Looking for the Mahdi

by N Lee Wood

  Laidcliff traipsed after us as we queued up in the short First-Class line. “Well, kids, have fun,” he said as we handed tickets to the attendant at the gate. “Drop me a postcard, Halton.”

  “Yes, sir.” Halton’s little smile never wavered.

  “Talk to you later, Kay Bee,” he said to me, then laughed and leered suggestively. “He’s all yours.”

  At that moment I decided I’d get Laidcliff, one way or the other. He was only your typical Government jerk, and any retribution would certainly be petty, but for the next few hours I enjoyed myself as I ran various creative revenge scenarios through my mind.

  I leaned over toward him, touching him lightly on the arm, smiling as sweetly as possible. “Don’t worry, honey,” I said in a low, sexy voice. “I’m saving myself for you.” I puckered my lips and blew him a silent kiss.

  His reflex was lovely to watch. His eyes told him I was a man before his brain kicked in and reminded him I was really female. Then he glanced around hastily, afraid someone would see and think he was with a faggot. It was my turn to snigger and leer. He walked away fast, his neck red above his collar.

  An orbital flight is pretty much like one on any other plane, although most of my flying experience has been in Cattle Class, hard seats packed together like sardines, plastic meals, surly overworked attendants and never enough magazines or pillows. But it’s better than Coffin Class, otherwise touted as the “Extra Economy Sleeper Fare.” Underneath us, packed tight in the shuttle’s belly were stacked rows of comatose clients who’d “sleep” the entire trip, no need for flight attendants or meals or coffee. If we blew up, they’d never know, which some considered an advantage. If I go down in flames, I want to be there when it happens.

  I’ve always hated the idea of a separate First Class on planes. We’re all supposed to be living in an egalitarian society, at least in theory, right? There was something distasteful about sitting with the snobbish aristocrats being catered to hand and foot while the unsavory sight of ordinary people commuting from one place to another, jammed into seats packed so tightly together it was hard to keep their knees out of their nostrils, was kept at an aesthetically isolated distance.

  On the other hand, I do like the idea of all the free booze you can swill to make the time go faster.

  “Would you care for champagne?” the male flight attendant asked politely as we waited to take off.

  Laidcliff had soured my fondness for Scotch. “Screwdriver, if you’ve got it. Double vodka.”

  “Of course.” He gazed soulfully at Halton, his smile sultry. “Anything for you, sir?” he practically purred.

  It hurt, illogical as that was. I was incapable of attracting a man no matter which sex I was.

  Halton looked at me and waited. “Don’t ask me, I don’t give a shit,” I said sharply. The attendant drew back prudently, mistaking my anger for jealousy.

  “Would you have a single malt?” Halton asked.

  “Glenfiddich okay?”

  “That’d be fine, thank you.” When the attendant went on to the next sybarite porked out on the marshmallow-soft loungers, Halton said quietly, “I don’t get drunk. But I do like the taste.” He seemed completely relaxed and composed.

  “You don’t need to explain anything to me,” I said acidly. I was neither relaxed nor composed. I wanted the alcohol to settle the jitters in my stomach. Halton watched me for a few moments, his aloof eyes assessing me calmly, then left me alone after that.

  The shuttle took off and I drank screwdrivers as fast as the attendant could bring them while Halton slipped his whisky and leafed through the glossy Orbital magazine. Outside the window, the sky grew a deeper blue. I couldn’t see the ground from my angle, but I knew the curve would be visible.

  It wasn’t a long flight, but when you fly First Class, they have to let you know you’re really flying first-class. It was two o’clock in the afternoon Eastern when we took off, close enough for them to consider it dinnertime. The pilot had barely pulled the wheels up on the shuttle before the attendants were bustling down the aisle passing out the silverware. Real silver. Linen napkins. The caviar was Caspian Sea beluga, the poached salmon with fettuccini was served on Limoges porcelain, and the coffee was fresh-ground Blue Mountain. I ate because there wasn’t anything else to do, and besides, someone else was paying for it. But I followed the coffee with another cocktail.

