Phylogenesis (13 page)

“The need for secrecy is absolute,” a third supervisor commented tersely. “As suspicious and mistrustful as the humans are of us, it is believed they would react in a manner most unfriendly to the revelation that not simply a contact post, but the beginnings of a real colony were being established in their midst.”

Desvendapur was not sure he had heard correctly. The thranx had begun establishing colonies on habitable worlds generations ago, but to the best of his knowledge they had never tried to situate one on a world already inhabited by another intelligent species. The idea of establishing a full-blown hive on a human-occupied world was more than daring. Many would call it foolhardy.

Yet he sensed this was not a test, as the simulacrum of the previous night had been. The supervisors were as serious as a pregnant female about to lay.

“Which world?” the engineer asked. “Centaurus Five, or one of the other Centaurian spheres?”

“None of those.” The two-star was speaking again. If possible, her manner was more serious than before. “It is to this colony that you have been assigned. It is there that you will be working, often in closer quarters with humans than any thranx anywhere else. Nothing of this kind has ever been attempted before. You will be part of a pioneering interspecies social experiment.” Lifting a scri!ber, she flicked a control on the panel. A fully featured three-dimensional globe appeared in the air between supervisors and incipient colonists.

“The great majority of humans are unaware of it, and if everything goes according to plan they will remain so for quite some time, but there is even as we speak an expanding thranx presence here, growing and thriving with the help of a few dedicated, farseeing humans.”

As she spoke the global image rotated before them, the view zooming in and out at the whim of the controller. It was a beautiful world, Desvendapur thought, swimming beneath its sea of thin white clouds. Not as beautiful as Hivehom, or even Willow-Wane, but except for the prevalence of large oceans, an inviting planet nonetheless. He wondered which of the human-colonized worlds they were seeing, wondered what the name of their destination might be.

The one supervisor who had not spoken yet now stood back on all four trulegs and proceeded to enlighten, elucidate, and explain.

“Burrowers, fellow hive pioneers, future colonists, here is your destination. I extend to you all an early welcome—to Earth.” Turning, he gesticulated somberness mixed with humor. “After all, if the humans can be allowed to have a colony on Hivehom, why should we not have reciprocal privileges on their homeworld?”

9

T
hey looked like a prosperous couple. Too staid to be romantic, walking side by side without touching or holding hands, they had probably gone for a stroll in the tropical downpour so they would be able to tell their friends back home that they had done it. Anyone with any sense would have stayed inside a nice dry hotel until the clouds closed back up. That was what the permanent residents of San José were doing. That was what the great majority of tourists were doing.

But not these two. Since they were wearing matching electrostatic repulsion rain gear, only their hands were getting wet, and these only when they emerged from large, accommodating pockets. The tepid water struck the invisible protective fields and slid off, leaving the strollers and the expensive clothing they wore underneath comfortable and dry.

Montoya followed them at a discreet distance. There were a few others out walking or running through the heavy rain. In the hilly downtown historical district there were always people making deliveries or pickups. There were plenty of other tourists out and about besides the couple he had targeted, but they were sensibly holed up in gift shops, restaurants, or hotel lobbies, waiting for the storm to piss itself out.

Hold-ups were not Cheelo’s preferred mode of personal enrichment. He disliked confrontations. Like narcotics, mugging was a bad habit that could all too easily become addictive. He’d seen it happen to acquaintances. He would have seen it happen to friends, if he’d had any. Given a choice, he would have preferred to rifle a hotel room or two, or pick a plump pocket, or lift a purse. No such opportunity had presented itself for days. Now he was growing anxious.

One more good score, just one more, and he would have all the good-faith money he needed to present to Ehrenhardt to secure the franchise. Well ahead of the deadline that had been set, too. Ehrenhardt and his people would be suitably impressed—which was Montoya’s intention.

This would not be the first time he had mugged. Unlike a number of younger compatriots he derived no thrill from it, got no adrenaline rush from seeing the look of fear on the faces of his intended victims. With him it was all business, in the tradition of professional highwaymen going back to archaic times. To fulfill his dream he needed a few hundred credits more. These negligent travelers would provide it.

He continued to track the couple, pausing when they paused, turning to peer into a store window whenever they chanced to look in his direction. For the most part he remained invisible, another tourist like themselves out for a lazy afternoon’s stroll in the rain. Only unlike them, he was unable to afford expensive water-repulsion rain gear. Already he was damp and uncomfortable beneath his old-fashioned maroon slicker.

In a sense he
was
a tourist, having come up from Golfito specifically to make the money necessary to buy the franchise. He had learned early in life that it was better to keep one’s place of business separate from one’s current home. Avoiding the authorities was difficult enough without living in the same city as the ones who would be most interested in finding him. Besides, there were far more opportunities to accumulate the requisite credit in bustling San José than in the smaller, sleepier city on the coast.

