Counting Heads (10 page)

It was a bonfire seen around the world.

Samson eased his grip on the banister and continued down to the sixth-floor landing. Hubert said, “Your blood sugar is low, Sam, and you are dehydrated. You should drink something and have a bite of Gooeyduk.”

But Samson had built up an impressive momentum, his old knees click-clacking like a metronome down the steps, and he didn’t stop until the fifth-floor landing where Hubert warned him that two housemeets—Francis and Barry—were on their way up. So Samson ducked into the hallway to wait for them to go by. He was standing across from Kitty’s bedroom, and when he looked at her door, he remembered that he’d intended to come here all along.

“Are Kitty and Denny at the park yet?”

“Yes, Sam. She’s into her second set.”

Samson entered Kitty’s room. It was in shambles, as usual. Her busking outfits were piled on the floor and bed and draped over the room’s two chairs. A tower of soiled house togs and dirty dishes leaned against the wall behind the door. Dust, spills, clutter—Kitty worked hard at her twelve-year-old persona. The tiers of shelves covering all four walls were lined with dolls and plush animals. Some of them, those he’d bought for her as gifts, peeped greetings to him.

Yet, no matter how hard Kitty pursued her childishness, she couldn’t hide all the evidence of her underlying maturity: the carousels of shoes under the bed; the carefully pruned allfruit tree under a light hood, its branches heavy with tiny assorted fruit; the workstation and its datapin collection on such practical topics as micromine waste sites and chartist torts; and an extensive library on microhab landscape engineering. Kitty Kodiak had pursued several careers in her long life before discovering her true vocation as a child.

Samson opened the wardrobe and shifted a stack of linen to reveal a squat, ceramic, four-liter canister. “Hello, guy,” he said.

“It’s almost noon,” Hubert replied through the canister speaker. “What are we doing still in the house?”

Samson pulled a chair to the wardrobe and sat. “There are things to discuss.”

“Can’t we discuss them en route?”

“Better face-to-face.”

“In that case,” Hubert said, “let me summarize what I already know in order to save us time.

“First, your body is no longer viable. When it dies, so does your personality.

“Second, all of your worldly goods pass to Charter Kodiak, including your sponsorship of me—if I agree.

“Third, if I don’t agree, I am free to seek another sponsor on my own.

“What else do you wish to say, Sam?”

Samson cleared his throat. Now that the time for this little chat had come, he found it much more difficult than he had imagined. “That’s good, Hubert. I don’t know if I told you those things, or if you puzzled them out by yourself, but I’m glad you’ve been thinking about them.”

“Really, Sam, they are self-evident.”

“Yes, I suppose they are. And there are two more points we must consider. First, although you’ve assured me otherwise, today’s action might lead the HomCom to you. If that happens, I want you to surrender yourself peacefully. Understood?”

“Yes, Sam, though your fears are unfounded. I’ve hired a very reliable wedge. All will go as planned.”

Samson shook his head. Hubert was young and should probably be forgiven his overconfidence. “Second,” he continued, “let’s assume you are not arrested, and you choose to stay with the Kodiaks. The truth of the matter is that they can’t afford to keep you.”

“What’s to afford?” said Hubert. “There are no liens against my medium; I’ll sail through probate free and clear.”

“That’s not the point, little friend. Haven’t you noticed all the large house expenses lately? Denny’s treatment, the wind ram replacement, the court costs. Kitty’s and Bogdan’s rejuvenation. Where did the credit for all that come from?”

“I don’t know, Sam. The houseputer doesn’t list any loans or asset sales. Are you saying the charter has some off-the-books source of income?”

Samson fished a towelette from a pocket and tore it open. He draped it over his steamy bald head. “I’m saying it must have come from somewhere. I’ve been carrying this house for years, but my private resources—as you keep telling me—have all but dried up. When I go—the charter won’t inherit enough from my estate to pay its property taxes, let alone their deferred body maintenance. No, I’d say Kale and Gerald have embarked on some foolish course to dig the charter out of its financial hole, something that even April is too ashamed to tell me about.”

