Collected Short Fiction, page 800
Pepe was silent beside me, jaws set hard, eyes on the bearers. Shaved heads bent down, black muscles rippling and gleaming with sweat, they ran in step, callused feet slapping the pavement in unison. Slave power, I thought, instead of internal combustion engines.
Pepe leaned forward to talk to Drake, pointing, asking about everything. A few oaks and elms along the street we knew from videos of old Earth, but there were towering toadstools, thick red-brown trunks crowned with masses of leaves that looked like fat, blood-red snakes. They filled the air with a heavy fragrance that had a hint of rotting fruit and set me to sneezing.
“African,” Drake said. “Arne the Third send an expedition to collect specimens of the alien biology. He thought the things were ornamental. I despise the bog-rot stink, but they’re historical monuments now.”
Trying in a nervous way to play the genial host, he said our arrival had been awaited for hopeful generations. The Regent was vastly honored by our visit. His voice turned anxious. Had we brought news of disaster or threat of disaster? Perhaps a second impact?
“No disaster,” Pepe assured him. “The computer watches the sky, even while the station sleeps. It has reported no new impactor.”
Drake seemed happy to hear that, happy that our arrival had happened in his lifetime. So many generations had died in disappointment. The Regent; was eager to know more about our mission. How long could we stay? What were our plans? What did we want to see? What changes had we brought to Earth?
Pepe answered cautiously. We had no plan to change the Regency. All we wanted was information. The station existed simply to replenish the damaged Earth, not to rule it. We had come to survey colony and return to the Moon with our data Any future action would depend on what we learned.
Drake became the sly inquisitor, turning in his seat to smile and make shrewd queries. Could our telescopes follow events on Earth? Did we know how the alien invaders had reached Africa? Had we been informed of the Scienteer rebellions in North America?
Careful not to betray Laura Grail, Pepe asked for more data about the Scienteers.
Drake’s smile faded and his voice grew violent. They were a cult of outlaw heretics, enemies of the Regency. They had been extirpated from Asia, but their treason had lately grown new roots in North America.
“They claim to be Secret Agents of the Moon.” He twisted in the seat to peer sharply at us. “Are you aware of any possible contacts?”
“No.” Pepe’s eyebrows lifted. “Never.”
Drake sat back, seeming relieved, and asked for more about the station. If the Moon had no air and little water, if nothing grew there, how had anybody stayed alive there for live hundred years?
“More like five million,” Pepe told him. “The robots maintain the computer and rebuild themselves. The station shuts itself down through the rest stage. The computer runs on, but none of us is cloned until it has a new mission for us. The air is vented. Temperatures fall. Nothing oxidizes or decays.”
“Remarkable!” Drake shook his head as if he had never heard of robots or computers. “Remarkable!”
He called something to the bearers. They carried us off the street, through a gate guarded by half-a-dozen identical black men who might have been more clones of Casey, uniformed in white and blue and armed with heavy weapons that, resembled the muskets we had seen in ancient drawings.
The wide courtyard beyond was filled with heavy chairs like our own, their black bearers standing frozen. Our own carriers ran with us up a long flight of marble steps and set us down between the white columns of a portico at the entrance to a monumental building.
“The Tycho Palace.” Drake gestured. “Once the Regent’s residence. Now Deputy Regent Frye’s.”
Frye came smiling down a strip of red carpet to greet us. A fleshy man with a gleaming silver band around a head of yellow curls, he wore a shapeless silver garment that resembled the togas in drawings of ancient Rome. It looked stiff and heavy, as if actual metal wire were woven into the fabric.
“Agent Navarro! Agent Yare!” He caught our hands as we climbed out of the chair. “Regent Arne regrets that he is not able to be here himself. On Iris behalf, we welcome you to Earth. He asked me to put every resource of the Regency at your disposal for the duration of your visit.”
His hand felt limp and lifeless. He drew it quickly back, his shrewd eyes narrowed to scan us. Pepe asked him to give our thanks mid greetings to the Regent, and we followed him into a long hall that hummed with many voices.
