Cottonwood (13 page)

Sanford’s hand closed on her shoulder. She realized she’d been walking slowly forward into the fence, hypnotized by the horror of it. When she looked at him, he pointed up, at the sign that showed cartoon lightning bolts and a cartoon alien with Xs for eyes.

“You have to use the pass,” T’aki explained, bouncing restlessly ahead of them, anxious to move. “These wires are for don’t touch. You have to go to the Heap-station. Come on!”

“This way.” Sanford kept going, giving the fence a wide cushion, but following its perimeter towards the sound of shouts and crashes and thumping music, all closed in by crude lean-tos and trailers.

Realizing this was about to get even worse, Sarah followed him into Mr. van Meyer’s award-winning Recycling Program.

There were a lot of humans here, all of them soldiers with flak vests and guns. They lined one side of the wide road, walking back and forth in a bored way, manning stations with signs like Colored Glass and Newspaper, and passing out white food chits or unlabeled cans of bug food while they smoked and watched TV. Most of them were congregated by the tall gateway to the Heaps, where armed guards checked passes and waved aliens through, selling garbage bags and cardboard boxes to those who hadn’t brought any, and occasionally driving someone out of the line with kicks and blows from the butt of a gun. One of them saw her, nudged another guy, and suddenly they were all staring her way. It wasn’t a good feeling.

Aliens passed in and out of the Heaps, running empty bags in and dragging bulging ones out to be sorted at the recycling stations. Of course, the really good stuff—the doors, the wood, the sheets of plastic—they kept for themselves, but most of it was sold for chits. A lawn-bag filled with glass bottles went for two chits. Six lettuce boxes full of magazines, each dragged by a child T’aki’s size, went for only one altogether. Three adults carried out an honest-to-God thresher blade over to the Scrap Metal station and received just five chits for it.

But recycling wasn’t all that was happening here. The road was lined on both sides with slapped-together huts and kiosks where aliens loudly bought and sold. Trade your sundries here, they bellowed. We buy cloth scraps and sell clothes. Building supplies here—glass, planks, bricks, tape, siding, nails, rope! She saw a butcher’s stall where a father hacked apart enormous rats and his son served up raw chunks in paper cups for two chits, whole roasted ones for ten. One enterprising alien had built a water tower and sold two-minute showers under its spigot for five chits, ten with soap. Multitudes of stalls operated as thrift stores, selling worn but working items like fans, radios, televisions and media players, toys, clothes, books, even bicycles. Most of them seemed to know Sanford; she saw quite a few beckon to him before spotting her and then hesitating. Sanford ignored them all and watched her.

This was the recycling program. How many trucks came in each day? From how far away? Was it all household garbage, or was there hospital waste, chemical waste, fun toxic acids stewing away at the bottom of the Heaps and just waiting for the right sunny day to combust? Saves the surrounding communities eighteen million dollars a year, the manual said. Gives the bug a means of income, to teach him about our economy and our system of trade. Six boxes of magazines for one chit; three chits for one can of food whose main ingredients were probably bones and guts and whatever vermin fell into the grinders.

“Sanford, I…” She swallowed hard, suddenly miserably certain she was going to throw up. When it passed, she made herself look at him. “I don’t think I can stop this.”

“I know.”

“We find it there!” T’aki called at some small distance, pointing out on the Heaps. “And Father fixes it! Then—” He ran down the road to point at the stalls. “—we sell it there!” Hop hop hop, happy T’aki. “Want to? Want to? I’ll show you how to find things!”

“Not today,” Sanford said. He was still watching Sarah.

‘I didn’t know,’ she wanted to say. ‘I’m not part of this. This can’t possibly be happening, not here, not now. This is wrong. This is so wrong.’ But in the end, she said only, “I have to go. I have…other clients.”

“Will you see us again tomorrow?” he asked.

She dragged her mind out of the Heaps and stared at him. “Do…Do you want me to?”

“The boy likes to see you.”

“I like to see you,” T’aki agreed, wringing his hands.

“Then I’ll be back.”

