“This is Asahel Frost, Sean. I need a squad to come and get me. I’m on the Path between Bodascon and Daimler Towers. Someone just tried to stab me. Three times. My jacket armor saved me.”
Sean Callahan stifled an exclamation. “I understand. I’ll have bike patrol cops get to you immediately. Just activate your personal emergency beacon. Meanwhile, my situation team will take a hopper to Bodascon skyport and—”
“No. I don’t want Bodascon Security involved.” The colossal aerospace Concern was a prominent member of the Haluk Consortium. “Or Toronto Public Safety, either. This has got to be kept quiet. Now listen carefully. Put three of your plainclothes people on the subway at Osgoode. Let them come up the loop from the south. I’ll backtrack north on the Path and meet them at College Station.”
“The subway?” Callahan was incredulous. “It would really be safer If you remained right where you are, under police guard, and we flew in. If you don’t want a touch at Bodascon skyport we could come via Daimler.”
“The hit man ran up into Bodascon. He could call for reinforcements from—” I shut my mouth. I hadn’t seen any Haluk pedestrians for a long time, but their embassy was only a couple of blocks away. However, I didn’t want to share my suspicion of the aliens with a low-level employee like Callahan.
“Sir?”
I said, “I think the perp is long gone. I’m safer moving with the crowd than standing still. The call is mine to make, Sean. Have your troops meet me at College Station. We can all take a nice slow taxi ride to Rampart Tower. Frost out.”
I started back the way I’d come, not using the moving walkway and staying near a wall whenever possible. There were only two short blocks to go. The crowds were thicker, but the hustle and bustle seemed entirely normal. I made it to the subway intersection without incident and turned east. Access to the transit station above was via an escalator. I got on a rising step just behind a young woman in a red coat who carried a Bergdorf shopping bag.
We’d nearly reached the upper level when I felt a stinging sensation in my left calf. Almost instantly my body’s voluntary muscles began to freeze. I felt myself toppling toward the woman. She made a dismayed noise.
“Whoa! Easy there, Fred. We gotcha, ol’ buddy.”
A man two steps below came up beside me and took hold of my arms to support me. Another guy joined him immediately. Stiff as a board from the injected paralytic, I felt small objects being shoved into each of my armpits. All of a sudden I wasn’t falling anymore; I was floating.
The faces of my assailants were unremarkable. The first wore a black leather car coat and blue jeans. The other had a brown fleece jacket over a business suit and carried a sport duffelbag on a shoulder strap, which must have concealed the injector. The pair worked together, one at my side and the other on the step below, clamping my upper arms firmly to my body and keeping a tight grip on my elbows. The antigrav devices in my pits made manhandling me a snap.
Boozy fumes wafted from somewhere. I presumed one of the goons had spritzed it onto me to enhance the charade of drunkenness. The woman in the red coat stared over her shoulder with ill-concealed disgust, and so did a few rubberneckers on the adjacent descending escalator. Thanks to the Anonyme, no one could see the twisted expression of fury on my face.
“We’ll take care of him,” Black Leather told the woman glibly. “Not to worry. Sorry if he bumped into you.”
“Poor old Fred,” Brown Fleece added. “He had a really bad day, y’know? Lost a major client, then tried to kill the pain with too many vodka martinis.”
The woman turned her back on us. Some of the other stair riders looked sympathetic.
“You just take it easy, mate,” Black Leather told me in a jovial voice. “Try not to throw up on these nice people. We’ll get you safe to a taxi and home to beddy-bye.”
“What’re drinking buddies for?” Brown Fleece chimed in. “You’re gonna be okay, except for a helluva hangover tomorrow.”
I tried to speak. Couldn’t produce more than a breathy croak.
My cowboy-booted feet floated a centimeter off the ground as the escalator reached the subway station level. There were no Rampart Security personnel existing the standing train. Probably they’d be along on the next one, for all the good it would do me.
I wafted between the pair of abductors like a human balloon. They steered me onto another escalator going up to the street, continuing their solicitous patter. I was just another upper-class lush being helped along by friends.
