Ariel stared after Eliton, her mind busy with questions and suspicions. She stood. “I have something to do,” she said. “I’ll see you later.”
She made her way out of the lounge and down a broad corridor until she found an orderly.
“Excuse me,” she said, “could you direct me to the communications room?”
Mia stepped into the small cell. Ensign Corf lay on the too-narrow cot, one arm draped over his eyes.
“I already checked the biomonitor,” Mia said. “You’re awake, so sit up.”
“I’m no longer an officer,” Corf said in a slow drawl. “So kindly decompress, Lt. Daventri.”
“That’s not a very good attitude to take toward anyone who might be able to ease your problems.”
The arm moved up and Corf’s eyes locked on her. “You mean a deal? Like what? I heard you’re a strict by-the-code type. You don’t deal.”
“Normally. Normally I have everything I want, so a deal is superfluous.” She sat down on the fold-out seat opposite the cot. “You know what that means, don’t you? Someone as well-read as you.”
Corf shifted his bulk and swung his legs off the cot. He sat up, propping both hands on the edge of his bed, hunching his shoulders. “What do you want?”
“I want the one who’s running you.”
Corf shook his head. “There’s no deal in that, just death.”
“Not if you give me enough to cut off the head.”
“Not possible.”
“Don’t you know I’m Internal Security?”
“Not possible,” Corf said. “Besides, if I told you, all that would happen is what would happen if I never told you.”
“Tell me about the books.”
“What books?”
“Don’t,” Mia said. “You have to know I went through your cabin. What did you think, I’d only search your desk? The books, Corf. Where did you get them and who were they for?”
“They’re mine.”
“You don’t strike me as the scholarly type.”
Corf shrugged.
“All right,” Mia said, “let’s take it from the other end. Who’s your source?”
“You’re not very bright, Lieutenant. I don’t have to tell you anything. You don’t have anything to offer me that might make me.”
“Your career?”
Corf grunted.
“Your life?”
“I’m already taking care to keep that, thank you.”
Mia studied the man. He did not act like a prisoner, like someone caught. He seemed to be waiting for an inevitable and not undesirable next step, as if his arrest had merely interrupted a process that would shortly resume.
“Those books were nearly three thousand years old,” Mia said. “Ancient. It doesn’t seem likely that they’d have much to say to us now.”
Corf’s smiled knowingly. “You should read them.”
“Humanity hasn’t changed that much then, that thirty centuries might make us incomprehensible to ourselves?”
A flicker of interest showed in Corf’s small eyes. “Maybe . . . or maybe we need to remember.”
“Remember what?”
“Who we were. You can get lost without that memory.”
“Even if it doesn’t matter?”
Corf leaned back against the bulkhead, folding his arms across his chest. “It always matters.”
Mia sensed the sudden opening, though she did not understand it. She pressed. “Most of the people I know do well enough without reference to the past.”
Corf’s expression bordered on contempt. “Most people let others do their remembering for them. They have machines, libraries, leaders. They trust that the memories are kept.”
“You don’t?”
“I’m learning.”
“What?”
“That memory shouldn’t be left up to others. You have to do it yourself.”
“What happens to you if you don’t?”
“Do you know any Aurorans?”
“As a matter of fact, I do,” Mia said.
“That’s what happens. They forget where they came from, forget who they are, forget why other people matter. They stop being . . .” He looked away.
“Stop being what?”
“Human.”
“And the Keresians? You have Keresian friends, don’t you, Corf? What about them?”
“They understand. They’re trying to get back what’s been lost.”
“And you’re helping them?”
He shrugged.
“How?” Mia asked. “Getting them old books?”
“It’s one way.”
“How do you know what titles to pick? I mean, weren’t there a lot of pretty worthless books printed back then? And what’s wrong with new work?”
Corf’s contempt showed more clearly. “Did you handle them? Did you open the covers and smell them? Did you look at the words on the pages or did you read them? New work is all about what’s now. What matters is the connection.”
“To the past.”
“That’s right.”
“So who makes the selections? You?”
“No, I’m still learning.”
“And if I wanted to learn?” Mia asked.
Corf stared at her, then slowly shook his head. “You’re working me. You don’t want truth, you want details. You don’t understand.”
“Make me understand.”
“I’d have to change you. You’re not willing.”
“If I talk to Illen Jons, will she tell me the same thing?”
Corf winced as if she had threatened to slap him. “Who?”
“Your connection. Lt. Illen Jons, the Keresian liaison. I would never have expected someone in her position to be running contraband, but maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. But what really surprises me is the Keresian component. Are they buying the contraband? Part of it? It’s not all going through the blockade, is it? Some of it’s coming in and going back out. I should have thought of that before—maybe I might have found the conduits quicker.”
“She’s not—you have it—”
“I have it what? Wrong? Then correct me. Is Lt. Jons important to you? Do you want to save her some grief?” Mia stood and stepped closer to Corf. “All this philosophical banter is fine, Corf, but I frankly could care less. After you’re in prison together you can discuss dialectics all day long. Right now I want to know about the real world. If I arrest Lt. Jons, will I be getting the same from her, or will she have more to say about where the books came from?”