“I fail to see how that relates to keeping me.”

Samson leaned toward the wardrobe to lay his hand on Hubert’s ceramic canister. “I bought only the finest paste for you, back when I still had gobs of credit, didn’t I, Skippy?”

Hubert was perplexed by the use of his valet name. “Yes, Grade A virgin General Genius Neuro-chemical Triencephalin. But I’m a mentar now, with sentient rights. Under UD law, my paste belongs to me, not to you or the charter.”

“A total of four liters, if I recall,” Samson continued.

“Forty-three deciliters.”

“And how much would forty-three deciliters of GG paste bring on the recycling market?”

At last Hubert was able to connect the dots. “You think our family is capable of
senticide?
”

“Desperate times, desperate solutions.”

“I see. What do you suggest I do, Sam?”

Samson sat up straight and searched his many pockets for a bar of Gooeyduk. “I suggest you try to make yourself indispensable to the house, Hubert. Why, for instance, haven’t you repaired the houseputer yet?”

“Because it’s beyond repair, Sam. It needs total replacement.”

“In that case, stand in for it.”

“You want me to
become
a houseputer?”

“Yes, if that’s what it takes. And why aren’t you out there selling your excess capacity on the distributive market? Why aren’t you bringing in more income?”

“But I am. I earn more for this house than the rest of them combined.”

“It’s not enough.”

“It’s never enough for you, Sam. I’m not Henry, therefore, I will never be enough for you.”

Samson opened the Gooeyduk and bit off a corner. He chewed slowly before continuing. “I also suggest you redouble your efforts to find a new sponsor for yourself. Start immediately, and don’t be so goddam picky.” He leaned forward and began searching his pockets again. Where was it? Did he leave it in the garden shed? He didn’t think he had the strength to climb back up for it. But no, here it was—his pocket simcaster. He relaxed and leaned back in the chair. “Sorry for the hard words, Hubert, but they needed saying.”

“I understand.”

“So, now, tell me how my Kitty’s doing?”

“Millennium Park is busy today because of the canopy holiday,” Hubert said. “That and the fine weather. But despite the foot traffic, her morning’s proceeds are under par. At her current rate, she will not recoup expenses.”

“Show me.”

An income projection graph appeared before Samson, but he said, “No, show me Kitty.”

“You want me to hire a bee?”

“Yes.”

“Bee engaged,” said Hubert. The room’s emitters projected a scene overlooking the park’s second-tier free speech reserve. Millennium Park was indeed busy today, a milling menagerie of transhumanity.

“Where is she?” Samson said. “I don’t see her.” A circle appeared in the crowded scape, highlighting a tiny figure in blue and white. Samson said, “And where is Denny?” Another circle marked a man eating ice cream on a nearby bench. “So far away? He couldn’t stay closer?”

“Shall we fly down and tell him so?”

“Later. I want to get the lay of the land first. Drop down some.”

The ground zoomed up before Samson could shut his eyes. “Easy! Easy!” he said. They hovered at treetop level and now he could make out the tiny impromptu stages. Some of the performers he recognized. On one side of Kitty’s space were the “Modular Sisters,” who were in the process of plugging themselves into each other’s large intestines.

Across from Kitty’s spot was the battle mat of the “Machete Death Grudge” where six beautiful, oiled athletes of indeterminate sex struck erotic poses and flexed obscenely supple muscles. They made halfhearted thrusts at one another with their deadly ceramic-edged blades. They were waiting for the purse icons on their pay-posts to reach mortality levels before doing any harm to each other. Their body tenders paced the edge of the mat, trying to incite blood lust among the prelunchtime crowd. Portable trauma and cryonics units hummed under tarps.

