Analog SFF, January-February 2009

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Nafti was crumpled on the diagnostic table, clearly dead. None of the medical avatars had appeared around him. So much for state of the art. Somehow Nafti had been murdered in the very place that should have saved his life.

  Dammit. Yu had liked Nafti, no matter how much of a worrier the man had been. The big dumb lug wouldn't complain any more. He'd been so worried about dying from a disease that he probably hadn't realized he was in more danger from the woman.

  Nafti had underestimated her.

  They both had.

  And Nafti had paid for it with his life.

  * * * *

  Yu limped to the medical lab. He thought about having the bots bring the medical supplies to him, but he wasn't sure it was a good idea. The medical lab had been offline, and he wasn't sure if Shindo had tampered with more than the security protocols.

  Maybe she had damaged the bandages or the medicine. He wanted to see for himself.

  And he had a hope—a tiny hope—that Nafti wasn't dead, just unconscious. Or maybe even imprisoned, the way that Yu had imprisoned Shindo. Maybe she had somehow rigged up the cameras so that the image Yu saw of Nafti's body was a false image.

  Yu had left her on the bridge, imprisoned in the zero-g chair. He'd also put a security bubble around her, so that she couldn't wake up and start talking to the ship. No matter what she had rigged—if she had rigged anything—she wouldn't be able to access it from inside that bubble.

  He was so light-headed by the time he reached the medical lab that he thought he was going to pass out. The lab's door stood open, and he could see Nafti, sprawled on the diagnostic table, just like he had been in the image.

  Nafti's eyes were closed, but his skin was an unhealthy shade of whitish blue. The diagnostics were running on the screen behind the table, and all of them read flat.

  Nafti was dead.

  Still, Yu touched his hand ever so lightly. The skin was cooler than it should have been. Nafti had been dead for some time.

  Yu stood over Nafti for a long moment. The man looked lonely in death. Lonely and terrified, even though the dead human face never held an expression.

  Yu clenched a fist. Damn Shindo. Killing Nafti like that. Cold-bloodedly. No wonder she had been able to kill the Gyonnese larvae, if humans meant so little to her.

  He touched Nafti's hand one final time. “Sorry,” Yu whispered.

  And he was. As irritating as Nafti could be, Yu didn't mean to get him killed.

  Black spots appeared in front of Yu's vision. He was going to pass out soon if he didn't do something.

  He scanned for a chair, and saw one not far from the diagnostic table.

  The rest of the lab looked ready for use. He'd been expecting a war zone. Instead, he saw medications lined up on a nearby table, laser scalpels and bandages sticking out of drawers, and a drug list cycling on a screen nearby.

  "I need assistance,” Yu said as he slumped into the chairs.

  A medical avatar appeared. It had the form of a woman. The avatar was carefully formed so that she wasn't too tall or too thin. She had light tan skin and eyes that were rounded with a touch of angle at the edges. Her hair was a neutral brown, her eyes also brown, and her features spaced in that precise way that computer programmers thought average. The avatar wore a white smock over her brown slacks, and fake compassion filled her fake eyes.

  "What happened here?” she said.

  "Drop the patter and treat me,” he said.

  She examined his wounds, picking at the edges of each carefully. After a moment, she said, “None of your wounds are life-threatening. But you need more than a medical avatar for that hand. I can bandage it up, but I cannot make it useful."

  "I just need it functional enough to get me to the next base,” he said, even though he wasn't going to the next base. He was going to drop off Shindo and get the hell out of the sector. Then he would deal with the hand.

  "Understood,” the avatar said.

  She cleaned the hand and put some kind of disinfectant in it, shooting him up with all kinds of medicines that she explained as she worked.

  Finally, he said, “I don't care what you're doing. Just don't tell me about it."

  He didn't even want to watch her work. If she did it wrong, she did it wrong. The doctors on whatever base he stopped on could fix the mistakes the avatar made.

