The Companions

  “Jewel, I saw your name go blue at Roll Call, so I’ve been looking for you. I got a message you were trying to reach me.” She smiled and nodded at Mag. “Hello, Margaret, how are you?”

  We moved out of the aisle, as Myra said, “I was so surprised to get your link message about Paul’s going to Moss day after tomorrow. You’ve decided to go with him?”

  I said carefully, “It looks like it, yes.”

  “You could do me a tremendous favor. Would you have a little time tomorrow to get up to Hargess? I need to talk to you privately before you go.”

  “What is it…news of…?”

  “No. No news of Witt. Are you still…? I can see you are. Oh, I wish…I wish you didn’t think about it anymore.”

  “That’s not likely, Myra,” I said firmly, wishing fervently it were!

  Myra patted my hand. “Let’s not try to talk here. Come tomorrow, for lunch? Margaret, it was good to see you, you’re looking well…” and she was away after the scattered remnants of the crowd.

  Even though I liked Myra, being reminded of Witt always angered as much as saddened me, and by the time Margaret and I had reached the flit, I had worked myself into a fume. The commotion at the nearby pod stop did nothing to soothe me. There, from a hundred handheld signs, Evolun Moore’s face scowled and his finger jabbed accusingly at all of us while his followers chanted his slogans:

  “PEOPLE NOT PUPPIES!”

  “EARTH FOR SPEAKING PEOPLE.”

  “BAN THE BEAST LOVERS!”

  “IN GOD’S IMAGE: HUMANITY FIRST AND ONLY! IGGY-HUFFO! IGGY-HUFFO!”

  It took some time to get through the departing arkists to Margaret’s flit, where she stowed the cat carrier and told me she would take me home. We had already said good-bye, and I didn’t think I could bear doing it again. I glanced toward the pod stop, now almost free of protesters as our service had been the last one of the day. “It’s a long way out of your way, Mag, and there’s a pod waiting. I’ll take that.” I hugged her. “Please, let me hear from you.”

  Margaret said, “Garr’ugh 290. Care of the PPI installation. And you let me hear from you, too. Through headquarters.”

  I turned away, hiding my face. I would never know where Margaret was. Only the ship that took her to her cat-haven would know precisely where it was going, and it would go there on autopilot in response to coded orders that no human pilot ever saw.

  “Hug the dogs for me,” Margaret called, as I walked away toward the tag end of the crowd. I waved without turning. It wasn’t a smart thing for Margaret to have said, not that loudly, at any rate, but then Margaret hadn’t been in the daily thick of it as I had. We arkers had learned, sadly, the need for security. Recently a private aviary in US North had been invaded by terrorists who had killed the last wood ducks and sandhill cranes alive on Earth. That incident had followed hard on an invasion of the panda sanctuary in China, where the ten remaining animals had been first slowly vivisected then slaughtered, the whole process sight-and-sound recorded for public viewing.

  The message had been clear. If arkists didn’t want their beasts hideously tortured, they should do away with them. Though cruelty and trespass were still crimes, there had been no arrests in either case, and the news was full of masked terrorists stating their determination to wipe out all animal life on Earth and on any planet where humans lived or planned to live.

  Only a few people were left at the temple pod stop, mostly cadre members who were taking a few extra minutes to don robes and veils for their trip into the urb. I located an eastbound pod and pulled my own veil from my pocket as I boarded among a scatter of others. I keyed in my tower stop absentmindedly and sat down near the door.

  As the pod moved away, a voice came from behind me, “So you’re a dog lover.” A man’s voice, hesitant but angry.

  I caught my breath, held it, let it out slowly as I drew my veil over my head. “Not particularly.” I took a moment to arrange my veil. “I’ve got an old friend who likes cats. Known her since we were kids.”

  Silence answered me. I looked at my wrist-link, holding it high enough that the lens mirrored the space behind me. His face was bare. Sulky-looking, with a wispy black beard and shifty eyes. Beard meant down-dweller. He was too far back to reach me without getting up, and I was closer to the door. I read the pod number from above the door and slid my hand into my pocket, gripping the vial of STOP that I had finally consented to carry. His move.

