Darkship Renegades (24 page)

“You!” he started, and then descended rapidly into the gutter in several languages. Or at least I was fairly sure it was the gutter. The few words I did understand were almost low enough to be part of my own vocabulary.

“Very cute,” I said. “What am I supposed to do, swoon? You think no one ever called me that? Hell, I’ve called myself that on occasion.”

He looked disoriented. Apparently he really did expect me to swoon. This was the fault of whichever idiots had raised Mules with no contact with the female of the species. Way too easy to believe poets and filmmakers and the occasional, blinkered, pseudohistorian.

“Now, let’s get real,” I said. And made sure my movements were noisy enough for him to know what I was doing. “You’re blinded. I’m holding a burner on you. I’m going to ask you to climb on a broom. And then we’re going for a ride.”

His body went very still. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t this. I wondered if he thought I’d somehow managed to get the nanocytes ready and was about to take his body back. No wonder he refused to stop fighting even while tied up.

“What do you want with me?” he asked.

“Nothing that will hurt you—either of you—if you do as I tell you.”

“But—”

“We’re going to be flying over the ocean for an extensive amount of time,” I said. “
Do
try not to thrash. Because if we fall, remember, Kit has no idea how to swim.”

“I do.”

“No, your body did. But you’re not completely yourself, are you? Swimming, like walking and other actions learned and practiced without thought, are actions stored in the cerebellum and are you sure you control that? You can train, but it will take you time. Like your violin playing. You can impose your style, but Kit knows how to play. How long do you think it would take you to teach the body if he didn’t?”

He was quiet. I told him, “Come,” and held his arm as I pulled him to the window.

It took me less than a second of fumbling with the window controls to open it. They were slightly different from the ones in Syracuse. Then the windows opened, to the roar of the sea and the chill of the night.

“No,” Jarl said. I wasn’t sure to what.

“Yes,” I said, and dragged him up to the parapet of the window. Thank all the gods and demons, the parapet was broad and made of marble, clearly designed for a bosomy woman to lean into the moonlit night and have a shelf for her endowments. Or perhaps designed for broomers to take off from. All of us seemed to have used a broom, perhaps since the first Mule had become a Good Man. I didn’t care. I just cared there was enough space to pull Jarl up, make him kneel sideways on the parapet. I didn’t look down. I tried not to think of the sheer drop from the window to rocks below. It wouldn’t happen, that was all there was to it. We were going to take off and fly away from here. We were not going to fall.

“I’m going to slide the broom between your legs, but don’t get funny. It’s a two-person broom and the controls will be behind you.”

He was very still.
Thena!
Kit’s voice in my mind.

Yes, lover?

Is there a drop on my right?

Straight down to rocks and the sea.

Light! Thena!

Yes, love. Don’t let him move.

He’s scared stiff,
Kit said.
But in his condition fear can go either way: freeze or attack. Be very careful.

Always, love.

You never are, but do try.

I did try. None of the actions I’d planned were as easy as they should have been. First, you should never, ever, ever, tie someone’s legs at the knee, then try to slide a cylinder that was a good five inches diameter into the space directly below his crotch. I went slowly because I knew that Kit was rather attached to those parts of him—in more ways than one—but it wasn’t easy. At least, Jarl didn’t try to fight, probably because he couldn’t see, but he could hear the waves breaking on the rocks right below him.

And then I mounted behind him. The controls were behind me, out of reach of his tied hands, even if he tried. Look. It’s not that I didn’t trust him…Oh, okay, it was exactly that I didn’t trust him. Fortunately, I’d done this before and could steer by touch.

Before I did, though, I looped spare rope around his middle and tied him to the broom. “To make sure you don’t fall. I’m tying myself too, so the best you can try is to make us crash, while still both attached to the broom. You can’t unmount me.”

And then I did as I said. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t try to move. I wondered if he was still in control of his body at all. But the way I saw it, if Jarl went finally and totally batty, maybe Kit could take his own body back.

I had programmed the course into the broom—with certain adjustments Simon had suggested to avoid areas where explosions or armored vehicles flying very fast might make my own route difficult. It would be twelve hours. It was a good thing I’d tied myself to the broom, I thought. Just in case I fell asleep.

But I didn’t fall asleep. I have no idea why I’m only acrophobic in space. Perhaps it’s the consciousness that I could at any minute fall away, with nothing to moor me, and never be able to return. Or perhaps it was that there was very little to see.

Here, there was the sea below me and the sky above me. Not only hadn’t I seen them in almost a year, but there was a good chance, if everything worked well, if I got back to Eden and we got Eden back that I’d never see it again. And we must go back to Eden. We must.

So I flew over the sea, through the night. I know Jarl had his eyes open. I could tell by the way he turned his head, by the way he held himself. But I didn’t try to make chit chat. One doesn’t become friendly with one’s husband’s captor and besides I didn’t want him to think too much of the beauty of the Earth and everything in it. What would that do, but make him determined to stay alive, and to keep Kit’s body?

