Starfire a-2

by Charles Sheffield

  Deliberate provocation, designed to start an argument. Celine delayed her response, swiveling in her chair to add to her original first impression of the chamber. The floor was dust-free and clear of small objects. Cleaning machines would remove those, also the dust and dirt and spilled liquids. These machines — rolfes of the most primitive kind — were clearly in use here. Two moved across the room as she watched, little low-end servers no more than a foot long and a couple of inches off the floor. They would ignore large objects, or at most clean, lift, and replace them exactly.

  Part of the room had been partitioned off, and she could see the end of a bed through an opening in the waist-high barrier. There were no doors, beyond one that led through to the encircling area of dense vegetation. A heap of spare machine parts lay in disarray against the wall on the side opposite to the chained carnosaur. She recognized axles, gears, motors, gauges, and metal rods and pipes of many sizes. A bench nearby was a jumble of wrenches, saws, pliers, hammers, and pincers. Stacked against the wall next to that stood a stack of cages, each one the size of a large chest. Changes in light and dark behind narrow slits in the front of the cages showed something moving within, but Celine could not determine what it might be. Next to the chests, incongruously, stood an old-fashioned bicycle.

  “Do you ride that?”

  “Sure.” Rolfe had his eyes fixed on Celine, as intent and unblinking in his gaze as the tethered carnosaur. The communications unit on his desk was buzzing with an external call, but he took no notice. “Got to stay healthy, you know. Mens sana in corpore sano. A healthy mind in a healthy body.”

  Did he ride the bike down here, somewhere out there beyond the tangle of jungle? No. The whole thing was an obscure joke. Gordy Rolfe rode nothing. His face had the gray pallor of a man who shunned all forms of exercise. Furthermore, the bicycle sat in front of a dozen other anachronisms. Celine pointed to a radio that was not of this century, and from its appearance hardly of the last. “I suppose you use that, too.”

  “No. Too valuable. It’s a real rarity. The woman who sold it to me guaranteed that Noah used it for ship-to-shore.”

  “Why did you really agree to meet with me? You seem to have made up your mind that you won’t make more rolfes available on Sky City.”

  “I did so because I owe you a favor.”

  “I can’t think what.”

  “I’ve owed it to you for a long time. If you hadn’t come here, Pearl Lazenby might not have been captured. I might never have got my start in electronics, never been able to found the Argos Group.”

  “But you knew that so far as I was concerned, my visit here would be a waste of time. You’d already decided that you wouldn’t provide the rolfes.”

  “I never said that.”

  “Would you meet with Wilmer Oldfield and Astarte Vjansander, and hear what they have to say?”

  “Waste of time. I know what they told Nick Lopez. Crazy. Somebody out at Alpha Centauri decided humans were a nuisance, so they deliberately destroyed a whole stellar system and made an impossible supernova just to zap us. That about it?”

  “There’s more to it than that.” But it was disturbingly close to Star and Wilmer’s view.

  Rolfe was grinning down at her from his perch on the chair arm. “I’m sure there’s more. I don’t need to hear it, because the whole idea is pure bullshit. You may believe it, but on this one you’re the person who’s not rational.

  And I’ll tell you why you’re not. Fucking scrambles the brain, and you used to fuck old Wilmer.”

  Celine wanted to say, How on earth do you know that? Her second thought, That was nearly thirty years ago! was not much better.

  She said, “What about Nick Lopez? He heard Wilmer, and he believed him. Are you telling me Lopez fucked Wilmer Oldfield, too?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him. But I think he’s more interested in fucking Oldfield’s little black chippie Vjansander, even though she’s female. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  Celine stood up. “I’m leaving. I have work to do. This is a stupid waste of time.”

  “Maybe not. Sit down. Forget who’s screwing who, and what I believe and don’t believe. I might be willing to provide what you say you need — if the terms are right.”

  “What terms? Money?”

  “No — though I do run a business.” Rolfe strained forward, eyes gleaming. In intensity there was little to choose between the eager man and the carnosaur heaving at its chain. “I do want something, and it’s not money. Get it for me, and you’ll have rolfes for Sky City. All the rolfes you want.”

