The City Who Fought (35 page)

"That's terrible," Joat said sympathetically, "'though, maybe if you gave me your specs . . ."

"Now, sex . . . sex provides a lot of mental pleasure." Simeon continued with relish. "I'd be willing to bet that I get almost as much sexual pleasure out of my own imagination as anyone does actually having it."

Joat made a derisive grimace.

"I'd say in your dreams, Simeon, but that would be redundant," Channa said archly, making her way back to her desk. "What have you got there?" she asked, pointing to the box in Joat's hand.

"Oh, this is something for you guys." Joat opened it to display the two short, gleaming metal rods, perhaps three centimeters long, with crystals at either end. Joat looked at Channa expectantly.

Channa took one out of the box, turning it over. In the center of the rod was a small gap, bridged by a narrow tube which joined its two halves. She touched the crystals experimentally, then looked queryingly at Joat. "It's pretty?" she asked, puzzled at its use.

Joat laughed. "Seld said we should make 'em into jewelry, but I figured we didn't have time to experiment with the effect that might have. I wear mine in a sheath in my boot." She tugged up her pant-leg and pulled down the cuff of her boot to show the top of an identical wand.

"How does this artifact of yours work?" Amos asked her, picking up the other.

"You push the two halves together to make a contact."

Amos did so. There was a click as the two halves came together to form a smooth even surface. He looked at Channa and Joat, then at himself. "Is . . . is it working?"

"Ask him," Joat said, jerking her thumb at Simeon's column.

"Simeon?"

Simeon didn't answer because he hadn't heard the question. He had, however, seen Amos wink out of existence, and he was experiencing some very uncomfortable feelings about that disappearance.

Suddenly, he was unsure that he wanted anyone besides Joat to have this ability. Such disappearances definitely gave him the willies.

"Apparently not," Channa said, pleased. She clicked her own rod together and vanished from Simeon's sight and hearing.

Amos leaned close to her. "I can already see much potential for his device." His smiling eyes were warm and full of meaning.

"Seld and me knocked seven of these off today," Joat explained to Simeon. "We'll contrapt more tomorrow, now that we've found the parts we need. What's the matter?" she asked in response to Simeon's groan.

"Sorry, Joat, seven is pretty good really, and there's nothing to say that we can't share these around.

Right, Channa? Channa? Ollie-ollie in-free!"

Channa grinned smugly at Amos. "He really can't see us, can he?" Then she pulled gently at the rod.

"How nice of you to drop in," Simeon said in a sour tone.
Damned if I'll let you know how much that
bothers me.

"Sorry," Channa said. "
I know it bothers you,
" she subvocalized. Somehow Sim connected it with being cut off from his sensory input.
Me, now I'm a sensory input?
She turned to Joat. "Um, do you actually have to have it on your person for it to work? Or would it work if, say I had it on the desk beside me?"

"It should keep you disappeared if you stay very close to it. You're not really blanked out. It's more like a local override command to the sensor not to record you, you know? I didn't really measure it very close." Joat gave a self-deprecating twitch of her hands. "I need more theory and stuff, I know."

"Well, I'm impressed, Joat." She clapped her hands together. "Let's celebrate, and send out for dinner."

She took the rod out of Amos's hands and unsnapped it.

"You know," Simeon commented as Amos reappeared, "this invention of Joat's could be the biggest boon to burglars since hacking."

Channa froze, then looked over at Joat. The girl managed to look sweet, innocent and furtive at the same moment. It was true. AI-driven surveillance was universal in public places. So were attempts to counteract it. Joat's seemed to work better than most. Of course, once the device was publicized, counter-measures would be initiated. No
wonder
Joat wanted to keep her ace-in-the-hole secret.

Well, of course she steals! Simeon whispered in her ear. How did you think she survived before you took a hand?

"Like many swords," Amos agreed, "it is two edged. But, they will be of help, and I shall enjoy testing mine." He smiled at Channa.

Channa looked at Simeon's column. "Just think, we'll be able to keep secrets from you, Sim. How will you stand it?"

* * *

Amos tiptoed carefully out of Joat's room. "She never woke," he said in a half-whisper. "I put a blanket over her."

