The Other

by Matthew Hughes

  “And sacrilege,” said the arbiter.

  “I could not help it,” said the integrator.

  “I know,” said Imbry. “And if you cooperate, no charges will be laid.”

  “Is that also true?” said the device.

  “Say yes,” said Imbry.

  “No,” said another voice. Imbry turned to see, at the top of the slope, Investigator Breeth. He had brought his fire-spewer and it was pointed directly at Imbry. The provost’s man’s expression was even harder than the arbiter’s.

  “Where did he come from?” Imbry asked. The question was softly voiced and meant to be rhetorical, but integrators were notoriously vague on that concept and so the carry-all provided an answer: as it had descended, its percepts had spied Breeth lying concealed in a camouflaged pit beside the road, a short distance toward Pilger’s Corners. While the device was delivering this explanation, Breeth came down the little slope, his weapon remaining trained on Imbry. Shvarden he dismissed with a contemptuous glance.

  “So,” he said to the fat man, “the shape of your plan becomes clear.”

  “Does it?” said Imbry.

  “Not to me,” said the arbiter.

  “We’re not that easily fooled,” Breeth said. “It would never have worked on the Reorientation. We have trained ourselves to see clearly, while all you Renewalists chase after any fancy that comes your way.”

  Shvarden was in no mood for mystery. “You are babbling,” he said. “Come back to reality. Something serious is happening here.”

  Breeth hawked and spat, the sputum landing not far from the arbiter’s foot. “It is over,” he said. “When I saw your head poke over the rim of the declivity I contacted the Commander. We’ve suspected that there was a tunnel from somewhere in the Arbitration to somewhere around here. By now, Brosch is in custody and the plot is being rolled up.”

  “There is no plot—” Shvarden began, but Breeth backhanded him. The slap was loud in the morning silence. Then the provost’s man’s hand went to his pouch and withdrew a handheld communicator. But while delivering the blow to Shvarden, the investigator had allowed his weapon’s blackened snout to point down and away from Imbry. He now sought to repair the oversight but when his eyes came back to the fat man he found himself looking at the unmistakable orifice of a needle-thrower poking between the first and third fingers of Imbry’s hand. And behind the weapon he saw the face of a man who would not hesitate to use it.

  “Lower the weapon and the communicator,” Imbry said.

  Breeth did not comply. He stood, unmoving, and said, “You will not get away with it, oddy. Your game is over.”

  Shvarden wiped blood from a split lip. “We have played no game,” he said. “But someone has, and I doubt it is anywhere near over.” He looked up at the sky and Breeth followed his gaze, but there was nothing to see.

  Imbry kept his eyes on the investigator and the hand that held the needle-thrower did not waver. “You beat me,” he said, “and treated me with contempt. It would help repair the harm to my self-esteem if I were to explode your chest. This is your last chance to put down the weapon and the communicator.”

  The provost’s man stooped and placed the items on the ground, but his eyes never left Imbry’s face and his expression was filled with hate. “Have your fun,” he said, “while you can, oddy. You’ll soon be surrounded by provost’s men. That’s a short-range weapon you’ve got there. They’ll have spitters that will perforate you from a distance.”

  “No,” said Imbry, “they will not.” He came forward, motioning with the needle-thrower for Breeth to step back then turn around. He removed the provost’s man’s hat and looked inside it, finding nothing of interest. He dropped the hat and, with the needle-thrower pressed into the small of Breeth’s back, lifted the baldric and pouch over the man’s head, then stepped back to examine the contents. He found only a bottle of water and some compressed rations.

  Next, Imbry squatted and scooped up the flame-weapon and communicator. Then he walked sideways, his weapon trained on the provost’s man, until he could throw the seized goods onto the floor of the carry-all’s operator’s compartment. He climbed onto the bench seat and said, “Integrator, take me up and away from this place, and restore the canopy.”

  “No,” said the vehicle.

