Speculative sullivan the.., p.22
Speculative Sullivan: The Collected Short Fiction, page 22
“It’s still a miracle he didn’t stop me,” Chris said. “These city cops.”
“The boys in blue. Miami’s finest. Mean, just like most people in your time,” Bruce said. “I guess there was just no way out of blowing the whole place to hell.”
“Yeah,” Chris said, hearing an angry horn blow on the street. “We all sensed it was going to happen sooner or later. Nobody knew how to stop it, though.”
“Assholes.”
They kept walking. Chris wanted desperately to find one last little girl. Perhaps his conditioning hadn’t completely worn off. “How much time is left?”
“Twenty-eight minutes.” The comedian turned to the children. “How ya doin’, kids?”
“Fine,” Jackie said. Jackie Tiger was a Miccosuccee Indian girl. Chris had loved her dark, liquid eyes and black hair from the first. He and Janet had never had any children; that was one reason their marriage hadn’t lasted. And now he was bonded to the comedian, with seven children to protect from a world gone mad.
A middle-aged couple passed them, smiling at the children. Both wore Bermuda shorts in the already considerable heat.
“Say good morning, kids,” the comedian said.
“Good morning,” the children all sang in unison.
“You’ve still got them under your thumb,” Chris said. “Will they be zombies like this in the future?”
“Are you serious? Look, this is one time when the end justifies the means, believe me. But they’ll be free up ahead. We’ve got a pretty nice place set up for them, in fact.”
“Utopia?”
“No such thing.” Lenny gestured around them. “But better than this toilet any day. Keep walking. We’ve only got fifteen more minutes.”
Chris walked as quickly as the children’s shorter legs would permit. He began to count the seconds. Sixty, one hundred, two hundred, three hundred.
“Ten minutes,” the comedian said.
They were almost jogging now. The comedian looked just like a living, breathing, three-dimensional human being, the reincarnation of Lenny Bruce, come to see the unhappy world end.
“Look.” Chris saw a group of kids waiting at a bus stop. One was off by herself a few yards, examining an ant hill. She was a little East-Asian girl.
“Perfect!” the comedian said. “Such a gene pool we’ll have if you can nab her.”
“Have the kids tell her they’re walking to school,” Chris said. “Make them ask her if she wants to go with them.”
“All right, but if it doesn’t work right off, you gotta grab her. Okay?”
“Okay.”
“Kids,” the comedian said. “See that little girl over there? I think she’s really nice, don’t you? Why don’t you ask her if she wants to walk to school with us? Make sure you tell her about all the fun we have.”
The children giggled. Chris and the comedian passed the little girl and hesitated while the question was put to her by Paulie, the others joining in persuasively from time to time in their high voices.
Another police car drove by.
“Jesus,” Chris muttered.
“What’s your name?” Susie asked the little girl.
“Premika.”
“Are you from around here?” Jimmy asked, spinning his yo-yo.
“No, I’m from Thailand.”
This seemed to confuse the children. Jackie said, “Do you want to walk to school with us or not?” as though she were growing impatient.
Premika looked at Chris and the comedian. “Who are those men?” she asked in her lilting accent.
“Nobody,” Michael said. “Just two men.”
Premika shook her head emphatically. She would not go.
The bus pulled up to the curb, and the children lined up as the driver opened the door. Premika was separated from the others by the comedian’s seven children.
“Move!” the comedian said.
Premika was looking worriedly at the bus. Chris lunged and scooped her up, turning to run with her kicking and screaming in his arms. The other children ran behind.
“Four minutes!” the comedian shouted.
“Put me down!” Premika screamed. “Put me down!” Then she started babbling in Thai, alternately wailing and shrieking. Her sneakers drummed at Chris’s thigh as he clapped a hand over her mouth.
The bus driver laid on his horn, and the children at the bus stop were shouting excitedly.
“It’s just ahead,” the comedian said. “You can make it, Chris.”
But Chris’s lungs were already aching, and his heart felt as though it had doubled in size. He kept running, though, feeling Premika’s warm tears run over his fingers, mingling with his sweat. She bit his hand, but he didn’t let go, even when blood started running down his wrist.
