The Transdyne Awakening, page 2
Throughway turned to Outway and soon he was moving through the heat haze into the real Outland. The buildings became more infrequent. Off track to his nearside, the wreckage of a destroyed dronespy craft glittered in the blinding sun. The State could send their drones out here to the sand and the scrub if they wished, but as soon as the outlanders detected one it would be shot down. Machines like that were expensive to replace and in these areas they had initially lost them in great numbers. The balance between detection resulting in arrest, or termination against drone and personnel losses was no longer acceptable to the authorities. Sure, they still kept up the propaganda about anti-social factions in the outland zones. They still sent out the odd drone and occasionally dispatched Polibro squads. They would mount raids on outzone targets when they wanted heads on poles for some propaganda campaign about terror cells, but in the main this far out they were less inclined to bother you.
The hours wore on and the terraglide carried him further and deeper into this strange, unwelcoming territory. He glanced at the instrument panel and started checking for the location reference. One of the offramps to his nearside had been bricked up years before the Great Crash, but the outlanders, who had a community here now, had painstakingly dug it all clear. There was a makeshift barrier blocking the point of departure but they’d seen him coming from a long way off. He slowed the craft to a hovering crawl. Now, two sentries appeared out of the shade afforded by the concrete overhang and scrutinized him. The nearest of the two grinned in recognition and waved him through. In the shadows he picked out around twenty others, all armed with bulky pulse weapons.
This was no ordinary drug drop. This was a medical delivery. Outside the system, communities like these traded for medicines. Everything from simple analgesics to insulin and morphine could be had from Ahab’s dealers for the right price. This time the settlement was to be fifty-fifty; half in pulse weapons for Ahab’s enforcers and the other half in black market stock.
JACOB
Jacob met him at the settlement boundary.
A stocky figure wearing a bush hat and shabby fatigues, he was leaning on an old, military-style terraglide.
“You look like a man who could use a cold one. Let’s go in,” he said as Clay recoiled the mechanized sidescreen. Clay followed him slowly down the track. Inside, the building was a welcome cool against the intense heat of the day. Clay took the proffered freezing drink tube and held it up against his sweating forehead before gratefully taking a gulp.
Greetings and drinks done with, the two began the transfer of containers from the rear trunk of Clay’s terraglide. Jacob sat on an empty case to complete the electronic part of the transaction. As it totalled and bleeped, he handed the comp to Clay.
“You got a lot sick?” Clay asked.
Jacob shrugged. “We’ve had some bad animal bites. That’s why we wanted more of these biomeds.”
Clay nodded. When you were as far out as this you always had to be cautious. As the re-wilding programmes had taken effect, the predators bred at a startling rate. Jacob’s tribe were armed everywhere they went. As long as the beasts weren’t infected, the settlers could supplement their meat stores by dropping a few of these would-be intruders.
There weren’t many Trans at this community. Clay had noticed that on his last drop. “Most of ‘em moved out to join another tribe. You know, that bunch they call ‘The Way’,” Jacob told him. “I wasn’t sorry to see ‘em go. They were useful and all, but the last year or so a lot of them got really strange. Most of the Trans out here were just worker types but these were different. Even the drone types started to … I don’t know, kind of reprogramme and upgrade by themselves. It was off my scanner. I mean, I’ve seen Trans uploading studylearn before, but it’s nearly always been techmanuals or schematics. This bunch - they were into serious studylearning. Strange stuff too. After a while you’d have thought that even the drone types had been to Highlearn at some Academy. We had some old collections of studylearn stuff in the store buildings. It was like they couldn’t get enough of it. Trans can process a sizeable manual in minutes as you know, but after duty some of this bunch would be over there half the night with all that old stuff.”
“That’s farside. Never seen that happen,” Clay said.
Jacob frowned. “Their behaviour started to change too. Usually you know you’re dealing with a well programmed work tool, don’t you?
These things are usually fairly predictable. As a rule you can pretty much tell which grade you’re dealing with. After this kind of thing started it was almost as if they became a tribe to themselves. I mean I’ve never seen Trans show that kind of - I dunno, sociability. They were communicating with each other in a way I’ve never come across. It was like they’d found some common purpose. It put me on the lookout. I’ve been around Trans for years and I’d only ever seen the odd one go rogue. I’ve never been afraid of them, but I was edgy about all this stuff. There didn’t seem to be any threat but it was all sort of ... well, sort of creepy. Anyhow, I guess you’ll get to see for yourself if you’ve got to drop any stuff out there.”
Clay nodded. He heard more of the same later, over a meal with some of the others from the settlement. He didn’t know what to make of any of it. What he did know was that he wasn’t as accommodating as Jacob. If a bunch of Trans were acting peculiar, then he’d keep his guard up.
