Harvest of Stars Page 14

  The image blanked. A spokeswoman came on. “You have just seen Anson Guthrie, cacique of Fireball Enterprises—”

  “Turn it off,” said Guthrie. “The rest will be standard-issue pablum.”

  Kyra did. “That was … really your other self, jefe?” she whispered. “Or an electronic job?”

  “Naw. A smart program that studied my recorded ’casts could’ve put it on, but they’ll have to do more than that to make it effective. My double must in fact have been speaking, and will in fact go to Quito, to take charge of the company.”

  Kyra shook her head. “How can he possibly? He was inactive for the past twenty-some years.” She drew breath. “Muy bien, they could force-feed the history into his memory, but the material that was kept confidential, the countless little personal details—”

  “Yeah, it’s a gamble, but he obviously expects he can bluff his way through.” Guthrie’s gaze went outward. His voice became the sound of distant surf. “I think I could pull it off, if my copy didn’t show up. Judas priest, what an all-time crapshoot! I damn near envy him.”

  “And if he fails,” Kyra knew bleakly, “the Avantists won’t have lost much.”

  “Right. A little embarrassment, maybe, but governments work on the crony system. None leans too hard on any other unless it actively threatens the peace or the general environment. North America will insist it was preventing a disaster, however misguided the efforts of a few officials were. Meanwhile it’ll have reaped the benefits of buddy-buddy relationships with Fireball, which this wretched economy needs the way a leaky spaceship needs air. The company can’t rescind that, not punish the prank very heavily. A boycott, for instance, is impractical. If nothing else, other countries would just resell to North America, and we’d have their hostility too.

  “Of course,” Guthrie added, “if anti-me really can quell me without publicity, and not give himself away by some major flub, the Avantists have won. Or so they’ll believe. It’ll take him time, converting Fireball to an active political force, but he’ll have time. Whether he succeeds or not, God knows what the end result will be.”

  He glanced at Kyra. “Don’t let your food get cold, gal,” he advised, “especially not your coffee. How well I remember.”

  She heeded. Despite everything, her body, schooled to resilience, welcomed the nourishment. Emotions stabilizing, she could ask, “What was the official announcement?”

  “What anti-me sketched. Discovery that extremists have infiltrated the state apparatus, Fireball, other organizations, hell, everything in sight. Nothing too specific, but alarming. Vaguely described terrors are the worst anyway. Action against them—you want the list?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Kyra around a mouthful of food.

  “Well, you know about the occupation of our facilities. I recall your guessing there’d be radical security measures at the airports. You were right. The smaller ones are shut down, pending close control. No private aircraft will leave North America without prior inspection and a permit. Satellites and aerostats can monitor that, you know.

  “Checkpoints at every border crossing on the ground, no matter how much public inconvenience. The search will be for ‘deadly instrumentalities,’ but you realize what the detectors are really set to register, though the ordinary cop on duty doesn’t. I imagine he simply has orders to turn in anything that might fit a very general description of me, and arrest the bearer.

  “Inspection of seaborne vessels before clearing them to leave for any foreign country. That won’t raise as big a diplomatic stink as you may suppose. If you’re only checking for a neural network, it goes quick and easy.

  “International mails—parcels and other sizable objects, of course. Electronic communications—monstrous volume, but they’re diverting the hypercomputers to monitor, and never mind what happens to government services meanwhile. Letter mail—I dunno, it wasn’t said, but there isn’t a lot of it and it’s generally slow, nothing especially helpful to us. Don’t forget, my counterpart will soon be on the outside, issuing orders.”

  Kyra grimaced. “I feel the walls closing in,” she said.

  “I was born feeling that way, my dear,” Guthrie replied. “It was one reason I got interested in getting humans permanently into space. A ladder out of here.”

  “But—domestically—”

  “A manhunt. Actually, a me-hunt, but naturally that isn’t said. The announcement was of a general alert and a sweeping search for fanatics. If anybody local tries to declare openly that it’s a charade, you get one guess as to how long he’ll last. Shucks, I wouldn’t even want you expressing me to any destination within these borders.”

  “Oh, no,” Kyra breathed.

