But the fact he had, meant he had probably had to bend the rules, which meant he had to be lonely enough to do so.
And then there had come Eden, where he’d been both a Mule, and a Mule who was resented for two contradictory facts: for having failed to save every bioengineered person on Earth, and for having left the dangerous Mules behind.
He’d been feared and admired and hated and cherished, probably all of it in equal measure. It was a mystery he hadn’t gone completely around the bend. Or hadn’t he?
No. From what Doc said, he might have gone a little strange, but not insane. But he’d been lonely. And, I suspected, he’d been bored too.
So…now he had me to play with.
Great! Be very, very careful. We’re hunting crazy geniuses.
I looked all around again, and looked more carefully. Above me, something shimmered. It could be a veil or a net or…some type of web. Something ready to drop on me the minute I moved? Yeah. Almost for sure. So?
So. Most things of this kind were set to be triggered by big, sudden movements. But you could get away with small, incremental movements, the kind of inching away one could do with no problems.
I started inching, until I could see that there was just the edge of the “veil” above me. And then I rolled away, suddenly.
The veil dropped, next to me, the woosh of air blowing on my arm, the grass flattening. Right. Crazy as a broomer high on Oblivium.
I looked very carefully and identified all possible discrepancies in the surroundings. This meant that I edged away from the area on my knees, and didn’t stand up till I was a good ways away.
Now the question was, did he have traps set on purpose for me, or had these traps been here when he was young and paranoid? And if so, did he have some way to see me? Like what he kept on Simon? And if he had some way to see me, how would it be activated?
I was going to guess it would be easy.
Simon’s was probably set on gen code. If he’d fiddled with his machine, he’d probably have found Simon’s father in his basement too. It was the only way I could figure out for the machine to still be active and following a line of clones.
My genes were close enough to Daddy Dearest’s to open genlocks. However, those were usually set for one or two salient genes, not the whole sequence. No need for it, particularly for Mules who had no siblings, parents, or other genetic relations. However, I doubted they were close enough for this type of camera or pickup.
And I doubted that one could be programmed that quickly. That meant whatever Jarl had following me was set for x amount of mass, radiating at x degrees. It was also possible that he had set some type of bug on my skin.
For those, fortunately, there was a remedy. I had to make myself colder, and I had to, if possible, wash away skin or clothing probe. Right.
We’d start by removing the broom riding suit. I didn’t need it. Under it I was wearing a sweaty and scrunched up but extremely practical one-piece. I rolled the broomer suit—I might need it again—and set it in a hollow between two branches, where it would hopefully stay relatively free of bugs and somewhat clean.
Then I looked around. And sighed. Floating in mid-air above me, was a holo message, one of those cheapy things that are activated if you step on them, and which people often use for clues in children’s scavenger games. It read WELL PLAYED, MY DEAR! CATCH ME IF YOU CAN!
Yeah. Bored silly. And I had to endure the silly. But I would catch him.
SHALL WE PLAY A GAME?
I tried it just for the sake of completeness. Kit?
I can’t help, he said, his voice sounding distant and muffled, as it did when he was under sedation. He’s not letting me see, and he’s not letting me know what he’s doing. I gather he’s enjoying himself at your expense, though.
I gritted my teeth. I bet. And if he weren’t occupying Kit’s body, right now, I’d be visualizing really hard which parts of his own anatomy I could make him eat. As it was, I’d have to be careful, and I’d have to be cunning, and I’d have to beat him at his own game, and make him reveal where he’d put the data on the powertrees. And make him explain how to make the nanocytes to restore Kit, which would be harder.
There had to be a way to do that, or he wouldn’t be working so hard not to cooperate. As for the first, it really didn’t take much thought to know that a paranoid and isolated genius would keep his notes and knowledge in the one place that no one could penetrate, the one place where even his friends weren’t allowed to go. That, and of course in his own head. But his head wasn’t functioning too well, so it would have to be whatever data gems or papers he had hidden here. He had said there were notes. He’d said it to Doc Bartolomeu when both thought they’d never see Earth again, and when they had no reason to lie.
I knew, though, knowing Kit—and by inference, Jarl—the only way to get those would be to play Jarl’s little game and to find him. But I’d be damned if I gave him the advantage of following me on his spying apparatus. At least I’d try to cut out that source of his amusement.
I ran sideways and on an erratic path towards the creek then, from the bank, threw myself in. It wasn’t a full dive, because diving in to a shallow, rocky creek is a great way to break one’s neck. More of a sideways roll and fling, landing on my hands and toes on the river bottom, under the water, and swimming, still under water, upriver, before surfacing just the minimum to draw breath, then diving in again and swimming.
Thena!
What?
He’s lost you. He’s scared for you. He thinks something might happen to you.
He should be scared for himself, I said, then added, If he weren’t in your body…
You have my permission to kick him in your favorite spot.
I refused to analyze “favorite spot.” Instead, I mind-disconnected, afraid Jarl could somehow trace it, and swam some more upriver. The river was very cold, which meant I’d probably get hypothermia if I stayed in too long. Maybe that was what Jarl worried about. Let him worry. More likely, he worried that I would find him. And he should.
