Strangers. Part 3

"You'd be wealthy."

She knew she was being illogical. The clones did not care about her. They had saved her life, yes, because they were programmed to protect humans. Then again, Annia never had been interested in clone medicine before her indenture, and so had never really developed the objectivity of the other clone medics on Guardian. "I won't sell them."

He shook his head regretfully. "You can't afford a domestic virus, either, not one and definitely not two. The penalty for handling a thing like that...I don't run that kind of risk."

"Who does?"

"n.o.body you want to deal with."

"What about you?"

"I don't deal with him, either." He hesitated and added reluctantly. "But I know people who do."

"Who?"

He shook his head. "You can't afford it anyway. Maybe I could get you a reader. Something that would imprint their crystals."

"How much?"

He looked unhappy. "At cost. Not more than you can afford. Don't go asking around for domestic viruses. Don't deal with anybody but me."

"I need the virus."

"So maybe I ask a few people. I don't promise anything." He signaled the railhead to load a car.

He did not like the new place he was in. Objects did not match those he knew from simulations. The horizon was upside down. The ceiling was too far away. The air moved all around him, first one way then another. The air was warmer than it should be, too, and smelled strange. He tried to process images that made no sense to him. He found no matches except for the lieutenant.

He followed the lieutenant who followed the doctor human and the other human into a box that was silver like a shuttle. Inside, he accessed his crystal for data about the new place. His crystal told him nothing. He didn't know what to do.

The doctor human pushed him toward a padded seat. "Sit down, both of you." The sharpness of her voice made him think of bad feelings. He tried to access his crystal for information that would tell him what he had done wrong.

"Sit. Good feelings. You can have good feelings. You sit here."

Good feelings. He had not done wrong. He didn't deserve bad feelings. He felt better.

The lieutenant did not sit down. She paced back and forth in the little box, looking for enemies. There might be enemies. He started to get up and look for enemies, too.

"Sit," the doctor human told him. "Have good feelings."

He remembered to sit. The lieutenant sat down beside him tense and shaking. The doctor human laid her hand on his damaged shoulder and said to them both, "You deserve good feelings. Have good feelings."

He felt good.

The doctor human and the other human sat down on a blue bench opposite him. The box jolted and began to move. The movement felt like the lifts in his simulations. In simulations, he got good feelings for riding quietly in lifts. The lift box hummed on the rails. He looked out the window and saw bright objects blur past the vitrine. Everything in this place was green. He checked his crystal. No data on green places. Only grey like the barracks, or white and red like C-med, but the lift box hummed, so he felt good.

The doctor human said, "What are you going to do with the shuttle?"

The other human shrugged. "I know someone who carries goods across the zone from the Federation. He'll refit your shuttle, change the registration.

The doctor human said, "A smuggler."

He spread his hands in a human gesture. "Just because governments don't get along is no reason people can't do a little business between themselves."

The doctor human withdrew from the discussion. "It's your business."

The other human stretched out his legs and folded his arms behind his head. "I arranged for an a.s.sociate to s.h.i.+p your camp kit and emergency shelter to the rail terminal. Just as well you brought your friends. They can carry your equipment. It's a six-kil walk to Murrayville. Bus only runs twice a day, so you walk the rest of the time."

"You said it was near public transportation."

The other human shrugged. "Is. Twice a day."

The lift box went down for a long time. He forgot where he had come from. His arm hurt. The doctor human was familiar in her red smock. That was rea.s.suring because he didn't know where he was. The lift car slowed and finally stopped with a b.u.mp just like the lifts he knew from simulations, so that was all right, and it meant he should get out.

The other human got out first, then the doctor human. He waited for the lieutenant. The air outside smelled different from the places he knew. He smelled sweetness, pleasant smells that made him nervous because he did not know what they meant. Smells should be familiar and tell you where you were and what was happening: smell of bodies in barracks during sleep cycle, smell of chemicals in C-med, of ozone and burned flesh in battle. Then he smelled something he did know, a sweet, greasy smell, heavy on the air. Food. He felt hungry. He looked at the lieutenant to see if she would order him to eat. He didn't see a barracks or a cafeteria, but the lift had been familiar, and food smelled good, so he had good feelings.

He followed the humans across the platform. The humans would tell him if he could eat. They would get the food for him.

The doctor human put a hand on his chest and pushed him away from her. "Stand back. Good feelings."

The lieutenant smelled the air, too. She said, "Soldiers must eat."

The other human picked up two big, silver bags and slung them over his back. "Haven't you fed those two?"

The doctor human said, "I haven't eaten in at least ten hours -- since before the s.h.i.+p was attacked. It's probably been longer for them."

The other human threw a silver bag at him. He caught it in his good arm.

The human said, "We'll stop for food on our way out of town. You hear that, clone? Food. You carry the bag. You know 'carry'?"

He knew 'food'. He went to the other human.

