Asimov's Science Fiction 01/01/11

by Dell Magazines

  Barnestable’s pulse was still racing when he and the Tinas wheeled Rhone backstage and released her from the wheel. Goat Boy drove a camel team into the ring with Turtle on the flatbed wagon that had carried his replica. The crowd laughed and clapped as he slowly stretched and started to move about. Murph and the clowns stayed out in the ring to help with his strongman routine.

  “What the hell was that about?” Barnestable demanded, half of his attention on the gap in the curtains. He winced as Turtle failed to catch an iron weight Murph tossed up to him, narrowly missing Loops with its fall. Turtle flinched from Murph’s glare and caught the next one.

  Rhone gathered up her chador. Her skin was flushed, making her scars stand out. They covered her in spiderweb-fine lines, tracing a two-dimensional map of her nervous system on her skin. More substantial scars peeked out of her hairline around her temples and ears. “I realized how close Murph got to hitting my leg.”

  “Bull.” Rhone pulled the chador over her head and settled the veil in front of her face. She didn’t respond. “Did you at least do your job?”

  She seemed to hesitate before nodding.

  “We got a candidate?”

  Another pause, before: “Two.”

  “Two?” A town this size normally turned up between none and one. “Rhone?”

  He wished he could see her face. In the ring, Turtle had pulled himself together and was plodding through his routine with a workman’s dourness.

  “A young man and a little girl.”

  Turtle held Murph up on one outstretched hand, which was even more impressive than it looked, since her ultradense muscles and bones meant she weighed substantially more than a born woman her size. Barnestable looked from Turtle to the kid bouncing on her seat between her grandparents.

  “Ah, Christ,” he said. “That’s all we bloody need.”

  Turtle’s routine ended with Murph and Loops standing on one hand, and three Tinas balanced on the other. The Tinas scampered up into the roof of the tent to distract the crowd with the trapezes while the rest of the troupe set up the troodon cage.

  Even that didn’t go smoothly. Monkey clocked Murph in the back of the head with a girder. Fortunately her head was as hard as Turtle’s. She responded by scooping him up on one foot and, with a deft flick, sending him soaring up into the bottom of the trapeze net, where he hung upside down by his toes. The crowd was delighted, thinking it was part of the show and trying to see the wires. Waiting inside the cage, Barnestable doubted any of them considered what a kick like that could do to a man’s skull. Or the side of a house.

  The troodons charged down the run from their van, jostling and snapping at each other. Barnestable raised his whip and chair and prayed that he’d get through the routine with all his limbs still attached.

  In the morning, he sent Rhone and Loops out with the solar off-roader and the statue of Turtle on its wagon, ostensibly to drum up business. Rhone’s other mission was to find out where the two candidates lived, and search for any others who hadn’t been at the performance the previous night.

  After sitting in stony silence through the troupe’s communal breakfast, Turtle zipped himself inside the annex where he slept. Barnestable left him to it. Without Rhone nearby to broadcast Turtle’s mood, the demeanor of the rest of the troupe lifted. Barnestable’s headache faded. Goat Boy produced a soccer ball and Murph, Monkey, and a couple of Tinas followed him outside for a game.

  The headache sidled back up about noon, announcing Rhone’s return. Bickering voices came from the direction of the big top—Monkey and the Tinas going at it. With a groan, Barnestable pressed the heels of his hands to his temples and dropped down from his seat in front of the comm set.

  Rhone and Loops brought news of a third candidate, a woman. Barnestable gathered everyone together for a team meeting. One of the Tinas represented her sisters.

  “Three in one town,” said Monkey. “Bloody jackpot.”

  “Veil must be thin here,” said Murph.

  Turtle’s shoulder twitched. He stared at his hands in his lap. Rhone sat around the opposite side of the table to him, her head turned away.

  Barnestable leaned back in his chair, clasping a hot pack against the back of his neck. “How many in the house with the woman?”

  Rhone said, “Three adult males, two of them younger. Husband and sons, I think.”

  “Be an easy grab,” said Loops. “It’s only a few streets away. House backs onto the dunes and there’s an empty house opposite.”