The “Slime Minstrel” was laid out in a trough behind Kitty’s space. Three meters in length, the minstrel was a blubbery hill of translucent blue protoplasm. It was one of the few buskers that performed without a paypost. Spectators threw credit tokens directly at it. Tokens that had pierced its outer membrane could be seen slowly migrating through its gelatinous mass to a collection gut. Depending on what people donated—and how the spirit moved it—the minstrel would sing. It had six blow holes arranged along its spine, connected to inner bellows and bladders. It could trumpet or roar, serenade with a chorus of sweet voices, or spray foul juices, or do all at once. People said that the Slime Minstrel was once a young man, a Shakespearean player, whose augmentations had gotten out of hand.

Satisfied with his look at Kitty’s competitors, Samson told Hubert to bring the bee down closer. Now his little scape contained only Kitty on her tiny stage and her small audience. Her audience was roaring with laughter, and Samson didn’t understand why. This was her new act that she’d been rehearsing for weeks, and it was meant to be precious, not funny. She was on the last verse of the candy-shop song and was tap dancing in accompaniment when she made a furious kick, and the audience howled. Now Samson saw the problem; a homcom slug had crawled up her leg and clung to her calf above her shoe. It should have fallen away after it sampled her, but its lo-index noetics told it to hang on until she stood still. Samson shuddered. He was no fan of homcom slugs.

Kitty threw open her arms and sang and tapped the final measure, then bowed from the waist, her veil of springy curls cascading around her. There was mild applause and a few swipes at her paypost. The moment she stopped moving, the little black slug dropped off and crawled away to continue its patrol. Her audience clapped again, then drifted away as well.

Samson said, “My poor baby.” Kitty straightened up but continued to hide her face in her curls. “How much did she earn?”

Hubert said, “Less than one ten-thousandth.”

“So little? That’s insulting! That’s
criminal
. My poor baby.” Kitty stepped off her stage, unlocked it, and gave it a little kick in its tender spot. It collapsed and folded and folded again until it was the size of a deck of cards, which she dropped into her pocket. She collapsed her paypost as well and carried it over to Denny’s bench. The moment she vacated her space, another act set up in it. It was a trio of pink unicorns—mama, papa, and baby—who warbled show tunes in harmony.

Samson jabbed his bony finger into the scape. “See this aff here?” He pointed to a young woman in a shear sunsuit departing the scene surrounded by four jerry bodyguards. “She was watching Kitty’s act, and I saw her make a swipe. How much did
she
give?”

“Nothing,” said Hubert. “She made a dry swipe.”

“Jeeze!” cried Samson. “Cripes almighty, I detest that. The people with the most to give! Selfish, greedy affs—I hate them.”

Meanwhile, the bee followed Kitty to the bench where Denny had been hogging space with his large body. He scooched up to make a place for her. She sat and leaned against him wearily, and he flagged down a passing vending arbeitor.

Samson said, “Don’t let that boy eat up their train fare.”

The arbeitor stopped in front of them and squeezed out a half meter of steamy, cheesy pizza tube, two cold drinks, and towelettes. Kitty listlessly swiped payment while Denny broke the pizza tube into two fairly equal pieces and offered one to her. But she refused with a shake of her head. Denny said something to her, to which she hunched her shoulders.

“Get in closer,” said Samson. “I want to hear what they’re saying.”

The bee advanced until Kitty’s pretty little head filled his holoscape. Sweat glistened on her forehead, and her cheeks were flushed. She snapped open her drink and wrapped her lips around the straw.

“I love this,” Denny said. “Do you think I can come tomorrow?”

“I don’t know,” she replied listlessly. “We’ll ask Sam. Maybe he’ll let you come. I’ll teach you a routine. We’ll buy you a license.”

Denny guffawed. “No, Kit, I mean, can I come watch, like today?”

“I could teach you to juggle or something.”

“Get out of here.”

Without warning, Kitty made a lightning backhanded swat at the public bee, but the bee dodged it effortlessly. She looked directly at the bee, directly at Samson it seemed, and said, “Desist, you creep. I invoke my right to privacy.”

The scene zoomed out as the bee rose to hover outside her privacy zone. Samson shut his eyes against the vertigo. He wished he could be there to comfort his darling Kitty, to shame the stingy affs, to prime the pump by swiping her paypost himself, all the little things he so loved to do. After a while, he opened his eyes and was surprised to find himself sitting in Kitty’s bedroom.

