The Summer Thieves Read online

  Johrun admitted the task could seem boring—unless one contemplated the end result, a profitable and impressive herd of mighty meat machines. Still, boredom did not justify Minka juggling the spratlings like toys, three at a time, as she skipped along with the splice workers behind the floating sled. She couldn’t hurt the primitive creatures, but her actions were disrespectful and distracting. Johrun finally had to ask her to stop. She complied with a world-weary sigh, tossing the spratlings higgledy-piggledy onto the sled.

  Johrun sought to jolly her up. “Minka, my scamp, can you believe that one day you and I will be making all the decisions about the running of our world? Such a responsibility—but such an affirmation and a joy.”

  Minka pressed her booted foot against the side of one of the helpless spratlings just planted on the grass and tipped it over. Unable to right itself due to the weight of its upper part, it gyrated its several basal foot-arms in frustration until Johrun set it aright.

  To Johrun’s disbelief, a scowling Minka promptly toppled it again. “Queen of all I survey—and what I survey is so very stimulating! A field full of insensate meat factories. On the other side of this perfect unchangeable world, a hunting lodge full of the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable. What an honor indeed, for Queen Minka the Mad!”

  Johrun regarded his fiancée with wonder and alarm. Her beautiful golden hair, pinned up in a roll; her delicate sprite’s features; her subtle curves—all at odds with her grimace and belligerent stance.

  Seeing Johrun’s dismay and puzzlement, and perhaps realizing she had overstepped some boundary, Minka softened her attitude and expression. Into her sparkling blue eyes even crept a tear or two.

  “Oh, Joh, I’m so very sorry. It’s just that the certainty of our future and its limits bring me down low sometimes. Why should we be in thrall to the dead hand of the past? I want—I want excitement, adventure, mystery! Haven’t you ever felt those urges?”

  Johrun looked around the well-known and well-loved landscape. A planet all their own? And one so congenial? Could there be more to life than that?

  Before he could answer, Minka had tossed her arms around him and began pasting kisses on his handsome tanned face. He responded in kind, and they soon toppled to the fragrant cushiony grass. The sled and the splices worked dutifully on, moving further away from the engaged couple, by their training respectfully unheedful of any doings of the humans outside their realm of responsibility.

  At the end of their coupling, one wayward spratling bumping up in stupid repetitiveness against Johrun’s bare leg, their disagreement seemed retroactively erased.

  Or just buried.

  Life had gone on without such unease erupting again between them. Although perhaps Minka’s desire, two years later, to be schooled offplanet before settling down to married life represented a more circumspect outlet for the same irritable feelings.Without him realizing it, Johrun’s soaring flight had taken him far away from the Salazar Escarpment. Flying with unconscious instincts, he had let his ruminations preoccupy his attention. His vambrace supplied his current coordinates which the largely landmark-empty pasturage did not readily reveal. Were he to land now, he’d have a three-hour hike back to the ranch. Not an entirely desirable prospect, despite the ever-clement Verano day. He started to bank, intending to fly at least partway home if the air currents allowed, and his eye caught an extraordinary sight.

  A full-grown herple lying on its side, unmoving, seemingly damaged, possibly dead.

  Pulling his wings in close to his torso, Johrun arrowed down, braking himself only at the last moment, landing with practiced finesse.

  Standing beside the vast creature, Johrun could readily see it was now a corpse. And however it had been killed, it had been further mutilated. Most of its meat had been rudely gouged out of its soft protective carapace in a process utterly unlike the sophisticated methods of the Corvivios harvest. A marine stink emanated from the sun-heated carcass.

