“Sera,” Eln said anxiously. “Please. Please.”
She turned from the strangers, reckoning the open places about them, the chance of ambush. Warrior touched her anxiously, seeking reassurance. She followed the Eln-Kests at what pace they wanted to set, uncertain whether they were evading possible assassins or walking among them.
BOOK FIVE
i
“The old woman has something in mind,” Tand said. “I don’t like it.”
The elder Hald walked a space with his grandnephew, paused to pull a dead bloom from the nightflower. Neighboring leaves shrank at the touch and remained furled a moment, then relaxed. “Something concrete?”
“Hive-reports. Stacks of them. Statistics. She may be aiming something at Thon. I don’t know. I can’t determine.”
The elder looked about at Tand, his heart laboring with the heavy persistence of dread. Tand was outside the informed circles of the movement. There were many things of which Tand remained ignorant: must. Where Tand stood, it was not good that he know . . . near as he was to the old woman’s hand. If the blow fell, all that he knew could be in Moth’s hands in hours. “What kind of statistics? Involving azi?”
“Among others. She’s asking for more data on Istra. She’s . . . amused by the Meth-maren. So she gives out. But here’s the matter: she muttered something after the committee left. About the Meth-maren serving her interests . . . conscious or unconscious on the Meth-maren’s part, I don’t know. I asked her flatly was the Meth-maren her agent She denied it and then hedged with that.”
The Hald dropped the dry petals, his pulse no calmer. “The Meth-maren is becoming a persistent irritant.”
“Another attempt on her— might be advisable.”
The Hald pulled off a frond. Others furled tightly, remained so, twice offended. He began to strip the soft part off the skeleton of the veins. It left a sharp smell in the air. “Tand, go back to the Old Hall. You shouldn’t stay here tonight.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
One of Tand’s virtues was his adaptability. The Hald pulled another frond and stripped it, trusting that there would not be the least hesitation in Tand, from the garden walk to the front gate to the City. He heard him walk away, a door close.
His steps would be covered, cloaked in innocence . . . a supposed venture in the City; and back to Alpha, and Old Hall. There were those who would readily lie for him.
The Hald wiped his hand and walked the other path, up to other levels of the Hald residence at Ehlvillon, to eastwing, to other resources.
A pattern was shaping.
On Istra . . . things had long been safe from Council inspection. Communications had been carefully channeled through Meron, screened thoroughly before transmission farther.
He walked the halls of paneling and stone, into the shielded area of the house comp, leaned above it and sent a message that consisted of banalities. There was no acknowledgment at the other end.
But three hours later, a little late for callers, an aircraft set down on the Hald grounds, ruffling the waters of the ornamental pond.
The Hald went out to meet it, and walked arm in arm with the man who had come in, paused by the pool in the dark, fed the sleepy old mudsnake which denned there. It gulped down bits of bread, being the omnivore it was, its double-hinged jaws opening and clamping again into a fat sullenness.
“Nigh as old as the house,” the Hald said of it.
Arl Ren-barant stood with folded arms. The Hald stood up and the mudsnake snapped, then levered itself off the bank and eased into the black waters, making a little wake as it curled away.
“Some old business,” said the Hald, “has surfaced again. I’m beginning to think it never left at all. We’ve been very careless in yielding to Eldest’s wishes in this case. I’m less and less convinced it’s a matter of whim with her.”
“The Meth-maren?” Ren-barant frowned and shook his head. “Not so easy to do it now. She’s completely random, a nuisance. If it were really worth the risk—”
The Hald looked at him sharply. “Random. So what happened on Meron?”
“A personal quarrel, left over from the first attempt. Gen and Hal have become a cause with the Ilits. It was unfortunate.”
“And on Kalind.”
“Hive-matter, but she wasn’t in it. Blues have settled again. Reds seem to be content enough.”
“Yes. The Meth-maren’s gone. Meron’s damaged and Kalind isn’t unscathed. Attention rests where it doesn’t suit us. The old hive-master’s talent . . . Arl, we have an enemy. A very dangerous one.”
“She hardly made a secret of her going to Istra. Why make so much commotion of it, if she’s not as mad as we’ve reckoned? A private ship could have reached there in a direct jump. She could have had time to work . . .”
“The whole Council noticed, didn’t they? It was bizarre enough that it caught the curiosity of the whole Council. Attention focused where we don’t need it focused at all.”
Ren-barant’s face was stark, his arms tightly clenched. “Cold sane, you think.”
“As you and I are. As Moth is. I have news, Arl. There was a majat on that liner when it left Kalind. We haven’t discovered yet how far it went, whether all the way with her or whether it got off earlier.”
“Blue messenger?”
“We don’t know yet. Blue or green is a good bet.”
Ren-barant swore. “Thon was supposed to have that cut off.”
