American Science Fiction

by Gary K. Wolfe

  “—exploited your countrymen, turned your world into a brothel, and demonstrated the utter provinciality of the human race, as compared to a galactic culture eons older . . .”

  “I’m not talking your race-my race. I’m talking personal talk. And I repeat, you insulted my friend, asked me impertinent questions, impressed me into your service on a whim.”

  “[Billy goat snuffle]! to all three! —It is an insult to the shades of Homer and Dante to have that man sing for the human race.”

  “At the moment he’s the best we’ve got.”

  “In which case you should do without.”

  “That’s no reason to treat him the way you did.”

  “I think it is, or I wouldn’t have done it. —Second, I ask whatever questions I feel like asking, and it is your privilege to answer or not to answer as you see fit—just as you did. —Finally, nobody impressed you into anything. You are a civil servant. You have been given an assignment. Argue with your Office, not me.

  “And, as an afterthought, I doubt that you possess sufficient data to use the word ‘whim’ as freely as you do,” he finished.

  From his expression, it appeared that Lorel’s ulcer was making silent commentary as I observed:

  “Then call your rudeness plain dealing, if you will—or the product of another culture—and justify your influence with sophistries, and afterthink all you like—and by all means, deliver me all manner of spurious judgments, that I may judge you in return. You behave like a Royal Representative in a Crown Colony,” I decided, pronouncing the capitals, “and I don’t like it. I’ve read all your books. I’ve also read your granddad’s—like his Earthwhore’s Lament—and you’ll never be the man he is. He has a thing called compassion. You don’t. Anything you feel about old Phil goes double for you, in my book.”

  That part about grandpa must have touched on a sore spot, because he flinched when my blue gaze hit him.

  “So kiss my elbow,” I added, or something like that, in Vegan.

  Sands doesn’t speak enough Veggy to have caught it, but he made conciliatory noises immediately, looking about the while to be sure we were not being overheard.

  “Conrad, please find your professional attitude and put it back on. —Srin Shtigo, why don’t we get on with the planning?”

  Myshtigo smiled his bluegreen smile.

  “And minimize our differences?” he asked. “All right.”

  “Then let’s adjourn to the library—where it’s quieter—and we can use the map-screen.”

  “Fine.”

  I felt a bit reinforced as we rose to go, because Don Dos Santos was up there and he hates Vegans, and wherever Dos Santos is, there is always Diane, the girl with the red wig, and she hates everybody; and I knew George Emmet was upstairs, and Ellen, too—and George is a real cold fish around strangers (friends too, for that matter); and perhaps Phil would wander in later and fire on Fort Sumter; and then there was Hasan—he doesn’t say much, he just sits there and smokes his weeds and looks opaque—and if you stood too near him and took a couple deep breaths you wouldn’t care what the hell you said to Vegans, or people either.

  I had hoped that Hasan’s memory would be on the rocks, or else up there somewhere among the clouds.

  Hope died as we entered the library. He was sitting straight and sipping lemonade.

  Eighty or ninety or more, looking about forty, he could still act thirty. The Sprung-Samser treatments had found highly responsive material. It’s not often that way. Almost never, in fact. They put some people into accelerated anaphylactic shock for no apparent reason, and even an intracardial blast of adrenalin won’t haul them back; others, most others, they freeze at five or six decades. But some rare ones actually grow younger when they take the series—about one in a hundred thousand.

  It struck me as odd that in destiny’s big shooting gallery this one should make it, in such a way.

  It had been over fifty years since the Madagascar Affair, in which Hasan had been employed by the Radpol in their vendetta against the Talerites. He had been in the pay of (Rest in Peace) the big K. in Athens, who had sent him to polish off the Earthgov Realty Company. He’d done it, too. And well. With one tiny fission device. Pow. Instant urban renewal. Called Hasan the Assassin by the Few, he is the last mercenary on Earth.

  Also, besides Phil (who had not always been a wielder of the bladeless sword without a hilt), Hasan was one of the Very Few who could remember old Karaghios.

  So, chin up and fungus forward, I tried to cloud his mind with my first glance. Either there were ancient and mysterious powers afoot, which I doubted, or he was higher than I’d thought, which was possible, or he had forgotten my face—which could have been possible, though not real likely—or he was exercising a professional ethic or a low animal cunning. (He possessed both of the latter, in varying degrees, but the accent was on the animal cunning.) He made no sign as we were introduced.

  “My bodyguard, Hasan,” said Dos Santos, flashing his magnesium-flare smile as I shook the hand that once had shaken the world, so to speak.

  It was still a very strong hand.

  “Conrad Nomikos,” said Hasan, squinting as though he were reading it from off a scroll.

  I knew everyone else in the room, so I hastened to the chair farthest from Hasan, and I kept my second drink in front of my face most of the time, just to be safe.

  Diane of the Red Wig stood near. She spoke. She said, “Good morning, Mister Nomikos.”

  I nodded my drink.

  “Good evening, Diane.”

