On My Way to Paradise (16 page)

Abriara got up, and I prepared to follow her and I
noticed I was barefoot. Everyone else was barefoot, too. "No
shoes?" I asked Abriara.

"Not on ship," Zavala answered eagerly. "Our
employers won’t allow it. Also, I must warn you: When you meet a
Japanese, you must lower your eyes and bow. And you must never call
them names—not even steer or
pubic hair
. You must call them
master
."

I’d dealt with Japanese clients many times, and had
never heard of such a thing. "¡Me pelo rubio!" I said, "You tease
me!"

"No! They even hired a cultural expert to tell us
these things. On Baker everyone is Japanese. It’s some kind of
experiment in social engineering, artificial cultures."

He said the words "artificial cultures" as if they
explained everything. It was obvious that whatever he’d heard had
gone over his head. "Hmmmph," I grunted.

"But you can make them act like
pubic hairs
,"
Zavala said. "I’ll show you the trick!" He waved me forward and
walked out the door.

Mavro and Perfecto waited for us to lead the way down
the hall. They both slapped me on the back and shouted "¡Hola,
muchacho! It’s good to see you again!" and acted so happy I thought
they’d throw a party. Mavro was a full head shorter than me,
something I hadn’t noticed earlier.

Abriara and Zavala led the way, while the others
walked behind, and I realized they’d put me in a protected position
in an inconspicuous manner. The cream-colored corridors were
narrow, just wide enough for one man to walk easily, and the
plastic floors bent when you put your weight on them, so you always
felt as if you were sliding either backward or forward between the
struts. We passed several men; each had wet hair as if returning
from the showers, and we had to stop, turn sideways, and inch past
one another. This was very uncomfortable, since I thought any one
of them could be an Alliance assassin, and I continually fingered
the knives hidden in my sleeves.

We were on the 300 level, so when we came to a
ladder, we climbed up.

At the top of the ladder stood a Japanese man wearing
a silk kimono, dark blue with white lotuses; a short sword was
strapped to his waist. Like the gun of a policeman, the sword was a
badge of his authority on ship. His build was stocky, too much like
Perfecto’s to have come about as the result of the process of
natural selection. It was obvious Motoki was engineering warriors
on Baker, but I had to wonder what upgrades he had. He did not look
like a chimera. His long hair, tied back in a pony tail, was so
black it shone blue, and he had only one dark eyebrow that ran
across his forehead. He didn’t even acknowledge our presence when
we prepared to squeeze past him in the hall. Instead, he stared
down the hallway and pretended we didn’t exist. This seemed very
strange.

"Daytime, Master," Zavala said, bowing to and
addressing the Japanese. Then in an excited tone he shouted, "Noses
have flown through the pudding, and salmon swim along the
intestine! Hurry!" And he pointed down the ladder.

A strange expression washed over the Japanese man’s
face and he opened his mouth wide, using body language so alien I
couldn’t read it. He appeared very distressed, and muttered, "Hai!
Hai!" and a microspeaker pinned to his robe said "Yes! Yes!" as he
hurried down the ladder.

We watched him go, and when he was out of earshot,
Zavala chuckled. "See, I told you I could get him to act like a
pubic hair. They all wear electronic translators strapped to their
necks, and if you talk convincingly, they think that the
translators are broken."

We continued up the ladder until we stepped off at
the second level. Another Japanese, a weary-looking clone of the
first, walked down the corridor. Zavala sent him rushing down the
ladder by shouting, "Water hernias have broken your friend!
Downstairs. Japanese, downstairs!"

The corridor was like a spoke on a wheel. Six
corridors met at the ladder at the center of the hub, and then each
corridor also intersected a corridor that circled the ship. When we
got to the wheel’s rim we turned left and followed the hall. The
emblem of a green crane crossing the sun shone above a doorway.
Beneath the emblem were the words: Battle Room 19.

