The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (9 page)

‘Only one pipe to a Dispenser?’

‘Yes. The paste has basic calories and minimum daily requirements of nutrients. The machine adds colours, textures, and sometimes flavours. There are supposed to be some that can change the temperature too, but I’ve never seen one of those.’

Larry’s memory crept back to pre-Suspension experience to recall what hot soup and icy drinks were.

They assaulted a queue and fled into a lighting conduit with gels, pastes, and crumbling bricks. Har leaned against a warm cone-shaped housing and ate.

‘This is a ceiling light for Embryo,’ he said, gesturing towards the cone. ‘You can watch Citizens grow in bottles if you just lift out one of those bolts over there. Here, let me show you. See that dark one in the end jar? A hairy fellow. They call that kind a simian. He will be discarded. Those jars with broken covers let in too much light. That can cause big eyes – a gargoyle like me.’

‘Why?’

‘Like a toad or a frog that embryonates in the light – optic buds get over stimulated and hypertrophy.’

‘Oh.’

Two black faces peered through a sooty grating into the sewer. Sluggish fluids moved heaps of trash.

‘Where does that go?’ asked the hemihuman.

‘Don’t know,’ said the quiet hulk, Big Har. ‘Probably a digester or something. These cities are full of organs that can swallow up streams that size.’

‘I wish it went to the sea,’ moaned Larry. ‘A tropical sea, far from here, where bananas and coconuts ripen on the tree.’

‘What’s a tree?’

‘A green thing that grows up into the sky. It has food right on it. And you can pick it without a CQB.’

Big Har just shook his head. ‘Food comes from Dispensers – from machines.

Trees do not exist – except in your dreams.’

‘Trees did exist once,’ said Larry. ‘I can remember them clearly: tall, with coarse woody bark and soft, slick leaves. Many things grew on trees.’

Big Har stopped shaking his head. Larry’s word pictures built a dream in the giant’s head – colours, flavours, textures, scents, and freedom.

‘Where were these trees – a long time ago?’

‘Outside,’ said Larry.

‘Are they still there?’

‘Maybe. I think so. Yes! I’m certain they are.’

‘Could you take me there?’ asked the giant.

‘I think it would be the other way around. Lift me up, and we’ll see what is Outside.’

Big Har put the hemihuman on his shoulder and they started climbing up through the City. The next day they reached an access hatch above the laminar flow generators.

‘We must be near the top. There is hardly any traffic on the Spiral Walkway,’ said Larry.

Big Har grunted.

‘If I am right, there should be some sort of door to the Outside up here. Let’s stay in Tweenwalls until we’ve circled the City. I don’t want to attract Security.’ Larry tried to decipher the maze of pipes: water, air, sewage, and vital Dispenser lines.

‘I don’t have any idea how to get out from Tweenwalls. Let’s just walk up the Spiral. That must go somewhere.’

The black giant stepped out into the light of the corridor, sprinkling soot and grime. The hemihuman rode his shoulder, giving him a grotesque, two-headed appearance. Nebishes scattered and fainted.

‘I think we’d better hurry,’ said Larry. ‘We’ve caused quite a disturbance. It looks like we’re still a long way from the top – two more turns of the Spiral.’

The panic-stricken crowd ahead of them melted into crawl-ways. All had been standard Citizens – fifty inches of poor protoplasm, soft, white, lethargic. Har’s head towered above the trembling Nebishes. Larry rode even higher – brushing the ceiling at ninety inches. Cobwebs and soot caked them, hiding Larry’s identity as a separate individual.

The City’s Watcher circuits located the disturbance and took readings. A screen activated in Security. The Squad Leader studied the fuzzy black image.

‘What is it?’

‘An intruder on the Spiral,’ said Watcher.

‘Looks more like a compound monster – two heads, four arms, and two legs. Has there been any loss of personnel or material?’

‘No—’

‘Then notify Bio. I’m certain they’d be interested. Security isn’t.’

‘But—’

The Squad Leader stretched out on his cot, waving the Watcher to silence. ‘Try Bio,’ he repeated. ‘All my men are out on an important assignment – confiscating Garden seedlings at Synthe. Some careless Embryoteck found a mutation with perfect flowers: ovule-loaded pistils and pollen-producing stamens. You know how dangerous they could be . . . plants capable of living outside the Hive and producing food . . . Let us tend to our important work, “Security”. Call Bio about your monster.’

Watcher switched channels.

Apprentice Wandee looked up from her scope – soft, wide, blue eyes. She climbed over a clutter of dusty containers and tapped the buzzing screen.

