On My Way to Paradise (46 page)

"It looks as if you’ve been promoted." I studied her
face. It had been such a pulp when I’d seen her last I was
surprised not to see some bruise greened with age. Her hairline was
a bit irregular where the swath of chocolate-brown hair had been
ripped from her forehead. But she was smiling as if genuinely
happy, and nothing on the surface indicated how troubled she might
be beneath her facade.

Her hair appeared brittle and
lusterless:
Her
cheeks had sagged, her skin folded and wrinkled. She held herself
bent slightly forward. Perhaps the two years of heavy gravity
caused some of these things, but it pained me to think how a single
incident must have devastated her.

Yet she appeared muscular and she carried herself
with grace.

She laughed. "Why are you looking at me like
that?"

‘‘I’m looking for scars."

She closed her eyes, pointed at a white scar atop one
eyelid. "This is where Lucío ground the cigar butt in ..." She held
out her left hand. I took it. "And this is where he burned off my
fingers." A thick scar ran across her palm. Four skin-toned metal
fingers were connected to the flesh. I’d had no idea she’d endured
such torture. When I’d seen her sprawled on the table, she’d been
hidden behind other people.

I grabbed her shoulders roughly and tears of rage
filled my eyes. "Abriara," I said, "I swear to you and God that
I’ll make a gift to you of a silver platter piled high with the
testicles of the men who did this."

She smiled as if she’d break into a laugh. Her hand
touching mine seemed almost a caress. I couldn’t understand how
she could smile in the face of such horror. Such a smile could only
be the ebullient affectation of a Chilena. "What makes you think
I’d want such a gruesome gift? You’ve done enough. Besides, it all
happened long ago. "

It may have seemed years to her, but for me it had
happened only hours before. I looked into her eyes to read what
message they held, and saw only joy. Never before had I seen
anything in her eyes but cool calculation, an occasional flash of
anger. But now her eyes were bright, fierce, happy, alive—like one
raised from the dead.

No
one changes that much.
I shuddered, and
began trembling. I felt as if the ground moved beneath me.

She pulled me toward the door. "Let’s get your
things."

Abriara hustled me into the night. A brisk breeze was
building, the scent of a rising storm. Around the back of the
building sat a parked truck, and in it was a few plastic bags
filled with possessions. Two bags had my name on them. One was a
suit of battle armor; the other contained an old crystal knife,
Tamara s little folding laser rifle, my medical bag, and a single
box of cigars.

From the building down the road came the continual
chant of "Let’s go home! Let’s go home!"

My mind felt numb. No one could change as much as
Abriara had.

"You’d better put the armor on," she said, "and don’t
take it off until this war is over. It’s slightly different from
the old stuff—heavier, not as well balanced. You’ll get used to
it."

I stripped off my kimono and shoes. Abriara helped
snap the pieces together gently, as if dressing an invalid or
lover. She bent close as she put on my chest plate, and I smelled
her hair, her sweat. Warm and musky.

I felt the beginning of an erection and was thankful
it remained hidden beneath the armor. My young body was responding
to her in ways an old man forgets.

Abriara opened a compartment at my hip; it contained
several resin canisters. "You’ll need to learn to repair your own
armor. Just paint any over furrows till they fill. When you’re done
patching a hole, you’ll want to put a layer of this stuff from the
green canister on. It’s called
flare.
I’ll show you why
...”

She pulled the telescoping barrel out on my little
laser rifle and fired across my leg. A brilliant green flame shot
up wherever the laser touched.

"In back you paint with the blue canister." She shot
the back of my leg; a piercing whistle erupted momentarily. Her
intonations were forceful like those of a samurai. "It’s called
scream.
If you ever see a flash of light come off you or
hear that whistle, it means a sniper has hit you. You block
immediately. Understand?"

"Yes, I understand."

