Analog SFF, July-August 2009 Read online

  And intelligence took every form and shape that nature offered. As a neighbor, Winston was always fearful of what that intelligence might do.

  When the first survey team arrived, they had found a whole gamut of creatures capable of industrial production, technological innovation, scientific inquiry, and political intrigue—all at each other's throats in a rising war of all against all, the competition of nature raised to the level of Armageddon. That arrival had put an end to the war, but the tensions still remained, many years later. Perhaps they would never go away.

  The chamalians at first considered the visitors from human space to be angels, messengers from a god that had turned his back on the race shortly after its creation. A race of purebreds, whose children were untouched by the curse of Chamal's inbred heritage.

  What worried Winston most was that the only thing that held them at bay was the moral force of the survey team itself—as weak and unreliable a thing as he could imagine. That and the fear that the humans would destroy their race if it ever appeared that they presented a threat.

  And now they'd killed an angel.

  * * * *

  Pog was stopped three times before he got downtown.

  The street above Dr. Wu's villa was just another notch cut into the face of the cliffs that rose steeply up from the Meshkar Sea, much like the one below it, with houses and villas jutting out to overlook the city and the water on one side and an uneven wall of gray and brown stone blocks. At the townward end it was blocked by a sturdy gate, closed at dark. Kar-Kar-a-Mesh worked hard to earn its reputation as the City of Locked Doors. The door to the gate was manned by two sturdy, if not overly wise, badgers with bristly silver fur, straw hats, and military-issue blunderbusses strapped to their shoulders. They each wore the medallions of war veterans—the white stripes in their fur marked them as old enough to have earned them—and members of the neighborhood watch.

  They challenged him.

  "What's your name, pilgrim?” asked the larger of the two doorguards.

  "Pog. Pogopurkaptic."

  "Is he on the list?” the guard asked.

  "Do you want me to look it up?” said the other. “It's not like he's coming in. He's just leaving."

  "Everyone gets checked. And written down. It's the committee's rule. The admiralty's rule too. For all we know, he could be the Scarlet Starflower."

  "Don't bother,” Pog said. “I'm on the other list."

  "The other list?"

  "The list of those who may pass through any gate,” Pog said.

  "Is there such a list?"

  "Ask your captain,” Pog said.

  "And what puts you on that list?” the larger guard asked.

  "I'm the servant of the angel Wu."

  "Are you now?"

  "This is the medallion of the War College,” Pog said. “You can see for yourself."

  The guard examined the medallion while his shorter companion shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. He looked at Pog with his head tilted, then said: “Don't you belong down on Commodore Keln's Lane?"

  "It's a long story,” Pog said. “You haven't seen a black steamwagon tonight, have you?"

  "Ha! Course not,” the guard said gruffly.

  "But we heard the shots,” his companion said. “And the explosions."

  "Didn't hear anything,” the guard said. “We didn't hear a thing."

  They opened the door and let Pog through, writing his name in their book.

  The names would go onto lists at the end of the watch. The lists would be transmitted to the Committee on Public Movement, along with lists from all the gates on all the streets of the city. The committee would keep the lists for all those who might need to see them.

  Of course, there were always ways to keep your name off the lists. The fees were sufficient to maintain the neighborhood watch—and then some. Often that only meant your name went onto another list, with higher fees to remove it. Usually, the lists were never seen by any creatures wise or wild. But they were always there.

  Black steamwagons, however, were never listed. Guards opened their gates and hid behind them when they passed. They kept their own lists—for their own eyes.

  Pog walked on down to the avenue and sat down on a low wall. Every minute or two, a car would come down the avenue from the canyon and slow as it made the curve into the city, some hissing steam, others humming with electric axles, and one reeking of burning alcohol. He pulled the mindpad out of his rucksack and tabbed on the e-mail.

  To: University Archeological Expedition, Pog typed.

