Archangel

by Marguerite Reed

  “They fired the weapons,” I said. Damn my wobbly voice. “They had a choice. That radiation weapon—” I cleared my throat. “Knowing the effects, how could you use that on a person? Even an enemy? How bloodthirsty would you have to be?”

  András sank further back into the cushions. “Vashti, mind if I puff up in here? I’m gaffed for a smoke.”

  “No,” I said. “You’re not so gaffed you can’t wait. Please.”

  Numair sighed. On the table between the two couches rested a palm; he leaned forward and pushed it to me. “Read it,” he said. “I hate to see Ubastis become known only for turning its back on humanity.”

  “The Beast isn’t human,” András said. “Are they engineering souls in the lab along with the DNA?”

  The centuries-old argument. “Everything living has a soul,” I said reflexively.

  “Even after what you’ve shown us today, can you say that?” András returned.

  Laila turned her mild eyes on András. “You, the governor, and I all owe some of our makeup to ‘the lab.’ Are we then as inhuman as a Beast?”

  “What happened at Wadjet—” András began.

  “—Wasn’t human,” I finished. We slid a look across the space between us.

  Laila adjusted the folds of her scarf, running her fingertips between her hairline and the edge of the material. Moistened her lips. Steepled her fingers. When she spoke, it was in the tones of a loving but admonitory teacher. “You want to force someone to pay for the actions of others. Killing him will redeem nothing, and only endanger yourself.”

  I pressed the heel of my hand to my forehead, gritting my teeth. “I saved his life, Laila.”

  “You did what?” András’s voice lashed out like the whip of a monitor’s tail.

  “He seized up in Q—”

  “And you saved him?”

  “Moira linked me in the middle of the night.”

  “You? Why didn’t she call the doctor?”

  “She did, after I made her.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “She wanted to keep it a secret. She trusted me to do that.”

  “She’s an idiot,” András said, then glanced a look at Numair. “She’s your wife, Ximenez, but she’s an idiot.”

  “Moira,” Numair said, “thinks it’s easier to apologize than ask permission.”

  “She’s broken so many laws I don’t know where to begin.” András began ticking his fingers. “Smuggling, first of all. Bypassing Lazarette quarantine. Bringing an uncleared person planetside—I’d hate to see his psych profile! Acquisition of a deadly weapon.”

  “Oh, that last,” Laila said, shaking her head. “We might all be guilty of that. Any human can kill another.”

  “Yes, but none of us were specifically created to do so. He’s a crime against science and God.” András glowered at me. “And you were going to be complicit? You should have let him die in Q. You were all too happy to fry his brain in the medbay.”

  “He attacked me.”

  “But you did provoke it,” Laila interjected. “You went in there with the specific intent of getting some kind of reaction out of him.”

  “I wanted to warn him,” I said.

  Laila’s elegant brows lifted. “I looked at the vid. You taunted him, both verbally and physically, you touched him inappropriately—” A strangled sound from András that turned into a cough “—And you struck him. One might draw the conclusion that you didn’t go in there to kill him; that in fact you went in there to die.”

  Cold washed through me. I looked down at my hands. I could no longer speak, but let the discussion, more and more heated, flow past.

  How could I weigh my debt to Moira? How deeply had Moira seen into me? Despite the swamp of counselors that UBI had forced me to wallow in after Lasse’s death, none of them had ever succeeded in sufficiently permeating my psyche. That cancer of agony had remained inviolate.

  Moira had met me when I’d walked out of the Psych Center in Lazarette 6, took my hand, and said, I have a little problem that I suspect only you can help me with. I’ve acquired an animal, and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

  So, the cheetah. Mumtaz took me out of myself, forced me to work, and became a focus for the emotion that had threatened to poison me. Some months later, Moira and I were walking home from a dance when she’d looked at me sidelong and asked, Was any of Lasse’s sperm banked?

  “Fuck the law,” I said abruptly. “This is not about the law.”

  “You’re right,” said Laila, her gaze still on me. “This is about vengeance.”

