Pariah

by W. Michael Gear

  How did a child ever cope? Repair herself? No wonder she didn’t care if Leaper ate her. It would be an end to the pain.

  Flash strode up, Kylee riding on his back as if he were some monstrous horse. The quetzal fixed his three-eyed gaze on Talina where she chopped up carrots in front of the shed. Her aircar was up to sixty-percent charge. Still not enough to head for home, but she could make Corporate Mine if she needed to bug out.

  “Have a nice hunt?” Talina asked, glancing across the yard toward the forest. Neither she nor Kylee had seen hide nor hair of Diamond or Leaper since the first day.

  Kylee slipped down Flash’s back, landing lightly on her newly shod feet. “Flash caught a roo just the other side of the tree line.” The kid had a grin that nearly split her face in two. “I just love going fast!”

  “You’re lucky you didn’t fall off and break your silly neck.”

  “You sound like my mother.”

  “Yeah, maybe I do.”

  Flash yawned in a very earthlike manner, then clapped his toothy jaws shut with loud snap. Happy quetzal. Nothing gave the beasts a sense of well-being like a full belly did. That flush of . . .

  Talina stopped short, staring thoughtfully at the knife where it half transected a carrot.

  “What?” Kylee asked.

  “Trying to put it all in perspective. I was just in your head. You and Rocket were hiding from Damien. Out in the forest. You were hidden in a rock outcrop. Rocket was camouflaged. Damien was terrified that something had happened to you. He was calling out, panicked.”

  “I remember that.” Kylee grinned. She mimicked Damien’s voice: “Kylee, so help me . . .”

  “. . . You ever do that again, I’ll flush your underwear,” Talina finished.

  “He almost hit me. Might have except Rocket would have bit him, and he knew it.”

  Talina laid the knife to one side, seating herself beside Kylee as Flash curled himself into a ball and turned blue and pink. He was studying Talina through intelligent eyes.

  “This is something new,” Talina told the girl. “That’s your memory. Out of your head. Not Rocket’s. I saw through your eyes. Heard your thoughts.”

  “Told you it went both ways.” Kylee seemed nonplussed. “Who’s Mitch?”

  “He was my husband. What do you know about Mitch?”

  “You buried him. Stepped down in the grave with him. He was covered in some kind of cloth. You and somebody called Step. The way you laid his head on the bottom of the grave, down between your feet. You thought, ‘Is that all there is? The end of love, the end of life?’ Then you shoveled the dirt in.”

  Cold fingers wrapped fearfully around Talina’s gut and seemed to tighten. “You can’t know that.”

  “Just like I can’t know how you feel a quetzal living behind your stomach?”

  “Screw me with a skewer, do you know how crazy this is?”

  “Seems pretty normal to me.”

  Talina stared incredulously into the little girl’s innocent blue eyes. “Well, it’s not. Not for the rest of us. We live alone. Our thoughts are ours. Inviolate. Private. I mean, how far does this go? How intimate?”

  “Your demon quetzal was amused by the way you had sex with Cap.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” Talina cried, her heart beginning to hammer. “That’s . . . That’s . . .”

  Kylee shrugged. “I always wondered what it was like. Sex, I mean. I tried to imagine it between me and Damien. That was like, yuck.” Her expression turned thoughtful, as she added, “I really like orgasm.”

  “But . . . You . . .”

  Talina felt her world reel and slip, as it if had just come loose from its underpinnings. She sucked a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t want to do this. I can’t. I . . . This isn’t happening.”

  “Like, big wow. You’re starting to understand.”

  “Understand what?” she cried in panic. “You’re in my head. Do you know what it’s like? Suddenly knowing that someone is reading your most private thoughts? Knowing all the things I’ve done that I . . .” The words seemed to have fled. How did a person get her mind around the immensity of it?

  That damned little girl could see right into all the terrible lies that Talina Perez told the world, know her for the shameful things she’d done. The petty, ruthless mistakes she’d made over the years. The times she’d cheated and used people. The things she regretted more than life itself.

