A Different Flesh

by Harry Turtledove

  They walked over to it. Stephen nudged Dixon. "Is she real y the one who's his great-granddaughter?" he whispered, not wanting her to hear.

  "Great-great, yeah."

  "Whoa." The respect in Stephen's voice and eyes was just this side of awe.

  Dixon's lingering doubts cleared up. No infiltrator could be that impressed over her ancestry

  He and Melody had boarded the air waggon early; their bags, naturally, were among the last ones out, having been put aboared beneath everyone else's. "So much for efficiency," Melody sighed when she had hers. Dixon's finally appeared couple of minutes after that.

  "Come on," Stephen said. He led them to an omnibus with PEACHTREE

  STREET on the destination placard. It roared off, a little more than half full, about ten minutes later. It was, Dixon discovered thankful y, cooled.

  Stephen rose from his seat at a stop on Peachtree Street, in the midst of a neighborhood with many more apartment blocks than private houses. Dixon thought himself ready for the blast of heat that would greet him when he got off the omnibus, and was almost right.

  "The collegium is over there," Stephen said, pointing west- Dixon could see a couple of tal buildings over the tops of the apartments. "In this neighborhood, no one will , pay any attention to you; everybody will figure you're just a couple of new students here for the start of fal term."

  "Good," Melody said briskly. She turned around, trying to orient herself. "Where's the DRC from here? That way?"

  Stephen gave her a respectful glance. "Yes, northwest of here, maybe three or four miles."

  she said again. "We'll be staying with you, I gather, until we get down to business?"

  "That's right. People float in and out of my cube all the time; the landlord's used to it. As long as he gets paid on the first of every month and nobody screams too loud, he doesn't care. Half the cubes in his block are like that."

  Stephen started walking down the street. "Come on. It's this , way."

  Following, Dixon asked, "How alert are they likely to be at the DRC?"

  "Not very, I hope. Since the word came down from Philadelphia that this was going to happen, Terminus hasn't heard much from us about justice for sims. We've been quiet, just letting everybody relax and think we've forgotten what we're for."

  "Outstanding," Dixon said. "If they were alert, either this wouldn't work at al or a lot of people might end up hurt on account of us, which wouldn't do the cause any good."

  "Not Stephen agreed. "But we have made the two connections we'll need most: one in the calc department, the other in food services."

  "The calc department I can see, but why food services." Stephen told him why. He grinned. Melody laughed out loud.

  Stephen turned off the street, lead them into an apartrnent block and up three flights of stairs. By the time they got to the fourth floor, Dixon was sweating for reasons that had nothing to do with Terminus's climate. "My arms'll be as long as a shimpanse's if I have to carry these bags one more flight," he complained.

  "You don't. We're here." Stephen had his key out and opened the door to his cube. "Here, this will help." He turned on the cooler.

  Nodding gratefully, Dixon set down his bags and shut the door behind him and Melody.

  The cube was not big; the luggage Dixon had dropped nd the two bedrolls on the floor effectively swallowed the living room. A table covered with what looked like floor Plans was shoved into one corner.

  Melody made a beeline for that. Dixon was content just to stand and rest for a minute.

  Stephen handed him a glass of iced coffee. He gulped it down fast enough to make his sinuses hurt. "Thanks," he said, squeezing his eyes shut to try to make the pain go away.

  "No problem." Stephens eyes traveled to the bedrolls. He lowered his voice a little. "I don't know what kind of arangement the two of you have, but I'm not here all the time. " Dixon looked at Melody, who was engrossed in architectural drawings. "I don't quite know either,"

  he said, also quietly. "I was sort of hoping this trip would let me find out.

  "Like that, eh Al right. Like I said, I'll be gone a lot. I expect you'll have the chance to learn."

  "Chance to learn what?" Melody looked up from the floor plans, beckoned.

  "Come over here, the two of you. Stephen, just how much support can we count on from your people here? If we can put folks in a couple of places at the same time, we may actually bring this off. If I read this right, we can get in and out here pretty fast."

  They bent over the plans together.