"Now he wants to be friends. Bag over the shoulder like so." The human pushed the straps of the bag over his undamaged shoulder. He often carried things in simulations. That was fine. They would go to a barracks and get food. He had good feelings.

She had felt better on the lift. That was like simulations, but although the doctor human said 'eat' and 'food,' they didn't go to a barracks. She smelled the food, but for a long time, they walked on a long corridor with dirt and no walls, so it was not a corridor, but something else for which she had no simulations. She wanted to eat. She had a soldier with her. That was rea.s.suring. Soldiers gave her good feelings. She should tell the soldier to eat, but first a human must give her the food.

They pa.s.sed large boxes jumbled together so that they made bulkheads on either side of the dirt corridor. The boxes had humans inside them. Finally, the doctor human went to one of the boxes and got food from the human in the box and brought it to her and the soldier.

She knew it was food by the smell, but it didn't look or taste like food from simulations. It was sweet and tender on the outside. It flaked on her hands, and she licked the flakes from her skin. The inside dripped oily and brown, full of firm chunks. She ate fast.

The doctor human watched until she finished the food, then gave her more. She took it and ate it eagerly.

The doctor human said, "They're not fussy eaters."

The other human grinned. "You don't like eel pie? Could be you'll grow a taste for it. Eel is cheap in Murrayville."

They were walking as they ate. Soon she smelled water and more plants. She remembered those smells from simulations. She smelled people, too, a smell like the clone barracks when it was full of bodies. These people smelled like soldiers who had fought for a long time and not gone to the barracks for showers.

"This is it," the other human said.

The doctor human said, "What do you mean, 'this is it'?"

He waved his arm. "Murrayville. Not exactly a throbbing metropolis, but it's free, and you're a landowner, so there's worse places you could find yourself."

The doctor human sounded angry. "This isn't a city; it's a shanty town. Half these people need medical care and the other half need social relief."

The other human winced. "Now, it's not so bad as it looks. Anybody can get those things in the city if they're willing to fill out the forms and repay the social debt. These are the people who prefer to live under Yetfurther's camp charter: no police, no social relief, but no taxes either. They keep what they earn and get what they're willing to work for. Most of these you see here are Procreationists. They don't want to limit family size under Cyrion law, so they live out here. Most of them are too poor to own property, so they rent from bigger landowners. It gets better inside. You follow me to your plot. You'll see. Keep those two close."

The other human talked quickly as he led the way through the first maze of corridors. "Your neighbors are nice sorts, come from a good family. They're cousins. I sold them their lot not quite a year ago, do some odds and ends for them. There are some very good people here if you don't look too close at the outsides."

She looked around her. There were people, not clones like in the barracks, but humans, all different. She knew humans from simulations. She wondered if some were enemies. She thought about fighting, and her muscles tightened.

The doctor human turned around quickly and said, "At rest. No enemies." The doctor human's voice made her think about bad feelings.

No enemies. All were humans. They did not wear uniforms or coveralls. Their trousers stopped at the knees. Some of the humans wore no clothing at all, very small humans who stopped to watch them walk by. She had never seen anything like them in simulations.

The other human opened a door in a grey-brown wall. He bowed. "Welcome, Ms. Annia, to your new home."

Chapter 3.

Thick moss just a shade more blue than emerald carpeted the ground down to the trees. The silver-blue of water showed through the twisted limbs and k.n.o.bbed root ma.s.ses of the trees at the waterline. Someone had planted a garden along the south- facing line of the fence. The plants didn't conform exactly to anything Annia remembered from childhood farm tours with her peer group, but from their shapes; she guessed herbs and fruits, and the tangled vines climbing the fence would be legumes of some kind.

Photon harvesters stood atop the fence. Each square, black panel in the row faced slightly west. They would follow the sun across the sky from morning to night.

Mr. Hollin said, "Didn't I tell you? One of my best properties. You there, Mr. Clone, just put that bag over there on the deck. That's right. Put it down."

To Annia's right, a wooden deck stood not quite a meter off the ground on permocrete foundations. It was five meters square, more than ample for the modest emergency shelter included in their kit. Annia's anxieties returned at the sight of it. "Does the lake flood that high?"

Mr. Hollin sounded offended. "Certainly not. The water's never risen this high that I ever heard of. During flood season, the trees sort of make a dam out of their roots if you see what I mean. The trouble is mudrimples."

"What are mudrimples?"

He made a creeping motion with his hand. "Venomous. Not very aggressive on dry land, and the catpils keep them down, but it's best you don't walk around in the mud under the trees. If you have to go down to the water, use the boardwalk."

Halfway down the slope, the fence gave way to a wooden walkway mounted on logs that ran down the last of the slope and between the trees toward the water.

A scream and a thump of something heavy striking flesh made Annia's skin go cold. The male clone's head jerked up. He bolted, suddenly inhuman in his speed and grace, to the gap in the fence where Annia saw another campsite alongside theirs.

She followed him, shouting, "Stop, at rest."