  Images, shameful, of all the . . .

  “Stop it!” Kylee was in her face. “It’s not like that.”

  “The hell you say, you know who I am.” Talina felt tears, hot on her face, the anger flashing inside. Her quetzal was hissing and churning in her gut. “This is like psychiatric dissection.”

  “What’s that?”

  “They cut the top of your skull off to expose the brain. Then they insert probes, trigger memories that are read by algorithms that recognize neurological patterns in the nerve cells. It’s a form of torture and interrogation.”

  Kylee’s frown had grown deeper. “What did I have for supper on my ninth birthday?”

  “Who gives a—”

  “What did I have? It’s one of the most important days of my life. What did Dya make me?”

  Talina struggled to clear her thoughts, searching, who knew where, for the answer. “I haven’t a clue.”

  “Ask me a question I wouldn’t know the answer to. Something about when you were a girl.”

  “Who was Paco Mendoza?”

  Kylee seemed to think, then shook her head, no guile behind her eyes. “Who was he?”

  “Tried to have my mother murdered after she arrested him for tomb robbing. I’ll never forget the way globs of spit came out of his mouth as he shouted at Mama and swore he’d kill her in the end.”

  Kylee had been concentrating. “It’s not in my head, Talina.” The girl’s eyes cleared. “I don’t have you inside. Just pieces. Do you have all of me?”

  Talina struggled to form an image, but kept coming up with her own memories. Seeing the little girl for the first time on the operating table as Dya and Rocket cowered in the corner. Then a memory: “Got one. You changing Shine’s diapers. How the smell made you want to throw up.”

  “I did throw up. Wasn’t Shine’s shit that made me sick. Turned out it was staph.”

  Talina was starting to breathe again. It wasn’t as bad as she’d first thought. The panic began to recede. “Kid, something tells me that you and I . . .” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I can guess how you’re feeling. Got some fragments.”

  “No shit. No one’s ever been in my head before.”

  “It won’t be the same. I mean as it was between me and Rocket.” She glanced off where Flash was watching, listening. And who knew how much the quetzal was understanding. “I still have a hole inside from Rocket. You get it? Half of me is missing. And I watched as Rebecca and Shantaya were killed. I didn’t understand. So, if Leaper kills me, who cares?”

  Talina shot a look at Flash. “She right? Is Leaper going to kill her in the end?”

  The old quetzal uttered a deep-throated clicking. His collar expanded in a fluorescent orange sheet that patterned and fluctuated. Not just yes, but a big yes.

  As if anything could make this day more upsetting, it was a real toilet-sucker to know she was reading quetzal perfectly.

  30

  What kind of shithole is this? The question kept repeating in Tam’s brain as he walked in purple twilight down the central avenue in Port Authority. The main thoroughfare—and it was gravel. Gravel! Not even paved. Everywhere he looked was squalor. People dipped water out of rain barrels? Seriously? Half the equipment was sitting up on blocks and looking butchered for parts? This truly was the end of the universe.

  He had his duffel—all of his worldly possessions—over his shoulder. Hi
s Talon once again rode in its holster under his jacket, though he’d chosen black overalls instead of his suit.

  The domes were ordinary enough. Just like a person would see on Earth, Moon, or Mars. But the locally built structures reminded him of something out of the Middle Ages. Stone and timber edifices, the walls of dressed ashlars. Gabled roofs shingled with shakes.

  And the people? They reminded him of some sort of circus freaks, dressed as they were in homespun, fitted leather, and the most incredible shimmering hide. The old term “psychedelic” seemed the most descriptive of the rainbow patterns of light that rippled across the leather.

  Nevertheless they were tough looking; each Donovanian carried either a pistol, rifle, or large knife. Despite coming off like old-time pirates, all offered him the friendliest of salutations. One woman—three children at her side—even greeted him by calling, “Hello, Mr. Scorpion. Welcome to Donovan. Let me know if you need anything.”

