“I don’t—”
Masid saw movement. At first he was not sure, but then the flickering motion multiplied, and within seconds nearly fifty people stood around the transport. Masid controlled an impulse to jump out of the vehicle and run; his fingers curled tightly around the edge of his seat.
They were damaged. Skin lesions were common, blackened patches on gray or yellow stains. Eyes ranged from nearly albino-pink to cataract-covered smoke. Bone structure varied. They were all different, though, unique in their dissimilarity, but all marred. Most wore cloaks or ponchos, a few heavy single-piece utilities, some were possibly naked, but it was difficult to tell.
“They move quickly,” Masid said.
“Very,” Shasma agreed. “And most of them are as strong as they are fast.” She sighed. “But that’s about the end of the advantages. Most of them won’t live to the age of twenty-five. Some will die in agony from extreme osteopathologies, their bones literally crushing their internal organs. One or two of them have the use of a full range of senses. Deafness is the highest handicap among them, but sight is impaired in nearly forty percent. They seem to have a heightened sense of smell overall. They’re completely sterile.”
“Where are they from?”
“The lab. But you guessed that, didn’t you?”
One of the reanimés leaned close to the canopy and peered in with sharp, green eyes. It smiled, then, showing overlapped yellow teeth. Shasma smiled back and raised a hand. The creature withdrew, and in a few minutes the gathered crowd dispersed. Shasma touched a contact on the dash.
“I bring them some treatments that help alleviate the pain, interfere with a few of the worst aspects of their self-cannibalizing biologies.”
“Do we get out?”
“No, not this trip.”
The transport shifted as something heavy was lifted from its cargo hold. Masid then saw several reanimés walking back to the village, carrying crates.
When the unloading was complete, Shasma sealed the hold and turned the transport around.
“They started showing up about twenty years ago,” she said. “Just a few. Infants, youths. Talking to them, I suspect that, before, they would have simply been killed and the bodies destroyed. I have no idea what changed. Now they’re just released to fend for themselves. A lot of them died before the survivors got together to rescue them. They have short lives anyway, so it’s only a reprieve, but it’s better than starving or freezing to death when you’re only three or four years old. Some of them still don’t live. The number of new appearances has gone down recently.”
“How many are there?”
“Right now, I’d guess a couple thousand.” She glanced at him. “So, what’s this about an autopsy?”
“Kopernik Station, Earth,” Masid said. “We killed . . . something . . . that a man named Avery described finally as a cyborg. A blend of organic and machine systems, with a brain that had been augmented by positronics. It was acting as an assassin. There was another one on Earth itself. At least, that’s what I heard.”
“Derec Avery. The roboticist?”
“You know him?”
“By reputation. His father had developed some regeneration methods useful in organic regrowth. Replacement technologies.” She frowned. “An assassin?”
“There were murders involved. It attempted to kill a number of people.” He waited. “The one on Earth, I heard, was part of the Hunter Group. At least tangentially. Parapoyos.”
“I find it difficult to believe any of these . . . people . . . could manage to live among humans unnoticed.”
“The warrens of Earth have their own broken-down and disfigured inhabitants. But these were not that far from human—at least in appearance.”
“Two, you said?”
“That we knew of.”
“What conclusions did you draw from this?”
“That someone—Parapoyos, probably—was attempting to build the perfect soldier. Parapoyos is an arms dealer, among other things. It might occur to him that being able to sell a manufactured army would be a good idea.”
“Based on what I’ve seen among the reanimés,” Shasma said angrily, “they’re a long way from perfection. There’s a fundamental incompatibility in the two elements. It eats itself up.”
Masid nodded. “The autopsy showed a flawed system. A lot of attention had been paid to imbalances, a lot of tweaking in, say, the nutrient absorption systems. These two were probably the best they’d been able to come up with.”
“Then—”
“Work at anything long enough and you find solutions. Maybe they can’t build one now, but that’s not to say they won’t someday. In the meantime, they’re making a few, very efficiently destructive and dangerous models—”
“You talk about them as if they’re machines!”
“I’m not sure what to call them.”
“The basic structure is still homo sapiens sapiens. Whatever else they might be now, they began as human.”
“Once human, always human?”
“How else do you make that call?”
Masid said nothing. He had listened to similar conversations for days after they had killed the cyborg on Kopernik. No one wanted to commit to a standard in the face of what one Spacer researcher had claimed was just the next natural step in evolution.
“Evolution works by genetic response to environmental change,” she had explained. “We’ve long ago seized control of the environment, so now any changes are our doing. Therefore, any evolution that occurs from now on will also be of our doing. If radical evolution is going to happen, it will be entirely at our instigation.”
“Direct meddling?” another had countered, angry. “That’s obscene.”
“Really? At what point? Cosmetic surgery has been common for thousands of years. Prosthetics, artificial organs, transplants, gene tweaking—at what point does ‘direct meddling’ become obscene?”
“At the point we make something that’s no longer human!”
And how, Masid had wondered then and wondered now, do you define “human”?
