Traveler_Losing Legong

by Tim Dennis

  Myles eagerly pushed aside thoughts of his last trip and answered anthropologically.

  "Um, right. OK. Um, traditionally, dating back to the transit times, bodies were first recycled for parts, then ground up to support microbes in the farms."

  "Is that still the preferred practice?" A soft light bathed Gabrile's face in a warmth that affect Myles deeply, unexpectedly, making him acutely aware of the basis for the moonlight cliches still surviving in Legong language.

  "Oh, I don't know." He spluttered. "People are looking back into history more now, you know, to see what was done before the transit."

  "And what about ceremony? Ritual?"

  "Oh, I see what you mean. That also depends a little on whether the family is from the surface or the orbiting Arks."

  "Were Peto and Norte from the surface?" The question almost knocked Myles off his feet. He'd taken Gabrile's comment about 'leaving that to another day' in too literal a sense and had allowed Peto and Norte to slip from his mind. "I reassembled them as best I could," Gabrile continued. "They were unrecoverable, but their bodies are in stasis, awaiting final disposition by someone from your colony."

  Myles couldn't force words from his mouth.

  "They know everything." Pig paced on the sand. "They must."

  "Yes, of course." He stammered. "Excuse me, perhaps, as you said, we could take this up tomorrow. This is all very new to me, I think I'd like to turn in."

  Gabrile smiled kindly and made no attempts to hold him on the beach, instead watching with interest as his mood shifted and his mind boggled.

  38

  Bento sat on the edge of her bed, starlight casting the faintest of shadows in the dark room. She forcibly shut her implant down, stopping the accumulation of Shield Guard data from the revolt in Snotty Rocks. It wasn't her job. She wanted to be alone with her own thoughts.

  Harry lay beside her, watching the muscles in her upper back tense. He reached out and laid the palm of his broad, thick-fingered hand just above the small of her back. She leaned against him and relaxed her shoulders a little.

  "Do you know any of them?" He asked.

  "No, I don't think so." Bento took a moment to reactivate her implant. "No. No veterans. All Council troops."

  Harry let his hand slip down to Bento's hip and gave it a little squeeze. "Are you being called in?"

  "No. Krykowfert still controls both S.I. and the Eden Project. I'm not on the Council rolls." Bento swung her feet to the floor and felt her belly with both hands. It was too early, why had she told Myles? How could Krykowfert have- he couldn't possibly. She stood and walked to the open balcony, twisting first to one side, then the other, feeling the breeze on her skin. Flashes from Caldera's Gun lit her naked body harshly, framing her in the open doors twenty stories up the side of City Center. She could just see Harry's neighborhood, climbing the slope between her and the crest.

  "While Mallick was taking over Snotty Rocks the Council was moving thirty thousand more troops to the Earth Rip." She said.

  "Just what is this fascination with Earth?" Harry asked.

  "You're just full of questions tonight."

  "Just trying to start a conversation. You're very distant."

  Bento crossed the room to her full-length mirror. She stood before it with her legs shoulder width apart, an immodest pose for a woman with shoulders as broad as she. Harry didn't mind. Again she twisted from side to side, holding her hips still. The view from the bed included the full display in the mirror along with teasing side-glances as first one breast came into view, then the other. He got out of bed and joined her. She kept her eyes on the reflection, letting Harry wrap his arms around her from behind.

  "Krykowfert's built new arks." She said. "Not spinning things like Central Command, but using this new technology from the K-ships. The Council's taken three of them."

  Harry grunted acknowledgment, squeezing their bodies together. Bento felt lightened, Harry's embrace taking much of her weight off her feet.

  "I'm going to Eden tomorrow."

  Another grunt. Bento turned. Harry leaned against her, pressing her back against the cool glass of the mirror. She raised a leg and he slipped a hand under, lifting her so she could wrap her legs around him.

  "What will you do Harry? I mean, I know you have the cafe, and all the work you've put into it. But I may be reassigned to Eden permanently."

