"That's going to be the motto on our great seal, Stays? 'It seemed like a good idea at the time?'" He shook his head. "You can't make a society out of stuff like that. It has no central plan, no principle, no coherent purpose or goal, no vision. That flaws it right from the beginning."
Stays pushed himself to his feet and looked down at Alna and smiled. "Make sure it gets back to me, okay?"
Alna nodded, but did not stop reading. "Sure."
Stays put his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky's fading light. "Garoit, you're right. Of course you're right. It is flawed." He looked down at Pussyface.
"Then, what's the point?"
"The point is, I'm not a sophomore any longer. I don't look for perfection." His eyes seemed to search his inner self for an instant, then he grinned. "Maybe you hadn't noticed, Garoit, but we aren't out to build a new society. The society is already here. The only thing we have to work with is the same thing that we had to work with back on Earth: change."
"Still, there are principles that—"
"To Hell with the principles," Stays interrupted, "and to Hell with the ivory-tower chair queens who think them up." He pointed a finger at Garoit.
"Look, some academic with time heavy on his hands between classes sits down and says, 'how should things be?' For answers he doesn't go down on the block, or in the factories and schools, or in the fields or the barracks to find out anything about the men, women, and children who might have to live in his 'How should things be.' No. For answers he searches the insides of his own head, which is filled with the sludge of other academics who found time heavy on their hands between classes. And what's the result?"
Stays put his hands in his pockets. "Earth. Too many people, thousands of murders every day, billions going hungry, air so thick with shit you can paint your house with it, and a criminal justice system that is so swamped that the only thing it can do efficiently is sort out the privileged from the poor, and spring the privileged." Stays spat on the sand and smiled.
"I would like to end this lecture," he continued, "by saying that I don't give damn for philosophic first principles or all of the rarified atmospherics of legal scholars and political science majors individually or in congress. I've seen and lived in the results."
A voice in the back called "Preach it, brother." After the chuckles tapered off, Stays pointed at the ground.
"Right here, on Tartaros, on the sand, we are in the trenches. Right here is where we have to make it work. It doesn't have to work for the universe. It only has to work for us. Perfection is the great deity of the adolescent mind, and I'm feeling mighty old and creaky these days. Right now I'd settle for a system that worked half-decently most of the time."
He turned and walked toward the darkening dunes. Those in the circle were silent. It was more than any of us had ever heard Martin Stays say at one time.
I watched his back as he faded into the shadows, realizing that Martin Stays was the person on Tartaros I trusted the most. And the least.
Alna looked up at me and asked, "Do you know what the major has me doing in the army?"
I shook my head. I couldn't think of anything Bloody Sarah would assign Alna that wouldn't send Alna around the bend. "No," I sighed. "What's she got you doing?"
"I'm learning to be a nurse."
"A nurse?"
"You know that doctor who was sent to Greenville for all of those mercy killings? Jane Sheene?"
"Mercy Jane. I remember. Four, five years ago."
"She's teaching me how to treat wounds. I'm going to be a nurse."
As Alna talked about her first day of training, I nodded to myself because it made sense. You've got someone who doesn't want to fight. Make her a nurse. I saw Garoit looking at Alna. He was biting nervously at the skin on the insides of his mouth. I could almost hear him thinking, "What if everyone refused to fight?" and a hundred other what ifs from the done past. But that was the point Stays had made. Here on the sand all we were concerned with was what works. We weren't concerned with what would work under such-and-such conditions, or what would work ten years from now, or what tried to work in the distant past on a distant unworkable planet.
We were on Tartaros. We were on the Forever Sand. What worked right then and there was our concern. For me, Alna being a nurse worked just fine.
Just about then Rus Gades came up to us. Without being asked, I reached into my kit bag for my copy of Yesterday's Tomorrow. As I handed it to him, I asked, "What goes on in those meetings?"
"Why not come to a meeting and find out?"
I laughed. "Do I look like an addict?"
