The Companions

by Sheri S. Tepper

  Taddeus was standing right behind me. He said, “You’re not old enough. Jewel, he’s only twelve, he’s not old enough, is he?”

  I saw the flicker in Paul’s eyes, like a hot, barely controlled flame, and I thought of Paul being amused by a concubine as compared to Paul getting his amusement elsewhere, usually from bullying Tad or me, so I said, “If he wants it, and he promises to take care of it, I think he should keep it.”

  When I told Luth about it, I could tell she was thinking the same things I had. It didn’t take her long to say yes, let it stay.

  When I was twelve, Jon Point introduced me to a boy named Witt Hessing. Witt was one of The Hessings, and he came to buy two shepherd pups, Quick and Busy. He needed to know how to care for them and train them, and by that time I was very good at both those things, so Jon registered a contract between Witt and me so I could get paid for helping him. The Hessing place was outside the urb, a hundred-acre exempt estate with grass and trees and gardens. For a while I went over there every day, and Witt and I got to be friends. When he paid me for helping him train the dogs, he kissed me, just on the cheek, and I was so flustered I missed my stop at home tower.

  Nobody had kissed me since Matty died. There isn’t supposed to be any kissing except between liaised people, people with a contract. You don’t dare be involved with anyone without a contract that says who you are and what your intentions are and what the outcome is to be. That’s why Jon recorded a liaison contract between Witt and me.

  Anyhow, that was the only time. Witt and I stayed friends, and we spent time in each other’s company. Once I was old enough that they couldn’t stop me, I told Paul and Tad I was doing volunteer work at an animal shelter. Paul was his usual nasty self about it, but I did it anyway. I had a few friends at the Tower Educational Center, but I spent most of my time at Jon’s and with people he knew. I learned a lot, and mostly, I was…contented, I guess, until Witt got to be twenty-two and I turned eighteen, and that’s when everything started to veer off in strange directions.

  Paul broke the news first thing in the morning before I was fully awake. Paul knew it would make me crazy, hearing about it, so he stared at me while he told me, ready to enjoy the show. Somehow, I managed to keep my voice calm and my eyes dry as I said, “When did you hear this, Paul?”

  “It was on the info-net, this morning, early.” He posed, repeating the item for effect: “Evolun Moore announced Worldkeeper’s decision forbidding animals or birds in residential towers. They use up too much water, too much air.”

  I swallowed. “What about exempt estates?”

  He sniffed. “Oh, the rich can keep their useless luxuries, of course. But in thirty days, no more furry little rats in the lifts.” And he turned away, disappointed because I hadn’t screamed or had a tantrum or simply broken down in tears. I did all that, though silently, after I was in my room with the door shut, getting ready to go to the kennel. I knew Jon Point very well: He was a man given to frequent despair and when he despaired, he acted foolishly. I had to get there as fast as possible.

  By the time I got to Tower 91, my eyes were swollen half-shut, and I was standing so tight against the pod doors that I almost fell into the pod lobby when they opened. The tower doors were still crisscrossed with warning signs, but I’d long since broken the locks and memorized the trail. I could run the whole way without even noticing the surroundings.

  Everyone knew that Moore, as head of IGI-HFO (which means “In God’s Image—Humans First and Only”) had been stirring up the down-dwellers. He had founded the group as a religious order, preaching in pod lobbies that animals had no right to exist anywhere on Earth—or on any other human occupied planet—because all space, air, water was needed for the one creature made in God’s image. Moore was handsome, he seemed to have lots of funding from somewhere, and he was a marvelous speaker. Even people who hated him as I did could get caught up in the rhythm and thunder of his speeches, so you can imagine how easily the down-dwellers were stirred into a frenzy. Down-dwellers were always dissatisfied with life, even without an agitator, so having their anger gravel shoved over the edge was guaranteed to start an avalanche.

  Despite all that, I hadn’t believed anyone could want to kill pets. Now I had to believe it, and all I could think about was getting to the kennel before Jon got there and did something irreparable.