“Agency people.” Drake nodded toward the crowd. “Officials. Citizens of Kashmir. All eager to meet you before we go in to dinner.”
Perhaps they were. The clamor of voices paused while a man with a foghorn voice announced our names. People stared toward us for a moment, but most turned back to their groups. The voices rose again. Any eagerness to receive us was well contained.
We stood there at the entrance, getting our bearings. The room was huge, the voices ringing back from lofty walls and a vaulted ceiling. My eye was caught by huge murals whose artist had tried to imagine the impact and its aftermath. On one wall, a great blazing fireball was plunging into an ocean, the splash drowning a city, its people in panic flight from a towering wave already curling high over them. Opposite was a cratered lunar landscape, an immense crystal dome for the station, a giant stalking from it to a red-painted spacecraft Wearing a toga like Drake’s, the giant had no helmet or space gear. An enormous portrait of Arne stared down from the end of tire room, a cold smile on his heavy-jawed, square-chinned face.
“He ought to be here,” Pepe murmured at my ear. “Our own Arne on the Moon. He’d be proud to meet his heirs.” He shook his head and squinted at me. “I’m afraid, though, the Regent would see him as a problem.”
Leading us into the hall, Frye nodded at a group of white-gowned men around a young woman in bright green.
“Someone you must meet.” He raised an imperative hand. Laura Grail left her companions and came smiling to join us.
“A watchgirl,” he said. “She will want your story.”
Blue eyes wide, she waited innocently for him to introduce us.
“Our distinguished guests,” he told her. “Inspectors from the Moon. Agent Pepe Navarro.” Pepe bowed over her offered hand. “Agent Duncan Yare. They may have questions you can answer.”
“We have questions of our own.”
Pepe nodded at a young woman standing near us with a tray of glasses. Naked to the waist and blonde as Mona, she had the vacant face of a sleeping child. Her eyes were wide, unfocused, blankly staling. A small stain of blood was drying around a bright black skullshaped bead in a spot of drying blood on her forehead.
“Sire?” Still staring blankly, she spoke in a child’s high voice. “A cocktail?”
Frye took two drinks off tire tray and offered them to us. Grimly, Pepe shook his head. I tasted the cocktail. It was something sharp as vinegar, raw with alcohol. I set it back.
“That button?” His voice suddenly harsh and violent, Pepe pointed to the skull-shaped bead. “What is it?”
“A rider,” Frye said. “Something new to you?”
Pepe nodded, bleakly silent.
“There’s the expert.” He beckoned to a man half across the room. “Grendel Venn, the Agent for Energy.”
Venn waddled to meet us, breathing. As soft and fleshy as Frye, he gave us a genial grin and offered a fat white hand.
“Our guests are inquiring about rider energy,” Frye told him.
“I have inquiries of my own.” Venn’s pale eyes narrowed to scan our faces. “I suppose you have electricity on your flyer? Perhaps atomic energy? The ancient texts are full of technologies we must have lost. If they ever did exist.”
“Electricity does,” Pepe said. “Tycho Station runs on nuclear power. But I want to know about those bugs.”
“The riders?” He paused to study us again. “Call them compensations for whatever we may have lost. If you have something better, I hope you can share with us.”
Pepe looked back at the woman with the tray of drinks. Still near us, she stood rigid ms the wax figures I had seen in old holos. Venn reached for a drink to offer him. He gestured as if to knock it away. His face white with emotion, it took him another moment to control his anger, but at last he spoke reasonably.
“We do have records of basic science. We could share them, but your people would need to develop the skills to use them, to build a new industrial infrastructure.” He pointed a quivering finger at the skull-shaped bead. “That’s what I asked about.”
“A high technology of our own.” Venn smiled with satisfaction. “You may not know our history. Our first century was a time of troubles. We had problems and found solutions. With the old technologies lost, we built windmills. We developed water power. Most useful of all, we learned to use the riders.”
Pepe’s fists had clenched. “Those black bugs?”
