F. Wilson: Dydeetown World

Instead I'd come to Elmero's.

"Fake," he said, pulling the card out of a slot and sailing it across the room at me.

"That bad, huh?"

Had a feeling Elmero saw more than his share of greencards, real and otherwise.

"Worst fake I ever saw. Too thick, for one thing, and they didn't even bother to encode it with a genotype."

No genotype on the card …and it figured that if Barkham hadn't bothered to make a decent fake of a card, he certainly hadn't made any changes in CenDat.

Poor Harlow-c — that dumb, trusting clone hadn't even bothered to give the card a try-out. She was walking around thinking she could pass for Realpeople, but was still a clone as far as CenDat was concerned.

"By the way," Elmero said. "Heard something new on Barkham. Word is he tried to sell ten vials of the Zem to Lutus on Friday. And Lutus, being a fond, trusting competitor, called Yokomata to ask her what was up. The bounty on Barkham's head hit the tubes a twentieth later."

Interesting. A lot of information was accumulating but none of it was piecing together. Barkham was looking more and more like tube slime, nothing like the clone pictured him. Figured I had nothing to lose by asking a stupid question.

"Say, Elm…any chance of Kel Barkham being an R.A. agent?"

If Elmero was merely ugly when he smiled, he was hideous when he laughed.

" That motherless dregger? If Barkham's R.A., so am I!"

Tucked the worthless greencard away and stood up.

"But about that card," he said, still smiling. "For what it's worth, there is something encoded on it. Nothing to do with greencard information, but there is something. I can find out what if you want."

"Maybe later. Right now I need some firepower."

"You? You couldn't hit the side of Boedekker North at fifty meters. You're better off running."

"Know that. But may not get the chance. Need an edge."

"This have anything to do with looking for Barkham?"

Nodded. "It might."

He rubbed a long-fingered hand along his jaw. "Guess I'd better protect my investment. Got just the thing for you. Strip to the waist…"

Once we had settled into the cab of the rented flitter, Harlow-c wanted her greencard back right away but I told her I needed it just a little bit longer. She didn't like the idea but I didn't give her much choice.

The console asked for our destination and Harlow-c handed me the coordinates she'd written on a slip of paper. Thrust it back at her and told her to read them off, saying I probably couldn't read her handwriting.

Which was true. Also true that I couldn't read most writing unless the words were few and simple and block printed. Never learned. Great with numbers but reading was a useless skill. Like most people, had little need for it. But here I was with a clone who could read. Saw no reason to let her know I couldn't.

She read them off, the flitter rose, and we were on our way.

Except for my skin itching me under the wrist contacts that went along with the chest zapper Elm had fitted me with, it was a comfortable trip. We didn't say much, and when we did, I made sure we avoided the subject of yesterday's stay at Yokomata's. She talked about some of the books she had read recently. Wondered if she was showing off or just trying to make conversation. For a dumb clone she seemed to know a lot.

Less than two tenths after leaving Brooklyn, we were hovering over the Maine Coastal Preserve. Can't imagine why anyone would want to live in Maine. Cold rocks, cold wind, cold water. And trees, lots of trees. The megalops hasn't crept this far north and probably never will. The cave was below — a black hole in the coastal rocks, well above the tide line.

Settled the flitter down and turned to her.

"Once more: What did you do here?"

"I took the box Kyle gave me and carried it down to the cave."

"How big was the box?"

"About this big." She measured out a 25-by-10 centimeter space in the air — just the right size to hold a hundred amps of Zem. "I took it in and a voice from somewhere in the dark told me where to put it. I put it and left."

"And that was it? Nothing more?"

"Nothing. I got back into the flitter that brought me here and let it take me back to L–I Port where I was supposed to meet Kyle for the shuttle out."

"And he never showed."

She shook her head sadly. "No."

Beginning to get the picture now, but needed to explore the cave to confirm a suspicion that had been growing all day.

Left Harlow-c in the flitter — I'd brought a coat, she hadn't — and made my way to the cave mouth with the flit's utility lamp under my arm. The salt-stinking wind off the water was like a vibe blade against my face. Strange to think that everything I was looking at was really there. No holos. Found it disorienting in a way. Also, the wide-openness of the Maine coast left me feeling naked and unprotected. Was glad to get into the comfortable dark confines of the cave.

Didn't take me long to find him. Just followed the whimpers.

Not sure how they did it to him. Must be something the Martian colonists developed. I knew The Man From Mars was involved — he'd left his mark scratched in the dirt next to Barkham's remains: a big circle with four little circles lined up inside along the equator.

Only Barkham's head remained untouched. It sat upright, open mouthed and glassy eyed on a transparent box, blinking in the glare of my light.

Except for the spinal cord and major nerve trunks, his torso was completely gone: skin, muscles, bones, guts, all eaten away or chewed away or melted away, I don't know which. But gone . The lower halves of his arms and legs still had flesh on them but were connected to the rest of him by nerve bundles alone. All the nerves seemed to have been coated with something to keep them viable and then stretched to their limit over the rocks and debris on the cave floor. Where his chest had once been now sat a heart-lung machine, hissing softly as it drew air in and out of the tube jammed into the lower stump of his windpipe, chugging softly as it pumped bright red blood up through his arteries and drew the darker stuff down from his jugulars.

He yelped with every step I took toward him.

At first I thought he was afraid I was one of his torturers come to do more damage, but then realized he could feel every little vibration I made as I approached across the cave floor, and each and every one was translated into pain for him.

Came up and looked him in the eyes. Whatever kind of mind he'd had was pretty much gone. Having his entire nervous system laid bare to the chill Maine air had pushed him into mental subspace.

His pupils constricted as he looked up into the light.

"God?" he said in a voice so hoarse from screaming it was barely recognizable as human. "Is that…you, God?"

Realized he couldn't see me behind the light. He was talking to the light, timing his words with the exhalations of the machine sitting below the stump of his neck.

"Yeah. God. That's me."

"Can I die…now God?…I've had e…nough take me…God I'm ready."

"Not yet. First you answer a few questions."

His eyes squeezed shut. "After I'm…dead God after…I'm dead."

"Now." Didn't give him time to protest again. "You shorted The Man From Mars, didn't you?"

His voice keened, his eyes rolled, his face contorted in a spasm of horror at the mention of that name. Had to let it run its course.

"Didn't you?"

It looked like he was trying to nod but he couldn't, not with his neck muscles detached from the rest of him.

"Yes but on…ly a few…vials."

"So he came for the rest of it."

A sob: "Gave it…to him."

"But still he did this to you."

Another attempt at a nod, then a wail. " Lesson! "