  Adults aren’t supposed to run. Running isn’t acceptable. People can be injured by runners. Never mind all that; I ran anyway, conscious of being dangerously out of control. I felt as though I were falling forward onto air, as if my feet couldn’t keep up with the rest of me. I’d always had dreams like that, running like crazy with nothing under my feet while I tried to escape the awful unseen behind me. In each dream, I knew flying was the only way to escape, but I also knew if I flew, I’d fall. The thing behind me got closer, pushing me higher and higher, to a height where the fall would be more certainly fatal, and finally I did fall, then woke, heart pounding and throat closed, so terrified I could hardly breathe.

  That’s the feeling I had as I ran toward the kennel, that I wasn’t going to escape what I was trying to prevent. Jon Point was already there because the lights were on. Whenever he left, he disconnected and hid his pirated lines to save them from tower-strippers.

  I heard the howls long before I lurched into the doorless corridor and raced toward the pens. Scarlet was howling, my favorite dog, the one I’d met originally. I saw Jon’s brows in the dim cone of light, his cheekbone, nose, his white beard above shadowed eyes, pits of darkness peering down at the glittering knife in his hands. The howls and the shrieking rake of hard claws yammered from behind the closed door of the feed room. Scarlet was slamming against the unyielding surface with her full weight, over and over.

  Without losing a stride, I jumped the side of the pen and threw myself over the puppies. What drama! God, yes! Not that I’d been thinking so at the time, but there I was, flattened over those little dogs like a screaming pancake: “No, Jon!”

  Jon’s face was as tear-stained as mine. He stepped away from me, half hiding the knife behind his back. “Jewel, sweetheart, oh, girl, girl, where did you come from? I don’t want to, but they passed the law…”

  “We have two weeks!” I gargled at him, scarcely able to speak. “They said two weeks!”

  He wiped at his rough cheeks with a grimy sleeve. “Why make it harder? In two weeks, their eyes will be open, they’ll be moving around. Now…they won’t even know.”

  “I’ll know,” I yelled at him, gathering the five furry lumps into my arms. One of them yawned, pink tongue curling like a leaf in the toothless, milky mouth. “Scarlet knows, even though you have her shut up in there. I want two weeks, Jon. You owe me two weeks.”

  He turned away from my accusations, running his hands through his white mane, clearing his throat with some effort as he stared through the kennel door at the darkness outside. He wiped his eyes again and struggled with trembling hands to fold the knife, dropping it twice before he managed it.

  He sounded so mournful when he said, “If I’d known this was going to happen, I wouldn’t have bred the bitches. The pups don’t have a chance. Neither do the older dogs!”

  “I’m going to talk to Witt Hessing,” I said. I was quite firm, quite confident. Oh, yes, I knew Witt would fix things. Witt was my knight-errant, my hero. “Witt will help me figure something out.”

  Jon drew a deep breath at the mention of the Hessing name, as though I’d said a magic word. Jon knew what I knew, that if anyone had the power to change things, it would be a Hessing or a Hargess.

  He said, “Jewel, I’ll let it go for the two weeks. I’ll even help you, if I can, but there’s no way we can find enough exempt estate homes even for dogs old enough to leave their mothers…”

  He was so willing to concede defeat! It made me angry. I said, “Let Scarlet out, Jon. She’s going crazy in there.”

  Jon unlatched the door. It hit him in the chest with Scarlet’s full weight behind it
, and he went down. She came across the side of the pen in a scrabbling rush, lips drawn back, fangs glittering, knocking me aside as she thrust her nose among the pups, sniffing to learn whether they were all there, all unhurt before turning her head to regard me with eyes as opaque as metal. Her teeth were still bared, her throat rumbled with a growl that told me to keep back when I put out a tentative hand. Her yellow eyes said, “I know what he was going to do.”

  She knew Jon had locked her up. She knew I hadn’t been here. She had heard my voice arguing with him, and then Jon had let her go. She knew the puppies were all right, and her eyes swiveled across me, almost apologetically. We were friends. Scarlet had saved my life once. I would never have hurt her.

  “It’s all right, Scarlet,” I said, my tears welling up again. “They’re all right, Scarlet. Honest. They’re all there.”

