Sideshow (19 page)

“Maybe more than a dream,” she said. “Maybe more than, Bloom.” She left them, going back down the stairs and through the crowd where the dinks still swarmed. At least they’d left their genitals home, or were carrying them in closed boxes. Fringe had never gotten used to penises zipping around on their own hovers, rubbing up against anything that felt good. Female parts were even worse, cozying up to the nearest hands. She looked around for dink modulator units and found three of them over by a gambling table with three sets of hands and one pair of eyes, playing Four Ladies.
A dink nose sniffed intimately at her as she went by, and she slapped it without thinking. From across the room, a dink voice box screeched, “Violence! Violence!”
“Kill the damn thing,” a bystander urged her with barely controlled belligerence. “Kill it, Enforcer.”
“Open borders,” screamed the voice box in a hysterical soprano. “Open borders.”
Fringe shrugged an apology. The voice was right. Enarae had open borders. It welcomed tourism. Even dinks, who, thank the ’Toter, seldom showed up anywhere but in the Swale.
A voice spoke in her ear, “What’s the matter, killer? You don’t like dinks?” Another dink voice box, this one a sneery baritone, with an eye on top and an ear at one side. A conversation module, no less.
“No,” she said. “I don’t like dink noses sniffing my crotch. I don’t like dink eyes looking down my neck, or at my cards when I’ve got a bet down. I don’t like dink hands grabbing anything they can grab or dink pricks shoving up against me. Open borders means open both ways, box! You don’t like my not liking, then the border’s open to get out.”
“Now, now,” said Bloom, appearing at eye level. “Now, now, bad Fringe! Bad box! Naughty. Play nice or Bloom will insist upon assembly.” He waved at the sign over the bar, which read, “Bloom reserves the right to refuse service to globs and disassembled entities.”
Fringe muttered an apology, while the voice growled something threatening. Ignoring the sulky mutter, she went out into the street. Empty, as always, except for a meat-tart vendor who’d parked his smoky cart fifty paces away at the bottom of the stairs and was stirring his kettle of hot fat with a
long slotted spoon. The smells of woodsmoke and frying meat filled the street. Fringe swallowed, suddenly ravenous.
She had juice dripping from her chin and her hands full of hot food when Bloom’s door crashed open and one of the dinks came out, evidently hastily assembled, though all its interlocking parts were arranged more or less in anatomical order.
“Hey, girly!” it yelled in its sneery baritone. “Hey, Enforcer!”
Still chewing a mouthful of succulent meat and pastry, Fringe turned slowly to confront the aggregation. Its left arm had been disassembled, probably for parts, leaving only a forearm and hand unit, but the muscular right arm was complete, including a shoulder cantilevered from the modulator core. The assembly had a weapons belt strapped around it, hanging low on one side. Fringe choked on a bit of crust. It looked like a caricature of the Guntoter icon. Like an animated costume rack in some ancient predispersion gunfighter myth. Fringe had seen them all as re-created by the Files. When she was about ten she’d watched nothing but gunfighter re-creations for days at a time. She swallowed the laugh that came bubbling up, reminding herself survivors didn’t laugh at challenges, no matter who they came from.
A long time back, you might have laughed at some idiot carrying a weapon because you knew he had no skill. Then technology superseded skill, and the weapon itself did the killing. The one the dink was carrying was a case in point, a broad-beam aitchem that could do her serious damage if merely discharged in her general direction. Fringe had only a pain needler on her belt. In skilled hands that would ordinarily have been quite enough. Unfortunately, most dinks had been disconnected from pain. The worst she could do was make it itch, which the dink damned well knew.
Bloom’s doorway was full of dink eyes, watching, dink ears, quivering.
“Are you provoking a fight, dink?” Fringe called curiously. “That what you want?”
“Damn right,” yelled the dink, its hand jerking up and down near the weapon.
Fringe dropped the remains of the tart and herself to the street, rolled sideways with her legs curled under her, came up with her right hand full of the weapon she had been carrying in her right boot, and shot the dink assembly through the
modulator, upper left corner, where the brain can usually was. Her boot weapon was always loaded with explosive slugs. Shreds of the dink flew in all directions while what remained sizzled, smoked, and fell apart into disparate boxes, some of which trembled for a time while the voice went “Gaaaaaahhhhhh,” in a terrified and dying wail.
