Analog Science Fiction And Fact - June 2014

by Penny Publications

  But that was before Abraxas had fully opened up to the outside universe. Now, six years later, there weren't the riches of the Steam Barons but there wasn't the same aching poverty either. People got by well enough, and those as different as Randy were treated with mistrust at best, and outright hostility at worst. Little wonder that when Randy entered the region of Jennifer he did it in disguise, riding on the back of a truck delivering liquid manure to the garden. Half submerged in the tank of slurry, he didn't worry about the smell; in fact he dipped his nose beneath the level of the liquid and took a couple of gulps whenever he felt thirsty. To his re-engineered tastebuds it tasted good. Of course it did, it was full of goodness, there were enough nutrients there to send a field full of seed thrusting to the sky in golden headed glory.

  Randy wallowed in the warmth of liquid shit whilst, in the house, Jennifer had just got out of the bath and was rubbing oil into her smooth calves. She wouldn't be eating slurry tonight, that was for certain.

  "No, no, no, Jennifer! That's not how one eats a salad!"

  "Then how, M. Lombard?"

  Jennifer didn't throw down her fork, she didn't show the slightest hint of annoyance at being corrected. Jennifer wanted to be the best at everything, and she relished the opportunity to learn.

  "Like this," said M. Lombard, picking up his own fork. He speared a fragment of arugula, a little mizuna, some red leaf. He dipped them in shiny balsamic vinegar. "You see?" he said, turning the forkful this way and that. "Every moment can be beautiful."

  Jennifer's father entered the room. He'd had his skin replaced with metacarbon fifteen years ago, back when the procedure had been prohibitively expensive for the common workers of Abraxas. Now that outside contact had made the procedure more affordable her father had returned to wearing clothes—if a series of polished titanium plates, a completely unnecessary covering to his impervious jet black skin, could be called clothes. But he looked impressive, Jennifer knew. The servants were terrified of him, they shrank into doorways as he strode down the corridors of the house, titanium plates clattering.

  "Reynaldo has confirmed he will arrive one week from today at six o'clock," said Jennifer's father. "He will stay here for four days, with an option for a further four if there are complications."

  "Stop worrying, Daddy. I was made for this. Reynaldo will fertilize me, you can depend upon it."

  "Let's just hope that he can get it up," said her father, darkly. "It's cash on conception. He won't be the first man to shrivel under pressure."

  Jennifer touched his hand.

  "You worry too much, Daddy. I know my business. And if not, there are drugs."

  "I hope so for his sake. The Shinkansen are paying him a fortune to go up for stud." Her father paused and sniffed the air.

  "What is that smell?" he said. Annoyance flickered across his face. "Are the drains backing up again?"

  "I don't know," said Jennifer. "Why don't you go and see?" She turned to M. Lombard. "I think that I have had enough practice for today. I will go and have a lie down; I need to be ready for next week."

  "Certainly, Jennifer," said M. Lombard.

  Jennifer entered her bedroom to find Randy sitting on the bed, a reactionless pistol pointing in her direction.

  "Randy!" gasped Jennifer. "I thought it would be you. Who else would smell so bad? How did you get in?"

  "By sticking to the places where your staff don't want to go."

  She wrinkled her nose. The air around her glittered gold as the region of Jennifer sought to assert itself. "You can put the pistol away, you know," she said.

  "I'm sorry," said Randy. He looked at the pistol as if he had forgotten he was holding it. "I wasn't sure it would be you coming through that door." He pushed the pistol into his pocket.

  "What do you need a gun for, anyway? No one here is going to hurt you."

  "What about your father? I heard that he had a man whipped for speaking to you out of turn."

  Jennifer smiled.

  "Oh Randy! That was in the old days, before FE. Besides, he never had the man whipped. He just spread the story to add to my cachet. You never understood my role, did you?"

  "So what did happen to the man?" asked Randy, stubbornly.

  "He was fired. His family were turned out of their house and he was banished from all Jarre family property."

  "And you think that was right?"

  Jennifer pouted. It was a pretty pout, taught to her by M. Lombard.

