War Surf (21 page)

Now envision that voluptuous fantasy whirling away down a black vortex.

Somehow, I had cranked myself into a faster spin, and Earth was circling me every second. I closed my eyes to keep from throwing up in my helmet. And I knew Sheeba would not be calling my name. She’d be playing tongue-tie with that agitator.

“She’s mine!” I shouted inside my helmet. “Let go of her!”

Then he hit me.

Out of the clear black sky, he hit me full force and stopped my spin. Before I could react, his helmet punched me in the stomach. Then he caught me in his outstretched arms and shoved me ahead like a forklift loading a pallet. My ribs impacted his chest with crushing violence, and in absolute terror, I threw my arms around his neck.

Eventually, when I gathered my wits and took note of what had happened, Liam and I were streaking back toward Heaven at an ever-increasing rate of speed, building up toward a molto vicious crash straight into the cargo doors. His thruster accelerator was still locked, although he seemed to have discovered how to steer.

Hastily, I reached for his controls and flipped off the lock, but though we stopped accelerating, our speed did not diminish. No friction, you see.

He touched his helmet to mine and asked, “Did Sheeba come outside?”

I wanted to spit in his face. Instead I pressed my visor against his and grunted, “Aren’t you interested in the braking jets?”

I showed him how to operate the controls to kill off our speed. By the time we settled back to Heaven, no one was there. No mercs, no Agonists, no Vlad. “Shit,” I heard the punk say when our helmets bumped. For once, I agreed.

In taut silence, he steered us back to Two’s airlock, and together we climbed inside and cycled through. We had nothing to say to each other. Sheeba was waiting.

Ha. She hugged me first. Her long arms clamped around me like a vise. “You risked your life defending us. Dear Nass, your karma’s totally primeval. You’ve got old, old spiritual layers going back to Genesis.”

While I ruminated on this strange praise, Sheeba hugged the chief of thugs. Of course, I counted the seconds to see which embrace would last longer. They broke apart almost immediately, blushing and lowering their eyes. A less experienced rival might have been pleased by their awkwardness, but I knew what it meant. Ye deities, budding lust. I wadded my gloves in my pocket, longing to stuff my fist down Liam’s throat.

“Where’s Vlad?” Sheeba peered into the airlock.

“They took him,” I said.

Liam, with his usual linguistic eloquence, merely slammed his (my) helmet to the deck, where it bounced hard and rolled.

“They got Vlad?” Sheeba searched the airlock, as if the medic would magically reappear.

I picked up my helmet and took note of the unsightly new scuff mark. Then, biting my lip till it bled, I watched Sheeba stroke Liam’s back. “Calm down. It wasn’t your fault.” Her large, dimpled hands moved along the gaunt lines of his shoulderblades, and she whispered in bis ear, ‘Tell me what happened.”

“They all slipping away. I can’t protect them,” said the punk.

“We’re still here, beau. We believe in you.”

As her hands massaged his back, brutal hatred washed through me, sharper and more potent man any war-zone rush. It boiled in my stomach like acid and threatened to lift off the top of my skull. She called him her “beau” again. Watching Shee comfort that snot-nosed mug right in front of me, without any attempt to conceal her conduct, why, it made me quiver. My fists clenched, and my toes curled in my boots. I felt capable of bloody acts.

Then a new inspiration struck me. Like a bolt of genius, the idea materialized in my head—a clean, simple way to get rid of the punk forever.

“We have to board that gunship and rescue Vlad,” I said. “You and me, Liam. Let’s go now.”

Naturally, I didn’t mention that the Agonists had taken Vlad away, not the gunship troops. All I wanted was to see Liam captured. If I could persuade him to go aboard Provendia’s gunship—my gunship—then I would take command, and oh what vengeance I would wreak. I sucked my minty teeth and visualized Liam slumped in the euthanasia chamber.

“Nass, you’d go there to free Vlad? You have a deeper spirit than I ever knew.” Sheeba danced across, holding her arms out toward me. She gave me another hug and a big wet kiss on the ear that rang through my head like a tym-panidrum.

I grinned at Liam. “We should hurry.”

Shee bobbed up on her tiptoes. “Nasir’s right. There’s not a minute to lose.”

Juani had been waiting to speak. Now he came forward, grinned and punched me gently in the arm. “You amaze me, blade. You righteous.”

Surf it. Ride it. Improvise. This was developing much better than I could have planned. As we waited to hear Liam’s response, Sheeba beamed and fidgeted, while Juani nodded proudly and waited with a knowing smile. But Liam clenched his mouth in a tight line and studied the fungal rings on the floor.

I’d spiked him on the horns of a no-win dilemma. Either he would accept my generous help and set off on an impossible mission to board a fully armed Com gunship—during which he would be captured and euthanized while I would surely escape. Or he would reject my brave-hearted suggestion and lose major status points with Shee, not to mention his leadership credibility. I sidled a little closer to my beloved and watched the punk’s face.

