Mind Over Ship (20 page)

Without warning, the slipskate function of the pedway ceased, and Fred’s cross-trainers defaulted to ordinary running mode. He was going much too fast to stop and he sprinted as fast as he could to dump speed and stay on his feet. His two competitors fell and slid on their backs, their frictionless racing suits riding the plates with ease. Eventually Fred tripped hard and rolled and slid to a halt, bumping into a number of people along the way but doing no great harm. He lay on his back and caught his breath and felt himself for injury. The reinforced knees of his jumpsuit were shredded, as were the palms of his gloves, but he was whole. The Campaigner helmet had protected his head.

When Fred sat up, he found himself near the middle of the interchange. The entire hundred-lane interchange plaza surrounding him had come to a halt, and its throngs of pedestrians were standing or lying perfectly still. It was weird.

Fred got up and looked around for the nearest exit, but before he could set off, a CPT bee flew over to him and said, “In the interest of public safety, do not move, Myr Londenstane. The local pedway system is temporarily malfing, and any unauthorized movement may cause a dangerous traffic situation.” For good measure, it spritzed him with a pinch of dust. “Stay where you are until instructed to move.”

“Hey! Stop that!” he yelled, trying to clear the dust with his hand, but he instantly felt calm and patient. “What’s going on?” he asked, but the transit bee flew off to the next stranded pedestrian.

Several lanes away, a jack yelled to those around him, “Don’t nobody fart or we’ll have us a hairball.”

A hairball. Fred had heard about pedway hairballs, gnarly traffic patterns that had only started occurring after the canopies had dropped. As Fred waited, he called the mentar Marcus at the BB of R and told him he might be late. He readjusted his Campaigner into a floppy hat and watched the traffic channel with its visor for a while, and then he switched to filter 21 and just stood there gazing at the showers of nano crap that rained like glitter upon the city. Another legacy of the missing canopies.

“Please bear with us as we work to restore service,” droned the transit subem. Its voice was broadcast through the transit bees, which had formed a flying grid over the interchange. “And remember, do not move until directed to.” There was one advantage to the malfunction, at least. The transit authority kept all but official mechs out of the plaza, so Fred was able to stand outdoors, enjoy the sunny weather, and admire the monumental cityscape without being bothered by the media.

The person nearest Fred was a jerome, a plain-looking, unpretentious type that excelled in administrative tasks. This one wore a derby-style hat with hardly a brim at all. Most of the hats around Fred seemed more fashionable than functional.

Without warning, the interchange lurched, sending many pedestrians stumbling. “Don’t move! Don’t move!” roared the transit subem, but the damage was done, and the interchange lurched again into sustained motion. The lane markers disappeared, and the entire intricate interchange plaza merged into one huge, counterclockwise merry-go-round.

“Don’t move! Don’t move!” droned the bees. The jerome drifted away, saluting farewell to Fred, and new people drifted in and out of his vicinity. One of the skaters he had raced, jennys, dorises, johns, and a lot of free-rangers. A pair of lulus in sexy clothes, one of them sobbing on the other’s shoulder. A free-range man who argued belligerently with the transit bees surrounding him. Around and around they went at a not unpleasant rate of speed. Fred’s encounters were repeated: the jerome, the skater, jennys, dorises, and johns. The lulu was still crying, and her sister looked about desperately.

“Can I help?” Fred shouted, but he couldn’t make out her reply.

The belligerent free-ranger had had all he could take. With an angry bellow, he broke free from his spot and sprinted across the plaza. The transit bees converged on him and dusted him with something that made him sit down very quickly. But it was too late; the pedway plates under Fred’s feet began to twitch. They darted this way and that. A cry of alarm rose up from the plaza, and the orderly counterclockwise rotation broke up into a random, slow-motion helter-skelter. People slowly skittered off each other; they clumped up; they collided.

“Do not be afraid!” commanded the transit subem. “Do not move! The current pattern of motion is not dangerous. Do not overreact to unpleasant encounters with other pedestrians.”

Fred did his best to radiate calm. He stood at ease, smiling like a fool, and when he grazed other people, begged their pardon.

The movement alternately sped up and slowed down, and some of the collisions knocked people off their feet. The bees were very busy maintaining order. At one point Fred was at the center of a gyrating knot of thirty or so people. At first they were twirling around each other like some kind of folk dance, but gradually the circle closed in, and they were pressed tight. They either laughed or urged calm or cursed the politicians. Soon they were squeezed cheek to jowl, and a few ribs snapped. Bad as it seemed, it could get worse, and most people were able to remain calm. Eventually, the knot loosened, and they were do-si-do-ing around each other again and gasping for air.

At one point, Fred was pressed back-to-back with a man who he thought must be another russ, for he was Fred’s size and build. He wore an appealing cologne, and Fred was going to ask him what it was, but when they were separated and he got a look at the man, he wasn’t a russ at all but a Capias man in a gold and yellow uniform. He was handsome in a boyish way, square-jawed and rugged-looking, someone you could trust. He and Fred nodded to each other as they drifted apart.

The freaky ride was not yet over, but it did slow down, and Fred’s next encounter was with the tearful lulu who had become separated from her sister and who pirouetted slowly into his arms. She buried her face in his chest and sobbed, her bare honey-brown shoulders heaving with unstoppable misery. “There, there,” Fred said, patting her on the back in a brotherly fashion. Her hair was just under his chin, and it was flecked with scarlet and yellow strands and smelled of lilac, and though it had been some years since he’d held a lulu in his arms, he fondly remembered the pleasant shape and heft of them. “There, there,” he repeated
with affection. She relaxed in his arms, but before long, the pedway plates drew them apart. As she flowed away, the lulu raised her face, ruined by tears, and struggled up from the depths of her despair to blow him a kiss.