Sirens wailed somewhere behind them.
“Hurry up, kids!” Lenny shouted. “It’s not much farther.”
Premika was whimpering now, nearly fainted. But Chris didn’t lighten his grip. She could have been faking, waiting for a chance to break free.
“This way!” The comedian led them onto a public beach.
Chris saw Haulover Pier cutting through the glittering waves ahead, his calves aching from running in the sand while carrying Premika. His breath came in strangled gasps, and his arms felt as though they would fall off. But he couldn’t quit, not now.
The sirens drew closer. Rubber screeched. Car doors slammed. A man shouted through a bullhorn: “Give it up, Christopher Reilly. You can’t go any farther.”
As if to prove it, a security guard ran toward Chris from the far end of the pier. Chris turned to see half a dozen cops sprinting over the sand, pistols drawn.
“No,” Chris said. “Not this close.”
Early sunbathers watched apprehensively, catching Chris’s eyes as he desperately searched for a way to keep going.
“Let the children go, Mr. Reilly. It’s gonna be all right. Just let the kids go.”
As though in response, the children gathered closer about Chris, Premika, and the comedian.
The policemen leveled their pistols, clutching them in both hands, legs spread.
Chris started to cry. He let the confused Premika down, and she stood in the sand with the other children, looking curiously up at her kidnapper.
“Sir,” the policeman said to the comedian, “please come with us first, then you, Mr. Reilly.”
The comedian stepped obediently forward, and turned into Charlie Chaplin. The policemen gaped as he twirled his cane.
Baggy pants fluttering, Chaplin turned back to the children, shoulders wiggling with silent mirth, white teeth flashing below his mustache.
“Is it too late?” Chris whispered, not wanting to believe it.
Chaplin looked at him and winked. And winked out.
The beach was silent, but for the sea breeze.
A new sun rose in the west.
Chris remembered the radio report about the failed summit at Oslo. The war had come at last.
Rippling flame surged towards the beach. Hotels, condominiums, towers crumbled like sand castles. Whirling at the shockwave’s advancing rim was a scintillant point.
The children shrank around Chris. He spread his arms to hug them tight.
A policeman dropped his gun as the point came toward him, and then all the cops and bathers were crushed into the heaving sand.
Just before the shockwave reached them, Chris and the comedian’s kids were sheltered within the disjunctive node, a whorl of perfect light.
And then they were gone.
1984
A Friendly Game of Hoople
Less than ten hours after losing the closest game a human team had ever played against Hoderians. Shorn and I were practicing hoople on the inner walls of one of the colony’s revolving spokes with the team’s three stars. Shein and I were the first players ever born on the colony who’d made the team, but so far neither of us had ever actually played the game. Wed only been seconds for Tomoko Murashima, Barney Barekzi Lopez, and Hassan Worth. My name is Jay Kruschev.
Even though two bulkheads separated the practice area from the rest of the colony, the three of them were scrimmaging as though their lives depended on it. A bypass had been constructed outside, and no visitors were allowed, so their efforts weren’t just for show. The disappointment of losing the game by only one point had turned to anger and then determination.
We skated on clay—floated over it, actually—brought up from Hoder’s claybowls, a hole in the planet’s surface filled with melted glacial ice and sediment. A volcanic hot spot churned and toiled the stuff, which we simulated with exhaust vents heating and moving the clay. It was reasonably realistic. I suppose, but next to the real thing it was a satyr to Hyperion in terms of magnitude. Nothing I’ve experienced before or since compares with the feeling of being plopped down on that turbulent sea of clay.
Something hit me from behind like a ton of bricks, sending me sprawling. All three of our experienced players treated Shem and me like second-class citizens, but only Worth did this kind of thing. He’d done the same thing to Barney during the game, in bus eagerness to score and gain some glory; it had cost our team two points.
