by Paul Melko
The path to the village wound along the river’s edge. Once we passed a nearly stagnant tributary about two meters across. Strom, placing one boot in the muck, helped each of us across, half-tossing us to the far side. Then he jumped across himself, clearing the stream by half a meter.
The elevator blocked the morning sun for a moment, and then we came into the village, a conglomerate of ramshackle huts. No one was in sight until we reached a hut built on stilts. A man sat on the raised porch drinking from a rounded cup. He was old, with wispy white hair on a brown head. His belly sat on his thighs, which were covered in crimson shorts.
He looked at us with brown eyes as we approached, his face blank. When we reached his hut, he stared down at us from on high.
“Og flunks, huh? Og don’t need to come round here.”
Og?
O-G.
Overgovernment.
“We’re not from the Overgovernment, sir,” Meda said.
Not any more, I added.
“Yeah? Still Og flunks, eh?”
“We’re not OG flunkies. We want transport to Belem.”
“What ya want to go there for? Smells.”
Tell him.
“We’re trying to get to North America. We hope to find a ship to get us there.”
The old man laughed. “Ain’t no freighters in Belem. Why freighters stop at the Amazon? Gonna ship our water to North America? Ha!”
“There’s no ocean-going vessels to and from South America?” Meda asked.
I need a downlink, Quant sent. I need data!
The downlink would have given her better options for our trip to the Rockies. I began to realize how naïve we were.
“Maybe Rio. Yeah, probably Rio. Everyone live in Rio.”
“Except for you.”
He laughed again. “’Cept me and the rest of me brothers and sisters.”
“How can we get to North America?”
“By river. What else you think?”
But there’s no ships at Belem. The river won’t take us anywhere!
I guess we can go back up the elevator, Quant sent.
No! Meda sent quickly.
I glanced upriver. The fog was lifting, and the day was even more muggy than before. Upriver was more rain forest, thousands of kilometers of rain forest, until it reached the Andes.
The North-South Highway, I sent.
Of course! The highway went from old Calgary to Buenos Aires, ten thousand kilometers of multilane road for robotrucks. We could hitch a ride there.
“Can you take us to the Highway?”
“Highway, sure. We leave tomorrow!”
“Great.”
“As soon as you pay me.”
Great.
By noon, the village was awake. Fishing boats that had pushed off into the river before we’d come down the elevator returned laden with fish and sometimes caimans. The fishermen eyed us, but kept their distance. The women of the village went about their chores. The children, gap-toothed, skinny things, watched our every move, until Meda got annoyed and led us back to the elevator.
“What are we going to pay him with?” Meda asked. Our pod was too spread out for chemical thoughts, the air too thick with pollen and jungle odors.
Faintly from Quant, We can give him Strom.
“Sure,” chuckled Strom.
The little brown man had climbed down from the hut and disappeared into the jungle. “For supplies,” he said, leaving us standing in the middle of the village.
“How much do we pay him?”
“What sort of money do singletons use?”
We stopped at the base of the elevator, on the far side from the door.
They’re hunter-gatherers, a rain-forest tribe.
I doubt our credit chit means anything to him. Nor do we want to use it.
The air was still muggy in the shadow of the elevator.
Food, Strom sent.
If we give Strom to the old man, it would cut our food intake by half, Quant sent.
Fish, I think.
Strom cut a small sapling with his utility knife, passing it to me. I started sharpening the end. Strom cut another and passed it to Meda.
We walked down to the river and continued downstream until we reached a spot where the brown silt was sucked away as the water washed across a tree trunk. Meda climbed out across the tree and stood there, watching the river.
An image of the river as a wall of momentum flitted among us.
Quant took a point at the other end of the log, Moira upriver. Together, the three of them built a map of the river, triangulating ripples, bubbles, and flashes of silver scale. The river teamed with fish.
Strom and I stood with eyes closed, using the map built by the other three.
Strom threw first and speared a black catfishlike fish that he tossed onto the bank. It was thirty centimeters long, from tail to whiskers.
That’s Strom’s appetizer.
I cast my spear, and before long we had a dozen fish flopping on the bank.
It was a struggle to find dry wood for a fire; the rain forest and river soaked everything. We found a kind of reed near the river that burned easily and began cooking the fish on stones massed around the fast-burning fire.
“Maybe we can pay the old man in fish,” Meda said.
What’s that?
Quant had heard it first, and, when Meda pointed it out, identified it as an aircar.
Here, Strom sent. We huddled under a tree.
They’ll see the smoke.
They’ll think it’s a singleton fire.
The aircar moved across the sky at a moderate speed, from the south and the far side of the river, banking around the elevator once, and then north above the rain forest.
“Are they looking for us?”
They know where we’ve gone.
Food. Danger could not keep Strom’s stomach from growling.
The fish was flaky and pungent, the flesh marbled with grey splotches. It had an odd taste, but it filled our bellies.
We threw the carcasses into the river.
What was that?
The water seethed, then settled.
Caiman. Alligator. Piranha.
Meda shuddered. I’m glad I didn’t know that before I climbed out on that tree.
“What ya cooking?”
