Aces Abroad wc-4

by George R. R. Martin

  I can't claim to have made much of an impression unfortunately. When I was through, Downs simply rolled his eyes and said, "You people are so damned touchy." He tried to be accommodating by telling me that if this story went over big, maybe he'd write up a sequel on the strongest joker in the world, and he couldn't comprehend why that "concession" made me even angrier. And they wonder why we people are touchy…

  Howard thought the whole argument was vastly amusing. Sometimes I wonder about him.

  Actually my fit of pique was nothing compared to the reaction the magazine drew from Billy Ray, our security chief. Ray was one of the other aces mentioned in passing, his strength dismissed as not being truly "major league." Afterward he could be heard the length of the plane, suggesting that maybe Downs would like to step outside with him, seeing as how he was so minor league. Digger declined the offer. From the smile on his face I doubt that Carnifex will be getting any good press in Aces anytime soon.

  Since then, Ray has been grousing about the story to anyone who will listen. The crux of his argument is that strength isn't everything; he may not be as strong as Braun or Jones, but he's strong enough to take either of them in a fight, and he'd be glad to put his money where his mouth is.

  Personally I have gotten a certain perverse satisfaction out of this tempest in a 'teapot. The irony is, they are arguing about who has the most of what is essentially a minor power.

  I seem to recall that there was some sort of demonstration in the early seventies, when the battleship New Jersey was being refitted at the Bayonne Naval Supply Center over in New Jersey. The Turtle lifted the battleship telekinetically, got it out of the water by several feet, and held it there for almost half a minute. Braun and Jones lift tanks and toss automobiles about, but neither could come remotely close to what the Turtle did that day.

  The simple truth is, the contractile strength of the human musculature can be increased only so much. Physical limits apply. Dr. Tachyon says there may also be limits to what the human mind can accomplish, but so far they have not been reached.

  If the Turtle is indeed a joker, as many believe, I would find this irony especially satisfying.

  I suppose I am, at base, as small a man as any.

  THE TINT OF HATRED

  Part Four

  THURSDAY, JANUARY 1, 1987, SOUTH AFRICA:

  The evening was cool. Beyond the hotel's wide veranda, the crumpled landscape of the Bushveld Basin seemed pastoral. The last light of the day edged grassy hills with lavender and burnt orange; in the valley the sluggish Olifants's brown waters were touched with gold. Among the stand of acacias lining the river monkeys settled to sleep with occasional hooting calls.

  Sara looked at it and felt nausea. It was so damn beautiful, and it hid such a sickness.

  There had been enough trouble even keeping the delegation together in the country. The planned New Year's celebration had been wrecked by jet lag and the hassles of getting into South Africa. When Father Squid, Xavier Desmond, and Troll had tried to eat with the others in Pretoria, the head waiter had refused to seat them, pointing to a sign in both English and Afrikaans: WHITES ONLY. "We don't serve blacks, coloreds, or jokers," he insisted.

  Hartmann, Tachyon, and several of the other high-ranking members of the delegation had immediately protested to the Botha government; a compromise had been reached. The delegation was given the run of a small hotel on the Loskop Game Preserve; isolated, they could intermingle if they wished. The government had let it be known that they also found the idea distasteful.

  When they had finally popped the champagne corks, the wine had tasted sour in all their mouths.

  The junket had spent the afternoon at a ramshackle kraal, actually little more than a shantytown. There they'd seen firsthand the double-edged sword of prejudice: the new apartheid. Once it had been a two-sided struggle, the Afrikaners and the English against the blacks, the colored, and the Asians. Now the jokers were the new Uitlanders, and both white and black spat upon them. Tachyon had looked at the filth and squalor of this jokertown, and Sara had seen his noble, sculptured face go white with rage; Gregg had looked ill. The entire delegation had turned on the National Party officials who had accompanied them from Pretoria and begun to rail at the conditions here.

