“What about this ring that I carry?” Reyvek queried. His mouth was dry, making him sound scratchy. His nervousness was showing. “It’s not cheap, and I’m kind of fond of it.”
“How long have you owned it?” the voice asked.
“Fifteen, twenty years, maybe. A gift from times that were better. Kind of sentimental.”
“That will be acceptable.”
Fifteen minutes later, wearing his new outfit, Reyvek reentered the elevator and got out on the second floor, leaving the building via stairs and a side exit. A taxi was waiting. If the contact really was what he had been given to understand, CounterAction certainly didn’t believe in taking chances, Reyvek reflected as they pulled away. Or maybe they knew more about ways of keeping tabs on their people than even he did. The thought reinforced his resolve further.
The room in the second hotel was also deserted. Besides the usual bed, side tables, TV, and wall unit, it had a recliner in one corner. Set up in front of it was a TV camera on a folding stand, connected to a laptop operating via a satellite modem. Reyvek sat down facing the camera and smoothed his clothing while he composed himself. Then the tinny voice spoke again, this time from the laptop speakers. “We regret having to take these measures. The risks associated with this kind of contact are extreme—as someone like you will be all too aware.”
“I understand.”
“So you are Wayne Reyvek, captain in the uniformed division of the Internal Security Service.”
“That’s correct.”
“And you say you want to change sides: to place your services at the disposal of this organization.”
“Right, I want out.”
“And how would you describe your motivation, Captain Reyvek?”
“Disillusionment.”
“Could you be more specific?”
Reyvek had expected the question, of course. He sighed and raised his hands briefly. “Maybe I’m some kind of old-fashioned idealist that doesn’t belong anymore. Remember that phrase they used to teach the kids in school: ‘Protect and Serve’? Well, that what I used to think this work would be all about. And for a while, I guess, that’s the way it used to be, more or less: defending what was best for this country; for Americans.” Reyvek shook his head. “But that’s all changing. Americans are the victims of what’s going on now. The interests that we’re really defending are the aliens’. ” He paused to make sure this was the kind of response that was wanted.
“Can you elaborate?” the voice invited.
Again, an open-handed gesture. “The whole Security Service is coming under alien influence—instilled with their ideas of what’s effective. Those aren’t our values, human values. You saw what happened in Washington the other day—people screaming, throwing up in the street like dogs; stuck in goo they have to be dissolved out of. Just ordinary people protesting about losing their jobs, watching their towns fall apart, while a few guys are making millions. They didn’t deserve being treated like that. . . . And it’s going to get worse. Right now, the training programs are being rewritten to include indoctrination for firing on U.S. citizens. That isn’t right. They’re gearing up for war here in the cities. It’ll get the same as it is down south. I’ve had combat experience in Brazil. The public isn’t being told what’s happening in places like that. I’ve had enough. I’m with you guys, okay?”
A series of probing questions followed. The voice, and the people that Reyvek presumed to be with him, were cautious—wary of this being a plant. Reyvek had anticipated it. Infiltration was one of the classic weapons against subversives. “I have information to give you that will prove I’m genuine,” he said.
“What kind of information?” the voice asked.
“Proof that Farden, Meakes, and the two Hyadeans weren’t killed by CounterAction, the way the country is being told.” That would get their interest, he had decided. If the assassination hadn’t been the work of their own organization, the people Reyvek was talking to would presumably be aware of the fact.
There was a pause. Then the voice asked, “Does that mean you know who was responsible?”
“It was carried out by an operative of the ISS,” Reyvek replied. “The order came from an unofficial source connected to the administration. I have the names. I can document the origin of the weapon that was used. It wasn’t smuggled into the country by CounterAction via China—as you or your people know already. I’ve mailed it all to a box in the city. You can have the address, number, and key.”
Again there was a pause, longer this time, as if those at the far end of the link were conferring, or perhaps communicating with others elsewhere. At last the voice spoke again.
“A good move, Captain Reyvek. The matter will have to be conveyed higher within our own command structure before I can give you a response. We had considered asking if you would be willing to remain with the ISS as an internal source for us. But the information you have indicated promises to be of such value as to rule out the risk of letting you go back. We’ll move you to a safe house tonight. You’ll be comfortable there until word comes back down. From now on you will be referred to as ‘Otter.’ ”
Reyvek felt satisfied that he had achieved enough for this first contact. However, he had another important piece of information to impart. A particular cell within CounterAction’s Southeastern Sector was being blamed for the Farden-Meakes incident—operating from Charlotte, North Carolina, which was close enough to Washington to have plausibly been assigned the mission. To make things look authentic, security and police units around the country had been fed details to be checked for the official record. The reason that cell had been chosen was that a captive who belonged to it briefly had revealed a lot under interrogation. The ISS knew the names of some of its other members, its drop boxes, the locations of its supposedly “safe” houses. In short, it was blown and readily targetable. After a delay to give the appearance of leads being uncovered and followed up, the cell would be taken out by a kill team. Retribution for the Farden-Meakes incident would thus have been seen to be dispensed; witnesses who might one day have contested the official version of the story would be silenced permanently; the file would then be closed.
