Analog SFF, October 2008 Read online

  “What happened?”

  “He apparently bribed his way off.”

  Jacob's expression turned sour. “Someone would let a man like that go free just for greed?”

  “Shosha doesn't pay its security workers very well. If someone's wondering how to pay that month's rent or put away money for his child's education, a big enough bribe can be quite a temptation.”

  “So we take him into custody, just like that.”

  “That's Plan A.”

  “And if it's not that simple?”

  “Then you'd better hope I have a Plan B.”

  Farmlands rose before them now, soaring “up” until they met overhead. They glided past fields tended by large electric combines and threshing machines and by men and women using rakes and hoes.

  It was difficult for Carrie to rid herself of the impression that the car was standing still and the habitat was rolling beneath her, as if she were a gerbil in a plastic wheel. She blurted out, “Whatever you have to say about me, let's get it into the open.”

  For an instant, Jacob's focus of concentration appeared to be on guiding the car smoothly around a sharp curve. But Carrie saw his jaw clench, saw the tips of his fingers whiten as he gripped the steering wheel. “I'm trusting you not to let what happened to your sister affect your judgment. Which means I'm taking responsibility for you. Do you understand?”

  Carrie sat up in her seat. “It means I have a responsibility toward you, as well.”

  Jacob gave the smallest of nods. “That was the right answer.”

  “You can have faith in me.”

  “I have faith only in the Lord. You'll have to settle for trust—and conditional trust, at that.” Jacob continued driving, and Carrie was once again lost in the image of the cylindrical world rolling around her.

  * * * *

  As Carrie continued swimming toward Vicari's compound, she came up for another quick breath, rode the wake of a passing barge, then continued the sharp strokes and kicks that propelled her through the water more swiftly than even the most accomplished non-modified human swimmer. And in this habitat, she thought, I don't have to worry about heat detection sensors or sonar or cameras discovering me, about energy bolts or even slug-throwing weapons targeting me.

  Maybe I could learn to like it here after all.

  She paused again, allowed her head to break the surface, looked around. Darkness had fallen more deeply than she was accustomed to in other habitats. No metropolitan areas blazed with light; the only illumination came from farmhouse windows and the occasional security spotlight or streetlight.

  A world without a moon, Carrie thought. Or even stars.

  The sound of a dog's barking carried from a homestead beyond Vicari's, then was obscured as a pleasure boat glided past on the still river. Carrie drifted downstream the final few meters, approaching Vicari's property without having to make strokes that might have been heard from above.

  She floated smoothly and silently until she was even with Vicari's property, then eased her head just above water level and looked around. Two boats were there at the dock. Each a nice comfortable size, Carrie thought, without being ostentatious. A wooden stairway zigzagged its way up a twenty-meter cliff to the house.

  She looked up, but a wide rock outcropping blocked her view of the house until she let herself drift to one side. Light shone from a wide picture window overlooking the river.

  There sure is a lot of activity up there, Carrie thought. Lots of people moving around—what the hell?

  He's bugging out, Carrie realized. I misjudged him. I thought he'd try to bluff his way through, or even confront us physically.

  And I don't have time to get back to Jacob.

  * * * *

  Earlier, as they pulled up to the Penner farm, Carrie felt as if she'd been transported back a couple of centuries. The house was modest but sturdy, wood construction, painted white with a red roof and trim. Behind the house stood a barn, its paint job not as recent, its broad wooden doors standing open. Past the barn, she saw several cows in a wide field, some grazing, others lazing on the ground. A rich combination of smells wafted from that field—animal fur, hay, manure, and some odors Carrie couldn't identify.

  As she walked toward the Penner home, she heard an odd sound and stopped in her tracks. “What's that?” she asked.

  Jacob also stopped and listened. “What's what?”

  Carrie looked more closely at the cows. “Oh, they're mooing! I've never heard that before.”

  Jacob favored her with a grudging grin. “It's called ‘lowing.’ That sound they make.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “This is my home,” Jacob said, and proceeded toward the house.

