On My Way to Paradise (15 page)

I must have appeared incredulous at this. Only a few
rogue priests will dare defy the Vatican to baptize a chimera.

Abriara saw my expression and said, "It happens. So,
he may feel some loyalty to me, perhaps enough, being Catholic. To
make sure, I’d like you to speak to him for me."

I shrugged. "If you like." I did not see how my words
could affect him. She frowned a bit, upset that I hadn’t made a
stronger commitment. I couldn’t judge how Perfecto would treat her,
but I could judge how humans would treat her. I’d occasionally met
men in Panamá who held machismo as an ideal, but I thought of them
as anachronisms. Such a person could indeed give her trouble. "It
seems to me that the one you need to fear most is Mavro. I know for
a fact that he wants to be a captain, yet the general has made him
a private beneath the only woman leader. He may take it hard."

She laughed, a high-pitched unpleasant laugh meant to
be disarming. "I think I like you," she said. "From your tone, you
sound very concerned about me. I like that in a person. Still ...
you may be right. I don’t trust him much. He sits on his bed and
glares at me."

"That is not a good sign," I warned.

She nodded. "Indeed. Also, don Angelo, some people
have been talking about you. Several governments want to extradite
you back to Earth. And some people fear the Allied Earth Marines
will board ship to take you. Some men discussed the possibility of
turning you in, and Mavro threatened to kill anyone who spoke of
it. He called them ‘steers,’ and they backed down for now. But
Mavro is using this whole affair as an excuse to prove his
machismo. Sooner or later he’ll start a fight. Maybe he’ll kill
someone. Anyone who gets within arm’s length of Mavro—they’re the
ones in danger."

I considered this. She was right. "So, what should we
do?"

Abriara looked up at the ceiling and shrugged. "I’ll
think about it."

And unlike most people, who only say they’ll think
about things and then never do, she stopped talking and looked up
in the air and almost immediately appeared to lose herself in
thought, so I picked up the soup and began to eat. The green algae
tasted like broccoli. My ankle still ached, so I got off the cot,
found a refrigerator and got out a tube of cortisone cream. I sat
at a desk in the corner and applied the cream. There was a computer
terminal at the desk.

On a hunch, I flipped on the computer and requested
the medical files for Tamara de la Garza. The computer responded:
"None Available." I requested files for Tamil Jafari. The computer
responded: "None Available." I requested a list of mercenaries
who’d been picked up at Sol Station, and the computer gave me 19
names.

Tamara wasn’t on the list, unless under a pseudonym.
I requested information on the medical status of the 19 persons.
None were convalescing from brain damage. General Garzón obviously
wasn’t stupid enough to list Tamara in the computer under any
name.

Abriara watched me during all this. "What are you
doing?" she asked.

"Trying to locate the friend I told you about. It’s
all right to use this terminal, no?"

She shrugged. "There’s no one here to stop you." I
requested a list of all persons currently occupying convalescence
tubes. Five people were listed; none had physical problems remotely
similar to Tamara’s. I had no way to learn her location from the
terminal.

But another thought struck me: One of the 19 people
we’d picked up at Sol Station was an Alliance assassin. I called-up
the biographies and current housing assignments for each person,
then requested a hard copy. The printer spat out a handful of thin
papers with almost microscopic print. I began studying the file of
a particularly ugly chimera named Miguel Mendoza.

"Ah," Abriara said, "I almost forgot. A present from
the General." She reached into a fold of her robe and tossed me a
small oblong package wrapped in gold foil. "He also left some
liquor and cigars in that big chest you brought. In a few weeks,
you can sell them for a fortune."

 I tucked the papers into my kimono and picked
up the package and unwrapped it.

"It’s strange, don’t you think? He treats you like a
dog, putting you under my command, then gives you extravagant
gifts?" She smiled, and when she smiled her teeth were small and
strangely even, as Perfecto’s had been. Something about her smile
reminded me of a lizard or a porpoise. I looked closely and
discovered the difference: She had no canine teeth. Instead, all
her teeth were small and round and evenly matched.

"Please don’t do that," she said.

