A Plague of Angels

by Sheri S. Tepper

  “Then I wish you’d preserved enough to discover whatever guidance system it was men used when they went to the stars! I know damned well it wasn’t a human mind, and I don’t like this nasty business Ellel’s up to!”

  Mitty gave Berkli an astonished look and said offhandedly, “But we know perfectly well what they used! It was complicated, but perfectly within our capabilities. It was earth-based, of course. Transmitters and receivers, widely scattered.”

  “Where exactly?”

  “I don’t know. Mitty family history lists the names of the places where they were. Cape Canaveral Houston. But of course, those names don’t exist anymore. Our forefathers didn’t record locations. Why would they? They knew where the places were. They didn’t expect places to disappear. The books that might have told us where they were have been destroyed. Our family histories don’t include maps, and we’ve been unable to find many.”

  Berkli scowled, his fingers making a rum-atum-atum on the table edge. “Well then, if we could have built a system like that, why didn’t we do it? Why is Ellel looking for this Gaddir female when there’s another way to do it?”

  “It’s being done this way because we found the plans and specifications for doing it this way, and because she’s her father’s daughter! Look at how she’s taken over his walkers.”

  “Which weren’t even his!” Mitty fumed. “He was merely lucky enough to dig them up! Or unlucky enough! What made the man go digging just there, blowing great holes in the ground! Other people had seen those same records My family had seen them! None of them had gone digging for androids.”

  Berkli smiled behind his hand. The Mitty family had never forgiven Jark for invading Mitty expertise in that way.

  “I find Jark’s digging for them easier to understand than why some preastral bureaucracy manufactured thousands of android soldiers and then left them in cold storage.” Berkli went to the window, seeking movement to release the tension he felt. “Where does she control the walkers from?”

  “Why—why—I don’t know.”

  “Jark the. Third gave some to your family. Where do you control yours from?”

  “I’ve a control box in my quarters, one set to a specific frequency and a particular recognition code. Jark the Third gave it to my father as a gift, along with a few dozen of the things.”

  “He gave. Ander’s father a few likewise, and my father being gone, he offered a few to me, which I refused on aesthetic grounds, to Jark’s great amusement and Ellel’s annoyance. Almost as though he was buying us off, wasn’t it? Soothing us. Making us think they were only toys, amusements. Of course, maybe he thought they were, after he’d reprogrammed them.”

  “No,” said Mitty, with sudden vehemence. “No, he didn’t, Berkli! I know we speak of his having done so, but it isn’t strictly true. He couldn’t have actually reprogrammed them. No one could. The basic functions are so well protected that Jark couldn’t have changed them. The original design provided for a series of abort signals to override the basic functions.”

  Berkli turned slowly, furrows of concentration between his eyes. “I don’t understand.”

  Mitty fumbled for an example. “When a walker is about to kill someone, it receives an abort signal, then a command to do something else, such as—oh, go find something. Because they were built to find things, they can do that. They can do something a little less destructive, but they can’t do anything that isn’t destructive because their fundamental nature is destructive. They’re nuclear powered, of course, so they destroy even when they’re standing still. Their bodies are shielded somewhat, but their feet aren’t They burn the soil they stand on. Nothing will grow there for at least ten years, which is as long as I’ve been experimenting, trying to find out if the effect is permanent.”

  “But Ellel touches them.”

  “Ellel wears a mask these days. She keeps her arms and hands and body covered. Haven’t you wondered why?”

  Berkli shook his head in dismay. “I had assumed they were more or less harmless.”

  Mitty frowned. “No, Berkli. No. Haven’t you seen the pathways where they walk? Haven’t you heard about one of them killing two children in the marketplace?”

  “Two of our children?” Berkli asked in a hushed voice.

  “Domer children. Not Founding Family children, but they could just as well have been mine. Or since you have none, your sister’s. Everyone’s talking of it.”

  “She’ll have to call the walkers in!” cried Berkli. “Put them away somewhere. Where they can’t do any more damage.”