  “How d’you want to do it, Barnes?” asked the Tina.

  Barnestable shifted his hot pack to his forehead. “We’ll take the woman and the young bloke after the show tonight and stick them both in the trunk,” he said. The proximity of the troods was enough to deter most local law enforcement from an inspection that might uncover the hibernation unit hidden under the false floor of their van. Bribery generally handled the rest. “Make it look like they’ve run off together.”

  “She’s twenty years older than him, Barnes,” said Loops.

  He spread his hands. “So? Is she ugly?”

  “That’s why I don’t like to touch your mind, Barnes,” said Rhone.

  “What about the kid?” asked Monkey.

  Barnestable looked pointedly at Turtle. “Well?”

  Turtle examined his fists on the table. “Sounds like you’ve got this one figured out, too.”

  “They deserve to hear it from you.”

  Tattooed plates shifted along Turtle’s jaw, muscles clenching beneath. “It’s my woman’s kid.”

  A scatter of muttered swearing greeted the admission. Barnestable tossed down his hotpack. “Your woman’s kid?”

  Turtle met his gaze. “Yes.”

  Bullshit, Barnestable thought. He wished he could see Rhone’s expression. “Well. We gotta take her in, mate,” he said. Turtle opened his mouth to argue. Barnestable slapped the table. “For crying out loud, Turtle, Rhone was right to tell us about her. If we don’t grab her, an Interloper will get her in the end. You want that? How many others would have to die with her if that happened? Is that what you want?”

  Turtle shook his head. “She needs to be with her grandparents.”

  “Will they bring her in?” Loops asked. Turtle stared at her. “If they’re willing, ain’t any reason why they can’t come with us openly. Town this size, half of them going to know about you and the kid’s mum anyway.”

  Turtle looked at Rhone, then around at the rest of the team. Loops, Monkey, and the Tina watched him as intently as Barnestable did. Goat Boy jiggled his head happily. Murph lounged with legs stretched out and ankles crossed, cleaning her fingernails with a file. In reality, she was probably the most alert of all of them.

  “Christ,” Turtle said. “We all know what’ll happen to her after we bring her in.”

  Barnestable stood up on his chair and leaned across to grab Rhone’s wrist, shaking back the sleeve of her chador to show her scars. He felt her muscles tense under his fingers, but she didn’t resist.

  “This?” he said. “Maybe. If they think she’s strong enough to try it. And maybe she won’t survive if they do—the born ones often don’t. But she’d be dead as soon as an Interloper sniffed her out, anyway.” He released Rhone’s arm and she quickly shucked her sleeve back down. “More likely she’ll just live out her life in a protected facility with others like her.”

  “What kind of life, Barnes?” said Turtle, his eyes fixed on Rhone.

  “A longer one than if we don’t take her,” said Barnestable. “And no one else will have to die because of it.”

  Turtle sagged.

  “So, you gonna bring them in?”

  Stillness. Then a nod.

  Barnestable stayed where he was while the rest of the team scattered among the vans and annexes. Rhone stalked away, hugging her chador around her, with Turtle following. Barnestable pressed his fingers around the base of his aching skull.

  Dammit, Rhone. He picked up his hotpack and wandered
outside, kneading the beads to heat them up again.

  “Barnes.” Murph sat on the roof of the trood van with Loops and Monkey, shaded by a sun umbrella. Inside, the troods had piled themselves in a feathery heap. One of them clacked her jaws at his approach.

  He clambered up via the running board and driver’s bench. Three Tinas occupied the roof of another van, basking in the afternoon sun, a row of identical underwear mannequins struck in different lounging poses. Their sisters would be inside, waiting to take a turn.

  Monkey, Loops, and Murph regarded him solemnly. Murph said, “What are you going to do about him?”

  Barnestable realized his headache had receded again. Rhone must have walked a fair distance. He looked at Murph. She was older than him but the freckles across her nose and cheeks helped her look younger. “Let him stew for a bit.”

  “He should have said something,” said Monkey.

  “He didn’t know the kid was going to be a candidate, right Barnes?” said Loops. “Poor bastard. Christ, if I had a daughter I wouldn’t want her sliced up like that. Even if she survived.”