“All right, Nasir, we go,” he said at last.

“Parabolic!” Sheeba jumped up and down like a kid. “You guys are rip!”

“But I need time to work it out in my head,” Liam added.

Molto slippery tactic, I had to give him credit. But this was excellent. Better and better. As Shee waltzed off with the punk, I watched them hold hands with a smidgen less than my usual bitter despair. In a little while, he and I would find ourselves on my gunship, surrounded by my executives. Then I would deal with the juvenile chief of thugs.

Suddenly, we heard pounding, and everyone halted and turned. Was the hull trembling apart. Was this the end?

“The hatch.” Liam pointed toward the ladder well. “It’s Geraldine.”

As a safety precaution, Juani had welded the safety hatch shut, just in case Liam’s explosion caused another blowout. Now Geraldine was pounding the hatch with her hammer and shouting.

Liam and I raced for the well and got stuck pushing simultaneously through the bulkhead door. Together we rushed up the ladder and started tugging at the welded lever, while Juani went to find a crowbar. We could hear Geraldine yelling down from Deck Three, but nobody could make out what she was trying to say.

“Kaioko!” Geraldine bellowed, when we finally got the hatch open. “She—she—she—” “Be calm.” Liam guided the overwrought girl down the ladder a few rungs. “What about Kaioko?”

Geraldine’s face streamed with tears, and her heavy hair rayed around her head in tight damp coils. “Kaioko want to go into the garden.”

Why this should excite so much alarm, I couldn’t say, but Geraldine’s words detonated an uproar. The juves raced up the ladder like a band of wild children pursuing a pied piper. Liam squeezed into the safety lock with Geraldine—he didn’t even stop to take off the thruster. Meanwhile, Juani and Sheeba hung on the ladder, waiting their turn. All this pandemonium erupted because Kaioko wanted to pick veggies? Ye golden idols—what had happened to our plan to board the gunship?

“What about Vlad?” I very reasonably asked from halfway down the ladder. “Who cares why one little girl gets a yen for broccoli? Our friend Vlad’s been arrested.”

But Juani was already climbing into the safety lock, and Sheeba merely shrugged and followed him in.

Left alone, I sat on the ladder and stared at my scuffed white helmet. The gray suit I wore was too antiquated to mate with this helmet’s newer design. True, the old suit functioned well enough, and I still had Geraldine’s helmet clipped to my belt. I could slip outside again. No one was there to stop me. But what would I do, space-dive to the gunship with no thruster? I’d already experimented with that little ploy. The distance was too far, Heaven was spinning too fast, and if my aim was off by just a fraction of a degree, I would miss the ship and drift into eternity.

I spun the helmet idly around and around, recalling the way Sheeba’s eyes softened when she looked at Liam. When he talked, she leaned toward him as if his baritone voice created a freaking gravitational pull. My strong vibrant Shee, how could she trail after that punk like some moony satellite. She was obsessed with the Reel, that’s all. But if I told her, she wouldn’t believe me.

Maybe she would believe the other Agonists, though. With their help, surely I could break her free of this zone trance. Grunzie, Verinne, Kat, Win, the thought of their affectionate faces turned me sappy and foolish. Stress, I told myself, batting the tears away. Lack of sleep. Molto freaking hunger. I could deal with another ten-liter can of Chili Diablo.

By now, my friends would have discovered their mistake in capturing the medic. Naturally they would interrogate him with psychotropics, but some employees resisted that kind of therapy. Even under chemicals, Vlad might not tell them anything.

So what would the Agonists do next? They would line up another surf, of course, but first they would have to send out their gear for maintenance and cleaning. Then they’d argue about strategy, place new wagers, and generally fart around getting ready. Two hours minimum. After that, they’d come back. Wouldn’t they? I kept spinning the white helmet between my hands, trying to think of a way to reach them.

One more time, I dropped the white helmet over my head, chinned the sat phone and called Grunze. “No service,” the mechanical voice reminded me. Provendia was still scrambling my signal.

The disconnect infuriated me. Sure, I’d signed the order to jam Heaven’s Net link, but who decided to kill the ship-to-ship channel? It must have been the gunship captain. What if the Heavenians wanted to give themselves up? They couldn’t surrender if they couldn’t hail the gunship. It was inexcusable arrogance on the part of the gunship captain. Not to mention the inconvenience to me.

And men I screamed. “A hundred and fifty-two hours!” The words roared in my helmet like thunder. I’d just noticed the clock. I’d set my helmet clock at zero when this surf began. Graven gods, I’d been trapped in this orbiting coffin for over six Earth days.