  Scarlet nosed the puppies once more. If even one of them had been injured or taken away, the odor picture of the litter would have changed. I didn’t know whether the dogs were able to count, but I knew they could tell when something was missing. As Scarlet lay down and nosed the puppies against her belly, her growl faded to a low rumble, but she still glared past me to Jon, who refused to look at her. He wouldn’t let himself hope. He was too busy convincing himself that disappointment and death were inevitable, despite anything I might do. I hated that, people giving up, not trying to fight. I just hated it.

  I stayed where I was until Scarlet let me stroke the babies. Then I straightened my clothes, left the pen, and repeated my intentions, to be sure Jon understood. “I’m going home, Jon. You let the dogs alone. I’m going to talk to Witt.”

  Which I did, though I sat by the phone for hours before he returned my link message.

  “I know there’s very little time…” I said.

  He said, in his very topstory voice, “That’s true, but there are possibilities. You know Shiela Alred?”

  “I know who she is. Some kind of philanthropist.”

  “I know her pretty well. She’s quite friendly with Mama the Dame, and she has an exempt estate in Tower 69.”

  “In Tower 69?”

  “Her family owned the land the tower’s on. It was sold with the proviso the family got the top three floors as an exempt estate into perpetuity, so yes, it’s at the top of the tower, two residential floors and one park floor on the bay, two towers over from Government Center.” He fell silent for a moment. “Have you cleaned up, Jewel, since you left the kennel?”

  I flushed. He knew I hadn’t. Who could think of cleaning up with all this going on? “Of course,” I said.

  “Then get yourself into something appropriate. Give me twenty minutes to link Shiela Alred, then I’ll pick you up at the west flit lobby on 200.”

  That was very much Witt. Thinking about introducing me to his friends, but making sure I’d be clean and properly dressed before he did it. I was very fond of Witt, but sometimes little things like that itched at me. Considering the situation, it shouldn’t have mattered if I smelled like dog, which I did.

  Nonetheless, I was neat and clean when Witt picked me up in his private flit. He cut among a clutter of other traffic and spurted up into the private lanes before cutting across toward Tower 69. From that height I could see the whole ten-by-ten grid of the hundred-towered urb, each mile-square roof black with solar collectors, the chasms between towers glittering with podways, the depths at their foundations invisible in the dark. Outside the city, the huge cables that brought power from earthcore-generators snaked away across the farmlands, on to another urb, tying everything together. Almost every tower had a huge poster of Evolun Moore grinning at us, his eyes following the flit: “Vote for Moore, for Humanity’s sake!” He was running for the legislature or the Urban Council or something, whatever office was a step higher than the one he held.

  Trees poked out of the top of Tower 69, and I realized I’d seen them before when I was pod-hopping, the only roof in the urb with trees poked through it. From the private flit lobby we were escorted into a sun-drenched parlor just inside, a room that looked all the way across the sluggishly shifting surface of the bay to the line of scum harvesters squatted on the horizon. Shiela Alred came fluttering in—she was dressed in green that day—and Witt introduced us.

  “Witt, my dear! So nice to see you. Sit down, take that chair, my dear, it’s comfortable, and you look in need of comforting!” Shiela seated herself without pausing in her chatter. “I’ve been devising, my dears, since early this morning.” She cocked her head as she asked Witt, “Do you know Gainor Brandt? No? Well, he’s an old friend of mine who happens to be second-in-command at Earth Enterprises, very much in line to take over in a few years when the current general manager retires.”

  At the time, I didn’t know what that was. I asked, hesitatingly, “Earth Enterprises…?”

  “Earth Enterprises is the parent agency of Exploration and Survey Corps,” Witt said.

  Shiela nodded. “The Corps makes great use of technology in its work. But, according to Gainor, some of their technology falls short in unfamiliar situations. Technological devices can do only what they’re designed to do; one has to ask a certain question before a device can be designed to obtain an answer. But, if one doesn’t know what question to ask…” She shrugged, her hands held wide, miming confusion. “Gainor tells me that some of the scientists attached to ESC have felt that some answers to technical questions may be found in the senses of nonhuman creatures, Earthian and ET. Dogs, for example, can smell things we cannot. They can detect a coming earthquake. That’s been known for centuries, of course. Though we’ve developed excellent technology, we still have no idea how dogs themselves process the information. Other animals also have senses we don’t know how they use…other animals whose senses we might learn to use…”

  “You mean, experiment on dogs?” I cried, horrified.

