The Chromosomal Code, page 12
“Where are you going?”
“That's my business, not yours; I can take care of myself.”
The man grabbed Starkman's arm again, and this time refused to be shaken off. Starkman stopped walking and turned to face him.
“Let go of me,” he said, his voice low.
Recognizing the danger implicit in Starkman's tone, the pilot let go.
“I really think you should come back with me,” he said.
“Look, whoever you are, I've had just about enough of being told what to do and where to go. I'm tired of it. A week ago – hell, less than that – I was living happily enough, alone in Pennsylvania, bothering nobody, doing no harm to anyone. Since then I've been kidnapped no less than three times – by those damn zombies and their talking spaceship, by a paranoid guerrilla doctor, and by you. I've been dragged from Pennsylvania to Brazil, a place that I have never wanted to visit, and hauled from spaceport to indoctrination center to revolutionary cell to here. I've had it, do you understand that? I'm not just a piece of meat to be carted around, I'm a free human being! I'll go where I please, when I please. Now, get lost!”
“No, look, Mr. Starkman, please reconsider. I don't want to have to force you – “
“And just how would you force me? I don't see anything that looks like a weapon, and I'm just about your size and probably a lot meaner than you; I don't think it's at all clear you could take me anywhere I didn't want to go. And besides that, weapon or no, look around you.” He gestured at the street lights and signs and the pedestrians strolling beneath them, smiling and laughing and talking and arguing. “If you were to try and drag me and I were to put up a fight, or call for help, what do you think would happen? Do you think that all these fine people would just let you take me? Maybe they're all Brazilian and don't speak English, but a cry for help is pretty easy to figure out in any language. I don't think you're taking me anywhere I don't want to go, Mister No-Name.”
There was a pause as each stared at the other, Starkman at the pilot's eyes, the pilot at his own reflection in the mirrored sunglasses.
“If you call for help,” the pilot said at last, “you'll attract a lot of attention. Don't forget the government is looking for you.”
“I haven't forgotten anything. I'll worry about it myself.”
“I really think that you should come back with me.”
“I don't care what you think.”
“You're acting like a kid having a tantrum!”
“What if I am?”
The pilot was at a loss for a reply to that; he stammered for a moment, while Starkman turned on his heel and began walking again.
The other man followed, walking a pace behind and slightly to one side.
They came to the corner, Starkman in front, the pilot a pace behind, and Starkman looked up at the traffic lights. They were familiar, no different from those he had seen as a child, and he wondered how they affected aircars; did aerial vehicles just ignore them, even when following the city streets?
There were no walk lights, nor the red-and-yellow combination that had served in Boston when he was very young; pedestrians crossed on the green, dodging whatever cars happened to turn.
Out of practice as he was in dealing with traffic, Starkman made his way across in a series of awkward dashes; when he miscalculated one run a wheezing ancient gas-burner came to a screeching, honking halt half a meter away from his foot. In a final sprint he gained the far sidewalk.
The pilot was there beside him.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Starkman demanded. “Why don't you go home?”
“I'm going to stick with you for a little while and see if maybe you'll change your mind.”
“I'm not going to change my mind.”
The pilot shrugged.
“Look, get lost! I don't want you around!”
“It's a free world; what're you going to do about it?”
Starkman's fists clenched, but he held himself in check. Punching the man would be satisfying, he was sure, but it would also attract a great deal of attention and possibly get him arrested. He did not want that.
Annoyed, he pried his fists open and walked stiffly onward.
They were passing a row of shops, and the warm glow from the glass front of a coffee shop reminded him that he hadn't eaten since he left the starship several hours earlier. He stopped and looked in.
There was the familiar counter and row of stools, like any diner or coffee shop anywhere in the past century, with a surly black-haired waitress in a tightly laced orange halter serving a handful of customers. Behind her, rather than the open grill and beverage dispensers Starkman was accustomed to, was a machine that looked like a cross between a computer and an Automat – he knew what an Automat was from pictures and descriptions, though they had been pretty much obsolete by the time he was born.
The door, a meter ahead of him, opened, and a man marched out, flicking an imaginary crumb from the abbreviated sleeve of his silky blouse. Starkman caught the door as it started to swing shut, but before he could step inside the pilot caught his arm and asked, “You have money?”
“What?”
“Do you have any money? This place doesn't hand out free food, you know.”
Reluctantly, Starkman stepped back and let the door close itself. His step firm and resolved, he marched on.
Following up his advantage, the pilot asked, conversationally, “Do you know where you're staying? Have any friends who can put you up? Without luggage, and dressed like that, you're not going to get a hotel to take you unless you pay in advance.”
“Oh, shut up,” Starkman replied. The comment on his clothing struck home; he glanced down at himself, then looked around at the other pedestrians on the streets.
They roamed in pairs and small groups through the yellow pools of street lighting, entering and leaving clubs and restaurants and shops. Several cast curious or disparaging looks in his direction. He was quite obviously a new arrival; he knew it, they knew it, and he knew they knew it.
