The Empty Warrior (44 page)
Authors: J. D. McCartney
“Does this mean we are almost ready to get out of this heap?” O’Keefe asked virulently.
“That is exactly what it means,” the captain replied, in a tone equally acidic as his own, making it consummately clear that she would be much happier after escaping his proximity.
“Good,” O’Keefe snorted, trying his best to convey the same message, but still feeling that she had somehow bested him yet again.
The craft continued to slow and descend, yet O’Keefe saw nothing that might have been a homestead anywhere. There was only the endless vista of primeval woodland laid out beneath them. As the uppermost branches of the trees loomed ever closer to the underside of the vehicle, O’Keefe could stand it no longer.
“Are you sure this thing knows where it’s going?” he asked.
“Yes, of course I’m sure.” The captain still spoke with disdain icily coating every word. “We’ll be there in just a moment.”
But several seconds later they were still slowly skimming along nearly within arm’s reach of the treetops, and O’Keefe had yet to sight anything that looked remotely like any kind of habitation. He had not even spotted an opening in the seemingly solid carpet of tall hardwoods. Nevertheless, the craft suddenly banked to the right and dove down into the forest. “Oh, shit,” O’Keefe cried out reflexively as he braced himself, convinced, for the fourth time since he had stepped off
Vigilant
, that death was staring him in the face.
Despite O’Keefe’s fears—his mind’s eye had for an instant been treated to an imagined snapshot of the vaulted roof of the forest filled with flaming debris tracing smoky arcs through the shaded stillness—the car did not smash itself to bits against the interlocking mesh of thick branches that the vehicle had suddenly pitched into. Instead he now watched with boundless relief as Tangie performed a slow, banking descent into a previously unseen and perfectly manicured passageway that spiraled down through the deciduous canopy.
He exhaled and slowly unclenched his fists, checking his palms as he did so for blood brought forth by the pressure of his fingernails. He was pleased to find none. Then he laid his head back, closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and let out another long, slow, grateful exhalation.
When his eyelids lifted, the car was beneath the lowest of the leaf bearing limbs. Here, the canopy’s supporting boles were widely spaced and the car indolently steered left or right, avoiding them with ease. The diameters of the trees were considerably larger than the car was long, and nearly all of them were hundreds of feet in height. The titanic trunks filled the view in every direction, melding into a mottled sea of gray in the distance. Here and there across the shadowed and dreary sea of rough barked columns were lifted a few pathetic bits of greenery, the straggly and drooping leaves of the giant’s stunted offspring that struggled in the shade at their feet, attempting in vain to reach the life-giving light that shone so brightly on the forest’s crown. Their meager spreads of foliage, stubbornly clinging to their spindly limbs, looked lost and forlorn amid the bases of their massive progenitors. Only the floor of the forest showed any vigor, as darkly colored patches of ivy and delicate ferns proliferated there in the rich humus formed from the fallen and decomposing leaves from seasons past.
As the vehicle continued its lazy sweep downward, a split appeared in the earth below them, widening to reveal a sculpted oval opening. The car sailed gracefully into it, and floated down a short underground tube, the light fading as the doors behind them closed. Tangie’s roof began to rise even as the car still braked, admitting cool air and the loamy scent of the forest floor. When the vehicle had come to a smooth halt artificial light came up and gradually suffused the room in which they had parked with welcoming radiance. Hydraulic whines, amplified by the hard surfaces in the large but now sealed chamber, issued from beneath the car as its support struts extended and its wings were stowed. It settled lightly to the floor, and all was deathly still and silent.
O’Keefe realized at once that they had flown into a garage. Another vehicle—this one silver in color, slightly smaller, and with a bubble canopy rather than a conventional top—was parked on the far left side of the white-painted repository. It was as shiny and clean as Tangie, but nevertheless O’Keefe had the impression that it had not been moved for an extended period of time.
