Only Superhuman

by Christopher L. Bennett

  The matter was rendered moot when orders came in to report to the TSC’s local branch headquarters as soon as possible. Emry didn’t see the need; this Gregor Tai fellow from Ceres had been meeting with small groups of Troubleshooters as their availability allowed, and Emry had picked up the gist of it from them, how his Earth-backed consortium had offered to provide the Corps with new backing and resources. Sure, she couldn’t blame Earth for wanting to pay more attention to events out here after Chakra City, and it was easier to be sympathetic to them now. But Emry hated abandoning Sorceress to her fate.

  “You did the best you could, Emry,” Zephyr told her as he kneaded her sore muscles that night, the thrust of his engines as he moved into a polar orbit holding her against the massage pad without the need for straps or handholds. “I think you made her case to the press very well. And nationalist egos aside, a Troubleshooter’s endorsement carries a lot of weight.”

  His words brought her some comfort, as did the touch of his soligram avatar. She’d chosen it to look like a marble statue of a nude, clean-shaven Greek god with graceful white wings, not unlike the Zephyrus of myth, but its hands felt like warm flesh—and secreted their own lubrication. “If anybody listens. All the attention right now’s on that Tai guy.”

  “People pay attention to you.”

  “Sure, ’cause I’m the sexpot with the cinematic past. I’m someone they gawk at, not someone they listen to. That won’t help Sorceress.”

  The avatar smiled. It wasn’t just a simulation; cyber emotions may have been less intense than the human kind, without hormones to fire them to passion, but a sapient mind, guided by choice and experience rather than rigid programming, needed motivations to impel action and shape behavior. She knew by now that Zephyr’s kindness was real. Sometimes she was sorely tempted to take his avatar to bed, but without a skeleton like Sorceress’s toys, it could never hold up to her affections. Plus she didn’t think it would be fair to Zephyr to try to relate to him as a human instead of as himself. “You’re also the one who saved Earth from a bioterror attack and the patrons of Pellucidar from a very clichéd demise,” he said. “I’d call that a respectable beginning.”

  “Maybe. Feels more like too little, too late to me. Too many people I couldn’t save.”

  “I don’t think the public sees it that way.”

  “Well, I try not to worry about what the public thinks.”

  “Ha. You love the camera.”

  “And it’s mutual, babycakes.”

  “Maybe that’s the problem right there,” he said, a hint of that lecturing tone coming back into his voice. She got tired of his lectures, but forgave him because his voice was just so damn sexy. “Your conscious vanity. Despite your commitment to staying more focused in crises, you still play up your sex appeal otherwise. If you want to be taken seriously—”

  “No. I’ve heard that a million times, and it’s still bullshit. Nobody should have to hide what they are to be accepted. I’m proud of what I got—all of it, inside and out—and if people can’t respect the whole package, I’m not the one who should have to adjust.” Mom taught me that.

  “Fair enough. It seems like a harder way of going about it, though.”

  Her eyes roved over his avatar’s nude form. “Anything worthwhile is hard, baby.”

  Russell City habitat

  In orbit of Vesta

  Though the Troubleshooter Corps had headquarters at Ceres and Vesta for the sake of efficiency and access to resources, it had established them in small habitats known for their political independence. Demetria was an old, diminutive Bernal sphere established to support the scientific study of Ceres, its tight polar orbit precluding it from joining into the Sheaf. Russell City’s neutrality was a function of its popularity as a tourist attraction; its forced orbit over Vesta’s south pole, held in place against the protoplanet’s irregular gravity field by giant solar sails, afforded a spectacular view of Rheasilvia Basin, the immense crater that had flattened out the southern side of the spheroidal body, and its central peak Rheasilvia Mons, the tallest mountain ever climbed by humans.

  The docking bay held more TSC ships than Emry had seen in one place since Arkady’s funeral. “Does he really have to see so many of us at once?” she asked once she’d disembarked. “Somewhere there’s a crime happening, you know.”