  “I’d be less worried if it were only the Avantists after us,” Guthrie said. “But my main enemy’s different. He knows me. He’s gambling, but he must have the odds pretty well figured. And the North American honchos are playing under his advice.”

  They ought to, Kyra thought. What better? Look at what the jefe had achieved in his life and afterward.

  “All I can do right now is put myself in his place,” the voice from the box went on. “Okay, I’d try to keep the balls in the air. I’d try to keep me within this country, on the lam; as long as possible, if I couldn’t catch me right away. Because for each day that passes, I’d secure my position better. One way to do that is to take every available precaution against somebody like you, who knows the truth, stashing me somewhere and getting out with the word. Given a little time, some advance preparations, that unsupported word can be blocked—not absolutely, maybe, but close enough for practical purposes.”

  “Are you sure of that?” Kyra asked.

  “No,” Guthrie said. “Neither is he. It’s not easy to gag someone in an outfit like Fireball that’s always prized personal independence. But I can think of ways that should work.

  “The point is, we’re gambling, him and me. My best assessment of the odds, which I suspect is the same as his—it tells me my best bet is to get out there personally, quick, before he’s had time to update his knowledge and consolidate his position.”

  It tingled in Kyra, coldly. “That seems like a pretty risky strategy.”

  The lenses glittered at her. “Yeah, it is. For you as well, I’m afraid.”

  Blood mounted in her temples. “Sir, I gave troth.” Was that too dramatic? Spacers traditionally understated things. “Fireball’s been good to me. I’d like to keep it the way it is.”

  “God damn, if I could only hug you!” Guthrie sigh-sounded. Then he chuckled. “Affection, gratitude, but also abstract lust. I can still appreciate that you’re a toothsome wench.”

  How many temptations had he resisted? she wondered. With his wealth, he could commission for himself any quiviran paradise he wanted, or an infinity of them. But if ever he indulged, it had not been often or for long at a time. Why not? What made him, bodiless, keep so hard a grip on reality?

  How glad she was that he did.

  She mustered a smile. “Gracias, jefe. From what I’ve heard about your usual manners, that’s quite a blarneying I just received, and wouldn’t I love to take you up on your offer? As for risks, I’ve run a few on occasion.”

  “I know. Old days—”

  After a while they found themselves dealing in memories.

  10

  Database

  THE VILLAGE LAY high and lonely. Through a window of the house in which he crouched, Guthrie saw the last light stream from the west across patches of cultivation, on eastward over sallow grass and sparse bushes, until the altiplano hazed away with distance and alpenglow tinged rosy the snowpeaks beyond. Above them the sky duskened and a planet shone white—Saturn, he believed. The sunbeams gilded some llamas which a boy was driving home from pasture. Life, the labor that earned life, went on because it must, for as long as war and politics allowed.

  The sun vanished and darkness flowed fast. Wind whittered low and chill.

  He felt it, since the window, though small, was u
nglazed, and if he was to mount a defense he couldn’t close the shutters. The house itself scarcely rated that name; “cabaña” would do better for a single dirt-floored room and the few poor possessions within. To be sure, the earthen walls were stout, and two men could not well have held a larger one.

  He looked cautiously, peeking around the edge for a few seconds at a stretch. If he stuck his head out in plain view, he’d get a bullet through it. That had almost happened when he and Moreno stood off the Senderista rush; but their fire had discouraged marksmanship, and soon the attackers withdrew.

  Guthrie’s regard was for the Jeep. It rested about fifty yards away on the rutted track that passed for a road, where he and Moreno had leaped from it as the guerrillas closed in, shooting. He didn’t know how barely they’d made it to this shelter, nor did he know whether the smart thing might have been for them to throw their hands high and trust to Maoist mercies. They hadn’t stopped to think. Guthrie had shouted the command that came naturally and they’d grabbed their just-in-case rifles and run zigzag, bent over. The house proved to be vacant, whether by chance or by the family fleeing in terror. Not till they were inside did Guthrie notice that he’d taken the car keys along.

