Robert Reed - Winemaster.pdf - Robert Reed - margozap

ROBERT REED

WINEMASTER

THE STRANGER PULLED INTO the Quik Shop outside St. Joe. Nothing was remarkable

about him, which was why he caught Blaine's eye. Taller than average, but not

much, he was thin in an unfit way, with black hair and a handsome, almost pretty

face, fine bones floating beneath skin that didn't often get into the sun. Which

meant nothing, of course. A lot of people were staying indoors lately. Blaine

watched him climb out of an enormous Buick -- a satin black '17 Gibraltar that

had seen better days -- and after a lazy long stretch, he passed his e-card

through the proper slot and inserted the nozzle, filling the Buick's cavernous

tank with ten cold gallons of gasoline and corn alcohol.

By then, Blaine had run his plates.

The Buick was registered to a Julian Winemaster from Wichita, Kansas;

twenty-nine accompanying photographs showed pretty much the same fellow who

stood sixty feet away.

His entire bio was artfully bland, rigorously seamless. Winemaster was an

accountant, divorced and forty-four years old, with O negative blood and five

neo-enamel fillings imbedded in otherwise perfect teeth, plus a small pink

birthmark somewhere on his right buttock. Useless details, Blaine reminded

himself, and with that he lifted his gaze, watching the traveler remove the

dripping nozzle, then cradling it on the pump with the overdone delicacy of a

man ill-at-ease with machinery.

Behind thick fingers, Blaine was smiling.

Winemaster moved with a stiff, road-weary gait, walking into the convenience

store and asking, "Ma'am.? Where's your rest room, please?"

The clerk ignored him.

It was the men's room that called out, "Over here, sir."

Sitting in one of the hard plastic booths, Blaine had a good view of everything.

A pair of militia boys in their brown uniforms were the only others in the

store. They'd been gawking at dirty comic books, minding their own business

until they heard Winemaster's voice. Politeness had lately become a suspicious

behavior. Blaine watched the boys look up and elbow each other, putting their

sights on the stranger. And he watched Winemaster's walk, the expression on his

pretty frail face, and a myriad of subtleties, trying to decide what he should

do, and when, and what he should avoid at all costs.

It was a bright warm summer morning, but there hadn't been twenty cars in the

last hour, most of them sporting local plates.

The militia boys blanked their comics and put them on the wrong shelves, then

walked out the front door, one saying. "Bye now," as he passed the clerk.

"Sure," the old woman growled, never taking her eyes off a tiny television

screen.

The boys might simply be doing their job, which meant they were harmless. But

the state militias were full of bullies who'd found a career in the last couple

years. There was no sweeter sport than terrorizing the innocent traveler,

because of course the genuine refugee was too rare of a prospect to hope for.

Winemaster vanished into the men's room.

The boys approached the black Buick, doing a little dance and showing each other

their malicious smiles. Thugs, Blaine decided. Which meant that he had to do

something now. Before Winemaster, or whoever he was, came walking out of the

toilet.

Blaine climbed out of the tiny booth.

He didn't waste breath on the clerk.

Crossing the greasy pavement, he watched the boys using a police-issue lock

pick. The front passenger door opened, and both of them stepped back, trying to

keep a safe distance. With equipment that went out of date last spring, one boy

probed the interior air, the cultured leather seats, the dashboard and

floorboard and even an empty pop can standing in its cradle. "Naw, it's okay,"

he was saying. "Get on in there."

His partner had a knife. The curled blade was intended for upholstery. Nothing

could be learned by ripping apart the seats, but it was a fun game nonetheless.

"Get in there," the first boy repeated.

The second one started to say, "I'm getting in -- ' But he happened to glance

over his shoulder, seeing Blaine coming, and he turned fast, lifting the knife,

seriously thinking about slashing the interloper.

Blaine was bigger than some pairs of men.

He was fat, but in a powerful, focused way. And he was quick, grabbing the knife

hand and giving a hard squeeze, then flinging the boy against the car's

composite body, the knife dropping and Blaine kicking it out of reach, then

giving the boy a second shove, harder this time, telling both of them, "That's

enough, gentlemen."

"Who the fuck are you -- ?" they sputtered, in a chorus.

Blaine produced a badge and ID bracelet. "Read these," he suggested coldly. Then

he told them, "You're welcome to check me out. But we do that somewhere else.

Right now, this man's door is closed and locked, and the three of us are hiding.

Understand.?"

The boy with the surveillance equipment said, "We're within our rights."

Blaine shut and locked the door for them, saying, "This way. Stay with me."

"One of their nests got hit last night," said the other boy, walking. "We've

been checking people all morning!"

"Find any.?"

"Not yet --"

"With that old gear, you won't."

"We've caught them before," said the first boy, defending his equipment. His

status. "A couple, three different carloads..."

Maybe they did, but that was months ago. Generations ago.

"Is that yours?" asked Blaine. He pointed to a battered Python, saying, "It

better be. We're getting inside."

