Mothership

by Bill Campbell

  The dragons scanned for meaning. Sex? Sexual reproduction. Highly inefficient. Can lead to uncontrollable diversity and evolutionary chaos.

  I like a little chaos now and then.

  Your species has serious problems. We will have to deal with them. Must observe.

  To Goro’s delight, the dragons slipped into his unconscious level to study human sexuality. He strutted his way to the tram that would take him to the Pink Sector. It was a short ride. The Pink Sector was a short ride no matter where you were in Tranquility City. Good planning.

  By the time he had arrived, he was smiling in anticipation of entering Madam Kowalski’s and seeing Daisy Mae again. The dragons had zapped all of the pain and fatigue from his system; he practically flew there. Up the stairs and past the guards (who winked at him), and there was Daisy Mae, as if she had been waiting just for him.

  “Why, Goro!” Daisy Mae said, sounding delighted, the way she always did, “it’s so nice to see you!”

  Only this time he could see that she was surprised. This time he was somehow more aware that she was acting.

  In the past, your perceptions have been unclear, unfocused. Like those of the rest of your species, said the dragons.

  Goro didn’t even react, he just buried his face in Daisy Mae’s gleaming pink cleavage, ignoring the tiny, teardrop-shaped cometwater pendant that dug into his cheek. He scooped Daisy up into his arms and ran up the stairs with her, into her room, slamming the door shut behind them with one foot.

  In the long run, said the dragons, denial is counterproductive as a survival tool.

  Goro threw Daisy onto the pink, lacy bed. The sight of her sprawled there was all the answer he needed. He joined her there, got lost in her bleached-blonde and silicone, classic Hollywood beauty.

  Life is not a movie, said the dragons, after it was all over, and Goro was staring at the posters of long-dead actors and actresses that lined Daisy’s ceiling.

  “I can try to make it so,” Goro said, forgetting to subvocalize.

  “What was that?” Daisy Mae said from the bathroom. She always had a sensitive bladder.

  “Oh nothing.” Goro looked at his arms. The dragons were moving again.

  “Well,” Daisy Mae said, bouncing back toward the bed, “this is your lucky day, Goro, my sweet. I’ve had a cancelation. We can spend some extra time together.”

  “How much will it cost me?” Goro asked on reflex.

  She made her artificially cobalt blue eyes look so big and sad that it was almost funny. “Oh, Goro, honey. How could you ask such a thing? Don’t you know that you’re my special one?”

  He didn’t move as she glided onto the bed, over him.

  She’s lying, said the dragons.

  Of course she is. Goro remembered to subvocalize this time. She’s a whore.

  This is a trap. You—we—are in danger.

  Yeah, ain’t it wonderful? The dragons darted across his skin.

  Daisy Mae screamed and rolled off Goro. She looked at her hands, then at him. Her cobalt blue irises had dilated into thin rings.

  “Goro,” she said, trembling, “what?”

  He looked at himself. The dragons were still moving. She could see them!

  The door burst open. Three figures in old-fashioned black ninja suits jumped in, with their swords drawn and on.

  Goro reached for his own sword on the nightstand. It wasn’t there. The dragons switched him into fighting mode. The rest of the world shifted into slow motion. If my life has to be a movie, Goro had time to think, why couldn’t the director be a little less pretentious?

  Goro grabbed the nightstand, a couple of pillows, and the tangled bedsheet, and threw them at the ninjas.

  One of the ninjas was hit on his sword arm by the nightstand. The other two slashed the sheet and pillows, which caught fire from the laseredges. The fires set off the room’s heat detectors. Jets emerged from the mouths of the movie stars on the ceiling and rained fire-extinguishing snow on the room below, covering everything and blinding the ninjas.

  Goro had already shut his eyes. The dragons could see perfectly well. He rolled off the bed and threw the mattress at the ninjas. The ninjas slashed about madly. Soon there was enough polyfoam debris floating around the room to give him time to find his sword.

  He couldn’t find it.

