Acts of Conscience (16 page)

Waitress brought my bottle and bowl, fork and a few squares of paper towel, waited while I produced bits of local currency, paper money I’d picked up at the hotel desk because the library AI told me it’d be a good idea.
Tip
, whispered the voice of the suit. She’s waiting for a tip.

Waitress’s dark eyes on me, unsmiling. I gave her thirty percent and watched her eyes brighten, a little smile as she turned away, a bit of a nod. Maybe she’ll come back later to see if I want anything else? What will I want?

A sip of beer. Too fizzy. Too sweet. Almost flavorless, but for that faint nip of alcohol, that little scent of tar. Forkful of salad. Peppery dressing. Bits of crumbled, stinky cheese. Black olives.

Drummer on the stage banging a single thump, stamping his foot on a pedal,
bump
. Room full of people, mostly men, some women, looking up, room transforming itself, somehow, into a sea of eyes, my eyes among them. Thump, silence, no “...lay-dees an’ gennulmunn...”
Bump-bump-a-bump-bump-a
...

Half naked woman sliding out on stage, gliding on blue-slippered feet, muscular woman all sleek white skin and long, wavy brown hair, hair cascading down her back all the way to her ass, whirling, clingy blue underpants, silky blue bra...

Not much for a stripper to take off.

Dancing, dancing around, seeming to linger before the few tables that had women, women among the men.

Women at the tables all eyes, all attention, men with them reaching out to stroke their necks, lean toward them, as if waiting to smell their rising heat. Stripper dancing, taking off what little she had on, breasts bouncing as the bra fell away, red nipples immense, sticking out like dowel rods of flesh, then the little panties, kicked out over the audience’s heads, falling on the floor in the middle of nowhere, lying there, a lifeless scrap...

Trite drum bumping away in its corner while the naked woman danced, drum supposed to speed up our hearts, make us want to...

Watching a man and a woman close by the stage, woman arching her neck under the man’s hand, woman at the table watching the naked woman dance... Man? Eyes on
his
woman, not the creature on the stage.

Would I want to be that man? No. Any of the people here? Be like the women whose ardor was aroused watching another woman spread her legs for men to see? How about the men leaning on the bar? Look closely. Grinning men, drinking beer, erections ignored.

No.

Behind the bar, the barkeep was taking glasses out of some crude dishwashing robot, wiping smudges away with a clean white cloth, putting the glasses on a shelf until they were needed. Barkeep blasé, chewing a toothpick, ignoring the naked dancer, ignoring the drums.

There was a momentary irrational pang, something like jealousy, then I turned back to the stage, watched the dancer writhe and play with herself as I ate my wretched salad and drank my tasteless beer.

o0o

Outside again in the now fresh-seeming midnight air. Black sky still overhead, not so full of stars because the street lights here were too bright, but I new they were there. Sense of fullness under my breastbone, no so much from the little salad as from swallowed beer fizz trying to get out.

The man with the dark curls was still down at the corner, leaning on a lamppost now, looking my way. Maybe that’s a man with a job too? Standing guard? Or is he just a certain kind of whore? I started walking toward him, thinking maybe now that I’d seen what the tom cats were up to I could investigate the goings on in the dollhouse.

Sharp memory of that other man, staggering out the door, drinking deep drafts of night air.
Dollies
. What could he have meant by that? Somewhere in the back of my head I could feel the library AI’s unease at being unable to answer my question.
Should
it expect to know everything about Green Heaven, everything about all the faraway worlds of the Tau Ceti system?

Biff
.

Soft, meaty sound, almost wet sound, coming out of an alleyway. Man at the lamppost not so far away unmoving, as if he’d heard nothing.

Soft yip of a man’s voice, touched with pain.
Biff
. Then a soft gabble of Greek. Translator: “...little son of a bitch fucking
bit
me!” Metallic chatter, like scissors being snapped, over and over again, then
biff
. “Fucking asshole...”

I can’t imagine what force impelled me into the mouth of the dark alleyway just then. Maybe no force at all, merely the absence of fear, of any force keeping me away. Sliding through the darkness then, smelling the alley’s shit smells, slinking like a thief around some big metal box reeking of discarded food, eyes straining, listening to
biff
and
boff
and the scuffling of leather shoes on asphalt pavement.

