On My Way to Paradise (24 page)

It seemed to me that I should have been capable of
using this principle to my benefit. If I could pierce the illusion
of the simulator, it would help me beat the samurai.

I thought about money. If we beat the last samurai,
we’d have to split the pot three ways. That would still come to
30,000 IMUs apiece—as much as I’d make in an average year of
selling morphogens in Panamá.

Twenty minutes passed. We were working overtime in
the simulator—a new group of students would be suiting up in the
battle room. I imagined how a crowd would gather at the monitors as
people watched The Horror Show to see if we’d fry the last samurai.
No team had ever outnumbered a samurai three to one. It seemed
inconceivable that we’d lose. Yet I didn’t dare hope. I kept
expecting the last sniper to fry me any second.

Comlink tones sounded in my head, startling me. I
hadn’t received a call since leaving Panamá and didn’t know I could
receive one while jacked into the simulator, but it made
sense—calls bypassed my little dream monitor back home.

I engaged the comlink. The sounds of the crackling
flames from the burning hovercraft quieted. A husky, almost raspy
voice came in on audio.

"Jiminez Martinez here, aide to General Garzon. The
general has asked me to get the answers to a few more
questions."

"
Sí
,
that would be fine," I said, not
in the mood to answer questions but happy to hear from Garzón,
thinking he might tell me something about Tamara’s condition.

"First, the general would like to know if you have
any more ideas on the whereabouts of Señor a de la Garza," Martinez
said.

"What?" I asked. The general knew better than I did
where Tamara was.

"The whereabouts of Señora de la Garza?" The man who
called himself Martinez waited expectantly.

Only an Alliance agent would ask such a question.
Since my interrogator had responded so quickly to my question, he
had to be aboard ship. Radio waves would have taken several seconds
to travel even to a nearby ship. My would-be assassin was taking a
great risk fishing for information this way.

I thought of him, stuck at the other end of the ship,
wracking his brain to learn what I knew, trying to find a way to
reach me, and I was happy to give all the information I could.

"As I told Garzón, Arish admitted to murdering her
before I finished him, but I did not think to ask where he had
disposed of the body."

"I see ..." the husky-voiced man said. "And about
herself? Can you remember anything else of importance—anything she
may have told you about herself?"

"She was running from her husband, Señor Jafari. I
thought it a breach of manners to inquire into her personal
matters, and she never volunteered further information. As I told
Garzón, if I can remember more, I’ll be happy to let you know."

"I see. Thank you. You have been more help than you
know."

He disconnected.

"I’m glad you think so," I said to the empty air. I
concentrated on the way his voice had sounded, so deep and
gravelly, and tried to commit it to memory until I believed that if
I ever heard anyone speak with that voice again, perhaps I’d know
him.

I could tell by the sky that Perfecto and Hector had
reached the hovercraft long before they reached me. The valley
began to fill with light as they roared up the canyon, shooting
streams of plasma into the air.

As they drew close Perfecto said over the helmet,
"Angelo, any sign of that last samurai?"

"No," I answered.

"We’ll slow down when we come to your bend. Hop on
and grab a turret. Shoot any place where someone might be
hiding."

"
Sí
,"
I said.

I watched the canyon sides fill with light. When I
knew they were almost on me, I strapped my rifle to my back, jumped
up, and lunged into the open.

They hit the comer at 60 kph, then reversed
thrusters. I grabbed the handrail and swung into the hovercraft.
We darted off at full speed.

Hector drove. I climbed up in the turret behind
Perfecto and started discharging plasma into the rocks and trees.
Our trip back up the canyon was different from the trip down. With
the turrets firing, the hills were fairly well lighted.

No snow flew in our face to obscure the view. The
only sound was the echoing whine of the hovercraft and the
whuft, whuft
of the plasma. It was peaceful. The silence
reminded me of the others who’d already jacked out.

Mavro’s probably already swaggering around the
room and smiling,
I thought. Mavro was good that way, very
tough on the inside. He told everyone that eating processed algae
three times a day was like having a continuous banquet after the
odious dishes his girlfriend had cooked him only a week ago. And as
for the rigorous exercise Abriara put us through, Mavro boasted
that he’d gotten more exercise chasing down the dope addicts he
mugged as a child.

