Asimov’s Future History Volume 9

by Isaac Asimov

  She understood Derec’s motives–he wanted to get his hands on a positronics lab one more time. The ground mission’s lab was denied him and, though he still retained Thales, he simply could not do the research he wanted. And he wanted to stay on Earth, a desire about which she had grown ambivalent in the last year.

  She understood Coren Lanra’s motives, though she suspected there was more than he had admitted.

  Ariel even understood Sen Setaris and the policy under which she had delegated the assignment.

  But her own motives for going along with it?

  “Until two hours ago I didn’t know,” she said. “Then I saw the enemy.”

  When they arrived at the embassy, Ariel summoned an extra security team to escort Wenithal and Tresha to separate apartments. “I want someone watching them full-time, highest level surveillance.”

  She went directly to her own apartment, then.

  “Any messages, Jennie?” Ariel asked.

  “Thales requests that you check in as soon as possible.”

  “Thank you, Jennie.” She tapped a code for the embassy security office. “I want an ID run, please. There is a woman just installed in the secure apartments calling herself Jeta Fromm. Verify. Check against records for a woman named Tresha, last name unknown.”

  As she stepped into the corridor, she felt a brief wave of weariness. She had been going for too long a stretch without more than ten minutes’ sleep. Ariel shrugged it off and headed to Derec’s apartment.

  “Thales, do you have something for me?” she asked as she entered Derec’s workspace.

  “A number of items, Ariel. I have completed the recovery from the subject. Derec and Hofton have already viewed the relevant memories.”

  Ariel’s pulse quickened. She sat down. “Then show me.”

  Ariel watched the entire episode, from the point where Nyom Looms confronted the dockworker to the point when collapse occurred after the murders of all the baleys. She did not move when it was done, staring at the screen. She felt warm, and a distant anger she knew would only grow with time.

  “Do you wish to review any part of the material, Ariel?” Thales finally asked.

  “No. Where’s Derec?”

  “In custody. The TBI have intervened and assumed authority over the investigation on Kopernik.”

  Ariel stood. “Wait.” She went to Derec’s bathroom and found a container of stim pills. She swallowed two and returned to Thales. “All right, Thales, tell me what’s happened.”

  She took the embassy shunt to Setaris’s offices.

  Unexpectedly, Ambassador Setaris was in.

  “Come in, Ariel, come in,” Setaris said as Ariel walked in. “My door is always open for interesting people, and you’ve been so very interesting lately.”

  Setaris sat behind her desk, gazing at the subetheric. Ariel glanced at it and saw Jonis Taprin speaking to a reporter in a formal interview setting. The sound was off.

  “Derec Avery is in custody,” Setaris said. “The TBI have seized control of Kopernik security from Chief Sipha Palen and are making very loud noises about security leaks and subversion. I have a protest filed from Ambassador Chassik demanding you be censured and dismissed from all embassy duties, pending an investigation of your fitness for executive responsibilities.” She gestured at the subetheric. “Senator Taprin has been making very obnoxious noises about the treaties concerning our embassy missions. What did you do to him, Ariel? He’s been almost shrill about reviewing Spacer presence on Earth.”

  “Nothing recently.”

  Setaris smiled wanly. “It’s been a very long day. You’ve been excessively diligent in your assignment.”

  “Why is Derec in custody?”

  “The TBI said something about evidence tampering and hindering an investigation. It’s the sort of charge they make when they don’t know what really has them angry. You two have stirred up a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t see how. We haven’t done all that much yet.”

  “Yes, but you’ve done it in all the right places. You two have the damnedest luck. Gale basically wants you to stop looking into Nova Levis.” Setaris frowned. “You didn’t know Derec Avery was under arrest?”

  “I just got back in,” Ariel said evasively.

  “Then why did you come here? I expected a barrage of protest and a demand to have him released.”

  “Maybe later.” She leaned on Setaris’s desk. “Why are we hiding a Solarian national?”