The boys climbed in front. Blaine filled the back seat, sweating from exertion

and the car's brutal heat.

"What are we doing?" one of them asked.

"We're waiting. Is that all right with you.?"

"I guess."

But his partner couldn't just sit. He turned and glared at Blaine, saying,

"You'd better be Federal."

"And if not?" Blaine inquired, without interest.

No appropriate threat came to mind. So the boy simply growled and repeated

himself. "You'd just better be. That's all I'm saying."

A moment later, Winemaster strolled out of the store. Nothing in his stance or

pace implied worry. He was carrying a can of pop and a red bag of corn nuts.

Resting his purchases on the roof, he punched in his code to unlock the driver's

door, then gave the area a quick glance. It was the glance of someone who never

intended to return here, even for gasoline -a dismissive expression coupled with

a tangible sense of relief.

That's when Blaine knew.

When he was suddenly and perfectly sure.

The boys saw nothing incriminating. But the one who'd held the knife was quick

to say the obvious: A man with Blaine's credentials could get his hands on the

best BM sniffers in the world. "Get them," he said, "and we'll find out what he

is!"

But Blaine already felt sure.

"He's going," the other one sputtered. "Look, he's gone -- !"

The black car was being driven by a cautious man. Winemaster braked and looked

both ways twice before he pulled out onto the access road, accelerating

gradually toward 1-29, taking no chances even though there was precious little

traffic to avoid as he drove north.

"Fuck," said the boys, in one voice.

Using a calm-stick, Blaine touched one of the thick necks; without fuss, the boy

slumped forward.

"Hey!" snapped his partner. "What are you doing --?"

"What's best," Blaine whispered afterward. Then he lowered the Python's windows

and destroyed its ignition system, leaving the pair asleep in the front seats.

And because the moment required justice, he took one of their hands each,

shoving them inside the other's pants, then he laid their heads together, in the

pose of lovers.

THE OTHER REFUGEES pampered Julian: His cabin wasn't only larger than almost

anyone else's, it wore extra shielding to help protect him from malicious

high-energy particles. Power and shaping rations didn't apply to him, although

he rarely indulged himself, and a platoon of autodocs did nothing but watch over

his health. In public, strangers applauded him. In private, he could select

almost any woman as a lover. And in bed, in the afterglow of whatever passed for

sex at that particular moment, Julian could tell his stories, and his lovers

would listen as if enraptured, even if they already knew each story by heart.

No one on board was more ancient than Julian. Even before the attack, he was one

of the few residents of the Shawnee Nest who could honestly claim to be

DNA-made, his life beginning as a single wet cell inside a cavernous womb, a

bloody birth followed by sloppy growth that culminated in a vast and slow and

decidedly old-fashioned human being.

Julian was nearly forty when Transmutations became an expensive possibility.

Thrill seekers and the terminally ill were among the first to undergo the

process, their primitive bodies and bloated minds consumed by the microchines,

the sum total of their selves compressed into tiny robotic bodies meant to

duplicate every normal human function.

Being pioneers, they endured heavy losses. Modest errors during the

Transmutation meant instant death. Tiny errors meant a pathetic and incurable

insanity. The fledging Nests were exposed to heavy nuclei and subtle EM effects,

all potentially disastrous. And of course there were the early terrorist

attacks, crude and disorganized, but extracting a horrible toll nonetheless.

The survivors were tiny and swift, and wiser, and they were able to streamline

the Transmutation, making it more accurate and affordable, and to a degree,

routine.

"I was forty-three when I left the other world." Julian told his lover of the

moment. He always used those words, framing them with defiance and a hint of

bittersweet longing. "It was three days and two hours before the President

signed the McGrugger Bill."

That's when Transmutation became illegal in the United States.

His lover did her math, then with a genuine awe said, "That was five hundred and

twelve days ago."

A day was worth years inside a Nest.

"Tell me," she whispered. "Why did you do it? Were you bored? Or sick?"

"Don't you know why?" he inquired.

"No," she squeaked.

Julian was famous, but sometimes his life wasn't. And why should the youngsters

know his biography by heart?

"I don't want to force you," the woman told him. "If you'd rather not talk about

it, I'll understand."

Julian didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he climbed from his bed and crossed the cabin. His kitchenette had

created a drink-- hydrocarbons mixed with nanochines that were nutritious,

appetizing, and pleasantly narcotic. Food and drink were not necessities, but

habits, and they were enjoying a renewed popularity. Like any credible

Methuselah, Julian was often the model on how best to do archaic oddities.

The woman lay on top of the bed. Her current body was a hologram laid over her

mechanical core. It was a traditional body, probably worn for his pleasure; no

wings or fins or even more bizarre adornments. As it happened, she had selected

a build and complexion not very different from Julian's first wife. A

coincidence? Or had she actually done research, and she already knew the answers

to her prying questions?

Robert Reed - Winemaster.pdf

Plik z chomika:

Inne pliki z tego folderu:

Inne foldery tego chomika: