Expendable

Part XIII GIVEAWAYS

The Tip

Phylar Tobit's face spread into a grin. One of his front teeth was vividly whiter than its yellowed siblings. I assumed the clean tooth was false.

"Bet you didn't expect to see me," he chortled.

"Happy birthday was a dead giveaway," I replied. "So the Fleet finally pulled you from the Academy teaching staff?"

"Eight years ago," he nodded. "Something about setting a poor example." He opened his mouth and loosed a belch; trust Tobit to be able to do that at will. "I think we both know how the council handles embarrassments to the uniform."

"And what a delightful coincidence," I said, "that on a planet the size of Earth, we happen to run into each other. What are the odds?"

"Damned good," Tobit replied. "Assuming you got the tip."

"The tip?"

Tobit shrugged. "If you didn't get it, maybe your partner did. Or whatever turd of Admiralty shit you escorted here. The tip."

"What tip?"

"The tip that you should land on this particular continent. Best chance for survival and escape."

I stared at him. "Someone told you that? Before you landed?"

"Told my partner." He held up his hand to stop my next question. "No, I don't know how the tip was delivered — my partner didn't share confidences… especially not with me. We were assigned to each other for this mission only; she knew the council wanted me Lost, and was pissed as hell to get dragged down with me. Selfish bitch. All she said was someone passed the word: land in this neighborhood if you want to save your ass."

Chee or Seele, I thought to myself. The tip had to come from Chee or Seele. They'd already visited Melaquin; and their looped broadcast claimed there were spaceworthy ships in that city to the south. Now that I thought about it, Chee had said he ran a spy network throughout the Technocracy. He might have used it to find out who was due for marooning… and to tip off the Explorers who'd be sent along for the ride. It almost made me think fondly of the old bastard again — even if Chee had sold out to the council, he directed fellow Explorers to the same escape route he'd found.

Of course, he hadn't tipped off Yarrun or me — we'd chosen the Landing site ourselves. If we'd picked the wrong continent, would Chee have talked us out of it? Or were his brains so scrambled that he'd forgotten all about Melaquin? YouthBoost meltdown does ugly things to memory; Chee had said so himself. It would have been ironic if we were the one party to land on the wrong continent, because Chee couldn't remember his own advice.

Tobit was still talking. "Think about it, Ramos. Once you've decided on this continent, where are you going to land? West of the prairies, you've got mountains all the way to the coast — ugly terrain for touchdown. So you either pick the plains themselves, or go for a clear space in the lake country up north. Nothing else makes sense."

"True enough," I admitted. And maybe that explained why Jelca and Ullis had put down in the same neighborhood we did. Plains vs. lake country was a fifty-fifty choice; and if you chose the lakes, Explorers would then start looking for a region of bluffs, to get the advantage of a height of land. "Still," I said, "this continent must have a million square klicks of landable area. I find it remarkable we should just run into each other…"

"Run into each other?" Tobit laughed. "I don't know about you, Ramos, but I got ambushed by a fucking glass shark. There's dozens of those things patrolling the river; they've got the whole watershed covered, hundreds of klicks upstream and down. Anyone crossing the water stands a good chance of getting captured — you think you're the first Explorer I've seen in eight years? You're number thirteen, sweetheart, and piss off if you're superstitious."

I stared at him. "You mean there are twelve other Explorers in this town?"

He made an exasperated sound. "Not now, Ramos. One look at me, and they took off like gassed rabbits. Shows what loyal friends I made at the Academy."

"So there's a way out of this town?"

Tobit grimaced. "You just set a record, Ramos. Shortest effort at small-talk before you brought up the subject of leaving." He gave a jaundiced grin. "Even at the Academy, you were famous for your people skills."

"So were you," I said.

People Skills

One of the Skin-Face women trotted up to us. "Lord Tobit," she said with a worshipful bow, "the bell just rang again."

"Hot damn!" he replied, rubbing his hands together like an enthusiastic host. "The sharks have brought another visitor, Ramos. Your partner, no doubt."

"No. My partner is dead."

"Dead?" Tobit stared as if I'd made a joke. "An Explorer dead? On a candy planet like this? What'd you do to him?"

I returned Tobit's gaze till he flinched.

"The new visitor is probably a friend of mine," I said coldly. "A local. We'd better go reassure her. She gets upset easily."

"A local," Tobit repeated. "All glass?"

"Yes."

"Eloi," snarled the Skin-Face woman, her lips curling into a sneer.