  Setaris frowned. “I’m sorry, would you repeat that?”

  “Rotij Polifos.”

  Setaris nodded slowly. “What do you know about him?”

  “Derec got suspicious of him. Neither of us knew much about him, except that he’s been director of the lab on Kopernik for six, almost seven years. That’s a long time for an Auroran to hold a post here.”

  “I’ve been here nearly twelve years, Ariel.”

  “We’re diplomats; we’re different. For someone like Polifos, it’s an eternity. When I checked, I discovered that he had never once requested rotation to another post. No one from any office has questioned his long residency on Kopernik. Nothing you’d expect to happen in his position has happened. His stipend hasn’t even changed in six years.”

  “And why did you conclude he’s a Solarian national?”

  “A couple of things. A background check on his name came up with an old Solarian family, for one, but there are no birth records or citizenship papers for him. The family itself has only two remaining members and, like most Solarians, they’re recluses. The other thing is that all his Auroran documentation originated here.”

  “How did you manage to learn that?”

  “I’m very good at my job. The third detail is precedent. We’ve done this before with defectors who may be subject to extradition under the Fifty Worlds Mutual Accords. Did I guess wrong?”

  “No. But–”

  “I’m not finished. I did another search then, one I wouldn’t have thought to do. We’ve been so busy tracking down who used to own Nova Levis we never thought to find out who worked there. Five researchers were senior staff they ran the research protocols. It was their lab. Four of them are dead.”

  Setaris regarded her quietly. “And the fifth?”

  “Was a Solarian. He vanished. Interestingly enough, the document trail for Rotij Polifos begins shortly before Nova Levis was closed down. The Solarian presumably returned to Solaria, but I could find no evidence that he ever got there. A couple years later, Polifos assumes directorship of the positronics lab on Kopernik.”

  Setaris nodded. “As you say, you’re very good at what you do. Though this isn’t exactly your job.”

  “It has become my job,” Ariel said.

  “Point taken. Anything else?”

  Ariel felt herself get angry then. Setaris was being “diplomatic” and neutral, superficially uninvolved–” professional,” she would say. Ariel decided to thoroughly ruin her day. “Did you know about the cyborgs?”

  Setaris’s face lost all expression for a moment. Her skin paled then. “You’re joking.”

  “I wish I were.”

  Setaris’s face flexed with comprehension, brow furrowing deeply, mouth opening and closing wordlessly, eyes scanning the surface of the desk as if for something lost. It took less than a minute for her to regain composure. When she did, though, all the casual annoyance and alloyed humor were gone, replaced by pragmatic professionalism.

  “Tell me what you know,” she said.

  “What I know isn’t much. What I saw... Coren Lanra claimed he saw a robot with masking capabilities. What I saw tonight could only be a cyborg. It’s entirely probable that it’s what he saw as well. The blood sample Derec took from the collapsed robot’s hand is more than likely a close relative of Nyom Looms. The material mixed with the sample–myralar–suggests robotics, but until tonight it made no sense to me.”

  She blew out a breath. “Nova Levis is still technically owned by Solaria. It was renamed af
ter a Settler colony leased it from them, but the original title never transferred. There is also an old research lab–here on Earth–called Nova Levis, among which I found Gale Chassik listed as an original shareholder. Plus Rega Looms and Alda Mikels. Tonight I met a retired policeman who was investigating kidnappings twenty-some years ago who says that, among other things, a number of infants were taken from orphanages here and transported offworld. He suspected a slave trade. But several of these infants were hopelessly handicapped... UPDs, he called them. Nova Levis was one of the labs he’d investigated, but he claims that it was clear of any culpability.”

  Setaris shook her head. “What did the lab do? And what does all this have to do with cyborgs?”

  “I don’t know. Nova Levis the lab was involved in prosthetics research, though.”

  “Why did it fail? Prosthetics is a fairly lucrative field on Earth.”

