Free Smallworld by Dominic Green Page A

on his flagship,” said the Anchorite. “He was dispatched on the orders of the Dictator himself, and a thorough job was made of it. Though the flagship escaped by overloading her time distort function, her crew experienced ten years of radioisotope exposure in ten minutes. Almost certainly this would have killed him. No, no, I really don’t think the crew of that vessel were confederates or Slavers or anything more sinister than good Samaritans. After all, if a ship is called down to pick up passengers and a man all covered in his own blood runs over the horizon and insists he’s being pursued by folks who’d take his life, what would any conscientious captain do?”

    “But he wasn’t being pursued by folk who’d take his life,” objected Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus.

    The Anchorite cast a disbelieving eye at Reborn-in-Jesus’s digging implement. “So? I imagine you’re out hoeing a field while the soil’s still frozen solid just before dawn, then?”

    Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus lowered his eyes guiltily, and wrung his hands round the hoe-haft.

    “But it wasn’t his own blood,” said Unity, “it was poor Perfect’s.”

    “I beg to differ.” The Anchorite bent to examine the ass tracks. “See here, the blood continues to drip and flow for upwards of twenty metres. That is unlikely, unless he’d taken a bath in the poor girl’s O Positive.”

    Shun-Company, still within earshot, heard this and set to wailing like a siren. The Anchorite ignored her. “I’m sorry to disappoint you, but your foster-sister is still very much alive.” He jerked a thumb behind him at the Series Three. “In there.”

    “In there ?” Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus pointed at the unforgiving metal dumbly.

    “Of course. I’m afraid penitentiary units are really not that bright, and their designers tend to over-rely on the efficiency of DNA testing. If a person has the DNA of a convicted criminal, they reason, why, he or she must be that criminal, regardless of all other physical evidence. So if a criminal escapes and wishes not to be pursued by the penitentiary’s warden, why, all he has to do is kidnap some poor girl and cover her in his DNA.”

    “His own blood,” marvelled Mr. Reborn-in-Jesus, simultaneously impressed and repulsed.

    “Yes. Hence the ass. He probably couldn’t have walked to out to the ship unassisted having bled that heavily.”

    “So,” said Reborn-in-Jesus,working through the logic, “all we have to do is get her out of there.”

    The Anchorite shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Series Threes are very well constructed. Even if we had anything on Ararat that could cut into it without killing Perfect, it would protect itself, and it can do so both defensively and offensively. It’s probably monitoring our conversation at this very moment, checking for phrases such as ‘easy with the plastique, Mr. Fingers’ and ‘hand me that fluorine cutter’. It can also send out a cry for help over up to thirty light years. Any government enforcement vessels in that radius would be duty bound to investigate.”

    “So what do we do?” said Reborn-in-Jesus. “You can go in there. You understand this manner of thing. I am only a farmer.”

    “I am not,” said the Anchorite defiantly, “going anywhere near that thing’s DNA scanners. They might figure out who I’m made of. And that would do us no good in any case. Those devices are virtually escape-proof. I only ever heard of one man who could get out of one.”

    “And that was?” said Reborn-in-Jesus.

    The Anchorite shaded his eyes against plasmaglare and stared up into the sky. “I believe he’s just left.” He dropped his gaze back to earth. “Which means we have to convince him to come back.”

    Magus Reborn-in-Jesus put his father in his left ear and the Anchorite in his right.

    Personality-analogues were handed out wholesale by traders on the wild frontier who knew their clientele well. Deaths in families were common in the