On My Way to Paradise (32 page)

"Or do you think to kill these men now and die
heroically in battle. Do you think to become Divine Wind, to die
heroically?" Kaigo opened his mouth wide so we could see his
tongue. He wrinkled his face in disgust. "No one can plan a hero’s
death with certainty. You must not think this.

"So, I see only one other path that could possibly
lead to honor: You decided to kill them now, distinguish yourselves
in battle, and commit seppuku after the war? Yet, this is a most
uncertain path. For even if you distinguish yourselves in battle,
you cannot say with certainty what damage these men would have done
to the Yabajin. You may perform a miracle in battle, but who will
ever know with certainty if you have redeemed yourselves? In your
rage, perhaps this is what you were thinking, but now that your
anger has diminished you must see that none of these paths lead to
honor!"

Mavro said bitterly, "That is not what I was
thinking. I thought we’d kill these men, then you’d forgive us. I
thought you’d understand that we must avenge ourselves."

"I ... understand," Kaigo said. "I too would avenge
myself. But ... the only path I see that will let you honor your
commitment to Motoki and avenge yourselves of your enemy will be to
wait until after the war. You will fight your battle with the
Yabajin, then kill your enemies. Your debt of honor will be paid to
the corporation, and your personal honor will be avenged. You will
not have to lose your lives in seppuku,
ne
? It seems a
simple matter." He smiled, as if he’d just explained a simple truth
to idiot children and was waiting to see if they understood.

No one spoke. I was astonished at his narrow
understanding of us. His concept of the obligations imposed by
honor was so alien I could barely comprehend him. I hadn’t been
thinking of honor, I’d been thinking of revenge. In Panamá a man
fulfills his obligations to family honor by avenging the family.
Revenge and honor are one and the same. But obligations to an
employer are not a matter of honor. It seemed a strange
concept.

Abriara spoke my thoughts, "You don’t understand.
Motoki pays us money to do a job, and we will try to do that job.
That is the extent of our relationship. Our employment by Motoki
corporation does not incur a debt of honor on our part."

Kaigo’s face twisted into a grimace of pain, of
shock, of bewilderment, as if she’d uttered the ultimate blasphemy.
He began speaking rapidly in Japanese. His microspeaker spat the
translation, "You make me to stick out my tongue in surprise! How
can you not owe an obligation of honor to Motoki? Your parents give
you life, and you owe them a debt of honor for it, correct? But
now, Motoki puts food in your bellies. Motoki gives you water in
the depths of space. The clothes on your back are provided by
Motoki. The very atmosphere you breathe was created by Motoki on
your single moon and pumped into this ship at great expense. For
every breath that you take, you owe Motoki. Take away all that
Motoki has given you, and you would die in an instant! You would
explode in the harsh depths of space. Motoki keeps you alive from
moment to moment. Does not this incur a debt of honor? Does not
this incur a debt of honor greater than the one owed to
family?"

Mavro said it before any of the rest of us could form
the words: "No. Motoki uses us as tools and pays for the
privilege."

Kaigo was stunned into silence. He reached up and
stroked the top of his head, flattening his blue-black hair. He
opened his mouth as if to speak several times, then thought better
of it each time. He was obviously having a hard time trying to come
to grips with the concept. I couldn’t see the world as he did, from
behind those surgically enhanced epicanthic folds, from beneath the
ideological veil applied by the social engineers on Baker over the
past century. He was completely dedicated to Motoki corporation,
willing to die at the company’s request. I didn’t then realize what
a monstrous gulf lay between us, that he could never really
understand us.

His eyes became glazed, and he stared at the floor in
increasing consternation, totally withdrawn. An expression of utter
confusion replaced his normal wooden stare. He eventually waved us
away, in the general direction of the simulator. We still had a few
minutes of battle practice left. We jacked in.

We soared over a rolling ocean of water clear as
glass. Ribbons of red seaweed twisted up from the ocean floor,
buoyed by pods that floated like giant dark red olives. Flocks of
Baker’s plastic birds rested atop bits of floating seaweed, wings
folded like those of a butterfly, and at our approach they’d lower
their wings and flutter away.

