“If I gained access,” swaggered the most audacious of the three, “I would march to the Big City and trample the mining syndicate buildings beneath boots of iron.” And he blew kisses to those girls of marriageable age who had gathered to watch.
“If you gained access!” repeated the old witch, and grabbed him by the nose using fingers of surprising strength. “YOU WOULD NEVER GAIN ACCESS! Only the Guardian’s operator has a key, and it is synchronized to his genetic code. You would do nothing but sit staring up at a big metal arse until the cold froze you off the ladder.”
“OW! Bedder dat dan allow our iddibidual vreedods do be sudgu-gaded!” protested the putative loblolly.
Mother Tho let the young man go, and wiped her fingers on her grubby shawl.
“Our Guardian will defend us when its operator is ready,” she intoned.
A voice chipped in across the crowd: “Our Guardian’s operator is too feeble.”
The boy shrunk back behind a battery of heat sinks and hid his face.
“It’s true!” yelled another voice. “The company assassins turned out the whole of Mr Wu’s drinking establishment and threatened to shoot all its clientele one by one until Khan was turned over to them. In his confusion and concern for his customers, Wu turned over the wrong Khan, Khan the undertaker, and they killed him instantly. His tongue lolled out of his face like a frosted pickle. When the company men find the real Khan and kill him, there will be no trained professional to bury him.”
“There are men in the village with guns?” said one of the bold youngsters, removing his thumbs from his belt, staring at his contemporaries with a face of horror.
“Ha!” gloated Mother Tho. “So our bravos are not quite so audacious when faced with the prospect of their skins actually being broken.”
The boy put dropped his cargo of tea and ran for home.
Home proved to be more difficult to get to than usual. The boy followed the path most usually followed by children through the village, disregarding the streets and ducking under the support struts of the houses. Had crows been able to fly in this atmosphere instead of expiring exhausted after a few tottering flutters, he would have been travelling as the crow flew.
However, there was a problem. A small group of boys were holed up under the belly of Mother Tho’s house, whispering deafeningly, fancifully imagining they were Seeing without Beeing Seen. But the boy was not afraid of other boys – at least, not as much as he was afraid of the men in the street who were tolerating Being Seen.
It was quite rare for children to be playing on the streets now. Their mothers were keeping them indoors. It was hoped that the Persuasion Consultancy assassins had not realized their mistake, and would be happy with having disabled the village’s (admittedly one hundred per cent lethal) corpse-burying capabilities.
However, it seemed the assassins were not content with simple murder. They were standing in the street outside the house of Khan the undertaker, above which a grainy holographic angel flickered in the breeze. Not content with having murdered the undertaker’s unburied corpse, the men had turned out the contents of his funeral emporium, headstones-in-progress and all, into the street. They were searching the whole pile of morbid paraphernalia with microscopic thoroughness, while his widow screamed and hurled such violent abuse as the poor woman knew. The boy could only conclude that onyx-look polymer angels were of great value to them.
“They are searching for our Guardian’s access key,” hissed one of the watchers in a strict confidence that carried all the way to the boy’s ears.
“Only the Operator has the access key,” said another boy. “Was Khan the Operator?”
“No,” said a third. “I think it was Khan the farmer.”
“Khan, a warrior! He is a fat little fruit seller.”
“Operators are not chosen for their physical strength,” said the third boy contemptuously. “The servomechanisms of the Guardian provide that. Operators are chosen for the extreme precision of their physical movements. It is said that the operator of the Guardian of the Gate of the City of Governance back on Earth was so precise in his motions that he was able to grip a normal human paintbrush between his Guardian’s claws and inscribe the Rights and Duties of Citizens on the pavement in letters only three metres high.”
The boy ducked under the hull of the nearest building and took a dog leg to a habitat to the south before any Persuasion Consultancy men could engage him in conversation.
It was sunset. The sun was setting in the East.