The old man peered at us from the bank.
“Catfish,” Meda said, holding up a half-eaten fillet.
“Shitfish,” the old man replied. “You got toilet paper?”
“Um.”
“Don’t use the lipo leaves. Worse than the shitfish.”
“What do you want to take us to the highway?”
“What you got?”
Strom held out his utility knife.
“Got one of those.”
Quant reluctantly unpinned her spider-head pin from her shirt and held it out to the man.
“Nah.”
“We don’t have anything.”
“Huh. Then I guess we don’t go. Besides, your friends in the aircar be here in the morning. They take care of you.”
“Aircar?”
“Yeah, they land at the field up there where it don’t flood. Then walk down.”
“We’d like to leave before they get here.”
“Nobody leaving if you don’t got nothing for me.”
The man giggled then sauntered away.
Let’s just take his boat, Quant sent.
No! Moira replied.
Just kidding.
Strom groaned. “I need a bathroom.”
“There’s one in the anchor building.”
I was closest to Meda and felt her reluctance to go back to the elevator, anything that had to do with the Ring. She clamped down on it fast. I placed a hand on her shoulder anyway.
Quant and I helped guide Strom, who was doubled over with stomach pain. We all felt a touch of it, a lingering of the intensity of his pain if not the pain itself. But Strom had eaten more of the fish than the rest of us; luckily none of us but h
e were sick.
The gate to the elevator garden opened to Meda’s interface, and we raced into the building, guiding Strom to a stall in the huge unisex bathroom, where he expelled his three-catfish lunch.
“Ugh,” he moaned.
He’ll need paper.
I checked the other stalls and each was empty of paper or anything to hold the paper. In fact the toilets looked nothing like the rounded bowls we were used to. They were sleek and flat, and seemingly too high. Interface jacks, one per stall, dangled behind each seat. Why not jack in when you’re taking a crap?
Nothing here. I’ll check the rest of the anchor.
The ramp sloped back up to the elevator itself, but there was nothing there either. The room below, off of which was the bathroom, was a large glass gallery. A dragonfly, forged of crystal, spread its wings some three meters across, and seemed to hover in the sunlight. I realized how chilly it was, even with the sun beating in through the glass. The air-conditioning still worked, but there was no toilet paper.
I walked behind the ramp and found an alcove of tables and chairs, centered around another glass sculpture. Beyond the alcove was a cabinet filled with glasses and plates. It seemed as if everyone had just left and would be returning for brunch. There was no dust, no cobwebs. The place had been robotically cleaned not long before. Waiting for the Community to come back.
I took a stack of towels for Strom and returned to the bathroom. Strom groaned his thanks.
I think I know what we can give the old man. I painted a picture of the glass sculptures.
Quant went outside and peered up at the crystal dragonfly. It weighs a few hundred kilos. We’ll never get it down.
How about the smaller one?
It’s theft! Moira sent.
From who? Meda replied.
Doesn’t matter. It’s not ours to give.
Meda tapped the base of her skull. I’m part of the Community.
You are not. You’re part of Apollo Papadopulos.
Stop it, I sent. If from anyone, we’re stealing from Malcolm Leto and I really don’t feel bad about that.
Moira sighed. Then we might as well steal something practical.
“We’d like to go as soon as possible,” Meda said. “Now.”
“You in a hurry, I know.” The brown man was cooking a fish over a fire, not one of the catfish, with its marbled fillets, but something white and flaky. He ripped chunks off the stick and spat out little bones. Strom eyed the fish and suppressed a spasm.
“We’ll give you this furniture.”
“Hm. Matching set. Late Community. No, thanks. Gotta rock in my hut.”
The sun was three quarters of the way down the sky; if we left now, we’d not have to face whoever was in the aircar we’d seen fly overhead.
Show him the sculpture.
“But do you have this?” Meda asked, holding the crystal sculpture so it caught the sun.
One of the other villagers said, “I’ll take you in my canoe!”
The old man spat at him, then turned back to Meda. “Nice, but—”
“You willing to take us right now?” Meda asked the other villager.
“You bet!”
“He doesn’t have an outboard motor!”
“But he’ll get us out right now.”
The old man glared at his rival, then nodded. “Fine. I want it all, though. And you have to carry it to the hut. I’m an old man, ya know.”
“Fine. But we go right now.”
“Okay. Deal.”
“Apollo Papadopulos!”
In an instant Strom took control. The rest of us shifted our stance, feeling Strom’s direction, to cover angles, to grip weapons, to search for escape and attack routes.
We spun on the voice, coming from the jungle toward the river. Quant was in the boat, Strom, Meda, Moira, and I on the dock. Strom stepped forward. At his direction, I searched the jungle for signs of another pod, but I saw nothing.
Trio. Armed. In OG uniform.
The villagers who had been helping load the boat stepped back as the trio approached.
“Stop!”
“We are stopped,” Meda said. She stood just behind Strom on the dock. “What do you want?”
The trio paused three meters from us, still on the riverbank, and stood stiffly with his hands on his pistols. One of him held a bound letter.
“I have your orders,” he said.
“I’ve resigned, didn’t you hear?”