  So Yu ordered up a visual of Nafti's last moments. The poor guy seemed to have had no trouble getting into the lab. Shindo had been staring at the laser scalpels, probably planning to use them as weapons. She had turned when the door opened.

  Nafti had looked like the patient, not her, despite the pustules forming on her face. He just looked frightened.

  He said, I thought we got medical programs.

  You did, she said. I turned them off.

  Why? The word was plaintive.

  Because they have no more training than I do, she said.

  "Stop playback,” Yu said. His stomach turned. That was how she had gotten Nafti onto the diagnostic tables. By pretending an expertise that she didn't have.

  Or maybe she did have that expertise. She specialized in biology and chemistry, after all.

  Yu looked at his hand, now carefully bandaged. The medical avatar was working on his leg.

  Shindo certainly seemed to have a lot of knowledge about where to damage him. He had been twisting away from her. If he had faced her, she might have sliced right through him.

  She was dangerous, more dangerous than the Gyonnese had led him to believe. She had seen Nafti's weakness, exploited it to get him to trust her, and then she had killed him.

  Big, dumb bastard.

  "Hurry up,” Yu said to the medical avatar.

  He didn't dare leave Shindo alone too long.

  * * * *

  He managed to make it to his cabin, clean up, and change clothes long before Shindo opened her eyes. When he got back to the bridge, she was still unconscious. He took down the security bubble, made sure that the ship was still on course for the rendezvous, and then set about finding any modifications that Shindo had made to his ship's systems.

  He had been working for an hour before she woke up.

  "I could have suffocated.” Shindo's voice was nasal and thick. Her broken nose was making it difficult for her to talk.

  He turned away from the console and crossed his arms. The movement hurt, but he didn't let her see that. He didn't want her to know how badly she had injured him, although he figured she probably had a clue from the heal-it field bandages the avatar had placed on him.

  "You didn't suffocate,” he said.

  Her face was black and blue and so swollen that she barely looked human. But those eyes were the same. They flashed as they met his.

  "You never leave an unconscious person with a broken nose untended,” she said. “You don't know where the blood will go, what happens to the shattered bits of bone. You have no idea if that person is going to make it through the next few hours."

  "Yet you did well enough to wake up and harangue me.” He leaned against the console. “I monitored you. No sense delivering a dead criminal to the Gyonnese. Then you're not worth anything—to me or to them."

  He had to work to keep his voice flat. In fact, he had to work at remaining near that console. He wanted to walk over to her and slap her across that bruised face.

  "Don't worry,” Yu said because she was just staring at him. “The rendezvous time is close. You'll be able to move then."

  She licked her lips, but he couldn't tell if that was from nervousness or from the pain. “I'll pay you double what they're paying you to take me home again."

  He smiled. So she was afraid. Terrified, not just of him but of the Gyonnese.

  He liked the fact that she was terrified. It made him feel better.

  "On the salary Aleyd pays you, you would pay me?” He shook his head. “It would take the rest of your life to pay my fee. Two lifetimes to double it."

  "I would get the money from Aleyd,” she said.
/>   "Because they have an interest in keeping you out of Gyonnese hands?"

  "Yes,” she said.

  So that was how she had gotten so far. Her corporation had backed her. They had probably provided the lawyers and maybe even the cloning service for her child. Had they killed the original child too? Or just Disappeared it?

  No wonder the Gyonnese were angry. They knew that they had no chance of getting justice, even before the case began.

  He walked toward her. He let his smile fade and the hatred he felt for her show in his eyes.

  She squirmed in the chair, but she couldn't get free. She was breathing shallowly, a sign of growing fear.

  "You killed my partner,” he said.

  "He wasn't your partner,” she said. “He was your employee."

  Interesting that she believed the distinction was important. Did she rank human lives the way she ranked humans above aliens?

  If so, she would never understand why Nafti's death made Yu so angry.

  So he said, “You tried to kill me."

