Natural Selection Read online

  A small shock trickled through the electrodes on his throat. It hurt, but not enough to incapacitate him. "That is the mildest shock the system offers. If you do your-work well, you will never feel even that much. Make a mistake, and depending on how bad it is, you will hurt a great deal."

  The twin monitors in front of his eyes stopped displaying static and instead filled his sight with a world of walls and floors. Off to his left sunlight poured reddish glory through a window. Straight ahead he saw one corridor extending the length of the building. To the right he saw a door to the exterior. He moved toward it, and as he raised his hand to where the doorknob seemed to hang in space, he felt a jolt at his throat.

  "You may be allowed out later, if you are good. For now, do what is on the schedule."

  "Where am I?"

  "Where are you?" The Red Corsair laughed airily. "This is a construct of my true home, Nelson. It is the place where you will spend the rest of your life."

  . The virtual world became a game for the two of them as the environment became more and more complex over the next two weeks. Nelson had two sessions per day, each lasting six hours realtime. That would comprise a whole day in the computer world, with an hour passing every fifteen minutes. As he became proficient with the system, the Red Corsair started giving him more complicated assignments.

  For the first four sessions he had been alone in the computer world, but after that, new and interesting people and creatures started to show up. Nelson suspected that idle crew members were being invited to program little distractions into the world for him while everyone waited for the ship's jump drive to fully recharge its coils and for the JumpShip's lithium-fusion batteries to load up.

  At first the other creatures bothered him, but he quickly became able to discriminate between what the Red Corsair was making him do and what the others did to interfere with him. It was not that the others had a trademark that allowed him to distinguish between them or discover who the realworld author was. Instead he found that their simulation tricks lacked one key element that was the trademark of the Red Corsair's work.

  What she did was always cruel. He remembered very well the first time the assignment "Tend the children" had showed up on his schedule. He searched all over the base for a nursery. The shocks to his throat, building in intensity and duration the further he got from the children, helped herd him back toward the Red Corsair's private domain. Finally, when he searched the house, he found a new addition to it that was jam-packed with tiny children.

  Most of them had a surreal quality because they were constructed from spheres and cones and other easily generated geometrical shapes. They looked more like toys come to life than real children. Yet whenever he came close and focused on one, the child changed from the awkward and ridiculous construct to a wriggling, crying child.

  Worse yet, when the computer resolved the child in such exquisite detail, he would recognize the child. This one would have the Red Corsair's hair, or her eyes or nose, and it would always have some part of him there as well. He tried to draw away from those children, but when he did the shocks drove him to his knees. If he refused to move his hands in caring and careful ways, more shocks would follow, fast and painful.

  He hated the part of him that could look at those children through the haze of pain and still find them beautiful.

  He forced himself to settle into a routine that would make the Red Corsair work as hard as he did at the game. He learned shortcuts that allowed him to accomplish his tasks quickly. He moved through the base like a guided missile, always seeking out a new and faster way to get somewhere. He explored for unlikely connections between buildings, and used them like tunnels and skyways when he found them.

  At night, when the evening's tasks were behind him, he would spend time outside the home. He watched the night sky and smiled when the program shot meteors through the world's atmosphere. He did not recognize any of the constellations, so he started grouping them into his own little mythology. He named one after his son Jon and a pair of twin stars after his grandsons. Dorete didn't rate a constellation, but the Red Corsair did.

  He called it "The Witch," and made it the first one the sun would eat up in the morning.

  Of late the Red Corsair had taken to blocking off his skyways and tunnels. This added time to his cross-base runs, but he didn't mind, despite the shocks. As he moved through the base, searching out new shortcuts, he found certain places where he was not allowed access. On the off-chance that his ability to enter them was time-dependent, he tried again and again at different points during the simulated day.

  Nelson steeled himself for the shock as he turned left down a corridor in the basement of the base's main building. The time was close to twenty-three hundred hours, which made this the latest foray he had ever attempted on this particular area.

  No shock accompanied his first step into the area. He smiled. He took another step and another down it. The red doors at the far end loomed closer. He reached out to push them open and at his touch they flew back.

  The jolt that hit him in the throat staggered him. The treadmill whipped his feet away and his chin smacked into the padded crossbar. He flopped to the ground and the treadmill's belt whipped him back, dumping him on the floor in a shaking heap.

  He heard her sure tread on the decking, followed by a click and the death of the treadmill's hum. Still unable to move, he felt her kneel next to him and pull the goggles off. The artificial hallway was whisked away, and his eyes took a second or two to focus on her face. He blinked once, but in the time it took him to do that, the look of concern he thought he had seen on her face had vanished.

  "There are places you are not supposed to go, Nelson. I trust that was a lesson to you." She propped his head up on her arm and unfastened the shock collar. "It might have seemed brutal, but were we actually there, you would have been shot dead." Her voice grew distant. "I did that for your own good."

  He tried to reply, but his voice would still not work.

  She pressed a finger to his lips. "Do not even try to speak." She reached down and pulled the datagloves off his hands. "It will take you a few minutes to recover."

