Darkship Renegades (35 page)

THE POINT OF VIEW OF
THE BOILING FROG

There is an old thought experiment. At least I hope it’s a thought experiment, and that no one ever did it. It’s repulsive enough as a thought experiment.

The question was—how do you boil a frog? The logical answer is to throw it in a pot of hot water. But then, the frog will feel the heat and jump away with third-degree burns all over its little warty skin, and might survive to be boiled another day.

My solution to this, when first asked, was to say one should hit the frog hard over the head once. At least if there was any reason we really needed to boil amphibians.

But the classical solution was different. It was to put the frog in cold water and then heat it slowly, very slowly. The frog reacted to the warmth by relaxing, and by the time the water got uncomfortable, it was too late to jump out.

As I said, I hope it’s a thought experiment. I know many humans who are worthy of being boiled, slow or fast, but animals are—by definition—innocent. They can’t be truly evil, because they don’t know there is good or evil. The idea of boiling a poor innocent frog made me sick to my stomach for reasons other than frog broth.

But apparently Castaneda had heard of this experiment, because he was boiling the frog really slowly.

“A few of us have experienced cuts in power and water service,” Kath said. “Or at least, we should have, only as you know Jean has a rebellious streak a mile wide, and he’s long since rigged several back-route fail-safe systems with which we can still get power…But the outages are targeted, as are the Cats and Navs that won’t be allowed to go out. Our family and our closest friends and allies are being isolated. Hushers and controllers who won’t play along are being cut out, told they can’t work for a reason or another. There have been…” She swallowed hard, “a couple of ships that we think went missing through not being allowed back in. We have no proof. We weren’t even sure they’d do that, till…well, till now. And we think that…well…There have been odd deaths of people we have reasons to believe were starting to suspect something was wrong. They were either very odd duels, or supposedly self-defense, but the witnesses are always Castaneda partisans. We can’t prove anything. And see…everyone else is being treated with kid gloves and getting explanations that we are bad elements who should be frozen out. The cabal are not exerting any openly trespassing power. They’re not in any way tipping their hand. Except for doing things like marginalizing anyone who won’t follow their orders or questions them. But their explanation is always that this person deserves it. They’ve undermined our prestige by saying that you deserted. They seemed very sure you had died. What did they do to ensure it?”

We told her about the bacteria. She nodded. “That makes sense, then, because they told everyone you’d never be back and you’d defected, long before there could be any hope you would return. People believe them, more and more as another day passes without your return.”

“Yeah,” he said, “I imagine. But we weren’t even on Earth that long. It’s just that the ship continuously falling apart, and Zen and Thena having to rebuild en route, made us very slow, and the
Boomerang
was slower on the way back than the
Cathouse
would have been. Or the
Hopper
.”

“I see,” Kath said. “Yes, they definitely meant for you to die en route, so they felt safe in predicting you’d never return.”

“Let’s show them we returned!” Kit said. “Let’s make them show themselves for the slime they are.”

“No!” Kath said. “No. I have a better plan. First, let’s get you out of here and to a lodging where you’ll be safe.”

“And then?”

“And then Mother and I are going to act crazy.”

“That at least,” Waldron said, tartly, “is the easy part of the plan.”

He barely ducked Kath’s playful slap in time.

UNDERGROUND

Getting us out from the landing area wasn’t too difficult. Since practically no one knew this was a landing area, it was easy enough to come and go from it unobserved. What was hard was getting us anywhere else in Eden without being noticed.

A few people noticed us and saw us, other than Kit’s family. At least, when we landed, we had a reception committee composed of Jean, Bruno and half a dozen other Cats and Navs. I remembered Jan and Damon Portago, because, presumably at his parents’ request and design—since most people in Eden were thoroughly racially blended—Damon looked like a light-skinned Earth African. A very good-looking one. His Cat eyes didn’t look at all strange with his roguish features. And his wife Jan, as olive-skinned as I, was a lively young Nav, always ready to argue with him. With them were their best friends, red-headed Cat Samantha Flanagan and Nav Zeddadiah Flanagan, much older and nearing the age when Samantha would have to retire. Zed was one of the Navs who’d almost died in the Earth traps, and had the scars to prove it, but he was chomping at the bit to go back. “They can’t keep us here,” he said. “Eden needs power.”

