Back | Next
Contents

19: I KNOW WHO YOU ARE

"Old age is like everything else. To make a success of

it, you've got to start young."

—FRED ASTAIRE

The average executive body contains five liters of blood. Sheeba assured me of this as she siphoned one of them from my right arm into an empty plastic water sack. Why precisely one liter? There was nothing precise about it. We were walking on the murky waters of faith healing. Shee had skipped her blood theory classes because the information was "too dry," she said. Vlad's quack idea that good blood might chase out bad sprang from lunacy, ignorance and sheer desperation. Still, there was a slim chance my NEMs would migrate to Sheeba's body and jump-start her immune system.

'Take more, dear. You need lots and lots." I watched the wine of my veins slowly inflate the little plastic sack.

"Nass, I've never drawn blood before, but I think taking too much could make you light-headed."

No problem. I didn't mind resting on this comfortable steel table while Shee hand-fed me savory chili—until I recalled we were streaking through space in a disintegrating fuel can. I sat up quickly, reeled with dizziness, then lay back down.

"Very well, dear. Perhaps one liter will be just enough."

Juani came dashing through the anteroom, grinning. His black braid swung like a pendulum. He waved a thumbs-up sign and raced into sick-ward. "At least someone's gotten good news," I said. Then my eyelids fluttered heavily. Sleep was dragging me under.

Sheeba said, "What's got him so blissed? He's been talking to Liam."

When she started toward the sick-ward door, I opened my eyes just in time to grasp her sleeve. "Don't go in mere, dear. You haven't had your NEMs yet."

She gently released my fingers, settled my blood-tapped arm back on the table, then leaned to check the plump, crimson bag dangling below my elbow. When Juani came racing back through, he carried a white EVA suit draped over his shoulder, the one Geraldine had been wearing, and he spun the white helmet on his fingertip like a globe.

"Juani," said Sheeba, "you can't go spacewalking. You get vertigo."

The boy straightened up and stuck out his chest "Be calm, Sheeba Zee. I going!"

Then the air went thick, and my vision wobbled. The fluorescent light illuminated Juani's teeth like a wall of pearly stones with a single black gap at the center. Dark, warm and damp, mat gap opened and opened till it devoured the whole universe.

I awoke much later with a raging thirst.

My temples throbbed. I couldn't remember where I was. My teeth tasted minty fresh, but my body exuded a god-awful smell. I sat up and sniffed my armpits. Whew. My dermal hygiene NEMs were seriously off kilter. A water sack lay beside me, so I sucked it down. After several minutes, I recognized the fluorescent light. This was the anteroom to sick-ward.

"Hello. Anyone?"

No answer. I went to the sink, flipped open the faucet and cupped my hands under the thin jet of disinfectant. Then I unzipped the front of my longjohn and rubbed my pits and groin. How had I gotten so dirty? My thumbnail screen displayed a long menu of strange messages. Not only my dermal hygiene NEMs had gone off-line, other classes of NEMs had crashed, too. What's more, the Net was not responding. But why? For the life of me, I couldn't remember.

Oddly, the NEMs in charge of my false dental implants showed mega activity. With no doctors' orders, the little fiends had gone into a flossing frenzy, and my breath reeked of spearmint. But none of this made sense.

I felt my forehead for fever, but my temperature seemed normal. Then I checked the status of my mnemonic NEMs—and got a bizarre reading. Some of my implanted memory sticks had been switched to edit mode, and the NEMs were making confetti out of my short-term recall, "Stop that." I clicked through the prompts, trying to get control, but the little buggers wouldn't respond.

Then, like a light shutting off, I forgot about them.

The door to sick-ward was closed, and no noises filtered through. Dimly, I sensed that Sheeba was in there helping someone whose name I should know. Someone who'd fallen ill. The idea needled me, but I couldn't quite visualize the person's face. I considered knocking on the door. Then something itchy tugged at my arm—a thick wad of bandage was taped inside my elbow. Seeing it triggered a spotty recollection. Sheeba had taken my blood.

Almost instantly, the recollection dissolved, leaving behind a troubled void. I reached for the water sack, hoping another drink would clear my head. But it was empty. Then I slid off the table and had to grab the counter to stabilize myself. Spots of bright color flashed across my retinas. Why did I feel so weak and thirsty?

The water sack was empty, so I set off to look for more. In the ladder well, the fungus blossomed in great bristling flower heads. When had I passed this way before? My sense of time waxed and waned like surf. A silver D gleamed from the opposite door. D for Down. But that wasn't down.