On the other side of the fence, the male clone had already halted, distracted by the sight of a two-meter-tall saurian with eyes like gold plates. The creature sat on the female clone with one clawed foot tucked up beneath it and the other planted on one of the clone's wrists. A stiff crest of coa.r.s.e, pale hair flipped up then down again as it turned its head toward Annia.

Annia approached it cautiously. "At rest," she said to the XX. The clone turned her head to watch Annia. She looked puzzled as though she could not understand how she came to be flat on her back.

A slender woman with shockingly pale skin and sleek, dark hair stood behind the big alien brus.h.i.+ng bits of moss and dirt from her trousers. Her right forearm was covered in black and silver scales. An irregular patch of similar scales surrounded her left eye, which was a light, iridescent grey in contrast to its vividly green mate. She was a flutter addict, Annia realized with a flicker of revulsion. Tiny bells, clipped into the scaled skin, circled the woman's left eye and lined the back of her right arm, and she wore a delicate filigree of wires and bells on each ear from the lobes to the top of the cartilage.

The stranger resettled her rumpled clothing. She c.o.c.ked her head at Annia, and smiled with delight. "You found us. We should have known you would."

The big saurian flicked its wrists. It wore bells clipped into its thick, bronze skin from nose to tail. They rang softly with its movements.

Annia edged toward the big alien, wary lest she startle it or the clone into violence. "Was anyone hurt?"

The human woman said, "I'm all right. Cho knocked me down coming between me and your friend."

Annia said, "She won't attack again. You can let her up." The alien rose from its crouch. Beneath its slender neck, long, muscular arms on ball socket joints ended in disconcertingly human hands. As Annia approached more closely, she saw a pair of light-green, very human-looking eyes below the alien plates. The alien stepped away from the XX clone and waved its tail in a susurration of bells.

"At rest," Annia said to the clone. "No enemies."

The clone rocked to her feet so quickly that Annia stepped back, and the alien flattened its crest.

Mr. Hollin cleared his throat. "Beg your pardons, ladies. Ought to have made introductions right off. Ms. Annia, these are the neighbors I was telling you about. Ms. Maycee Charmmes," he bobbed at the fair-skinned human, "and her cousin Ms. Cho'en Charmmes. Ms. Annia and her friends just bought the other lot."

Maycee Charmmes, the human of the pair, held out her hand to Annia. "We should have known Mr. Hollin would take you under his wing."

Annia took the other woman's hand gingerly. The gesture was unfamiliar to her.

The dark-skinned alien flicked her skin and s.h.i.+fted her feet. Bells rang up and down her body. She finished with a decisive flip of her nose.

Maycee grinned. "Cho'en says I'm being cryptic and inconsiderate. She wants to apologize about the garden."

"The garden." Annia said.

"Gaeans, you know; they all consider themselves amateur gardeners. Your lot was unoccupied, so we planted a garden. It's your lot, of course. You should consider the garden yours, too."

"Gaeans?" Annia felt herself lagging further and further behind the conversation.

Maycee jerked her head at her alien cousin. "Like Cho. Except she's half human."

The alien flicked her bells again, and Maycee pursed her lips. "I'm sorry. Cho says you're dropping from weariness and I shouldn't keep you talking. Can we help you set up your shelter? Then you ought to eat dinner with us. Cho'en is cooking tonight, so it's safe."

The shelter was a silvery cube two meters high. A sheet of photon-absorbent material peaked over the top of the cube to shed rain and feed energy to the battery that ran the stove, refrigerator and heaters inside the shelter. Thin, white plastine coated the inside of the shelter and diffused light from the windows. Dim photon emitters lit the walls.

Annia wanted to collapse under a plastine blanket as soon as the shelter was up, but Maycee Charmmes said, "Cho'en has dinner ready. If you miss it, you'll have to eat dehydrated rations from your own kit. You'll stay, won't you, Mr. Hollin? You won't be putting us out."

Mr. Hollin accepted the invitation with a casualness that told Annia he was used to dining with Maycee and Cho'en. Annia wanted on the one hand to set the right precedent by keeping herself and the clones to their own camp. On the other hand, the clones were reacting to the words "eat" and "rations" and Annia herself was hungry, and she was too tired to prepare anything, and if the cousins already had something cooked, it seemed petty to refuse.

The clones trod on Maycee's heels getting to the other camp where the alien Cho'en stooped over a lidded pot on a grate over an open fire and used a wooden spoon to scoop the contents of the pot into mismatched plates. Maycee served Annia and the clones at a rough, plank table. Mr. Hollin served himself. The big alien ignored the benches and settled on her haunches at the head of the table. Even seated on the ground, her head was level with Maycee's.

Cho'en's concoction was a stew of vegetables and chunks of fishy eel covered with a thick, porous crust. At first look, it reminded Annia of the nutritional gruel served in the juvenile peer dorms on Ifni, but growing up in the dorms had taught her to eat when food was offered or go hungry, so she raised a forkful and tried to conceal her suspicion.