The Eyes of Heisenberg

13.

Lizbeth lay on a bench with Harvey seated beside her, steadying her. There were five people here in a cubed space no bigger than a large packing box. The box had been fitted into the center of a normal load on an overland transporter van. A single glowtube in the corner above her head illuminated the interior with a sickly yellow light. She could see Doctors Igan and Boumour on a rough bench opposite her, their feet stretched across the bound, gagged and unconscious figure of Svengaard on the floor.

It was already night outside, Harvey had said. That must mean they’d come a goodly distance, she thought. She felt vaguely nauseated and her abdomen ached around the stitches. The thought of carrying her son within her carried a strange reassurance. There was a sense of fulfillment in it. Potter had said she could likely do without her regular enzymes while she carried the embryo. He’d obviously been thinking the embryo would be removed into a vat when they reached a safe place. But she knew she’d resist that. She wanted to carry her son full term. No woman had done that for thousands of years, but she wanted it.

“We’re picking up speed,” Igan said. “We must be out of the tubes onto the skyway.”

“Will there be checkpoints?” Boumour asked.

“Bound to be.”

Harvey sensed the accuracy of Igan’s assessment. Speed? Yes—their bodies were compensating for heavier pressure on the turns. Air was coming in a bit faster through the scoop ventilator under Lizbeth’s bench. There was a new hardness to the ground-effect suspension, less bounce. The turbines echoed loudly in the narrow box and he could smell unburned hydrocarbons.

Checkpoints? Security would use every means to see that no one escaped Seatac. He wondered then what was about to happen to the megalopolis. The surgeons had spoken of poison gas in the ventilators, sonics. Central had many weapons, they said. Harvey put out an arm to hold Lizbeth as they rounded a sharp corner.

He didn’t know how he felt about Lizbeth carrying their son within her. It was odd. Not obscene or disgusting… just odd. An instinctive response had come to focus within him and he looked around for dangers from which he could protect her. But there was only this box filled with the smell of stale sweat and oil.

“What’s the cargo around us?” Boumour asked.

“Odds and ends,” Igan said. “Machinery parts, some old art works, inconsequential things. We took anything we could pirate to make a seemingly normal load.”

Inconsequential, Harvey thought. He found himself fascinated by this revelation. Inconsequentials. They carried parts to things that might never be built.

Lizbeth’s hand groped out, found his. “Harvey?”

He bent over her. “Yes, dear?”

“I feel… so… funny.”

Harvey cast a despairing look at the doctors.

“She’ll be all right,” Igan said.

“Harvey, I’m afraid,” she said. “We’re not going to get through.”

“That’s no way to talk,” Igan said.

She looked up, found the gene surgeon studying her across the narrow space of the box. His eyes were a pair of glittering instruments in a slim, supercilious face. Is he a Cyborg, too? she wondered. The cold way the eyes stared at her broke through her control.

“I don’t care about myself!” she hissed. “But what about my son?”

“Best calm yourself, madame,” Igan said.

“I can’t,” she said. “We’re not going to make it!”

“That’s no way to act,” Igan said. “Our driver is the finest Cyborg available.”

“He’ll never get us past them,” she moaned.

“You’d best be quiet,” Igan said.

Harvey at last had an object from which to protect his wife. “Don’t talk to her that way!” he barked.

Igan spoke in a long-suffering tone, “Not you, too, Durant. Keep your voice down. You know as well as I do they’ll have listening stations along the skyway. We shouldn’t be speaking now unless it’s absolutely necessary.”

“Nothing can get past them tonight,” Lizbeth whispered.

“Our driver is little more than a shell of flesh around a reflex computer,” Igan said. “He’s programed for just this task. He’ll get us through if anyone can.”

“If anyone can,” she whispered. She began to sob—wracking, convulsive movements that shook her whole body.

“See what you’ve done!” Harvey said.

Igan sighed, brought up a hand containing a capsule, extended the capsule to Harvey. “Give her this.”

“What’s that?” Harvey demanded.

“Just a sedative.”

“I don’t want a sedative,” she sobbed.

