Soul Rider #01: Spirits of Flux and Anchor

by Jack L. Chalker

  SOUL RIDER I:

  SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR

  Copyright © 1984 by Jack L. Chalker

  This is a work of fiction. Alt the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form.

  A TOR Book

  Published by:

  Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 8-10 West 36th Street New York, New York

  First TOR printing, March

  ISBN: 27298-

  Can. Ed.: 812-53-276-

  Cover art by Dawn Wilson

  Printed in the United States of America

  For Mike Resnick -from. one madman to another.

  1

  ANCHOR

  There was no need to tell anyone in Anchor Logh that the man in black was dangerous. Any stringer who rode the Flux was more than dangerous—he was someone to be feared for more reasons than one.

  Cassie watched the man ride in on his huge white horse and felt a sudden chill at the very sight of him. She had a particular reason for that chill, being of The Age and with the Census Celebration barely three days away, although she didn't really believe she was in any danger. The quota this year was the lowest in her lifetime, thanks to an unusually abundant harvest and a high number of deaths among the Honored Elders, and her odds, like all those -with her birth year, were barely one in a hundred. In fact, only four stringers had been invited to the Celebration this year and, it was said, only two had accepted, the rest preferring fatter pickings in other Anchors with more potential victims—and profits. That fact alone made the appearance of this one even more of a standout than it normally would have been.

  He was a tall, lean, muscular man with coal-black hair and a handlebar moustache, and in normal circumstances and with a normal background he would have been considered a handsome man, even a desirable man, by those Cassie's age and older. But he was not a normal man with a normal background, and it was clear to any who looked upon him that this was so. There was just something about him, something you couldn't put your finger on, that radiated a fearsome chill to all he passed. His face was worn and aged well beyond his years, his skin seemed tough as leather, and his eyes, a weirdly washed-out blue, radiated contempt for World and its offerings— He was dressed in black denim, including black boots, gloves, and a wide-brimmed black hat that had one side of its wide brim tied up in stringer fashion, and a black leather jacket lined with weathered sheepskin that must have once been white.

  Weathered… That was a good word for him. His boots, his clothes, even his sawed-off shotgun with the fancy carved handle that hung from his silver-decorated belt in a special holster—they all were weathered almost beyond belief.

  He rode slowly, imperiously, right past Cassie, but those cold, distant eyes took no notice whatsoever of the thin, slightly built girl nor of much of anyone or anything else, either. She shivered a bit, then turned and began walking back towards the communal farm where she had been born and raised.

  The farm lay at the end of a winding, rutted dirt road, about a kilometer back from the main highway, and on either side of the girl stretched broad fields of grass dotted with grazing cows. She knew every rut in that road by heart, and every cow as well, but somehow, today, they seemed more distant and remote than anything ever had.

  It was a bright, cloudless day, and the Holy Mother was in all Her divine glory in the sky, filling Anchor Logh with her brightness and slightly coloring the landscape with subtle and different shadings. It was a glorious sight, yet She was always there when the clouds parted, and Her visage was so omnipresent, so taken for granted, not just by Cassie but by all those on World, that the Holy Mother was rarely paid attention to except when one was praying—or sinning.

  Today, though, the Holy Mother seemed particularly close and needed, and Cassie stopped and looked up at Her reverently, seeking some comfort and inspiration. The sparkling bands of gold, orange, deep red and emerald green that gave the slight color shifts to the land showed the beauty and glory of Heaven and reminded ail humankind of the Paradise it had lost and could regain, in the same way as night showed the emptiness of Hell, the distant, tiny stars representing the lost souls that might be consumed by darkness if not redeemed.

  After a time she moved on, a lonely little figure walking back to the only home she'd ever known. Although the day was pretty, there was a chill in the air, and she wore a heavy checked flannel shirt and wool work pants.

  Cassie had the kind of face that could be either male or female, and this, along with her tendency to keep her black, slightly curly hair clipped extremely short—as well as her slight build—often got her mistaken for a boy, an error her low, husky soprano did nothing to correct. She'd been the last of four children, all girls, and her parents had really wanted a boy. Particularly her father, a smith who wanted very much to pass on the family trade as his father had to him, and his father's father before that. She had not been spared that knowledge, and was often reminded of that fact.

  Perhaps because of this, or at least in trying to please them, she'd always been a tomboy, getting into fights and walking, talking, and now working with the boys, herding, milking, and even breaking horses. Tel Anser, the hard old supervisor in the corral, often held her up as an example to the boys he worked with, teasing them that she was far more of a man than any of them. That didn't win her any popularity contests, of course, but she didn't really mind. She was proud of the comment.

  Still, she was a lonely girl. Partly because of the way she was, she never got asked to dances, never, in fact, had even been asked for, let alone been out on, a single date. Those few boys who did accept her did so as an equal and a friend—and that meant as just one of the boys. It was hard, sometimes, sitting around and listening to them compare notes on girls they were attracted to, driving home by their very indifference to her sex the fact that she would never be the object of such conversations, either by them or by others.

