by Isaac Asimov
Ariel wore a vague smile during the ride to the embassy lobby. Coren had expected to return to her apartment or office to talk, but when he began to mention it she shook her head distantly.
“Later, “she said.
In the lobby, Coren became impatient. He held his tongue in front of the Auroran security guards, though, and let Ariel take his arm and walk with him through the exit.
On the plaza fronting the embassy, she said, “Let’s get a car. I haven’t been outside the embassy in months. I want to go for a ride.”
Bewildered, Coren ordered a cab.
Once in the passenger section of the automated transport, her vagueness evaporated.
“Paranoia is a requirement for the job,” she said, and punched in a series of random destinations in the cab’s datum.
“Who do you think is listening?”
“My own people, for one. Add Chassik to the list.” She turned to face him as the cab moved off. “All right, tell me what you know about this lab.”
Coren recounted what he had discovered about Nova Levis Research. Ariel listened silently. When he finished she leaned her head back and gazed at the ceiling for a time.
“Alda Mikels and Gale Chassik together in the same investor’s list makes sense,” she said. “But Rega Looms?”
“Odd, I agree. But why would the colony be named for the lab?”
“You’re sure it is? Could be coincidence.”
“You could find out more about that than I could.”
Ariel nodded. “I’ll look into it.”
“What did you mean about illicit positronics traffic?”
Ariel waved her hand. “Like you, blind shooting. I thought I might get a reaction. There has to be a reason Solaria never relinquished claim to Nova Levis. I thought perhaps they were using it as a transfer point for black market robotics. That could still be it, but I’m not sure Chassik knows anything about it.”
“The entire Solarian government?” Coren asked dubiously.
“No, just factions. And he was right about the independence of those colonies. We lease the worlds, Settlers come in, after a time the colony charters its own government, and independence is a fact. There’s never been a reason before for any kind of intervention. No precedent. I haven’t checked yet, but maybe there’s some old agreement that keeps Earth from demanding Solaria exercise rights of ownership. Or it could be that the fact has been lost in the name change. Even if there isn’t, it may be that one department simply didn’t know what the other was doing. ‘Oh, that business of the deed? I thought you had taken care of that. Well, it isn’t my responsibility:” She smiled at Coren’s laugh. “Contrary to what you Terrans believe, we Spacers are not of one mind. On any subject.”
“That’s not something I ever believed.”
She leaned forward. “Rega Looms had to have a reason to invest in a biotech lab. Did he have any other investments like that?”
“Not that I know. I’ll check, but I don’t think so.”
“So if it was just the one investment, the one lab, it seems logical he’d have a good reason.”
“I suppose. But–”
“Probably a personal reason?”
“Where are you going with this?”
“Did he have any other children besides Nyom?”
Coren hesitated. A few days earlier he would have stated emphatically not, but now, after hearing the remarks of both Looms and Wenithal, he was less certain.
Instead of answering, he said, “There’s something else. My errand to Baltimor District. The reason I was late. The shipping container Nyom used was routed out of Petrabor. Shipping schedules had been rearranged to accommodate it.”
“Petrabor...”
“The reschedule came out of the ITE offices in Baltimor. I looked up an acquaintance from my Service days, a man named Brun Damik, who was in charge of the inspector’s department of ITE, figuring that if anyone would know how to get in touch with the people who run the whole baley operation, he would. He led me to a retired cop named Wenithal. I found Rega’s name in his old case logs, part of the same investigation that involved Nova Levis. According to the public record, no charges were filed against Nova Levis, but the attention from the investigation must’ve been enough to sink it. It was bought by the Kysler Group and dismantled. Tonight, when I went back to ask Damik about his connection to Wenithal, I found police there. He’d been murdered. Tortured and murdered.”
Ariel winced. “What was the case?”
“A kidnapping. It turned out to involve several orphanages and a couple of biotech labs, extending back several more years. Infants were being taken from orphanages, funneled through the labs, and shipped offplanet. A slave trade, of sorts.”
“What did the labs have to do with it?”
‘‘I don’t know yet. But I found this–” he handed her the certificate he had taken from Damik’s apartment “–hidden in Damik’s office.”
Ariel opened the sheet and studied it. “He was an orphan?”
“Interesting, isn’t it? I never knew. We worked together and I never knew.” He folded the document and put it back in his pocket. “Ree Wenithal sponsored him.”
“Should you have known?”
Coren shrugged. “Maybe, maybe not. You don’t expect the people you work with to hide that kind of thing from you after you admit to them that you’re an orphan.”
“You?”
“Seth Canobil Hospice and Social Rehabilitation Center. Lifelong resident. I graduated from there before entering the Academy.”
Ariel seemed to think about that for a time. “All right, so you were both orphans. This police officer, Wenithal, was investigating a kidnapping. Children were stolen from orphanages and eventually sent offworld. To Nova Levis?”
“Maybe. “He stared out the window for a time. “What is it we’re supposed to be stopping Nova Levis from doing with this blockade?”
“You’re insisting you have the right to on-ground inspection. You’re looking for pirates.”
