Cat's Whirld

Rodolfo Martínez Fernández Rodolfo Martínez Fernández 2 4 2015-07-04T10:41:00Z 2015-07-04T10:41:00Z 5 42488 233685 Sportula 1947 551 275622 14.0 244 false 21 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

THE INTERROGATION

So you screwed up.

I confirm. I stuck to the wrong greenie, but anyone in my position would have made the same mistake. He seemed to arrive in the right ship, had the right air about him, and there was nobody else around like him. It had to be him. It’s not my fault that two ships arrived almost at the same time, or that in both of them there was a greenie who wasn’t really what he appeared to be. And anyway it wasn’t exactly a case of division by zero: I wasn’t the only Irregular assigned to follow the Sovier, and the others stuck to him like cable pins to a slot.

But you still followed the wrong man.

And you ought to be grateful for that. If I hadn’t, things would’ve been much worse, peri. So stop keying me. I’ll print the code my way or there’ll be no code to print. And don’t even dream of trying to force me to speak, you know very well you can’t.

All right. Go on.

Much better, peri. No errors, no warnings, perfect. Maybe the greenie wasn’t a Sovier but he wasn’t from the Confederacy either. No doubt about that, a hundred per cent bug free, do you confirm? He seemed just another worm, a clueless tourist used to walking on the surface of a well. His codecard identified him as a trader of personality chips. A good cover: we make the best ones here, after all, so where else would a trader go to look for them? And he fitted his cover well: he chattered away like any other visitor, wandered around looking confused, and didn’t do anything unusual for a worm on his first visit to the Whirld.

But these memory filaments of mine were designed precisely for catching even the slightest detail. There was something about him that just didn’t gel with the image of the successful trader from Castleganda he claimed to be. Of course you wouldn’t have noticed, you could’ve been tailing him the entire rotation only to end up apologizing for having followed the wrong man. But the moment I saw him my alerts clicked in. He was my greenie, the worm I had to follow, there was no doubt about it. Behind his cover there was that contemptuous glow in his eyes, that condescending sense of superiority typical of a Sovier. How could I have known that my man would come ten minutes later in another ship?

As soon as he passed through Plague Control, I stuck to him so close that if he’d seen me he would’ve thought I was a part of his own body. I recorded his every gesture, every tiny movement, even the words he subvocalized without being aware of it. He certainly wasn’t who he said he was, but little by little I began to realize he wasn’t a Sovier either. Yes, he fitted the mold partially, I’ve told you before: the contempt, the condescending looks, all typical Sovier behavior. But there was something in his eyes that I’d never seen before in any of them: curiosity. Are you processing, peri? It’s normal for greenies to spend the first few minutes staring around open-mouthed, even those who’ve come from the Mandate, but this doesn’t last long, they soon lose interest, and look around with their usual disdain. But mine wasn’t like that. He seemed stunned by everything he saw. Oh yes, he hid it very well: a person with untrained eyes wouldn’t have noticed a thing. But for someone like me…

So while I was tailing him, and watching everything very carefully, I also examined everything he had done after leaving the ship. The first time I did something like that I ended up vomiting. It makes you sick and dizzy until you get used to it, as if you had double vision. But you get the hang of it sooner or later, and you teach yourself to distinguish between what’s happening in real time and the images you have saved in your memory filaments. Yes, it takes time, but in the end you can handle two sets of images simultaneously without any problem.

Your expression is betraying an intense interest in what I’m telling you, eh peri? OK, yes, I admit I do tend to babble on a bit, but as I told you before: either I tell things my way or I don’t tell them at all, so it really would be better for you to at least fake an interest in what I’m saying. No need to make too much of an effort, just an expression of polite expectation will be enough. There, that’s better! Now I can go back to what is really interesting you.

The greenie spent all morning consolidating his cover. He contacted several manufacturers and haggled with them without committing himself to anything definite, but he did show an interest in some of the chips and arranged a new meeting for the next rotation to discuss prices. At midrot he went back to his hotel and stayed in his room the rest of the rotation. I called one of the boys to relieve me and went off to see Con to give him my report. It was then that I learned that I had — how did you put it, peri? Ah yes — I learned that I had well and truly screwed up.

Rodolfo Martínez Fernández Rodolfo Martínez Fernández 2 4 2015-07-04T10:41:00Z 2015-07-04T10:41:00Z 5 42488 233685 Sportula 1947 551 275622 14.0 244 false 21 false false false ES-TRAD JA X-NONE

THE BAKER STREET IRREGULARS

Arthur Conan Chandler had been living on the Whirld for ten years. Officially, he earned his living running a singles bar called Baker Street, but the police knew very well (though they had never been able to prove it) that most of his income came through somewhat more indirect and tortuous ways. He defined himself as a trader in information, which wasn’t that far from the truth. The peris had never been able to catch him doing anything openly illegal, among other reasons because he himself seldom risked going out and collecting the information he sold to his various clients. Instead, over time he had managed to recruit a veritable battalion of teenies (whom he liked to call, when he was in a good mood, the Baker Street Irregulars) who roamed the Whirld under his orders, sticking their noses where no one else would dare, and obtaining whatever Chandler needed. Memorandum, as he called himself — no one remembered his real name — had always been the most efficient and reliable of them, so it wasn’t surprising that Chandler was pretty furious when he realized that this time his best teeny had well and truly blundered, following a newcomer who had nothing to do with the business in hand.

But Con, the boy said. It was him. It had to be him.

Memo, answered Chandler, trying to calm himself, the guy you stuck to had nothing to do with us. Talk with Fingers, he’ll tell you. The real deal came fifteen minutes later, and Fingers and his group have been following him all morning.

I don’t get it.