  Daisy Mae had been screaming the whole time, though it sounded like a long, drawn-out croak to Goro. Then suddenly she stopped.

  As Goro turned to see what had happened, her left arm, shoulder, head, and part of her neck (neatly cut off and cauterized by the laser so there was no blood), hit him in the chest. One of the ninjas had killed her by accident.

  Goro got mad.

  The slow motion in the room got slower, almost freezing into immobility. It was easy for Goro to reach out and grab the arm of the ninja who had killed Daisy Mae, twist it until the sword popped free into cluttered air. He caught the sword as if it weren’t moving at all.

  Soon the heads of all three ninjas were free of their bodies and sinking toward the floor.

  Emotions provide motivation and performance enhancement, said the dragons. Interesting.

  It took a while for Goro to get out of fighting mode. Things sped up, but it took time.

  This slowness to adapt, said the dragons, we must do something about it.

  Goro shuddered at what that would mean.

  He found himself looking for the sword he had been issued. It wasn’t anywhere around the bed, or under any of the debris and corpses. Finally, he found it in the bathroom, hidden behind the wastebasket, next to the toilet. He picked it up, and thumbed the on/off. It did not turn on.

  Goro was confused. He didn’t even notice that he was moving at normal speed again.

  You were set up, said the dragons. Daisy Mae called them while you were trying to block us out.

  She must be working for a rival organization, Goro subvocalized.

  No, she contacted Motocorp, and they sent the assassins.

  “No!” Goro said out loud. “I am a loyal employee! They just took me back in after doing time for them!”

  Your denial will not change reality, said the dragons.

  I have to get out of here, the sheriff’s deputies will be here any time now.

  He sifted through the debris, first found part of Daisy Mae’s body. I never expected her to love me, he thought, but somehow I still feel betrayed.

  It’s just business, said the dragons.

  He found the ninjas’ swords; they were the same Shakazulu 3000s that Motocorp issued.

  No, Goro thought, it couldn’t be.

  It is, said the dragons.

  Goro fumbled around, found one of the ninja corpses, peeled back a sleeve to reveal a tattooed arm. Dancing dragons, just like his, except they didn’t move or talk. Hopefully.

  He brought his right arm up to the dead ninja’s, so the faces of two dragons almost touched. Motocorp’s company ID was built into the eyes of the dragon tattoos. If this guy was really from Motocorp ….

  All four dragon eyes glowed.

  Goro didn’t say anything for a while, just let out a low, guttural growl and sat down in the debris on the floor between the bodies of Daisy Mae and the ninja. The shifting fallout began to cover him. “Motocorp, the oyabun,” he said, “they betrayed me!”

  Loyalties are relative, said the dragons.

  “I was loyal!” he screamed.

  There was suddenly the sound of people approaching the door. You have to get out of here, said the dragons.

  A hulking figure appeared at the door. It was completely covered in leather studded with metal spikes. One of Madam Kowalski’s notorious authorized-to-kill bouncers.

  Goro didn’t have to stop to think, or wait for the dragons to help him; he picked up a Shakazulu 3000, turned it on, pointed it at the bouncer, screamed like a digitally-amplified movie samurai, and charged with the wrath of God in his eyes. The bouncer moved out of the way, but not fast enough to avoid losing some leath
er to Goro’s sword. Goro didn’t slow down until he had made it through the halls, bruising and terrifying whores and customers alike. Like a polyfoam-covered demon, he burst out into the street.

  Once there he didn’t have to run any more. No one really noticed him. Among the strutting whores, gawking tourists, flickering holos, snatches of music, and ever-present casino noises, he just didn’t stand out.

  He turned off the sword, slowed to a walk, tried to nonchalantly brush some of the foam off himself.

  Excellent, said the dragons, you are improving.

  So what? My life is over. Why did Motocorp have to betray me? Why couldn’t these ninjas have been Criblos or Ruskimafs? Why my own gang?

  You really don’t know, do you?

  What?

  The reason you are being treated differently now.

  And just what is it?

  Us.

  How can that be?