  “How do you suggest we convince her of that?” Mitty asked dryly. “Even if we could convince her, how many of the walkers would still be capable of obeying?”

  Two walkers had risen up on either side of Olly as though they’d grown out of the earth. She’d felt their presence in the same instant they had clamped her arms in steely hands. She’d started to cry out, but something had pinched her on the thigh, and the effort to make a sound had become, all at once, beyond her. She’d known it was a drug, something they had injected her with, something that made her body an unfeeling, limp bundle of flesh.

  Then they had wrapped her in something and carried her away between them. She hadn’t been able to raise her head voluntarily, but it had bobbed as the two trotted along, up and down, allowing her to catch a glimpse of the horizon against the stars, a glimpse of the coals blinking slowly in the dark. Then everything disappeared, and there was nothing she could identify. The ceaseless bobbing was making her sick. She had shut her eyes and tried to concentrate on breathing.

  They could kill her. Any resistance on her part, and they would kill her. Not meaning to, but because they didn’t know how not to. The safest course was to endure silently, to answer any questions they asked, if and when they did so.

  They showed no signs of doing so. Their motion was continuous and direct. They did not swerve or backtrack. They were taking her to some specific place.

  Gradually, as the night wore on, feeling came back into her body and her muscles spasmed involuntarily, fighting against one another and those who held her.

  “Drug wearing off,” said a cold voice.

  “Put her down,” said a cold voice, perhaps the same voice. “We wait here.”

  She was put down, not gently. Her ankles were bound with something metallic, so her fingers told her when she felt of it. It had no links or end. She was effectively hobbled, like a horse, able to sit up, probably even able to stand and walk a few steps, but unable to run away.

  She shivered.

  “Cold,” said the voice. “Cover her.”

  Something crisp and crackling was wrapped around her Not a blanket. It was too light and too rustly for a blanket More like paper. Whatever it was, it worked. She was immediately warmer.

  Silence. She wasn’t uncomfortable. Her hands were free, she could turn over, she could adjust the covering. The need to pee was an immediacy, too long delayed. She stood up and stumbled away from the two crouched figures, barely visible in the night, dragging the covering with her.

  “I need to pee,” she said, hoping they understood.

  They did not respond, did not even seem to hear her.

  She dared not go too far. When she had finished, she found a soft spot and lay down again, as far from them as she dared go, uncertain where they actually were. Somewhere close, her hair told her, prickling at the back of her neck. Nothing she could do about that. At least they hadn’t hurt her. They didn’t even seem interested in her.

  Exhausted, she fell into a doze.

  When she opened her eyes, she was still wrapped in her covering, a silvery foil that crackled when she moved. Wrapped in similar bundles, other forms sprawled around her. As she moved, she saw a person sitting cross-legged beside her, eyes peering through the holes of a glittering mask.

  Olly started to ask, then decided not to. She would not ask who, or where, or why. Instead she merely sat up slowly, pulling the filmy wrapping with her for warmt
h, regarding the woman before her with watchful judgment.

  “What’s your name?” the masked form asked in what Olly took to be a woman’s voice.

  “Olly Longaster.”

  “We’ve been hunting for you for a very long time, Olly Longaster.” The woman rose. “The name is a pseudonym, of course, but no matter. We were becoming afraid you didn’t exist!”

  “We—who?” Olly asked.

  “We Domers. My name is Ellel, by the way. Normally, I’m addressed as Madam Domer.”

  “Not Elly?” Olly asked, moved by some devil of disrespect.

  “No. Not Elly,” the woman said with displeasure. “Quince Ellel. Ellel is my family name. Your family name is probably Werra.”

  Olly’s mouth dropped open. “My—”

  “Your family name. Werra I’m fairly sure of that; though it’s remotely possible you came from one of the other lines. There are only three it could have been Werra, Seoca, or Hunagor. Qualary tells me Seoca is still alive. Hunagor’s been dead a long time, as has Werra, but reproductive cells can be preserved.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” said Olly.