‘Yes? Bio here!’

Watcher composed himself to sell the disturbance to another department. ‘I have an interesting specimen for you.’

Wandee nodded and went to her collection table. ‘How big?’ She sorted through nets and containers.

Watcher winced as the readings danced along the screen. He wished that there were some way to minimize the problem until it was out of his hands. ‘COMPOUND MONSTER, HUMAN, NINETY INCHES, THREE HUNDRED POUNDS.’

Wandee put down the little half-pint container and turned back to her screen. Multiple stills were displayed – front, side, and rear views. A Citizen was included for scale. The thermogram was a mottled 92- to 99- degree geographic pattern that bore little relationship to segmental anatomy. ‘Too much dust,’ she commented. Close-ups of the two heads were matched for bone structure. ‘No doubt about it,’ she said with a smile. ‘Monozygotic twins – fused into a compound monster.’

Watcher relaxed. ‘I leave it in your capable hands . . .’

‘Certainly,’ she sputtered. The screen froze with the City coordinates. The last digits changed slowly, marking the monster’s migration up the Spiral. ‘For a specimen this size I’ll need my slumbergun, nets, and – let’s see – about six assistants.’ She assembled the darts, pouring the aromatic sedative into the spring syringe. ‘I wonder if it has a common circulatory system. If there are just a few small venous communications it might need two shots. I’d better take an extra set of small doses, just in case.’ She hit the intercom for six assistants. They stalked up-Spiral.

‘Unauthorized,’ said the door.

‘Try that one over there,’ said Larry.

Big Har shuffled around the platform at the top of the Spiral. One door had opened, not to the outside, but into a dark garage where only machine eyes can see. The rasping and grating sounds frightened the two fugitives away. They were searching for a Garden of Eden, not a dark recess where mastication might reduce them to pulp.

‘I guess we’re going to have to break down one of these . . . Oh-oh! Here comes a group of Citizens who don’t seem afraid of us.’

Big Har turned to see Wandee leading her Bio assistants up-Spiral. Their smocks were identical, and they walked in a box-type formation carrying heavy coils of netting. Wandee fondled a small efficient dart gun.

Har backed around the platform. Wandee’s assistants divided the nets, forming two tangle-foot fences that moved around the Spiral in opposite directions, sandwiching the fugitives. Larry studied the slack mesh, designed to trap arms and legs long enough for a clear shot. Wandee stayed behind the netting with her sights on the pair. Har retreated into a doorway, staring at the gun muzzle. He whimpered.

The dart struck the giant in the centre of the chest, clunking against the sternum. Larry’s hand went for the fins. ‘Easy, big fellow.’ He jerked on the projectile. It came away with a tag of muscle in the barbs. Big Har’s knees sagged. Larry flipped the dart towards the Nebish holding the centre of the netting. Fins spun. It stuck in the wide belly and the fence fell. Big Har toppled over. Wandee smiled and started to relax.

Larry hit the floor on flat, calloused palms – running and screaming. The detachment of the hemihuman was completely unexpected; the Bio Squad faltered. Larry ran across the comatose Nebish at the fence and hit Wandee as hard as he could. She was a frail, young, unpolarized female – new on the job. Larry concentrated on the gun, punching and biting her arm. Only after he had the weapon did he realize how soft she was. She stumbled away, wide-eyed, holding her right hand. He had the rusty taste of blood on his front teeth.

Screaming and flourishing the pistol, Larry drove the Squad away. He returned to the giant. ‘Get up, Har. Get up! You can’t sleep here. The Nebish at the fence died. Security will be here soon.’

Har slouched into a dark air vent and dozed. Larry sealed him in with an opaque filter. Then he obscured their tracks by dragging the sooty netting around the platform to the only door that opened on command. Mechanical teeth gnashed in the darkness inside.

Larry tossed in a corner of the net. The rest of the mesh followed in jerky movements that muffled the unseen teeth. Fibres snapped and popped. The floor shuddered. The little hemihuman lifted himself through a two-by-two lighting panel and climbed off hand-over-hand. He followed the dusty struts and cables around the platform until he could hear the giant’s regular breathing. Footsteps announced the arrival of Security.

‘Someone has fouled the power take-off,’ said a voice. ‘Put in a call for a Tinker.’

Big Har blinked at the crack in the air filter. He recognized the sounds of Larry’s hands and torso fidgeting in the grit. ‘Maybe there is no Outside,’ he whispered.

