Chapter 11

Thom piloted the Drumm roadster over the broken streets of Quadrant Four, heading away from the Green Zone. This part of town was commodity industrial -- the car drove past brickyards, scrap metal reclaimers and foundries. Many of these businesses had begun using novonid workers in large numbers and many of these came from the Zone.

“Lise,” Thom said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said this morning. I see your point. You’re wrong -- I am in love with you ... for you. I will be even if that love is unrequited. As for my inappropriate behavior ... Well, it is, unfortunately, one of my faults. It seems whenever I’m fond of someone I become overly familiar. I was out of line, and for making you uncomfortable I am deeply sorry.”

“I accept your apology, Thom. You have been a good friend.”

“Don’t hesitate to reprimand me if I do it again.”

Thom stopped the car at an intersection. “This is the boundary between Quadrants One and Four,” he said. “Up there is my house. There are steps leading down to the street here, and a bus stop. If you ever need to get here by yourself, this is how to do it.” He made a right turn. “This street takes us to the main boulevard, up and around to the main entrance. It is quicker, however, than driving through downtown. I wouldn’t do it close to curfew, however.”

Lise studied the panel of dials and controls in the center of the dashboard.

“Would you like to try driving?” Thom asked. “Take the stick. You’re left-handed, aren’t you?”

“Yes...”

“I thought so. Most novonids are.” He put his hand on hers. “Push forward to accelerate; pull back to stop and right or left to turn.”

Lise smiled. “This is fun.”

“Maybe you should get driving credentials.”

“May I?”

“Of course you may. All you need to do is pass the exams. More and more novonids are getting driving permits -- they’re essential for some of the jobs your kind are asked to perform these days.”

“I thought it was prohibited.”

“It was until a few standards ago. Then the powers that be came to a startling conclusion that maybe novonids with driving permits would prove useful ... So, they changed the road signs to be symbolic -- for the benefit of illiterate novonids...”

“And, illiterate whites, too...”

“I suppose.”

“ ... Just like the bus routes.”

The car approached a curve. Thom pressed against Lise’s hand. “You need to anticipate and follow through.”

“I think I could do this,” she said.

“I have no doubt you could. We’re approaching the access road. It’s a bit tricky so I’ll take it from here.” Lise relinquished the stick and Thom piloted the car up the hill.

Thom parked the car outside his house and escorted Lise inside. He led her to an office containing a large desk and a wall-mounted mediascreen.

Lise looked around Thom’s office. A wall of shelves held binders and a disheveled pile of documents, some looking quite old. From the ceiling, on wires hung a miniature of a native Varadan flying creature crafted from polymer resin. Thom sat behind his desk and gestured toward a chair.

Lise sat. “Okay, Thom. What do you want to know about novonids?”

“Nothing.”

“I don’t understand. You said you wanted to talk to me...”

“Lise -- I know all there is to know about novonids, I’m afraid. More than all. I have studied your kind. I know your anatomy and your physiology. I know your history. I have a library of material on how you came to be -- notes from the original experiments ... feasibility studies. This is source material, Lise -- original lab notes ... data cartridges, hard copy. I have the largest and most comprehensive collection of material on novonids anywhere on this planet. Much of it comprises rare, original, one-of-a-kind documents. And, I have read them all. You can’t tell me anything about novonids that I don’t already know. For example...” He gestured toward the model of the winged beast hanging from his ceiling. “Did you ever see one of those in the wild?”

“Yes -- just the other day. I think it’s what we saw. It was circling over the pomma savanna beyond the edge of the city.”

“It’s called a photoptertheron.”

“A what?” she asked.

“Photoptertheron ... phot-op-TER-ther-on,” he repeated emphasizing each syllable. Lise mouthed the word. “This is a very good likeness. Tell me, Lise -- do you see anything remarkable about its appearance?”

She regarded the likeness. “A flying beast is remarkable enough,” she replied. “What does it have to do with novonids?”

“You’ll see shortly ... Do you know what the word means?” She shook her head. “It’s derived from classic Greek...”

“Classic Greek?”

“Yes -- a long-dead language from our ultimate planet of origin ... Break the word apart ... photo-pter-theron ... light-wing-beast.”

“The wings do look very light-weight,” she replied.

Thom smiled. “Not the right sense of ‘light’, Lise ... Do you notice anything interesting about its color?”