  “I heard her tell you to hug the dogs!” The tone was jeeringly accusatory.

  I’d anticipated as much and had my response ready. “She means my brothers. When we were little, we had a wagon, and the boys would pull us around in it down on the park floor. She used to call them our dog team, out of some old book she’d read.”

  He glanced over his shoulder at the other passengers, near the rear of the car. “You women ought to be ashamed,” he snarled.

  “Of what?” I asked in real surprise, keeping my voice level with an effort.

  “That church!” he said. “That female, animal-worshipping church. It’s ungodly!”

  “It’s not female,” I murmured. “Lots of men belong, and we don’t worship animals. We just recognize them as creatures created by God. Why? Do you think they were created by something else?” Moving as little as possible, I pressed the “next stop” button beside my seat.

  “They were made for our food, and we were meant to do away with them as soon as we got many enough. You’ll get what’s coming to you, you know that.”

  I felt myself simmering. “Don’t you think we all will?” I tilted my wrist. He was rocking back and forth, making unsettled noises, breathing angrily. The pod slid to a stop, and I rose unhurriedly and got out, catching a glimpse of the knife in his lap as the door closed. I’d depodded at a transfer station, empty at that time of night.

  What had he been going to do? Skin me? My mouth was dry, though the hand clasped around the vial of STOP dripped with sweat. Anyone hit with STOP was down in five seconds, which was why it was the defensive weapon of choice for those who could afford it. The person who bought a vial of the stuff received antibodies against it that were unique to that preparation and that person. The compartment at the bottom of the bottle held the antidote. If the antidote wasn’t provided within a quarter hour, the person hit with STOP was dead in thirty minutes.

  STOP was legal because assault was about the only crime left that people could commit. They couldn’t steal. Implanted identichips were used for all purchases. The chips would transmit an alarm if the owner was unconscious or drugged or in fear. Flits worked only for their owners. Apartments opened only to their owners. Entry to stores was blocked to those without the right credit rating. All items were identified by codes implanted during manufacture, and items were debited to the buyer’s identichips in the exit lock of the store. Even store employees had to exit through the locks. With concs more available than air, why would anyone rape? Aside from the handful of intransigent misfits who lived habitually as I had done briefly on my way to Baja, everything was controlled except for madness, fury, and stupidity. For those, we had STOP.

  I wiped my palm down my pant leg and transferred the vial to the other hand. The man was looking directly at me, scanning the lobby behind me. He saw I was alone and half rose from his seat only to fall back into it as the pod moved off. Looking behind me, I saw that the tower was derelict. No wonder I was alone. I took a deep breath and checked the time. He was one of only half a dozen people in Pod ARX99–3987 at precisely 22:14:30 on the current date, and the rest were all women. I linked ark headquarters and told them. All the ark and sanctuary workers noted and recorded every threat. Dame Cecelia wasn’t the only one who could get hold of past-this-point records, and we preservationists kept dossiers on every IGI-HFO we could identify.

  I took the next pod, so rattled that I missed a change and had to go backward to get home. I had a headache starting as well as a case of the shakes. Unfortunately, the evening’s confrontations wer
e not over. Two stiff-necked men in uniforms were waiting in the library, being treated to coffee-14 by Paul.

  “These gentlemen from Species Control want to ask you some questions,” he said, ostentatiously putting an arm around my shoulders. “One of your trainers got picked up the other night.”

  I turned to the two men, eyebrows raised. “Not my trainer, Officer. He works for the Alred family canine preservation trust. But I do know about the incident.” I shook my head sadly. “Poor Adam. The stress must have triggered a convulsion.”

  “Stress, ma’am?” asked the older of the two officers.

  “Well, yes. Jarl Alred called him and asked him to come down and pick him up at some conc club or other, but he didn’t wait at level to be picked up, so Adam had to park the flit and go to sub three to get him. When Adam and Alred came out, the flit had been vandalized, well…turned over, and a group of idlers, accompanied by some ruined concs, threatened a fight. Jarl was moodspray oblivious; Adam didn’t want any trouble, so he pulled Jarl back inside. Someone had already called for help, luckily, for when Adam stepped outside again, he went into full-scale convulsions and woke up in the hospital. Poor man, he looks absolutely dreadful!”