  From: Dr. Wu, he added with a shiver. Dearest Mally: It is urgent that you return to Kar-Kar-a-Mesh immediately. Use quickest possible transportation. Tell no one else about this message.

  He pushed the SEND button and sighed. He wished Mally were here already. He needed someone to talk to, someone who would help him understand what was happening, and she was the only one he could trust completely.

  It would take several days for them to reach Kar-Kar-a-Mesh. A long drive would bring them to the railhead in the rainforest. And that would be followed by at least three separate train rides, the last up the steep slopes that led to the high inland sea. It had been a month since Pog had seen Mally last, since he had held her hand and smelled her perfume.

  But there was no time for those thoughts now.

  He put away the mindpad and headed down the avenue toward the waterfront, where he was stopped for the second time.

  The gate to the Old City was still open to vehicle traffic, but there was a line backed up on the sidewalk of pedestrians passing through the walker's entrance. The queue offered a random sample of the varied wildlife-turned-wise that inhabited the high Meshkar littoral—martens and fishers, badgers and hounds, nightcats and treebats, cave bears and mist-apes, all flapping their mouths as if they had something to say.

  Pog kept his head down, showed the gateguard his medallion, and passed on through.

  A few blocks into the maze of hotels, shops, taverns, fishhouses, and inns, he was stopped for the third time.

  "Revkat, Committee of Purity of Thought,” said the dark creature in the dark coat, his dark eyes covered by the brim of a wide felt hat. Behind him, a trio of ferret-faced toughs sneered, but said nothing.

  "Greetings, citizen,” Revkat said. “As you know, an exchange-based economy depends on the support of educated citizens who understand how it works. It is our commission to ensure that all citizens of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh participate in their economy to the maximum possible—and that they understand their roles in it as well as the principles behind it."

  He paused, drew a deep breath, and smiled. Pog smiled back—his best innocent, naive, hayseed-from-the-lowlands smile.

  "Now I'm going to ask you a few questions to be sure you know the basics of our exchange-based economy."

  By now, the three toughs had surrounded him, blocking the light from the bars and clubs that lined the street.

  Ordinarily, Pog would have made the correct responses, working hard to remain as invisible as possible. But this was no ordinary night.

  "What event marks the beginning of the modern era of Meshkar?"

  "Why, that would be the creation of the Exchange itself, Mr. Revkat,” Pog said. “And the banks and the lesser markets and the whole system of finance that has made our city the most powerful on the Meshkar rim. But I wonder, you know, how those things all came into being at once. I can't imagine it happening without a long and historic struggle. The Exchange couldn't have been created instantaneously. There must have been much, much more to it than that. I wonder if it was not the creation of the bankers and the traders themselves, to enlarge their own power over the rest of us."

  Revkat caught his words in his throat, reared back a step to regard Pog more carefully, then asked:

  "What's the highest value of the exchange system?"

  "Efficiency, of course. Thanks to the exchange, money and goods flow to wherever they are needed as fast as they can. When work disapp
ears in one place, additional work appears elsewhere. The increase in wealth benefits us all."

  "Very good."

  "But I don't understand one thing. What about the individual workers whose work disappears? Do they have to travel to the new work? Do they learn the way it is done quickly enough? What about the obligations and rents they leave behind? Don't you ever ask yourself these questions?"

  "I am asking you the questions tonight. And the last one is this: What is the basis of all economic activity?"

  "The rational economic actor,” Pog said. “By making the best decisions for himself, he makes the best decisions for the whole. And that's the part that I understand the least. This rational actor makes no errors of judgment or understanding. But in all the wide world have you ever seen wisdom act thus? Isn't it our fate to be overcome by the wildness within us? No wise creature I have ever known has acted rationally. They are all beset by untamed appetites. They covet possessions for their own sake. They are terrible at judging the risks and gains in an exchange. And they live lives full of regret and sorrow."

  Revkat's shoulders sagged and the light went out of his eyes. “What is your name, citizen? I must enter it on the list."

