Asimov's SF, July 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  The observation deck had the additional advantage that it was one of Farello's favorite locations. She visited it almost every day, just to spend a few minutes staring at the water, and she walked through it whenever she could when she was going about her daily rounds. The security system would note that she had visited the deck but it wouldn't attach a flag to the event.

  * * * *

  Farello couldn't complete the pickup as soon as the delegation left. She had to start a work session while they were still filing onto their boat. Janip spent thirty-three hours fighting temptation. He could have hung around the deck for hours at a time and made sure it wasn't being checked by a security team. It was a natural thing to do when Farello was working. Nobody would have thought he was doing anything odd.

  Farello made a complete circuit of the grounds when she finished her work session. She had spent most of the thirty-three hours lying on a recliner, plugged into the housekeeping and maintenance system, and she needed the exercise. Later, after a nap, she would run ten kilometers. Now she just walked. And stopped now and then to stretch and suck in air.

  She held out her hand as soon as the door clicked shut behind her. Janip hurried across the living room and pressed her fingers beneath his palms. They stared at each other across a gap that felt wider than the light years that separated Conalia and Arlane.

  "I'm going to take a nap,” Farello said.

  Janip nodded. She pulled her hand out of his grip and he watched her as she walked toward their bedroom.

  The wafer was clinging to his right palm. He slipped it to his wrist without looking at it and held it against the brown dot that marked the location of his main port. A data stored message superimposed itself on the image of Farello's retreating back—an image that made a perfect match for the conflicting emotions warring for his attention.

  * * * *

  Elisette had started moving while the delegation was still visiting the settlement. She had loaded up a tracked all-terrain vehicle and headed inland with two horses on board.

  "We'll come in from the land this time,” Elisette had said. “Just as a precaution. Sivmati may not be the most astute tactician on the planet, but we have to assume he's set up some hidden defenses against the scenario we used last time."

  Elisette liked to ride horses and she had developed an interest in the ancient sport of hawking. She liked to drive deep into the unterrestrialized wilderness and wander about on horseback, accompanied by her current paramour and an assortment of hawks she had programmed to pursue the livelier native flyers. Sivmati would know she was roaming the wilderness but he wouldn't see anything suspicious until she activated the last phase of her scheme.

  The Cultivators had established their settlement on a shelf that lay between the rapids and the steep ridges that lined the river valley. The ridge formed a wall behind the settlement—a wall Janip couldn't hope to climb with determined pursuers closing in behind him. His escape route would follow a wide stream that flowed into the rapids downstream from the settlement, at the end of the shelf.

  The stream ran through a narrow valley that sloped away from the river and created a natural pass through the ridge. Janip would run up the valley and Elisette and her companion would ride down it on horseback. They would make contact about ninety minutes after Janip broke out of the settlement, Elisette would hand Janip a weapon, and his pursuers would find themselves faced with three armed humans.

  This time, Elisette's machinations included a backup plan. A skimmer would drive up the stream and provide an alternate pickup if the main scheme went awry.

  "Tomorrow morning,” Elisette said. “Before dawn."

  * * * *

  "I want to go with you,” Farello said.

  They were lying on the bed side by side, holding hands. They had just spent most of an hour with their bodies joined, experiencing all the sensual excitements and emotional arousals they had added to their capabilities over the decades. It was an indulgence with a dangerous byproduct—you always emerged from it with deeply reinforced emotional bonds. Janip had slipped into it knowing he was yielding to a treacherous temptation.

  "I know you're going to make another attempt,” Farello said. “You don't think I really believed that story you told me, do you?"

  "You need this place, Fari. Sivmati let you create an internal conflict. For his purposes."

  "And now I'm supposed to tell him I want him to remove the things you make me feel? Like a tumor?"

  Janip stared at the ceiling. Would she alert Sivmati if he refused to take her with him? Would she become angry if he said the wrong thing?

  "Is that what you would do?” Farello said. “Visit the surgeon and tell him you want an inconvenient emotion removed?"

  It would have been the logical thing to do, in Janip's opinion. But he would never have let someone implant an emotion in the first place. Farello had enhanced her drive to bond with him because she had already glued herself to her tribe—because a cold-blooded manipulator had convinced her she should do it as a service to the group that had won her loyalty.

  Janip could understand the feelings that provided her with the basic satisfactions of her life. You woke up in the morning knowing you were surrounded by people you liked. You went about your days immersed in a haze of good feelings. He had even known people who transformed their personalities so they could settle into that kind of existence. Tweak a few glands. Spend a few days in a simulation that reshaped the more malleable circuits in your brain. He could do it anytime he wanted to. But he knew he would never want to.

  "Suppose I do get away from here?” Janip said. “What will you do?"

  "I'm not supposing. I'm assuming."

  "And what would you do if you came with me? And separated yourself from everything that's important to you? I'm a trader, Fari. I'm an independent one-person business. I have friends. I have business relationships. I like most of the people I deal with. And they like me. But I don't have the kind of thing you have. I never will."

