George R. R. Martin - Override

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OVERRIDE

The only way to break free of a controlling force is to first recognize exactly what that force is

GEORGE R. R. MARTIN

Dusk was settling softly over the High Lakes as Kabaraijian and his crew made their way home from

the caves. It was a calm, quiet dusk; a twilight blended of green waters and mellow night winds and the

slow fading of Grotto's gentle sun. From the rear of his launch, Kabaraijian watched it fall, and listened to

the sounds of twilight over the purring of the engine.

Grotto was a quiet world, but the sounds were there, if you knew how to listen. Kabaraijian knew.

He sat erect in the back of the boat, a slight figure with swarthy skin and long black hair and brown eyes

that drifted dreamy. One thin hand rested on his knee, the other, forgotten, on the motor. And his ears

listened; to the bubbling of the water in the wake of the launch, and the swish-splash of the lakeleapers

breaking surface, and the wind moving the trailing green branches of the trees along the near shore. In

time, he'd hear the nightflyers, too, but they were not yet up.

There were four in the boat, but only Kabaraijian listened or heard. The others, bigger men with

pasty faces and vacant eyes, were long past hearing. They wore the dull gray coveralls of dead men, and

there was a steel plate in the back of each man's skull. Sometimes, when his corpse controller was on,

Kabaraijian could listen with their ears, and see with their eyes. But that was work, hard work, and not

worth it. The sights and sounds a corpse handler felt through his crew were pale echoes of real sensation,

seldom useful and never pleasurable.

And now, Grotto's cooling dusk, was an off-time. So Kabaraijian's corpse controller was off, and his

mind, disengaged from the dead men, rested easy in sits own body. The launch moved purposefully along

the lake shore, but Kabaraijian's thoughts wandered lazily, when he thought at all. Mostly he just sat, and

watched the water and the trees, and listened. He'd worked the corpse crew hard that day, and now he

was drained and empty. Thought—thought especially—was more effort than he was prepared to give.

Better to just linger with the evening.

It was a long, quiet voyage, across two big lakes and one small one, through a cave, and finally up a

narrow and swift-running river. Kabaraijian turned up the power then, and the trip grew noisier as the

launch sliced a path through the river's flow. Night had settled before he reached the station, a rambling

structure of blue-black stone set by the river's edge. But the office windows still glowed with a cheery

yellow light.

A long dock of native silverwood fronted the river, and a dozen launches identical to Kabaraijian's

were already tied up for the night. But there were still empty berths. Kabaraijian took one of them, and

guided the boat into it.

When the launch was secure, he slung his collection box under one arm, and hopped out onto the

dock. His free hand went to his belt, and thumbed the corpse controller. Vague sense blurs drifted into

his mind, but Kabaraijian shunted them aside, and shook the dead men alive with an unheard shout. The

corpses rose, one by one, and stepped out of the launch. Then they followed Kabaraijian to the station.

Munson was waiting inside the office—a fat, scruffy man with gray hair and wrinkles around his eyes

and a fatherly manner. He had his feet up on his desk, and was reading a novel. When Kabaraijian

entered, he smiled and sat up and put down the book, inserting his leather placemark carefully. "'Lo,

Matt," he said. "Why are you always the last one in?"

"Because I'm usually the last one out," Kabaraijian said, smiling. It was his newest line. Munson

asked the same question every night, and always expected Kabaraijian to come up with a fresh answer.

He seemed only moderately pleased by this one.

Kabaraijian set the collection box down on Munson's desk and opened it. "Not a bad day," he said.

"Four good stones, and twelve smaller ones."

Munson scooped a handful of small, grayish rocks from inside the padded metal box and studied

them. Right now they weren't much to look at. But cut and polished they'd be something else again:

swirlstones. They were gems without fire, but they had their own beauty. Good ones looked like crystals

of moving fog, full of soft colors and softer mysteries and dreams.

Munson nodded, and dropped the stones back into the box. "Not bad," he said. "You always do

good, Matt. You know where to look."

"The rewards of coming back slow and easy," Kabaraijian said. "I look around me."

Munson put the box under his desk, and turned to his computer console, a white plastic intruder in

the wood-paneled room. He entered the swirlstones into the records, and looked back up. "You want to

wash down your corpses?"

Kabaraijian shook his head. "Not tonight. I'm tired. I'll just flop them for now."

"Sure," said Munson. He rose, and opened the door behind his desk. Kabaraijian followed him, and

the three dead men followed Kabaraijian. Behind the office were barracks, long and low-roofed, with

row on row of simple wooden bunks. Most of them were full. Kabaraijian guided his dead men to three

empty ones and maneuvered them in. Then he thumbed his controller off. The echoes in his head blinked

out, and the corpses sagged heavily into the bunks.

Afterwards, he chatted with Munson for a few minutes back in the office. Finally the old man went

back to his novel, and Kabaraijian back to the cool night.

A row of company scooters sat in back of the station, but Kabaraijian left them alone, preferring the

ten-minute walk from the river to the settlement. He covered the forest road with an easy, measured

pace, pausing here and there to brush aside vines and low branches. It was always a pleasant walk. The

nights were calm, the breezes fragrant with the fruity scent of local trees and heavy with the songs of the

nightflyers.

The settlement was bigger and brighter and louder than the river station; a thick clot of houses and

bars and shops built alongside the spaceport. There were a few structures of wood and stone, but most

of the settlers were still content with the plastic prefabs the company had given them free.

Kabaraijian drifted through the new-paved streets, to one of the outnumbered wooden buildings.

There was a heavy wooden sign over the tavern door, but no lights. Inside he found candles and heavy,

stuffed chairs, and a real log fire. It was a cozy place; the oldest bar on Grotto, and still the favorite

watering hole for corpse handlers and hunters and other river station personnel.

A loud shout greeted him when he entered. "Hey! Matt! Over here!"

Kabaraijian found the voice, and followed it to a table in the corner, where Ed Cochran was nursing

a mug of beer. Cochran, like Kabaraijian, wore the blue-and-white tunic of a corpse handler. He was tall

and lean, with a thin face that grinned a lot and a mass of tangled red-blond hair.

Kabaraijian sank gratefully into the chair opposite him. Cochran grinned. "Beer?" he asked. "We

could split a pitcher."

"No thanks. I feel like wine tonight. Something rich and mellow and slow."

"How'd it go?" said Cochran.

Kabaraijian shrugged. "O.K.," he said. "Four nice stones, a dozen little ones. Munson gave me a

good estimate. Tomorrow should be better. I found a nice new place." He turned toward the bar briefly,

and gestured. The bartender nodded, and the wine and glasses arrived a few minutes later.

Kabaraijian poured and sipped while Cochran discussed his day. It hadn't gone well; only six stones,

none of them very big.

"You've got to range farther," Kabaraijian told him. "The caves around here have been pretty well

worked out. But the High Lakes go on and on. Find someplace new."

"Why bother?" Cochran said, frowning. "Don't get to keep them anyway. What's the percentage in

knocking yourself out?"

Kabaraijian twirled the wine glass slowly in a thin, dark hand, and watched the dream-red depths.

"Poor Ed," he said, in a voice half-sadness and half-mockery. "All you see is the work. Grotto is a pretty

planet. I don't mind the extra miles, Ed, I enjoy them. I'd probably travel in my off-time if they didn't pay

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