Half Past Human (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by T. J. Bass

  The Huntercraft spied him and stopped its random search pattern. He raised his right hand and started down the slope towards it – relying on his helmet and belt to keep them from shooting. He hoped they recognized him as a citizen and not a buckeye. He trotted casually, staying in the open – hoping to decoy them away from his nest.

  His nest – for the past two years he had lived with the most beautiful female he had ever seen. Her name was Honey – after golden yellow hair. Her spirit was protean – like the phases of the moon. At new moon she growled and swam the Coweye Sump alone. At full moon she returned, and like her name, Honey, was sweet treacle. Her three yellow-haired children shared the nest too. The eldest was five. Their smooth skins varied from olive to mahogany, but their hair was their mother’s. He hadn’t seen Honey lately. Since she had begun to grow with his child her moods remained ‘new moon’ – luteal and hostile.

  The craft set down and its hatch opened. Two hunters approached cautiously, carrying long bows. They wore the wrinkled white suit and spherical helmet of the Cl-En suit.

  ‘Hi, fellas,’ he said cheerily, waving.

  They each grabbed one of his arms and ushered him into the dark cabin. Needle-like pricks hit his shoulders as the Hi Vol guns dosed him with hypnotic drugs. Hallucinations.

  ‘Did you run a check on him?’ asked the first hunter.

  ‘This belt belonged to William Overstreet – lost on a Hunt two years ago. This fellow’s bone structure fits, but his soft tissues are too messed up for positive ID.’

  ‘Lost on a Hunt—’ repeated the first hunter. ‘Well, reinforce his hypnoconditioning. He can finish this Hunt with us.’

  Willie stalked numbly. A voice said, ‘Track.’ He saw other hunters to the right and left. They were closing in on a small foxhole with three jungle bunnies. Arrows flew. Screams whetted his hunter’s appetite. He raised his bow and sighted through the scope. Another scream. A hunter held up a bloody trophy.

  A pink shape moved across his sights. The cross hairs set on a pair of symmetrical breasts. Below, the belly bulged with a three-month-gravid uterus. Above, he saw a disheveled head of bright yellow hair. A voice told him to shoot.

  Vision skipped. Blanks appeared. He held up a pair of oval bloody objects trailing short white rubbery segments. He didn’t recognize the surroundings. He was many miles from the Coweye Sump – perhaps over a hundred. The bloody trophy meant nothing to him. His mind was blank. An empty Huntercraft hovered over him – had been dogging his trail for hours. He waved it down and climbed in for a ride back into the hive.

  The Mediteck/meck finished with him and pronounced his body scarred but healthy. The Psychteck was less than enthusiastic.

  ‘This CNS reflex pattern indicates severe trauma – but the magnitude is difficult to evaluate – a lot of drugs were used on the Hunt.’

  Willie rolled his eyes upwards – staring longingly at the door.

  ‘See how he longs to go back Outside. I suspect he may have emotional attachments to a coweye in the region of Sump Lake.’

  The Watcher listened to the Psychteck’s analysis.

  ‘Well, we could chuck him or suspend him, I suppose,’ said the Watcher. ‘But it is really too early to know how much of a problem he may be for the Big ES. Why don’t we transfer him to one of the other countries – say, Orange Country. He has no attachments to the megafauna there. He may turn out to be a Good Citizen.’

  The Psychteck nodded. Willie was transferred to a shaft city in Orange. One of his neighbors was a Pipe named Moses Eppendorff – sensitive and competent. Their city lay just west of the mountains.

  The mountain range formed the geological backbone of two continents. Six thousand miles north of Rocky Top, other fugitives clung to their precarious existence in the cold, thin air of a lofty peak.

  Ball, a metalloid sphere, occupied a rocky cairn in the center of a tattered Neolithic village. A place of reverence, the cairn was surrounded by meager food offerings. Ball had protected these villagers of Mount Tabulum until their numbers had grown into the hundreds. Dawn brought them out of their hide-sewn shelters with flint tools and clay bowls. Grain was crushed. Drying meats and fruits were fingered – work, work.