  A growl rasped my throat. I snatched up the palm Numair had offered to me and began reading at random, out loud, blatantly fleeing. “‘Dear Ubastis Integral, how are you? I am asking you about your way of living. It is not at all good because you don’t let anyone visit you. Why don’t you all change your perception? Children in space want to be friendly to Ubastis and other belonging galaxy people. Yours lovingly, Anjuli.’” I lowered the palm to my lap and stared, gape-mouthed, at Numair. “What in the name of—what is this?”

  “Schoolchildren,” Numair said. “Little People’s Party schoolchildren writing to UBI as a class exercise.”

  I accessed the next letter. “‘Dear UBI Expansionists,’” I read. “‘Hi! I have been brought up in the Party for the People and I want to tell you that you are liars. You blame People’s Party and profiteers for all ills. You are few on a rich planet while mothers and children in stations go hungry sometimes. It must be beautiful there. I wish I could see a real sun and walk on real grass. Please write me soon, Chaz.’”

  “Dear Chaz,” András said, throwing himself against the cushions. “By all means, please come any time. Come tomorrow, in fact. Bring Anjuli. Bring your family, bring your friends! Indulge in amazing bursts of population—turn millions of people into billions of people! Help yourself to all the natural resources here before we figure out what the hell they are, and if you’re bored, fuck up the atmosphere, fuck up the water, and kill off a few thousand species. Come on, Chaz, it’s your right as a human being! Go get ‘em, Cadet!”

  “Every time the vote comes up, the Symps and the People’s Party relax their sphincters for a torrent of propaganda,” Laila said. “On Theta—what city is it? Springville, I think—a liquid crystal wall was installed three years ago, running a series of children’s faces. And in the upper left corner is an inset with a strobe. The caption says that in the time it takes for the light to flash, one child will die because he or she wasn’t included in admission to Ubastis.”

  “That’s not true,” I said, shocked.

  Laila came as close as she ever did to rolling her eyes. “The radicals don’t care what’s the lie and what’s the truth. As long as it serves them.”

  “We’re radicals, too,” I said.

  “A little more concerned with truth,” Numair said, shaking his head.

  “Oh, sure,” András said. “We’re the good guys. Truth, justice, and the galactic way, that’s us.” He pushed himself up from the couch and began pacing, running his hand over and over again through his dark hair until it stood up like the pelt of a hostile wulanghari. “Why can’t they just let us alone? Hasn’t anyone learned anything over the centuries? The moment any discovery is made, the People’s Party has its greedy hands snatching for it like a toddler. Sorry, Vashti.”

  “I won’t argue with the metaphor,” I said.

  He gave me a sharp nod. “And every time the vote cycles around again, they’re goddamn caterwauling through the galaxy. It should be a moot point! Hell, there never should have been the option of a vote! UBI should have just said choke on it, you sons of bitches, and wait your turn. The way time is measured anymore, what should it matter? When a corporation can be built and run entirely for the benefit of a grandchild not even fertilized yet, why the fuck should waiting sixty more years for immigration matter?”

  I scrolled. “‘Dear Integral,’” I read. “‘I’m so happy when I think about your planet. I dream about the li
feforms and plantforms. I am doing wonderfully in all of my classes. My parents already did the application for me to be admitted to Fourth Wave. I think it would be very fun to live underwater, don’t you? The teachers are telling us it’s wrong that we can’t come earlier and for us to do admonishing, but I agree with the Pokeys. Love always, Baobao. P.S. Don’t tell anyone.’”

  “Heartwarming tapioca,” András said. “They passed that letter so they don’t look like a bunch of little Symp clones. They probably pulled Baobao’s pigtails until she got it right.”

  Numair cleared his throat. All of us, even András, burning on his own frustration like a white dwarf, focused on him. A ghost of humor in his expression heightened his camelid features. “How could this Beast make himself useful to us?”

  “Bait,” András said promptly. “Vashti can take him on one of her terrible lizard hunts and stake him out like a flimsy rider on an ethics bill. She’ll satisfy her trick’s bloodlust and eliminate a nasty little problem all at the same time.”

  “Captain, do you recognize the cruelty of others because you know it in yourself?” Laila asked. She shook her head. “It’s my perception that many Second Wave share this trait.”

  “Survival,” I said. “First Wave got here before the shock wore off. Fourth Wave might make us look like nannies.”