  The officials spouted the approved line. This is why we have the Prohibition of Mixed Marriages Act, they said, pointedly ignoring the jokers among the group. Without strict separation of the races we will only produce more jokers, more colored, and we're sure none of you want that. This is why there's an Immorality Act, a Prohibition of Political Interference Act. Let us do things our way, and we will take care of our own problems. Conditions are bad, yes, but they are getting better. You've been swayed by the African/jokers National Congress. The AJNC is outlawed, their leader Mandela is nothing more than a fanatic, a troublemaker. The AJNC has steered you to the worst encampment they could find-if the doctor, the senators, and their colleagues had only stayed with our itinerary, you would have seen the other side of the coin.

  All in all, the year had begun like hell.

  Sara put a foot up on the railing, lowered her head until it rested on her hands, and stared at the sunset. Everywhere. Here you can see the problems so easily, but it's not really different. It's been horrible everywhere whenever you look past the surface.

  She heard footsteps, but didn't turn around. The railing shuddered as someone stood next to her. "Ironic, isn't it, how lovely this land can be." Gregg's voice.

  "Just what I was thinking," Sara said. She glanced at him, and he was staring out at the hills. The only other person on the veranda was Billy Ray, reclining against the railing a discreet distance away.

  "There are times when I wish the virus were more deadly, that it had simply wiped the planet clean of us and started over," Gregg said. "That town today…" He shook his head. "I read the transcript you phoned in. It brought back everything. I started to get furious all over again. You've a gift for making people respond to what you're feeling, Sara. You'll do more in the long run that I will. Maybe you can do something to stop prejudice; here, and with people like Leo Barnett back home."

  "Thanks." His hand was very near hers. She touched it softly with her own; his fingers snared hers and didn't let her go. The emotions of the day, of the entire trip, were threatening to overwhelm her; her eyes stung with tears. "Gregg," she said very softly, "I'm not sure I like the way I feel."

  "About today? The jokers?"

  She took a breath. The failing sun was warm on her face. "That, yes." She paused, wondering if she should say more. "And about you too," she added at last.

  He didn't say anything. He waited, holding her hand and watching the nightfall. "It's changed so fast, the way I've seen you," Sara continued after a time. "When I thought that you and Andrea…" She paused, her breath trembling. "You care, you hurt when you see the way people are treated. God, I used to detest you. I saw everything that Senator Hartmann did in that light. I saw you as false and empty of compassion. Now that's gone, and I watch your face when you talk about the jokers and what we have to do to change things, and…"

  She pulled him around so that they faced each other. She looked up at him, not caring that he'd see that she'd been crying. "I'm not used to holding things inside. I like it when everything's out in the open, so forgive me if this isn't something I should say. Where you're concerned, I think I'm very vulnerable, Gregg, and I'm afraid of that."

  "I don't intend to hurt you, Sara." His hand came up to her face. Softly he brushed moisture from the corner of her eyes." Then tell me where we're heading, you and I. I need to know what the rules are."

  "I…" He stopped. Sara, watching his face, saw an inner conflict. His head came down; she felt his warm, sweet breath on her cheek. His hand cupped her chin. She let him lift her face up, her eyes closing.

  The kiss was soft and very gentle. Fragile. Sara turned her face away, and he brought her to him, pressing her body to his. "Ellen.. ." Sara began.

  "S
he knows," Gregg whispered. His fingers brushed her hair. "I've told her. She doesn't mind."

  "I didn't want this to happen."

  "It did. It's okay," he told her.

  She pushed away from him and was glad when he simply let her go. "So what do we do about it?"

  The sun had gone behind the hills; Gregg was only a shadow, his features barely visible to her. "It's your decision, Sara. Ellen and I always take a double suite; I use the second room as my office. I'm going there now. If you want, Billy will bring you up. You can trust him, no matter what anyone's told you about him. He knows how to be discreet."