He tensed slightly, preparing his thoughts and muscles, and began to walk a little faster, closing the gap between himself and the perambulating couple. They had turned down one of the city’s quaint alleys, a narrow street with scoured cobblestone sidewalks.

He was reaching inside his coat when they unexpectedly stepped into a store specializing in the distinctive woodwork for which the city was famed. Forced to continue on past, he glanced surreptitiously at the paduk and cocobolo handicrafts on display in the window. The next store was closed. Beyond, a serviceway barely wide enough to admit one person at a time split the line of old buildings as it penetrated to the heart of the block. Ducking inside, he found some shelter from the rain.

He waited there, biding his time, occasionally leaning out to look back up the hill. The sodden stones were deserted. Rain staccatoed off the pavement, fleeing in small distinct rivulets into the nearest storm drain. If the couple chose to retrace their steps instead of extending their excursion, he would have no choice but to continue following them, like a caiman marking the progress of a tentative tapir grazing along a riverbank.

Before long he heard the subdued murmur of casual chatter: three voices—those of the couple and that of the store owner. Then footsteps, splashing in the rain, growing louder instead of more distant. Reaching into his coat, his fingers closed around the grip of the tiny pistol.

Timing his appearance, he stepped right out in front of them, trying to make himself look larger than he was. The stunned expressions on their faces showed that his surprise was complete.

Quickly now, he told himself. Before they have time to think or time to react. He extended his other hand, palm upward.

“Wallet!” he snapped curtly. When the man, who was despite his age large and fit looking, hesitated, Cheelo barked as threateningly as he could, “Now—or I’ll skrag you and take it anyway!”

“Martin, give it to him!” the wife pleaded. “Everything’s insured.” Ah, traveler’s insurance, Cheelo mused. The casual thief’s best friend.

“Slowly—so I can see it as you bring it out.” He couched the warning in his most intimidating manner.

Glaring down at him, the well-dressed pedestrian removed a soft plastic pouch from beneath his coat and handed it over. Cheelo took possession gingerly, never taking his eyes off the man. Slipping the prize into his own inner shirt pocket, he turned his attention to the woman. Above and below them, the narrow street remained deserted. A couple of vehicles hummed past on the main avenue above, their occupants oblivious to the pitiful drama that was being played out beyond their windows.

“Purse,” he ordered her. “And jewelry.”

Trembling fingers passed over the handbag of woven metal, then reluctantly followed it with a ring and two bracelets. Nervously eying the front of the store from which they had recently emerged, he gestured imperatively at her left hand. “Come on, come on—the rest of it.”

The woman covered the remaining exposed ring with her other hand. Her expression and tone were imploring. “Please—it’s my wedding ring. I’ve given you everything else.” He knew the droplets that were starting to run down her cheeks were tears because her face was protected from the rain by the wide brim of her stylish water-repelling hat.

He hesitated. Enough time had been spent standing out in the street. He had wallet, purse, and jewelry. The woman’s anguish
seemed
genuine. He had seen enough of it faked by those attempting to protect expensive but impersonal possessions. Wearing the same expression he had presented when he had first stepped out of the alley, he started to turn away from them.

“Sure, why not? Look, I’m sorry about this, but I’ve got a big deal pending—the opportunity of a lifetime—and I just need a few more credits to…”

That was when the husband jumped him.

It was a stupid move, a foolish move, the kind propounded by middle-aged men who think a little regular exercise and a lifetime of watching action tridees equips them with the wherewithal to handle sinewy professionals. He was a lot bigger than Cheelo, which made him bold, and a lot stronger, which made him overconfident. In fact, he superceded Cheelo in every aspect of fighting ability except the most important one: desperation.

As the man’s large hand, fingers aligned in a karate chop, came down on Cheelo’s flinching arm, the impact caused his finger to contract on the trigger. The compact weapon spat a small, silent blue flash. Instantly, the delivered charge interrupted the flow of electrical impulses running through the millions of neurons in the man’s body. A shocked look on his face, he collapsed onto the sidewalk, falling over sideways so that his shoulders and then his head struck the pavement. The skull took a visible bounce. Hovering over him, pistol in hand, Cheelo was no less shocked than the woman, who immediately dropped to her asinine husband’s side. His eyes were wide open.

When it had gone off, the muzzle of the pistol had been aimed right at his chest. His heart had momentarily been paralyzed. That was not necessarily a lethal proposition—except that the man’s heart had not been an especially sound one to begin with. The problem was not that it had stopped; the problem was that it did not start beating again. Cheelo had seen death before, though it had not been propitiated by his own hands. He saw it now, in the gaping frozen face that was filling with rain where it lay upturned to the sky on the cobblestone sidewalk.

