Half Past Human (S.F. MASTERWORKS)

by T. J. Bass

  ‘That’s all I need – for my gonads to take me on a trip back down the evolutionary tree. What will that do to my work output? What can Big ES gain from that?’

  Val shrugged. ‘No choice. With the budget so tight the hive can’t afford all class ones. Meck uteri are too costly. And, apparently, your budchild will be needed in about ten years. So a class three is mandatory. Don’t worry about your output. It might even go up if we all ignore some of your peculiarities while you’re changing.’

  Tinker felt like they were discussing his transformation into some sort of a beast. ‘My peculiarities?’ he said. ‘At least I don’t send hunters to their deaths in blind Huntercraft.’

  Val raised an eyebrow. ‘But we must have crop protection. The defective parts are back-ordered.’

  ‘A little first-line maintenance might save a few lives. Or is getting oil on your hands above your caste?’

  Val didn’t answer. He just smiled and said: ‘See what I mean about developing peculiarities. Polarization has certainly made you crusty.’

  ‘Don’t avoid the issue. If maintenance is outside your specialty, why don’t you take one of your own ships out on a Hunt – a real Hunt, not just a shakedown cruise.’

  Val smiled and walked away. ‘Want anything from the dispenser?’ he called over his shoulder.

  Tinker returned to his work.

  Tinker noticed a subtle change in the tubeway crowds. They were no longer a monotonous sea of faces. He was certain that the retinal images were still the same. Only now his visual cortex began to sort those images into neuts and polarized. The neuts faded into the background of Nebish nothings – a pasty collage of empty faces. The polarized, both male and female, instantly attracted his attention – sullen males – shapely fems. About one in a thousand appeared polarized.

  His home spiral used to be just mildly unpleasant. That changed too. Rats and lice caught his eye. Maggoty bodies angered him. Then, for the first time, he noticed the begger – fat and edematous. He knew this discovery was due to his new visual sorting, for the begger had obviously been there for months – paralyzed – slowly dying of the wet beriberi. Stretcher-carrying Meditecks searched along the spiral. The begger hid in a dusty access hatch. A Sweeper slurped along cleaning up damp spots left by the begger’s oozing ulcers.

  Tinker stopped outside the hatch, listening to furtive movements from ’tween walls. ‘Poor retired bastard,’ he mumbled. He shouldered his way through the food line and ordered a liter of high-thiamine barley soup. Dispenser circuits noted this change from his usual diet. Ignoring suspicious optics, he carried the hot container back to the access hatch. Aromatic steam spread.

  ‘Flavored calories,’ he called, softly.

  The begger drank with trembling hands while Tinker looked over his shoulder into the dark nest. Unopened packets of calorie-basic were scattered around in the thick dust. No flavors.

  ‘That was nice,’ said a female voice behind him.

  Tinker turned and saw a very young polarized female. Her soft tunic was gathered by a tight belt. His eyes caressed her face and locked onto a pair of large symmetrical breasts.

  ‘You are focusing,’ she said coyly. The apathetic crowd vanished before his eyes. Deep in his pelvis, synapses screamed FEMALE.

  ‘What?’ he stammered.

  ‘That was nice,’ she repeated. ‘Giving that old man your food ration—’

  His wits returned. Giving of alms was a function of Big ES. If the begger had to beg at all it meant he had lost his credits. Supporting such an outcast was wrong. He felt a flush of guilt – which was quickly replaced by anger.

  ‘I can afford it.’

  ‘It was still nice. Most citizens wouldn’t even notice him.’ She approached and leaned against him fingering his Sagittarius emblem. He stumbled back, awkwardly. Body contact was meld activity. It felt wrong in public.

  ‘Who are you?’ he blurted.

  ‘I am Mu Ren,’ she said distinctly. ‘One-half MRBL – second subculture, Mu Renal cell line from the BL clone. But that isn’t important. What is important is – that I am ten years old, spontaneously polarized, and assigned to you as a class three incubator.’

  He pulled his eyes away from her soft curves long enough to see her footlocker behind her.

  ‘The Watcher assigned me,’ she said, reaching for his hand.

  Tinker tried to look at her analytically, but the fire in his loins colored his judgment. She did appear to be a complete polarization, and if it had actually been spontaneous then she should make a very good incubator.