Then a recollection flickered like a splice of Reel. I saw dying employees. They lay motionless, speechless. Rows and rows of thin mattresses stretched away to an impossible distance, and I imagined wandering among them, seeking a way out, but the employees didn't notice me. Their bloodless faces held no expression, and their vacant eyes didn't blink. A taste of lychee nuts welled up in my mouth, and the faces turned in my direction. They were real. This wasn't a dream. Those dying workers were on this deck— in sick-ward.

I fled down through the safety lock and descended to Three.

The galley was deserted, but I found a full water sack and took a long, grateful drink. Something had frightened me; what was it? Already, the memory had fragmented. With a small rush of pride, I recalled how to work the can opener, located a clean bowl and heated some stew. But something kept nagging me. Wasn't there a mystery to solve?

My chili came out tepid. I took a few famished gulps, then carried it with me, eating while I walked. Juani's generator closet lay vacant. He'd stowed his toolbox away, and the empty cistern echoed when I tapped it. But who was Juani?

In the drying room, abandoned ovens gaped open. A bag of hard crackers had spilled across the floor, and my boots crunched through the crumbs.

"Anyone here?"

I took my bowl of chili down through the safety hatch to Two. In the forlorn ladder well, thick new metallic patches covered a badly damaged door. This spooked me. Was I getting Winny's mutated Alzheimer's? I touched the metal door, then pressed my ear to the steel. No whistling air loss. No thudding boots on the other side. Only the stillness of space.

I cycled down to One and roamed among the deserted crew quarters, eating stew as I went. Only my slurps broke the chilly silence. Long ago, I'd spent time here as a prisoner—had I dreamed that? The arc of wedge-shaped closets held no chairs, desks, bookcases, no Net connections. Not a single window anywhere. Only blankets scattered on the floors and graffiti etched into the walls.

Both ends of the curved corridor terminated at steel doors marked cargo bay. But the doors were not merely locked and welded shut, they were obstructed by towering stacks of steel bed frames, tables and straight-backed chairs, lashed together with chains. So mat's what Heaven's furniture was used for—barricades. I added my empty chili bowl to one of the stacks, then climbed back up the ladder to Deck Two.

Halfway up, a thunderous noise shivered through the walls. That was gunfire. The ladder shook, and spikes of hot terror sizzled through my nerve endings. As I cycled through the lock, the hull clanked with brutal contortion.

Abruptly, the concussions ended, and I drew a relieved breath, hardly knowing why. The solar plant's vicious light forced me to shield my eyes, and I hurried through to the ops bay. Around the comer lay an airlock. Instinct drew me there. Juani had taken my white suit to go spacewalking, but why? The boy had a front tooth missing. Memories brightened and faded like cinders in a strong wind.

Then, like a bolt, I remembered. Juani went with Liam to the gunship. No, I was supposed to go with Liam.

They'd gone for Vlad, but Vlad wasn't on the gunship— I'd lied about that. My crewmates had taken him. And because of my lies, Juani would be captured and euthanized. He might already be dead.

But I was supposed to go mere, not Juani! I never meant to harm Juani! How did this fiasco happen? I never used to fumble like this. All those error messages. The NEMs were screwing with my memory.

Abruptly, I forgot again.

In a stupor, I sat on the floor, where someone had left a flashlight. I picked it up and peered into its reflective cone. What had I just been thinking? Plans and intentions connected like bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. I touched my face—and felt puckered flesh. Pouches sagged under my eyes. I didn't need a calendar to tell time. My face was a clock. This slackening skin meant at least seven missed telomerase treatments. Seven days in Heaven—it sounded like the title of an old movie.

Then a new recollection glowed, clearer than the others. I wanted Liam to die. That's right, I'd tricked him to go after Vlad. And thanks to my lies, he'd taken the only two decent space suits in Heaven, the only helmet with a satellite phone, the only working thruster—the only way out.

My lies had killed Sheeba.

Curse my cunning soul. In a fevered rush, I went tearing back through the solar plant, where the dazzling light almost made me trip. I stumbled toward the ladder well as scattered memories came hurtling back. I had to do something. Find Sheeba. Figure another way out.

Just as I bounded into the well, Geraldine leaped off the ladder and knocked me flat. She straddled my chest and pinned my arms down. Tears and mucus dripped from her face, and she screamed, "Murdering commie!"

I threw her across the ladder well. I was, after all, a healthy adult executive, whereas she was a teenager.

On the other hand, she had a hammer. She whipped it out of her pocket and pointed the claw end toward me, circling sideways on bent legs as if she meant to lunge.

I yelled, "What the freak's got into you7'

"You murdered Kai-Kai" she blubbered.

