“And then we get tyrannosaurs?” Carpenter asked.
“I doubt that very much. But what we do have is nutty enough as it is. The bay is full of giant seaweed and giant seaweed-eating dugongs and giant dugong-eating crocodiles, and here they have the gall to tell me that I’m making monsters. With monsters all around us and more arriving every day. Jesus Christ, Paul, it drives me crazy!” Rhodes smiled almost sheepishly, as though to take the impetus out of his outburst. He had always been a very self-effacing man, Carpenter thought. Something must really be eating at him to make him complain like this.
Neither of them had glanced at their menus, yet. “It’s been a shitty day,” Rhodes said, after a moment, in a quieter tone. “A little problem in my department. One of those steely little completely amoral kids who happens to be a genius, got his doctorate at nineteen, that sort of kid, and he’s come up with something how, or says he has, a substitute for hemoglobin that’ll thrive on lethal metallic salts. His scheme as currently set forth is full of huge assumptions and speculative leaps. But if it works, it’ll lead the way to a total redesign of the body that’ll enable us to cope with almost any sort of environmental crap that’s heading our way.”
“And what’s the problem? Isn’t it going to work?”
“The problem is that it just might. I figure the odds against it are ninety-nine to one. But long shots sometimes do come through, don’t they?”
“And if this one does—?”
“If it does,” Rhodes said, “we really will wind up with a world full of sci-fi monsters instead of human beings. You change the hemoglobin, that means changing the basic chemical makeup of the blood, and then the heart-lungs interface has to be modified, and the lungs need to go some other route anyway because of the atmospheric changes, maybe turn them into book-lungs like spiders have, and then too the kidneys will need rearrangement, and that leads to modification of the skeletal structure because of calcium differentials, and then—” Rhodes caught his breath. “Oh, shit, Paul, when it’s all done we have a creature that may be very nicely adapted to the new conditions, but what kind of thing is it, really? Can you still call it human? I’m scared. I’m tempted to have this kid transferred to Siberia to raise cucumbers, before he can fill in the missing pieces in his puzzle and bring his goddamn idea off.”
Carpenter felt confused. But the confusion, he sensed, was really in Nick Rhodes.
“I don’t want to bug you about any of this,” he said. “But you told me five minutes ago that your goal is to work for humanity as the planet changes around us.”
“Yes. But I want us to stay human.”
“Even if the world becomes unfit for human life?”
Rhodes looked away. “I see the contradiction. I can’t help it All this is making me very uneasy. On the one hand I believe that what I’m doing is fundamentally necessary for human survival, and on the other hand I’m frightened of the deeper implications of my own work. So I’m really marching in two directions at once. But I go along like a good soldier, doing my research, winning little victories and trying not to ask the big questions. And then a kid like this Alex Van Vliet breaks through to the next plateau, or seems to, or at any rate claims that he has, and forces me to contemplate the ultimate issues. Shit. Let’s order lunch, Paul.”
Almost at random, Carpenter punched out things on the table computer. A hamburger, some fries, coleslaw, nice antique food, probably all of it synthetic or recycled out of squid and algae, but that didn’t matter to him just now. He wasn’t very hungry.
Rhodes, he observed, had conjured up yet another set of drinks. He seemed to take in alcohol at a steady-state clip, inhaling it like air, without ever showing much effect.
So he was a drinker now. Too bad. Basically, though, nothing had changed for Rhodes, Carpenter saw, in all the time that had gone on since their school days. Back then, Rhodes had often come to Carpenter for advice and a sort of protection from his tendency to fuck up his own head. Though Carpenter was younger than Rhodes, he had always felt like the older of the two, the more capable at meeting the problems of daily living. Rhodes had a way of entangling himself in intricate moral complexities of his own making— involving girls, his developing political consciousness, his teachers, his hopes and plans for the future, a million and one things—and Carpenter, pragmatic and direct, had known how to lead the older boy through the mazes he could not stop weaving about himself. Now Rhodes was a famous scientist, high in the esteem of the Company bigwigs, rising in grade on the steepest of slopes, probably earning ten times what Carpenter made; but Carpenter sensed that inwardly everything was pretty much the same for Rhodes as it had been when they were in their teens. Just a big helpless kid blundering through a world that was always a little too complicated for him to handle.