Sanford turned around, clicked to bring his child into step, and walked away into the confusion of the alien marketplace. He did not look back, but Sarah stared after him until long after he had vanished. Then, because she still had so many census reports to take and because IBI’s guards were all watching and mostly (no matter how guilty and human it made her feel to admit it, even in the confessional of her own silent thoughts) because it smelled so bad here at the Heaps, she left them there and got back to work.

* * *

Van Meyer spent the day engaged in video conference, which was not, in all truth, the worst way to spend one’s day. As men in monitors droned on through their mostly unnecessary reports, Van Meyer meditated upon his youth. It amused him that he felt stirrings of nostalgia for that lost time, for smoke and blood and the taste of gun-oil, for sweat by day and freezing night, for bombs and burning and always the threat of treachery. But yes, he could remember pleasure as well, that kind that only comes from seeing what one’s own hands make or unmake. It was very different now, to direct the work of ten thousand hands while his own grew soft.

Over the course of that day, eleven long hours, two fine meals, and the midday attentions of a skilled woman (he did not often feel these urges—ah, lost youth!—and indulged them with delight and gratitude whenever convenient), he heard from the operators of each camp, reporting what progress there was to report in his absence.

In Fox Lake, his developers had succeeded in recreating the bug’s incendiary weapon and in five of eight tests, had successfully melted a surplus Iranian tank to slag almost instantaneously. Of the remaining tests, twice the weapon had misfired and lastly, exploded. Fortunately, the testing grounds were quite remote and the developers hoped to have an improved model ready for demonstration when van Meyer made his annual return to their facility.

One of his mines at Brackendale had collapsed, halting production there and killing some three or four hundred bugs, as well as half a dozen human guards. Van Meyer expressed polite condolences and was assured the mine would be reopened when and if feasible. In the meantime, shifts could be increased at their sister-camp, Silverbrook, to keep the Russians whose homeland the camps occupied from seeing any decrease in mineral profits. Van Meyer gave his approval at once. He was close to finalizing a similar arrangement with the Chinese and he knew their informants would be watching this development very closely.

In other news, construction at Cedar Creek was once more back on schedule and was expected to be ready for its first shipment of bugs by the end of the year. Now that the Australians had repealed their long-standing ban on bugs, he could break ground on two more camps there, at which point Fairfield, his first immigration camp, would close for a much-needed remodel. There had been, he was told, a Name-the-Camps contest in Queensland schools. The winning entries were Beauty Gunyah and Cobber’s Corner and one of them had been submitted by an eight year-old girl. In a wheelchair, no less. The possibility of a photo opportunity was cautiously raised and van Meyer gravely acquiesced. He thought he might arrange for a child-bug to be present, perhaps to give the girl some small award. The young ones were easily trained and mostly trustworthy.

Finally, the current leader of his operation at the ship gave his usual report of enduring incompetence, but after so many years of such reports, even that was losing its sting. It did no good to rail against the men who worked on his behalf; men could not open the doors and the ship defended itself quite efficiently against those who tried to cut their way through. Only the bugs knew the ways and means of access and damned few had ever surrendered their knowledge. In all these years, van Meyer had seen less than ten percent of the great prize hovering over Earth and of that, never an engine, never a power source, never a weapon beyond what could be held in one’s hand (and most of those still eluded him as well). It was a fine line he was forced to walk—while the ship continued to hover, he must be patient and work slow, knowing that at any hour, some unseen mechanism within might fail and he would lose it all to the hungry sea.

There, his mind wandered while the reports continued, rousing only as the conference came to an end. There was some small chit-chat. Van Meyer acknowledged whatever came his way, but did not hide his distraction. Soon the monitors were black and he was alone with his restless hyena.

“And what of our own progress, eh?” Van Meyer switched off his own console and leaned back in his broad, leather throne. “Do we call social reform of Cottonwood success?”

Piotr looked away, perhaps unmindful that his sneer was caught and ably reflected by a dozen conference monitors. “If that’s what you want to call it,” he said, civilly enough.

Van Meyer smiled and gave his dog a pat. “Ah, but there is a need. I know how tiresome it is, to pander to these overfed notions of, ha, inalienable rights. But it is a small inconvenience to endure so that I may acquire thousands of fresh sheep under the very eye of homeland shepherd.”

