by Steve Perry
There was no sense of time in the augmentation flux, the flow could be a minute, an hour, an eon. It was as in-the-moment as zhe could be, and it never got old.
Formentara blinked and looked at hir system’s time sig. Fifty-six minutes.
That was excellent. Better than zhe expected.
Once again, zhe had gone into the Void and become, at least on a small scale, God. Time to wake Sims up and see if it worked. Zhe raised the oxy level and gave her a squirt of stimulant.
“Jo.”
“I’m getting dressed, Mum, I’ll be down in a minute!”
“Jo.”
Sims blinked up at her. Focused. “Ah. How did it go?”
“Perfectly.”
“Can I try it?”
“That would be good.”
Jo sat up.
~ * ~
Once she had calmed her rage, Kay was left with a question. She went to Cutter Colonel’s office.
“A few moments of your time?” she said.
“Come on in.”
She sat on the hard chair in front of his desk and considered her approach. She was not an expert in human communications though she was more adept than most of her kind. How best to begin so as not to sound as if she were challenging her leader?
“You are wondering how we located you after you were taken,” he said, cutting to the heart of the matter.
That surprised her. “Indeed. I was not followed from the base. My com was left at the scene of the attack, and thus of no use. It is possible that cameras recorded the vehicle and that was somehow tracked, but that seems unlikely.”
“You have an internal tracker,” he said. “Surreptitiously administered and inert until remotely triggered.”
Her immediate reaction was a flash of anger that threatened to erupt into an attack. She held herself in check. He was her leader. “The Vastalimi do not hold with such devices.”
“I know.”
“And yet you had it done in spite of that.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The end in this case justifies the means.”
“I had the encounter under control.”
“So you did. We did not know that. You are a valuable employee. We would prefer to keep you alive.”
“Was this not my choice?”
“Yes and no.”
“Explain.”
“You signed a waiver when you contracted with CFI.”
“I do not recall that the contract specified I was to be given such a thing.”
“It was worded very carefully and unlikely you would have noticed. A reference to another lettered and numbered reference: ‘Pursuant to Subsection Alpha-Theta Seven, the corporation reserves the right to employ such technology as specified in Codex Delta for the health maintenance and welfare of its employees.’”
“I thought that referred to medical treatment in case of illness or injury.”
“That’s what you were supposed to think. It’s buried in the fine print list of devices, and IDed only by a model number.”
“So you legally had the right to do this.”
“Yes.”
“But it was a deliberate, devious ploy to subvert Vastalimi objections.”
“It was.” He paused. “You are one of us, Kay. A solider, a warrior, as much a member of the unit as anybody. We don’t let our people die if we can help it, nor go missing without some recourse. We would have spent as much time and energy as necessary to find you, and that would have subverted our primary mission to some degree. Better that we knew where to look.”
“I see. I understand your position if I do not agree with it.”
“I thought you would.”
“When the contract expires, if we renegotiate it, that clause will be removed, or I will not endorse it. Our association will end.”
“Okay.”
“And I will have the tracker removed. If our medic will not do it, I will find one who will. Along with any other devices I may have hidden within me.”
“All right. I understand.”
She stood. “You do not. You think this is some superstitious alien taboo, that there is no valid reason for the Vastalimi to routinely refuse much of what humans consider benign medical technology.”
He didn’t say anything, which she took as verification of her statement.
“It is impossible to explain to one who is not of us, but it is as much a part of our psychology and spirituality as your innate curiosity. It speaks to who we as a people are, and how we feel about ourselves and our place in the cosmos. You do not have to understand it, but it will be respected.”
He nodded.
She left.
~ * ~
After she was gone, Gramps came in. “How’d she take it?”
“I’m still alive. There was a moment when I wondered if I might not continue to be.”
Gramps chuckled.
~ * ~
Jo stood on her right foot, her left tucked against her supporting leg just above the knee, her eyes shut.
“Five minutes,” Formentara said. “That’s enough. Try the hop.”
Jo nodded. She bent her supporting knee slightly, pushed off and lifted a few centimeters above the floor. In the air, she switched feet, put her left down, landed in balance, brought her right foot to rest on the left leg.
All with her eyes still closed.
Not even a wobble.
“Wow!” she said.
“You think?” Formentara laughed. Zhe was pleased, Jo could tell, and why wouldn’t zhe be? This was a big deal, this new aug.