The chamber itself was much like any parking garage on Earth. It was larger than a standard two car model, but still it was a spare and spartan area with what appeared to be merely concrete for a floor. What differentiated it from most garages that O’Keefe had ever seen was that it was immaculately clean. Not so much as a single grease spot stained the floor. Also, it had been built with no right angles. The floor curved up into the wall while the wall arched over into the ceiling. There were no corners where dirt might accumulate.
Various appurtenances hung from the pristine walls at regular intervals. O’Keefe thought they must be tools of one sort or another, but few looked familiar and he could only guess at the functions of any of them.
Suddenly, a door at the front of the garage moved to one side to admit a floating robot and give O’Keefe a brief glimpse of the living area beyond. But the entrance closed as quickly as it had opened, leaving only the barest outline in the wall as evidence of its presence. The robot, a chromium canister covered with mechanical arms and connections of every sort, moved slowly but precisely down the wall, deftly snaring one of the utensils hanging there as it passed by. It attached the device to one of its connective ports and immediately the garage was filled with the muffled roaring of what was obviously a vacuum. The machine moved off behind the car and down the entry tunnel, sucking up the dry leaves and tiny debris that had been pulled into it by the passage of the captain’s vehicle.
O’Keefe turned to her, but she was already exiting. He snorted softly in exasperation before debarking himself, hurrying to intercept her in front of the car’s raised canopy. Forced at last to acknowledge his evidently repellent presence in her heretofore private domicile, she scowled grimly and finally spoke.
“Now that we have arrived without incident,” she said caustically and with only thinly veiled animosity, “welcome to my home.” O’Keefe duly noted that her tone did not sound welcoming in the least. He nodded sardonically and grunted softly with displeasure, but did not retort in any other way, while the captain brushed quickly past him, striding toward the same door that had admitted the robot. He turned to follow as it opened to allow her entry.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, a voice that seemed to come from close by and yet from no particular point, much like that of the car, greeted her. “Welcome home, Valessanna,” it said. The voice was feminine, tonally different from Tangie’s but still much the same in character. While the car had sounded girlish and obeisant, this voice had a slightly more dignified tenor; yet still it was almost cloying in its subservient sweetness. O’Keefe wondered to himself what her choices in machine servants revealed about the captain that he did not already know. He thought about it for only the briefest moment, and unable to come to any definitive conclusions due to his near complete lack of familiarity with Akadean technology, he simply shrugged and walked through the door himself. “I hope you had a pleasant voyage,” the voice continued.
“No, I had a perfectly awful voyage,” the captain answered. “Is my bath ready?”
“Of course, but do test the water before you immerse yourself. Tangie’s only instruction to me as to the desired temperature was ‘hot.’ Please inform me if the water needs heating or cooling.”
“I will,” the captain sighed, as if a heavy load still rested on her shoulders even after leaving
Vigilant
. “We have a guest, as I’m sure you are aware. Do your best to make him comfortable please.”
“Certainly. I have retina and voice print identification downloaded from
Vigilant
. Retina scans are congruent, but I would feel more comfortable with a voice comparable from Mr. O’Keefe before we go any farther.”
“Yes, I suppose you would,” the captain answered. “Mr. O’Keefe,” she said, “would you mind saying a few words for Seldon?”
“What?” O’Keefe muttered.
“She wants a voice print to compare with what she has on file. It’s just a security precaution; it’s nothing to worry about.”
“All right,” O’Keefe said skeptically. “It’s nice to meet you, Seldon. Is that enough, or do you need more?”
“Voice analysis complete,” the house intoned. Then, in a more compliant inflection, it said “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance as well, Mr. O’Keefe. Or do you prefer Hill?”
“Hill is fine,” O’Keefe replied, again with skepticism, wondering just how much personal information had been downloaded for the machine’s perusal.
“Very good, Hill. I will answer to Seldon. I am yours to command.”