Kaigo jacked us out. He raised his head and spoke as
if our conversation had never been interrupted. "I have considered
your words. You say you owe no debt of honor to Motoki, and do not
consider the needs of the corporation relevant. And if you owe no
debt of honor to Motoki, how can I convince you to spare your
enemies until the battle on Baker is won?"

We didn’t know what to answer, and said nothing.

He continued. "If you initiate a battle with the
chimera Lucío and his team, I will slay you for disobeying my
orders. I have spoken with Master Masae, Lucío’s trainer. And if
Lucío and his men initiate a battle with you, Masae will slay
them."

Abriara said, "We’ll restrain ourselves till after
the war on Baker. But Lucío won’t abide by your decision, not after
he’s been wounded."

Kaigo rubbed his chin. He said, "Masae has spoken
with Lucío’s men. They are not unreasonable. They have agreed to a
temporary truce."

 "Those idiots!" Abriara said as soon as she got
out of the battle room. "Lucío plans to step on us, and step on us
hard. He’s probably laughing behind his hand right now, thinking
he’s got us fooled into believing we’ve got a truce!" She paced the
hall nervously, put her hand to her mouth and chewed at it.
"Angelo, how bad did you cut Lucío?"

"It was a deep cut," I said. "I sliced through one
eye and his nose. He’ll be in surgery most of the night. He’ll be
blind in one eye for weeks."

"Good. We’ll spend tonight making weapons. We can cut
up your trunk and make some wooden daggers—something to protect
ourselves."

I sighed, saddened to lose a family heirloom. She was
right though. We might need weapons. We climbed up the ladder to
level one, and by the time I reached the top I was exhausted.

Halfway down the hall we found the dead man, lying
exactly as before. The hot air still breathed over him, bathing his
hair in light, and he gazed at the ceiling, one knee raised in the
air. As we walked toward him I dreaded having to lift my feet to
step over the body. At 1.5 G’s it seemed someone’s infernal scheme,
leaving a body in the hall so we’d have to climb over it.

Mavro was first in line, and when he reached the
corpse he savagely kicked it in the middle of the back. "Who left
Marcos here?" he screamed. "Why doesn’t someone take him away?" He
kicked the corpse again, this time in the buttocks, and Marcos’s
leg dropped. Mavro stepped over the body.

Marcos stared at the ceiling with black eyes, hardly
opaqued. In his eyes I saw a similarity to Tamara’s face when she’d
sat gazing zombie-eyed up at the ceiling. I felt that odd tug, the
desire to find her, to learn if she was well. But it was weak and I
ignored it as I stepped over the corpse. She’d been awake for
several days and hadn’t contacted me. I was nothing to her. The
fact that I still felt such concern for her almost seemed a
joke.

We reached our room and Abriara began emptying my
teak chest. She pulled out the cigars that layered the bottom and
said, "Do you want this book?"

She held up a small leather-bound book with a faded
red cover and ragged pages, the book I’d taken from Arish:
The
Holy Teachings of Twil Baraburi
.

"Sure," I said, thinking I could use a little
spiritual enlightenment about now.

She threw it to me. I picked up the book and read a
verse at random: "Truly it is no sin for the righteous man to slay
the infidel, for has not God Himself sworn to destroy the wicked?
Therefore, slay the infidel and do God’s work."

I laughed and tossed the book to the floor. I’d
expected the
Holy Teachings
to be a little more holy. It
seemed like a good cosmic joke that of all the books on Earth, I
should bring that one. But it made sense that Arish would have
loved such a book: The Nicita Idealist Socialists have always
taught that they want to engineer a society where goods as well as
love are given freely. Yet to build such a society, they must kill
all competitors. Such an idea is founded on the belief that a new
society cannot be engineered to specification unless all competing
societies are either absorbed or destroyed. It always struck me as
ironic that they would try to wash themselves clean in the blood of
their neighbors. Arish probably never saw that irony, just as he
never saw the irony in the idea of committing holy murders.

I kept thinking of the dead man in the hall. The fact
that his eyes were open bothered me. They reminded me so much of
Tamara’s eyes. Of the way she’d lived in her eyes.

I wandered out into the hallway and found the corpse,
then closed its eyes. The gesture was wasted. I couldn’t wipe
Tamara from my mind so easily. As long as this corpse was here, I’d
be annoyed by it. I considered taking it to the infirmary.