  All activity stopped when the flap of the large shelter moved. Eyes focused on that flap. The wrinkled, bald male who stepped out wore flowing skins stained with metachromatic berry juices. Walking majestically to the cairn, he placed both hands on the sphere, which resembled his own head in size and baldness. For a pensive moment the villagers studied their seer’s brooding face as he attempted to contact their unseen protective deities. Alarm appeared on that aged face. Food offerings were scooped into the folds of the robe.

  Immediately the village broke up into families and small social units. Shelters came down. Burins, scrapers and truncated flakes were wrapped with grain and dried meats. The hide bundles were strapped on adult backs. Weapons appeared in calloused hands. Moments later the village was deserted – only dust and debris remained.

  Across that dust walked a pubescent female – leaving clear, measured, five-toed footprints. She walked slowly and alone – down a narrow, steep trail on the rocky mountainside. She was bait. Six sullen males, each carrying a stout spear, watched her leave. Then they crouched into dark crevices along her trail.

  Silence returned to Mount Tabulum. The sun climbed higher. A male child – puberty minus five – became lost during the flight. Wandering into the open, he never even heard the hum of the approaching arrow.

  A nattily clad, fat, pale bowman approached the flopping jungle bunny. With a narrow, pointed boot he steadied the small ribcage while he ripped out the barbed tip of the hunting arrow. He unsheathed the short curved blade of his trophy knife and bent down over the twitching form. Mercifully, falling blood pressure clouded the victim’s sensorium. His grisly trophy bagged, the hunter renocked his arrow and walked on up the trail. Finding the village deserted, he followed the five-toed footprints down another slope.

  This was his third day without sleep – a small console on his neck titrated his blood level of Speed. Pausing cautiously, he studied the towering boulders. His wrist buckeye detector saw nothing through the dense stone. Spearchuckers shifted impatiently in their hiding places. A flash of movement at the bottom of the trail – the bait showed herself. Another trophy. He started down the trail at a reckless trot.

  The first spear caught him in his wide belly. Shoulder-thrown, it hit solidly and penetrated to the lumbar vertibra. A shower of spears ventilated the insulated coveralls letting in air and sunshine – and letting out the rose-water fluids.

  The circuits of the buckeye detector lay crushed on the trail. Chunks of fresh meat were divided among the fugitive villagers in their makeshift camps on the lower slopes. Their robed seer received his usual generous portion. His crystal ball had saved them again. The buckeyes of Mount Tabulum ate well that night.

  A lonely Huntercraft searched the foothills for the lost hunter. It droned back and forth all through the night. The next morning it returned to Garage empty-seated.

  The robed seer carried Ball into the circle of keening coweyes. Placing his hand on the dead child, he chanted: ‘The hunter’s arrow has locked the little one’s DNA-soul in limbo. It must be freed for Olga’s return, so she can carry it from this accursed world. You must free the DNA-soul-gene by another birth.’

  Wailing ceased. The naked aborigines took up the chant. ‘Free the gene-soul for Olga’s return – mate, mate, procreate – multiply – propagate – mate, mate.’

  The wide garage doors sphinctered the craft inside. A flash of bright morning sun glinted about the work area momentarily blinding young Val – monitor-on-duty. He shielded his eyes with his hands. The craft settled down and quieted. Dust clouds scattered around the room. Coughing, a grimy face appeared under one of the dismantled chassis.

  ‘Who is back?’ gasped the face. It belonged to Tinker, a working neuter.

  Val blinked and squinted at the craft’s n
ame.

  ‘Bird Dog.’

  Tinker scrambled out from under the chassis in a clutter of tools. ‘Bird Dog? He is a whole day overdue. What about the hunters?’

  Val checked the roster. ‘There was only one. Baserga – a CD seven. It was supposed to be a routine patrol over Mount Tabulum. But he didn’t come back.’

  Tinker wiped oil from his hands and approached Bird Dog sympathetically. Lifting dust covers he checked webs of neurocircuitry. Walking around to the anterior sensors, he took out his tools and began to detach the larger central eye.

  ‘Poor old meck,’ he said as he worked. ‘No wonder you keep losing your hunters. You can hardly see. I’ll take your big eye to my quarters and pump the vacuum back down to ten-to-the-minus-six torr. Put in a new EM retina. That should fix you up fine.’ He lifted out the optic and examined the socket. Contacts glinted. He put on the dust cap.

