“Bored,” the animal said.
“We’re going into the outback,” Ash said. “Flying, Baby. Hunting. Food.”
“Fly!” Baby sang. “Hunt! Food!”
She scratched the pterosaur’s muzzle, which was full of needle teeth. The head crest rose, expanding into a brilliant, semicircular array.
Venus was surprising, she had learned in school. No one had expected flying animals as intelligent as birds. Famous words, repeated over and over—No one had expected.
She pulled a beer out of the electric cooler, sat down in the chair next to Baby’s cage, and unfolded her tablet. One tap brought up Arkady’s address. As usual, it was irritating. A glowing red star appeared on her screen. “You have reached the home of Arkady Volkov. He is out at present, making plans for a new revolution, but if you leave a message—”
“Cut it out, Arkady,” Ash said. “You are down at the local bar, getting pissed.”
The star was replaced by Arkady: a swarthy man with a thick, black beard and green eyes, surprisingly pale given his skin and hair. “Do not judge others by yourself, Ash. I am sitting at home with a modest glass of wine, trying—once again—to understand the first three chapters of Capital.”
“Why bother?”
“Education is always good. The ruling class denies it to workers because it’s dangerous to them. As a rule, one should always do what the ruling class finds dangerous.”
Easy for him to say, living in Petrograd, where his opinions were tolerated because a ruling class did not officially exist. Even there, most people found his ideas out-of-date. Oh, silly Arkady, he believes the old lies.
“Did you call to banter?” Arkady asked. “Or to argue politics? In which case I will find something offensive to say about anarchism.”
“Neither,” Ash said, and told him about the job.
He looked dubious. “I wasn’t planning to go out in the near future. There are things in Petrograd that need to be dealt with. Do these people pay well?”
Ash gave him the figure.
Arkady whistled. “Who are they?”
“National Geographic. They want to do a story on charismatic megafauna. I want to take them into a real wilderness, where they won’t run into surveyors or test plots or mines.”
“I will do it,” Arkady said, and lifted his glass of wine to her. “Capitalists have so much money. How many people?”
She gave details, as she had learned them from Hong Wu.
“Two vehicles,” Arkady said. “Ural trucks modified for passengers. Rifles. I can provide those. We’ll need two drivers and a cook, all of whom should be good with guns. That means we will have to hire the cook in Petrograd. Your cuisine is better, but your shooting is worse, and most of you do not know how to handle a Pecheneg.”
In theory, a rifle could take down anything on Venus, but only if the shot was well placed. There were times when the best thing to do was to rip the animal apart, and a Pecheneg could do that. Arkady was fond of them. They were solid and reliable, like the legendary AK-47 and the Ural 6420, the last version of the truck made before the USSR fell. It had been designed for use on Venus as well as in Siberia; and it could go through almost everything.
“I know someone here in Petrograd who does an excellent borscht—a man could live on borscht and bread—and can make more than adequate Central Asian food. She was in the police force and can both fire a Pecheneg and fieldstrip it.”
“It’s a deal, then,” said Ash.
—–—
She met the National Geographic team in the Venusport airport. The journalist was as expected: a tall, lean man in a jacket with many pockets. His dark eyes had a thousand-kilometer stare. The videographer was a surprise: a round sphere that rested on four spidery metal legs. Its head was atop a long, flexible neck—a cluster of lenses. “You are Ash Weatherman?” the machine asked in a pleasant contralto voice.
“Yes.”
“I am an Autonomous Leica. My model name is AL-26. My personal name is Margaret, in honor of the twentieth-century photographer Margaret Bourke White. You may call me Maggie.” It lifted one of its legs and extruded fingers. Ash shook the cool metal hand.
“And I am Jasper Khan,” the journalist said, holding out his hand, which was brown and muscular.
More shaking. This time the hand was warm.
“Baby,” said Baby.
“And this is Baby. Don’t try to shake. He nips.”
“A pseudorhamphorynchus,” Jasper said.
“Not pseudo,” Baby said.
“How large is his vocabulary?” Maggie asked.
“More than five hundred words. He keeps picking up new ones.”
Maggie bent its neck, peering into the cage. “Say cheese.”
“Not in vocabulary,” Baby replied, then opened his mouth wide, showing off his needle teeth.
“Excellent,” said Maggie. A bright light came on, and the Leica extended its—her—long neck farther, curling around the cage, recording Baby from all sides. The pterosaur did not look happy.
“You will be famous, Baby,” Ash said.
“Want food.”
The plane took off on time, rising steeply into the almost-always-present clouds. Ash had a window seat, useless after the clouds closed in. Baby was next to her on the aisle; and the National Geographic team was across the aisle.
Six hours to Aphrodite Terra. Ash fed a chow stick to Baby. The pterosaur held it in one clawed foot and gnawed. Ash felt her usual comfort in travel and in getting away from Venusport. Petrograd might be retrograde and delusional, the last remnant of a failed idea. But she liked Arkady, and nothing on the planet could beat a Ural 6420.
She dozed off as the plane flew south and rain streaked her window, then woke when the descent began. A holographic steward came by and warned them to fasten their seat belts. She had never unfastened hers, but she checked the one around Baby’s cage.
She looked out as the plane dropped below the clouds. Another grid city like Venusport, but smaller, with no tall buildings. A failure, slowly dying according to people on Earth and in Venusport. Cracked, gray runways crossed shaggy native grass.
They landed with a bump and rolled to a stop in front of the terminal. Ash undid her belt and Baby’s, then stood, feeling stiff.
Arkady was at the gate. On Earth there was security, which grew more intense as violence grew. Here on Venus, people were less desperate; and it was possible to wait at a gate with an AK-47 over one shoulder. It wasn’t the original version, of course, but a modern replica with some improvements, but not many. It remained as simple and indestructible as a stone ax and as easy to maintain. The best assault weapon ever made, Arkady said.
Baby opened his wings as far as he could in the cage. “Arky!” he cried.
The Russian grinned and waved.
Introductions followed. The two men were wary of each other, in spite of vigorous handshakes and broad smiles. Arkady was warmer toward the robot. “A pleasure,” he said, clasping the extruded fingers. “The Urals are waiting. We can head out at once.”
“Excellent,” the Autonomous Leica said.
They picked up the rest of their baggage at the carousel, then went into the rain. The Urals were across the drop-off-pick-up road. Two massive vehicles, each with four sets of wheels. The front truck had a box. The one in back was a flatbed, with a Pecheneg fastened to the bed. A tarp covered it, but Ash knew what it was.
Arkady escorted Maggie and Jasper to the flatbed, then pointed at the truck in front. Ash climbed into the backseat. The driver made a friendly, grunting sound.
“This is Boris,” Arkady said as he climbed in. “Irina and Alexandra are in the second truck.”
The trucks pulled out. Rain beat on the windshield, and wipers flashed back and forth. They bumped out of the airport and along rough, wet streets. Petrograd was around them: low, dreary-looking, concrete buildings, dimmed by the rain.