Grazing The Long Acre (24 page)

‘Lakey…Lana used that term. We don’t know what it means,’ said Grace.

‘A fulcrum, my young friends, is the fixed point on which a lever moves. The unmoving mover one might say….But
reculons-nous, pour mieux sauter
. Eight hundred years ago, explorers set out across uncharted seas, and the mighty civilisation that still commands the human world was born. Four hundred years ago, man achieved space flight. What happened…?’

Orlando and Grace wondered what to say.

L’Hibou provided his own answer. ‘
Nothing
,’ he said, with infinite disgust. ‘Flags and footprints in the dead dust! Eventually, yes, a few fools managed to scrape a living in the deep. But the gravity well defeated us. We could not become a new world. There was nothing to prime the pump, no spices, no gold: no new markets, never enough materials worth the freight.’

The spacers muttered, in bitter assent.

 ‘Buonarotti science has changed everything,’ continued L’Hibou, ‘It makes our whole endeavour look like Leonardo da Vinci’s futile attempts to fly. Touching, useless precocity…Pitifully wrongheaded! But what will non-local transit, of itself, give to the human race..?
Prison planets
, my young friends. Sinks for earth’s surplus population, despatched out there with a pick and shovel and a bag of seed apiece. That’s what the International Government intends. And so be it, that’s none of our concern. But something happened, out here on the Kuiper Belt station, fifteen years ago. In one of the first Buonarotti experiments, a dimensional gate was opened, and
something came back
that was not of this universe. There were deaths, human and AI. Records were erased…No witnesses survived, no similar experiment has ever been attempted, non-local exploration has been restricted to the commonplace. But we have pieced together the story. They were very afraid. They ejected the thing from the Hub, wrapped in the forcefield that still contains it. The Knob was built around that field; and connected to the Pan, so that the jailer would have some relief and some means of escape. And there it stays, weeping its precious tears.’

‘Thanks,’ said Orlando. ‘We’ve read the guidebook.’

‘It is the scorpion,’ hissed the pop-eyed little man . ‘The scorpion that stings because that is its nature, the scorpion that will fell the mighty hunter.’

The tall man smiled wryly. ‘My friend Slender Johnny is as crazy as Jack. He’s convinced that the silver tears will ruin the world below, the way Mexican gold felled the might of Spain. It seems to be a slow acting poison.’

‘Hahaha. When the gods mean to destroy us, they give us what we desire.’

‘Be quiet, Johnny.’ The little man subsided. ‘The
real significance
of the tears is that
they came through
. What happens in a Buonarotti transit, my tourist friends? Come, you’ve read the guidebook.’

‘Nothing moves,’ said Grace. ‘The traveller’s body and the gravegoods, I mean the survival outfit, disappear, because of local point phase conservation. At the, er, target location, base elements plentiful everywhere accrete to the information and a an identical body and, er, outfit, will appear…Coming back it happens the same in reverse. The survey data is never enough, it can only show the trip is feasible, not whether all the trace elements are there. But when the test-pilot comes back-’

The deep spacers drew a concerted breath of fury.

‘She meant dumb puppet,’ said Orlando hurriedly. ‘Monkey, whatever.’

‘Quite so,’ agreed the tall man, coldly. ‘But the point is made. Nothing material travels, but the silver
tears are material
. They are the proof, the validation, the gateway to the empire
that should have been ours
, and that is why the government will never, never investigate. Ships, my young friends. If we had a sample of those tears, we would be on our way to building
ships
that could weave through-’

‘I’m sure you’re right,’ said Grace. ‘But, do you want from us?’

‘We know you have the key to the Fuclrum’s prison cell.’

The aliens looked at each other, dry-mouthed.

‘Say you were right,’ said Grace, ‘What use is the combination of the safe, when you have no chance of making a getaway.?’

‘Agreed. But a mad man might be persuaded. A dangerous lunatic.’

The aliens looked at Jack Solo, still hanging there in the arms of the support staff. The Kuiper Belt patches on the two men’s coveralls glowed a little in the dim light. Jack was in never-never land, whispering to the bot, who crouched at his feet in her soiled pink nightie. L’Hibou held up a hand.

 ‘Oh, no. Jack is ours. We look after our own.’

‘Draco Fujima has
lettres de cachet
-’ whispered Slender Johnny, and shivered.

