On My Way to Paradise (33 page)

At that moment I wanted only to throw this corpse
down the ladder.

Perfecto’s concern for me seemed strange, incongruous
with what I knew of chimeras. It was almost funny. Out of cruelty I
said, "You know that only your genetic programming tells you to
feel this great concern about me?"

Perfecto said, "I know."

"Compulsive love. Compassion by genetic decree. I
suppose it’s better than no compassion at all." It seemed a good
joke. My own compassion was slipping away. Perfecto was better than
me. At least he was capable of feeling compassion for one
person.

Suddenly everyone on the ladder moved off at once,
and we pushed the corpse over. It fell two floors, hit the ladder,
twisted in midair, then fell a couple meters and one leg tangled
among the rungs. The body thudded to a halt, head down,
swaying.

It had stopped near the level to the infirmary. We
couldn’t have done any better job of getting the body there if we’d
planned it. We watched it swing a moment, and on impulse I said,
"If this were Mavro or Abriara lying here dead, would you
care?"

Perfecto said, "I always get a sick feeling in my
stomach when someone close to me dies, but I would not grieve."

"Why?"

"Because I’ve known from the time I got on this ship
that many of us would die. Motoki guarantees us a 51% chance of
survival in our battle contract, but I know that nearly half of us
will die. So I refuse to become attached."

Have I been reacting to the foreknowledge of our
deaths subconsciously? Is that why my compassion died?
I
wondered. After my mother died I’d been afraid to make close
attachments. And later, when my sister Eva had been raped and
strangled and left for dead by the roadside, I learned to separate
myself from my family altogether, even though she lived through the
attack. And for years after my wife Elena died in an accident I
didn’t let myself get close to another woman—until I met Tamara.
Something in her eyes, in the way she smiled and moved, had
captivated me.

I tried remember what it was like to care, but I felt
thin and worn, like an old pair of jeans. I couldn’t muster the
feelings that had driven me to bring Tamara aboard ship. It was as
if a part of me had died already. The part that cares about others.
And I suddenly understood the sense of loss I’d felt for days: my
compassion had died. I’d somehow left it in in Panamá, dead on the
floor, next to the body of Arish.

Abriara opened the door from our room and looked down
the hall. She came up to us, walking softly. I called out, "And
you, Abriara, if one of us died, would you grieve?"

She seated herself next to me and looked down the
ladder at the swaying corpse. "No," she said. "One cannot afford to
grieve during battle. You are an old man and I fully expect you
will be killed on Baker, don Angelo. But though I like you, I would
not grieve for you, nor for anyone else aboard this ship."

I was feeling giddy, on the edge of hysterics. I’d
always believed that all men were creatures of empathy. Now I saw
that it wasn’t necessarily so. The vision threatened to destroy me.
I said, thinking to toss her answer aside, to cast her view as an
aberration, "I did not think you would. You are a marvelous
creature, but I saw from your gene scan that you do not have a
great capacity for compassion."

"You arrogant prick!" she sneered. "We chimeras have
seen damned little compassion from you humans!"

She was right! She was right! We’d shown her kind
exactly no compassion. I remembered the picture of the small
chimera who looked like a bat, his lifeless body hanging between
two Chilean peasants who’d clubbed him to death. He symbolized
everything humans do to those they consider inhuman. In every
bloody war, in every act of genocide, in every execution whether by
a mob or under the direction of the state, the man to be destroyed
is always accused of being inhuman, of being less than human. And I
suddenly understood why every beastly tribe of cannibals that ever
existed has chosen to call itself "The Humans" in its own tongue.
We convince ourselves that our enemies are different from us before
we slay them. And I saw that all the brutality and capacity for
ruthlessness I’d attributed only to the deranged and wicked were an
integral part of me. I’d killed Arish, and I’d kill again and again
and again forever under the right circumstances.

There is an old saying, "Some men shake the world,
and some men are shaken by the world." I’d always wondered which I
was, and at this time I understood: I was a man shaken by the
world—shaken by the vision of the the world as it is.