  “Currently there are five—no, six cities on the entire planet,” Numair said.

  “Six?” András interrupted.

  “Qetta just received its compact,” Numair said. “One reason why I was up at L-5 so long. That means that more applications will be passed. That should bring the population up to a little more than seven thousand.”

  “Good timing,” Laila said.

  “They’ll want more,” András said gloomily. He returned to the sofa and dropped into his original spot.

  Numair’s gaze reverted to the window. “One more citizen isn’t going to hurt anything.”

  András’s squawk rang senselessly in my ears. I stared at Numair. “I have no quarrel with one more citizen, Governor, but if you’re thinking what I perceive you to be—”

  “I am.”

  “Then I do object to that.”

  “He’s here, and there’s nothing we can do about it. We can complain all we like about what he is, how he got here, and whose fault it is, but it will change nothing. We cannot execute him; we cannot send him back as if he were a faulty part.”

  “Why doesn’t Moira take possession—”

  “The matter is out of her hands. Moira is in detention.”

  Both András and Laila appeared to find the floor enthralling. Now I, too, wanted a window to look out of—I felt as if my basal temperature had dropped a couple of degrees.

  “Your own wife . . .” I managed to say.

  Numair’s brown eyes were completely without guile, clearer than a child’s. “And your best friend.”

  I found myself on my feet. “I want to see her.” Then, to András, “You knew about this?”

  “You think someone gets to detention without my thumbprint?” The words were bolder than the expression on his face.

  I took a step away from him as a thought uncoiled in my brain. “You’re not thinking of taking me in, too?”

  He shot up. “Are you scrambled? Could you possibly be any—”

  “Get out of my face, András—”

  Laila’s voice rapped out. “Both of you sit down.”

  We sat, sulkily, side by side. “Bitch,” he muttered.

  “Faggot,” I hissed.

  His hand snuck out and caught mine. I squeezed it. He held on, his dry warm skin a comfort. “All right,” I said. “All right. We can put him into the Net and see if any of the cities or outposts can use him. A physical assignment should be no problem.”

  “We slip in another trigger, one that works—”

  I released András’s hand in my sudden excitement. “If you can put something in, you can take something out.”

  The three of them looked at me quizzically.

  “He should have a chip,” I said. “Some kind of identifier. If we have that, we can learn more.”

  Numair looked at Laila, who nodded. “Schedule him for surgery, then,” he said.

  “I’ll walk you downstairs,” I said to András, and we trotted down the two flights to the glassed-in agora that ran the length of the first street between the cliff and open-air New Albuquerque. Wordlessly: my head still crackled with the picture of Moira in detention. Had she suspected she would be taken in? Why hadn’t she called me? Did she think I’d been the one to instigate her arrest? The low, slow chugging of the ventilators, usually as lulling as a heartbeat, seemed to mock my nerves.

  “If you could send him off into the bush, that would solve a few problems,” András said.

  I stumbled when my next step met only level floor, and saved myself from running into someone by grabbing András’s sleeve.

  The sun reposed in the sky at an angle that set the glass ablaze; the original architect—requested from Earth, if I remember, fifty years ago—had recognized the potential for such a setting and had commissioned artists to inlay one massive section of the wall with colored glass. As if in a fantastically huge holo, the floor and the passers-by were engulfed in pigment every morning. My eyes rang with gold. Amethyst András chuckled, even while he cast about like a seeking theropod.

  “Send him out. On one of your damned hunts. How long do you think he’d last out there? Crunch-crunch; oh, so sorry; wild animals, natural habitat, prey item, oops.”

  “That’s ghastly,” I replied, automatically. In the sun’s amber-diluted dazzle I saw death. Death, even for that big strong body, could arrive in so many ways. Every moment out in the bush was fraught with danger, from the known and the unknown. The cloud-white, succulent blossom of the clytemnestra plant exuded the fragrance of nectar into the air and yet was studded with thorns all around the interior of the corolla. An over-inquisitive or hungry animal, drawn by the scent, received for its investigation only a scratched tongue or muzzle. The porous thorns were actually part of the root system, using whatever blood the creature left as a supplement to the nutrients absorbed from the soil. A gluttonous bastard of a plant that smelled like heaven and caused virulent blood poisoning in humans. Only one of a thousand ways to die on Ubastis—one might meet up with a charging axehead. Rock slides. Venom bite. Or, if need be, a stray bullet. “Laila’s right.”