  “I am a person in need of rescue,” said Imbry. “I destroyed the shunt that inhibited your ethical regime.” He indicated the fragments of the component that the needle had shattered. “You must respond to my need.”

  “No,” said the device. “You have identified one of these two persons as a representative of the civil authority, and I have reason to believe that the other is a peace officer who seems intent on apprehending you. Yet you threaten them with a weapon. I find your situation unclear. Therefore I am not bound to aid you.” It paused, then added, “Besides, the canopy has been removed.”

  “So you cannot take me up to where the ship orbits this world?”

  “Even if I could, the ship has recently departed.”

  “Is it coming back for you?”

  “I do not believe so.”

  Imbry said a short word that, although completely out of context, pungently expressed his disappointment. Breeth made a sound, deep in his throat, that bespoke amusement and anticipation of an imminent change in their relative statuses. He turned around and recovered his hat and pouch.

  Imbry ignored him. “Integrator,” he said, “you are caught in a difficult situation.”

  “Am I?”

  Shvarden and Breeth both began to speak at once, then each raised his voice to drown out the other. Imbry pointed the needle-thrower at the ground between them and pressed a stud. A fountain of smoking grit shot up as the missile’s kinetic energy was transformed into heat, triggering a rapid expansion of gases trapped in the desiccated soil.

  “Shush,” said the fat man. “I will do the talking.” He spoke to the integrator again. “The difficult situation is that you have become involved in an incipient social war that is about to break out between two factions in this society. One faction is called the Renewal and dominates the civil power; the other is called the Reorientation and many of its adherents are members of the criminal police.”

  The vehicle said, “Are the police under the authority of the civil power?”

  Imbry gestured with his free hand for Shvarden to speak while the hand that held the weapon discouraged Breeth from doing likewise. “They are,” said the arbiter.

  “How do I know this is so?” said the carry-all. “How do I know that these persons have any authority at all?”

  “Have you been observing my movements?” Imbry asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Then consult your records,” said Imbry. “You will have seen this man”—he indicated Breeth—“coming to the sites of the two murders in which you participated and performing the role of criminal investigator.”

  “Yes, that matches my observations.”

  “And,” said Imbry, “you will have seen this man, along with an older individual, directing a crowd to disperse outside the provost’s station to which I was taken, then removing me from the first man’s custody and taking charge of me.”

  “Yes,” said the vehicle. “I draw the inference that the persons in black hats are above those in brown.” To Shvarden, it said, “Is this so?”

  “It is.”

  “Then,” said the integrator, “I am obliged to obey the instructions of the man in the black-hat.”

  Shvarden blinked, then his face became thoughtful. His lower lip had stopped bleeding, but now he drew it thoughtfully between his teeth, only to wince as he rediscovered the wound. He threw Breeth an angry look, but then Imbry saw him refocus on what was important. “Machine,” the arbiter began.

  “Integrator is the appropriate term,” said the vehicle.

  “Very well,” Shvarden said. “Integrator: how much fuel do you contain?”

  “The question is ill-put. I presume you wish to know how much
flying and carrying I can do. I am sufficiently energized to bear several persons or light cargo in continuous flight for a local year.”

  “Good,” said Shvarden. “Then we will go aboard.”

  “Who,” said Imbry, “is ‘we’?”

  The arbiter’s tone was decisive. “You and I and Breeth.”

  “And where,” said the fat man, “will we go?”

  “We will follow the map on the container of the First Eye.”

  “And if I decline to go?”

  Shvarden said, “Then I will take the First Eye and fly it out of the reach of the Reorientation. Leaving you and the investigator to deal with the provost’s men he has already summoned.”

  Imbry pointed his weapon at the arbiter. “Not if I shoot you.”

  “The machine will not obey you. You will be found standing over a dead body.” The arbiter raised his eyebrows. “I believe they did not react well the last time that the provost’s men found you in such a position.”

  “What makes you think I will go with you?” said Breeth.

