The Godwhale (S.F. Masterworks) (8 page)

‘Take a bite.’

Har didn’t like the looks of the raw meat – it was on too big a bone to be rat muscle. The fifteen Tweenwallers were hunkered down around the wet mess of bone and meat. Something had fallen a long way before striking the base. It had landed in a clean area, so there had been no deep trash to soften the impact.

‘I don’t think I’m very hungry,’ he said, holding out the wet object.

‘Take a bite anyway,’ said the gang leader, pushing it back. ‘It was one of the Security Squad sent Tweenwallers after us. If we put enough teeth marks in these bones it may discourage them from sending anyone else in to bother us.’

Har didn’t like the taste, but he liked being hunted even less. He bit, chewed, spat, and bit again. The gnawed femur was added to the heap of bones.

‘I’ll dump these on the Spiral Walkway. If we leave them as calling cards after our attacks on Citizens we can be certain they will be reported. Where is the rest of his gear? A bone is just a bone unless we identify it with something.’

Har watched the gang sort through the paraphernalia: needle gun, cartridge belt, lights, communicator, helmet, and boots. Items of soft cloth were already being worn by the scavengers.

‘Here’s you calling card,’ said the leader. Har walked away with a boot and a femur. There would be no mistaking that. He was now a Tweenwaller, and a cannibal.

Har leaped down from the ceiling, landing in front of a Food Dispenser. The Nebish crowd backed away. Many carried their daily ration of calories. Har jumped up and down screaming, waving the gory femur and making short rushing attacks. The soft, white Citizens tried to escape by running, but they had episodes of shock and plain clumsiness – fainting and tripping over each other. The floor was soon littered with tube steaks, fruit bars, and squeeze bottles. Har loaded his arms and fled Tweenwalls.

Larry Dever screamed in the darkness, choking on bitter, granular fluids. This second rewarming was nothing like his first. Waves of pain and numbness swept over his nervous system, just as real waves surged over him, threatening to drown him. His struggle, half swim and half climb, brought his chin up long enough to clear his airway. Lights danced in the distance. Six pencils of brightness marked the approach of a large noisy machine and a team of masked humans. Masks – bulky and grotesque.

Larry’s scream was garbled by a bulky swelling of his vocal cords. He tried again, but the splashing cries of anguish around him drowned out his call. His hand slipped on a deep cold face, open-mouthed and silted. He tried to relax and breathe deeply. The lights came closer and he noticed that the humans were not administering aid to the writhing bodies. They just sorted through them, shovelling some into the munching maw of the bulky machine that accompanied them.

‘Not much meat on this one,’ he heard them say. ‘A calorie is a calorie.’ The body they handled seemed still and lifeless, but Larry couldn’t be sure. He dragged himself out of their path, cursing his weakness. Weakness? His mannequin was gone. His movements attracted a light beam.

‘Relax,’ said the masked Protein Harvester. ‘Let me disconnect you first, or you’ll tear off your perfusion tubules.’ A rough hand steadied his sore trunk while vascular catheters were withdrawn from a buttonhole incision in his left lower rib cage.

‘He’s a live one,’ called another worker. ‘Is he ready for Rehab?’

‘No. I don’t think so,’ said the first. ‘No legs, but he’s strong. The bad gases haven’t gotten to him yet.’

Then Larry noticed that the bitter taste was not confined to the fluids. The air was acrid too. It burned his throat and lungs – a strong metallic bite. The rough hand towed him through the shallows and deposited him, wet, cold, and naked, in a hallway. Hundreds of bodies littered the floor as far as he could see. Most appeared to be breathing, but little else. An occasional moan. A white-garbed attendant wandered among them, making notes and checking nameplates.

‘Over here,’ called Larry.

As the attendant approached, his empty-eyed stare chilled Larry more than the cold floor. Like a zombie whose soul has gone on before him, he glanced down at Larry – staring through him – scratched a card, and turned to walk away. The thin lips hadn’t moved.

‘Wait . . . I’m still alive.’

‘So?’ said the attendant over his shoulder. ‘That is a matter for the Hall Committee.’

Larry quieted, crawling into a corner in search of warmth. The body-strewn passage stretched on for perhaps a quarter of a mile, but echoes told of many side corridors. Chills rattled. Sleep numbed.