"None of that," Tobit snapped. "No one starts a fight on my birthday. Take the squad back to base, lieutenant."

"Yes sir," she answered immediately. With a brisk salute, she pivoted away and returned to her three companions. A moment later, they disappeared into the nearest building.

"Eloi?" I asked.

"My own terminology," Tobit replied. "The solid glass layabouts are Eloi; the ones with skin are Morlocks. It's from a book."

"And you've trained your cadets to say Eloi with hatred? Very nice, Phylar. I love when Explorers spread enlightenment to the people they meet."

"The Morlocks hated the Eloi long before I got here," he answered. "It's a religious thing; but I've reined them in." His words would have been more convincing if he hadn't tossed a glance over his shoulder and added, "We'd better greet your friend before someone gets too upset."

He strode off quickly in the direction I had just come. I followed, saying nothing. It was tempting to take this chance to ask where the Morlocks got the skin for their faces; it was tempting to ask whether the Explorers who previously visited this town had really left in one piece. If, however, the Morlocks' false flesh had come from flayed Explorers, Tobit was in this mess up to his bloodshot eyeballs. Calling him on it would bring the issue to a boil; and I preferred to delay any confrontation until I knew Oar was safe.

When we were almost to the edge of the town, Tobit asked softly, "Your partner… who was it?"

"Yarrun Derigha."

"The kid with the jaw?"

"Without."

"Same thing." He walked in silence a few more steps. "Oh well," Tobit said at last, "that's what 'expendable' means."

He gave me a sideways glance, as if trying to decide whether to pat my arm reassuringly; but he did nothing.

Welcoming Oar

"This will be the first Eloi I've seen down here," Tobit said as we approached the door to the shark-machine dock.

"Didn't Jelca and Ullis pass this way?" I asked.

He nodded. "Three years ago."

"They were traveling with my friend's sister."

"Not when the sharks picked them up," Tobit shrugged. "The sister might have dodged getting caught; but the other two didn't mention traveling with another person. And they stayed a few days, like they weren't in a hurry to make a rendezvous."

I had no chance to pursue the subject — we had reached the door to the dock. Tobit pressed the OPEN button… and I barely managed to pull him from the entranceway before Oar leapt out, her hands bunched into fists.

It was a creditable imitation of my own response to surprise. These people certainly were fast learners.

"Don't worry, Oar," I said, "no one's going to hurt you."

"I did not like it inside the fish," she said with an injured tone.

Glancing into the dock area, I said, "No kidding." Oar's shark was more of a wreck than the one I'd blasted… except that the glass on hers was cracked from the inside, where she must have tried to punch her way out. "I see you found a way to amuse yourself on the trip."

Oar ignored me — she had noticed the town and was viewing it with a steely eye. "What is this place?" she asked. "Why is it so stupid?"

"Stupid?" Tobit asked.

"It is stupid to copy someone else's home," she sniffed, "and if you must create a copy, it is stupid to make so many mistakes." She waved her hand dismissively. "It is too big. It has ugly things attached to it."

"Those are flags!" Tobit said. "My friends hung them to celebrate my birthday."

"Get smarter friends," she told him, and turned her back pointedly.

Home-Brew

"What is a birthday?" Oar whispered to me.

"A commemoration," I replied. "A remembrance of the day a person was born." I tossed a glance at Tobit. "Phylar remembers his birthday with great regularity."

"No need to be rude," Tobit said. "I'll have you know, this is my real birthday, Ramos… on some pissant planet whose name escapes me. I'll look it up when I get back to my quarters."

"You brought your birthday calculator to Melaquin?"

"I knew I'd get marooned here," he answered. "I made sure to bring everything I need. Speaking of which…" He reached into a tightsuit pocket and withdrew a silver brandy flask. "Want a sip?"

The thought made me shudder. "An Explorer never drinks on planet-down missions."

"Here's some news, Ramos — this stopped being a mission as soon as the High Council choked you unconscious. And I stopped being an Explorer long before that." He raised the flask and took a swig. When he lowered it again, he sighed with pleasure… a sigh that reeked of rotgut alcohol.

"Home-brew?" I asked, trying to control my gag reflex.

"My own recipe," Tobit answered proudly. "You can't get booze from the local food synthesizers, but they produce some superbly fermentable fruit juices. The only hard work was programming the maintenance-bots not to throw out what I produced: they thought it was lemonade gone bad."