Outside, we crossed Dundas Square. Pedestrians averted their eyes. A bike cop gave us the once-over, decided all was cool. We moved along the sidewalk, turned into a narrow lane amidst a row of small historic houses that huddled beneath a stubby business tower. The crowd thinned immediately and the streetlighting became less intense.
A Mercedes limousine was parked illegally at the exit of an underground parking lot. Its doors opened as one of my captors zapped it with a remote control. They removed the lifting devices under my arms and eased me into a forward-facing seat in the capacious passenger section. Black Leather got in beside me. Brown Fleece tossed his duffel in front and slipped behind the wheel, leaving the sliding privacy panel open. The car doors shut.
Fleece addressed the car navigator. “Enter Ottawa Highroad eastbound. Go to Express Lane Six. Go to Peterborough 122. Exit highroad northbound and revert to manual control.”
En route, said the car.
We were off, circling around Ryerson Tower and hanging a right to the on-ramp of the highroad. A longish wait in line until it was our turn to accelerate—then up, up and away, thirty meters above the teeming city on an elevated twelve-lane ribbon, our limousine guided precisely into the far-left express lane where motorists in a hurry paid a premium toll to travel at speeds of 300 kph. Unfortunately, because of tonight’s heavy volume of traffic, the express lane was limited to a mere 230 kph, while the five nonpremium eastbound lanes limped along at 170.
Any hope I might have entertained that my kidnappers were human melted away when Leather said something to Fleece in the Haluk language. Fleece laughed—not humanstyle, but in the throttled-puppy mirth idiom of the blue aliens.
Black Leather reached into the right sleeve of my Anonyme and flicked the switch. The visor blinked off and the security catch unlocked. He pushed off my hood and spoke to me in Standard English.
“If you make a very strong effort, you’ll be able to blink your eyes. I suggest you do it as often as possible to avoid desiccated corneas. You should voluntarily swallow your saliva, too, unless you enjoy drooling. The drug has no other unpleasant side effects. The rest of your autonomic nervous system should remain safely operational until we give you the antidote later.” He smiled. “Much later.”
I managed a grunt, then blinked and swallowed.
It wasn’t hard to do, it was rather easy. And my previously numb toes and fingers and tongue were starting to tingle.
Hello!
They’d shot me with a toxin that preserved consciousness, going for the leg after my armored anorak had foiled the body hits. A jab in the lower calf would have worked nicely on somebody wearing conventional executive footgear.
But I was a cowboy.
The injector had penetrated the tough leather of my boot with difficulty. It must have been slightly deflected and failed to deliver the entire dose. I’d taken in enough chemical to paralyze me, but the stuff might already be starting to wear off.
I sat absolutely still. We were traveling through the rainy night, out from under the force-umbrella now, soaring over Toronto’s eastern suburbs. I speculated briefly upon the reason why my captors hadn’t taken me to the Haluk embassy or even Oshawa Starport out in Lake Ontario rather than heading out of town toward Peterborough.
North of the interchange at kilometer 122 were roads leading into the Kawarthas, a picturesque region of lakes, rolling woodlands, and pretty little towns: Bridgenorth and scores of other dormitory exurbs, modest art colonies and resorts like Fenelon Falls where my f
riend Bea Mangan and her husband had a technocottage, enclaves of stunning affluence such as Mount Julian, where top Concern executives maintained pseudorustic pieds-à-terre on Stony Lake.
Come to think of it, when he wasn’t hunkered down at Galapharma HQ in Glasgow, Alistair Drummond had lived up in the Kawarthas, too …
The demiclones talked freely to each other in the difficult Haluk language, confident that their paralyzed prisoner, like so many lazy translator-addicted Earthlings, was unable to understand them.
Mistake.
During my politically active phase, when I was eloquently disparaging the secretiveness of the Haluk before one of the commerce committees and it looked as though the Delegates were starting to take me seriously, the Servant of Servants of Luk made a diplomatic gesture intended to defuse a deteriorating public relations situation.