“‘You’? I thought Aurora was backing Earth on this one.”
Ariel shrugged. “You notice we haven’t sent any ships.”
“Point taken.”
“Where was Nyom Looms taking her baleys?”
“Nova Levis.”
Ariel nodded. “I think we should have a talk to this police officer.”
“I agree. But I’m not sure what good he is. His information is a couple of decades old.”
“If Spacers are involved, that’s meaningless. They can be very patient.”
“‘They’?”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I don’t feel very much like one of them.” She frowned. “But this might be the very same case your Mr. Wenithal was investigating. It may be that whatever was going on then has just come back home. If it ever really stopped. Why did he resign?”
“I don’t know.” Coren sighed. “There’s something else.”
“Always.”
Coren laughed. “No, I mean another coincidence. I did a background on the warehouse where Nyom connected to her killers. I tried to find the dockworker who met them–a man named Yuri Pocivil. I did a trace and found out he was a Settler immigrant. From a colony called Cassus Thole.”
Ariel stared at him. “The same as?”
“I don’t know. Interesting coincidence, don’t you think? The fact is, he came to Earth six years ago–from Cassus Thole. Along v nth a good number more who all work for the same company. Six years ago. Long after Cassus Thole supposedly became Nova Levis. So either there are two colonies with the same name–”
“Or there’s a problem inside ITE. Your acquaintance, Brun Damik–do you think...?”
“It’s something I intend to check into now.”
“I think we need to find out what else this Hunter Group owns as well. Maybe we should ask Mr. Wenithal what corporations came up in his investigation.”
“Settlers, Spacers, and Terran companies. Rather unusual circumstances that could bring them all tog
ether.”
“In my experience, profit explains such anomalies nicely.”
“But profit from what?” Coren asked.
“Kidnapping from orphanages.”
“But–”
Ariel pointed. “That disk I gave you has a full screening of a blood sample taken from the finger joints of the robot Nyom Looms had with her.”
“Blood.”
She nodded. “We typed it, scanned it, and ran a match. It seems Nyom Looms had a brother.”
Sixteen
THE CAB LET them out in front of Lanra’s building. Ariel followed him up the stairs to his office. The building showed considerable age–the stairs worn where countless feet had pressed upon them, dust accrued in corners, an uncovered access to conduit and wiring long unrepaired–but it seemed moderately well maintained. Cleaner than she might have expected in this old neighborhood, which lay on the outskirts of the Infant District, just off the Southwest Corridor of D. C.
A light glowed above Lanra’s fourth floor office door, illuminating a nameplate–COREN LANRA, I. S. I.
“Do you have any neighbors here?” Ariel asked.
“An industrial cleaning firm,” Coren said, gesturing toward the other lighted door down the hall. “The floor below is empty. Three businesses on the one below that. Two below that.”
“And above?”
“Storage. Past tenants left stuff, paid to have it stored. Or not, but management kept it all anyway.”
He let them in.
“It’s a more prosperous district than that,” he continued, “but there are only so many lawyers to fill available office space.” He shrugged. “A lot of tenants have left in the last year. I don’t know why.”
“Trends are merciless.”
He nodded distractedly. “Especially on real estate. Wait here a moment.” He pushed through the inner door, to a private office. Ariel heard a brief verbal exchange and wondered if he had a secretary. The thought annoyed her for some reason. “All right, come in,” Coren called.
When she stepped through the door she found Coren seated behind a broad desk, its surface illuminated by a touch-sensitive grid. He had taken off his jacket and was absently rubbing his left shoulder. Ariel studied the desk.
“That’s impressive,” she said.
“And as expensive as it looks. Sit down.” He leaned over the desk then and started entering commands. His fingers danced deftly.
“AI?” she asked.
“Yes...” He inserted the disk Ariel had given him into a reader slot. A flatscreen extruded on one corner of the desk. Coren studied it. “The DNA is a close match... what are these other things? Proteins?”
“Derec hasn’t finished his analysis yet. Proteins, yes, but there are a few puzzles–for instance, a high concentration of myralar.”
“What’s that?”
“A polymer, synthetic. A distant analog of nylon. It’s used in robotics for joints, pivots, dry lubricant. Apparently the robot you found grabbed someone. We found the blood samples mixed with these other materials in its fingers.”
Coren frowned at the screen. His fingers worked. “Not Nyom, but...”
“Very close.”
Coren ‘s glance flicked over her, a hint of irritation. “I didn’t think robots could hurt anyone.”
“Not intentionally, no.”
“So where did the blood come from?”
Ariel shook her head. “We’ll have to wait for Derec’s excavation before we know that.”
“You’re so sure it couldn’t have been the robot.”
“Not that robot.”
“And you don’t believe in my second robot.”
“I didn’t say that.”
Coren grunted. His eyes closed for several seconds. Ariel began to think he had just fallen asleep when he straightened abruptly in his chair. He winced as he stood.
“I’m sorry, “he said, “would you like something to drink?”
“You’re hurt.”
Coren nodded. “I was rolled in Petrabor.”
“When was this?”
