Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  The dragons kept Goro’s eyes locked on the screen.

  Primitive audiovisual information system, they said. Slow, inefficient, but adequate for this species.

  Goro ignored it all. He worried about his fate. It could be anything from the loss of another knuckle to decapitation. He looked at his hands and sighed.

  With three fingers on each there was at least a pleasant symmetry. It almost seemed normal, even though it made him look like a cartoon character.

  Suddenly the train jerked to a stop, the door belched open, and the light, sound, and smells of Tranquility City hit him like a ton of bricks.

  An information-rich environment, said the dragons. This will be useful.

  Goro found himself looking around like a tourist.

  The thugs laughed at him.

  “What’s the matter, Goro?” said Ironeyes. “Never seen the big city before? Six months in jail make it all seem something, like, wonderful?” He looked around, and grinned. “Still the same old pile of trash!”

  The dragons stirred. Much to be learned.

  Goro twitched.

  Ironeyes and the thugs kept laughing.

  Information in many modes. Visual images, symbolic languages, crude attempts at multisensory mind control, signals carried on electromagnetic waves not accessible to the host without technological backup …. Also, the host only understands a small part of the verbal languages available, and none of them in visual symbolic mode …. Why, Goro, you’re illiterate!

  Goro was about to ask what that meant.

  We must do something about that ….

  Suddenly he knew what it meant, and more. He stopped, paralyzed. His eyes rolled up in his head. His jaw fell slack, tongue lolled out. His knees buckled. He nearly fell, but the thugs caught him.

  A knee slammed into one of his kidneys.

  “Watzamatter?” asked the female thug. “Too much for your stupid brain?”

  The male thug giggled, was about to take his own crack at Goro when Iron-eyes caught his fist.

  “Naw,” Ironeyes said, “we gotta save it for the cops.”

  “They get all the fun,” said the male thug.

  Goro barely noticed them. The dragons seemed to have flowed off his arms and shoulders and into his brain, where they were doing a high-speed electrical dance that was sending sparks crackling up and down his nerves, making his limbs twitch. He was scared. He was either dying or the whole universe was changing around him.

  “You really are a pile of walking trash,” said Ironeyes.

  He jerked his chin at the two thugs and they hauled Goro along with them, ignoring his twitches.

  After a while, Goro got used to the new chaos in his brain. He even managed to walk on his own. As the thugs led him down the main corridor, he closed his eyes, afraid to see. What he could hear was horrifying enough; the noise of the crowd was suddenly full of voices he could understand.

  Standing out from all the voices was an amplified one: “WELL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, OUR SPECIAL GUEST IS FINALLY HERE. HE’S LATE, BUT YOU KNOW THAT CRIMINALS HAVE NO RESPECT FOR THINGS LIKE SCHEDULES. HE’S A MINOR THUG JUST BACK FROM PAVLOV FOR TRYING TO HIJACK A COMETWATER PROBE. INTERFERING WITH INTERPLANETARY COMMERCE AS WELL AS THE SPIRITUAL WELL-BEING OF THOSE WHO CAN AFFORD COMETWATER.”

  The voice was speaking in Standard English. Before, Goro could barely understand Standard English, just trying would have given him a headache. But now, no problem. He understood it completely. He opened his eyes. Before him were a crowd of tourists, a pretty little tour guide with a bullhorn, and two fully armored and armed Lunar Sheriff’s Deputies.

  “SEE HOW COWARDLY HE IS,” said the tour guide, with a graceful wave of her hand. “HE DID NOT WANT TO FACE JUSTICE WITH HIS EYES OPEN.”

  Some of the tourists spoke Standard Japanese. Goro suddenly found it perfectly understandable. He was understanding those who spoke Global Spanish, too.

  “NOTE THE LOOK OF IDIOTIC TERROR ON HIS FACE,” the tour guide added.

  “Go on,” said Ironeyes, pushing Goro toward the deputies.

  The deputies raised their riotclubs and pompously marched toward Goro. But what made him shake with fear was that he could read the words LUNAR DEPUTY on the brow of their helmets.

  What have you done to me? Goro almost said out loud.