  The two officers looked at one another, one with the corner of his mouth twisted, both of them knowing full well who the Alreds were. Gritting my teeth at the pain in my head, I seated myself comfortably, hands folded in my lap, ostentatiously willing to talk about it all night if they wanted to. The older one shrugged and gave it a try.

  “Thing is, some of the…idlers claim an animal attacked them.”

  “Really? A rat?” I said, puzzled. “I didn’t know there were any left.”

  “There are some rats, ma’am, but it was something larger than that.”

  “Well, what in the world would that be? A feral cat? Something off-world? Something smuggled in by one of the alien diplomats?”

  “There’s no chance your trainer had a dog with him?”

  “No chance at all!” I said, sitting up even straighter in outrage. “The trainers value their jobs far too much to risk the preservation license or their animals by doing that. The foundation animals never leave their protected site, and you should know as well as I do that they are identichipped just as we are. If there had been a dog there, you would be able to get a record of it.” I frowned. “Besides, you know how cramped a two-seater flit is. Where would Adam have put a dog?”

  The two shrugged again. “Maybe the kids got confused?” said one.

  I shrugged. “It’s possible, I suppose. Or, maybe someone was using too much moodspray, but whatever the local juvenile gangs get up to has nothing at all to do with the foundation. And by the way, when are you people going to start enforcing the ban on ruining concs? Adam says there were ruined concs in the group! Badly maimed! Doesn’t treatment of concs come under Species Control?”

  Both officers mumbled something quasi-apologetic and made hasty farewells, leaving me to shake my head and mutter about spoiled young men loudly enough that Paul heard me.

  “Where were you this evening?” Paul asked, jaw clenched.

  “I stopped to say good-bye to Margaret Olcot.” Plus evading followers, attending Midsummer services, narrowly avoiding being assaulted or murdered, and finishing up by being misleadingly unresponsive with Species Control officers. All in all, quite time to leave the planet for something quieter.

  “And when did you become spokesman for conc rights?” he demanded.

  I turned on him, the whole day’s frustration coming out in a burst. “Paul, you should be ashamed to ask me that! I know concs are the next thing to nonsentient, but cruelty is cruelty. You hurt one, it feels it. You maim one, it feels that, as I have very good reason to know! Causing pain for pain’s sake is, in my opinion, the greatest sin a sentient being can commit, and now, if you don’t mind, I’m going on to bed. It’s been a difficult day, and there’s at least one more like it before we leave.”

  He had the grace to flush slightly as I left him, but it was because I’d touched his pride, not his conscience, and he was already plotting how to put me in my place. Perhaps he would simply do without me in the future. That thought compensated slightly for the rest of the absolutely gluppish day.

  Myra lived outside the urb in the Hargess development, a dozen luxury residential towers grouped around the Hessing estate, which stood among farms. Her home was on the top story of a seaside tower with no algae harvesters or treatment plants in view. The family was old money, old power, old politics, reinforced by profits from centuries worth of investments in off-world materials and fuels. Myra was not part of the Hessing line of succession, as Witt would have been, but she had the same Hessing kinfolk in all the right places. We sat at a small table set for luncheon, with the two mechs in the room shut down and the Quondan butler elsewhere.

  Myra said, “Dame Cecilia heard you might be going to Moss. She asked me to ask a favor of you.”

  I set down my cup and took a sandwich, my eyebrows going up in surprise when I tasted it. It was delicious.

  Myra murmured, “It’s chicken liver paté, imported from Pharsee.”

  “Real chickens?” I asked, wonderingly.

  Myra smiled. “Real, smelly, unsanitary, feather-molting chickens. I was speaking of Dame Cecelia…”

  “I wish you wouldn’t, Myra.”

  “Then forget Dame Cecelia. I’m asking a favor of you. I’m troubled by something, and I’m wondering if you could try to find out about it, on Moss.”

  “On Moss?”