  And she said it without even a hint of irony.

  In his ambitious and adventurous life, he’d dealt often enough with adversity. Setbacks, failures, and defeats had come with frequency. That he’d survived, prospered, could be attributed to his dogged perseverance. His cunning and ability to quickly adapt to new situations, not to mention that he and Artollia had come within a whisker of seizing The Corporation.

  What had crashed down on him over the last day and a half, however, had left him staggered. They’d cut her brain apart. The woman he loved more than life itself. And she was fifty years dead.

  Fifty years! How did a man get his mind around that?

  He’d been all right with the knowledge that Radcek would have executed her. Shayne, herself, had made no bones about her fate if she failed. She had accepted the risk. But the price of failure in Board politics had always been an honorable, quick, and painless death. Not the rape of one’s brain and most intimate thoughts.

  That the woman he’d loved had suffered such an indignity left him enraged. No, not just enraged, but feeling impotent. The news had hit like a punch to the gut when he had finally heard it: Radcek had been laid out in his family tomb for more than twenty years now. Out of reach of Tam’s justice by two decades and thirty light-years.

  But to him, it had been barely a month since he’d seen her. Shared that last night with her. Remembered the gleam of excitement in her eyes as she kissed him and said, “Two days, Tam. That’s all we have left. Little more than forty-eight hours, and we’ll have that bastard on his knees. The courts will do the rest. The information you’ve obtained will see to it. And you will be there when I am seated in the Chairman’s seat.”

  She’d kissed him that last time, her body pressed to his. Vibrant. Alive. “See you in two days.”

  He’d been on his way to the Boardroom, prepared to witness their triumph, when he was picked up just outside the ornate doors. Escorted by Artollia’s armed guards to the shuttle.

  Fifty years?

  Unfuckingreal. In the blink of an eye, he’d gone from Corporate Advisor to a criminal. At least as far as Vixen was concerned. And he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do about Supervisor Aguila. Part of him hated her for her knowledge of his and Shayne’s private and most intimate moments. Another part of him recognized her for what she was: a most formidable woman.

  Maybe as formidable as Shayne. The difference was that Aguila, with her scars and pistol, had dirt, and probably blood, under her fingernails. The sort of woman who fought her battles firsthand and looked a man in the eyes when she shot him dead.

  He’d done well as Shayne’s foil. Was there a chance . . . ?

  No. He’d seen it in Aguila’s eyes when they met aboard Freelander. Kalico Aguila was definitely not his future on Donovan.

  He reached the patchwork fence at the end of the avenue. The thing had to be fifty feet tall, and the huge gate was closed. Not only that, but an armed sentry stood there, looking out into the gloom of evening where a road disappeared into the scrubby trees beyond.

  Guess they weren’t kidding about not leaving the compound at night.

  He turned, staring at the warehouses to either side, the ugly pieces of mining equipment parked here and there. A curious melody rose in the air. Some kind of wildlife out beyond the fence.

  “So this is exile?” he asked himself. “This sucking collection of huts and barbarians?”

  He forcefully reminded himself that it beat the hell out of having his brain cut apart, stimulated, and his innermost thoughts shared with an audience of thousands.

  That fence represented the absolute end of the line. As far as he could go. Beyond it lay nothing but alien wilderness and death.

  “I’ve lost everything. Shayne. Even my world.”

  Think, Tam.

  This was it, his last chance.

  Aguila had told him that if he ever set foot on Corporate Mine, she’d execute him. But then, she served a Taglioni. Fair enough.

  He started his steps south again, headed back into the main part of the village. Hard to call the damn collection of ramshackle buildings and junk anything but. And the locals called it a town? Port Authority wouldn’t even qualify for the term if it had been built in the desert wastes of Sudan.

  That soft and mushy Hindu, Shig, had told him that he was free.