  "And what list is that?” Pog asked.

  "The list of those who ask impertinent questions."

  "I am Pog, servant to the angel Wu."

  Revkat backed away as Pog presented the university medallion. “And now I must enter it on another list,” he said. “The list of those who know better."

  * * * *

  Having ensured that he would leave a clear and unmistakable path through the lists of the evening, Pog now undertook to disappear.

  He wended his way through the crowd of variegated chamalian breeds, all of whom shared a common trait—more money in their pockets than they needed to feed themselves. One advantage of the cessation of war on Pog's world was the improvement in local economies and standards of living. This section of the Old Town had once been the turf of fishermen, privateers, and stevedores, where rough characters with coins won from rough struggles indulged in rough pleasures.

  But in the years since the arrival of the angels, the rising tide of prosperity in Kar-Kar-a-Mesh had transformed it into a consumer's market for easy sins. Dark streets had become illuminated with garish colored lights offering a wide range of intoxicants and bright windows full of females hawking their charms. Music filled the air—the pipes and horns of the lowlands mixed with drums in a driving, incessant beat.

  Pog ignored the lights, the females, the crowds, the music, and even the occasional crackle of fireworks lit off by mischievous younglings—though the latter made his hearts squeeze with brief panic. He entered an eatery that tonight catered to a clan of flipper-footed fishermen, with long whiskers poking out of their short pointy snouts. He passed them all by, continuing on into the rear of the establishment and out the back door into an alley.

  A few doors down, he entered another door into the bustling kitchen of another restaurant. He nodded to the head cook, a tall, long-eared fellow who was munching on an orange root. The cook nodded back, and Pog went into a small closet. He unlocked a wooden cabinet and pulled off his sleeveless striped singlet, replacing it with a black shirt and collarless jacket. He put his university medallion into a box on the shelf and donned a slouch hat before locking the cabinet back up.

  Then he returned to the kitchen and continued on out through the dining room and back onto the street.

  A few minutes later, he stood before a large tavern with a small sign above the door that read: “The Maltese Frog.” He opened the door and stepped inside.

  A monkey on a stool in the corner playing a lowland horn spotted him first, broke off in mid song, and played the opening bars of “Harlem Nocturne.” It was no saxophone—as far as Pog knew, the only one of those on the planet belonged to Dr. Wu—but it was close.

  "Evening, Mr. Hammet,” the bartender said. He was heavyset old walrus with worn tusks and graying fur. He wore a stained apron and he was wiping off glasses with a bar towel. “What'll it be?"

  Pog took a stool and looked over the crowd. The place was packed. Cats in black-and-white striped jerseys, dogs in yellow doublets, bushy-tailed tree pups in dark eyeshades, and boars in stretch pants were drinking, smoking, inhaling, and, most of all, talking at a frantic pace.

  "Nutbrew,” Pog said. “Black, no syrup."

  The bartender set down a mug and pulled the nutbrew pot out from beneath the bar, splashing the steaming liquid into it.

  At the front of the room, a bespectacled desert kit with a short braided queue stepped up to the microphone and tapped on it to see if it was on. Pog relaxed for a moment as the crowd quickly hushed.

  "My name is Norm and I have a tale to tell,” he said.

  The patrons tapped on their tables with mugs and coins, then fell silent.

  "It was a dark and stormy night,” Norm said. “A shot rang out. The one-armed bear ducked into the alley just in time to miss taking hot lead in the cold rain."

  Pog smiled. He liked one-armed bear stories. The old bear was a well-known character—a war veteran who'd been framed for the murder of a surgeon's wife and who spent his nights tracking down murderers. But somewhere after the setup, Pog lost track of the story, caught up in his own mysteries.

  Dr. Wu would have liked the Maltese Frog. He was a connoisseur of the gritty film noir detective movies of an earlier age, and Pog had learned to appreciate them himself. He had been inspired by Wu's love of the genre to create this unique venue for a uniquely chamalian rendering of the hard-boiled detective story.