The Haluk leader proposed a guided tour of Artiuk, their principal colony in the Perseus Spur, to show that his race had nothing to hide. The invitation was extended to twelve influential members of the committee, three media representatives from Newsweek, Cosmos Today, and the Times … and me, badass motormouth celebrity. Because of delicate Haluk cultural inhibitions, no audiovisual recording devices would be allowed; but we visitors would be able to dictate copious notes into handheld computers.
The SSL’s invitation was eagerly accepted.
Alone among my human colleagues, I chose to take a sleep-course in the Haluk language during the eight-day trip out to the Spur. It was something I’d been meaning to do for a long time: know thine enemy, and all that. The other members of the group opted for the greater convenience and efficiency of mechanical translators. I intended to wear one, too; but I’d hatched a vague plan to discard the thing conspicuously at some point during the tour, hoping to provoke our Haluk hosts into making imprudent comments in the belief that I wouldn’t understand them.
As it happened, my subterfuge wasn’t necessary. The translators worn by us humans malfunctioned almost from the first moment we set foot on Artiuk—perhaps because its solar system was in the throes of a sudden ionic storm, perhaps for another reason altogether. Whatever the source of the problem, the fritzed-out devices reduced Haluk speech to incomprehensible gibberish, and they could not be repaired with the tools available on the alien world.
This might have put a serious damper on our visit, had not the Servant of Servants graciously provided each one of us with an English-speaking Haluk escort. These high-ranking officials of his personal staff subsequently accompanied us everywhere and filtered all conversations between us and the Artiuk locals.
The Haluk facial structure is not conducive to emotional display. I was able to discern that the instant translations the guides provided us were often very creative.
As I’d expected, the “fact-finding tour” turned out to be little more than a puff job. It revealed only superficial aspects of Haluk life and absolutely nothing about their military-industrial capability. We were allowed close contact only with gracile-phase humanoid individuals.
“It would be depressing for you to meet the poor lepidodermoids, much less view the dormant testudinals,” our hosts said, gently reproving curious members of the delegation. “And besides, there are no longer very many nongracile Haluk residing on Artiuk, thanks to the miracle of your PD32:C2 genetic engineering vector, which has changed our lives so marvelously by eradicating the curse of allomorphism.”
So we saw what the Haluk wanted us to see: performances of dissonant Haluk music, displays of beautiful Haluk artwork, timid Haluk children at crowded primary schools who presented us with bouquets of alien flowers, Haluk agronomists operating impressive hydroponic farms that grew produce mildly poisonous to the human digestive tract. It was all very edifying, and to sophisticated human galaxy trotters, duller than belly-button lint.
Unless one happened to understand what the non-English-speaking Haluk were actually saying about their distinguished visitors.
The adults hated our collective entrails because we had cruelly stalled Haluk emigration to the Milky Way and charged extortionate prices for PD32:C2 and other vital technology. The poor little Haluk kids were scared rigid of us because the adults had told them that humans were cannibals who ate misbehaving children.
I did my best to share eavesdropped intelligence with the Assembly Delegates and the reporters, but my well-known anti-Haluk bias bent my credibility. In the end the relentless hospitality of the Servant of Servants and his minions won the hearts of our group.
When we returned to Earth, the media special reports were glowing. A month later the Haluk treaties were ratified by the Assembly.
From my alarmist point of view, the trip had been worse than useless. All I’d really gained was a superficial knowledge of an abstruse alien tongue, most of which faded from my mind almost immediately.
But not all of it.
Under computer control, the limousine roared along the storm-lashed elevated road. The rain was now mixed with ice pellets. Brown Fleece relaxed behind the wheel, lit a cigarette—the vice had spread like wildfire among the blue aliens resident on Earth—and spoke in the Haluk language to the leather-jacketed demiclone seated at my right.
“Blah blah will be up a copulatory orifice because we are so late. One fears the road blah blah blah. It is the last day of the normal human work blah and blah blah blah.”
Black Leather said, “One might as well be fighting the blah back home on [some Haluk planet]. Great Almighty Luk help our blah posteriors if we blah blah blah.”