TWO HOURS LATER, Fred arrived at the BB of R chapter hall on the 83rd Munilevel of North Wabash. Once inside, he removed his hat and twisted it into a solid little fob that he hung from his belt web. Then he went downstairs to the canteen. He needn’t have hurried or, for that matter, come at all. Contrary to the impression he had given Mary, there were no duty call-outs waiting for him. He’d spent the last few weeks sitting in the canteen drinking coffeesh and watching vids. He sat in the corner where he could avoid his brothers while keeping an eye on the door, in case Reilly came in. Fred dreaded their eventual reunion, especially now with Shelley’s news.

The morning passed, and during the lunchtime rush, Fred left the building and wandered around the nearby shopping arcade. About the time he started back, the BB of R mentar paged him.

“Yes, Marcus, what’s up?”

Are you available for a call-out?

“You bet I am.”

Good. City sanitation needs skilled custodians to help clean up a toxic spill.

At first Fred thought he’d misheard. “Say again.”

A barge has hit a tower abutment and spilled a container of industrial precursor into the river.

“I see,” Fred said, “but I don’t understand why you’re telling this to me. This sounds like john duty.”

It is john duty, and you will be paid at john rate.

Fred swore out loud, and the people in the arcade looked at him. He clamped his mouth shut and marched back to the chapter house. He went upstairs and found the first vacant quiet booth. “John duty? John rate? Are you crazy?”

“It’s an opportunity for gainful employment.”

“As a john? That’s no opportunity; that’s an insult! I’m a russ, and I have the right to duty commensurate with my skill and experience ratings. Let me remind you that I was acquitted of all charges and that I have the right to be treated as any other law-abiding russ.”

“On the contrary,” the soft-spoken BB of R mentar replied, “Applied
People is a private company. It has the prerogative to offer any duty opportunity it sees fit, including no duty.”

“Bullshit! I’m a russ! I’ll never do john work!”

Fred left the booth and slammed the door. He stormed down the stairs and out of the building. As he went down the steps, three brother russes were coming up, and one of them clipped his shoulder, upsetting his balance. When he looked up, the three russes were waiting at the top, challenging him with their eyes.

“Feck you, brothers,” he said.

ON THE WAY home, Fred counted four more people, like the lulu earlier, crying their eyes out.

Meewee stood on the bank of the fishpond, his pockets full of gravel. With his world crashing down around him, with the GEP yanked out from under him, he could think of nothing better to do than throw some stones and grill Arrow.

<
Arrow, is Jaspersen tied financially to Million Singh?
>

<
Yes
.>

<
How?
>

A row of organizational charts popped up in front of Meewee. There wasn’t much tying the two businessmen together. Besides their mutual interest in the GEP, Jaspersen’s Borealis Botanicals supplied all of Capias World’s needs for bath and body care products. For a hundred-million-person workforce, Meewee supposed that amounted to a lot of shampoo.

Tossing stones, grinding his teeth, Meewee browsed the public and confidential links Arrow supplied. Among other facts he gleaned, he learned that all new labor contracts at the Aria Yachts yards at both Mezzoluna and Trailing Earth had already been let to Capias World workers. Moreover, there were published rumors that TECA, the space colony port authority at Trailing Earth, was also considering replacing its own Applied People labor force with Capias personnel.

<
Arrow, is there any way for me to thwart the Capias World labor contracts with the GEP?
>

<
Yes
.>

<
How?
>

<
You could eliminate Million Singh from the board
.>

<
How could I do that?
>

<
Through murder, character assassination, blackmail, bribery, buyout—
>

Meewee interrupted the litany. <
I mean is there any
ethical
way?
>

After a moment of reviewing Meewee’s upref files to determine his personal definition of what could be considered ethical, the mentar said <
I do not see any ethical way.
>

<
Is there any ethical way to expel Jaspersen or Gest from the GEP board?
>

<
I do not see any
.>

<
Is there any ethical way to negate the GEP vote to build space condos?
>

<
I do not see any
.>

<
Is there any way I can
force
the GEP board to continue the mission of extra-solar colonization?
>

<
Yes.
>

It was like playing a game of Simon Says with this thing. <
I mean, any ethical way?
>

<
Possibly.
>

Now here was an unexpected answer. Afraid it was too good to be true, Meewee tossed a half-dozen stones before asking <
How?
>

A frame opened before him that displayed a clause of the 2052 International Spacefaring Treaty. As best as Meewee could parse the legalese, it stated that once a privately owned, nonmilitary ship was launched from Earth orbit or from any spaceport in the inner solar system, it acquired a provisional sovereign status and authority over its own disposition in most nontreaty matters. Meewee read and reread the clause and tried to understand why Arrow was showing it to him. Finally, he gave up and said <
But we haven’t launched any ships yet.
>

In reply, Arrow painted the sky above him black and projected a recording of the nuclear blast Meewee had witnessed from this very spot several weeks ago. Meewee had not been expecting this, and the explosion blinded him for several moments.

<
That was the launch of the advance ships
> he said finally. <
Not the Oships.
>

More frames opened with case law and definitions. Meewee skimmed them and got an inkling of what Arrow was trying to show him. <
Are you saying that the law considers an advance ship to be a material part of the
main ship that it precedes? That the launch of an advance ship constitutes a “launch” for that main ship as well?
>

<
Possibly
.>

<
So that the main ship becomes the equivalent of a sovereign nation?
>

<
Possibly
.>