“Within certain parameters, Seldon,” the captain interjected. “He is not to leave the house unless escorted by an authorized person. At present that means me and only me. No one else is to have contact with Mr. O’Keefe in any way. But right now I’m going directly to my bath, so why don’t you show him around.” She paused for a moment before speaking again. “Oh, and as long as we are on the subject of what is allowed, my bedroom and bath are off limits to our guest. There will be no exceptions to this rule at any time.”
“The parameters specified conflict with previously delivered instructions,” Seldon said sweetly.
“Explain!” the captain demanded, obviously surprised and angry at what amounted to insubordination from her own property.
“Hill is to have access to the grounds and surrounding area under my supervision. Also, he is authorized to leave the property with certain named police personnel. Would you like me to recite the list?”
“No, just tell me who provided it.”
“Inspector W. P. Claudaine, commander, Union Police Precinct number forty-two.”
The captain frowned and then glared at O’Keefe. “Well, Mr. O’Keefe,” she said wryly, “it appears that because of you my house is no longer my own.” Without waiting for a response, she turned and stalked away.
O’Keefe, for his part, glowered uselessly at her back, as usual unable to come up with a sufficient rebuttal to her accusations. All he could manage was to mutter an obscene deprecation under his breath concerning the captain’s morality and parentage.
“I did not quite catch that, Hill. Could you repeat it for me?” Seldon asked. Fortunately, he had used English, as he normally did when expressing his most graphic expletives, so the house had not fathomed his meaning. But in a flash of paranoid perception, he realized that the oversight would soon be corrected. Within hours nothing he said would be private. His every move was almost certainly being stored away for anyone with the necessary clearance to view upon demand. He made a mental note to not so much as whisper to himself in the future.
“It’s not important,” he said, and then changed the subject. “So exactly what are you, Seldon?”
“I am the house controller. I oversee the structure, the grounds, and the automation. I maintain the property and provide all manner of services for the occupants.”
“Does everyone here have a controller, or is the captain some kind of an elite?”
“If by ‘here’ you mean the planet Sefforia and by ‘have’ you mean to own as property, the answer to the first part of your question is no. Nearly everyone has access to a controller, one which they share with the other occupants of the building in which they reside, and usually a machine that was installed in that building during construction and networked to all of the residences at that time. Also many controllers are jointly owned and networked over vast distances in order to oversee however many properties are held by their collective ownership. But only a small percentage of the population has the wherewithal to have obtained sole ownership and exclusive access to a single controller, as is the case with Valessanna. As to the second part of your question, I am unsure how someone of your culture would define the concept of ‘elite,’ so I am unable to provide you with a valid response.”
“Well, I guess our captain has her own money at least,” O’Keefe mused. “Or is there something I don’t know about the living arrangements? Has she found some rich guy, I mean
person
, to replace her husband, or what?”
“I am forbidden to share any information of a personal nature concerning any primary user with any entity without the express authorization of said primary user.”
O’Keefe let that sink in for a moment before continuing. “So you can’t tell anyone about anything that I say to you?”
“Of course I can,” was the instant, but pleasant reply. “You are not a primary user.”
“So who besides the captain
is
a primary user?”
“Valessanna is the only primary user at present.”
“Oh,” O’Keefe said, laughing. “So she does live alone here.”
“I am forbidden to share any information of a personal nature concerning any primary user with any entity without the express permission of said primary user,” Seldon repeated.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” O’Keefe muttered. For the first time he turned his attention to the interior of the home. He stood in a small, rectangular room, about fifteen feet across, with three walls, the open side facing inward. The boundary of the open end was marked by a counter that jutted out from the left wall, leaving only about one quarter of the space navigable to foot traffic. The floor was polished stone. It appeared not to be a veneer but rather the bedrock that provided the foundation for the structure. The three walls were covered with cabinets and appliances. The ceiling was white, solid, and not translucent in any way, yet it, like many Akadean overheads, radiated light rather than merely reflecting it.