  “Give him a chance,” said Sally Knox as she led Emry to the meeting room. Despite being only a meter twenty, Sally kept up a pace that Emry had trouble matching. The cherub-faced, middle-aged blonde had been a mainstay of the TSC’s clerical/support staff from the beginning and showed no sign of slowing down. Emry had never quite figured out what her official job was, since she did so many different tasks skillfully, efficiently, and, when needed, ruthlessly. Sensei had nicknamed her the Troubleshooters’ troubleshooter. It was oddly unsurprising to find her here instead of back at Demetria; some Troubleshooters suspected that there was more than one of her. “Mr. Tai thought it was important to share his ideas with you all in person. He didn’t want to do it more times than necessary. You’re one of the last stragglers,” she scolded.

  “Well, I’ve been busy.”

  “Oh, yes, suffering in a luxury resort. We all bleed for you.” Emry was about to protest that she hadn’t had much fun there, but she knew it would have no effect. Sally was perenially unmoved by tales of Troubleshooter adventure, triumph, or angst. It all seemed to bore her, as though her life of paperwork and organizing and programming and maintenance were infinitely more significant than anything that went on in the field. Somehow Emry found that comforting.

  And if Sally had such a high opinion of this Gregor Tai—by her standards, her words constituted a ringing endorsement—then Emry figured it would be worth hearing what he had to say.

  The meeting room was already occupied by most of the T-shooters whose ships Emry had seen in the bay. They exchanged greetings with her, the friendlier ones generally coming from other recent graduates; many of the veterans were more aloof. Unfortunately, Kari wasn’t among those present. Most of the ’Shooters were in civilian garb, though few dressed quite as informally as Emry herself. She wore a hip-hugger miniskirt that was barely more than a wide belt, plus a cutoff Pellucidar t-shirt displaying animated scenes of the habitat’s more adult-oriented attractions. After Sally’s words, she wondered if her choice of wardrobe had been a bit too deliberately irreverent. But this was how she’d chosen to present herself to Tai and that was that. Whether he could take her seriously was not the issue, as far as Emry was concerned.

  The room was set up with a buffet table and a couple of dozen seats arranged in the round. Emry found herself being waved over to the table by the Dharma Bums—the nickname with which Vijay and Marut Pandalai, officially code-named Arjun and Bhima, had been saddled under protest. She greeted the wiry Vijay and his massive younger brother with quick kisses on the lips. “Hey, Bums.”

  “Hey, Boobs,” Vijay countered. “Nice top.”

  “Thanks. I’m commemorating a recent victory,” she replied as she reached for a plate. “Ooh, is that Maryam’s homemade hummus?”

  “We heard,” Marut said. “Insane amusement-park cyber plus evil twin, all in one mission.”

  Vijay put an arm around her. “For her encore, she’ll stop her long-lost sister from changing history with the help of ancient astronauts.”

  “Wait a minute, which one will the ancient astronauts be helping?”

  “Vack it, you guys!” Emry cried. “Am I ever gonna live this down? Ooh, grapes!”

  “Not if we can help it.”

  “Oh, go vack yourselves out the nearest lock. See if I ever take you Bums to bed again.”

  The brothers exchanged a look. “Sounds like a challenge,” Marut said.

  By now there was a full room, and finally Lydia Muchangi entered. A lissome Martian with regal African features and a shaved head, she was one of the original, pre-Corps Troubleshooters, code-named Lodestar for her legendary ability to find anyone or anythi
ng. These days she applied her superhuman intellect more toward administration and education, and was currently in charge of the Russell City HQ. She was accompanied by a tall, Terran-built man who made Emry perk up with interest. He was a square-jawed Asian type, maybe mid-forties and quite fit, with piercing eyes and a sensuous mouth. This might not suck after all, Emry thought.

  “Thank you all for coming,” Lodestar began. “I know you’re all eager to get back into action, and I promise you won’t be kept long. But Sensei and I believe that what our guest, Mr. Gregor Tai of the Cerean States, has to offer us will be helpful to our efforts in the field and deserves a hearing. Mr. Tai?”

