Radix

"Strong genes are rare," she went on. "But they're im-portant to me. You see, I want to have a baby."
"A baby?" His eyes gauged her. He didn't think she was lying.
"Yes. Voors can't mate with one another. Didn't you know that?"
He shook his head. The sex-ed program that was part of the gene test hadn't covered voor sexual behavior.
"We're distorts, you know. Our children are only strong when we mate with outsiders. If our race is to
survive, we need new genes."
Sumner popped his knuckles.
"Finding someone as unmarred as you is difficult. These are unsteady times. Howlies—people like yourself who have to make sounds to be heard—are dangerous. We have to make the best—" She stopped short and her eyes narrowed. "I didn't know that. You're so young." She seemed to look more closely at him. "You've killed recently."
"Yes," Sumner said, knowing it was useless to lie. Three weeks before, he had doused the Black Touch marauders in homemade firegum. His first kill.
Jeanlu shook her head and said with mock gravity, "So young. And so scared."
"I'm not scared," Sumner slammed back. He stared at her sullenly, his legs swinging. It made him uneasy to know that she was watching him think. "I burned them because they abused me. You can't let people abuse you or they'll never stop."
Jeanlu nodded compassionately. "That's what your father used to say, isn't it?"
Sumner glared. His father had died almost a year ago. He was a large, powerful man, a man who always got his way. Every week he would take Sumner downtown to play pins or kili. One day he went out hunting and never came back. He had been chasing a pangolin with a loaded shotgun when he tripped. The gunstock hit the ground and the charge went off, blowing away the top of his head. Sumner went berserk when he found out, and Zelda had to tie him down. Weeks later when he was able to control himself again, he went downtown to play pins and forget about his grief. On the way back he was cornered by the Black Touch gang, slinky, mushroom-skinned distort kids who never left the shadows when he went through their neighborhood with his father. Now that he was alone, they dragged him into a back alley, shit-smeared him, and left him hanging upside down for a whole afternoon. He was sick for days afterwards and spent the bedtime wondering how his father would have handled it. It was then that he decided to kill them.
Just thinking about it infuriated him, and he could feel his heart thudding.
"I'm sorry—I didn't mean to bring up such painful mem-ories." Jeanlu sounded genuinely contrite. "You were brave to do what you did. Fear is a tool in the hands of a clever man."
Sumner nodded, feeling his anger cool in the face of being called a man.
Jeanlu laughed and clapped her hands. "I wonder if you're going to be as fiery in bed?"
Sumner stiffened, feeling a twinge between his legs. There was a spreading warmth pulsing over his belly that turned positively hot when Jeanlu leaned forward and rested a hand on his knee. "But I want you to know I won't force you into this. If you don't want to be with me, you can go home now."
The offer was almost too good to believe, and he almost moved to go. But the sensual warmth in Jeanlu's hand was magnetic. At first he thought it was the afterglow of his anger, until it swirled tighter and fired his loins into a sudden heat. The feathery scent of Jeanlu's hair misted over him, and he knew for sure that something wonderful was going to happen. "N-no," he stammered. "I'd like to stay."
Her smile was radiant. "Wonderful." She stood up and loosened the cord holding the front of her dress shut. "But I have to tell you before you finally decide—" The cream white curves of her breasts appeared between the blue edges of her dress. "The pastry you ate was laced with a mild aphrodisiac. Nothing to take your wits away. Just something to make your first time more memorable."
Sumner couldn't have cared less. He writhed in the chair as she ran a finger down between her breasts to the cloud of hair below. She took his arm and coaxed him out of the chair and over to the bed. His reluctance evaporated when her cool hands moved under his shirt and over his body. Her touch was electric. In a few minutes he was struggling out of his clothes.
Naked, Jeanlu's body wasn't as attractive as it had prom-ised to be beneath the folds of her dress. It was firm yet soft and well proportioned. But there were large dark scales on her thighs and stomach. She said they were nothing to be concerned about, not a disease, nothing contagious, just a deformity. Sumner looked at them only once and then fixed his attention on the strawberry-gold flecks of her eyes and made love to her as best his cumbersome inexperienced body could.
Jeanlu was patient. She guided their slewed bodies craft-ily, helping Sumner discover for himself how to please her with his turgid strength. Lust immixed with his uncertainty, and soon he was wauling with pleasure, doing things he had never thought possible. He did them again and again, until the mist rose blue in the tamarind trees and the spiderwebs started shining in the falling light.
Sumner was orgasm-wearied but exultant and proud, and as the room fogged into crepuscular shadows he was ready to urge himself on again. But Jeanlu had become silent. She lay in the bed, her eyes glazed over, her breath soft. As Sumner bent over her and stroked the sweat-strung hair from her eyes, the door swung open and the two voors stepped in.
"Get your clothes on, waddle," the old voor said. "Time to go."
Sumner slunk out of the bed and tugged his clothes on quickly. The old voor led him out by his elbow, and he glanced back only once. Jeanlu was lying on her back, staring up mute-eyed, her face serene and pale as ivory.
He was still buttoning his shirt when the metal doors of the truck banged shut behind him. He got a good grip on the wire mesh before they jolted off into the dusk.
The ride back was uneventful. In the dark, Rigalu Flats was a lattice of shadows suffused with a dusty green light. Sumner asked what made it glow, but the old voor shrugged and the cowled driver was silent.
Without asking where he lived they drove him right to his doorstep. As soon as he hopped out, they sped off.
a small time-drenched world
Sumner ran a hand over his face, feeling the memories stirring just an inch behind his eyes. He sighed and glanced at the dashboard. The battery was well charged, enough to run continuously for perhaps three days. In that time he could make it to one of the large eastern cities—Vortex, Prophecy, maybe even Xhule. All three of them were larger than McClure, and he was hoping to find work there. But doing what? He wasn't trained or licensed to do anything. He had a white card, and though that would certainly get him cash for sperm donations, it would also expose him to the police. And if they caught him, they would kill him. At least he hoped they would, because if they didn't, he would wind up in the dorga pits.
Dorgas were the lowest rung in Masseboth society. They were the corpse-carriers, garbage burners, and street work-ers. Legally, they didn't exist. They were functional distorts, criminals, or captured and conditioned tribesfolk. When they worked they were made to wear drone straps, headbands that amplified their strength at the same time that they dulled their minds. The characteristic X-scars on dorga brows came from the drone straps and so did their sullen lethargy. Most dorgas lived many years as mindnumbed zombies.
Sumner shivered and brought his attention firmly back to the road in front of him. Sure I'm a renegade, he admitted to himself. But I know I can make it. There's still Jeanlu. I'm not dorga meat yet.
He reached for an apple and bit off a large chunk. The crisp, cool flavor eased him, and he breathed deeply. A strohlkraft, one of the Masseboth vertical-ascent planes, was cruising about ten kilometers to the south and five kilometers high. It was a silver spark moving against the brisk, high wind that was brooming the sky and advancing a line of cumulus. He wondered if they could see him, or if they would be curious about a three-wheeler heading for the Flats.