The City Who Fought

by S. M. Stirling

  “It certainly left its mark,” Channa said dryly.

  “No one escapes without being marked,” Amos said wisely.

  “And no one gets out alive,” they all said together.

  “Are you talking about the station?” Joat asked in horror, emerging from her room.

  “No, no,” Channa said. “Life.” Teenage life, actually, but let’s not be specific right now.

  Joat began to rearrange Channa’s desk, banging down the implements.

  “It’s so stupid!” she said, clattering a note organizer screen down.

  “What is?” Simeon said, soothingly. Sometimes that tone annoyed Joat so much she forgot what was troubling her. This time she was too focused.

  “Seld,” she said. “I mean, this could be the last week of our lives and Seld is locked in his room! What a great way to go! Y’know?”

  No one answered her. Channa and Amos wouldn’t meet her eyes. A look of mild exasperation crossed her features and she tried another tack.

  “Look, I need him,” she said earnestly. “He’s really pretty good, in a junior-grudly way, hey? I want to help. Y’know? So, I thought we, Seld and me, could . . .” She stopped, tapped her fingertips together and stared upward, biting her lip. “I thought we could maybe make up some of those signal disrupters I use,” she said in a rush.

  “You mean the ones that keep me from seeing or hearing you?”

  “Yeah,” Joat appeared fascinated by her fingernails. “Those.”

  “Joat, you could do that in the engineering lab. Anyone there will be happy to help you. If we get enough people assembling the elements, we could make quite a few in the time we have left.”

  “No,” Joat said and sat down, looking right at Simeon’s column. “I mean, I like the idea of working in the engineering lab, don’t get me wrong on that. But the signal disrupter is my idea, and I’m not going to just give it away. I know I’m just a kid, but I know you don’t do that.”

  “I’m not going to let anybody steal the credit for your invention, Joat. I fully intend to watch out for your interests. I give you my word on that.”

  “Thank you,” she said simply. A silence fell, oddly solemn. After a moment, Joat continued, “Y’know, it’s probably not a good idea to have too many of them around. I mean, the more there are, the more likely some jerk will lose one and the pirates will find it and figure it out, then where’ll we be?”

  “A valid point,” Channa said judiciously.

  “So,” Joat slapped her legs, then rubbed her palms up and down her thighs, “what I thought was, Seld and me could make up enough for you guys,” she turned to point at Amos and then at Channa, “and as many of the council reps or team leaders as we can.” She looked at the adults’ faces, checking their expressions, then turned to Simeon’s column. “Whaddaya say?”

  “I’d say you’re a heartless hard-bargainer, a blackmailer, and a techno-witch. That said, I’ll talk to Chaundra, and I think he’ll allow Seld to assist on an authorized project. But use more sense next time, Joat. When I adopt you, you’re going to have limits, too. Oh, and don’t work him too hard. He’s just not . . .” Simeon tried to finish the caution diplomatically “ . . . the hardy type.”

  “I know,” she said softly, nodding solemnly. “I’ll take care of him, I promise.” Then she smiled a tight, professional-looking little smile, and rose. “Well, goodnight, everybody.”

  “Goodnight,” they wished her in return.

  When the door had closed behind her, Amos looked warmly at Channa, then dropped his eyes. “I, too, am weary, and there is still so much to learn.”

  “Do what you can,” Channa advised, “and play the rest by ear.”

  “And don’t forget,” Simeon told him, “all you have to do is ask and I’ll try to help. Channa, why don’t you give him that contact button now?”

  “Yes.” From a desk drawer, she took a small box, which she presented to Amos.

  “We should probably give one to both Joat and Seld,” Simeon suggested.

  Channa nodded.

  Amos took out the small button curiously.

  “That gadget will let me see what you see, hear what you hear, and respond in relative privacy,” Simeon told him.

  “It is so small,” Amos said, examining the tiny device.

  “But so effective,” Simeon answered through the button.

  Startled, Amos dropped it.

  “I can see that it could be very useful,” he said, laughing as he retrieved it. “Thank you, Simeon.”

  Channa hesitated. “See you in the morning.”

