by Linda Nagata
“You crazy, hah?” the man said, looking repeatedly between Van Ness and the case. “You shout. You talk self. No problem! I get cure, chase dat ghost right out!”
Nikko laughed. “A witch doctor! He thinks you’re nuts. He wants to help you.”
“Get away!” Van Ness shouted. “Get out of here!” He launched his foot at the case, sending it tumbling upside down. Vials bounced helter-skelter into the street. The man roared in fury, but Van Ness continued his assault, stepping far enough out of his room to kick the case again. It slammed into the canvas wall of a squatter’s tent erected just inside the gutter. The witch doctor started screaming imprecations. Perhaps he was a famous man; he certainly drew attention. Heads popped out of doors all along the front of the hotel. Sleeping beggars in the street began to stir. Van Ness panicked.
He jumped over the makeshift shelters that had sprouted like mushrooms on the street after midnight. Splashing through puddles of rain and excrement, he took off down the street. Nikko ran helplessly after him.
Whoops rang out behind them, and again, just ahead. Van Ness kept going until he reached the corner, then he risked a glance back. Two young men pursued him, their faces split by manic grins. Ahead, another youth holding a length of metal pipe blocked his way. Van Ness dodged past the boy.
A second later Nikko found himself cut off from the world, trapped in a terrifying cocoon of nonsensation. He couldn’t see, he couldn’t hear, he couldn’t smell, taste, or feel. Because Van Ness no longer had any of those senses. Van Ness was dead. Nikko wrote an address for home and fled before the atrium’s residual power ran down.
Nikko lay still for a time, staring down the length of the tether to the inhabited sector of Summer House three kilometers below. The experience Earth-side seemed like a dream, a very bad and vivid dream. But of course it was real. Van Ness was dead. And when the police recovered his body and deciphered his atrium notebook, Sandor would be a wanted man.
Silently, Nikko cursed himself. How could he have been so stupid as to give up Sandor’s identity?
He switched on his atrium, no longer concerned with the risk to himself. He had to synthesize another ghost. He had to hire a mule and find Van Ness’s body and destroy it—before Sandor was made to pay for his brother’s crimes.
Chapter
6
It was still night when Phousita awoke with a start. She shoved herself up on one elbow and stared at the eerie yellow bioluminescent glow of Arif’s sleeping face. Darkness lay thick all around her. She could hear the breathing of other sleepers, the light wash of rain against the roof, the drippity-drip of water where the roof had gotten leaky. She could smell the sweat on Arif’s body and the musty odor of the warehouse.
Yet the dream that had disturbed her played on, as if she were still asleep. She blinked and rubbed her eyes. No change. There was the old woman, kneeling on the corner of a nearly new woven mat, her wares spread out before her in the sunlight: powders ground from dried cat bones, amulets made of feathers and bits of plastic, the tails of rats, flayed, stretched, and dried (the old woman claimed it was snakeskin), black pumice carefully stored in a glass jar (the cinders of shooting stars), dried flower petals, bowls of foul-smelling liquids, mummified geckos, shiny beetles, nameless bugs. Every day the old woman had displayed her pharmacopoeia in the marketplace, offering charms and potions for every need. Here she was again.
Yet she was not here.
Phousita stared into the early morning darkness, listening to the rain, while sunlight baked down on her head and shoulders, and the old woman smiled up at her as she used to do when Phousita returned from an afternoon of foraging in the streets. How light Phousita felt under the glow of that smile! The old witch could inspire cheer in the worst of circumstances. Phousita loved her so. She greeted Phousita, jabbering in the hill dialect no one understood. Phousita smiled anyway, proudly showing off the bananas she’d found buried in a rubbish heap behind a little restaurant.
A mosquito whined in the darkness of the warehouse. Phousita slapped at it frantically. How could she be in two places at once? How could she see darkness and sunlight with equal clarity? Past and present as if they were two views from the same room?
She must have cried out, because suddenly Arif’s eyes were open, staring at her. She closed her own eyes as the old woman invited her to sit down in the shade of the cardboard box that served as a home for both of them when the market closed at night. “Arif!”