  Completely a product of the sartorization alembics of the Pollys, the herple fused several Gaian oceanic genomes into one magnificent land creature. Its base derived from various echinoderms, part starfish, part sea cucumber. In effect, the foundational part of the herple resembled a giant rugose mattress with many agile and tough arms or legs. Next, the succulent innards of the Gaian scallop, protected by the lightweight borrowed parchment-like skin of a shrimp, formed the bulk of the drumlike body. A palette of flavor genes from many other species could be inserted. Lungs were installed. Distributed ganglia provided the herple’s limited functionality. The herple would trundle slowly in a random walk, its ventral starfish mouth pressed to the nutritious grass, getting bigger and bigger and more delicious and meatier with every passing day, squirting out the occasional almost odorless pasture-replenishing liquid excrement, until finally harvested and slaughtered.

  But not this specimen, cut down before its prime and waste-fully ravaged.

  Johrun opened a line of communication through his vambrace. Soon he had his father Landon displayed as a life-sized shaped-light eidolon beside him. At first, focused on Johrun, the older man showed no worry or concern. Only a few decades older than his son, his vigorous health supplemented by the best technics of the Smalls and Pollys that wealth could purchase, Landon Corvivios resembled a big brother more than a parent. His good looks did not entirely mirror Johrun’s face, for the son had also inherited the high cheekbones of his mother Ilona and her strong jawline.

  Wearing rumpled blue coveralls soiled with yellow splashes of spratling nutrient goo, Landon said, “What’s afoot, son? We didn’t expect to hear from you until dinnertime. Have your recreations palled already? Are you that eager to have me assign you some chores? You caught me wrestling with the feeder lines in the south nursery. I can always use another hand. And your irresponsible granddad is zipping up and down Lake Jinji in the dynafoil with your flibbertigibbet grandmother in tow on her waterskis. At their age! But it’s the reward for founding this half-assed dynasty, I assume.”

  Johrun responded by angling his vambrace’s cameras to take in the dead herple. “I wish it were something so innocent, Dad. Look at this.”

  Immediately Landon grew serious. “This can only be the work of poachers. Where are you?”

  Johrun relayed his coordinates.

  “Stay there. I’m coming out with splices and rifles. I’ll be by your side in under ten minutes.”

  Landon severed the connection. Chafing at the wait, Johrun surveyed the scene for further clues. He had been too distraught to notice earlier the most obvious traces of the intruders. A playing-field’s worth of grass flattened by the impression of some big ship, and the tramplings of many feet as the poachers had gone about their business.

  Johrun had just finished doffing his flight rig and peeling his jelly visor off when Landon arrived, helming a capacious fifth-force barge, open to the air, that held ten splices seated on benches. Only two rifles constituted the promised armament. These ranch splices were no warriors, and served only as some kind of hopefully intimidating corps of supporters that might convince any unsavvy intruders that they were outnumbered.

  Johrun accepted a weapon. Landon clapped him on the shoulder. “Here’s where all those safari days might finally prove useful. Not that I anticipate any shooting. I’m going to bring the Quinary in. Their damn protection costs enough that we should get some use out of the policy. But first, let’s find the rascals and make sure what’s happening. I’d hate to bring down the Quinary on some morons who strayed from Danger Acres. I delayed the search until I reached you.”

  Landon employed his vambrace to run through the high-resolution imagery provided by the satellite surveillance system which the families had put in place around Verano. Tapping into the ubiquitous Harvester informational substrate would have been invaluable, but human technology had never broken those codes or modalities. And attempts to monkey with the larger planetary engines had often enough proved so disastrous as to discourage any and all future experi
ments. The whole population of the Quinary still talked about the fate of Atlantropa, a world literally split apart like a ripe melon from pole to pole by such tampering.

  “Here we have them,” said Landon. “Not misguided tourists, that’s for sure.”

  His vambrace displayed in shaped-light diorama the suitably magnified scene as scoped from above. A hulking and battered pewter-colored braneship—perhaps a Rulan Class Cargomaster similar to the newer ones that officially serviced Verano—with its ramp down and activity around it, including the loading of stolen meat. Pulling back from the closeup revealed more slaughtered herples around the perimeter of the illicit doings.

  “Let’s go stop them,” said Johrun eagerly.