“It’s for your own good, my dear,” Igan said. “Really, this could dislodge the embryo. You should remain calm and quiet this soon after the operation.”

“She doesn’t want it,” Harvey said. His eyes glared with anger.

“She has to take it,” Igan said.

“Not if she doesn’t want it.”

Igan forced his voice into a reasonable tone. “Durant, I’m only trying to save our lives. You’re angry now and you -”

“You’re damn’ right I’m angry! I’m tired of being ordered around!”

“If I’ve offended you, I’m sorry, Durant,” Igan said. “But I must caution you that your present reaction is conditioned by your gene shaping. You’ve excess male protectiveness. Your wife will be all right. This sedative is harmless. She’s hysterical because she has too much maternal drive. These are flaws in your gene shaping, but you’ll both be all right if you remain calm.”

“Who says we’re flawed?” Harvey demanded. “I’ll bet you’re a Sterrie who’s never -”

“That’s quite enough, Durant,” the other doctor said. It was a rumbling, powerful voice.

Harvey looked at Boumour, noted the pinched-up elfin face on the big body. The surgeon appeared powerful and dangerous, the face strangely inhuman.

“We cannot fight among ourselves,” Boumour rumbled. “We may be getting near the checkpoint. They’re sure to have listening devices.”

“We aren’t flawed,” Harvey growled.

“Perhaps you’re right,” Igan said. “But you’re both reducing our chances of escape. If one of you breaks up at that checkpoint, that’s the end of us.” He shifted his hand, extended the capsule to Lizbeth. “Please take this, madam. It contains a tranquillizer. Quite harmless, I assure you.”

Hesitantly, Lizbeth took the capsule. It felt cold and gelatinous against her fingers—repulsive. She wanted to hurl the thing at Igan, but Harvey touched her cheek.

“Maybe you’d better take it,” he said. “For the baby.”

She brought up her hand, popped the capsule against the back of her tongue, gulped it. It must be all right if Harvey agreed. But she didn’t like the hurt, baffled look in his eyes.

“Now relax,” Igan said. “It’s fast acting—three or four minutes and you’ll feel quite calm.” He sat back, glanced down at Svengaard. The trussed figure still appeared to be unconscious, chest rising and falling in an even rhythm.

For what felt like a long time now, Svengaard had been increasingly aware of hunger and a swooping, turning motion that rolled his body against a hard surface. There was a sensation of swiftness about the motion. He smelled human perspiration, heard the roar of turbines. The sound was beginning to press on his consciousness. There was light, dim and fuzzy through uncooperative eyelids. He felt a gag biting his lips, bindings on hands and feet.

Svengaard opened his eyes.

For a moment, he failed to focus, then he found himself staring up at a low ceiling, a tiny glowtube in the corner with a speaker grill beneath it bulging beside a dull ruby call light. The ceiling seemed too close to him and there was a blurred shadow shape to his right—a leg stretched across him. The single light emitted a yellow glow that almost failed to dispel the darkness.

The ruby light began winking, red fire flashing on and off, on and off.

“Checkpoint!” Igan hissed. “Silence everyone!”

They sensed the van begin to slow. Its air suspension became softer and softer. The turbines whined downscale. They rocked to a stop and the turbines whispered into standby.

Svengaard’s gaze darted around the enclosure. A rough bench above him to his right… two figures seated on it. A sharp edge of metal protruded from the bench support beside his cheek. Softly, gently, Svengaard moved his head toward the metal projection, felt it touch flesh through the gag. He gave a gentle push of his head upward and the gag pulled down slightly. The projection scratched his cheek, but he ignored it. Another gentle tug and the gag lowered another fraction of a millimeter. He turned his eyes, checking his surroundings, saw Lizbeth’s face above him to the left, her eyes closed, hands in front of her mouth. There was a sense of suspended terror about her.

Again, Svengaard moved his head.

There were voices somewhere in a remote distance—sharp sounds of questions, murmurous answers.

Lizbeth’s hands lowered to reveal her mouth. The lips moved soundlessly.

The sound of talking had stopped.

Slowly, the van began to move.