  "I understand that. I want to be with you. I know I'm going to miss being here. I know I'm going to have times when I feel lonely and isolated. But I know what I want. I know I have to make a choice. I like wanting you. I like being attached to you."

  * * * *

  He didn't know what he was going to do when he slipped out of bed. Would she be a handicap? Could he even be certain Elisette would let her come with them?

  And what would they do afterward? Would he take her with him when he eventually left the planet?

  Most sexual relationships ended before one of the parties was ready to move on. That was one of the few things he felt he had learned about that aspect of life. Some of his shorter relationships had just faded away. His eleven-year pairing with one of his mother's friends had ended with a sweet, deliberately planned interlude when they had both decided their mentor-student relationship had given him everything that particular mentor had to offer. But two of the others had plunged him into a bleak discontent that felt like it was never going to end. And he was certain he had inflicted similar feelings on the three women he had abandoned.

  He rested his hand on Farello's shoulder. “I'm awake, Fari. I'm getting dressed."

  She sat up fully alert. “I've prepared some clothes."

  "Five minutes."

  The security system responded faster this time. The first cat flowed out of the darkness seconds after they rolled into the shrubbery under the window. Janip was already standing up when he saw it coming but he still had to twist out of the cat's path as it hurtled past him.

  This time the cat just sagged and settled to the ground without any histrionics. Janip broke into a run and Farello settled in beside him.

  "Just stay close to me,” Janip said. “I'm the one with the magic defense."

  "Are you going to the dock again?"

  "Just stick with me."

  The next two cats behaved just like the first. Their momentum carried them through the first effects of the defensive prog
ram but they stayed down once they'd collapsed.

  Janip had settled into his best medium-distance pace—one kilometer every three and a half minutes. He had maintained his standard exercise regimen while he had been residing in Sivmati's domain. He could hold this pace for at least two hours and still have enough reserve for emergency sprints.

  "The designers think the program will immobilize the cats for about twelve minutes,” Janip said. “They only tested it on two cats."

  "You should get some advantage from surprise. Sivmati hasn't told me anything about his security arrangements but I don't think he believed you could snatch another anti-cat program. And you aren't following the same route."

  Janip noted her choice of words. Was the you just an indication of her mental state? He had known she might be Sivmati's last line of defense when he had decided to take her with him—if you could dignify his actions with a word like decided. He had checked her clothes for items that could be used as weapons. He had watched her while she dressed. She had asked him where they were going, but he would have done the same thing if he had been the tag-along partner.

  * * * *

  Janip veered away from the river two steps after he reached the end of the walk and started running through a random sample of undomesticated Conalian shrubbery. The sun was still sitting below the horizon but the sky had acquired a glow.

  "Stay as close as you can,” he said. “Don't let the obstacles separate us. I can't help you if the cats get you isolated. I've only got one defense."

  Elisette had established a voice-only communications link. “I've got some hawks scouting ahead. They should pick you up in about fifteen minutes."

  "I'm not alone,” Janip said.

  "You're the person I need, Janip. I won't argue with you. But I know what my priorities are."

  Janip had swung left and started running up the little valley that would take him through the ridges. The central stream bisected the valley about three hundred meters to his right, behind the wall of plant life that flourished on its banks. Flying creatures fluttered into the air as he ran past bushes and high-stepped over vines. They were running through a maze composed of sprawling bushes and the green columns that supported the plants that had stretched upward as they competed for the light.

  He glanced back and realized Farello had let the gap widen by a step. He snapped a wave at her and she nodded and pushed up behind him.

  * * * *

  The flying creatures looked like they were concentrated over a patch of bushes when he first spotted them—until he looked right and left and realized he couldn't see the ends of the flock. There were hundreds of them, in all sizes, from finger-length to two-meter wingspans—a noisy, rainbow colored commotion that was so dense it looked like a shimmering cloud.

  They stopped a few steps from the melee and Janip realized some of the flyers were exiting the scene with yellow shapes clutched in their claws or impaled on their stingers.

  "It's a feeding frenzy,” Farello said. “We see them all the time. The yellow things are making their way to the stream to mate. We'll have to go around them. Away from the stream."

  Janip frowned. “Why can't we just bat our way through them? The whole thing's only a few steps wide."

  "You can't take the risk. You could have thirty different species there. We don't have the slightest idea how we'll react to a bite or sting from some of them."

  Janip activated his link to Elisette and started running along the edge of the tumult, away from the stream, and up the side of the little valley. “We're making a slight detour, Elisette. We've run into an obstacle—a big mass of flyers feeding off some yellow things that are crawling toward the stream."

  "And you can't just push your way through them?"

  Janip switched on his visual routine and let her see the problem. “Fari claims it's too dangerous. Too many possibilities for unknown reactions if we get nicked."

  "In the clothes you're wearing? Lower your head and bull your way through. The cats will be in more danger than you."

