A Cosmic Christmas Page 8

“Well . . . and then I dreamed that I was flying with my own wings, down the zipway, and all the lights and I . . . and I was free.”

  Another silence followed, and then the man said, “I still don’t understand what that has to do with your being out here.”

  “The angel, darling,” Jane said. And then in the tone of someone who didn’t think she should have to explain further. “I read about it yesterday. Perhaps you missed it because you were concentrating . . . Well, because of this trip. But I told you. Some group has been vandalizing the holo ads in this stretch of zipway, climbing up and changing the circuits and reprogramming and making it into the image of an angel with a sword, and sometimes of an angel flying away.”

  “What?” the man said. “That? But that’s a group with technologically advanced tools. Has to be. There’s no way a single person could calculate how to change the holograms so that going that fast and—”

  “It can if the rumors are true and the idiots are now creating super-slaves . . . super-bureaucrats.”

  Jarl sniffed. “It’s not that difficult," he said. "I was altering the one for Eden resort. I can the back of the holograms from the window, and I can calculate how it would be seen at speed and I can figure out how to change it. It’s not hard.”

  Another long silence. He felt the question “but, why?” unspoken, hanging over all of them. “I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know why I do it. Escaping is hard, and they usually catch me returning and whip me for getting out, and sometimes my roommates too, but . . .”

  “But?”

  “But if I don’t do it, all I can think of is being an angel and flying away.” He breathed deeply, feeling suddenly ashamed. Not of escaping. Not of stealing from advertisers a few hundred minutes of their advertising budget, before the repair crews set it right. No, he felt ashamed of letting Bartolomeu and Xander be whipped for his fault. Not that they ever complained, but . . . They were so little. And they deserved better from him. While he deserved nothing, and certainly not the kindness of these chance-met strangers. “Look,” he said. “I’ll go. I’ll turn myself in. I’m a danger to—”

  “No. Protection is freely given,” the woman said. “We do not pass by on the other side. And we— Never mind. You’re not who we came to save, but you are as in need.”

  The man said something about throwing the food of the children to the dogs, but Jane came back, “He’s as hapless as any of them, Carl. Don’t.”

  “So what do you propose to do?”

  “What we’d planned, what else? Only a little modified. Can you give him the serum now? It should have acted by the time we get in, when they unblock the way, if they check.”

  The man was quiet a long while. “They’ll turn the area inside out . . .”

  “Yes, which is why it’s important that he be genetically our son by then. Or test as such. Come, we’re not planning to be here long. They’ll comb the fields and streams first, and assume he injured himself or drowned. Particularly if he’s in the habit of getting out at night, and he clearly is. No one will want the news of the existence of bioed supermen getting out to the civilian population, so they’ll hesitate to search there. By the time they do, we will be well away and near Haven.” She paused for a moment. “Please?”

  “Yes. Of course. You’re right. Of course. The alternative is turning him out, and I don’t think . . . Well.” He fumbled in something then said, “Jarl, give me your arm.”

  Jarl extended it, protruding from the end of his sleeve. He needed to get a new tunic. Supposing he ever got back safely to Hoffnungshaus. Supposing they gave it to him. They might not, after this exploit. Even if he got back safely.

  He felt the pinprick of the injector, but he didn’t feel any different afterwards. He thought it would be a genetic spoofing, designed to show that he was their son, should he be tested. At least that’s what he understood from what they said, and he had read about such substances in the sites Xander had hacked into on Hoffnungshaus’s links. They weren’t very good and they didn’t last very long, but as faulty as they were, people worried they would be just the beginning of a slippery slope that would allow mules—eventually—to pass as normal humans. He didn’t understand what was so scary about mules integrating with the population since, as Jarl himself, from what he understood, they’d been modified so that they could not reproduce. But it seemed to scare people a lot.

  Jane was handing him a bundle of cloth, under the blanket. “Here,” she said. “Put these on, under the blanket. They won’t see clearly enough in here to see what you’re doing. Besides, if you had a fever, you’d thrash about. Then hand me your suit.”

