Майкл Бишоп - The Final Frontier - Stories of Exploring Space, Colonizing the Universe, and First Contact

“Young Adel,” murmured the Godspeed . “Remember what I said.”

—trust Kamilah—

—or trust Speedy—

—we were warned—

Adel flicked the toggle. “Now what?” he said to himself. His voice sounded very small in the suit.

He was startled when Kamilah leaned her suit against his so that the tops of the eggs were touching. It was strangely intimate maneuver, almost like a kiss. Her face was an electric green shadow in the glow of the HUD.

He was startled again when she spoke. “Turn. The. Comm. Off.” He could hear her through the suit. She paused between each word, her voice reedy and metallic.

“I did,” he said.

He could see her shake her head and tap fingers to her ears. “You. Have. To. Shout.”

“I. Did!” Adel shouted.

“Good.” She picked up a rock the size of a fist and held it at arm’s length. “Drop. Rock.” She paused. “Count. How. Long. To. Surface.”

—science experiments?—buzzed plus.

—she’s gone crazy—

Adel was inclined to agree with his minus but what Kamilah was asking seemed harmless enough.

“Ready?”

“Yes.”

She let go. Adel counted.

One one thousand, two one thousand, three one thousand, four one thousand, five…

And it was down.

“Yes?” said Kamilah.

“Five.”

“Good. Keep. Secret.” She paused. “Comm. On.”

As he flicked the switch he heard her saying. “…you feel it? My first time it was too subtle but if you concentrate, you’ll get it.”

“Are you all right, Adel?” murmured the Godspeed . “What just happened?”

“I don’t know,” said Adel, mystified.

“Well, we can try again on the frontside,” said Kamilah. “Sometimes it’s better there. Let’s go.”

—what is she talking about?—minus buzzed .

For twenty minutes he trudged in perplexed silence past big rocks, little rocks and powdered rocks in all the colors of gray. In some places the surface of the trail was grainy like sand, in others it was dust, and in yet others it was bare ledge. Adel just didn’t understand what he was supposed to have gotten from watching the rocks drop. Something to do with gravity? What he didn’t know about gravity would fill a barn. Eventually he gave up trying to figure it out. Kamilah was right about one thing: it was real work walking in a hardsuit. If it hadn’t been for the isotherm, he would have long since broken a sweat.

—this has to get better—buzzed plus .

“How much longer?” said Adel at last.

“A while yet.” Kamilah chuckled. “What are you, a little kid?”

“Remember the day I got here?” he said. “You told me that you were sentenced to spend time on Speedy. But you never said why.”

“Not that interesting, really.”

“Better than counting rocks.” He stomped on a flat stone the size of his hand, breaking it into three pieces. “Or I suppose I could sing.” He gave her the first few bars of “Do As We Don’t” in his finest atonal yodel.

“Gods, Adel, but you’re a pest today.” Kamilah sighed. “All right, so there’s a religion on Suncast…”

“Suncast? That’s where you’re from?”

“That’s where I was from. If I ever get off this rock, that’s the last place I’m going to stay.”

—if?—buzzed minus—why did she say if?—

Anyway, there’s a sect that call themselves God’s Own Poor. They’re very proud of themselves for having deliberately chosen not to own very much. They spout these endless lectures about how living simply is the way to true spirituality. It’s all over the worldnet. And they have this tradition that once a year they leave their houses and put their belongings into a cart, supposedly everything they own but not really. Each of them drags the cart to a park or a campground—this takes place in the warm weather, naturally—and they spend two weeks congratulating themselves on how poor they are and how God loves them especially.”

“What god do they worship?”

“A few pray to Sagittarius A*, the black hole at the center of the galaxy, but most are some flavor of Eternal Centerers. When it was founded, the Poor might actually have been a legitimate religion. I mean, I see their point that owning too much can get in the way. Except that now almost all of them have houses and furniture and every kind of vehicle. None of them tries to fit the living room couch on their carts. And you should see some of these carts. They cost more than I make in a year.”

“From shocking people,” Adel said. “As a professional eyejack.”

The comm was silent for a moment. “Are you teasing me, young Adel?”

“No, no.” Adel bit back his grin. “Not at all.” Even though he knew she couldn’t see it, she could apparently hear it inflected in his voice. “So you were annoyed at them?”

“I was. Lots of us were. It wasn’t only that they were self-righteous hypocrites. I didn’t like the way they commandeered the parks just when the rest of us wanted to use them. So I asked myself, how can I shock the Poor and what kind of purse can I make from doing it?”

A new trail diverged from the one they had been following, Kamilah considered for a moment and then took it. She fell silent for a few moments.

Adel prompted her. “And you came up with a plan.”

—why are we interested in this?—buzzed plus .

—because we want to get her into bed—

“I did. First I took out a loan; I had to put my house up as collateral. I split two hundred thousand barries across eight hundred cash cards, so each one was worth two hundred and fifty. Next I set up my tent at the annual Poverty Revival at Point Kingsley on the Prithee Sea, which you’ve never heard of but which is one of the most beautiful places in the Continuum. I passed as one of the Poor, mingling with about ten thousand true believers. I parked a wheelbarrow outside the tent that had nothing in it but a suitcase and a shovel. That got a megagram of disapproval, which told me I was onto something. Just before dawn on the tenth day of the encampment, I tossed the suitcase and shoveled in the eight hundred cash cards. I parked my wheelbarrow at the Tabernacle of the Center and waited with a spycam. I’d painted, ‘God Helps Those Who Help Themselves’ on the side; I thought that was a nice touch. I was there when people started to discover my little monetary miracle. I shot vids of several hundred of the Poor dipping their hot hands into the cards. Some of them just grabbed a handful and ran, but quite a few tried to sneak up on the wheelbarrow when nobody was looking. But of course, everyone was. The wheelbarrow was empty in about an hour and a half, but people kept coming to look all morning.”

Adel was puzzled. “But your sign said they were supposed to help themselves,” he said. “Why would they be ashamed?”

“Well, they were supposed to be celebrating their devotion to poverty, not padding their personal assets. But the vids were just documentation, they weren’t the sting. Understand that the cards were mine . Yes, I authorized all expenditures, but I also collected detailed reports on everything they bought. Everything, as in possessions, Adel. Material goods. All kinds of stuff, and lots of it. I posted the complete record. For six days my website was one of the most active on the worldnet. Then the local Law Exchange shut me down. Still, even after legal expenses and paying off the loan, I cleared almost three thousand barries.”

—brilliant —buzzed minus.

—she got caught—plus buzzed .

“But this was against the law on Suncast?” said Adel.