  ‘Watcher took me out of the stacks when I polarized. I was assigned to a family-5, but I hesitated in the meld. Because of my youth I was given a rematch. Your request for an incubator came through just in time. I think I could enjoy a family-2.’

  Tinker took her hand. ‘Come on,’ he said. They elbowed their way to the head of the complacent queue and ordered staples from the dispenser. She carried foodstuffs and he shouldered her locker. His walk upspiral had never been so enjoyable before.

  Mu Ren smiled approvingly at Tinker’s quarters.

  ‘I only touched on electronics in my studies,’ she said. ‘But I recognize components from city cybers and field mecks. You are very good with your hands.’

  Her body’s attraction crowded into his consciousness making rational thought difficult. Nervously, he pointed to some of the larger machines – trying to familiarize her with her new surroundings. She noticed his impatience and turned to him.

  ‘I am going to enjoy living with a man who is good with his hands,’ she said. Taking his wrists she moved his trembling fingers over her tunic. Her soft erogenous zones radiated warmly. His autonomic synapses struggled with the increasing excitement. Passion flared somewhat erratically, and then, abruptly, faded. While he stood there, the heat in his loins melted away – leaving fatigue.

  She continued to lean against him for a moment. Hugging him briefly, she walked to her locker and began to unpack. He stood in the middle of the room – puzzled. She placed her ESbook on the cot and unrolled her bedding on the floor. Seeing his disappointment, she jumped up and ran back to him . . . nuzzling warmly.

  ‘You have just recently polarized,’ she consoled. ‘Your meld reflexes need time to synchronize. We will work at it, and it will improve.’

  She settled down – adapting quickly to Tinker’s peculiar quarters. Talking to the class thirteen dispenser. Avoiding the big black condenser. Improving their meld.

  The Embryoteck probed Mu Ren’s tender forearm and removed her anti-ovulation sponge. Ignoring her winces he prepared the Hi Vol gun with estrogens.

  ‘Can’t have conflicting hormones, now – can we? We’ll have your endometrium all ready for little Tinker Junior in about four weeks. Come back then and we’ll do the implant.’

  ‘Could I see him now?’ she asked softly.

  The teck brushed her callously towards the door. ‘No. Nothing to see now except clone soup in foaming nutrients. Be patient. In six months he will be kicking and squirming around in there. You will have a wonderful time.’

  Flushed with the follicular phase effect she returned to Tinker. But she did not have a wonderful time. Four weeks after implantation she passed a large clot. Depressed, she noticed that the fullness in her belly was gone. Her breasts no longer tingled. Fearful that she would not be authorized as an incubator again, she searched her footlocker for her Ov earring. Her meld activities became warmer – more purposeful. Hopefully, she watched the earring. Two weeks later she was rewarded with an ovulation. Her belly began to grow again – a little behind schedule, but it grew. Tinker, preoccupied by strange tightbeam signals from the planet’s surface, failed to notice anything unusual. At forty-two weeks post-implantation, the Embryo Clinic summoned her for a check-up. She refused.

  ‘One-half MRBL,’ demanded a voice from the doorway.

  Mu Ren glanced up fearfully and saw two heavy reliable neuters wearing golden emblems of The Ram – Aries – Secu
rity Squad. Her face whitened. She set down her stitching and glanced past them into the crawlway. Three more neuters leaned on their quarterstaffs down by the spiral.

  ‘Reading in the Tee zone,’ said the neuter holding a scanner. ‘This must be Tinker’s quarters.’ The two entered and glanced around. The jumble of electronic gear meant little to them. They stayed by the door.

  After several long moments of strained silence the SS neuter holding the scanner appeared worried. Mu Ren’s pendulous belly and tremulous movements upset his instrument.

  ‘Relax, please,’ he said. ‘This is just a routine check on communicators. Nothing for you to be concerned about.’

  She sighed. Her uterus tightened a little so she stretched out on the cot covering her feet with her wrap. It was a relief to know they weren’t from Embryo – after the fetus.

  Tinker arrived carrying staple foodstuffs. Smiling like a Good Citizen, he unloaded onto the pantry shelf and began to answer their questions. Yes, he had noticed unusual radio signals. No, he hadn’t been using a tightbeam transmitter. No, he had no idea where the signals came from. Yes, he’d keep them informed. They left – satisfied.