  "I'm not here to question my father, Randy."

  "He's not your father, Jennifer. I don't know why you still call him that. All the patronage nonsense died with the Steam Barons."

  Randy was sulking. Worse than that, a brown stain was spreading across the shot silk of the counterpane. The bedclothes would have to be burned, that was for sure. Jennifer put on her prettiest smile.

  "Listen, Randy, it's lovely to see you and everything, but what do you want?"

  "I'm here to stop you mating with Reynaldo."

  Jennifer laughed: it sounded like rain falling on silver bells.

  "Oh, Randy, how sweet! You've come to save me!"

  Randy didn't like it indoors. It was too hot and sterile for him, so Jennifer agreed to take a walk with him in the garden. She gave him a few minutes to sneak out of the house, then went and found him lurking by the treeline at the end of the long lawn. He was on his hands and knees pulling pale bloodworms from the soil and pushing them into his mouth. Purple juice ran down his cheeks.

  "Sorry," said Randy. "I get so hungry."

  "Don't worry about it," said Jennifer. "The gardeners will be grateful. And the farmers. The bloodworms eat their way up through the heels of the Ge-Cows when they sleep. They can live inside the creature for weeks, eating away at the interior. It causes no end of trouble, getting them out."

  "They taste good," said Randy, wiping his cheek with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry. I'm almost done."

  "How did you find out about Reynaldo?" asked Jennifer. Realization dawned, and she snapped her fingers. "Don't tell me. The Free Abraxans! Oh Randy! You always talked about joining them!"

  "You shouldn't laugh at us," said Randy, softly. "You have no idea. Do you know that after the outsiders arrived the Steam Barons sold this planet to the Slavemakers?"

  "It wasn't just the Steam Barons, Randy. After the big share-out we all took a stake in the planet. That's they way it goes. We're all Free Abraxans now."

  "No we're not. The same people are in charge. The Steam Barons negotiated the terms with the Slavemakers."

  "Who else? They were the experts."

  Randy was getting annoyed. Jennifer eyed those big hands of his, re-engineered to pull flesh from bone. What could he do if he were to really lose his temper? She spoke in her most reasonable terms. "If we were going to trade with the Universe, then who else should we choose to negotiate? Look what we got in return! All that new technology. No one goes hungry any more. There's food for everyone, and in return the Slavemakers were granted a little space up in the mountains, where we've no use for the land."

  "You think that was wise? The Slavemakers control a volume of space at least twenty times that of the human region. They'll want to enslave this planet too, eventually."

  "The Slavemakers can't control anyone without their permission."

  "You know that people voluntarily enslave themselves?"

  Jennifer looked at Randy, stinking of slurry and bloodworms, and dressed in old metaplastics he had managed to scavenge from the abandoned factories. She was too well brought up to mention his own form of en slavement.

  "It takes all sorts," she said, she said diplomatically.

  Randy sucked down the last bloodworm. His hands were stained red from where he had fought to pull them from the soil.

  "Anyway, that's not the point," he said, pale flesh spraying from his mouth. "They're playing the long game."

  "How?"

  "They're shaping how we evolve," said Randy. "They're choosing who people mate with.
" He waved his hands toward the distant bulk of the Ge-cows, their bodies the size of fuel tankers. "It's selective breeding. We're just like cattle to them!"

  Jennifer laughed.

  "So that's what this is all about! Well, let me tell you, I breed with who I want. Not that it's any of your business."

  "You want to mate with Reynaldo?"

  Jennifer waved her hand around the garden. "Look at all this," she said. "A whole garden planted for me. I have a beautiful house to live in, I get to travel anywhere I want. Anywhere in the known Universe! In return I'm expected to look beautiful, keep myself healthy and to deliver one child every three years for the next twelve years. It's not an onerous responsibility."

  "You think so?" said Randy with a nasty smile. "Do you know what Reynaldo is?"

  Randy refused to tell her more. He offered her his hand, and she wiped it down carefully with a cleanee before taking it.

  "Where are we going?" she asked.