  “I don’t know that, either, “Ariel replied. “What I want to know is if this blockade around Nova Levis has anything to do with it. With cyborgs. I want to know if you knew.”

  “Why would I have known?”

  “Because you gave me some pathetic reasons to start this investigation.”

  Setaris raised an eyebrow. “Assuming I did, why wouldn’t I tell you?”

  “Oh, some sort of attempt at objectification. Maybe, though, you knew but had no proof. You wanted me to verify your suspicions.”

  “Rather shabby use of my people, wouldn’t you think?”

  “It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

  Setaris narrowed her eyes. “When this is over, Ariel, I will sit you down and give you a lesson in the realities of the diplomat’s life. You’ve been able to function largely unaffected by them since you’ve been here. In the meantime–”

  “In the meantime,” Ariel interjected, “I need Derec out of jail, and I want a little cooperation from the TBI. I don’t think diplomacy will solve this particular problem.”

  Setaris frowned, and gestured toward the guest chairs. “Sit down, Ariel. Shut your mouth while I tell you what the situation actually is. Then, if you want to make demands, I’ll listen.”

  Twenty-Two

  COREN LEANED AGAINST the wall and gently kneaded his neck and shoulder. The pain was growing worse; on top of his lack of sleep, he wondered if he could manage what he intended to do. He pulled his comm out and stared at the keypad, trying to think. He still lacked necessary information.

  He tapped in Kelvy Torans’ code. He almost gave up just as she finally answered.

  “Kelvy, it’s Coren.”

  “Please tell me you’re near my apartment,” she said brightly.

  “Actually, no. I’m sorry to bother you so late–”

  “I wasn’t sleeping, anyway. Something it sounds like you should be doing. Are you all right?”

  “Just tired. Long hours. I’m never letting Rega run for office again.”

  She laughed. “In that case, I suppose you’re calling to see if I have that information you wanted.”

  “Do you?”

  “As a matter of fact... hold on a moment...”

  Coren listened to indistinct noises for a few seconds. Then:

  “Okay, we have lots of good stuff,” Kelvy said. “Once I started looking into this, I found all kinds of things I can use, so I suppose I owe you part of my commission. Captras Biomed: bought by the Hunter Group. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary sale; Myler Towne and his faction actually tried to block it. He nearly lost the chairmanship over it. Now, Hunter bought it through one of its subsidiaries–Kysler Diversified–who also bought that research lab you mentioned, Nova Levis. One very interesting detail I found was that Towne’s mother was on the original shareholders board of Nova Levis; she’s since deceased. What makes a lot of this interesting is in the dispersal of the company assets. A good portion of the research documentation went to Captras Biomed, which was a small start-up back then, and later was bought out by Imbitek. It was Alda Mikels’ first acquisition upon becoming a board member of Imbitek.”

  “Mikels was an original shareholder of Nova Levis.”

  “Very good. Indeed he was. As was Rega Looms. In fact, there was a bidding war over Captras between Looms and Mikels.”

  “Why would Rega have wanted it?”

  “You’d have to ask him. Very uncharacteristic of him.” Coren mentally added it to the list of things he intended to ask Rega. “All right, so Myler Towne got rid of Captras, but he didn’t want Hunter to have it. Why not?”

  “Alda Mikels is–was–a board member of Kysler Diversified.”

  “Is there any other connection between Kysler and Imbitek?”

  “Kysler once made an offer to acquire controlling ownership of Imbitek, but it failed.”

  “And when did Mikels buy into Kysler?”

  “About two years after that attempt.”

  “So Mikels bought the company that bought Nova Levis’s research material, and now is trying to reacquire that material through a competitor to his own company.”

  “My guess? This is insurance, in case Mikels can’t defeat Towne in a shareholder vote.”

  “Was Captras that lucrative?”