“Majat paid the passage,” the Hald said. “Betas can’t tell them apart. The Meth-maren boarded at the last moment . . . special shuttle, a great deal of noise about it. We knew about her very quickly. Use of her credit was obvious, at least the size of the transaction and the recipient, which was Andra Lines, through one of their sub-agents. But the majat paid in jewels, cash transaction, freighted up dormant and inconspicuous . . . a special payment to someone, I’ll warrant. Cash. No direct record to our banks. No tracing. We still can’t be sure how much was actually paid: probably a great deal went into the left hand while the right was making records; but the Meth-maren was right there, using vast amounts of credit, very visible. We didn’t find out about the majat until our agents started asking questions among departing passengers. Betas won’t volunteer that kind of gossip. But the whole operation, that a hive could bypass our surveillance and do it so completely, so long—”
“The Thons do nothing. Maybe we’d better ask some questions about the quality of that support.”
“She’s Meth-maren; the Thon hive-masters have no influence with the blues. And Council can vote Thon the post; they can’t make them competent in it. Anyone can handle reds. The test is whether Thon can control the blues. I think Thon is beyond the level of their competency, for all their assurances to us. The Meth-maren’s running escort for majat; she outwitted Thon, and she’s made Council look toward Istra. The old woman, Arl, the old woman is collecting statistics; she’s taking interest again; there’s a chance she’s taken interest for longer than we’ve known.”
The Ren-barant hissed softly between his teeth.
“There’s more,” the Hald said. “The old woman dropped a word about the Meth-maren being— useful. Useful. And that with her sudden preoccupation with statistics. Istran statistics. The Pedra bill is coming up. We’d better be ready, before the old woman hits us with a public surprise. Istra’s vulnerable.”
“Someone had better get out there, then.”
“I’ve moved on that days ago.” And at the Ren-barant’s sudden, apprehensive stare. “That matter is on its way to being solved. It’s not the Meth-maren I’m talking about.”
“Yes,” the Ren-barant said after a moment. “I can see that.”
“Tand’s next to her. He stays, no breath of doubt near him. The organization has to be firmed up, made ready on the instant. You know the program. You know the contacts.
I put it on you. I daren’t. I’ve gone as far as I can.”
The Ren-barant nodded grimly. They began to part company. Suddenly the Ren-barant stopped in his tracks and looked back. “There’s more than one way for Moth to use the Meth-maren. To provoke enemies into following the wrong lead.”
Ros Hald stared at him, finally nodded. It was the kind of convolution of which Moth had long proved capable. “We’ve counted on time to take care of our problems. That’s been a very serious mistake. Both of them have to be cared for— simultaneously.”
The mudsnake surfaced again, hopeful. The Hald tossed it the rest of the morsel: sullen jaws snapped. It waited for more. None came. It slipped away again under the black waters and rippled away.
ii
The Istran shuttle was an appalling relic. There was little enough concession to comfort in the station, but there was less in the tight confines of the vessel which would take them down to surface. Only the upholstery was new, a token attempt at renovation. Raen surveyed the machinery with some curiosity, glanced critically into the cockpit, where pilot and co-pilot were checking charts and bickering.
The Istrans had settled in, all nine of them, Merek Eln and Parn Kest, the several business types and their azi guard. Warrior had taken up position in the rear of the aisle, the only space sufficient for its comfort and that of the betas. It closed both chelae about the braces of the rearmost seats, quite secure, and froze into the statue-like patience of its kind.
Jim came up the ramp, and after some little perplexity, secured the whole carrier into storage behind the Eln-Kest’s modest luggage, . . . forced the door closed. Raen let him take his seat first, next the sealed viewport, then settled in after, opposite Merek Eln, and fastened the belts. Her pulse raced, considering the company they kept and the museum-piece in which they were about to hurtle into atmosphere.
“This is quite remarkable,” she said to Jim, thinking that Meron in all its decadent and hazardous entertainments had never offered anything quite like Istran transport.
Jim looked less elated with the experience, but his eyes flickered with interest over all the strangeness, . . . not fear, but a feverish intensity, as if he were attempting to absorb everything at once and deal with it. His hands trembled so when he adjusted his belts that he had trouble joining them.
The co-pilot stopped the argument with the pilot long enough to come back and check the door seal, went forward again. The pilot gave warning. The vessel disengaged from its lock and went through the stomach-wrenching sequence of intermittent weightlessness and reorientation under power as they threaded their way out of their berth. The noise, unbaffled, was incredible.
“Kontrin,” Merek Eln shouted, leaning in his seat.
“Explanations?” Raen asked.
“We are very grateful—”
“Please. Just the explanation.”
Merek Eln swallowed heavily. They were in complete weightlessness, their slight wallowing swiftly corrected. The noise died away save for the circulation fans. Istra showed crescent-shaped on the forward screen, more than filling it; the station showed on the aft screen. They were falling into the world’s night side, as Raen judged it.
“We are very glad you decided to accept transport with us,” Eln said. “We are quite concerned for your safety at Istra, onstation and onworld. There’s been some difficulty, some disturbance. Perhaps you have heard.”
Raen shrugged. There were rumors of unrest, here and elsewhere, of crises; of things more serious . . . she earnestly wished she knew.
“You were,” Merek Eln said, “perhaps sent here for that reason.”
She made a slight gesture of the eyes back toward Warrior. “You might ask it concerning its motives.”
That struck a moment of silence.
