THE FEAR PRINCIPLE

by B. A. Chepaitis

Gerry was facing the audience. "Sorry, folks," he said to them. "Technical difficulties. We're gonna take a break and see if we can clear them up."

  "I don't know where Alex is," she insisted again to Gerry, and to Oji, as the two band members continued to pummel her with questions.

  "Look," Oji said. "Someone came in here and fucked with your stuff. This isn't no accident shit. Someone wants you dead. You get that?"

  "I'm so sorry, Jag," Gerry said, for the fiftieth time. "I should've seen it before. I should've."

  Jaguar ignored him.

  "I get it," she said to Oji, "but I still don't know where Alex is. We're not bound at the hip, you know."

  "Not for want of trying on his part," Oji whispered. Jaguar glared at him, then chose to let it pass.

  "Ask Rachel," she said. "Maybe she knows."

  The green room door opened, and the third band member, Pinkie Curtis, stuck her head in. "I got hold of Rachel," she said. "Thought she might know something, and she did. Alex is on the home planet."

  "What?" Jaguar said.

  "You know. Earth. Personal leave. Not sure where, or how long he'll be away."

  "Right," Jaguar said. "There it is. Do you mind if I go home now?"

  "No way," Pinkie said. "Rachel said we're supposed to keep you here even if we have to sit on you. She's on her way. Wants to talk to you about something."

  When Rachel arrived, the others disappeared and left them alone.

  She had, Rachel-like, brought along two steaming cups of coffee, and she handed one to Jaguar, let her take a sip and savor it for a moment before she spoke.

  "Okay," she said, sitting on the couch next to Jaguar and curling her legs under her. "I'm gonna break a lot of promises, so you'd better listen, because I don't want to have to repeat myself and break them more than once."

  "This," Jaguar said, "sounds serious." She breathed in her coffee, cradling the mug in her hands and letting the warmth seep into her. It was late, and she was tired. Rachel looked tired, too.

  "It's serious. If it wasn't, I'd be home sleeping. You know where Alex is?"

  "Home planet. Personal leave." She made a face, and rolled her eyes. "Probably some woman."

  "No," Rachel said definitively. "Not a woman. He's in Leadville."

  Jaguar took a sip of her coffee, frowned down into it.

  "Did you hear me?"

  "I heard. Are you saying he's interfering with my assignment, or is he—Rachel, are you trying to tell me he's got some kind of scheme going with the Governor's people?"

  Rachel looked at her hard, her face going blank and then crinkling into laughter. "Alex? A scheme? Jaguar, you've got him all wrong."

  "Look, Rachel, if he's playing some kind of game with my case, since it's my hide that almost got skinned tonight, I would think that you'd want me to—"

  "Shut the hell up, Jaguar," Rachel said.

  Jaguar took a sip of coffee too fast, and choked. Rachel leaned over and pounded her on the back, hard.

  "Stop," Jaguar said, pushing her away. "Cut it out. Rachel—what's wrong with you?"

  "Just," Rachel repeated, "shut up and listen. You've got this thing stuck in your head about Supervisors, and you can't even see the person you're working with behind the title. It's stupid, if you don't mind my saying so. Or even if you do."

  Jaguar sat and let herself absorb the phenomenon of Rachel being offensive and angry. It was rare, and it was fascinating. And she knew that it meant Rachel was stating a profound truth. She listened.

  Rachel watched her until she was sure she was listening, then she continued. "Alex is in Leadville because he's terrified you've got yourself caught up in something bigger than you. Something you won't be able to get out of. He took his own personal time to go do this, just to make sure your ass is covered."

  "Rachel," Jaguar insisted, "how could I know he'd do that?"

  "You of all people could know. You just didn't want to. And he didn't want you to. He also didn't want you to know that when you got booted off of Planetoid One, he made sure you were transferred to his office instead of being fired."

  Rachel waited a moment for this to sink in, then went on. "And, he didn't want you to know that he paid half your tuition when you were in college. The part that wasn't covered by scholarship."

  Jaguar waited to see if there was more. Rachel said nothing.

  "Is that the lot, then?" she asked.

  "I'd think it was enough," Rachel replied.

  Jaguar swirled her coffee in the cup, watching the whirlpool of motion until it settled down. Alex paid for her tuition. Alex in Leadville. Someone trying to kill her. A whirlpool of motion in her cup.

  "Why are you telling me this?" she asked at last.

  "Because I wanted you to understand how much danger you're in, and he's in, and we're all in at this point. And because I wanted you to know what kind of man you're working with."

  Jaguar nodded. "He ... paid for my tuition?"

  "That's right."

  "Did he tell you that or ask you to tell me?"

  "Are you crazy? Of course not. I found out."

  "How?"

  Rachel relaxed now, the tension in her shoulders leaving her. She leaned back on the couch. "When I first started as a team member, I clerked for him. Remember? He wanted an inventory of his files before he reorganized them, and I stumbled into his personal files. He had a ledger from when you were in college. And there were some memos about Planetoid One. I told him I found them, and he didn't say anything except don't tell you, and delete them immediately. It wasn't information he needed anymore."

  Jaguar found herself smiling. She could see him saying that.

  "Look," Rachel said. "I kept it in confidence, just like he asked me to, but I think you should know what kind of person he is so you can stop treating him like an enemy. It's dangerous. It's up to you if you let him know that you know, but remember that he doesn't want you to know. Okay?"

  She raised an eyebrow at Rachel. "If I could figure out your sentence, I might be able to agree to it or not. As it is, maybe it'd be better if we just went home."

  Rachel grinned. "Okay," she said. "You're right. Let's call it done, and get some sleep."

  In Leadville, the local news was all about the signing of the ordinance that would start the building of casinos in this poor region. It would occur in a few days, and any number of parties and ceremonies were being planned around it. The main street of town, which was composed of a diner, a church, a few stores and bars, was being set up with platforms and signs welcoming the builders. On his arrival, Alex spent an hour in one of the bars, listening to the locals talk about it, watching the news, getting his bearings.

  Then he walked around, looking at the mountains beyond the empty lots, the abandoned buildings.

  He knelt down and picked up a handful of deep brown earth, letting it sift through his fingers with chunks of rock, pieces of dried pine needles.

  The air was thin and sharp at this elevation, and mountains stood at his back, at his shoulders, in his face. Looking around at the sheer ridges, the crests of snow, and the empty houses and lots, he realized that the casinos the Governor had planned would bring income to this area, income that hadn't ever been anticipated. Of course, that would be impossible without the increasing use of wings and air runners to get people up this high. Across a flat lot, he saw the building equipment necessary to begin construction on landing sites for these vehicles.

  Alex smiled, almost hearing Jaguar groan at the thought of it. Casinos.

  What had she said to him—that now every woman in the area could get a job as an exotic dancer or a prostitute. Take your pick. Full employment for all.

  He wasn't sure which side he fell on in terms of the question of gambling. He knew that this town had been built as a mining town, and that its fortunes rose and fell with the rise and collapse of silver mines, copper mines, and later, uranium mines. He knew that even before the Serials, a hundred miles' worth of land had been dedicated to preser
vation, and now this small town, like many others around it, eked out its living from the tourists who came through.

  It wasn't as popular as the other National Preservation Lands, though. There was something too wild, too lonely and sad about the region for it to be attractive on a grand scale. Maybe there were too many ghosts lingering in the edges of the trees, or not sleeping in the mines.

  And he knew that in spite of the excitement, many people were still against the casino and were planning protests to coincide with the celebrations.

  Opponents were raising an outcry about the devastation of this wild land, the animals that would be displaced or killed, the trees that would never grow back as more and more developments were built to accommodate the casino and tourist needs. The land had been set aside for preservation. A place for the cougars and bears to play without human intervention. A place for the trees to continue growing. Some people wanted it to stay that way.

  And while the casino development was being simultaneously celebrated and protested, Alex noticed that nobody was talking about the mining at all.

  Pyrite.

  This land was still a primary source of the metal called fool's gold, and it was going to be mined and refined as construction occurred. There was every reason to expect the ore to be plentiful. Geologists knew what a rich source existed here. But nobody was talking about it. All discussion centered around the casino.

  The silence had the smell of a DIE operation.

  Alex stood, stretched his legs, turned his back to the wooded lands, and made his way back to the main street, to the run-down, gray-sided diner. He went in and found a booth, ordering a cup of coffee and a piece of apple pie from a waitress whose waistline looked stretched from childbirths, from years of slouching, from apathy. Then he waited.

  After he'd chewed his way through half the pie, he saw a man enter the diner and ask at the counter for him. The waitress pointed, and Alex waved.

  "Hello, Alex," the man said, adjusting the collar of his white shirt and taking a seat next to him.

  "Neri," Alex said. "It's been a while."

  "A while, and a ways," Neri replied. "And I don't have a lot of time, so you better tell me what your justification is for pulling me up this mountain."

  "Just a chat," Alex said. "I missed you."

  Neri rolled his eyes and brought his broad hands up to slap them on the tabletop. "Dzarny, you haven't got an ounce of bullshit in you that works, and never did. You call me, and tell me we have to talk, so I think—what's up with Dzarny now, after all these years off the home planet?"

  "And what did you answer yourself?"

  "Not much," Neri said. "I didn't have time. Because the next thing I know, Dzarny's saying he wants to meet me way up next to heaven, which is about four hours away from where I'm supposed to be at a meeting right at this minute, so I begin asking myself another question."

  "Which is?"

  "How close to the line is his ass anyway? Then I decide I better just go and see for myself. So now I see you're alive, and that's okay, but I still have no time for a chat."

  "Neri," Alex said, "haven't you figured out a way around time yet? I hear the taxpayers give you a load of money to just sit and think about that shit all day long."

  "They do," Neri agreed cheerfully. "Boatloads full of cash and jewels and whatnots. The whatnots are especially fun," he noted. "But I haven't solved the problem of ubiquity yet."

  He waved the waitress over and ordered coffee, then, after a long discussion with her on the relative merits of their chocolate cake versus their cobbler, asked for one of each. The waitress left them, and Alex shook his head.

  "How hard are they working you that you eat this way and stay so thin?"

  "It's not the work," Neri said. "It's the whatnots."

  "As I thought. What problems are you solving these days, Neri?"

  "Oh," he said, "the usual."

  "Superluminary transfer of information," Alex said.

  "That's right. I wish you'd sign on with us," Neri said. "We need subjects like you desperately, not only to work with but for the ... whatnots."

  Alex grinned. "Sorry on both counts. I'll work with you guys when you get a clue that the arts are more than science." Then he added, over Neri's snort of derision, "And I'm just not a whatnot, Neri. Wasn't made that way."

  "A waste," Neri said. "But there it is. You're heterosexually challenged. Well, I hope you make some fine woman happy."

  "I hope I make many fine women happy for now," Alex said. "Tell me what you're doing with pyrite these days," he concluded.

  Neri startled, dropped a spoon, and retrieved it.

  "Goodness," he said. "You are good. Have you been listening in?"

  "Not at all. Word gets around, though."

  "Well, it's not supposed to. Highly highly classified stuff."

  "I know that, too. So tell me about it."

  Neri leaned in close. "It's a wave amplifier, specific for theta and omega."

  Alex nodded. Those were the brain waves associated with states of consciousness observed during use of the empathic arts. "I thought so. Is it chemical composition?"

  "Crystallization factors. You want the speed lecture on it?"

  "Don't need it. What I really want to know is who's funding it."

  "Oh, DIE, of course," he said. "Contracts up the wazoo.

  All under some other name, as usual. Probably like last time—they're using Seagram's or something as a cover company. You know, I shouldn't be telling you any of this."

  Alex felt the tingle of comprehension, of completion, as Neri said this. DIE. Jaguar suspected as much. They both knew, and had known for some time. But now they really knew.

  "I know," Alex replied, keeping it casual, as if it were just more dish. "And I expect to pay dearly for the information."

  "You will? Then let me tell you more. Ask questions."

  "How do you know it's DIE?"

  "All the earmarks. More money than God to throw around, a series of sponsors that don't make any sense, and strange little nondescript consultants coming through now and then to gather data. I mean, they're good, but they can't be totally invisible and get the work done, too. Besides, it's all on the up-and-up. No criminal activities involved. However, our contract does swear us to secrecy about what we're doing."

  "What do they do with the data you give them?"

  "I haven't got a clue on that. They wouldn't let an outsider near it. We're corollary research, passing stuff to them."

  "Okay. So extrapolate from the research they have you do, and tell me what you think they're working on in their own dens."

  "Two things. A technologically based telepathy—something to pass information between agents. They want machinery that they can monitor better than an empath. The usual control issues. I swear, all these gals and guys ought to be in therapy. Do them good."

  "And? What else?"

  "Well"—Neri leaned in close and stage-whispered behind his hand—"there's rumors of pseudogenic experiments."

  "What?"

  "You know. The postmortem polka? Dead people. Keep the mainspring wound with a Supertoy and make them dance."

  "I know what the term means, but Neri—are they seriously attempting it?"

  "Seem crazy? So was brain surgery before we figured it out. Besides, what's it cost to research? Dead people are so available, and so much easier to work with. They don't form unions or ask for personal leave or take coffee breaks. And quiet. You can imagine how nice it'd be to work with them."

  "But is it ... possible?"

  "Sure. If you want a sort of jumping dummy, you can play around with chemical levels, diddle with electrons, at least to a point. You know bodies continue to move postmortem. Hair grows. Nails grow. Dead guys sit up and scare the shit out of new doctors. I know," Neri said, holding a hand out to silence Alex's protest, "human life is more than motion. There's the individual mind and soul and so on. But that's where all the trouble starts. Better to just skip it. Hook up
the bodies to a Supertoy and let 'er rip. You want more pie?"

  "I don't think so," Alex said. "Not right now. But I thought there's been a lot of trouble with the Supertoy concept."

  "Between live subjects, yes. It's probably easier to work them postmortem, actually, because—well, death is the great simplifier. As you know, the human factor's been a big problem for all psi research."

  "That's because—"

  "I know. It's an art, not a science. But science pays, and artists starve."

  "Truer words were never spoken. What's their goal, and how far have they gotten?"

  "I'd imagine they want brute force. Army of the dead would be high on the list for long-term goals, and DIE thinks long-term. That's the best thing about them, actually."

  "Can they do it, Neri?"

  "Dearest one," Neri replied, shaking his head, "I'm telling you they are doing it. Now. I swear they're just waiting for their uniform requisitions to move the boys out"

  Alex poked at the remainder of his pie and stayed quiet while the waitress brought Neri's order to him. Psi work, genetic tinkering and pseudogenics had always been seen as fringe work, but the pentagon and NICA maintained a solid if secret interest in all three. They didn't make their findings public, because they knew how twitchy the general public was even about the empathic arts. The public should be twitchy, Alex thought. He was. And Neri, for all his casual tone, kept glancing over his shoulder, out the window.

  "Are your people doing any of the research?" he asked, when Neri was served.

  "Do you have any idea what pseudogenics entails? Us theoreticians are far too squeamish. We just hear whispers in the wind. Can't confirm a damn thing, so don't quote me on any of it."

  "Neri," Alex said, "look at me."

  Neri lifted his attention from his plate and Alex stared at him hard. Neri kept the surface light. That was his way. But when Alex listened to his eyes, he heard fear. Neri had driven four hours at a moment's notice to see Alex. He needed to talk about this before Alex asked. He wanted the madness stopped. He was very frightened.

  Alex lifted his coffee cup and moved the conversation into less threatening zones.

  "So how's everyone surviving their grief?"