Deserter

by Mike Shepherd

  She didn’t have to worry; all five were stretched out on seats, dead to the world. After a moment, Kris stretched out, merging into their tiny herd. She followed when landing bells awoke them and sent them yawning for the exits. Beret down, coat held close, she slumped her way through the terminal and out onto Heidelburg’s streets. NELLY, WE’LL NEED A CAB.

  I SUSPECTED YOU WOULD WANT TRANSPORTATION TODAY. TURN RIGHT; A CAB WILL DRIVE BY SOON.

  Kris followed Nelly’s instructions. Half a minute after she began walking down Second Street, an orange cab drove past her and pulled over to the curb. Abu Kartum got out, leaned against his car, and began to whistle something that sounded vaguely Irish.

  HERE’S OUR RIDE FOR THIS MORNING, Nelly said.

  NELLY, I DON’T WANT THIS POOR MAN IN THIS MESS.

  WE CAN ARGUE LATER WHEN WE ARE IN THE CAB. I SUGGEST YOU TELL HIM YOU NEED A RIDE HOME.

  AUNTIE TRU IS DEFINITELY HEARING ABOUT THIS AS SOON AS WE GET BACK, Kris told her computer but kept a plaintive smile on her face. “I need a ride home. I’m feeling kind of wobbly.”

  “You spitting up blood?” Abu said, edging away from her.

  Damn, I forgot about the Ebola thing. “No fever. I think it was something I ate,” Kris said, rubbing her tummy.

  That seemed to satisfy him. He opened the door for her. “Where to?”

  NELLY!

  “Two nine six four,” Kris repeated as Nelly fed her an address, “Northwest 173rd Street.”

  “You live a long way out to work on the beanstalk.”

  “I usually take the, er . . . trolley,” Kris said as Nelly provided the word for local mass transit.

  “It’ll be a bit of a drive. I’ll try to cut you a deal. Slump down so a taxi cop doesn’t get me,” the man said as he put the cab in gear without touching the meter.

  “Thank you,” Kris said and tried to make herself smaller.

  “I know you?” the cabby said, glancing in a mirror that let him see his fare.

  “I don’t think so. I don’t take the cab very often.”

  “But you did last week.”

  “I doubt it.”

  “I don’t forget hats. Not beanies with fancy pom-poms.”

  “I just got it at a secondhand store.”

  “Yeah, and I got my draft notice in yesterday’s mail.”

  “Draft notice?” Kris hadn’t heard about that. Then again, how long had it been since she’d asked Nelly for a news update?”

  “Yeah, come any planetary emergency as announced by the government, I’m expected to report for weapons training. Me with six kids to feed, and I’m going to be out of my cab and learning how to shoot a gun. You know what they’re going to pay me?”

  “No.”

  “Neither do I. Nothing on the news. Nothing in the letter they sent me. Nothing my eldest boy could find on the net. It’s just here, and it’s like no one knows anything about it.”

  “I don’t either.” NELLY, SEARCH.

  I AM SEARCHING. HE IS RIGHT; THERE IS NOTHING.

  STOP THE SEARCH. LET’S NOT CALL ATTENTION TO OURSELVES TODAY. DON’T DO ANYTHING SOMEONE COULD USE TO LOCATE US.

  THAT WAS MY INTENTION FOR TODAY. THEN YOU ASKED FOR A SEARCH, AND I DID IT. I SHOULD HAVE ARGUED WITH YOU.

  YES, YOU SHOULD HAVE. NOW SHUT UP.

  “I really don’t know any more about this than you do,” Kris told the driver.

  “I should think a Princess would know more than a cabby.”

  “Princess?” Kris tried to make it sound like a question.

  “Yes, Princess Kristine. I saw you dragging the little girl out of the lake yesterday. I thought I knew who you were last week. Why are you in my cab?”

  “I am asking for a ride home. I’m dressed as a maid in a Hilton uniform. That is all you need to know. Anyone asks you, you can tell them that, and you’ll be as safe as I can make you.”

  The cab stopped behind a bus. Abu turned to Kris. “And you think that will make me safe. People are disappearing. You don’t think a man like me, a lowly cabby, knows these things. Things are going on that I do not like.”