He took her hand, pulled her down in his arms. The hilt of the knife he wore strapped to his chest pressed painfully against her breast. “What is it?” he whispered.
She pressed her head against his chest. “The old woman—she’s here!” Phousita drew back and started to point, but was suddenly unsure of the direction. Finally, she indicated her head. “I can see her, as clearly as I see you,” she hissed. “She serves me water purchased from the water dealers while we eat the bananas I’ve found. She tells me it’s been a good day. Her charms enjoy a powerful reputation. Many people come to buy them. Soon she will have enough money to take me to the Chinese doctor. Can you see her, Arif?”
He shook his head and scowled. “Stupid old witch. We don’t need her. Tell her to leave.”
Instantly, she was gone. Phousita uttered a small cry of surprise. Tears sprang to her eyes. The old woman had been the first person to show her love. . . . “Arif!” She clenched his arm, her nails biting into his flesh. “It’s you. Now I can see you.”
He rolled her over on her back, stroked her belly as if she were a child. “Of course it’s me,” he crooned. “I’m right here.”
“No!” She stared past him into the darkness at a new vision. “It’s the first time I’ve ever seen you. That night with tuan, your master, in the foreign hotel near the mosque. Oooh, I’m so afraid. They say a ghost possesses you. Horrible night! How I want to leave. Don’t touch me! Are you an animal? I can smell the incense and the blood, your anger, everywhere. Tuan still holds the knife. They’ve beaten you, and you’re crying—”
He clapped a hand over her mouth. In a strangled voice, “Stop it!”
The scene vanished. Only darkness surrounded her now. She lay back against the floor, shaking. “It’s gone,” she whispered.
Arif stared down at her. He looked hurt, ashamed. He’d lived then as a slave in a brothel on the edge of the marketplace. His master had been a horrible man, but a great sorcerer. He’d enlisted a ghost to occupy Arif’s mind and command his body. It was the only way Arif could be controlled. But even that failed in the end, when Arif came upon a blade. While the ghost wandered, he cut out his master’s heart.
“I’m sorry,” Phousita whispered, reaching up to touch Arif’s lips. “But I was there. Again.” She groaned, as a horrible, cramping hunger announced its presence in her belly. She rolled on her side, then slowly sat up, one arm pressed against her stomach to ease the pain. “Come with me?”
He frowned suspiciously, his long, comical nose bending downward. “Where?”
She breathed quickly, shallowly, trying to subdue the pain. “To the foreign hotel. We never went hungry when we worked together.”
“We planted another tuan yesterday,” he growled. “There’ll be fluff in the morning.”
“I can’t wait until morning! I need more. Now.” She staggered to her feet. Around her, the breathing rhythm of the sleepers had changed. Many of them were awake, listening. She didn’t care. “Come with me, Arif.”
He shook his head, his gaze hard. He tried to grab her hand, but she dodged. With a little jump she cleared a body. She could hear the breathing. Someone pretending to sleep. She listened carefully to the soft noises around her and from them constructed a mental image of the room and its occupants. As if her ears had become eyes, she knew where everyone was, what they were doing. She darted away, her feet touching briefly on bare patches of floor and then she was free of the room, racing down the lightless corridor. Behind her she could hear Arif bellowing some unintelligible
order, but it was too late. She hit the door with her forearms. It sprang open. She ran out into the street, while the two Knives who’d been assigned to guard the door stared after her with startled faces.
She slowed for a moment, looking back at them. What was she doing? She and Arif had made a pact: no more prostitution. It was their conceit that they could live without it. They’d founded the clan on that bargain and rescued other children from that fate.
As if in answer, her stomach twisted with a cramp that doubled her over and left her gasping in agony. She was on her knees before the pain began to ease. “I have to eat,” she whispered. And the clan had no food left. “I have to eat!” There was never enough food. Too many mouths in the clan. Even with the riches they’d taken from tuan there wasn’t enough.
“Phousita!”