“A surprise to you?” Venn backed away and raised his hand defensively. “If I must explain, the seed are bartered from Africa. They are grown and trained on our own rider farms and planted in sterile labs by skilled surgeons. They are an essential economic resource. More precious than rubies, as the saying goes.”
“Planted?” Pepe rasped. “Where?”
“Where you see them.” Venn gestured at the girl. “In the brains of convicts and clones.”
“You breed clones for slaves?”
“Why not?” Venn’s voice sharpened impatiently. “We have no other use for them.”
Pepe nodded to the girl. “Is she a clone?”
Venn swung to bark at the girl, “What was your crime?”
“Shoplifting, sire.” Her high child’s voice held no feeling. “I took fruit from a market because my mother was hungry.”
“You see?” He turned back to Pepe. “The riders are instruments of social order. They remove convicted criminals from society without the cost of prisons or guards. The surgeons assure us that they feel no pain. Their labor serves the nation. Does that answer your question?”
“It does,” Pepe muttered. “It certainly does.”
Venn stalked away and Laura stepped closer.
“Please!” She breathed the word sharply. “Don’t speak of slavery. The Scienteers have always fought to get rid of the riders. That is their greatest treason. Suspected sympathy could earn you a rider of your own.”
4.
“NICE TO MEET YOU BOTH.” LAURA GRAIL RAISED her voice and smiled for those around us. “Welcome to the Regency. When you have time, I want to get the whole Tycho Station story for our readers.”
“One more question,” Pepe murmured. “How can we find Mona?”
She shook her head and slipped away. He stood looking after her till Frye caught his arm.
“Your Mercies, please.” Frye nodded at the crowd, scores of people talking and sipping their drinks, ignoring us after those curious glances when we were introduced. “Our guests are dignitaries invited to meet you.”
“Happy about it?” Pepe grinned. “They’re keeping their distance.”
“Hesitant, perhaps.” Frye frowned in apology. “Please understand that your sudden arrival has taken us by surprise. Created something of a crisis, in fact. Nobody is certain what to expect from you.”
“We are grateful for the welcome,” Pepe assured him. “We plan no trouble for anybody.”
He gave us a narrow look and escorted us around the hall. I listened mid made mental notes for our reports. Pepe spoke for us, wary with what he said.
The Agent of Trade was a short fat man named Galt Wickman, who wore a bright gold headband and a golden fringe on his toga. Frye told us he owned the rail system. He shook our hands and beckoned the girl with cocktails. Moving as stiffly as a robot, she thrust her tray toward us and stood rigid, the black bug on her forehead watching us with tiny bright eyes till we refused the drinks and the Agent waved her away. He stood inspecting us in a silence that had grown awkward before Frye broke it.
“Our guests arc curious about our sources of power. They were asking if we understand electricity.”
“Our engineers are researching it.” His mouth pursed thoughtfully. “I’ve seen them creating bolts of lightning, but nothing useful, we’ve done better with steam. Our first experimental steam engines were installed over two centuries ago to replace water power in seasons of drought. Steamship followed the coasts and eventually finally reached the Americas. Our rail system has spread south to the Indian Ocean and east to the Pacific.”
“Human power?” Pepe nodded after the girl with the drinks. “These bugs you-call riders? I understand that they come from Africa?”
“The seed does.”
“So you grow the bugs?”
“I don’t.” Wickman flushed and looked uncomfortable. “If you want to inquire into rider culture, talk to Sheba Kingdom.”
“There she is.” Frye nodded at a woman across the hall. “I’ll introduce you. Her family controls the Africa Company. If you care about history, there’s a historic drama.”
Sheba Kingdom glanced at us and turned back to the group around her while Frye expanded on his drama.
“Her great-great grandfather was an early explorer, back before the age of steam. A typhoon wrecked his sailing vessel on the east coast of Africa. He got ashore alive and escaped 20 years later, paddling across the Red Sea hi a crude little skin-covered canoe.