‘There is something up there,’ mumbled Larry, ‘or they wouldn’t try so hard to stop us from going.’

‘There may be something at the edge of the City, but it is no paradise with trees. The Tweenwallers speak of the sewers below and the fire above.’

‘You know someone who escaped the City?’ asked Larry excitedly.

‘No. Just stories. Bad stories. They say that there is a fire up there that peels your skin and blinds you. And, if you go deep enough there are endless swamps – dark and wet, filled with ratty meat-eaters and insects that crawl inside you. I have never wanted to find one of these places, so I stay in the City.’

Larry slumped into the dust. His flanks ached where the germs attached his scanty kidney tissue. Dirt fouled his body openings. A cripple didn’t live long as a Tweenwaller.

‘Perhaps I should have taken that starship,’ he said.

Big Har listened to Larry’s ramblings – a Dever’s Ark to the Procyon system with an Implant of Earth biota. Har’s concept of planet Earth was limited by the walls of the Hive. He had no idea what a starship or a sun could be. But he nodded in agreement on one point. Most any place would be an improvement over Tweenwalls!

Deep in the Hive a personal Dispenser called out, ‘Wake up. Wake up. Enjoy! Enjoy!’

Fat, old Drum, a forty-eight-inch balding Nebish, sat up in his cot and glanced eagerly around his cubicle. Pleasures of retirement awaited him after two gruelling years in the musician’s caste. He was younger than most retirees – aged nineteen – and wealthy, for he had saved enough calories-and-quarters base – CQB – for this private six-foot cubicle and a flavour with every meal. He was vigorous also – possessed of one clear lens and eight good teeth. Some eleven more years remained on his life span, maybe more.

‘Welcome to the awake state, suave Citizen,’ chortled Dispenser. ‘Today’s distribution is well above calorie-basic. The screen scene looks promising. Select two flavours and refresh while your gourmet meal is prepared. Two glorious flavours on this glorious day!’

‘Two flavours?’ mumbled Drum hesitantly. ‘Pink and green?’

‘Those are flavour categories,’ reminded Dispenser. ‘Which pink? Which green?’

Frugal Citizens were often unsophisticated in matters of luxuries. Drum had invested a large part of his cash flow in retirement credits. He now had qualms about adjusting his consuming habits upwards.

‘I’ll start with pink-one and green-one. Work my way down the menu – try them all,’ he said, feigning excitement.

When he stepped from the refresher he found seven packets in the edible chute – soft, bag-like casings of extruded paste – five grey, one pink, and one green.

‘Savour the flavour,’ said Dispenser.

Humming a cheerful tune, Drum took his utensils from the cupboard and ceremoniously arranged the Hive’s pseudoconsommé, pseudosoufflé, and pseudoparfait: liquids, pastes, and puddings. All stable foodstuffs. No perishables. Dispenser selected a pulsing geometric visual with sonic to soothe subcortical neurons during the meal. Drum tried a generous bite of the green paste and experienced a tart shock – more of a colour than a flavour – which faded quickly into the usual dull pap. He frowned, appetite jaded. Where were the pleasures of retirement?

Dispenser detected his rising irritation level and changed channels. Sonics flexed and plucked at his organ of Corti, but Drum’s bioelectricals continued to show happiness: negative.

‘You must have residual job fatigue,’ rationalized Dispenser. Lights dimmed. ‘A nap will invigorate you. Lie down, please.’ Audio switched to woodwinds and strings. Drum’s cot vibrated.

Hear the bacon frying,

Cracking in the heat.

Just smell those aromas,

Good enough to eat.

Drum awoke to choking synthesmoke and the clang, clang, clang of the ranchwagon triangle. View-screen carried the old historical still of rolling green hills dotted with squarish blobs of fauna, simple wooden artifacts – hut, fence, and tools – under a bright blue sky. He sat up, relaxed and smiling. This new odour did excite. Olfactory luxuries were quite rare. He rushed to the chute but found only three soft grey tube sandwiches. He frowned.

‘One is laced with bacon,’ offered Dispenser.

Drum forced a grin as he picked it up – bland paste with a rare crunchy particle. Flavour – just burned grease, hardly a delicacy. Shrugging, he packed the other sticks into his kit.

‘Where do you wish to go?’

‘Visit Grandmaster Ode, push wood, try out my Accelerated Dragon Defence again.’

‘Sorry to discourage you,’ said Dispenser, ‘but commuter density is three point two on the Spiral and four point one on the tubeways. Rush hour. It is advisable to wait until “between shifts” for your Rec travel.’