  “Why didn’t you ask Lopez? He controls more of the world’s resources than I do.”

  “Not this particular resource. I want land — this land, here where we sit and all around us. From ground level to the center of the Earth. I’m willing to pay, but the United States has to deed it to me for my lifetime plus fifty years.”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “That’s my business. But I have to be totally outside U.S. laws and U.S. justice. I must be able to do what I like, on it and in it — and with whatever lies within it.”

  Celine glanced at the chained carnosaur. Genetic combination work of that kind was not easy. Within the United States it was also tightly controlled and monitored. If Gordy Rolfe had performed the gene mix himself, without licenses or oversight, he was already in violation of a score of statutes. Celine could remember no recent applications for similar experiments.

  But why not go offshore, to any of a dozen Golden Ring labs that would happily do the work and deliver the results?

  Because a crippled, wizened man enjoyed playing God? That she could believe. But she suspected a stronger motive. This underground stronghold was where Gordy Rolfe had been raised. It was his home, his fortress, his sanctuary. He wanted a guarantee that he could never be made to leave, for any reason.

  “How much land are we talking about?”

  “A circle of four miles, centered on the schoolhouse. There are no occupied houses, and I have checked ownership. Every landowner has already agreed to sell. The Argos Group is ready to make final purchase.”

  “I assume you realize that you can’t be outside U.S. jurisdiction unless you are counted as a foreign territory. That’s difficult to arrange legally.”

  “Difficult, but it happens all the time.”

  “Between countries, not individuals.”

  “I don’t want you telling me how hard it is. I’m telling you how it has to be. You get me the land, you get more and better rolfes. Otherwise, forget it.”

  An independent country, completely surrounded by a single other country. There were precedents. Lesotho. Vatican City. More recently, Basque and Kurdistan. The area that Rolfe was demanding was tiny, but the political problems would be immense. Even the Indian nations on U.S. territory were subject to most U.S. laws. Celine began a mental count of the different Cabinet-level departments involved: State, Commerce, Interior, Agriculture, Defense, Transportation. After six she gave up. Congress would have to agree, and that might be the biggest hurdle. If it could be done at all, it would probably take years.

  “I don’t know. The best I can promise you is that I’ll try. But it won’t happen overnight.” There was the understatement of the century. “Nothing in government happens fast.”

  “One reason I’d never work there.”

  “We need the rolfes at once.”

  “Then you’re lucky I’m not the government. I’m willing to deliver. And I’m willing to wait for your part.”

  Celine stared at him in amazement. “Are you implying that you’ll make the rolfes available?”

  “Sounds like it, don’t you think?” Rolfe lifted himself laboriously from the arm of the chair and wandered away behind the desk. “You do your bit,” he said over his shoulder, “and I’ll arrange a first shipment for three days from now. One other thing, though. These rolfes will have new circuits in them, still unprotected by patents. You tell your people to keep their han
ds off. No opening up. No examination of the entrails.”

  “I see no difficulty with that.”

  “Then we’re all settled.”

  “You don’t want something in writing from me?”

  “Saying what?” He was lifting a cage from the stack, picking it up as though it was almost too heavy for him. Why didn’t he tell the rolfes to lift it?

  He went on, “Suppose you did give me a piece of paper. What could you say? ’I, Celine Tanaka, promise to do my best to get for Gordy Rolfe the land that he wants.’ That’s not worth shit in a court of law. You know it. But it’s all you can offer.”

  “I will do my best.”

  “And I’m accepting that you will. So everything’s fine.”

  Celine doubted that. Everything had been too easy. What had she missed? Rolfe went on, as though the discussion of rolfes and land rights was over and done with, “While you’re here I want to show you something. See what I’ve got?”

  The communications center was buzzing again to indicate an incoming call. He continued to ignore it. He turned a knob on the top of the cage and the slits on its front widened. Celine saw white whiskers and a pink questing nose.

  “It’s — a rat.” She felt ridiculous. “Isn’t it?”

