EdgeOfHuman (31 page)

Perhaps a couple dozen other people stood around in a circle, listening; regular, full-size humans, not like what he'd become. They were all a little on the ragged side; in this territory, it was impossible to stay exactly spiff. A few curious faces turned toward Sebastian and his diminutive pals.

"Sorry." He raised an apologetic hand above the teddy bear's head. "Don't let me interrupt you." The sermon, if that's what it was, had ended; he didn't know whether it was supposed to have or not. "Just go ahead."

The man stepped down from the box and walked over toward them. He looked to be some kind of spiritual leader; he had the sort of craggy, God-haunted face for it, complete with a straggly, greying beard, also slightly singed.

"Have you come to roust us?" The evidently holy man leaned down to peer into Sebastian's face. "Perhaps you are an advance scout of the law-enforcement agencies, specifically those in charge of stamping out heresies such as represented by our little group. Would that be the case?"

"Um, no . . ." He shrank back from the other's piercing gaze. "We're more like private-individual types."

"I see." The man straightened back up. A number of the others had collected behind him, following the discourse. A sigh came from their leader. "In some ways-many ways-that's a pity. Inasmuch as the doctrines of our faith invite martyrdom. The final sacrament, as it were. Without which, many of our activities, if not all, seem to be in vain."

"Well . . ." He didn't know what to say. "You gotta hang in there, I suppose."

"Easy for you to say. Come here." The bearded leader took one of Colonel Fuzzy's mittenlike paws, as though it were an actual extension of Sebastian's body, and led him toward the center of the circle of fires. Where the rest of the people were-he shifted uneasily in the papoose carrier, aware of having become the focus of their attention. "That is the purpose of our gatherings out in the open air, in fields and pastures as it were. Similar to the early freethinkers, those who had rejected the wicked doctrines of the ruling elites, Of their time. Though, of course, wickedness is an eternal thing, the great deceiver merely shifting from behind one mask to another."

"Oh." With a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, Sebastian realized he had stumbled into a nest of lunatics.
Just my luck
, he thought glumly. When things started going bad for you, they went on that way for a long time. That was the real nature of the universe.

"The better to oppress the righteous." The leader sank into the ongoing currents of his own thoughts, though he continued to speak aloud. His frail shoulders slumped inside the white jumpsuit, like an insect folding itself into a semi-resting posture. "Though in reality, the Masked One, the deceiver and oppressor, does the righteous a service through its cruelty. A paradox. Inasmuch as it is only through the experience of oppression, of suffering, that one becomes human. Through suffering, one becomes the object of compassion. You know all this, don't you? That is how the one who sees only suffering, the Eye of Compassion, becomes aware of your existence; she sees no other thing, is blind to all except those who suffer."

The leader ran elongated, skeletal fingers through his beard, the undertones of his voice skewing toward the speculative. "Once, humans-humans such as us-suffered; that was the bread and salt of our existence. That was a long time ago. Now we have become that which causes suffering-not on an individual basis, but as a species; we have become one of the masks behind which the great deceiver and oppressor manifests itself in this universe. The question then becomes . . ." One of the others, a young man, hollow-checked and febrile, stood nearby, transcribing the leader's words into an old-fashioned manual steno pad. "Whether the Masked One, by causing suffering, acts as a necessary precursive agent of its compassionate opposite?" The bearded man looked round from the corner of his eye.

The glance, and its accompanying expectant silence, made Sebastian nervous. "I wouldn't know." He tightened the hold of his forearm around Colonel Fuzzy's shoulder.

"Are you sure," the leader inquired hopefully, "that you're not with the police?"

"Positive."

"Well . . . we shall 'hang in there,' as you advise. For the sake of those more human than us. Those blessed ones."

It suddenly dawned on him who these people were.
Hell's bells
, thought Sebastian.
They're rep-symps
. He'd heard rumors, before he'd first come out to the sideways world, that certain congregations of the true believers frequented the zone. Living a basically reclusive life, he hadn't encountered them before.

