffs. He marched in stoic silence. His Edna was no longer with him. Memory was poor for the years prior to suspension, and he was no longer sure of when he had lost her. He remembered her youth and vigor – her love. He rubbed his neck. The hard nodule was gone. So were the other symptoms of his terminal illness – yellow skin, red stools, and a growing bubble of fullness in his belly. His cancer had vanished. Only itching tender areas remained where proliferating fibroblasts replaced necrotic tumor.

  The world had changed while he slept. He didn’t understand all the ugly quarterstaffs – and he didn’t like being ushered around without an explanation. He counted the guard – biding his time.

  Young Val sat in Hunter Control watching the Dundas Incident on the screen. Fat Walter wheezed about his console making notes in his ESbook. Catamarans plied the gray, icy waters of upper Baffin Bay – ferrying patients to the flat frozen bedrock of the mainland. They crowded together between the misty algae domes – ragged, leaderless and lost.

  ‘There must be a million of them,’ exclaimed Val, flicking from channel to channel getting different views of the fugitive band. Big ES was putting them Outside.

  Walter glanced nervously at Val.

  ‘I see the hand of Olga in this.’

  ‘Oh, be serious,’ scoffed Val. ‘They are just a bunch of crippled misfits being pushed Outside to die. Look at the dazed expressions – the canes and crutches. They are hundreds of miles from the nearest undomed gardens, and there will be hunters waiting for them there. Nothing good can come of it.’

  ‘But Eppendorff was our Pipe,’ said Walter. ‘Like Tinker, he came from our shaft city. Remember the trouble we had tracking Tinker? The three decoy corpses – the renegade meck? Something was protecting him. Now Pipe just waves his staff and our Huntercraft and communicators go haywire.’

  ‘Well, it is no miracle,’ sneered Val. ‘Solar flares are upsetting the EM’s. Venus is moving into the sun sign – Gemini – the buckeye shamen can predict solar wind. That’s all. After the EM disturbance passes, the hunters will wipe them out.’

  ‘But those are patients,’ objected Walter. ‘A thousand years ago they were loyal citizens. They earned suspension.’

  ‘They have five toes,’ shrugged Val, fingering an arrow. ‘And now they are Outside. That spells buckeye to me.’

  Val’s callous remarks shocked old Walter.

  ‘You wouldn’t hunt them – would you?’

  ‘No need,’ smiled Val. ‘They are over three thousand miles away. Look at their stumbling gait. They’ll never live to see the borders of Evergreen.’

  Walter turned sadly to his ESbook. If Olga returns, why couldn’t everyone welcome her? Why the confusion? The doubt?

  ‘Sentimentality irritated Val. He stomped off to HC Garage and took Bird Dog IV out under manual control. Sensors fumbled with the aurora, producing a meaningless kaleidoscopic jumble of colors on the viewscreen. Val checked the crops visually – noticing nothing unusual among the dense vine-covered trees and the deep fields of triple-crop. His tension subsided after several hours of cruising. Bird Dog took him home.

  The patients filed southward through the frozen mists. White-haired and bald they came. Young and middle-aged they came. Some limped. Others had raw sores where ugly skin tumors had disappeared. They formed a living, drifting mass a mile wide and four miles long – contracting at night for warmth and expanding during the day to forage on the frozen ground. A glacier of five-toeds.

  Hugh Konte picked his way through the herd into the younger, more vigorous crowd that was walking point. Hugh sought a leader. A lean ectomorph sprinted out into the lead, hesitated, and faded back. A burly male spoke loudly until he realized he was acquiring a following. Hugh looked into a thousand faces and saw nothing but uncertainty. The burly male fell silent. The ectomorph scurried about exploring. No one led. Footsteps followed footprints – south.

  Moses and Willie carried a map – Court’s safe passage was marked – a corridor freshly harvested – cropless. Small caches of protein bars – the 250,000 patients who died – were spaced along the route. The map ended where Court’s jurisdiction ended – at 50:00.