Attila Luvumba, our coach, blew his whistle as I rolled over, my body leaving an impression in the warm glop. I fell backwards to bob onto my feet so I wouldn’t have to turn off my antigraviton skates, a time-saving trick Attila had taught me. The skates floated a few centimeters off the ground—about three inches. When you were standing, that was fine, but it was hard to get on your feet unless you knew how.
As I stood on shaky legs, Worth leered at me, skating past. The whistle blew again, and he looked up at Attila hovering over us, nylon wings flapping angrily. Attila jerked his thumb and ordered Worth off the clay.
“All right, all right,” Worth said with annoyance, still gliding over the miniature waves.
“Get off the day now!” Attila shouted, banking in the low gravity and coming down right in front of Worth.
Worth could no longer ignore him. Barney and Tomoko glared at him too, so he reluctantly withdrew to the nearest bulkhead, it was often said that Worth, skillful player that he was, had forgotten the purpose of the game; it was, first and foremost, a level of diplomacy. To Worth, it was an obsession that had turned sour. He no longer believed we could ever beat the natives, and so he’d become a violent player. We wondered how long it would be before violence carried over into his life off the clay. He must have known he was courting disaster, but it seemed that he couldn’t help himself.
During the rest of the practice session, Barney and Shem played hard against Tomoko and me, until Attila blew the whistle again and told us to go spray off our sweat. Attila removed the rigging and corset connected to his wings, his heavy body perspiring almost as much as ours.
Tomoko and Barney were gone by the time Shem and I were dressed They didn’t associate with us much off the clay anyhow; we were the two lowly subs, and they were the colony’s hoople stars. So Shem and I opened the hatch in the bulkhead and bounced down to get something to eat. The commissary, inside the hub, was very busy and noisy, as usual. I saw Tomoko. Barney, and Worth sitting together at a table. There were two more places there, not being used, “let’s join them,” I said.
“Uh, uh,” Shem replied. “I’d rather eat standing up.”
“Not me.” I walked over to their table. “Mind if I join you?”
Tomoko made no sign that she’ll heard me, and Barney shrugged his broad shoulders. Worth’s red face glowered at me. but he didn’t say anything. It would have been bad form for them to refuse me. I was new on the team, and I knew they didn’t want me there, but I felt compelled to join them. Perhaps I was trying to prove something to them . . . or to myself.
I sat down.
“Leave it to one of these snot-nosed, tin-can kids to invite himself to eat dinner with the grown-ups.” Worth was speaking, of course.
I almost expected the others to say something about his rudeness, but they paid no attention to him. We weren’t on the day now. and Worth’s social behavior didn’t concern them. I was on my own.
“I’m sorry,” I said, feeling awkward and hurt. “I thought that since we’re teammates . . .”
“Teammates!” Worth jeered. “Kid you’re nothing but a second-stringer, a redheaded waterboy. You’re not on any team.” He leaned closer, affording me a generous view of the food he was chewing. “You’re only good for carrying our gear.”
“Oh, yeah?” I snapped. “At least I didn’t lose points for us yesterday.”
Worth was livid. He’d meant to anger me. but he never dreamed I’d fight back. “You little bastard!” he screamed, lunging at me. He landed on his belly and slid across the table, meaty hands groping for me. Plates clattered and food flew through the air. Barney and Tomoko held him back, straining as he flopped on the tabletop like a fish out of water.
He finally calmed down and got off the table. Looking glumly at the refuse, he picked up a chair and righted it, then stalked silently out of the commissary.
Barney shook his close-cropped head. “He’s rabid.”
Tomoko said nothing, sizing me up with that cool gaze of hers, delicate features in repose. I suspected that she was surprised I’d stood up to Worth, an athlete famed even back on Earth. I couldn’t say what that meant, because I’d never been to Earth I was born and raised on the colony, and I’d never been anyplace but Hoder.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“Why?” Barney asked. “You haven! done anything wrong.”
“I should have respected your wishes.” With that I turned and walked away, the maintenance mechs passing me on their way to clean up the mess Worth had left.
Worth wasn’t at the next practice session. We played two on two. Barney and me against Tomoko and Shem, an even match. We’d been skating hard for twenty minutes when the red light over the hatch Hashed. Whoever was coming in had clearance, or his palmprint wouldn’t have opened the hatch. I had a feeling I knew who it was.