“The last time I saw Nyom, when she left. “He walked stiffly toward another door. “I think I could stand a drink, if you don’t mind.”
“You didn’t say anything about being attacked.”
He shrugged and went through the door. Ariel heard the faint sound of liquid on glass, then a deep groan. Silence stretched. Ariel went to the door and looked in.
Coren sat on a long divan, a drink perched on his right thigh, eyes shut. An open bottle sat on the low table before him. She lifted it to her nose and sniffed. Bourbon. She found a row of glasses on a shelf above a small liquor cabinet. She poured three fingers and studied the room.
Shelves, a pair of closet doors, another chair, a set of drawers. It reminded her of the monk’s hole Derec had kept on the premises at Phylaxis.
Last year... ages ago...
A box lay open on top of the table. Ariel stared down at a collection of images of a young woman, almost gaunt, but with a bright smile and large eyes. She looked vaguely familiar.
Looms, she realized.
Coren cleared his throat. Ariel looked to see him watching her, a worried frown creasing his forehead. She picked up the top image.
“Nyom?”
He nodded.
Ariel dropped the picture. “This isn’t a case file.”
“Nyom wasn’t a case.”
“You’re not doing this for Rega?”
“Partly. Mostly I’m doing it for myself.”
“It’s personal, then.”
“Very.”
Ariel pulled the chair close to the table and sat down across from him. “What’s that like?”
Coren pulled himself straighter and set the glass on the table. “I don’t think this is relevant.”
“Maybe not to the universe at large, “Ariel said with mock gravity. “But I’m interested.”
“It’s not very interesting. I resigned from Special Service almost six–no, seven years ago now. I tried running my own private security company for a year or so, but my best clients were always police agencies who needed a little extra expertise.” He smiled grimly. “We private cops tend to be a little less constrained by legality than regular police. Anyway, it wasn’t turning out the way I wanted it to. I’d quit because I didn’t like the compromises I had to make on behalf of official policy and now I found myself compromising everything else to pay the rent. I started looking for a staff position in the private sector. Rega hired me about five years ago. I met Nyom seventeen months later.”
“You remember it that clearly?”
“A very memorable sequence of events.”
Ariel raised her glass to her mouth and said with mild sarcasm, “I suppose it was love at first sight.” She took a sip.
“Don’t smirk. It happens.” He shook his head. “The thing is, I didn’t know that till later. I thought it was just lust. Both of us. I thought she was doing it to irritate Rega, but he never knew. Nyom was nonconformist to a fault, but she didn’t flaunt it. She wasn’t looking for attention. Whatever else Rega might have done, he instilled a sense of purpose in her. She wanted her life to mean something.” He shook his head. “That sounds superficial, doesn’t it? The ultimate cliché.”
“No. Not if it’s real.”
“Oh, it was real. That’s how she ended up running baleys.”
“Now that sounds like something aimed at her father.”
“It’s easy to think that, too. They didn’t really get along. The truth is, Nyom knew things were wrong, that the way everything is put together is all messed up, but she didn’t know how or why. She didn’t know what would make it right. If anything could. So she moved from one cause to another, trying to find the formula for fixing the world. Rega just chose something that felt right and stuck with it. Nyom wasn’t confident enough with her judgment to think she knew which one. Mostly, she ended up trying to help people do what they wanted when official policy got in their way.�
��
“If it’s a law, it’s necessarily oppressive?”
“Something like that. Baley running was a natural for her.”
” Is that what ended it between you?” Ariel asked.
Coren nodded. “Irreconcilable ideologies.”
“You don’t think anything is wrong?”
“No, no, not at all. I just can’t see the use in tearing down everything you have until you can make it work.”
“Very conservative.”
“That’s me.”
“What will you do if you find that Nyom’s view was right?”
“I have no idea.” He leaned back. “Rega Looms has never lied to me before.”
“You’re referring to the possible existence of Nyom’s brother?”
Coren nodded. “It doesn’t make sense. Rega only had one child.”
“That you know of.”
“That I know of. Nyom never said anything either. “He shook his head. “I hate being lied to.”
“Maybe Rega just neglected to mention it. Has he always told you everything?”
Coren looked uncomfortable. “That would be a very dangerous omission on his part.”
“Granted. But it’s those things that can hurt us most that we never reveal, even when we should.”
“Is that experience talking or a Spacer proverb?”
Ariel considered responding to the barb, but decided against it. “Assuming he lied about that, why? Did the child die?”
“There would be no reason to hide that. Even assuming Rega to be a callous opportunist–which he isn’t–having a child die in infancy could only be a subject for sympathy. Why would a dead child be something to hide?”
“It might depend on how it died.”
Coren shook his head. “No, if Rega has hidden it, then the child didn’t die.” His eyes narrowed. “Why are you interested in this?”
“My government–”
“Uh-uh. You. There’s a difference between following orders and pursuing a goal. You ‘re interested for your own reasons. Why?”
Ariel considered telling him about the note on her comm–We’re not finished with you–but balked, unwilling even now to admit how much it frightened her.
“Maybe later,” she said. “It’s not important right now.”
“We never reveal the things that can hurt us most?”