  We are augmenting your language and symbol-processing skills. There are many ways to access information in your world. You can tap into only a fragment of it. How do you get by in such a limited manner?

  A riotclub hit Goro’s head. A white-hot flash of light blinded him and silenced the dragons.

  Goro’s eyelids fluttered. He tried to say something, but it came out as an unintelligible groan.

  Another riotclub got him squarely across the shoulder blades. There was another flash of light and pain. He lost his balance.

  The tourists cheered as he fell to the ground. The pretty, young tour guide said something that was drowned out by the flashes of pain.

  When he was on the ground, he lost track of the impacts of riotclubs and armored boots. The flashes of pain grew cool, and glittered like the cometwater pendant that many of the tourists were wearing.

  The tourists enthusiastically handed casino chips to the deputies as tips for the show. The pretty, young tour guide smiled and pointed out another of the dazzling sights of Tranquility City—it seemed to be one of the casinos, a new one, or perhaps just a façade that had been installed over an old one while Goro was in jail.

  It was bright and colorful. It moved and pulsed. It was all hopelessly blurred so Goro couldn’t tell what it was.

  Crackling through his flesh and brain, the dragons tried to decode it all. Goro didn’t understand why. He would have laughed at them if he hadn’t been about to black out. It had been a long time ago, back on Earth, as a boy in the Kyoto barrio, that he had given up on trying to understand things.

  It had never seemed worthwhile.

  Oblivion was so tempting. He slipped into it. Goro was suddenly torn out of the pleasant blankness of unconsciousness when a wakefast autoinjector was jabbed into his left arm.

  The dragons had been busy all that time.

  Goro’s eyelids snapped open, letting in a flood of light-borne information: He was in a brightly lit though information-poor room. Other than a large, framed photograph of Sheriff Moe and the oyabun shaking hands (and drinking a toast from tiny cometwater glasses) and some racks of plain white spacesuits, the walls were bare. Ironeyes and the thugs were with him, already sealed in spacesuits. Ironeyes held the empty autoinjector, smiling at the trace of Goro’s blood on the end. The thugs pulled a spacesuit off the rack and shoved it at Goro.

  “Get dressed,” said Ironeyes as he tossed aside the autoinjector. “We’re going to see the oyabun.”

  Quite an anxiety reaction here, said the dragons.

  Goro’s hands shook as he got into the spacesuit. The little fingers of the gloves hung empty as he put them on. He had a feeling that his hands would be even more mutilated soon.

  Why worry about losing part of a finger? said the dragons. You have so many fingers. Too many. And you never really use them all. If a body part isn’t essential, why not cut it off?

  As soon as Goro had his suit sealed, the thugs grabbed him and shoved him toward the air lock door. It belched as it opened. Ironeyes and the thugs followed Goro in. The door closed behind them.

  Goro held his breath as the air was sucked away.

  Soon the outer door opened without a sound, and Goro was pushed out onto the lunar surface. He landed on his hands and knees, sending up a cloud of dust. The dust hung in the air and stuck to his suit, temporarily blinding him.

  The dust was raked into linear patterns, said the dragons, evidence of aesthetic considerations.

  Goro’s heart nearly exploded when he realized that he was in the oyabun’s zen garden. And he had just ruined the arrangement. The oyabun probably wouldn’t be satisfied with the removal of a finger joint. His fate would m
ore likely be decapitation now. There was no point in even getting to his feet again. He stayed down like a dog.

  Laughter crackled through his helmet radio. The laughter of Ironeyes, and the thugs, and yet another familiar laugh. He knew it so well. He just didn’t immediately recognize it.

  A delay between perception and cognition, said the dragon. It must be attended to ….

  Goro felt them squirm through his skin and spark his nerves and brain again, as the dust sank back to the surface. The unrecognized laugh grew until it dominated the inside of Goro’s helmet. He squinted through his faceplate until he found a man in an elegant spacesuit that allowed total freedom of movement. The man was holding an antistatic rake, carefully applying it to the dust that Goro had disturbed. Goro didn’t have to look at the tiny monitor over the mirrored faceplate to know that this was the oyabun of Motocorp. Goro rose to a respectful kneeling position.

