Medusa: A Tiger by the Tail flotd-4

by Jack L. Chalker

  She nodded. “Let’s try it.”

  “Okay. Follow the leader, no talking unless I tell you. Let’s go, gang—over and into the muck.” One by one they complied, although not without some real hesitation. The stuff was really awful, thicker than I would have thought and close to waist-deep.

  I couldn’t resist thinking we were in deep shit, but it was the only oddball thought I allowed myself and it was too literally true to be funny. I had deliberately returned along the route we’d taken from the café, on the theory that those monitoring devices might still be out of commission, but I couldn’t depend on it. This mission would be played by ear, and first we had to get to an exit point—a long, long way in the sewage.

  The next several hours were nervous ones, although my hopes that the initial escape route was still blocked were borne out. Several times we stood right under squads of TMS herding Opposition members to exit points, and several more times we huddled in the stinking muck as small, very efficient armed patrols double-timed above us. We were all pretty well covered with the stuff and slipping and sliding as we moved, and it was clear we couldn’t keep this up indefinitely.

  So far we’d been extremely lucky. My escape was still something of a miracle, but it simply proved that when you have even one potential wolf you don’t send sheep out to capture other sheep, even if the sheep you send are arrogant bastards. After the initial escape, we were protected by the flaw in their visual monitoring system and the very complexity of master sewage drains under a city of close to 350,000. There were probably a couple of thousand kilometers of drainage tunnels under the city, and TMS simply couldn’t cover more than a fraction of that with its personnel. They had to wait for us to make a mistake, to betray our position, so they could concentrate their forces in that area.

  I was proud of all four of my companions, who held together under some of the worst conditions I could think of, not only physically but mentally, knowing that just one little mistake would betray us to these overhead monitors. The monitors, I was sure, were all staffed by real live people as well as by the computers.

  Finally, I had to ask the one who was supposed to know the tunnels if she really did. Frankly, none of us could take much more of this, and, sooner or later, we would certainly be found. “How much farther to the trains?”

  “At the rate we’re going, maybe an hour more,” she whispered.

  I didn’t like the sound of that. “How long to any kind of exit near the city border?”

  She thought a moment. “From the sector numbers at the last junction, maybe ten minutes to a drainage outlet. But there’ll be an energy barrier there.”

  “I’ll chance it. We can’t take much more of this. Lead on.”

  She shrugged.

  What seemed like an hour later we came close to the outlet. I could hear the thing rushing like a falls, and we were now waist high in sewage, which was developing a fairly strong current. There were no catwalks in the direction of the outlet, so there would be maybe thirty meters when we’d be fully exposed. There would certainly be a visual monitor up there, if only as a final check on animal entry should the energy barriers fail.

  I tried to angle myself as best I could to see what the outlet looked like, but all I could see was the sewage dropping into some sort of sludge pool below and the unmistakable light purple of an energy barrier. “I wonder if that barrier is beyond the drop,” I said aloud. “If it is, we might be able to go over the falls and then, beneath the surface, under the barrier. Do you know how much of a drop it is?”

  She shook her head from side to side. “It varies. This plant is located in an old stone quarry. It might not be much of a drop but the holding pool could be fifty meters deep.”

  I gave a low whistle. “Well, that washes that idea, I guess. Let’s go for the transport terminal after all.”

  At that moment, from just ahead of us there came the sound of many feet running in step, which then ceased abruptly. I heard a lot of shuffling around not too far down from us and saw the glare of spotlights on the sludge below. Obviously I’d blown it—the monitors here had to be a lot better than most.

  “All right! We know you’re down there!” a sharp woman’s voice called. “Come out now, one at a time, or we’ll come down and get you. And if we have to get into that slop we will not take you alive!”

  I looked at my four companions. “What’ll we do?” Ching asked, looking to me as if I had all the answers.

  I sighed. “Nothing to do, really. Can you all swim?”

  They nodded, which helped.

  “Then take a deep breath,, launch yourselves into this muck, and stay below it, letting the current take you over.”

  Morphy looked down uncomfortably at the muck. “Under it?”

  “The whole way. It shouldn’t be for long. Either that or they’ll be here in a couple of minutes. We’re already so stinking this won’t make much of a difference.” I took a deep breath, let it out, took another, let a little out, and ducked under, hugging onto my two rifles for dear life.

  It was a miserable experience to top all other miserable experiences, particularly since I had to keep my eyes closed. All I could tell was that I was moving, with agonizing slowness; but aside from trying to stay below the surface without knowing if in fact I was doing that, I also couldn’t be sure I was being carried with the current. I finally decided I’d hold out until I either fell, got knocked cold by the energy barrier, or had to come up for air, in which case I’d come up shooting.

  It seemed as if I had been down for an eternity, when, oddly, the sludge seemed to thin and I felt less pressure to breathe. Then, suddenly, I broke the surface not from the top but in front of me, and I had to duck very quickly to pass just under the energy barrier. Then I was falling, and falling fast, still in the midst of a sludge river. I lost both rifles in the fall, which was at least twenty meters, then struck the main pool below, arms out to try and cushion what I sincerely believed would be a crippling or fatal impact.