  Jarl obeyed. He couldn’t see the new suit, though it seemed to be larger than the one he’d worn: stretch pants and shirt, it felt like. He handed his suit back to her.

  “I wish I could give you a haircut,” she said. “But not while the light is shining on us.”

  It seemed absolutely nonsensical, because he’d had his hair cut just three months ago, and wasn’t due for the next for another month, when they’d shave all their heads to prevent lice. But he didn’t say anything, and just lay there, feeling oddly comfortable, oddly warm.

  He didn’t remember falling asleep, and was shocked at waking up. Shocked, because he was in a huge bed, and because he couldn’t hear his friends. Instead, he heard birdsong and some distant noise of cutlery approaching closer.

  He opened his eyes, then he sat up. The room was at least as large as the big dorm, and might have been larger. It was hard to judge, since it looked completely different from the big dorm and was, in comparison, almost empty. Instead of twenty beds, side by side, it had one very large bed, where Jarl lay, and a big dresser in a corner, then a desk under the wall.

  The man he’d seen the day before was walking towards the bed, carrying a tray. “Good morning, sleepyhead. Jane said that I should bring you food so that you didn’t freak at the robot servers, which you were likely to do otherwise. I thought you might be starving, as much as you were tired, considering you fell asleep and nothing would wake you and I had to carry you in.”

  He set a tray on the little table next to the bed. Jarl stared at it agog. “Yeah. Jane said they didn’t look like they’d fed you much. Considering that you boys are their pride and hope for the future, you’d think— But they only know one way to do things, and when you consider humans tools . . .” He shrugged. “Anyway, I don’t have time to talk to you just now except to tell you quickly that we have given you a temporary spoofing treatment. A more . . . permanent one can be procured, but it will have to be elsewhere, because it needs several treatments. This one will keep you safe while Jane and I . . . While we do what we came here to do.”

  Jarl set the tray on his knees and started eating. There were three eggs, and large buttered slices of bread, and orange juice, and milk, and thick slices of bacon. Surely there was enough here for three people? But Mr. Alterman didn’t stop him as he ate, and after a while, Jarl drank a sip of the milk and said, “Please, sir, can you put me on the other side of the zipway tonight, so I can get back to Hoffnungshaus?”

  Alterman frowned. “You want to go back?”

  “I have to go back. Otherwise if I’m caught I’ll be killed. I—”

  “You didn’t understand a word I said, did you? You don’t need to go back. We can do a very minor operation and remove your artifact ring. And the genetics can be changed permanently, given enough time and treatments.”

  “But they’ll catch me before that!”

  The man smiled. It was the first time that Jarl saw him smile, and it was a surprisingly cheery expression. “Not where we’re taking you. But first . . . There are other people we are here to help. So Jane and I have to go out. We’ll be back before tonight. We’ll arrange it all then. Meanwhile you have this room. No one should come in. I recommend you bathe, and then—Jane put some clothes in that dresser over there. Dress in clean clothes, and wait for us. Don’t talk to anyone. There is a gem reader there a
nd some gems. Or you can sleep. It will be a long trip for all of us, so you might as well be rested.”

  He left before Jarl finished eating. He went through a door on the side of the room, into what looked like a connecting room. Alterman left the door open, and Jarl could hear him talking and Jane responding, but he had no idea what they were saying.

  By the time he set his empty tray aside, they were gone. He knew this, because he poked his head in the room next door, and found it empty except for some luggage in the corner.

  Then Jarl used the fresher and later he would be ashamed of how long he took about it. Part of it was that he’d never seen a fresher like this. They had freshers at Hoffnungshaus, of course. But washing consisted of standing beneath tepid jets of water and scrubbing as fast as you could before the jet turned on again to rinse you.

