by Jenn Thorson
An aged being held up a beautiful beaded necklace with a large central polished stone and turned the stone over. On its opposite side was a big red high-tech button. “Just in case I’ve gone physically prone due to medical emergency and I cannot self-elevate,” she admitted.
Now laughing and hugging, three other partygoers felt free to show their favorite long-hidden small technologies and soon, in an atmosphere of unity, convivial brotherhood, elation, and personal electronics, the music resumed and the party sprung to life once more.
With this relieving flurry, the Lady of Bing-bong had returned to her normal shade of peach and took a moment to see what the urgent message had been.
“Big news?” Tom Modean asked over her shoulder.
“Oh, it’s my Featured CapClub Feature-of-the-Day subscription,” said the guest, reading the message. “Spectra Pollux says there have been some rumors suggesting that tomorrow we’d receive the infopill Breakfast with Bertram at Skorbig Stadium for Independence Day, by Eartha Shatter—”
Bertram Ludlow’s breath tripped on its way to his lungs.
“—But that it was pulled at the last minute due to some unnamed scandal. Spectra says not only was that title never on the recommended list, but she’s never heard of the work before and certainly never digested it. She indicates we will get, as planned, a very special copy of Jet Antilia’s One-Word Poems, with discussion questions created by Spectra Pollux herself and—”
“Excuse me,” Bertram forced his way into the tight group, “what was that title again?”
“One-Word Poems? You know, Jet Antilia is such a renegade how he comes up with these ideas and—”
“No, no, before that,” said Bertram, grabbing her arm to see the handheld device. “Breakfast with who?”
She yanked away, flashed him a dirty look, and squinted at the message again. “Breakfast with Bertram at Skorbig Stadium for Independence Day. By Eartha Shatter.” She shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
Bertram turned to Xylith, urgency surging through his veins. “Is there a Skorbig Stadium?”
“Why, I don’t know.” Her voice was all nervous embarrassment. “I’ve never really followed sports. There is a planet called Skorbig.”
Rollie answered from above and behind them. “Skorbig Stadium, yeah. Defunct kachunkettball venue, been empty for some time. Used to be where their local boys, the Ergowohms, played. Named for some kind of flying creature, I think. But then, I followed the Blumdec Blasters.”
Bertram looked up at the Deltan. “Would it take us long to get there? Would we be in time for, say, breakfast tomorrow?”
“Be cutting it close. Depends on your craft, I s’pose.” Rollie ran a meditative hand over bristly yellow hair. “But Ludlow, what’s the big deal? We’re talking about a fragging infopill title, and definitely under the category of Fiction.”
“Or a message. A message for me,” Bertram said.
As Rollie opened his mouth to protest, Bertram raised a hand. “Look. You’re a GCU-savvy guy. Have you ever met a ‘Bertram’ before? Are there 60 kinds of bertram in your Translachew translator? Do flocks of bertram cut through the universe in elegant migratory formation?”
Rollie considered it. “Type of aquaduct on Ny-El-5 called a bertram,” he mumbled. “And I think Bertram might’ve been one o’ them popular progeny names ‘bout ten U-years back on Quaydar.” He frowned. “No, that was Berglat.” Reluctantly, logic and probability won out over his desire to be contradictory. And that seemed to annoy him. “Okay, it’s odd. I’ll give you that. But who would send you a message?”
“How do I know?” Bertram whispered. “The Prophets of Nett maybe?”
“Oh, because they’ve been so fragging-well helpful so far, right?” Rollie rolled his eyes. “Ludlow, they can’t even find the colleagues in their own blasted branch office.”
Xylith jumped in. “How do we know this isn’t a set-up from the Podunk PeaceGuards? Or—or the RegForce?”
Rollie nodded. “Tsmarmak Mook isn’t stupid, you know. It could be to lure you into the open.”
“It could,” Bertram agreed, “but do any of them know my name?”
Rollie opened his mouth and closed it a few times. He looked like a codfish short on ideas. Then a blood-curdling scream reverberated from the Food Preparation Room, transforming his unsaid retort into an energetic curse. The Hyphizite was halfway to the kitchen before Bertram had taken a step.
