L. Neil Smith - North American Confederacy 02 (16 page)

That drippin’ y’don’t hear is th’ bleedin’ of m’heart.

He’d provided the pop-eye polaroids. Win wanted t’find out how Captain Li-Li’d found me.
I
wanted t’know how come everybody an’ his asshole was titled “Captain”—no colonels, obersts, subalterns, or generalissimos, jus’
captain.

Win laughed, which I thought sorta smacked of bad taste, seein’ as how he was drivin’ me to the slammer at the time. Nice car: a Neova—we slowed to a hundred through the hospital zones.

“I wondered the same thing when I first got here, Bemie. Their ‘gaols’ threw me, too. They let a prisoner of mine suicide because they hadn’t shaken him down thoroughly— no more expertise developing penal institutions than military ranks. And for the same reason.”

“Howzat?” They’d sure known enough t’take my .45 away—makin’ hilarious remarks about museum pieces. Wished I hadn’t sent Olongo’s gun back.

“Well, everybody’s armed here as a matter of individual—not societal—defense. Sure, there’s the militia, but it’s largely vestigial, covers only a county-sized area, supports itself through bake-sales and raffle-tickets, and hasn’t any more official status than the thousand others like it scattered over the continent. There’s no official status to
have."

“So, if I started my own Greater Laporte militia?...” He laughed again. “They’d welcome the competition—
and
challenge you to a tug-of-war at their annual fundraising picnic. That’s the best way to look at it, sort of a volunteer fire department. They haven’t had any real combat experience since the Russian War, and likely never will again. A country where everybody has a gun and nobody has the-authority to surrender—that’s a militarist’s nightmare!”

I realized he hadn’t answered my question. “Yeah, but what’s all this ‘Captain’ jazz?”

“Well, anyone who
heads
a group of individuals—not easy in this unruly continuum—gets the honorific
‘Captain.’
That’s what it means, and that’s about all it amounts to. Will’s elected-—by unanimous consent—and Li-Li’s a hired hand. As for why there isn’t any prison-science, how many crimes do you suppose get committed around here?” I opened my mouth.

“Never mind; I’ll tell you...”

I shut it.

“These murders would be the first in five years, locally. The tiny population of burglars and muggers usually doesn’t live long enough to
get
to gaol.” He reflected. “You know, you’re going to be famous in the morning.”

“Just what I need! Say, Win, if nothing nor nobody’s
official
an’ there ain’t no real cops, how come you’re takin’ your buddy off to the calaboose? Whyn’t we just ignore this hoorah an’ get on with findin’
Georgie?"

The Neova slowed. A sign ahead offered “High Security Lodging— Vacancy—For Sale Cheap.” Gaol business
must
be lousy.

“Look, Bernie, there are over six thousand Telecom channels in the Confederacy. The average person can’t go an hour without using the Telecom, to look up the definition of a word, check a recipe, buy a carton of cigarettes, or catch the reruns of
Hello, Joe
—
Whadd'ya Know?.
And you should see the media-wide alert when somebody writes a bad check! You wouldn’t last three hours on the outside, and I’d never do business again for aiding and abetting.”

He popped the gull-wing doors. We went inside t’see the night clerk. They didn’t even ask t’see my luggage.

So here I was, at 3:30 in the momin’, lyin’ on my back, tryin’ t’find somethin’ interestin’ on the Telecom t’watch between my toes. The room’s disintegrator chute was still absorbin’ the remains of a postmidnight snack, an’ that in itself’d been somethin’ t’ponder.

Eagleburger. Seems like the local conservationists’d discovered a century ago that chickens an’ turkeys weren’t in danger of extinction on accounta they were private property an’ economically useful. It might disturb some tender anticommercial sensibilities, turnin’ mighty raptors into mun-chies, but at least there were plenty of ’em t’spare.

Back home they’d been extinct for two hundred years.

The Freenies were finishin’ their third cuppa java apiece. Dunno what they were gonna do tonight; the little buggers
never
seemed t’sleep. Musta been all that coffee.

There was somethin’ like a TV guide on the nightstand. Turned out, it was only a guide to the guide. Dozens of utility channels just listin’ what was on
now.
Even more listin’ what was on later. The main channels advertised their up-comin’ features—-an’ even carried ads for other channels, as well. There was an interactive query-service, cross-referencin’ current programs by subject, title, author, producer, director, principal actors, an’ bit-players—an’ a couple channels you could call in t’request anything else y’ wanted.

Naturally, the gaol itself had a well-stocked library of postage-stamp recordings of books, music, movies, an’ suchlike.

You could even make
yourself
a channel, speak your piece or hum through a comb-and-tissue-paper, if you were willin’ t’pay for the time. ’Course nobody had t’watch y’do it.