  Here the jets of water massaged and soothed, and there was a little machine by the side of the shower which cleaned your clothes at the press of a button. Only Jarl was in his underwear—he suddenly blushed at the idea the woman might have undressed him, an idea so strange as to be unbelievable—and he couldn’t find the suit they’d given him the day before.

  The fresher had mirrors, too. Hoffnungshaus didn’t. He’d seen himself before, of course, on darkened windows and other surfaces. But he’d never seen himself this clearly: too-thin freckled face, wide green eyes and his hair . . . He saw what Jane had meant. His hair was a wild straggle all around his face. He could not cut it—but after bathing—in a real tub, immersed in water, and with all the time in the world, he found an elastic strip and tied it back. Then he found a suit that fit him in the drawers in the dresser in his room. It was royal blue, and the type of clothes he saw teenagers wearing in holos—almost shapeless and stretchy. But it felt comfortable, it was not too thin or too tight or too small, and it looked like something he might have worn if he’d been one of the normal people out there, or their children.

  There were slippers too, that looked even less substantial than the ones Hoffnungshaus gave him, but which felt warmer and more protective on the feet.

  Then he roamed the room, restlessly for a while, and started reading a couple of gems, but couldn’t concentrate on them. The softness of the bed called to him. The bedside clock said it was mid-afternoon on the 24th of December when he gave up resisting and went to lie down. It would pass the time, and then Carl and Jane would be back, and then he would find out what they meant. What kind of place could there be, where Jarl wouldn’t be caught? And where he would be free, like normal people?

  Despite his curiosity, the comfort of the bed made him fall asleep, and he woke up with someone pounding on the door. The pounding was followed by a voice saying, “They’re not inside, sir. I told you that. They left this afternoon to go sightseeing.”

  A voice sounded, sarcastic, clearly mocking the very idea of sightseeing, though Jarl couldn’t understand what it said.

  “They got a map from the concierge. Here, sir, let me open the door.”

  There was the sound of someone fumbling with the lock. Jarl wasn’t even fully awake, but he reacted the way he would have reacted to a similar situation at Hoffnungshaus. He rolled off the other side of the bed, then edged under it, finding that at least maid service was much better than at Hoffnungshaus, since there was hardly any dust.

  He made it just in time. The door opened. The light came on. It shone reflected under the sides of the bed, and Jarl bit his lip and hoped that no one would feel the bed to see if it was warm. They would have at Hoffnungshaus.

  But the voices came from near the door. “As you see, they’re not in. They said they were going sightseeing and their son would be out exploring the resort.”

  There was a long silence, then a male voice with a raspy, dismayed tone said, “I don’t think that was their son. It was probably one of the escaped mules. Did you check?”

  “Sir! We don’t make it a habit of checking guests.”

  “Well, let me tell you who your guests are, then. These people are part of a notorious ring of mule smugglers.”

  “Mule—” the man sounded as though he choked on the word and was, thereafter, incapable of speech.

  “They call themselves Rescuers, or something equally ridiculous. The freedom network. They’re part of a radical sect that considers mules as humans and try to rehabilitate them. They often take the more functional ones, the foremen, and make them . . . pass. They let them infiltrate humanity.”

  “Sir!” There was now true horror in the man’s voice. “I take it . . . that is, you have captured them?”

  “No. We got their flyer, but they seem to have gotten hold of another. They abandoned their flyer and were seen to leave in a sky blue Gryphon, but when we tried to find it, it didn’t exist, not by that transponder number.” He made a sound that might have been the click of his tongue on the roof of his mouth. “Well. We shall lock this, and get the investigators assigned to this task force to come and look through the luggage. And meanwhile, I suggest you make an announcement to have their so-called son picked up anywhere he’s seen on the resort.”

  “I can . . . I can tell our personnel. An announcement . . .”

  “Do as you will, but get moving with it.”

  Then Jarl heard the door close and lock. He still stayed for a while, under the bed, with his cheek flat against the floor which appeared to be made of real wood, thinking. They were mule . . . rescuers. They believed mules were real humans.