The dinks who’d been watching disappeared inside Bloom’s place like snakes down a hole.
“For a dink to provoke a fight with an Enforcer is not a smart thing,” she remarked to nobody in particular, the monitor, maybe, if the stupid thing was listening. “Which information should be disseminated to every cocky box as it arrives.” She walked forward and blew the dink’s weapon apart with another ear-shattering jolt. No point leaving it around for some crazy to maim thirty noninvolved pedestrians with.
Bloom’s door had closed abruptly, but something moved at the upstairs window. She brought up the weapon, but it was only Zasper, waving. He’d been watching the whole thing. She waved in return. Bloom’s door opened, and a salvage machine with a Guntoter icon on its snout came out to suck up the shreds of the dink. Fringe walked back to the food cart and told the recumbent vendor to get up off the street and give her another tart to replace the one she’d rolled on. She took it from his trembling hand and climbed the stairs to the corner, leaving the Swale.
Behind her, in the window of Bloom’s place, Zasper turned to the man beside him, the player who’d been winning steadily.
“She killed it,” Zasper said.
“Thought she would,” said Danivon Luze, his fingers stroking the medallion at his neck. “No hesitation at all.”
“Were you expecting hesitation?”
“I was expecting something,” said Danivon Luze in an unsatisfied voice. “Something I smell about her. Something sort of … uncertain.”
“There’s nothing uncertain about Fringe’s skills,” said Zasper stiffly. “I told you she was good and I meant it. Any uncertainty has to do with other things. Wouldn’t want you to mistake that, Danny! You sure she’s the right one to go along?”
“Oh, yeah, she’s the right one. One of the right ones.”
“You didn’t tell her about the petitions, but I bet Boarmus told you!”
“Haven’t told anybody. Not even Curvis. I will, when it seems appropriate.”
“I told her.”
“Well, damn, Zasper.”
“She’s a friend of mine, Dan.”
“So?”
“You know. Treat her like a friend.”
“Do my best,” said Danivon, flushing, not sure what his best might be in this context.
“What is it you’re smelling, Danivon Luze?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Everybody talking about dragons and petitions and possesseds, scared of all of ’em, scared of anything new because it might mean changes. Of course, expecting Council Supervisory to welcome change is like expecting a chaffer to fly. ‘Change’ is a naughty word on Elsewhere. We all know that.”
Zasper stared in the direction Fringe had gone and nodded, well aware that everyone did, indeed, know that.
In Tolerance, Jacent was attending his first committee meeting.
Business before Council Supervisory, Complaint and Disposition Review Committee A., Day 26, Period 10, Year 1353 P.S. (Post Settlement)
AUTHORITY:
Articles of Organization, Council Supervisory of Elsewhere, Rule Number 53, Paragraph M, Section xiii.
“All dispositions entered by C&D machines shall be reviewed by Council members (human) before implementation.”

AGENDA

COMPLAINT AND DISPOSITION
Items one through one hundred fifty-nine
of this date.

ITEM 1: Complaint by the brotherhood of dinkajins, City Fifteen (category ten); one of their members wantonly killed while traveling in Enarae.
DISPOSITION:
Official warning to brotherhood of dinka-jins that members travel at their own risk. Enarae is category seven, confrontational, weapons-using society, and killing is not untypical of that province.
No penalty.
“Aye,” said the members of the committee.
ITEM 2: Complaint by the brotherhood of dinka-jins, City Fifteen; citizen of Enarae found using category-nine bionic prostheses in category-seven province.
DISPOSITION:
Complaint denied as not meeting criteria for legal standing. Only Enaraen citizens may complain about internal matters.
No penalty.
“Aye,” said the committee again, as with one voice.
ITEM 3: Complaint by the brotherhood of dinka-jins, City Fifteen; citizen of Enarae guilty of importing category-nine prostheses across borders into category-seven place in defiance of ban against higher category imports.