  “It’s not likely she’d be chosen for remaking,” said Barnestable.

  “Can we trust him to do what needs to be done?” Monkey said, rapping the roof of the van for emphasis. Below, one of the troods grumbled a complaint. “That’s the question.”

  “Maybe we should just put him in the trunk,” said Murph.

  Barnestable waved the threat away. “Give over, you lot. He wouldn’t fit in the bloody trunk, anyway.”

  She snorted. “He would after I was done with him.”

  “He’ll come good,” Barnestable said. Christ, Turtle, you’d better bloody come good. “Just keep an eye on him in the meantime, eh?”

  The second night’s performance was as tense as the first. Loops’ and Monkey’s clowning turned to genuine fisticuffs and Barnestable had to send Murph out to drag them from the ring. Once again, the crowd thought it was all part of the show. The troupe got through their acts otherwise unscathed.

  “Pull your bloody selves together,” Barnestable snapped at Rhone and Turtle. “We’re saving her, remember? And this godforsaken town.”

  The troupe settled down as the time to take the first candidate approached—or at least, Rhone finally got a lid on her emotional broadcast. The throbbing in Barnestable’s head receded. Even so, he decided to accompany the team himself.

  He, Rhone, and Murph set themselves up in the abandoned house across the street from the target. Sitting motionless in the shadows with their chameleon suits on, only their headsets and Murph’s matte-black, silenced sniper rifle marked their locations. Three Tinas came in from beachside as the entry team, with Turtle waiting among the dunes as backstop.

  There was no chatter from the Tinas as they made their approach. They had no need to talk amongst themselves.

  Barnestable said to Murph, “You got them?”

  She had her eye pressed to the rifle’s scope, set to thermal imaging. “Yeah, they’re at the house now.”

  “And the targets?”

  A pause. “All in bed. Look to be sleeping.”

  “Rhone? We good?” When she didn’t answer, he hissed, “Rhone!”

  “Yeah, Barnes.”

  He gritted his teeth. Of all of them, she most needed to be on her game. “Turtle? You all clear that side?”

  Silence in his headset.

  “Turtle?” Oh, no. “Rhone, where the hell is Turtle?”

  A sharp intake of breath from Murph. “Shit. The woman just dropped off scope. Christ, the husband too. Whole bloody house is going dark.”

  Barnestable stared at her stupidly. His gut felt suddenly cold.

  “Get them out,” cried Rhone. “Get out!”

  “Barnes, what the hell?” from a Tina.

  “Interloper!” he cried. “Pull back! Pull back!”

  “Jesus, Barnes, we’re already in.”

  “Then get out!” he yelled into his mic. “Turtle! Turtle, you son of a bitch, where the hell are you?”

  “It’s cold . . .” one of the Tinas said. A staccato, collective gasp followed, then gurgles.

  “No!” screamed Rhone.

  The voice began, that didn’t belong on this side of the Veil, speaking in a timbre and tongue that no human could manage. Murph threw down her headset. Barnestable wrenched off his and lunged across to Rhone, flinging her headset away as well. Her shoulders thrummed under his hands.

  He shook her. “Rhone. Rhone. You can’t save them, love.” He lifted her bodily and pushed her towards Murph. “Keep it off Murph.” To Murph he said, “I’ll be back. Shoot anyone that comes out of that house.”

  “On it, Barnes.” With unhurried coolness, she reset the scope to night vision and settled back down into a shooting position. The Interloper’s victims wouldn’t show up on thermal, with the Interloper sucking the heat out of them and everything around them, but they’d still be evident in the visible light spectrum.

  Barnes ran, out the back door, vaulting the low fence into the back neighbor’s yard and down the next street. His short legs pumped, sprinting as hard as he could. The headache was back with a vengeance. Every step rattled his brain. He could see the pale dome of the big top a few blocks away.

  Faster, piggy, he told himself. Jesus Christ, he hoped Rhone kept the Interloper off Murph. If it got out of the house . . . Once one Interloper got loose and started sending its human victims out to expand its foothold and enslave more pawns, it paved the way for others to follow. Then the only way to stop it was to nuke every person in range.

