01. Spirits of Flux and Anchor

SOUL RIDER I: SPIRITS OF FLUX AND ANCHOR

This is a work of fiction. Alt the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 1984 by Jack L. Chalker

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof in any form.

A TOR Book

Published by:

Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 8-10 West 36th Street New York, New York 10018

First TOR printing, March 1984

ISBN: 27298-03

Can. Ed.: 812-53-276-7

Cover art by Dawn Wilson

Printed in the United States of America

For Mike Resnick -from. one madman to another.

ANCHOR

There was no need to tell anyone in Anchor Logh that the man in black was dangerous. Any stringer who rode the Flux was more than dangerous -- he was someone to be feared for more reasons than one.

Cassie watched the man ride in on his huge white horse and felt a sudden chill at the very sight of him. She had a particular reason for that chill, being of The Age and with the Census Cele- bration barely three days away, although she didn't really believe she was in any danger. The quota this year was the lowest in her lifetime, thanks to an unusually abundant harvest and a high number of deaths among the Honored Elders, and her odds, like all those -with her birth year, were barely one in a hundred. In fact, only four stringers had been invited to the Celebration this year and, it was said, only two had accepted, the rest preferring fatter pickings in other Anchors with more potential victims -- and profits. That fact alone made the ap- pearance of this one even more of a standout than it normally would have been.

He was a tall, lean, muscular man with coal- black hair and a handlebar moustache, and in normal circumstances and with a normal back- ground he would have been considered a hand-

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some man, even a desirable man, by those Cassie's age and older. But he was not a normal man with a normal background, and it was clear to any who looked upon him that this was so. There was just something about him, something you couldn't put your finger on, that radiated a fearsome chill to all he passed. His face was worn and aged well beyond his years, his skin seemed tough as leather, and his eyes, a weirdly washed-out blue, radiated contempt for World and its offerings- He was dressed in black denim, including black boots, gloves, and a wide-brimmed black hat that had one side of its wide brim tied up in stringer fashion, and a black leather jacket lined with weathered sheepskin that must have once been white.

Weathered.... That was a good word for him. His boots, his clothes, even his sawed-off shotgun with the fancy carved handle that hung from his silver-decorated belt in a special holster -- they all were weathered almost beyond belief.

He rode slowly, imperiously, right past Cassie, but those cold, distant eyes took no notice whatso- ever of the thin, slightly built girl nor of much of anyone or anything else, either. She shivered a bit, then turned and began walking back towards the communal farm where she had been bom and raised.

The farm lay at the end of a winding, rutted dirt road, about a kilometer back from the main high- way, and on either side of the girl stretched broad fields of grass dotted with grazing cows. She knew every rut in that road by heart, and every cow as well, but somehow, today, they seemed more dis- tant and remote than anything ever had.

It was a bright, cloudless day, and the Holy Mother was in all Her divine glory in the sky, filling Anchor Logh with her brightness and slightly coloring the landscape with subtle and different shadmgs. It was a glorious sight, yet She was al-

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ways there when the clouds parted, and Her visage was so omnipresent, so taken for granted, not just by Cassie but by all those on World, that the Holy Mother was rarely paid attention to except when one was praying -- or sinning.

Today, though, the Holy Mother seemed particu- larly close and needed, and Cassie stopped and looked up at Her reverently, seeking some comfort and inspiration. The sparkling bands of gold, orange, deep red and emerald green that gave the slight color shifts to the land showed the beauty and glory of Heaven and reminded ail humankind of the Paradise it had lost and could regain, in the same way as night showed the emptiness of Hell, the distant, tiny stars representing the lost souls that might be consumed by darkness if not re- deemed.

After a time she moved on, a lonely little figure walking back to the only home she'd ever known. Although the day was pretty, there was a chill in the air, and she wore a heavy checked flannel shirt and wool workpants.

Cassie had the kind of face that could be either male or female, and this, along with her tendency to keep her black, slightly curly hair clipped ex- tremely short -- as well as her slight build -- often got her mistaken for a boy, an error her low, husky soprano did nothing to correct. She'd been the last of four children, all girls, and her parents had really wanted a boy. Particularly her father, a smith who wanted very much to pass on the family trade as his father had to him, and his father's father before that. She had not been spared that knowl- edge, and was often reminded of that fact.

Perhaps because of this, or at least in trying to please them, she'd always been a tomboy, getting into fights and walking, talking, and now working with the boys, herding, milking, and even break- ing horses. Tel Anser, the hard old supervisor in

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the corral, often held her up as an example to the boys he worked with, teasing them that she was far more of a man than any of them. That didn't win her any popularity contests, of course, but she didn't really mind. She was proud of the comment.

Still, she was a lonely girl. Partly because of the way she was, she never got asked to dances, never, in fact, had even been asked for, let alone been out on, a single date. Those few boys who did accept her did so as an equal and a friend -- and that meant as just one of the boys. It was hard, some- times, sitting around and listening to them com- pare notes on girls they were attracted to, driving home by their very indifference to her sex the fact that she would never be the object of such conver- sations, either by them or by others.