  His first tale-telling was a shameless plagiarism and it had given the tavern its name. He had adapted “The Maltese Falcon,” of course, for a world in which there were no birds. He had even adopted the author's name as his own nom-de-plume.

  Something about the black and white world after the angels’ age of war resonated with the inhabitants of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh. The cynicism, the threat of betrayal, the romantic struggle of a lonely figure over moral questions.

  Norm brought his tale to a close with the one-armed bear's confrontation with a would-be killer and brought Pog back from his ruminations. “The weasel was too busy looking at the hand that wasn't there to notice the pistol in the hand that was,” he said. The patrons of the Maltese Frog hooted mildly, the dogs in the back barking out approval.

  When they were done and Norm had taken his seat, wrapped in self-satisfaction, Pog made his way to the mike.

  "I have a tale to tell,” he said, peering into a dark corner where a dark-coated ram sat before a smoking brass bowl. “I see you over there snorting up the incense, Boyd. Who else is here from the Society for the Detection of Horse Thieves and Robbers?"

  A pair of cats in the front looked up lazily and waved. A rockhound in the back howled at the rafters. Others around the room made themselves known in a similar fashion.

  "This tale's for you and it's a true one, so you know what that means,” Pog said. Indeed they did, since spinning a good hard-boiled mystery in Kar-Kar-a-Mesh meant knowing how to solve one. (The Society was another of his creations. “What's a horse?” Boyd had asked when he first explained it.)

  "It's a black steamwagon tale,” Pog said, his voice wavering just the slightest bit. “And it happened tonight up the hill. It's a big tale and by tomorrow, the whole city will have heard it, but you're the first. And it's only the beginning, because there's no solution to it. Not yet, at least. We'll see if that changes once you've taken to the streets."

  The members of the Society murmured supportive sounds as Pog paused before beginning.

  "This is the tale of a black steamwagon crew that killed an angel."

  And he went on with the telling in a room where the only sound besides his voice was the slow bubble of root tea and a squeaking fan spinning slowly overhead.

  * * * *

  Winston clutched the safety bar in the dashboard as the car careened past the statue of a long-forgotten naval
hero (a thick-faced chamalian with a set of bull's horns).

  He ducked involuntarily as three small carts rattled out of the darkness to the right, but he still kept his grip on the safety bar and the car's headlight—the single, unattached headlight that was all that illuminated their way through the streets of Kar-Kar-a-Mesh.

  They raced down a wide boulevard lit by moonshine and little else. He tried to keep the headlight focused on the road so that Neerat, the driver, could navigate.

  The sky held three moons tonight, so that was to their advantage. But Neerat was a chamalian groundhog—what they called a “digger"—and he wore thick goggles to correct his limited vision. He was probably going no more than fifty kilometers an hour, but it felt like a hundred.

  The car swung from left to right as the road wound around a rock outcrop. Winston was jolted along with it—and the headlight with him.

  "If there were any traffic out here tonight, we'd be dead,” Winston said.

  "Everyone must have known we were coming and gotten off the road,” Neerat replied.

  A regular system of streetlights would have been too much to ask. Chamalians didn't do regular systems. It wasn't in their genes.

  Winston knew that for certain, being a geneticist by education and profession. A lot of other things were in their genes, however.

  Universal fertility, for one, with all its risks and benefits. Windows in Kar-Kar-a-Mesh had metal grates to keep out the twin threat of incubi—which every female child feared—and succubi—which every male child craved. Changelings were more than a fairy tale here.

  That meant that Neerat's parents were just as likely to be tree foxes or moonbats or rock badgers as diggers. And his offspring could just as easily be grain mice or cliff goats or gargoyles.

  You could not look at any of those as individual species. You had to see it in its totality as a vast system of genetic diversity. Individuals inherited whole suites of traits from their forebears, a handful of them found expression in their physical form, and the rest remained hidden, to be passed on to their progeny.