Live Free or Die-ARC

by John Ringo

  "So you weren't serious," the reporter said, confused. "Why in the world would you say those things? You really upset a lot of people. Not to mention making yourself and the people of this region a primary target! Were you crazy?"

  "Oh, I don't like city folk," Tyler said. "Don't care for their politics, don't care for their attitude, which is more ignorant and provincial than they can possibly understand since they're ignorant and provincial. But it doesn't mean I wanted anyone to die. Quite the opposite. As to why I said it? I'll leave you with the words of the smartest rabbit I know: 'Please, Br'er Fox! Don' throw me in dat br'ar bush!'"

  SAPL

  One

  Tyler looked around the, extremely empty, personnel bay 41816-B of the Glalkod Commercial Transfer Station One in annoyance. His eyes lit on what was clearly a hypernode terminal and he walked over. He'd been looking forward to savoring the moment of his first steps onto a space station. But since his local guide was conspicuously missing it would have to wait.

  "Connect to Fallalor Wathaet, please," he said.

  "There are six hundred and eighty-seven thousand Fallalor Wathaet's on the hypernet network," the terminal replied. "Could you com his registry number?"

  "I don't have a com link," Tyler said. "He should be somewhere on this station. He is probably in a bar and he's probably drunk on maple syrup."

  "Searching, searching . . . Fallalor Wathaet eight-two-alpha-two-four-kilo-zero-one-hotel-november-dash-one."

  "Like I'm gonna remember that," Tyler muttered.

  "Tyler!" Wathaet said, slurrily. The background was clearly, as Tyler had guessed, a bar. "Hey, man! How's it going?"

  "You were supposed to meet me at the ship, Wathaet," Tyler said. "Remember?"

  "Oh, yeah, man," Wathaet replied. "Sorry about that. Hey, just catch a cab over to Kulo's. I'll meet you here!"

  "Fine," Tyler said, sighing. "Net, I need a cab."

  "There are over . . ."

  "Just pick the closest one and tell me where to pick it up."

  "Very well," the terminal replied, snippily. "Proceed down the corridor to the passageway. That's the hallway to your left until it comes to a bigger hallway since you're a primitive. The cab will meet you there. That will be five credits."

  "Tyler Alexander Vernon," Tyler said. "You should have only one of those."

  "Registering. Please obtain a full registration package at your earliest opportunity. Thank you. Have a nice day."

  The 'cab' turned out to be a floating compartment with seats for two. Small seats for two. It was smaller than a Terrestrial 'Two-Fer' car and didn't look as if it should be able to stand upright.

  "Uh," Tyler said, fumbling where he figured the door should be. "I don't know how to . . ."

  "I'll open it," the cab said. The entire transparent top collapsed into the rear. "Get in. New, are you?"

  "Primitive world," Tyler said, sitting down. The top quickly popped back up. "Earth. The maple syrup planet."

  "Oh, yeah, heard of that," the cab said. "Destination?"

  "Kulo's?" Tyler said.

  "Right," the cab said, pulling out smoothly. "Who's that maple syrup guy? Verggon or something?"

  "Tyler Vernon?" Tyler asked. The cab maneuvered skillfully through some light pedestrian traffic, mostly Glatun but a few other species Tyler didn't recognize, then slid into a compartment like an elevator. The door closed.

  "Yeah," the cab said. "You think he meant the Horvath should waste the cities? Seems pretty, I dunno, cold."

  "No, actually, I don't think he meant it," Tyler said. There was no sensation but he was either trapped in a room with an apparently sentient cab or he was in a very smooth piece of transportation technology. He was banking on the latter. There were no flashing lights to tell him he was going anywhere, though. Not even a bank of numbers. Just walls and a lack of sensation of movement. "He was just saying that so the Horvath wouldn't waste the cities. If he could get them to think the maple sugar gatherers didn't care, that took the cities off the table as hostages."