"Good. Later on, we’ll try to teach what you need to
know to stay alive." She sounded concerned. She folded up the laser
rifle and put it in a compartment at my knee. Along my right leg
was a sheath containing a thin but sharp machete. She removed it
and considered putting my crystal dagger in its place, but decided
it wouldn’t fit. She checked a couple of compartments at my waist
and found no place for the dagger. I took it from her and began
strapping the old wrist sheath to her arm. She smiled, pleased at
the gift.

I said, "I saw some men fighting in the simulator
three. How much can you teach me of what they know, of the mental
states?
Munen.
Instantaneity. Whatever else you’ve learned?"
,

She glanced at my feet. "You were watching our
chimera samurai fighting humans. I can’t teach what they know.
You’re too ... human. Understand?"

"You mean that I don’t have the genetic potential.
But the samurai who taught you are no better genetic specimens than
I. They must have taught you something. None of you could fight so
well two years ago. I could learn what they know!"

"In time, perhaps, but we don’t have access to the
biofeedback monitors necessary to teach you a high degree of
precision or Perfect Control. We took a drug that helps to induce
Instantaneity, something from the Eridani system. I’ll get you
some. In a couple of weeks you might build up to where the state
comes naturally when faced with danger. You won’t be able to train
yourself to initiate it in that time."

I smiled wistfully. Garcia had kept trying to prove
to Zavala the that the samurai had superior genetics or training.
Now it all came clear: their battle drugs were superior to ours.
I

The chanters kept up their shout of "Let’s go home!
Let’s go home!"

I looked into Abriara’s eyes. "What are my chances if
I go through with this? Without training. What does the computer
say?"

"Not good."

"How good?"

Abriara shrugged. "One in a hundred—but you’ll do
better if you stick with us. Think positive. Wasn’t it you who once
said, ‘The future looks bleak only to those who refuse to dream in
color?’"

"It wasn’t me who said that." I nodded toward the old
barn where my compadres were building toward another riot. "I think
I should join them. I do not think I’ll fight the Yabajin with you.
I’m sorry."

Perfecto said from behind me, "If Motoki Corporation
gets its way, you won’t have a choice." I hadn’t heard him coming.
He was twenty meters away, beside the building. Miguel was with
him. They ambled over and hugged me, patted me on the back,
smiling. He said, "Ah, it is good to see you, my amigo. It has been
a long time."

"Too long," I agreed.

Abriara picked up my cigars, my kimono. "I’ll go find
you a place to sleep." She walked back toward the hut and I was
painfully conscious of the way her hips rolled beneath her silk
kimono.

Perfecto kept his arm around me till after she
rounded the corner and gave me a strange look, almost angry, that
quickly turned to a smile.

Miguel held back a laugh. He asked, "Did you see the
soft eyes she was making at you?"

"Ah," Perfecto agreed, "and the don here looks as
mournful as a cat in heat! I think both of them have raised the
temperature in this valley by a good two degrees. It must be the
don’s new youth. He looks very aristocratic, very handsome, don’t
you think, Miguel?"

"Ah, yes. If I were a woman, my heart would he
fluttering like a caged bird!"

"It’s a good thing we came when we did," Perfecto
said. "I’d hate to have found them love-wrestling on the
ground."

They both chuckled and I hung my head in
embarrassment. When the air had cleared, Perfecto said, "As I was
saying before, don Angelo, I don’t think those men will be able to
stay here in Kimai no Ji. Despite your incredible new handsomeness,
most of the Japanese think we are ugly. They don’t want to look at
us, and they call us
tengu,
demons."

"That’s right," Miguel added. "The people don’t like
us. They put this camp way outside town so they won’t have to look
at us—so we can’t pollute their culture."

"Yes," Perfecto added. "They wanted to leave you all
asleep up in the cryotanks till the war is over, but the owners of
the ship made them take you.

"But the officials at Motoki don’t want you down
here, and they especially don’t want to leave you while we’re
making the assault—so I think you’ll all end up having to come.
Garzón will probably just have you hang back behind the
samurai."

"That does not sound so bad," I said. I nodded toward
the building where the men kept up their chant. "You’d think they’d
be willing to go along for the ride."

"Oh, they’re not upset about that," Perfecto
said.