DISPOSITION:
Standing affirmed. Any citizen may complain of categorical border violations.
Probability illegal importation across open border: .967.
Penalty assessed, Enarae. Fine of cr. 1,000.
Probability illegal importation perpetrated by category-ten dinka-jin tourist in return for gambling credit: .978.
Penalty assessed, City Fifteen. Fine of cr. 1,000.
“Aye,” said the committee, a few of them smiling slightly. C&D machines sometimes seemed capable of a sly humor.
ITEM 4: Complaint by High Priest, closed-border province of Molock on Panubi. Inhabitants avoiding child sacrifice by escaping via riverboats trading in foodstuffs with neighboring provinces.
DISPOSITION:
Enforcer will investigate and will if necessary assess penalty against riverboat owners or workers or provinces involved. Enforcer will reaffirm to persons in Molock that inhabitants of closed-border provinces have no rights of escape.
“Aye,” the committee muttered.
Jacent looked out the window, his mouth moving but making no sound, full of an obscure discomfort. A quick look at the faces around the table showed them unchanged. Obviously, the other members felt the matter of Molock was merely routine.
“Diversity,” Aunt Syrilla had preached at him. “We neither approve nor disapprove of individual provinces, Jacent. Some of them are, no doubt, quite distasteful, but our interest is higher than approval or disapproval. Even provinces that murder their own children are accorded favorable recognition by us, and in so doing, we continue a chain of diplomacy that has come unbroken from remotest times on Earth itself. We assure the diversity of humanity. No one system has within it all answers to all human needs. So much we know from history. The task set before us is to answer the Great Question of man’s destiny, and from diversity the answer will emerge. So we are taught. So I believe. Only here, on Elsewhere, does diversity exist, and our lives, yours and mine, are given to assuring its continuance.”
Her tone had been one of auntly concern and lofty assurance. The Great Question and the value of diversity had been drummed into him since childhood, so he’d agreed with her. Of course he’d agreed with her; what member of Council Supervisory could disagree? But still, when one heard the words “child sacrifice,” it did make one pause. He looked around the table again. No one else had even blinked. Well, he would undoubtedly get used to it.
ITEM 5: Complaint by hemi-province Salt Maresh that hemi-province Choire is overbreeding in order to obtain a few very fine voices, thereby burdening Salt Maresh with supernumerary children, including many who can carry a tune.
DISPOSITION:
Council will suggest to Salt Maresh that it (1) refuse acceptance of children; or (2) that it petition
Council for full provincial status, thereby abrogating its agreements with Choire and insuring the integrity of its borders; or (3) that it request Enforcer review of Salt Maresh/Choire mutuality agreements together with whatever solution Enforcer thinks most suitable.
“Like what?” Jacent whispered to his neighbor, a much older, plumper individual who assented to each disposition in a subdued monotone. Jacent, who had spent the previous year monitoring the C&D machines, had only recently been appointed to this, his first assignment by Council, and was still unfamiliar with it. “What would an Enforcer think suitable?” he asked.
“Oh, he might decide on a small plague in Choire that would reduce their population to the point they’d need all their children, or maybe a small plague in Salt Maresh to do likewise, or he might decide on a fine against Choire for every child sent to Salt Maresh who isn’t tone-deaf. There’s lots of possibilities.” Jacent’s neighbor scratched his nose. “I’d say the likelihood in this case is a fine, since there’s no real abrogation of contract to get nasty about. You’ve watched the machines for a while, haven’t you? You’ve learned then that before the machines make a disposition, they consider every precedent we’ve accumulated for hundreds of years. We very, very seldom overrule the machines.”
Jacent put his hand over his mouth to keep from yawning.
His neighbor looked at him sympathetically. “I know. By the time we get to item number fifty, it’ll really get boring.”
ITEM 6: Complaint by citizens of New Athens that a tyrant has gained power and is depriving citizens of basic human rights and freedoms.
DISPOSITION:
Constitution of New Athens (q.v., appended) assures all citizens basic human rights and freedoms. Enforcers dispatched to Attend to tyrant and supporters.
“Aye,” murmured the committee with some satisfaction. Later they would see the recorded consequence of this vote. Some such assassinations made rather exciting viewing.