SPK, Formentara called it.
Somatic Proprioceptive Kinetics.
Anybody with even moderate physicality could stand on one foot for a few minutes. But close their eyes? A fit, trained person of twenty-five might manage forty or fifty seconds. The older you got, the less you could do. At her age, thirty seconds would be unusually good. A woman of sixty? The average was seven seconds; at seventy? Four seconds.
Jo had done five minutes, and not a tremble. That was amazing. As was the in-air switch. Her balance was perfect, and she felt it.
Not that there was a lot of call for standing on one foot in the dark, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.
Jo was aware of her entire body, what was where, how gravity worked on it, and what she could do. She could freeze in midstep, knew exactly how much space was between her and the walls, the ceiling, Formentara, and every stick of furniture in the room, even with her vision off-line.
It was a real sixth sense. In a hand-to-hand situation, having that much of a center would be a real advantage.
“Open your eyes.”
Jo obeyed. “I could get a job walking a high wire in a traveling circus,” she said.
“Walking? You should be able to run on a wire at full speed and do a tumbling run, with the aug lit. Shut it off for a second.”
Jo did. “Whoa! I feel as if I’m going to fall over.”
‘That will pass.”
In a couple of seconds, the sensation ebbed. “I still feel like a cow trying to balance on stilts. Like the first time I came out of the O/O and felt as if I were going blind and deaf.”
“That’s the price.”
Jo nodded. She knew. That was part of the reason that augmented folk tended to have shorter lives. The enhanced senses, the superhuman abilities, they were addictive, a seductive, nearly irresistible drug. Once they were lit, you didn’t want to extinguish them. If you didn’t have the discipline to flip the off switch, you’d burn yourself out, even if the balance in your system was as well regulated as Formentara could make it.
“This is terrific,” Jo said. “Thank you.”
“Yeah, well, keep it to yourself. When we get back to civilization, I’ll probably put it on the market, but I might want to tinker with it a little more before the commercial version.”
“Not a word,” Jo said.
“And you must use these powers wisely, my child.”
> They both grinned.
~ * ~
“Rags, you have a caller waiting.”
“Uh-huh. And ... ?”
“He’s on the limited-access opchan, and he’s not somebody who is supposed to have the access code.”
Cutter looked at Gramps. “Really?”
“His ID is a cutout. He won’t say who he is, wants your ears only.”
“Well, let’s have a chat with him, shall we?
“Cutter here.”
“Greetings, Colonel.”
The voice, on speaker, sounded masculine, but that didn’t mean much, given the state-of-the-art voxware you could pick up in any large market. A twenty-year-old Rel fem could be made to sound like an eighty-year-old human male, with a different accent and a lisp, and there were versions slick enough to alter speech patterns to match, less than a millisecond’s delay, so that even colloquial phrases wouldn’t give the game away.
Cutter waited for five seconds, then said, “You called me.”
“Indeed I did. You seek Ramal’s daughter, Indira.”
“Yes. Do you have her?”
“No. And I do not yet know who does.”
“And why are we having this conversation?”
“Because I know who does not have her.”
“I’m still listening.”
“The Thakore of Balaji is no more than a convenient scapegoat.”
“And you know this how?”
“I have ... a close association with Thakore Luzor.”
“And you are telling me that he had nothing to do with Indira’s kidnapping.”
“This is so.”
“I have to ask: Could it be you are offering this because the Rajah of Pahal’s son is about to lead an invasion into Balaji? Do you think I can call him off, based on this?”
There was a pause, and maybe a quiet sigh. Then: “Rama Jadak is an idiot, full of wind and fury, which he expels constantly from both ends. He abuses the help, he is a kicker of innocent dogs. I doubt he would listen if both Vishnu and Shiva materialized, put their hands on your shoulders, and vouched for you. His motives are impure.”
“How so?”
“He has been looking for an excuse to attack Balaji. Wars are expensive, they cost taxes and lives, the populace is not quick to embrace them. But what man would begrudge a royal son trying to save his bride from dishonor or death? Such things stir a nation’s blood. We remember the Ramayana, which features the mythological Rama, and speaks to this very thing.
“The heir to the Rajah’s throne in Pahal could not manage it alone, but his father-in-law-to-be will have to honor his end of the mutual aid pact between the two countries. And how could he not? It is his daughter. The result will be bloody and costly, and in the end, will not achieve the stated goal of returning Indira.”
