💾 Archived View for gemini.spam.works › mirrors › textfiles › magazines › INTERTEXT › itv2n5 captured on 2022-06-12 at 13:01:05.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
***** * * ***** ***** **** ***** ***** * * *****
* ** * * * * * * * * ** *
* * * * * *** **** * *** ** *
* * ** * * * * * * ** * *
***** * * * ***** * * * ***** * * *
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Volume 2, Number 5 September-October 1992
----------------------------------------------------------------------
INSIDE THIS ISSUE:
FirstText / JASON SNELL
Neuterality / PHILLIP NOLTE
Back from the West / MARK SMITH
Just a Company Man / P.R. MORRISON
The Long Way Home / P.R. MORRISON
---------------------------The InterText Staff------------------------
EDITOR ASSISTANT EDITOR
Jason Snell Geoff Duncan
jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu sgd4589@ocvaxa.cc.oberlin.edu
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR PROOFREADERS
Philip Nolte Katherine Bryant
nolte@idui1.csrc.uidaho.edu Loretta Griffin
----------------------------------------------------------------------
FirstText / JASON SNELL
After a long summer filled with plenty of changes for us here at
InterText, I can honestly say that it's good to be back.
Since I wrote last, it's been quite a ride. I sent out the issue
and promptly packed up my stuff in a U-Haul truck and made the long
drive from San Diego to my home in Northern California. Once there, I
spent a day unpacking and promptly went to work as a reporter for the
Union Democrat newspaper.
As you might imagine, that pretty much ate up my summer. I still
occasionally logged in to my computer account in San Diego from home,
updating the InterText mailing list and receiving a few story
submissions. The relatively slight size of this issue is partially due
to my absence from electronic communication for most of this summer.
Hopefully now that I'm back in touch, the submission numbers will pick
up.
Speaking of being back in touch, let me explain my situation now.
I'm beginning my first of two years at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of
Journalism, where I'll end up receiving a Masters of Journalism. In
addition to the grind of my classes (including Journalism 200, the core
course and supposedly the school's hardest), I'm also working as a
Teaching Assistant in Berkeley's Mass Communication program.
Undergraduates, now might be a good time to run for your lives.
Oh, and editing InterText on top of all of that. We'll see how it
goes.
In any event, my new internet mail address is
jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu. You can also still send mail to
intertxt@network.ucsd.edu for the time being, and that's where the FTP
site is still located.
For Geoff Duncan, my assistant editor, this summer marked the end
of his job at Oberlin College. He's currently trying to track down a job
in the computer-rich realm of Seattle. As it is, he's working in Ohio as
a freelance Macintosh consultant. If he ends up in Washington, I might
actually even get a chance to meet him, since a friend of mine goes to
school at the University of Washington.
So this is the beginning of the second phase of InterText, and the
nature of the magazine may change along with the changes going on in our
lives. I hope that our readers will be able to help us along, continuing
to submit stories and helping out in other ways. (One of those ways
would be if there are readers who use Aldus Freehand or Adobe
Illustrator to make PostScript illustrations... I've got a few old Mel
Marcelo graphics around, including this issue's cover, but they're
limited in number and I'd like to have other artists, if at all
possible. I know PostScript artists are out there -- witness the nice
covers that Quanta has had recently.)
I've got a few ideas for different ways InterText might change in
the future, including the possibility of distributing printed editions
or disks with the issues on them, both on a cost-recovery basis. I've
also got an idea for a "theme issue" of the magazine, which might come
to pass by early next year.
Oh, and two proud notes: InterText won two awards over the summer.
The magazine was named first runner-up for the Disktop Publishing
Association's Digital Quill Award for best Literary (what, me literary?)
Publication, and I was named as one of four winners of the San Diego
Supercomputer Center's 1992 Creative Computing Awards because of
InterText.
In the Disktop award race, we were up against tough international
competition, including Quanta (which earned a second runner-up award),
and I'm very proud that we were even given a mention. Congratulations to
Del Freeman, Editor of Ruby's Pearls, the winner of the award. I've seen
a few issues of Del's magazine and will try to get more information
about it to include next time.
I should also mention that another Disktop award -- this one for
first runner-up for Best Computer/Technical Publication -- went to our
friend Rita Rouvalis, for editing EFFector. Rita, of course, also edits
CORE.
The SDSC award usually goes to high-tech science and math projects,
as well as computer music projects; it was nice to see something like
this magazine get some recognition. Much thanks to Hassan Aref and the
rest of the awards committee at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
Before I go, I thought I'd share a brief mail message I received
over the summer from a professor of mine, Wade Chambers. He's from
Deakin University in Australia, but was visiting UCSD when I took a
class of his in science writing (Warren Ernst's "One Person's Junk..."
was a product of that class.)
Hi! Sorry to be so long getting back to you. By now you've
probably gone off surfing for the summer. My assistant Andre is a happy
subscriber to your electronic magazine, which you mentioned but which I
didn't pay much attention to at the time. However I was most impressed
when he showed me your picture in his files. And he in turn was
impressed when he heard you were in my class at UCSD. (That is, I think
my status went up a notch or two.)
I'm starting to wonder just how small a world this is, and just how
many people see InterText. I know the magazine's on CompuServe now, but
it's also been turning up in the weirdest places. If you get InterText
by some means other than mail from me, FTP, or CompuServe, I'd
appreciate it if you'd drop me a line, either via email or real-live
mail, at the address listed in the indicia at the end of this file.
Well, that's enough from me. Until next time, enjoy this somewhat-
truncated issue. By next time things should be a bit more settled.
They'd >better< be!
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Neuterality / PHILLIP NOLTE
"Such beautiful animals! So agile, so graceful! What are they?" One
of the animals in question was, even then, rubbing its forehead on the
rough, pebbly chins of Hagedorn Twee.
"They're called 'cats,' " said Theresa. "They're natives of old
Earth, Sol system. They're quite common on Human worlds. You mean you've
never seen one before?"
"Perhaps in a holovid, Captain, but never in real life. The body
covering is so soft and so subtly colored!" Twee, a big blue-skinned
native of Heard's World, was completely taken by the little creature.
Apparently the feeling was mutual. Theresa could hear the loud purring
of the little cat from clear across the room. The Hearder made an
instant decision. "I simply must have them! Both of them."
Captain Theresa Helms of the merchant ship Jupiter quickly ran down
a mental list of reasons why she shouldn't sell the little animals and
found that list to be surprisingly short. Both of the animals -- the
lovely little female calico currently rubbing up against the formidable
chins of Merchant Twee and the long-haired male tabby rubbing
affectionately against the alien's scaly, tree-like legs -- belonged to
her and her husband Tim, who was also her business partner and the only
other crew member of the Jupiter.
On the plus side, the little animals were a welcome diversion
during the long periods of inactivity that were part of FTL travel and
they did find and destroy the occasional pest that somehow slipped
onboard no matter how rigid the inspections, but Theresa and Tim had
found that the cats required a lot of attention and often asked for
affection at inopportune times. There had also been a couple of
incidents during free-fall regarding their food and litter that had been
downright unpleasant. Besides that, about halfway through their current
voyage she had begun to suspect that Tim was allergic to the little
beasts.
"I'm afraid that you wouldn't like the price, Merchant Twee. We
transported them a long distance and both my husband and I have become
rather attached to them."
"Attached?" said the big alien, lifting the little calico up and
looking it over carefully with all three of his large green eyes. Eyes
that, coincidentally, had vertical pupils, just like those of the
contented little beast he was examining.
Theresa chuckled, "Sorry, Merchant Twee," she said, shaking her
head. "'Attached' means emotionally bound. My apologies." The big blue
alien laughed, a sort of booming chortle that sounded quite a bit like a
horse in distress.
"Never fear about the price, Captain Helms. Some things are beyond
mere credits. These animals are simply wonderful! My offspring will
adore them. Name your price!"
"I have to talk it over with my partner. We didn't get them with
the intention of selling them," said Theresa. Of course, that was before
we knew that someone wanted to buy them at an extravagant price, she
thought. "We'll give you an answer tomorrow. Is that okay?"
"That will be fine, Captain Helms. If you do not mind, I would like
to keep the small animal with me for a while yet. The rumbling sound it
makes is very soothing."
Together, Theresa and the big, blue, amiable Hearder checked off
the lists of cargo allotted to the Hearder merchant. All the while the
little female cat sat contentedly on the Hearder's broad shoulders, next
to his lopsided head, purring loudly.
With the day finally over, the docks quiet, and the ship sealed up
for the night, the two humans sat down in Jupiter's small stateroom to
discuss the day's business before bed. Theresa flopped her slight frame
down in a soft lounger next to the computer station where Tim was
checking over the days business. She ran one of her delicate hands
through her short black hair. Her husband, by way of contrast, was a
large, blond Nordic type, gone a little to fat, who was surprisingly
graceful in spite of his size. He typed in a last notation, hit the
return and swivelled his chair around to face his wife.