Fleece: “One is carefully watching the blah blah. At present the sky road is blah all the way to Peterborough.”
Leather: “Thank Almighty Luk …”
The demiclones were complaining about Friday night traffic. Welcome to the club.
Fleece said, “One presumes that our next blah blah will be to take the brother.”
What!
Leather: “Ru Balakalak will decide. The angry human blah still strongly resists that idea. He blah blah blah. And he thinks the brother lacks blah blah.”
I exerted all my willpower to avoid flinching in dismay. Were these turkeys referring to my disreputable brother Daniel?
Fleece: “This one believes the revised plan using the brother is superior. And the blah younger sister would blah blah blah his disappearance.”
Leather: “Perhaps. The brother is surely more easily blah than the appalling human blah. But does he possess blah blah to accomplish blah blah blah?”
Fleece: “Maybe not, if one can trust blah of the angry human blah.”
Leather: “Curse all humans! The plan itself is excellent but blah blah of it stinks like lepido nose wax. This one will continue to urge strongly that a Haluk blah blah be used, rather than any human blah.”
Fleece: “Who will listen to one? Ru Balakalak leads. He is a stubborn [epithet] and favors the quickest blah blah in order to please the Servant of Servants. The danger blah blah blah.”
Leather: “[Epithet.] One wishes we would blah blah blah and put an end to it.”
Fleece: “We are not ready. One knows that. When we are ready, it will happen.”
There followed an interval of portentous silence, during which I felt my guts twisting into a granny knot. Were they talking about an attack against humanity? And what kind of plan would they have that would involve me, my wretched brother, my sister Beth, and another human? I was trying to sort this out when my thoughts were suddenly interrupted by a resounding Haluk curse from Black Leather.
“Are we slowing down?” he called out to his compatriot. “We are!”
Up front, Brown Fleece was studying the navigation display, which was not visible from the passenger compartment. “Almighty Luk! The blah indicates a blah blah!” He broke into a tirade of alien vituperation.
Black Leather spoke impatiently to the car in Standard English. “Navigator, why is traffic decelerating?”
The robot voice said, A vehicle on-board computer has malfunctioned catastrophi
cally and caused a multiple-car accident with injuries at kilometer 100.4. All six eastbound lanes are blocked at that point.
A sea of red brakelights glowed in the sleet storm outside as the marvelous automated speedway reverted to ox-road status. Pavement deicing equipment had kicked in, adding clouds of steam to the atmospheric mélange.
“Exit!” Leather commanded his associate. “Hurry, before we are blah!”
But we had just passed the ramp at Enniskillen. Fleece asked the navigator, “What is our next exit option?”
Exit 80, the Lindsay-Clarington freeway, fifteen kilometers ahead. Estimated time of arrival at this exit is now approximately 21:10 hours.
Black Leather spat more exotic obscenities and smacked his fist furiously against the refreshment console just in front of our seat. Our speed was now less than 40 kph and still dropping. We were going to be hung up for over an hour, creeping at a snail’s pace toward the next exit together with hundreds of other luxury vehicles and their fuming occupants.
I wiggled my toes. The tingling had faded.
“Can we not summon an aircraft to blah us out of this [expletive]?” Black Leather asked his companion.
The limousine, of course, could be programmed to exit the highroad all by itself if we were evacuated via hopper. Perhaps other trapped bigwig motorists were also considering that extreme option, although private aircraft were forbidden to land on the highroad, and the storm made the prospect of being winched into the sky through the roof hatch an uninviting one.
Fleece said, “One doubts that would save significant time, since our blah blah aircraft are blah at Mount Julian.”
Leather groaned. “[Convoluted expletive.] Then we are truly blah, my friend.”
“One must blah blah our delay.” Fleece began to speak in an undertone into the driver’s communicator.
Muttering, the alien sitting on my right opened the refreshment console and took out a packet of cigarettes. The limo was rolling more and more slowly. At speeds of less than 10 kph it would be possible to unlock the doors manually from the inside.