The Orion Plague (12 page)

“What is this?” asked Nguyen’s slim ally.

“An appointment. Details of a new
acquisition. I believe you will like them.”

“Them?”

“A brother and sister. Untouched by virus.
Very experienced, young, but of legal age. Barely.” Infecting
normals while using them seemed to be as attractive to Ekara as
deflowering a virgin was to some. “And I need a favor,” Nguyen
remarked, diffident.

Ekara smiled, oily. “Of course, my friend.
Whatever I can do to repay such kindness.”

“Direct Action needs a supercomputer for the
nano research. Perhaps you have an older model you are replacing?”
Of course Nguyen already knew that Ekara’s R&D section was
getting three new Chinese machines in a secret deal. His spying on
his ally was low-key and careful, as he had no wish to offend, so
he did not have details about any superseded models; but it stood
to reason that one might be available. For the right price, already
in Ekara’s hand.

The man replied with a smile. “I think that
can be arranged. For you, my friend.”

Nguyen knew Ekara almost meant it, as he
anticipated playing with his new toys.

***

Spooky Nguyen attended each Dadirri session
with eagerness. He’d found his anticipation growing each time, to
spar with the aboriginal warrior Kalti and to learn from the elder
shaman Maka.

He called the practice Dadirri within his own
mind, even though that was imprecise, because the aborigines had no
single word to describe their martial arts. No
Karate
or
Kung-Fu
or even his own culture’s
Binh Định
. As far
as he could tell they didn’t formalize or standardize their
principles either. Rather, there were shamans like Maka, and
apprentices like Kalti, who passed their skills down to whomever
would learn.

To the aborigines, Dadirri actually referred
to a kind of still contemplation Spooky correlated to the idea of
Zen. It meant to wait for the right moment, to think and meditate,
to use the minimum force to intervene and deflect, to understand
oneself and one’s opponent, and much more he had not yet
grasped.

All of these, when he thought about them in
such verbal terms, were just variations on the underlying spiritual
principles of many of the Asian martial arts Spooky had already
mastered. Yet Maka could easily defeat anyone who challenged him,
including Spooky himself. He had a special and mysterious
understanding of something – perhaps of a layer of reality, or of
strategy, deeper than anyone he had ever met.

This was what kept him returning, the puzzle
of this man, an endless frustration. A lesser person would have
allowed that frustration to annoy him, would have even contemplated
some kind of abuse of power to put him in his place. Merely as a
thought experiment, Spooky wondered what would happen if he brought
a gun to practice and attempted to shoot Maka?

At that moment laughter burbled up from the
old man and Spooky found Maka staring right at him from the other
end of the bench, as if he had heard his thoughts.

A flash of insight exploded in Spooky’s mind.
If I did so, he would somehow know my plans, and he would simply
not come. That is the way of Dadirri. If there is no need to
confront, he would simply avoid. As in Aikido, the master is not
the one who crosses the street many times; the master is the one
who avoids the street entirely.

Of even that insight he was not certain
.
Perhaps Maka would attend after all, and somehow avoid the shot.
Perhaps he would convince me not to do it. Perhaps he already is
doing so, merely with his laughter.

Perhaps I shall be the master and avoid that
street. I am not absolutely certain I would emerge victorious from
such a confrontation, and though I might learn something, the
cost-benefit curve is too steep.

Spooky twitched his head away without thought
as the old man’s stick blurred through the space it had just
occupied. He did not even think about such sudden attacks anymore.
His body simply took the action necessary to avoid pain, injury and
defeat while his spiritual center remained calm, imperturbable.
Another less avoidable strike he stepped into, minimizing the force
of the attack, adding rotation and deflecting the stick near where
Maka gripped it so that the old man had to move his own leg to
avoid impact. Their sharp voices and breathing blended like
conflicting musical instruments as they exchanged a complex series
of grips, strikes and attacks. It ended as Spooky found himself
rolling away, a bruise over his heart from a straight-armed thrust
of the wood.