"Not a bad day at all, Hon," he said, as he stretched and yawned.
"How're you doin'?"
"Not bad. In fact, I had an interesting conversation with Hagedorn
Twee today," she said. "One that could make us a lot of credits."
"Hey, makin' credits is what we're here for!" he said eagerly. "As
long as it's not too illegal! What've you got, Terry? I'm all ears."
"He wants to buy our cats."
"Huh? Our cats? I thought you said something about a lot of
credits?" Tim's look could only be described as disappointed.
"Let me finish! You wouldn't believe it, Tim. I've never seen
anything like it! Those two cats were all over him. I don't know, maybe
it's the high body temperature of the Hearders or some subtle scent that
humans can't detect, but those cats just adored him!" Somewhat
mollified, Tim got to the root of the question.
"How much?"
She tried not to sound too excited. "He said, and I quote, 'Never
fear about the price, Captain Helms!'" Tim came halfway out of his chair
and winced as he bumped his knee on the computer console.
"Say again?" asked Tim, rubbing his wounded knee.
"He said that money was no object."
"Sold!" said Tim. He gave Theresa a calculating look. "How much do
you think we can get?"
"Well, considering that we transported them all the way from Earth
and that they'd be the only two animals of their kind in this entire
planetary system, I think the price should be high. Besides, Hagedorn
Twee is one of the wealthiest merchants on the planet."
"What did we pay for the cats, Terry?"
"I'm not sure, honey. Not a lot. Let's see, ten credits for each
cat, five credits for immunization tabs and another twenty apiece for
neutering--I'd say forty credits each max. Total, about eighty."
Tim thought for a moment. "What do you think about four hundred
apiece?"
"The only two animals of their kind in the system? The wealthiest
merchant in the sector? Come on, Tim, think big! I say, no less than
twenty-five hundred for the pair. Hmmm... I think we should start at
five thousand!"
"Five thousand! That's a fourth of what we still owe on this old
tub! With what we stand to make on the rest of this trip, we could be in
damned good shape!"
"That's kind of what I thought," said his wife, smiling. "The
sooner we pay off the Jupiter, the sooner we can get down to making some
real credits!"
"You're the salesman on this team, Terry. Do your stuff!" said Tim,
standing up to embrace her, his injury apparently forgotten.
Hagedorn Twee's first offer took Theresa completely by surprise. It
was for ten thousand credits -- apiece! Fortunately she recovered her
composure in time to haggle the price up a little more. They finally
settled on twelve-thousand- five hundred each, but only after Hagedorn
Twee extracted the Helms' promise not to bring any other cats into the
system. It seemed like a strange request, but the lucky husband-wife
team could more than triple their proceeds for the entire voyage and pay
off the loan on their old but still-serviceable cargo ship. They agreed.
Since there were offworld animals involved, the legal work on
transferring ownership of the two cats had to be handled by the Regional
Office for the Importation of Non-indigenous Flora and Fauna. Theresa
met Hagedorn Twee at the huge Regional Government Complex in downtown
Heardhome, the spaceport and capital city of Heard's World. The district
rep was another of the big easy-going Hearders, Ottobon Kurr, who, it
just so happened, was a relative of Hagedorn Twee. His brother-in-law,
or the Hearder equivalent, in fact.
"Do you have the papers, Captain Helms?" said Ottobon Kurr in his
deep, booming Hearder's voice.
"I have them right here," said Theresa, putting the documents in
front of the official. Kurr read from the documents.
"Let me see... Planet of origin: Earth, Sol system....
Classification: Mammal.... Species: Felius domesticus... Immunizations:
okay.... Tests for antibodies to contagious diseases--all negative.
Good, good! Have the animals been sterilized? They cannot be allowed to
remain here unless they have been sterilized."
"Turn the certificate over, Representative Kurr," said Theresa .
"They were neutered before they left earth."
"Everything appears to be in order," said Ottobon Kurr. "Place your
palmprint here."
Hagedorn Twee was the proud owner of the only two cats on Heard's
World, a planet with five hundred million inhabitants. Theresa and Tim
Helm were considerably wealthier than before. Everyone, including the
two cats, was deliriously happy.
The Jupiter returned to the Heard's World system some ten months
later with a fresh cargo of hard-to-get and expensive items for sale and
trade. In spite of her age, the old ship shifted smoothly out of Whitney
psuedospace, fading easily back into normal space-time some three AU's
out from Heard's world. Ten months ship's time, because of the vagaries
of the Whitney Overdrive FTL System that powered the old Jupiter,
translated to about twenty-two months of Heard's World time. Within two
weeks, the little trader ship would leave with a load of local products
for sale to the planets on Jupiter's route through the inner system
stars of the galaxy. These products including Hearder arts and crafts
and, most importantly, several hundred small, carefully packed vials of
Nardeezium.
Nardeezium was a rare and valuable drug made from the skin
excretions of the rare and exotic Nardeezy dragon. "Dragon" was somewhat
of a misnomer since the animals were really more like small, slow-moving
salamanders than dragons. Not only were the animals sluggish, they were
also stupid and slow to reproduce. What's more, they had stubbornly
resisted all attempts to get them to thrive in captivity. As a result,
the fastidious little beasts were carefully tended in special preserves
and their precious sweat was very carefully harvested.
Nardeezium was the most valuable substance on Heard's World, and
very important to her economic well-being. The drug was non-addictive
and gave a mild high when used sparingly but its most sought-after
feature was that it greatly increased the intensity of the mammalian
sexual experience. As you might expect, demand far exceeded the supply
among the wealthy on the human-settled planets.
Theresa and Tim were hailed by Hagedorn Twee within five minutes of
groundfall. It's usually difficult for members of different races to
read another's emotions, but even over the videocom, both Theresa and
Tim could tell that Merchant Twee was agitated. Maybe it was the nearly
painful volume of a voice that was, even normally, too loud. Or maybe it
was the fact that Twee was sweating.
"I must talk to you immediately, Captain Helms. It is a matter of
the utmost gravity!"
"Please, calm down, Merchant Twee," said Theresa. "We'll meet with
you as soon as possible." The Hearder seemed to relax, but only a
little. They signed off.
"Tim, he looked really upset," said Theresa, nervously. "He was
sweating! Tim, do Hearders sweat?"
The two humans got a groundcab and went directly to Hagedorn Twee's
huge merchant complex, where they were immediately ushered into Twee's
private office. Twee looked up and down the corridor suspiciously before
closing and carefully locking the door. Ottobon Kurr was already there,
looking, if possible, even more upset than his somewhat larger brother-
in-law. The two Hearders were both sweating, or something much like it.
Fortunately, Hearder biochemistry is somewhat different from human and
the atmosphere of the office had taken on a fragrance somewhat
reminiscent of nutmeg and basil, which didn't bother the humans in the
least.
"Something most unfortunate has happened," said Hagedorn Twee,
still obviously upset.
"Just what is the problem?" asked Theresa.
Twee motioned with one of his large, blue three-digited forepaws to
Kurr, who was across the room.
Ottobon Kurr reached into a small cargo box that was down on the
floor, next to his huge, black hind hoof. There was no mistaking what he
pulled out.
"Where in all of space did you get a kitten?" said Theresa, as the
little animal climbed up Ottobon Kurr's arm, its sharp, little claws not
affecting the thick, scaly hide of the Hearder in the least. The little
beast began to purr loudly as it rubbed itself luxuriantly under the big
alien's chins.
"There are now at least twenty-four immature sol-system cats like
this one on Heard's World," said Twee, mopping his narrow forehead with
a large ultravelvet swab. "And it looks like there is the potential for
many more."
"We're ruined!" ejaculated Kurr, his eyes raised to the ceiling.
"Ruined!"
"How can this be?" asked Theresa, ignoring Kurr's outburst.
Hagedorn Twee couldn't meet her eye. "We had the two original
animals cloned. There are now two thousand copies of each. We sold them,
as quickly as we got them, for five thousand credits apiece." He gave an
embarrassed shrug, an action that almost made the floor move. "We made
an enormous profit."
Theresa shook her head in disbelief.
The Hearder brought his triple gaze back to the humans. "But,
within a few months some of the clones began behaving strangely--
irrationally. We did not suspect that it was reproductive behavior until
it was too late. So far, at least four of them have reproduced and many
others appear about to."
"You had them cloned?" said Theresa. "That was not a part of our
original bargain."
"Check the contract, Captain Helms," said Kurr. "Cloning was not
mentioned. As such, it was not strictly forbidden."
"You shouldn't have cloned them, Merchant Twee," said Tim.
"There is more," said Hagedorn Twee.
"We're ruined!" shouted Kurr, again. "Ruined!"
"You mean this gets worse?" asked Theresa.
"Yes," said Ottobon Kurr, somewhat calmed after his latest
outburst, "several twelves of the original four thousand clones have
escaped and gone into the wild where they may be reproducing even as we
speak. You see what I mean? We're ruined! Ruined!"