No threat, eh? Well, he’d seen some pretty strange stuff go down and he’d just as soon retire them at the first sign of any hazard. He’d once watched a couple of Trans ‘Toxout’ at one of those bizarre orgies. They sat shaking their heads for a couple of minutes before their limbs started to go into spasm. He remembered watching the Exitox take effect, reducing these finely crafted highbreeds to bundles of involuntary kicking and squealing as they destroyed themselves. They had decided they did not want to be conscious any longer and a Toxout was their suicide route. A few minutes and they were just inanimate bundles of burnt out parts.
Yes, Trans were capable of some weird stuff all right.
It was getting late and he wasn’t going to risk a night trek in this wasteland. Here he was always offered a billet for the night. He got the thermoroll from the back of the terraglide and threw it on the slatted somacot.
He wanted to turn off completely. Taking a small container from his travel pack, he popped the lid. Two blue pills of Nevermind would take him right down for the night.
THE WAY
The sun was already high and the heat blistering when he stepped outside. Jacob stayed at the doorway in the shade. He raised his drinker in a farewell salute. Clay checked the horizon before pulling out over the narrow track. Under way, he pressed a button on the control panel to start a soundsheet playing. He reached for his shades against the blinding glare.
The horizon blurred into the heat haze and he settled for the journey. The track at the far edge of the settlement led even farther out into the wilderness. He was soon well clear and on the long haul between the remote settlements. Jacob’s lookouts would be tracking him as he powered away. The men took shifts in carefully spaced bunkers among the rocks. No one surprised these outlanders. Caution was their way of life.
Clay’s impression was that they just wanted to be left alone to grow their crops, raise their children, stay free and outside the system.
He was moving at low level and checked the size of the dust plume in his wake. He knew his progress was visible to those with power glasses at the settlement, but he didn’t want to show an obvious trace for others to pick up. He turned the music up and let it envelope him.
Those weird instruments again. Over them a voice sang;
“He fills my cup to overflowing, what more could I desire?
I am bound for a far off city, each day he leads me higher”
Yes, a far off city. Sometimes the urge came up within him to just keep moving. He wondered what was really out there. He had travelled all right and covered a lot of territory, but what was right out there in the big beyond? There had been a time, he knew, when men rode to the other side of the earth in airborne vehicles like the military ones he had once seen. He thought he would like to do that. This planet must be a huge place and what had he seen of it?
Maybe it was the solitary journeys in the desert that provoked these thoughts, but now and then he did feel sort of trapped, fenced in.
When it came upon him, the wanderlust was strong and stirred something deep. It was edged with a sort of fear, a fear of something unknown to him. All the same it was pleasant - a peculiar kind of thrill.
Occasionally he varied the speed or height of his course to stave off the monotony of the travel. Once again he controlled the machine manually. He thought for a while about the vast distances he must have covered in his work for Ahab. He made a mental note to compute that sometime.
The soundsheet compilation had played multiple repeats by the time he reached his destination.
There was no reason for urbancivil types to come this far out from the Citizone’s sprawl. It was a deadly place, populated by strange lizard life and assorted scavengers. In these vast stretches of outland a traveller could quickly lose their bearings and meet their death in some parched dune. Only the vultures would ever find you out here. You might go for some time without food, but lacking water you’d shrivel up in no time.
He altered his trajectory, pulling higher from the ground to take in the mind-numbing size of the crater. The landscape fell away steeply in a series of jagged ledges. He tipped the nose of the vehicle into a smooth descent, taking him into the heart of this vast scar on the terrain. Longtime past, a meteor had exploded in the atmosphere over this place. The massive depression it had left evidenced the shattering power of its death throes. Fragments had scattered, falling to ground in a gigantic circle. In an instant the topography had been altered forever.
Now, the remains of this extraterrestrial traveller lay buried somewhere around the area of this abyss. Something of such magnitude was awe-inspiring. He stared around him as the terraglide swayed downward past layer after layer of discoloured rock.
He cast around for visual clues in the chasm below.
Finally, his eyes settled on the snaking outline of the track. You had to know that it was down there somewhere. The chances of finding it by accident were a million to one. Like the settlement where Jacob’s people lived, there weren’t many visible features in the landscape to identify its presence.
It took a while to get used to the scale of objects against this background.
At the base of the crater, in the shelter of an overhang, he finally picked out the shape of a big, camouflaged terraglide. He brought his own vehicle to rest on a flattened area in front of the huge cave entrance. The aircon had been hissing in his ears for the whole journey and the silence was arresting as he flicked it off.
It was only when you had come close upon this place that you noticed the sandy landscape had become buildings. The main settlement at the bottom of the incline was almost invisible on approach. At the side of the track a very small, faded wooden board was staked low on the ground. It read simply ‘The Way’.
He stepped down from the terraglide and started stretching out the cramps. He wasn’t aware of anybody approaching and started when a voice spoke close behind him.
“Are you the courier?”
Clay snapped around. “Yes.”
