Yuen-Mong's Revenge (25 page)

     
At the same instant, she sensed that the dark-skinned one was going
to pull a weapon. With a slight turn of her body, she sent her last stone
on its way. He yelled out and dropped the weapon. Raising both hands to
his face, he sank to his knees, moaning: "I can’t see."

 
     
With a few quick leaps she covered the ground between them and
picked up the gun, recognizing it as a pistol. Before the blonde guy had
time to pull his fully, she aimed it at him and ordered: "Put that gun
down on the ground, slowly."

 
     
He did.

     
"Now, take your friend over there to the other two."

 
     
When he hesitated, she started pulling the trigger. He yelled "no,
don’t shoot," and, lifting the guy under one shoulder, dragged him to
where the other two were lying. The man was still moaning softly: "I
can’t see."

 
     
She picked up the second pistol and the stone that had hit the dark-skinned one between the eyes, and followed behind them. "Sit," she
ordered.

     
Both sank down. The blonde guy looked at her with a sullen expression.

     
"You question him, Atun," she said on a low tone. He had just
removed the guns sticking out from the top of the trousers of the two on
the ground, his face a mirror of surprised relief and apprehension. Both
were bleeding from a deep cut just above their brows.

     
"What did you want from us?" she heard Atun’s question, as she
retrieved the other two stones.

     
"Nothing, we were just walking along when this lady attacked us."

 
     
A lie!
She took a quick step closer and pointed the gun at his groin.
"Don’t take me for a fool. The truth or
I will
maim you."

 
     
His eyes opened wide in fear. "You wouldn’t!" he cried.

     
"Then don’t lie. I will know it." Her tone of voice left no doubt.

     
"Believe her; she’s not kidding," said Atun. "What did you want from
us?"

 
     
"We were to take you to this guy."

 
     
"What guy?"

 
     
"A guy at the space port who wants to talk to you."

 
     
Immediately, the traffic controller’s face appeared in her mind.
"What’s his name?" she asked.

     
"I don’t know; I didn’t see him." The answer felt truthful.

     
"Why did he want to see us?" questioned Atun.

     
"I don’t know." He cast a quick glance at her. "Lady, I’m telling the
truth. He might know." He pointed to the guy sitting next to him, who
was still covering his face with his hands, moaning intermittently "I can’t
see."

 
     
She nudged him. "Answer," she said.

     
He only moaned: "I can’t see, I can’t see."

 
     
Turning to Atun, she whispered: "We should get away from here,
before anybody comes. I don’t want to be held up on Old Earth. Let’s
leave; we won’t learn much more."

 
     
He nodded. "Did you kill them?" He pointed to the two on the ground.

     
"Not likely. They will wake soon." She turned back to the blonde guy.
"If you care to live, I suggest that you disappear for a few days."

 
     
She took Atun’s hand, and they quickly walked down the road.

     
"Yuen-mong," he started tentatively.

     
"Yes, Atun."

 
     
"Has there ever been a situation in your life that you couldn’t
handle?"

 
     
"Yes, but usually only once. The second time I would be prepared or
able to avoid it."

 
     
"But what made you take your sling weapon along?"

 
     
"Survival instinct. Old habits are hard to break." She briefly glanced
back up the street. The blonde guy had vanished. Two of the other three
were sitting.

     
"Who do you think is the guy at the space port?" she asked. "The
traffic controller? I felt uneasy about him at first sight."

 
     
"Possible."

 
     
"He might be after our gold."

 
     
"He might even aim bigger. If he makes us disappear, he could claim
salvage rights on the ship. Nobody knows yet that we’ve recovered it."

 
     
"So he wanted us killed?"

 
     
"Not immediately. He needed us to give him the access code to the
ship. Without that he can’t claim it."

 
     
"But is there now not a record that we brought it in?"

 
     
"As the traffic controller he can easily falsify the record, take us into
space, dump us there, and then return, claiming to have found the ship."
He squeezed her hand. "If they had succeeded, we would have been in
deep trouble… Yuen-mong, thank you."

 
     
"But they didn’t," she responded with a smile.

     
At the intersection, they spotted the cab that had brought them to the
caterer and asked the driver to take them back to the hotel, where they
immediately checked out. They hired another taxi to go to the space port.
The ship’s security system alerted them that two attempts had been made
the night before to enter it without providing the correct access code.
There were even tampering marks at the lock, confirming their suspicion.
They agreed that it would be wiser to leave Old Earth the following day,
immediately after having received their food supplies. They would have
to explore the delights of Old Earth another time.

* * *
 

When Atun notified the traffic controller, the latter wanted to know the
reason for the hurry and suggested that they should do some sightseeing
in the Southern Alps, that this was the best time of the year for that.