  Janip peered down the cloud of banqueting flyers. He still couldn't see any sign this mass of crawling yellow nourishment had an end. How long could it be?

  "Lower your head, Fari. Cover your face with your gloves. We're going through."

  He picked out a course that would avoid the larger obstacles and plunged forward with his eyes closed and his gloves pressed against his face. Angry wings beat on his clothes. Something huge attached itself to his gloves. His feet encountered an unexpectedly slippery surface and he caught himself with an awkward crouch, without moving his hands.

  "Slow down, Fari. Cross it like it's ice. It's only about four steps wide."

  He was yelling through a din of whirrs and buzzes. He thought he heard her say something but he couldn't make out the words.

  The big thing whirred off his gloves. He counted off three extra steps and peered between his fingers. His clothes were speckled with bits of organic debris. Yellow crawlers clung to his pant legs. He brushed at them angrily and turned around.

  Fari had dropped to her knees near the edge of the swarm, surrounded by the flyers attacking the yellow crawlers scattered over her clothes. She had her gloves jammed against her face and she seemed to be struggling to get up.

  Janip ran toward her. He reached into the din with one arm covering his face and pulled her toward him by her collar.

  "Come on, Fari. Just another step."

  She lifted her right knee and he yanked her out of the danger zone and let her stumble past him as if he was executing an unarmed combat maneuver. She started beating off the crawlers with one hand and he hurried toward her and joined the fray.

  Janip had turned off his visual feed when he had started his charge. “We're through,” he told Elisette. “We're getting brushed off."

  "Keep moving. Do you really think those bugs can do anything to you we can't repair? You're dealing with a conflicted personality. She can't stop following you and she's grabbing every excuse to slow you down. Unless she's deliberately trying to hold you up. You can't rule out the possibility she's helping Sivmati, Janip."

  Farello had pulled her gloves off her eyes. She worked her hands like she was trying to scrub them sterile, and he studied her face as he brushed off her back.

  Had she really been afraid of a few shallow bites? Elisette was right. What could any creature do that couldn't be repaired?

  But was it really that simple? Everything could be cured. Your whole body could be replaced if necessary. But what if the reaction affected your brain? Or your personality?

  Could Fari be confident Elisette would give her any medical procedures she needed? Could she be certain Sivmati would help her if she returned to the community after she had tried to abandon it?

  Farello was betraying a tribe in which a majority of the people shared her drive for community and affiliation. Would they welcome her back if they captured her? Sivmati would slither away from any implication he might be responsible. He could claim he had overestimated her loyalty to the community. And underestimated the attractions of an atomized individual who spent his life buying and selling. . . .

  "Just start moving,” Elisette said. “She'll follow you."

  Janip gave Farello's back one last sweep. He stepped away from her and pitched forward with his eyes fixed on the terrain directly in front of him.

  "Let's go, Fari. You've only got two choices. Run hard or turn back."

  * * * *

  Elisette sighted them with her hawks’ eyes a minute later than she'd hoped. One of the birds flew down the valley in search of their pursuers. The other one followed a random path through the big stems as it marked their location for Elisette.

  Farello had fallen in behind him, just as Elisette had predicted, but they had slipped into a routine. Farello would let the gap widen by a step and he would look back and wave her closer.

  "The skimmer has started up the stream,” Elisette reported. “They tried to stop it but it caught
them by surprise. I'm hoping they still don't know we're coming down the valley. They may think they just have to stay between you and the skimmer."

  "Have you seen any of their birds?"

  "My little pet is keeping his eyes peeled."

  Janip could pick up glimpses of the hawk as it tracked their position. It was a medium-sized predator that behaved like it had been engineered for speed and the ability to maneuver through heavy vegetation. Elisette had opted for a glossy, solid black color scheme that contrasted with the gaudier costumes favored by the local fauna.

  Janip glanced back and urged Farello forward with a snap of his head.

  "I could chart a graph of the conflict you're talking about,” Janip said. “She falls back, I wave her closer, she stops about two steps behind, she starts to fall back. . . ."

  "It's what happens when you let somebody like Sivmati wiggle into your social structure. He would have used her like that even if he'd known it would tear her apart."

  Low morning light flooded an open area directly in front of them. Janip angled to the left, to curve around a patch of high, thick bushes,

  "You've got three cats about four minutes behind you,” Elisette said. “They're coming up on your right. It looks like they're still trying to stay between you and the skimmer."

  "Are they moving fast enough to cut us off ? To come between you and us?"

  "It's a possibility. But we've got enough firepower to break you free if it comes to that. Your real problem is the people running behind the cats. There're about ten of them and they're armed, too. Stay ahead of them. That's your main consideration."

  * * * *

  The cats had charged through the feeding frenzy without breaking stride. They shifted left and settled into an intersection course that had clearly been plotted by a controller who had Janip and Farello located.

  "I'm throwing my hawks at them,” Elisette said. “They can't stop them but they can create an annoyance and slow them down."