  Shiela reached out a calming hand. “Not vivisect, dear. Certainly not. Nothing painful or invasive. There’s been informal research going on for some time, unlicensed, I regret to say, but heaven knows, if we had to license it, nothing would happen.”

  “Research?” Now it was Witt’s turn to question.

  “Attempts at modifying humans to become hyperacute, have hearing like bats, for example, or noses like dogs…”

  I studied the far wall, letting the words unlicensed and informal slide over me as Shiela continued.

  “None of which is the point! Whether there’s anything to it or not, it will serve as an excuse, a justification for saving the dogs!” Shiela patted my knee. “I’m rattling, aren’t I, dear? But I was getting to the point, eventually. We’ll bring your dogs here. Whether we actually can accomplish anything useful or not, working under the aegis of ESC will make us attack-proof, at least for a while.”

  “Here?” I said, disbelieving, staring at the costly elegance around me.

  Shiela laughed, a pretty, social sound. “Not in this room, no. But my family is small—one son, a couple of elderly cousins, and the servants. We use only a score of rooms on this side of this one floor. You can see that we have what’s called a sea-view these days, though I’m not that fond of algae harvesters, and I much prefer my Bonner wall vistas to an expanse of green soup. The inner rooms on this floor are mostly galleries and humidity-controlled storage rooms for artworks that would otherwise be discarded to make space for people. We have sculptures, paintings: Rembrandts, the last Picassos, the last van Goghs and Gaugins, all salvaged from the wreckage after the museum riots. I have the very last Ambruster, too, and all that was left of Oakal’s works after the Europa pogrom, and some unedited originals of Lipkin’s Mars work…”

  “My mother,” I said, surprised. “Matty Lipkin. And Joram Bonner is my stepfather.”

  Her expression changed, and she really looked at me for the first time. I was not someone Witt had dragged into her house because he was a do-gooder. I had become a person she already knew something about. She took my hand. “My dear, what a wonderful artis
t Matty Lipkin was. And Joram Bonner! Well. We would all lose our sanity if it weren’t for the Bonners, First through Third. But then, I’m sure you know that! At any rate, people who have these fantastic artworks leave them to me in their wills. I throw charity parties every now and then, and people pay a fortune to see them.” She paused, shaking her head, leaning forward to pat my hand. “I’m rambling again…

  “The next floor up is vacant and windowless. The top floor is a park floor. Though it was roofed with solar collectors, I insisted they leave large sections open so trees could grow up through it. So, the 260th floor will serve as exercise ground, and we can build whatever else we need on Floor 259.”

  I said, “If Gainor Brandt doesn’t get a delay, we have only a little time.”

  “I know. The dogs you’re concerned about should be brought here today, now. Bring them by flit along with the poor man who’s been taking care of them. I have dog-owning friends who don’t have exempt estates, and they need a place for their animals as well, so an experienced kennelman will be invaluable. If you’re interested, Jewel, I should think we could also employ you very profitably!”

  “Are you ready for all that?” I cried.

  Shiela patted my knee again, this time a fond, almost maternal gesture, as she twinkled at me. “Of course not, my dear. One is seldom ready for disaster, but one just has to cope, any old how.”

  We settled a few details with Shiela; she added more appreciative words about Matty and Joram while Witt shifted impatiently; and we left.

  Witt said, “I’m hungry, and you look starved.”

  “Food hasn’t tasted very good lately.”

  “Earth food never tastes very good. I’d like something different.”

  He took me to an expensive little restaurant high up in Tower 50 something, a place that specialized in off-planet foods. He ordered, and I ate what he ordered. It was the first time I’d tasted anything I could call delicious. Though Worldkeeper uses engineered flavors and aromas, all earth food ends up tasting alike, and even that is better than Mars food. That night I learned that cheese from a dairy planet is not in the same category as algae-cheese, even when the algae-cheese is labeled AGED CHEDDAR FLAVOR.