  She sat back on her haunches and Nelson noticed for the first time that she was wearing the same robe she had donned the first time he had met her. "You have made this quite a game, Nelson. You have done very well. You have mastered the distractions and overcome the obstacles we have thrown at you. I am pleased with your progress."

  Nelson nodded to her and found his head and neck actually worked. He flexed his fingers and toes, and though they still tingled a bit, they responded to his commands. His arms and legs felt leaden, but they showed signs of returning use.

  She took his right hand in hers and he could feel warmth flowing from her flesh to his. "In fact, so pleased am I with your performance, I thought I would reward you." Her glance darted toward the doorway into her cabin. "You perform so well to avoid pain, I thought I would see what you will do for pleasure."

  He rolled over onto his right side. "Why torture yourself?" he croaked out.

  "Torture myself? Hardly." She smiled hungrily at him. "I am rewarded for training you so quickly and so well and . . ."

  "And?"

  She stood and pulled him to his feet. She steadied him and helped him walk toward her cabin. "And tomorrow we jump into Deia. On the eve of what I expect to be a confrontation with the Wolves, I do not choose to sleep alone."

  19

  Tharkad

  Federated Commonwealth

  19 June 3055

  The day Melissa Steiner-Davion was to die dawned like all others for Karl Kole. He chose a breakfast pack from his freezer and tossed it into the microwave. The assassin looked at the box he had chosen and smiled because it was pancakes with sausage, one of Karl's favorites.

  After breakfast he turned his computer on and scanned the headers on the newsfax, then took a shower. He conserved on water, despite knowing he would never have to pay the bill. As usual he hung
his wet towel on the bathroom door. Dressing in jeans and T-shirt, he bundled up in a parka and pulled a watch cap onto his head to protect himself against the cold.

  Leaving his computer on, Karl carefully locked his apartment, then left the building at the usual time and caught his normal bus. Seated there, his breath steaming the air, he nodded to the other regulars. Most ignored him, but one old lady smiled. Karl returned her smile and sat back.

  The ride to Freya, as per usual, passed quickly and uneventfully.

  Mr. Crippen's heightened state of agitation was no surprise, but Karl had not expected his boss to be waiting for him at the door. "Where have you been, Karl? Have you forgotten what day this is?"

  "No, sir, I haven't." Karl smiled innocently. "I left the house so quickly I didn't even bring a lunch. Sir."

  Crippen patted sweat from his bald head despite the chill in the air. "Well, do this correctly and I will buy you lunch. You have the most important job in preparing for this banquet, you know. You need to repot four my-cosia pseudoflora and make sure they are in place at the reception center by noon."

  "Yes, sir. I'll do a good job, sir."

  Crippen angrily waved him away. "Then get to it, man."

  Karl Kole nodded and made his way into the warehouse. He headed further back than he might normally, but the rest of the staff had become used to his idle explorations of the warehouse. Besides, everyone was busy trying to turn out a hundred centerpieces for the Frederick Steiner Memorial Library banquet. If anyone had actually had the time to notice him, they would have ignored him.

  When he got way to the back, where old goods and broken pots were shoved, the assassin knelt down. He took a careful look around the area and decided no one had disturbed it. Moving aside an old advertising sign, he pulled out a box with four rubber-sealed ceramic flower pots. Carrying them as if they were no more important than any others in the building, the assassin became Karl again and went directly to his workbench.

  Melissa Steiner-Davion's security people were very good. From the moment he'd decided to take the job of killing her, he'd begun to study films of her. Her bodyguards insulated her so well from people that only a madman could ever get close enough to kill her. Those opportunities only occurred when Melissa plunged into crowds to greet her subjects, but such forays were rare and random. Shooting her from pointblank range would be a way to kill her, but it was also a way to get caught, so he had rejected it instantly.

  A long-range sniper-shot might have worked, but, again, Melissa's security people made that difficult. They covered the high points around any public appearance she was to make. Her routes of travel were never publicized beforehand. And if there was any rumor about where she would be and how she would arrive, her security changed the plans at the last minute. There was no way to count on a window of opportunity to shoot her.

  The Archon's security forces knew that the one thing that could kill her was predictability. If she developed any sort of routine, she could be assassinated. The only events they allowed her to commit to in advance were those where she would be surrounded by a low-risk audience in a venue they could control.

  The dedication banquet was such an event. All the people invited were royalty—of blood, the arts, or industry—and all could be checked out well in advance. Everyone would be screened for weapons at the door and the room itself would be swept for explosives and lurking murderers several times before the banquet took place.

  At first, in studying Melissa, the assassin almost thought the job called for a suicide attacker, but he was not one of those and did not like working with that kind of fanatic. He saw no pattern in how she traveled, what she ate, or where she spent her time. She looked as impossible to kill as rumors about an impending Clan assault on Tharkad.

  Then, in watching a documentary about her life, he found the key. He began to make notes, double-checking sources and doing research. All he learned confirmed the one weakness in her defenses. It gave him the one weapon to use against her. It gave him mycosia pseudoflora.