“The OG doesn’t allow—” He steeled himself. “You must accept these orders.”
He’s bluffing, Strom assessed. He’s unwilling or unable to use his gun.
Behind them the old man—his name was Gueran, he’d said—was sitting in the bow of his boat. He pulled the starter handle a couple times, causing the motor to cough and spit. Finally it caught, and he gunned the throttle, pulling the ropes taut.
“You coming?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Please!” the trio said. “It’s Malcolm Leto!”
Strom let his control drift away; there was no danger from the trio.
In the boat, Meda sent.
We on the dock climbed into the boat, Strom last, slipping the last rope and pushing us away with his long legs. The trio watched us go, his hands twitching and touching. He came to some consensus and tossed the letter he was holding into the air. Quant watched its arc and sent, Nice throw.
It landed in the boat with a splat next to Meda. She looked at it, kicked it with her foot.
“We’ll have to avoid his aircar,” she said.
“No problem. Take four hours to get back. By then, we up the creek,” Gueran said.
Meda picked up the letter, twirled the ribbon in her finger.
Read it, Moira sent. Just to see.
Toss it, I sent.
Meda stood wobbly in the boat, pitched her arm back and skipped the letter across the Amazon. It bounced, three, four times, then caught a ripple and disappeared beneath the water, only to pop up a few meters from the trio.
“Not interested,” she shouted.
The trio shook his heads and watched us disappear up the river.
Gueran hummed a monotonous tune as he sluiced the boat up the river. He seemed vacant, but he avoided stumps and rocks before we could see them.
He has it memorized.
He’s lived here all his life, from before the Ring, through the Gene War, until now.
There were old pods, but none as old as Gueran.
The Amazon seemed sluggish, yet it pushed back at us so that we were only doing a few kilometers per hour, but it was enough to put the elevator farther and farther behind us. The jungle on the right side was uniform and dense. The left side was too far away to see and sometimes shrouded in mist.
“Caiman,” Gueran said once, as the boat slid past what we had thought was a log. One of the knobs on the log was a reptilian eye that blinked at us.
The only species of crocodile or alligator left alive.
Where many ecosystems were damaged or destroyed, the Amazon rain forest was vibrant. Fish broke the surface. Multicolored birds dashed through the air. In the trees, monkeys leaped or lounged. The sound at times was a cacophony.
“Where did you get the gas for your motor?” Meda asked.
He shrugged. “Gas station in Belem. Still a little in the bottom of the tanks. Go there once a year.”
“It’s illegal to burn gasoline.”
“You tell your Og on me, next time we see that trio back there,” he said with a laugh.
He has a point.
Strom studied the sky to the east. The elevator rose to a point then disappeared before it reached the Ring. Since we were nearly on the equator, the Ring crossed the sky directly overhead: a thin roof over our heads.
No sign of the aircar, he sent. Once the trio hiked back to the landing strip, he would catch up to the boat in minutes. We were less than twelve kilometers from the village.
An hour later, Gueran turned into a wide
tributary, as large as some major rivers, but dwarfed by the Amazon it fed. The jungle branched across the smaller river, forming a canopy that cooled the air and intensified the sound. We could see the bottom of this river; the water was clear, while the Amazon was brown and sludgy. Silver fish darted above the red rocks. Two hundred meters up the river was a sandbar that Gueran drove the boat onto. He pulled the motor up as the hull sizzled across sand and mud.
“We sleep here.”
“It’s still daylight. We could make another thirty kilometers today,” Meda said.
“We sleep here, now. Not tonight. Travel tonight. Listen.”
Aircar, Quant sent, hearing it first.
The jungle seemed to shirk back from the shrill sound, to go suddenly silent.
We caught a glimpse of it, sleek grey, skimming the river some one hundred meters up, its engines raising a ripple of water as it passed.
“They won’t see us at night,” Meda said.
“Yeah. Won’t see us, unless they have red eyes.”
Infrared, Quant sent.
“But we be one of a hundred heat sources on the river. Won’t hear us at all.”
He tied the boat off, then walked into the water.
“Look here,” he said to Strom, pointing into the water. “You catch these, okay? Don’t catch those. No TP out here, right?”
Strom nodded, and we all saw Strom’s image of the fish that were good to eat, longer versions of the silver ones. In the clear river, we would be able to spear some.
“I sleep, you wake me for dinner.”
With nightfall, the mosquitoes flocked to us in waves. Strom started a fire in the hopes that the smoke would force the flying vampires away, but it wasn’t enough to clear the sky.
I’m covered with bites! Meda sent, sitting by the fire, her arms wrapped around herself. She glanced over at Gueran, who slept in the boat, unperturbed by the swarm of bugs crawling over his face.
Aren’t they attracted to a particular wavelength of light? Quant asked. She was filleting a fish, dropping the guts onto a rock.
Infrared. The same wavelength a warm body exudes, Moira sent.
Then we just need to lower our temperature. Go swimming.
They’d just be on us when we came out, Meda sent.
I released a touch of baby pheromone, mocking Meda, and I was instantly doused in mosquitoes, trying to land on the pheromone ducts on my neck.