Bertram arrived a moment later to find the orange woman standing before O’wun, wan and shaking. O’wun was just coming out of his screensaver coma.
“H-he—he’s a machine!” she stammered. “Here. On our beautiful Ludd. He’s a machine! Ludd save us, a machine!”
“Oh, here we go,” sighed Rollie.
“A Non-Organic Simulant? Here?” someone wailed.
“O’wun? A Non-Organic? All along?” queried Major Modean, muscles tense and eyes wide, like O’wun might explode or jettison at any moment.
Bertram scanned the terrified faces of the group. “Geez, what is wrong with you people? Lady,” he addressed the orange woman, “you have a pocket vis-u, fer crying out loud! And you,” he indicated another party-goer, “you’re addicted to 3-D soaps.”
“Oh, everyone cheats a little now and then,” snapped the orange woman.
“Yeah,” interjected someone else. “It’s not as if it’s our whole lifestyle.”
O’wun meanwhile had loaded enough data to put recent events together. “Uh … machine? Where? Who’s a machine? I think you misunderstand the situation. I just have an … an … unfortunate vision problem. I really should get it checked. Come to think of it, I’d better take care of that, post haste.” He got to his feet, nodded a greeting to each guest and grinned uncertainly at his neighbors who were beginning to pick up pots, pans and the spare poker for the rotisserie. He walked past them calmly, slowly, then burst through the swinging door at a full run.
Rollie groaned. “Aw, frag it; I don’t even know if he blanked my archive,” and dashed after O’wun.
“Ladies first,” motioned Bertram to Xylith, and they followed suit as the mob surged forward.
Bertram and Xylith raced down the hall and dove into the elevator just as O’wun was cranking the doors shut. “No!” shouted O’wun, “no, don’t come on here, we’ll—”
“Lies!” screamed a party guest.
“Betrayer!” shrieked another.
“Sham!”
“Property devaluer!”
“Stellar party, O’wun!”
These voices reached into the elevator as Bertram and Xylith clattered into the box despite O’wun’s protests. The moment their weight hit the floor, the metal can shimmied and dropped at breakneck speed.
“What’s happening?” Bertram screamed.
“I was trying to tell you, not enough counterbalance!” shouted O’wun. “Why don’t you people listen?”
Bertram and Xylith were pitched hard into the wall, while Rollie and O’wun both leapt for the thick rope attached to the elevator’s pulley system in hopes of slowing it down. But the elevator had gone too far unfettered. It picked up enough speed so the rope skimmed virtually gripless through their hands.
Down, down, the elevator careened, screeched and clattered against the shaft, until finally it landed with a groaning, ear-splitting crack that bent the metal frame and tossed everyone off their feet. Everyone but O’wun, who either had built-in, cat-like Simulant equilibrium, or magnet shoes. “Anyone hurt?” he asked. The Non-Organic materials from his hands smoked slightly.
If Bertram had a headache before, it absolutely pounded now. He thought he could almost hear it as it banged, pulsed and throbbed—as if it lived and breathed outside his very own skull.
Dusting herself off, Xylith paused, and looked ceiling-ward. “Thunder?”
Bertram realized now the rumbling was coming from above, in the very walls of the structure, deep thumping and bumping that made O’wun frown. “The stairwell!” O’wun yanked on th
e elevator gate, which fought him until he finally bent it free. It was true; Simulants really were stronger than they looked. “Time to go.”
Bursting into the lobby, they blew past the murals and the carvings, their rumble sending the glass animal chandeliers jouncing. The doorman, in fear of the oncoming stampede, flung the front door wide as Bertram’s group fled through the threshold and into the Luddite street.
“My ship’s over here,” called Xylith, motioning toward the field of wagons.
“And mine,” echoed Rollie.
But what they saw there now in the makeshift ICV lot was not two shining ICVs to safety. It was one great metal ICV skeleton with flattened landing gear, a pile of bent bits, and a crowd of life-forms banging away at what was left of it with large rusted gardening tools.
“My ship!” Xylith shrieked. “Have you no sense of personal property?! I just got this! And it’s lease-to-own!”
“It’s art supplies now, lady,” said one of the Luddites, cackling as he tucked a couple of dented solar shields under his arm.