"That's not so bad," said Theresa, over the wailing. "Your species
seems to really get along well with cats." The two Hearders looked
nervously at one another.
"They seem to have developed a taste for the flesh of the Nardeezy
Dragon," said Twee, miserably. "Nardeezium, even in crude form, has the
same effect on the animals sexual performance as it does on yours. Not
only are they eating some of the dragons, they are probably reproducing
more rapidly as a result.
"Couldn't you just destroy the wild ones?" asked Theresa. Both of
the aliens looked horrified. Kurr made a strangled noise.
"Out of the question!" Twee was almost shouting. "Hearders do not
take the life of any creature! It is against our most basic principles."
"It appears that we have no choice," said Kurr, "We are not going
down to ruin alone. You humans are certainly liable. We shall have to
call in the 4th Quadrant authorities. You may consider your ship
impounded and quarantined, and yourselves confined to the ship until
this situation is resolved! Good day!"
Tim looked at his wife and partner, thinking that it had been nice
to own their own ship, even if it was for just a few months. They went
back to their grounded, impounded ship and waited nervously for the two
and a half days that would be required for the authorities to arrive
from Quadrant Headquarters on New Ceylon.
The Quadrant Supervisor for Hazardous Flora and Fauna was a being
by the name of Aalber T'verberg, a Lotharian. Lotharians were short,
slender, bipeds native to Lothar, a small, neat planet in the first
quadrant. Their bodies are covered with short yellowish fur, except for
their heads, which are bare and pink. Lotharians are intelligent but not
inquisitive and eminently fair, if somewhat boring. They are also very
good with numbers. In fact, they are a race of natural certified
public accountants.
In the Regional Office for the Importation of Non-indigenous Flora
and Fauna an argument was in progress. Again the atmosphere was tinged
with the smell of basil and nutmeg.
"I can't believe that you had those animals cloned," Tim Helms, was
saying, with some heat. "We never intended for that to happen."
"We have gotten off the subject, Master Helms," replied Ottobon
Kurr, with equal heat. "As the Regional Officer for the Importation of
Hazardous Flora and Fauna, I wish to know why the cloned animals are
reproducing. You swore that the originals were sterilized."
"Is that correct?" lisped Aalber T'verberg, trying without much
success to take control of the situation.
"That's right," said Theresa. "They were neutered."
"Why, then, are the clones reproducing?" asked Kurr.
"Well, that explains it," interrupted T'verberg, sensing his
opportunity. Finally, the combatants turned their attention to the
sibilant tones of the little Lotharian. "These animals were sterilized
by having their reproductive glands removed, a process traditionally
referred to as 'neutering.' It is a simple and common procedure that
renders the animal sterile and halts much of the undesirable behavior
associated with reproduction. It must be emphasized, however, that this
is a surgical procedure and doesn't change the animal genetically."
"What a barbarous operation,' said Kurr, in disgust.
"Not really," replied T'verberg. "It depends on your viewpoint. On
Earth, where these animals originated, the genetic alterations that are
practiced elsewhere in the Galaxy, are not only considered immoral, they
are highly illegal. Earth's authorities are very strict about the
genetic purity of their native animals. I'm not so sure it's such a bad
idea."
"I still do not understand," said Hagedorn Twee.
"It's quite simple," said T'verberg. "When you had the felines
cloned, the clones were grown from a single cell, usually an epithelial
cell taken from the lining of the animal's small intestine." Here the
two Hearder's looked at each other. Kurr wrinkled his huge nose in
disgust. T'verberg continued. "This technique utilizes the animal's
inherent genetic patterns. Simple surgery, such as the amputation of the
sex glands, would have absolutely no effect on the animal's genes. If
that were so, clones produced from an animal that had accidentally lost
a foot or an eye would have the same defects. Such is not the case."
"What does it mean?" asked Hagedorn Twee.
"It means that the clones are all fertile," said the little
Lotharian. "Who did this cloning job for you anyway?"
"We went to Jakob's Genetics, on Titus Five. He came highly
recommended," said Twee, somewhat defensively. Now it was the
Lotharian's turn to show disgust.
"More like he gave you a low, low price!" snorted T'verberg. "Jakob
Hochsteter is an amateur, nothing more than a part-time gene hacker!" He
shook his round, pink head. "You went to Jake the gene jockey. No wonder
you're in such a mess!"
"What are we to do?" asked Twee, intertwining his digits in
agitation. One of the objects of his discomfort, a kitten, was even then
rubbing affectionately against the Hearder's double chins. He reached
over absently, to stroke the little animal. It began to purr audibly.
"There are a number of reputable genetic engineers who may be able
to help you," said T'verberg, "but I'm afraid it's going to cost."
The two Hearders looked at each other. After a few moments, Twee's
huge shoulders drooped visibly. They looked resignedly at the Lotharian
and nodded their huge lopsided heads reluctantly.
Genetic engineers from Cornucopia Genetic Services scratched their
heads when confronted with the problem but, after a short consultation,
came up with an elegant solution. After a three-week waiting period the
head engineer, a middle-aged, uncharacteristically paunchy Lotharian
named Stimon P'teragon presented the Hearders and the Helms with the
answer.
"This should solve your problem," said the sleek Lotharian as he
handed Hagedorn Twee a small neoplex vial.
"What is it?" asked Twee, looking somewhat doubtful. Obviously the
solution to such a huge problem as theirs could never come in so small
of a package.
"It is a constructed feline rhabdovirus," came the smug reply.
"A what?" asked Tim Helms.
"It is a virus that will only infect a terrestrial cat. We have
designed it to infect and destroy the gonads which will render the
animals sterile. It is also non-antigenic so the animal's immune system
cannot fight off the infection."
"That is all well and good," said Ottobon Kurr, "but what about the
attacks on our priceless Nardeezy Dragons?"
"Ahhh," smiled P'teragon, showing his flat, herbivorous teeth,
"here is where the extra cost comes in. The virus also affects the
olfactory apparatus of the infected animals in a subtle way that makes
the Nardeezy dragon smell like something inedible. This is also the
method by which the virus is spread, much like the human cold or the
Hearder flux."
"The animals must not be killed!" said Kurr adamantly. Hearders
were good a being adamant.
"There is no danger to the infected animals. Once the target
tissues have been attacked the virus becomes dormant until it
encounters fresh, uninfected tissue. This extends your protection
indefinitely."
"Will it work?" asked Twee.
"It is guaranteed," said P'teragon.
"Just a minute," said Tim.
"Yes?" said P'teragon.
"What if one of these infected cats somehow gets back to Terra?
What's to protect all the cats on my homeworld."
"That is a good question, Mr. Helms," replied P'teragon, "but
Cornucopia Genetics has thought of that possibility. It is just another
of the reasons that we offer the best service of this kind in the
Quadrant. None of our engineered viruses will survive the jump through
hyperspace. Once the virus has replicated inside its animal host, it
will fall apart in Whitney pseudospace."
Tim nodded his head in approval.
"One more thing," said Stimon P'teragon.
"Yes?" asked Twee.
"Stay away from gene jockeys. They're nothing but trouble."
The Cornucopia people were as good as their word. Within a few
months, there were still just as many feral cats on Heard's World, but
all of them had a mild case of the sniffles and none of them were
reproducing. The treatment had not come cheaply but, still, the costs
had only cut Twee's enormous profits on the venture by about a tenth.
Tim Helms picked up a few more credits by designing a live trap to
capture the loose cats. Baited with an old-Earth weed called "catnip"
(of which the Helms had a small supply), the traps were an immediate
success. Recaptured animals were returned to their original owners with
a caution and, of course, a somewhat more-than-nominal fee or simply
sold as new, on the open market. Profits soared. Tim added catnip to the
products that he and his wife would bring on their next trip, mentally
rubbing his hands together in anticipation of the credits they would
make. The lucky couple were back in business.
Tim and Theresa stood next to the now-released Jupiter getting
ready to head out on the remainder of their somewhat delayed merchant
foray. Hagedorn Twee, with a cat purring on each of his massive
shoulders stood before them.
"I almost hate to do this," said Theresa. "But I do have something
else you might be interested in, Merchant Twee. With all the ruckus over
the cats, we didn't have time to show this to you."
"Yes?" asked Twee, expectantly.
"Okay, Tim," Theresa called out.
Tim released a white and brown-spotted animal with four legs, a
short, pointy tail and a pair of droopy ears. To the delight of the two
humans, the creature went immediately over and sniffed the big alien's
foot. After a brief investigation, the little animal's ears perked up
and its tail began to wag. It then put its two front legs up on the big
alien's elephantine leg. The alien reached down in wonder to touch the
small animal who began to lick the huge hand with a wet, pink tongue.
"What an adorable creature!" said Hagedorn Twee, with obvious
Hearder delight. "What is it?"
"It's an Earth-native animal called a 'puppy,'" said Theresa.