Also with them were a widowed Nav, Kathleen—Kathy—Wormsley, who was dark-haired, with gentle curves and a ready smile, and a widower Cat, Kevin “Fritz” Fotovich, who was a devilishly handsome man, and for some reason preferred to go by Fritz. I wondered if their being here together meant there was something in the offing. However much Zen had hated the idea of a restricted mating pool, enough to want to leave Eden forever, Cats and Navs tended to pair up.

They were, I gathered, reassured to see us. I think that was why Kit’s family allowed them to be there. Some people needed to know that whatever Kath and Tania’s plan was, it was not nearly as crazy as it sounded. Enough people needed to know.

We were subjected to hugs and pats on the back, a little disconcerting for me, since I’d not grown up as a Nav and was only a marginal member of the fraternity. Probably a little disconcerting for Kit, too, because he was not the most sociable person around.

And then they took us to some lodgings, taking advantage of two things—the fact that people look less closely to each person in a group, and the fact that Eden’s fashions and attire were always free form. Any Edenite might be wearing anything at any time, from fully covered in something resembling a blanket to completely nude. I got completely covered and also two of the Cats put their arms over me, so I was almost invisible between their much greater heights.

Kit on the other hand, I regret to say will never, ever, ever look natural in a bright blue shoulder-length wig and a subdued grey suit. However, I suspect that the very fact the hair was outlandish and the clothes something no Cat in his right mind—or vision—would wear, kept him from being recognized.

Doc had been given something that looked rather like a monk’s costume with cowl, which meant that he was still perfectly himself and in character as some sort of medieval gnome. But I doubted many people had realized that Doc thought he would fit perfectly well in the Middle Ages. His house notwithstanding, he was so matter-of-fact and practical on everything else, that I didn’t think most people realized his obsession.

We got safely into someone’s flyer—a small flyer with the biostuffing torn out of one of the seats; I think the owner was one of Waldron’s friends—and were taken to a nondescript lodging in an area of town I didn’t remember visiting. The place was Damon and Jan’s, a starter home, on a tiny plot. Living room, bedroom and kitchen, the quarters were smaller than the ones we enjoyed aboard the
Cathouse
. How they managed to live there with Javier, their toddler, was beyond me, though of course, in normal times, they’d be spending most of their time aboard their ship, the
Manolo
. But it had plenty of water for showers, and we could cook food. Jan and Damon were double-bunking with Sam and Zed for the duration.

Kit’s family couldn’t all crowd into the place, even if it had been safe, but they managed to straggle in, by ones and twos in the wee hours of the morning, until all the adults were crowded into the tiny living room, sitting on the single, spectacularly uncomfortable sofa, and on pillows taken from the bed, and on the floor.

“What did you mean about acting crazy?” Kit said. “I don’t think they’re going to suggest you should be put down for being mentally defective, and failing that, how do you expect them to tip their hand?”

“Oh, easily enough,” Kath said and grinned. “You see, we’ve demanded that they submit to hypnotics in the Judicial Center.”

“What?” Kit said. “On charges of planning to take over Eden?”

“No, of course not, silly. On charges of murdering you.”

“What? But I’m alive.”

“Well, yes,” Tania answered in turn. “And have I told you how happy I am about that, my dear? But they don’t know that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Doc Bartolomeu said. “You can’t prove they even attempted anything against Kit. If you never found out who shot him, though I’m sure the assassins were attached to Castaneda, there is no way to know for sure.”

“No,” Kath said. “We never could prove it. As in the other incidents in which people
did
die, there is nothing concrete to say it wasn’t even self-defense. And often there are witnesses that the dead person attacked first. A lot of witnesses, all with the same exact story.”

“No,” Jean said, “but that’s part of the beauty of it. You see, we expect them to say there is no proof you were murdered. And then Tania and Kath say they just know. And then…”

“And then?” Doc said. “It seems like a dangerous game.”

“Not really. Then they’re going to demand we submit to hypnotics, to see if we have any proof Kit was murdered. Or even attempted against. Not just by them, but attempted against in general. Because you see, they say our family is crazy and troublemakers for saying Kit was attacked. They’re using the fact that you left ahead of schedule as proof that you were trying to betray Eden all along.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense. How would leaving ahead of schedule make me more likely to betray Eden?”

