Radix

Soon she would have to do something drastic. It was wrong to go on protecting him like this—feeding and housing him, treating him like a child, or an old man. No, she scolded herself. I won't do this anymore. He's got to get ahold of his own life.
Up on the roof Sumner breathed deeply to clear his head. With the glare of the Berth lights and the blue crowns of fire from the refinery stacks in the south, few stars were to be seen. He walked around to the back of the house and stared north. There were three rows of rooftops and then darkness ranging to the horizon, where a faint green glow was suffusing from Rigalu Flats. He stared for a long time at that spectral light and thought of Jeanlu the witch-voor and his son, Corby. He would have to go to them soon for zords, and that thought made his fear all the more palpable. Voors were the madness of the world, distorts with alien strengths and too-knowing minds. He didn't want to go to the voors. They had abused him before, and he feared them. But the police were coming and unless the voors helped him, the Masseboth would kill him.
A moan welled up from his thick body, and he reached for his back pocket. He stood that way for a long minute, his hand on the torn seat of his pants, gazing north fish-eyed and heavy-hearted. Gradually shame and anger opened in him, and a disfigured cry lurched in widening circles through his chest but could find no way out.
When the pain finally dulled he went inside and sulked over a bowl of clam chowder that was steamy and thick and smelled of someplace far away.
Pictures of the Real Universe
realitysharing
The morning was still dark when Sumner left home in his bottle-green car. All his important possessions were wrapped in a torn shirt and thrown in the back. Zelda was fluttery with concern and tried to stop him, first with threats about her poor health and then with food. But it was no good. Sumner's dread far outstripped both his guilt and his hunger. He told Zelda he would be back later in the day, though he had no intention of ever seeing her again.
He had a large breakfast at an all-night convoy stop on the outskirts of the city. He allowed himself to dwell on his life with Zelda because this was the last time he would remember her exactly as she was. Their life together had been very good compared to what passed for living in most of the households of their neighborhood. Klaus had freed them from the factories. All his life, Sumner had been allowed to come and go as he pleased, even though Zelda was always there to interrogate him when he got back. Still, he remem-bered, she never knew what was really going on. And her cooking—Mutra, that was fine! A little heavy on the wangol spices now and then, but fine. He sighed. Too bad she was swayed by all that spirit yak.
Though he was fond of his mother, he was glad that he was finally getting away from her. She was always trying to change him, and he was happy as he was. Or as he had once been, he reminded himself. From now on, it was life on the road. Zelda was gone—but then, so was his life as the Sugarat. More than security, he had lost his very identity.
His destination was Jeanlu's cottage, 189 kilometers away, on the far edge of Rigalu Flats. It was a lonely ride—lonelier still knowing that he would never be going back—but the voors had things he wanted.
He smiled, remembering his first journey outside Mc-Clure. How old had he been then? Ten? No. It was just after his first kill. He must have been eleven.
It would be at least an hour before he reached Rigalu Flats, and it was a straight, unbroken road until then. He eased his mind back six years to the memories he had of his first lonely ride into the wilderness—
Hunger had led Sumner to the fish stalls by the river where he had hoped to scrounge a free meal. He watched closely as thick-armed men in blood-grimed aprons whacked off the heads of perch and mullet, shook out their guts, and then tossed the cut pieces onto mounds of flaked ice. He searched diligently for the mis-aimed chunks of meat that fell along the stalls. But the competition was too tough—large wild cats that had been bred to fend off rats—and soon he wandered out to the empty wharves to wait for the returning ships.
Watching the inky water slap the dock pilings, he thought about barbecued fish. Its imaginary aroma and flaky dark crust were so real that he didn't notice the old man until he spoke: "You want to get laid, kid?"
Sumner spun around; his eyes snapped to the old man's face. It was brown and wrinkled as a crumpled bag, the ears doughy, the hair filthy and tangled.
"What're you talking about, wheeze? I got no money for whores."
The old man stepped closer. "But you have a white card."
Sumner's heart skipped two beats. Just a week before, he had gone for his mandatory medical exam. All children at puberty were required by Masseboth law to have their genes tested. After an exhausting series of scrapings, injections, and embarrassing probes, Sumner was issued a white card—the most highly coveted genetic status. He was one in a thousand with unmangled genes.
Yet—how did this crust of a man know about his white card? Sumner looked more closely at the old man's face. He had a straight, fierce mouth and incongruously dreamy eyes. Eventually Sumner would learn to recognize a voor by those searchless eyes. At the time, though, he thought the old man was just a river pirate. He was hard enough, with bead-rings in the tops of his ears, a black bandana across his forehead, and strange, smoky scents lufting off his clothes.
"You want to get laid, waddle? Yes or no?"
Sumner stood his ground gamely, hands on his hips, both excited by the mysterious prospect of sex and frightened by this uncanny pirate. "How do you know I have a white card?"
A shadow of a smile crossed the old man's rumpled face and softened it. "I'm a voor, waddle. I know."
Sumner's whole body clenched. Voors could craze you with a glance. They were the most alien of the distorts and known to have deep mind powers. And if those weren't good enough reasons to stay clear of them, there was a long-standing Unnatural Creatures Edict posted against them by the Masseboth. People were hanged for talking with voors.
Sumner tried to back away, but the water was behind him and there was no one else down by the wharves. Three hundred meters away the fish stalls were bustling with activ-ity, and he realized too late that no one would hear him if he screamed.
With a whimper he lunged past the old voor and scur-ried down the wharf. A beat-up scavenger truck suddenly wheeled out from behind a row of tarred bollards and cut him off. A cowled man leaped out of the cab, and Sumner froze. The man's outstretched hands were blue-shelled and barbed.
Distort! Sumner silently screamed. He tried to fight, but the hooded voor was eerily swift. He accurately anticipated all of Sumner's blows and cornered him between the truck and the water. Sumner's fear overwhelmed his revulsion and he went for the creature's eyes, but the voor snagged his hand in an icy grip and guided him to the back of the truck, where the old voor opened the thin metal doors. They threw him in and banged the doors shut.
Sumner raged. He had heard that voors cracked open the skulls of their victims and devoured their brains. He swung around in the tight compartment looking for a weapon. But there was nothing in the back except rust stains and dents. Screaming, he threw himself against the doors, and they buckled.
Before he could hurl his body at the doors again, they squealed open. The claw-handed voor was there, the cowl of his mantle thrown back, revealing a shaved head that was oddly misshapen. The face was moronic, the forehead round and bulging, filling up the sockets so that his baleful yellow eyes had to stare up from under his skull. An idiot's face.