  The oyabun raked around him, making the disruptions part of the design. “This is one of the secrets of successful management,” the oyabun said, his gaze fixed on his rake. “Chaos and the unexpected happen. Do not try to fight them, instead, achieve harmony and balance by incorporating them into your business.”

  He regarded the new design for a long moment; then turned his attention to Goro. “And you, my son are ….” His head momentarily cocked to observe a headup faceplate display. “Your name is … Goro … Beltran … Beltran? That’s not a Japanese name ….”

  “No,” Goro found himself saying, “it is Spanish.”

  “Your records show that you were born in Japan.”

  “My family originally came from Peru.”

  “Oh, yes … that wave of undocumented workers who came in the late 20th century.” The oyabun checked the display again. “How ironic that you are an undocumented worker on the Moon!”

  The dragons stirred, and jolted him into saying, “Someone has to do the dirty work.”

  Goro braced himself in anticipation of a beating.

  Ironeyes and the thugs smiled.

  They all looked at the oyabun’s face display monitor. At first, a stern frown loomed large from the tiny screen. Then he snapped into a smile. Then a laugh.

  “Your intelligence rating does not indicate the capacity for such wit,” the oyabun said, “but then, most methods of measuring intelligence cannot be trusted.”

  The airlock suddenly belched out another spacesuited figure.

  “Ah,” said the oyabun, “our other guest has arrived. Goro Beltran, I would like you to meet Jimmy Doi.”

  Jimmy scrambled to his feet, and bowed to Goro. Goro bowed back.

  “Jimmy, Goro,” the oyabun said, “you really do have a lot in common. Both Thugs third class. Both have dismally low intelligence and performance ratings. Both have just been released from one of the Moon’s many detention facilities. Both have proven loyalty to Motocorp by resisting the interrogations of the authorities. My problem is, are you still worth keeping in Motocorp? Should the organization be obliged to return your loyalty?”

  Jimmy and Goro both tried not to look scared.

  The oyabun then made a subtle hand gesture. A servant in an ornate spacesuit came out of the airlock, holding a sword in each hand.

  The servant gave the swords to the oyabun, bowed and left.

  Ironeyes showed more of his ceramic teeth than was normally possible. The thugs giggled.

  The oyabun held the handles of the swords out to Goro and Jimmy. “Are you loyal to Motocorp?”

  They both stood up straight and shouted, “Yes!”

  “Are you loyal to Motocorp to the death?”

  “Yes!”

  “Then take these swords,” the oyabun’s voice boomed, “and fight to the death.”

  Goro immediately found himself holding the sword, facing Jimmy. The oyabun stood back, crossed his arms. Simultaneously, and without the aid of those who held them, the swords turned on, laseredges gleaming. Ironeyes and the thugs stepped back, grinning with delight. Goro was nervous. He had never been very good with a sword. He always preferred getting in close and using his fists. He could die today after all. Jimmy’s face on his tiny helmet screen showed a frightening determination.

  Emergency! said the dragons. Access and download necessary information at high speed. Life or death situation. They squirmed and crackled from his brain stem to his fingertips.

  The dragons took control, dragging Goro along, forcing him to pay close attention.

  Jimmy seemed to be moving in slow motion as he lunged at Goro. He was grinning like a lunatic. The edge of his sword left a serpentine, glowing trail as it moved toward Goro’s faceplate. The dragons thought it was very pretty.

  Goro waited for his doom, but the dragons had other ideas. Learn, they said.

  He was unnaturally aware of how they were moving his body, moving his sword to block Jimmy’s. He reflexively pulled away from the energy blast when the two laseredges came together so he wouldn’t lose control. But he didn’t close his eyes during the flash. The dragons absorbed the light, hungrily.

  Jimmy was a good swordsman, but his humanity failed him. The flash caused his eyes to close, just for a split-second. For Goro they seemed shut for almost a minute. Jimmy’s sword did not move during this time.

  Without any conscious thought, Goro sent his sword around Jimmy’s. By the time Jimmy’s eyes opened, there was a long cut in his spacesuit. Its edges billowed as the air rushed out.

