Lost Among the Stars Read online

  Kioga sat up, causing tectonic stresses in his abused head. “Oh, my Christ! Don’t you have any Null-borracho, please?”

  One of the men dispensed a pill with a glass of water. “Not Null-borracho. Much better. Homemade.”

  With no choice, Kioga uneasily accepted the foreign pharma. Ingestion brought astonishingly swift relief. He momentarily pondered inquiring about the formula, then decided he had more pressing issues.

  “Now, discuss what?”

  “How you will help us,” said Avianna.

  “Us? Who’s us?”

  “Me and my brother, Hernán.”

  Avianna indicated one of the men, a stolid, lantern-jawed fellow with a somewhat aggrieved air, like a bright hopeful child unjustly sentenced to a remedial class. He wore a tight t-shirt with the famous logo of prestigious edX University over his admirably chiseled chest.

  “Our two friends here need not be named,” Avianna continued. “They are just along for muscle, should you prove unruly. It is the plight of my brother that matters.”

  Hernán nodded graciously, with some deference, as if sheepish at the necessity of invoking non-familial assistance. “I will gladly explain, Mister Matson. We would not have brought you here if matters were not otherwise beyond our resolution. You see—”

  Kioga suddenly sprang to his feet, sheets of acrid binge sweat gushing like spring freshets from his entire body. The Colombians reared back, startled, the two unidentified men reaching behind their backs and toward unseen waistband holsters.

  A vision had burst upon Kioga: his young mother, captive in an African hut; the lethal Bee Hive device; himself a toddler—

  “My phone! Where’s my phone! They’ll be homing in on it. If they think I’ve been kidnapped—”

  Seeing Kioga meant no assault, the bodyguards dropped their readiness to deal hasty freeform hurt. Avianna placed a calming hand on Kioga’s arm.

  “Your phone is taking a journey on a plane to Bogota. There is no need to worry.”

  “But I’m chipped, too! Look!”

  Kioga pushed one arm of his jacket upward to show the branded patch of skin above his subdermal tracker. But to his surprise, the brand was gone, replaced by a large bruise whose dull pain now faintly registered for the first time.

  Avianna smiled. “We borrowed an ultrasonic medical device from the local hospital. Extracorporeal shock wave treatment. What you would receive for kidney stones. Most effective, and totally non-invasive.”

  Kioga plopped down on his cot, his thrumming nerves slowly stabilizing. He didn’t know whether to be angry, relieved, or impressed. “My god, I thought—”

  Avianna regarded Kioga with a quizzical tenderness. “Did you really care that we four might die, Mister Matson? You surely would have survived, and then you would have been happily rid of our unwanted attentions.”

  “Of course I care! What kind of monster do you think I am, anyhow?”

  Avianna squeezed his arm. “No kind of monster at all—Kioga. Especially if you lend us your help. This is why we picked you, over your friend Jimmy. He is such a nihilist. Not like you. Now, just listen …”

  The region around Medellín, particularly the state of Chocó, had been gold mining territory for many decades, ever since the country had sought to diversify from its drug cultivation at the same time that global prices for gold had soared. But so many of the unregulated companies played fast and loose with the environment, gouging the gold out of the deep-riven earth and processing it with cyanide and mercury that contaminated the land.

  Hernán Barranquilla had worked as an environmental engineer for one of the larger players, Conquistador Mining, although his budget had been practically nonexistent and any corporate support for his department a public relations sham. Nonetheless, he had discovered a very valuable wild microbe in the ore tailings. It thrived by metabolizing poisons, although poorly, leaving its milieu marginally cleaner than received. With much labor, over many months of off-duty nights and weekends, Hernán had tailored the bug, right here in this basement lab, to perform miracles of remediation. He had brought the improved bug to Conquistador first, thinking they would license it. Instead, they had stolen it, confiscating all samples, and fired its inventor.

  “But if I could only get back even a trace quantity of the microbe, Mister Matson,” Hernán explained, “I could prove my ownership. Establish a patent and market my invention to help my country.”

  “How is that?”