Abriara stopped for a moment. "Is everyone prepared
for a taste of the future?" she said, then opened the door: The
room was small, perhaps five meters square. Pale green battle armor
the color of aged foliage hung on the walls around the room like
chitinous exoskeletons. A replica of a large hovercraft with an
open top and elevated plasma turrets occupied most of the room. Two
Japanese rigidly sat on the floor in front of the hovercraft in the
ancient seiza style—feet under the buttocks, toes pointed back—a
feat requiring so much flexibility that few people can manage it.
The man on the left was a monster with an enlarged musculoskeletal
system; he’d have stood well over two meters tall, and he dwarfed
even Perfecto. Like the others I’d seen, he wore a blue flowered
robe and a sword. The man on the right was small though, smaller
than me, and he carried no weapons. Zavala stared at the floor and
bowed as he entered the room, and each of us followed suit. The
Japanese acknowledged our bows by nodding in return.

"Put on armor, quickly!" the small one shouted.

We all rummaged through the armor, looking for pieces
that fit. The armor design was unlike any I’d seen before. It was
thin, without the heavy concussion padding that usually makes armor
so hot. It had elegant lines and joints that made its wearer appear
taller than normal and made for easy walking. I soon realized why
it was different: The armor was designed to reflect the beams of
heat weapons, not to absorb impact from projectiles. Also, the
helmet had an unusual optic system with a number of polarized
lenses that rotated automatically to keep the amount of incoming
light constant. This created a bulge around the eyes like the humps
on the eyes of a chameleon. Each helmet had a small hole at the
base of the skull so we could run lines from our cranial jacks to
the simulator in the hovercraft’s computer. Normal helmets have air
filtration systems, to protect one from smoke or poisonous gas,
planted over the nose and mouth, but this had pipes with filters
that wrapped around the face to the back of the head.

It seemed a waste to wear this armor for nothing,
when we wouldn’t fight a real campaign, but it did serve a purpose:
It stopped sensory leak from the real world. When one is plugged
into a cranial jack, the jack bypasses the sensory and motor areas
of the brain while the jack’s processor carries on a two-way
conversation with the computer—the processor carries sensory input
to the brain while the brain sends motor responses back to the
computer. In this way, you can maintain the illusion of the
dreamworld. However, the cranial jack’s bypass system is not
fool-proof. One always gets sensory leak from the world outside.
Bright lights or loud noises in the real world can adversely affect
the quality of a dream world. So by wearing the armor and helmets,
we could actually reduce leakage to the aural, tactile, and visual
senses, thus locking us firmly into the illusion provided by the
simulator. The armor serves the same purpose as the visors on dream
monitors, except that the armor shields the senses to a much
greater degree.

Zavala dressed quickest, and as he pulled on his
helmet he said, "Hey, look at me! I’m a big green grasshopper!" He
stuck his fingers up by his head and wiggled them like antennas.
The speaker in the helmet made his voice sound like the growl of an
animal, but with his bulging eyes and green exoskeleton he did look
surprisingly like a grasshopper.

Perfecto laughed and said, "No you’re not. You’re a
praying mantis. Remember that. We’re all mantises—and the Yabajin
are grasshoppers."

The big Japanese grumbled something, and the
microspeaker on his kimono shouted "No talking!"

We all put on our armor quietly. When we were done,
we no longer looked human.

The small Japanese clapped his hands and pointed to
the floor in front of him. "Sit, please," he said in halting
Spanish. And we sat on the floor so we were at a level lower than
them.

The small one said, "I am Cultural Envoy Sakura
Chimori, and to my right is your master, Master Kaigo. He will
instruct you in the arts of the samurai. We are sorry that the
situation for instruction is not ideal, but we hope you will find
happiness serving Motoki Corporation."

Abriara said, "Excuse me, but I understood we were to
be members of an assault team." She nodded toward the hovercraft.
"That piece of trash doesn’t have enough armor to be an assault
vehicle! And what about outriders and snoopers and mini-nukes?"

The big samurai’s back stiffened, and he scowled at
Abriara’s tone, though he continued staring straight ahead. The
little man, Sakura, sucked his teeth to make a hissing noise and
looked at Kaigo. Master Kaigo held out his hand, palm toward the
floor, and wiggled it. I knew Abriara had angered them, but I
didn’t understand what their gestures indicated.

Sakura turned to Abriara. "Sah," he said, letting out
a hiss. "We have no offensive weapons. If you cannot kill a man
with the weapons we give you, then he does not deserve to die.