The old man was sitting dozing, pretending to be absorbed in serious meditation. The boy walked up and pointedly slammed down the basket on a nearby ruined Barbarian war machine, pretending not to notice the old man starting as if he had been jumped on by a tiger.
“I have brought everything,” said the boy. “Father is still at large. The assassins are reputed to be pursuing him along the north arroyo.”
The old man nodded, and sucked his teeth in a repulsive manner. “Did you bring the weapons from underneath the loose slab in the conveyor garage?”
The boy nodded. “There is no need to conceal these weapons,” he sniffed. “It is not illegal to possess them, and surely they can be of no intrinsic value.”
The old man ran his hand along the bow as he lifted it from the bundle, and grinned. “There was also a picture of your grandmother underneath that slab,” he said. “That is also of little intrinsic value.”
“I never knew my grandmother,” said the boy.
“Think yourself lucky,” said the old man grumpily, “that I did.” He set an arrow – the only arrow in the bundle – to the bow, and began trying to bend it, frowning as his hands shook with the effort.
“OLD MAN,” called a voice. “STOP PLAYING AT SOLDIERS. WE DEMAND TO KNOW WHERE KHAN IS.”
The bow collapsed. The arrow quivered into the dirt. The old man turned round. From the direction of the village, three young men, muscles big from digging ditches and lifting baskets, had strolled in to the clearing between the destroyed military machines. The boy realized with a sinking heart that he had been followed.
“My father,” said their leader, “says that Khan is the operator of our Guardian.”
The old man nodded. “True enough,” he said.
“Then why is he hiding outside the village like a thief?” The youngster threw his hand out towards the horizon. “Not only are there murderers in our midst, but an army is gathering on our doorstep. Employees of a Persuasion Consultancy engaged by the mining combine have arrived. They have delivered an ultimatum to the effect that, if the combine’s generous terms are not accepted by sunrise tomorrow, they will evacuate the village using minimum force.” He licked his lips nervously. “Scouts have been out, and the consultancy’s definition of ‘minimum force’ appears to extend to fragmentation bombs and vehicle-seeking missiles.”
The old man’s face sunk into even more wrinkles than was normally its wont. “Khan,” he said, “hides nowhere. Who here says that Khan hides?” And despite the fact that he was armed only with a bamboo bow and arrows, none of the young men present would meet his eyes.
“Father, we have the greatest respect for your age, and none of us would dare to strike a weak and defenceless old man. We simply wish to know when, if at all, our Operator intends to discharge his duty.”
The old man nodded.
“Weak and defenceless, you say.”
He slung out the bow at the spokesman of the group, who the boy believed was called Lokman. It whirled in the air and struck Lokman in the jaw. Lokman rubbed the side of his face, complaining bitterly; but still his manners were too correct to allow him to attack his elders.
“Pick the bow up,” said the old man. He grubbed in the dirt for the arrow, and tossed it to Lokman. “Now notch the arrow, and pull the bow back as hard as you like.” He did not rise from his sitting position.
Lokman shrugged, and heaved hard on the bow. It was an effort even for him, the boy noticed. The bow was almost as st
iff as a roof-tie.
“Point the bow at me,” said the old man, grinning. “You purulent stream of cat excrement.”
Lokman’s hands were shaking on the bow too now. It rotated round to point at the old man.
“Now fire!” said the old man. “I said FIRE, you worthless spawn of a mining company executive —”
“No, DON’T—” said the boy.
The string twanged free. The boy did not even see the arrow move. Nor did he see the old man’s hand move. But when both hand and arrow blurred back into position, the one was in the other; and the hand held the arrow, rather than the arrow being embedded in the hand.
Lokman stared at the old man’s hand for a second; then he snorted.
“A useful parlour trick,” he said. “Can you do it against missiles?”
He threw down the bow and walked away.
“Khan is a coward who will not fight,” he said, over his shoulder. “Besides, he could not get to the Guardian even if he wished. The assassins have the access ladder under guard. Pack up your things and leave, old man. The Councillors are leaving. We are all leaving. We are finished.”