  Still, the flip side of that never appealed to her much, either. Perhaps if she'd been pretty, or sexy, or at least cute, or had big breasts and a big ass she might have thought differently, but she didn't have those attributes and never would.

  That meant, at least, never having to dress in those silly, fancy outfits and do all that high-pitched giggling and gushing about that absolutely dreamy boy in the third row in school, or flirting, putting on phony perfumes and painting eyes, cheeks, lips— well, it just seemed so damned silly and stupid to her, if not downright dishonest. She never saw why girls had to go through all that stuff anyway, when boys scored extra points just by taking a bath.

  She'd never gotten along with, nor much liked, her sisters, either. Of course, part of that was in being the youngest, and, therefore, the target for older siblings, but, later on, it was because she neither liked nor identified with them or their concerns and they knew it. Well, now she was riding and herding and milking while her oldest sister was pregnant with her second kid, the next was trying hard to have her first while working in the commune laundry, and the third was an apprentice bull cook who seemed content. Some wonderful ambition that was.

  Ambition was very much on Cassie's mind right now, for she was The Age, graduated from general school, and on her way to either higher education or an assigned trade depending on how she did on the massive battery of tests she'd take after Census.

  She'd always had an affinity with animals, particularly horses, who were prettier, stronger, and far more loyal and dependable than most people she'd met, and this had not gone unnoticed by those who were always r
eferred to as "the powers that be." She was aiming for one of the two slots open for veterinarian's training. Then she'd show them! Then she'd show then all! Status, a true profession, rank that commanded respect, top pay, and a skill that was vitally needed.

  Her father was working iron when she entered the smithy, and she stood and watched until the red-hot metal had been skillfully shaped and formed and dunked into the water. He spotted her then, standing there, and frowned. "Well, Cass? Parcel man have anything for us today?"

  She looked suddenly disgusted with herself and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Pa. I—I guess I forgot to check."

  "What! Didn't you go out to the highway like I told you to?"

  "Yeah, I went, only…"

  "Only what?"

  "Well, soon as I got there a stringer rode by and I just sort of forgot anything else. I'm sorry, Pa."

  Her father sighed— He was a huge, superbly muscled man with thick black hair and a full beard, looking every bit the smith he was, and he had a hell of a mean streak in him and the short temper to bring it out. He didn't usually let it get the better of him, though, unless he'd been drinking, and while she braced for at least a hard and foul tongue-lashing, it never came. Like everyone else in Anchor Logh, her father had once been The Age himself, facing his own Census. As rough as he was now, and he'd been even rougher back then, he knew what the sight of a stringer this close to Census would have done to him back then, and he was never the sort of man to hold anyone to a higher standard than that to which he held himself.

  Instead he said, "Welt, don't fret about it. The Holy Mother knows you got enough on your mind right now."

  Feeling very relieved, she decided she should make amends anyway and so she responded, "Want me to go back out there now? I don't mind. I got nothing much to do."

  "Naw, that's all right. I hav'ta go out there myself in an hour or two anyway, and if there's anything I guess it'll wait 'til then. You just get along now and enjoy yourself."

  She thought for a moment, the crisis already far in the past in her mind, and decided to take advantage of her father's unusual good nature. "Maybe I could take Leanspot into the city, then? I got to return some books to the Temple library and pick up some others."

  He thought it over. Under ordinary circumstances he'd have given a flat no, but she was The Age, and if she couldn't take care of herself and gain self-confidence now, she sure as hell better know it.

  "Yeah, sure," he said at last. "Take all the time you want. But if you stay past nightfall, you'd best stay at the Temple overnight. With this crowd coming in and Census coming up you don't want to take no chances, you hear?"

  She nodded soberly. "I promise."

  In point of fact, people were very safe in the city unless they aided and abetted their own downfalls.

  Citizens had full rights and protections and those were jealously guarded and enforced by the government and police. Minors—those under The Age— were even more zealously protected. Naturally, if someone went over to one of the Main Street dives and flashed a lot of money around, or solicited immoral favors and lived to regret it, there wasn't much to be done, but, on the whole, anyone could walk in any part of the city in safety even late at night.

  Citizenship, however, came with being counted in the Census, which was always on a predetermined date. That left those like Cassie, who'd reached The Age well before Census, in the position of being neither minors nor citizens, and during that period they were vulnerable to those who saw profit in this loophole. There were tales of young men and women being abducted and held through Census and the registry. If not caught in the Paring Rite, which was a fate worse than death, and if they then did not register as citizens, the law regarded them not as people at all, and, therefore, recognized no rights in their case. They became, in fact, property, animals like horses or cows or pigs in so far as the government was concerned—the property of the abductor or whomever the abductor transferred them to. They were even registered, as animals, with the Veterinary Office. The law, even the church, would actually support the owner over the victim, and this condition would last for life.