  “Yes, altogether too briefly,” he replied, giving her a rueful bow.

  Channa yawned hugely and looked up at the time display. Evening again already! Almost time for dinner. Hopefully it would be more cheerful than breakfast, which had been subdued in the extreme. “Gods, another day gone? Where is everyone?”

  “Amos is on his way back home and should be here any second,” Simeon said. “Joat is committing illegalities in the engineering lab, chortling madly with Seld, when I can pick them up at all. She’ll be back here to eat, or so I believe her plan to be.”

  Channa stretched. “I need a break.” She flopped into an easy chair and said, “Would you put on the ‘Hebrides Suite,’ please?”

  He listened to it for a moment and said, “This is nice.”

  “One of my favorites. My great-grandmother once told me that this music held the soul of Earth’s oceans in its phrases. I’ve loved it ever since.”

  “Your great-grandmother was from Earth, Channa?”

  “No, but she’d been there. Oh, this is my favorite part—a little louder, Sim.”

  She raised her hand, palm up to show that he should raise the volume again, and again. The door opened on Amos, who stepped backward as though the magnificent swell of sound had washed him out on a wave of music.

  Channa laughed at his startled expression and signaled Simeon to lower the sound. “Sorry,” she called.

  Amos poked his head in cautiously, “Whew!” he said. “Channa, it is dangerous to play music at such volume. Your hearing will be impaired.”

  She made a face at him. “Don’t be a priss, Simeon-Amos. No one ever lost their hearing on classical music.”

  “Beethoven?” Simeon suggested.

  “Hah!” she said. “You men all stick together,” and stumbled to the galley for coffee. When she had doctored it with cream liqueur and whipped Jersey floating on the surface, she took an appreciative sip. “Ah! That’s good!” Although when I learned where Jersey originally came from, I nearly lost my lunch, she added to herself. Simeon had picked up on her tastes quickly.

  “Now, that is something I feel I’ve missed out on,” Simeon said.

  “Mmmh?”

  “Coffee, food, everyone who sits down to dinner at the Perimeter says, ‘Wow! That smells good!’ closely followed by ‘Mmm! This is delicious!’ and I haven’t got an analogue for either of those sensations. Smell and taste—you’d think they could have given me one of ‘em. Oh, I can taste when something’s off in the chemo-synthesis plants, and I can smell an ion-trail, but it’s not the same thing. Sometimes the people at Medic Central are downright inhumanly utilitarian.”

  “Why don’t you put Joat on it?” Channa suggested.

  “Put me on what?” Joat asked, arriving at that point.

  “I was just saying that I’ve missed out on tasting coffee, or smelling it even, everyone says it smells so good. I don’t even know what that means. I just can’t get my mind around the concept. I don’t like the feeling that I’m being denied one of life’s greatest pleasures. However, the thought of anyone poking about with my neural interfaces is enough to keep the thought merely wistful.”

  Channa and Amos locked eyes a moment, then flicked away. Not before Simeon had caught the look.

  “That’s terrible,” Joat said sympathetically, “‘though, maybe if you gave me your specs . . .”

  “Now, sex . . . sex provides a
lot of mental pleasure.” Simeon continued with relish. “I’d be willing to bet that I get almost as much sexual pleasure out of my own imagination as anyone does actually having it.”

  Joat made a derisive grimace.

  “I’d say in your dreams, Simeon, but that would be redundant,” Channa said archly, making her way back to her desk. “What have you got there?” she asked, pointing to the box in Joat’s hand.

  “Oh, this is something for you guys.” Joat opened it to display the two short, gleaming metal rods, perhaps three centimeters long, with crystals at either end. Joat looked at Channa expectantly.

  Channa took one out of the box, turning it over. In the center of the rod was a small gap, bridged by a narrow tube which joined its two halves. She touched the crystals experimentally, then looked queryingly at Joat. “It’s pretty?” she asked, puzzled at its use.

  Joat laughed. “Seld said we should make ‘em into jewelry, but I figured we didn’t have time to experiment with the effect that might have. I wear mine in a sheath in my boot.” She tugged up her pant-leg and pulled down the cuff of her boot to show the top of an identical wand.

