Eternity's End

by Jeffrey Carver

  "You're safe here," the man continued reassuringly. "You're among friends." He smiled and turned away.

  Chapter 34

  The Centrist Connection

  "But Harriet—we can record the whole thing on VR and bring it to you here in the embassy. There's no need to risk your going out." Peter stretched his big hands out pleadingly.

  Harriet fixed the Clendornan PI with her gaze. "I don't want to see it on the VR, Peter. I want to see it in person. You can bring me right back when we're done. But if I'm going to use this for a legal case, I need to know everything. How it sounds, how it feels, how it smells. And not through some damn electronic reproduction!"

  The light in the back of the Clendornan's eyes flickered as he gazed at her.

  "Peter, I appreciate your concern. But I've got to do this." Besides, if I don't get out of this embassy soon, I'm going to lose my mind. How can such a beautiful place feel like such a prison?

  Peter gave in at last. "All right. But at least let me talk to the embassy staff. Maybe they'll let us travel in one of their vans. Less likely to be intercepted that way."

  "I knew you'd understand." Harriet grabbed Peter's arm. "Come on, let's go find the assistant ambassador..."

  * * *

  All the way in the Narseil floater-van, Harriet found herself checking the security sensors, and peering back through the darkened windows to see if they were being followed. Her courage of an hour ago had evaporated. She sank back in her seat with a sigh. "Harriet, there's no reason to think we've been seen," Peter said, glancing back from the front seat.

  "I'm sure you're right," she murmured. She glanced to her right at the tall form of Dendridan, the embassy attaché. He had come along to observe, as well as to lend diplomatic legitimacy to their use of the Narseil vehicle. Dendridan's vertical eyes gleamed, but he said nothing.

  Leaving the city proper, they glided through the northeast suburbs, past an area Harriet barely knew even though she'd lived in Elmira all her adult life. The Narseil driver followed Peter's directions flawlessly, and twenty minutes later they were parked between two other vehicles in back of a peeling white wood-frame house.

  "Stay here a moment while I do a check," Peter said. He ducked out of the van, leaving Harriet with Dendridan and the Narseil driver. He reappeared a few minutes later, with one of his men. "The coast is clear. Let's go inside."

  Leaving the driver with the van, they entered the house through the kitchen and made their way upstairs to a large bedroom that had been converted into a makeshift VR studio. There were cameras on tripods everywhere, and a large white screen across one wall. Peter introduced his assistants Norman and Irv, whom Harriet recognized from the earlier holo. There was no need to introduce Rufus the dog, who lay on a small cot, panting slowly. He was wired up like a marionette with optiwire feeds. The dog's tail twitched when he saw Harriet—was it possible he remembered her?—but everything about him seemed in slow motion. "He's under a relaxation field," Peter explained. He cocked his head, studying the setup. "Downloading information from a dog is not as easy as you might think."

  "Oh, really," Harriet said dryly.

  "I'm afraid I don't quite follow," said the Narseil.

  "Well," said Peter, "since the data in Rufus's implants was a direct memory feed from McGinnis, a lot of it isn't necessarily in verbal form. Some of it's visual, some of it's sound and smell and touch; some of it's pure emotion. To be valid in court, it must be read and interpreted by a certified intermediary."

  "One of your people?"

  Peter shook his head. "We hire the Kell, who make this something of a specialty. I've brought one in from the city of Port Huron."

  "On the other side of the continent."

  "Right. She's not well known here, but she's one of the best." Peter paused to survey the setup. "If everyone's ready, I'll go get her." Peter disappeared into another room, while Harriet and Dendridan waited uncomfortably.

  "Irv here's the one who found Rufus, at the McGinnis place," Norman said, nodding. Norman was a large man who seemed comfortable around the dog. Irv, on the other hand, was skinny and nervous looking. Harriet remembered Peter saying that Irv was afraid of dogs. Apparently he had gotten over his fear; he paused to scratch Rufus's head as he made some adjustments to the hookup.