  It was explained by the church that such things were the Holy Mother's will, since She dictated the laws governing World, and meant that this life was forfeit to some terrible deed or lifestyle in the life immediately past that required a lifetime's punishment to expunge. There was no way to get out of it, then, since anyone who tried to escape or thwart this working out of punishment would be doomed to the same fate in every subsequent life until the evil done was cleansed. Cass had never, to her knowledge, seen such people, but she knew they existed, usually traded from Anchor to Anchor through the stringers so that there would be no family revenge-

  She kissed her father and went back to the block where she lived. It was one of several dozen buildings, all four stories high, composed literally of large prefabricated cubes that locked together. Because of the design, though, the buildings were asymmetrical, each row of cubes set slightly in or out of the row and with four large ones at its base, five slightly smaller on top, the end two protruding, six still smaller atop that, then five of the same size on top. The size cubicle you got depended on your family size and ranking within the commune. Once they'd lived in the relatively palatial ground level, but now she climbed the stairs to the second story. A family of six needed more space than a family of four, and with two daughters married off it was only the high regard for her father that had moved the farm council to allow them to live even where they were now.

  At this time of day there was no one home. Mom was on the other side of the farm, in the Administration Building, working her usual job in accounting, and Tarn was in the bakery today, so it seemed unnaturally quiet and still. It was just a basic three-room apartment, the living room and two decent-sized bedrooms, but it was home. She found a long match and lit one living room lamp, then went back to the bedroom she and Tarn shared and lit the lamp there. Throwing some of Tarn's clothes out of the way, she rooted in the closet and came up with a basic change of clothing and a small toiletries bag which she packed quickly. While picking and choosing the toiletries she looked up at herself in the small mirror and stared into her own face for a moment.

  Dark brown eyes stared back at her out of a young boy's face. For not the first time she reflected that she'd make a better boy than girl all around— Except, of course, she didn't care for girls much and she did like boys. She chuckled a bit to herself, remembering the several times at fairs elsewhere in the Riding she'd drawn the adolescent attentions of more than one girl who'd made that mistake. They'd often said she'd outgrow it, but that was obviously not going to happen now. She was stuck with the physique of permanent boyish adolescence, although she'd never grow more than her current 163 centimeter height nor reach 50 kilos no matter how much she exercised and how much she ate. Or worry about packing a bra, either.

  She sighed and turned away and zipped up the travel bag, picked it up, and left the cube, putting out the lights on the way,

  Only then did she remember the books she was supposed to be taking back to the library, and she returned for them. It was, she decided, just going to be one of those days.

  2

  RIDER

  We are the spirits of Flux and Anchor and some call us demons. It is possible that we are such, for certainly we know not our natures or origins. Everything is born, yet we were not born. At least, I can remember no such experience, nor can any of my kind. It may be true, as some of us argue, that since no human clearly remembers his or her birth it might Just be the same with us, yet that makes no sense to me. Humans are born, and humans die, yet we who are the Soul Riders do not die, and our number is constant and fixed to the number of Anchors on World.

  Certainly it seems as if I have been thus forever, yet there must have been an origin at some time in the far past, or at least a coming to World, since it is clear that World has a no more infinite past than infinite future. It, too, was born, whether by creation of the H
oly Mother as the church says or by more natural and predictable processes, and the time of its homing is written in the rocks of Anchor and the decay rate of Flux. It has been here, although not in this form always, no more than four or five billion years at best, and humans have been here a far shorter time than that—a few thousand years at best. And yet I can remember no time without humans.

  If humans and World were both born, and will both surely die, as will all things known to us in the universe, then why and how do we exist as we do?

  The Holy Church says that we are demons left from the Great Rebellion, when angels in their pride rose up and slew angels and threatened to usurp the Holy Mother's domination of the universe in foolish and futile insurrection. It was then, or so it is written, that the Holy Mother acted, changing the angelic seditionists to foul and horrible monstrosities whose outer forms and very existence mirrored their most terrible inner selves and exiled them to Hell, sealing the seven gates to Hell against their coming again into this universe save by proxy.

  The misguided, misused, and misshapen ones who followed the Seditionists in their terrible mutiny, and those who took no side in the fray, were changed to human form by the Holy Mother after Her inevitable victory, in that way to suffer pain and torture and purify themselves in life after life until they again be cleansed and worthy to reenter the kingdom of Heaven shown so tantalizingly close in the day sky. It is also written in the holy books that the gates of Hell will be reopened one day by the evil ones known as the Seven Who Wait, who roam World supervising the misery of human existence and take joy in inflicting it. When and if those gates are again reopened. Hell will pour once more into World, and humanity will be caught once again in the midst of battle between Heaven and Hell and will again be forced to make a terrible choice. Then will humanity have a second chance at Paradise, and depending on their souls' progress through the lives they lived, they will choose rightly or wrongly. Those who choose correctly this time around will be allowed back into Heaven, while the rest shall be permanently recast into foul Hell.