  "The service valley. Summon one of your cars to meet us there."

  "Where are we going?"

  But Randy was silent. Jennifer thoughtfully tapped instructions on her thigh.

  A road ran down the bottom of the service valley, next to the rusting railway tracks, down which the trains had brought the supplies that kept the house running, back before the outsiders had transformed life on Abraxas. The service valley couldn't be seen from the house, Jennifer had no need to look on its sullen grey length. She was a creature of flowers and light, not of grey gravel and rust.

  "You bring me to the nicest of places," she said. Yellow slicks of Abraxan slime mold flowed over the rocks. Stand still too long and they'd try and engulf you.

  "Where's the car?" asked Randy.

  "It will be on its way," said Jennifer. "Tell me, why should I come with you?"

  "Because Reynaldo is a Slavemaker," said Randy. "Or did you know that already?"

  Jennifer was silent.

  "You didn't, did you?"

  "How could Reynaldo be a Slavemaker?" said Jennifer, and her frustration at his stupidity almost broke through. M. Lombard would not be pleased. "How could I mate with an alien?"

  Randy really could be quite irritating: he still hadn't outgrown that air of superiority Jennifer remembered from their younger days,

  "When we first colonized this planet the air was slow poison," he began. "The plants were inedible. They wouldn't kill you, they hadn't evolved the necessity, but they provided no nutrition."

  "Yes? So what has that to do with my mating with a Slavemaker?"

  Randy ignored her.

  "So the Steam Barons tailored the virtual machines to live within us, to act as a interface between the outside world and our bodies. Eat something on Abraxas, and the VMs convert it into something nutritious. It saved the Steam Barons having to import real food here."

  "Fine," said Jennifer. "How does that mean I can mate with a Slavemaker?"

  "The VMs don't just mess with our food. They can interact with our bodies and remodel them. That's what they did with the Gecows. That's how they remodeled the fish and the worms. That's how they remodeled us."

  Randy looked smug. That was one of his worst features, she recalled. Randy always had to be right.

  "It's something to do with you and the VM inside you," said Randy. "It will have been altering you, making you compatible," said Randy. He gazed at her. "You don't seem as upset as I would have expected."

  "I'm furious," said Jennifer.

  "Furious?" said Randy. "That's an odd word. Not sickened, or disgusted. They do play with our minds, don't they?"

  "I know," said Jennifer, staring pointedly at the flecks of bloodworm that stained his front.

  "There's another thing," said Randy. "The Slavemakers, the way they grow up. Some of them are genetically compatible with the species of the planets they control."

  "They don't control this planet, remember?"

  "Not yet, they're playing the long game."

  They heard the sound of tires crunching on gravel. The car that Jennifer had summoned, a big scarlet telecruiser, rolled toward them, metacarbon skin shining out against the grey surroundings. Jennifer snapped her fingers. A bad habit.

  "What is it?" asked Randy.

  "Reynaldo can't be a Slavemaker," said Jennifer. "It would have to violate the contract. What are you laughing at?"

  Randy was giggling like a little boy.

  "Why? I bet you didn't specify in the contract that you could only mate with humans."

  "That's not funny!"

  "Come on," said Randy. "You've got a week of freedom before the big event. Your so called father doesn't own you. Come with me. I'll prove that it's true."

  "Why would you do that?"

  "I'm part of the resistance, baby," said Randy. "We don't have to explain our methods."

  Jennifer drove the car.

  "I can't believe you never learned to drive," she said.

  "Why bother? I never had a car, and they drive themselves anyway."

  "I suppose." She glanced sideways at him. "You don't mind if I keep the windows open, do you? You really do smell." He was also staining the pale calfskin of the seats, but there was nothing she could do about that at the moment. The car skimmed down the road, the interior perfectly level despite the unevenness of the road.

  "You never understood the philosophy behind my chosen life, did you?" said Randy.

  Jennifer looked chastened. The steering wheel was already turning to gold where her fingers held onto it.

  "I never really understood any of it," she said. "I didn't think it was fair that I was selected for university. There were far cleverer people than me back in Westcliff."