He rode back to Shasma’s clinic in silence.
Mia opened her eyes, certain she had heard a sound. There were sounds all around her—the soft whirrings and tickings of the biomonitor, the ventilator pushing air into her room, the small shiftings of her own body beneath the sheets, the building itself creaking—but this was different. This suggested something she needed to pay attention to. Lying as still as she could and controlling her breathing, she listened.
A tiny collection of imprecise noises told her someone was in the hallway outside her room, searching.
Before she decided what to do, her door opened. A face peered in at her—almost childlike, pale hair, large eyes that contained more than a little desperation. Mia puzzled at that, how she could tell, but it could be nothing else.
The woman entered the room and came up to Mia’s bedside. “Where’s Dr. Shasma?”
She smelled slightly salty and damp. A smudge of dirt traced her right jaw line. She carried a backpack in her left hand.
“I don’t know,” Mia said.
“I need to see her,” the stranger said. She snuffled, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Where’d she go?”
“I said—”
“You don’t know, right. Why should you? You’re obviously sick.” She leaned close, eyes narrowed. “What’ve you got?” She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. I need to see Dr. Shasma.”
“I’m Mia.”
The woman—girl, really, now that Mia saw her more clearly, closer—blinked as if she had not understood.
“I’m Kru,” she said finally. “I’m from Noresk.”
Mia vaguely recalled the name—one of the smaller towns east of Nova City. She licked her lips. “I’m from—”
From where? She was about to say Earth, but stopped, wondering if that was a good idea.
Kru frowned and went to the biomonitor. “Ah. Don’t worry about it. A few days,
you won’t really remember anything.”
Mia twisted her head to look up at the monitor. “What?”
“You’ve got mnemonic plague,” Kru said. “Few days, you won’t even remember I was here.”
Mia felt a jolt and started to get up.
“Hey,” Kru said, trying to push her back down. “Take it easy, it’s not fatal. I know, I’ve had it.”
“No, it’s not—” Mia placed the heel of her hand on Kru’s solar plexus and pushed up. The girl stepped back and Mia swung her legs over the edge of the bed. “Have something to do before I forget.”
“Don’t we all. Didn’t we all. What? Maybe I can help.”
“Have to—”
Have to what? Mia wondered. Report . . . ? Yalor’s dead, I’m stuck here, I have—
How did she contract mnemonic plague? Mia stared around at the room. Did this Shasma give it to her, part of what she did in service to whoever she worked for? No, that made no sense. She had heard from somewhere—Ariel?—that a heightened paranoia was part of the illness. Certainly profound panic. She recognized panic, she knew it very well, and right now she felt it in waves, overwhelming. She tried to ride it out.
Can’t think this way, have to be clear . . .
Reen. No telling what he had done while she had been unconscious.
Or maybe it was from the environment.
“Doesn’t matter,” she said aloud. “Kynig Parapoyos is coming. I have to—have to do something—”
Kru stiffened, her face losing all expression. “Parapoyos?”
“Yes, I heard—someone told me—I need to—”
Damn, she could not fix on one idea.
“I want,” Kru said slowly, “to kill him.”
Mia looked at the girl. “Yes, that’s it. I have to do something about him. Maybe . . .” She decided. She would soon lose her sense of who she was. She would forget. She would not remember that Reen worked for Parapoyos and had killed Yalor and was now erasing her. There was too little time to do much else. “Let me help you.”
30
access subdirectory, commlog attached hyperwave communiqué, appending material, collating
subject transmissions routed through R.I. oversight, access epsilon-nine-admin-zero-zero-chi
file open
trace completed
contact list appended
Bogard stepped from the niche and headed for the exit. A moment later, Denis joined him. As they went, Bogard modified his appearance further.
What do you intend?
Location determined, apprehension protocol, review
Violation
?
Protocol constitutes aggressiveness toward humans
Preemptive action, review validation, aggression within acceptable parameters
Violation
Assistance not required
A series of tunnels formed a complex network beneath the entire city, the robotic highway that connected everywhere to the service conduits of Aurora and Eos City. Bogard entered the nearest tube and quickly out-distanced Denis. He passed cadres of robots on their ways to various destinations, all moving in absolute silence, hundreds of robots of various types, antlike in their efficiency.
Bogard assumed the form of a security robot by the time he reached the ascending shaft into the police precincts. He tapped the ether of positronic communications and noted the location of Denis—far behind in the tunnels, now slowing to a standstill to await instruction—and the location of Lea Talas within the building.
Bogard requisition to Thales
Thales
Require security clearance
Assigned, proceed
Bogard stepped into the lift and rode the shaft up. He emerged into a narrow, lightless chamber. An internal display showed him the pathway through the rows of wall niches, most empty, and to the beginning of the building’s internal robot access network. Bogard received the location code and found the access. He hurried along the tube and stepped from the public access into a small, unoccupied conference room.
Bogard requesting update location Talas Lea
Thales responding, request that you stand by in niche
Bogard crossed the room and entered one of the three wall niches and waited. A few minutes later, the conference room door opened and two people entered.