People aboard ship responded to that kind of
toughness. Mavro could walk into a room full of despondent people
and, between his bragging and the cigars he passed out, within a
minute he’d have them laughing at their own pains. I wondered if
perhaps this talent hadn’t allowed him to talk the mercenaries into
the harebrained scheme of commandeering Sol Station so he could
rescue an old murderer from the clutches of the police.

We’d almost reached the spot where we’d first come
down the mountain when we met the Yabajin.

We were heading toward a tree and Hector slumped
forward with a moan. Perfecto yelled, "Jump!" and began blasting at
a pine on the canyon slope. I dove into the snow and sat up as the
hovercraft crumpled around the tree trunk.

The pine Perfecto had shot blazed along its entire
length like a giant torch. The samurai began running uphill, away
from his exposed position.

I pulled down my rifle and flipped on the sights, ran
the blue dot up the ground behind him. He glanced back and saw the
dot in the snow, spun, and fired.

I pirouetted quickly. My thigh warmed where his shot
scored. I pirouetted again.

Perfecto said, "I’ve got him."

I stopped. Perfecto was squatting next to the wrecked
hovercraft, rifle in hand, pulling the trigger. The samurai had
quit running and he spun crazily, making it impossible for
Perfecto’s shot to burn through the armor.

I fired at the Yabajin to keep him hopping. "Go beat
him to death!" I screamed.

"Good idea!" Perfecto said. He stood and walked
slowly up the hill.

I continued firing and the samurai, dropped his rifle
and kept up his dance. From time to time he would step downhill,
descending to meet Perfecto.

When Perfecto was ten meters below the samurai, the
samurai leapt on him. He spun in the air and kicked at Perfecto’s
chest. Perfecto dodged aside and slugged the samurai in the back.
The armor on Perfecto’s fist shattered from the impact.

The samurai slid almost to the bottom of the
hill.

He started to rise and I fired at him for good
measure, hoping he was stunned, but I hurried the shot and hit the
slope behind him. Perfecto jumped downhill in two strides. The
samurai wasn’t quite standing yet and appeared dazed and off
balance, but when Perfecto got within striking range, the samurai
belted him in the jaw.

The blow lifted Perfecto in the air and sent him
sprawling on his back.

I shot the samurai, but he was already in a spin and
headed in my direction. My hopes for a fortune in prize money
quickly dissipated. I ran to the crashed hovercraft, and jumped up
to the plasma turret.

Perfecto shouted, "I’ll get him!"

I turned the guns in time to see Perfecto dive into
the samurai from behind. For a moment the two were just a tangle of
armor on the ground. Perfecto hissed in a voice filled with
frustration and rage, "Shoot us! Shoot us!"

His neck snapped loudly; then both bodies rose up and
began to rush toward me.

The Yabajin carried Perfecto in front of him, using
his body as a shield. I could tell by the way his arms and legs
flapped that Perfecto was dead.

I understood Perfecto’s anger, at that final moment,
his feeling of helplessness. I shot a steady stream of plasma at
the Yabajin’s legs, then at the arm clutching Perfecto’s throat.
The armor couldn’t withstand the impact of a direct hit at such
dose range, and plasma shot straight through the samurai’s arm. I
thought he’d stop, but he kept coming.

I fired at the bit of the samurai’s helmet that
showed above Perfecto’s head. The plasma hit his helmet and blew a
gout of molten matter away.

By the time the Yabajin jumped up on the rail of the
hovercraft, I could see the bones in his left leg charred black and
blistered. His right arm was limp, useless. The molten plasma had
eaten through it, leaving only a stump above the elbow and a hunk
of meat hanging loosely in the samurai’s armor. I looked at him and
thought of all the times I’d died in the simulator.

At not one of those moments had I endured half as
much pain as this samurai was suffering. I screamed at him and
leapt for his throat.

He slugged me in the neck with his good hand,
shattering my armor and knocking me off the hovercraft. I gasped,
and found my esophagus smashed.

While I slowly strangled, the samurai sat down on the
rail of the wrecked hovercraft to scoop up snow and bathe the
remains of his feet.