“Yeah.”

“You do not approve.”

Piotr shrugged, using the gesture to scratch at his neck and adjust the fit of his shoulder holster. He was not afraid to have his own opinions, his Piotr, but he did not put them before those of his master.

“Perhaps you think we do not need more sheep. Perhaps you think this—” He gave the barrel of Piotr’s plasma rifle, reverse-engineered from a bug weapon, a small shake. “—is all we need.”

Piotr put his hand protectively over his violated rifle and glowered, saying nothing.

“The arms race will never be won, my friend. There will always come bigger guns and more men to hold them. Come. It is late.” Van Meyer rose and made his way stiffly out into the dark hall, trusting his hyena to follow.

Piotr did not speak until they were waiting together for the elevator. Even then, his face was calm and his voice level when he finally said, “Maybe we shouldn’t be selling them.”

“
Nee
?” van Meyer said tolerantly.

“The bug-guns. The ones we’ve rebuilt. And the ones we haven’t,” he added after a moment’s hard thought. “Yeah, especially those.”

“It would be a bad mistake to ever appear that we hoard these things,” van Meyer told him. “Understand, we have friends in other nations only for so long as we share our toys.”

Piotr grunted a sullen acquiescence and punched at the elevator buttons again.

“It is a delicate act of balance,” van Meyer said, watching him. “We must always be prepared for war, but we must never be the first to strike. When the moment come, we take the hero’s role. This is why we must not underestimate the power of public opinion. You may not see the value of bringing sheep into our fold, but every person who wear IBI badge is a person who may someday hold IBI gun. We must be sure they fire it for the right reasons against the right people.”

Piotr looked at him, his thoughts like fists behind his eyes. He said, respectfully, “You know six of our new heroes were caught trying to sneak pictures out of here.”

“
Ja
, of course. It is axiomatic. Human curiosity. But do they succeed?”

“Someone’s going to, you wait and see, and if you think the buggie-lovers are in your face now, just wait until they see inside the roach motels.”

“In every new endeavor, risk. But human response can be easily manipulated, when human nature can be predicted. You tell me six of our sheep attempt to betray the shepherd. I tell you, eighty-two sheep see inside the roach motel and do nothing. Why? Because they also see the bug.” He paused, then curiously asked, “Has Cottonwood ever had bug escape?”

“Yeah, a few, when we were moving them in. Not escapes, exactly, but they got over the wall and out where the yokels could see them before we got them.”

“Retrieved?”

“Shot.”

“Ah. So there has been no true escape. Arrange one.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I want the bug seen. If he attack, kill, this is best. Let the villagers call out to us to save them,
ja
? Let there be no doubt why we keep them behind walls.”

The elevator doors opened. They boarded. The car descended almost silently, but in an empty building, every little sound scratched unpleasantly on the ears. Piotr shifted, glaring up through the ceiling tiles at the offending cables. He would be trouble tonight, if he were not swiftly brought to heel.

“Easy, easy, old friend,” he said, squeezing at his hyena’s shoulder. “Soon, we go to Dapplegrey, away from American eye, from American sheep with signs to wave in front of cameras.” And a place to let his hyena off the leash at nights, until he had run this black wind out of him. This he did not say, but he could see his faithful pet thinking it, always aware of his master’s mind. “And before then, perhaps we make a little time to see to our good work in Zero,
ja
?”

“Yeah.” The stiff set of Piotr’s shoulders relaxed slightly. “Yeah, that’d be good.”

“Then we do. Soon.”

The elevator car slowed to an early stop, chimed, and opened. A security guard stepped forward, only to pause, unsure whether or not to intrude after he had recognized them. Van Meyer gave a polite nod, but it was Piotr who reached out and caught the door, holding it open. This surprised him—his hyena was not known to extend even casual pleasantries—but once he’d looked out past the guard, van Meyer saw the reason.

There was a light burning over the dark rows of cubicles in the social services department, a single lamp, at nearly half-gone eight. Even the cleaning crew had come and gone.

The security guard followed their eyes, shrugged. “She checks out,” he said. “Just working late.”