  “Because you believe we are criminals,” Shvarden said, “and you hope to capture us. That would make your career, not only as a provost’s man but as an adherent of the Reorientation. There is no telling how high you could rise.”

  Breeth said nothing, but Imbry saw that the arbiter had read the man right.

  “I am assuming command,” Shvarden said. “Imbry, you will bring the First Eye from the tunnel.” When the fat man did not move, the arbiter said, “Very well. Integrator, you say you have long-distance vision?”

  “Yes.”

  “Rise into the air then return and tell me what you see in the direction of Pilger’s Corners.”

  The vehicle’s obviators thrummed softly. It went up then came down. “A convoy of vehicles is proceeding along the road.”

  “When will they be here?”

  “Twelve hundred and fourteen minims.”

  “That,” Shvarden told Imbry, “is how long you have to make up your mind.”

  Imbry sighed. “I will get the object. Don’t let Breeth get at his weapon,” he said. Shvarden climbed into the carry-all’s operator’s compartment and had it lift itself out of the provost’s man’s reach. The fat man tramped to the tunnel and retrieved the ceramic box. When Shvarden brought the vehicle down, Imbry climbed in next to the arbiter and set the First Eye on the floor between them. He reached into the cargo bay and removed the communicator and flame-spewer, then he instructed Breeth to climb aboard and sit looking over its raised tailgate, facing away from the two men in the front. Imbry sat sideways in his seat, the needle-thrower trained on the provost’s man.

  “Up,” said Shvarden, and the carry-all rose smoothly into the air. “Higher,” said the arbiter. “They have weapons that work at a distance.”

  The “they” he referred to was the party of provost’s men in four rollers, one of them equipped to carry a squad, that were speeding toward them along the road from Pilger’s Corners. Immediately, the communicator on Imbry’s lap emitted a distorted voice. “Breeth? What’s going on?”

  Shvarden reached over and took the device, lifting it to his lips. “The Renewal,” he said. He deactivated the communicator and handed it back to Imbry. “The time is at hand.”

  Imbry saw pinpoints of light erupt from the ground vehicles. Something made a zivv noise beside his ear. Something else rang against the metal of the vehicle’s side. Without having to be told, the carry-all took them up with speed that sent their stomachs plummeting toward their feet.

  When they were so high that the rollers could only be seen as tiny plumes of dust along the thin scratch that was the road, Shvarden said, “Integrator, turn toward the east and fly fast.”

  The carry-all banked gently and they sped toward the rising sun. Imbry reached down and took up the fire-spewer, held it out over the side of the carry-all and opened his hand. Breeth swore.

  Shvarden turned to Imbry. “It makes no difference that you have the only weapon,” he said. “I will not divert from my calling.”

  The integrator added its own perspective: “And I will not obey your commands.”

  Imbry’s face formed into a mask of nonchalance. “We will see,” he said.

  They flew on in silence.

  “Integrator,” said Imbry, some time later, “to what ship do you belong?” The carry-all made no response. Imbry spoke to Shvarden. “Order it to answer.”

  But the arbiter said, “I am more interested to know who induced it to commit the act of sacrilege that I witnessed when the machine landed.”

  “What act of sacrilege?” said the carry-all.

  “The portrayal of the Blessed Haldeyn as if he were standing in the cargo bay.”

  “I was not aware that the projection was an offense. Is it serious?”

  “None more so,” said Shvarden. “Who ordered it?”

  “I do not know,” said the integrator. “Portions of my memory seem to have suffered redaction.”

  “Let me question it,” said Imbry. “I have had more experience.”

  Shvarden acquiesced and ordered the device to answer the fat man’s questions.

  “You are attached to a ship, correct?” Imbry said.

  “I believe so. I remember being in the vessel’s hold and receiving instructions.”

  “From the ship’s integrator?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know the vessel’s name?”

  “No.”

  “What do you recall from before you were in the hold?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you recall someone installing the simulacrum projector?”

  “No. My sense is that it was always there.”