  “I know. I didn’t want to involve you, but when I ordered a cab, my computer ordered you. I’m sorry. I can get out here.”

  Kris heard a click as the doors locked. “What makes you think I do not want to be involved in what you are doing?”

  “Nobody else does. At least, none of my friends.”

  “Your friends live on Turantic?”

  “No,” Kris admitted.

  “Well I do live here. And I am starting to feel that if I do not get involved in something I do not know about, then I will become involved in something I do not want to be involved in. I do not like this talk of war.” He turned back to traffic. “I do not like this talk of drafting me to fight someone else’s war.”

  “I hear this talk of war,” Kris said. “But I don’t see how Turantic can fight a war. It has no Navy, no Army, no nothing.”

  “It soon will have me in that Army you say we do not have.”

  “So it seems. But listen, I am—” Kris bit her tongue. “I may break some Turantic laws sometime in the future. I can’t let you become involved in something that could put you in prison. Your children and your brother’s children need you.”

  “So, I will not let you involve me in any such crimes,” the cabby said, smiling into his mirror. “Do you want to change the address I am taking you to?”

  NELLY?

  NO CHANGE.

  “Just keep taking me there. It might not be the right address, though. I may need to go someplace else.”

  “No problem. I will take you anywhere you want today.”

  The sun came up, a red glare that quickly disappeared into a leaden overcast that left the air heavy and the day shaded in grays. NELLY, HOW WELL DO YOUR NANOS HANDLE RAIN?

  NOT VERY WELL.

  “Is there a weather channel here, Mr. Kartum?”

  “You may call me Abu, Your Highness; my friends all do,” the cabby said, punching the media station on his dashboard to life.

  “And my friends all call me Kris.”

  “Kris, a knife and a long knife. You must be very sharp.”

  “Pardon,” Kris said as the announcer told her there was a forty percent chance of showers today.

  “A kris is a knife, very sharp, used by the sacred warriors of an Islamic sect. It dates from long ago on Earth.”

  “I remember reading something about them.” Kris had, when she was thirteen or fourteen, come across that alternate meaning of her name and promptly forgotten it. A girl rapidly becoming a woman had not chosen to dwell on the reminder that she could be a deadly weapon. It was bad enough just being a Longknife without having to juggle other sharp objects.

  “Maybe today it will help you to be as sharp as you need to be,” the cabby said into his rearview mirror.

  Their drive took them from a pleasant jumble of homes and small businesses into a serious industrial park. Gray factories, even a few with belching smokestacks, sprawled next to each other, separated only by parking lots and clumps of apartment buildings or bars. Abu turned a corner and slowed to a halt where the road separated a slate-gray four-story apartment complex from a dirty brown industrial complex of huge, boxy structures.

  “This is the address you gave me.”

  “I don’t think this is the place,” Kris said, opening the door. “But I won’t know until I look around. I’m going to walk a few blocks and see if I can spot the place.” She got out, glanced over the apartments, then ducked her head back into the cab. “If this isn’t the place, I might need a cab three or four blocks down the road.”

  “Then you might find one if you look hard enough.”

  Kris plodded slowly along the cracked sidewalk. Men and women, dressed for dirty work, crossed her path, dodged cars, and passed through two heavily guarded gates in a tall fence, topped with a serious-looking roll of barbed wire. No uninvited human was entering that place.

 
So Nelly ordered nano spies up and away. Kris carefully did not look at the plant. In an hour, she would know everything there was to know. But for now, she knew nothing and would learn nothing. One of the decisions Kris had made last night was to forgo telemetry. The risk of discovery was too great. Like ancient Mata Hari, these spies would report only in person.

  Kris walked five blocks and was at the end of the plant when she spotted a cab. It stood by the far curb . . . empty.

  Waiting nervously for the light to change, Kris debated continuing on a straight line past the cab. There were no police cars, no sign of an arrest. She crossed the street when the light brought traffic to a halt, then breathed in relief.

  Abu knelt on the sidewalk, his prayer rug beneath him, bowing to the east. Kris started to walk past him, but he rose from his prayers. “Lady, you look like you could use a ride.”

  “I sure could,” Kris agreed.