Little Kaioko was dead? I didn't have time to think about that. Geraldine's clawhammer demanded all my attention. "People were dying on this satellite before I came here."

"I know who you are," she growled. Then she hurled her hammer end over end, and though I ducked, it caught me in the shoulder.

"Ow." I spun and slammed into the wall, then slid to the floor clutching my wound.

Geraldine was on me in a second. She grabbed my hair with both hands and slammed my head against the wall. Then she kicked me in the chest and knocked out my wind. "Killer. Killer. Killer," she chanted.

I retrieved the hammer, and when her bare foot came reeling toward my face, I smashed her anklebone. She shrieked and hopped away, holding her ankle in both hands, screeching like a baby.

"Keep away from me," I said.

"I taking you up there, commie. You gonna see what you did." She let go of her bleeding ankle and stood facing me with her brawny legs spread wide. Ripples of salty sweat crusted her gray uniform, and a sneer warped her features.

"I was going up in any case," I said, holding the hammer like a talisman to ward her off. "You wait here till I cycle through the lock."

"Don't try to hide. No place here you can hide from me."

I rolled my shoulders with dignity. "Why on Earth would I bother to hide from you, prote?"

Climbing the ladder, I kept the hammer pointed toward Geraldine to make sure she didn't follow too closely. After I cycled through the lock to Three, my plan was to disable the upper hatch so she couldn't follow. But I couldn't figure out how. When Geraldine started cycling through, I hotfooted up the ladder toward Four. She sprang out of Three's lock just as I climbed into Four's, and she sprinted up the ladder with a murderous expression. I barely managed to close the hatch in her face.

In Four's well segment, I tried to jam the hatch with a wad of fungus, but it crumbled to bits. Geraldine was already cycling through. She would be on top of me in seconds, so I bounded into the anteroom and stopped in front of the sick-ward door. I didn't want to go any farther.

The door stood open a crack. I could see the yellow light. "Sheeba?"

There was no sound. I stood rock still raising my hand to knock, hoping Shee would come outside. "Sheeba?"

Then Geraldine came barreling up and butted me headlong into sick-ward. I tripped over the sill and slid, face-first, across the septic floor. "Yaaah!" I leaped up and swatted the filth off my face with both hands. It was that fungus. Then I caught a glimpse of white beds and whipped away to shield my eyes from the sight.

But Geraldine blocked my escape and spun me back around to face sick-ward. "There," she said and pointed.

I didn't want to see. I fought her and covered my eyes. "Sheeba, help me."

"Your girlfriend ain't here," said Geraldine.

When I tried to move around her, she kneed me in the stomach and made me face the cots. Two rows of narrow white mattresses with threadbare sheets and thin gray blankets. There were fewer than I expected. They were bound to the floor with thick canvas straps—as if they might fly into the air at any moment. But the cots were empty. Except one. A small chemical light cube had been Velcroed to the wall above this one particular cot, and one wasted invalid lay under the blanket, staring straight up at the ceiling. Kaioko. Still breathing, barely.

Ye gilded gods, death was an ugly thing. She wheezed as if a ton of rock were crushing her chest. Her eyes shimmered like dull chips, vacant and calm.

As I confronted her empty eyes, all my memories rushed back in crystalline clarity, even the ones I wanted to forget. The glass man irradiated me with repressed knowledge, and Heaven's unabridged truth sheared through me like a laser. I remembered the malady.

Provendia's scientists had taken weeks to piece the data together. Two months ago they finally confirmed what was killing Heaven's inmates. That's why we shut off the surveillance cameras. We didn't want to watch anymore. The protes were committing suicide.

How stunned we were, sitting around the conference table with our brandy snifters in hand. The youngest director in the room was 157. Longevity obsessed us. The word, suicide, whispered from an alien world.

"You can't mean they're taking poison?" one of the directors said.

"It's not poison," said Robert Trencher. Oh yes, Trencher was there. He crossed one ankle over his knee and played with the genuine leather tassel on his loafer. "It's something more subtle. They lose the will to keep themselves alive," he said. "Mostly, they die of thirst."

"Do they want higher wages?" I asked. "They haven't made any demands."

"We don't know why they're offing themselves," Trencher said. "They call it 'going to the garden.' We call it severe clinical depression complicated by satellite affect disorder." What a smug bastard.

Now I watched Kaioko's slack lips flutter with each difficult breath. Suicide? Why did it have to take so long? Why did she have to suffer? And why did human beings have to die at all?

