a small enticing snippet
from
Buffalogenesis
by
Lawrence M. Schoen
One moment I was having a very enjoyable dream involving a gorgeous reference librarian and an inappropriate repayment plan for some late books, and then the girl, the books, and the library itself all faded away, leaving me standing in an abattoir. It was all concrete, bad lighting, and meat hooks. The heavy odor of industrial cleaner hung in the air, but failed to mask the scent of blood that had me on the edge of retching with my first breath.
"Well, well, well," said a voice behind me, "if it is not Amazing Conroy. Come home like hypnotist prodigal son."
Even if the setting hadn't clued me in, I would have recognized that voice by the second syllable. Deep and gravely, with a thick Russian accent, it made me realize that I was dreaming and a rogue telepath had just invaded my unconscious mind. The very person I'd left the planet to avoid had found me already.
I turned to face him, a giant of a man, big as any Russian bear and twice as mean. Close-set, piggy grey eyes glared down at me from the maniacal face of Gregor Ivanovich Skazhitski, dream tracker and professional enforcer for a Russian black market beef tsar. The butcher's whites he wore bore innumerable blood stains. Wet flecks of red speckled his face and beard, his hands and arms. It was real only in so much as it reflected his image of himself. The man wasn't big on subtlety; he planned to slaughter me.
"Gregor," I said, "What a surprise! But you didn't have to go to all this trouble. You could have just sent a card. Or flowers, flowers are always nice."
One of Gregor's ham-like hands clapped me on the shoulder and nearly drove me to my knees. "Conroy, Conroy, do not be so comical. I think I detect nothing amazing about you. Perhaps you are victim of, how do you say? Misnomer? I expect you be amazing. I expect you have my money and buy back shame you have brought my sister."
I winced. I'd managed to forget the particulars of why I owed Skazhitski. During my last performance on Earth I'd mistakenly allowed Gregor's sister to be among my volunteers. I'd been booked into a seedy club in Kansas City, a private, after-hours function for some movers and shakers in town for a cattle industry convention. The teenage girl had snuck into the room, but nonetheless her brother blamed me. After all, I'd pulled her up on stage and hypnotized her.
Although well within the bounds of decency, some of the antics I'd put her through had not set well with her devoted and protective sibling. Gregor had accompanied a Russian beef syndicate leader, and earlier in the day quite literally ripped off the arms of the opposition during an "accident" and "misunderstanding." The local authorities had been bought off, but it wouldn't do for Gregor to maim someone else so soon, especially for a personal matter. Instead, he had visited my dressing room after the show and offered to let me buy back the insult to his sister. I'd agreed. It seemed better than the alternative. Gregor had named a huge sum, but I didn't have anything approaching that kind of money. He took what cash I had and my marker for the rest, tacking on interest at a rate that redefined usury. Self-preservation being the better part of valor, I skipped town, skipped Earth, skipped the solar system.
"I learn you are courier now, Conroy. It is buffalo dog work that brings you back. I learn this two hours ago when your ship land and its passenger list go online. I drop my other work. I take leave of absence so that I may come see you personally."
"How is work? Still in the enforcer business?"
"I am still deciding which part I like best, hunting a man down in his dreams, or hurting him while he is awake. It is good that I get to do both."
"So rare to find someone who enjoys his work," I said. "Speaking of work, I probably ought to be waking up about now. I have to turn over that buffalo dog you mentioned."
"Yes, is why I am visiting you. Surely you planned to contact me and repay debt you owe for insulting my sister."
Acutely aware of my arms and how pleasantly they remained connected to my torso, I nodded. "I should have half a million credits this morning," I said. "More than enough to cover what I owe."
Gregor's face broke out into a huge grin showing rows of perfect teeth that were surely the pride of Russian orthodonture. "Conroy, Conroy, always you are making with funny ha ha. That is not enough money for debt."
"What? Half a million more than covers the original marker."
"Da, but the interest I am charging you, it compounds daily. Plus, my sister fills with distress when she learns you leave planet without repaying insult to her honor. To ease her remorse I add punitive charges, malfeasance charges, liability charges. Then when you do not return for more than year, I add interest charges on other charges. They compound too."
"Your sister's honor has compounded interest? Okay, how much are you saying I owe?"
"Two million four hundred thousand nine hundred eighteen credits," said Gregor. "You promised to pay for insult to my sister. But then you run. I give you last chance to honor your word."
