Plague Planet (The Wandering Engineer) (23 page)

“Give it a shot. Unless your chicken?” the tough asked. Irons
chuckled.

“No, no it's no problem.”

The crowd parted and the tough motioned him to go ahead. At the
stage he was waved up. The promoter looked amused and aggrieved at being
upstaged.

“This won't take but a moment Burt,” the tough said, slapping the
promoter on the shoulder. The fat man winced and then nodded moving aside.

“How large a weight?” Irons asked.

“Oh take your pick
little
man,” the tough said, clearly
amused.

“How about that one?” Irons asked pointing to the largest.

The crowd sputtered and tittered. The tough roared. “Sure, go
ahead and bust your guts on that,” he said slapping his knee. “Me, I'll take
yonder one over there,” he said, pointing to a smaller set with a one hundred
kg markings on the black cast iron weights on either side of the horizontal
pole.

“Here, I'll show you how it's done,” the tough said, striding
manly to the weights. He put his hands on his hips, jutted his chin out and
took a weight belt off a stool and buckled it on. He sniffed a few times, made
some muscles, stretched and then took a deep breath and knelt. He let it out
and then took a second breath and then let it out. With the third breath his
entire body explode into action, with a grunt his lifted the weight first up to
chest height, and then straining over his head. He held it trembling for
ten-seconds and then dropped it, stepping back fast as it bounced to the
ground.

“There, that's how it's done,” he said blowing hard.

“Okay,” Irons said watching the man blow. “That's what two hundred
kilograms?”

“And the one you picked out is six hundred.”

“I know that, I was just curious,” the admiral said.  He leaned
over and the muscle man laughed.

“No, no, two hands. He thinks he can do it with one hand!” the
tough said to the crowd. The crowd roared in laughter.

“Want me to show him?” a big broad brown bear off stage asked,
huffing and making a face.

“No, I got this,” Irons said.

“Suit yourself,” the first tough said, shaking his head and
chuckling as he stepped back. “Whenever you're ready,” he said. He turned,
smirking at the audience. This was going to be hilarious he thought.

“Sure,” Irons said, getting a grip. He grunted and dry lifted the
weight up with one hand. When he had it to chest level he grunted again. “I see
now why you said two hands. It's actually hard to balance,” he said in the
ensuing silence. He was holding the bar perfectly level in front of his chest.
He placed his other hand on it and then lifted the dumb bell over his head.
“Where do you want it?” he asked, turning to the tough.

The tough was staring at him. Irons held the bar, not showing any
stress or strain. He was rock steady, not even shaking with strain the tough
realized. Finally when the man didn't answer the admiral carried the bar over
to the side and set it carefully down. “There okay?” he asked.

The tough stared. The crowd roared in disbelief. A pair of humans
scrambled onto the stage and brushed past them to try the bar. They strained
but failed to budge it. Irons looked at the tough. “Sorry, didn't  mean to show
off. Can I go now?” he asked. The tough blinked but just stared mute.

“Well, I've got to get going, enjoy your day folks,” the admiral
said, waving and then walking off the other side of the stage and then off.
People watched him go, a few followed for a bit but then turned back. Irons
rounded a corner of the sea wall and then shook his head.

“Showing off indeed,” Sprite said. “You and your questionable
sense of humor.”

“It was fun to see the look on his face,” the admiral admitted.

“Right...” the AI drawled.

...*...*...*...*...

“I think I like this,” Sprite said as he felt the wind ruffling
his hair.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, this mix has made your tail back off,” Sprite informed him.

“Tail?” Irons asked. Two images of a pair of Siamese cats were
projected in windows on his HUD. He wasn't sure what the big deal was. Domestic
cats’ right?

“They're Neos admiral. And I believe they're tracking you by
scent,” Sprite said.

He stopped and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He'd overlooked that
possibility. A Neo could track him if he didn't suppress his scent. “I forgot
they could get that small,” he admitted. Most people thought of Neos as larger,
two meters or so. The most common Neos were canines, they tended to be between
a meter and two meters tall when standing upright. But other Neos were out
there, running around, sometimes pretending to be pets.

“True,” Sprite replied, taking pity on him. Neos were usually a
bit larger, they had tended to grow and self-evolve over the centuries since
they had been created. Normally a Neo that looked like a domestic cat was
either a human genie or someone who had a human genie in their past. These
however were the real deal, possibly rare.

“There are otters here too,” Sprite reminded him. He nodded. “I
believe the old saying about perceptions and...” he held up a restraining hand
to stop her.

“I get the picture. Okay. My mistake. Good catch. Now, any idea on
who hired them? Ole Blue perhaps?”

“No idea. They aren't communicating except in sign language,” she
replied. He watched a short video she presented of one Neo sitting on her
haunches and using hand signs briefly. From the look of her behavior and the
thrashing tail of the other, the smaller female wanted the other one to circle around
and pick up his trail somewhere else. The other wasn't happy about being split
up.

“I'm fascinated that they're here,” Sprite said. “Most Neos of
their size were on the core worlds. There was a block on their breeding you
know,” she said.

“Oh?”

“Terran cats, normal Terran cats were terrors to local bird and
small mammal populations on Earth and several of the early colonies. They drove
some animals to near extinction. Neo cats had restricted breeding for some
time.”

“Larger cats because of the physical threat,” Irons replied,
remembering his history. People were people, having a three hundred kilo
predator walking down the street didn't bode well for peace and tranquility.
Which was why many of the larger Neos headed to the outer worlds after the first
AI war.