Twee picked the dog up and laughed his booming, strangled-horse
laugh as the little creature licked his pebbly face. Obviously, the two
cats on the Hearder's shoulders weren't nearly as pleased as the Hearder
with this most recent turn of events.
As if in anticipation, Theresa answered the Hearder's next
question.
"Yes, Merchant Twee, it has been neutered..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
PHILLIP NOLTE (nolte@idui1.csrv.uidaho.edu) is a contributing editor to
InterText, in addition to being an extension professor at the University
of Idaho and an expert on potato diseases. He lives in Idaho Falls with
his wife and daughter.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Back from the West / MARK SMITH
"Go this way, asshole."
"No, you miserable simp."
"That's a one-way street for chrissakes."
For over a decade, through a dozen houses in two states, I have
kept these eight pages: double-spaced, typed on the back of scrap paper,
fastened together with a rusty staple. Some phrases and even paragraphs
repeating like an echo, or like we really lived it more than once even
that night. Now here they are again, beside my keyboard, the rambling,
incoherent log of the night of January 1, 1980, the first night of a
bygone decade. Start again, middle of page three.
"Go this way, asshole."
"No, you miserable simp."
"That's a one-way street, for chrissakes."
The car careens across three lanes of the empty avenue and up a
one-way street. Almost immediately, a siren sounds behind us: the same
cop that has followed us since we stopped the car in the middle of
Guadalupe at three o'clock in the morning.
Bobalouie, huge and imperturbably drunk, has been driving. He pulls
over to the curb cautiously. The stop lights at most of the
intersections are set to flash at this hour. Guadalupe looks like a
carnival with no people. None of us -- Riddle in the front seat with his
brother Bobalouie and me in the back -- say anything.
Black cop, young guy, climbs out of his car and walks up to us, the
faint edge of uncertainty or fear showing around his eyes. I'm thinking,
this must be a textbook drill in the academy: carload of drunks cruising
deserted streets in the middle of the night.
He asks for Bobalouie's license, which is forthcoming without a
word. He shines his huge cop flashlight on it. "Let me see yours also,
please," he says to Riddle. And then to me: "You too."
I reach for my back pocket.
"Hold it!" he says, thinking of guns, I guess, afraid he might
already be dead. He says:
"You guys get out of the car. All of you."
He tells us to stand on the curb. It is January 1, 1980, and cold
as hell. I'm wearing jeans and a shirt, no sweater or jacket. I start to
put my hands in my pockets.
"Don't put your hands in your pockets." Then he adds, "Please." His
politeness in the face of adversity is admirable. As I pull my hands
slowly out of my pockets, I think, I should write to the mayor and
commend this officer's damn fine manners. I forget to note his badge
number.
Next thing I know, Riddle is jabbering like Lear's fool. He's
saying,
"Lissen, sir, this is the way it is. . . We just drove all the way
across the whole fuckin' -- oh, excuse me -- the whole damn state. All
the way back from Big Bend. Ever been out there? Oh, it's beautiful
country, sir. And we've been drinking all day. I guess I shouldn't tell
you that, but it's true. Christ, you have to drink when you drive out
there in West Texas, you can't survive any other way. Anyway, well,
we've been looking around for our friend's house. . ."
I tune Riddle out, I figure he's sealed our fate now. I stare into
the hypnotic spin of the red and blue flashers on top of the cop car.
For a minute I forget how cold I am. I figure if I can keep still for a
minute and not say anything, maybe the cop'll throw Riddle in the can
for standing there on the street corner and trying to be honest and
Bobalouie and I can go on home.
Then, son-of-a-bitch if the cop hasn't cracked a smile. A smile!
And he's telling Riddle, "Well, I can see you fellas have had a little
too much to drink. Are you sure you can find your way home now?"
I break for the car, my only hunch all night paid off. I had
followed my mind and kept quiet and not said one single thing. Neither
had Bobalouie, but then he hasn't said a word all night. Now I'm piling
back into the car hoping my beer isn't cold.
Yes. That part is exactly as I remember it. Just the same way. They
had driven all day from Big Bend, unhinged by the combined forces of
drinking, drugs and the long road through the vast Trans Pecos. But I
don't remember feeling nervous with the cop there. Just cold. Cold as
freaking hell.
"Brrr. I'm cold. Aren't you cold?"
"It'll be warm in a minute."
Bobalouie fiddles with the heater controls. We're still looking for
this woman Aurora's house. Some crazy artist friends that Riddle says
are the only people he knows who never go to sleep.
"But are you cold?"
"Naw, not really. Maybe a little in my toes. It was ten degrees in
the desert last night."
"What did you learn on your trip that you can use in your book?"
Book? I vaguely remember Riddle had it in his head to write a book.
A book about bird watching. He rambled about it for months. He had
written the first chapter, even: a whole chapter on binoculars, how to
pick them out, what the different lens numbers meant. All that stuff
that Riddle knew about. That was why we gravitated toward him. He knew
about things the rest of us never even thought about. Science and nature
and sports and food. Solid, physical things which, at that time, we
thought we were too cerebral to think about. Things that I've learned to
appreciate more since then. I wish I had asked more about those things
when he was here, when I had the chance.
"What did you learn on your trip that you can use in your book?"
Riddle begins, "I learned that the second most abundant large
raptor in the desert is the Marsh Hawk. There are four orders of hawkish
predators with talons in the desert. They are one, falcons; two, buteos-
-buzzard hawks like the Red Tail; three, the accipiters. . ."
I think about getting up to find a bird book to check this, but
keep reading instead.
"...the true hawks, they are built like buteos with tails; four,
kites, represented by one species, the Marsh Hawk. Doesn't it strike you
as odd, Stetson, that the most abundant hawk in the Chihuahua desert is
the Marsh Hawk? Yes, I can use all of that in the book. I can make it a
parenthetical remark. It was ten degrees in the desert. Did I tell you
that?" I nod, and he says, "Well, did I tell you that my brother slept
in the car? In the car, that pigfucker."
Bobalouie looks over at Riddle and shakes his big head. Riddle
continues to rave at me over the back of the front seat.
"He took a hit of acid this morning before we started back. Ten
o'clock in the freaking morning. Do you believe that? We stopped at this
place in Sanderson. . ."
Sanderson. I keep a map of Texas tacked to the wall over my desk. I
stand up and check the tiny print of the index for Sanderson. K-8. There
it is, right where it's suppose to be. Junction of 90 and 285, middle of
nowhere.
"...for coffee and his eyes are little slits. I'm scared to death
he's going to freak out and push over a table or something. Nothing but
mobile homes out there in the middle of the Trans Pecos, just a water
tower with cars all around it and that's the whole damn place and Bob's
trying to start a fight."
Bobalouie turns toward Riddle and I actually think he is about to
say something, set the record straight, give his side of the story, when
Riddle says, "Here's the place. Pull in here."
I flip ahead to find the next part that makes any sense: the part
about Aurora. The painting was real. I remember that exactly. And Aurora
was her name. But I don't remember any of the rest of it. Jesus. It's
all in front of me and I have to say it happened, but damned if I
remember it. I especially don't remember Bob being there with us. But he
was with us all night so he had to be. I just can't remember. What else
have I forgotten?
Riddle barges in without knocking. Nobody seems to mind. Several
people are sitting on the floor of the small living room, but the only
one I know is Aurora, a skinny woman with baggy jeans, who is an art
major at the University. This is a coffee crowd and there are several
cups sitting around their knees and ankles and a big crystal ashtray
full of butts. There is a cloud of smoke in the air.
"Hi, everybody. Happy New Year! Riddle, I'm glad you came by," says
Aurora.
"I thought it might be too late," says Riddle, pulling out a
cigarette.
"No, not at all. How was your trip?"
Riddle starts in on his familiar patter we've been listening to all
night so I take the tour of the living room. As I turn around, I am
facing a peculiar painting which I recognize at once. It is a canvas,
about three feet tall and two feet wide, on which is painted a picture
of a slatternly, sullen Latina in a red, low-cut, sleeveless dress with
shoulder straps. She is barefoot and very brown. But what is very
peculiar about this painting is that the canvas has been extravagantly
bowed outward like a sail blown by a stiff wind from behind. The effect
is obviously meant to suggest an advanced pregnancy not only of the
woman but of the painting itself. I had seen the painting in a student
art exhibit a year before and I even remembered the title: "The Holy
Virgin."
"Do you like it?" Aurora says to me. "Steve painted it." She
indicates a quiet, lanky man in his early thirties sitting cross-legged
on the floor.
After a few minutes, Riddle glances at Bob, hulking larger than
life here in this close room and obviously out of place, and decides it
is time to go before something gets broken.
Before I know it, we're back in the car and on our way out to
Hill's Cafe on South Congress.
I get up and go check the phone book. I haven't thought about
Hill's for years. Still there. By then we were flagging. Deep, deep
tiredness was really beginning to set in, but in spite of it, I remember
Riddle was still geared up. I remember him like he was still here,
leaning over the back of the front seat ranting about football.