  "Everyone," said Peter, returning with the blue-robed Kell, "may I introduce the interpreter who will be assisting us today? This is Counselor Corellay. She is certified for Level-3 implant reading and Level-2 telepathic extraction."

  Counselor Corellay was just over a meter tall, with silken grey fur and a hamster-like face. Her eyes were black with bright silver dots slightly off-center. She nodded to the observers and then walked, with a rippling gait, across the room to the dog. She touched Rufus on the head and murmured to him for a moment. Then she turned. "Are we ready to begin?"

  "Quadrocam?" Peter asked Irv.

  "Ready."

  "Sensory feed? Data storage?"

  "Ready."

  Peter nodded to the Kell. "You may begin your certification." Corellay bent to examine the wiring attached to the dog. As she made her inspection, Peter explained to the Narseil, "We've made test tracings, but this will be the first court-certified reading. I'll ask you and Harriet to sign off as witnesses." Dendridan agreed, and Peter produced a small retinal scanner-recorder into which the two of them would make their attestations.

  When Corellay was satisfied, she adjusted her own collar, which looked a bit like a cervical brace glinting with opticom processors. She stepped to the center of the room, in front of the white screen. Drawing a lightwand out of her robe, she faced Peter and the others. "Begin recording. This is Counselor Corellay of Kell, licensed to the courts of Faber Eridani in Port Huron. Here begins my translation of memory-data presently stored in the cortical implants of Mr. Robert McGinnis's dog, Rufus..."

  The formal preface went on for a while. Suddenly Corellay's voice deepened. She raised the lightwand. "This is the record of Robert McGinnis. I may have only minutes left in which to live." She waved the lightwand in a sudden blur in front of the screen. A sketch appeared in midair, first in black and white, then color. Harriet marveled at the speed of the rendering while focusing on the image: a room with flames licking through the walls and a bank of consoles glowing. Robert McGinnis appeared in the foreground, his face contorted with pain.

  Corellay's voice changed to her own. "This is how Robert McGinnis looks to me as he uploads. He is fighting for his life. The flames are in his mind only; but he expects their physical presence soon." Corellay's voice dropped again; she sounded startlingly like McGinnis, even to the cadence and inflection.

  "What will follow is a list of crimes that I hereby attest have been committed by Kyber agents and certain representatives of the RiggerGuild and the Spacing Authority over the past thirty years. I have compiled this record in deliberate isolation from my implants, which have otherwise prevented me from coming forward. It is my hope that this record will now be used to bring the guilty to justice." Corellay paused a moment, then waved the wand rapidly in the air. A holoimage took shape, surrounding her as though she were standing in a cavern. Faces appeared in the blur of the wand, flickering with streaks of light that flashed onto Corellay's face. The Kell winced in pain. Suddenly she gestured urgently to Harriet and Dendridan to step forward, into the image.

  The Narseil looked unsure, but Harriet grasped his elbow and propelled him forward. As she stepped into the hologram, Harriet's breath went out; she felt as if she'd been punched. She gasped in fear and looked around wildly for an instant. Threatening faces glared from the walls of the holographic image, and Harriet felt a sudden wash of fear of what would happen if she revealed the truths that she knew. Who were these people? Some had implants on the sides of their heads; others didn't. The faces were indistinct; her feelings of vulnerability and fear were so powerful it was difficult to focus on the images. The Corellay/McGinnis voice was rapidly running down a long list of dates, and coercive
threats, and instructions he had been given for undercover activities. The instructions ranged from espionage to destruction of evidence to creation of false navigational data for use by riggers. He could not always successfully resist...

  After a moment, the images began to spin, until they were gathered into a whirlpool. As Harriet watched, stunned, they drained down into a holographic box on the floor.

  Corellay's voice sounded like her own again. "Those details have been stored in the permanent record. Step out now, please."

  With a sigh of relief, Harriet and Dendridan moved back to a safe distance. Harriet could see that Dendridan was confused about their role in this. "We were just witnessing McGinnis's emotional responses to the physical details embedded in the recording," Harriet whispered to the Narseil. "That becomes part of the testimony, and it can be used to support the claim of intimidation via implant—which is criminal assault under Faber Eridani law."