  The night guard's footsteps echoed down the quiet hal way.

  Except for him, it was empty. He was sleepy and bored. He turned a corner. Gray light from the bank of monitors lit the corridor ahead.

  The night technician was leaning back in his swivel chair, reading a paperback. He looked bored he too.

  "Hello, Edward," the guard said. "Slow here tonight."

  "Isn't it, though, Lloyd?" The technician put the bookdown on his thigh, open, so he could keep his place. "Place is like a morgue when the computers go haywire everybody packs it in and goes home early."

  Lloyd nodded, not quite happily. "Getting so no one can think anymore without the damn gadgets to help 'em." He glanced at the screens.

  "That's something sims don't have to worry about."

  "Just swive and sleep and eat," Edward agreed. "It could be worse."

  Then, because he was a fair-minded man, he added, "A lot of times it is, especially when the new drugs go thumbs-down."

  "AIDS." Like everyone else at the DRC, the guard made it a swear word.

  "How's he doing?"

  Having been-free of symptoms for eight months now on HIVI, Matt was a being to conjure with in these halls.

  Everyone worried over him. The technician perfectly understood Lloyd's concern. "He's fine, just worn out from the females again."

  "Good." Lloyd yawned til the hinge of his jaw cracked like a knuckle.

  His eyes shifted from the monitors to a coffeepot on a hot plate. "I need another cup of that."

  "I'l join you." Edward got up and poured for both of them.

  "Thanks." The guard sipped. He made a face. "Give me some sugar, will you? It's bitter tonight tastes like it's been sitting in the pot for a week." "It is viler than usual, isn't it." The technician added cream and sugar to his own brew.

  Lloyd finished, tossed his cup at a trash can under the coffeepot.

  He missed, muttered to himself, and bent to pick up the cup. Then he ambled down the hal .

  He yawned again, even wider than before. He glared back ward the technician's station. The coffee hadn't done him uch good, had its He put a hand on the wall of the corridor. For some reason, he did not feel very steady on his feet. Before he knew what was happening, he found himself sliding to the tile floor. He opened his mouth to call for help. Only a snore came out.

  In front of the monitors, the technician lol ed in his chair, his head thrown back bonelessly. The paperback lay under the swivel chair's wheels, where it had fallen. Its cover was bent.

  Terminus night was as hot as Terminus day, with the added pleasure of mosquitoes. Crouched on the wide lawn outside the DRC complex, Dixon was trying to keep his swearing to whispers as he slapped at bugs.

  "When do we go?" he asked the fourth time, like a smal child impatient to set out One of the lighted windows in the big building went dark for a moment, then lit again. "Now," Melody said at last "Good luck to all of us." people rose and ran forward, their feet scuffling softly on the grass. Automatic doors hissed open, leading into a passage that bent sharply. Out of sight from outside was a guard station. A guard slept in the chair; a cup of coffee d spil ed on the desk in front of him.

  The fluorescent lights overhead made Stephen's teeth gleam whitely as he grinned. "Food services," he said. Also grinning, Dixon nodded and gave him a thumbs-up.

  "We split here," Melody declared, refusing to be distracted even for a moment. "Stephen, your group goes that way, tow
ard elevator B.

  Bring back as much HIVI and syringes and needles as you can get your hands on."

  Right." He and two other young men dashed away."

  "Out of here in fifteen minutes, or you get left behind," Melody called after them. Then she turned to Dixon and the young woman with him, whom they knew only as Deli "Now we head up ourselves and get Matt."

  The elevators right across from the guard station went to the sim ward. Dixon thumbed the UP button. A door whooshed open. The three raiders, no, liberators, Dixon thought, crowded in.

  He hit 4 a moment before Melody got it on the of panel. The door closed. Acceleration pressed against the soles of his shoes.

  The door opened again. "How convenient," Melody said as they tumbled out; the bank of monitor screens was in the same position on floor as the guard station on ground floor. The man in the chair in front of them was solidly out as the guard down below.