  Tall, slim, wearing mostly white, she stood beside Dos Santos like a candle. I know it’s a wig she wears, because I’ve seen it slip upwards on occasion, revealing part of an interesting and ugly scar which is usually hidden by the low hairline she keeps. I’ve often wondered about that scar, sometimes as I lay at anchor staring up at parts of constellations through clouds, or when I unearthed damaged statues. Purple lips—tattooed, I think—and I’ve never seen them smile; her jaw muscles are always raised cords because her teeth are always clenched; and there’s a little upside-down “v” between her eyes, from all that frowning; and her chin is slight, held high—defiant? She barely moves her mouth when she speaks in that tight, choppy way of hers. I couldn’t really guess at her age. Over thirty, that’s all.

  She and Don make an interesting pair. He is dark, loquacious, always smoking, unable to sit still for more than two minutes. She is taller by about five inches, burns without flickering. I still don’t know all of her story. I guess I never will.

  She came over and stood beside my chair while Lorel was introducing Cort to Dos Santos.

  “You,” she said.

  “Me,” I said.

  “—will conduct the tour.”

  “Everybody knows all about it but me,” said I. “I don’t suppose you could spare me a little of your knowledge on the matter?”

  “No knowledge, no matter,” said she.

  “You sound like Phil,” said I.

  “Didn’t mean to.”

  “You did, though. So why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why you? Don? Here? Tonight?”

  She touched her tongue to her upper lip, then pressed it hard, as though to squeeze out the grapejuice or keep in the words. Then she looked over at Don, but he was too far away to have heard, and he was looking in another direction anyhow. He was busy pouring Myshtigo a real Coke from the pitcher in the exec dip-tray. The Coke formula had been the archeological find of the century, according to the Vegans. It was lost during the Three Days and recovered only a decade or so ago. There had been lots of simicokes around, but none of them have the same effect on Vegan metabolism as the real thing. “Earth’s second contribution to galactic culture,” one of their contemporary historians had called it. The first contribution, of course, being a very fine new social problem of the sort
that weary Vegan philosophers had been waiting around for generations to have happen.

  Diane looked back.

  “Don’t know yet,” she said. “Ask Don.”

  “I will.”

  I did, too. Later, though. And I wasn’t disappointed, inasmuch as I expected nothing.

  But, as I sat trying as hard as I could to eavesdrop, there was suddenly a sight-vision overlay, of the sort a shrink had once classified for me as a pseudotelepathic wish-fulfillment. It works like this:

  I want to know what’s going on somewhere. I have almost-sufficient information to guess. Therefore, I do. Only it comes on as though I am seeing it and hearing it through the eyes and ears of one of the parties involved. It’s not real telepathy, though, I don’t think, because it can sometimes be wrong. It sure seems real, though.

  The shrink could tell me everything about it but why.

  Which is how I

  was standing in the middle of the room,

  was staring at Myshtigo,

  was Dos Santos,

  was saying:

  “. . . will be going along, for your protection. Not as Radpol Secretary, just a private citizen.”

  “I did not solicit your protection,” the Vegan was saying; “however, I thank you. I will accept your offer to circumvent my death at the hands of your comrades”—and he smiled as he said it—“if they should seek it during my travels. I doubt that they will, but I should be a fool to refuse the shield of Dos Santos.”

  “You are wise,” we said, bowing slightly.

  “Quite,” said Cort. “Now tell me”—he nodded toward Ellen, who had just finished arguing with George about anything and was stamping away from him—“who is that?”

  “Ellen Emmet, the wife of George Emmet, the Director of the Wildlife Conservation Department.”

  “What is her price?”

  “I don’t know that she’s quoted one recently.”

  “Well, what did it used to be?”

  “There never was one.”

  “Everything on Earth has a price.”

  “In that case, I suppose you’ll have to find out for yourself.”

  “I will,” he said.

  Earth femmes have always held an odd attraction for Vegans. A Veggy once told me that they make him feel rather like a zoophilist. Which is interesting, because a pleasure girl at the Cote d’Ôr Resort once told me, with a giggle, that Vegans made her feel rather like une zoophiliste. I guess those jets of air must tickle or something and arouse both beasts.

  “By the way,” we said, “have you stopped beating your wife lately?”

  “Which one?” asked Myshtigo.

  Fadeout, and me back in my chair.

  “. . . What,” George Emmet was asking, “do you think of that?”

  I stared at him. He hadn’t been there a second ago. He had come up suddenly and perched himself on the wide wing of my chair.

  “Come again, please. I was dozing.”

  “I said we’ve beaten the spiderbat. What do you think of that?”

  “It rhymes,” I observed. “So tell me how we’ve beaten the spiderbat.”

  But he was laughing. He’s one of those guys with whom laughter is an unpredictable thing. He’ll go around looking sour for days, and then some little thing will set him off giggling. He sort of gasps when he laughs, like a baby, and that impression is reinforced by his pink flaccidity and thinning hair. So I waited. Ellen was off insulting Lorel now, and Diane had turned to read the titles on the bookshelves.

  Finally, “I’ve developed a new strain of slishi,” he panted confidentially.

  “Say, that’s really great!”

  Then, “What are slishi?” I asked softly.

  “The slish is a Bakabian parasite,” he explained, “rather like a large tick. Mine are about three-eighths of an inch long,” he said proudly, “and they burrow deep into the flesh and give off a highly poisonous waste product.”