  McGinnis's voice returned.

  "It was not just Kyber agents behind these actions, I am convinced—but the Spacing Authority itself. And the RiggerGuild—betraying its charge to protect the life and liberty of riggers, by sending its members into areas of known pirate activity..."

  Harriet felt a knot tightening in her stomach as she watched Corellay's hand speed up to a blur again. A long written list of ships scrolled down the middle of the holo. Was the L.A. one of them? Bobby? It was scrolling too fast to read. The list funneled down into the data storage and vanished.

  "The Guild," Corellay/McGinnis continued, "has collaborated with a raider organization known as Carlotta. It was Carlotta who salvaged me when I was shipwrecked in the Sargasso, and Carlotta who put these accursed implants into me..." The Kell interpreter spun a new hologram, this time of McGinnis's face twisted with pain as shiny implants appeared in his temples. "It was Carlotta who planted me on Faber Eridani as one of their agents. It is Carlotta who preys upon ships and their crews near the edges of Golen Space, sometimes using the lost ship Impris as a lure." Harriet shut her eyes, suddenly feeling physically ill. Through the rushing of blood in her head, she thought, This is exactly what I need. Finally. But the thought gave her no pleasure.

  "...and it is Carlotta who for years has been wielding her influence over the Guild of Riggers and the Spacing Authority of Faber Eridani." The image changed to a sketch of RiggerGuild headquarters on the left, and Spacing Authority headquarters, on the right. McGinnis's voice softened. "I don't accuse all who work for these organizations—or even the majority. Most employees probably know nothing of the crimes, many of which were carried out through intermediaries. One of those intermediaries is the paramilitary organization that tried to control me. Its name is Centrist Strength."

  Harriet drew a sharp breath. Centrist Strength.

  The Corellay/McGinnis voice became hollow and strained: "They had visions of using my military expertise..."

  * * *

  The story that emerged was a confusing one. But after all she had learned from El'ken and McGinnis, Harriet was able to fit the pieces together fairly readily.

  Centrist Strength was building an underground military force on Faber Eridani. No surprise; they seemed bent on achieving power through intimidation masquerading as self-defense. Their stated motives were ambiguous: they claimed to be working for the destiny of the Centrist Worlds, reawakening the leaders of Faber Eridani and other worlds to the once-common vision of a grand-scale exploration of the galaxy. So far, so good. But for a group dedicated to the destiny of the Centrist Worlds, they had far too many surreptitious dealings with a pirate group called the Free Kyber Republic—a group diametrically opposed to the expansion of the Centrist Worlds. According to McGinnis, Centrist Strength had decided that any human expansion—and the power and profit that would flow from it—was better than none. And any means would do to achieve it.

  But who was behind their secret military buildup here? Over a period of some years, McGinnis had made cautious investigative forays into the system to which his implants were connected. And he'd learned some names.

  It was a long list, funneling down into data-storage as McGinnis spoke them aloud. Some individuals were clearly implicated; others were connected to Centrist Strength only through shadowy intermediaries and front organizations. It was through those indirect connections that the more familiar names appeared, just at the periphery of clear culpability. Among them were officials of the RiggerGuild and Spacing Authority.

  It had taken many careful traceroutes, but McGinnis had found the chain of evidence. The Spacing Commissioner's office had quietly signed off on a transfer of retired Spacing Authority armaments—not directly, but through carefully laundered transactions—to the private arsenal of Centrist Strength.

  Harriet found herself holding her breath. Was Commissioner North involved in a paramilitary conspiracy? If so, who were his real bosses?

  Corellay stroked her wand through the air, leaving a ghostly image of McGinnis's face, surrounded by a curtain of emotional fire—and in the fire the faces of his enemies, an image of the forces assailing him through his implants.

  "This is their final attempt to coerce me," said McGinnis with a strained voice. "'Kill the visitors. Destroy the Impris records. Do not let them leave!' This is the order I finally had to openly disobey."