Svengaard twisted his head. The binding of his gag broke free. He coughed it from his mouth, shouted, “Help! Help! I’m a prisoner! Help!”

Igan and Boumour leaped with shock. Lizbeth screamed, “No! Oh, no!”

Harvey surged forward, crashed a fist into Svengaard’s jaw, fell on him with one hand over the man’s mouth. They held their positions in an agony of listening as the van continued to gather speed.

Igan took a trembling breath, looked across into the wide staring eyes of Lizbeth.

The voice of their driver came through the speaker grill: “What is the trouble? Can’t you observe the simplest precautions?”

The dispassionate, accusing quality of the voice chilled Harvey. He wondered about the driver then, why the creature took this tone rather than telling them if they’d been exposed. Svengaard felt limp and unconscious beneath him, Harvey realized. He experienced a wild desire to throttle the surgeon here and now, could almost feel his hands around the man’s throat.

“Did they hear us?” Igan whispered.

“Apparently not,” the driver rasped. “No sign of pursuit. I presume you’ll not permit another such lapse. Please report on what happened.”

“Svengaard wakened from the narcotic sooner than we expected.”

“But he was gagged.”

“He… managed to get the gag off, somehow.”

“Perhaps you should kill him. Obviously, he will not take reconditioning.”

Harvey pushed himself off Svengaard. Now that the Cyborg had made the suggestion, he no longer felt like killing Svengaard. Who was it up there in the van’s cab? Harvey wondered. Cyborgs tended to sound alike, that computer personality with its altitude of logic so far above the human. This one, though, came through even more remote than usual.

“Well… consider what to do,” Igan said.

“Svengaard is again secure?”

“He’s been taken care of.”

“No thanks to you,” Harvey said, staring at Igan. “You were right over him.”

Igan’s faced paled. He remembered his frozen immobility after that leap of fear. Anger surged through him. What right had this clod to question a surgeon? He spoke stiffly, “I regret that I’m not a man of violence.”

“Something you’d better learn,” Harvey said. He felt Lizbeth’s hand on his shoulder, allowed her to guide him back onto their bench. “If you have more of that knock-out stuff, maybe you’d better use another dose of it on him before he wakes up again.”

Igan suppressed a sharp reply.

“In the bag under our bench,” Boumour said. “A reasonable suggestion.”

Woodenly, Igan groped for a slapshot and administered it to Svengaard.

Again, the driver’s voice barked through the speaker: “Attention! We must not presume from the lack of immediate and obvious pursuit that they failed to hear the outcry. I am executing Plan Gamma.”

“Who is that driver?” Harvey whispered.

“I didn’t see which one they programed,” Boumour said. He studied Harvey. That had been an appropriate question. The driver did sound odd, much more so than the usual Cyborg abnormality. They’d said the driver would be a programed reflex computer, a machine designed to give the surest response to achieve their escape. Who did they choose for that program?

“What’s Plan Gamma?” Lizbeth whispered.

“We’re abandoning the prepared escape route,” Boumour said. He stared at the forward wall of their box. Abandoning the prepared route… which meant they’d be completely dependent now upon the abilities of the Cyborg driver… and whichever scattered cells of the Underground remained and were available. Any one of those cells could’ve been compromised, of course. Boumour’s usually stolid nature began to entertain odd wisps of fear.

“Driver!” Harvey called.

“Silence,” the driver snapped.

“Stick to the original plan,” Harvey said. “They have the medical facilities there if my wife -”

“Your wife’s safety is not the overriding factor,” the driver said. “Elements along the prepared route must not be discovered. Do not distract me with your objections. Plan Gamma is being executed.”

“Easy does it,” Boumour said as Harvey surged forward, supporting himself with a hand on the bench. “What can you do, Durant?”

Harvey sagged back onto the bench, groped for and found Lizbeth’s hand. She squeezed it, signaled, “Wait. Don’t you read the doctors? They’re frightened too… and worried.”

“I’m worried about you,” Harvey signaled.

So her safety—and presumably ours—aren’t the overriding concern, Boumour thought. What then is the overriding concern? What program controls our computer-in-flesh?