A Planet for Rent (14 page)

Brooding, I take a few steps and pick up Kowalsky’s dented helmet. Disconnected, it’s as transparent as mine. Practically identical. No magenta, no pink-and-blue.

Maybe I shouldn’t have given that last order…

In the end, we’re not just humans, we’re equals.

Well, it’s not so serious, either. In half an hour he’ll have recovered and be celebrating another win with the Colossaur and the Cetians.

I wonder if he’ll still be their captain off court... They must have other rules in the League. Most likely, when it comes to salaries and privileges, he’s at the back of the magenta pack.

Mercenaries always pay a price.

He chose. Better a lion’s tail than a rat’s head. A full stomach without honor before hunger with dignity.

I look up. The walls are transparent again. I can see the crowds leaving the titanic stadium. Silent, hushed. Like every other year. But in twelve months they’ll be back anyway, the same crowds, hoping again for a miracle.

Why did you abandon us, Virgin?

We lost.

I’m having trouble getting used to the thought. I feel so empty I can’t even be depressed. Or cry, or scream...

Maybe next year they’ll let me be part of another Team Earth. Not as captain, of course, but something’s better than nothing... After all, with me leading, we almost beat the League.

“Stop thinking about it.” Gopal’s voice, and his hand on my shoulder, startle me. “Every game, somebody’s got to lose. It’s tough when it happens to you, sure... but there’s a little compensation sometimes.”

“Experience?” I suggest, cynically. And immediately want to take it back. I don’t mean to hurt him.

“No. Experience is what we get when we don’t get what we want,” he shakes his head. “I’m talking about... a whole other level of benefits.” His voice is trembling slightly. “Daniel, I want to introduce you to an important person. He’s very interested in meeting you. Over there...”

I turn around reluctantly. I’m not in the mood for rich, bejeweled fans, keen to console me and tell me that we’ll have better luck next time...

Surprise. He’s decked out in jewelry and he’s most likely a fan (what else would he be doing here?). But he’s no human.

Eight legs. Cold, multifaceted eyes. It’s a grodo.

“Modigliani is a scout for the League,” Gopal explains in a mischievous tone, behind which I think I can detect a little... sorrow? Envy?

I stare gaping at the insectoid. I still can’t believe it... This is too good to be happening to me...

“Mr. Modigliani, I am...,” I stammer, extending my hand to him. I would happily cover his grey chitin carapace with kisses.

Thank you, sweet Virgin, for hearing my prayers.

“Skip the mister,” the electronic voice crackles from a translator-synthesizer on the insectoid’s chest. He ignores my proffered hand, which I withdraw. “Just Modigliani. You know, Danny, you’ve got a tactical sense that I’ve rarely seen in any player.”

“Umm... Thanks, mis... Modigliani...”

“Well, now you’ve met, and since I can see you understand each other, I’ll leave you alone,” Gopal remarks, squeezing my shoulder. “I’m so happy you have a good future to look forward to.” He leans forward and whispers in my ear, “Don’t sell yourself cheap. Don’t accept his first offer.” And again, out loud, “See you around... Danny.” There’s a slight mocking tone in the way he says it.

He’s never called me anything but Daniel. Or “captain.”

I watch him. He walks away, whistling. To be forgotten. He has no future to look forward to. After ten years as a player and fifteen coaching the ever-losing Team Earth, his fifteen minutes are up. Mohamed Gopal, the Delhi Wonder, is retiring for good.

I wonder what he’ll live from now. For him, as for the Slovskys, Voxl is everything.

I’ll call him some day... For now, I have more urgent business to attend to. I turn my attention back to the grodo.

“Modigliani... You picked a very nice name. Do you know who he...”

“No, and I don’t care. We just like Earth names with four syllables. There’s a music to them.” The grodo gesticulates bluntly with two of his chitinous legs and places another pair on one of my shoulders, forcing me to walk at his pace. He’s as tall as me, and thinner, but much stronger. “Okay, Danny, I like to get straight to the point. I followed the match closely. I was interested in Arno Korvaldsen and you. We’ll make him the same offer when he finishes autocloning. But he’s not young, and if he’s lucky he’ll last one more season. As for you...” He paused.

