Zen closed his eyes and dropped his forehead into his palms. He was such an idiot! “Forgive me,” he whispered. “Give me another chance.”
::A chance for what? I’m not angry with you, Zen. Far from it. You finally lost your virginity, so what the hell, good for you. It’s not like we had any agreement on celibacy. I’m jealous of Ms. Stavos, actually. She really enjoyed herself. All the things she thought about you—whew, pretty hot. But she’s old, she’s twenty-nine. Didn’t you notice? She’s a career woman and a dedicated cultist. She’s not going back to a cave on Bali with you.::
“I’m not going back to Bali,” he said. “I can’t.”
Nancy stirred in her launch couch below and looked up at him. “Are you okay, Zen? Are you online?”
He pushed a warning palm to keep her quiet as she wrapped herself in a pink sari and floated toward him. His heart began to pound with alarm. Two women at once and nowhere to run. Nancy looked mature now and plain without her makeup, and Simara’s voice was like a slashing knife in his brain. ::Only a fool would follow an accused murderer into a mudslide of condemnation. Don’t be that man, Zen, don’t do it. Go home and be safe. You don’t know me. I live in a virtual world, partnered to a machine, you understand? Mothership won’t be able to protect you. She gave me no warning of this conspiracy, and I’m not sure why. Just stay clear until I can figure it out. Goodbye, Zen. Thanks for saving my life.::
“Kiva will help us,” he said in a final weak protest. “We can still be together.”
“I can help you,” Nancy said as she curled into his lap. “Are you having a bad dream?”
::What do I have to say to set you free, Zen? Your silent god is not going to help us. There are a billion galaxies out in space, a hundred billion planets. Do the math. Why would the creator of the universe make his home on a crappy desert planet like Bali? We’re nothing in comparison to eternity. We’re transient configurations of dust and energy. Can’t you see that we’re godforsaken, both of us? Kiva never showed up when my stepfather tried to rape me. He didn’t prevent my stepmother from blowing out into vacuum. He didn’t stop your father from dying.::
“Kiva cares about us,” Zen croaked. “He’s in every drop of rain.”
“Who are you talking to, honey?” His new lover peered with concern into his watery eyes as his new bride shouted in his brain. ::Well, it doesn’t rain in space, Zen. Goodbye.::
“Was that a girlfriend?”
Zen sighed. “We’re separated.”
“Oh.” Nancy’s face wilted with realization. “It’s complicated.”
He shimmied a hand to stall any bad feelings. “No, it’s fine. I guess it’s over.”
“You don’t sound so sure.”
“I can’t really talk about it.”
Nancy bent forward and gave him a peck on the cheek. “I understand, and I hope I haven’t caused you any trouble. You’re a wonderful man. Any girl would be lucky to have you.”
Zen studied her cheerful smile. “Thanks for saying that.” And clearly in a non-possessive tone. Was he off the interpersonal hook with her? “Last night was great.”
“Of course it was. And super healthy. Sex is a great cardiovascular workout.”
Zen paused to analyze his strange predicament, feeling conflicted between the traditional morality of Bali and the natural freedom of his inclinations. “My life is a mess. I’m not sure what to do.”
Nancy placed a palm on his shoulder. “You need to relax and follow your heart. Governor Blackpoll said you were anxious, and I can see tension coming back already. Just let it go. Embrace the chaos and flow with it.”
He winced and tried a smile. “Oh, I’m chaotic all right.”
“No, really,” she said. “You can’t control people. You can’t manipulate your environment. Just embrace it. That’s the Way.”
“Sure,” he said. “No problem.”
She smirked. “Okay, fine, do you want breakfast? Can I interest you in a cube of cheese omelette, or are you going back to goop so quickly?”
“You know, Nancy,” he said with careful charm, “I think I’m partial to the Way.”
“Good, but I have to get to work.” She gave him another quick peck and floated free. “Otherwise I’d have you for breakfast, pretty boy.” She let her sari trail behind as she floated back to her couch, exposing bare legs and heart-shaped buttocks with dramatic flair. What a beauty.