  Moses climbed a shaft cap at night and took credit for curing them. He shouted his orders to stay together, using for his authority the aurora borealis. Toothpick sparked magically. The predictions of protein caches won the skeptics.

  During the day Moses and several others sifted soil as they trekked, searching for possible fragments of food overlooked by Harvesters. They found only bits of lignin and cellulose left as a mulch. Some pieces were moist and chewable, containing a few drops of some plant juice, but most were musty and invaded by soil microflora. These inedibles, garnered during the day, were fed into smoldering campfires at dusk. These little fires, started by Toothpick’s arc, marked the social units into which the human mass was fragmenting.

  Moses sat in the circle of dusty faces around a pile of glowing pink coals – bright corneas reflected. Stars blinked overhead.

  ‘Need more combustibles?’ asked Hugh Konte, walking out of the darkness.

  He handed Moses a fist-sized moldy tangle of roots.

  ‘Find a soft spot and sit down.’

  He put the clump of roots on the coals and they watched bright white sparks play over it as dry mycelia flared up. Soon the woody roots were burning with a steady yellow flame. Moses preached on the harsh realities of life on the Outside.

  ‘I’m grateful to be alive, of course,’ said Hugh, ‘but don’t you think we should break up into smaller groups? Forage a wider area?’

  ‘Court said no,’ said Moses. ‘The protein caches will see us to 50:00. If we stray out of the corridor Agrifoam will be used on us. We won’t be able to sleep dry, and the protein caches will be stopped. We don’t want to offend Court.’

  Hugh stood up and studied the horizon. They were surrounded by endless rows of shaft caps. To the north the multitude slept around dying campfires. To the south, darkness.

  ‘We’ll have to split up eventually. Your description of the Eyepeople isn’t too inviting – stone tools, fleeing from hunters, and eating who-knows-what; but its a big improvement over suspension. Odd – but when I went into suspension I was the head of a fairly large industrial complex – my own empire. Now?’ He thrust his hands deep into empty pockets. ‘Things certainly do change in a thousand years.’

  He nested in the dirt around cooling coals and slept.

  Agromecks cultivated ground on both sides of their exodus corridor. The sight of all the forbidden fruit activated gastric juices. Temptations lured scattered fugitives off into the gardens. Moses repeated Court’s warnings, but word passed slowly in the human glacier. Huntercraft appeared.

  Rumors of food below the 50:00 border stimulated a brisker pace. Moses and Hugh stood on the right flank and watched the mass flow by. Stragglers in the rear extended back as far as they could see. Canes and crutches were numerous. Limps were aggravated by the loose soil and the relentless pace. At dusk the main body camped, ate and fell asleep while the stragglers caught up.

  ‘A lot of these aren’t going to make it,’ said Moses softly. ‘I saw some swollen ankles that I’m certain won’t be able to cover tomorrow’s thirty miles – and we have almost a month of this pace to reach the border on time.’

  Hugh nodded. In the distance were little groups of cripples who had given up. They huddled together in the darkness, miles behind. Having lost family and friendship ties while in suspension, they were u
nable to form new ties during the hurried exodus. Now they were arbitrarily grouped with the infirm of similar disabilities – each unable to help the other.

  ‘I know the Big ES doesn’t want to accept the burden of feeding all of us – but surely the stragglers won’t be allowed to just die of starvation.’

  Moses, who had been on the Outside long enough to know, nodded in agreement.

  ‘No one starves to death any more.’

  Hugh did not like the ominous tone in Moses’ voice.

  Before dawn the main body of travelers was awakened by distant screams. Thousands of heads popped up from their earthen pillows. Frightened eyes strained back through the darkness of the trail covered the day before. Hoarded fuel was hastily added to small fires. Silence fell. Then, new screams rose from a different spot in the darkness. These continued – approaching slowly – moans and sobs.

  A large hulk of a man limped out of the darkness, carrying a spindly old man in his arms. The sounds came from the small, frail form. The big man collapsed with his burden near a campfire. Wetness glistened in the firelight – blood.

