Reunion (5 page)

Peering cautiously out the polarizing dome, Flinx saw that they were pulling into another garage. Unlike the quiet repository at the Shell hub, this one was frantic with families and couples, mostly young. Free-floating holos proclaimed the virtues of products he had never heard of, while subdued but insistently cheerful music filled the air. Wherever he was, it seemed to be a happy place. That would last only as long as he succeeded in avoiding the attentions of the authorities.

When the transport parked itself, deactivated, and refused to respond to his insistent requests to move on, he had no choice but to exit. It took him only a holo or two and an agitated stroll through several insistent and exceedingly raucous sound cones to discover where the vehicle had taken him. Surire Park was not the nature preserve of the woolly vicuñas and viscachas he had read about. That blissfully unspoiled wilderness lay farther north. This Surire Park was entirely artificial, as were its amusements.

Given his state of mind, it was not a bad place to be. While uncrowded in the middle of the weekday, there were still enough people present—jostling and laughing, vacationers and locals alike—to lose himself among. Trying not to make contact with the eyes of any of the discreetly identified park security staff, he ambled freely amidst the animated throng, absently cataloging the attractions, ignoring the multitude of clever advertisements, and treating himself to specialty sweets whose sticky composition was beyond the capabilities of the autochef aboard the
Teacher.
Automatic readers accepted his carefully coded credcard without comment.

One ride promised a swift but sizzling run through the heart of one of the active volcanoes that dotted this sweep of the Andes. Another shouted the exhilaration to be had from spiraling at high speed down the slopes of smoking Mount Isulga. There were electrostatic sleds that could be raced across the frozen snowfields, and opportunities to participate in bloodless but noisy holoed recreations of the ancient battles that had scarred this part of the planet. One could choose to wear either the weapons and armor of the conquistadors, or of the Incas. Families partaking in the elaborate historical recreations were invited to purchase recordings of themselves giving advice to or fighting alongside Pizarro or Atahuallpa.

Recreated tombs gave children the chance to play amateur archeologist, while their parents could compete for reproductions of Inca, Moche, Lambayeque, and Chimu artifacts. An observation platform tethered at eight thousand meters provided spectacular views of the mountains, the Pacific, and the sprawling Amazon Reserva to the east. Flinx was almost enjoying himself and Pip was wholly occupied in consuming fragments of the pretzel protruding from one of her companion’s shirt pockets, when he spotted the uniforms working their way through the crowd. The attitudes of the wearers were intent, their demeanor grim, and he did not think they were looking for a pickpocket or a drug abuser.

As always, his time of ease and relaxation was brief. He needed to leave, and fast. Burrowing deep within the densest portions of the crowd, he made his way back toward the entrance—only to find it conspicuous with uniforms. They were manually checking everyone coming into the park, and everyone going out.

How much did they know? he found himself wondering anxiously. Had he been reported running from the building with the unconscious Carolles on his back? Or had she recovered sufficiently from her induced slumber and emotional manipulation to give a good description of the young man she had so fleetingly believed she might have loved? Either way, he could not chance donning an air of indifference and trying to slip past the uniforms. In the event of a confrontation, there were too many of them. If he was challenged, Pip would strike out instinctively, and he would not be able to prevent her from killing.

How to avoid an encounter or being taken into custody? Backing unobtrusively into the crowd, avoiding children upset at being denied the chance to go on one more ride, he searched with increasing anxiety for another way out. There seemed to be only the one entrance/exit. As he explored the park’s farthest reaches, the percentage of persistent, relentlessly pursuing uniformed security personnel and police steadily increased.

The ride entrance he eventually found himself standing alongside presented itself to the public as the
“Highest, Fastest, Most Exhilarating, Adrenaline-Pumping Exercise in Tandem Racing This Side of the Himalayan Chute!!!”
After all the imperious capitals, the tacked-on multiple exclamation struck him as brazen. A quick check of the ride’s entrance showed that it was devoid of guards or other armed hunters looking for a certain redhead. Approaching an information booth, he queried the fixed-position humaniform robot as to the nature of the ride. It was no less effusive in its sales pitch than any biological tout.

Within the ride’s core, participants boarded individual maglev boards that adjusted to their height and weight. Each board was encased in a transparent, unbreakable capsule that was automatically pressurized to prevent injury in the unlikely event of a crash. Since each capsule was monitored by the ride’s automatic overlord, it was impossible to run over a capsule descending in front of you, or to be overtaken by one from behind.