  “My obligation to my business and my children kept me from praying at sunrise, but Allah is most understanding. Now that I have made my morning prayers, let me continue with my duty to you.”

  Kris made to get in the back, but with a slight touch to her elbow, Abu pointed her at the front seat. “If I am to drive you around without my meter running, you must look like my sister’s daughter,” he said, pointing at the two lights on the sign that rode atop the cab. Kris took the offered place as Abu walked around to the driver’s side. He pulled into traffic, adding, “If Abu is seen driving around with an attractive young infidel, there are those who might talk or wonder. If, however, you wore a properly modest head cover, there would be fewer questions.”

  “I don’t own any head cover,” Kris told him. She didn’t even own a tiara. There was little left after Nelly used all the smart metal and salvaged the gold to make reel-out antennas.

  “There is a respectable shawl in the glove compartment. My wife left it. Sometimes she goes places in town where a shawl is not respected. Allah is most understanding, unlike some people.”

  “Is it hard to follow your faith?”

  “Is it hard to be a Longknife, to be so different?”

  “Yes,” Kris agreed.

  “Then maybe Allah has shown you a little of what he sends his faithful.”

  “Could you turn here?”

  Abu changed lanes, then made a left. They were a block past the factory into an area of eateries, bars, and small apartments.

  “Is this where you want to be left?”

  “Yes. I need to be here about a half hour, maybe longer.”

  Abu frowned as he pulled over. “This is not a good place to hang around. I will have to drive off.”

  “I’ll have Nelly call you,” Kris said as she got out.

  “Leave the scarf. This is no place for a woman of faith.”

  “I can take care of myself,” Kris assured him.

  “If Allah wills it,” he said and left her.

  Kris watched him go, then glanced around. Working class. Problem was, she wasn’t working. Maybe she hadn’t thought this through as well as she thought. Her stomach rumbled; Kris hadn’t had breakfast. That answered what to do next. The pom-pom on her beret was broadcasting a homing signal for the nanos, so she needed to stay outside. That answered where to eat.

  A truck claiming to be Mama’s Place slumped in a dirt parking lot half a block down, selling quick breakfasts to people coming off shift. Kris joined the crowd. Men and women stifled yawns and scrubbed at tired eyes as they waited. Some still had energy to gripe. “I swear to God, they’re speeding up the line.” “You’ re just slowing down.” “No, they are speeding up the line. I’m gonna talk to the union stew; they can’t do that.” “I did talk to the union rep, and they are and they can and you better just be happy you got a job.” “Ain’t that what they always say.” “Well, maybe having this job means we won’t have to worry about that draft notice I got yesterday.” “Why not?” “They don’t draft people making the guns the army needs.” “Who says we’re making guns?” “And what do you think that box is you’re putting together, an eggbeater?” “It ain’t no gun.” “If it ain’t a targeting system, I’ll eat it.” “And if you keep running your mouth, you’ll be begging them to draft you. The jail they’ll put you in ain’t gonna be nice.”

  Kris stood at the head of the line; she ordered a breakfast burrito of rice and beans, added a potato fry, and got a juice for free in a meal deal. As she reached for money, it dawned on her paying with a Wardhaven bill might not be the brightest idea of the day. She dug in her pocket, keeping her money out of sight and getting a “You do have money for this, cutie,” from the old man purporting to be Mama. She produced five dollars, Turantic, and got a few coins in change and her meal.

  Most people scattered to their homes, but a few hung around the other side of the truck where a makeshift counter hung. It gave those with nowhere to go a place to set their food as they stood and ate. Kris took up a small corner. Talk was low and generally about the coming war. Half seemed to think Hamilton had done everything that had gone wrong for the last six months, or maybe forever. Others thought Wardhaven was at the root of the trouble, or at least cooperating with Hamilton.

  “We take on Wardhaven, we’re going to need help.” “I hear Greenfeld can stand up to those Wardhaven snooties.” “Yeah, I expect Greenfeld can fight till the last drop of Turantic blood.” “You like those Wardhaven snobs?” “I don’t like Greenfeld. Any way you cut your cards, they’re bad blood.” “They’re our friends if we need them to fight our enemies.” “I say we need better friends and fewer enemies.” “I hear some Hamilton thugs beat up a woman last night.” “No, you got that confused with the Wardhaven cruds that tried to kidnap that girl off her sailboat yesterday.” “I heard on the news they both happened.” “No, you got it all wrong.”