It seemed like a good idea to change the subject to something lighter. Carpenter said, “How’s your social life? You haven’t gotten married again, have you?”
Mistake, he realized instantly. Dumb.
“No,” Rhodes said, and it was obvious how much the question troubled him. Carpenter saw too late that the collapse of Rhodes’ marriage, which had injured him so deeply eight years back, still must be a bleeding wound for him. Rhodes had been terribly in love with his wife, and he had taken a terrible beating when she left him. “I’m in a relationship. A somewhat difficult one. Beautiful, intelligent, sexy woman, very articulate. We don’t agree on everything.”
“Does anyone?”
“She’s a radical humanist. Old San Francisco tradition, you know. Hates my work, fears its potential, would like to see the laboratory shut down, etc., etc. Not that she sees any alternative, mind you, but she’s against it all the same. The pure reactionary trip, the complete know-nothing antiscientism, absolutely medieval. And yet we managed to fall in love. Aside from the politics, we do just fine. I wish you could get a chance to meet her while you’re in town.”
“I’m sure we could work that out,” Carpenter said. “I’d like that very much.”
“I would too.” Rhodes thought for a moment. “Hey, how about tonight? Isabelle and I are having dinner with some pest of an Israeli newsman who wants to ask me nosy things about my work. I could pick you up over in the city somewhere around quarter to eight, at your hotel. Or wherever. How does your schedule look?”
“I’ve got to get back across to Frisco and over to the Samurai office at half past three to receive some of my indoctrination material,” Carpenter said. “That should take me until around five. After that, nothing.”
“You want to join us, then?”
“Why not? I’m at the Marriott Hilton in China Basin: you know where that is?”
“Sure.”
“One thing, though. If this is an interview, are you certain that I won’t be in the way?”
“It might be helpful if you were, actually. The truth is, I’m scared stiff of telling the Israeli things I shouldn’t say. He’s probably damn good at worming them out. Having friends around will dilute the conversation. The more the merrier, I figure, to keep things from getting down to real stuff. That’s why I’m bringing Isabelle along. And now you.” Rhodes put his glass down and shot Carpenter a curious look. “For that matter I could get you a date, if you like. Friend of Isabelle’s, very attractive, somewhat screwed-up woman named Jolanda Bermudez. A dancer, I think, or a sculptor, or both.”
Carpenter chuckled. “Last time I had a blind date was when I was thirteen.”
“I remember. What was her name? With the freckles?”
“I don’t recall.”
“Shall I see if Jolanda wants to come along also?” Rhodes asked.
“Sure,” said Carpenter. “Why not? The more the merrier, as you say.”
7
the shell of the El Mirador segment of Valparaiso Nuevo was actually a double one, a huge hollow crawl space entirely surrounding the globe that was El Mirador. Around the periphery of the shell’s spaceward face was a deep layer of lunar slag held in place by cen
trifugal forces, the tailings that had been left over after the extraction of the gases and minerals that had been needed in the construction of the satellite world. On top of that was a low open area for the use of maintenance workers, lit by a trickle of light from a faint line of incandescent bulbs; and overhead was the inner skin of El Mirador itself, shielded by the slagpile from any surprises that might come ricocheting in from the void. Juanito, who was compactly built, was able to move almost upright within the shell, but long-legged Farkas, following along behind, had to bend double, scuttling like a crab.
“Can you see him yet?” Farkas asked.
“Somewhere up ahead, I think. It’s pretty dark in here.”
“Is it?”
Juanito caught a glimpse of Wu off to the right, edging sideways, moving slowly around behind Farkas now. In the dimness the doctor was barely visible, just the shadow of a shadow. Wu had scooped up two handfuls of tailings. Evidently he was going to fling them at Farkas to attract his attention, and then when Farkas turned toward Wu it would be Juanito’s moment to nail him with the spike.