  “We are not Corporate. Our creed is that every man can achieve his personal goals, provided his actions do not harm others. If we find you intimidating, exploiting, or abusing another human being against their will, we will put a bullet in your head. Government here is by mutual contract. If you enter into a contract with another, we will uphold the letter of that contract, whatever is written. My advice is that you think carefully about the ramifications before you sign anything. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, especially of Yvette, if you need contract advice before signing.”

  Shig had given him the most enigmatic smile. “In short, you are free to ruin your life in any way you see fit as long as you don’t interfere with the lives of others. My last advice? Don’t mess with the people; they’re not Corporate in either belief or behavior.”

  Then Shig had given him coins minted of gold and silver. “There are fifty SDRs. We have a cash-or-trade economy. If spent frugally, fifty should last you a couple of weeks. After that, you’re going to have to be producing your own wealth. Oh, but understand, theft here is punishable by exile into the bush or a bullet.”

  Lunatics, all of them.

  “If I am to be king, I must become the king of lunatics and squalor.”

  He stopped short at the sound of music issuing from a corner doorway in a large stone-and-timber building. The imposing sign on the building’s front proclaimed it The Jewel.

  He could hear the cry, “Ladies and gentlemen, place your bets!”

  Well, what the hell?

  If this was to be his world, he’d damned well better begin learning its ways and how he was going to conquer it.

  And he would conquer here. When it came to leadership, a blind fish could do a better job than that fool Shig Mosadek.

  31

  Dortmund walked to the fence and stared out at the lights that glowed on the agricultural fields. The feeling in his gut was akin to that sick, tingly sensation of freefall, where everything inside rose up against the diaphragm and made him want to throw up.

  From the sky, a gentle rain fell. Alien rain. On a planet thirty light-years and half a century away from Solar System.

  Dortmund tried to get what was supposed to be his “formidable” intellect around that.

  He kept trying to access data as he had for his entire life. The silence in his head was unsettling. Like a room gone black and still. How did these people function without constant net interaction? It filled him with a half panic. A sudden and eerie deprivation. It was akin to having part of his brain amputated.

  Looking out beyond the wall of interlocked wire he sa
w nothing but abomination. Terrestrial plants. Corn, beans, squash, rows of garlic, wheat, rye, barley, cactuses, and who knew what. All domesticates from Earth growing unchallenged in Capella III’s dirt. And beyond them, nothing. Not so much as a fence before the fields abutted Donovan’s native savannah.

  All of this should have been contained in a dome! Isolated from the rest of the planet. With complex locks for ingress and egress and sophisticated bio-quarantine protocols.

  Whatever fault had sent Vixen fifty years into the future had damned an entire planet to terrestrial pollution.

  “Sir?” a voice asked from behind.

  Dortmund turned, water dripping off the hood of his jacket. The woman was indistinct, water shining where it beaded on her hat and trickled down a rain slicker. Like all Donovanians, the outline of a rifle could be seen under the slicker. Given the angle of the floodlights, her face was shadowed.

  “Yes? Can I help you?”

  “I’m Trish Monagan. Just wondered what you were up to. Since you’re soft meat we want to make sure you don’t get into trouble.”

  “Trouble’s already here,” he told her, waving out toward the fields. “They’ve ruined it.”

  “Ruined what?”

  “Capella III.”

  “We call it Donovan. For the guy who got ate here first. We consider it a rare honor.”

  “What did you say your name was?”

  “Trish. Port Authority security. And you are?”

  “You may address me as Dr. Weisbacher.”

  She chuckled at that. “Raya’s finally going to be able to get a full night’s sleep. You might want to go check with her. She’s got a pretty severe case of heavy metal poisoning. I had to fly out to Milt’s claim and get him. Milt’s a Wild One. Started having the bloody shits, lost feeling in his arms. Not that Milt ever had a lot going for him to begin with, but he was getting stupider and stupider. Raya’s got him on a chelation protocol for cadmium and selenium for mercury.”