  "They weren't as attractive as you," said Randy. "Sorry, Jennifer."

  "Oh, you're not being rude. I know why I was selected. The Steam Barons would have had me marked down as a potential consort. I know that. I wasn't like you, Randy. I never thought of fighting them."

  "I wanted to be a teacher or something," said Randy. "You know, I sometimes wonder if they knew what they were doing when they offered me this transformation. They effectively sidelined me. Just think of what I could have done, letting young minds see the truth..."

  He held up his hands, looking at the serrated edges of his metacarbon nails.

  "No," said Jennifer. "I hope you're just trying to make me feel better. I always like the idea of there being real rebels out there. I hate the idea that everyone is just like me."

  The fence was broken up ahead of them. A Ge-cow stood in the middle of the road, chewing complacently. The car swerved around the creature, the scarlet telecruiser dwarfed by the vast frame of the modified creature. Brown eyes stared down at Jennifer.

  "Speak to me, Randy."

  Randy coughed.

  "I always liked you, Jennifer," he said. "I sometimes wonder if I became what I became in reaction to you."

  "Oh Randy, you know that isn't true. You were always idealistic. That's why I like you."

  Now that they were past the Ge-cow the car speeded up once more. The road here wasn't so well kept.

  "Hadn't you better slow down?" asked Randy. "We'll skid on the gravel."

  "You can't skid when you're using a reactionless engine," said Jennifer. "Don't you know anything about the new cars?"

  "Reactionless?" said Randy, perking up. "I've been wanting to have a drive in one of these." He ran his hand along the leather dashboard. "Any momentum they borrow has to be paid back later. Not that that makes any sense. You know that a reactionless drive is impossible according to human science?"

  "Is it?" said Jennifer without interest. The car crunched across the loose stones, maintaining a steady hundred kilometers an hour. She glanced at the dash display. "Another two hours to the Marble City," she said. "After that we'll start climbing into the mountains. I guess my father will have missed me by then."

  "Will he come looking for you?"

  "Why should he?" asked Jennifer. "I'm under constant medical monitori
ng as part of the contract. He knows my location at all times."

  They drove past Marble City. Ships descended from the skies and rose back up again in a steady stream, their skins flickering with patterns. Randy gazed up open mouthed as they sped past.

  "Have you been into space?" asked Randy, ducking back in the car. He'd been leaning from the window like a little boy.

  "Of course," said Jennifer. "Have you?"

  "No," said Randy. "I'd have to get a new VM. This planet is written into my body."

  They drove on past the city and onto a wide road that led to the distant mountains. Snow banded their middle slopes, their tops rose into the upper atmosphere, past the weather. They car sped up the mountain road, easily passing the wide green trucks that ran up to the plateau city of New Vladivostok and its surrounding mines.

  "I'm feeling hungry," said Jennifer. "You must be starving."

  "I didn't want to disturb you. You looked so happy driving."

  "It is nice to be out. Thank you. But I need to eat. Let's pull in here."

  Randy looked at the large green trucks surrounding the roadside diner without enthusiasm.

  "Are you sure?" he said. "I've had trouble in these places before."

  "Stop worrying," said Jennifer, the light twinkling around her hair. "Everyone loves me."

  "I'm sure they do," said Randy. "It's not you that I'm worried about."

  She guided the car into a space, golden feet pressing golden pedals. Randy was looking at the waste bins around the side of the building.

  "Oh Randy," said Jennifer. "Don't eat from the bins. Come in and keep me company."

  "I'd be happier with the garbage. Your food is all so tasteless to me. And I need to eat much more than you. Besides, you don't really want to see me eat again, do you?"

  "Shut up and get inside."

  "Shut up doesn't sound very Jennifer," said Randy, but he shut up and went inside anyway.

  The interior of the diner was low and dim. One by one the faces of the truckers turned toward Jennifer. The woman behind the counter was rail thin. She was the only one looking at Randy.

  "Oh no," she said. "Not in here. His smell will put everyone else off."