Everybody stopped skating as the hatch was flung to one side. In stepped Worth, bullish face and neck unnaturally red from consuming some stimulant or other.
Attila glides down onto the clay. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Came to scrimmage,” Worth said, smiling stupidly.
“Sorry, you’re on probation. You’re not supposed to be in here at all.”
Worth winked at him conspiratorially. “Coach, I’m the best player you ever had.”
“Even if that were true, it wouldn’t matter.” Attila stood in his way, his dark brow furrowed deeply. “Now get out of here, or things are going to get ball for you.”
Worth’s grin turned to a grimace. He looked at me then, with an expression of pure hatred. He backed off, and in a moment he was gone.
We all stood staring at the closed hatch.
“All right, all right,” Attila said, “let’s get back to work.”
My skates were buzzing, so I leaned forward into the clay hillocks. The antigravitons floated me over the artificial surface, and I was eager to show what I could do. If Worth was out, he’d be replaced in the next game by either Shem or me. I had to show Attila that I was the one he should put on the clay alongside Tomoko and Barney.
Apparently. Shem had the same idea He came charging at me, trying to veer off at the last possible instant He miscalculated, and we both splatted into the rippling clay.
“For Christ’s sake, Shem!” I shouted.
I heard laughter. Looking up, I saw Barney and Tomoko doubling over It was the most emotion I’d ever seen Tomoko display, so I couldn’t he too angry.
I lay flat on my back, embedded in the clay except for my feet My ankles floated three inches over the clay, as though on water. Tomoko gave me a hand, and, as I stood, I looked into her eyes and thought I saw something there I’d never seen before: appreciation, if not respect, maybe even affection I told myself I was dreaming and got back into the scrimmage.
Our collision, which would have cost our team two points during an actual game, didn’t mean a thing to Shem. He kept dogging me, usually failing to show me up because of his overeagerness. By the end of the session, I knew I had the edge on him. From the way he was Ragging, I guess he knew it too.
After practice, I refreshed myself with a hot spray and went to the library. I requested holos of classic hoople games and sat in a carrel to study them. I went hack twenty years, to the days when Attila was playing. He was much thinner then, an agile figure in his skintight suit.
Attila was playing against a Hoderian team who had been dead a long time. Their life spans are much shorter than ours. They make up for it with speed and economy of motion; even with the handicap of antigraviton skates, they consistently outclassed humans. Speeding over the clay, they looked like bristly blue spiders with outsized craniums. In fact, Hoderians are very similar to arachnids: their thoraxes accommodate the equivalent of the medulla oblongata and the midbrain, and their internal plumbing is in the thorax. The thorax stores a good deal of methane, the pliable exoskeleton swelling until the Hoderian is prepared to release it in a measured blast, helping to propel him forward over the clay. A full-grown male is as large as a German shepherd, and though its head is not as large as a human’s, it is as intelligent as we are Hoderians possess a cellular density in their gray matter that effects an electrical ephaptic communication in their neutral transmissions. They have two eyes, which make their faces look surprisingly human, even though they have mandibles; and two pinhole heat and light sensors are located just above the eyes. They have eight legs, the set in front being smaller and more pointed than the other three sets designed for carrying and working.
As I watched those long-dead Hoderians darting at me in three dimensions, I wondered how long ago they had started playing hoople, the game named after the hooting sound emitted from their book-lungs when excited. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of years. Nobody knows, and the Hoderians weren’t talking. First we had to prove we were worthy, and the only way to do that was to beat them at hoople.
The game is sacred to them, you see. They’re tribal, having an agrarian culture that at one time during their history made constant warfare, one island against the other over their sparse crops. This had proven too costly in terms of lives, and so the game came to replace combat. An oral tradition had developed, glorifying hoople. That was why we didn’t have any new holograms. The cold, unchanging reality of holograms just wasn’t the same as the endless mythic retellings of great hoople games. The Hoderians wouldn’t play if there was a camera in sight.