Beneath the launch ledge, riders plunged into one of two dozen intersecting channels. Powered by precisely spaced electromagnetic rings that encircled each open conduit, board riders could choose to descend by gravity alone, or to accelerate even faster than nature provided. Each board could also use the maglev system for braking, to slow its one or two passengers to a more sedate velocity. Sitting on the board within the protective transparent capsule, feet extended, body riding less than a meter above the ground, the electronic tout promised Flinx that one could rocket down the western slope of the Andes at over 300 kilometers an hour. Because of the board’s proximity to the surface and its diminutive size, the sensation of sheer speed, the recorded spiel promised, was unparalleled. He would plunge from an altitude of five thousand meters to sea level in less than a hundred kilometers linear distance.

It was just what he needed.

A glance behind showed a trio of police making their way toward the ride, their eyes doggedly searching the crowd as they approached. Choosing a skill level and paying for passage, Flinx purchased admission for one.

The controls on the board were simple enough for an eight-year-old to handle, which was the intent of the ride’s designers. Waiting his turn, he watched as shrieking children, grinning adults, and intimate couples were boosted forward until they dropped out of sight. The slow, the timid, or the simply fearful would automatically be shunted into specific channels reserved for their kind. Daredevils and speed demons shared other routes. Three to four trajectories were saved for the truly mad. Knowing where he had to go and how he needed to proceed, Flinx made certain Pip was secure within his shirt. He was not overly concerned. Her diminutive but powerful coils would allow the minidrag to hold onto him tighter than he could grip the board’s controls.

A slight lurch sent his board forward. They were moving. He felt the air harness contract against him, but not uncomfortably, as it molded itself to his lanky form. Though he was now cinched in too securely to turn, he could hear shouts behind him. Had he waited too long? Could the ride still be locked, freezing him helplessly in place before he could fall free of the landing?

Another jolt and he felt himself accelerating a little faster. Ahead of him a board occupied by a dark couple suddenly vanished as if it had dropped off the face of the Earth. Which, to a certain degree, it had. In its wake it left delighted screams. The board he was riding slowed. To left and right he could see other boards, other riders, disappearing. The shouts behind him had faded, but he could clearly sense rising as well as conflicting emotions somewhere nearby. Lips set, he waited for another boost.

Then, without warning, he was careening downward, the angle of descent not yet acute but the board beginning to pick up speed nonetheless. The perfect transparency of the capsule created the illusion that there was nothing around him. Air pressure pressed against his sides and face like a big, comforting pillow. Outside the tube, undisturbed Andean countryside raced past on both sides, an unpolluted dark blue sky stark overhead. He shot through a large metal ring, the first of his chosen channel’s magnetic accelerators. Taking a deep breath, he pushed down hard on the board’s accelerator.

The digits on the speedometer floating in front of his eyes climbed as he dropped. Next to it was a heads-up three-dimensional diagram that charted the various available intersecting channels while describing their individual attractions. Ignoring ruins, waterfalls, canyons filled with alpine and then subtropical wildlife, he opted straightforwardly for the shortest and fastest. As the board continued to accelerate, it began to vibrate slightly. The vibration never grew uncomfortable, but it served to remind him that he was now rocketing downslope at over 275 kilometers per hour.

The scenery might well have been spectacular, but it went past too fast for him to notice. Even a police vehicle traveling a cleared commercial conduit would have been hard-pressed to match his speed. How had they traced him to the park from Carolles’s remembrances? Most likely, she had provided a description of the private transport he had temporarily appropriated. It would take them some time to decide that he was not anywhere within the park. From the start, the ride had been run wholly by automatics. Probably at least one component was equipped to record visuals of every rider, if only for insurance purposes. With luck, it would be a little while at least before the authorities got around to checking the park’s security files for the day. Once that had been done, however, a police chyp could match him out in a matter of seconds—assuming a security recorder had caught a clear glimpse of him.

Used to functioning in situations in which he never knew how much time remained to him before something unpleasant happened, he remained calm, concentrating on running the ride. Beneath his shirt, Pip rested peacefully, the mellow minidrag contentedly digesting recently ingested carbos and salt. Capable as she was of remarkably rapid flight on her own, the speed at which they were presently traveling did not excite her.

Other board riders in proximate channels were momentary blurs in his vision. The trajectory grew steeper still, the encircling magnets continuing to accelerate his board until the speedometer would read no higher. If a magnet failed, he could potentially lose the channel. In that event the board would fly off track, soar briefly into unrestricted air, and slam into the ground at sufficient speed to reduce both it and any passengers to scattered fragments of unconnected tissue. Having faced death in far less resolutely insured forms, Flinx was not worried. It was a good thing, however, that his stomach did not have a mind of its own.