  Though Jarl doubted the similarity would impress those mules who’d escaped from Freiwerk, he was too well aware that those mules—those poor unfortunates created in labs and gestated in large animals, even if the animals had been bioed for the purpose—were in a way kin to him and his kind.

  Oh, yes, the unfortunates had been made more or less haphazardly from nationalized stores of ova and sperm. Sometimes they’d been grown from frozen embryos. At best there was nothing special about them but the markers that showed them as artifacts. At worst, the conditions under which they’d been gestated—even if the animals had been changed to supposedly secrete human pregnancy hormones and enzymes at the right time—left them mentally deficient and physically deformed. In fact, the news holos made it sound like all of them were deformed and mentally slow. And Jarl didn’t doubt that even the best of them were damaged. After all, they were raised in very large groups and taught only the absolute minimum to survive and to be able to work at manual labor.

  They were all male, and many were strong, and a tight discipline was maintained over them to keep them quiescent and well behaved. Only now and then they boiled over in riot and escaped.

  Jarl and his . . . kind, back at Hoffnungshaus, were not mentally deficient. Rather the opposite. They hadn’t been haphazardly brought to life from stored genetic materials. They had been carefully assembled, DNA strand by DNA strand, and characteristic by characteristic, designed to be the best of their kind, the best of their sub-race, the best of their nationality. Their designers had proudly given them their own names.

  They were supposed to help manage the increasingly more complex state. Since it had been realized that the planned economy, the planned society couldn’t work unless something better than humans could be found to lead it, something better than humans had been created. They were supposed to shepherd humanity into a new age.

  Because each nation feared that the other’s creation would have no sympathy for them, it had been decided, by treaty, that they’d be brought up at Hoffnungshaus, all together, no matter where they came from in the world. Most of them had only ever known Hoffnungshaus. Jarl, because he was one of the older ones, remembered his first three years, hazily. There had been a family and a woman he called “mother”—he remembered being hugged and kissed.

  In Hoffnungshaus he was never kissed or hugged, or touched, at least not by the caretakers and not unless he was being punished. He wasn’t stupid enough, he thought, pressing his cheek harder against the floorboard, to think that he had it as bad as t
he mules, and he was sure most mules would think Hoffnungshaus was a resort, as nice as this one. But he also wasn’t stupid enough not to see the resemblances. They were all male, kept isolated. They were brought up by males only, probably because mule riots always involved rapes of nearby females, and the caretakers saw the resemblance between the people in Hoffnungshaus and mules. And they were disciplined somewhere in a way resembling historical prisons and reform houses—possibly because while they were needed, as the mules were needed, if for different things, they were also feared. The mules were feared for their strength. Jarl and his kind were feared for their intelligence. There always hung around their caretakers the faint suspicion that their charges could outwit them without effort, and that the only protection was to keep the young bio-improved boys terrified.

  All that Jarl could understand—had understood for a long time, without much thinking—that he was both more and less than normal humans. His mind was more powerful than theirs, but there were things he’d never know: what it was like having a family or growing up in the midst of his equals, freely. He watched enough holos—because Xander was really good at hacking link units—to know how other people lived and how odd and stilted his life would appear to them.

  He also knew that most normal humans would be just as horrified at having one of Jarl’s kind in their midst as at having a mule.

  And yet there were normal humans, free humans—Mr. Alterman and this woman, Jane, whom he’d heard but never yet seen clearly—who would risk everything including arrest and possibly summary justice to free mules.

  Jarl never made a decision. Not consciously. But his body knew what to do. Once he was sure the men had really left and weren’t trying to trick him into showing himself, he crawled out from under the bed.

  He was going through the Alterman’s bags before he was sure what he meant to do. But by the time he found a small bag and started throwing into it gems, id gems, anything even vaguely identifiable, plus two bottles of odd serum and a row of empty injectors, he knew. He was going to get out of here, find them, and take them the things they might need to execute their mission and leave. They’d risked everything for others, and he’d risk everything for them.