Channa shook her head. Joat's subconscious seemed to know who to trust. This evening was the first time she had noticed the girl sleeping with the limp, irresistible finality of the trusting child. She'd also had a long, hard, if triumphant, day.

"I thought she'd never get enough of your stories about Bethel," she said.
And neither would I.
It didn't have the urban sophistication of Senalgal, but Amos could make his world and his way of life sound . . .

beautiful,
she decided. Of course, he was an eloquent man, and he was describing what he truly loved.

He had described what she had always yearned for in a planet-side posting: the hugeness, the variousness, the
aliveness
of a breathing world.

"It was as much for me as for her," Amos said, leaning back on the sofa and raising his face to the ceiling, eyes closed. "I speak, and I see what can never be again."

She put a hand on his. "Bethel will be freed and made beautiful again. The Kolnar only stripped the surface, not the nature of the planet."

"Yes. Yes, I believe—must believe that." His fingers curled around hers; fine long-fingered hands, a little calloused.

From riding horses,
she thought. A sport she had only read of before. Simeon had provided holos, and riding looked more dangerous and exciting than piloting mini-shuttles.

"Yet when the enemy are driven off, the wounds . . . and beyond that. We need to change, we
must
change. More than I thought or wished, and I was a rebellious youngster, a radical, a breaker of images, or so they called me." He turned his head to her. "The enormity of the task ahead frightens me, overwhelms me. Yet with help . . ."

Oh, great,
she thought. To herself: "Lost prince of beautiful, exotic planet, seeks helpmate/companion/lover to assist in rescue/reconstruction. Requires intelligent, forceful manager with strong sense of duty. Will furnish lifelong love and affection, plus palaces, estates, interesting experiences.

Apply Amos ben Sierra Nueva." What was that quotation? Get thee behind me, Satan?

Amos sat quietly beside her and placed Joat's box in her lap. His glance was filled with meaning. Channa opened the box and they each took out a crystal-tipped rod. Then they glanced at Simeon's column with identical scheming smiles and clicked the two parts together.

Amos leaned over. They kissed; she stroked his dark hair and gently cupped the back of his head in her hand.

"It is good to have privacy," he said huskily.

"Yes," she agreed, "it is good." And it adds spice, she thought. Like sneaking out of bounds when you're in school.

* * *

Simeon watched Channa's door open and close, though no one appeared to be near it. He suppressed a burst of resentment. He had
told
them he'd turn off the sensors if they requested it. But no, they'd just gone and shut him out without a word . . .

What is the universe coming to? he thought in irritation. Besides, there's a child present!

A child who had presented him with a techno-itch he could not scratch. On reflection, he decided the analogy was maddeningly accurate. Try as he might, his attention came looping back to the nagging gaps in his recordings. He was
accustomed
to knowing everything that went on. Joat's earlier white-noise machines and attention-deflectors were minor irritations compared to this newest gadget. Of course, she hadn't had access to the engineering labs before this.

"The child was probably born with a microtool in her hand," he muttered. Now, how
did
the wands function? Joat had, after all, given him a hint. She might be a genius, but Simeon was a shellperson, with all the computer power and experience that implied.

And I'm also constitutionally unable to resist picking up the gauntlet,
he thought happily. There were times when the only way to get rid of a temptation was to give in to it. . . .

I can't believe this,
he told himself, fifteen minutes later. Equipment made by the best minds in the Central Worlds flummoxed by a preteen! Which confirmed long-held thoughts about the quality of minds attracted to the Central Worlds bureaucracy. Simeon had long thought that it was a private miracle he hadn't come out prosthetized into a camel, since the design teams were committees. Now,
he
must meet this challenge.

* * *

Channa arched her back against Amos's weight, her hands caressed the slick, silken skin of his back. He kissed her throat and she sighed happily, ready for—

"Oh, Chaaannaaa, I seee yooou."

"Ack, ckgak!"

Amos raised his head from the crook of her neck to look at her. The mixture of puzzlement and sensuality on his face looked very silly, not to mention slightly nauseated. Simeon laughed.

Oh, this is terrible,
Channa thought. Yet it was impossible not to see the moment from Simeon's point of view for a second. She laughed, caught between rage and helpless mirth. Amos bobbed up and down with her laughter. His expression assumed a martyred quality that caused her to lose control completely.