  The dragons switched Goro back to realtime as Jimmy fell to the ground, his sword flying from his twitching hand, still glowing, end-over-end past the one-quarter Earth. Lunar gravity made Jimmy still seem to be in slow motion, like in an old movie—but ultimately he hit the neatly raked ground, sending up plumes of fine dust that hung aloft and slowly settled like cobwebs. He thrashed around for some time before he suffocated.

  Your species’ existence on this world is fragile, said the dragons. Your adaptations to new environments are clumsy.

  After Jimmy finally stopped moving, nobody said anything for a while. Goro turned off his sword and stared at the corpse. He had killed before, and didn’t mind that part of it, but the presence of a dead human body always bothered him.

  Individuals are inconsequential, said the dragons. Only the collective matters. Death is a function of life.

  The oyabun’s voice broke the radio silence: “Well done, Goro! And your swordplay rating had been so low! You must have been practicing. I like to see employees improve themselves.”

  With a great effort, Goro took his eyes off the corpse and looked around. Ironeyes and the thugs looked horrified; their hands were on their sword hilts. The oyabun calmly walked toward Goro, carrying his antistatic rake. He leaned over Jimmy’s corpse and examined how its movements had destroyed the pattern he had just put down.

  “This ritual duel has shown which of you would best serve Motocorp,” he said. “Congratulations, Goro! Keep improving yourself. You will still have to undergo the traditional punishment, of course. Tradition is very important, especially on the Moon. Ironeyes, you and your assistants take care of that.”

  Ironeyes took the sword from Goro. The thugs grabbed him and pushed him toward the airlock.

  The oyabun began to rake the scattered dust around Jimmy’s body.

  “When your pattern is disturbed by the unexpected,” he said, “assimilate the disturbance into your pattern.” He raked around the corpse, using its outline and the scars in the dust as a guide. “An excellent management technique, but also good aesthetics.”

  Inside, the thugs had barely desuited when they grabbed Goro’s arms again. The dragons writhed under his sleeves, but the thugs didn’t seem to notice. They made him hold out his left hand. Ironeyes held a small device that was all too familiar to Goro. Soon a notch in the device was gleaming with laser light. The third finger on Goro’s left hand was fitted into the notch, just at the first knuckle.

  With a flash of white-hot pain, the knuckle came off, and at a speed slower than it woul
d on Earth, fell to the carpeted floor.

  Goro grimaced. A wispy strand of smoke rose from the cauterized wound.

  Fascinating, said the dragons.

  Ironeyes and the thugs laughed the same way they had when they had watched the video loop of the execution. They laughed as if it was first time that day they had done so. Life was apparently an unending delight to them.

  Goro was glad that the humiliation was dulled by the pain. At least it was until the dragons made adjustments so that they could take in the entire experience, unhappy feelings and all. He was given a suit and shoes that wouldn’t be a disgrace to the organization (and that also wouldn’t identify him as being freshly released from prison). A slim-brimmed hat was provided to hide his unstylishly shaven head. He was also issued a shiny new sword and a Motocorp credit card. “It’s better than you deserve,” said Ironeyes, cheerfully. He turned his back on Goro and sauntered out of the airlock, leaving the door open. The thugs grinned at Goro over their shoulders as they followed.

  He stood there for a long time after they had gone, pain and misery throbbing up from his newly cauterized wound, straight to his heart. He didn’t try to fight it. He just waited for it to go away, like he always had.

  Healing process much too slow, said the dragons. They accelerated it. Goro liked that, it felt good. It made him dizzy and high.

  We know enough about pain now, said the dragons. Now show us pleasure.

  Goro was ready. He looked like a gambler ready to cruise the casinos. It was R & R time.

  R and R? asked the dragons, then answered themselves: Rest and Recuperation. Why do you need rest? You were confined in a box for six months. Why don’t you want more stimulation?

  “That box was torture,” Goro said, surprised at how good he was getting at subvocalizing. “It nearly killed me.”

  You can talk to us without using your vocal apparatus. Try it.

  Talk without … Goro was incredulous, but found himself doing it. So I can.

  We are making you more efficient.

  I don’t want to be efficient.

  Your desires are of no consequence.

  To Hell with you. I like my desires. I’m using this time off to go to my favorite whorehouse to visit my favorite whore.