In a very short space of time indeed, the ride’s automatic safety features took control of his board. Air pressure and harness restraining him, he began to slow. The broad blue plain of the Pacific lay just ahead. As a final, unannounced fillip, the last half kilometer of the ride shot him into the water, through an underwater tube, past a school of startled jacks and a brace of pouting barracuda, and back around in a tight curve to end at the ride’s terminus. He did not linger there long enough to respond to the human monitor’s smiling query of “How was it?”

Passing through the innocuous medical scanner that pronounced him and everyone else who finished the ride physically and mentally unscathed by the experience, he hurried as inconspicuously as possible out into the nearest street. Busy Tacrica bustled with tourists and townsfolk alike, a contented, milling throng not unlike that inhabiting any other resort anywhere else on Earth—or for that matter, off it. Two minutes after he vanished into the gaily outfitted crowd, a squad of four police accompanied by a pair of grim-faced hub security personnel disembarked from three commandeered maglev boards, pushed past the bemused employees assigned to monitor their respective arrival channels, and fanned out into the surging multitude. But the wiry, tall redhead they sought was nowhere to be seen.

Frustrated as they were, they had not even been able to enjoy the ride.

Chapter 4

Wandering the slightly sloping, carefully preserved colonial quarter of the city that night, Flinx paused to watch the local news stream on a free-ranging public channel. Receding into the background without disappearing, the announcer systematically reported that a major industrial accident whose nature remained as yet undetermined by the relevant authorities had seriously damaged the Surire Shell hub, knocking out all but emergency information services from Arequipa to Iquique for an extended period of time. Some services, the announcer declared with a proper sense of outrage, were not expected to be restored for several weeks. The cause of the incident was under investigation.

Turning away from the display and keeping his head down, Flinx tightened his lips. Somewhere, he knew dourly, the Terran Shell AI was generating a report.

The lights were kept atmospherically dim in the preserved colonial quarter and at this time of night the main street was comparatively tranquil. Those tourists who were out and about were interested in atmosphere, not their fellow promenaders. Eiffel’s fountain sparkled in the balmy night air, a monument to the skills and vision of long-dead engineers who thought iron the ultimate building material. Using modern materials and techniques, skillful restorers had preserved much of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century architecture. Even up close, the reinforcing nanotube sheets were invisible to the curious eye.

He had to get to the port at Nazca and to his shuttle. There was no reason to suppose the authorities would connect its ownership to their wanted fugitive and put a watch on it. Even if they somehow managed to identify him, there was nothing to link him to a specific KK-drive craft. The Counselor Second for Science Druvenmaquez had seen it, the senior thranx’s own ship’s personnel and instrumentation had doubtless imaged it. But while very different internally from any other vessel, from the outside the
Teacher
looked like any other small commercial interstellar craft. And Flinx was careful to see to it that his vessel’s maintenance ware altered its identifying external patterns on a regular basis.

Still, he would not be able to relax until he was back within its familiar confines. That meant safely boarding the shuttle at Nazca’s commercial port, obtaining clearance to lift, and making it through the atmosphere without being challenged.

His talent was functioning again. Around him, the air was charged with fleeting, or persistent, or hysterical, or affectionate emotion. As always on a populated world, the sheer volume of sentiment threatened to overcome him. It was better in uninhabited space, where his mind could float free of unwanted, unsought empathetic intrusion. He was tired, unfamiliar with his surroundings, and unsure of how best to make his way to Nazca while avoiding the attentions of the authorities. Of one thing he was reasonably sure: No convenient amusement ride would take him there.

A pair of local police wearing subdued uniforms were coming up the avenue toward him. Though they were conversing animatedly between themselves and not looking in his direction, Flinx turned quickly down a side street. There was no need to expose himself to unnecessary scrutiny. Having spent an entire childhood on Moth darting through damp air and dark surroundings, he felt almost at home in the alleyways of the coastal community.

The backstreet was old and blissfully deserted. It was remarkable how much truly ancient construction had survived the centuries. The crumbling brick wall on his right had to date from no later than the twenty-first century, at least. A pile of primitive non-degradable containers formed a small talus slope to his left, overflowing their collection bin.

From the vicinity of the bin, something moved. He sensed the threat before he saw its owner—a small, stocky bundle of inimical energy whose black eyes glittered in the faltering light. The man’s skin was as brown as Flinx’s, and in his right hand he held a weapon of indeterminate parentage.