You don’t have to get anything, said Chandler, now a bit more relaxed. It doesn’t matter. And maybe we can salvage something from this disaster. Show me your worm.

Memo took a holoprojector and plugged the connection pin into the slot behind his ear. Intrigued, Chandler watched the 3D image the boy was projecting in front of him. On the surface, there was nothing out of the ordinary about the guy. He wore a long brown robe, a mode of dressing quite common in several Confederacy worlds, and his black hair was shaved right down almost to the skull. But his disturbing blue eyes never seemed to blink, and this had caused many of the people he had spoken to that morning to become rather nervous. Chandler didn’t have Memo’s incredible mnemonic abilities, but he was a keen observer: in his business he had to be. He gradually began to understand that the boy’s mistake had been almost unavoidable. To a trained eyes, the man had all the hallmarks of a Sovier acting undercover.

All right, Memo, I see your point. I myself would have made the same mistake. And maybe we can get something from him.

Memo nodded, pleased. He worked for half a dozen men apart from Chandler, but he felt more comfortable with him than with the others. Con never yelled at him or reproached him for unavoidable mistakes. Right then, Memo was feeling so depressed by his failure, and so relieved by Chandler’s understanding reaction, that he suddenly felt impelled to give him some information for free, something he would never have done otherwise.

That worm isn’t a Sovier, he said.

Chandler looked at him, surprised.

What do you mean? he asked.

Memo rewound the recording and began to show Chandler certain parts of it, commenting on some of the images when he felt it necessary.

You see, Con? he said, eager as a puppy dog waiting for a bone. No Sovier would be so fascinated by everything he sees. It’s as if he’d never seen anything like it in his whole life. I’m not talking just about the Whirld itself, but about things they have in the Mandate too, and which should be absolutely normal for him. I mean, just look at him in front of that transit booth!

Hmm, Chandler stroked his chin, covered by a hard two-day beard. Sure, it’s weird. But if he’s not a Sovier, what is he?

There’re some wells in the Confederacy more deversioned than others, do you confirm?

Confirmed. I told you that myself. But it’s highly unlikely he came from here, if he really is a personality chips trader.

And what if he isn’t?

All right, Memo, Chandler smiled, you made a mistake, but you’ve still done a good job. I’ll get some of the boys to keep an eye on your greenhorn and we’ll see what happens. Maybe we can find something valuable. But the important prey is still the Sovier. I want you and Fingers to relieve the team in his hotel tonight. Follow him.

Do you think he’s going to go out tonight?

I hope so. Now, rest a few hours. Wait, give me a copy of your greenhorn recordings.

Memo did so and left Chandler alone, who spent the rest of the evening projecting the images, and sometimes freezing and enlarging some of them. This was strange and unexpected. None of his contacts had told him anything about the arrival of someone like this. If they didn’t know, that meant the matter was more important than it seemed. But if they did know, and still hadn’t told him, things could be even more serious.

He reflected on what Memo had said. Someone coming from a Confederacy world so out of touch that he was fascinated by things as pedestrian as transit booths? Ludicrous. If his home world was so old-fashioned, there was nothing for him in the Whirld. Besides, in that case, how had he managed to get an access code? No, something was definitely fishy here. Maybe that guy had nothing to do with his present business, but all the same he would keep him under surveillance just in case. Maybe something useful could come out of all this, after all.

The Sovier left his hotel at 21:30, and Memo and Fingers stuck to him as if they were part of his own shadow. They were both good at their work, and a suspicious observer wouldn’t have noticed anything out of place: just two teenagers looking for a bit of fun. The fact that they seemed to be going the same way as that surly-looking tall bearded man was simply a coincidence; after all, he was heading towards the Domes, and if the boys were looking for fun that’s where they would be going too.

The Sovier (who had checked in as Parzeewal Aronson, the same name that appeared on his codecard) entered the main gallery of the Domes and begun to wander around. Memo and Fingers, keeping in character, let him go while they looked at some of the holostore window displays. Fingers pretended to be especially interested in one that showed a couple making love in a Zero Gravity Dome, but Memo didn’t seem to be attracted by it, and the two began to argue. Finally, when their target had moved almost out of sight, Fingers was apparently persuaded by Memo, and they turned off down a side passage, in a completely different direction from the one the Sovier had taken.

Both of them were familiar with not only that gallery but all the others, and they had in fact taken a shortcut that would put them just behind Aronson again. There was a small chance that during the short period he was out of sight he might turn round and go back the way he had come, but this was a calculated risk.

They came back to the main gallery just in time to see how Aronson had stopped at a holostore display advertising a new model of pleasure droid. The advert was suggestive and promised to make thousands of impossible fantasies come true. Memo knew the place: it was a filthy spot with most of the droids in a state of minimal functionality; some of them would never have passed a quality inspection. Someone had told him that, once, one of them had jammed in the middle of the act, with its legs around the client, constricting him more and more in a deadly lock. The poor guy hadn’t even been able to scream when the droid (moaning lasciviously and whispering something like give it to me, baby, come on, give me everything) broke his backbone. The owner of the place had had to fork out for full medulla regeneration for the unfortunate client, and could barely scrape together the money needed to bribe the peri in charge of the case not to have the joint closed down.

Aronson finished looking at the storefront and headed for a public information booth. Once inside, he slid his codecard into the groove, and an isolation cone at once dropped over him. Memo made a quick sign to Fingers and they approached the booth. The appendages that gave Fingers his nickname were as thin and flexible as tentacles, but very much more skillful. A few seconds of manipulation were enough for him to open a small window in the cone, so that they could peep inside. Aronson was scrolling rapidly through the index, apparently not very interested in what he saw. He reached the restricted area point but just continued without any problem. The access codes of