  The next screwdriver was served in a sipcup with a Velcro bottom to fix it to the lounger’s tray, a sure sign we’d be cutting the gravitational umbilicus presently. I’d consumed enough vodka to ease the tension that had crept up to lodge between my shoulder blades the day before. My full stomach made me lethargic and my head felt lightly numbed. When I looked out the window again, the sky had turned black.

  Halton glanced at me, his eyes slightly wide. He unsnapped his safety belt and let his body float a few inches off the lounger, grinning at me in astonished delight, a wide honest kid’s grin. I laughed, forgetting for a moment.

  “First time on an orbiter?”

  He pulled himself back down and refastened the safety belt, slightly abashed, or so it seemed to me. It was likable, that moment of embarrassed diffidence. “Yes,” he admitted. “I’m not exactly a world traveler.” He paused, then, “The fact is, this is the first time I’ve ever been outside of Virginia.”

  “Really?” I chuckled. “Well, you’ve sure got that suave and urbane air of sophistication down pat.”

  “Built-in.” I returned his smile before I remembered what he was and who he worked for. I’d been conned by better.

  “No doubt,” I said coldly.

  I immediately felt like a clod; he blinked and for a brief moment his eyes were hurt and sad before his polite little mask slid back into place. The reserved expression was flawless. I was surprised; it hadn’t occurred to me that fabricants could feel pain. I considered apologizing, then reasoned that was exactly what he wanted me to do. Halton was just another CDI operative trying to manipulate my sympathies for his company’s covert schemes. I had no intention of giving them any more cooperation than I had to, and tried to convince myself that apologizing to a biomachine would make about as much sense as begging pardon from a microwave oven. I didn’t do a very good job of it.

  Halton went back to perusing his magazine, and staring out the window when the orbiter rolled over so that the Earth was now above us instead of below. I dozed off at some point during the flight, waking up in time to notice one unwinking star growing brighter than the others. On the tube set in the back of the seat in front of me, Chad McQueen was swooning in Allison Eastwood’s arms, both of them scantily clothed and artfully sweating in an African jungle indigenous only to the back lots of the Vancouver Screen Studios. Halton was listening with the Italian-language plug in one ear while scanning through a plastic-covered issue of Cosmopolitan.

  Another hour went by, most of which the shuttle spent braking speed, nudging itself into alignment as the Clarke Orbital Space Station grew bigger and bigger. In the airless vacuum of space, everything looks closer than it really is. By the time we docked, the beginning of an intense hangover had bunched up my frontal lobes in its malicious fist. We had to wait on board as the shuttle was lowered down the spike elevator, feeling the illusion of gravity beginning to pull at us. It was less than Earth’s, but not light enough that we’d bounce around like kangaroos.

  The Hilton was only one of several international companies on the Clarke Orbital Station. The Station itself was a huge, double half-wheel, something like the fairground ride called the Hammerhead that I knew as a kid. Docking bays were dead center, one side open for incoming and outgoing shuttles, the other side attached to a solar-collector span perpendicular to the station. The collectors stayed still, while the station rotated on the axis like a huge, slow top in geosynchronous orbit. Two mammoth spokes going to either end of the station terminated in smaller spokes connected to a curved series of arches, the two ends rotating around each other—“South Pole’* side f
or business and leisure, and the “North Pole” side for you-don’t-wanna-ask-too-many-questions. Each Orbital Station—there were only three then, the fourth hadn’t been finished yet—was built with the Poles far enough apart so that the Coriolis effect in the two rotating halves was minimized.

  Minimized or not, just like my childhood Hammerhead ride it still had a tendency to make some people feel like puking, especially new arrivals who’ve consumed a gallon or two of vodka screwdrivers beforehand. The bellhops waiting at the South Pole Hilton shanklock quickly and efficiently took my PortaNet out of my queasy grip, deposited us and our luggage aboard their little shuttlecart and whizzed us off to check-in before I threw up my beluga and salmon.

  I spent the next few hours splayed out across my hotel room bed, groaning piteously and getting up only to vomit.

  Once, Halton knocked cautiously on the door that separated our suites.

  “Are you all right? Is there anything I can do… ?” he called through the locked slab of real Earth-grown walnut, exactly the right amount of anxious concern in his voice. I wondered if he’d had to rehearse to get the tone so perfect.

