Star rebel, p.1
Star Rebel, page 1
part #4 of The Long View Series
Bantam Science Fiction & Fantasy Books
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ALAS, BABYLON by Pat Frank
A CANTICLE FOR LEIBOWITZ by Walter M. Miller, Jr.
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EARTHCHILD by Sharon Webb FANTASTIC VOYAGE by Isaac Asimov FIRE LORD by Parke Godwin HELLSTROM'S HIVE by Frank Herbert THE HOUSE OF THE LIONS by L.T. Stuart , NEBULA AWARD STORIES SIXTEEN edited by Jerry
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STAR REBEL
F. M. Busby
BANTAM BOOKS TORONTO · NEW YORK · LONDON · SYDNEY
To Robert and Ginny, with much gratitude
STAR REBEL A Bantam Book I February 1984
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1984 by F. M. Busby.
Cover art copyright © 1984 by Wayne Barlowe.
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1
The Boy
Near to his thirteenth birthday, Bran Tregare lost his home, his family and his surname, which had been Moray.
Some of the reasons he didn't know or understand, but a few he did. His family, headed by his mother Liesel Hulzein, lived at an Australian outpost, in exile from the Hulzein Establishments North American headquarters. An exile part disgrace and part sanctuary, caused by the fact that Bran and his sister SparSine had a father, the tall young man Hawkman Moray. Whereas their mother Liesel and her implacable older sister Erika, not to mention Bran's grandmother Renalle Hulzein, had none.
They were not illegitimate, those women, but parthenogenetic. Heidele Hulzein had conceived and birthed her daughter Renalle using micro-genetic techniques and no male whatsoever. "Not cloning," Brans mother once explained, "but the melding of two gametes from the same person." And Renalle's daughters, Erika and Liesel, also carried the continuation of Heidele's original genes, and no others.
And there, or so Bran's father said, lay the problem, The tall, dark man, so obviously junior in age to his wife, told his children, "Renalle and Erika have faith only in their own genes. They won't admit that without an inmixture from time to time, the pattern can deteriorate." Sparline asked why it would, and Hawkman talked about cellular entropy, how a few genes or chromosomes always went wrong. With simpler organisms it wasn't too serious. His white grin transformed his dark face. "But humans are too complex to survive much of a defect rate. So that's why sexual reproduction, with the most
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vigorous gametes producing new mixes, works best for us. Your aunt and grandmother don't see it that way."
Bran nodded. At twelve he knew a little about sex. He'd know more, he thought, except that Sparline had caught him trying to learn some things with Sheylah, the cook's daughter, and ran and told. He knew she'd do that, so he ran too. Sheylah yelled after him in anger, but he kept going anyway.
Even so, his parents called him in, with Sparline as witness, for inquiry. He wasn't sure whether he was "before the mast" or only "on the carpet," but neither was much fun. Sparline grinned with triumph, getting back at Bran for the bird nest thing the week before, but all that happened was Bran being asked some questions about his own body. The answers were simple. Yes, lately sometimes that part stood up and felt very good. And no, he hadn't actually done anything about it, with Sheylah or with anyone else. His parents nodded to each other. Liesel said, "Before you do, come talk with one of us."
Hawkman added, "And especially, don't mess with the help."
That was all there was to it. Sparline looked disappointed. Though usually they got along well, on some levels there was a kind of running contest. This time, Bran thought, she hadn't won as big as she'd expected to.
Later, with Hawkman telling family problems, she and Bran listened quietly. Aunt Erika, it seemed, hadn't had great luck with gene-replicating herself. "Two miscarriages and a stillborn monster, before she managed your cousin Frieda. And that one's flawed." Which, he said, was why the children's own mother Liesel, after two self-fertilization misfires of her own, had defied Hulzein custom. "Came out here to run this boondocks operation, and-"
"And you and Mama fell in love and got married!" Sparline, Bran noted, had to get in her two cents' worth.
Hawkman laughed. "Not exactly. For genetic reasons, Liesel chose me; it's no secret. Later she paid me the high compliment of keeping me around for my own sake." But ancient history or not, their parents' genuine affection was apparent to both children. Suddenly, counting back, Bran realized that when he'd been born his mother had been thirty-two, and his father only sixteen.
Hawkman was still talking. "To the Hulzein Establishment-Renalle and Erika-you kids are a slap in the face. Their dynasty doesn't include two-parent children." He ruffled
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Bran's hair. "Let alone a male child. That's why we live here quietly, using my name, rather than flaunting ourselves at local Hulzein HQ." His eyes slitted. "The fact is, you're safer here. And yet-"
"And yet we mustn't disturb the balance." Bran turned to see that his mother had entered the room. "Against UET's tyranny in North America there's only three forces still effective. And with the New Mafia driven into hiding nearly as bad as the Underground itsel, the Hulzein Establishment is the only opposition that dares show its head."
Hawkman grinned. "So that's why we, here, keep ours down."