Before very long he was going to be very much an outcast, wandering the streets with no money and dressed oddly, with no place to go and no crowds to hide in when the shops and bars closed. He didn't know the language; he had heard enough of the conversation around him to be sure that most of the people spoke either Spanish or Portuguese, with only an occasional couple using English.
He didn't even know for sure the name of the city he was in. He thought that it must be the capital, which was apparently called simply “Capital,” but he couldn't be certain.
There was a sudden crackle from somewhere to his right, from one of the shop fronts. He started slightly.
“The public address system,” the pilot explained. “They've got them everywhere. They use them for news bulletins, calls for volunteers for new colonies, that sort of thing.”
Before Starkman could reply the crackle turned into a voice, speaking in the same calm flat tone used by the starship's guiding intelligence and the speaker that had asked the Underground to surrender, though it was not exactly the same voice. Starkman assumed that that tone indicated it was a machine speaking.
It spoke in Portuguese first, then Spanish; Starkman could not follow either one, but to his horror he heard his name mentioned in both announcements. Finally, after a brief pause, it said in English, “Attention! Citizens! The government has reason to believe that a man calling himself John Starkman may be in your area. This man is a new arrival, brought here from Pennsylvania, who left the Welcome Center before he could be treated for a new and virulent form of influenza he is believed to be carrying. This mutated virus is believed to be invariably fatal within five days of infection. Early symptoms include severe respiratory congestion, nausea, headache, and cramps, followed by a dormant period, followed by high fever and spasms resulting in death. The missing man is believed to be in the dormant phase, and may think himself recovered. If he is seen, do not approach him, but report all sightings immediately to the nearest representative of the government. John Starkman, if you hear this, we ask you to turn yourself in. No harm will come to you, and your condition can be cured. The missing man is described as follows: Approximately one hundred and eighty centimeters tall, weighing seventy-five to eighty kilos, with long dark-brown hair and beard. He was last seen wearing a brown winter coat, an old-fashioned flannel shirt, denim pants, boots, and mirrored sunglasses. Anyone seeing a stranger fitting that description is asked to report the sighting immediately, and reminded not to approach him. Thank you, citizens, for your cooperation.”
The message began again, in German.
Starkman looked around; pedestrians were staring at him. Worse, some took a quick look and then vanished into buildings, almost certainly calling in the sighting.
Starkman prided himself on his common sense, and he knew when he was beaten. He turned to the pilot and said, “All right, you, if you can get me out of here without being stopped, I'll meet your damned alien boss.”
The pilot smiled and said, “This way.”
Chapter Eight
The pilot swapped coats with him to make him a little less obvious, and then led him quickly back to the building by the aircar lot, dodging in and out of shadows and avoiding other people as much as possible. By the time they entered the building the message had gone through its German version and begun on Russian. While they waited for the elevator it was repeated in Chinese, and the first few words of Japanese were cut off by the closing of the elevator door.
Starkman found it slightly incredible that he had not already been apprehended by the police, or a squad of Imperials, or whoever enforced the law in this city. He muttered something about it under his breath just as the floor of the elevator pushed up under his feet.
He had forgotten what a ride in a high-speed elevator was like, and his stomach was still unsettled from the wild aircar ride; he clutched at the rail on the wall with one hand and at his belly with the other.
The pilot, blithely unaware of his discomfort, replied to his private comment. “I think they aren't trusting human police on this one, and there aren't any of their troops in the area yet.” The car came to a smooth, silent stop at the forty-fourth floor; he turned to point the way and noticed Starkman's appearance.
“Are you all right?” he asked with sudden concern.
Starkman managed an uncertain nod; the deceleration had upset his stomach even more than the acceleration, but now that he wasn't moving he thought he would recover.
“Lord, your face is white!” the pilot said.
Starkman nodded again, and stepped out of the elevator onto thick red carpeting. He was regaining his composure. He was annoyed. A simple elevator ride, he told himself, shouldn't bother him!
With that thought in mind he managed to force himself to walk steadily and smoothly beside the pilot. By the time they reached the door marked 44F he was back to normal. After a moment of fumbling with the key the pilot got the door open; he held it while Starkman entered.
He was in a living room that, although ordinary enough in most regards, was furnished in a style that wasn't quite anything Starkman was familiar with. There were two couches, lush red carpet on the floor, a video screen on one wall, video projector and computer console on a cabinet opposite. A row of windows ran along one wall, and a kitchen opened off the opposite end. Two doors in the far side presumably led to other rooms.
The only thing really out of the ordinary was a large wooden crate shoved into a corner. One side had been pulled open, and it was obviously empty.
Starkman was mildly surprised to find himself in an apartment; he had been expecting an office.
“Have a seat,” his escort said, motioning toward the couches. He himself walked directly to the computer console.
“I thought we were here to meet your boss,” Starkman said.
“We are.”
“Then what are you doing with that computer?” He did not take the proffered seat, but stood in the center of the room.
The other did not reply immediately; he was working loose one of the plugs that connected the computer to the wall. It was not the power line, Starkman noted, but an input jack.
A thought occurred to him.
“You aren't working for a machine, are you?”