I began to laugh, a convulsive spasm that was half
cry. I’d vowed when I first met Abriara that I’d try to give her a
better view of humanity, but instead she’d shown me myself more
perfectly—and the sight revolted me. "You’re right. I don’t have
much compassion. I’ve always imagined it a trait of great
importance. But now I see that I’m a killer by nature. I’ve killed
before, and I’ll do it again. Perhaps my subtle capacity for
viciousness is more of an asset in my quest for survival than I’ve
chosen to believe."

Abriara looked at me with curiosity. What had seemed
to me a revolting personal revelation didn’t disturb her at all. "I
hope you have a capacity for viciousness," she said casually. "If
you want to survive in my world, you need it more than food, or
water, or air."

She stood up and sighed. She said, "Perfecto, go back
to our room. I need to speak to the don alone for a moment."

Perfecto said, "Sí" and we watched him till he got
safely behind the door.

Abriara said quietly, "don Angelo, I’ve believed we’d
have trouble with Lucío from the first day aboard ship, and the
attack in the simulator today shows it’s been on his mind, too. He
planned this weeks ago. He must have planned it from the start, and
he’s been waiting to humiliate us publicly. It’s his way of
announcing the start of a Quest—if you don’t believe me, ask any
chimera what this means. You can’t walk away from this. And you
can’t hesitate when it comes time to use your knife."

"Of course," I answered.

"Then you’re willing to kill him?" There was a thrill
in her voice, and I understood that she wanted to make a first
strike at Lucío. I considered the consequences before
answering.

Abriara said, "Angelo, your doubts might have
dramatic consequences in this situation. Think of Perfecto—he
follows you blindly. If he senses your uncertainty, he may hesitate
to act in a crucial moment. You must not show doubt! That would not
only be stupid, it would be dangerous. We need to strike first. To
hell with Kaigo’s orders—we must strike!"

I tried to make sense of this mess. I didn’t agree
with her, but arguments for restraint wouldn’t mesh with my
previous actions. I’d sliced up Lucío, but Abriara was asking me to
commit murder. It seemed too cold-blooded. Abriara saw my
frustration, my unwillingness to follow her plan.

"On the first day you got here I asked you to speak
to Perfecto for me so I could hope for his obedience. You haven’t
done it. Within hours you spoke against a vendetta against Lucío.
Now you see where your actions have taken us? You never spoke to
Perfecto for me, did you?"

"No," I said. "The time never seemed right."

She waved her hand as if to dismiss it, and sat down
beside me. "I don’t blame you. Such words must come from the heart.
You’re too old to indiscriminately follow me.

"But, Angelo, I need your full support in this."

I nodded. I tried to say I’d support her. Yet the
words stuck in my throat.

Abriara shook her head and left off the argument.
"Angelo," she said softly, "I’ve never loved a man. I’ve never
given myself to a man. But I have been raped by men three times.
The first time was when I was nine years old. I was outside the
genetic engineering compound in Temuco. An old man caught me and
choked me, forced his penis into my mouth. It was at a time when
the public was raising an outcry about Torres creating true
nonhumans instead of upgrading regular people. This old man knew I
was a chimera and was therefore not protected by the laws that
protect human girls. I went to the police and they insisted on
seeing my genome before deciding whether to prosecute. They saw my
genome, and I’ve always thought I must be a true chimera, for the
man was never brought to justice." She stopped and breathed
heavily. I knew she was seeking to convince me to fight by use of
an emotional argument. It was a blatant attempt at
manipulation.

"The second time I was raped was four years ago:
After the war in Chile, I tried to do something useful with my
life. I got a job screening software for teaching programs in Peru.
One day I was walking down the street where some young men were
playing baseball. As I walked past the batter, he swung the bat and
hit me in the head. I still bear the scars—" she pulled her hair
back, showing me an ugly scar at hairline above her left ear.

"They tied me to a table in an abandoned shack for
three days. They came many times to rape me. Sometimes they brought
friends.

"I broke free in the middle of the afternoon on the
fourth day and went to the police. They did nothing. They promised
to do nothing—for I was a chimera in Peru, and in some ways it was
worse than being chimera in Chile. I knew the young men would come
back for me in the evening, so I returned to the shack with a
hatchet and waited.