  "Good, the screens have room numbers on them. The the one thing I wasn't sure of," Dixon said. "Is that Matt "Let's see," Melody said, coming up beside him following his pointing finger. "Yes, that's him.

  Room I42 is it? Let's go."

  NO ENTRY WITHOUT AUTHORIZED ACCOMPANIST : read a large sign above closed double doors. Dixon tried them. They were locked. "Figured as much,"

  he said.

  He stepped aside. "Al yours, Dee."

  She didn't speak; she never said much, as far as Dixon could tell.

  she was a locksmith by trade, though, and carried a set of picks on her belt. Her motions were quick and sure. In less than a minute, she had the doors open "Come on," she said.

  They went quietly, not wanting to disturb any of the sleeping sims but Matt. "I42.B," Melody said, stoped Dee took a step toward the door, but Melody was therer trying it. Melody raised a hand in triumph, like a cricket player after a century.

  Matt woke to the sound of the opening door. His mouth fell open in surprise when he saw three strange humans coming in. Who? he signed.

  What?

  "Henry Quick was my great-great-grandfather," said a voice hardly above a whisper. Her fingers echoed the words. depressed or interested.

  Dixon shook his head in wonder; he had lost track of how many times he had seen that reaction when Melody said

  who she was. Somehow all sims everywhere knew that Henry Quick had been the first man to worked to give them justice.

  That? Matt signed again. Why you here? , "To make you free," Dixon said. As Melody had, as the did who communicated with sims, he repeated his in words with sign-talk. "Come with us. Do you want to spend the rest of your life cooped up in here?"

  Matt shrugged. Food good. Females here. Feel good now.

  Not sick.

  Nixon scowled. That wasn't the answer he was looking Melody asked quietly, "Do you want to be sick again?

  you probably will, if you stay here. Do you remember what is like when you were sick?" the question was not quite theoretical; like very young children, sims often let the past recede quickly. But Dixon thought that what Matt had undergone was not something he would easily forget. The sims nostrils flared in alarm his brow-ridges, his eyes went wide. No! he signed vermhemently shook his head. He climbed off the bed. i with you.

  Good," Dee said. she turned and started down the hal . Ly and Matt followed. Dixon came with them later, after leaving a souvenir on the bed to give Dr. Howard something to think about .

  They hurried out through the double doors. Dee locked it again. This time, riding the elevator made Dixon feel light.

  It!" Matt said again when they were in the lobby. He lot the unconscious guard there, signed, Not to be at's what he thought," Dixon said. Matt looked at I confusion. "Never mind. Come on." dadled out of the DRC and ran toward one of the horselesses parked on the roadway close to the edge. It was not, strictly speaking, a legal place to park, but traffic regulations were not likely to be enforced in the wee small hours. One of the horselesses sped off. As it passed under a street lamp, Dixon saw it was crowded with people.

  Triumph-flared in him. "They must have got the HIVI! And Welt got Matt!" The driver of the remaining horseless threw open the door across from him. In, Melody signed to Matt. She, Dixon, and Dee came piling after the sim. No sooner had Dee slammed the door than the driver roared away from the Dixon started to say something to the sim, but before he could, Melody leaned over and kissed him for a long time.

  When she finally let Dixon go, by some miracle he remembered what he had been about to tell Matt: "free! You're free at last!" , That got him kissed again, which was, he though dizzily, a long way from bad. I "

  'Free,' " Dr. Peter Howard read. It was the last word of the pamphlet on Matt's bed, printed twice as big and black as any of the others. In Howard's mouth, it sounded obscene Normal y among the most self-controlled of men, he savagely crumpled the pamphlet and flung it to the floor. The security officer who picked it up gave him a reproachful look.

  "There might have been useful evidence there, doctor."

  "Oh, shut up," Howard snarled. "Where the hell were you people when this sim was stolen? Asleep on the job, that's where "The guards were drugged, Dr. Howard," the securitying man corrected stiffly.

  "Our investigation into that part the affair is just beginning."

  "Wonderful." Howard turned away. Slowly, clumsily, he made his way down the hal . Getting out of the way of other people seemed more trouble than it was worth. It's as if I were one of the walking wounded, he thought then realized, a moment later, I am.