  "Guess you might be right," the cab said. "He sure kept consistent, though."

  "Thank you," Tyler said. "I'm Tyler Vernon."

  "Oh," the cab said. "Then I guess you'd know."

  "Can I ask a question?"

  "Go ahead."

  "Are all cabs AIs in the Federation?"

  "I'm not an AI. I'm a replicant program. I just have a set of queries and responses. Sounds like an AI. And if somebody gets outside my programming I can call Athelkau, which is the station's AI, to get its help. Happens so fast you wouldn't notice."

  "So . . ." Tyler said. "Was that a standard response?"

  "Yep," the cab said as the door opened. It was clearly a different passageway since the light was lower, mostly from blown light panels, and the pedestrians were . . . different. It was amazing how universal a 'bad part of town' could look. Graffitti, it turned out, was another universal. The cab slid out of the compartment smoothly then started weaving through the pedestrian traffic. Someone threw something at it which thunked off the plastic top and left a green, drippy stain.

  "Not the best part of town," Tyler said.

  "Nope," the cab replied. "Have to get a wash after this. You're registered on the hypernet banking system. That's five credits."

  "Authorized?" Tyler said. "Does that work?"

  "Yep," the cab said, dilating the top. "Have a nice day. Keep your credit chips hidden. But Kulo's is pretty safe."

  Tyler walked over to the nearest door and looked at the marquee. It was in garish letters but he couldn't read them so he wasn't even sure if he was in the right place.

  "Look confident and as if you're not a yokel," Tyler muttered to himself. "Open?"

  The door refused to budge.

  "Hey," he said, turning to ask the cab. But it was gone.

  "Damnit," he muttered. He could hear dissonant music from inside and the sound of an occasional yell. Sounded like a bar. "Hello?" he said, rapping his nuckles on the door. "Open sesame?"

  The door dilated and a bipedal lizard even larger than Mr. Haselbauer filled it. The thing looked like a velociraptor with a toothache.

  "Sss-graka-gar!" it bellowed. It had to. The door had been soundproofed and the noise inside was at the nuclear decibel level.

  "Wathaet?" Tyler shouted, craning his neck up. The view of the thing's face wasn't much better than the rest.

  "Garagar!" the thing shouted back, gesturing inside with a thumb. It even had velociraptor thumbs.

  Tyler stepped inside and his ears immediately tried to shut down. The 'music', if it could be called music, was a series of incredibly loud, apparently random, notes with asyncopated pauses. Most of them were near the top of the audible range so it was possible that there were some out of human audibility he was missing. If so, he'd pass. It was a worse experience than the one indoor bagpipe competition he'd attended. But only marginally.

  The crowd was mostly Glatun and they seemed to be mostly using hypercom implants. They'd have to, there was no way to hear. There were a few other species. Two large purple slugs were drinking something green in a corner and a giant, segmented, exoskeletal, black and red worm was chugging what looked like a gallon of something that smoked to some shouted comments. At least Tyler assumed the Glatun were shouting. They were opening and closing their mouths and between notes he could pick up some yells. A few more of the giant sauroids were circulating the room but they seemed to be servers. Or security. Or both.

  "T . . . er!" a Glatun shouted at him, clapping him on the back.

  "Wathaet?" Tyler shouted back. He had to assume it was Wathaet. Racist as it might seem, Glatun really did all look the same to him.

  The Glatun opened and closed his mouth several more times. Tyler could only get a few syllables. It had to be Wathaet, though.

  "I can't hear you!" Tyler screamed.

  "What?"

  Tyler grabbed him by the arm and dragged him to the door which fortunately opened.

  "God
almighty," Tyler said when they were outside the cacophony. "How can you stand it in there?"

  "Stand what?" Wathaet asked.

  "I couldn't hear a thing," Tyler said. "Are all you guys deaf?"

  "No," Wathaet said. "Oh, you don't have a plantpak."