"That's crazy, I don't have that kind of money."
"If you do not honor your word, I make you pay in other way. And do not think you can go missing again. I will find you when you sleep. I will catch you in your dreams."
I know a thing or two about the human mind. I looked around the slaughterhouse and thought about other nightmarish scenarios he could conjure and keep me in, and quickly put the thought out of my mind. "I'll get you your money, Gregor. But I'm going to need more time."
"See, now you are amazing. I have every confidence you will figure it all out quickly like genius man."
Gregor stepped even closer to me, one hand still clamped to my shoulder. "Genius man, eh? Okay, Amazing Conroy, I will give you till noon tomorrow to find money you owe me. Maybe you can convince bosses you are now working for to give special bonus, or advance for next several jobs. I do not care. You buy back insult in one day, or I will track you down. I will avenge the dishonor you did my sister, Mister Amazing Conroy. I will pluck your arms off like butterfly wings. I will butcher you like calf and leave meat for crows and wolves and other creatures who will grow fat eating meat of man who breaks his word. Bye bye."
Gregor released me, pivoted around on one foot and began walking away. I called after him.
"If, I mean, when I get the money, how will I find you?"
"Do not worry of finding me. In one day, I find you. As soon as you go to sleep, I find you. Bye bye."
And just that simply the dream ended and I was lying in bed, chilled to my bones with a buffalo dog licking my face.
#
I'm not really a buffalo dog courier. Prior to this trip I'd been making my living, such as it was, as the Amazing Conroy, stage hypnotist. I've never been an animal lover. It's hard to make a fast exit from a seedy spaceport lounge when you're dragging some leashed beast, ten kilos of kibble, and assorted squeak toys. Yet here I was, sprawled on a couch in a luxury cabin feeding treats to an alien critter. Oh, I'll admit he was cute. Picture a bison from the North American plains, scale it down to the size of a breadbox, give it the kind of large, soulful, liquid eyes that you find on those velvet paintings hanging in your better art museums and you're pretty close. The particular fellow on my chest I'd named Reggie, and I was being paid five hundred thousand credits as a courier to deliver him into the care of some suit from the Wada Consortium.
Part of what makes buffalo dogs so valuable is that they fart oxygen. Another is their ability to consume anything. For the last day and a half I'd been feeding Reggie the disassembled pieces of a tenor saxophone I'd acquired from another courier in a poker game a week before. He ate the keys and the levers and particularly liked the pads.
The trip from Gibrahl, the Arcon world where all buffalo dogs came from, ran about three weeks. I'd started trying to teach Reggie some tricks, but the buffalito wasn't holding up his end of the bargain. I'd dangle spare nuts and bolts treats to get him to beg or roll over or play dead, but it was pointless. The only trick he learned was to shake, and he wouldn't even do that on command. Sometimes he'd just wake up from a nap, race over and haul up short. Then he'd extend one tiny front hoof for me to shake. There you have it; Reggie was just incredibly cute.
The same could not be said for the second buffalo dog in my care. With a little self hypnotic misdirection I had accomplished the impossible and smuggled a second buffalito off Gibrahl. The Wada Consortium owned Reggie, my lawfully acquired courier package, but according to the registration papers I'd forged, I was the sole owner of Carla Espinoza. I had named her, after a security guard, and like her namesake she was mean. Where Reggie cavorted and yipped with delight, Carla sulked and stewed. Reggie would delicately accept saxophone bits from my fingertips, but after almost losing several fingers, I fed Carla from a dish. Sweet tempered Reggie slept with me in my bunk each night, happily curling up in the crook of my arm, his soft fur smelly faintly like burning leaves and lazy afternoons. Vicious Carla stayed in the sonic-walled pen that came standard in all couriers' cabins. That suited her fine, and she snapped at me if I even hinted at trespassing into her space.
Reggie would net me half a million credits. If Carla had been sterile, as her papers stated, she would have been worth twenty times that. But the papers lied. On more than one occasion, when returning from the mess or an evening card game, I'd found Reggie had breached the sonic barrier and gotten into Carla's pen. The attention didn't improve her disposition any, but it did prove she wasn't sterile. Days before the Bucephalous entered the solar system, Carla Espinoza, my smuggled buffalo dog, the one I was sole owner of, was very pregnant. Did I mention that the Arconi maintained their monopoly of buffalo dogs by sterilizing all female buffalitos before allowing any off Gibrahl?
