Read Acts of Conscience for Free Online

sounds from the tent suddenly stilled.
    o0o
    The next day, we went for a long hike, northward through the forested, ruined streets of New York, on up toward the tangled jungle where Central Park had been. Gloomy trails, old, broken asphalt. Tall trees and fallen buildings. Openings in the ground, the dark mouths of caves, leading down into the ancient, flooded subway system.
    Zell and Millie were in the lead, pretty far ahead, tiny figures dressed in safari gear, white pith helmets, boots laced up their calves, passing from sunlight into shadow and back again. Phil and Garstang were much closer, walking just ahead of me, walking close together, holding hands. Rua... Walking somewhere behind me. Watching my rear end? Hard to imagine, though I’ve heard any number of women swear that’s what they like best about men’s figures. Probably just looking past me, watching Phil and envying Garstang.
    I looked back over my shoulder at her and smiled, watched her eyes brighten and her step quicken.
    We came out into a bright clearing, a place of knee-high brown grass surrounding some kind of marble sculpture. A wide, flat basin, full of trash and muck, statuary in the middle, a conglomeration of leaping fish, their mouths gaping open.
    Zell said, “Well. This seems like as good a place as any to stop for lunch. Rest of you hungry?”
    I looked down at Rua, who smiled up at me and said, “Sure.”
    Phil and Garstang opened their packs and started spreading blankets on a patch of flattened-out grass near the fountain, while Zell and Millie started assembling the lunch. Rua Mater and I stood there like idiots, staring at each other, half-paralyzed, having forgotten that we were carrying the beer.
    Phil said, “For Christ’s sake.”
    Garstang, harsh, insistent: “ Shh .”
    Into the silence, a rhythmic rumble, a vibration in the ground, breaking up into a sedentary klop-klop-klop ... From the trailhead opening into the forest on the far side of the fountain there came a man in a pale blue uniform, riding a shining white horse.
    Zell Benson on his feet, staring, open mouthed, “Park service?” Such an odd sight. You see it in vidnet historical dramas, of course, but a human being sitting astride a live, half-ton animal? It was making the oddest damned sounds. Fantastical heavy breathing, little snorts and grunts as it walked toward us.
    I said, “Those are Range Police.” Range Police, the planetary security service set up some three centuries ago, after they’d kicked us common scum off planet, sent us to work beyond their precious, pale blue sky. Set up to protect the property and interests of the rich and super rich from the bushwhackers and swagmen left behind, hiding among the ruins.
    Behind the leader there were more horses, empty horses, carrying no one, burdened by small black backpacks. Cargo horses? In the distance, back in the woods, you could see another blue-uniformed Range Policeman, sitting astride a blotchy brown and white mount. Phil took a step forward, smiling, waving at the two men. Stopped short, stiffened. Made an odd sound. Beside him, Garstang gasped and said, “What the fuck are those things?”
    Not saddlebags on the riderless horses at all. Shiny, wet-looking black baggy things the size of hassocks sitting right on the horses’ bare backs. Things that looked rather like huge, partly-inflated ticks.
    Rua Mater cried out, “My God! Kapellmeisters !”
    Correct. Coming closer now, you could see all those famous details. Eyestalks sticking out of the middle of pulpy, leathery backs, eyes on top of them like so many colored tennis balls, seven per Kapellmeister, orange on this one, blue on that one, a lovely teal green over there... Millie stood up, and whispered, “Holy shit .”
    The lead policeman slid a late-model military weapon, a nice, shiny new electric rifle, out of some kind of saddle holster, pointed the long, thin, silvery stick of it in our general direction. “Stay where you are