I watch out the window as we roll lazily past the junk shops and
neighborhood bars that line the lonely streets east of downtown. I
notice an occasional straggler winding his way home from a party, but
otherwise the streets are quiet and the only cars are the ones parked
along the curb.
In the front seat, Riddle continues to rave at me, showing no signs
of tiring. He's onto football now, he says:
"I'm starting the eighties with absolutely no money in the world.
Do you hear me? No money! So you've got to do this. Go down in the
morning and get as much money as you can out of the bank and put every
penny on Tampa Bay in the NFC playoffs. I'm golden on this, believe me.
I've been predicting it since the start of the season."
Something seems to flash by in the air between us.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"Never mind. Finish what you were saying."
I'm not at all sure what this last part means, but that's what it
says.
"I would stake my reputation and my tattered copy of Tom Jones on
it if I'm not right."
"You mean that if I win this thing, I collect all of this money and
if I lose I lose my hard-earned cash and get some nasty old doorstop of
a book you want to get rid of anyway? Do I have that right?"
Riddle shrugs hopelessly and says to Bobalouie: "What can I say? No
way he's going to take this deal. Can you believe it?" His eyes trace
the air in the car and he says to me: "Tell me what you saw a minute
ago. I think I just saw it again."
It's not here, but I remember saying to Bobalouie earlier in the
evening: "I really see you as a biker. A bad-ass biker bouncer in some
killer club on the eastside." And he got really mad. He was downright
indignant and mentioned it several times during the evening. I think he
thought he was a gentle, mellow type in spite of his appearance. I meant
it as kind of a joke, but he took it entirely seriously. That might be
why he doesn't say a damn word until we get to Hill's.
Five in the morning in Hill's Cafe. . .
This is where I lose the thread. It all runs together. I wonder
when I typed this part. That night or later. Maybe I slept and woke up
and typed it the next day with noon coffee and loud music. Or maybe I
even had the damn typewriter with us in the car that night. We did
things like that then, fictionalizing as we went along.
Five in the morning in Hill's Cafe, we are carefully attended by a
wizened old waitress in classic rhinestone cat's-eye glasses. She seems
to know Bob. We all order the same thing, down to the dressing on our
salads.
"You boys been camping, have you?" she says.
"Yes ma'am," says Riddle. "Big Bend National Park."
"Well, that's real nice. I love the desert, myself. Do a little
thing where I grow little cactuses and moss and things in little logs I
collect and hollow out."
We all nod at her and she smiles and goes off. We grin at each
other, but before we can even start talking again, she's back with our
salads.
"So what were you boys doin' out there? Just sight-seein'?"
I say: "They were collecting material for a book."
"You don't say," she says. "What kinda book would that be?"
Bob is staring at her with a distant, stoned look. I wonder if he
is awake. Riddle's digging into his salad. I say, "It's a naturalist
book about the birds and animals of the Trans Pecos region."
"Izzat so?" says the old woman, visibly impressed. "I'll gitchall
some more ice tea."
Bobalouie points his fork at me and suddenly rumbles into speech
for the first time in hours: "Don't think you can bullshit that old
toadfrog. I'm tellin' you because I know. She don't hear a damn word
you're sayin." He spears a fork full of salad and pokes it into his
craw. "An she don't never change her underwear neither."
Riddle laughs so hard he starts to choke on his salad. Bobalouie
has receded back into a Delphic silence, but he's watching his brother
choke with an amused grin, obviously pleased to be the cause of such
happiness.
The steaks arrive sizzling and they are just like we ordered them:
Bob's is well done, mine is rare and Riddle slices off a piece of his,
impales it on his fork and holds it out to me, "Ahhh, medium rare. Just
like a steak should be."
We devour the food without further talk and I'm wondering how I'm
going to pay for this twelve-dollar meal with three dollars in my
pocket. The waitress leaves the lime-green check face down on the table
and says, "Will they be anything else for ya'll tonight?" We grunt no
and she says, "Well, ya'll have a good one now, y'hear."
Bobalouie pays for all of us without a second thought.
As we walk back out to the car, Riddle says: "You see there? My
brother just bought three steaks at Hill's. Over forty dollars and he
shrugged it off like you never would. That's why you owe it to yourself
to go down to the bank in the morning and get your hands on every penny
you have in the world and put it on Tampa--"
Bobalouie interrupts Riddle, saying: "Can't you understand? He's
not going to bet on the game. He doesn't even like football."
"Like football?" says Riddle. "Who said anything about liking
football? I'm talking about a business proposition. You don't think the
people who own McDonald's eat there do you?"
The sun is coming up and I am very tired. I feel like lying in the
back seat, but Bob beats me to it, so I decide to drive. Bob belches
once and says, "What did you mean when you said I should be a biker? I
resent the hell out of that." Then he is asleep. We climb out onto
Congress Avenue on our way back to nowhere.
The cursor is blinking at me, waiting for me to add something. What
can I? All I remember of that night is what is written there, which is
to say that what I remember has become what I wrote, whether that was
really what happened or not. It wasn't even that long ago, but it feels
like another lifetime.
Why isn't Riddle here to remember for me? He could've remembered --
he was good at little details. I should've asked when I had the chance;
now it's too late.
Riddle says: "Don't mind him, he's crazy. Did I tell you that he
just about got us into a fight? We stopped in this little town called
Sanderson and..."
He stops and looks at me. "Did I tell you this already?"
I look at him and say, "Yeah, don't you remember?"
"No. In fact, I don't remember a lot of this. Maybe I'm losing my
mind."
"It's just sleep deprivation," I say.
"Jesus, that's a relief, Stetson."
"Anyway, it was a long time ago," I say.
Riddle nods. "It sure as hell was."
We drive. After a few minutes, we are downtown and the sun is
rising on our right, big and orange. I remember suddenly that there are
things I wanted to know more about. I say, "Tell me more about the
hawks."
Riddle's face brightens and he says: "What I might not have told
you is that the most common raptor in the Chihuahuan desert is the Marsh
Hawk. Did I tell you that?"
----------------------------------------------------------------------
MARK SMITH (mlsmith@tenet.edu) has been writing fiction and non-fiction
for over ten years. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in
_Window_, _Spectrum_, _Malcontent_, _Epiphany_, and the _Lone Star
Literary Quarterly_. "Back from the West" is from Mark's forthcoming
collection of stories, _Riddle_, winner of the 1992 Austin Book Award.
Mark lives in Austin, Texas.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Just a Company Man / P.R. MORRISON
The name's Kinkade... Sam Kinkade, Database Investigator. It began
on a summer day in '26... April, I think. I remember it reasonably
well because it was the first time in six years that the solar diffusion
index had fallen below 5.1 and allowed the sun to be seen by the
populace of L.A. Caused a lot of confusion, as I recall, and a few cases
of retinal scarring amongst younger kids.
I'd stumbled into my office the night before with a dozen Ukrainian
slammers under my belt and tried to catch a few hours sleep on the
couch. It took all my willpower to prevent those little dissidents from
staging a counter-revolution when the visiphone rang in the morning,
raising me from semiconsciousness.
I crawled to the visiphone, noting before I hit the accept button
that the call was being scrambled by the Federal Bureau of Database
Investigation. Sure enough, the craggy face of Rick McLusky, the
regional head of the FBDI sprang into view and pierced my eardrums with
its opening remark.
"Kinkade," he said, "we've got another job for you. A big one this
time."
"Great," I moaned in reply.
"What's wrong?" McLusky asked, clearly taken aback by my lack of
enthusiasm. "You sick or something?"
"Sort of. What is it anyway? I've got no time for damned FBDI
cases. You guys think it's big when some kid pisses on the vidiscanner
in the john at the hover-rail center!"
"No, Kinkade... this time it's different. This time we got a
renegade."
"So? Who hasn't? If I had 10 credits for every guy who had his
universal identifier cut out of his wrist I'd be sitting in the
Seychelles, lounging about on my gravity yacht. Look, can't you see I'm
having trouble mapping onto reality at the moment?" I said, starting to
look longingly at the vacuum sink in the corner of my office.
"Cut the crap, Kinkade," McLusky said suddenly. "This is no
ordinary case. The guy was a dyed-in-the-wool Company man. Bluer than a
laser blast and twice as straight... until now that is. The system
hasn't recorded a transaction from him in over a week and the Board want
him found. They don't like unerased Company men going renegade. It
doesn't look good."
Although the rest of my body wanted to secede from my stomach, I
was beginning to get interested in this case. My only reservation was
that experience had taught me to avoid Company business if at all
possible.
"Look, McLusky," I said to the Bureau man, hoping to ease myself
out of this one, "You know me. I have the wrong psychprofile for Company
business and they know it. In fact, that's the reason I left it in the
first place. I can't tolerate their linearity. Come to think of it...
why can't they handle it themselves? Internal investigations are always
much neater. Hell, why doesn't the Bureau handle it? Giving it to a
private DI is a risky business."