“Kontrin,” said sera Kest, leaning forward from the seat behind. “For whatever reasons you’ve come here— you must realize there’s a hazard. The station is too wide, too difficult to monitor. In Newhope, on Istra, at least we can provide you security.”
“Sera— are we being abducted?”
The faces about her were suddenly stark with apprehension.
“Kontrin,” said Merek Eln, “you are being humorous; we wish we could persuade you to consider seriously what hazards are possible here.”
“Ser, sera, so long as you persist in trying to tell me only fragments of the situation, I see no reason to take a serious tone with you. You’ve been out to Meron. You’re coming home. Your domestic problems are evidently serious and violent, but your manner indicates to me that you would much rather I were not here.”
There was a considerable space of silence. Fear was thick in the air.
“There has been some violence,” said one of the others. “The station is particularly vulnerable to sabotage and such acts. We fear it. We have sent appeals. None were answered.”
“The Family ignored them. Is that your meaning?”
“Yes,” said another after a moment.
“That is remarkable, Seri. And what agency do you suspect to be the source of your difficulty?”
No one answered.
“Dare I guess,” said Raen, “that you suspect that the source of your troubles is the Family?”
There was yet no answer, only the evidence of perspiration on beta faces.
“Or the hives?”
No one moved. Not an eye blinked.
“You would not be advised to take any action against me, seri. The Family is not monolithic. Quite the contrary. Be reassured: I am ignorant; you can try to deceive me. What brought the two of you to Meron?”
“We— have loans outstanding from MIMAK there. We hoped for some material assistance . . .”
“We hoped,” Parn Kest interrupted brusquely, “to establish innerworlds contacts— to help us past this wall of silence. We need relief . . . in taxes, in trade; we were ignored, appeal after appeal. And we hoped to work out a temporary agreement with MIMAK, against the hope of some relief. Grain. Grain and food. Kontrin— we’re supporting farms and estates which can’t possibly make profit. We’re at a crisis. We were given license for increase in population, our own and azi, and the figures doubled our own. We thought future adjustment would take care of that. But the crisis is on us, and no one listens. Majat absorb some of the excess. That market is all that keeps us from economic collapse. But food . . . food for all that population . . . And the day we can’t feed the hives . . . Kont’ Raen, agriculture and azi are our livelihood. Newhope and Newport and the station . . . and the majat . . . derive their food from the estates; but it’s consumed by the azi who work them. There are workers enough to cover the estates’ needs four times over. There’s panic out there. The estates are armed camps.”
“We were told when we came in,” Eln said in a faint voice, “that ITAK has been able to confiscate azi off some of the smaller estates. But there’s no way to take them by force from the larger. We can’t legally dispose of those contracts, by sale or by termination. There has to be Kontrin—”
“—license for transfer or adjustment,” Raen finished. “Or for termination without medical cause. I know our policies rather thoroughly, ser Eln.”
“And therefore you can’t export and you can’t terminate.”
“Or feed them indefinitely, Kontrin. Or feed them. The economics of the farms insist on a certain number of azi to the allotted land area. Someone . . . erred.”
Eln’s lips trembled, having said so. It was for a beta, great daring.
“And the occasion for violence against the station?”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” one of the others said.
“But you fear that it will. Why?”
“The corporations are blamed for the situation on the estates. Estate-owners are hardly able to comprehend any other— at fault.”
There was another silence, deep and long.
> “You’ll be glad to know, seri, that there are means to get a message off this world, one that would be heard on Cerdin. I might do it. But there are solutions short of that. Perhaps better ones.” She thought then of Jim, and laid a hand on his knee, leaning toward him. “You are hearing things which aren’t for retelling . . . to anyone.”
“I will not,” he said, and she believed him, for he looked as if he earnestly wanted to be deaf to this. She turned back to Eln and Kest.
“What measures,” she asked them, “have the corporations taken?”
No one wanted to meet her eyes, not those two, nor their companions.
“Is there starvation?” she asked.
“We are importing,” one of the others said at last, a small, flat voice.
Raen looked at him, slowly took his meaning. “Standard channels of trade?”
“All according to license. Foodstuffs are one of the permitted—”
“I know the regulations. You’re getting your grain from Outside trade. Outsiders.”
“We’ve held off rationing. We’ve kept the peace. We’re able to feed everyone.”
“We’ve tried to find other alternatives,” Merek Eln said. “We can’t find surplus anywhere within the Reach. We can’t get it from Inside. We’ve tried, Kont’ Raen.”
“Your trip to Meron.”
“Part of it, yes. That. A failure.”
“Ser Eln, there’s one obvious question. If you’re buying Outsider grain . . . what do you use to pay for it?”
It was a question perhaps rash to ask, on a beta vessel, surrounded by them, in descent to a wholly beta world.
“Majat,” one of the others said hoarsely, with a nervous shift of the eyes in Warrior’s direction. “Majat jewels. Softwares.”
“Kontrin-directed?”
“We— pad out what the Cerdin labs send. Add to the shipments.”
“Kontrin-directed?”
“Our own doing,” the man beside him said. “Kontrin, it’s not forbidden. Other hive-worlds do it”
The Deep Beyond: Cuckoo's Egg / Serpent's Reach Page 33