  "No, I don't have a plantpak," Tyler said with a sigh. "Human, remember?"

  "Come on," Wathaet said, waving for Tyler to follow. "Time to fix that."

  "Uh, Wathaet," Tyler said. "I'm not sure that a Glatun doctor would know the first thing about human physiology."

  "I talked to Cori about it," Wathaet said. "He said no problem."

  "Who is Cori?" Tyler asked as Wathaet took a turn down a service tunnel. A couple of Glatun were just sort of hanging around the tunnel in a very nonchalant manner. Like a nonchalant 'Your money or your life' manner. "Uh, Wathaet?"

  "Don't worry," Wathaet said. "Everybody knows me. Hey, guys. Buddy of mine from earth. This is the maple syrup king."

  "Oh, wow," one of the Glatun said, surreptitiously putting away his vibroknife. "Gosh, it's nice to meet you. You wouldn't happen to have any . . ."

  "Catch," Tyler said, tossing them a sample bottle of Vermont's finest. They just made it past the scuffle. Turned out that Glatuns had blue blood as well as skin. "Wathaet, could we please get into some patrolled corridors?"

  "We're here," Wathaet said as a panel opened. "Come on in."

  Tyler had, like most kids, done a paper on the Holocaust in school. His particular paper had focused on Nazi experiments and Dr. Joseph Mengele, the 'Angel of Death'.

  The dingy room called back some very unpleasant memories. Same torture-rack, Sweeney-Todd barber's chair. Same 'Ve haff ways of making you talk!' light in the face. Same sharp blade things hanging in mid-air. In this case, literally. The only thing missing was the smell of antiseptic which, under the circumstance, was not reassuring.

  "Uh, Wathaet?" Tyler said.

  "Don't let this place fool you," Wathaet said. "Cori's the best plant thing on Glalkod Station. Hey! Cori! Where are you?"

  "In that case," Tyler said, backing to the door. "I think I'll take my chances on finding one on the . . ."

  A four-foot long black scarab beetle had come bustling out of a back room. It wasn't exactly a scarab beetle, but the resemblance was remarkable. Except scarab beetles didn't have the big cutting mandibles. Come to think of it, Tyler had seen a few more scurrying around in the corridors. He'd assumed they were dogs or something.

  "Wathaet," the beetle buzzed. "Is this the human I get to experiment on?"

  "No!" Tyler shouted.

  "Yes," Wathaet said. "He wants a full plantpak with all the trimmings."

  "True," Tyler said. "But I'm not so sure I want it from a beetle."

  "Racism," the beetle buzzed. "We exoskeletals are used to it."

  "Man up," Wathaet said. "The Ananancauimor are the best plant specialists in the western spiral arm. And Cori is the best of all of them."

  "Modestly I must admit this is true," the beetle said, mounting a small step-stool by the barber's chair. "Are you going to lie down or must I get the stunner?"

  "Look," Tyler said, reasonably. "You don't know a thing about human physiology."

  "Au contraire," the beetle buzzed. "I have researched everything your primitive medical profession has discovered and I will not be going in unaccompanied. Louisa is a specialist in alien physiology."

  "Who is Louisa?"

  "I am," a voice in the air said. "I am the medical AI. You need not fear, Mr. Vernon. We will first do a very thorough examination of your physiology. As you have noted, we are unfamiliar with human physiology. But we will not be after we have completed our thorough scan of you. Furthermore, any first-contact procedures must be reviewed by a medical board for safety and best practice."

  "How long is that going to take?" Tyler asked. "I'm only on the station . . ."

  "The review will be more or less simultaneous with the examination," Louisa said. "The majority of it consists of discussion amongst AIs. We communicate and decide . . . very fast."

  "Is this an . . . invasive procedure?" Tyler asked.

  "The examination will not be," Louisa said. "The plant procedure? Extremely. But you won't feel it."

  "Anti-infection protocols?" Tyler asked.