  Two men guarded the vehicle. He’d seen them earlier: short, hardy Indios in nondescript outfits, firearms—a machine pistol and a probably stolen Colt AR-15—ready to hand. They had seated themselves within and he could now make out only the glowing coal of a cigarette. The herd boy went from his field of view. It included nobody else and no neighbor building. Doubtless the rest of the band were under those roofs with the inhabitants on whom they had quartered themselves. He had no information as to how long they’d been here, though he guessed it wasn’t very, or how willingly they had been received. It made no practical difference. When the Sendero Luminoso arrived, you hailed it as your glorious liberator or you died, sometimes in quite a nasty fashion.

  He turned from the window. Luis Moreno Quiroga stood watch at the one opposite, a slim shadow in the thickening gloom. “That’s a relief,” Guthrie said in English. “I was afraid they’d try to hotwire the car, and either succeed or else disable it. Now they won’t till morning.”

  “I do not expect they will at all,” Moreno replied in the same language, fluently. He and Guthrie had become friends when they were both engineering students in Seattle. He got his degree, Guthrie dropped out of school, and presently they found themselves in Moreno’s native Chile. “They must take us in any event.”

  “Yeah, but they might’ve gotten impatient about the Jeep.” It was a valuable capture, brought down from the States by the partners, old but well-maintained, able to go damn near anywhere. “Old” meant, mainly, that it had been built by American Motors and was therefore a solid, reliable job; also, it didn’t demand unleaded fuel, which was often unavailable in the Andean uplands. “They can starve us out. No, thirst us out.” Guthrie’s nostrils drank dryness.

  “They will not choose that,” Moreno said. “Prestige, if nothing else. Later tonight, I think, when we are tired and sleepy and cannot see them well, they will keep us busy at the windows and—batter in the door, perhaps, and sweep the room with a burst.”

  “I was about to say, that’s my guess too. So we anticipate them. Hey, what’re we talking yanqui for? Luis, amigo mío, lo siento—”

  “Hsh! English is better. Somebody may be listening.”

  “Uh, right. I … I’m goddamn sorry I got you into this.”

  Moreno laughed softly. “We got ourselves into it, Anson. You no more forced me than I forced you, that time at Vance Holbrook’s party when you decided on beer chasers for the rum I brought.”

  “Well, but—It was my idea to start with.” Raise a bit of capital. Travel south. The Stateside market for classic cars had recovered with the economy, and a good many of them survived in northern Chile and Perú, preserved in excellent condition by their owners and the climate. Buy cheap, ship north, sell dear.

  “It worked very well, too,” Moreno said. “Our mistake was not even crossing into Perú. It was wandering off to see Lake Titicaca, and believing that that fool in Ilo knew what he was talking about when he told us there were no more terrorists in these parts.”

  “He could’ve been right as far as he went. This could be a single gang on a long-range raid. I should’ve thought of the possibility, and at least arranged for us to join a convoy.” Guthrie spat. “Ah, shit, we sound like a pair of liberals, don’t we? Guilt trip. Next thing, we’ll take the blame for the local poverty.”

  Moreno’s tone went grim. “That is where they place it.” He paused. “I do not think they will keep us for hostages or ransom if we surrender. Especially after the trouble we have given them in the eyes of the people. We have simply been bull-headed throughout, you and I. Let us take the lesson to heart in future.”

  Anger and impatience jostled fear aside in Guthrie. “First we’ve got to bull through. Okay, we will!”

  “When?”

  Guthrie wanted to answer, “Right away.” He forced himself: “When it’s full dark. They’ll want that too, cover for their attack, but moonrise isn’t till about eleven, so they probably aren’t in a hurry. In one hour, we break out?”

  “Agreed.” Gentleness: “If you will bear with me, I have some thoughts to think and some prayers to say.”

  “Sure. Me too.”

  Thoughts, anyhow. It took just a jot of awareness to stay alert. Mainly, the body did that, the animal painfully taut, senses tuned so high that each single star blazed from the moment it appeared above the gray plain. Most of the mind was left to torture itself with waiting, unless it could find strength elsewhere. Guthrie tried to close his ears against the whisper from across the room. You shouldn’t eavesdrop when a man talked to his heart.

  Or to his God. For Guthrie the two were the same.