Aroused from his pre-coma by a murmur of voices and machines, he saw the orange Resuscitator approaching on wide soft wheels, administering shocks and stimulants as it came. Five satiny-robed elders rode the meck – rode high on the meck’s back, seated around their table of printouts and readers. They bent over their viewers, squinting out of wrinkled faces and asking their dull routine questions in a monotone lost behind the shrill cries of the hall patients being aroused by the meck’s sparking probes and needle injectors. Bundles and squeeze-bottles were distributed. The meck plucked Larry’s Identoplate.

‘I don’t understand the code on your plate, Larry – er – Dever,’ said the Committeeman. ‘Have you been in Suspension a very long time?’

Larry nodded – afraid that the sound of his voice might attract other vultures.

‘He is bright-eyed, alert,’ offered the second Committeeman. ‘Do we have anything on his skills?’

‘His plate doesn’t even fit into our reader. What do you do?’

Larry’s mind raced. Skills? ‘Where’s my mannequin?’ he asked. ‘If I could share and update I’d know which of my skills would fit your needs.’

‘Mannequin?’ The blank stares were back. Two of the Citizens nodded off to sleep, drooling saliva on their smocks.

‘Mannequin was my companion cyber, my legs. Ask OLGA about me. My genes are precious. I’m awaiting an advancement along the lines of the Todd-Sage breakthrough.’

Another Committeeman dozed off. The first now leaned forward and studied Larry’s truncated, naked form. ‘Why – your legs are gone. You’re handicapped.’

With a murmur the other members stirred. They whispered among themselves.

‘Seems bright enough, but the directive is clear. Society can’t allow him to suffer. Better give him a bottle of Easy Red and put him in a side hall.’

The bundle of clothing consisted of a coarse paper robe with a rope belt. The squeeze-bottle looked inviting until he deciphered the fine print – ‘Euthanasia liquor’.

The soft wheels turned a notch and the Committee studied the next body. The Identoplate fitted into the reader. ‘Name? Occupation? Infirmity? Easy Red’.

Larry watched the bodies around him. The drugs had aroused them, but few struggled into their robes. Most used the soft bundles as pillows and began to sip from their squeeze-bottles. The red liquid cheered them up. If it was lethal, and the label assured that it was, they would die happy – and much later. Larry pulled his robe over his arms and used the belt to tie the lower folds into a rolled tassel. His tender areas thus protected, he began a slow crawl down a side corridor towards the sounds of a city.

‘Excuse me,’ said Larry. Someone had come up from behind and stumbled into him. It was a female, about his age. Her smock was green and neat. Her features smooth. Her hair was rolled up tight. He tried to catch her eye, but they had the same nonfocusing emptiness he had seen in the attendant.

‘You should be ashamed, old man,’ she spat.

‘I’m sorry, I—’

‘Cluttering up the floor with your crippled old body is awfully inconsiderate. Do you realize that your ugliness has ruined my day? A girl can’t even walk the halls these days without being nauseated.’

The words were harsh, but her face blank.

‘You smell awful,’ said another Citizen – a teenage male. ‘Can’t you see you’re dying of uraemia? Here, take this bottle of Easy Red. You shouldn’t be lingering on and suffering like that. You make all of us suffer when we have to look at you.’

Larry huddled in a dark recess behind a Food Dispenser, but still they found him and chastized him for being alive. He asked for food, but those who noticed him shrugged and walked on. Most did not even glance in his direction.

‘Food,’ he said to the Dispenser. ‘I need something to eat.’

‘Unauthorized. You have no credits,’ said the machine.

Larry was beginning to get the picture. He’d have to act quickly if he was to survive.

‘Food!’ he shouted, striking the Dispenser with his fist. ‘Feed me, damn you, or I’ll bust your skin and take what I want.’ Seams widened in the metalloid skin as his fist continued pounding. A red light blinked above the chute. He paused. His skin, softened by Suspension, began to bruise and split. The stubborn meck leaked lubricants. An optic high on the wall focused on Larry.

‘Old man, this disturbance irritates me.’ The green-smocked female had returned.

Larry withdrew to a corner – sullen. She patted the damaged Dispenser and received her food item – a foot-long knobbly object with a bread-like consistency and a variegated cut surface. She bit off a generous portion and approached, talking with her mouth full.

‘I can’t even enjoy my meal with the sight of your ugly deformed . . .’

The Security Squad stood around the attack scene, poking their light beams behind vents and pipes while the White Team quieted the hysterical girl.

‘But I was using the standard “suicide-precipitation” techniques when he attacked me. He wasn’t supposed to do that.’