“Hubert?”

“Here, Sam.” The voice came from the wardrobe where he kept Hubert’s container. Little by little, it all came back to him. They weren’t at the park anymore. He would never visit the park again. He got up and opened the bedroom door a crack. The hallway and stairwell were quiet. “Onward,” he said.

“That about covers it,” Eleanor Starke said. “Let’s move on to new business.”

The regularly scheduled board meeting of the Garden Earth Project was entering its third hour without a break. This was of no inconvenience to the ten members who had sent proxies to attend in their place. The only two members attending in realbody, Alblaitor and Meewee, fidgeted in their seats. Eleanor Starke, who was returning from space, chaired the meeting via holopresence. Her image sat at the head of the table. Behind her stood her Cabinet’s chief of staff, and behind it, a window wall overlooking the serrated landscape of the Starke Enterprises Southern Indiana headquarters. Except for the reception building, in which they met, the Starke facilities were located underground, leaving the ten-thousand acre campus free for tilt-slab soybimi cultivation.

“Merrill,” Eleanor said, “we’ll move your report to the end, if you don’t mind. I want to hear about Adam’s breakthrough discovery first.”

Merrill Meewee nodded; agenda order meant little at a Starke meeting. He glotted to his mentar, Arrow,
Send in more coffee. And ask Zoranna if she wants anything
.

Meewee attended in realbody because he was a Starke employee in the Heliostream Division and was able to come up from his office. He wore his trademark outfit: vermilion overalls with purple piping and a scarlet yoke, perhaps inspired by the ecclesiastic garments he used to wear a lifetime ago.

Zoranna Alblaitor was present in realbody because she had been conducting business in Illinois and had dropped in to visit. Or to snoop, Meewee suspected.

“I’d hardly call it a breakthrough, Eleanor,” Adam Gest’s proxy said. “More like the results of patient plodding.” The proxy was a projection of Gest’s head, shoulders, and right arm that he had made specifically for this meeting before going to bed last night at Trailing Earth. Like the other proxies, it floated serenely over its empty chair at the table.

“Call it whatever you want,” Eleanor chided him, “just show it to us. Let’s wrap this up.”

“Gladly,” said Gest-by-proxy. “Let’s start with our Oship at rest.” A model of the project’s recently completed Oship, the ESV
Garden Kiev
, appeared above the table. It was a double hoop of hab drums, like two giant donuts stacked together. The drums spun ponderously on a lattice superstructure, one hoop clockwise, the other counter. In reality, each hab drum was large enough to contain a small city and its surrounding countryside, and each of the hoops contained sixty-four such drums. Generous living space for a million people.

Meewee watched and listened closely. He felt it essential that he understand all aspects of the project, even though the engineering details usually went over his head.

“Now bring it to 0.267 light speed,” the Gest proxy continued.

The model’s hab drums ceased rotating—gravity would now be supplied by acceleration—and a radial wire frame appeared inside the donut holes to represent the electromagnetic propulsion target—the torus. The model seemed to be moving through a star field.

“It’ll take two hundred years of constant particle bombardment by Heliostream lasers to attain this relativistic speed,” the proxy explained. “The problem is that in two hundred years we’re bound to come up with numerous improvements for translating photons to propulsion. Until now we’ve been unsure how to incorporate design updates in an active torus generator while the Oship is receding in excess of a quarter light speed. Our so-called breakthrough came when we realized—”

“Eleanor?” Meewee said, interrupting the proxy. Eleanor was gone. Her holo had vanished. The proxies looked around at each other.

“Hey, Cabinet,” said the Jaspersen proxy. Cabinet was missing too.

They waited awhile longer, but Eleanor’s image did not return, and the proxy of Trina Warbeloo, the Garden Earth board secretary, said, “It’s undoubtedly a comm glitch. Eleanor, can you hear me?”

“I move we take a break while it’s being fixed,” Zoranna said and rose from the table.
Merrill
, she glotted to Meewee,
Nick reports big trouble. I’m getting out of here
.