“It wouldn’t, of course,” Kath said. “But they say you left that quickly lest they discover you’d made arrangements to stay on Earth.”

“Right…” Kit said. “Such as provisioning for the trip to Earth. Or perhaps…what? Trying to make sure we got there in one piece?”

Kath shrugged. “Who knows. There are rumors that you smuggled Eden technology to give you a safe passage on Earth.”

“I see. So…you two submit to questioning,” I said. “But that’s a problem, because neither of you even saw Kit shot. All you saw was blood on me when I came to pack.”

Kath nodded. “Of course. That’s the beauty of it.”

TICKLING TROUTS

Once, in Daddy Dearest’s library, I found myself reading a book on hand fishing. To be precise, about something called trout tickling, apparently possible in unspoiled wildernesses, where the unsuspecting trouts didn’t expect treason.

If right about now you’re thinking I spent a lot of my youth reading about cruelty to animals, you’re probably right, and my only defense is that I much rather preferred to read about cruelty to humans. But sometimes you have to go with what’s available.

However, as far as I understood the trout-tickling technique, it went like this: First you went in and made nice to the trout. You made that trout feel you were a friend and you were there to give it a really good massage and perhaps a fin-cleaning or whatever it is that trouts like to have done to them.

And then when the poor trout least expected it, you grabbed it behind the gills, got a good hold, and threw it out of the water and onto the bank, to be cooked for dinner.

As Kath’s plan started to become obvious, I realized that was exactly what we intended to do with Castaneda and his allies. Except for the cooking for dinner part. I didn’t think Eden had a food shortage yet. But that would inevitably come, if we allowed tyranny to take hold, at least if Earth’s history told the truth. Particularly this type of tyranny which restricted access to sources of energy. There were three families involved, about half of the Energy Board, and all of them closely related: the Castanedas, the Altermans, and the Fergusons.

By great good fortune, the only Cats related to these families were much older than Kath, and probably older than Tania. This meant that no one could legitimately play the duel card and attempt to take the two of them out that way. Well, I suspect there were a Cat or two who might be bribed or coerced into dueling them but for one thing—Kath was a noted markswoman. And besides, most active-duty Cats were on our side, openly or not. They didn’t like not being able to take runs as often as they were willing.

You have to understand, Cats and Navs in Eden endured high risk for high pay, but they were used to the high pay, and also believed that the limit of what they could earn should be determined solely by how many runs they were willing to make, not by the board. They didn’t like someone else deciding it was too unsafe to travel. And even when they didn’t complain, because they didn’t see a way to win the fight, they didn’t like it, and wanted someone to remove the restrictions.

And so, Tania and Kath publicly and privately accused the three families of having murdered their darling son and brother. They gave lurid descriptions of possible fates for Kit. And they invented the most outlandish slanders. In other words, the most outrageous members of the Denovo clan were having more fun than should be legal.

But despite their enjoyment of the process, and despite a growing hubbub of rumors, gleefully reported by our visitors, there was no official movement to respond to the supposed—and some of them real—calumnies.

I was starting to suspect I’d live the rest of my life, alone with Kit and Doc, in our little borrowed hideout. Or else, we’d have to figure out a way to steal a ship and go back to Earth.

This was starting to look appealing. I was so nervous and cabin-feverish I kept throwing up and felt tired all the time.

Of course, Kath had the retrofitted family-flyer and Tania said that with three days’ notice, she could get some people from the Thules to meet us in space. They had supposedly been waiting and spelling each other, in striking distance of Eden. But the truth was that Kit and I didn’t want to go to the Thules or to Earth and leave Eden to its fate. We’d gone to Earth in search of the fire of the gods, to save Eden from tyranny. And now, no one even cared about the little powertree we’d left growing on a larger asteroid.

Sometimes I dreamed that the poor little plant had died, ignored. And sometimes I dreamed we’d died too, that the
Hopper
had disintegrated and that we’d suffocated in space.

Perhaps it was the spectacularly uncomfortable bed Kit and I shared. Though the sofa Doc slept on was worse.

We didn’t exactly start to bicker. Well, not Kit and I. We were used to spending time in space together alone, in cramped quarters. But Kit and Doc seemed to argue for amusement, and if I heard just once more, “Christopher, don’t be an idiot,” I was going to sit down and have a good scream.