  We can’t explain now. You have to get out, far away, they probably know that you’ve killed their assassins by now, and have sent more.

  Goro laughed. Now it’s you stupid dragons that don’t understand. There isn’t any place for me to go. I’ve been disowned by my boss, and the Moon’s not as big as you might think ….

  The dragons squirmed with the rhythm of laughter. The universe is bigger than you think, Goro.

  Yeah, like it’s ever done me any good.

  A big universe is full of places to hide.

  Suddenly, the dragons made Goro’s eyes turn to the left and focus into the distance. He saw three obvious thug-types with large reddish-blond Afro hairdos. One pointed directly at him, the others nodded. The team began power-walking toward Goro.

  They’re from the Afro-Aryan Nation, thought Goro. What would the mulatto supremacists want with me?

  Not you, us. The dragons turned Goro’s head around, focused and refocused his eyes. More thugs coming. Criblo, Ruskimaf, Triadon, Bikvik, Globovudu, Rastaco, and other markings. There were even some swaggering around in tourist garb, trying not to be seen—Sheriff Moe’s posse.

  Thugs of all kinds were lurking about, as they noticed him, and more were casually moving in his direction.

  Why would they all want you? asked Goro.

  All this time and you never asked why.

  A loyal employee never asks why.

  Too bad that we don’t have time to explain. You have to get out of here.

  But where? It’s not like I can just leap out an airlock and run away across the surface.

  Why not?

  Goro almost laughed, but then things occurred to him. They wouldn’t expect me to do that — it would be suicide. But, with a spacesuit, and your help ….

  Yes, we could help you hide out and defend yourself, but it is us that they want.

  I wish I could just give you to them.

  Without getting something in return? That’s not very smart.

  Yeah, looks like I’m going to be smart whether I like it or not. Now where could I get a spacesuit?

  He wondered briefly, until he passed the Ye Olde Space Age Hotel and Casino. For a few hundred yen, anyone could rent a suit and kick up all the moon-dust he wanted. He bought some chips with his credit card. He figured that the Motocorp monitors would assume he was gambling—and would send more ninjas to Ye Olde Space Age.

  He paid for a two-hour suit rental and was soon on the surface, looking up at a one-quarter Earth, calmly walking, sword in hand—for no casino employee would dream of taking someone’s sword away—to the perimeter of the roped-off tourist zone.

  An alarm went off when he leaped over the rope.

  His suit warned, “You have crossed the limits of the designated area for tourist moonwalking. Please go back. Remember that you only have a two hour supply of air. Your safety is our utmost concern.”

  “Shut up,” said Goro as he broke into the usual kangaroo hop that served best for long treks across the surface. He went across the Moon buggy zone, knowing that his tracks would soon be obliterated. He made each hop bigger, and went in an irregular, zigzag course, so it would be difficult to follow.

  So, he asked once more, what are you that all the gangs want you?

  We are a life-form from another world. The closest thing to us you know of would be—viruses.

  You’re germs!

  Something similar only far more sophisticated.

  Goro then remembered the hijacking attempt, getting splashed by the cometwater. You came from a comet?

  Not exactly. We have found that comets provide an excellent way to enter a solar system undetected.

  Goro frowned. If they wanted you so badly, why didn’t the oyabun just lock me up when I got out of jail?

  The dragons laughed. We are an unknown factor. Motocorp knew something was inside you; they could detect us with the nanosystems in the ink of your tattoos.

  So I am a datamule.

  Yes, but whose datamule? As we were saying, they didn’t know what we were or what we would do. They decided to wait and watch.

  They were afraid. Motocorp, the oyabun, are afraid of you.

  Yes.

  And now they’re afraid of me.

  Yes.

  This is very, very disturbing.

  Yes, Goro, it is supposed to be. Our mission is to disturb. And to make way for the invasion.

  Goro laughed. Now who’s sounding like a movie?

  Suddenly, something on the horizon caught Goro’s eye. Something familiar. I’m tired, he thought, need to rest.

  We can make you not have to rest, said the dragons.

  No, Goro insisted. I want to rest!