“What? Oh, no. My employer is no more a machine that you are. He prefers to communicate through this, though, rather than meeting face to face.” He pushed a final switch and the video screen lit, a blank expanse of light blue.
The pilot ran his fingers over the keyboard, and the screen read, i brought him.
There was a brief pause, then it is good appeared.
“There,” the pilot told Starkman. “It's all yours. The Watcher is on the other end of the line; ask him anything you want.”
Starkman glanced at the machine, then said, “I can't type.”
“Don't worry about it; just peck out what you want to say.”
“No. Look, mister, you told me that I was going to meet your employer, an alien. You didn't say anything about exchanging pleasantries with an ordinary computer; that thing looks about as alien as Sears and Roebuck.”
“What did you expect?”
“I expected to meet an alien – at the very least one of those zombie Imperials who might know a bit more than the morons who picked me up.”
A third line appeared on the screen, reading, why do you not communicate?
just a minute, the pilot typed.
He turned back to Starkman and said, “The Watcher's a real alien, not one of their human clones. He can't breathe our air and he doesn't speak English; we communicate through the computer translator. If you want to talk to him, you'll have to talk to the computer. If typing really bothers you, I can hook up a voder.”
“Hook up a voder and let me see this alien, and I'll talk.”
“Why do you want to see him? How do I know you won't try to kill him?”
“Why would I want to kill him?”
“How should I know? Xenophobia, maybe, or maybe you're working for the Governor after all. I don't trust you, Starkman; you're unpredictable. You punched out one of those poor dupes on the landing field today, you skipped out on your buddies in the Underground, and you tried to skip out on me. I don't know what the hell you think you're doing, but I don't see why I should trust you.”
“I suppose I should trust you, instead? You won't even tell me your goddamn name! How do I know that there are really any aliens on Earth at all? Everybody's been telling me there are, but nobody's ever seen them! The whole thing looks like a big fraud to me, a fancy hoax to keep this new world government in power. You show me a real living, breathing alien – and I don't care what he's breathing – something that's not just a computer or some weird mutant animal or some Hollywood special effects, and maybe I'll start believing enough of what you tell me to trust you! All I ever wanted was to be left alone; I didn't ask to be dragged here. You show me your damn alien or I'm leaving; maybe the government will make good on their promise to ship me home when they're done sampling my blood.”
He turned and started toward the door. “Wait a minute,” the other man called. “Maybe you're right. Hang on a minute.” He punched buttons.
The screen read, he wants to see you.
There was a brief delay before the answer appeared, reading simply, why?
he does not believe you exist. he accuses me of using a computer to deceive him.
Again there was a delay. the request is acceptable. permit him to enter.
The pilot read the answer and shrugged. “He says it's okay. Hold on.” He pulled his keys from his pocket – he had transferred them to his pants when he traded jackets – and unlocked one of the doors. He stood back and gestured. “Go on in,” he said, “But don't try to touch him. I'm going to hook up the voder for you. It's straight ahead.”
Starkman nodded an acknowledgement, then opened the door. Beyond it lay a short passageway with a door to one side that opened on a small bathroom, and a closed door directly ahead. He stepped in and opened the other door. Behind him the pilot called, “Remember, I'm right here and that's the only way out; if you hurt him, I'll kill you.”
The second door swung open and revealed a small bare room. The walls were blank white, and the only furniture he saw was an object that bore a vague resemblance to a computer console. It had an array of colored things that might have been buttons, and a holographic sphere floated in the air above it, flickering dull red.
Sitting – or perhaps standing, or crouching – near the panel of buttons was the alien. It waved a tentacle in greeting.
“Hello,” Starkman said, his throat suddenly dry.
It whistled something in reply.
He had not really expected the alien to be there, had not believed it really existed, and had not given much thought to what it might look like. Despite his own intellectual disbelief in parallel evolution, he had unconsciously assumed that it would be humanoid. It wasn't. He might have guessed that it would resemble a bird, or a jellyfish, or an octopus. It didn't. It looked, quite reasonably, like nothing Earth had ever produced. It was so utterly strange that it took him a good fifteen seconds to realize that it did have some similarities to earthly creatures – to a turtle, perhaps, or to a snail.
Its body was greenish brown, or perhaps greenish gray, where visible, but most of it was covered with overlapping plates of reddish armor arranged in three sheets, one on top and one on each flank, giving it a boxy appearance. This armor was its only resemblance to a turtle. It was watching him through four stalked green eyes, each about the size and shape of a somewhat flattened baseball, on stalks the size of a woman's forearm that protruded from the joints where the armor plates met at one end. That end, he decided, was the front; in addition to the eyes there were several short slender tentacles, each ending in a jointed fingerlike structure, and there was also a lumpish something that he thought might be its head. One of the stubby tentacles was fumbling with something out of sight; others were poised over the computer keyboard. There was an orifice of some sort, with elaborately-irising lips, on the top of the head – if it was a head. Below the tentacles a thick limb something like an elephant's trunk, save that it was green and unwrinkled, showed. Below that were two things that it rested on, which looked to Starkman rather like a snail's foot, except that there were two. It was those feet and the stalked eyes that reminded him of a snail.