  “As a percentage of Imbitek?” Kelvy replied. “It performed a few points better than most Imbitek holdings, but not spectacularly so. However, the Hunter Group owns a number of other biomed companies on Settler colonies. Recently, they consolidated some of them under Kysler management. Add what Captras could bring to the fold, you have a very large and progressive biotech industry with established markets on several worlds. What all those companies lacked till now was a licensed vendor on Earth. Captras gives them that.”

  “So that’s what made you so happy.”

  “I’m already moving on Kysler stock.”

  “Assuming Mikels loses to Towne, he has a ready-made position with this new company.”

  “New company? What new company?”

  “At a guess, he’ll call it Nova Levis,” Coren said.

  “Maybe... which brings up another thing. Nova Levis was not unprofitable. There was no reason for it to shut down.”

  “I thought it had been under suspicion in a police investigation.”

  Kelvy made a harsh sound. “Companies get investigated all the time, they don’t close up shop and sell their assets over it. Often such an investigation benefits them. When they’re cleared of any charges, it’s like getting a recommendation from the police. Their market value rises.”

  “Nova Levis...?”

  “Increased in value. The investigation did not shut it down. A year afterward, the board began buying up out standing shares. It took six months for them to gain the necessary control to sell, over the loud protests of a number of shareholders.”

  “What happened to the rest of the shares?”

  “Over time Kysler bought them all out. Even after Nova Levis ceased to be a corporate entity, Kysler paid options and bought off the last few until no outstanding stock remained. But now here’s the thing. When Captras Biomed sold to Kysler, it did so through a blind. At least a dozen former Nova Levis shareholders made up that blind, all of whom were shareholders in Imbitek, all of whom sold their shares in Imbitek and bought shares in Kysler.”

  “So they bought their own company.”

  “In essence.”

  “One thing... what was the primary focus of Nova Levis?”

  “Ah, now that took some digging. You know me, I’m not the most tech-literate. Primarily, they were doing research and development on chronic inorganic infectious syndromes.”

  Coren wrestled with the term for a few moment. “What?”

  Kelvy chuckled. “My words exactly. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but I get the impression that these are diseases caused by allergic reactions to certain technologies–old nanotech, specifically. You don’t hear about them much anymore because we pretty much beat them, but once in a while some poor child is born with a dysfunction that’s basically untreatable.”

  �
��UPDs...”

  “That’s one term, yes. Do you know something about this?”

  “No, not really. I’ve just heard about it–I don’t know what it is. How many children?”

  “It varies. Between ten and a hundred a year. Most of them don’t live very long. Quarantine is about the only thing to do.”

  Coren thought about that. “You said we beat them. How?”

  “That would take a little more research than I thought you wanted.” She paused. “What do you think?”

  “I think... dinner at Rhiomay’s and a foot massage afterward.”

  “That good? I hope you don’t stop at the feet.”

  Coren grunted. “How long have you known me?”

  “Not long enough, Coren, love. Not nearly long enough.”

  “Thanks, Kelvy, this has been a great help. Um... by the way, have you ever heard of something called a ‘decompiler’?”

  “Sure. Curiously enough, given what we’ve been talking about, they’re a class molecular reagent. Nanotech, used mainly for terraforming on colonies.”

  Coren blinked. “You knew that off the top of your head?”

  “I didn’t two days ago. It’s one of Captras Biomed’s main exports. They’re banned on Earth.”

  “I see. Well. This definitely extends things to the calves and thighs, too.”

  Kelvy laughed languorously. “Can’t wait. Call me when you’re done doing whatever it is you’re doing. I’m dying to hear the details.”

  “No doubt. Talk to you soon.”

  Coren broke the connection and pocketed the comm.

  All the lists began to make sense now. Shareholders. Follow the credits. Coren had always relied on the money trail to tell him which way to turn, who to look at. This one was nearly a maze, an ouroboros swallowing its own tail.

  Rega... how deeply into all this are you...?

  One or two questions remained, besides the big one. Who had killed Nyom? And why?