The roar of the Fezziwig Towers mob was growing in the distance. Some keen eyes had spotted the struggles at the ICVs, and now O’wun’s neighbors were rushing forward once more, leading a feverish charge toward them down the Luddite cobble street.
Xylith was still focused on the inspired local artisans, as they hauled off her rescue vehicle part-by-part. “You put that back! That’s not yours, you … you scab!” spat Xylith, both of her faces pink with rage. “This is willful destruction of private property! This is a lawsuit just waiting to happen! This is … really bad press for the Ludd tourism board, and you better believe they’ll be hearing about it, mister!”
Rollie withdrew the remote from his coat pocket, pushed a button, and a ramp began to descend from an empty space in the field next to Xylith’s craft.
“Rollie, hurry!” shouted Bertram. O’wun’s neighbors were coming up close, and somewhere along the way, they’d pulled together a selection of atmospheric flaming torches. It wasn’t quite dusk, so some of the dramatic effect was lost, but Bertram was impressed they’d taken the time to try.
They still didn’t blaze as hot as Xylith’s fury. “This is non-Underworld-Society-sanctioned theft and—and—”
The ramp from nowhere hit the soft grass with a gentle “whump.”
“—And bad art, too, is what it is,” continued Xylith, really going for the jugular. “Cliché and trite and … and … derivative! Nobody does space salvage pieces anymore! Nobody! Hear me? And—”
Rollie grabbed her around the waist, hauling her up the ramp with one arm, while holding the XJ-37 hand-laser on the Luddite artists with the other.
Bertram and O’wun made quick work of climbing into the ICV themselves, the ramp already retracting under their frantically pounding feet.
The hatch sealed. Rollie dumped Xylith, who was still expressing her strong views on the unconventional techniques of the Ludd welcome wagon, into a chair. He turned to peer out the hatch window as the group closed in on the ship that wasn’t there.
“Ah,” the Deltan confirmed with interest, “they’ve finally figured it. Little slow on the uptake, them Luddites.” He moved swiftly to the cockpit and settled down before the controls. “Harnesses, people, harnesses.”
CLANG!
Xylith busied herself with the take-off harness. “Rollie, er, how rare is this ship again?” she asked.
GONG!
“Only a few operational cross-galaxy,” he called back, over the engine. “Why?”
BLANG!
“Might be one less soon,” she told him. “Hurry.”
But it was in two swings of a Luddite’s bat that the ship lifted off, and Rollie was chuckling to himself as he peered out the cockpit window. “Ah, lookit ’em scurry there. Scurry, little Luddites, scurry. Back to your techno-dullness and derivative art.”
He pushed a few more buttons, hit a few levers, and even from the other room, Bertram heard that familiar “bip” that said things were probably going to be all right.
Through the hatch window, Ludd appeared increasingly small and trivial below them. It wasn’t soon enough.
O’wun gave a whirring exhale and released his harness. He stretched and shook his head solemnly. “My penthouse, my friends, my traditional basket weaving, my role as the building Social Director … Two Universal years of work to fit in and earn their trust, gone in the blink of an eye. All thanks to you.”
He directed this last comment to the pilot who clomped into the room to join them.
“I want to know how I’m ever going to recoup my investment in that beautiful ship,” Xylith addressed the Hyphizite, crossing her legs, a sour look on both her faces. “It was just loaded with options. And the Underworld insurance isn’t likely to cover damage by pedestrians with bludgeons.”
“We are headed to Skorbig next, aren’t we?” Bertram asked the captain. “Remember, we have to get there by breakfast.”
One by one, Rollie surveyed each of them over folded arms and a narrow amber glare. He turned to O’wun. “You: a Simmi living in a renowned anti-technology world, and this is my blasted fault? Your logic boards have fried.
“You,” he touched Xylith under a chin. “Should’ve cloaked it. You been to Ludd before. You know better. But you got sloppy. It’s space junk now. So shut it and move on.
“And you.” He turned on Bertram. “Yes, we are headed to Skorbig. And we’ll talk more about that in a bit. But first things first.” He leaned on the back of O’wun’s seat and sized him up. “Did you blank my archive?”
O’wun met his gaze by turning his head at angle that wasn’t quite normal. “This is what you’re worried about? These are your priorities? After ruining my life and barely escaping the raging mob with torches?”