The old man watched the visitors leave. Then, he reached into the bundle, where a battered oblong of black plastic lay alongside the picture of the boy’s grandmother. In the plastic were embossed the letters KHAN 63007248.
“It is good,” said the old man. “You have made sure Khan has everything he needs.”
The old man hung the oblong round his neck on a chain that pierced it, and felt his throat to make sure it was not visible as it hung.
“What time did they say the ultimatum expired tomorrow?” he asked, without looking at the boy.
“Sunup,” said the boy.
“It is good,” said the old man, nodding. “There is time. Run back to the village with these things, and return quickly. Then you shall accompany me while I deliver these troublemakers an ultimatum of our own.”
“Why am I going with you?” said the boy.
“Because no man will shoot an old man,” said the old man, “unless he is a wicked man indeed. But even a wicked man will not shoot an old man accompanied by a small boy – unless, of course, he is a very wicked man indeed.” He grinned, and his grin was more gaps than teeth. “This, I must admit, is the only flaw in my plan.”
Then he returned to his meditation, as if nothing had either happened or was about to. The boy seriously suspected he was sleeping.
The sun had set, and the reg had ceased to be its accustomed thousand shades of khaki. Now, it was the colour of a world plunged underwater to a depth where every shade of anything became a democratic twilight blue.
The boy followed the old man uncertainly across the regolith towards a group of Persuasion Consultants lounging around an alcohol burner in the shadow of an APC. Even the burner’s flame was blue, as if carefully coordinated to fit in with the night. The Consultants noticed the old man long before he began to jump up and down and wave his arms to get their attention, but the boy noticed that it was only at this point that they relaxed and began the laborious process of putting the safeties back on their weapons.
“Hey! Ugly Boy! Take me to your ugly leader!”
None of the Persuasion Consultants answered. Evidently none of them was willing to own up to the name of Ugly Boy.
“Suit yourselves, physically unprepossessing persons, but be informed that I bear a message from Khan.”
The men began to fidget indecisively in their dapper uniforms. Eventually, one spoke up and said:
“If you are in communication with Khan, you must give us information on his whereabouts, citizen, or it will go poorly with you.”
The old man scoffed. The boy was not entirely sure it was prudent to scoff in the presence of so much firepower. “You still do not know Khan’s whereabouts? With the man right under your nose, and so many complex tracking systems in that khaki jalopy you are leaning against? For shame! Khan has a message for you. You must vacate the environs of this village, or as the appointed operator of the Guardian of this colony he will be obliged to make you quit by main force.”
The spokesman crossed both hands over his rifle and said: “Your Guardian’s operator is taking sides unjustifiedly in a purely civil matter, citizen. This is not a military matter. For this reason, Beauchef and Grisnez Incorporated regrets that, on behalf of its clients, it is forced to take action to eliminate this unruly operator, and that this action will continue until he himself quits the village. We are also making initial seismic surveys preliminary to placing charges underneath the Guardian’s foundations, destroying the underground geegaws that charge it. Beauchef and Grisnez of course regret the damage to Commonwealth property concomitant to this strategy, but final blame for this unfortunate state of affairs must lie at the head of the operator concerned. That is our message, which you may convey to Khan.”
The old man stood facing the line of soldiers silently for several seconds.
“Very well,” he said. “Despite the fact that you behave like barbarians, you continue to describe yourselves as Commonwealth citizens and hence merit a warning in law; you have received that warning. Whatever consequences follow, Khan will not be answerable.”
He said nothing more, but turned and trudged back in the direction of the village. There were sniggers from the line of riflemen.
In the morning, the boy’s mother woke him well before dawn. She had already prepared sleeping gear for all of them, together with food she had irradiated that same morning. It would keep for a month, as well as making the boy’s stomach turn when he ate it. This was the sort of food City people had to eat.
“But aren’t we staying to defend the village?”
