Borders of Infinity

.

She released him abruptly, so that he staggered. 'Men,' she commented disgustedly. 'Always gotta make everything a peeing contest.'

'Biology is Destiny,' gasped Miles, popping his eyes back open.

'—or are you some kind of pervert—do you get off on being beaten up by women?'

God, I hope not. He remained unbetrayed by unauthorized salutes from his nether parts, just barely. If he was going to be around that redhead much he was definitely going to have to get his pants back somehow. 'If I said yes, would you refrain, just to punish me?' he offered.

'Shit, no.'

'It was just a thought—'

'Cut the crap, Beatrice,' said the patrol leader. At a jerk of her head the redhead stepped back into formation. 'All right, runt, you've got your five minutes. Maybe.'

'Thank you, ma'am.' Miles took a breath, and reordered himself as best he could with no uniform to adjust. 'First, let me apologize for intruding upon your privacy in this undress. Practically the first persons I met upon entering this camp were a self-help group—they helped themselves to my clothes, among other things—'

'I saw that,' confirmed Beatrice-the-redhead unexpectedly. 'Pitt's bunch.'

Miles pulled off his hat and swept her a bow with it. 'Yes, thank you.'

'You moon people behind you when you do that,' she commented dispassionately.

'That's their look-out,' responded Miles. 'For myself, I want to talk to your leader, or leaders. I have a serious plan for improving the tone of this place with which I wish to invite your group to collaborate. Bluntly, you are the largest remaining pocket of civilization, not to mention military order, in here. I'd like to see you expand your borders.'

'It takes everything we've got to keep our borders from being overrun, son,' replied the leader. 'No can do. So take yourself off.'

'Jack yourself off, too,' suggested Beatrice. 'You ain't gettin' any in here.'

Miles sighed, and turned his hat around in his hands by its wide brim. He spun it for a moment on one finger, and locked eyes with the redhead. 'Note my hat. It was the one garment I managed to keep from the ravages of the burly surly brothers—Pitt's bunch, you say.'

She snorted at the turn of phrase. 'Those jerks . . . why just a hat? Why not pants? Why not a full-dress uniform while you're at it?' she added sarcastically.

'A hat is a more useful object for communicating. You can make broad gestures,' he did so, 'denote sincerity,' he held it over his heart, 'or indicate embarrassment,' over his genitals, with a hangdog crouch, 'or rage—' he flung it to earth as if he might drive it into the ground, then picked it up and brushed it off carefully, 'or determination—' he jammed it on his head and yanked the brim down over his eyes, 'or make courtesies.' He swept it off again in salute to her. 'Do you see the hat?'

She was beginning to be amused. 'Yes . . .'

'Do you see the feathers on the hat?'

'Yes . . .'

'Describe them.'

'Oh—plumey things.'

'How many?'

'Two. Bunched together.'

'Do you see the color of the feathers?'

She drew back, suddenly self-conscious again, with a sidewise glance at her companions. 'No.'

'When you can see the color of the feathers,' said Miles softly, 'you'll also understand how you can expand your borders to infinity.'

She was silent, her face closed and locked. But the patrol leader muttered, 'Maybe this little runt better talk to Tris. Just this once.'

The woman in charge had clearly been a front line trooper once, not a tech like the majority of the females. She had certainly not acquired the muscles that flowed like braided leather cords beneath her skin from crouching by the hour in front of a holovid display in some rear-echelon underground post. She had toted the real weapons that spat real death, and sometimes broke down; had rammed against the limits of what could really be done by flesh and bone and metal, and been marked by that deforming press. Illusion had been burned out of her like an infection, leaving a cauterized scar. Rage burned permanently in her eyes like a fire in a coal seam, underground and unquenchable. She might be thirty-five, or forty.

God, I'm in love, thought Miles. Brother Miles wants YOU for the Reformation Army . . . then got hold of his thoughts. Here, now, was the make-or-break point for his scheme, and all the persiflage, verbal misdirection, charm, chutzpah, and bullshit he could muster weren't going to be enough, not even tied up with a big blue bow.

The wounded want power, nothing else; they think it will keep them from being hurt again. This one will not be interested in Sue-gar's strange message—at least, not yet. . . . Miles took a deep breath.

'Ma'am, I'm here to offer you command of this camp.'

She stared at him as if he were something she'd found growing on the walls in a dark corner of the latrine. Her eyes raked over his nudity; Miles could feel the claw marks glowing from his chin to his toes.

'Which you store in your duffel bag, no doubt,' she growled. 'Command of this camp doesn't exist, mutant. So it's not yours to give. Deliver him to our perimeter in pieces, Beatrice.'

He ducked the redhead. He would pursue correction of the mutant business later. 'Command of this camp is mine to create,' he asserted. 'Note, please, that what I offer is power, not revenge. Revenge is too expensive a luxury. Commanders can't afford it.'

Tris uncoiled from her sleeping mat to her full height, then had to bend her knees to bring her face level to his, hissing. 'Too bad, little turd. You almost interest me. Because I want revenge. On every man in this camp.'

'Then the Cetagandans have succeeded; you've forgotten who your real enemy is.'

'Say, rather, that I've discovered who my real enemy is. Do you want to know the things they've done to us—our own guys—'

'The Cetagandans want you to believe this,' a wave of his hand embraced the camp, 'is something you're doing to each other. So fighting each other, you become their puppets. They watch you all the time, you know, voyeurs of your humiliation.'

Her glance flicked upward, infinitesimally; good. It was almost a disease among these people, that they would look in any direction at all in preference to up at the dome.

'Power is better than revenge,' suggested Miles, not flinching before her snake-cold, set face, her hot coal eyes. 'Power is a live thing, by which you reach out to grasp the future. Revenge is a dead thing, reaching out from the past to grasp you.'

'—and you're a bullshit artist,' she interrupted, 'reaching out to grasp whatever's going down. I've got you pegged now. This is power.' She flexed her arm under his nose, muscles coiling and loosing. 'This is the only power that exists in here. You haven't got it, and you're looking for some to cover your ass. But you've come to the wrong store.'

'No,' Miles denied, and tapped his forehead. 'This is power. And I own the store. This controls that,' he slapped his bunched fist. 'Men may move mountains, but ideas move men. Minds can be reached through bodies—what else is the point of all this,' he waved at the camp, 'but to reach your minds through your bodies. But that power flows both ways, and the outflow is the stronger tide.

'When you have allowed the Cetagandans to reduce your power to that alone,' he squeezed her bicep for emphasis—it was like squeezing a rock covered in velvet, and she tensed, enraged at the liberty, 'then you have allowed them to reduce you to your weakest part. And they win.'

'They win anyway,' she snapped, shrugging him off. He breathed relief that she hadn't chosen to break his