  “I have encrypted my proprietary information into the genome of the microbe. It cannot be removed without ruining the best features of the bug. Any readout of the genome proves my claims.”

  Kioga thought about this story. The clever hack appealed to him, a natural extension of his industrial metabolics concerns. He felt sorry for this ingenuous guy, up against corporate perfidy. And being able to help Avianna’s brother—

  Kioga regarded the woman with what he hoped was a righteously indignant glower that communicated, with high semiotic wattage: You deliberately led me along by my dick and abducted me and now you have the nerve to ask for my help!?!

  Avianna looked deeply and sincerely and adorably contrite. “Mister Matson—Kioga. Please forgive us. We do not know any powerful people who could come to our aid. The local authorities are all in the pockets of Conquistador. Someone like you represented our only hope. When you descended among us, it was like an angel arriving from heaven. But still, we suspected you would brush off any solicitations we made openly, so we had to bring you here under our control. Our tactics were heavy-handed, yes. But can’t you accept them as a genuine expression of our helplessness?”

  Exercising his imagination and empathy, Kioga had to admit to himself that he probably would have followed the same course, were their situations reversed. Life outside the Science Parks, he already knew, bred desperation and ethical shortcuts, and this incident merely confirmed his estimation of the scene.

  “No, I guess not. Your intentions weren’t evil or selfish. But still, kidnapping someone—”

  Avianna hurled herself around Kioga’s neck, squeezed him tightly, kissed both his cheeks, then unpeeled herself and bounced back, before he could possibly even respond with any gesture, fraternal or lewd. All the Colombians were smiling, even the anonymous muscle.

  “Oh, I knew you would be on our side, Kioga! Surely, victory is ours now!”

  “What exactly am I supposed to do?”

  “We will reveal our plans in a moment. But first, let us have a small meal. It is well past noon.”

  Kioga pondered this previously unremarked passage of time: long hours after he was due back at Parque Arví. What would Mallory be feeling? She would surely be worried, instrumental in searching for him, raising hell. Best to get this unanticipated chore over with quickly, so he could resume his normal life.

  Lunch practically brought tears to Kioga’s eyes, it tasted so good: arepas, those ubiquitous corn pancakes, filled with salmon and shrimp, with a big cool glass of fresh guanabana juice.

  “I am so glad you like my cooking,” said Avianna.

  Wasting no postprandial time, his captors bundled Kioga into a Baolong Motors SUV. Blinking in the sunlight, he discerned that Hernán’s lab was still within the city. No point in hiding its location, he guessed, since he knew Avianna’s identity already.

  Hernán, driving, and Avianna, shotgun, sat up front, Kioga sandwiched behind between the guards. They headed southwest, steadily climbing out of the valley-nestled city center.

  “What we wish you to do,” Avianna said, “is merely to present yourself at the offices of Conquistador. Explain who you are. They will be very impressed. Everyone knows and respects the Science Parks. Ask for a tour of the waste stream processing. We are betting that Hernán’s bug will be present. Steal a sample somehow. This is the only tricky part. But it can be as simple as getting your sleeve wet in the slurry. Just do not arouse their suspicions. Then, when you leave, we will pick you up, claim the sample, and your part in th
e affair is over. You can go back to the Science Parks with our thanks, and forget you ever knew us.”

  Kioga contemplated the chore. It seemed trivial, harmless, safe. “Okay.”

  Climbing, twisting, climbing, Kioga noted changes in terrain, vegetation and human settlement. Amid the fantastical foliage, he witnessed large swaths of poverty and rampant want, suffering and a makeshift, make-do existence. Here, firsthand, as impactful as a trash fire, was the backwardness and lack he was intent on ameliorating. Alien and incomprehensible in many respects, the scene nonetheless whispered enticingly to him, a parent calling back a changeling son.

  Surprisingly, despite the squalor and material scarcity, many of the people looked happy and content.

  “Avianna.”

  “Yes?”

  “You really picked me out of all the Science Park people?”

  Looking back, she smiled. “There is much public data about all of you. But your profile was the most congenial.”

  Kioga sat silent for a while.

  “Avianna.”

  “Yes?”

  “What will you get out of all this?”