  Faster!

  The troods’ wagon was around the far side of the camp. Barnestable took the shortest path—through the big top and between the caravans. The remaining Tinas were on the ground, flailing spastically and speaking in tongues, their distance from their sisters enough that the Interloper hadn’t yet got a complete grip on their minds. Their breaths misted in the cold air around them. Monkey had a silenced assault rifle trained on them, his face a study of anguish and indecision.

  The Tinas shrieked—probably Murph shooting down one of their sisters. Barnestable snapped, “What are you waiting for? Do it!”

  He kept running, heard the click and spit of the gun. Each time it fired the noise from the Tinas diminished, until there was only Monkey’s sobbing left behind him. Barnestable could hear the troodons, their yaps rising to near howls as they crashed about their cage. They could taste the Interloper’s presence, even from here.

  Back outside, Goat Boy was up on the roof of the troods’ wagon, shaking his head and gripping the release to raise the gate.

  “I’m here!” At the sound of Barnestable’s voice, the troods went abruptly quiet, staring at him with flat orange eyes. The feathers stood up all over their bodies.

  “Mama’s here, babies,” he said, forcing calm into his voice as he rummaged in the locker under the wagon for their collars and leashes. “Time to go hunting.”

  “Ready,” he called up to Goat Boy. “Let me in.”

  Goat Boy just sat and shook his head. Loops burst from among the caravans. “I called it in,” she said. Her voice was shaky. “Backup’s on its way.”

  “Goat Boy!”

  Loops looked up. “I got him, Barnes.”

  She climbed up onto the wagon and pried Goat Boy’s fingers loose so she could lift the gate enough for Barnestable to slither inside with his pets. They circled around him in the narrow space, tails shivering and sickle claws flexing, but dipped their heads obediently for him to slip on their collars.

  “Ready,” he called out to Loops. The gate went up and the troods leapt down, dragging Barnestable after.

  “Whoa!” he called, digging in his heels. They paused for him to take the lead.

  He set off again, willing his legs to run faster than they could. Faster, piggy! The troods loped along at his shoulders, casting their heads this way and that, their saurian brains tuned to the Interloper’s mental signature, but immune to its eff
ect.

  Barnestable kept them leashed until they started to pull ahead again, their snouts all pointed the same way, and he knew they’d locked in the Interloper’s location. Then he popped their collars and said, “Get ’em!”

  The troods bounded ahead, silent now that the quarry was at hand. Barnestable stopped and filled his lungs to shout as loudly as he could, “Murph! Incoming!”

  Murph’s hearing was augmented enough that if she didn’t get the message, it was because the Interloper had taken her and Rhone. If that was the case, his babies would be mincemeat and the backup force would be calling in a neutron strike.

  A scramjet transport thundered overhead. Barnestable shaded his eyes to look up. That would be bringing the seal to close the tear in the Veil where the candidate’s vulnerable mind had let the Interloper come through. The first transports had arrived before dawn, packed with soldiers to lock down the town. Barnestable had sent some of them with Loops to grab the young male candidate.

  To Monkey, he said, “Run interference for us. We’re going after Turtle.” Monkey, sunken eyed, gathered himself visibly and nodded. Barnestable reached out to squeeze his forearm. “Hold it together, mate.”

  He jabbed a finger at Rhone and Murph. “You two, with me.”

  “Why me?” Murph wanted to know.

  “Because she’s the only one he’ll listen to,” said Barnestable. “And if he doesn’t, you’re the only one who can kick his ass.”

  They took a caravan and camel team. Rhone sat silently beside Barnestable on the driver’s bench.

  “You going to make this easy and tell me where he is?” he said.

  “Do you need me to?” she asked.

  “Probably not.”

  To the northeast, the transport plane’s escorts were toying with the air defense assets that one of the mining cartels had put up.

  “Biggest damn balls-up of my career,” Barnestable said.

  “It ain’t so bad,” said Murph from behind him. “The rumors are already out in the public, have been a long time. What’s one more seal?”

  Just another finger in the dyke, Barnestable thought. He said, “Never lost a team member before, mate. I was proud of that record.”