To THE LAND OF THE ELECTRIC ANGEL: Hugo and Nebula Award Finalist Author (The Frontiers Saga) (21 page)

How much chance does a girl have against a robot?
Blake thought angrily.

"We're here to serve a greater purpose," the sergeant said. He leaned forward, his eyes bulging. "We serve
God
here! We are the purging arm of a score of faiths! We take the scum and filth and we shape it into something fit enough to die with dignity. What do you think
of that, huh?"

Blake was wary. The soldier seemed half mad, at least, and the power of life and death that he held was awesome. "Well, you certainly seem to do your job, Sergeant," Blake answered.

"I'm just as much a prisoner here as you are, civilian. The only reason I'm not out there on the sand is that somebody has to run these cadres. So I'm going to do the best job I know how, and keep my ass clear. You sync with me, clean-boot? I do what I have to, understand?"

Blake nodded. "Yes, sir."

White seemed to relax a little. "What faith are you, anyway?"

"I'm..." He didn't know what to answer. Anything might be proscribed, or out of favor. "Well, Sergeant, the church I attended back in ... in my time seems to have disappeared. So I guess I'm just looking around. You know, seeing what looks good."

"Ever try the Church of the Celestial Angel-Princes?"

"No. Is that your faith?"

"Well, I ain't saying, but you might look up the Vicar-Baron Jardine. You can find him around the. Arena two, three days a week looking for converts."

"Yes, sir, I'll keep that name in mind. It might give me, uh, peace."

"Okay, I hear them coming back ... They were out in the gym, working out."

The sergeant got up and faced the ramp entrance as a large group of men and women stumbled in. Some were obviously bone-weary and others were visibly excited by the workout.

A short, bulky soldier in leather was hurrying them along. "All right, you rippers, get in the showers. Bennett, you unlock."

The soldier tossed a long-haired young man a mag key and he unlocked the barred door to a short passage that led to the showers.

With much concern for privacy, the various men and women went into their cells, undressed, put on long robes, and came out holding towels. The soldier watched until everyone had gone into the bath, then he relocked the door.

White gestured for Blake to follow, and they walked along the cell block until they came to an empty cell.

"This is yours. You'll get to be just like those others soon. You won't give a damn. You'll go up there and they'll match you against some woman. She knows she'll live another day, another week, if she slices your gut. So she'll try. And you'll slice hers to stop it."

White shook his head. "Once in a while you'll get a good fight. I mean, one with some skill about it, you know? But' most of them are just hackers. Can't teach 'em a thing. I even tried hypnosleep, but I guess that's something you can't stuff in later. Either you got it or you don't. In the original specs, I mean." He gave Blake a slow grin. "Always remember this, Mason: this cadre will
-
be run my way, because if my people don't score well out there, I'll be dodging the robbies myself." He gave Blake a mean look and walked away.

He stopped by the central table and looked back. "Mason?"

"Yes, sir?"

"They got a lousy union here." Then the sergeant laughed, loud and hearty. He repeated himself several times as he went to the other end of the room and through the door. The soldier who had brought the novice gladiators back was still lounging against the wall. He looked at Blake as if he were a delicious dinner.

Blake shivered and moved into his barren cell. Sitting on the padded bench that served as a bed, he put his face into his hands.
Where is Rio? Where is Voss? What about Vogel and Granville? Did I come a hundred years to die miserably, as entertainment?

After a while Blake's fellow gladiators came back from the shower. He saw two women walk into the cell across the passage and finish drying their hair. Their robes clung here and there to their damp skin. One of them noticed Blake watching, and turned away angrily. A couple of men went into a cell on the top tier, still toweling their wet heads. A woman entered the cell next to them. She was in her early thirties and seemed very vulnerable, not at all like a hardened criminal who was sentenced to death. Blake heard others moving about. Someone started to sing a popular song, then let it die away. He heard a man cursing the powers that had put him there.

They haven't stamped it all out,
Blake mused,
not even in here. But maybe they have nothing to lose once they are here. What more could this odd, unfeeling society do – give you to a hungrier lion?
Then Blake thought of the two people hanging in the discipline room, and he shuddered.

The light was blocked for a moment and Blake looked up. The long-haired young man who had opened the bath door stood there toweling his thick hair.

"Hello," he said pleasantly. "I'm Gall Bennett."

"Blake Mason."

They shook hands.

"You're the time traveler," Bennett said.

"I don't think of it that way. That always reminds me of crystal devices with lots of piping and dials and things. I just went to sleep and woke up here."

"Rip Van Mason, huh?"

"Something like that. Look, can you tell me what is going to happen?"

Bennett nodded. "Yeah, just a minute." He started to leave, then stopped. "No, come on. Might as well meet the others."

Mason followed him as he went out of the cell and crossed to another on the opposite side. Two men and two women were inside. They were all dressed in shapeless gray uniforms. Bennett introduced Blake as the time traveler, which caused some raised eyebrows. The men he introduced as Rob and Narmada, and the women as Neva and Marta.

Blake spoke without hesitation. "Look, I don't know what your crimes are around here, but my crime was time-traveling and longevity research. What were yours? I mean, if it's all right to ask?"

"Oh, we have no taboos against talking about that," Narmada said. "I got here because I am a Hindu. Not that being a Hindu is a crime – not really – but they aren't about to overlook anything if you step out of line, either. They found me with a copy of the
Kama Sutra
during an ordinary student dorm search."

Rob spoke next. He was a strong, sturdy, plain-faced man. "I'm here on nothing so fancy as Nar's. I was down in the Nation of Sinners Redeemed, down in old Georgia. I just didn't go to church enough to suit the Elders, so they brought me before the Lord President and sentenced me to a year in the swamps – which I did, and I have the scars to prove it. Afterward I went back, found those two Eiders and bashed them with a shovel and headed west. I got triggered down in San Luis Obispo and–"

"Saint Florian of the Park. Remember? They changed it." Neva said.