  Bring happy days back, into this night. “I can call memories from the vasty deep.” Yes, but will they come when you call them? Dad, big soft-spoken machinist who truckled to nobody. Mother, laughterful, who single-handedly got rhyme and reason into the computer programs where she worked. Susie—Christ, he’d missed his sister’s college graduation, hadn’t even remembered to send her a present or try a phone call.

  So turn from the snug home in the unbeautiful industrial seaport, to its hinterland. Olympic loftinesses and ancient woods. Surf coming in tremendous from the rim of the world. Lying becalmed in a twenty-foot sloop, one utterly blue dawn, and through the silence a dozen killer whales swimming down the Strait of Juan de Fuca, and one raising his head a moment over the rail as if to say good morning. A walk in the rain under the pines, hand in hand with a girl—No. That business, the pregnancy, the words and tears and half-hidden sniggers, pecking away well after the adoption, and always the look behind Mother’s eyes, though she said nothing ever that wasn’t loving—With heedlessness and willfulness he had betrayed her, all of them, as he had today betrayed himself.

  His mouth longed for his pipe, but it was in the car.

  When in hell would the hour end? Why wait for it, anyway? Black enough already. Any minute the Charlies might strike, if he’d misjudged them, and it’d be too late. Punch the button, see the light flash on your watch, read the numbers again. Not yet, not yet. Why not? Well, he’d said an hour. Sixty minutes. If he couldn’t stand that much, Luis would think less of him. Tough it out, fellow, tough it out. Sing songs—not aloud, Luis wouldn’t appreciate that, but in your head—all the songs you know, including the rowdy ones. Especially the rowdy ones. “We never mention Aunt Clara—”

  Time, by God, time.

  “Let’s go.” It was like hearing somebody else.

  A quick, whispered conference, who was to do which. Ignore contingencies, they were unforeseeable. Moreno’s clasp found Guthrie’s shoulder in the dark. “Whatever happens, you have been a great friend, Anson. Thank you.” Guthrie wished he’d had that impulse, or more of a reply than, “Same to you. Come on, at ’em.”

  They’d ma
tched fingers, odd against even, for first through the door. It chose Moreno. He flung himself past the turning hinges and ran hunched along the wall, around the corner, rifle clasped in both hands. Guthrie pounded after, farther off. The Jeep was a murk faintly a-shimmer beneath the stars.

  He heard the buzz before he heard the crack. Ha, at least one extra man was posted outside. Don’t look for him, keep going.

  Another crack and another. Moreno fell sideways. He rolled twice and lay horribly sprawled.

  Keep going.

  Moreno had been assigned the nearer side of the car. Guthrie veered to it instead. He came from behind and seized the rear door handle. It was cold. They hadn’t thought to lock. He snatched the door open. In front, the man at the wheel, across from him, had half emerged. The one in the passenger seat was a blur of gloom. He waved his weapon, as if bewildered. Guthrie fired. The man crashed against the dashboard and sagged downward into lightlessness. Guthrie fired at the other. He lurched, fell from sight, screamed, screamed.

  Guthrie spun about, his back to the metal. Moreno was an ugly lump on the ground. Guthrie pumped several shots from his semiautomatic, more or less at random. They might or might not be of some use against that third man. He tossed the rifle into the car and dashed yonder.

  He stooped over Moreno. Eyeballs stood white in the half-seen face. Blood around the mouth caught starlight. Did he hear a “No, no, vaya—” or was it only a rattle in the throat? We don’t abandon our wounded, he didn’t say nor especially think. He was too busy. Stronger than he had known he was, he hauled Moreno up in his arms and ran back to the car.

  Shouts rang. Shots barked and zipped. He heard bullets whang off the Jeep, but somehow they all missed him. He was a lousy target in the night, moving fast, and everybody taken by surprise. Sheer stinking bad luck that Luis got hit. Guthrie reached the car. His boots went over the man who threshed and wailed below it. Something crunched. Guthrie pitched Moreno onto the rear seat and himself onto the driver’s. Not waiting to slam doors, he put key to lock, feet to pedals, fist to gear shift. The motor howled awake.