I ripped off Geraldine’s old gray glove and checked my thumbnail. Sure enough, I’d missed more telomerase infusions. Without the Net, my bioNEMs couldn’t receive orders to synthesize the rejuvenating enzymes. If I didn’t get those treatments soon, my handsome face would pucker. Already, I could envision tiny pockets forming around my eyes and crumpling inward like deflating airbags.

Not just my skin would degrade. Without those enzymes, my internal tissues would lose elasticity as well—and at my age, it would happen fast. Once, when I was vacationing in Greenland, I accidentally went off-Net and missed four remote telomerase appointments in a row—gruesome. What if Sheeba saw me that way? We had to get home before that happened.

There was only one option. I had to space-dive outside Provendia’s Net blockade and call for help. Damned Liam. Why couldn’t he leave my thruster behind?

Okay, without the thruster, I could free-dive beyond the blockade, then call for help on my sat phone. But this white helmet wouldn’t mate to my old gray suit. How could I use the phone in hard vacuum? Maybe I could…

a. rewire the advanced quantum electronics into Geraldine’s ancient ratty helmet, or b. seal my new helmet to the old gray suit with duct tape, or c. just carry the thing into space and yell at it through my visor.

Freaking hell.

“Hi, Nass.”

Sheeba waved at me from the safety hatch above. A dark olive Sheeba, regal as a queen. Her hair glistened like a skullcap of short black fringe tipped in gold, and her amazing water-colored eyes bewitched me. I dropped my helmet.

“Hi, Shee. You came back.”

Her eyebrows creased. She was worried about me. At least old Nasir still occupied some small place in her heart. As she moved down the ladder, the sway of her hips in the gray uniform made my capillaries dilate. Her shining eyes brimmed with moisture. She was crying.

“Kaioko’s in sick-ward. Gee found her curled on the floor. She won’t speak.” Sheeba squeezed beside me on the ladder, draped her arms around my neck and hung her head.

I welcomed her with kisses. “What happened? They said Kaioko was going to the garden.”

Sheeba sniffled. “That’s just a phrase they use.”

“You mean—she has the malady?”

“Why do you call it a malady? Do you know anything about this, Nasir?”

“Not a thing, I swear.” Which was entirely true, in a way. I kissed Sheeba’s fingers. They tasted of antimicrobial soap. “We have to get out of here, darling. Anyone can see something’s killing off these workers.”

“Be one with the zone, Nass.”

“That’s just surfer slang. It doesn’t mean dying. The war surfer’s first rule is to exit the zone alive.”

“I thought the rule was to live the moment. Nobody lives forever.”

Ah Shee. Innocent babe in a wicked wide world. I drew her close and patted her shoulder and tried to think back to my own early decades. Had I ever been that green?

Sheeba squirmed away. “I hate those jerkwad execs, who own this place. Liam won’t tell me much, but I’m getting him to loosen up. Do you know these people had to teach themselves to read?”

“That’s appalling,” I said.

“They’ve had no dental care.”

“Mega-inexcusable.”

“And doesn’t the WTO have a law against child labor?”

“You don’t mean they did that, too?”

Sheeba nodded meaningfully. “Nass, I am totally blissed with how you care and want to help these people. I feel the same way.”

“Ah.” I simulated a smile.

“My medical knowledge is really lame, but I’ll do whatever I can. With all your karmic reiterations, you—”

“Did they forget about Vlad?” I preferred not to dredge up my multiplex soul.

“No, Liam’s drawing out a plan.” Sheeba got up and paced, cracking her lovely knuckles with a disturbing sound. “We absolutely have to get Vlad back. He was working on the cure.”

“Shee, for once be logical. That untrained prote will never find a cure. We have to evacuate.”

“Liam says his people won’t leave. I already asked him.” She took a scrap of cloth from her pocket and blew her nose. “Anyway, the commies won’t let them go.”

Commies? I had to draw several hard breaths before I could respond. “Darling, that’s an atrocious slur word. The local exec may have muddled his duties, but in general, Com executives are admirable managers.”

“Liam says—”

“Who cares what that juvenile delinquent says? You’re executive class yourself, Shee. Remember that and be proud. You’re suffering some kind of Stockholm syndrome, bonding with your captors. Executives hold the light mat guides our economy. These protes would be nowhere without—”

“Cut the crap, Nass.”

I opened my mouth. Then closed it. Sheeba had never talked to me that way before.

She sat on the deck and picked at the frayed edge of her cutoff uniform. Her lips twisted. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. But here in this place, well, it’s not fun to pretend anymore.”

“Pretend? You think—”

“Nass.” Her water-colored eyes focused on me like a pair of clear, sparkling spotlights. “Playtime’s over. This is real.”