“A rather nondescript brown, I’d say.” Thom stood on his desk, grasped the model and turned it so she could see the upper surface of the wings. They were a deep, forest green. “Green wings?” Her eyes met his.

“The same color green as your skin, Lise. These creatures spend the sunlit half of the day soaring overhead and soaking up the sunshine that nourishes them. When darkness falls they wrap themselves in their wings and roost on the highest points to evade their predators.”

“Do you mean ... that I ... that we ... that all novonids share genetic material with ... them?”

“Indeed. Like a photoptertheron, you are a symbiotic being. The structures that color your skin green and your blood brown are in fact micro-organisms, harvested from creatures like the very one you watched soar over the savanna. Now, after so many generations, they have become endemic ... passed from mother to fetus in utero. You are aware no doubt that novonids are born as pasty-looking as a white child.”

“Of course,” Lise replied. “The green color develops after we’re weaned.”

“Their color develops as the photoptertheron cells colonize your spleen. I can survive without my spleen, but you cannot. Yours has been co-opted as your primary organ of photosynthesis.”

Lise stroked her forearm and studied her skin. “The green corpuscles ... It makes perfect sense.”

“Those organules feed you and feed from you, consuming the carbon dioxide your muscles exude. Their waste is your manna -- and vice-versa.

“Inventing humanoid photosynthesis from scratch was far too daunting a task for your designers, Lise -- brilliant as they were.” He flourished his hand toward the suspended model. “However, this native creature offered a working system that needed only to be mated to a hospitable human matrix.” He resumed his place behind his desk. “As you see -- I know more about your kind than you do.”

“Then ... what...”

“What you can teach me, Lise, is what it’s like to be you. I want to know about one novonid named Lise.”

“I ... I don’t know...”

“You don’t know what it’s like to be you?”

“I don’t know what to tell you.”

“Are you happy, Lise?”

“Oh, yes. I’m very happy.”

“How can you be? How can anyone be with a registration number seared into your flesh?”

“I’m delighted to have this, Thom,” she said tapping her left clavicle. “You don’t know what it’s like living in fear. For three years I couldn’t stray from that courtyard your terrace looks upon -- not in daylight, at least. Now, I’m free.”

“Free? How can you call yourself free? Watch this...” He picked up the control to his mediascreen. “I’ll show you what it really means to be a novonid.”

“Do you think you can tell me something I don’t already know?”

“I think I can,” he replied.

The screen displayed a message reading please stand by.

“What is this?” Lise asked.

“This is today’s novonid auction. It’s about to get underway. Oh, this isn’t a channel you can receive on that screen we bought for your mom. You need to be a registered novonid broker and have a seat on the exchange to view this.”

“You’re a broker, Thom?”

“Oh, yes. I’ve never owned one but I’ve bought countless. I buy them to free them.”

“Do you mean you buy them for the BSS?”

“I started out doing that. I was a member of the BSS, but we’ve since parted ways. Benevolent Shelter Society ... Have you ever been inside a BSS shelter? Shelter is about it -- large barracks, segregated by gender ... I became convinced the BSS isn’t really interested in helping your people, Lise. They’re interested in preserving the status quo.”

“That’s the way my mother feels about them, too.”

“Certainly they don’t want to see novonids put to death. We can thank the BSS for the Termination Act, and I suppose that’s something. No, Lise. I wanted to do more, so I founded an organization called Novonid Rescue. When we learn of a novonid in distress ... one deserving relief from an oppressive or threatening situation, we buy and free him ... or her.”

“Free?”

“Absolutely, totally free. The individual may live any life he or she desires ... find whatever work ... keep whatever wages ... live wherever, sleep with whomever ... As free as a white.”

“There’s no such thing as a free novonid.”

“A legal technicality. Once a novonid’s title is transferred to Novonid Rescue, there is absolutely nothing the legal system can do about it. Lise ... over the past ten years I have spent in excess of twenty million buying and freeing novonids.”

“Twenty million?” Lise could not fathom such a number.

“When it comes to helping, Lise -- I put my money where my mouth is.”

“Where ... how...”