#
My fellow couriers had instructed me on the particulars of clearing customs. The only reason anyone ever went to Gibrahl was for the buffalo dog trade, and the Bucephalous and everyone onboard it worked for the Wada Consortium. All I had to do was walk through a security arch, hand over my buffalito, and collect my payment chit. I intended to carry Reggie tucked under one arm, but that wouldn't work for Carla. Instead, with great care I stuffed the wooly mommy-to-be in my carpet bag, nestling her amidst my meager possessions. Carla did not approve. Once inside the bag she immediately began taking bites out of everything, beginning with a bottle of alien whisky I'd picked up in the duty free shop. An aroma of minty bourbon drenched my spare clothes and wafted from the bag. But the vapors seemed to calm Carla, and she snuggled up and went to sleep. Closing up the carpet bag I grabbed Reggie and left the ship.
As the newest of the couriers I stood dead last in the line to clear customs. We waited patiently, each with luggage in one hand and a doggie squirming under the other arm, bleating and panting (the doggies, not the couriers). Every now and then my carpet bag would jerk as Carla Espinoza shifted in her sleep, but no one seemed to notice.
I'd been watching the other couriers, and the procedure seemed pretty routine. One by one each set his doggie in a wheeled, ceramo crate marked 'biological sample' that automatically weighed and measured the animal. A customs official then checked the encrypted ID tags against the paperwork. Any personal possessions were set on a belt and run through a scanner, while the courier walked through a security arch.
Beyond the arch I could see an armored car bearing the logo of the Wada Consortium, accompanied by half a dozen security guards. A licensed surrogate stood nearby, a meter and a half of gleaming metal and ceramo shaped like a headless ballet dancer with a display panel embedded in its chest. The drone was a stand-in for some Wada executive, linking in via satellite because he was too important to show up in the flesh. Alongside the drone and only slightly taller than it, stood a young, Asian woman in an impeccable business suit. She seemed to be checking off each courier on a clipboard and, at a signal from the drone, handing out credit chits.
It had been about eight o'clock, local time, when I'd awoken from my dream visit with Gregor. I'd gotten in line with the other couriers about nine, and when my turn finally came the morning was well on its way to noon. If I wanted to keep my arms neatly attached to my shoulders, I had only twenty-four hours to get hold of more than two million credits. Time for the first hurdle.
I stepped up to the custom's agent with a big smile on my face. I winked, and handed her Reggie's paperwork, then set the little fellow in a waiting crate. He whined when I let go, and his big liquid eyes locked on mine, imploring. I did my best to ignore his expression of heartbreak, even as I flashed back to feeding him saxophone bits and waking up to his tiny blue tongue licking my face. I looked away as the agent sealed the lid. He didn't belong to me, and I didn't have time for pets. Carla Espinoza was a different matter; she was an investment, not a pet.
I put Reggie out of my mind and my luggage on the belt. Then, humming a little ditty, I walked through security, clearing the arch without a hitch. My carpet bag didn't fare as well. As it passed through the scanner a dozen different alarms started up all around us. The other buffalitos, their crates already loaded on the armored car, began bleating in terror. The surrogate scampered in place with apparent indecision while the woman accompanying it, and the few couriers that hadn't already exited through the main terminal, all showed good sense and dropped to the ground. I spent several seconds standing there in confusion. That's about how long it took for six security guards and two customs agents to surround me with their weapons drawn.
"Put your hands on your head and lie flat on the ground."
A boot in the middle of my back gave me further encouragement, and I was cheek to floor in less time than it takes to tell. Overhead I heard bits of a whispered exchange between one of the guards and the customs agent.
"... you think it's a bomb?"
"... too small for that..."
"... ever it is, it's blocking all the scans..."
"... don't touch it..."
"Excuse me," I said, trying my best to sound helpful. "Can I explain?"
Hands yanked me by my collar and pulled me to my feet. I stood face to face with a guard wearing the Wada Consortium insignia on his uniform. A mirrored helmet hid his face, but when I looked toward the customs agents I could see real fear.
"No," said the guard as he shifted his hand to my upper arm with a grip that left no doubt who was in charge. "Just tell me what's in the bag?"
< continued in Buffalogenesis, from SRM Publisher Ltd, due August 23, 2006 >
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