I stomped away to the far side of the well, savagely chewing my lip. Okay, I admit the line about the guiding light was bullshit. Once upon a time, maybe I needed to believe that buzz. It helped Sayeed and me rally volunteers to rebuild the Asian Internet. Back in those days, we all yearned for some kind of faith. Ah, Shee, how the beliefs formed in our youth cling to us. At 248, 1 could still spout that creed by the kilo—and often did. We visionary Com leaders dedicated our careers to keeping everyone on Earth gainfully employed. Stability, that was the law we worshipped, and after surviving the Crash, peace was our graven motto. We dreamed of leading our moribund planet back to the golden age.

But who was I kidding? We’d built another pyramid scheme, just one more feudal pecking order, where swindlers jockeyed for top place and the rewards of greed glittered. Well, didn’t our ape ancestors fling feces at each other to establish alpha dominance? I stared hard at the fungal blooms in the well—had I ever believed it was right?

Then the irony almost made me laugh—a 248-year-old man still vacillating over right and wrong. The one truth age reveals is: There’s no absolute good. There is only what works, and that has never changed. If my Com friends were overthrown, another elite would take our place. But how could I say that to my dewy-eyed Sheeba? She would have to live another hundred years to understand.

“So he’s planning to board the gunship?” I said, getting back to the main point Philosophical questions aside, I still meant to escape and settle my score with that punk.

“He and Geraldine.” Sheeba got up and dusted fungus off her legs. “They’ll use your thruster to circle around and sneak in from behind.”

Molto thin, unrealistic and massively unworkable. “That sounds great,” I said, crossing to the ladder. “When do we leave?”

Sheeba pulled my hand off the rung, and her brown-blue-green eyes softened. Gilty gods, she melted me down. “You’re not going, Nass. Liam doesn’t want to put you at risk.”

Is that what he said? Fuck that.

Mercifully, those words didn’t pass through my lips. I pressed against Sheeba, and when she didn’t resist, I clung to her, inhaling her herbal spice. Wetly, I mouthed her burnished cheek. Then I tore myself away and headed up the ladder.

“Let’s just pop up and see if they need anything.”

Shee followed me into the safety hatch. “Maybe you can make Kaioko smile. She likes you.”

“Excellent thought.”

We found the ringleaders of Heaven’s miserable tribe gathered in the anteroom. They’d hidden all the kiddies on Deck Five. Juani slumped against the counter, while Geraldine hovered over Kaioko, who sat on the table with the glazed vacancy of catatonia. Only Liam sprang forward at our approach, fully on guard. Someone had raked the dismantled cyberdoc onto the floor, and he scooped up a heavy piece of its outer case as a weapon. But when he saw Sheeba, he lowered it.

What a pathetic little group. Despite the weak gravity, they sagged and hung their heads as if their very eyelashes weighed megatons. They couldn’t hold out much longer. In the last six days, they’d had no more food or sleep than I had, and they lacked the advantage of my NEMs to rebuild their immune systems. Youth wasn’t enough. They were walking wrecks. If Provendia knew the real situation, our troops would board and end this fracas without delay. That gunship captain had to be a total mushbrain.

Kaioko looked skeletal under the fluorescent strobe. The gray uniform hung on her like a sack. Her smooth wide face had gone dull, and her tiny eyes had lost their luster. I wanted to believe she was simply tired. Her scarf had slipped back off her forehead, and some of her burns were showing. She would be embarrassed if she knew, and I felt an urge to pull the cloth back in place for her. I whispered to Shee, “Kaioko needs a nap, that’s all.”

Geraldine threw me a ferocious scowl, and Sheeba laid her finger across my lips to shush me. When Liam turned away, I saw his untidy yellow braid dangling over my thruster. Here in Four’s light gravity, the thruster weighed so little, he’d probably forgotten that he still wore it.

Geraldine shifted to turtledove mode. She flitted around Kaioko, cooing soft love notes and offering a cup of water. But Kaioko didn’t respond when Geraldine pressed the cup to her lips. As the liquid dribbled down her chin, Kaioko didn’t even turn her head away.

“Kai-Kai, please look at me. You need water,” Geraldine pleaded.

I felt sorry for the evil wench. “What about Vlad?” I said, but no one paid attention. It was as if they’d been hypnotized.

Something had to be done to break this spell. I left the anteroom, cycled down to Three, jogged to the galley and jerked the bunny-face clock off the wall. Grumbling all the way, I climbed back up to Four, cycled through the lock again, and carried it into the anteroom, where the Heavenians still slumped and drooped and hung their heads just as pathetically as before. I held the bunny clock in front of Kaioko’s eyes and moved the whiskers around with my index finger.

“Look, dear. See how the nose-hairs move. It’s very cute, isn’t it?”

For the briefest moment, her diminutive eyes followed the movement of the whiskers. “Time,” she said.

“Correct.” I glanced at Shee with a small thrill of triumph. “And what is time?”

Geraldine and the others google-eyed the bunny clock as if they’d never seen it before. Liam moved closer.