He laughed. I didn't. "What do your skin-faced friends think?" I asked. "Do they like a lord and master who drinks himself into a stupor?"

"Ramos," he answered, still chuckling, "they adore a lord and master who shares his liquor. Like I said, their food synthesizers don't make the stuff. They didn't know what they were missing till I came along." He gave me a leering smile. "How do you think I became their lord and master in the first place?"

"If you are anyone's lord and master," Oar said, "they are very stupid people. You are ugly and you smell." She slipped her arm into mine. "Let us go now, Festina."

"You ain't going nowhere yet, girlie," Tobit told her. He didn't sound offended; calling Oar 'girlie' might have been his attempt at rakish charm. "The only way to leave is inside a shark… and frankly," he waved toward the dock, "neither of those is seaworthy anymore."

"Can you summon other machines?" I asked.

"Nope. They show up on their own when they need to refuel. One docks in every few days. In the meantime… you can both be guests at my birthday party."

I said nothing; but Tobit must have seen how undelighted I was. "Cheer up!" he said, giving my arm a light slap, "you'll like my parties. I give presents to my guests, not the other way around. And I've just thought of a doozy for you."

HAPPY

We walked back to the central plaza, Oar still holding my arm to keep me between her and Tobit. Every so often she sniffed pointedly; she could smell the liquor on him. In her mind, he must be the epitome of dirty.

As we drew near the Morlocks' building, I made sure my stunner was ready for a quick draw. Tobit might claim to control his "subjects" but I had my doubts; I had my doubts about everything Tobit said. If those Skin-Faces attacked, I had to be ready to knock them out…

I stopped in the street as a thought struck me. What would sonics do to a glass person? They weren't real glass… but the shark machine rang like a chime when I shot it. I wondered if the Morlocks would resonate too. That might be a vulnerability of people who were hard instead of soft. Could sonics from a stunner seriously injure them? The blasts had damaged the machine; or maybe I had just scrambled some sonar guidance system and the real damage happened when the shark ran into that log.

Impossible to say — but I pushed the stunner back into my belt so I wouldn't be tempted to use it. For a moment, I had imagined Oar's body shattering, like a wineglass breaking under an opera singer's voice. I couldn't do that, even to a Skin-Face.

No more killing. No more killing.

Tobit led us into the building where I'd first seen him — a building smelling of booze mixed with vomit. Oar convulsed in a coughing fit as soon as the odor reached her. I held down my gorge with memories from the Academy: waking on the floor after an end-of-term bash, the arms of other Explorers draped over me, everyone's breath so flammable the air purity sensors blinked yellow. Why had we done it? Because we were young and tongue-tied; getting drunk together was the greatest intimacy we would dare attempt.

And the Morlocks? They were engineered to have the minds and openness of children; once Tobit brewed his booze, they didn't stand a chance.

I could see them now, through the glass walls ahead of us: the same quartet as before, helping themselves to a brownish concoction that must be Tobit's hootch. It ran down their throats and pooled darkly in their stomachs, sloshing slightly as they moved. Oar's grip tightened on my arm — she had seen too, and for once her face showed none of the haughty superiority she usually assumed when confronted with the unfamiliar. More than anything, she looked hurt… like a sick little girl who can't understand why pain exists.

"Right this way!" Tobit boomed, waving us into the room with the drinking Morlocks. Oar moved forward mechanically; I went with her, squeezing her arm.

Unlike most rooms I'd seen on Melaquin, this one had furniture: glass chairs, and a glass table supporting something like a cake. The cake must have come from a local food synthesizer, since it was clear and transparent; but someone had spelled the word HAPPY across the top, in scraps of grubby red plastic.

Either there hadn't been enough plastic to spell out BIRTHDAY, or nobody cared enough to bother.

The Gift

The Morlocks glared at Oar with the owlish blinks of drunks everywhere. They had not consumed much liquor yet — I could tell just looking at their stomachs — but already they showed its effects.

Tobit gestured toward the Morlocks. "These are my faithful comrades: Mary, Martha, Matthew, and Mark. Perfect names for disciples, don't you think?"

The Morlocks didn't move to acknowledge their names. They continued staring at Oar.

"My name is Festina Ramos," I said to them, "and this is Oar."

In a whisper, she said, "An oar is an implement used to propel boats."

The Morlocks remained motionless. Tobit looked from them to us, then gave an exaggerated sigh. "Am I the only one on this goddamned planet who knows how to party? Fun! Festivity! Falling down dribbling spittle! You hear me?"