Bran knew his share of recent history. Both the official version ("that pile of crap," Liesel called it), and some dissenting material from the family library and two parents who would answer questions. The official stu.fif mostly began with New Year One, right after the United Energy and Transport conglomerate won the governing bid from the Synthetic Foods Combine and took control of North America. And immediately began building Total Welfare centers and filling them with "clients." A more accurate term, said Liesel, would be government-owned slaves. '
It was also in NY One that star travel had begun. "But UET didn't invent it," said Hawkman, "no matter what they claim now. Do you know about the Shrakken?"
Bran did. "Sure. There's some old fax sheets in the library. Telling how they traveled more than a hundred light-years to get here. Pictures too, but faded." He remembered the tall, hairless aliens with their triangular eyes and inverted-V mouths. "And they walk on their toes, like a dog on its hind legs."
"But what about them?" Sparline asked.
Liesel snorted. "According to UET, the poor things fell prey to some Earthly disease or other. What really happened was, as soon as UET's Committee Police were sure the Shrakken didn't have faster-than-light communications, they pumped that ship full of cyanide gas one night-no more Shrakken. So UET had the ship, and their labs could analyze and copy it."
"So now," said Hawkman, "UET has interstellar travel, and their Space Academy has a bigger job than training pilots for asteroid mining."
Then he changed the subject, telling something of how
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things used to be. Years before UET achieved power and proclaimed New Year One there had been a time when elections involved voting by the citizenry rather than corporate bidding, and when North America hadn't been all one political unit. But the continent's largest segment, the United States of America, facing economic collapse, moved to the corporate system. "Otherwise," Hawkman said, "we might have gone under. I've never been sure the country chose right." He shrugged. "But of course 'perhaps' applies only to the future, never to the past."
He continued his story. The first two corporate elections, each closely fought, were won by Communications, Inc., and some measure of stability was restored. Then the Synthetic Foods combine made a landslide win, and capitalized on it by annexing Canada, Mexico, and most of Central America. In a new semblance of stability, SynFood held power for four elective terms. But United Energy and Transport had other ideas. "In the sixth corporate election," Hawkman concluded, "the deciding factor was UET's assassination section. We now know them as the Committee Police. And more and more nowadays, their power seems to be permanent."
UET didn't have it all gravy, though. True, with starships as weapons, North America need no longer accept forced immigration from freely breeding Third World countries. But at home, the Underground, loosely descended from the previous century's Counterculture, sometimes made dire examples of those who misused power too flagrantly. And the New Mafia, driven back from almost respectability (in one corporate election the group had even entered a bid) to shadow-legal status, now concentrated on blackmail and extortion from the powerful. "Oh, it's a right mess," Liesel said.
The third thorn in UET's side was quite different: the Hulzein Establishment's legal superstructure carried a long tradition of spotless escutcheon and pristine standing. "The underside of it, though," said Hawkman, "is trickier, and always has been. For every asset that shows on paper, your grandmother Renalle keeps ten that don't show, working for her."
"If we're to confuse the children," Liesel put in, "add that Hulzeins seldom make a move that serves only one purpose." As near as Bran could tell, his mother spoke in total sincerity.
What it boiled down to, the boy decided, was that his aunt and grandmother never gave an inch to anybody, whether it
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was UET or a Hulzein defecting from the parthenogenetic ideal. No one knew if the marauders who had tried to kill Bran and Sparline, and who did burn the house, ca"me from either Erika or UET. The new house was better fortified, and fireproof. Hulzein money paid for it, and no argument on the matter reached the children's ears.
Once only, Bran saw his aunt Erika in person. She invited Liesel to a conference in North America, and Bran went along. That was Liesel's idea, but the deciding wasn't so simple. Renalle, the matriarch, wouldn't be present. "She's in Israel," Liesel reported, "trying to wangle an Establishment branch there. Not much chance, I'd think. I expect the Hulzeins have some Jewish ancestry, but no political or religious ties to offer. And strict neutrality is the only safe way to keep UET's hands off a country."
Lying on a sofa, stretched out at his great length, Hawkman asked, "Will you attend Erika's conference alone?"
Liesel smiled. "I can't take you; you'd be a red flag to Erika's bull. And Sparline's too young to risk. Bran though-" Her eyes narrowed. "I think our son's cornered the family's devious streak." She turned to the boy. "How'd you like to go see Hulzeins on their own home ground?" Puzzled but interested, he nodded. "Then assuming we disguise you well, can you forget we're mother and son, and be only my serving-boy? Every minute, day and night, for the next two weeks?"
For only a moment, he thought. "Yes, I can."
"Yes, what?"
"Yes, Madame Hulzein!" He suppressed the grin that would have come, because it didn't fit the part he had to play.
His mother smiled. Hawkman nodded. Sparline still seemed dubious. And next day she looked at him-with his curly black hair bleached and dyed red, plastered flat, and cut straight across in front-and couldn't hold her laughter. "Old sad horseface!" Well, the mirror told him she was right, and the serving-boy's voluminous gold-trimmed costume, hardly cut for anyone of active ways, didn't help much either. But Bran did want to go on this journey, so he put up with everything and made no complaint.