"Look, it seems to me that you're going about it all wrong." He could afford to be helpful; he had nothing against them. He let go of the teddy bear long enough to wave off the smoke that was getting into his nose and making him sneeze. "If you
want
to get busted by the police, you oughtta go where the police mainly are. It's no good being out in nowheresville. The cops probably don't even want to bother with you, long as you stay someplace like this. You should go into the city-"

"We've done that." A younger, darker-bearded version of the leader spoke up. He had fanatic eyes, whites showing all around the pupils. "We have our uses for the city." A dirty word, the way he spat it out. "And we have taken our message there. Not just in words, but in deed as well. We brought down in flames one of the voices of the deceiver, and upon its carcass we gave forth our testimony."

"Gosh." It sounded scary, even though he had no idea of what the man was exactly talking about. Though he was pretty sure it involved criminal activity of some kind; these people were religiously obsessive types, after all, capable of anything. Morally, if not in terms of actual accomplishment. He was beginning to have second thoughts about keeping company with them; the police
might
come all the way out here, to kick ass and take names, as the saying went. If they'd been sufficiently provoked.

"If you really want my opinion, I'd say you should rethink just what it is you're going for," he said. "This martyrdom thing, and all." Sebastian wished that he and his companions had just circled around the fires and continued on their way, instead of poking their noses in here. "I just don't see where it gets you anything."
Except in your crackpot heads
, he thought to himself. "Bringing the heat down on yourselves is not something you should care to have happen. Or any kind of bad shit. Suffering's not all that great; believe me, I should know."

The assembled people glanced at one another. Significant glances, indicating a measure of worry about the strangers that had wandered into their midst.

"Listen to me." Sebastian heard his own voice, louder and more fervent. As though he were the one testifying now. "I know what I'm talking about. Suffering sucks. I just lost the woman I love-again, for the second time. She was shot right in front of me. And she was a replicant, too; or at least she'd been one-'

The bearded leader peered closer at him. "Yes," he said after a moment's inspection, during which Colonel Fuzzy had hissed and drawn back. "I can see that you speak the truth." He laid a wrinkled, cordite-smelling hand on top of Sebastian's head. "You have the aspect of the blessed about you. Suffering has given you that. You are nearly human, yourself."

"Well . . . thanks. I guess." What the hell was this old doozer talking about?

"But there is more for you to suffer." The leader raised his hand in a gesture of benediction. "For you to complete your journey."

"Rats." He didn't even know where he was going.

"Come with me. I have something to give you."

Mounted on the back of the teddy bear, Sebastian followed after the old man. Squeaker trailed behind, glancing over his shoulder at the other people, his elongated nose twitching with suspicion.

"You can't stay with us." At the flickering limit of the fires' glow, the old man rummaged through a duffel bag he'd drawn out of a military-surplus canvas tent. "You have your own destiny. But this might help you. It's a holy relic." He turned and laid a rectangular object in Sebastian's hand.

Something metal, lightweight aluminum, with a few dents and scratches, indicators of age. Smaller things, of metal and possibly glass, rattled inside as Sebastian turned it around. He held it up so the faint orangish light hit it. On the box's lid was a prominent mark in the form of a red cross. "It's a first-aid kit." That could be helpful, actually; he didn't have one in the supplies they'd dragged along with them.

"Look closer."

He did, nose almost touching the metal. Smaller words, stamped into the surface. Sebastian spelled them out. "Salamander . . . no, that's not right." Sebastian squinted. "
Salander
. That's it.
Salander 3
." He supposed it was the name of the ship that the kit had come from. It sounded vaguely familiar. Maybe a star ship, one of the old explorer types that'd gone out past the limits of the solar system.

The old man nodded. "I was there . . . when it came back to us. Bearing its message. Written in the eyes of its dead." The grey-streaked beard lifted from the front of the jumpsuit, as he raised his eyes to the night sky. "They were the first to know. What all shall know someday. They traveled, and returned. They saw. And brought back the message . . ."

"What message?"

For a moment, it seemed as if the leader hadn't heard him. "Of our damnation," he spoke at last. "Or our salvation." He turned a wan smile on the figures before him. "We're still not quite sure yet."