Zen felt an immediate stir of sexual desire like an automatic reflex, and blushed with shame. His body acted like a procreative machine, preprogrammed to any passing visual stimulus and ponderous with lust. Why would Kiva make him like this, so predictable and desperate for love? He pulled his gaze away. His wife was in jail. Focus, focus. He touched his signal amp. “Login. Are you online, Genoa?”
A few seconds passed, and he realized how quickly he had become reliant on Governor Blackpoll. ::Zen Valda, I’m here. Are you experimenting with the new appliance? Did you enjoy Nurse Stavos?::
“I’m going after Simara.”
::Really?:: His tone suggested disbelief.
“I need a ticket on Adam’s Inspiration.”
::Uh, just a moment … that’s the name of a Transolar troopship sailing in three hours. You can’t get onboard without diplomatic credentials.:: —any isolated system spontaneously evolves toward equilibrium—evolution is a hard taskmaster and not mimicked by coddling—
“Now’s the time, Governor. You said you wanted to help me, and this is it. For the memory of my father.”
::Are you sure that’s what Simara wants?::
“She’s distraught. She doesn’t know what she wants, but I know what I want. I’m embracing the chaos.”
“Good boy,” Nancy said as she brought him a food cube and cracked the seal. “I’m going to miss you, Zen Valda. I hope you’ll remember me on the next trade cycle.”
Zen took the proffered bite of cheese omelette and mouthed a thank-you in reply. How could he ever forget her?
::We’ll have to meet in person to discuss this. I’ll see what I can arrange in the next hour. Get down to the docks on Level 1 and we’ll get together. See you there at A3:45.:: —take one tablet every six hours to treat boredom—no power in religion nor efficacy to prayer in the absence of clairvoyance—
“I’m off to work,” Nancy said. “The door will lock when you leave, so you won’t be able to get back in unless we program the sensor with your palm print.” She smiled with intrigue and arched her eyebrows in query.
Still flirting, really? “Thanks for breakfast.”
“Anytime,” Nancy chirped as she flew for the portal.
Zen chewed his omelette with slow deliberation, possibly the last real food he would ever taste. He shuddered at the thought of two weeks on a troopship eating government goop. And Cromeus, the heartland of the Signa solar system—what did he really know about that fabled planet? The capital was New Jerusalem, a metropolis of mass transit and crowded walkways, and a handful of small outposts had sprung up in fertile crescents along the coasts of two major oceans where tourists flocked to frolic on sandy beaches—all of it alien to anything he had ever known as an impoverished bumpkin from Bali. He steeled himself against a feeling of inadequacy. He could do this! Anything for Simara—he owed her abject loyalty now that he had betrayed her trust. She was the only reason he was here—his skyfall princess.
Zen floated his way haltingly through the portal and down the passageway, trying to recall and utilize the fluid motions Nancy Stavos had taught him the previous day, but he could not seem to find a weightless equilibrium. He had lived too long with gravity—he needed it for orientation like a sand lizard in the desert. A jostle of traffic flew around him in both directions, touching him, squirming by in tight quarters. “B’well. B’well.” There was little room in the tunnels, but everyone moved at smooth speed, tapping every surface along the way to manage momentum, dragging with fingertips to curl around a corner or pushing for acceleration in a straightaway. He hugged the ri
ght-hand wall like a flatworm trying to stay out of trouble, and followed online directions from Genoa Blackpoll to reach a private meeting area in an austere closet on Level 1 near the spaceport. He found the governor floating in a small vestibule with a hand on the ceiling to steady himself.
Zen grasped a recessed conduit and swung his body to match Genoa’s orientation, face to face with the elder. “Did you arrange my transport?”
Genoa held up a faxslip boarding pass with a grim expression. “You’re not ready for this. Do you have any idea what you’re jumping into?”
Zen shook his head. Another warning? What else could go wrong? “The more I know, the less I understand. Simara mentioned a conspiracy.”