Cutter thought about that for a second. “Suppose for a second that I believe you. What would you have me do?”
“No more than you are already doing. Continue your search. Just bear in mind that attention to the Thakore will be a waste of your time and resources. If the Thakore finds her before you do—and be assured we are looking—he will send her to her father in the royal yacht.”
“Really?”
“I guarantee it.”
After the caller discommed, Cutter looked at Gramps. “What do you think?”
Gramps shrugged. “Intrigue on these backlane planets is thicker than bird turd on a park statue. Can’t tell who’s lying without a program, and even then, you’d want your best guy running the stress analyzer to double-check. Could be just like the caller said. Could be he just wants to throw us off the track. I don’t see how anything changes.”
Cutter nodded. True enough. But it did bring up an interesting line of inquiry.
~ * ~
TWENTY
Because she had been taken unawares before, Kay was determined it would not happen again; more, this time when she went looking for the Rel who could tell her where to find yet another Rel, she was not alone. Jo Captain and Gunny, along with a squad of CFFs best had her back, and woe to any who stood in their way.
It was the smart thing to do. Not that she liked doing it.
Investigation into the men who had captured her proved less than useful. They had names and background available, but the men were, as far as they could tell, low-level thugs. Since they were all dead, that would not provide much in the way of intel. Presumably, they had kin, and those relatives could be determined, then questioned, but that was, Kay felt, a low-percentage option.
The neighborhood in which the Rel supposedly resided was more upscale than Kay had expected. Rel tended to herd together, sometimes a dozen to a plex, and all they needed was a cool and humid place. They mostly slept when they weren’t working or socializing, and they didn’t need much in the way of bedding since they tended to clump together, back to front, or side to side. They didn’t spend much money on living quarters, but this place was new and, from its look, not cheap.
Herd mentality, that social structure. Repugnant, too.
Kay approached the entrance to the plex. Jo, Gunny, and the troops stayed back, ready to move, but they’d only come in on her signal. Better she talk to the Rel alone. Arriving with a group of armed soldiers would not strengthen her in the eyes of prey.
“Who calls?”
Kay gave her proper name. “I seek Zeth of the Hallows.”
“He is not here.”
“Then I would speak with his sibling Booterik.”
“A moment.”
The door slid open, and a single Rel stood there. A male, and his decorations muted, mostly dull blues with hints of purple.
“You are Booterik.”
“I am. You may enter.”
Kay smiled. “May I? How kind of you.”
She walked into the place, following the Rel as he waddled ahead of her. It was clean, neat, not much in the way of furniture. Dim, damp, cool—a relief from the tropical heat outside.
Something was wrong with the smell, and it took her a second to realize what it was: There wasn’t any scent of fear from the Rel. None.
And he was alone.
How interesting.
“Why do you wish to speak to Zeth?”
“My business and his.”
“And mine. I am his elder sibling.”
She regarded the Rel. This Booterik was insolent, at the very least impertinent. Something was wrong with him, that he would dare speak to a Vastalimi thus.
Carefully, she inhaled, searching for something in his scent. Drugs, perhaps. Chemical bravery? She couldn’t detect any such.
Madness?
Kay resisted the urge to open his belly with her claws. She was here for information. If this being could provide it, he could go on with his life, such a sad thing that it was.
“Zeth gave me information regarding the whereabouts of the Rajah’s daughter, who has been kidnapped.”
“And ... ?”
“His information was inaccurate.”
“Allow me to apologize in his stead. I am sure this was not done deliberately to deceive.”
“Are you?”
Booterik moved to a cushioned chair and sat upon it. He gestured at a similar seat across from him. “Sit if you wish.”
Kay glanced around but sensed no threat. They were, as far as she could tell, alone, just the two of them. But she remained standing. Not wise to sit in the presence of prey behaving thusly.
“Zeth is not the smartest among us, but he is not given to deliberate falsehood. Especially to ...” He trailed off, waving a hand in her direction.
She understood that well enough. Especially not to a predator who would as soon kill you and eat you as look at you.
“I look forward to his explanation,” she said.
“Unfortunately, you will not be able to hear it from him directly. He has ... left this world. He departed yesterday.”
“Where would his destination be?”
“Far, far away.” Booter
ik smiled. “Where you won’t ever be able to find him.”