"Do what?"

"Stare at my teeth. Or my eyes. Or my hair. Or my
breasts. You humans always do that. It makes me nervous."

"I’m terribly sorry," I said, looking away. I fumbled
with the package. Under the foil was a small box. I opened it and
two knives fell out—knives I’d taken from Arish. Both were set in
aluminum wrist-sheaths that had Arabic characters written along the
length. I hadn’t looked closely at them before. I pulled out a
knife and was surprised to see that the blade was made of crystal,
flawless molded graphite, pure diamond—sharper than any metal
blade.

"Carrumba!" Abriara said. "Those are worth a
fortune!"

The blade was slightly longer than my hand; the
handle was light and balanced, weighted for throwing. The second
knife was identical. When I pulled the blade free, a note fell from
the scabbard. I set it on the bed and strapped the wrist-sheaths on
under the sleeves of my kimono. The knives remained well concealed.
I read the note as I worked.

Señor Osic:

I’m sure you know that weapons aren’t allowed in
living quarters. But a hundred years ago, during the Islamic Jihad,
it is said the Faithful used these blades as toothpicks, so they
are listed as such on the ship’s logs. You may have need for such
toothpicks. The Alliance has offered me tremendous bribes for your
return to Earth. I’m playing the part of a greedy man, but soon
they will figure out that I won’t turn you over for any price. When
that happens, watch your back.

I give you Perfecto, since he has already bonded to
you. I’d prefer that he were bonded to me, but a man can serve only
one master. Mavro also requested to be in your combat team—a very
talented and dangerous man. You need friends like him.

Abriara quickly read the note over my shoulder.

"What does he mean here," I asked, "where he says
that Perfecto is bonded to me?"

She stared at me, as if to gauge me. She spoke
hesitantly. "I suppose this is something you should know. I’d never
mention it if Garzón hadn’t brought it up. And it lies at the root
of the real reason I came to speak to you. Remember what our
father, General Torres, looked like?"

"An old man with silver hair," I said, recognizing
the similarity in appearance between Torres and General Garzón. "He
had a sharp nose, and a strong chin."

"Close enough," Abriara said. "In his old age, Torres
became paranoid, afraid of assassins within his ranks. So when we
were created, some chimeras were given an extra gene containing a
biochip. And that biochip makes them loyal to old men with silver
hair and sharp features—men who look like Torres. You, with your
hair going gray, look almost exactly like Torres."

I considered the consequences of this. "You mean
Perfecto won’t be angry with me for slugging him?"

"You broke his nose; he broke your leg. You’re even."
She sat on her cot and watched me.

"Even after I called him a
puto
?"

Her feet hung off the bed, and she swung them back
and forth. "Perfecto won’t hold a grudge against you because it’s
not genetically possible. Understand? You fit the mold of the man
he was created to protect and serve, and every fiber of his being
knows it."

This surprised me. I remembered how Perfecto had
tried to befriend me from the moment he saw me. "But won’t he know
that I fit the mold? Won’t he resent it?"

"On the contrary, he’ll feel comforted to have you
around. It’s like eating or breathing. We know why we eat and
breathe, but we don’t resent the fact that we must do it.

"But because Perfecto is bonded to you, I had to
speak with you. You see, he will imitate you—he will try to seek
your approval by doing the things you want him to do. If he
believes even for a moment that you resent my command, he could
revolt. He might even attack me. He’d certainly conspire with Mavro
to undermine my authority. Understand?

"That is why I must have you speak with him about me,
convince him to obey me." Her tone became harsh. "I must warn you,
Señor Osic, that I cannot tolerate the slightest disobedience from
you." She stopped a moment, leaving me to imagine what her threat
might mean. "If, on the other hand, you treat me with unfeigned
respect, Perfecto will show me complete loyalty."

"Ah, we get to the heart of the matter. So you want
assurance of my intentions? Then I must admit: I treat people
kindly from long habit, and I seldom become angered."

She said, "I have already seen this. And I take
comfort in your words. The thing I don’t understand is why General
Garzón let you aboard the ship. If Perfecto has bonded to you,
others may too. Your presence here could disrupt his command."