“Everyone seems to have an agenda when it comes to the omnidroids, and you’ve wandered carelessly into the middle of the maelstrom. A whisper campaign has festered for weeks on Cromeus, igniting protest against an alleged omnidroid takeover of the financial system—controlling all banking, taxation, and government spending by virtue of their multifarious interconnectivity, a system too vast to fail and too complex to monitor. And now this business with Simara Ying. I’m not saying there’s a firm connection, but a politician develops an acute sense of smell over the years.” He tucked his chin down in confidence. “I was instructed by the Crown to convince you to return to Bali for your own protection. They offered nothing more than oblique threats, but they want you out of the picture and safely tucked away. I tried to reason with you man to man, and when that didn’t work, I tried to distract you with feminine charm from an expert.” He spread his palms. “I can only do so much.”
“Nancy was working for you?”
“Nothing more than a nudge in token to her religious sensibilities. She seemed like a good match for an attractive boy, but apparently not a permanent interest. You seem to have a death wish for trouble. Why do you persist in following a known criminal into danger, a girl you barely know?”
“I think I know her well enough to trust her innocence.”
Genoa shook his head sadly. “Alas, you know very little, and you may be a victim of powerful mindcraft beyond your understanding. Simara was fabricated in a secret black lab, the first bold experiment with genomic mapping. No one knows her full capabilities.”
“She’s not a machine. She’s human.”
“Omnidroids are surgically enhanced for specialized performance in higher areas of mathematics and logic. No unaugmented human can understand their intuitive grasp of V-net architecture. Power brokers are beginning to realize just how much financial responsibility has slipped out of humanity’s grasp into machine control, how many critical aspects of our world might be vulnerable to an omnidroid takeover.”
Zen pulled the cellulose faxslip from Genoa’s grasp. “Simara’s in trouble and needs my help.”
“People are rioting in the streets of New Jerusalem, demanding the decommissioning of all twenty-three remaining omnidroids by surgery or death.”
“No one has the right to do that!”
“Politics is the art of the impossible—you must know that from your father’s work. Civil rights must be balanced by public privilege, and social conscience can be manipulated at will.”
“Is that what’s happening here? A political charade? An excuse for police action?”
Genoa pressed his lips and shrugged. “I’m a small asteroid in a big belt. I can’t know anything for certain. A murder charge with no dead body? Who’s to say it’s not a trumped-up pretext to rein in the omnidroid elder and her unfortunate travelling companion? You could end up being a trailing edge in a blanket cover-up.”
“I can’t let that happen to Simara. It’s not right.”
“You’re a victim of your father’s ideology, and it pains me to see you wander off into battle like a fool with a plastic sword. You and Simara will be the only civilians on board this troopship, and your pitiful attempts to fight for justice may not be well received by the Transolar crew.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Zen said, “but how will I recognize Simara’s enemy? Who can I trust?”
Genoa sighed and looked him square in the eyes. “You and I are the enemy, our collective will. If humanity is to be sacrosanct, then all other species must fail and the omnidroids must perish. As a youth at university I studied the fossil records from old Earth, the cradle of our genome. At least ten humanoid species came down from the trees and walked upright to hunt on the primeval savannah. How did they decide the one victor, the one primate that survived to harness language and scientific thought? Did they fight among themselves and burn the children of their enemies to placate invisible gods? Did the most brutal species inherit the fertile ground?”
Zen shook his head at the comparison to aboriginal warfare. “Mankind has grown beyond physical violence. We left behind the tools of destruction long ago. Guns and armadas—those were relics of ancient empires.”
“True, but the V-net is our new battleground, and the courtroom our sacrificial altar. Fair warning is all I can offer. Your ship is leaving within the hour. Hurry now, and be well.” Genoa Blackpoll held his elbow up, and Zen matched him with a bold thrust against his forearm. They paused for a silent moment of benediction, connected by clan on the fringe of their territorial border, one step away from abyss in all directions.
Zen rushed to the spacedock and found a porthole to view Adam’s Inspiration grappled to the station, a military transport vessel without visible weaponry. The streamlined craft was pointed like an arrow with a protective cone on the front and a bulky antimatter reactor at the rear where four navigational rockets flared out like fins. A bright red Transolar insignia was painted on the side with horns ablaze, the burning shield of authority.