  “Sort of. Actually, it’s a hundred and twenty rats.” He lifted the cage with a great effort and carried it toward the leashed carnosaur. He paused out of reach, lowered the cage, and carefully pushed it forward. The scaly head dipped to peer in through the slits and the creature snuffled noisily.

  Gordy Rolfe nodded approvingly. “The rats haven’t been fed for a long time. Neither has the minirex. Rats are one of his favorite foods. If he could get at them, they’d be doomed. Small mammal against big dinosaur. A one-pounder against a ninety-pound meat-eater. You’d think the mammal would have no chance. Agreed?”

  Celine said nothing. If Gordy Rolfe was losing his sanity, he might have any unspeakable thing in mind.

  “No opinion?” Rolfe asked. “Well, let’s find out.”

  “Whatever it is, I don’t want to see it,” Celine said loudly.

  Rolfe took no notice. He touched a series of buttons on a device clipped to the belt of his jumpsuit. The green restraining muzzle on the carnosaur clicked open and fell to the ground. The animal leaned back on its thick haunches and opened its mouth wide. The tongue appeared — a gleaming leathery strip of black with a delicate forked end. Inch-long white teeth stood out against the mottled red-and-black background of the roof of the mouth.

  Celine resisted the urge to back away. The carnosaur was still safely held by the thick chain. But it was strong. When it lowered its head and butted at the front of the cage, the solid frame dented.

  “He really wants those rats,” Rolfe said happily. “He can smell them, and he knows they’re his dinner. You’d be a candidate for dinner, too, if he could get at you.”

  His fingers were again at the controller on his belt. There was a whirring of an electric motor and the front of the cage lifted. A single gray rat darted out and paused, a front paw raised. Before it could move, the minisaur swooped. It rose with the rat impaled on its long teeth, squeaking and wriggling in agony. Blood ran down the blunt jaw. The minisaur’s head snapped back sharply. The rat was tossed in the air, caught, and swallowed in a single gulp.

  “You might expect the rest of the rats to huddle in the cage,” Rolfe said cheerily. He moved a little closer to Celine. “Or maybe you think they ought to come out and try to run away. That seems like the smart thing to do. The minirex is so much bigger and stronger than they are, it outmasses all of them put together. Worse than that, their teeth can’t penetrate the armored scales. And the minirex can only reach to the limit of its chain. What would you do, Madam President, if you were the rats? Would you run away?”

  Celine was too fascinated and horrified to answer. There was a moment of utter stillness, then the rats emerged all at once from the cage and moved across the floor like a gray tide. Rather than fleeing from the minisaur they were heading straight at it.

  The saurian took a step back, so that the chain did not hamper its movements. The great head dipped and came up with two rats between its jaws. The minisaur growled, crunched, and swallowed. By that time the wave of rats had reached the taloned feet. They swarmed up the powerful tail and thick legs, heading for the belly and the head.

  The carnosaur gave a deep, coughing roar. It flailed its tail violently from side to side, hurling a dozen rats away in all directions. A couple hit the wall and dropped maimed or unconscious, but the rest landed, turned, and at once headed back. By that time another score of rats had climbed as far as the softer wrinkled leather of the neck and were clinging there with teeth and claws. A shake of the head dislodged many, but half a dozen held on tenaciously. The short, withered arms of the carnosaur reached up to claw most of them away.

  But not all. A rat at the back of the scaled neck was able to hold on through another shake of the head, climb higher, and claw its way forward until it reached an eye. It tried to sink its teeth into the eyelid, but it was batted away at the last moment by a forearm. Rats lay strewn on all sides, limbs and backs broken.

  The carnosaur roared its blood lust and defiance, and ducked low to grab and swallow a crippled rat.

  “Too soon for a victory feast, my friend,” Rolfe said softly. “They’re coming again. Watch out now.”

  Another rat had bitten into the softer hide below the chin and held on through all the shaking of head and body. When the carnosaur raised its head to roar again, the rat scampered up the side of the head, plunged its fangs into a ridge of scaly tissue above the eye, and clawed at the delicate surface of the left eye with its forepaws.

