He sighed. “Bad idea. We dare not risk them.”
That made her rebound, reconsidering. After all, they could not tolerate meaters in their area; someone’s children would pay the price, if not their own. It would be a significant service to the community to rid it of these most unwelcome predators. “Could there be a way only to seem to risk them? As bait?”
“Bait?” he asked, frowning.
“For a honey pot.”
He nodded, getting it. “Meaters normally don’t slaughter their prey immediately. They drug them and ship them out of district, so that if they’re caught in the act they can’t be tried for murder. Once they’re out, they’re gone. They know how to evade the authorities. Then their prey is done for. So we’d have to see that they don’t get the girls out. Risk knows how to pie a car.”
“Wouldn’t they use a copter?”
“Too obvious in the sky. All copters have their own registered tags that can be instantly tracked. They’ll use a quiet, illicitly tagless car, losing it in traffic.”
“But what about the personal human ID tags?” she asked. “They broadcast continuously.”
“They’ll cut them out and toss them into another passing car as a decoy. No hope there.”
“Cut them out!” She was appalled anew. The tags were deeply embedded in flesh, so as to be difficult to remove without doing serious harm. Naturally the meaters didn’t care about that; they would soon carve the rest of the body anyway.
“We’re dealing with hardened butchers, remember.”
She shuddered, remembering. “So if the meaters took the girls for innocents, and struck, we would rescue them before anything happened.”
Now he reconsidered. “But there’s always risk. The unexpected. We’d be up against experienced rogues.”
“This terrifies me,” Haven said. And realized that was because she had decided to do it.
“And me,” he admitted. “There’s too much danger.”
“I will talk to the girls,” she said. “It must be their choice.”
“Of course,” he agreed faintly. He had suggested the ploy, but obviously was not keen on it. Only their desperate need for legitimate money swayed him, as it did her. “I’ll roust them out.” He was letting her handle it alone, as was her right. She was the matriarch, the etcheko primu, the agreed heir of the house, empowered to make key decisions. She never did it carelessly.
Soon the three girls entered the kitchen. First was Hero’s daughter Tourette, eighteen, and stunningly lovely. Only her syndrome prevented her from being married. That, and her passion for Keeper. Haven would have prevented the liaison, but had suffered a horrible Vision of the possible consequences, that could have wiped out her people, and relented. So it was only a vision, but Tula, who could be psychic, apart from her imaginary friend Allele, confirmed it. So Hero’s daughter was having an affair with Hero’s youngest brother.
That sent Haven into another spot review. The burgeoning population of the world had threatened to destroy it. Poverty and warfare were leading to starvation, yet the increase continued, worsening the situation. Something had to be done. The solution had been double: instead of raising birds, mammals and fish for meat, the world had shifted to harvesting insects. She remembered a figure from her days of school: it had taken almost nine hundred gallons of water to produce a third of a pound of beef for one person’s meal. In contrast, a cup of water could do for a quarter pound of crickets. Caterpillars, ants, termites, roaches, flies, maggots—all were relatively efficient sources of protein and other essential nutrients. They were easy to raise and harvest, and wild ones did just as well. It had required some cultural adjustment in some parts of the world, notably North America, but in a generation what had been sickening became practical and tasty. Children loved bugfoo.
The other breakthrough related to primitive plants and fungus. Algae had been developed to produce raw food substance, that could be flavored and formed to emulate other foods, including meat. It was twenty times as efficient to eat grains directly, in the form of bread, cereal, pasta, and similar, as to feed it to animals for their meat. The alga was more efficient yet. So it became the ultimate affordable food, alleviating the word’s hunger at one stroke. It was laced with antibiotics, anti-wild fungus, antivirus and other toxin nullifiers, and it also strenuously enhanced the immune system. Immunity on steroids, it was said, though steroids were not used. Thus a number of enduring plagues had been abated, including malaria, venereal diseases, the common cold, influenza, hepatitis, measles, mumps, tuberculosis, herpes, diseases like chicken pox, rabies, and even AIDS. And, perhaps most significantly, cancer, much of which was triggered by viruses. It was supremely healthy food.
But it had two liabilities: enhanced immune systems aggravated immune diseases like (here she mentally recited yet another school lesson) type-1 diabetes, Crohn’s disease, glomerulonephritis (kidney disease), Guillain-Barré syndrome, juvenile arthritis, lupus, Multiple Sclerosis, psoriasis, Rheumatic fever, and ulcerative colitis. Those people had to have special counteractive medication.
It was also contraceptive. Those who ate it did not breed. Was that effect coincidental? The manufacturers claimed it was, a side effect of the enhanced immune response that made a woman’s body reject foreign material like sperm, but most folk seriously doubted it. Yet it was quietly solving the problem of overpopulation. The birthrate had plunged, and only a few were able to get off the algae and generate children. There were contests with prizes of a month’s “natural” food, so that people could become temporarily fertile again. So babies were still being born, but only desperately wanted ones.