  As they stepped onto the unscreened porch, Carrie thought it curious that no one had taken notice of them. Jacob knocked on the front door and when no one answered, he went to a window, leaned over, and peered inside.

  “Isn't that rude?” Carrie asked.

  He looked up at her. “It's neighborly enough.”

  A voice behind them, male and gruff: “How can I help ye?”

  Carrie started, turned, and thought: Now this is the real thing, the pure stuff. The man standing there sported a full beard. His coveralls were dirty and worn, real workman's clothes and not a retro fashion statement. The pitchfork he was leaning against completed the picture.

  Carrie's initial impression was that the man was close to a century old—his hair was nearly all gray, and his face was deeply wrinkled. But she quickly revised that, realizing here was a man who was living his natural life span, not one augmented by medical or cosmetic biotech—he might not have been older than forty-five.

  Jacob bounded off the porch and extended his hand. “Mr. Penner, we've met at a couple of barn raisings, I believe.”

  Penner shook Jacob's hand. “Troyer's your name, isn't it?”

  “Yes, sir, Officer Jacob Troyer.” He indicated Carrie. “And this is Carrie Molina, from—”

  “From Earth, I'd gather,” Penner said as he shook Carrie's hand.

  “Yessir,” Carrie said. When did I start wearing a sign marked EARTHER? she wondered. Never mind that it's probably apparent in every word I speak, the way I walk, probably even in how I shake hands.

  Penner's face revealed a deep suspicion. “You're here about Helena, aren't you?”

  Carrie was about to speak up, but Jacob beat her to it. “We are, sir.”

  “She's in the fields working. As she should be.”

  Carrie said, “You know how important this is.”

  Penner's expression was unyielding. “I know how important my daughter is to me. I won't have her be ... disturbed again.”

  “Sir, your attitude toward your daughter is admirable. But there are plenty of other fathers who should be just as concerned about their own daughters.”

  “That's their responsibility. Helena is mine.”

  Carrie let her shoulders slump and her hands fall to her sides. She lowered her head for a moment, then looked Penner in the eye. “I want to respect your wishes, sir. But I have a duty here, just as your duty's to your family.”

  Penner addressed Jacob. “And what is your responsibility here, Officer? Obviously not to protect my family from unnecessary prying by outsiders.”

  Jacob said, “Mr. Penner, what would you think of another girl's father who could've allowed her to speak up, but didn't? How could you not blame him if something happened to another girl?”

  Penner grasped his pitchfork's handle with both hands and thrust its prongs into the dirt before him. “The time for blame is past—long past. My blame arrived when I allowed Helena to work for that man.”

  Carrie said, “Mr. Penner, she's twenty years old—she can do what she wants.”

  “That's what I told myself then. I can't change it. But I won't let it happen again.”

  “But, sir—”

  Jacob took a step in front of Carrie. Heat rose to her face and she nearly pushed him aside, but at the
last instant thought better of it. Jacob shook Mr. Penner's hand and said, “I thank you for your time, sir. We won't bother you again.” He strode off toward the car.

  He's just assuming I'll follow, Carrie thought, like some nice little girl.

  I'll follow, all right, Carrie thought as she jogged to catch up to Jacob. But I won't be nice about it.

  * * * *

  Carrie was still fuming as Jacob led her back to the car. “What the hell was that all about?”

  Jacob wagged a finger at Carrie as if she were a child whose mouth he was about to wash out with soap. “Now, now. Language again.”

  “Well, then, whoop-de-do or kiss-my-whatever. You'd better have a damned good reason for that.”

  Jacob opened the driver's side door but paused with one foot inside. “By ‘that’ I suppose you mean abandoning a conversation that was going to yield us exactly nothing.”

  “Well, uh ... yeah. I guess.”