  She closed her eyes, letting her forehead fall into the nape of his neck, gripping him tightly with arms and legs. Harry carried her back to the bed and laid her down. He would deal with Eden, and Earth, and whatever else the universe dropped at his door, but there were needs of the moment, equally pressing, and those he would deal with first.

  The morning sun slipped in through Bento's bedroom door to be met by a cold wind only possible at the ridiculous altitude of twenty stories.

  "Do we really need to have that open?" Harry whined. The darkness of night had dulled the view-from-on-high. In full sun it was impossible to deny. Harry didn't like it. His cafe had such a view, but it was on the ground. Bento closed the doors and dragged her blanket out into the kitchen. Harry followed with his own sheet, only to find her out on the lounge's balcony. He tightened his sheet and made it to within a meter of the open doors.

  "Look. There." Bento pointed up a torus, slowly crossing the sky. "That's one of the protein f'Arks."

  Harry took a few steps, looking where requested but not moving out onto the balcony itself.

  "Watch." Bento said, pointing at the orbital farm. Harry looked down more than up. The sun, just peaking above the horizon, caused the low, green isles to cast shadows into the lagoon. Where it managed to hit the water the sun reflected, causing the crests of tiny waves to shimmer like diamonds. Up above, the surface of the torus scintillated.

  "Sun reflections?" Harry asked.

  A moment later the sky came alive with dozens of streaks of fire. The Gun on the hill behind them fired rapidly, only its cracking report perceivable from the front rooms. The more substantial streaks puffed up into fluffy little balls of smoke while the lesser streaks faded away.

  "Big ones getting through." Bento said. "That's a problem."

  Harry stepped back away from the balcony. "Come back in. It's cold out there."

  "I want to breathe a little. This afternoon I'll be stuck in a ship. Tomorrow I'll be in Eden."

  "From what I've heard there's nothing but fresh air on Eden."

  Bento turned away from the lagoon, looking past Harry to the Balcony in the bedroom. Harry could see his own little two-story home on the hill behind, but he knew it was Myles's house, a few door down, that Bento was watching

  "Have you heard anything from him?" He asked.

  She just shook her head. She walked towards him, tossing the blanket into the bedroom and following it in. The harsh morning light showed her curves in an always flattering, but less artful relief. This morning she looked a little rounder, a little softer.

  Has she gained weight? Harry thought.

  "He's on Earth." Bento snapped.

  "I know that. Have you heard from him?"

  Harry watched Bento shower. Definitely not as trim as usual. He thought. Stress of the new job? Harry resolved not to push so many cakes on her in future. He tried again to ask about Myles but Bento avoided answering. So Harry stayed out of the shower, letting her continue without further distraction. When she finished, they changed places, Bento blew a kiss and said she'd send a communique once she knew what her schedule would be.

  When Harry finished his shower, she was gone. He checked his implant for messages. She'd left him an itinerary, with a routing link in case she couldn't make a direct implant connection from Eden. She also left him instructions not to contact her unless it was very important. So he picked yesterday's clothes off the floor and re-dressed.

  Harry'd resisted bringing hiw own belongings up to Bento's apartment while at the same time siphoning off clothes from her visits to his house. By tossing panties in with his own lau
ndry, before Bento could re-pack them for the trip home, Harry had developed a comprehensive collection of women's undergarments. He'd also set aside shelves in his bathroom where he duplicated the various unguents and hair tools Bento tended to use on her days off. Each week there was less reason for her to go home. Her shuttling between Eden and Legong would make her own apartment even less necessary, perhaps even jettisonable.