Neither did he protest the crash course, administered by his mother's chief-of-maids. Bran had seen Alexa Duggan's stern ways with the lesser help, of course, but without really noticing. All his ten years he had been one of Alexa's
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employers, not a menial. The change jolted him. At first he couldn't take it seriously when she threatened him with a caning if his work did not improve (calling him "Jerrin," the name assumed for this role). His weak smile drew a harsher frown; he decided not to test the matter. The third day, after he'd slept two nights in the cubby off Alexa's room, she said, "If you mind your ways, Jerrin, and pay heed, perhaps you won't disgrace us after all."
Only Alexa on the journey would know who Bran really was. Except for his mother, of course. The other servants and the four guards came from Liesel's official headquarters. Even if they had seen Bran as himself, they'd hardly recognize him as Jerrin.
The hard part was his parents ignoring everything about him except "Jerrin"-but he knew they had to. He didn't see Sparline at all, and decided that she couldn't be expected to keep his role straight.
Early one morning the party left. Loading a small mountain of gear, the dozen or so boarded four pogiecopters and flew for several hours across bare, reddish land to the nearest commercial port. Then a suborbital SST across the Pacific to North America. Nobody said exactly where, and Bran knew better than to ask. They were met by squat groundcars, two armed guards to each car, the cars and guards all wearing Erika Hulzein's monogram crest. Bran had seen it on letterheads in his mothers study.
He didn't know how long they rode. He slept most of the way. When Alexa shook him awake their car was stopped. Getting out, he met chill air. A dark, overcast night was lit by floodlights that showed the front of a large timber-beamed lodge. Shivering as he walked, he was glad to reach the warmth inside.
Sheer luxury overwhelmed him. Later he recalled few details, only that this place made his own well-appointed home look like an Outback trail cabin.
He did notice that the lodge was a weaponed fortress. A platoon of tanks might have cracked it, but nothing less. Of course UET's bombs could breach even the underground sanctuaries he saw next day. But as Hawkman explained later, back home, Erika's installation sat at the outskirts of a fair-sized city. "They'd have to be pretty desperate," he said, "to blow half the town."
Four days, the conference lasted. Mostly, young Bran was
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stuck with servants' quarters and company; he cared not greatly for either. Jimmy Kazich, an older youth in Erika's
retinue, liked to mimic Bran's slight accent. "Sye soomthin' fer us in Orstreyelian, won'tcher?"
Somehow shamed, and no longer willing to be, Bran faced the other. "Orl right. Oop yoors!" Exaggerating Jimmy's own parody, and waiting. Not for long; Kazich slapped him. Shock brought tears, but no sound. Hand cupped to his slapped cheek, Bran shuffled forward, and as the larger boy leaned to grin at closer range, slammed the heel of his hand to Jimmy's nose. As hard as he could, bringing blood and yells, and suddenly the room full of adults. "What happened?"
If an older girl, sixteen maybe, hadn't kept insisting that Jimmy struck first, Bran would have had the caning Alexa once threatened. Not from her, but from her counterpart on Erika's staff. As it went, though, he escaped with a scolding.
One thing about it: Jimmy Kazich didn't bother him again.
he conference dealt with strengthening the Hulzein branch in Argentina: whether, how much, and how. "Erika wants an ace in the hole," Liesel told Bran when the two were alone briefly, "a backup hideout. Our mother resists the idea, so while she's away, Erika wants to push it through." Pleased to be confided in, Bran nodded as though he understood.
He kept hoping to get a look at Erika Hulzein's gene-replicated daughter, his cousin Frieda, who was a year his senior, but no opportunity occurred. With no chance to question his mother, finally Bran asked Alexa Duggan where Frieda was.
The woman shook her head. "She's sickly, poor child. Had a horrible fever a few weeks ago, and the treatments, what I've heard, even worse. She's out of intensive care now, but still bedridden." Then Duggan realized that Bran had broken his Jerrin role, and scowled at him. "Get on with you, young Jerrin. Haven't you chores to do, besides pestering me about your betters?"
So Bran scuttled off with an armful of clothes for the launderers. Duggan wasn't so bad, after all!
The visit ended with a banquet, and on this occasion Liesel's servants were themselves served, at a smaller table to one side. Before that, in the vacant end of the large room a series of unarmed combat bouts occurred. Erika Hulzein stood to
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announce them and Bran got his first good look at her. She looked like his mother and yet she didn't; Liesel's features were rounded, Erika's cut more sharply. Liesel's grey-flecked brown braids formed a crown; Erika's iron-grey hair hung straight, to chin-length. Erika stood half a decimeter the taller-but blade-thin, she probably weighed a few kilos less. And the edge to Erika's voice was one that Liesel used only rarely. All in all, Bran's aunt impressed him more than was comfortable.