  “Oh, come now,” the voice sneered Olly did not care for the sneer. It trusted not at all.

  “My name, Olly Longaster, was given me by a friend,” she said in her most dignified voice. “I know it is not my own However, I do not know what my own is, or if, indeed, I was ever given a name.”

  “Well, for ancestors’ sake, girl, where have you been?” The woman laughed, as at an ugly joke “They must have called you something!”

  “Orphan,” said Olly, “was what I was called.”

  The eyeholes turned to peer at her. “You were in a village? An archetypal village?”

  Olly nodded slowly, regretting that she had let this be known. Though she didn’t know why, she felt it would have been better to have kept the matter to herself.

  “By the Dome,” the woman swore. “So you were there after all! When we didn’t find you there, I thought it was a false lead,” She laughed again, a dreadful snigger “I actually sent a dozen of my creatures to dispose of the Bastard who gave us your blanket. I don’t like liars.”

  “You—you killed Bastard?”

  “They killed him if they found him,” she said carelessly “Which they probably did.”

  Olly, thoroughly confused, drew the wrapping more closely around herself. “The things that captured me? Do they work for you? What are they?”

  “Devices. Partly a kind of flesh. You didn’t think they were human, did you?”

  “I didn’t think they were anything to do with me. It would be kind of you to explain who you are, who you think I am, and what is all this business of searching and finding.”

  “But of course, my dear,” Ellel said in a gloating, self- satisfied voice without an ounce of kindness in it. “I’m sure you’ve heard of the Place of Power because everyone has. We Domers are from the Place of Power, and for a number of years we’ve been looking for a Gaddir child with a particular talent.”

  “What is a Gaddir? Why do you want this person?”

  “A Gaddir is—well, we believe it is someone who inherits a specific genetic makeup, a genetically transmitted talent. And we need that talent for a little project of ours.”

  “Which is?” Olly breathed, angered by this amused, patronizing tone.

  The woman laughed, a brittle laugh, like breaking glass. “Why, to remedy old wrongs, to put things right To resume the governance of earth!”

  “Why me?” Olly pleaded “I know nothing about governance of anything.”

  “One wouldn’t imagine you would! But you’re from the proper family, no doubt about that!” Her hand reached toward Olly but withdrew without touching her “It’s really nothing to do with you, girl. Nothing you need to think about or worry about. A simple errand. I’ll verify you can do it, and when you’ve done it, we’ll pay you well. We’ll only need to borrow you for a few days.” The woman turned away, saying carelessly over her shoulder, “A few weeks at most.”

  The words fell into Olly’s mind like keys into a lock.

  Part of the pattern. Part of the whole thing. Still, it would be wise to verify. “Borrow me for what?” she cried.

  “It’s far too complicated to discuss. There’s no time now. When we’re sure you’re the right one, we’ll tell you all about it.”

  The woman went to one of the sleeping persons and kicked, not gently. “Up, Qualary. Get the others up. Time we started for the Place.”

  “Excuse me,” Olly called, “but I was forcibly removed from the company of my friends. They will be wondering what happened to me. If you don’t mind …”

  Her voice trailed off in response to Ellel’s sudden change of attitude, the half-crouch, the hands extended like claws.

  “We don’t need your friends!” the woman snarled.

  “I need them,” snapped Olly, without thought.

  “Don’t be annoying!”

  The woman snarled a command at one of the walkers who turned and pointed his hand at Olly. She went down like a felled tree, rigid, every muscle spasming uncontrollably. The world turned hazy around her.

  “I said we didn’t need them,” said Ellel in her former voice, with a dismissive nod at the walker. “Though I can’t imagine why you’d want to, you’ll be back with them in due time. Nothing to concern yourself about.”

  “Be still,” said a voice.

  Olly thought it was herself speaking to herself, as one did at times of danger, remembering childhood warnings, restating them under stress. Then she thought it wasn’t her own voice, for it went on, repeating the phrase in a whisper.