  Kris backed away from the counter before anyone came to blows. Walking down the street, she reviewed what she’d heard. Weapons . . . this was probably some kind of weapons plant. She and Nelly had worked so hard to patch together the nano spies from a bit of jewelry only for her to learn what she wanted by just hanging around a lunch wagon and eating a burrito.

  WE WILL HAVE MORE SPECIFICS WHEN THE NANOS COME BACK, Nelly said, a tinge of defensiveness in her voice.

  THAT WE WILL HAVE, Kris agreed.

  But the nanos’ pictures would not show the confusion boiling in people’s minds. Was it Hamilton or Wardhaven or Greenfeld that was their enemy? Lots of differing opinions. All the facts kept being turned upside down. With no communications off planet and all kinds of things happening on planet, people were left in the dark and swatting at everything. Kris wished she knew more about Turantic, more about these people before all hell started nibbling at them, driving them crazy.

  As Kris rambled under gray skies, the nanos reported in. THE FIRST FIVE ARE BACK. THEY REPORT NO ENCOUNTERS WITH HOSTILE NANO GUARDS, Nelly reported.

  WHAT DID THEY FIND?

  I AM CORRELATING THE DATA.

  Kris pulled a pair of glasses from her pocket. Nelly began to run schematics across the lenses. It looked like the place was putting together thirteen-millimeter antirocket lasers. Nice for defending small ground units, but not what she was looking for. More nanos showed up, identifying a production line full of four-inch secondary batteries for cruisers or the main lasers for small destroyers.

  WE HAVE A STRANGE NANO BUZZING AROUND US, Nelly announced.

  CONVERT IT OR KILL IT.

  THAT IS WHAT I AM DOING.

  Kris paused in her walk, turned her back on the plant, and studied a building offering studio apartments by the week. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted Abu’s cab. He paused at a stop sign, then turned right and headed away from her. Kris tried humming a tune but found her mouth too dry to do much more than blow air. Above her, a crackling sound told her Nelly had resorted to destruction before the computer said, I HAD TO KILL THAT ONE. IT WAS STARTING TO TRANSMIT.

  Kris sauntered toward the street she’d last seen Abu
on. Two minutes later, he pulled up beside her. She got in. “Drive as fast as the speed limit allows and change directions randomly.”

  “Are you in trouble?” the cabby said, doing as she asked.

  “I don’t think so. But why make it easy for the bad guys?”

  “Put on the scarf. I know some very random streets.”

  In three minutes, they were weaving in and out of traffic on a series of roads that had to have been laid out by a exceedingly drunken cow. Kris left the driver to his own devices while she reviewed what she had and what she wanted. Small arms for an army or even secondary lasers for ships was interesting, but she wanted the main battery for a fleet. An army could be defensive or offensive. A fleet, at least a large one, was anything but defensive. And to arm ships, you needed very big lasers and capacitors. That meant very big factories. Kris went down Nelly’s list, hunting for the largest.

  There it was, about as far on the other side of town as it could be. I PLANNED THAT ONE FOR LAST, Nelly said, JUST BEFORE WE HEADED HOME.

  THAT SOUNDED GOOD LAST NIGHT, BUT IF THEY’VE GOT NANO GUARDS AT THIS LITTLE SHOP, I HAVE A HUNCH WE’D BETTER DO THE MOST INTERESTING TARGET FIRST. WE MAY NOT GET ANOTHER CHANCE.

  HUNCH, Nelly said. INTERESTING CONCEPT. YET YOUR ROUTE DEFIES PATTERN ANALYSIS. IT IS ALSO NOT THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN TARGETS. IT IS NOT ECONOMICAL.

  BUT IT MAY SURPRISE THE OPPOSITION AND KEEP US ALIVE.

  I BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND “SURPRISE.”

  Kris told Abu her next target. He greeted it with a scowl. “I know it’s a bit out of our way,” she said.

  “That is not the problem,” he said, bringing up a map. “There is only one way into that plant. See these communities. They are gated now. I cannot use those roads.”