Kit must have been fairly close to it too, no matter how much the two of us knew that the doctor only insulted those people he liked.

When Kath came in on what I thought was the month anniversary of our captivity, Kit said, “Look, nothing can be served by this. I say we emerge and tell them about the powertree. For one, though it should remain alive and dormant for a while, it’s going to need water soon.”

“I know, but that’s fine, because Castaneda and his friends have issued a complaint against us for slander, and a demand that we appear in the Judicial Center to be interrogated under hypnotics, to ascertain if we truly are deluded and believe there is any reality to our accusations, or if we are in fact simply malicious.”

Kit hugged her. And then I hugged her. And then we planned.

Two days after, when the hearing had been set, we were smuggled out of the lodgings and into the Judicial Center. This was a little more complex than smuggling us out of the landing dock, because we had to get in near the end of the questioning. This was to minimize the risk of someone recognizing us. But the Judicial Center was as full as in the two other cases involving Kit and me.

Fortunately our allies had a streak of conspirator in them. Or perhaps Doc orchestrated it. I say this because we all seemed to end up in cowled outfits. We also left separately.

I was taken by Jan and Damon, who smuggled me into a side door and, with the help of confederates, onto a seat at the side of the amphitheater, with Zed and Sam on either side for cushioning. Even I didn’t know where Doc and Kit were.

All I knew is that they were somewhere there.

Tania was being interrogated. She was the second one to submit to questioning, as Sam explained. And her deposition had so far been negative on proof. As had Kath’s.

Now, in response to a question she said, “No, I didn’t see my son wounded, and I have no proof his life was attempted against.”

And then Castaneda got up, from the audience, up front, full of righteous indignation and noble suffering. “I say the two of them have spread calumnies against me and my family, as I’ve tried to steer the world through this crisis and the truth is that Christopher and Athena Sinistra, perhaps without the knowledge of Doctor Bartolomeu Dias or Nav Sienna, always intended to defect to Earth. The truth is, I am doing what I’m doing for the good of society and my aims are society’s and I—”

I thought to myself that I’d been right. He was equating his own good with the good of society, and if he succeeded, no one else’s rights or wishes would count, but only those of “society,” read to mean Castaneda. Or rather, I didn’t think at all, I just stood up. Kit anticipated me, though.

My darling has a turn for the dramatic. I thought he looked pretty dramatic the very first time I saw him, coming into the airlock of the
Cathouse
, burner in hand. Now he stood, with a fluid movement, removing the disguising garment, saying “You lie.”

And Doc Bartolomeu stood also, from where he’d sat. It wasn’t nearly as impressive, because he’d never been a tall man, and age had shrunk him further, but he stood up anyway, and his voice carried and crackled with indignation as he said, “You lie.”

What is a girl to do when handed that sort of entrance line? I stood up, cast off the cloak with hood that I was wearing and said, ringingly and in what was for Eden a truly weird accent, “You lie.”

For a moment there was complete silence, and then the crowd went wild.

Far, far wilder than I’d expected. As everyone got up, talking, arguing, I saw the burner ray cut through the crowd. I screamed “Kit!” and threw myself in his direction, which tells you how worried I was, because there was no possible way I could reach him, not when he was on the other side of the amphitheater. There had to be a couple hundred people between us.

But I saw Kit duck out of the way, and then a few of our Cat friends, including Fritz, closed ranks around him. The seemingly random movement of the crowd wielded a few Cats and Navs who seemed to be directed by Kathy and who closed ranks around me, as well.

I presumed Doc had his own honor guard. The rest of the room boiled in pandemonium, and Fritz, who had been one of our more frequent visitors, had jumped the shooter and was holding him on the ground and seemed to be tying him up. Kathy Wormsley seemed to be helping, but it was hard to see through the crowd.

Kit spoke as though the room were in perfect calm, his voice so loud it carried above the babble. “I,” he said, “Cat Christopher Bartolomeu Ingemar Denovo Klaavil Sinistra, accuse you, Fergus Castaneda, as well as unknown accomplices and abettors, of trying to kill me three times, and my companions, Doctor Bartolomeu Dias, Athena Hera Sinistra, and Zenobia Diana Sienna, twice. And I will be deposed on the matter, under hypnotics if you so choose.”