He got a slap for that one. Mother was in no mood to talk. She was crying softly as she walked round the rooms of the habitat, picking things up, putting things down, and the boy realized suddenly that she was deciding which of the pieces of her life she was going to take with her and which she was going to leave behind forever. He threw his arms around her, and this time she did not slap him.
“Go out and fetch the old one,” she said. “Where is he? I’ve prepared the conveyor. We have to leave.”
The boy told his mother that the old man had said he was going to do his exercises, and that, on this particular morning, the boy was not allowed to accompany him.
The boy’s mother’s eyes flew open in horror. She looked out of the window, which showed sand billowing down a dusty street.
She stood still a moment, as though paralysed. Then she grabbed his arm.
“Come with me.”
They walked out to the edge of the village. The village was small. It was not a long walk. Out there at the very edge of the sun farms, beyond a hectare or so of jet-black solar collectors, the wrecked battle machines of the Barbarians sat rusting in the sand.
What are Barbarians? the boy had asked his teacher once in class. And the answer had been quick and pat. Why, people from outside the Commonwealth, of course. Any people from outside the Commonwealth.
The machines sat at what the boy knew to have been the extreme limit of the Guardian’s target acquisition range, sixty years ago.
Of the old man, there was no sign.
“Stupid old fool,” said mother, and pulled the boy off down the village streets again. She seemed to know where she was going. Only two streets, two rows of gleaming aluminium-steel habitats, and the old man came into view. Standing in the square at the Guardian’s habitat-sized feet, he was arguing with a pair of Consultancy men, armoured troopers holding guns that could track the electrical emissions of a man’s heartbeat in the dark and shoot him dead through steel. He was carrying a sword.
“But I always do my exercises in the square at this time,” the old man was saying, which was a lie.
“You are carrying a weapon, grandfather,” said one of the Consultants gently, “which I am forced to regard as a potential threat, despite your advanced years.”
The old man looked from
hand to hand, then finally held up the sword as if he had only just realized it was there. “This? Why, but this is only an old sword-shaped piece of aluminium. It cannot even be made to take an edge.”
“All the same,” said the Consultant persuasively, “out of deference to the tense situation in which we find ourselves, it would be safer if —”
“HOI!”
The shout broke the polite silence in the town square. Five heads turned towards it. As the sun heaved its head over the southern horizon, a figure staggered into town out of the desert. It waved its arms.
“HOI! It’s me, Khan! Khan, the man you’re looking for! Catch me if you can!”
Guns rose instantaneously to shoulders. Khan dived for cover. How useful that cover was was debatable, as a line of projectile explosions stitched its way across the wall of the nearest habitat like a finger tearing through tinfoil. When the guns had finished tracking across the building, the building was two buildings, one balanced precariously on top of the other, radiator coolant gushing from the walls and electrical connections sparking. Hopefully no one was sitting headless at breakfast within it. The Consultancy men were already spreading out round the habitat, hoping to outflank their target if he had somehow survived the first attack. The boy’s mother looked on, appalled.
Some caprice, however, drew the boy’s attention upward.
The old man was on the inside leg of the metal colossus, on the access ladder, moving with dinosaurian slowness towards the Guardian’s bumward access hatch.
The boy’s jaw dropped.
Meanwhile, the men who were guarding the Guardian seemed on the point of following Khan and finishing him, until one of them remembered his orders, waved his comrade back to the square, pulled a communicator from one of his ammunition pouches, opened it, spoke into it, and flipped it shut again. Someone Else, he told his comrade, Could Do The Running. Up above, the old man was still moving, but with the speed of evolution, at the speed glass flowed down windowpanes, at the speed boys grew up doorposts. He had not even reached the knee. Surely, before the old fool reached the top of his climb, somebody in the village underneath had to notice? And what did he think he’d accomplish, if he once got up the ladder?
The Mammoth Book of Best New Science Fiction 22nd Annual Collection Page 33