The Family’s livelihood related to this. They farmed the old-fashioned way, on the slopes and valleys, with natural sunlight and rainfall on natural soil, growing assorted grains with only limited fertilizer. Their goats grazed natural pastures, producing natural milk. Their hens produced natural eggs. There was an enduring market, because these were the foods that promoted human fertility. But all prices were controlled to prevent gouging, so while the farm normally did well, they were not rich. They had no truck with the black market as a moral issue and as a practical one: the authorities were watching. And they ate fungfoo, because their natural food was too important as a business to waste on themselves.
The sterility of fungfoo had another effect: since breeding was no longer the point of a social gender connection, and there was no danger of venereal disease, relationships had liberalized. Closely related people could have affairs if they chose, and age had ceased to be a barrier, so long as the sex was knowledgeable and consensual, and there were those who did have such affairs. Adultery was severely condemned among the Basques, but this was not that. Essentially, any breasted girl could indulge with any single man she chose, provided the choice truly was free. It was phenomenally liberating, and girls who might have been repressed formerly now evinced sexual urges parallel to those of men. Sex was power, youth was potent, and many an attractive young woman was eager to exploit it. Among them Tourette, with her uncle Keeper, whom she had long since wrapped around her little finger. Haven had had to approve it, as head of the family, and so no one else questioned it. By contemporary standards, it was acceptable, if not encouraged. Basques did not take readily to strangers, which made wider Family relations even more appealing.
Then came Rebel’s adopted daughter Tula, fifteen, no wallflower herself. She had been taken hostage by a rival political faction, and threatened with rape and murder, until the Family had struck back with the aid of police and rescued her. And her invisible friend Allele, Tula insisted. The experience, while horrifying, had evidently impressed upon Tula the power her appearance could wield. She took after Rebel in that respect, and was already impressing boys and some who were more than boys.
And Fia, also fifteen, tacitly adopted by the Family when her own family was wiped out. She was like a sister to the others, but was unrelated. She was shapely in a lean athletic manner, but not pretty of face. That didn?
??t matter to Risk, who had made his intention to marry her clear. They were indeed in love, and Haven had to pretend to ignore the fact that they now shared a bed. Risk could certainly have done worse.
Three schoolgirls, though soon Tourette would end that and assume the role of an adult woman. Would she marry Keeper? It was distinctly possible. Haven had spent her life as part of the new order, but her conservative heritage carried over, and she did have a private problem with the extent of contemporary sexual freedom. Yet above all else, she wanted the girls to be happy, and the Family united. This was part of the price of that.
“Girls,” Haven said, “we have a problem. You may be able to help, if you choose to.”
“Of course we volunteer,” Tourette said immediately.
Haven silenced her with a raised hand. “Hear me out first. There is danger.” Then she acquainted them with the situation, and their proposed honey trap. “The men will be watching via your broadcasting tags,” she concluded. “So we should be able to accomplish it. But it is dangerous, and you need to consider carefully before volunteering. We’ll try to ensure your safety, but there can never be a perfect guarantee.”
“You let me be with Keeper,” Tourette said. “Now I can repay you. I volunteer.”
There was a certain logic there, and the girl knew what she was doing. “I thank you, Tour.”
“You let me be with Risk,” Fia said. “I volunteer too.”
Logic there too, though Haven had not thought of it as any potential quid pro quo. “Thank you, Fia.”
“And I will be with Craft,” Tula said. “I volunteer. Allele doesn’t mind.”
Haven tried to stop her jaw from dropping. Her brother Craft was twenty years older than Tula. He had been the one to actually rescue her, in the Family effort, but Haven hadn’t thought that had that much of an effect on her. Evidently she had been mistaken. True, they were unrelated by blood. Still, Tula was legally Family. Yet if she had set her cap for Craft, he was lost. She was, taken as a whole, some winsome girl, eerily prescient, with subtle nerves of steel.
“Fair is fair,” Tourette said. “They’re in love.”
As if a fifteen-year-old really knew what love was. As if Craft’s suppressed interest wasn’t in Hero’s wife Crenelle. Yet there was potential mischief there too. It might indeed be better to let him have the girl. Better the marginal legitimate interest, than the illegitimate one. Craft would never pine for Crenelle as long as Tula was in his bed.
“And well matched,” Fia said. “She always liked him. Allele approves.”
“You’re in on this!” Haven exclaimed to them both. “You set it up!”
“We don’t want them to have to sneak any more,” Tourette said. Any more? Haven had thought she was abreast of Family concerns. Evidently she has missed one. Maybe there had been hints, but she hadn’t wanted to see it.
“Uncle Craft didn’t want to upset you,” Tourette said innocently.
Haven looked at Tula. “You are volunteering with the understanding that I will let you be with Craft.”
Tula had the grace to blush affirmatively.
“And what of Allele, if you do that? Who will she have as her companion?”
“Sinister,” she answered without hesitation. “He died saving her.”
Haven was blank. “Who?”
“Craft’s son with Crenelle. He’s sixteen. Just right for Allele, and he understands her perfectly.”
This was supremely curious. Allele was Crenelle’s daughter by Keeper, and Sinister was her son by Craft? Just as if Crenelle hadn’t always been married to Hero.
Then Haven had a revelation. “Alternate universes!” she exclaimed.
“Of course,” Tula agreed. “I can see them.”