"Motoki Corporation docked them for pay while they
were in the cryotanks—twenty-two years of lost pay." His voice was
bitter, very emotional. "Many of those men had families like mine
that depended on that pay.

I was shocked by the enormity of the injustice those
men had suffered. The poorest had agreed to fight only because they
knew it meant their families—brothers, sisters, widowed mothers,
and even their own children—would no longer endure the incredible
hardships brought on by the war in South America. For some, leaving
their families was an ultimate sacrifice, an act of love.

Now they found that only two weeks after they’d left
Earth their families had been cut off from the boon their sacrifice
had represented. For some of those men, I imagined that it meant
family members had died in poverty. Young sisters may have been
forced into prostitution while invalid mothers starved.

"All of us sympathize with them," Perfecto said. "All
of us are angry. We didn’t learn of this injustice until just a few
days ago. I think the ship never would have made it to Baker if
people had known. Can you feel the wrath in the air, the
electricity?"

I nodded. I’d felt it when I first entered the room
with the gamblers.

"I have not felt such tension since the riot!"
Perfecto said.

"It’s true!" Miguel agreed. "Things quieted down till
a few days ago. After the riot, the samurai treated us like
amigos—especially when they saw how well we fight. Most of us
advanced to the rank of samurai.

"But the locals here treat us like dirt. General
Tsugio, the head man, laughs at the idea of non-Japanese samurai,
and he’s threatened to reduce our pay if we don’t get our compadres
to act complacent.

"Now you look into the eyes of our men and you can
see what they think. They think they should never have come. They
think they should not fight.

"But what can we do? We can’t go back, because we
can’t pay the Greeks for the ship. We can’t find jobs elsewhere. We
must either fight the Yabajin or starve!’"

"Can’t you go over General Tsugio’s head?" I
asked.

"Can’t you talk to Regional Company President of
Motoki? This is not such a big town, he can’t be very busy."

Perfecto shook his head. "On Baker everyone has his
place. They believe in what they call the natural hierarchy: man is
better than woman. A corporate executive officer is better than a
corporate warrior, who is better than a corporate farmer, who is
better than a non-corporate farmer. All Japanese are better than
Chinese who are better than Koreans. And somewhere in the dust
among all the species of worms are Latin Americans. Mother of God!
We are both non-Japanese and non-corporate workers—we don’t have a
permanent contract with the corporation. We are so far down their
list even Garzón can’t talk to a company executive. He’s only
allowed to speak to General Tsugio and his aides."

"I don’t understand," I said. "What would they do to
you if you tried to talk to a company executive?"

"Ignore you," said Miguel, "or beat you. It depends
on how badly you offend them with your attempt."

Perfecto nodded, and rushed to explain. "It’s their
vertical society. Their vertical society structure caused this war.
You see, when both parties settled here their social engineers
believed they were each taking slightly different paths to the same
goal. They hoped to teach their people basic ethics of work,
cooperation, subservience to society, an ideal of austerity.
Motoki’s engineers taught the doctrine of
isshin
,
restoration, saying they were simply reverting back to a "natural
order
^"
of things, relearning ancient ideals that still
lived in their hearts. But the Nationalist engineers believed
subservience to society stifled individual creativity, so they
modified that aspect of their society. They taught
revolution—telling their people they were creating a new tradition,
that they were discovering their own strength and beauty as a race.
So the nations diverged.

"But though they have much in common, both Motoki and
the Yabajin each has a vertical society. Each believes it’s at the
pinnacle of the human hierarchy. Each believes its own members are
the finest representatives of humanity in the universe. And the
only way they can prove it is to kick out the teeth of their
rivals."

Perfecto seemed quite upset, and I laughed at the
idea of the inhabitants of Motoki being the supreme race in the
universe. "And what do they think of you chimeras?"

"The samurai have grudgingly become convinced,"
Miguel said, "that we chimeras are better fighters than samurai,
but we still don’t measure up. We’ve never learned ‘corporate
spirit,’ and that proves our weakness."