Zen made his way through the boarding gauntlet and stripped for sterilization. His money belt was useless now that he was a digital citizen, and he tossed it aside as his brown skin glowed under purple irradiation. He unfolded cellulose clothing from a fabricator and dressed himself in drab, recycled paper. The disposable sandals had thin straps and soles similar to dancing slippers, a token comfort. He had become a ward of the state, a penniless pilgrim, his treasure squandered for a chance to save an alien girl who crashed in his quadrant, an omnidroid genius with mysterious powers.
A Security guard in a crisp blue Transolar uniform met him at the gate and scanned a code on his faxslip. He had a pistol holstered at his waist. “Zen Valda? What’s your business onboard?”
“I’m travelling with my wife, Simara.”
“The omnidroid prisoner?”
“Can I see her?”
The guard shook his head. “No way. She’s in solitary. I’ll show you to your bunk slot. You won’t have any privileges.” He pushed off down a narrow corridor, and Zen tagged along behind until they reached an open hole in the wall.
“This is your assigned quarters for the duration.”
Zen grabbed a handrail and peeked into the tiny compartment—just a launch couch with a viewscreen overhead. “I have to stay in here?”
“No, you’re not under arrest, but keep out of our way. There’s a washroom down the hall and a galley to pick up your rations. Transolar ships are under acceleration at all times. We don’t float around in space like traders. We get where we’re going. At midpoint we lock down for turnaround. That’s the only time you’ll be weightless. Make sure you’re strapped in when you hear the klaxon.”
“How long does it take to reach Cromeus?”
“By burning both ways, we can make it in two weeks. Spare no expense.”
Zen nodded, unsure of the logistics.
“We preserve our orbital velocity and slingshot around Bali for a free momentum boost,” the guard continued, “so that gives us a head start.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. Buckle up in fifteen. I’ll see you ’round.”
Zen squirmed into the tunnel enclosure, barely bigger than a coffin. The air was stale and smelled of lingering sweat. A larder to one side was stocked with grey g
oop and pouches of water. Life in the Transolar Guard was certainly not living up to the recruitment ads!
A klaxon sounded to announce a countdown sequence as Zen made himself comfortable in his launch couch. Acceleration punched him in the stomach at first, but settled back to a gravity that was less than Bali normal. He passed the time practising with his cochlear appliance, trying to work up a user profile to filter out the steady V-net chatter. Every fleeting thought unleashed a cacophony of random sounds and images from the V-net, an overwhelming tide of bewildering information. The only way to stave off the onslaught was to learn the art of directed thinking, a focusing of concentration, a purification of intention. Zen needed to find the truth about Simara and her case. Everything else was a bedlam of unwanted data. —the relationship between the positional centres of kissing circles can only be expressed as a matrix equation generalized to n dimensions—specifying the strict conditions under which local gauge symmetries can be spontaneously broken—::Zen, you stupid man! What are you doing here?::
Zen sat up from his launch couch with a start and banged his head on the viewscreen above. “Simara?”
::I warn you away for your own damn good, and still you throw yourself into the jaws of doom. What is the matter with you?::
Zen winced at the power in Simara’s diatribe. Did the noise on this earbug increase by proximity, or was she yelling at him? Where was the volume control? “I know you’re angry with me, and disappointed and hurt. You have every right to be. I failed you miserably like some woeful boyfriend on a wild night at Vishan. I see that now. But I couldn’t slink away home without trying to earn some redemption. Not when you’re in trouble and need my help.”
::There’s nothing you can do. You’re just making things more complicated for mothership.::
“I can fight for you, Simara. I can provide evidence in court. I’m learning about biogens. I know about the persecution and discrimination against omnidroids. I’ll fight for you all the way to your decommission if I have to!”
Her signal disappeared into the V-net chatter of strange jargon and abstruse educational lectures. Had he said something wrong? “Simara?”
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