The infirmary’s disposal chute led down to the engine
rooms. The body could be thrown down the chute and expelled for
mass to give a little extra push to the ship, or could be recycled
into food and water. But I couldn’t take the corpse to the
infirmary. Lucío would still be there. I decided to pull it to the
ladder and push it over. It would fall all eight levels, and
whoever lived down there would have to lug it up to the
infirmary.

Perfecto came out of our room to search for me. He
padded up silently in his bare feet. "What are you doing out here
alone?"

"I thought we should dispose of this mess," I
said.

He nodded and grabbed a foot and twisted the corpse
around lengthwise. I pulled the other foot. The corpse was fluid
and rubbery and tended to stick to the floor. Without Perfecto I’d
have had difficulty getting it to the ladder. We pulled it close to
the hole and prepared to topple it over. The ladder was much like
the ladder leading to a sewer—a simple round hole with a ladder
descending eight levels below us, and people could climb up and
down both sides at once. At any given moment twenty people might be
on the ladder. We watched the people climbing up and down and
waited for them to clear so we could throw the corpse over.

Perfecto had something on his mind but seemed
hesitant to say it. He worked up his nerve. "You know, Miguel would
like to see you more often. He’s bonded to you."

"He hovers too close to me. I feel smothered by him,"
I answered.

"He has a very strong desire to see you. He craves it
badly. If Lucío does go on a Quest tomorrow, Miguel will want to
help you out."

I doubted that. Perfecto tended to be overly
protective of me. I wondered if he was voicing his own concern. I
couldn’t imagine Miguel being too thrilled at the prospect of
joining us. Yet, who knows? Most people aboard ship didn’t seem to
care if they got killed. Miguel could be one of those people. Would
he walk through fire to save me, just because of the bonding? "What
does it feel like to be bonded?" I asked.

Perfecto shrugged. "I don’t know if I can explain.
Words are seldom adequate to express emotion. But, it is like—like
being in the hospital room when my first son was born. I’d had two
daughters, and didn’t want to get my hopes up. But when I saw my
son—saw he was handsome in spite of having me for a father—I picked
up that tiny infant, and all I wanted for him was good. I wanted
him to experience only the good things of the world." Perfecto’s
voice got husky as he spoke. He’d seldom discussed his family.
"That is what I feel for you, Angelo—the desire for you to
experience only good. That is what Miguel feels for you."

Intellectually I could understand such an emotion.
I’d never had a child of my own, but understood the sensation even
if I couldn’t share it. "It is a very pure emotion. I wish I could
feel something like it." I searched inside myself and felt only
hollowness. "With feelings like that, I’m surprised you were
capable of leaving your family at all."

Perfecto’s eyes shone with tears, and he blinked them
back. "When I found that my wife had been making love to another
man, I wanted to die. I signed up to fight on Baker thinking to
seek death. Since Motoki Corporation pays my wages directly to my
family, I figured my children would be well provided for during the
22 years Earth time it will take to reach Baker, and they’d receive
a bonus at my death. It seemed a perfect plan—until I saw you. It
was as if a son was born to me in that moment. You are my family
now. Miguel also feels this way about you. Will you let us protect
you?" His jaw quivered with excitement as he waited for my answer.
I looked at the thick hair perched on his head like some living
animal, at the 3-D tattoo of the beast that shook with anticipation
as his jaw muscles quivered. I marveled that he could care so much
for me.

"No. I’ll fight my own battles. And if I’m killed,
you and Miguel will bond to someone else next week. You’ll forget
all about me."

"It’s not that easy. The bond can never be broken. If
you get killed, Miguel will never forget his guilt, his loss."

I shrugged. I didn’t care about Miguel, or Perfecto,
couldn’t take time to care. I couldn’t open myself to the pain of
others. Over the past weeks the psychic battering of the
simulators, the worry, the fear, the fatigue, the shock at my own
brutality and the brutality of others had all combined into an
overwhelming deluge. At first I’d thought I could handle it. But
instead I’d only protected myself. I could do nothing more. I felt
that if I opened the floodgates, I’d go insane. To allow myself to
be touched by one concern would have caused me to be brutalized by
all. So I stifled my sensitivity, knowing that I did it at the
price of emotional emasculation.