One of them conformed to the profile Bogard carried of Lea Talas. She frowned at him briefly, then ignored him.
The other person did not look familiar. Taller than Talas—who was herself Spacer tall and slender—and broad across the shoulders, he seemed oddly unhealthy by Spacer standards. Bogard ran a comparative analysis and decided that the variations were quite probably not apparent to another human. Skin tone was “wrong,” paler and rough, and his hair showed evidence of dermal flaking. The eyes shimmered, a bit too moist, and shifted in a constant scan pattern.
He pointed at Bogard. “I’m uncomfortable with that here.”
Talas approached the niche and keyed its readout. “He’s completely off-line.” She pressed a few contacts. “There. Now he can’t self-initiate, either. We’re as private here as we’re likely to be.”
“Why not just go to your office?”
Talas shook her head. “The less association the better, as far as I’m concerned. I want you to stay here till I arrange transit.”
The man sat down. “I’m leaving?”
“As soon as I can get you on a ship.”
“We aren’t finished here. There’s still the Burgess woman and Avery.”
Talas scowled. “And maybe by now Dr. Penj and the First Advisor? No, it stops now. It’s bad enough you killed Eliton. That was a mistake.”
“You’re second-guessing the Executive now? Eliton was an inconvenience. It was risky enough sending him to Solaria, but having him here, scheduled to testify—no, there was no choice.”
“He has to be explained now. How is that supposed to happen?”
The man shrugged. “That’s your job.”
“Exactly so, and this is how I’m doing it. Burgess already named you, Maliq will probably alert other security agencies once he realizes I’m not finding you. So I’m packing you off Aurora. Once you’re gone, then I can backdate the records and show you fleeing before I even began my search.”
“Leaving Burgess and Avery to tell the Council what they know.”
“Which is what? Nothing they can substantiate. Her report naming you as a corpse on Earth never got to them. They’ll see that as evidence that she’s unreliable. Besides, if my suggestion to First Advisor Maliq is accepted—and it will be, since everyone here is uncomfortable having Burgess remain on Aurora—then the problem solves itself. She’ll be at Nova Levis, away from here, safely sidelined.”
“I don’t like leaving all these mouths around.”
“Too bad. If you hadn’t killed Eliton, we might have found another way.”
“Eliton could identify the Executive. Eliton could reveal the associations between Solaria, Earth, and here. He might even have been able to make the connection with Nova Levis. It’s too soon for that. He shouldn’t have gotten himself arrested.”
“Ambassador Burgess got him arrested.”
“He’d been told to stay in his cabin and avoid any contact with other passengers. He’d been told to behave like a Solarian.”
Talas shook her head impatiently. “Enough. These are all excuses. Aurora is my world and you made a mess here. I’m supposed to handle situations arising here.”
“You didn’t. Eliton was about to testify. But as you say, enough. You can explain it all to the executive when the time comes. Maybe he’ll understand something I don’t.”
Talas opened her mouth to respond, but then stopped. She pulled out a portable datum from her belt pouch and sat down at the far end of the conference table from the man. Within moments, she was lost in concentration.
Bogard to Thales, monitor datum traffic, this location, trace comm traffic, report
Work
ing, stand by
The trace scrolled through Bogard’s internal datum. Talas was checking on shuttle schedules and shipping. She had made a request for a diplomatic pass, undisclosed recipient, through a shadow office attached to First Advisor Maliq. Bogard opened a secondary trace and invaded the structure of that office. No one actually worked in it, everything about it was virtual, and the security shell around it was generated by the rogue RI as part of the same packet through which all the illicit hyperwave communications flowed. Bogard probed further to find names. If the existence of the office became known, it would wash over First Advisor Maliq, though Bogard found no evidence that Maliq knew anything about it. The secretary-in-residence was listed as Tro Aspil.
Bogard probed into that creation and found thousands of files strewn throughout the Auroran diplomatic database relating to this person. The picture it presented showed an Auroran of considerable bureaucratic influence, with connections to several offices of the government, especially offworld services. He had carte blanche to walk through virtually any level of the government and act with a free hand in many capacities. He could not make executive decisions, but those decisions he could make could change how the executive branches responded to a situation.
It was an admirable creation. The only problem had been the real Tro Aspil, who had evidently known nothing about it and existed only as a junior liaison advisor from the Calvin Institute. Bogard found those records easily enough, isolated almost utterly from this artificial person. It was unlikely anyone would confuse the two, that any cursory look would reveal the discrepancies in the two lives.
But the real Aspil had indeed been assigned to the Humadros Legation, fast upon a promotion to a senior position, which made it more likely the false one might be discovered.
Why use a real person, though?
Bogard dug further. Tro Aspil had possessed a single trait that made him ideal to coopt: he was an orphan. He had no family. His parents had died in space, in an accident, and he had been an only child—not unusual at all among Aurorans, but not so unusual that other relations somewhere ought to exist. But he had none.
Isaac Asimov's Aurora Page 41