  “If my brother is a rich man, I am sure he will be good to me.”

  “Si,” said Hernán.

  “I think I might like to study medicine. I trained as an EMT for a time, but I had to cease my courses out of necessity.”

  “Well, maybe I could help somehow. That is, if I ever returned here.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Two hours passed in relative silence. The SUV finally stopped at an empty portion of road high in the mountains. Fenced-off property stretched along one side of the tarmac.

  “This is our rendezvous spot. We will come back in three hours. The gate to the Conquistador operations is about half a kilometer down the road, around that bend. We must leave you here. Otherwise, we will come under their surveillance.”

  Kioga let himself out of the vehicle. “How do you know I won’t just get help and never return?”

  Avianna bestowed a broad smile. “But you gave us your word, Kioga.”

  The SUV made a gravel-crunching three-point turn.

  “Goodbye, Kioga. Thank you, and good luck!”

  Kioga watched them go, then walked around the bend.

  He could see the gated entrance and guard shack, all razor wire and robotic antipersonnel emplacements.

  The booth was manned by three armed security workers. Kioga straightened his rumpled jacket and went up to them. They regarded him vigilantly until he explained himself, then seemed to relax a trifle.

  “Señor Matson, we will take your biometrics now to confirm your identity.”

  “Of course.”

  After he had been tera-scanned, Kioga grinned.

  Then the alarms sounded, louder than Armageddon.

  Kioga took a step or three backwards.

  “Mister Matson, stop! You are under arrest! Please come peacefully.”

  Kioga was ten meters away and running before he had formed any conscious impulse.

  The taser barbs caught him in the butt and lower back. He spasmed like a gaffed fish and went down, head aimed, he noted clinically, straight at a sizable jagged roadside boulder.

  * * *

  Jimmy Velvet arrived in Kioga’s Parque Arví hospital room while Kioga was replaying for the nth time on his phone the news accounts of his embarrassing escapades. His friend beamed, carrying a bottle and several gifts. Kioga ignored him momentarily. He was too intent on marveling at what an allegedly humorous spin the announcers had managed to put on his near-fatal contretemps.

  Missing person alert! Unflattering photo flashed onscreen. Last seen in dodgy native company. Anonymous accusation delivered, proclaiming sudden terrorist sympathies and affiliations in the Science Park renegade. Grudging admission by his fiancée that he might very well have gone dingo. “Just not himself lately.” Then all revealed as one laughable chain of mistakes, once Kioga had been apprehended and debriefed.

  Of course, Mallory’s reactions hurt the most. Her swift betrayal. And then her non-apology. And when she had asked Kioga, fresh out of the ICU, to donate his sperm for an early insemination, given the unavoidable delay in their wedding—

  Well, journalistic accuracy would have demanded an update to amend her status to ex-fiancée.

  Jimmy set down his offerings. He unwrapped one of the packages and helped himself to a chocolate. Munching contentedly, he looked inquisitively at his friend before speaking.

  “You really are a right mug, aren’t you?”

  “Say what?”

  “A sucka. Gullible to the bone.”

  Kioga took offense. “I don’t really think so! I just employ common human decency, and a willingness to expect the best of everyone. At least, until they show me they’re malicious.”

  “And that naïve philosophy almost got you killed. That brain hemorrhage you incurred in tumbling tasered arse over teakettle nearly did you in. It didn’t help that the Conquistador guards took close to an hour to summon medics. Lots of dead neurons you could ill afford to lose. Well, perhaps that little replacement wodge of cloned cortical cells out of the vat will render you good as new!”

  Kioga ran a finger along the healing surgical incision on his skull. “I certainly hope so.”

  “Maybe you’ll be better than before. Less naff. I just hope there are no side effects from the new bits! Any sudden desires to cross-dress? Maybe some fresh new talents emerged from the subconscious, such as the ability to speak Khmer, or to dance en pointe?”

  Jimmy had Kioga laughing so hard, tears rolled down his cheeks. “No, Jimmy, nothing like that!”

  “Splendid, then! Wonderful to have you back, more cautious or not!”

