“My name is Tinker—of HC City.”
“My name is Harvester,” answered the coarse voice.
“A renegade?” asked Tinker.
“A free meck,” corrected the voice. “Disciple of Olga. If you wish to be free from the damnable hive you may join us—wild and free—the tribes of Mount Tabulum. A Tinker is always welcome. There is much work to do.”
“Free?” mumbled Tinker, hopefully.
“We offer you freedom and flavored calories. Join us. Olga will protect you.”
Tinker studied his wall map. Beam coordinates lay across the Mount Tabulum which he and Val had visited. The area had seemed deserted.
“Where will I find you?”
“Can you get a compass reading from my tightbeam?”
“Yes.”
“Two hundred twenty-eight miles. A mountain with a flat top. We will be looking for you.”
“I’ll have to think it over.”
He glanced at Mu Ren and the infant. The dangers of the gardens were very real to him. He had seen the effects of exposure on hunters.
“Travel at night,” said Harvester. “We will decoy the hunters so you should be safe. But stay in tall vegetation and below canal banks. Don’t carry metals. If you cover more than ten miles a day they won’t be able to hold a fix on you. I must sign off now—a questing field tickles our beam. Don’t wait too long.”
Tinker took off the earphones slowly.
“Who was that?” asked Mu Ren sitting up.
“I’m not sure, but we’ll find out. We’re going Outside.”
Fear crossed her face. She hugged the infant.
“The variance will come through,” she cried.
He went to her side and patted her head.
“This is our… Junior’s only chance,” he soothed. “We’ll be prepared for the exposure and try to avoid the hunters. I’ll pack what we’ll need. It won’t be too bad. We have maps.”
“No one goes Outside and lives,” she blurted. “The Inappropriate Activities and the Molecular Rewards—they go out to die. If the hunters don’t get us, the buckeyes will. They’re vicious cannibals.”
He gave her a nonritual hug. “There are Followers of Olga out there. They’ll protect us.”
She was unconvinced, but he began to make preparations immediately. Several trips to shaft base supplied him with extra issue tissue clothing, mending tools, small medipacks, and bedding. Avoiding metals, he made up back packs, utility belts and a papoose frame to carry Junior. Tinker strapped the frame on his back and tested it for size.
Unexpectedly, two heavy men stepped into the doorway—reliable neuters from Security.
“Planning on going somewhere?” asked the captain in a cruel voice.
Tinker reflexively smiled his Good Citizen smile.
“Certainly. A Climb. My vacation. You should have checked before you came over.”
It was twenty-one hundred hours. The squad must have been scrambled as soon as they had a fix on his tightbeam. He doubted if they knew anything about him personally. They hesitated. Out in the crawlway he heard another SS man call in about the Climb vacation. Tinker leaned out the door. Three more stood back by the spiral—quarterstaffs and throwing nets.
Mu Ren clutched her infant nervously. A third SS neut entered with a communicator.
“He is bluffing about the Climb. Very anti-ES family-3. Unauthorized infant. He’s on job strike. She has ignored Clinic summons. Warrants are out on all three.”
First officer took out his set of ankle hobbles.
“We’ll take these two in. Chuck the kid down the synthesizer chute on the way. Psych will bring them back around to ES orientation,” he said, advancing on Tinker.
Tinker’s face smiled. His mind raced. Three neuts, as heavy as he—but without shoulders. He backed up against his workbench, nudging a switch. The room vibrated with 160 decibels of 10,000 hertz sound. Whipping a four-foot flexi-cable, he scattered the guard. Gouts of rose water splattered walls. Chunks of soft meat flew. He pushed Mu Ren ahead. She pressed the infant between her breasts. The crawlway was blocked at the spiral by the SS throwing net and staffs. Neuts watched through the tanglefoot mesh. He dragged her away from the shaft—out-crawlway. An access hatch admitted them into the darkness of ’tween walls.
Thick spongy dust cushioned their footsteps and clung to their faces and hands. Disturbed rats squeaked and darted away. A long climb up a spiral air vent brought them to the surface.
“Our packs,” moaned Mu Ren. “We left them.”
They peered through the louvers into the brilliant garden. Fruits and vegetables provided a kaleidoscope of color that mesmerized them. Even Tinker had never looked Outside without protective goggles before.
“Don’t worry,” he said squinting. “We are safe here. We can travel after dark.”
They rested and caught their breath. Tinker dusted off the papoose frame and hitched it up tighter on his back. They wiped the baby’s face and let him sleep in the frame.
“There’s one thing we don’t have to worry about Outside,” he said.
She looked up quizzically.
“Flavors.”
“Gone buckeye? Impossible. Not Tinker,” shouted Val, pacing around Tinker’s deserted quarters.
The Security captain sat while the Mediteck/meck worked on his wounds.
“Well they’re Outside—and it certainly wasn’t IA or MR.”
Val stamped about searching the jumble of boxes and wires. “Neither of them had five toes. They just aren’t buckeyes by definition.”
“Nevertheless, they’re Outside. One of the Pipes came over and tracked them up the vent tube. Found the broken louvers.”
Val was preoccupied with Tinker’s refresher. He found a straight razor and a strop.
“Does the Sharps Committee know about this?” he said, holding up the wicked four-inch blade.
“I don’t think so,” muttered the captain, backing away nervously.
Val closed the blade against the handle.
“Leave it to Tinker to ignore the nice safe Kerato-Sol depilatory and manufacture his own razor. Polarization certainly changed him.”
One of the SS tecks working around the cot and bedding stood up with his printing gear. His eyes were wide.
“Five toes!”
It was the infant’s footprint.
“The bad gene,” mumbled Val. “They were both carrying it. That explains his anti-ES action.”
The Security captain got slowly to his feet.
“You’ll send out Hunters?”
“Of course,” said Val. “Turn this razor in to the Sharps Committee,” he said, handing over the folded blade.
Foxhound trundled up to Garage’s sphincter. Walter tightened the loops on Val’s suit and handed him the Pelger-Huet helmet—a large light sphere with a granular outer surface and a horizontal bean-shaped view glass.
“Do you think it is safe to go after him alone?” asked old Walter. “His wall charts were pretty detailed. He knows where he is going.”
Val nodded grimly.
“Can’t see any reason to scramble the entire platoon. They can continue their routine patrols. We can only use them one at a time, anyway. They need their drugs out there, and would hunt each other if we put down a crowd. I know Tinker. Maybe I can talk him in.”
“If you can’t?”
“I’ll be in Foxhound. I’ll be all right. Tinker doesn’t have any protective gear. He can only travel at night. Shouldn’t be much trouble finding the three of them.”
“What will you do?”
“That’s Tinker’s decision. My hands are tied. I have my orders. If he wants to lay down his life for an unauthorized kid and his anti-ES mate—well, I’ll just let him do it,” said Val, picking up his heavy long bow. His long hours on the archery hallway would be put to some use after all.