Juanito stepped back to a position near Farkas’s left elbow. He slipped his hand into his pocket and rested his fingertips on the butt of the cool sleek little weapon. The intensity stud was down at the lower end, shock level, and without taking the spike from his pocket he moved the setting up to lethal. Across the way, Wu nodded.
Time to do it.
Juanito began to draw the spike.
At that moment, before Juanito could manage to pull the weapon out, before Wu even could hurl his tailings, Farkas let out a roar like a wild creature going berserk. Juanito grunted in shock, stupefied by that terrible sound. This is all going to go wrong, he realized. In that same instant Farkas whirled and seized him around the waist in a powerful grip, lifting him off his feet with no apparent effort at all. In one smooth and almost casual motion Farkas swung him as if he was a throwing-hammer and released him, sending him hurtling on a rising arc through the air to crash with tremendous impact into Wu’s midsection.
Wu crumpled, gagging and puking, with Juanito sprawled stunned on top of him.
Then the lights went out—Farkas must have reached up and yanked the conduit loose—and then Juanito found himself lying with his cheek jammed into the rough floor of tailings, unable to move. Farkas was holding him face-down with a hand clamped around the back of his neck and a knee pressing hard against his spine. Wu lay alongside him, pinned the same way.
“Did you think I couldn’t see him sneaking up on me?” Farkas asked. “Or you, going for your spike? It’s 360 degrees, the blindsight. Something that Dr. Wu must have forgotten. All these years on the run, I guess you start to forget things.”
Holy Mother of Jesus, Juanito thought.
Couldn’t even get the drop on a blind man from behind him. And now he’s going to kill me. What a goddamned stupid way to die this is.
He imagined what Kluge might say about this, if he knew. Or Delilah. Nattathaniel. Decked by a blind man. Jesus! Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. But he isn’t blind, Juanito thought. Not really. He isn’t blind at all.
Farkas said, in a low harsh voice thick with anger, “How much did you sell me to him for, Juanito?”
The only sound Juanito could make was a muffled moan. His mouth was choked with sharp bits of slag.
Farkas gave him a poke with his knee. “How much? Five thousand? Six?”
“It was eight,” said Wu quietly, from below.
“At least I didn’t go cheaply,” Farkas murmured. He reached into Juanito’s pocket and withdrew the spike. “Get up,” he said. “Both of you. Stay close together. If either of you makes a funny move I’ll kill you both. Remember that I can see you very clearly. I can also see the door through which we entered the shell. That starfish-looking thing over there, with streamers of purple light pulsing from it. We’re going back into El Mirador now, and there won’t be any surprises, will there? Will there? You try to bolt, either one of you, and I’ll spike you on lethal and take it up with the Guardia Civil afterward.”
Juanito sullenly spit out a mouthful of slag. He didn’t say anything.
“Dr. Wu? The offer still stands,” Farkas continued. “You come with me, you do the job we need you for. That isn’t so bad a deal, considering what I could do to you for what you did to me. But all I want from you is your skills, and that’s the truth. You are going to need that refresher course, aren’t you, though?”
Wu muttered something indistinct.
Farkas said, “You can practice on this boy, if you like. Try retrofitting him for blindsight first, and if it works, you can do our crew people, all right? He won’t mind. He’s terribly curious about the way I see things, anyway. Aren’t you, Juanito, eh? So we’ll give him a chance to find out firsthand.” Farkas laughed. To Juanito he said, “If everything works out the right way, maybe we’ll let you go along on the voyage with us, boy.” Juanito felt the cold nudge of the spike in his back. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? The first trip to the stars? You’d go down in history. What do you say to that, Juanito? You’d be famous.”