When I jacked out, Perfecto was struggling out of his
armor. He smashed his helmet against the wall and kicked off his
leg pieces. He panted and his eyes were bloodshot with rage. I
wouldn’t have gone near him for any money. My nerves were jagged,
but I felt lucky. All my deaths in the simulator had been easy that
day.

Zavala waited by the door.

Kaigo sat patiently on his dais, surrounded by
students, waiting for us to leave so he could jack them in. I
removed my armor and hung it on the wall and followed Perfecto and
Zavala from the battle room. Perfecto glared at the cream-colored
floor and walls as he walked down the hall, averting his eyes from
the lighting panels on the ceiling.

"Are you angry with me?" I asked.

"Angry with you? What for?"

"For losing the battle."

"No," he said. He sounded remarkably calm. "I’m angry
because I think the samurai are cheating. They’re putting us in a
situation where we can’t win. They give us no chance of success. I
fought that samurai in hand-to-hand—no mere human is that
strong."

"You must remember that he’s been training at 1.5 g’s
for the past two years," I said. "He’s had a lot of time to perfect
his skills and become strong."

"Perhaps, but I still think they’re cheating. They’ve
got the simulators rigged to enhance their strength and cut their
reaction times. It’s as if they must win at any cost."

Zavala eyed us both skeptically, as if preparing to
argue, but said nothing.

I thought of the samurai in the simulators. If they
worked eight-hour shifts, they might go through twenty battles per
day. No one could endure the repeated psychic torment of twenty
deaths per day.

Perhaps they did cheat. Perhaps they had good reason
to cheat.

We climbed the ladder. Garcia and Hector were in our
room with their teams. Garcia was smaller and older than I’d
expected a timid-looking man with sea-gray eyes who kept
rearranging his hands as if he didn’t know where to put them. I
once knew a woman who had a deformed hand who hid it that way, and
I watched Garcia to see if his hands were deformed: he had a white
scar in the palm of each hand and a white scar on each wrist.

Garcia had obviously once played Jesus Christ in a
passion play and had been crucified. By these signs I deduced he
was from Venezuela, where such plays are common, and young men vie
for the chance to be crucified.

One big chimera hunched over a battered guitar and
strummed it softly, his amplifier down low. Full mellow notes
filled the air. He sang an old Bolivian love ballad dedicated to
women with large breasts. Some found the courage to muster wan
smiles. Mavro had opened my chest full of liquor, and everyone eyed
the bottles. They’d obviously prepared for a victory celebration,
but now were forced to put the best face on it they could.

Mavro said, "Ah, here is the man who owns the liquor.
Now the party can begin!" He passed out bottles of Flora Negra
whiskey, and everyone accepted them gratefully.

Mavro handed me a bottle and I took a swig. It was
too soon after the run in the simulator—my throat tightened, and I
had to spit the first swallow to the floor.

The visitors stared at our living quarters as if they
were medieval peasants visiting a castle for the first time. The
regular living quarters were not nearly so spacious as our
stateroom. They murmured approval. "Think how easy it would be to
keep people from stealing your things if you had a nice room with
trunks like these!" one said.

I felt uneasy with these strange people coveting my
things, and I could tell Perfecto felt the same. He looked at his
little blue lines on the floor and saw that they were obscured by
feet and bodies as people ignored his boundaries.

We lay on the bunks and sat on the floors and drank
and smoked and discussed our near victory from every angle,
boasting of how well we’d done. Miguel and I had each made two
kills. Mavro rewarded both of us with a fine bottle of dry wine. By
that time I’d finished half my whiskey and the wine didn’t settle
well with the liquor I’d drunk earlier, and soon I imagined the
liquor was eating holes through my stomach.

 The din of people talking became a droning in
my ears. A man at the foot of my bed had a problem with gas, and
began farting. Each time he farted someone would say, "I hear a
frog," and we’d laugh.

I wanted to sleep, but my mind kept returning to
Martinez, the man who’d pretended to be Garzón’s aide. I rolled off
the bed, pushed a couple of sleeping guests off my trunk, got my
list of biographies, and stepped into the hall to call each man
who’d boarded the ship at Sol Station.