I have my heart in my mouth. Let it not be a pittance, sweet Virgin. You know I’ll have to take it, no matter what...

“Three seasons with the Betelgeuse Draks...”—tell me how much, you repulsive bug, I don’t care if you’re listening in on me with your telepathy, I’ll beg all the forgiveness I need later on but for now, just tell me how much already—“for half a million credits a season. Medical expenses and training costs included, same goes for accidental death insurance. What do you think?”

What do I think? A swindle, that’s what I think. I hope you’re listening in on my brain this time. The Colossaur and the Cetian clones who played against us today must make ten times that much. It would be interesting to know how much Kowalsky, their captain, makes. Maybe less than me...

It doesn’t matter what I think, Modigliani, because I have to think it’s fine. I don’t have any other options. I’m going to accept, you know I’m going to accept, I know that you know that I know. So stop pretending.

After all, I can consider myself lucky.

“Perfect,” I articulate at last, my mouth feeling full of clay. “When do I start?”

“Soon as you pick up your gear. My ship is leaving from the New Rome astroport in two hours. Look for it, its name is Velvet. I’ll expect to see you onboard.” Modigliani walks and pivots. “I’m going to see Korvaldsen...”

“And the others?” I still dare ask him, before he’s too far away.

“Oh, yes... The others,” he says unenthusiastically. “Not interested. Too old, one of them. Too green, the rest. Those twins, however—maybe next year.”

A terrible scream at my back. I turn. A long gleam of burnished steel stained with blood spins across the floor of the court. The commotion of paramedics rushing to the scene. No point even looking. I know perfectly well what it is.

Seppuku...

Yukio, theatrical as ever. He swore he’d commit harakiri if they beat us. Dignity as light opera, honor as prop. As if he didn’t know that, worst case, his family would autoclone him. These samurais and their cult of blood...

I’m more worried about Jonathan. And Gopal. They’re perfectly capable of walking out of here calm as can be, and then, far away, jumping into a tank of acid. To leave no traces.

Poor guys...

I feel sorry for them, but life goes on. Some rise, some fall. Each to his own problems. I’m not the captain of Team Earth anymore.

Dear Virgin, I’ll light you a candle at least as big around as my thigh. For all you’ve done and will do for me.

And when Arno wakes up, we’ll go buy three cases of beer each. And find us a good pair of social workers, doesn’t matter how much they charge. Because this is worth celebrating.

It isn’t every day you have this sort of luck: a contract with the League. Now, to travel all over the galaxy. To live.

Now I’m really going to play.

I’m sure Arno thinks the same, he’s so pragmatic.

The pride of Earth, the hope of humans, the revenge of the oppressed...

Screw that.

No we
are
the champions.

On the best paid team.

The only one that’s really worthwhile.

My mother would be proud of me—I’m sure of it.

November 23, 1995.

The Ussuri or Amur tiger,
Panthera tigris altaica
, is the largest feline on Earth. And, after the polar bear, the most powerful living terrestrial carnivore.

It is a tiger subspecies adapted to the cold taiga, its dense fur nearly white with pale brown stripes. It can weigh as much as 650 pounds and measure some ten feet from nose to tail tip.

A beautiful animal that had almost no natural enemies, it was the indisputable king of the taiga—until the advent of man.

Hunters and herders from the Yakut, Buryat, and other Siberian ethnic groups, who had no weapons but their bone arrows and spears, respected and admired the tiger as the ruler of beasts. To their shamans it was a sacred animal, both tutelary deity and demon, and the highest proof a man could give of his bravery was to hunt one alone.

Then the white man arrived with firearms and money and alcohol. The fur hunters.

Attracted by the high prices fetched by the valuable black-and-white coats of their gods, hired guns from all over the world joined the semicivilized sons of those very Siberian tribes that so revered the Amur tiger to decimate their numbers, never very large to begin with. Directors of zoos, in whose cages the immense felines played such an important role and attracted such large crowds, took care of the rest. No protective legislation could prevent the disaster.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, the fifty-four remaining Ussuri tigers were living in captivity in various zoos and private parks across the planet. Each was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Then came Contact...