Neo domestic cats had split into two factions. Some had kept to
their size and kinship to regular unmodified cats, while others disdained human
contact and disappeared into the back alleys and sewers of their undomesticated
kin. A few, a small few had stayed in society, but they had developed an
inferiority complex when they compared themselves to their larger kin. Many had
re-engineered themselves or their prodigy to a full two meter Werecats in
compensation. Those that had followed that path had either intermingled with
the other Neo breeds and lost their separate identity, or they had embraced
different pelt designs to make themselves stand out.

Either way it didn't really matter now. He had a pair of furry
spies on his heels. He sent the mental order to cut his scent and then went on
his way, more wary now.

...*...*...*...*...

On the beach further away he ran into a group of genies fishing.
They were Terrans who were descendants of people who had engineered themselves
to be amphibious. They had gills among other fishy or dolphin traits. Some were
mer, some were Naga like. He was impressed by the colors and diversity of the
clan. “Fascinating,” Sprite said, highlighting the mix of primitive tools and
clothing. Some were fat, needing the excess weight for fuel and to better
endure the frigid waters at depth. Others were slimmer, they apparently kept
near the surface or in the shallows.

They worked as a well-oiled team, the deep sea divers running
lines out while others worked the inshore. The children dug for clams and other
creatures in the sands and tide pools.

“They have no fear of a predator attack?” the admiral asked.

“Apparently not. The only predators here are those that came with
the colonists. I am assuming sharks are in the food chain, but they may have
limited the species to smaller animals.”

“Okay, I'll buy that,” the admiral replied nodding.

“You're not worried about the worms?” a woman asked, looking up at
him. He turned to her. Like most of the other women she had some sort of suit
on. It was a partial bathing suit, with exposed sections on her sides for her
gills.

He shrugged. “Worms?” he asked.

She pointed to her throat and nose. His right eye zoomed in. he
could see tiny hair like worms sticking out of her nose like errant nose hair.
A bio scan found more of them. “No, why do you have them?”

“Parasite,” she coughed, one hand going to her mouth. “Best be
careful young sir, you don't want them yourself,” she said.

“Analyzing,” Sprite reported. “I have it.” A report came up on his
HUD. He scowled. The worm was one of the few creatures that were actually
native to the planet's ecosystem. Apparently they had existed under the ice
before the planet had been terraformed. Terraforming had just allowed them to
spread far and wide. The oceans and waterways of Epsilon were contaminated by
the parasitic worm, it attached itself to their gills and then grew until they
suffocated the host.

“I'm sorry, I didn't know,” Irons said softly. She shrugged and
moved on to her task.

“Can anything be done?” the admiral asked.

“No, not on the surface admiral,” Sprite responded. She was still
searching for links about the parasite. It was frustratingly slow to gain
access to any sources on the planet.

“From what I understand the worms are mainly in depths below ten
meters. From their life cycle they are seasonal, hatching from eggs and
drifting to near the surface during warm months such as now. Those who get into
the water... admiral they know they will eventually die from this parasite.”

"My… why then? Why go back?”

“The call of the sea admiral?” Sprite asked, highlighting a genie.
That one was like a mermaid, but with a dolphin tail and flukes instead of a
fish tail. The being stayed in the shallows, away from the nets. Others were
nearby, sporting and doing flips in deeper water. “Besides, they have no other
place to go.”

Some of the people on the beach further away were watching them.
Children pointed to their antics. He looked around, watching them and then
sighed. He turned to a nearby male with a purple and yellow crest on his head.
“Sir, is there a cure to the worms?” he asked.

The man looked at him, setting his trident into the sand. His Naga
tail coiled under him, supporting his upright body. He shook his head mutely.
“The only known cure is to go to a hot dry climate for a year or longer. The
lack of water in the air will starve the worm larva killing it,” the male said
with a curious echo to his voice. His nasal passages and his throat sack made
him look and sound like he had a bass echo. “But those who try... many will
also sicken from the lack of water... the people who were desperate enough to
try it did so, but many have died over the centuries.”

“I'm sorry,” the admiral said, sighing.

“Not your fault landie, our problem,” the being said in a high pitched
voice. He slithered away with his Naga tail.

Irons scanned a nearby woman. She was picking at a net with long
webbed fingers. Her finger tips ended in claws. These she used to work the
fibers into a tight weave before knotting them off. He nodded to her. She
turned away, unsure of the interloper.

He was getting that a lot. They didn't say anything to him, just
gave him questioning or dirty looks. Some were confused, others amused by his
bravado. Sprite processed the scan and then put the results on his HUD without
comment. He discovered that the worms were also in their lungs, attaching
themselves to the alveoli. As they aged and grew the host body sensed their
intrusion and flooded the lungs with fluid. It was a form of dry drowning.
Unfortunately the body's response was bad, in flooding the lungs with fluid it
induced the larva to grow explosively. They hacked and coughed and eventually
died from infection.

The people seemed a bit stand offish, he could feel a vibe there,
an isolation vibe. Normal Terrans apparently avoided them as much as possible,
treating them as lepers. It was sad, prudent maybe, but sad.

There was apparent trade though, men and women met near the high
tide line and traded goods. Seaweed, shells, crustaceans, fish, oysters, and
other sea animals were rapidly being traded to the eager people there. From the
look of it though the sea people were getting the raw end of the deal, getting
simple tools and weapons, nets, and some food. The metals were basic iron, a
stupid thing. They would begin to rust in hours upon entering the water, and
they would be gone in months.

“I take it no one has heard of stainless steel around here? Or
other alloys? What about using copper or beryllium? Or brass?” the admiral
asked, aghast.

“Apparently not,” Sprite replied.

“Yeah, guess not,” Irons replied in disgust. He overheard the
human and Neo venders as they returned to the docks. Some were happy with the
trade. They made out ten to one in the deal according to one older man.