  He used the flat broad expanse of walnut as a fortress wall to hold the outside world outside. In a bigger sense, he had used the whole DRC the same way. Well, the outside world had Unfaded with a vengeance.

  And with such stupidity, he thought, filled with rage that was al the more consuming for having no outlet. He had only skimmed the pamphlet the thieves left behind to explain their handiwork, but he had seen and heard the phrases there often enough over the years.

  His fists clenched till nails bit into flesh. At the pain, he opened them again; no matter how furious he was, he stayed careful about his hands. But it was not, was not, was not his fault that sims were as they were. In earlier days, he knew, people had thought other races of people to be inferior breeds. Sims did that much, at least, to stop man's inhumanity to man, by showing what an inferior breed was like. A security man stuck his head into the office, breaking Howard's chain of thought. "Outside greencoats are here to l see you, sir," he said.

  "Send them in," Howard sighed. Normal y, Terminus's regular constabulary stayed away from the DRC. Normally, Howard thought, he would not get to use that word again any time soon.

  No sooner had the greencoat, actually, the fellow was in ordinary clothes, blue breeches and a yellow tunic, come in than the phone chimed.

  "Excuse me," Howard said, thinking, everything happens at once. The greencoat nodded.

  Howard picked up the phone. An excited voice said in his ear, "This is Butler, at the Terminus Constitution.

  I’ve had a report that a sim with AIDS has been taken out of the Disease Research Center, Hello? Is that you, Dr. Howard? Are you there?"

  “l'm here," Howard said. No point in breaking the conection. Like the greencoat in his office, this Butler was only the first of many.

  Matt was confused. Dealing with people often left him feeling that way, but he had lived in his old home in the tower for a long time, and mostly knew what to expect.

  With these new people, he had no idea what was coming next.

  Shaking his head, he got out of bed, the third new, strange, not quite comfortable bed he'd had in as many nights, and used the toilet.

  He had to strain to make the urine go through his penis, which was stiff with a morning erection. Stiffer than usual, even; he missed the females with whom he'd been living.

  He flushed the toilet, sat down on it to comb his red brown hair.

  That was another reason he missed the females: there was a big patch on his back tha
t he could not reach. In the towers, sims by twos and threes would speed a lot of time combing each other all over. It was something to do.

  He sniffed, and felt his broad nostrils expand with pleasure.

  Breakfast was cooking, sausages today, from the smell. He liked sausages.

  He went out to the kitchen. The man and woman who had taken him from the tower were there, along with the strange man and woman whose house this was. They we al drinking coffee. They looked up as he came in.

  Good morning, he signed.

  "Good morning," the people replied, with mouths a hands. "Help yourself," added the woman who lived here. Emily was her name, Matt remembered.

  He nodded his thanks. Along with the sausages were sweet rolls and slices of apple. He fil ed his plate, took a glass of water (he did not care for coffee).

  Behind him, Emily's mate Isaac whistled and said,' "Certainly nothing wrong with his appetite now."

  "We've noticed that," replied Ken, one of the ones who had taken him away. "Hope it won't put you to too much trouble. "

  "Don't worry," Isaac said.

  Matt sat down at the table and started to eat. Were proud to help keep him out of the DRC, folks, and taking him was a grand gesture. But do you know what you'll do with him in the end?"

  "We were thinking of getting him to one of the preserves and setting him loose there," Ken said, "but, " His voice wailed away.

  "With the AIDS virus still in him, we can't do that, " Melody finished for him. "Not without spreading AIDS among the wild sims."

  People often talked around sims as if they could not understand spoken words because they could not say them. Watt put down his fork so he could sign, Feel good.

  "We know you do, Matt," Melody said gently, touching his hand for a moment with her small hairless one. "But no matter how good you feel, you aren't well. The sickness is inside you."

  She and Ken had said that before. It made no sense to Matt. If he did not feel sick, how could he be sick? Feel good, he repeated.

  He watched the humans roll their eyes and shrug. He shrugged too.