Fish swam around me, tickling me, and I was sure a couple had got into my boots. If I had a bug in there, I hoped they ate it.
In my mind, I figured out where the building was. He might not be there—he probably wasn’t—but I’d bet sooner or later he would go there. He might be following our little so-called game on a remote device, but I’d bet for programming new fun, he’d have to have access to the equipment in the building.
So, I’d go there now.
I got out of the water and ran in the direction I knew the building was. I felt even colder, with the air rushing around me, but that was good. It meant I wasn’t radiating at normal temperature.
He says no, don’t go there. Not that way.
Right. Well, poor Jarl Ingemar was about to get the surprise of his long and confused lifetime. No matter if he’d been created to rule, no matter how much people had revered him and feared him, his words were not law to me, and he could take his orders and fold them all in corners preparatory to inserting them where—
The ground went out from under me, and I was lifted, up and upside down, to hang from a tree. I’d been captured by a fiendish machine!
But looking up, I realized the fiendish machine was one of those tricks that hunters have been playing on animals since humans first learned they could get easy lunch by setting snares. There had been a bent tree, a carefully positioned rope lasso…and I was now hanging from a pine tree by a rope tied of rope binding my feet.
The thing about rabbits and foxes and other creatures who got snared in these traps is that they rarely carried pocket knives. Even more rarely had they been forced by a less-than-sane parent to go through various sorts of bootcamps. That meant they were at a disadvantage, because I had both.
Touching my ankles while standing on my feet had never been difficult. I’ll confess more effort was needed to do it against gravity, but it wasn’t impossible, and I could sort of grab at my legs and pull mysel
f up that way. With a pocket knife carefully held so I didn’t cut myself.
Meanwhile, my mind spun upon itself in disbelief. He’d snared me. What was he? Twelve years old?
This was the sort of ridiculous prank, I thought, as I managed to hold on to the rope above the knot with my free hand and reach up with the knife to saw the loop fastening my calves together, that reminded me of the things boys did to get girls’ attention at the various camps I’d attended as a pre-teen.
Had Jarl been so unformed, so isolated, that this was his idea of courting me? I was very much afraid it was. Afraid, because it made me feel almost maternal sympathy, as well as extreme anger. That overgrown, infantile genius needed a spanking. But I very much suspected he would enjoy one way too much and in entirely the wrong manner.
The rope parted, and I was hanging from one hand. I put the knife between my teeth, in manner of pirates in holos, and held with both hands onto the rope, swinging it in increasing arcs until I could reach the branch of a nearby tree, which I leapt to.
I fell straddling it, which was not—probably—the best thing to do. Women might not have the part that Kit called my favorite, but I was still rather attached to the part I did have. I took deep breaths, trying to control the pain, and then stood and inched along that branch to the tree trunk and from that to the end of the next branch—as far as it would support me.
I supposed Jarl could see me. That seemed obvious, considering he’d had Kit scream a warning just before I’d got caught. So the following bug, whatever it was, must be targeted for mass alone. And I couldn’t change mass. Well, not that quickly. Give me ten months and enough chocolate, and I could probably double it.
There was nothing for it, then. I’d have to work with that handicap. But it wouldn’t stop me from going to the building.
He says you shouldn’t go to the building. Not alone.
How convenient, then. Tell him I don’t need to be alone. He can join me there.
Thena, are you armed?
Kit, were you hit on the head? Wait. Yes you were. Of course I’m armed.
Oh, good.
Dear lonely hearts columnist, my husband is glad I’m armed against the creature that’s occupying his body. What should I do?
Well, I should be about as careful as a sheep at a gathering of wolves, that’s what.
So, instead of going to the building over ground, as I’d planned to, I went over the trees. There were these holos very popular when I was a little girl, though I doubt anyone else, and of course no one in Eden, had ever heard of them. Well, maybe other children my age on Earth. I’d bet Simon remembered them.
They featured a young boy abandoned in the jungle and raised by apes. Somehow—holo writers are not obligated to respect reality, and in fact, they seem to treat it like other men treat hired girls—this gave him special powers to call to animals and to perform the most extraordinary feats.
His normal mode of locomotion through the jungle in which he lived was to swing on climbing vines from branch to branch.
While Jarl’s pet forest didn’t come equipped with those convenient hanging vines, over the three hundred more years it had been left untrimmed, the trees had grown so close that it wasn’t hard to just swing with my whole body from tree to adjacent tree.
I was lucky, no branch broke. Of course, it necessitates a new definition of luck. Before I reached the door to his retreat, my hands were skinned and raw, and my teeth were chattering so hard that Jarl only needed a sound pickup to follow me.
But while he could no doubt hear me, and probably see me, too, it was obvious that he hadn’t prepared any fun traps at tree-branch level.
So far, so good. I dropped from the branch directly in front of the door to the building and glared at the genlock.