Maybe it’s just the
idea
of TV: there
still
wasn’t anything interestin’ on.

But I noticed one or two items that woulda gone right by the average Confederate viewer. First of all, there weren’t any mass-spectator team sports. A sprinklin’ of individual efforts, like target-shootin’, tennis, an’ boxin’. An’ with about as much audience-appeal—I gathered from the near-empty bleachers in the screen—as celebrity hopscotch. Full-contact karate, a recent import from the States, was enjoyin’ a modest vogue, though they hadda spot the humans a few dozen extra points.

Another thing was. the decided lacka religion. I think there was just one church in the whole of Greater Laporte— though it coulda been Chicago, kinda lost track which channel I was watchin’ at the time—an’ that was an inflatable hut that was only there three days a week. Saturdays for Adventists an’ my folks, Sundays for the gentiles, an’ Mondays for the Freudians.

Resta the week it was a parkin’ lot.

But most disturbin’, somehow, was that Confederate swear-words are as different as everything else. They don’t refer t’sex, an’ they don’t refer t’God. Pie-in-the-sky just don’t mix too well with folks usta runnin’ their own lives, thanks. Instead, they swear by their heroes, like Lysander Spooner an’ Albert Gallatin; they swear by baddies like Washington an’ Hamilton. “Condemnation!” Li-Li’d exclaimed when pressed t’some kinda limit, referrin’ more t’govemment’s way with other folks’ real estate, than the state of anybody’s soul. An’ they swear by excretion, just like everybody else in the known universe.

But if somebody here’d said “Get fucked!” the ad-dressee’d likely look at him a bit funny, shake his head, an’ answer, “Why thanks, pilgrim—you have a nice day, too!”

Prime time. There I was in the TV studio, disguised as a paper-shredder, recordin' the assassination of Blocky Yocks. Dunno why the Academy’d bothered—it was seen live coast t’ coast by half the population of the country at the time.

It was durin’ the ratin’s sweeps of 1991. The week before, America's most popular ventriloquist'd forgotten t'pay his phone bill on time. Good ol TPC’d cut his service on a Friday, leavin’ the poor guy outa touch with the network, columnists, agent, fans, an’ the three exwives he was still talkin’ to, over a whole weekend. That kinda thing’s ruined bigger stars—lookit the rumors about Kermit the Frog bein’ dead. Never did make much of a comeback after that.

But this time, it meant
war.
Come Wednesday night, he’d recited the business office numbers for the Ameche monopoly in Anchorage an’ Honolulu an’ pointed out to 60,000,000 viewers that whenever they called a long-distance number that was busy or didn’t answer, it cost the phone company. Not much, a measurable pittance for switching, line-use, an’ the ring-ring or buzz-buzz at the other end.

So when 60,000,000 people tried those numbers, every fifteen minutes, twenty-four hours a day—but
only
on weekends—for seventeen months running, it put a crack of doom right in the Bell System.

But, in its early dyin' throes, the system lashed out at its tormentor. The week followin’ Blocky’s announcement, as I was crouched, sweatin’ inside a plastic bagfulla confetti an' he was in the middle of his openin’ monologue, two CIA loaners an’ a paira outa-work installers busted into Studio B with silenced Ruger Mark IIs an’ emptied their clips into poor Blocky, endin’ his career forever.

Too bad the stupid jerks didn’t think t’ shoot his partner, the ventriloquist.

I woke up, not havin’ realized I’d nodded off. Sheesh! Past few nights, m’whole life’d been flashin’ before my eyes.
Gotta
lay off that vitamin B6.

Sunlight was streamin’ in the window, an’ the Telecom was blarin’ at my alien friends. I amazed m’self by feelin’ pretty swell, all things considered. The Freenies were watchin’ some kinda porno flick on a local program titled
Punching for Platinum.
Now an’ again the host’d call up his viewers, an’ if they could name the page in the
Kama Sutra
closest t’what’d just happened in this momin’s movie, they won. What kinda spoilt it for me was that all the actors were chimpanzees. The host, bobbin’ in a big glass tank, was a porpoise.

I got up, showered, retrieved my coverall from the autogroomer, an’ started pushin’ a little plastic complimentary razor around on my stubble while the Yamaguchii ordered breakfast. Jake with me—I coulda eaten a...

... I caught a glimpse of the Telecom screen in the mirror, nearly decapitated an’ strangled myself at the same time, swivelin’ my neck around, an’ lost my appetite immediately. Seein’ yourself unexpectedly on TV’ll do that to ya:

IMMIGRANT DENIES BUTCHERING TWO DETAILS ON CHANNEL 1130

Dazed, I stumbled to the bar, shave an’ breakfast forgotten. Win’d been right about gettin’ famous in a hurry. Dunno when the camera’d caught me with that dumb look on my face, but it was obvious the gaoler’d found a way t’supplement his meager income. I poured myself a straight shot, gargled it down, an’ set up another on the rocks.