Two more armed individuals emerged from a dark doorway, a lean whip of a woman from behind the container bin, and another from the shadows up ahead. Turning to leave, Flinx found the way back to the main street blocked by a trio of stimstick-smoking youths whose thin smiles did nothing to illuminate the darkness or their sour personalities. The police he had turned into the alley to avoid might still be within shouting distance, but calling for help would mean having to answer their questions. If they ran a check on him, they would identify him as the individual wanted in this morning’s incident at the Surire hub.

“My-o, he’s a glimmer one.” The woman with the whipcord body, much of which was on unapologetic display, eyed him approvingly. Her torso was maybe twenty, her eyes ten years older.

“Your cred, visitor.” The stocky man who had stepped out from behind the bin motioned nervously in Flinx’s direction. His sedate squirming was a consequence not of unease but of the drugs in his system. “Clothes, ident, everything. Right now.” He gestured sharply at the ground.

“Hait.” Another, even younger woman was grinning. “Let’s see wot you got, boy-o.” Her emotions and those of her companions stank of predation.

Traveling with weapons was a good way to attract the immediate attention of the authorities. They inevitably marked the bearer as worthy of closer attention. So Flinx disdained guns and vibraknives and similar mechanisms of extermination. That did not mean he was unarmed. There were a lot of them, though, and the alley was narrow.

He started backing up the way he had come. The police whose attentions he needed to avoid should be elsewhere by now. “I’m going to leave. I need what little I have, and you don’t. Please, don’t try to stop me.”

“Hi-o, he’s polite as well as pretty.” Stepping forward, supple muscles visible within the webwork of her outfit, the tall young woman produced a sharply finned dart. She juggled it easily in one hand, flipping it in casual circles. “After I waft him out, can I play with what’s left?”

Her stocky companion grunted. “Just get it over with.” Peering past Flinx and the three mougs behind him, he tried to scrutinize the distant street. “I hate it when they don’ cooperate.”

The woman’s grin widened. “I like it.” The dart paused in her hand, held casually in throwing position. Flinx wondered what chemical cocktail it contained.

“Don’t throw that.” His voice was composed, unruffled.

The woman’s smile faded slightly. She wanted him to be afraid, and though tense, he clearly was not frightened. It unnerved her more than she cared to show. Maybe Marvilla was right. Time to get it over with. Business first, play-o later.

Reading her rising emotions, Flinx knew that despite her indifferent attitude and the fact that she was looking at her male companion and not in his direction, she was preparing to throw the dart. As the synchronous emotional outbreak began to rise within her, he threw himself to one side, into the pile of discarded plasticine containers. Cool from lying in the dark alley, their accumulated bulk masked his body signature. Seeking human heat, the flung dart whizzed through the space where he had been standing. He heard the startled oath from one of the three mougs who blocked the outlet as the dart struck home. There was a brief, crude flare of panic from the youth, then nothing as the illicit pharmaceuticals shut down his system. Paralyzed, he crumpled to the ground.

As Flinx had hurled himself sideways, something small, winged, superfast, and angry exploded from within the folds of his shirt. Brightly hued and reptilian of aspect, it was in the woman’s face before she could draw a second dart from its holder. Emitting a startled scream, she stumbled backward, tripped, and fell on the half-exposed dart she was holding. With a moan, she reached down to pull it free of her left buttock, only to crumple onto her side as the soporific cocktail of enhanced animal tranquilizers it contained took effect.

Raising his pistol, the leader of the pack took aim at his girlfriend’s assailant. Or tried to. In the dimly lit alley it was difficult to focus on anything so small, particularly when it seemed to be moving in every direction at once. The shot misfired. The minidrag’s response did not. A few droplets of incredibly caustic venom struck the man in his right eye. Dropping his weapon he staggered backward, slammed into the brick, and sat down, clawing at the eye from which a thin stream of corrosive smoke was rising.

Rolling to his feet, Flinx assumed a defensive posture with the bin at his back. The two mougs who were still conscious had drawn weapons of their own, as had the man and his companions who had been loping toward him from the other end of the alley. Pip sped back to hover protectively above her master, slitted eyes alert, still full of piss and poison.

Glancing backward, one of the mougs suddenly paused and muttered something to her mate. Holstering her weapon, she broke into a run. Flinx watched as they passed right by him. Joining the surviving pack members, they fled up the alley.

He lowered his hands. Pip descended toward him but remained airborne and alert. A lone figure was coming up the alley toward them, advancing at a leisurely pace. Flinx searched for the sheen of a police uniform.