  “We’re only two against so many. I only brought the weapons in case they attacked us first. And besides, I don’t fancy killing anyone today, even such slimy bastards. Let me launch the emergency takedown request drone now that we’ve ascertained the situation.”

  Landon played commands on his vambrace. “Done! The Quinary response should be here promptly.”

  Johrun contemplated this extreme and expensive measure. Luckily the Veranonals could afford it. Other folks in such an extreme would have had to endure longer response times.

  The key to galactic society, travel at faster-than-light speeds, was accomplished by passage through those alternate dimensions known as branes. Several continua adjacent to the brane that housed the human universe mapped onto the native realm in unique ways. Not featuring standard components such as planets or suns, galaxies or nebulae, instead merely a senses-defying patchwork morass and miasma, these alternate universes, once they had been laboriously charted, allowed navigation at varying “speeds” and “distances” which translated into skipping blithely across lightyears back home. Pop into the neighbor brane, spend a few hours or days in some kind of quasimotion, and then reemerge at your faroff destination.

  Some branes offered speedier passage due to radical topologies, but were inimical to organic life, and could not be used by people. And, being further displaced across the higher dimensions of the “bulk”—the supersystem that held all branes—they demanded higher energy fees for entrance and exit.

  The drones that carried the incessant Indranet updates used the conventional, slower, cheaper routes.

  But for emergencies, drones could be dispatched across the high-energy branes, travelling many parsecs in minutes.

  Landon had just launched one such, aimed at the nearest Quinary affiliate.

  Landon mused, “I suppose we should keep an eye on them, even if we don’t immediately engage. If they were to flee before the drone arrived, they’d get off scot-free.”

  “Let’s go!” said Johrun.

  Landon and Johrun hopped aboard the barge where the splices sat placidly. A mix of canine, llama and Calvino huntoon, along with the human portions that endowed them with sapience, they lived for herding, and their current acrid scent cloud indicated their unease with the situation.

  The craft lifted and sped toward the coordinates of the poachers. Johrun exulted in the swift passage through the lilac-hued afternoon air. For once he could understand the pulse-lifting thrills of all things uncommon that allured Minka.

  With no trees or hills to conceal its approach, the Corvivios barge was easily spotted from far away by even the naked eyes of the criminals, not to mention their sensors. Realizing this, Landon activated the ship’s tannoy and broadcast a loud call.

  “Avast, intruders! Cease all depredations!”

  The command did not produce the desired result. The poachers immediately began to scramble to gather together their gear, close up their ship and depart. A brace of armed guards dropped to one knee and began to fire at the barge. Luckily they were not using expensive intelligent ammunition, and the range was extreme. Or perhaps, merely intending to intimidate and hold off the rightful owners without incurring a murder, they aimed astray. In either case, no shots impacted the Corvivios craft or its occupants.

  Landon settled the barge to earth a safe distance away. Johrun slapped on his jelly goggles and dialed up the magnification. The guards remained vigilant by the extended ramp, but the last pirate stragglers were already hustling safely inside.

  Johrun felt anger and frustration. “They’re going to get away!”

  “Patience, patience, son. Ah—it’s here!”

  The Quinary takedown probe had brane-egressed just outside the atmosphere of Verano, then dived through the air at hypersonic speed, fetching to a dramatic halt just above the invaders. Onboard the spiky missile, the vizier-level artilect— one of the highest grades of machine proficiency still permitted to special users under the terms of the Artilect Recension— instantly evaluated the situation to confirm Landon’s original message.

  Satisfied, the representative of the Quinary began deplat-forming the criminals in precise stages, keyed to the unique tags of their property.

  The first suite of privileges to be shut down involved the Indranet. Johrun could tell this, because the outside guards fumbled at their dead vambraces, cut off from instructions. But, recovering, they decided independently to resume firing at the Corvivios party. Not acceptable.