  ‘Minus six?’ said Val. ‘Our lines only go down to a minus three.’

  Tinker put the meck eye on the workbench with a pile of other loose parts. ‘I built my own diffusion pump a couple years ago – HV oil, sputtering unit, Christmas tree – brings it down to minus five. Use a cold trap to move it another decimal place.’

  ‘Very handy,’ said Val. ‘We’ve had sensors on order all along – but deliveries are way behind.’

  ‘I just rebuild the coarse ones. All they usually need are retinas and lenses. With the pump it is easy to rebuild them.’

  Val followed Tinker around, handing him tools and asking questions. Huntercraft were his friends. He was happy to see them responding to Tinker’s skills. Efficiency was bound to improve.

  At eleven hundred hours old Walter wheezed into HC and relieved Val. Tools and defective parts were sack-loaded.

  ‘Want me to help you with the sacks? I’d like to see your cubicle work-area,’ offered Val.

  Tinker shrugged and nodded.

  The trip through the hot crowded tubeways and their long climb upspiral wilted Val’s tunic. Wiping his face on his sleeve, he set down his load and glanced around Tinker’s quarters. There were three small cubicles and one larger family room – all cluttered with tinkering gear. There were Agromeck heads staring at them with wide, empty sockets. Dispenser brain boxes, tools, communicators, sensors and viewscreens were piled everywhere.

  ‘There’s room for a family-7 here,’ said Val.

  ‘I’m pretty high on the spiral – far from the shaft base facilities. Not much demand for high quarters – and my repair work justifies increasing my quarters-basic.’

  Val nodded appreciatively. A rebuilt dispenser stood by Tinker’s small cot. Val touched the dial and a small token food bar dropped out.

  ‘Built it myself,’ explained Tinker proudly. ‘Of course it isn’t an authorized model, but it does give me someone to talk to – a class thirteen brain. But, like my refresher, it can’t deliver anything unless the pressure reaches this level. That seldom happens these days – so I stock it with a few little staples I carry up myself. I have to go to shaft base for most things.’

  Val spoke to the dispenser. It answered politely and offered him a menu of snacks. Its screen listed current Fun & Games. He shook his head and moved on down a busy-looking workbench. He saw a five-foot-high, three-foot-diameter black drum at the end of the room. It stood on thick insulating blocks and a bundle of wires trailed out of a length of flexi-cable at the center of the top. When he approached it, Tinker waved him away.

  ‘Careful. I’ve been experimenting with a larger capacitor – to run my tools when the power is down. It is probably well charged now, and my insulation material isn’t the best. I try to stay at least six feet away from it to be safe.’

  Val marveled at Tinker’s ingenuity. The drum looked very powerful, almost ominous. He gave it a wide berth and walked into the next cubicle. More electronic gear. Heavy cables led to a focusing antenna. Charts and maps covered the walls.

  ‘Listening to Huntercraft and Agromecks,’ explained Tinker.

  Val put his nose close to one of the maps and looked for fine details he was familiar with. ‘Very accurate.’

  ‘Interesting hobby,’ said Tinker.

  The dispenser in the other room began to chatter and print out a flimsy. Tinker went to read it while Val fingered the thickly padded earphones.

  ‘It’s a birth permit – for me,’ shouted Tinker.

  ‘That’s no surprise,’ smiled Val. ‘Big ES just recognizes your talents. We can always use more Tinkers.’

  Tinker returned with a long face. ‘But it is a class three – budchild with human-incubator-of-choice. I live alone.’

  ‘So? Don’t you have anyone who would carry for you?’

  ‘No,’ said Tinker, irritated. ‘Who’d carry for free?’

  Val nodded. ‘I know what you mean. None of the polarized females seem to want to go gravid for a class three unless – unless they feel something personal for the budparent. Don’t you have any friends with uteri?’

  Tinker shook his head. ‘Live alone. Simpler that way. I do my job – a good one too. Why would the Big ES want to upset everything? I’m not even polarized.’

  Val soothed: ‘I got partially polarized – needed the shoulders for archery – Sagittarius, you know. It wasn’t too bad. I have my shoulders now. Also have to depilate weekly, but that isn’t too bad. Made my temper a bit sharper. I’d hate to see what complete polarization would do to me – but if Big ES ordered it, I’d comply. Good Citizen that I am.’