And that suddenly made sense of much of Tula’s mystery. She was attuned to what might have been, as well as to what really was. “But they’re half-siblings.”
“Yes,” Tula agreed as if this were hardly relevant as an objection. “They are Family.”
Haven threw up her hands, figuratively and literally. Tula and Craft would do what they would do, regardless. It was better to have it accepted. “Then so be it.”
All three girls flocked to her, hugging her in thanks. Then they were gone, surely to tell Craft, and Tula would remain with him this night, no longer sneaking. Maybe it was all for the best.
They had it set up in detail by morning. The girls caught the electric helicopter school bus as usual. But when they got there, they sneaked out to answer an ad to taste test a new dessert made from fungus. The meaters’ ad.
Meanwhile Hero, Craft, and Risk drove the car along the roundabout mountain roads to the town of Soule. They would park it inconspicuously and close in on the meaters’ location, taking care to neutralize any spy beams that might spot them. Craft knew how to do that, of course.
Haven watched on the closed-circuit holo throughout. Tula’s unit generated the picture via converging fields, showing what was in sight from a point just above her head. Fia’s unit picked up the sound. Tourette’s broadcast the two signals on a tight beam to Haven’s receiver. It was a sophisticated nonstandard setup Craft had engineered that was quite likely to evade detection by the meaters.
The town was a miniature edition of a city, with its main population concentrated in multistory residential complexes, the limited manufacturing and services facilities close by, to reduce necessary transport. Covered walkways at several levels connected the buildings. Walking was encouraged; it was healthy and it saved energy.
The girls walked toward the address, which was a rented display shop on an upper floor near a car delivery access, and stopped outside, giggling conspiratorially. They even paused to do an impromptu little dance on the crowded street. Every Basque danced; it was in their blood, as were the lovely ancient folk songs and legends. They were being carefree girls, doing their own slightly naughty thing. One of the traditions that had faded in the liberalization of recent decades was the restriction against women participating in the Pastorales, the formal traditional dances. They even did the Sword Dance, concluding with the swords formed into an interwoven hexagon. The days of men dressing for female roles were gone. Now the genders could intermingle on stage as well as privately.
Others on the street smiled, their bodies faintly echoing the motions. What could be more delightful than young pretty girls being themselves? Basques were traditionally happy folk, forever joking and laughing despite being primitive. Haven counted on the meaters misjudging them as too ignorant to be anything other than easy prey.
There was a fair number of spectators, because off the farm, out of the wilderness preserve, the reality of the world was that it was thickly populated. The birthrate reduction policy had been in place only a generation, and there were still some eight billion people, most of whom were living longer than had been the case in past ages. In time the excess death rate would hasten depopulation, and when it got down to a single billion, arrangements would be made to increase the birthrate. Probably not in Haven’s lifetime, though. Meanwhile every street was crowded, and privacy was largely limited to natural functions and small shuttered rooms at home. People were used to it, and took pains to get along. Tolerance helped.
“Let’s do it,” Tourette said, as if struck by a sudden wicked notion. They entered the shop.
Haven knew that the meaters were already verifying their identities via the tag broadcasts. No problem there: the three were exactly what they seemed to be, schoolgirls skipping school. Had they been anything else, such as undercover police, the meaters would have played it straight, giving them samples to taste and judge, thanking them for their participation, and letting them go. The meaters were not fools; they were careful. That was why they were so hard to catch.
“Your ad,” Tourette said brightly in Euro. She wore a plain school dress that made her look two years younger but could not conceal her beauty. Not that it mattered; her tag established her age. “Dessert?”
The meater was
a dapper-looking man with a badge indicating he was a specialty cook. “It’s a new line of alga, grown in severely polluted waste water. Very efficient, especially considering that other strains of alga died. We are very proud of it. We think the taste is perfect. It has a special quality. But we want to verify that young citizens will like it.” He was circumspect, but his pupils dilated as he surveyed Tourette. He was noticing.
“We do like desserts,” Tula said. “But we’ve tried them all. Fungfoo gets dull. We’re more adventurous.”
The meater’s eyes flicked to her. She had loosened her blouse to show a bit more flesh than would have been encouraged at school. She was an innocently flirtatious maiden. “This is not dull,” he reassured her.
“Goody,” Fia said. She was the plain girl of the trio, but she did have decent meat on her bones.
Haven saw the meater’s masked assessment. These girls thought there was safety in numbers. That nothing bad could happen to them as long as they stayed together. They were naïve fools. Their tender flesh would soon fetch a good price on the underground meat market. But he covered it by seating them at a table and presenting them with three elegant desserts. “Taste as much as you want,” he said encouragingly. “And give us your honest opinion. Will this do for a high-class restaurant?”
The three girls fell to, eagerly eating the desserts. And in seconds all three slumped forward, unconscious. Haven was surprised. She had known they would be drugged, but thought it would take minutes to take effect, so that their team could close in before the process was complete. Still, this would do. “Hero,” she said, experiencing a small thrill of victory along with the danger. “They have struck.” Because the meaters had to be caught in the act, to nail the bounty. Now they could be caught and turned in, dead or alive.