"No one looks like an addict."
"Look, I was just kidding, but do you think I'm a self-destructive compulsive, or whatever it is?"
Rus shook his head. "It's not a judgment I'm qualified to make. But there's something you might want to think about. If you do something that causes you big problems, and you keep on doing the same thing over and over again, chances are you are dependent on whatever it is. That would make you an addict."
I shook my head. "I don't do anything like that."
Rus pursed his lips as he tapped his fingers on the book. "My guess, Bando, is that no one except the pure got to Tartaros by birth."
I was getting a little steamed. "What does being here have to do with being an addict?"
The man shrugged. "Maybe nothing if the Crotch was the first time you ever saw crowbars. I've never heard your story, Bando, but my guess is that you've seen the insides of jails and squad rooms lots and lots of times ever since you were a little kid."
I pointed around at the dunes. "Most of these sharks've done the same thing. I'm not the only repeat customer in the hotel."
He smiled. "I can't argue with that." He turned and began walking as he said, "I'll be sure to get the book back to you before we move out."
▫
I stewed in my sheet for a time, trying to get to sleep. Even though me being addicted to going to jail was the most salted thing I had ever heard, it gnawed at me. I couldn't put it to rest.
Alna turned over and said, "Bando? What's wrong?"
"Oh, that spud-nuts who said I was addicted to jails. Can you believe that? I can't get it out of my head, though."
"I don't think he meant that you were addicted to jails. I think he meant you were addicted to the things that keep putting you in jail."
I began thinking about what she said, and that ended what chances I ever had for some sleep. Being a cop in the middle of two thousand sharks was all the problem I needed right then. I didn't need someone messing with my melon. I decided to tell Rus Gades to keep the damned book and to stay out of my face forever. Before I dropped off to sleep, Nance dropped by to speak to Alna.
"You finished with Stays's notebook."
"Yes." Alna handed it up. As Nance took the notebook, I asked her, "What do you think of that?"
"I think I'm going to have a few copies made and have it read to the troops. That's what I think."
I chewed on that one for a ment. We got cops, we got law, we got law books coming up. Could lawyers be far away?
That was the main trouble in that situation. Awake or asleep, I couldn't get away from my nightmares.
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▫
The Chopper
▫
That night during the march, Stays and I saw a string of lights close to the southern horizon. We were at the head of the walking column, and at first I mistook the lights for a city. I said so to Stays, and before he could respond a woman's voice from behind me said, "They're stars."
I looked and saw a woman with graying hair. She wore a sheet, but she wasn't carrying one of those rifles. Instead there was a hand ax hanging at her waist. It was the same woman who had been measuring the length of the day before we discovered all of those dead sharks.
"This place doesn't have but two stars at night," I countered, "and who are you?"
&nbs
p; "My name is Seraphine, young man, and those are stars. Tartaros's orbit is around a star that is located at the edge of a dark cloud known as the Spider Nebula. The northern pole of Tartaros points toward the center of the Spider, which is why we couldn't see but two stars until tonight. The further south we go, the more stars will become visible."
"Are you some kind of astronomer?"
"Strictly amateur. By trade, I'm a social worker, as I said before."
Stays laughed at the sound of the filthy word. To sharks, soshes were the hated underclass. They were made up of idealistic do-gooders without experience, skill, or sense dropped into fantastically complicated family and community situations to see what they could do to make the simple complicated and the serene frustrated. All of them started out with a desire to wallow in and feed off of the gratitude of the bleeding masses they attempted to band-aid. Once they discovered that they were little more than objects of hate or contempt, however, they dropped the "love me" bit and went for the long green and serene.
I remembered two years before when the case workers for the entire UTR went on strike for more corn and bennies. The prison newsletter in the Crotch carried a picture of a long-haired thing carrying a sign that demanded parity with other "professionals" like doctors, money threads, and such. The picture carried the caption "Soshes Get Honest." The yard gurus always said that trusting a sosh was more stupe than trusting a squeal, and the yard gurus never lied unless it could get them something.