  Harry arrived at his cafe long before his usual opening time. The ovens had only just started baking and it would be another hour before the late-morning custom started wandering in. He checked the kitchen to ensure that everything was safely underway, then made himself a coffee and dragged a chair to the deck rail. The bluff, crumbling away to the beach below, had a completely different effect on him than Bento's City Center apartment. The drop from deck to beach was almost exactly the same as that from bedroom to roadway, both more-or-less sheer and neither survivable, but whereas Bento's felt artificial and impermanent, his seemed of-the-ages, despite the fact that only a short time ago he'd needed her Maker to stabilize the ground. How quickly transient dangers are forgotten. In the space of weeks the atoll had flooded, the Earthman arrived, the discovery of Eden was announced and Mallick had had his rampage. Perhaps it wasn't a case of forgetting at all. People were overwhelmed, there was too much to process. Harry sat there, thinking, staring out across the lagoon. K-ships, larger than any he'd seen before, flitted to and fro over Tugot Key. At any one time he could see a dozen in the air over the farm. Bento was in one of them, or maybe on the ground below them, issuing orders and supervising loading. Is that what she does? He questioned himself. I don't know. I think so.

  "Who do I have to sleep with to get service here?" Came the call from within the cafe. Harry jumped to his feet and scooted inside. Hargreaves, his oldest and most regular customer, leaned over the counter and helped himself to a day-old as Harry ran into the kitchen and then out again carrying a tray of croissants and muffins. By the time a proper pot of coffee was brewed his usual mid-morning patrons had been joined by a contingent of off-duty Council Guards. They mostly remained apart, sharing both the deck and cafe, but leaving an empty table or two as a line of demarcation.

  "I've heard Eden is barren, worse than Legong."

  One of the regulars approached the young Council Guards out on the deck. Harry stepped out from behind the counter and cautiously watched.

  "Yeah," Said the Guard, "I've heard that too. I've also heard it's a paradise, temperate, fertile, with small and tasty fauna."

  "That's just religious claptrap." Said the regular.

  "The Council's not religious, they've spent massive resources-" Said a Guard.

  "It wasn't the Council," said another, "it was Krykowfert that found it and convinced the Earth man to help us open the Rip. He's been on about Eden for decades. He's the religious nut. That's why they're squeezing him out."

  A few more regulars drifted out to the deck as the Council Guards debated the points between themselves.

  "Besides," she continued, "why would the Council be expending so much effort on Earth if Eden was a viable planet? It must be barren."

  Harry considered bringing Bento's name into it, but reasoned that these Council Guards must have at least as much access to Eden Project data as he did. Maybe they were right, maybe Eden was barren. "Then why are they transporting people and material to Eden?" He couldn't help but ask. It was a legitimate question, given the previous comments.

  "Prisoners." Said one of the regulars. "They're making it a penal colony. They're letting Mallick stew in his own juices while they set things up, then bam! They're transporting him and any other trouble-makers to Eden. Krykowfert's got a list."

  The list was real. Bento had told him so. "I don't know if I agree with that." Harry said. "I mean, OK, a few people have done some terrible things, but a mass deportment? Most of these people are refugees from the Polar Settlements. How would you feel? Dragged away from your homes, your settlement abandoned by your government."

  "They would have to leave anyway," offered a young Guard. "Legong's magnetic field isn't strong enough, the polar regions have radiation problems. Probably what made them all mad to begin with!"

  The entire deck erupted into laughter, Guards and regulars alike.

  "Anyway, what do we know?" Said Hargreaves. "The Council don't tell us nothing, not what they're really up to. And I don't think I really want to know. Hell, I've got all I can handle just keeping body and soul together. It's their job to sort out these things, I say let 'em." Hargreaves had a certain self-assuredness that tended to dominate controversial conversations without his intent. The crowded deck went quiet, everyone waiting for more wisdom. "I mean look at it. This Earth-man, Mallick, Krykowfert. You think any of us really know what their motives are? What their true goals are? We know only what the Council wants us to know."

  The sun was too high, the sky too bright. The orbiting torus visible in its glare could have been Central Command, or it could have been one of the Farm-Arks, but it served as a focus and the mixed group of patrons gazed up at it, a cold, blank circle of steel as inscrutable as Traveler's smile.