“How did I come by twenty million? It’s a small part of my fortune. My family founded Bromen Enterprises. Up until the moment of my father’s death, Bromen Enterprises was the largest and most active novonid brokerage on the western continent ... Perhaps the whole planet. At one time Bromen Enterprises owned six hundred novonids. They were pledged as collateral on loans made to one of the larger pomma farms by our financial division. When the farm defaulted, we acquired them. And, we held liens on twelve thousand more.”

“My goodness...”

“Now, do you feel like you’ve been sleeping with the enemy?” He looked toward her “Not that we’ve actually slept together, but a guy can dream, can’t he?”

Lise rolled her eyes. “Thom...”

“Within ten days of my father’s passing, I had dismantled the whole operation. I kept my father’s seat on the exchange, though, so I can keep an eye on the market. The Bromen name is deeply stained with the brown blood of your kind, Lise. I hope my actions sponge away some of that stain. I find it amusingly ironic that my father’s ruthless search for profits yielded the funds that I use to un-do the very institution he spent his life supporting. Ah ... The auction is about to begin.”

“Thom ... I had no idea...”

“In addition to buying novonids I buy properties. Just last year I bought the old residential campus from Vyonna College. The college is consolidating its campus in the suburbs of Quadrant Two. We bought a cluster of dormitories, on the cheap. They make perfect starter apartments for novonids ... both singles and couples.” He showed her a photoimage. “This is one of the rooms.”

“It’s small...”

“Each unit has two bedrooms, a lavatory and a sitting area. There’s no kitchen, but novonids don’t cook meals. I rent one of these for two thousand.”

“Two thousand per pay period?” she asked.

“Two thousand per standard year,” Thom replied.

Lise looked at the ceiling. “I could afford that on what Megan is paying me! In a couple of years, once my registration fee is paid ... And, Tagg too...”

“My organization also is a holding company. Let’s say a freed novonid wants to buy a house.”

“We can’t own property...”

“No -- but my holding company can. We’ve developed legal fictions that permit your people to live like my people. And my people don’t like it. They don’t like it one bit. That delights me.”

“Can’t they pass laws?”

“Oh, they’ve tried. You see, passing any law restricting what we do will trample on some other white enterprise somewhere on the planet. We have the best business and legal minds on our side, Lise. There is nothing they can do about it.” He turned to his display. “Let’s see what inventory is on the block today.” Thom manipulated the mediascreen control and screens of images appeared -- images of novonid men, mostly, and a few women.

“Pretty typical,” he said, “an estate sale. We don’t see many farm workers in the auctions. Those are traded by the planters, among themselves. They know who’s good and who’s not. Once in a while a farm will be liquidated and some workers end up here.”

“It’s how my mother and father came to Vyonna,” Lise replied.

Thom continued scrolling. He stopped on an image of a young novonid man. “What do you think of him, Lise? He’s currently employed by a landscaping company. Look at that physique. Too bad you already have a boyfriend. Otherwise, I’d buy him for you.”

“Thom ... He’s not my type.”

“What do you think of seeing all these green faces, Lise? Every one of them for sale. My regret is I can’t buy every single novonid on this planet and free them all. I would if I could ... in a heartbeat.”

“Wait,” Lise said. “Stop and go back one.” She leaned toward the screen. “That’s Glinda!” Her owner was murdered some days ago.”

“I’ll bring up her data sheet ... Fertile, breeding female ... six gravidas ... she has some life in her yet. She’s pregnant ... pedigree of the fetus unknown ... and with a little boy.” Thom sat back and stroked his chin. “We’ll keep an eye on her. My gut tells me one of the other breeders will snap her up. I bet she sells tonight for five thousand.”

“Five thousand? That’s all?”

“Five thousand, tops. A male’s worth one but a female’s worth ten. You’ve heard that saying?”

“Of course. And an infertile female is worth nothing.”

“I’ve heard it, too. It’s true, perhaps, on the farms, but not in Vyonna. Glinda’s getting along in years. Her pedigree isn’t all that good to begin with, and her little boy...”

“Rinn. I know him. He’s a nice little boy.”

“But of unknown parentage -- a mongrel. In this business, here in Vyonna, pedigree is everything. On top of that, Glinda has borne five other children, with one miscarriage. She’s about halfway through her useful life. Let’s say a breeder can raise Rinn and his sibling and sell them into the workforce. They’ll bring twenty-five hundred each. If Glinda can bear five more children ... Five thousand would be a good investment for a second-tier breeder.”