“Good wishes, sir. John sent me to meet you and show you in when you arrived. I expect you could use some refreshment?” his greeter offered. Clay nodded.
“Please follow me.” The speaker appeared to be a good looking, fair skinned man of around thirty five years. His face wasn’t even flushed, let alone suntanned and it creased into a broad smile.
Clay collected himself and went along.
He was surprised that he hadn’t picked it up immediately.
He reminded himself that the sincere looking smile was merely a series of convolutions in the thing’s frubber. The face rubber that Transdyne used at the plant was almost indistinguishable from human skin but, despite the intense heat, his companion wasn’t sweating at all.
Yes, this was one of their friendly Trans for sure.
Clay followed into a large space with benches and eating tables. Behind the permaglass door of a large refrigerated cabinet, frosted tubes of drink glistened. Clay opened the cabinet and took one. The Tran smiled broadly again. “I will tell John that you are here.”
The greeting at Jacob’s settlement had been a lot more to his liking. The edginess returned. He remembered his conversation with the Transdyne technician and recalled the term he had used: ‘the uncertainty’. He finished pouring the drink down and reached for another. During the trip he’d tried switching the aircon off periodically, but the heat was unbearable without the jets of cooling air. Now his throat was dry and sore. Leaning against the cold drinks cabinet, he looked around. Through the opposite doorway he had a view of the compound to the side of the building. There was a lot of routine activity going on. Conversation drifted inside. Some of the community were digging a new section of garden, marked out with rope and stakes. Others were weeding the patch next to that.
Two men were redirecting the jets of a water spray onto a patch of plants laid out in orderly rows. Clay could pick up some of the workplace banter. “You can’t even keep a neat space around your own somacot, Abe, so don’t tell me how to lay out new plant beds!” The recipient of this rebuke pulled himself up from a stooping position as a gale of laughter and jeering broke out around him. Clay walked closer to the open door. It was just a conversation between a gang of working men, but he was struck by the friendly nature of it. He hadn’t heard a lot of that kind of thing and he was drawn to move closer. He found himself smiling as he watched the man called Abe. Abe waved his arms, mounting an impassioned defense of his personal housekeeping habits. He was laughing because he simply could not hear himself above the noisily shouted insults of his workmates. Clay almost wanted to join in. It must be something to work in that kind of atmosphere. It reminded him of times he had spent with Joey.
“Clay, it’s good to see you again!” John hailed him from the other entrance. He extended his right hand in greeting while, with his left, he unwrapped the cloth covering his head. Clay had seen these head coverings in very old pictures at Ahab’s place. People standing in another desert somewhere with large constructions called pyramids in the background. The covering seemed a sensible arrangement, going around and over the head with a tie. John’s craggy features were fully visible now. He was an older man. Clay had guessed at his age but had never enquired. He hadn’t met that many older men, especially older men in the rude health John seemed to enjoy. There were deep lines etched into John’s tanned features and he had striking blue eyes. Whenever they talked together, Clay got the feeling of being truly important to him. It was slightly disconcerting but pleasant just the same.
“Got all the stuff we requested?’ John enquired.
Clay nodded. “Most of it. Couldn’t get seeds for radishes, though. Ahab says he’ll keep a lookout.”
“Ah well, something of a luxury I guess.” John waved his arm towards the growing areas outside. “Some of ‘em will be disappointed but they’ll live, eh? Your supplies have helped keep that part of the programme on track. Look at it all now. Talk about the desert blooming!”
Ahab’s procurers were thorough. Wherever there was demand they could usually find what was required. John and his crew had no use for Ahab’s vast stocks of recreational merchandise. Their requests were mostly for natural seeds.
Back in the 20th Century, the overclass had effected material changes in seedstocks. They had introduced genetically modified seeds. These were inferior in nourishment value and only produced one crop. After that, those who needed to grow more were forced to purchase their seeds from the massive Agribureaus. In time, this became enforced by law while the overclass hoarded mountainous reserves of naturally re-seeding stock. Most people were not aware of the cavernous, subterranean farms in which the foodstocks for the overclass were grown. Agri-technicians laboured day and night in temperature controlled chambers to keep them supplied with nutritious vegetables, tubers and fruits. In the megacity hypermarts, the ordinary citizenry could only purchase containers full of the genetically modified foodstuffs. Citizens’ health began to decline rapidly and there weren’t many who remained in good physical condition after the age of about forty. There were exceptions, of course. State employees, bureaucrats, the polibros and politicos all had access to excellent nourishment. Positions with these agencies became highly sought after. The State only employed a work force sufficient to maintain control and meet production. Their mechanized factory complexes retained minimum labour crews. The social engineers of the New Society sought to bring about massive population reduction among the underclass, retaining only the number of healthy employees required to serve State interests.
Clay had been with one of Ahab’s recoup teams on a cavern raid once. Ahab’s contacts were well paid to keep him informed of the security arrangements and schedules these places maintained.
