Lise by DM Arnold (which ebook reader txt) 📖

skin, Lise. These creatures spend the sunlit half of the day soaring overhead and soaking up the sunshine that nourishes them. When darkness falls they wrap themselves in their wings and roost on the highest points to evade their predators.”

“Do you mean ... that I ... that we ... that all novonids share genetic material with ... them?”

“Indeed. Like a photoptertheron, you are a symbiotic being. The structures that color your skin green and your blood brown are in fact micro-organisms, harvested from creatures like the very one you watched soar over the savanna. Now, after so many generations, they have become endemic ... passed from mother to fetus in utero. Those organules feed you and feed from you, consuming the carbon dioxide your muscles exude. Their waste is your manna -- and vice-versa.”

Lise stroked her forearm and studied her skin. “The green corpuscles... It makes perfect sense.”

“Inventing humanoid photosynthesis from scratch was far too daunting a task for your designers, Lise -- brilliant as they were.” He flourished his hand toward the suspended model. “However, this native creature offered a working system that needed only to be mated to a hospitable human matrix.” He resumed his place behind his desk. “As you see -- I know more about your kind than you do.”

“Then ... what...”

“What you can teach me, Lise, is what it's like to be you. I want to know about one novonid named Lise.”

“I ... I don't know...”

“You don't know what it's like to be you?”

“I don't know what to tell you.”

“Are you happy, Lise?”

“Oh, yes. I'm very happy.”

“How can you be? How can anyone be with a registration number seared into your flesh?”

“I'm delighted to have this, Thom,” she said tapping her left clavicle. “You don't know what it's like living in fear. For three years I couldn't stray from that courtyard your terrace looks upon -- not in daylight, at least. Now, I'm free.”

“Free? How can you call yourself free? Watch this...” He picked up the control to his mediascreen. “I'll show you what it really means to be a novonid.”

“Do you think you can tell me something I don't already know?”

“I think I can,” he replied.

The screen displayed a message reading please stand by.

“What is this?” Lise asked.

“This is today's novonid auction. It's about to get underway. Oh, this isn't a channel you can receive on that screen we bought for your mom. You need to be a registered novonid broker and have a seat on the exchange to view this.”

“You're a broker, Thom?”

“Oh, yes. I've never owned one but I've bought countless. I buy them to free them.”

“Do you mean you buy them for the BSS?”

“I started out doing that. I was a member of the BSS, but we've since parted ways. Benevolent Shelter Society... Have you ever been inside a BSS shelter? Shelter is about it -- large barracks, segregated by gender... I became convinced the BSS isn't really interested in helping your people, Lise. They're interested in preserving the status-quo.”

“That's the way my mother feels about them, too.”

“Certainly they don't want to see novonids put to death. We can thank the BSS for the Termination Act, and I suppose that's something. No, Lise. I wanted to do more, so I founded an organization called Novonid Rescue. When we learn of a novonid in distress ... one deserving relief from an oppressive or threatening situation, we buy and free him ... or her.”

“Free?”

“Absolutely, totally free. The individual may live any life he or she desires ... find whatever work ... keep whatever wages ... live wherever, sleep with whomever... As free as a white.”

“There's no such thing as a free novonid.”

“A legal technicality. Once a novonid's title is transferred to Novonid Rescue, there is absolutely nothing the legal system can do about it. Lise ... over the past ten years I have spent in excess of twenty million buying and freeing novonids.”

“Twenty million?” Lise could not fathom such a number.

“When it comes to helping, Lise -- I put my money where my mouth is.”

“Where ... how...”

“How did I come by twenty million? It's a small part of my fortune. My family founded Bromen Enterprises. Up until the moment of my father's death, Bromen Enterprises was the largest and most active novonid brokerage on the western continent... Perhaps the whole planet. At one time Bromen Enterprises owned six hundred novonids. They were pledged as collateral on loans made to one of the larger pomma farms by our financial division. When the farm defaulted, we acquired them. And, we held liens on twelve thousand more.”

“My goodness...”

“Now, do you feel like you've been sleeping with the enemy?” He looked toward her “Not that we've actually slept together, but a guy can dream, can't he?”

Lise rolled her eyes. “Thom...”

“Within ten days of my father's passing, I had dismantled the whole operation. I kept my father's seat on the exchange, though, so I can keep an eye on the market. The Bromen name is deeply stained with the brown blood of your kind, Lise. I hope my actions sponge away some of that stain. I find it amusingly ironic that my father's ruthless search for profits yielded the funds that I use to un-do the very institution he spent his life supporting. Ah... The auction is about to begin.”

“Thom... I had no idea...”

“In addition to buying novonids I buy properties. Just last year I bought the old residential campus from Vyonna College. The college is consolidating its campus in the suburbs of Quadrant Two. We bought a cluster of dormitories, on the cheap. They make perfect starter apartments for novonids ... both singles and couples.” He showed her a photoimage. “This is one of the rooms.”

“It's small...”

“Each unit has two bedrooms, a lavatory and a sitting area. There's no kitchen, but novonids don't cook meals. I rent one of these for two thousand.”

“Two thousand per pay period?” she asked.

“Two thousand per standard year,” Thom replied.

Lise looked at the ceiling. “I could afford that on what Megan is paying me! In a couple of years, once my registration fee is paid... And, Tagg too...”

“My organization also is a holding company. Let's say a freed novonid wants to buy a house.”

“We can't own property...”

“No -- but my holding company can. We've developed legal fictions that permit your people to live like my people. And my people don't like it. They don't like it one bit. That delights me.”

“Can't they pass laws?”