She looked up as Arif bounded out the door. Without thought, Phousita leapt forward to meet him. Her hand darted out. She snatched his knife from the sheath on his chest, then leapt back. Arif brought himself up sharply, poised, quivering at the point of the knife. She looked at the weapon in surprise. It was firmly clenched in her outstretched hand, the tip pressed against Arif’s chest. He glared at her, his eyes burning with betrayal. Her gaze darted back to the knife. Would she really use it against him?
Yes.
Tears streamed from her eyes as she pressed the blade a little harder against his chest. She could smell the blood as it trickled from the wound. “I love you, Arif.” But she could no longer control her own body. Something else lived inside her now, and it was stronger than she.
Too, it was very, very hungry.
“Arif, come with me, please. They always pay more for two.”
He nodded stiffly, his violet eyes like deep pits in the soft glow of his face. She lowered the knife. Her nostrils flared as she drank in the scent of him. He smelled of anger and of love. She turned and ran through the dark streets, making for the lights beyond the slums.
Later, much later, Phousita tried to apologize. “I’m sorry, Arif. I couldn’t help it. It’s dead tuan. He’s a powerful sorcerer and he commands me now. I had no choice.”
Morning had come. The sun peered around the corner of a huge department store across the street. Already, urgent crowds jostled on the sidewalk; vendors were setting up their stands. Taxis and trucks raced quietly past, oblivious of the wary pedestrians trying to cross the street.
Arif sat huddled beside the plastic wall of a market stall dealing in lamps and oils. He cried softly, his face hidden between his knees. Phousita sat patiently beside him. She watched perfect memories dance like visions behind her eyes while she waited for him to calm down. He always cried on the morning after (as if every time were his first time.) He’d never told her why.
Yet now she knew.
She gazed at him, her heart full of sympathy. She said: “Your mother used to sell you on the streets as a punishment for your wickedness. So the pain returns. You know she was right every time you sell yourself.”
He turned his head to look at her, tears still running down his swollen yellow cheeks. Anger narrowed his eyes. “You’re lying.”
She blinked. She’d spoken the truth. (But how did she know that?) Softly: “Perhaps she was not your mother.”
He bolted to his knees. His hands seized her throat and his strong fingers began to squeeze. “She was my mother,” he hissed. “She was! She lied when she said she’d found me. I was not thrown away! No one threw me away.”
Phousita couldn’t breathe. Darkness crept up on the edge of her vision. She gulped, then forced her body to go limp. As she collapsed to the sidewalk Arif let go. She lay still, her head swimming. For a moment she thought she might lose the bellyful of food she’d just bolted down. But the nausea passed. Arif took her hand, helped her up, then swept her into his arms, crooning over her like a child. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The woman in the market stand scowled at them, and Phousita tugged at Arif to get him to move on.
They walked nearly a mile, arm in arm, before Arif spoke again. “How did you know that about my mother?”
“I don’t know.” Phousita stared at the sidewalk, swept clean by the inhabitants who’d slept here last night. She’d been wondering the same thing. Certainly she hadn’t known it yesterday. And Arif had said nothing overnight. “I think . . . I didn’t know it. It was just on my tongue, and I said it. Perhaps dead tuan put the words in my mouth. He must be an evil sorcerer.”
She stopped before a booth that sold thin strips of barbecued meat skewered on steel picks. She slipped a coin from her sarong and paid it to the vendor. Though her belly was still swollen with food, she could feel the hunger stirring again, as if the spirit that rode her knew she would find nothing more once they returned to the riverfront. She offered meat to Arif, but he refused, his face tight with despair. He’d eaten nothing. It was a covenant of the clan that all food should be saved and shared at the evening meal. So she’d betrayed everyone, not just Arif. Guilt tried to work at her, but it was drowned by the heavenly taste of the barbecue. She finished the meat, then carefully licked every trace of fat from the picks before returning them to the vendor. She and Arif moved on. Several minutes later: “I know things that I cannot know.”
Arif looked at her warily.
“I know that tuan who bought us last night has a wife he loves dearly and two grown daughters, both employed by the Commonwealth.”
“It’s possible,” Arif allowed.
“I’m not guessing. I know this.”
“I don’t.”