Spooky stood there staring at the old man,
waiting for another attack, when he felt the touch of Kalti’s spear
on his neck. The three men began to laugh again, and the rest of
the students joined in. Laughter was an essential part of Dadirri,
according to Kalti’s infrequent explanations of Maka’s teachings.
The old man never spoke a word of English, though Spooky was
convinced he understood.

Each session inched Spooky closer to
something he could only think of as enlightenment. Even so, it was
like trying to reach infinity, or catch the wind, a process to
embrace, never a goal to achieve. The spiritual stillness and
profound satisfaction from his training and meditation here, in a
simple dirt circle, put to shame all of his worldly pleasures and
triumphs. After every session it became more and more difficult to
go back to being Brigadier Nguyen of the Committee of Nine.

Once Earth is safe, perhaps I shall put off
my dreams of domination and follow this man until I have learned
enough. And why has Maka not taken the Eden Plague? It would be a
crime for such expertise – such enlightenment – to pass from the
world due to mere old age.

He resolved to ask, next time.

***

“He says that accepting immortality is not
for him,” explained Kalti to Spooky at the next session. “He does
not condemn it in others but why should he live longer in this
state of flesh when soon enough he will rejoin the All?”

Spooky nodded, understanding. “I suppose when
I am ready I also will not resist.”

Kalti laughed, which could mean anything from
genuine amusement to an alternative to homicide. In this case he
explained, which was something Spooky appreciated. “Perhaps at some
time that will be true, but it is not now. You do not even believe
in the All, much less do you feel it. You cut yourself off from it
even as your yearning increases.” He said this not in the tone of a
teacher but as if a friend, and bowed, backing up. Raising his
spear, he nodded and attacked, initiating the dance of Dadirri.

Scant seconds later Spooky had struck the
spear from Kalti’s hands, placing his own against the man’s throat.
“Why did I defeat you, then?”

Kalti laughed. “Not why, but how. You learned
the lesson of the many defeating the one. The spear is only a
metaphor, and the body is the container for the spirit. In this
case, I see it is a container for the many.”

Spooky cocked his head at the spear-master.
How did he know that I have the nanites within me today? I
should not be surprised if he thinks it unfair. He and the old man
are purists. They will be left behind in the dust of
history.

He felt vaguely ashamed that he had chosen to
try out the nanites and their enhancements to speed and strength,
conceding in his own mind Kalti’s point: that Spooky alone had not
won.
More importantly, while I have gained a certain knowledge,
I gave up the ability to accurately assess myself and my progress
toward parity with these men. I cheated to leapfrog over Kalti in
the purely physical contest.

Have I lost the spiritual?

“Be not dismayed, friend Kalti. This
advantage I borrowed will fade. It was an experiment, nothing
more.”

“Then you have nothing to fear from
Maka.”

Spooky’s eyebrows rose. “Had I something to
fear?”

Kalti matched his expression, but only
laughed, and took up his spear again.

Rick knew what he had to do now. It was all
so clear, he wondered why he hadn’t ever figured this out before.
All he had to do was please Shari and follow all her instructions
and his entire life would be perfect.

Things really weren’t so bad now. It was all
overlaid with a warm glow, a peace that he had never felt before
except perhaps a long time ago when he was a small child and had
crawled into his mother’s lap, and that was how this was, it was
like being eternally in his mother’s lap only better, because he
was grown up now and could do
those things
with Shari,
things that made him shiver, and if a fly buzzed in the back of his
mind, annoying him from time to time, well, he supposed life wasn’t
always perfect and into it a little rain must fall.

He looked around, wondering where he was. It
wasn’t a familiar location, though it wasn’t exactly unfamiliar
either. Through the warm fuzzy fog of feel-good he recognized the
type of place this was, even if it wasn’t anywhere he’d ever
been.

Awareness grew of people around him, first as
blurry figures, then as human beings. A flood of wonderful aroma
reached deep inside his nostrils, his sinuses, his lungs, and he
congratulated himself on finding something so nice. Eventually the
smell resolved itself in coffee, roasting, brewing coffee. Overlaid
with scents of sugar and chocolate and baking, he became aware he
sat in a cafe, one of those chains with funny names for their
drinks, with lots of corruptions and misuses of Italian.