"Now, I understand that relationships between men and
women are relaxed in your country. But I must warn you, Sergeant
Sifuentes, things are not the same on Baker. Please quickly adopt
the sweet, subservient demeanor that is so becoming to women, lest
one of our samurai remove your head in a fit of righteous
anger.

"When addressing the Master, drop to your knees and
bow your head, then ask permission to speak. This rule is the same
for all of you." Sakura stared at each of us woodenly, to make
certain we understood.

"Now," he said, "we have told you that your work on
Baker is strictly of a defensive nature. So, what gives you the
idea that you are an assault team? "

Abriara’s fists tightened and she swayed from side to
side a little. Her anger was obvious, though her helmet concealed
her face. She said in a carefully neutral voice, "Common sense. Our
contract says you’re paying our way there and back, with a stay of
three months. A defensive team would need to stay years—not
months."

Sakura smiled triumphantly and his gaze drifted over
each of us. "See what happens when a woman thinks!" he said. As if
speaking to an idiot, he addressed Abriara. "You didn’t read your
contract carefully. It said you would have a
minimum
stay of
three months. You may be on the planet for a very long time. Let us
have no more talk of attacks. We must be clear: Motoki is hiring
you for defensive purposes, as we’ve repeatedly told the Alliance.
And since the Alliance prohibits offensive weapons on Baker, an
assault would seem implausible.

"But you should also know that the hovercraft, armor,
and light plasma rifles are all defensive weapons provided for
researchers engaged in field studies outside of protected zones.
You may use these weapons as you will." Sakura let the final words
dangle in the air. His meaning was obvious. It was illegal for
Motoki to hire us to attack the Yabajin, so they’d just provide the
"defensive" weapons and a means of locomotion and let us do the job
ourselves.

Perfecto bowed at the waist, unwilling to fall to his
knees. "Señor, what will our enemy’s defensive weaponry consist
of?" He spoke to the floor

Sakura nodded politely, indicating that Perfecto’s
show of humility was adequate. "Cities are protected by automated
perimeter defense systems—puff mines, neutron cannon, and plasma
turrets for the outer layers, weasels and cybernet tanks for the
inner defenses."

Abriara stared at the floor, thinking.

Perfecto said, "That’s not so bad."

He was right. Most of the mercenaries had penetrated
defenses just as tough in the jungles of Colombia and the highlands
of Peru.

"I don’t understand," Mavro said, bowing. "It sounds
easy. Why do you need us?"

Sakura stared off into the air for a moment, then
began an obviously memorized speech: "Over a hundred years ago,
Motoki Corporation embarked on a noble experiment. Decades of
complacency, Westernization, and overabundant wealth had weakened
the spirit of the Japanese people, sapping them of their strength.
Economic indicators clearly showed that Japan would soon lose its
industrial lead to the Chinese, perhaps forever. The executives at
Motoki could not allow this, so they considered alternatives. It
became evident that problems in Japan could only be solved by
reengineering the very fabric of society—restoring the ancient
ideals of unity, honor, and willingness to work that had once made
Japan strong. But success could only be assured by isolating a
segment of the population, removing it from weaker cultures so it
would not be contaminated. If one were to cultivate a rare and
beautiful flower, one would not allow it to become pollinated by a
lesser flower. So, Motoki removed a portion of its top
executives—the best specimens of humanity—to Baker, and initiated a
new
Meiji
, a cultural restoration.

"Unfortunately, we undertook this great plan in
concert with the Japanese government. The government hired its own
cultural engineers and selected its own representatives—lesser
genetic specimens. These people were unable to tear from their
souls the ignoble ideals and polluting doctrines that had so
bereaved our country. They were worldly, aristocratic, and lazy. As
a result, their settlements are populated by Yabajin, barbarians
who seek constantly to destroy us. They have sent so many assassins
to bomb our incubation stations and slay our upgraded children that
the Alliance has officially forbidden the use of incubation vats on
the entire planet. Not fifty years ago we were a blossoming
civilization with a population of two million. Now our planet is
nearly decimated, and only a few thousand remain."