As part of their plan for restoring the ecology, the xenoids skillfully crossbred and cloned the fifty-four survivors, and in a matter of twenty years the population of Siberian tigers had grown to several thousand. Though their genetic diversity had diminished somewhat, the subspecies could be considered rescued.

Nonetheless,
P. t. altaica
continues to be categorized as a “protected species.” Each specimen is carefully tagged at birth with a locator-transmitter that allows the appropriate department in Planetary Security to track its location and health status second by second, monitoring them with dedicated satellites.

Pity the human who dares hunt one of these priceless white tigers. The minimum penalty, if extenuating circumstances such as self-defense or something along those lines can be proved, is two years in Body Spares.

Local reindeer herders have learned to tolerate the overpopulated great cats’ constant depredations as a necessary evil. They try to keep their herds away from the areas where tigers prowl, but in any case they always expect a certain loss margin in the heads of cattle that will inevitably be taken as prey.

Hunters in the region avoid the tigers like the devil; regardless of how desperate they get, regardless of how few animals they have taken, they never shoot them. They even keep a close eye on their snares and traps to save any cubs that may have accidentally gotten caught in one.

Once more, though in a very different sense, the great cats are sacred to the sons of the taiga.

For the Ussuri tigers, life is easy and comfortable now. Domesticated reindeer are easier to bring down than their wild cousins or the giant elks. They reproduce unafraid that wolves or bears, decimated by hunters, could wreak havoc on their litters of cubs. No one hunts or harasses them...

Most of the time.

Three or four times a year, men from Planetary Security land on the taiga en masse. They serve as bodyguards to some visiting xenoid VIP, almost always a grodo or an Auyar who previously expressed a desire for some relaxation. And who paid a generous sum for the right to get it...

And what better entertainment than hunting the largest feline on the planet? Exciting, primitive, and... utterly exclusive.

The hunting party is organized with mathematical precision, with beaters, spotters, and tall hunting platforms from which the xenoids may fire their projectile or energy guns at their leisure, free from any risk that the desperate cats might leap high enough to reach them.

Generally, the tigers shot by each visitor number in the dozens, though it is said that some grodo or other who was an exceptionally good shot once managed to rack up a hundred kills.

Sometimes, if the top brass of Planetary Security, or of the Planetary Tourism Agency itself, deign to join the fun, by the end of the hunt the feline carcasses carpet the frozen ground so thickly that the snow, packed hard by the huge paws of the tigers as they tried to escape, is more red than white.

Occasionally guests from other worlds will capture a live cub and take it home with them on their hyperships, like some exotic striped souvenir of their trip to Earth.

They always leave loaded down with pelts, after the beast’s carcasses have been quickly and skillfully skinned by the experts from Planetary Security (who in the process recuperate the locator-transmitters). The rest of the pelts, either entire or reduced to handicrafts, along with the claws, teeth, and bones, become “luxury items” to be sold for steep prices in exclusive boutiques to the wealthiest xenoid tourists. Or they are exported to other worlds, to the same end.

When the humans who control the planet and the visitors who control the galaxy leave the site of the hunt, the wolves and birds of prey feast grandly on the formless skinned bodies of the dethroned kings of the taiga.

The shamans of the local tribes also rummage patiently through the trampled snow, recovering every fragment of skin, every hair, every tooth, every precious remain of their fallen gods, to use in making their time-honored protective amulets.

They jabber in their ancient tongues, which they still insist on speaking in addition to Unified Planetary, caressing the remains of the hunted cats. No one knows what they say...

But there are tears in their eyes and rage in the movements of their wrinkled hands when they drive their knives into the snow, and when they look to the sky, as if they are waiting for something...

Raindrops? Come on, kid, run!

Damn these cloudbursts!

So crazy, it’s salty as seawater... And these Kevlar uniforms weigh a ton when they’re soaked.

Hurry up, inside!