  The next pulse from the takedown drone deplatformed all the power equipment reliant on the technology supplied by the Motivators, effectively shutting down the propulsive and life-support systems. The ship went inert, and within minutes its crew raced out and down the gangway, knowing that the next deplatforming, by the Brickers, would close up the ship entirely. And indeed, the next few moments saw the Cargomaster seal itself tight and the guns of the poachers go dead.

  Once the door closed, the hapless poachers congregated in a confused mass for a short time. Then many of the pirates split off and began to run away—a desperate yet useless maneuver. This flight triggered the Polly deplatforming: all the many implants, prosthetics, adjuncts, add-ons, boosters, cyber-codicils, wet-ware and cellular hacks were taken offline. In a few cases, where the individual was heavily enhanced, this tactic would result in death. And indeed, Johrun saw several poachers collapse.

  This fourth-stage deplatforming utterly sapped the remaining resistance of the pirates, and they ceased all activity, hostile or defensive, congregating in a nervous clot. None of them cared to risk the fifth-stage Smalls-centric deplatforming, which involved the denaturing and repurposing of selected fabricated materials. No one wished their clothing turned into infectious compositional dust that would attack a specific individual based on genomic targeting.

  Gauging the rout complete from their safe remove, Landon lifted the barge off the ground and flew low to where the rabble stood.

  Johrun had never seen such a disreputable bunch before, all crawling skin-sigils, scars and feeble sneers revealing various designer teeth. He nervously kept his rifle trained on them. Landon seemed less concerned about any remnant dangers they might represent—especially with the Quinary agent still hovering over the scene. He ordered the splices off the barge and instructed them to trot back to the ranch. They gamboled off, happy to be out of the action. Landon shooed the pirates onto the empty benches. The comatose poachers were laid out on the floor.

  Lifting easily, the craft spun about and zoomed ranchward through the midday eternal summer sky, where gold-tinged clouds like the living galleons of Pinula V cruised loftily and serenely.

  Landon spoke to his son as he guided the barge. “We’ll incarcerate this lot in one of the storage sheds until the Quinary comes for them. What with the bounty on their Cargomaster and any individual reward money, we might earn back the cost of the takedown drone launch—or even turn a profit.”

  “Don’t forget the loss of the slaughtered herples though.”

  “Hmm, yes, of course. Well, if these butchers flash-froze the meat for transport, we might be able to recover it. Can’t sell it of course—immature, not top grade, badly processed. But it could go into the larder for our splices. Let’s see how it goes.”

  Landon immediately
sent a request to the Quinary through regular Indranet channels. The outgoing mail sat in the Verano-system buffers until a drone happened to pop into their space. The drone disgorged its cargo of information, absorbed all the latest updates from the Verano Indranet, then departed. Several hours later, after the poachers had been incarcerated and Johrun and Landon had told their story over and over to the appreciative other family members, an affirmative reply came back.

  Using the unlocking protocols supplied, the Corvivios family gained access to the sequestered Cargomaster. They found the stolen thawing meat just reaching ambient temperature, were able to stabilize it with a nano-preparation from the Smalls—not used generally, due to its effect on the meat’s âmago—and bring it home to the family facilities. All this occupied a good number of hours until a late dinner, which was a happy but low-energy affair, given the day’s exertions.

  At the expansive table, laden with many imported foods other than herple, in the familiar yet always cherished presence of his grandparents and parents, an exhausted Johrun basked in a mellow and cheerful glow. The events of the day had marked some kind of graduation, he felt. By discovering the poachers and taking part in their capture, he had passed from being merely an adult child, an apprentice, and protégé on the ranch, to a fully fledged partner. And when he was married to Minka . . .

  Thoughts of the imminent return of his betrothed, fantasies of their future, supplanted mental reruns of the poacher incident. One idyllic scene after another ran through his mind.

  Johrun realized he had dropped out of the general conversation into a kind of pleasant fugue only when his mother Ilona said, “Son, shouldn’t you be thinking of heading to your room? After all, you still need to log an hour or so of current events.”

  “Oh, sure, Mom. See you all tomorrow.”