  Mu Ren looked at him, questioning.

  He ignored her unspoken question while he fastened a bulky hasp to the door. Stepping to the workbench he pressed one earphone to his right ear.

  ‘Transmissions from the surface – from Outside,’ he said, wiggling dials and changing the position of a string on his wall map. ‘They are not from the usual Huntercraft or Agromecks. I didn’t know what to make of them, but tonite’s SS visit has convinced me of one thing. They are unauthorized transmissions.’

  Unauthorized. The term bleached her face again. She moaned weakly and sat down.

  ‘Now, now, there is no danger. Probably just a renegade meck going through an identity crisis with his WIC/RAC. The what-if-circuit and random-association-circuit can be very labile. I’ve heard of class sixes running amok until their power cells are depleted. But nothing is usually lost except a few crops,’ he soothed.

  His words had little effect on the gravid female. Tears streaked her cheeks.

  ‘Our baby isn’t authorized,’ she blurted.

  He didn’t hear. Both earphones were on. He swung the biconical antenna around to catch the messages as they filtered down through the walls and organs of the shaft city.

  ‘We’re lucky we have this high cubicle,’ he mumbled. ‘Any deeper in the earth and I wouldn’t be getting any of this.’

  A Braxton-Hicks contracture tightened Mu Ren’s fundus. She sat on the cot. Tinker leaned into his earphones listening to feeble sounds – a sing-songy chant.

  Oh happy day

  Oh happy da—ay

  When Olga comes

  She’ll show the way,

  Verses were separated by the beat of a pounding surf, guitars and the ching, ching, ching of tambourines.

  High up on the mountain

  Dwells the magic ball

  Listen to its wisdom

  Do not trip and fall

  Run through the gardens run

  Do not trip and fall.

  Tinker knew of the Followers of Olga – a cultish fraternal organization discouraged by the Big ES. But he could not understand them broadcasting. If they did violate Big ES law and venture into gardens, the broadcasts would only betray their crime and attract hunters. Security Squads were already investigating. The advice – ‘Do not trip and fall’ – was very appropriate if hunters were tracking. But what was a magic ball? Puzzled, he removed his earphones.

  When he found Mu Ren sobbing herself to sleep, he patted her plump buttock and said: ‘It’s just the partum blues, Mu. Don’t let them get you down.’

  ‘Our baby isn’t authorized,’ she wailed.

  ‘Now, now, of course it is,’ he said. ‘I have the papers right here.’

  ‘But we need a class five,’ she said.

  He put a hand on the belly, feeling a kick. Slowly he calculated the time lapse since implantation.

  ‘A hybrid?’ he asked softly.

  She nodded through reddened eyes.

  He grinned – ‘A hybrid.’ Sitting up in amazement, it took several more seconds for him to realize what she was getting at.

  ‘What will become of it?’ she sniffed.

  His face fell.

  ‘It isn’t authorized,’ he answered weakly. ‘They will come for it.’

  She sobbed herself to sleep. Agonizing dreams ruffled her alpha waves. Sound became color. Colors flowed into flavors. A meat-flavored patty contained a small hand open in supplication. A tiny finger pointed into her mother’s heart. The meat flavor became sound – the sound of a baby’s cry as it hit the blades of the patty press. Mu Ren came full awake in the terror of her first nightmare – the first of many.

  Tinker’s nonritual hugs did little to allay her fears. He began to doubt the wisdom of the hive.

  The naked, hirsute aborigine fled across Filly’s green cyberskin. This was his fifth day without sleep. His right neck ached where the first hunter’s arrow had struck. Fibrin and erythrocyte crusts covered the edematous laceration. He had managed to kill that hunter, but another was put down. That one dropped from exhaustion after three days tracking. Now the Huntercraft was back. Its keen optics sought him out. Underfoot. Filly’s sensors fed coordinates back to Hunter Control. His every footstep itched the city. A third hunter swung down-harness – a short, fat, bug-eyed killer with an ugly trophy knife and a deadly long bow.

  Filly’s organs surrounded her mountain – a single ice-capped peak. The buckeye climbed. His ridged, hyper-keratotic palms and soles gripped granular stone surely and lifted him up. The icy wind pulled his long gray hair back from his tired old eyes. The only name he knew was Kaia, a name given to him by his first mate – in her language it meant The Male.