Whew, out of breath... I can’t run like I used to. Good thing we’re inside now. And the night started out so pretty—you could even see the stars. With all these Auyar suborbital propulsion experiments, the atmosphere of this planet’s gone haywire. It’s as likely to rain as to hail. And always briny. Only thing left is snow in the middle of summer.

Wow, looks like a real gullywasher. Too bad we aren’t baby cucumbers, we’d make some fine pickles. Close the door and take your helmet off, like me. Make yourself at home, you know...

What? So, we won’t be able to control the perimeter?

Kid, use your gray cells, don’t make me change my mind about you. Who’d go patrolling when it’s cats and dogs out there? Looking for what?

Anyway, our only job is guarding this place—not the perimeter. If some cannibal cult was crazy enough to go swimming in this downpour and they decided to enjoy their menu right in front of our noses, it’s their problem, I’m staying put. Our responsibility stops at the electric fence around this place.

It’s a nasty job, you don’t have to tell me. The only worse job to pull is ship patrol—running around up there, chasing those idiots who try escaping the planet in their homemade rockets. Getting bored to death like an oyster out of water, that’s all you can do up there in orbit.

Though at least now and then they save some suicidal maniac from freezing solid up there in space. But this guard duty we pulled here makes about as much sense as searching for deposits of ice in the desert...

Nothing ever happens here in the Body Spares depository. There’s nothing to steal, and you can’t find anything much quieter than a body in suspended animation, human or not. Maybe just an actual corpse.

Truth is, keeping night watch here is a pretty stupid anachronism. A leftover from back when they didn’t really understand xenoid metabolism yet, and the boys upstairs were scared that some restless tourist might crawl out of his tank and cause problems zombying around out there while his mind was in another body.

The good part is, shifts here are two hours shorter than normal. Just to make sure we don’t commit suicide out of pure boredom... Especially in this rain. We can’t even watch people walking by.

Not having anything to do always makes me jittery...

Play cards? Sonny, you know as well as I do regulations say we can’t gamble on duty. Maybe some other time. I love hearts. And poker? Forget about it...

But it occurs to me right now all of a sudden that everything happens for a reason. That’s right, Markus—that’s your name, right?—I think we’re gonna find this salty rain as good as holy water. It’s gonna give us a little time to relax. I’ve been meaning to talk with you for quite a while...

Don’t tense up. Just a little talk between partners, not another exam. Basic training’s over. I just want to talk, one Planetary Security guy to another. Man to man. Forget that I’m a sergeant for now, doesn’t matter.

Truth is, right now we practically are the same rank. You’re a rookie agent, and I’m a sergeant in the doghouse...

No, it’s no secret, and it doesn’t bother me, I’ll tell you what happened: a stupid minor incident. This over-sensitive social worker, at the astroport a couple of weeks ago. Girl named Buca... Her face was smeared with that waterproof makeup they all use now, like a mask. I guess it helps them all look the same. And the xenoids love it.

I swear I tried to be nice to the little slut. I thought it was what she needed; she looked so nervous after one of those suicidal Xenophobe Union maniacs started a shootout. Though we neutralized him right away. And one of my agents got a little rude with her. I tried to fix things up—and, see what you get. Seems the girl didn’t like my style. And she complained to headquarters.

Happens every day. Normal procedure is, you file the complaint and that’s that. But some grodo had picked this Buca for incubation, so I was screwed. Complaints from the xenoid big fish always cause a stink in the corps—and that’s never good for us little guys. Something you’d better start learning now. Result? Sergeant Romualdo gets a full month of street patrols, night patrol every third night, and a cut in salary.

Hope nothing like this ever happens to you.

Though, if my nose isn’t mistaken, you’ll go far. Think that’s funny? Whatever. Sergeant Romualdo Concepción Pérez rarely goes wrong in his predictions. I see a very promising career here waiting for you in Planetary Security. As clear as I see your face right now. I’d even dare to bet that, if you put nose to the grindstone a little, you’ll make NCO at least in a couple of years.