Juanito didn’t answer. His tongue was still rough with slag, and he was so far gone, altogether lost in fear and chagrin, that he did not even attempt to speak. With Farkas prodding him from behind, he shambled slowly along next to Dr. Wu toward the door that Farkas said looked like a starfish. It didn’t look at all like a fish to him, or a star, or like a fish that looked like a star. It looked like a door to him, as far as he could tell by the feeble light of the distant bulbs. That was all it looked like, a door that looked like a door. Not a star. Not a fish. But there was no use thinking about it, or anything else, not now, not with Farkas nudging him between the shoulder blades with his own spike. He let his mind go blank and kept on walking.
Emerging from the habitat’s shell into the plaza of El Mirador again, Farkas very quickly took cognizance of everything around him: the ring of jolly little cafes, the flowing fountain in the middle, the statue of Don Eduardo Callaghan, El Supremo, benignly looming down to the right. Seeing everything in its blindsight equivalent, of course: the cafes as a row of jiggling point-sources of shifting green light, the fountain as a fiery spear, the monument to Don Eduardo as a jutting white triangular wedge that bore the distinctively massive, craggy features of the Generalissimo.
And of course there were his two prisoners, Wu and Juanito, just in front of him. Wu—the shining polished cube atop the copper-hued pyramid—seemed calm. He had come to terms with the event that had just occurred. Juanito—half a dozen blue spheres tied together by an orange cable—was more agitated. Farkas perceived his agitation as an up-spectrum shift in the color of what Farkas called the boundary zone, which marked the Juanito-object off from the surrounding region.
“I have a call to make,” Farkas told them. “Sit here quietly with me at this table. The spike is tuned and ready to use if you force me to do so. Juanito?”
“I didn’t say nothing.”
“I know that. I just wanted you to tell me how cooperative you intend to be. I don’t want to have to kill you. But if you try something funny, I will. I’m way ahead of you on every move. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“So be a good boy and sit right there, and if you see any of your little friends come through the plaza, don’t try to send any sort of signals to them. Because I’ll notice what you’re doing and it’ll be the last thing you ever do. Clear?”
“Look,” Juanito said miserably, “you can just let me get up and walk out of here and we don’t ever need to have anything to do with each other ever again. I got no interest in making any trouble for you.”
“No,” Farkas said. “You tried to fuck me, boy. You were working for me and you sold me out. I make it a rule to punish behavior like that very severely. You aren’t walking away from this in one piece.” He looked toward Wu. “And you, doctor? I’m willing to make an exception for you to my general rule of retribution, for you, if you coo
perate. Of course, I’ll leave the choice up to you, but I think I know how you would prefer matters to go. You would rather work for Kyocera-Merck for a short time at a fine salary in a nicely furnished laboratory, wouldn’t you, than have me show you in great detail how displeased I am at what you did to my eyes when I was still a fetus, and how extremely vindictive I’m capable of being. Wouldn’t you, doctor?”
“I told you already,” Wu muttered. “We have a deal.”
“Good. Very good.”
A public communicator wand in a clip was fastened to the side of the table. Without taking his attention off Wu and Juanito, Farkas picked the wand up, using his left hand because his right was holding the spike, and punched in the number of Colonel Emilio Olmo of the Guardia Civil. There was a certain amount of hunt-and-seek action while the central computer tried to find him; and then an androidal voice asked for Farkas’s caller identification code. Farkas gave it, adding, “This is a Channel Seventeen call.” That was a request for a scrambled line. There was another little stretch of silence broken occasionally by screechy bits of electronic noise.
Then:
“Victor?”
“I just want to let you know, Emilio, that I have the merchandise in hand.”
“Where are you calling from?” Olmo asked.
“The plaza in El Mirador.”
“Stay there. I’ll come as soon as possible. I have to talk to you, Victor.”
“You are talking to me,” Farkas said. “All I need is a couple of Guardia men to collect the consignment, right away. I’m sitting here with it right in the plaza, and I don’t like having to be a cargo superintendent out in public.”
“Where are you, exactly? The specific location.”
To Juanito, Farkas said, “What’s the name of this cafe?” Reading signs was often difficult for him: seeing by blindsight was not an exact equivalent of seeing by ordinary vision, a fact of which Farkas was reminded a thousand maddening times a day.
Hot Sky at Midnight Page 8