  Bird Dog IX rested on an eight-thousand-foot ledge, tracking. Sharp optics followed Kaia’s slow ascent up the sheer face of a thirteen-thousand-foot overhang. Ninety millimeters of oxygen triggered his cardiopulmonary adjustments to the altitude. Below, struggling in his clumsy suit, the Nebish hunter turned up his oxygen and followed. Above, a deep white snow beckoned – offering a soft, peaceful sleep. Kaia weakened. Hoary frost grew on the hairs of his scalp and forearms. Below him, on the same cliff, the hunter was stalled. The white suit and helmet resembled a snowman.

  ‘Come back,’ called Bird Dog. ‘He is trapped up there. No need to track. Come back.’

  The hunter’s hypnoconditioning did not allow for interruption of the tracking frenzy. He kept clawing at the sheer rock until his motor end-plates fatigued. The poor Nebish had already exerted himself far beyond the capacity of his soft body. A light gust of wind lifted his numb form from the rock and sent it sailing down into the clouds below. Bird Dog tracked – and noted the impact area.

  Kaia hadn’t seen the hunter’s flight. He was too high, and too intent on sleep. Bird Dog’s powerful optics relayed Kaia’s climb to Hunter Control.

  ‘We’ll never get that body down from there,’ said Val.

  Walter turned up the magnification. Kaia crawled into a shallow cave and heaped snow over the mouth. Bird Dog’s sensors watched through the snow as the naked aborigine curled up on the rocky floor and rapidly cooled off.

  ‘At least we know where the body is,’ said Walter, ‘if we ever find anyone fool enough to want to climb up for the trophy. Should keep well at those temperatures – especially since winter is coming.’

  Moon and Dan hid under a pile of greenish-brown fiber trash half way down a cliff. Below them a Huntercraft skimmed over the waters of a wide deep canal. Toothpick’s pointed nose projected above the trash.

  ‘It is circling back. Will pass overhead. Don’t move,’ said the cyber.

  They heard the drone rise and fall. The fibers danced in the wind. Silence. Moon thrust his head up.

  ‘Smells like the ocean. We’re miles inland.’

  ‘That’s the sea-level canal.’

&n
bsp; ‘We’re going to swim that?’ he asked, raising his voice.

  Toothpick cast his optic about.

  ‘We’ll use dry stalks and gourds to float us.’

  Moon strained his eyes.

  ‘But I can hardly see the other side.’

  ‘It is less than two miles. We can take our time.’

  Moon remained deep in the trash.

  ‘Your teeth are on the other side. It isn’t far now. Don’t you want to be able to crack open a femur again?’ said Toothpick.

  Moon pursed his lips and gummed thoughtfully. His edentulous dog, Dan, glanced up at him trustingly.

  ‘Where are the damn gourds?’ he said, climbing about in the vegetable trash.

  The night sky held a lunar crescent and a few stars. Moon aimed his bundle of gourds at the North Star and kicked slowly, purposefully. Dan paddled around him several times and then came to rest with his paws on the old man’s back. Toothpick was tied among the gourds.

  ‘Careful,’ said the cyber. ‘You’re pushing me underwater again. I’ve got to pick out a safe landing spot. If we ever do this again, I’ll design a float with an outrigger for stability.’

  Moon shuddered at the cold brine.

  ‘We won’t be doing this again.’

  The lunar crescent slipped below the western horizon. Toothpick watched the north shore moving by as the currents swept them along. The shaft cities on this continent looked about the same – squat pillbox caps housing the end-organs of vast underground warrens. Cybercaps that watched over the gardens. They would be in danger if the morning sun caught them exposed. Cybercap’s eyes could be sharp when scanning the open waters of the canal.

  ‘Stay off shore,’ said Toothpick. ‘There is a better landing site coming up.’

  They drifted into a steep rocky slope carved out of a high ridge. Crags offered cover, but Moon was exhausted. Dawn found him sleeping on a narrow ledge.

  ‘Good a place as any for a rest,’ shrugged the cyber.

  Fat old Walter wheezed into Hunter Control to find Tinker and Val in tense conversation.

  ‘What’s got you youngsters so upset?’ he asked as he eased his bulk into the control seat and activated his console.