Me? Been sergeant twelve years now. But don’t think I envy you for that. In this life, everybody gets as far as they’re gonna get. I have no complaints, sergeant’s fine with me. When it comes right down to it, though I’ve picked up some culture, I’m still a poor ignoramus who has a hard time reading.

But you, with the schooling you’ve got... IQ of 148, and you can tell you’re educated. Mind if I ask you a question? Just out of curiosity, why didn’t you finish your degree in fission engineering, if you were already in your fifth year and you just had two more to go?

Oh, sure, financial problems. Can I guess? Your parents were paying for college, and all of a sudden business slowed down for them... Oh, an aerobus accident? Sorry, kid... Guess you’d rather not talk about it...

Lots of guys go into Planetary Security for the same reason. As unpopular as the corps is, it’s one of the few places that’s always posting new jobs. And compared with the crumbs you get paid for any other job on this planet, our 350 credits a month isn’t so bad, is it? Especially when you think that they don’t require prior experience or training. Everything you need they teach you in the Academy, eh?

How do I know what you studied? Come on, kid, I just read your file... Sure, it’s supposedly private, only officers know the access code and blah blah blah... but being practically an oldtimer in the district gives you certain privileges, even on the computer.

Illegal? No, I wouldn’t go so far as to say illegal. Just... unconventional. If we’re going to be partners, it’s only logical I oughta be a little curious about your bio, right?

Besides, I don’t know what you have to be ashamed of, your record’s impeccable.

I could tell from the start, you were good material. I’ve been observing you for days, and I like what I see: enthusiastic kid, a little impulsive, only natural at your age. Twenty-four, right? But you think before you act. In this line of work, that’s the key thing.

Besides, I’ve come to like you, though you’re pretty quiet. Or maybe that’s why. Listen before you talk. I hate those smart-alecky cadets who graduate from the Academy and think right away they know everything because they’ve had a few practice hours on the simulators. The best school, the only school that really matters, is the street. Here in the daily grind, this is where you truly learn. Your whole life long. Tell me if it isn’t true: you never graduate from the street, and you never finish learning all its rules.

The rules of the Great Game.

Yep, Markus.... Life is a Great Game, and an agent has to know its rules like the back of his hand... especially if he hopes to advance his career, like I suppose you do. To be a winner, not a loser.

You don’t catch where I’m going? Oh, kid, come on...

I’m gonna tell you a little story to help you understand. You like stories? Good thing.

When I was a rookie agent like you, I also served with an old sergeant, like me now. I remember him like it was yesterday. Aniceto Echevarría was his name. A good guy, generous, brave. The wackos from the Xenophobe Union wiped him out, and to avenge him we spilled a lot of blood. Whoever we wanted.

How time flies. It’s been a long time since then, yeah...

Well, turns out poor Aniceto was crazy about raising fish. He read lots of stuff about it and he was always talking about exotic species of saltwater fish and freshwater fish, artificial food, live bait, temperatures, the pH of the water... And about his “little collection,” as he called it, with more love in his voice than some parents show when they talk about their own kids.

One day, two weeks into partnering with him on street patrol, he invited me over to his house, and... Stop thinking those nasty thoughts, Markus: Aniceto was all man. Me too. So wipe that little smirk off your face or I’ll get angry.

Ok, that’s better.

It was a tiny one bedroom, but beautiful. Nice furniture, full of appliances, but no glitz or ostentation. What especially caught my eye was how many huge fish tanks he had everywhere. His “little collection” was almost better equipped than the Great Aquarium of New Miami, believe me. With aerators, a gas recycling system... the works. And he had so many fish—and what fish! No lie, old Aniceto had managed to put maybe half a million credits worth of fish behind those glass walls.

And when I, dazzled by all that beauty, naively asked him how he could support such an expensive hobby on a sergeant’s pay, he just smiled. He stroked his mustache and showed me something I’ll never forget.

At the bottom of one of his saltwater fish tanks he had this huge thing. It looked like a flower with a thick stalk and semitransparent reddish petals that swayed in the gentle current of the water. A beautiful underwater flower...

But it was a voracious animal. What I had thought were petals turned out to be tentacles that could release a powerful toxin. In the middle was its mouth, always hungry.