Just then, Eleanor Starke’s image was reestablished. Its scape was roughly cropped, revealing a vignette of her and her surroundings aboard her yacht. She was pressing a hand against the fuselage window and speaking to someone unseen.

When she noticed the board members, she turned to them and lowered her hand. “I have an emergent situation here. I’ll rejoin you when I can.” With that, her holospace shrank to a dot, morphed into the Starke Enterprises sig, and faded away.

“Wait, Eleanor! What sort of situation?” Jaspersen’s proxy demanded. “Eleanor!” Jaspersen’s proxy was a head shot only, no shoulders, not even a neck, and it looked like a bobbing toy balloon.

“Arrow,” Meewee commanded his mentar, “show us Eleanor’s ship.”

The large Oship model was replaced by a live image captured by Heliostream satellites of Eleanor’s yacht tumbling in a fiery arc over the Pacific.

“No!” Meewee said. “That’s not possible.”

“Merrill, compose yourself,” snapped Jaspersen’s proxy. “Adam, do something.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Gest’s proxy replied, but everyone knew what Jaspersen meant. It was Gest’s company, Aria Yachts, that had designed and built Starke’s
Songbird
. The Gest proxy vanished and was replaced by a holo of Adam Gest, himself, in his bathrobe. He studied the stricken ship and said, “Listen, everyone, it’s going to be all right. Even with total avionics failure, Eleanor’s yacht has a passive fail-safe system. It simply cannot crash.”

Oh my God
, Zoranna said to Meewee.
Nick says he’s lying
.

Gest plotted the
Songbird’s
trajectory, and unless the yacht’s fail-safe system kicked in soon, it would strike Earth in the western foothills of the Andes. The other proxies were being replaced, as their owners in time zones around the globe were alerted to the crisis.

“This can’t be happening,” said Trina Warbeloo in a bathing suit.

“No one can kill Eleanor,” said Jaspersen, sitting up in bed. “Though many have tried.”

He knows something
, Zoranna said.
He’s in on it
.

In on what?
Meewee shot back.

They lost their visual feed, and a globe with a tiny ship icon replaced it. As the members watched in grim silence, the icon representing the
Songbird
fell in an unbroken arc and disappeared in central Bolivia. Minutes crawled by, and the board members continued to watch the spot on the globe.

Finally, Jaspersen said, “What about rescue attempts?”

Zoranna said, “Teams have been dispatched.”

“What about Cabinet?” Andie Tiekel said. “Cabinet, are you there?”

No response.

“This is a black black day,” Jaspersen said. The others stared openly at him. “What?” he said.

Warbeloo said, “I move we adjourn for one hour. I’m sure we all have much to attend to.”

The motion was seconded and carried, and one by one the holoscapes closed, leaving Zoranna and Meewee alone in the conference room. “I don’t believe it,” Meewee said. “It didn’t happen.”

“Believe it,” Zoranna said as she came around the table on her way to the door.

“Where are you going, Zoe?”

“Home.”

“Now?”

Zoranna paused next to the door. “Oh, Merrill, don’t be so dense. I love Eleanor as much as you, but face it—no one of her stature has died since Stalin. I don’t believe her death was an accident, and neither did anyone else here. And until we know who killed her and why, I’d prefer to stay safely tucked away in my little fortress by the sea. I suggest you go somewhere safe yourself, Merrill, and watch your back.”

Meewee stayed on in the boardroom alone with his mentar, Arrow. Before long, pictures of the crash scene started coming through from the local witness and media bees, and Arrow displayed them for him. The Starke
Songbird
had gouged a trench in a soccer field. The damage was impressive. The medevac teams arrived—jennys and jerrys—and they sent the bees away. Meewee realized he hadn’t had the chance to give Eleanor and the board his report. His report was about plans for the launch ceremony. The
Garden Kiev
was scheduled to launch from Trailing Earth in three months. Meewee was in charge of the festivities. It was going to be an occasion to celebrate the project’s first triumph.