ITEM 7: Complaint by citizens of Derbeck that torture and executions by chimi-hounds of suspected malcontents has reached unconscionable numbers.
DISPOSITION:
Derbeck is a theocracy based on religious and political orthodoxy. Arbitrary executions and torture are integral to such systems.
No penalty.
“Aye,” said Jacent, yawning once again behind his hand.
ITEM 8: Complaint by a citizen of Denial …
“So, what’ve you decided?” asked Danivon Luze. He was sitting on one of Fringe’s fishbone chairs, staring at the object on the nearest stone pedestal.
She shrugged, as though she hadn’t made up her mind.
He sighed, shaking his head at her lack of decisiveness. “Don’t wiffle around,” he said, surprising her. “What’s that thing?” He was pointing at the pedestal.
“A shell,” she replied.
“It isn’t pretty,” Danivon commented.
“No,” Fringe admitted. The thing wasn’t pretty. It was the shell of a turtle, one of the Earthian animals man had carried with him throughout all his generations. Fringe had found the shell at the top of a very tall tree on one of the Seldom Isles. Turtles did not climb trees, and yet the shell had been there, sun-faded and empty.
“Why do you keep it?” Danivon asked.
Fringe shrugged. He might have read her Book, but that gave him no right to her thoughts. The shell meant mystery. Wonder. How had it come where she had found it? It was like herself, a strangeness, and none of his damned business.
“And this thing?” Danivon said, stroking a curved element at the top of another pedestal. It was one of the machines she made as a hobby, now in sunlight and therefore in motion. It shivered and glittered as it carried tiny beads of light from its base to its tip, dropping them into nothingness, over and over again.
“Just something I made,” she said.
“Why?” he asked. “What’s it good for?”
She shrugged again. It was good for just being what it was, and if he couldn’t see that, to hell with him.
He’d been staring at the stuff in her room ever since he arrived. As though it held some kind of message. Some kind of code, maybe. She was becoming fairly annoyed with him.
“So, when are you going to decide?” he asked.
“I’ve decided,” said Fringe, thankful he’d stopped looking and started talking. “I’m still a little ambivalent. Partly because you didn’t tell me everything. I’m a good Enforcer and I like being trusted. You should have told me about the petition things.”
“Zasper told you!”
“He did, but you should have. Despite that, I’ve decided to go, provided the terms of the contract are recorded and approved.”
“They are.” He smiled at her, an invitational smile.
“When, then?” She ignored the invitation.
“I guess in a couple days.” He sighed. “I’m like you. Ambivalent. I’ve been fooling around, thinking there should be somebody else going with us, thinking someone might show up. Well, maybe there’s someone else, but not here. Not anywhere near. Not that I can get a sniff of.”
“Maybe on the way,” she suggested.
“Likely,” he assented with a gloomy face, glancing at her from the corners of his eyes. The woman was like a good bow, all shiny curves and elegant tensions, making his hands itch to stroke her, bend her. There weren’t all that many women Danivon lusted after, not that many he enjoyed, but those he enjoyed seemed to enjoy him too, so it wasn’t as though he expected some one-sided thing she’d come to regret. But this Fringe Owldark gave him not so much as a twinkly look, not she! She was all quiet-faced business and no joy. Still, he couldn’t misread that tilt to the head, that glance, that tension…. Could he?
She, meantime, was thinking that even gloomy the man set off drums inside her.
Tumty-tumty-tum.
Rotten little drums, making her feet twitch as though they wanted to dance, so she’d let them and find herself danced right over some precipice. Enough of that, Fringe Owldark.
“So, who do we start with?” she asked in her calmest voice.
“Five of us. You, me, Curvis, and two people from the past. Their names are Nela and Bertran Zy-Czorsky, and they’re joined people.”
“What the hell is that? And what do you mean, the past?”
He described Bertran and Nela, their oddity, their odyssey, making it dramatic for her amusement. Though who knew what would amuse this one!
Fringe succeeded in visualizing this unlikely concatenation only with some revulsion. “They’re going to get parts cloned and be unjoined before we start out, I hope!” she said with fervor.