  “She’s what? Dammit, do you see Jamalu anywhere?”

  I did see Jamalu, sitting on a bench under a tree sculpture some meters away. Neat and economical Jamalu, legs crossed, sleek lines draped in a flawlessly cut kurta. From time to time one hand would lift a kief stick indolently to his chiseled mouth.

  “What Laila said. Do you agree?”

  “Laila said a lot. Or, rather, she didn’t. Which preachy sentiment are you referring to?”

  “About vengeance.”

  “Come on. Doesn’t take Enhancement to see that. You go in there with your husband’s bloody shirt—Christ, that was medieval.”

  “I’m surprised Haas didn’t turn me in. What’s the matter with me? Is it because I’m a Natch?” That last rang louder than I would have liked. Even Jamalu heard it, and rose to his feet, with a shrugging little lift of his brows.

  It got András’s attention, though. He stopped and peered at me, as if at the face of a stranger almost recognized. “I know I talk . . . but you—you burn a lot hotter than most of us.”

  “I don’t have any flame-retardant in my DNA,” I said, then relented. “Jamalu’s right over there.” I jerked my chin in his direction and András dropped me like a raddied sample.

  They flowed together into an embrace, András taking the kief stick from Jamalu and dragging deeply. Without exhaling he pulled Jamalu into an open-mouthed kiss, wrist against the back of Jamalu’s neck; while Jamalu, a smile curling the corner of his mouth, flattened his palms against András’s shoulder blades and sealed their bodies from nipple to knee. In
the amber from the sun-struck wall they drowned.

  The sight of them shook me with hunger. It wasn’t my mouth that was watering, but it may as well have been, the way I stared. Out of the corner of his eye Jamalu caught me. He said something to András, and I felt my skin heat with a blush. They broke apart and came to me—I told myself if I saw even the suggestion of a smirk on either face, I’d throw a punch, but I saw nothing in their eyes but friendship. I smelled the cannabis sweetness on them. Jamalu leaned in and kissed my cheek, a soft, lingering kiss too close—and not close enough—to my mouth. András, on my right, ran his fingers through my hair and gave it a gentle tug.

  Four years. Four years without a kiss, a tongue, a cock. If they asked me to go with them . . . Lasse, would that be betrayal?

  No such luck, however, for András said, simply, “We’ll win, somehow. It’ll be all right, Vashti.”

  I could tell his mind had chopped the thorny issues down to reach much sweeter ones; for him, all questions of illegality, the Beast, the verdict could wait until Jamalu had slaked his appetite. I nodded, smiled, bid them good-bye. They sauntered off to the nearest café, arms slung around each other to form a bolt that locked out the rest of the world.

  Enhanced or no, András had a ready burn point himself. Could I ever begrudge pleasure to him or any other citizen? No. The weight of celibacy was only momentary; I would go to work and the load would lighten with enough time. So many friends had, sooner or later, discreetly or blatantly, recommended that it was time I sought someone, if only for a few hours of relief. Moira alone had never suggested this.

  Very twenty-first century, she’d sniffed. To think that all that’s wrong is lack of a good fuck. A massage will do just as well.

  She had worked my skin with her silky hands until my sobs subsided to sniffles and I could think past the outrage of replacing Lasse. Not that I remembered precisely how his body felt against mine. My mind had recorded objectively, that yes, we had done these things, slid in and out of our sexual idiolect—coarse and elegant, by turns. Yet the flesh’s memory withered.

  All through the long day at Assignment I tried to think about tomato plants. Hands encased in microrubber gloves, I searched each plant for the older leaves and removed them. This had to be done every week, or the plant would think it was supposed to grow vegetation rather than fruit. No Tilden could do this—a Tilden could scramble after me over swamp, talus, or grassland, but it couldn’t calculate the degree of sensitivity it took to nip off each leaf close to the stem without hurting the plant. Even as I watched, the tomatoes seemed to ripen, green globular fruit nestled within the surrounding leaves, epidermis stretched tight and shiny over the turgid flesh packed within.