  “At the Derac outpost. A few of them have been left behind to keep an eye on the contractors. Have you ever seen one?”

  I shook my head. “I’ve seen pictures. Vaguely humanoid, long tails, scaled, predators’ teeth and talons. They’re egg layers, carnivorous, diurnal.”

  “One never sees the females,” Myra said, with an expression of distaste. “One understands the females are unintelligent, incapable of speech, and instinctively bound to nest behaviors.” Again she made the odd expression, looking away from me as she continued. “When the female leaves the nest, the father is summoned. He picks one or two males from the brood to rear to adulthood, then eats the rest of the brood…”

  I put down my cup, fighting a spasm of nausea. “His own…” I swallowed. “If the female babies are killed, where do they get females to breed?”

  “I have no idea. Derac planets are off-limits to us, so what we know about them is made up of bits and pieces learned during diplomatic or trading meetings or recorded conversations. Sir Dawlish heard such a recording, between two Derac, during which one of them questioned the other as to whether it might be possible to buy human females.”

  “Buy them? For what?” I asked, amazed.

  “They didn’t say. The whole matter would have attracted no notice if the same Derac hadn’t later asked a human official of the Board of Trade if it was possible to buy human females.”

  “That would be slavery.”

  “Not necessarily. Some races have indenture laws that are far short of slavery.”

  “Well, we don’t and the Derac know what our laws are!”

  “So do the Orskimi, but they have slaves, and that makes them the subject of endless discussion at every IC meeting. No one knows what to do about it since the Orskimi—and the Derac, as well—could do far more damage out of the Alliance than in it.”

  I chewed thoughtfully. “Is it possible the Derac might be trying to understand our views?”

  “Father says no. He says they don’t care about our views. He says the young ones are unbearable, and the old ones are incomprehensible, and they have one peculiar trait: Except when among themselves, they never mention females of their own race, though they refer to the sexes of other races, Tharstians, for instance.”

  “I didn’t know the Tharstians have sexes.”

  “According to Father, they have five, all of whom get themselves ready for reproductive activities by lengthy joint bubble bouncing, which loo
ks totally unsexual to us but is extremely erotic for them. Father maundered away about all this at the dinner table, and Dame Cecilia, possibly for the first and only time since they were liaised, was actually listening to him.” Myra sipped her tea. “The business about buying human females upset her a good deal. So, when I heard you were going to Moss, I thought maybe you could find out about it.”

  I seethed. “Dame Cecelia as much as killed Witt, you know.”

  Myra sighed. “You may not believe it, Jewel, but Dame Cecilia now blames herself for what happened to Witt, which is rather nice for those of us in the family who have been accustomed to bearing all the family guilt. She’s come to the conclusion that if she hadn’t made so many difficulties about your liaison to Witt—including forcing Witt to go on that expedition in an effort to split you up—she’d have had grandchildren by now.”

  I said in a strangled voice, “Yes, Witt and I would certainly have had a child by now.”

  “She now believes she misread you completely. When you didn’t have a baby, and you didn’t liaise with anyone, she began to blame herself. I’m telling you this just in case you have any lingering animosity.”

  I went to the window, hiding my face. “Lingering is too flaccid and ephemeral a word for what I have, Myra. I was pregnant, though I didn’t know it until some time after Witt left. When your mother had me harassed and threatened by her friends at BuOr, I had to get away. I was young and scared and my effort to evade her was…stressful. At any rate, some weeks later, I lost the baby.”

  “Lost…” Myra’s voice was harsh with shock. “I never knew that.”

  “Ironic that Dame Cecelia probably caused the loss of that grandchild she wanted so badly. It was probably for the best. With Witt gone, they wouldn’t have let me keep it. Hell, I couldn’t even have paid the fine for reproducing without a coparent!”

  “You could have found someone. I would have…”

  “It doesn’t matter. It was over very soon.” I turned to confront Myra’s sad face. “Afterward, I knew that if I’d had a child, Dame Cecilia would have taken it from me. She’d already cost Witt his life, I wouldn’t have wanted her to have our child. My resentment is not merely lingering. It’s entirely alive and well.”