The other message Reyvek had to deliver was for the cell that was referred to within CounterAction as “Scorpion” to disperse fast.
CHAPTER SEVEN
The Hyadean West Coast Trade and Cultural Mission on Carson Street in Lakewood occupied a four-story office block of gray and white panels alternating with glass, and a roof crammed with strange antennas and other structures. Formerly, the building housed an assortment of small businesses. It stood back from the highway behind palm-tree-lined lawns and a visitors’ parking area, with access drives on either side and a larger parking area at the rear. The idea had been to establish an informal alien presence without visible barriers isolating it, that would eventually blend in as part of the local scene. Of course, such openness would have been intolerable to the security authorities, had it been genuine. The fences bounding the area were more than they appeared to be, and the building itself had quietly acquired various refinements that the original architects had never contemplated.
It was a week after the reception at Cade’s house: the day Erya was due to leave Los Angeles for the Hyadean space port at Xuchimbo in western Brazil. Cade and Luke arrived at the mission around midmorning in the silver-gray BMW, Luke driving. Luke had been with Cade for five years now. He was a rugged-faced forty with a full head of black hair and a beard that he kept meticulously trimmed. He spoke little, was totally dependable, and was not above overlooking a few legal or quasi-moral niceties when the occasion required. Formerly with the Navy, Luke had done Warren Edmonds a favor by introducing him to Cade’s employ at a time when Warren’s risk-taking with frowned-upon enterprises would otherwise have made his demise only a matter of time.
The security people had relaxed from their tension following the Washington incident, and the temporary police check at the gate had been removed. A nu
mber of Hyadean personal flyers and freight lifters were visible to the rear of the building, standing among the regular Terran ground vehicles. A dispensation for operating them had been given when it became clear that the sophisticated Hyadean flight-control AIs presented no hazard to air traffic in the area.
Luke parked in the visitors’ area at the front and released the trunk lid using a button below the dash. Cade got out, went back around to retrieve the black, vinyl-finished violin case that they had brought, and rejoined Luke in front of the car. They began walking toward the main entrance of the building.
“I feel like something out of an old gangster movie going in to rob the place,” Cade remarked, touting the violin case. “All it needs is the fedoras.” Luke grunted.
Inside was a reception counter attended by a Terran woman, with several Hyadeans in an open office area behind. A short passage flanked by display cases of Hyadean gadgetry and pictures showing scenes from Chryse led from the entrance foyer to a door opening to the interior. Two Hyadeans in dark blue garb and gray caps were stationed by the arch framing the near end.
Cade greeted the receptionist with a grin. She had been expecting them. “Hi, Mimi. How’s the world been treating you lately?”
“Good morning, Roland. You’re looking dapper. You want an update on my life?”
“Just the wicked and exciting parts.”
“Yeah, right. . . . Hi, Luke. Still managing to keep him out of trouble?”
“It’s tough at times,” Luke acknowledged.
Mimi glanced at the violin case that Cade was holding. “What’s this? Have you come to give us a recital?”
“A going-away present for Erya.”
“Oh, that’s right. She’s into that, isn’t she? How thoughtful!”
“What else did you expect?”
“Please permit inspection of the article.” The voice came from a Hyadean AI in the form of a purple, dome-topped cube, dotted with lenses, sitting on the counter by Mimi’s elbow. Cade hoisted the case up onto the counter, opened it, and stood back while one of the guards lifted out the instrument to examine it curiously, then poked here and there along the lining of the case and lid. Either he was a new arrival or his English wasn’t up to par yet.
“That looks like a quality piece of work,” Mimi commented.
“Not exactly special,” Cade said. “It was used in that movie about Beethoven that came out a while back—the one with David Quine.”
“Yes, I saw it. He was perfect for the part. I loved the bit where he marches through the town waving the cane with the silver knob on the end.”
“It’s a rage back home there. Erya will get a kick out of it.”
The guard replaced the violin and closed the lid of the case. “Thank you. You are free to proceed,” the AI announced. “Hec Vrel has been advised that you are here.” Cade led the way through, Luke following. There was no call for any ID check. Cade had always thought there was something unnatural about that arch. Probably they had been scanned, sniffed, sensed, and verified before even entering the passage. The door at the end opened automatically and they passed through, into the office section.