  I lifted my head off the pillow just long enough to gasp out, “Piss off!” before I clamped a hand over my mouth, rolled off the bed and staggered toward the toilet again, head spinning.

  Finally, there wasn’t anything left in my stomach to get rid of; time and my overworked liver cleaned the remaining booze out of my bloodstream. I slept fitfully, then woke up in twilight, the hotel room “windows” set to provide the appropriate light from whatever time zone you came from or planned on going to. It didn’t help; the Coriolis made me feel disoriented anyway. I’d get used to it, so they said. I checked my watch. Dinnertime. Or maybe it was breakfast.

  The water pressure in the shower wasn’t quite what I would have liked, but it was hot and the steam helped clear my pounding head. My short hair felt odd under my hands, but at least it dried quickly. It was cropped short enough that I didn’t really need to even run a comb through it. After eating a couple of aspirin, I sat wrapped in a towel on the edge of the bed and smoked a cigarette while staring at my masculine reflection in the mirror. I blew an ironic kiss at myself.

  Dressed in fresh clothes, I stopped to consider for a moment before knocking on Halton’s door. “It’s unlocked,” I heard him say. When I opened it, he was dressed and on the bed, reading a book. Propped up against the headboard with his legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle, he looked at me expectantly over the book.

  “I’m going to dinner,” I said, guessing at whichever was correct, and added reluctantly, “if you’d like to join me.”

  “Thank you, that’s very kind, but I’ve already eaten from room service.”

  “Ah—” I spotted the covered remains on a trolley waiting for the cleaning crew to take away. “Right.” I felt vaguely bad, wanting to at least make peace and not knowing how. I hadn’t had much practice. I fumbled for a moment before I shrugged. “Well, then. See you tomorrow.” He looked as if he wanted to say something further, then just smiled that annoying phony smile. “Good night.” I ate alone, leaving most of the food on the plate, my guts still rebelling, before heading back to my room. Halton’s room was silent, no light showing underneath the connecting door. Flicking on the TV, I dialed through the channels, blowing friendly raspberries at our competition, until I found GBN News. Keying in the English version, I watched Lewis Marlow’s truncated head float at the foot of my bed, earnestly delivering the late evening stories.

  Lew was okay for a bubblehead, a little vain, but a nice enough guy even when he wasn’t on camera. I found him rather amusing on the air. He was so audio-sensitive, I could tell who the puppeteer was just from the inflection in Lew’s voice.

  “Hi, Rylla.” I waved bleakly at Lew’s image. “Give ’em hell, sweetheart.” I fell asleep alone in a strange bed, far from home, while bubbleheads sang me sweet lullabies.

  THREE

  * * *

  Halton was up and ready by the time I knocked on his door for breakfast. He let me in, then slipped a sheet of hotel notepaper in his book to mark his place and set it down on the bureau. It was an old-fashioned print novel, not even a bookreader. I looked at the dogeared cover in surprise.

  It was a scandalous Hindustani-language romance novel. The cover illustration showed a Brahmin princess, dripping gold jewelry, valiantly resisting the charms of a dark, handsome Mogul while perched atop an elephant, no less, her sari in precarious disarray, barely covering her formidably-sized bosom, her head thrown back on an impossible swan neck as her kohl-ringed eyes rolled imploringly toward the gods.

  “What the hell are you reading?” I asked, my curiosity getting the better of me as I looked at the graceful Sanskrit letters embossed with worn gold foil.

  “Lord Ramachandra s Captive Princess,” he said.

  I nearly laughed. “A trashy bodice-ripper romance novel? I wouldn’t have thought that kind of thing would interest you.” Halton wasn’t embarrassed in the least. “I’ll read anything, and this was all they could find at the desk besides magazines,” he said. “They’re good for passing time. ‘No brain, no strain,’ I believe is the expression.”

  I snorted, and we left for breakfast. Between my orange juice and Eggs Benedict, however, we were interrupted by a jovial fat man pressed into a very expensive suit and carrying an AI briefcase.