  For a neut, Tinker’s personality was already a bit caustic.

  ‘Not me,’ he frowned. ‘I don’t want to see my output drop. I’m obedient, but anyone can see that I’m much more efficient living alone. A family-3 would clutter up my work area.’

  Val understood. His cubicle was private – family-1.

  ‘You could always try applying for a variance. Embryo might be able to change it to a class one. Let the meck uterus carry,’ suggested Val. ‘Go down right now.’

  The Embryo clerk only glanced at the flimsy for a second and shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, Tinker. It has to stay a class three. All our meck uteri are full and the budget is tight. Your budchild will have to come along on schedule. We must think of the future generations. They’ll need your skills. Now, be a Good Citizen and find a female to carry it.’

  ‘I have no female.’

  ‘No one appeals to you?’ asked the clerk checking Tinker’s file. ‘Your profile says—’

  ‘I like everyone,’ interrupted Tinker. ‘But I’m not even polarized. I’m not sexually attracted to any—’

  ‘There’s no sex involved in a class three.’

  ‘But there is,’ explained Tinker. ‘You are asking me to find a female who will carry my budchild without paying the usual job rates.’

  ‘Carrying rates are for class two – when the Big ES selects the incubator.’

  ‘I know. I know,’ said Tinker. ‘But I don’t know anyone who would carry for me, free.’

  The clerk nodded and punched the problem into the Embryomeck. A new flimsy rattled out. It was a direct order.

  ‘Get yourself polarized, Tinker. Then find someone who will love you enough to carry – and do it in six weeks.’

  Tinker recognized the tone in his voice. An order from the Big ES. Clicking his heels, he snapped, ‘Yes, sir. Right away, sir.’

  Tinker pushed his way through the rancid, seborrheic crowds on his way to Polarization Clinic. He studied the sea of monotonous, pasty faces, searching for a possible incubator. Gnats and lice clung to the sticky skins of the more sluggish. He saw only vermin and spiritual ugliness. None showed signs of mentation, let alone stimulation. No possible mates.

  ‘Going to swing hetero, honey?’ cackled the Pol. Clin. Attendant – an arthritic, toothless old hag well up in her twenties.

  ‘Order from Big ES,’ he explained.

  She sobered. With Parkinsonian tremors she uncovered her instrument tray. The knife steadied as it dug for the APC
in the flesh of his forearm. She removed the time-release mesh.

  ‘Here’s your anti-puberty cocoon,’ she said. Knife and mesh clattered onto the tray. Syntheskin was sprayed. Androgen and FSH priming doses were Hi Vol injected. Ten minutes later he stumbled back into the spiral crowds – feeling unchanged. Three weeks later a feeble erection announced that his sacral parasympathetics were polarizing. The boys in Psych charted his bioelectrical response to erotic stimuli – tone improved.

  Other than warming his loins, polarization seemed to do little to solve Tinker’s problem of finding an incubator. If anything, it made it even more difficult. His senses were more acute, and he was much more critical of his fellow citizens. He noticed new repulsive odors. The crowded, vermin-infested tubeways were intolerable. On his way to Hunter Control the stench got to be so bad that he vomited – adding his slippery stomach contents to the nondescript slime underfoot.

  Tinker walked into Garage and began to empty his sack – placing repaired meck eyes on the bench.

  ‘Polarization is rough,’ he complained to Val. ‘I vomited on the way over today. Never did that before.’

  Val picked up an eye, admiring the bright new fittings. ‘Your neurohumoral axis is getting stronger. Can’t tamper with the gonads alone, you know. Pituitary, autonomic nervous system, adrenals, thyroid – all play their part in polarization.’

  Tinker sat down, face pale. ‘But what has vomiting to do with sex?’

  ‘The reflex is autonomic,’ said Val. ‘Before, as a neuter, you ignored most of your environment – at least your body did. Now, you’re becoming a sexually active male. I suppose it goes back to the jungles somewhere. Primitive creatures needed their senses to find mates and avoid enemies. Your body is looking for a mate now.’

  Tinker drank some water. He climbed up onto Bird Dog’s shoulder and plugged in the big eye he had been working on.