  The carnosaur reached up and knocked the rat clear, but its left eye was bloody. At the same time another tormentor had found the right eye. It bit ferociously into the eyelid, hung with its weight supported by its fangs, and scrabbled with taloned paws at the eye itself. It too was brushed away by a forearm, but another bleeding wound was left behind.

  Meanwhile, a horde of rats had climbed the legs and converged on the softest part of the belly. They hung there, tearing at the leathery skin and at the area of the hidden genitals.

  The carnosaur could not see them or catch them easily with its short forearms. They tore and chewed, opening a three-inch tear in the skin that widened with every bite. In agony, the carnosaur crouched low on its hind legs and shook like a dog emerging from water.

  It was less effective than before. The rats were learning. When the shaking began they gave up any attempt to deepen the wound and waited, clinging with fangs and claws. As soon as the shaking stopped they went back to work. Any thrown clear that could still move ran back and began another ascent of the living mountain. Their goal was the soft belly and neck, but they bit as they climbed, stripping off scales and gnawing at the skin beneath.

  The carnosaur collapsed, flat onto its back. Most of the rats were quick enough to dash clear, but an unlucky half-dozen were squashed beneath the leathery body and the hard floor.

  “Not a great move,” Rolfe said softly. “I wouldn’t have done that if I were you. Get up, or you’ve lost.”

  The rats were much quicker than their opponent. While the minisaur still struggled to roll over so that its powerful tail and legs could lift it upright, the rats attacked again. Thirty of them went for the mouth and belly and genitals. A dozen others took advantage of the change in the carnosaur’s position and tackled the head, ripping at the eyelids and at the exposed surface of the eyes themselves.

  The carnosaur at last reared upright, but it was damaged. It possessed plenty of energy and defiance, but now it gave up any attempt to eat the rats. It tried only to dislodge them from its body and trample them beneath its powerful feet. Blood and aqueous humor was oozing from the torn eyes. More blood ran freely from a severed vein low on the belly, where the wall of the abdomen had been broached. A gray bulge of intestine was visible. The rats tugged at that with
their fangs, pulling it farther, tearing pieces off and swallowing them.

  Celine stared in horror. “They’re eating it alive.”

  “Yeah. What did you expect them to do? Kill it, cook it, and wait for steak sauce?” Rolfe was edging close, as close as he could without coming within striking range of the carnosaur. The animal had begun a low growl of anguish.

  Celine’s feelings about the minisaur changed from fear to pity. “Shoot it. You must have some way to kill it quickly.” She wished she had brought a gun herself — every one of her security detail carried weapons, she could have borrowed one easily. “You can’t let it suffer like that.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Rolfe was smiling. “Go in and strangle it, the sort of mercy killing you offer to somebody being burned at the stake? You can try that if you want to. I won’t. I hate to work with my hands.” He held up his blackened fingers.

  “Then shoot it. This is horrible.”

  “I don’t keep guns here.” He was studying the carnosaur. “Anyway, it won’t be long now. The small mammals always beat the dinosaurs.”

  Eyeless and partly eviscerated, with bleeding wounds all around the neck and mouth, the beast still stood upright, but it was terribly wounded. As Celine watched, a rat wriggled out from a gaping hole in the belly. The rodent was smeared all over with blood and carried an eight-inch length of greasy intestine in its mouth. It dropped to the floor and hurried away.

  “Even if you don’t have a gun, there must be a way to kill it.” Celine stared around, looking for anything that might serve as a knife, a club, a spear.

  The floor of the chamber close to the carnosaur was a nightmare of blood and guts and dying rats. She dared not go too near. The blinded beast was sinking forward, unsteady on its legs. The uninjured rats knew. Now that the fight was over they stood at a safe distance, quietly waiting. The animal was still dangerous. The jaws, covered with a froth of saliva, snapped at imaginary enemies. The powerful tail thrashed the floor, flattening any rat too injured to crawl clear. Celine got the message: Pity it, but do not go near it.