Every Morlock said, "Yes, lord." They didn't mean it.

Another tense silence. Tobit groaned. "All right. I was going to leave this till later, but we have to do something to get people in the spirit. Ramos… time for your present."

"I don't need a present."

"Everyone needs presents. And I have the perfect one for you. Something you could search for from one end of the galaxy to the other, and lucky me, I have some right here. Damned good luck, considering I didn't know you were coming. If you had any sense, of courtesy you'd have called ahead—"

"Phylar…" I sighed.

"All right, leave it be. No sense pissing you off when I can win your everlasting gratitude… not to mention showing how smart I am to think of this on the spur of the moment." He drew himself up with counterfeit dignity. "Explorer Ramos, have you noticed my disciples' bodily adornment?"

"The skin?"

"Yes, the skin. Have you wondered where they got it?"

"I'm hoping from animals."

"Wrong!" Tobit grinned in triumph. "It's artificial: comes straight out of a synthesizer down the block."

"Obviously not a food synthesizer."

"No," Tobit agreed. "This town has lots of different synthesizers, programmed with manifest goodies from the League of Peoples. You guessed that, right, Ramos? You guessed that the League relocated these folks to Melaquin from Earth?"

I nodded. "The League must have made the same offer they made us four hundred years ago — renounce violence and get a new planet."

"Right," Tobit replied. "I get the feeling they only made the offer to selected tribes… maybe those who were already peaceful enough to convince the League they were sentient. Anyway, your ancestors and mine stayed back on Earth while the chosen few got a free ticket to Melaquin. The League built these towns, the synthesizers, the communications systems… and they also arranged that all future generations would be strong and healthy." Tobit pointed at Oar. "God knows why the League decided to make them of glass, but I suppose people got used to it. This all happened about four thousand years ago; folks from those days must have been so glad their kids didn't die in infancy, they didn't care what the babies looked like."

"My mother was proud of how I look," Oar said defensively. "I happen to be extremely beautiful."

"Yeah, you're one in a million," Tobit sniggered. "Anyway," he turned back to me, "I was talking about my Morlocks' skin. The League whipped it up for the first generation to come here — the non-glass humans. It's a bandage material: covers cuts, bruises, pockmarks… those people must have been a sorry-looking bunch when they came here, what with disease, malnutrition, and all the other crap of 2000 B.C. Artificial skin must have been damned popular with them.

"Of course," he continued, "the glass kids were next to undamageable, so the skin wasn't used once the first generation died; but a few hundred years ago, some wise man from this town—"

"The Prophet!" one of the Morlocks shouted. For a moment I thought she sounded angry, but then she raised her drink and chugged it in a toast.

"Yes, the Prophet," Tobit agreed, then turned my way, rolled his eyes, and mouthed the word whacko. "The Prophet," he said, "received a revelation that the Morlocks should return to the ways of their ancestors: hunting animals and living off the land." He lowered his voice. "Once every few years anyway — most of the time they just sponge off the food dispensers like everyone else."

Raising his voice, Tobit went on, "The Prophet also had an insight about the ideal state of the human body: covered with skin like the first generation. Skin good, glass sinful. You see, Ramos, being invulnerable and immune to disease is ignoble. Far better to suffer and bleed and get bitten by insects…"

I tried to silence him with a sharp look. The Morlocks were drunk, but they still might recognize sarcasm… and I could guess their reaction if someone mocked their prophet.

"Sure, okay," Tobit said grudgingly. "The point is, the Prophet found the synthesizer that could make artificial skin; and he devised a scheme for bestowing skin on Morlocks who deserved it. Like merit badges. You get skin for your face at birth — that's a freebie — then on your crotch when you pass puberty rituals, on your chest for killing a buffalo, on your hands if you kill a mountain lion… that sort of thing. And if you are worthy and brave, eventually you get to look like…" Tobit did a mock curtsy. "Me. Skin from head to toe. I'm their fucking ideal."

"They are fools," Oar said.

A male Morlock tried to struggle to his feet, but Tobit waved him down. "Stay! Sit!" The Morlock slumped again. "You see what having skin means?" Tobit smirked at me. "I have clout. I'm fucking elevated. And that means I can bestow certain honors on my friends."

He reached into his belt pouch and pulled out a hand-sized scrap of brown tissue: thin and limp, like a cloth bandage.

"Skin, Ramos," he said. "Do you think this chunk is big enough to cover that splotch on your face?"