Sphincter Frequency
They would come in with all sorts of high-tech stuff, of course. Unfathomable stuff. So he went low-tech.
There were tinny, ceramic throwaway cans in hallways—people’s manners never improved—and he took a bag of them back to the family lair. With spoons stuck in them they were so dumb and so simple an alarm that they might work.
Nikka volunteered doubtfully, “I could see about sealing the doors and windows better.”
“Locks’re useful only against the slovenly.”
“What if they try something when we’re working?”
“We’re too spread out, in different labor crews.”
“You think they’ll do something to the entire family? And here?”
Nigel considered. “No, unless I misjudge that monstrosity of a woman. Something to humiliate me and sober the rest.”
Nikka sat back, startled. Their tiny “dining” table was chipped and worn and her hands clasped each other with a tension her face never showed. He remembered that this sense of inner forces well marshaled was what had first drawn him to her, long ago. “They’ll beat you? In front of us?”
As a matter of fact Nigel thought exactly that. Some methods simply could not be improved upon. This was a strange culture, true, but he was getting the feel of it. Still, to quiet her fears he said, “Too obvious.”
“Some techtrick?”
“Fellow on my work gang told me those white rods the police carry are acoustic projectors. The disk at the end focuses a wave at the resonant frequency of muscles.”
Nikka shivered. She always hated the description of violence, though when necessity demanded, she could quite easily commit it. “Sounds awful.”
“They usually tune it to the frequency of the sphincter.”
She made a face. He laughed.
They were tired all the time now. Not physically so much—before, they had all worked long orchard hours and danced late into the night—but from uncertainty and dejection. Their bedrooms were cramped, bare, and muggy with damp heat. The only sizable area was the living room, entered by a door off a fetid corridor. A depressing hovel.
Probably a little call after they had fallen asleep, then. Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, as Mozart, dead now over thirty thousand years, had put it. A little night music.
Nigel did not see much of a way to get in other than the flimsy front door and the two windows on an air shaft. They were ten stories up the bare sheet metal shaft, an unlikely approach. Thugs were lazy, in his experience.
The spoon trick would only give slight warning. What real defenses did they have? No weapons better than a kitchen knife.
Against the protests of everyone he took to sleeping on a thin pallet beside the front door. The door swung open toward the pallet but the uneven floor matting stopped it before it could touch him.
He did not mind sleeping that way, though he did miss Nikka’s soft embrace. The pallet was thick enough for his knobby joints and the perpetual murmur of arguments and kitchen racket from the air shaft was subdued there, away from the windows. He slept there for a week. Sleep came easier and deeper because he was getting more tired from the work and a growing hopelessness. He woke one night and thought somberly of where all this was going and then a clatter came nearby as a can and spoon made momentary music together. The door’s slight scrape had probably dragged him up from a fitful dream.
He got up quickly. They would have infrared gear, but he was shielded by the door. He, on the other hand, had nothing and did not know where they were. He went flat against the door. No sound. They were probably hoping that nobody would rouse, so they could carry out their plan.
They? Something told him there was only one other presence here. A slight whisk of breath from his right. That fit the humiliating beating scenario, all the worse for being imposed by a single thug. Probably the fellow would use stunners to immobilize the rest of the family.
Where was he? In the long moment after the alarm nothing had moved. His heart thudded into its future at a startling pace while his breaths came—shallow, keep them shallow—in a measured six per minute. He strained into the blank darkness.
Remember that you are old and a bit lacking in endurance. Quick work is the best.
There—a sudden shadow, stepping fast. Nigel launched himself at the man’s back, hit—and slammed him forward.
No point in trying for an injury. Arms around, quick. Don’t let him use his hands. A heavy thunk as something hit the floor. Maybe the stunner.
Head down, butt him in the direction he had been going. Another step. Get some push in it. Another. The man’s legs were rummaging for purchase, wanting to stop. Mid-course correction here—veer left. Toward the rectangle of light. Nigel knew he could be flipped aside by some martial arts trick but if he kept the speed up—
To the window, the soft glow showing this man to be big and grasping for something on his hip. Gun, probably.
Very well—without pause, Nigel lifted with his arms. The man was trying to turn but momentum was inarguable. The body came off the floor and chunked into the windowsill.
He was heavy and solid but his mass turned on the hinge of the windowsill. Nigel lost his grip on the man then and a fist hit him full in the mouth. He staggered back. Taste of blood. A second fist clipped him. The man was still on the window lip. A short ah as the flailing shadow realized that the window had been thoughtfully left open.
Nigel lunged forward. The man was quick and hit him hard in the throat. All Nigel had was kinetics working for him. He did not let the punch stop him and crashed into the man. He clutched the windowsill to stop himself.
The other could not. Toppling: over and out.
Wilco, Roger, over and out. You never forgot the slang of youth. The body seemed to shrink in the gloom, diminishing as it tumbled. A thin scream came back, echoing on the sheet metal.
A wet smack. Then nothing. In the cinder-red glow from the city curving to the horizon he saw shadows scurry away below.
The backup team? Well, they seemed to have lost interest.
He heard a scramble behind him as Ito slammed shut the door. Anyone who tried next would find a family armed with odd blunt instruments.
He sighed. Satisfying. The view from here must be wonderful when there was enough light to see it. He had never been off the work gang when the timestone bristled with light, flooding the city with a torrent of heat and light. But then in reasonable light he would have never been able to play an old man’s trick. There were compensations. He felt the damp heat glow of the ruddy timestone on his cheeks and felt no remorse whatever. Maybe this was maturity. Odd, how much like callousness it would seem from the outside. Made one wonder about assessments of others.
He thought about that, listening for noises in the inky lands below. No conclusions.