  For the first time since his surgery, Kioga felt as if he might live down this dumb brush with infamy.

  Jimmy forked up another sweet, and changed the subject slightly. “I take it there’s no chance of you and Mallory getting back together? Normally at such a decisive break, I’d ask how she was in the sack, in pursuit of my own interests.”

  Kioga made a rueful face. “You’re welcome to her, Jimmy.”

  “No, I think not, given the altogether too utilitarian and disloyal face she’s shown.” Jimmy ran a finger around one incisor to clear away some sticky caramel. “That Avianna gal, however. Another story entirely. And rich to boot! Why, she and her brother practically own Conquistador Mining now. Not to mention his patents. Even the countersuit against them for property damage and trespass was dismissed. Devilish sly. Positively Machiavellian! Sending you as a diversion, while they broke in elsewhere. Brilliant!”

  “Agreed. Though being the actual catspaw makes one slightly less appreciative of their ingenuity.”

  Jimmy arose. “Well, it’s all water under the bridge now. It’s not like your world will ever intersect with hers again. Cognitive homogamy rules, after all. So long, Ky. Until we next share a conference table.”

  Kioga’s lunch arrived half an hour after Jimmy’s departure. The young male orderly placed the tray reverently on the bedside table and made sure to direct Kioga’s attention to it.

  “Something special today, sir.”

  Kioga lifted the aluminum dome off the plate. The heady aroma of salmon-and-shrimp-stuffed arepas wafted out.

  And the meal came with a note in a feminine hand.

  This tale represents my first—and so far only—sale to Analog magazine. Accomplishing that feat was one of my personal career benchmarks. Analog—formerly Astounding—is the living repository of so much science fictional history and heritage that one almost feels an imposter if one has never placed a story there. I know my pal Scott Edelman felt the same way when he sold his first tale there, not too long after I did. So thanks, editor Trevor Quachri, for helping to prove I was fit to consort with Heinlein and de Camp, van Vogt and Asimov, Simak and Anderson.

  As for the story itself, it’s one of my more stringent pieces regarding current technologies and their extrapolations. It was w
ritten years before the recent headlines involving synthetic skin used for cosmetic purposes, and I take pride in being ahead of the curve.

  And I like to think that very few Analog stories before mine have ever featured ambulatory self-booting dinosaur skeletons!

  Desperados of the Badlands

  1.

  The Skin She’s Into

  Now Ruy Lambeth had to shed his skin. Painless and quick, the monthly practice was mandated by his employer, UNESCO, for two reasons.

  The skin, a ruggedized Nuvaderm-Allheal Utility model which remained the property of UNESCO, had to be regularly upgraded, downloaded and generally tweaked back at the Fraunhofer-Chesson factory in Durham. A complete turnaround took five business days, including FedEx overnight transit time each way.

  But scheduled maintenance was not the total story. Going skinless for that short stint every month—reasserting his baseline humanity—was deemed necessary to stop Ruy from deserting civilization.

  Such was the understated but generally acknowledged important second reason for molting.

  Too many skinned individuals had gone dingo, vanishing into the remaining wilderness spaces: the jungles or deserts, mountains or forests or oceans of the world. The practice was called “simaking.”

  Such desertion generally constituted grand theft at the very least, with the traitorous and selfish individual absconding with a piece of corporate a-life worth tens of thousands of dollars. And while there were no laws against an individual choosing to abandon civilization and all its duties, the authorities invested in the maintenance of same could not allow the bad example set by such selfish slackers to go viral.

  And so Ruy Lambeth made ready to unzip.

  The manufactured skin that covered him seamlessly from neck to wrists to ankles sported, with astonishing realism, the buff-and-fawn maculated pattern of giraffe hide. An exceptionally tall and skinny fellow, with long neck and prominent Adam’s apple that had been the bane of his high-school dating years, Ruy amused himself by programming the skin’s densely arrayed chromatophores to display such a self-mocking design. Threaded with epidermal electronics, the skin and its many living components communicated with its owner via a fine-meshed silver hairnet supporting pinpoint transcranial magnetic induction übertoothed into the skin’s squishy wireless card. Ruy’s thinking cap.