A chattering of scissors and “Ow! Fuck!” and
biff
.

Don’t know what I was expecting to see as I peered around the edge of the dumpster, keeping my body back in the shadows as much as I could. Danger here. You know there’s danger here... heart pounding like mad, making me feel afraid and excited all at once.

Making me feel like I was, for once, really part of a netvid show.

Prickling at the back of my neck. Sometimes, in your better sort of netvid show, you see the hero slink forward, peering into the night, facing the pickup remote, so you see not what he sees, but the view over his shoulder, the shadow of an upraised arm, the looming club about to strike...

Christ.

Chatter. Scuffle. “
Shit
!”

And...
biff
.

Three slim men, no more than shadows in the dark alleyway, sort of dancing around each other. Fighting? No. Kicking. Kicking something small, a black outline no bigger than a medium sized dog, something with the outline of a well-upholstered hassock.

Something like a lobster’s claw coming up in black silhouette, claw snapping at the nearest leg, making a sound like sharp metal, like whetstone and iron, “
Yi
!” skinny man dancing back, then
biff
! Black hassock rolling over and over from the kick.

Gabble of Greek, curses untranslated, translator AI muttering about unrecorded slang, derived from foreign loan words, Russian perhaps or...

Spacesuit’s voice a frantic whisper: Get out of there, Gaetan! This is none of your business! Get back out to the street; leave well enough alone... Tingle of fear in my head, impelling me to shrink back, but... The barrette’s reach wasn’t enough, ethereal fingers unable to reach deep enough into my limbic system, traverse my brainstem and...

Chitter. Chatter. Clink.
Snap
.

Thing on the ground among stamping feet and kicking legs, desperately trying to defend itself.

Defend itself and live.

No impulse.

No nothing.

Just me watching. Impassive. Watching. Waiting. I...

I stepped forward, stepped around the side of the dumpster, out of the shadows into the alleyway’s lesser darkness. Stood still. My mouth opened, reaching round the spacesuit’s anguish to grab the translator’s attention. Nothing. Frantic urgings to... “
Hey
!”

Thee men freezing, spinning round. Shadow hassock with waving claws backing up, getting itself into the corner made by two dark brick walls. Three men staring at me, looking beyond me, fathoming the night, then one of them said a single word, several syllables long.

Well? Translator?

Whispered. Please, Gaetan. Then, resignation. It means, “Fucking asshole.”

Not a policeman, you see. Not someone who fucking matters. Just a fucking asshole. He took a step forward, teeth visible, white in the shadows of his face, just below the liquid shine of his eyes. Grinning.

I took the little dartgun out of my pocket and held it up so they could see.

One of the other men said, “What the fuck is that?”

I aimed it in his direction and pulled the trigger. Compressed air
thup
. Man jumping from the
spock
of the glass dart shattering on the wall beside his head, astringent anesthetic smell filling the air.

Untranslated word, sudden realization that I’d learned
skatá
must mean shit in Greek.

All three of them stepping forward as one, three angular shadows, grinning, reaching out for me. I shot the nearest one in the belly, watched him jump back, “Fuck...” reaching for the little dart, where it stuck out of his shirt. “Fuck, I.... hubbahubbahubbahubba...” Dropping to his knees, falling on his face, little tinkle of the dart being crushed.

Two angular shadows stock still, then, “
Demos
?”

The third man, silent until now, said, “Is... he dead?”

“No. Asleep.” I motioned with the gun and, incredibly, they understood. Stooped, took their friend by shoulders and knees, picked him up, carried him away into the deeper shadows. Maybe this alley had another end. Maybe there was an open door. Maybe...

I wonder how long it’ll be before they realize it’s a permanent anesthetic, that he’s not going to wake up without some medical help? I wonder if the doctors on Green Heaven will know what to do?

Hassock thing still cowering in its corner. Soft chitter, chitter from its claws. Soft, rough sound, like desperate breathing.