  For a moment, his hand stroked her cheek. Then he turned, walking quickly away. Sara watched him speak briefly to Ray, and then he went through the doors into the hotel's lobby. Ray remained outside.

  Sara waited until full darkness had settled over the valley and the air had begun to cool from the day's heat, knowing that she'd already made the decision but not certain she wanted to follow it through. She waited, half looking for some sign in the African night. Then she went to Ray. His green eyes, set disturbingly off-line in an oddly mismatched face, seemed to look at her appraisingly.

  "I'd like to go upstairs," she said.

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF XAVIER DESMOND

  JANUARY 16/ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA:

  A hard day in a stricken land. The local Red Cross representatives took some of us out to see some of their famine relief efforts. Of course we'd all been aware of the drought and the starvation long before we got here, but seeing it on television is one thing, and being here amidst it is quite another.

  A day like this makes me acutely aware of my own failures and shortcomings. Since the cancer took hold of me, I've lost a good deal of weight (some unsuspecting friends have even told me how good I look), but moving among these people made me very self-conscious of the small paunch that remains. They were starving before my eyes, while our plane waited to take us back to Addis Ababa… to our hotel, another reception, and no doubt a gourmet Ethiopian meal. The guilt was overwhelming, as was the sense of helplessness.

  I believe we all felt it. I cannot conceive of how Hiram Worchester must have felt. To his credit he looked sick as he moved among the victims, and at one point he was trembling so badly he had to sit in the shade for a while by himself. The sweat was just pouring off him. But he got up again afterward, his face white and grim, and used his gravity power to help them unload the relief provisions we had brought with us.

  So many people have contributed so much and worked so hard for the relief effort, but here it seems like nothing. The only realities in the relief camps are the skeletal bodies with their massive swollen bellies, the dead eyes of the children, and the endless heat pouring down from above onto this baked, parched landscape.

  Parts of this day will linger in my memory for a long time-or at least as long a time as I have left to me. Father Squid gave the last rites to a dying woman who had a Coptic cross around her neck. Peregrine and her cameraman recorded much of the scene on film for her documentary, but after a short time she had had enough and returned to the plane to wait for us. I've heard that she was so sick she lost her breakfast.

  And there was a young mother, no more than seventeen or eighteen surely, so gaunt that you could count every rib, with eyes incredibly ancient. She was holding her baby to a withered, empty breast. The child had been dead long enough to begin to smell, but she would not let them take it from her. Dr. Tacbyon took control of her mind and held her still while he gently pried the child's body from her grasp and carried it away. He handed it to one of the relief workers and then sat on the ground and began to weep, his body shaking with each sob.

  Mistral ended the day in tears as well. En route to the refugee camp, she had changed into her blue-and-white flying costume. The girl is young, an ace, and a powerful one; no doubt she thought she could help. When she called the winds to her, the huge cape she wears fastened at wrist and ankle ballooned out like a parachute and pulled her up into the sky. Even the strangeness of the jokers walking between them had not awakened much interest in the inward-looking eyes of the refugees, but when Mistral took flight, most of them-not, all, but most-turned to watch, and their gaze followed her upward into that high, hot blueness until finally they sank back into the lethargy of despair. I think Mistral had dreamed that somehow her wind powers could push the clouds around and make the rains come to heal this land. And what a beautiful, vainglorious dream it was…

  She flew for almost two hours, sometimes so high and far that she vanished from our sight, but for all her ace powers, all she could raise was a dust devil. When she gave up at last, she was exhausted, her sweet young face grimy with dust and sand, her eyes red and swollen.