Heedless of her own circumstance, the woman began screaming. Cheelo raised the pistol, then lowered it. He had not meant to shoot the poor dumb grandstanding bastard. He had certainly not meant to kill him. He doubted the admission would carry sufficient weight with the authorities. Clutching the purse close to his chest beneath the raincoat, he turned and ran, shoving the weapon back into his pocket. Behind him, the woman’s screams were swallowed up by the gray torrent that fortuitously continued to spill from the clouds. He was more grateful than ever for the rain. For a little while at least, it would keep the shopkeeper from hearing her wails.

Breathing hard, he threw himself onto the first public transport that presented itself. Surrounded by preoccupied, indifferent
ticos
and
ticas
, he pulled the collar of his raincoat higher around his neck and head and strove to make himself as inconspicuous as possible.
Now
what the hell was he supposed to do? Self-defense made a bad defense for a known brigand. At the very least he would be sentenced to a selective mindwipe, the extent of which would depend on how tolerant a court he found himself in. The truth machine could possibly support his claim that he had not intended to kill, but his state of mind at the time might appear as a gray area on the device’s readout.

It didn’t matter. He had no intention of being incarcerated or of letting the authorities erase any part of him.

He did not go back to the cheap hotel room that was his address when he stayed in San José. Instead, he transferred to public transport traveling in the opposite direction. By the time he reached the airport the rain was diminishing, the sky becoming merely sentimental instead of sorrowful.

The nearest shuttleport where he could secure offworld transport was in Chiapas. Even if he could somehow make it that far without being picked up, he couldn’t be sure his efforts of the past month had accumulated enough credit to purchase passage. Not that it mattered. The first thing the local authorities would do would be to run a report on the incident, complete to a police molder’s rendering of the attacker based on the woman’s eyewitness account. As soon as he stepped off a down shuttle on, say, one of the Centaurus colonies, a grim-faced welcoming committee would be there to greet him. Besides, he had no intention of traveling offworld. Not when he had important business on this one.

What he needed was to get as far away as possible as quickly as possible, but not so far that he couldn’t get back to see Ehrenhardt before the deadline that had been set for payment. At least for the moment, returning to Golfito was out of the question. Ehrenhardt would not take kindly to a personal visit from a man wanted by authorities for murder. As a known antisoc, his home and businesses would be watched.

Paying with credit from his personal account, Cheelo locked himself in a shower room at the airport while he renegotiated the unfortunate husband’s credcard. In minutes, using the room’s public terminal, he had succeeded in draining the credit and switching it into his own account. Colorless and untraceable, it would provide him with a means of flight. He was grimly gratified to see that with the addition of the latest sum, even after the purchase of a ticket to somewhere else, enough remained for him to pay Ehrenhardt what was required. The transaction would simply have to be delayed for a while. There was no reason to panic. He had plenty of time.

The woman would remember what he had been wearing. With considerable reluctance, he discarded the raincoat, shoving the crumpled bundle of fabric into a disposal chute where, hopefully, it would be compacted and then incinerated. Underneath, he wore attire that was simple but clean and untattered. Adopting as best he could the air and attitude of a small businessman, he approached one of the automated ticket dispensers and logged in.

“Where is it you wish to go today, sir?” The device’s synthesized voice was brisk and feminine. He tried not to be too obvious as he looked sideways, backward, down, anywhere but directly into the visual pickup. Frequently, he passed a hand over his face as if wiping rain from his eyes. He kept his voice at the lower limits of audibility as he shoved his illegally recharged credcard into the accept slot.

“As far as this will take me on the next flight out and still leave twenty thousand in the account. No, make that twenty-two thousand.” If his estimate was off he could always cancel the request and make a new one.

“Could you be a little more specific, sir? Random, spontaneous vacationing is a joyous adventure, but it would be helpful to me if you could at least pick a direction.”

“South,” he mumbled without thinking. His choices were simple. West or east would send him out over one of two oceans. North would find him very, very cold.

The dispenser hummed softly. Seconds later a small plastic strip emerged from a slot. Cheelo stood ready to bolt if the device’s internal alarms went off, but his credcard popped out normally alongside the ticket a moment later. Taking the strip, he placed it on his card, to which it promptly adhered.

“Thank you for your patronage, sir,” the dispenser told him. He turned to go, then halted and spoke without looking anywhere in the direction of the unit’s visual pickup.

“Where am I going?”

“Lima, sir. Via suborbital, gate twenty-two. Enjoy your flight.”

He did not offer thanks as he strode purposefully in the direction of the requisite concourse. A glance at a monitor showed that he would have to hurry if he was to make the departure. His expression set; he was inwardly pleased. The last thing he wanted to do was to have to linger in the vicinity of the airport.