"When they returned, I killed them. I delivered their
penises to the desk of the police chief, and then spent four years
at the women’s correctional facility in Cajamarca."

She hesitated a moment. "The third time I was raped
was today, in the simulator. And though it wasn’t real, it hurt as
much as the first two times—perhaps more, because it brought back
all the memories of the first two attacks—all the frustration, all
the rage, all the hate.

"But this time was different—because for once,
someone did something. You slashed Lucío’s face open, and for that
I thank you." She smiled at me. "You win: If you do not want to
initiate an attack, we will simply arm ourselves and be very
cautious, okay? I will ask nothing more of you."

She leaned forward and lightly kissed my temple, as
if kissing a friend, a kiss of simple gratitude, then she got up
and walked away.

She’d surprised me. I’d thought she’d try to
manipulate me into fighting, to plead with me to avenge her. She
had that right. Perhaps more than anyone I’d ever met, she had the
right to a little justice. She hadn’t realized I was still
undecided as to my course of action. She’d given up too easily. If
she’d demanded that I join a Quest to kill Lucío, I’d have refused.
But Abriara had been more persuasive than she knew.

I thought of Lucío’s words: "I will kill you and fuck
your woman," and I knew he would carry it through if he could. I
decided to do my best to send Lucío and his men to hell if they
caused us any heartache, then got up and walked to my room.

García came to visit us moments later. He was very
pale and shaken, and he fidgeted with his hands more than normal.
He’d come to pay Zavala a million pesos and seemed eager to be done
with it. He watched nervously as Mavro sharpened a wooden
knife.

García said, "I hope you’re still not thinking of
starting a fight with the samurai!"

Mavro said, "I don’t want to fight one so much as
just put a hole in one!"

García licked his lips and said, "A few minutes ago
Emilio Vasquez wanted to celebrate our victories in South America,
and didn’t report to the simulators. A samurai came to the room and
ordered him to practice, and Emilio and another man attacked the
samurai. I saw the whole thing! Emilio is one of the strongest men
I know, and he tried to strangle the samurai, but the samurai broke
his grip as if Emilio were a child, then he kicked Emilio’s friend
in the head, crushing his skull, and strangled Emilio—and Emilio
could not break the samurai’s grip! If you don’t believe me, go
down and see Emilio’s head yourself! It’s hung from a hook in the
ceiling by the ladder to level six!

"If I wanted proof that the samurai are as strong and
quick as they seem in the simulators, I got all the proof I
need!"

García transferred a million pesos to Zavala’s
account, then paid me 200,000 IMUs for my antibiotics and left
quickly.

Zavala came and stood beside me and patted my back.
"I’m sorry I had to take your drugs from you this way. I would have
preferred to have you give them to me as a friend. At least now you
see the truth: the samurai beat us by the power of the spirit. Yet
I am glad we learned the truth, for there are spells that can
weaken the spirit of an enemy."

Mavro laughed, "Good idea! You cast some spells while
I sharpen a knife!"

I looked into Zavala’s eyes. His round face and thin
lips would normally give him the look of a stupid youth, but he had
a determined gleam in his eye.

I got my medical bag and looked through the
antibiotics. I keep my drugs in plastic containers that look like
small suitcases. Each thin suitcase can carry a few grams each of
several thousand medicines. I have a tiny machine that can then add
individual dosages to base tablets for oral consumption or to a
base liquid for injection. It allows me to keep a wide inventory in
a small space. But as I sat staring at my plastic cases, each
filled with hundreds of multicolored drug compartments, it didn’t
seem right for me to give the antibiotics to Zavala, since I knew
they’d only make him sick. I’d have healed him if I could, but
there was nothing physically wrong with him.

I fumbled with my medications a while, and a
brilliant thought struck me: Zavala had nothing physically wrong
with him. He simply thought he was ill because in the simulator he
experienced pain. But I could dim the pain with a neural pain
blocker. The burning would go away and he’d think he was cured! I
had several potent pain killers that didn’t have very bad side
effects and I began making up tablets. Zavala rubbed his shoulder
at the base of his prosthetic arm as if it burned and quickly
swallowed the first pill.