  When Melissa Steiner married Hanse Davion in 3028, the Prince of the Federated Suns had paid vast sums to supply true mycosia blossoms for the bridesmaids' bouquets. The green flowers grew successfully on only one world, Andalusia, and blossomed only once a year. Hanse Davion had the flowers harvested and conveyed up to a string of JumpShips to carry them to Terra in time for the ceremony.

  That romantic gesture created a demand for mycosia the like of which had never been seen in the annals of mercantilism. Hundreds of scientists began to work on breeding a version of the plant that would flower more often, in different colors, and on worlds other than Andalusia. This proved difficult, but the race was won by the New Avalon Institute of Science in 3038. Mycosia pseudoflora entered the commercial market two years later and thereafter became Melissa's trademark flower.

  If she wore a corsage, it had at least one mycosia pseudoflora blossom in it. For important affairs, like the dedication banquet, nothing less than several flowering plants would do.

  The assassin aped Karl's work style as he set each pot out on the-workbench. He made sure they were evenly in line, then pulled his trowel out of a drawer and picked up a plastic bucket from beside his table. Working quickly he went to the peat pit and filled the bucket. He returned to his bench and used the peat to line the base of the pots, spreading it out evenly to hide the matchbox-sized lump on the bottom, beneath the rubber coating.

  He walked to the greenhouse and picked out the four plants he wanted. Each was in full bloom because he had added some flowering compound to their water two days ago. He took one in each hand and transferred them to his workbench, then returned for the other two. That left another four mycosia pseudofiora displaying their brilliant green blossoms, so he told Mr. Crippen that he should probably sell them.

  Back at his workbench he diligently worked the plants out of their small plastic pots and placed them in the rubberized ones. He packed peat around them and then topped each pot with some white stones, just to be decorative. Finally he placed each of the rubber pots in a decorative gold pot and presented Mr. Crippen with his handiwork.

  His boss seemed pleased, then stuck a finger in the peat. "Too dry. Wet them down at bit, but not too much."

  Karl frowned. "I thought I would do that when I got them in place. If I do it now, they could get frosted on the drive, couldn't they?"

  Crippen hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, yes. Go. Take them over there now so we can get the truck back to deliver the centerpieces."

  "Yes, sir."

  Karl covered each plant in a black plastic bag to insulate it, and carried the lot of them out into the delivery truck. He climbed in and started it. The hovertruck rose up on a cloud of air as a snow-curtain curled up and away from the skirts. Driving carefully, Karl headed the truck into traffic and out on the short trip to the reception center.

  The dedication banquet was not the first time Karl had delivered flowers to the reception center. The security guard there greeted him warmly and let him into the underground garage. He brought up a rolling cart, and Intelligence Secretariat agents descended like locusts on both of them.

  The Archon's security men wore dark glasses and conservative suits. They sent the center's man back to his post, then checked the cart, the truck, and patted Karl down. Opening the back of the truck, one of them produced a chemical sniffing device and waved it around. "Clear."

  The assassin didn't let his internal smile make it to Karl's face. The plastic explosive that had been shaped and baked into the flowerpots was double-sealed in a coat of acrylic and then rubber. Though the rubber was semipermeable, it had its own scent that would have masked anything from the explosives. The sniffer didn't get anything, as he'd expected.

  "Strip the plastic off the flowers."

  Karl looked hurt. "If I do I may burn the flowers. Can I do it upstairs, after I get them in place?"

  One security man looked at the other and they exchanged nods. "Seven, flowers co
ming up," one announced into the small radio microphone on his jacket lapel.

  Karl dutifully loaded the four pots and a watering can onto the handcart and let the security men escort him to the freight elevator. They said nothing. Because Karl would have done it, the assassin whistled a popular tune, then stopped when the security men looked at him. "Sorry."

  The elevator halted and they rolled into the reception hall from behind the podium where Melissa would deliver the keynote speech for the dedication. Karl smiled as he saw the iron stand already in place in front of the podium. It had four hoops set in a diamond pattern. Mr. Crippen knew his stuff—the display would look perfect.

  Karl stripped away the plastic, and the security men used the chemical sniffer again. They nodded and Karl placed one pot in each of the rings. He twisted them around until all the triangular flowers were oriented in the same direction. He looked hopefully at the security men and one of them finally nodded his approval of how they had been arranged.

  Karl smiled and picked up the plastic watering can. He raised it toward the flowers.

  "Wait."

  The assassin forced himself to turn slowly. "What?"

  "What's in there?" The security man pointed to the can.

  "Water." His heart started pounding in his ears. "Just water?"

  Karl nodded and took a drink out of it. "Just water."

  The man smiled. "I told my wife you didn't have to use anything special to keep those miksos thingers."

  "Just water and a lot of love." Karl nodded sagely and watered the flowers. As the peat drank the water in, his heart rate dropped back to normal. It is done. One more step and it is all over.

  He glanced at his watch and nodded. "Good. I can even stop for an early lunch on the way back." He looked at the security men. "I will be back with the centerpieces later. Do you want me to bring you anything?"

  They shook their heads and Karl blushed. "Okay, see you later."

  They accompanied him back to the truck, took possession of the plastic bags, and continued to watch him until he left the garage.