  “Thank you, Lydia,” Tai said in a rich tenor. “I’m quite pleased to meet you all. My name is Greg Tai, and as you’ve heard by now, I represent a consortium of state and private interests within the Cerean States, with ties to similar groups on Earth. I’m not a member of either government, though they’ve both endorsed our efforts. I understand how important the neutrality of the Troubleshooter Corps is to your work, and I want to assure you I have no desire to undermine that.”

  Before going into his spiel, Tai made his way around the line, greeting each of the Troubleshooters in turn. When he got to Emry he smiled, seeming totally unfazed by her wardrobe or by the carrot sticks stuffed in her mouth. “Emerald Blair, of course.” He shook her hand firmly, clasping it in both of his. “I wanted to thank you particularly for your role in thwarting the Neogaian attack. I grew up on Earth, and I still have family there.”

  She fidgeted. “Well … my mentor deserved the real credit,” she said through the carrots.

  “Certainly, that was a great loss. I’ve been to see his family already. My group is already working to set up an educational foundation in his name. Part of our efforts to build closer ties between UNECS and the Belt.”

  She swallowed. “Well! I, I appreciate that.”

  “And I saw your press conference after the Pellucidar affair. I thought you’d like to know I’ve contacted some of Ceres’s top cyber-rights attorneys about Sorceress’s case.”

  “Oh! Wow. That’s great!”

  “It’s the least we could do to thank you, Emerald.”

  “Emry.”

  He smiled. “Emry. Thank you.”

  Once he’d moved down the line a bit, Vijay whispered in her ear. “Ooh, wow, call me Emry! Somebody’s in love.” She shoved a pita wedge in his mouth to shut him up.

  When Tai completed his circuit, he looked around in puzzlement. “Isn’t there still one person I haven’t met? Hijab? Does anyone know where she is?” Emry joined in the general chuckling. “Am I missing some joke?”

  “You are missing something, at least,” came a warm, quiet alto voice from directly behind him. Tai whirled, startled, and the T-shooters laughed as Hijab finally deigned to show herself, disengaging the camouflage function of her garb. When she stood still against the wall, her metamaterial suit blending with her surroundings and damping her sounds and scent, Maryam Khalid was virtually undetectable to anyone who did not know where to look. Now, though, she became visible as a statuesque woman in an all-concealing black bodysuit, formfitting for mobility but bearing an ankle-length cloak to obscure her body’s contours as Muslim propriety, and the needs of invisibility, demanded. Even her face was completely covered at the moment, presenting only a featureless black visage to the Sheaver.

  Tai recovered quickly. “Hijab. Hello. I was hoping to meet you in civilian form, as it were.”

  “Perhaps in time, Mr. Tai,” she whispered, the cowl muffling her voice and subtly altering its timbre. “Trust must be earned.” Maryam was one of the few Troubleshooters to use a secret identity. Originally an Olbersstadt detective, she had run afoul of the Yohannes syndicate and seen her husband and several innocent bystanders murdered in retaliation. To protect her children while continuing the fight, she had taken a cue from Muslim women of the past who had used the veil for espionage and covert resistance, but had added a high-tech Vestan twist. She had helped the Troubleshooters cripple the mobs’ operations at Vesta and soon been persuaded to join the Corps. But her identity was a secret she shared only with established T-shooters, since she was still high on the mobs’ hit lists. Until Emry’s apprenticeship had ended, she’d thought Maryam had been a minor Vestan official who occasionally consulted with the TSC. Out of uniform, she wore much more liberal hijab, in the form of colorful long-sleeved dresses and designer headscarves.

  “Very true,” Tai said after a moment. “I’m sure you have excellent reasons for your secrecy. But I intend to do my best to earn your trust. All of your trust.”

  As Tai began his presentation, most of the ’Shooters took seats, some turning them around to straddle them, some just putting a leg up and resting a cheek on the chair back. Emry refilled her plate and then straddled a chair between the Dharma Bums. A few others remained standing, letting their wariness of the Sheaver be known.

  “I know what a lot of you must be thinking, since it’s a concern your colleagues before you have expressed. Should the Corps be getting in bed with the CS, sharing resources directly—let alone establishing closer ties with Earth? My answer is that what we’re offering is merely an expansion on the kind of endorsement and cooperation that the TSC already gets from Ceres and other Belt governments and NGOs. It’s our hope that Vestan, Eunomian, and Outer states will eventually join in as well.