  Thinking for yourself. This is something new ….

  He shifted from kangaroo to bunny hops, and made his way to a large cylinder-shaped object that had left the scars of a violent impact in the regolith. It was like a huge tank, made out of a polymer that was undergoing molecular breakdown under exposure to sunlight and cosmic radiation, so that it had a flaky, almost furry appearance. The impact had shattered it, leaving huge cracks, one Goro could easily step through.

  He had to turn on his helmet lamps to see inside. He was afraid of what he might find. His stomach churned, but the dragons settled it. Not wanting to see, he looked closer.

  The object, a crude disposable spacecraft, was full of corpses that had become freeze-dried in exposure to the near-vacuum. Men, women, children—they were space age mummies, in a throwaway tomb. People who had paid money they had scraped together slaving away in one of the Earth’s many megaslums to some snakehead coyotes to shoot them to a new life as illegal aliens on the Moon.

  Goro shed a tear, tried to wipe it away with a gauntleted hand that was stopped by the faceplate of his helmet. This made him grunt, almost laugh.

  “I came to the Moon on one of these,” he said out loud, not caring, because he wasn’t really talking to the dragons. “It broke open on impact, too. Only we were lucky. The snakehead coyotes found us before we all died.”

  Your ancestors came from Peru to Japan, said the dragons. You came from Japan to the Moon. You are like us in many ways, Goro. When the time comes, you cross the borders, enter the new frontiers. We are pioneers. You should join our gang.

  “I’m not a talking disease!” Goro said.

  That depends upon whom you ask. Perceptions are tricky. Are you really so sure that your gang isn’t enslaving you, and we haven’t set you free? Your own world denied your very existence. A civilization in denial is easily conquered. Your habit of ignoring parts of reality will allow us to invade without being noticed.

  He turned on his sword, looked at the corpses revealed by the laser light.

  “I wish I could kill you!”

  But you can’t do that without killing yourself can you?

  Goro swung the sword back and forth, took a deep breath, concentrated, thought, Maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad idea.

  The dragons squirmed. You could have done that before we got to you, but now you’re different, smarter. You see the un
iverse around you.

  Goro twisted the sword around, holding the edge close to his belly. Yeah, I see it. And I don’t like it. Maybe I would have been better off if I had ended up like these poor mummies.

  Maybe. The dragons stopped moving.

  Goro wished he didn’t still feel them. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t move the sword.

  Well? the dragons asked.

  I’m thinking.

  Precisely.

  Suddenly, shafts of light flooded the cracks in the spacecraft. “Goro Beltran,” a voice crackled through his helmet phones. “This is a combined Lunar Sheriff Department and Motocorp posse. Both organizations have ordered us to retrieve you dead or alive. We have you surrounded. Please give yourself up.”

  Without saying anything, Goro turned his sword around.

  “Goro Beltran,” the radio voice went on, “are you there?”

  “Yes,” Goro said, “I want to make a deal.”

  “We are not authorized to make deals. Surrender, or fight.”

  Goro walked out into the open with his sword on and held high.

  Without a word, the three deputies and three Motocorp enforcers attacked him.

  When the dragons put him into fighting mode it was easy, and even a little boring, to hack them all to pieces. Goro almost laughed out loud.

  This is like a movie again? asked the dragons.

  Yes. If this were an old yakuza movie, they would freeze-frame this part and the closing credits would roll over us.

  This movie has only begun, said the dragons. So what now? Are you joining our gang?

  Maybe I’m joining your gang, said Goro. Or maybe you are joining mine.

  The dragons laughed again.

  After all, this is my body, my brain, my mind.

  Are you sure?

  For the first time in my life, yes. Goro began hopping back to Tranquility City. Here’s the deal. I’m going to walk back to Motocorp HQ, and demand a meeting with the oyabun and Sheriff Moe. If they want to study you and what you’ve done to me, they’re going to have to cut me in on all their business.

  And if they refuse?

  I’ll cut myself open without a laser, and let you loose to do what you please.

  There may be hope for your species yet.