“Oh, they've tried. You see, passing any law restricting what we do will trample on some other white enterprise somewhere on the planet. We have the best business and legal minds on our side, Lise. There is nothing they can do about it.” He turned to his display. “Let's see what inventory is on the block today.” Thom manipulated the mediascreen control and screens of images appeared -- images of novonid men, mostly, and a few women.

“Pretty typical,” he said, “an estate sale. We don't see many farm workers in the auctions. Those are traded by the planters, among themselves. They know who's good and who's not. Once in a while a farm will be liquidated and some workers end up here.”

“It's how my mother and father came to Vyonna,” Lise replied.

Thom continued scrolling. He stopped on an image of a young novonid man. “What do you think of him, Lise? He's currently employed by a landscaping company. Look at that physique. Too bad you already have a boyfriend. Otherwise, I'd buy him for you.”

“Thom... He's not my type.”

“What do you think of seeing all these green faces, Lise? Every one of them for sale. My regret is I can't buy every single novonid on this planet and free them all. I would if I could ... in a heartbeat.”

“Wait,” Lise said. “Stop and go back one.” She leaned toward the screen. “That's Glinda!” Her owner was murdered some days ago.”

“I'll bring up her data sheet... Fertile, breeding female ... seven gravidas ... she has some life in her yet. She's pregnant ... pedigree of the fetus unknown... and with a little boy.” Thom sat back and stroked his chin. “We'll keep an eye on her. My gut tells me one of the other breeders will snap her up. I bet she sells tonight for five thousand.”

“Five thousand? That's all?”

“Five thousand, tops. A male's worth one but a female's worth ten. You've heard that saying?”

“Of course.”

“I've heard it, too. It's true, perhaps, on the farms, but not in Vyonna. Glinda's getting along in years. Her pedigree isn't all that good to begin with, and her little boy...”

“Rinn. I know him. He's a nice little boy.”

“But of unknown parentage -- a mongrel. In this business, here in Vyonna, pedigree is everything. On top of that, Glinda has born five other children, with one miscarriage. She's about halfway through her useful life. Let's say a breeder can raise Rinn and his sibling and sell them into the workforce. They'll bring twenty-five hundred each. If Glinda can bear five more children... Five thousand would be a good investment for a second-tier breeder.”

“But... Glinda was taken by the BSS when her owner died.”

“And this is what the BSS does -- care for her until she can be sold. If there's no buyer, then the BSS will put her into a shelter. And, there she'll stay.”

The screen flashed. “Bidding is open... Look -- twenty-five hundred on Glinda already... There are unscrupulous buyers who'll troll the shelters, picking up discards at rock- bottom prices. I think that's how a lot of the females end up in the brothels. Of course, the BSS is always ready to let a white adopt a novonid. They turn a blind eye to what happens after.”

“Would you buy Glinda for your organization?”

“Perhaps. We'll see how the bidding goes. I have watches on several auctions tonight, but I doubt I'll move on any of them. I know who all the other brokers are. If a good one bids on her, we'll let it ride. If it looks like one of the sleazebags is on the hunt... Well, let's say I'm an expert at bid sniping and leave it at that. Since she's an acquaintance of yours, we'll give her extra attention.”

“Who bid on Glinda?”

“One of the breeders I know. Not a bad one.”

Lise watched the clock tick down. The bid jumped to thirty-five hundred.

“Look!” Thom pointed to the screen. “That's Ramina! Why is she bidding on such a one as Glinda? Things are going to get interesting, now. The market knows Ramina buys only the best stock... I wonder what she knows that we don't.”

The bids began climbing in hundred-unit increments as the clock ticked down. Thom flipped to other auctions and then back to Glinda. The bid now sat at six thousand.

“This is crazy,” Thom said. “There's no way she's worth six grand... It's a bidding frenzy, now. They're not thinking what they're doing. Look! Ramina's back in at seventy-five hundred.” The clocked ticked its final ticks. “Done and done! Ramina bought Glinda for eight thousand. I don't understand it.”

“Thom... How can you say Glinda isn't worth more than five thousand?”

“I wouldn't have paid four thousand. I learned this business at my daddy's knee, Lise. Ramina knows something about Glinda, and her participation spawned competition.”

“Ramina didn't seem too distressed about the news of Glinda's owner's murder...”

“Now, Lise... I know Ramina. She's an excellent breeder and a savvy businesswoman, but she's no murderess. If you're insinuating she'd kill another owner in order to scoop one up at an estate sale... I don't think she's capable of THAT. She'd much more likely have bought Glinda outright in a private transaction.”

“Poor Glinda,” Lise said.

“Poor Glinda? Lise -- she was snagged by the top breeder in Vyonna. Ramina takes good care of hers.”

“I know. But it means she'll be separated from her man.”

“Glinda's living with someone?”

“Yes -- in the Zone.”

“Why didn't you say something? That's exactly the sort of situation Novonid Rescue looks for.”

“Do you mean you would've bought her?”

“I'd have paid more attention. Was her man in tonight's list?” He began flipping through screens.

“No -- he belongs to another owner.”

“Hmmm... That does complicate it. Still -- I wish you had said something. We look for stable family units and try to preserve them. It's too late to do anything about it, now.”

Thom stood and opened a cabinet. “Here is my collection of original documentation. It's my pride and joy. Some of this dates back five hundred years, when the notion of novonids was merely the gleam in a geneticist's eye. It's all here, Lise -- why you are as you are. You were built for a purpose.”

“Yes -- to pick pomma.”

“No. That was one intended purpose. There are too many other attributes. For example, your strength. Novonid muscle is stronger, gram for gram than a human's. I wager you'd easily beat me in a footrace, and if you