"I don't trust a sosh's word about social work. Why should I believe you about black gas and Spider clouds?"
"Are you a biologist?" she asked me.
"No."
"Can you tell whether or not you have your dipper in your mitt?"
"My dip—you mean my dick in my hand?"
She grinned. "My, you are quick for a cop. Yes, that's what I meant."
"Yeah. So?"
"So, there you are. You're no more qualified to talk about your weenie than I am to talk about the stars."
"Lady, at least I got a dipper."
She grinned. "And I have the stars." She let the grin fade. "Once I heard about Tartaros, I looked up the information in my books. Take my word for it, Nicos." She pointed up toward the blackness. "That is the belly of the Spider." She pointed south toward the lights. "Those are stars."
"All of the stuff about Tartaros was classified. I tried to look it up myself."
"I was using my books, not the censored stuff from the prison library."
Without moving, she kept staring at the lights. She glanced to her right, saw a dune that she liked, and climbed it. Once she was on top of the dune, she looked again. After a moment she called down to us. "Those are stars, but you had best call Nance and Bloody Sarah. There are other lights below the stars, and I think they might be from a camp." She stayed very still for a long moment, her unblinking eyes studying the horizon. "It's a camp."
The word was passed, and I ran up the dune and stood next to Seraphine the sosh. I looked below the alleged stars and saw lights that were the same dull orange color given off by the fire cubes. In a matter of a couple of minutes Nance Damas and Rhome Nazzar had joined us, followed in a couple of more minutes by Sarah Hovit and Ondo Suth.
After a few seconds, Sarah nudged Ondo. "Well?"
Ondo's expression was worried. "I'm nowt sure, general." He pointed toward the lights. "Must be Boss Kegel, but I can't figure why he's so far north."
"Maybe he's looking for his lost patrol," I offered.
"Ah, no. We weren't due for days and days." He scratched at his chin for a moment. "See here, he might be checkin' up on Jak Edge."
"What about him," I asked."
Ondo turned toward me. "See, Jak's been a pain in Boss Kegel's side for long time now."
"Why hasn't Kegel done him?" asked Stays.
Ondo gave a little shrug. "I think Kegel's afraid. I think he's afraid Jak's got too many followers and puttin' a move on Jak would pull hisself down."
"Does Jak Edge have that kind of power?" I asked.
Ondo shook his head. "I don't think he ever did, but if he did, that was before you killed most of his soldiers back at the dunes. I'm thinkin' that Kegel wants to catch Jak away from his soldiers and do him. I can't think of no other reason for Kegel to be here. Boss Kegel hates the sand worse'n locks." He held out a hand. "Might be another, gang, though."
Sarah grabbed Nazzar's arm and pointed toward the lights. "Rhome, put together your ten best and scout out the position. Scout it just like we talked about, and remember: you are the night. If you are noticed, leave no one behind who can talk, ours or theirs."
"You want us to do it on foot?" he asked.
"That's right. Those animals stink and make too much noise. Ride half way, then go on foot. Keep alert for their patrols and pickets. Before you go in, check your ten for noise. Then become as shadows, be the night, invisible."
Nazzar nodded and gestured with his thumb at Seraphine the Sosh. "Chopper. With me."
He skated down the dune and the sosh followed him into the darkness. I was damned if I was going to ask, but Stays didn't appear too proud.
"We're in big trouble." He looked at Bloody Sarah. "Is that old white woman one of Nazzar's ten best?"
"You're kidding," she said.
"No."
Sarah Hovit grinned. "That's the Chopper." When she saw that Stays's face remained blank, she said, "Seraphine Clay? You never heard of the, D.C. Chopper?"
Then I remembered. How could I have ever forgotten the D.C. Chopper? As Bloody Sarah followed Nazzar down the side of the dune, I looked into the shadows as a bitter taste in the back of my throat made my stomach strongly consider the possibility of issuing the most colorized belch of all time. I thought back to when even the Crotch recoiled in horror as it watched the story. The vids loved it, though.