  “Fatal?”

  “Mine are.”

  “Could you lend me one?” I asked him.

  “Why?”

  “I want to drop it down someone’s back. On second thought, make it a couple dozen. I have lots of friends.”

  “Mine won’t bother people, just spiderbats. They discriminate against people. People would poison my slishi.” (He said “my slishi” very possessively.) “Their host has to have a copper- rather than an iron-based metabolism,” he explained, “and spiderbats fall into that category. That’s why I want to go with you on this trip.”

  “You want me to find a spiderbat and hold it for you while you dump slishi on it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”

  “Well, I would like a couple spiderbats to keep—I used all mine up last month—but I’m already sure the slishi will work. I want to go along to start the plague.”

  “Which plague?”

  “Among the ’bats. —The slishi multiply quite rapidly under Earth conditions, if they’re given the proper host, and they should be extremely contagious if we could get them started at the right time of year. What I had in mind was the late southwestern spiderbat mating season. It will begin in six to eight weeks in the territory of California, in an Old Place—not real hot anymore, though—called Capistrano. I understand that your tour will take you out that way at about that time. When the spiderbats return to Capistrano I want to be waiting for them with the slishi. Also, I could use a vacation.”

  “Mm-hm. Have you talked this over with Lorel?”

  “Yes, and he thinks it’s a fine idea. In fact, he wants to meet us out there and take pictures. There may not be too many more opportunities to see them—darkening the sky with their flight, nesting about the ruins the way they do, eating the wild pigs, leaving their green droppings in the streets—it’s rather beautiful, you know.”

  “Uh-huh, sort of like Halloween. What’ll happen to all those wild pigs if we kill off the spiderbats?”

  “Oh, there’ll be more of them around. But I figure the pumas will keep them from getting like Australian rabbits. Anyway, you’d rather have pigs than spiderbats, wouldn’t you?”

  “I’m not particularly fond of either, but now that I think of it I suppose I would rather have pigs than spiderbats. All right, sure, you can come along.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “I was sure you’d help.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  Lorel made apologetic sounds deep in his throat about then. He stood beside the big desk in the middle of the room, before which the broad viewscreen was slowly lowering itself. It was a thick depth-transparer, so nobody had to move around after a better seat. He pressed a button on the side of the desk and the lights dimmed somewhat.

  “Uh, I’m about to project a series of maps,” he said, “if I can get this synchro-thing . . . There. There it is.”

  The upper part of Africa and most of the Mediterranean countries appeared in pastels.

  “Is that the one you wanted first?” he asked Myshtigo.

  “It was—eventually,” said the big Vegan, turning away from a muffled conversation with Ellen, whom he had cornered in the French History alcove beneath a bust of Voltaire.

  The lights dimmed some more and Myshtigo moved to the desk. He looked at the map, and then at nobody in particular.

  “I want to visit certain key sites which, for one reason or another, are important in the history of your world,” he said. “I’d like to start with Egypt, Greece and Rome. Then I’d like to move on quickly through Madrid, Paris and London.” The maps shifted as he talked, not fast enough, though, to keep up with him. “Then I want to backtrack to Berlin, hit Brussels, visit St. Petersburg and Moscow, skip back over the Atlantic and stop at Boston, New York, DeeCee, Chicago,” (Lorel was working up a sweat by then) “drop down to Yucatan, and jump back up to the California territory.”

&nbs
p; “In that order?” I asked.

  “Pretty much so,” he said.

  “What’s wrong with India and the Middle East—or the Far East, for that matter?” asked a voice which I recognized as Phil’s. He had come in after the lights had gone down low.

  “Nothing,” said Myshtigo, “except that it’s mainly mud and sand and hot, and has nothing whatsoever to do with what I’m after.”

  “What are you after?”

  “A story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “I’ll send you an autographed copy.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Your pleasure.”

  “When do you wish to leave?” I asked him.

  “Day after tomorrow,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “I’ve had detailed maps of the specific sites made up for you. Lorel tells me they were delivered to your office this afternoon.”

  “Okay again. But there is something of which you may not be fully cognizant. It involves the fact that everything you’ve named so far is mainlandish. We’re pretty much an island culture these days, and for very good reasons. During the Three Days the Mainland got a good juicing, and most of the places you’ve named are still inclined to be somewhat hot. This, though, is not the only reason they are considered unsafe . . .”

  “I am not unfamiliar with your history and I am aware of the radiation precautions,” he interrupted. “Also, I am aware of the variety of mutated life forms which inhabit Old Places. I am concerned, but not worried.”

  I shrugged in the artificial twilight.

  “It’s okay by me . . .”

  “Good.” He took another sip of Coke. “Let me have a little light then, Lorel.”

  “Right, Srin.”

  It was light again.

  As the screen was sucked upward behind him, Myshtigo asked me, “Is it true that you are acquainted with several mambos and houngans here at the Port?”

  “Why, yes,” I said. “Why?”

  He approached my chair.

  “I understand,” he said conversationally, “that voodoo, or voudoun, has survived pretty much unchanged over the centuries.”