The old man was solidly built but not tall. White stubble covered his squarish face, indifferent to depilatory and fashion. His lower jaw protruded as if he suffered from some incurable orthodontic contraction. Like the facial stubble, his hair was entirely white and combed back over his high head, to pause at the collar of his rough, natural cotton shirt. A small communicator was visible hanging from his waist, and he wore a finger-sized reader/probe above one ear. His back was only slightly bent. He might have been 70, or 170.

Halting a safe distance from Flinx, he flourished a grandfatherly smile and surprisingly good teeth. One thick, callused finger jabbed at the air above the younger man’s head.

“Call off thy winged devil, sonny. The street slime have all run away.” He nodded in the direction of the dead pack leader and his twitching, silent girlfriend. “Them that could, anyways.”

Flinx searched for the glint of a weapon. “They ran from you, but you’re not armed.”

“Only with my reputation.” The old man chuckled with amusement. “Afraid old Cayacu would hex ’em. I would, too. Eight against one—not righteous.” He shook his head disapprovingly. “What’s thy name?”

The subject of the old man’s query almost started to say Philip, but hastily corrected himself. “I’m Flinx. The one with the wings is Pip.” As he spoke, the flying snake settled back onto his shoulder, remaining vigilant and visible. In this new arrival she sensed no threat.

“She be a one, too.” The oldster chortled a second time, then beckoned with a broad gesture. “Thou’rt the one hub security’s looking for, aren’t thou? Come with me.”

Straining, Flinx tried to appraise the elder without speaking. Like Pip, he perceived no threat. “Why should I go with you? So you can turn me in for the citizen’s reward?”

“I don’t need the government’s credit. Thou’rt a strange one. I like strange things.” He indicated the far reaches of the alley into which the surviving pack members had fled. “They knew that. That’s why they ran.” Aged but still bright brown eyes met those of the younger man. “You know what a shaman be, sonny?”

Flinx frowned. “Some kind of witch doctor?” He stared. “In this day and age?”

“What day and age be that?” The deeply lined, weathered face overflowed with wisdom and good humor. “Shamanism never goes out of style, sonny. No matter how advanced the technology, no matter how grand the accomplishments of hard science, there’ll always be them for whom mysticism and magic transcend knowledge. Never forget that for many folk, it’s always easier to believe than to think.”

“Then you’re a self-confessed fraud.” Flinx had always been too forthright for his own good.

“Didn’t say that.” The old man chuckled. “Come on, sonny. Let’s get thee out of here.” He turned to leave.

Flinx continued to hesitate. “You still haven’t given me a compelling reason for going with you.” On his shoulder, Pip was finally relaxing, her tiny but powerful heart pounding like a miniature impulse drive.

Cayacu looked back. “Because I can get thee to wherever it be thou wantst to go. Assuming, that is, that thou hast someplace thou wantst to go. Or perhaps thou wouldst prefer to stay here?”

The younger man eyed the constricting walls of the alley, the dead and unconscious bodies that littered the ground. “I do have a destination, and this isn’t it.”

“Didn’t think so.” The oldster beckoned again. “Come and chat with a jaded old man. The authorities tolerate individuals like meself, but they disapprove of what I do. It gives me pleasure to thwart them.” He shook his head. “Eight against one,” he muttered softly. “Best get thy pet out of sight.”

It was not the oldest skimmer Flinx had ever seen, but it was close. Cayacu drove it out of the city center and into the suburbs, heading for the sea. As soon as they reached the beach, they turned north, the vehicle wheezing and rattling in the darkness, the half moon hanging motionless over the Pacific, giving the water the sheen of rubbed steel. Soon they were out of the city altogether and leaving the highly developed resort area behind. Since they were traveling north, the direction he needed to go, Flinx saw no reason to comment on the route his host was taking.

Occasionally the ancient, battered vehicle lost power so severely that it bounced off the ground, dimpling the grassy track that was the main road leading north. Eventually, the shaman parted with the avenue altogether and turned seaward once more, following a narrow path that snaked through rock and sand. In the absence of irrigation, the terrain had reverted to its natural amalgam of gravel, sand, and gritty soil. It would remain so for hundreds of undisturbed kilometers up the coast.

A few lights appeared in the distance. Simple, carefully maintained homes hugged the south bank of a small river. Where it emptied into the sea, snowy egrets patrolled the water’s edge, far outshining the shore birds one would expect to encounter in such a place. The birds were sleeping now. A few heads glanced up, a few sets of wings fluttered, as the grinding, coughing skimmer faltered past their resting place.