She had been a case worker in the Union of Terran Republics' national district capital until she had a breakdown trying to get the system to help some people. Earth had its claws out for a certain family. There was a drug dealer who couldn't be persuaded to stay away. There was a judge who tied everything up with the letter of the law. There was a couple of cockroach lawyers who were squeezing the juicer and the family along with it. There were three gang toughs who thought it was funny to keep terrorizing the family. There was a hospital administrator who couldn't work his way through a paperwork blizzard in enough time to save a baby that had a deadly disease that an obstetrician at the same institution had failed to detect when the child was delivered. There was a supervisor in the social services department who seemed not to care about anything except where her next vacation was to be held. There was the steward of the local union who—
—It just seemed like everything in the universe had combined to frustrate Seraphine's attempts to help this particular family. Maybe, like a lot of us, Seraphine believed that if she only cared enough, if she only tried hard enough, if she only shouted loud enough, and worked hard enough, if—
And none of it was enough. It was like trying to erode a granite mountain with an eye dropper. Reality reached its hand up out of the sewer and smacked the social worker in the face. That smelly brown handprint on her cheek said, "No matter how hard you try, no matter how strong your will, no matter how untiring your efforts, no matter how deep your love, this family will die that long, slow, horrible death slated for most of the world." That slap said, "There's nothing you can do about it, Seraphine."
Then something inside of Seraphine's head gave a loud snap, and she had said, "Oh, yes there is."
There had been an antique butcher's ax mounted on the wall of her father's living room along with some other antique tools he had collected. She had always seen it hanging there, doing nothing, meaning nothing.
Suddenly the ax became to her a tool of social reform. She bought a new sharpening stone, and after putting a razor edge on the blade, she went forth to do the good work.
Anyway, that was the story her money threads put out. He tr
ied to sell the juicer that Seraphine was the most salted pistachio that was ever meant to go directly to Gibber City. The juicer didn't see it that way, because Seraphine didn't look crazy, no matter how enthusiastically she had taken her revenge. There had been a total of sixteen men, in addition to three boys in their teens and five women, who had mysteriously disappeared over a nine day period.
When they found the first body, it had been hit at least fifty times with a hatchet or ax. From dental examinations the police had determined that the open cases on drug kingpin Billy Aculo might as well be closed, since Billy Aculo was burger.
The next three bodies were members of the Fang. The Fang was a center city youth organization that specialized in drugs, murder, and mayhem for the hell of it. The parents of the Fang members never did have much confidence in the sorting job the morticians had done before burying the chopped remains of the three victims, but after watching the news on the vids there had been a lot of jokes in the Crotch about quarter-pounders, and burial by the quart. Does the Devil use a microwave, or does he still flame-broil?
After the remains of twenty-four bodies had been found, the stains still hadn't a clue to the identity of the D.C. Chopper, as the vids had named the social worker. The perpetrator of the now famous Burger Murders was still on the loose, and Washington was paralyzed.
That was when Seraphine had finally had enough. Whatever her monster was, it had become small enough for her to feel some remorse for what she had done. Seraphine Clay quit her job, went down to the local police station, and was made to wait almost four hours before the stains gave her a chance to turn herself in. Even then they didn't believe her. She just didn't look like a crazed ax murderer. As a matter of fact, she looked like a social worker.
It's too bad that some station's vid-jocky hadn't been in on Seraphine's interrogation, because I would have loved to have seen the expressions on the faces around that room when, frustrated one final time, Seraphine had reached into her tote bag, pulled out her wide-bladed, short handled butcher ax and sunk the blade deep into the interrogation table—right across the fingers of Officer Lefty Bodeen. Since the digits on the table leaking all the blush were from Lefty's left hand, I always wondered what Lefty Bodeen's friends had ended up calling him. Righty?
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