  “Kay Bee!” he called out in delight. “Haven’t seen you in ages! What a pleasure running into you here. Why didn’t you tell me you were coming? We could have taken the same shuttle, caught up on old times…”

  I didn’t know him to spit on. He shook my hand vigorously, then turned to Halton. “And you must be John Halton, Kay Bee’s holo photographer. Elias Somerton, nice to meet you.” He pumped Halton’s hand with equal enthusiasm.

  Cloak and dagger time. I grinned. “Jeez, Eli, old man,” I said with gusto, “I didn’t know you were coming. How’s the wife and kids?”

  “Oh, fine, just fine. Mind if I join you for a few minutes?”

  “Not at all, sit yourself on down.” I waved a hand at an empty chair. “So, she didn’t press the divorce after all, huh? You dumped your mistress, then?”

  Somerton’s eyes flashed wamingly, and his pitch dropped about twelve octaves. “Don’t press it,” he growled as he slid his bulk into the vacant seat. He smiled and blathered as the waiter eyed us, deliberating whether or not this newcomer would need his own place setting. “I won’t barge into the middle of your meal,” Somerton said, back up to full volume. “Got a meeting in”—he shucked his wrist out of his suit sleeve and inspected his watch—“half an hour, but let me write down a number. Let’s get together for dinner or drinks or something. You on Clarke Station long?”

  That satisfied the waiter, and he ambled off. Somerton set his briefcase on the table, and opened it. The thing was apparently smart enough to keep its mechanical mouth shut while Somerton rummaged through its compartments.

  “The key is for a storage locker on Level Two. You’ll find optic equipment for Halton and all the documents you’ll need to get into Khuruchabja,” he said in a barely audible voice. “Once you get to Nok Kuzlat, someone will contact you.” His voice jumped decibels. “Here we go, I found it.” He pulled out a pad and pen and scribbled something totally illegible before he ripped off the sheet of paper and shoved it across the table in my direction. No doubt the key was underneath.

  I rested my chin on one hand, elbow propped on the table, in an effort to keep from bursting out laughing. “Don’t you think you’re overdoing the spook melodrama just a little?” I said in a normal voice. “It’s sort of like a bad holo, only you’re not good-looking enough to play the leading man.”

  He shot me a look that could have melted glass. “Just do your job, and we’ll do ours.” He stood to go, the broad grin at odds with the cold eyes. “Hell, wish I had a bit more time, Kay Bee. Stay in touch, won’t you?”

  “Oh, you bet, Eli old son,” I ag
reed cheerfully, a little louder than really necessary. “Cheerio, best to the family.” Somerton’s jaw muscles clenched as he grinned his toothy grin, furious, and departed.

  “Christ, what a pompous ass,” I said to Halton. “Friend of yours?” Halton shook his head. I picked up the paper like a kid opening up a Cracker Jack Surprise. Sure enough, a magkey to a storage locker was underneath, number stamped along its edge. “Gee, looky, looky what I done found,” I said to Halton.

  “Are you trying to call attention to yourself?” Halton asked seriously. There was nothing admonishing about his tone, just curiosity. It took all the fun out of it, and I slipped the key into my pocket without responding.

  “Goddamn cheap secret agent bullshit, royal pain in my butt.” I grumbled the litany to myself.

  We finished the rest of our breakfast without speaking.

  I had to ask directions to Level Two, and stopped to ask again for the way to the storage area from a janitor dressed in horrible yellow overalls. He seemed dumbfounded that anybody would actually stoop to bothering to talk to him, and the resulting directions were so garbled, we spent a half hour bumbling around in the bowels of the Operations Section before someone noticed and steered us in the right direction. If anyone came asking if we’d been noticed, I think we’d be remembered. Hey, who said I ever asked to be a spy?

  The locker was smallish and narrow, the kind used to hold a sweat jacket and a pair of track shoes rather than a suitcase. The HoloPak equipment had been broken down into sections in order to get it stacked inside, but there wasn’t enough to be overly cumbersome. Not that it made that much difference to me, since I wasn’t the one who would have to lug it around. At the bottom of the locker was a fat industrial-strength envelope. I picked it up while Halton was slinging the last of his disconnected HoloPaks over his shoulder, and handed it to him.