  “How does this artifact of yours work?” Amos asked her, picking up the other.

  “You push the two halves together to make a contact.”

  Amos did so. There was a click as the two halves came together to form a smooth even surface. He looked at Channa and Joat, then at himself. “Is . . . is it working?”

  “Ask him,” Joat said, jerking her thumb at Simeon’s column.

  “Simeon?”

  Simeon didn’t answer because he hadn’t heard the question. He had, however, seen Amos wink out of existence, and he was experiencing some very uncomfortable feelings about that disappearance. Suddenly, he was unsure that he wanted anyone besides Joat to have this ability. Such disappearances definitely gave him the willies.

  “Apparently not,” Channa said, pleased. She clicked her own rod together and vanished from Simeon’s sight and hearing.

  Amos leaned close to her. “I can already see much potential for his device.” His smiling eyes were warm and full of meaning.

  “Seld and me knocked seven of these off today,” Joat explained to Simeon. “We’ll contrapt more tomorrow, now that we’ve found the parts we need. What’s the matter?” she asked in response to Simeon’s groan.

  “Sorry, Joat, seven is pretty good really, and there’s nothing to say that we can’t share these around. Right, Channa? Channa? Ollie-ollie in-free!”

  Channa grinned smugly at Amos. “He really can’t see us, can he?” Then she pulled gently at the rod.

  “How nice of you to drop in,” Simeon said in a sour tone. Damned if I’ll let you know how much that bothers me.

  “Sorry,” Channa said. “I know it bothers you,” she subvocalized. Somehow Sim connected it with being cut off from his sensory input. Me, now I’m a sensory input? She turned to Joat. “Um, do you actually have to have it on your person for it to work? Or would it work if, say I had it on the desk beside me?”

  “It should keep you disappeared if you stay very close to it. You’re not really blanked out. It’s more like a local override command to the sensor not to record you, you know? I didn’t really measure it very close.” Joat gave a self-deprecating twitch of her hands. “I need more theory and stuff, I know.”

  “Well, I’m impressed, Joat.” She clapped her hands together. “Let’s celebrate, and send out for dinner.” She took the rod out of Amos’s hands and unsnapped it.

  “You know,” Simeon commented as Amos reappeared, “this invention of Joat’s could be the biggest boon to burglars since hacking.”

  Channa froze, then looked over at Joat. The girl managed to look sweet, innocent and furtive at the same moment. It was true. AI-driven surveillance was universal in public places. So were attempts to counteract it. Joat’s seemed to work better than most. Of course, once the device was publicized, counter-measures would be initiated. No wonder Joat wanted to keep her ace-in-the-hole secret.

  Well, of course she steals! Simeon whispered in her ear. How did you think she survived before you took a hand?

  “Like many swords,” Amos agreed, “it is two edged. But, they will be of help, and I shall enjoy testing mine.” He smiled at Channa.

  Channa looked at Simeon’s column. “Just think, we’ll be able to keep secrets from you, Sim. How will you stand it?”

  Amos tiptoed carefully out of Joat’s room. “She never woke,” he said in a half-whisper. “I put a blanket over her.”

  Channa shook her head. Joat’s subconscious seemed to know who to trust. This evening was the first time she had noticed the girl sleeping with the limp, irresistible finality of the trusting child. She’d also had a long, hard, if triumphant, day.

  “I thought she’d never get enough of your stories about Bethel,” she said. And neither would I. It didn’t have the urban sophistication of Senalgal, but Amos could make his world and his way of life sound . . . beautiful, she decided. Of course, he was an eloquent man, and he was describing what he truly loved. He had described what she had always yearned for in a planet-side posting: the hugeness, the variousness, the aliveness of a breathing world.

  “It was as much for me as for her,” Amos said, leaning back on the sofa and raising his face to the ceiling, eyes closed. “I speak, and I see what can never be again.”

  She put a hand on his. “Bethel will be freed and made beautiful again. The Kolnar only stripped the surface, not the nature of the planet.”

  “Yes. Yes, I believe—must believe that.” His fingers curled around hers; fine long-fingered hands, a little calloused.