“Ah.” His doubt didn’t disturb her. She could see clearly in her mind the steady sequence of unfolding memories, her own, and others she didn’t recognize. She smiled. The vendor at the barbecue stand had been much impressed by her unusual figure: a well-endowed woman, perfectly proportioned, in a body no larger than that of a slight eight-year-old girl. “Why do you suppose tuan is willing to pay so much for sex with freaks like us?” she asked.
“Who cares?”
She shrugged, remembering again the face of the angel. This was not the face of dead tuan whom she’d found in the river. So who might this angel be?
It would be good to find him, she realized.
She glanced shyly at Arif. “I think I’m becoming a witch.” She waited for some reaction from him, but he said nothing. He stared straight ahead as they walked, carefully avoiding the squatters who occupied the way. She tried again: “Dead tuan that we pulled from the river was an evil sorcerer, and he’s turned me into a witch.” She’d been approaching that conclusion all morning. Now that she’d said it out loud, she felt inordinately pleased. She’d always admired the old woman for her ability to cure people with her potions and charms. And the Chinese doctor: he was the greatest sorcerer of all, almost a god.
“If you become a witch, we won’t have to whore again,” Arif said.
Phousita smiled and nodded. “Yes. That’s so.”
Chapter
7
Kirstin Adair sat on her balcony, drinking tea and attending to the backlog of calls that had accumulated during her hour with Nikko. She pulled them up one by one from the majordomo program into her atrium: a succession of routine business and little emergencies well-known to any high-level administrator. After almost thirty years as Chief of Police she could handle them with unconscious ease.
Individual cases rarely came to her attention. Most were routine violations of ordinance: the inclusion of illicit genetic material at conception; proscribed neurological and physiological talents; assault Makers—germ weapons designed to force deleterious or illegally advantageous mutations in target individuals; terrorist Makers, designed to attack essential elements of cities/corporations/families/individuals; Makers designed to spy on corporate competition or estranged lovers; Makers possessing generalized machine intelligence; Makers possessing self-aware personalities; unregistered behavioral viruses; unregulated modification of plants or animals or the creation of artificial plants or animals; duplicate pers
onas existing in duplicate bodies.
Molecular technologies had allowed the Celestial Cities to be built; they’d been used to restore many of Earth’s ecosystems. But molecular technologies demanded limits. They could not be allowed to run wild, or Gaia would be broken, torn to pieces, and the pieces changed so that they could never be put back together again. These days, it was the function of the police to ensure that never happened. But the war had been going on long before the Commonwealth, and Kirstin had been part of it even then.
She’d been lucky. She’d had a daddy who’d been a professional adventurer, a movie maker, a writer, and a rugged philosopher never short on grants and sponsors to fund his next expedition. He’d had only contempt for the heated, sound-insulated, locked, and guarded comfort of a condominium, and he had custody of his daughter during the northern summers. He taught her to be strong: physically, emotionally, and intellectually. To be sensitive: to the presence of a greater entity around her. In South America, New Zealand, Antarctica, the Himalayas: she learned to sense the voice of the natural world. Gaia spoke in a complex language of predator and prey, of growth and dormancy, of birth and migration, of seasonal change, of storms, of currents, and finally, of cruelty and death and necessity.
Over a succession of summers Kirstin had come to feel part of the natural world, perfectly adapted to it, one strand in a web hung in four dimensions, spanning billions of years, a creative system of immeasurable potential.
Then summer would end, and she’d be thrust back into the crowded, mechanical, parasitic isolatorium of the city. She stood out from the pack at school like a wild marten amongst trained rats, her individuality drowning in a sea of sheltered classmates. The rat packs lived their lives between the air-conditioned mall, the air-conditioned condo, the air-conditioned school, and they thought they were elemental because they moved in tribes and carried guns and knew how to lie to mommy. Disconnection. Cold winter: Daddy had come five thousand miles just to see her. Now he was lying in the street outside Mommy’s condo, blood welling from his mouth, cut down by trained rats. Kirstin saw it happen. But she never screamed. She never cried. Instead, she woke up to the truth: Gaia was under attack by an infestation of human rats feeding on the carnage of unsustainable technological explosions that tore through the body of the Goddess like bullets, blood oozing from the ruptured web of life.