Everything fell into place with an internal
click
. Now he remembered he’d been taken by truck from
Fredericksburg, bound for parts unknown. On the way the truck had
run off the road and into one of the swamps along Caledon Road to
Dahlgren. He’d been thrown clear onto hard ground but the rest of
the men inside it had been trapped under the overturned vehicle and
drowned. He hadn’t mourned his captors; they had not been nice
men.

It had taken him all night to walk to the
town of Dahlgren, eponymous with the Navy base it served at the
sharp bend of the Potomac. He must have been concussed, and badly,
for he’d hung around the town for a week, getting run out of one
place or another, just another homeless, shell-shocked,
plague-ridden soul.

He looked down at himself, seeing dirty
clothes and muddy shoes. His nails were black with filth and he
itched with infestations of who-knows-what, probably chiggers and
ticks from the low-lying wilderness. Rubbing at his right eye, he
realized people in the coffee shop were giving him unfriendly
looks. He smiled placatingly and walked out of the place into a
drizzling rain. His stomach rumbled, empty. Searching in his
pockets, he came up with nothing.

There must be someone that can help
me,
he thought.
Now that I can form complete sentences,
maybe I can get some kind of a job
. He looked around as much of
the tiny old town that he could see. People walked here and there,
a few cars and trucks moved.

A uniform stood out in his consciousness,
then another: some kind of military dress, blue denim with white
helmets that said “MP” in crude stenciled letters. Looking around,
he saw at least ten or twelve more, and realized these
MPs
were everywhere – on street corners, walking around, and cruising
in Navy pickup trucks. And they had guns.

The base must be providing security, law
enforcement
, he thought. Only is it the US, or the old
Unionists in control? He walked down the street, trying to look
like he had a purpose in his movements.
People that look like
they’re going somewhere are not usually harassed.

Something caught his eye and he turned a
corner. Computer Repair, said the sign on the little shop, and the
glowing word “OPEN” beckoned him in. He stepped through the
door.

Inside he heard, “Kin ah help you?” An older
man with a bushy salt-and-pepper beard sat at a workbench behind
the front counter, and the smell of solder and ozone filled the
air.

“Yes, sir. I hope we can help each other. I’m
a computer technician but I haven’t had work or even a meal in a
while. I’d be happy to work for some food and a place to sleep.”
Rick leaned over to crane his head at the workbench. “Blown
motherboard?”

The man looked him up and down, not unkindly,
then nodded. “Right the first time. All right. I'll give you a try.
Business is pickin’ up now that the real Feds is back around. But
first, I think we’ll get you a hot shower and some clothes. You kin
have some of my son’s he left, looks like you’re about his size.”
The man came out from behind the counter to shake Rick’s hand.
“Walter Secourt’s my name.”

“Rick…I can’t remember my last name. Sorry
about the dirt,” he said as he shook the man’s hand firmly.

“Don’t mind. Look like you been through the
mill, boy.” Walter looked Rick over carefully. “But I don’t see no
wounds. You got the stuff?”

“The stuff?”

“The Eden stuff. They tried to make me get it
but I told them I ain’t ready for no immortality. I took their
vaccine shot on account of those epidemics but hell, I’m still a
young man, and I hear that stuff makes your pecker soft.” Walter
slapped his chest, partly covered by his long beard.

Rick laughed. “I don’t think that’s true, but
I’d be happy to find out, if I can only find my girlfriend
again.”

“What’s her name?” Walter asked as he turned
off the Open sign.

“Shari. She’s really pretty. I really love
her. She’s a doctor, but I lost track of her in
Fredericksburg.”

“That where you’re from?”

“I’m not sure. Like I said, I’m having
trouble remembering things.”

Walter nodded sagely. “Lots of that goin’
around. All right, let’s get you fixed up.” He led Rick out the
back of the shop, toward the little white clapboard house
behind.