Maybe you should work on that
, thought Sebastian. He didn't look up at the old man, but concentrated on fiddling with the metal box.

"There is one who knows . . ." The bearded leader's voice drifted into deep musing. "One who should know, who
must
know . . . but may not even know that she does."

"That doesn't sound too smart." The box's catch was rusted tight; Sebastian frowned at it.

"She was but a child," the old man spoke softly, "when the revelations were made. A child in the stars, a little girl . . . poor thing." He shook his head. "The things she must have seen, that she could not understand. Perhaps it was best that she couldn't. Her mother and her father . . . I helped carry their coffins from the ship. They died from too much knowledge. Too much of the light."

"Knowledge, huh?" Sebastian wedged the box against the rim of the papoose carrier and jabbed his thumb at it. "What about?"

"That way in which things change, in which they become other than what they were." The old man lifted his rheumy gaze toward the sky. "That which was human shall not be. And that which was not . . ." His voice sank to a whisper, before he turned and looked again at Sebastian with a wan smile. "It's all very confusing. Perhaps she will remember one day . . . those things she saw as a child. The revelations. That which she has forgotten. And then she will tell us of them."

Sebastian didn't bother asking who
she
might be. He had finally managed to pry the first-aid kit's lid open. The various little bottles and ampules, simple disinfectants and antibiotics, looked dried-up and innocuous; he supposed there wasn't much risk in carrying the thing around. And he didn't want to hurt the old man's feelings. "Um, thanks." He snapped the lid shut and held up the box. "For this, and all."

"Go in peace."

Back where they had left their things, he had Squeaker stow the box away in the wrapped-up supplies. The repsymps' distant fires had died down, leaving Squeaker to redo the bungee cords by starlight.

And not much of it. Sebastian looked up and saw the blunt fingers of silver-tinged clouds moving eastward. He wondered what that meant.

"I'll need transportation." Deckard tilted his head toward the vehicle they'd left on the Tyrell Corporation's landing deck. "Your spinner will do."

"All right." Sarah gave him a knowledgeable smile. "After all . . . you can't just go walking around on the streets, can you? As we've learned."

He turned away from the view of the city's lights spread out below the headquarters complex. "You're the one who put me out there. You knew that was what that Isidore person would do." He studied her reaction. "I can't figure out why you'd want that to happen."

Her smile deepened. "Let's just say that we both learned something. That we might not have, otherwise. You survived, didn't you? So now I can be certain that finding our missing replicant won't be beyond you." Sarah's manner became brusque, businesslike. "Go ahead and take the spinner-I figured you'd need it, so I had it . . .
prepared
for you. Don't try to leave, to get out of the city. That wouldn't be advisable. The spinner has a perimeter choke. A circle with its center here." She didn't need to make a gesture; Deckard knew she meant the Tyrell Corporation headquarters itself. "Try going farther and you'll get a red warning light on the instrument panel. Keep going, and you'll fall from the sky in little flaming pieces."

It had been pretty much what he'd expected. Why should she trust him? A small, irrational hope flicked off inside him. If the spinner had had no spatial limit, he would've hotfooted it straight north. To Rachael, sleeping and dying and waiting for him. Screw L.A. and Sarah Tyrell and any missing sixth replicant.

"Don't worry," said Deckard. "I'll return all your company property to you in good shape. Except for the sixth replicant. It might be a little beat-up when I dump it at your feet."

"Really?" She raised an eyebrow. "I'm glad to see you showing such . . . enthusiasm for your job." Sarah turned away and began walking toward the elevator that would carry her down into the corporation's bowels. She stopped and glanced over her shoulder. "I'll be waiting. I had you coded through the security systems. So you can come straight in . . . when you're ready."

He called after her. "Is that it? I thought you wanted to talk about something."

"Please . . ." She pressed the control and the silvery doors parted. "Let me have a few pretenses, Deckard. I just wanted to see you. That's all." Sarah stepped inside the elevator and with the palm of her hand kept its doors from closing. "You were on my mind. Perhaps I just wanted to find out if I were on yours." She pulled her hand away; the doors slid shut, and she was gone.