“She’s not involved in this!” Corf’s face reddened.
Just as suddenly as he had become agitated, he calmed. The color left his face, his expression returned to one of indifference, and his voice lost its anger.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Arrest her. She can’t tell you anything. I won’t tell you anything. And when the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”
Mia waited. Corf stretched back out on the cot, covered his eyes with his forearm, and the interview ended.
Outside the cell, she joined the technicians who had been monitoring.
“That was strange,” one of them said. “Psychometrics showed no change from his baseline until you brought up Lt. Jons.” He pointed at a screen showing EEG and Cortical Activity Patterns. “Then the entire brainwave began to match what you’d expect from someone under the kind of pressure he was under.”
“What happened then?” Mia asked.
“It just changed,” the other tech said. “The whole eruption of normal emotional response faded right back into the previous baseline.”
Mia stared at the readings. “Why?”
“A couple of things maybe,” the first tech said. “We’ve seen a little of this in some of the pirates we’ve scanned, just nothing so dramatic. You see this kind of thing in certain cognitive disorders, but we checked his history. Nothing. So that leaves us with cortical implants—the kind they use for controlling chemical imbalance—or extreme conditioning.”<
br />
“Conditioning . . .”
“That sounds more ominous than it is,” the second tech said. “What we call True Believer Syndrome. Zealots, religious fanatics, or people who have studied various trance practices. Highly developed personal control over mood states.”
“What’s not ominous about that?” Mia asked. “Any indication that Corf has an implant?”
“None we’ve seen so far.”
“Check it.”
“He threatened you, Lieutenant,” the first tech said. “That qualifies for additional charges. Do you want us to file the report and append the recordings?”
“Not yet. I don’t want his status officially changed.”
The tech nodded and worked his board briefly. “Filed in a hold buffer. We can do it later if you change your mind.”
“Great.” She began to leave, then paused. “I want to know if he gets any other visitors. Anyone. Understand?”
Mia went back to her cabin.
Zealots, religious fanatics . . . great. What was that he said? “When the day is done, you’ll be with us or dead.”
She pulled up Corf’s file again and checked his religious affiliations. That section was blank.
Speculatively, she checked Lt. Jons’ file.
“No current affiliation,” the box said. “Parents not recorded.”
Scrolling down, though, she stopped at the section on politics. Jons had no comments, but her parents had been arrested eighteen years ago at a rally that had turned violent. At first glance, it seemed to be just a routine mass arrest, where the police took everyone in and released them later after inspection. It did not necessarily mean her parents had been active participants, just present when it turned bad. But the rally stirred her interest. Order for the Supremacy of Man Again.
She went back to Corf’s jacket. After a search, she found a distant relative who had been an active member in the Order, a professed Managin.
Which did not mean Corf was a Managin—indeed, he must have been cleared of that, or he would never have gotten into the military—but it might have explained his lack of promotion.
Illen Jons’ parents had not been listed as active members, but the coincidence bothered Mia. Managins had since become a fringe group drawing active police surveillance and a tag in law enforcement circles as a dangerous, militant organization.
A little more than a year ago she had investigated several of them in connection to the slaughter at Union Station in D.C. on Earth.
They had also been ex-military . . .
Mia opened her datum and entered in a new search. They had arrested nearly thirty contraband dealers since she had been on the blockade— thirty in eleven months. She pulled their jackets and initiated a search to find a Managin influence in any of their backgrounds.
Then she initiated the same search on the three names Sturlin had given her who had purchased books from that bookseller on Earth.
She felt excited. Always there came a moment when it seemed she had stumbled on the thread that would lead her to the heart of the maze where the answers were kept. She knew she should be patient and wait for the searches to produce results.
Instead, she headed for Lt. Jons’ cabin.
Jons was stationed in the next base habitat. Mia wound her way through the decks and corridors, her mind running the interview with Corf like a tape, over and over. He had wanted to brag, she had sensed that, but he was more disciplined than she expected. He was part of something he thought was really important, and he hungered to boast and let her know how helpless she was in the face of the larger plan.
She stepped off the lift in Jons’ section. Wide corridors, softly carpeted, warm light.
She reached the end and, as she began to turn down the left corridor, she heard voices ahead. She hesitated, then took a step back.
Jons’ cabin was the fourth one from the corner. Mia could see someone’s back, halfway out of the cabin door. She eased around the corner and waited.
The person laughed, then came all the way out into the corridor. Mia swallowed hard, her pulse quickening.
Reen stood there, holding a bound book, grinning.
Without thinking, Mia immediately retreated to the lift.