‘
Lettres de cachet
?’ repeated Grace. ‘What’s that?’

‘The term is mine,’ said L’Hibou. ‘Suffice it to say, that bastard has contacts, and each of us here has offended him in some way. He’s threatening to have us sent down the gravity well.’

‘We know he’ll do it,’ said Dirty Harry grimly. ‘Unless we can buy him off.’

‘Only it has to be the big prize,’ put in Jean, tossing her head. ‘Nothing less.’

Death by violence had no horror for the deep spacers. To be forcibly returned to earth, not rich but in helpless poverty: to die in lingering humiliation in some public hospital, that was something like the ultimate damnation-

‘We’d want our bikes back,’ said Grace. ‘And some useful numbers.’

‘Deal with the playpen soldier for us, and we will look after you.’

The aliens retired to their cabin, very shaken, and put their heads together, figuratively and also literally; for greater security. If they had to do this deal, but they’d rather have dealt with Jack Solo –who seemed to them like the minor bad guy, in spite of the knife work. A softbot sextoy (and this was why the bots had been only a passing phase on earth) inevitably reflects the owner’s secret identity. You could
sympathise
with crazy Jack…dragging his whiney Anni-mah around, like a flag of failure and defeat. Draco’s image of himself as a hefty sugarbabe just turned their stomachs…But it wasn’t Anni-mah who could deal with sys-op.

‘We have no choice,’ said Grace, at last. ‘We know what we have to do. You have to risk your life, playing footsie with the toy soldier.’

Orlando nodded. ‘And you have to fuck Eddie’s brains out.’

Days passed. ‘Lakey’ was just gone. There would be no investigation: the rule is, there are no rules. An obscure spacer with a poor stake, whose chances had seemed remote, made a successful trip. Another prospector sold some good numbers to the developers, several long term ‘travellers’ were posted officially missing. The remote control conversion work that was adapting the Kuiper Belt station for mass rapid transit; turning the place into a latter-day Ellis Island, continued apace. The plans included moving the goose that laid the golden eggs to an even more secure and isolated location: but no one in deep space knew about that, not even Eddie. The Slingshot was on course, and growing closer, but still weeks away from dock.

One slow, chill standard noon there was a chime at Eddie’s door, and in came Grace. She sat in one of his chanterelle-shaped designer chairs, and they chatted. Jack Solo was behaving as though nothing had happened, but where would he strike next?

Eddie knew it was tactless but he could tell she was hurting…so in the end he asked her straight. ‘Where’s Orlando?’

Grace shrugged. ‘I don’t really care. I know who he’s with, though.’

‘Uh, who? I mean, if you want to talk about it.’

‘Draco Fujima,’ confessed Grace, miserably.

Eddie blinked. He accessed sys-op in his head, and reviewed the passenger list: which was easy enough to do, and it sometimes gave him guilty entertainment. He couldn’t get moving pictures, but he could know who was in the wrong cabin, so to speak, at any time. Alas, Grace was perfectly correct. Orlando was with Drac.

‘Oh, Grace, I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. We’re an open couple. It’s just…I just wish it wasn’t Draco.’

‘Is there anything I can do?’

The alien wiped her leaky eyes. ‘Eddie, you’re so nice.’ She smiled bravely. ‘Well, since you mention it…Eddie Supercargo, could we go to your place?’

‘You mean right now?’

‘If you’re allowed, yeah. Right now.’

Eddie knew he was ‘being used’. He didn’t mind at all. What are friends for?

 The aliens played safe for a few days, but Draco was watching them, and he knew when the operation was coming off. He caught one of the pair alone on the observation deck, and made his move. Nominally, he and Jack Solo were partners, but fuck that. Jack was a liability, and Draco
deserved
some luck.

‘It’s like this,’ he explained, when he’d marched the alien to his First Class cabin, and knocked him around a little. ‘I hurt you, you talk. If I don’t like what you say, I hurt you more. Clear?’

‘You c-can’t do this,’ protested Orlando, ‘I’m n-not a spacer. I’m a European citizen. If…if anything happens to me, you won’t get away with it!’

‘Hey, don’t count on it. We’re a long way from home and I’m a damaged vet. I get temporary insanity. No one’s going to take me to court.’

In a combat situation, Draco Fujima still had all his noughts and ones.