  From riding horses, she thought. A sport she had only read of before. Simeon had provided holos, and riding looked more dangerous and exciting than piloting mini-shuttles.

  “Yet when the enemy are driven off, the wounds . . . and beyond that. We need to change, we must change. More than I thought or wished, and I was a rebellious youngster, a radical, a breaker of images, or so they called me.” He turned his head to her. “The enormity of the task ahead frightens me, overwhelms me. Yet with help . . .”

  Oh, great, she thought. To herself: “Lost prince of beautiful, exotic planet, seeks helpmate/companion/lover to assist in rescue/reconstruction. Requires intelligent, forceful manager with strong sense of duty. Will furnish lifelong love and affection, plus palaces, estates, interesting experiences. Apply Amos ben Sierra Nueva.” What was that quotation? Get thee behind me, Satan?

  Amos sat quietly beside her and placed Joat’s box in her lap. His glance was filled with meaning. Channa opened the box and they each took out a crystal-tipped rod. Then they glanced at Simeon’s column with identical scheming smiles and clicked the two parts together.

  Amos leaned over. They kissed; she stroked his dark hair and gently cupped the back of his head in her hand.

  “It is good to have privacy,” he said huskily.

  “Yes,” she agreed, “it is good.” And it adds spice, she thought. Like sneaking out of bounds when you’re in school.

  Simeon watched Channa’s door open and close, though no one appeared to be near it. He suppressed a burst of resentment. He had told them he’d turn off the sensors if they requested it. But no, they’d just gone and shut him out without a word . . .

  What is the universe coming to? he thought in irritation. Besides, there’s a child present!

  A child who had presented him with a techno-itch he could not scratch. On reflection, he decided the analogy was maddeningly accurate. Try as he might, his attention came looping back to the nagging gaps in his recordings. He was accustomed to knowing everything that went on. Joat’s earlier white-noise machines and attention-deflectors were minor irritations compared to this newest gadget. Of course, she hadn’t had access to the engineering labs before this.

  “The child was probably born with a microtool in her hand,” he muttered. Now, how did the wands function? Joat had, after all, given him a hint. She might
be a genius, but Simeon was a shellperson, with all the computer power and experience that implied.

  And I’m also constitutionally unable to resist picking up the gauntlet, he thought happily. There were times when the only way to get rid of a temptation was to give in to it. . . .

  I can’t believe this, he told himself, fifteen minutes later. Equipment made by the best minds in the Central Worlds flummoxed by a preteen! Which confirmed long-held thoughts about the quality of minds attracted to the Central Worlds bureaucracy. Simeon had long thought that it was a private miracle he hadn’t come out prosthetized into a camel, since the design teams were committees. Now, he must meet this challenge.

  Channa arched her back against Amos’s weight, her hands caressed the slick, silken skin of his back. He kissed her throat and she sighed happily, ready for—

  “Oh, Chaaannaaa, I seee yooou.”

  “Ack, ckgak!”

  Amos raised his head from the crook of her neck to look at her. The mixture of puzzlement and sensuality on his face looked very silly, not to mention slightly nauseated. Simeon laughed.

  Oh, this is terrible, Channa thought. Yet it was impossible not to see the moment from Simeon’s point of view for a second. She laughed, caught between rage and helpless mirth. Amos bobbed up and down with her laughter. His expression assumed a martyred quality that caused her to lose control completely.

  “Channa,” he said desperately, rolling off and holding her in his arms. “Channa, my darling—are you all right?”

  She struggled to speak, to reassure him that her sanity was intact. “Sim . . . Sim . . . he . . . hehe . . . hehehe,” she had to avoid the word he. “Sim . . .” she gasped, “my implant . . . he . . . hehe, mmrrmph . . . can see us.”

  She stopped, panting and watched his look of concern melt. Suddenly she was slightly frightened. This was a man accustomed to redressing insult, and his ego had just received a terribly humiliating one.

  “Simeon!” he roared. The door seemed to recoil before his headlong passage, and the cooler wind from the lounge brought goosebumps to her skin.