The noise increased. Some people tried to leave the hall, and I gathered our friends detained them, but it was hard to see. I didn’t know if the frog was boiling, but the auditorium was. There were three or four fights, full-blown fistfights, just in my immediate vicinity, and burners fired and people screamed, and you couldn’t tell what was happening through the press of people and the movement. Were people dying? Or wounded? I couldn’t tell. For a while, I couldn’t even see Kit’s family or Kit.

And yet, Kit and Doc Bartolomeu and I got pushed up front and towards the stage. The doctor who had administered the hypnotics to Tania insisted on doing it to Kit, probably because he was afraid that Doc would cheat. Or perhaps because he wanted to avoid even the appearance of impropriety.

Doc, of course, had to intervene twice because he wanted to make sure that Kit survived it, despite his allergy. Kit didn’t show any reluctance, except for grabbing my hand and squeezing hard.

And then, he was sitting and the auditorium suddenly went quiet, and Doc was asking questions. Of course, we had no proof that Castaneda had done anything. But there was inference that could be made, and Eden was very good at inference. Guided by Doc, questions were asked about whom the scarcity of powerpods could possibly benefit and Kit answered with his best guess.

More devastating was his describing the attempts against his life, the shooting, and the bacteria that ate the
Hopper
, and finally the attempt to make us stay in space and die there. Meanwhile the shooters were presumably being questioned, and our people moved through the crowd, staking positions for the real fight to come. There was a sob from the audience at this, and I wondered if it was the reaction of a family member of one of the people who had disappeared en route…if they now suspected their relative had died locked out of Eden.

Fritz, who, at the best of times looked like an impudent rogue, grinned at me, winked, and blew me a kiss as he took a position at the foot of the stage, presumably defending us. I winked back.

Yeah, this was probably dangerous as he was one of the Cats who had been widowed in the traps set by Earth. On the other hand, Kit had never shown any jealousy of him, and Kit was very good at detecting true predatory intentions. I assumed Fritz was one of those people who enjoyed flirting with everyone, married or not, and whether he was interested or not. People like that, unless you take it too seriously, can brighten your day by making you feel wildly seductive, even when you know you’re not.

“You have no proof that I was behind any of this,” Castaneda said, as Doc signaled that Kit had had all he could have, and the other doctor administered the antidote to the hypnotics. “This is nothing but more calumny and slander orchestrated by the Denovos. So, their son is alive, but how do we know who attempted against him? It’s not the first time someone tried to kill Cat Kla—Sinistra. His personality lends itself to making people wish to kill him. And spreading lies about me, while I try to do what is best for Eden, is just another facet of his antisocial—”

“I can prove it,” Doc Bartolomeu said, “and so can Nav Sinistra. We can prove there was only one person with the kind of access to the
Hopper
that would allow them to have infected the hull. I traced the progression of the infection while Nav—”

I saw the burner ray, aimed straight at Doc, but it was too late for me to react and do anything. But a Cat could. Fritz seemed to dematerialize at the foot of the stage and reappear at the top, in front of Doc, just as the burner ray pierced Fritz’s chest.

Fritz looked very surprised, but he was still moving fast, even if no longer Cat speed, and he managed to get his burner out of his holster and shoot at his assassin, an elder man with Cat eyes, in the crowd. They fell at the same time.

As Fritz folded to the stage, he muttered something that could be interpreted as “damn tyrants.” Not eloquent perhaps, but I’ll say it’s as good a set of last words as anyone could hope for.

And then a dark-haired Nav, John Ringo, stood up, drawing a burner from somewhere beneath his red kilt, and shouted, “Live free or die,” before shooting another man aiming a burner at Kit. Ringo lived for maybe three seconds, afterwards, as one of Castaneda’s associates burned him in the middle of the chest.

Kathy Wormsley avenged him immediately, shooting the man who had shot Ringo before Ringo had fallen to the ground. And then someone shot her. While this happened, the crowd seemed to have frozen. But eventually the sense that this was no longer a normal enquiry started to penetrate.

And then all hell broke loose, and burner rays shot everywhere. Kit was the only person not involved, still strapped to the interrogation seat, shaking himself back to his senses.

I guess someone viewed him a sitting duck, and perhaps a sitting duck that still knew too much. He had, after all, told them there was a new seedling to powertrees, but not where, and that could still be averted.