  She nodded, hitting her chin on the edge of the chair and wincing. “I felt like I had no choice."

  Well, that excused everything. He was willing to die because she had no choice. He kept that sarcastic thought to himself and made sure he kept his arms crossed despite the pain.

  "And now do you feel like you had a choice?” he asked.

  She licked her lips again. “I hadn't realized you were being paid."

  She was lying. And even if she wasn't, he wasn't going to let her know that he thought her stupid.

  "Why would I steal you otherwise?” he asked.

  "I don't know,” she said. “You could have been some kind of vigilante."

  "Out to get mass murderers and bring them to my ship?” He permitted himself a small chuckle. “So I'm some kind of vigilante hero in your fevered imagination."

  She winced. “I'm not a mass murderer."

  "At least, not intentionally,” he said, knowing the lie she would tell him. The Gyonnese believed the deaths were intentional, that she had been testing a weapon. He had no idea who was right.

  The result was the same. The larvae were dead.

  "Not intentionally killing someone makes it better, right? Like feeling you had no choice in killing me. That mitigates it, doesn't it?” He couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice now.

  Her wince grew into a frown. He wasn't sure if he was reaching her or just convincing her that she had no hope of getting away from him.

  "Now you've killed a man with your bare hands,” Yu said, unable to let it go. “How does that feel?"

  She raised her chin. He had gotten to her.

  "How does it feel beating a woman within an inch of her life?” she asked.

  He smiled again. And this time, he meant it. “After she tried to kill me? Exhilarating."

  She studied him for a moment. Then she bit her lower lip, as if she were thinking.

  Finally, she said, “I can get Aleyd to pay you. We can set something up, some off-world account, and they can send the money. They will do it. They paid for my defense—"

  "And that didn't work, did it?” Yu said.

  "—and they paid to relocate me. They want me to stay away from the Gyonnese. Not all the suits are settled."

  He tilted his head back. She actually thought he would bargain with her. Did she think everyone as crass as she was?

  "If Aleyd kills you,” Yu said, “then the Gyonnese won't have you."

  "If Aleyd wanted me dead,” she said, “it would have happened long ago."

  That was probably true. They wanted something else from her.

  Or they felt she was too valuable an asset to lose.

  "You're asking me to trust you,” Yu said.

  "No,” Shindo said. “I'm trying to figure out the best way for you to make a profit."

  She wasn't even a good liar. “And for you to survive."

  "Of course,” she said. Then coughed so hard that she spit blood on the travel chamber's exterior. “You injured me badly. You might want to get those fake medical idiots up here to set the nose."

  "You injured me just as badly. I might lose my right hand."

  Her expression didn't change. She didn't care. The woman had no empathy at all.

  "They build better hands now than we're born with,” she said. “Consider yourself lucky."

  He clenched his good fist. “You're a cold bitch."

  "And you're a coward,” she said.

  He blinked at her, startled.

  "If you had any guts at all,” she snapped, “you'd take my proposal."

  "If I had any guts at all, I'd take your proposal and then sell you to the Gyonnese."

  Her eyes opened wide. She clearly hadn't thought of that.

  "Why do they want me so badly?” She was trying for plaintive. It wasn't working. “The case they had against me was settled."

  "They think you broke the law."

  "I did, according to the court,” she said. “That's why I lost."

  "After the case got settled. They think you hid your child from them."

  "You saw Talia. I didn't hide anyone."

  "The original child,” he said.

  "Is dead."

  For the first time, he couldn't tell if she was lying. And he wasn't even sure he cared. She wouldn't tell him where the original child was, not even to save herself. That much was obvious.

  But then, she also knew that he wouldn't kill her. So she had no reason to tell him.

  She might tell the Gyonnese.

  "The Gyonnese think the child is alive,” he said. “They're going to use you as an example."

  Her eyes seemed to get even wider. “An example of what?"

  "They're trying to prosecute anyone who helps Disappeareds."