  “Fine. As long as you know what you're complaining about.” He got into the car. Carrie took a deep breath, then eased in next to him. Jacob pulled the car away from the Penner farm. He said, “I did as much as I could for Mr. Penner. I let him know I respect him and his views. Now we talk to Helena anyway.”

  Carrie grinned. “So your idea for a Plan B was the same as mine!”

  “I'm more concerned about what happened to Helena than I am about Mr. Penner's feelings.”

  Carrie let her grin fade. “I have to admit, you surprise me.”

  “Because I don't approve of a man abusing a woman? Because I'm willing to violate a father's wishes to find out what really happened here?”

  “It's not that, it's—”

  “What? My not wearing a beard? Not speaking in ‘thees’ and ‘thous?’ I'm a man like any other. There are as many different shadings of Mennonite belief as there are individuals in this habitat.”

  “You're being unfair.”

  “Perhaps you just think that because you don't believe.”

  “Actually, I rather do. But your beliefs seem more personal than mine.”

  Jacob's smile was ... beatific was the only word that came to Carrie's mind. She's never seen such peace reflected in a man's face. He said, “My relationship with God is indeed personal. And intellectual and emotional. Even though I live in a man-made structure, this human handiwork reveals His own.”

  Carrie said, “I might be convinced to envy you for that.”

  Jacob slowed the car as they passed another field where several men and women toiled. He pulled to the side of the road and took a small handheld device from his pocket. A flick of the wrist, and the top part levered upward, forming an “L” shape.

  “Some sort of communicator? I'm surprised.”

  “Just a cell phone.”

  “A ... what?”

  “A cellular phone. It ... never mind.” Jacob punched several numbers into the phone's small keypad, then put it to his ear and listened. “Looks like her calls are blocked.”

  “You had her contact number the entire time? Why didn't you just call her before we got here?”

  “I was sincere about wanting to go through her father first.” He selected a different series of numbers. “But did she block texting?” Seeing Carrie's puzzled expression, he explained: “It's one thing to block calls. But young people love to text-message, and can do it more unobtrusively than talking.” More number punching and he was done. “Well, it looks like it went through. I told her who we are and where we are.”

  Carrie looked out toward the field again. “What are they harvesting out there, anyway?”

  Jacob was still staring at his phone. “Timothy and clover, mostly.”

  “So they harvest that, and form those bales of hay?”

  Another grin from Jacob. “Someday I'll have to meet you down on Earth and we'll take a look around. I can just hear myself: ‘So, I press the button on the replicator and food just appears?'”

  “So you know more about my society than I do about yours. But—”

  “Wait—here comes a reply. We're to meet Helena on the northern end of the Penner property.”

  “Let's go, then,” Carrie said.

  Jacob guided the car down the road, then turned north at the first intersection.

  * * * *

  Helena stood at the edge of the roadway next to a low rock wall, leaning against her pitchfork in a stance eerily similar to her father's. Her work clothing seemed newer, less worn, but Helena herself, at age twenty, seemed closer to her father's age. Her face was dusty, she had the beginnings of lines at the corners of her mouth and eyes, and her eyes were sunken. Damn, Carrie thought, life in the fields ages you.

  When Carrie and Jacob got out of the car, Helena's posture stiffened even more. She said, “I didn't believe it. My first time seeing an Earther.”

  “Beg pardon?” Carrie said, utterly flummoxed that a woman she'd just met would go out of her way to insult her. “Listen, young lady, I'm here to help you.”

  Helena spit on the ground, just centimeters from Carrie's feet. “That's what I think of your help.”

  Jacob said, “I understand, Miss Penner, that you're still upset. But you're the one who called for help.”

  Helena leaned her chin on the pitchfork's handle. “Oh. That was a mistake.”

  “The mistake may have been using forbidden tech to make that call.”

  “I ... wasn't thinking. Please don't make us get rid of the comm. My father ... he uses it to talk to his brother down in Iowa, that's all.”

  Jacob said, “So now we're telling truths.”

  Helena lowered her chin from the pitchfork. She held its close to her chest. “Yessir.”

