Prophets

Mallory’s expression didn’t change, but he winced inside. He had been making such an effort to have the test scores reflect Fitzpatrick’s expertise, he hadn’t thought about how much time Fitzpatrick would have spent on them. “I wanted to get it over with.”

Parvi laughed. “I’d like to see some of your scores if you took some time at it.”

“I don’t really see the point.” Mentally, Mallory scrambled for a new picture of Fitzpatrick that would be consistent with what Parvi had seen of him and the results of his exams. “My money’s running out and I need to be working, not being tested by some asshole officer.”

“Oh, lord.” She was still smiling. “I can see why you never made it past staff sergeant.”

Perfect. “You know, maybe I liked where I was.”

“Yes. But people are going to hire you based on those scores.”

Let’s change the subject now. “And how exactly do you go about getting hired?”

“Welcome to ProMex,” Parvi said.

It was a cross between an ancient Roman coliseum, a stock exchange, a casino, and hell’s own trade show. It was named the Proudhon Military Exchange. In terms of area, it was probably the largest nonaircraft-related structure in the city.

Walking into the massive dome, they passed aisles where hundreds of merchants sold exotic military hardware. Above them, holo screens showed gladiatorial contests being held somewhere else in the complex. Everywhere kiosks gave scrolling displays of symbols that, Parvi explained, gave values of publicly owned paramilitary organizations as well as odds on various conflicts based on current wagering.

It was a little disturbing, but not surprising, that the conflicts were not confined to Bakunin. It was more disturbing exactly how many of them there were. When he commented on it, Parvi said that, “Members of the BMU have seen action on every inhabited planet in human space.”

He almost said, not Occisis, but he remembered the chaos of the Junta and its aftermath. It was quite possible some off-planet forces were involved at some point.

She led him on a winding path across the floor to a large area clear of the arms dealers. The area was marked by a series of three-meter-high towers, all topped with the chromed spheres of Emerson field generators. Mallory didn’t need the red and yellow candy-striping on the towers to know that, while he couldn’t see it, the area was protected by an anti-personnel Emerson field.

There was one obvious entry, a round portal mounted between two of the towers. Across the top it said, “BMU Members only.” On one side of it, a small open-ended metal cylinder emerged from the skin of the portal. Parvi placed her hand in the cylinder, waited a moment, then walked through.

Well, I’m a member now—several kilograms lighter in the wallet to prove it.

Mallory put his hand inside, waited for a count of three, then walked through after Parvi.

“Genetic sequencer?” he asked.

“Genes, fingerprints, blood pressure, serotonin and adrenaline levels, toxicology—you name it . . .” She led him down a few steps to a large area sunk into the floor enough to hide it from the public area without use of a solid wall. “To answer your question, this is how you get hired.”

The floor was crowded with men and women, and to Mallory’s surprise, a few nonhumans. One of the two standout examples was the Rorschach-faced serpent-necked pseudo-avian form of a Voleran. Its eyeless, hard- beaked head bobbed above everyone, except the other nonhuman. Unlike the Voleran, the other obvious nonhuman wasn’t really “alien.” At least, its ancestors were of terrestrial origin, victims of morally questionable genetic engineers.

In the twenty-first century, man had not yet established a moral framework around the Heretical Technologies: self-replicating nanotechnology, artificial intelligences, and the genetic engineering of sapient life-forms. The last of these was the most seriously abused before mankind gained control of itself. Thousands of new species, as intelligent as man but—for the most part—less well constructed, were built to fight the wars that ravaged the planet. The weapons outlived the war, and eventually, during the dark days before the rise of the Confederacy, faced exile to the worlds past Tau Ceti.

Understandably, the survivors of that period of human history had very little to do with humanity anymore. Diplomatic communication between human governments and the Fifteen Worlds was practically nil. And even though Bakunin was technically part of the Fifteen Worlds’ sphere of influence, this was the first product of that history Mallory had seen here.

The first he had ever seen.