  Just before we left, an atrocity underscored the depth of the despair here. A tall youth with acne scars on his cheeks attacked a fellow refugee-went berserk, gouged out a woman's eye, and actually ate it while the people watched without comprehension. Ironically we'd met the boy briefly when we'd first arrived-he'd spent a year in a Christian school and had a few words of English. He seemed stronger and healthier than most of the others we saw. When Mistral flew, he jumped to his feet and called out after her. "Jetboy!" he said in a very clear, strong voice. Father Squid and Senator Hartmann tried to talk to him, but his English-language skills were limited to a few nouns, including "chocolate,"

  "television," and "Jesus Christ." Still, the boy was more alive than mosthis eyes went wide at Father Squid, and he put out a hand and touched his facial tendrils wonderingly and actually smiled when the senator patted his shoulder and told him that we were here to help, though I don't think he understood a word. We were all shocked when we saw them carrying him away, still screaming, those gaunt brown cheeks smeared with blood.

  A hideous day all around. This evening back in Addis Ababa our driver swung us by the docks, where relief shipment stand two stories high in some places. Hartmann was in a cold rage. If anyone can make this criminal government take action and feed its starving people, he is the one. I pray for him, or would, if I believed in a god… but what kind of god would permit the obscenities we have seen on this trip…

  Africa is as beautiful a land as any on the face of the earth. I should write of all the beauty we have seen this past month. Victoria Falls, the snows of Kilimanjaro, a thousand zebra moving through the tall grass as if the wind had stripes. I've walked among the ruins of proud ancient kingdoms whose very names were unknown to me, held pygmy artifacts in my hand, seen the face of a bushman light up with curiosity instead of horror when he beheld me for the first time. Once during a visit to a game preserve I woke early, and when I looked out of my window at the dawn, I saw that two huge African elephants had come to the very building, and Radha stood between them, naked in the early morning light, while they touched her with their trunks. I turned away then; it seemed somehow a private moment.

  Beauty, yes, in the land and in so many of the people, whose faces are full of warmth and compassion.

  Still, for all that beauty, Africa has depressed and saddened me considerably, and I will be glad to leave. The camp was only part of it. Before Ethiopia there was Kenya and South Africa. It is the wrong time of year for Thanksgiving, but the scenes we have witnessed these past few weeks have put me more in the mood for giving thanks than I've ever felt during America's smug November celebration of football and gluttony. Even jokers have things to give thanks for. I knew that already, but Africa has brought it home to me forcefully.

  South Africa was a grim way to begin this leg of the trip. The same hatreds and prejudices exist at home of course, but whatever our faults we are at least civilized enough to maintain a facade of tolerance, brotherhood, and equality under the law. Once I might have called that mere sophistry, but that was before I tasted the reality of Capetown and Pretoria, where all the ugliness is out in the open, enshrined by law, enforced by an iron fist whose velvet glove has grown thin and worn indeed. It is argued that at least South Africa hates
openly, while America hides behind a hypocritical facade. Perhaps, perhaps… but if so, I will take the hypocrisy and thank you for it.

  I suppose that was Africa's first lesson, that there are worse places in the world than Jokertown. The second was that there are worse things than repression, and Kenya taught us that.

  Like most of the other nations of Central and East Africa, Kenya was spared the worst of the wild card. Some spores would have reached these lands through airborne diffusion, more through the seaports, arriving via contaminated cargo in holds that had been poorly sterilized or never sterilized at all. CARE packages are looked on with deep suspicion in much of the world, and with good reason, and many captains have become quite adept at concealing the fact that their last port of call was New York City.

  When one moves inland, wild card cases become almost nonexistent. There are those who say that the late Idi Amin was some kind of insane joker-ace, with strength as great as Troll or the Harlem Hammer, and the ability to transform into some kind of were-creature, a leopard or a lion or a hawk. Amin himself claimed to be able to ferret out his enemies telepathically, and those few enemies who survived say that he was a cannibal who felt human flesh was necessary to maintain his powers. All this is the stuff of rumor and propaganda, however, and whether Amin was a joker, an ace, or a pathetically deluded nat madman, he is assuredly dead, and in this corner of the world, documented cases of the wild card virus are vanishingly hard to locate.