  "But I'm not a Disappeared."

  "Your child has Disappeared.” He let his arms drop, then winced again as his right hand bumped his leg. “Where else could they have gotten the cloning material?"

  It was his last gamble. He wanted to know where that child was if it existed. Then he could get rid of her, however he wanted to.

  He was no longer sure how he wanted to.

  "We got the DNA from her body,” Shindo said softly. “They clone the dead on Armstrong. There's a whole industry that does it. I thought you knew that."

  She wasn't lying now. He could tell. Still, the news disgusted him. He hadn't known that the Earth Alliance allowed the cloning of the dead anywhere within its borders.

  Cloning the dead was forbidden on most worlds where cloning was allowed.

  He shrugged, pretending a nonchalance he didn't feel. “You'll never convince the Gyonnese of that. They want you. They want this case. They want to punish Aleyd. They lost an entire generation of children."

  "They lost what they call original children,” she said. “They weren't even sentient yet."

  He clenched his left fist. His right hand hurt too much to move.

  "More excuses?” he asked.

  "Those larvae divide.” Her eyes were bright. She had made these arguments before. “The genetic material is the same in all the subsequent larvae. Just because the originals were killed doesn't mean the individuals are gone."

  For someone who was supposed to be smart, she didn't seem to understand the flaws in her argument. He wondered if she would make that argument about human children.

  Probably not, since she supposedly lived with a clone.

  He said, “You'll never understand the Gyonnese, will you?"

  "Why, do you?"

  He shook his head.

  "You live among them, don't you?” she said. “That's your home, isn't it? On the fringes of the Alliance."

  He had gone cold. He had never met anyone like her. Brilliant, but dead inside. He thought brilliant people were the most capable of empathy, but she was proving that theory wrong.

  "I'm taking you to them,” he said. “This is all too fraught for me. Then I'm going back to non-living things
. They don't try to kill me."

  "Oh, they will,” she said. “That cargo hold of yours is deadly."

  "I don't spend a lot of time there,” he said.

  "It nearly killed me,” she said. “I kept some pills for the last of it. What happened to them?"

  The cydoleen. He'd left the pills in her pocket. “They're on you."

  "Maybe you can get me some medical help and let me take one. I'd like to keep improving. Unless you want me to die before the Gyonnese get me...?"

  He sighed. Then he waved his good hand over a nearby console. “Computer, transfer the medical programs to the bridge."

  "They're not designed for transfer,” the computer responded.

  He cursed.

  "You only need one of them,” she said. “Get whichever one has the capacity to touch. I need someone to set my nose."

  Stupid woman. All the medical persona touched. Otherwise they wouldn't work properly.

  "I can't swallow otherwise,” she said.

  "Send the expensive one,” he said to the computer. “And have the avatar appear in human form."

  "What about equipment?” the computer asked.

  "Have a bot bring anything the avatar needs when the avatar asks. And do it quickly."

  The computer chirruped as it set about following his commands. Yu leaned toward Shindo, his face only centimeters from her battered one.

  "I'm not doing this for you. I'm not helping you in any way. I'm getting my money, and I'm getting out of the human recovery business. If the Gyonnese kill you, fine. If they destroy the Disappeared programs, fine. If they exact revenge on Aleyd, fine. It'll have nothing to do with me."

  "It'll have everything to do with you,” she said. “Until you found me, this case was dead."

  He grinned. The look was mean. “I have news for you, lady. I didn't find you. I just recovered you."

  She was frowning as he turned away. She hadn't understood him. He went back to the console.

  Then she moaned.

  The Gyonnese had found her long before they hired him. Even if she went back, they would come after her again.

  Her nightmare was just beginning.

  And he couldn't have been happier.

  * * * *

  The rendezvous point was a closed science base on Io. The base looked like it had been abandoned a hundred years ago. Parts of the structure had fallen down. Other sections were scattered across Io's surface, as if some giant wind had come and shaken the place apart.