Descending Road - JEDDIN HUNTED by Dana W. Paxson

JEDDIN HUNTED

1529 4D

Jeddin was not where he belonged. Andros were not supposed to be in Poly Town, the all-out entertainment district of the City. With their pale skins, they were fair game for the human criminals who shadowed the bedrock understreets here.

Jeddin was almost never where he belonged.

Here came another andro, dressed in the usual dark bodysuit, a man like Jeddin: pale-skinned, vat-bred, genetically almost human. He staggered, stumbled; Jeddin blinked in surprise. The way this one moved, the andro would be taken down, dragged in a back tunnel, trussed, and stripped of his clothes. His retinas, his blood and his genes would be sucked from him, and the rest left for the hungry street children.

The man blundered into Jeddin and knocked him aside. That shouldn’t have happened — andros were bred with superior reflexes. Maybe his brain-upgrade viruses hadn’t worked right. Too many andros died that way.

The other man staggered, stopped, leaned against the stone wall. Jeddin approached him.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m all rie.” The voice was sluggish, the words slurred.

Jeddin shifted into ultrasonic speech, anjive. “Let me help you. You got a headsmith?” This was andro slang for the virus-induced migraines. He knew how to take an andro‘s mind off the pain — he’d had far too many himself. He couldn’t remember any more his own first attack.

The other andro looked at him dully. The face brightened, then went blank again. Trouble.

Jeddin closed his eyes and entered innerspace. The door in his mind opened.

He expected to find the other man in a sunlit space under vast tinted skies, in a wilderness far from the underground corridor their bodies inhabited.

Instead, a humanoid figure of pure, stabbing gold light dazzled and staggered Jeddin. He retreated drunkenly to his innerspace portal and passed out.

Jeddin opened his eyes and raised his head. He lay slumped against the wall back in the City corridor. The other andro wobbled slowly away. Jeddin struggled to his feet. What had happened? This was no andro, not like anything Jeddin had ever seen in innerspace or the outer world. At a distance, he followed the andro into a maze of little-used understreets.

The andro turned into a narrow corridor. Jeddin peered around the corner. A few steps ahead, a shining green door closed.

As Jeddin jumped forward to try to pull it open, it vanished completely, revealing a long ordinary alleyway dimly-lit at the far end. His hands closed on air.

He ran forward, blinking. The alley was bare and dusty, and there was no trace of the andro, or whatever it was, except a vague dusty mark on the stone floor where the door had been. He felt with supersensitive fingertips for a seam or a crack in the walls where the door had been: nothing.

Maybe he could see something in innerspace. He located an abandoned sleep-cubby not far from the alleyway, shut himself in, and settled down on its thin formshaping mattress. The cubby, its stone walls and floor and ceiling surfaced with blue-gray plast, was barely his height and his armspan. Dim lights from the stone-ceilinged understreet‘s lamps shone into the cubby through a small green armorglass window. He closed his eyes — the door formed in his mind. He drew it open slowly and stepped through into the world connected deep in his brain.

Now in a sweeping indigo sky, Jeddin rode the winds like a wisp of cloud. Flashes of brilliant light from a forested vale far below drew his attention: the same spectrum that had dazzled him earlier. Long-beaked, white-eyed birds of hunger burst up eagerly from the foliage. Would they see him?

Humans could not come here. Their neurosystems lacked the deep-bred andro extensions. Whatever this creature was, it seemed to live naturally in the innerspace that only andros shared. Therefore it wasn’t human, and it certainly wasn’t an andro. This was big news.

The white-eyed birds, their wings dark green, closed on him. He thinned his presence to long wisps of vapor, mimicking the cloud-streaks above him in this inward sky, spreading thin as a veil. This trick worked with other andros. He could only hope it worked with these beings as well. If it didn’t, they might find the link to his physical body, and then…

The birds speared his clouds, swerved, scattered, regrouped and came again. One passed within an arm’s length of Jeddin‘s central concentration, his link-point with his body lying back in the City cubby. He sensed a rich and questing hunger. He was their game.