  “And a little respect toward our guest from Earth would be good, too. Your father raised you better than that.”

  Helena's eyes flicked toward Carrie, then away. “I'm sorry, ma'am.”

  Carrie said, “Helena, we don't care about the tech. We just want to know what happened between you and Malcolm Vicari.”

  Helena looked at Jacob. “Could you walk down the road a ways?”

  “Of course.”

  Helena watched until Jacob was out of earshot. “There are some things a man shouldn't hear.”

  “I understand,” Carrie said.

  Helena raised her pitchfork, then stuck it into the ground. She sat on the low rock wall, back straight, hands in her lap, fingers interlaced. She looks like a schoolgirl about to recite a story, Carrie thought.

  Helena stared at the ground. “What do you want me to tell you?”

  “The truth.”

  Helena sniffed and wiped her nose with her hand. “The truth will set you free. John 8:32.”

  I won't respond, Carrie thought. Sometimes silence is the best way to get someone to talk. Let the other person want to fill that empty space.

  And Helena did: “I only wanted a job. Something to let me be on my own. My father considers me an old maid, you know. But he hardly lets me out of the fields or away from the house—how in this world can I ever meet my husband?”

  “How'd you start working with Malcolm Vicari?”

  “He heard during services one week that I was good with numbers. And I'd taken bookkeeping in our habitat's college. He was willing to give me a chance, though he couldn't pay much.”

  “How did...”

  “It happen?”

  “Yes.”

  Helena said, “I was staying late one night. It was near dark, but Mr. Vicari said he'd give me a ride home. I called my father and he didn't like me being out late, but Mr. Vicari spoke to him and ... and told him he'd keep me safe.”

  “How far is his house?”

  Helena pointed up and to the right, on the opposite side of her inside-out world. “Just on the other side of the Humboldt River. See the red barn with the white roof?”

  “So not far. And this strikes me as being a much safer habitat than many.”

  “I wouldn't know about that. I've never been to another.” Helena looked down a
t the ground again.

  Carrie spoke up quickly to keep Helena from winding down. “Then what happened?”

  “He came into his study, which was where I worked during the day. It was dark out now, and just one light was on. When I looked up and saw him, I ‘bout jumped, ‘cause of how shadows fell across his face.”

  How did Adriana react when she first glimpsed him? Carrie wondered. She forced that thought down and asked Helena, “What did you do?”

  “Just ... sat there. He said he was sorry he scared me. Then he ... are you sure you want to hear this?”

  I'd rather hear anything else in the world, Carrie thought. “It's what I have to hear. To do my job.”

  Helena's interlaced fingers tightened until her hands shook. A tear fell onto one wrist and when Carrie looked at Helena's face, she saw more about to well over. Helena said, “I'm sorry I called you that before. You know, when I called you a—”

  “You don't have to say it again.”

  “Yeah. I guess not. So Mr. Vicari came to me. He didn't say anything else. He ... touched my face. And it was like an electric shock went through me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “It surprised me so. I stood up too quickly, and my head began to swim. He told me to be careful and grabbed my shoulders. He never touched me before. His hands were as strong as I remember my dad's being when I was little and he used to pick me up and throw me up in the air. And I could smell him—Mr. Vicari, I mean. Not in a bad way, just ... I don't know.”

  “You weren't used to him being that close to you.”

  “He held my arm with one hand and touched my face again with the other. It was like I was paralyzed, only ... I wasn't.”

  “Not physically, you mean.”

  Helena turned her head toward Carrie and now the tears flowed, making little rivulets down her dusty face. “It was like I couldn't make myself move. Like he had some sort of power over me, something ungodly and evil.”

  “It's just tech,” Carrie said. “Nothing supernatural.”

  Helena glared at Carrie. “I don't consider my idea of evil to be something ‘supernatural.’ Like it's not real.”

  “All I'm saying is that he's a man like any other. He hurt you using machines. That doesn't make him any less ... evil.”