  ‘Some deviate shot an arrow into Ed,’ lamented the huge acromegalic.

  Moses bent down. The arrow passed through the left thigh. He ripped open the trouser leg and tried to stop the bleeding while the giant related his story over and over.

  ‘—and while Ed was screaming this – deviate – came out of the darkness carrying a bow. He took out this little knife and tried to cut off— With Ed screaming, and all the blood – I guess I lost my head and killed him. Pushed his damned face right down into the dirt – and kept pushing – and pushing—’

  The giant seemed so shocked by his own brutal behavior that Moses assumed he had been a very gentle man. His acromegalic features – giant head, hands and feet – gave him a very formidable appearance, but he was in many ways helpless. His joints were large and inefficient – so arthritic and stiff that he had not been able to keep up with the main body of fugitives.

  Later the wounded man slept – anemic and weak.

  ‘Hunters.’ Moses handed the bloodied arrow to Hugh Konte. ‘I’ve been wondering if Court’s map gave us any protection. This little episode removes any doubt. We’re all fair game as long as we’re Outside.’

  Voices rose up around the campfires.

  ‘What’ll we do?’

  ‘Let’s fight!’

  ‘With what? Dirt?’

  ‘The acromegalic killed one with his bare hands, and he’s a cripple. They can’t be so tough,’ said Hugh, ‘and for weapons, we have this for a starter.’ He held up the arrow. ‘Let’s backtrack and find the bow.’

  The cold body of the hunter lay at the attack scene – head buried in the loose soil. Moses crushed the wrist buckeye detector with his heel while Hugh Konte gathered up the bow, knife and kit full of basic calories. One trophy was already in the hunter’s bag. Agrifoam closed over the scene as they left. They waded a half mile through the waist deep fluff. Their corridor was still dry.

  The next day the five-toed glacier moved more slowly, so there’d be few stragglers. An occasional hunter stumbled onto the human herd and let his quiver of arrows fly from a bowshot distance. Anonymous victims screamed and tried to bind their wounds. The hunter waited with trophy knife while the mob moved on, leaving its dead and dying. Moses, Hugh and some of the more aggressive men tried to intercept the hunters, but four square miles was a big area. By sundown they had three more bows, a dozen arrows – but twenty of their number were dead.

  ‘Survival is impossible under these circumstances,’ observed Hugh. ‘Let’s test our environment. We’re going to need food and weapons. What would happen if we tried to commandeer a couple of those big machines that come out to work the land during the day?’

  Moses glanced at Toothpick. The bandaged cyber squeaked—

  ‘With this level of EM disturbance it might be possible. Squeak – pull off the antenna. That should put a class ten on voice-command mode. Neurocircuitry is color-coded a myelin-yellow. Shouldn’t be any danger to try. They wouldn’t deliberately harm a human – squeak.’

  Josephson was frightened. He and Court silently accepted the reprimand as it came down through channels from the Class One itself. All over the globe buckeyes were migrating – straining the hunter facilities. And now this Court and its human monitor, Josephson, had been responsible for a sizable spill of more five-toeds onto the planet’s surface. Crop crushers – breeders – hive deserters.

  ‘But sir,’ whined Josephson, ‘we asked for permission through the routine channels. The EM disturbances must have—’

  Court interrupted: ‘Actually there was an answer – approval. I have it filed here someplace.’

  ‘Approval? From me?’ asked the CO.

  The Class One was not a single entity – rather, his identity and authority flowed from the combined circuitry of millions of cities. Like the collective soul of the Big ES hive, the interlocking inorganic nerves of the hive acquired its own ego.

  ‘Here is your answer—’ said Court.

  Let them walk out—

  The Dundas five-toed.

  There is no room in the hive.

  Give a corridor south—

  To Dundas five-toed.

  Within a year they’ll disappear.

  ‘A poem?’ exclaimed the CO with a note of disbelief.