Five hours later, when we flew over the charred ruins of my childhood home, the sun was a bright glow in the horizon and it made the blackened ceramite and dimatough structure look yet worse—jagged broken walls reaching up to the sky, all of it charred. I had time to register that the area around it was bombed too, and wondered how much of the island was destroyed.

How many of our servants had died in the battle? How many innocent bystanders in Syracuse Seacity? What was this rebellion that Simon had spoken of, this rebellion he was clearly lending support to? Why were people dying? Was it worth it?

Liberte, egalite, fraternite.
All very well, but how truthful were those ideals? I had read history in Eden. The revolution that went under that flag had been one of the most bloody, one of the most nakedly insane of all history. The words had cloaked—it turned out—nothing but the usual thirst for power among the usual type of humans. And those who hid behind the words were either monsters or had become monsters, unaware of their own transformation.

I wanted to hope this time was different, but was aware that such a hope, also, had led more civilizations down the primrose path to hell than anything else. It was never different, nice as the hope might be.

After a while we left the sea behind, and flew over Europe. First over populated areas, most of them near the sea. The path that Simon had charted avoided large cities and stayed in those areas where patrols were scant and where the lone broomer would be more or less safe, being, if spotted, assumed to be a disaster victim getting to safety. No one would think of broomers lairs in these small towns and wooded expanses.

I drank water from my bottle and moved my guest’s oxygen mask up to allow him to drink some. I expected resistance, but I got none. Instead he drank the water and said nothing.

His silence was only worrisome in the measure that I felt he wouldn’t be that quiet if he hadn’t made a plan of escape. But surely to make a plan, he would need to know where we were going, right?

As we flew over the deserted, bacteria-ravaged areas of Europe, I thought that he sat up a little straighter, a little more alert.

And when we approached the barrier, I became aware of a problem. The way his hands were tied, even if I tried to move him around and stick his finger in the little genlock-wand, I would have to dislocate his shoulders.

He must have realized it too. His voice sounded raspy and gravely as he spoke. “Untie my hands.” And then, “If you want to get in.”

I wanted to get in. And look, his middle, knees and feet were still tied. He was still tied to the broom. How much damage could he do with just his hands untied?

I’m not completely stupid. I untied myself first, and got down from the broom, wincing as circulation returned to my dormant legs. Then I reached over, gingerly, with my pocket knife, and cut through the ropes holding his hands.

He brought his hands forward, groaning. “Hell of a position to be tied in that long,” he said. He flexed his shoulders, and his arms, then he put a finger in the genlock.

The biodoor retracted.

He was tied to the broom. His middle and legs were tied. He couldn’t even reach the broom controls. His eyes had to be closed or else he’d be blinded by too much light. There was no way he could do anything.

He must have used Cat speed and he must be capable of inhumanly good hearing. I suspected nothing till the world went black.

THE FOX IN THE FOREST

I woke up cursing. Yeah, this is possible, and in this case it might have been the only way I could wake up: halfway through a four-syllable word.

He’d subdued me with a blow to the head. That much was sure from the way my skull felt, bruised and tender, and the way my eyes felt, as though I had a really bad hangover and during my unconsciousness some right bastard had taken advantage of the opportunity to pour fine sand on my eyeballs.

I lay very still and concentrated on breathing, with my eyes closed, until I accessed the situation.

Birds were singing nearby. This meant he hadn’t left me on the ground outside the biobarrier. It was confirmed by other impressions—the smell of plants and flowers, and what felt like soft grass beneath me.

So, he’d chosen to bring me inside into his super secret compound, where, in the old days, he hadn’t even allowed his friends. Oh, fine and good. But how had he brought me in? And why?

Without moving, I tallied the impressions of my senses. I didn’t feel rope on my wrists, and if I moved a little, aimlessly, as though still unconscious, I could pull my hands apart from each other. The same with my legs. Which meant absolutely nothing. There are binds that won’t tighten until you move in a certain way.

I didn’t know how old that type of bind was, but I suspected old enough for Jarl to have laid in a supply of them.

After a while, with no one pouncing on me, and without Jarl’s voice greeting me sarcastically, I risked opening my eyes, a little and looking through my eyelashes. Not enough to let anyone watching me know I was looking, but more than enough to allow me to see that I did in fact seem to be bind-free at wrists and ankles.

I was lying on a patch of grass, in a flat area between two hillocks. And the so and so must like me, because he’d laid me down where there were no rocks. Above me, trees swayed in the wind. There didn’t seem to be anyone around me, at least not so far as I could determine by looking and listening.

So I risked opening my eyes fully and turning my head, to look around the entire perimeter of what turned out to be a small clearing.

Not only wasn’t I tied, I was fully dressed, though he’d taken my belt with its pouch, and, obviously, the broom. Right. Like I didn’t have burners elsewhere. I could feel the pressure from my ankle holster and, by moving my leg a little, tell that the weight of the burner was still on my leg. Other hidden burners were even more intrusive in making their presence known. Which was reassuring.

