Aboriginal Science Fiction, Issues 57–58 — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

scored these smokes, we'd still be using each other. Newell could not resist moving over to the loose floorboard and extracting the map for anoth- er look. According to the dotted line, the escape route required a treacherous descent into the Gorge. Years of preconditioned fear of the Gorge made this seem impossible, but at the same time, it was the only logical starting point. Jf we’re not supposed to get out, it only makes sense that it look like we can’t. An hour after sundown, they sneaked out of the village and hiked to the spot where Heller had performed Brackett’s ash-dumping ceremony. Danoff smiled at some obscure irony. Newell placed it: joining the dead. “After you,” he said, gesturing expansively. She paced along the edge, staring down toward hope. X (44 Hee said a word, sir,” said Sal Briggs, head of Interrogation Section. “He’s as clamp-mouthed as they come. You'd think he didn’t speak English.” Who is this rube? Royer wondered. I wonder if he even graduated from college. “Standard methods don’t seem to be working,” Briggs continued sourly through a mouthful of donut. “He seems to be expecting us to hurt him or something. We can’t do that, naturally, but maybe we could program a robot ...?” Royer cut him off. “Drug him up or something. And fast. We’ve got to know if anyone was with him.” Briggs nodded, spraying a few crumbs. Royer paced out of the grilling room, fiddling with his sideburns, considering either retirement or defection. Xl he descent to the Gorge floor took them over five hours, grunting and sweating, expecting to lose their grips. After they managed to get over an initial overhang, however, the cliffside had been strangely more coopera- tive, footholds and occasional ledges to rest on. Whoever sent the map, Newell had thought, knew that it could be done, somehow. Her hands were torn and bleeding when she finally flopped unceremoniously to the blissfully flat surface of the Gorge floor. Danoff was waiting there for her, sitting and gnawing on a hunk of bread. Obviously exhausted, he pretended not to be. “Bread?” he asked. She shook her head, looking down at her pack. “This'll last us three days tops, if we’re lucky,” she warned. “The map won’t do us any good if we starve before we’re out of here.” The Chaldron Aboriginal Science Fiction — Summer 1998 Gomicbooks,com Danoff shrugged, swallowed, and packed up the bread. They slept there till sunrise. Newell woke up, wrecked and battered, and sipped water from a canteen. The map’s dotted line led west, deeper into the gorge; then they would ascend a steep but presumably manageable cliffwall that led out of the mountains into Whatever. I suppose it doesn’t matter, she thought, watch- ing Danoff forge haphazardly in front of her. So long as it’s different. Xll aymond Malcolm stared at his boss, who R= thoughtfully behind his desk in a pose of stressed authority, fingers steepled under his chin, unshaven, tie loose. Malcolm had always respected Mr. Royer, but it looked as if this one was out of his reach. “So much for need-to-know,” Royer muttered. Malcolm nodded. Too many people knew already, the streetwalkers, interrogators, watch- ers. All of them were sworn to secrecy, of course, but the media would definitely shell out the big bucks to spread this scandal across the country like squeeze margarine, even if it resulted in the U.S. getting ostracized by every industrialized nation on the map. As if reading Malcolm’s thoughts, Royer spoke up. “There’s nothing else to do,” he said. “The escapee’s a clam. We'll have to assume he was alone, program a robot for a lethal injection.” “What if he wasn’t alone, sir?” Malcolm said. “If he wasn’t alone, we're screwed,” Royer muttered, finally opting for defection. “Technically, violat- ing the Peace Drug Act could be con- <q strued as an act fae ay) of war, whatev- ‘} er that means m these days. We'll be isolat- -| ed from every PA civilized B nation in the =) world. No trading, no exploiting completely on our own.” Malcolm smiled. “Maybe people will finally