"Garzón is indebted to me." I said. I remembered how
excited Garzón had been to get Tamara as a prisoner. His own little
spy to interrogate—he might even be wringing information from her
now.

But in order to keep her presence a secret, he’d have
to resist Earth’s demands for my extradition—as an ambassador from
Baker, someone who could grant citizenship to Mavro and me as
easily as he had, I believed he’d have authority to refuse
extradition.

On top of this, the fact that he had not turned me
over suggested that Tamara was still alive and hadn’t suffered too
much brain damage. Otherwise, Garzón would have no reason not to
ship me back to Earth. In fact, he had every reason to return me as
soon as possible.

My presence was certainly causing him trouble with
the Alliance; and if more chimeras bonded to me, I could pose a
threat to him in other ways.

I realized for the first time: Garzón had put Abriara
in command of our team to humiliate me personally, not to humiliate
Mavro. He wanted to make sure I remained a peon in the eyes of the
chimeras in hopes that they wouldn’t bond to me.

Abriara watched me as if trying to divine my
thoughts. "You won’t be able to sway me with your appearance. I was
created later than Perfecto—when public opinion against Torres was
so strong he knew he’d soon be assassinated. I won’t bond to
you."

"It’s not that," I said. "A biochip is a powerful
tool—especially when used to program the human mind. I was just
wondering: Are there other things like this that you’re forced to
do?"

Abriara smiled. For a moment, it was as if the web of
light in her eyes opened, and her eyes sparkled though her voice
was sad. "Don’t you know?
Homo homini lupus.
We kill people.
We are forced to kill people like you, don Angelo."

The way she smiled, it was like a sad joke. I was
certain that she’d killed more than once, that the memory caused
her grief.

There are several ways to perform such a genetic
manipulation: Some hormonal imbalances can cause severe anger in a
patient—so much so that the patient becomes victim to
uncontrollable rage. Chimeras are marvelous fighters, but I’d never
heard of them going berserk.

On the other end of the spectrum is sociopathy, a
lack of capacity to feel emotion—empathy, remorse. And Bastian
proved back in the early 2100s that sociopathy can have a
biological base—a defective amino acid sequence in a waste product
produced in the cerebrum can block the bonding sites of
thymotriptine, causing the victim to lose the ability to feel
remorse.

But it seemed implausible that Abriara was a
sociopath. The tone of her voice showed concern for Mavro, and her
sad smile when she spoke of her murders betrayed her pain.

But how much remorse? I wondered. The guilt I felt
after killing Arish threatened to tear me apart. Even now it
tormented me. But she only managed a wan smile. She presented me
with a puzzle, and I decided to watch her, to discover what she
was. She studied my face, still trying to discern my thoughts.

"I’d heard rumors of your murderous nature," I
confessed, "but I never believed them. I always thought it was just
propaganda the socialists used to overthrow Torres."

"Propaganda works best when it’s based on fact," she
said. "But we posed no threat to Argentina or even our own people.
It was only when the Argentines crossed the border that they had to
worry, so they twisted the truth to frighten our own people
..."

The door opened and a young cyborg with a round,
effeminate face poked his head into the operating room. Both his
legs were metal frames, painted black, and his left arm frame was
steel. The napalalene cords that served as muscles hung loosely
within the frames. The massive form of Perfecto filled the hallway
behind him. The bridge of Perfecto’s nose was swollen and his eyes
were black, but as Abriara had predicted, he smiled
enthusiastically when he saw me.

The young man said, "Sergeant, it’s time to go to
practice."

Abriara turned to him. "Zavala, meet don Angelo
Osic."

The boy nodded. "I’m pleased to meet you, don
Angelo."

"When the steers talked of shipping you back to
Earth," Abriara said, "Mavro and Zavala here swore to rip the
tongues out of anyone who continued to talk like old women. Every
one of them backed down."

I took the cue and said graciously, "Thank you, Señor
Zavala. You sound like a brave one."

"It is nothing." The youth shrugged. By the way he
smiled I knew I’d said the right thing.