F. Wilson - Dydeetown World

Laughed. "Nobody is!"

She laughed, too, and I liked the sound.

"But is this it?" I said, looking around at the Lost Boys' tunnel village. "This is it for the rest of your life?"

"It's not so bad." She hooked her arm around mine and I felt a strange tingle run up to my shoulder. "Come on. I'll give you the tour."

The kids fell back, then followed us in a herd as she led me toward the greenery. Watched her out of the corner of my eye. She thought I 'd changed? She 'd changed! This was not the dumb woman-child clone of two years ago walking at my side. She was a grown-up — content, assured, self-confident. More than her hair had changed. Seemed to me she'd made major changes under that hair.

"The daybars were here before I came, but the children never took advantage of the artificial sunlight. I had them collect some soil from the upper tunnels, steal seedlings from a few choice window boxes, and here we are: fresh vegetables."

"Filamentous," I said, and meant it.

She led me through the old station, showed me the various models of hut. Did my best to appear interested, but couldn't get a certain question out of my mind. Finally, when she stopped and showed me her own hut, I asked it: "How come you're wasting your life down here?"

She turned on me like a tiger. " Waste ? I don't call this wasting my life!"

"Bloaty. What do you call it then?"

"Doing some good! Making a difference! And I don't need your dregging Realpeople seal of approval to make it matter to me, either!"

"Making a difference?" She was getting me riled. "What difference? They're still going to grow up and move upside with no legal existence and try to scratch out a living in the shadow strata."

She turned away. "I know. But maybe they'll be just a little bit better people because of what I've done for them down here. And maybe…just maybe…"

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe they won't all have to move into the shadow strata. Maybe some of them can go somewhere else."

"Like where?"

"The Outworlds.""

Too stunned to speak as she turned around and faced me with all this hope beaming from her eyes. Jean Harlow the clone had a Big Idea. A Dream.

That can be dangerous.

"Did they make you travel back and forth from the Outworlds in an unshielded cabin or something?" I said when I'd regained my voice. "Being out there must have affected your mind."

"I'm not crazy!" she said with this beatific smile. "Farm planets like Neeka are crying for settlers — the younger the better! They need hands!"

"But these are little kids here! They can't — "

"Little hands quickly grow into bigger hands!"

"And how are you going to get them off planet?"

She frowned. "That's the problem."

"That's not the only problem," I said. "Who knows how they'll be treated out there? Some dregger could turn them into slave labor, or worse."

"I know, I know," she said in a miserable voice. "But look at this." She gestured at the platform around us. "Something has got to be done. These are babies . This has got to stop!"

Stood and stared at her, not really understanding her. As usual.

Guess there are two ways at looking at things like the urchingangs. Me, I've always accepted them. The urchin problem was swept under the carpet long before I was born and I've always taken it for granted that they'd still be there long after I died. Urchins: Everyone knows they're there, but as long as they stay out of sight in their assigned niche, no one has to bother about them.

Then there's the other way: Someone sees the lumps in the carpet, lifts it up and says, Hey, what's this dregging mess doing here? This has got to stop .

Well, sure. Now that I really thought about it, yes, it should be stopped. But who was going to do the stopping? Not an everyday jog like me. And certainly not a renegade clone of Jean Harlow.

This has got to stop had never occurred to me because I knew it would never stop.

And what you can't change, you accept.

At least that was what had always worked for me.

"Don't go stirring things up," I told her. "You might get hurt."

She shrugged. "I'll risk it."

Pointed to the kids standing and staring at us from a distance. " They might get hurt."

"I know." She turned those big eyes on me. "Will you help me?"

Shook my head. "No."

"Please, Sig?"

That startled me. She never called me by my first name.

"With all your contacts, you could help me find a way to get some of these kids out of here."

Shook my head again, very slowly so she couldn't confuse it with anything else. Knew if I got myself involved in this one it would make me crazy.

"Double no. And let's change the subject."

She gave me a long, reproachful look. "I suppose you want the rest of the payment for ridding us of those NeuroNex snatchers."

"We're even," I said. "Consider it a favor for a friend."

She smiled. "So I'm a friend? How nice of you to say so."

That took me back. The friend I'd meant was B.B., but I didn't correct her.

"Better be getting back," I said. "Is there a shortcut out of here?"

"Only if you're B.B.'s size."

"But they must have had lots more entries and exits in the old days."

"Of course, but they've long since been sealed up and built over. The nearest adult-sized entry is the one you used to get here."

"You going to lead me out?"

"B.B. will do that. Goodbye, Mr. Dreyer."

She turned and walked away.

Strangely enough, about a week later I was sitting in my office with my feet up on the desk, thinking of Jean — nothing personal, just wondering what she was going to do with all those kids — when B.B. raced in. His eyes were bugging out of his ashen face.

"Got uh! Got uh! Got Wendy!"

My insides did a flop to the right, then to the left as I got my feet down and shot upright.

"When? Who's got her?"

Already knew the answer to the last part. What a dregging jog I'd been not to remember what Spinner had said about watching my every move.

"Yellows!"

That stopped me.

"You mean M.A. types?"

He nodded vigorously. "Four!"

What 'round Sol were Megalops Authority police doing arresting Jean?

"Where'd they take her?"

"Dunno! Dunno!" B.B.'s face skrinched up and he started to blubber.

"Hey, little man. Calm down."

Seeing him break up was upsetting. Motioned him over by my chair and put an arm over his shoulder. He slumped against me and sobbed.

I said, "I'll find out what's going on. If the yellowjacketstook her, she'll be down at the Pyramid. Probably all a big mistake."

He seemed to take heart from that. "Think?"

"Sure."

Biggest lie of my life.

"Y'get Wendy out, ri', Sig? Get back Mom-to-all?"

"Do my best."

"Cn'do, Sig. Know it be filamentous soon. Cn'do any!""

"Yeah."

The People's Pyramid — Open To All The People All The Time .

Megalops Central really is a pyramid — no holo envelope. The real thing, squatting in the middle of a huge plaza. Hollow inside with all the governmental offices in the outer walls.

Supposedly a showpiece but actually a colossal waste of space. A golden Cheops model, sloping up stepwise to a transparent apex. The steps provide landing areas, making up for the lack of a flat roof, I guess. Always bustling. Never closed.

Took me a while — had to answer lots of questions and go through a genotype check — but managed to get a short visit pass. Sat there in a booth facing a blank wall. Noticed recorder plates overhead. Every word, every move was going into Central Data.

The wall cleared and there was Jean. She looked surprised. Shocked, in fact.