“He had been captured by the alien rulers of the continent. Creatures he called the black masters. One of them had ridden him, its fangs driven into his skull and controlling his brain. He got free when it died. He had learned their language. He went back in one of the first ocean-going steamers and bombarded their coastal cities with his cannon till they agreed to trade with him. That began the Africa Company. It has been profitable. Sheba Kingdom is said to be the richest woman in the world.”
She left her admirers and strode toward us. A commanding presence, she was tall and muscular, her long dark hair bound in gold. A heavy rope of black pearls hung below her ample breasts. Gold paint shone on her lips and around her eyes. She stood silent, regarding us with cold curiosity, while Frye explained that we were the new Agents from the Moon.
“Have you dictates from the Moon?” Her voice was hoarse and almost masculine. “Orders you expect us to obey?”
“None,” Pepe told her. “We came only to look and report what we find.”
“They were inquiring about rider cultivation,” Frye added. “Perhaps you can explain it?”
“Why?” She fixed him with her gold-rimmed eyes. “Why are you concerned?”
“We see them everywhere.” Pepe nodded at the girl with the drinks. “Our computer will want information about them.”
She frowned impatiently, moved as if to leave us, swung abruptly back.
“You can tell your computer that the rider seed we import from Africa are eggs of the black masters. We hatch them in baths of human blood, sterilize them to prevent unwanted reproduction, select and drill them for designated sendees. If that’s any business of your clever computer on the Moon.”
She tossed her massive shoulders and stalked away.
Frye spread his hands and took us on to meet Deputy Houston Blackthorn, the Agent for defense. A towering, black-bearded man in a dark-blue uniform, he wore a long sword in a jeweled sheath and gleaming medals on a wide, red ribbon across his barrel chest. Crushing our hands in a powerful fist, he told us to inform our computer that the Regency was well prepared to defend itself from any hostile power. I wondered if he saw the Moon as a hostile power, but decided not to inquire.
Frye asked him about the war.
“Which war?” His bronze grin was gone. “We’ve run the nomads back into their desert and fed a thousand Indonesian pirates to the fish. We’re holding like a stone wall on the African front. As for North America—” His lips set hard. “It’s half the world away. Ships take forever. Those frammed Scienteers have sprung up like African poisonwaits. They have a new leader now—”
He scowled though his beard.
“—a woman who claims to be an actual Agent of the Moon. Sent to warn the world of another impact due. So their poison rhetoric goes. Her spacecraft crashed on the glaciers up at the head of the valley, if anybody believes. She should have been seized and bugged for such a tale, but Scienteers agents got her to America. She’s sowing her treason there.”
Mona, Pepe looked hard at me, his lips moving to shape the silent words. She is Mona.
“A problem for us.” Blackthorn shook his head. “Too many colonists believed her crazy story. Rebellion spread. Our forces always outnumbered them a hundred to one, but driven clones don’t fight like those madmen. We had losses, but now we have them on the run.”
A GONG BOOMED. FRYE ESCORTED US INTO ANOTHER VAST ROOM. A long table ran down the center, a wide fan above it swinging lazily back and forth, driven by two of Casey’s black clones hauling on a rope, one at each end of the room. Porcelain, silver, and glassware shone on a sea of white cloth. A white-clad waiter stood at attention behind each chair, a bright black bug gleaming on his vacant face.
I was seated between a sallow-faced bureaucrat from the Just ice Agency and an attractive young woman with a crimson hairband and a crimson fringe on her gown. Her name was Ellen Teller; she said she was a broker. Pepe sat just beyond her, Frye at the head of the table.
The gong sounded again. The guests rose, lifted glasses of a sour black wine, and drank to the greater glory of Regent. Arne XIX, Agent of Earth. I was half expecting a toast to the guests from the Moon, but Frye did not propose it.
The waiters began serving us from wheeled tables. Although most life in Asia had sprung from our own seedings, the dishes were often strange to us. Ellen Teller explained them brightly when Pepe asked. Baffled by the silverware, I was watching for clues from the people across the table till she laughed at me.
“Don’t fret about your table manners, Agent Yare,” she told me. “If you’re awkward with your forks, it’s the best evidence that you’re really from the Moon.”