To save time, he showed the tourist the sidearm he had smuggled on board, and that made Orlando (or maybe Grace, he didn’t know and he didn’t care) very co-operative. In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king. This applies best if the one eye is the dark little hole at the end of a gun.

‘Now I’ll tell you what’s going on,’ said Drac. ‘You and your partner have implants. You were supposed to ditch them, but you took a chance because you didn’t plan on making a Buonarotti transit, and you didn’t want to lose your technology. You thought no one would check up, and you were right. Deep spacers have too much brain damage for an implant to function, by the time they end up here. When Eddie let you through the Wall that day, you took another chance and mugged his frequency. You have the code in your head that will get us to the cell and activate the harvesting robotics. Now tell me how it works.’

Sara Komensky stood at Draco’s shoulder, and smiled.

‘All right, all right,’ gasped Orlando. ‘The government couldn’t trust control of what goes on in there to the AIs. They wouldn’t dare have it handled by remote commands, that could be intercepted by terrorists or rogue states. Eddie is the key. He makes out he’s just here for decoration, but he’s the walking key.’

‘And you have him, the noughts and ones of Eddie, copied into your head.’

‘H-how did you…?’

‘Let’s just say, computer systems can be hacked in many different ways, and you two have loose mouths. Now I’m guessing your partner is with Eddie right now, and you are waiting for a signal from her to tell you to go ahead.’

‘No! I’m not going to tell you!’

‘They have to be running a diversion, Drac,’ said Sara. ‘We don’t know what it is they’re doing with Eddie, but they’re doing something. We didn’t get that part.’

‘It’d better be a good trick,’ said Draco. ‘For your sake, asshole.’

Orlando reckoned he’d held out long enough to be plausible. ‘All right, okay, I’ll give you the code. I can download, just show me your input device—’

Draco grinned. ‘Oh no. Sorry, asshole, that’s not going to work. The military took my chip when they discharged me. You’re going to take me in there.’

 Grace and Orlando knew what Eddie had done, to deal with the horrible burden he’d been given. Maybe it was grotesque in human terms, but they were experts on the twisted paths of pleasure, and they could understand. Eddie could not bear what happened to the thing in the cell: he couldn’t bear the part he had to play, as the code trigger to that brutal harvest. So he’d rerouted the experience. He had plugged all the helpless guilt and powerless compassion he felt into his libido. When the alien got milked, poor soft-hearted Eddie got his rocks off.

It wasn’t Eddie who designed the human brain, and he wasn’t the first to make use of the paradoxical contiguity between sexual excitement and other violent arousal. Actually, she felt bad about deceiving him. But she knew Eddie would forgive her. The rule is there are no rules…But now what? Where’s the way to Eddie’s heart? It
can’t
be that his only pleasure comes from watching a flayed, truncated human being get fisted by a robot. Eddie isn’t really like that.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Eddie, shyly.

 She looked around. The cabin was
lovely
, even with its boring décor. Everything was exquisite, and delicate, and…
oooh
,
this figures
, distinctly sexless. Orlando and Grace genuinely did empathy rather well: it was part of the augmentation they’d chosen, when they got themselves fixed up as nearly-twins. Her glance lit on a convoluted shelf unit that held, protected from the vagaries of gravity failure, a very pretty tea set, in shades of dark blue and rust.

‘Could we have tea?’

Eddie’s cheeks turned pink, his eyes shone. ‘Ooh, yes! Indian, or China, or I have some Earl Grey, or would you prefer a fruit, or herbal blend?’

‘I would
love
to try your Earl Grey,’ she told him, very warmly. ‘Oh, wow, Eddie. Can that be…? Is that early Wedgwood?’

Nice Eddie’s lips parted in unfeigned delight. His breathing quickened.

Draco walked Orlando to the Wall: Sara Komensky on point, a few paces behind. Drac had his hands in the hip pockets of his padded jumper. Every so often he nudged Orlando in the small of his back, with the muzzle of the plastic shooter.

‘Go ahead, Orlando. You’re the one with the key.’

‘I can’t, I daren’t,’ protested Orlando, feebly resistant. ‘The AIs will spot us, this was never meant to happen this way—’ The muzzle of the firearm dug into his back. ‘Okay! Okay…!’ He summoned virtual Eddie to the forefront of his mind. The Wall opened, Orlando and Draco and the bot passed through. They reached the antechamber with the window looking into the cell next door.