11
MASID DESCENDED the stairs from his small domicile, rain pounding the fabric awning above. Murky liquid spilled through holes worn or ripped in the tough material and splattered on the steps, making them treacherous for the incautious. The run-off sluiced into and down the narrow alleyway. More openings in the roof high overhead added to the stream that flowed the length of the alley. As he reached the foot of the stairs, wind heaved through the passage; Masid looked up to see the heavy support ribbing of the ceiling sway and rattle.
He dodged the larger waterfalls as he sprinted to the end of the passageway, hunched within his generous black overcoat. He turned sharply left into the arcade that ran the length of Cobrina Street. Puddles gathered along the path, spillover from the street beyond, but the arched covering here was intact. Rain danced heavily, the sound magnified by the shape of the arcade.
The street sprawled in glistening ugliness, the extruded composite material looking like grey-black leather under the sheen of water. Open to the sky, rain made a dense, milky curtain, obscuring the far side. Every ten meters, stanchions rose out of large pedestals. The plan, Masid gathered, had been to complete a roof over the entire town of Noresk, but no new construction had happened since the blockade.
Noresk itself was a new town, less than five years old. In the past twelve days, Masid had learned its grid, understood the plan to which it had grown, and seen the frustration in the faces of its residents that their town-one-day-to-become-a-city could go no further until events completely beyond their control were resolved.
The frustration, though, was only one factor distorting the faces of Noresk.
As he walked, Masid saw few people. They hurried, heads down against the rainfall even where they walked dry. Overcoats and cowls were the fashion, making everyone a caricature of a human. They hurried, but only in short spurts, pausing after a dozen meters, steps hesitant. No one exchanged looks of any kind unless they met intentionally, by prearrangement. Coughing punctuated the droning percussion of the rain. He counted the robust, the healthy, easily, because they represented a minority.
He reached the end of Cobrina Street and paused at the corner, where Panis Street crossed. The enormous storm drain in the center of the crossroad thundered as water tried to fill it. The far corner was a vague collection of shadows and geometries. Masid drew a lungful of air and ran.
Each step came down ankle-deep in cold water. He made the opposite corner in thirteen long strides and caught himself against a wall, air bursting from his lungs. He ran his fingers through his sopping hair, fluttered his overcoat, and continued on up Panis.
The arcade cover was damaged in spots, letting in the thick rainfall. People automatically dodged them and each other. Traffic grew heavier as he made his way to Novagi Avenue. Voices joined the cacophony now—the surge and flow of haggling.
A huge tent had been erected over the intersection of Novagi and Panis. Rain funneled off the corners, flowed into the arcades. People crowded beneath the tent, voices mingled in sing-song hawking and shouted replies. Masid stepped in, feeling his pulse quicken at the almost palpable urgency of the market and the knowledge of how risky it was for him to mix with so many sick people.
Within a minute, people identified him as a dealer and began shouting requests for specific drugs, mostly antifungals, but also a number of high-grade antibacterials. Masid knew his inventory and had to turn away most requests. People scowled, disappointed, and immediately sought out another vendor. A few, however, asked for treatments he possessed, and the haggle began. He had learned quickly the art involved—barter and bargain, but not too greedily, or they just went away. Repeat customers received preferential treatment. Never act like there was plenty more to be had. And never interrupt another de
aler’s pitch.
Within ten minutes he sold six treatment packets to people who approached him, seeking cures for various conditions. In one instance what he gave the buyer was only a pain reliever; he knew there was no cure and, he felt certain, so did the customer. It was an easy rhythm—the contact, the request, the haggle, and the sale—much of it taking on the patterns of ritual.
While he worked, he watched the other dealers, searching for any special attention they might pay him. Besides the same kind of wary scrutiny he gave them, Masid detected nothing unusual. This was his fifth day in the market since finding a dom in Noresk, and the other dealers had accepted him as no particular threat. The only law of which he was aware stood outside the market, under the eaves of a sidewalk café: Marshal Toranz. She sat watching the surely illegal transactions, an ugly rifle conspicuous on the table, and a completely ambivalent expression on her puffy face. They had yet to exchange words, and Masid doubted they ever would until he forced the issue. Word was she took graft from Filoo. Her only reason for being here was to make sure the clientele did not get greedy and start looting the dealers.
He worked the crowd for another hour, through four more transactions, and decided it was time to quit for the day. The rain had slackened to a light drizzle, and he was hungry.
Someone tugged at his sleeve.
“Doctor?” a pale woman with reddened eyes asked. Masid nodded curtly. “Anthrocyclomal,” she said firmly, the consonants softened by the phlegm in her throat and chest.
Masid reached inside his capacious coat to the proper pouch. “You done that before?” he asked. “It’s a one-time. More than that, you risk collateral resistances through plasmid transmission.”
“I know, I done the work-up,” the woman said, scowling with impatience. “How much?”
“Rare stuff. Two thousand credits.”
Her eyes reflected her shock. “Take it in kind?”
“What—?”
She stepped marginally closer. “In kind. Something warmer . . . personal . . .” One too-thin hand fluttered at the flap of her cloak.
Masid laughed, startled. “No. Do I look crazy?”
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