There was a scratchin’ at the door.

Hell, I’d never even checked t’see if it was locked last night. Now I kinda hoped it would be—t’keep nosy strangers out.

More scratchin’ scrabblin’ noises.

Wishin’ more’n ever I still had my Colt, I approached the door cautiously. I wondered how good a weapon a Freenie’d make if y’grabbed it by the neck an’ swung it. I opened the unresistin’ door a crack, peeked out into the hail.

Nothin’.

Suddenly, the door moved of its own accord. I looked down, glass in hand, an’ there at my feet was a brownish medium-sized pooch.
No,
not quite, but somethin’ else. It nosed on through the door, stopped in the middle of the room, sat on its haunches, scratched an ear with a rear foot, an’ cocked its head.

“Surely it’s not cocktail hour already,” the animal said. “Is it, Captain Gruenblum?”

13 The Dog Who Knew too Much

“G. H
OWELL
N
AHUATL AT YOUR SERVICE."
Whiskers twitchin’ an’ a twinkle in his eye, he hopped up into a chair by the window. “The G stands for Greenriver.” “Er.. .I’m Bernard M. Gruenblum—the M stands for Confused. These’re m’friends Snap, Crackle, an’—say, you’re a
coyote,
aren’t you?”

“How nice of you to notice.”

I sighed. “Well, whaddo coyotes drink when they’re visitin’ folks in gaol?”

“It
is
rather early, isn’t it? How about Coca-Cola—” Perfect for a momin’ pick-me-up. There bein’ no Confederate FDA, Coke
is
the real thing.

“—with perhaps the slightest splash of rum? I’m not actually here to
visit,
Captain Gruenblum, but to—” “Don’t tell me you’re a
lawyer?”
Most attomeysa my acquaintance’d been fwo-legged coyotes, but I didn’t think it politic t’mention.

He chuckled. “No, I’m here to get you out. Win Bear sent me.”

Bear sends coyote. I’d be palaverin’ with Br’er Rabbit next thing I knew. Now all I hadda solve was this little etiquette problem: couldn’t
hand
Nahuatl his drink, an’ he’d look silly sittin’ on it like a Freenie.

The critter noticed m’hesitation: “Please set it on the end-table. I’ve a long nose and a longer tongue. Now, as I was saying—”

“Win sentya. Wouldn’ta thought murder’d be a bailable offense.” I started on that second scotch—beat hell outa orange juice for an eye-opener. Addressin’ Spin: “You guys finish orderin’ breakfast? Well, make it for five, whyn’tcha?” “Thank you,” Nahuatl offered. “Those lamb cutlets on the menu will do nicely. And you’re not strictly accused of murder, though if you were, it’s as bondable as any transgression. But you see, Captain, there are no longer any charges against you at all.” He took another lap at his drink.

“That’s
Bernie.
How come I’m on the right side of the nonexistent law again?” Goddamn if m’own drink hadn’t evaporated somehow alluva sudden. I dialed another justa wash breakfast—steak an’ eggs, hashbrowns, English muffins—down. Charm, Spin, an’ Color divvied up a bowla oatmeal. ’Nother rum-Coke for the doggie.

“I’m not entirely certain, Bemie. Win’s on his way back from St. Charles-Auraria. We thought we’d save you another hour in durance vile.” He dipped his muzzle delicately into his glass; it fizzed around his whiskers as he finished it. I punched up another round for both of us.

“Well, I been in duransh
—durances
a lot viler.” I watched the Freenies squattin’ on their oatmeal, shuddered, an’ gulped the resta m’drink. “Lishen, I don’ wanna sheem noshy or nothin’, but—”

“But it ishn’t every day”—the animal grinned, black eyes sparklin’—“you drink breakfasht with a talking coyote?” He hiccupped, eyes dartin’ suspiciously around t’see who’d made that noise.

“Shomethin’ like that. Gorillash, chimpses—” I nodded to the TV porno-host still sloshin’ around—“even dol-phinshes, all got lotsa cranial capacitidity—
-capacitude.
Jushta mattera leamin’ shomebody elshe’s lingo. But, well...” I sputtered awkwardly, lookin’ at his narrow canine skull. “I wouldn’ta thought coyotes’d have...” “Ordinarily,” Nahuatl replied, uncrossin’ his eyes, “you’d be right. But you shee”—he sighed lugubriously, a tear rollin’ down his muzzle—“I’m the firsht—and lasht—of my kind.”