  39

  Five sat in the Council Chamber alone, the lighting bright enough to see by, low enough to soften the more dingy aspects of the room. An array of images filled the space around her. In the center, remote sensing equipment relayed images from Snotty Rocks. Sudden changes of perspective, necessary due to the terrain and the angle of the passing satellites, made concentration difficult. To the left, the Eden Rip. Neatly contained, occasionally opening to allow ships to pass through. To the right, the Earth Rip, fuzzy and gray. Small K-ships fed asteroids into matter-transducers that gobbled them up to fuel Councilor Six's Earth-Rip containment frame. Six relayed her implant connection along a chain of K-ships from Earth space to Central Command and intruded into Councilor Five's thoughts.

  "Our most experienced pilot killed in an accident? It belies reason. It's far more likely that Earth made Norte's death look like an accident."

  "Why?" asked Five. "The nav tools Tugot brought back were useless, mere models. Why kill when they've already thwarted your plans?"

  "What about Tugot's damaged implant?"

  "Krykowfert says this is not uncommon among certain neuro-types." Thought Five. "I checked. He's right."

  "Either way, it only proves Earth's weakness." Six paused to shift her arguments. "They need us more than we need them. They've shown no ability to fend off our approaches, we've had ships in their atmosphere for a week now with nothing more than a verbal protest. And they rely on dirt-grown food, they have no off-surface back-up supplies and no mass protein farms. We have the ability to secure their food supply as well as protect their space from intrusion."

  "You've made your data available to the Clerks?"

  "Yes."

  "We need to discuss the Rip itself." Five moved on to the next topic. "Krykowfert repeatedly warns of the instabilities. His team drops the Eden Rip to a quantum bubble when not in actual use. Is this something you could do?"

  "It would break our contact. Besides, it's not necessary. My people have studied the Earth-man's data and have the Rip firmly in control. It's a tactic, Earth knows of their own weakness and wishes to prevent our advancement. Krykowfert has fallen for this. I haven't"

  Five and Six finished their consultation, allowing Five to return her focus to the image array. The rebels had taken no action since occupying Snotty Rocks and other, equally isolated settlements, and there had been no reports of mistreatment or undue restrictions on travel in and out of the settlements. Most of the population between sixteen and thirty-five were now serving in Council Guard, at the Earth Rip or patrolling the larger settlements. Anyone else was actively involved in the daily operation of the Colony. Five contacted Krykowfert by implant.

  "I hope I'm not disturbing you." She thought.

  "Not at all," Krykowfert replied, "I was expecting your call."

  They exchanged pleasantries and
reviewed Shield Guard operations before Five questioned him on Six's theories of Earth.

  "One unarmed man willingly submitting to every restriction we placed on him hardly represents an army of oppression." Countered Krykowfert. "I tend to accept his story at face-value. He's a traveler, a curious tourist. Now, he may indeed be an agent of his people, but what is suspicious about that?"

  Five considered his views and pressed him about Mallick.

  "Leave him alone." Krykowfert offered. "He's been inactive since the take-overs, probably bogged down by the daily minutia of administrating the few settlements he controls. I doubt he'll develop a taste for it."

  "Because you understand his neuro-type?" Five asked. Krykowfert paused before answering.

  "Partly, yes. Mostly because I know your job, and wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy."

  Five broke contact just long enough to suppress a snicker. "This Mallick... Is this the neuro-aberrant quality you plan on transporting?"

  "Ye-es." Krykowfert feared the hesitation might reveal something he'd rather keep hidden. Five didn't push him. She had a planet to run - let technocrats deal with technicalities.

  "There are a variety of neurological qualities that make Legong, or any population, difficult to manage." Krykowfert felt the need to be honest with Five, more so than he might be with the others. "It is my goal to separate out these qualities."

  "The Council has not issued its opinion on this yet Tendaji. We will not stop your preparations, but we are not settled on the issue of Transportation."

  "Yes, Councilor. I understand."

  Five signed off and broke the connection, leaving Krykowfert alone in his little office, staring up at the Launch Rails, silent since Mallick's first destructive act. In their absence, his own fleet of what had come to be called K-ships buzzed about Central Command, slipping in and out of hangars, their number increasing with each day. Most were commandeered by Council Guard, ferrying troops and materials between settlements and out to the Earth Rip. He called for Feric. She entered, sitting beside him in the well-worn chairs.