  Corellay urged Harriet and Dendridan back into the holo, as the images intensified: indistinct faces barking commands at McGinnis. Harriet felt McGinnis's anger, held back and masked as long as humanly possible. "For thirty years," McGinnis whispered, "I've kept my true thoughts hidden from my implants. For thirty years, I've deceived them." Harriet felt the rage pounding in her own temples as she saw McGinnis painstakingly ignoring the orders to destroy the Impris records while seeming to comply with them.

  Harriet prayed she would never have to face such a battle. She could not imagine how the man could deceive implants lurking right inside his own skull. The control that must have taken...

  But the images were slipping now toward the fatal end. The implants had learned of McGinnis's deception, and were using all their power to regain control. The voice grew short and raspy. "Not much time—Jesus, it hurts! They're trying to make me kill you! Take this information. Use it!" Harriet felt her own breath grow ragged with fear.

  "I must destroy this place now! Disconnect—forever—!"

  Corellay cried out, and Harriet felt a shocking blow of pain as real flames erupted from the walls, and then emptiness as McGinnis's face dissolved in a sparkling cloud of glitter.

  Corellay waved them out of the holo. As Harriet and Dendridan staggered away, Corellay's voice became her own again. "Here ends that section of the data-upload. But there are images that follow—of explosion, fire—" flames engulfing the holo "—and the vision now is from the viewpoint of the dog, Rufus, outside the house."

  On the cot, the real Rufus was whimpering now, his legs twitching as he tried to run.

  The last image Corellay painted was of the dog running in terror from the burning house. Then the holo faded, and she spoke soberly into the recording equipment. "This concludes the Robert McGinnis reading. I present this interpretation with a confidence level of nine. This is Counselor Corellay." The Kell lowered the wand and stood swaying, her eyes closed. "You may turn off the recording."

  Harriet groped for a chair, overcome with emotion. There was a great emptiness in her, from McGinnis's death. For a time, she felt as if nothing could change that emptiness; it was so real, so painful.

  And then the details of the revelations began to filter back into place in her mind. And she began to recoil with horror at what the conspirators had done...

  * * *

  Riding back in the Narseil van, Harriet and Peter debated where to go next with the information. A notarized copy of the recording had already been placed for safekeeping on the worldnet. Another copy had been transmitted to El'ken, the Narseil historian.

  "I think," said Dendridan, glancing thoughtfully out the window, "that if there
was any doubt about whether you still need our protection at the embassy, it is gone now. You've just implicated one of the most powerful officials on this planet in a conspiracy to conceal the truth. About Impris—and about the Narseil." He turned to Harriet, and there was a sharp gleam in his eye. "We'll most certainly grant you every protection we can."

  Harriet nodded her thanks. A certain satisfaction was starting to settle in. She now had an important piece of evidence that would help to exonerate Legroeder, if he ever returned. The interpreter's confidence rating of nine was very high, almost as strong in court as direct verbal testimony. But the evidence against North and the other officials was still shy of what they would need to convict anyone.

  "We've got to go after North," said Peter. "If we unmask North, the whole conspiracy will unravel."

  Harriet agreed. But how to go after him? North was in power, and she was in hiding. Whose word would carry the greater weight? Still, it was all recorded and notarized, and ready to be released on a moment's notice. Perhaps it could be used to force North's hand.

  "Excuse me," said Dendridan, craning his neck suddenly to look behind the van and up. "But I think we're about to have an emergency. Driver, could you speed up, please?"

  Peter angled a glance into the security monitors. "What's that? Is this your time sen—? Hold on. Yes, I think someone's following us from overhead. It's a flyer."

  Dendridan seemed to look inward. "And they're about to give chase. Begin evasive driving, please."

  Peter grimaced as he tied his compad into the security monitors. "I'm trying to get a registration on it. It's too far away."

  "It won't be for long," Dendridan murmured.

  Peter seemed to read the Narseil's tone of voice. He glanced at Harriet with eyes aflame, then said to the driver, "You might want to speed up a lot."

  Harriet shut her eyes and held her breath as the sudden acceleration slammed her back into her seat. Dear God.