McLusky appeared as if he wanted to reach through the phone and rip
out my tonsils.
"Kinkade!" he roared. "You know damned well the Company threw you
out and you were lucky they didn't erase you at the same time! The only
reason they didn't was because they knew you were the best DI they ever
had -- screwy, but good. You've still got your memories because they
wanted to keep you as a resource -- to use whenever they needed some
different kind of help."
Having got that out, McLusky began to settle down and his nose
looked less like an old Soviet distress beacon.
"Listen," he said in a subdued tone, "this guy is good... very,
very good. They can't trace him. You know how they think over there --
in straight lines. But they think that your screwball logic might be
able to find him. And apart from that, it isn't a request. You know your
position. Your privacy level could be lowered like that," he said,
snapping his fingers sharply. "You can only be monitored by level sevens
right now, but in five seconds you could be a level one again. You won't
be able to scratch your ass without the whole system knowing it."
McLusky was right of course. He knew it and I knew it. If they
busted me to that level, every toilet cubicle had to be opened with my
universal identifier, every food purchase involved it, every Ukrainian
slammer... all of it on the system and available to anyone who wanted to
look at it. It made me shudder.
"And remember this..." McLusky continued, "Tracking has been on the
increase lately."
That was the final straw. Tracking had become the pastime for the
modern pervert, invading lives and destroying them by denying the most
basic elements of privacy. If a tracker selected me as his target,
following me on the system wherever I went... It would be a nightmare.
Some of them even took delight in predicting your movements and leaving
obscene messages on the systemlink they thought you would use next. I
knew I couldn't take that. Never again!
I rubbed my eyes, feeling very beaten all of a sudden.
"OK... I'll do it. Gimme his identifier and I'll see what I can do.
No guarantees, though. If this guy is as good as you say, he might have
already beaten the system."
McLusky nodded, apparently satisfied. As he tapped out the guy's
code I headed for some coffee and decided that tomorrow would be a good
time to start. In the meantime I had to rediscover what it was like to
be human.
The next morning I logged into my systemlink and entered the
identifier. He was a level six called James Tyler and he was Snow White.
A traffic camera had caught him six months ago running a red light, but
other than that there was nothing. The map of his auto use showed that
he hadn't visited any known illegal establishments, but it did indicate
a frequently visited apartment north of the stratoport. Probably his
girlfriend, I reasoned. But then, who knew these days? DNA work
regularly transformed men into women or vice versa, or things in
between.
I made a note of the address and traced the last transaction he'd
made. Two double scotches at a bar called the Purple Lizard in the
rundown part of the Southside. And had he been ripped off! 20 credits
each!
I grabbed my respirator, strapped on my blaster and headed for the
hover-rail station. The smell of hydrocarbons would do me good.
To say that the Purple Lizard was a dive was like saying the sewer
treatment plant had an odor. It was the basement of a rundown apartment
building and it made you wonder where you left your lice repellent. It
was a strange place for a Company man to visit.
As I descended the stairs a gigantic guy of Italian descent came
out of the shadows and blocked my path. From the way the guy talked it
was clear that he hadn't been behind the door when the brains were
handed out. It sounded as if he wasn't even in the room.
"Sorry, mister," he said "but ain't nobody allowed ta have blasters
in the Lizard. So gimme it or else I gotta bust ya."
I briefly thought about blasting the guy, but I knew that dinosaurs
had small brains and you had to be a great shot or very lucky.
I handed over my piece and brushed aside a piece of black curtain,
revealing the Lizard in all its glory. A couple of guys -- probably
unidentifieds -- were playing magnetopool and drinking martian red. The
bartender was an old guy with a lot of facial scars and big hamfists.
All of them stared at me as I took my place at the bar.
"You got guts, anyway," said the bartender as I grabbed a stool.
"How's that?" I asked as I tapped a Cosmic Camel out of its pack
and placed it on my lips.
"Well, we don't like upper levels in here. And in a minute, when me
and those two guys feel like it, we're gonna bust your head open just
for the fun of it," he said, looking very happy as he finished.
"Is that so?" I replied, taking a long drag on the Camel. "In that
case, I just hope you guys are wearing blaster jackets."
"What blaster? Joey got it outside. I watched him!"
"Sure, he got that one. But you see, my left hand hasn't been the
same since the assault on Petrograd. A fragmentation grenade blew it off
and I thought it might be handy -- excuse the pun -- to have a
miniblaster installed in the cyber replacement. Got the picture?"
The bartender clasped and unclasped his fists in suppressed rage.
"You better not stay too long, mister," he said. "You can't guard
your back forever."
"Tsk, tsk," I said, knowing that I shouldn't push my advantage if I
was to get what I wanted. "Look, all I'm after is a little information.
See this guy?" I showed him a visifacsimile of Tyler. "He was here a
week ago. The system says at 6:30 on the tenth. I just want to know what
happened to him."
"Never seen him before," the bartender said. "We don't give
information to the Company anyhow."
"I'm not from the Company. I'm a private DI and the system says he
was here. I just want to know why."
I pulled out a gold Krugerrand and tossed it onto the bar.
"Trading in gold is outside the system and illegal," the barman
said, perhaps surprised that an upper level would be carrying it.
"Well, I won't tell if you won't" I said.
"OK. He was here," the barman blurted out as he seized the coin.
"What happened to him?" I said, placing my hand on the man's closed
fist.
"We beat him up, same as we were gonna do to you. We threw him out
and that was the last we saw of him. That's it."
He had no reason to lie, so I decided to cut my losses and do some
thinking outside the confines of the Purple Lizard.
"OK... thanks," I said as I stood away from the bar and pointed my
hand at the barman's belly. I found the back door and as I weaved
through the garbage cans, I spared a thought for Joey and his coming
chastisement. The cyberarm was always a good con.
As I strolled up the street, donning my respirator, I thought about
what I had. Tyler was beaten up in a bar he wouldn't be seen dead in.
Why? He must have been meeting someone. Someone, who could've protected
him, but didn't show up.
But who was the someone? It looked like a dead end, so I took a
chair at a nearby diner and ordered a cup of coffee. Well, they said it
was coffee. It was black anyway. As I slowly sipped, I wondered if I
might be able to get a better angle with some database interrogation.
Now, as all truly great systems men know, databases are very
fallible, capricious and unpredictable. Sometimes they go down for no
reason or function perfectly when they shouldn't, or perform differently
on tasks that are completely routine. The true art of systems use is to
regard them as very delicate beasties. That was the secret of Sam
Kinkade, plus a few tricks I'd kept from the Company. I felt capable of
working a little magic, so I had the coffee credited and found the
nearest systemlink.
It was an old model; no voice recognition, just a battered old
keyboard. Still, it would do. I placed my wrist identifier over the
reader, logged in and looked at the systats. There was a lot of activity
and that would make tracing the system failure a lot harder. I punched
in the node and vector code of a program that had cost me two thousand
credits from an old, alcoholic systems designer whose only memory after
erasure was the location of a very special, hidden program. That
remarkable piece of code caused the system to crash and in the last few
moments of sentience while the protection was failing, it copied the
files of anyone up to level eight. That should be high enough to get
what I wanted -- the files of Tyler's immediate boss; somebody that even
Tyler had probably never met.
I placed in a wildcard identifier for Tyler's superior. Then, with
trembling fingers (crashing systems still gives a thrill) I executed the
program and watched as the network with its thousands of mainframes
slowly died, wracked by the cancerous spread of confusion that the
program unleashed. Finally, on the bitmapped image of the world map that
showed the operational status of the various nodes, the last pixel faded
out.
Of course it would be restarted within minutes, with much head
scratching. But the fault would never be traced. The system was too
complex. It could never know which of the millions of programs active at
that moment, or what combination of them, actually caused the crash.
Meanwhile, I knew that the information I needed would be safely in my
disk area to peruse at my leisure. All I had to do was wait for the
inevitable return of the system.
At that moment, I sensed something behind me and had half turned
around when the butt of a blaster smashed into my temple, sending me
crashing to the ground. As I lay there dazed, I was vaguely aware of
someone stepping over me and manipulating the systemlink.
Suddenly, a blur of red hit him squarely in the back and he fell
heavily, rolling for some distance before getting to his feet and
running off. I was still pretty much out of it, but managed to stand and
lean on the wall. Next to the systemlink I noticed an ice cool blonde in
a red jumpsuit regarding me with some concern.
"Are you OK?" she said in a very husky voice.
"So you're my savior," I said feeling like the cat who got the
cream. "What have I done to deserve this?"
"You're looking for a friend of mine I believe" she said. It all
made some sense now.
"So you're 1139 Catalonia Boulevard," I said, noting to myself that
James Tyler was a man of good taste.
"Yes. Pamela Aldiss is my name. Although you probably know that."