"Channa," he said desperately, rolling off and holding her in his arms. "Channa, my darling—are you all right?"

She struggled to speak, to reassure him that her sanity was intact.

"Sim . . . Sim . . . he . . . hehe . . . hehehe," she had to avoid the word
he.
"Sim . . ." she gasped, "my implant . . . he . . . hehe, mmrrmph . . . can see us."

She stopped, panting and watched his look of concern melt. Suddenly she was slightly frightened. This was a man accustomed to redressing insult, and his ego had just received a terribly humiliating one.

"Simeon!" he roared. The door seemed to recoil before his headlong passage, and the cooler wind from the lounge brought goosebumps to her skin.

Amos picked up the first thing his hand encountered, a vase, and threw it against Simeon's column.

"You incest eater!" he bellowed. "
You
filthy pi dog!
Banchut!
"

Channa appeared in her doorway, wrapped in a sheet. I've never seen a naked, erect man in a fit of rage before, she thought dazedly. Oh, I really shouldn't have broken up. Men get so focused at that particular moment!

"How could you do something so vile! Have you no decency?" Amos was demanding.

"What the hell is goin' on?" Joat asked, and stopped, poleaxed at the sight of a naked and raging Amos.

Amos dived for the sheet Channa was wearing and they tussled for it. He settled for dragging a small corner of it over his hips.

He drew himself up. "Go back to bed, Joat, this does not concern you." The pure mad anger had drained out of his voice. Bethel had a nudity taboo, and he was suddenly and acutely conscious of being naked before a twelve-year-old girl.

"Don't take it out on her, Simeon-Amos, I'm the one you're mad at," Simeon said.

Amos spun round, losing his grip on the sheet. "I am unlikely to forget that!" he said between clenched teeth.

"Nice buns," Joat murmured in abstract appreciation.

Channa and Amos turned to stare at her.

"Hey, you guys," she said blushing. "I'm young! I'm not dead."

"What kind of people are you?" Amos murmured in shock. "Your children leer, your shellpeople are voyeurs . . ." His gaze snapped to Channa. "And you, what sort of pervert are you?"

"Me? Oh, now wait just one minute, Simeon-Amos, I'm a victim here, too."

"I do not think so.
You
find this amusing, but I do not!" Turning his back on them all, he strode to his quarters in a fury, the door calmly swishing shut behind him.

"Whoa!" Joat said enthusiastically. "What's a voyeur?"

Channa's mouth firmed grimly. "A voyeur, Joat, is a nasty-minded son of a bitch who keeps poking his nose into private matters."

"Ah. Sorta like Dorgan the Organ from Child Welfare."

Ouch,
Simeon winced.

Channa nodded, with crisp malice. "I promise I'll explain tomorrow, but right now I have to talk to Simeon."

"Oboyoboy," Joat said. "Are
you
ever in the deep pucky, Simeon." She slapped his column on the way back to her room. "Naughty, naughty!"

Channa hiked up the sheet and sat herself down in one of the lounge chairs. She clasped her hands in her lap, saying nothing, chewing her lower lip.

"Um," Simeon said. "He's still furious. He's throwing things around in there."

"Stop spying on him!" Channa said irritably.

"I don't have to spy. Just listen."

It was true, even through the door the sound of objects hitting walls could be heard. Then an ominous silence. After a minute, a fully dressed Amos emerged and left the quarters without a backward glance or a further word. Channa rose quickly and took a step in his direction.

"Hey! You can't follow him like that! Besides, where's he gonna go?"

"Well . . . I suppose this show of your vigilance was our own fault," Channa said grimly. "We would challenge you." She smiled, a wintry expression. "I guess you showed us."

Simeon gave a soft groan. "I'd rather end the evening on a positive note. I now know that I can contact you even when their sensors can't find you."

"Yes, there is that application of tonight's experiment," she said tiredly. "I'll be sure to point that out to Simeon-Amos when next I see him.
If
I see him."

"I'm sorry, Channa," Simeon said contritely after an awkward pause. "I was out of line."

"Yes, you were. For that particular activity, an invitation is required."