Kit? Tell the bastard he can either open the door or I’m going to burn his genlock off. And then I’m probably going to burn other things off, too.
Kit’s response had a curiously hesitant tone. He says he’d rather you didn’t come in.
Really? Well, then. I’m going to count backward from ten. If this thing doesn’t open by ten, I’m going to burn the genlock.
Thena, don’t be too mad. I don’t think…I don’t think things are as you believe. He was the one who asked me to ask if you were armed, and said it was good you were.
Oh, I’m sure. He likes to have fun, doesn’t he?
I don’t think he was the one who trapped you, Thena. It doesn’t feel that way. Oh, sure, he enjoyed watching you circumvent the traps, but I don’t think they were his. He’s very worried about something. He’s trying to get into the building, but he’s afraid to.
Right. I think he’s merely playing you. He’s crazy enough to lie to the voice in his own head.
I took a deep breath. Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five—
The door slid open. Jarl was bent over his apparatus, and had taken a panel off it. In the holo screen, a small image of me stood, dripping water and shivering, with a burner in each hand.
Jarl turned around. “Good Gaia,” he said. “You must be frozen. Let me find you clothes.”
“Don’t bother,” I said. Each syllable was punctuated by chattering teeth. “Don’t bother at all. I’ll be in the broomer suit again in moments.” My hands clenched on the burners. “As soon as you give me every gem you have on the creation, planting and growing of powertrees, or even just a way to transplant a cutting to the vicinity of Eden.” The whole concept struck me as funny all of a sudden and I cackled mirthlessly. “Another Eden, another tree.”
His eyes—Kit’s eyes—went wide with alarm. This was possibly because the little image reflected on the holo screen and therefore I looked a few power packs short of a full charge, with wild eyes and madly flashing grin. “Oh, yeah, I also need the formula for the nanocytes to get me my husband back.”
He backed against the apparatus, with its open panel, his hands held on either side of his body, palm out, in the age old appeasing gesture of “Look, Ma, no weapons at all.” He swallowed hard. His Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Thena, look…”
“Patrician Athena Hera Sinistra to you.”
“Athena…Hera? Really?”
“Yeah, your bastard friend had a sense of humor.”
“Uh…Patrician,” he said, in an apologetic tone. “Uh…Patrician. Madam. Uh…”
“Yes?” I asked.
“You don’t understand. I didn’t do anything to you.”
“Oh, really? Then what made me black out when I untied your hands?”
He sighed, but it was with a sound of exasperation. “I might have done that,” he hedged. “But not the rest. You see…there’s something…”
“Don’t care,” I said. Frankly, as confused and scared as he looked, he had to be the world’s best actor. “Don’t want to know. Doesn’t mean a damn thing to me. I just want you to give me the gems and the formula for the nanocytes. And then I’m going to tie you in a way you’ve never been tied.” Oh, no, he hadn’t just wagged his eyebrows at me. That had just earned him extra tight ropes. And not in a way he would like. Oh, no. “And then I’m going to take you back, and we’re going to give you the nanocytes. And then I get my husband back, and you go the hell away from us forever. Or away from us to hell, for all I care.” I was approaching as I spoke, though not so close he could grab my burners. I pointed both burners at a portion of his anatomy that my husband was particularly fond of. He wouldn’t like it, and I wouldn’t like it, but I could just make the hit painful and not completely damaging. And we were within reach of modern medicine.
He was human enough that his hands went in front of his crotch, in a defensive gesture. He looked up at me. “You don’t understand. There are two problems. I can’t get in there,” he pointed within. “There is something there. I think I know what, but it would take too long to explain. And I don’t think it will allow us in. Whatever it is, it’s the same thing that created the traps you fell into.”
“Right. Why weren’
t those traps there when we were here before?”
“I think they were, but I think it gen sampled you when you slept in the woods alone before.” He gestured wildly at the holo screen. “I swear I never put a tracer on you, though ’Xander—”
I snorted, in rhythm with my chattering teeth. “I don’t care. I want the data on the powertrees. And I want my husband back.”
“I’ll have to figure out a way to get you the data, but I don’t think I can give you your husband back. Don’t shoot.”
THE KINGDOMS OF THE EARTH
“Well,” I said, purposely relaxing my death grip on the burner, where my finger had almost flexed on the trigger, “then you’d best explain yourself and quickly. My hands are very cold and they might cramp at any moment, and send a ray through…your hands. And the rest.”
He blinked up at me. His mouth said “You wouldn’t,” but his expression said “you might.”
“I don’t think,” he said, and took a deep breath, almost like a sigh, “that I can in perfect conscience give you your husband back.” He lifted his hands, palm out. “Yes, I know you love him, and I think I’ve told you before that I rather like him, myself. Were we normal unenhanced humans, and were I able to…Had I known him as a son, I think I’d have loved him as a son. He seemed…seems like a good kind of young man, even if too noble and silent for his own good. Perhaps because he’s aware of not being…quite normal human, and therefore he tries to be better than he’d otherwise be.”
Darkship Renegades Page 27