If ever clairvoyant forces had shaped the universe, why did they weave this depraved repeating loop of bereavement into our evolution? Why death? Why not life eternal? Couldn't our race thrive much better with a small, select group of superior individuals living on year after year, collecting an ever-broader store of wisdom? Instead of the ugly painful onslaught of birth, struggle, reproduction and inevitable decay, why couldn't we have endless healthy life for one small, well-chosen group of human kind? That seemed an excellent solution to me.

Geraldine drew a threadbare sheet up to Kaioko's chin, but when she tried to embrace the girl, Kaioko's body flopped like a loose-limbed manikin. Geraldine wept into the mattress, and I watched her burly shoulderblades tremble.

Can you understand now why I had behaved like such a base coward at every approach to sick-ward? Willing surrender to death, the idea unnerved me. It undercut my belief system. What if I caught the contagion? Injury, illness, even age—these could be corrected. Damaged tissues could be replaced. But how do you repair a damaged will?

Now that my memories had resurrected, I began at once to rationalize and edit them again. I stood erect and assured myself that Kaioko's illness did not concern me. The deaths of my family and friends, of my beloved Prashka, those old griefs were long forgotten and healed over by time. Kaioko's death meant nothing. She wasn't even pretty. It was the sight of Geraldine's powerful shoulders quivering helplessly under her ragged uniform that finally made me cover my face in my hands.

"Can't you hook her to a food tube?" I murmured. "Give her an IV if she won't drink water?'

Geraldine jerked around, startled. "Kai-Kai wouldn't like that."

"What does that matter if it keeps her alive?" I walked a few paces away. "Where are all your other patients? There ought to be sixty."

"Sixty?" Geraldine's mood shifted acutely, and her eyes filled with suspicion.

I bit my lip. No point revealing what I knew. Besides, it was time to face facts. The only survivors left in this orbiting mausoleum were this handful of juvenile ring leaders and the squirming horde of little toads. All the adults were dead.

On the floor beside Kai-Kai's mattress lay a shrunken red sack, the remains of a blood transfusion. Clear plastic tubing hung from a hook above her pillow, still stained by a thin coating of scarlet. Inside the girl's elbow, Shee had taped a small white bandage the same as mine, and three bright drops of blood spotted the sheet nearby.

Sheeba had given my blood to Kai-Kai?

Slowly I sank to the floor as the full weight of this hit me. I'd shared NEMs with an employee. This was worse than a capital crime, it was . . . moral depravity. Perverse. Obscene. Wicked. Worse than vile. No executive shared NEMs with a worker. It was wrong on so many levels. What if the little buggers spread like a virus through the prote population? Longevity epidemic. That would change everything.

No, no, no, I would never have agreed to this. Those NEMs were supposed to help my darling fend off the malady. They were for Sheeba. Who would have dreamed she'd give my transfusion to Kai-Kai?

And yet, the longer I stared at the ruby stain on Kai-Kai's sheet, the less Shee's act surprised me. It was just like her to defy conventional taboos. Stubborn child. I stared at the three red drops with a grim smile. Those tiny healing machines were designed to renew the human body for decades, and now they were doomed to a short, confusing life in synthetic fabric.

Geraldine tugged her thick legs into a lotus position beside Kaioko's mattress. Her ankle was bruised and swollen where I'd hit her with the hammer, and tendrils of space fungus clumped between her bare toes. Fungal film covered the entire deck—except for one clean shiny spot under the blood sack. There, beneath the dripping tube, the steel deck gleamed almost as bright as a mirror. My blood was killing the fungus. How delightful. If somehow I managed to survive this zone, elude capital punishment, and live down my moral corruption, then I could sell my blood as floor cleaner.

Geraldine sneered. "Gimme back my space suit."

The wench's emotions shifted faster than spring tides. I never knew what to expect from her. She ogled the old gray suit but made no move to get it.

"Screw you," I said.

The wench shrugged listlessly and smoothed Kai-Kai's sheet. "She going to the garden soon. Juani there now."

Going to the garden was their euphemism for death. Had Juani died while I slept? No, it couldn't be. Heaven's inmates were disappearing too fast. Solitude was closing in like a vault. "When did he die?" I said, shivering.

Geraldine pushed her hair back. "Juani raking out the dead leaves. He making things tidy for Kai-Kai."

Ah, so he wasn't dead, he was cultivating his plants. This news brought me an unexpected charge of comfort. But Kaioko was fading. There was no hiding from the truth. She'd fallen into a slumber so profound, it could only be called a coma.

"Where's Sheeba?" I said.

"She and the Chief go sneak around that gunship," Geraldine said. "Sooner later, they find Vlad."

"Sh- Sheeba went to the gunship?"

Oh gods, what had I done?

Back | Next
Framed