I came closer, stood looking down. Watched one eyestalk rise from its back, hard to discern in the dim light, blue maybe or some shade of pale green. Chitter, chitter. Claw reaching out for something nearby, a small box, perhaps.

I picked it up, turning it over in my hands. Once upon a time it had been a very sophisticated, self-contained translation computer, orders of magnitude better than anything I could ever have afforded to buy, even with the wealth that’d given me
Random Walk
. Just now, it was stepped-on junk.

I reached out and touched the... being, felt it flinch away from me, shuddering, felt some thick, sticky stuff on my fingers. Christ. I stood, looking down, and whispered, “Well, Mr. Kapellmeister, you are in deep shit, I’d say.”

One claw came up, chitter-chitter-
snap
.

Decisive agreement.

o0o

Waking up in my hotel room, sitting on the edge of my old-fashioned bed, golden sunlight streaming in through the window. Almost midday. Long night full of... interesting deeds? You could call them that. Image of myself gone numb, unfeeling in the darkness, facing three bold bravos, brave men satisfied to be kicking around something the size of a dog, kicking it, killing it, laughing together in celebration of their courage.

Image of the dart appearing like magic, a bit of glassy glitter in the darkness, decorating the front of surprised Demos’ shirt, man clutching at himself, gabbling softly, falling down like a dead rag doll.

Competence is a transient thing, deserting those men, flooding into me, men afraid to face my little weapon, afraid to take their chances and rush me. If they’d acted, I would most likely have fallen before their blows. Would I be dead now? Perhaps.

Numb feeling inside that it wouldn’t have mattered.

Competence pervades much of my life, you see. I can fix anything, from a wrecked starship to a broken safety pin. No mysteries before the magic of the godhead, you see, just...

Well, violence is a form of competence as well, those two men cowering under my gun. I’d been secure in the knowledge that they wouldn’t throw themselves on me, that they somehow
knew
I’d just shoot them down and turn away, full of a hero’s contempt for the weak, the fearful.

Not even the first time, you see, because competence is everything, transcends fear, replaces courage. Why would you need courage, when you
know
you can win?

I got up from the edge of the bed, stretching, feeling odd. Not lousy, not ill. Machinery in my blood sees to it that I always feel well. Why doesn’t it see to it that I
feel
well then?

Someone once told me that the inability to develop a competent seduction strategy comes from a misplaced respect for women. Woman a sacred thing, you see, the object of heart’s desire, but then you want them to kneel in the dirt before you, suck your dick and swallow your scum, rub their face on your belly and worship you, lie on their backs and spread their legs for you with adoring, uncomplaining eyes.

That same someone looking at me then, with amused, smirking eyes. Tell us something about your mother, Gaetan du Cheyne.

I showered, got dressed, and got the hell out, going nowhere.

o0o

Hours later, with Tau Ceti heading for the western horizon, far from the city center, I sat on a wooden bench in an empty park, facing eastward, where the sky would soon grow dark, where the first stars would pop out. Bright sky there now, visible over the low rooflines of these little wooden houses, wooden houses paint yellow and blue and pink, identical but for color, under identical layers of black, overlapping shinglework.

Nobody walking the streets out here. Nobody but me, sitting on my bench surrounded by empty playground equipment, warm breeze ruffling my hair, seeming inappropriate. It ought to be cold, damp, gray.

Over the line of roofs, I could see the distant mountains, lower slopes colored blue with the rayleigh scattering of distance, upper slopes bright with snow, peaks a stark and steely gray where the mountains protruded above the tropopause. I’ve got to get out of here, whatever the risk to my dreams. Why else did I come, for God’s sake?

Just so I could play dirty little hero boy in some filthy alleyway? I could’ve stayed on Luna for that, prowling the underwarrens until I fucked up and got myself killed. Wouldn’t my parents have been surprised to inherit all that fucking money?

Brief memory of trying to carry the wheezing, bleeding, clattering Kapellmeister, all spindly crablegs and gooey, sticky bag of a body, Finally giving up, rummaging in the dumpster until I found a plastic bag of some sort, emptying out the reeking garbage that filled it, rolling the alien inside, carrying him off like I was Santa Claus bearing gifts and toys, lumps of coal and punitive carrots.