  I went into the pool effortlessly, and continued down for a bit with the momentum. I instinctively angled myself, treating the pool as common water, and arched back up again, breaking the surface.

  There was no current in the pool, which was surrounded on three sides by sheer rock walls. Down at the far end was the structure of what had to be the automated treatment plant. It wasn’t much—Medusa didn’t really care what happened to the environment outside—but it operated in sunlight only, mixing the raw sewage with natural water and forcing it out into a river that led directly to the ocean. Just enough to keep the stuff from backing up and contaminating the natural water supply of the city.

  The damlike structure wasn’t very high, and I headed for its sloping white concrete wall. I reached it quickly, and crawled out onto it. Gasping for breath, I decided to make for the top of the thing, which was only about seven or eight meters above on the slanted surface. I would wait there as long as I could to see if anybody else made it through, but I knew that TMS would be out here as soon as that squad leader figured out what we’d done and radioed back to headquarters.

  I was halfway up before I realized that I hadn’t exactly swum that distance conventionally and even now was climbing the wall in a most unconventional manner. My arms, now a dark sludge-brown, were almost flipperlike! I realized that, somehow, I’d changed—and fast. There would be time for more self-examination later, I decided—but first I had to make the top or it was all for nothing.

  I waited there nervously, but not for very long. My eyes quickly adjusted to the near darkness, and I soon saw two other shapes pop up and make for the wall, then a third.

  When the first one got to the edge of the retaining pool and climbed out, I got something of a shock. It was a weird, inhuman sort of monster, all black and shiny, with an angular head, flippers, and a pair of strong, webbed hind legs. The creature began to crawl up toward me, wiggling up on its belly, and I almost recoiled in alarm until I suddenly realized that my own arms resembled
those others. A second one made it and started the climb as the first one almost reached me, caught sight of me, and cried out in fear.

  “Don’t worry!” I called back. “It’s just me! The Wardens changed us to live in that muck! Get up here—all of you! We’ll change back soon enough if we get away from this!”

  The others had similar reactions, but got talked up nonetheless.

  I looked at them, and could see their skin begin to lose some of its shimmer and start to—well, ooze, as if our bodies were made of a puttylike substance that had a mind of its own. Strangely, I felt a little better about that—here was a stimulus with proof! If you placed yourself in an untenable environment, you changed. You changed into whatever would allow you to survive. This certainly explained the Wild Ones’ ability to escape from TMS, and probably accounted for the shape-change legends as well. The Wild Ones used the ability to hide and to survive.

  If I could just get my hands on a psych machine and convince somebody he was in a different sort of environment, it would work—but still not under real control. You would become an improvised monster, whatever your Wardens required for your survival.

  But how did the Wardens understand just what you needed in th’at instant you needed it? And from where did they get the incredibly sophisticated knowledge of biology to accomplish the change so quickly?

  We waited another five minutes, and I checked the roll. Ching had made it, although she was terribly confused and terrified by the shape change. Morphy had come through and one other, whose name I still didn’t know. Our guide through the sewers, though, was not here.

  We were becoming “human” again, and quickly, as the Wardens inside us sensed our changing environment. In fact, we were becoming our old selves, indicating that either the original pattern was always reverted to when the Wardens were “at rest” or that a strong sense of self-identity would reimpose it. The one thing that was not coming back was hair, I noted; and our skin remained that dark brown of the “monsters” we had briefly become.

  It was fascinating to watch my own arms slowly flow, change, rearrange back into the more familiar patterns. When we were humanoid enough to have full upright muscle control, I took one last look for a fourth head in the pool. Nothing. “We have to get moving. I think I see a patrol over there on the far side.”

  Morphy looked at me, then back at the pool. “But we’re still one short!”

  “Can’t be helped. Either she couldn’t change or she got plugged or caught. Either way, we can’t help her by getting caught or shot ourselves. Let’s move!”

  The one whose name I still didn’t know looked puzzled and confused. “Where? Where do we go now?”

  I sighed. “Somewhere else, of course. Follow me!” Then I was off along the top of the plant. Coming on some steps on the other side, I started down as laser tracers started illuminating the night. Once we hit the rather shallow river below, I just ran into it. and waded across to the other side, not even checking to see if the others were following. I didn’t have the time, and if they weren’t there, I couldn’t do anything about it anyway. I was heading for the forest located just on the other side of the river, and I wasn’t going to stop for anything until I made the cover of those trees.

  Suddenly I heard Morphy’s voice yell, “Drop!” and I didn’t wait to find out why. I dropped right into the water, which, by this time, was not deep enough to cover my body. After I was down, I raised my head a little and looked up, seeing what Morphy had seen. A small illuminated bubble with two TMS monitors in it was flying almost noiselessly down the river, shining a spotlight on the whole river course. I made a quick check to see that everybody was, indeed, down, then froze as the thing approached, passed right over us, and continued on. In this light, and with this shallow, rocky bed, we had to look like rocks to a copter going any speed at all. But I was pretty sure this wasn’t something TMS did every day; we were being pursued.