  “Why now? Because Chakra City has changed things. Since the war ended, UNECS has been content to focus inward and leave us to our own devices. The Neogaian attack proved that they can no longer do that—the Striders’ problems are their problems too.”

  “And a lot of their problems become ours,” shot back Marut, who had no love for Earth, “when they deport lunatics like the Neogaians out here in the first place.”

  “That’s true. The bottom line is, we can’t go on pretending our fates aren’t intertwined. Earth has taken a renewed interest in keeping the peace in the Belt. But nobody wants a repeat of the circumstances that led to the war, with Earth wielding direct power over Strider affairs. That’s why we Cereans feel we can offer a solution. We have strong ties to both communities—the oldest Strider nation, yet with a large population of Terran emigrés, myself included. That means Earth can trust us to handle the matter internally—and hopefully it means that our fellow Striders can trust that we’re acting in their best interests, not just Earth’s.

  “And that’s where the Troubleshooter Corps is key. Your members come from all over the Belt, even Mars, and so you’re respected and trusted Beltwide. Who better to spearhead the effort to work together for our common security?”

  “Most of us are also mods,” Vijay pointed out. “Or cybers. By Earth law, we shouldn’t exist. Yet you say you represent the interest of Earth?”

  Tai gave a conciliatory nod. “It’s true that Earth still takes a conservative view of human enhancement. Or rather, they’ve enhanced themselves more on a collective level, through the global information network and the resources and expertise it allows any individual to access. Striders have taken a more individualized approach, enhancing individual humans rather than humanity as a whole, developing individual artificial sentiences rather than relying on a global network—which, granted, you can’t do anyway with the time lags involved out here. There are those on Earth, and admittedly in the Cerean States, who see that as a potential threat due to the power it can give to unethical individuals. I think events like Chakra City demonstrate that those concerns are valid.

  “But my consortium believes—I believe—that the transhuman age is here, and we need to adapt to that reality. It hasn’t brought the Rapture or the Apocalypse, hasn’t made us gods or monsters, and it’s not going to. We’re still what we were, just with more power, for better or worse. So instead of planning for some kind of imaginary existential clash between old humanity and transhumanity, we need to keep sight of the more fundamental distinctions between right and wrong, order and chaos. Those of us w
ho stand for order would be fools not to ally with transhumans who share our goals. The Troubleshooters are exactly that—a superhuman force for peace and order, superheroes in the truest sense.”

  “We know why us,” said Tor Thorssen, a gene-modded man-mountain who’d been a pro wrestler before joining the Corps. Most T-shooters didn’t use their code names in everyday life, but only Tor’s mother called him Ranulf. “But why you?”

  “Because the Cerean States is the only Belt nation with the resources and infrastructure necessary to build up the TSC into the potent, systemwide peacekeeping organization it needs to become.”

  “So, what, we get a passel o’ new Sheaver Troubleshooters?” That was Cowboy Bhattacharyya, one of those who stood (or in his case, swaggered) to express their suspicion.

  “Naturally the Corps will need to bring in new recruits, but as always, they will be drawn from throughout the system. And they’ll still have to pass your training, and Ceres won’t interfere with your procedures or standards.

  “But there’s more we can offer. The consortium can exert political influence on your behalf, work with you to coordinate systemwide peacekeeping efforts. We can bring in Cerean and Terran expertise to improve your technology and your techniques.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ wrong with our techniques,” Cowboy shot back in that inane Bollywood-Western accent of his.

  “But couldn’t you do better? Certainly you do the best you can in response to the crises that arise out here. But that’s just it—you respond. You wait for something to go wrong and try to minimize the damage.

  “But with the destructive power that’s now available to even a small fringe group or gang, the magnitude of that damage is just too great. If you wait until an attack comes, then you’re already too late. Too many people will be lost before you get the chance to save them. And too many innocents will be endangered in the crossfire between you and the bad guys.” Emry stopped eating and began listening much more intently.