  "Are you saying I don't run a clean aug parlor?" Cori buzzed angrily.

  "Not at all," Tyler said, soothingly. He managed not to glance at the scuff marks on the walls. "Just getting a feel for the place."

  "Can we leave it at 'I know what I'm doing'?" Louisa said. "There is zero danger of infection. I'll admit that Cori could tidy up a bit . . ."

  "It's an atmosphere thing," Cori said. "Make this place look like a hospital an I'll lose half my custom! People go to hospitals to die!"

  "We call places like that . . ." Tyler was going to say 'hospices'. "Good point. You're right, Wathaet. Time to man up."

  "That's the spirit," Louisa said. "If you could just climb in the chair and relax."

  "Climb, yes," Tyler said. "Relax?"

  "Right," Wathaet said. "This is gonna take a while and I'm thirsty. See you back at the bar."

  "So . . . when does the examination start?" Tyler said a few minutes later. He had to admit the chair was more comfortable than it looked and he was even getting a bit sleepy.

  "I've been examining you since you came in the door," Louisa replied. "I'm about half way through."

  "Oh," Tyler said, looking around for the scanning equipment. All the icky floating stuff was still floating where it had been. "MRI?"

  "Distantly," Louisa said. "GRI would be closer. Gravitic resonance imaging. Some magnetic. I've completed a thorough survey of your gross physiology and anatomy and am doing a chemical survey and interaction modeling. You're remarkably similar to the Ngongot. Not in gross anatomical ways, but in interaction and biochemistry. Most Ngongot protocols will work perfectly well. By the way, on the subject of sepsis I see what you mean. You guys are sewers."

  "Thanks," Tyler said. "Some of that seems to be evolutionarily interactive, so . . ."

  "Oh, recognized," Louisa said. "We won't mess with the important suites. You actually seem to be missing some and we'll take care of the interaction problems while we're at it. The question is approaching: What do you want done?"

  "I'm not even sure what a 'full plantpak' means," Tyler admitted.

  "Hypenet connection and memory buffer mostly," Cori buzzed. The beetle was busy behind Tyler's head which was causing increasing paranoia. "In your case, since you didn't have it as a kid: Immune system protocols. Geriatric stabilization. And, since you're clearly pretty screwed up in places, ocular and aural adjustments and implants and a full rebuild on skeletal and vascular systems. That's gonna cost a bit."

  "I can hear just fine," Tyler said. "Sure, I've got a little high-frequency hearing loss . . . And so I wear glasses?"

  "Do you want to see and hear clearly?" Louisa asked.

  "Yes, please," Tyler said. "And if you could get rid of that weather knee, I'd appreciate it."

  "No problem," Cori said. "Four-fifty will do it. You got the stones?"

  "Are we talking four hundred and fifty or four hundred and fifty thousand?" Tyler asked. "Four million?"

  "Four hundred and fifty credits," Cori said. "Unless you want to pay me four hundred and fifty thousand which I'm not going to turn down."

  "Uh . . ." Tyler said. "What else is available? Because I can afford some upgrades."

  "Hooo," Cori said. "Big spender. I like that. We can do a full prosthetic rebuild of your motor system . . ."

  "It cost an arm and a leg is a metaphor," Tyler said, quickly. "I was thinking more along the lines of . . . I dunno. What do you have? That keeps all my bits attached?"

  "Well, if you really don't want the full cyborg package . . ." Cori said.

  "I really don't want the full cyborg package," Tyler said. "Can I get a list or something?"

  "How long you got?" Cori said. "There's the athl
etic package. Very popular. Increased muscular density. Faster neural twitch response. Increased oxygenation systems. Hyper-cooling package. Balance systems, very good if you're going to be in zero-gravity as well. No nausea, which you guys must get with that screwed up aural balance system. That's all nanobased so once we get past the basic plants it's non-invasive since you're a sissy. Personal combat package is a big seller around here . . ."