Heavy Weather

Rudy cleared his throat. "Just tuning up for the chase... What's with the malf in Charlie's right front hub?"

"Oh hell," Jane said. "Hell hell hell... Take me there, Rudy, we can fix that, let's go see."

ALEX WAS SITTING in a flaccid plastic bath with a trickling sponge on his head. He was in the back of the hangar yurt, where Peter and Rick had dragged him, after pulling him, unconscious, from the seat of the ultralight.

Buzzard, severed from all things earthly by his virching helmet, crouched on his cushion in the yurt's center. He was methodically putting his remote-control ornithopters through their paces, in preparation for the chase to come.

Carol Cooper sat on the floor near the tub, methodically stitching a set of carpal tu

"You think I could have some more water in here?" Alex said. "Maybe like a couple hundred cc's?"

Carol snorted. "Dude, you're damn lucky to draw what you got. Most days we wash in, like, four tablespoons. When we wash, that is."

A Trouper in bright yellow Disaster Relief paramedical gear entered the yurt, circled around the oblivious Buzzard, and handed Carol a plastic squeeze bottle and a paper pack of antiseptic gloves. "I brought the sheep dip."

"Thanks, Ed." Carol paused. "This is Alex."

"Yo," Alex offered, sketching out a half salute.

Ed gave Alex a long gaze of silent medical objectivity, then nodded once and left.

Alex plucked the sponge from his head and began to dab at his armpits. "I take it you folks aren't real big on bathroom privacy."

"Ed's a medic," Carol told him. "He was checking you out here earlier, when you were flat on your back and covered with barf." Carol compared her leather cutout to a pattern displayed on her laptop screen, then deftly nicked away another sliver with her pencil knife. "There's never much privacy in camp life. If we Troupe types want to have sex or something, then we sneak into one of the tepees and move some of the storage crap out of the way. Or if you want, you can drive out way over the horizon and toss a blanket over some cactus." Carol put her leather stitchwork aside and hefted the squeeze bottle. "You feel okay now, Alex?"

"Yeah. I guess so."

"You're not go

"I didn't 'pass out,'" Alex said with dignity. "I just was really getting deeply into the experience, that's all."

Carol let that ride. "This stuff is heavy-duty antiseptic. Kind of a delousing procedure. We have to do this to all the wa

"I've had staph boils." Alex nodded.

"Well, you never had staph like that stuff; it was like one of the plagues of Egypt."

"I've had Guatemalan Staph IVa," Alex told her. "Never heard of the Egyptian strains before."

Carol pondered him for a long moment, then shrugged and let it go. "I've got to wash you down in this stuff. It's go

"Oh good!" Alex said, sitting up straighter. The flaccid camp bath swashed about in its thin metal frame, and the pathetic dribble of water in the bottom did its best to slosh. "Y'know, Carol, it's really good of you to take so much time for me."

That's okay, man. It's not everybody I know who can throw up blue goo." She paused. "I did mention that you have to clean out the helmet later, right?"

"No, you didn't mention that. But I'm not real surprised to hear it."

Carol tore the paper pack open and pulled out the thin plastic gloves. She drew them on. "This stuff stings some at first, but don't panic. You don't need to panic unless you get it in your eyes. It's pretty tough on mucous membranes."

"Look, stop making excuses and just pour it in the goddamned sponge," Alex said, holding it out.

Carol soaked the sponge down with the squeeze bottle and emptied the rest into the tub. Alex began to lather himself up. The slithering soapy concoction wasn't bad at all-kind of a pleasantly revolting medical peppermint.

Then it began to acid-etch its way into his skin.

Alex gritted his teeth, his eyes watering, but deliberately made no sound.

Carol watched him with an interesting mx of compassion and open pleasure in his suffering. "Blood will tell, huh, Alex? I swear to God I saw your sister get exactly that same expression on her face.... Close your eyes tight, and I'll do your back and scalp.

The sharp gnawing edge of the antiseptic faded after a moment, in Carol's steady scrubbing and the blood-colored darkness of his own closed eyelids, and he began to feel merely as if he were being laundered and drastically overbleached. The antiseptic was doing something very peculiar to the caked sweat, sebum, and skin flakes at the roots of his hair. Great metropolitan swarms of his native bacteria were perishing in microscopic anguish.

Carol allowed him another dribble of clean water then, enough to rinse his hair and free his eyes. He was more than clean now. He was cleaner than he ever wanted to be again. He was scorched and smoking earth.

Juanita chose this moment to storm headlong into the yurt, in boots, shorts, T-shirt, and a pair of big grimy work gloves, her square jaw set with fury and her hair knotted in a kerchief. She had to pause in midrush to skip her way over the fiber-optic trip wires of Buzzard's networked laptops. "Alex!" she yelled. "Are you all right?"

He looked up mildly. "Did you bring a towel?"

"I heard those bastards stunted you until you fainted!" She stopped short at his tub. She glanced at Carol, then back at him. "Is that true?"

"I like ultralights," he told her. "They're interesting. Get out of my bathroom."

Carol burst into laughter. "He's okay, Jane."

"Well, they were wrong to do that! If they'd hurt you, I'd have... well, you should have told them that you were never supposed to-" Juanita broke off short. "Hell! Never mind. We've got to chase storms. We've got to calibrate." She threw the back of one work glove to her sweating forehead. "Never mind... Alex, just for me, please, try and stay out of trouble for ten goddamn minutes, okay?"

"I'm only doing what you wanted me to do," Alex pointed Out, exasperated. "Can't we discuss this while you're having a bath?"

"Alex, don't drive me crazy!" Juanita stared at him. "I guess you're okay after all, huh... ? Y'know, you don't look half so bad now! You're still kinda pale and airsick looking, but you do look a lot better clean."

Stung, Alex switched to their childhood household Spanish. "Listen to me, all of the world will be more happy when you get away from me, and stay away from me!'

Juanita looked startled. "What? Slow down." She shook her head. "Never mind, I get it. Okay, I'm leaving. Have it your way." She turned to Carol, frowning. "Peter and Rick! I'm go

Carol pursed her lips. "Be nice, Janey."

"Yeah, right, sure." Juanita left the yurt.

Alex waited until his sister was well out of earshot. "She sure hasn't changed much," he said. "How do you people put up with that crap?"

"Oh, for us, she's an asset," Carol assured him. "I like Jane! I always liked her. I liked her even when she first showed up in the flicking limo! I'm one of your sister's big partisans."

"Huh," Alex said. "Well, that's your lookout, I guess." He rinsed his arms, then gazed around the yurt. "How long does it take around here before us lowly wa

"Well, that's your lookout, dude. Maybe I could be persuaded to cut-and-paste you a paper suit that would fit you a little better." Carol shrugged. "But you'll have to pull some weight for me, in return. What are you good at?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean what do you hack?"

Alex thought it over. "Well, I'm pretty good at ordering weird stuff with charge cards. If I can get an encrypted phone line, that is."