The inside had been opened out from the original configuration of suites into larger, interconnecting work areas. Hyadeans tended to shun individual responsibility, Cade had found, making their decisions through committee or relying on the authority of precedent. Perhaps the open layout was preferred for obtaining group consensus and approval. The surroundings were an unimaginatively utilitarian repetition of cream-painted walls and gray or brown furnishings and other equipment, suggesting more the clerical underworld of a low-budget socialist state than the local showcase of a world that could have bought the United States. Screens were everywhere, some showing faces, others graphics mixed with captions in strange scripts and symbols. One type presented its images in relief, looking like windows with solid scenes beyond. Cade remembered Mike Blair telling of his shock at first being confronted by Hyadeans nonchalantly talking to their home worlds with turnaround delay close to instantaneous. The equipment in the mission building communicated electronically with some kind of gravity-wave converters in Earth orbit, which could send signals somewhere around ten billion times faster. The orbiting converters relayed to more powerful devices that the Hyadeans had placed at the edge of the Solar System, which in turn beamed to the home planet. None of this had been especially bothersome to Cade, who had grown up taking instant around-the-world communication for granted; Blair, on the other hand, was a scientist in whose scheme of things it wasn’t supposed to have been possible, and he had taken weeks to adjust to it. Sometimes, Cade concluded, there were advantages in not being too scientific.
Cade and Luke threaded their way among the desks and consoles, where Hyadeans sat staring at screens, sometimes murmuring exchanges with them. Just about everything the Hyadeans made was controlled by a built-in AI of greater or lesser capacity, and voice was their normal way of interacting. Another thing that always intrigued Cade were their reconfigurable pages—sheets of flexible plastic, no thicker than regular paper, upon which characters were generated electronically to produce whatever was desired. A stack of them bound like a book could thus become any book or document at all, selected from a library stored in the spine or loaded externally. Mike Blair had calculated that the spine held the equivalent of half the Library of Congress.
Some of the Hyadeans nodded in recognition, though without displays of overt familiarity—as a rule they were more stiff and formal by day. A number of Terrans worked there too in such roles as advisors and translators—the pay the Hyadeans could offer was impossible to turn down. Whether because they had never become comfortable with the practice, or because the Hyadean translation programs couldn’t capture the subtleties of natural language sufficiently for fluency, they prefered using conventional touchpad and wireless mouse rather than voice when operating equipment.
The brave attempts at color and decoration that Cade noticed here and there were doubtless due to the Terrans too. A noticeable exception was anything of floral design, which the Hyadeans wouldn’t permit, even to the extent of prohibiting it from acceptable office dress. Seemingly, their managerial caste had some hangup about displays of sexual organs, whatever the species.
Vrel was waiting at the far end, his mouth stretched into the faint smile that was the most a Hyadean would allow while on duty. However, he had followed Wyvex’s example in relieving the drabness of the standard tunic with a colorful patch on the breast pocket—a fractal pattern this time. Vrel’s hair seemed almost to glow in a strange mix of electric blue and violet hues that coordinated well with the paler blue of his skin. He had been among the original group to set up the mission six years previously, and had first met Cade then, already expanding his business circles to make Hyadean acquaintances.
“Hello, Roland . . . Luke,” he greeted. “Exactly on time. I’m surprised. The traffic is supposed to be bad this morning.”
“Luke has his own routes,” Cade answered. Vrel was picking up Terran ways. In some places, conversation opened with the weather or inquiries about one’s health. In Los Angeles it was the traffic. Cade gestured at the patch on Vrel’s pocket. “What’s this riot of abandonment? You’ll be showing up in beach shirts next.”
“I kind of like it. It amazes me that Hyadeans never thought to put pictures on things. Besides, I couldn’t let Wyvex get all the attention.”
The complex Hyadean system of social ordering, which Cade had given up trying to understand, exploited competitiveness and was what made them so conscientious about having to conform. By their standards Vrel’s gesture would constitute a blaze of individuality bordering on irresponsible. The interesting thing was that Vrel seemed to be enjoying it. “Is Wyvex here?” Cade asked.
“No. Damien Philps took him up to San Francisco to tour some galleries. His friend Tevlak in Bolivia is talking about opening up outlets on Chryse. I was talking to Tevlak about it earlier.”
Erya appe
ared in an entrance behind Vrel and came forward to greet Cade and Luke. “Mr. Cade and Mr. Luke. Mimi said you wanted to see me.”
“We couldn’t let you go back without saying goodbye,” Cade said.
“How thoughtful.” Only then did Erya’s gaze drift down to the case that Cade was holding. She looked at it uncomprehendingly as Cade, grinning, lifted it onto a nearby worktop and opened the lid. Erya’s jaw dropped incredulously.
“From the movie, like I said,” Cade told her. “I couldn’t get the first violin, as I’d hoped. But this is the next best.”
Erya was speechless for several seconds. “You remembered! . . . But I don’t understand. I’m just about to go back. There’s no possible return. Why would you choose . . .” She consulted her veebee for an appropriate phrase. “Negative payoff.”
Even Vrel, who should have known better by now, seemed taken aback. Cade shook his head, doing his best not to let his bemusement show. It was this strange Hyadean calculus of short-term returns again. They couldn’t comprehend giving for its own sake. “Don’t let worrying about it spoil your trip,” he said. “It’ll do more good on Chryse than it would have done if it stayed where I found it. You’re still on Earth now. Just accept it as a Terran way of saying we’re friends. Maybe one day it’ll become your way too.”
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