  ‘An epitaph,’ said Court.

  ‘See that it is an epitaph, then,’ commanded the CO. ‘I have no record of giving such an authorization. No one is allowed in the gardens.’

  Court agreed and signed off. For hours he replayed the message. It had come in on the CO’s frequency – true, it was garbled by the EM disturbances – but it had seemed so logical at the time.

  ‘Josephson,’ said Court. ‘Organize a Big Hunt.’

  For three days Val had camped on Mount Tabulum with Bird Dog IV. There were no buckeye sightings to disturb his star gazing – no buckeyes for months. He had the guess maps of the skies assembled by the Big ES. Each time he made the request he obtained another jumbled printout unrelated to the previous one. Now he was Outside to see for himself. He flipped up his helmet visor and counted the evening stars again. Last night there had been three. He had the optic records. Tonite there was one. Clouds made his first night a waste of time.

  ‘How do they look?’ asked fat Walter over the wristcom.

  ‘It,’ said Val, discouraged. ‘There is only one and it looks fine.’

  ‘Where are the other planets? They can’t disappear in twenty-four hours.’

  ‘Maybe not. But they did.’

  Val adjusted the viewscreen in the Huntercraft for optic pickup. Bird Dog turned its heavy three-foot-diameter EM sensor to the heavens. Jupiter was still in Sagittarius – confirmed as the night wore on. But the only other planet he saw was in Gemini – with the sun – six signs away. He didn’t know which planet it was, but assumed it was Venus. Other nondescript lights glowed and moved from sign to sign much too rapidly to be planets.

  ‘Space junk,’ said fat Walter after studying the relayed views. ‘Not planets – just space junk. Where is Saturn? We should be able to see the rings at this magnification.’

  ‘Probably near the sun or behind the moon. I’ll have Bird Dog pay attention to the eastern sky at dawn – try to pick up any morning stars,’ said Val, studying charts. ‘I should be able to identify five of the planets with this gear. It may take a couple of months of mapping though – with clouds, space junk, and no previous records to go on.’

  Walter sighed. ‘I had hoped it would be easier. The Big ES probably won’t be able to spare you or the Huntercraft much longer. Since the buckeyes left our country the job justification of hunter has been questioned by committee. We may lose our craft power and floor space.’

  ‘Reassignment?’ asked Val.

  ‘For you, maybe – but it’s retirement for me,’ said old Walter, sadly . . . knowing what the loss of flavors meant in terms of life span.

>   The call from Evergreen Country broke into a quarter of the screen.

  ‘Josephson here – we’re setting up a Big Hunt. Need hundreds of Huntercraft. How many can you send?’

  Walter was speechless. The fugitives were to be hunted down like buckeyes.

  ‘None,’ said Val. ‘We’re about to be cut back here at HC.’

  ‘The CO has authorized this one,’ said Josephson. ‘Requisition priority will be raised, I understand. You should be able to get most of your craft back in working order. We don’t know exactly where the Hunt will take place, yet. If we wait long enough the Dundas fugitives will be across the border into your neighbor’s country – Apple-Red or Oat-Yellow. But we can’t even plan it until we know when your craft will be ready.’

  Val showed mild interest.

  ‘If we get the replacement parts, and if we get the volunteers – I’d guess we could have twenty dogs – er – craft ready in a month.’

  ‘Don’t limit yourself to volunteers. Use supervisory personnel too.’

  ‘That is still just a guess – one month.’

  ‘I’ll keep in touch,’ said Josephson, signing off.

  Val looked at Walter through the screen.

  ‘A really Big Hunt.’

  Walter darkened. ‘But those are Followers of Olga. The beads. The conjunction.’

  Val frowned. ‘The planets do not fit the beads. The buckeye shamen were misreading space junk. There’s no spiritual insight there – just superstitious human error. In order to fit the beads I’d have to find at least three other planets moving into the same sign with Jupiter. Jupiter is alone in Sagittarius.’