Story List	SURPRISE ME	Author Page
USER SURVEY	PUZZLE ME	MAKE ELM MARK

HOVER Lucida Bright BARE	HOVER Lucida Bright FULL	HOVER Palatino Linotype BARE
HOVER Palatino Linotype FULL	HOVER Times New Roman BARE	HOVER Times New Roman FULL
PAD Arial BARE	PAD Arial FULL	PAD Lucida Bright BARE
PAD Lucida Bright FULL	PAD Times New Roman BARE	PAD Times New Roman FULL


	JEDDIN HUNTED 1529 4D Jeddin was not where he belonged. Andros were not supposed to be in Poly Town, the all-out entertainment district of the City. With their pale skins, they were fair game for the human criminals who shadowed the bedrock understreets here. Jeddin was almost never where he belonged. Here came another andro, dressed in the usual dark bodysuit, a man like Jeddin: pale-skinned, vat-bred, genetically almost human. He staggered, stumbled; Jeddin blinked in surprise. The way this one moved, the andro would be taken down, dragged in a back tunnel, trussed, and stripped of his clothes. His retinas, his blood and his genes would be sucked from him, and the rest left for the hungry street children. The man blundered into Jeddin and knocked him aside. That shouldn’t have happened — andros were bred with superior reflexes. Maybe his brain-upgrade viruses hadn’t worked right. Too many andros died that way. The other man staggered, stopped, leaned against the stone wall. Jeddin approached him. “Are you all right?” “I’m all rie.” The voice was sluggish, the words slurred. Jeddin shifted into ultrasonic speech, anjive. “Let me help you. You got a headsmith?” This was andro slang for the virus-induced migraines. He knew how to take an andro‘s mind off the pain — he’d had far too many himself. He couldn’t remember any more his own first attack. The other andro looked at him dully. The face brightened, then went blank again. Trouble. Jeddin closed his eyes and entered innerspace. The door in his mind opened. He expected to find the other man in a sunlit space under vast tinted skies, in a wilderness far from the underground corridor their bodies inhabited. Instead, a humanoid figure of pure, stabbing gold light dazzled and staggered Jeddin. He retreated drunkenly to his innerspace portal and passed out. Jeddin opened his eyes and raised his head. He lay slumped against the wall back in the City corridor. The other andro wobbled slowly away. Jeddin struggled to his feet. What had happened? This was no andro, not like anything Jeddin had ever seen in innerspace or the outer world. At a distance, he followed the andro into a maze of little-used understreets. The andro turned into a narrow corridor. Jeddin peered around the corner. A few steps ahead, a shining green door closed. As Jeddin jumped forward to try to pull it open, it vanished completely, revealing a long ordinary alleyway dimly-lit at the far end. His hands closed on air. He ran forward, blinking. The alley was bare and dusty, and there was no trace of the andro, or whatever it was, except a vague dusty mark on the stone floor where the door had been. He felt with supersensitive fingertips for a seam or a crack in the walls where the door had been: nothing. Maybe he could see something in innerspace. He located an abandoned sleep-cubby not far from the alleyway, shut himself in, and settled down on its thin formshaping mattress. The cubby, its stone walls and floor and ceiling surfaced with blue-gray plast, was barely his height and his armspan. Dim lights from the stone-ceilinged understreet‘s lamps shone into the cubby through a small green armorglass window. He closed his eyes — the door formed in his mind. He drew it open slowly and stepped through into the world connected deep in his brain. Now in a sweeping indigo sky, Jeddin rode the winds like a wisp of cloud. Flashes of brilliant light from a forested vale far below drew his attention: the same spectrum that had dazzled him earlier. Long-beaked, white-eyed birds of hunger burst up eagerly from the foliage. Would they see him? Humans could not come here. Their neurosystems lacked the deep-bred andro extensions. Whatever this creature was, it seemed to live naturally in the innerspace that only andros shared. Therefore it wasn’t human, and it certainly wasn’t an andro. This was big news. The white-eyed birds, their wings dark green, closed on him. He thinned his presence to long wisps of vapor, mimicking the cloud-streaks above him in this inward sky, spreading thin as a veil. This trick worked with other andros. He could only hope it worked with these beings as well. If it didn’t, they might find the link to his physical body, and then… The birds speared his clouds, swerved, scattered, regrouped and came again. One passed within an arm’s length of Jeddin‘s central concentration, his link-point with his body lying back in the City cubby. He sensed a rich and questing hunger. He was their game.