Rollie smiled in response.
“No,” O’wun said flatly. “Rhobux-7 has no Uninet connections anymore. All gone. Completely offline. So whatever trouble you’re in, you’re still in it.” He settled into his seat. “Serves you right, too, if you ask me; I am never going to get my rental deposit back.”
Rollie grumbled something even Translachew wouldn’t translate, though Bertram guessed it touched heavily on the theme of rental deposits and personal orifice logistics. He flexed his hands. Bertram noticed a thick rust-colored rope burn trailed down the center of each of the man’s palms. He rubbed his crooked thumb over one of the wounds thoughtfully.
At his long silence, Xylith made an injured, sympathetic sound. “Oh, don’t you worry yourself, Rollie. You won’t end up on Altair-5. We’ll figure out a way. We always do, don’t we?”
O’wun’s brow creased in surprise. “Altair-5? Nobody said anything about Altair-5.”
But Rollie just made a non-committal noise that might have been concession. A second later he looked up, eyes seeming to blaze from some inner inspiration. “Bleedin’ Karnax,” he breathed, “you were right, Ludlow!”
You were right, Ludlow. These words were so rare to hear, Bertram almost didn’t believe them himself. “I was? When?”
“The RegForce doesn’t know your name,” he said. His voice was low and filled with strained gravity. A smile expanded slowly across his face, like dawn might break over the Altair-5 horizon. “The Seers of Rhobux do.”
Bertram remembered how those voices like wuthering winds said his name over and over again. “Bertrammmm Ludlowwwwww …” Shuddering, he glanced out the hatch window. There was nothing to see right now but the same old shiny white star systems. He wondered when exactly the great fabric of space had become as dull and unremarkable to him as midway on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. “You think the Seers are leading me to Skorbig Stadium?”
“Said it yourself; who else knows your name?”
Bertram shrugged. It was hard to say. Word in the GCU traveled fast. “Thing is, Rollie, the infopill title seemed really … Tryfan … to me. You think it’s a trap?”
“He always thinks it’s a trap,” said Xylith. O’wun let ou
t a bitter laugh.
Rollie ignored them. “Decent chance we’ll be fragged the moment we set foot in that Stadium,” he said. “But I’d risk it for a little chat with the Seers of Rhobux. Anyway, there’s still a tiny, infinitesimal, microscopic sliver of hope we might not be ambushed and blasted into a hundred billion particles.” He smiled. “So that’s always nice.”
Chapter 23
It was a wonder the tips of Rozz’s fingers, her nose, and her smallest toes hadn’t broken off. Such were the frigid temperatures blasting through from Spectra Pollux the rest of the day.
In truth, Pollux had been taciturn and icy to everyone, even her select 37, the entire afternoon. And it didn’t take a swirling, twirling mood dress to tell Rozz the issue was CapClub-related. Spectra Pollux was used to admiration, innovation, placation, and prostration. Questions about her decision-making abilities, and a quick grind through the rumor mill, had never really entered into it until now.
Image is such a capricious wench, Rozz considered philosophically. She guided her second crate of presentation paraphernalia into the Pollux ICV and secured it to the floor.
Not that Pollux’s current image issues were of her own making, Rozz reminded herself. Rozz alone was the one to blame for that. But somehow she just couldn’t cuddle up to the guilt.
Maybe space had hardened her. Maybe it was too many hours supervising the GCU’s CapClub groupies and telling them what intellectual goodies they were supposed to draw from their latest infopill. Maybe it was the fumes from those Altairan Sun Slushes she made day after day; that was bound to have an effect. Or maybe that stylish taser headband had shorted out the part of her brain responsible for conscience and empathy.
She tested the crate’s security and returned in the dimming evening light for the last of the equipment. She’d decided she would keep that banded head of hers down until Skorbig. She would wait and see if Bertram received her message. And if he showed up on Skorbig with assembled troops, picket signs, and a fleet of media to apply some well-placed pressure? Well, Rozz would take what opportunities presented themselves. But if somehow her broadcasted cry for help eluded Bertram in his travels, or it was just too damned vague, Rozz supposed the bid would help decide her fate. And she’d work it out from there.