‘I understand he is not one of our docile recent Citizens. He was suspended a long time ago,’ soothed the Mediteck.

‘But I’m not being paid to take these risks. How’s my ankle?’

‘Fine. This brace can come off in about fifty days. Do you feel up to talking with “Security?”’

She nodded and repeated her story. ‘He doesn’t even have legs. Why would he want to live? He crawled off that way – eating my fruit loaf. See the trail of crumbs?’

The trail was short. It ended at a ‘service’ access hatch – the cover dangled by a twisted pin. The Squad took turns shining their lights into the dark musty space between the walls. Each glanced in, noting the drag marks in the thick dust.

‘The cripple sounds like a plucky little rebel,’ said the Squad Leader, ‘but the Tweenwallers will get him for sure.’ They nodded and replaced the hatch cover.

Larry dragged his tassel through the thick dust. A web of struts and wires stretched out in front of him. They were shrouded in darkness and dust. He felt his way, cautiously aware of the half-mile drop that awaited him if he slipped.

‘No need for Easy Red in here.’ He smirked. ‘If I get tired of the struggle, all I have to do is crawl off into air and let gravity take away my pains.’

His arms tired quickly. He tried to climb up to a different level where Security might not be looking for him. After a brief effort he slept. The dust caked his moist orifices: eyes, nose, mouth, ureterostomy and colostomy sites. When he awoke he cursed the dust. ‘Damn! I’ll never be able to fight off the gram negatives in here.’

A day later he was poised at an air vent when a movement startled him from behind. He turned to see a hulking creature caked with black like himself. They eyed each other intently. Only a tiny shaft of light outlined the scene. Abruptly the newcomer broke the silence.

‘You’re not all there!’

Larry growled back.

‘Easy, little fellow. I’m not going to hurt you. You don’t have enough meat on you anyway.’

Larry watched the big form move silently among the wires to the far side of the hallway. Crowds of lethargic Citizens wandered along in bright light. The access hatch was heavy and bolted from the outside. He watched through the crowd as black fingers reached through the louvers and began slowly to buckle them. Soot popped from those fingers as the metal squealed. He glanced over the crowd. Uniformed Security Squads appeared at opposite ends of the hall. They approached, checking Dispensers and hatches.

‘Security,’ hissed Larry.

The black fingers withdrew. ‘Thanks.’ The silent form nodded as it moved off along the top of an air conduit. Later it returned with food.

‘Here, you earned this. I can use a lookout. You look like you could use a pair of legs.’

Larry accepted the food – bundles of flat pastries layered with sticky protein. ‘We’d make a fine team,’ he mumbled. ‘My eyes and your legs.’ He studied the dusty figure – larger than the average Citizen, but probably no larger than Larry had been when he was whole. In fact, the similarities in bone structures were striking. ‘Who are you?’

‘Har – they call me Big Har.’ He grinned. He had all his teeth. They were still fairly white too. He must be young, thought Larry.

‘My name is Larry Dever. I require more water and less food than you. Water I can get at any bubbler, but you’ll have to help me with the food.’

‘Bubblers are monitored too. We have many pools at City-base. Some carry a fairly clean flow.’

They climbed down through the City’s organs together – the bulky, round-shouldered giant and the tiny hemihuman who alternately walked on his hands and swung from cables.

Hemihuman Larry and Gargoyle Har in one of the City’s larger tracheal air vents. Their bedding of discarded issue tissue formed secure nests that contained their personal treasures salvaged from the Tweenwall depths.

‘I like this place,’ said the hulking gargoyle, ‘because that side vent leads to Security. If you crawl about thirty yards and peek through the louvers you’ll see their wall maps – transportation and trouble areas. I sleep better when I know what my pursuers are doing.’

Hemihuman nodded. He sorted through the debris at the bottom of his nest, tossing worthless items aside. ‘Looks like I’m about out of food.’

‘Come on.’

They moved along the struts.

‘Those small grape-like cubicles are living quarters. See how similar they are. We are looking for a wide area in one of the main corridors – where Dispensers are located.’

‘We just passed one,’ said Larry.

‘The Dispenser is out of order back there,’ explained the giant. ‘See these gritty brown pipes? They carry the calories-and-quarters basic paste – CQB. I put my hands on them to see if food is coming in. If the pipes are quiet – no food. No sense charging out and exposing ourselves unless there is something to eat.’