Still, I was fairly sure that Jarl was not a complete idiot. And even if he didn’t know me, he knew Daddy Dearest, right? And knowing Daddy Dearest, who’d been so twisted he could slide down a corkscrew without touching the sides, he couldn’t think it was safe to leave me like this, without a thorough search.

Unless…

How bored was Jarl? I tried to think of what his life must have been like in Eden. I’d had hints from other people. Doc Bartolomeu had said that Jarl had had almost no social life. The idea that he wanted to create a clone but not let anyone know it was a clone, because he didn’t want him as isolated as Jarl himself had been, was entirely plausible to Kit’s family. That meant they must have known how isolated Jarl had been, and that the isolation must have been immense.

I blinked. I had a lot of time to think. Or rather, as much as I felt hungry and thirsty, I had to think. The time I took to think now might not just save me time later. It might save my life.

Besides, what should have been hydraulic pressure wasn’t there, the bladder had taken care of itself. The broomer suit I’d worn had arrangements for that. As did Jarl’s. I didn’t like to use them while awake, but I’d been out for…who knew how long. I’d check and empty the receptacle later.

For now, I concentrated on trying to figure out what Jarl’s game was. Because there had to be a game.

As I saw it, the relationship between Mule and his servants had been more distant and perhaps more respectful—certainly more obsequious—than that between Good Man and servants. There had been the belief that Mules were, intrinsically, non human, both more and less than mere homo sapiens. Smarter, better coordinated, all of that, but raised as servants, as…things. Useful things that could be used by humanity. Their servants would both respect them, for the well-designed things they were, and despise them for their inability to be normal. And be wary of them, because the stories of Mule riots would be less than a century old for most of the Mules’ rule on Earth. They would be fresh in public memory, and make everyone fear them. And no one, not even the Mules themselves, believed them for what they really were: all too human.

Then there was Jarl. If the other Mules were of their own kind, and apart from normal humans, Jarl would be more so. I’d read somewhere in Eden that his genius was accidental.

He’d been created to be brilliant. Of course he had. He’d been created to be—like the other Mules created to rule—very bright and capable of retaining and using unbelievable amounts of information. But he was more brilliant, more capable than any of the other Mules and, more than that, he was a creative genius.

From what I understand, ability to create—like homosexuality—cannot be traced to any particular gene. Perhaps it is the result of a complex set of genes. But it’s not something that can either be designed or avoided on purpose. It happens, or—mostly—it doesn’t if a combination of factors, lucky or unlucky, depending on how you look at it, happens or doesn’t.

All humans have some amount of creativity, of course. Faced with the need to do something in an unusual way, most of us manage it. But most of us manage it in limited and predictable ways. The leaps of genius that take humankind from one state of civilization to the next are always unexpected, unpredictable, and can’t be designed.

The man who tamed fire, the genius who created the first wheel, the freak mind who solved the puzzle of gravity: unique, all.

I didn’t think anyone designed Jarl to be a creative genius, capable of startling leaps of reasoning. Well, the documents on Eden said no one had. Of course, documents and historians lie. But I could go on the evidence of what else they’d designed, and none of the other Good Men even approached Jarl’s creativity. Knowing that he’d worked out both the starship design, and the powertrees, even before realizing he’d designed other things, like a way to turn one brain into another and keep the original information, I’d started to joke that Jarl had invented everything.

This wasn’t exactly true, but it wasn’t completely wrong either. It was as though Leonardo DaVinci had been endowed with more knowledge than anyone, even relative to a much more advanced time, and the ability to call on scientists and workers to make his dreams come true.

So, Jarl’s oddity had been noticed early, if I understood properly. He’d said something about his variety of Mules, the Oligoi, being raised in groups. The Alphas, the Betas, the Gammas…None of the history books I’d found said anything beyond that each particular variety of Mule had been raised according to their abilities and resources.

I’d assume that they’d started from the top, from those designed to rule. So, they’d be Alphas. But if history was right, then even among the Alphas—most of whom were smart but not creative—Jarl was an oddity and stood out.

I thought of the desolate ruins, where he and Doc Bartolomeu said they’d once grown up. I had nothing to go on, except the vague references to sneaking out, and to not having seen a woman while growing up, and I visualized it as a mid-security prison. Jarl had sneaked out, but Jarl would. I noted he didn’t say anyone had gone with him.

So, I thought, Jarl must always have been lonely to some extent. He’d managed, somehow, to make friends and remain friends with Doc Bartolomeu and Daddy Dearest…No, not Daddy Dearest. Whatever the old bastard had become by the time I knew him, he couldn’t have been that way when Jarl had made friends with him. People can be crazy, but they didn’t generally make pets of man-eating sharks. So…Alexander Sinistra. I’d guess Doc was also an Alpha, though I could be wrong, but I’d be surprised if Daddy, with his lowly avocation, was anything more than a Beta. Probably a Delta or Gamma. How had Jarl broken protocol to make friends? Who knew?

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.