"No, I didn't, actually," I said. "Although if I'd known you could
wear a jumpsuit like that, I would have made it my business to find
out."
"You're very flattering Mr. Kinkade," she said with some wariness.
"But I have often found that flatterers are no match for karate."
"Yes, I noticed," I said, raising my hands in mock surrender. "I'll
keep it in mind."
She responded with a fleeting smile. "The most important thing
right now is to find Jim. Have you made any progress yet? The FBDI said
they'd engaged you yesterday."
I hated to disappoint her, but after rescuing me she deserved the
truth.
"Unfortunately... no." I said flatly. "But somebody else is
interested in this case. That guy could have killed me, but didn't. He
was more interested in what I was doing with the systemlink."
She thought about that for a while, then helped me into her car --
a gas turbined pink Maretta. I tried not to notice the curvature of her
legs as we tore down the high velocity lane of the expressway,
exchanging what little information we had.
"Jim was in the Global Division," she began, the past tense
bothering me at first. "He was involved in negotiations with foreign
governments... you know, installations, software capabilities. It was
tricky stuff. These days, no government can afford not to be part of the
system. Their commerce and trade would suffer enormously. But at the
same time, they've always been concerned about who has the information
and what they do with it. Of course, anybody with any brains knows that
the Company has it all and it's probably just a matter of time before
governments cease to exist. Jim's job was to placate them while it all
happened."
"Hmmm," I replied as I patched into her car's mobilelink.
"What are you doing?" she asked, unable to take her eyes off the
road and focus on the dim display.
"Oh, just checking my creds," I replied, trying to suppress my
shock as I read the system output. "Where are we going anyway?"
"To my place."
I grinned. She scowled.
"Jim may have left a message there," she explained. "He can beat
the security monitors. The system told me where you'd left the hover
rail, so, while I waited for him to contact me, I thought we could team
up. OK?" she smiled, turning to me briefly.
It was an engaging smile, but one that didn't last. As I looked
down some text slowly assembled on the systemlink.
"It's for both of us." I said. "Tyler wants us to meet him at the
Stratopark. 82nd level in half an hour."
We left 50 meters of rubber as we did a 180 on the expressway, the
injectors shrieking with power. Pam knew how to drive. My mind
considered what else she was good at.
The Stratopark was windswept and although swirling with smog we
left our respirators off to help our visibility. It didn't take us long
to find Tyler. He was sitting on the bonnet of a Blue Maretta. Blue for
boys, pink for girls.
"Darling!" Pam exclaimed as she ran with open arms toward him.
"Not so fast!" Tyler said as he pulled out a pocket blaster.
Pam stopped short, the smile sliding off her face and falling onto
the concrete.
"So, you know," she said.
Tyler chuckled wryly to himself. "I had an idea. But I had to be
sure. Kinkade got the information I needed."
"You mean about Pam?" I said, starting to piece it together.
"Yes. You see, I was working in Moscow, placating what's left of
the government. You know, reassuring them about the system, but at the
same time, buying certain individuals, eliminating others. The problem
is, New Russia is a closed society. The central executive is aged and
almost inseparable in its new-found hatred for the West. Buying them
wasn't easy, hitting them impossible. The Company was unhappy. So,
sensing failure, I allowed the executive to buy me. In exchange for a
comfortable mansion near the Baltic, I'll tell them how to use the
system and avoid being subjugated by it. Pam was to go with me. It was
all arranged. We were to meet a Russian operative at the Purple Lizard
and make good our escape. But both of them didn't show and the local
yokels took out their frustration on me."
"That much I can see," I said, noticing his bruises.
"Yes, but you also found out that Pam is really my boss and the
Company's best eliminator. She blew away my contact. I had suspicions,
of course. Pam was the only one who knew of our rendezvous at the
Lizard. And when the Russian agent who had tailed you managed to get a
glimpse of the systemlink you'd used and saw it storing files on Pam in
your area, I decided to have a look for myself. I am a level seven, you
know. I read them just before I came here."
I screwed up my face at the thought of Tyler rummaging through my
love letters and other desiderata.
"Those files revealed the truth. You see, the Company has a nice
policy these days. It arranges for top executives to meet and become
involved with their best eliminators. It makes it neater if the exec
goes renegade. Lovers are much cleaner killers."
"True," Pamela said coldly. "And it would have been much cleaner,
Darling, if not for your contact. I had to garrote him, but obviously I
couldn't meet you covered in blood. You can thank Russian training for
your life."
"And I'm afraid that your life, my lover, has just about run out,"
Tyler said with a smile.
"Sorry to disappoint you, Jim," she replied, unperturbed. "You see,
the Russians aren't here. Your backups are gone. Ten minutes ago, we
sold them an operations exec. A level nine man. We sold him for you and
a few million credits."
"You're lying! You couldn't risk the information."
"Unfortunately, I'm not. He's been erased. Of course, the Russians
don't know that. It was a very nice job. Bye-bye, Jim," she said, as she
pressed one of her earrings. A second later, Tyler's abdomen disappeared
as a microgrenade from a sniper's rifle punched through his body.
Pam walked over to the body, and felt for a pulse, always the
professional.
Then she pressed her fingers against her lips and placed them on
Tyler's cheek. She looked up and engaged me with those empty, crystal
blue eyes.
"And how is your memory, Mr. Kinkade?" she asked. "They said that
your involvement would bring him to us. All I had to do was stick with
you. They said it always seemed to happen that way. 'Screwball logic'
was the term."
I blushed and stammered as I recalled the dismemberment of Jim
Tyler and observed the closeness of her hand to the two-way transceiver
in her earring.
"Frankly, I... I've had trouble with my memory lately... Miss...
Miss...?"
She smiled at me, crocodile-like, then got up and began to walk
away.
"Hey!" I yelled in sudden realization. "What about my creds? You
owe me."
She turned around, slowly reaching up to her neck, then chuckled as
she looked where I'd been standing.
When pressed, my impersonation of thin air is totally amazing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The Long Way Home / P.R. MORRISON
Aegis propped himself up on one elbow and shook his head. He looked
out through the shattered remains of the assault craft at the spinning
emptiness of space and began to piece together the most recent fragments
of his memory. It was obvious: they had been hit during the run-in and
what remained of their ship -- barely a platform of jagged metal now --
was careening away from the battle totally out of control. He checked
himself for damage and glanced around for the remainder of the squad. As
he spotted them amongst the debris and crushed metal, he emitted a
status request. It was a short blast of high intensity, high frequency
radiation that was able to overcome the most powerful of tactical
jammers. If any of the units remained functional they would respond.
One by one, they stirred and gave their systats. The point unit, a
heavily armored cannon of limited intelligence had emerged unscathed and
steadied itself on its hydraulic legs. The three utility weapon units
were completely functional, but the two flank units, agile and hence
lightly protected, both reported mobility problems. Aegis winced to
himself as he traced the communications unit's transponder to a mash of
melted armor and carbon composites. Without it, they were on their own.
Of course there was no question of what had to be done. Earth had
been expanding its frontiers for more than five centuries now, and he
had available to him the data from every engagement, and every maneuver
of all of the units that had survived those encounters. It was one of
the reasons that the cosmos had yielded so totally before the forces of
Man. But of course it wasn't the only reason.
Carefully, he jury-rigged a controller to the remaining power unit
and with short bursts managed to slow the ship's spin to a lazy roll. He
looked wistfully for a moment at the fusion weapons that flared
occasionally from the battle more than a million kilometers away. It
would be a long wait.
And as he sat there for the moment, slowly contemplating the
enormity of space, it occurred to him that the correctness of what he
had planned was not immediately self-evident. He was alone, apart from a
mindless collection of assault units; alone without power or
communications. It could be decades before they were found and already
the loneliness had begun to eat at him.
He was an AEGIS -- Assault Engineer Grafted Intellect-on-Silicon.
He knew what he was and who he was because they had been forced to tell
him. The prototypes had all gone insane until their identity had been
established for them.
It had started during the initial expansion from Earth when first
contact was made and the casualties were without rival in the history of
human conflict. And so the clone factories were initiated, each
producing exact copies of military archetypes -- copies by the million.
Pilots, gunners, commandos... whatever was needed. The gene pool was
scoured for the best of each and their DNA was simply replicated ad
nauseam. And it had worked for a while... until the radiation levels of
combat became so unbearable that nothing evolved on Earth could tolerate
them, even with the best of protection. That was when the droids were
developed. Although they lacked the instincts of humans, their
artificial form of intelligence was sufficient for most engagements and
in their thousands, their sheer weight of numbers was usually more than
adequate.
For two centuries the droids had proved sufficient to push the
frontiers further from Earth. Yet it was not merely force of arms that
had determined the success of humanity. As the alien breeds fled before
it, it became clear to all observers that no other species could match
humanity for sheer destructive ingenuity. One by one, the telepathic
worlds fell after the development of the mind insulator. The warrior
races of Orion, so proud, so filled with honor, were easily enslaved
after their king was captured, deprogrammed by the mind engineers of
Earth and instructed to capitulate. Even the spawn species of the outer
systems... creatures who bred in billions from hermaphroditic spores,
were destroyed in minutes as their suns were extinguished by neutron
inhibitors.