What? It’s called an anemone? Well, if you say so… I’m a simple ignorant sergeant. What do I know about critters.

Aniceto told me to keep an eye on the anemo-thingy. It was beautiful. Really beautiful. And I thought it was even more beautiful when a mid-sized fish swam by and got caught by its lethal tentacles, torn to shreds, and gulped down in a matter of seconds. There was an innocent cruelty in that act.

The best part is that earlier, lots of other much smaller fish had been swimming around it, and nothing had happened to them.

I called Sergeant Aniceto over to show him, amazed. But he just glanced at the deal and told me, “Keep on looking. Look very closely now, Romualdo.”

And that was when I realized, Markus, that this wonderful, deadly creature was now surrounded by other little fish. Red, blue, and violet, painted like clowns. They were nibbling at the remains of the bigger fish that had gotten stuck in the tentacles, and they seemed immune to the terrible toxin. Now and then they would corner some unlucky little animal that had lost its way in the forest of tentacles, and they would devour it. The huge beast let them do it. Afterward they even hid out among the poisonous tentacles.

Oh... symbiosis, you say? Okay, then, symbiosis.

So Aniceto put his arm over my shoulders and said, “That poisonous animal is the Law. Or all of Planetary Security, if you prefer. It’s like a blind net, but it has a mind. It doesn’t care about the tiny fish, so it lets them be. Same with the really big fish, which are so strong they might cause problems. It’s just the mid-sized fish that are food. Those, it attacks.”

“And those painted clowns, what are they?” I asked, amused by what I thought was his two-bit philosophy.

“They’re us,” replied the old sergeant. “We help make sure the Law is carried out, that Planetary Security works. Make sure the garbage doesn’t accumulate and clog the net or strangle the hungry beast. In exchange, we prosper in its powerful shadow, with impunity. The monster recognizes us and identifies us by our uniforms. That’s how things work in this world. Do you get it, Romualdo?”

You bet I got it, Markus. So well, I’ve never forgotten it.

Do you get it now?

We lost a great actor when you decided to enter the Academy, kid! You’re blushing like a virgin overhearing guys talking about an orgy. But you don’t have to pretend you’re naïve or innocent around me: If you still haven’t figured out, at the age of twenty-five, that the salary Planetary Security pays us, big as it might seem, isn’t enough even to pay for the wax we use to shine our service boots, I’m gonna start thinking you cheated on your IQ test.

You aren’t that big an idiot, I don’t think.

Oh, I know—something else has you worried. You’re afraid of the bloodhounds from Internal Affairs, eh? Prudent kid. I know all the symptoms: the twitchy eyes, the constant glancing around, like a trapped cat...

But tell me honestly: do I look like an undercover Internal?

And I assure you there aren’t any hidden microphones or nanocameras. In here we’re totally safe from indiscreet eyes and ears. Why do think I insisted on going inside? The rain wasn’t really all that bad...

It’s because electronic recording gizmos don’t work in here. The science guy from headquarters can explain it better than me. Something to do with the electromagnetic pulse they need to keep some of the weird types in anabiosis. Like the polyps from Aldebaran.

That’s exactly why we’re talking in here. I like to look out for myself, too.

Oh, and the guys from Internal Affairs... Don’t believe everything you hear about them. They aren’t so mean as they’re made out to be. We’re in the same boat, all of us. Even they need a present for the girlfriend now and then, or something extra for their kid’s registration in the University, and then they come to us. Coworker to coworker, get it?

Of course, if you go overboard and try to become a millionaire in one month, you’ll stick out like a bonfire on a dark night. Then they won’t have any choice but go after you like hunting dogs. That’s their job—keeping up appearances, maintaining the façade. It has to look like the system is working perfectly.

Don’t look like that, son. It’s about time you figure out, once and for all, that the whole business of Protect and Serve, the thin wall between Earth and Chaos, and all that stuff they made you learn by heart in the Academy—it’s pure veneer. Working for Planetary Security isn’t what you imagined it was, Markus. Believe me, not your instructors.