Still, the flip side of that never appealed to her much, either. Perhaps if she'd been pretty, or sexy, or at least cute, or had big breasts and a big ass she might have thought differently, but she didn't have those attributes and never would.

That meant, at least, never having to dress in those silly, fancy outfits and do all that highpitched giggling and gushing about that absolutely dreamy boy in the third row in school, or flirting, putting on phony perfumes and painting eyes, cheeks, lips --  well, it just seemed so damned silly and stupid to her, if not downright dishonest. She never saw why girls had to go through all that stuff anyway, when boys scored extra points just by taking a bath.

She'd never gotten along with, nor much liked, her sisters, either. Of course, part of that was in being the youngest, and, therefore, the target for older siblings, but, later on, it was because she neither liked nor identified with them or their concerns and they knew it. Well, now she was riding and herding and milking while her oldest sister was pregnant with her second kid, the next

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was trying hard to have her first while working in the commune laundry, and the third was an ap- prentice bull cook who seemed content. Some won- derful ambition that was.

Ambition was very much on Cassie's mind right now, for she was The Age, graduated from general school, and on her way to either higher education or an assigned trade depending on how she did on the massive battery of tests she'd take after Census.

She'd always had an affinity with animals, par- ticularly horses, who were prettier, stronger, and far more loyal and dependable than most people she'd met, and this had not gone unnoticed by those who were always referred to as "the powers that be." She was aiming for one of the two slots open for veterinarian's training. Then she'd show them! Then she'd show then all! Status, a true profession, rank that commanded respect, top pay, and a skill that was vitally needed.

Her father was working iron when she entered the smithy, and she stood and watched until the red-hot metal had been skillfully shaped and formed and dunked into the water. He spotted her then, standing there, and frowned. "Well, Cass? Parcel man have anything for us today?"

She looked suddenly disgusted with herself and shook her head. "I'm sorry, Pa. I -- I guess I forgot to check."

"What! Didn't you go out to the highway like I told you to?"

"Yeah, I went, only ..."

"Only what?"

"Well, soon as I got there a stringer rode by and I just sort of forgot anything else. I'm sorry, Pa."

Her father sighed- He was a huge, superbly mus- cled man with thick black hair and a full beard, looking every bit the smith he was, and he had a hell of a mean streak in him and the short temper to bring it out. He didn't usually let it get the

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better of him, though, unless he'd been drinking, and while she braced for at least a hard and foul tongue-lashing, it never came. Like everyone else in Anchor Logh, her father had once been The Age himself, facing his own Census. As rough as he was now, and he'd been even rougher back then, he knew what the sight of a stringer this close to Cen- sus would have done to him back then, and he was never the sort of man to hold anyone to a higher standard than that to which he held himself.

Instead he said, "Welt, don't fret about it. The Holy Mother knows you got enough on your mind right now."

Feeling very relieved, she decided she should make amends anyway and so she responded, "Want me to go back out there now? I don't mind. I got nothing much to do."

"Naw, that's all right. I hav'ta go out there my- self in an hour or two anyway, and if there's any- thing I guess it'll wait 'til then. You just get along now and enjoy yourself."

She thought for a moment, the crisis already far in the past in her mind, and decided to take advan- tage of her father's unusual good nature. "Maybe I could tak« Leanspot into the city, then? I got to return some books to the Temple library and pick up some others."

He thought it over. Under ordinary circumstances he'd have given a flat no, but she was The Age, and if she couldn't take care of herself and gain self- confidence now, she sure as hell better know it.

"Yeah, sure," he said at last. "Take all the time you want. But if you stay past nightfall, you'd best stay at the Temple overnight. With this crowd coming in and Census coming up you don't want to take no chances, you hear?"

She nodded soberly. "I promise."

In point of fact, people were very safe in the city unless they aided and abetted their own downfalls.

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Citizens had full rights and protections and those were jealously guarded and enforced by the gov- ernment and police. Minors -- those under The Age --  were even more zealously protected. Naturally, if someone went over to one of the Main Street dives and flashed a lot of money around, or solicited immoral favors and lived to regret it, there wasn't much to be done, but, on the whole, anyone could walk in any part of the city in safety even late at night.

Citizenship, however, came with being counted in the Census, which was always on a predeter- mined date. That left those like Cassie, who'd reached The Age well before Census, in the posi- tion of being neither minors nor citizens, and dur- ing that period they were vulnerable to those who saw profit in this loophole. There were tales of young men and women being abducted and held through Census and the registry. If not caught in the Paring Rite, which was a fate worse than death, and if they then did not register as citizens, the law regarded them not as people at all, and, therefore, recognized no rights in their case. They became, in fact, property, animals like horses or cows or pigs in so far as the government was concerned -- the property of the abductor or whom- ever the abductor transferred them to. They were even registered, as animals, with the Veterinary Office. The law, even the church, would actually support the owner over the victim, and this condi- tion would last for life.