And behind all of this were the defense laboratories that
constantly devised new forms of death so that everything that crawled,
walked, flew, slid or even thought in ways that were different from
man's, was simply vaporized, diseased or obliterated to extinction.
Aegis' mind chuckled to itself. It was ironic that for a hundred
millennia, man had sat under the stars and stared at them in fear and
trepidation, yet it was the rest of the Galaxy that had most to fear
from the malignancy that festered on the blue-green planet.
Notwithstanding these successes, the search for the ultimate
tactical unit had continued. Although the droids were extremely capable,
they lacked the intuitiveness of humans, their deviousness and the
ability to lie and deceive. The clones on the other hand, although
possessing these qualities, were physically unsuited to the heaviest
engagements. The obvious solution of course was to unite the best
features of man and machine -- the subtlety, deception, courage and
survival instincts of man, and the power, toughness and durability of
machine. Aegis and others like him were the result.
Eventually, the engineers had stumbled onto a technique that
allowed them to mind graft onto non-organic systems. The
possibilities for mating a good tactical mind with an android body were
only too apparent. But the early prototypes had been disappointing. For
whatever reason, it appeared that most minds had an innate desire to
define their own origin and that once this was revealed to them, the
reality of their death and rebirth in silicon was often unacceptable and
led to madness or suicide. They had tried blocking memories at various
levels, but once more, it seemed that a vital component of mind function
involved a sense of identity and self concept. Although these units did
not go insane, they did not perform very well. It became obvious that
intuition and "humanness" was a property that emerged from the whole
system and not its components. And although technology had made the
copying of minds possible, their manipulation of course, was still
beyond the engineers. Long ago, they had discovered that fundamental
breakthroughs in neuronal calculus were needed before the meaningful
alteration of the synaptic matrix was possible. These breakthroughs
had never happened.
In desperation, they looked for minds that were able to at least
tolerate the reality of rebirth and the loss of flesh, pulsing blood and
sexuality. They found one stored on a very old holographic plate from
the first century of expansion. Captain David Boyd -- a former tactician
with the Assault Corps had been a volunteer for an early experiment in
mind printing, and although the medium was very crude, the engineers had
finally managed to recover the print.
Fortunately for the engineers, Boyd had quickly come to terms with
rebirth and what it meant. And as the synaptic matrix meshed with the
motor integration and sensor circuits of his droid body, the true power
of the man-machine synergy was evidenced. One hundred Aegis units were
now operating in Earth's Armed Forces, all of them on combat evaluation
before the big production runs began and all of them possessing the mind
of David Boyd.
Of course, Aegis had been told all of this and more. He knew that
the Earth he had inhabited was now little more than a blackened cinder
of pollution and scrap metal. He could recall his own death off the
spiral arm of Orion, wounded and adrift in a suit that was slowly
depressurizing. He knew that his family, the children he had watched
come into the world, had been dead for centuries. Their colony no longer
even existed. He even thought and communicated in a language form that
was unintelligible to the bulk of living humans.
And yet despite all of this, he had managed to define a purpose for
his continuing existence. He still felt a sense of duty, a
responsibility. He was after all, a soldier.
But now, as Aegis watched the Galaxy spin slowly beneath his
dangling feet, the sense of isolation was overpowering and a feeling of
horror rushed through him. He was a man, he thought. A man who longed
for other men, yet he was unlike any other man that had ever existed.
His mind stretched to the green forests of an Earth that was long dead
and he began to ache for it. He wanted to feel the cool freshness of
wind on his face, and not the datalink from his armored exterior. He
wanted another human being to look into his eyes and fathom the depths
they found there. He wanted to view reality as humans saw it, not
through the infrared and ultraviolet intensifiers scattered about his
head. But above all, the dread of what he had become -- a pathetic
caricature of a human being -- wracked him with emotion. The image of
his dead wife twisted itself through his consciousness and he felt his
heart shift with anguish. He asked himself how he could feel all of this
when he didn't have a heart, didn't have hormones or a nervous system.
Then, as a sob racked his mind, his body flinched and he touched his
face where he thought he could feel the tears welling up. He had known
of course that it was simply a mirage from an older, now nonexistent
body.
For some time he held his head in his hands and rocked back and
forth under the waves of grief, then attempted to gather his thoughts as
they ebbed from consciousness. It didn't take him long to settle on his
course of action. With a sudden resolve he got to his feet and searched
the survival pack for what he wanted, flourishing it in triumph when his
hand came upon it. It was a solar sail. He knew that the thing had never
been designed for the purpose he intended, but he also knew that the
only thing he had plenty of, was time.
The sail was an ingenious invention. Although barely two molecules
thick, a standard pack would spread out to make a sail with an area of
hundreds of square kilometers. And this vast area of composite material
when filled with the solar wind -- the particles that emanated from the
fusion hearts of all stars -- could pull the remains of the assault
craft from one star to the next. It would take decades for the small
acceleration to build to an acceptable velocity, but Aegis knew that he
could remain operational for centuries by being trickle charged from the
available solar arrays. He even had the power packs of the assault units
to help pull him through.
And as he watched the sail billow with the output from some distant
solar flare, Aegis realigned the mounting device to point them on a
vector toward a distant red giant, knowing that it would be the first
tack of a very long voyage.
Then as he prepared for the first shutdown period, he contemplated
what he was about to do and the rightness of it. Earth was a dream that
no longer existed. But that didn't matter. Earth was home -- the first
home -- and nothing was more powerful than the homing instinct. Besides,
even now there was the possibility that other Aegises were doing exactly
what he was doing; sailing, flying, hitch-hiking or walking their way
toward an identical past. Yet no matter what happened in the end, no
matter what reality dictated, he knew that he had to chase the dream.
After all, that was what being human was all about.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
P.R. MORRISON (swkmorri@nuscc.nus.sg) lives in Singapore. His stories
have been published in a Singaporean SF magazine, and "Just a Company
Man" won an SF writing competition in Australia.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
THE FOLLOWING ARE ADVERTISEMENTS. INTERTEXT'S EDITORS
AREN'T
RESPONSIBLE FOR MUCH, INCLUDING THE VERACITY OF THESE ADS.
_Quanta_ (ISSN 1053-8496) is the electronically distributed
journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy. As such, each issue contains
fiction by amateur authors as well as articles, reviews, etc...
_Quanta_ is published in two formats, ASCII and PostScript(TM)
(for PostScript compatible laser-printers). Submissions should be
sent to quanta@andrew.cmu.edu. Requests to be added to the
distribution list should be sent to one of the following depending on
which version of the magazine you'd like to receive.
quanta+requests-ascii@andrew.cmu.edu
or
quanta+requests-ascii@andrew.BITNET
Send mail only -- no interactive messages or files please. The
main FTP archive for _Quanta_ issues and back issues is:
Host: export.acs.cmu.edu
IP: 128.2.35.66
Directory: /pub/quanta
--
_CORE_ is available by e-mail subscription and anonymous ftp from
eff.org. Send requests and submissions to rita@eff.org. _CORE_ is
an entirely electronic journal dedicated to e-publishing the best,
freshest prose and poetry being created in Cyberspace. _CORE_ is
published monthly.
--
Submit! You will submit to InterText! No, we're not trying to
dominate the world -- we're just trying to put out issues every two
months. And we can't without submissions from people out there in the
net. Write to: jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu for guidelines, if you want
them. Basically, any genre is fine and length is rarely, if ever, a
concern. We like it if you haven't posted the story to a network
newsgroup, and we won't allow the use of copyrighted (i.e., stolen)
characters. Submissions can be in ASCII or, for those with the
ability, RTF (Interchange) format.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
InterText Vol. 2, No. 5. InterText is published electronically on a
bi-monthly basis. Reproduction of this magazine is permitted as long
as the magazine is not sold and the content of the magazine is not
changed in any way. Copyright 1992, Jason Snell. All stories
Copyright 1992 by their respective authors. All further rights to
stories belong to the authors. The ASCII InterText is exported from
Macintosh PageMaker 4.2 files into Microsoft Word 5.0a for text
preparation. A version of InterText also appears on the Electronic
Frontier Foundation Forum (GO EFFSIG) on CompuServe. Our next issue is
scheduled for November 15, 1992. A PostScript version of this magazine,
including PostScript art on the cover, is also available. The editor's
U.S. mail address is: Jason Snell, 2234 Haste St. #4, Berkeley,
CA, 94704, USA.
For subscription requests, e-mail: jsnell@ocf.Berkeley.edu
->Back issues available via FTP at: network.ucsd.edu (128.54.16.3)<-
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't do anything I would do!
--------------------------------------------------------------------