“Forget that for the moment,” she urged. “Just tell me what can be realistically expected.”
He mused. “We can’t make a master mathematician out of a discalculic, but we can enormously multiply natural aptitudes. It has always been interesting to me that many shadows are very bright. We could assign them jobs in accordance with their aptitudes.”
“Advance teams are mostly bio-generalists anyhow,” muttered Thunder-man.
“But it’s got to look natural, and the group must include women,” said Poracious. “I suppose there are women shadows.”
“There are.” The Procurator sighed.
“You don’t like the idea?” she asked.
“It may seem foolish to worry about a few lives, about depriving people of their guaranteed human rights, or about the appearance of impropriety when we’re threatened with extinction, but I am sworn to uphold the rights of man,” protested the Procurator, somewhat stiffly. “I can’t just—”
“It seems to me the rights of man include the right to go on living,” growled Twisted-tree. “If we’re wiped out, it won’t matter what we do now, yes? To protect ourselves, we need information, and this is one way, maybe the only way, to get it!”
“We could be open about it,” the Procurator said plaintively. “People would understand….”
“No, they wouldn’t.” Twisted-tree grinned without humor. “They’d jump at any excuse to depose us, because that’s what people do. Yes. During a crisis, people pull together; they’re afraid rocking the boat will dump them over the side, but still, crises make people fearful, which makes them angry, which makes them hostile. When the crisis is over, the opposition decides to see what was done that might be called illegal. Yes. Then executions happen. Exile happens. If we survive this, it should not be to face such a fate! Therefore, we do whatever offers the slightest hope, but we protect appearances while we do it, yes.”
“He’s right,” mused Poracious. “Later, when survival is assured, the little opposition scholars will start digging. Make sure there are no records of this, Procurator. And damn few recollections!”
The Procurator sighed. It was true. What they said was indisputably true. “Shadows, then. On Perdur Alas, as soon as we possibly can.”
“Strip off your shadow suit,” said the lock in its metallic, impersonal voice. Shadow stripped.
“Place your hands in the receptacles.”
Shadow placed.
“Bend your head forward to make contact with the plate.”
Shadow bent.
Light, sounds, movement. Snarkey stood back from the plate, shaking her head as she always did, bellowing with rage as she always did, though this time with more reason.
“Leave the cubicle,” said the voice, opening the door behind her, opposite the one she’d come in by.
“Goddamn bastards,” screamed Snark, leaping from the cubicle, turning to shake her fist at it.
Behind her someone laughed, and she grew abruptly cold as she turned and glared.
“The mad howler back once again,” said Willit. “Good day, old Snarkey-shad.”
“I nominate you,” growled Snark with a toothy smile.
Willit laughed, uncertainly. Snark went on smiling viciously as the laugh dwindled.
“Whaddayou mean, you nominate me?”
“The name Ularians mean anything to you, shad?” Snark sneered.
“Monsters,” said a voice from a corner. “From outer space.” The speaker giggled.
“No game?” muttered Willit disbelievingly. “Monsters?”
“Monsters,” said Snark. “And they wiped out most of the frontier.”
“That’s history,” said Willit doubtfully.
“That’s today, buttface. They’re back. And the bureaucrats want to find out more about them. So they’re gonna put people on a frontier planet, people with chips in ’em, so the skinsuits can tell what happens to the people when the Ularians eat ’em or blow ’em to forever. And guess who, shitheads?”
Silence. Snark glared at them with satisfaction. That had shut the crawlers up. She screwed up her mouth and yowled, “I nominate all of you.”
“Who the fuck’s gonna listen to you naming anybody,” muttered Willit. “Ma Ugly herself! Who’re you, the Procurator all of a sudden?”
Snarkey laughed. “Who you think they’re goin’ to take? They need a few hundred men and women. How many of us you think there are down here?”
“I never counted.” Willit, suddenly apprehensive.
Snark didn’t answer. Let the bastards stew. Look at ’em. Every one of ’em trying to think up reasons it wouldn’t be him or her.
The hell it wouldn’t.
In the simul booth, Snark lay snug, the flexible carapace enclosing her, the multiple loops and feedbacks pulsing gently. This time, this one time, she hadn’t come in with murder in mind. This time, this one time, she hadn’t come in with anything in mind at all except running away, the way she used to run away when she was little. Sometimes she thought her whole life had been running away from things or places or people to other things or places, and it was one of these she dreamed of now, maybe the best place ever, from a long time ago, somewhere far.
There was grass. The grass was important, the smell of it and the feel of it. There were thickly needled evergreen trees and shrubs growing close and tight along a wall. There was an earthen half tunnel burrowing beneath the scratchy branches, a tunnel that could be hidden behind her, and in the heart of the shrubbery lay a nest thickly carpeted with dried needles and soft ferns where a bit of film stuff was wrapped around a dirty old blanket to keep it dry. She could lie wrapped in the blanket with the film stuff outside that, warm and dry no matter if it rained, peering through a tiny hole in the leaves almost like looking through a telescope. Out there the big stone building loomed over the fields and garden plots and barns, and she could watch what went on: the young ones doing their work, the grown ones walking among them, smiling their dangerous smiles. They had their hands hidden in their pockets, holding weapons, just waiting until one of the kids did something wrong, the way Snark always did something wrong.
The journey always started here, in this hidden place, with her looking out. The people out there might even be looking for her, calling her name, but they