"Oh, yeah. I keep forgetting. Why don't they leave things alone? Anyway, they pokied me for being a vag, and one thing led to another and here I am."

"He slammed a deputy deacon through a window." Neva grinned.

Rob smiled shyly. "That I did, that I did."

Blake looked at Neva, who shrugged and said, "I had this patriarch down in Modesto. That's Guardian country." She looked closely at Blake and then added, "Guardians of the Throne of God?" Blake nodded recognition, and she continued. "He wanted me to do a little sinning with him. He had some pretty fancy ideas, too, for a country parson. But I wasn't interested, so I spurned him, as they say. I guess I didn't know what an ego that minister had. He turned me in as a heretic and sent me to summer camp." She gestured around her with a lopsided smile.

"Innocent, every one of you," Marta said. "All framed." She looked at Blake and said, "That the right term? 'Framed'? I never knew what it meant, until I was. I became pregnant. Don't ask me how. I guess I'm in the outer edges of the bell curve on statistical possibilities. I was taking the shot every year, even if they are illegal. But they said, because I already had the legal limit of children, that I was a criminal." She looked suddenly very sad as her knees came up and she hugged them soulfully.

"Desperate criminals, every one of you," Blake said, trying for humor. "I've fallen among thieves!" He nodded at them all as Neva stroked Marta's hair. "Where are the pickpockets and axe murderers?" he asked. "Where are the wife beaters, the stickup bards,the computer thieves?"

"They don't
all
get sent to the Circus," Narmada said. "There are regular jails, work parties in the ark foundations, psychosurgery – all that. But the really desperate criminals are sent here."

"We're the ones who are really threatening society," Bennett explained. "Thieves they can cope with. They just cut off one hand the first time, the other on the second conviction, and give him the torch on the third."

"If thy hand offend thee," Blake said softly. The others gave him a quick, surprised look.

"The murderers get sent here most of the time, especially the violent ones. But computer thieves are seldom caught, and if they do they are usually subdeacons or lieutenant bishops or something. And the wife beaters are given to some Women Corps patrol for a while."

There was a silence, then Blake asked Bennett, "Why are you here?"

"Well, it's not because I'm homosexual. That used to be a pretty radical charge, but not anymore. They even encourage it in some parishes. No, I was having an affair with this Angel of Punishment and–" He saw Blake's expression, and smiled. "That's the law-enforcement branch of Children of God, Incorporated. Anyway, he and I had a fight over the silliest thing and I took his laser to all his clothes and uniforms. I accidently sliced his mother's holo, the only one he had. They put me in prison; then I was sold to a dealer and he sold me here."

"Sold?" Blake was startled.

"Oh, yes. You didn't have that in the Circus back in your time? We've had it as long as I can remember. Condemned prisoners can be bought for the term of their sentences. Not political prisoners, but many."

Suddenly Blake had hope.
Voss! Voss could buy us out! Maybe he wouldn't buy me, but surely he'd buy Rio!

"Tell me more about this buying process," he urged Bennett.

"It happens all the time. I read somewhere that the origins of the custom come from the American Civil War – the first one – when men drafted into the military could buy their way out or pay other men to serve for them. Then some prison officials, or even county or parish officials, used to rent out prisoners as laborers. Then around the beginning of the twenty-first century there were labor contracts that were much like slavery, really."

"Yes, I remember that," Blake said, thinking of Sundance and Theta Voss.

"The reason I know about this is that I have – or had – certain friends who I thought might buy me out of here." Bennett looked sad for a moment, then continued with his explanation: "It became quasi-legal about thirty years ago, then a regular policy throughout all the parishes. However, certain categories are unavailable for buy-out."

"How long do you have to be in before you can be bought out?"

"Anytime after sentencing. Lots of rich ones never see the inside of a jail, much less the luxurious confines of a Circus training center," Bennett said wearily. "I thought I had friends, but..."

Blake wondered if Voss knew about this. At least Rio and Doreen could be saved. "Is there any way to get word to the outside?" he asked.

"Oh, of course," Neva said. "Words but not bodies." She laughed. "Who do you want to contact?"

Blake realized that he did not know where Voss was.
If he is still free, he might be anyplace. Why do I assume he will stay out of jail?
Blake asked himself.
Just because he is billionaire Jean-Michel Voss? In this world he is no better off than anyone else, at least out of touch with his money. You can't take it with you, Voss!

"Tell us about yourself," Neva asked.

Briefly, Blake related their adventures, but left out the killing of the Mormon guards, saying only that they escaped.

Neva shook her head sadly. "If only Venus had found you first. The points they could make with you." The others nodded agreement.

"Venus? We have colonies on Venus?"

"No, not that Venus. Venus, the goddess of Love. Aphrodite." Neva whispered the words, and all of them looked around nervously.

"Don't be so careless with those words," Rob muttered.

"Why? What's wrong?" Blake asked.

"Gali," Neva said, and the slim young man stepped to the cell door and lounged there casually. After a moment he nodded. "Venus, the Venus," she continued. "They're ... a sort of underground movement."

"Revolutionaries?"

"No, not exactly. Well, yes, perhaps. They are opposed to all the sexual repression. They want sexual freedom and are willing to fight for it."

Sexual freedom fighters.
Blake could not explain why he felt like smiling. It seemed so silly, coming from his
time. The world has come full circle,
he thought.
But we never outlawed those who sought a return to religion or who wanted to reduce the blatant sexuality. We laughed at them. Now they are getting the last laugh.