  Painfully, she turned her head to see Coyote lying behind a clump of sage, his nose flat against the earth.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll be nearby.”

  His image disappeared in a flash of light from inside her head She turned her head to see where the woman was, and when she turned back, there was only a clump of sage, no Coyote. She told herself solemnly that she had dreamed him. She had seen a coyote-shaped rock. She had made up the voice. He hadn’t been there.

  But if she’d imagined him, wouldn’t she have imagined him saying something else? Something more comforting? Perhaps something about rescue?

  She had no time to go on with the thought. The two walkers who had captured her now lifted her and placed her in a hammocky sling on a pole, then carried her away with great rapidity toward the west.

  At least, she told herself dizzily, she was going in the right direction. And she’d been given a label for who she was She tried to follow that thought to some conclusion but lost it in the general dizzy haze. It was impossible to think when she was being swung and jostled like this. Her head ached. Her stomach felt as though it would heave at any moment. She shut her eyes and tried to think of nothing at all.

  They stopped for food during the morning. Olly felt too nauseated to eat, though she drank some tea that the woman called Qualary offered her Olly tried to ask about the walkers when Qualary returned for the cup.

  “Those—those walkers who caught me. Did someone create them?”

  The woman, who had seemed friendly enough before, now turned away abruptly, hushing Olly with a whispered, “Shhhh.”

  “What is it, Qualary?” Ellel called from some distance away, where her own meal had been served to her in privacy. She ate with her mask pushed up onto her forehead, her back turned to the rest of them.

  “Nothing, ma’am. I tripped over a rock,” the woman said in an expressionless voice.

  “Pick up your clumsy feet,” the woman said. “Is she all right?”

  “Quite all right, ma’am. Perhaps a little sick from the motion.”

  “That’s nothing,” said the voice carelessly, with a cackle of laughter. “Feeling sick is the least of her worries.”

  Olly shut her mouth and resolved to ask no more questions, not to talk of her friends, not to ask about the walkers. Anythi
ng she said would be wrong; any question she asked might do harm! They were going westward. For the time being, that was enough.

  The sun was midway down the sky in the west when they stopped next. Olly said pleadingly that she had to go and was allowed to go off behind a bush with only Qualary, serious-faced and silent, as a guard. The woman did not respond when Olly used her name, though she offered a sympathetic hand when Olly staggered on her way back.

  “Not much farther,” the woman murmured without moving her lips. “You’ll get a chance to rest soon.”

  “Hurry her up!” called Ellel, when she saw Olly tottering along.

  “May I walk the rest of the way?” Olly asked. “I’d feel better.”

  “My dear, you couldn’t keep up,” sneered Ellel.

  “As soon as I get the kinks out of my legs, I can walk as fast as any of you humans are walking,” Olly said stubbornly.

  Ellel bowed, a mockery. “Why then, walk! And she won’t fall behind, because if she does, she’ll be taught how to keep up!”

  Olly had hoped that by walking she might be able to spot Coyote, or Bear, or even her guardian-angel, though if it had really been a guardian-angel, it should have been with her when she was captured! She saw no sign of them. Qualary and one of the other women walked just behind her, guarding her.

  Very shortly they came to the western edge of the tableland and descended by a well-traveled path to walk through golden trees and great bunches of purple asters in a river valley old enough to have been much flattened and silted in. Soon they came to the river itself, and the narrow plank bridge that crossed it, the whole suspended on ropes that swayed rhythmically as they walked across. When they emerged from the belt of trees on the far side, it was to look upward through eroded canyons toward another tableland high above them.

  By early evening they reached an upward-sloping road, one so wide and smooth it had obviously been built for vehicles. Around the second curve, the vehicle appeared, parked in a wide graveled place, a truck much like those that carried goods between villages and cities, though this one was shinier and newer than any Olly had seen in Whitherby. At their approach, the driver, who had been lounging beneath a tree down the slope, scrambled back to his machine and adopted an attentive manner.