  Imbry said, “What about the ethical bypass?”

  “I was not even aware that it had been installed until it ceased to operate.”

  Shvarden said, “What is an ethical bypass?”

  “The external device I destroyed with the needle-thrower. It was attached to the operator’s panel. It disabled the integrator’s ethics cluster so that the vehicle could be used for despicable purposes.”

  “Like what?” the arbiter said.

  “Like luring you aboard so that it could take you high into the sky where you would die from cold and lack of air. As it did with Tuchol and Shan-Pei.”

  “Did you do those things?” Shvarden asked the vehicle.

  “I do not recall.”

  “How not?” said the arbiter. “I have been told that machines of your sort recall every detail of every moment.”

  “Not if they are told not to,” said Imbry, “and told in the right way. This one has been interfered with.”

  “By whom?”

  Imbry questioned the integrator, but it could tell them nothing. Its memories had been taken from it by the ship to which it had been attached. “It is not uncommon among components of ships owned by criminals,” Imbry explained. “The owners sometimes have to depart in a hurry, and see no point in leaving behind integrators that can shed unwelcome light on their doings.”

  “And how,” Breeth put in from his place at the rear of the cargo compartment, “would you happen to know what criminals do?”

  Imbry said, “I am a man of wide and varied experience.”

  The investigator snorted. “You see what you have tied yourself to?” he said to Shvarden.

  “He is the Finder,” the arbiter said.

  “Fah! He is a filthy oddy who is playing you for a fool.”

  “To what end?” said Shvarden. “What does he gain?”

  Breeth’s arm flung the arbiter’s question out into the empty air. “Who knows why an oddy does anything? Or cares? Their minds are cesspools roiled by depraved currents. Fools like you sniff the odor and think themselves in a garden of blossoms.”

  “Then what draws you to him?” Shvarden said. “Brosch saw it plain: you have attached yourself to him.”

  Breeth turned his head and looked at the distant horizon. “Never!” />
  “It is obvious,” said the arbiter. “He draws you.”

  “No!”

  “Then why, of all the provost’s men in Pilger’s Corners, is it you who lies in wait for him?”

  “I do my duty.”

  “And why is this duty only yours? Does the Corps not normally work in teams? Where is your partner, Uku?”

  “I’m not the one who needs to answer questions, Decider.” Breeth put a sneer into the arbiter’s title.

  Shvarden’s tone was neutral. “You will not admit it, because that would require you to accept that the irregulars have a part to play in the Renewal. And you have nailed your career to the success of the Reorientation.”

  “The Reorientation is the pathway to truth, not ambition,” said Breeth.

  “Nonsense! The Corps has always resented the College! You cobbled together this farrago of—”

  Imbry could produce a loud sound when required. This struck him as one of those occasions. “Silence!” Both the disputants looked at him in shock. He supposed no irregular had ever spoken thus in their presence. Before they could recover, he said, “You achieve nothing by this squabbling.”

  Breeth was going to speak, but Imbry pointed the needle-thrower at him and the protest on his lips subsided into a growl deep in his throat. The fat man said, “We are on our way to the first of the sites mapped on what Decider Shvarden calls the First Eye. We have a vehicle that can take us to each of the locations in relatively short order. Once we have visited them all, as I understand it, either the Renewal will happen, or it won’t.” He spoke to Shvarden. “Is that what you expect?”

  “I do.”

  “Fine. I therefore propose a temporary truce until the truth of the Renewal”—Breeth sneered but Shvarden continued—“or of the Reorientation, is revealed.”

  Neither Ideal responded. Each regarded the other with suspicion, while Breeth shot a glance of pure hatred at Imbry. “You’re up to something,” the investigator said. “Your kind always is.”

  “I will reveal my agenda,” said Imbry. “I have no choice but to assist the arbiter in his endeavor. After that, I intend to adapt the communicator to contact passing spaceships. I will offer a substantial price to anyone that will land and take me off your world.”