  When the lights disappeared, I stood up again and we all made it to the far bank and the cover of the trees. I finally allowed myself to let up a bit and collapsed on the ground. The others did the same, and it was a little while before any of us could talk.

  Finally I said, “Well, the age of miracles has returned. We got away with it sure enough.”

  Morphy looked back at me with a grim expression, then at the other two. Except for our coloration and the total absence of any body hair, we all looked pretty much as we had, although the transformation or whatever it was had split our flimsy clothes as well. “Stark naked, in an unknown wilderness, hunted like wild animals, and without a hair to our name, and he thinks he’s winning!”

  “Not to mention starving to death,” the strange woman put in.

  I grinned. “I am. We are—will—win. We didn’t go through all this to lose now. And if that tumble in the sludge didn’t teach you that we are survival machines, I don’t know what wiU. But I think we’ll have to get as far from here as we can tonight. I don’t think they’ll hunt us very far or long—it just isn’t worth it, even though we’re all going to be pretty wanted by this group.”

  “After those others tell about what you did back there when we were first captured, I’d say they’ll want you more than anybody,” Morphy replied. “What you did to those monitors wasn’t—human. I wonder if even you realize that you knocked over the armed monitor, grabbed her rifle, turned, killed four monitors, then whirled back to cover the others in something under five seconds?”

  “Five sec—” I was struck speechless for a moment. No wonder the job had seemed so easy! Five seconds for the entire thing! In my original fine-tuned body, maybe, just maybe, I could have done it, but here and now… knowing what to do and making your body do it are two different things. Ask any fifty-year-old space pilot. And yet, the answer to it was obvious.

  “I knew what to do,” I told her, “and the Wardens supplied the rest. I was under such tremendous tension, picking my position and mentally preparing for the moves, that the Wardens must have made the necessary survival adjustment—the same principle that turned us into whatever it was we had turned into briefly back there. If you had the knowledge and the will it would’ve worked for you, too. So you see, we’re not exactly helpless out here. We carry our protection with us. We were made for this planet—I almost said designed for it, and maybe that’s right—and this is Medusa, not those comfortable, sealed prisons we call cities here.”

  “That was some… strange thing that happened to us, you can’t say it wasn’t,” our mystery woman put in. “I never heard of anybody changing into anything else before, except maybe sex.”

  “That’s true,” I admitted, “but the system’s designed against it. We’re all kept in artificial, stable environments where that sort of thing just won’t happen. Even so, I’m sure it has, maybe when somebody’s gotten into an accident or was in danger of drowning or something. Transformations may occur every day. But if so, those people are rescued, hustled off to psychs, and put right. Even memories are sponged from the minds of people involved directly or of the people who observed it. And, by the way, I think we ought to know who you are. I’m Tarin Bul.”

  “Angi Patma, Construction Guild,” she responded. We made introductions all around. I was particularly concerned with the usually outgoing Ching, who now seemed quiet and sullen, still in shock. I walked over to her. “Come on—we’re gonna be fine,” I soothed.

  She looked up at me. “I know.”

  I frowned. “What’s wrong, hon? I was proud of you!” She was silent for a moment. Finally she said, “You killed four people, Tarin. Killed. And you’re not even a little sorry about it.”

  I sighed. “Listen, Ching—I had to do it. It was the only way. When someone is marching you off to your death, and happy to do it, he forfeits his own right to life. Those survivors—they’re still going to get those fifty-five or so who remained. None of them are going to be left alive, at least not without destroyed minds. That is a worse crime in my book. Remember, these people wer
e picked for TMS for the same reason everybody else on Medusa is picked for his job. They like bullying, scaring, and even killing people.”

  “Don’t you?”

  That stopped me for a moment. The fact was, I really did love my job, of course. But there was a difference. At least, I hoped there was. “I’m not interested in bullying or scaring anybody, except for that kind of person. People who like to hurt other people is who I hunt and get. That’s not so bad,, is it?”

  She didn’t seem sure, and the more I thought about it, neither was I. From birth I had been raised to believe in the Confederacy, in its perfection and its ideals. But, in that context, what was my job, anyway? The same as TMS here? To track down those who posed a threat to the Confederacy’s system—or who abused or perverted it—and send them to psychs, or to the Warden Diamond, or, on rare occasions, to their deaths. True, most of the Confederacy was a far better system than Ypsir’s Medusa, but the people here did in fact believe in that system, including those in TMS. In their minds they were no different from me. Did that make us different—or the same? Medusa was nothing if not a perversion—a distorted mirror image—of the Confederacy’s system and dreams. That must have been why I felt so uncomfortable with it.

  I rose to my feet. “Let’s get walking. They’ll have foot patrols through here anytime now, and we’ve already stayed too long. Let’s make all the time at night we can. We can talk on the way.”

  They did send a few patrols and copters after us, and we saw or heard them from time to time, but they made no more than a minimum effort, which simply wasn’t good enough. To their minds, being out in the wild was tantamount to being dead anyway, and nobody was really worth the kind of effort that would have been needed to track us down. Again it was Medusa’s own system that allowed us our freedom, although what sort of freedom remained to be seen.