     
During the night, the alarm was triggered again. When they turned on
the outside lights, they saw several people scamper away into the
shadows.

     
As promised, the food truck arrived at nine in the morning. While
Atun helped the delivery man store the goods, she stood at the door, her
hands resting on the two guns tucked into the top of her pants, clearly
advertising her intentions to the half-dozen guys standing around, supposedly to supervise their departure. Whoever had tried to take them
yesterday probably already knew that they had failed miserably and was
being more cautious. Although Atun thought that she was going too far,
she was not willing to take any chances.

11

Arriving on Andromatis, they were ordered into a prescribed orbit at an
elevation of 280 kilometers to await their turn to land at the congested
Soro Space Port for private ships near the capital city of Androma. Their
ID was again challenged and they were asked to file a detailed recovery
report with OIS, the Office of Intergalactic Search, within one standard
day after landing. While they were waiting, they downloaded the latest
visitors’ information about the city.

     
Androma consisted of three separate entities. The Sanctum, situated
at the base of Mount Olympus on the shores of Lake Carda, with access
for visitors by special invitation only. The BD, for business district,
which contained all generally accessible public shopping areas, entertainment facilities and amusement parks, as well as visitor accommodations;
and the ICs, for industrial conglomerates, housing estates for the factory
population of the big industrial corporations. They could be visited by
daily scheduled guided tours.

     
Atun explained that the Sanctum was the exclusive residential and
entertainment area for Foundation members who lived on Andromatis
and was protected by a guarded perimeter fence. Entry was by one of the
four gates, one of which was reserved for domestic staff, service
personnel, and delivery vehicles. Unauthorized entry resulted in
immediate arrest. The BD not only housed the corporate offices, but was
also the residential area of all middle management staff and the upper
echelons of office employees, while all other employees working in the
BD — the lower levels of office staff, service and maintenance personnel, and of sales staff lived in corresponding ICs.

     
"What is the reason for this segregation?" she asked.

     
"Andromatis has a rather rigid social class system, aimed at keeping
people of similar status and profession or work within their own social
class, discouraging mixing between classes, except for work, obviously.
My guess is that the restricted entry into the Sanctum is also in part for
protection, since two hundred years ago there were serious riots that
resulted in thousands of lower class people being killed."

 
     
"But none of the Foundation members."

 
     
"I think only a few that got caught at the wrong place."

 
     
"Where do you fit in?"

 
     
"There’s no such segregation on Palo."

 
     
"I mean, where would you fit in here?"

 
     
"BD class."

 
     
She winked at him and said: "I will get you upgraded."

 
     
He gave her an amused smile. "You first have to get in yourself, but
then I’ve learned not to view anything beyond your reach."

* * *
 

 After circling the planet three times in the space of six hours, they finally
set down at Soro. The landing fee more than halved Atun’s credit
balance. They packed a change of clothing, including her mother’s
festive traditional Chinese dress, the four craw skin bags of gold nuggets,
and the cube with her father’s research files hidden among video clips —
no traceable evidence of it remained on the ship’s AI unit — and were on
the first high-speed shuttle train to Androma.

     
From the moment Yuen-mong stepped out of Vishnu, she was intensely aware of the open, slighting looks and deprecating mind emanations directed at her.
These people really have a problem,
she mused
to herself. She felt that Atun had noticed it too, but he smiled at her and
just said: "Yuen-mong, I love you."

 
     
She made a deliberate effort to block out the negative vibes and in
turn observed the people. Their stiff, closed-up expressions were in stark
contrast to the generally friendly open faces on Old Earth. The behavior
of OE people suddenly seemed pleasingly laid-back and unrushed. She
was also struck by the even more heavily painted faces. Even males wore
make-up and had plucked eyebrows. It seemed impossible that nature
would have allowed some of the eye colors she saw. She presumed that
they had done something to achieve that. The other aspect that struck her
was the relative uniformity of faces. She first wondered if this was a
result of inbreeding, but then remembered Atun’s remark on the widespread use of cosmetic surgery. Was this also the explanation for the
unnatural rigidity in many faces? She would need to check this out.

     
If their outmoded clothing stuck out on Old Earth, it did so even more
here. Even the materials used seemed to be of a different texture. She
decided that it might be a good idea to get some new clothes. It would
remove at least that unwanted focus of attention.

     
Androma had none of the run-down character they had seen on Old
Earth. Everything impressed by its spotless newness. It looked ordered
and formal, clean, bordering on the sterile, even the industrial areas the
shuttle skirted past. She was staggered by the size of the city, the expanse
of clean factories with their own nearby completely serviced housing
estates set in green spaces, trees, and playgrounds. The uniform dress of
most people within a given IC, different from IC to IC, intrigued her.
A
highly regimented world,
she mused, not to her liking.