He shook his head. “Takes too long. Later. When we get back. Disconnecting them’s the price I offered them, like I offered you twice standard. None of you get paid up front.”
“Then I sincerely hope there’s no danger where we’re going, Danivon Luze, for these folk sound like a real handicap to me.”
“There’s that,” he admitted. “Nonetheless….” He stroked the medallion at his neck.
“Your nose says not.”
He smiled, surprised. “My nose says not.”
The motion of his fingers drew her eyes to the medallion around his neck.
“What are the plans so far?” she asked in a practical voice, staring at the thing he was stroking. Talk of dragons! He was wearing one around his neck, a toothy monster ridden by a robed figure. Man or woman, she couldn’t tell.
“We fly to Tolerance. Bring your ceremonials along because you’ll need them for your initiation as a CE.”
“Oh, shit,” she groaned, half under her breath.
“Can’t serve as a Council Enforcer without being initiated,” he said firmly. “It isn’t done.”
She grimaced, throwing up her hands. She hadn’t thought about the initiation as Council Enforcer. Damn. She hated that. Attending solemnities was the worst thing about being an Enforcer, even though it was only a semiannual obligation. She liked parade, that was fun, but ritual made her teeth itch, her legs twitch.
Danivon went on, “From Tolerance, we go to the Curward Isles, and from there to Panubi by boat. We could fly, but the twins need to learn the local language, and that’ll give them time to pick up a smattering. Then once we get to Panubi, we’ll go upstream by riverboat, taking care of routine items as we go.”
“What do we travel as? Enforcers? Traders? Explorers? What?”
“Now it’s interesting you should ask that question,” he
said thoughtfully. “Boarmus says we’re not the first to go looking around Panubi. Enforcer types have gone there before. I thought it might be better if we didn’t make a big thing out of being Council Enforcers, at least not when we got near the unexplored parts, and when I mentioned it to the Zy-Czorsky twins, they suggested we travel as a sideshow.”
“As a what?”
Danivon attempted to explain a sideshow, fumbling for a concept that he only partially understood. Eventually she got the idea, telling herself that the rest of the party were freakish enough, though how she herself would fit into such a pattern eluded her. When Danivon eventually took himself off, saying he’d return on the morrow, she still hadn’t figured out how she’d fit into a troupe of oddities.
Her best talent was with weapons, but knife throwing or target shooting would call attention to her Enforcer training. Unarmed combat was likewise out. It had to be something else, something that would appeal to the ignorance and superstition rife in low-category places, but not anything overtly violent.
A late-afternoon sunbeam fell through the tall windows to bring one of her machines to life. Bright bits rose to the top, plunged down, disappeared, only to appear again, rising. The movement was relaxingly repetitive, yet irregular enough to be enjoyably unpredictable. The sporadic rise and fall had been inspired by Bloom’s legs, except that Bloom’s legs carried Bloom, while Fringe’s machine carried nothing but random sparkles.
Of course, she could make it carry something, if she wanted it to. Something like … omens, maybe. She sat staring and planning for some time as the sun dropped lower, her eyes fixed on the silent gyrations of her devices. When the light went at last, she nodded to herself and went into her secured room to get her tools.
When Danivon returned the following morning, he found her working on a skeletal array, a bony assemblage of rods and tracks and bright bits of moving mirror reflecting shards of lasered light.
“What in the devil?”
“Tell your destiny, Danivon?”
“My what?”
“Tell your destiny?”
He gave her a questioning look. “I suppose.”
She beckoned him to sit where she was sitting. Before him sprouted a forest of little levers, some gemmed, some plain, some colored, some black, variously shaped.
“Pick some at random,” she told him. “Any of them.”
He pressed some half dozen, mostly blue ones. The machine made questioning sounds, hummed, glittered at him as though it were looking him over. Light flickered into his eyes and away, quick mirrored glances. Bells rang, singly and in harmonic series. Small bright capsules plunged down, while others spun off into remote parts of the maze. A capsule was retrieved from some distant siding, edged nearer in repeated orbits, then dropped into a bin before him where it was joined eventually by another and yet another. The machine tinkled and became quiet.